Marvel Watch: Fantastic Four - First Steps (2025)

Watched:  07/27/2025

Format:  Drafthouse

Viewing:  First

Director:  Matt Shakman

Well, nothing says "I am a cool dude" like showing up for a 9:00 AM screening for Fantastic Four by yourself.  I don't know if 12-year-old me is dying inside or deeply impressed I'm still committed to the cause.

Fantastic Four is not a comic I read a lot.  I very much enjoy the first issues by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, but kind of lose interest after that - though Mark Waid's run is mind-boggling.  I do love the idea of the team as a bunch of science-adventurers more than just caped vigilantes,* and their individual personalities and the family dynamic.  Also, my earliest memories include watching that jenky Fantastic Four cartoon of the 1960's the movie references.  

I've never seen the Corman movie, but have seen the two 00's-era movies, and the 10's body-horror movie that was Fox's "edgy" take on the FF.  The movies were uniformly not-good, no matter what your Millennial nostalgia brain is trying to Space Jam Fallacy you into believing.

Coen Watch: Drive-Away Dolls (2024)

Watched:  07/25/2025

Format:  Peacock

Viewing:  First

Director:  Ethan Coen

Is anything more telling about what the Coen Bros. each brought to their team than that when the brothers decided to do independent projects, Joel Coen made a mannered and styled Macbeth and Ethan Coen made Drive-Away Dolls (2024)?  

The mix of high-brow and low-brow - even Raising Arizona has thematic and nigh-poetic aspirations - was their hallmark, with ultra-specific characters, absurdist humor, and deeply human stories - culminating in the excellence of their track record over years and movies that had a stamp audiences recognized and sought out.  

I was vaguely aware Drive-Away Dolls received very mixed reviews, and audiences were kind of irritated with it.  

Which, no kidding.  The movie isn't overly concerned with good taste or your politics or the horseshoe turn lefties online took into agreeing with the Catholic League about how movies are for perverts if they acknowledge sex and show blood with violence.  Instead, this flick is an old-fashioned pulp crime comedy with a heavy layering of what turns out to be the sense of oddball humor that the Coens always brought, that apparently was Ethan Coen's contribution.

Vroooom Watch: F1 - The Movie (2025)

Watched:  07/24/2025

Format:  Drafthouse

Viewing:  First

Director:  Joseph Kosinski

Growing up in the US, racing has been mostly NASCAR, and I just never got into stock car racing.  But Austin is, for vaguely shady reasons, home to an F1 track, and we all went from finding it weird to being kind of proud of it.  It's not Monaco or anything, but it's a feature few other cities have.  And, anyway, I started watching some videos about F1, and it is really neat.  But I'm only aware enough of autosports to know that they are infinitely complex and I don't know how any of it works. But rocket cars go super fast and that is cool.

Something about the trailer for F1: The Movie (2025) had me sold.  But I thought I'd probably see it at home on HBO eventually.  However, SimonUK had seen it, liked it, and recommended I check it out, so we went together.

And, yeah, I dug it.  Quite a bit, if I'm being honest.  If I came to watch F1 cars zip around, it does that a lot.

After the movie was over, SimonUK stated "it's basically Top Gun: Maverick in cars, but...  it works" and that is very correct.  This movie is directed and written by the director of Top Gun: Maverick, Joseph Kosinski, so do your own math.  

Doc Watch: Jaws @ 50 - The Definitive Inside Story (2025)

Watched:  07/10/2025

Format:  Hulu?

Viewing:  First

Director:  Laurent Bouzereau

A victory lap for Jaws, this doc is an uncritical look at the movie on its 50th anniversary.  And that's great!  How many movies earn this? 

There's interviews new and old, and despite the fact I think I've seen two prior Jaws documentaries, Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story (2025) still manages to feel a bit fresh as it provides some new info but mostly how it contextualizes the movie in 1975, after, and now.  Sure, there's the "making this was rough" parts of the doc, but more details abound and how much the film is now woven into Martha's Vineyard's shared history.  How involved the whole island really was - I really didn't know until now.

