The Signal Watch blog

Pitt Watch: Countess Dracula (1971)

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 23:06:13 +0000

Watched: 09/03/2026

Format: YouTube

Viewing: Second

Director: Peter Sasdy

We watched this a few years ago, and at the time I remember being disappointed it wasn't basically just a redux of The Vampire Lovers, though I didn't exactly put it that way. I think I appreciated it a bit more on this go-round as I engaged with movie on its own terms.

I had no plans to watch it, but noted it was free on YouTube, and here we are.

Rather than a Dracula movie, Countess Dracula (1971) is a deeply fictionalized version of the legend of Elizabeth Bathory, the Hungarian countess who may have tortured and killed hundreds of girls. What Bathory *actually* did is up for debate, and like a lot of sensationalistic history could have been entirely fabricated to discredit and humiliate her, as well as stick her in a dungeon (see: The Tower of London for endless trumped up charges and nobles who met unfortunate ends).

Screen siren Ingrid Pitt plays the aging widow of a count. For decades, he's been fooling around with a general on the sly. And now that she's free of her husband, he's ready to officially make his move. She isn't so sure. And just as she's thinking on it, she stumbles across the fact bathing in the blood of young women will restore her youth. And, boy howdy, do I not want to discuss the psychology of people as they age, but you get it.

Elizabeth, now refreshed and looking more like Ingrid Pitt and less like Ingrid Pitt in old-age make-up, turns her eye to the handsome young soldier in the castle. The soldier believes Elizabeth to be her own daughter returned from abroad, and can hardly say no when she's throwing herself at him.

She needs 10 cats, STAT

Just a gallon or two of virgin blood later, and...

now that's what I call a glow up

The peasants inside the castle walls start to wonder where they're older daughters have gone, and where the gypsies have vanished to. Meanwhile, every time she re-ages, Elizabeth is looking older and worse, and the change to youth lasts less time.

Most horrific is that Elizabeth's daughter is at first way-laid, held captive by agents of her original suitor. But at some point, Elizabeth is so far gone, her own daughter becomes a possible target for supply the juice for those extra-special spa days.

The movie is part Machiavellian castle intrigue soaked in blood, part horror movie - but of a different flavor of horror than I expected the first time, and part Ingrid Pitt showcase for Hammer. And, kind of like, Lust for a Vampire, I really liked it more the second time than the first time I saw it. It's a shame that Hammer was so ready to swap out their female stars as Pitt can absolutely carry a movie and could have done more.

I would have thought Hammer was setting Pitt up for more featured parts, but that wasn't to be. She moved on to some comedies and TV appearances, as well as showing up in Where Eagles Dare.

This movie looks expensive (by 1970's Hammer standards), all castle sets, Hungarian costumes, etc... and I am unsure of how the picture did at the box office. But it really does work as a gothic horror.

Remade, I think the thing to do is not tell the audience outright what is happening. Let them figure it out as the turn to the third act. Even if they figure it before the reveal, it seems like playing along would make for a good ride. But what we've got works just fine.

Scorsese Watch: The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 04:28:20 +0000

Watched: 09/02/2026

Format: Started on Hulu on August 30th, they dropped it and Apple+ picked it up

Viewing: Second

Director; Scorsese

I saw The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) once before in the theater, and wanted to watch it again, but it's three hours. And I figured Jamie would want to see it eventually, and at three hours, I was limiting how often I'd invest in watching the flick.

Plus, when I remember particularly liking a movie, I am not a person who watches it over and over - if the movie gave me something to chew on. I save those for occasional viewings when I can really take them in. I did not mean to give it 13 years between viewings. Whoops. But here we are.

These days, Wolf of Wall Street is mostly known as the source of a wide range of GIFs and memes. Star Leonardo DiCaprio plays the real-life role of former stock hustler Jordan Belfort full-tilt, and screen grabs of some of his scenes are just plastered everywhere. If it's DiCaprio and he's not Gatsby, this is probably the movie that GIF came from.

This is one of those movies where I can see how it might have made some people unhappy. But overall, the critical consensus was strong and I guess this did get some Oscar noms (or so Jamie told me). It's a movie that is very loud about what it's saying, and still manages to never say it directly, and in that, I recall at the time of the movie's release people were being willfully obtuse, clutching pearls at the content of the film.

Let's be honest, this movie have the most nudity of any American movie of the past two decades. It features out of control finance bros engaging in all manner of tsk-tsk behaviors from drug abuse to illegal stock trades to infidelity to the tossing of little people. In fact, this movie opens on our leads doing the latter.

Like many of Scorsese's movies, it's a look at America. Not how we think of ourselves with rock, flag and eagle jingoism, but what we really value. This is a movie that is happy to point out that the people we trust to enforce the law can hope for a livable wage and a pension, and all breaking a few hundred laws will do is get you into a summer camp of a prison for a couple of years.

But it's also showing how breaking those laws, how pushing the envelope is it's own reward. You can treat people as Jarts. You can include escorts as part of your business expenses and got to work so high you can't see, as long as you do it where no one can see and money is exchanging hands. We're used to movies showing us the downside of excess, but this movie never really says that. Instead, what it says is that hubris and bad luck are all it takes for it all to fall apart.

That may not be as satisfying as "because of their evil deeds, the mighty were doomed to fall". No, we know the reason our protagonist fell was just a series of unfortunate events - at least as the movie portrays it. A premature death. A storm at sea. A Benihana executive up to no good. But parties rife with coke and quaaludes and hookers? That's just a good weekend, and schlubs like you and me and Kyle Chandler's FBI agent won't ever see any of that.

The cast is fascinating to look back at 13 years later.

Cristin Milioti showing what people would embrace a decade later. McConaughey playing a maniac mentor. Rob Reiner as his father (and Cristine Ebersol in a non-speaking role as Jordan's mother). Jon Bernthal. Kyle Chandler. Jon Favreau. Joanna Lumley. Shea Whigam. Oddly, two guys who were just in Coyote v. Acme appear, Kenneth Choi and P.J. Byrne. This is a reminder of how good Jonah Hill is when he wants to be.

This is, of course, how the notion of who Margot Robbie is became solidified in my mind. I wasn't honestly expecting much, but - starting for me with this movie, and then a string of stellar performances (I'm the dude who loved Barbie, I, Tonya and Gunn's Suicide Squad) - again and again, Robbie's proven she is the real deal.

And, as I said to Jamie when the movie finished - I'm pretty withholding in my praise for male actors. I have my favorites, of course. And this is deeply uncontroversial - but I genuinely think Leonardo DiCaprio is the best American male actor at this point. He started strong with What's Eating Gilbert Grape? and by The Basketball Diaries, I was stunned. If he has a problem, it's that I think he's the kind of actor who really does disappear inside of a character - he's not Ryan Reynolds where you kind of know what you're going to get (which is terrific. I don't begrudge anyone that.) But DiCaprio is a monster talent, and I don't think he hits a false note in this film, even when his character *does*.

As we head into late 2026, there's something worth going back and looking at in this movie. Because if you think these guys were having a good time then, imagine what's going on as the entire country gets turned into a casino.

Colonialism Watch: Outpost in Morocco (1949)

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 04:27:06 +0000

Watched: 08/30/2026

Format: TCM on DVR from Marie Windsor day

Viewing: First

Director: Robert Florey

Outpost in Morocco (1949) was part of Marie Windsor day on TCM's Summer Under the Stars. She's not the lead, that's George Raft, but she plays a Moroccan princess for all intents and purposes.

Look, I'm utterly ignorant when it comes to Morocco aside from being able to find it on a map (I double-checked, and I was right! Thanks, Casablanca for leaving that tidbit in my head!). I don't know its history, and I don't know the culture.

I am aware of the French Foreign Legion, its kind of wild history and reputation for taking in folks at the end of their rope. In this story, Raft plays a Captain who is supposedly awesome at his job when he isn't out romancing the ladies. He's sent to an outpost to deliver Windsor to her father, who is a regional leader. Windsor goes to France every year for six months and has been summoned home early.

En route, because movies don't always make sense, Windsor falls for George Raft (more understandable, he feels the same). But then Windsor's dad decides to kill as many Frenchmen as he can to try to reclaim Morocco from France. And things get brutal pretty fast.

This movie doesn't really blink at what happens when a fort is overrun, and there's a whole lotta bodies as Raft arrives with reinforcements. It then has scenes that will foretell both Zulu and a few shots from Lawrence of Arabia - but smaller, worse shot and in black & white.

A lot of the movie was shot as a mix of on location in Morocco and on soundstages, which is neat. Locals were used, so you get large battle scenes and it all feels very believable and occasionally overwhelming.

Two things:

George Raft's stardom is something I firmly don't get. He's got about two different line reads I've ever seen, he's not exactly dangerously handsome, and I've seen three-week-old bananas with more charisma. In this movie he's supposedly to be a ladies man, and, no. I don't buy it. Marie Windsor is supposed to fall for him, and I don't buy it. It's suggested he's a young man, and he's clearly pushing 50 here. He's maybe one of my least favorite leading actors, and I audibly groaned when the movie started and his name came up as the star.

The ending is a dud and undercuts the narrative. I thought they were going to pull a Pocahontas and have Marie Windsor talk her dad down from the nutsy plan to go to war with the French all on his own. Instead, it's played as tragedy as she rides right into a minefield set by the FFL. So our poor princess, who has been a pawn the whole movie, dies doing the one thing that showed her taking some initiative. It's not even a particularly convincing anti-war message as the idea at the end of the movie is "well, we showed them. France is back on top. Everyone is happy".

