90's Watch: Se7en (1995)

Watched:  02/05/2025

Format:  Alamo

Viewing:  3rd or 4th

Director:  David Fincher

I hadn't seen this movie since VHS, I don't think.  It kind of fell into the category of "a very well-crafted movie I never need see again".  But, it had been a while since I had a hang with Simon, and this was where we wound up.

Se7en (1995) is fascinating as a movie that happened at a very specific time, with stars on the rise, stars at the height of their power, during a particular wave of movies passing through the world.  And, certainly, a look brought to film that was different from everything else on the screen at that moment thanks to director David Fincher.

Pitt had been skyrocketing since 1991's Thelma & Louise, and co-starred with Tom Cruise the year prior in Interview With a Vampire.  He was on the forefront of the new Hollywood of the era.  I'd seen Paltrow in Hook and Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, but didn't know who she was until this movie.  Kevin Spacey, who had been around for a minute, had just exploded with The Usual Suspects, and was about to take off on a huge career.  And Morgan Freeman, a veteran of the screen, finally blew up in 1989's Lean on Me, and seemed like the established star of the cast to my young eyes.  

Chabert Valentine's Watch: Love, Romance and Chocolate (2019)

Watched:  02/04/2025

Format:  Hallmark

Viewing:  First

Director:  Jonathan Wright

Job: Food Stylist for magazines shoots?
new skill: making chocolate/ chatting too much with royalty
Man: Will Kemp
Job of Man: failing chocolatier
Goes to/ Returns to: Goes to Bruges, Belgium
Event: chocolate tasting at palace/ royal ball
Food: guys, you're not gonna believe it...  chocolate

Firstly, salute to Chabert for getting to knock around Bruges for however long this took to film.  Well done.

This is a movie about a woman who flies all the way to Bruges to tour of the city, and spends her whole trip working for free in a chocolate shop that has no customers. 

The start of the movie does nothing to explain what Chabert does for a living, and we're well past the half-way mark when she tells someone she's a food stylist for advertising and the like.  Magazine covers get brought up before I finally figured it out.

What we do know is that she starts the movie with the world's least interested boyfriend who - in a completely whackadoo scene in which he looks like he has a bomb strapped to him and must dump her in under a minute or the whole place explodes - ditches Chabert for a promotion and a quick move to Albany.  This leaves her with airline tickets and a trip she's already booked, wherein she is to tour Bruges and all the chocolate shops.

Marvel Movies: Fantastic Four First Trailer Drops

oh.  okay, Marvel.  We're trying again.

There are so many factors that have played into Marvel's post-Endgame slump.  Too much content that felt rushed out was certainly part of it.  Not following up on concepts we did like (Shang-Chi, cough cough), and not taking care with the concepts we were iffier about (Eternals, cough cough).  

But the key issue for me was that the spirit of some well-loved characters just wasn't there on screen.  DC's biggest struggle from the comics - and I love DC - is that they lack consistent vision and character from creative team to creative team unless you're talking about maybe seven or eight characters.*  But Marvel has this down in comics - in part because Stan, Jack and the original bullpen laid down who these characters were with such a strong hand way back in the 1960's.

Yes, you get a James Gunn to come along and say "nobody knows who Rocket Raccoon is, so I'm just gonna James Gunn this @#$%", and that's great.  But Tony Stark is Tony.  Steve Rogers is Steve.  Natasha is Natasha.  And, frankly - and why I'll pay to see the movie - Sam Wilson is Sam (love me some Sam Wilson). But since?  I think our best take on that was The Marvels - and as much as I liked it, the last few minutes made me wish they'd pushed a bit harder.  Ant-Man and other movies just kinda slopped along. Who are all these characters and why do I care?

Due to licensing issues going back to the 1990's, Fox owned the Fantastic Four's film rights, and made 3 very bad Fantastic Four movies.  We talked about them at the PodCast a while back.  Part 1.  Part 2.  But Disney now owns Fox's movie wing, and therefore, has back X-Men and the FF.

I have some firm FF ideas in my head, and they're a mix of the very few comics runs I've read and a handful of cartoons.  But I know the Fantastic Four when I see it, and... y'all... this sure finally looks like the Fantastic Four to me.  There's no embarrassment at the idea, making it into whatever hokey mess the first movies were, or feeling like we needed to go grimdark, as the last movie did.  

Yes, this is just a trailer, but we see that Reed is Reed, Ben is Ben, Sue is Sue, Johnny is Johnny and... holy cats...  that there at the end is a big ol' gift to comics fans who have not understood why we couldn't see our pal, Galan, and his funny hat. 

I dig the idea of making this a retro-future movie existing in the multiverse (and surely bumping up against the main MCU).  The opportunity to put a real visual stamp on one of these movies for the first time in forever is deeply welcome.

