Today, the UGA Bulldogs won their first SEC Championship game since 2017 in dominating fashion. Hooray!

But the real news of the day is that I have a new dog.

Like Henry before him, this good boy is a rescue puppy whose first family couldn't care for him. His original name was Ricky, though his temporary foster parents discovered he didn't seem to know it. They renamed him Coco Puff, but he never really cottoned to that name, either. Mom decided we might as well call him something that sounded good alongside "Henry."

(Side note: I might have ambushed Mom with the idea of a new dog just yesterday, so she justifiably needed some appeasing before she would allow another standard poodle in her house run by Audrey the Hungry Havanese — whose birthday is tomorrow! If that means Mom gets to name my new dog, so be it.)

Therefore, allow me to introduce Louis, pronounced like a French king, unless you're my dad, who insists on saying it "the American way."

Of course, I'm particularly sensitive to whether Henry might get his feelings hurt by having a new dog in the house, so I woke up early (for me) to take Henry to the PetSmart in Peachtree City for an interview with his prospective new playmate. As it happens, the Peachtree City PetSmart is right beside a cemetery, and when Henry and Louis (nee Coco) politely paused their inaugural rollicking to let a group of funeral-bound mourners pet them, I was pretty sure we were going to be all right.

I'm quite pleased that Louis is a brown poodle, a first for my family. White poodles can be pretty, but you really have to keep them on their pedestal, especially on rainy days when playing with new puppies in the mud.

Immediately after this picture was taken, I introduced Louis to my bathtub. It was an eventful day, indeed.

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More movies!

13. (1872.) Bachelor in Paradise (1961)
I've never been a big fan of Bob Hope's 1940s girl-crazy movie persona, but I thought this 1960s sex-comedy let the air out of that balloon rather enjoyably. It helped that his next-door neighbor was hottie Paula Prentis.

14. (1873.) Crossword Mysteries: Terminal Descent (2021)
A new Hallmark mystery movie! Not a very good one, though. None of the "Crossword Mysteries" have been. But I'll take anything I can get in these desperate pandemic times.

15. (1874.) The Last of Sheila (1973)
See, *this* is how a whodunit should be made! With story credits to Anthony Perkins and Stephen Sondheim (!?!), this film features a small pool of motivated characters, each a familiar Hollywood stereotype. It has some pretty good twists, and I'm happy to say that yes, I did solve it long before the end. (Hint: Director Herbert Ross and editor Edward Warschilka deserve credit for both laying out the scenario fairly and including no wasted scenes.)

16. (1875.) Piranha (1978)
A truly stupid monster horror film desperate to cash in on that Jaws money, down to the holiday beach party that cannot be canceled despite the oncoming school of bloodthirsty piranha — pronounced piran-ya. It's great shlock, especially if you like 1970s Incredible Hulk guest stars like Bradford Dillman and Heather Menzies.

"We're going to have a beach party (and drink Coke) even if it kills us!"

17. (1876.) The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)
From the beginning, I wanted to hate it and its mundane "young love troubles" plot, but the sets are too great and the singing is too great and the ending is too great. It's just great. (I'd heard it was the inspiration for La La Land, and now that I've seen it, the connection is obvious.) I loved it.

More to come.

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Movies, July, Group 2 of 2:

101. (1160.) Spellbound (1945)
This is the Hitchcock movie from which Mel Brook's High Anxiety draws its most ardent inspiration. It's pretty good, too, though the third act had me asking "why isn't this over yet?" It's almost like there's a twist for twist's sake, a very un-Hitchcock ending.

102. (1161.) Baby Driver (2017)
I really wanted to see this, and it proved just as satisfying as I hoped, like one long music video/Steve McQueen action film mash-up. Highly recommended to fans of 1970s action films like The Getaway, Bullitt, or even Vanishing Point.

103. (1162.) Killer Fish (1979)
Lee Majors chose to make this film straight off the success of The Six Million Dollar Man, and I have no idea why he would do such a thing. It's a terrible film, a Jaws derivative made by people who really don't understand or care about character or dialog. Avoid this.

104. (1163.) White Comanche (1968)
On the other hand, William Shatner made this straight off the success of Star Trek, and who wouldn't want to see The Shat play good and evil half white, half indian twins in a spaghetti western? Must see for Shatner fans.

