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 waiting til Wicked.  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.  

90's Watch: The Cutting Edge (1992)

Watched:  06/27/2025

Format:  YouTube

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Paul Michael Glaser

This is the second time I saw this movie, the first time being in the late 90's.

I mentioned I was going to watch The Cutting Edge (1992) to some dudes my age (heyo, Marshall and Paul) and we all kind of said what I think is true:  this movie wasn't really aimed at us, we all saw it, and thought that if you're going to make this movie, this is pretty good.

At least that was my memory of it before watching it again.  

And, yeah, it's still true.  

I mean, it's got some very 90's vibes, but because of the era, it has a bit of that "we're adults and so we're going to act like (young) adults, not tall teenagers written for a Disney daytime show".  

The basic plot is that D.B. Sweeney plays a hockey player who suffers an injury that will keep him from playing professionally.  He's struggling in life when he's approached by the coach to be the partner for a difficult pairs skater (Moira Kelly!).  Who can't keep a pairs partner.  Because she's a raging B.

It follows the enemies-to-lovers thing that people seem to love (see: Jane Austen) which is not a spoiler because the poster had Sweeney and Kelley looking like they might make out right there.

The cast is small, but doesn't need to be huge.  Terry O'Quinn plays Kelly's rich dad.  

There's a pretty good conclusion to the film with characters having actual moments of self-actualization and whatnot, even if it's all swaddled in 90's sports-movie cheese.

I dunno.  It's fine!  I even kind of like it.  If I were on a date in the 1990's, I would take Jamie to it and try not to say too much about Moira Kelly being dreamy.

Since I saw the movie the first time, I've watched countless hours of ice skating thanks to Jamie's abiding interest in the sport - and now I know that very little of what happens in this movie is how skating actually works.  But enough works that it's not utterly broken.  

My only other real note is that a girl from my high school class that I never spoke to or shared space with married D.B. Sweeney and was with him until what Google tells me was 2023.  I kinda vaguely/sorta remember her when I look at her picture.  She would not know me at all.  It all works out.

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 the movie before we put away our mics.  In my opinion, it's 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.  

The 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.

Rebekah Del Rio Merges With The Infinite

Singer and performer Rebekah Del Rio has passed.

Superman 2025: Making An Event

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

If nothing else, I think WB/DC - and maybe the film industry - will come out of Superman (2025) remembering that movies used to be events. And, how to create events again. 

It's been a while since I've seen a studio work this hard to make a movie something for which they've built anticipation and a desire to participate in by the public... make them want to see it on the biggest screen possible.  Even if Superman doesn't make a billion dollars at the box office, which is may not, WB has fired up the engines of the machines that once brought people out to stand in line for the privilege of watching one of their movies. Right now it *feels* like it's working.   

TL;DR: The Democratization of Film Discussion and Star-Based Rating Systems

Recently, I had a good convo with pal Stuart when, after seeing a mediocre star rating of a classic film, I shot off the snide line "We should only apply star ratings to new media. Sliding in in 2025 to give a 80 year old movie a 3 star review serves neither you nor the movie."

Stuart wisely pointed out that *of course* our ratings are subjective, transitory (will likely be different at a different time) and we cannot have the experience of those who experienced a movie in 1945.  People are only able to give the rating they can give - and we cannot require homework of them to give a rating.

And, I agree!  

Everyone is entitled to their rating.  

Everyone is entitled to their opinion and review.  If I did not believe this, this blog wouldn't exist.  

Certainly social media has made us all experts and put us all out there expressing our opinions whether the world wants our genius or not.  These days, I'm primarily exposed to these opinions through BlueSky's #film feed, which is often linked to folks' letterboxd accounts.  For buddies like Stuart, JimD, Howard, and JAL, I've even linked their letterboxd accounts right on the version of this page (and, yes, you, RHPT) you see on web browsers not viewed in mobile versions (look over there in the left menu bar, we'll wait).  It's how I track their viewing and opinions as dudes whose opinions I personally value, even - or especially - when it's different from my own.

Obviously, I am included amongst the teaming masses howling movie opinions into the void.  In no way is this blog special.

While I keep this blog more or less, really, as my personal film journal to track what I have and haven't seen (just this weekend, I found out I'd once seen the movie Red Dragon, which, if you'd held a gun to my head, I would not have said I'd seen) it's also very much me publicly sharing my opinions.  And, also also - It's a record of how I personally view film.  

In fact, I would think reading the blog, day over day, would give people an idea not just my opinion on film, but also give you some insight into who I am (and I am sorry about that.  I know it's unpleasant).  And, yet, I publish links from this blog to Facebook, Insta, Threads, Tumblr and Bluesky with every post.  So it's not like I'm quiet about all this. 

The subjective nature of the experience of viewing film is something they only sort of taught 30 years ago in film school, tilting wildly from auteur theory to death of the author in the same class and without trying to reconcile the two.  I don't know how helpful it is to say "there is a mind behind a film, a vison and we treasure that beyond measure.  But ALSO...  It doesn't matter once you release it as the audience makes it their own and 13-year-olds who can't understand your movie count as much as folks with a PhD in the topic of the film and film itself". 

