Chabert Watch! The Lost Tree (2016)

Watched:  04/13/2025

Format:  Prime

Viewing:  First

Director:  Brian A. Metcalf

Woof.

The Lost Tree (2016)?  More like "lost me 30 seconds in".  Amirite?  Where are my Lost Tree bros?

To me, the thing that is most interesting about this very not-good movie is less the movie than digging in a bit to how Hollywood works/ worked.  It's famously a town of hustlers, and for a brief while in the late 90's and through the 00's, thanks to the power of indie film, some of that got celebrated as we had breakout films like Swingers.  But since Ed Wood got his hands on a fog machine, genre has also been a part of indie film made for no money, but hoping an idea and a performance will carry the day.

That does not happen here.

This movie is a mess from the start.  The camera-work is maybe not the best, and shot on consumer video as near as I can tell.  The audio in mostly fine, I guess, but the soundtrack/ score is doing some Olympic-class lifting, desperately trying to convince the viewer something is happening, and we're not just watching a dude wander around by himself in an empty cabin or an open field for insanely long stretches.

I will be honest and say:  I watched this movie and I can describe what happens in it, but if there's a story here with a point or an ironic twist, I am at a loss.  

Horror Watch: The Body Snatcher (1945)

Watched:  04/12/2025

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  Robert Wise

So.  I love Universal Horror.  This is where we get Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman, et al.  But, gosh darn it - those RKO horror films are good.  I was basking in how well done I found The Body Snatcher (1945) when I realized it was directed by Robert Wise, who I consider one of the best directors ever produced in the US, but who doesn't ever seem to get named among the greats.  But this is my blog, and here - Robert Wise reigns supreme.*

RKO's horror flicks are more "creepy tales" than relying on monsters and Jack Pierce make-up.   There's nothing supernatural here, no super science bringing beings to life.  It's more about the darkness in people, and that's where I think this movie works astoundingly well.

Anyway - I also learned some interesting history!  So, for twenty years or so, I've been aware that back in the day, it was hard to come by cadavers for medical schools, and so they'd, uhm....  pay dudes to steal bodies.  If you were near a medical school, there was an absolute chance that you were going to be dug up and dissected.  What I found out thanks to this movie is that ground zero for this practice getting particularly grim was in Edinburgh, Scotland.  Look up the Burke and Hare murders.  This shit is wild, yo.

But it turns out that if your business is selling bodies for fun and profit, it's easy to turn living people into bodies.

Anyhoo...  our movie finds a promising young medical student about to drop out of school as he can't afford it anymore  At the same time, a(n attractive) woman and her daughter come to see the school's headmaster to see if he'll perform surgery to help the daughter walk again.  The cab that is taking them there is driven by our man, Boris Karloff, who also happens to go dig up corpses by night and sell them to the school's headmaster.

What spins out is not a monster movie, but more the horror of the young doctor-to-be realizing what is going on, and his own complicity in the practice, while Boris Karloff and the head doctor reveal how they've been entwined for decades in this foul business of grave robbing, and what sort of man is happy to make money doing it, and why doctors are desperate for it.

The movie also co-stars Bela Lugosi as a servant who wants to get cut in on the body business.  

There are some truly great scenes and ideas in this movie - some from the source material, a short story by Robert Louis Stevenson, and others made up for the film.  It's wonderfully shot by Robert De Grasse - and one of those things RKO always seemed to know to invest in to make their movies look phenomenal.  RKO was no poverty row studio, but they knew where to spend money (until Hughes took over).

All of the stuff with the singing girl is great horror movie work.  Hats off to Wise.

Karloff and Lugosi are rock solid in the movie, but I also really liked Edith Atwater as Meg - the head doctor's maid and mistress.  A complicated role that has to emote and thread the story together, she nails it.  She looked super familiar and I figured out that 24 years later, she was the inn-keeper in True Grit.  

Anyway - I really don't care to spoil the movie, just add it to the list.  There's also some more Val Lewton produced movies from this era I need to get into. Karloff followed these with Isle of the Dead and Bedlam, both of which are held in high esteem, but I've not yet seen.

*Dude never made a bad movie.  Maybe instead of watching every Chabert movie, I could have made a point by watching every Wise movie, but here we are.

