Hitchcock Watch: Saboteur (1942)

Watched:  12/28/2024

Format:  4K Disc

Viewing:  First, as it turns out

Director:  Alfred Hitchcock

For Christmas, K and Dug got me a set of Hitchcock movies, and I am pretty jazzed.  I hadn't seen latter-era Hitchcock, but was under the impression I had seen this movie, but... as I found out two minutes in, I had never seen Saboteur (1942).  So, all the better.

My Hitchcock era was, like most 90's film school kids, in the 1990's, and I haven't gone back a lot, which seems... dumb.  I loved Vertigo and North By Northwest back in the day.  So to have a chance to fill in some blanks and refire my interest in Hitch is a great opportunity.

Firstly - there's some amazing stuff in this film, which should be obvious, I guess, Hitchcock being Hitchcock.  But the visuals of the sabotage and conflagration that follows in the film are remarkable.  I suppose I should know the name Joseph A. Valentine, but it's one I'll now know as the eye behind the camera here, bringing us visuals like the wall of white with black smoke drifting in, the desperate reach for Frank Fry off the hand of the Statue of Liberty, the barren plains of the desert southwest, and the train car full of circus-folk by night.

Stuff I Liked as a Kid Watch: Treasure Island (1950)

Watched:  12/27/2024

Format:  Disney+

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Byron Haskin

For Christmas, I gave the nephew - a voracious reader - a copy of Treasure Island.  He's now the same age I was when I checked the book out of the library, already pretty familiar with the story, thanks to the movie or movies I'd seen up to that point.  But the book stuck with me, just as the Disney film had.

I know I saw a version of Treasure Island when I was about seven years old.  It came on, and my parents decided we could stay up and watch it.  I suspect, now, it was the 1934 version, but it's possible it was the Disney version from 1950 - maybe it's more likely it was, but I also don't quite know what Houston television would have been showing on a Saturday night.  What I do know is that I eventually did watch this version when I was a bit older, maybe in school, and I was a fan.  And this has been my version ever since.

As a kid, what wasn't to like?  A young boy, not yet a teen, gets wrapped up in a grown-up adventure with pirates, ship captains, maps, all the stuff we've since incorporated into our general ideas of what pirates are supposed to be.  I know now that Stevenson himself borrowed from other books, from Robinson Crusoe and other works.  But don't we all borrow?

It also understands, in a way I think we've forgotten in kid-oriented media - that what a kid wants is to be included as an equal alongside the adults in the action.  As a mix of the expectations of kids in the era in which Robert Louis Stevenson wrote his book - released in 1881-2 as a serial and 1883 as a novel - and as the primary POV of the novel, Jim is *valued* and doesn't realize he's being handled differently, even if and when he is.

What Did I Just Do? A Holidays 2024 Viewing ReCap in Hallmark and Chabert

It was a Chabertmas

In 2024, Jamie and I just decided we were bailing on our usual annual viewing options and going to try to watch new-to-us movies, and - at some point - decided we were going to just watch the offerings that were the lightest, most-conflict-averse films we could dig up.

This didn't always work out.  We did watch Christmas Eve in Miller's Point, which was nothing but conflict.  And I watched the 2006 remake of Black Christmas.  

We started off watching an older Alicia Witt movie the weekend before Thanksgiving, and attending a screening of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever the next night. 

I will admit - I think there's probably two or three movies on here we could probably add, but I was kind of in and out of the movies, and so I'm not going to.  I'm sure you'll be fine.  But the grand total of what I want to claim is that we watched 24 Holiday movies in the Holiday Season, 2024.  

Hallmark Holiday Watch Bonus Round - 3 movies I kinda watched

Christmas at Castle Hart

Watched:  12/?/2024

Format:  Amazon?

Viewing:  First

Director:  Stefan Scaini

Some Hallmark movies I just put on, and they played and I didn't pay them much attention as I did other things.  In the past, I generally didn't even bother with mentioning them or doing a write-up with these, but I feel like I'm doing everyone a disservice if I do that to you good people here.

Chabertmas: Pride, Prejudice and Mistletoe (2018)

Watched:  12/23/2024

Format:  Amazon/ Hallmark

Viewing:  First

Director:  Don McBrearty

I dunno.  Chabert is maybe an investment banker in NYC.  She comes home to help her mom run a Christmas charity event in the most persnickety version of charity events that seems way too high stakes for something like this - but I also know in real rich people land, there's probably some reality here.