105. (1164.) The Mighty Quinn (1989)
Denzel Washington in the film that made him a star! Ok, maybe not (that's probably Philadelphia), but it's still an enjoyable, quirky crime drama set in Jamaica that marches to the beat of its own steel drum.

106. (1165.) The Age of Innocence (1993)
I suggest that this is among the best Martin Scorsese movies. The sets are amazing, the acting superb, and the cinematography second to none. Surprisingly, this film — which I understand is very loyal to Edith Wharton's Pulitzer Prize winning book — reminded me most of American Psycho in its depiction of the hollowness of New York society (even in the 19th century). Totally worth a watch.

More to come.

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I just caught an episode of Baywatch on Cozi TV. ("Beauty and the Beast," season 6 (1996), episode 12: The lifeguards compete for a spot in Inside Sports magazine's annual swimsuit issue while the events of Jaws play out on California's Venice beach.) It's even more sexist and exploitative than I remembered. What a good show.

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Atlanta television station WXIA has been running an advertising campaign to promote their 40th annual 11Alive "11 Who Care" Community Service Awards. It's probably a worthwhile cause, and WXIA has been drawing attention for its broadcast of the event on Sat, May 9 with a beautiful commercial.

There's only one problem: the commercial appears to contain a stolen image.

See that? That's the first image in the commercial and it clearly has the iStock watermark in the middle.

Here it is again with the watermark accented for your edification. I wouldn't normally think I had to do that, but I'd clearly be wrong. Whoever at WXIA approved the commercial to run didn't see it.

Watermarks are what professional stock image providers use to keep you from stealing their intellectual property. You can see the watermark on the original HD video clip that was used in the commercial at iStockphoto.com. (It's called "Rain on Window 5" and you can use it in your video for $170. I don't know where the background image of Atlanta came from, but it appears to have been taken from the now-closed Bankhead Avenue Bridge [1] [2] [3].)

You wouldn't think any professional organization would make the mistake of running a commercial without first paying for legal clearance of the imagery, so I suspect that 11Alive simply forgot to replace the placeholder with the watermark-free version before airing the ad.

I can't be the only person to notice this problem, because I haven't seen the commercial in the past week of local newscasts. Someone at WXIA probably noticed and killed it quietly. It's a shame they didn't just fix it. AS I said, it was a good looking commercial.

(For the record, I did not ask 11Alive to comment on this story. I like to hold the powerful accountable in my own way.)

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Samsung has something they think you should see: an "Ultra High Definition" curved television. And their new commercial ("The Curve Changes Everything") has a boat-load of celebrities selling the pitch.

View on Vimeo

Maybe Samsung thinks most of us haven't seen all those movies — some of them are more than 10 years old! — but I don't think that those clips mean what Samsung thinks they mean. Here, I'll explain the clips in the order they appear:

