You really couldn't pick three more random movies

Seriously. Just wait. Not sure how I managed to see these particular "films" in close succession. Guess I'm just eclectic like a muthaf*cka.

Woof: "Year of the Dog."

I gotta stop listening to my wife. She said this movie got decent reviews. OK, maybe it did. Not her fault, I guess. But it still blew.

Molly Shannon of SNL fame is a woman who loves her little beagle and slowly goes off the rails when he dies. She tries replacing him with another dog, then getting together with both John C. Reilly and Peter Saaaaarrrrsssgaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrd, before going bonkers with the animal-lovin'. Let's just say you might want to hide the company checkbook and watch your step in her living room.

Shannon actually is decent, but her character and the whole chain of events are rather silly. This movie was first one directed by Mike White, who wrote "Nacho Libre," "The School of Rock" and "The Good Girl" after first winning notice with "Chuck and Buck," another tale of a whacked-out person (played by White) with a scary fixation. Good to see he's come full circle. And by good, I mean bad.

Or was it really John Cusack killing those guys?: "Ripley's Game"

I stumbled across this movie on IMDb a while back and was surprised to see a sort-of sequel to "The Talented Mr. Ripley." I actually thought the Matt Damon-impersonator-gay-murderer tale wasn't bad, and I was curious to see how John Malkovich played Ripley as an older fellow still knocking around Italy.

The answer: not bad. The Malkovich mannerisms are in full swing, and some of the more droll lines come off quite well in his deadpan delivery. In this story, our man Ripley -- peeved at a Brit (Dougray Scott) who slighted him at a party -- decides to manipulate the guy into commiting a murder. Alas, the situation gets out of control, and Ripley has to intervene, showing how much of a sociopath (with a heart of gold) he really is.

Kind of a weird story overall, and Scott's character was more than a little annoying. But Ray Winstone adds color as a past associate of Ripley's, and Lena Headey is cute as Scott's wife. Then there's Malkovich being Malkovich, which is rarely boring. All in all, a decent, lower-key companion piece to the more well-known Damon turn.

It would be another decade before Timmy finally found redemption with "Beautiful Girls": "Turk 182!"

Yes ... "Turk 182!" What's more disheartening -- that it was actually on TV, or that I watched it? Wait, don't answer that.

Hear me out. I remember when this movie came out thinking that the idea of a kid splashing graffiti all over New York was pretty cool. Of course, I was 12. I'd like to think I've matured since then. Sitting through "Turk 182!" last week gives me hope.

As you may recall, Robert Urich -- poor, poor Robert Urich -- is a NYC firefighter who rushes from a bar to a fire to rescue a kid, only to get hurt. Denied his health benefits by the city, Urich is mad. His little brother, played by Timothy "This Will Make You Forget I Won an Oscar" Hutton, is even madder -- enough so that he copies some anti-mayor graffiti and starts putting it everywhere.

Oh, it's all so crazy! Except not really. Aside from a subway train, a football stadium scoreboard and the coup de grace -- the Queensboro Bridge -- we see Turk's escapades only through news accounts. My, how the kid gets around! Of course he won't get caught! And never mind how he's making a living while goofing off!

As painful as it was listening to Hutton and Urich's over-the-top Noo Yawk accents, suffering through Peter "Frank Barone" Boyle playing the heavy and watching Robert Culp's half-note performance as the mayor, I maybe felt the most sorry for Darren McGavin. Two years removed from "A Christmas Story," McGavin is asked to drop into the story, be all folksy and -- ta-daaa -- solve the case. It really was quite agonizing, watching "The Old Man" slog through this crap. He should have got some kind of award. A major award!

(All together now ... "frah-jee-layyyyy" ... )