Chabert Watch: Being Michael Madsen (2007)

Watched:  04/29/2025

Format:  Legitimately obtain video

Viewing:  First

Director:  Michael Mongillo

There's nuggets of a couple of ideas in Being Michael Madsen (2007) that are very good ideas.  Unfortunately, this was not the movie to execute on those ideas.  And you know you're in trouble from the very start when the faux-documentary alerts you it will be bleeping out *real* brand names for legal reasons (sigh) and then rolls like three quotes before the first shot of video.  

Yeah, this is a fake documentary - about a documentary that we will never get to see.  Or is it the documentary?  It's not clear.  I do know this movie is also a weird mix of wildly pretentious nonsense that believes it's very clever and maybe poking fun at itself for being pretentious.  But, hoo boy, it's kind of like when someone is being pretentious but isn't quite smart enough to actually pull it off, but they're Dunning-Kruegering their way into believing they're the smartest person in the room.

Chabert Horror Watch! The Ghost of Goodnight Lane (2014)

Watched:  04/27/2025

Format:  Tubi

Viewing:  First

Director:  Alin Bijan

Goodnight Lane is a very real street in northwest Dallas, where the Ghost of Goodnight Lane (2014) takes place, and was filmed, at least in part.  And if there's one spooky thing in this world, it is Dallas sprawl and suburbs.

The best thing about this movie is that Billy Zane is having a good time.  He knows what this movie is, and he's just happy to be there and dick around.  And, really, this movie is just an excuse for the filmmakers to have a good time and make a low-stakes horror-comedy.  It is silly.  It knows it's silly.  It is critic and taste proof.  If you don't like it, that's kind of on you, audience.  And the fact this exists in this form is proof I don't know how movie-making works.

The Ghost of Goodnight Lane is weirdly full of B to Z list working actors out of LA.  I say this, because this movie has the vibe that it doesn't feel like it should have anyone in it but local talent from the DFW area.  But it has Billy Zane and Lacey Chabert.  And still manages to look like a movie shot by people playing with equipment more than a movie that came out in 2014.  Like, it's weird to see real actors in set-ups and with lighting I associate with movies made by folks usually casting their pals, just something fun to enter into horror film festivals.  

It's maybe not Ouija Shark bad, but... 

So I wonder about the proposition for getting the financing - provided our writer/ director didn't finance himself. Did they blow it all on getting who they got?  The FX?  Which are brief but pretty okay for what this is?

Coogler Watch: Sinners (2025)

Watched:  04/26/2025

Format:  Drafthouse

Viewing:  First

Director:  Ryan Coogler

I guess Marshall is my "there's a vampire movie out, we're going" buddy.  And, really, Marshall was the ideal movie buddy for this one.  He's an avid music fan, a musician, and his rock sensibilities - when I met him in the early 1990's - were blues-based.  He's also a fan of vampire flicks, although I don't think I've convinced him to watch the Hammer vampire flicks yet. 

In addition, Marshall is well-read, and with an academic background in creative fiction, his critical analysis is always impressive.  But he refused to send me a blog post for this movie so that I didn't have to write one.  He is refusing me this one simple request, and so I am hoping if I butter him up enough with this high praise, next time, he'll do it.

Anyway - count me in with the people who loved Sinners (2025), and am excited about seeing it again.

SPOILERS

Chabert Watch! Mean Girls (2004)

Watched:  04/25/2025

Format:  Paramount+

Viewing:  second

Director:  Mark Waters

Back when we were doing the podcast, we should have done this movie as part of our "high school movies series".  Alas, we didn't get to it.  

But if you listened to those episodes, you would have come across my inability to access a lot of high school movies, largely because I felt they offered a false proposition:  that in high school, there existed a clique people aspired to join or who were a group to emulate or who had influence.  And that those people were varying levels of mean.

I have since learned:  no, man, that may have just been you (me).    Maybe because I moved to a new school and no one explained to me who was supposed to be "popular".  And if that was going to shake out at the first high school I attended, I missed it gelling as I moved away after Freshman year.

So, that was my context the first time I watched this.  I've kind of accepted since that some people very much felt in and out of groups in high school, and carry that feeling for life.  I think it's why everyone - if you ask them - will tell you how they were an outsider in high school, but the math doesn't add up.  You can't have 99% outsiders.  And I've never heard anyone say "actually, I was super cool in high school".

Noir Watch: Tension (1949)

Watched:  04/26/2025

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  lol

Director:  John Berry

Whoops, I watched Tension (1949) again.

In my defense, it stars both Audrey Totter and Cyd Charisse and I really had no choice.

Chabert Watch: In My Sleep (2010)

"genuinely suspenseful"

Watched:  04/25/2025

Format:  Tubi

Viewing:  First

Writer/ Director:  Allen Wolf

Oh my.  Spoilers.

This is an entire movie about a guy who should have done very obvious things when confronted with monumental problems.  But then we would not have a movie.

I get it.  This is a movie that started as someone's desire to create a "Hitchockian" mystery thriller, found a premise, and worked backward from there.  The premise no doubt started as "how do you tell a story about a guy who needs to solve a murder, but he may have committed said murder himself?"  Ah ha!  I saw cartoons. Sleepwalking.  Sleep driving.   Sleep sexing!  This guy does it all!

The first obvious thing - He kinda/ sorta begins to seek treatment for this condition with medication at the beginning of the film - but only after he somehow sleep-sexes his best friend's wife.  Btw, she's far from the first woman he's apparently had luck with whilst sleepwalking, we're told.*  Also: He's been driving.  He's been wandering around in his undies.  He is a mess.  He keeps waking up in odd places.  With 0% bodyfat.

After a birthday party, attended entirely by his married pal and women he has slept with (I mean... honestly... why?) Our Hero learns the best friend's wife was murdered and found by his father's grave.  Kinda sus.

