The Signal Watch

TCM Host Confessions - what the hosts haven't seen!

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Fri, 22 May 2026 15:30:26 +0000

This is fun!

TCM hosts are admitting what movies they've never seen in a series called "Host Confessions". It started last night!

More from TCM here. They'll watch the film and discuss.

Movies include:

Bridge on the River Kwai - Alicia Malone
Blazing Saddles - Dave Karger
It Happened One Night - Eddie Muller
From Here to Eternity - Jacqueline Stewart
Rebel Without a Cause - Ben Mankiewicz

That's a good time.

Also, this gives me a chance to get Jamie to watch Rebel Without a Cause.

For the record, I've seen all of these. Call me, TCM. I'll host my own show, Monsters and Mayhem, on Saturdays. There's plenty I haven't seen so you can shame me regularly.

Crime Noir Watch: Vice Raid (1959)

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Fri, 22 May 2026 12:33:00 +0000

Watched: 05/21/2026

Format: Amazon Prime

Viewing: First

Director: Edward L. Cahn

I had never seen a Mamie Van Doren movie, and didn't know this was one. I was getting on the elliptical and literally just threw on a movie and "Vice Raid (1959)" sounded like something I didn't need to focus on super hard. And up came her name.

And boy howdy, was Mamie Van Doren's mere existence the feature attraction. The movie essentially is doing the Tex Avery wolf for the first 2/3rds of the movie. I have never seen a movie that literally puts up a picture of the female star and then gives her measurements. This is a thing that happened.

The other interesting bit about this movie is that it's a 1950's movie about a prostitution ring that acknowledges what it's about using the word "prostitution". Pretty crazy for the era.

In our opening scene we find two vice squad cops, Whitey Brandon (Richard Coogan) and Phil Evans grabbing a guy - named Muggsy! - as he steps off a bus with a young woman from Dallas. Brandon shakes him down for trafficking, when Muggsy agrees to give Brandon and Evans the name of his boss and hand over the girl for a return trip in exchange for a head start out of town. But as Brandon puts the girl on a bus home, Evans tells Muggsy to run and then shoots him in the back before he can name names.

Evans is dirty! Who knows how far the corruption goes?!

Mob boss Malone (Brad Dexter - a personal favorite when he's playing heels) decides Brandon is too much of a problem and decides to trap him with his own methods. He brings in Carol Hudson (Van Doren), a hooker from Detroit, who gets arrested by Brandon and lies, saying he shook her down for money. Evans, being dirty, backs up her story.

Carol's sister shows up as Carol gives up hooking for being Malone's girl/ supervisor of the other hookers. It is a mess of a scene.

Brandon, without a badge and undeterred, decides to take down Malone and maybe Carol.

Was this movie good? It was entertaining, coming in at a tight 72 minutes. No wasted time here. It's definitely a true B-picture, and we don't have time or budget for things like "cinematography". Everything is well-lit and shot from one of three angles.

Van Doren is "not bad"-to-good! I liked her. Coogan was... fine? He just wasn't exactly Charles McGraw. Fun fact - he was Captain Video from 1949-1950.

This movie doesn't just talk about prostitution, it also has a scene leading up to sexual assault and uses the word "rape" which shocked the hell out of me for a 1959 movie. But I think by this point, movies were competing with TV and looking to see what they could do and say at the movies we couldn't show on TV.

I won't get into the politics of this, but it sure is handled about as clumsily as you'd expect.

And that's kind of the odd thing about the movie. It wants to be edgy by being direct - and noir up to this point really couldn't be direct and wasn't direct. We didn't have hookers, we had dime-a-dance girls (read: hookers). There's definitely SA, but it's kind of off-screen. And I'm not sure what the answer is here, I'm just pointing out the difference between 1950 and this 1959 movie.

Anyway - not exactly a cinema classic, but I've definitely seen worse.

Catch-Up Watch: Badlands (1973)

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

Watched: 05/20/2026

Format: TCM on DVR

Viewing: First

Director: Terrence Malick

I'd put this movie off for about the past 20 years for absolutely no reason. I loved Days of Heaven. But somehow I just never hit play on Badlands (1973).

The movie, in its way, feels quintessentially American. A clashing of naiveté with cruelty and violence, embodied by our two leads in different ways - a baby-faced Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek (here playing 15 at age 23 or so).

The movie feels timeless and oddly universal, while de-romanticizing everything about the couple-on-a-crime-spree noir and neo-noir plotting. Almost like a response to 1967's Bonnie and Clyde.

The notion is that 25 year old near-drifter, Kit (Sheen), meets a deeply impressionable and lonely 15 year-old-girl, Holly (Spacek) and charms her - mostly just by acknowledging she exists. We've kind of all seen that one play out.

However, we get early signs that maybe Kit isn't quite right. Holly's narration gives us what she believes and her perspective - but it's at odds with what the camera sees or what we know. Though she depicts her budding romance as sweet and forbidden, we can almost immediately see Kit isn't what she says. He may even be killing animals as he goes along in his work day first as a garbage collector and then as a ranch-hand.

But Holly has never known kindness, and Kit shows her that. Her father (Warren Oates) seems emotionally detached from her, but aims to ensure she's marriage material (this is the 1950's). When Holly's father learns of their coupling, in a rage and to teach her a lesson, he shoots her dog

Kit, undeterred, claims Holly and destroys the world behind them. Heading first into the wilderness in a sort of idyll, and then out across the west, sometimes ignoring roads altogether as they head towards mountains that never seem to get closer. And with a mounting bodycount along the way.

It's dreamy but not as ethereal as Days of Heaven, and feels far more *honest* about how these things happen when they happen. The characters are not geniuses, they're just drifting around in the universe. Holly thinks maybe she's found love and Kit thinks maybe he'll be a legend - leaving clues behind like a vinyl disc of his recorded voice playing on repeat outside a burning home.

That's not to say that Holly isn't a bit off herself in that way that Sissy Spacek carried so well in Carrie.

Malick's films are often heralded for their specific tone, pacing and visuals - something I'm aware of despite having seen only one or two of his movies prior to this one. Malick wrote and directed and even appears in the film. His use of photography is film school content. And while I feel like the visuals are consistent, the movie also has three separate DP's (one is Tak Fujimoto!) which kind of suggests something about Malick's processes at the time. That had to have been a hard shoot. No wonder Martin Sheen cratered between this and Apocalypse Now!.

But, yeah - despite what Netflix will tell you, film is a visual medium. And the eye of this movie grabs you and doesn't really let go til the last frame. Stunningly gorgeous in the bleak landscape of the Badlands, it's well worth a review for anyone thinking how to handle their rural film. Stunning vistas that reflect the story back on itself, and do a lot of heavy lifting where dialog and VO aren't filling in all the details. Just gorgeous stuff.

I was stunned to find out that the music used was intentionally imitated for True Romance in Hans Zimmer's score. It seems a mismatch of themes and ideas and robbing someone else's gold - almost like doing so meant they didn't quite grok Badlands but wanted to borrow some the lightning this movie has.

The other day I was just saying to Jamie that whatever past that people imagine they want America to return to with Mom and Apple Pie is completely imaginary. Any time you look up anyone you look up events or figures from the past - it's always far messier than we want to discuss. This film is loosely based on/ can be compared to the real life, 1958 rampage of Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate - who killed 11 people inside of about 10 days - for more or less no reason.

And that's Kit. He makes up reasons, he tells Holly lots of things about why he did what he did, and she's guileless enough to buy it - parroting back what he says. Even when we kind of guess from the tone of the VO that Kit is not making it out of all of this alive. But Kit keeps insisting they're having fun - something Starkweather did as well.

There's a fame-hungry void within Kit, and the last we see of him, he's the happiest he is in the whole movie - just thrilled at the attention.

Like I said, very American.

The movie may comment upon the falsity of criminal-lovers-on-the-run as we see it in movies but it's also part of a mini-category of noir, which is often lover-on-the-run, either innocent or guilty. So, anyway, we're slotting the film as neo-noir.

I've written 3000 posts tagged "movies"

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Tue, 19 May 2026 01:16:00 +0000

I just noticed I have a very large, round number in my blog stats.

I have tagged 3000 posts "movies".

Oh, yeah, by the way, if you look at this blog:

every post has some metadata associated with it, enabling me to tag the post to categorize it. One of these tags is "movies". You can find the "topics" at the foot of all posts. I also do things like "Movies 2026" or "Superman" to make it easier to find those posts. It's how I know what were my "First Viewing" movies when I do end of the year tallies.
you can also view the cloud in the left menu bar visible on desktop, and it will give you an idea what topics we're covering.

But, yeah! 3000 movie posts.

Not all are reviews - some are just general movie discussions or movie news or whatever. I am unsure how many times I've written up a movie, but can sort of guess. I started labeling movies by "year seen" in 2012, and aside from a year or so when I didn't do that, you can see the numbers.

Suffice to say, it is a lot.

Still waiting for my sweet paycheck.

I am, of course, nowhere as cool as Bernie Mac

I'm mostly excited because I normally miss those big milestones and only notice them when I'm at like 3017, and would feel "well, the moment has passed".

If you're wondering about percentages, I have something like 5,570 total posts, give or take a few. So it's not all telling stories in the dark around here.

Ovis Aries Watch: The Sheep Detectives (2026)

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Mon, 18 May 2026 04:46:45 +0000

Watched: 05/16/2026

Format: Regal Westgate

Viewing: First

Director: Kyle Balda

The Sheep Detectives (2026) was not at all what I expected. And that is, as it turns out, a pretty good thing.

Now, don't get me wrong - I was looking forward to what I thought the movie would be: a goofy play on detective fiction but with, you know, a lot of sheep puns and some wacky celebrity voices. That seemed plenty for a matinee Saturday movie.

