Doc Watch: Pee-Wee as Himself (2025)

Watched:  05/26/2025

Format:  Max

Viewing:  First

Director:  Matt Wolf

Watching Pee-Wee as Himself (2025) is a strange journey.  There was a lot I didn't know up until when he joined The Groundlings, and then there was what I did know -  including the two arrests.  But in the end, the film kind of unravels a bit in a way that seems almost inevitable - surely director Matt Wolf laying the trail to let us know this is coming.

Beyond that, the doc faces the same problem that I found with the recent Steve Martin documentary.  It's a lengthy film, it criss-crosses the years and draws connections, but the subject is so practiced at maintaining their inner-selves, and their privacy, that even at the end, you feel like you barely saw anything even after 3 hours.  

Jumbles of photos from a childhood are interesting, but don't tell a story.  Talking heads commenting on what they're already framing are useful, and provide color, but it feels very carefully managed - we're told it's carefully managed.  We keep seeing the collections, but there's no discussion of what's in there, or why (and as a collector, I know there's a story behind everything).  We see his parents, but they won't ever come out and discuss them beyond "his dad was macho and may not have liked Paul's lifestyle".  His mother is a non-entity.

Both Paul Reubens and Steve Martin, who agreed to let themselves be known via documentary, still want to control, and so we get a look through a very narrow lens, which is better than nothing, but it feels more questions are raised than are satisfied.  If you want to spend time with how Pee-Wee came to be - then we've got a great film for you.  If you want to know Paul Reubens, that may not really happen.  

Happy Birthday, Siouxsie Sioux

 

Best wishes to Siouxsie Sioux on her birthday. 

With any luck, she's pondering new music.

Chabert Watch: Elevator Girl (2010)

Watched:  05/26/2025

Format:  UP free trial on Amazon 

Viewing:  First

Director:  Bradford May

Job:  Massage therapy receptionist, Would-Be Chef, DJ for children and old people, I lost track

new skill:  Landing a dude to fund her boho lifestyle

Man: Ryan Merriman

Job of Man:  Attorney - Mergers and Acquisitions

Goes to/ Returns to:  Stays in place

Event:  a six-year old's birthday, and others

Food:  No special food, but they do make hummus

So, this is somewhat technically Lacey Chabert's first Hallmark movie.  If you're looking for ground zero for how she eventually became a big deal at Hallmark, she signed up for this movie, which was picked up for distribution through Hallmark (a lot of "Hallmark" movies are not made by Hallmark, but made independently to be purchased by Hallmark.  I don't know all the details.).  

It's now available on UP!, which I learned is still going when I looked for this movie, but I hadn't seen the network in years.

Around this same time, Chabert's career was obviously in an odd patch.  She's having work released, but this is her first release of 2010.  In 2009, she was in the big studio romcom Ghosts of Girlfriends Past starring McConaughey, Jennifer Garner and Michael Douglas, but also The Lost, which we've already covered.  And she's doing a bunch of cartoon voice work - she voiced Gwen Stacy on The Spectacular Spider-Man for 25 episodes.

The description for Elevator Girl (2010) made it sound like it would be about people from two different classes making it work, but it's more like...  two people with nothing in common dating. 

Peter David Merges With The Infinite

I remember being handed a Hulk comic at summer camp, featuring the gray-skinned Hulk of the period.  I only knew the Hulk as the green skinned guy who yelled a lot and I was stunned at what I saw.  He was now a Vegas enforcer named "Mr. Fixit", and it was absolutely wild.  I soon learned through the Bullpen Bulletins, it was Peter David driving that effort.

Peter David's name was kind of everywhere for the first decade and a half I read comics, and of his many great efforts, I particularly liked his X-Factor and Supergirl.  He had a unique ability to find ideas that were out there, and, like The Hulk, turn them into something familiar but new.  X-Factor became a complex story about a mutant team affiliated with the Pentagon.  Supergirl went from the Matrix character to the Earth Angel inhabiting a dead girl to a girl who could kind of leap far and was bullet proof.  I assure you, this all made sense at the time.

He also transformed Aquaman, created Young Justice, handled She-Hulk, Star Trek, Superman and endless more.

David will be remembered among comic fans as one of the most creative minds of his era, making oddball ideas make complete sense and for caring so much about his work.  

