Chabert Watch: Be My Baby (2007)

Watched:  01/29/2026

Format:  Disc

Viewing:  First

Director:  Bryce Olson

One of the worst movies I've ever seen.  

Just amazing.

I found this disc for cheap a couple weeks back and have been putting this off because the reviews were not kind.  And for a long time, I was fine avoiding it, because it looked awful.  But here we are.

Be My Baby (2007) wants to be a particular kind of comedy about stunted adulthood and the world's most this-would-never-work scam.  It's entirely misanthropic til its confusing and unearned ending, and I cannot fathom how this got funding if someone didn't just have rich parents.

The script is a trainwreck starting with the concept.  The issues continue with the look and sound of the film - all very "student film" with awkward set-ups and occasional room echoes, etc... which do the movie no favors.  Completely flat lighting, etc.. Wooden acting.  Every take feels like "we're gonna get this in two takes and then we have to move on."  A product of a low-rent production.  Fine.  I've seen way worse.

But, my god, the actual story....

I don't know what was going on in Los Angeles from about 1995-2015, but the belief in the baseline shittiness of humanity that drives the whole premise of so many of these low budget movies is absolutely wild.

Wise Watch: A Game of Death (1945)

Watched:  01/27/2026

Format:  YouTube

Viewing:  First

Director:  Robert Wise

Technically I should have watched The Body Snatcher (1945) next in my Robert Wise movie marathon, but I just watched that in April, so I'm going to save it for October.  It's a solid horror entry, so let's do that in the spooky season.

So, instead, I found A Game of Death (1945) on YouTube.*

Minimal surprises here, really.  It's an adaptation of the Richard Connell short story The Most Dangerous Game, which might as well be called "the most frequently adapted/ riffed upon/ re-done plot in movies".  

A wartime-era movie, it stars people who were not part of the war effort, and the only familiar face was Audrey Long, who will also be in the movie again in two movies when we hit Born to Kill.  Our lead is John Loder, who, honestly I simply don't recognize, but he's in Now, Voyager, so.  

I give Robert Wise and RKO a lot of credit here.  They don't shy away from the implications of the film, or how psychotic everything is, even if they give our villain an out - that he's suffering some sort of mental instability since he got crosswise with a Cape Buffalo that bonked him on the head.**

But the vibe of the movie is dark from the start as we watch a ship get tricked into wrecking itself, and swiftly realize it was intentional, everyone else is dead, and what our hero has walked into.  And what plans our villain (Edgar Barrier) has for the stranded woman once he offs her brother.  

The two servants are appropriately creepy, Gene Roth playing the cruel German henchman and Hollywood utility player Noble Johnson.  

The hunt sequence makes excellent use of someone's jungle sets, and Wise puts the camera behind the hunted in some visually striking sequences.  

All in all, the movie is fine.  It feels smarter than you'd expect here and there - allowing our hero to never be an idiot or be more than a step behind the audience and what it knows, and maybe a few steps ahead.  

The one thing I'd say that could have been hilarious would have been if when the villain gives our hero a knife before sending him into the jungle, if dude would have stabbed the baddie right there and proclaimed himself the winner.   I honestly don't know why he didn't.  

*I now have a policy of "it's fine" if I watch a movie on YouTube that has been uploaded by someone unofficial.  Look, the studios are refusing to make a lot of movies available via legitimate means, which means they've abandoned both the movies and the audience for those movies.  If they want money, they need to stop letting accountants drive decisions regarding access.  They can put the movie on YouTube as easily as MovieFiend668 or whatever

**I just recently watched a YouTube on how dangerous Cape Buffalo are - and they're responsible for an absurd number of human deaths each year.

Sal Buscema Merges With the Infinite

Sal Buscema was just one of those names I learned to recognize as one of the greats when I got into comics.  

The truth is, artists come, and artists go.  Most don't last.  Comics is a tough business.  And Sal had the extra challenge of being the sibling of one of the most prolific, beloved artists in comics, John Buscema.  But he became as well known and made his own mark - becoming one of the most beloved artists at the House of Ideas and doing some work for DC.

Honestly, I kind of think Sal Buscema's style bridges the gap between the classic Marvel style and Marvel's more modern look as it passed through the 70's to the 90's.  

Sal passed last week at the age of 89.  

Chabert Freeze Watch: All of My Heart (2015)

Watched:  01/24/206

Format:  Hallmark

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Peter DeLuise

I am logging everything.  Normally I wouldn't have mentioned this re-watch, but this is what we put on while we were waiting to see if we were going to lose power on Saturday night.  