Instead, I got an oddly moving movie that I suspect speaks more to some realities of being a living thing - and which illuminates the ways we (people, not sheep - you may need to stretch here, concrete-thinking reviewers) deal with pain and death. And, yes, from the mouths of CGI sheep.

This will go over poorly with some. They may have been looking for a movie where sheep fart, or some may feel that this is a poor vessel for considering our relationship with trauma and death, and what we lose when we don't look the inevitable in the eye.

I'll argue that The Sheep Detectives is a storybook for adults. It feels, perhaps most like Babe - as per a nursery rhyme world of barn animals who are, in fact, telling a story that feels oddly much more compelling and with more to say than you'd think at first glance.*

The look of the film leans into a mix of the British cozy mystery paired with the pastoral imagery of the meadows - occasionally tilting into the shadow and menace of mystery and thrillers when called for.

Sure, the movie is likely for all ages, and I'm not saying the youths won't get it. But it's a non-threatening framework inviting all ages - especially adults - as it discusses and shows some things - many of them via sheep - that speak to very real human behavior. Choosing to *forget*/ to ignore the bad thoughts to stay happy has its very real cost in this world. Ignoring the inevitabilities of life for fairy tales doesn't help and instead makes us victims. It ponders our unexamined prejudice. And reminds us that sometimes we need to leave our world we've known to seek truth.

If looking into these notions feel juvenile, I would recommend looking at our current moment.

And I imagine there's someone standing with hands on hips who doesn't like that sheep did that while also helping to solve a murder. And to that person I say: you don't actually like movies.

I don't want to oversell The Sheep Detectives. It will not have changed my life. It is not a miracle cure that which ails you and the world. But to see a movie with such a good heart feels very welcome in this world - and too rare.

I understand that the film is only loosely based on a popular book with genuine philosophical underpinnings, and I do not know how this and that differ, but the movie comes by its swing-for-the-fences stance honestly. I think what it's trying to an incredibly difficult trick shot, and for the most part - it pays off and the movie is worth checking out.

The cast is expansive, featuring human players Hugh Jackman, Emma Thompson, Molly Gordon, and may others. The voice actors include Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Patrick Stewart, Regina Hall, Brett Goldstein, Bryan Cranston, Chris O'Dowd and several more.

Anyway, give the movie a spin. It's maybe a lot more to chew on than you would have expected from the trailers, while still being a movie with sheep puns as sheep solve a crime.

*I remember seeing Babe opening weekend and trying to tell people "no, the pig movie is awesome! You gotta see this thing!" and people staring at me like I'd grown a second head. And then award-season came.

Regret Watch: Bio-Dome (1996)

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Sat, 16 May 2026 19:53:55 +0000

if seeing this make you feel white hot rage, that instinct is correct

Watched: 05/16/2026

Format: YouTube

Viewing: First - as it turns out

Director: Jason Bloom

Fuck this movie.

No, seriously. Fuck it right in the ear.

I only kept watching to see how much more I could hate a movie as it went along, and as it turned out, I found - lurking within myself - one of those mines that catch on fire and burn for a hundred years. My mine fire is fueled solely by my white hot rage for Bio-Dome (1996) and everything it stands for.

I was positive I'd seen this piece of shit back in the 1990's as the young lady I dated before Jamie was an unapologetic fan of Pauly Shore (she did have positive qualities lest you think otherwise, but it was probably a sign). However, the date of release was in the Jamie-Common-Era, so we cannot blame Anna, wherever she is now.

About twenty minutes in I realized - no, I'd seen the opening on cable or something and must have turned it off, realizing that this movie sucks donkey balls - and I then ejected it from my mind.

The crimes of Bio-Dome are especially egregious as this is the rare movie featuring former-actor turned international pop sensation Kylie Minogue, of whom I am an avid fan. Here, she is treated as someone to be manhandled by two dipshits. She must follow the 90's formula of being a beautiful, brilliant capable woman who, thanks to Stockholm Syndrome, falls for her antagonist. Which means in this film she must crawl all over Pauly Shore, and no one needs that.

The plot is that 90's rash Pauly Shore and perennial skidmark Stephen Baldwin are two slackers who date two hot girls from the local junior college (Joey Lauren Adams and Patricia Hill). After going to extreme lengths not to join their girlfriends for an Earth Day activity where they will clean up a park or something, they wind up driving around and wander into a multi-million-dollar research facility where scientists, led by William Atherton, will lock themselves in for a year. Rest assured, all of this set up takes 5x longer than necessary and sucks.

The door shuts behind them, and Shore and Baldwin are trapped inside. Of course two of the scientists are Kylie Minogue and a model I've never seen before or since. The other is a no-nonsense middle-aged lady (who then only gets two lines all movie) and an entomologist male who is treated like shit for no reason.

You can tell that whomever the dicks are who made this movie are the worst kind of assholes. Everything about it is basically exploitation.

It's exploiting a positive message about environmentalism while also basically shitting on science, scientists and environmentalists. It's so misogynistic, it makes your eyes burn - playing up the idea that only soft-brained women would be so confused as to care about the environment and us dudes should pretend to care about the environment in order to get laid - an idea it both spits on and then fully supports through the actions of the leads.

It is a movie without protagonists - which is a rare feat that should be studied by science - for surely the two complete assholes seen in our leads cannot be a protagonist in any way as they ruin everything they touch. They are not funny, they are not charming, they are not interesting, they are not worth watching or following. They are, at best, two characters in a better two-dude-bros-have-an-adventure movie the actual leads would shit on during the course of their better movie.

This movie is exploiting the notion of two dude-bros with their own language coming to a greater understanding through their adventure as popularized by Bill & Ted, while trying on the nihilism of Beavis & Butthead, but forgetting that for this to work, at some point you need to laugh at what is happening on screen.

This is a horrible mistake. Pauly Shore, when he does work, works as a single element of chaos. Adding a second Pauly Shore who is somehow stupider, and portrayed by the worst Baldwin - who is simultaneously so bad at acting he makes Shore look good at acting - just makes the movie the equivalent of watching the two stupidest guys from high school ruin everything for everyone else for 90 minutes. And they are never, ever funny. It's like watching inside jokes for morons for 90 minutes.

Beavis & Butthead manage to make the idiots thing work by merely moving through the world - but they're mostly ignored, or people deal with them expecting the bare minimum, which they, hilariously, cannot provide.

The humor in this movie doesn't work because it doesn't understand the basics of a BioDome, and the humor that could have come from, you know, that whole situation. When it does have ideas like "oh, the outside world has found out about the two dumb dicks in there and loves them" - it doesn't know what to do with that. Instead, it thinks what's funny are the dumb bits where the movie stops so we can see Shore and Baldwin talk to each other in funny voices.

Also - The plot of a film hinging on the idea that an experiment couldn't reset after three minutes is just fucking dumb. And was so fixable.

But also - the driver for Shore and Baldwin is that hey have hot, college-attending girlfriends and for some reason these girls find these two ugly dumbfucks appealing. Like, can't let go. And... why? They're fucking awful.

Shore and Baldwin are 28 and 30 in this movie, and it is unclear how old they're supposed to be. Thanks to a lifetime of whatever Shore was up to, he looks 35 here, so acting like teenagers is just a weird choice.

The two funniest people in the movie are William Atherton - who plays the lead scientist who goes nuts. And the late, great Taylor Negron who plays a Taylor Negron character, which is kind of inherently funny.

Oddly, the movie has Henry Gibson (utterly wasted), Roger Clinton (yeah, the President's brother) and Tenacious D just before they were a thing. And wasting that just makes me hate this piece of shit movie more.

But, yeah, it's a hateful movie made by hateful, stupid assholes.

In conclusion - fuck this movie forever and sideways.

You did Kylie dirty.

Golden Sci-Fi Horror Watch: Dr. X (1932)

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Sat, 16 May 2026 16:08:55 +0000

Watched: 05/15/2026

Format: TCM on DVR

Viewing: First

Director: Michael Curtiz!

I have felt that at some point I should watch every movie mentioned in Science Fiction / Double Feature, the opening tune from Rocky Horror Picture Show. And I've done pretty well.

This viewing of Dr. X (1932) checks off "Dr. X will build a creature", I believe, leaving only Tarantula. That said, the line doesn't at all describe the actual plot of Dr. X, but okay.

Maybe best described as a sci-fi-horror-comedy-heavy-on-the-horror, Dr. X sees a series of killings occur in the streets of New York, the link being they all occur on a full moon and with the same surgical instrument. The police investigate and determine the instrument used is very rare, and only purchased by a specific medical school run by a Dr. Xavier.

Shadowed by a determined reporter (Lee Tracy) the police meet each of the kooky scientists working on their research.

The school is out for the term, which means only the faculty remain, and we're introduced to them individually, a full pack of creepy dudes, all of whom seem like they could be our strangler/ cannibal/ stabber. Each of them shows some reason they might and probably aren't the killer. We have a one armed scientist (ruling out strangulation), a guy who is shown to be a known pervert for (checks notes) looking at what appears to be 1930's porn, someone who is vaguely German, and a guy with a bum leg.

Cleverly, the film barely shows us the face of the killer in an early scene, a distorted mug belonging to a brute and clearing the faculty of guilt. BUT DOES IT?

Dr. X, who is clearly a bit nuts, begs the cops to let him sniff out the killer if they're among his faculty. So, he makes them come to an old sea-side mansion, where he'll perform a series of psycho-physiological experiments by making his colleagues watch a pantomime of a murder while hooking them up to equipment - sort of a liquid based lie detector.

