everything on this DVD cover is a lie Watched:  12/23/2025Format:  AmazonViewing:  Second (and last)Director:  Mimi Leder While watching A Little Piece of Heaven (1991) for ChabertQuest2025, I knew instantly that this would be a movie to share with Dug and K.   As longtime readers will know, sharing terrible Christmas movies with Jamie's brother, Dug and his wife K, is a yearly tradition here at The Signal Watch.  And, for reasons I cannot guess, Christmas seems to really bring out some absolute nonsense, from failed comedy concepts like Santa with Muscles to the utterly sincere failures, like this one. There are many flavors of "this movie is a bad idea" out there, and we've covered a lot of them.  But this TV movie commits the sin of, as Dug put it, insisting that the ends justifies the means.  Even if the ends are highly, highly questionable.  And the means are absolutely mortifying.   This movie contains: * a very 90's take on an actor playing someone "special" * drugging a child * kidnapping a drugged child * light casual racism * 90's screenplay ingrained racism * child slave labor * child emotional labor * gaslighting within gaslighting, like an inception where we're passing through layers of bullshit that's knee-deep * nonsense rationalization * child abuse-ploitation * more kidnapping * transporting minors * abandoning pigs * basically casting all those horror stories you see about people kidnapping people off the street and keeping them in their basement, or imprisoning children, and turning the abductor into a hero * the greatest bullshit ending to a movie ever committed to screen * Kirk Cameron But, fun fact, a very young Lacey Chabert received an Emmy Nomination for her role as "Princess".   Anyway, somehow this movie was written, produced, filmed, edited and given a plum primetime slot on network TV.  And everyone thought this was fine.  Even the scene where it's clear someone is tossing chickens out of a window.  And all of young Jussie Smollet's dialog.  https://signal-watch.com

Hey!  Merry Christmas, people!  Happy Holidays!  Happy post-Hanukkah!  Happy coming Kwanzaa!  Happy post-Solstice for my witchier compatriots!  However or whatever you celebrate - we hope it was a good one.  Or will be, when you get off shift. So far we had a lovely Christmas Eve with Family and Neighbors and Blue Cookies that I am pretty sure I should not have eaten (broke my rule of "never eat anything colored blue").  We made Coquito - badly (I need a new blender) - and ate small sandwiches, drank wine, and generally had a good time of it.  Dug and K are here, and I am currently listening to the air conditioner go because it's 80 degrees today.  Feelings are mixed on this facet. We had roll-wreath/ monkey bread and bacon for breakfast.  Then, did the present exchange.  Jamie spent months cross-stitching a picture of Emmylou for me, and it is amazing. We had chatter with the screenwriter for probably the best Hallmark movie this season over at The Signal Watch.  We watched one of the most troubling Christmas movies which will post over at the Signal Watch at 6:00ish Central. We're headed over to The KareBear and The Admiral's place for Christmas dinner and, maybe, family photos.  I have put on a lot of weight, so I am less than enthused that roly-poly-Ryan is getting immortalized, but that's what happens when you eat your feelings and can't walk anywhere thanks to a busted foot.  But I am looking forward to a fabulous family feast and festivities. Oh, also, I watched pieces of It Happened on 5th Avenue, and next year we're doing a re-watch. We didn't watch The Grinch, because I loathe the movie, but here's Martha May Whovier, the most confusingly foxy of Christmas characters.   Here's a very good, brief Christmas sketch: Anyway, Merry Christmas.   May the most Texas-accurate Christmas tune of all carry you through: join us at The League of Melbotis

Emmylou beneath the tree Merry Christmas from The Signal Watch, pals.   Here's to a quiet, peaceful Christmas for all of us.  May the season be merry and bright, and may you spend the holiday as you like, with loved ones or otherwise.  We wish you the best. Here's to peace on Earth, goodwill to all, and the chance for all of us to be our best. As we do every Christmas Eve, we're sharing Ms. Darlene Love singing Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home).   https://signal-watch.com

Watched:  12/22/2025Format:  HallmarkViewing:  FirstDirector:  Eva Tavares This movie was very offbeat for Hallmark, but a welcome change of pace.  I tuned in because I saw a few Ali Liebert movies a while back and thought she was better than the average bear.  She's been wearing multiple hats the past few years, though, and directing two or so movies per year while appearing in other movies and producing some.  So hats off for Ms. Liebert.  I can barely chew bubblegum and walk at the same time. Liebert co-stars in The Christmas Baby (2025) with Katherine Barrell, who some may know from Wynona Earp.  The pair play a married couple in Albany, New York, going about their childfree existence when someone leaves a baby in a stroller at Liebert's mail store while she's in the back. This isn't a Hallmark romcom, it's a dramedy, leaning towards drama.  Unlike 99% of Hallmark's Christmas output, there's a lot of tears and a lot of very real feelings and issues.  It feels more like a TV movie from days of yore than a feel-good Christmas bit of Christmas marshmallow.   And questions to answer.  Who is the mother?  What does it mean to suddenly have parenthood thrust on you and what feelings would you have if that wasn't the plan?  What if you and your wife are suddenly not on the same page?  And why aren't you?  And if you commit to this kid, what's to say someone won't just take them away? We've had adoption in our family, but the picture looked very, very different.  So it was a lot of hypotheticals. This is still Hallmark and this is still a Christmas movie.  We kind of can guess where we'll end up, but we do have lots of territory to cover as we get there.    Barbara Niven plays the social worker who assists the baby/ foster moms, and Rebecca Staab plays Liebert's mother-in-law (Staab just shows up in a weird number of things I watch).   I think the movie handles a delicate situation (not a Hallmark hallmark) as honestly as possible.  The questions the baby's arrival raise for the characters are about what they really want and who they are.  As the potential for motherhood becomes real, the situation absolutely puts a massive strain on the couple, mentally, physically and emotionally.   But.  You can also feel the Millennial therapy-speak creep in *a lot* in order to prevent anyone from ever saying anything remotely controversial as they sort through the primary and secondary issues.  The filmmakers take great strides to make sure the couple come close to lashing out at each other with understandable emotions - but then they veer to the exact right thing in that moment, even if it's "I love you, but I need some cool down time", while still experiencing their feelings.  While it keeps the movie from delving into cliches of melodrama, it also feels like the two most well-adjusted people on the planet having a crisis. I honestly don't know how I feel about that aspect.  It was interesting to watch two people *not* try to murder each other and then decide "baby fixes all" at the conclusion, so I guess I'm for it.  But that stuff is hard to write - so they're lucky they got two actors who could pull it off without sounding like a therapy exercise by way of community theater. My other nit to pick I'll keep to myself, as it is wildly pedantic, but sentence structure matters.  I will reveal my nit only to folks who worked on the film as I assume it bothered no one else and they can't change the movie now.  And it is a nit you'd never notice, so microscopic is my grievance. But, yeah, I thought this was a pretty solid movie that stuck the landing.  Not just "pretty good for Hallmark", but a watchable movie with three-dimensional characters - weird!  Like, sure, I'm good with time travelling Christmas shenanigans or unlikely romance found at a cat cafe, but if you can do this a couple of times a year with a Hallmark budget?  Groovy. https://signal-watch.com

