127/2559. Honey Don't! (2025)
Reminiscent of the earliest Coen brothers noirs like Blood Simple with the subversive comedy of Fargo, this movie has no particular message but a wryly amusing story of messed up people trying to make their way through a terribly fucked up world. I liked it.

128/2560. The Last Station (2009)
What a cast! The film aims to present the final days of Leo Tolstoy, which is probably best described as a story of messed up people trying to make their way through a terribly fucked up world.

129/2561. The Dark Angel (1935)
A British melodrama (based on a play) probably best described as a story of messed up people in love. At least in this case, it was the horrors of The Great War that messed them up. I thought the two male leads looked and behaved too similarly and got really confused in the third act if only because I'd already seen Love Affair and Sleepless in Seattle so it was too easy to anticipate the finale.

130/2562. Hey There, It's Yogi Bear (1964)
This was the first feature length Hanna-Barbera animated movie, and it was distributed to theaters by Columbia Pictures. I didn't know there were any, and I was surprised to find it's actually quite entertaining, especially the jaunty musical numbers, especially "St. Louis."

131/2563. The Man Called Flintstone (1966)
The Flinstones meets Get Smart in a movie that is slightly worse than either of those shows, mainly a fault of the need to maintain a single silly and dull plot for over an hour. Audiences must have agreed, because this was the last (of two) feature length Hanna-Barbera animated movie released by Columbia Pictures.

More to come.

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Netflix month continues!

116/2548. The Electric State (2025)
The amazing CGI visuals might actually be the film's core weakness because the shallow plot and cliched characters (and disinterested actors) just aren't strong enough to support the emotional weight inspired by the shattered remnants of a world destroyed by consumer culture. It very much feels that the creators never fully bought into the End Times Capitalism their film visualized. I must mention that the robot's Alamo, an abandoned shopping mall in the middle of what is supposed to be the Sonoran Desert, was fittingly filmed in the now-demolished North Dekalb Mall where I shopped and worked throughout the 1990s.

117/2549. The Happytime Murders (2018)
Contemporary reviews for this film weren't kind, but as a fan of buddy-cop crime movies, SNL-style humor, and Muppets, I was fully on board. Comedy is always very subjectively received, but I think it works.

118/2550. Unfrosted (2024)
Normally, I'm no fan of historical fiction, but hysterical fiction, sure. Recommended by friend Randy (who was always a Seinfeld fan), this fictional history of the creation of the Pop Tart is, I'm happy to report, a darn funny movie, especially if you are already familiar with the history of the era. And what a cast!

119/2551. Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (2024)
This one put me to sleep. Not that it's bad, but I felt it was a little slow to develop in obvious directions. I certainly enjoyed the original shorts, but none of the longer films has held my attention long. Maybe I've seen all the Wallace & Gromit I need to see.

120/2552. Fixed (2025)
Okay, full disclosure: I've never been as admiring of Genndy Tartakovsky's animation as many of my art school peers. I was encouraged by the cast, but this is like a dumber, less self-aware or artistically engaging Fritz the Cat. I did not finish it and would encourage no one else to start it.

More to come.

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I know I probably shouldn't freak out about it, I'm an old man now, but I'm growing increasingly absent-minded. It is becoming increasingly common for me to walk into a room and completely forget why I did that. I am well aware that this is not a unique-to-me problem. It even has a cute name: The Doorway Effect (which really should be the name of a romcom paring a star-crossed Fuller Brush Man and Avon Lady).

The popular theory is that memory storage is tied to the mental picture of your surroundings, and the change of environment cleans the slate for new memory. Studies seem to indicate that the natural aging process does not correlate to an increase in incidence, so what gives? Why am I experiencing it more often now?

Of course, it could be a perception bias. At the very least, I might be paying more attention for when it happens. If A) I know I'm getting older, and B) I believe older people have more memory problems, then C) I believe I have more memory problems. We're all trapped in a hell of our own making, but I don't think that my memory will get better if I just shrug off why I'm standing in the den holding a toilet plunger.

Science suggests the most common detriments to memory function are drugs, sleep, diet/exercise, and stress. Yeah, I could sleep more and eat better, but what am I supposed to do about stress? The sky falls a little more each day, and the only viable solution appears to be to drink more. That might not help much, as A) alcohol is a drug, and B) the most famous off-label use of alcohol is as an anti-memory aid. It's a feature, not a bug!

I'll have to continue paying attention to this memory situation and see how it goes. I could start recording notes to myself on my phone before I change rooms. Or maybe I should just stop leaving my den altogether. In any event, I've got to figure out where this plunger goes.

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I'm not always a fan of absolutes, but generally speaking, "thou shall not murder" is a pretty good rule, especially for a society that depends on cooperation to thrive. But while disobeying that rule is a sin, I've been wondering lately whether that rule is actually an absolute. Even the Bible doesn't think so, as the very next chapter in Exodus (21:12) paradoxically instructs that people who kill should be killed. Does the "no murder" rule not apply to the killer of killers?

