The multimillionaire Republican candidate for Georgia's U.S. Senate seat is running not one, not two, but three different AI-created commercials emphasizing how much money his Democratic opponent spends annually on hair and makeup. (The commercials aren't explicit, but other news reports place the total at $2,887.) I'm curious what he thinks this line of attack is accomplishing.

As a voter, am I supposed to be mad that someone spends campaign donations on their appearance? Given the cost of everything these days, three thousand for hair/makeup services doesn't strike me as extraordinarily excessive, especially for someone on television running for office. This line of attack seems particularly counterproductive given that it's the Republican party that has fully embraced the much more expensive artificial "Mar-a-Lago Face" (base price: $90,000).

Does the attacking candidate have market research indicating Georgians want their government representatives to look like unkempt trolls? Should we all get our haircuts from Great Clips? (Even they now charge at least $20 per basic monthly trim, tip not included.) I won't deny that a majority of us voted for a sunburnt orange with a bad comb-over, but if we love slobs, just being a candidate with splotchy five o'clock shadow should be enough to win the race without AI recreations to make your opponent look even better than he does in real life.

I assume that if stronger, more substantive attacks could be made, there wouldn't be three commercials with this silly complaint, leaving me with the feeling that all this has to be an old-fashioned attack on his opponent's manhood, as a Real Man would never use a beauty product more exotic than lye soap. Maybe someone should have told that to John Wayne, Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds; those ladies looked particularly good in makeup and wigs.

The particular candidate making these loud dog whistles has a history of employing people with extremely unpopular (some might say "anti-women" or "pro-Nazi") opinions and no qualms about using deep fakes of his opponent despite the current AI backlash, so I already had plenty of reasons to doubt his judgement. But no matter how many times you mention it, I just don't care if my representatives in Congress are spending their money on professional stylists. That's certainly a better use of cash than AI attack ads. At least the stylists are real people.

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TCM has wisely decided that their Star of the Month for October 2026 is Myrna Loy. They've dedicated Mondays to Loy movies starting early today with her oldest surviving talkie:

118/2688. Noah's Ark (1928)

Technically, it's a "part-talkie," defined as films with synchronized sound but limited speaking scenes, the template established by Warner Bros' The Jazz Singer, released February 1928. (Loy has a silent cameo in that as a chorus girl!) The part-talkie format didn't last long; Warner's first "all-talking" picture, Lights of New York, came out in July of the same year. Loy made only five part-talkies, two before this and two after, but this is the only one with a surviving "talkie" soundtrack.

As you would expect from a film titled Noah's Ark, the climax of the film is a spectacular biblical flood. The rest, you might be surprised to hear, is a World War I romance preaching that humanity has learned its lesson about intolerance and will end all wars immediately. Whoops. The two halves don't really go together, and, worse, the dialogue is particularly ham-fistedly awful, like Hollywood had never bothered listening to people having actual conversations before they invented "talking" pictures.

Loy's part in Noah's Ark is not big. She's credited for two roles, but only one is identifiable in the existent film. She comes in at about the 53-minute mark and is on screen for only 39 seconds, emerging from behind the curtain of an improvised cabaret. For future reference, this is her whole part:

Myrna Loy as DANCER:
Why are you always staring at the soldiers? Who are you looking for?

Dolores Costello as MARIE:
Well, if you must know, I'm looking for an American soldier.

DANCER:
That ought to be easy. There are only two million of them over here.

MARIE:
Really? I thought there were more.

DANCER:
Now, tell me the sad story.

MARIE:
I don't think you'd be interested in my story.

Having seen your story, Marie, I can tell you that you're right. On the other hand, I'll be watching Myrna every Monday this month.

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104/2674. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006)
It's very accurate to describe this anime as a gender-swapped Groundhog Day (with a little Donnie Darko vibe). I found it quite charming.

105/2675. Chungking Express (1994)
I really didn't know what to expect from this, and I spent most of the film wondering why I was still watching it. Ultimately it's very much like one of Jim Jaramusch stream of consciousness films (Night Train springs to mind) and the influence on Tarantino is obvious. If nothing else, it's a great palate refresher for the typical Hollywood formula.

Production teams: This film has so many Coca-Cola products on screen, you'd think they bankrolled the whole thing.

106/2676. Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956)
This is a ridiculously contrived thriller in which a former newspaper reporter decides to frame himself for a murder because... well, with a setup like that, you can probably guess. The Big Twist Ending makes it all so, so stupid.

Screenwriters: When your detective pumps the strip club bartender for leads, have him order something stiffer than a Coke.

107/2677. Gunpowder Milkshake (2021)
A triumph of style over substance! They wanted it so badly, they should have just gone ahead and titled this Lady John Wick. It gets the candy-colored ultra-violence right but rings emotionally hollow. Wick cheated, of course, as a murdered dog guarantees audience buy-in; maybe I just care less about human children.

Set decorators: Coke advertising builds retro vibes, and the red foreshadows bloody violence!

108/2678. Appleseed (1988)
I'd read the manga, but this is the first time I'd seen the anime. As good as Ghost in the Shell is, this is not.

More to come.

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It's nice when house guests finally settle in for the evening.

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I feel like Batman got short shrift this Batman and Football month. Since we're almost out of time, here's a link to the song that R.E.M. wrote in 1992 for Batman Returns:

Winged Mammal Theme

I don't love it, but at just just under three minutes in length, I find it a lot more palatable than the nearly twice as long and much more widely known One Word Wonder Batdance.

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