Movie watching slowed to a crawl in September. I only watched 9 new-to-mew movies, although I did also re-watch Babe and Big Trouble in Little China among other favorites. It's hard to find time to watch new films when you're re-watching the classics.

156. (903.) Star of Midnight (1935)
I have yet to find an RKO movie starring William Powell that wasn't perfectly delightful. I still don't know what the title had to do with this murder mystery, but who cares. All you need to know are William Powell is being chased by Ginger Rogers.

157. (904.) Message from Space (1978)
Japan's answer to Star Wars is really, really terrible. Betrayal, space nuts, Vic Morrow . . . . none of it makes any sense in English. I'm not entirely sure that it could make any sense in any language. Do yourself a favor and just go watch Star Wars instead.

158. (905.) Special When Lit (2010)
If you couldn't guess, this was a documentary about the history of pinball machines. It made me want to own my own cabinet, so it must have done something right.

159. (906.) The Born Losers (1967)
This is the first "Billy Jack" movie. If you know what that means, I'm sorry. I was first exposed to Billy Jack by an art school professor who simply loved small budget, esoteric movies. Professor Marriott was serious about film. But no one takes Billy Jack more seriously than Billy Jack. It's weird that this, an action movie where all of the "action" takes place just out of frame, could inspire a franchise.

More to come.

Comments (1) | Leave a Comment | Tags: dear diary movies walter william powell

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: comic strip poodle strip poodles

All I ever do on this blog is bitch. So today, let's take a look at something that I like.

I like that trailer. Now I just need to get a copy of the movie. Surely, it's as good as the trailer, right? When has a trailer ever let us down?

Comments (1) | Leave a Comment | Tags: movies turbo kid

"Word on the street" is that Miami Dolphins' head coach Joe Philbin might not survive the day in that position following two terrible, terrible losses in a row as the now 1-3 team heads into their bye week.

As I type this, I don't really expect Philbin to get fired. I suspect that the axe will fall on some other scapegoat for the inept Dolphins organization, probably Defensive Coordinator Kevin Coyle who can be blamed for Ndamukong Suh's complete invisibility over four games or the defensive backs tendency to make the Bill's Tyrod Taylor and the Jet's Ryan Fitzpatrick look like Tom Brady and Bret Favre, respectively.

Besides, NFL teams whose organizations panic and fire their head coaches mid-season don't have a very good record of improving things in the short term. Most simply swap one losing coach for another. Only the Cowboy's Jason Garrett comes to mind as a step in the right direction, and he was already being groomed to eventually replace predecessor Wade Phillips anyway.

Assuming Philbin is fired before the end of the year — because let's face facts, this team stinks like dead fish no matter who is in charge — who would the Dolphins replace him with? An Offensive Coordinator who can't coordinate more than two touchdowns in a game? The 32-year-old Quarterbacks Coach? Certainly none of the defensive coaches deserve it. There don't seem to be any good candidates in the entire building.

Hmm. What's Dan Marino doing these days?

UPDATE 1:00PM: Philbin has been fired, replaced by the team's former tight ends coach, 39-year old Dan Campbell.

No team who has fired their coach 4 games into the season has gone on to post-season victories, so I guess everyone can now tune out for the remainder of the 2015 campaign. Unless you like watching train wrecks.

To be perfectly clear, this news doesn't disappoint me. Go back and check, and you'll see I've been no Philbin fan since the beginning of his tenure. But I'm also not eager to support any organization that gives a bad head coach a contract extension at the end of a bad season only to turn around and fire that same coach part way through the following bad season. The Dolphins have now done that twice in four years. Go team!

I don't know how owner Stephen Ross made his money, but he certainly doesn't manage it very well.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: coaches dan campbell dan marino dolphins football joe philbin ndamukong sucks news nfl stephen ross the greatest quarterback ever to play the game of football

UGA crushed South Carolina. Then Alabama lost to Mississippi. Vegas declared No. 13 Alabama an underdog against the No. 8 Bulldogs. All UGA had to do was show up and play.

They didn't.

Final score: Alabama 38, UGA 10. It wasn't ever really that close.

In all the UGA games I've ever watched, never have I seen the team collapse like they did today in the steady rain. After clawing to a 3-3 tie, it was like they ran out of fight at the start of the 2nd quarter. Alabama proceeded to score a rushing touchdown, block a punt for a touchdown, pass for a touchdown, and come back from halftime to intercept the ball and ran it back for a touchdown. All UGA did was stare at their own navels. The only reason the score wasn't worse was because Nick Saban didn't need it to be.

UGA did nothing right. Defensive backs were out of position on every play. Quarterback Greyson Lambert couldn't decide who to throw to and froze up. Relief quarterback Brice Ramsey couldn't manage to throw to his own team. But the worst of it all was Coach Richt and his coaching staff:

• Calling a majority of passes and not runs even before the game was out of hand. (The Bulldog's two scoring drives were the only two possessions in the game when UGA called more runs than passes. That was not a coincidence. Maybe I was too hard on Mike Bobo all these years; Bobo is gone but UGA is still up to its same old sour tricks.)
• Continuing to get special teams wrong. (Time outs to ice your own field goal kickers? Punt protection formations that block no one? Sigh.)
• Worst of all, completely failing to prepare their kids for yet another big game. (Of everyone in the stadium before kickoff, no one seemed more confident in a UGA victory than the UGA players. That swagger sure disappeared in a hurry once they went down by one touchdown!)

