Pirate Watch: The Spanish Main (1945)

Watched:  03/18/2025

Format:  TCM on the ol' DVR

Viewing:  First

Director:  Frank Borzage

I like a good pirate picture.  It's always going to end in flashing swords, some jerk getting his comeuppance, and a good chance there's Maureen O'Hara in amazing gowns.  And this movie is that.

Apparently it's the passion project of Paul Henreid, the movie's star, who plays a Dutch sea captain who crashes in the Spanish West Indies.  The Governor of the territory (a villainous Walter Selzak) condemns him to death, but he and his pals escape.  Years later, Henreid has taken on the pirate-y name of The Barracuda and takes the ship carrying Maureen O'Hara - Spanish nobility sent to the Governor to be married.  

To spare the lives of a second ship, O'Hara offers herself up to Henreid as his bride.  The two marry, but it's a farce, intended to drive the Governor insane on Henreid's part.  Of course, they're two good looking people, and figure out they actually like this idea.  However, the Pirate Brotherhood/ Grand Council/ Whatever decides that she's too much of a risk, and they kidnap her and deliver her to the Governor.  By-the-by, one of the pirates is Anne Bonny, played here by Binnie Barnes, who its suggested, has been Henreid's lady-friend.

Anyway, piratey shenanigans commence and O'Hara brings a musket to a sabre fight, and its awesome.

We've kind of lost sight of the rollicking adventure in modern action movies.  This is certainly that.  Henreid is having a blast not playing the debonair gentleman lover, and O'Hara is why they paid O'Hara piles of money to be in movies.  

Yes, there's a scene casually thrown in where Henreid half-seriously threatens O'Hara with a deeply problematic fate worse than death, and that's a big mark against the movie.  Not very heroic, Paul.

But overall, it's a good, pirates as anti-fascists sort of romp.  And makes you, as always, very glad you weren't on a boat during this particular era in history, because, man.  As much fun as a pirate bar seems, everything else seems designed to kill you.

Ms. O'Hara's would really like to speak with the manager

 

Disney Watch: Atlantis - The Lost Empire (2001)

Watched:  03/16/2025

Format:  Disney+

Viewing:  First

Directors:  Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise

I vaguely remember this one coming out, but didn't see it.  No recollection of why.

I did get the feeling that this movie was not great, and over time it hasn't really had any kind of reconsideration.  Yeah, there's folks online who loved it as kids, and maintain that love now.  And, bully for them.

There's a lot going on in this movie.  It's also trying to fill a gap I was aware of from my days working at the Disney Store in summers from 1993-1995 - that Disney didn't know how to reach the audience they'd associated with young boys, something we struggled with as we were often asked to make recommendations to folks coming into the store shopping for boy's stuff for kids over, say, seven.  So why not make some movies that could spawn merch and serve those kids as much as the kids who wanted Princess dresses?

Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) wasn't completely panned when it came out, but it didn't exactly set the world on fire - right now it's sitting at a 52 on Metacritic.  For comparison, Lilo & Stitch was a 74.  Beauty and the Beast from 1991 was a 95 and got a Best Picture nomination.  

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 Inspiration (2023)

okay, I guess the hat is fine.

Watched:  03/14/2025

Format:  Hallmark 

Viewing:  First

Director:  Terry Ingram

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 professor

new skill:  Social media phenom

Man: Paolo Bernardini

Job of Man: Lace mogul

Goes to/ Returns to:  Stays in Chicago

Event:  Lace store opening

Food:  we're back on Mac n' Cheese

The Wedding Veil Inspiration (2023) is part 5 (of 6) of The Wedding Veil series, and direct sequel to The Wedding Veil Unveiled.  The longer this veil nonsense goes on, the more they've piled in continuity, but like the driest of fan-fiction, it's all just rehashing the original concept while shoving our leads through some standard life-experience.  And, of course, now suggesting that the veil is not just for romance but ensuring its victims procreate.  

