39/2205. Barely Lethal (2015)
Pay television likes to show this movie late at night, probably for nostalgic 20-somethings. I think this is a rare case of a script (and cast) being better than the final execution. I only watched it all the way to the end because it was filmed in Georgia, and I wondered if I would recognize anything. I didn't.

40/2206. Gold Diggers of 1937 (1936)
I liked this somewhat more than Gold Diggers of 1935. (Of the three numeric "Gold Diggers" films, I'd still only recommend Gold Diggers of 1933.) There are just too many horrible doing horrible things to one another to enjoy too much time in their company when they aren't singing and dancing.

41/2207. Black Adam (2022)
I said I'd never watch it... then on a Sunday afternoon with nothing better to do, I did. It's... okay. The plot is too thin, many of the characters are too poorly developed, the third act grafts on a zombie subplot... and it's just so damn violent for a superhero movie! Honestly, as a DC comic book guy, I have real problems with the presentation of well-established Justice Society members as morons and pawns, but my biggest gripe is that Black Adam kills everyone, and he's supposed to be the idea of the kind of hero the world needs? #MakeMineSuperman

42/2208. Atlantis: The Lost Continent (1961)
Sadly, this has nothing to do with Aquaman. It is, however, the 60s equivalent of a super-hero action film, as the inhabitants of a scientifically advanced society pay for their hubris with the destruction of their world. You know, like what happened to the planet Krypton.

43/2209. A Walk in the Sun (1945)
"Nobody dies" is Private Rivera's mantra in this "Day In The Life" approach to World War II. The enemy is always present but never clearly seen, and most of the run time is taken up by bits of conversation as the soldiers try to keep the horrors of war out of their minds. The influence on Saving Private Ryan is obvious. It's really very, very good.

More to come.

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Tonight is the first round of the 2023 NFL Draft. I usually watch, but not this year. There's no point. The Miami Dolphins have no first round pick, all because their owner got caught cheating.

The jury is still out (by which I mean that an actual lawsuit is still pending) on whether owner Stephen Ross is a racist who tried to fix games, but the NFL decided that he definitely tampered with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2021 by trying to steal their quarterback (just has he tried to steal the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers back in 2014). As punishment, the League took away the Dolphins' first pick this year (and their third next year).

This is actually the second year in a row that the Dolphins have no pick in the first round. Last year, the Dolphins gave away a boatload of picks to get Tyreek Hill. And while Hill made a big impression, he's hardly going to be a Fin for a long time. He's already announced that he plans to retire after the 2024 season, so it's a "win now" situation.

And they'd better win now. The Dolphins had a total of 4 picks last year, and they currently have 4 picks this year. It's awfully hard to build for the future when you only get to add 4 young players a year. Or, for that matter, when the quarterback you're building the team around is more fragile than a bag of potato chips.

The Dolphins still haven't won a postseason game since the year 2000, and if they can't do so soon, it might be 2040 before they have enough talent to try again. That of course assumes that Stephen Ross doesn't get in his own way again, which is no guarantee.

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Not so long ago, my anonymous friend — let's call him "Randy" — asked, "Can you name one thing that is better now than it was a few years ago?" It's a pretty good question.

Certainly, there has been a parade of bad news over the past half decade or so: COVID, Trump, Ukraine, drugs, inflation, immigration.... I'm sure you can think of a few more. Certainly, a lot of things don't seem as fun as they once did: watching the television shows you want to see costs a small fortune for a dozen streaming services, most of the content in video games can only be unlocked with micro transactions, corporations bought the fun out of the Internet, comic books cost $6.... I'm sure you can think of a few more of these, too.

From an objective point-of-view, things for most of us are actually still pretty good, as evidenced by the fact that we all have so much time to bitch about what sucks. Could things be better? Yeah. Yeah, they could. But were things better than this just a few years ago? Has American society peaked? I have doubts.

Judging whether the future we got is "better" than the present we had is a matter of comparing what we hoped we would get to the reality of what we got. That's never a particularly fair comparison. Hope might spring eternal, but reality, to borrow a phrase, always bites.