I know he'd been having health issues for a while, and I'm sorry he passed.

Marvel Re-Watch: Thunderbolts* (2025) - in which we really talk about Marvel in 2025

Watched:  05/25/2025

Format:  Drafthouse

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Jake Schreier

We had already seen Thunderbolts (2025) in the theater when the movie opened, but Jamie in particular wanted to see it again, and I'm a fun guy, so why not?

I enjoyed it on a second viewing maybe more than I initially liked it.  It really is a tight script, and I kind of reveled in the fact that the big set piece at the conclusion of the movie takes place without a shot fired.  This is near Doom Patrol territory in how we're approaching super-stuff.  

I've seen complaints about the palette of the movie, a gripe which seems to be missing the way movies work, and instead of saying "the aesthetic looks ugly.  They did it wrong" failing to ask "why does it look the way it does?  We know this was intentional."  Because the conclusion there is pretty @#$%ing obvious, and you're so close.

But we know all this.  So I want to talk about where we are with Marvel in 2025.

Box office for the movie is not amazing.  It's made something like $330 million, which I would happily take, but which is a pretty far cry from billions of dollars Marvel hopes to make with every movie.  But...

Chabert Watch: A Little Piece of Heaven (1991)

The poster features Cameron realizing he just committed several felonies

Watched:  05/25/2025

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  Mimi Leder

Holy @#$%.  This movie is unhinged.

The vibe is sort of Hallmark Hall of Fame, with the rural setting and people all deciding everything is going to be swell for Christmas at the end.  It's about Kirk Cameron kidnapping kids and taking them to his pig farm so his adult, developmentally disabled sister will have friends.  In order to keep the kids, he tells them that they've died and his house/ farm is heaven - all evidence to the contrary (for example, you have to live with Kirk Cameron).  Along the way, they become a sort of family, in a way that feels lifted from The Legend of Billie Jean of all movies.

Look, full disclosure:  I can't stand Kirk Cameron.  This started all the way back in his Growing Pains days.  He's a mediocre actor and seemed like a smug jackass even when he was just taking up real estate in Tiger Beat.  But his subsequent weirdo, condescending, "it is I who know the true word of God" routine was thin 30 years ago, and it hasn't improved with the years.  He's just the worst.

So, I was not thrilled to watch this.  

Chabert Watch: When Secrets Kill (1997)

Watched:  05/24/2025

Format:  YouTube - someone posted this a bit and no one took it down

Viewing:  First

Director:  Colin Bucksey

blogger's note: if it seems like I'm blazing through the Chabert movies, I am.  We're getting close with 7 non-Christmas movies left, and then 5 Christmas movies.  It is a journey, y'all.  But it is inspiring me for what I'll do next.  And while I have enjoyed my time with Ms. Chabert, and I have plenty to say on it (which I'll sum up at the end), it also feels like I'm in the home stretch after 62 Chabert movies here since the Christmas season kicked into gear.  

Man, made-for-cable TV movies of the 1990's are buckwild.  It's easy to forget if you haven't seen one in a while.  

When Secrets Kill (1997) is based on a Patricia MacDonald novel, and she's a prolific mystery author who does quite well.  I have no idea how true to the book this is, but it is wacky.  

The version I watched was commercial free and seemed like it was encoded from VHS tape, complete with bad picture and warbly, distorted audio, which made for some tough viewing.   And, of course, the 1990's ever-present synth score.  

I associate 1990's cable flicks with Lifetime Movies, which were such a weird mix of noir and domestic concerns aimed at an imagined audience of women (babysitters stealing babies, babysitters stealing husbands, babysitters stealing babies and husbands.).  And, certainly, a Bio-Mom returning falls into this realm.  But this aired across multiple channels, so I don't know who owned it.

Our plot:  A couple (Gregory Harrison and Roxanne Hart) are mourning a stillbirth of a much-wanted baby.  On Mother's Day, their adopted tween-daughter (Chabert) doesn't show up for brunch, and they head home as Mom doesn't want to celebrate anything.  After a brief fight at home, Chabert's birth mother appears at the door without invitation.  This is, of course, stressful.  

Chabert Watch: Off-Season - The Lex Morrison Story (2013)

Watched:  05/22/2025

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  Steven K. Tsuchida

I did not have NBA-player Vanity Project down on my Chabert bingo card, but here we are.

