Forgot to Post Watch: Miller's Crossing (1990)

Watched:  09/09/2026

Format:  YouTube Movies

Viewing:  ha ha ha ha

Director:  The Coen Bros.

I forgot to post that I watched this movie a couple of weeks ago.  I don't even know which day.

So, no post.  Here's my podcast on the film from a few years ago when we were podcasting.  Thanks, JimD, for the excellent time back in the day.

Marvel Watch: Infinity War (2018) and Endgame (2019)

Watched:  09/26 and 09/27

Format:  BluRay and Regal Cinemas in 3D

Viewing:  Unknown/ Unknown

Director:  The Russos

I don't know that we've ever truly reckoned with what Marvel pulled off across 22 movies between 2008 and 2019.  Instead, we've spent the post-Endgame years grappling with how Marvel seemed to overproduce Marvel content leading to a lack of cohesiveness as the films and shows became uneven and diluted. 

For the youths who are now young adults, what bugs me the most is that they take what Marvel did between 2008 and 2019 *for granted*.  

Look, in no way was it obvious that one could make almost two dozen movies, each film working independently, but also all building to some capstone movies that had a complete and character driven arc for their lead characters while making more money than the GDP of many countries.  

Stanwyck Watch: Jeopardy (1953)

Watched:  09/23/2026

Format:  TCM Noir Alley

Viewing:  First

Director:  John Sturges

I don't know how you can't be blown away by Barbara Stanwyck.  Just an incredible talent.  I might be a fan of, say, Marie Windsor, but I know when someone got Stanwyck, she was going to deliver in a way maybe only 1 or 2 of her contemporaries could.*

It's not like our preferred mode of horror and thrillers these days isn't "nice suburban people suddenly confronted with someone who will kill them".  And Jeopardy (1953) is absolutely in that mode.  

Anyway, this isn't a deep drama.  It's a fast-moving noirish thriller with a small cast, life or death stakes, and proof that kids are just bent on self-destruction, and keeping them safe is probably more trouble than it's worth.

Stanwyck co-stars with first Barry Sullivan, who plays her husband.  They're on a roadtrip from southern California into Mexico to go fishing with their young son, do some camping in a remote spot Sullivan found long ago.  

SPOILERS

Kubrick Watch: Barry Lyndon (1975)

Watched:  09/21/2026

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Director:  Stanley Kubrick

Somehow I'd never seen Barry Lyndon (1975).  I assume some part of my brain would look at the film and say "it won't be fun, and it's 3 hours" and would tap out before I could hit play.

In the past 20 years or so, the common wisdom I received in the 1990's - that the movie was dull or not Kubrick's best - seems to have evaporated and the film has received serious reconsideration.  But aside from "people in ruffles cavort in what looks like the second half of the 18th Century", I had no idea what the film was about.  That said, every film student knew that Kubrick's movie was shot with very special lenses, using only candlelight in many scenes -something unheard of in film production.  And I knew Barry Lyndon was supposed to be one of the most visually stunning movie ever produced, which... I mean, Kubrick.   You get that as part of the package.

Doc Watch: Film Geek (2023)

Watched:   09/15/2026

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Director:  Richard Shepard

It's always weird to watch a documentary about someone talking about themselves and their family.  In this way, the recent award winning doc by Mariska Hargitay My Mom Jayne absolutely works.  As her mother Jayne Mansfield passed when she was so very young, it's really about her learning about her own mother decades after the fact.  She just happens to have the best possible access to Mansfield's history.  But she also is clear eyed about remaining objective and talking about it when she isn't and what it means to live with that legacy.

Film Geek (2023) tosses anything like objectivity out the window in the first minute of the film, and you're just along for the ride as film maker Richard Shepard recounts his youth in 1970's and 1980's Manhattan, which was a whirlwind of movie mania and NY-based Gen-X childhood.  This is paired with our director/narrator trying to unpack how movies tied him to a father he wants to present as a romantic rogue and bon vivant and his mother as a saint.

Catch-Up Watch: Polite Society (2023)

Watched:  09/11/2026

Format:  Peacock 

Viewing:  First

Director:  Nida Manzoor

I'd seen a trailer for Polite Society (2023) when it was coming out, but theatrical windows are short, and I missed it.  Since then, I believe it was Stuart who rec'd it, and I'd had it loosely in the back of my head to watch, meanwhile forgetting why I wanted to see it or what it was about.