I didn't hate the movie entirely, I just think I understand why the ratings on it are not exactly ecstatic. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. The best thing going for it, aside from Marie Windsor in some groovy outfits, is Akim Tamiroff as Raft's lieutenant. He has range and outshines Raft non-stop through the movie.

Product Liability Law Watch: Coyote vs. Acme (2026)

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Sun, 30 Aug 2026 20:43:47 +0000

Watched: 08/30/2026

Format: Regal Cinemas

Viewing: First

Director: Dave Green

First: yes, this is the *completed* movie Warner Bros. was going to just shelve for a tax write-off and then sold to Ketchup Entertainment when word got out and the PR around the move became quite bad. Yes, I have thought the people who currently own Warner Bros. are absolute chuckle-@#$%s and why having MBAs run your entertainment companies all but guarantees the worst results.

Second: I almost took a pass on writing this post as, at its heart, Coyote vs. Acme (2026) is a product liability law movie. And our good pal, JimD, is an actual product liability attorney with a rich history of doing his own blogging. And I was going to make him go see the movie and write up a post, but assigning homework to friends does not seem like a good way to maintain a pal-ship.

Doing anything with the Looney Tunes characters here in 2026 is a bit of a risk. Warner Bros. has passed through various hands in the past 25 years, and somehow the people who buy it seem to have no idea what they're doing. And always seem like they can't wrap their heads around notions like "people enjoy Looney Tunes", because you get the feeling these @#$%wits only feel joy when they can buy another wife or something.

By the time I was in middle school, concerned mom groups (yeah, we had them back then, absolutely) were already raising hell about how the cartoons were raising anti-social kids and we'd all blow ourselves up with dynamite in our quest to be just like Wile E. Coyote. It was *bonkers*.

Looney Tunes have been mined to do many things since at least the early 90's (I was in high school from 89'-93') when they were relegated to supporting characters on Tiny Toon Adventures, and then featured heavily on urban wear for reasons I never understood. Taz got his own show for a minute (Taz-Mania), but the only real exposure I suspect Millennials got to Bugs and the gang was Space Jam. Then, the endless parade of Looney Tunes we were used to UHF channels showing were pushed by Warner Bros. from syndication to Cartoon Network and then Boomerang. And, then, they just kind of disappeared.

Thus, I am unsure if anyone under 30 has any idea who Sylvester and Tweety are. If they do know, I suspect it's from memes or gifs, and not from having watched cartoons as my generation did. And we did it because we had no internet, and minimal programming for kids across maybe 7 channels on the dial. Kids, our young Gen-X options were limited. But it did mean that if you lived in the US and/ or many other countries, we all shared references and understood what Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner were.

With that in mind, it may be true that had this movie been released by Warner Bros., it would have come out, lost money in theaters, and maybe been scrappy enough to make it up via streaming and other outlets. I have no way of knowing, and neither do you. But i know nothing. If you told me in January that The Odyssey would be a runaway hit of the summer, I would have been a bit surprised, to be honest.

And now that I've seen the movie, I really don't know what would have happened. Coyote vs. Acme is not un-safe for kids, but, again, it's a movie about product liability law. It's a legal David v. Goliath movie, about a very powerful monopoly, an indifferent justice system, and the greased wheels of justice turning just one direction.

It is a very 2020's take. It is not insane to think this movie got buried because someone in the C-Suite found the ideas underlying the movie to be overtly anti-monopolistic, which is the go-to these days in the biz world, and they wanted to look their friends in the eye at the pantsless dance-off at Bohemian Grove.

The film opens on a lab where the WB Cartoon Peter Lorre is trying to get a secret message to the outside. Something sinister is afoot. Dr. Lorre makes it outside but is stopped by a paramilitary security force.*

30 years later, Wile E. Coyote has missed catching the Roadrunner one too many times, and so sits down with a truly new angle after he realizes the common denominator in his failures are the products he's purchased from the ACME company. And he's not alone. Cartoons regularly suffer from injuries and issues caused by the ACME products failing (in spectacular fashion).

Meanwhile, Will Forte plays Kevin, an attorney who makes a living - alongside his partners Dottie (Martha Kelly) and Sal (Tone Bell) and his niece, Paige (Lana Condor) - suing for small claims against ACME. A few hundred here, a thousand there. Which ACME gladly pays out.

Wile E. brings his rocket skates to Kevin, and Kevin's ready to send in a claim, but Wile E. seems to want to sue for hundreds of incidents.

As the lawsuit arrives, it draws the attention of Kevin's former law school classmate, Buddy Crane (John Cena), and things begin to speed up.

Like Roger Rabbit or the already forgotten Chip n' Dale: Rescue Rangers movie, cartoons walking among us is taken as a given. Familiar WB characters appear, including Porky and Daffy, as well as more obscure figures, including some that were based on popular entertainers from their time of debut (see: cartoon Peter Lorre). A lot are one-off gags - we get maybe ten seconds of Witch Hazel, for example. It's a lot of fun seeing these characters, many of whom have languished in a post Space Jam world of WB animation.

There's some nice digging into who Wile E. Coyote is, and the movie doesn't really knock the edges off. He is who he is - a coyote trying to eat a roadrunner. He's a fellow of singular purpose. But there's lessons to be had in a world that constantly asks us to give up and go with the flow.

To be fair, I have no idea if kids would understand this movie, and I don't know if they'd like it. The cinema I went to showed a raft of trailers for coming animated films,** and it was a reminder of the manic pacing and overstimulation most kids' stuff relies on these days. Concepts like rocket skates and coyotes getting anvils dropped on them just aren't part of their humor vocabulary. In short - as Jamie opined on the way home - this was a movie for adults.

Our theater was surprisingly full (maybe 1/2?) for a 10:30 AM Sunday show. And the kids definitely got restless as the trial stuff commenced.

But the movie is really funny, imho. But I was also a guy who gave up on Looney Tunes in his middle school years and rediscovered them in high school, and has never really looked back. For good or ill (career wise, probably ill) Bug Bunny is a personal hero. This is the most Looney Tunes these characters have been in forever, as far as I'm concerned (as a guy who keeps forgetting to watch Looney Tunes: Back in Action, despite Stuart assuring me it's pretty good).

Some final thoughts:

Martha Kelly remains a champ and elevates everything. (I also once saw her at ABIA!)
It's time to bring back this flavor of Looney Tunes. Enough retro-fitting the characters into other concepts. Let them blow each other up.
Will Forte should be in way more stuff. We really don't have anyone else like him, and he bridges so many flavors of funny while also managing to wrangle pathos.
I really liked Lana Condor, who I knew from movies where she played a teen. She kind of slam dunked her part. Glad for her.
Letting Wile E. Coyote be Wile E. Coyote the entire time was just kind of magical. He doesn't need to be particularly "relatable" or nicer. And I am glad they didn't let him speak - always found that weird except for the "Morning, Ralph" "Morning, Sam" bit.
Proper use of Pepe le Pew
I would like a Bugs Bunny movie now, please

*it's unclear to me that even people my own age know who Peter Lorre is and would understand this is a straight up caricature of a real dude

**3/4ths of the trailers were for separate movies, each about a quirky, but relatable young girl - a misfit if you will - who finds she is special somehow, and though she's unsure of herself, embarks on a magical adventure. It was @#$%ing weird, man. Get the accountants out of the executive suite.

Tim Curry Watch: It (1990)

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Sun, 30 Aug 2026 05:09:07 +0000

Watched: 08/29/2026

Format: HBOmax

Viewing: First

Director: Tommy Lee Wallace

It (1990) has long loomed large over the world of horror media. The book was a big deal, but I never read it. Honestly, I'm unsure I've read any Stephen King since middle school and the book of It was 1000+ pages, and thusly avoided. When the TV movie of It showed in November of 1990, I completely missed it. No idea what I was doing, but I know what would have been happening that Fall, and my eye and interests were elsewhere.

Since, I have not seen the movie as the 3-hour run-time has been a bit of a deterrent. Still, that's much shorter than taking in two movies as the new version of It was released into cinemas in the 2010's.

But with this week's passing of Tim Curry, I figured now was the time to finally see the movie.

SPOILERS

I don't get it.

By that, I mean, I don't get how or why this is the thing everyone's been telling me about for the past 36 years. I do get how Tim Curry's stock may have risen based on this performance, which is @#$%ing great. But as a horror movie?

My feeling is, maybe a lot of people read the book and were just pleased to see some version of the book on screen, while people who don't normally watch much horror saw this for free on TV and because it had characters who weren't campers running away from a guy with an axe, felt like it had deep character work. I don't know. Y'all tell me.

Mostly, it's overwhelming how much this feels like what it is: a TV movie from 1990.

Back in the day, we'd have huge made-for-TV movies and "mini-series" that were the networks trying something prestige. Even then, you could feel the ability to tell a story with commercial breaks cutting things up strained the flow of the narrative. The actors were usually The Best TV Could Offer as there were distinct camps between TV and movies at this time. And the budget just wasn't there, which shows up in funny ways.

And this feels like that, which is something I don't see often anymore.

My guess is that the Salem's Lot show had done well, King was reaching peak popularity, and it seemed like a slam dunk to do it again.

It features A-list "TV" stars. Harry Anderson from Night Court, John Ritter from multiple shows, Tim Reid I think of from WKRP but who is in a million things. Richard Thomas of The Waltons. The most *movie star* player is Annette O'Toole, who we adore here, but who was not competing with Kim Basinger in 1990. Olivia Hussey is also in this, somewhat inexplicably.

As younger versions of our adult characters, we get actors like a teen Seth Green (this dude has an absolutely insane career) and the late Jonathan Brandis.