The movie co-stars Lionel Atwill as Dr. X, Fay Wray (looking smashing) as his spunky daughter, Lee Tracy as a jokester reporter, and a host of others we will not pretend anyone reading this has ever heard of.

The form for sound film is still settling in 1932, but setting mood via cinematography was sorted out much earlier. While Universal was perfecting Dracula's environs in 1931 and Frankenstein's castle by 1932, both in black and white, with Dr. X we're playing with two-strip Technicolor, splashing mysterious green light here and there and making for eerie and gorgeous visuals. I watched the recently restored version, and am now considering finding it on disc just to see these visuals again.

The transformation scene knows its being compared to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and so it leans into the craziness of seeing a man slop on putty to remake himself into the brute. What should seem kind of silly is instead grotesque and bizarre in a way movies wouldn't figure out again until maybe some Hammer pics or the 1970s. This is Michael Curtiz in the director's chair working with Max Factor, of all people, on make-up. And they really do make for some movie magic here.

It's also pre-code, which hit me over the head when we find out the killer is also a cannibal. Early movies went hard. But there's also the bit with the porn and a few other things - like the indication that our hero grabs Fay Wray's butt in the dark in the last scene (while wearing a joy buzzer) - that make you realize this is pre-code.

I already liked Mystery of the Wax Museum well enough, but I think I liked this one a tad more. But that may be because House of Wax was my intro to Vincent Price as a kid, and this was all new to me. And so fucking weird.

I love how Michael Curtiz just did *everything*. From silents he moved into some big studio pictures and did horror like this - but mixing it up. He did 6 pictures in 1932 alone. This was before he went off to do some of my favorite films with The Adventures of Robin Hood, Casablanca, Mildred Pierce, The Unsuspected, Flamingo Road, The Breaking Point, and White Christmas. And there's a bunch he did I didn't list as favorites that are all great films I've seen. Like The Sea Wolf and The Sea Hawk (deeply unrelated movies).

Anyway - I recommend it! It's a good time and comes in at a brief 80 minutes or so.

On a speculative note - comics often got ideas from the pulps and movies. It's always fascinating to see something that became a staple of comics show up as some bit in a movie that got recycled by a comics creator on a deadline. And so I do wonder about Stan and Jack coming up with "Professor X" and his school of weirdos. You never know.

Rex Reed Merges With the Infinite

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Thu, 14 May 2026 15:30:14 +0000

Film critic Rex Reed has passed.

Reed was one of the stable of popular film critics of my youth, occupying his own niche as what struck me as the New York branch of film criticism, where Siskel and Ebert were our reviewers in Chicago. I was unfamiliar with Pauline Kael until college, just for the record.

Reed appeared on television and in print as a movie reviewer. I confess, I'd read him occasionally, but as one of many voices. Still, he had a reputation as someone you should consider.

That said - Reed had plenty of well-documented gaffes - including an apparent psychotic break when Marisa Tomei won the Oscar. Like, I get his surprise, but doubling down and then tripling down?

Rex, my guy. Take the L.

In Superman: The Movie, he's working with The Daily Planet enough that he's chummy with Lois Lane. Really, the highest goal any of us could achieve. It's a fun moment in the movie, and adds to the Big City Paper-vibe of the first movies.

70's Watch: Corvette Summer (1978)

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Wed, 13 May 2026 12:33:00 +0000

Watched: 05/12/2026

Format: TCM

Viewing: First

Director: Matthew Robins

I will extrapolate from just my own experience and say I think a generation of kids grew up a little confused seeing actors from Star Wars in things that were not Star Wars. While Harrison Ford shook off that problem and became one of the most important/ lucrative actors in Hollywood history, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill got hit with type-casting and mostly did other things like Broadway or writing. It's not like Anthony Daniels became big in the US without a robot suit.

But we all knew that between Star Wars and Empire, Mark Hamill starred in something called Corvette Summer (1978).

My first memory of this movie was seeing it playing on TV when I was a very small kid, and for reasons I didn't get at the time, my mom turned it off, which - years later - I would come to gather meant the characters said something over my head and she saw this movie was straying into grown-up territory.

I'm not sure Corvette Summer is a great movie, but it isn't the camp or comedy I was expecting. It's a coming of age story with lots of comedy, sure. But it's not a laugh-a-minute romp. And it is trying to say something about growing up - especially in the era when the end of high school planted you firmly in the world of adults (and their parents were glad to show them the door).

Hamill plays a kid graduating from high school. He's not had an easy go of it at school or at home, but he knows cars and has a dream to design them. In auto shop, he leads an effort to rebuild a Corvette Stingray, and he does - creating a unique look with fiberglass and paint.*

that car is the apotheosis of 1970's sports cars

However, on the debut night for the car, when the high school takes the car down to the main drag where people circle in their custom cars, Danny Bonaduce is given a chance to drive the car, and after stepping out to buy some Cokes, comes back and finds the car is gone. It's been stolen.

Hamill spins out until he gets a lead that the car may be in Las Vegas, so he begins hitching. Along the way he's picked up by Annie Potts playing a girl who also just graduated and who is heading to Vegas to become a hooker, which she is *psyched* about (it is played for laughs).

And this is where I point out how different 1978 was that nobody batted an eye that MGM made a movie about two 18 year-olds drinking beer as they drove a van to Las Vegas so one of them could become a hooker.

The gag, of course, is that Potts doesn't know what she's doing, and she keeps trying to get Hamill, who has no money, to pay her for sex - and he's clearly not yet punched his V-card.

The two wind up staying the summer in Vegas while Hamill looks for the car and Potts gives up trying to hook for honest jobs. And, they fall in love. The car becomes a sort of white whale, and the meaning of it changes over time. What is happening with Hamill's character becomes a bit more clear.

I don't want to say it's a deft script - I'm not sure it is. But it does trust the audience to *get it* without explaining everything along the way. Hamill and Potts are good. And you get to see Dick Miller and a young Brion James.

Probably the highlight is seeing a young Annie Potts who is cute as a button (if I'd seen this in high school, it would have been Instant-Crush City and I'd have been watching Designing Women for all the wrong reasons) and finding out this movie wasn't anywhere near as horrendous as I'd guessed it might be.

*American car culture hasn't been what it was when I was a little kid since maybe the early 1980s. Once cars became too hard for people to work on in their home garage, a lot of the romance went out of automobiles - and now I doubt people a decade younger than me believe it was ever real. But 1950's - 70's films are a testament to the importance of wheels.

Comic Doc Watch: Selling Superman (2024)

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Wed, 13 May 2026 01:47:55 +0000

Watched: 05/12/2026

Format: Amazon Prime

Viewing: First

Director: Adam Schomer

I imagine this doc will land one way with non-comics folk, and a completely different way with comics folk - or other serious collectors (and their immediate loved ones).

For the record, I own a *lot* of comic books, and a *lot* of Superman stuff. So, yes, I am in the camp of "collectors".*

I do *not* own any of those mythical comics you hear about. This "blogging non-stop for free" gig does not pay what you'd think. I have never even seen most of the epically priced comics you're think of in person, except in museums or behind thick glass.

This doc is about a guy somewhere near my age who recently lost his father, and inherited that father's absolutely massive comic collection.

The father clearly was brilliant, neurodivergent, and an absolutely obsessive collector, filling his multi-bedroom home with comics, covering the windows so people couldn't see in, and forbidding his wife and kids from telling anyone what was in the house - not that they knew what he really owned. And what he had was - from a collection standpoint - probably unlike anything else on the planet that isn't part of a major business like Mile High Comics.

It was not necessarily the comics specifically that drove a wedge between Dale, the father, and his wife and children. The comics were a totem of the undiagnosed neurological issues Dale did not work through. Instead, Dale's belittling and verbal abuse of his family led to a divorce and incredibly strained relationship with his two sons, Darren (our focus), and Adam, the younger son - who clearly has some neurological issues himself.

Upon the passing of Dale, the family inherited the house and the collection. And - if you know anything about comics - it would be like finding out that your dad was Smaug and he really was sitting on a pile of gold that you now have to wrangle as carefully as possible, while also working through the emotions of losing Smaug and that Smaug was maybe a terrible father.

The title derives from the fact (this is not a spoiler) Darren realizes his father has a very nice copy of Superman #1, one of the most important of collectible comics - usually selling for a few million at auction. But that's alongside Detective Comics #27 (first Batman appearance) and other heavy hitters. On top of that, even for comics coming in valued only in the mere thousands, Dale might have had 10-20 copies. Multiply that across 4 storage units which are 40 feet x 8 feet, and stacked head high with comic boxes. The monetary value of the collection is truly staggering.

Dealing with the collection is also dealing with the reality of who Darren's father was and the burden of memories.

That's the crux of the doc, which runs over four "episodes" of roughly 45 minutes to an hour per. Which maybe seems like too much, but as I saw it - felt like exactly the right length. If this were a novel, it would clock in around 600 pages, diving here and there to explain the comics business, and - in a more clear-eyed manner than I've ever seen - the psychology of collecting. Things us collectors maybe don't talk about out loud very often. Including what we will one day do with our collections, or if we're content to die among our hoards.

And, of course, if we choose that - what does it leave for our families to deal with as they try to process their own grief and feelings about us?

Interviews include a wide range of people, from a psychologist trying to explain both Dale and Darren, to famed attorney and comics enthusiast Mark Zaid, to Chuck Rozanski, the proprietor of Mile High Comics, to a megachurch minister who uses the money he gets paid to buy these super high end comics. Two different and more local dealers are featured, including a father/son team who cannot believe they've been asked to participate (and have the most relatable reaction to seeing these comics).

It's a really solid collection of interviews.

