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Watched: 08/14/2026 Format: TCM on DVR Viewing: First Director: Mark Robson Well, this is *weird*. Somehow, unintentionally, I watched two movies by the same director in the same day, the other being Valley of the Dolls . Mark Robson everybody. Apparently he made Patty Duke cry a lot. I wonder if he made Boris Karloff run away weeping. This is an historical drama with large dollops of political…
Watched: 08/14/2026 Format: TCM Viewing: First Director: Mark Robson This movie was not for me. I did not enjoy it. I imagine in 1967 this was quite a thing, and I can understand the cultural moment and the reason why people cared. Young women engaging with foul language, occasional partial nudity and frank depictions of sexual relationships. It's the earliest I can remember a studio movie being…
Watched: 08/09/2026 Format: Regal Westgate Viewing: First Director: Christopher Nolan Well. I'm the last person you know to finally see The Odyssey (2026) . All I can say is: You Oughta-See It! Fortunately, you can't really spoil The Odyssey unless you haven't attended high school in a number of western countries. (An hour after I typed this sentence, Jamie, unprompted, offered up she doesn't…
Watched: 08/08/2026 Format: Library DVD Viewing: First Director: Mark Mylod While watching The Menu (2022) , I kept thinking - this is a movie that wants to be a "fuck the rich" movie, but doesn't seem to want to actually say what the problem is. For all it's aspirations, the movie only occasionally rises above any other flick where people are held hostage with increasing horrors inflicted upon…
Watched: 08/07/2026 Format: TCM on DVR Viewing: First, as it turns out Director: William A. Wellman I was positive I'd seen The Public Enemy (1931) either in film school or a few years after. For your purposes - I had never seen this movie, and I am genuinely surprised by this fact. I do like a genre deep dive and this is a classic. On reflection, I am positive I've seen Little Caesar (I remember…
Watched: 08/06/2026 Format: BluRay Viewing: Second Director: Coen Bros. Shortly after watching Supergirl , which was based on a comic that was clearly an homage to the novel and/or movies of True Grit , I decided to listen to the audiobook to better remember details and ponder the differences. After, I suggested to Jamie that she read through my paperback. The book is short, and Jamie reads about…
Watched: 08/05/2026 Format: TCM on DVR Viewing: First Director: Ralph Bakshi Jesus. Wish I'd seen this 30 years ago. Oddly, this movie was on TCM because it was a selection by actress Pamela Adlon , who was guest-hosting this film and Fame . I don't know much about Adlon, but I think we could hang based on her description of her movie watching. A sweeping, multi-generational story starting with a…
Watched: 08/03/2026 Format: Criterion Viewing: First Director: Michael Winterbottom Somehow in the past two weeks, I was in a group chat (in theory about Texas football) where the folks were discussing 24 Hour Party People (2002) , which I'd never seen. Then, an artist I follow on socials was discussing it this last week. When I saw it was recently added to Criterion, I decided now was the time. A…
Watched: 08/02/2026 Format: Regal Cinema Viewing: First Director: Destin Daniel Cretton Look, I'm respecting that the movie-advertising is asking that we not discuss this movie publicly on social media, so I'm doing what I can here. HERE THERE BE SPOILERS No, really. Don't read this if you haven't seen the film. Nope. Keep walkin'. Okay, you did this to yourself. This movie isn't going to win over…
Watched: 07/31/2026 Format: YouTube Viewing: Unknown Director: Barry Sonnenfeld Absolutely one of my favorite comedies. And, why, 30 years later people still talk about Wednesday Addams. Still, a movie where everyone is bringing something special. No real reason to say much about the movie today, so I won't. But just give it a whirl and spot a pre-fame Tony Shaloub as a sailor in a bar, a Broadway…
Watched: 07/31/2026 Format: TCM on DVR Viewing: First Director: Edward Ludwig Yall... You're gonna be something less than shocked when I tell you that maybe a 1957 movie about kaiju-sized scorpions rampaging through Mexico is maybe not Oscar material. But I will say it is entertaining as hell. The story is basically lifting Them! , which had just been a big success. But in this case, the volcanos…
Ride or Die was advertised as a light romp with the wacky idea that a housewife discovers her best friend is actually an assassin. Twenty years ago, this has Sandra Bullock in it, and is a 100 minute movie with non-stop jokes that makes its money back with re-runs on TBS. And, I'd argue, in the ads Amazon put out that was more or less what was sold. And, fair. The premise seems a bit of dark…
