Chabert Watch: What If God Were The Sun? (2007)

Watched:  02/07/2026

Format:  Disc

Viewing:  First

Director:  Stephen Tolkin

We're still working our way through the Chabert-a-Tron 3000, and this checks another box.  I think I've only found one more movie was released on disc, so after that... who knows?

A pre-Hallmark Chabert had such a weird career.  Maybe all actors have an odd, bumpy start, but this movie was made in the thick of the period where Chabert was doing a lot of roles in scrappy indie movies you've never heard of, but then she was getting good work in smaller movies like Reach For Me which feel like they're at least trying to do something a bit more meaningful.  

I'm not really familiar with the Lifetime Network oeuvre, but this movie is much more in line with Reach For Me than it is, say, Be My Baby or The Pleasure Drivers.  And, it's another one of Chabert's movies where she works with one of the greats.  This time, her co-star is Gena Rowlands.

The six degrees of separation with Chabert is bananas.

Wise Noir Watch: Born to Kill (1947)

Watched:  02/07/2026

Format:  DVD

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Robert Wise

In the world of film noir, there's movies that are a bit gritty, and then there's movies like Born to Kill (1947) that look around at the shadier movies and say "hold my beer".  

First - we don't talk enough about Claire Trevor.  Stunningly good actor who has been largely forgotten by non-classic film buffs, but who won an Academy Award the year after this movie for her remarkable role in Key Largo.  Trevor didn't just work in noir, but in noir - she's one of the most active women of the genre, and is who you give a role to when you know the character is going to get extreme and you need for them to still feel like someone you might know in real life.  She's also fantastic in Murder, My Sweet, Raw Deal, Dead End, and you might know her from Stagecoach.    

Here, she plays a woman seeking a divorce in classic 1940's fashion - by going to Reno for six weeks and then being granted her divorce.  As she's planning her return home, her neighbor is murdered by a jealous boyfriend, played by Lawrence Tierney.*  She doesn't know it was him, but she stumbles on the bodies but doesn't call the cops - wanting to stay out of whatever happened and just get home.