Today, while researching how Ron Howard made the decision to quote the myth and not the facts of "Houston, we've had a problem," I realized that more time has passed since the release of the movie Apollo 13 than had passed between the actual events and the movie. By several years, actually.

I distinctly remember thinking about how long ago the JFK assassination was when Oliver Stone made his movie about it while I was in high school. That was just 28 years since the event. It's been 34 years since the movie came out.

And don't even get me started on how I thought the year 1955 was the ancient past when I watched a particular movie released three decades later in 1985, itself now four decades in the rear view mirror.

Obviously, both the past and the future are much closer than I thought.

There's nothing I can do now about my younger self's misimpressions, but obviously I am past due in reevaluating how I interpret the effects of the passage of time on living memory. Maybe the events in that galaxy far, far away didn't happen quite so long ago as I once imagined.

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39/2471. Alcatraz Island (1937)
According to IMDB, "This was the first film set in the prison on Alcatraz Island," and it spends a lot of time showing us how high-tech the prison was for its day. Otherwise, it's a pretty standard prison story.

40/2472. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)
I got the feeling that everyone involved wanted to get together and make a Beetlejuice movie, they just weren't sure what the plot should be. It's quite a narrative mess, which is okay enough for those who relish Tim Burton's trademark take on horror. I admit that I was very much charmed by the unexpected climactic musical sequence built on Donna Summer's "MacArthur Park." (I assume the superior Richard Harris version was too slow to dance to?)

41/2473. Force of Arms (1951)
"Force of Arms" is not a great title for a hybrid "war is hell" romance mash-up. But William Holden is, as always, real good as the Joe struggling through his PTSD.

42/2474. The Case of the Black Cat (1936)
If you spend this entire Perry Mason movie waiting for the black cat to show up, you'll miss out on everything else: there is no black cat. It's actually the housekeeper's cat, and even then, it's mostly just a plot device to get Mr. Mason involved in the eventual court case.

43/2475. The Set-Up (1949)
This is a very, very good boxing movie that covers all the usual bases (love of the sport, gambling rings, corruption, long-term damage, etc.) that also manages to play out in real time. Recommended (assuming you can stand watching grown men hit one another in the face over and over).

44/2476. The Case of the Howling Dog (1934)
Perry Mason fans on the Internet say this is the best Perry Mason movie, and they might be right. I mean, at least this case has a howling dog.

More to come.

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Welcome to the 19th annual Wriphe.com Superman Month!

This year, the hype is real, as James Gunn's much anticipated Superman movie is just around the corner. Are you all excited? Am I excited? Are we excited?

No, seriously. I'm asking. I don't know.

In full disclosure, I still haven't watched any of the trailers. (Have there been more than one?) Nothing personal, Mr. Gunn, but I just don't care for trailers. Some of them give away too much, and others are just plain misleading. Personally, I prefer to make my decisions based on poster art.

Yeah, okay. I'll probably watch that.

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34/2466. Big Eyes (2014)
Tim Burton's biography of the artist(s) behind the kitsch "Big Eyes" craze of the 1960s art world is big on atmosphere, which is much appreciated, especially since the drama of the story itself seems so slight. I assume that Burton's sympathies lie with the protagonist, but it's Jason Schwartzman and Terence Stamp who steal every scene they're in as, respectively, an art gallery owner and art critic who recognize bad art when they see it and aren't afraid to say so.

35/2467. Murder on a Bridle Path (1936)
The first Hildegarde Withers mystery movie in which the detective is played by someone other than Edna May Oliver. Sure, Helen Broderick tries her best, but she just doesn't have the same snark. Oh, well.

36/2468. Crime School (1938)
Humphrey Bogart tries to get The Dead End Kids to straighten up and fly right (and, frankly, I say he's by far too lenient with Leo Gorcey, who tries to have him killed). Pretty entertaining, actually.

37/2469. Invaders from Mars (1953)
Less entertaining, though mostly because this was made for kids. The "it was all just a dream, wait, no, it was a premonition!" twist ending is really a bit too much.

38/2470. The Comic (1969)
In this Carl Reiner and Dick Van Dyke crafted the meanest, funniest possible love letter to a bygone era of silent film comedians. The protagonist is despicable (a conglomeration of some of the worst biographical elements of Langdon, Lloyd, Chaplin, and Keaton) and would be completely intolerable if almost every scene didn't end with a punchline at his expense. Only the movie's last scene, in which the jerk, none the wiser for his many, many failures, is finally humanized, ends without a joke. Bravo. Seriously.

Pratfalls and slapsticks go better with Coca-Cola.

More to come.

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30/2462. Alma's Rainbow (1994)
Another '90s black indie coming-of-age movie that aired on TCM, and also quite enjoyable, assuming you like '90s indies and/or coming-of-age movies, as I do. The pacing felt a little uneven, but that's adolescence, isn't it? I found it charming.