But in answer to Randy's question, yes, I can name one thing: Georgia Football. Georgia Football is better than it was a few years ago. Way better. Go Dawgs!

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On September 26, someone on this blog *cough, cough* wrote

"[T]he Dolphins haven't made the postseason since 2016, and they haven't won a postseason game since 2000, so I'll be happy just to get that far this year."

Well, despite losing 5 of their last 6 games and playing a 7th-round rookie at quarterback in replacement of Tua "Should Really Start Thinking About Retirement While He Can Still Think At All" Tagovailoa, the Dolphins have backed into the playoffs on the strength of their early success (and weak competition) after an 11-6 win over the hapless Jets (also playing their 3rd string QB, former Super Bowl MVP Joe Flacco — how the mighty have fallen!).

And I find I am not happy about it.

The team has demonstrated that it cannot win without Tua, so there will undoubtedly be a push by those who care more about wins (read: $) than player safety to bring him back, ready or not, for next week's playoff game against the Bills. The same Bills who gave him his first concussion (of 3) on the season back in Week 3. The same Bills who beat him soundly in the fourth quarter during the Week 14 rematch.

Hey, Tua, it's not worth coming back for this. ESPN's only giving the Fins a 1.4% chance of winning the Super Bowl, and I think those odds are kind of generous given what I've seen from the team this year. Save yourself, man. Try again next season. So what if the team can only score field goals without you? That's their problem, not yours.

If you haven't got your health, you haven't got anything.

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If 2020 was the Year of the Pandemic, and 2021 was the Year the Pandemic Struck Back, then 2022 was the Year that Humanity Paid the Bill.

Inflation, immigration, Ukraine, energy crises, Twitter... we certainly didn't realize how good we used to have it, and we're still in search of determining what our "New Normal" is.

Or, to put it another way,

My world was shattered, I was torn apart like someone took a knife and drove it deep in my heart.

When you walked out that door, I swore that I didn't care, but I lost everything, darling, then and there.

Too strong to tell you I was sorry, too proud to tell you I was wrong, I know that I was blind.

But, darling, if I could turn back time, if I could find a way, I'd take back those words that have have hurt you and you'd stay.

I believe that 2023 can be full of love and understanding. It's time to kick the gypsys, tramps, and thieves who've been promoting discord for their own profit that we are no longer willing to keep living in a house divided. I got you babe!

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Did everyone have a Merry Christmas? I guess I did, all things considered. I mean, so long as I ignore the fact that the Miami Dolphins collapsed in the second half and lost their 4th straight game, going 0-4 in December and demonstrating that despite some earlier success they are definitively not ready to be a playoff team for the 22nd year in a row. (Annual reminder: their last playoff win was in 2000.)

Yeah, ignoring that and the fact that I badly cut my thumb on the large carving knife while doing the dishes, the rest of the day went pretty well. It was in the wee hours of this morning that I ran into trouble. Or maybe I should say that it was Louis who ran into trouble for us all.

After watching Sunday Night Football go to overtime and spending an hour trying and failing to play online games with Friend James (the trouble seemed to be with his ISP), I noticed at about 1:30 in the morning that something smelled wrong in my room: the faint smell of burning plastic. That's never good.

I began sniffing my way around the darkened house for the cause, starting with the basement. It wasn't coming from my room. It wasn't the furnace which has been running all out for days to combat the 30-year historic cold. It wasn't in my studio where I had been painting finishing veneers earlier in the day. So I moved upstairs where the smell was indeed stronger. I thought maybe it was the Christmas tree lights, but no, they seemed fine. And It wasn't any appliance in the kitchen or anything electronic in Mom's office. I even grabbed a flashlight and checked outside to no avail. What *was* the source of that smell?

When I came back inside, I noticed that the flashlight wasn't a spotlight like it was outside but an illuminated beam, a fuzzy lightsaber. As a former Boy Scout, I quickly recognized this as a Very Bad Sign. The good news is that I could follow the flashlight beam to find the areas of thickening smoke.

