I finally saw Captain America: The First Avenger and Green Lantern this week. Surprise, surprise: I didn't like either one of them. At least they were bad in different ways. Captain America fails because it's boring. Green Lantern, on the other hand, is stupid.

Captain America is a by-the-numbers action film as made by film students too young to remember the first Iraq War, much less World War II. Note to filmmakers: using spotlights or fireworks at night in New York City in 1943 would have been the equivalent of calling Adolf Hitler and begging him to "please bomb here." Halfway through the film, America even forgot who the Axis was and focused its resources on a man who built weapons without ever teaching his army how to use them.

The "period" styling of the movie looks like someone had based their interpretation of the War period by searching "retro" on target.com. Note to filmmakers: suspension of disbelief is impossible when you are constantly reminded that you are watching a movie. Yes, I understand that the movie is science fiction, but Captain America's "realistic" 1943 uniform shouldn't look like it came off the rack of REI in 2010.

The biggest problem with the movie is the complete lack of characterization. Note to filmmakers: populating your film with stereotypes -- commonly called the Michael Bay Method -- is not the same as developing characters. Did Cap's teammates even have names, or does the script just call them Bloke, Bluster, Brutus, Frenchie, Hotlips, Playboy, and Chink-Chink?

As boring as Captain America is, Green Lantern is far worse. Maybe I've read too many comic books, but the events are so predictable it's laughable. The opening scenes of Hal Jordan sacrificing his own job to demonstrate that he is an asshole have more in common with Hot Shots than the intended Top Gun. Note to filmmakers: if the audience is laughing at the character-establishing scene of a child watching his father's death, you've done something really, really wrong.

As bad as the art direction is for Captain America, Green Lantern is again far worse. The costumes are awful, the energy constructs are a mess, and the cgi looks particularly rushed. Note to filmmakers: no one is paying you to test whether ADD can be acquired while watching a single movie.

I had hoped for more from a movie made by a comic book company, but I should have known better when I heard who was involved in the creation of this film. The movie was directed by Martin Campbell, the man who directed Casino Royale and Goldeneye. I'm not especially pleased to say that he still hasn't made a single movie I like.

So that's two of the super hero movies of 2011 down. Next up: X-Men: First Class. If it's half as good as the other X-Men movies, my eyes will be bleeding too much to blog about it.

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Since my brother moved away last month and took his Tivo with him, I've been watching a lot more commercials. I find that instead of instilling me with a desire to purchase another product I probably don't need, most of them are filling me with unreasonable rage.

Take for example the Pepsi Max commercial where a Pepsi Max vendor and a Coke Zero vendor become friendly only to have the Pepsi fellow reveal that he is an absolute asshole by publicly jeopardizing the Coke vendor's job. (You can view the ad here.) That is supposed to make me want your product, Pepsi? All that does is make me want to preemptively punch anyone wearing Pepsi gear in the face.

You may have noticed that this commercial is a re-imagining of an older Pepsi commercial. (View the original ad here.) Notably in the 1995 original, it was the Coke vendor who provoked the discord by stealing the Pepsi vendor's Pepsi. That's a pretty good commercial: the Pepsi is so good, the Coke guy would rather drink it than Coke. It is a much better punchline than that of the remake, where the Pepsi guy posts a video to Youtube of Mr. Coke giving the Pepsi Max a fair and friendly taste test. That's the equivalent of what Andrew Breitbart did to Shirley Sherrod that resulted in Sherrod's firing by the USDA last month for comments taken out of context. I have no doubt that Brietbart drinks Pepsi.

So what about that new commercial makes Pepsi think that's it's an improvement? Why not just re-film the exact script with Pepsi Max and Coke Zero in place of their higher-caloried counterparts? Does Pepsi think that just because it includes a reference to Youtube, it's going to incite teenagers to drink their diet soft drink? That would make teenagers stupider than soft drink executives!

So I'll tell you why we can't be friends, Pepsi: you're a dick. You can keep your technology-savvy vendors and your Youtube; I'll keep my Coca-Cola. Now get out before I throw you out.

