A Movie Nearly Every Night: Fear in the Night

Fear in the Night (1947)
Dir: Maxwell Shane
Starring: Paul Kelly, DeForest Kelley, Ann Doran, Kay Scott


First off --- how much do I love the distribution company? Anglo Amalgamated. Where do you come up with a name like that? Well, we're an amalgamation of different anglo-types ... I know! We'll call it...

Going crazy at home -- sure, you'll want to keep the tie on

Okay, we watched this because it has DeForest Kelley. So what? We like Star Trek here. There, I said it and I'm kind of ashamed, but not really ... but kind of. Anyway, it also looked like a somewhat decent B noir and it is. There are some fun little twists in it, nothing too shocking, but fun all the same, and how cool to see Bones in younger man's, non-space clothes. He's not bad looking.

Dammit Jim ... I mean, Cliff

But his Vincent Grayson is a little weak and whingey. He's killed someone or he dreams he's killed someone, or maybe it's two people, but he hasn't left his bed and yet he seems to have evidence in his pocket and knows how to find the murder house, which is pretty weird for a dream, but his brother in-law the cop doesn't want to hear it, no matter how much Vince stretches the linen in his shirt. So most of the movie is Vince trying to figure out how he killed someone in a dream, and that's a one-trick pony, friends. Thank God it only has to dance for an hour.

"Honey, next time you suggest a double-date with my brother
I'm going to sock you one."

There's murder, mayhem, some issues with a used car, and lovely Ann Doran who later went on to torment son James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), and that's pretty cool. That's Paul Kelly driving and Kay Scott behind him, and, no, they're not having much fun.

"Hello, I need my agent on the line, stat."

I swear I've seen Kay Scott in something else, but her movie list is pretty short at imdb.com and I haven't seen any of the other pictures. Skirts Ahoy! No. Still, her name in this is Betty and she is, let's face it. She's too good for that soppy Vince, who likes to brood around all day in an undershirt when he's not fainting.

All said, it's got some fun moments, some stolen set pieces from A pictures recreated in a none-too-shabby B picture style:

The psychological mirrored room ooooooooooooooh,

Vince getting cornered in a shadowy staircase oooooooooooooooooh,

and this fantastic telephone montage.

Who doesn't love a good telephone montage? Not as much fun as a cocktail bar montage, but pretty close.

To Do: blog, eat ice cream, blog, watch movies...

Sorry, it's been a long week. I haven't even watched a lot of movies, just short stuff like this:


Things will be scraped together. No worries.

Coming Soon:
The Archival Clothing Field Bag Review (or Revue! since the aim is entertainment)

I'm Goin' In

In 4 hours I will be checking into the Overlook Hotel for an infusion of Rituximab.


Is this or is this not the purdiest hospital you've ever seen? The insides are like a ski lodge. I can't wait to see the rooms.

No. Really.

So, I gots to get this stuff called Rituximab. If you're at work Jo will look it up and find the worst side effects, but don't be scared, she just likes to see the spectrum. Click HERE for the lowdown from the Mayo Clinic. They put it in a little at a time so they can gauge the reaction, so it can take anywhere from 6 - 24 hours. They said sometimes they have to stop it and then you're in for the long haul because you don't get out until it's done and the longer your body fights it, the longer it takes. Great to hear when you've got an over-active immune system.

But do I bring comfortable clothes? Will they give me coffee? Is it basic cable or do they have Turner Classic Movies? Questions with vague answers ("You could." "If you have special food from home you can bring it in." "It's a little better than basic."), so I'll just stock up on stuff from here. I'm bringing soft socks and my DS -- 24 hours is a long time to go without Mario Kart and Bookworm -- and the crapped-out mini Dell, which runs while plugged in and may at least get me Netflix and maybe email.

But, yes, once more it's a slide into the unknown. Will I be home tonight? Wednesday? No idea. All of a sudden stuff happens and you just have to go with it and see what comes out in the end. Cancer is funny that way.

To prep we spent last night on the couch watching silly television: Monty Python (the "Full Frontal Nudity" episode is highly recommended), Peabody and Sherman, Felix the Cat, Fat Albert ----- boy, Filmation at its best there. The characters had expressions that changed n' stuff. Far superior to Archie and Friends.

Anyway, all is well. All is well. That is all.

Oh! And you all need to watch In the Heat of the Night (1967).


I love when Best Picture winners really are great pictures. I could watch this again and again and I'm bruised from kicking myself for not watching it before. Man, and I don't even like Rod Steiger! "Poor Jed is dead..."