Darren himself is a brilliant guy, and rightfully so sees the mistake he's made letting cameras into this process, and how it has shaped and changed what he's doing. The doc was about something extraordinary to begin with, this insane collection and what one does with it - and sort of expanded and expanded into other areas. What started as essentially a PR bid for the collection changes and Darren becomes acutely aware of how he and his family may be seen. Honestly, there wasn't a moment where I thought "this guy is a jerk", so I don't think he had anything to worry about. But to see *anyone* have that level of awareness and not entirely shut down a doc is sort of remarkable in and of itself.**

Most people don't really understand what they have when a collection comes into their hands. Either they overvalue Little Lotta comics or they have Action Comics #4, and don't see Superman on the cover, so they want to trash it. See: this video of a nice lady showing a dealer her dad's collection:

But Darren, once the long boxes are open, knows. And as he's already wealthy from his own enterprises (IT), and so he obtains a space and loads in the comics under tight security. He has to. With the scale of the collection, once word is out, it could be a problem.

There are no easy answers about grappling with one's past and present provided by the doc. But it's still a journey for the main subjects and some of the additional subjects, like Darren's best pal who is a huge comics nerd and suddenly has basically a job helping Darren. And the fact is, Darren makes friends along the way and finds a new way to enjoy himself - all due to this weird, wild manifestation of his father's personality and the legacy he unintentionally left behind - they don't sugarcoat it by suggesting otherwise. Dale didn't leave a collection as a secret treasure trove, he just ended before the collecting did.

All of the collectors interviewed spoke about their collecting as "an addition" - and that's relatable. How you manage any addiction is the key. One collector admits it's probably a form of mental illness, and I agree.

I'm 51 now. I would be lying if I said the doc didn't hit home on a number of fronts.

Sure, I have aging parents, and while things are groovy with them, we'll always have unresolved issues - just nowhere on this scale.

But I think reflecting on the doc will make me a better and more responsible collector. It certainly reinforced the notion that dealing with the legacy of what I've accumulated is, actually, a problem for someone, and not in the abstract or as a joke I occasionally make. Someone will wind up with a few thousand Superman comics if I don't sell them. And while I know the value of most of them - is there a point at which I cash out, and how?

Do I start selling Wonder Woman and Enemy Ace?

And, am I ignoring things I should be doing? And how can I better manage an "addiction"?

I know I have some tendencies that make no sense.*** Note the 20-plus years of blogging when *nobody cares*. Collecting is certainly an aspect of that.

Watching an episode of Hoarders in 2008 or so was kind of a revelation. This doc pushes that need for self-awareness of some not-great tendencies even further to the front. I mean, Jamie has just said to me recently "when you get an idea in your head, it is almost impossible to stop you". And that is true.

No one is going to feel they're in a treasure trove going through this many years of collecting. I worry about the burden to myself and others.

*But I'm also aware of the scale of collecting I'm on. I do collect a lot - but I've seen the collections that require additional buildings and represent 100's of thousands of dollars. That ain't me.

*for the record, I would never, ever even allow myself to be interviewed by the local news, let alone agree to a doc to be made about my personal life. Seeing someone come to the realization of what was going to be seen was a bit painful.

***note that for some reason I watched almost all Lacey Chabert's movies because Randy thought it would be funny.

Waddingham on SNL UK

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Mon, 11 May 2026 12:33:00 +0000

Sketch comedy is hard.

Sure, anyone can do it - but not well. Further, week in and week out, putting on a sketch show that actually lands most of the bits is a challenge. It may be one of the oldest forms of television, but how many of these shows are well remembered? How many jokes last the length of a sketch?

While Saturday Night Live has lasted 51 seasons, innumerable other shows have come and gone.

I've aged out of watching the US version of SNL. And that's fine. I had a very good run of watching the show off and on. And I'm glad the humor is pointing to a younger audience than me. I am old. I do not even know what SNL is talking about a good 1/5th of the time. Thank god.

It never occurred to me that SNL was a franchisable concept, but I suppose so. Why not? American humor may not always translate, but the way the show works is a well-developed machine which you could plug in anywhere.

Launched this year and on its 7th episode, apparently SNL has had a hard time getting a foothold in the UK with SNL-UK. Ratings are, to put it bluntly, quite bad. They started around 200K and dipped down to 130K or so.

Now, that may not be a big deal. People may be watching on YouTube or elsewhere. I don't know how you count viewers in 2026.

Anyway, I didn't give the show's existence much thought. I don't need something else to watch, and my Anglophilia is not that pronounced. I only know the broadest bits about UK politics and who is who. I don't get inside jokes about specific shoppes or whatever. But I do like Hannah Waddingham, who hosted this week.

Tina Fey hosted the premiere, and in her monologue - the only bit I watched of the premiere of SNL-UK - no one is agreeing to host because of a very different sensibility of "what if this goes wrong?" versus the American notion of "well, they tried" and letting it go. Apparently a bad outing would haunt the Brits more? I don't know if this is true or not. But I understand fear of exposure in a country that loves tabloid coverage.

However - nothing I've ever seen about Waddingham has led me to believe she's a particularly reserved person. And, so, on May 9th, she hosted. We watched the next day on Peacock here in the US.

For good or ill, Waddingham seemed an absolute natural in this environment and had a better understanding of what works here than the actual writers and cast-mates. Where in the US hosts are often given the straight-man bit to do, reading off cue cards while the players do goofy stuff around them, Waddingham leaned into every bit as the featured player and seemed the polished one versus the cast mates who seem like what they likely are - comedians who are trying on some comedic acting.

I guess decades of stage and screen experience will do that. And a sense of the profoundly silly.

She had sketches as a driving instructor (she seemed to get the bit better than the cast), as a high school drama instructor, as Christine from Phantom who has settled down into the suburbs and forgotten her past. She had a pretty good bit of singing in a sketch about where one is depending on how many glasses of wine they've had (kudos to the cast member doing her best to keep up with Sarah Sherman). Not all of the sketches landed, but Waddingham was solid.

The one dud was "Sunburnt Lawyers" that was both pre-taped and a 10 second joke stretched out to two minutes and was the fault of the writers for thinking this was ever a good idea.

She was not in the political cold open that went a bit over my head but I got mostly. And she wasn't in the Weekend Update segment that was a reminder that BBC's late night standards are different, and the Brits have no problem saying the quiet part out loud. As with modern SNL, it was the part worth watching. Even if the pro-wrestling bit seemed like something we would have cooked up for a school video project in 8th grade.

This show is not for me, and that's fine. Great, even. I hope it succeeds and all those players become huge stars. They need time to find their vibe. And Lord knows SNL is constantly working to refind its vibe.

But this episode felt more like "what if Hannah Waddingham were Carol Burnett?" for most of her sketches. And that is the highest compliment I can really give when it comes to this form of entertainment. Hopefully they'll have her back when the show finds its footing a bit better.

Do I have a ridiculous, huge crush on Waddingham? I do. But I stand by how good she was here.

Neo-Noir Watch: Bound (1996)

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Sun, 10 May 2026 15:52:54 +0000

Watched: 05/09/2026

Format: Criterion Disc

Viewing: Third

Director: The Wachowskis

I know I saw Bound (1996) once in the theater and once on VHS. But it's been at least since last century since I've given it a whirl.

The movie is mostly famous for the not-exactly-subtle eroticism between stars Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon. I am not going to undersell the Wachowskis clearly seeing the erotic thrillers of the 1990's and saying "hold my beer".

And while I enjoy a bit of post-9:00 PM cable in any movie, I think this is a great example of a neo-noir thriller that understands genre conventions and doesn't think sexy sex in a noir somehow elevates the concept so much it excuses abysmal writing. Maybe not every line in this movie lands, but from a plotting standpoint and from a character standpoint- it just works.

Bound is also very 90's in its desire to do something with art direction - actually use the sets to help tell the story. I love the look in this movie - the icy interior of Violet's apartment, that feels like a sterile museum.* While Corky's environs is decaying maximalism with deeply hued and patterned wallpapers. When they do have sex, it's in Corky's one room apartment on a stained mattress - getting down to gritty realism. It's curious, by the way, that Joe and Caesar, who hate each other, both have similar places, down to the art on the wall that's just a circle.

That said, this is a smart, small movie - using few locations and centering in Violet and Caesar's place, with some action in the nextdoor apartment Corky is renovating.

Add in the cheeky cinematography that walks us to their coupling - where are some of these lightsources? and that pipe shot - yowza! And how the cinematography pushes the story along - those shared walls, the blood in the sterile environment? Well done.

The real smarts of Bound come from setting up a clockwork operation and then kicking the legs out from under the schemes and audience expectations a few times - just enough to keep the viewer off-kilter and unsure what will pay-off and how. It doesn't let anyone show up as a complete moron or patsy, and that's frankly a bit unusual. So it can feel like the movie isn't *streamlined* to get us to the end. And that's great.

In a way, the over-the-top sexuality of the first act is necessary because it sets up the questions and stakes of the rest of the movie. Why else would these two go in on a scheme - and will it pay off for either of them? Especially as they stop sharing screentime for a huge chunk of the movie's runtime. We have to buy that there's at least a chance these two really do have a connection after their chance encounter and short shared history.

Tilly kind of found her rhythm with this movie, and she's sort of been this version of Jennifer Tilly ever since. And that's great - if you find something that works, make a career of it. Gershon has always been mercurial as a performer - there's a lot of great performances, but there's no "oh, that's a Gina Gershon role" where you'd slot her. And I appreciate that she leaned so hard into her tough girl persona even if you can see she's working through "how would Corky move?" in some scenes.