Look, I didn't like Rick Fox when he played for the Celtics and rolled my eyes when he went to LA.  I liked him less when he married America's precious angel, Vanessa Williams.  He became dead to me when he divorced Williams.

How dare you, Rick.

So, yeah, I was immediately not excited about this when I realized this movie was about Rick Fox wanting to be in a comedy and throwing money at it until it was a reality.

I have no idea what this movie is.  It looks like a TV movie, but I can't figure out who it's for.  It feels very much like people goofing in front of a camera more than a TV show or movie.  

late edit:  I forgot the casual racism toward Asian people.  It was incredibly yikes and all out of Fox's mouth.

The story is that Our Hero is part of the PR team for an NBA team.  He's assigned to keep an eye on Lex Morrison (Fox) over the summer and get him in shape for the next season.  If he doesn't, he'll be fired.  Lex is, of course, wacky and out of control and not living up to his potential.  We are continually told Lex is in bad shape, but he is Rick Fox.  

Our lead guy, Zack Lively, is probably fine.  But weirdly and wildly bland.  He has a sort of partner-in-crime who is asked to play doofy/zany very, very broadly, and feels like a high school kid doing improv.  

I guess Fox was dating Eliza Dushku when the movie was made, so she's in it as a brief supporting role, and she's honestly the funniest part of the movie.  

There's a subplot about Lacey Chabert as a sports reporter who our lead wants to date.  Chabert does not embarrass herself.  Which I can't say for pretty much everyone else.

The movie was not for me.  But it was short at 75 minutes.  

But it is entertaining seeing them try to frame Rick Fox and Lacey Chabert in the same shot.

Also, this movie seems to be about how much Rick Fox didn't like living in Boston.  It's very weird.

My suspicion is that Rick Fox just thought this idea was good and wanted to have his own Hollywood project (he does appear in TV and movies) and decided he could be in a comedy, so he spent some of his Lakers money and made it.  He has the Executive Producer credit, and it's budgeted at $650K, so he could have easily financed it, especially using his own house as the set for half of the movie, if that is his place.  Write-offs, ahoy.

George Wendt Merges With The Infinite

George Wendt, actor most famous for his run as Norm on TV's Cheers, has passed.  

For the duration of the show's 11 seasons, Wendt played barfly Norm Peterson - a guy somewhat beat up by life but who was quick to shrug it off with a quippy one-liner.  

He also appeared in numerous films, memorably in Fletch and House.  Post-Cheers, Wendt worked steadily, often doing single episodes of TV or brief appearances in movies.  He would go on to play Santa at least four or five times, including in Santa Buddies and the A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All - uncredited here for reasons I was unclear on.  He was a wildly popular SNL host, and is why, today, we all still say "'da Bears".

It's hard to explain to today's kids what the world was like when everyone watched network TV, and of network TV shows, Cheers remained an absolute monster hit for its entire run.  Norm was a common denominator for any conversation.  Enough so that when someone licensed the idea of Cheers and put bars in airports that looked a bit like the set, they put a Norm dummy on a stool so you could sit next to him while you waited to make your connection to Duluth.  Apparently that went poorly.*

I cannot imagine what he made over the years on residuals from re-runs, but for twenty years after the show aired, it was still on all the time.

Wendt was much beloved, and seemed an okay guy.  We'll miss you, sir.

*Sadly, when I went into the Cheers bar in Minneapolis, the figures were no longer a feature.

1940's Watch: Dance, Girl, Dance (1940)

Watched:  05/19/2025

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  Dorothy Arzner

I basically threw Dance, Girl, Dance (1940) on because I saw it starred Lucille Ball and Maureen O'Hara, and, in the end - and to my surprise-  the movie wound up kind of blowing me away.  

What starts off feeling like any of a few hundred other Depression-era movies about showgirls trying to make it (which is how contemporary reviews started and stopped with the movie), the well-worn story is repurposed as a criticism of the business of show, burlesque, the male gaze, and the position of women in society and the flack they take for making money.

I'll back up here and mention, two of the three screenwriters on this movie were women.  It also seems a male director started the film and immediately quit, handing the reigns to Dorothy Arzner.