Holidaze Watch: Christmas Eve in Miller's Point (2024)

Watched:  12/10/2024

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  Tyler Taormina

Seeking something new that wasn't released on Netflix or Hallmark, we put on Christmas Eve in Miller's Point (2024).  

Sometimes you see a movie you know is technically very good, and will *definitely* please the sorts of people who become professional film critics, but leaves you absolutely flat by the movie's end.  And, for me, this is one of those.  I feel almost guilty talking about it.  I know of a folk or two who have told me they liked it...  And, to them, I am sorry.

I can acknowledge what the creative team did here was an absolutely remarkable achievement and they pulled off all sorts of things that shouldn't work.  But I finished the movie understanding the point - and still... nothing.  Maybe I'm not in the right frame of mind, or maybe I'm just too old.  Maybe I'm not from Long Island enough.*

The basic set-up is the cacophonous Christmas Eve celebration of a large and extended (and, I think) Italian family in the suburbs outside of New York City.  It's a kaleidoscope of family personalities, issues, and melodrama all caught and crossing in a single evening - the kind of evening like Christmas Eve, which is one of the rare occasions where this much family comes together just to be together. 

Netflix Holidaze: Our Little Secret (2024)

Watched:  12/07/2024

Format:  Netflix

Viewing:  First

Director:  Stephen Herek

This is a movie with a great set-up, a terrific cast and mediocre execution.  Also, I think I've just seen what Millennial comedy is again, and y'all need to stop explaining your jokes during the joke.  And let people be the villain sometimes.

I'm not sure this movie needed the preamble of a scene from 10 years ago to work, but it has it.  We find that our heroes - Lindsay Lohan and Ian Harding - grew up together and were young lovers.  Tragedy struck as Lohan's mother died, causing Lohan to pursue her dream and leave for London, ie: bailing on Harding.  Harding makes an ass of himself proposing to Lohan at her good-bye party, and she does not accept.  10 years later (now), Lohan and Harding are each going to spend Christmas with their current significant others.  When they arrive, they discover, the significant others are siblings and they have to spend Christmas together.

Funny!  That's awkward!  And you can guess they'll wind up falling for each other again, so it's all right there.  Of course, they keep their former relationship a secret so no jealousies bubble-up, and because secrets in movies are super important for them to work and a disaster in real life.

To add to the mix, Kristin Chenoweth plays the ultra-high-strung, image conscious mom of the family, who has it in for for Lohan for no reason, adores Harding for no reason, and who has very specific ideas about Christmas.  Kind of funny?

The biggest problem with the movie is that it has so many characters, all of whom play a part and are the cogs in the clockwork of the movie, but it leaves people who should be involved and around on the sidelines consistently.  And, *sigh* I just always feel like Lohan is an energy black hole when she's on screen, which leaves Harding to do all the comedic heavy lifting with Chenoweth.  Which is a choice, because they did bring in Tim Meadows and Judy Reyes as family friends (and Reyes has one bit of business she does that was not the focus, and probably got one of the biggest laughs of the whole movies from me).  

It's hard to say exactly why the movie doesn't feel better than what it is.  Maybe it's too polite, or kind or something.  Certainly to avoid conflicts, Harding's girlfriend is practically a cut-out that could have "girlfriend" written on her, and so obviously disposable, it's impossible to get why they're together or why they'd break up at the end.  She just is.  As is the dad.  And a few other characters.

The movie wants to play nice so hard, I think it bends over backward to make sure that no one is a bad person - not even the cheating boyfriend.  Or cheating dad.  Or the would-be-Step-Mom-Monster.  Which just deflates the stakes and conflict - partially because the movie projects the end at the beginning in almost every way. It ends up toothless and safe.   Add in bland set-ups like "she ate THC gummies!" for a ten minute bit, and... man.  It's some choppy waters as you cross this pond.  Hint:  We also all watched Ted Lasso.  Maybe don't try to lightly rewrite an iconic scene?

Add in that it's not clear at all that Lohan and Harding are more than old high school chums through the movie - like, no interest in each other, so much so that I laughed when they said "I love you" at the end...

That said, Chris Parnell sliding in as Dr. Spaceman: Veterinarian was gold.

We put this on because I'd lost all energy to think about what else to watch after Texas football lost to Georgia in an overtime defeat, and I didn't care.  And watching mid movies is what happens when you don't care.  

I'm glad Lohan seems clean and is getting work, I guess.  I've literally just never been her demographic or audience, and all I can think of is how the 00's-era internet kept trying to insist I should care about Lohan's private life, so I feel a vague sense of exhaustion when I see her.

Shame Watch: Zapped (1982)

I am not putting up the poster from this movie.  Here's Aames, Thomas and Baio

Watched:  12/06/2024

Format:  Amazon Prime

Viewing:  First

Director:  Robert J. Rosenthal

Kids, if you want to know how much the world has changed for both the worse and the better, and to ponder innumerable imponderables about what was happening in the 1980's... I would suggest you check out this movie to see what a massive gulf you're dealing with between the wild west of 1980's b-movies and 2020's moralizing.  

Except... it's a terrible movie, and don't watch it.

