Reiner Remembrance Watch: Stand By Me (1986)

Watched:  12/30/2025

Format:  Netflix

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Rob Reiner

There's a full run of movies we could have watched to salute Rob Reiner, but I was particularly onboard with Jamie's selection of Stand By Me (1986).  

In no way is my experience unique - but I did see this in the theater at eleven years old (I guess my parents were not deterred by an R rating), and it became a movie I watched over and over on VHS - rented and then taped off HBO at some point.  The soundtrack became part of my rotation, and is likely ground zero for my interest in Buddy Holly.  (There's a different conversation about how I was as likely to have my radio set to an oldies station as a pop station growing up, anyway, but you get the picture).  We adopted slang I use to this day - I am still known to describe things as "boss".  

If Stranger Things is any indication, with the right material, we can relate more to the ages of characters and the universality of that experience than anything about eras in which stories appear.  And I did.  

Crampton Watch: Sacrifice (2020)

Watched:  12/29/2025

Format:  Prime

Viewing:  First

Director:  Andy Collier / Tor Mian

There's some interesting stuff in Sacrifice (2020), but it never shakes the feeling it's maybe too-familiar- maybe especially in the wake of Ari Aster's Hereditary and Midsommar, and probably several other scary films where there's a cult involved.  

The film is about a younger couple who come to remote Norway to sell a house the guy, Isaac (Ludovic Hughes), inherited from a father he doesn't remember.  His mother, an American, told him his father found a new family and she returned to America.  His wife, Emma (Sophie Stevens) is very pregnant - and the sale of the house is intended to create a nest-egg for raising that baby.

However, the locals start off rude, until they learn who Isaac's father is, they then welcome him like a brother.  And a local constable (Barbara Crampton trying on a Norwegian accent) comes by to ask questions - telling Isaac his father was murdered in the house.  

This is a movie wherein the dude starts deciding he's down with whatever the people in the culty, remote town are offering up, and the wife is clearly trying to clear out.  

Riff-Trax Watch: Plan 9 From Outer Space (1957)

Watched:  12/28/2025

Format:  Riff-Trax on YouTube

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Edward D. Wood, Jr.

There's no good reason to watch Plan 9 From Outer Space (1957) again, or right at this moment.  But I sure did.  It didn't hurt to watch with what seemed like a 20-year-old Rifftrax over a colorized version of the film.  

It's just a good time, every time.  Especially once the monologuing really kicks in during the back half of the film.  

Y'all pour one out for Bela.

Chabert Watch: Sherman's Way (2008)

Watched:  12/28/2025

Format:  Disc

Viewing:  First

Director:  Craig M. Saavedra

This is my final Chabert film of ChabertQuest 2025.  Please clap.  

Well, first, this movie has a surprising lack of Chabert in it whatsoever.  She's in the opening scenes as our lead's girlfriend who predictably dumps him, which is the catalyst for the rest of the film.  I think she's gone 10 minutes in.

So, that's that.

Happy Birthday, Barbara Crampton

Happy Birthday to the great Barbara Crampton.  

For eagle-eyed readers of the site here, we've been on a Crampton-aissance for about a year and a half, watching work newer and older. 

A Christmas Regret Watch: A Little Piece of Heaven (1991)

everything on this DVD cover is a lie

Watched:  12/23/2025

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  Second (and last)

Director:  Mimi Leder

While watching A Little Piece of Heaven (1991) for ChabertQuest2025, I knew instantly that this would be a movie to share with Dug and K.  

As longtime readers will know, sharing terrible Christmas movies with Jamie's brother, Dug and his wife K, is a yearly tradition here at The Signal Watch.  And, for reasons I cannot guess, Christmas seems to really bring out some absolute nonsense, from failed comedy concepts like Santa with Muscles to the utterly sincere failures, like this one.

There are many flavors of "this movie is a bad idea" out there, and we've covered a lot of them.  But this TV movie commits the sin of, as Dug put it, insisting that the ends justifies the means.  Even if the ends are highly, highly questionable.  And the means are absolutely mortifying.  

