Neo-Noir Watch: A History of Violence (2005)

 

Format:  Max?

Viewing:  First

Director:  David Cronenberg

Watched:  03/01/2025

Back when A History of Violence (2005) was in theaters, I was scheduled to see it as it’s based on a comic from a briefly lived DC Comics adult-oriented imprint. I’d read and quite liked the comic, but at showtime, one of us got sick, and we didn’t see it. And then, I never got back to it.

And that’s a shame, because 20 years later I liked it. But had I seen it back then, I doubt I would have understood how much this movie reads like a 1940’s film noir, maybe something like The Killers or a Goodis novel or movie.  It kind of reflects some of that post-War noir grit where we didn't slot people into "good guy" and "bad guy" so readily.

SPOILERS  

Viggo Mortensen stars as the smalltown café owner, Tom Stall, married to Maria Bello. The pair share kids aged around 16 and 5. Like many noir films, it’s about what happens when the unbridled viciousness of organized crime intersects with the mundane lives of ordinary people - and what happens when someone among the normal people isn't so average. 

 In a different decade, the William Hurt role is played by Raymond Burr in a B picture or Richard Conte if they had more money. Ed Harris would be played by Robert Ryan, and you can imagine Burt Lancaster in the lead role.

Chabert Watch! The Wedding Veil (2022)

Watched:  03/01/2025

Format:  Hallmark

Viewing:   First

Director:  Terry Ingram

Job:  Assistant Curator at an Art Museum

new skill:  walking in 6" heels on grass

Man: Kevin McGarry

Job of Man: philanthropist

Goes to/ Returns to:  Stays in Boston

Event:  Museum Gala

Food:  mac n' cheese

So...   apparently - despite starting as recently as 2022 with this movie, The Wedding Veil, there are already 5 movies in the Wedding Veil series, and likely more on the way.  I kind of knew this series existed, and was avoiding starting the series so we didn't need to sprint through five movies on the same topic.  But we're running out of other Chabert options here on Hallmark as we speedrace our way through her non-Christmas filmography in a way I did not anticipate when I was like "you know what would entertain Randy...".  But 2025 has been 2025, so here we are.

Basically, the idea of The Wedding Veil series is something like The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (which I've never seen).  It's about how possession of this 19th century wedding veil will lead to true love.  Three friends, who just happen to be played by Lacey Chabert, Autumn Reeser and Alison Sweeney - three of the top Hallmark stars - find and purchase a wedding veil together, all agreeing to share the veil when they find it in an antiques shop in San Francisco.

I call shenanigans that three people would agree to look the same at their weddings in a spur-of-the-moment decision, but here we are.  And we *will* get three movies of our heroes getting married, I guess.

This movie has to do the heavy lifting for the series as it has to establish (a) the magical power of the veil, (b) who each of the three leads in the series are, and (c) what their particular deal is with romance.  Fortunately, we all know Chabert is up to this task.

Disney 60's Watch: The Love Bug (1968)

Watched:  02/28/2025

Format:  Disney+

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Robert Stevenson

Somehow we decided what we needed to do was watch the first Herbie movie, entitled The Love Bug (1968).  

As a child, I have vague recollections of Herbie movies, and I believe my mom probably took me to see Herbie Goes Bananas in the theater during its 1980 release.  And while the world of 1968 and 1980 seems a world away, it was 12 years apart, and the fourth Herbie installment.  

Herbie is the adorable whitish Volkswagen Beetle that is why all Gen-X'ers have a fondness for the Beetle even if they don't actually want one.  And I still get a thrill when I see someone in my local area who has a 90's-era Beetle they've painted with the blue and red racing stripes and number 53.

NASA Watch: Fly Me To the Moon (2024)

Watched:  02/27/2025

Format:  Apple+

Viewing:  First

Director:  Greg Berlanti

What an odd movie.

This is kind of what has happened with the mid-budget romcom.  They wound up on streaming services.  I don't know if Apple wanted to be in the Scarlett Johansson business or if they bought the movie.  But here it is on Apple+, which I have for MLS soccer purposes and through T-Mobile.

This is a movie about the value of truth, that uses the conspiracy theory of faking the moon landing as it's second-half pivot, and basically only gets the names of the Apollo 11 astronauts right, tossing out the rest of what happened in actuality in order to make a cute story.  It's fine, but if you're a NASA nerd like my wife, and by extension and maybe a lesser extent, me, it will make you want to pull your hair out.

Apollo 11, the focal point of the film, may be one of the most well-documented events in human history (that's the one where they walked on the moon the first time, Howard).  To make up how mission control works, and who was working there felt... weird.  Even odd little details crop up - like, I don't know if I ever heard anyone ever refer to any part of the vehicle as "the ship", but it happens here a couple of times.  