1. Clueless: The two characters are excited to see their scheme to romantically couple their teachers working, a scheme intended to improve their grades. Samsung, it's probably a bad idea to remind viewers that you are trying to manipulate us right out of the gate.
2. Jurassic Park: Sam Neil is taking off his glasses because he cannot believe what he is seeing. What he is seeing is a dinosaur. Is this new television is just more of the same old thing?
3. The Island: The scientist is discussing a clone's ability to grow. This would be a good message if that was what the scientists wanted. Samsung is saying, "This TV is not going to do what you want it to do!" (Disclaimer: this is the only clip I didn't recognize on sight. As a rule, I try to avoid Michael Bay movies.)
4. The Fly: The movie opens with these lines, and Jeff Goldblum goes on to use cutting-edge technology to turn himself into a monster. Samsung is saying, "This TV is really not going to do what you want it to do!" (See? I didn't need to waste my time with The Island!)
5. Trouble with the Curve: The movie's title alone should be a reason to avoid this clip, but Amy Adams' dialogue is calling out someone who literally has trouble with a curve.
6. Back to the Future: Doc is shown saying "Do you know what this means?" The very next line is "It means that this damn thing doesn't work at all!" (I can't be the only person in America who has most of this movie memorized.)
7. Tommy Boy: Chris Farley is referencing David Spade's character Richard, a snide jerk who no one likes. Read: only jerks know about Samsung televisions.
8. Cosmos: This isn't from a movie but a television show. Carl Sagan is discussing how Eratosthenes proved the Earth was round — because bigger curves produced bigger shadows. Granted, you don't need to know the history of astronomy to know that a curved television isn't useful to anyone who isn't sitting directly in front of it.
9. Dumb and Dumber: Finally, an appropriate clip! Jim Carrey's character is talking about falling in love. Beautiful, unrequited love. It might be more convincing if his character wasn't an idiot.
10. Jaws: First, Sam Neil sees a dinosaur. Now Roy Scheider witnesses a shark attack. Is this television dangerous?
11. Turbo: Another appropriate clip! "Juicy" may not be the best adjective for an electronic appliance, but the sentiment is right.
12. Lebron James: "Unbelievable!" says Marv Albert in this, the most fitting clip in the entire commercial. (I would not be surprised if the Heat went on to lose this game.)
13. Gravity: Next George Clooney asks what Sandra Bullock likes, and she says "the silence." Not a good endorsement for the television's sound system.
14. Screaming Goat: Internet videos? Because you need a $40K television to watch YouTube videos?
15. Godzilla: In theaters now! Another case of a monster created by technology. This is the fourth cautionary "technology will kill us all" clip in this commercial for an advanced technology. What, couldn't they find any soundbites to use from Terminator or Colossus: The Forbin Project?
16. Zoolander: Beware, Will Ferrell's Mustafa is a man who thinks trash is beautiful.
17. Field of Dreams: Sure, it's a great line, but it's a reference to nostalgia for an era that predated television. The line is weirdly out of place in a promotion for the future of televisions.

There's a 30-second cut of the same commercial, and it's much worse, eliminating all of the appropriate clips and keeping the ones they think people will recognize. Yeah, maybe I watch too many movies. But after seeing those commercials, I don't think that Samsung is really trying to reach people who watch movies.

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Stop the presses! Word just reached me that Simon MacCorkindale, television's Manimal, died last week while I wasn't paying attention. Now I'll never get a Manimal action figure!

If you don't remember, Manimal was about the white son of a jedi who was taught by African witch-doctors to change himself into any animal he desired (so long as it was a panther or falcon). Here, I'll let William Conrad explain:

I know what you're thinking: with a premise like that, how could that show have only lasted 8 episodes? I'm sure it was jealousy on the part of network executives. In addition to the roguishly charming MacCorkindale (fresh off the super mega-hit Jaws 3D in which he played the roguishly charming shark bait), the show had a Glen Larson pedigree. That's a formula for television gold. And it was.

But alas. All great things must come to an end, and so does the career of Simon MacCorkindale. In this case quite literally: he died of bowel cancer. Ouch.

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While I'm about the last person that you would expect to hear spouting theology or philosophy (I'm too damned secularly cynical to spend much time with intangibles such as hypothetical situations or metaphysical postulations), but sometimes things happen which make even me wonder "why?" In this particular case, that thing was the discovery of this cover:

But it's not quite the "why" you think it is. I understand the obvious "why." This is Action Comics #456, cover dated February 1976, so it was released around December 1975. It just so happens that the biggest grossing movie of 1975 was, as you can probably guess, Jaws. No big surprise there. Superman never misses a chance to get in on the action. He's dealt with all of the great political and social events of the 20th century, from nuclear proliferation to illegal aliens (from space, 'natch) to women's liberation to the Olympics (of space, 'natch). Why just a few short years after this issue, Superman will enter the ring with World Heavyweight Boxing Champion Muhammad Ali (in space, 'natch).

Now the odd part of this all, and what makes me wonder "why," is that I decided that I liked that Action cover so much, I was going to use it in today's blog post. And then a brief research turned up the fact that Jaws was originally released on June 20, 1975, exactly 33 years ago today. Great Caesar's Ghost!

Now, was this a happy cosmic coincidence? Did I know, perhaps subconsciously, that Jaws was released on June 20 before I started prepping this blog entry? In any event, I'm sure I'll never know because I'm not going to investigate. No one has ever said, "I'll solve the fundamental workings of the entire universe, and then I'll understand aliens, ghosts, and Celene Dion," without rounding the bend. It's the investigation of situations like these that lead to mad scientists and super villains, I tell you.