This movie contains:

• a very 90's take on an actor playing someone "special"
• drugging a child
• kidnapping a drugged child
• light casual racism
• 90's screenplay ingrained racism
• child slave labor
• child emotional labor
• gaslighting within gaslighting, like an inception where we're passing through layers of bullshit that's knee-deep
• nonsense rationalization
• child abuse-ploitation
• more kidnapping
• transporting minors
• abandoning pigs
• basically casting all those horror stories you see about people kidnapping people off the street and keeping them in their basement, or imprisoning children, and turning the abductor into a hero
• the greatest bullshit ending to a movie ever committed to screen
• Kirk Cameron

But, fun fact, a very young Lacey Chabert received an Emmy Nomination for her role as "Princess".  

Anyway, somehow this movie was written, produced, filmed, edited and given a plum primetime slot on network TV.  And everyone thought this was fine.  Even the scene where it's clear someone is tossing chickens out of a window.  And all of young Jussie Smollet's dialog.  

Merry Christmas, Every Buddy

Emmylou beneath the tree

Merry Christmas from The Signal Watch, pals.  

Here's to a quiet, peaceful Christmas for all of us.  May the season be merry and bright, and may you spend the holiday as you like, with loved ones or otherwise.  We wish you the best.

Here's to peace on Earth, goodwill to all, and the chance for all of us to be our best.

As we do every Christmas Eve, we're sharing Ms. Darlene Love singing Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home).  

Hallmark Holiday Watch: The Christmas Baby (2025)

Watched:  12/22/2025

Format:  Hallmark

Viewing:  First

Director:  Eva Tavares

This movie was very offbeat for Hallmark, but a welcome change of pace.  

I tuned in because I saw a few Ali Liebert movies a while back and thought she was better than the average bear.  She's been wearing multiple hats the past few years, though, directing two or so movies per year while appearing in other movies and producing some - so less acting, more behind the lens stuff.  So kudos to Ms. Liebert.  I can barely chew bubblegum and walk at the same time.

Liebert co-stars in The Christmas Baby (2025) with Katherine Barrell, who some may know from Wynona Earp.  The pair play a married couple in Albany, New York, going about their childfree existence when someone leaves a baby in a stroller at Liebert's mail store while she's in the back.

This isn't a Hallmark romcom, it's a dramedy, leaning towards drama.  Unlike 99% of Hallmark's Christmas output, there's a lot of tears and a lot of very real feelings and issues.  It feels more like a TV movie from days of yore than a feel-good bit of Christmas marshmallow you may associate with Hallmark of the past decade.  

The movie provides plenty of questions to answer.  Who is the mother?  What does it mean to suddenly have parenthood thrust on you and what feelings would you have if that wasn't the plan?  What if you and your wife are suddenly not on the same page?  And why aren't you?  And if you commit to this kid, what's to say someone won't just take them away?

Chabert Watch: Home Front (2002) (aka: The Scoundrel's Wife)

Watched:  12/22/2025

Format:  Disc

Viewing:  First

Director:  Glen Pitre

There's a lot going on in Home Front (aka: The Scoundrel's Wife - 2002).  Some might argue too much.  

A period piece taking place mostly during World War II, it's about a woman and her family living on Louisiana's Gulf Coast, who are pariahs already when the war breaks out.  It seems some years before the woman (Tatum O'Neal) and her husband may have gotten up to misdeeds that will be shared later.

It's a bit of a frustrating movie because it's a look at some real life things - that German U-Boats were off the US coast causing havoc, there was concern about internal collaborators, etc....  And some of this forgotten history is illuminated brilliantly, really, as O'Neal's family is awakened by a fire's glow off in the distance, out over the water as a U-Boat hits a shipping vessel.  

Meanwhile, life in the small fishing village carries on for O'Neal and her teenage son, Blue, and her daughter, Florida (Chabert), just aging into adulthood.  A doctor moves in nextdoor, but he has what seems to be a German accent (Julian Sands).  Meanwhile, the town Priest (Tim Curry) wrestles with alcohol.

Holiday Watch: Die Hard (1988)

Watched:  12/20/2025

Format:  Peacock

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  John McTiernan

One of the great points of relief for me this year has been that, at long last, people are being shamed on social media for asking if Die Hard (1988) is a Christmas movie.  It is.  We're done.  Shut up.

What younger audiences won't know is how much Die Hard changed the game for action movies.  

