Chabert Re-Watch: Christmas at Castle Hart (2021)

Watched:  I think 12/12/2025

Format:  Hallmark

Viewing:  Second?

Director:  Stefan Scaini

Job: Phony event planner

Location of story:  Ireland somewhere

new skill: Faking it til she's making it

Man: Stuart Townsend

Job of Man: Earl?  Duke?  Something./ Architect

Goes to/ Returns to: Goes to

Event: Christmas Soiree

Food: I forget

My intention with these posts is not to get overly meta, but when this movie ended I said to Jamie:

I rewatched this one because I barely wrote it up before, and couldn't remember it at all, and now that I've rewatched it, I am not going to remember it in three weeks.

Y'all, I didn't even remember to write up Christmas at Castle Hart (2021) the night we watched it.  And I only rewatched it because I felt I needed to write it up.

I don't know what kind of personal purgatory I've sent myself to with my whimsy, but here we are.

On to the show.

Chabert plays a caterer who gets fired from her gig because her sister (Ali Hardiman) is a real piece of work but Chabert is a good girl and supports her dimwitted sister.  The two head to Ireland to look up some family genealogy since they have the holidays and time to spare (and famously no one is short-handed for catering help during Christmas, and money is not a thing in Hallmarkland).  

Their plan:  When they get back to the US, they plan to start their own event planning company, but whilst in Ireland - drink?  

Well, instead of a relaxing time in the Emerald Isle confusion and lies abound, and Chabert poses as her former boss - an event planner to the stars, hitching herself to a major local event in a sleepy town in a generic North American version of "Ireland" based on post cards and Lucky Charms commercials.

Happy Hanukkah with Ben Grimm

It's been a rough week (already, and it's not even Wednesday).  After the events in Australia this weekend, we wanted to share some additional holiday joy and light.  And what more Signal Watch way to do that than with a little Ben Grimm?

I don't know how many people saw Fantastic Four: First Steps and found out that Ben Grimm is Jewish, but he sure is.  It's a rare nod to the faith shared by a whole lot of the guys who founded comics and superheroes in America.  And for those who know their Marvel and FF lore, Ben was often seen as a stand-in for one of my personal heroes Jack Kirby (aka:  Jacob Kurtzberg), who was very much a Jewish kid from the Lower East Side of Manhattan (thanks for the correction, Rex!).  

In the comics, Ben is known to throw a pretty good Hanukkah party.  

Anyway, no, I'm not Jewish by birth or practice, but we've been focusing so much on Christmas this season, felt it was time to bring up the eight crazy nights in celebration.

Holiday Noir Watch: Repeat Performance (1947)

Watched:  12/16/2025

Format:  Kanopy

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Alfred L. Werker

I'd seen Repeat Performance (1947) a few years back, I assume during one of the windows where blogging was on pause, because I have no write-up of the movie.  I'm very sure I saw it as part of Noir City Austin, but if I found out it was under different circumstances, okay then.

I didn't remember it particularly well, just a few impressions that turned out to hold.  I remembered it had a really solid ending that kind of saved the movie for me, the lead was a little aimless, and it sagged in the middle.  But it also was a curious exploration of a concept that would be pretty popular now and would withstand a remake.

The film opens on Joan Leslie murdering a "Barney" (Louis Hayward) and then fleeing to find friends at a New Years' party.  She's asking for help, and Richard Basehart takes her to see George Sanders Tom Conway.  En route, she makes a wish to have the whole year to do over - and she gets it.

After Joan Leslie has adjusted to the idea that she is living over 1946, she races home to change things.  

But no matter what she tries to do, fate keeps bending back to the inevitable conclusions of the year before.  Her husband, Barney, will play around on her with playwright Paula Costello (Virginia Field).  She'll star in Costello's play.  Richard Basehart will find himself under the thrall of Mrs. Howell Mrs. Shaw (Natalie Schafer), a wealthy financer of the arts, who will do him dirty.  And it doesn't matter what Joan Leslie changes.