This movie was where I figured out who Joe Pantoliano is. He's @#$%ing great in the flick - and his Caesar is a curious antagonist. After all, he's being lied to, has no idea what is actually happening, and everyone is fine with him getting killed. That he's an asshole is beside the point.

We also have a young Christopher Meloni, character guys Barry Kivel and Peter Sellos, and plenty of others.

It's still mind bending to me that the 90's were a place where someone could have one movie like Bound under their belt - co-written and directed by Lana and Lilly Wachowski - and then not be shoved into the corporate machine to lend credence to big IP machines, but instead were given the resources to go do The Matrix. I dunno, maybe The Matrix was way cheaper than I thought at the time. I haven't seen it in 27 years.**

Part of me wishes Lana and Lilly would back up and make a sequel to Bound rather than worrying about the Matrix as a property. Or at least something in this mode, because they had a real knack for noir.

* a look fully embraced for some reason by Millennials in what will age as well as toadstool wallpaper and orange shag carpet.

** I was not a huge fan of the movie and only saw it once, and none of the sequels.

Western Watch: Montana Belle (1952)

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Fri, 08 May 2026 12:33:00 +0000

Watched: 05/07/2026

Format: TCM on DVR

Viewing: First

Director: Allan Dwan

This movie opens strong by being both racist and deeply misogynistic in just the first three lines and, in this regard, refuses to take its foot off the gas til the end. Truly breathtaking. It is also a movie from 1952 out of RKO, so it's a release from right in the meaty part of Howard Hughes' control of the studio.

How can you tell it's a Howard Hughes joint?

Jane Russell stars
Jane Russell's elaborate wardrobe
For no real plot reason, Jane Russell stops to do a musical number
All of the men speak in tough-guy clipped voices
Guns guns guns
No adherence whatsoever to history while using known historical figures

Russell stars as real-life sometimes-outlaw, Belle Starr. Chucking her real life out the window, this is an entirely fictional version interacting with a fictional version of the Dalton Gang.

It seems the Dalton Gang is hiding out in the Oklahoma Territory when one of the brothers rides up with a freshly widowed Belle Starr in tow. He's rescued her from the noose, because he dislikes *injustice*, but mostly because she looks like Jane Russell. But... everyone agrees women are trouble.

There's no small amount of threat of sexual violence (see: another Howard Hughes item) which she just seems irritated by. And one of the brothers decides she's his woman - an idea she doesn't seem to share.

Meanwhile, an insurance company is tired of paying out on the robberies performed by the Dalton Gang, and so they hire walking Honey Baked Ham George Brent to put an end to it. He hires Andy Devine to send the gang straight to his saloon where he plans to nab them. But when the Daltons ride off to prepare to rob Brent, a posse stumbles over the hideout thanks to Iron Eyes Cody (the actor who played the weeping Native American* in the litter commercial). Belle and her fellow leftovers make good their escape.

Convinced the Dalton Gang sold them out, Belle, Mac and Ringo (the very white Jack Lambert in bad make-up also faking being Native American in a way I'll describe as "iffy") form their own gang and begin robbing trains, banks, whatever.

In disguise, they come to Brent's saloon where Belle shows up Brent at cards and he offers Belle a partnership. She's obviously clever and cunning, and knows her way around a saloon. But, mostly, she looks like Jane Russell and this is a frontier town mostly full of dudes named "Smitty".

Trouble's a-brewing because the Daltons figure out Russell's game and start interfering.

Look, I... am not a George Brent fan. He's a better actor than George Raft, but I missed the part of his career where he seemed like a leading man. He's believable enough, but feels oddly cast here. Everyone else is employing basic-1950's B-movie acting techniques, and the dialogue is as fresh as hamburger buns left at the back of breadbox for two months.

At one point, Russell is supposed to pass as a man because she's in pants, and never before has a disguise failed so decidedly.

Sometimes you just finish a movie because it's short and you want to see where it's going, and that's this flick. It is not good. And ends with a kind of boring shoot out and Belle willingly going to jail, I guess?

I'm not mad, but I can't say I felt like this one was particularly worth anyone's time.

On a side/ historical note - the real lives of these people are *always* way weirder and stranger than fiction. The line between law officer and criminal thin as a spider-web. Multiple marriages, divorces and curious pairings always get listed. And in the case of someone like Belle Starr, you're left wondering: wait, how did a girl from what seems a respectable family wind up running with gangs and wind up dead from a shotgun blast?

No one ever makes that movie.

*word on the street is that Iron Eyes was never actually Native American, but Italian? Which... man. Sometimes showbiz is just wild.

Austen Watch: Emma (2020)

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Fri, 08 May 2026 03:51:57 +0000

Watched: 05/07/2026

Format: Disc from Library

Viewing: First

Director: Autumn de Wilde

The funny thing about Jane Austen adaptations is that I guess, because I've never read any Jane Austen, is that Austen is the spring from which rom-com tropes flow. So, even when you're watching a faithful or semi-faithful adaptation of Austen, you may feel the beats or arcs once the many, many moving pieces of an Austen story settle in.

But that's okay. It's not like people can't pick out the beats in a Spider-Man movie.

I do recall this one being advertised, but seeing it came out in 2020 means it may have played to empty movie theaters, but I'm also seeing it is not embraced and beloved as other Austen adaptations. And Jamie's reaction was pretty muted when the movie wrapped up. That said, while I was goofing off with CB and JAL on Sunday, she watched Clueless,* which is loosely based on the book of Emma, so maybe too soon?

The challenges of these movies are manifold. You need to adhere largely to the book or the Austen-heads will make sure that if you don't, they can drag you. Of course, the books do not follow the "wisdom" of modern screenwriting rules, which are intended to serve audiences who can only handle knowing who is good and bad, and when will the final boss show up.There are far more characters than modern screen-writing guidelines usually will say are a good idea. And that can include characters who are discussed and not seen for quite a while - we're not meeting everyone important in the first five minutes as Modern Screenwriting Law would insist. And we're certainly not clear on everyone's specific deal. Communicating the social rules of Regency Era England to modern audiences - especially Americans who bristle at these things - can be hard.

And yet - we keep making these movies and people tend to like them, because Austen knew how to write/ created a very specific kind of fantasy that's as satisfying in its way as any "male" fantasy story. And they've already stood the test of time - which means they just already work for a wide audience.

The cast is punctuated with actors who would soon be more familiar. The eponymous Emma is played by Anya Taylor-Joy - I think very well. Her pal Harriet is Mia Goth. Josh O'Connor plays Mr. Elton (and is hysterical, imho). But there's also Bill Nighy as Emma's father and Miranda Hart as Miss Bates.

This is my first exposure to the story of Emma other than seeing Clueless one time in the theater. I don't know. It was a thumbs-up from me. Anya Taylor-Joy and Mia Goth were solid. Bill Nighy was terrific (and I guess Emma laid the groundwork for the oft-repeated solo-girl and her daddy sad-house). It was a good mix of silly and semi-serious - including characters both rich and cartoonish. The life-lessons imparted were non-bullshit and I didn't roll my eyes, which is not nothing. It's well shot, and I thought it got honestly better as it went along, versus what too many movies do.

I have no idea if any of it was historically accurate, but it was pretty to look at.

Weirdly, this was the last IMDB movie credit for director Autumn De Wilde who I *do* know, but only from her many Florence + The Machine videos. She's super good at those. Three thumbs-up.

Anyway, the best uncommented upon gag in the movie is the casting of the 6'1" Miranda Hart with the 5'1" Myra McFadyen as her mother.

*I am unapologetic in my loathing of Clueless, so it's best I was gone. If I never have to watch it again, I'm good. And walking in on the last ten or fifteen minutes did nothing to make m rethink my case.

Ted Turner Merges With The Infinite

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Wed, 06 May 2026 15:25:13 +0000

let's see how he likes it

Broadcasting pioneer Ted Turner has passed at age 87.

Is anyone more American than Ted Turner? A Paul Bunyan of the 20th Century, launching ideas like CNN and Headline News. TBS. TNT. Making us all watch the Atlanta Braves when the Cubs were right there if we had WGN.

I don't even know if what he did was good or bad - he made the 24 hour news cycle, but he also didn't make it into the mess it is now. All he did was give us Lynne Russell* in the early evening, and maybe we can blame him for Wolf Blitzer.

Two things I'll be grateful for forever - he gave us Turner Classic Movies, which has been a lifeline for me year in and year out. And he also had a steakhouse in Bozeman, Montana - Ted's - where I had some excellent meals.

He lived large and publicly - one does not just marry Jane Fonda and expect it to be a minor deal. In an era where being a corporate figure meant you could be made fun of as a Bond Villain (see: Tomorrow Never Dies) he simply loomed larger than life, and not in the dumb-ass way of today's weirdo oligarchs.

Ted, you lived large. Heck, you once got mad and decided to manage the Braves yourself. Hilarious.

Here's to a media baron who actually did change the world.

*I had a real thing for Lynne Russell and became shockingly well informed due to my endless viewing of Headline News

Thriller Watch: Arabesque (1966)

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Sun, 03 May 2026 15:30:59 +0000

Watched: 05/02/2026

Format: TCM

Viewing: First

Director: Stanley Donen

As a fan of artist Robert McGinnis, I had seen the poster art for Arabesque (1966) for years, but it's also a movie nobody ever really mentions, which I found odd given the star power, director Stanley Donen and a score by Henry Mancini.

But I did record the film off TCM and so gave it a whirl.

It becomes immediately clear that in the wake of Charade, Donen and Universal wanted to try to do that again. But on the second attempt, it just doesn't quite work the same way.