As your foremost Chabert movie expert, this is definitely one of the better written parts she's been given at Hallmark, and she works very well with co-star Brennan Elliot.  

If you're worried you're about to lose power and need to put something on while you panic mildly, this is perfectly fine.

Noir Watch: Shield for Murder (1954)

Watched:  01/26/2026

Format:  TCM Noir Alley

Viewing:  First

Directors:  Edmond O'Brien and Howard W. Koch

This movie has some really interesting stuff, and maybe exploits some of the actual issues cops deal with for entertainment and shock value.  It's not the best movie - it drags in some places and feels like it's stretching to reach feature length once you kind of see where all of this is going.  But thematically, it's right there in the mix with the darker noir films.

Police detective Barney Nolan (Edmond O'Brien) kills a man in an alley and takes a stack of money off of him - $25,000 (roughly $300K in 2025 dollars).  He tells his pal and fellow cop Mark (John Agar - the ex Mr. Shirley Temple) that he was trying to bring in the bookmaker, but things got messy and shots were fired.

Soon after, Barney is picking up his young girlfriend, Patty (Marla English) and showing her a model home he says he'll buy.  Meanwhile, he hides the money beneath the house.

A pair of Private Eyes, thugs from the gangster who the money belonged to, start snooping around.  And a witness comes forward who saw everything, and Barney can't have that.

The movie has a scene with a platinum blonde Carolyn Jones as a bar fly.  

The basic gist of the film is a character study of a cop who has always been a good guy, but he's worn down by everything he's seen, and the knowledge he'll never get ahead while the crooks run around with $25,000.  How far will he go for his slice of the pie?  And how crazy will it make him?

As Eddie Muller hinted at during the intro, it just doesn't seem like Edmond O'Brien is anyone's favorite - and I'm probably in agreement.  He's not a bad actor, he's just not a favorite, but he's in enough noir films, he starred in two of three I watched this weekend.  Clearly this movie meant a lot to him, and he directs himself just fine here.  But never has it been more clear that a star was twice the age of the woman he's paired with and with so little chemistry.  It's just hard to buy.

There are some dynamite sequences, like a brutal sequence where we realize how far gone O'Brien is when he's cornered by the detectives in an Italian restaurant.  And a shoot-out at an indoor pool.

Anyhoo, I've seen that poster above for years and never came across the movie itself, so it's a delight to finally watch the thing.  

Happy Birthday, Krypto

Today marks the 71st anniversary of the first appearance of Krypto the Superdog in Adventure Comics 210.  

Krypto appeared 17 years or so after Superman first appeared and 10 years after we'd been introduced to Superboy - tales of Superman when he was a boy.  In short, Superman had been around, had a radio show and had been on television for three years by the time Krypto appeared in a Superboy story.

Until Krypto appeared, four years before Supergirl, Superboy had been really the only survivor of Krypton.  This space-faring dog was Superboy's first real, direct connection to not just his home planet, but his actual parents and home.

While Krypto was shown to be an untrained pest (shades of 2025's Superman movie), he was also a fellow, last Kryptonian.  

His story in this comic was that he was the El family dog who had been sent by Jor-El in a test rocket that got knocked off course and lost in space until the events of this issue, Superboy arriving on Earth and becoming a teen in the interim.

Texas Noir Watch: The Houston Story (1956)

Watched:  01/25/2026

Format:  YouTube

Viewing:  First

Director: William Castle

The funny thing about The Houston Story (1956) is that there's probably a good idea for a movie in here, somewhere between a less dumb and horny Landman and less intense There Will Be Blood, but the script is so phoned in, it's both a mess and a little too pat.  But it does make Della Street (aka: Barbara Hale) seem like a bombshell, so it has that going for it.

It took me a minute to realize this is the kind of movie where our lead is a true noir protagonist - he's not on the side of the angels, he's a guy who's seen an angle and he's pursuing it to the top.  I read Lee J. Cobb was originally slated to play the role, and I can see that completely.  Instead we get Gene Barry - who is good! - but who didn't give "morally ambiguous POV character" in the first ten minutes of the movie.

Essentially, Barry plays an oil-field worker.  He gets the attention of the Houston mob by identifying a corpse found beneath the "docks of Houston" as a woman he know in Oklahoma.  However - that isn't who it is.  Barry happens to know that the woman he's named is actually living in Houston under the name Zoe Crane and mixed up with a second-banana mobster.  

