French Noir Watch: Le Cercle Rouge (1970)

Watched:  07/27/2025

Format:  4K disc

Viewing:  First

Director:  Jean-Pierre Melville

So, there's a whole bunch of Criterion movies on sale on Amazon, and I wasn't doing much this weekend, so I got silly and justified the expense on this movie.  Because.  

Leave me alone.  Sometimes I do things.

If you've never dipped your toe in French noir, or only watched Breathless, the French noir movement is fascinating as it's so clearly done with love for and homage to American noir (which the French coined - we just called them crime movies).  I assume American culture was imported via Hollywood in the post-war years as American GI's rambled around Europe and France took a minute to get its film industry fired up again.  But the American movies are refracted through the lens of a nation crawling out from occupation, and maybe contain the spirit which gave us Camus.  

I mean, one of the French noir films I'd rec is called Elevator to the Gallows.  Fate vs. freewill and existential dread hangs heavy on the minds of these movies - more so than American films mostly being about "don't pursue the wrong dame".

Le Cercle Rouge (1970) is a crime/ heist movie in which we're told at the outset, before we meet any characters "these people will come together, and it will go very badly, indeed".  And, that is what happens.

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?

Waco Watch: Action USA (1989)

Watched:  07/12/2025

Format:  Prime

Viewing:  First

Director:  John Stewart

After he'd recommended it to me twice, I took JAL up on his suggestion of this particular flick.  I meant to watch this for the 4th of July, but we got busy, so here you go.  My salute to America.

Action USA (1989) is probably the best high-action movie shot in Waco during the 1980's.

I very much remember Waco in the 1980s.  It was, aside from Baylor, a town that had seen its best days 30 years prior and was not yet recovered from the economic turns of the 1970's and 80's.  In a few short years, we'd have the Branch Davidian stand-off near here.  And then, much later, Joanna Gaines would convince people Waco was the shit, which... TV is a powerful drug, y'all.  Somehow, the second worst college town in Texas is now a tourist destination for people who like overpriced wooden spoons and mediocre football.

Anyway, it is always weird/ a delight seeing the landscape of my part of Texas in a movie.  And buildings that still stand that I am a bit familiar with from a job I had ten years ago when I was in Waco a lot.

Super First Watch: Superman (2025)

Watched:  07/08/2025

Format:  AMC IMAX

Viewing:  First

Director:  James Gunn

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

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)

Light spoilers ahead.  We'll do another post or two on the movie getting deeper into details.

Well, kids.  We made it.  It's 2025, and we have a Superman movie.  

We posted some details of our screening previously, right after Jamie and I took in the flick.

At the top - I'll say, a good portion of my life has been spent reading Superman comic books, watching Superman films, television, cartoons, etc... I've read non-fiction about Superman's storied history as a pop-culture figure and feel pretty confident in saying that I'm up to date on the character.

And, yet, it is very, very strange to see Superman come to the screen and feel less like an interpretation of Superman re-imagined for the big screen by people wanting to put their own stamp on the character, and instead get a movie that feels like someone took a really terrific event Superman comic run and said "this is what we're doing.  On the screen.  With a budget that's equal to roughly the combined GDP of Europe."

2010's Watch: Bad Times At The El Royale (2018)

Watched:  06/29/2025

Format:  Prime

Viewing:  First

Writer/ Director:  Drew Goddard

It's possible in fifteen or twenty years, this movie will be found and puzzled over as featuring folks who are now established stars, mixed with longtime stars.  Bad Times at the El Royale (2018) features Cynthia Erivo in what I will say should have been a break-out performance and her entree into film stardom, rather than her having to wait until Wicked.  She's clearly already a star.  Lewis Pullman is here.  As are Chris Hemsworth, John Hamm, Jeff Bridges and a not-50 Shades-ing Dakota Johnson.  

But this movie came out and tanked.  That's neither here nor there, but it has meant that it's not exactly on the forefront of people's minds as few eyes saw the movie in the theater and it's not found an audience on home video. 

What's odd is that Metacritic comes in at a mid-range-ish 60, and the audience score is a generous 71.  And yet... no one saw this.

However, maybe in the same way of The Last of Sheila from 1973, it will find an audience that will make sure it has a cult following.  Or not.  (I heartily recommend The Last of Sheila.)

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.

Noir Watch: High Tide (1947)

Watched:  06/22/2025

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  John Reinhardt

This movie had the unfortunate combo of plodding pacing while feeling deeply convoluted.  Throw in some off-brand talent and poverty row aesthetics, and it's not exactly one of the most polished movies you're going to see.

It's a bummer, because it feels like there's probably a good story or movie in here somewhere, but this probably isn't it.  

There's just so many angles and storylines, and the movie runs only 72 minutes but has enough going on for something 45 minutes longer.  It also uses the framing of "wow, this is awful.  How did we wind up here?" with two of our leads in a car wreck at the beach, both trapped and waiting for the high tide to come in and kill them.

We flash back to a newspaper office with a tough editor, a weak-knee'd rich boy boss and our lead - who had been fired from the paper coming back to find out why his editor pal is making him the beneficiary on his high dollar life insurance.

