118/2429. The Losers (2010)
Sure, it's a big, dumb action movie, but it's a big, dumb action movie based on a DC comic book, and the influence shows maybe a little too much. Actually, it puts me in mind of some video games I've played in the past decade. "Pop Will Eat Itself," said the band in the 1980s, and it remains a true statement. Meh.

119/2430. From Darkness to Light (2024)
This is a so-so documentary with little insight into its subjects, but that's okay because the whole thing is really an excuse to rescue large parts of Jerry Lewis's legendary long-lost The Day The Clown Cried for curious cinephiles who seem reluctant to accept that it was just a bad film that became an unfortunate casualty of wrongheaded (and possibly malicious) decisions in the movie business. As a bit of a movie nut, I loved it.

120/2431. Dear Santa (2024)
Speaking of wrongheaded decisions in the movie business, Jack Black stars as a demon pretending to be Santa Claus. The core of the film is what you might expect from a 90s black comedy aimed at mallrat teens over Christmas break, but it is badly underbaked. Looking at the dates of release and production, it seems to me that Paramount just gave up on this without trying to make it good and dumped its barely cobbled-together carcass into the wasteland of back-catalog streaming services filler. Too bad. There's a lot of talent involved, and with the right script doctor and editor (and more money than Paramount obviously wanted to spend), maybe this could have become a cult classic.

121/2432. Uptown Saturday Night (1974)
Speaking of cult classics, Sidney Poitier and Bill Cosby hunt down a lottery ticket unwittingly stolen by gangsters in a blaxploitation film which was not particularly interested in exploitation. It's not great cinema, but it's not trying to be. It just wants to be a good excuse to see something lighthearted at the movies with friends, and on that level, it works.

Truth in Advertising Disclaimer: The setting in this screencap is neither uptown, Saturday, nor night.

And that's a wrap on movies watched in 2024. If you're keeping score at home, 121 is the fewest new-to-me movies I've seen in a year since 2016. I'm not entirely sure why the number is so low, but I did have a bit of a hard time with depression this year and watched far more familiar-to-me movies than usual, so that certainly cut into my movie watching time. The complete lack of must-see cinema in theaters couldn't have helped. Better luck next year, Hollywood!

More to come.

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113/2424. Eddie the Eagle (2015)
This is the sort of feel-good sports biopic that writes itself with little regard for actual facts. Seriously, why do they even bother to base these sorts of things on true stories? The cliches are so strong, they stand alone. Which is not to say that I disliked it; it's fine. Just not very original, and I find unoriginal to be largely uninspiring.

At least their taste buds are in the right place.

114/2425. Naked Alibi (1954)
I had to double check IMDB to jog my memory on this. The title isn't particularly memorable (as it really doesn't have too much to do with the plot), but it's a fine little crime picture potboiler starring Sterling Hayden and Gene Barry. Which one of them is the real bad guy? That's the whole first act!

115/2426. Stage Fright (1950)
Another film, this one a Hitchcock, that spends an inordinate amount of time making the viewer guess who the real bad guy is. There's too much comedy of errors in this for its own good, as it really starts to grate that the protagonist keeps putting herself in such dangerous and embarrassing positions.

116/2427. Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story (2024)
A glowing documentary about Christopher Reeve made by his children that doesn't ignore his flaws but somehow still manages to make the man appear a saint. Not bad at all.

117/2428. MacArthur (1977)
This biopic of MacArthur's later years feels too episodic and superficial. It never quite reaches the heart of why the great general behaved as he did. (I suspect star Gregory Peck didn't quite know either). It's certainly not as glowing a character study as Christopher Reeve got, though MacArthur did seem to think he was a super hero.

More to come.

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107/2418. Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021)
The original Venom surprised me by being more of a buddy cop movie than I expected, but this one drops the ball as dumb, unnecessary, computer-animated setpiece-driven action. I never liked Carnage in the comics, either. Pass.

108/2419. Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie (2016)
I wasn't a fan of the AbFab television show because Edina and Patsy were just horrible people. The movie leans into that, hard. But it also attacks the hypocrisy of a society that judges unequally based on age, sex, and income. I have to admit that I found more than a few things to chuckle at.

109/2420. Woman's World (1954)
Woman's World is more than a little reminiscent of Executive Suite (which also stars June Allyson), though with more emphasis on the spouses of the would-be executives. This one is also more comedic with the added benefit of Lauren Bacall being her glamourous self. (Not a knock against Executive Suite. It's got snarky Barbara Stanwyck, and I do like snark. They're both good!)

