I’m sorry he whooped your ass in front of your former girlfriend. It happens.

She wasn't there, so you just shut up.

I hate it.  Personal beefs should be settled with a fist fight as a last resort.  Not with cowardice like this.

Hope he pulls through.

Such a different time.  Back in my day....you young whipper snappers....you could look around your high school parking lot and see numerous trucks with gun racks and 2-3 guns in them.  Nobody pulled them out to settle a beef, or go in and shoot up the school. 

I was a senior when me and Phil Owens threw hands in the 7-Eleven parking lot.  I'm sure it was over something vital to national security, like maybe he said something about my girlfriend.

Just saw the story on the Fox home page, so it's making the rounds nationally.  Quoted Hugh Freeze saying things took a turn for the worse last night, and he's still on a ventilator. 

Insidious: Behind the Black, Very Black, Deep Black Door of Darkness

Blumhouse, of course.

Zero scares. Lots of creepy-ish music that swirls around things that aren't even mildly frightening. Plus of course, the big Blumhouse calling card:  All "action" takes place in a palette so dark that it's almost impossible to tell what's going on. There's a black girl in it and as awful as it is to say?  During the action sequences she appears in the overlay is so inky black the only thing you can make out is the whites of her eyes and her teeth. 

You can't hide bad horror in a total blackwash, but goodness knows the Blums certainly try.  This is bad horror made worse by the jet blackness that envelops every scene. If it was good horror? It's not, but if it was? You'd never know it because everything that may or may not occur takes place in such deep darkness you have no idea what's happening. I got a headache from squinting at the screen trying to figure out if anyone or anything was there. 

The only thing worth seeing in this movie at all are a few scenes that include Rose Byrne.  She's not nudie or anything, but her face is pretty. 

Insidious needs to change its name to Insipid. 

The Iron Claw

My life as a wrestling fan was admittedly pretty short. I came in just before the beginning of the Attitude Era. Was there for the ascension of Stone Cold, the emergence of The Rock, the chaos of D-Generation X. Trish Stratus (yum) and Lita (double yum), the Hardy Boys, Kane, Undertaker, the Dudleys, Rashiki, Christian, Godfather, Val Venis, Ken Shamrock, Stephanie McMahon (yum yet again), Big Show, Bret Hart, Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, and more than any other Mankind/Mick Foley. 

When those guys started to vanish, so too did my interest. I didn't care about Randy Orton (at all). Batista didn't interest me.  No fan of Lesner, or Nash, or Flair, or Van Dam, or Steiner. Even Cena did nothing for me. The product changed and I moved on mentally. I don't remember choosing to stop watching, I just did.

I didn't know anything about this family - the Von Erichs - profiled in this film.  Maybe I should have, but I just didn't. Never heard of them before.

Lots of supposed talent on display. Bulked up (and ridiculous looking, honestly) Zac Efron. Bulked up Jeremy Allen 'Shameless Bear' White. Old-looking Maura Tierney (wasted in this). Snarling "you've seen him before but probably can't remember where" Holt McCallany, and Lily "Trying too hard with the accent" James.

The wrestling family tried to claw their way to the top of the ring world. Daddy (McCallany) came close but never made it even though he had a signature "Claw" move. He pushed his sons to get there. They kind of did. One of them beat Ric Flair once for some kind of title.

The family was plagued by stupid decisions and multiple suicides.

I never saw the point of this film. What was the arc?  They suffered from bad luck, apparent mental weakness, and the single-minded obsession of the dad, who lived vicariously through the accomplishments of his kids. There was nobody to root for, no real hero. They were all flawed, stupid, weak, and obsessed over something completely inconsequential. And then most of them stupidly killed themselves.

Not every life is a story worthy of being immortalized on film. This is one, to me, that really didn't have anything worthwhile to say - unless you're just interested in being mired in depression and nothingness.


Since the movie was soda pressing, here's a photo of Trish and Lita, 25 years after they rocked the ring and looked spectacular doing it....