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zendragon

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Posts posted by zendragon

    July 2025 Pro Wrestling Talk

    in The PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING

    Posted

    41 minutes ago, Cobra Commander said:

    fortunately Benoit doesn't appear on the 3/10/97 Nitro so the WCW YouTube can upload the episode with Piper's amazingly atrocious promo before Ric/Arn/Mongo/Jarrett come out to get Piper to drop his Tryout team and team up with the Horsemen at Uncensored

    That team tryout sketch goes on so long I half expected piper to demand someone put on the glasses

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    2025 Movie Discussion Thread

    in MOVIES & TV

    Posted

    On 6/29/2025 at 7:45 PM, Andrew POE! said:

     

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    To be honest, there isn't a story with The Road. At least not with the movie adaptation.

    We follow a man (Viggo Mortensen) and his son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) as they journey through remnants of America, not really in search of anything or with any actual destination. The story is so threadbare within the first 30 minutes that it's practically difficult not to want to stop watching and rate this 1/2 star. (Which I think what another reviewer did while being annoyed at the boy).

    As the movie progresses, the boy asks his dad a question that comes up a lot: "Are we the good guys?" Which begs a larger question: are the characters we seeing truly good? With what happened that lead to this vision of the apocalypse, are they just as bad as the people that we don't see that are now dead? The man describes in the introductory scenes that the animals died, everything dried up, and people resorted to cannibalism. We see the man at gunpoint forcing another man to strip naked because he took their cart while the son laments that person's fate they just doomed him to.

    The two characters spend the entirety searching for food with the man succumbing to injuries from being shot with an arrow and an illness, leaving his son alone. The son soon joins up with another man (Guy Pearce) and his family. The movie ends with the son saying "okay" (which isn't that different from the ending to The Last of Us).

    While story wise there isn't much, the cinematography and music carries the movie. The scenes set in the past and in the man's dreams have a Douglas Sirk / Steven Spielberg hopeful optimism in the shots. It changes as the world collapses and the man sees his wife (Charlize Theron) leave after the birth of their son.

    I do feel after viewing this that the movie dragged severely. I found it interesting that people in preparing for the apocalypse in this movie bought cans of Coca-Cola and bags of Cheetos, not salted meat or vegetables or fruits. Even in the apocalypse, corporations still ruled the world after they and people have long past.

    The Road is a long road to watch.

     

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    A lot of the touchstones of queer cinema over the past 20 years - Queer, Carol, Call Me By Your Name, Moonlight, A Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Aftersun - as well as other movies - A Bigger Splash, the more recent Bonjour Tristesse, Grey Gardens, Sundown - went into this movie.

    With it being thought that the confluence of influences would be interesting. At times it is and at other times it’s almost too ambiguous.

    The movie centers on a co-dependent relationship between a mom named Rose (Fiona Shaw) and her daughter Sophie (Emma Mackey). It’s difficult to tell how much of the conflict is due to Sophie not feeling that her mother is really unable to walk and how much of it is her anger at having to care for her.

    During the course of the movie, Sophie has a relationship with Ingrid (Vickie Krieps) that is romantic at times and jealously for Sophie at others. Sophie throws Ingrid’s phone into the ocean and then holds her as she cries.

    Sophie meets her father again in Greece and learns of another sister. Rose tells her that her sister was sent away, but never why.

    The ending has Sophie essentially saying “fuck it” to even caring for her mother and leaves her in her wheelchair for an 18 wheeler. Whether Rose lives or dies is unknown.

    Hot Milk on a technical level is full of sun-kissed cinematography and moody visuals with an interesting score. Occasionally, video clips as Sophie watches anthropological videos for a class she may not resume are shown too.

    F1: The Movie (saw in the theaters) - 5/5 stars

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    The American male in 2025 doesn't have many role models. We have Andrew Tate, who is trying to escape rape charges in Romania while telling young impressionable men that they should be "alphas" without acknowledging the downside to such behavior. Then we have Logan and Jake Paul, who were YouTube sensations that became a wrestler and a boxer (while scamming people with their bitcoin).

    Not a lot of hope there.