It *does* have a pretty good bit of insight at the end that just about had me flabbergasted for a Hallmark movie.  But it also brings in Man #2 and Not-Sarah Sherman as secondary romance victims of the veil, suggesting that its not just women who will be forced into romance by possessing the veil.

Italian Handsome Man Paolo is opening his lace store in Chicago (I think the suggestion is its on the Magnificent Mile) and Autumn Reeser is teaching Art History for Non-Art Majors.  She's also in line to become Department Chair of the Art History Department.  Like all movies, no one involved has bothered to speak to anyone in Academia to ask "hey, how does one become Department Chair?", which is something one could find out.  And if the usual processes are in place here, it is not at all obvious as Reeser is being mentored by a faculty near retirement age.  I won't keep complaining that's not how this works, because sometimes it is.

Disney Watch: Lilo & Stitch (2002)

Watched:  03/13/2025

Format:  Disney+

Viewing;  First

Directors:  Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders

No, I'd never seen Lilo & Stitch (2002).  It came out about three weeks after I moved to Phoenix back in 2002, and I guess we didn't get around to it at the time, or in the ensuing 23 years.

The movie is kind of the last gasp of Disney's 2D efforts as the annual summer release schedule was apparently taxing the creative teams and leading to less and less enthusiasm for each year's release.  And looking at the Disney Animation Studios output of 2D movies in the 00's, you can see this is the second-to-last film of the 2D movies anyone really talks about - the final being The Princess and the Frog.  

Spoiler - I liked this movie a lot!  The animation is fun and really well executed, but the story about being a terror goblin who doesn't even know what a family is and then learns that he wants one?  I found it shockingly effective and moving.  

When you want to know what sticks with people, its never the 3D or some animation sequence, it's how they felt, and I'll remember this one for a while.  That said - *how* they get you to feel any specific way is tied to those technical achievements, direction, art and story writing, and it's surprising to see a movie about a less-than-perfect family unit containing a kid who is acting out in the wake of the loss of her parents and her older, barely-an-adult sister, who is trying to keep it together.  Add in an alien-prison-escapee-genetically-created-space-WMD and it's a ride.  

But, yeah, Disney is at its best when it taps into those core universal emotions, that kids and adults can tap into, but when they come in at an oblique angle.  Do I spend time thinking I do not know who I am and if I have a family?  No.  But all of us can sympathize if not empathize with not feeling like we know how to fit in like Lilo, or that no one told us the basics, like Stitch - and reach for a place to belong.  

Voice talent on this thing is interesting, with Tia Carrere, David Ogden Stiers, KITH alumnus Kevin McDonald, Ving Rhames, Zoe Caldwell and a young Daveigh Chase as Lilo.  

The character animation is top flight, much as Princess and the Frog will make you a little sad that so much of what 2D did so well was really hitting on all cylinders just as Disney pivoted to 3D.   From both the first space sequences and the introduction to our out-of-the-way Hawaiian town, you can tell Disney's animators were leaning in hard.  There's a lot of motion-capture that makes the action fluid but still fun in a way I think we're kind of forgetting, as well as layered work that's just fantastic.

And the story is kind of daring in having both a little kid who maybe isn't a precious angel and her far worse alien pal - and you genuinely can buy that they help each other be better.  That's some solid writing.  We're a pretty far cry from Belle being an oddball for being nice and reading books as Lilo smacks around her classmate.  And, yet, I pull for Lilo - and holy cow, does it land as I look at my own niece and nephew puzzling through their younger years.

Anyhoo, I finally caught up on this one, and will certainly watch the live action remake.  It looks really fun.

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.

Western Watch: The Rare Breed (1966)

Watched:  03/08/2025

Format:  TCM

Viewing;  First

Director:  Andrew V. McClagen

A western-comedy-adventure movie fantasy about something weirdly specific - The Rare Breed (1966) is about the introduction of the Hereford steer to Texas.  Is this how it happened?  Most assuredly not. Do I care?  I do not.  