Zapped (1982) is trash.  It knows it's trash.  It's studio-produced and released trash, where, apparently, the studio made them do re-shoots to insert more nudity in the wake of Porky's massive success.  YMMV.

My memory of this movie is that it was on the shelf at every video store I ever went to, and featured Scott Baio and Willie Ames on the cover using magic powers to flip up the skirt of a girl.  As a kid living in the 1980's who sometimes had premium cable and who had friends who had fun channels, I was well aware of the horny teen sex romp, and the last thing I wanted to see was Chachi plus boobs, so it took til now to see this gem.

I regret it.  This movie was bad, gross, unfunny, and wildly sexist in a way that made you feel like you were looking into a whirlpool of misogyny.  

Aside from the aforementioned Charles in Charge-foreshadowing casting, it also has Scatman Crothers as a coach, and LaWanda Page - who I'd only seen on Sanford and Son.  It features a brief appearance by none other than Eddie Deezen.  And if you know Eddie's post-Grease work, you know that he is a mark of a great film.  The love interest was played by Felice Schachter, who was in those first prep-school seasons of The Facts of Life - and I'm as shocked as you are that I recognized her enough to look her up mid-movie to see where I knew her from.  And, we have Heather Thomas, who you may just feel bad for by the end of the movie as she's never set up to be a villain, exactly, but gets a comeuppance nonetheless, which is just...  cruel.

The basic story is that Baio is a science nerd who accidentally manages to get himself telekinesis.  It leads to hi-jinks, from popping open sweaters to fixing gambling.  There's some Carrie references, from a mom who goes religious on him after he terrorizes her with a ventriloquist doll, to the prom ending not in murder, but everyone stripped down to their underwear. 

It's tedious.  But will stop for odd fantasy sequences, not the least of which is Scatman Cruthers getting high by accident and dreaming he's riding bikes with Einstein.  Because movie.  It is the best part of the whole film.

I didn't like this at all, am embarrassed I finished it, and I don't want to think about this movie anymore. 

There is a sequel, because of course there is.

The end.

Holidaze Watch: The Finnish Line (2024)

Watched:  12/6/2024   

Format:  Hallmark

Viewing:  First

Director:  Dustin Rikert

Hey!  Looks like The Finnish Line (2024) was directed by the same fellow who did The Christmas Quest.  I guess he spent his year in very cold countries.

As I've tried to communicate, Hallmark has really been trying to branch out for a while.  One way that materializes is in their Let's Go Europe movies where our hero goes overseas and explores the Christmas traditions of Norway, Germany, Ireland, etc...  very European.  I would love for them to do Central and South America.  But if their take on Texas is any indication...

Anyway, this one takes place in Finland.  My mom's parents were from Finland, which has always left me with something of a relationship with the country as happens when one's grandma is serving pickled herring with lunch and your grandpa sounds like the Swedish Chef when he talks (as my friends would tell me).  As an adult I had opportunity to visit Helsinki for work, and... I loved it.  Finland is rad.  More tall people with long torsos who also look awkward in unexpected conversations!  My people!

But aside from my grandparents passing down a deep need for coffee, which I guess is cultural and congenital, most of what I know about Finland is from my visit and what I've seen online.*

This movie is about a young woman born in the US to a Finnish father and American mother.  The father had been a champion dog-sled racer, but had lost his last big race to a bit of a bully, retired from the sport and gone to live in the US.  Now, his daughter has taken up the sport, and is in Finland to take part in the race, and, inevitably, win it, beating her dad's rival.

But, it's also a romantic comedy, sort of, and a movie teaching you a bit about Finnish Christmas traditions and the weird things Finns do as a culture.  Like "Pantsdrunk", which is a publicly acknowledged habit of drinking by yourself in your underwear.  (Keep in mind, Finland is also one of the happiest and best educated countries on Earth).  

Along the way, our racer finds family, love and saunas.  And there's a nice little twist at the end that humanizes our villain in an astounding way.  I was impressed.

The cast is made up of locals and a few American or Canadian actors.  Our lead is Kim Matula (of Texas), and her pal is played by Nichole Sakura, and I knew from The Treasure of Foggy Mountain.  And they're, like, actually funny.  I don't know what happened here, but it's like they were allowed to tell jokes or make stuff up.  And that is *not* the Hallmark way.  

I'm not saying it's a yuk-fest, but I actually lol'd, which does not happen.

They also, by virtue of a 3-day dog sled race, have an element of adventure which these movies simply do not usually have - except for Rikert's other movie this year, I guess.  And they have a lot of sled dogs, extras, etc...  This movie cost someone some money.  Maybe the nation of Finland.  Who can say?

My one thing was seeing - hey, if they'd had the budget, this could have had more dog racing.  I like dogs and races.

*my mom was a late addition to their family, arriving when my Grandpas was 48 or 49, and my grandmother about 38.  Pair this with me showing up in 1975, and my grandparents were both elderly and had Americanized pretty well in the near 50 years they'd already been here and were far more representative of the citizens of Michigan's Upper Peninsula in the 20th Century than anything to do with modern Finland.

Also, Sakura is a smoke-show

Holidaze Watch: The Christmas Quest (2024)

I don't think Iceland has fjords...  does it?