But the *direction* is just... maybe not great? Tommy Lee Wallace has limited directing credentials and I'm unsure why he was selected other than a relationship with John Carpenter that started when he played The Shape at times for the OG Halloween. He would go on to direct Halloween 3: Season of the Witch (recommended), but his last credit prior to It was Baywatch. So I don't know. But scenes are often awkward, rely on *yelling* for no reason, and the cinematography is clunky - and often what most makes this feel like TV instead of a movie.

I don't know if the movie was shot on telefilm, but it looks like a TV film, not something on crisp 35mm. Visually, it's not terribly striking despite some nice sets. It never feels like there's much *mood* to all of this, like we're just doing what we can with locations, which is something I associate with TV from the 70's - 00's.

Maybe if I'd seen this at age fifteen on a 27" Zenith, my feelings would be different. As it is, this was mostly a slog of a film where I got the idea and then the movie just kept doing the same party trick in different colors.

Kids are turning up dead in Derry, Maine - just as they did decades ago. Tim Reid is the last of a gang of kids who were terrorized by an evil entity known as Pennywise. Somehow, mysteriously, no one recalls this wildly traumatic part of their life until Tim Reid calls (can't believe this isn't somehow a meme). Each has a flashback to being young and beat-up-able. We see snips of how they all became friends, and how Pennywise and a local bully who is *not* Ace Merrill made life real bad for them.

All of the kids have kind of shitty homelives, because Stephen King, and it's about as nuanced and subtle as a punch to the face. Yet somehow all of them end up at the tops of their chosen professions as we return to the present.

In Derry, they all take a while to meet for flashback availability reasons, and Pennywise begins scaring each of them. After what I'd consider a shocking amount of talking about what they should do, the group - armed with only a slingshot? - enters the sewers from their first encounter with Pennywise and now he's a big spider. A big, stop-action spider.

All of the FX in this were of questionable quality, and it is here that I just really don't know what anyone was thinking. Was this convincing in 1990? It's sub-Jason and the Argonauts and lacks that Phil Tippet touch that made stop-motion work in that era. And then they just hit it a few times? There seems like there's something else at work with the notion that believing in imaginary ideas has power or something, but... it just kind of lays there. Our end for Pennywise is just a bunch of people who look like they're dressed for a work retreat kicking a big-assed bug. Not exactly the thing that haunts one's nightmares.

I think what's weirdest is that the movie just introduces ideas like "wow, somehow we all lost memories of our youths and this didn't bother us" and "Derry is actually just a well of evil where things are mystically bad" and then just shrugs. And not in a fun HP Lovecraft way. It all gets waved off more in a "we don't have time for this and we need to wrap things up to show one more Keebler Cookies commercial before the 10:00 News" kind of way.

For his part, Curry really is pretty scary! The make-up doesn't hurt, but he *gets* it. This may actually be the Joker we've all wished we could get (as Mark Hamill never put on the white make-up himself). He seems like a *threat*- like something that can play with its food without worry. And he's just uncanny enough to give the character an other-ness that plays better than anything else in this movie.

Y'all tell me, seriously... is this a favorite of yours? Or have you not seen it since 1990? I promise not to judge, I'm just curious. It feels like being told for 36 years that you just have to try this amazing pizza, and you do, and you're like "is this a Red Barron?"

Chabert Watch: Paris is Always a Good Idea

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 12:33:00 +0000

As the internet's least likely source for Chabert coverage, I knew I'd need to watch the six-episode series, Paris is Always a Good Idea, which just released the final episode on August 27th. Yeah, six fairly long episodes! Way to spread the butter thin, Hallmark.

There are always two ways to watch a Hallmark film or TV show. Hallmark's preference is to exist in a world where romance is simply that - romantic. It's two people making googly eyes at each other, sharing two details about themselves to sound quirky, and having easily resolvable misunderstandings that wrap up in 80 minutes. Then there's the version *not* on screen where you wonder where sex fits in.

And, boy howdy, if you apply that most basic of human activities to this show, it kind of makes our lead look like she needs deep, deep therapy.

SPOILERS

The days of Hallmark doing Hallmark Hall of Fame is now in the past. Those were perfectly good movies Hallmark made for TV starting in the 1950's, and I remember them from the 80's and 90's, and they'd get good actors to do them. Most famous in my mind was Glenn Close in Sarah, Plain and Tall.

These days, you're absolutely amazed if a movie has multiple locations and a single name talent, and doesn't 100% adhere to the strict guidelines of Hallmark. They've cultivated their own stable of talent and don't rely on formerly-more-popular talent, except in the case of their one huge talent, Chabert.

As we've covered extensively on this site, Chabert has a unique arrangement with Hallmark where she has her own line of goods in the stores, an exclusive contract with the network, and is sort of the most popular actress on the network - so she does rounds of talk-shows, special events, etc... Meanwhile, the other performers are scrapping together cruises and multi-city tours for the fans. (I do think everyone is friendly with each other, but you have to guess how weird it all is behind the scenes. #justiceforsustad)

And with Chabert's star-power, she gets the pick of projects. In this case, she got to go spend months in Europe shooting a 6-episode show, jumping from Paris to Spain to Ireland. Not bad, when most of these are filmed in BFE, British Columbia in summer with fake snow piled around.

So what is the show about?

Chabert plays a woman working for a cancer non-profit. She has a peer who drives her crazy, which in Hallmark's world means that he is marked in minute-one as the guy she'll fall for. I'd say spoilers, but... come on.

Ten years ago, her mother passed from cancer, which is why she's chosen her career path. But when her mother died, she left instructions for Chelsea, her sister and father to go to Paris and listen to an audio recording. Chelsea could not emotionally handle this and kept her father and sister from going, somehow. For a decade. Why? She's mentally ill, I think. But not only does she not go, NO ONE ELSE CAN GO, EITHER.

Just *before* her mother grew gravely ill, Chelsea had been taking a gap year (a phrase you will become very sick of hearing) in Europe. First in Ireland, then in Paris and then Spain. In each place she met a guy and fell madly in love.(?) And then left each guy.(?) It's very confusing what she's doing other than fulfilling a romance author's fantasy of being The Most Special Girl. However, while in Spain being romanced by a literal billionaire, she learns her mother is dying and instead of calling upon him to buy a concorde and send her home, she ghosts him and comes back to Boston.(?)

For story reasons, she refuses to fulfill her mother's one dying wish for Chelsea and her family, until a decade later she has to go to Paris to try to shake down a French cosmetics magnate for money for her charity. She brings along her sister and dad, and, there she is told (via audio recording) by her mother to go find those three guys.

Oh, yeah, and her father has found love again with Barbara Niven. She hates that. Joy is bad. He should feel bad.

A key plot point is that Chelsea's charity is doing financially very badly. And no wonder, her boss is a boob. He hires Knightley (I guess the winky name is cute to someone) without consulting Chelsea or to put them in the same room to see if they'll get along at all. And they don't. Which in Hallmark-speak is "these two should hook up, obviously". The boss then surprises Chelsea after she's prepped for her multi-million-dollar meeting by just sending in the unprepared Knightley to "close" for her. This is how you lose good people, Boob Boss.

The French lady is busy and puts them off, leaving charity workers stranded in Paris on the charity's dime, and so Chelsea heads off to see the dudes. After ten years of nada.

Oh, and we're to believe Chelsea - who is the objectively attractive Chabert - has not been on a date in a decade since her mother passed. She's "too busy" with work.

Yeah, this whole show is fucking bug nuts.

I don't know who else, whilst in college, watched their fellow students head over to Europe for a semester abroad and then return, invariably having had hooked up with some guy in a foreign land. Our peers would then subject us to pronouncing common words in the fashion of the country they'd spent a whole 4 months. But holy shit, was it funny every time. I'll never forget a classmate from suburban Houston now saying "schedule" as "shed-jewel". Good stuff.

The part you weren't allowed to comment on was that returned colleague waxing rhapsodic about some guy who you could tell probably was nowhere as into this and thought he has just having fun with an American.

But this is where the whole question of that second, parallax version of a Hallmark movie comes in.

Sooooo... I guess Chelsea basically banged three dudes as she made her way across Europe, made each into a fairy-tale romance in her head, and then *intentionally* did not get laid for a decade because something something her mother passed.

There's so much weird trauma going on in this scenario that goes unexplored, it melted my brain.

Her sister is back in Europe with her, and of course prompts Chelsea to go to Ireland in search of Guy #1. Somehow it does not occur to them that - hey - the past decade of one's 20's and 30's is usually when people are getting married and having a kid or two, building a career. And for some reason (1) Chelsea still has everyone's contact info a decade later and (2) the dudes are all nice guys who actually return her calls and don't avoid her. This is Hallmark land.

Oh, and all three guys attribute their success or happiness to knowing Chelsea for a few months (but never dropped into her DM's somehow). She is The Most Special Girl.

Of course, Knightley remains in Paris, and he seems positively buoyed by Chelsea running off to see these men. Which is worrisome as he is clearly the guy she'll end up with, but we are not here to kink shame. But, Knightley, there's a fine line between supportive and *into it*, my man.

Between dudes two and three, Knightley and Chelsea have a romantic few days in Paris. They declare their love (way to rush it, y'all) and then the billionaire calls Chelsea. Knightley, claiming he wants her to be sure, sends her to go see Rich, Handsome Man. Not because he's giddy at the thought.

Y'all, I kind of have a hard time with the notion that (a) Chelsea the amazing fundraiser never once called this billionaire guy, and (b) this movie didn't end on the funniest note possible with Chelsea ditching her coworker and shacking up with the billionaire. I know I could put up with a lot for just tens of millions. Think of all the third and fourth wives who've bravely put up with insane billionaires. You'd at least get a jet ski.

