Movies watched in August, part 2 of 3:

112. (1171.) Iron Sky (2012)
Generally speaking, I don't care for movies made with the intention of making fun of their own stupid concepts. I mean, if you know your concept is stupid, maybe don't make it into a movie? Or maybe I'm just too old for this shit.

113. (1172.) True Story (2015)
Jonah Hill and James Franco star in this true-crime courtroom thriller. I found it to be a very interesting concept, but the execution seemed unfocused and somewhat sloppy. It's kind of a mixed bag.

115. (1174.) The Man Who Had Power Over Women (1970)
Rod Taylor starred in this mid-life crisis dramedy that feels very much of its time. (I was frequently reminded of Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice and Carnal Knowledge.) I think it could easily be remade today with very minor changes. Perhaps George Clooney could star.

116. (1175.) Strange Lady in Town (1955)
Greer Garson busts balls as the new lady doctor in a racist western town of assholes! Most of this movie acts like it's promoting gender equality, but in the end, it tales a man to save the heroine from herself. Take that, ladies!

117. (1176.) Logan Lucky (2017)
It's a shame this movie isn't drawing more money at the box office. It's really Ocean's Eleven in overalls, and people love Ocean's Eleven and overalls. I suspect this is headed for cult status once it goes to DVD and people discover it.

More to come.

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Time to catch up on what Walter's been watching! This is part one for August.

107. (1166.) Detour (1945)
The plot of this movie is so slim, the whole thing can be described completely in under 4 sentences. Usually, the hitchhiker in this sort of story is the predator, but in this case he's the, uh, well, bad shit happens to him because he's stupid. It's got a bit of a surrealism vibe because you can't quite buy into the validity of the protagonist's motivations. Anywyay, the movie is still an enjoyable watch thanks to a streamlined script and skillful cinematography creating good atmosphere, and that in a nutshell is the definition of most noir cinema.

108. (1167.) Day for Night (1973)
Loved it! Loved it! Loved it! Hollywood loves to make movies about itself, and the concept works even better when a foreigner (in this case, Francois Truffaut) is making the film with a critical (and cynical) eye. Watching it, I was struck by the impression that the style of this movie was what Robert Altman was always chasing (to varying degrees of success). Given that I seem to spend so much time watching (and complaining about) Altman movies, maybe I should be watching Truffaut instead. Did I mention that I loved this film?

109. (1168.) The Unholy Three (1930)
Sometime in the recent past, I watched the original, silent version of this movie (also starring Lon Chaney and Oz munchkin Harry Earle) and speculated that it would be better if it was a talkie. I was wrong. The silent version has superior menace and a more satisfying ending. The fault here probably lies in the change in directors. Tod Browning, famous for Freaks (also starring Earle), directed the original but not this. (For his part, Chaney took well to sound. He would have made a very successful transition into talkies if cancer hadn't killed him. This was his last movie.) If you have to see just one of these, see the silent version instead.

110. (1169.) Two for the Road (1967)
I'd seen clips of this Audrey Hepburn mid-life crisis film in the past, but I finally sat down and watched the whole thing. This is very much of its era, especially in regards to gender politics and fashion, but Hepburn's screen charisma keeps it entertaining. (How is it that this was released only six years removed from Breakfast at Tiffany's? I wouldn't say Hepburn looks old here, but it's hard to believe that she played Holly Golightly in the same decade.)

111. (1170.) Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (2014)
I thought this would play out like one of the many formulaic Disney Channel television shows, but it was more akin to a Walt Disney family-oriented B-movie of yesteryear, like, say, The Shaggy Dog or The Absent Minded Professor. (What can I say? I'm a sucker for Fred MacMurray movies.) I'm pleased to see Disney is still making them. (Low key but entertaining family movies, that is. MacMurray died in 1991. His last film was Irwin Allen's ensemble horror killer bee movie, The Swarm. I tell you, the man could do no wrong.)

More to come.

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The next big crossover event for Superman: six issues of Existential Crisis.

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Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia is raising the monthly health insurance premium on my current health insurance plan to $338 for 2017. That's a 27% increase from monthly 2016 payments. I should probably be thankful it's that low. My 2016 premiums represented a 100% increase over 2015.

Perhaps you're thinking that $338 isn't a lot of money each month. If you can afford better, good for you. However, the Affordable Healthcare Act has destroyed insurance for self-employed professionals like me. The insurers are complaining that they're loosing money on individual plans, and I can understand why. No independent can afford their rates.