If marching inevitably toward one's doom is a feature of noir, then this slam dunks so hard it shatters the noir backboard.  But it is a weird fantasy movie, and for this sort of stuff that lived mostly in pulp magazines and would become more familiar with TV anthology series like Twilight Zone, it feels really early for a movie to be pulling mystical hoo-har and genre mixing.

If I'm looking for a way to strike it as noir, it's one part "oh, magic", and one part "this movie has a femme fatale, but our female lead is both dumb and spineless, not the usual strong woman at home.".  Sure, they frame her as such, but she's a dope when it comes to her shit-bag of a husband.  

That's no shade on Joan Leslie, who nails what she's given... but two years after WWII, it seems very, very odd that wed have a movie where a woman - who has murdered her philandering husband and is given another chance - once she sees how things are lining up - wouldn't kick his ass to the curb and avoid, you know, MURDER a second time.  He's also a terrible drunk, emotionally abusive, capable of physical abuse, and not once does he demonstrate why anyone wants to spend time with him.  He's arguably also the least handsome guy in every scene.

And still this lady is clinging onto him after he humiliates her and ruins himself.  It's kind of painful to watch. 

Virginia Field as the evil Paula Costello is actually pretty great.  Hats off.  She is one stone cold b.  

Anyway, not my favorite, but it's interesting.  

Happy Birthday, yesterday, Helen Slater

 

Happy birthday to actor, singer and all-around cool person, Helen Slater.  I missed her birthday yesterday, but what kind of world are we living in if I can't retroactively share a birthday celebration?

Slater was the original live-action Supergirl, and maintains strong ties to the fans and franchise. But she's also appeared in favorites like The Secret of My Success.  

Here's to another trip around the sun for our Girl of Steel.

Joe Ely Merges With The Infinite

Legendary Texas Musician Joe Ely has passed.  He was 78.

More here.

Ely was part of the Flatlanders and continued to perform up until very recently.  I saw him with my Cousin Sue and family a few years back at the Saxon Pub.  Ian McClagen was just sitting at the bar.  

Not too much longer after that, I was paying to park at a lot off Colorado with a bunch of people from out of town (I remember one dude was from Belgium), and there was Joe Ely at the kiosk, paying to park.  He heard me freaking out and saying "That's Joe Ely!  That's Joe Ely!" which was a fact I assume he knew.

Ely was a crucial figure in Texas music for decades, and a Texas legend.  He'll be missed.

Holiday Goofiness Watch: North Pole Nutrias (2002) and A Meowy Christmas (2017)

Watched:  NPN  12/07/2025, MC  12/14/2025

Format:  YouTube/ YouTube

Viewing:  First for both

Director:  Rick Dealup/ Steve Rudzinski

As we near Christmas, we did two quick watches with Dug and K to get ourselves in the Christmas Spirit.  The first was North Pole Nutrias (2002), a puppet-show running about 26 minutes and created by New Orleans-based pair Quintron and Miss Pussycat.  The second was a little indie movie out of Pittsburgh called A Meowy Christmas from 2018.  This one runs about 55 minutes, but feels like it's about 6 days.

While watching North Pole Nutrias, I learned not everyone knows what a Nutria is - which is a large-ish rodent that lives along rivers and near water.  They've invaded the waterways for New Orleans and cause enough problems that there's been a bounty on the animals.  But!

North Pole Nutrias is, apparently, a bit of a holiday tradition for the hep cats of New Orleans, and I get it.  It's a puppet show, shot on tape, and has some distinct vibes of music and art scenes of the late 90's.  Kind of an embracing of the media we'd grown up on - specials like Emmett Otter's Jug Band Christmas - but made with an intentional lo-fi feel and hand-made aesthetic.  Think Pee-Wee's Playhouse, that you know through the glossed up version and are just used to.  

Rob Reiner Merges With The Infinite

I hate this.  I hate writing this.  

