43/2613. Up Periscope (1959)
A dull WWII movie with James Garner. For what it's worth, the dullness is not Garner's fault; there's just too much dead air masquerading as "suspense."

44/2614. L'Avventura (1960)
This is one of those movies that critics say you should see before you die, but reports say the first audiences to see it walked out on it. And they were right. Sure, it looks great and plays with some cinematic and storytelling structure concepts in unique ways, but the end result is that the audience spends two tense hours with some horrible people who know they are horrible people yet still being being horrible and resolving nothing. The ultimate lesson is don't do any of this. Not an enjoyable experience.

45/2615. Orion and the Dark (2024)
What can only be described as a Charlie Kaufman film for kids (because it is) has plenty of subversive surreality but has softened too much of Kaufman's uniquely signature metatextural navel-gazing for its younger audience. Don't get me wrong, it's not bad. It's just a lesser Kaufman work.

46/2616. Downhill Racer (1969)
Every possible sports cliche is in this action movie which is really a character study of the kind of damaged person who succeeds in the world of cutthroat sport. In hindsight, it's a very interesting counterpoint to The Candidate, which I'm sure is no coincidence as it was made three years later by the same director and star. Personally, I think The Candidate is Redford's best work (leveraging his charisma to make a point about the corrupting force of politics), but I admit that's because I prefer my satires sharp enough to draw blood. Your mileage may vary.

47/2617. T-Men (1947)
This is a crime drama procedural with noirish elements including most notably the beautiful chiaroscuro cinematography. I would argue that it's not quite true noir because the protagonist is a straight cop who walked into his noirish situation with eyes open, but that feels a bit like picking nits. Remember, kids: crime doesn't pay (but neither does being a cop).

More to come.

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30/2600. Angels in the Outfield (1951)
What's best about this cliched sports romcom isn't the heavy-handed treatment of religious freedom in America, but the fantasy concept that a young girl is so innocent that she can see angels and everyone else being so jaded that they cannot believe her. Won't someone please think of the children.

31/2601. The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)
What this movie lacks in narrative plot, it makes up for in nostalgic references. Of course it was a blockbuster.

32/2602. Project Hail Mary (2026)
Having read the book, Dad really wanted to see this on the big screen, so I took him to the only theater in town even though I really don't like it. Dad loved the movie, but I was lukewarm. I got hung up on the choices made by the directors: too many of the "science" decisions were really just blatant plot manipulation, and Gosling's character is too poorly developed, depriving the character of a more satisfying arc as he discovers humanity through his relationship with a magical alien. (I know Gosling is a good enough actor to play anti-social without being unlikeable. He can do anything.) Most people are (probably rightly) less critical of those sorts of nits, and I don't begrudge them their enjoyment of this.

33/2603. From Headquarters (1933)
A lightweight murder mystery staring George Brent. I really can't say as I remember any more about it than that, so there you go.

34/2604. Chicago (2002)
I had avoided this for years because I had a preconceived notion that none of the characters were likable. And they're not. But the musical numbers are pretty good, and the whole thing doesn't run on too long. Is it really Best Picture worthy? Well, looking back at movies released in 2002, I can only say there were pretty slim pickings that year.

More to come.

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It's primary season in Georgia, and right now there are at least three (three!) leading Republican candidates for governor currently airing television commercials during every Jeopardy! commercial break vowing to get tough on the same issue. Not taxes. Not jobs. Not education. Not data centers or immigration or crime or polluted water or unaffordable housing or traffic congestion or gas prices. The issue they're worried about is "men" stealing trophies in women's sports.

Yes, I do live in a basement, and no, I don't have a daughter, but I still have to wonder if that's really the biggest issue facing Georgians today. Or ever, really. Outsports.com lists only five openly transgendered athletes playing for Georgia teams the past twenty years. Exactly zero of those were biological men who joined women's teams in search of fame and fortune. Zero examples would seem to make this a solution in search of a problem.