110/2421. The Cases of Mystery Lane (2023)
112/2423. The Cases of Mystery Lane: Death Is Listening (2024)
These are essentially television detective procedurals with a variation on the sitcom cliche of a clueless husband paired with an inexplicitly competent wife. (Arranged marriage?) They're a bit formulaic and silly, but so were the five seasons of Hart to Hart.

111/2422. The Singing Marine (1937)
Dick Powell is the title marine, and the script requires him to be both extra naive and extra worldly, so it never quite comes together. There's not much to recommend here other than Powell's excellent singing voice.

More to come.

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Friend James just shared an Internet article that claimed that every time I drink a Coke, my life gets 12 minutes shorter. That's a shame. Friends shouldn't share articles like that.

Let's see, if I've had just one Coke a day (ha!) since I was born, that's at least 215,760 minutes or 159 days that I could have lived and won't. If my fated expiration date is May 23, 2025, I might drop dead before I finish typing this. There's no arguing with that; it's science!

If there's one lesson to be learned from that article, it's that I really should stop procrastinating in posting these Coca-Cola product placement screenshots from recently watched movies that haven't otherwise made it into my movie reviews (either because I had already seen them or I didn't watch enough of the movie to qualify):

Some Came Running (1958)

The Cutting Edge (1992)

Kentucky Fried Movie (1977)

Slap Shot (1977)

The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1975)

Beverly Hills Cop III (1994)

The article didn't ay anything about drinking Coke with my eyes!

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102/2413. Targets (1968)
Peter Bogdanovich eventually became something of a punching bag for being such a prima dona auteur writer/director — for example, see the character of the pompous director in Burt Reynold's Hooper — but his early movies have stood the test of time remarkably well, even this, his first (for Roger Corman). Largely based on the then-shocking 1966 University of Texas tower shooter, this story of a mentally-ill man who just starts shooting people in a drive-in movie theater could be a below-the-fold newspaper headline today (minus the "drive-in" part, and, well, assuming anyone reads their news on paper anymore). The director does a great job of overcoming the limitations of a low budget to deliver some very effective storytelling. Kudos.

103/2414. Lincoln (2012)
On the other end of the budget spectrum, Steven Spielberg just cannot resist some of his sentimentalist tricks in what really should be a much drier portrait of a man willing to stoop low while doing the best he can to improve American society despite its worst urges. It's a great story, but there's no compelling reason it shouldn't have ended at the amendment's passage instead of watching the great man die. (Not knowing when to end a movie is a recurring problem for Spielberg. See Schindler's List or A.I. Artificial Intelligence among many others.)

104/2415. Lawyer Man (1932)
William Powell stars in a morality tale about a well-intentioned man from the streets taking a great fall because of his tragic flaw: loose women. The charismatic Powell and equally charismatic co-star Joan Blondell are handcuffed by a script featuring the broadest of caricatures. (Powell plays this same character archetype much better the following year in Manhattan Melodrama and Blondell defines the comedic suffering secretary in 1933's Footlight Parade, a personal favorite.) Oh, well. They can't all be classics.

105/2416. Bicycle Thieves (1948)
Maybe they can't all be classics, but this one can. To borrow a quote from Griffin Mill, the protagonist of The Player, "Great movie, huh?" I'd always heard this called The Bicycle Thief (which is what they call it in The Player), but I agree that the more literal translation of the original Italian title (Ladri di biciclette) is really more appropriate to the plot and darkly cynical theme of a man in danger of becoming what he hates. It truly is deserving of its sterling reputation.

106/2417. Synecdoche, New York (2008)
There's a key scene in 1977's The Mouse and His Child (which I watched way too young) in which the title pair are trapped in the bottom of a pond and find a can of Bonzo's dog food with a label that depicts itself inside a label that depicts itself et cetera ad infinitum (aka the Droste Effect). You know the scene. And that is what Scynecdohe, New York is: a movie's (or, as the case may be, a play's) depiction of an infinite recursion of the reality occupied (created?) by one navel-gazing playwright incapable (unwilling?) of getting out of his own head. Equal parts hysterical and depressing, it's brilliant (and occasionally frustratingly opaque) filmmaking from the unique voice of writer/director, Charlie Kaufman.

More to come.

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97/2408. Collision Course (1989)
Jay Leno's first leading role in a movie.... is bad. It's pretty clear that's not Jay's fault, or co-star Pat Morita's either. The script is worthless, the direction is weak, and this was clearly edited to appease television censors. I read afterwards that the production company that made it, De Laurentiis Entertainment Group (which also made Transformers: The Movie), declared bankruptcy during production, and it shows, especially in the third act "action." As a film, it's an interesting curiosity, but not great entertainment.