Chabert Watch! The Lost (2009)

Watched:  04/11/2025

Format:  Prime

Viewing:  First

Director:  Bryan Goeres

Here's my theory:  the writers came up with the ending for The Lost (2009), and then had to work backward from there.  Desperate to keep anyone from guessing the ending, they kinda screwed up what you need to do with a mystery, which is leave clues that make you realize "oh, yeah, it was kinda there all along!"  But, nope.  They hid it so well, and the twist is so out of left field, you're just sort of left shrugging.

Not that anyone was invested in the prior 85 or so minutes of the movie before the twist ending.  

This is an oddly misogynistic supernatural thriller/ psychological mystery wherein Lacey Chabert plays a young woman in a Spanish insane asylum.  Three years prior, she seems to have set a mansion on fire as well as someone inside.  As a student, she was living in the guest house.  She looks pale and spooky as she watches it all burn, and maybe has psychic powers.

The movie is kind of badly shot.  The audio is poorly mixed, and not helped by Assante mumbling his way through the dialog so badly we turned on subtitles.  Also, a good portion of the cast is Spanish and not hitting every line in a way you can hear.  So when Dina Meyer shows up enunciating, it's a trip.  

Armand Assante, who I've only ever seen in Judge Dredd, plays a psychiatrist who examined Chabert briefly 3 years ago before saying "she's nuts" and leaving her in the Spanish psych ward.  Why she did not come back stateside, I am unsure.  Chabert's sister is Dina Meyer, who basically blackmails Assante into going to take a look at Chabert again.

Chabert Watch! The Color of Rain (2014)

Watched:  04/05/2025

Viewing:  First

Format:  Hallmark

Director:  Anne Wheeler

Job:  Church school admin

new skill:  widow

Man: Warren Christie

Job of Man:  I don't know if I ever figured that out

Goes to/ Returns to:  Stays in place

Event:  Christmas pageant

Food:  Italian, also, what other people bring by

So, I'm rapidly running out of Chabert Hallmark movies that are not holiday-themed, and I'm not sure I'll be diving into Christmas movies any time soon.

I don't know what was going on at Hallmark in 2014, or if this was a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie or what.  The Hall of Fame movies tend to be a little closer to regular-ol-movies as they originally aired on network TV, often on Sundays, but this was likely always on the cable channel.  The Color of Rain (2014) is based on the real life of two families who each was dealt a blow by cancer, each side losing a spouse, and then the two remaining spouses meeting and falling for each other.  And the resulting side-eye they get from their support structures.

I guess I'm basically shocked that this movie made its way to Hallmark, because it's sort of the opposite of the usually marshmallow fluff comfort treat that the network is known for.  Instead, it strives to show how people going through a spousal death and in the throes of grieving really are feeling and dealing with day-to-day life - and it's not a rose-colored version.  As both families have kids, they require daily care as well as the emotional support needed when you lose a parent - and that can include the kids just flipping out.  Man in this movie is angry with God, and this is a movie about good, church-going folks with the pastor as a supporting character and the center of their lives seemingly the church and its attached school.

Chabert's character had three years of knowing her husband was sick and had already taken on everything, but Man's character loses his wife abruptly to cancer, and is utterly unprepared.  The connection comes as Chabert is kind of the only one making sense to him in the wake of his wife's passing.

Chabert Watch! Non-Stop (2013)

Watched:  04/03/2025

Format:  Amazon Prime

Viewing:  First

Director:  Richard Gabai

Is this movie an absurdist comedy?  Or a straight-up Lifetime thriller that had two drafts written and then they shot it?  I honestly, earnestly do not know.

Non-Stop (2013) is a 90 minute movie that starts getting to the action in minute 41 or so, dragging out a both boring and overly elaborate set-up that includes exposition dropped during the credits - because no one thought to include this information in the rest of the film.  This is Lacey Chabert doing her absolute best against a movie that makes no sense and every actor seems to think they're in a different movie.  Meanwhile, Chabert is trying to convey something that the writing doesn't help her with at all.

I am not averse to the locked-room-mystery-aboard-transportation.  Give me a murder on a boat, a lady vanishing from a train, snakes on a plane.  But this is not a murder mystery for Lacey to sleuth out.  This is a movie that doesn't understand how these movies work, provides far too few potential suspects and a single motivation, and muffs the ending.  It realizes it has plot holes at the 2/3rds point and goes back and tries to paper them over with gigantic neon signs along the way, so you know what's up every time a plot point is introduced and where we're headed.

Noir Watch: The Window (1949)

Watched:  04/02/2025

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Director:  Ted Tetzlaff

Noir meets The Boy Who Cried Wolf when a 10 year old kid, sleeping on a balcony in a NYC tenement, sees his neighbors murder a guy through a crack in the blind.  