Because what the movie is about is really about dreams - who has them, how they can die or be put on ice, how we can find new ones, and how good does Maureen O'Hara look in green?*

Maureen O'Hara plays a British woman who was widowed en route to America, bringing a prize Hereford steer she plans to breed.  She and her husband planned to prove this type of steer could thrive in the US, and crossbreed well with local steer - but as he died she's now left to do it on her own.  So, O'Hara and her young-adult daughter, played by Juliet Mills (sister of Hayley), do what you did in the 19th century if you'd wound up here - they persevere.  

Chabert Watch! The Wedding Veil Legacy (2022)

Reeser really went all-in on the hat

Watched:  03/05/2025

Format:  Hallmark

Viewing;  First

Director:  Terry Ingram

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:  cooking Italian food

Man: Victor Webster

Job of Man:  Restaurateur and Chef

Goes to/ Returns to:  Stays in NYC

Event:  Auction House gala

Food:  a bunch of Italian food, esp. cannoli, and sloppy joes?

I don't think I understood The Wedding Veil Legacy (2022).  I mean, I got what happened in it, but I didn't get it.  But I do hope these movies are increasingly titled like Jason Bourne movies.

Our skeptic (Alison Sweeney) of the veil's awesome powers goes through a long-projected, but fairly painless breakup with her boyfriend of a few years.  He's a classical trumpet player and has a chance to play for the LA Symphony, so with him leaving NYC, they hang it up.

In the two prior movies, we got the foreshadowing that maybe this was a relationship of convenience, and, indeed, it seems that way as the two don't even try to do long-distance and see if they'll miss each other - they just break up when he takes the job.  She is a native New Yorker, and can't imagine living elsewhere (fair) and is also working her dream job at an art auction house (also, you go girl.  Live your auction life).  So, yeah, she's kinda set.  Sweeney sheds no tears, just settles into a malaise.

Of course, Sweeney is now in possession of the reality-bending wedding veil which insists that people hook-up, and no sooner has she taken it to the tailor to get a snag fixed than she meets Man, who is there getting fitted for a tux.  

Chabert Watch! The Wedding Veil - Unveiled (2022)

Watched:  03/03/2025

Format:  Hallmark

Viewing:  First

Director:  Terry Ingram

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 Prof

new skill:  I'd say researching art, but that is literally her job.  So, I guess, making lace?

Man: Paolo Bernardini

Job of Man:  Sales and Marketing for a lace company?

Goes to/ Returns to:  Goes to Venice

Event:  None?

Food:  I am sure they ate Italian food and talked about it

Budgets on Hallmark films make no sense to me.  

We're making our way through the Wedding Veil series, I guess.  It's a five movie (to date) series about a magical wedding veil that forces people to fall in love.  Frankly - its power is terrifying.  

Three Hallmark stars (Chabert, Autumn Reeser and Allison Sweeney) buy the veil together, as their "something borrowed" item they'll all wear.  And the first movie sees Lacey Chabert fall in love with a terrible, terrible human who looks like a Bad Boy version of Mikey Day.  

This is the best the veil can do?

Regarding budgets - the first movie ostensibly took place in San Francisco and Boston, but that was clearly Canada.  Nice locales, but nothing you don't see in many-a-mid-budget Hallmark flick.  

But the sequel, The Wedding Veil Unveiled (2022) - starring Autumn Reeser - takes place all over Venice, Italy.  They left the continent and went somewhere awesome.  You even see the library from Last Crusade.

Neo-Noir Watch: A History of Violence (2005)

 

Format:  Max?

Viewing:  First

Director:  David Cronenberg

Watched:  03/01/2025

Back when A History of Violence (2005) was in theaters, I was scheduled to see it as it’s based on a comic from a briefly lived DC Comics adult-oriented imprint. I’d read and quite liked the comic, but at showtime, one of us got sick, and we didn’t see it. And then, I never got back to it.