Well, whatever I thought it was about, the movie kind of defies genre or expectations at multiple points, and I mean that in the best way.  It's like someone took good ideas and stitched them together into exactly the movie they wanted to make (no, I don't know who Nida Manzoor is exactly, but she also did the series We Are Lady Parts in England, which got good notices).  

Pirate Watch: The Sea Hawk (1940)

Watched:  09/10/2026

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Director:  Michael Curtiz

Look, names of directors get forgotten, but Michael Curtiz was one of the best to get behind a lens, making some of my very favorite films - and they may be your favorites, too.  Casablanca, Mildred Pierce, Adventures of Robin Hood, White Christmas, Flamingo Road, and another Errol Flynn pirate movie - Captain Blood.  

And, man, I still am unclear how they filmed these things, with their huge ships, falling masts, flashing sabers and swashing buckles.  The Sea Hawk (1940) merges the scale of Captain Blood and Robin Hood - two prior Curtiz/ Flynn productions with palace sets, huge galleons and more.  

Pat Boone Noir Watch: The Yellow Canary (1963)

Watched:  09/08/2026

Format:  TCM Noir Alley

Viewing:  First

Director:  Buzz Kulik

All I knew was that The Yellow Canary (1963) starred Pat Boone and Barbara Eden, two people I could not imagine paired, let alone in a noir film.

From the intro and outro, my takeaway was that Eddie Muller had gotten involved with preserving this movie because it seemed so unlikely.  Famously squeaky-clean singer and sometimes actor Pat Boone had agreed to play a philandering, jack-ass pop star (a Bizarro-world version of himself) who is married to Barbara Eden and somehow (against all imaginable odds, and my basic understanding of the world) finds that boring.  

Shark/Jet Watch: West Side Story (2021)

Watched:  09/07/2026

Format:  FX Movies on basic cable

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Steven Somebody

I was performing repetitive manual tasks (dealing with comic books.  Where my fellow nerds at?) which means I need something to occupy my brain, but not something *new*, as I might get up to perform part of a task, move around, etc...  And then I saw the 2021 version of West Side Story was on cable, and, sure, why not?

I first saw the play in about 5th or 6th grade with our own Matt A. at the former Capital City Playhouse in Austin.  I then saw the 1961 film in about 1992, and so ask me about bearing witness to Rita Moreno as Anita in her lavender dress.*

But this was the 2021 version, which *also* features Moreno, but doing fewer high kicks.

I really dig this version, too.  I feel like Spielberg did it right, bringing his sense of visuals, character and narrative tension which he built his career on to the material and made it feel both fresh and deeply rooted in the time and place from whence it sprang, managing to make it speak to the now.  

It also fills in some narrative gaps and does some info-dumps to clarify the situation in New York which the general population would have known by osmosis in 1961, but which has shifted and shifted and shifted in the decades since.  The actual politics, economics and on-the-street situation in the film is made abundantly clear in a way it just wasn't previously.

I'm just checking in on this one.  No real notes.  And will say, I'm really glad DeBose and Ziegler are both doing great on the other side of this film.  The guy who played Riff is slated to be in the new East of Eden movie.  

I recall people being a little weird about this when it came out, and a lot of the commentary came down to skill issues and that even dummies can have internet access.  And people oddly offended that a play, done in every town in America, which was a movie, should get remade when the first movie had some really odd weaknesses (like making all the Puerto Ricans wear matching full-body make-up).

So, yeah.  I dig it.   

*Great googly moogly

 

Windsor Watch: Abbot and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955)

Watched:  09/06/2026

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  Charles Lamont

Confession time:  I haven't really enjoyed Bud & Lou since I was a kid.  I remember we'd check out 8mm projectors and film from the library and watch their movies and have a good laugh.  I was six.

Subsequent attempts to watch the classic comedy duo have gone less well.  

But, of the main ingrendients, I do like two other things:  classic movie monsters and Marie Windsor.  And, I figure - two out of three things in this movie?  That ain't bad.

Our plot:  Bud & Lou are semi-stranded in Egypt and get involved with a cult, an ancient mummy, a murder and shady characters looking to make some money.  

I dunno.

Dolly Watch: Straight Talk (1992)

Watched:  09/06/2026

Format:  Amazon?

