caley

Finally finished watching 'Let the Bullets Fly' (I think it took me 5-6 sittings to finish it). It's good, albeit kinda wacky. Director Wen Jian stars as a bandit who ambushes a governor, then instead of killing him, works with him to become governor of a corrupt village ruled by the evil Huang (Chow Yun Fat). There's lots of plots and double-crosses and twists and turns. It's silly, it's well-shot, it's entertaining. Definitely worth a watch.

Man, is it normal to be able to watch all the in-ring action and some of the promos in just over an hour when you DVR this show?! Seriously, how crazy is that!? -Hernandez-Roode was okay. Also it featured the worst referee in history where he was watching as Roode hit Hernandez in the junk, didn't DQ Roode for basically throwing chairs at him, turned his head while he was cleaning chairs out of the ring to allow Roode to hit Hernandez with a bottle, IGNORED the shards of broken glass in the ring while he made the three-count, ignored the fact that Hernandez's foot was under the rope when he began the count, noticed the glass after the match and didn't reverse the decision. I mean, I know it's pro wrestling, but a man's got to have his limits when suspending his disbelief. -Bradley-Park was fun. I kinda want TNA to just put the World Title on Park because I don't think there's anyone else in the company that connects with them on the same level as him. -Manik-Sabin was ehh though I kinda fell asleep during it. I don't understand the Manik gimmick when the guy does promos with the mask off and even uses his name. Somebody used the "Wait a minute, Manik backwards is Kinam?!" joke already, right? Also, does Chris Sabin have the worst ring-gear of any World Champion in history? -Gail Kim-ODB was okay but the ODB gimmick is literally the worst thing ever. Like it drives me absolutely up the wall. I hate it. Hate it. Everything about it. Not sure ODB will be happy when she hears Tenay refer to her legs looking like tree trunks either. -Gotta give a special shout-out to Brooke Hogan calling Bully Ray "Mark". We're this close to Buff Bagwell talking about how he's going to go and find the boys in the back who write this crap, aren't we?! -Styles-Aries was okay until the commercial break but turned really nasty after the break with a crushing dragon suplex by Styles, some hard clotheslines by Aries, some just really nasty bumps then went a little too-over-the-top with Aries and Styles no-selling shots at the end followed by a weak-ass ending. But it was clearly the best match on the show by a significant margin. -I was actually okay with the Tito reveal because there's no one short of Batista within wrestling who would be worth the hype and Ortiz should've turned pro wrestler YEARS ago. TOP 3 PERFORMANCES 3. Kim: She was lots of fun, blowing kisses and bumping like crazy. 2. Styles: Took a beating, gave a beating. That emo hair and awful ring gear has to go, but what are you gonna do?! 1. Aries: Took a beating, gave a beating, looked good. WORST 3 PERFORMANCES 3. Tazz: It's funny, he no longer sounds like a badass nor looks like a badass. He can't wrestler anymore. He shouldn't announce. But he still gets two segments devoted to him. 2. Hernandez: He's a big dude who can do impressive things, but he has no idea how or when to do them or to build to them. 1. The ref in the first match. Instead of getting Kazarian/Storm to live-tweet the show, maybe they should make male wrestlers become troubleshooting refs.

People hate the AT&T 'It's not complicated' commercials?! They are like the one commercial everyone in my family/friends agree are funny. The guy is funny, the kids are funny. Those 'Wendy's' commercials are the friggin' worst. The one where she's randomly hanging out near a baseball diamond and starts talking to the kid and the dad looks at her like "Uh, can you go find your own child? I'll parent her myself." was the dirt-worst.

But I thought you loved 'Bronson'.

