Monroe at 100 Watch: Monkey Business (1952)

Watched:  06/11/2026

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  Howard Hawks

Not everything is going to land.  

This movie had everything going for it.  Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers star, Marilyn Monroe plays a major supporting role (just before she landed leads), Howard Hawks is directing, it has Hugh Marlowe, Charles Coburn and even the kid from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (an infinitely superior movie).  

But I only really laughed at a few bits.  

My real feeling is that this movie worked very well in 1952 and has aged badly through changing social conditions and what I'd guess is better versions of similar premises.  

Monkey Business (1952) is a screwball comedy when the genre was running on fumes and a decade before it would be transmogrified into live action Disney films and Jerry Lewis vehicles.  

Classics Watch: Rebel Without a Cause (1955)

Watched:  06/08/2026

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  fourth, I think.  

Director:  Nicholas Ray

I didn't think I'd watched Rebel Without a Cause (1955) since the mid-90's - but here it is in 2012. I really need to start checking old posts to see what I've already covered here.

The first time I saw the movie I believe I was thirteen.  My friend's dad saw us entering teen-hood and wanted to share a bit of the teen-culture he'd grown up with.  The film had such an impact on the fellow, he bought the same car James Dean drives in the movie.

Rebel Without a Cause is, I think, one of those movies everyone knows but far fewer people have bothered to watch.  Which is a shame.  I think it's kind of a fascinating movie and it's remarkable it got made then, and now would be turned into a moist melodrama with someone muttering the theme of the film - which would be the title of the movie.  

Monroe 100th B-Day Watch/ Pride Watch: Some Like It Hot (1959)

Watched:  06/01/2026

Format:  BluRay

Viewing:  Third?  Second?

Director:  Billy Wilder

Maybe one of the movies that I pray never gets remade,* Some Like It Hot (1959) is a wild ride of a movie that seems like it absolutely couldn't have happened on screen as a major motion picture in 1959, but... it very famously did.  Whether audiences fully grokked the subversion of the film in '59, or even now, is something I'll need to dig into.

Starring Monroe at the height of her name as a draw, plus a young Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis - it's an oddball period piece about two down-on-their luck musicians who need to flee the mob after witnessing the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, and - knowing there's a job for two women in an all-girl band - go full Bosom Buddies and hop a train to Florida.  

Marilyn Monroe at 100

Today is the 100th birthday of Ms. Norma Jeane Mortensen, better known as Marilyn Monroe.

We're fans of Monroe here at The Signal Watch, and whether that's because of her film work - and she's terrific in most of the work I've seen, or knowing her as an icon of the 20th Century - I don't know.  She was gone more than twenty years before I really understood who she was..  But even when it's a movie I don't love (see: The Seven Year Itch), or something far greater than I expected (Some Like It Hot, The Misfits), she is what they say, and few talents before or since have come anywhere near her place in the zeitgeist.  

There's no one else left, really, from this era of film that I think today's young adults and youths would readily recognize.  And even then, they may not even know she was an actress - she's simply a face on a t-shirt.  I don't know.  But she remains an icon, maybe an ethereal one at this point, but someone still seen as a sign of glamour.  We can save our comments about how some trash celebrities try and tried to steal some of her light.

90's Schlock Watch: Twister (1996)

Watched:  05/29/2026

Format:  HBOmax

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Jan de Bont

This clunker that has aged poorly in so, so many ways is about two absolute perverts who clearly can only become aroused when their lives are endangered by natural disasters.  They are followed by a vast team of nameless people who delight in their kink, and seem to have no interior lives or external concerns other than bearing witness to the named characters' pursuit of their shameful desires.  

Why this was not directed by David Cronenberg, I cannot say.

Our male lead has met a stable woman, a therapist, who he believes can save him from his shameful kink.  Knowing this therapist will never join him in his thrill-seeking debauchery, he simply pawns her off on one of the sub-perverts.

Reunited with his fellow degenerate, scene after scene unfolds wherein Bill (Bill Paxton) and Jo (The Quarterback Princess, Helen Hunt) pursue tornadoes as threat to life and limb, delighting in the chaos.  Both know the old thrills are not doing it for them anymore, and only when they strap themselves with leather to ride out an F5 tornado with no protection - the ultimate depravity - are their degenerate appetites satisfied.

Noir Watch: The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)

Watched: 05/27/2026

Format:  Noir Alley / TCM on DVR

Viewing:  Second or third

Director:  Lewis Milestone

I'd been meaning to return to this one for years, but then it was hosted on TCM's Noir Alley by Eddie Muller and Ms. Rosie Perez.  Fifteen years and a whole lot more Liz Scott and Stanwyck under my belt, and I imagine my view of the movie is a bit different now.