I'll often point to Commando (1985) as the template for action movies, and in some ways, that's right.  But it also reflects the kind of movie being made where our hero was already a super soldier we understood stood above other men.  He could walk through a hail of gunfire without so much as a scratch and dispatch 100 anonymous henchmen before tangling with the Big Boss at the end of the movie.  And in the 1980's, action heroes were guys like Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Chuck Norris.  

Die Hard suggested that much more of a common man could be an action hero in the right situation.  He'd get the crap beat out of him, he'd get injured, he'd make mistakes, but as long as he kept a cool head and remembered Bonnie Bedelia needed him now, he just might save the day. 

Superwatch: Superman (2025)

Watched:  12/19/2025

Format:  HBOmax

Viewing:  Fifth

Director:  James Gunn

Wanted to get in one more viewing of Superman (2025) before the end of the year.  And so I did.

No more notes.  I've already written too much about this movie.  But it meant a lot to have a Superman movie this year that hit so many right notes/ actually felt like the Superman I know from comics, cartoons, etc...  while still being a fresh take.  

TCM Remembers 2025

prepare to get weepy.

This is the first time in a while I've been surprised by so many names as they went by - I simply didn't hear or read that they had merged with the infinite.  As you know, we'll post sometimes if we learn of someone's passing.  Not always, but it's a feature.

I simply did not know about any of the following, and I feel like I should have, or would have back in Twitter's golden age:

• Connie Francis
• Jules Feiffer
• Joe Don Baker
• James Mitchum
• Lalo Schifrin
• Peter Jason
• Robert McGinnis (this one shocks me that I didn't know)
• Jeannot Szwarc
• Peter Greene

To all of these, may flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

Happy Birthday, Audrey Totter - Noir Watch: Lady in the Lake (1947)

Watched:  12/18/2025

Format:  HBOmax

Viewing:  ha ha ha ha...  oh, mercy

Director:  Robert Montgomery

December 20th marks the birthday of Signal Watch patron saint of noir bad girls, Audrey Totter.  

For more on one of our favorite stars of the silver screen, here's a post from earlier this year on Moviejawn.

Last year, through a series of misadventures, we missed our annual watch of Lady in the Lake (1947), and so we wanted to make sure we got in this year's screening.   You have your Christmas movies, I have mine.  

Robert Montgomery stars and directs, mostly as Marlowe's voice over.  Montgomery is not a bad actor, but his Marlowe is maybe my least favorite - I mean, Bogart plays the same guy in The Big Sleep, and I'm a huge fan of Dick Powell in Murder, My Sweet.*

There's truly nothing like this movie - not from this era.  95% of the film is presented from the subjective viewpoint of Philip Marlowe - our lead and a detective.**  The idea is that the audience is looking through Marlowe's eyes - eyes which are a camera the size and weight of a Mini-Cooper.  As a studio film where they let a new director run with an idea, it's some very strange viewing that in 2025, feels like the world's longest videogame cut-scene.

Holiday Watch: The Bishop's Wife (1947)

Watched:  12/18/2025

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Henry Koster

I will be honest and say that when we watched The Bishop's Wife  (1947) the first time during COVID, I am pretty sure I was about three sheets to the wind and maybe didn't quite give this movie its due.  I seem a bit dismissive of the whole thing in my post.

But this time around, I quite liked the movie.  

David Niven plays a Bishop, recently appointed, who has been tasked with raising funds for the building and completion of a new Cathedral.  His new responsibilities and position have left him stressed and ignoring his wife (Loretta Young) and daughter (the same girl who played Zuzu in It's a Wonderful Life, Karolyn Grimes).  

After Niven prays on his challenges, an angel, played by Cary Grant in a tailored suit, appears to him, promising to assist.  Niven is shocked, but comes to accept it as truth.  But is uncertain how the angel can help.  

The movie has a tremendous amount of fun showing how Dudley, the angel, can and does help in large and small ways.  Sometimes he's guiding blind men through traffic, sometimes he's setting the conditions for a scholar to finally write their great work.  As an angel, he knows just what to say, and in the Bishop's house, which seems an unfriendly place, the staff - especially the maid Mathilda (Elsa Lanchester) - take an immediate shine to him.  

However, as the Bishop goes about his business, it leaves Dudley, posing as an assistant, to spend time with the Bishop's wife.  And both seem to get along famously.  