And that’s a shame, because 20 years later I liked it. But had I seen it back then, I doubt I would have understood how much this movie reads like a 1940’s film noir, maybe something like The Killers or a Goodis novel or movie.  It kind of reflects some of that post-War noir grit where we didn't slot people into "good guy" and "bad guy" so readily.

SPOILERS  

Viggo Mortensen stars as the smalltown café owner, Tom Stall, married to Maria Bello. The pair share kids aged around 16 and 5. Like many noir films, it’s about what happens when the unbridled viciousness of organized crime intersects with the mundane lives of ordinary people - and what happens when someone among the normal people isn't so average. 

 In a different decade, the William Hurt role is played by Raymond Burr in a B picture or Richard Conte if they had more money. Ed Harris would be played by Robert Ryan, and you can imagine Burt Lancaster in the lead role.

Chabert Watch! The Wedding Veil (2022)

Watched:  03/01/2025

Format:  Hallmark

Viewing:   First

Director:  Terry Ingram

Job:  Assistant Curator at an Art Museum

new skill:  walking in 6" heels on grass

Man: Kevin McGarry

Job of Man: philanthropist

Goes to/ Returns to:  Stays in Boston

Event:  Museum Gala

Food:  mac n' cheese

So...   apparently - despite starting as recently as 2022 with this movie, The Wedding Veil, there are already 5 movies in the Wedding Veil series, and likely more on the way.  I kind of knew this series existed, and was avoiding starting the series so we didn't need to sprint through five movies on the same topic.  But we're running out of other Chabert options here on Hallmark as we speedrace our way through her non-Christmas filmography in a way I did not anticipate when I was like "you know what would entertain Randy...".  But 2025 has been 2025, so here we are.

Basically, the idea of The Wedding Veil series is something like The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (which I've never seen).  It's about how possession of this 19th century wedding veil will lead to true love.  Three friends, who just happen to be played by Lacey Chabert, Autumn Reeser and Alison Sweeney - three of the top Hallmark stars - find and purchase a wedding veil together, all agreeing to share the veil when they find it in an antiques shop in San Francisco.

I call shenanigans that three people would agree to look the same at their weddings in a spur-of-the-moment decision, but here we are.  And we *will* get three movies of our heroes getting married, I guess.

This movie has to do the heavy lifting for the series as it has to establish (a) the magical power of the veil, (b) who each of the three leads in the series are, and (c) what their particular deal is with romance.  Fortunately, we all know Chabert is up to this task.

NASA Watch: Fly Me To the Moon (2024)

Watched:  02/27/2025

Format:  Apple+

Viewing:  First

Director:  Greg Berlanti

What an odd movie.

This is kind of what has happened with the mid-budget romcom.  They wound up on streaming services.  I don't know if Apple wanted to be in the Scarlett Johansson business or if they bought the movie.  But here it is on Apple+, which I have for MLS soccer purposes and through T-Mobile.

This is a movie about the value of truth, that uses the conspiracy theory of faking the moon landing as it's second-half pivot, and basically only gets the names of the Apollo 11 astronauts right, tossing out the rest of what happened in actuality in order to make a cute story.  It's fine, but if you're a NASA nerd like my wife, and by extension and maybe a lesser extent, me, it will make you want to pull your hair out.

Apollo 11, the focal point of the film, may be one of the most well-documented events in human history (that's the one where they walked on the moon the first time, Howard).  To make up how mission control works, and who was working there felt... weird.  Even odd little details crop up - like, I don't know if I ever heard anyone ever refer to any part of the vehicle as "the ship", but it happens here a couple of times.  

