Yanks win and the last of the underdog list.

Big day for the Yankees, as they wiped out the D-Rays 12-1. Kevin Brown looked okay, and my Rotisserie team was happy to take 3 homers and 9 RBI from Jorge Posada and Hideki Matsui. No baseball that means anything till Monday now though, so I can tweak my roster and not take any hits for it.

Okay, so finally I'm down to the last 25 on this list.

76. A Perfect World - Interesting Clint Eastwood movie that no one saw. Surprisingly good Costner performance in this one.
77. The Rules Of Attraction - Bret Easton Ellis movies should not be filmed. That said, this is second best out of the three attempts at Ellis, but far inferior to American Psycho.
78. Point Break - Dude, I'm a surfing FBI agent. Next~!
79. Jesus' Son - Never seen it, no opinion except to say that it seems to have a really good cast.
80. A Knight's Tale - The movie that forced Heath Ledger on us. Written by the apparently schizophrenic that also masterfully adapted "L.A. Confidential" for the screen. Big, big P.O.S~!
81. The Tailor Of Panama - Never saw it, but it rented a lot when it came out. No opinion.
82. Testament - The film that should have been seen on ABC instead of The Day After. No big special effects, no stunt casting, just a sad, moving, quiet elegy for the passing of the human race. Truly a movie that more people should see.
83. Home For The Holidays - Bleagh. Next~!
84. And The Band Played On - HBO's attempt to do a stunt casting style drama of the type they used to make in the 60s and 70s, but about AIDS. As good as a 2 1/2 hour movie diluted out of a massive book could be, and Alan Alda steals the show as the sleazy doctor who tried to take credit for discovering HIV.
85. Zero Effect - Could be the inspiration for Monk. Ben Stiller and Bill Pullman are awesome, and the movie is wonderful. Too quirky for its own good, though.
86. Deterrence - Eh. Movie of the week level stuff, in my opinion. Kevin Pollack is good, though.
87. Candyman - Tony Todd. All that needs to be said.
88. Last Boy Scout - Shane Black strikes again. Bruce Willis movies(save Hudson Hawk) are not underdogs. That said, Taylor Negron and Michelle Harris pretty much steal the show out from under Willis and Damon Wayans, and the script is very witty.
89. Gods and Monsters - Brendan Fraser Acts. No, I'm not kidding. Oddly enough, from the same guy who did Candyman. Highly Recommended.
90. The Winslow Boy - David Mamet writes a movie in which no one swears. Really. Very well done, and unfortunately no one saw this. Great, great movie.
91. Batman: Mask of The Phantasm - Cannot say enough about this one. Easily on the same level with Burton's Batman, and far, far better then any of the sequels.
92. Gremlins 2 - Now here's a sequel that deserves to be on this list. Scattershot, filled with jokes that blew over the heads of its target audience, possibly even a better film then the original. John Glover really was one of the most underrated comedic actors of the late 80's and early 90's. This is the movie that Dante was striving to repeat with Looney Toons Back In Action, and unfortunately fell short of.
93. Pump Up The Volume - I think it's pretty dated today, but it was the shizzle when I saw it originally in the theatres.
94. Kissing Jessica Stein - Heterosexual girls who think they could be lesbians? Um, no. Next~!
95. The Prophecy - Lotta Walken on this list. This is a fun movie and the sequels are almost as good. Plus it has Aragorn as Satan and gratuitous Eric Stoltz.
96. Southern Comfort - A staple of The Movie Channel circa 1982-4. Walter Hill's most under-rated film.
97. A Life Less Ordinary - Danny Boyle pisses away the cred he got for Trainspotting. Wouldn't recover until 28 Days Later.
98. The Hudsucker Proxy - The lone Coen Brothers movie that gets no love. It's not bad, not great.
99. Breakdown - J.T. Walsh is the best thing about this one. Not a great movie.
100. Falling Down - Oh, look, a good Joel Schumacher film. Scarier then a lot of horror movies when you think about how many people like Michael Douglas' character actually exist in the real world. Very darkly humorous.

Well, that's the list. Not a complete load, but not great. Your mileage may vary.

Tomorrow, the ten movies that I think should have been on this list, and maybe I'll finally do something on music.

Why HHH jobbed, Yanks lose, Underdogs...

Raw was a good show last night for one thing and one thing alone. The HHH/Benjamin match was far and away the best thing they've given away at least in a few months, and it's nice to see HHH put the kid over. However, it's pretty obvious why he did. Shelton Benjamin is no threat to HHH's quest for the belt, and at best could main event in a year or two, with the proper push. Now, I'm not saying this in a bad way, because it was nice to see HHH do the job cleanly, without any runins or ref bumps, and because it was done in such a way that you were hanging on every move right up until the pinfall. This has been noticeably lacking of late on WWE TV, and it was a nice breath of fresh air to finish an otherwise average Raw. Too bad they'll probably give him the belt back at Backlash, now that he's shoehorned himself into the Main Event again.