Whoops

Platelet Count: 14

Get out your programs, calculate, 314 - 14 = I've somehow misplaced 300 platelets since last Monday. Praying to Saint Anthony did not find them again.

Monday sucked a bit, health-wise, but Tuesday I'd been feeling really well and happy and full of energy. It was liked I'd suddenly peaked over the worst of the side-effects and could finally move on. We went out for dinner, we watched a middling-good movie and I got a couple of nights of really good sleep. Wednesday I woke up feeling the same way. It was panning out to be a good day. But I'd had a couple of nosebleeds so I called the cancer center, because that's what they tell you to do, and they brought me in for a blood draw. My regular people weren't there so I had a new nurse and the oncologist on call ... not good.

Nurse calls us back and says "It's a good thing you came in. Your platelet count is 14,000." So you know the first thought I had was: "14,000! That's AWESOME!" and then it kicked in "...oh wait .... that means 14."

So I've got steroids for the next couple of days and the nosebleeds have stopped so no trip to the ER for a transfusion, and my pain goes down with the steroid rush, so that's cool too. No percocet regimen today. Regular doctor is back tomorrow and I have an appointment with him at noon, so we'll see what he says. I'm not stopping this chemo. I want this one to work and I'm not going to let these flippin' platelets ruin it.

But, hey, there is a silver lining now that I looked at the blood count print out the nurse gave me (which the doctor never gives me ... what's he hiding?) and everything else, including white and red is not only normal, but pretty close to good normal. The white is 10.10 (normal range is 4 - 10.80) and red is 4.74 (normal is 4.25 - 4.87).

Whoo hoo! So no getting sick eating from those bags of chips in the Internet Department. I can continue my Liz Lemon-type work-food grazing without fear of transmitted childhood illnesses.

***

A public thanks to the ladies of Ladies' Night --- Oh My God. That's all I'm sayin' and if you want to know more you've got to talk to the folks at Sweet Basil. The ladies brought the night over to the house so we didn't have to go out (providing me with the comfort of handling some medicinal weird moments in private) and it was fantastic fun! I love Ladies' Night. I don't know what I'd do without it.

By the way, the cousin/roommate was the BOMB again yesterday. He made us cake and coffee and provided a funky soundtrack to our chatting and then he did the dishes! Dude! What would this be like if I was still living alone in that crappy little house on West 11th? But I need suggestions. What is the male equivalent to a spa day? I owe him. Man, I wish we had a dog track.

A Movie Nearly Every Night: The Bedroom Window

The Bedroom Window (1987)
Dir. Curtis Hanson
Starring: Steve Guttenberg, Elizabeth McGovern, Isabelle Huppert

yep, they're looking out the bedroom window

Okay, so I know what you're going to say: "Li'l Hateful, you've watched some cheesy movies in your time, but what the hell is going on here? Steve Guttenberg?!?"

Friends, one word: Diner.

Oh yeah, and did you see his guest spot on Party Down? He's a genius. But, alas, not a complete genius because he's only as good as his material. Put him in crap and it's still crap. But put him in something somewhat decent and he's somewhat decent. He's somewhat decent in The Bedroom Window.

don't you love her coat? I love her coat

The cousin/roommate, who refused to dual review this on personal and religious grounds, said it didn't suck, but it wasn't great. He called it Cinemaxy.

It is a bit, but it doesn't suck. It's Curtis Hanson and you can see a little of the eye behind L.A. Confidential here. But, no, it's not a great movie.

So Steve's Terry Lambert is schtooping Sylvia, the boss's wife played by Isabelle Huppert. After some naughtiness Terry gets up to pee and Sylvia hears screaming and goes to the *bedroom window* (ahhhhhh there's the title) and sees Elizabeth McGovern get attacked outside the apartment. Terry misses the whole thing, but agrees to be Sylvia's proxy to the cops so Sylvia doesn't have to out their affair to her crazy husband, who likes to toy with Bugsy Siegel's gold-plated automatic .45 while sitting sprawled at his desk in the office.

Anyway, Terry screws it up and things don't go well after that.

worried? confused? friends, he's both for most of the picture

Terry isn't too smart and isn't too dumb, but he's a little too cocky and it gets him into trouble with everybody. Of course he's going to try and play detective (because he's cocky) and he's not going to succeed (because he's not too smart). Played by someone a little more earnest and Terry would be kind of boring. As it is, Steve is believable and and you wait for him to screw up, because you know he will just like a real person. He's less a movie character and more like some guy you might have been sitting next to in 11th grade algebra who cheated off you, but would give you half his lunch in payment. He's nice, just not too bright. Sure, he has his moments, but for the most part he drifts through these situations hoping they'll sort themselves out and then when they don't and he tries to "fix it" they get worse.

