Disney Watch: The Cat From Outer Space (1978)

Watched:  01/15/2025

Format:  Disney+

Viewing:  Unknown, but probably 3rd

Director:  Norman Tokar

As a kid, I found live-action Disney comedies to mostly be a grating disappointment.  Sometimes in elementary school, teachers would roll in the 16mm projector and thread up one of these movies and that was the middle of the day for us so they could grade papers or have a smoke or whatever.

If you want to know why Gen-X has trust issues, its because we never knew what we were getting from a 16mm film projected movie in the common area at school, while required to sit silently.  And, sometimes it was something good!  But much more often it was a safety film*, or - if the teachers were feeling daffy, something like The Cat From Outer Space (1978).  Which is where I think I saw this first.

It's mind-boggling that a year after Star Wars, Disney's response was to put out a 108 minute sitcom about a cross-eyed cat who lands on Earth and kind of sits there hopped up on tranquilizers while name talent runs around being "funny".  

Pope Watch: Conclave (2024)

Watched:  01/14/2025

Format:  Peacock

Viewing:  First

Director:  Edward Berger

All Christmas season long, Jamie's sister-in-law, K, kept lightly suggesting we go see Conclave (2024), and I was pretty direct in my opinion of "no, I do not want to see that".  But curiosity, gentle nudging and my Peacock subscription got the best of me, and I went ahead and watched it over two nights.

Conclave centers around the events that take place in the wake of the passing of a Pope, and the politicking among the clergy (cardinals) who are called together to determine who will be the next Pope.  

Sadly, it turns out there is no Catholic sorting hat to handle this task.

I will start by saying, there are many things I liked about this film.  As promised, the performances by Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Isabella Rossellini, and many others are impeccable.  This movie is an opportunity for these actors to do amazing work - enough so that my immediate thought was "really, this would be a tremendous play" after the film ended.  A sort of 108 Angry Cardinals.  

Viking Watch: The Northman (2022)

Watched:  01/14/2024

Format:  Disc

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Robert Eggers

A long while back now, I picked up the 4K of Eggers' The Northman (2022) after liking it quite a lot on a first viewing, and knowing that it deserved a second viewing.  And since Jamie had actually liked Noferatu, a movie I wasn't even going to take her to, she voted for The Northman.*

I re-read my post from May of 2023, and I think I agree with myself here.

SPOILERS

I can say confidently that I am very glad I rewatched the film, especially when you aren't walking in blind as you start to realize "oh, wait... is this some imagined proto-Hamlet?"  And, indeed, go Google "Amleth" because, boy, while I knew Shakespeare didn't really come up with original stories, was I surprised to find out about the many versions of Hamlet existed story prior to Billy Shakes putting it down.

TV Watch: Landman (on Paramount+)

Curiously, not a superhero show.  Or, if it is, worst superhero ever.

I'd not watched any of the Yellowstone stuff by Taylor Sheridan.  By the time I heard it was watchable there were 23 seasons of it and a few spin-offs, and I couldn't be bothered to enter that particular multiverse.  

But when I saw Billy Bob Thornton, John Hamm, Demi Moore and Robyn Lively would be on a show, I was curious.  Then I saw it was about the energy industry and set in Texas, and my ears perked up.  I have lived the vast majority of my life in Texas, and my father worked for companies that produced instrumentation and valves for oil rigs, derricks, etc..  Anyway - like a lot of folks who grew up around oil, I have a passing interest in the industry.

What's curious is that during my youth, Texas was considered pumped dry.  There were oil fields, sure... but the fracking and all that came along later.  By the time I was in high school in the early 90's, if you saw an oil jack going, it was always worthy of comment.  and, yes, pump jacks could be anywhere and were.   

Someone figured out the fields were *not* dry, and fracking eventually happened, especially out in West Texas.   And when I travelled out that way for work, all of a sudden the hotels were full of guys off a hard shift, getting rest, uniformly polite but eyeing me with suspicion as I went by in my tie.  

Oil wise, things are definitely cooking in Texas.

Landman is, basically, a soap opera that sure feels like a modern spin on the dramas we used to watch, like Dallas.  There's a wide array of characters, oil is at the center of it, but only some are involved directly with the business.  And because it's TV, it's the lives and loves of those working around oil (read: men) that drive the show, and the women who love them.

DCSU Watch: "Creature Commandos" on Max

So I have a new TV girlfriend.  

I can fix her...!

No, but really.  I can't begin to wrap my head around the fact that this is how James Gunn's DC Studios Universe is starting.  Wildly violent, gross, Rated-R just for language, full of nudity, sex and swearing...  My suspicion is that he pitched this to WB during his problems with Marvel/ Ike Perlmutter.  Maybe he pitched this alongside Peacemaker and they said "well, that sounds like $30 million an episode or 250 million as a movie.  But as a TV show cartoon...".

Honestly, I don't care. But, in theory, Creature Commandos does *count* as part of the new shared DCSU.  Which is wild, because this thing is Rated a hard R, is grotesque, violent, morbid and hilarious.  And, because it's Gunn, and he understands monsters - it's also oddly moving.  

