From the Couch Hole: I Feel Shot Right Through with a Bolt of Blue

Previously on FTCH, the invictus was more than a feeling about the man and the movies in the studio. We can (not) advance without Argentinian-style potato chips. This week we start the World Cup journey again. It’s that middle of June time when we start the long run of super-hot days that will trap me inside for about 60 days. This week the sheep detectives solved the playback of the bizarre love triangle in the backrooms. That’s a mistake I’ll never make again to get the Mandalorian Nilla Wafers. Remember, it’s a good time for the great taste of FTCH.

Pop Culture Ephemera

• Raymond Chandler – Playback (1958) (Published by Houghton Mifflin): “It was my sixth drink in an hour. I couldn’t even remember ordering it. I drank it. It seemed like the right thing to do.” The is the seventh and last completed Philip Marlowe novel, published five years after the lengthy The Long Goodbye. It’s only 166 pages, and it is the most accessible to today’s readers. Chandler isn’t as angry at the world as he has seemed in the past couple of novels. He would pass away the next year with the eighth novel only partially finished.
  
  This takes place about a year and a half in continuity after The Long Goodbye. Marlowe is contacted by a lawyer who has an out-of-state client who wants him to follow a woman when she gets off the train in Los Angeles. The case takes him to Esmerelda, CA where he finds blackmail, unfriendly police, murder, and plenty of seedy characters. The shorter length suits the writing by the seventh time around. We know that Marlowe will choose chivalry over personal benefit. He’s a traditional superhero of that Golden Age in that way. This was adapted from an original screenplay he wrote, so the dialog is a little more crisp than usual. The observational humor would have translated well to the big screen. I’m sad that all I have remaining is a partial novel finished by Robert B. Parker.

Buy Raymond Chandler – Playback

• Spider-Noir – “A Mistake I’ll Never Make Again” (S.1 E.4) (Amazon) (2026): “Nice to meet you, Mr. Spider” – Cat Hardy. I am watching a series with “noir” in the title as I continue to read classics from the heyday of noir by Raymond Chandler. This Nicolas Cage as Ben Reilly/The Spider is entertaining, but it misses the mark on the Chandler comparisons. The Marlowe quips aren’t as dry (although Cage often has a perfect delivery), the romance is too traditional, and trading Los Angeles for New York doesn’t translate either.
  
  This episode leans harder into the noir influences than the previous three episodes. I enjoy some of the performances, especially Brandan Gleeson as Silvermane. This is also where the show finally becomes a superhero story with the Spider’s battle against Megawatt. It’s an overlong battle that seems timed out to overly compensate for the lack of superhero battles earlier. It’s paced like the early Spider-Man comic-book battles, and while Cage is not anyone’s idea of a fighter, it’s oddly satisfying. The show might not be the noir promised in the title, but it’s a different and entertaining take on the genre that is needed.

Buy New Order – Brotherhood

• New Order – “Bizarre Love Triangle” (from Brotherhood) (1986): “Whenever I get this way, I just don’t know what to say / Why can’t we be ourselves like we were yesterday?” – Sometimes you’ve heard a song so many times that it’s hard to remember when and where you were the first time. This song is burned into a memory of Ann Arbor in November 1986. Flush with birthday money, I bought Brotherhood on a Friday at Schoolkid’s and listened to it immediately back at that apartment on Albert St. This particular song was my favorite and started what has to be over a hundred times that I’ve played it. Today, it’s not my favorite New Order song (“Blue Monday”), but there’s a perfect combination of Hook’s bassline and Sumner’s vocals that keeps me coming back.

• The Sheep Detectives (2026) (Directed by Kyle Balda): “If there’s one secret to happiness in my life, it’s taking care of the kindest creatures on Earth: sheep!” – George Hardy. The comparisons to Babe (1995) are inevitable. They are also accurate. This is a charming story with talking animals that would appeal to children, but maintains a level of cleverness that entertains adults as well. There were elements of the Agatha Christie mysteries that I have been reading in this countryside village.
  
