From the Couch Hole: I Can’t Believe It’s Real

Previously on FTCH, Didi and the Hellcats found a higher love at the point break with a star-spangled splash. The aliens brought the rainbow sherbet that cools the mouths of humans. This week was hot with promises for a hotter next week. It’s the time of year when the Rangers remember to be mediocre at best, football still seems forever away, and I just sit inside and read. This week the alien is three times sharper. The sunny cuckoo was lost without your love of fudge-stripe cookies. Remember, FTCH is a professional driver on a closed course. Do not attempt.

Pop Culture Ephemera

• Cuckoo (2024) (Directed by Tilman Singer): “If I were you, I wouldn’t want to get hurt anymore.” – Herr Konig. If David Lynch’s Twin Peaks was set in the Alps and directed by a German who is a huge Ari Aster fan, you’d get a good idea of what you can expect from Cuckoo (2024). The film gets off to a rousing start as an American teenager is forced to move with her father, stepmother, and half-sister to a resort in the German Alps. From the start, the setting is a goldmine for the sound design. It’s filmed analog to give it an Italian horror film feel. There are a number of “holy crap!” moments in the first half of the film. The movie bogs down in the last act as it starts to explain what is happening. Hunter Schafer stars as Gretchen, the teenager who suffers from the “no one believes me” syndrome that fuels too many horror films. The symbols pile upon symbols, and I can’t even keep track of what I’m supposed to think about the title of the film. It’s still worth your time, and if you figure out what the lesson is supposed to be, let me know.

• Sunny – “Kyoto Manju, So Delicious” (2024) (S.1 E.6) (APPLE+): “I would keep an eye on me.” – Noriko. The series went through a little lull for me the past two episodes, but I’m feeling back up to speed this week. This first scene with Noriko shoplifting from a small store in order to get herself thrown into jail (the second payoff of this scene happens later in the episode) is clever because it takes us a second to figure out if it’s a flashback or current time. Suzie and Hime get to go face to face. It’s quite a bit of exposition, but the plot takes some leaps forward when we realize why she’s been kidnapped. The information is just flowing too slowly. It’s a wonderful series in general, but we need to know more about Masa and Zen. The other issue is that, while it fits the plot, there was too little of Sunny in the show named Sunny.

Buy Bread – Manna / Lost Without Your Love CD

• Bread – “Lost Without Your Love” (1977) (from Lost Without Your Love): “But since you left, I hardly make it through the day.” – David Gates. Bread lead singer/writer David Gates has been releasing albums with roughly the same formula since 1970. By 1977 and on their sixth album, they were running on fumes, and they still managed another hit song. The music is predictable, they practically invented the term “soft rock” for these guys. The lyrics work on paper, but they feel forced when Gates sings them. Yet this song from when I was ten still resonates with me. I’m motivated to do the below list (see Sunday Morning Tuneage) as I listen to this on repeat.

Buy ALIEN QUADRILOGY Blu-ray

• Alien 3 (1992) (Directed by David Fincher): “You’ve been in my life so long, I can’t remember anything else.” – Ripley (to the Alien). I’ll leave the question on if it is “Alien Three” or “Alien Cubed” to others and blame the typesetters on the rest. You would have an impossible task of naming a trilogy that has three directors (Ridley Scott, James Cameron, David Fincher) of more import. Alien (1979) was grey, Aliens (1986) was blue, and Fincher brings darkness to the color palette. We’ve had horror, science fiction, and now a suspense thriller. I know this is the most detested film of the Alien franchise. I may have been in that crowd after seeing it in theaters, but I came around on it pretty quickly. The series is regressing as Weaver fills out the character better. In the first film, Ripley is the mother protecting her crew (children). In the second film, Ripley is the mother (with the discovery of Newt) protecting her daughter. Among the prisoner colony and constant threat of rape, Ripley is fighting for the right to motherhood (for her and through proxy for the Alien). Far from a perfect film, the pacing is a mess, the logic of how the Alien got on the ship doesn’t work, and the times when Fincher tries to turn this into a horror picture, it just doesn’t work. With all of that, I still find it entertaining and Fincher’s thematic messaging is steady right until the end.

• Sharper (2023) (Directed by Benjamin Caron): “I don’t watch movies; they are a waste of time.” – Max. Ostensibly, my reason to start the film was that I really liked the performance of Justin Smith (Tom). I loved him in I Saw The TV Glow (2024). This is a “grifters grift the grifters” film. The first 15 minutes might fool you about what this movie is about, but you have a sense of “something is off” through that whole first chapter. Each chapter reveals another level of the confidence game. It is fun to watch puzzles unfold like this, but it’s better when David Mamet is writing the dialog. What’s ultimately missing is the danger. At no point did I feel like something bad was going to happen to a character if they were discovered. It’s a simple film, and not a film that you would hate. It’s just a film with a wonderful cast like Julianne Moore and John Lithgow that deserves a meatier script.

Best of the Rest

• We have been missing Starship humor over the past 40 years. Toilet-paper marketing has been left to bears who really “enjoy the go.” I’m excited to see some competition, and this will be stuck in your head the rest of the day. Thank me later.

• The news for classic cartoon fans got a little bleaker last week. Warner Bros shut down their Cartoon Network site, directing folks to subscribe to Max. Last year, over 250 classic Looney Tunes were taken off of Max, so any commitment to classic animation is taken with a grain of salt. Cost cutting the archives of decades of animation excellence and nostalgia in favor of another episode of a dragon show, seems short sighted. Boomerang and Cartoon Network were more than just repositories for shorts; they were time capsules of quirky games, trivia, and just plain fun. The history for completists is going to have to be physical media again.