98/2409. A Sprinkle of Deceit: A Hannah Swensen Mystery (2024)
Hallmark's Hannah Swensen mysteries are still a favorite, and this one course corrects a bit from the last so that the large supporting cast doesn't come off quite as goofy (though still plenty unrealistically goofy). More, please.

99/2410. The Joe Louis Story (1953)
The absolutely true life story of Joe Louis! Well, about as "true life" as any 1950s sports biopic ever got, I suppose. The verisimilitude is helped a great deal by the inclusion of footage of Louis' actual fights. It also helps that the actor playing Louis is so bad at delivering lines that you figure he couldn't be making them up. (For about half the film, I was convinced he had to be related to Louis.)

100/2411. Le Professionnel (1981)
This is a great French action film in the same anti-authority vein as anything Eastwood or Bronson were making at about the same time. Highly recommended.

101/2412. Curious Caterer: Forbidden Fruit (2024)
Speaking of Hallmark Mysteries, this series very much feels as though it was created in desperation during the period that actress Alison Sweeney was unavailable to make more Hannah Swenson movies. Sadly, these are really too easy to solve because their mystery-construction formula is obvious. (Seriously, in this one I knew which one was the killer as soon as they introduced all the suspects even though the killer's random motivation wasn't pulled out of the ether until just before the last commercial break.) Still, I love these little puzzle boxes, even when they're easy.

More to come.

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92/2403. Nikki & Nora: Sister Sleuths (2022)
Mom gave up on this Hallmark Mystery Movie early (and often). I'm not quite sure what she hated so much about it. Yes, the plot is silly and contrived with two sisters who... are also silly and contrived. But "Silly and Contrived" is pretty much the Hallmark brand, isn't it? I thought it was fine. Not great. Just fine.

93/2404. Split Second (1953)
The title of this surprisingly taut drama about a hostage situation in a very unfortunate location isn't doing it any favors, but honestly neither would the more accurate "The Petrified Forest But Set at Ground Zero." Of course, The Petrified Forest also had the on-screen star power Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, and Leslie Howard, while the biggest star of Split Second is Dick Powell behind the camera in his directorial debut. All of which is to say that Split Second is passable entertainment that knows better than to overstay its welcome, even if it doesn't manage to be particularly memorable.

94/2405. The Seventh Victim (1943)
The first half of this would lead you to believe that it's a murder mystery, but then it shifts gears into either psychological or supernatural horror (depending on the scene and the characters in it) and then it ends with an off-screen suicide maybe? I've read that much of the script for this was left behind on the cutting room floor, which I can believe, because there are just too many holes in the schizephrenic plot for it to be remotely satisfying.

95/2406. Curious Caterer: Foiled Plans (2024)
Silly and contrived? Check and double check. This one is a bit of a locked room mystery, and I love locked room mysteries. I didn't love this one, though, maybe because I've read too many great locked room mysteries to be impressed by mediocre ones. More often than not, it feels like the "locked room" aspect is merely a response to the need to keep the budget down.

96/2407. Hamburger Hill (1987)
This movie spends so much time trying to be an honest presentation of what it felt like to be a sausage in the meat grinder of the Vietnam War that it somehow fails to be entertaining. Was the goal to give the audience PTSD for watching your movie? Mission accomplished.

More to come.

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88/2399. Jazz Ramsey: A K-9 Mystery (2024)
The "canine" in the title of this Hallmark mystery is a red herring. Yes, there is a dog, but it has no chemistry with the actress playing "Jazz," and it only serves a narrative purpose of finding the murder victim... in the ventilation system of a school. Even a human nose would have detected that. Despite the fact that Jazz is supposed to be a dog trainer and the dog her foster animal, the dog is rarely seen again, not even when Jazz is worried about her own safety after being attacked by the supposed murderer. Ugh. Not recommended (even though I solved it almost immediately, or maybe because I solved it almost immediately).

89/2400. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024)
I enjoy Anya Taylor-Joy so much, she almost made me appreciate Fury Road. But not quite. The entire post-apocalyptic dystopia scenario is just too grotesque for me to enjoy any of the many, many murders that take place there. Also, unlike Fury Road, this one feels too artificial, too computer-generated, like a sadistic cartoon. Ick. And what's up with Chris Hemsworth's fake nose? It's obviously still Hemsworth, so I spent all the time he was on screen wondering why they were trying to disguise his nose and not his six-pack abs. Bad decisions everywhere.