The Bible is actually pretty keen on finding reasons to kill people. According to Exodus alone: don't kidnap anyone (21:16) or curse at your parents (21:17) or let your ox gore two people (21:29) or oppress orphans (22:21) or be a witch (22:17) or sleep with a sheep (22:18). And certainly don't strike anyone (21:23) unless it's a slave you own and you can keep them alive for "a day or two," in which case you're cool (21:21).

Come to think of it, how f'd up was Moses' flock in the first place? You don't make rules unless you need them, much less take forty days and forty nights to carve them in stone. For there to be so many rules about when you can and when you can't kill someone, they must have really, really wanted to kill one another. Hmm. Maybe the Old Testament isn't the best place to look for relationship advice or ethical behavior.

Not that we're doing a whole lot better. We just commemorated 9/11, when some people killed a whole bunch of people because they... well, because they were angry, I guess. That's usually why, isn't it? Wrath. Envy. Gluttony. Lust. Greed. And Pride for thinking you have the right to do it. By comparison, Sloth really doesn't seem so bad, except when he's not helping you restrain his six deadly pals.

Personally, I'm opposed to killing in all cases for the pretty simple reason that if anyone is allowed to kill, they might kill me, and I do not want to be killed. So far as I can tell, the only shot our flawed society will ever have at perfection is if we can all agree to stop all the killing. As a wise, soon-to-be-murdered man once said, "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone." He probably should have added something about nails.

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Lately I've been playing Sniper Elite 5, a stealth shooter set late in World War II that gives players the goal of essentially killing as many Nazis as you can before they kill you. It's extremely cathartic.

I've played the previous entries in the series, and this is the first one to give you the option of sneaking up to humanely "pacify" an unaware enemy soldier by putting it to sleep. You're not materially rewarded for this, so why is it in here? To save me some ammunition? That's why the game gives me a knife!

Don't get me wrong. I certainly see the value in mercy and nonviolence, even in role-playing wartime video games. But I thought the point of setting your shooter against the Axis in WWII was that you could murder all the Nazis you wanted. Dead Nazis are the original guilt-free snack.

There aren't any noncoms or children, so what am I to make of this mechanic? Is the game trying to remind me that digital NPC Nazis are people too? I don't want that thought floating around my head while I'm trying to liberate virtual France; war isn't possible without dehumanization. I have noticed that the Nazi AI never chooses the "pacify" option when confronting me. Perhaps that's the moral here: He who hesitates to kill a computer-generated Nazi is lost.

Of course, it's also entirely possible that I'm overthinking this. Whether fighting Nazis, zombies, criminals, demons, or mutated Objectivists, sometimes a video game mechanic is just a video game mechanic. Pull the trigger, stupid.

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I was eating lunch while reading the latest Consumer Reports magazine when I suddenly realized that I wasn't reading the Consumer Reports anymore. I was reading the same line over and over because the sentences had stopped making any sense. My first thought was that the article's author must have been having a terrible day because the words were all wrong for constructing a complete thought. But on closer inspection, the words weren't wrong, my ability to recognize them was.

Naturally, I assumed this sudden onset aphasia was a symptom that I was having a stroke. Mom, however, was pretty certain that it was just an oncoming migraine. Mom is usually right about such things, so I did not call 911.

My migraines usually start with tunnel vision and limb numbness, and sure enough, they both came along eventually. After a long rest in front of the TV (playing Olivia Newton-John's Xandau and the final round of a terrible U.S. Open), I awoke feeling, well, "better" isn't the right word, but maybe "relieved" at having moved firmly into the acute headache stage of migraine progression. (As if "relieved" and "acute headache" ever belong in the same sentence.)

The worst part of a migraine is the fact that when one strikes, I have no choice but to do literally nothing for many hours except lie still and wait for it to pass. Sometimes I can sleep through them. Sometimes not. In today's case, it has been 9 hours, and I'm still not 100% (nausea is always among the longest-lingering symptoms for me), but at least I'm mostly functional again. (I'm typing all this, so evidently my brain's Wernicke's area and other language centers are back online. Hooray! I mean, I am typing real words, right? You can read this? Please say you can read this.)

Just to be on the safe side, I'll wait until tomorrow to try reading any more Consumer Reports. That magazine is dangerous.

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My Mother's sister has chided me for not posting often enough. She says she reads my blog when she wakes up in the middle of the night. She has asked for more really long posts so that her eyes will get extra tired and close themselves. Wriphe.com: Boring People to Sleep Since 2002!®

So let's see, what things have I encountered recently that can be used as soporific fodder?

• I'm already suffering from Olympics withdrawal. I love the Olympics. I watch all I can, and I'm always sad to see them go on hiatus. While I hate the corporate and political greed that always accompanies them, that's just a sideshow for the main event: athletes from all over the world competing for little blocks of electroplated precious metals. I love the bonhomie between athletes and especially their ability to take a loss — essentially the destruction of their lifelong dreams — gracefully. (Speaking as a lifelong Miami Dolphins fan, I firmly believe learning to lose is the single most important thing in any sport.) Of course, I like seeing happy winners, too. The Olympics are our biannual reminder that people are what is really important in this life. Life could be a paradise if we'd just let it.