  George (Hugh Jackman) is a shepherd who reads murder mysteries to his sheep every night. When he is murdered, the sheep try to help the humans solve the mystery of his death. The leader of the investigation is part Poirot/part Miss Marple, Lily (wonderfully voiced by Julia Louis-Dreyfus). Bryan Cranston and Chris O’Dowd add nuanced voice performances. The baby sheep give a perfect level of humor to the story. The mystery isn’t manipulative. You have all the clues that are needed throughout. I was impressed with this adorable little film, and I will remember it when the year end lists come around.

Buy Three Bags Full (A Sheep Detective Story)

• Backrooms (2009) (Directed by Kane Parsons): “We all have our loops. Our habits. Behaviors that keep us walking in circles. Reaching for the same solutions over and over again.” – Mary. I read that this film was a horror version of Severance (AppleTV), and my first thought was “Severance isn’t a horror show?” Directed by Kane Parsons at the ripe old age of 20, there’s plenty to be excited about here for the future of the horror genre, but don’t start handing out awards just because of his age. At one point, Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) describes the backroom as imagine describing a dog to someone who has never seen one and asking them to draw it. As terrifying as that result might be, imagine that it’s David Lynch describing a dog to M.C. Escher. The backroom is a series of physics and logic-defying rooms and spaces.
  
  The film is either going to succeed or failure for viewers on how they interpret the themes. Without deeper thought about the meanings of the backroom space, the plot alone will turn away many viewers who will reflexively call it “boring.” The two themes that spoke to me was false nostalgia and the loss of identity. The trope of describing a dog also applies to the recent past. We see how the characters embed false memories into even recent events. No two people will describe it in the same way even for shared experiences. The loss of identity is the way that the backroom goes on and on to infinity. The further one gets into the hallways, the more one feels isolated and alone. This loneliness of our travels is best illustrated as the characters hear other sounds but rarely encounter others. The horror genre benefits from these explorations of the mundane as much as it does from chasing killers or zombies. This feels like a good first film that might give birth to an exceptional second film for Kane.

Best of the Rest

• In 1992, Australian band Frente! took the dance club staple and brought it to a new generation as a thoughtful love song. I love covers that exist so far outside the sound of the original that you can love both for what they offer. Just an acoustic guitar and Angie Hart’s vocals. It feels vulnerable and hurt as she tells a short story in roughly two minutes.

• At about 2:22 when the group breaks into “Bizarre Love Triangle” in the middle of a rumba song, you know that the reach of ’80s dance music was truly worldwide. This performance from the NPR Tiny Desk program from 2021 feels like you are in a private room at a restaurant with all your friends and family (if your family brought musical instruments and could actually sing). This owes much to the Frente! version, but it also feels like it just comes from a place of love.

• You say Zac Efron is starring in a new series and my interest is less than piqued, as much as I enjoyed his performance in The Iron Claw (2023). You tell me that A24 is adapting the novel Falling Angel (1978) which spawned the Mickey Rourke-starring Angel Heart (1987) for HBO and now I’m going to be tracking the release of this. I’ve claimed for years that this was a property that was due for a revisit.

Sunday Morning Tuneage Flashback

• Sunday Morning Tuneage from 6/27/2010, we were watching the World Cup but disappointed that the USA wasn’t moving to the knockout round. Hung and True Blood had HBO dominating my Sunday nights. Soundstage (PBS) was debuting new Norah Jones music. We’re this old . . . Lance Armstrong was competing in the Tour De France (VS). My list for the week has had a number of new entries that might shake up the rankings. I said at the time (and I’m still pondering it) that the #1 might not technically belong on the list.
  
  My #57 Top TV Show of All-Time was Soap (ABC) (1977-1981): It’s a shame that I even put this outside of the Top Forty. The story of the Tate and Campbell family still stands the test of time. I encountered this show right away on Tuesday nights when it followed Three’s Company. I enjoyed it enough to follow it to where I think of it now, following Barney Miller on Thursday nights. As a ten-year-old, I was impressed that this sitcom had continuity. Sitcoms only had vague continuity and they felt safe to change it to fit the story (as Chuck was forever forgotten on Happy Days). I was more drawn to it the more controversy it generated with stories built around infidelity and suicide and the brilliant gay character, Jodi (Billy Crystal). Makes me want to start it up again.
  