I don't think I'm being unreasonable. I don't mind paying for health insurance coverage; I've done it for years. But I don't see why the monthly amounts have grown so out of line with what I can afford. (Especially when it still won't pay for hospital visits!) We're not experiencing rampant inflation, and there doesn't seem to be any shortage of services. So what's driving these impossible costs? Perhaps its a liquidity crisis. We can't save anything for the future if we have to spend every penny paying for right now.

In the past year, my insurance has been billed for $479 worth of doctors fees. Comparing that number against the $4,056 or more I'll have to pay in premiums in 2017, it's clear to me that my best economic option is to cancel my insurance and pay the "individual shared responsibility payment" — the government's name for the ObamaCare penalty tax. At my income bracket, the government will penalize me $695 for the whole year. That leaves enough leeway for eight doctor's visits next year, and I'll still come out ahead!

So if you see me grab my chest and collapse, don't call an ambulance. There's no way I can afford that.

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I've been slow to accept Stephen Colbert's new gig, but either I'm softening or Stephen is getting better.

On last night's Late Show, Stephen opened with a frank discussion about how we can solve the ISIS problem before getting into a deliciously contentious debate with Bill Maher. He closed the show with an animal act billed as the "Acro Cats." The cats responded to the high-pressure of a televised performance pretty much the same way Bill Maher did: by refusing to be led or cajoled. Hilarious.

Good work, Mr. Colbert. You've got my attention.

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My aunt just dropped off a pile of old books (including a copy of Gone with the Wind published in September 1936) and magazines. Both my mother's and her sister's idea of housecleaning is to swap their clutter from one's house to the other's.

What caught my eye in this stack of old publications was a year-in-review edition of Newsweek published December 29, 1980. Among discussions of such weighty topics as the failure to resolve the ongoing Iranian hostage crisis and the pitfalls in the construction of the proposed MX missile system, the magazine worried about the precarious state of the nation's savings and loans associations, a prescient observation of a situation that would have disastrous effect on the nations's economy later in the decade. As history has borne out, the writers knew their stuff.

Tonally, this issue could have been published yesterday. The lead column is a pointed essay on the failure of the assassination of John Lennon to weaken the NRA's stranglehold on America's stillborn gun control debate. (That argument is parodied in a brief mention of J.R. Ewing's assassination on Dallas in the magazine's centerpiece article.) More than one page mentions the dangers of government bloat and political patronage. In fact, most of the issue is given over to the sorts of End Times discussions about the state of the world that you hear today on Fox News. The takeaway here is that the world has been a shitty place for at least the past 35 years. In its own way, that's kind of comforting.

While the tone and subject matter is familiar, the presentation isn't. I challenge you to find a 2015 news magazine, either in print or on television, where articles quote philosophers and Shakespeare or make off-the-cuff allusions to the Battle of Agincourt. It seems the democratic Internet — where free speech goes to die — has put the nail in the coffin of that style of academic writing. In 2015, pulled quotes from Twitter are the closest we come to educated commentary.

This dumbing down of the national discourse was a danger that the magazine was well aware of. (Paddy Chayefsky's 1976 masterpiece Network, in which an insane man is made the face of the evening news because that's what people want to see, is referenced elsewhere in this issue.) All of page 59 is devoted to warning of the coming of a newspaper focusing on national popular interests, "tentatively called USA Today." In hindsight, that might have been among the first signs of the current Apocalypse.

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June is Superman Month at Wriphe.com!

And what good timing it is this year, as June will see the relaunch of the DC Comics line. Again!

See, in the just completed Convergence, the DC Multiverse destroyed 30 years ago in Crisis on Infinite Earths was restored off-panel at the story's climax with the help of Superman's foe Brainiac. If that sentence sounded like gibberish to you, congratulations. Only DC Comics doesn't seem to recognize that.

So this is the new Superman? In the All-New, All-Different DC Universe of 2015, Superman now dresses like I do! (Minus the blood. Plus about 200 pounds of muscle.)

I know I bitch a lot about a lot of things, but I really want my super heroes to dress the part. It doesn't necessarily have to be spandex (although I do like my skin-tight costumes), but that is not a costume. It's an endcap at Hot Topic.

Oh well. I haven't bought a Superman comic since the New 52 reboot. No reason to start now. There are plenty of other places to get my Superman fix where he doesn't look like a total tool. All I ask is for some bright inspiring colors, like you see in movies.

Really? Who knew that Kryptonians had the muted color vision of dogs? Well, uh, I'm sure I can find Superman in costume in video games, where Superman can demonstrate his impossible powers unfettered by wires and expensive visual effects.

What the hell is this? Iron Man? Since when did Superman need armored abs, damn it!

Fine. America, you can keep your Roid Rage Superman. If you need me, I'll be reading my 1989 copies of Action Comics Weekly in the basement. At least that Superman had the good sense to wear his underwear on the outside.

