Gangster Watch: The Roaring Twenties (1939)

Watched:  05/09/2025

Format:  Criterion Disc

Viewing:  First-ish?

Director:  Raoul Walsh

Fun (likely apocryphal) fact:  This movie from 1939 is thought to be what coined the phrase "the roaring twenties" to refer to the 1920's.  Contemporarily, thanks to F. Scott Fitzgerald, the 1920's were referred to as The Jazz Age and, by others as The Plastic Age.  (There's a Clara Bow film of the same name I've never tracked down.)

Also - This doesn't happen very often, but I am unsure if I've seen this movie before.  

It sure seems like I would have seen it.  It's entirely up my alley.  And when Cagney introduced Gladys George's character by name, Panama Smith, I had my first moment of pause, thinking "wait... have I seen this?".  Because George sure looked familiar and then the name is kind of unforgettable.  Panama Smith.  (It's also insane this was not Eve Arden when this role feels like it should be Eve Arden).

Superman 2025: Relatable

One of the common complaints hurled at Superman is that he's not relatable -  as the superior alternative is somehow being a billionaire with rodent-inspired vehicles, who runs around on rooftops and karates super good, as this is apparently something we all do.  

But what is more relatable than a dog-owner trying to get a dog to be good?  Especially when the dog thinks all attention is good attention?

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

Chabert Watch: The Brooke Ellison Story (2004)

Watched:  05/08/2025

Format:  Tubi

Viewing:  First

Director:  Christopher Reeve

I'm gonna be straight up with y'all.  I am so grateful for a good movie at this moment in ChabertQuest 2025.  Several of the past few have been making this journey less than ideal.  

The Brooke Ellison Story (2004) is a movie I was aware of in 2004 when it came out, but completely missed as an A&E TV movie that came out during a time when I was working insane hours.  As one can guess it entered my awareness because it was directed by Christopher Reeve, who passed just two weeks before the film aired.

And, of course, once I knew about the real Brooke Ellison the film was based on, when she'd pop up in in the news every once in a while, I was reminded I'd heard of her because of the film.  But because it was a TV movie, once it was gone, it was kind of gone, so I didn't know much about it.  

The film is an adaptation of the book written by the real-life Brooke Ellison and her mother, Jean Ellison.  During her middle-school years, Brooke was hit by a car which left her a quadriplegic and living on a ventilator to survive.  She wound up going to Harvard (the thing I did know).

I didn't know, for example, that the movie stars Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and John Slattery as Brooke's parents.  But, holy smokes, is this one of those places where a movie found the right director and cast.  What could have been a saccharine movie about a family with pluck overcoming adversity manages to work because it's not about a can-do spirit and a song in your heart winning the day.  It's about the million steps you have to overcome, from regulations that make no sense, to insurance shenanigans to those who think they know best - at least at the outset. 

TV Watch: Righteous Gemstones gets its benediction

I find it amazing that when we're discussing the best stuff on television, it's so often wildly depressing stuff or puzzle boxes we all know are going to have endings that do not deliver.  I guess it feels good to feel bad.*  And I like a good drama, too.  But as my 9th grade English teacher, the great Ms. Fort said to me "life is tragedy or comedy.  There is no in-between."  Ms. Fort was a smart, smart lady, so I've always believed it.

And because I think comedy holds an equal place to tragedy, and I feel I learn as much from what makes me laugh as what makes me bummed out, I'm sad to see HBO's Danny McBride helmed series, The Righteous Gemstones, come to a close after four seasons.  

At the same time, I understand- get out while the getting is good.  The responsible thing to do is leave people wishing there had been more, while also properly closing things up.  

On Sunday, The Righteous Gemstones finished its fourth and final season, closing the door on less than forty episodes and one of the funniest, most vulgar and profane shows I've seen, while somehow including stellar storytelling, genuine character moments, shockingly heartfelt beats and - underneath it all - somehow managing to sell religion and faith as an option better than any actual televangelist.

Barely Chabert Watch! Anything Is Possible (2013)

Watched:  05/07/2025

Format:   Peacock

Viewing:  First

Director:  Demetrius Navarro

This journey through the career of Lacey Chabert (just live action work, and only movie-length material - we have to contain this somehow) has become a study of the work of someone who is truly a working actor.  

Sure, Chabert is a star.  Even if she'd never been in anything after Lost in Space, I'd remember her as a young actor.  If Mean Girls had been her last role, we'd all definitely still know her.  But Chabert started in movies as a child (and we'll get to that), and her current role as the face of Hallmark and Christmas movies was not a foregone conclusion.  She had a lot of work that was clearly putting food on the table, and that's kind of what we've been watching for a bit.