Chabert Watch! Fatwa (2006)

love the US flag pine tree deodorizer.  Feels very 00's

Watched:  04/23/2025

Format:  Midnight Pulp

Viewing:  First

Director:  John R. Carter

An absolutely bizarre movie that sees the intersection of 

• the 1990's and 00's-era post Pulp Fiction crime flicks
• the success of shows like 24
• the belief that shooting on consumer video will lend an immediacy to the film (this is not correct)
• a first time director
• established actors
• unyielding pretentiousness

all in one neat package that winds up as one of those 90 minute movies that seems like it's been at least two hours, and so you check, and it's got another 30 minutes to go...  It's also one of those movies where everything seems very disconnected and then wants to make everything tie together in the last 20 minutes or so, but when put together, just starts stretching credulity way past the breaking point.

Fatwa (2006) is a post 9/11,  post fall of Iraq indie thriller/ political commentary.  It follows a desperate would-be terrorist in DC who is planning *something* - it's hinted at early on he's going to make a nuclear device using household objects.  He's specifically targeting a US Senator played by Lauren Holly.  (Holly is also an Executive Producer, but I assume that was her negotiating and more of a ceremonial role.)

Happy Birthday, Sheryl Lee

 

April 22nd marks the birthday of actress Sheryl Lee.  

Lee, through her relationship to both Twin Peaks series and the movie Fire Walk With Me has filled an inordinate amount of my brain space since I was 15.   

Lee, herself, only works in film sporadically these days.  Some ink was spilled when Twin Peaks: The Return hit in 2017, sorting out where she'd been and what she'd been up to.  She has some health issues that make acting a bit difficult, but she does do it.  

But I think wrecking me during Twin Peaks, Fire Walk With Me, and then devastating me during Twin Peaks: The Return was probably enough for one lifetime.  And when I think about her now - after we spent COVID pondering nostalgia and what made for the best of our generation - going through reunions of youth-friendly media, identifying Gen-X favorites, I don't really recall Twin Peaks getting included.  But in her way, maybe Lee's creation with Lynch and Frost, Laura Palmer, was the ultimate Gen-X icon.

Laura had loving parents, she had a house in the 'burbs, dressed in the clothes of a different generation, and as a youth of the era, still ran wild, unknown and unknowable, what she was up to only really discovered when she was no longer there.  And, of course, the scream of Laura Palmer/ Sheryl Lee when she returns to where she's told she belongs?  Someone else is there.  And she never quite existed, but went along to find out.  Middle-aged and displaced, being told she was someone she was not.

There's a parallel in there somewhere.

Sheryl Lee isn't Laura Palmer, of course.  But she did bring her to life.  And as she's never been one to hog the spotlight, she's maybe her own version of unknowable.  

But we're going to wish her a happy birthday anyway.

90th Anniversary of "The Bride of Frankenstein"

Today - April 22nd, 2025 - marks the 90th anniversary of the release of one of the greatest American films ever put to celluloid (created by and starring mostly Brits), The Bride of Frankenstein.  Not just a great horror movie, or horror-comedy, but a great film.  If you've slept on it, you're missing out.

Long time readers will know that Bride is one of my absolute favorite films.  I think I've watched it every Halloween for over a decade at this point, and had seen it numerous times before I started that habit.

If you've never seen it, it's short!  You should absolutely watch it.  But do watch Frankenstein first.  They're essentially a Part 1 and Part 2, much like the Godfather films.  

always cool when two dudes find common ground

Bizarre, hilarious, campy, frightening, insightful...  The Bride of Frankenstein has a bit of everything, including incredible set design and make-up.  It's still astonishing just to look at it nine decades on.  All this, and I think it has a phenomenal story with an ending you'll never see coming if your knowledge of The Bride comes from pop culture osmosis.  It's a shockingly modern film in many respects.

Anyway, I won't go on too long.  Even if you think you don't like old movies, I think this one is essential viewing.  

Also, shout out to Elsa Lanchester for making this look seem like a great idea.

Noir Watch: The Set-Up (1949)

we always stan Totter and Ryan

Watched:  04/21/2025

Format:  Noir Alley on TCM

Viewing:  fourth?  fifth?

Director:  Robert Wise

It's been years since I watched The Set-Up (1949), and while reading Eddie Muller's new book, an updated Dark City Dames - a collection of bios of several stars of the noir movement, I was pondering rewatching it when TCM's Noir Alley showcase went ahead and programmed the film for last weekend.  

It's no secret we're fans of stars Robert Ryan and Audrey Totter, or director Robert Wise.  But because Robert Ryan and Audrey Totter aren't really household names, and it's a grimy boxing picture of its surface, I'm not shocked if you haven't heard of or seen this one.  

The film comes in at a taught, trim 73 minutes.  And, novel for its era, the movie unspools in an approximation of real-time - taking place in one night of crisis for an aging boxer and his wife, who can't take watching him get beaten every night.  Not anymore.

Horror Watch: I Walked With a Zombie (1943)

Watched:  04/21/2025

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  Jacques Tourneur

I Walked With a Zombie (1943) is @#$%ing *great*.  Holy cats.  I'm mad at myself I took so long to see it.

Fun fact:  apparently I finished watching this movie on the 82nd anniversary of the film's release.  How about that?

More than a decade after White Zombie - an okay movie that I think drags - RKO put this one out.  It's considered part of a retrospective high point for RKO as Val Lewton was producing cheap and effective thrillers.  

Apparently the title is lifted from an article by journalist Inez Wallace who spent time in Haiti and met people who were basically without will thanks to drugs.  It also borrows a bit from Jane Eyre, one of my favorite reads from college days.

The movie is a Gothic mystery set on the fictional Caribbean island of Saint Sebastian.  The beautiful wife of a sugar plantation owner has fallen into an odd stupor, able to be given commands, but she's otherwise lifeless, emotionless... mostly still unless directed to move around.  Frances Dee plays a nurse brought from Canada to care for her - and expects she's being asked to live in paradise, but like a character from Bronte, Byron or Poe - the husband of the "zombie" sees only death on the island. 

There's a riddle for what really happened.  Two brothers at war.  A mother who is remote from them.  

The location of the plantation leans into the history of the cruelty of slavery and the family's part in what happened, keeping the haunting figurehead from one of their slaveships on the premises, a tortured man impaled with arrows - a reminder of what they did.  Pretty wild as elected leaders are, in 2025, trying to erase slavery of all things from our history books.  The family has tried to make amends now in the mid-20th Century, seeing themselves as stewards of the history and the people here, not interfering, but making sure people are healthy and the plantation provides an economy.

