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.

I Just Walked Out of a Movie (because going to the theater sucks)

I'd love to also sit by myself in a theater with functioning chairs

Dear Nicole Kidman,

I love movies.  I do.  But... in the past couple of years, I've really grown to hate going to the movies. 

Here in 2025, there are no theaters that are all upside.  The Alamo is... fine.  A shadow of its heyday from a decade ago, and is currently a nightmare for labor.  How much I want to overpay for mediocre food is also part of the equation.  I've been relatively enthusiastic about the new chain, Cinepolis, but last time I saw a movie there, I realized we'd dropped > $100, and I just got mad.  I used to be able to do a full trip to the movies for $10.  Yes, inflation, but...

Nicole, I just tried to go see a movie at the theater run by your employer, AMC, by attending a screening at the Barton Creek 14.  I wound up walking out five minutes into the movie.

Things seemed afoul from when the moment we stepped in the lobby.  

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.

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).  

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.

Fantasy Watch: Dragonslayer (1981)

the rare fantasy movie that earns the art on the poster

Watched:  03/21/2025

Format:  YouTube

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Matthew Robbins

In an era before CGI, a lot of love, skill and money had to go into making FX movies, and it was often the difference between a Star Wars and a Starcrash.*  Dragonslayer (1981) was a VHS staple in our house back in the earliest days of home video when my folks thought *owning* a VCR was a crazy idea so we rented a VCR at the same time we rented a stack of movies from the grocery (shit was wild, kids).  

My opinion of the movie hasn't budged much since I watched it as a kid.  It's a gorgeous film with a miscast lead and spends too much time on being goofy at the beginning for the movie it wants to be at the end without enough connective tissue to make it all work.  Maybe because of The Once and Future King casting Arthur as a nerd, maybe because this movie has serious "Sorcerer's Apprentice" vibes, we're stuck with basically a nerd as our lead, which feels like it's a particular part of fantasy fiction.  Think of the near miss we likely had with Luke and Star Wars with writing, casting and editing (yes, we can always make any post a Mark Hamill appreciation post).  

I like the bones of the movie *a lot* - the lottery, the corrupt government, even a novice wizard trying to solve the dragon problem.  And, of course, the obviously female Valerian turning out to be a girl.  All good stuff.  I'd forgotten there's a whole bit about the church and the dipshit of a king sliding in and taking credit for the dragon's defeat.  That's some fascinatingly cutting social satire for a mainstream fantasy film.

But we're here for the dragon puppets, both Henson-y and stop-motion, and man, they still look amazing.  No kidding, because this was ILM in 1981 as all engines were really firing after Empire Strikes Back.  

Anyway, I like the film well enough, still.  I feel like they could have cut some business at the beginning, but I get why they did this for a more general audience and because fantasy fiction has a tendency to want to dick around before we get to the dark part.

I am sure the fact this was not CGI, even if it was computer-assisted will blow the minds of the youths, but I think it's a great example of state-of-the-art practical FX as I remember them as a kid.  And maybe why Star Wars, Dark Crystal and other contemporaries seemed so special.  This movie looks like a million bucks, and once you're in it, I think it's not half-bad.

I did read that Caitlin Clarke, who plays Valerian, passed back in 2004.  Y'all raise a glass to her.

*that said, I will defend Starcrash with my dying breath 

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

 

Hackman Watch: Hoosiers (1986)

Watched:  03/17/2025

Format:  Prime

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  David Anspaugh

So, this movie was a staple for us middle-school basketball boys in the 1980's.  I watched it a lot during a certain period in my life, but I don't think I've seen it since those magical days of knowing "I am not very good at this, but I am tall".  We are now, of course, further from the release of the film than the movie was from the period in which it occurs.  Because I am old.  And tired.

I'll say it:  Hoosiers (1986) is an odd movie.  It stars three actors who were big at the time - Gene Hackman, Barbara Hershey and Dennis Hopper - but almost everyone else is local Indiana talent.  It's also a basketball movie that focuses on the coach and gives backstory to 1.5 players out of 8.  I couldn't tell you the names of half the players.  One of our main players, the star, has maybe three lines. It also has the burden of having some unspoken issues with race that just sail on by, and were uncomfortable when I saw it as a kid in 1986.

Hackman is, of course, perfect.  As a basketball coach dealing with a past where he had a moment of absolute failure - take heed fans of Bobby McKnight - he's getting a second chance to do what he loves.  It just happens to be out here in the middle of nowhere with half the players he needs and placed in a small town that thinks coaching is a democracy.  

Musical Watch: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

Watched:  03/14/2025

Format:  BluRay

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Howard Hawks

It had been a minute since I'd watched Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), one of those movies they used to play more often on TCM and where I'd just stop and usually watch it from wherever I came in.  It's still a favorite.  