So, there's a whole lot of Scandanavian stuff here I don't quite grok.   There's the Scandanavian habit of, much like Mari Llyd, dressing up and going around to get booze from neighbors (a solid plan!).  And that is referred to as Julebukking.  Neighbors who have not slammed the door in your spooky face now welcome you in for smorgasbord and a cocktail, I'd guess. How this happens without already being drunk looking at the picture above, I can't say.   But this may have originally been a tradition where the participants mostly dressed as goats, thus the name.  And how did we get there? Jule means Yule/ Christmas-time, and Bok means Goat.   I came across "Julebok" while looking for something for my mum, who is of Finnish heritage, for her holiday decor.  And, it turns out there's a Scandavian thing to have a goat doll or effigy made of grain husks.  The origins are pagan, most likely, and are repurposed goats of Thor -  Tanngrisnir ("teeth-barer") and Tanngnjóstr ("teeth-grinder"). Or!  More likely - tied to the ancient pagan diety of harvest, Dazbog, who was associated with a white goat.  And old winter ceremonies had someone dressed up as a goat demanding gifts.  Like a reverse Santa.   Over time and geography, the goat became associated with bringing presents - and in the early 19th Century, before Santa was a thing in the area, yeah... basically they had a goat-beast-man delivering presents.   My theory is that after Dad handed off presents to the kids he was like "I've got on this costume, I'm gonna go show Toivo" and wandered over, half-buzzed, sang at the door, Toivo brought him in for Schnapps and a tradition began. These days, the goat might be pulling Santa's sleigh, which seems odd in the actual land of reindeer. Also, the grain doll is a nice, fun ornament to have on one's table or mantle during the holidays. Or a giant thing you would not want falling over onto you. The internet does tell me some towns do seem to go full Wicker Man with their goats. Anyway, the Yule Goat is adorable, and I want one for the coffee table.  And to go singing at my neighbor's house whilst dressed as a goat.join us at The League of Melbotis

Watched:  12/22/2025Format:  DiscViewing:  FirstDirector:  Glen Pitre There's a lot going on in Home Front (aka: The Scoundrel's Wife - 2002).  Some might argue too much.   A period piece taking place mostly during World War II, it's about a woman and her family living on Louisiana's Gulf Coast, who are pariahs already when the war breaks out.  It seems some years before the woman (Tatum O'Neal) and her husband may have gotten up to misdeeds that will be shared later. It's a bit of a frustrating movie because it's a look at some real life things - that German U-Boats were off the US coast causing havoc, there was concern about internal collaborators, etc....  And some of this forgotten history is illuminated brilliantly, really, as O'Neal's family is awakened by a fire's glow off in the distance, out over the water as a U-Boat hits a shipping vessel.   Meanwhile, life in the small fishing village carries on for O'Neal and her teenage son, Blue, and her daughter, Florida (Chabert), just aging into adulthood.  A doctor moves in nextdoor, but he has what seems to be a German accent (Julian Sands).  Meanwhile, the town Priest (Tim Curry) wrestles with alcohol. We don't tend to think about Germany or Japan making inroads in North America or threatening the US Coastline, but, Germany had successful operations in the Gulf of Mexico for quite a while.  They were prepping for war while we were worrying about not getting involved (isolationism never works, chums). Anyway, the film piles on idea after idea, and none of them are bad ideas on their own, but trying to get them all in one place, accurate or not, means the plot is muddied and the *point* of the story gets lost until the ending when they say it out loud.  Which of these stories are we telling?  Because at the end, the moral of the story is "you can reinvent yourself", but...  man, is this a shaggy dog story to get there.  So many diversions and plot bits that would work in a novel, but in a movie come off as stops and starts. SPOILERS The idea is that Julian Sands is a Jewish doctor placed in the town by a Jewish aid society, but it turns out he's *actually* a Gypsy/ Romany (there's a super awkward scene where he does not like the use of the term "gypped" early on, and it's a massive, flashing neon arrow of where this is going) who is NOT a doctor, but now he has to be one?  It's weird.  And potentially very dangerous. The villain of the story is a young man put in charge of security of the fishing village (and who is sporting a very 00's-era haircut in a movie about 1942).  He's being asked to find a spy, so he makes one up?  And then tries to SA Lacey Chabert?   We also learn the reason O'Neal is eyed with suspicion is that about a decade earlier, she'd been working with her husband to sneak in Chinese illegal immigrants in barrels when they were raided, and he started throwing the barrels overboard.  It's super fucked up.   Anyway, it is A LOT.  And while I do think at the end they manage to pull the threads together as O'Neal echoes Sands' comments about reinventing oneself (something illustrated by Chabert going glam girl after leaving and coming back) it feels like there were less windy ways to get to the point - which has to almost be spoken out loud. I haven't even gotten into Tim Curry's part and how he relates, but he and O'Neal are frankly elevating the material, and it's a reminder how good both of them are.   Is it stupid?  No.  But it's a messy movie.   There's enough plot here for a TV mini-series or first season of prestige TV condensed to two hours.  It would have been nice to cut some of it and make sure we're focusing on the right things to convey the point, and maybe make the villain less of a handsome cartoon. And while I dislike bad accents, weirdly this movie about 1940's deeply rural Louisiana sees only Chabert trying one on (my understanding is her family is in part from Louisiana, so... fair).  Which means the 1900-born character played by O'Neal sounds like she's from Southern California. She also looks a bit...  great? for a woman in her position at that time (someone who spends all day on fishing/ crabbing/ shrimping boats.  She always looks like someone headed for the farmer's market, and a lot of the rest of the wardrobe worn by others never looks quite grimy enough for what should be the work they're all doing. Anyway, I liked parts of this movie, and Tatum O'Neal is really solid.  I'm not sure why this movie basically never got any real distribution - but it was going up against Spider-Man's and Star Warses, I'd guess.   Chabert is still very young here - I'd guess 19?  But she makes some great choices, and I think works well.  During an era where she was being cast as the hot girl in teen romps, or the good girl in other movies, she got to work with name talent and do some character work.  Respect. https://signal-watch.com

