I don't know that I've ever seen a movie make me decide, while watching an uplifting story that's part of the well-worn self-mythologizing of America, that the hero is 100% wrong. But that's where I landed with Squanto: a Warrior's Tale (1994).
And maybe that's what director Xavier Koller truly felt we should think. He's Swiss, not American, and based on the script Disney gave him, it really isn't a compelling argument that Squanto was right that what his fellow locals needed to do was put down their weapons.
Before we get rolling, I have not thought about the narrative of Squanto since I was probably eight years old and we had a children's book about his life, which I can safely say: I do not remember anything from that book, just that Squanto helped keep the Native Americans and the Pilgrims from murdering each other which led to the first Thanksgiving. I also vaguely remembered he was not part of any tribe.
As the movie starts, Squanto is having a good week. He just married Irene Bedard, which is a check in the win column. But no sooner do they go for a lovers' leisurely stroll than he sees an early 17th Century British ship pulling up to his beach. He's promptly kidnapped by the Brits who take him back to England, along with a warrior from the neighboring tribe.
Living in Texas in the early 90's, if you had your head up at all, you heard about Selena. While I didn't listen to Tejano or Cumbia, she'd become so big that a dumb Anglo kid like myself heard Bidi Bidi Bom Bom somewhere along the way, and I admit that I probably paid more attention to Selena because she was very pretty with a Colgate smile.
I could tell you pretty much exactly when I figured out who Selena was from the cover of her album Entre A Mi Mundo. The cover art was everywhere.
Candidly, in the 1990's and now, the names of most Tejano acts were just not known by Anglos and English speakers. But Selena was rapidly breaking down that particular divide through sheer force of scale - she was selling out the Astrodome, something reserved for the biggest acts on the planet - and wildly popular local acts like ZZ Top.
As a Texan whose first language was English, it seemed like Selena was about to cross-over to a larger audience the second she put out a record in English (see: Shakira).
But then, in 1995, at the age of 23, Selena was killed.
As popular as she was at the time of her death, it's very hard to quantify the scope and duration of the public mourning that spilled out.
If you ever wanted to crush the human soul with a pair of slick mid-century movies, you could do worse than to schedule this movie alongside The Sweet Smell of Success.
The movie probably seems a little over the top in some ways, but holy christ, you kind of know it's more accurate about our relationship with the media and how the media keeps us invested than any of us really want to admit.
Kirk Douglas plays a talented journalist who has been run out of every decent newspaper on the East Coast. He rolls into town in Albuquerque in a broken down car and takes a job at a small paper that insists he publish only the truth.
A year later, he's sent to go cover a rattlesnake roundup but en route stumbles across an accident. At a roadside shop and restaurant they find that across the way the owner of the place has gone into an old cave where he often finds Native American artifacts, and the place had collapsed on him. Douglas smells a story, and calls it in. It's the first time he's really been able to cut loose with some real sensationalism, and the story gets picked up by the wire.
Udo Kier, an actor who has been in a ridiculous number of movies, has passed.
Kier was in some of Andy Warhol's films, Suspiria, and a handful of Lars Van Trier movies. But also appeared in comedies like Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, TV classics like V.I.P. and no shortage of German films.
If that date and location seem a bit ominous, Pitt was also Jewish and spent time in a concentration camp. She and her mother escaped.
Pitt became an actress in Europe and tried her hand in America. Her largest success was in England, especially in horror films. In the US, she's a cult horror figure, famous for appearances in The Wicker Man, The Vampire Lovers (one of my favorite films), Countess Dracula, The House That Dripped Blood and others. She also appears in British action movies, including the dynamite film Where Eagles Dare (recommended).
She also penned a few books, including an autobiography and a series of horror-related books.
Her filmography is not particularly deep, and she was never a Bond girl, so her exposure in the states in minimal. I, personally, think she's great. In the sea of Hammer's extraordinary talent, in my opinion, she's one of the absolute best to do it.