    With F1, this feels like a throwback as a movie. It conjures images of Steve McQueen in Le Mans. Tom Cruise in Days of Thunder. James Garner in Grand Prix. More recently, Christian Bale and Matt Damon in Ford vs. Ferrari. It's noble, it's primal, it's pure. It's a guy just sticking with his own set of morals and principles and wanting to win a race.

    It's possible that Brad Pitt as Sonny Hayes and Damson Idris as Joshua Pearce might be the last best male leads in a movie.

    The movie is an absolute triumph to watch. Joseph Kosinski made flying look exhilarating in Top Gun: Maverick and makes Formula One racing look equally exhilarating. It's pure visual porn with the cameras mounted onto the cars and we see the various tracks around the world. The story in a lot of ways is from a similar template to Top Gun: Maverick - Hayes is lured out of retirement to help a fledging racing team actually win races because the owner Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) is in danger of being bought out.

    In some ways, Hayes calls back to mind Brad Pitt's Oscar winning role as Billy Beane in Moneyball when he admonishes Joshua Pearce for smiling at the cameras even after they lost a race. Pitt even sounds a bit like Clint Eastwood complaining about participation trophies. Hayes although he skirts the rules at first, eventually comes around to wanting to see Pearce win for the team.

    A scene that had everyone at the showing I went to exclaiming "Oh my God!" and "Oh no!" was the soundless scene after Pearce gets in a wreck with Hayes saving him from a burning wreck. Pearce can't race for three races while he recovers (it's not a sports movie without a montage so here's one as Hayes goes fast mang and Pearce tries to recover mang). The story beats for F1 aren't original, but what is? When it looks this great, it doesn't need to be.

    Although some third act story aspects - like it being revealed one of the board members reported the team so he can sell the team and install Sonny Hayes as a principal and the needless romance between Hayes and Kate McKenna (Kerry Condon) with McKenna barely having enough of a story arc for us to care - weren't as good, Sonny Hayes wins the final race in Abu Dubai (which owns 99% of the world). There's fireworks, incredible shots of the Abu Dubai skyline, the incredible race track, and Ruben getting the first place trophy while Sonny Hayes walks off to race in the Baja 1000.

    Honestly, the only way to see this movie is in IMAX. If you're not first, you're last.

     

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    After essentially binge watching Mission: Impossible movies for about a week straight, Jack Reacher feels very different compared to Mission: Impossible. It can be considered in the same lineage as First Blood, Bullitt, Walking Tall, Dirty Harry and other vigilante justice movies. The only difference being the main character Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise) is an investigator tracking down the clues around a mass shooting allegedly done by James Barr (Joseph Sikora).

    It turns out the actual shooter was a different person under the direction of "The Zek" (Werner Herzog). Herzog acts almost like Hans Gruber but left in a Russian prison camp.

    The movie is thrilling in an action movie way with a tremendous car chase using a 1970s Camero. The characterization for this isn't exactly deep, but Cruise brings a sardonic edge to the character and at times the character wouldn't be out of place in the Dirty Harry movies.

    Jack Reacher isn't a bad way to spend 2 hours.

    Wasn't planning on watching this but Jerry Bruickmeir and the Director where on Apple News in Conversation podcast and sold me on it. Glad I did. They really did a lot of cool stuff with technology (the racing scenes where partially filmed on iPhone) and access that really shows up on screen (actual racing footage is in the film as well).

    Your mention of the Paul Brothers is interesting as you have an interesting contrast between JP and his manager being about marketing, and Sonny saying that's stuff's just noise. Thirty years ago it was enough to be good at "the thing" nowadays its not enough to be good at "the thing" (music, acting, racing, sports, what ever) but you have to be good at social media. Be a Brand.

    Also to your second paragraph , seeing Brad Pitt with his blonde hair and blues eyes had me thinking "Brad Pitt plays Paul Newman as Sonny Hayes" The jogging scenes reminded me of Paul Newman walking the track in Winning. (If I'm correctly remembering a film I haven't seen in thirty years).

    Also some interesting sub-plots with women in a very masculine world of racing (I have no idea how many women actually work in F1) , and I saw some criticism about Sonny talking about "mansplaining car design" but I think that gets it wrong. He didn't just role off the couch he's an experienced driver with decades of experience under his belt (and he's shown winning a major race to start the film), he correctly knows his stuff.