• “Bon-hommy,” went on Eeyore gloomily. “French word meaning bonhommy,” he explained. “I’m not complaining, but There It Is.” †

• The notifications on my telephone stopped working over the weekend, so no sounds when I get texts or phone calls. Not that I get a lot of phone calls. But if you call and I don't answer, now I can say that I didn't hear it without lying. (It's a software problem, not a hardware problem. For example, I can still watch YouTube videos. My notification sound effect is the sound of a Star Trek [TOS] communicator incoming call chirp, but my ringtone is a default system sound, and neither works. I have the phone turned off for recharge and will turn it back on tomorrow in the hopes that it just needs a good nap to get things sorted out. That sometimes works for me.)

• Update: It's working again. Which means that if I don't answer your call, I'm probably ignoring you on purpose again.

• Update Update: It's not working again. Which means it's time for me to buy a new phone. (This Google Pixel 7 lasted just a year and a half. I bought it because it was cheaper than a Samsung Galaxy, and, well, you get what you pay for.)

• If you're looking to go to sleep, do not click on this YouTube link. That's the song I put in my CD player and turned up REAL LOUD while I was dressing (because I had started singing it in the shower). There's a reason that I have never used Huey Lewis and the News in my "new years" posts: their lyrics are actually good. Ok, to be perfectly honest, the song I started singing in the shower was Lindsey Buckingham's Time Bomb Town, which is the second song on the Back to the Future soundtrack album. You know the one: "There must be about a million / single ways to go down." I'm sure you recognize it as the song playing on the clock radio when Marty wakes up in bed in 1985 (the first time). Once I realized what I was singing, my brain automatically clicked over to "Please don't drive 88 / Don't wanna be late again." Which, of course, I'm sure you recognize as the song playing on the clock radio when Marty wakes up in bed in 1985 (the second time). And that's why I buy soundtrack albums: so I can wash out the earworms I pick up in the shower.

Are you asleep yet, Kelley? If not, I can start talking about my dreams. Nothing is more boring than someone else's dreams. I had one recently where I worked up the nerve to ask Natalie Portman out on a date... and she said yes! (Although I got the impression it was a pity date.) We went out for coffee.

† Milne, A. A. "Chapter VI, In Which Eeyore Has a Birthday and Gets Two Presents," in Winnie-The-Pooh, pg. 72, E.P. Dutton & Company [New York], 1926

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62/2373. Tomorrow Is Another Day (1951)
A woman loves her man so much, she lets him believe that he murdered the policeman she shot. It's every film noir cliche in one movie! The ending is... well, even if you saw it you wouldn't believe it. True story: it put me to sleep.

63/2374. Family Practice Mysteries: Coming Home (2024)
The hardest part to believe about this Hallmark Mystery Movie (in which the murderer's motive is -- surprise! -- greed) is that the protagonist doctor (a former military doctor who seems to be the only person in town who has ever heard of poisoning someone to death) has so much spare time (and office space) on her hands that she can be up in everyone else's business.

64/2375. Tipline Mysteries: Dial 1 for Murder (2024)
This Hallmark Mystery Movie leans hard into being a Hallmark Mystery Movie, and I think that's the correct impulse. We don't watch these puzzle movies for realism. In fact, although there were several moments where the police procedure was questionable, the enthusiastic protagonists were always enjoyable to accompany as they stumbled their way to the solution.

65/2376. The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
I saw the Pierce Brosnan in theater on release, but this was my first time watching the Steve McQueen original. The first half is a heist film; the second is a romance. I enjoyed the heist (and the ending, which made me Google which was the first movie in which the criminal gets away with his crime), but the pacing is way too slow and McQueen's character and fickle love interest Faye Dunaway are way too unlikable to really enjoy spending time with them.

66/2377. The Babe Ruth Story (1948)
If you look this up online, you'll see many critics in its day called it the worst movie ever made. It's not that bad, but they've made a lot of movies since 1948. Personally, I thought it was a good time. It's a clearly sanitized version of The Babes life story intended for kids, and that's fine.

67/2378. Arsène Lupin (1932)
If you do Google which was the first movie in which a criminal gets away with a crime, the original British 1916 version of this movie will come up. (The Italian film Filibus beats it by a year, and the French Fantomas by three. I'm still not sure what the first American film to feature successful criminal was, though if I stretch the definition to short films, the answer is probably D.W. Griffith's The Musketeers of Pig Alley in 1912.) The reason to watch this version is to see the two Barrymore brothers acting opposite one another, as cop vs. robber, in the same film. Boy, that family had some acting talent.

More to come.

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I've been so tired all day. I can barely keep my eyes open, but I've had to run a bunch of errands and I had a meeting, and every time I've tried to take a nap in between, Henry has demanded something new: outside, walkies, dinner. Why are we supposed to let sleeping dogs lie if they won't return the favor?

I'm just not getting enough sleep. On Monday, Mom woke me early to pick up Audrey, who I was dog sitting. On Tuesday, I had to get up early to take Louis to the vet to have the lump on his back inspected. Today, Dad woke me up early when he called in a panic because the installer of his new washing machine could not attach it to the hot water line as plumbed.

I swear, it's getting to where a fellow just can't sleep until 2PM anymore.

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