Marxist Watch: A Day at the Races (1937)

Watched:  08/26/2026

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First?

Director:  Sam Wood

I know I've previously seen the back half of A Day at the Races (1937), but I'd not seen it all the way through, I guess.

This one takes the Marx Bros. back to Florida where Chico is working for a Sanitarium that is struggling , but hoping for investment from their wealthy patient, Margaret Dumont.  Maureen O'Sullivan has inherited the sanitarium and her boyfriend, a singer, buys a race horse to try to win money to save the place for her.  Groucho plays a veterinarian who Dumont thinks is her doctor, and he comes to the sanitarium.  Harpo, a jockey.

This one felt a little slow to get started, but then had some amazing stuff.  They really understood every scene is funnier if a horse runs through before the end.

Tim Curry Merges With the Infinite

Actor of stage and screen, Tim Curry, has passed.  

Curry had been ailing for some time, having experienced a stroke in 2012.  

For the last fifty years, Curry has built generations of fans with diverse roles from The Rocky Horror Picture Show to The Hunt for Red October to Muppet Treasure Island to Clue.   I think I first saw him as Rooster in Annie, when it was in theaters back in the day.  And I very much enjoyed him in movies like The Shadow and The Three Musketeers and plenty of others.  

He has an insane IMDB listing as he was not shy about taking voice work (I really didn't know til now how many voices he'd done).  He may have also been in a few less than amazing movies, and respect.  The man was working.  He was also acting on a whole different level than everyone else in the small indie movie The Scoundrel's Wife I watched last year.

If social media tells me anything, there's some key roles here that people really remember, and that's pretty great.  The man was beloved, and I think he knew it.  I hope so.

Windsor Pirate Watch: Hurricane Island (1951)

Watched:  08/25/2026

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Director:  Lew Landers

So, it's entirely possible that the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was somewhat inspired by this B-movie, Hurricane Island (1951).  I'm not saying it is, directly, or there aren't substantial differences, but....

I'm also not sure watching a movie just because it has Marie Windsor in it is wrong, but..!  It was Marie Windsor day on Summer Under the Stars on TCM. This one is also a pirate movie, and, in theory, is based on one or two real historical figures.  Well, it has Ponce de Leon, which is kind of exciting.

Theoretically, this is about Ponce de Leon's search for the Fountain of Youth.  But in this movie, it's about a wounded Ponce outsourcing his adventuring to a husky Captain Montalvo (John Hall) who de facto leads the expedition into the island of Florida (it's like 1513, and I don't think they know dick all about the actual Florida coastline yet).  

Dolly Parton Merges With The Infinite

The great Dolly Parton, musician, storyteller, philanthropist, entrepreneur, amusement park mogul, and one of the best of us, has passed at the age of 80.

If you've never heard it, I highly recommend the podcast Dolly Parton's America from RadioLab on NPR.

I grew up in the 1980's when Dolly - through radio play, TV and her hit movies Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and 9-to-5 - became a household name.  In short, I cannot remember a world before I knew who she was.  I even saw her in November of 1985 .sitting in the rafters of the Erwin Center, in a co-headlining tour with Kenny Rogers (Sawyer Brown was supporting). 

As I became a teen, country music was *the enemy* for a good patch, as I think a lot of us shut it down who live below the Mason-Dixon line as we build our little lines between us and them.  So it was not until after college that I finally clicked to who Dolly was as a musician.  It came, really, with the release of Little Sparrow - pretty late for me as it was her 38th album.  I believe I bought Emmylou Harris's Red Dirt Girl the same landmark day (unaware of the Trio effort with Linda Ronstadt until Nathan C showed me the way a few years back).

Friday Watch: Fantastic Four - First Steps (2025)

Watched:  08/21/2026

Format:  Disney+

Viewing:  Fourth?

Director:  Matt Shakman

First - I am no longer discussing Marvel movies as *movies*.  It's ludicrous to do so.  No one has tried and achieved everything Marvel Studios has done, and to pretend any of what is happening in any single movie is not part of a greater whole is untruthful.  If your problem is that a Marvel movie is tied to other Marvel movies and TV shows, the door is that way. 

