107/2273. The Boys in the Band (1970)
First of all, this movie perfectly demonstrates why I hate parties. Stick around long enough with a bunch of drunks, and shit always goes bad. That said, it's a very well performed play. I don't generally enjoy dramas where the protagonist is an asshole, but here the descent into self-destruction is gradual (but well telegraphed), and, perhaps more importantly, the protagonist is very soundly called out (and punished) for his bad behavior. I enjoyed it.

108/2274. The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamera (2003)
This autobiographical documentary of McNamera imparts important lessons about the former Secretary of Defense's philosophy and experiences while still tiptoeing around the topic of how much responsibility he had in the quagmire that became the Vietnam War, largely because he refuses to directly entertain the question. He wants you to respect the man, even if you dislike him. In fact, that's Lesson #1: "Empathize with your enemy."

109/2275. BS High (2023)
Another documentary, this time about the man behind the fraudulent Bishop Sycamore High School that played prep football on ESPN. Some things are just wrong.

110/2276. Cocaine Bear (2023)
Yeah, the bear murders people while high on cocaine, but aren't the real monsters humans? Loved it.

111/2277. Two O'Clock Courage (1945)
Tom Conway plays a man with amnesia who might be a murderer in this noir that's not embarrassed to lean into genre cliches. The short runtime is a real asset, keeping it tight and suspenseful, even if I still don't know what exactly "two o'clock courage" is.

More to come.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: movies

Last week, knowing that Mom would be busy tending to her wounded beau, I sent a message to my standing group text with my friends looking for someone to accompany me to tonight's 7PM football game between #2 UGA and #9 Mississippi. They ignored me.

To add insult to injury, my so-called "friends" were unsympathetic the following day when I complained about people who put up and decorate Christmas trees the first week in November. Are they really my friends if they hate live football and think Christmas should be celebrated before Thanksgiving? I say no.

So I did what any sane person would do: I deleted the group text chain from my phone and went to the game by myself.

Sure, it was cold and drizzly, but I still had a great time (and a hand warmer), mostly because the Bulldogs were totally dominant (and because Mom wasn't there to talk me out of bringing a hand warmer to the game). The seniors were celebrated; the veterans were celebrated; the SEC Champion soccer team was celebrated.... After halftime, it was pretty much all celebration inside the 9th largest football stadium in the world. These are good times to be a Bulldogs fan.

There are still two games remaining on the season, but this was the last home game of the year, an unusually early ending to a (mostly lousy) home schedule. Looking back at the four I attended, Kentucky was the most fun, but this was an easy second place. The question is whether I will be back next year.

It is getting very hard to find people to go to the games with me, especially since I have fewer friends than I thought I did. (Christmas tree-hugging bastards!) So spending thousands on a couple of tickets I can't (and don't want to) always use is starting to seem like a bad use of my money.

I'll see how I feel when the bill comes due in February.

In the meantime, do as Miss Manners advises and "finish your turkey before putting up Christmas." Assholes.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: athens christmas football friends georgia holidays mississippi sanford

Welcome to June, the 17th annual Wriphe.com Superman Month, this year with 300% more Superman!

You may remember that this time last year, Superman was "dead" (again). As often happens in comic books, he got better. And in recent issues of Action Comics, he's been hanging out in Metropolis with three other characters who also call themselves Superman: his son, Jon; his clone, Connor; and the "New" Super-Man of China, Kong Kenan. It's Superman meets The Real World (where no one is an asshole to their gay roommate).

At this rate, 2023 might be the year we finally get an answer to the age-old question "Can you ever have too much Superman?"

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: comic books superman

I go out of my way to be kind of a dick to people in the hope that they'll leave me alone. I do this even to my own family, especially my Mother's sister, Kelley.

My aunt has a very soft spot in her heart for dumb animals, which is why she has a house full of cats and tolerates a handyman who is literally too stupid to use a shovel effectively. Because I'm so much trouble, Kelley had this handman bury her most recently deceased cat. But the location he selected turned out to be full of tree roots, so he dug only a shallow hole and covered the shoebox coffin with a thin layer of dirt and a paving stone.