There's an odd bit of melancholy to the film - first with the state of affairs for the Bishop and Julia.  Julia's wish they'd never left their old neighborhood and church, and the Bishop worrying over how to please demanding patrons.  This is a family in crisis.  But (SPOILERS) as the film rolls to a conclusion, we learn that Dudley has fallen for Julia, and she's made him realize how tired of his life as a wanderer he is.  And maybe this touch of happiness, of what could have been, is a wound he'll carry. He can make others happy or help them, but who is there for Dudley?

The film is cagey about Julia's feelings - and in 1947 can't have a Bishop's actual wife say them out loud.  

It does make me wonder - did Wim Wenders watch this movie and think "yes, but what if...?"  Likely not - he would have said so.  But his Wings of Desire is a favorite, and I think it'd make a truly interesting double-bill.  

Also, Ms. Loretta Young is a biscuit.

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?  

Christmas Horror Watch: Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (1987)

Watched:  12/13/2025

Format:  Amazon?

Viewing:  First

Director:  Lee Harry

Sometimes horror fans complain that critics will say "this is pretty good for horror" or something of the like.  And I agree - that's a bit dismissive of a whole genre.  But my suspicion about why this happens is that sometime in high school, a person who would one day become a critic was with friends who rented something like Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (1987), and their takeaway was "this is what you guys are watching?"

On its face, yes.  This is a movie with problems.  It's three years after the first film's release, and this sequel - put out well into the age of VHS where most people probably saw the first Silent Night, Deadly Night - spends 36 minutes doing a mix of clip show of the first movie and having our new villain/ protagonist relay the story of the first film to a psychiatrist.  Then it spends ~30 minutes relaying the fate of the brother of the first Kill Krazy Kris Kringle (our hero/villain) before it unleashes our guy onto the world, where he immediately goes after his abusive former Mother Superior.  

There is, to my surprise, an added bit of pretension at the end as we learn the surviving nun was the same woman our Second Santa avenged after near SA - killing the dude with a Jeep.  I did not think this was the sort of movie to include dramatic irony, but here we are.

By the way, I did figure out immediately that at some point I'd seen the first half of Silent Night, Deadly Night, but I must not have finished the movie.  

But if your critics' only takeaway was "that wasn't very good", I am afraid they're missing the point.  This is the opposite of "elevated horror" - this is Santa Exploitation Horror.  This is a mad man walking around a suburban street firing off something like 20 shots from a six-shooter while he laughs stiffly and badly.  This is a guy murdering people for talking in the movie theater and punishing "naughty" people with an axe to the head.  It's not scary - it's basically a comedy.

So does it succeed as a film delivering on that premise?  

I mean, I think so.  This is a Rental movie to watch while drinking beer, and maybe cheer a bit when some murders happen.  

Thanks to the merging of the first film into the first act of this movie, it's also a wildly overcomplicated movie for a movie about a guy who puts on a Santa hat to kill people.  And it's part of the movie's charm.

I am only sad that I watched it by myself.

One day I need to do a post about how maybe the usefulness of critics and awards is minimal, and that what really makes a movie survive is a culture that can sustain those movies.  And horror and the horror fanbase is amazing about keeping movies alive and making lowkey celebs out of people who made a cheap movie 40 years ago.

Dick Van Dyke at 100

 

Dick Van Dyke is now 100.  What a delight to do a "at 100" post and have the person still with us and in terrific shape.

He's easily one of the earliest actors whose names I knew who wasn't a Star War.  As a kid, I remember being taken to a re-release of Mary Poppins, and it was part of how I fell in love with movies.  And, of course, reruns of The Dick Van Dyke Show played well through when I was a young adult - when I feel like I finally got the appeal (no, not just Mary Tyler Moore - it's really funny and now I kind of want to watch it again).  Not bad for a show that ended 9 years before I was born.

Later, I'd see him in Bye Bye Birdie and other films.  The man is an entertainer.  

Here's to lasting a century and somehow remaining universally beloved.  You have a lot of choices of how you want people to think of you at 100, if you're remembered at all.  This may be the absolute best case of all.

Chabert Watch: Slightly Single in LA (2013)

Ah, the "look at our galaxy of stars" rom-com poster.  Always a promising sign.

Watched:  12/12/2025

Format DVD

Viewing:  First

Director:  Christie Will Wolf

Editor's note:  we've decided to Thelma and Louise our way through the remaining Chabert filmography.  I've been looking to see if I can find the Chabert films I haven't seen yet via very cheap used copies or online (one way or another).  