Watched:  12/01/2024

Format:  Hallmark

Viewing:  First

Director:  Dustin Rikert

Selection:  Jamie

Jamie had (wisely) tapped out early on during the Kansas City Chiefs movie I had rolling whilst doing chores, but she did want to sit down and watch this one.  I feel Jamie has really embraced the concept of Hallmark punching above its weight class with some of its movies, and this sure seemed to be one - so...  yes, we watched it.

Friends, do you like Indiana Jones movies?  Sure, we all do.  And so did whomever put this flick together.  

In particular, they seemed to like Last Crusade, which this movie references so hard it spoils a major twist in the first few minutes.  But if you like Last Crusade, you can at least play Indy bingo, matching up the plot points and characters of The Christmas Quest (2024) to one of the most popular films in human history.  

Look, I tip my hat to Hallmark for trying something different - if different is "take bits of Last Crusade and meld them with one of our 'Let's Go Europe' movies of the past few years".  

Holidaze Watch: Holiday Touchdown - a Chiefs Love Story (2024)

Watched:  12/01/2024

Format:  Hallmark

Viewing:  First

Director:  John Putch

When Hallmark announced its slate of 2024 Christmas movies, it was a bit of an eyebrow raiser that they had this one on the docket.  Holiday Touchdown: A Chief's Love Story (2024) seemed like it was just begging for trouble in some ways.  

Usually, Hallmark avoids discussing real-world things, even naming specific teams, if sports are mentioned at all.  Of course, we figured the movie would echo the Taylor Swift/ Jason Kelce romance - something even I know about, and I don't follow the NFL, the Chiefs or Taylor Swift.*   So, to base an entire movie around the fact the Kansas City Chiefs, one of America's most discussed professional football teams has a player in a famous, tabloidy romance, seemed kind of wacky.  

But, heads up - the movie does not acknowledge, reference or spoof the celebrity couple. In fact, the movie is in no way about either a musician or a player at all, not even an assistant coach.  

Stuart, who is KC based, has informed me that Hallmark is headquartered in Kansas City, which I didn't know - so the pieces for why Hallmark went all in on a movie that would feature Andy Reid in a cameo kind of snapped into place.  Loving your football team is, by far, not the worst reason to make a movie.  (if someone made a movie about the University of Texas Longhorns, of course I'd watch)

The plot is, not surprisingly, whisper thin.  Instead, it exists as one part pro-Chiefs propaganda, one part family comedy about a football loving family, and one part absolute nonsense Christmas Hallmark film.  

The idea is that football is what unites us and gives us common ground and something to discuss, which is true.**  Sports are not inherently bad, no matter how many wedgies you got in high school.

Anyhoo, the movie is a soft sell.  So soft, in fact, that the story is about a missing hat.  Like, someone said "so what is the plot of this movie, now that the Chiefs agreed to it?" and Dumb Dave in the corner said "I like hats" and they made that movie, because it doesn't matter.  You know the guy and girl will fall in love, and Kansas City Chiefs will be omnipresent as a force for good.  Why not make the problem a hat?

Hallmark Watch: Haul Out the Holly (2022)

Watched:  11/28/2024

Format:  Netflix

Viewing:  First

Director:  Maclain Nelson

Selection:  Sorta Jamie/ Sorta Me

Jamie was working on stuffing and rolls for Thanksgiving dinner, and I was cleaning up and doing some Christmas decorating.  And, THAT, friends, is when you put on a Hallmark movie.  

Last year we accidentally watched the sequel to this one (and I forgot to write it up, natch), so, being a pair of curious cats, Jamie and I landed on the original formula: Haul Out the Holly (2022) - now on Netflix.

Here's what I'll say about Haul Out The Holly:  if someone is going to make you watch a Hallmark movie, this is a bad representative of the old archetype and more a reflection of the trends to stop making the same movie over and over.  Like a few from this period, it's trying to be a real movie.  Maybe not a good or memorable movie, but a real comedy with a wacky premise, zany neighbors, and jokes, which is not Hallmark's strong suit.  They do better with movies that are the equivalent of a Glade Plug-In turned up half-way.   But, this movie is just a sort of lo-fi version of an 00's-era Christmas comedy, but so steeped in the very specific idea of what it is, it can just seems unhinged.  And cheerfully unhinged, is, actually the point.  

Ie:  The folks making this knew exactly what they were doing.  

It's also a chance for Chabert to step out from *sincere* Hallmark movies without going 100% meta, and, instead, engage in a wacky comedy, which I am sure she welcomed after laughs in most Hallmark movies that are really a sort of soft, inward smile at best.  And, well, "wacky" comedy.  I did laugh a few times as intended, especially at the neighbor who takes the cookie contest very seriously, played by Melissa Peterman.*  I'm just not sure the jokes are there in quite the way the movie wishes they were, which might be writing, directing, editing... I don't know and don't care.

But every time you think you're about to turn on the movie, the movie leans into the absurdity, and you know - they're just having fun making this dumb movie that doesn't make any sense.