90/2401. Nelly Knows Mysteries: A Fatal Engagement (2024)
Finally, a charming Hallmark mystery movie in 2024. Yes, it plays out mostly like a police procedural with one quirky book-loving mystery fan and one by-the-book detective, and the perpetrator's identity is as obvious as ever thanks to the twists the script and editing take to obscure their own tracks. (Hint: it's always the one the movie goes out of its way to excuse.) However, the actors do seem to be genuinely enjoying themselves, and that goes a long way, especially when there's a murder afoot.

91/2402. Breathless (1960)
Sure, I watch a lot of made-for-television Hallmark mysteries, but I'm cultured. I can watch New Wave French cinema, too! I always use Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass as my example of how once-strikingly influential art seems mundane to modern eyes because of the many imitators that followed, and that analogy applies here. So many significant elements of this film would make their way into the work of Scorsese and Tarantino and others that Jean-Luc Godard's much-ballyhooed Breathless can often feel... well, boring is the wrong word, but maybe unnecessary. I certainly don't understand why Godard made many of his choices, but I cannot deny that they certainly leave a lasting impression.

More to come.

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My movie watching has really slowed down since football season started. At this rate, I'll be lucky to make it to 120 on the year.

83/2394. Stage Struck (1936)
Dick Powell, Joan Blondell, and Frank McHugh in a Busby Berkely movie musical about putting on a Broadway show should be a good time, but this only manages to be a forgettable uninspired mediocrity. One too many times to the well, I guess.

84/2395. Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid (1948)
Okay, so this whole film is about a 49-year-old man (played perfectly by William Powell) panicking about his advancing age and starting a romantic relationship with a mermaid who is much, much younger than he is. As a 49-year-old man living in 2024, I find the whole thing more than a little cringy, admittedly in part because I cannot imagine wanting to make love to a fish.

85/2396. Suicide Squad (2016)
This is the first Suicide Squad movie, the bad one. And "bad" is an understatement. I realized while watching it that the sequel was written as a response to some of the fundamental errors in plot and characterizations this movie makes. Don't watch this. It's irredeemably awful.

86/2397. Tom Sawyer (1973)
Produced by Reader's Digest, it feels true to brand as an abridged version of the Mark Twain novel I read so many years ago. (That is definitely not how I remember the Injun Joe situation playing out.) The film is fine, but it is never again as good as the opening montage of Tom running and running and running and running at the sound of a riverboat whistle.

87/2398. The Big Knife (1955)
Clearly a stage play (an angry indictment of the Hollywood studio system) before being adapted to the big screen, the claustrophobic nature of the single location is befitting for the protagonist's emotional state, but it did try my patience.

More to come.

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78/2389. Rumble Fish (1983)
Francis Ford Coppola's self-defeating tendency towards artsy-fartsy bullshit is the defining attribute of this beautiful but hollow ode to teenage angst. Coppola obviously wanted this to be French New Wave, and his great cast certainly nails the style. However, his characters are barely-sketched caricatures, and their interactions are disappointingly meaningless.

If Coca-Cola is cool enough for Tom Waits, Coca-Cola is cool enough for everyone!

79/2390. Tell It to the Marines (1926)
Lon Chaney in a rare leading role where he isn't the monster. I don't know that I'd call it "good," but mostly because cinema and cultural mores have changed so much in the past century. Chaney and his rubber face are, as always, greatly entertaining.

80/2391. When We Were Shuttle (2022)
This documentary is an historical look back at the often overlooked Florida ground crew that built and maintained the space shuttles between missions. If you have any interest in the Space Age, especially the Space Transport System that defined the American space program for three decades, it's worth a watch.

81/2392. What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael (2018)
This documentary is a biography of the very influential (and very controversial) 20th-century New Yorker film critic as told mostly by her very sympathetic allies. I'm more familiar with Kael the antagonist (via the stories told by the many, many people she went out of her way to offend), so I'm reluctant to accept everything this would have me believe about her motivations and accomplishments. But it is worthwhile to hear both sides.

82/2393. The Color Purple (1985)
My rule is that I have to watch at least half of a movie before I will put it on my "watched" list. This is a rare exception. Steven Spielberg is up to all his old tricks trying to pull tears from a stone. I made it about thirty minutes through a nonstop series of incest, rape, child abuse, and murder before I had to tap out. Life is too short to spend with people this awful, even if they're fictional. (Maybe especially if they're fictional.)

More to come.

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