We'll see how it goes!  They kind of had me at comics-accurate HERBIE and Ben in the kitchen.  They won me over with Sue being the backbone of the family.

Get back to what makes the characters work to begin with, Marvel.  And I think this trailer, at least, feels like they have.

*I actually count Barry Allen among those, and never was comfortable with the Justice League movie version of Barry

Fantasy Watch: Legend (1985)

Watched:  02/03/2025

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  Third, I believe

Director:  Ridley Scott

An absolute trainwreck of a movie, Legend (1985) is worth seeing mostly to say "wow, they had all these resources at their disposal, and this is what they did?"  

Unsurprisingly, this was also my impression of the movie when I saw it aged 10.  And knowing I saw it at age ten also reminds me my dear mother sat through this movie.  Sorry, KareBear!

Of course, in 1985, I was a Dungeons and Dragons kid, and was expecting more of a Conan style adventure, so was disappointed on that level.  But I did understand  we were looking at cutting edge sets, make-up and effects.  And especially now in the CGI fantasy world we see daily, this movie looks amazing - because it is practical and has real light, etc... and all that is really the thing to recommend it.

But...  The story was and is both overly complicated and mind-numbingly simple.  You can dress up anything in faux-Shakespeare or fantasy-novel-speak, but you're still just saying "Jack has to get the MacGuffin back - and the girl.  But that bad-guy stole them, and he's really tough and mean".  

I watched Legend again, I believe, in college (maybe high school) and liked it no better.  And then Jamie and I put it on probably 20 years ago, made it ten minutes in, and then tapped out.

But tonight we watched it from beginning-to-end, knowing this movie is bad.  But, wow...  is it a mess.

Visually?  Yes, it's a masterclass of 1980's optical and practical FX.  The make-up and creature effects are stellar.  If you want to put it on and listen to some music, you might have a good time.

I didn't, and don't, think this movie had characters.  It has impressions of characters.  It has vague archetypes.  Most surprising, no one really has an arc, they simply go through a little adventure where we're told that maybe the universe is at stake - but how, why or if we should care about this fact is all a little bit up in the air.  

What is the movie is trying to say?  I couldn't tell you.  Something about light and dark, not approaching wildlife, and that Mia Sara being the source of all of our problems.

A quick glance at Wikipedia tells me that there is a "director's cut" available that people are not as mad at, that actually lets the characters develop and reveal themselves and have motivations outside of the immediate crisis.  I am both intrigued by a version of this that isn't just people in costumes shouting over Tangerine Dream, and horrified at the idea of watching this movie ever again.  But it sounds like they trimmed out 30 or more minutes, and that tells me we accidentally left the story on the cutting room floor.

It's just a stunning disaster of a movie that may have been murdered in editing and sound design.  It fails basic tests like "hey, explain how and why these characters are now in this scene".  

As something that tried to go full Tolkien and create a new world based on familiar fantasy characters, it at least achieves a unique look, but then, if it had anything to say about it, forgot along the way.  The world is too empty - there's no sense of anything beyond the sets, which gives the film no stakes.  So what if this mile or two of woods is compromised?   "You can't have light without darkness" is a fine sentiment, if you want to spend any energy whatsoever giving that phrase meaning in the context of the movie, but here it just sounds like a 17 year old who just discovered the Doors.  

Anyway - if you think you need to watch this movie because it's been a while, I'd just watch any of the 1980's many, many fantasy movies other than this one.  Maybe even Krull.

Valentine Chabert Watch: An Unexpected Valentine (2025)

I am profoundly upset by how this is not the color, make or model of the car in the movie

Watched:  02/01/2025

Format:  Hallmark

Viewing:  First

Director:  *unlisted at time of this writing*

Job: Chocolate scientist 

new skill: picking up Lyft drivers
Man: Robert Buckley
Job of Man: Lyft driver/ mediocre artistic photographer
Goes to/ Returns to: just drives in circles, really
Event: product reveal gala?/ gallery show
Food:  baked goods and peanut butter chocolate cookies

This is a movie about a woman who is so lonely on Valentine's Day, she sleeps with her Lyft driver.

I'm sorry, you can dress it up any way you want, but that's what this movie is about, and I'm okay with it.

We watched this movie on a slight delay during its broadcast premier as Hallmark pivots to a two week extravaganza hoping people can believe Valentine's Day, the worst holiday, is as big a deal to people as Christmas, which is a lie, Hallmark.  A terrible lie.

In this movie, which has a script that needed several more passes and major issues with what we like to call "pacing" in the movie-blogging biz, Chabert plays a New York City-based food science person who specializes in chocolate (please remember the chocolate detail).  

I feel like the script was written by AI or a MadLib, because it does follow some oddly specific Hallmark tropes but then refuses to make sense.