Watched:  12/20/2025Format:  PeacockViewing:  UnknownDirector:  John McTiernan One of the great points of relief for me this year has been that, at long last, people are being shamed on social media for asking if Die Hard (1988) is a Christmas movie.  It is.  We're done.  Shut up. What younger audiences won't know is how much Die Hard changed the game for action movies.   I'll often point to Commando (1985) as the template for action movies, and in some ways, that's right.  But it also reflects the kind of movie being made where our hero was already a super soldier we understood stood above other men.  He could walk through a hail of gunfire without so much as a scratch and dispatch 100 anonymous henchmen before tangling with the Big Boss at the end of the movie.  And in the 1980's, action heroes were guys like Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Chuck Norris.   Die Hard suggested that much more of a common man could be an action hero in the right situation.  He'd get the crap beat out of him, he'd get injured, he'd make mistakes, but as long as he kept a cool head and remembered Bonnie Bedelia needed him now, he just might save the day.   In a way, all the chatter in the movie about cowboys is key here.  John McClane is Shane - is there any use for him in this world of glass skyscrapers and corporate finance.  Westerns were many things over the years - as much setting as genre - and we do get movies about everymen as much as we do John Wayne enforcing the law on the frontier (see: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance for one of the more interesting looks at the western myth).   I think it's also key to look at the angle of masculinity in this movie in comparison to most cop-oriented action movies.  John McClane is a father and husband.  He is not meeting a cute flight attendant along the way.  He is not protecting a sexy witness he will bed as soon as the credits roll.  His primary problem in life is that his wife doesn't actually need him at all, and he can't change.  She's a successful 1980's corporate shark, and he's a New York cop who can't imagine himself not being in New York or doing what he does.  But he just happens to be in Los Angeles at the right time, when she actually *does* need him.   By the way, it's hard not to notice that John has a wandering eye, but we don't talk about that. The 1980's were seeing the sea-change of women not just entering the workforce, but seeing the start of of women's careers eclipsing those of their spouses.  I have no idea how this spoke to grown men in 1988 - I was 13 and didn't blink at the concept, I had friends where it was clear Mom was pulling in the big bucks from Texas Instruments while Dad did something less lucrative.  I assume this is pretty common these days.   For bonus points, Bedelia's character is named Holly in a Christmas movie.  Extra Hallmark points, Die Hard.   For the most part - for an actioner of this era, the writing is insanely sharp.  Not just in that every plant has a payoff - but they clearly thought through things like "if someone pulls a fire alarm, what do the thieves do?"  They needed for Hans and Co. to be smart and capable, and so... they are.  Their plan for robbing Nakatomi is actually rock solid.  As inhuman as it is to blow up 30 people on the roof, it sure would lead to confusion as to what happened and cover their escape.  Would bearer bonds not lead authorities directly to the crooks?  I kind of think they would if one showed up with hundreds of millions in bearer bonds, but it's a neat idea. But, yeah, Hans knows the press would get involved, and don't just show it happening, it's a key plotpoint.  The crooks knowing what the FBI playbook is - equally important.   John has to *also* be smart, and so the movie worries about how he's going to do things.  And over and over, it shows his asymmetrical approach is pretty good working against people with a plan.  Heck, chucking a body onto Al's cop car isn't half bad for alerting police something is up. I'd also argue the humor in Die Hard is some of the best in an action movie.  John is funny.  Hans is hilarious.  Ells is a clown and Holly gets in some good lines.And as much as I think Die Hard returned us to the idea of everyman action heroes, "Yippee-kai-yay, Motherfucker" may be one of the most important lines delivered in a movie in the 1980's.  It's our turning point for John as he engages with Hans and Co., certainly - and is the point at which Hans realizes he can't cow or insult McClane into hiding.  I don't know of another movie that managed to quite pull off that "fuck you" moment quite so well from the era, but it also gave a couple of generations a battlecry for when we know we're making the unsafe, unadvisable decision and hoping for the best. The movie also gave us Bruce Willis as movie star, which was unexpected.  He was a TV star and back then not too many TV stars managed to cross over to the big screen and succeed long term.  But Willis' charisma and persona fit perfectly into the film, and it was off to races.   We also got America's first look at Alan Rickman, who was different from all the militarized goons we were used to, or well-muscled thugs that often made up action movie threats at the time.  Slick, smart, a chameleon to meet the moment, Hans Gruber was a new kind of villain.  And it's impossible to imagine anyone else pulling off the part with the same panache.   The only thing I wish the movie had more of is (1) William Atherton, who is just terrific as the reporter, and (2) more of what Nakatomi looks like from Al's POV.  I mean, we kind of need to see the C4 go off the way it happens in the movie.  But I would love the entire sequence just from Al's POV as the building suddenly blows the @#$% up out of nowhere.   https://signal-watch.com

