Noir Watch: Angel Face (1952)

Watched:  07/16/2026

Format:  TCM Noir Alley

Viewing:  Third?  Fourth?

Director:  Otto Preminger

I was a bit surprised I'd already written this movie up twice before, but here's the first (fifteen years ago almost exactly!) and here's the second (about eight years ago).    

Y'all, I have been doing this *a while*.  And, yet, no one has intervened.  None of you are to be trusted with my welfare.

Still love this movie.  It's all arcs and curves heading for the very particular, noir-perfect, ending. 

I'm still a huge fan of Mitchum in everything, and this is no exception - here playing the cat who thinks he can thread the needle, having his rich girl and his marriage-material, too (and it's likely this wasn't the first "other girl" she's put up with).  He's just cool enough to make you think he's got the angles sorted, but he never really does.  

Noir Musical Watch: Blues In The Night (1941)

Watched:  07/15/2026

Format:  TCM Noir Alley

Viewing:  First

Director:  Anatole Litvak

So, this movie is super strange, and maybe in a good way, because it really swings for the fences.  I am not sure it goes yard (it doesn't) but it's at least an interesting sac fly.  

It's a mix of the "let's put on a show!" spirit of the movie musical and takes a turn down an alley into what would come to be known as noir.  As the two collide, Blues in the Night (1941) can make for some strange viewing.  

A group of guys tossed in jail for the moment decide to form a band - they want to play "the blues".  They are not Black.  But in the next cell are Black guys, who are singing the Blues.  By 2026 standards, this will be the best performance you will see all movie.

Out of jail they head to New Orleans to pick up a trumpet player and his spunky wife, Priscilla Lane.  Travelling by box car (and seemingly unbothered by what seems to be this "band" thing going terribly) they meet Norman Lloyd on the lam - he directs them to his club outside of New York City.

Dave Kendall Merges With The Infinite

As a kid stuck in the suburban sprawl of Austin and then Houston/ Spring, Texas, where music tastes skewed in such a fashion that AC/DC was literally playing on a radio station somewhere 24 hours-a-day, Whitney Houston was playing endlessly in mall sound systems and my classmates positively wet themselves for Garth Brooks - finding the music I liked was a part-time job.*

MTV had not yet pivoted to dumb game shows and reality TV, but during normal waking hours, you were more likely to see them play Warrant's "Cherry Pie" on a loop more often than anything I cared about.  And then one Sunday night, I caught 120 Minutes, hosted by a guy who seemed like a true believer when it came to the kinds of music I was already kind of liking by 1989.  

Dave Kendall's run on 120 Minutes - a show he conceived and produced - and which he would go on to host, lasted from 1989 - 1992.  If you ask a lot of people, they won't recall 120 Minutes prior to Kendall, and will barely remember the show continued after he handed hosting duties off to Matt Pinfield.  Once I was headed for college in 1993, I really didn't pay much attention, and then had no cable for a few years to even notice he was gone.

Sam Neill Merges With The Infinite

Actor Sam Neill has passed at 78.

Neill was most famous for his role in Jurassic Park as Dr. Alan Grant, who made his way across the island with two kids in tow.  I honestly think that role changed my opinion of what you needed for an "action hero".  

I was also a fan of his work in Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World and Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness and plenty of others.  Just this year I watched Possession.

He was also active on social media showing his farm, Two Paddocks, and maintained a clever, funny presence for years.

As big a movie as Jurassic Park is - and the subsequent sequels in which I think he appeared in two - Neil will be remembered for a good, long time.  And rightfully so.

Happy Birthday, Mikaela Hoover

Hey!  It's a second Super Birthday today!  

Happy Birthday to Mikaela Hoover!  She played Cat Grant in our most recent Superman film.  You will remember her in that movie with blonde hair and glasses.  She absolutely nailed the character in a few scenes, so... hats off!

Hoover also played Floor the Rabbit in Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3.  

May Ms. Hoover have a terrific b-day and a fabulous trip around the sun.

Melodrama Watch: Written on the Wind (1956)

Watched:  07/11/2026

Format:  Criterion

Viewing:  First

Director:  Douglas Sirk

I've been pretty plain that - while I rarely think a Sirk movie is aimed at me - I think he's a good director and makes some interesting films.  He was considered the master of a certain kind of melodramatic "woman's film", and I don't generally mean the term melodrama in the derogatory sense.  They're simply dramas contained to the character's lives, focusing on the emotions they experience.  Rarely do the conflicts that drive the stories have consequence outside of the sphere of the main characters. 

But Written on the Wind (1956) is both the most melodramatic of his films I've seen in the way we mean the term these days.  It is big feelings playing out in a way that feels like an alternate pilot for TV's Dallas as much as anything.  

It is also the horniest of Sirk's movies I've seen thus far - a movie entirely about sex that cannot say the word "sex" and instead relies on cloaked language and imagery as subtle as a 95 mph fastball to the noggin.  For example:  when a certain character is in flagrante delicto at a motel room, in the foreground of the frame, an oil pump is hard at work.  