Chabert Watch! Christian Mingle The Movie (2014)

Watched:  04/19/2025

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First (and Last)

Director:  Corbin Bernsen

Job:  Ad company exec

new skill:  being brainwashed

Man: Jonathan Patrick Moore

Job of Man:  I don't know if I ever figured that out

Goes to/ Returns to:  Eventually goes to the Yucatan

Event:  several

Food:  Sushi

This is a movie about a mentally ill person who falls prey to a cult through a recruitment scheme posing as a dating site for Christians.  

Designed to be mistaken for a Hallmark movie, this infomercial for ChristianMingle.com (a very real dating site), our film - Christian Mingle The Movie (2014) - follows Lacey Chabert as a VP of Brand Management for a small advertising company.  She's unlucky in love, and is absolutely freaking out that, at age 30, she's still unmarried.  

The movie is written and directed by Corbin Bernsen, and so I have to lay a lot of blame at his feet, but also know he was having to make a movie for people who are maybe not really aware of how some of the things they wanted in their movie would play.  The film does have appearances by the eternally lovely Morgan Fairchild, Brian Keith, Stephen Tobolowsky, Bernsen, John O'Hurley and one actress I remember who was really pushed on us in sitcoms like 15 years ago.

On the surface level, it's a romantic comedy/ drama about a woman finding God while also finding a Good Man.  

On a meta level, this movie is essentially a warning shot to accomplished women who are being told they're a failure without a man.  Beware: you will have your entire life destroyed by people pretending good will but who will throw you away without batting an eye.

Noir Watch: The Steel Trap (1952)

Watched:  04/19/2025

Format:  Noir Alley on TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  Andrew L. Stone

This one is a wild ride.

Look, I just like Joseph Cotten.  The man is a movie star, but also can be an everyman like no one's business.  And he was absolutely the right choice to be our lead.

He plays a sort of middle-management salary man at a bank, knows all the in's and out's, and is married to Teresa Wright (who played his niece in Shadow of a Doubt).  They have an adorable moppet of a daughter.  All is post-war happiness.  Or is it?

Cotten begins realizing how easy it would be for him to rob his own bank.  There's no femme fatale pushing him to do it - he just realizes he's clever enough to pull it off, and people trust him enough that he won't be found out til he's already out of the country.  It's basically asking the question of "why am I playing by the rules if the rules aren't doing me much good to really get ahead?"

And, so he waits til no one is looking at the end of a Friday and clears out the vault.

What follows shows up in movies like Quick Change where the heist just will not play by your carefully sorted rules.  So for about an hour we're watching every conceivable foul-up get in his way as he has to gaslight his wife (who he is taking with him, telling her he's on a business trip) to get them both on a plane.  In a way, it's almost painful as the issues mount up.

By nature, I'm a planner.  Jamie is well aware, my least favorite thing is a surprise, maybe even a good one, if it's going to throw off my schedule.  I am *much* better about this now than I was ten years ago, where I'd just lose my shit if things got off schedule.  So in a way, this movie seems designed to make me crazy.

We were warned by Eddie Muller in the intro that the writer/ directors of this movie are famous for having some bizarre and far-fetched set-ups, and this is certainly one of them.  There's no ticking clock at the outset of the movie - our hero just decides he needs to rob this bank NOW instead of just planning it out and re-working the plan until he's got a clean getaway planned.  

Ie: for a movie all about planning the perfect heist, what actually occurs is nothing of the sort.  And we get to watch Cotten spiral into being a real jerk as the walls he created close in.

Anyway, it wasn't my favorite movie.  But it did have a unique ending - that ends just before I'm pretty sure the whole thing would have blown up in his face, anyway, so - as they say - you get a happy ending depending on when you leave the story.

Chabert Horror Watch! Scarecrow (2013)

Chabert completes negotiations for her Hallmark contract

Watched:  04/19/2025

Format:  Tubi

Viewing:  First

Director:  Sheldon Wilson

A movie with a pretty good idea behind it, this movie has an okay first half hour or so and then throws away all of that goodwill in the bin by becoming a movie where things keep happening, but nothing really resolves itself.  And I can't tell if that's intentional - like a joke on the part of the writers - or laziness or sheer incompetence.

It's not even clear, based on what we saw before, that ten seconds after the credits role, that our Final Girl isn't going to get killed.

What's most weird is that the description of the film on IMDB - from the producers, I'd guess - is not what actually happens in the movie.  There's elements of that, but that's not really what happens.  I almost feel like this was a description of the script at some point but then they made a different movie through rewrites.  

A group of high schoolers is going to spend their day of Saturday Detention (ala The Breakfast Club) on a farm "disassembling" the famed scarecrow from the old Miller farm that's part of the town's annual Scarecrow Festival.  But the movie opens on two horny teens sneaking onto the farm first, planning to spook their pals when they arrive, and getting killed by our monster.  

The town has an annual Scarecrow Festival during which they have some game where they ritualistically "bury" the Scarecrow.  But it's essentially a small-town fall fest, I guess.  We never see it.

Superman 2025: Superman Day 2025

Today is "Superman Day".  

The day commemorates the arrival of Action Comics #1 as it hit newsstands on April 18th, 1938.  

In years gone by, I might have written multiple paragraphs about what Superman means to me, but I'll hold onto that thought.  Nor will I provide a history lesson.  

What you should know is that Superman and Lois Lane arrived in one shot, echoing sci-fi and pulp-crime characters of the time, and somehow becoming more than the sum of their parts.  There's been plenty of iterations, and there will be more, across comics, movies, television, radio, video games and peanut butter bottles.  But today we're here to get jazzed about Superman as a concept so we all plan on going to see Superman.  

The reality of the matter is that this day is really Warner Bros. working hard to turn the wheel of the Superman ship after letting it steer a bit rudderless in the public's eye for decades.  It's work to rehab the idea of Superman for the average human with $20 to spend at the movies, and get people excited for this summer's new Superman movie when the last outings were not widely loved.