Hallmark Watch: Sisterhood, Inc. (2025)

Watched:  02/22/2025

Format:  Hallmark/ Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  Lesley Demetriades

I watched this because my allergies had taken me out, Jamie was curious, and I'd just finished The Outfit and was like "yeah, sure, whatever. Palette cleanser.".  And, look, Rachael Leigh Cook is always good, and it's a cute idea for a movie.  

Tech CEO gets fired, turns her energy to helping her slacker sister.  She does this by applying corporate structure to the problem, building a board which she chairs, with the goal to help improve her sister's life.  

The cast has to carry one of these movies, and it felt a little spendy in that department.  Rachael Leigh Cook is a name and talented, and manages to make sure a character who could be prickly is sympathetic.  The mother is played by Judy Kain, who has been in tons of stuff and is good.  The sister's pizza boss is a guy from the Sopranos.  And Jackie Hoffman is somehow in this.  Go figure.

The bit about trying to turn this personal project into a business idea feels very real.

Anyway, yes, there's a romcom element, but it's the B-plot.  The A-Plot is about sisters and family and done with a surprising bit of character.  It does not hurt that the slacker sister played by Daniella Monet was pleasantly goofy while feeling like a real character, and really pretty funny.

I had not planned to watch non-Chabert Hallmark content, but it appears we're doing that now.  And as I have always believed Hallmark makes for ideal media when you don't feel great, this movie provided evidence in support of that hypothesis.

Also, I am planning to make Jamie watch Heat and Godfather II this week, so if we're swapping in some comfort watching in between, so be it.

Magic Fish Watch: Ouija Shark (2020)

Watched:  02/21/2025

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  Brett Kelly

There's a fine line between doofuses futzing about with video equipment and outsider art. Ouija Shark (2020) may inadvertently cross that line from time-to-time.  Maybe.  In little 1-3 second bursts, you may experiencing art, in-between wondering why you're watching this movie.

The movie and TV business is a weird beast.  For the past 20 years, it's been true that you really don't need money to make a movie.  You just need time, something to capture your movie with, and a computer.  Also, you require people who will keep showing up for your movie, or remain wherever you are long enough to do their scenes.  

In a world where people complain that Hallmark movies look cheap - what they mean is "this looks cheap next to Mission Impossible", which has roughly 100 - 200x the budget of most Hallmark films.  That's not an exaggeration.  So, yes, they do look cheaper.

But a Hallmark movie spending $1 million has approximately $1 million more than a *lot* of movies you see winding up on Amazon that are like Ouija Shark.  And what's amazing is - so many people think it would be fun to make a movie, the world is now littered with Ouija Sharks.  Ie:  People who get some friends together and make a movie, by hook or by crook.

Starring random Canadians, this movie is about an hour long, really, if you cut the lengthy title sequence.  It's about a young woman who goes swimming at a lake, where she finds a ouija board underwater.  

Chabert Watch! The Dancing Detective - a Deadly Tango (2023)

Watched:  02/20/2025

Format:  Hallmark/ Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  Stefan Scaini

Job:  Police detective

new skill:  ballroom dancing

Man: Will Kemp

Job of Man: dance instructor

Goes to/ Returns to:  Goes to Malta

Event:  Dance competition

Food:  cocktails

This movie is bonkers.  

You will never follow the premise, because it is baffling and exists to making the central conceit of the title happen - that a detective will dance!

For reasons, The Dancing Detective: A Deadly Tango (2023) is shot in Malta, a place of which I am mostly uninformed, but makes Malta seem lovely, and I'd love to see it.  It's modern, but retained its architecture, features old-world streets and buildings, and many pleasantly snoozing cats. But also because it's Malta in the middle of the Mediterranean, the sun is brutal and I pity the DP.

As a Maltese-shot film, a lot of the talent in the movie is local.  All the characters sport very Anglo-sounding names while the actors mostly wrestle down a range of accents from Maltese, to multi-lingual-kinda-Spanish to Slovenian.  

