The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has added a new category to the Oscars to reward movies that the general public likes. I think this is a bad idea. There's already an award for movies the general public likes. It's called money.

The new category is to be for "Outstanding Achievement in Popular Movies," which in addition to being an award dedicated to pandering, is also an insult to other, "unpopular" movies. How bad is Hollywood's current output that they can't combine "popular" and "quality"? Best Picture winners Rocky, The Godfather, Titanic, and Gladiator didn't need special treatment. Why should Ready Player One?

I get where they're coming from. The Academy views the Oscar telecast as an advertisement for movies, and last year the telecast had the lowest ratings in history. (Note to the Academy: everything on television was down year-to-year in 2017 as millennials cut every cord they could find.) They hope adding a new category specifically to feature movies like Avengers: Infinity War and Jurassic Park: Fallen Kingdom will cause more people to watch the telecast, and therefore, encourage more people to go out and watch movies. Specifically, movies they've already seen.

I don't have access to the information the Academy sees, but from where I sit, this seems an entirely unnecessary move. Why water down the value of an Oscar to promote the movies that are already making more than a billion dollars? Disney has released three billion-dollar-plus movies this year. Why not just give them a dedicated statuette? I'm sure they'll be glad to send that ice queen from Frozen to pick it up. That'll bring in the millennial audience in droves.

Essentially, what this new award comes down to is Hollywood telling you that if you like a movie, it probably isn't very good. The worst of it is, they're probably right.

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At the request of friend Randy, who wanted an easier way to find reviews for particular movies, I have updated my movie list (found here or via the link at the bottom of every page) to include links to reviews when they exist. You're welcome, Randy!

Now, on to new-to-Walter movie reviews for February!

21. (1250.) The Shiek (1921)
This is the movie that made Rudolph Valentino a star. A century later, it's hard to see why. The story is that old cliche: arab (Valentino) kidnaps strong-willed woman, she tries to escape and is kidnapped by an even worse arab, and she realizes that she loves her original kidnapper because he was slightly less rapey. *shrug* Make America Great Again, I guess.

22. (1251.) Gleaming the Cube (1989)
Skating! Drugs! Vietnam guilt! Rampant product placement! Christian Slater! It's the eighties in a movie. (And I still don't know what "gleaming the cube" means.)

Did I mention the product placement? It's hard to tell how much of the products and advertisements seen in the film were paid, but Pizza Hit, the (original) L.A. Rams, and Coca-Cola are the big winners here.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. They might as well have been skating inside a bottling plant.

23. (1252.) Goosebumps (2015)
Hey, this children's horror movie isn't bad. Even in this "I've got kids now" stage of his career, Jack Black is still funny.

24. (1253.) Shaun the Sheep Movie (2015)
Just fantastic! (Of course. Aardman Animations always brings the quality.) Highly recommended.

25. (1254.) An Inconvenient Truth (2006)
I've never been a big Al Gore fan, but it's a painful reminder to see what science had to say about climate change a decade ago and know that we're still not doing much about it. Ugh. We're all going to die.

More to come.

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Let's just go ahead and get this out of the way.

167. (1226.) Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)

I asked Dad what he wanted to do for his birthday yesterday, and to my horror he said "I want to see Star Wars." So I took him to see it. (A child's job is never done.) Dad may not be, but I'm getting too old for this shit.

The original Star Wars wasn't exactly Shakespeare, but neither was it insulting. By comparison, The Last Jedi begs its audience to forget everything it knows about science and society, physics and psychology. I guess that's why it's marketed as a kid's movie — a kid's movie supersaturated with graphic violence, copious death, and a PG-13 rating. Say, if you're going to remake Empire Strikes Back, can you at least keep it under 2.5 hours, please? Sorry, but I can't suspend my disbelief long enough for this level of stupidity anymore.

Ugh. Every time I think about it, I find something new to irritate me. Unjustifiably incompetent Hux. Edsel bumper Phasma. Smug cartoon Snoke. Topless emo Kylo Ren. Horny Rey. Pointless Finn. Stalker Rose. Traitorous mass murderer Po. Atmosphere in space. Gravity-assisted bombers. Belated use of indefensible hyperspace missiles. Not enough Threepio! Aargh!