Hahahaha come on. Every fight I have seen the big dude has gotten his ass kicked. Being strong doesn't mean you can fight. Cena looks like the typical muscled up guy who talks big but has never been in a fight in his life. Are people not watching the whole video?! Bryan's in phenomenal shape. But, Cena...Christ! He looks like a house in that get-up (Somehow the jorts he wears in the ring make him look smaller) and he just obliterates those logs. Dude is big, and scary-strong. Scott Hall didn't have as many highs and lows (It's basically low -> really high -> even higher -> low ->lower ->lowest. But he, similarly, his personal life brought him down. Lex Luger's another guy I thought of. Takes the belt from Flair, looks to be a huge star company will build around, turns heel. Leaves to go to WBF. Joins WWF, stumbles around the midcard as the Narcissist, shoots to the top of the card with the Lex Express spends 8-9 months than drifts down into a weak tag team in the midcard. Leaves WWF for WCW, comes in as top guy, spends the better part of 6 months in the main event scene. Drifts down a bit, only to shoot back to the top against the NWO. Then his career kinda meanders as he joins the NWO, but nobody really cares and finally settles around the midcard with lackluster feuds (That one with Chuck Palumbo for instance) culminating in a terrible tag team with Buff Bagwell, where they remained until WCW shut down with Vince mocking Lex on the last Nitro. He had a short stint in TNA and assorted start-up feds, then had the whole domestic dispute, Elizabeth overdose and various legal issues. Then he became born-again, then he suffered the spinal stroke. Apparently, he can walk more comfortably now and supposedly has worked with WWE counseling for Wellness issues. So that's good for him. But, can you imagine watching 1996-97 WCW and there's no way you could imagine Vince not hiring him if he were available!

I thought it was quite funny when it came out and everyone was bemoaning Spielberg taking over the project from Kubrick and injecting his "Spileberg sappiness" into it and it turned out the sappiness was from Kubrick and the really fucked-up stuff (The Flesh Fair, IIRC) was from Spielberg. It should have been the cinematic equivalent of the wrestling double-turn.

I don't like spoiling anything. As a guy who's had stuff spoiled pretty badly a couple times (A newspaper giving away the ending to 'The Sixth Sense' while it was STILL IN THEATERS! and my sister casually giving away the ending of 'Fight Club' thinking I had already seen it), I'm pretty sensitive to these things. So if someone in here happens to have not see 'The Dark Knight', I don't wanna be the guy to spoil it for 'em! I disagree.

Senteroo!

Henry/Usos-Shield was perfectly fine. I'd like to see it at Summerslam as a 6-Man Elimination match that ends with Henry in a 3 on 1 almost overcoming the odds but falling to Ambrose or Reigns. Christian-ADR had a lot of clunky bits at the start. There was a couple spots where Christian was running half-speed to miss Del Rio and it just looked awful. It picked up as it went along, though. Dolph-Big E. was a million times better than it had any right to be. I really only want to watch Ziggler face big dudes who can throw him around from now on. Rhodes-Barrett was okay. Barrett looked good. Crowd isn't sure why to cheer for Rhodes yet. He's not funny, charismatic or all that showy/good in the ring. I still think he should be feuding with the Wyatts. Even Kane-Bryan was missing something. It was rather heatless (I blame it on WWE rushing the story of the match, friend against friend) and by-the-numbers. The post-match Wyatt beatdown was awesome. That divas match was bad and the angle was even worse. Just when I thought that backstage segment was going to be the worst thing ever (How can three wrestlers show that much bad acting in one short segment, it was like watching Jack Swagger, Sid Justice and Van Hammer try to perform a play!), we have Nikki blowing a duck call, going "Quack, quack, Nattie" and shaking her ass. Oh how I long for the subtlety of a farting gimmick! I can't wait until 'Total Divas' ends and we can go back to having 0:30-1:00 divas matches. I thought Ryback-Cena was pretty clearly the best match of the night. By quite a bit. Even the clunkiest bits (Ryback forcing the table to break against the post, the AA out of nowhere) weren't as bad as the clunky bits early on in Christian-ADR, Kane-Bryan or anything else. Plus, it looked like two guys with a bit of hatred for each other, throwing some big bombs, trying to kill each other. Everything else tonight kinda looked like an exhibition match. Top 3 performances 1. John Cena (Sold well, threw some big shots, mixed up his arsenal a little bit) 2. Ryback (Starting to actually carry himself like a monster heel, threw some bombs, looked threatening) 3. Wade Barrett (Everything he did looked particularly nasty and crisp and I'm not even a big Barrett fan!) Bottom 3 performances 1. Brie Bella (Match was dull, her offence was dull and there were a couple points where it looked like she didn't know what she was supposed to do next) 2. Nattie (It's not like she did anything but look clunky with her control segments either) 3. Nikki Bella ("Quack quack Nattie!" is going to haunt me for some time)