The plot is:  Chabert breaks up with her dopey boyfriend and goes home for Christmas, only to find out her parents aren't just leaving for Florida, they're going on a condo-hunting trip and plan to move away.  Left at her parents' sprawling Salt Lake City McMansion, somehow she's wrapped up in the Christmas Craziness of her parents' street - a place where people practically poop peppermint and Christmas is about ugly sweaters, cookie contests, yard decorations, and basically the higher-end Christmas decorations for one's yard and home.  It has nothing to do with family gatherings, church, presents or anything else.  It's a weird little Christmas-themed cult they've got going, where the HOA President is authorized to cite house guests for inadequate yard nutcrackers.

Chabert left town in part because of her parents' Christmas obsession, but now that she's back, and because she decides she wants to jump the HOA president, she's into it.

Here's the thing - this movie knows how annoying it's own premise is.  But by knowing how nuts it is, they just lean into it more, like a dare.  "Well, you're still here watching this!"

It's... fine?  For what it is?  Chabert makes a curiously good straight man?  

Anyhoo...  It absolutely finished in less than 90 minutes, and I like that.

*who was apparently one of the two hookers from Fargo if you need a blast from the past

Hallmark Watch: A Holiday Engagement (2011)

Watched:  11/26/2024

Format:  Netflix

Viewing:  First

Director:   Jim Fall

So, I've always wondered why Hallmark used the model they did, of sort of hoarding all of their hundreds of Christmas movies for the their three cable channels.  And, I think. they have an app or streaming service.  But I kinda think signing up for a Hallmark app is for the folks who are a particular breed of cat.  

Now, they've dumped an insane number of these movies on Amazon, YouTube and Netflix.  Jamie was looking for something else and realized this, and as we were doing some Christmas decorating, she randomly picked one, and this is what we got.

The movie is from 2011, so it's an interesting snapshot in time for Hallmark's continual evolution.  They have name-actors, but in supporting roles.  Shelley Long is a major character as the mom who seems like she's entertaining notions about how a a woman plans her future that last got updated in 1961.  It's a thankless role.  Sam McMurray - who you know from everything - is the dad, who is a two note joke, and gets away with cashing a paycheck for just mugging a bit.  Salute.  Haylie Duff appears and you absolutely wonder why she's not the star every time she wanders onto the screen.  A pre-Vice Principals/ Righteous Gemstones Edi Patterson steals the early part of the movie as the star's much more engaging friend.  I wanted to watch her movie, not what we got.  Also - Jan Brady shows up for two shots trying to steal a wedding dress.  

Western Watch: Barricade (1950)

she's so cheery about whatever the hell is happening back there

Watched:  11/26/2024

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  Peter Godfrey

TCM was running a day of Ruth Roman movies.  I am but a simple man, so I recorded a couple of the Ruth Roman films I hadn't yet seen - leading to this viewing of Barricade (1950).  

Based on the Jack London story The Sea Wolf, but transported to a gold mine in the west, there sure seems like this has the makings of something that could have been good - even thought provoking.  But, it is not.  I don't even know why it's called Barricade.  There's kinda some barricades in, like, one scene.  But it's not a plot point, and I don't think there's a metaphor here...  It's just called "Barricade".  And Ruth Roman is not big enough by far to barricade anything.

What's odd is that this movie seems like it has high aspirations, but just feels weird and flat throughout.  Maybe I'm just not a Dane Clark fan, or I don't think Raymond Massey was as compelling as the script was begging him to be.  And I was tricked!  Because the movie starts with a scene in which Roman shows up dressed as a lady, getting off of a wagon, and when you find out she's a wanted prison escapee, she kicks a dude over and steals the 6-horse wagon.  It is the best part of the movie.  I briefly had high hopes.

Anyway, there's an accident and she and the other passenger on the wagon end up stranded in a remote gold mine where the crooked boss runs the place with an odd, intellectual cruelty, crushing everyone around him - as he mostly hires people looking to hide from the law.

While Roman and Dane Clark fall for each other, the travelling companion, Robert Douglas, spars verbally with Raymond Massey, the boss.  

I dunno.  It's... fine.  I think the 6.0/ 10 rating on IMDB sounds right.  It's not horrible, but I won't think about this movie again until I'm looking at old posts or IMDB in the future.  Roman is the only real highlight of the film.  I just don't think Dane Clark is all that exciting as a leading man here or in the other things where I've seen him, and Robert Douglas is... fine.  But feels perfunctory in the part.  

It happens.  Even the wikpedia entry on this movie is basically "yes, this movie exists".  

Holiday Watch: Hot Frosty (2024)

Watched:  11/24/2024

Format:  Netflix

Viewing:  First

Director:  Jerry Ciccoritti

Selection:  Jamie

Every Christmas, we're inundated not just with Hallmark-style Christmas films - we also get a few comedies, many which that involve some straight up magic as the premise.  After all, it is Christmas, and Christmas includes Heat Misers and flying reindeer and Mariah Carey.

But those Christmas comedies are not always winners.  Last year, I nominated two magical Christmas comedies for some of the worst films I'd seen all year.  Those included Genie and my selection for worst of 2023, Candy Cane Lane.  So I am not just easily in the bag for anything that comes along, Christmas-wise.  (I do remember liking parts of Dashing Through the Snow, but that may have just been Teyonah Parris smiling on screen).