90's Watch: Sneakers (1992)

Watched:  01/08/2025

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  Phil Alden Robinson

Back when Boomers went to the movies all the time, movies catered to an idea that we could do this as smooth and classy as a Kenny G concert.  Or, maybe as slick as Yanni, in a pinch.  

Sneakers (1992) is like "what if 3 Days of the Condor, but a cozy mystery?" and an entry into the field of "technology is neat, and we'll talk about it in terms your mom will get, plus we'll keep futzing with what is real and what is not" that movies love to play with, which ultimately satisfies no one.  

Cunk Doc Watch: Cunk on Life (2024)

Watched:  01/08/2025

Format:  Netflix

Viewing:  First

Director:  Al Campbell

A couple of years ago I stumbled across the amazing documentaries guided by journalist Philomena Cunk.  Insightful, sprawling, challenging television in which our host dares us, the audience, to ponder the pictures both big and small, how they fit together, and what it all means.  From Shakespeare to biology, there's no topic Philomena Cunk can't take on while wandering through the woods.

Her team assembles a wide variety of academic notables to shed light on the topics at hand, and Philomena is not shy about asking the hard questions to shed light on the thorniest of subjects.

I'm not sure this special counts as a movie, but it is slightly longer than an hour, and is also self-contained.  In this new installment, Cunk on Life (2024), we're taken to the start of life on Earth, look into the meaning of life in a Judeo/ Christian context, look into nihilism, the Higgs-Boson particle, the Big Bang, and the value of streaming services.

I highly recommend this doc.  It's something like 70 minutes and well worth your time.

Doc Watch: Super/Man - The Christopher Reeve Story (2024)

Watched:  01/06/2025

Format:  Max

Viewing:  First

Director(s):  Ian Bonhôte & Peter Ettedgui

Well, I'd been avoiding this doc for a bit because I know more about Christopher and Dana Reeve than the average bear, and I knew it was gonna break me.  And, it did, but I think my certainty that I was going to be destroyed kind of helped prep me for the film.  (YMMV re: squirting real tears during this doc)

Look, one of my earliest memories is seeing Superman: The Movie in the theater.  And then seeing Superman II and III in the theater?  Yes.  I absolutely remember both.  

I'm not alone in being of a certain era and Christopher Reeve meaning a lot to us as our Clark Kent and Superman.  Eagle-eyed readers will note the name of this site is a Superman reference, and Superman is kind of a thing for me.  I take the Superman films starring Reeve very seriously and will be happy to bore you talking about them anytime.

It Was On Watch: His and Hers (2024)

Watched:  01/03/2024

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  Linda Lisa Hayter

Jamie had this on while I was working on my End-of-Year posts, and it is a movie.  And I guess I watched it.

I wasn't going to write up His & Hers (2024), because it kind of broke my rule for "I was engaged with the movie" rather than "I was on my laptop", but it was designed to be semi-watched, so semi-watch it I did.  Plus, Jamie told me to write it up.  So.

This is a sort of legal romantic dramedy that is deeply untethered from reality, and the whole time you're watching it, you sort of think "this was not the original version of this script.  This has been hollowed out to be a Hallmark film".  

The basic concept is that Chabert plays a civil attorney who does *not* practice family law, but is married to a divorce attorney.  Two reality TV stars have a public break-up, and the husband winds up with Chabert's husband (Hallmark stalwart Brennan Elliot) as his attorney, and because of reasons, Chabert is asked to represent the reality TV wife.  Elliot has to do it because it's his ticket to becoming partner, and Chabert owes her boss for sentimental reasons.

The Signal Watch Presents: Favorite Movies of 2024

This is part three of my yearly rundown of the movies of the prior year.  

Here's the movies I liked least of the movies I watched in 2024.  

Here's a breakdown of the films I watched in 2024.  

Before you ask me "Did you watch (name of movie)?", you can check this handy spreadsheet for what I watched and when.

So, here's the ground rules (before y'all start complaining):

These are The Best movies *to me*.  Thus, they were my favorite movies in 2024.  These used to be The Krypto Awards, but I got tired of photoshopping pictures of Krypto.

I'm not going to pretend that liking movies isn't subjective and/ or that something is objectively "the best".  This is not a timed foot-race with precision cameras.  What you see below is just what I liked, and, pals, what I think doesn't matter to anyone but me, so cool your jets.

These are movies I saw for the first time in 2024.  It doesn't mean the movies were released in 2024.  Watching only new movies is for chumps and dilettantes.  New releases are good, but my FOMO for being part of a cultural moment around a movie is non-existent in 2024.

Now, this year's list is not going to be mind-boggling.  I went down a path of seeking out movies that are considered classics and remain well known and well-liked.  And I did this across a few genres.  So, if you saw me saying "I think this Orson Welles is onto something..." you may be right in guessing that I am not breaking new ground here.