Totter Noir Watch: Man In The Dark (1953)

Watched:  01/24/2026

Format:  YouTube

Viewing:  First

Director:  Lew Landers

I always like a movie that's entire premise is based on 1950's-era psychological science.  

Edmond O'Brien plays a former gangster who has been pinched.  Facing a minimum 10 year stretch, he agrees to a bit of Clockwork Orange scientification.  A doctor is going to perform surgery on his brain to remove his criminal element or some such.

On the other side of the surgery, he can't remember who he was or what he used to do, and is no longer a shady crook, I guess.  From a detective for an insurance company, we learn O'Brien boosted $130K prior to his incarceration, but nobody knows where it is, and now that includes O'Brien himself.*   O'Brien coming along fine when his old gang kidnaps him/ liberates him.  

For reasons that amount to "we're real dumb", the old gang thinks for way too long that O'Brien is faking his amnesia.  They trot out his girlfriend, Audrey Totter, to convince him to play ball.  Eventually, she realizes he doesn't remember she was his girlfriend - and, if I may, that would seem like a welcome surprise.

Anyway, Totter never really liked O'Brien before - or at least knew she was disposable to him.  But she likes this new version.  

But as the crooks (led by Ted de Corsia) start to press, O'Brien has a dream with clues!  Memory clues!  And they find a slip of paper with a number that must mean something.  

Anyway - it means going to the Oceanpark Pier pier you see in one in every 20 film noir movies, and having a face-off.  

Highlights of the movie include:  

• it has a dream sequence that isn't a patch on Spellbound, but is still entertaining
• plenty of Laffing Sal
• Audrey Totter in smashing dresses
• an extended "getaway" flashback sequence with no story impact that I am pretty sure is on the roofs of the backlot at the studio
• the only fistfight I've ever seen on a roller-coaster track while it's operational.  Some real stunt work here.

I wouldn't say the movie is great or essential, but Totter feels weirdly too good for this movie, putting depth into her character that I'm not sure the movie earns. So if you're looking to catch another solid role for her, here you go.

If the movie seems a bit odd, visually, it is a 2D presentation of a 3D movie.  So that might explain the long escape sequence and a few other scenes.  I am very curious how the roller coaster sequences would have looked.  Pretty good, I expect.

There is a curious "will he go back to his wily, crooked ways" tension to the movie, but it's really just about survival.  Why O'Brien doesn't just go to the cops, I do not know.  It does mean he punches a dude off the hill of a rollercoaster track, so...  it's not like this is entirely a "on the side of the angels" ending.

*I would think handing over the money would have been key to the court agreeing to let O'Brien be a scientific subject, but the ethics of experimenting on prisoners is at best a gray area in this movie

I think I did a phenomenal job not making any jokes about Totter in 3D.  Please clap.

Dog Watch: Air Bud (1997)

Watched:  01/23/2026

Format:  YouTube

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Charles Martin Smith

I am unsure why, but for about a decade-and-change, America loved a kids movie about an animal playing sports.  A lot of these were apes or monkeys, but the foremost animal-athlete was Buddy, star of Air Bud (1997).  

It's been probably since 1999 or so since I actually watched this movie, thought "well, it's a kids movie and not for me" and went on with my life.  But thanks to the younger generation growing up with this movie, it's been meme'd, and, of course, John Oliver has been making Air Bud discussion a feature of his YouTube videos.  

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3

Well worth your time and mind-space, I assure you.  

Oscar Nom Re-Watch: Sinners (2025)

Watched:  01/22/2026

Format:  HBOmax

Viewing;  Second

Director:  Ryan Coogler

I guess they announced the Oscar nominees, and Sinners (2025) is up for a record 16 Oscars.  Jamie had already asked to watch this movie a few times, and I figured - hey, tonight's the night.  (I'd delayed because the movie is 2+ hours, and I wanted to do it in one sitting.)

In my 2025 Favorite Movies list, it came in as Honorable Mention, just behind Flow, which I called my Favorite of 2025.  But I'll let you in on a little secret (pssst.  Scoot closer)  Ya see  - it's kinda arbitrary.  I could have picked either movie.  

I will say, Sinners isn't a different movie on a rewatch, but it's really, really good as a rewatch - and is a different experience.  It's very well written and edited (along with everything else, which is why they're throwing award noms at it), so when you know what's coming - things definitely have a different weight to them.  

All that said, I don't actually want to talk too much about the movie again.  I dunno, here's my post from April.  I probably liked it even better on a second viewing.  