After a couple weeks of watching ROH, I notice there's a lot of guys who are must be huge RVD fans doing moves with laughably unnecessary flips and tumbles before performing them. I was actually reasonably into the Wolves-New Guys match until there was just too much flipping and guys waiting for other guys to get into position. Main event was pretty cluterfuckish but not in a good way. Crowd was pretty dead until the end with Nigel as they knew nothing was going to happen until then. Elgin alternated between "Man, WWE should pick that guy up" to "He is a pro wrestler, right?" I thought Lethal, in spite of his ridiculously contrived back-flipping diamond cutter, looked like the star here, doing everything to maximize crowd reaction. I also got a kick out of Jacobs standing up to Corino, only to get a half-swat from Corino that kept him down for the longest time, and when he got up, Steen beat him up anyway, even though he'd already seemingly backed off of SCUM. BTW, the end result means Steve Corino is gone, right? Please? I've only been watching for a few weeks and he is just dreadful. And I was a huge Corino fan in ECW but...no.

I've always felt the last 1/3rd of 'The Dark Knight' is rather poor/borderline unwatchable after a pretty crackin' first 2/3rds. Realistically, everything after was pretty weak. That interminable ending with the convicts on the boat and the kill-switch bores me to tears.

BEST: Probably some form of Tony Kozina vs Black Dragon (Bret Como). These guys wrestled all the time when ECCW would come to town and it was always good. I seem to remember Chance Beckett taking on Christopher Daniels...though that match might not have actually happened. MOST FUN: It wasn't a "good" match by any stretch of the imagination but there was a 'Fans Bring the Weapons' Battle Royale once here and my brother and I went and popped into the dollar store before the match as we'd forgotten to bring any weapons. We bought a pink featherduster and found a squash in the back of the car. In the semi-main event Michelle Starr, doing a flamboyant homosexual gimmick, came out with our featherduster and had a swordfight with an old women in the first row with her cane. In the main, it was just chaos with everyone getting hit with stuff. We kept chanting "Use the pumpkin!" (It looked more like a pumpkin than a squash and pumpkin lends itself to chanting better than squash) and finally this 400 lb guy Juggernaut (Who once wrestled a handicap match against Kronik on Thunder in which his pants kept falling down and Stevie Ray kept shouting "He' losing his britches, Tony!") picked up the squash, took a bite out of it, then threw it across the ring and hit another wrestler in the back, who solid it like he'd been shot. Most entertaining bit of pro wrestling I've ever seen live. WORST: Another ECCW Battle Royal. A wrestler got hurt the night before, plus they were also short-handed. Also, someone forgot the music CD so everyone came out to 'Rock 'n Roll All Night' by Kiss. In the main event, 6 guys and 1 manager under a hood stumbled around throwing half-hearted punches at each other. At one point, the aforementioned Juggernaut stood in a corner having a conversation with another wrestler, when someone came up from behind and hit him with a clubbing blow, Juggernaut turned around and made mention of his conversation, as the other wrestler slinked off looking for another combatant. Juggernaut then climbed over the ropes, eliminating himself, and wandered away. That might have been the last ECCW show I ever saw. BIGGEST HEAT FOR A LOUSY "MATCH": Vince McMahon vs. Brock Lesnar [steel Cage]: Lesnar shoves McMahon around a little, puts him up in the F5 then collapses. Crowd breaks into huge "Bullshit" chant. Angle puts McMahon in Ankle-Lock, Lesnar nips up and destroys Angle. It didn't come across as much on TV but that crowd was INCENSED. FAVOURITE LIVE WRESTLING MEMORY: A friend of mine had box seats to Nitro when it came to town and invited me along. During the day, me, my brother and my cousin (visiting from Edmonton) went downtown to see the WCW trucks pulling in, we watched for wrestlers, followed David Penzer around a hotel, and at one point Tank Abbott came out and people were warning their kids against talking to him (because of his reputation), my brother yells "Hey Tank Abbott!" and Abbott stops, glares, then shouts "Did you come here to watch Three Count dance?!" It was awesome. So, my cousin decides he's got to see it (I didn't have extra tickets for him or my brother) and buys nose-bleed section seats, then about 20 minutes before the show a guy in a suit walks up to my cousin and brother and goes "Here you go, compliments of Mr. Goldberg". So, I'm up in the box seats (Truthfully, the view is terrible) and I look down and there, directly behind Tony Schiavone, Scott Hudson and Mark Madden is my brother and cousin. They're on TV all night long, the Harris Brothers come out of the crowd next to them, they almost get hit with a chunk of busted announce table. That night, as my cousin is going to bed, my mom comes in to tuck him in and she asks how it was and he said "Auntie Liz, that was the best day of my life." It was, by all rights, a completely shitty show, but I'll never remember one more.