And he's no match for the ladies.

"How can I turn this zeetuation eento my favor ...
I know, screw over Terry. Seemple"

Isabelle Huppert is a sly and devious Sylvia. "She knows what she's doing," says Elizabeth McGovern. Oh hell, yes. She's quick to throw Terry under the bus and he's dopey enough to drop. So much so you want to slap him around. But this is good. It's an odd relationship they have and you don't wonder why she'd sleep with him --- seems like a nice enough guy, kind of a dip, but he's willing to buy French wine and be romantic --- but you do wonder why he puts up with her nonsense.

At the line-up where things start to not add-up

Elizabeth McGovern is Denise, a barmaid who gets attacked outside *the bedroom window* (title again!) and survives, but can't ID the attacker and didn't see who was watching from the window, although she figures out pretty quickly that it wasn't Terry.

awww she's so cute

Denise is a good character. I mean, Elizabeth McGovern has a lot of moxie anyway, and that's why the roommate and I rented this a long, long time ago (my roommate, Mollie, also kind of looked like her). She's someone you could hang out with at a bar and so is Denise. She starts the movie as a victim, but she's not an idiot. She spots Terry as an idiot and Sylvia as a beast, but they don't listen to her so she lets them be idiot and beast. But, she says, they'd better put that guy away that attacked her or she's going to say something to somebody.

However, unfortunately for her character and the movie's credibility as a whole, Denise does have the somewhat cinematic stupid idea of trapping the guy herself. Unlike Terry, you don't want her to fail, but it's bound go wrong to because this is Hollywood. I mean, you know Terry's going to screw it up somehow, but you don't want Denise to fail. She's good people.

tastes like ... eeuuw chalk

So she puts on some hooker clothes, a wig, indulges in some saucy behavior and shoots pool with this guy--


Remember him? I'll help out you non-nerds: "Mr. Potato Head! Mr. Potato Head! Remember you told me to tell you when you were acting rudely and insensitively? Remember that? You're doing it right now."

Wargames was my first date movie .... heh ....

Anyway, set pieces, it's got a few, like this creepy beginning. What the f...?!?

Zombie George Washington is coming for YOU

That's the first shot of the movie! Okay, blind guy ... Terry doesn't see what happens ... killer has albino eyes ... ah ... no ... no it's not going together. It's just creepy.

There are a few shots of the bar where Denise works. It's this place called Edgar's, which has Edgar Allan Poe-inspired decor:

Oh yes ... very cool

Sylvia and Terry try to sort things out in the Baltimore Aquarium and that's kind of fun. They both look good in fish lighting.

"Why are zeese feesh not een butter?"

And, top it off! The best moment of the film: Wallace Shawn steps in briefly for a turn as the bad guy's canny lawyer.

Guilty, Your Honor? It's INCONCEIVABLE!

A Movie Nearly Every Night: Black Belt Jones

Black Belt Jones (1974)
Dir. Robert Enter the Dragon Clouse
Starring: Jim Kelly, Gloria Hendry, Scatman Crothers

ooowhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Okay, so first of all, what the hell happened last night, refs? Musberger? I mean, I know the sun shines out of Cam Newton's behind, but I didn't think he was savior of the universe. I'm surprised we were able to sack him THREE TIMES after hearing how that was impossible. Anyway, we didn't win, but we tied it up at the last minute, which was satisfying after all the crappy calls. Man, if I can spot holding it's got to be obvious.

So, I'm trying to watch movies that will give me strength. My days now consist largely of doing stuff in between naps. Everything requires a rest period -- this blog will likely require a rest period -- and I'm looking for physical inspiration in my media viewing. The Ducks kind of had it there for a little while, but Black Belt Jones has it to the max, friends.

Don't miss and hit your hot Jensen Interceptor, BB

It was interesting to watch a Blaxploitation movie after having seen so many of the Amitabh Bachchan "Vijay" films of the same period. There are a lot of similarities between Blaxploitation to action Bollywood and it was interesting to draw the parallels. I mean, really, you take away the sex and the salty language and add a few songs and Amrish Puri and you've got a Bollywood.

It's even got the sunset romance moment --
a song here would be perfect

Think about it, movies where whitey gets payback would be very appealing in post-colonial India. I'd definitely be inspired. Hell, I am now. Let's go kick whitey ... oh wait, that's me. Fehhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

But, even on top of the Black Power plot here is a juicy subplot of Girl Power. First of all, do I love anyone right now more than Gloria Hendry? She is my idol. I want to be Gloria Hendry. I want to look like her, talk like her and whoop ass like her.