Yes, it has received a lot of nominations, and it's kind of wild, but there are a variety of reasons that's true - including the film's overall popularity and watchability while still managing to reflect on the sorts of themes Academy voters tend to like to nominate.  The performances across the board sell the movie, and it's, if nothing else, pretty @#$%ing novel.  

Masters of the Universe Movie: So, Nostalgia is a Weird Thing

So, there's a new trailer out for a He-Man movie.

And then I saw writer Chris Roberson said, over on Bluesky:

Hallmark Watch: Frozen In Love (2018)

Watched:  01/21/2026

Format:  Hallmark

Viewing:  First

Director:  Scott Smith

Here in real life, we're prepping for a winter storm coming this weekend, and I knew I was planning to finish watching Mademoiselle Fifi in the evening, so we threw on this RomCom from Hallmark, Frozen In Love (2018).  

The film is not a Christmas movie, but the stuff Hallmark programs, post-holidays, to fill the winter months.  Yes, there is snow and ice and ice hockey in this movie.  No, I don't know anything about hockey.

Wise Watch: Mademoiselle Fifi (1944)

Watched: 01/21/2026

Format:  YouTube

Viewing:  First

Director:  Robert Wise

Our viewing of movies by Robert Wise continues with Mademoiselle Fifi, a 1944 movie, made during the darker days of World War II, using the Franco-Prussian War as a wispy-thin analog for the German occupation of France and a clear show of support for the French Resistance.  

This is Wise's first solo directorial effort, but you'd never know.  The movie seems assured of the handling of actors as it does of camera management and tone.  

The movie is intended as an odd propaganda - yes, stateside it would be seen as pro-French Resistance, but also would have informed Americans of what it means to be occupied, and how those under the bootheel may react in ways noble, practical and cowardly.  And, that some may not see much different day-to-day, or take advantage of cozying up to the occupiers.  I cannot assume this would have been very comfortable for movie go-ers who may have wanted to have less nuanced takes on the occupation.

Happy Birthday, Geena Davis

Hey!  It's the birthday of Geena Davis!  Who doesn't like Geena Davis?  

I believe my intro to Davis was as Larry in Fletch.  After that, she was just sort of omnipresent in movies.  But I decided she was *great* (post-Oscar win) when I saw Thelma & Louise and A League of Their Own within a year of each other.  

I didn't see a few of her bigger movies til well after the fact, but I can always say, along with Sigourney Weaver and a few others, if you say "hey, Geena Davis is in it", I'll watch it.  

Davis is less in the spotlight these days - the last thing I saw her in was GLOW, where she crushed it as a casino manager and former showgirl.  But she's not just doing the acting and producing thing (she's a very successful TV and film producer).  She founded the Geena Davis Institute.  

I think she's the right person to have started such an org, and their work is important, bringing research and spotlights to issues of "equitable representation in media" (from their website).  

Here's to Geena Davis - trailblazing and playing my favorite ballplayer in a movie.

Also, she once surprised Stuart at work.

Noir Thriller Watch: Diabolique (1955)

Watched:  01/19/2026

Format:  Noir Alley on TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  Henri-Georges Clouzot

Diabolique (1955) hangs heavy over so much of cinema that, like many other films I've both finally watched - or still haven't seen (hello, Bicycle Thieves) - the very weight of it made it seem like homework instead of watching something for the sake of watching a movie.  

It also makes these movies difficult to write about.  I don't guess I'm ever breaking new ground, but when it comes to something with the gravity of this film, what's the point of writing about it, really?

But even I thought it was ridiculous I'd never seen Diabolique.  Spousal murder movies are part-and-parcel for noir, from probably before Double Indemnity.    

Anyway - TCM's Noir Alley programmed the movie, and what better way to frame the movie than with Eddie Muller's brand of bar room rather than classroom?  

The film is both familiar - it's been ripped off endlessly in the ensuing 71 years - and yet it remains unique and surprising in other ways.  A post-WWII France, still sorting itself,makes for an interesting locale.  The economic situation is still rough, and the occupation has left its shadow and scars.  It's also made in France and therefore the Hayes Code isn't so much a factor.  But I'd really point to the characters and performances.  Grade A stuff riding a Grade A script..

At a boys' boarding school - the principal is carrying on with a teacher with the full knowledge of his wife, a timid woman with a heart condition.  However, the principal abuses the teacher, and somehow - the wife and the mistress have fallen into a conspiratorial friendship.  Even as we meet them, they're planning how to kill the principal and make it look like an accident.