Editor's note: I was unable to find this movie during ChabertQuest2025, but saw it was now available on "UP Faith and Family", and so got a 7 day free trial.
So, new to me and not a Hallmark movie, exactly. This movie is about a Santa who will stop at literally nothing to make sure Lacey Chabert and her boyfriend break up so that he may force her into a relationship with someone else. Kris Kringle will bend the very laws of nature, create life, destroy roads...
This Santa is mad with power.
Anyway, for a long time, and maybe still, a lot of the movies on Hallmark were technically independent movies. I am unclear how it works now, but basically Hallmark would help fund movies in exchange for North American distribution. But after X amount of time, these movies were back in the hands of the producers. And so it was I now am enjoying a 7-day trial of the UP Faith and Family Network.
Part of how Hallmark had so many movies in the years where it seemed like a factory cranking out way too many movies, this was the trick. Hallmark was essentially licensing very cheap indie movies, and part of them funding those movies was that Hallmark was given script approval for kicking in some percent of the film's budget.
And, thus, the sameness of Hallmark. They managed to pull off low-risk/ high-reward for years and people learned to write for them.
Thus, Matchmaker Santa (2012) is also, technically, Chabert's first Hallmark Christmas movie. So, bit of trivia for you.
But you want to know about Santa and his unstoppable interest in getting people to hook up.
This is a movie about a naive American doctor and her family who inherit a Scottish castle. However, the diabolical groundskeeper seduces and bamboozles the doctor into falling for him so that he may claim ownership of the lands he's worked since he was a child. That same labor presumably led to his father's early demise, and this is his revenge.
With dead eyed smiles, he earns the trust of the stressed out family, offering to take care of everything and let them live off the fat of their inheritance.
Unfortunately the movie ends just after he's successfully bedded the heiress doctor but before we can put his nefarious schemes into motion, so we never see that part.
Goes to/ Returns to: stays in same place (this is the 2nd installment)
Event: Several ongoing Christmas festivities
Food: Cookies
Editor's Note: So, y'all. Despite my stated goals and belief I'd done a phenomenal job documenting ChabertQuest 2025 (pats self on back), I messed this one up. Yes, I'd seen this movie, but had I written it up? I had not. Thought I had, but that was a lie I told myself, and discovered my error in July. I felt terrible as we agreed the the deal was I would watch and review all of the movies I could find starring one Lacey Chabert and you'd be like "why are you doing this?"
So, here we are, rewatching this one. And writing up this movie. For you, the people.
There were really only so many directions one could go with the premise of Haul Out The Holly (2022), the first film in what is now a trilogy.
The premise of the first film is that a woman breaks up with her live-in boyfriend and goes home for Christmas, only to find that her parents weren't expecting her and are actually moving to a seniors' condo in Florida. She's essentially left behind in her parents' McMansion. However, her own father was head of the HOA, and he set up a very Christmassy set of rules, which Chabert finds herself required to adhere to (despite the fact she does not own the house) and is force marched through the holiday season.
Guys, she also falls for Man nextdoor along the way.
So... we end the film with Christmas, love, and a 5000 square foot house in which she'll creep around like a Victorian ghost, I guess.
But what next? Haul out another holiday? Tragedy strikes Evergreen Lane? She casually starts putting out inverted pineapples when the neighbors come over?
Here in the sequel, Emily (Chabert) been gifted her parents house, she's all-in on Christmas madness, dating Man, and helping out with the neighborhood festivities.
However, as Christmas approaches and events are just beginning, the Jolly Johnsons, winners of a Christmas-themed reality show, move into the cul-de-sac. To the longtime Christmas-nerds of Evergreen Lane, this is like having your favorite quarterback or rock star move in and they flip out (yes, these movies operate in a cartoonish heightened reality).
Three Wisest Men (2025) is the third film in the very popular (for Hallmark) Wise Men series. We previously covered the first and second installments.