I'm egalitarian as hell, but I'm not that egalitarian. 

80's Watch: Flashdance (1983)

Watched:  06/22/2025

Format:  Prime

Viewing:  Second all the way through

Director:  Adrian Lyne

If you want an idea of what a different world I was in as a kid versus where we are 40 years on, I think Flashdance (1983) is a pretty interesting test. 

First, Flashdance was huge back in the day.  It was referenced in other movies, on TV and elsewhere.  The soundtrack had a couple of great songs (I still think Gloria by Laura Branigan is phenomenal). And though it was Rated-R, it wasn't unusual for my classmates to have seen it by 5th grade, thanks to HBO.  

It's also not a very good movie, but people loved it at the time.  And I don't mean the movie is problematic by 2025 standards (which it is), but because it just sort of wanders around for long stretches.  Like, nothing is happening.  People walk around.  They goof.  The plot refuses to move along.

Oddly, there's barely any conflict.  It's a movie that pitches that if you believe in yourself, sorta, and don't really do the work, your new, rich boyfriend will buy your way into a dance school.  Because nothing about Alex's path to an elite ballet school makes a lick of sense.

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.

50th Anniversary Watch: Jaws (1975)

Watched:  06/21/2025

Format:  Peacock

Viewing:  (shrug emoji)

Director:  Steven Spielberg

June 20th marked the 50th anniversary of the release date of Jaws (1975), and, so, Jamie selected it for our viewing on the 21st.

As I was born mere months before the release of the movie, Jaws existing as a cultural force is a key early memory.  The movie came out, and did not just go away - it became part of the cultural lexicon overnight and then just stayed.  We had teenagers who lived next door when I was in pre-school, and those kids told us about things like the band KISS, and movies like Jaws.*  But, also, the poster and music for Jaws was as omnipresent as Star Wars in my youth, the triangle of the mouth rising toward the woman above.  The 1970's also saw maybe the final real explosion of classic Universal horror monster interest, along with Hammer and other horror scenes, and I remember things like "Monster Maze" books that would include "Jaws" beside Quasimodo and Dracula.  My brother, who has always been able to play music by ear, figured out the key few notes to Jaws on the piano and would play it - he was five or six.

But I don't think I actually watched Jaws until high school, and on basic cable at that.  That said, the first time I remember really liking it was in college when I was in film school and they kept talking about Jaws as the first summer blockbuster and I figured I should know what it's all about.

Since those viewings, I couldn't tell you how many times I've seen it.  A lot?  Probably two dozen.  

On this viewing I was thinking about how Jaws would be made today, and what makes it work for me as it is.  I dunno.  I feel like part of re-watching this movie and celebrating something that's somehow endured when even ET and Close Encounters seem to have faded over the decades - or, rather, have not been as embraced by subsequent generations as Jaws -  should be a moment to ponder what it is about the movie that's made it resonate.  

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.  

G Watch: Godzilla - Tokyo S.O.S. (2003)

when I've been quiet too long and Jamie asks me what I'm thinking about

Watched:  06/21/2025

Format:  Disc

Viewing:  Fourth?  ha ha...  oh, mercy

Director:  Masaaki Tezuka, Koji Hashimoto, Takao Okawara

I was going to watch something else, but I wanted to, for once, watch Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla and Tokyo S.O.S. (2003) back-to-back and in order.  

Just yesterday I'd waxed rhapsodic about the first in this two-movie combo, and I'll continue to express my confusion about the sidelining of Akane Yashiro (Yumiko Shaku) in this movie.  It's kind of a weird failure of narrative to hand over story-lead duties to someone else, especially when Yashiro is in the movie and it's obviously a direct sequel.

This movie sees the appearance of Mothra, who is miffed that humanity has decided to grab Godzilla 1954's bones and is muppeting them around inside Kiryu/ MechaGodzilla.  Her pals, the faeries, appear to the guy who was in Mothra back in the day, who now has a nephew and grandson hanging out with him.  Nephew happens to be a mechanic on Kiryu and needs to have a narrative arc about how he will come into his own as a hero.  

The Prime Minister hears out Grandpa about Mothra's warning, but... what's a brother gonna do when you just dumped a trillion dollars into a giant walking skeleton robot tank to stop the nuclear lizard?  

Anyway, this one has a long couple of battle scenes, and has lots of Mothra, which is why it's a fan favorite.  I think the design of the fights is groovy, and the inclusion of Mothra organic and cool.  Plus, our girl sends her two babies into the fray, so we get some good caterpillar action.  

Like everyone else, I like Tokyo S.O.S. a lot.  We've got one of my favorite Godzilla designs, an A+ MechaGodzilla design, I love the JXSDF concept (but miss all the weird psychic stuff Miki brought to the table), and this is how you include kids into one of these movies.  He's helpful and not annoying!  The fight in the city at night is super well done as G and MechaG take down buildings and level a neighborhood in high style.

 

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.