Even recognizing there were a couple of swim meets in the recent past where transgendered women stormed our borders and won (or, as in the case of Riley Gaines, placed fifth), this still doesn't seem to be a problem because A) the Georgia High School Association banned transgendered girls from playing as girls on high school teams in 2022, B) the NCAA banned the same at the college level in February 2025, and C) Georgia passed a state law ("The Riley Gaines Act") banning them from any event statewide in April 2025. It's not (yet) illegal to be transgendered in Georgia, but they better not try kicking any girls' balls.

So we ask the question: why are all these Republican governor candidates spending so much time and money decrying a vanishingly rare situation that is already triply illegal in the state they say they know enough about to run? I guess it's too much work to come up with a plan to address the ongoing homeless crisis or social media monopolies when you can just keep holding up your pitchfork and yelling "Won't somebody please think of the trans children?"

All I can say for sure is that it doesn't look like I'll be voting Republican this year. Again.

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DAD: Do you think they'll play all Elite Eight NCAA basketball games in one day this weekend?

ME: No. They'll spread them over two days as usual.

DAD: I suppose they want us to be able to watch them all?

ME: Yes, but your viewing pleasure is a secondary concern. The NCAA is primarily interested in maximizing the broadcast window so that they can increase advertising revenue. Sports broadcasting decisions are all about the money.

DAD: You mean to tell me that if they broadcast a meteor falling to earth, the money caused that?

ME: No. That's totally different. No one is paying for meteor strikes.

DAD: So broadcasting decisions are not all about money.

ME (raising voice): No! I mean, meteors are not sports. Those are Two! Different! Subjects!

DAD: Now you're yelling. That's my fault. You don't take it well when I point out when you are wrong.

...

I don't wonder why some children abuse their parents; I wonder why more don't.

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13/2583. Kitty Foyle (1940)
Ginger Rogers is Kitty Foyle, a muddle-headed girl who falls for the wrong man and continues doubling-down on her bad decision. Ginger is very good even if her character is irritating. (The Wrong Man is played by Dennis Morgan, who I never much care for, so you'll excuse me if I was against him from the beginning.)

14/2584. The Big Combo (1955)
A film noir police procedural is right up my alley. This doesn't disappoint, especially with Lee Van Cleef playing a rat-like heavy in a homosexual-coded relationship with a fellow mobster. Good stuff.

15/2585. The Harder They Fall (2021)
I'm not sure why they unnecessarily borrowed the names of a bunch of real-life Black Wild West characters for what otherwise feels like a Van Peebles Blacksploitation Western. But whatever. It's still a lot of fun (at least until some third act shenanigans aiming for misguided pathos).

16/2586. Greased Lightning (1977)
First off, let me say that there's a briefish Coca-Cola drinking scene in the middle of this very loosely adapted biopic staring Richard Pryor and Beau Bridges, but I did not get a screenshot at the time. I'll try to correct that next time I see it's coming on TCM, which seems to run it about once a year. It sticks pretty hard to the traditional sports movie cliches, so if you like that sort of thing, you'll probably like this.

17/2587. A Letter to Three Wives (1949)
Maybe because Kirk Douglas is in this stylish tale of love and betrayal, it kept reminding me of The Bad and the Beautiful. I liked it, especially Linda Darnell (who was the love interest in Zero Hour!; if you know, you know).

More to come.

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65/2497. Black Eye (1974)
This is very much a mid-70s "neo" noir. It's even easy to imagine Gene Hackman or James Garner in the title role if it hadn't been dipped in the trappings of the blaxploitation genre. It's not perfect, but it's not bad, either.

66/2498. The Cleaner (2025)
It's not Daisy Ridley's fault that this is a mediocre Die Hard knock off. She may be the best thing in it. It's just a very shallow action thriller with some very confused James Bondian antagonists. Yawn.

67/2499. Love Me (2024)
Maybe think of this as a dumber Wall-E where all of humanity is dead. I'd probably like it more if I could get over the typical Hollywood bullshit about technology being functionally immortal. But it's also a typically Hollywood bullshit romcom dressed in sci-fi trappings, raising questions it has no interest in actually answering. So that's two strikes. I do, however, enjoy Kristen Stewart, who (largely) succeeds at making her character sympathetic while working with a script that doesn't seem to understand (or care) what "self-awareness" is.