Chabert's chocolate scientist starts the movie, as happens A LOT in Hallmark movies, giving a speech to colleagues around a table about their corporation's widget of choice.  In all Hallmark movies, often in Chabert movies, people are blown over by the set-up of a lukewarm corporate presentation explaining the hero's job and that she is good at it.  Her colleagues and bosses will lose their minds and offer promises of better jobs.  A rich fantasy.

In this case, I would believe the script is written by AI as the product Chabert is showing off is: a chocolate purse.  

Scorsese Watch: Goodfellas (1990)

Watched:  01/31/2025

Format:  4K

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Martin Scorsese

Goodfellas (1990) is one of my favorite movies, but I don't watch it all that often. It's not a comfort watch for me - it's a "everyone shut up, I'm watching a movie" movie.  And I take great delight in letting this particular movie run from start to finish.   I'll catch bits of it on cable, but I honestly don't think I'd sat and watched it end-to-end since pivoting my blogging to nigh-all-movie-conversations back around 2012.  It also is likely I did watch it and then forgot to write it up, which used to happen a shocking amount (I now make a stub as soon as a movie is over so I remember to write a post).

I saw Goodfellas in the theater during its initial release.  Oddly, I saw it in San Antonio, where I did not live.  My brother was there interviewing with the university he eventually attended.  I was still in the middle of high school, and my mom was elsewhere, but I have zero memory of how that translated to The Admiral taking Steanso and myself to see a Scorsese movie.  I remember, also, that The Admiral *hated* it, and Steanso and I were all but high-fiving at the end of the film.

Intellectually, I know this is a good movie, but...  man, in this blog's opinion, there's not a wrong note in the whole thing.  Acting is astounding from everyone, and you're talking a massive cast.  

Chabert-a-Thon: My Secret Valentine (2018)

Chabert and Walker demo how much wine you'll wish you had on hand before you start the movie

Watched:  01/30/2025

Format:  Hallmark+

Viewing:  First

Director:  Bradley Walsh

Job: Restaurant Manager/ Winery heiress
Location of story: somewhere near Portland, Oregon
new skill: None?
Man: Andrew W. Walker
Job of Man:  Acquisitions for a wine distribution company
Goes to/ Returns to: Returns to
Event:  Valentine's Wine and Food Fest
Food:  wine

First of all, congrats to Lacey Chabert who just signed an exclusive deal with Hallmark which will include movies, more of her unscripted show 'Celebrations', and a product line in Hallmark stores.  We'll, of course, be delving into what this means and what products at Hallmark shops carry Ms. Chabert's stamp of approval.  

At the same time, she's also now the face of Purity skin cleanser. Which, yes, that makes sense. 

On to WineFest.

Look, this movie was maybe not very good.  It was the sort of movie where nothing works the way things work in real life, and it feels like no one involved could be bothered to learn how those things work despite the fact Google was about 18 years into its existence by the time this movie came out.

Chabert's father calls her to come home because he has news for her, and after luring her home and away from work, he chooses to refuse to tell her the news until he's at dinner with his full staff.  At which point- he springs the very personal information about his decisions to retire and maybe sell the family name, land, house, cabin, business, etc...  He does this without once speaking to his only child and heir to the family business.  

In any other movie, this would suggest a deeply broken relationship.

Catch-Up Watch: Little Women (2019)

Watched:  01/29/2025

Format:  Amazon, I believe

Viewing:  First

Director:  Greta Gerwig

Somehow I have never seen any version of Little Women, and I've never read the book.  As a testament to how much I dislike movies having a Christmas release date, when I saw the cast line-up for this - and who was directing it,* I was very clear as I expressed to Jamie "hey, I want to see that", but then we absolutely did not see Little Women (2019) with its Oscar-pleasing release date as the holidays became busy.

Well, a couple weeks ago, in the same conversation wherein Jamie mentioned wanting to see Brooklyn, she also mentioned Little Women, and I was on board.  And then, days later!, M.Bell was giving me grief for having missed it, and it seemed like a sign.  

And, holy sugar smacks, that is a fantastic flick.  

Chabert-a-Thon Trilogy Watch: "All of My Heart", "AoMH: Inn Love" and "AoMH: The Wedding" (2015, 2017, 2018)

Watched:  Finished the third one on 01/29/2025

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First for all three

Director:  Peter DeLuise, Terry Ingram x2

Job: BnB owner

Location of story: Pennsylvania?

new skill: running a BnB/ starting a bakery business

Man:  Brennan Elliot

Job of Man: Wall Street Deal Maker/ Goat Herd/ Handy Man

Goes to/ Returns to: Goes To

Event: None/ None/ Wedding

Food: Baked goods.  My God, so many baked goods

Well, this was roughly 4.5 hours spent on a very long walk.

