Cinema Wellman's Cinematic Wish List

  Cinema Wellman’s Cinematic Wish List

Hello and welcome to Cinema Wellman. I am your host, David, and we’re happy you’re joining us today for the next to last episode of Season 4 and 2025.

We have one more episode slated to air on Amateur Night which will recap our Best & Worst Movies of the 4th Quarter of 2025, but before we do that, just a quick episode to thank some people and air some grievances. 

Today is Festivus, after all!

And Happy Festivus to those of our viewers who celebrate it!

Before we get to those grievances, we’d like to thank some people who continue to support Cinema Wellman in every possible way, the staff here at Cinema Wellman.

Thank you to set designer/wardrobe mistress Dakota whose usual note about an episode is that one of the shirts she designed for me has a crooked logo.

Thank you to engineer Lucas who was instrumental in the construction of the new set which you can’t see, but I can, and it makes me smile every day. New table now with THREE monitors, and a new booth for Chet! No way I could have done any of that without Lucas.

And since I just mentioned him, thank you to Chet, who has been my sound guy since the start. Great having you here.

Thank you to Hannah, my producer, who continues to coach me in the proper way to phrase things when I’m having trouble, which is often, and also has constructive feedback whenever I need it.

Thank you to Quin in my IT department. You’ve heard me say this before, and I’ll say it again; this show, literally, would not exist without Quin. I would have given up long ago if it wasn’t for his patience and continued efforts. He realizes how happy it makes me when all of this works. 

Thank you to my sister, Vanessa, who is not on the staff, but I love that she enjoys posting comments on the YouTube channel even though she could just as easily text me. That always makes me smile. 

And thank you to everyone who watches these shenanigans. I know how much content there is out there, and I’m flattered you would set aside some of your free time to listen to me ramble on about movies.

I love hearing from people who watched and enjoyed a movie they heard about here in Cinema Wellman, which is kind of why I started this whole thing in the first place. 

So, a huge thank you to all of my family and friends for supporting me with this project over the past four years.

I certainly couldn’t have done this alone.

Okay, so NOW the grievances!

We’ve done this before, and it’s kind of a Cinematic Wishlist. It’s a list of things we wish movies would just STOP doing!!!!

On our Cinematic Wishlist Hall of Fame is, of course, the carrying of obviously empty coffee cups which continues to infuriate me, and it will make this list EVERY year until I can go an entire year without seeing it. 

Good luck with that. 

Some new gripes this year were sent in, and we wanted to share them with you.

The first letter is from Janey who has a problem with the wiping away of tears that aren’t there. “If your character is supposed to be crying and you can cry real tears and you wipe them away fine, but if you can’t make a tear, and are showing tearless emotion, don’t wipe. Nothing there to wipe.” 

She adds, “I would argue that it’s actually more powerful when the actors cry and they don’t touch them because I think that’s definitely more realistic. In real life when you’re crying, you’re overwhelmed about something, you’re not thinking about wiping your face.”

I’m with you Janey! Don’t waste a wipe if there’s nothing to wipe! Good advice in life. 

Next, we have a letter from Jedediah who watches a lot of westerns. Is it because of his name?

In any event, Jed wrote about what he calls the “Shaving Cream Conundrum.”

“Why is it that western movies always have barber shop scenes where a character is getting a shave right as something happens in town? The commotion prevents the barber from finishing the shave, the character jumps out of the barber chair, takes the apron and WIPES OFF the remaining shaving cream on his face, and BINGO, he doesn’t need a shave at all! He should either be half shaved OR show the barber just starting the shave!”

You are 100% correct, Jedediah, and our second complaint about wiping something from faces in movies.  

Our third letter comes from Chet, and…wait, Chet? You wrote in? Why didn’t you just text me or tell me what to include? 

Needed to be official. I get it, my Chet. 

So, Chet wants to know why movies continue to cast actors and then name their character the SAME NAME!!

Unless it’s a film with actors playing real people (can’t help that), WHY on earth would they cast someone named Tori and have them play a character named TORI?!?!?

Adult movies do that!

Or so I am told.

Chet is right, and this also has annoyed me in the past, especially when the character’s name has ZERO to do with anything and could have pretty much been any name out of the baby book EXCEPT the name of the person playing them.

Our final viewer letter, before I chime in, is from Robethena, and it’s something she admits may be “holiday movie specific.”  I'm looking at you, Hallmark. Here goes; the high-powered executive/successful woman giving up everything to live with some dude in the middle of nowhere.

She had particular beef with the Chad Michael Murray holiday vehicle The Merry Gentlemen, and I can commiserate since I saw that. Yes, Ashley makes the wrong decision in that film. 

I don’t care what Chad Michael Murray’s abs look like.

And it wouldn’t be a true Festivus without me griping about something, and this year I just want to ask a simple question regarding something I see constantly, and I’d like you to pay attention to it while watching movies in 2026 and drop me a comment when you come across it, if you do. 

Is it really that easy to commandeer an official vehicle? Police car, ambulance, unmarked police car, the occasional fire truck?

People get into them ALL THE TIME AND JUST DRIVE OFF! 

You can’t tell me that it’s common procedure to leave all keys in all vehicles with all doors unlocked when at the scene of an incident.

Stunning that it's conveniently written into scripts when they run out of realistic things to portray on screen. 

Well, that’s a wrap from here at Cinema Wellman for our annual holiday gripe fest/thank you episode.

We hope you’re back next week for our FINAL episode of Season 4 and 2025.

Until then, happy Festivus and other holidays, and take care.