Emmylou is worn out by holiday cheer I'm Out of the Sandal/ Boot So sometime in mid-October I was put into a surgical boot, even before I'd actually had surgery on my foot.  Well, on the morning of the 19th, I had a round of x-ray's, high-fived with my surgeon, who is a super cool guy, I might add - and was given the all-clear to put on a shoe instead of the boot. I had my shoe in the car and was delighted to do so.  I can't say how freeing it felt to not hobble around with that clumsy thing on my foot.  I even took Emmylou for a little walk yesterday.  And will now do so every day as I rebuild confidence in the foot and the walks get longer. Anyway - I was told "no running or jumping for a while", but I can go back to the gym in January.  Just in time for all the folks who made resolutions to swarm Planet Fitness. I've gotten noticeably fatter during the past two months of couch-rotting, so getting back out there is a great turn of events. Prepping for Christmas We're more or less ready.  Saturday, Dug and K flew into Austin, took Jamie's car, and drove south to San Marcos to go stay with Jamie's dad, DocDik, for a couple of nights.   They'll be back and then the horror of the Christmas movie season really begins. My shopping started in October, so I've been done for a while.  Due to the chaotic nature of December, for years now - especially now that Steanso and Cardboard Belts have kids, I try to get things early so we're coordinated and not double-buying or buying stuff the kids don't want. Jamie has made Chex Mix, and KareBear sent us those big tins of flavored popcorn (which I love once a year).   We're planning to host Christmas Eve for the family, so we're prepped with deli orders, etc...  I'll do a bit of shopping day-of as I realize what we're missing.  But I'm off til the 29th, which is nice. I had a spot of cleaning to do, prepping beds, etc...  And I need to just keep the place relatively livable.  My usual habit of discarding layers wherever I'm standing is not going to fly.  I might have to use... hangers. But we're in the endgame now!  Bring on the festiveness. Basic Cable from 10 Years Ago is the New Christmas Canon Thanks to my access to social media and mixing with generations who have no business dealing with each other socially, I'm now well aware of what the younger generation thinks are Christmas classics.  And, much in the same way I, as a younger Gen-X'er, had a selection put before me by cable showing a mix of weird reruns (I am still haunted by the Sanford and Son Christmas Episode based on how little effort went into it) - I'm now bombarded with what is a Christmas classic, and it's mostly middling movies of my youth.   I am coming to the realization that a lot of what constitutes a classic movie is just repetition.  Which raises some key questions in the streaming era when basic cable will not be running Christmas Vacation on a loop for six weeks.  Sure, they can push some movies your way - but they can't offer it up as a "sure, this is fine" option in the same way.   What Turner Classic would label as Classic movies largely have gone unseen by most people - which I guess I get. And frankly choose to be offended by everything that doesn't fit with how they wish things were 80 years ago, so maybe it's best they don't get to watch those movies.   Anyway, rather than Christmas in Connecticut or It's a Wonderful Life, the preferred favorites now seem to be what you'd expect from cable - Die Hard, Gremlins, Christmas Vacation, with Elf as the most recent entry.  Muppet Christmas Carol is slowly getting beaten to death via hyperbole on social media.  And, look, I love the movie, but I think we can stop talking about it as the greatest movie ever made.  It's the second best Muppet movie and that's great. All of these are good movies, and they wound up on cable on repeat for a reason.  But it is interesting to see how they've eclipsed "classics" as I knew them.  I think the odd thing about it is that minus Muppet Christmas Carol, two of these are movies that occur at Christmas, but are genre movies, and two are essentially about someone trying to have a good Christmas when the world is pretty cynical about the season.  It's a pretty far cry from It's a Wonderful Life or White Christmas that take the holiday as a setting and a given. Kylie Wins Christmas The UK's take on Christmas is different in some small ways than how we do it up in the US.  Not the least of which is that - while Americans bust out Bing Crosby and nostalgic tunes, the UK spends every year worrying about who has the new #1 Christmas song.  Many years ago, Simon explained to me that every year in the UK, artists record their Christmas song and see if they can't hit #1 on the chart.  How this works seems like a lot of promotion and participation by radio and other outlets.  But the UK tends to deal with "who is favourite?" in a different way than the US, like it's a zero-sum game. It's not that we don't get new songs in the US, but if they break out, there's no open spirit of competition, which I'd argue would be seen as very much against the spirit of the season here.  And music snobs would probably point to songs that never are going to chart or get attention as superior holiday songs, anyway.   But in the past few years, I've picked up *some* new Christmas music.  I confess to picking up the first Kelly Clarkson record and Cher's Christmas album.  But I also have the family vinyl we listened to while I was growing up - even if I had to replace the somehow-missing Christmas in the Stars Star Wars record. But this year the Kylie Minogue machine went into overdrive to get a chart topper with XMAS.  It is, as the kids say, a bop.  It's a stadium song, and arguably took a note or two from Ms. Roan's Hot to Go and the Village People's YMCA, incorporating spelling and choreographed hand gestures for the letters right into the song and video.  Minogue went on a media blitz, appearing on British TV, radio, etc...   Which worked.  Ms. Minogue scored the top single in the UK with her song, and the video has about two million hits as of this writing.   Here she is on Strictly Come Dancing, making a powerful argument for the song/ herself. and, I've seen some stuff on Instagram and elsewhere, but it's a thing this year Oddly, this song does *not* appear on her Christmas record, Fully Wrapped, even as it is a mix of songs from Kylie Christmas and other tracks.  For XMAS and Office Party, you need to pick up the single. join us at The League of Melbotis

Watched:  12/19/2025Format:  HBOmaxViewing:  FifthDirector:  James Gunn Wanted to get in one more viewing of Superman (2025) before the end of the year.  And so I did. No more notes.  I've already written too much about this movie.  But it meant a lot to have a Superman movie this year that hit so many right notes/ actually felt like the Superman I know from comics, cartoons, etc...  while still being a fresh take.   https://signal-watch.com

prepare to get weepy. This is the first time in a while I've been surprised by so many names as they went by - I simply didn't hear or read that they had merged with the infinite.  As you know, we'll post sometimes if we learn of someone's passing.  Not always, but it's a feature. I simply did not know about any of the following, and I feel like I should have, or would have back in Twitter's golden age: * Connie Francis * Jules Feiffer * Joe Don Baker * James Mitchum * Lalo Schifrin * Peter Jason * Robert McGinnis (this one shocks me that I didn't know) * Jeannot Szwarc * Peter Greene To all of these, may flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. https://signal-watch.com