The source, as it turns out, was behind the curtains separating the den from the sunroom that Mom uses for crafting. As is usual in the winter, the "sun" room was the coldest in the house, and she has been running an older model portable oil space heater day and night to keep the chill out. At this point, you've probably figured out where this is headed.

Context clues indicate that sometime while I was preoccupied with football or video games, my mischievous puppy, Louis, had taken a break from chewing up my new shoelaces and pajama bottoms to sneak behind the curtain — where he knew he wasn't allowed alone — and knocked over the heater. The sideways heater did not have an automatic shutoff, and worse, on its side it started leaking oil, oil that fortunately smoked before it flamed.

I uncovered the problem in time to prevent any further damage to life, limb, or property. (Sure, the house *smells* like burnt plastic and oil, but at least there's a house to smell.) I think from now on I'm going to have to keep Louis tied to me. And I'm going to recommend that Mom mounts her new space heater (with automatic shutoff!) to the floor!

Post-Christmas crisis averted!

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145/2154. Freebie and the Bean (1974)
The influence of Bullitt is obvious in this buddy-cop anti-cop comedy. It's almost funny, but the episodic scenarios suffer from uneven tone — though they often successfully recognize their own absurdity, the gags either go too far or not far enough, rarely hitting the bullseye of what makes each scene actually funny. (And the ending? Don't get me started.) There's a good movie in here somewhere; it just needed different people in creative control.

146/2155. The Mummy (1932)
This is the Karloff classic, and I found it boring, though that probably has a lot to do with how much it borrowed from the financially successful Dracula made by Universal the year before. Karloff and his makeup are, of course, the highlight. (Actually literally.)

147/2156. Le Million (1931)
The title is a reference to a lottery ticket that has gone missing in this classic French cinema's idea of an early screwball comedy as told largely in (subtitled) song. I have problems with the central love interests, but I'm a prudish American and probably shouldn't be making value judgments on French culture.

148/2157. White Cargo (1942)
I've thought about this film several times since I watched it in part because of some clever dialogue but mostly because of Hedy Lamarr's skimpily-clad, gold-digging "native" Tondelayo and her "mammy-palaver." She's the kind of girl who sticks with you, which is very much the point of the film.

149/2158. Ashes and Diamonds (1958)
I watched this Polish film when TCM ran it to honor Martin Scorsese's birthday. Apparently, it's one of his favorites, and it's easy to see the influence in his work, especially Mean Streets. I didn't love it myself, but I'm not a huge fan of most of Scorsese's films, either.

More to come.

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After only three weeks of play, the Miami Dolphins are the last undefeated team in the American Football Conference of the NFL. I wouldn't crow about that except that A) I don't expect that to last much longer, and B) the last time the Dolphins were the last undefeated team in their conference was 1995!

Only one team in the Super Bowl era has run the entire table and ended the season undefeated. That was, as you no doubt know, the Miami Dolphins in 1972, exactly 50 years ago. So think of the current streak as an anniversary celebration.

For the record, there have been exactly three other teams in the history of the NFL to win every game in the season; all of them lost their championship game, including the 2007 Patriots who fell victim to David Tyree's "Helmet Catch." Interestingly, before the NFL introduced a championship game in 1934, there were also four teams that went undefeated for their entire season. While none of them had a championship game to lose in, none of them were undefeated, either. All four of those had at least one tie. (Yes, there will be a quiz later.)

Will the Dolphins make the Super Bowl? The odds at this point aren't great. The last time the last undefeated team in the League even made the Championship game was the aforementioned 2007 Patriots. But the Dolphins haven't made the postseason since 2016, and they haven't won a postseason game since 2000, so I'll be happy just to get that far this year.

It's kind of nice to have something to cheer about on Sundays.

UPDATE 2022-09-30: Yeah, so, Tua's head. Oh, well. That's what I get.