One site said that the only TNA wrestler who follows the August account is Jarrett...

That Ryback bullies backstage guys at the catering table was funny, but why exactly was someone filming random guys eating?!

I was into this the weekend it was released then totally cooled on it. In fact, I think I've skipped every track every time it's come on since then. I'll have to give it another go eventually but it sounds a little tired to me now.

I'm amazed at jingus' hatred for 'Sex and Death 101'. I'm not amazed that he hated it, I'm amazed that anyone else saw it. Just an awful, awful movie. The only thing holding it back from being one of the worst things I've ever seen is that I saw it on the same night as 'The Hottie and the Nottie' which is just just genuinely awful. For instance, when you have a movie about a guy trying to get with his hottie dream girl (I don't even have THAT much of a problem with it being Paris Hilton!) the guy should not be really annoying and as completely offputting as Joel David Moore is. Then *spoilers ahoy* of course he falls in love with the Nottie but you have to make a point of her becoming attractive before he can get with her, so you completely toss out the window any message of not judging a book by its cover because they never would have gotten together if they hadn't made her attractive. Also, in my initial discussion, I missed 'Glitter' which I've actually seen 3 times now. We rented it once as a joke because of how bad it was supposed to be (and is!) and watched it and made jokes, then watched it again with a different crowd and made jokes. Then I found a copy for $5 and bought it for my friend. Then his next birthday I bought him another copy. I believe he has 3 copies of it now. There's just so much to hate I don't know where to begin, honestly, but there is one scene where a character walks into a room and you can watch it and count the cuts and it's something ridiculous like 8-10 cuts for a character SIMPLY WALKING INTO A ROOM. How was that not a 1 or 2 cut shot?! How?!?!!?