Mostly, this movie made me happy for Lacey Chabert, who accidentally fell backward into being the second-most-popular Hallmark star, and then was promoted to full-Hallmark status when Candace Cameron Bure decided Hallmark was now too woke for her.*

Chabert had been kind of pushing the envelope at Hallmark the last few years, finding movies that didn't exactly fit the Hallmark mold as we knew it.  Haul Out the Holly, por ejemplo, was an attempt to just do a plain 'ol family comedy.  It even has Gen X's favorite Ned, Stephen Tobolowsky.  

Hot Frosty (2024) is a leap into a straight, goofy comedy, as evidenced by some of the casting, from Schitt's Creek's Dustin Milligan to Katy Mixon Greer, who I particularly loved in Eastbound and Down.  I also was delighted to see Lauren Holly show up (and she was really funny, as pre-usual).  And, lastly, if you don't know Craig Robinson and Joe Lo Truligio, well...  your life is a poor shell of an existence and I pity you.  

Christmas Watch: The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (2024)

Watched:  11/23/2024

Format:   Cinepolis Theater

Viewing:  First

Director:  Dallas Jenkins

Selection:  KareBear

So, yes.  This was not entirely my idea. 

The book which inspired the film The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (2024) was a staple in our household while I was growing up.  In it's way, the book was as familiar as Judy Blume and Beverly Cleary for me (I can't speak for Steanso).  But I honestly haven't revisited the book in decades or seen the older movie version with Loretta Swit.  But every Christmas, whether it's at church with my folks or watching someone at the Vatican read scripture, when they get to the right part, I think of Gladys yelling "Hey!  Unto you a child is born!"

For context - While growing up, we were very involved in any church we attended, and my mom, The KareBear, ran the Sunday School at a couple of them.*   My mom's perennial draw to the book likely stemmed from seeing herself in several roles in the book - from the hard-scrabble kid growing up figuring things out, to the pious girl who loves church (our narrator, Beth), and culminating in herself as the overextended mom running a Christmas Pageant wherein things are not ideal.  

I'll admit, from the kid participant perspective in Christmas pageants - this thing lands.  (My earliest memories include my mom making me be an angel in a Vacation Bible School production and having to explain to me that angels are also dudes despite the felt-craft imagery I'd seen to date.)

And, lo, this fall my mother declared that *all she she wanted for Christmas* was for the fam to gather and go see the movie.  So, last night my folks (The Admiral and KareBear), Jamie, Steanso, Cardboard Belts and the kids all went to the theater and caught the film.  

Hallmark Watch: A Very Merry Mix-Up (2013)

Watched:  11/22/2024

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First?

Director:  Jonathan Wright

Ah, the Golden Age of Hallmark.  If you weren't a city-gal falling for a simple boy from...  somewhere else even 45% more rural?...  were you even Christmassing?  This one is still from the Hallmark era of Actresses I Knew From Other Things Picking Up A Quick Paycheck.  And, to wit, Alicia Witt is our star.  

In this movie, Witt plays the world's perkiest depressed girl.  In the wake of her father's passing, she's running his antiques business - right into the ground.  While she has no visible traffic in her shop, she also won't find time to organize the store, do her books, or do much but stand in place behind the counter.  She seems to have no friends and her mother has left.  She's dating a guy who openly has contempt for her, and seems to have picked her because she'll agree to whatever, like a real life Sim.

She is unwell.

Her man is, of course, Business Man.  And that is bad.  Because business.  City.  Cell phone.  He is bad.  Even if, you know, he's rightfully pointing out that she's running her dad's business into the ground.  That is bad.  Do not point out the inevitable failure.  He proposes to her stupidly and publicly, and for reasons, she agrees, because depression is a wild ride, I guess. He then tells her she's flying to meet his family, and he'll catch up.  And she does this.

The titular very merry mix-up occurs as Witt is a moron who meets another moron and neither realizes the other's story doesn't match, and she just leaves the airport with this guy and goes to his house, believing he's the brother of her fiancée.  Btw, she's never even heard her fiancée has a brother also, btw, (friends, do not go with a stranger just saying things that sound vaguely comforting to a second location).  

She, of course, falls for the brother because we can't quite do While You Were Sleeping, but we can come close!  And she loves Christmas, and... get this... so does he!  The brother, Matt, is not much of an actor, and you can feel Witt just over-caffeinating herself to get some energy out of their scenes, because she's, like, good and stuff, and kind of stuck in this movie.

Anyway - she figures out she has the wrong house and goes to the right house, and Business Man's family is hilarious.  Yes, they suck, but that sucking is by far the best part of the movie.  It's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf about to break out at any moment. 

Knowing Witt is ruining her dad's business, Business Man (a) finds a way for her to sell the property for $3.5 million, and then (b) offers to help her set up in another spot a couple of blocks over.  Yes, this will benefit him, too.  Which is something that would help her, is she's marrying him.  It's the definition of win-win.  Yet...  Witt, who thinks owning a business is about nostalgia for one's childhood and not feeding oneself, gets mad and breaks up with Business Man, refusing the deal.  

She gets back with dumb-dumb.  The End.

This is a movie about dumb, sweet people belonging together.  There's worse things. I think they'll likely be bankrupt within a year, but okay.

