If I squint hard enough, I can just about make out that it's supposed to be... Princess Leia?

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May the fourteenth be with you!

(Did I do that right?)

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The 2020 NFL playoffs: a perfect confluence of football, Covid personal protective equipment, and Star Wars.

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I've had several conversations in the past month on topics that clearly indicated the person I was speaking to hadn't read my blog in a long time, if ever. That was both surprising and somewhat discouraging.

When I created this blog, I certainly never expected to make money off it, but I did expect my friends and family to drop in every once in a while. I mean, when your family calls you to connect their new ISP router, the least they could do is use their new Internet connection to ping my site, Dad.

(Historical note 1: this blog predates Facebook by three years and has never stolen anyone's data or threatened American sovereignty. Historical note 2: I've still not made any money off of this website. Non-crime doesn't pay.)

So let me take this opportunity to thank you personally, reader of this post, for spending a few moments of your day at Wriphe.com. I'm grateful of your patronage, and I promise to try not to waste your time.

In fact, let me immediately repay your investment with a delightful meme I found on Reddit:

Ha, ha. See, I told you this site could be worth your time. (Unlike the 20 minutes I just spent on Reddit. What a rabbit hole that is.)

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The streaming entertainment service from the Conglomerate That Walt Built is now publicly available. I will definitely not be subscribing, as I have confirmed that the service will not include two of my favorite men, Condorman and I-Man.

As a public service announcement to all the young viewers out there who will be watching, let me say:

Han shot first.

Enjoy your revisionist history, kids.

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I should be sleeping. Instead, I'm reviewing movies!

146. (1585.) Steel Magnolias (1989)
If Julia Roberts is really from Georgia, why does her accent sound the least convincing of all the actors? This movie is little more than mundane relationship melodrama performed by a stellar cast who (mostly) do no wrong. If that's your thing.... then this.

And remember: you can't have a movie about life in the South without Coke!

147. (1586.) Framed for Murder: A Fixer Upper Mystery (2017)
Singer/songwriter/poet/actress Jewel makes a less-than-convincing handywoman/detective, but I doubt anyone watching a Hallmark mystery movie is overly concerned with realism.

149. (1588.) Class (1983)
Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, Cliff Roberson, John Cusack, Alan Ruck, and the delectable Jacqueline Bisset all star in a very lackluster coming-of-age sex comedy more ntable for the appearance of the stars themselves than anything they do to elevate the material they are working with.

And remember: you can't have a movie about sleeping with your roommate's mother without Coke!

150. (1589.) Empire of Dreams (2004)
This is a documentary on the making of the first four Star Wars movies. Friend Keith mentioned it in passing a few weeks back, and I'd never seen it. So I watched it over the course of two days. Lots of good behind-the-scenes Star Wars tidbits, but it suffers from an excessively obsequious tone. You don't have to sell us so hard, guys; everyone has already seen Star Wars.

151. (1590.) Bathing Beauty (1944)
Something of a bait and switch, as Ester Williams isn't really the focus of this musical comedy, Red Skelton is. The disappointment was hard to get over.

152. (1591.) Plastic Galaxy (2014)
Amazon noticed that I watched one documentary about Star Wars and suggested that I watch another. Plastic Galaxy covers the history of the Kenner Star Wars action figures. Talking to the collectors themselves tended to bore me, but those were spaced between great historical anecdotes and creator interviews. (Disclaimer: I know exactly where my 1981 Millennium Falcon is.)

153. (1592.) Lovelace (2013)
Amanda Seyfried stars as the first household name in hardcore pornography, Linda Lovelace. Is this (often dull) movie an accurate depiction of her life? How horrible. Now try watching Deep Throat knowing that the star was being tortured off screen. Boner killer!

And remember: you can't have Deep Throat without Coke!

Image blurred to protect the innocent

More to come.

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Watching Star Wars the other day, two things struck me. The first was how big a liar C-3P0 is!

From the beginning, he knows who Princess Leia is, then he denies as much to Luke when the boy finds the hologram in R2-D2. Later, he lies to a Death Star officer so as to escape capture.

Now, my revelation might not seem such a big deal to you. "So a diplomatic robot lies to people. So what?" I'm glad you asked. Once it's established that Threepio is deceitful, it calls into question all of Threepio's statements that aren't otherwise verified. In other words, everything we think we know about Artoo might be false as well.

The little robot communicates almost exclusively through beeps and whistles. The audience has to trust the "human/cyborg relations" expert to interpret those noises for us. If we can't trust Threepio, how can we be sure that it was Artoo's idea to run away from Uncle Owen's garage? Maybe the "accidental" reveal of Leia's hologram was no accident. Maybe he *hasn't* found the Princess on the Death Star.

Or, of course, this could all be related to the second thing that struck me: the script kind of sucks.

But boy, it looks great!

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I made this poster as a first draft for a client's event. The final product focused less on the Star Wars and more on the car show, but I still like this one. So I'm sharing.

Enjoy your Star Wars Day.

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"I haven't been very good about updating the 'work' section of this site lately (so much of what I've done in the recent past is app coding, which doesn't show off very well)" is what I wrote in 2013 as introduction to a post promoting the first postcard design I'd made to promote a local Halloween event.

Well, I've still got that job.

As you can see, zombies are taking a bit of a back seat to super heroes these days. As well they should.

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Let's just go ahead and get this out of the way.

167. (1226.) Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)

I asked Dad what he wanted to do for his birthday yesterday, and to my horror he said "I want to see Star Wars." So I took him to see it. (A child's job is never done.) Dad may not be, but I'm getting too old for this shit.

The original Star Wars wasn't exactly Shakespeare, but neither was it insulting. By comparison, The Last Jedi begs its audience to forget everything it knows about science and society, physics and psychology. I guess that's why it's marketed as a kid's movie — a kid's movie supersaturated with graphic violence, copious death, and a PG-13 rating. Say, if you're going to remake Empire Strikes Back, can you at least keep it under 2.5 hours, please? Sorry, but I can't suspend my disbelief long enough for this level of stupidity anymore.

Ugh. Every time I think about it, I find something new to irritate me. Unjustifiably incompetent Hux. Edsel bumper Phasma. Smug cartoon Snoke. Topless emo Kylo Ren. Horny Rey. Pointless Finn. Stalker Rose. Traitorous mass murderer Po. Atmosphere in space. Gravity-assisted bombers. Belated use of indefensible hyperspace missiles. Not enough Threepio! Aargh!

Was it all bad? No. Mark Hamill steals every scene he's in as Mirror Universe Luke Skywalker. Dead Yoda is the best Yoda. And I particularly enjoyed Benicio Del Toro's parting "maybe." But then how did Del Toro's DJ know the crucial piece of information that led there? Damn it! It's impossible to even praise this movie without tripping into another of its innumerable flaws.

There were parts where I think I could see where director Rian Johnson wanted to take the movie's theme of loss and transcendence. These themes would sit much better in the third act of a trilogy than the second, so why here and now? How much of a role did Disney's executives play in distorting that vision to keep its golden goose laying? I don't know. At this point, I don't care.

The worst of it is that I'm afraid this isn't the last Star Wars film I'll have to see. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. And hate leads to me being in the theater for whatever dreck Disney cranks out next Christmas. Let the past die, Dad!

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