65/2635. Best Served Cold: A Hannah Swensen Mystery (2026)
Hallmark Mysteries have never recovered from the pandemic disruption, and maybe they never will. I'm sure many of the decisions behind the scenes about which actors are available and which aren't must significantly hamper development of this series, but at this point, with the films being reduced to completely formulaic exercises in exploitable familiarity, even Mom is losing enthusiasm for this series.

66/2636. International House (1933)
The frame story of this madcap comedy, in which a convention of international buyers assemble in China to compete for rights to an improbable television-like device, is only an excuse for a bunch of famous comedy vaudeville acts to do their thing. It's actually quite amusing.

67/2637. Gumshoe (1971)
Critical guides as a comedy, though it's neither really cynical enough to be a black comedy nor does it exactly match the Shakespearean sense of the word. Though it does begin as a case of mistaken identity, and Albert Finney lends it his usual world-weary humor, the film is executed as a serious neo noir, in a style typical of its era, about a novice hardboiled detective learning on the fly. I liked it a lot.

68/2638. The Last Voyage (1960)
This disaster picture, presented in an almost documentary matter-of-fact style, squeezes a lot of drama out of the real-time sinking of an ocean liner following a boiler accident. Very suspenseful.

69/2639. Target (1952)
Actor Tim Holt plays cowboy Tim Holt, the only competent man in a West populated by misogynists, racists, and murderers. I watched it because John Hamilton, television's Perry White, plays the rancher who hires — and fires — Holt. The best thing I can say about it is that its short run time keeps it from wearing out its welcome.

More to come.

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60/2630. Undercurent (1946)
As much as I typically enjoy Katherine Hepburn, after years of establishing her public persona as an independent spirit, she's just not the right woman for this role of the sheltered ingenue who abruptly falls for and marries someone who from the very beginning is clearly the wrong man. This stunt casting was intentional as Robert Mitchum was also cast against type. Two wrongs don't make a right.

61/2631. The Steel Helmet (1951)
A contemporary anti-Korean War movie in which the protagonist is an unprincipled soldier interested only in his own survival. The small budget makes it all feel like a television show, so it's more like watching a play. I think that abstraction actually works in its favor.

62/2632. Ace of Aces (1933)
During World War I, sculptor Richard Dix works so hard to prove everyone is so wrong about how soft he is that he becomes a flying killing machine. I don't think there's any lesson in here, just standard melodrama.

63/2633. The Naked and the Dead (1958)
During World War II, Cliff Robertson argues to his asshole general that men will fight harder for leaders they respect than for leaders they fear. In this case, Cliff is proven right, but, I mean, he still gets mortally wounded. Was that really a win, Cliffy?

64/2634. Seven Days to Noon (1950)
It's a silly name for a procedural about the frantic search to catch a nuclear scientist planning to detonate a suitcase nuke in downtown London. The movie has enough strong parallels to George Clooney's 1997 Peacemaker (which I have always liked) that I think we can call the latter movie a remake.

More to come.

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The latest Supergirl movie opens today, and while I wish it nothing but the best of luck,* I don't plan on seeing it.

True, I'm in the 1% of people on this planet who didn't care for last summer's Superman, and you're probably right to call me a grumpy old man with no sense of humor. But I just can't get past the fact that James Gunn gave Superboy's dog, Krypto, to Supergirl when she already has her own perfectly close-up ready pet, the adorable Streaky the Super-Cat.

cover blurb and interior art from Action Comics #261, February 1960

They say a lot of things to warn you away from comic books, boys and girls, and some of them are actually true. But they don't tell you that one day your head will be so full of familiar adventures that you'll get actively angry when new storytellers come along and screw up the classics by randomly giving Pegasus to Hercules.

Bah, I say. Bah.

*I do, in fact, want more movies set in the DC Universe. If they make enough, sooner or later, they'll make one I actually like, even if only by accident.

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55/2625. Fackham Hall (2025)
Finally, a movie that answers the question "What if the makers of Airplane! made a film of Downton Abbey?" As a big fan of both Airplane! and Downton Abbey, I'm very happy to report that I found their marriage very amusing.

