Friday Watch: Fantastic Four - First Steps (2025)

Watched:  08/21/2026

Format:  Disney+

Viewing:  Fourth?

Director:  Matt Shakman

First - I am no longer discussing Marvel movies as *movies*.  It's ludicrous to do so.  No one has tried and achieved everything Marvel Studios has done, and to pretend any of what is happening in any single movie is not part of a greater whole is untruthful.  If your problem is that a Marvel movie is tied to other Marvel movies and TV shows, the door is that way. 

We already talked about this movie twice before when I saw it in the theater (twice) and then when my dad came over to keep an eye on me after I had a big screw put in my foot (on purpose) and was recuperating/ hopped-up on goofballs.

But with Doomsday coming, I'd been thinking about the movie a great deal.  After all, Victor was conspicuously absent in this Fantastic Four movie, but it sure seemed to point to where things are going as the FF are all over one of the trailers.

HEAVY SPOILERS AND POINTLESS SPECULATION BELOW

Happy Birthday, Kim Cattrall

Happy Birthday to League fave Kim Cattrall.

Whether she's having Big Trouble in Little China, Sex in the City, taking a Split Second, or heading off for Star Trek 6's Undiscovered Country, we're a fan.

I'm not sure what she's up to at the moment, but we hope she's having a good time.

In the words of Crow T. Robot:

Marxist Watch: The Cocoanuts (1929)

Watched:  08/19/2026

Format:  TCM on DVR hosted by Eddie Muller

Viewing:  First

Director:  Robert Florey and Joseph Stantley

Apparently the first-ish Marx Bros. movie, The Cocoanuts (1929) is also an early talkie.  So, yeah, someone said "we're adding sound!" and someone said "What people need is to keep up with Groucho and then have Harpo say nothing.  Ever."

The movie is more interesting than laugh out loud funny - but it sure feels like a draft of what was to come and what would work for the Marx Bros. for years to come.  Playing scrappy underdogs not above some lightly criminal doings, but with hearts of gold, the Marx Bros. are dropped into a scenario where Groucho plays someone who has fallen backwards into legitimacy, while Chico and Zeppo show up on the scene to see what they can shake loose, moneywise, from a collection of wealthy people.

DC Animated Watch: DC's League of Super-Pets (2022)

Watched:  08/19/2026

Format:  Disc 4K

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Jared Stern

One of the oddest of casualties of a certain point in time was DC's League of Super-Pets (2022).  

Started before COVID and then, mind-bogglingly, released during COVID as a kids' movie - it seemingly tanked at the box office.  Fun note:  it made $80 million more than Supergirl.

My memory was - people found the advertising very confusing, and the notion of Superman having a *dog* seemed preposterous to the uninitiated.  One wonders how a kid's movie about Krypto would fare now.  

DC's "Lanterns" Episode 1

I used to love Green Lantern comics.  I came to Green Lantern by reading Emerald Dawn and then Emerald Dawn II.*  But GL and it's cast were a lot, and so I was an inconsistent reader for years.  I eventually fell into the monthly habit, and was there for the last of Kyle's run as the only Lantern, the return of Hal Jordan, elevation of John Stewart and eventually Geoff Johns' expansion of the Lantern spectrum.

A few things killed Green Lantern for me. Repetition of the same story concepts.  No real notion of how to write stories that fulfilled the promise of space cops.  Stuff like that.

Unstuck Watch: Slaughterhouse-Five (1972)

Watched:  06/16/2026

Format:  TCM - first ever showing on the network

Viewing:  First

Director:  George Roy Hill

It's been many years since I read Slaughterhouse-Five, or the Children's Crusade: a Duty Dance with Death. So long ago that all I can say for certain is that it was post-2000 and probably before this blog was founded.  I was just old enough reading it to know my WWII history and a bit embarrassed I'd not read it earlier in life.

But Vonnegut is, hopefully, something that works for you no matter your age.

As it's been a while since I read the book, I won't spend energy comparing and contrasting.  Instead, I'll just suggest watching the movie Slaughterhouse-Five (1972) sometime if you've already read the novel.  If jumping straight to the movie, it also can't hurt to pre-load your knowledge of the last year of World War II in Europe, to get what audiences in 1972 would have likely known just through cultural osmosis.  Things like "oh... Dresden" may not mean as much to some folks here in 2026 and all that you would know is coming.

I won't get into whether what Billy experiences is real or not.  Y'all can make your own decisions and I don't think the answer is that easy.

Ghost Watch: The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)

Watched: 08/16/2026

Format:  TCM on DVR (Alicia Malone hosting)

Viewing:  First

Director:  Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Considered a bona fide classic, I knew the basics of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), but had never managed to get around to the film.  I had no predictions going in - just knew it was a romantic comedy about a widow who moves into a house haunted by the ghost of a former sea captain played by Rex Harrison.

I'm not sure how *funny* this movie is.  It's *charming* and there's humor, but it's more of what Alicia Malone, hosting with TCM, rightfully included into the now very popular genre of Supernatural Romance.  

Gene Tierney plays a widow (Mrs. Lucy Muir) and mother to a young Natalie Wood.  She has some income from her husband's holdings in a gold mine, and so chooses to leave her in-law's house in London to move to the sea-side and live a new life - pushing against turn-of-the-century decorum.  

Happy Birthday, Julie Newmar

Today is the birthday of screen star Julie Newmar, who has just a ridiculous filmography, but has been nerd-famous for decades as one of the women in the Catwoman costume on TV's Batman.  

see!

Newmar is a dancer and actor, and stands at a startling 5'11", which probably kept her from many roles over the years as she'd tower over most of Hollywood's leading men.  For this 6'5" blogger, we think this is just fine.

She appeared in Star Trek, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Call Me Madam, and plenty of others.  We've been looking for a DVD of the 1959 version of Lil' Abner for a while to see her take on Stupefyin' Jones.  You know, for film history research.

Today, she turns 93!  I hope she's having a good one.