Spielberg is one of *the* storytellers of the last 70 years, so of course he's captivating on camera and his stories about the movie during and after are engaging - and maybe even true.

Many who worked on the film have since passed, of course, but there's still many around - those who played kids are now aging adults.  Lorraine Gary even appears.  Dreyfus, always a problem child, is not in the film except as archival footage, which is odd as he's been touring for years to supposedly talk about Jaws (I think he's been canceled or something recently, so maybe that got him cut).

But the biggest delight is learning that Emily Blunt is a huge Jaws nerd.  Who knew?

Superman Second Watch: Superman (2025) - Part 1 - Likes/ Dislikes/ Punk Rock Superman

You can follow our posts on Superman at this link, and our posts on the new movie, Superman (2025) at this link.

Watched:  07/12/2025

Format:  Drafthouse

Viewing:  Second

Director:  still James Gunn

For More on the Movie:

• Super Watch:  Superman (2025) - a pre review post
• Super First Watch:  Superman (2025)
• Superman Second Watch:  Superman (2025) - Part 1 - Likes/Dislikes/Punk Rock Superman
• Superman Second Watch: Superman (2025) - Part 2 - Characters
• Superman Second Watch: Superman (2025) - Part 3 -  If You Now Like Superman, Hooray!
• Super Third Watch:  Superman (2025)

We've already posted on seeing Superman (2025) as an initial, kinda spoiler-light/ spoiler-free take that was really about how gobsmacked I was to see a Superman movie that actually cared about four-color comics and what Superman actually stands for.  

While celebrating that the movie felt like a DC comicbook in that first post, I didn't get into the issues I had with the movie, because I wanted to make sure I didn't just miss something.  I also didn't discuss the characters beyond our primary trio of Superman, Lois and Lex - plus Krypto.  Or a few other things I figured I'd cover in a subsequent posts.

In this post, I really don't want to get too much into the social media stuff happening around this film, and, believe me... it is tempting.  There is some incredibly disappointing stuff happening out there.

SUPER SPOILERS AHEAD

What did and did not work

So what didn't work (for me)

Doc Watch: My Mom Jayne - a film by Mariska Hargitay (2025)

Watched:  06/28/2025

Format:  Max

Viewing:  First

Director:  Mariska Hargitay

I don't watch Law & Order much, but for a while back in the 00's and 10's, SVU was the one I'd watch in re-runs.  And Mariska Hargitay was hard to miss as the ultra-driven cop, Detective Olivia Benson.  But it was probably in the 2010's that I figured out her parents were screen legend Jayne Mansfield and body builder Mickey Hargitay.  

Mansfield is the stuff of Hollywood Babylon legend, following a career path that feels one-part Monroe, one-part Jane Russell.  I've seen only two or three Mansfield movies, and she struck me as very good at what she did (I liked her a lot in The Burglar), but she and I don't cross paths much in my TCM viewing.  

Once I knew about her parentage, I also never could quite sort out Mariska Hargitay's domestic situation, as I couldn't believe she'd even been born when Mansfield died in a car wreck in 1967.  It seemed Mariska was a smidge older than I'd guessed (good genes, I guess) - but she was three at the time, and in the car when it happened.  But, due to her age when Mansfield passed, Hargitay didn't have memories of her mother, and she wasn't raised by her.  

The doc, My Mom Jayne: a Film by Mariska Hargitay (2025), is Hargitay coming to terms with who her mother was, learning who she really was away from the public, and embracing her relationship with the woman she never really knew.  

Musical Watch: Wicked (2024)

Watched:  06/26/2025

Format:  Peacock

Viewing:  First

Director:  Jon M. Chu

I am a huge fan of the OG Wizard of Oz.  My second biggest regret about ending the podcast was not covering that movie before we put away our mics.  In my opinion, Wizard of Oz is not just an important film, it's a key to American film and culture.  

That said - I am fine with derivative works.  Of course people want to explore this amazing world in which Wizard of Oz takes place, to consider and deconstruct and shuffle around the cultural icons of the movie, look into the characters, themes, etc...  It's a bubbling well for interpretation, commentary and America.