It's a simple premise, but with the age of the protagonist - ably played by Disney star* Bobby Driscoll - the set up is deeply effective.  The carefree/ consequence-free world of childhood collides headlong into the powerlessness of childhood when everyone wants to explain away what you saw with your own eyes, and your own past misdeeds are coming home to roost as your parents think they're enforcing tough love after your newest lie/ story.

The parents are played by Arthur Kennedy, who was no slouch of an actor (you likely saw him in Lawrence of Arabia and other films), and Barbara Hale, who would go on to household-name fame as Della Street on Perry Mason.   Our killers are the dead-eyed "that guy" actor Paul Stewart (good in so many things, here's his IMDB) and Signal Watch fave, Ruth Roman.  And if Ruth Roman killed someone, I'm sure it's not that wrong.  

It's a tight, short movie, moving through some predictable beats - including what's an effective final chase sequence through darkened, abandoned tenements.

It's kind of amazing how many movies used to be based on the idea of living on top of each other in apartment situations, or had major plotpoints that require people live in multi-family set-ups, and it's just kind of gone away. But certainly the cramped quarters of New York City and what your neighbors could be up to was part of more than one decent movie over the years.

I think it's gutsy they did this with a kid, and I wonder what it would look like in a modern context.  This is 1949, so this movie relies on the standard "mom and dad are busy, go play in abandoned buildings" living that hasn't seen the light of day in this century.  But even back in the 1940's, I'm not sure any studio but RKO is putting this movie out. 

This one has aired a few times, and I've avoided it as I often roll my eyes at things kids do in movies that are otherwise grounded, but this one feels buyable.  Our lead kid isn't a super detective or genius - he's mostly relying on adrenaline and the fact he knows the buildings.  

I see why this one gets brought up, which it does, because it's well-directed, edited and shot, and the story is lean and clean.  It's maybe not my favorite, but it gets the job done.

*and cautionary tale

Musical Watch: Ziegfeld Girl (1941)

Watched:  04/01/2025

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Directors:  Robert Z. Leonard, Busby Berkeley

Increasingly lost to time is the impact Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. had on American culture of the 20th century.  A showman, theatrical empresario, producer, promoter and more, Ziegfeld is most famous for his Ziegfeld Follies, a series of extravagant Broadway shows that ran from around 1907 to his death in the 1930's.  Much of what we thought of as a stage full of beautiful young women that flooded musicals in the 1930's and 1940's and gave Busby Berkeley (credited here) a career was Hollywood tinkering with the shows Ziegfeld had staged, based on French revues.   He managed to employ folks like Irving Berlin, WC Fields, Will Rogers and many, many more.

Had Ziegfeld not passed when he did, it's likely he would have expanded into Hollywood in a more serious manner (he was already there and died in Hollywood in 1932), bringing his sensibilities to the big screen.

He was credited with creating "The Glorification of the American Girl", both featuring and populating shows with large choruses of female performers.  But he featured acts of all kinds, and shows to this day are based within the Ziegfeld Follies (see the currently running Funny Girl).  He was also not afraid to push into the risque, and folks knew what they were getting.  You can find all sorts of interesting photos online looking for Ziegfeld girls.

In what is a star-studded flick - the movie follows three girls/ women who enter into the Follies.  Like the Schwab's Pharmacy story, Ziegfeld - never seen in this movie!  And treated a bit like that Wizard Judy Garland had previously tangled with - would pluck girls out of their mundane lives by finding them behind perfume counters, working in elevators, etc...   A bit of instant wish-fulfillment if you caught the right guy's eye (which is kind of a nightmare, but in an era in which women's career options were limited, and many Ziegfeld girls married well, it's not nothing).

Lynch Watch: Inland Empire (2006)

Watched:  03/31/2025 

Format:  Alamo

Viewing:  First

Director:  David Lynch

Something like 6 weeks ago, I agreed to see Inland Empire (2006) with SimonUK.  

Here's what I knew:

• It stars Laura Dern (a huge plus)
• It was a micro-budget film 
• Rabbits?
• Shot on video

Here's what I found out:

• It's 3 hours
• It's maybe a sequel to Mulholland Drive
• Rabbits!
• A greater number of name talent than I was expecting

I will be straight up with y'all and say:  I think I got between 25 and 33 percent of that movie.