Watched:  12/18/2025Format:  HBOmaxViewing:  ha ha ha ha...  oh, mercyDirector:  Robert Montgomery December 20th marks the birthday of Signal Watch patron saint of noir bad girls, Audrey Totter.   For more on one of our favorite stars of the silver screen, here's a post from earlier this year on Moviejawn. Last year, through a series of misadventures, we missed our annual watch of Lady in the Lake (1947), and so we wanted to make sure we got in this year's screening.   You have your Christmas movies, I have mine.   Robert Montgomery stars and directs, mostly as Marlowe's voice over.  Montgomery is not a bad actor, but his Marlowe is maybe my least favorite - I mean, Bogart plays the same guy in The Big Sleep, and I'm a huge fan of Dick Powell in Murder, My Sweet.** There's truly nothing like this movie - not from this era.  95% of the film is presented from the subjective viewpoint of Philip Marlowe - our lead and a detective.*  The idea is that the audience is looking through Marlowe's eyes - eyes which are a camera the size and weight of a Mini-Cooper.  As a studio film where they let a new director run with an idea, it's some very strange viewing that in 2025, feels like the world's longest videogame cut-scene. The subjective view had been done in part (see  Dark Passage.  No, really, amazing film.), but they're still working out how to do it, and Montgomery is new to directing,so the effort inevitably draws attention to itself in numerous ways.  Angles are off for where Marlowe's hands appear.  Lighting is complicated sometimes.  Everyone looks Marlowe directly in the eye, which is kind of insane for actors, but also leads to odd blocking.  But it can also produce some neat effects as characters approach Marlowe or he approaches them, and gives a real personality to what we do and don't see. But, the novel of Lady in the Lake is a tangled web of events and characters.  In the book, we're deducing events that happened in the past, but that takes travel to multiple locations the movie doesn't visit, where quite a bit happens.  If Montgomery wanted to adapt a novel, there had to have been one that was going to be more streamlined. Maybe due to the complexity of trying to shoot this way in the woods, or for runtime or budget, the movie skips whole sections of the book and relates them as exposition.  But those speeches are discussing crucial people and events we don't see - in a movie about what we see.  It's... weird.  Thus, the movie requires absolute attention to the right things at the right time or it doesn't make sense.  It really helps to have read the book.   The tidbit I figured out in the last year is that Jayne Meadows, who plays a major supporting role, is the sister of Audrey Meadows - co-star of The Honeymooners.   But we're here to discuss Audrey Totter, and discuss Audrey Totter we shall do.   In a movie that weaponizes the male gaze, Totter is our object of interest.  It's a male gaze weighed down my machinery - the glace away to the receptionist is not a furtive glance, it's an Exorcist head-spin.  Taking in Adrienne Fromsett, Totter's character, is not done in bits and pieces, it's a psychopath's lingering stare.  As the script is incredibly weak for explaining why Marlowe - not a kid in this movie - falls for Adrienne Fromsett, it's up to Totter's presence to making a convincing argument.  And, I'll call it a homerun.   People tend to guffaw at short clips of Totter in this movie, but she's creating a whole acting technique on the fly here, supporting her pal who got her in the movie (as Muller explains, she was up for Kitty in The Killers but landed this role, instead.  One wonders what other trajectory her life might have taken).  She's not given options, she's running the film canister out performing whole scenes without a cut, alone on the other side of the camera.  She's flirting, haranguing, threatening and "making love" to a lens, not near a lens.   And, clips look strange out of context.  Within the movie, Totter makes the movie come alive in ways no other performer does.  Jayne Meadows may be electric every time you see her, but it feels like a screentest.  She's in a wider shot, she's not moving at all in the first scene.  Totter's Fromsett moves, she's her own woman, and she's not pinned down by Marlowe/ the camera. Returning to a movie with a two year gap provides a chance for fresh eyes.  And maybe it's the transfer I'm watching on HBOmax, but details kind of came out at me.  When Marlowe brings her the gun, she's shaking - I've seen this a few times and heard a bit of change in her tone, but the frosty exterior is barely holding.  When we meet her, she's the facade of the upscale gal - she's putting on something like a finishing-school accent, but by the time she's had it with Marlowe, she's a streetwise gal in expensive clothes - too people who've seen too much who can be real with each other.  It's a subtle shift, but it's interesting to hear her choices in a movie that's distracting the viewer with novelty. If Totter had an issue as an actor, it was that she wasn't a character actor.  She played bad girls, but good luck saying this is the same character as her role in Tension, The Unsuspected, or Man or Gun.  She has trademark eyes, certain, and it's absolutely Audrey Totter in every role, but it's not quite the same as some actors of the era who tended to play the same, no matter the role.  And then, she could pivot to playing heroines in High Wall or  FBI Girl, or knocking your socks off in The Set-Up.  Or a seductress in Any Number Can Play.   Anyway, here at The Signal Watch, ever since Jenifer directed our attention to Ms. Totter, we've been huge fans, and we're delighted to remember her on her birthday. If anyone has information on where I can find the following films, let me know: * Under the Gun * Massacre Canyon * Ghost Diver * Champ for a Day * Assignment Paris * The Blue Veil *Marlowe is the narrator/ lead in a popular line of detective novels by famed mystery novelist Raymond Chandler **it's also easy to take a swipe at Montgomery for being a huge HUAC supporter but he did produce Elizabeth Montgomery, so how bad could he be?https://signal-watch.com

Today is the 50th Birthday of JimD.   We're giving him a special 50th birthday shout out as Jim is the person who harangued me into start blogging back in the early 00's.   I met Jim in a screenwriting class back at the University of Texas when, before class, he asked what comic book I had out on my desk.  I thought it odd a very straight-laced looking fellow would care, but I did not know how high Jim's freak flag truly flew.  We talked comics, sci-fi, etc...   Anyway, Jim's understated sense of humor won me over immediately, and we pal'd around til we graduated and he went to Baylor for law school and I did whatever the hell it is I'm doing.   These days, he's a successful practicing attorney!  Who sends me piles of post cards - which are now kept in a Krypto popcorn bucket.   Jim facts:   * Has seen more bands live than you and all of your friends combined, with a greater variety of genres and styles * Knows more music than you do - I promise * Has known RHPT longer than the World Health Organization has deemed safe * Ran a successful law blog for years * Genuinely enjoys the work of Ingmar Bergman * Has sent me three separate autographs from three separate Lois Lanes (Noel Neill, Margot Kidder, Elizabeth "Bitsie" Tulloch * Called me after seeing Batman vs. Superman and relayed the entire movie's plot to me in 10 minutes What will the next fifty years hold for Jim?  None can say.  I expect it will be mostly practicing law, fighting crime and high kicks. Here's to Jim, who deserves a damn good birthday. join us at The League of Melbotis

Watched:  12/18/2025Format:  AmazonViewing:  SecondDirector:  Henry Koster I will be honest and say that when we watched The Bishop's Wife  (1947) the first time during COVID, I am pretty sure I was about three sheets to the wind and maybe didn't quite give this movie its due.  I seem a bit dismissive of the whole thing in my post. But this time around, I quite liked the movie.   David Niven plays a Bishop, recently appointed, who has been tasked with raising funds for the building and completion of a new Cathedral.  His new responsibilities and position have left him stressed and ignoring his wife (Loretta Young) and daughter (the same girl who played Zuzu in It's a Wonderful Life, Karolyn Grimes).   After Niven prays on his challenges, an angel, played by Cary Grant in a tailored suit, appears to him, promising to assist.  Niven is shocked, but comes to accept it as truth.  But is uncertain how the angel can help.   The movie has a tremendous amount of fun showing how Dudley, the angel, can and does help in large and small ways.  Sometimes he's guiding blind men through traffic, sometimes he's setting the conditions for a scholar to finally write their great work.  As an angel, he knows just what to say, and in the Bishop's house, which seems an unfriendly place, the staff - especially the maid Mathilda (Elsa Lanchester) - take an immediate shine to him.   However, as the Bishop goes about his business, it leaves Dudley, posing as an assistant, to spend time with the Bishop's wife.  And both seem to get along famously.   There's an odd bit of melancholy to the film - first with the state of affairs for the Bishop and Julia.  Julia's wish they'd never left their old neighborhood and church, and the Bishop worrying over how to please demanding patrons.  This is a family in crisis.  But (SPOILERS) as the film rolls to a conclusion, we learn that Dudley has fallen for Julia, and she's made him realize how tired of his life as a wanderer he is.  And maybe this touch of happiness, of what could have been, is a wound he'll carry. He can make others happy or help them, but who is there for Dudley? The film is cagey about Julia's feelings - and in 1947 can't have a Bishop's actual wife say them out loud.   It does make me wonder - did Wim Wenders watch this movie and think "yes, but what if...?"  Likely not - he would have said so.  But his Wings of Desire is a favorite, and I think it'd make a truly interesting double-bill.   https://signal-watch.com

