What I’ve Caught Up With, December 2025 Part 1
Film: Nemesis (1992)
This is a bit of a rough go, and from the start, watching this feels like a bit of a mistake. This very clearly wants to feel like Blade Runner with elements of Robocop and Escape from New York. Star Olivier Gruner feels like a low-rent Jean-Claude Van Damme, and the acting feels forced in a lot of cases—everybody feels like a poor man’s someone else. And yet, the effects are sometimes pretty good and the action sequences are fun. Nemesis isn’t an easy film to recommend because it feels like something made from plot points cut from other, better movies, and yet it still kind of works, even if it is overly convoluted.
Film: The Idolmaker (1980)
There are plenty of films that show the rise and fall (or just the rise) of performers. The story behind the scenes is a bit more rare. The Idolmaker is the fictionalized story of music promotor Bob Marcucci, who discovered Frankie Avalon and Fabian, among others. Singer Vinnie Vacarri (Ray Sharkey) realizes he doesn’t have the look to be a star, but that his friend Tommy (Paul Land) does, so he goes into business with his songwriting friend Gino (Joe Pantoliano) to manage Tommy into becoming a star. It’s a fine story and you can feel it’s all going to go to smash, but it’s perhaps mostly interesting because it’s the film debut of a young Peter Gallagher.
Film: Our Dancing Daughters (1928)
Our Dancing Daughters, despite the name, is a morality play and also the film that made Joan Crawford a household name. Good time girl Diana (Crawford) is actually a good girl behind the scenes while her friend Ann (Anita Page) pretends to be virtuous, but is actually a gold digger. Diana and Ann both fight for the affections of Ben (Johnny Mack Brown), who has just inherited a boatload of money. Decisions are made, regrets are experienced, and ultimately we get the moral, happy ending that we want. It’s not fantastic, but important because Crawford’s Diana the Dangerous character is probably the best crystallization of what everyone thinks of as a “flapper.”
Film: Fixed Bayonets! (1951)
You’d think that a war film in 1951 would be about World War II, and in the case of Fixed Bayonets!, you’d be wrong. It’s not only about the Korean War, it’s Samuel Fuller’s second movie in 1951 about that conflict. U.S. troops are pulling back against a surging Chinese insurgent army and leave a platoon of 48 men back to protect a bridge at a choke point. As the command structure of the platoon is wiped out, Corporal Denno (Richard Basehart) is forced to lead. It’s a pretty straightforward “doomed patrol” narrative, most interesting perhaps because it contains a character played by Gene Evans named Sgt. Rock a good eight years before DC Comics created a character of that name, as well as the first-ever appearance of an uncredited James Dean.
Film: The Thirteenth Floor (1999)
It would be easy to forget that The Thirteenth Floor came out the same year that The Matrix did, either because The Matrix feels like it came out 10 years later or this feels like it came out in the late ‘80s. A man deeply involved in virtual reality is murdered and the man who stands to inherit his company (Craig Bierko) is the one most likely responsible. He himself is so buried in virtual worlds that he can’t be sure that he didn’t commit the crime, so he tries to clear his name, both in 1999 and in the simulated 1937. The Thirteenth Floor was sadly overshadowed by The Matrix not because it’s less flashy, but because it’s a lot more complicated. The cast is good—Gretchen Mol, Dennis Haysbert, Armin Mueller-Stahl, and Vincent D’Onofrio round out the cast. Honestly, the biggest issue might be that Craig Bierko is a weird choice for a cyberpunk/noir lead.
Film: Little Joe (2019)
There is a very clear connection between Little Joe and a classic science fiction/horror movie. In fact, the connection is so clear that if I tell you what that connection is, it will spoil the entire movie. A plant scientist (Emily Beecham) and her colleague (Ben Whishaw) are attempting to hybridize a new plant that requires a great deal of care but also makes the owner of the plant happy. She names the plant Little Joe after her son (Kit Connor) and sneaks one of the plants out of the lab for him. And then she starts to notice changes in her son and the people around her who are working on the project. This is a film about paranoia in a lot of respects, and it has shades of an old sci-fi story called “The Conqueror” by Mark Clifton.
Film: They Won’t Believe Me (1947)
There’s a huge problem at the center of They Won’t Believe Me, and its name is Robert Young. This is a dandy noir about a philandering husband who uses the accidental death of his mistress to try to eliminate his wife. The issue is that this film asks us to believe that a man as bland as a beige room could somehow be irresistible to Rita Johnson, Jane Greer, and Susan Hayward. It’s a typical noir in the sense that there are staggering coincidences and Larry Ballantine (Young) has a story that beggars belief, but the ending really makes this one worth the time. Still, even the dissolute Errol Flynn could’ve pulled this one off better.