• BEST WORLD WAR II MOVIES OF ALL-TIME (2010)
  • 10. The Thin Red Line (1998) (Directed by Terrence Malick)
  • 9. Catch-22 (1970) (Directed by Mike Nichols)
  • 8. Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) (Directed by Allan Dwan)
  • 7. The Big Red One (1980) (Directed by Sam Fuller)
  • 6. Patton (1970) (Directed by Franklin Schaffner)
  • 5. The Dirty Dozen (1967) (Directed by Robert Aldrich)
  • 4. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) (Directed by David Lean)
  • 3. Das Boot (1981) (Directed by Wolfgang Peterson)
  • 2. Saving Private Ryan (1998) (Directed by Steven Spielberg)
  • 1. Casablanca (1942) (Directed by Michael Curtiz)
    
• BEST WORLD WAR II MOVIES OF ALL-TIME (2026)
  • 10. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) (Directed by David Lean): Few directors know how to build a story like Lean. The story is epic on every level. I’d love to see this on the big screen.
  • 9. The Thin Red Line (1998) (Directed by Terrence Malick): 1998 was a big year for World War Two films. Taking his film to Guadalcanal in the Pacific, Malick creates the rare WWII film that’s mostly internal monologue driven.
  • 8. Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) (Directed by Clint Eastwood): It’s really an amazing accomplishment for Clint to direct essentially a foreign film in a language he doesn’t understand. It has aged well, and I can’t imagine it leaving my Top Ten.
  • 7. Grave of the Fireflies (1988) (Directed by Isao Takahata): It’s a beautifully realized animated film from Studio Ghibli. It’s not a film that I could emotionally handle watching very often.
  • 6. Schindler’s List (1993) (Directed by Steven Spielberg): War films can’t always be about just action. Some like #7 and this one need to warn us about the depths of depravity in war. Beautifully filmed is a weird thing to admit about a film exposing the brutality of the concentration camps.
  • 5. The Pianist (2002) (Directed by Roman Polanski): The scandals around the director often overwhelm the harrowing performance by Adrien Brody. This is another film that’s hard to recommend multiple viewings.
  • 4. Patton (1970) (Directed by Franklin Schaffner): It’s not just a George C. Scott tour-de-force. There’s some great dramatic scenes that make this a subtle anti-war film dressed in the flag of a patriotic epic.
  • 3. The Zone of Interest (2023) (Directed by Jonathan Glazer): It takes all of the themes in the films I love about the War and gives them a fresh look. The juxtaposition of real-life next door to atrocities makes us examine how we view the world in contemporary times.
  • 2. Das Boot (1981) (Directed by Wolfgang Peterson): Taking place on a German U-Boat, this is about the most claustrophobic film of all-time. I have watched the two-and-a-half-hour version many times, but I’ve yet to sit through four hours of it.
  • 1. Saving Private Ryan (1998) (Directed by Steven Spielberg): I’m leaving Casablanca (1942) off of the list for this time for the same reason that The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), the war is present but not the story. This Spielberg effort is the film that every WWII film has been compared to since it’s release. Like the best films of the war, it’s specific to just a few important days, but the experiences of the soldiers say something much more Universal.

Buy Saving Private Ryan

1976 in Review

• June – The Amazing Spider-Man #157 (Marvel Comics): Cover by John Romita, Sr. Written by Len Wein. Art by Ross Andru. Doctor Octopus is back again for a ghost story. Doc Ock is haunted by the ghost of Hammerhead. With these major villains, there’s always what feels like half an issue to explain how they survived what looked like their death in their previous appearances. The cover is a little bit of a spoiler of the cliffhanger ending of the issue.
• June 11 – Gone with the Wind (1939) was shown on television for the first time. It would air on HBO 14 times over seven days according to the contract.
• June 7 – Sports Illustrated. No one would have predicted that the Phoenix Suns would have made the finals at the start of the season, let alone at the end when they were still only two games over .500. June 5th would be a triple overtime thriller for Game 5 that’s still considered one of the best NBA Finals games of all-time. Boston would win 128-126 and go on to clinch the series in six games. Jo Jo White would be the series MVP.

What the Hell Did I Put in My Mouth?

“Every time I see you falling
I get down on my knees and pray
I’m waiting for that final moment
You say the words that I can’t say” – New Order