S.K.o.S.

Hopefully this revelation prepared people for the Black Sox scandal in 1919. Also, seriously, the guy who wrote this article was "Sol Plex"?

They announced Toronto matches for the NJ guys. Hiroshi Tanahashi & Jushin Thunder Liger vs. Shinsuke Nakamura & Jado AJ Styles & Karl Anderson vs. Kazuchika Okada & Gedo Takaaki Watanabe vs. Michael Elgin Forever Hooligans vs. Time Splitters vs. Young Bucks

On the "this year is much tougher than last year" tip: Last year we had 32 people enter the pool (33 if you count my entry). 4 different movies showed up at #1 on people's box office lists (the vast majority put Iron Man 3 at the top, but some people also had Star Trek 2, Fast & Furious 6, and Man of Steel) and 7 different movies showed up at #1 on people's Rotten Tomatoes lists (Monsters University, Star Trek 2, Iron Man 3, Man of Steel, Despicable Me 2, Great Gatsby, Elysium). This year, we've only had 8 people enter so far, and there are already 5 different #1 movies on the box office lists and 7 different #1 movies on the RT lists.

I think there's an commentary track on a dvd somewhere where someone involved with the movie says he was so sure that they were giving the twist away with that scene. Meant to look that up last night to get the specifics, but forgot. I saw Shyamalan's first three, then nothing else until The Happening, then Devil. You know, The Happening is of course a terrible movie, but that jump scare with the life-size doll in the bed is a really, really good one. It certainly flipped out a whole bunch of people in the theatre when I saw it. (At the time, it actually made me hate it more because I was thinking "Oh, it's not bad enough that this entire movie sucks, now I'm being tortured with jump scares too?")

MushroomJones, you need the tiebreaker too.

I believe Tim Donst, Sugar Dunkerton and Saturyne are all gone. Donst tweeted about it a while back. Other than that... don't know. If they can sell out shows without announcing matches then I guess they're not in a particular hurry to announce any of the upcoming cards.

SBMP Hall of Fame: In 2008, 9 people entered, and the top 3 got prizes: 1. Evil Ash 2. Nathan Davis 3. Brocklock In 2009, 28 people entered, and the top 6 got prizes: 1. SoopArr AE 2. The Erotic Terrorist 3. RossWB 4. Genesis 5. Nathan Davis 6. MushroomJones In 2010, 39 people entered, and the top 6 got prizes: 1. -MJ- 2. RossWB 3. Pavel6969 4. Brocklock 5. SoopArr AE 6. shoogbear63 In 2011, 42 people entered, and the top 6 got prizes: 1. Hobo Joe 2. scraylo187 3. -MJ- 4. Hail Sabin 5. shoogbear63 6. The Erotic Terrorist In 2012, 39 people entered, and the top 6 got prizes: 1. blitzkrieg 2. IVPvideos 3. jesseewiak 4. DreamBroken 5. Patty1369 6. TrevL In 2013, 32 people entered, and the top 6 got prizes: 1. The Damn Yeti 2. RossWB 3. Genesis 4. Death From Above 5. The Erotic Terrorist 6. -MJ-

