Reed

Not even kidding, scripted or not, I think that Bryan/Miz exchange got to a root of a key problem in the wrestling business. "You should be willing to entirely destroy your body and brain for the business and its fans!" "But, um, what if I don't want to?"

The Miz is right by the way. I'm sorry. He just is. Bryan was a self-righteous prick for calling him a coward for not wrestling a more dangerous style. Because it worked out so well for Bryan, didn't it? Retired at 35.

She was good in Basic Instinct. But she was playing a film noir femme fatale parody. No one who could exist in the real world. Too icy. Too cold. Ginger worked so well as a character because she was, simply, a frigging mess.

Hollywood also happily applauds guys like Roman Polanski and Woody Allen. Granted, Stone might be a diva and difficult on set. But no way does asking for Evian water at the right temperature, or whatever, compare to what those guys (confessedly and allegedly) did. Basically: We probably shouldn't trust Hollywood to decide on someone's morality.

This might re-define what we would consider "a one hit wonder" since she has been regularly in work and was A-list for a while there in the '90s. But, if we're talking simply about acting performances, how about Sharon Stone in Casino? Like, she actually acts DeNiro and Pesci off-screen. It's an astounding film to watch partly for that reason. And this from a woman who has never, in general, been that good an actor and bordered on embarrassing sometimes. But she sort of showed them both up. She's never been that good again and probably never will be.

*watches Total Divas* Man, Paige should have stuck with Kevin. At least he wasn't old enough to be her father. And he was in a rock band.

I was watching the latest season of Bates Motel. . One interesting thing about Psycho: Norman Bates always worked as a sympathetic character because he was insane. He didn't know he was insane. And you can't hate an insane person. Then, at the end of season 4, you get the implication: "Yes, Norman is vaguely aware, on some level, of what is going on here. He's manipulating people. He's lying. He's covering up. He's ill, sure, but now he's eagerly going along with it all." In that respect, the TV show is a whole lot sicker than the film or Hitchcock, in general.

Granted, this has undoubtedly been brought up before, but, damn, are Del Rio and Paige one of the strangest wrestling couples ever. I wouldn't have put them together in a million years. It's not even the age thing. Not quite. They just seem so, well, different from each other. On every possible level. Eh, opposites attract, I guess?

Now I have this weird desire to see Eminem eaten by super-smart sharks whose brains have been enhanced to fight Alzheimer's. The "playing yourself" point is weird. Courtney Love in The People vs. Larry Flynt is one of my favorite on-screen performances by an actress, but I can admit: Yes, there were elements of the real Love in that character. Which is what made it so great. But, ultimately, she was still acting. And she did other films and TV roles after that. She was fine in them. Eminem, meanwhile, 100% played himself. And has done nothing since.

Kurt Cobain and Billy Corgan. The two grunge icons of the '90s. One shot himself in the head. The other is now President of TNA. I'm still not sure who fared worse, quite frankly.

Eminem was a perfectly competent actor in 8 mile. He was truly quite good in that film. But then, as Samuel L Jackson critiqued him at the time: "But he was playing himself. That's not acting. Now I want to see him play a doctor or a lawyer."

I was watching Temple of Doom the other day. I never realized: This film is set a year before Raiders of the Lost Ark. Um, was there a reason for that? It doesn't seem to make much of a difference to the plot. So why did they do that? It's just a weird thing to do with a sequel. Turn it into a prequel. Just odd. I'd also like to know just what happened to Short Round.

That was what I figured. I mean when you're Steven frigging Spielberg's wife, you can presumably snag yourself regular acting gigs in Hollywood. Unless you decide you're just not going to bother.

Kinda sad Doody wasn't in more stuff. The Elsa character could have just been a cartoonish, evil femme fatale character, but she gave her way more depth. She might have been the most interesting Indy love interest of them all. I still think one of the most powerful moments of The Last Crusade is Elsa watching the Nazis burning books at a rally and she has this look of utter terror and grief on her face as she realizes: "Oh, God. What the fuck have I gotten myself into? These people are psychopaths." Even at the end I think Indy understood: Elsa wasn't necessarily evil. She was just way too obsessed with the Holy Grail to focus on anything else.