The problem with this movie is that we've established not just three characters, but their mom, spouses and partners, children, etc... and it is not a small cast. And everyone needs to get a plotline. So it's a lot of movie. I couldn't help but notice that this one was an "extended cut", which means whatever aired with commercials had less movie, and I have to assume that made this even more of a jumble.
From a business perspective, it's a fascinating peek into how Hallmark now functions like an old-school studio with their constellation of stars.
We are somewhere in the year of the 100th Anniversary of the release of Phantom of the Opera (1925), the silent film starring Lon Chaney, man of 1000 Faces.
I haven't watched it again this year, but I will! I promise.
I can't say when or where we are in relation to the original release schedule. Google is telling me the release date was November 15th, but I'm seeing much earlier in the year on Wikipedia. In the 1920's the movie would play in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and other major markets. Then, it might move on to other cities. This could be several months apart. Eventually, beat-up prints might leave the country or be sent to podunk towns. So who knows when or if Phantom of the Opera played most cities. But 1925 is the year in which the movie was released.
I saw Phantom of the Opera the first time circa 1990 on a lo-fi VHS tape obtained from a bin at Walmart. As the film precedes 1928, it fell out of copyright, and I found a copy produced by "Goodtime Videos" that set me back less than $10, and as an angsty teenage kid I spent an evening watching my first feature-length silent film while listening to some moody music.
Frankly, I was blown away.
I'd expected the movie to just be actors more or less pantomiming in front of shoddy sets, and all in wide shots. And, instead, a film taking place against the massive backdrop of the Paris Opera House unspooled, with wild visuals and dramatic moments. What I do not recall is if I had already read the novel of Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux, but I sort of suspect that I had. I do know I had seen the film and watched the movie by the time I saw a non-Andrew Lloyd Webber stage play of the story toward the end of that same academic year.*
If silent-era films aren't your jam, I get it. I struggle with them as well and hats off to the folks who've trained themselves to watch silent films that aren't Buster Keaton or Chaplin. But I think Phantom of the Opera is practically must-see/ assigned viewing. It gives you an idea of how complex storytelling was handled during the era and the spectacle that could be created on the silver screen with visual tricks, gigantic sets, etc... It's almost hard to believe it wasn't actually filmed on location somewhere.
Lon Chaney is absolutely brilliant as Erik, which seems trite to say, but every time I watch the movie, I'm stunned by how terrifying he is. Others are good, no doubt. One does not dismiss Mary Philbin who plays Cristine and Mary Fabian's Madame Carlotta is terrific.
Whether I loved the recent Frankenstein or not, what I can say is that I love how it swung for the fences as an epic. We get one of those every few years in the horror genre, and it feels like Phantom of the Opera is the first of these in America. And, dang, you owe it to yourself to see this thing.
Happy 100th, Phantom of the Opera!
*I have no feelings on Andrew Lloyd Webber's version as I've only heard it and never seen it
Crossfire (1947) is one of the movies they recommend when you're first trying to sort out noir, which is a bit odd. It's about as far from Maltese Falcon or Out of the Past as you're going to get. Heck, it's a social message movie, and feels like a prestige film on top of that - earning a few Oscar nominations, including that for Gloria Grahame in a small but powerful role.
The movie is about a murder that occurs, and the suspects are from a group of soldiers waiting to be de-enlisted from the army in the wake of World War II. There's no obvious motive,just possibilities for opportunity.
Robert Young plays the cop figuring out who did it, and he pulls in a young Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan and is looking for Steve Brodie and George Cooper. None of these guys seem to particularly like each other - their grouping is the loose affiliation of their unit, but they all know Cooper's character, Mitchell,is struggling.
Mitchell had really tied one on, and tried to find solace with a girl from a dime-a-dance joint, Ginny (Gloria Grahame). And, man, is there a lot of story in her relatively few minutes on screen. There's a whole other noir here about a girl trapped in hell who maybe saw Mitchell as anything from a chance at one night with a decent guy to maybe a way out.
And, kudos to Paul Kelly who plays a singularly weird role as "the man" against Graham.