And that's okay!  Getting people excited for a movie, especially when you're giving them a version of that thing they've never seen before, is a challenge.   If they didn't try, I'd be more concerned.

This Saturday Night: "The Set-Up" on TCM's Noir Alley

Hey!

This Saturday (and with a replay Sunday morning), TCM is playing The Set-Up from 1949 on their signature film showcase Noir Alley.  

Why watch?

• People tend to think of film noir as detectives and trenchcoats and dames in slinky dresses.  This movie is the opposite of all that, and is still decidedly noir.  A working class story about a washed-up boxer and the woman who loves him.  
• An older boxer is losing fights, and on the night of what could be his final bout, his own manager has taken a pay-off to throw the fight, but hasn't told our man.
• Robert Ryan, a noir staple and dynamite as an actor, stars as the boxer who can't close the door on his career.  
• Audrey Totter is at her best in this movie.  Usually cast as the bad girl - and terrific in that position - this time she plays the tormented wife.  She's absolutely heart-breaking.
• The movie is directed by Robert Wise, who did every genre in Hollywood and always brought in a great picture.  

I don't usually make recommendations, but this one is a favorite.  If you have a chance to see it via Noir Alley on TCM or otherwise, now's the time to give it a watch.

New Fantastic Four Trailer Drops

I really wish Jack and Stan were here to see this.

Chabert 90's Watch! Lost in Space (1998)

Watched:  04/16/2025
Format:  Prime

Viewing:  Third

Director:  Stephen Hopkins

As Lost In Space (1998) concludes and 1990's-style "electronica" kicks in, complete with dialog samples from the film, you can find yourself missing your glow sticks and rave-ready mini-back-pack.  And you will also hear Lacey Chabert declare "this mission sucks".  

It does, Lacey.  It really, really does. 

It's maybe not a great sign for a movie that when the heroes are all killed in a fiery explosion in what becomes a divergent timeline, we cheered.

Back in March of 1998, I was at FAO Schwarz in Manhattan, and there was a huge, pre-release push for Lost in Space (1998) which was coming in just two or three weeks.   They had a life-size robot and toys with the display type I thought Star Wars would get (I underestimated).  I found this guy's web-page about the 1998 display that he wrote in 2006.  That robot kinda convinced me:  this movie will rule!

Anyway, the trailers were fine.  And after seeing the toys and the robot, I bought into the look, the chance to refresh an older property - that I had never actually seen.  The casting, which included William Hurt, Gary Oldman, Mimi Rogers, and Heather Graham, was insane. Matt LeBlanc of Friends fame also starred, and that was fine.  The movie also, of course, starred a teenage Lacey Chabert, which hit me in no particular way in '98 as I'd never seen Party of Five.   

It's been 27 years since I've seen the 1998 movie of Lost In Space - which I last saw on April 11th, 1998*.  But I have now completed the trilogy of Chabert vehicles that had the word "Lost" in the title (see also The Lost and The Lost Tree).  And, curiously, each film represents a different sort of bad.  A Lower-budget, silly and derivative studio pic with The Lost, a microbudget flick trying and failing to do supernatural thrills with with The Lost Tree, and - as Stuart put it - bloated 1990's studio excess, with Lost in Space.  

Classic Watch: The Godfather Part II (1974)

Watched:  04/13/2025

Format:  4K disc that failed, and then streaming

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Francis Ford Coppola

Well.  What do you even really say about The Godfather Part II (1974)?  I mean, really.  If you're looking for insight into this movie, is The Signal Watch really going to crack the case on this one?

As we'd done with Godfather, we broke Part II into two nights of viewing.  Jamie hadn't actually seen this one (I have no idea how that happened, and neither did she), and it was a delight seeing her wrapped up in the movie.  She can weigh in down in the comments with her reaction, but it was very positive.  

We had plenty to say about the impact The Godfather had on us back when we were a youth watching movies aimed at adults circa 1990.  In an era when the common wisdom was that the sequel was always worse and a money grab, watching the then-16 year old The Godfather Part II was a revelation of what was possible when you have the ground work of a classic.  Honestly, one of my reactions watching the movie is anger that it doesn't seem like many filmmakers have even tried to take apart these two movies and see what makes them work and try to one up them.

Chabert Watch! The Lost Tree (2016)

Watched:  04/13/2025

Format:  Prime

Viewing:  First

Director:  Brian A. Metcalf

Woof.

The Lost Tree (2016)?  More like "lost me 30 seconds in".  Amirite?  Where are my Lost Tree bros?

To me, the thing that is most interesting about this very not-good movie is less the movie than digging in a bit to how Hollywood works/ worked.  It's famously a town of hustlers, and for a brief while in the late 90's and through the 00's, thanks to the power of indie film, some of that got celebrated as we had breakout films like Swingers.  But since Ed Wood got his hands on a fog machine, genre has also been a part of indie film made for no money, but hoping an idea and a performance will carry the day.

That does not happen here.

This movie is a mess from the start.  The camera-work is maybe not the best, and shot on consumer video as near as I can tell.  The audio in mostly fine, I guess, but the soundtrack/ score is doing some Olympic-class lifting, desperately trying to convince the viewer something is happening, and we're not just watching a dude wander around by himself in an empty cabin or an open field for insanely long stretches.

I will be honest and say:  I watched this movie and I can describe what happens in it, but if there's a story here with a point or an ironic twist, I am at a loss.  

Horror Watch: The Body Snatcher (1945)

Watched:  04/12/2025

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  Robert Wise

So.  I love Universal Horror.  This is where we get Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman, et al.  But, gosh darn it - those RKO horror films are good.  I was basking in how well done I found The Body Snatcher (1945) when I realized it was directed by Robert Wise, who I consider one of the best directors ever produced in the US, but who doesn't ever seem to get named among the greats.  But this is my blog, and here - Robert Wise reigns supreme.*

RKO's horror flicks are more "creepy tales" than relying on monsters and Jack Pierce make-up.   There's nothing supernatural here, no super science bringing beings to life.  It's more about the darkness in people, and that's where I think this movie works astoundingly well.

