From the Couch Hole: Just Called to Say Hello

Previously on FTCH, the ballad of Wallis Island was a song to the siren of train dreams. The motto was Welcome to Derry, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You and steal your supreme pizza potato chips. This week I was lucky enough to have a quick weekend visit from my daughter, Dee, to attend a wedding of one of her friends. It brightened up a busy week of work. This week we say hello again to Frankenstein the smashing machine from 1923. Don’t answer the black phone, it might make you miss the tasty Milanos. Remember, head to the mountains of FTCH.

Pop Culture Ephemera

• The Smashing Machine (2025) (Directed by Benny Safdie): “But that’s how you like it, Mark. Yeah, you just wanna control everything.” – Dawn. What an interesting year when the Safdie brothers. Marty Surpreme (2025) and The Smashing Machine are sports movies trying hard not to be sports movies. They both keep the cameras distant from the actual sporting events, and instead they save the close-ups for the characters in their inter-personal relationships. Neither film ends with what would be called the “redemption competition.” The drawback for me in this film was the trope of an unseen announcer providing narration to the events. It just wasn’t needed here. Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt are well cast. By removing the sport as the battlefield in the personal wars, I’m not sure that I walked away with a final message to tie together the personal and professional challenges that Kerr faced. I had a much better sense of Marty as that film ended, and that’s probably why one Safdie is holding more award nominations than the other.

Buy The Smashing Machine

• 1923 – “1923” (S.1 E.1) (Paramount+) (2022): “Membership does not mean, ignore the rules.” – Jacob Dutton. I didn’t watch 1883 and I have watched four seasons of Yellowstone. I know that I started this episode a few years ago, determined it was decent and abandoned it. I’m back on it again, and this is a solid start to the story. Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren are great choices for the patriarch and matriarch of the family, even if I don’t believe that either of them would ever live in rural Montana post WWI. The themes remain the same even back a hundred years previous to the current series – the frontier is dying, as is the cowboy way of life. That’s illustrated in two seemingly unrelated subplots of a First Nations school in the area and with Spencer Dutton in Africa suffering from PTSD after the war. All of the characters have been laid out on the board, but I don’t feel like I have much attachment to any of them just yet. Knowing that Taylor Sheridan produces, I shouldn’t get too comfortable that one or two of these will die before the season is half over. I’m interested in this neo-Western a little more so far than Yellowstone.

Buy 1923: A Yellowstone Origin Story: Season One

• Neil Diamond – “Hello Again” [from The Jazz Singer (1980)]: “We’ve been through it all and you love me just the same.” I have not watched this Jazz Singer, at least not completely or on purpose. I took a look at this soundtrack as this song was playing and somehow I know just about every song on this album. “America” is such a banging anthem that it’s interesting that the next biggest hit off the album is this poignant ballad. The piano before the strings really kick in sounds like it could be a Billy Joel song of the late ’70s. Neil really shines in these emotional moments of longing for a lost friend and lover. I’m only today realizing how cinematic this song sounds.

• Black Phone 2 (2025) (Directed by Scott Derrickson): “Oh, Finney. You of all people know that ‘dead’ is just a word.” – Grabber. I was pleasantly surprised with Black Phone (2022) and didn’t think there was a need for a sequel. That film worked best because it inhabited a world between a Stephen King story and a Joe Hill story. This sequel isn’t as bad as initial reviews I read when it debuted, but it also begs the question of “Why?” The Grabber has become a Dream Warrior like Freddy Krueger, and the camp-based backstory attempts brazenly at times to create a franchise where there just might not be one. The use of the grainy film technique to let us know we are in the ’80s is overused and gets tiring. The Freddy Krueger-type existence isn’t explained until half way through the film, but it’s also where the film turns into a Wes Craven tribute the rest of the way. It’s best when it isn’t leaning into these influences and telling some haunting ghost stories of Gwen and her dead mother calling her from beyond the grave. I fear I am destined to sit through a few more of these before they call it a day.