But, no, she's in love with the guy she just spent a year loathing. So, she is going to leave Billionaire, but then he offers her a job. And she doesn't take that, either. Bad timing because she returns to Boston just to find out Boob Boss has run the charity into the ground, and even the cash infusion she brought will mean they just barely survive - but Knightley must be let go.

Of course, Knightley is raising his sisters who depend on him financially. On a... charity salary.

No one working on this movie understands money.

I haven't mentioned much about Chelsea's sister but she's apparently trying to become a shrink after her pro soccer career was ended by an injury. She was engaged to a Premier League pro soccer player but that ended well in the past. Her story goes nowhere, but she's more interesting than 85% of Hallmark's side characters. One suspects maybe they're teeing us up for a sequel that will never happen, but they give us an outlet for her as Billionaire apparently can't get enough of the Martin girls as he's hitting on her in the last episode.

The framing device is Chelsea leaving Knightley an interminable voice note explaining herself. It's both too much and cowardly. Girl, either call or write an email. Then edit that email down to what he needs to know.

Anyway, the last episode is our insane lead moaning over a guy she hated for a year before she banged him in Paris, and now she's convinced she's in love and supposedly misses him every day. Girl, you miss getting laid. Sadly, she has taken the job in Spain and must stay away so she doesn't have to tell him the only reason he has a job is because she left. Seriously, that's why - she is afraid of emasculating him. Any future these two have is absolutely @#$%ed as neither can say hard things to the other.

He shows up *uninvited* at the wedding, they make out, everyone is happy. We just don't stay with the story long enough to see he was the B-lister all along, and the girl he's *also* been pining for is maybe completely deranged.

Look, I get that people love this stuff. Or might. It's not on either Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic, which means Hallmark saw no reason to share it with critics. Which, fair. Why would Hallmark invite getting pasted in the reviews? They know their fans only care what they say to each other online.

Also, the music budget for this show was insane. They have a whole Kelly Clarkson song (Chabert appeared on her talk show a few times, and maybe they're friendly?), a Belinda Carlisle song... on a network that usually has movies scored by kittens wandering around a Casio.

What I don't know is why this is called "Paris is Always a Good Idea". This is not a common phrase in America. No one says it in the movie. It's not like the family oft returns to Paris. I assume it's covered in the book upon which the show is based, but... something got lost, and so maybe they needed to change the title or have the reason in the movie?

Was this good? No. Was it fun to watch? No. But it was never for me, but this is how dedicated I am to the bit. I just am fascinated that these shows and movies are made by adults, for adults, and the approach to romance is still stuck somewhere in a 9 year old's version of how this stuff works. We all have our escapist fantasies, and this is one of them.

I will say the first and last episode were almost like a regular movie and showed what the whole thing could have been, had the premise not been thinned out and warped into a Hallmark-shaped thing. There's actual good moments where you feel like a competent team is telling a competent story. And then you get weighed down by what the story actually is, and... man. You kind of wish Hallmark would find scripts and directors who can get more out of their talent.

Peter Cullen Merges With The Infinite

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 00:33:00 +0000

Voice actor Peter Cullen, who voiced dozens of characters, from the Predator to Eeyore to Venger on Dungeons & Dragons has passed.

Most famously, Cullen provided the voice of Optimus Prime, the leader of the Autobots in the now mega-franchise Transformers cartoons and movies, based on the popular toys. So indelible was his voice, when they went to make a big-budget movie, they just hired Cullen again, knowing we'd all find someone else voicing the character distracting and wrong.

And that was absolutely the right choice.

Pretty nice to play a world famous action hero and not spend half your day in the gym.

For the record, I only have two Transformers toys in my collection at this point, and the other one is Soundwave (with some associated cassettes). It will not shock you I am a big fan of a tank of a hero colored in red and blue and Optimus retains a place of honor, and Cullen was no small part of why he was a favorite.

Marxist Watch: A Day at the Races (1937)

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 12:33:00 +0000

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.

It also has some spectacular musical numbers, including a dance sequence by Vivien Fay that I don't know wasn't a special effect. (I made Jamie watch it and she assures me you really can do that, and holy @#$%.) And some long sequence comedy bits that are gold. Is this the first appearance of the Tootsie-Frootsie ice cream? and "thenk youh". I have no idea.

It also has a scene in which Black people enter and perform a few songs, and it's phenomenal. In 1937, dedicating this much time to Black performers was not SOP, and it's initially a highlight of the film. But you cross your fingers and say "please don't do blackface, please don't do blackface" and then, yeah, they do. And it absolutely takes the wind out of the movie for a modern viewer, and more than a few in 1937, I'd imagine. And it's how I knew I'd seen this movie in part before, because I recall this from *a* Marx Bros. movie I caught on cable at some point, but didn't know which film it was.

Does it ruin the movie? Sigh. Well, it kinda spoiled the fifteen minutes following because even if you can contextualize the gag historically, you're now thinking about it.

As someone who thinks editing a movie post facto is bad, I wouldn't touch it. But I also wouldn't give it the G rating it aired with. It's complicated, of course, and one of the many ways film is a solid reminder of what each era was like and what was perfectly normal to someone's great-grandma.*

But what does work, works well. I lol'd. But I also don't want to give away the gags. Instead I'll just mention that the Marx Bros. were also accomplished musicians and happy to give up screen time to others performing, including one character (Allan Jones as "Gil") who was clearly supposed to be Zeppo until Zeppo tapped out and decided not to appear on camera anymore.

*be real careful getting too nostalgic about the past

Tim Curry Merges With the Infinite

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 04:01:00 +0000

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)

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 03:51:33 +0000

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).

The King of Spain has put pressure on Ponce to settle the island, but by some odd coincidence, people already live there, and as history rhymes, the people in Florida hate the idea of foreigners moving in. In this case, attacking the Spaniards, who shoot back.

Because the producers knew a simple trick when they saw one, the plot requires our hero to bring along a slew of women who will be married to the male settlers rather than choosing jail, allowing the movie to just randomly have 15-20 young women just floating around in the background.

Oh, and Windsor is a pirate queen! Were there pirates in the Caribbean in 1513? Not exactly yet - the piracy you're thinking of would really get going 100 years later. Columbus had just sailed the ocean blue in 1492, so this was all relatively new. I assume Windsor's character is based on Anne Bonny, but not so much. She's mostly just Marie Windsor with fabulous blonde hair I assume is a wig, but it looks spectacular.

The natives are played by white people in wigs and some generic war paint. It's something else. They're led by a lady chieftain who is incredibly well made up for someone you assume does not have Avon calling. Her name is Okahla, which tells me someone drove through a town my grandparents once lived in, Ocala.

Eventually the "good" Natives lead Ponce and friends, including a now tamed Windsor, to the actual Fountain of Youth. Ponce, who is carried on his back, is given a familiar looking golden chalice full of magical waters which restores him. When violence breaks out, pirates and rogue natives jumping the party, the fountain crumbles into the earth and a storm drives them away. And, oh, look... our Ohkala ages swiftly before out eyes.

I'm just saying. The Indy movie series was originally a pastiche of old serials and a Heston movie no one has ever watched. Who knows?

This movie had Marie Windsor, who would make a great pirate queen, but did nothing with her in the set-up other than have her fall for the doofus hero. And if you know my feelings on Against All Flags, that's a miss.

Honestly, this movie is ideal riff material in a whole lot of ways.

Dolly Parton Merges With The Infinite

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 22:02:25 +0000

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).

A second round for the Trio team in the late 1990's

It does seem that as we entered the 00's, the jokes about Dolly became a relic of our forebears* and rather than just noting her striking appearance, the subsequent generation (which had been raised with far more provocative acts) latched onto her musical output, her tremendous generosity and the kind spirit she held up to the world, even when you knew she had to be tired or even heartbroken.

We were all aware of her humble beginnings in the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee, which she'd folded directly into her own mythology via story and song. And because she knew what it was not to have what others might have, and that she could help fill the need, she gave back. One example is that millions of kids had a book or three of their own thanks to Parton's generosity.

Generation after generation of performers adored her, and in recent years she was performing duets with The Highwomen, Lainey Wilson and Sabrina Carpenter. She interpreted the songs of others - and her version of Brandi Carlisle's The Story is at least equal to Carlisle's (I may not-so-secretly like it better, and I love Carlisle's original).

Across demographics, political persuasions, sexual orientations, etc... et al, across the world, Dolly was welcome and a favorite. Being a bright light tends to open doors.

The last decade has seen a different Dolly-mania, with robust admiration for the performer and younger people seeing her as a true role model. Breaking away, lovingly from her roots with Porter Wagoner, moving into her own mold, trying on different music styles, writing her own music as she pleased, having TV shows, specials, a career in film, and setting up her various businesses and charities in Tennessee. Heck, she opened a truck stop this summer (and it looks really nice!). She sells cast iron pans, baking goods, and Jamie wears a butterfly necklace that was a collab with Kendra Scott.

And people are fine with it, because of who Dolly is. She gives back. She supports other artists. She's the promise of what we'd hope to be as celebrities made real.

About a year and a half ago, Carl Dean, Dolly's husband of sixty years, passed on. Dolly herself mentioned she maybe hadn't taken great care of herself as she took care of Carl and now her own health was having issues. But you hope.

If my socials are any indication, her passing is being felt worldwide. I am not surprised. She has been a light in a dark time.

