S.K.o.S.

I've seen this on a few top ten lists for horror this year and want to check it out. Did you get it on demand? I didn't, but VOD seems to be the way to go to watch it legitimately right now. http://starryeyesfilm.com/where-to-watch

Watched Starry Eyes last night (not to be confused with Bright Eyes). That's gotta be one of the top 5 horror movies of the year. Very good performance from the lead, and the third act, in terms of sheer violence, is right on the level of any of the new wave French extreme horror from the late 2000s. I was expecting things to get crazy, but not that crazy.

According to the New York Post's "sources", Sony is now planning to release the movie on their streaming service, Crackle, for free. http://nypost.com/2014/12/21/sony-plans-to-release-the-interview-on-crackle-for-free/

Here's a largely uninteresting personal story. A buddy of mine texted me a while back that he had passes to a preview screening of The Interview. At the time, I had no interest in seeing it, so I never followed up with him. If I'd known all this was going to happen, I would've gone to see it just for short-term bragging rights (I think the odds are still pretty decent that we'll all be able to see it in the long term). I texted him today to ask if he'd gone to see it. He replied "No, I never used the passes... Had u gone with me I would have... I blame u" So some people blame Sony, some people blame the theatres, some people blame Kim Jong-un, and at least one person blames me.

Here's the FBI going on record as saying they believe the North Korean government is responsible. http://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/update-on-sony-investigation

You're going to poop yourself over Werckmeister Harmonies. Might want to wear diapers.

They're not going to release it on VOD or DVD either, according to Variety. http://variety.com/2014/film/news/sony-has-no-further-release-plans-for-the-interview-1201382167/ Maybe some counterterrorists can hack into Sony and leak it online!

Thought Sony were the ones who gave them the okay to opt out of showing it if they wanted to.

I'm torn on whether or not that's the right thing to do. "Don't let the terrorists win" vs. "It's just a movie".

glfpunk, if you weren't already aware, interest in Punk is at a fever pitch right now after he did a couple of podcasts in the past week slamming the WWE. So everything is sort of magnified right now, and it might cool off a little bit if we all have to wait a few months before he actually fights.

FWIW I had Lawler winning the first and fifth, Hendricks winning the second and third, fourth round I thought was close but would've given it to Lawler if I had to pick. Was baffled by the 49-46 though.

No where yet. I am sure there are... ways... to see it now But it doesn't appear to have been "released" yet. Though usually documentaries get the "On Demand same day as theater" treatment Amazon Instant seems to have it. Might be some Canada vs. US issues in terms of availability, but here's the link where I can see it: http://www.amazon.com/Sheik-Khosrow-Vaziri/dp/B00P7PH4V6/ref=sr_1_2?s=instant-video&ie=UTF8&qid=1417652382&sr=1-2&keywords=the+sheik

I finally watched it this past weekend. Co-sign on everything you said (already liked Teller due to Spectacular Now, but he's way better here). It's damn good. Just off the top of my head, my top five of 2014 in no particular order would be something like Whiplash, Coherence, The Babadook, The Drop and Haemoo. Still lots more to see, though.

I don't think Punk really believes Ryback intentionally injured him, even though that's what he says. I think he's just making the point that Ryback was really, really bad in the ring at that point in time, and making that point in kind of a dickish way. It's an Occam's Razor thing - it's more believable that Ryback was intentionally trying to injure Punk, than it is that he fucked things up that badly. He was THAT bad. Like if someone asked Punk "What do you think Ryback's motivation was for intentionally trying to hurt you?", he'd probably say "I have no idea, but he must have been trying to hurt me, because it's nearly impossible to fuck up that badly by accident." Hope that makes sense. I'm drinking.

I was actually down on Norton in the '90s since there's a good number of his roles that smack you in the face and go "Look! I'm ACTING!" Like, people would be high on his acting because the movie tells you he's a great actor. (Primal Fear and The Score are the ones that come to mind, I think you could make an argument for Rounders, might be others.) But in that sense, it's perfect casting. The role is right in his wheelhouse.