Watched Rust and Bone and I will admit I watched it entirely because of the m83-scored trailer. The first thing you can honestly say about it is that it is definitely not one of those films where you watch it and sigh "Just another cookie-cutter plot!" Ali leaves Belgium with his son in tow and stays with his sister. Ali doesn't really know his son, who was used as a drug mule by his mother, very well and they have a pretty strained relationship but takes on a series of menial jobs to look after him: bouncer, security guard etc. While bouncing he meets Stephanie, a killer whale trainer who, shortly thereafter, loses both legs from the knee down in a training accident. Ali turns to underground fighting to support himself, while beginning a friendship with Stephanie. It might sound like I'm giving the film away, but that is just the first half hour or so! Anyways, Stephanie gradually begins to develop feelings for Ali, who just struggles to put it all together. It's really good and well-acted (Matthias Schoenaerts and Marion Cotillard are really really good in the leads, not sure how Cotillard didn't get a Best Actress nomination) but it's not an easy watch as Ali's a tough character to like, seemingly mostly/only interested in self-gratification. But, it has some gorgeous cinematography, good music and the effects work on Stephanie's missing legs is particularly amazing, prompting one IMDB user to ask if it was real (He's obviously not a big Cotillard fan).

I'm not the only one who shaved it into a Hitler mustache, am I?!

Was just reading about him today (re-reading Mick Foley's book) and how WCW tried to bring him in with Foley for his second run and Gilbert turned it down because he was so proud of his matches with Foley that he didn't want to tarnish their legacy. I think WCW probably would have eventually won him over. Or Vince would have thrown money at him when the roster got so thin and WCW was raiding their talent.

I got kinda into them after the song at the end of the movie 'Warrior' (I tend to stay away from bands that are really hyped up lately) and loved 'High Violet' but this one did nothing for me. I liked 'Demons' but the whole rest drifted by and I didn't remember any of it. My brother says it's awesome so I'm gonna give it another chance, though.

01. Daft Punk - Random Access Memories: Just a stunning album, really. A friend of my brother's thinks it's a concept album about a robot attempting to become human, and some of it seems to support his theory. Really, though ,it's just endlessly listenable. 'Giorgio' is a stunner, basically being an encapsulation of music from the 60s to 90s, then working in some Daft Punk goodness to point it toward the sound of the future. 02. Kanye West - Yeezus: The lyrics might be a little wonky in parts, but the production on this thing is incredible. I love the random stops that break into soaring melodies, or the way songs change completely from beginning to end. 03. Yo La Tengo - Fade: I first heard this and thought "Ah, that was a nice listenable little album" and then I just kind of kept coming back to it over and over and it's just a great album. 04. m83 - Oblivion: A soaring, epic m83 score of a really good film that nobody seemed to see. 05. Iron & Wine - Ghost on Ghost: I love I&W now that they've left the whisper-folk behind. They just sound like a good late 70s/early 80s AM radio band now. 06. Justin Timberlake - The 20/20 Experience: A great pop album. I love the way every song is basically two songs in one. 07. Phoenix - Bankrupt!: Maybe a step down from their breakthrough album, but the back half of this album just sails. 08. Mark Kozelek & Jimmy LaValle - Perils From the Sea: A little too long with a couple boring/morose songs but the best songs are terrific. 'You Missed My Heart' is amazing, sounding at first like a beautiful love song, until you listen to the lyrics and realize it's about a psychopath murdering his ex-girlfriend. 09. Jon Hopkins - Immunity: I'm not big into this whole house music/IDM revival, but this album is pretty terrific, veering from dance music to some gorgeous ambient stuff. 10. Jimmy Eat World - Damage: Was not expecting a 2013 Jimmy Eat World album to be as good as this was. It's nothing transcendent, just a good solid power-pop album. SINGLES 01. Phoenix - Entertainment: The album might have been a bit of a letwodn, but this song just soars, from the Asian-riff to the singing chorus that comes in toward the end of the song. Production on this is amazing. 02. The Killers - Flesh and Bone: My 2nd favourite song from my favourite album of 2012. This is just pure Killers anthemic arena rock at its best. 03. m83 - Oblivion: This is like a mix of earlier 'Before the Dawn Heals Us' m83 and newer 'Hurry Up We're Dreaming' m83 with the Kate Bush-esque vocals. Really amazing. 04. Ellie Goulding - Explosions: I came to Ellie late but this song is just an amazing power ballad. 05. Justin Timberlake - Tunnel Vision: 06. Justin Timberlake - Suit and Tie: I love the 20/20 Experience and these two are just amazing pop songs. 07. Sigur Ros - Brennisteinn: Wasn't expecting Sigur Ros to put out another album this year, and I REALLY wasn't expecting it to be a melange of Sigur Ros atmospherics and big crashing electric guitars. 08. Yo La Tengo - Ohm: My favourite song off one of my favourite albums. A 6+ minute song about appreciating life as we go with lots of guitar heroics. 09. Kanye West - New Slaves: Staggering machine-gun beat and genuine anger helps to offset some of the lyrical missteps. 10. Iron & Wine - Grace for Saints and Ramblers: Just a solid AM radio song. Whatchu got?