Can you guess where this is going?

In the night, another animal detected the decaying corpse's scent and dug it up. But not fully. The excavator didn't have the strength to remove the whole cat from the box. Kelley later discovered the dead cat's head emerging from the ground, like something from Pet Semetery. (And yes, there were maggots involved.)

Desperate for help, she bit the bullet and called me. So my strategy of being a dick ultimately resulted in my having to dig up a dead cat and re-bury it properly. In the rain.

As a reward for my hard work, my aunt gave me this:

Please click for sound.

Lesson learned. From now on, I'll be twice the asshole!

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: death family food kelley

I woke up early (1PM!) to have lunch with my libertarian friend Matt, and the one thing we could agree on is that "compromise" is the dirtiest word in America.

(Actually we agree on two things: I am an asshole.)

Good to see you, Matt!

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: friends matt walter

114/2123. Ladies of the Jury (1932)
Think 12 Angry Men with a lot more comedy (and a Henry Fonda that looks a lot like a batty Wicked Witch of the West). The short runtime means it definitely doesn't overstay its welcome.

115/2124. The Little Minister (1934)
I'm still not sure why the adjective "little" is used for the minister, but the story is just as much about his love interest, the capricious neighbor played by Katherine Hepburn. Unlike Ladies of the Jury, this was too long to sustain my interest, and I actually fell asleep during what should have been the "exciting" climax. Yawn.

116/2125. Ride Lonesome (1959)
The first 90% of this Western is about setting up the very entertaining (but also improbable) ending. There's some real cognitive dissonance going on with James Coburn playing against type as a hapless moron cowpoke. But this is his first film role, so there was no type to play against yet.

117/2126. Meet Danny Wilson (1952)
"Danny Wilson" is Frank Sinatra playing some version of Frank Sinatra. The guy is a real asshole, and everyone in the film knows it. When mobsters (led by Raymond Burr) start shooting at him in the climax, all you can say is that he had it coming.

118/2127. High and Low (1963)
This morality play-slash-police procedural is another Akira Kurosawa masterpiece. The less I say, the better. Very highly recommended.

More to come.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: movies

Today's movie reviews bring me up to date with what I've seen so far this year. I could blame my recent dearth of movies watched in the past two weeks on the Olympics, but workload and Henry have played their parts as well. Oh, well. I'll just have to try harder to have free time in front of the idiot box.

14/2023. The People vs. Dr. Kildare (1941)
I'm not a doctor, but I'm pretty sure this isn't how medicine works. And I'm no lawyer, and I *know* this isn't how law works. Still, it made for an enjoyable melodrama.

15/2024. Mary Stevens, M.D. (1933)
Maybe I'm just a sucker for medical melodramas, but I thought this one was also pretty entertaining. You can tell it's pre-Hays Code when they openly discuss the possibility of Dr. Stevens having an abortion.

16/2025. Mon Oncle (1958)
I don't think I like Jacques Tati's clever takedown of mid-20th century consumer culture more than I like misadventures of Mr. Hulot's Holiday, but I like that I have to think about that. They really are both great films.

17/2026. That Uncertain Feeling (1941)
This is a screwball sex comedy in which Merle Oberon leaves her successful, loyal husband for Burgess Meredith's self-proclaimed asshole. (I did say it was a screwball, right?) The premise should be really irritating, but the talented cast almost manages to pull it off.

18/2027. Silver Streak (1976)
You know, I thought this would be more of a straight comedy than an adventure thriller, but it's surprises like that that make movies worth watching. Wilder and Pryor had some great chemistry.

19/2028. Treasure Island (1934)
Pirates, treasure, murders, parrots, ghosts... there's a reason this is a classic. For some reason, I had it in my head that Captain Flint and Long John Silver were the same character. I must be misremembering my Classics Illustrated comic books.

More to come.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: movies

There's a new commercial in which an animated child holds up a piece of cereal and says, "I wonder where Froot Loopsâ„¢ come from." Then the camera pulls back to reveal Toucan Sam perching on the top of a box.

