Bug Watch: Tarantula (1955)

Watched:  09/25/2026

Format:  YouTube

Viewing:  First

Director:  Jack Arnold

The only issue with this movie is John Agar.  

I mean, there's the general issue of John Agar being John Agar and I'm still mad about how he was to Shirley Temple.  But he's also a terrible actor.  He has  exactly one line delivery, whether he's inappropriately abandoning his medical practice to hit on Mara Corday or a tarantula the size of a battleship is walking toward him.

And it's a shame, because the movie has a few other actors - Leo G. Carroll who is dialing it in, and is still acting circles around him - and Mara Corday, who is doing her best to get Agar to do something other than just stare straight ahead and speak in a clipped, 1950's manly voice.

The plot:  a guy suffering from a horrendous disease (acromegaly) is found in the desert outside a small Arizona town.  He's traced back to being the science-pal of Leo G. Carroll.  The two are performing experiments in a McMansion on the edge of town.  Agar is suspicious as the town doctor.  And rightfully so, as it turns out Leo G. Carroll is using atomic power to...  well, he has a guinea pig the size of a rottweiler and a tarantula the size of a beach umbrella (why?  Just...  why?).  

Anyway, there's a third fellow in the house, and he also has acromegaly and fights Carroll, which causes a fire and the tarantula escapes.

About this time, Mara Corday shows up, way overdressed for all the science she's about to do.

Honestly, the tarantula looks amazing for the 1950's.  It's almost all done with post-production compositing, dropping a real tarantula over the top of other real film.  Simple enough, but effective.  And there is a big puppet tarantula for a few key scenes, but unlike The Black Scorpion, it's used sparingly (and borrowing heavily from King Kong).  

I actually recommend this one, with the caveat that I recommend it within the framework of what it is.  Them! is still the best one of the "atomic mutant animal" movies to me, narratively.  But it feels *pure* in what it is, a mad scientist movie with a big 'ol monster and a dullard of a lead with a knockout playing "woman".  I mean, it checks all the boxes.  And knows to get out as soon as the threat is neutralized.

I will admit, I lost a bit in the end looking up what kind of jets they were showing and was right, they showed two separate jets.  (always check the Internet Movie Plane Database).  I will take partial credit for recognizing one as The Shooting Star, but failing to remember it's "the Lockheed P-80".  

But, look, this is a 1950's sci-fi feature with a horror bent.  You're not here for Academy award-winning acting or scripts.  But it is fun.  Especially when Agar isn't on screen.

I dunno.  It's a movie about a tarantula that keeps changing sizes because scape is hard, but it's very large.

And I have now seen every movie mentioned in "Science Fiction / Double Feature" from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.  Please clap.

Stanwyck Watch: Jeopardy (1953)

Watched:  09/23/2026

Format:  TCM Noir Alley

Viewing:  First

Director:  John Sturges

I don't know how you can't be blown away by Barbara Stanwyck.  Just an incredible talent.  I might be a fan of, say, Marie Windsor, but I know when someone got Stanwyck, she was going to deliver in a way maybe only 1 or 2 of her contemporaries could.*

It's not like our preferred mode of horror and thrillers these days isn't "nice suburban people suddenly confronted with someone who will kill them".  And Jeopardy (1953) is absolutely in that mode.  

Anyway, this isn't a deep drama.  It's a fast-moving noirish thriller with a small cast, life or death stakes, and proof that kids are just bent on self-destruction, and keeping them safe is probably more trouble than it's worth.

Stanwyck co-stars with first Barry Sullivan, who plays her husband.  They're on a roadtrip from southern California into Mexico to go fishing with their young son, do some camping in a remote spot Sullivan found long ago.  

SPOILERS

Kubrick Watch: Barry Lyndon (1975)

Watched:  09/21/2026

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Director:  Stanley Kubrick

Somehow I'd never seen Barry Lyndon (1975).  I assume some part of my brain would look at the film and say "it won't be fun, and it's 3 hours" and would tap out before I could hit play.

In the past 20 years or so, the common wisdom I received in the 1990's - that the movie was dull or not Kubrick's best - seems to have evaporated and the film has received serious reconsideration.  But aside from "people in ruffles cavort in what looks like the second half of the 18th Century", I had no idea what the film was about.  That said, every film student knew that Kubrick's movie was shot with very special lenses, using only candlelight in many scenes -something unheard of in film production.  And I knew Barry Lyndon was supposed to be one of the most visually stunning movie ever produced, which... I mean, Kubrick.   You get that as part of the package.

Texas Watch: Friday Night Lights (Pilot)

Jamie has been along for the ride on DC's Lanterns.  Thanks to her proximity to me and my occasional, intrusive-thought driven monologues, she probably knows more about Green Lanterns than she ever bargained for in this life, so she was primed.  

But she also has been a Kyle Chandler stan since back in the day.  I get it.  

Anyway, that much Kyle Chandler reminded her of the pilot for Friday Night Lights.  

Both of us got vaccinated Friday and are slugging it out with our white blood cells, so when she put it on, I was in full support.

