Chabert Freeze Watch: All of My Heart (2015)

Watched:  01/24/206

Format:  Hallmark

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Peter DeLuise

I am logging everything.  Normally I wouldn't have mentioned this re-watch, but this is what we put on while we were waiting to see if we were going to lose power on Saturday night.  

As your foremost Chabert movie expert, this is definitely one of the better written parts she's been given at Hallmark, and she works very well with co-star Brennan Elliot.  

If you're worried you're about to lose power and need to put something on while you panic mildly, this is perfectly fine.

Noir Watch: Shield for Murder (1954)

Watched:  01/26/2026

Format:  TCM Noir Alley

Viewing:  First

Directors:  Edmond O'Brien and Howard W. Koch

This movie has some really interesting stuff, and maybe exploits some of the actual issues cops deal with for entertainment and shock value.  It's not the best movie - it drags in some places and feels like it's stretching to reach feature length once you kind of see where all of this is going.  But thematically, it's right there in the mix with the darker noir films.

Police detective Barney Nolan (Edmond O'Brien) kills a man in an alley and takes a stack of money off of him - $25,000 (roughly $300K in 2025 dollars).  He tells his pal and fellow cop Mark (John Agar - the ex Mr. Shirley Temple) that he was trying to bring in the bookmaker, but things got messy and shots were fired.

Soon after, Barney is picking up his young girlfriend, Patty (Marla English) and showing her a model home he says he'll buy.  Meanwhile, he hides the money beneath the house.

A pair of Private Eyes, thugs from the gangster who the money belonged to, start snooping around.  And a witness comes forward who saw everything, and Barney can't have that.

The movie has a scene with a platinum blonde Carolyn Jones as a bar fly.  

The basic gist of the film is a character study of a cop who has always been a good guy, but he's worn down by everything he's seen, and the knowledge he'll never get ahead while the crooks run around with $25,000.  How far will he go for his slice of the pie?  And how crazy will it make him?

As Eddie Muller hinted at during the intro, it just doesn't seem like Edmond O'Brien is anyone's favorite - and I'm probably in agreement.  He's not a bad actor, he's just not a favorite, but he's in enough noir films, he starred in two of three I watched this weekend.  Clearly this movie meant a lot to him, and he directs himself just fine here.  But never has it been more clear that a star was twice the age of the woman he's paired with and with so little chemistry.  It's just hard to buy.

There are some dynamite sequences, like a brutal sequence where we realize how far gone O'Brien is when he's cornered by the detectives in an Italian restaurant.  And a shoot-out at an indoor pool.

Anyhoo, I've seen that poster above for years and never came across the movie itself, so it's a delight to finally watch the thing.  

Happy Birthday, Krypto

Today marks the 71st anniversary of the first appearance of Krypto the Superdog in Adventure Comics 210.  

Krypto appeared 17 years or so after Superman first appeared and 10 years after we'd been introduced to Superboy - tales of Superman when he was a boy.  In short, Superman had been around, had a radio show and had been on television for three years by the time Krypto appeared in a Superboy story.

Until Krypto appeared, four years before Supergirl, Superboy had been really the only survivor of Krypton.  This space-faring dog was Superboy's first real, direct connection to not just his home planet, but his actual parents and home.

While Krypto was shown to be an untrained pest (shades of 2025's Superman movie), he was also a fellow, last Kryptonian.  

His story in this comic was that he was the El family dog who had been sent by Jor-El in a test rocket that got knocked off course and lost in space until the events of this issue, Superboy arriving on Earth and becoming a teen in the interim.

Texas Noir Watch: The Houston Story (1956)

Watched:  01/25/2026

Format:  YouTube

Viewing:  First

Director: William Castle

The funny thing about The Houston Story (1956) is that there's probably a good idea for a movie in here, somewhere between a less dumb and horny Landman and less intense There Will Be Blood, but the script is so phoned in, it's both a mess and a little too pat.  But it does make Della Street (aka: Barbara Hale) seem like a bombshell, so it has that going for it.

It took me a minute to realize this is the kind of movie where our lead is a true noir protagonist - he's not on the side of the angels, he's a guy who's seen an angle and he's pursuing it to the top.  I read Lee J. Cobb was originally slated to play the role, and I can see that completely.  Instead we get Gene Barry - who is good! - but who didn't give "morally ambiguous POV character" in the first ten minutes of the movie.

Essentially, Barry plays an oil-field worker.  He gets the attention of the Houston mob by identifying a corpse found beneath the "docks of Houston" as a woman he know in Oklahoma.  However - that isn't who it is.  Barry happens to know that the woman he's named is actually living in Houston under the name Zoe Crane and mixed up with a second-banana mobster.  

Totter Noir Watch: Man In The Dark (1953)

Watched:  01/24/2026

Format:  YouTube

Viewing:  First

Director:  Lew Landers

I always like a movie that's entire premise is based on 1950's-era psychological science.  

Edmond O'Brien plays a former gangster who has been pinched.  Facing a minimum 10 year stretch, he agrees to a bit of Clockwork Orange scientification.  A doctor is going to perform surgery on his brain to remove his criminal element or some such.

On the other side of the surgery, he can't remember who he was or what he used to do, and is no longer a shady crook, I guess.  From a detective for an insurance company, we learn O'Brien boosted $130K prior to his incarceration, but nobody knows where it is, and now that includes O'Brien himself.*   O'Brien coming along fine when his old gang kidnaps him/ liberates him.  