I have a feeling people will remember Dolly well into the future. Her impact was too great, her breadth of work too tremendous, and her legacy is going to be one without compare.

We'll surely miss her, but I welcome all the Dolly tributes I think we can expect in the next few weeks and months.

*Dolly Parton was almost exclusively discussed for her bust size and rhinestone-bedazzled persona in comedy and casual conversation when I was a kid

Friday Watch: Fantastic Four - First Steps (2025)

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 15:32:14 +0000

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

People didn't seem to like this movie very much, and I can kind of see why. It has to do so much, it's largely movie by bullet point. I'll always stand on the idea that this *should* have been an eight episode TV show instead of a movie - there was just so much ground to cover. Actually showing the FF take on the Mole Man would have been nice as an intro. Getting to see more of Franklin's arrival and hinting for a while that Galactus was coming... more about Shalla Bol. And absolutely more of Rachel Rozman as playd by Natasha Lyonne.

It moves at a clip that can be too much and not enough. We're not getting time to sit with any one idea, make the connections. It just kind of keeps happening. And so we're not given enough time to disassemble all of the ideas and character stuff, and make it meaningful.

What surprises me a bit is that people weren't along for the ride based solely on the charm of the characters, the visual story-telling, and the score.

Say whatever else you want, but the FF have a unique chemistry established immediately by Stan and Jack (and improved once Ben stopped feeling sorry for himself non-stop and the eventually Sue being written as caring about something more than whether she has Reed's attention or not). The family dynamic rather than a rag-tag bunch of misfits can be a breath of fresh air in a crowded field of anti-heroes forced to work together by circumstance.

Visually - this movie is @#$%ing amazing. The Retro-Future early 60's vibe, brightly lit instead of hiding what they can't do in shadow, is a huge part of the story. It suggests "what if our superheroes really did focus on solving *everything* instead of just punching stuff?" - the police have Fantasticars in this movie, there's evolved technology, things tucked onto the city streets I assume are communication towers... Everything in the film is *designed*. Familiar enough, but also made to look part of this world in particular. Even HERBIE has a hatch in the back of his head familiar to anyone who ever took electronics apart in a pre-solid state age.

Everyone is in period-appropriate wardrobe, and there's a suggestion that Earth-828's segregation is non-existent or well in the past. The streets of Times Square are lined with giant tube TV's alongside movie theaters and stores that have been there for decades.

I am going to be so sad to see the FF have to ditch this styling for outfits that fit better into the aesthetic of an Avengers movie.

So, what is the doing? Why was it built how it is?

Well, it's setting up the entire origin and status quo of the Fantastic Four, establishing their character traits and how they relate to each other in, like, the first ten minutes. Plus, introducing the thing that will change everything. No, not Galactus. It heralds the arrival of the baby that will be Franklin Richards.

By showing Galactus this early on, we're not dealing with a street-level threat like the Red Ghost and his apes, something that would be cool to see, but we believe the FF can handle with a few hours of work. Instead, we're dealing with an extinction level event. So what it's really doing is setting up who these characters are and what they'll be like when they show up for Avengers: Doomsday.

What are those odd scenes in the middle where Sue (Vanessa Kirby) accuses Reed of considering what she considers unthinkable - handing Franklin over to Galactus. Is Reed seriously considering it?

He states there's always been something wrong with him - and I think we're to understand that he considers the solutions to problems before he weighs the human element.

So, yeah, Reed (probably paired with some other heavy hitters from across Marvel's multiverse) is going to pull some crazy stuff out with a high human cost for Avengers: Doomsday. This entire movie may be the groundwork for that.

We also see him trying to go down the path of explaining the multiverse on his kid's show in the first few minutes. And if Victor Von Doom is involved, and he sure is, this movie sure went to great lengths to *not* bring the guy up til the last second - showing the empty Latverian chairs at the Future Foundation.

If Reed and Victor have the same relationship here in Earth 828 that they do from the mainline comics, I suppose Reed would see Victor's actions as partially his to resolve.

I could be wrong, but I've read enough Marvel to guess that I am not.

But because people slept on this movie or wrote it off as not what they wanted (I think the under 120 minutes of real story time didn't help like people assumed it would) the goals of the movie likely got pushed under the rug a little.

It's still by far the best movie interpretation (sorry people who were eight when they saw the first one and imprinted on it like a baby bird), and Eben Moss-Bacharach is going to be impossible to beat as Ben Grimm in my book.

But I enjoyed the plot.

the plot

Happy Birthday, Kim Cattrall

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 12:33:00 +0000

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)

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 01:33:00 +0000

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.

As I'll often point out here, maybe the biggest difference between the 21st and 20th Century when it comes to cinema is that the 21st Century does not like stories about scrappy underdogs making fun of the elite. There is no Flashdance. There is no Rocky. Warner Bros. was so horrified about their own movie about a cartoon coyote taking ACME to court, they tried to bury the movie and then sold it to someone else to release. We can't get a good Bugs Bunny cartoon, because they keep making him play basketball or be a middle-class guy instead of a rabbit fucking with bullies, from Elmer Fudd to Opera singers.

We're siding with Yosemite Sam out here and it shows.

In this film, we get not just the first movie with the Marx Brothers, we get the first appearance of Signal Watch fave Margaret Dumont, the world's best straight-man. Here she plays the mother of Mary Eaton, a young lady Dumont wants to marry for money, not for love.

A priceless necklace is involved, a scheme to win the girl is hatched, the Marx Brothers get involved, and there's a whole sequence at a property auction (I guess Florida real estate was a hot commodity in the 1920's?) and then an engagement party. Shirts are stolen, drinks are consumed, cracks are wised.

The lad Dumont wants Eaton to marry is a hotel clerk who is trying to become an architect, played by Oscar Shaw. I didn't know the name Mary Eaton, and Oscar Shaw was new to me. Eaton only made about five movies and dipped. Shaw was apparently more of a Broadway guy and headed back to New York by 1930.

I'll be candid and say the eye-catching one here is Kay Francis, who plays a schemer looking to make some money and ruin Mary Eaton's life in the process. Francis looks every bit the high-class flapper, and was the Queen of Warner Bros. in the 1930's. I had to look at pictures of her from the 1930's to fully remember who she was (oh, how time makes stars fade away).

Released in 1929, the movie is clearly from the first wave of talkies. It's stilted, they actually stumble over one another's lines sometimes, and the camera is mostly just trying to sit still and let the Marx Brothers run around and do their thing. But with sound came music, and so we stop for some musical numbers, from romantic ballads to floor-show routines as the bell hops in the hotel movie are all young women.

What is *not* surprising is that after however many vaudeville performances, the Marx Bros. have their routine down, and it's everyone else to catch up.

This one was more of a fun ride to see an early movie than anything that made me laugh uproariously, but it's a fun artifact. It's just not where I'd start someone with the Marx Bros. if you're trying to sell them on the group.

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

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 13:25:58 +0000

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.

But, somehow the movie was also part of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's bizarre attempt to wrest control of DC Superhero flicks in the wake of Snyder's departure. He started with this cartoon and moved on to the most dull superhero movie of the last decade in Black Adam. Which, you're just, right now, remembering Black Adam exists, right?

But, yes, Dwayne Johnson voiced Krypto in this movie, and he's actually pretty good for this version of the character - a dog who considers himself a peer/ best-friend of Superman. It's wildly different from Gunn's take that would be the new, de facto version of Krypto which we'll have for some years to come.*

But with Gunn and Safran taking over DC, they basically asked to clear the decks. So, despite what was a $200 million box office (I mean, WOW, for a movie most people have never heard of), no sequel was in the offing.

I like this movie a lot! Of course, I am a dog guy and like a good animated gag and superheroes, so... it kind of hits a lot of my buttons. But it's genuinely pretty funny, great for kids, well-animated, and feels like what a kid-friendly DCU should be and gives DC a sort of Mad-Magazine opportunity to poke fun at itself in a way it can't in the live-action movies.

The movie also works really well as a plain-ol superhero movie. Our characters are well defined enough, the villain's plot is diabolical and has a certain logic that escalates and escalates.

We've also got an all-star cast that actually works pretty well. Kevin Hart as Ace seems like a bad fit, but he kind of steals the movie. He's really funny. Vanessa Bayer as PB the pot-belly pig. Diego Luna as Chip. Natasha Lyonne as Merton the tortoise. Lulu the villain is Kate McKinnon. We also have Keanu as Batman, John Krasinski as Superman, and more.

I dunno. I don't have a ton new to say about this, but it may have also been a canary in a coal mine because it seems like kids watched this but greeted it with a collective shrug. Just another bit of the tsunami of super-hero media. I mean, three years later Superman was being advertised and people seemed surprised Superman had a dog.

Meanwhile, thanks to Stuart, this is one of the few movie posters on my walls, and my only superhero movie poster.

*wildly - DC Comics themselves have not capitalized on Krypto-mania and have not shown the dog directly in forever, while putting Krypto on covers of comics for a year straight.

Anyway, never think the comics branch isn't afraid to leave money on the table.

DC's "Lanterns" Episode 1

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 01:03:00 +0000

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.

yours truly for Halloween 2004,** I believe, with the late, great Melbotis

The other, larger item was that in 2011, shamed by Marvel's rapid ascension and their various failed efforts - Warner Bros. rushed a Green Lantern movie into production.

It was a very bad film. Even Ryan Reynolds, appearing on SNL to promote the movie, seemed aware it would tank.

I was unhappy while watching the movie. It made me sad about Green Lantern as a concept - and with a lot of nonsense happening at DC Comics at the time, I kind of bailed on the whole franchise. Upon occasion, I've tried to jump back in, but aside from a run by Grant Morrison, don't feel like DC Comics themselves know what to do with the idea.