Watched:  I think 12/12/2025Format:  HallmarkViewing:  Second?Director:  Stefan Scaini Job: Phony event plannerLocation of story:  Ireland somewherenew skill: Faking it til she's making itMan: Stuart TownsendJob of Man: Earl?  Duke?  Something./ ArchitectGoes to/ Returns to: Goes toEvent: Christmas SoireeFood: I forget My intention with these posts is not to get overly meta, but when this movie ended I said to Jamie: I rewatched this one because I barely wrote it up before, and couldn't remember it at all, and now that I've rewatched it, I am not going to remember it in three weeks. Y'all, I didn't even remember to write up Christmas at Castle Hart (2021) the night we watched it.  And I only rewatched it because I felt I needed to write it up. I don't know what kind of personal purgatory I've sent myself to with my whimsy, but here we are. On to the show. Chabert plays a caterer who gets fired from her gig because her sister (Ali Hardiman) is a real piece of work but Chabert is a good girl and supports her dimwitted sister.  The two head to Ireland to look up some family genealogy since they have the holidays and time to spare (and famously no one is short-handed for catering help during Christmas, and money is not a thing in Hallmarkland).   Their plan:  When they get back to the US, they plan to start their own event planning company, but whilst in Ireland - drink?   Well, instead of a relaxing time in the Emerald Isle confusion and lies abound, and Chabert poses as her former boss - an event planner to the stars, hitching herself to a major local event in a sleepy town in a generic North American version of "Ireland" based on post cards and Lucky Charms commercials. The event Chabert pirates her way onto is being thrown by Man's Sister for a local duchess.  Man's Sister clearly doesn't know what she's doing at all if she's planning a party and looking for an event planner with like two weeks to go - I'm assuming someone quit or got sick and had no Plan B.  With the tight timeline, the pressure is put on lyin' Chabert, who is not an event planner, local, and has no way to do this.   Meanwhile, Chabert falls for Man for reasons, but I have no idea what they would be as the two barely seem like friendly work acquaintances.   Sister is in a different movie entirely.  She is WACKY.  And keeps making things worse.  I think she's banging the duchess's son by the end of the film. IMHO, the duchess should have been played by a man in drag doing a Monty Python falsetto.  That's how she's written, and that's what I wanted.  Somehow nothing in this movie sticks.  I can't say why.  It's like a psy-op to make you forget how you spent 80+ minutes.  I am sure everyone has arcs, but all I remember is that the sisters' secret gets exposed at the Christmas Ball, and everyone is like "it's fine".  And then the movie just sort of ends.  If they stay in Ireland, I have no idea.   My feeling is that this was supposed to be funny, and only Ali Hardiman got that note.  The movie we get just sort of ambles from scene to scene.  There's a b-plot about the sisters wanting to find out about their ancestry, but whenever it pops up, it's like "what?  Oh.  Right.  I forgot I was here to solve a mystery as I am embroiled in this horrendous pack of lies." I never understand movies like this, full stop.  It's one thing if your lead is lying for nefarious reasons or for survival, but 1) do not say you are someone that is highly google-able, and 2) you cannot repeat the lie without being caught, so what is the plan here?  They can't even pay you as you can't cash their check.  So what's the point, really?  Also, contracts do not exist in this universe, just pleasant smiles. And I know this isn't that kind of movie, but...  it's also the kind of thing that makes me think trying marginally harder would make the movie make that much more sense.  And it would be terrifying to let someone into your home and life for 1-2 weeks and then find out "oh, yeah, no...  they're an unemployed waiter from Poughkeepsie". But these movies rarely end with people going no contact with the romantic lead. Is it stupid?  Yes.  Surprisingly so for a premise that should have been pretty easy to carry off. But I want to say - this may have been produced at the height of COVID, so god knows what has happening with this movie behind the scenes that made it feel so off. Is Chabert good?  Maybe?  I don't know.  I know she wears a lovely gown at the end of the movie.  That was nice.  But I think if there are problems, it's with the writing and directing.  Chabert's doing her thing, and the movie is just all over the place. Btw, we watched this a week ago, and I asked Jamie "remember when we watched the Irish movie with Lacey Chabert?" and, y'all, she looked at me like I'd grown a second head.  I had to spend serious energy reminding her of details, and even then, it's possible she had no idea what I was talking about and just wanted the conversation to end so she agreed she's seen it.https://signal-watch.com

It's been a rough week (already, and it's not even Wednesday).  After the events in Australia this weekend, we wanted to share some additional holiday joy and light.  And what more Signal Watch way to do that than with a little Ben Grimm? I don't know how many people saw Fantastic Four: First Steps and found out that Ben Grimm is Jewish, but he sure is.  It's a rare nod to the faith shared by a whole lot of the guys who founded comics and superheroes in America.  And for those who know their Marvel and FF lore, Ben was often seen as a stand-in for one of my personal heroes Jack Kirby (aka:  Jacob Kurtzberg), who was very much a Jewish kid from Brooklyn.   In the comics, Ben is known to throw a pretty good Hanukkah party.   Anyway, no, I'm not Jewish by birth or practice, but we've been focusing so much on Christmas this season, felt it was time to bring up the eight crazy nights in celebration. https://signal-watch.com

Watched:  12/16/2025Format:  KanopyViewing:  SecondDirector:  Alfred L. Werker I'd seen Repeat Performance (1947) a few years back, I assume during one of the windows where blogging was on pause, because I have no write-up of the movie.  I'm very sure I saw it as part of Noir City Austin, but if I found out it was under different circumstances, okay then. I didn't remember it particularly well, just a few impressions that turned out to hold.  I remembered it had a really solid ending that kind of saved the movie for me, the lead was a little aimless, and it sagged in the middle.  But it also was a curious exploration of a concept that would be pretty popular now and would withstand a remake. The film opens on Joan Leslie murdering a "Barney" (Louis Hayward) and then fleeing to find friends at a New Years' party.  She's asking for help, and Richard Basehart takes her to see George Sanders Tom Conway.  En route, she makes a wish to have the whole year to do over - and she gets it. After Joan Leslie has adjusted to the idea that she is living over 1946, she races home to change things.   But no matter what she tries to do, fate keeps bending back to the inevitable conclusions of the year before.  Her husband, Barney, will play around on her with playwright Paula Costello (Virginia Field).  She's star in Costello's play.  Richard Basehart will find himself under the thrall of Mrs. Howell Mrs. Shaw (Natalie Schafer), a wealthy financer of the arts, who will do him dirty.  And it doesn't matter what Joan Leslie changes. If marching inevitably toward one's doom is a feature of noir, then this slam dunks so hard it shatters the noir backboard.  But it is a weird fantasy movie, and for this sort of stuff that lived mostly in pulp magazines and would become more familiar with TV anthology series like Twilight Zone, it feels really early for a movie to be pulling mystical hoo-har in a movie like this. If I'm looking for a way to strike it as noir, it's one part "oh, magic", and one part "this movie has a femme fatale, but our female lead is both dumb and spineless".   That's no shade on Joan Leslie, who nails what she's given... but two years after WWII, it seems very, very odd that wed have a movie where a woman - who has murdered her philandering husband and is given another chance - once she sees how things are lining up - wouldn't kick his ass to the curb and avoid, you know, MURDER a second time.  He's also a terrible drunk, emotionally abusive, capable of physical abuse, and not once does he demonstrate why anyone wants to spend time with him.  He's arguably also the least handsome guy in every scene. And still this lady is clinging onto him after he humiliates her and ruins himself.  It's kind of painful to watch.  Virginia Field as the evil Paula Costello is actually pretty great.  Hats off.  She is one stone cold b.   Anyway, not my favorite, but it's interesting.  https://signal-watch.com