The film basically exists to exploit the fact that Will Kemp, one of the Hallmark A-Listers, has a background in dance.  Lacey Chabert, who is the co-star, does not.  Chabert and Kemp are both Executive Producers on this movie, and I cannot imagine what the business dealings at Hallmark are actually like, as this is also a Bristow produced movie, like the Safari movie we caught the other day.  Globetrotters, these Bristows.

The set-up:  a suave CEO dies suddenly - and while no one else sees it but us, the audience, we know he was poisoned by someone dressed as a ninja.  It turns out he's the CEO of a company like the Arthur Murray Dance Company, which is actually global (I didn't realize Arthur Murray still existed until last year when I noticed a studio next to a restaurant where I sometimes meet my folks).  So, this is high stakes!  Someone is bumping off CEOs!  Of dance!

Horror Watch: The Substance (2024)

Watched:  02/19/2025

Format:  4K disc (SimonUK's disc)

Viewing:  First

Director/ Writer:  Coralie Fargeat

Worst.  Shazam movie.  Ever.

Let me start by saying, I quite liked The Substance (2024).  I'm not sure what's going on at the Academy that this got a best picture nom, my confusion mostly stemming from the fact this is a satirical body horror movie and that sort of thing doesn't usually get nominated over Very Serious Pictures(tm) - but I am thrilled for everyone involved and for this movie getting the nod.  

I was unimpressed with the original trailer for the movie, and then after the movie came out, Simon told me he'd already seen it a few times,* and then later said he'd seen it four - and I was supposed to see it with him on his 5th viewing. However, I went to the wrong theater.  SO.  Tonight he brought over his new disc and we watched it.

On paper, this movie is what I figured from the trailers - to a point.  And it is all along the way more entertaining, bizarre, fascinating and generally better than I expected.

The only prior Coralie Fargeat movie I'd previously seen was Revenge, which I don't remember well, just that it lost me at some point and didn't win me back.  But re-reading my own review to refresh my memory - I can see a loose breadcrumb trail that led to The Substance, and what Fargeat was doing with Revenge that maybe didn't work for me but landed well with me in this instance.  

Chabert Watch! Love on Safari (2018)

Watched:  02/18/2025

Format:  DVD

Viewing:  First

Director:  Leif Bristow

Job: Web designer for corporations

new skill:  looking at giraffes, deus ex machina identification

Man: Jon Cor

Job of Man: Safari ranger

Goes to/ Returns to:  goes to South Africa

Event:  Birthday for Lacey

Food:  Cookies

First of all, Brad sucks.  

Brad is Chabert's City Man, and he prides himself on loving spreadsheets.  That's fine.  I love to spend time in Google Sheets, too.  But that and misogyny are his whole personality.  He's a gigantic tool, and we're supposed to dislike him, and, hey... mission accomplished.

Chabert plays a web developer from Chicago.  In the way that only seems to happen in movies, when a great-uncle she hasn't seen in 20 years dies, Chabert inherits a whole frikkin' animal reserve and lodge in South Africa and is now responsible for miles of bushland, the animals upon it, and the people employed by the reserve.  All without a letter or phone call from the uncle forewarning her of his plans.

Marvel Cap Watch: Captain America - Brave New World (2025)

Watched:  02/13/2025

Format:  Cinepolis

Viewing:  First

Director:  Julius Onah

It was hard to miss the negative reviews for Captain America: Brave New World (2025), which was maybe a good way to go in.  I already had pre-purchased my tickets, even knowing this movie has been delayed for months, had serious reshoots, and I'd noted Marvel was already pushing Fantastic Four and Thunderbolts as hard or harder than this movie.  

I also know that taking to social media and bravely saying "this new Marvel movie isn't very good" is the current cool thing to do, whether it's Quantumania, which fully deserves every iota of hate it got, or Deadpool and Wolverine, which was amazingly meta and a fun Saturday afternoon at the movies (and richly rewarded for the effort).

