Youth Watch: Untamed Youth (1957)

Watched:  09/26/2026

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First, I believe

Director:  Howard W. Koch

This movie exists to accidentally stumble through two important social issues, but was mostly there so we could watch Mamie Van Doren shake it in various states of (un)dress.

It's a movie capitalizing on the rising issues of juvenile delinquency and the exploitation of agricultural workers.  In this case, those workers are delinquent young adults (not teens) who get pinched by the local law for breaking minor infractions or all-together made up infractions.  Then they are pressed into service as indentured servants.

Bug Watch: Tarantula (1955)

Watched:  09/25/2026

Format:  YouTube

Viewing:  First

Director:  Jack Arnold

The only issue with this movie is John Agar.  

I mean, there's the general issue of John Agar being John Agar and I'm still mad about how he was to Shirley Temple.  But he's also a terrible actor.  He has  exactly one line delivery, whether he's inappropriately abandoning his medical practice to hit on Mara Corday or a tarantula the size of a battleship is walking toward him.

And it's a shame, because the movie has a few other actors - Leo G. Carroll who is dialing it in, and is still acting circles around him - and Mara Corday, who is doing her best to get Agar to do something other than just stare straight ahead and speak in a clipped, 1950's manly voice.

Stanwyck Watch: Jeopardy (1953)

Watched:  09/23/2026

Format:  TCM Noir Alley

Viewing:  First

Director:  John Sturges

I don't know how you can't be blown away by Barbara Stanwyck.  Just an incredible talent.  I might be a fan of, say, Marie Windsor, but I know when someone got Stanwyck, she was going to deliver in a way maybe only 1 or 2 of her contemporaries could.*

It's not like our preferred mode of horror and thrillers these days isn't "nice suburban people suddenly confronted with someone who will kill them".  And Jeopardy (1953) is absolutely in that mode.  

Anyway, this isn't a deep drama.  It's a fast-moving noirish thriller with a small cast, life or death stakes, and proof that kids are just bent on self-destruction, and keeping them safe is probably more trouble than it's worth.

Stanwyck co-stars with first Barry Sullivan, who plays her husband.  They're on a roadtrip from southern California into Mexico to go fishing with their young son, do some camping in a remote spot Sullivan found long ago.  

SPOILERS

Kubrick Watch: Barry Lyndon (1975)

Watched:  09/21/2026

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Director:  Stanley Kubrick

Somehow I'd never seen Barry Lyndon (1975).  I assume some part of my brain would look at the film and say "it won't be fun, and it's 3 hours" and would tap out before I could hit play.

In the past 20 years or so, the common wisdom I received in the 1990's - that the movie was dull or not Kubrick's best - seems to have evaporated and the film has received serious reconsideration.  But aside from "people in ruffles cavort in what looks like the second half of the 18th Century", I had no idea what the film was about.  That said, every film student knew that Kubrick's movie was shot with very special lenses, using only candlelight in many scenes -something unheard of in film production.  And I knew Barry Lyndon was supposed to be one of the most visually stunning movie ever produced, which... I mean, Kubrick.   You get that as part of the package.

Texas Watch: Friday Night Lights (Pilot)

Jamie has been along for the ride on DC's Lanterns.  Thanks to her proximity to me and my occasional, intrusive-thought driven monologues, she probably knows more about Green Lanterns than she ever bargained for in this life, so she was primed.  

But she also has been a Kyle Chandler stan since back in the day.  I get it.  

Anyway, that much Kyle Chandler reminded her of the pilot for Friday Night Lights.  

Both of us got vaccinated Friday and are slugging it out with our white blood cells, so when she put it on, I was in full support.

I'll argue two things:

1. The pilot for Friday Night Lights is maybe the best pilot of any TV show I've seen.  
2. Friday Night Lights captures Texas, at least the Texas of its era, the best of any movie or show.