The All of My Heart trilogy maybe doesn't need to exist, and, yet, it does.  Why?  I do not know.  Was the original so successful The People demanded more?  Internet sleuthing tells me that, yes, people loved the first one so much, Hallmark had to cook up sequels.

The series fulfills the fantasy (by someone, absolutely not me) of owning and operating a Bed and Breakfast in the country, where everyone tells you that you are good at baking.  This is clearly a dream of many.

It is also a Hallmark movie series that never says it out loud, but absolutely implies, our leads are living in sin for the equivalent of 2 out of 3 movies.  

As a bonus, it features TV luminary Ed Asner for absolutely no reason, but he's in all three movies as The Wise Old Man.

After finishing some other Chabert movie (I think the Hawaii movie), I was rolled into All of My Heart (2015).  In this one, Chabert plays a caterer who inherits *half* of a house, and sees the possibility to make her dream of opening a BnB in leaf-peeper country a reality.  Frequent Chabert collab Brennan Elliot shows up as the other inheritee, and plays a hard-nosed Wall Street guy who just wants to get half the proceeds of the house's sale.  If she can buy him out, great.

Oscars Cartoon Watch: Flow (2024)

Watched:  01/27/2025

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  Gints Zibalodis

If you want to know what moves me and can make me want to cry for the entire runtime of a movie - put an animal in danger.  Especially an animal with personality that manages to still recognizably act like an animal.

I'd heard a few trusted sources gives a thumbs-up to Flow (2024), and then it got nominated for a 2025 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.  And, yes.  Consider this the highest level of recommendation I'm likely to give a movie for pretty mush anyone and everyone.  Go watch Flow.  

This post will be short.  I loved this movie so much, I don't want to ramble on and I don't want to spoil it.

Chabert Watch: Sweet Carolina (2021)

Watched:  01/25/2025

Format:  Hallmark

Viewing:  First

Director:  Peter Benson

Job: Marketing VP

Location of story:  North Carolina

new skill: parenting

Man:  Tyler Hynes

Job of Man: basketball coach/ horsebarn attendant

Goes to/ Returns to: Returns to

Event: funeral? bake sale? middle school dance?  

Food:  Baked goods - especially scones

My first foray into a full Hallmark tragedy/ drama!  Also, I note Chabert co-wrote this one, so good for you, Lacey!

If I tipped my hat to Lacey Chabert milking Hallmark for nice vacations when discussing the Hawaii movie, I must also salute Hallmark for using the same Canadian locations and insisting they're various parts of the US with about ten seconds of establishing shots purchased from some establishing shot clearing house.  And then going hard with the movie's branding around the supposed location while remaining very non-specific about how this is, say, North Carolina and why it matters.  

But, yeah, this same Canadian high school was used for Three Wiser Men and a Boy released this Christmas.  Kimberley Sustad and Lacey Chabert are like ships in the night, passing through the halls of this school.  

In Sweet Carolina (2021), Chabert is a successful marketing exec from New Hope, North Carolina (the titular sweet Carolina, so suck it South Carolina.  You salty.).  After introducing her family in Canada North Carolina, the film immediately kills off her sister and brother-in-law, and during Chabert's trip home, she learns her sister named her, a career-driven-city-gal, as the guardian for her children.   

Accidental Watch: The Chopping Mall (2025)

Watched:  01/26/2025

Format:  Shout! on YouTube

Viewing:  Not sure

Director:  Jim Wynorski

I saw this was streaming on YouTube - in real time - and turned it on, by chance, right at the beginning, and decided to stick with it just to watch the opening sequence.  And next thing I knew, credits were rolling on this cinema classic.

On it's face, The Chopping Mall (1986) is a simple story about why it's a bad idea to deploy robots armed with futuristic and lethal weaponry as mall security.  I mean, the room for lawsuits is breathtaking.

On another level, The Chopping Mall would make a fantastic pairing with Dawn of the Dead for a killer double-bill as it also uses horror to satire the consumer experience.  This one also leans into horror films, Corman films (while being a Corman film), techno-shock media, and more.  And it has the best possible signal as to what we're in for at the beginning by starting the film with the characters, The Blands, from Eating Raoul watching a demo for the Killbots.

Here in 2025 - almost forty years later - it's an amazing time capsule of the 1980's in cinema and pop culture.  The film revels in B-movie violence, nudity and young people being dumb-as-@#$%.  It's also a reminder that Barbara Crampton does not age on the same timeline as the rest of us.  It's weird to say a movie in which heads explode on screen and 20-somethings are dispatched by rejected EPCOT trashcans is "joyful", but fun was had in the making of the movie.  After all, this is a movie that features a mall petshop called "Roger's Little Shop of Pets" (referring, of course, to executive producer Roger Corman's Little Shop of Horrors).    And, of course, gets a day or two out of Dick Miller to play his character from A Bucket of Blood.  