You can't blame the leads - Gregory Peck is Gregory Peck, and Sophia Loren is Sophia Loren (and maybe even more so. Good golly.). Peck is trying on being Cary Grant and for reasons, Loren is playing an Arabian woman. I mean, it's an entire movie full of Arab characters played by non-Arabs, which isn't entirely a shock when you consider this is five years after West Side Story having some interesting ideas about who Puerto Ricans are.

The plot would maybe make Dan Brown a bit cross as this is about a specialist in ancient languages and scripts (Peck) who is recruited by the Prime Minister of Nameless Arabian Country (in secret) to be a double agent and work for a shady fellow to translate some hieroglyphs.

Sophia Loren is an unknown quantity, first seen in cahoots with the baddie, and then aligning herself with Peck - and then it's unclear what her game is.

Her job, though, is to be Sophia Loren looking, let's be honest, amazing. She's dressing in the best clothes and has just astounding hair and make-up, and she's witty and sexy and fun. And that is literally what the movie feels like what it's selling as a movie star in a way that movies haven't done in decades, for good or ill.

But the movie wants to be *fun* so badly, and wants to fit into the burgeoning cultural swing into hep cats and cool kittens - I mean, check out that poster - that it sometimes barely feels like anything is at stake. And maybe that's the point? But it's easy to get lost in the "who is she working for and why?" sub-plot and kind of forget to care about the main plot, which is mostly chasing around a piece of paper.

I didn't dislike the movie. It's fine. If someone was picking between this and Charade and I'd direct them to Charade. Sometimes movies from this period and in this rough genre have surprised me, like The Silencers. But this one just felt like it cruised along without much behind it, with confusing stakes, and what was someone a bit too old for the mod, Swinging London scene of 1966. And then layering on so many concerns about Arabians not really participating in that scene that it's all a little baffling.

It *does* have some interesting photography courtesy Christopher Challis, and it really helps translate what I think Donen wanted to do - occasionally tilting into psychedelic imagery and surrealism, or using the frame to show the vibe in creative ways. And it never treats Arabs as some mysterious and inscrutable *other*, which is pretty progressive for 1966.

But, also, I don't think Peck lifts a gun in the whole movie, let alone the canon in his hand in the poster. But it sure sells *a* movie if not this one. But you sure know where Steranko was getting some of his ideas when you ponder the thrillers of the mod era.

LA Movie Watch: Under the Silver Lake (2018)

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Sun, 03 May 2026 06:26:51 +0000

Watched: 05/01/2026

Format: DVD - library

Viewing: First

Director: David Robert Mitchell

Under the Silver Lake (2018) is an interesting movie. For what it sets out to do, I think it succeeds. I am not, however, particularly a fan of movies that basically say "you'll get it when you watch it again and everything at the beginning will mean something different now that you know the end". I mean, it's fun in a way, but I ain't got time for that.

SPOILERS

It's a movie that is having great fun encoding the hidden jokes and meaning in the movie while being about someone who is falling down the well of conspiracy theory and seeing hidden messages in everything. From an academic exercise - it's no doubt an interesting magic trick, what writer/ director David Robert Mitchell is doing.

I guess I'm kind of caught on the "...and so what?" of it all by the end. Like, it's a neat trick. But... to what end?

Deciphering what was actually happening and why could absolutely be something one could try. And maybe the movie even could have spoken to the moment as, in 2018, QAnon was still a force, and America was fully descending into seeing hidden meaning in everything (we just live there now).

It's certainly saying something about the ephemeral (and corporate) nature of pop culture, music and things we value versus the lives we envy - which it pitches somewhere between the ascension of Christ and the damnation of Dracula and his brides.

Our lead, Sam, is a loser on his way down - but who harbors delusions of grandeur. He's 33 and still basically hanging around the scene of 20-somethings, jobless, where it's no longer cute to be a slacker. Banging an actress who *is* working. And, of course, he's maybe a serial dog murderer. And in a movie laced with codes, and hidden meaning, we can name someone else who had a big year when *they* were 33.

But, yeah, it's a movie with an unreliable narrator/ protagonist. Which is absolutely an unusual thing to see. It just takes a beat to figure it out. I guess I figured out something was up when we first meet Sam (Andrew Garfield) looking at the "dog killer' messaging painted on a window and then he has dog biscuits and claims to have just had a dog die.

A lot of folks want to frame this as neo-noir, including the movie's marketing. It just never really landed with me as neo-noir. It was pretty clear from jump that our lead is delusional, so his pursuit of the missing Sarah is suspect for the audience from the second he decides he has to find her. So, yeah, I guess if it's about someone in a mystery where they're in over their head - sure. Neo-noir. I'm not here to play Noir Cop.

The movie is essentially the hazy POV of someone who may be hallucinating for a good half of the movie. It's open to interpretation what is real and what isn't. I suspect large portions in the second half are just Sam's version of events.

The movie also wears the face of something serious while insisting it's not, while asking you to do a bunch of homework and watch it a few more times. And... No thanks. If you want that, don't be a drag to watch the first time.

I just didn't care enough about what was happening to put the pieces together. That "so what?" of the movie - which it puts on the table about all pop culture and therefore about itself as a mass-release movie - never really gels. It just feels like a junk drawer of young-male cultural touch points which it seems to want to criticize - but to what end? At some point, it's just the writer/ director being clever and I guess "deep". And that's fine. I just didn't give a shit anymore as we rounded the corner into the last forty-five minutes (the runtime was something like 2hr 20 min).

I've seen plenty of movies that left me off-kilter and were not S.O.P. narratives. I'm fine with that. We should all enjoy a challenging viewing of a movie. I happily accidentally sat through three hours of Inland Empire in the theater. I watched The Holy Mountain and gave it a "I'm glad I did that" thumbs-up.

But I just couldn't get excited about a movie that seems like it was kind of just saying Los Angeles is actually for making some people rich, but not you. And that's something anyone paying attention in every city in the world in every year of all time should be pretty aware of.

It's likely thhere are dozens and dozens of sites run by bros deconstructing the film from clues - basically Sam with his Nintendo Power Magazine and the viewer from the cereal box. And I wish those people well. I get that people believe this is a good use of their time. I just had no emotional investment or intellectual investment in this, and why this movie didn't work for me when Mulholland Drive felt engrossing and moving is something I'll not dissect here.

I just wish the movie had actually felt interesting after the first hour. And if it had something to say that wasn't "dudes soaking in pop culture can suck", cool. Text me what the big message was when you get a chance.

Friday Superhero Watch: Superman (2025)

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Sat, 02 May 2026 20:06:40 +0000

Watched: 05/01/2026

Format: HBOmax

Viewing: Sixth

Director: James Gunn

With zero prompting from me, on Friday night Jamie put on Superman (2025) as our evening's viewing.

I married well.

This is my sixth viewing in a year, which is too many, to be honest. One starts to look at the seams rather than the quilt, seeing how the thing is put together, and that's not all bad if you want to start really dissecting a movie, but for staying in the intended flow, it can give you time to think about things other than the story presented.

After this viewing, I still think Superman does so many things very well that were necessary for reframing the character in the public consciousness. But it is an odd movie because the metatext of the reframing becomes what the story is *about*. We're reframing Superman after Superman Returns and the Snyder universe films. While also setting up the fundamental argument of Luthor versus the argument for Superman.*

Eschewing the direct origin story, Superman has to do the heavy lifting and table-setting for what's to come with the DC Studios Universe.

So, mostly, it's about getting something like a version of Superman on screen that will endure and work for the intended audience (sorry, edge lords! I know it's confusing when not everything is for you.). If a story is intended to show an event that changed our protagonist, how does a Superman grow? And this movie really does show that. While also showing the audience that Superman is not who he is because of cosmic destiny or alien heritage, but because of who he is and the choices that Clark Kent makes.

I do have issues.

I certainly wish the movie were longer. There's so much to get into, and it feels like it was cut for time - but it also came out in the wake of folks complaining about near 3-hour run times for superhero films. I can only guess what they cut at the script stage and in the edit bay.

But... Lois and Clark could use a scene prior to the "3rd month of dating anniversary" scene. I wonder if the impact of the interview and their disagreement would land harder if that dinner and the interview were separate scenes? It's the first time we really see them together and it ends badly. So... what are the stakes? Or am I looking for an excuse for more Brosnahan? MAYBE.

I continue to wish the Daily Planet crew had more to do. Jimmy and Lois sure get plenty - and I so love what Brosnahan is doing in this movie. (She deserved an action figure. Mad she doesn't have one.) But we just get glimpses of Steve Lombard and Cat Grant, and I don't think Ron has any lines at all. Gunn clearly *gets* the dynamic, so it would be cool to see them do something with it.

And I sort of wish Superman saved the Kaiju in spite of the Justice Gang. How much different would the outcome be if he flew it to Monster Island or something?

That said, the Justice Gang still works for me. I'm ready for the Justice Gang movie. Gimme the screwball buddy comedy Bwah-ha-ha of the Giffen/ DeMatteis/ Maguire/ Austin era. Or a Mr. Terrific show or something. I just think that character works like nobody's business.

I want to know more about *why* The Engineer allowed herself to be changed, and I'm a little bummed they didn't say she was one of Lex's scientists who did this to herself. I liked the idea in the comics she didn't volunteer, she did this to herself and understood the implications. And this is only a degree or two from that. But I liked *actual engineer* Engineer.

After rewatching Superman Returns, it really is a pleasure to see a Superman who is allowed to cut loose with his powers, and we can maybe see why he's not lost a battle in 3 years. I mean, he essentially cuts down a fleet of Iron Mans in about twenty seconds.

And, yeah, we've already talked this movie at length before and now - so I'll go here: I've seen the people online who feel very smart indeed that they think Lex giving orders to Ultraman is too slow - I think we can assume that Superman really doesn't fight many people where the speed is the issue. At 6'5", if I wade into an army of pre-schoolers, I don't really need to learn kung-fu, do I? So, yeah, I buy that Lex making a study of moves based on Superman fighting footage is a thing that would work.

