What I'm Watching

This is a monthly post that chronicles the movies and TV I’ve watched in the last month and the music I’m listening to. Anything I’ve finished gets a review on my website unless I’ve watched something again, in which case I usually just add a note to the review page.

Movies I’ve Watched

• Apache Blood (1973): This is a super low-budget western with a hilariously small amount of dialogue that makes you wonder if they saved money in the usual ways but by also not having to pay a writer or someone to record the dialogue outside of the few scenes where there is some.

• Arizona Colt aka Man From Nowhere (1966): The plot of this one is kind of weird. Though I have a vague sense of deja vu, off the top of my head I can’t place it so it’s possible it’s original, ish. Our hero is busted out of a jail by accident and then refuses to join the gang that did the prison break. And then it’s him verses that gang. Our hero is, of course, a preposterously better shot/draw than anyone else.

• Beyond the Law (1968): The first of many spaghetti westerns I’ve watched in the last month (due to coming upon a big collection of them on DVD), this one was weird for me but it was my first encounter with Lee Van Cleef as a hero, rather than a bad guy. Turns out, he did a lot of that. Post-The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. (He’s “The Bad” in that film.)

• The Cameraman (1928): Pretty classic Buster Keaton.

• Death Rides a Horse (1967): Probably the best of the spaghetti westerns I’ve been watching lately.

• The Grand Duel (1972): This is a fascinating Lee Van Cleef spaghetti western that follows his tradition of playing this older gunfighter who cryptically guides an angry young avenging angel gunfighter. I’ve now seen three of the four of these that I’m aware of. This one isn’t the best but it’s got among the highest body count.

• Gunfight at Red Sands (1963): Potentially one of the first spaghetti westerns, if not the first, depending upon how you classify them. One of the worst film-to-digital transfers I think I have ever seen.

• Inbound (2025): This is a brief TV documentary that is essentially propaganda for Canada’s pro-immigration multicultural society and the large number of NBA and WNBA players that society is currently producing. We knew, going in, it was probably going to be a surface-level look at this but we both like basketball and we both like Canada so

• Long Days of Hate aka This Man Can’t Die (1968): This is a spaghetti western about a bounty hunter turned good guy who is trying to figure out who is running a particular gang. The army gives him lots of money to do this but then he gets lots of additional motivation pretty quickly.

• Minnesota Clay (1964): This is a classic western plot about revenge – which I’ve actually seen in another spaghetti western I just watched – with the spin that our hero is going blind.

• Shoot Twice aka Twice a Judas (1968): This is a bizarre spaghetti western with an amnesia plot. Some people seem to think this rather unique plot for a western makes this film good…or at least noteworthy. I don’t agree. I think the plot doesn’t make sense and it’s one of those classic “If someone just asked a single question” plots where everything falls apart if anyone - any single character! - says one thing aloud.

• Sundance and the Kid (1969): This is a spaghetti western comedy – who knew there were such things? – which inexplicably references Sundance in the English title even though the Italian title and the characters have nothing to do with the Sundance Kid.

• Trainwreck: The Astrolworld Tragedy (2025): This movie, about a concert I knew very little about, is part of series of movies and miniseries of which we’ve watched a few now (see below). This one is pretty awful.

• Trainwreck: Poop Cruise (2025): These are of varying quality. This one is not one of the better ones. Also, I’m still bitter all these years later about being stuck in an airport where you couldn’t escape the CNN and they just wouldn’t stop talking about it. “This just in: the ship has not moved and the toilets have not stopped over-flowing.”

• White Comanche (1968): The one you’ve been waiting for. William Shatner is…twin Comanche brothers. I’m serious.

TV I’m Watching

• Earnhardt (2025): My biggest problem with this documentary about Dale Earnhardt is that it never explains how NASCAR works. It just assumes only NASCAR fans would ever watch it. That’s…not great.

• Hip Hop Evolution (2016): A Canadian series (hosted by Shad) about the history of hip hop from 1973 to the aughts (I think). I don’t know the history well so I’m finding it very education. From the people who brought you Metal Evolution.

• A History of Britain (2000): Dated in terms of digital video and presentation but probably the best TV series history of a Britain you’ll see.

• Only Murders in the Building (2021): We finished the latest season. Probably my least favourite season of the show so far, though I still enjoy the show.

• Taskmaster: We have finished the latest season.

• The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal (2024): Hagiographic. And the famous fans are almost exclusively older white men.