31/2463. Scarecrow (1973)
I've said it before, but it bears repeating after his recent, tragic death: When I was a kid, I didn't like watching Gene Hackman in a movie, but as I've aged, he's become a favorite. And it was in his memory that I watched this, which had been languishing on my DVR largely because I expected bad things from his co-star, Al Pacino (who I disliked as a kid and still dislike). In many ways, it's a dark, dark buddy road "comedy" movie based on Of Mice and Men with extra homosexual rape and mental breakdowns! (The version I watched seemed to be edited in such a way as to only suggest the rape, but I read online several reviews that agree that the scene was more explicit in its first-run release. I don't know if that's true or another example of the Mandela Effect.)

Coke by the barrel? Yes, please!

32/2464. The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1959)
A post-apocalyptic movie in which the only survivors are hung up on the fact that white and black people shouldn't kiss. Maybe this was as progressive as Red Scare 1959 Hollywood could get, but golly, I spent the movie very irritated that race was even as issue in the empty ruins of New York City. Maybe that was the point, but it's a frustrating viewing experience.

33/2465. The Domino Principle (1977)
More Gene Hackman! This time he's a imprisoned murderer recruited by The Government to carry out a clandestine execution. His wife (who he killed for) is played by Candice Bergman, dressed down in a bad wig to look just awful even by mid-70s style standards, and his best friend, Mickey Rooney, is given a plot twist that makes less than no sense. I didn't hate it, but really, only because of Hackman's skill at portraying a grumpy everyman scrambling to get out of proverbial quicksand.

More to come.

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25/2457. The Search (1948)
Montgomery Clift turns in a great, naturalistic performance here in his first starring role as a young American G.I. trying to help a war orphan in the ruins of Berlin. It's a very good movie. In fact, by focusing attention on the orphans and their broken world (similar to but less humorous than 2019's Jojo Rabbit), it manages the rare feat of being anti-war without glorifying the violence.

It seems unlikely Coke gave this production any money, but If the filmmakers really wanted to hide the product, they could have used a bigger towel.

26/2458. The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929)
Most of the entertainment value of this comes from watching motion picture studios entering the talkie era figuring out how to create the musical genre in real time. It fails as a whole, but it does have its moments. (Buster Keaton's crossdressing mermaid dance, sadly, is not one of them.) Jack Benny is the highlight as one of two Masters of Ceremonies.

27/2459. Flow (2024)
Yeah, Oscar got this one right. It's captivating. Definitely watch it with your pets: even Henry enjoyed watching it. (More accurately, I think he enjoyed listening to it. The soundtrack is all recordings of real animals.)

28/2460. Forbidden (1932)
This early Frank Capra is pure dreck melodrama without any of the audience-pleasing uplifting treacle that would become the director's trademark. I've often pooh-poohed Capra, but this could easily be my least favorite Capra film. (No, I did not know it was Capra when it came on, or I might have just turned the TV off.)

29/2461. Naked Acts (1996)
Watched on TCM in February before our Glorious Leader outlawed Black History, this is a mid-90s indie about an aspiring actress (imagined as the child of a Pam Grier type) who has body issues and a lot of baggage as she confronts the expectations of a male-dominated film industry. The budget is low and the talent is clearly raw, but the script is good and the finished product very watchable.

More to come.

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20/2452. Reality Bites: A Hannah Swensen Mystery (2025)
The installments written by star Julia Sweeney have solid mysteries (although it's pretty clear that a lot of plot-tightening is happening in the editing suite), but they tend to go a little heavy on melodramatic characterization, especially for the mother, whose style of comic relief grows closer to a Jerry Lewis performance in each installment.

21/2453. Hero at Large (1980)
John Ritter plays a "real life" super hero in this very gentle comedy. It's so gentle, in fact, I wondered who the target audience is. There's not enough action (and too much drama) for kids, and its story is too thin to keep the attention of adults. The premise has been done better as both parody and satire in comics, television, and movies in the decades before and since. Frankly, it's just not very deep or very funny, and that means it's just not very good.

As a general rule, I don't always include shots of incidental Coca-Cola advertising, but these are pretty prominent in the opening sequence, so here you go.

22/2454. Hamlet 2 (2008)
See? This is how you poke society in the eye with a sharp stick and make them laugh at the same time. It's just so absurd in all the best ways, like Mel Brooks' The Producers, that I was often blindsided by the more subtle punchlines. Would watch again.

23/2455. Hamlet (1948)
Lawrence Olivier's adaptation abridges the original to get the time down, I guess. This sort of thing is done all the time when adapting novels, but Shakespeare? It's pretty, and the climax is staged well, but I really missed Rosencratz and Guildenstern, and, frankly, it seemed to me that there just wasn't enough death in this incarnation of Denmark.

24/2456. The One and Only Dick Gregory (2021)
A documentary biography of the controversial comedian who dared to call out society for its hypocrisy. He strikes me as too often sanctimonious, but maybe he earned that by being right (and angry and bitter) about so many injustices so many of us tolerate and, unintentionally or otherwise, perpetuate.

More to come.