Anyway - I also learned some interesting history!  So, for twenty years or so, I've been aware that back in the day, it was hard to come by cadavers for medical schools, and so they'd, uhm....  pay dudes to steal bodies.  If you were near a medical school, there was an absolute chance that you were going to be dug up and dissected.  What I found out thanks to this movie is that ground zero for this practice getting particularly grim was in Edinburgh, Scotland.  Look up the Burke and Hare murders.  This shit is wild, yo.

But it turns out that if your business is selling bodies for fun and profit, it's easy to turn living people into bodies.

Anyhoo...  our movie finds a promising young medical student about to drop out of school as he can't afford it anymore  At the same time, a(n attractive) woman and her daughter come to see the school's headmaster to see if he'll perform surgery to help the daughter walk again.  The cab that is taking them there is driven by our man, Boris Karloff, who also happens to go dig up corpses by night and sell them to the school's headmaster.

What spins out is not a monster movie, but more the horror of the young doctor-to-be realizing what is going on, and his own complicity in the practice, while Boris Karloff and the head doctor reveal how they've been entwined for decades in this foul business of grave robbing, and what sort of man is happy to make money doing it, and why doctors are desperate for it.

The movie also co-stars Bela Lugosi as a servant who wants to get cut in on the body business.  

There are some truly great scenes and ideas in this movie - some from the source material, a short story by Robert Louis Stevenson, and others made up for the film.  It's wonderfully shot by Robert De Grasse - and one of those things RKO always seemed to know to invest in to make their movies look phenomenal.  RKO was no poverty row studio, but they knew where to spend money (until Hughes took over).

All of the stuff with the singing girl is great horror movie work.  Hats off to Wise.

Karloff and Lugosi are rock solid in the movie, but I also really liked Edith Atwater as Meg - the head doctor's maid and mistress.  A complicated role that has to emote and thread the story together, she nails it.  She looked super familiar and I figured out that 24 years later, she was the inn-keeper in True Grit.  

Anyway - I really don't care to spoil the movie, just add it to the list.  There's also some more Val Lewton produced movies from this era I need to get into. Karloff followed these with Isle of the Dead and Bedlam, both of which are held in high esteem, but I've not yet seen.

*Dude never made a bad movie.  Maybe instead of watching every Chabert movie, I could have made a point by watching every Wise movie, but here we are.

50

And It's Still Alright

Nathaniel Rateliff

It ain't alright, the hardness of my head

Now, close your eyes and spin around

Say, hard times you could find it

Ain't the way that you want

But it's still alright

Late at night, do you lay around wondering?

Counting all the lines, ain't so funny now

Say, times are hard, you get this far, but it

Ain't the way that you want

I'll be damned if this old man don't

Start to count on his losses

But it's still alright

They say you learn a lot out there

How to scorch and burn

Gonna have to bury your friends

Then you'll find it gets worse

Standing out on the ledge

With no way to get down

You start praying for wings to grow

Oh, baby, just let go

I ain't alright, you keep spinning out ahead

It was cold outside when I hit the ground

Said, I could sleep here, forget all the fear

It will take time to grow

Maybe I don't know

Hey, tonight if you think about it

Remembering all the times that you pointed out

Say, the glass is clear but all this fear

Starts a-leaving a mark

Your idle hands are all that stands

From your time in the dark

But it's still alright

Chabert Watch! The Lost (2009)

Watched:  04/11/2025

Format:  Prime

Viewing:  First

Director:  Bryan Goeres

Here's my theory:  the writers came up with the ending for The Lost (2009), and then had to work backward from there.  Desperate to keep anyone from guessing the ending, they kinda screwed up what you need to do with a mystery, which is leave clues that make you realize "oh, yeah, it was kinda there all along!"  But, nope.  They hid it so well, and the twist is so out of left field, you're just sort of left shrugging.

Not that anyone was invested in the prior 85 or so minutes of the movie before the twist ending.  

This is an oddly misogynistic supernatural thriller/ psychological mystery wherein Lacey Chabert plays a young woman in a Spanish insane asylum.  Three years prior, she seems to have set a mansion on fire as well as someone inside.  As a student, she was living in the guest house.  She looks pale and spooky as she watches it all burn, and maybe has psychic powers.

The movie is kind of badly shot.  The audio is poorly mixed, and not helped by Assante mumbling his way through the dialog so badly we turned on subtitles.  Also, a good portion of the cast is Spanish and not hitting every line in a way you can hear.  So when Dina Meyer shows up enunciating, it's a trip.  

Armand Assante, who I've only ever seen in Judge Dredd, plays a psychiatrist who examined Chabert briefly 3 years ago before saying "she's nuts" and leaving her in the Spanish psych ward.  Why she did not come back stateside, I am unsure.  Chabert's sister is Dina Meyer, who basically blackmails Assante into going to take a look at Chabert again.

Noir Watch: The Narrow Margin (1952)

Watched:  04/06/2025

Format:  TCM Noir Alley

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Richard Fleischer/ William Cameron Menzies

I've only mentioned this movie twice on the blog from what I can tell.  Once in 2010, and once in 2018.  That seems nuts, because I'm sure this was more like the 5th or 6th time I'd seen The Narrow Margin (1952).  

Personally, I love this movie.  I'm shocked I didn't get to it during the podcast.  I think SimonUK and I talked about double-billing it with the Gene Hackman-starring remake, which I still haven't seen.

The movie is pretty straightforward.  It's an RKO flick, so it's a bit more rough and tumble, a bit sexier and sassier, and the sense of danger a bit higher.  There's a whole backstory to the movie that stars Howard Hughes being out of his mind and thinking Jane Russell should really be in everything and also not getting how his own movies work.  You can look it up.  Today is not the day I make this a film history blog.

Clem Burke Merges With The Infinite

Blondie's social media has alerted folks to the passing of Clem Burke.

Longtime readers will know Jamie and I are Blondie fans and have seen them a couple of times.  

I say this not lightly - Clem Burke was likely the best drummer I've ever seen live.  Some of that (a lot of that) was technical proficiency, but no small amount of it was that he was having a party behind his drum kit. The man always seemed to love what he was doing.