Notes:
Foley/Orton Falls Count Anywhere, No Holds Barred at Backlash: Good promos by Foley and Flair to kick this off, but this should have been at WMXX and not at Backlash.
Molly's looking very Sinead O'Connorish now, but the wig thing's getting old already. And Nidia needs to spend some time with Fit Finlay. She looked dreadful last night.
Coach taking the green mist was funny as hell, but Tajiri/Kane was pretty dreadful.
So far, not really looking forward to Backlash. None of the matches other then Foley/Orton is looking very good.

Yankees lost to the D-Rays 8-3 in Tokyo this morning. Not much to say here as I didn't see the game, but if they lose tomorrow also, it's not going to bother me. (There's still 160 games left to go in the season.) But it was funny to hear the first caller to Mac and Sid on FAN this morning observe that FAN would be getting plenty of doom and gloom calls after the loss. I imagine it was a whinefest today.

Okay. Underdogs, Part the third.

51. Universal Soldier - Van Damme? Dolph Lundgren? You gotta be kidding me. Next~!
52. In The Line Of Fire - One of Clint's better films the last few years, but this was a critical and commerical success.
53. Liberty Heights - Barry Levinson revisits his Baltimore childhood. AGAIN. Next~!
54. Shadow of The Vampire - Fun, great fun, and it's got Willem Dafoe, Malkovich, and Eddie Izzard all trying to chew the scenery at once. Great film.
55. One False Move - Other then being the film that unleashed Billy Bob Thornton on us, no arguments here. Fine, fine film highlighted by Bill Paxton.
56. The Money Pit - Tom Hanks movies (save Joe Vs. The Volcano) cannot be considered underrated. For Christ's sake, he's our generation's Jimmy freakin' Stewart.
57. Drive - Now, here, here's a movie that defines this list. Originally made as an HBO/DTV movie, barely saw any release at all, and is a blueprint for the Rush Hour films. I cannot say enough good things about this movie. Mark Dacascos and Kadeem Hardison have an easygoing chemistry and there are a number of good fights and action sequences, plus gratuitous Brittany Murphy. Hollywood should make more movies like this.
58. Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead - And here's the other one. Unfortunately, this got shuffled around in the post-Tarantino, pre-Guy Richie crime movie phase, where every director with a hard-boiled script was getting money thrown at them. Treat Williams, Walken, Andy Garcia and Buscemi are all phenomenal. A must see from the director of Kiss The Girls and Runaway Jury.
59. Rounders - Eh. Would probably make more money now with the fad that is televised poker. Not a great movie by any stretch.
60. Birdy - Odd, odd, odd, but still worth your time.
61. City of Hope - With the exception of Eight Men Out and Lone Star, John Sayles is a filmmaker who defines the underdog film. I would quibble that maybe Brother From Another Planet should be here instead, but this is a fine movie also.
62. Stir Of Echoes - Okay, but not The Sixth Sense.
63. Society - Not for the weak of stomach, but very unusual. Too cult to be an underdog.
64. Hollywood Shuffle - no argument here. Without this movie, there would have been no In Living Color.
65. Mosquito Coast - No thanks. I prefer my Harrison Ford movies to be of the action variety.
66. Ed Wood - Phenomenal movie. Awesome, awesome, awesome. Managed to get my hands on the OOP Disney DVD that was pulled before release, and am happy for it.
67. 13 Days - It's not "The Missiles of October." Next~!
68. Big Night - no opinion, other then to say that Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub are fine actors.
69. A Midnight Clear - slow, slow, slow. No thanks.
70. 25th Hour - Great movie, rented a ton. Ed Norton's finest role other then Fight Club.
71 Jackie Brown - not up to the other Tarantino films, chiefly of note for reviving Pam Grier and Robert Forster's careers. Pass.
72. Super Troopers - I love Broken Lizard, and this movie rented like you wouldn't believe. I expect Club Dread to do the same when it comes out. Very much an underdog.
73. Beautiful Girls - Natalie Portman playing sexy smart and very jailbait is the only redeeming quality of this film. Your mileage may vary.
74. Casino - Martin Scorsese movies (save Kundun, maybe) are not underdogs. One of the most rented(and stolen) videos in our store.
75. Clean and Sober - AKA Beetlejuice acts serious. My cousin's ex-girlfriend, who is an addiction counselor, uses this movie with her clients. I've never seen it, so I have no opinion.

Tomorrow, we finish with the sequel that does belong here, the animated movie that also belongs here, and a couple more head-scratchers.

The world is coming to an end...

For the second time in three weeks, HHH jobbed cleanly in a match. He busted his ass to make Shelton Benjamin look like a million bucks, and for that, I give him much respect.

Kingdom Hospital, and part two of the Underdog list.

Watched the third part of Kingdom Hospital today. I'm a bit behind, as I don't get a lot of DVR time.(Too much Max and Ruby and Rubbadubbers.) Frankly, I don't know if I'm gonna make it until the end, because it's too damn confusing. Lars Von Trier's The Kingdom was 4 1/2 hours as opposed to the 15 hours that they're going to hit with this(though with all the f'n commericals ABC slaps in there, it's really about 12), and I remember it making a lot more sense. Episode three featured a sequence straight out of Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective, and I found myself wishing I was watching that instead. According to Fango, ABC is sharpening up the ax for it already, and will be moving it to Thursday at 9 where it can die a quiet death next to Must See TV. Maybe when it's on DVD, I can give it more of a chance.