Wicked (2024) came in riding decades of popularity as a stage show and soundtrack.  Idina Menzel and Kristen Chenowith were launched to super stardom with the show and became fixtures.  People who don't care about Broadway probably already knew two of the songs by osmosis before ever buying a movie ticket.  It's one of the few 21st Century Broadway shows to break into the pop consciousness like 20th Century shows like Oklahoma!, Phantom, Cats or Les Mis.  

This film adaptation did great at the box office and was at least an American phenomenon.  It did fine overseas, but likely suffered from being an English-language musical about a play that probably hasn't been getting seen in Beijing, etc...  quite yet.  And who knows if they care about The Wizard of Oz in Lichtenstein?

But in the states, it made almost half-a-billion dollars.  As the movie was released in late Fall, Christmas season 2024 was pink and green with the movie's merchandise and imagery everywhere.  It was kind of neat.

Doc Watch: Implosion - The Titanic Sub Disaster (2025)

Watched:  06/21/2025

Format:  Max

Viewing:  First

Director:  Pamela Gordon

Friday when I wrapped work, Jamie informed me that there was, in fact, a different documentary about the Titan submersible disaster currently playing on Max (part of the Discovery/ HBO partnership).  And so it was we put on Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster (2025).  

Just a couple of days ago, we wrote about Titan: The Oceangate Disaster which we watched on Netflix, so, yes, this is a second doc on the same topic.

Thanks to streamers seeing documentary as a fairly inexpensive endeavor, we often get more than one documentary on the same hot topic - and since the Fyre Festival adventure, I've liked watching dueling docs.  It gives me a chance to get more than one POV on a topic, and you do start feeling like you're triangulating on some version of reality as different film makers will pursue different angles.

In that prior write-up, I sort of raged against the myth of the maverick entrepreneur, so I won't repeat myself here.  

This doc is actually a great companion piece to the Netflix film with different interview subjects, some of whom share more of the mentality of Stockton Rush, some of whom were on the boat and are not covering their ass, and some saying out loud what you kind of have to suspect based on the evidence provided in both films, but which we still don't know for sure.

Doc Watch: Titan - The Oceangate Disaster (2025)

Watched:  06/18/2025

Format:  Netflix

Viewing:  First

Director:  Mark Monroe

(blogger's note:  we did also watch the other doc on this topic over on MAX)

Well.  This was horrifying.

I woke up this morning to another Space X rocket exploding on the pad.  Which is kind of normal when you're figuring out gigantic rockets (see the Atlas rocket program).  But the failure rate of Space X is starting to be a real stunner as booster after booster goes en fuego.  As is the insistence we get Tesla robot taxis on city streets when those taxis don't seem to recognize things like children in the road.

Also, I've worked for difficult people.  I have been a difficult people to work for.  What neither I, nor those people, have done is ignore and fire anyone who was coming along to warn us of catastrophe.  Especially catastrophe that would murder me 4000 meters beneath the ocean waves.

What Titan: The Oceangate Disaster (2025) manages to do is show how one ego run amok - and an absentee board, I'd argue - led directly to the death of five people for absolutely no reason.  

It's a story of a small kingdom, one with life and death stakes, where one guy's Ahab-like vision meant that employees needed an almost religious faith in a technology that clearly was not meant to do the thing it was required to do.  And our Ahab would ruin you if you crossed him.

I think in the wake of the news stories on Titan, we all had a pretty good idea that there had been signs.  What it was hard to know was how numerous, obvious and devastating the indicators of coming disaster had been and for how long.  

In simple terms, the doc lays out the case that systems we assume will be there didn't just fail, they don't exist.  

SPOILERS

Chabert X-Mas Watch: The Christmas Waltz (2020)

no idea why dude looks like he's about to abduct Chabert

Watched:  06/07/2025

Format:  Hallmark

Viewing:  First full time through

Director/ Writer:  Michael Damian

Job: Attorney 

Location of story:  Manhattan

new skill:  Waltzing

Man:  Will Kemp

Job of Man:  Dance instructor

Goes to/ Returns to:  It's all in Manhattan

Event:  The Christmas Dance show

Food:  Wedding cake?  