    Yes see this film while its still in IMAX

    2025 Movie Discussion Thread

    in MOVIES & TV

    Posted · Edited by zendragon

    2 hours ago, Brian Fowler said:

    Except in reverse. It was during the Ian Gillan Born Again tour, and they had a model of Stonehenge that was so fucking big it didn't fit through the loading bay doors at most venues, so it mostly just traveled around and never got seen.

    Yes I believe they used meters instead of feet (American's and brits) making it too big instead of inches instead of feet making it too small

    Also Chris Jericho did a "which way to the stage" bit in WCW one time leading to him ending up outside the venue

    July 2025 Pro Wrestling Talk

    in The PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING

    Posted

    1 minute ago, SirSmUgly said:

    Second best match with extended limb work in WWF/E history right there. 

    What I also dig about it is that the first match they worked, which I just saw again on the New Generation channel, was built around brutal ladder spots, and for the second one, they went with trying to cripple limbs so that climbing the ladder would be impossible. Two totally different psychological approaches to ladder matches, both of them great. 

    I believe the second one was due to them being told not to due the brutal ladder spots due to WWF getting heat for promoting violence towards children

    • Like 2

    July 2025 Pro Wrestling Talk

    in The PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING

    Posted

    22 minutes ago, Gorman said:

    I was at SummerSlam 95 in Pittsburgh, and I liked it a lot. In addition to the ladder match and 123-Hakushi, I thought Skip-Candido and Bret-Yankem were a lot better than I expected.

    It really shouldn't be a surprise that Bret could have a solid match with Glen Jacobs, Kane had a very solid body of work. I think they had a cage match at some point that was fun

    WWE News - July 2025

    in WWE PROGRAMMING

    Posted

    On 7/2/2025 at 7:06 AM, EVA said:

    Yeah, I mean, if you’re seriously shopping for an undercard comedy act, Mr. Iguana is right there. He’s a very competent luchadore, and it’s easy to see where he could slot in at that Lucha House Party level.

    I want to see Danhausen put the curse on the stuffed iguana

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    2025 Movie Discussion Thread

    in MOVIES & TV

    Posted

    On 6/30/2025 at 8:38 PM, Andrew POE! said:

    Movies today....not as much due to work and rehearsals. 

    Do The Right Thing (Netflix, leaving on 6/30) - 5/5 stars

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    "Do the Right Thing" is a misnomer.

    There is no 'right thing.' There is the capitalistic 'right thing' and the socialistic 'right thing.' The capitalistic 'right thing' is to let someone have their business stay open, take money from the community that's there, and have it go into the owner's pocket. The socialistic 'right thing' is the business is the community and the business must reflect the community; the owner didn't get there alone. It's a gathering place, it's a tradition, it's a connection between groups that have nothing in common beyond their love for what's there.

    When it's burned down, what do we have?

    People make a community. Communities grow on the strength of love and understanding. But what do we do when someone in a community lashes out and destroys property of someone else? Why would destroying a business and a livelihood fix that? There's greater issues at play than selling pizzas for 25 years and seeing the same people won't fix.

    Do The Right Thing as a movie is divided into the movie leading up to the last 20+ minutes and the last 20+ minutes. Spike Lee is shaping a group of characters that are part of a community. Mookie (Lee) is an underappreciated, unmotivated young man with a girlfriend Tina (Rosie Perez) and a young son. (To be honest, I wonder if Spike Lee cast himself because he wanted to lock lips with Rosie Perez, what red blooded male wouldn't?). It's reminiscent of what Woody Allen would do in his comedies where he casts himself as a lead and is paired with beautiful women like Diane Keaton and Mia Farrow. He works for Sal (Danny Aiello) who runs a local pizza parlor in Brooklyn with his two sons Pino (John Turturro) and Vito (Richard Edson). Sal loves the area he's in although it's sometimes wondered if he loves the money more than the people. He does admit that he's "seen the little kids become young men and the old men become older." "This place was raised on my pizza, why would I move?" (It's somewhat eerie and telling that two police officers come in and wonder why there isn't a Trump Pizza.)