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) is a twisted, black-hearted melodrama that is one of those movies that is likely to make one a real fan of Barbara Stanwyck if you weren't already (and I am).  It's a movie with more twists and turns than you'd expect, while still delivering a finale that feels completely earned and the only way this could end.

TL;DR: Watching Movies 2026 - Nothing Matters, So Everything Matters

Back in December pal Howard shared an article from Substack about the changing nature of "the canon" of film appreciation/ studies/ best of/ what-have-you.  It's a review of the publication, Sight & Sound, and their annual poll, with a desire to demonstrate the changing climate of what is considered "the best".  Perhaps the notion is that if you liked a film thirty years ago, now it is less important to the voting body of Sight & Sound while other movies, new and old have made it onto the list, moving around the position of movies thought *the* canon once upon a time.  And so it goes.

The article arrived around the same time I was pondering something quite different.  

In 2025, I turned 50 years old, which gives me roughly 48 year of movie-going experience.  My dad took me to see Star Wars in the theater during the 1977 release - wholly inappropriate for a kid that young, but I suppose my mom needed the afternoon off.*  I went to film school in the 1990's.  I've been discussing movies online without a thought of making a penny off my opinions and bad takes since 2003.  Yeah, 2003, kid.

Failed Watch: The Mandalorian and Grogu (2026)

Watched:  Did not

Format:  Regal Westgate

Viewing:  Didn't happen

Director:  Doesn't matter

We'd had pretty good luck the past 2 of 2 times we'd gone to a nearby cinema to go see movies with first Project Hail Mary and then Sheep Detectives.  I was looking forward to getting back to the cinema this summer with what looks like a good line-up of summer silliness and fun.  

I purchased tickets to see The Mandalorian and Grogu this week for a Sunday afternoon matinee, figuring we'd avoid evening crowds and whatnot.  

We had learned not to bother to show up at this theater til showtime as they have at least twenty minutes of commercials and trailers.  So five minutes after start time we sat down - and, I will be honest, for some reason they'd inserted some Minions thing into the commercials and trailers, and assuming everyone loves the Minions is assuming *a lot*.  They just make me weirdly sad.  Like this is what is passing for funny now.

Anyway, all I saw of The Mandalorian and Grogu was the part up til the title sequence.  So - like, the James Bond-like cold open that isn't exactly related but tells us what's going on these days with our heroes.

I kind of knew we were in trouble when, before the movie:

Too Much Title Watch: Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah - Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001)

Watched:  05/23/2026

Format:  DVD

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Shûsuke Kaneko

So, I've only seen this movie once before - and while I've long loved Godzilla, I didn't really do a deep dive into the filmography of our giant pal - mostly because of a lack of availability of affordable Godzilla flicks in the US - until COVID hit.   At that time, affordability wasn't an issue and I picked up mostly every film just prior to lockdown.  With lockdown - we dove in kind of head first, with no plan.  Just grabbing movie based on which monsters were in them.  

When I watched Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001), it was in, like April 2020.  So imagine the headspace we were all in.

Anyway - I think around this time was when I was trying to understand what the hell Toho was even doing in the 90's and 00's.  And the answer is - it gets really confusing after Godzilla Vs. Destroyah.  I have no idea if Godzilla 2000 and Godzilla vs. Megaguirus are  in the prior continuity.  They certainly are not tied to this movie, which came next.  

There's a hard break in continuity with this movie, basically starting us over (again) as a direct sequel to the 1954 movie.  Just as we'd seen in Godzilla Raids Again (1955)  and Godzilla Returns (1984) and as we'd see in the movie following this one - Godzilla Against MechaGodzilla.  

All-Out Attack is trying on Godzilla as a horrifying antagonist again - or at least looking to turning a 15 story radioactive lizrd into something frightening after he'd maybe become a giant luchador.  

Espionage Watch: Patriot Games (1992)

Watched:  05/23/2026

Viewing:  First

Format:  Amazon?

Director:  Phillip Noyce

So, I don't really know how I missed this one back in the day.  No idea.  Harrison Ford.  James Earl Jones.  A Tom Clancy adaptation.  Honestly, I think I was at a 6-week-long drama camp because that's how cool I was in high school.

But I have now seen Patriot Games (1992) and it's kinda fine.  It's not my favorite.