Gene Hackman Merges With The Infinite

Gene Hackman, aged 95, has passed.

At the time of this post, the circumstances of his passing are still not completely reported.  His wife, only 64, and the family dog, were also found dead.  No foul play is suspected, but it's clearly a tragedy in the unfolding.

Hackman is one of the first actors I remember, as my dad took me to see Superman: The Movie in the theater during the film's initial release.  The movie I first recall really liking him in - for one does not *like* Lex Luthor - was Hoosiers, the movie about corn-fed high school basketball players.  After that, it's a blur.  Hackman was omnipresent and in every fifth movie that was released for a stretch of about 20 years.  I wouldn't see The French Connection or The Conversation until college.  

He was always the unlikeliest of faces to make it to star status, but his talent and charisma were undeniable.  Seeing Hackman was in a movie meant it was going to be better than most, and sometimes if the movie wasn't otherwise up to the task, he just chose to carry a movie all by himself.

As a person of a certain age, watching him for me is book ended by Lex Luthor and as Royal Tenenbaum, maybe one of the finest roles ever put to film.  

When he retired, it was a bit odd.  He was just... gone.  I remember my fellow Gen-X'ers online wondering "where the hell is Gene Hackman?" around 2007 or so, and we learned he'd just quit taking new work.  The man earned his retirement, and we forget that actors are allowed to hang it up and go enjoy life.

We'll get more details about what happened at his house.  

We'll miss you, Gene, and I'm sorry for whatever happened.  But you more than earned your retirement and now your rest.

Michael Mann Watch: Heat (1995)

Watched:  02/25/2025

Format:  BluRay

Viewing:  at most, my third viewing

Director:  Michael Mann

I saw Heat (1995) in the theater, and I am pretty sure I watched it again the next year on VHS.  But, friends, it's a three-hour movie - I have not watched it at all in this century.  Fortunately, Jamie had never seen it and was up for it this week.  

It's a 90's film nerd's star-studded affair, famous upon release for having both Robert DeNiro - riding high on Scorsese at this juncture - and Al Pacino - still hot from his Scent of a Woman* Oscar win (hoo-AH!).  But it also has Val Kilmer, Jon Voigt, Ashley Judd, Amy Brenneman, Wes Studi, Mykelti Williamson, Ted "Buffalo Bill" Levine, William Fichtner, Henry Rollins, Dennis Haysbert, Tom Noonan, Tom Sizemore, Danny Trejo, Hank Azari and a tweenage Natalie Portman.  With a sprawling cast and not a ton of exposition, it doesn't hurt to be able to identify all of the characters easily by which actor we're looking at.

The movie follows a group of  professional heist-men performing a string of robberies in Los Angeles, starting with an armored car robbery that goes sideways when a new member of the team decides to shoot one of the security guards because he doesn't like his face.  This turns the heist from a robbery into murder charges (not wanting witnesses, they take down all three guards) and gets the attention of Pacino's relentless crusader of a cop.

Lynne Marie Stewart Merges With The Infinite

Actor Lynne Marie Stewart has passed.

I remember Stewart from the early 1980's and catching the HBO Pee-Wee Herman special where she played Miss Yvonne - a role she would continue to play her for decades to come.   She was part of the Groundlings crew that didn't go to SNL but made their own way in showbiz, that included Cassandra Peterson, Edie McClurg, John Paragon and Paul Reubens.

Stewart appeared in what had to have been over a hundred roles, and was most famous the past twenty years for appearing as Charlie's mom on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.   

Hallmark Watch: Sisterhood, Inc. (2025)

Watched:  02/22/2025

Format:  Hallmark/ Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  Lesley Demetriades

I watched this because my allergies had taken me out, Jamie was curious, and I'd just finished The Outfit and was like "yeah, sure, whatever. Palette cleanser.".  And, look, Rachael Leigh Cook is always good, and it's a cute idea for a movie.  

Tech CEO gets fired, turns her energy to helping her slacker sister.  She does this by applying corporate structure to the problem, building a board which she chairs, with the goal to help improve her sister's life.  

The cast has to carry one of these movies, and it felt a little spendy in that department.  Rachael Leigh Cook is a name and talented, and manages to make sure a character who could be prickly is sympathetic.  The mother is played by Judy Kain, who has been in tons of stuff and is good.  The sister's pizza boss is a guy from the Sopranos.  And Jackie Hoffman is somehow in this.  Go figure.

The bit about trying to turn this personal project into a business idea feels very real.