56/2626. Shoot Out (1971)
Have you ever wondered what True Grit would have been like it if starred Gregory Peck? Wonder no longer! A little less action, a little more conversation... It's fine.

57/2627. Blondie Johnson (1933)
What if Scarface was a woman? Or perhaps more generally, what if any James Cagney gangster film had starred Joan Blondell instead? Blondell, as usual, is great, but all the beats are familiar enough to belie just how formulaic these Warner Bros. gangster films of the 30s could be.

58/2628. Mirage (1965)
What if Gregory Peck had starred in Charade? In fact, both films were written by Peter Stone and both feature Walter Matthau in key roles. Charade came first, and if you're familiar with that performance, it'll make Matthau's role even better here. Still topical and very enjoyable.

59/2629. The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956)
More TCM Star of the Month Gregory Peck in a film that asks "What if Gregory Peck played a philanderer in a version of The Best Years of Our Lives with one-third of the cast and story but the full two-and-a-half hour runtime?" Answer: it's boring. Not every elevator pitch needs to be made into a movie.

More to come.

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48/2618. Miss Pacific Fleet (1935)
There's not a lot of substance to this frivolous film comedy, but its leads are Joan Blondell and Glenda Farrell, and that's good enough for me.

49/2619. Whiplash (2014)
There are only two characters of note in Damien Chazelle's star-making study of an abusive relationship. I've thought a lot about it, and I'm still not sure if I enjoyed it. Music's good, though.

50/2620. Honeymoon Hotel (1964)
Following a wedding-day disaster, womanizer Robert Goulet tricks his friend (the jilted groom) into following through on his honeymoon plans to visit a Hawaiian resort strictly for couples so the two men can meet more women. Screwball hijinks ensue. Goulet is good as the cad, but I really watched the whole thing for Jill St. John, who, as usual, is given too little to do.

51/2621. 711 Ocean Drive (1950)
This noir tells the story of the rise of an ambitious telephone technician through a life of crime. The house at 711 Ocean Avenue is one of many locations, from underworld bars to warehouses to penthouses to swimming pools and horse tracks, all of which pale in comparison to the backdrop for the climactic gunfight in the guts of "Boulder Dam." That would have been a better title.

Now that is a well-framed Coke bottle.

53/2623. Lord Love a Duck (1966)
It's a very rare thing in life when I encounter something more cynical than I am. This dark, dark comedy chock full of WTF moments passes that bar easily. It's clearly a takedown of the shallowness of commercially-driven pop culture and the pervasive attitudes of the Swingin' Sixties era, but there's a unique condescending anger at its heart that borders on hatred. I liked it quite a bit. For a taste of its poisoned madness, check out the sweater scene on YouTube.

More to come.

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43/2613. Up Periscope (1959)
A dull WWII movie with James Garner. For what it's worth, the dullness is not Garner's fault; there's just too much dead air masquerading as "suspense."

44/2614. L'Avventura (1960)
This is one of those movies that critics say you should see before you die, but reports say the first audiences to see it walked out on it. And they were right. Sure, it looks great and plays with some cinematic and storytelling structure concepts in unique ways, but the end result is that the audience spends two tense hours with some horrible people who know they are horrible people yet still being being horrible and resolving nothing. The ultimate lesson is don't do any of this. Not an enjoyable experience.

45/2615. Orion and the Dark (2024)
What can only be described as a Charlie Kaufman film for kids (because it is) has plenty of subversive surreality but has softened too much of Kaufman's uniquely signature metatextural navel-gazing for its younger audience. Don't get me wrong, it's not bad. It's just a lesser Kaufman work.

46/2616. Downhill Racer (1969)
Every possible sports cliche is in this action movie which is really a character study of the kind of damaged person who succeeds in the world of cutthroat sport. In hindsight, it's a very interesting counterpoint to The Candidate, which I'm sure is no coincidence as it was made three years later by the same director and star. Personally, I think The Candidate is Redford's best work (leveraging his charisma to make a point about the corrupting force of politics), but I admit that's because I prefer my satires sharp enough to draw blood. Your mileage may vary.