Was it all bad? No. Mark Hamill steals every scene he's in as Mirror Universe Luke Skywalker. Dead Yoda is the best Yoda. And I particularly enjoyed Benicio Del Toro's parting "maybe." But then how did Del Toro's DJ know the crucial piece of information that led there? Damn it! It's impossible to even praise this movie without tripping into another of its innumerable flaws.

There were parts where I think I could see where director Rian Johnson wanted to take the movie's theme of loss and transcendence. These themes would sit much better in the third act of a trilogy than the second, so why here and now? How much of a role did Disney's executives play in distorting that vision to keep its golden goose laying? I don't know. At this point, I don't care.

The worst of it is that I'm afraid this isn't the last Star Wars film I'll have to see. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. And hate leads to me being in the theater for whatever dreck Disney cranks out next Christmas. Let the past die, Dad!

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Saturday, I went grocery shopping at the "new" Kroger in town. Our second Kroger is larger, posher, and closer to the modern population center than the Kroger I prefer. It has a Starbucks inside! And apparently, its clientele are all witches.

Puddles from the previous hour's rainfall weren't the only things littering the super-sized parking lot. It was nearly impossible to find a parking space because of all the abandoned carts scattered willy-nilly! I'm talking twenty or more. Obviously, the only possible reason for the many, many scattered carts is that the previous shoppers were all witches melted by the unexpected summer shower. I mean, that's science.

But I'm not here to talk about that. I'm here to show you the sight that greeted me when I left the store with my milk and ice cream. Behold:

Sunsets like that are worth any number of witches.

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Transcript of actual telephone conversation between father and son:

FATHER

I'm just calling to remind you that Battle Bots is coming on television tonight on the Science Channel.

WALTER

I did not know that. I don't get the Science Channel.

FATHER

Of course you do. You've seen Battle Bots before.

WALTER

Yes, I have. And I liked it. But it didn't used to come on the Science Channel.

FATHER

Do you get the National Geographic Channel?

WALTER

Yes.

FATHER

The Science Channel is right next to that.

WALTER

I don't have the same cable provider you do. We're not even in the same state.

FATHER

Science Channel is 244 on DirecTV.

WALTER

I don't have DirecTV.

FATHER

Oh, well. I was just trying to help. You know intention is what counts.

WALTER

Are you saying that if the son of the President of the United States intended to collude with Russia, he's guilty even if he didn't successfully collude with Russia?

FATHER

Well, Hillary Clinton —

WALTER

What does Hillary Clinton have to do with any of this?

FATHER

What can I say? Some people are brainwashed.

. . .

One of the two of us should be committed. I'm still not sure which.

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I've still got 8 movies to tell you about from April. Here are four of them:

51. (1110.) The Gazebo (1959)
I could not figure out how this black comedy was going to end. According to the Hays Code, which was losing power by the time this film was made, the perpetrator of a crime couldn't get away with his nefarious deed. Was the sympathetic protagonist really going to be punished? The twist ending was exactly what this film needed.

52. (1111.) Captain Phillips (2013)
This thing was nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award? What in hell for? I don't mean to suggest that it is bad; it's just thin. There are no great lessons to be learned, no stellar cinematography. It's just a suspense film with Tom Hanks. Go watch a Hitchcock film with Jimmy Stewart instead. (I recommend Rope or Rear Window.)

53. (1112.) The Sundowners (1960)
I really wanted to hate this, but Robert Mitchum is too damn good. He even manages to get away with an Australian accent for the whole thing. Surprisingly engrossing.

54. (1113.) Death Watch (1980)
Hard science fiction is underrepresented in cinema, mostly because the genre is about exploring concepts exploring the human condition (2001: A Space Odyssey) and not just fantasy adventure with futuristic visuals (Star Wars). This film qualifies as the real thing, as it presents many disturbing concepts about a near future world where death is a reality television show broadcast to the masses via cameramen with electronic eyes. Good stuff.

More to come.

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Cherry Coke finally reached China last month, and Coca-Cola promoted its launch with cans featuring a caricature of billionaire investor Warren Buffett.

Stop and think about that. If you put Warren Buffett's face on something in America, no one would even know who the hell he was. ("Steve Martin sure got old!") Name one person from China whose face might influence you to buy a product. Take your time. I'll wait.