So, anyway, let's go to the Underdog list, part the second.

26. Nothing To Lose - Uh, Martin Lawrence and Tim Robbins in a buddy comedy? No thanks. Next~!
27. Living in Oblivion - No argument here. Buscemi is fabulous and James LeGros is an excellent ersatz Brad Pitt.
28. Top Secret - What can I say about a true classic? Eminently quotable, and Val Kilmer missed his calling as a comedic actor. Between this and Real Genius, a pair of cable staples in my adolescence.
29. Antz - CGI from the un-Disney. Would be just another cartoon flop if it weren't for Woody Allen and Stallone being part of the voice cast. Far, far inferior to A Bug's Life.
30. Atlantis - Visual design by Mike (Hellboy) Mignola aside, more flat 2D animation that no one saw. Chud's description is true, move away from the Disney animation formula and you're doomed.
31. Fright Night - Worth it for Roddy MacDowall alone. A horror classic.
32. Long Kiss Goodnight - Saw this in the theater in my go see everything days. Cheesy, guilty fun, but not worthy of the list.
33. Wanted Dead or Alive - Bleah. Gene Simmons is the only redeeming factor here.
34. Cop Land - Stallone Acts. This got enough attention when it came out that it's not an underdog. Nearly got Stallone an Oscar nomination.
35. The Edge - David Mamet writes an action picture about tough men and bears. Not particularly good.
36. State Of Grace - Gary Oldman walks off with this one. Great movie.
37. Miami Blues - A very off-center cop movie. Great performance by Alec Baldwin.
38. The Peacemaker - Saw this in Orlando on the last night of my honeymoon. It's okay, not great by any stretch of the imagination, and Nicole Kidman shouldn't do action movies.
39. Ronin - Eh. Jean Reno and DeNiro's interplay makes the movie, and the car chases are good, but this isn't an underdog. Rented a lot.
40. Die Hard 2: Die Harder - Movies that gross over $100 million, especially pre-Titanic, are NOT underdogs, particularly movies that didn't kill franchises.
41. Temple of Doom - see above.
42. To Live and Die In L.A. - Just watched this again as it has just been re-released on DVD. Spectacular, spectacular piece of 80's filmmaking, and the best thing Friedkin would do until 2003's The Hunted. Plus it has copious blood and nudity.
43. James and The Giant Peach - Not Nightmare Before Christmas, but close. Very good.
44. Kiss of The Dragon - Not Jet Li's best, not even Jet Li's best U.S. release.(That would be Romeo Must Die.) Besson has written better action pictures for other directors(The Transporter, Wasabi, the Taxi series in France), and seems content to be a writer/producer now. His last film was The Messenger in 1999, and his last good directorial effort was The Fifth Element (which deserves a sequel if anything does).
45. Nighthawks - Stallone with a beard, in drag. Rutger Hauer, ruthless German terrorist. Lando Calrissian, action sidekick. Fun movie.
46. King Of New York - Not an underdog in my video store. Rents as much as Scarface and the Godfather movies. One of Walken's best films.
47. Heaven Help Us - Okay, hardly a classic, despite Donald Sutherland as a monk.
48. L.A. Story - Good, not great, best scene is Steve Martin roller skating through an art gallery. Has gratuitous Sarah Jessica Parker, proceed at your own risk.
49. The Specials - Never seen it, we never got it at my video store, and never run into it on the cable, therefore, no opinion.
50. Bill And Ted's Bogus Journey - see Die Hard 2. Bill Sadler's Reaper is priceless, though.

Tomorrow, Raw thoughts, the Yankees start the season in Japan, and 51-75, including the two movies that most truly deserve to be on this list, and more movies that don't.

Guthrie, American Nightmares, and Part One Of A Dissection(Long)

Guthrie. Guthrie, Guthrie, Guthrie, Guthrie, Guthrieeeeeee.

Now that that's out of the way...

Watched an interesting documentary today that is coming to DVD on Tuesday. The American Nightmare is an Independent Film Channel docu(I don't have IFC, so I'm seeing this for the first time) about how the horror films of the seventies were informed by the events of the sixties. The films focused on:

Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead: Night as allegory on the integration fight and to a lesser extent, Vietnam, and Dawn as allegory on the late 70's consumerist culture(one thing I understand is missing from the remake.) Also features some interesting commentary from Tom Savini on how his term in 'Nam led to his splatterific career.
Last House On The Left: Vietnam and Kent State. Not sure I see the connection to Kent State, seems more Craven as early 70's revolutionary.
Texas Chainsaw: The ennui of the hippie children, and also the gas crisis apparently(note the reason the kids get into trouble in the first place.). Tobe Hooper relates an amusing anecdote regarding coming up with the idea for the movie in a Montgomery Ward store line.
Halloween: Backlash of the sexual revolution. All victims are promiscuous and the virgin is the heroine.
The early Cronenberg, particularly Shivers: Also the sexual revolution, and a lot of weird psychobabble.(Cronenberg's a bit wacky.)