WWI Watch: Hell's Angels (1930)

Watched:  07/11/2026

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  Howard Hughes

Even back in film school I remember hearing or reading that Howard Hughes' production of Hell's Angels (1930) had been kind of out of control.  It took years to make as Hughes was, ahem, a tad OCD and then The Jazz Singer happened during the already lengthy shoot,  sound suddenly available during the middle of production.  Of course, Hughes wanted in on that.  

So - they had to fire one of their leads who had a serious Swedish accent and replace her with Jean Harlow, effectively locking Harlow in as sort of the first blonde bombshell.  I also was aware a few people died making the movie - and having watched this thing, I can see how that could have occurred.

What I did not know is that Hell's Angels is actually a very watchable movie and was not really what I was expecting.  

The plot sounds fairly simple on paper - a pair of brothers at Oxford, one a rule-follower and romantic, the other a bit more of a rake and nihilist - find that WWI has broken out.  One brother volunteers for the Royal Flying Corps, and the other is voluntold he's in the RFC.  Meanwhile, their German pal Karl is drafted into the Zeppelin corps.  

Happy Birthday, Rachel Brosnahan

Happy birthday to Rachel Brosnahan, our current Lois Lane, upon whom we can all agree is a pretty good idea.

We've been so lucky with our string of Lois Lanes over the past twenty years, and I love what Brosnahan did with the role, making it her own.  

Here's hoping she has a great year ahead of her.

Capra Watch: You Can't Take It With You (1938)

Watched:  07/11/2026

Format:  Library DVD

Viewing:  2nd or 3rd

Director:  Frank Capra

Back in high school, this 6'4" jock/nerd quit playing on the school's JV basketball team, feeling his career in organized sports was, in fact, kind of un-fun and pointless.  And without getting into a long story, I quit the team mid-season to go audition for a play.  I wound up as an understudy, and the next fall, was in two plays.  

The second play was You Can't Take It With You, by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman.  I am sure the performances were mediocre and our staging bad.  But it did mean I was very familiar with the play at one point in my life.  I've also seen video-recorded versions since, one starring Jason Robards.  It is, in fact, a really good show when I am not in it.

The play must have been a huge hit when it was staged in 1936 as it was almost immediately turned into a film.  In 1938, You Can't Take It With You would go on to become an Oscar-winning film, directed by Frank Capra (you know, the guy behind It's a Wonderful Life).  It received 7 nominations and won 2, for Best Picture and Best Director.  

The film is not exactly a direct translation of the play.  As it's a movie, they have different locales and scenes, and different roles are emphasized and others reduced.  The couple at the center of the play are really a plot point to force two very different families to spend time together - one a conservative, New York old-money family, and one a wacky set of eccentrics chasing their bliss.  In the film, the young romantic couple are elevated to the main characters - played by a very young Jimmy Stewart and Jean Arthur.  

It's a comedy of clashing ideals - summed up with the belief of the Sycamore family that there's no reason to spend a life toiling for money and fame if you can't take it with you, natch.

Lionel Barrymore plays "Grandpa", the heart of the show.  Ann Miller was, like, 14 when she lied about her age and was signed to RKO who lent her to Columbia  where she, now 15, played a 20-something married woman who spends the movie mostly on-point.  Yes, she seems older than her real age.  "That Guy"actor Dub Taylor plays her goofy husband who plays the xylophone and likes to use a printing press.  The whole cast is solid, but those are the players I'm most familiar.

I think what I'd say is that the movie definitely feels like it's had Frank Capra's hands all over it.  While the themes don't fundamentally change, the stakes are much higher, the notion of the needs of the many trumping the needs of the few is woven throughout, and as the Depression is wearing on, social commentary is added in.  The Kirby's are bankers, and much is made about the mindset of the wealthy, and while history doesn't repeat itself, a lot of what we're hearing again these days sure rhymes with the words out of Kirby's mouth.

And it's kind of remarkable how few movies can or are willing to be just go ahead and say the quiet part out loud about the wealthy and the imbalance and the impact on everyone else.  This isn't really a concern at all in the play, by the way - it's more a comedy of manners.

Anyway - I enjoyed the movie a great deal.  It could stand a remake today.

For the record - I played the small part of the Dad, "Paul Sycamore", in the play, didn't have many lines, and was supposed to set off fireworks live on stage, but the lighting guys were assholes and missed their cue and I couldn't see the wick in the dark.  We had words after that show.

Bonnie Tyler Merges With The Infinite

Singer Bonnie Tyler has passed at the age of 75.

From NPR.

Tyler was a major force in the 1980's with some hits written by Jim Steinman.   

Jamie has probably heard more Bonnie Tyler than she thought she was signing up for thanks to living with me.  I've always liked her biggest hits, and spent some time looking into some of her music that didn't sit at the top of the charts.

But here's three of Tyler's biggest songs.  Maybe give her a listen and celebrate some Bonnie.