Let this be known as the game that finally destroyed my faith in Mark Richt. I mean, I still like the guy. I think he's good for the University and its student athletes. I certainly don't want him to be fired. (Some things, like academic performance and ethics, are more important than wins and SEC Championships.) LSU in 2011? Alabama in 2012? Vanderbilt in 2013? Florida in 2014? Alabama in 2015? I just need to accept that we're never going to win any "big games" while he's the head football coach.

I admit that I didn't go to last week's game. I was sick with a cold and didn't want to endure the rain just to see UGA beat up on an inferior opponent like Southern University. I regret that decision now. If I want to see UGA win, those are the only games I should go to. Inferior opponents are the only ones we can beat.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: alabama athens bobo is a bozo bryce ramsey football georgia greyson lambert nick saban quarterbacks sanford

You may not have noticed, but the 10th Annual Wriphe.com Batman and Football month came and went . . . and I didn't mention the Miami Dolphins once. That's because they suck. In fact, they suck so badly, the NFL has kicked them out of the country.

This Sunday, the 1-2 Dolphins play their Week 4 game against the 2-1 New York Jets in London. The game will be televised live in the USA at 9:30AM Eastern. Believe it or not, I value my sleep more than I value the opportunity to watch two terrible football teams play a shitty game of football.

It seems like a lifetime ago, but it was only 2007 when the Dolphins played in the first ever regular-season NFL game played on international soil. To promote that game, the NFL made a 26-feet tall animatronic of defensive end Jason Taylor. I'm so glad they don't do that anymore. Whose crotch would a 26-feet tall Ndamukong Suh find to step on?

Dolphins' ownership must like the damp English climate. Exactly one year ago, the 1-2 Dolphins played their fourth game of the season in London and won big against an inept 0-4 Oakland Raiders. Maybe, like last year, a win in this game will propel the Dolphins to another 8-8 season — their third in three years!

History may be doomed to repeat itself, but that doesn't mean I have to pay attention. Like I said, I'll be sleeping in on Sunday.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: dolphins football jason taylor nfl

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: batman comic strip poodle strip poodles

Final 8 of 16 movies watched in August:

148. (895.) The Baroness and the Butler (1938)
William Powell again in another romance! Here he plays the butler to a Prime Minister who is elected to parliament as a member of the opposition party — who keeps his job as a butler! That's not as improbable as the fact that the Hungarian Prime Minister's daughter speaks with a French accent.

149. (896.) Expo: Magic of the White City (2005)
Documentaries are easier to watch while coding, especially when they are just a narrator talking about a subject I'm already familiar with, in this case Gene Wilder reading a historical account of the Chicago Colombian Exposition of 1893. (I'm a man of varied interests.)

150. (897.) Winnebago Man (2009)
Another documentary, this time about the search for a man who had become an Internet celebrity as a side-effect of an ill-spirited prank. He reminded me of my dad.

151. (898.) Conan O'Brien Can't Stop (2011)
This film just followed Conan O'Brien around during the tour he undertook after his unceremonious departure from The Tonight Show. I like Conan, but I thought this made him look petty and compulsive. It wasn't very entertaining, and I'm not really sure what the point was.

152. (899.) The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
Watched because Myrna Loy was in this, but she's not in it nearly enough. This is NOT my kind of film. Life sucks enough without watching others discovering how much it sucks.

Did you murder people for a country that doesn't love you? Wash that bitterness down with Coke!

153. (900.) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)
The sequel to this movie will be released on June 3, 2016. If this film is any indication of what to expect, DO NOT GO SEE IT. I wish I could un-see this one.

154. (901.) Katy Perry: Part of Me (2012)
This was similar to the Conan documentary in that very little is learned about its star. Whereas Conan is a cypher because he moves at a breakneck pace and never stops for introspection, this film felt like it was a piece of stagecraft and not a real peek into Katy's life. It's funny that she feels like a more genuine person on Entertainment Tonight than she does in her own rockumentary.

155. (902.) Hungry (2014)
A documentary about the sport of competitive eating. Apparently, the Nathan's Hot Dog contest is a fraud. I'm so disappointed. If the NFL is as self-interested, corrupt, and focused on profit as Major League Eating.... Oh, shit.

More to come.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: coke movies myrna loy william powell

Tomorrow is Batman Day 2015. No, I didn't make that up. DC Comics did.

Last year, DC promoted Batman Day as part of the character's 75th anniversary on July 23. This year, the "holiday" has been moved to September 26 because ... well, actually I have no idea. To shore-up Third Quarter profit projections?

To celebrate this event that DC has made up, the company has thoughtfully added a pdf to their website containing suggestions of what Batman books and Batman-branded products retailers should have on hand for the throngs who will be swamping their stores demanding to exchange money for more Batman stuff. That's awfully kind of them. Hallmark makes you come into their stores to find out what kinds of cards you should send for Administrative Professionals' Day.

(Those of you who don't pay attention to the funny business of funny books, note that every day is Batman Day at DC Comics. Batman, or a member of his extended "Family," appears in over 53% of the books that DC will be releasing in December. If the company thinks there's some portion of the comic-book buying market that isn't satisfied with the amount of Batman currently available, perhaps they should just cancel all the non-Batman titles and go for full market saturation.)

Batman Day 2015. Don't miss it!

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: batman comic books holidays

40.

Comments (2) | Leave a Comment | Tags: birthday holidays walter