Buy Black Phone 2

• Frankenstein (2025) (Directed by Guillermo Del Toro): “In seeking life, I created death.” – Dr. Victor Frankenstein. There’s a fun game to play where you match up directors with books they would be the best at adapting. There is a part of that where you don’t always want to get what you wished for. Matching Guillermo del Toro with a gothic horror like Frankenstein is a dream match-up. The result is a great film that probably won’t go to the top of anyone’s “favorite film” list. The long history of film adaptations are all in the DNA of this film. There’s a touch of director James Whale and nods to the Hammer films. I found the supporting cast, especially Mia Goth, to be the most fascinating. In many ways the film lives up to the subtitle of the book (A Modern Prometheus) more than any other adaptation. It’s funny that the most common criticism of films is “they didn’t stick to the book,” and this time around it’s probably “Del Toro stuck too close to the book.” One of my dream match-ups is really good, but maybe not up to the standards I set mentally for this adaptation.
  

Best of the Rest

• I’ve always been a fan of Ruben Studdard’s voice since his American Idol days. It’s such a traditional, slow-jam soul song voice, like Luther Vandross (obviously a notch or two below Luther, but you know the point I’m making). I was familiar with his cover of the Neil Diamond “Hello Again” as a soul ballad. I started looking around, because this song lends itself to the soul cover so well. I couldn’t find another solid soul cover of this for the past 46 years. That’s amazing.

• The X-Files reboot has been floating around for awhile. I thought that saner minds had prevailed and it had been abandoned. Of course, I was wrong. Ryan Coogler (Sinners) has gotten the greenlight from Hulu. Neither Danielle Deadwyler or Jennifer Yale carry much excitement for me, with respect to the work they’ve done previously. I hold this property in high regard and Chris Carter’s vision was of his generation. I wish Coogler would resurrect the themes without resorting to rebooting the show. You know I’ll watch, I’m not saying that, but my druthers would be a totally different concept to be attempted.

• New Neon Genesis Evangelion is on the way. Original creator Hideaki Anno won’t be doing the writing. A videogame designer named Yoko Taro who is known in that realm will be behind the new project. That explains why I thought it was a videogame trailer before reading the details. I’m going to be caught up with the original show and sequel films before the end of this year and that’s a good reward for me.

Sunday Morning Tuneage Flashback

• Sunday Morning Tuneage from 3/14/2010, probably the most hard to understand statement from this particular blog was that I was finally getting my first flat-screen television. My television pedigree is much smaller than you might think. I had that old Magnavox for almost 20 years. The Samsung flat screen from 2010 was solid for nine years until getting a crack across the middle. The current Samsung is sitting at about seven years and showing signs of needing a replacement. That old workhorse Magnavox is missed. Thursday night was still the star with Parks and Rec (NBC) and Archer (FX) (finishing up first season this week). The list of the week is one that I think will show some changes in the 5-10 range.
  
  My #72 Top TV Show of All-Time was WKRP in Cincinnati (CBS) (1978-1982): I’ve more than once called this the CBS version of Taxi which also aired 1978-1982. Both pushed the sitcom forward with boundary-pushing workplace humor with an ensemble cast. It isn’t hard to imagine characters like Andy Travis or Herb Tarlek on The Office (NBC). The use of modern music made the work at a radio station believable, and it’s the reason that the show can’t get proper syndication or home-video rights. I haven’t watched too many repeats, but when I do, this is a comedy that broke ground for the workplace shows of the next few decades. I’d say this is a fair ranking.
  
• BEST MOVIES OF 1967 (2010)
  • 10. In the Heat of the Night (Directed by Norman Jewison)
  • 9. El Dorado (Directed by Howard Hawks)
  • 8. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (Directed by Stanley Kramer)
  • 7. Bedazzled (Directed by Stanley Donen)
  • 6. Closely Watched Trains (Directed by Jiri Menzel)
  • 5. The Jungle Book (Directed by Wolfgang Reitherman)
  • 4. Cool Hand Luke (Directed by Stuart Rosenberg)
  • 3. The Dirty Dozen (Directed by Robert Aldrich)
  • 2. Bonnie & Clyde (Directed by Arthur Penn)
  • 1. The Graduate (Directed by Mike Nichols)
    