    Within the last 20 minutes or so, this changes for Sal when he lashes out , is actually racist, and destroys Radio Raheem's boombox. What starts this is what Sal chooses to have on his walls - Italian Americans like Frank Sinatra, Sylvester Stallone, and (an Irish American who played Italians) Robert De Niro. To be honest, there's something just petty about that being a hill to die on; but there's more to it than that. It goes back to doing the right thing as a socialist; the community in Bed Stuy helped build Sal's pizzeria too. What's wrong with having Jackie Robinson, Michael Jordan, and Magic Johnson on the wall? No one is an island and his pizzeria is a business he owns; it's not a co-op pizzeria where members of the community can contribute and the business's success is their success too. It's not just capital equity but it's sweat equity too. Especially in 100 degrees in New York City.

    Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn) is an engima as a character; he carries around a boombox playing Public Enemy's "Fight The Power." This power is of a social, economic, and caste power; Public Enemy uses this as a call to arms against any form of oppression. The disconnection is between those who've been in power (Caucasians) and those who have more people but less of the power (African Americans). Raheem addresses us as he talks about the pieces on his knuckles with "Love" and "Hate." Hate is stronger than love sometimes, but love is seen as weak, yet more effective. Raheem could take a page out of the DJ Mister Senor Love Daddy (Samuel L. Jackson) and acknowledge and love all black artists instead of just one. Going back into the pizzeria and starting the riot shows what's winning.

    The other character that serves as the moral compass of the movie is Da Mayor (Ossie Davis). Da Mayor is afraid of the 'status quo' being changed and he's afraid of change in his own life. For him, it's too late and he's too old to change; it's somewhat sad that Da Mayor would take the side of Sal and his sons but he sees the forest from the trees in some respects. The younger generation sees him and laughs at him; his first appearance has him yelling about not being able to get a Miller High Life at the local grocery store. He pushes a kid out of a way of a car and has love for one of the women of the neighborhood; yet, time doesn't move forward for him. He's as much of a witness and a clarion of the times as he is bemused and helpless by the times.

    For the most part with Do The Right Thing, the main character isn't the characters shown, but the block, the stretch of street in Brooklyn NY. There's elements of stage play in addition to the cinematic language of other film directors like Martin Scorsese, Sidney Lumet, Anthony Mann, Billy Wilder, and Elia Kazan within this movie from Spike Lee. Other directors said "we can too!" and got greater recognition like Charles Burnett, Kasi Lemmons, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Carl Franklin, Boots Riley, John Singleton, and Shaka King. Spike Lee is and always will be vital and unique as a director. Seeing Radio Raheem being killed by the police couldn't help but make me think of the current times with George Floyd and Black Lives Matter as the police seem to kill people (usually black and brown) out of frustration and let's face it, racism.

    One aspect that gave me pause was Smiley (Roger Guenveur Smith) having a stutter while talking. The movie plays it up for comedic effect, but to be honest, it's rather mean.

    A lot of critics talk about the moment where Mookie picks up the trash can to throw into the window about how "that wasn't the right thing." In that moment, no it wasn't; but Mookie wasn't treated as an equal by Sal and his sons. Throughout the movie, he was barked out to go deliver pizzas and barked out that he took too long to deliver them. When Mookie overheard Sal's outburst and what Sal said to Radio Raheem, how was he supposed to react? Whether it's a 'capitalistic right thing' or 'a socialistic right thing,' it's hard to say.

    In fact, it was the right thing for Mookie.

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    Compared to other Hitchcock movies I've seen (and I've seen a lot), this is probably Hitchcock's weakest color efforts. Despite the VistaVision format, there isn't much in the way of the typical suspense story. Morocco (which took up the bulk of the first hour) wasn't really picturesque or having a sense of grandeur. It felt like James Stewart and Doris Day were standing on a soundstage somewhere with the scenery of Morocco being rear projected. It occasionally works in the scene where Louis Bernard (Daniel Gelin) reveals that someone will be killed in London to Dr. Ben McKenna (James Stewart).

