Fungicide, 2002

First viewing

I watched this movie with riffing by Rifftrax, it is not watchable otherwise. A “scientist” (the filmmaker in his actual parents’ basement) creates a chemical that turns an ingredient for terrible soup into man-sized and hand-sized monsters.

This movie just doesn’t give a shit. 

Smoked Hams, 1934

 First viewing

You may not know this about me but I’m a rabid Three Stooges fan. It took me ten years to tape every Curly episode off of tv, now of course I have the box set. I only had about half of the Shemp episodes because they were later and not as good. So when this early solo Shemp short popped up I was all in.

It was interesting to see him teamed with a female, doing stooge-style things. I'd never heard of Daphne Pollard but she was big in comedy shorts at the time.

The old "use a straight razor that your wife just used to open a can of beans and swipe your face like you're peeling potatoes" gag.

Howard and Pollard have a stage act. It involves the Civil War ( which was the same amount of years past as WWII is today) a cannon and also a running joke about getting a message that General Summer has lost various body parts and that they will keep fighting if it takes all Summer.

They get a producer to hire their act. Also in the same show are two "bakers", who sculpt clay faces and make cracks about their mother-in-laws. Its weird.

At the end Howard and Pollard set off a cannon and it blows up the box where the producer is sitting. That's the smoke part.

Footloose, 1984

 First viewing Signal-Watch watch party

The more popular a mainstream film is the less likely I’ve seen it. So I never saw this. It had a nice bit of story about a man trying to keep kids from getting killed in dumb accidents while partying because it happened to his son.  By using his religious and societal influence to shut down anything perceived to be less than strict behavior then seeing the kids were pretty miserable, he realizes he overstepped his ability to protect them. But this story is overshadowed by a fish-out-of-water story about a gymnast who wants to be able to dance at school. 

The Half-Naked Truth, 1932

 First viewing

I’ve never seen a whole Lupe Velez movie but I’ve known about her suicide for as long as I can remember. Lupe was a real doll.

 This one is about a carny who turns Lupe the hoochie dancer into a Broadway success by nefarious publicity-exploiting means, like bringing a lion up to her fancy hotel room as he passes her off as a Turkish princess.

Also has classic “that guy” from the 1930s, Eugene Pallett. He is introduced as the princess’s “manservant” and the ways they go about not saying “eunuch” are pretty hilarious.

This also might be the youngest I’ve ever seen Frank Morgan and he’s still old. And I swear this small secretary part is prolific extra Bess Flowers though she is uncredited and IMDb has the part under someone else’s name.

The Emergency Case, 1930

First viewing

A man borrows his doctor brother’s car and pretends to be him to avoid a speeding ticket. The officer calls him up to come and look at his sick wife and the non-doctor shows up, wraps the sphygmomanometer around her neck accidentally, and she feels better later.

Weird and not very funny.

Jabberwocky, 1977

Second viewing

This may have been suggested because I watched The Crimson Permanent Assurance recently, so I watched it to make sure it was as bad as I remembered. It was, but I watched it anyway. 

Star Trek IV, 1986

 First viewing, Swift Watch party

The movie came out in 1986, the year I moved to San Francisco. I was 21 years old and a goth rocker who drank a lot of cheap wine and did a lot of LSD. I did not go to mainstream movies. I saw the first Star Trek movie in the theater when I was a teen and fell asleep. I had no interest in seeing a Star Trek movie after that. Not sure how this popped up on my radar but I think I was feeling a little nostalgia for the city I’ve loved and called home for 35 years. 

Well, I adored this movie. I am a big fan of TOS and this movie hit all the right notes for me. The cavernous plethora of plot holes didn’t even bother me. The inaccuracies of the depiction of San Francisco didn’t bother me. I just wish there had been more of the city in it. I really enjoyed this very dumb movie.

How to Keep a Job, 1949

 Third viewing

One of those Coronet shorts popular with riffers. It’s just so dang earnest. Work hard, don’t slack off, show up on time, don’t leave early, don’t smack talk your employer. And show some initiative you little shit.

Early social distancing.

Bashful, 1917

 First viewing

I’ve never seen a Harold Lloyd joynt all the way through, and never one this early. But the man just sparkles. This is a story about a shy boy who needs to pretend to have a wife and baby to get an inheritance. Mild hilarity ensues. Bebe Daniels is adorable as the girl who pretends to be his wife.

Computer, please translate.

Here he is shy and dancing alone, mimicking a dancer in a grass skirt at a party.

Bebe Daniels is one of those new modern girls.

A telegram and a relative arrive.

Bebe Daniels makes this face then everything works out in the end.

Stayin Alive, 1983

 First viewing, Signal-Watch watch party.

I’m keeping the photo small on purpose.