68/2500. Surviving Ohio State (2025)
This documentary is largely just the testimony of several former OSU wrestlers about events that they experienced in the 1980s and 1990s backed up with documentary evidence, and damn, it's a gut punch. I've never cared for the arrogance of "The" Ohio State University sports teams, but how could anyone support an athletic department, an institution, that would do this to its own kids? (If you watch this, know that just this week, a federal judge ordered mediation between the university, which has offered a total payout of $60 million, and the subjects of this film to be conducted by the same man who negotiated Michigan State should pay $500 million for similar circumstances. So expect more news to come in February 2026.)

69/2501. A Minecraft Movie (2025)
The similarities between this and Napoleon Dynamite were obvious even before I looked up the credits and saw that it was made by the same writer/director. I admit that a whole bunch of the specific jokes were lost on me. I've only played a couple of hours of Minecraft, and this is aimed squarely at the game's hardest-core community. Therefore, I found it just an okay movie experience, but I can understand why it was a such a big hit with the target audience.

More to come.

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113/2424. Eddie the Eagle (2015)
This is the sort of feel-good sports biopic that writes itself with little regard for actual facts. Seriously, why do they even bother to base these sorts of things on true stories? The cliches are so strong, they stand alone. Which is not to say that I disliked it; it's fine. Just not very original, and I find unoriginal to be largely uninspiring.

At least their taste buds are in the right place.

114/2425. Naked Alibi (1954)
I had to double check IMDB to jog my memory on this. The title isn't particularly memorable (as it really doesn't have too much to do with the plot), but it's a fine little crime picture potboiler starring Sterling Hayden and Gene Barry. Which one of them is the real bad guy? That's the whole first act!

115/2426. Stage Fright (1950)
Another film, this one a Hitchcock, that spends an inordinate amount of time making the viewer guess who the real bad guy is. There's too much comedy of errors in this for its own good, as it really starts to grate that the protagonist keeps putting herself in such dangerous and embarrassing positions.

116/2427. Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story (2024)
A glowing documentary about Christopher Reeve made by his children that doesn't ignore his flaws but somehow still manages to make the man appear a saint. Not bad at all.

117/2428. MacArthur (1977)
This biopic of MacArthur's later years feels too episodic and superficial. It never quite reaches the heart of why the great general behaved as he did. (I suspect star Gregory Peck didn't quite know either). It's certainly not as glowing a character study as Christopher Reeve got, though MacArthur did seem to think he was a super hero.

More to come.

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97/2408. Collision Course (1989)
Jay Leno's first leading role in a movie.... is bad. It's pretty clear that's not Jay's fault, or co-star Pat Morita's either. The script is worthless, the direction is weak, and this was clearly edited to appease television censors. I read afterwards that the production company that made it, De Laurentiis Entertainment Group (which also made Transformers: The Movie), declared bankruptcy during production, and it shows, especially in the third act "action." As a film, it's an interesting curiosity, but not great entertainment.

98/2409. A Sprinkle of Deceit: A Hannah Swensen Mystery (2024)
Hallmark's Hannah Swensen mysteries are still a favorite, and this one course corrects a bit from the last so that the large supporting cast doesn't come off quite as goofy (though still plenty unrealistically goofy). More, please.

99/2410. The Joe Louis Story (1953)
The absolutely true life story of Joe Louis! Well, about as "true life" as any 1950s sports biopic ever got, I suppose. The verisimilitude is helped a great deal by the inclusion of footage of Louis' actual fights. It also helps that the actor playing Louis is so bad at delivering lines that you figure he couldn't be making them up. (For about half the film, I was convinced he had to be related to Louis.)

100/2411. Le Professionnel (1981)
This is a great French action film in the same anti-authority vein as anything Eastwood or Bronson were making at about the same time. Highly recommended.

101/2412. Curious Caterer: Forbidden Fruit (2024)
Speaking of Hallmark Mysteries, this series very much feels as though it was created in desperation during the period that actress Alison Sweeney was unavailable to make more Hannah Swenson movies. Sadly, these are really too easy to solve because their mystery-construction formula is obvious. (Seriously, in this one I knew which one was the killer as soon as they introduced all the suspects even though the killer's random motivation wasn't pulled out of the ether until just before the last commercial break.) Still, I love these little puzzle boxes, even when they're easy.