I confess to following him on social media and going down a COVID-era YouTube hole a night or three just watching him play across the years and sometimes with different bands.  

If you never paid particular attention to Clem, (1) shame on you, and (2) here's a bunch of Clem Burke across multiple bands, and (3) Gerry shared this so I'm sharing it.  

If you want to just listen to Clem Burke in context and songs that are NOT Dreaming (which may be my favorite) here's a favorite:

and another:

Maria:

ah, heck.  Here's Dreaming.

Chabert Watch! The Color of Rain (2014)

Watched:  04/05/2025

Viewing:  First

Format:  Hallmark

Director:  Anne Wheeler

Job:  Church school admin

new skill:  widow

Man: Warren Christie

Job of Man:  I don't know if I ever figured that out

Goes to/ Returns to:  Stays in place

Event:  Christmas pageant

Food:  Italian, also, what other people bring by

So, I'm rapidly running out of Chabert Hallmark movies that are not holiday-themed, and I'm not sure I'll be diving into Christmas movies any time soon.

I don't know what was going on at Hallmark in 2014, or if this was a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie or what.  The Hall of Fame movies tend to be a little closer to regular-ol-movies as they originally aired on network TV, often on Sundays, but this was likely always on the cable channel.  The Color of Rain (2014) is based on the real life of two families who each was dealt a blow by cancer, each side losing a spouse, and then the two remaining spouses meeting and falling for each other.  And the resulting side-eye they get from their support structures.

I guess I'm basically shocked that this movie made its way to Hallmark, because it's sort of the opposite of the usually marshmallow fluff comfort treat that the network is known for.  Instead, it strives to show how people going through a spousal death and in the throes of grieving really are feeling and dealing with day-to-day life - and it's not a rose-colored version.  As both families have kids, they require daily care as well as the emotional support needed when you lose a parent - and that can include the kids just flipping out.  Man in this movie is angry with God, and this is a movie about good, church-going folks with the pastor as a supporting character and the center of their lives seemingly the church and its attached school.

Chabert's character had three years of knowing her husband was sick and had already taken on everything, but Man's character loses his wife abruptly to cancer, and is utterly unprepared.  The connection comes as Chabert is kind of the only one making sense to him in the wake of his wife's passing.

Angry Animal/ Kilmer Watch: The Ghost and the Darkness (1996)

Watched:  04/02/2026

Format:  Prime

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Stephen Hopkins

Somewhere in The Ghost and the Darkness (1996), a movie that tells the curious tale of two rogue lions hunting and killing over 100 people that were part of an effort to build a bridge for a train in a remote area of Kenya, is a better movie.  My memories of this film were that Val Kilmer is great, Michael Douglas is not, and the one scene at the end totally had me.

A second viewing, almost 30 years later, and a glance at Wikipedia puts some weight on my suspicions - that Executive Producer Michael Douglas decided that if this was his movie, he would be prominently featured, and the movie would flail around on screen.  If there was a story to tell, it would become hopelessly muddied by the film's end.  

Chabert Watch! Non-Stop (2013)

Watched:  04/03/2025

Format:  Amazon Prime

Viewing:  First

Director:  Richard Gabai

Is this movie an absurdist comedy?  Or a straight-up Lifetime thriller that had two drafts written and then they shot it?  I honestly, earnestly do not know.

Non-Stop (2013) is a 90 minute movie that starts getting to the action in minute 41 or so, dragging out a both boring and overly elaborate set-up that includes exposition dropped during the credits - because no one thought to include this information in the rest of the film.  This is Lacey Chabert doing her absolute best against a movie that makes no sense and every actor seems to think they're in a different movie.  Meanwhile, Chabert is trying to convey something that the writing doesn't help her with at all.

I am not averse to the locked-room-mystery-aboard-transportation.  Give me a murder on a boat, a lady vanishing from a train, snakes on a plane.  But this is not a murder mystery for Lacey to sleuth out.  This is a movie that doesn't understand how these movies work, provides far too few potential suspects and a single motivation, and muffs the ending.  It realizes it has plot holes at the 2/3rds point and goes back and tries to paper them over with gigantic neon signs along the way, so you know what's up every time a plot point is introduced and where we're headed.

Superman 2025: Sneak Peek Released

You can follow our posts on Superman at this link, and our posts on the new movie, Superman (2025) at this link.

Well.  Heck.

Say what you will, but this movie is Warner Bros. finally getting someone on board who knows and cares about the comics.  And when it comes to Superman, it's sometimes unusual for the writers themselves to know more about Superman than the readers.  I'm not sure there's exactly misinformation out there, but there is a dearth of Super-info regarding the Amazing World of Superman.

What I think you can expect is that people will say "that is crazy" or "that is kind of silly".  Super dogs?  Super robots?  Yes.  Absolutely.  And it's long been my stance that if you're going to do Superman, you should lean into the Superman-ness of it all.  Despite the fact this has been Superman since Eisenhower was in office, and we've had multiple Superman shows and movies over the years, people really have never seen giant chunks of what Superman is.    

Superman fell into a weird spot where the was cost prohibitive to show a lot of what's in the comics on the big screen in the 40's and 50's when serials were coming out.  In the 1970's and 80's, just seeing a guy fly and do heat-vision was enough. When it became possible via CGI to show robots, dogs, etc.., it was believed at Warner Bros. that Superman needed to be something not in line with the comics.  Some of the joyless take appeared in Superman Returns, which tried to straddle the earnestness of the Reeves movies with the edginess that was coming - and fell into the crevasse in-between.  But most of it came from Zack Snyder's Ayn Randian Ubermench who wasn't sure he wanted to help people if it was going to be a whole thing.  Kelex was turned into a robot that tries to murder Lois Lane on sight.

But real ones know:

Noir Watch: The Window (1949)

Watched:  04/02/2025

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Director:  Ted Tetzlaff

Noir meets The Boy Who Cried Wolf when a 10 year old kid, sleeping on a balcony in a NYC tenement, sees his neighbors murder a guy through a crack in the blind.  

