Phantom Ship (The Mystery of the Mary Celeste) - 1935

Well, the list I'd been using for our weekly movies has disappeared, so I was forced to look elsewhere for our horror film. I found a different list and picked this one. It went back to the 30's, but it starred our man, Bela Lugosi.

This movie is giving a potential explanation for the fate of the Mary Celeste. In case you're wondering, that ship was found floating in the Atlantic Ocean in 1872 with no crew aboard. No explanation was ever found for the fate of the crew.

In this tale, Bela is a bitter man who was shanghaied in the past and ends up on the same ship. He watches as one by one, men are going missing and others are getting murdered. Until there are only a few left, and the murderer is revealed.

SPOILERS! There are a number of issues with this movie. Bela is taking revenge on the men who shanghaied him, but some of the other men have been shanghaied as well. Why does he want to kill them? Why did that one guy try to kill the captain? Why didn't they try to kill the accordion man sooner? His music and singing was irritating. The end was just weird. Bela kills the last guy, then looks for the guy he just killed (I mean, he did just get hit on the head, but still), then he just jumps over the side?

This movie was just strange. The ship was pretty awesome if you are prone to seasickness. That thing didn't move no matter how bad a storm they were in. Not a wave to be felt below deck! Most of the deaths happened off screen, so they was less impactful. And I don't know who did Bela's hair for this movie, but they didn't do him any favors. Overall, this movie was entertaining enough, but I wouldn't really recommend it without friends to enjoy the absurdity with you. Too much happens off screen.

Professor T - 2021

I love Ben Miller. My first exposure to him was Death in Paradise, and I love rewatching it. I also loved his character in Doc Martin. When I learned he had a PBS series, I had to watch it.

Jasper Tempest is a criminology professor at Cambridge. When a crime is committed on campus, one of his former students gets him to help solve the crime (eventually). Jasper has OCD and few social skills. From that point on, he becomes more involved with the team, and they come to rely on him more. Well, some of them are more accepting than others.

In some ways, this reminds me a bit of the show Monk, starring Tony Shalhoub. Professor T isn't quite the same for a number of reasons. The main one is the tone. There are moments of levity in this, but for the most part, it's pure drama. You're not laughing about much in this. And while Jasper has OCD, it's not so prominent that it's almost a character like it is in Monk. And while Monk was timid and slow to act, Jasper will put himself into the middle of situations (to the dismay of others!).

I really liked this show. The little daydreams Jasper had were a bit weird at first, but I got used to them. As usual, Ben Miller makes the show for me. I was happy to see Juliet Aubrey. She's also one of my favorites to see pop up here and there in shows and movies. The cases are all one episode, so I didn't have to watch the whole season to solve a mystery. For some reason, that's what I was hoping for. I do just want to say, I felt bad for Dan, and he was treated pretty poorly by Donckers. 

There's more seasons of this, and I'm going to be tracking them down. Good Show!

Spooks Run Wild - 1941

This week, we had no idea what we were in for, but we were excited to see that Bela Lugosi was the star. There was also a group of youths that Mom recognized. She called them the Bowery Boys, but I guess they were also called East Side Kids or Dead End Kids. 

Captain Midnight is taking a group of misfit kids to camp to try and get them to shape up. Bela and his "little" friend are headed up to the abandoned castle to hang out when the guy at the filling station labels them as the notorious "monster" who has been terrorizing the countryside. When the boys sneak out for some nighttime excitement, they decide to take a shortcut through the cemetery and one of them gets a shock (because we never saw an injury on him) from a shotgun blast. They end up at the spooky castle with Bela.

This movie was pretty fun. The slapstick humor involving Bela made up for any annoyance from the stupidity from the boys. I will say that Captain Midnight wasn't very chivalrous, though. He wasn't on board to search for the kids under his care or follow his woman around.

One of the actors in this looked really familiar, but I never figured out why. This was Donald Haines's last screen appearance. He was more of a child actor, but he played the role of Skinny in this film. Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he enlisted in the U. S. Army Air Forces and didn't return from a strafing mission over Rommel's forces during the Battle of Kasserine Pass in Tunisia. RIP young man.