Ugh.  

File this under "this movie was never aimed at me" but also "never write fiction that is a thinly veiled version of a story about yourself".

Christie Will Wolf (here listed as Christie Will) is the writer/ director/ producer of Slightly Single in LA (2013).  These days she's a prolific director and producer of Hallmark movies, and I've seen some of them in whole or part.  She also was the mastermind behind 2011's Holiday Heist, one of the hardest-to-watch movies viewed during ChabertQuest 2025.  

The movie is a rom-com/ would-be Sex in the City about the foibles of a group of women and their token gay friend (Jonathan Bennet).  The story follows around Chabert's character, Dale, who has had bad luck in love.  But what's played for comedy is merely comedy shaped but at no time made me so much as crack a smile.  The movie feels like it's about someone with terrible risk analysis and decision making skills.  But the movie is written, directed and produced by one person - who seems totally unaware that the characters are not just unrelatable, but deeply unsympathetic.  

This lead character sucks.  But she sucks the least of all of the characters, so... yay?

DC Studios: Supergirl Trailer Arrives

The movie isn't arriving until late June of 2026, but we have our first trailer for the upcoming movie, Supergirl.  

For comics readers, we're going to recognize this is a loose adaptation of Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow by Tom King and Bilquis Evely.  It's a pastiche on revisionist westerns, especially True Grit.  So she comes by the duster thematically and honestly.

Yes, this is a different Supergirl than Helen Slater or Melissa Benoist.  And I shock myself to say this - but that's okay.  I adore Silver Age Supergirl, and Bronze Age Supergirl, but Supergirl, with her story, was in need of a serious overhaul, which I think she got locked in via comics scribe Sterling Gates several years ago now.  

The basic idea is - she's not Superman.  He was an infant foundling, she was a survivor of a catastrophe she saw first hand.  She is walking trauma.  Ma and Pa taught Clark to be kind and love everyone, Kara learned the world will literally explode beneath you.  Anyone who thought Superman was a bit too sunshine-y now has their flip side of the coin.

Milly Alcock seems a solid choice for this Kara from her appearance to her spirit, and I think The Youths will like Alcock and her Kara Zor-El.  I've seen nothing that makes me anything less enthused about her as the choice.

Here's that trailer:

Chabert Holiday Rewatch: The Tree That Saved Christmas (2014)

My original rules for ChabertQuest 2025 included not re-watching and re-posting on movies I'd already seen and written up.  Somehow it bothered me that I didn't rewatch this one even though I'd previously seen The Tree That Saved Christmas (2014) and wrote it up back during lockdown.  

All I remembered was that the snow was pretty much non-existent (in Vermont on December) and maybe you could see some blankets thrown down to double as snow.  So, I decided to give it one more whirl to make sure no Chabert-stone was left unturned during ChabertQuest.  

This may have aired on Hallmark, but, is so, it's a small, indie movie that was licensed to Hallmark, which was their model for a while.  These days, I think they own a lot more of the movies that they air.  Thus, older movies like this are out there, but not officially Hallmark at this point.  

This movie arrives in Year 2 of Chabert making movies for Hallmark-type outfits.  She'd made Matchmaker Santa in 2013, and by 2014 was in A Royal Christmas, which is kind of considered a Hallmark classic by Hallmark nerds, and is arguably the real start of Chabert's rise to Hallmark supremacy.  In 2014, for good or ill, she also made this movie.

Christmas Classic Watch: White Christmas (1954)

Watched:  12/09/2025

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Michael Curtiz

I always wonder how contemporary audiences received the Michael Curtiz movie, White Christmas (1954), when it came out.  It's not exactly The Best Years of Our Lives, but does speak to the post-war era as people moved on with their lives, from enlisted soldiers to retired Generals.  But also is aware of the camaraderie forged among pairs of men in war, as well as that of whole battalions.  And, the people who waited at home and their relation to the fighting men and women.  

People may not be nostalgic for getting shot at constantly, but they do miss the people they knew who got them through.

The movie opens on the last December of the war as Bing Crosby - playing an analog of himself - performs alongside Danny Kaye, who is not famous back home.  They' salute their outgoing General Waverly, knowing he actually cared about all of them.