Hallo-Watch: Jakob's Wife (2021)

Watched:  10/07/2025

Format:  Shudder

Viewing:  First

Director:  Travis Stevens

During the Q&A for the screening of Re-Animator, star Barbara Crampton mentioned she'd produced and starred in a horror movie recently, Jakob's Wife (2021).  I recalled the name from last year's mini-dive into Crampton's work, but didn't get to the movie.  But we've fixed that.

One fun thing about horror is that even when you say "vampire movie", it only really means a potential set of rules and maybe a gentle push a few directions.  Eggers' Nosferatu is not Coogler's Sinners is not Garrard's Slay.  You can change up the rules, and change up the look, as long as you do a few key things, usually involving blood consumption and slow discovery of evil.  But not always!

The high concept of vampirism can be used to explore themes well beyond "a foreigner has moved in next door, and probably brought rats with him".  To that end, Jakob's Wife digs not just into the traditional roles of men and women, but of women as they reach a certain age, denied a life of their own in prescribed servitude.  

Our titular Jakob (Larry Fessenden) is a pastor of a church in a dying southern town.  He's leading his diminishing flock, preaching traditional values of a man's role in his family.  His wife, Anne (Barbara Crampton) is the dutiful pastor's wife.  She's past the point of youth, married thirty years and feeling life passing her by as the perpetual prop to her husband.

Hallo-Watch: Re-Animator (1985) - w/ Crampton and Combs at the Paramount Theatre, Austin, TX - 10/06/2025

Watched:  10/06/2025

Format:  Paramount Theatre, Austin, TX

Viewing:  unclear

Director:  Stuart Gordon

Well, what a spectacular evening.

Last year I watched Re-Animator (1985) for the first time in forever, and was reminded of (a) what a great movie Re-Animator really is, (b) fired up a new appreciation for what the movie is doing, and (c) was reminded that Barbara Crampton is just an excellent idea all around.  

She's on socials, and she does not disappoint.  And so it was that I learned she and Jeffrey Combs were traveling to some cities to hype up the 4K restoration of Re-Animator on its 40th Anniversary.  And, fortunately, they were coming to Austin.

Musical Watch: Les Girls (1957)

Watched:  10/04/2025

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  George Cukor

Les Girls (1957) is what happens when someone sees Rashomon, likes the notion of the same story told from different angles, but lacks the ability or skill to write a story that pulls off the Rashomon-effect.  And, so, Les Girls is three different stories with the same characters that seem like they take place completely divorced from each other.  Because of this, and because none of the three stories is very interesting (and because my mind drifts when movies are dull), it is, I think, somewhat of a confusing watch.  

But if you read about Gene Kelly, Les Girls gets mentioned all the time, so I wanted to check it out.  

Hallo-Watch: The Invisible Man (1933)

Watched:  10/04/2025

Format:  BluRay

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  James Whale

Jamie had just read the book of The Invisible Man by HG Wells a month or so ago, so when we went to pick our first Halloween movie, this was her seasonal request.

comfy villainy

I've already seen The Invisible Man (1933) maybe five times since this blog was founded, so I thought, instead of writing it up, I'd just point out that our villain/ hero has the right idea.  Given his newfound power, when he isn't going around buck-ass naked in snow storms, he's wearing super cozy pajamas and lounge outfits.

Now that's how I want to be a diabolical mad man - in a cozy housecoat and slippers, and wearing bandages rather than having to comb my hair.

Horror Watch: Possession (1981)

Watched:  10/05/2025

Format:  Criterion

Viewing:  First

Director:  Andrzej Zulawski

Possession (1981) is one of those movies you see get routinely mentioned, but very rarely with *specifics* as to why it's on lists and recommended. 

Look, this is not a movie where one bops along with an A-B-C plot.  It's absolutely one of those movies - maybe like Inland Empire - where folks sure seem certain about what it is about but nobody agrees, including critics.  It is an easy movie to get engrossed in and like, mostly because it falls just on this side of adding up, and your brain is working overtime trying to stitch the pieces together.  Is it religious symbolism?  Is it not?  Is this a commentary on Berlin or using Berlin to make a point about divorce?  What's with...  you know...  the, uh... creature, I guess?

Dr. Jane Goodall Merges With The Infinite

Dr. Jane Goodall, scientist, primatologist and conservationist, has passed.

In 1960, Jane Goodall was not even a trained scientist when she was first sent for education and employed by the famed primatologist Louis Leakey to observe chimpanzees in the wild.  Goodall would spend years in the Gombe Preserve.

Goodall's research informed much of what is now common knowledge regarding chimpanzees, from their social bonds and communication to their use of tools and quick study.  She also observed and described the intelligent hunting and sharing behaviors of chimpanzees, previously unknown.  

For the last few decades, Goodall has crisscrossed the globe sharing her good reputation, wit and incredible mind in order to further the causes of conservation - especially for great apes.  

If you ever get a chance, watch an interview with Goodall.  A truly remarkable human.

