50/2482. Fighter Squadron (1948)
The episodic adventures of a squadron of American pilots in England contains the first on screen role for Rock Hudson, but I was much more enamored by the fact that it's also the first screen role for Jack Larson, television's original Jimmy Olsen, whose boyish character is very eager and gleeful about killing Nazis (as we all should be).

51/2483. Oppenheimer (2023)
I don't share the general public's appreciation of Christopher Nolan films, which is why it has taken me this long to watch this. I should have waited longer. To its credit, the cinematography is beautiful, and the cast all deliver top notch performances. However, Nolen can't decide if he wants a biography celebrating its title character for building the device that has doomed the human race or a screed against Cold War paranoia and political egos for failing to come to terms with opening Pandora's Box, and the whole endeavor would have benefitted greatly by picking just one of those lanes and cutting out an hour or more. I did not care for Robert Downey Jr's mustache twirling plot-device of a villain or Florence Pugh's unnecessarily lingering nudity or Emily Blunt's underwritten to the point of nonexistent character. And the Academy of Motion Pictures should be allowed to take away Oscars for sound design this bad. If I wanted to read subtitles to understand what everyone was mumbling underneath the oppressive sound effects and heavy handed orchestration, I would have read the Pulitzer-winning book the movie was based on, American Prometheus. I suspect that it is much, much better than this. (And yes, Randy, I spotted the Coke bottle. But since they were careful not to show me a label, I'm not going to include a screenshot. This movie doesn't deserve that.)

52/2484. The Fuller Brush Man (1948)
I watched this Red Skelton film despite the fact that I'm not a big Red Skelton fan specifically because I had already watched the sequel, The Fuller Brush Girl, which starred Lucille Ball. This is a case where the sequel is better. The physical gags in the third act were clearly based on silent comedies, but the exaggerations and Skelton's mugging for the camera drain all the humor. At least The Fuller Brush Company gets some high quality product placement here.

53/2485. Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962)
This French New Wave film follows a spoiled singer for a couple of hours in real time as she waits for test results for a cancer diagnosis, and I thought I was going to hate it, but instead I somehow found it deeply engrossing. Recommended.

54/2486. Mountainhead (2025)
Not recommended. There are really only four characters, and they are all just the worst types of human beings: Silicon Valley tech bros who literally only care about themselves and profit. (All the supporting cast are arguably worse: sycophantic enabling employees and spouses.) There's literally no one to cheer for, even as they prove their ineptitude struggling to murder one of their own. I hated it more than Oppenheimer, though maybe that's because I could understand what everyone was saying. (You win this round, Nolen!)

More to come.

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Movies watched in March, part 1 of 3:

23. (1882.) Romance on the High Seas (1948)
This was Doris Day's first movie, and she's as cute as a freckled button. I've never been a huge fan of her 60s sex comedies opposite Rock Hudson (what with their badly outdated sexual politics), but her natural charisma is obvious here. It's no wonder she went on to become such a star.

24. (1883.) Avengers: Endgame (2019)
I said I wasn't going to watch this after how angry I was at how much Avengers: Infinity War sucked, but it finally came on broadcast television, and I didn't have anything better to do. It's not as bad as A:IW, but that's not the same as being good. In fact, I'm sure I'd hate it if A:IW hadn't set the bar so damn low that it couldn't even be tripped over. And there was Coke.

The story of how Bruce Banner and the Hulk merged would make a better movie than what this actually gave us.

25. (1884.) Calamity Jane (1953)
Another Doris Day movie (because Doris Day was the TCM "Star of the Month"), this one featuring an entirely fictional version of Calamity Jane in what is transparently a rip-off of the far superior Annie Get Your Gun. I fell asleep halfway through.

26. (1885.) I'll See You in My Dreams (1951)
Hey, look! It's Doris Day! Here she's the wife (and ambition and conscience and just plain better half) of Danny Thomas' bland songwriter Gus Kahn. I guess it's Kahn's biography (at least the Hollywood version of it), but it would have been a better movie if Day had been given the lead part.

27. (1886.) The Foreigner (2017)
Old Man Jackie Chan proves that he's probably a better actor than he gets credit for in this political action/thriller opposite Pierce Brosnan. I liked it.

28. (1887.) The Wild, Wild Planet (1966)
In the future, Mutants come to Earth to steal humans for a mad scientist's genetic experiments. Perhaps just because of what sci-fi was in the era, this feels a little like an amateur filmmaker's attempt at an original Star Trek movie, and some of the concepts are interesting. Just about everything else is bad, maybe bad enough to come around to the other side if you were in just the right mood. I wasn't.