The movie is full of gigantic plotholes, the main character seems traumatized and that goes undiagnosed (and I worry for her).  It's dumb things happening so movie will happen. It hits all the Hallmark waypoints.  City bad.  Business bad.  Not Business Man good.  Wise old relative.  Stupid stories about the past.  Decorating a tree too close to Christmas.  

It was good to go back and see one of these Classic Formula movies, and I do miss them starring someone famous for something outside of being in Hallmark movies.  

Anyway, if you want to buy me the Alicia Witt Christmas record, I won't complain.  

Witt is, of course, a stone cold fox, which makes this easier to watch.

90's Regret Watch: Armageddon (1998)

this @#$%ing pile of *&^%

Watched:  11/16/2024

Format:  Hulu

Viewing:  First

Director:  Michael Bay

I write this post from beyond the grave.  

I'm not sure what it was that, specifically, convinced my soul to abandon my body during Armageddon (1998).  There were so, so many options - from Ben Affleck leading the cast in singing "Leaving on a Jet Plane" to Bruce Willis shooting up a functioning oil rig with a shotgun to Liv Tyler disrupting everything in NASA Mission Command screaming about her "daddy".  Or maybe just the premise of the film altogether.  But with 30 extremely loud and stupid minutes left to go, I realized I had passed on to the blogging platform in the sky.

This movie is essentially the redneck fever dream of people furious at other people who paid attention in school or watch PBS because that shit ain't cool.  Michael Bay and Bruckheimer are convinced only nerds care how things work and what the movie needs to do is think of funny and rad things to show - but are neither funny nor that rad.

I'm not averse to anything about the movie on paper.  A ragtag crew is called in to save the world and blow up an asteroid aimed at Earth.  Sure.  Why not?  The actors lined up are *good* to *great*.  So the challenges arrive in every writing, directing, editing and other creative decision that went into the film. 

WTF Watch: Kissin' Cousins (1964)

Watched:  11/15/2024

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  Gene Nelson

In this movie, Elvis comes down hard on the side of @#$%ing one's cousin(s). 

This is not me inferring something.  This is what happens in this movie from a few different angles. 

To be sure, one is hard pressed to find a more problematic movie than Kissin' Cousins (1964), the movie I watched last night.  And when people say they want to go back to a better America - I want to say "this America?  Cousin @#$%ing America?"  The contemporary reviews of this movie sure weren't great, but they also don't seem overly concerned with how this movie is about two things:  putting ICBM siloes on US soil and normalizing gettin' with yer kin.

It also features suggestions that the best way to win a woman is to pursue her relentlessly and a little bit violently, despite her express wishes.  It goes in hard for sexualizing the infantilization of women.  And probably a dozen other things, but those are some of the eye-poppers.

Like a lot of Elvis movies, it's not so much a musical as an excuse to roll out a new Elvis record.  There's some plot, but it's a framework to stop the eight minutes' worth of story for Elvis to sing a song.  In this way, it's not so much a musical - which uses songs to carry the story and have characters express themselves - as a series of music videos interspersed between goofily delivered plot points.

Action Watch: Monkey Man (2024)

Watched:  11/12/2024

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  Dev Patel

When I saw the trailer, I recall wanting to see Monkey Man (2024).  But, honestly, 2024 has been another year of WTF, as every year has been since we lost Bowie.  And, events conspiring as they did, I missed the film until now.  

Why now?  Well, Jamie said "I want to watch an action movie", and I was really looking hard at Lady Snowblood, which she hasn't seen yet.  But I said "you know, that movie features so much trauma stuff and violence, so maybe not."  And, instead, chose the light action-comedy, Monkey Man.*  But, curiously!, there's a really, really similar plot line between Lady Snowblood and Monkey Man, and both have some pretty crazy amounts of balletic violence going on.

I am the first to admit - I am, at best, vaguely aware of Indian politics and current events/ issues.  And while I followed the film, I'm also certain I missed piles of nuance and subtext that someone more culturally literate than myself could track.  

The gist is, years ago a young boy is a fan of the mythical character, Hanuman (a monkey figure).  Through flashback interspersed, we learn that his village was burned by a sort of religious figure who is also an industrialist who used the cops to enforce his desires - like taking the land owned and occupied by minority ethnicities or religious factions.  In the course of the village's destruction, the Kid's mother is murdered in front of him.

Doc Watch: National Geographic's "Endurance (2024)"

Watched:  11/10/2024

Format:  Disney+

Viewing:  First

Director:  Jimmy Chin, Natalie Hewit, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi

If you have any passing interest in the the Shackleton expedition, this is both a good summary of what happened - giving the viewer a pretty good idea how Shackleton's expedition to cross Antarctica did not, in fact, work out - but somehow the crew survived two years of nightmare conditions after their ship was first iced-in and then sank.  

The story is paralleled by the contemporary search for The Endurance - lost in the ocean at almost 2 miles down.  

The doc is Nat Geo-worthy, and therefore very watchable.  But here's the thing - Shackleton's expedition was launched in 1914 (it's amazing how small the world got in a 100 years) - and so he was smart enough to bring a filmographer and photographer.  So!  Get ready to see actual filmed footage of the expedition.

