Musical Watch: It's Always Fair Weather (1955)

Watched:  03/27/2025

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Stanley Donen/ Gene Kelly

It's Always Fair Weather (1955) is a weird and wildly uneven movie.  It's either having an astounding number like the whole sequence in the boxing gym where Cyd Charisse seems like magic, or its three dudes boring me to tears with their individual issues.  And, yes, I'd seen it before.

I get that the movie is trying to replicate the trio of guys from On the Town, and, according to IMDB trivia, that was the original plan, but Sinatra was having his studio issues, and Munshin was on the outs with Hollywood.  

But I think if this movie had just been about Gene Kelly's character, it would have worked a heck of a lot better.  Or if it had been able to bring back all six of the characters - sure.  Instead, we get this weird "men in crisis" story that just kind of lacks charm and even feels depressing.  

Western Watch: Red River (1948)

Watched:  03/26/2025

Format:  Prime

Viewing:  First

Director:  Howard Hawks

Who knew the highly regarded American Classic film would be pretty good?

Red River (1948) is a Howard Hawks post-war epic, one of a dozen John Wayne classics, and features a good number of the A-list supporting players of the era who show up again and again in different configurations through the 1960's.  

The film is also curiously myth-building for Texas history, and it's curious to see a movie made about it 80 years after the fact, rather than the additional near-80 that have since passed.  John Wayne plays a gunman who joins a wagon train in the years just prior to the Civil War going southwest out of St. Louis.  Somewhere in what would become the Oklahoma Indian Territory, Wayne decides to peel off and head South, crossing the Red River into Texas.  There a girl who begs to go with him (Coleen Gray*) but he says he'll send for her.  He's heading out into hard land with his pal, Groot (Western staple Walter Brennan).  

Marvel Cartoon Watch: "Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man" on Disney+

I can't recall if Steven told me to watch Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man first, or Jamie informed me we were going to watch it.  But watch it we did.  

I was a bit skeptical.  Marvel puts out a new Spidey cartoon almost every year, it seems, and then they disappear without much notice.  Someone is watching them, but whenever I dip in, it's hard for me to get into it.  Not so with this show.

YFNSM is 10 episodes, and it's the first time in a long, long time I got the vibes from a Spider-Man property that felt truly like the Spider-Man I liked in the comics growing up, and then in the Marvel Essentials I read in my 20's.  A working class kid of great intellect, a lot of imposter syndrome, and abilities that are as much curse as gift.  It takes place in an American New York with all sorts of people intersecting and interacting, and while there are people with strange technology and weapons, Spider-Man is really the only one with inherent powers and a secret to keep.

However, this is a very alt-universe version of Peter Parker and Spider-Man.

It's Morbin' Time: Morbius (2022)

Watched:  03/22/2025

Format:  FX Movies

Viewing:  First

Director:  Michael Espinosa

A movie whose reputation proceeds it, Morbius (2022) was met with critical derision, a fan base that showed up *ironically*, and a star who seemed to agree - we can all have a laugh at this movie.

I don't even really know what's wrong with Morbius - but, yes, the vibe is off.  Nonetheless, I'll speculate based on the final product.  

Unlike Madame Web, you don't have the immediate feeling "something is very, very wrong" in the first five minutes.  Morbius really takes its time to utterly fall apart and admit no one knew what to do with this character once they had him.

I'd even argue the first 1/3rd of the film is entertainingly campy - or at least made for a good laugh as I put it on whilst on the elliptical.  Jared Leto plays the very-ill but brilliant Michael Morbius, who we're to believe has grown to be a 30-something adult while requiring thrice-daily dialysis.  As a child, he befriends "Milo" - later played by Dr. Who's Matt Smith - and they have a working/ parental relationship with Jared Harris.  

90's Watch: Romy and Michele's High School Reunion (1997)

Watched:  03/22/2025

Format:  Prime

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  David Mirkin

I have no notes.

This movie is hilarious from start to finish, is incredibly well written, well directed and has a cast that gets the assignment - starting with our two leads, to every supporting character.  It's not Citizen Kane, but that's also not the goal.  It's a flick that barely has any commentary and is just a situation with characters intended to derive comedy.  And that it does.

I have no idea if people saw this in the theater (we did, back in college).  But I assume everyone has since seen this since streaming or on basic cable.  If not, fix your heart and see Romy and Michele's High School Reunion (1997).  

If it's been a minute - Romy (Mira Sorvino) and Michele (Lisa Kudrow) are living in LA, hitting der clerb, and kind of drifting around but having a good time.  Heather, a former classmate (Janeane Garofolo), runs into Romy and informs her that there's a high school reunion of their school in Tucson.  Romy and Michele want to go, but slowly realize that maybe they haven't had the most productive ten years by many folks' measure.  

Of course, old crushes will be there, and folks who crushed on them (Alan Cumming and Justin Theroux).  And the mean girls from high school.  So, our heroes decide they need to come up with a story that will impress.