It's a movie where the sporting goods store in the mall carries M-16's, and elevators are controlled by computers.  And, is essentially about an orgy in a mall furniture store going sideways when lightning causes a power surge that sets off the Killbots.

Sadly - I can't find evidence that the robots from the movie survived after production.  It would be nice to know they're out there or could wind up in a movie museum.

Sure, 1986 put out intentionally meaningful films and crowd pleasers.  And this cost less than a million to produce (and takes place in the same mall used for 1985's Commando!), but in it's own way - I think is key to unlocking so much of what was happening in pop culture and media at the time.

Superman 2025: Supergirl 2026

One of the oddities of the new DC Studios Universe is that they aren't running through the heroes I expected.  We're starting with Superman, sure (as we should!), and we may be slow walking Batman into the DCSU, but we also have Creature Commandos.  And, now, already... my friend Kara Zor-El is getting a movie.  

Seen above, actor Milly Alcock is on set and shooting has begun for Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow.

Am I thrilled?  Yes.  

As a character, Supergirl's last big screen outing was in The Flash, and... it ended badly for her in a movie I didn't care for.  Before that, it was the mid-80's Supergirl with eternal Signal Watch crush Helen Slater. And that movie is, maybe, not the best movie ever made.  I also watched the full run of Supergirl on CBS/ The CW.  As a comics-reader, I became a fan first of the alt-Supergirl Linda Danvers during the epic Peter David run, but loved Kara Zor-El on Superman: The Animated Series.  

Because you demanded it - the year of Chabert: Groundswell (2022)

Watched:  01/20/2025

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  Lee Friedlander

Firstly - absolutely no one demanded this.  Maybe Chabert's manager would like it, but Randy pitched turning this into a Chabert fan-site and never one to turn down a challenge that is totally pointless, here we are.

We do our little experiments here at The Signal Watch, and we like a theme.

Now that I'm not watching Christmas movies, I've realized Lacey Chabert is not just getting paid to appear in movies in Canada, she's all over the planet.  There's a Safari movie that takes place in South Africa, we watched the Iceland and Ireland movies at Christmas, and last year a Scotland movie.  I don't know what Chabert pulls down per movie, but tacking on some fun travel seems like a great perk.

This one takes place in Hawaii.  So, big props to everyone involved who managed to be in a movie about Hawaii that is mostly about surfing and eating.  If this is a thing, sign me up.

Chabert plays a chef - keeping in line with Hallmark's insistence that heroines have careers that seem kind of arty - who gets mad at her boyfriend/ boss (a terrible combo) after he takes credit for her dishes.  Wisely, she dashes off to her Aunt's amazing place in Hawaii.  

There, we meet Chabert's soon-to-be love interest, played by 1% BMI fellow Ektor Rivera as "Ben".  Ben is a broody fellow who gave up surfing and now runs a surf shop and refuses to button his shirts.  Good for him.  

Not-Aimed-At-Me Watch: Brooklyn (2015)

Watched:  01/22/205

Format:  Max

Viewing:  First

Director:  John Crowley

About ten minutes into Brooklyn (2015) I knew I wasn't the intended audience, or even an intended tertiary audience, for the movie.  I believe this was aimed at Not-Me, whomever that would be - perhaps Bizarro League, and/ or people whose flights of fancy involved less in the way of aliens with capes and/ or atomic-powered giant monsters.  Maybe this is more for folks looking for (melo)drama in the way of Jane Austen novels.  And for them, I say - enjoy!  Stop reading now.

Saoirse Ronan is everything you've heard, and the photography was excellent.  The movie is beautifully made, exquisitely acted, and has immaculate period detail and design.  

And I wasn't into it.

SPOILERS

Vamp Watch: Nosferatu (2024) - second viewing

Watched:  01/19/2025

Format:  Alamo

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Robert Eggers

Originally, I'd planned to see Nosferatu (2024) upon its Christmas-time release with MRSHL, a man who knows and loves vampire fiction.  And, he's an Eggers fan.  However, the stars failed to align and we didn't make it work.  But!  We finally got around to it here in mid-January.

I already spent a lot of time writing up this movie in recent history, so I'm not about to do that again right now.  

I do think I was better able to blow through some of my preconceptions and better get at the Ellen/ Orlok relationship, and it better confirmed some of what I thought was going on regarding Ellen's nature and Orlok's drive.  

Anyway, I dug it.  Glad I saw it again.