But, then, DC Studios announced a new show.

I've now watched the first episode of what will be a nine-episode show about Green Lantern business. I've avoided knowing very much about the show ahead of time, but was aware that this was not guys in green tights flying in space and goofing around with interstellar crises so abstracted from our mundane concerns the stories would be hard to latch onto.

The first episode mostly exists to let you know who Hal and John are and to introduce the inkling of a plot and mystery. I just saw IndieWire say the episode was too full of information, and if they think this is honestly true, maybe that reviewer is not suited for media review.

Hal first appeared as Green Lantern in 1996, when John Stewart was still a kid. Even then, John was working on his fearlessness - and we see how he's training up in shocking illustration. Hal is a known quantity around Earth by 2016 when the vast majority of the action takes place. He's training up John, who expects military-style training, but Hal is more of a "let's keep you on your toes" kind of guy.

A message alerts Hal that there's something afoot in Nebraska, and he bolts from the training, leaving John to track him down. Hal is convinced something alien is afoot - and things are a bit weird here in Rushville.

But like a good pilot, it needs to accomplish three things:

Set the tone
Introduce the main characters and show why you should care about them
Leave you on tenterhooks, wondering what will happen in the next episode

It absolutely sets the tone, which HBO has clumsily called "True Detective", but that's as close to the vibe as I guess you'll get, even if it's nowhere near as nihilistic from jump. What it is *not* is goofy - it feels like a cop show on prestige TV, whether that's True Detective, Mare of Easttown or an installment of Fargo. Dark things loom at the edges, even for seasoned detectives.

The show got a slam-dunk with Kyle Chandler as Hal. Reynolds was always a terrible fit, Nathan Fillion is an ideal Guy Gardner. But Hal is not a good soldier, he never has been (no matter what Ollie Queen said to get him On the Road). He's a test pilot, but one who gets fired, and not just for being late. And Kyle Chandler absolutely knows how to play a dick-swinging Hal Jordan without it ever feeling like a cartoon.

And, of course, I love that the origin of Hal Jordan basically got glossed over in a short monologue, like he's tired of telling it.

Aaron Pierre just @#$%ing looks like John Stewart, so that doesn't hurt. His John is disciplined, he's well trained in some ways, and he'd do great at paper tests and following directions, but that's not what a GL does, and so Hal needs to break him in. Get him to operate without a mission plan. But inside, John is clearly boiling over - and is this close to breaking some rules. Like sleeping with the wrong woman at a bar in Nebraska.

And, hoo-boy, those final seconds of the first episode. If that doesn't keep you coming back, I'm not sure what will.

I imagine there's all sorts of complaints out there - that this isn't *their* Green Lantern, etc... Maybe that the tone is too dark or the drama too Earth-grounded. To that I say "the comics should have been doing this twenty years ago - y'all ran out of ideas for what to do in space in 2005." I'll be curious how DC comics reflects DC Studios in the years to come.

At the core of the Green Lantern concept, since the 1950's, has been that the Green Lantern has the ability to overcome great fear - they have enormous will. And that's part of how they get selected. How that folds into the story, I can't say. But I think we're in for a very interesting ride.

Also, the FX in this and what we got in Superman aren't exactly the same, but I appreciate the restraint here. Keep it grounded until it's not.

I won't get too excited too early. I was the one who was like "I think I like what Secret Invasion is doing" after the pilot, only to watch all of Secret Invasion and not so secretly feel like I wasted hours of my life. Let's see how this goes, if they stick the landing, etc... But at least the pilot is hitting my buttons.

More to come.

*both books have been memory-holed by DC as one of the creators turned out to be involved in some very dark, very bad stuff and wound up doing time.

**my very twitchy neighbor across the street was concerned I was dressed as something "demonic" and didn't seem to believe my explanation that there is a superhero named Green Lantern. We never spoke again and they moved back to Kansas shortly after

Unstuck Watch: Slaughterhouse-Five (1972)

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 12:33:00 +0000

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.

A movie alternately a bit of sci-fi, a World War II anti-war picture, and a look at the effect of trauma and when one is asked to return live in normalcy after war ends, there's only implied sign posts along the way as to what may or may not be happening. George Roy Hill's crafting of the story is really pretty remarkable given the "time-tripping" that *should* feel disjointed, and maybe did in 1972, now feels incredibly prescient for how stories are told in our modern era. We think nothing of non-linear storytelling. Heck, we don't mind multi-versal 4D storytelling.

In Michael Sacks, they found the blank face that does feel a lot like the Billy Pilgrim of the book - a naive Midwesterner who arrives late to the war and is basically accidentally dropped into the thick of the worst of it with the Battle of the Bulge and winding up as a POW in German hands. His life once he's home again - empty despite the success. And then his experience with aliens (this is sci-fi, after all).

I also want to give a bit of credit to the late Valerie Perrine, who is really good in this, and I wish I'd seen it while she was still with us.

What's most surprising is that this movie is not taught for editing. As far as I know, anyway. How the actual @#$% this all cut together into a coherent narrative back in the day? Credit Dede Allen who is behind some of your favorite movies, from The Hustler to The Addams Family. She was doing this with snippets of film on a Steenbeck, not cutting on a computer - and she still pulled all of this together - each scene commenting upon the one before and what is coming next - just in different times and places.

Oh, and the score is by Glenn Gould. Go figure.

So, yes, an adaptation of one of the great American novels, adapted by a top-flight director, edited by an ace editor... and you have pretty good stuff. I'm not shocked. But I am also glad it had been a bit since I read the novel so I could just take in the movie without running comparisons the whole time.

Ghost Watch: The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 21:29:37 +0000

Watched: 08/16/2026

Format: TCM on DVR (Alicia Malone hosting)

Viewing: First

Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Considered a bona fide classic, I knew the basics of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), but had never managed to get around to the film. I had no predictions going in - just knew it was a romantic comedy about a widow who moves into a house haunted by the ghost of a former sea captain played by Rex Harrison.

I'm not sure how *funny* this movie is. It's *charming* and there's humor, but it's more of what Alicia Malone, hosting with TCM, rightfully included into the now very popular genre of Supernatural Romance.

Gene Tierney plays a widow (Mrs. Lucy Muir) and mother to a young Natalie Wood. She has some income from her husband's holdings in a gold mine, and so chooses to leave her in-law's house in London to move to the sea-side and live a new life - pushing against turn-of-the-century decorum.

Against the advice of her realtor, she rents a cottage - the former home of a sea captain. We're to understand the place is haunted.

She soon comes face-to-face with the ghost, a Captain Gregg in the form of a bearded Rex Harrison. Harrison plays a character not so far off in spirit from his Professor Henry Higgins of My Fair Lady. He's got his ways, and it's through the charms of a woman with a fiery spirit that he allows new feelings to enter his heart. Only, here, as a ghost.

When her financial fortunes turn, he works with her to write an honest story of his life at sea - and apparently it's a doozy. Working together and in constant contact, Tierney and Harrison fall for each other, but it's a challenge with him being a ghost.

She takes the book to a publisher where she meets George Sanders, who makes a play for her. And she's receptive.

Honestly, the movie wasn't deliriously funny, but I get the appeal - it's very romantic. And has been borrowed from here and there, including in Hallmark movies and one particularly horny and infamous Star Trek: The Next Generation episode. And I recall a classmate in film school basically writing a pretty similar script, but about a kilted Scotsman's ghost.

This is an A-movie from the studio, with top-flight talent, location shooting, period sets, and some phenomenal cinematography by Charles Lang - it's always a treat to see the engines firing in a studio picture from this era even when the story is smaller and more personal.

Gene Tierney is really spectacular, and it's a shame she's mostly only known in classic film circles. Here, she's two years off Laura, and already she's turning in a performance I think could maybe only really be topped in this era by Stanwyck. She's so good at underplaying her emotions, while also clearly communicating her readiness for a new world, and the heartbreak that comes later in the film.

For his part, Harrison's Captain Gregg is also an oddly sweet take, complete with a much better take on the kiss from Superman 2 that's a bit heartbreaking.

I always love a movie that knows how to stick the ending, and this one knocks it out of the ballpark. Well done, movie.

Happy Birthday, Julie Newmar

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 19:19:24 +0000

Today is the birthday of screen star Julie Newmar, who has just a ridiculous filmography, but has been nerd-famous for decades as one of the women in the Catwoman costume on TV's Batman.

see!

Newmar is a dancer and actor, and stands at a startling 5'11", which probably kept her from many roles over the years as she'd tower over most of Hollywood's leading men. For this 6'5" blogger, we think this is just fine.

She appeared in Star Trek, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Call Me Madam, and plenty of others. We've been looking for a DVD of the 1959 version of Lil' Abner for a while to see her take on Stupefyin' Jones. You know, for film history research.

Today, she turns 93! I hope she's having a good one.

Mental Health Watch: Bedlam (1946)

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 14:27:26 +0000

Watched: 08/14/2026

Format: TCM on DVR

Viewing: First

Director: Mark Robson

Well, this is *weird*. Somehow, unintentionally, I watched two movies by the same director in the same day, the other being Valley of the Dolls. Mark Robson everybody. Apparently he made Patty Duke cry a lot. I wonder if he made Boris Karloff run away weeping.

This is an historical drama with large dollops of political commentary and a dash of the horror film - we do have Boris Karloff in the movie, after all.

The movie is essentially about a young woman, Nell (Anna Lee), who is the protegee of the porcine Lord Mortimer. Mortimer is a rich idiot living well in the world of 1770's-ish England. He sees himself as a generous fellow, and one of the things he does is employ Sims (Boris Karloff) to manage a lunatic asylum, which has a different name, but is commonly called Bedlam.