Music I’m Listening to

• David Bowie: Before I saw Nick Cave (see below) and it derailed what I was listening to, I was listening to Bowie for the first time in a while and I realized I had not reviewed all of his albums. This turned into thinking I needed to do this which turned into me reviewing all of the Nick Cave albums I hadn’t reviewed due to the concert. But now I’m back to Bowie. You can find all of my Bowie reviews here. I’m linking the latest ones:

  • David Bowie aka Space Oddity (1969): Bowie’s second album is much better than his first, containing his first classic song. It still isn’t very good in comparison to all of his ‘70s music.

  • Pinups (1973): Bowie’s covers album. I probably overrate this because there are two ones here I quite like.

  • David Live (1974): This got pilloried when it came out. It’s hard to understand why beyond Bowie’s voice breaking a few times. I listened to the deluxe version so maybe the original LP has more of the weakest tracks. The Diamond Dogs tour.

  • Stage (1978): From the “Heroes” tour, Bowie’s performance here is more consistent overall than on David Live but the versions of the songs mostly adhere much more closely to the studio versions. I think it’s a pick’em between the two.

  • Let’s Dance (1983): How have I never reviewed Bowie’s biggest album before? In addition to being his biggest album, it is also the end of Bowie as possibly the most culturally significant British popular musician of his era.

  • Ziggy Stardust: The Motion Picture (1983): Released 10 years after the performance, at least 9 years after the shortened TV version aired and 4 years after the movie was in theatres (as far as I know), all due to concerns over the mix, this is a better live album than either David Live or Stage.

• Nick Cave: So I saw Nick Cave for the firs time (and I presume the last time) in May and somehow this turned into finally reviewing all his albums I had never reviewed before. You can find my Nick Cave album reviews here, and here are the last ones:

  • The Bad Seeds: B-Sides and Rarities Part II (2021): Mercifully shorter than part I, it’s also less interesting.

  • with Warren Ellis: Carnage (2021): It does feel like a pandemic record.

• Exotica/space-age pop: I am slowly chipping away at a new project. As part of it, I felt I had to listen to some “landmark” space-age pop albums as supposed predecessors of psychedelic music. I did not give any of these my requisite three listens for a review in part because most of them turned out to be far less “space age” or “exotic” than I was led to believe.

  • Lex Baxter: Ritual of the Savage (1951): Just goofy exotic music informed by a white man’s idea of African and other foreign rhythms.

  • Jackie Gleason: Music, Martinis and Memories (1954): Yes, that Jackie Gleason. Apparently he was also a composer/band-leader. “This is fucking awful” I said at one point. “Vanilla” is the word one reviewer used. I don’t understand how this is "space age” at all. It’s just strings and trumpet doing the most milquetoast covers you’ve ever heard.

  • Perez Prado: Havana 3 A.M. (1956): This is just Latin jazz? I guess it’s not technically jazz because there aren’t solos but it’s basically just Latin jazz pop.

  • Martin Denny: Exotica (1957): This is just sound effects and “tribal” rhythms. (There’s a koto but it’s mostly scene-setting.)

  • Henry Mancini: The Music from Peter Gunn (1959):  I guess you could look at this as proto jazz rock but only the main theme which has a “rock and roll” feel if you can even say it does - everything else is very “orchestrated jazz.” Great soundtrack for a ‘50s TV show.

  • Ferrante & Teicher: Blast Off (1959): Well this is much weirder than most of the other music on this list. It kind of feels like kids music. I will grant this mostly only sounds from pianos thing is pretty strange (in a good way).

  • Enoch Light: Persuasive Percussion (1959): Very of its era, obsessed with stereo (percussion is super clear) and hard to understand why this is of interest to anyone who isn’t just obsessed with stereo channels. Is the music better than cliche?

  • Juan-Garcia Esquivel: Latin-esque (1962): Pretty goofy Latin music. Very much the kind of music parodied in the lounge music parodies from The Fugs, Zappa, The Beatles and, bizarrely, The Stones.

  • Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass: Whipped Cream and Other Delights (1963): If it influenced anything it was jazz rock and art pop but this is so easy-listening ish I’m not sure how much it did. Jazz was such a thing back then it’s hard to imagine someone listening to this over jazz and taking the inspiration from this.

  • Perrey and Kingsley: The In Sound From Way Out! (1966): Okay now here we go. There are weird percussion instruments and strange keyboards. The percussion sounds looped. The percussion instruments are indeed looped. However this was released in 1966!!!! So no wonder it sounds way more out there and modern than the other stuff.