Actor Diane Ladd Merges With The Infinite

I first came across Diane Ladd - at least saying "I know that actress is named Diane Ladd" - when I rented Wild at Heart in high school.  And that is one hell of an introduction to any actor.

Over the years, of course she's shown up in all sorts of things I've seen.  World's Fastest Indian, figuring out she's in Christmas Vacation, Something Wicked This Way Comes, etc...  She also is the mother of Laura Dern, with whom she appeared in several movies in addition to Wild at Heart.  

Here's to remembering Ms. Ladd and sharing condolences with her family.

Former Vice-President Dick Cheney Merges With The Infinite

Huh.  Dick Cheney died.

Noirvember Watch: Winchester '73 (1950)

Watched:  11/03/2025

Format:  Criterion Disc

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Anthony Mann

I don't think I've seen Winchester '73 (1950) since Jamie and I rented it circa 1998 when a Hollywood Video opened near us, and unlike Blockbuster, Hollywood prided itself on having a section for older films.  And the nice thing about that was that they had limited shelf-space, so if they had it in, the movie was pretty solid.  

The movie often gets mentioned in the discussion around "Western Noir", and seeing it now, I can absolutely see why.  It doesn't hurt that director Anthony Mann rewrote the film to better suit his interests, and his prior films included noir classics like Side Street, Border Incident, T-Men and plenty of others.  At any rate, Mann was familiar with putting a lead through the ringer and understanding that they can have an irrational obsession and still be a compelling protagonist.  

In this case, all we know is that Jimmy Stewart is playing Lin McAdam, who comes to Dodge City looking for Dutch Henry Brown, and it's a vendetta.  In Dodge City, he and his partner (Millar Mitchell) have to hand in their guns just as they come across Brown, also without a gun.  A lengthy shooting competition for a prized Winchester '73 rifle takes place with McAdam winning, but Brown steals the gun and makes off.

Soon, the gun is changing hands from Brown to an Indian Trader to a chief on a warpath, to a cowardly would-be criminal.  It's great stuff.  And along the way, we see early appearances of Rock Hudon as a war chief and Tony Curtis as a young cavalry soldier.  

Stewart's obsession will be reflected in 6 years in Johns Wayne and Ford's The Searchers, but here it feels like pure noir.  Millar Mitchell's sidekick is there to comment upon said obsession as well as keep our hero on the straight and narrow.  And even the ending, where our hero has accomplished his task (spoiler) sure feels like noir with Stewart looking haunted and having to realize even as he holds the female lead (Shelley Winters), he has no idea what to do now, or if the murder of his brother did anything at all to soothe the rage.

Yes, the movie co-stars Shelley Winters, and this may be the movie where she's totally fine.  At no time did I want to shoot her out of a cannon.  Dan Duryea shows up to add to the noir flavor and play Dan Duryea, even letting his hair flop in a scene.  God, he's an amazing asshole on screen.  It's amazing.*  Charles Drake plays "Steve", the world's greatest coward.  Character actors John McIntire and Jay C. Flippen are used exceedingly well.  

It's also shot (in monochrome) in the Tucson area, and makes excellent use of the western landscape.  Gorgeous stuff.  

I guess this movie was a sort of career-saver for Stewart, and allowed him to start playing more complicated roles.  I need to check out his re-teaming with Anthony Mann on The Naked Spur.  But I certainly think of Stewart as a guy who can and did do everything in his work, from Vertigo to Harvey.  I mean, come on.  

Anyway - I kind of loved it.  On the disc there's actualy a commentary track with James Stewart and I want to give it a listen ASAP.  

*I would pay $400 to watch a movie that was just 1950 Duryea and 1950 Richard Widmark insulting each other

Godzilla Day 2025

Happy Godzilla Day!

In 1954 on November the 3rd, Gojira made its debut in Japanese cinemas and changed the world forever.  No, really!  Imagine a world where we don't have Godzilla!  

Here in 2025, we're celebrating the 71st anniversary of Goji's debut, which Toho Studios now does each year by making announcements about what the year will bring.

Most important, Godzilla Minus One, one of my favorite movies of the past decade (Godzilla or otherwise) is getting a sequel, Godzilla Minus Zero.  Because Japan loves a good word problem, I guess.

No word on what will be in the new movie, but I saw a rumor that they're filming outside of Japan, which is kind of exciting.  No idea where, as the planet is large.  Bigger than Cleveland, even.

They also announced:

• An Augmented Reality Game
• A few toylines
• A bunch of stuff at the shop at Godzilla.com

And released this new short with full monster suit action!

I'm sure there's more, but I don't speak a word of Japanese and the Godzilla fansites are always weird and spotty.

Mostly, though, today is the day to celebrate a guy who has been my pal since I first knew anything about anything, and that's Godzilla.  Long may he stomp around and skreeeeeonk at everyone.

get down with your bad self, Goji

Hallmark Holiday/ Paul Watch: A Newport Christmas (2025)

Watched:  11/02/2025

Format:  Hallmark

Viewing:  First

Director:  Dustin Rikert

Pal PaulT worked behind the scenes on A Newport Christmas (2025), and had nice things to say about the production, so I wanted to get to this movie when it aired.  I did not expect it to air in early November, but I have a broken foot, anyway, and had been laid up all weekend, so here we go.