"Bedlam?" you say. "Doesn't that mean chaos... or... crazy...?" Yes. And guess where we got that word, humans of 2026? Yeah, the English language is a wild ride and I am sure this will make some well-meaning people very cross, indeed.

Anyway, two things happen. 1. Nell considers herself a stone-hearted jerk immune to the suffering of others, surely a useful tool in an era where people were in rags begging for scraps as you rolled by in your gold plated wagon pulled by local urchins. She visits Bedlam, which the rich do for their personal amusement. Back in these days we called the mentally ill "idiots" and "fools" and it was all a good time. However, Nell is horrified. Shit is bad in the badly run lunatic asylum. 2. She meets a Quaker who was also there to take work as a mason. He says "I can tell you're secretly a good person", which she denies.

However, Nell *is* a good person with a conscience. She seeks to use her favor with Lord Mortimer to improve the lot of the inmates, but Sims convinces Mortimer this will be costly and if he spends the money, he'll lose favor in the Royal Court (of King George. Boo. Go, America!).

Sims contrives to have Nell put in the asylum.

There is *a lot* going on here which, 20 years ago, would have seemed like a hyperbolic echo of the misguided ways of the past, and now just feels like "oh, yeah, totally". Rich people? Who can't see other people as human? Almost impossible to imagine.

It's a good movie! Well acted, hits all the right beats, tells the story in 80 minutes, in-and-out. This sort of movie is my bag, baby. And Karloff's fate is some prime "Val Lewton was here" stuff.

60's Watch: Valley of the Dolls (1967)

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 03:50:48 +0000

Watched: 08/14/2026

Format: TCM

Viewing: First

Director: Mark Robson

This movie was not for me. I did not enjoy it.

I imagine in 1967 this was quite a thing, and I can understand the cultural moment and the reason why people cared. Young women engaging with foul language, occasional partial nudity and frank depictions of sexual relationships. It's the earliest I can remember a studio movie being this blunt about sex, drugs and Hollywood.

Like much of the 1960's, it feels weirdly naive and you can't shake the feeling you're just watching a lot of dumb people making bad decisions. And that can be a movie. And, indeed, it was.

The movie follows three women. Patty Duke plays a girl who gets discovered, becomes a star of screen and stage, and gets hooked on pills - which she calls "dolls". Sharon Tate plays a woman who is hot but untalented, and who marries a guy and has to put up first with his sister/ manager, and then his chronic condition. And then Barbara Parkins plays a good New England girl who becomes a secretary, then just seems to hang around her former agent as his girlfriend.

The movie is mostly about why taking a bunch of pills is a bad idea, why letting an older guy use you is a bad idea, and why porn as a career is maybe not ideal.

I didn't like a single character nor care what happened to them. That's not true - Susan Hayward uses her middle-aged-crankiness to good effect as an aging actor who hates Patty Duke.

It just feels like a very long soap opera, but was probably revelatory at the time.

I *think* that what I wanted to see was the quasi-sequel, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, which famously is written by Roger Ebert and directed by Russ Meyers and sounds like a fever dream that took the brown acid.

This movie was so tedious, it took me four viewings to finish it. But finish it I did. Why? I kept thinking something good would happen. And it didn't.

I was mostly bored to tears.

I just wish Patty Duke's cousin had also been in this movie.

Epic Watch: The Odyssey (2026)

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 04:17:05 +0000

Watched: 08/09/2026

Format: Regal Westgate

Viewing: First

Director: Christopher Nolan

Well. I'm the last person you know to finally see The Odyssey (2026). All I can say is: You Oughta-See It!

Fortunately, you can't really spoil The Odyssey unless you haven't attended high school in a number of western countries. (An hour after I typed this sentence, Jamie, unprompted, offered up she doesn't think she read it, but she still knew all the story beats, but wasn't sure why. I assure you, I have not been, like, babe.. babe... and then Odysseus? He disguised his guys like sheep to get out of that cave!)

I'll keep it short, because enough has been said about the movie.

Yes, I liked it a great deal. I haven't read any version of The Odyssey in 35 years, but it hit the beats I remembered. So, check.

Yes, I thought the actors and acting were good. It's a bit nice that Nolan just goes and gets whomever the heck he wants, and he does have a little company of actors he reuses. I was honestly a bit surprised by Damon, who I generally like, but who i thought turned in an above-average performance for himself, which is a weird way of saying I liked his take. Anne Hathaway was also dialed in and did more to humanize her character than I thought possible. Well done, Anne.

I am unsurprised by the use of flashback as a narrative device and montage for effect. I have seen Christopher Nolan movies before. It do be like that sometimes with Nolan. Not sure why him doing the thing he always does was seen as so weird by some.

Upon reflection as I write this post, I have no particular nits to pick. I think Nolan bending the story a bit to reflect specifically upon the cost of war and the cost of following poor leaders, was something that resonated like crazy. We can become the enemy - the people from the sea.

Anyhoo... I don't know what else to say. There's a reason this movie has made a billion dollars. People generally like what the cast and crew did, and it's absolutely something you want to see in the theater while you can. (And for bonus points, over a 3+ hour movie, my theater was rapt.)

I was very sad to realize I've apparently lost the video I made in 1990 for a school project where my brother played the Cyclops in our Odyssey video. The effect was created by taping a hand-drawn eye to his face and wrapping him in a bed-sheet. I was running camera, but I did appear as a soldier in one scene and a suitor in another.

Catch-Up Watch: The Menu (2022)

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 02:09:08 +0000

Watched: 08/08/2026

Format: Library DVD

Viewing: First

Director: Mark Mylod

While watching The Menu (2022), I kept thinking - this is a movie that wants to be a "fuck the rich" movie, but doesn't seem to want to actually say what the problem is.

For all it's aspirations, the movie only occasionally rises above any other flick where people are held hostage with increasing horrors inflicted upon them. It has lofty goals as a social commentary, of making poetic commentary about food and nourishment and art - And you've likely seen better. It's stylish and sets itself up as comment upon the exploitation and pretentions of the elite, but then has nothing to say about it beyond a college freshman ranting in their dorm room. Nor does it turn the lens back on those inflicting the damage - the cult-like crew of Ralph Fiennes' kitchen who have happily gone along with the plan that drives the movie, who had to know what they were signing up for if they wanted to work in Michelin star restaurants.

Which is a shame. This is top-flight talent stacked up in front of the camera. And I think, whether I think the movie is successful or not, they did great with what they had. Which isn't a lot - the supporting characters don't get enough time to give us more than a glance at them and their worst qualities so we know they deserve what's coming and we can feel fine about it if things happen to them.

After all, they are rich and are having a good time enjoying something we can't afford and barely understand.

But, yeah, Anya Taylor-Joy reminds the audience she can absolutely lead a movie, Nicholas Hoult nails the weirdness of the sycophantic foodie/ obsessive, John Leguizamo probably understands the actor with an iffy catalog pondering his next direction a whole lot, and I've never actually seen Ralph Fiennes be anything less than stellar. And, if I'm being honest, I watched the movie 95% just because of Fiennes and the fact I don't get to enough of his stuff. Heck, Judith Light, who seems better than ever the last decade, kills it with a quiet, tortured take on her role.

The set design is a choice makes sense. A brutalistic bunker of a restaurant where the walls and floors are spare concrete (yet this place has no echoes) and a single window looks out upon the sea. Split in two, one side is the dining room, the other the kitchen, where diners are invited to watch the chefs in action. It feels *likely* for this sort of thing, where the focus is food and reinforcing the notion that all of it came from the island.

A single door down a long hall, attached, leads to the one entrance, in or out (fire safety laws be damned - we have purees to plate!)

It's convenient for... everything. And a bit clever. I just wish I felt they did more with the cinematography.

There are three sequences in the film that feel like they're the product of producers notes.

Chasing all the men around the island, which goes nowhere but feels very of-the-moment in 2020
A full brawl between our lead (Margot/ Erin) and the showrunner/ hostess, which has no ramifications despite one of them dying
Margot finding a picture of our chef as a happy young guy making a cheeseburger (will it play in later? WHO CAN SAY?)

It's times like this - that feel for the most part like wasted time on screen - that I felt there was probably a *great* movie hiding under this very okay movie.

The odd thing about Hollywood making movies about the follies of the rich is that the people approving all of these productions, who make lots of money making them, are the people these movies are supposed to be commenting upon. Which is maybe why there's so little in the film about the specifics of why the rich are so burdensome to Chef. We know that these people take - but we're also told that the diners are *secretly* criminal and liars. But as we know, one need not lie nor commit a crime to take from others.

And why is it a revelation to the kitchen staff in the fanciest restaurant in America that rich people don't live like normies? Why have the people who are willing to pay for what they're making so vile to them that they decide to kill them? Maybe especially why kill the finance bros who've never been there before?

As a result of the wobbly reasoning, the actual meaning of food (in a movie about food) barely even registers as the metaphor the movie wants to declare. The movie keep asking "what is food?" and comes up with... nothing. If it is nourishment - nourishment of what? If it is art, what is it saying and why are we having the theatrics?

And if food should have meaning, don't the Finance Bros have meals that once brought them joy? Kraft Mac n' Cheese? What is the joy in cooking for others? Trying to connect the narrative lines about the chef losing his love of cooking and treating Margot's sneaky way out becomes a cheat code instead of having anything to say about anything.

