What I've Caught Up With, May 2025

I'm slowly getting back into watching movies again, although I'm still hip-deep in dealing with my mom's estate. Just when I thought I'd gotten all of the pictures sorted, I was given a couple of thousand slides to go through as well. It feels never ending. Television-wise, I finished The Critic (don't watch the 10 "season 3 webisodes--seriously) and caught up on the current series of Black Mirror. I'm in the middle of season 6 of the West Wing now. Sadly, my workout show (Battlestar Galactica) stopped streaming, so I've had to switch to The Expanse.

What I’ve Caught Up With, May 2025
Film: Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957)

When ad man Rockwell Hunter (Tony Randall) is about to lose his job, he comes up with the idea of Hollywood starlet Rita Marlowe (Jayne Mansfield) to endorse the company’s main client, a brand of lipstick. As it happens, the only way Rita will agree to endorse the product is if Rock agrees to pretend to be her new boyfriend to make her actual boyfriend (Mansfield’s actual husband Mickey Hargitay) jealous. Meanwhile, Rock’s actual fiancée Jenny (Betsy Drake) believes the tabloid hype and tries to turn herself into Rita. It’s silly and over-the-top, and about as believable as a three-dollar bill. However, it’s hard not to like. It’s not earnest, but it knows that about itself.

Film: Uncle Buck (1989)

A suburban Chicago family is hit with tragedy as the wife’s father has a heart attack. The parents head off to Indianapolis, leaving their three children (Jean Louisa Kelly, Gaby Hoffman, and a pre-Home Alone Macaulay Culkin) in the care of the husband’s wastrel brother Buck (John Candy). The older daughter rebels, Buck has trouble with his girlfriend (Amy Madigan), and he does his best to adjust to something like family life. This is a little darker in places than the typical John Hughes fare, but it’s still pretty harmless. This is the sort of movie John Candy was born to make, and it’s hard to think of anyone else in the role of Buck Russell. There’s a nice role for Laurie Metcalf as well, but this is purely Candy’s vehicle, and he does it well. He’ll always be the king of this kind of light family fare.

Film: Amistad (1997)

Spielberg, evidently not content with his Oscar for Schindler’s List, decided to make another “issue movie” with Amistad, a film about a slave rebellion that takes place on a slave ship and the court cases in the U.S. to determine if they should be returned to Africa. It's actually an interesting legal point—at this point in U.S. history, slaves could no longer be captured, and could only be born into captivity, and it’s clear right away that these were people taken from the west coast of Africa. It’s a stellar cast—Anthony Hopkins, Matthew McConaughey, Pete Postlethwait, Morgan Freeman, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and more, and is one of the first major roles for Djimon Hounsou. It’s Oscar bait, but it’s awfully good Oscar bait.

Film: Kids in the Hall Brain Candy (1996)

I had forgotten that the Kids in the Hall made a movie after the end of their show. Brain Candy didn’t do a lot at the box office, and got a bad reputation because of the inclusion of the “Cancer Boy” character. In truth, though, this is a pretty trenchant observation of dependence on psychoactive drugs. Scientists invent a pill that cause people to relive their happiest moment as a way to cure depression, but there are severe side effects. Most of the important roles are played by the five group members—Dave Foley, Bruce McCulloch, Kevin McDonald, Mark McKinney, and Scott Thompson. It’s a little better if you know the show, but that’s not necessary. It’s not as good as I want it to be, but better than I expected.

Film: The Dawn Patrol (1930)

The Dawn Patrol very much wanted to capitalize on the success of Wings from a few years previous, and in a lot of respects, it does. It’s a standard war film, in that we’re given men who are under-trained being thrown directly into the face of a superior foe. In this case, it's RAF pilots flying over trenches in WWI. It’s worth remembering that while it does feel like a standard war story—men dying and seeking revenge and dealing with stupid orders—this came before a hell of a lot of movies that followed this pattern. It certainly felt new (or at least newer) in 1930. Solid performances from Richard Barthelmess and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. make it worth a watch, but probably not really worth a second watch. That said, the flight sequences are pretty damned good.

Film: Ip Man (2008)

I’m a sucker for a good martial arts film, and Ip Man is exactly that—a good martial arts film. It’s slow at the beginning, showing our title character (Donnie Yen) existing as a sort of Wing Chun Zen master, fighting those who come to him, but not really always wanting to fight. Then, when the Chinese are invaded by Japan, Master Ip is forced into poverty, and eventually forced to fight against his Japanese conquerors. It’s stylized, and there’s a real question about how much of this is true biography and how much is Hollywood, but you’re not watching for the story. You’re watching to see Donnie Yen kick the living shit out of a bunch of Japanese soldiers.

Film: Trekkies (1997)

When I can, I spend my Saturdays watching Star Trek, and Trekkies is a movie that explores the phenomenon of Star Trek fandom. There’s a lot of weird and a lot of annoying (someone needs to slap the taste out of that kid Gabriel’s mouth), but there’s also a lot of heartfelt joy. Star Trek projected a better world for all of us and we have so far to go to live up to the ideals it had for us. Hosted by Denise Crosby, this film also talks to a lot of the stars of the original series and Next Generation, as well as a person or two from the later shows. It’s hard not to find something here to like, especially if you’ve ever spent an afternoon watching Trek reruns.