No one deserves to die the way Rob Reiner and his wife Michele passed.  

Most of the time, I'm able to write a simple "they were beloved, and will be missed, here's why this site is memorializing them", but today, on this one, the cruelty of what happened is a bit overwhelming.

We all know Rob Reiner, and kind of wish we had met him.  He seemed absolutely aces, and he made so damn many good movies.  Hell, he'd be a legend just for his few scenes as an actor just in The Wolf of Wall Street, but as a director and producer, he put out some of our favorite movies.  

May the Reiner's family know what the work Rob Reiner did meant a lot to so very many people, and that Rob and Michele will be mourned.

Disney Doc Watch: The Sweatbox (2002)

Watched:  12/14/2025

Format:  Internet Archive

Viewing:  First

Director:  Trudie Styler

Hoo boy.

So, this was probably not the final form of the doc The Sweatbox (2002), but it is the one that I found online at The Internet Archive.  It's a little rough and incomplete, but was clearly heading toward a final cut.  Why is it in this state?  Apparently it's been quashed by Disney, and yet... here I am.  A man who watched it.

The Sweatbox is a doc about the making of what became The Emperor's New Groove, a film which we recently watched.  The film takes the viewer through the Disney process of making an animated film, giving viewers some insight into how the sausage is made, which may be surprising if your knowledge of film is based in live-action.  The Disney animation tradition established by Walt and the original Disney animation team was always to run story, gags, etc...  through a committee so you could be told honestly what worked and what didn't.  When Walt was around, he would ask how you could "plus" something - ie: make it better.* Or, sometimes, be honest that something may need to change, and/or you may need to dump a favored idea.

True Crime/ Noir Watch: The Phenix City Story (1955)

Watched:  12/14/2025

Format:  TCM on HBOmax

Viewing:  First

Director:  Phil Karlson

The Phenix City Story (1955) was not at all what I was expecting from brief descriptions I'd read over the years when making a choice for what to watch.

First - Phenix City is a real city in Alabama on the Georgia state line.  Second - this is a true crime movie that was made in the wake of the assassination of a recently elected new Attorney General from the State of Alabama who was voted in on his promise to clean up the vice and corruption in Phenix City.

Phenix City sits across the Chattahoochee River from the larger Columbus, Georgia and near a very large Army Base, Ft. Benning.  Apparently, for decades and decades, that was enough to make the small town (about 24,000 people) into a place where one could gamble and pick up hookers while the locals looked the other way.  While Phenix City also had more churches per capita than anywhere else in Alabama, somehow the city basically turned a blind eye to the economic engine that is allowing your town to be Pottersville.  

The movie is wildly frank about this for a Hayes Code-era movie.  They murder children, on screen.  There's other acts of terrible violence.  It mentions and shows prostitution, gambling, etc...  and even discusses and shows prostitution offered in return for votes for the corrupt politicians.  I'm kind of shocked this movie isn't a much bigger deal just as a counterpoint to what people think is both the squeaky clean media of the Eisenhower era and a counterpoint to the dumbulbs who think things were all Mayberry in ye olden thymes.  

Disney Watch: The Emperor's New Groove (2000)

Watched:  12/13/2025

Format:  Disney+

Viewing:  Second (I think.  Maybe third?  Jamie will tell me.)

Director:  Mark Dindal

I remember quite liking The Emperor's New Groove (2000) when I saw it in December of 2000.  I believe Jamie, The Dug and I went to see it on Christmas Eve in Lawton during it's initial release.  But I haven't come back to it over the years.  No real reason - there are many movies and I don't rewatch everything.

The other week, I saw some memes using Gronk imagery and was thinking "man, why have I not rewatched that movie?"  Frankly, aside from David Spade's character becoming a llama, I didn't really remember much about the movie other than "it is funny".  

On a revisit, it's an odd Disney film.  It feels very... small.  And for a movie with "groove" in the title, it has I think one song and it's performed by Tom Jones?