Perhaps more controversial - because everyone survived, they were interviewed later.  And so we get snippets of their interviews (not an issue) but excerpts from their diaries are then read by AI versions of those people's voices derived from the interviews.  Which... I guess we can do that now? 

It's a good effect - especially mixed with the silent footage an some re-creations of the events that couldn't be filmed.  

I'm gonna try to let all of that pass without too judgment.  We're in a new era of media, and I'm not sure that didn't have an interesting effect.  I know we're all supposed to be mad at AI all the time, but it's an interesting use of the technology.

There is a moment in the doc that left me dumbfounded where the scientists say "hey, we ran this program to guess the drift of the Endurance based on some details in the original logs" - and if you're me, you're staring goggle-eyed that they mounted this whole expedition and are more than 10 days in when they thought this up.  Like - not to be a dick, but I literally *assumed* they'd done this just to get funding.

All's well that ends well, and the film does wrap up with nice footage of the Endurance at the bottom of the Antarctic waters

Crime Watch: Wolfs (2024)

Watched:  11/09/2024

Format:  Apple+

Viewing:  First

Director:  John Watt

We've fallen into a pattern on the weekends.  Fridays - we watch something silly, funny, etc...  On Saturday, if we aren't busy, we watch something we've meant to catch on streaming.  And, Wolfs (2024) is one of the films, as is the Matt Damon one also sitting in queue over on Apple+, a service I'm not all that interested in minus MLS soccer.  But it's free through T-Mobile and was the home for Ted Lasso, and so here I sit.

The draw, of course, is that you liked George Clooney and Brad Pitt's dynamic in the Oceans 11 movies that happened more than 20 years ago.  And I did.  And the movie was essentially free, so... we watched it.

I will confess - I am not in love with the work of writer/ director John Watt, and so when his name popped up at the beginning, I kind of braced myself.  Watt turns in movies that are... fine.  They're never bad, but they're also never exactly sparking with auteurism or breaking new ground.  

The central conceit of the movie is that a Manhattan DA (Amy Ryan, always welcome) is frolicking with a young man who is not her husband, in a hotel room, when he falls off the bed and seemingly dies after hitting his head.

She has a phone number for a cleaner - a job I assume might exist? - who covers up the accidents and mis-doings of powerful and wealthy people.  We got this idea from Pulp Fiction, where Harvey Keitel was absolutely amazing as The Wolf - which is where I assume they took the name for this film.  And let me tell you how old one feels when a movie they watched 30 years ago is referenced this way.  But this is how culture works.

If you were counting on loving the banter between Clooney and Pitt, you basically get the idea and then it just keeps happening for 1/2 of the movie.  Which is a real YMMV proposition.  I get the feeling Clooney and Pitt and Watt were having a grand time doing this.  But it feels like the movie just takes forever to get going, and the gags it wants to do - this is a comedy - are a light chuckle more than a laugh-out-loud proposition.  Plus, it takes a minute to figure out how goofy this world is that we're in, as there's really no clues about it until... I dunno, 45 minutes in?

I also cannot for the life of me figure out why Amy Ryan's character was picking up this absolute dweeb of a guy.

Anyway, the movie is fine.  It really doesn't mark out any new territory, but if you're looking for a lower-budget hang with the guys you liked around 2001, you can do way worse.  I do like a good hang with these guys!  And a walk-on by Richard Kind (who publicly said this year he doesn't turn any roles down, which is hilarious).  

SPOILERS

The movie ends in a sort of Butch and Sundance moment, but apparently they're making another one.  Which... I think Butch and Sundance also got an off-brand sequel so maybe that's fine.

The back 1/3rd of the movie is, for my dollar, what the whole movie could have/ should have been - a sort of absurdist fantasy of this world.  And maybe the sequel will lean into what worked, now that we've gotten past the squabbling part.

Noirvember Watch: Pickup Alley (1957)

Watched:  11/7/2024

Format:  Criterion

Viewing:  First

Director:  John Gilling

It's Noirvember, so I'm trying to get a few of ye olde Noir films in.  Luckily, Criterion is here to offer up the goods with three separate categories of noir.  I got lazy and picked the category "Columbia Noir" which includes some Brit Noir.  

I will be 100% honest and say, I was just like "Victor Mature.  Sounds good."   I knew nothing about this movie until the credits started crawling by.  Had I seen the poster, I would have known THIS IS A PICTURE ABOUT DOPE!  I might also have noticed this is European film - and, in fact, a pretty British film.  Directed by a Brit and produced by one of the Bond-famous Brocolis (Cubby) and Irving Allen, who worked in both England and the US.  

The cast is anchored by Victor Mature, who looks mildly upset the whole time, but who has no character to work with or speak of.  He's just the relentless hero.  I assume this movie really got in the way of his European golfing vacation.

Anita Ekberg plays The Dame, and is... fine?  If you wonder what the big deal was with Ekberg and why you've heard her name, his movie is a pretty good argument for why.  Lastly, the movie stars Trevor Howard, who was in sort of everything - but Superman nerds will flip out realizing this is the guy who told Jor-El to be reasonable in Superman while the planet was set to explode.