Also - I hate to tell people, but Superman comics are *funny*. Like, Superman and Lois crack wise. If you're writing Superman and not looking for jokes, you may be doing it wrong. But it's a long tradition that Superman comics end on punchlines or a wacky twist. Not so much since the Bronze age, but instead they've just found places for jokes inside the stories. That's how we get a Steve Lombard and where Jimmy shines. And Gunn understood this. Just as he understood, Lex is a genius, but he's also kind of got a zany edge. That's how you get scientists all required to wear Hawaiian shirts and pith helmets. But also having someone like Mr. Handsome driving his weird floating wagon.

Anyway - it was fun to rewatch. I think every six months is plenty, and I only made it five months between viewings, but that's okay.

*for the record, I do think Snyder's Luthor came close to this same argument, it was just presented horribly

Horror Coppola Watch: Dementia 13 (1963)

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Fri, 01 May 2026 01:03:00 +0000

Watched: 04/29/2026

Format: TCM

Viewing: First

Director: Francis Ford Coppola

The story Ben Mankiewicz and producer Roger Corman shared about why this movie exists sounds like a movie in itself.

Basically, while filming a motorsports movie in Europe, Corman was running severely *under* budget. With $20K left in in the bank, a crew and equipment available, and some time before they had to go home - he set his second unit director loose to go make something for $20K. That director? Francis Coppola.

This is Coppola's first movie, and it feels like something between a Gothic mystery - one of those books with women running away from a castle, or Turn of the Screw or some such, and a modern thriller (for 1963). For a first movie made on the cheap (the final total budget was $40K after selling the rights to the UK to bolster the budget) and written in a rush, and produced on-the-fly.

It has a stellar first 25 minutes or so, borrowing a wee bit from the structure of Psycho, but with the added bonus of being about a family dwelling in a castle in Ireland.

Seven years ago the only daughter died, drowning in the pond out back. The family has an annual ritual where they re-enact Kathleen's funeral and the mother collapses emotionally and physically. Every year.

This year, one of the sons has come home with an American wife, Louise (Luana Anders), who is just learning about the strangeness of the family - and that the mother (Eithne Dunne) plans to give the castle and fortune away to charity when she dies.

After a shocking opening to the film- establishing Louise's greed - we see her plan to manipulate the mother.

However, other things are afoot at the castle. One brooding brother and his American fiance. Another brother who seems fragile. And an off-kilter doctor who wants to solve the mystery.

SPOILERS

There's no real mystery to the mystery. It's clearly the fragile brother who picks up the axe, but it's also a really great movie right up until he gives Louise 40 whacks. Psycho's opening is great, but the pivot to the rest of the movie is mind-boggling. But the movie that follows the plot we think we're getting with Louise's scheme is less interesting and far more predictable.

But - on that budget? This is a pretty tight little movie and presages some of Coppola's ability to get a story across economically. It does not begin to hint at his best works. It's just a really good API release.

The cast is mostly unfamiliar - I had seen Luana Anders in a few things, but not as the scheming blonde like she is here. Again, when she disappears, the movie loses a gear both plotwise and from her energy.

Also, Mr. Coppola - there could have been so many twists, and this is a sprint to the obvious choice for the killer.

Anyway - worth a watch for the historical value, some creepy ideas included, and some great visuals.

David Allan Coe Merges With The Infinite

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 15:57:36 +0000

I had believed David Allan Coe died five years ago, but apparently he just passed.

I do not know what the youths do now, but if you didn't know all the words to "You Never Even Called Me By My Name" - were you even really Texas'ing in the late 20th Century?

I don't know how much Coe and I would have agreed on in this life, maybe not much. But that song is one of the greatest ever performed.

And one night at the VFW in Bozeman, Montana, I surprised several digital library colleagues by singing all the words to this most important song. I may have had a few cocktails beforehand.

Gerry Conway Merges With The Infinite

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 02:55:25 +0000

It's hard to measure what any one creator gives to comics, but since the original wave of creators in the 30's and 40's, and since Stan, Jack and Ditko did their thing - there have been some major players. And top among these is Gerry Conway.

Conway is responsible for some of the most important storylines and characters in comics. The man was wildly prolific - having started at age 19 writing at Marvel and just going wild.

Here's a list of characters he co-created: From Wikipedia

Here's some of my favorites:

Can you imagine?

And, among his many important contributions, he wrote "The Night Gwen Stacy Died", one of the most important stories in Marvel Comics history. The guy had chops.

I assumed Conway was in his mid-80's, having no idea he was a teenager when he started his career. Gone way too soon.

Nedra Talley Ross Merges With The Infinite

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

Nedra, Ronnie and Estelle

The final Ronette, Nedra Talley Ross, has passed.

A part of the Phil Spector music empire, The Ronette's place in American music of the 20th Century can't really be overestimated. You may only know a few of their songs, but they qualify among your favorite musician's favorite musicians. And this certainly helped carry them in the years after Spector and his wife, the eponymous Ronnie Spector, split less than amicably.

Nedra was a cousin of Ronnie Spector and Estelle Bennett, and the trio broke at a very young age, and never looked back. Ronnie passed in 2022, and Estelle passed in 2009.

Here's a performance video from back in the day with the group at their peak.

Super Watch: Superman Returns (2006)

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 06:02:11 +0000

Watched: 04/26/2026

Format: HBOmax

Viewing: Unknown

Director: Bryan Singer

I was maybe ten minutes into this rewatch of Superman Returns (2006) when I messaged Stuart that we needed to bring back the podcast just to do a ten-part series on this movie. The pre-history of the movie is worth discussing, as is the production, months up to the release, the lackluster response to the movie, what came after with a reboot in the form of the Snyder movies, and that both the director and Spacey were canceled.

It's also a movie from the wild west, exciting days of the superhero explosion that came after two great Spider-Man and X-Men movies, Batman Begins and a terrible Catwoman film.* But no real rules had been written yet for how superhero films should work. We're two years prior to Iron Man here.

The DVD releases of the Superman quadrilogy had really brought the Donner film (and its sequels) back to the public consciousness, and looking for a safe bet, with Batman done and Wonder Woman the only other DC IP that seemed possible - but that was a girl and Catwoman had failed -Warner Bros went back to DC's original moneymaker.

Here, I'm just really going to cover the movie - but really what I thought at the time versus where I am in 2026.

I was 31 when Superman Returns was released. At the time, the movie felt like a gift. I was a huge fan of those four movies from the 70's and 80's, and was being told the first two, anyway, were the basis for this new movie - just with an all-new cast. I was enthused by the casting of Kevin Spacey, Frank Langella and Parker Posey. Curious about what role Marsden would play. And it was very hard to know what the movie was actually about.

It turns out the movie jumped five years in time from Superman's ongoing adventures - which we'd only seen snippets of in Superman: The Movie and Superman II. Before our action begins, The Man of Steel heard astronomers found Krypton, or something, and without much pre-amble, jumped into a Kryptonian vessel, got there, found it was - in fact - destroyed, and came home. Cool trip, bro.

The movie serves as a way to reintroduce you to old favorites like Perry, Jimmy, Lois and Lex. It gives us a new not-quite Miss Teschmacher in Posey. And then scary friends Lex made in prison. Lex has hatched a scheme that takes a while to fall into place - but is even grander than his desire to remove Western California from the map, and instead will get him an all-new piece of land.

Meanwhile, Clark is realizing everyone has moved on without him. Well, maybe not Jimmy.

Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) is living with a guy (James Marsden) and shares a child with him, Jason (Tristan Lake Leabu). But Clark remains in love with Lois who he did not say good-bye to before he left - at least as Superman.

Lex launches his plan, which is to launch one of the Kryptonian crystals into the sea, laced with Kryptonite, and grow a new continent which will usurp much of North America's space.

Superman quasi stops him/ picks up the new island and chucks it into space.

The film ends with everything largely unresolved. But, we went on to enjoy a half-dozen more movies and a sprawling DC Universe of movies. Or, what really happened, was some people had a lukewarm reception to a sequel to a movie that was 26 years in the past, had no superhero battles, and made Superman into a kind of a weirdo who seemed super only in powers, but was a bit milquetoasty.

Today, Superman Returns is why I have sympathy now for people who love a bit of media I think is maybe not all that great. At the time of the movie's release, I was bouncing off the walls, so excited for the new movie - and that it so clearly knew the first two Superman feature movies so well. Like me!

And it does. Too well. While also wanting to play fast and loose with its adherence to the original movie when convenient. And at the end of the day, among the issues the movie has is that it leaves massive plot holes and still has the gumption to say "it's a superhero movie, don't worry about it" - something Marvel Studios figured out is the polar opposite of how superhero comics fans operate. And it makes for better storytelling in any genre if you don't have to wonder - wait, when did Richard enter the picture, and who does he think the father is? Did Lois babytrap Richard?

Unless Lois was just wildly popular at the Daily Planet, it seems she'd have been able to narrow down who got her knocked up and was either lying to Richard or that baby took like a year to show up. Honestly, it's absolutely nuts this is the set-up and then there's no conversation about it - no acknowledgement of what Superman left Lois with. This wasn't just a "sorry I ghosted you".

And, I mean, you'd think the guy who stands for "Truth, Justice... all that stuff" would have wanted to tell the woman he was bedding he was planning to bounce. Especially when, let's be honest, Clark isn't just heartbroken here - he's the nerd who is obsessing over the fact the girl he liked is with someone he kind of can't compete with. Richard is accomplished, a pilot, handsome as hell, and possibly happily raising someone else's kid while laying down cover for Lois with Perry. Clark Kent is just a guy she doesn't think about, and Superman leaves for five years without leaving a note.