I'm not embarrassed.  I think I'm pretty okay at watching movies.  Unpuzzling David Lynch is both fun and hopeless, because he was never going to tell you if you got it, really.  And looking at the critical reception on Wikipedia is just funny.  Everyone has a different opinion of what they just watched - not whether they liked it, but what happened.  

I am aware Inland Empire is a real place outside of Los Angeles, and aside from that, I don't know anything about it.*  Don't know if this has anything to do with the movie other than maybe some stuff was shot there.  And I assume there's something there about interior worlds/ lives.  But WHO KNOWS?  Not me.

It seems to be a spiritual sequel to Mulholland Drive, a film of doubles and other selves, and nightmare visions only Hollywood and dreams spawned by Tinsel Town can create.   In 2006 showing someone dying at the intersection of Hollywood and Vine and all the folks assembled at the corner do is watch is not not saying something specific (spoilers).

The overall plot has to do with a dream within a dream within a dream stack of realities in which an actress who has had issues with her career and husband gets a plumb role, but the story itself is cursed, and we cut between the reality of the actress, the film, events in the past, a Lodge-like zone with Rabbit spirits...

But, yeah, all I knew was Laura Dern was in this, but she's also a producer.  And you can also look for Jeremy Irons, Ian Ambercrombie, Justin Theroux, Harry Dean Stanton, Grace Zabriskie, Diane Ladd, Julia Ormond, Terry Crews, Mary Steenburgen? and a huge number of Polish actors I do not know.  Why Poland?  Man, I do not know.

There's a Polish curse!  That happens.

But Laura Harring shows up in literally the last minute of the film, and that's my tell that maybe this is a shared story with Mulholland Drive or a more direct sequel continuing to work out Lynch's feelings on Hollywood.

But, yeah, all of this was a lot.  I'm not sure I got it, but I also wasn't having a bad time.  I've been watching Lynch on and off since I was 15, so I'm kind of dialed in for his deal.  But I also know had I not seen this in the theater, it would have paid big dividends to watch this over again *immediately*.  Which at a full 6 hours would be a lot.

Yes, I did watch this in a theater, just a day after my bad theater experience.  And, y'all...  yes, I paid a lot because Alamo**.  But I also sat in a 3 hour movie with a 4/5ths full auditorium, audio that is often non-existent, and you could hear a pin drop through the whole movie.  And this was with people eating dinner at a 6:00 show.

And the bathroom was clean.  

It's the little things, pals.  That said, I think they're now asking for 40% over the price of food and drink.

*how shocked was I to see there is a real City of Industry in LA, and a Klickitat Street in Portland.

**I am still unclear why there's an 18% service charge and a tip option.  My guess is that the servers are getting @#$%ed.

Neo-Noir Watch: Collateral (2004)

Watched:  03/30/2025

Format:  Criterion

Viewing:  First

Director:  Michael Mann

There's half of an amazing character driven neo-noir in this film, and then half of an okay thriller.

I think it's the schizm of the two that makes for a frustrating viewing experience where one would be a delight and the other a pleasant enough film, but when the film shifts gears back and forth - and I usually don't mind tonal changes - it just feels like there's missed opportunity on that character study and the better film.  Collateral (2004) does get to sail on Michael Mann's slick directing and visuals (look, you can hire whatever DP, but it's Mann), and stellar performances from Jamie Foxx and Tom Cruise and a kick-ass set-up that feels rooted in some classic noir.

The movie also co-stars a wide array of names.  Jason Statham appears for about twenty seconds.  Debi Mazar as well (in our book, there's never enough Mazar).  Jada Pinkett-Smith appears.  Mark Ruffalo plays an LA cop uncovering what's going on in real time.  Javier Bardem.  Bruce McGill.  Peter Berg.  

Our set up is that Jamie Fox plays Max, a cabbie, who picks up a fare, who seems like a charming guy but is actually an assassin, Vincent (Tom Cruise) flown in from points unknown to take out a series of people.  Max just wants to squirrel away money for his dream of starting a limo company.

At the first hit, Fox is waiting in his cab for Vincent when he's suddenly involved in the proceedings.  Under threat by Vincent, he begins driving him from hit-to-hit.  And that could have been enough.  The relationship building between the two could have made for a taught thriller driven by the desires and motives of each - and the movie plays with that as they reveal more about themselves and get real about the weaknesses of the other.  

But movies have to movie, and so the back 1/3rd of the movie devolves into an action flick that really doesn't make much sense from Max's perspective and undercuts what could have been explosive character work.  There's a different last third of this movie somewhere that doesn't involve an extended chase sequence and Max becoming an action hero.