And so we find a movie here from 2013 in which she barely appears. It's one of six films she had released in 2013, and one of ten projects - as she voiced cartoons and video games (she's the default voice for Zatanna at DC Entertainment).  But I'm betting she was in and out of Detroit - where this movie seems to have been filmed - in about three days.

This movie is very independent, very well intentioned, and very much not my thing.  It is also less about Chabert's character, who book-ends the film, and a vehicle for real world child prodigy of the piano, Ethan Bortnick.*  Based on the age of the child star and editing timelines, I am guessing it was filmed in 2011, and finally found distribution in 2013.  

Chabert Watch! Tart (2001)

I don't make the posters, I just post them

Watched:  05/05/2025

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director/ Writer:  Christina Wayne

Watching Tart (2001) feels very much like when you're a middle-class kid with middle-class experiences and you get stuck in a conversation with someone your age who has no idea that they're upper-class.  You mostly sit there in polite silence as they have no idea that every sentence coming out of their mouth is dripping with privilege, classism, and unearned self-pity because Mumsie and Daddy left them behind and went to St. Bart's for two weeks, during which time they were left with a stack of money, a huge house and just the butler and maid, and it was so unfair and they better get to go to (insert place middle class kids never heard of) next year!

Chabert Watch! Dirty Deeds (2005)

greetings ladies and gentlemen - I'll be your unnecessarily smug dope of a lead for the evening

Watched:  05/04/2025

Format:  Legitimately obtained video

Viewing:  First

Director:  David Kendall

I can't think of a movie where I've heard the soundtrack doing more heavy lifting than this weirdly soggy flick from the 90's/00's-era of dude-centric teen comedies that maybe peaked with American Pie.  But I wasn't a teen then, and I didn't watch most of these flicks.  

What's oddest about Dirty Deeds (2005) is that it *should* have been as straightforward as one could be.  It has a boilerplate plot of a guy who has to complete a punchlist of tasks in an academy/ academic setting - and he's a wildcard!  What should be a wacky, charming series of shenanigans with a dollop of heart is, instead, a clutch of unfunny incidents, some of which are straight concerning.  

But, yeah, 

Muppet Watch: The Dark Crystal (1982)

Watched:  05/02/2025

Format:  Disney+

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Jim Henson

I remember seeing The Dark Crystal (1982) in the theater as a kid and it absolutely blowing my mind.  

Fantasy films were certainly a thing for kids in the wake of Star Wars, and Henson was already everywhere, from The Muppet Show to Empire Strikes Back.  But all of those fantasy films, that were live action, always starred humans.  I mean, understandably so.  

But for 90 minutes, Henson and Co. managed to create a world that had not a person in sight, a world both grounded in physical reality and utterly fantastic.  Taking what he'd learned from his many years of shows, commercials, movies, etc...  and getting his feet wet with things as different as Sesame Street and Emmet Otter, and enlisting artist Brian Froud, he cooked up this world. 

Marvel Watch: Thunderbolts* (2025)

Watched:  05/01/2025

Format:  Alamo 

Viewing:  First

Director:  Jake Schrierer

SPOILERS for a new movie

I won't belabor Marvel's trials and travails, real and imagined, over the past few years.  We all know the narrative.  It's not one I necessarily agree with, but it's out there.  

Does Thunderbolts feel different from other recent Marvel stuff?  Yes. In some ways.  Mostly the ways in which you don't feel like this movie fell out of a Marvel continuity Mad Lib generator that requires you remember what happened in a movie in 2009. It does the continuity thing correctly - we've seen almost everyone in this movie before - if you watched all the Marvel stuff (and I have, minus the What If? shows).   They don't break that continuity and may refer to it - but I think the story itself makes sense without all that, as long as you listen to what the characters say about themselves. 

Our characters are from the Black Widow film (White Widow, Red Guardian), Ant-Man and The Wasp (Ghost), Captain America (Bucky) and Falcon and the Winter Soldier (Valentina, John Walker).  It's a good mix.  Plus, Bob.

Chabert Watch: Being Michael Madsen (2007)

Watched:  04/29/2025

Format:  Legitimately obtained video

Viewing:  First

Director:  Michael Mongillo

There's nuggets of a couple of ideas in Being Michael Madsen (2007) that are very good ideas.  Unfortunately, this was not the movie to execute on those ideas.  And you know you're in trouble from the very start when the faux-documentary alerts you it will be bleeping out *real* brand names for legal reasons (sigh) and then rolls like three quotes before the first shot of video.  

Yeah, this is a fake documentary - about a documentary that we will never get to see.  Or is it the documentary?  It's not clear.  I do know this movie is also a weird mix of wildly pretentious nonsense that believes it's very clever and maybe poking fun at itself for being pretentious.  But, hoo boy, it's kind of like when someone is being pretentious but isn't quite smart enough to actually pull it off, but they're Dunning-Kruegering their way into believing they're the smartest person in the room.