Movies like these were prime dad viewing in the 1990's.  Men in ties would look grim and look at technology and go to board rooms.  They'd use real world issues and events and movements and tell a story that seemed wildly plausible, from a certain point of view.  The Cold War was absolutely a wild time, and it showed up in big, thick books by Tom Clancy that dads read in business trips and sometimes they'd turn into a movie.

This movie pits a splinter group of the IRA against - very specifically - Jack Ryan.  We met Jack Ryan in The Hunt for Red October as Alec Baldwin in 1990, but Harrison Ford is Harrison Ford, so I guess if you want even more money, you swap out actors.  I am not going to try to make sense of the continuity.  (Jack Ryan is now John Krasinski).

TCM Host Confessions - what the hosts haven't seen!

This is fun!

TCM hosts are admitting what movies they've never seen in a series called "Host Confessions".  It started last night!

More from TCM here.  They'll watch the film and discuss.  

Movies include:

• Bridge on the River Kwai - Alicia Malone
• Blazing Saddles - Dave Karger
• It Happened One Night - Eddie Muller
• From Here to Eternity - Jacqueline Stewart
• Rebel Without a Cause - Ben Mankiewicz

That's a good time.

Also, this gives me a chance to get Jamie to watch Rebel Without a Cause.  

For the record, I've seen all of these.  Call me, TCM.  I'll host my own show, Monsters and Mayhem, on Saturdays. There's plenty I haven't seen so you can shame me regularly.

Crime Noir Watch: Vice Raid (1959)

Watched:  05/21/2026

Format:  Amazon Prime

Viewing:  First

Director:  Edward L. Cahn

I had never seen a Mamie Van Doren movie, and didn't know this was one.  I was getting on the elliptical and literally just threw on a movie and "Vice Raid (1959)" sounded like something I didn't need to focus on super hard.  And up came her name.

And boy howdy, was Mamie Van Doren's mere existence the feature attraction.  The movie essentially is doing the Tex Avery wolf for the first 2/3rds of the movie.  I have never seen a movie that literally puts up a picture of the female star and then gives her measurements.  This is a thing that happened.

The other interesting bit about this movie is that it's a 1950's movie about a prostitution ring that acknowledges what it's about using the word "prostitution".  Pretty crazy for the era.

Catch-Up Watch: Badlands (1973)

Watched:  05/20/2026

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Director:  Terrence Malick

I'd put this movie off for about the past 20 years for absolutely no reason.  I loved Days of Heaven.  But somehow I just never hit play on Badlands (1973).  

The movie, in its way, feels quintessentially American.  A clashing of naiveté with cruelty and violence, embodied by our two leads in different ways - a baby-faced Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek (here playing 15 at age 23 or so).  

The movie feels timeless and oddly universal, while de-romanticizing everything about the couple-on-a-crime-spree noir and neo-noir plotting.  Almost like a response to 1967's Bonnie and Clyde.  

Ovis Aries Watch: The Sheep Detectives (2026)

Watched:  05/16/2026

Format:  Regal Westgate

Viewing:  First

Director:  Kyle Balda

The Sheep Detectives (2026) was not at all what I expected.  And that is, as it turns out, a pretty good thing.

Now, don't get me wrong - I was looking forward to what I thought the movie would be:  a goofy play on detective fiction but with, you know, a lot of sheep puns and some wacky celebrity voices.  That seemed plenty for a matinee Saturday movie.  

Instead, I got an oddly moving movie that I suspect speaks more to some realities of being a living thing - and which illuminates the ways we (people, not sheep - you may need to stretch here, concrete-thinking reviewers) deal with pain and death. And, yes, from the mouths of CGI sheep.

Regret Watch: Bio-Dome (1996)

if seeing this make you feel white hot rage, that instinct is correct

Watched:  05/16/2026

Format:  YouTube

Viewing:  First - as it turns out

Director:  Jason Bloom

Fuck this movie.

No, seriously.  Fuck it right in the ear.  

I only kept watching to see how much more I could hate a movie as it went along, and as it turned out, I found -  lurking within myself - one of those mines that catch on fire and burn for a hundred years.  My mine fire is fueled solely by my white hot rage for Bio-Dome (1996) and everything it stands for.  

I was positive I'd seen this piece of shit back in the 1990's as the young lady I dated before Jamie was an unapologetic fan of Pauly Shore (she did have positive qualities lest you think otherwise, but it was probably a sign).  However, the date of release was in the Jamie-Common-Era, so we cannot blame Anna, wherever she is now.  

About twenty minutes in I realized - no, I'd seen the opening on cable or something and must have turned it off, realizing that this movie sucks donkey balls - and I then ejected it from my mind.