The curious thing about the Will Kemp/ Chabert movies is that (a) Chabert is *not* a classically trained dancer, and (b) Kemp is, like, 9 inches taller than her.  So it's not a traditional ballroom couple.  But it does fulfill some vision of a graceful man taking the audience's stand-in in Chabert and making sure you CAN dance.  And isn't that what it's all about?

The Christmas Waltz (2020) is about power-lawyer Chabert figuring out her perfect life and Christmas wedding are not happening when her absolute shitheel of a fiancé decides to take a promotion and move to Boston less than four weeks before their wedding.  I mean...  honestly, guy.

Chabert has signed them up for dance lessons for their wedding dance, but winds up using the lessons for herself, remembering she loved to dance as a child and walked away from it to lead the perfect life her fiancé just poured gasoline on, and then tossed a match.  

Comedy Watch: Summer of 69 (2025)

Watched:  06/06/2025

Format:  Hulu

Viewing:  First

Director:  Jillian Bell

So, Hulu has sort of decided to corner the market on horny teen comedies and stoner comedies through the American High company.  

We have a six-degrees-of-separation connection here as someone we know worked on the film, and I wanted to check it out.

This is a "not aimed at me" movie, and that's cool.  I'm a 50-year-old dude, and not a young woman.  But I still found it pretty funny.   But, yeah, this is a movie that seems to be speaking to the awkwardness of being a teen girl - especially a "good girl" teen girl, something I am unlikely to ever be.  But it's not like everyone was speaking Romanian, so I basically got it.  

Doc Watch: Pee-Wee as Himself (2025)

Watched:  05/26/2025

Format:  Max

Viewing:  First

Director:  Matt Wolf

Watching Pee-Wee as Himself (2025) is a strange journey.  There was a lot I didn't know up until when he joined The Groundlings, and then there was what I did know -  including the two arrests.  But in the end, the film kind of unravels a bit in a way that seems almost inevitable - surely director Matt Wolf laying the trail to let us know this is coming.

Beyond that, the doc faces the same problem that I found with the recent Steve Martin documentary.  It's a lengthy film, it criss-crosses the years and draws connections, but the subject is so practiced at maintaining their inner-selves, and their privacy, that even at the end, you feel like you barely saw anything even after 3 hours.  

Jumbles of photos from a childhood are interesting, but don't tell a story.  Talking heads commenting on what they're already framing are useful, and provide color, but it feels very carefully managed - we're told it's carefully managed.  We keep seeing the collections, but there's no discussion of what's in there, or why (and as a collector, I know there's a story behind everything).  We see his parents, but they won't ever come out and discuss them beyond "his dad was macho and may not have liked Paul's lifestyle".  His mother is a non-entity.

Both Paul Reubens and Steve Martin, who agreed to let themselves be known via documentary, still want to control, and so we get a look through a very narrow lens, which is better than nothing, but it feels more questions are raised than are satisfied.  If you want to spend time with how Pee-Wee came to be - then we've got a great film for you.  If you want to know Paul Reubens, that may not really happen.  

Marvel Re-Watch: Thunderbolts* (2025) - in which we really talk about Marvel in 2025

Watched:  05/25/2025

Format:  Drafthouse

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Jake Schreier

We had already seen Thunderbolts (2025) in the theater when the movie opened, but Jamie in particular wanted to see it again, and I'm a fun guy, so why not?

I enjoyed it on a second viewing maybe more than I initially liked it.  It really is a tight script, and I kind of reveled in the fact that the big set piece at the conclusion of the movie takes place without a shot fired.  This is near Doom Patrol territory in how we're approaching super-stuff.  

I've seen complaints about the palette of the movie, a gripe which seems to be missing the way movies work, and instead of saying "the aesthetic looks ugly.  They did it wrong" failing to ask "why does it look the way it does?  We know this was intentional."  Because the conclusion there is pretty @#$%ing obvious, and you're so close.