Cruise and Fox are both really great when they want to be (and both have phoned it in upon occasion).  And there are really good moments for both - I disagree with the take that Cruise is wooden here - that's just not true at all.  There's a fascinating character for both players, and once the movie isn't about the two talking it through, it loses steam even as the actual action ratchets up.

I'm not sure I entirely bought the scene with Felix (Bardem) and Max, but I like the idea well enough, and both sell it.  

But what I did like was the notion that Vincent really thinks he's helping Max, even if there's an 80% chance he's going to put a bullet in him by the end of the night.  His nihilistic viewpoint which enables him to do what he does has "freed" him, while Vincent believes he'll make his next move, but he won't.  It's some really good stuff as they bounce off each other.  And you can tell Cruise is leaning all the way into Vincent - and the possibility of opening up a little to Max, but if he does, does that mean Max is done for?  

It's good stuff.

I get why the movie gets the praise - because it's almost there for me.  But it all feels like an overly complex mousetrap at the end to get us to loop back to Vincent's anecdote, and that could have been done in two or three much cleaner steps.

Anyhoo - I actually liked it.  Or large parts of it.  And I am not one to complain about Michael Mann, but it does feel like I went from thinking "this movie is incredible" to "yeah, that was good" by the end.

Western Watch: True Grit (1969)

Watched:  03/29/2025

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Director:  Henry Hathaway

I saw the Coen Bros.' remake in 2010, but I'd go ahead and recommend both.  This movie is *great*.  

True Grit (1969) is the one where, after Stagecoach happened way back in 1939, the Academy finally decided to give Wayne some flowers for carrying an industry for 30 years.  But he also earns it - this is Wayne in top form even as the era of the Western had already been transformed, and had become as much about the illusion of the Old West as anything else - and  Westerns as a major genre were winding to a close.  Wayne himself would be dead by the end of 1979.

You likely know the story - an Arkansas farmer/ rancher is killed while away from home, trading for horses in Fort Smith.  The murderer is his own employee.  His precocious and pious daughter, Mattie Ross, comes to town and recruits US Marshall Rooster Cogburn to come hunt down the man responsible.  Cogburn has a notoriously high kill count, a drinking problem and nothing going for him other than his ability to hunt down crooks.

A Texas Ranger (Glen Campbell!) is also looking for the guy they're hunting and lures Rooster away with a greater bounty.  Until the indefatigable Mattie Ross refuses to be left behind.

This movie has plot, certainly, but is really a character piece about two wildly different people with a common goal, and their growing sense of respect for one another.  The dialogue of the novel is deeply stylized, and this movie makes it largely palatable, even when it sounds a bit odd.  It's one of those movies where both leads are individually difficult, stubborn humans - Mattie as a young woman of unhinged principle with a naive-to-a-fault worldview, but still smart enough to be wily, and Cogburn an old survivor who has gone largely unloved and misunderstood - and makes you kind of love them both.

Mattie's refusal to shed tears and desire, rather, to see justice done - justice that serves her own rage - is fantastic.  Just as Cogburn's shift in his attitude to Mattie kind of perfect (I am unshocked John Wayne saw how he could mingle this idea with Red River and make The Cowboys in 1972).

I don't know how many movies Kim Darby is in, but it's surprising she wasn't a bigger deal in Hollywood after this.  She's really terrific.

Anyway, I dug it.  Sorry I took so long to see it.

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).  

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.  

80's Watch: Arthur (1981)

Watched:  03/20/2025

Format:  DVD

Viewing:  First

Director:  Steve Gordon

Both Jamie and I were convinced we'd already seen Arthur (1981), but both of us realized at some point, maybe a 1/3rd of the way through the movie, that we must have started the movie and never finished it.  This doesn't happen very often, but it does happen.  SimonUK had popped around, promising not to bring a horror film, and this was his selection.

Anyway, Arthur was sort of a big deal when I was very young, but because it was about a raging alcoholic, I missed it.  Not that I think I would have understood it as a child.  Now, in 1981, that didn't stop The Chipmunks from including Arthur's Theme on The Chipmunks Go Hollywood.

And in this way, as a child, I knew all the words to Arthur's Theme.

In some ways, it's very much a classic comedy - something that would have been made during the Depression as a screwball comedy.  It's rich wackiness against rich stiffs and a working-class girl who meets a guy who so wealthy he can make all of her dreams come true.  