More to come.

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Once upon a time, they called it the Blockbuster Bowl. However, corporate America being fickle and football bowl committees being greedy, it has since been sponsored by Carquest, MicronPC, Mazda, Champs Sports, Russell Athletic, Camping World, and Cheez-It (which had previously sponsored a different bowl now sponsored by the mortgage lender Guaranteed Rate). In 2023, the new tenant is Pop-Tarts. What makes the Pop-Tarts Bowl significant isn't the string of consumer product sponsor changes but its weird connection to America's real favorite pastime: eating.

A few years ago, Duke's Mayonnaise bought the rights to turn the annual Continental Tire / Meineke Car Care / Belk Bowl into the Duke's Mayo Bowl. Duke's big, attention-getting decision was to replace the bucket of Gatorade traditionally dumped on the head of the winning coach with a giant jar of mayonnaise. It's exactly as gross as it sounds. When I see it, all I can think is, "Oh, those poor eggs!" (For the record, I never think, "Oh, those poor gators!" Gators got it coming.)

Pop Tarts saw Duke's made-for-TikTok moment and raised. Their mascot this year is a Frosted Strawberry Pop-Tart which emerged at midfield in a giant toaster. Throughout the game, the Pop-Tart posed for photos with children, danced with cheerleaders, and made finger guns at the officials. Then, when the game was over, he climbed back in his toaster only to slide out of a slot in the side... where the winning team ate him.

[To be clear, the players ate a giant Pop-Tart decorated to look identical to the mascot. At least I really, really hope that's what happened. I'd link here to a video of the event in question, but that's exactly what Kellogg's wants me to do.]

I'll be the first to admit that I like both football and Pop-Tarts as much as the next red-blooded American. (My favorite is Brown Sugar and Cinnamon, but the box in my pantry is Frosted Cherry because they are very marginally less malnutritious.) And I regularly eat barbecue at restaurants with smiling pig mascots on their napkins. But if you spend four quarters giving your mascot a personality, I'm not okay with putting it in the oven and eating it, even if you claim "it wants it" — that's a mental illness, Kellogg's! I'm a red-blooded American, not a fairy tale witch in a gingerbread house.

Eat up kids. And clean your plate. Ethiopia is full of starving cannibals.

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The 18th Annual Wriphe.com Batman and Football Month got off to an inauspicious start last night when my cable provider Spectrum unexpectedly dropped ESPN from its lineup without warning just as Florida was preparing to kick off the season against Utah.

Apparently Disney wants Spectrum to pay a boatload for the privilege of sharing the same content you can get directly through a subscription to Disney+, and negotiations have stalemated as Spectrum rightly fears trying to pass that charge along to their subscribers like me, who are already paying $110 a month for a package that somehow no longer includes ESPN or ESPN2 or the SEC Network (or Disney or FX or nearly a score of others I can't say as I watch much).

I assume this tactic is intended to make me call Spectrum and demand they raise my rates to get ESPN back. Given that Disney and the other Hollywood producers don't seem very interested in paying writers or actors to create other content — today marks day 122 of the WGA strike and day 49 of the SAG strike — they rightly recognize that live sports is currently (and perhaps for perpetuity in the age of AI) their most valuable commodity.

While I respect Disney's right to try to negotiate for Spectrum's 15 million subscribers, I'm not particularly happy about becoming a pawn in these hardline tactics or the timing of all of this coming at the dawn of football season, especially since for the foreseeable future, it looks like I'll have to leave my house if I want to watch Monday Night Football or a wide selection of college games. It sure seems like Hollywood doesn't really care who they inconvenience in their quest for the biggest possible buck, and that just plain sucks. I won't forget this. As my father always says, pigs get fed and hogs get slaughtered.

And Gators... Gators lose 11-24, according to my local evening news. So it's not all bad. The University of Florida football team losing is a good start to any season.

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