For reasons that amount to "we're real dumb", the old gang thinks for way too long that O'Brien is faking his amnesia.  They trot out his girlfriend, Audrey Totter, to convince him to play ball.  Eventually, she realizes he doesn't remember she was his girlfriend - and, if I may, that would seem like a welcome surprise.

Anyway, Totter never really liked O'Brien before - or at least knew she was disposable to him.  But she likes this new version.  

But as the crooks (led by Ted de Corsia) start to press, O'Brien has a dream with clues!  Memory clues!  And they find a slip of paper with a number that must mean something.  

Anyway - it means going to the Oceanpark Pier pier you see in one in every 20 film noir movies, and having a face-off.  

Highlights of the movie include:  

• it has a dream sequence that isn't a patch on Spellbound, but is still entertaining
• plenty of Laffing Sal
• Audrey Totter in smashing dresses
• an extended "getaway" flashback sequence with no story impact that I am pretty sure is on the roofs of the backlot at the studio
• the only fistfight I've ever seen on a roller-coaster track while it's operational.  Some real stunt work here.

I wouldn't say the movie is great or essential, but Totter feels weirdly too good for this movie, putting depth into her character that I'm not sure the movie earns. So if you're looking to catch another solid role for her, here you go.

If the movie seems a bit odd, visually, it is a 2D presentation of a 3D movie.  So that might explain the long escape sequence and a few other scenes.  I am very curious how the roller coaster sequences would have looked.  Pretty good, I expect.

There is a curious "will he go back to his wily, crooked ways" tension to the movie, but it's really just about survival.  Why O'Brien doesn't just go to the cops, I do not know.  It does mean he punches a dude off the hill of a rollercoaster track, so...  it's not like this is entirely a "on the side of the angels" ending.

*I would think handing over the money would have been key to the court agreeing to let O'Brien be a scientific subject, but the ethics of experimenting on prisoners is at best a gray area in this movie

I think I did a phenomenal job not making any jokes about Totter in 3D.  Please clap.

Dog Watch: Air Bud (1997)

Watched:  01/23/2026

Format:  YouTube

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Charles Martin Smith

I am unsure why, but for about a decade-and-change, America loved a kids movie about an animal playing sports.  A lot of these were apes or monkeys, but the foremost animal-athlete was Buddy, star of Air Bud (1997).  

It's been probably since 1999 or so since I actually watched this movie, thought "well, it's a kids movie and not for me" and went on with my life.  But thanks to the younger generation growing up with this movie, it's been meme'd, and, of course, John Oliver has been making Air Bud discussion a feature of his YouTube videos.  

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3

Well worth your time and mind-space, I assure you.  

Oscar Nom Re-Watch: Sinners (2025)

Watched:  01/22/2026

Format:  HBOmax

Viewing;  Second

Director:  Ryan Coogler

I guess they announced the Oscar nominees, and Sinners (2025) is up for a record 16 Oscars.  Jamie had already asked to watch this movie a few times, and I figured - hey, tonight's the night.  (I'd delayed because the movie is 2+ hours, and I wanted to do it in one sitting.)

In my 2025 Favorite Movies list, it came in as Honorable Mention, just behind Flow, which I called my Favorite of 2025.  But I'll let you in on a little secret (pssst.  Scoot closer)  Ya see  - it's kinda arbitrary.  I could have picked either movie.  

I will say, Sinners isn't a different movie on a rewatch, but it's really, really good as a rewatch - and is a different experience.  It's very well written and edited (along with everything else, which is why they're throwing award noms at it), so when you know what's coming - things definitely have a different weight to them.  

All that said, I don't actually want to talk too much about the movie again.  I dunno, here's my post from April.  I probably liked it even better on a second viewing.  

Yes, it has received a lot of nominations, and it's kind of wild, but there are a variety of reasons that's true - including the film's overall popularity and watchability while still managing to reflect on the sorts of themes Academy voters tend to like to nominate.  The performances across the board sell the movie, and it's, if nothing else, pretty @#$%ing novel.  

Masters of the Universe Movie: So, Nostalgia is a Weird Thing

So, there's a new trailer out for a He-Man movie.

And then I saw writer Chris Roberson said, over on Bluesky:

Hallmark Watch: Frozen In Love (2018)

Watched:  01/21/2026

Format:  Hallmark

Viewing:  First

Director:  Scott Smith

Here in real life, we're prepping for a winter storm coming this weekend, and I knew I was planning to finish watching Mademoiselle Fifi in the evening, so we threw on this RomCom from Hallmark, Frozen In Love (2018).  

The film is not a Christmas movie, but the stuff Hallmark programs, post-holidays, to fill the winter months.  Yes, there is snow and ice and ice hockey in this movie.  No, I don't know anything about hockey.

Wise Watch: Mademoiselle Fifi (1944)

Watched: 01/21/2026

Format:  YouTube

Viewing:  First

Director:  Robert Wise

Our viewing of movies by Robert Wise continues with Mademoiselle Fifi, a 1944 movie, made during the darker days of World War II, using the Franco-Prussian War as a wispy-thin analog for the German occupation of France and a clear show of support for the French Resistance.  

This is Wise's first solo directorial effort, but you'd never know.  The movie seems assured of the handling of actors as it does of camera management and tone.  

The movie is intended as an odd propaganda - yes, stateside it would be seen as pro-French Resistance, but also would have informed Americans of what it means to be occupied, and how those under the bootheel may react in ways noble, practical and cowardly.  And, that some may not see much different day-to-day, or take advantage of cozying up to the occupiers.  I cannot assume this would have been very comfortable for movie go-ers who may have wanted to have less nuanced takes on the occupation.