From time-to-time, Hallmark's willingness to indulge in Christmas Magic has included Time Travel of the Somewhere in Time variety - people falling in love after one of them gets time-shifted, sometimes someone from modern times going into the past, and sometimes someone from the past coming to the here-and-now.  This movie is the latter, with a Newport, Rhode Island heiress of 1905 coming to 2025.

I was messaging Paul a bit as the movie rolled along asking him questions and I did mention to him that it was very odd that this Hallmark Christmas movie had some of the tightest time travel logic I'd seen on display in a time travel movie in a while.  

At Hallmark, it's been Christmas Since October 17th

In case you were wondering, we're already Counting Down to Christmas over at the Hallmark Channel.  

Back in September we shared Hallmark's forewarnings, and the schedule, as it was then published.  What it didn't indicate was that Hallmark was dipping into its now endless stash of movies and that, as near as I can tell, they went into Christmas rotation on two of the three Hallmark channels on October 17th with the arrival of a new seasons of The Mistletoe Murders.  But, for days beforehand, they had been playing Christmas stuff, but I didn't really pay it much mind.

For those who don't check in on these things, Hallmark moves around when it goes all in on the Christmas season, and in many years refuses to stick to the internationally favored Mariah Carey Calendar, which declares 12:00 AM on November the First as when we can begin prepping for the holidays.  

Final Hallo-Watch: Frankenhooker (1990)

Watched:  10/31/2025

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  Frank Henenlotter

So, I wrapped up Halloween with Frankenhooker (1990) a movie I've somehow not seen before in the past 35 years, but been aware of since at least 1993.

Wow.  They truly do not make them like this anymore.

I was never a Troma guy, but my continual viewing of USA Up All Night in the 1990's should be a sign of what I will tune to on a Friday night.  I am happy to go in for questionable taste.  I am a person of deeply questionable taste, if this blog is any indication.

My favorite bit was the revived Elizabeth storming around Manhattan spouting prior dialog and knocking people over.  That's just good stuff.  I guess Patty Mullen was a Penthouse pet who barely did any movies, but she really went for it and she's really funny.

Anyway, the movie is kinda exactly what I expected in some ways, but vacillated between truly hilarious and "okay, I get it.  We can move on." in the ways of these kinds of movies.  What I will say is that the end was *chef's kiss*.  Glad I finally watched it.

JLC Hallo-Watch: Halloween H20 - 20 Years Later (1998)

Watched:  10/30/2025

Format:  HBOmax

Viewing:  First

Director:  Steve Miner

This movie has a "and introducing Josh Hartnett" credit at the beginning, and knowing what we'd soon know about Hartnett's quality as a lead and Hollywood hunk...  it's absolutely inexplicable that he has one of the dumbest haircuts in cinema.  I was alive and a young adult in 1998.  Nobody had this haircut, this was not a haircut I literally saw on anyone then, before then, or since. It's somewhere between the male version of the Karen/ Kate Gosselin haircut, like he just woke up, like maybe he deeply offended a barber, or someone pulled a prank on him or her took pinking shears to his own head.  

"...so you're saying there's a chance?"

It's so odd, in part because the hair changes moment by moment in the film, like they really couldn't manage it.  It required some weird trimming, and in some shots it's one way, and some shots it's not, and he just looks insane through the whole movie.

The haircut is just a minor indicator of what's happening with Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later (1998), a shockingly unnecessary movie and a reminder of why sequels and horror movies have such a bum rap with many critics.  It is predictable, it's not enough and too much, doesn't seem to know when Halloween occurs or think the holiday matters in the Halloween franchise.   

Hallo-Franken-Watch: The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

Watched:  10/30/2025

Format:  4K

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  James Whale

What's not to like in Bride of Frankenstein (1935)?

Yes, if you come in expecting to be genuinely scared, that won't happen.  If you want to see something weird, uncanny, funny, touching, cheer-worthy, wildly subversive and camp (a word we throw around a lot but don't correctly use), Bride is your movie.  

This movie is about so many things.  

Rather than have someone directly speak to the audience in this installment, we recreate the Percy and Mary Shelley (nee Godwin) and Lord Byron conversations that famously spawned Frankenstein.  Mary Shelley is posed as the one explaining the hubris of what we're to see, as the scene echoes what will come later with Dr.'s Frankenstein and Pretorious.  

Hallo-Franken-Watch: Frankenstein (1931)

Watched:  10/28/2025

Format:  4K

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  James Whale

As longtime readers know, every year I watch Frankenstein (1931) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935) as we enter the spooky season.  

Since last Halloween, I picked up the first film in 4K, curious about how a film I know as much for its 1930's black and white grain and the hiss on the soundtrack as I know any other aspect of the movie would present in the format.  Would they clean it up, or if would they leave those artifacts intact?  

The answer is: aside from one shot, I highly recommend this 4K transfer.  There's some hiss and some grain, but especially that hiss familiar to early sound films has been reduced to a less noticeable white noise.  The grain is still there, more or less.  I was replaying it with a commentary track (that was great) and walked close to the TV and it is WILD to see what the pixels are doing with this black and white.

I didn't pick up any weird AI mucking with the picture, and it just mostly looked like a very clean print, with many of the minute defects corrected.  In one shot, an item in the foreground is kind of wobbly, like the algorithm didn't know what to do with it.  But I'll leave that for you to discover (though I'll never not see it now).