Happy Birthday, Lacey Chabert

those aren't balloons, they're bubbles of Hubba Bubba

Well, we watched 70-something Lacey Chabert movies in the last year, so we'd be remiss not giving a birthday shoutout to the Hallmark Queen of Christmas.  

As of yesterday, we've also now seen all of Chabert's reality show, "Celebrations".*  And, I guess, Chabert's holiday collection has now dropped at Hallmark.com.   So I guess make Chabert happy and line her pockets by buying some stuff.

*It was a slow weekend as Jamie was not feeling great. 

Doc Watch: Lilith Fair - Building a Mystery (2025)

Watched:  09/28/2025

Format:  Hulu

Viewing:  First

Director:  Ally Pankiw

First - it's remarkable how messed up the music industry was in the 1990's that I realize I kind of disliked some of the music from the artists in Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery (2025) not because of the music, but because if a song was any good in the 1990's, you kind of couldn't escape it for months at a time.  I think half of why I got weird about music in college and decided "I'm gonna go listen to Cole Porter standards" was because if I heard Hootie and the Blowfish one more time, I was going to shove pencils through my ear drums.  On the whole, radio, Muzak and MTV had a real "you like ice cream?  Great.  We're force feeding you a gallon of mint chocolate chip every hour for the next two months" sort of vibe.

It did not help that I was working in a Camelot Records during the period when the artists who would become the headliners at Lilith Fair in the first years were releasing their music.  (So tired were we of Paula Cole's  "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?" that, behind the counter we would whisper to each other in response to Cole's query, "Up my butt".  But almost 30 years later, that song is a-ok, Paula Cole.)  

The documentary of Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery charts the origins, rise, challenges to, and eventual final wrap-up of the initial go at Lilith Fair, and its place in culture in the 1990's.  It shows how the very suddenly popular Sarah McLachlan parlayed both her position and organization into recruiting other female artists and playing multiple summers of tours from the mid-90's to 1999.  Along the way, luminaries like Patti Smith, Bonnie Raitt, Erykah Badu, Emmylou Harris, Suzanne Vega and countless others joined McLachlan on the road to help change perceptions of how women fit into the music industry.  

And, it's impressive who was willing to show up and speak on camera about the festival.  All of the women listed above, minus Smith.  Jewel.  Joan Osborne.  Cole.  Natalie Merchant.  Liz Phair.  Sheryl Crow.  Indigo Girls.  And plenty more.  

35th Anniversary Re-Watch: Miller's Crossing (1990)

Watched:  09/27/2025

Format:  Criterion Disc

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Coen Bros.

In late summer 1990, I saw the trailer for Miller's Crossing (1990) at my local cinema in Spring, Texas.  I don't remember what movie I saw that day, but I remember seeing the lush, lyrical trailer for a movie that seemed to jump off the screen with its imagery, language and violence.  Coming off of my first high of mob movies with The Godfather around that time, as well as seeing the guys who had made Raising Arizona were behind the movie, I was ready to see the film on opening day.  

But the Coen Bros. were not yet famous, and Fox, which had distribution rights, didn't really push the movie.  I kept looking for it in show listings.  But it played downtown Houston, not out in the 'burbs, and I was still something like eight months away from my license.  And, so it was that I missed the film until it came out on VHS.  

Television Watch: Alien - Earth (Season 1, 2025)

I'm the first person to say Alien and Aliens are two great films, each for different reasons.  And while I understand people love Alien3, I just wasn't onboard.  And it's safe to say, I've wrestled with the subsequent sequels, including Prometheus and Alien: Covenant.  The desire to combine the Alien storyline with the Predator franchise, with the wink-wink connections to Blade Runner strikes me as a curious obsession in sci-fi fandom - even if I shared the excitement of everyone else when Predator 2 came out.  

And then I saw Aliens vs. Predator, and I thought "never mind".

I'd skipped the last Alien movie.  If Ridley Scott couldn't make me care, I'm not sure who could.  

But part of that was, even as Romulus was in post-production, I heard Noah Hawley got his hands on the franchise and had a TV show coming.  

For those unfamiliar, Hawley is the person responsible for Legion, maybe the most interesting superhero adaptation (loosely based on the Marvel X-character Legion) to hit a screen, big or small, and which ran on FX for three seasons.  But, more important, Hawley has helmed Fargo for five seasons and across ten years.  And, in this blog's opinion, it's one of the best shows to have graced screens, full stop.

Fargo is an oddball spin-off of the Coen Bros. film of the same name.  And I won't get into it here, but if Legion showed Hawley knew how to take a nut of an idea from source material and grow something fascinating with it, Fargo took the well-defined themes and characters of a Coen Bros. movie as inspiration and exploded their stories into multi-faceted noir epics, borrowing elements and ideas from across the Coen Bros. filmography.

So... yeah, I was jazzed when I heard Hawley was getting his hands on Alien.  And eight episodes later, I feel like my trust was warranted.