It also would make an interesting modern remake of sorts, as the signs of Arthur's stalled maturity materialize in a fantasy setting of random collectibles, train sets, etc... and it's not too hard to imagine that in 2025 terms, along with maybe a guy who won't lay off the weed.

Moore's performance is at an 11 at the start, which is a lot.   He's intentionally unlikable in his way, and it's not until Hobson enters as Arthur's butler/ father-figure that we see Arthur less through the eyes of people who are just temporarily dealing with him and instead with someone who cares about him.  What blew my mind was the timing of Hobson in pop culture (not quite a Wooster and Jeeves, but close), and the complete re-imagining of Alfred in the Batman comics that would occur with Frank Miller a few years later.  And, yeah, I can name another poor-little-rich-boy who also may be frozen in adolescence who sees his butler as his father...

I'm not sure John Gielgud as Hobson saves the movie, because it doesn't need that, but he absolutely wins the movie.  I think the scene with Moore and Susan's father under the moose head is one of the best comedy bits I've seen in a while.  And Liza is at her best - she's great in this as the waitress who dreams of being an actor.  She's really funny, as is Barney Martin as her father.  Or Ted Ross as Bitterman, the chauffeur.  

Anyway, I agree with Simon that the script is actually really solid, and I'll add it accomplishes the difficult task of making a lout loveable and believable when he does show he can do something when he cares.

I think the last time we got a comedy like this - that wasn't a very self-aware remake - may have been Billy Madison, which is just mind boggling.

Chabert Watch! The Wedding Veil Journey (2023)

the sixth of six of these.  I deserve a cookie for finishing.

Watched:  03/18/2025

Format:  Hallmark

Viewing:  First

Director:  Ron Oliver

heads-up:  If you're here for 100% Chabert content, I am going to alert you now, Lacey Chabert is a supporting character/ Executive Producer on this movie, and not the star.  But watching the Chabert filmography will mean sometimes she is not the lead.  I know.  I can't believe it either.

Job:  Art and Rarities Auction House Exec

new skill:  empathy for other humans

Man: Victor Webster

Job of Man:  Restaurateur and Chef

Goes to/ Returns to:  Goes to Greece

Event:  None, really

Food:  Greek cuisine

First, I finally figured out where I knew Alison Sweeney from - she was on Days of Our Lives when that was the go-to soap opera to watch in the 1990's thanks to Sweeney's character, Sami (who was batshit) and Deidre Hall's Marlena was possessed by a demon.  Weird, wild stuff.

On to the show:

With our couple established in the third Wedding Veil installment, we get the direct sequel here in the 6th and (mercifully) final installment, entitled The Wedding Veil Journey (2023).  

In this movie Alison Sweeney and Man are realizing their schedules as an art auctioneer and restaurateur are incompatible, and they never see each other.  In fact, they never managed a honeymoon in what we're told is three years later, meaning the movies are actually supposed to span something like 6+ years.  

Sweeney and Man head off for Greece, but their plan is bad.  They will stay only one night in a hotel and then wing it from there.  Because of flight delays, they wind up arriving late, have nowhere to stay, and wind up in a struggling but lovely resort that seems honestly super nice.  And clearly the production had the run of the place, likely due to COVID.

Pirate Watch: The Spanish Main (1945)

Watched:  03/18/2025

Format:  TCM on the ol' DVR

Viewing:  First

Director:  Frank Borzage

I like a good pirate picture.  It's always going to end in flashing swords, some jerk getting his comeuppance, and a good chance there's Maureen O'Hara in amazing gowns.  And this movie is that.

Apparently it's the passion project of Paul Henreid, the movie's star, who plays a Dutch sea captain who crashes in the Spanish West Indies.  The Governor of the territory (a villainous Walter Selzak) condemns him to death, but he and his pals escape.  Years later, Henreid has taken on the pirate-y name of The Barracuda and takes the ship carrying Maureen O'Hara - Spanish nobility sent to the Governor to be married.  

To spare the lives of a second ship, O'Hara offers herself up to Henreid as his bride.  The two marry, but it's a farce, intended to drive the Governor insane on Henreid's part.  Of course, they're two good looking people, and figure out they actually like this idea.  However, the Pirate Brotherhood/ Grand Council/ Whatever decides that she's too much of a risk, and they kidnap her and deliver her to the Governor.  By-the-by, one of the pirates is Anne Bonny, played here by Binnie Barnes, who its suggested, has been Henreid's lady-friend.

Anyway, piratey shenanigans commence and O'Hara brings a musket to a sabre fight, and its awesome.