It's a simple premise, but with the age of the protagonist - ably played by Disney star* Bobby Driscoll - the set up is deeply effective.  The carefree/ consequence-free world of childhood collides headlong into the powerlessness of childhood when everyone wants to explain away what you saw with your own eyes, and your own past misdeeds are coming home to roost as your parents think they're enforcing tough love after your newest lie/ story.

The parents are played by Arthur Kennedy, who was no slouch of an actor (you likely saw him in Lawrence of Arabia and other films), and Barbara Hale, who would go on to household-name fame as Della Street on Perry Mason.   Our killers are the dead-eyed "that guy" actor Paul Stewart (good in so many things, here's his IMDB) and Signal Watch fave, Ruth Roman.  And if Ruth Roman killed someone, I'm sure it's not that wrong.  

It's a tight, short movie, moving through some predictable beats - including what's an effective final chase sequence through darkened, abandoned tenements.

It's kind of amazing how many movies used to be based on the idea of living on top of each other in apartment situations, or had major plotpoints that require people live in multi-family set-ups, and it's just kind of gone away. But certainly the cramped quarters of New York City and what your neighbors could be up to was part of more than one decent movie over the years.

I think it's gutsy they did this with a kid, and I wonder what it would look like in a modern context.  This is 1949, so this movie relies on the standard "mom and dad are busy, go play in abandoned buildings" living that hasn't seen the light of day in this century.  But even back in the 1940's, I'm not sure any studio but RKO is putting this movie out. 

This one has aired a few times, and I've avoided it as I often roll my eyes at things kids do in movies that are otherwise grounded, but this one feels buyable.  Our lead kid isn't a super detective or genius - he's mostly relying on adrenaline and the fact he knows the buildings.  

I see why this one gets brought up, which it does, because it's well-directed, edited and shot, and the story is lean and clean.  It's maybe not my favorite, but it gets the job done.

*and cautionary tale

Musical Watch: Ziegfeld Girl (1941)

Watched:  04/01/2025

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Directors:  Robert Z. Leonard, Busby Berkeley

Increasingly lost to time is the impact Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. had on American culture of the 20th century.  A showman, theatrical empresario, producer, promoter and more, Ziegfeld is most famous for his Ziegfeld Follies, a series of extravagant Broadway shows that ran from around 1907 to his death in the 1930's.  Much of what we thought of as a stage full of beautiful young women that flooded musicals in the 1930's and 1940's and gave Busby Berkeley (credited here) a career was Hollywood tinkering with the shows Ziegfeld had staged, based on French revues.   He managed to employ folks like Irving Berlin, WC Fields, Will Rogers and many, many more.

Had Ziegfeld not passed when he did, it's likely he would have expanded into Hollywood in a more serious manner (he was already there and died in Hollywood in 1932), bringing his sensibilities to the big screen.

He was credited with creating "The Glorification of the American Girl", both featuring and populating shows with large choruses of female performers.  But he featured acts of all kinds, and shows to this day are based within the Ziegfeld Follies (see the currently running Funny Girl).  He was also not afraid to push into the risque, and folks knew what they were getting.  You can find all sorts of interesting photos online looking for Ziegfeld girls.

In what is a star-studded flick - the movie follows three girls/ women who enter into the Follies.  Like the Schwab's Pharmacy story, Ziegfeld - never seen in this movie!  And treated a bit like that Wizard Judy Garland had previously tangled with - would pluck girls out of their mundane lives by finding them behind perfume counters, working in elevators, etc...   A bit of instant wish-fulfillment if you caught the right guy's eye (which is kind of a nightmare, but in an era in which women's career options were limited, and many Ziegfeld girls married well, it's not nothing).

Val Kilmer Merges With The Infinite

Actor, writer and  Val Kilmer has passed at the age of 65.  

Kilmer had been ill for some time, suffering from throat cancer.

I first saw him in Real Genius on home video, saw his great turn in Top Gun: Maverick, and most recently saw him when I rewatched Heat.    

I always thought he was great.  Sure, you heard he was a method actor/ was difficult, but whatever.  When I saw him in a movie, he was always stellar - and for some reason I always think of how great he was in The Ghost and the Darkness.  But that was one of maybe two dozen things I saw him in.  Actually, a scan of IMDB tells me that it's likely far more films and roles than that.  Whether it was playing Jim Morrison, Batman, or Doc Holliday, or whatever... he was always a strength to whatever movie he was in. 

He'll be missed.

Lynch Watch: Inland Empire (2006)

Watched:  03/31/2025 

Format:  Alamo

Viewing:  First

Director:  David Lynch

Something like 6 weeks ago, I agreed to see Inland Empire (2006) with SimonUK.  

Here's what I knew:

• It stars Laura Dern (a huge plus)
• It was a micro-budget film 
• Rabbits?
• Shot on video

Here's what I found out:

• It's 3 hours
• It's maybe a sequel to Mulholland Drive
• Rabbits!
• A greater number of name talent than I was expecting

I will be straight up with y'all and say:  I think I got between 25 and 33 percent of that movie.

I'm not embarrassed.  I think I'm pretty okay at watching movies.  Unpuzzling David Lynch is both fun and hopeless, because he was never going to tell you if you got it, really.  And looking at the critical reception on Wikipedia is just funny.  Everyone has a different opinion of what they just watched - not whether they liked it, but what happened.  

I am aware Inland Empire is a real place outside of Los Angeles, and aside from that, I don't know anything about it.*  Don't know if this has anything to do with the movie other than maybe some stuff was shot there.  And I assume there's something there about interior worlds/ lives.  But WHO KNOWS?  Not me.

It seems to be a spiritual sequel to Mulholland Drive, a film of doubles and other selves, and nightmare visions only Hollywood and dreams spawned by Tinsel Town can create.   In 2006 showing someone dying at the intersection of Hollywood and Vine and all the folks assembled at the corner do is watch is not not saying something specific (spoilers).

The overall plot has to do with a dream within a dream within a dream stack of realities in which an actress who has had issues with her career and husband gets a plumb role, but the story itself is cursed, and we cut between the reality of the actress, the film, events in the past, a Lodge-like zone with Rabbit spirits...