This horrible banner means it's that time of year again! Below are 20 movies set to be released this summer. You need to make two lists: List 1: Choose 15 of the 20 movies and rank them from highest to lowest according to the domestic box office gross you think each movie will make through its first 4 weeks (28 days) of release. Note that you're not trying to leave out the 5 movies you think will do the worst; just leave out the 5 that you feel least confident about ranking. Also, you don't need to guess how much money they'll make - just rank them. I'll be using boxofficemojo.com as the source for how much money each movie makes. List 2: Choose 15 of the 20 movies (doesn't have to be the exact same 15 as your first list) and rank them from highest to lowest according to the rating you think each movie will have on rottentomatoes.com after it's been out for 4 weeks. Again, you're not necessarily trying to leave out the five worst movies. Scoring: Your two lists will be compared with the actual ranks of the 15 movies, and your score will be the sum of the absolute values of the differences between the rank you gave to each movie and its correct rank. LOWEST score wins. Tiebreaking: In addition to your two lists, pick any one of the twenty movies and post exactly how much money you think it'll make domestically, in dollars, in its first 28 days of release. If two or more people end up with the same number of points, the person whose dollar figure is closer to correct (on a percentage basis) will be ranked ahead of the other. If that still results in a tie, then the person who posted their entry earlier will be ranked ahead of the other. Also, if two or more movies end up tied in box office gross right down to the dollar (pretty much impossible, but just in case), or end up with the exact same rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the ranking of those two movies will be set to whatever is more favorable for each individual person. The movies: The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (May 2) Neighbors (May 9) Godzilla (May 16) X-Men: Days of Future Past (May 23) Maleficent (May 30) A Million Ways To Die In The West (May 30) Edge of Tomorrow (Jun 6) 22 Jump Street (Jun 13) How to Train Your Dragon 2 (Jun 13) Transformers: Age of Extinction (Jun 27) Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (Jul 11) The Purge: Anarchy (Jul 18) Jupiter Ascending (Jul 18) Hercules (Jul 25) Lucy (Jul 25) Guardians of the Galaxy (Aug 1) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Aug 8) The Giver (Aug 15) The Expendables 3 (Aug 15) Sin City: A Dame To Kill For (Aug 22) Deadline: The last day you can post your lists is May 29th, 2014, but any movie that has already premiered must be left off your lists. So, for example, if you enter after May 2nd, you can't put Spider-Man 2 on either of your lists because it'll already be in theatres. Editing lists: You may edit your lists after they're posted, but only up until the release of any movie that appears on at least one of your lists. Since time of entry is a tiebreaker, if you edit a list, make a new post stating that you've edited. "The Adjustment Bureau" rule: Movies' release dates are not set in stone. If a movie's release date gets moved past September 30, 2014, and you have it on a list, it gets removed, and you get an additional number of points equal to your average points per movie on that list, rounded to the nearest whole number. Prizes: The prize pool will consist of three Criterion dvds (or maybe blu-rays? Pretty much everyone can play blu-rays now, right?), GODZILLA, 3:10 TO YUMA and SCANNERS, along with copies of three of my favorite movies from 2013, THE CRASH REEL, OMAR and GIMME THE LOOT. (One movie was added to the prize pool when we hit 12, 15 and 18 entrants.) The first-place finisher will get to choose their prize out of all the available movies, second place will get to pick from what's left, and so on. Good luck! In so far: MushroomJones Ligerbusa Super Ape Sublime Cameron Swift The Veeg The Natural The Z SorceressKnight Control Rippa Death From Above ivpvideos hobo joe Dr. Bathroom Niners Fan in CT JRGoldman DreamBroken The Damn Yeti RossWB caley jaedmc Mike Zeidler Ultimo The Great Kevin Wilson blitzkrieg Elsalvajeloco CSC Raziel403 Paco pipGofern The Erotic Terrorist Hoffman Chaos Suicide King of Spades -MJ- Lacelle

A few reviews are rolling in for Proxy (65% on RT with 17 reviews), and the reaction is really something. Seems like an extremely polarizing movie. Here's an example. Read the review and then read the comments section: http://thedissolve.com/reviews/720-proxy/ The reviewer loves it, and then everyone in the comments who's seen it really hates it. The acting is mostly bad, the characters' motivations are non-existent or laughable, but there's a very distinct feel to it via the aesthetics and the score, and (apparently) it has a serious statement to make.

It was going to be The Giver. Last I looked it was in the lead with 5 votes (and it's still there as of this post) Edit: The plan is for the actual pool thread to go up either tomorrow or Wednesday.

Cover of today's Toronto Sun: Hiyooooooooo

Here's a link to it! http://pmd.fan590.com/podcasts/pts/pt_20140416_191423--Prime-Time-Sports--April-16---6pm.mp3 It's about the first 15 minutes or so.

Toronto probably would've preferred to play Washington, but there was that stretch in January when Brooklyn started to get hot, they went 0-2 against the Raptors while going something like 10-0 against the rest of the league. So I'll just focus on that. Hoping Casey can use "they intentionally dropped to the 6th seed because they don't respect us" as extra motivation.

"All You Need Is Kill" was the working title for the movie. I thought it sounded a little inappropriate for something starring Tom Cruise. Makes sense now.

Ah, this is more of a Chuck Taylor story, but I got to see the effect his schtick actually has on kids. There was a guy with two kids, a boy and a girl, sitting in front of me at some indy show, it was a tag match with Chuck on the apron, and the guy's daughter just randomly goes "You suck, Chuck Taylor!" Chuck turns around and goes, "I will KILL you, little girl. I will MURDER you until you DIE." And after that, she REALLY hated him and yelled all kinds of stuff at him. After intermission, the family came back to their seat and the girl had a signed Chuck Taylor photo. So I guess the dad wanted to show her that Chuck didn't really want to kill her or whatever.