Anyway, yes, there's a romcom element, but it's the B-plot.  The A-Plot is about sisters and family and done with a surprising bit of character.  It does not hurt that the slacker sister played by Daniella Monet was pleasantly goofy while feeling like a real character, and really pretty funny.

I had not planned to watch non-Chabert Hallmark content, but it appears we're doing that now.  And as I have always believed Hallmark makes for ideal media when you don't feel great, this movie provided evidence in support of that hypothesis.

Also, I am planning to make Jamie watch Heat and Godfather II this week, so if we're swapping in some comfort watching in between, so be it.

70's Noir/ Parker Watch: The Outfit (1973)

Watched:  02/22/2025

Format:  DVD

Viewing:  Second

Director:  John Flynn

I'd watched The Outfit (1973) back in 2016.  But recently I re-read the book it's based on - an early Parker novel by Richard Stark - and decided it was time to watch the film again.  

Most of what I say in my original write-up from 9 years ago is true.  The movie is a pulp-crime movie fan's movie.  It's based on a famed series of books, and features appearances from 50's-era noir mainstays like Robert Ryan, Timothy Carey, Marie Windsor, Jane Greer, Elisha Cook Jr. - and even singer Anita O'Day.  This generation is paired with the 1970's stars like Robert Duvall in the Parker-role, Karen Black as his galpal, Joe Don Baker his buddy, Richard Jaeckel as a supplier, and Joanna Cassidy as Ryan's trophy wife.  And, of course, more.  Army Archerd even has a walk-on as a butler.  

The story does loosely follow *parts* of the novel, but The Outfit is the third novel in a series (of something like 24 books), and the story wraps up the events of the first two books.  So, pulling it out and making it it's own thing is kind of an odd choice.  Further, the point of the novel is to show the world of thieves versus the world of the overly organized mob.  Spoilers on a 60 year old novel - Parker directs all his heist-buddies to start hitting all the Outfit-owned places at once, essentially draining the mob of resources overnight and not letting them know where to direct their attention.  It's pretty good, fun stuff.

This isn't what the movie does.  To keep things simple and linear, the movie foregoes a lot of what would become Richard Stark staples in shifting POV's - all in third person, but caring a great deal about who we were now tracking.  We're sticking with Duvall through most of the film, giving he and Joe Don Baker all the heists instead of introducing a flock of crooks, thieves and heist-men who would appear across the Parker novels for the next thirty years.

Nor does it contain the passionless inner workings of a mob that feels like it was designed by an MBA, where the boss's removal  can be negotiated - this isn't the Corleones.  And I kinda wish it had.  Stark has a sense for what it takes to actually find closure, and this movie supposes everything is over with the murder of a single guy.  Stark would know - no, that's bad for business for the mob.  They're going to keep going at you - and it eventually does come to a head in the novel Butcher's Moon, that is kind of the opposite of the happy ending of The Outfit as both novel and movie.  

I like the movie in its way.  It's cool to see all these faces on the same screen.  In general, I like seeing the book to screen, but the pacing is a little deadly at times, and since its just our Parker stand-in and Cody, it seems less likely they'd pull all of this off.  I dig the back-roads feel of the movie, and that Duvall seems to get that his character is maybe wired unlike more sympathetic characters.  But I just don't think it's easy to love this movie.  It's absolutely a product of 1970's filmmaking, but it's also not making connections for the audience as well as it could - and feels meandering.

Magic Fish Watch: Ouija Shark (2020)

Watched:  02/21/2025

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  Brett Kelly

There's a fine line between doofuses futzing about with video equipment and outsider art. Ouija Shark (2020) may inadvertently cross that line from time-to-time.  Maybe.  In little 1-3 second bursts, you may experiencing art, in-between wondering why you're watching this movie.

The movie and TV business is a weird beast.  For the past 20 years, it's been true that you really don't need money to make a movie.  You just need time, something to capture your movie with, and a computer.  Also, you require people who will keep showing up for your movie, or remain wherever you are long enough to do their scenes.  

In a world where people complain that Hallmark movies look cheap - what they mean is "this looks cheap next to Mission Impossible", which has roughly 100 - 200x the budget of most Hallmark films.  That's not an exaggeration.  So, yes, they do look cheaper.

But a Hallmark movie spending $1 million has approximately $1 million more than a *lot* of movies you see winding up on Amazon that are like Ouija Shark.  And what's amazing is - so many people think it would be fun to make a movie, the world is now littered with Ouija Sharks.  Ie:  People who get some friends together and make a movie, by hook or by crook.

Starring random Canadians, this movie is about an hour long, really, if you cut the lengthy title sequence.  It's about a young woman who goes swimming at a lake, where she finds a ouija board underwater.