Watched: 07/27/2026 Format: TCM on DVR Viewing: First Director: Robert Towne Tequila Sunrise (1988) was, to me, the sort of movie parents would go see whilst leaving the kids at home in those heady days of "they have fishsticks and can work the oven." The film was advertised to adults, rated-R, and didn't look like a cop movie where our hero shot the place up and made jokes. So my interest was…
Today, July 28, marks the birthday of star of stage and screen, Hannah Waddingham. This year has been pretty good for Ms. Waddingham. She has starred in what appears to be a successful series for Amazon Prime, Ride or Die (our post on it will arrive after we've finished the series). Threads tells me many people did not know of her before, and... welcome to where I've been living since, like, 2021.…
Eden (2025) Watched: 07/25/2026 Format: Library Disc Viewing: First Director: Ron Howard This is a movie about living in a place that's pretty good, but the place suddenly gets overrun by people who read an article saying the place was cool. Because the people who moved there, wrongly believing themselves cool (and therefore heirs to the cool place), bring their suckiness to the place - the…
Watched: 07/24/2026 Format: TCM on DVR Viewing: First Director: Harold Becker Sea of Love (1989) is very much what I think of when it comes to the notion of Neo-Noir . Well, this and grittier stuff like To Live and Die in L.A. This movie is just before we moved into the 90's and neo-noir = erotic thriller for a lot of movies. And I'd argue this movie probably put the notion of the erotic thriller…
Today is the 75th birthday of Signal Watch patron saint Lynda Carter. Big milestone! I'm not sure what Carter has been up to this year. Hopefully she's off having a grand time somewhere. Ms. Carter isn't just an actor, advocate and sometimes-superhero. She's also a singer and performer. Here she is a few decades back with our friends, The Muppets: https://signal-watch.com
Watched: 07/23/2026 Format: Amazon Prime Viewing: First Director: Travis Knight Well. That was sure a He-Man movie. I'm not particularly a fan of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe , the cartoon nor the toy line. In fact, when this movie was pitched, I wrote a whole long post about how weird I thought it was that a movie studio went all in on what I thought was probably a far niche-ier market…
Watched: 07/21/2026 Format: TCM on DVR Viewing: First Director: Nicholas Ray The term "lusty" has not always meant "horned up". The dictionary definition just means "healthy" and "vigorous". Or, "Hearty", or, even "enthusiastic, rousing". So, while Susan Hayward paired with Robert Mitchum may lead one to believe we're heading for "lust-ful" men, and we are, I think they just meant "these cowboys…
Hottle at the Godzilla x Kong premiere in 2024 This is a tough one. Actor Kaylee Hottle, who I knew from two of the Legendary Godzilla/ Kong movies, has passed . She was only 18. Because she was so young, I know readers will be curious - she sustained injuries in a car accident. Hottle played Jia, who was a main character in both Godzilla/ Kong movies, and Kong's connection to the human world. As…
Watched: 07/19/2026 Format: Library disc Viewing: First Director: Mona Fastvold I really liked Vanessa Kirby in last summer's Fantastic Four , and was aware she had a career a bit like Rebecca Hall . Be foxy in things After getting noticed in smaller stuff, do a mix of some big, silly crowd pleasers (Hall is in two King Kong movies and an Iron Man) while still doing smaller art films and some…
Watched: 07/18/2026 Format: TCM with John Carpenter and Alicia Malone Viewing: First Director: Val Guest SimonUK kept suggesting The Quatermass Xperiment (1955) to me during the podcast era, and I can see why. I think mostly in England, but also among sci-fi and horror-heads in the US, the Quatermass media - of which there's more than you'd think - is considered foundational or classic. Thus, it…
Watched: 07/16/2026 Format: TCM Noir Alley Viewing: Third? Fourth? Director: Otto Preminger I was a bit surprised I'd already written this movie up twice before, but here's the first (fifteen years ago almost exactly!) and here's the second ( about eight years ago ). Y'all, I have been doing this *a while*. And, yet, no one has intervened. None of you are to be trusted with my welfare. Still love…
Watched: 07/15/2026 Format: TCM Noir Alley Viewing: First Director: Anatole Litvak So, this movie is super strange, and maybe in a good way, because it really swings for the fences. I am not sure it goes yard (it doesn't) but it's at least an interesting sac fly. It's a mix of the "let's put on a show!" spirit of the movie musical and takes a turn down an alley into what would come to be known as…
As a kid stuck in the suburban sprawl of Austin and then Houston/ Spring, Texas, where music tastes skewed in such a fashion that AC/DC was literally playing on a radio station somewhere 24 hours-a-day, Whitney Houston was playing endlessly in mall sound systems and my classmates positively wet themselves for Garth Brooks - finding the music I liked was a part-time job.* MTV had not yet pivoted to…