Golden Sci-Fi Horror Watch: Dr. X (1932)

Watched:  05/15/2026

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Director:  Michael Curtiz!

I have felt that at some point I should watch every movie mentioned in Science Fiction / Double Feature, the opening tune from Rocky Horror Picture Show.  And I've done pretty well.

This viewing of Dr. X (1932) checks off "Dr. X will build a creature", I believe, leaving only Tarantula.  That said, the line doesn't at all describe the actual plot of Dr. X, but okay.  

Maybe best described as a sci-fi-horror-comedy-heavy-on-the-horror, Dr. X sees a series of killings occur in the streets of New York, the link being they all occur on a full moon and with the same surgical instrument.  The police investigate and determine the instrument used is very rare, and only purchased by a specific medical school run by a Dr. Xavier.  

Shadowed by a determined reporter (Lee Tracy) the police meet each of the kooky scientists working on their research.  

Rex Reed Merges With the Infinite

Film critic Rex Reed has passed.

Reed was one of the stable of popular film critics of my youth, occupying his own niche as what struck me as the New York branch of film criticism, where Siskel and Ebert were our reviewers in Chicago.  I was unfamiliar with Pauline Kael until college, just for the record.

Reed appeared on television and in print as a movie reviewer.  I confess, I'd read him occasionally, but as one of many voices.  Still, he had a reputation as someone you should consider.  

That said - Reed had plenty of well-documented gaffes - including an apparent psychotic break when Marisa Tomei won the Oscar.  Like, I get his surprise, but doubling down and then tripling down?  

Rex, my guy.  Take the L.

In Superman: The Movie, he's working with The Daily Planet enough that he's chummy with Lois Lane.  Really, the highest goal any of us could achieve.  It's a fun moment in the movie, and adds to the Big City Paper-vibe of the first movies.

70's Watch: Corvette Summer (1978)

Watched:  05/12/2026

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  Matthew Robins

I will extrapolate from just my own experience and say I think a generation of kids grew up a little confused seeing actors from Star Wars in things that were not Star Wars.  While Harrison Ford shook off that problem and became one of the most important/ lucrative actors in Hollywood history, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill got hit with type-casting and mostly did other things like Broadway or writing.  It's not like Anthony Daniels became big in the US without a robot suit.

But we all knew that between Star Wars and Empire, Mark Hamill starred in something called Corvette Summer (1978).    

My first memory of this movie was seeing it playing on TV when I was a very small kid, and for reasons I didn't get at the time, my mom turned it off, which - years later - I would come to gather meant the characters said something over my head and she saw this movie was straying into grown-up territory.

Comic Doc Watch: Selling Superman (2024)

Watched: 05/12/2026

Format:  Amazon Prime

Viewing:  First

Director:  Adam Schomer

I imagine this doc will land one way with non-comics folk, and a completely different way with comics folk - or other serious collectors (and their immediate loved ones). 

For the record, I own a *lot* of comic books, and a *lot* of Superman stuff.  So, yes, I am in the camp of "collectors".*

I do *not* own any of those mythical comics you hear about.  This "blogging non-stop for free" gig does not pay what you'd think.  I have never even seen most of the epically priced comics you're think of in person, except in museums or behind thick glass.

This doc is about a guy somewhere near my age who recently lost his father, and inherited that father's absolutely massive comic collection.  

The father clearly was brilliant, neurodivergent, and an absolutely obsessive collector, filling his multi-bedroom home with comics, covering the windows so people couldn't see in, and forbidding his wife and kids from telling anyone what was in the house - not that they knew what he really owned.  And what he had was - from a collection standpoint - probably unlike anything else on the planet that isn't part of a major business like Mile High Comics.  

Neo-Noir Watch: Bound (1996)

Watched:  05/09/2026

Format:  Criterion Disc

Viewing:  Third

Director:  The Wachowskis

I know I saw Bound (1996) once in the theater and once on VHS.  But it's been at least since last century since I've given it a whirl.  

The movie is mostly famous for the not-exactly-subtle eroticism between stars Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon.  I am not going to undersell the Wachowskis clearly seeing the erotic thrillers of the 1990's and saying "hold my beer".  

And while I enjoy a bit of post-9:00 PM cable in any movie, I think this is a great example of a neo-noir thriller that understands genre conventions and doesn't think sexy sex in a noir somehow elevates the concept so much it excuses abysmal writing.  Maybe not every line in this movie lands, but from a plotting standpoint and from a character standpoint- it just works.