Okay, re Survivor Series, for whatever it's worth, Dylan Hales is saying on Twitter that (note, this spoiler is not about the potential debut that was mentioned a few pages back)

In 2012 I read a bunch of non-fiction, and this was one of the books that I enjoyed the most. It still flies right by, but going back to it now after everything else we've been reading, the writing felt very basic to me for whatever reason. Apparently this guy got nominated for a Pulitzer, so maybe he was purposely trying to keep it simple here. There is a note at the end about this, where he basically says that he recreated dialogue from memory, and acknowledges that memory is supposed to be unreliable but whatever. Re the kids' writing, he says that the only changes he made were to correct spelling and punctuation. I don't have a problem with that, except that there are other times where he reproduces writing that he didn't like and purposely does not correct spelling (his earlier experience teaching a creative writing class, and the time with Virgil when the class was getting overcrowded. Actually I have mixed feelings about the Virgil story - I don't like that he didn't fix the spelling, but I like that it shows that not every word written by a young offender was automatically golden to him, which makes everyone else's writing seem that much more impressive). That feels like more of a cheat to me. My big thing with this book was that I read it and I liked most of the kids, but when I step back and think about it, I felt like information was being deliberately withheld, and that had to be done in order for me to like them. We don't necessarily need to know any more than "most of these kids are here because they killed someone" and the in-depth examination of Kevin's case, although I'm really curious what happened with someone like Wong. And one of the themes is that we're supposed to be willing to give them second chances and not to judge them for one mistake. But part of me feels that most of them probably don't deserve a second chance, and I want whatever they did to be emphasized more. Then another part of me feels like a dick for thinking that way Also I love that line "The priest's son started trippin' so we fucked that punk up in the parking lot." Quite the attention-grabber.

Raptors ended up winning by 41, one point shy of the franchise record for margin of victory.

I was expecting Alan Eagleson

Is there somewhere to find a quick list of who exactly is contracted with ROH? Like does this mean no more Cole in PWG? No more Young Bucks?

Okay, if I keep watching two movies every weekend I should catch up eventually. Birdman: This really does have a lot to say about acting. There's obvious stuff like how having a popular role can be a curse, the pressure of wanting to sell out and do what the public wants, and how critics sometimes have their own agendas. But look a little deeper and there's also commentary on how the public really makes actors famous irrespective of talent (and can also ignore the truly talented), whether performing for a smaller, less important audience can be worth it if they enjoy what you do, how public taste sometimes makes very little sense, and just how thin the line between success and failure can be. I didn't find the single-shot stuff to be a big deal, except in the sense that it made the performances seem more impressive, because it makes it look like people are doing big scenes one right after the other. One of the most poignant, straightforward moments for me may have been the Times Square scene, the subsequent YouTube video, and the "This is power" line - it says in five minutes what took Chef an entire movie. Nightcrawler: Jake Gyllenhaal keeps finding new and creative ways to play "weird," and he's so great here. There's even a poster for this movie where he manages to look not quite right just by standing there. I'd been hearing some criticism of the soundtrack, and yeah, the music never quite seemed entirely appropriate, but I think that was either part of the movie-long effort to keep Jake's character at least a little sympathetic, or a creative way of showing us how messed up the character is, by having the music present him to us as he sees himself. Like it'll be this intrepid adventure music when he gets to a crime scene before the police and starts doing questionable things, or a stirring, inspiring anthemic piece when he gives that off-kilter speech about his career to Rene Russo. Stay tuned for my timely hot take on Interstellar next weekend! Or maybe the weekend after that!

I think the idea is that if a show legitimately sells out, you have lots of people in one place, which is one of the necessary ingredients for a riot. That's what the government is trying to prevent. If they step in and buy up most of the tickets, presumably they don't do anything with the tickets after buying them, and you end up with many fewer people at the show (even though all the tickets were sold) and thus a riot is less likely.

So I got a job offer today, and it's a decent increase in pay over my current job. That's the good news. But it'd also be a longer commute, and I'd get virtually no vacation time for the rest of 2014, which means I wouldn't be able to see my parents for Christmas. I'm thinking I'll give my current employers the opportunity to match the salary increase if they want to keep me. That'd be the best of both worlds. Hoping they say yes, but fully prepared to walk away if they don't. The last time I left a job, it was because I was being laid off, and I was unemployed for the next 6 months. This "being proactive about my career" gimmick is a lot better.

Yes, whichever one of them does it (Nick?) was doing it in the Best of the Super Juniors this year. It got over too, Japanese crowds were laughing at it. It's actually even funnier in the bigger New Japan ring because he has to walk halfway across it after the handspring with a "fuck this shit" look on his face. edit: somehow didn't see PowerPB13's post, but mine's longer so I'll leave it

Raiders are doing stuff. 2 interceptions for Peyton.