    Much of the movie is the relationship with Dr. McKenna and his wife Josephine Conway McKenna (Doris Day). In a bit of meta-textualism, Conway is regarded as a famous singer, much like the real Doris Day. Day is given some chances to sing - near the start with Conway's son Hank (Christopher Olsen) then towards the end at the Embassy where she sings "Que Sera Sera" almost desperately.

    The aspects that don't work with this and just drag on is nearly everything else. For a movie about stopping an assassination plot and for an American couple seeking their son, not a lot happens. We don't learn about the villains anymore than we did at the start; a lot of menace and intrigue is provided about those characters and we're given breadcrumbs as to who they are and what they are seeking to do. To be honest, I felt that the movie should have ended after the McKennas foiled the assassination attempt and the son was just dropped off at Scotland Yard. It would have made sense, given that the antagonists of the movie were unknown throughout the movie. The last 10 minutes felt a bit unnecessary although the ending is comical with the McKennas coming back and seeing their guests asleep.

    Despite the story issues and the length of the movie being a bit too long, The Man Who Knew Too Much isn't a bad Hitchcock effort, I just wish for something more.

    Spike Lee has talked about Do The Right Thing Being about people putting property above human life. One thing I didn't notice first time is after the cops kill Radio Raheem (with a choke hold which they are not supposed to do cause its considered lethal force) the public announcement mentions a commission to investigate the arson but not about the police killing a young black man.

    The love hate thing is interesting in the LOVE is on the RIGHT hand. and most of the characters show elements of both, Sal has a temper, Buggin Out may have a point but goes about it in the most obtuse way possible (I always find myself thinking this would be like going into a Soul Food place and getting worked up about say a picture of Barrak Obama on the wall and being like Where are the white people?) , Radio is a bit of an ass toward the koreans and Sal, ect.

    Now some people have interpreted the ending as Mookie did the right thing that by throwing the trash can he redirects the crowds anger away from Sal and towards the pizzeria potentially saving his life.

    • Like 2

    Smugly reviews all of Lucha Underground (or at least tries to before it becomes hard to find on the internet due to takedowns and capricious copyright holders)

    in The PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING

    Posted

    I agree with your assessment on the quality of those early ladder matches. For me they feel like athletic contests where both men are trying to win not just a bunch of stunts as thats what those sort of matches have turned into.

    Also I was able to get the DVDs of WSX on Netflix some years back and its interesting how much DNA it seems to share with LU. From Mil Muertes/Judas Messiah being the big bad, Vampiro making a reference to the ladder match (and at one point calling Mr Cisco "a little cholo") and the over all aesthetic. Certainly feels like LU creators watched it for reference.

    • Like 2

    General Music Discussion Catch-All

    in MUSIC

    Posted

    9 hours ago, supremebve said:

    With both of them I'm amazed by how much the women consented to before they reached a point before it became a problem. This Diddy trail isn't even about whether or not there was consent. It's much more about the whether or not you can legally have a traveling sex circus on your payroll. The verdict seems to say that it's OK to have a traveling sex circus as long as you don't pay people to join. I thought they had him dead to rights on the sex trafficking,  because there is literally video of him beating Cassie when she tried to leave. The sex circus stops being a sex circus when the performers want to leave and you don't let them. 

    The Janell Grant/Vince thing sounded like she though she was signing up to be his mistress (which is like why not just have a mistress?). I was always under the impression that money, fame and power got you women. what's with all the raping

    General Music Discussion Catch-All

    in MUSIC

    Posted

    Between this and like the Vince stuff I'm always kinda like "you have all this money and fame and influence, you can get women. what's with the rape?". I wonder does the money turn these people depraved or are they depraved from the get go and when they get the money they feel they can act on it? Chicken and the egg.

    RING TUNES

    in MUSIC

    Posted

    Some people say Dusty stole his act from Siki but they likely would have never been in the same place at the same time. (He more likely "borrowed from Thunderbolt Patterson)

    • Like 1

    General Music Discussion Catch-All

    in MUSIC

    Posted

    I really don't follow hip hop so all the deviant stuff was kinda news to me. I mean I can imagine that a rap star would have sex and drugs at parties but I would have assumed you normal rap/rock star stuff

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