And yet the movie insists over and over it's saying plenty. But rather than being about "those who give and those who take", it seems more about how someone's own clientele annoy someone so badly that the chef decides to form a mass murder/suicide pact.

It feels like there's the bones of something as unsettling as a Midsommar here, but maybe with more of a social point that would have landed like crazy in 2022, and instead it just feels like one part torture porn (my least favorite horror genre), one part a swing at satire that goes nowhere, and one part Ratatouille.

And there are great movies about food I've seen, and plenty I have not. For the polar opposite of this film, check out Babette's Feast. For a movie that plays in the same arena, put on your big boy movie pants and try The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover.

Now, I'm making it sound like I hated this movie. I didn't. I just had the deep frustration of feeling like this movie was so close to being really good. Or, you know, maybe great (in my book. Some of y'all loved it, and respect). But I genuinely liked everyone in it, and didn't turn it off, so that's something, I think. It kept me wanting to see the end, which was actually a mix of really funny and a bit disappointing.

Anyway. I watched it at long last.

Gangster Watch: The Public Enemy (1931)

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 18:02:11 +0000

Watched: 08/07/2026

Format: TCM on DVR

Viewing: First, as it turns out

Director: William A. Wellman

I was positive I'd seen The Public Enemy (1931) either in film school or a few years after. For your purposes - I had never seen this movie, and I am genuinely surprised by this fact. I do like a genre deep dive and this is a classic.

On reflection, I am positive I've seen Little Caesar (I remember the "is this the end of Rico?" bit), but far less so that I've seen Scarface. But I will likely give those a spin soon as those movies, along with The Public Enemy, were the breakout crime movies that basically locked in gangster pictures as part of the talkie-era.

The movie is Pre-Code, and I'm sure if I looked it up, sure seems like it would have helped drive the creation of the Code. There's some straight up sexual allusions in the movie, violence that surpasses what would come later, and despite the book-ends on the film assuring the audience that "this is bad! We're not glamorizing these people!" it's absolutely at least making a life of crime seem exciting while it lasts.

Tom Powers is a kid when we meet he and his pal, Matt Doyle. Tom is the son of a cop, but also a shady kid who is already trying to grift a little and a bit of a shitty guy. He's basically got a Fagan who is involving him in petty crime. Flash forward, and Tom (James Cagney) and Matt (Edward Woods) are given their first heist, which goes sideways.

Shortly after, with the passing of Prohibition, they get involved with moving hooch - and, yes, the movie makes no bones about painting Prohibition as a very stupid move and has no problems showing how crime thrives in a world where you cut people off from legally obtaining something they feel a right to. And we learned that lesson and never, ever did it again and that's why there's no organized crime today.

I am unsure if this is the movie that laid out the template for following young crooks up the ladder until they become top of the heap, things go sideways, and they meet their fall, but it sure is a thing. Once Upon a Time in America, Goodfellas, and arguably the Godfather Trilogy follow the pattern. Mixing drama, melodrama, some romance and punctuated by violence - gangster movies kind of have it all. The stories are far from uniquely American, but they do speak to what was The American Dream and how it has a flipside.

Cagney would go on to play a weird mix of characters over the years, between being a song-and-dance man in stuff like Yankee Doodle Dandy, he also laid the foundations here of playing the sociopath who will feel almost zero remorse over turning his back on family itself as he considers their law-abiding, home & hearth ways small-minded. This is the same character made famous by squashing a grapefruit in a girl's face for just speaking up for what she wants.

no, Jimmy! Use your words!

More surprising to me was that what leads up to the scene makes clear Tom and Matt are living in sin with their girlfriends. Even in the grittiest noir, you rarely see this show up in movies. The girls always seem to have their own place.

The movie features Jean Harlow up front and center as the woman Tom falls for - and the part is smaller than I figured, but still key. In another supporting part is played by Joan Blondell, and you can tell both are stars.

Anyway, I was stunned by parts of the film. Yes, it's been copied and echoed for so long that in 2026 - this near century-old movie can feel a tad predictable but that's not a criticism. As watchable as this film is *now*, I can just imagine how it felt in 1931. It must have been really something. But it does have some genuine surprises and Cagney really is electric - a sort of perfect player for this new sound era where we're now caring as much or more about how people say what they say, and does it resonate for a broad audience?

It's always great to not just check off a classic from my punch list, but to actually really enjoy it? Pretty good stuff.

Coen Bros. Western Watch: True Grit (2010)

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 12:33:00 +0000

Watched: 08/06/2026

Format: BluRay

Viewing: Second

Director: Coen Bros.

Shortly after watching Supergirl, which was based on a comic that was clearly an homage to the novel and/or movies of True Grit, I decided to listen to the audiobook to better remember details and ponder the differences. After, I suggested to Jamie that she read through my paperback. The book is short, and Jamie reads about a book a week, I think.

And, lo, it came to pass that Jamie asked to re-watch the 2010 movie of True Grit, which I had not seen since the theater. Fortunately, I'd picked up the BluRay on the cheap at some point in recent years.

The Coens' work has often been homage. Miller's Crossing is Dashiell Hammett. Big Lebowski is Raymond Chandler stoned to the gills. A Serious Man is the book of Job. O Brother, Where Art Thou? is The Odyssey. But they have done straight adaptations, like The Lady Killers.

True Grit (2010) is most famous as a John Wayne film, but is a book by Charles Portis. In 2010, this version was well-received, I believe. I recall seeing it and liking it quite a bit, and was impressed with this young girl, Hailee Steinfeld, who played Mattie Ross, and recall I hoped she'd get more work. (spoilers: she did.)

As of 2025, I've also seen the John Wayne version. And that is a bona fide classic, which I enjoyed.

The Coen Bros., who love characters and who love mannered dialog, would have found the Portis novel to be a bit like catnip, I think. The voice of the narration is one of the most in-character first person narrations I can recall having ever read.

The story is of how 14-year-old Mattie Ross's (Steinfeld's) father has been killed by his own farmhand, Tom Chaney, while out of town to do some literal horse trading. Mattie goes to Fort Smith where she's to retrieve her father's body and bring it home, and maybe settle some of his affairs. However, upon learning that no one has gone to arrest Chaney (this is 1870's-era Arkansas, and Chaney has disappeared into the Oklahoma Indian Territory) she determines to do it herself by hiring a US Marshall.

Hearing he has "grit"/ is the meanest Marshall, Mattie hires Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges), a one-eyed drunk of a man. Meanwhile, she meets a self-impressed Texas Ranger also in pursuit of Chaney, named LeBouef (Matt Damon). The three pursue Chaney, having disagreements and incidents along the way. Chaney (Josh Brolin), for his part, has joined the gang of Lucky Ned Pepper (Barry Pepper, of course).

The movie does deviate from the book in how much LeBouef is involved. He's around much more in the book, but the movie is focused on the relationship between Mattie and Rooster.

What it retains is the particular dialog created by Portis, in character and a product of Mattie's own speech patterns as she relates the story of what happened. Thus, drunks and criminals speak in complete thoughts and refuse to utilize contractions, dropping a fifty cent word when a penny word would do. In the film, it's a strange effect but works nonetheless, suiting the Coens' sensibilities.

Relaying the tale years later, Mattie remains stubborn and sees the world through her particular lens of propriety. And, to that, while the John Wayne movie places Rooster in a position of leading man, the story does belong to Mattie. As to the notion of who has true grit - and the Coen Bros. ensure that there's no question - the answer is Mattie.

This was Steinfeld's breakthrough role, and there's no mystery why. She's a kid, and she carries a movie with names like Matt Damon and Jeff Bridges as co-stars. I've only seen her in so many movies - she's as great as anyone else in Sinners - and like Kirsten Dunst and a handful of others, it's fascinating to see her at this age and seeing what she can already do.

What the film does that the book can't - as it's from Mattie's self-serious perspective - is show she is, in fact, a child and where she very, very occasionally takes childish delight or makes clear her mistakes.

Another unspoken star of the film is Roger Deakins, the great cinematographer who brought so much to the Coen's work over their career. The landscapes of New Mexico double for the Indian Territory, and he creates a fascinating purgatory of the landscapes, a sort of twilight zone that shows the beauty but unknown quality of the space Mattie moves through.

The score is Carter Burwell, who is one of my favorite film composers - and he doesn't disappoint. And, hey, they pull in Iris Dement for the final moments of the movie. Pretty good!

Jamie pointed out that the world of the film is, oddly, smaller than that of the novel. And I think I agree. It's a product of the Coens not pushing Mattie's narration at us non-stop - using voice over very sparingly, which changes the tone and scope of the story as all we can see if what's in the frame.

And hats off to Elizabeth Marvel who appears in the final scenes as Mattie decades on and nails it in a few short lines of dialog.

If I have criticism, Bridges chooses a voice for Cogburn that takes the already tortured dialog put in his mouth and then plays it as a drunk, which can make for some challenging listening. But you basically get the gist, and I think it's a legitimate choice.

As True Grit is the seed from which we eventually got the 2026 Supergirl movie, it's an interesting exercise in seeing maybe why the story they chose to tell, pivoting the focus to Kara instead of Ruthye, doesn't make for a better story, and creates collisions in the themes and point of the story. I won't dwell on that too much, but Tom King and Bilquis Evely pulled off what they did through Evely's stunning storytelling art, and King's management of the themes - leading to finale that put a button on the story that the movie ignores for a standard movie ending meant to satisfy people who don't give a shit who the Super-family are and what they stand for.

I am aware that WB can't release a movie called "Ruthye and Supergirl" and focus on a character we'll never see again. And they can't show that the eventual death of their version of Chaney is also almost incidental and that the real story is what we learned along the way.