Last House of the Left (the original) This was the first time I've actually sat down and watched this. I know this is meant to be a cult classic and "one of the best horror films evah~!", but honestly, it's too cheap and sleazy. And not even the good type of cheap and sleazy. Like, the scene where the girl walks into the river as she awaits death....that should be powerful. It truly should be. But then the characters involved are so cardboard it's an insult to useful packaging material and the acting is so bad that you struggle to feel anything. I couldn't even be bothered to be offended. The film was sorta, well, just, there.

I was watching the Indiana Jones trilogy on DVD recently and, um, well, every Indy love interest? Karen Allen will only ever be Marion Ravenwood. Alison Doodley....was she ever in anything else? Man, you'd think even Kate Capshaw could have used the Spielberg connection to show up in more films, but she didn't.

You know things are bad when you look at Harry and Marv, two immoral burglars who raid people's homes at Christmas, and think: "Yeah, but you still ain't anything close to being the shittiest people in this film."

The mom's indifference to Kevin's suffering at the start of the film is shocking. Um, your child is obviously depressed and traumatized to the point he even tells you flat-out he prays for a different family. And instead of comforting him or trying to make him feel better or telling him you love him, you just shrug it off and tell him not to ruin the rest of your vacation. That's why I dislike everyone spending much of the movie telling her: "But...you're not a bad mother!" Um, yeah. She was. Sorry, John Candy. But she was.

Home Alone is on. So, yeah, Uncle Frank is the villain of this movie, isn't he? OK, so Harry and Marv were burglars and definitely not good people, but they weren't outright cruel or sadistic. Meanwhile, the way Uncle Frank yells at and humiliates Kevin, a vulnerable little boy, in front of everyone, is still truly quite uncomfortable to watch. That's why the McCallisters were shitty parents. Not necessarily the "Home Alone" stuff. (Admittedly that didn't help, but OK, accidents and mishaps can happen, I guess ). It's that this adult man verbally abused and cruelly bullied their child right in front of them...and then they turned around and blamed the kid for it. And happily went on vacation with the man the next day. Is it wrong I feel those people probably did deserve to be robbed?

Oh, of course. DiCaprio made good choices. But he does absolutely have something incredible as an actor. The look of anger and frustration and longing in his eyes.. It never quite goes away. On-screen, he's always a man looking for something.

DiCaprio might be one of the most of the surprising acting reveals in Hollywood history. I saw him in "What's Eating Gilbert Grape?" and he did his best with the shitfest of a script that was Titanic, so I thought: "Well, you have some talent, obviously. But, aren't you just a competently-skilled pretty face who appeals to teenyboppers? How good are you? Really?" Then he turned out to be an almost prodigiously talented actor.

I was watching some of season 1 of 24 and, man, the look Nina gives to the CTU surveillance camera after she kills that woman in the final episode is one of the most terrifying TV moments ever. Dear God. Not only has the mask has slipped, she doesn't care it's slipped. She looks borderline demonic here. (Bear in mind we spent most of season 1 thinking she was just a nice, pretty, if slightly lovelorn and frustrated, woman.) Kinda feel the show wasted her in later seasons, frankly. She was a truly terrific villain.

I was watching Inception last night And no, I'm still not quite entirely sure what the fuck was going on. But DiCaprio's performance in the film is astounding. Maybe this is what he should have won the Oscar for? Not the bear thing. "I can't imagine you, with all your complexity, all your perfection, all your imperfection. Look at you. You're just a shade of my wife. You're the best I can do. And I'm sorry, but you are not quite good enough." His bitterness and unhappiness but, ultimate, unwillingness to accept a dream fantasy, still kinda gets to me. He accepted the truth. He hated it. But he did. DiCaprio's best acting moment, by far.

All this Miz/Maryse talk reminds me of something. Anyone remember that Jericho/HHH feud in 2000? Basically: Jericho forcibly kissed Stephanie and was constantly degrading and embarrassing her with horrible remarks. HHH wanted to kill him. I was only, like, 14 at the time and even I wondered: "So why exactly is HHH the bad guy here?" The dude is going after his wife, quite aggressively so, HHH is right to want to beat the shit out of him. I'm supposed to hate HHH for being a dutiful, loving husband?

Not really into the celebrity couple stuff, but I think I would be genuinely quite sad if The Miz and Maryse ever split in real life. On and off screen, they strike me as two people who have basically found what they are looking for in each other and are pretty compatible. .