Neo-Noir Watch: Tequila Sunrise (1988)

Watched:  07/27/2026

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Director:  Robert Towne

Tequila Sunrise (1988) was, to me, the sort of movie parents would go see whilst leaving the kids at home in those heady days of "they have fishsticks and can work the oven."  The film was advertised to adults, rated-R, and didn't look like a cop movie where our hero shot the place up and made jokes.  So my interest was muted.  Also, I don't remember having HBO when this likely aired and so I missed that window as well.

As a neo-noir, Tequila Sunrise feels positively old-school, like it should star Victor Mature and Richard Conte as opposite sides of the law who were boyhood pals and now find themselves at odds.  

Wait, that's Cry of the City.  Terrific film.

Happy Birthday, Hannah Waddingham

Today, July 28, marks the birthday of star of stage and screen, Hannah Waddingham.  

This year has been pretty good for Ms. Waddingham.  

She has starred in what appears to be a successful series for Amazon Prime, Ride or Die (our post on it will arrive after we've finished the series).  Threads tells me many people did not know of her before, and... welcome to where I've been living since, like, 2021.  

She's got a new season of Ted Lasso set to drop in August and a fanbase primed and ready.  Her Fox show, Krapopolis continues on (I catch it once in a blue moon).  And she's been announced as starring in one movie with Guy Pearce and a separate movie, promisingly titled Jason Statham Stole My Bike, with the eponymous action star.  

And, she's lent her voice to an animated project by Sir Paul McCartney - coming soon.  

Not bad.

Social media tells me she keeps popping up places like Wimbledon and at F1, and that seems like a pretty good way to live one's downtime.  I believe she's also found a suitor who she can stand next to in heels, and that's got to be a bonus.

Happy Birthday, Hannah Waddingham!

Island Watch: Eden (2025) / The Galapagos Affair - Satan Came to Eden (2013)

Eden (2025)

Watched:  07/25/2026

Format:  Library Disc

Viewing:  First

Director:   Ron Howard

This is a movie about living in a place that's pretty good, but the place suddenly gets overrun by people who read an article saying the place was cool.  Because the people who moved there, wrongly believing themselves cool (and therefore heirs to the cool place), bring their suckiness to the place - the transitive powers of their suckiness, large numbers and insistence on changing the nature of what made the place cool to begin with, make that place which was once cool now suck.  

Eventually the place sucks so much, helped along with the participation of government stooges hoping for money and glamour, things in the place become straight up bleak.  

In short, this is the story of Austin, Texas.

When Eden (2025) was released, reviews were kind of all over the place, but I was curious.  I don't tend to think of Howard as a director who does grittier movies about sordid topics like sex and violence.  The movie had a fascinating cast - Jude Law, Vanessa Kirby, Ana de Armas, Daniel Bruhl, Sydney Sweeney...  A movie requiring minimal FX, and where shit gets very real as people scrape for survival in what is now an infamously inhospitable living.  And turn on each other.