This movie was silly enough to be entertaining. If you're looking for a serious movie, give this one a pass. I liked it, though, and think it deserves the Good Movie! stamp of approval!

They Won't Believe Me - 1947

Random pick. It just looked like one of those noir movies that I ended up watching a lot of when I was bored a while back.

Larry has impulse control issues and makes bad decisions. A lot of bad decisions. He also has not one, but three women who want to be with him. Two of them end up dead, and he's on trial for murder. It's probably the only crime he hasn't committed, but he's going to tell us the whole sordid tale.

Okay, I thought everyone in this movie was terrible. I'm blaming both Larry and Greta for the death of the horse. They suck. Janice sucks, because she's stupid and never learned anything. Twice. Verna is a terrible person, but she's one of the dead women, so it doesn't really matter. 

But the last minute saved it for me. The movie had lost me at that point. I was doing other stuff, and it had been downgraded to background noise, but one moment changed it all. The verdict was in. I was laughing so hard. Was I supposed to be laughing? Of course not. But what happened was so unexpected and so beautiful that I was almost crying. My dog came into the room to see if I was okay. 

I'm not calling this a good movie, but if you can slog your way through the excuses and bad decisions Larry makes for an hour and a half, I think the last minute makes up for it! If not, I was probably just delirious or having one of the moments where you find something really funny and everyone else thinks you're insane...

The Crimson Pirate - 1952

Do you ever just sift through the Leaving Soon category on Tubi and randomly pick a movie? Halfway through, you wonder why you picked it (not in a bad way, you're just wondering what made you pick it)? And then, once the credits roll, you wonder, "What did I just watch?"

Let me introduce you to The Crimson Pirate. I chose this one, for some reason, and settled in for almost two hours of comedy/drama. It's one of those confusing plots that flips mood at interesting moments. Our main character is played by Burt Lancaster. I've seen him in tons of stuff, but I remember him from Run Silent, Run Deep and The Train. For some reason, I didn't review The Train. 

Anyway, he's got his crew of misfit pirates who pretend they're dead from scurvy so they can take over one of the king's ships. They make a deal to capture El Libre and make some gold off the sale of weapons. Then, a woman becomes involved, and now it's about...love!

This movie was a bit crazy. Burt Lancaster was swinging on ropes and jumping on canopies and doing all sorts of acrobatics. His friend was doing the same and also performing magic tricks, but apparently he was mute. After a bit of digging, Burt was a circus performer, and his real life partner, Nick Cravat, is his co-star. They played really well off each other for the comic portions. Also, Nick wasn't mute in real life.

When it came to the serious bits of the plot, I just don't know what to say. It didn't come up much. The traitor had the strangest hair, and it bothered me. He used a braid as a place to hang his earring, and it was just weird. Mr. Pirate forgave his crew pretty easily for trying to murder him, and the middle dragged a bit. I have to say, my favorite part was the fight at the end. It was ridiculous and went on forever. It even had a hot air balloon and explosions!

Overall, I kinda liked this movie. I found it amusing how no one cared when people died. They just fell off the screen and POOF! We don't care about them anymore, and we don't talk about them. I liked learning about Burt and Nick's acrobatics and watching them bounce around. Burt had some real weird outfits, and I'm not sure where the woman got her dresses from. She was on the run and escaped with the clothes on her back, but somehow there were magic dresses for her on the king's ship? Ok...I'm just not going to think about it. I'm giving it a Good Movie! review because it's ridiculous, and I had fun with it.

Demon Prince Enma (anime) - 2006

A random pick on Tubi led me to this anime. It's only four episodes.

Enma is part of a small team of interesting characters who are tasked with finding demons and sending them back where they belong. I'm not going to go much further into the plot. With only four episodes, you can check it out if it interests you.

A couple warnings, though. The nudity and violence is a bit over the norm in this. If you're a prude, it could be a problem. If you're prone to frighten easily, I wouldn't recommend watching this at night. Some of the topics touched on could also be a bit of an issue if you're sensitive to incest, suicide or rape.