• BEST MOVIES OF 1967 (2026)
  • 10. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (Directed by Stanley Kramer): It hasn’t aged particularly well. Spencer Tracy’s last role is endearing and Katherine Hepburn shows how you age gracefully in Hollywood.
  • 9. Cool Hand Luke (Directed by Stuart Rosenberg): I watched this again a couple of years ago. It’s still a bad ass performance by Newman and George Kennedy. There’s just something about it that feels like it’s holding back. It’s a great example of this era where Old Hollywood was still holding on, and New Hollywood was just starting to flex its muscles. It’s a film that should have been the most anti-authoritarian film of all-time.
  • 8. Le Samourai (Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville): Starring Alain Delon, I could make an argument for this being a top five film for 1967 based upon the influence that it had in the ’70s. It’s underappreciated because it’s a foreign film and a little arty, but it’s a great example of what independent films would become the next decade.
  • 7. Bonnie & Clyde (Directed by Arthur Penn): It feels like film-fan suicide not to rank this as one of the top two of 1967 or in the top ten of the decade. I appreciate the importance of the film and the wonderful work of Beatty and Dunaway, but upon some rewatches, I’m not a fan of the pacing or some logical leaps in the script.
  • 6. The Producers (Directed by Mel Brooks): My favorite Mel Brooks’ films are still seven years away, but all of the signs are here. It’s a film that parodies just about everything it touches. Gene Wilder declares himself as one of the best straight men in history next to Zero Mostel.
  • 5. The Dirty Dozen (Directed by Robert Aldrich): If you were writing the formula for a great action film, you would just end up regurgitating the plot of this film. Recruit your team, train your team, and execute the mission. It’s just about every superhero film being made today. I can see where this original progresses a little slowly for today’s moviegoers.
  • 4. Point Blank (Directed by John Boorman): It’s not a film that makes many Best-of lists for this year unless they go twenty or thirty deep. It’s a film I didn’t see until 1993 when I was in the first steps of what is my current interest in the hardboiled detective stories. It was also when I became a huge Lee Marvin fan.
  • 3. Play Time (Directed by Jacques Tati): This nearly wordless Monsieur Hulot film about the confusions of old vs. new society is perfect for this time period in the world. I’ve taken a while to come around on Tati. Now I see his work as living in the same choreographed chaos as Chaplin and Keaton. This is nothing short of a masterpiece work.
  • 2. El Dorado (Directed by Howard Hawks): It’s Old Hollywood doing the genre that’s been done since they started showing films on big screens. I know that I never appreciated this film fully. It’s only over the past few years that I have learned to appreciate what a wonderful structure there is to the story. It is a great example of an older director still being able to tell a contemporary story using the tools of an old genre.
  • 1. The Graduate (Directed by Mike Nichols): “Hello, darkness, my old friend.” It’s the film from this year of 1967 that I’ve watched the most, and I just don’t tire of it. There are comedic elements that are so subtle, I’m still finding new laughs today. I’m a fan of great writing, and this is the best of this list. (P.S. Don’t watch the trailer if you haven’t seen the film before, it’s pretty much the Cliff’s Notes version for people who want to know what happens in just under four minutes.) Read my review of the movie.

Buy The Graduate (Criterion Collection)

1976 in Review

• March – Justice League of America #128 (DC Comics): Cover by Ernie Chan. Written by Martin Pasko. Art by Dick Dillin. Wonder Woman was back in the JLA. I remember this cover and owning this issue. All of the established members, other than Wonder Woman, are having visions of their own death. They are all paranoid when Wonder Woman returns. It ends with Hawkman telling Hawkgirl to pack it up; they are leaving the team.
• March 6 – American high school student, Wilfred Benitez (17) won the WBA Light Welterweight title, becoming the youngest champion in history.
• March 20-26 – Danny Thomas was attempting a late career comeback in 1976. He was the subject of a Dean Martin Celebrity Roast and he starred in a new sitcom, The Practice (NBC). Set in New York City, Thomas and his son are physicians. His son is driven by money and Danny is more idealistic and a little grumpy old man. I remember it on Friday nights and it never found an audience.

What the Hell Did I Put in My Mouth?

“I think about you every night
When I’m here alone
And you’re there at home
Hello” – Neil Diamond