Viewing:  First

Director:  Barnet Kellman

I kind of remember a spate of these sorts of sweet, fluffy, cotton candy movies coming out for a minute.  I think a lot of this sort of thing has made its way to TV or streaming, and that's cool.  

The draw of Straight Talk in 1992 was "want to see Dolly Parton be nice for 90 minutes?" and in 1992, if it didn't have a robot, Wesley Snipes, a serial killer or an alien in it, no, I did not want to see your movie all that bad.  High school me didn't think about Dolly Parton one way or another, so high-school me took a pass.  And that's too bad.  My mom would love this movie, and we never agreed of movies then or now.  I think I'll call and recommend it to her later today.

Pitt Watch: Countess Dracula (1971)

Watched:  09/03/2026

Format:  YouTube

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Peter Sasdy

We watched this a few years ago, and at the time I remember being disappointed it wasn't basically just a redux of The Vampire Lovers, though I didn't exactly put it that way.  I think I appreciated it a bit more on this go-round as I engaged with movie on its own terms.

I had no plans to watch it, but noted it was free on YouTube, and here we are.

Rather than a Dracula movie, Countess Dracula (1971) is a deeply fictionalized version of the legend of Elizabeth Bathory, the Hungarian countess who may have tortured and killed hundreds of girls.  What Bathory *actually* did is up for debate, and like a lot of sensationalistic history could have been entirely fabricated to discredit and humiliate her, as well as stick her in a dungeon (see: The Tower of London for endless trumped up charges and nobles who met unfortunate ends).  

Scorsese Watch: The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

Watched:  09/02/2026

Format:  Started on Hulu on August 30th, they dropped it and Apple+ picked it up

Viewing:  Second

Director;  Scorsese

I saw The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) once before in the theater, and wanted to watch it again, but it's three hours.  And I figured Jamie would want to see it eventually, and at three hours, I was limiting how often I'd invest in watching the flick.  

Plus, when I remember particularly liking a movie, I am not a person who watches it over and over - if the movie gave me something to chew on.  I save those for occasional viewings when I can really take them in.  I did not mean to give it 13 years between viewings.  Whoops.  But here we are.

These days, Wolf of Wall Street is mostly known as the source of a wide range of GIFs and memes.  Star Leonardo DiCaprio plays the real-life role of former stock hustler Jordan Belfort full-tilt, and screen grabs of some of his scenes are just plastered everywhere. If it's DiCaprio and he's not Gatsby, this is probably the movie that GIF came from.

This is one of those movies where I can see how it might have made some people unhappy.  But overall, the critical consensus was strong and I guess this did get some Oscar noms (or so Jamie told me).  It's a movie that is very loud about what it's saying, and still manages to never say it directly, and in that, I recall at the time of the movie's release people were being willfully obtuse, clutching pearls at the content of the film.

Colonialism Watch: Outpost in Morocco (1949)

Watched:  08/30/2026

Format:  TCM on DVR from Marie Windsor day

Viewing:  First

Director:  Robert Florey

Outpost in Morocco (1949) was part of Marie Windsor day on TCM's Summer Under the Stars.  She's not the lead, that's George Raft, but she plays a Moroccan princess for all intents and purposes.  

Look, I'm utterly ignorant when it comes to Morocco aside from being able to find it on a map (I double-checked, and I was right!  Thanks, Casablanca for leaving that tidbit in my head!).  I don't know its history, and I don't know the culture.   

I am aware of the French Foreign Legion, its kind of wild history and reputation for taking in folks at the end of their rope.  In this story, Raft plays a Captain who is supposedly awesome at his job when he isn't out romancing the ladies.  He's sent to an outpost to deliver Windsor to her father, who is a regional leader.  Windsor goes to France every year for six months and has been summoned home early.  

Product Liability Law Watch: Coyote vs. Acme (2026)

Watched:  08/30/2026

Format:  Regal Cinemas

Viewing:  First

Director:  Dave Green

First:  yes, this is the *completed* movie Warner Bros. was going to just shelve for a tax write-off and then sold to Ketchup Entertainment when word got out and the PR around the move became quite bad.  Yes, I have thought the people who currently own Warner Bros. are absolute chuckle-@#$%s and why having MBAs run your entertainment companies all but guarantees the worst results.

Second:  I almost took a pass on writing this post as, at its heart, Coyote vs. Acme (2026) is a product liability law movie.  And our good pal, JimD, is an actual product liability attorney with a rich history of doing his own blogging.  And I was going to make him go see the movie and write up a post, but assigning homework to friends does not seem like a good way to maintain a pal-ship.