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Despite (or perhaps because of) my trips out of town in October, I still found time for 25 new-to-me movies. Like last month, I'll run through them in 3 posts over the coming weeks.

175. (482.) Sky Murder (1940)
The second Nick Carter, Master Detective movie. Even more predictable than its predecessor, but with an increased action quotient. They do make movies like this anymore.

176. (483.) The Manxman (1929)
Another silent Hitchcock film, this time a romantic drama. I didn't like it. There is really only one sympathetic character in the film, the other two leads were dumb assholes. I'm still not really sure which of the two men was supposed to be the Manxman, and I no longer care.

177. (484.) Number Seventeen (1932)
Another Hitchcock, this time more in the traditional suspense/thriller vein. Watching this, I became convinced that Hitchcock did it only so that he could investigate what he could get away with with stark lighting and shadows.

178. (485.) Adventures of Kitty O'Day (1945)
There are only two movies in the Kitty O'Day series, probably two too many. These would have worked well as 30-minute television episodes a decade later, but as feature-length films, there is just too much padding.

179. (486.) Family Plot (1976)
Hitchcock again, this time his last film. This one I really loved despite the weakness of its climax. Something about the look and feel of this film, its characters, its limited scope... it just all worked for me. I've read that contemporary critics were not big fans, so your mileage may vary.

180. (487.) Topaz (1969)
A Hitchcock spy thriller built around the Cuban Missile Crisis. Fascinating in its way, but too slow in all the wrong places. Enjoyable, especially as a fictional history lesson, but hardly one of Hitch's best.

181. (488.) Superman vs. The Elite (2012)
The comic that this animated movie is based on was fantastic. It showcases why Superman isn't an archaic moral concept (a story that seems to need telling at least once a decade). The movie is considerably less successful at delivering that same message. The "villains" aren't made villainous enough, and their heel turn doesn't even come until the last minute, too little time to allow the viewer to realize that they aren't who we should be cheering for. It seems that these DC animated movies are always a waste of time, vastly inferior to the material that they are based on.

182. (489.) All-Star Superman (2011)
I spoke to soon. I didn't like disjointed storytelling of All-Star Superman #1, so I didn't buy the rest, but this movie is the perfect bookend for fans of the Silver Age Superman. This is exactly the sort of thing that Grant Morrison, writer of the All-Star Superman comic, has made his bread and butter on in recent years. Finally a DC animated movie that captures the essence of its source material. Is this the exception that proves the rule?

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For years I have scoffed at the shell game video played at UGA home games. Once upon a time, the video featured Uga hiding behind a McDonald's Big Mac®. The video disappeared for awhile during the great Uga Succession Crisis of 2009-2012, but now it's back with Hairy Dawg shuffling doghouses hiding McDonald's World Famous French Fries®.

Fans love to follow the shuffle and hold up fingers denoting which of the three shells is where they think the hidden object ended up. Credit to the education imparted by the University of Georgia: most fans are usually right.

But this year there is a new worst video shown during timeouts on our scoreboard. In these "What Would You Do?" spots, some coercible fan is granted time on the sideline if he is willing to eat Cheez Whiz® out of someone's shoe or some other equally disgusting feat. The shell game is silly. "What Would You Do?" is gross.

Obviously the shell game is advertainment at its best. Someone has successfully gotten nearly 100,000 people to actively participate in McDonald's advertising for 30 seconds. Now we all want french fries. Mission accomplished. But what is this new gross-out video selling when it shows us someone eating a handful of mayonnaise? Maybe the University is just disappointed that they couldn't lure Kraft into a sponsorship deal.

Congratulations to the University for lowering the bar in acceptable stadium entertainment. After years of trying to teach me to love McDonald's, I appreciate that they are finally encouraging me to look away from the video board.

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The Associated Press reports that the only thing more dangerous to your health than smoking is not smoking. It seems a man in Florida was the victim of a prank gone wrong when his "smokeless" electronic cigarette exploded in his face. I'm sure his friends didn't mean him any harm, but a childhood spent with the Three Stooges, the primary educators in America's sterling public education system, left them unaware that it is a bad idea to plant explosives near human faces.

"[The man] was trying to quit smoking so he was puffing on the device Monday night when it blew up, fire officials said." Unfortunately for that fellow, his plan failed: he's still smoking. Literally.

The Associated Press did the right thing bringing attention to this threat to humanity. Think of the dozens of people nationwide who are trying to quit their cigarette habit by smoking cigarettes. Because everyone knows that the best cure for inhaling tobacco smoke is putting acid-filled tubes in your mouth. Crisis averted!

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