G Watch: Godzilla Against MechaGodzilla (2002)

Now this would be a prom photo

Watched:  06/19/2025

Format:  Disc

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Masaaki Tezuka

I've been fighting a cold for a few days, which has also meant my brain does not work good.  Jamie wanted to put on Wicked, which I haven't seen yet, and I looked at the near 3-hour run time and begged for mercy.  She gave up and I put on the Cherry Coke of Godzilla movies, Godzilla Against MechaGodzilla (2002).  Plus, it's short and I wanted to watch the Indiana Fever at Golden State Valkyries game at  9:00.

Toho is good about reminding folks of the anniversaries of the debuts of various kaiju, and this is the 50th Anniversary of the MechaGodzilla (so we're of the same high school class, which makes me happy).  So when I knew I needed Godzilla comfort food while I nursed my cold, I had to include MechaG in my viewing.

If comics seem like they hit the reboot button way too often, Toho is like "hold my beer", with 3 different versions of MechaGodzilla in the character's first 25 years across about four movies (we won't count Moguera as a real MechaG - which would make it 4 versions).  I refuse to choose favorites between the designs, as they all fill me with joy, even the Truck-a-Saurus version in the Legendary movies.

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

ChabertQuest 2025: I Have Watched 72 Lacey Chabert Movies since November

I am full of bad ideas.  

Once, I went vegetarian for a full year just to prove that I could do it (it was a disaster, but short being force fed sausage pizza at a work meeting, I remained vegetarian all year).  

I have decided to own every issue of Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen and Superman's Girlfriend, Lois Lane.  

To what end do I do these things?  I do not know.

But, worse, sometimes someone else's bad ideas will land in my head, and I'll think "yes, I will do that thing", especially if it's absolutely pointless. 

This post marks the end of ChabertQuest2025.  It began as a germ of an idea that became a marathon.  A Chabert-a-thon, if you will.  And now I can put down my remote and put away my Christmas ornaments.  We have done the thing we set out to do.

Some numbers:

• As of this writing, Lacey Chabert has 183 IMDB entries
• Of these credits, she has 87 live action feature films / TV films listed
• Of those, I was unable to locate 14, as they are not streaming or otherwise readily available.
• I refused to rewatch one of the movies because I'd already seen it and had a blog post about it
• Thus, since the holiday movie season began in November 2024, I have watched 72 separate movies in which Lacey Chabert appears.

Who we are and how we came to be

Last Christmas, rather than taking in a medley of new and classic Holiday movies as we usually do, we thought "we're doing all Hallmark."  After all, we've seen all of the usual Christmas films a few dozen times.  I can keep White Christmas a bit fresher if I don't sit through it every year.  So we just leaned into what's usually something we'd normally catch pieces of, but don't always watch all the way through.  

By the end of the holidays, I'd watched 9 Lacey Chabert holiday movies.  

Why Chabert for my Christmas merriment?  Well, not all Hallmark stars are of the same caliber.  

Sorry, other actors.  It's true.*  There is absolutely a Hallmark talent pool of leads who get re-cast, over and over, and here at The Signal Watch, Lacey Chabert is considered better at the acting and festive thing than the average Hallmark bear. If you're going to watch one of these movies, might as well watch one that's not a dud.

Randy, who is not good for me, upon reviewing my Holiday movie post from 2024 said "now you should watch every Lacey Chabert movie".  And I was like "ha ha.   That's insane."  

And then I was like:  ha ha... that is insane....  maybe so insane it just might....

And here we are.

Who is Lacey Chabert?

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.  

Chabert Watch: Christmas in Rome (2019)

Watched:  06/09/2025

Format:  Hallmark

Viewing:  1.5

Director:  Ernie Barbarash 

Job: Tour Guide

Location of story:  Hallmark Rome

new skill:  Not going off the rails

Man:  Sam Page

Job of Man:  Business Man

Goes to/ Returns to:  Man goes to Rome

Event:  Business Deal

Food:  a bunch of Italian stuff I can't spell and/ or remember

So.  (deep breath)  I believe this is both the last Lacey Chabert Hallmark movie and last Chabert Christmas movie I have to watch during ChabertQuest 2025.  

Please clap.

If you haven't been around, we're nearing the end of watching every live-action movie in which Lacey Chabert appears that we could get legitimate access to.  And we're almost done.  It started in November by accident, became intentional in January, and it has been a journey.  

One of my self-imposed rules was that if I had already seen a movie and written it up, I was allowed to skip said movie.  Which is how I skipped The Tree That Saved Christmas.  But if I had seen it and failed to write it up, I had to re-watch it and post on it.  And, I know I watched a good chunk/ all of Christmas in Rome (2019) just this last Christmas while doing other things.  And then just didn't mention it.  I forgot or something.  

So I put this one off til last and was in no rush to prioritize the movie.

Anyway, this movie stars Chabert and Sam Page, who you may remember as Joan's would-be-doctor husband on Mad Men, a role that I am sure he has mixed feelings about at this juncture.  Page plays a Businessman from New York who is sent to Rome, just before the holidays, to look into acquiring a famed Italian company that handmakes high-end plates and bowls or something.  And because it's Rome, it is also *art*.