Putting aside the warnings, I did like this show. The animation of the backgrounds was strange at times, and I can't quite explain how. I liked the soundtrack, and the character models were pretty cool. I saw the manga version of Enma (the manga seems super hard to locate, and I couldn't verify if English copies exist), and I have to say, the anime version fit the story really well.

This anime will not work for everyone, but I enjoyed the little twists and turns in there. Having a talking hat called "Geezer" will instantly get me on board every time. There was more to it, of course, but I felt like this was really good for a blind pick. Good Anime!

Side note - I want to give a shoutout to the anime for using Träumerei. It's a piece of music that's gotten stuck in my head a lot during my life, and it was only a few years ago that I was able to track down the name of it. It's a peaceful bit of piano music, and I really love it. It's not used that way here at all, but I always smile when I hear it somewhere beyond my head! 

The Smiling Ghost - 1941

Well, the house is empty, and it's back to the list of "horror" movies. We'd skipped a few while my daughter was home to make sure she got to watch a "quality" horror movie. Unfortunately, she was still stuck with a weird version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. 

Next up in the list was a movie called Old Mother Riley's Ghosts. The quality in it was horrific, the woman was almost more irritating than Kay Kiser in You'll Find Out (it might have been a tie), and that was after only 15 minutes. We also couldn't understand what people were saying. Mother Riley was one of those people who wasn't necessary to a scene. For instance, a group of men were gathered in a room for a meeting, but the table was messy. Old Mother comes in, Three Stooges her way around a bit, gets kicked out, and then the men go on with their meeting. Her presence was 100% unnecessary. Anyway, we were both bothered by her and turned that movie off, skipping forward in the list to The Smiling Ghost.

This movie started off strong. The credits begin with a creepy, ghosty grin over top of the title. Elinor has had four fiancés meet with tragic, if not fatal, incidents on the eve of marriage. Elinor's grandmother has now hired Lucky, a man in debt up to his eyeballs, to pretend to be engaged to Elinor for a month to try and flush out the "ghost" responsible for the incidents. A series of nefarious accidents and dangerous attempts are then made on Lucky's life. He's determined to help Elinor, but there's also Lil, a local reporter, who's got her eye on a story - and Lucky himself!

I was really excited when I realized that some of this movie was actually somewhat horror-ish. It still had some of that stupid comedy in there. And it had Clarence, the African American actor they put in too many uncomfortable situations (they had him hide in the coal bin, etc.). But overall, there was a real mystery in there. Put aside the stupid romance that made no sense. I mean, there's no way not one, but two women would fall in love with that doofus within 24 hours. I would hope not anyway. I also had a real issue with the ghost knowing about the secret passageway when no one in the family seemed to be aware of it. Two separate times everyone was gathered in that room, and they didn't know there was another way out.

My overall judgement is middle of the road. Honestly, this is a basic Scooby Doo episode with some bad romance shoehorned into it. It also didn't have enough dog (but there was one briefly!). Favorite character was Norton, the butler, who knew nothing about his job but had weapons all the time and pointed them at whoever he felt like. And an honorable mention to Mr. Dinwiddie, because I liked his name.

Christmas on the Ranch - 2024

This was the movie we were supposed to watch a couple weeks ago. Instead we ended up with Christmas on the RanGE. When I was hunting for a Bingo movie, this one stood out because I thought there was a cowboy that sort of looked like Chuck Norris. In my defense, it was a tiny picture on my phone. Because when we started the movie, that man looked nothing like Chuck Norris.

Christina is on her way from Chicago to New York when she almost hits a horse standing in the middle of the road. She should've been able to see it had she been paying even the slightest bit of attention, but instead she lives up to the stereotype of women drivers and freaks out and crashes her car. Now she's trapped in Cedar Grove, Ohio, and staying at the Corey's ranch. He has a daughter who rides around with a selfie stick for her YouTube channel, and the ranch is in trouble. Christina decides to use her radio show to help out, and then she's gonna jet to New York.

So, there were some confusing things about this movie. First, why was Christina stuck? It wasn't some backwoods town. Just get picked up and leave. Next, what did the ranch do to make money in the first place? I know they were doing some therapy here and there. Maybe some boarding? It wasn't very clear. I think the biggest question I had revolved around Christina. When Corey asks her to stay, she's like "nah." But five minutes before that, she was regretting not kissing him. Pick a lane, woman!

