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118/2429. The Losers (2010)
Sure, it's a big, dumb action movie, but it's a big, dumb action movie based on a DC comic book, and the influence shows maybe a little too much. Actually, it puts me in mind of some video games I've played in the past decade. "Pop Will Eat Itself," said the band in the 1980s, and it remains a true statement. Meh.

119/2430. From Darkness to Light (2024)
This is a so-so documentary with little insight into its subjects, but that's okay because the whole thing is really an excuse to rescue large parts of Jerry Lewis's legendary long-lost The Day The Clown Cried for curious cinephiles who seem reluctant to accept that it was just a bad film that became an unfortunate casualty of wrongheaded (and possibly malicious) decisions in the movie business. As a bit of a movie nut, I loved it.

120/2431. Dear Santa (2024)
Speaking of wrongheaded decisions in the movie business, Jack Black stars as a demon pretending to be Santa Claus. The core of the film is what you might expect from a 90s black comedy aimed at mallrat teens over Christmas break, but it is badly underbaked. Looking at the dates of release and production, it seems to me that Paramount just gave up on this without trying to make it good and dumped its barely cobbled-together carcass into the wasteland of back-catalog streaming services filler. Too bad. There's a lot of talent involved, and with the right script doctor and editor (and more money than Paramount obviously wanted to spend), maybe this could have become a cult classic.

121/2432. Uptown Saturday Night (1974)
Speaking of cult classics, Sidney Poitier and Bill Cosby hunt down a lottery ticket unwittingly stolen by gangsters in a blaxploitation film which was not particularly interested in exploitation. It's not great cinema, but it's not trying to be. It just wants to be a good excuse to see something lighthearted at the movies with friends, and on that level, it works.

Truth in Advertising Disclaimer: The setting in this screencap is neither uptown, Saturday, nor night.

And that's a wrap on movies watched in 2024. If you're keeping score at home, 121 is the fewest new-to-me movies I've seen in a year since 2016. I'm not entirely sure why the number is so low, but I did have a bit of a hard time with depression this year and watched far more familiar-to-me movies than usual, so that certainly cut into my movie watching time. The complete lack of must-see cinema in theaters couldn't have helped. Better luck next year, Hollywood!

More to come.

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Rereading the earliest 1950s Peanuts comics, I find it most interesting how bad many of them are. And that's not because the theme of each gag was often drenched in a deep, dark existential dread. That's not a bug, that's a feature of Charles Schulz's world. (For the best exploration of that topic, see: 3eanuts.com.)

No, the problem is a lack of characterization. It clearly took time, years, for Schulz to congeal the personalities of each of the strip's largely interchangeable characters into more realistic, relatable individuals that continue to strike such a chord with modern audiences three quarters of a century later.

Without good characterization, the strip above is just a child who can't stack blocks. That's not particularly funny. But in later years, conscientious and thoughtful Linus trying and failing to build a order out of chaos... that will always be Peanuts.

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Took my car to the mechanic, walked in the front door, said to the receptionist, "I'm Walter Stephens," and she said "I know who you are."

Which suggests that it's time I start thinking about getting a new car.

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Henry and Louis' first snow day.

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"Atlanta, N. Georgia brace for snow, ice" reads the AJC headline.

Did I get in the car today and go to the grocery story to buy a gallon of milk despite the fact that I have two half gallons in my refrigerator? Yes, yes I did. The store had only three gallons in the case. When I walked away, there were two. Yes, I am part of the problem.

But at least I don't hoard little ducks made from petroleum based products for the dashboard of my Jeep. Nor do I release helium-filled balloons into the wilds or set all of the leaves in my yard on fire on windy days. I'm so much better than those people.

Is this a rationalization to make myself feel better about my irrational life choices? Yes, yes it is. If something is horrible because it does selfish things, and all humans do selfish things, all humans are horrible. If I'm a human being (spoiler alert: I am), I'm just going to have to learn to accept that.

On the bright side, self-loathing tastes better with milk.

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Loser

When this song was first gaining widespread fame in late 1993, I was urged by my freshman college roommate to call in and request it from local radio. My memory was that I called 99X, because that was the Atlanta station that played this kind of music (as opposed to the heavier 96 Rock or the "classic" rock on Z93) but whoever answered the phone at whatever station I called was really quite dismissive and claimed no idea what the hell I was talking about. Maybe he wasn't just being a dick. (Maybe it was only being played on WREK at the time?) It would be a few more months before "Loser" really broke through to number 1 on the alt charts.

Does anyone even listen to terrestrial radio anymore?

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113/2424. Eddie the Eagle (2015)
This is the sort of feel-good sports biopic that writes itself with little regard for actual facts. Seriously, why do they even bother to base these sorts of things on true stories? The cliches are so strong, they stand alone. Which is not to say that I disliked it; it's fine. Just not very original, and I find unoriginal to be largely uninspiring.

At least their taste buds are in the right place.

114/2425. Naked Alibi (1954)
I had to double check IMDB to jog my memory on this. The title isn't particularly memorable (as it really doesn't have too much to do with the plot), but it's a fine little crime picture potboiler starring Sterling Hayden and Gene Barry. Which one of them is the real bad guy? That's the whole first act!

115/2426. Stage Fright (1950)
Another film, this one a Hitchcock, that spends an inordinate amount of time making the viewer guess who the real bad guy is. There's too much comedy of errors in this for its own good, as it really starts to grate that the protagonist keeps putting herself in such dangerous and embarrassing positions.

116/2427. Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story (2024)
A glowing documentary about Christopher Reeve made by his children that doesn't ignore his flaws but somehow still manages to make the man appear a saint. Not bad at all.

117/2428. MacArthur (1977)
This biopic of MacArthur's later years feels too episodic and superficial. It never quite reaches the heart of why the great general behaved as he did. (I suspect star Gregory Peck didn't quite know either). It's certainly not as glowing a character study as Christopher Reeve got, though MacArthur did seem to think he was a super hero.

More to come.

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Someone lost their tiger in my front yard.

If someone wouldn't drag that tiger everywhere, things like this wouldn't happen.

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