But we know all this.  So I want to talk about where we are with Marvel in 2025.

Box office for the movie is not amazing.  It's made something like $330 million, which I would happily take, but which is a pretty far cry from billions of dollars Marvel hopes to make with every movie.  But...

Soderbergh Watch: Black Bag (2025)

Watched:  05/10/2025

Format:  Peacock

Viewing:  First

Director:  Steven Soderbergh

So, this was the movie I meant to watch in the theater, but we walked out.  And, given the film's style and the necessity of following every line of dialog, I am very glad we made that decision.

I am unshocked that a movie directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender was very much my jam.

I don't want to get too much into the details of this espionage/ counter-espionage thriller.  Part of the joy is going in knowing very little other than that Fassbender and Blanchett are playing a pair of agents for an Mi6 sort of set-up, and seeds of doubt are planted.  

Marvel Watch: Thunderbolts* (2025)

Watched:  05/01/2025

Format:  Alamo 

Viewing:  First

Director:  Jake Schrierer

SPOILERS for a new movie

I won't belabor Marvel's trials and travails, real and imagined, over the past few years.  We all know the narrative.  It's not one I necessarily agree with, but it's out there.  

Does Thunderbolts feel different from other recent Marvel stuff?  Yes. In some ways.  Mostly the ways in which you don't feel like this movie fell out of a Marvel continuity Mad Lib generator that requires you remember what happened in a movie in 2009. It does the continuity thing correctly - we've seen almost everyone in this movie before - if you watched all the Marvel stuff (and I have, minus the What If? shows).   They don't break that continuity and may refer to it - but I think the story itself makes sense without all that, as long as you listen to what the characters say about themselves. 

Our characters are from the Black Widow film (White Widow, Red Guardian), Ant-Man and The Wasp (Ghost), Captain America (Bucky) and Falcon and the Winter Soldier (Valentina, John Walker).  It's a good mix.  Plus, Bob.

Coogler Watch: Sinners (2025)

Watched:  04/26/2025

Format:  Drafthouse

Viewing:  First

Director:  Ryan Coogler

I guess Marshall is my "there's a vampire movie out, we're going" buddy.  And, really, Marshall was the ideal movie buddy for this one.  He's an avid music fan, a musician, and his rock sensibilities - when I met him in the early 1990's - were blues-based.  He's also a fan of vampire flicks, although I don't think I've convinced him to watch the Hammer vampire flicks yet. 

In addition, Marshall is well-read, and with an academic background in creative fiction, his critical analysis is always impressive.  But he refused to send me a blog post for this movie so that I didn't have to write one.  He is refusing me this one simple request, and so I am hoping if I butter him up enough with this high praise, next time, he'll do it.

Anyway - count me in with the people who loved Sinners (2025), and am excited about seeing it again.

SPOILERS

It's Morbin' Time: Morbius (2022)

Watched:  03/22/2025

Format:  FX Movies

Viewing:  First

Director:  Michael Espinosa

A movie whose reputation proceeds it, Morbius (2022) was met with critical derision, a fan base that showed up *ironically*, and a star who seemed to agree - we can all have a laugh at this movie.

I don't even really know what's wrong with Morbius - but, yes, the vibe is off.  Nonetheless, I'll speculate based on the final product.  

Unlike Madame Web, you don't have the immediate feeling "something is very, very wrong" in the first five minutes.  Morbius really takes its time to utterly fall apart and admit no one knew what to do with this character once they had him.

I'd even argue the first 1/3rd of the film is entertainingly campy - or at least made for a good laugh as I put it on whilst on the elliptical.  Jared Leto plays the very-ill but brilliant Michael Morbius, who we're to believe has grown to be a 30-something adult while requiring thrice-daily dialysis.  As a child, he befriends "Milo" - later played by Dr. Who's Matt Smith - and they have a working/ parental relationship with Jared Harris.  

Chabert Watch! The Wedding Veil Journey (2023)

the sixth of six of these.  I deserve a cookie for finishing.