No doubt the movie's gender politics play badly for The Youth, but in context, this is a movie about two women on either side of the coin - asking whether one pursues money or not when it comes to matrimony and romance.  And, in 1953, we are very much still in an era where a marriage is going to make or break the vast majority of women.  We're only a handful of decades from women being able to vote, and they still can't have their own credit cards.  

The gag, of course, is do you play the men?  And, if so, how?  

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.

Western Watch: The Rare Breed (1966)

Watched:  03/08/2025

Format:  TCM

Viewing;  First

Director:  Andrew V. McClagen

A western-comedy-adventure movie fantasy about something weirdly specific - The Rare Breed (1966) is about the introduction of the Hereford steer to Texas.  Is this how it happened?  Most assuredly not. Do I care?  I do not.  

Because what the movie is about is really about dreams - who has them, how they can die or be put on ice, how we can find new ones, and how good does Maureen O'Hara look in green?*

Maureen O'Hara plays a British woman who was widowed en route to America, bringing a prize Hereford steer she plans to breed.  She and her husband planned to prove this type of steer could thrive in the US, and crossbreed well with local steer - but as he died she's now left to do it on her own.  So, O'Hara and her young-adult daughter, played by Juliet Mills (sister of Hayley), do what you did in the 19th century if you'd wound up here - they persevere.  

80's Panic Watch: Mazes and Monsters (1982)

Watched:  03/07/2025

Format:  Peacock

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Steven Hillard Stern

For any younger readers hitting this site, you may be vaguely aware of the Satanic Panic of the 1970's-1990's.  But it was real and really annoying.  I was a kid living on the edge of the Bible Belt in the 1980's, but I think the wide-eyed and whispered warnings one would get about the dangers of playing the fairly recent phenomenon of Dungeons & Dragons were everywhere.  And I don't know how much of the made-for-TV movie, Mazes and Monsters (1982), was inspired by the urban legends and actual events, and how much someone named Barb relating the plot of this movie to their friend, Donna, inspired some of those urban legends.*

I know I run on about context in which movies appeared, but I think with this one, if you don't know the context of how D&D freaked people out in the 1980's, you may believe this is just a movie, and not an important cultural conversation, and therefore loses the punch of being a part of a national conversation drummed up by folks who need a strawman to combat.  In the 1970's a real kid had gone missing, and it was believed he'd freaked out from playing D&D and was lost in steam tunnels somewhere - not that he was suffering from mental illness and had left the state (which is what really happened).

Keep in mind, in the 1950's it was proposed - and believed for decades -that comics would make us all juvenile delinquents.  We do not always respond to things outside our experience in the best way.

The 1980's were a different time, where doing geek-things and admitting to it in public was a dicey proposition.  People were not as open about hobbies like D&D, consuming Star Trek, and comic book reading, as those things did carry a very real social stigma.  Plus, no one knew what you were talking about if you did bring it up.  SNL or other cultural touchstones usually mocked nerds (when that was a mean label) and that constructed their impressions of geek hobbies and those that pursued them.  Rather than fight those impressions, most folks just knew not to bring that stuff up in mixed company. It was very different from the "heavy metal music will make your kids evil/ kill themselves" that the metal-heads kind of embraced.**

The "comics are for geeks" stuff disappeared 25+ years ago, so it's hard to remember when Tony Stark has become a household name. Honestly, I'm still shocked that younger co-workers talk about their weekend D&D games in casual conversation, and maybe a little mad that they can.  Doing so in my youth would have led to lectures about how I was going to go crazy.

Chabert Watch! The Wedding Veil Legacy (2022)

Reeser really went all-in on the hat

Watched:  03/05/2025

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 and Rarities Auction House Exec

new skill:  cooking Italian food

Man: Victor Webster

Job of Man:  Restaurateur and Chef

Goes to/ Returns to:  Stays in NYC

Event:  Auction House gala

Food:  a bunch of Italian food, esp. cannoli, and sloppy joes?

I don't think I understood The Wedding Veil Legacy (2022).  I mean, I got what happened in it, but I didn't get it.  But I do hope these movies are increasingly titled like Jason Bourne movies.

Our skeptic (Alison Sweeney) of the veil's awesome powers goes through a long-projected, but fairly painless breakup with her boyfriend of a few years.  He's a classical trumpet player and has a chance to play for the LA Symphony, so with him leaving NYC, they hang it up.

In the two prior movies, we got the foreshadowing that maybe this was a relationship of convenience, and, indeed, it seems that way as the two don't even try to do long-distance and see if they'll miss each other - they just break up when he takes the job.  She is a native New Yorker, and can't imagine living elsewhere (fair) and is also working her dream job at an art auction house (also, you go girl.  Live your auction life).  So, yeah, she's kinda set.  Sweeney sheds no tears, just settles into a malaise.

Of course, Sweeney is now in possession of the reality-bending wedding veil which insists that people hook-up, and no sooner has she taken it to the tailor to get a snag fixed than she meets Man, who is there getting fitted for a tux.