The victim is played by one of my favorite supporting actors of this era, Sam Levene. And eventually it becomes clear that the only motivation that Young can figure is that he was killed merely for being Jewish.
If it's noir, the movie is a post war film reflecting on the darkness waiting for people as they came home, from cheating spouses to the same hatred that fueled the fascism in Europe and Asia that's festering at home. This is about people already out of control before the movie even starts.
The look is probably the tipping point. This movie is *beautifully* shot, and in the version on Criterion, you can really see how brilliantly J. Roy Hunt lit and filmed each scene. This is a movie that takes place mostly over one night, in the dark of the city, in bars, walk-ups and hotel rooms. And a few scenes in the balcony of a theater. As good as the film is story-wise, acting (Grahame was nominated for Best Supporting Actress), directing (Dmytryk also nominated), it's worth watching just for Hunt's work.
Also, the scene where Graham meets Mitchell's wife (Jacqueline White). Hoo-boy.
In short, I love this movie, but felt I'd watched it several times and could take a break. But I am so glad I returned to it. It remains as relevant and powerful as ever, and maybe hits harder in 2025 than it did a decade ago.
A cheap and cheerful B-noir from 1947, Blind Spot is a quick watch that depends on charm of its talent and two or three gags to keep it moving.
The film was programming on TCM's Noir Alley, which I confess I am not watching as much as I should be of late. The good news is that I found myself, once again, enjoying the intro and outro by noiristaEddie Muller as much or more than the movie.
This film follows an alcoholic writer of novels with an artistic bent (Chester Morris) who, while on a bender, goes to his publisher's office to try and sneak in and tear up his contract, which he has decided is unfair. While there, he meets a sultry blonde (Constance Dowling) and argues with his publisher in front of a successful writer of mysteries (Steven Geray). It is suggested that Morris switch to writing mysteries to make more money, and he agrees to do so.
He retreats to the bar in the lobby of the publisher's building and makes time with the blonde, who has just quit after the publisher got handsy.
That night, the publisher is found dead, and Morris seems to be the suspect. But the evidence is circumstantial.
It's a lost-time mystery as the now sober Morris tries to pull the pieces together, including possibly condemning himself as the murderer. It seems the technique he dreamed up for his own murder mystery novel is what was used to kill the publisher. Meanwhile, both Dowling and Geray are working overtime to assist the writer.
It's no award winner, but it plays like a solid novella or short story, and the characters are colorful. Morris and Dowling play very well off each other, even if she seems drawn to him for absolutely no reason. And part of the cost-savings appears in overly long scenes where the same ideas keep getting conveyed as we work to fill the necessary runtime.
It's absolutely not crucial viewing, but you could do way worse. Oddly, it would also fit in neatly with Criterion's current "Black Out Noir" showcase of film's where a lead is trying to account for lost time while they were drugged, asleep, drunk, hallucinating, etc...
Hallmark fans are never happy. And maybe with good reason. There's a contingent that seems to get mad if anything actually happens in the movies, and others who get mad if it's not a particular kind of movie. Which leaves Hallmark in a pickle as they can't keep making the same movies over and over from a decade or two ago, but anything *new* is also a threat to part of their audience.
But, all that matters is if people watch, and apparently they are watching. And, given the viewership habits of Hallmark viewers - which means a lack of awareness of debuts of new movies, watching later, catching the movies on the app or whenever... that's a pretty good turn out of viewership across streaming and cable.
This year it seems Hallmark is cramming more value into fewer movies to drive up advertising during broadcast and draw eyeballs to the app. This is opposite the decade-ago strategy of going for quantity over quality - ie: they chose not to release 75 new movies in a single Christmas and hope the novelty kept folks locked in. But it's a risk when you make new kinds of movies and fewer of them, and give people a chance to tune away.
And, bats. Austin is full of bats, and the Mexican Free-tailed Bats would flit about above us in the dark, occasionally throwing shadows in the screen.