Chabert Lifetime Noir Watch: Imaginary Friend (2012)

Watched:  01/19/2025

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  Richard Gabai

After running through something like 10 Lacey Chabert movies during the holiday season, Amazon is now offering up additional Chabert content - which has not helped when I pondered "what if I drove everyone nuts by making 2025 the year I watch and discuss *every* Lacey Chabert movie?"  Because, friends, she has 183 credits already, and is, like, 42.  That's not 183 movies - she's voiced several cartoons (including Supergirl on Harley Quinn), and been on a few TV series.  A glance at her IMDB suggests she's doing like 10-12 projects every year - and a heap of those are 90 minute TV movies.

Anyway - I'm not going to cover all of that.  But I'm also not going to not do it.  Who else will be the chronicler of Lacey Chabert's career arc?

Imaginary Fried (2012) is about eight years after Mean Girls.  It's a Lifetime movie, and part of the "someone close to me is trying to kill me" fantasy that characterized a lot of Lifetime's programming at one point.  Lifetime is a weird bastion of noirish programming that gets overlooked, but if these movies were black and white and the characters spoke with Mid-Atlantic accents, we'd just shrug and include them in the category as maybe B's.

David Lynch Merges With The Infinite

Writer and Director David Lynch has passed.

A lot of ink will be spilled over Lynch, and, in my opinion, rightfully so.  Whether you liked or disliked Lynch's work, he carved a path through cinema and television that was so singular, discussions of movies that went deep would often bring up his work as if by force.  Maybe that's because from Eraserhead to the weather reports he did from his home, Lynch's work was so clearly of David Lynch, it was impossible to ignore.

I have seen some of Lynch's work, but not all.  Like a lot of people my age, I learned who he was through Twin Peaks, and in high school saw Fire Walk With Me, Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart.   I've caught up with much of his work since, finally seeing The Elephant Man, Dune and more.  In recent years I finally watched The Straight Story, which I highly recommend.  

The dreams that Lynch put to screen have been and will be much imitated, but I hope they really just inspire the next wave - and I think they already have.  

Like a lot of folks, I am deeply grateful for Twin Peaks hitting my life at just the right time, in both the early 90's and again a few years ago.  I needed the wonder, mystery, tragedy and uncanny state that the show provided.  I'm grateful for the world of nightmares, the story of true love of Wild at Heart, and the acknowledgement of the dark we keep at bay out here in the world that permeates all of his work.  For the dreams within a dream that are Mulholland Drive.

His fearlessness as a filmmaker, and someone who told us that to love people and love the little things is what staves off the darkness seems so simple - but he knew it's not, and he showed us both.

I'll miss knowing that Lynch, as Gordon Cole, is out there telling people to change their hearts.  We'll see you under the sycamore trees.

Disney Watch: The Cat From Outer Space (1978)

Watched:  01/15/2025

Format:  Disney+

Viewing:  Unknown, but probably 3rd

Director:  Norman Tokar

As a kid, I found live-action Disney comedies to mostly be a grating disappointment.  Sometimes in elementary school, teachers would roll in the 16mm projector and thread up one of these movies and that was the middle of the day for us so they could grade papers or have a smoke or whatever.

If you want to know why Gen-X has trust issues, its because we never knew what we were getting from a 16mm film projected movie in the common area at school, while required to sit silently.  And, sometimes it was something good!  But much more often it was a safety film*, or - if the teachers were feeling daffy, something like The Cat From Outer Space (1978).  Which is where I think I saw this first.

It's mind-boggling that a year after Star Wars, Disney's response was to put out a 108 minute sitcom about a cross-eyed cat who lands on Earth and kind of sits there hopped up on tranquilizers while name talent runs around being "funny".  

Pope Watch: Conclave (2024)

Watched:  01/14/2025

Format:  Peacock

Viewing:  First

Director:  Edward Berger

All Christmas season long, Jamie's sister-in-law, K, kept lightly suggesting we go see Conclave (2024), and I was pretty direct in my opinion of "no, I do not want to see that".  But curiosity, gentle nudging and my Peacock subscription got the best of me, and I went ahead and watched it over two nights.

Conclave centers around the events that take place in the wake of the passing of a Pope, and the politicking among the clergy (cardinals) who are called together to determine who will be the next Pope.  

Sadly, it turns out there is no Catholic sorting hat to handle this task.

I will start by saying, there are many things I liked about this film.  As promised, the performances by Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Isabella Rossellini, and many others are impeccable.  This movie is an opportunity for these actors to do amazing work - enough so that my immediate thought was "really, this would be a tremendous play" after the film ended.  A sort of 108 Angry Cardinals.  

Viking Watch: The Northman (2022)

Watched:  01/14/2024

Format:  Disc

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Robert Eggers

A long while back now, I picked up the 4K of Eggers' The Northman (2022) after liking it quite a lot on a first viewing, and knowing that it deserved a second viewing.  And since Jamie had actually liked Noferatu, a movie I wasn't even going to take her to, she voted for The Northman.*

I re-read my post from May of 2023, and I think I agree with myself here.