There's multiple dames in play, gangsters, perturbed fired reporters.  It's a lot.  And it's kind of hard to care about forty minutes in as things just keep happening but it feels like the movie is spinning its wheels.

I just couldn't get into it.  I wish I could say I did.  But...  alas.  

Then, at the end, when they put all the pieces together, I was like "oh, that's actually really smart and cool".  Alas, I just didn't maintain much interest to get me to that point.  It's so short, I'll rewatch it soon to see if I like it better when I'm in a better headspace.

Chabert Whoops Watch: The Sweetest Christmas (2017)

Watched:  06/21/2025

Format:  Hallmark

Viewing:  First

Director:  Terry Ingram

Job: Receptionist/ Would-Be Baker

Location of story:  Helen, Georgia (which is apparently a real place themed like a German village?)

new skill:  ruining two men's lives

Man:  Lea Coco (no, really)

Job of Man:  Italian Restauranteur

Goes to/ Returns to:  has returned home

Event:  National Gingerbread Competition

Food:  oh, Gingerbread, man.  So much Gingerbread.

Well, whoops.  

I thought I'd watched this one, but... and follow me here... I found out through an odd way that I had *not* watched it.  I had confused a Valentine's movie about chocolate with The Sweetest Christmas (2017) while managing the Chabert-a-Tron 3000 and checked it off.

Hey, moron... how did you puzzle that one out?  you may be asking yourself.  

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 Watch: Gypsy (1993)

Midler took center stage?  Whaaaaat....?

Watched:  06/13/2025

Format:  Prime

Viewing:  First

Director:  Emile Ardolino

Everything's coming up Chabert!

So, I'd never seen Gypsy before in any form.  A snip of the Natalie Wood version was on once and we agreed we'd watch the full thing at some point and... we did not.

This film, Gypsy (1993), was a TV movie that aired in December of my Freshman year of college, so I am not shocked I was unaware of it existing.  All I really knew about Gypsy was:

1. Jamie once played a small part in a community theatre version of the play 
2. Broadway queen Audra McDonald is currently receiving rave reviews for her portrayal of Momma Rose.  
3. It's sort of about the ultimate stage mom
4. It's the origin story of a real life stripper turned writer turned pop figure,  Gypsy Rose Lee, who was a fixture in American culture from the 30's to the 60's

This TV movie was an adaptation of a Stephen Sondheim musical of the same name, which was originally on Broadway starting in the late 1950's and ran for some time.  The musical, in turn, was based on Lee's own memoirs, which had been a popular book.

Chabert Watch: Daddy Day Care (2003)

Watched:  06/11/2025

Format:  Prime

Viewing:  First

Director:  Steve Carr

Sometimes coming into a movie and seeing it has an extraordinarily low rating sets you up for success.  Daddy Day Care (2003) has a 39 on Metacritic* and a Critics score at RT of 27%.  

Honestly, I thought it was fine.  Not good, but fine.  

It knew what it was - an excuse for kids to be cute and throw in some wholesome jokes.  It was clearly intended to be a family movie, and so I can see how critics decided this was bad, hoping for the Eddie Murphy of the 80's and 90's.  And I don't automatically give Eddie Murphy a pass.  I think I declared Candy Cane Lane the worst movie of 2023.  But as a family movie based on its own merits, sure.  Daddy Day Care (2003) is.. fine.  (I also have seen so many awful movies of late, this feels like Casablanca by comparison)

The movie stars Murphy as a guy trying to run a health food team within a processed food company, who loses his job when his project "Veggie-O's Cereal" bombs.  Coming with him is his side-kick, Jeff Garlin.  They recruit their former mail-boy, Steve Zahn, to work with the kids.  Regina King plays Murphy's wife, who has just started working as an attorney.  Anjelica Huston plays the head of a school/ daycare that's run like an intense prep academy.  Lacey Chabert plays her assistant.  Jonathan Katz plays a City employee keeping tabs on the daycare.  Laura Kightlinger is in there.  Kevin Nealon.  Siobhan Fallon Hogan.  And a very small Elle Fanning is one of the kids.

1950's Watch: Designing Woman (1957)

Watched:  06/10/2025

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  Vincente Minnelli

I was a bit wary of this film as I watched the trailer, but you never know.  

For example, I'd quite liked Woman of the Year, and I thought that was not going to land with me.  But I've been taking a mini-journey through the very limited media lifespan of Dolores Gray, who was mostly a Broadway and West End performer (she's American - she played Annie Oakley in London's Annie Get Your Gun).  She only has, like, five or six movies, total, and Designing Woman (1957) is one of them.  

The story is about a sports reporter (Gregory Peck) who meets a high-end fashion designer (Lauren Bacall) while in California, but it turns out they both live in New York.  After a whirlwind week and marriage, they return to the city and what was going on in their prior lives.  

Turns out a hard-drinking sports writer and a wealthy woman used to more of a salon sort of atmosphere with her pals are somewhat at odds.  It's a deeply heightened "men be like this", "women be like this" clashing of worlds.  