Overall, one of us got multiple bingos while no one else got any. We were getting a bit desperate after a while. I don't know who was decorating that ranch, but my guess is Javier (he had zero lines, and popped up twice in the movie - he was my favorite character). I feel like it would take months to decorate and then months to take it all down again, Christina's magic skill with the horse was also irritating. I mean one ride to the lake, and now she can trot alone? Pfft. Also, if Spirit is 25, let him retire and graze in a field. Don't make him cart around some strange woman! They just randomly appeared with him saddled one time. Good grief! This movie is mid-tier.

The Phantom - 1996

We had some time and noticed this was available to watch for free. It looked like something we would enjoy, so we put it on.

The Phantom is "the ghost who walks." He's been around for 400 years, so he has a reputation of being immortal. In reality, it's a legacy passed from father to son. When Smiling Kit comes into possession of the title, he leaves behind Diana. She went to college with Kit, doesn't know how to park a car, and she's "edgy." In the present, Kit is trying to stop an evil man from collecting skulls that will create a deadly weapon that could threaten humanity. Or a thin disintegrating ray. That works too.

This movie was so weird. I don't know why Phantom was smiling all the time. It was so weird. My daughter was commenting on the strange shade of purple they chose for his costume. It was an odd hue for sure. Also, a lot of bad decisions were made for no apparent reason. Our favorite character had to be the taxi driver. He was very dedicated to Kit (Phantom's normal name), and when a purple-clad man hops into the back of his cab claiming to be a friend of Kit's, Taximan is immediately on board. The other strange thing was mumbling. I've watched the 1943 serial and really loved it, so I knew the dog's name was Devil. But with the mumbling, it sounded like they were saying "Devin," so we called the wolf Devin for the entire movie.

I was surprised to see Kristy Swanson (Diana). She also plays a character on one of the greatest shows of all time: Psych. She fit in much better on that show for sure. The actor playing Kit had actually signed up for two sequels before this movie performed poorly. I think Kristy knew what she was doing what she was doing when she flew away from the island at the end.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - 1941

We were noshing around for a bit and decided to put on a "real" horror movie. This one seemed to fit the bill. I have read the Robert Louis Stevenson story, but I can't remember the details to say how accurate the movie is. 

Spencer Tracy is the main man in this one. He has a blond bombshell fiancé, but he also lusts after Ingrid Bergman. I found it interesting Bergman was supposed to play the role of the innocent fiancé, but she asked to play the grittier role. She felt she was being typecast as one type of character and wanted to break the mold. That worked out pretty well for her.

Okay, so there's some interesting things going on here. Ingrid Bergman's character seemed a bit stupid. She didn't see the resemblance between the two faces of Jekyll, and that was confusing. Also, when she was "trapped," I couldn't figure out why she didn't just leave. The door wasn't locked. She had friends who probably would've helped her. She definitely didn't have an excuse after she got the money. Why was she staying in the apartment where she was abused?!

Overall, I think I was most confused by the tone of this one. Hyde was almost playing pranks on people at first, then later on he's murdering people left and right. He was pretty brutal with that cane, though. I think this one was too long, and I didn't like the stupidity of the women. Major kudos to the friend who didn't hesitate with the gun, though.

Christmas on the Range - 2019

Movie night in December doesn't seem like a good time for horror films, so I tried hunting down a Hallmark-esque movie for Bingo. I thought I'd found one that looked like it had a Chuck Norris looking guy in it, but when I started this up, he wasn't anywhere to be found. Lo and behold, this is the wrong movie. The one I was looking for was Christmas on the RanCH. Dang, these movies are out of control...

Riley (that's her last name, but I'm not invested enough to look up her first name) is very close to getting her ranch certified organic. The problem is, her neighbor has a vendetta against her. He runs the Moo Cow Mafia, and he sends his goons over to mess with her. 