Chabert's colleagues wait until she's gone to also try to poach all of her clients and run her out even though she's a partner, which means - yikes.  What a terrible place she's working.  

She runs into her old high school Debate Club sparring partner, who is now running a restaurant.

Anyway, it kind of writes itself.  

I have no idea what it had to do with Pride and Prejudice other than Chabert's character's name is "Darcy".

Happy Christmas, Pals

Merry Christmas, pals-o-mine, near and far.  

It is Christmas Eve, the day of waiting.  And, according to Hallmark, the day when Cookie Factories must be saved, business deals are completed and romance found.  

It's been a tough year for many, and so I hope that the days to come are quiet and peaceful for you.  

As we do each year, we're posting our favorite Christmas song being performed by our favorite Christmas singer.

Ladies and gentlemen, Ms. Darlene Love.

Superman 2025: Reaction to the Trailer

You can follow our posts on Superman at this link, and our posts on the new movie, Superman (2025) at this link.

I was shocked at the reaction to the Superman trailer.  Genuinely blown away by how people have taken to it.

A couple of follow ups:

I didn't realize one of the characters we see is an extreme close-up of Metamorpho, and that's good news.  I knew he was in the film, but *kind of* forgot, given everything else we were seeing.  

There's also glances of a character who is unidentifiable, and rumors abound as to who that is.  And, of course, the kaiju thing, which I suspect isn't going to be seen after the first few minutes.

When I finished my very long post about the release and first reaction to the trailer for Superman (2025), I thought I'd have a long wait between posts.  After all, it seems that after the first trailer, we'd be in a period where new information about the movie will be very carefully released, usually in the form of more trailers, staggered up to the movie's release.  Plus, any press the cast will do.  

But in no way did I anticipate how ready people seemed for mere visuals in a two minute and twenty second trailer.  Stuff that I wasn't sure how it would be received.  

Chabert Holiday Watch: A Wish For Christmas (2016)

Watched:  12/21/2024

Format:  Amazon streaming

Viewing:  At least second

Director:  Christie Will Wolf

In addition to riding into the sunset on Hallmark-type Christmas movies, I'm also trying to make my way through the Chabert Hallmark catalog.  I mean - why not?

So, apparently I'd seen this movie before about five years ago.  I'd forgotten because apparently I watched it when I had the flu after a work trip (I very much remember being sick).

In this movie, Santa uses his fantastical powers to bestow Lacey Chabert with her Christmas wish of courage.  This is coupled with a reckless sense of agency and a Zoom-In-Dolly-Out effect familiar to fans of the movie Jaws.  

I don't have much to add to the post I linked to above.  

I will mention that the lead is only two years younger than the woman playing his aunt, and I don't know why on earth Hallmark does this.  Surely they could have dug up an actress who didn't look right as a love interest for our lead.  I would guess the mom is less than a decade older that our lead as well.  

The film also co-stars the woman who played Eve Tessmacher on Supergirl.  

Chabert is Chabert, but they keep commenting on her earrings, which you absolutely cannot see under her hair.  I don't know what happened on this movie, but that's a fixable problem.  And it makes me wonder if they didn't have the earrings people keep describing as "Snowmen" or what happened.  Do not insert details into your movie if they just raise unanswerable questions.

Regret Holiday Watch: Christmas In The Spotlight (2024)

Watched:  12/20/2024

Format:  Amazon/ Lifetime

Viewing:  First

Director:  Michelle Ouellet

Thanks.  I hate it.

Well.  Two movies were released for Christmas this year counting on the public's fascination with the Taylor Swift/ Travis Kelce real-life romance between a music star of epic proportions and a pretty good football player.  The first film blinked, dumped any comparison to that romance, and made itself about the Chiefs being a really good football team since Andy Reid showed up, and avoided mention of Kelce and Swift.

This one is a weirdly lofi version of someone imagining how the romance between a pop star and football player would go down.  And then cast someone you know that, back in high school, would have been mean to you for no reason as the pop star, and then cast a ham with eyes as the football player.

About twenty minutes into the movie, I realized I don't know anything about Taylor Swift or Kelce.  I don't even know any Taylor Swift music aside from "Shake It Off" which has to be a decade old at this point, and I haven't watched a Chiefs game since last season.  But we'd committed, and so we persevered.