Overall, the docu is good, though the focus is narrow. You get the idea that most of these guys, particularly Carpenter, were more interested in scares and gore(particularly Craven) then subtext. But it's definitely worth a watch, though it would have been much better had it been a more fully fleshed out docu, i.e. IFC's 3-hour-long A Decade Under The Influence, which is about how 70's mavericks like Altman and Martin Scorsese bucked the system and made historic cinema.

Now for the dissecton: Over the next couple of days, I will be looking at a list that can be found here. It's a list of 100 so-called underdog movies that deserve more love, and I think it's a load for the most part, because our terms are ill-defined. Underdog means(to me, anyway) a movie that nobody saw, such as Office Space, that has developed a huge cult following on video, not a majorly pushed studio release like Contact. So here we go:

1-25
1. A Simple Plan - Sam Raimi does Fargo his way in an effort to re-invent himself. No real argument here, though The Gift was better.
2. The Devil's Backbone. - again, not much argument here, though Cronos would be a better choice.
3. Mr. Frost - Eh. Not a great movie by any stretch of the imagination.
4. Nightwatch - What is it about foreign filmmakers who come to the US to remake their own films and end up screwing them up? Between this cinematic abortion and Georges Sluzier's destruction of The Vanishing(which didn't need an American Happy Ending), the last thing I want to see with a remake is the original filmmaker trying to make a US film. A good example of a well done American remake is Insomnia. See that instead of Nightwatch.
5. In The Mouth Of Madness - Great movie. No argument here.
6. Night Falls On Manhattan - Definitely overlooked. Very good film.
7. The Arrival - Charlie Sheen as an astronomer? Puh-leeeze. Next~!
8. Time After Time - Great film, but not overlooked. Very well regarded at the time, and a staple on pay cable throughout much of the 80's.
9. Brotherhood of the Wolf - How could a film with so much genre coverage be regarded as overlooked? I had customers in the video store I work for looking for it before it even had an American release date(much like Shaolin Soccer.)
10. Gattaca - Again, poor box office does not equal overlooked. This had major rental legs.
11. Dragonslayer - A classic example of what you had to work with to do that kind of genre film in the late 70's. A Disney/Paramount co-production that got buried at the box office.(I had the Marvel comic adaptation.)
12. Equilibrium - What a P.O.S.~! Boring, boring, boring post-Matrix action junk.
13. Deep Rising - No argument here. A classic from the director of the Mummy movies.
14. Mouse Hunt - You can't tell the parents at my video store that this is overlooked. Next~!
15. Space Truckers - Um, no. Next~!
16. The Blob - Fun, fun, fun and very gory. A late 80's Fango classic.
17. Contact - Eh. Not that great. Nice effects, though.
18. No Escape - Very B-esque, and supported by a fine Stuart Wilson villain role. Rents a lot.
19. Frequency - Rented a ton, no way is this overlooked. Fine movie.
20. Alien 3 - Fincher came in late, didn't want to do the movie, and got overruled at every turn. It's a terrible, terrible movie, but thankfully, Fox didn't hold it against him, and we got Fight Club as a result. Nonetheless, a sequel in a major film series cannot be called an underdog. Again, I think this is more a semantic argument, but I continue.
21. The Iron Giant - As proved by Disney, no one wants to see flat 2-D animation in a theatre anymore, unless the name Miyazaki accompanies it. That said, this rented a ton, and it's an excellent little movie.
22. Young Sherlock Holmes - No argument here. Great fun that no one saw in the theatres.
23. She's The One - Ed Burns, actor? Good. Ed Burns, writer-director? No thanks.
24. The Cable Guy - Huh? It's got about two good scenes in it, otherwise, it's just awful, awful, awful.
25. The Ref - Oh man, do I love this movie. No argument here.

Tomorrow, 26-50, or more sequels, flat animation, and a few movies that do belong on this list.

Go Huskies, and more boxing.

Go UConn~! That's about all I have to say about that. Good wins for both teams, though the women didn't look as impressive as the men.

Yanks are in Tokyo, but I thought YES would air the exhibitions. They are not. So I either get up at 5 am on Tuesday, or I DVR them and maybe see them later in the day. I think you can guess the answer to that one.

Boxing. Now I've only been watching boxing seriously for a few months, but I think I know a good fight when I see one. Tonight, I saw a bad, bad fight, one which the commentators very much wanted me to believe was good. Vinny Pazienza fought his retirement fight tonight, versus a ham'n'egger named Tucker Pudwell at Foxwoods, Vinny's back yard. Now let's see:

Home field advantage? Check.
Weak opponent? Check.
Retiring? Check.
Going for your 50th win before retiring? Check.