I'll argue two things:

1. The pilot for Friday Night Lights is maybe the best pilot of any TV show I've seen.  
2. Friday Night Lights captures Texas, at least the Texas of its era, the best of any movie or show.  

Monsterpiece Literature: Frankenstein

illustration via the great Bernie Wrightson, available via Nakatomi Inc.*

Back in fall of 2025, when the Guillermo del Toro movie of Frankenstein, I decided to give Mary Shelley's novel a spin one more time before the movie arrived.  I've read it probably four times previously, but with so much Frankenstein media out there, it's easy to get details confused or forgotten.

Rather than look at paper, I picked an audiobook narrated by Dan Stevens, a favored actor, and decided I'd listen while walking Emmylou.  But mid-way through the book - and I cannot remember the circumstances -  it disappeared from my audible library.  I shrugged, gave up, and moved on.  I know the book, I was prepped for the movie in any case.

I certainly had *opinions* about del Toro's film.and spoke about how it confused me that we've never actually seen the book interpreted as it is on page.  Large chunks always get reimagined and changed.  I'm not really sure why that is, as every change seems to morph what author Mary Shelley was doing and saying.  And while I didn't find del Toro's version *offensive*, I found it was changing the course of events in a way that never added up for me.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, the audiobook of Frankenstein re-appeared in my Audible library, and I decided to finish it up before I select a new book for Hallow-read.

Happy Birthday, Cassandra Peterson

Happy Birthday to Cassandra Peterson, who you may know as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark.

She doesn't put on the outfit anymore, and has successfully made a career out of being herself, which is pretty great.  She appears in movies and at cons and whatnot, and has a thriving merchandising empire.  That's got to be nice to know it's not just the character people adore.

I still pick up Elvira comics, which come out pretty regularly in mini-series form.  And if she were nearby, I think I'd actually drop some coin to go see her.  

I don't normally select pics with someone and their partner (I know her partner has a full name, but she goes by "T"), but this was the best pic I found of Peterson.  I am very happy for her and T.

Happy 75th, Ms. Peterson.  And here's to a successful Halloween season!

Doc Watch: Film Geek (2023)

Watched:   09/15/2026

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Director:  Richard Shepard

It's always weird to watch a documentary about someone talking about themselves and their family.  In this way, the recent award winning doc by Mariska Hargitay My Mom Jayne absolutely works.  As her mother Jayne Mansfield passed when she was so very young, it's really about her learning about her own mother decades after the fact.  She just happens to have the best possible access to Mansfield's history.  But she also is clear eyed about remaining objective and talking about it when she isn't and what it means to live with that legacy.

Film Geek (2023) tosses anything like objectivity out the window in the first minute of the film, and you're just along for the ride as film maker Richard Shepard recounts his youth in 1970's and 1980's Manhattan, which was a whirlwind of movie mania and NY-based Gen-X childhood.  This is paired with our director/narrator trying to unpack how movies tied him to a father he wants to present as a romantic rogue and bon vivant and his mother as a saint.

I am Not Nostalgic for 22-Episode TV Seasons

the only way to binge a season of 90's TV

Recently, on a popular social media platform, someone opined that we must support shows like DC's Lanterns so that we eventually work our way back to 20+ episode TV seasons.

I responded with "why on Earth would you want back 20+ episodes of a show again?"  

They took umbrage.  And, look, you can't say things on a public site intended for public reply, but okay.  I was rude, I suppose.  Especially as I did make the mistake of outlining reasons a 20+ episode season was less desirable, to which, I was basically told "shut up" in social media terms.  Which, fair.  Gentleman wasn't the first and he won't be the last with that take on my wisdom.

However - this is not about that.

Catch-Up Watch: Polite Society (2023)

Watched:  09/11/2026

Format:  Peacock 

Viewing:  First

Director:  Nida Manzoor

I'd seen a trailer for Polite Society (2023) when it was coming out, but theatrical windows are short, and I missed it.  Since then, I believe it was Stuart who rec'd it, and I'd had it loosely in the back of my head to watch, meanwhile forgetting why I wanted to see it or what it was about.

Well, whatever I thought it was about, the movie kind of defies genre or expectations at multiple points, and I mean that in the best way.  It's like someone took good ideas and stitched them together into exactly the movie they wanted to make (no, I don't know who Nida Manzoor is exactly, but she also did the series We Are Lady Parts in England, which got good notices).  

Pirate Watch: The Sea Hawk (1940)

Watched:  09/10/2026

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Director:  Michael Curtiz

Look, names of directors get forgotten, but Michael Curtiz was one of the best to get behind a lens, making some of my very favorite films - and they may be your favorites, too.  Casablanca, Mildred Pierce, Adventures of Robin Hood, White Christmas, Flamingo Road, and another Errol Flynn pirate movie - Captain Blood.  

And, man, I still am unclear how they filmed these things, with their huge ships, falling masts, flashing sabers and swashing buckles.  The Sea Hawk (1940) merges the scale of Captain Blood and Robin Hood - two prior Curtiz/ Flynn productions with palace sets, huge galleons and more.