It's just a movie that doesn't know how football works, or what it looks like to watch an actual football game.  I won't pretend I know how the pop music machine works in 2024, but I'll guess this is just as accurate as their football take - which includes a pro football fields with soccer markings painted on the field.  

But, wow, you don't really appreciate the talent in these movies until you're left with two largely unlikeable leads role-playing what it would be like to watch two shallow, boring people circle each other until sex happens.  And because this is Lifetime and not Hallmark, sex is definitely implied.

It is funny watching the difference between Hallmark and Lifetime as Lifetime *does* seem to exist more in a world where people do normal things, like make out.  But it turns out real life is kind of dull.  I don't actually want to see two people doing puzzles and cooking together.  Especially not these two.

And if you want to know how awful they are, the finale is them hi-jacking a Christmas performance benefiting a children's hospital to declare their love for each other.  The supporting cast is fine and mostly better than the stars, especially the mom.

This movie exists because someone was going to make it, not because it was a good idea.  Or had any particular story to come up with other than idly speculating about Swift and Kelce, I guess.  Is this what it's like to be famous?  I don't know.  Probably not.  There's no agents, no coaches, no regimens, no concert tours or press to do.  No press agents to handle mishaps.  But there are two 30-something actors fumbling with each other whether you like it or not, giggling way, way too much.

And, I'll say it, both actors have weird heads.

Holiday Horror Watch: Black Christmas (2006)

Watched:  12/20/2024

Format:  Amazon Prime

Viewing:  First

Director:  Glen Morgan

I watched this movie because last weekend, Brandon Z told me that he'd watched all three version of Black Christmas (I did not know there were three) and that the 2006 edition featured Mary Elizabeth Winstead (always great) and our Christmas Queen, Lacey Chabert.  He did not endorse this version - just let me know: it exists.

Well, this is the opposite of a Hallmark movie, but if it has Chabert, and it's Christmas, who am I to not watch this movie?

A few years ago I watched the 1974 original version of Black Christmas (2006) and it scared the bejeezus out of me.  THAT is a horror film.  It leaves us with unknowns, an uncaught murderer who we never fully see, no motivation...  it's just... people getting popped off one-by-one and because of how college worked in a pre-internet/ pre-cell-phone era, when people weren't around, you just assumed they were okay until you heard otherwise.

This movie is bad.  It feels like it has no idea what worked in the original film, and made it smaller and less believable and went for gore over the terror of a guy slowly picking off unsuspecting sorority girls.  It changes it into a Halloween movie, but if Michael Meyers' thing was being mistaken for a banana.*  It even ends like Halloween 2 instead of leaving us with the absolute spine chiller of the original's conclusion.

Full stop - I am well known for face blindness with young Hollywood talent, male and female.  There was a hot minute where I thought Eva Green and Emily Blunt were the same person circa 2006.  So throw a sorority house full of girls at me who have no discernible personalities, different wardrobes or even really have blemishes, and my only hope for knowing who they are is "that one wears glasses" and that one is "MEW".  But I literally couldn't tell you how many girls were in the house, who they were, what their stories were, etc...  But, yes, I did look at IMDB and vaguely remember Michelle Trachtenberg.  But if they're all the same person, plus Andrea Martin, it makes it hard to care about anyone but Andrea Martin.  

And... look, MEW wasn't quite a thing yet in 2006, but Chabert kind of was.  So it's weird she has like 10 lines and is shoved in the background.  She's kind of funny in this.

As mentioned - awesomely, this movie *does* have Andrea Martin in it as a new character - the house mother.  And we love Andrea Martin.  Glad to see her.  And - because it's the writer/ director's wife, we also have Kristen Cloake, who is not a bad actor, btw, but it seems like she's hung up her acting guns.

This movie isn't scary.  1974's Black Christmas is so spooky, it's going to take some effort for me to watch it again.  This one is what you always see me complain about - jump scares in place of scares.  There's no real mood.  The backstory is just dumb and in no way an improvement - especially the post-Scream two-killer reveal (whoops, spoilers).  And the last act in the hospital just sucks.

I don't know why this exists.  And I don't blame the talent.  The people I do know in this are fine actors, so it's not them.  A quick look at wikipedia shows the problem was likely The Weinsteins.  So.  There you go.  Something else they made horrible.

I do not think I will watch the 2019 version unless there's a very pressing reason to do so.

*there's some liver problem we're told he has, and that it makes him yellow.  It looks *ridiculous*