  Happy birthday to actor, singer and all-around cool person, Helen Slater.  I missed her birthday yesterday, but what kind of world are we living in if I can't retroactively share a birthday celebration? Slater was the original live-action Supergirl, and maintains strong ties to the fans and franchise. But she's also appeared in favorites like The Secret of My Success.   Here's to another trip around the sun for our Girl of Steel.https://signal-watch.com

Film. Comics. Sci-Fi. Superheroes. Noir. History. Superman. 20th Century Archaeology.

Watched:  NPN  12/07/2025, MC  12/14/2025Format:  YouTube/ YouTubeViewing:  First for bothDirector:  Rick Dealup/ Steve Rudzinski As we near Christmas, we did two quick watches with Dug and K to get ourselves in the Christmas Spirit.  The first was North Pole Nutrias (2002), a puppet-show running about 26 minutes and created by New Orleans-based pair Quintron and Miss Pussycat.  The second was a little indie movie out of Pittsburgh called A Meowy Christmas from 2018.  This one runs about 55 minutes, but feels like it's about 6 days. While watching North Pole Nutrias, I learned not everyone knows what a Nutria is - which is a large-ish rodent that lives along rivers and near water.  They've invaded the waterways for New Orleans and cause enough problems that there's been a bounty on the animals.  But! North Pole Nutrias is, apparently, a bit of a holiday tradition for the hep cats of New Orleans, and I get it.  It's a puppet show, shot on tape, and has some distinct vibes of music and art scenes of the late 90's.  Kind of an embracing of the media we'd grown up on - specials like Emmett Otter's Jug Band Christmas - but made with an intentional lo-fi feel and hand-made aesthetic.  Think Pee-Wee's Playhouse, that you know through the glossed up version and are just used to.   North Pole Nutrias is sort of an extended version of the kind of stuff that I recall showing up on Austin Access back in college,   I mean, the effort here is kind of incredible.  There's whole sets built for the puppets, and crowd scenes, and establishing shots.   You can definitely look at the show and say "this is terrible", but it's also knowingly terrible, which was a very narrow channel to pass through - to look like a mess and still be funny and entertaining.  And I think the Nutrias nail it.   The plot is that two Nutrias win an all-expenses-paid trip to the North Pole.  When they arrive, they find out a Virus is destroying all the toys, making them slimy.  After attending a music program (featuring Quintron and Miss Kitty) they decide to get around the Virus's anti-toy mechanism by sending all the kids a drum machine, which is a *tool*.  Amazing. But don't take my word for it: Yeah, it's awkward and goofy, but that's sort of the point. This one hit me in my 90's-era film school heart.  I miss the embracing of chaos and just making things in a barely-digital age.  It's a commentary on holiday specials for kids, it's a music show, it's arguably pop art on the fringes.  Getting a unique look, getting a laugh and freaking out the squares was a good time. Is it good?  No.  Is it great though?  Yeah.  I loved it. Apparently this thing is a regional cult favorite in New Orleans and still circulates.  Here's a link to the official website. Far more confusing is the 56 minute opus - A Meowy Christmas (2017).   I have no idea who this is for or why it exists.  But it is also the first of about a dozen "movies" made by Steve Rudzinski - and to him I say, if this makes you happy, keep doing it. But. A Meowy Christmas is a near-hour of trying to figure out if the star/writer/ director/ editor is kidding and knows exactly what he has.  Is this intentionally like this?  And if so, why?  And if not, why does he keep doing it?  The plot is that our hero, Wally Griswold, is a cop with a pet cat and a pet rat.  He meets (a) meets a dame/robbery victim, who entrusts him to protect a rare and expensive jewel.  Meanwhile, (b) the thieves are still performing break ins to fund a move to the Caribbean.  Along the way (c) the cat is an InfoWars junky and thinks aliens are coming to invade.   It's lots of footage of a cute cat and rat just doing their thing, with people voicing over the video with Look Who's Talking!-style voice acting.  A real highlight is Rudzinski subbing in his own hands in socks to show what the cat is up to. All of this is supposed to be funny?  Maybe? Every cut is 3x longer than necessary, and it seems mostly made up of people doing bits from other things.  Or lead is like watching a middle-schooler trying to be Jim Carrey from 1994.  Like,it's clearly a pastiche on multiple fronts, so is it a bad thing that I know he stole that joke from Ghostbusters?  I don't know.  It's just really tough to watch.  So much dead air.  So little understanding of how cameras work. I kept thinking of my one viewing of Freddy Got Fingered where - yeah, it's a horrible movie, but for what Tom Green was trying to accomplish, it's a slam dunk.  He was trolling people for watching his movie.  Is this that?  Or is it...  the alternative? The thing about watching something like this is that it will make you start feeling queasy after a while.  Sort of like sitting through a Christmas Pageant put on by kids who are not your own - you're just going to have to endure it, no matter how awkward and incompetent and slow and grating it is.   I am also not sure this guy knew what the word "gams" means, and he kept using it, and refused to show us the gams in question. The movie ends with the cat and rat setting up the house with traps, because Christmas now means "remember Home Alone?  Millennials sure as shit do." In a way, the two movies are outsider art.  Miss Pussycat's puppets are not exactly out of the Henson creature shop, and no one will mistake Rudzinski as a film school graduate.  But one embraces the vibe and comes through it with a surprisingly entertaining bit of Christmas chaos, while the other...  I can't really recommend. https://signal-watch.com