You guess the outcome. Now, admittedly, by the 6th round or so, Pudwell had no juice left on his punches. And Paz was just killing him late, though he couldn't get the KO. But the Comcast "announcers" never gave the kid a chance and were so sure it was a matter of time before he lost that they were completely ignoring the fact that Paz was fighting a shitty junkfest featuring stuff that would have gotten any other fighters point detractions during fights. He "knocked" Pudwell down twice, but one was basically a pushdown, and he was warned four times in about 4 minutes about pushing Pudwell down. That and the large cut under Paz's eye that was an elephant after about the 5th round made it obvious that the fix might as well have been in. I've also never seen a fight with so much trash talking going on in the ring during the match. I don't know why I even bothered.

Currently HBO is running matches, and it's like night and day watching Monte Barrett and Dominic Guinn as opposed to the Paz fight. I'd been trying to figure out why no one was carrying the Paz fight nationally. Now I know why.

Boxing, Jerry Orbach, and Spring, finally.

Good fight tonight on the Deuce. Kid named Ebo Elder, 17-1 but hadn't fought in 2 1/2 years after a big 1st round knockout loss, beat an undefeated prospect named Oscar Diaz, who was stronger and bigger. Diaz never seemed to have much offense going, except for the second round and the last, when he went on the offensive as it became clear he wasn't going to win the fight. Elder pretty much had carte blanche throughout the fight, peppering Diaz with whatever he felt like hitting him with. Nice story too, as Elder had been estranged from his dad, who is his trainer, but they reunited for the fight. It'll be interesting to see if he shows up down the line.

Flipped back and forth between the fights and the hoops. I hate Duke. Just wanted to get that out there.

Jerry Orbach might be hanging up his gun and shield on Law And Order.

Sources: Orbach Leaving 'Law & Order'

Fri Mar 26, 4:52 PM

By DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer

NEW YORK - It may be time for a less stressful job for Detective Lennie Briscoe.

Veteran "Law & Order" actor Jerry Orbach is likely to leave the hit NBC drama after this season, his 12th as Briscoe, according to industry sources who would not speak for attribution on Friday.

Orbach may not venture too far professionally: he's reportedly in line for a job in the fourth installment of the crime franchise, "Law & Order: Trial By Jury."

That series is expected to join "Law & Order," "Law & Order: SVU" and "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" on the NBC schedule next fall.

Orbach has portrayed Briscoe since 1992, the show's third season. It's still going strong in the ratings for NBC, and reruns are also a hit on cable's TNT.

"Law & Order has a 15-year track record that (series creator and executive producer) Dick Wolf never comments about casting changes during the season," said Neil Schubert, a spokesman for Universal Studios.


Not that we need more L&O on the tube, but if it gets ratings for NBC, it's certainly better then reality TV.

Nice day today, sun was out, and it was in the mid-sixties this afternoon. Had the windows open in the living room, which is also nice.

More boxing tomorrow night, and hopefully UConn in the Final Four.

The joys of the grey market and other less savory DVD sources...*

*disclaimer: These are the rantings of a geek. Please nod and smile and pretend you know what the nice man is talking about, then back away slowly.

Got an envelope from one of my favorite webstores(which shall remain nameless due to what I bought) today. They are a web site catering to that segment of the film geek market that isn't happy with the spoonfed release schedules of major studios. A lot of what they carry might be considered somewhat marginal by all but the most hardcore cult movie fans, but they actually carry some titles that mainstream audiences might be surprised to see in existance.

Case in point, my envelope today.

Dellamorte Dellamore and Battlefield Baseball, Italian zombie comedy and Japanese bizarre comedy/horror respectively, ordered for my friend Brendan in exchange for a 10-pack of DVDRs(we'll talk about those in a bit.) Both are subbed, Dellamorte having previously been available in the US under the title Cemetary Man, which only sort of makes sense when you watch the movie, and featuring a pre-stardom Rupert Everett killing zombies and falling in love with one of the undead.

Forklift Driver Klaus, which is a 20-minute German short, apparently very gory, which I haven't watched yet.

And the true bounty. Let me just say that I'm not a HARDCORE Star Wars geek. (not like Hillside, anyway.) I don't own every figure and comic and novel and bit of esoterica that relates to the movie. However, I do have cherished memories of seeing the original films in the theatres, and am somewhat of a purist when it comes to them. As a result, in 1997, I was somewhat dismayed to find that George Lucas had gone back and tinkered with the originals, to "fix" them. Lucas has some sort of half-assed theory that he imparts on the VHS of the Star Wars SE about films not being finished, but rather "abandoned." Now, mind you, I did go see the SW and Empire re-releases in the theatre, but couldn't bring myself to see Jedi again. (Frickin' Ewoks~!)

Then came Eps 1 and 2, which are an entire post unto themselves, and then the announcement in February that the trilogy was coming to DVD in September. We all knew that Lucas wouldn't give in to the fan pressure and release the originals along with the "fixed" version. Subsequently, there have been some rumors that Lucas is still tinkering with the trilogy, presumably to fix all the BIG GLARING continuity errors that have been sprinkled through Eps 1 and 2.