He's such a bad, bad actor, too, though. Like even when he says "We the people" it comes across as a dude saying stuff because he's been told to, unlike Colter and Cesaro who look like they genuinely believe it.

I'm bummed there's this much Peter Weir talk and no mentions of 'Fearless'! One of my favourite movies of the 90s (Watch it for the poll!). Jeff Bridges plays a man who survives an airplane crash and decides he must be immortal, then finds it difficult to interact on a daily basis with anyone who didn't face the same thing he did. That scene where he drives down the empty road and leans his head out the window while he accelerated is one of the best moments of pure joy ever set down on film. Plus, the crash itself is just harrowing beyond all belief. It's a good 'un.

I actually liked the Ziggler-AJ segment. Ziggler was funny enough ("There's this girl at the DMV who owes me a favour 'cuz when she had her leg up behind...wait, that's not PG..."). Also, I don't understand why people are upset about Ziggler not reacting, he had reasoning for all of it. It's like a little kid trying to take out revenge on an adult and failing poorly ("I'm gonna run away!") and it put Ziggler across as a cool guy, moreso than anything else. I was half-expecting AJ to bring out some embarrasing underwear, or dick-cream or something, so I'm pleased with the way it went. I loved the ADR-RVD thing because it was so out of nowhere. Christian looked fine, but I'm starting to think Jack Swagger might be the rest regular wrestler in WWE. He's just a poor, poor actor. Like sub-Sid Vicious when it comes to acting. There was one part where he was supposed to run into the corner and Christian dodged and he did it at half-speed and still had to stand and stop and wait to get hit. He's maybe just not cut out to be a pro wrestler. Sandow was on fire all night. I was happy to see that Henry didn't come out to the ring smiling and/or slapping hands. He was awesome with Booker T, too. I'm becoming a pretty big Fandango fan. The way he is just so into his own gimmick, never looking ticked off or like he's acting, but just selling every second he comes out of the curtain. Hopefully WWE keeps him heel, the worst they could do is turn him into another Santino. Highlight of the night, though, was Luke Harper busting out the "Yeah yeah yeah" in his match.

In this thread, a lot of movies I actually like/didn't mind. I didn't think INPYCaL was all that bad. I certainly didn't really find it offensive, save for maybe Rob Schneider as an Asian dude. Nacho Libre was okay. A priest moonlighting as a luchadore. Nothing wrong with that. One of the best movies of the 2010s. I don't mind 'The Missing'. There's a pretty king-sized Tommy Lee Jones performance in there. I love 'Napoleon Dynamite'. So bizarre, so funny, so perfect. TDKR was excellent. I have no idea how one could hate it, unless you're diametrically opposed to superhero movies. It was way better than the more lauded Avengers. Dark Shadows was way better than I thought it would be. Just a silly, dark Tim Burton comedy. I like Broken Flowers. Bill Murray being himself visiting all his ex-girlfriends trying to find out which one gave birth to the son he never met. Great Ethiopian jazz soundtrack, great nudity, and a great Jeffrey Wright performance. The ending is kinda off-putting at first, then kinda grows on you when you think about it. 'Mission Impossible 2' is great. Best of the series. Anchorman?! Pffft, get out of here! Probably the best comedy of the 21st century.