SPOILERS

I can say confidently that I am very glad I rewatched the film, especially when you aren't walking in blind as you start to realize "oh, wait... is this some imagined proto-Hamlet?"  And, indeed, go Google "Amleth" because, boy, while I knew Shakespeare didn't really come up with original stories, was I surprised to find out about the many versions of Hamlet existed story prior to Billy Shakes putting it down.

TV Watch: Landman (on Paramount+)

Curiously, not a superhero show.  Or, if it is, worst superhero ever.

I'd not watched any of the Yellowstone stuff by Taylor Sheridan.  By the time I heard it was watchable there were 23 seasons of it and a few spin-offs, and I couldn't be bothered to enter that particular multiverse.  

But when I saw Billy Bob Thornton, John Hamm, Demi Moore and Robyn Lively would be on a show, I was curious.  Then I saw it was about the energy industry and set in Texas, and my ears perked up.  I have lived the vast majority of my life in Texas, and my father worked for companies that produced instrumentation and valves for oil rigs, derricks, etc..  Anyway - like a lot of folks who grew up around oil, I have a passing interest in the industry.

What's curious is that during my youth, Texas was considered pumped dry.  There were oil fields, sure... but the fracking and all that came along later.  By the time I was in high school in the early 90's, if you saw an oil jack going, it was always worthy of comment.  and, yes, pump jacks could be anywhere and were.   

Someone figured out the fields were *not* dry, and fracking eventually happened, especially out in West Texas.   And when I travelled out that way for work, all of a sudden the hotels were full of guys off a hard shift, getting rest, uniformly polite but eyeing me with suspicion as I went by in my tie.  

Oil wise, things are definitely cooking in Texas.

Landman is, basically, a soap opera that sure feels like a modern spin on the dramas we used to watch, like Dallas.  There's a wide array of characters, oil is at the center of it, but only some are involved directly with the business.  And because it's TV, it's the lives and loves of those working around oil (read: men) that drive the show, and the women who love them.

DCSU Watch: "Creature Commandos" on Max

So I have a new TV girlfriend.  

I can fix her...!

No, but really.  I can't begin to wrap my head around the fact that this is how James Gunn's DC Studios Universe is starting.  Wildly violent, gross, Rated-R just for language, full of nudity, sex and swearing...  My suspicion is that he pitched this to WB during his problems with Marvel/ Ike Perlmutter.  Maybe he pitched this alongside Peacemaker and they said "well, that sounds like $30 million an episode or 250 million as a movie.  But as a TV show cartoon...".

Honestly, I don't care. But, in theory, Creature Commandos does *count* as part of the new shared DCSU.  Which is wild, because this thing is Rated a hard R, is grotesque, violent, morbid and hilarious.  And, because it's Gunn, and he understands monsters - it's also oddly moving.  

90's Watch: Sneakers (1992)

Watched:  01/08/2025

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  Phil Alden Robinson

Back when Boomers went to the movies all the time, movies catered to an idea that we could do this as smooth and classy as a Kenny G concert.  Or, maybe as slick as Yanni, in a pinch.  

Sneakers (1992) is like "what if 3 Days of the Condor, but a cozy mystery?" and an entry into the field of "technology is neat, and we'll talk about it in terms your mom will get, plus we'll keep futzing with what is real and what is not" that movies love to play with, which ultimately satisfies no one.  

Cunk Doc Watch: Cunk on Life (2024)

Watched:  01/08/2025

Format:  Netflix

Viewing:  First

Director:  Al Campbell

A couple of years ago I stumbled across the amazing documentaries guided by journalist Philomena Cunk.  Insightful, sprawling, challenging television in which our host dares us, the audience, to ponder the pictures both big and small, how they fit together, and what it all means.  From Shakespeare to biology, there's no topic Philomena Cunk can't take on while wandering through the woods.

Her team assembles a wide variety of academic notables to shed light on the topics at hand, and Philomena is not shy about asking the hard questions to shed light on the thorniest of subjects.

I'm not sure this special counts as a movie, but it is slightly longer than an hour, and is also self-contained.  In this new installment, Cunk on Life (2024), we're taken to the start of life on Earth, look into the meaning of life in a Judeo/ Christian context, look into nihilism, the Higgs-Boson particle, the Big Bang, and the value of streaming services.

I highly recommend this doc.  It's something like 70 minutes and well worth your time.