47/2617. T-Men (1947)
This is a crime drama procedural with noirish elements including most notably the beautiful chiaroscuro cinematography. I would argue that it's not quite true noir because the protagonist is a straight cop who walked into his noirish situation with eyes open, but that feels a bit like picking nits. Remember, kids: crime doesn't pay (but neither does being a cop).

More to come.

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40/2610. The Naked Gun (2025)
Do you remember how they used to say that Airplane! ruined Leslie Neilson's career? Will this do the same for Liam Neeson's post-Taken money train? In any case, it's a worthy successor to the Zucker/Abrams/Zucker originals (superior, even to 33-1/3), but it stuck in my craw that this movie that does not shy away from poking many other influences with a sharp stick never mentions the fact that it's core plot is essentially the same as The Kingsman.

54/2624. Take This Job and Shove It (1981)
It so happens that I watched this about a month before David Allen Coe died, and I'm glad I did so that I had that mental reference when reading his obituary. The film suffers from a weak budget and some rather obvious re-editing, presumably to make a messy script work, but I'm happy to say it's plenty of fun as a silly working-class comedy of its era.

Although Take This Job and Shove It is drenched in beer, there's still time for the Pause that Refreshes! I suspect the Coca-Cola soda fountain in the background of one of the protagonist's many internal struggles between his professional and personal ideologies was already installed in the shooting location as opposed to paid product placement, but much of the plot is made of the cultural value of American brands (which I found somewhat ironic in an age where Budweiser is owned by a Belgian conglomerate), so it's possible that this obvious bit of background imagery could be intended by the director as an intentional, somewhat subtle in the context of the film, reinforcement of the Good Ol' USA.

41/2611. Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974)
TCM airs this all the time, so I finally made myself watch it. I'm glad I did. It's very good, an atypical Scorsese movie that proves he's capable of so much more than just gangster films.

Speaking of questionable product placement, there's no way that the Coca-Cola Company approved their IP being used in a gory death scene, which reinforces that the dead man being a lazy Coca-Cola delivery driver was probably a choice by Scorsese to dramatize the pitfalls of the commercialization of the American Dream, a key element in spurring Alice's Campbellian hero's journey of self discovery. In other words, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a (bloody) Coke!

42/2612. Operation Crossbow (1965)
A pre-cursor to the formula perfected by The Dirty Dozen, the Brits and Americans work together on a suicide mission to scuttle the German rocket program. Sophia Loren gets top billing for a small and completely pointless part that exists only to attract (and, I'm sure, disappoint) her fans.

More to come.

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35/2605. Odd Man Out (1947)
I read that Roman Polanski, Sam Peckinpah, and Gore Vidal considered this to be among their favorite noir movies, but I agree with some of its contemporary critics that after a fantastically engaging start, it loses its way as it staggers (and then crawls) to its unsatisfying (but necessary?) conclusion.

36/2606. Critic's Choice (1963)
Sixties sex comedies are not my bag, baby, and it doesn't help that Bob Hope and Lucille Ball don't really have any sexual chemistry. But it's a mild enough example of the genre to be an inoffensive way to pass an afternoon.

37/2607. Toy Story 4 (2019)
Purposelessness. Abandonment. Loneliness. Death. Toy Story movies go hard and are always worth the effort to watch (though my fingers).

38/2608. Two Weeks with Love (1950)
The A plot of this MGM musical with Jane Powell and Ricardo Montalban is fine, but "little sister" Debbie Reynolds steals every scene she is in, especially singing "Aba Daba Honeymoon."

39/2609. One Battle After Another (2025)
Now that I've seen this, Paul Thomas Anderson's recent Oscar feels more like a career retrospective award. I do not think this is his best work, certainly no better than Licorice Pizza or Inherent Vice. Full disclosure requires I admit that I am no particular fan of Magnolia or Boogie Nights, either, but I agree Anderson is a rare talent and I do not begrudge the industry eventually recognizing it.

For an underground militant revolutionary radio DJ, that's a pretty prominent Coca-Cola can.