I don't think this commercial is selling what Kellogg's® thinks it's selling. I've spent too many hours birdwatching not to know what you'll find under a bird's perch.

Follow Your Nose to Froot Loops World (2021), youtube.com

Think I'm reading too much into this? Then why have the animators included a giant prolapsed asshole at the top of the screen?

No breakfast for me today. Or maybe ever again.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: advertising cereal youtube

Fifty-six movies and counting since the start of March. It's almost like something has been making me stay inside and watch movies....

67. (1721.) Floyd Norman: An Animated Life (2016)
A documentary of Floyd Norman, an animator on The Jungle Book among many other interesting things. He's even been named a Disney Legend, a title conveyed by the company on people of its choosing "for the significant impact they have made on the Disney legacy," which might be more impressive if they hadn't given the same award to Barbara Walters after Disney bought ABC.

68. (1722.) The Group (1966)
On more than one occasion I thought "why am I still watching this dishwater dull soap opera?" The answer, I guess, is because it was Candice Bergen's first film role. She's okay, though the role really doesn't ask much from her. Larry Hagman is more interesting in his trademark role as "the Asshole."

69. (1723.) Sunrise at Campobello (1960)
The true inspiring story of how FDR overcame polio to become president! It was very clearly a stage play first, and as it strongly relies on characters standing still and making speeches, it doesn't actually get good until Franklin is strong enough to consider a return to politics.

70. (1724.) Nickelodeon (1976)
This is close to a being a good movie, but it's badly let down by weak characters and a lack of overall story direction. (What's the point of it all? Is it a history? A romance? It's definitely not a comedy.) I watched it in the director's intended black-and-white format on TCM, and I can only imagine how much worse it would be as originally released by the studio in color.

72. (1726.) The Great Buster (2018)
Another documentary, this time about Buster Keaton, who oddly is not a Disney Legend despite the fact his genius movie Steamboat Bill, Jr — that's the one where the building facade falls on him and he narrowly escapes harm because he's standing in a window — was the inspiration for the title of Mickey Mouse's first talkie, Steamboat Willie. I guess they have to draw the line somewhere.

More to come.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: disney movies

2019 moves, part 2 of... many.

7. (1446.) Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)
8. (1447.) Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)
10. (1449.) Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018)
I lump these three together because even though I watched them barely a month ago, I don't think I could tell you which was which. The very definition of popcorn movies, they rely on their fast pace to keep the audience from realizing how little sense they make. I'm pretty sure they all take place inside Ethan Hunt's head while he lies in a coma, but they keep Tom Cruise too busy to make another Magnolia, so I'm willing to cut them a little slack.

9. (1448.) Daddy's Home Two (2017)
Friend Keith challenged me to find fault with John Lithgow's performance in this broad comedy. I couldn't. He's sterling as always. Everyone was pretty funny, including Mel Gibson, playing the character we all believe him to be in real life.

11. (1450.) The Aztec Mummy Against the Humanoid Robot (1958)
Two-thirds of this Mexican B-movie is a recap of the previous two movies in this trilogy about greedy assholes stealing gold from a cursed Aztec tomb guardian. The last third involves building a robot from a corpse to kill a zombie. It has its moments.

12. (1451.) Wizards (1977)
Ralph Bakshi movies are always more meandering acid trips than functional narratives. This one spends most of its time invoking Nazi propaganda as the ultimate evil, then twists at the end to make the good guys look just as bad as everyone else. At least I think that's what happened.

13. (1452.) Old Acquaintance (1943)
Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins are childhood friends who grow to become rivals in work and love. Davis plays the angel against Hopkins' bitch. The animosity between the two is palpable. Pretty good.

14. (1453.) Ghostbusters (2016)
Sure, it's not as good as the movie that inspired it, but rare indeed is the remake that outdoes its inspiration. The movie could have benefited from a director less indulgent of his star's ad libs. (It's most telling that Chris Hemsworth steals every scene he's in.) Still, not bad, assuming you can get past the rampant product placement.

More to come

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: coke friends keith movies