Want a piece of me, suckah? You just try it

Live and Let Die was a shaky start, sure, but she more than makes up for it in Black Belt Jones. She kicks everyone's ass in this movie, even Black Belt's, and she does it all with this quiet little voice. "Where's Pinky?" "Mama, you get out of here." "I ain't your mama. Now where's Pinky?" followed shortly by the somewhat startling threat "I'm gonna make you look like a sick faggot." Whoa! And then she DOES! She drops 5 guys all while in a mourning dress and tights! How can you not want to emulate that?

It'll work. I saw this in Five for Hell...

Then we have this weird center section where Black Belt and Sydney (that's Gloria) plan to break into some Mafia guy's winery. But does Black Belt go to the karate school to get help? No way. He uses four girls that he's been training for the circus? Vegas? the Olympics? I don't know. Whatever. He gets help from four girls, including one named Pickles, who practice on a trampoline outside his beach house.

They break in, get the money and run those white guys into the ground. You go, girls!

Karate + New Orleans music = funeral? You betcha

Jim Kelly is great in action as Black Belt, although he's not much of an actor. But that's okay. He's got the Bruce Lee noises and the moves and he's very polite. I liked him. It was good to see him crack down on the gumbahs. (I know those are my people, but that's how much I loves this movie. We was askin' for it, yeah.)

Stereotypes? Yes. A little shaky on the plot? Yes. Some white cop barking "But God DAMMIT, man"? Yes. It's got everything and more. Scatman shows up for a little while to argue with this woman ("Papa, I'm gonna slap the black off you") and then there are the Bogarts. You'll just have to see for yourself what a Bogart is.

It's even got Isaac, your bartender.

What do you mean you want a Mai-Tai, mutha-fuc....?

Well, there's an interesting story behind this...

As part of the Hope for 2011 season I have officially signed in and made myself available on the ticket lottery for

ANTIQUES ROADSHOW!!!!

Does this make me old? Yeah, okay maybe.

It's coming to Eugene in June and they pick the tickets by lottery in May, which is really involved and makes you wonder why, after all that trouble to get on the show, you'd bring a broken tin toy that you purchased the week before at a magic shop. I mean, put some effort into it. Not everyone has priceless stuff in their house, but there's certainly enough time to dig something up or why go at all? Come on.

Things I'm considering (yes! even though it's only January):
- my grandmother's signed program with Joan Crawford and Sid Graumman's signatures on it
- her 1932 Olympics stuff, which is still down at mom and dad's house, but easily accessible
- books? I don't know ... I think what I have is all moderate value and not worth television time compared to other things
- oh! my proof picture of Tyrone Power holding up a train in Jesse James

The antiques world is my oyster and I'm all a-buzz. I wish I had some big piece of furniture for the twins.

Chemo news --- dude, it sucks, I'll just say that. This is the "mild" stuff too and it's most unkind to my system. I know, it's chemical, yah yah yah, what did I expect yah yah yah... But I didn't think it would suck this much. Well, maybe I did. Hoping to sort it out by the weekend and return to regular hatefulness next week.

Zoinks!

Platelet Count: 314

Steroids gave me a rush to see through New Year's Eve and shot my counts WAAYYYYY out there. I don't think I've ever been this high in platelets in my life. I'm just like you people and you people and you people.

Today anyway. Today I'm just like you.

So biopsy results are not back yet, but the doctor thinks that if steroids can help my bone marrow do this kind of work, that there's not much to worry about. I started taking my Xeloda this morning.

Yes, I went with the hand-and-foot syndrome home-chemo rather than infusions in the chemo room and losing my hair. The discussion boards at breastcancer.org were very helpful. Many of the ladies had a lot of success on Xeloda and they said the side effects are pretty mild compared to the others. Abraxane, on top of the hair loss, had runny nose issues (probably associated with losing hair in your nose) and other weird things that made me table that one for a second shot if the Xeloda doesn't work.

So I have pills for chemo, pills for pain, pills if I have to barf, lotion if I get blisters, powder if I can't go to the bathroom and pills if I go too much. I'm lowering my caffeine intake (no, really) and upping my clear liquids. I'm cutting down my meals and eating better things, and I'm going to rest when I'm tired and not push myself too hard anymore. The rush student life is over. I'm going to take it easy for a while now. It will get better.

Through her cancer Kelly always talked about hope. No matter what was happening, she would always believe that there was hope for better things. I've had a really hard time with that concept without her. It's been a struggle to believe it because everything that happened last year just made hope feel like a fairy tale. But, Kel, I get it now. I have hope that this is going to be a new year. I have hope that this will work and things will sort themselves out. I have hope that even if it doesn't work, I'll be able to handle it better than I have in the past. I believe in hope and I'll keep believing in it for you.