Watched:  03/18/2025

Format:  Hallmark

Viewing:  First

Director:  Ron Oliver

heads-up:  If you're here for 100% Chabert content, I am going to alert you now, Lacey Chabert is a supporting character/ Executive Producer on this movie, and not the star.  But watching the Chabert filmography will mean sometimes she is not the lead.  I know.  I can't believe it either.

Job:  Art and Rarities Auction House Exec

new skill:  empathy for other humans

Man: Victor Webster

Job of Man:  Restaurateur and Chef

Goes to/ Returns to:  Goes to Greece

Event:  None, really

Food:  Greek cuisine

First, I finally figured out where I knew Alison Sweeney from - she was on Days of Our Lives when that was the go-to soap opera to watch in the 1990's thanks to Sweeney's character, Sami (who was batshit) and Deidre Hall's Marlena was possessed by a demon.  Weird, wild stuff.

On to the show:

With our couple established in the third Wedding Veil installment, we get the direct sequel here in the 6th and (mercifully) final installment, entitled The Wedding Veil Journey (2023).  

In this movie Alison Sweeney and Man are realizing their schedules as an art auctioneer and restaurateur are incompatible, and they never see each other.  In fact, they never managed a honeymoon in what we're told is three years later, meaning the movies are actually supposed to span something like 6+ years.  

Sweeney and Man head off for Greece, but their plan is bad.  They will stay only one night in a hotel and then wing it from there.  Because of flight delays, they wind up arriving late, have nowhere to stay, and wind up in a struggling but lovely resort that seems honestly super nice.  And clearly the production had the run of the place, likely due to COVID.

Animation Watch: The Wild Robot (2024)

Watched:  03/15/2025

Format:  Peacock

Viewing:  First

Director:  Chris Sanders

Well, this is kind of funny.  I wondered what had become of the writer/ director of Disney's Lilo & Stitch after watching the movie the other night, and here is as writer/ director of The Wild Robot (2024).  

The biggest problem The Wild Robot has is that it came up against Flow in the same year in the Oscar race, and the two, curiously, share similar themes using animals as their analogy.  But, luckily, I am not an award-granting body, and have place in my brain for both movies.  And I liked this movie quite a lot.

Yes, The Wild Robot is worth seeing, if for no other reason than that the design of film is a wonder.  It's some of the finest work I've seen from a US animation studio outside of Pixar or Disney, mixing realism with painterly flourishes, with classical film-making featuring inventive use of camera movement in a way that I just rarely feel anyone outside of Pixar, in particular, really lands (I'm still not over some of the imagery in Soul).    

And, it's all in service to the story.  

Chabert Watch! The Wedding Veil Expectations (2023)

Watched:  03/13/2025

Format:  Hallmark

Viewing:   First

Director:  Peter Benson

Job:  Curator at an Art Museum

new skill:  interior decorating

Man: Kevin McGarry

Job of Man: art teacher

Goes to/ Returns to:  Stays in Boston

Event:  Museum gala

Food:  Pineapple pizza (her pregnancy craving)

If one concept needed absolutely no sequels, it was The Wedding Veil, but here we are.  

Because we're doing all of this for science, I looked up the book that these movies are all supposedly based on, and it has nothing to do with anything in the movie.  I have no idea why they keep crediting the author.  The only thing the movies have in common with the book is that there's a wedding veil.  The plot and characters seem totally different.

The author is a Texas romance writer, and seems to pen hot and heavy romances about cowboys that take place here in the Lone Star State.  At some point, she renamed the book to make it more Texas themed.  Anyway, the series is well reviewed by romance fans, so get on that, if that's your jam. 

Back to our film!  

It's an indeterminate amount of time since we last checked in with Chabert and Man.  And as we have already been told in the first installment, and mentioned in two other films - they're happily -ever-aftering.   So, as we enter this film, we must put together a movie that both has some sort of conflict and doesn't disrupt the Hallmark promise of life being great after marriage.  Thus, we have a film with multiple plot threads and issues that rise up, and then fizzle away like water on a hot plate.