Tim Curry Watch: It (1990)

Watched:  08/29/2026

Format:  HBOmax

Viewing:  First

Director:  Tommy Lee Wallace

It (1990) has long loomed large over the world of horror media.  The book was a big deal, but I never read it.  Honestly, I'm unsure I've read any Stephen King since middle school and the book of It was 1000+ pages, and thusly avoided.  When the TV movie of It showed in November of 1990, I completely missed it.  No idea what I was doing, but I know what would have been happening that Fall, and my eye and interests were elsewhere.

Since, I have not seen the movie as the 3-hour run-time has been a bit of a deterrent.  Still, that's much shorter than taking in two movies as the new version of It was released into cinemas in the 2010's. 

But with this week's passing of Tim Curry, I figured now was the time to finally see the movie.  

SPOILERS

Peter Cullen Merges With The Infinite

Voice actor Peter Cullen, who voiced dozens of characters, from the Predator to Eeyore to Venger on Dungeons & Dragons has passed.

Most famously, Cullen provided the voice of Optimus Prime, the leader of the Autobots in the now mega-franchise Transformers cartoons and movies, based on the popular toys.  So indelible was his voice, when they went to make a big-budget movie, they just hired Cullen again, knowing we'd all find someone else voicing the character distracting and wrong.

And that was absolutely the right choice.

Pretty nice to play a world famous action hero and not spend half your day in the gym.

For the record, I only have two Transformers toys in my collection at this point, and the other one is Soundwave (with some associated cassettes).  It will not shock you I am a big fan of a tank of a hero colored in red and blue and Optimus retains a place of honor, and Cullen was no small part of why he was a favorite.

Marxist Watch: A Day at the Races (1937)

Watched:  08/26/2026

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First?

Director:  Sam Wood

I know I've previously seen the back half of A Day at the Races (1937), but I'd not seen it all the way through, I guess.

This one takes the Marx Bros. back to Florida where Chico is working for a Sanitarium that is struggling , but hoping for investment from their wealthy patient, Margaret Dumont.  Maureen O'Sullivan has inherited the sanitarium and her boyfriend, a singer, buys a race horse to try to win money to save the place for her.  Groucho plays a veterinarian who Dumont thinks is her doctor, and he comes to the sanitarium.  Harpo, a jockey.

This one felt a little slow to get started, but then had some amazing stuff.  They really understood every scene is funnier if a horse runs through before the end.

Tim Curry Merges With the Infinite

Actor of stage and screen, Tim Curry, has passed.  

Curry had been ailing for some time, having experienced a stroke in 2012.  

For the last fifty years, Curry has built generations of fans with diverse roles from The Rocky Horror Picture Show to The Hunt for Red October to Muppet Treasure Island to Clue.   I think I first saw him as Rooster in Annie, when it was in theaters back in the day.  And I very much enjoyed him in movies like The Shadow and The Three Musketeers and plenty of others.  

He has an insane IMDB listing as he was not shy about taking voice work (I really didn't know til now how many voices he'd done).  He may have also been in a few less than amazing movies, and respect.  The man was working.  He was also acting on a whole different level than everyone else in the small indie movie The Scoundrel's Wife I watched last year.

If social media tells me anything, there's some key roles here that people really remember, and that's pretty great.  The man was beloved, and I think he knew it.  I hope so.

Windsor Pirate Watch: Hurricane Island (1951)

Watched:  08/25/2026

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Director:  Lew Landers

So, it's entirely possible that the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was somewhat inspired by this B-movie, Hurricane Island (1951).  I'm not saying it is, directly, or there aren't substantial differences, but....

I'm also not sure watching a movie just because it has Marie Windsor in it is wrong, but..!  It was Marie Windsor day on Summer Under the Stars on TCM. This one is also a pirate movie, and, in theory, is based on one or two real historical figures.  Well, it has Ponce de Leon, which is kind of exciting.

Theoretically, this is about Ponce de Leon's search for the Fountain of Youth.  But in this movie, it's about a wounded Ponce outsourcing his adventuring to a husky Captain Montalvo (John Hall) who de facto leads the expedition into the island of Florida (it's like 1513, and I don't think they know dick all about the actual Florida coastline yet).