In 2026, I have no idea what they were thinking. This is actually very bad writing. It makes Lois and Superman look pretty terrible, especially when Lois is clearly still into Superman and Richard has to be supportive of this? You just know the next movie starts with Richard getting crushed by a boulder as the only narrative exit for character that isn't kind of crappy.

And, when it comes to being an action film - as a co-worker opined to me in 2007, to which I had no real retort - "it's just Superman lifting a progressively larger series of objects".

You can guess why Gunn thought it was so important to do a few things with the 2025 Superman, among those finally showing Superman not just in action, allowing him to fight an array of challenges and opponents, from humans in spiffy suits to a physical equal (plus Engineer) to get a baseline for what this even looks like. Moviewise, we've barely tapped into what Superman can do (and credit to Snyder/ Whedon for doing some of this with Justice League. Maybe the only gauge of what he can do happens during the post-resurrection fight.). And lifting things is neat, but... I think in 2006 people were ready to see Metallo, man.

I also get why - if you're not just seeing Superman as a huge metaphor of some sort - why seeing him lift the crystalline mass complete with Kryptonite outgrowths is a problem. It makes no sense when a wee bit took his ass out completely fifteen minutes ago. I get why they did it, and from a poetic standpoint - lovely. But it's a bit confusing, isn't it?

Now, I really enjoy the super-feats shown in Superman Returns. Aside from some great aesthetic choices, seeing Superman save the plane, rescue Metropolis after the earthquake, lift the boat, etc... is all neat stuff. It's actually fantastic - I don't want to undersell this part. Not only is the airplane rescue one of those things that is just visually stunning and emotionally engaging - it's all very on brand with Superman as a firefighter more than a super-cop. He's here to rescue people. And this movie pulls it off with great panache. This is the kind of stuff that I like to see punctuate my Superman stories. (In fact, those of you who think Superman saving people and animals during the Kaiju scene in the new movie was hokey, maybe you don't get Superman? Just saying.)

Is Superman super-stalking Lois? I mean - yeah. Just watch it now and see how they cut the movie. And in the last scene he fully enters her house uninvited and hangs out with her sleeping kid... I mean. Ugh. It just reads so weird now. And it feels like an excuse to use the excellent dialogue from Superman: The Movie again - which seems to be the only point.

This movie is so beholden to the original movies, and what seemed like something I desperately wanted in 2006 now feels like the source of much of the movie's trouble. Neither Singer nor the performers nor the editors pull off the vibe they're trying to get with the movie as newspaper movie - a la His Girl Friday, and you'd think they're not even trying except for Bosworth slipping into MidAtlantic Accent for two or three lines in Perry's office.

But it also meant the scheme they came up with Lex was, again, a land scheme (gotta have a call back). But this plan makes zero sense. First, why would Lex even think the crystals were great for creating a continent sized landmass? The Fortress of Solitude is maybe the size of a shopping mall. Second, why would he think creating the land mass would protect him from a flotilla of US Marines coming in and capturing or killing him? He says he'll have futuristic tech, but he's sitting around smoking a cigar in this movie, not playing with a disintegrator ray. It just doesn't make a lick of sense except he thinks he built a trap to kill Superman - and if he has access to kryptonite, sure feels like there's easier ways to do it. And he launched the scheme before Superman actually came home.

Again, this is just weak writing. And as much as I wanted to forgive it even in 2006, I knew this was a major problem. But was excited about the movie, and so I let it slide, telling myself "Lex just needs more time". But... no. It just doesn't work.

Assuming people understand the connection between Lois and Superman is another hang up from he prior movies, but here it just seems like two people who kinda dated a while back having mixed feelings seeing each other again. Which is a legitimate story, but when it's Superman, bringing in children makes it messy, to say the least. Especially if people don't know Superman turned back time to save the woman he felt finally understood him.

The film *is* beautifully designed. So well, in fact, I think other films including Gunn's could learn something from it. The Daily Planet is such an amazing bit of art deco fantasy architecture, and it looks just right for Superman, full stop.

It's been years since I've watched this movie - and I'm glad I can revisit it and be maybe a bit honest with myself. I was all in on this movie and made it everyone else's problem for a long time. But at some point I came to the realization - you know, if it were a better movie, I'd want to rewatch it more often. And I don't think I've seen it in over a decade now. This is the last time I posted I'd watched it, 2012. And I now disagree with some of what I said back then.

What's wild is that I still think this is light years ahead of the horrendous JJ Abrams script to which McG was attached, and whatever we would have had with Brett Ratner (who was officially named for a while). And I can see why WB thought Snyder - who had done well with 300 and Watchmen - was their guy. And I don't even really blame Snyder for anything that happened - it's like blaming a gorilla for being a gorilla.

Again - I semi-jokingly, but would probably maybe actually do it - proposed a multi-episode series on this movie. There's so much baggage - I couldn't possibly get it all into a post. But maybe one day.

*this is not a site that ironically enjoys Catwoman or is going to give the movie credit, and the revisionist take that this is somehow a feminist critique doesn't hold for me. If it tripped over that along the way, see what you see in it. I'll continue to see this movie as a misfire.

60's Indie Watch: The World's Greatest Sinner (1962)

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Sun, 26 Apr 2026 15:33:30 +0000

Watched: 04/25/2026

Format: Criterion

Viewing: First

Director: Timothy Carey

I am unclear on the release history of The World's Greatest Sinner (1962). I'm not even sure it ever did more than a screening or two in Los Angeles and then disappeared. I don't know how it hit streaming, winding up (til the end of the month) of the Criterion Channel.

Your mom has probably never heard of Timothy Carey. And maybe you haven't, but if you're the right kind of film nerd, you may have. Carey was a bit of a wild card hanging around the movie scene and getting cast as usually an oddball, and I saw him first in The Killing where he plays a gunman who shoots a horse and still botches the job (it's a phenomenal movie and I highly recommend it).

Well, I guess in the 1960's he got his hands on some money and wrote, directed and produced this movie. And, man, making true low-budget indie movies back in the day was not easy. You had to coast on vibes and ideas. And this has both in spades.

Carey plays an insurance salesman named Clarence Hilliard. He's doing well, managing an office, has a lovely wife and children. He owns a horse and a Great Dane and a house with a yard big enough for a horse.

Narrated (occasionally) by Satan himself, the movie follows as Clarence decides he doesn't believe in any of this bunk, picks up a guitar and becomes a sort of politician/ religious leader. But his new religion is that every man is his own god - he being the goddiest of the gods. And if people are their own god, they're responsible only to themselves. He so believes in the idea, he drops the name Clarence and goes by "God" Hilliard.

He, of course, picks up converts, and makes his money initially by seducing elderly widows, promising to restore their youth and end death (at least by way of old age related maladies). He performs concerts - shaking it like Elvis - with a sort of Latino gospel rock band behind him.

Anyway - it's a whole scene. There's not much like it (but I haven't seen A Face in the Crowd from 1956) and it seems pretty keen on how movements actually do work - with absurd promises from conmen speaking to primal fears.

The movie also has a score by a pre-fame Frank Zappa. Go figure! It's now what the movie is most famous for and why it's watched by some. I will be honest and say I have a massive blind spot re: Zappa, so this impacts me in no real way other than as a bit of trivia.

SPOILERS

I was genuinely surprised at the movie's turn to religiosity in the last ten minutes, but it does narratively make sense. I guess I was surprised Carey veered off into what I think was Catholicism in the last section, and that's fine. It makes for a satisfying ending when anything else might have felt a bit preachy or dark for edginess' sake.

Not sure I'd watch this again, but as a one-off, and at just 80 minutes, it was worth a viewing.

Sci-Fi Watch: Predator - Badlands (2025)

noreply@blogger.com (The League) — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 03:47:46 +0000

Watched: 04/24/2026

Format: Hulu

Viewing: First

Director: Dan Trachtenberg

Well, this was kind of a perfect Friday night movie. And kind of why they invented PG-13.

I kind of love that somehow the legacy of Alien has somehow turned into "yes, but limited-autonomy for superhuman AI beings". I like squicky xenomorphs, too. But they don't exactly carry a story. And whatever merging we now have between Blade Runner, Alien and Predator is not the worst thing in the world. It's allowed for all kinds of paths for exploration.

I'll just say: if you can give me a movie with a humanoid lead, a robot pal and their murderous space-dog - all against alien landscapes and skies? Shit, man. I don't really feel like I need to explore deep themes or what it says about the human condition at that point. This is raw popcorn entertainment. And, somehow along the way, this movie is not incredibly stupid, all while admittedly being more than a bit unironically goofy. Way to thread the needle, movie!

I don't want to oversell it. I probably like Prey a tad more for it's raw intensity and Amber Midthunder showing star power. And for being such a breath of fresh air for a franchise I'd lost interest in a long, long time ago.

But, man, I'll say it. This movie was just fun, and after a long work week, this fit the bill.

I haven't seen much of Elle Fanning as an adult, but what a delight she is.* And credit to Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi for bringing real life to a character while buried entirely within a Predator costume. Guy really brought Dek to life. It seems the performance artist behind Bud - the third of the trio, was Ravi Narayan, and the guy who played approximately 100 copies of himself was Cameron Brown (someone sign this guy up to play Jamie Madrox).

Anyway, if you're feeling like Predator fiction that really expands the culture we've mostly seen implied, I'd recommend this one.

And, yes, of course I got the references to prior films. It was not subtle.

*I just found out they made a movie of the book Galveston, which Fanning appears in. I thought the book was pretty good.