The Boss tells his ex-wife and son that he has cancer, so they pop up. The son, we'll call him Bob, falls in love with Riley, much to the dismay of his father. Tensions rise, and Boss eventually sends his goons over to destroy the ranch. They run into Bob and beat the crap out of him. Boss feels bad and rallies the entire town and surrounding areas to corral the scattered cows in two hours so they'll be back in time for the buyer.

This movie had some surprises. Lindsay Wagner was in it. She's the Bionic Woman! Unfortunately, there wasn't a Bionic Dog anywhere to be seen, but we were making some jokes through the movie. I was also making jokes about the Moo Cow Mafia, because I found it a bit ridiculous the way Boss was acting about the neighbor who had a few cows and was peeved about a 30 year old rejection.

The side characters were weird and annoying. Normally, they are refreshing and give us a break from the stupid main characters. Not the case this time. The best character was Lindsay Wagner, and I'm partial to her because we're Bionic Man/Woman TV show people. The cows were cute, too. Also, when some of them escaped earlier in the film, Riley said, "Oh, no. They're everywhere!" They were all standing in one spot. And a bunch of cowhands popped out of nowhere to help. It was weird. There were no bingos and no snow!

Middle of the road. There's some real issues that keep this from being a good Christmas movie. One of them is fake snow. That's a real necessity. The other thing is the weird criminal organization man. I really wanted to see what he said to his main goon man after they beat the crap out of his son, but the movie just left that alone. Meh.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps

Movie night was a bit different this week. It was my younger daughter's last night with us before heading back to college, and my husband was watching with us, so we ended up watching a more recent/mainstream movie. It's been a while since I've watched a Marvel movie, but I usually enjoy them.

This movie is an alternate Earth where the Fantastic Four has to deal with Galactus. Sue Storm is pregnant, and a lot of the movie deals with Reed freaking out about whether or not the baby will be normal. Well, when the Silver Surfer appears, they decide to go into space and confront Galactus.

I had too many questions. At least that's what I was told. The clothing was more retro, which is fine, so we're talking about different historic happenings, right? But it's still called the United States. Putting that aside, the Statue of Liberty was in New York. Would that still be there? I honestly don't know how the multiverse stuff works.

I think the biggest issue I had was with Galactus himself. He was in a ship, which was something I didn't understand, but then he was destroying entire worlds. But then he gets to New York and is only as tall as a skyscraper. It was a bit underwhelming. I felt like they nerfed him. But on the plus side, I did get to see a baby act as an AED device!

The movie was ok, but I think I prefer the older one. I definitely prefer the 2007 surfer, Doug Jones. He had more presence in my opinion. In this movie, I liked the story between Torch and the Surfer, but that didn't end up going anywhere. It was entertaining enough, but The Fantastic Four has never been one of my favorite teams in Marvel. If I want to experience this group, I'm all in on the 1994 Fantastic Four movie.

Hercules - 1983

When I learned there was a version of Hercules starring our favorite Hulk, Lou Ferrigno, the whole family was on board. Well, most of the family...

I don't even know how to start. We're in space (not where I thought we'd be, but ok), and there's a pot. The pot breaks apart and makes planets. Then, the gods have a discussion and decide that to combat evil in the world, they're going to make one really strong, good man. They send him to earth and 4000 years later he possesses a child and grows into strong man. Both his parents are killed, he throws a bear into space, fights robots, and wipes out an entire civilization. That's the short version. 

The long version would take way too long to get into. This movie was not what I expected at all. I saw so many strange things that didn't make any sense. I think everyone's favorite part was the bear. I'm not going to explain anything from the movie. I think anyone of a certain age should watch it. Why of a certain age? Well...

The outfits. Oh my gosh. I don't know who made those or who designed them, but they had to be men. The women who wore them should have been paid extra. Some of them more than extra. You'd think with all the people on set, someone would speak up and say, "Hey, guys. Hera over there is popping out of her shirt. Let's fix that." And I feel like they could have found some bigger shells for Cassiopeia.

Overall, we all loved it. My husband said it was stupid, but I'm not fooled. He was laughing along with the rest of us. It had been a rough day for some of us, and this was just what we needed. Guess what? There's a sequel! The Adventures of Hercules. I'm going to see if we can watch that one in the future. That sounds good to me! Good Movie!