A Million Ways To Die In The West has over three times as many votes as the next closest movie, so it's pretty clear that it belongs in the pool list. I'm going to take it out of the poll.

Here's the thing: There is no struggle. If Davey tried to hit a second superplex, Eddie fought him, and the reversed it... I could give that a pass. But there's no fighting in this 'fighting spirit' spot. There's just "Superplex, get up, other guy hits a suplex." That, to me, is the problem, more than the sequence of moves itself. You can do "fighting spirit" spots, or "social dance" sequences... but when you combine the two, that's when things really fall apart. There is a vertical suplex spot where one guy is on offense and you think he's going to do the suplex, and then, surprise, the other guy does it. I know I've seen it in several matches - to cite one in particular, it was in the Chris Hero vs. Masato Tanaka match last weekend. I get the impression that in general with that spot, there isn't supposed to be a struggle, because the whole point of it is the shock of the unexpected suplex. Of course, when you put that spot immediately after a superplex, it looks more than a little ridiculous.

Looks like Pixar actually has nothing coming out in 2014 (but you got me to double-check). Inside Out and The Good Dinosaur are both scheduled for 2015.

It definitely got my attention when I saw it slated to be released, but I guess my thought process was that it's fairly different from Ted, and I'm not seeing anyone talking about it even though it's coming out pretty soon.

If you're new here, we run this pool where I put up a list of 20 movies coming out this summer, and people rank them based on predicted box office take and critical reception. In the past, I've missed putting some movies on the list that should've been there (e.g. Bridesmaids) and put some movies on the list that should not have been there (e.g. My Life In Ruins). So for the past few years, the selection of the borderline movies has been up to you. I already have 18 movies selected. I'm looking to fill the last 2 spots. The top 2 vote-getters in this poll will be included in this year's pool. (EDIT: A Million Ways To Die In The West was way ahead in the poll, so I'm giving it one of the two spots. We still need to fill the other spot.) You basically want to vote for the movie that you think will end up having the most people talking about it. Like, the kind of movie that if it wasn't on the list, we'd be thinking "Oh man, how did we miss that one?"

Those are all games that both the Raptors and Bulls should win. Basically I think the Raptors need to go 5-0 to keep the third seed, but they have this habit of playing down to their opponent's level - they let the Bucks hang around way too long last game. Plus you've got the iffiness of Lowry and Johnson and the distraction of the JV DUI, and with all that combined, going perfect down the stretch will be tough. Unfortunately I think the Bulls are gonna pull ahead.

It looks like I've ignorantly purchased tickets to an event from a third-party website and paid like 60% over what it would've cost me to get the tickets straight from the venue. And the event isn't even close to being sold out. Clearly I'm an idiot, but this doesn't seem like it should be legal. edit: Found an article from some Texas newspaper from a couple of years ago that starts off: So I guess this is a thing.

I am amazed it's even a discussion that sometimes people misspeak and then correct themselves, followed by good natured ribbing from buddies. It was planned? Seriously? It's not actually a discussion. I made one post saying it was scripted, then another post explaining why I thought that, because someone asked where the idea came from. Looks like everyone else disagrees, which is fine.

Yeah, I wanted to say something earlier, when I saw it mentioned pages ago ... where'd this notion that the "Silverdome" botch was scripted come from? Just me. I have no proof, but Hogan didn't have an earpiece, and I just think if someone screws something up for real, they would try to sweep it under the carpet rather than turn the entire segment into absolutely everyone riffing on that screw-up. Also Austin's laughter looked pretty fake when Rock delivered his Superdome line.

I loved the story. People have touched on this already, but what was missing was some kind of... transition point for Cena, or something. We know Bray is trying to bring out the crazy side of Cena through intimidation - so Bray can win by traditional means, or he can "win" by making Cena do something that alienates his fanbase to win the match. At the start, Cena can only go on offense when he goes crazy heelish. And (I think) he initially attacks Rowan and Harper not because they actually did something to him, but because he's afraid of them. But at the end, he wins with his usual offense. Which is fine, but how did we get from point A to point B there? Was it supposed to be when he put down the stairs or refused to use the chair? Whatever that moment was, it needed to stand out more. Also, they talk about Mania having "something for everyone". I think you're on point with the Taker match comparison. This was supposed to be the "epic story match" that the Taker match has filled for the last few years. Bryan vs. HHH was the workrate match.