Vera Clouzot - wife of the writer/ director - plays the wife of the principal.  She is, frankly, stunning in a complex, conflicted role, asked to play so many things, and she pulls it all off brilliantly.  It's simply one of those roles that will never play as outdated and because of the legacy of the film, will keep Clouzot in the public mind despite having only three film roles to her resume (she passed 5 years later).

I don't know what to say - yeah, the movie met expectations.  Windy, twisty, unrelentingly tense...  and, of course, with an ending good enough that they ask the audience not to share the end with anyone right there at the film's conclusion - something I'm respecting here in 2026, and so I'm not discussing the film too much more.  

Anyway - that one is now checked off. 

Clouseau Watch: The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976)

Watched:  01/19/2026

Format:  BluRay Disc

Viewing:  First

Director:  Blake Edwards

We've been having a hard time synching up of late, so Simon returned to Signal Watch HQ at 9:15 AM with this movie in hand.  

I am happy to say, I very much enjoyed The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976), another installment in the Inspector Clouseau series of films starring Peter Sellers and directed by Blake Edwards.  

Taking off from the last film, it runs with the Herbert Lom character, former Chief Inspector Dreyfus, escaping an insane asylum and threatening the world unless they hand over or kill Inspector Clouseau.  In a way, this is the plot of Man of Steel, by the way.  

Recurring jokes recur - like Clouseau in terrible disguises, Kato attacking Clouseau...  but much like a Looney Tunes episode, it's all very welcome.  And the vibe is somewhere between Looney Tunes, Bond and prior Pink Panther films.  

Omar Sharif makes a bonus appearance, we see a *very* early Deep Roy appearance, and Lesley-Anne Down makes a convincing argument for herself.

All in all, recommended.  The jokes hold up, and even scenes that could be read as homophobic kind of aren't.  

Anyway, I'll keep it short because I hate explaining jokes, and the whole movie is a joke machine.  

Happy Birthday to Elizabeth "Bitsie" Tulloch

Happy b-day to Bitsie Tulloch, the actor who brought Lois Lane to life on the recent TV show, Superman & Lois.  If you haven't seen it - fix that now.

Tulloch brought exactly the vibe I was looking for in Lois Lane on a show I admit I was deeply skeptical of when it went into production.  But I happily watched all four seasons, and would have continued had WB not hard-rebooted their entire slate the past year.

Tulloch has had plenty of roles, including the lead on the entire run of NBC's show Grimm, but I'm always reminded - she's multi-lingual and a Harvard graduate.  No dummy, this Lois.  

Not sure what her next roles will be, but we'll certainly be paying attention.

Happy Birthday, Dolly Parton

Happy Birthday to singer, song-writer, performer, actor, philanthropist, movie producer, theme park mogul, and all-around American Icon, Dolly Parton.  Today, she turns 80.  

Here's her latest - a Dolly classic, but now with some friends aboard.  This version was released over this weekend, I believe:

"Up All Night" with Rhonda Shear is Back!

,

Back during some crucial years of my late high school and college years, I basically couldn't sleep.  Long after my folks had gone to bed on the weekend, I'd be up... all night.  And in those days, even cable channels went off the air or rolled over to infomercials. 

But the USA network, a sort of junk drawer of basic cable, knew some of us insomniacs were up for nonsense before we finally gave up and went to bed.  And every weekend, they gave us two or three movies on Fridays and Saturdays, with interstitials featuring pals to take us into the wee hours.  

a true symbol of America's golden age

JLC Regret Watch: Virus (1999)

Watched:  01/16/2025

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director  John Bruno

A while back, I read that Signal Watch fave Jamie Lee Curtis has at least one movie she made which she'll publicly drag.  Which made me curious.  And that movie was Virus (1999), a sci-fi schlock-fest. 

Having just sat through the hour and forty minutes of Virus, I am in agreement with JLC.  This movie is very, very not good.  

It's an alien-invasion film (on a boat!) where it feels like the movie is just abusing your willing suspension of disbelief while delivering scenes and sequences from other movies you've seen before and is daring you to keep watching.

Our plot:  a wave of candy-colored cosmic energy passes through the Mir Space Station, which, in turn, shoots a beam of candy-colored energy into a Russian science vessel.  The beam blasts energy around the ship while the captain is alarmed it's accessing the mainframe (boy we were worried about mainframes still in 1999) and we cut to a standard, post-Abyss rag-tag working crew of a tug boat in a hurricane.