Oh, and don't worry about Superman. He's been effortlessly beating up sharks since 1939. His boat is already plenty big enough, so to speak.

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As much as I liked Roy Scheider (who, for those of you who never watch the news, died yesterday), I have to admit that his career has always puzzled me a bit. No matter what the film, it seemed he was always playing second fiddle to some bigger star, usually a fabricated bit of special effects such as a gigantic shark, a menacing helicopter, a homicidal computer, or a talking dolphin. Maybe he's just so likeable because his co-stars are always so robotic. I guess it's easy to be charismatic when you're playing opposite cardboard. (Just ask any of Andie McDowell's co-stars.)

On the upside, Scheider probably got out on the light side. At least he won't be forced to watch someone's inevitable remake of Jaws II. Really, if Scheider can't convince those politicians that a shark is to blame, no one can.

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I just remembered that the world was supposed to end today. Maybe it did and I just wasn't paying attention.

The remake of Richard Donner's film The Omen was released today. I really liked the original and find it completely unnecessary to remake the film. (In fact, I'm opposed to remakes on general principle, though I can see the validity if the remake were to improve on an overlooked or poorly funded original. No one needs to remake Citizen Kane, but maybe we could do with a new Quatermass Xperiment (a precursor to the fundamentally similar John Carpenter's The Thing which was itself a remake) or Kingdom of the Spiders (though I would insist that this remake must feature Shatner in a prominent role, maybe even a reprisal of his role as the charming Dr. Rack Hansen).

On a related note, about this time of year, my friends begin demanding my presence at the movie theater for the blockbuster summer releases. As a loud-mouth sour-puss, they like to bring me along as the honorary Mikey of Life cereal fame. Since I hate everything, if I enjoy a movie, it's got to be good. (And if I don't like a movie, at least they get an entertaining ear-full of why it stunk.)

Since everyone loves lists, at least so far as VH1, E, and Bravo are apparently concerned, may I present my chronological 15 Worst Films of the Past 15 Years list. Please note that these films are not bad in the pedestrian I-don't-know-how-to-make-a-film way. (This, therefore, disqualifies all Roger Corman and Ed Wood films from the list.) I'm also disqualifying sequels, because they are intrinsically bad: they are unimaginative, restrained remakes of earlier films made purely to capitalize on previous films' characters and premises. The following films are bad in the I-know-better-than-to-make-this-movie-but-I-did-it-anyway category. (In other words, they are were big-budget, major studio, national release movies that sucked.)

• Oscar (1991) - Sylvester Stallone as a comic gangster. Most people will tell you that Stallone's Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot is worse. It's not. Estelle Getty has some funny lines in that one.

• Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) - What a bit of inspired casting! Alan Rickman plays a bad guy. Morgan Freeman plays a sidekick. And Kevin Costner plays a long-winded American pretending to be English nobility turned hero of the common man. Couldn't Kevin Costner just hire a hooker to give him a hand-job so that we don't have to watch his films anymore?

• The Good Son (1993) - I knew when I saw this film that one day Elijah Wood would be a star. I also knew that Macaulay Culkin wouldn't be one for much longer. Theoretically, this film would be a stirring psychological thriller, but I find that the really plodding pace and horrible acting makes it a good cure for insomnia.

• The Firm (1993) - What do you get when you take a script based on a best selling novel, add box office gold with Tom Cruise, Gene Hackman, Ed Harris, Holly Hunter, and Gary Busey and let Sydney Pollack direct them? You get a cliched legal drama that lasts for 2 and a half painful hours and a cop-out ending. Thanks!

• Greedy (1994) - This is a movie that proves that an ensemble cast of talented actors (yes, it includes Ed Bagley, Jr. -- I said it was an ensemble cast, didn't I?) aren't necessarily greater than the sum of its parts. Though filmed before Kirk Douglas's stroke and Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's Disease, you'll never be able to tell the difference.

• Pocahontas (1995) - This film is mind-blowing in its mediocrity. That's saying something for a Disney "Masterpiece" film. This film won an Oscar for best song, but you probably can't tell what that song was anymore, can you? Nothing about this film is memorable. Fiction dressed as history, this sleep-inducing bore-fest marked the end of the second renaissance of Disney animation. Can you believe that someone wasted their time to make this crap one painting at a time? (And now Disney is reduced to Bambi II.)