Anyway, that was my intro to all kinds of movies, and where I developed a huge crush on Michelle Yeoh during Police Story 3: Super Cop, and then had it reinforced with Heroic Trio(and of course no one ever saw Michelle Yeoh again).
I considered myself a fan of action films, but, holy shit, I had never seen anything like Hard Boiled (1992) before that first screening. It had elements of what I was used to from American-produced action films with a dash of what I was used to from what I'd learn to call Neo-Noir. Chow-Yun Fat was so clearly a leading man, and Tony Leung an ideal up-and-comer. But it would be decades before I'd get around to watching him in In the Mood For Love, probably his greatest success in the west until Shang-Chi.
As a story, Hard Boiled has enough twists to keep you going, and not all of them add up. It's also largely a backdrop for the kick-ass action that John Woo would deliver that would fundamentally change action cinema world wide. As JAL pointed out, you don't get to John Wick without Hard Boiled. And, it has the mix of action and bits of oddball comedy that would come to punctuate American action film (and confuse a generation that is very cross that moods can sometimes mix in a movie).
In general, I feel like this is a movie that film fans should see at least once. You may not even like it, but if you understand the flow of time and how influence works in cinema, this is one of *those* films. Just be ready for more cartoonish violence than you ever thought could fit into a single minute of film occurring for at least 1/3rd of the movie's runtime.
I have no idea how this movie would read to The Youths. Fine, I expect, minus some of the jokes that would fly over their heads (ie: "The Doobie Brothers broke up?").
Mostly it makes me miss Kathleen Turner in movies (yes, I know she's still very active... we just don't cross paths anymore). And, man, she showed up fully formed as a movie star. Her Joan Wilder (this is her third film and fourth screen credit) is a really pretty fun character even if they have to work overtime to make you think she's "blossoming" during the course of the film.
Maybe the action-packed climax goes on too long (I've felt this since I saw the movie as a kid) but it's otherwise a lean, tight movie with lots of solid stuff.
But also, rewatching is a reminder of how 1980's the 1980's truly were. Romancing the Stone is an astounding cultural artifact in that respect. From turning Danny DeVito into a movie star (he was a huge hit from this, which is kind of odd when you see how little he's actually in this movie) to the Alan Silvestri soundtrack. Michael Douglas exudes weird 1980's male energy that lacks any self-awareness. And our odd relationship with South American countries in the 1980's as the drug trade was in high gear and the CIA was mucking about installing governments.
Unfortunately, they rushed the follow up and made one of the single worst sequels I remember from the era, killing the golden goose.
So it was the day after my surgery and I was taking pills that make it so I can't remember proper nouns, which is weird. Sure, I can remember the dog's name, but if you're like "name the people on Mythbusters" I'm hitting like 3 and 1/2 of them accurately.
But my dad came over to keep an eye on me/ keep me entertained, and I made him watch Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025). Which, he concluded with "14 year old me liked it a lot", which is I think a great take from a guy pushing 80.
Anyway, I think we were in agreement that this movie is pretty wild and fun.
It's Noirvember, so I need to keep fitting in noir, neo or otherwise. I also had foot surgery yesterday, so I am couch-bound and taking drugs. So maybe all of my choices are not great in the moment. I vaguely remember putting on like 4 Hallmark movies yesterday as I rode out a hydrocodone adventure.
Anyhoo... I was pretty excited back when I heard Hannah Waddingham was going to be in an ensemble locked-room-murder-mystery. She seems kind of perfect for being a little extra in a Murder on the Orient Express sort of movie. And I like Keira Knightley well enough. And I've been pulling for Guy Pearce since Memento.
I was even planning to make time for this movie the weekend it dropped on Netflix. And then the reviews hit. Not great.
And having had watched this movie, I am not surprised by this.
First: all the acting is fine to good. You cannot blame Ms. Knightley, Mr. Pearce or Hannah Waddingham (especially not Ms. Waddingham).
The directing is... fine? The script is awful. The cinematography is beyond dreadful. Who even knows about the editing...
But the movie feels like it has no idea why people find these movies interesting.