After numerous misfires and mid-level efforts, it's fair to say Marvel hit the point where the quality of what they do has slipped.  What I think folks fail to appreciate is that Marvel's long run of putting out fun, watchable stuff was singular and extraordinary.  No one else has come close.  And if you're younger, that's hard to appreciate.  In a couple dozen movies - they became an institution almost as much as the idea of the Western or Costume Drama.*   And, of course, being an institution rightfully means they're the ones to take down/ make fun of/ be skeptical/ cynical of, especially in their modern work.

At the core, I think the same problem plagues Marvel movies that plagues Marvel (and DC) comics themselves - which is that there's a crippling level of continuity in their sprawling universe, and that can be paired with the fact that Marvel seems unwilling to build any second-generation characters in the old-school fashion with their own mythologies, rogues gallery and *personal* continuities.  Characters like Sam Wilson just kinda loosely fit into the big picture and exist in the Marvel Comics U.  And that is how this movie feels.  Captain America: Brave New World operates more as a sequel to 2008's Hulk and other MCU continuity threads than it is a Captain America film.  Arguably, Sam Wilson is not the star of his own movie in much the same way, Steve Rogers was one of many characters with understandable motivations in Civil War.

Chabert Watch! Crossword Mysteries: Abracadaver (2019)

you'd think the prop would indicate this movie is more fun than it is

Watched 02/10/2025
Format:  Hallmark

Viewing:  First

Director:  Jonathan Wright

Job: Puzzle maker and Police Investigation Meddler

new skill:  close-up magic

Man: Brennan Elliot

Job of Man: Detective

Goes to/ Returns to: Remains in NYC

Event:  Birthday at Magic Manor

Food:  I don't think there was any food

In a move that makes total sense from a cost-savings perspective, Lacey Chabert and Brennan Elliot (as Detective Man) return for a third installment in the Crossword Mysteries series - a series which was clearly shot all in one big sprint for these three installments.  Chabert has the same hair, and, occasionally, the same jacket.  The sets for the police office and the newspaper are the same, and the cast remains intact-ish.  

This time, the only tie to a crossword puzzle is that - in order to create a single day's crossword puzzle, Chabert has enrolled in weeks of magic classes at an approximation of LA's Magic Castle.  I do not know if New York has one of these.*  

It is a crazy reason for Chabert to be on site, but I guess it's weird Jessica Fletcher was always floating around when someone dropped dead 23x a year.

Chabert Watch! Crossword Mysteries: Proposing Murder (2019)

Watched 02/08/2025
Format:  Hallmark

Viewing:  First

Director:  Don McCutcheon

Job: Puzzle maker and Police Investigation Meddler

new skill:  Escaping from enclosed spaces

Man: Brennan Elliot

Job of Man: Detective

Goes to/ Returns to: Remains in NYC

Event:  None, really

Food: you know, I don't think they stop to eat in this movie

If I was concerned this was going to be a series of movies about crimes being hidden in crossword puzzles, I needn't have worried.  Instead, the crossword tie-in here is that the victim is a friend of Chabert who (prior to checking out involuntarily) asks Lacey to hide his marriage proposal in the Sunday puzzle.  A few days later (that very Sunday!), he manages to gets murdered.  

Rather than a crossword housing the mystery, there's a whole thing about cryptography, WWII codes and a hidden treasure.  It's not bad.  The idea here is that Chabert's character is naturally adept at solving puzzles and codes, as well as driven to do so, exploiting her interns along the way - in pursuit of justice!

Detective Man is assigned to the case, and immediately he and Chabert cross paths.  Flirty paths, with meaningful glances.

Our victim, Chabert's platonic college pal, had just received tenure at College University, and was getting engaged to a woman he met a year ago.  She's a chef with access to pointy knives.  In addition to the fiancé, other possible suspects pop up, like a librarian, a faculty member, an antiquarian and an ex who is a surgeon.