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This is the 123rd and final post for Wriphe.com/blog in 2009. While it seems like spring was just a few short weeks ago, mere days now remain until 2010 (the year we make contact). The older I get, the faster time seems to move. According to the theory of relativistic time dilation, that means that either I'm slowing down in relation to my surroundings, or more likely the world is spinning faster than before. Since I refuse to believe that I'm not a constant, the world must be increasing in velocity. But I guess that's impossible, isn't it?

Damn you, Superman. In addition to making time seem to move faster, now you've also electro-magnetically erased my hard drives (and given Captain Marvel an erection). Thanks a lot, Man of Asshole.

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Aw, snap, Superman! I know that Superman took the day off to spend in Metropolis Park as Clark Kent with his lovely co-worker, Lois Lane, but that doesn't mean that you have to be an asshole about the death of the little boy by way of an out-of-control commuter airplane, does it?

Although, maybe I should cut Kal-el some slack here. Think of the odds! If there is a reported 1 in 10 million chance that an American boy were to be hit by falling airplane parts -- reportedly the same odds, coincidentally, of any one person becoming U.S. President -- what are the odds that the boy would be hit by a plane in Metropolis on the one day that Superman is taking a "me" day? (I see you back there thinking, "probably better odds than the chance that the lone infant survivor of a doomed planet would survive untested travel through space to develop amazing powers and become the adored moral hero of his adopted homeworld." We don't need your kind of cynicism here.)

Sorry, Superman. It won't happen again.

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How can anyone like Thor? Sure, he's powerful. Heck, he ought to be, he's the Norse god of Thunder. But he's an asshole. He's such an asshole that his daddy stuck him in the body of a cripple just to keep him on Earth and away from the rest of the gods. This is the equivalent of a court-mandated anger management course for immortals.

I think that Thor hangs around the Avengers because he doesn't have any other friends or followers. I'm sure that if Jesus were half the asshole that Thor is, we'd have never heard of Catholicism. Just chill out, Thor. Not every declarative statement is an invitation to a hammer-throwing contest, if you know what I mean.

(Note: The picture above is a card -- actual size! -- from the 1966 Donruss Marvel Super Heroes trading card set. Someone at Marvel Comics thought it would be a great idea to replace the text of various panels with really, really banal bon mots. Looking at the set is like reading a Mad Magazine written by Jessica Simpson. It's excruciating.)

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Christmas has passed, which means that everyone can go back to being the curmudgeonly malcontent and general all-around asshole that I usually am. Hooray! (Though, I'm sure that if you asked my family, they'd say that I was pretty malcontent and an asshole all day yesterday. And I was on my good behavior! Not my best, just better than usual.)

Look out, 2009, here I come.

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Everyone wears black to funerals.

I've made it no secret that I hate the black Georgia jerseys. I hope that the memory of this week's debacle, a 41-30 loss to Alabama will keep them in the closet for a long time. The final score isn't even close to describing the 31-0 beating that we were taking by halftime.

Even the fans got on my nerve at the game. Though I was quite surprised that the crowd kept trying to rally the Dogs (we're usually so quick to throw in the towel when the chips are down), there seemed to be more jerks around than usual. Within reach or me were the drunk Georgia Tech chick who kept reminding us that she had seen more lopsided defeats at Tech, the asshole behind me who took a break from talking on his cell phone to insist that I sit down because he didn't want to have to stand to see the mess on the field, and the Bama fan dressed like Bear Bryant who kept chanting "overrated" and "blackout." Fun, fun, fun. I travel for hours each way to see UGA play this poorly while surrounded by these strangers? Something must be seriously wrong with me.

Still, I'm not too down on the loss. We started the season with a lot of hype, and if there's anything for which hype prepares me, it's disappointment. There's a long way to go yet this season, and if the Dogs can learn from this fiasco, we might earn a rematch in the SEC Championship game come December.

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I just returned from Philadelphia, where my brother and I watched the Philadelphia Eagles defeat the Miami Dolphins. Despite the scattered rain, bitter cold, and Dolphins' tenth loss of the season (0 for 10: we're still prefect!), I had a great time.