Still with me? Okay, back to my magic envelope. The webstore, which shall remain nameless, carries the original trilogy in a hidden section of their site. Not the "fixed" versions. The original theatrical trilogy. On DVDR. All three movies for $30, widescreen and in 5.1 stereo, burned off of the "Definitive Edition" laserdisc releases put out in '95 or '96 before the "fix". They look crystalline on my TV, and slightly less so on my higher definition monitor, but they beat the shit out of my VHS copies of the originals. So I'm having a bit of geek orgasm here.

Some of the other grey market material that I have acquired through this source include the non-unicorn European theatrical cut of "Blade Runner", which retains the Harrison Ford narration and happy ending, a nice copy of Frank Zappa's "200 Motels" also burned off laser, and a Japanese/American coproduction called "Virus", directed by the late Kinji Fukasaku, who also directed "Battle Royale" and the spectacularly bad SW ripoff "Message from Space."

My boy Brendan is also hooking me up, due to the wonders of DeCSS and other DVD crack software. So far, he's given me a great Opeth concert DVD, "Lamentations", and the second disc of Cowboy Bebop. More goodness is to come. (I have no ethics when it comes to money vs. my addiction to DVDs, what can I say?)

Well, so much for one day of interesting potential for SD!.

411 is reporting that on SD! Thursday, HHH is going to be traded back to Raw for the Dudleys and Booker. Which sucks. So much for big changes, huh, Vince? Also, Kurt Angle has been named as GM of SD!, which makes sense because of his neck injury, and because now he can mess around with Eddy as heel GM. I figure this is a holding action until they put Steph back on TV.

Watched some of The Rundown tonight. Pretty entertaining, in a put your brain on the shelf and watch sort of way. As is usually the case in movies he appears in, Christopher Walken is the movie, though I do think the Rock has a certain easygoing charisma that is going to eventually lead him to a $300 million box office success. Unfortunately for him, it won't be Walking Tall, which is probably going to be smoked by Hellboy when they open on April 2.

Why does Vince hate us so?

Raw Thoughts and Giant Monsters

Raw was interesting tonight. What started out as a bust that seemed chiefly interested in breaking up tag teams and moving around insignificant wrestlers changed when John Cena came out, cut a promo, and then picked a ball for Paul Heyman. The ball contained the one name I didn't expect to hear anyone say tonight.

HHH is going to Smackdown.

This makes some things very interesting, and seems kind of odd, given the nature of recent internet reports about him not wanting to work with Benoit, and lobbying for Edge to come to Raw(which is happening, as he was one of Bischoff's picks. He later came out, speared Bischoff, and appears to have been receiving packages from Balco during his off time.) RVD also got switched, though this had been anticipated, and even foreshadowed by the fact that he and Booker dropped the tag straps to Flair and DAVE tonight. The show ended with Eddy vs HHH for the Big Gold Belt, a match that ended in the greatest slugfest ever shown on TV. Both locker rooms were surrounding the ring, battling it out with each other. There must have been 75 guys brawling at ringside. The match was a DQ win for Eddy, thanks to run-ins by Evolution, Christian, and HBK(who cut a very cocky heel promo tonight, and who will face Benoit at Backlash.)

Quickies:
Nidia was drafted to Raw, which means she might actually get a chance to wrestle. Most people forget that she was a Tough Enough winner, and actually has some skills.
Heyman "quit" after being drafted to Raw and objecting to being Bischoff's bitch. I figure this is the jumping off point for the rumored revival of ECW, which will be cool if done right. This also leaves the door wide open for Vince to bring back Stephanie, which is not cool.
La Resistance is broken up, as is Benjamin/Haas, which means not much probably, but at least some potential singles pushes for Benjamin and Rene Dupree.
Surprisingly, very little Vince tonight. I figured he'd be more involved in the shenanigans and goings-on.

On giant monsters, apparently, Toho is filming some sequences of the "last" Godzilla movie in Australia, with Sydney standing in for the Big Apple. Toho claims this is the final movie, and given the last few movies' performance, it'd be hard to disagree. The guy who directed Versus and Azami is directing it, which should be interesting. Imagine Quentin Tarantino directing a G-film, and you're not far off.

Off to bed. More thoughts on the lottery tomorrow, after the rumor mill starts.

Man, I feel old.

Game Show Network, or GSN, as they want us to call them now, is showing a history of video games right now, and it makes me feel old, seeing the Intellivision and remembering when it was new and cool. Between that and a day spent at work listening to the New Wave Flashback channel is making me feel about a million years old. Feh.

GSN, by the way, is looking to alienate it's core audience by de-emphasizing the old shows in favor of stuff like televised blackjack and reruns of Celebrity Mole. Part of the attraction, for me anyway, has always been the cheesy old 70's and 80's game shows, the Press Your Lucks, Match Games, and Joker's Wilds, and I think GSN is making a mistake by trying to become the Spike TV of game shows.