More to come.

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I've only finished 3 movies so far in September, but maybe that's because I watched 25 in August. I should probably get a start on reviewing that backlog, so here goes.

139. (1793.) Winchester '73 (1950)
An anthology Western movie loosely organized around a rifle that keeps getting passed around. Jimmy Stewart is the star, but the cast also includes Rock Hudson, Shelley Winters, and Tony Curtis among others. Very good.

140. (1794.) You Were Never Lovelier (1942)
The Taming of the Shrew is the basis for the plot in this Fred Astaire/Rita Hayworth musical comedy. Astaire plays his usual manipulative skirt-chasing character, but Hayworth is the highlight.

141. (1795.) Hit the Deck (1955)
This film is a mess. It feels like the studio (MGM) had a bunch of stars they wanted to stick in the same movie, so they had someone write something where the sole criteria was "get all these people on screen." Debbie Reynolds is a good example; her character serves no role in the plot other than giving an excuse to get "Debbie Reynolds" on the marquee. The fruit salad of movies.

144. (1798.) Game Night (2018)
This sort of misadventure comedy — sibling jealously and a series of coincidences lead to a life-or-death situation milked for laughs — is the bread and butter of Jason Bateman's career, but Rachel McAdams is the star player. (She never disappoints.) I enjoyed it, especially the scene with the $17 bribe.

142. (1796.) Thirty Day Princess (1934)
Someone else who never disappoints is Preston Sturges, who wrote but did not direct this permutation of the premise of The Prince and the Pauper. I enjoyed it, too.

143. (1797.) Sabotage (1936)
As much as I like Preston Sturges movies, I love Alfred Hitchcock's work. I think I've often quoted his "if you show the crowd the bomb, you can't let that bomb go off" philosophy, which was very clearly a revelation he came to *after* making this movie. Very watchable and far less predictable than I would have expected.

Coca-Cola in 1938 London! What, what?

Many more to come.

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New year, new movies.

1. (1655.) The Spy Who Dumped Me (2018)
Just your run-of-the-mill buddy road action romance comedy spy movie for chicks. Being a mash up of so many genres, it stuck mostly to the established stereotypes of each. That there were so many moving parts (and actors having fun) kept it from being stale. I enjoyed it.

2. (1656.) Chopping Mall (1986)
Imagine Short Circuit with Johnny Five replaced by Micheal Myers and you get this so very 1980s slasher flick. Recommended to fans of Friday the 13th (I'm talking to you, Keith).

There were better Coke shots before this, but I wasn't ready.

3. (1657.) A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019)
I liked this as a work of fiction, but I just could not accept Tom Hanks as Fred Rogers. (And although the protagonist is based on a real person, I think it's ridiculous to call a film about a fictitious person a biography.) Therefore, the highlight of the film was the miniature sets used for establishing shots and transitions. If you want to see a movie about Mr. Rogers, I'd recommend last year's Won't You Be My Neighbor documentary instead.

4. (1658.) Kansas City Confidential (1952)
Good, suspenseful noir about a man-done-wrong chasing down the men who did him wrong. Enjoyable.

5. (1659.) Magnificent Obsession (1954)
This is dreary melodrama follows a horrible, trust-fund cad (Rock Hudson) who falls for the woman whose life he destroyed (Jane Wyman) and becomes the world's best brain surgeon to fix her. Ugh.

6. (1660.) The Lodger (1927)
Alfred Hitchcock's third film was obviously heavily influenced by the German expressionism films of the era. As so many silents do, it sags a bit in the middle, but it's totally worth a watch for Hitchcock fans. (It contains the first Hitchcock cameo appearance, by the way. His back is to camera in an early shot of a newsroom. I missed it.)

More to come.

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With September comes football, but I still managed to watch a bunch of movies! Here's the first half of the bunch.

154. (691.) The Children's Hour (1961)
This movie deserves extra credit for trying to tackle a subject it refuses to explicitly describe. (The "L" word.) I was lukewarm on this predictable suspense/melodrama, but the final scene sold me. Also, I'm not much of a Shirley MacLaine fan, but she was a hottie in her youth!

155. (692.) Pillow Talk (1959)
Ugh. Rock Hudson: "Me man. You woman. Me take you to my cave!" Doris Day: "Oh-kay!" Ugh. Seriously, everyone involved in making this film — including the audience — should be embarrassed.