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15/2447. Balls Out (2014)
If you see the title to this movie about flag football and are inspired to remember Dodgeball, yeah, that's exactly what they wanted. Too bad they can't deliver. The script is meta-texturally aware of all the cliches in this type of movie, but then it completely fails to elevate any of that material. Frankly, I found the only amusing bits to come from Saturday Night Live (and AT&T commercial) alum Beck Bennett, who successfully plays his part as the cheating bully (a la Ben Stiller in Dodgeball) way over the top (a la Ben Stiller in Dodgeball).

16/2448. Good Burger (1997)
Speaking of Saturday Night Live alumni, of course this based on the recurring skit from Nickelodeon's sketch-show for teens, and while young Keenan Thompson is imminently watchable, all of the real comedy comes from Keenan's partner Kel, who is very good at playing the good-hearted moron.

If there is a movie with more Coca-Cola product placement in it, I haven't seen it.

17/2449. Young and Innocent (1937)
More of a thriller than a whodunnit, director Alfred Hitchcock makes sure that the audience knows the good natured protagonist is (probably) innocent of murder from the beginning, which is key to building his romantic relationship with the police chief's daughter. It's the prototype of a Hallmark Mystery Movie!

18/2450. Conclave (2024)
I was pulling for this to win Best Picture at the Oscars this year. I mean, I hadn't seen any of the other contenders, but this has a really, really amazing cast and is suspenseful and as illuminating about the human condition as any other great work of art. Very well done.

19/2451. The Champ (1931)
Speaking of Oscar, this won for Best Original Story, and I can only guess that's because 1931 was an off year for everyone. In a nutshell, a kid (Jackie Cooper) watches his ne'er-do-well alcoholic father (Wallace Beery) let him down in every possible way. Original! Beery also won the award for Actor, but so far as I can tell, he was only playing himself. I found it all very unpleasant. You can do better, kid.

More to come.

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10/2442. Intruder in the Dust (1949)
Before there was To Kill a Mockingbird.... Actually, it's kind of surprising how much the two stories cover the same ground. Mockingbird does it with more style and grace, but Intruder, rough as it is around the edges, doesn't pull any punches. Good movie.

11/2443. Murder! (1930)
Does anyone ever talk about the worst Hitchcock films? Ok, so it's better than Marnie (and maybe The Trouble with Harry), and, yeah, sure, it's got some clever scenes, but overall I found it terribly, terribly boring with some of the worst written and delivered dialog. (How much of that is due to it being an early talkie?) Yawn.

12/2444. 3 Women (1977)
If there's anything worse than hearing someone describe their dream, it's watching a movie of it. In this case, the dreamer was Robert Altman, and he has filled it with enough "symbols" that he hopes your over-evolved monkey brain will have a field day trying to decipher as opposed to, you know, actually having a narrative or plot or meaning. For example, one of the women obsessed with superficial commercial things has a yellow car (and yes, the importance of the color is called out in the dialogue) and late in the film takes a delivery of Coca-Cola from this truck:

Is this somehow significant? You tell me. And then tell me how you feel about your mother.

13/2445. The Kid (1921)
Maybe I've been selling Charlie Chaplin short all these years. The Kid is actually pretty good cinema, even it if does jerk the tears a little too hard for my tastes in the third act that has a "comedy" dream sequence for no other apparent reason than the main story was just too short. (Obviously, I'm not willing to bury all my hatchets with the Little Tramp.)

14/2446. Appointment with Death (1988)
Watched with Mom. We had both read this Agatha Christie novel and remembered how the murder was committed (the movie certainly isn't shy about telegraphing it) but not the guilty party. It's not one of Christie's best, but any time spent watching Lauren Bacall is time well spent.

More to come.

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5/2437. Night After Night (1932)
TCM ran two George Raft movies back-to-back, Scarface and this. I preferred this, which is far more famous for introducing Mae West, who steals every scene she's in. You watch the scenes she's not in saying to yourself "bring back Mae!" Make my words, she's going to be a big star.

6/2438. Deadline at Dawn (1946)
"An amnesiac soldier may be responsible for a murder" may sound pretty far-fetched, but it's a pretty common cliche in the whodunnit genre. If you are familiar with the cliches like that, you'll cotton on to the real killer pretty fast. I still enjoyed it well enough.

7/2439. Becoming Hitchcock: The Legacy of Blackmail (2024)
This documentary is essentially a dressed up college lecture about how the movie Blackmail is the movie in which Alfred Hitchcock's famous style of suspense first fully congeals. It makes a pretty good case, so next I watched....

8/2440. Blackmail (1929)
There are two versions of this movie, one silent and one talkie. TCM played them both in one evening, so I watched both. I think the silent is the better of the two, but that could be because the dawn-of-the-medium audio track was so squeaky to my ears.

9/2441. Billy Liar (1963)
Call me crazy, but I'd say this movie belongs in the same bucket as Rebel Without a Cause or Easy Rider or Taxi Driver. It's less violent than all of those, yes, because it's British, but it's still about a lost young man trying (and mostly failing) to find himself in an often hostile alien world. I instinctively disliked Billy, as I did the protagonists in all those other movies, but all those characters also disliked themselves, so maybe that's a bit of the point.

More to come.

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