Dawn of the Dead took out The Jesus Chainsaw Massacre this weekend. I've seen neither, though I will probably be taking in JCM before too long. I've been told by several people around me that the remake kicks ass, but I have a preference for slow, shambling Romero/Fulci zombies as opposed to the Bruno Mattei/28 Days Later/House of the Dead superspeed zombies. But then I'm wary of horror remakes in general, particularly when they're picking on an old favorite. I have a copy of the Texas Chainsaw remake sitting on top of my DVD player, but I'm feeling somewhat ambivalent about putting it in. Maybe tomorrow. Plus, they're gonna remake The Hills Have Eyes, and possibly Pet Sematary and Last House On The Left. Bleagh.

Boxing vs. Wrestling, and fun with the Potty.

Today we bought the potty, $14.96 at Wal-Mart. My daughter has been slowly working up to this with my wife's help, and we decided on the midrange potty. This one doesn't play music, or congratulate my daughter for pottying, but it does break up into a seperate seat for pottying once she's a bit bigger. Soon, no more diapers. Woo-hah~!

So, I spent the better part of yesterday kiilling stuff off my hard drive. I watched this week's South Park(nearly peed myself at what started out as a spoof of anime, and ended as a commentary on Janet Jackson and "The Passion of The Christ"), Chappelle's show(spotty at best), two episodes of Law and Order(one good, one eh), then the important stuff, Showtime Thursday Night Boxing and WWE Smackdown.

I've decided two things.

1. Boxing has too many damn ranking organizations. I know this is obvious, but the last two fights I watched had 7 belts up for grabs in two main events. There were 7 matches for belts at Wrestlemania and none had more then one belt involved. The main event on ShoBox's thursday night show was for 4 belts. Not to unify one, but just for the winner to carry around 4 freakin' belts. Unfortunately, it was a farce, over in about a minute and a half. The other match, well, that brings me to my second point.

2. I think I just like having the match outcome be less random. The first match on ShoBox was between two middleweights, one of whom, Daniel Edouard, apparently had previously injured his hand. During the fight, it had become apparent that he'd reinjured his hand around round three or so. As a result, his dominant performance in the first couple of rounds petered out and the other fighter, Dorian Beaupierre, dominated the rest of the match, dishing out some heavy punishment which the first fighter, who was larger, was just soaking up. Fight ends, Beaupierre has obviously(to me, a novice fight watcher, anyway) won the fight. However, the judges see it as a majority draw.
Now I'm no fight expert, but this was no draw. While there were no knockdowns, Beaupierre dominated from about round 4 on. Despite a break in the action to replace Beaupierre's left glove, which was falling apart at the thumb, Edouard could not use the five-six minute break to recover mentally, and never got back into the fight. The only thing that I saw as a problem was that from about round 6 on, he was also showboating a bit, acting as though he knew he'd won the fight. Draw my eye.
In wrestling, only injury, mistake, or the whim of a certain company owner and CEO affects the outcome. When you sit down to watch a match, or a show, you know that for the most part, what you expect to happen is going to happen. Now don't get me wrong, two guys actually slugging it out is fine, but a draw that obviously shouldn't have been one is not.

Some quick thoughts on SD!:
John Cena is crazy over, though obviously moreso with his hometown crowd. Nice dig at Michael Cole, by the by.
I enjoyed the gauntlet matches greatly, though none as much as Eddy v. Rey. Now that was something else, and pretty close to TV MOTY so far, in my opinion.
Too bad Farooq had to get canned for real. Can't understand why, particularly since he was all but ready to retire anyway.
Hopefully this lottery doesn't break up the cruiserweight division.

Off to work shortly.

Tired...

nothing today, baby's sick, see you tomorrow.

More snow, and I get namechecked on a REAL blog.

What the hell is up with the weather? I know it's still winter and all, but "flurries" has turned out to be over an inch. Come on Spring~!

So, I don't know if you've seen the story, but if you'll look to your left, you'll observe a link to Jim DeGregorio's blog. He's an adult filmmaker under a bit of fire in the industry for making a PSA for a Christian anti-porn group who wants parents to be more responsible for making sure their kids aren't accidentally exposed to porn(i.e. their own squirreled away stashes.) I sent him an e-mail today just to say I supported what he's doing, bang, it's on his blog.

If you don't want to click, this is what he said:

More porners' thoughts on the XXX Church's PSA. (Maybe I’m not so shunned after all.)

Jon M., a guy who refers to himself as “Another video store clerk who supports you...” in the subject line of his email writes: “I just wanted to drop you a line and let you know that I think what you've done for XXXChurch is awesome. I am an assistant manager at an independent, non-adult video store which has an adult room (in Connecticut), and I have had occasion to kick underage kids out of my adult room more then once. Someone besides me should be telling them that they need to wait until they're old enough, and a man who makes kick-ass porn should be that person. The people who are giving you crap should realize that you're trying to keep the anti-porn crusaders who don't care about anything except putting you out of business at bay. Keep up the good work~! - Jon Muggleton, Lord and Master of the Tommy K's Video Porn Room, North Haven, CT.”


Apparently he's the first pornographer ever to appear on the 700 Club, as they did a story on the PSA and the controversy.

Before I go, I just want to give a shoutout to Gary, AKA Topps, my ITVR metalhead buddy who is in the hospital in Ohio recovering from reconstructive surgery on his throat for a major sleep disorder. Get well soon, Topps.