We've kind of lost sight of the rollicking adventure in modern action movies.  This is certainly that.  Henreid is having a blast not playing the debonair gentleman lover, and O'Hara is why they paid O'Hara piles of money to be in movies.  

Yes, there's a scene casually thrown in where Henreid half-seriously threatens O'Hara with a deeply problematic fate worse than death, and that's a big mark against the movie.  Not very heroic, Paul.

But overall, it's a good, pirates as anti-fascists sort of romp.  And makes you, as always, very glad you weren't on a boat during this particular era in history, because, man.  As much fun as a pirate bar seems, everything else seems designed to kill you.

Ms. O'Hara's would really like to speak with the manager

 

Disney Watch: Atlantis - The Lost Empire (2001)

Watched:  03/16/2025

Format:  Disney+

Viewing:  First

Directors:  Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise

I vaguely remember this one coming out, but didn't see it.  No recollection of why.

I did get the feeling that this movie was not great, and over time it hasn't really had any kind of reconsideration.  Yeah, there's folks online who loved it as kids, and maintain that love now.  And, bully for them.

There's a lot going on in this movie.  It's also trying to fill a gap I was aware of from my days working at the Disney Store in summers from 1993-1995 - that Disney didn't know how to reach the audience they'd associated with young boys, something we struggled with as we were often asked to make recommendations to folks coming into the store shopping for boy's stuff for kids over, say, seven.  So why not make some movies that could spawn merch and serve those kids as much as the kids who wanted Princess dresses?

Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) wasn't completely panned when it came out, but it didn't exactly set the world on fire - right now it's sitting at a 52 on Metacritic.  For comparison, Lilo & Stitch was a 74.  Beauty and the Beast from 1991 was a 95 and got a Best Picture nomination.  

Animation Watch: The Wild Robot (2024)

Watched:  03/15/2025

Format:  Peacock

Viewing:  First

Director:  Chris Sanders

Well, this is kind of funny.  I wondered what had become of the writer/ director of Disney's Lilo & Stitch after watching the movie the other night, and here is as writer/ director of The Wild Robot (2024).  

The biggest problem The Wild Robot has is that it came up against Flow in the same year in the Oscar race, and the two, curiously, share similar themes using animals as their analogy.  But, luckily, I am not an award-granting body, and have place in my brain for both movies.  And I liked this movie quite a lot.

Yes, The Wild Robot is worth seeing, if for no other reason than that the design of film is a wonder.  It's some of the finest work I've seen from a US animation studio outside of Pixar or Disney, mixing realism with painterly flourishes, with classical film-making featuring inventive use of camera movement in a way that I just rarely feel anyone outside of Pixar, in particular, really lands (I'm still not over some of the imagery in Soul).    

And, it's all in service to the story.  

Chabert Watch: The Wedding Veil Inspiration (2023)

okay, I guess the hat is fine.

Watched:  03/14/2025

Format:  Hallmark 

Viewing:  First

Director:  Terry Ingram

heads-up:  If you're here for 100% Chabert content, I am going to alert you now, Lacey Chabert is a supporting character/ Executive Producer on this movie, and not the star.  But watching the Chabert filmography will mean sometimes she is not the lead.  I know.  I can't believe it either.

Job:  Art professor

new skill:  Social media phenom

Man: Paolo Bernardini

Job of Man: Lace mogul

Goes to/ Returns to:  Stays in Chicago

Event:  Lace store opening

Food:  we're back on Mac n' Cheese

The Wedding Veil Inspiration (2023) is part 5 (of 6) of The Wedding Veil series, and direct sequel to The Wedding Veil Unveiled.  The longer this veil nonsense goes on, the more they've piled in continuity, but like the driest of fan-fiction, it's all just rehashing the original concept while shoving our leads through some standard life-experience.  And, of course, now suggesting that the veil is not just for romance but ensuring its victims procreate.  

It *does* have a pretty good bit of insight at the end that just about had me flabbergasted for a Hallmark movie.  But it also brings in Man #2 and Not-Sarah Sherman as secondary romance victims of the veil, suggesting that its not just women who will be forced into romance by possessing the veil.

Italian Handsome Man Paolo is opening his lace store in Chicago (I think the suggestion is its on the Magnificent Mile) and Autumn Reeser is teaching Art History for Non-Art Majors.  She's also in line to become Department Chair of the Art History Department.  Like all movies, no one involved has bothered to speak to anyone in Academia to ask "hey, how does one become Department Chair?", which is something one could find out.  And if the usual processes are in place here, it is not at all obvious as Reeser is being mentored by a faculty near retirement age.  I won't keep complaining that's not how this works, because sometimes it is.