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EPISODE TWO: THE ASSASSINATION, PART FOUR

Quig had never cared much for philosophy, and he certainly hadn't lived a squeaky-clean life, but this mission was making his fur tingle. He forced himself to watch as the scanner tracked the plasma torpedo to its target before reporting his latest morbid success. "Scratch the last escort. That's two more lives lost."

"We wouldn't be able to outrun them on departure," Sahara said by way of justification. "It had to be done."

Maybe it was necessary, Quig conceded, but did it have to be done by him? He'd spoken out against her original plan to fly the Corona's Light into the sun on the grounds that too many relatively innocent people would be killed. Yet somehow, in her newer, "kinder" plan, Quig had ended up with all the deadliest tasks. He suspected that wasn't an accident.

First, in deference to his superior programming skill, he had been assigned the task of using the bridge computers to modify the security droid protocols, which had undoubtedly resulted in some crew fatalities. Then, ostensibly because only he had the necessary talent, he had been required to alter the ship's life support system to flood Eye One's state room with toxic gas, killing Eye One as well as his butler, chef, secretary, and bodyguards. Finally, with Cobryn busy preparing the Chutoi for departure and Striker One confirming Eye One's death, only Quig was available to rejoin Sahara on the Corona's Light's bridge and eliminate the fighter escorts. That was what, at least a dozen sentients dead by his hand now? He was legitimately a serial killer.

He reminded himself that their goal was the dismantling of a system-spanning criminal organization. If some people had to die on the way to that greater good... well, it was a rat-eat-rat galaxy.

Sahara interrupted his gloomy thoughts. "Before we depart, let's teach these dogs a lesson they won't forget about crossing the Wolf Pack. Jettison a suite."

Quig moved to the abandoned captain's station and found the sequence that would fire Eye One's luxury state room slash escape pod. A moment later, he felt the floor vibrate slightly as he triggered the pod to fire away from the superstructure. Trapped by the sun's gravity, all evidence of how Eye One had been killed would soon be burned away. No one would be the wiser that he was killed by a small band of freedom fighters....

Except, Quig realized with a start, someone would surely realize that the occupant of the only pod launched was one of the solar system's most influential criminals. That someone was sure to kick over every anthill on every planet until they found who was responsible.

Quig thought fast. But what if Eye One's wasn't the only pod launched? That just might work.

No one wealthy enough to afford a suite on the Corona's Light could be truly innocent. Quig triggered the launch of two additional suites. One he chose at random; the other was occupied by the man whose name appeared on their invoice for nabanas. Anyone who imported that much fresh exotic fruit across the galaxy for his personal consumption deserved to die.

Sahara grabbed Quig's shoulder. "What are you doing? I said jettison just one!"

Disappointed that she hadn't understood his intentions, Quig snapped back, "You wanted it to look like that dumb Wolf Pack killed Eye One by accident, didn't you?"

Sahara glared at him, her irritation made more obvious by her twitching antenna. She flicked her eyes sideways; Quig followed her gaze to the captain and the rest of the restrained bridge crew he'd forgotten all about. He gasped at the realization of what he'd done. They must have overheard what he said, and Sahara would never let them live to repeat it. Quig had gotten so good at killing, he could even do it accidentally.

"Go," Sahara ordered coldly. "Tell the others we're leaving. I'll clean up this mess myself."

Quig obeyed meekly. His saluted the Corona's Light captain and crew through the closing elevator doors, knowing he would be the last person outside that room to see them alive.

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I posted this panel from of Mary Marvel and Hoppy from New Champions of Shazam #2 (a delightful comic) on Twitter yesterday, and it has far, far more retweets than anything I've ever posted in the 11 years I've been on that site.

words by Josie Campbell + art by Doc Shaner = 100% Marvelous

Granted, most of the things I post on Twitter are related to an entirely different and much less well-known comic book character (no, not Batman but Booster Gold), but whatever. If it influences more people to read the comics I like (which in turn encourages DC to make more of the comics I like), I'll call it a win.

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