I hate this.  I hate writing this.   No one deserves to die the way Rob Reiner and his wife Michele passed.   Most of the time, I'm able to write a simple "they were beloved, and will be missed, here's why this site is memorializing them", but today, on this one, the cruelty of what happened is a bit overwhelming. We all know Rob Reiner, and kind of wish we had met him.  He seemed absolutely aces, and he made so damn many good movies.  Hell, he'd be a legend just for his few scenes as an actor just in The Wolf of Wall Street, but as a director and producer, he put out some of our favorite movies.   May the Reiner's family know what the work Rob Reiner did meant a lot to so very many people, and that Rob and Michele will be mourned. https://signal-watch.com

Watched:  12/14/2025Format:  Internet ArchiveViewing:  FirstDirector:  Trudie Styler Hoo boy. So, this was probably not the final form of the doc The Sweatbox (2002), but it is the one that I found online at The Internet Archive.  It's a little rough and incomplete, but was clearly heading toward a final cut.  Why is it in this state?  Apparently it's been quashed by Disney, and yet... here I am.  A man who watched it. The Sweatbox is a doc about the making of what became The Emperor's New Groove, a film which we recently watched.  The film takes the viewer through the Disney process of making an animated film, giving viewers some insight into how the sausage is made, which may be surprising if your knowledge of film is based in live-action.  The Disney animation tradition established by Walt and the original Disney animation team was always to run story, gags, etc...  through a committee so you could be told honestly what worked and what didn't.  When Walt was around, he would ask how you could "plus" something - ie: make it better.* Or, sometimes, be honest that something may need to change, and/or you may need to dump a favored idea. As you may recall, in my post, I opined that The Emperor's New Groove seems both very different from what Disney had been doing and would do, and maybe looks a bit different.  But it didn't start that way.   Emperor's New Groove started under a different title and would have led to a fairly familiar looking late-90's Disney movie in style and intention.  But through the process, as we watch, things change drastically. Remember how Tarzan inexplicably featured the song stylings of Phil Collins?  This time they were going to work with Sting.  Thus, this doc is produced and directed by Trudie Styler, Sting's wife.  And so the doc is in large part about Sting, who writes whatever he feels like most says, is thrown into the Disney process.  Initially enthused, soon Sting doesn't know what he's writing to as the script isn't done.  And then, as Disney Feature Animation are wont to do, at some point, the team re-engineered the whole movie's story, characters, look, etc...  and Sting was kind of left adrift. The titular Sweatbox is the nickname of the theater at Disney Animation where you go to show your work in front of people above your pay grade where they merrily tear it up.  One person in the doc describes it as  roughly: having your hands cut off, and then getting pantsed, so you're both standing in front of everyone with your pants down, can't pull them back up, and you're bleeding to death.   Which... does not sound great. And it's hard to say, with Disney's hit rate, that it actually works very well.  Especially if you have people at the top who just aren't in to what you're doing or aren't paying attention.  Every story beat gets dissected by committee - but the reality is that there's people who are chairs of that committee whose voice has more weight.  As a result, what we see are directors really trying, execs who seem a bit high on their own supply, and below all of them, people who seem like they're just kind of trapped in jobs where you don't rock the boat, because you finally made it as an animator at Disney, and this is how they do things.  Where would you even go? And, indeed, everyone interviewed seems like they have a gun pointed at them from off-camera, talking about how the process really works, and we must believe in the process.  And they all keep talking about how *other* people must be really torn up about their work being disposed of while insisting they're fine. There's a lot that isn't told in the documentary.  We have no idea what the financial and studio pressures were, or if this movie HAD to get made after they'd sunk so much money into it.  We have a rough idea of how people felt coming and going onto the project - but there's very little post mortem and even director Roger Allers, who is shown the door on the movie, allows for an interview, but he's clearly toeing company lines.   Frankly, this doc makes Disney at this time look like a mess and like the people making decisions seem capricious at best.  While the participants finally admit that this go-round was unusual for Disney, it never seems like the process is working very well.  And yet one of the producers who was throwing babies out with bathwater wraps the doc romanticizing the process and kind of shrugging off the actual final product - and it is *chilling*.   This is just a pinhole view into the Disney way of doing things, and in other cases, we know it works out fine.  Frozen was intended to be based on the Ice Queen folktale before they decided that didn't work and they started over - and I'm the first person to say "Frozen is a phenomenal movie" and I mean it.  I love that movie.   But the same people who brought you Frozen went on to bring you first Frozen II, which has a baffling third act, and then the critically panned and much-unseen Wish.  So, basically no one knows what they're doing - not really.   And, to that point, on Disney+, there was a docu-series called Into the Unknown: Making Frozen II that is shockingly similar to this film - with the caveat that we actually see a project manager this time.  But, it's also clear in that doc that it isn't going well, no one knows why or what to do, but they have to deliver for Q4 of the year of release.   And somehow, twenty years later in the exact same building, no one has figured out that making a coherent animated feature takes as long as it takes - and rushing to a deadline is a terrible idea.  Anyway, as someone with armchair interest in animation and movie-making, it's pretty wild to see this documentary and realize what a miracle any movie is, let alone an animated film working it's way through the Disney method. The irony of all of this is how I just watched a different movie and complained that maybe one shouldn't writer, direct and produce their own movies.  So there's a happy medium in there somewhere. *hilariously, Disney named their streaming service Disney+, which seemed a nod to Walt's phraseology of "plussing" ideas to improve them, but dumb-dumbs in marketing at other upcoming streamers decided that sounded neat, and now we have Apple+ and other + services who don't know it's a huge flag indicating they weren't first, and they don't read  https://signal-watch.com

A'ja Wilson Gets Her Flowers A'ja Wilson is Time Magazine's Athlete of the Year:  Time Magazine's article. She also won AP's Female Athlete of the Year:  AP News article We at League of Melbotis couldn't be happier.  And based on performance and accumulation of honors, it's hard to argue that she isn't the most accomplished athlete in their sport (across all US Sports) in 2025, while also taking the stage as a face for the WNBA during a crucial and messy period. By the way, here's where Wilson is when it comes to awards. (the shouting that happened in my house when this happened...) Most Popular Touring Musicians of the 21st Century Collectively, we're a bunch of basic bitches.  That Coldplay, Ed Sheerhan and Dave Matthews ranked so highly confirms that humanity's taste in music is...  maybe really bad.   Yes, I'm a fifty year old with his own questionable musical taste who is throwing shade.  But I am just stunned. Kylie Finally Drops the Video for XMAS Speaking of my musical taste... Here's the finally released video for Kylie's Christmas single, XMAS.  It is everything you could imagine Ms. Minogue would do for a Christmas video. Conan for Christmas We never appreciated Conan enough on Late Night. We went to a show Thursday night, we went to a show show directed by CB.  Our write-up is here.   We made cookies The annual making of cookies happened over the weekend.  Technically, this is all Jamie.  I only really help with the sugar cookies - some of which are seen here.   join us at The League of Melbotis