The reason I mention this is not to denigrate Americans — they don't need me for that; they're doing so well themselves — is because of how Bloomberg News reported it.

At his company's annual meeting last year, [Buffett] said his happiness from drinking soda outweighs health benefits from eating more vegetables.

That must have been painful to publish. Bloomberg's founder and owner, Michael Bloomberg, is behind the nationwide push to tax sodas. According to Warren Buffett, that's the same as taxing happiness. (I bet nobody's taxing broccoli.) Whose word are you going to take for that? I know who the Chinese trust.

Science backs up Bloomberg. Sugar overconsumption is a nationwide problem. However, I doubt anyone with a net worth of $75 billion worries much about healthcare. But then, neither do the Chinese, 95% of whom have basic health insurance coverage. That just one more thing they're doing better than us.

So drink up, China. You can afford it, and America sure could use the help.

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I make fun of newspapers a lot, but they're not always the problem. For example, today I read this Newnan Times-Herald lede:

"Coweta County Crooner Richard Hawk is now officially a member of the Georgia Child Fatality Review Panel."

Yes, I thought it was odd that a singer would be appointed to such an important sounding government position, but this is 2017. We have a brain surgeon running government housing, a movie producer directing the treasury, an anti-science lawyer scuttling the EPA, a bespectacled idiot in charge of a department he can't remember the name of, and a game show host in the White House (on weekdays — on weekends he pretends to be an amateur golfer in Florida). In that light, a singer taking a state government position doesn't seem so strange.

But that's not what the paper really said. After I had my breakfast and was thinking more clearly, I realized that the man wasn't a "crooner" but a "coroner." Appointing a professional coroner makes way more sense for a Fatality Review Panel.

If only the federal government was so rational.

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What can be said about 2016 that hasn't already been said?

As bad as things were for America, Europe isn't doing much better. In a year that saw the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences award Bob Dylan a Nobel Prize for Literature to a thousands of people involved in sexual assaults in Cologne, Germany, it's no wonder that Great Britain voluntary withdrew from the European Union.

So what does Europe have to say for itself?

We're leaving together,
but still it's farewell.

And maybe we'll come back
to earth, who can tell?

I guess there is no one to blame.
We're leaving ground.
Will things ever be the same again?

It's the final countdown.
The final countdown.

Such pessimism! If you thought 2016 was rough, it's just setting the stage for 2017. Hold onto your hats.

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I just got my hands on BATMAN 1 BATMAN DAY SPECIAL EDITION: DIRECT MARKET EDITION. Yes, that is its actual title (a reprint of June's BATMAN #1), and it's every bit as stupid as the comic itself.

The entire issue, all 20 pages of it, is devoted to Batman's attempt to save a 747 from crashing into Gotham City. That's not what's stupid. That's noble, and writer Tom King is trying to demonstrate Batman's heroic nature in the struggle. What's stupid is that Batman tries to save this plane by riding it like a cowboy.

To sum up, Batman sees a plane get hit by a missile, then plots a course to intercept using the Batmobile's ejector seat. (The Batmobile is destroyed in the process, not because of the ejector seat, but because Batman drives it off a bridge before ejecting.) In midair, Batman removes the rockets from the ejector seat so that when he lands on the plane, he can attach them to the underside of the wings. (Because Batman can stick to planes.) Batman then has his trusty butler Alfred remotely control the power to the thrusters to provide lift for the plane. (Ignore that there's no explanation for how these Batmobile ejector seat thrusters have enough fuel or power to lift a 747 despite needing Batman to put the Batmobile in the ocean to get him to the plane.) Meanwhile, Batman rides on top of the plane with a rope... for no apparent reason.

Proud to be stupid.

No, seriously. Why is Batman committing suicide by riding the top of the plane, Dr. Strangelove-style? Batman isn't steering, Alfred is. Via remote control! Batman is just standing there giving Alfred hyper-specific commands ("Give me eighty-two percent starboard, seventeen port."), something he definitely doesn't have to be doing from the top of the plane.

Mr. King, if the point is to demonstrate Batman doing something self-sacrificingly heroic, have him try to stop a runaway train or take a bullet meant for an innocent. Don't go out of your way to showcase how rich and resourceful Batman is only to have him die doing something completely pointless. That's stupid.

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