Doc Watch: Super/Man - The Christopher Reeve Story (2024)

Watched:  01/06/2025

Format:  Max

Viewing:  First

Director(s):  Ian Bonhôte & Peter Ettedgui

Well, I'd been avoiding this doc for a bit because I know more about Christopher and Dana Reeve than the average bear, and I knew it was gonna break me.  And, it did, but I think my certainty that I was going to be destroyed kind of helped prep me for the film.  (YMMV re: squirting real tears during this doc)

Look, one of my earliest memories is seeing Superman: The Movie in the theater.  And then seeing Superman II and III in the theater?  Yes.  I absolutely remember both.  

I'm not alone in being of a certain era and Christopher Reeve meaning a lot to us as our Clark Kent and Superman.  Eagle-eyed readers will note the name of this site is a Superman reference, and Superman is kind of a thing for me.  I take the Superman films starring Reeve very seriously and will be happy to bore you talking about them anytime.

It Was On Watch: His and Hers (2024)

Watched:  01/03/2024

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  Linda Lisa Hayter

Jamie had this on while I was working on my End-of-Year posts, and it is a movie.  And I guess I watched it.

I wasn't going to write up His & Hers (2024), because it kind of broke my rule for "I was engaged with the movie" rather than "I was on my laptop", but it was designed to be semi-watched, so semi-watch it I did.  Plus, Jamie told me to write it up.  So.

This is a sort of legal romantic dramedy that is deeply untethered from reality, and the whole time you're watching it, you sort of think "this was not the original version of this script.  This has been hollowed out to be a Hallmark film".  

The basic concept is that Chabert plays a civil attorney who does *not* practice family law, but is married to a divorce attorney.  Two reality TV stars have a public break-up, and the husband winds up with Chabert's husband (Hallmark stalwart Brennan Elliot) as his attorney, and because of reasons, Chabert is asked to represent the reality TV wife.  Elliot has to do it because it's his ticket to becoming partner, and Chabert owes her boss for sentimental reasons.

The Signal Watch Presents: Favorite Movies of 2024

This is part three of my yearly rundown of the movies of the prior year.  

Here's the movies I liked least of the movies I watched in 2024.  

Here's a breakdown of the films I watched in 2024.  

Before you ask me "Did you watch (name of movie)?", you can check this handy spreadsheet for what I watched and when.

So, here's the ground rules (before y'all start complaining):

These are The Best movies *to me*.  Thus, they were my favorite movies in 2024.  These used to be The Krypto Awards, but I got tired of photoshopping pictures of Krypto.

I'm not going to pretend that liking movies isn't subjective and/ or that something is objectively "the best".  This is not a timed foot-race with precision cameras.  What you see below is just what I liked, and, pals, what I think doesn't matter to anyone but me, so cool your jets.

These are movies I saw for the first time in 2024.  It doesn't mean the movies were released in 2024.  Watching only new movies is for chumps and dilettantes.  New releases are good, but my FOMO for being part of a cultural moment around a movie is non-existent in 2024.

Now, this year's list is not going to be mind-boggling.  I went down a path of seeking out movies that are considered classics and remain well known and well-liked.  And I did this across a few genres.  So, if you saw me saying "I think this Orson Welles is onto something..." you may be right in guessing that I am not breaking new ground here.

The Signal Watch Presents: Worst Movies of 2024

I liked how I structured this last year, so I'll do it again here in 2024.  But broken up into Worst and Best posts.  

Here's a breakdown of the movies we watched in 2024.  

I know folks like Simon and Stuart watch many more movies per year than me, but it was a big year of movies at my house.

I'd also say - I've found the healthiest way to watch movies is not to worry about awards shows, the zeitgeist or common consensus.  Like what you like, for whatever reason you like it.  Someone will always find a reason your opinions are bad or wrong, buy... yeah?  Well, you know. That's just, like, their opinion, man.

Let's start off by being hurtful.  You can ignore my feelings or argue with about Ember Days in the comments.

The Worst Things I Saw in 2024

2024 Watch: Movies By The Numbers

Movies By The Numbers - Previous Years

• 2023
• 2022
• 2021
• 2020
• 2019
• 2018

In case you didn't notice, this site is really my personal film-watching-journal.  Yes, it's available to you, because we're pals, but it's mostly for me to keep track of movies and jot down what I thought.

A few years ago now, I started compiling some numbers to get some metrics.  I believe it stemmed out of a concern I was re-watching too many movies and not checking out enough new-to-me films.  There is no right or wrong way of watching movies, exactly - though I will argue "that's not how movie watching works" from time to time when I get my dander up.

Anyway, our categories this year are:

• Decade of release
• Month in which movies were watched
• How many movies did I watch for the first time
• What genre does the movie represent best
• In what format did I watch movies
• Was the movie a new movie
• How many Godzilla movies did I watch

And, to start off - I watched movies 253 times in 2024.

If you want, you can check out the spreadsheet here.