We already talked about this movie twice before when I saw it in the theater (twice) and then when my dad came over to keep an eye on me after I had a big screw put in my foot (on purpose) and was recuperating/ hopped-up on goofballs.

But with Doomsday coming, I'd been thinking about the movie a great deal.  After all, Victor was conspicuously absent in this Fantastic Four movie, but it sure seemed to point to where things are going as the FF are all over one of the trailers.

HEAVY SPOILERS AND POINTLESS SPECULATION BELOW

Happy Birthday, Kim Cattrall

Happy Birthday to League fave Kim Cattrall.

Whether she's having Big Trouble in Little China, Sex in the City, taking a Split Second, or heading off for Star Trek 6's Undiscovered Country, we're a fan.

I'm not sure what she's up to at the moment, but we hope she's having a good time.

In the words of Crow T. Robot:

Marxist Watch: The Cocoanuts (1929)

Watched:  08/19/2026

Format:  TCM on DVR hosted by Eddie Muller

Viewing:  First

Director:  Robert Florey and Joseph Stantley

Apparently the first-ish Marx Bros. movie, The Cocoanuts (1929) is also an early talkie.  So, yeah, someone said "we're adding sound!" and someone said "What people need is to keep up with Groucho and then have Harpo say nothing.  Ever."

The movie is more interesting than laugh out loud funny - but it sure feels like a draft of what was to come and what would work for the Marx Bros. for years to come.  Playing scrappy underdogs not above some lightly criminal doings, but with hearts of gold, the Marx Bros. are dropped into a scenario where Groucho plays someone who has fallen backwards into legitimacy, while Chico and Zeppo show up on the scene to see what they can shake loose, moneywise, from a collection of wealthy people.

DC Animated Watch: DC's League of Super-Pets (2022)

Watched:  08/19/2026

Format:  Disc 4K

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Jared Stern

One of the oddest of casualties of a certain point in time was DC's League of Super-Pets (2022).  

Started before COVID and then, mind-bogglingly, released during COVID as a kids' movie - it seemingly tanked at the box office.  Fun note:  it made $80 million more than Supergirl.

My memory was - people found the advertising very confusing, and the notion of Superman having a *dog* seemed preposterous to the uninitiated.  One wonders how a kid's movie about Krypto would fare now.  

DC's "Lanterns" Episode 1

I used to love Green Lantern comics.  I came to Green Lantern by reading Emerald Dawn and then Emerald Dawn II.*  But GL and it's cast were a lot, and so I was an inconsistent reader for years.  I eventually fell into the monthly habit, and was there for the last of Kyle's run as the only Lantern, the return of Hal Jordan, elevation of John Stewart and eventually Geoff Johns' expansion of the Lantern spectrum.

A few things killed Green Lantern for me. Repetition of the same story concepts.  No real notion of how to write stories that fulfilled the promise of space cops.  Stuff like that.

Unstuck Watch: Slaughterhouse-Five (1972)

Watched:  06/16/2026

Format:  TCM - first ever showing on the network

Viewing:  First

Director:  George Roy Hill

It's been many years since I read Slaughterhouse-Five, or the Children's Crusade: a Duty Dance with Death. So long ago that all I can say for certain is that it was post-2000 and probably before this blog was founded.  I was just old enough reading it to know my WWII history and a bit embarrassed I'd not read it earlier in life.

But Vonnegut is, hopefully, something that works for you no matter your age.

As it's been a while since I read the book, I won't spend energy comparing and contrasting.  Instead, I'll just suggest watching the movie Slaughterhouse-Five (1972) sometime if you've already read the novel.  If jumping straight to the movie, it also can't hurt to pre-load your knowledge of the last year of World War II in Europe, to get what audiences in 1972 would have likely known just through cultural osmosis.  Things like "oh... Dresden" may not mean as much to some folks here in 2026 and all that you would know is coming.

I won't get into whether what Billy experiences is real or not.  Y'all can make your own decisions and I don't think the answer is that easy.