• Independence Day (1996) - There is nothing that this movie does that many other better movies before it didn't do better. (Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers had saucers blowing up Washington D.C., Alien had scary aliens, and Spaceballs had Bill Pullman.) In fact, this movie can definitively be said to be the end of Randy Quaid's career as a film actor. He now exclusively plays parodies of his character in this film: a stupid, fat slob.

• Air Force One (1997) - I'm often accused of failing to suspend my disbelief during a movie. Sure, I can accept Harrison Ford as the president of the United States. Sure, I can accept that Air Force One is like an office building in the sky. Sure, I can even accept mid-air rescue from a flying 747. But I totally have to draw the line at a female Vice President. "Get off my plane!"

• Titanic (1997) - "Wait, that's a good movie," you say? No, it's not. If you don't immediately fall for the overly-sappy love story between a bratty street punk and the spoiled bitch, you're left with a very, very long wait to see a large, animated boat sink. This movie is about James Cameron's love affair with a sunken wreck, nothing more.

• Godzilla (1998) - Americans love foreign films. Wait, no we don't. We love remaking foreign films, replacing the inspired bits with tried and true cliches. Which is exactly what Godzilla is. Gone is the classic and beloved man in a rubber suit terrorizing a model town. Now we get ugly CGI that makes the monster look more like a constipated t-rex than an electrified monitor lizard. Have I mentioned the really horrible casting on this film, yet? Really, this is just an excuse to destroy New York City on film, again. We americans are also a bit masochistic.

• Armageddon (1998) - While this movie might suck, at least it should get credit for being appropriately named. Who says that there is no truth in advertising? Another ensemble picture that totally blows. It's movies like this that make Michael Bay a running joke. (Note that J.J. Abrams, brainchild of Lost, wrote the screenplay for this trash. And now I'm supposed to be excited that he's attached to the new Star Trek movie?) Though I'm ranking these movies in chronological order, this film should get a special commendation, as I do believe that it is the absolute worst film ever made.

• Planet of the Apes (2001) - Not really a remake as much as it is a pile of crap. I used to like Tim Burton (Pee-Wee's Big Adventure is a spectacular film), but based on this film, I refuse to watch anything Burton does anymore. Sorry, Tim, this is too bad for words. The action merely crawls along without any real suspense or plot since we all saw the much superior Heston film years ago. And the deus ex machina twist at the climax only adds insult to injury. Remember, kids, nuclear power is forever.

• Minority Report (2002) - Once upon a time, Steven Speilberg could do no wrong: Jaws, Close Encounters, Raiders of the Lost Arc, Jurassic Park, The Color Purple, Schindler's List... damn, that's an impressive list. But then, sometime around Saving Private Ryan, Mr. Spielberg lost touch with the rest of the human race. His movies became a series of incredibly unnecessary visceral moments that no longer have any cohesive narrative use. And then he gave us AI. Just like AI, this film poses as insightful and thought-provoking in the same way that Fox News poses as fair and balanced. There is a lost eyeball sequence in this film that would make Vincent Price proud. Plus, this movie features Tom Cruise as a holier-than-thou super-cop with fatherhood issues and an addiction to fantasy. Quite the stretch for you, eh, Tom?

• The Core (2003) - I almost didn't include this movie here, because so far as I'm concerned, it's really just a spiritual sequel to Armageddon. But it is bad. Very, very bad. In yet another masculine role, Hillary Swank tries to drive a phallus-like drill into the "core" of the world in order to trigger an explosion that will make the world move. (Lets see, she's been the next Karate Kid, a teenaged boy, a police detective, an attorney, a space shuttle pilot, a boxer.... Is no man's role safe from the manly grip of Ms. Swank?)

• The Day After Tomorrow (2004) - From Roland Emmerich, the director who brought you Godzilla and Independence Day (see above), comes a(nother) tale of the destruction of New York City! With Ice! I think that the FBI should be investigating Mr. Emmerich for terrorist activity based on the number of times that the has destroyed New York on film. There oughta be a law against Roland Emmerich.

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