The snow, she comes.

Looking out the window, hoping against hope that my dad will say "F it, we take the day off." Currently, there's about 2 inches of snow on top of an inch or so of slush. Bleah.

Spent the evening with my buddy Brendan at the video store watching the snow and not having customers after about 8 or so. I am about 3/4 of the way through a massive reorganization of the adult video room. Now, I like the pr0n and all, but after looking at box after box, it gets dull. How many times can you see the same girls doing the same things with the same people?

But I am the king of the pr0n room after all, so I soldier on.

Brought home MVP Baseball for the Gamecube tonight, hopefully I'll get a crack at it tomorrow. The worst thing is I bought the 'Cube like 4 months ago, and I haven't plugged it in in about 2. I've got too much technology and not enough time to use it.

(Hey, made it through a post without mentioning wrestling.)

I meant it about the not being about wrestling. Honestly.*

*but this is a wrestling related post also.

Snowing today here. Despite the Home Depot's best efforts to convince us it's spring, we're expecting 3 to five inches here in Hamden. Not that it bothers me, but I gotta drive to work in it later.

Anyway, watched the first hour of Raw last night before passing out from exhaustion. The big news is that Vince is shaking up the rosters next week so that SD! guys will be switching to Raw and vice versa. This seems to be necessitated by the loss of Brock Lesnar to the NFL and the lack of any true heels on SD!(Undertaker doesn't count, he defies labeling.) Best case scenario: RVD goes to SD!, Evolution gets fractured to give Orton a true singles run, and Edge ends up on Raw when he comes back off his injury. Worst Case Scenario: Stephanie becomes GM of Raw(Vince did make a comment about family members being part of the lottery), and the McMahon/Helmsley regime of the dark days of 2000-2001 returns. Personally, I expect somewhere in between. Vince is right about the rosters becoming stagnant.

Quick thoughts:
Who did Matt Hardy pee on to become the king of getting squashed on Raw?
Molly O'Connor Holly looked very funny with the wig and chinstrap, but they should have waited more then one show to show her bald, similar to what they did when Angle got his head shaved by Edge.
Evil Trish = much better then Good Trish.

I have to watch the rest of the show, but I'm sure I haven't missed much.

I promise, next post won't be about wrestling. Really.

So, how about a real post?

*Disclaimer: This blog will not always be about wrestling.

Watched the big show last night. (That's Wrestlemania XX, to the rasslin' impaired.) It was the usual spectacle, and the best thing that I can say about it is that there was little to no McMahon in the show. Now, previous years have seen everything from A McMahon In Every Corner(the abortion that was the main Event of WM 2000) to Vince and Shane beating the ever-loving crap out of each other. But lately, fans have been seeing less and less of the McMahon clan on their tube, and that's a good thing. Steph has been off television since she and Trips got married, and Shane-O-Mac hasn't shown his face since getting tossed into an ambulance by Kane at Survivor Series.

So imagine my surprise when Vince came out long enough to cut a very brief, sincere promo thanking the fans for 20 years of support for Wrestlemania and the WWE. Then he went away, probably back to the Gorilla position, or off to crush another one-legged kid's hopes for a career in wrestling.(Whoops, that was a low blow.)

As a smarky smark smark (TM CRZ), I was very happy to see Benoit and Eddy with gold around their waists(the internet Geek Orgasm on that is just beginning, by the way). But the 12 year old in me was marking out for the return of the Dead Man, complete with torch bearers, urn, and Paul Bearer, who looks to have gained back a lot of the poundage that he lost around the last time he left TV. Once the match started, I reverted to smark, but damn if I didn't have chills watching the old school Taker come to the ring.

And I can't believe I'm saying these words, but good for HHH for losing cleanly to Benoit. Internet conspiracy theories have abounded in the weeks leading up to the show, mostly taking WWE to task for shoehorning HBK into the main event and suggesting that Benoit couldn't carry the match and wouldn't walk out of WMXX with the title. Even I had predicted that HBK would end up with the belt, after some combo of Pedigree and Sweet Chin Music. Surprisingly enough, HHH tapped to the Crossface, and somewhere in Canada, Scott Keith exploded.

The rest of the show was excellent, save for the Brock/Goldberg "Who cares" match. Brock flipping off the crowd and JR stammering out comments about internet rumors were about the best thing about it. And what was up with Ultimo Dragon? He couldn't even walk straight on his way down to the ring.

So what happens now? With Lesnar gone, Eddy will probably continue to feud with Angle, and there's already talk of another three-way at Backlash for the Raw title, probably a ladder match. The best match that could come out of last night's show would be Rock/Flair, since their segments of the Rock/Sock v. Evolution match were the highlight for sure. But Rock's on his way back to Hollywood, apparently. Foley will probably re-retire tonight, thus cementing Randy Orton's "Legend Killer" status.

It should be an interesting Raw.

First Post~!

This is my boobies, as the Filter at Fark would say. I'm not sure why I'm blogging, other then that old "If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?" thing. So this blog joins the others at ITVR. I will probably not update TOO frequently, but every now and then.