Man, what a load of garbage. Garbage people, garbage dialogue, garbage music, garbage dancing, garbage costumes, garbage sets. All of it. Not one redeeming thing. Even the ten seconds of good scene with Ma aren’t worth a dime-sized portion of hair gel.

Go here for something more articulate

Meet Monica Velour, 2010

First viewing.

Kim Cattrall plays a past-her-prime porn star who meets a young fan who is obsessed with her. Their lives collide as she tries to revive her career.

Kim is great in this part and I feel her pain. The lead kid is a bit too Napolean Dynamite and I would rather have seen more Kim and less him.

Brian Dennehy is pretty damn good as well.

Read what the Signal-Watch has to say

Vicious Lips, 1986

 First viewing

An all-girl band in the distant future has to get to a fame-making gig when their spaceship crashes on a desert planet. 

This is not a good movie but its heart is in the right place. It has some nice future/sci-fi moments, some very 80s music about space, and one annoying character. It has great hair and a few good lines. The nudity is so brief you wonder why they bothered, except maybe to have naked chicks on set. It's hardly exploited at all. I like it, overall a fun watch.

Office Etiquette, 1950

 First viewing

A short that popped up riffed by The Mads Are Back, the riffing team of Trace Beaulieu and Frank Conniff from Mystery Science Theater 3000. 

A young woman goes from secretarial school to a secretary job then advances through hard work and not slacking off writing personal letters or reading the newspaper on the company time. She makes it up to the head of Personnel where she hits the glass ceiling and gets a concussion. She trains her replacement.

Any Number Can Play, 1949

 First viewing

The ratio of Audrey in the poster to the film is misleading

This film has a great cast but it's a bit sappy. Love and family stuff. Crooks get comeuppance. Needed more Audrey.

Murder My Sweet, 1944

 First viewing from beginning to end with no interruptions

In 1979 when I was 14 years old this record came out, and I bought it at the only store that sold records in the small town I was living in, an appliance store.  I was a big Raymond Chandler fan and I listened to this record a lot and of course read his books. Over the years I realized I’d never seen the movie, because the book and the record had already made a movie in my head. I didn’t really start watching Film Noir as a thing until years later and I kind of glossed over this one. It wasn’t shown much then there it was, and I watched it, and it’s now one of my favorite movies. 

Deathsport, 1978

 First Viewing, Signal-Watch Watch Party, click here for more words

In 1978 David Carradine was three years out from his successful tv show Kung Fu. He was good in that. He’s trying here but you can tell he’s about to give up trying for the rest of his career and show up for a paycheck whenever he can. Famous Playboy Playmate and cocaine fiend Claudia Jennings is here in the next to the last film she made before her death in a car accident at 29. She had just missed replacing Kate Jackson in Charlie’s Angels.

Set in the year 3000, this movie has a lot of explosions and boobs and loincloths and motorcycles with cardboard fancy bits and more explosions. It may have had a plot? Not sure.

March 4 Mystery Watch

 No idea what I watched. Maybe it will come back to me.

An American Pickle, 2020

 First viewing, on the plane ride home.

The photo for this poster was taken with an antique camera

Another one of those movies I picked for the time length, perfect for flying between Phoenix and San Francisco, and also I liked the poster. Never seen any Seth Rogen but heard his name out there a lot. Didn’t know what to expect from this but I liked it so much even the cavernous plot holes didn’t bother me. A sweet story about a man preserved in a vat of pickles for hundred years and the family he finds in modern-day New York City, with a clever and well-done use of a dual role. By far the most recent film I’ve seen this year. Watch it if you’re looking for something easy.

Joy in the Morning, 1965

First viewing

Watched this because it was just starting up when I opened TCM. Ugh. Despite Richard Chamberlain in all his hot glory and Yvette Mimieux in hers, the movie was a drag. Set in the 1920s but firmly dressed for the 1960s, it follows a young couple and their marriage and family problems. Did not like.

My only gaydar consists of if I’m immediately attracted to a man he’s for sure gay. Met Richard Chamberlain at a Christmas drag show, nice guy.

Zorro Rides Again, Chapter 1, 1937

 First viewing

Last film at mom and dad’s house for a while. This is a weird piece of work. Chapter One in a tale of a cowboy gang trying to take over a railroad. Except it’s set in the present of 1937.

That’s actually Zorro’s great-grandson, in some weird double masking

Highly unlikely portraiture of the real Zorro.

Big long cars of the old west.

A really good way to transport payroll money securely is on a train labeled “PAYROLL”.

Then a plane shows up and starts dropping bombs on the train. I think I watched a lot of this with my mouth hanging open.

Bomb-dropping planes of the old west.

Part One ended there, I didn’t watch any more episodes.