JLC Watch: Freaky Friday (2003)

Watched:  06/08/2025

Format:  Disney+

Viewing:  First

Director:  Mark Waters

If you weren't an adult in the 00's, it's hard to imagine how easily mainstream media managed to convince the public that completely random people were now the biggest star in the world and we all had to care about them.  This was a result of the fact that the internet had not yet discovered algorithms and was just force-feeding us content, so whether they were pushing someone on teens or the elderly, we all got the same stuff.  

America was in the middle of occupying Iraq, which had begun four months before the release of Freaky Friday (2003), and as a bit of a newshound at the time, I was often trying to find out wtf was happening.  But every time you tried to get online and look at the news, sites were saying "yeah, war in Iraq that could trigger 1000 years of war with the East, but... look at what Lindsay Lohan's mom said today!".  

I have no negative feelings about Lohan, especially as a teen.  She existed.  But I can't say the same for the de-evolution of news at the dawn of the clickbait era and selling us on the antics of certain celebrities.

Lohan is fine in this movie.  Cute, has a pack-a-day-habit voice pioneered by Jodie Foster and carried on to Emma Stone just a few years later, but...  In my book, Jamie Lee Curtis is putting on a comedy clinic.  Lohan's good!  But with JLC playing a surly teen, Lohan doesn't get to do anything as kooky as JLC.  And I am not sure she has the same presence as Foster in the original film, but those may just be fond memories from 1982 or so when I last watched the movie.

I found this version, though, really, really funny - once it gets started.  And it doesn't suffer from meandering in the manner of 70's-era Disney live-action flicks.  The first ten minutes or so are rough as we watch the leads snipe at each other and get all of the set-up in place - including the shitty younger brother.  But, immediately upon the body swap, the movie works.  I was lol'ing.

2025 audiences might shift uncomfortably about the trigger being a magic fortune cookie.  I'll just leave it at that.

My recollection is that the original movie is a bit more even-sided between the kid and mom not understanding each other, but this one really leans into Lohan's character taking it from all sides before the swap, which initially I found odd, but it does give the story plenty to work with as Mom-in-Kid's body navigates her daughter's day, (the unfair English teacher played by Tobolowsky is particularly a good bit).  And I did appreciate that the script's inclusion of a step-father coming into the picture (Mark Harmon) is played so well.

But...  for comedy... JLC mooning over a boy, frustrated with her punk brother..  it's all pretty solid work and she commits to the bit.  I wish they'd done more with the therapy session stuff, but what we got was good.

Tragically, the movie is also from the era of SoCal Pop-Punk being shoved down our throats, and it wasn't enjoyable at the time and has aged like a banana left out for two solid months.  Thus, I wish I enjoyed the rock band numbers more than I did.  But I didn't, minus JLC clearly really knowing how to play the bit her character plays in the film.  That was cool.

I didn't start this post off to drag Lohan - it was just a weird time for how talent was promoted (remember how we were bombarded with Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie for way too long?), and she had some hard years transitioning to being a grown-assed adult as a result.  But this movie was a key part in her rise to fame and Disney trying to cash in on her popularity.  And you kind of wonder what would have been if Hollywood weren't so full of toxic monsters.

Fortunately, Lohan and JLC are teaming up for a sequel this summer, so maybe she'll get a second shot.  She's been fine in her Netflix movies.

Chabert X-Mas Watch: Family For Christmas (2015)

Mirrorverse Man watches Lacey, while she stares you down

Watched:  06/08/2025

Format:  Hallmark

Viewing:  First

Director:  Amanda Tapping

Job: News reporter/ Housewife

Location of story:  San Francisco and Bay Area 'burbs

new skill:  being a mother

Man:  Tyron Leitso

Job of Man:  Advertising creative

Goes to/ Returns to:  Goes to alternate timeline

Event:  School Christmas Pageant (very overdecorated)

Food:  Mushrooms and what I think was Captain Crunch

In 2015, Lacey Chabert made four movies, three for Hallmark.  Two of those Hallmark movies were Christmas films.  In 2015, she is on her way to building her own legend.

The first Christmas movie selection for 2015 was A Christmas Melody, the Mariah Carey movie, which we previously covered.  

Our selection today was Family for Christmas (2015),  one of the movies in which Santa is not just a jolly old elf making toys - he's a chaos agent who uses his reality-warping powers to wreak havoc with an unsuspecting person, hoping he can make people hook up.  Santa in Hallmark-Land does not care about toys or children, he cares about making strangers decide to make it.  

Santa is a freak.

Previously, Santa gave Chabert "courage"/ "the inability to stop herself from escalating an already bad situation" in A Wish For Christmas.  This time, Santa finds a perfectly happy career gal/ news reporter (Chabert) who gets a friend request from her college sweetheart she dumped to become a successful reporter.  Meanwhile, she's being offered jobs in NYC, getting the most understanding breakup in Hallmark history, and stealing her assistant's ideas for stories.

Apparently Chabert ponders that Friend Request and what could have been with this ex-boyfriend SO HARD, her pondering becomes a Christmas Wish.  One she did not explicitly make, but Santa still says "yeah, but you really wanted to know".  

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.