But, yeah, all I knew was Laura Dern was in this, but she's also a producer.  And you can also look for Jeremy Irons, Ian Ambercrombie, Justin Theroux, Harry Dean Stanton, Grace Zabriskie, Diane Ladd, Julia Ormond, Terry Crews, Mary Steenburgen? and a huge number of Polish actors I do not know.  Why Poland?  Man, I do not know.

There's a Polish curse!  That happens.

But Laura Harring shows up in literally the last minute of the film, and that's my tell that maybe this is a shared story with Mulholland Drive or a more direct sequel continuing to work out Lynch's feelings on Hollywood.

But, yeah, all of this was a lot.  I'm not sure I got it, but I also wasn't having a bad time.  I've been watching Lynch on and off since I was 15, so I'm kind of dialed in for his deal.  But I also know had I not seen this in the theater, it would have paid big dividends to watch this over again *immediately*.  Which at a full 6 hours would be a lot.

Yes, I did watch this in a theater, just a day after my bad theater experience.  And, y'all...  yes, I paid a lot because Alamo**.  But I also sat in a 3 hour movie with a 4/5ths full auditorium, audio that is often non-existent, and you could hear a pin drop through the whole movie.  And this was with people eating dinner at a 6:00 show.

And the bathroom was clean.  

It's the little things, pals.  That said, I think they're now asking for 40% over the price of food and drink.

*how shocked was I to see there is a real City of Industry in LA, and a Klickitat Street in Portland.

**I am still unclear why there's an 18% service charge and a tip option.  My guess is that the servers are getting @#$%ed.

I Just Walked Out of a Movie (because going to the theater sucks)

I'd love to also sit by myself in a theater with functioning chairs

Dear Nicole Kidman,

I love movies.  I do.  But... in the past couple of years, I've really grown to hate going to the movies. 

Here in 2025, there are no theaters that are all upside.  The Alamo is... fine.  A shadow of its heyday from a decade ago, and is currently a nightmare for labor.  How much I want to overpay for mediocre food is also part of the equation.  I've been relatively enthusiastic about the new chain, Cinepolis, but last time I saw a movie there, I realized we'd dropped > $100, and I just got mad.  I used to be able to do a full trip to the movies for $10.  Yes, inflation, but...

Nicole, I just tried to go see a movie at the theater run by your employer, AMC, by attending a screening at the Barton Creek 14.  I wound up walking out five minutes into the movie.

Things seemed afoul from when the moment we stepped in the lobby.  

Neo-Noir Watch: Collateral (2004)

Watched:  03/30/2025

Format:  Criterion

Viewing:  First

Director:  Michael Mann

There's half of an amazing character driven neo-noir in this film, and then half of an okay thriller.

I think it's the schizm of the two that makes for a frustrating viewing experience where one would be a delight and the other a pleasant enough film, but when the film shifts gears back and forth - and I usually don't mind tonal changes - it just feels like there's missed opportunity on that character study and the better film.  Collateral (2004) does get to sail on Michael Mann's slick directing and visuals (look, you can hire whatever DP, but it's Mann), and stellar performances from Jamie Foxx and Tom Cruise and a kick-ass set-up that feels rooted in some classic noir.

The movie also co-stars a wide array of names.  Jason Statham appears for about twenty seconds.  Debi Mazar as well (in our book, there's never enough Mazar).  Jada Pinkett-Smith appears.  Mark Ruffalo plays an LA cop uncovering what's going on in real time.  Javier Bardem.  Bruce McGill.  Peter Berg.  

Our set up is that Jamie Fox plays Max, a cabbie, who picks up a fare, who seems like a charming guy but is actually an assassin, Vincent (Tom Cruise) flown in from points unknown to take out a series of people.  Max just wants to squirrel away money for his dream of starting a limo company.

At the first hit, Fox is waiting in his cab for Vincent when he's suddenly involved in the proceedings.  Under threat by Vincent, he begins driving him from hit-to-hit.  And that could have been enough.  The relationship building between the two could have made for a taught thriller driven by the desires and motives of each - and the movie plays with that as they reveal more about themselves and get real about the weaknesses of the other.  

Western Watch: True Grit (1969)

Watched:  03/29/2025

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Director:  Henry Hathaway

I saw the Coen Bros.' remake in 2010, but I'd go ahead and recommend both.  This movie is *great*.  

True Grit (1969) is the one where, after Stagecoach happened way back in 1939, the Academy finally decided to give Wayne some flowers for carrying an industry for 30 years.  But he also earns it - this is Wayne in top form even as the era of the Western had already been transformed, and had become as much about the illusion of the Old West as anything else - and  Westerns as a major genre were winding to a close.  Wayne himself would be dead by the end of 1979.

You likely know the story - an Arkansas farmer/ rancher is killed while away from home, trading for horses in Fort Smith.  The murderer is his own employee.  His precocious and pious daughter, Mattie Ross, comes to town and recruits US Marshall Rooster Cogburn to come hunt down the man responsible.  Cogburn has a notoriously high kill count, a drinking problem and nothing going for him other than his ability to hunt down crooks.

A Texas Ranger (Glen Campbell!) is also looking for the guy they're hunting and lures Rooster away with a greater bounty.  Until the indefatigable Mattie Ross refuses to be left behind.

This movie has plot, certainly, but is really a character piece about two wildly different people with a common goal, and their growing sense of respect for one another.  The dialogue of the novel is deeply stylized, and this movie makes it largely palatable, even when it sounds a bit odd.  It's one of those movies where both leads are individually difficult, stubborn humans - Mattie as a young woman of unhinged principle with a naive-to-a-fault worldview, but still smart enough to be wily, and Cogburn an old survivor who has gone largely unloved and misunderstood - and makes you kind of love them both.

Mattie's refusal to shed tears and desire, rather, to see justice done - justice that serves her own rage - is fantastic.  Just as Cogburn's shift in his attitude to Mattie kind of perfect (I am unshocked John Wayne saw how he could mingle this idea with Red River and make The Cowboys in 1972).

I don't know how many movies Kim Darby is in, but it's surprising she wasn't a bigger deal in Hollywood after this.  She's really terrific.

Anyway, I dug it.  Sorry I took so long to see it.