Philadelphia fans have a reputation as real assholes. And I can now tell you first hand that everything that you hear about them is all true. Though most of the fans were good natured before and during the game (a father pointed me out to his toddler as "the enemy," the security guard frisking me upon entering harassed me for wearing Dolphins' gear to the game, and the attendant who announced the discontinuation of alcohol service at halftime urged the crowd to yell at me instead of her), by the fourth quarter, with the Eagles' firmly in control of the game, the fans had worked up enough courage to devolve into a surly bunch of jerks. One fellow continued to taunt me until the final second ticked off the clock for supporting a "bunch of losers," and another that I encountered in line for the bathroom told me that "the Dolphins' fucking suck" and he hoped that I personally would die a slow and painful death.

My brother repeatedly pointed out that insulting me for being a Dolphins' fan during this winless season was the equivalent of abusing a helpless puppy. Well, now I know how Philadelphians treat puppies: they must be Michael Vick fans.

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As I was waiting for the "Colbert Report," Comedy Central forced the two worst commercials currently being broadcast on me. The culprits? Verizon and Quiznos (again).

In the Verizon ad, some sweaty, air-headed bastard approaches me, the viewer, and puts his sweaty earphones on my head so that I can listen to music that he "gets totally pumped" to. (Fall Out Boy, I think.) First of all, I don't care how big that bastard is, he's not putting his sweaty earphones in my ears. I know where those things have been: in his ears! Secondly, in the commercial, to prove that this asshole isn't gay, he takes his earphones away to talk to "his lady." Yeah, boy, that jerk just put his sweaty earphones in my ears unprovoked, and now he has to go prove that he's not gay for coming on to me? (I'm willing to put myself in the role of a woman here, and I still don't want some sweaty guy putting earphones in my ears. I've never met the chick that liked having man-sweat shoved in her ears.) Sorry, I'm not buying it. Seriously. No Verizon for me. (And yes, I hated the same concept when that ditzy flirt put her music in my ears in the previous version of this commercial. I don't want any stranger to approach me with headphones that were just in their ears. Ever. It's somewhere along the lines of "poo-on-a-stick." Just gross.)

In the Quiznos commercial, two women discuss how great their new prime rib sandwich is with the following dialogue: "It's not lacking any meat. And that's what real women need. giggle-snort." Damn, if they didn't beat some Enzyte ad to that exact line. It wouldn't be half as bad if they didn't break down giggling after the innuendo. Quiznos, giggling airheads making childish sexual suggestions will not lure me back to your sandwiches. Maybe you should consider reducing the price of your product instead of pumping the airwaves full of stupid, insulting commercials if you really want us all to drop in for a bite.

I thought it fitting that at the end of the "Report," Stephen Colbert asked his guest, political theorist Benjamin Barber, if he was a Subway or Quiznos guy. Barber said he was a Subway guy. That's one more vote against you, Quiznos! (Even if it did come from a Howard Dean supporter.)

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Sometimes posting to a blog is like being in a food fight: throw enough pie and someone's GOT to get hit in the face. (This column is going Larry King style, baby!)

• Bravo Channel is showing both The Princess Bride and Back to the Future today. Could those be two of the best movies ever made? I say yes!
• Huge underdog University of Georgia today beat (nay, CRUSHED!) the mighty Auburn Tigers, destroying any hopes Auburn had of running for the national title. Go Dawgs!
• Television advertising execs just don't understand: the current Bellsouth ads use the song "Stuck In The Middle With You" to promote that product. The song was written about sitting between recording executives. Can telecom execs be that different?
• Of all the cars I've ever owned/driven, the one I miss most is a 1985 Ford Crown Victoria LTD Country Squire Station Wagon.
• Recent studies say that happy people are sick less often than people who are optimistic or active. That means that a cynical asshole like me will likely outlive the rest of you bastards so long as I'm happy being a cynical asshole. Hooray for science!
• Julia Roberts' single sexiest film role was as Tinkerbell in Hook. Does that say worse things about her or me?
• The National Football League has a patent on confusion; it is simply impossible to tell who is any good from week to week. Some may call this parity or equality but I call it exciting. Chicago: undefeated. Dolphins: incompetent. Final score: Dolphins 31, Chicago 13. I say this, I sure look forward to December 31, when the Dolphins play the currently undefeated Colts.

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