156. (693.) Fourteen Hours (1951)
We spend the entire movie waiting to see if a man will commit suicide by jumping off a building. The best part isn't the drama on the ledge but the bystander's reactions. (This film reminded my of 2002's Phone Booth, but for the life of me, I don't know why.)

157. (694.) Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)
Ah, John Carpenter can do no wrong. No, I take that back: Ghosts of Mars, which borrows too many elements from this earlier, far superior bit of fluff.

158. (695.) 36 Hours (1965)
This was a G.I.Joe episode! Part suspense, part thriller, all good.

159. (696.) Darby's Rangers (1958)
Part bio-pic, part propaganda, all boring.

160. (697.) The Split (1968)
I love heist films, but not this one. I mean, it's okay, especially the footage of the Atlanta Falcons playing the L.A. Rams in 1968, but the protagonist — one Jim Brown — is very hard to like. I got the impression that when Gene Hackman arrived very late in the picture, he was the real hero.

161. (698.) Mister Buddwing (1966)
This movie felt like a rejected Twilight Zone script, as James Garner wanders around New York in search of his true identity. It's not an especially memorable film, but there are some pretty girls, including Suzanne Pleshette, Katharine Ross, Jean Simmons, and Nichelle Nichols. New York is apparently populated exclusively by beautiful people. Who knew?

More to come.

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My mother thinks this blog should be nothing but poodle comics. My friends think it should contain more embarrassing pictures of Walter. I think I should probably talk more about comic books and football. But what does the public want from Wriphe.com?

To settle this argument, let's look at the keywords that drew people to Wriphe.com in the past 12 months. The top five keyword queries, seriously, were

1. gay Batman
2. Rock Hudson
3. men in spandex
4. Batman gay
5. spandex man

Without question the three biggest category searches that brought people from Google to Wriphe.com in 2012 can be summarized as "men in spandex," "are Batman and Robin gay," and, in a distant third place, "is Mio safe to drink?" In fact, if you Google "spandex man," my image from August 15, 2005 comes first in the Google image results.

Really, I don't know if that says more about my blog content or about what people are looking for on the internet. Whatever the case, I'm sure that this post isn't helping.

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Today, on "Comics Out Of Context," I present to you 1940's Superman #7. The following panels are unaltered and are presented in the order that they originally appeared. (Though there may have been some other panels in between.)

Granted, the word "gay" didn't gain widespread usage as a euphemism for homosexuality until the 1960s, but did they really have to refer to "Gay City" quite so liberally? This story was originally published with no title, but it has since been republished as "The Exploding Citizens" and "The Gay City Plague." Someone at DC Comics has a great sense of humor.

If the "uncanny menace" of Gay City is so dire, why do they even let planes land at the airport allowing her to take her life into her own hands? I know you won't believe me, but the rest of Lois' action in this story is limited to her chewing gum, sitting very still, and sleeping. (Would I lie to you?) In comparison, Superman "whizzes" once and "streaks" three times in this story, including...

Ah, Superman, the only person able to defend the gallant citizens of Gay City from the systematic oppresion of their corrupt leaders. He single-handedly makes the villains confess their evil deeds to the police. How, you ask? By flying them there. Stanley, the corrupt Gay City Commissioner and Kotzoff, the Mad Gay City Scientist (who Superman is "horrified" to discover has no tongue -- don't ask how) are apparently much more afraid of heights than the wrath of the angered Gay City Citizens. Thank you, Superman! I suppose all's well that ends, well, gay.

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Here's something a little scary for you on this Friday the 13th: more evidence that Dr. Frederick Wertham, author of the industry influencing Seduction of the Innocent, was right arguing against the subtle, damaging influence of comic books on America's youth. These panels are all in sequential order as presented in Superman's Action Comics #20, published in 1940.

Sure, I eliminated some filler panels there, but only to make the subtext clearer for scientific examination. Gay equals good times. Not gay equals bullet in the face. Clearly the message here is that if you are a heterosexual, you shouldn't go to any gay Hollywood parties. They'll kill you. I suppose that this really makes you look at those post-Oscar parties in a whole new light, doesn't it? Note that Superman is not at the party. Why? Because Superman is not gay.

With messages like these buried in super hero comics, it's no wonder that Rock Hudson and Tom Cruise turned out gay. (Personally, I think Rock Hudson would have made a great Superman, by the way. Were he not, you know, dead.)

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