A Movie Nearly Every Night: The Long Riders

The Long Riders (1980)
Dir. Walter The Warriors Hill
Starring: David Carradine, Keith Carradine, Robert Carradine, James Keach, Stacy Keach

Oh the weary load of outlaw life...

Resting doesn't mean we don't watch movies around here. It doesn't mean we watch good movies, but we watch a fair amount, sleep through most and catch a few in completion.

I'd always had a guilty desire to see The Long Riders, even before I'd settled into my short, unstructured study of Jesse James in film. I remember when it came out and played on SelecTV and my dad saying in that kind of heavy make-a-subtle-point voice "It's all brothers playing brothers ... think about that."

Shoot, man! Shoot and do us all a favor.

So I threw it on Netflix and we watched it and it's pretty short, so we didn't fall asleep, and the sound was interesting enough to make us curious to wonder what will happen if it's ever translated to Blu-ray. But it was kind of a wisp of a movie that didn't really stick and I blame the Keach brothers for that because they wrote it and took the main parts as Jesse and Frank, and it was really hard to take any interest in what they were doing, on screen or off.

Now, I've seen Jesse as the noble bad man with a cause (Tyrone Power, Jesse James, Henry King 1939) and Jesse as enigmatic sex symbol with a torn shirt (Robert Wagner, The True Story of Jesse James, Nicholas Ray 1957) and Jesse as borderline psychotic control freak (Brad Pitt in my favorite, the beautifully shot The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Andrew Dominik 2007), but I've never seen Jesse so disinterested as he is in The Long Riders.

Oh the weary ... wait ... did I already say that? =sigh=

This is the leader of an outlaw gang??? He looks oddly like the love child of Buster Keaton and a stoned Methodist preacher. I guess Stacy Keach thought that as the bigger of the two he'd fit more into the role of protective Frank James, and he's right, but James Keach just doesn't pull it off as Jesse. He even looks bored robbing the train.

Stick 'em ... um ... whatever. Do what you want.

Then, when he's killed at the end he goes into it with obvious Christ-like imagery.

cue heavy music ... soft ... soft ... good

We're suddenly supposed to buy into Jesse as a Christ-like character? Where did that come in??? I'm no great religious genius, but I think someone who created a following that's lasted centuries had a little more charisma than this guy -- at least from what we see in this movie. Robert Wagner in the torn shirt, maybe, but not James Keach.

The good news is that he's shot by Nicholas Guest, with brother Christopher as Charlie Ford helping out.

These guns go to 11.

And that's really the only reason to watch the movie: the other people. If it wasn't for the other characters (and the sound, sure) we probably would have lost interest. Okay, and it's Jesse James, so I kind of wanted to see it through, but still, it's the supporting cast that made us ooh and ahh a lot more than the James/Keach brothers.

So you got your Carradines and your Guests, right, and then, in our non-brothers category you get your look at James Remar ("Warriorrrrrrrrrrrs!") as crazy Sam Starr, seen here bringing a knife to a gun fight with David Carradine.

Ajax vs. Kung Fu ...
this movie clearly needed more of these fabulous set-ups

And then you got your Quaid brothers, Randy and Dennis, as the Miller brothers, Clell and Ed. Randy gets the luckier of the two parts because he makes it all the way through to the ill-fated Northfield bank robbery.

Life draining out while canteen drains out -- get it?

But we lose Ed early on when he screws up a "peaceful" bank robbery at the start of the film, and that's kind of okay. This is just a year off of Breaking Away (1979) and Dennis is still pretty fresh to movies, but he doesn't have much to do anyway except get his girl stolen away by Keith Carradine (yeah, who would you do?) and look sullen when the gang dumps him.

first the gang, now my girl ... jerks.

But, what is cool about having Dennis fill-in here is that although they don't share any screen time, this movie also has Pamela Reed in her first movie as a saucy, wonderful Belle Starr. You just keep hoping for the scenes where she comes back and toys with David Carradine's Cole Younger.

Suitably dusky Belle can out drink or shoot any man. Girl power!

Belle and Ed would be married three years later in Philip Kaufman's The Right Stuff (1983), and as Mr. & Mrs. Gordo Cooper they are much more interesting and worthwhile than they are separated in The Long Riders.

"Who's the greatest pilot you ever saw?"

The Right Stuff is a longer picture to get through, but even on couch rest days I'd stay awake for that one without as much struggle as I did with The Long Riders. Go with the astronauts over the cowboys, friends. Always go with the astronauts.