More to come.

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As a child of the 70s, I have long considered myself a Star Wars fan, which is why I impulsively decided to follow the link to "The Best Star Wars Trivia Quiz Questions to See How Much You Really Know" at Mental Floss dot com. The quiz has 100 questions, only the first 19 of which are in the category "Classic Trilogy (Episodes IV–VI)." But that's about where my fandom ends, so I figured I'd do pretty well. And I'm happy to report that I did know the name of Han Solo's ship and Luke Skywalker's trainer on Dagobah. But then I got to question 15.

15. What is the Emperor called in The Emperor Strikes Back?

I know I'm getting old, but I don't recall a movie named The Emperor Strikes Back in the "classic trilogy." And I certainly didn't know the answer.

Darth Sidious

Again, I'm old now, but I do remember a Darth Sidious who was the Sith Lord master of Darth Maul and later (after Maul gets cut in half) Darth Tyrannus and later (after Tyrannus gets decapitated) Darth Vader. (As Luke's trainer says of the Sith, "Always two there are. No more, no less." By which he clearly means a top half and a bottom half.) Darth Sidious was the evil alter ego of Sheev Palpatine, the representative of the planet Naboo in the Galactic Senate who manipulated events to rise to Supreme Chancellor before disbanding the Senate and ruling the galaxy as Emperor. So, yeah, Darth Sidious and the Emperor are the same person, but technically speaking, since Sidious wasn't introduced as a character until the fourth Star Wars movie, The Phantom Menace, no one called the Emperor that in any of the "classic trilogy" films, especially one that doesn't exist. (Point of fact: the prequels played so coy about Palpatine/Sidious's future as "The Emperor" that I have often wondered if Lucas expected contemporary audiences to be unaware they were all the same person.)

So I call bullshit. But what else should I expect from a piece of Internet clickbait in the post-truth culture in which we now live, where every major technology and media company has turned their content engines over to poorly curated supervised LLMs that "hallucinate" up to half their facts? The fault is clearly mine for expecting reality to live up to my fantasies of living in a more civilized age.

Happy May 4th to those who celebrate.

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While walking the dogs, I came up with a great idea for a blog post. I really thought it all out, too, paragraph by paragraph. But I made a mistake. Instead of typing it all up when I came back to the house, I instead sat down and played video games. As you can guess, now that I'm at my keyboard, I have no idea what it all was.

To be fair to me, I didn't go straight to video games. Before I played video games, I made a cup of coffee and a sandwich and moved seven boxes of comic books upstairs and watched Jeopardy!. Somehow, I can remember a lot of trivia, but I cannot remember what I was going to post right here.

If I'm being really fair, I should also admit that after I played video games, I then ate some sardines for dinner, drank another cup of coffee, watched Balls Up on Amazon Prime, and then sorted some comic books before I sat down here at my keyboard. One just shouldn't do that. Watch Balls Up, I mean.

In the continued interest of fairness, I'll say that I don't think this film's failure is entirely the fault of the underwritten script or the casting choices (although I find Mark Wahlberg only funny as a straight man making reaction shots, so I'd say it was a mistake to give him any jokes at all). Comedy, even puerile comedy, is built on subversion of expectations and timing, and this exceedingly puerile movie has neither. I expected better from Oscar-winning director Peter Farrelly, director of There's Something About Mary. My first laugh came at 41 minutes when the editor finally had the good sense to just leave Sasha Baron Cohen in frame while he was being silly. Sometimes the best editing is the least. For the record, my second and final laugh came late, at the well-telegraphed scene involving a vampire fish trapped in the urinary meatus of a penis. I don't know if it was a practical effect or CGI, but the absurdity of the situation definitely gave off welcome There's Something About Mary vibes. Finally.

So now you can see how I forgot what I was going to post. Could you remember five paragraphs after all that? No, of course not. No one could. At least the stream-of-consciousness dribble I wrote above is probably way better than whatever I had composed in my head. And, to paraphrase a much funnier movie, Brett Favre is the guy you should be with. I just want you to be happy, Mary.

52/2622. Balls Up (2026)

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