Buy Looney Tunes Collector’s Choice Volume 1 Blu-ray

• It’s not like I desire to go to Florida on a normal day, but August is the month when they do the annual Burmese Python hunt. Ten days of purposely agitating the Burmese Pythons. Sounds like a great idea to piss off a ten-foot snake. Thousands of them! What happens to the ones they don’t catch? They are going to end up in your grocery store, toilet, and under your driver’s seat in your car. These should be the biggest days for people vacationing outside of Florida.

Sunday Morning Tuneage Flashback

• On the Sunday Morning Tuneage from 2/15/2009, I was waking on the day after inventory at work. I hoped to take Dee to see Coraline that day. My #20 Favorite Movie of All-Time was Some Like It Hot (1959). My highest-rated Billy Wilder film? Probably not today, but it would remain a Top 100 film for sure. Jack Lemmon steals most of this film although it’s often portrayed as a Marilyn Monroe film. Lost (ABC) finally had me interested again. Eastbound & Down (HBO) seemed very promising. Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles (FOX) was back and I had missed it. My Top Ten was a little more curious than usual. It is going to require a bit of thought based on my age now.
  • TOP TEN LOVE SONGS THAT SHAWN CAN ACTUALLY STAND LISTENING TO WITHOUT GOUGING HIS EYES OUT (2009)
    • 10. Al Green – “Still in Love with You”: The sentiment is better and a little less played out than “Let’s Stay Together.”
    • 9. Billy Joel – “Just the Way You Are”: “Don’t go changing / To try and please me / You never let me down before.” That says enough.
    • 8. Prince – “Purple Rain” (1984)
    • 7. Willie Nelson – “Always on My Mind”
    • 6. Peter Gabriel – “In Your Eyes”
    • 5. Bee Gees – “How Deep Is Your Love” (1977): “Cause we’re living in a world of fools / Breaking us down.”
    • 4. Beach Boys – “God Only Knows” (1966): Forget “love song”, this is just a wonderfully written song. I love that it starts with “I may not always love you.” That’s a good clue that there’s truth in here.
    • 3. Journey – “Open Arms”: C’mon, it’s Journey!
    • 2. Beatles – “The Long and Winding Road”: Much like the Al Green dilemma, this song is less overplayed than “In My Life.” Like any good love song, it says “love” without coming right out and saying it.
    • 1. Paul McCartney – “Maybe I’m Amazed” (1970): It’s a humble confession about insecurity. Once again, Paul nails it.
  • TOP TEN LOVE SONGS THAT SHAWN CAN ACTUALLY STAND LISTENING TO WITHOUT GOUGING HIS EYES OUT (2024)
    • 10. Herb Alpert – “This Guy’s in Love with You” (1968): This Burt Bacharach/Hal David song hits all the right notes. I love how Alpert feels like he’s just talking over the music.
    • 9. Al Green – “Let’s Stay Together” (1972): I know what I said before, but I’ve come around on this being a superior song. A love that “feels so brand new” is a perfect subject for a love song.
    • 8. Etta James – “At Last” (1960): It’s borderline here because there’s probably not a wedding in this decade that hasn’t played it. Her soulful rendition of the lyrics tells you that she really believes she deserves love.
    • 6. Paul McCartney – “My Love” (1973): Paul might be the undisputed king of writing love songs that show a level of devotion that others can’t seem to capture. This is one of a number of “I love you, Linda” tunes.
    • 5. Beatles – “Something” (1969): Then there’s George Harrison who has written the love song that I’ve heard referenced as “the best love song ever” by more other musical artists than any other song.
    • 4. Sam Cooke- “Bring It on Home to Me” (1968): Sam’s vocals with Lou Rawls on backup asking for his love to come on home. It’s almost as good as it got in the ’60s.
    • 3. Bee Gees – “How Deep Is Your Love” (1977): Because you can’t Disco all night long.
    • 2. Foreigner – “I Want to Know What Love Is” (1984): Mick Jones wrote one of the best love songs that’s mostly a concept piece. I don’t know how I left this off the first list because I’ve always taken a shine to this song.
    • 1. Beach Boys – “God Only Knows” (1966): The song resonates so much today with the story of yearning and devotion for the one you love. It’s a great song in that the “God” of the title could be any higher being.
  • The original list was made in “honor” of Valentine’s Day. I don’t dislike the love song, but there’s nothing that gets tiring more quickly than an overplayed love song. It’s not surprising that I don’t have any song from the past two decades. It’s just not my strength. There are some great songs in the recent era, but they haven’t had the time to grow on me like these did, mostly during my youth.

1974 in Review

• August – World’s Finest #224 (DC Comics): Cover by Nick Cardy. Written by Bill Finger, et. al. Art by Curt Swan, et. al. It seemed to be popular in this era for this book to pit Batman and Superman against Batman Jr. and Superman Jr. The rest of the stories are excellent reprints. This was always a good “bang for your 60 cents” book.
• August 8 – Richard Nixon becomes the first and only U.S. President to resign from office. Effective at Noon on August 9th, Gerald Ford will be sworn in as the next President of the United States.
• August 7 – The Sam Peckinpah Neo-Western Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974) is released to theaters with a star performance by Warren Oates. It would be a critical failure and box office bomb at the time. Over the years, it would be hailed as one of the best of the genre in the mid-’70s era.

Buy Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia Blu-ray

What the Hell Did I Put in My Mouth?

“All I want is just the way it used to be
I need you here with me
Oh darling can’t you see
If we had love before we can have it back once more” – David Gates

Stay Hard

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