Disney Watch: Lilo & Stitch (2002)

Watched:  03/13/2025

Format:  Disney+

Viewing;  First

Directors:  Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders

No, I'd never seen Lilo & Stitch (2002).  It came out about three weeks after I moved to Phoenix back in 2002, and I guess we didn't get around to it at the time, or in the ensuing 23 years.

The movie is kind of the last gasp of Disney's 2D efforts as the annual summer release schedule was apparently taxing the creative teams and leading to less and less enthusiasm for each year's release.  And looking at the Disney Animation Studios output of 2D movies in the 00's, you can see this is the second-to-last film of the 2D movies anyone really talks about - the final being The Princess and the Frog.  

Spoiler - I liked this movie a lot!  The animation is fun and really well executed, but the story about being a terror goblin who doesn't even know what a family is and then learns that he wants one?  I found it shockingly effective and moving.  

When you want to know what sticks with people, its never the 3D or some animation sequence, it's how they felt, and I'll remember this one for a while.  That said - *how* they get you to feel any specific way is tied to those technical achievements, direction, art and story writing, and it's surprising to see a movie about a less-than-perfect family unit containing a kid who is acting out in the wake of the loss of her parents and her older, barely-an-adult sister, who is trying to keep it together.  Add in an alien-prison-escapee-genetically-created-space-WMD and it's a ride.  

But, yeah, Disney is at its best when it taps into those core universal emotions, that kids and adults can tap into, but when they come in at an oblique angle.  Do I spend time thinking I do not know who I am and if I have a family?  No.  But all of us can sympathize if not empathize with not feeling like we know how to fit in like Lilo, or that no one told us the basics, like Stitch - and reach for a place to belong.  

Voice talent on this thing is interesting, with Tia Carrere, David Ogden Stiers, KITH alumnus Kevin McDonald, Ving Rhames, Zoe Caldwell and a young Daveigh Chase as Lilo.  

The character animation is top flight, much as Princess and the Frog will make you a little sad that so much of what 2D did so well was really hitting on all cylinders just as Disney pivoted to 3D.   From both the first space sequences and the introduction to our out-of-the-way Hawaiian town, you can tell Disney's animators were leaning in hard.  There's a lot of motion-capture that makes the action fluid but still fun in a way I think we're kind of forgetting, as well as layered work that's just fantastic.

And the story is kind of daring in having both a little kid who maybe isn't a precious angel and her far worse alien pal - and you genuinely can buy that they help each other be better.  That's some solid writing.  We're a pretty far cry from Belle being an oddball for being nice and reading books as Lilo smacks around her classmate.  And, yet, I pull for Lilo - and holy cow, does it land as I look at my own niece and nephew puzzling through their younger years.

Anyhoo, I finally caught up on this one, and will certainly watch the live action remake.  It looks really fun.

Chabert Watch! The Wedding Veil Expectations (2023)

Watched:  03/13/2025

Format:  Hallmark

Viewing:   First

Director:  Peter Benson

Job:  Curator at an Art Museum

new skill:  interior decorating

Man: Kevin McGarry

Job of Man: art teacher

Goes to/ Returns to:  Stays in Boston

Event:  Museum gala

Food:  Pineapple pizza (her pregnancy craving)

If one concept needed absolutely no sequels, it was The Wedding Veil, but here we are.  

Because we're doing all of this for science, I looked up the book that these movies are all supposedly based on, and it has nothing to do with anything in the movie.  I have no idea why they keep crediting the author.  The only thing the movies have in common with the book is that there's a wedding veil.  The plot and characters seem totally different.

The author is a Texas romance writer, and seems to pen hot and heavy romances about cowboys that take place here in the Lone Star State.  At some point, she renamed the book to make it more Texas themed.  Anyway, the series is well reviewed by romance fans, so get on that, if that's your jam. 

Back to our film!  

It's an indeterminate amount of time since we last checked in with Chabert and Man.  And as we have already been told in the first installment, and mentioned in two other films - they're happily -ever-aftering.   So, as we enter this film, we must put together a movie that both has some sort of conflict and doesn't disrupt the Hallmark promise of life being great after marriage.  Thus, we have a film with multiple plot threads and issues that rise up, and then fizzle away like water on a hot plate.