And Trevor Howard is *great* in this as a mastermind drug kingpin.  Reviews at the time mostly agree.

What surprised me watching this, with the name Broccoli floating around in my head, is that there's certainly some Bond DNA here.  It's very light, but it's about a relentless government fellow pursuing an established mastermind across Europe, treating each place as an exotic locale and the locals as scenery.  There's, of course, a beautiful woman wrapped up with our villain who is doing his dirty work and doesn't like it.

It's not a 1:1, but once the idea is in your head, it's hard to shake.  

The idea is:  Mature's sister was about to finger Trevor Howard for the NYPD when he figured it out and killed her.  Since, Mature's been a mad-bull on the streets hoping to punch his way to the mysterious McNally.  They get a lead and he's sent to England to work with InterPol (the International Police, not the band).  Shenanigans happen and Mature and Co. get Ekberg's fingerprints and begin tracking her to get to Howard.  Soon, they're in Lisbon.  Then in Rome.  Then Athens.  It's sort of one long, continent-wide chase.  

It's not a great movie, but it gets the job done.  Lots of action, some amazing locations, camera work, and a score that does tons of heavy lifting.  

It is noir?  Sort of.  Close enough.

Doc Watch: Music By John Williams (2024)

Watched:  11/06/2024

Format:  Disney+

Viewing:  First

Director:  Laurent Bouzerau

I don't have a special relationship with the music of John Williams - we *all* have that relationship.  

Music lays there in your mind somewhere next to the smells of your grandparents' basement that will come back to you when you smell something similar, or the taste of the food from your youth.  And John Williams' music was as important to us as pop, as Christmas music, as *anything* we heard growing up.

Of course there are other great movie composers... but probably the vast majority of them I'd put anywhere in the category of Williams are dead.  And none who seemed to hit with every score.

My earliest memories are of John Williams' music.  As a very small kid, post-Star Wars, we'd Imperial March around the house.  I remember the Christmas after Empire came out, my cousin Susan had purchased me the two-record soundtrack, and I lay on the floor listening to it over and over. 

Now, I get teary hearing Leia's theme - and have since Force Awakens reused it as Leia came off the ship. I still feel my pulse quicken to the Indiana Jones theme, or Superman.  I feel that pit in my stomach when I hear the Schindler's List score, or swell with wonder with Jurassic Park and Close Encounters.  Or ET.

We could probably rattle off his scores all day.  He's made plenty (I about gasped when I saw Home Alone for the first time since high school a couple of years ago and John Williams' name was on the film).  Honestly, it's staggering how prolific he's been, and that's part of what the doc tries to cover.  It's not just one Star War - it's 9.  It's not one Indy movie, it's 5.  

For reference, IMDB has him with the following telling stats for credits

• Music Department:  321
• Composer:  177
• Soundtrack:  517 (this is a mish-mash of work he did used on films - like "Superman Main Titles" being used on Superman IV)

I will be honest - I found out I knew absolutely nothing about John Williams while watching the doc.  My assumptions about who he was, his background, his education... all completely wrong.  I won't get into his background - that's in the doc.  But I will say that if I appreciated Williams before, I'm in absolute awe of him now, and don't just think he's a genius, he's a prodigy.

I was also unaware of his personal tragedy, or how he fell in with the biggest filmmakers of the past several decades.  

The doc trots out a who's-who of personalities, none of them a lightweight, to make their arguments for Williams, to talk about their experience working with him, and it's all a delight.  I am fine with the narrative that Williams' genius is innate, he's kind, etc...  the man is the greatest possible argument for the value of sound in movies, and maybe the last great orchestrator for film.

And, yes, I don't understand why - in this era of franchise pictures - we don't have more folks emulating Williams.

What I agree with - and looking at the listings for the Austin Symphony bares this out - is that film music is now as serious and important to symphonies as anything.  Sure, you still have the heavy hitters - some Mozart, Dvorak - but there's the show the whole family will dig.  John Williams.  

Anyway - watch the doc.  I found myself getting a bit emotional.  That music has a hold on you and taps into something pretty serious, and hearing all of it together is *a lot*.  But watch the doc and learn more about the man and the myth.

Somehow Not 1998 Watch: Canary Black (2024)

Watched:  11/3/2024

Format:  Amazon Prime

Viewing:  First

Director:  Pierre Morel

I always intend to watch the espionage-ish movies I see go by on streaming services.  They're usually shot in Eastern Europe and with women with cool hair.  And let me tell you - Kate Beckinsale's hair is so cool in this movie, it's its own character.  This is not a complaint.

The basic pitch of Canary Black (2024) is that there's a MacGuffin, and if Kate Beckinsale doesn't get it and deliver it to the baddies, then they'll kill her poor husband, who is just a nice Doctors Without Borders doctor who doesn't know his globe-trotting wife is a bad-ass spy.  Avery agrees, and this sends the CIA after Avery Graves (Beckinsale), and now she's in a dilly of a pickle.  

The plot is mostly an excuse to give Beckinsale tons of opportunities to (a) look amazing in all black on the nighttime streets of Eastern-Europe-Land, and (b) kick so many people's asses that John Wick would raise a glass to her.