Tag Archives: Review

Writing

The Rise and Fall of Vince McMahon, a review of Netflix’s Mr. McMahon.

Leave a comment

INTRODUCTIONS: Let’s get two things out of the way before I begin this review. First, I had a micro investment in WWE in 2014, having bought stock. About 25 shares total. I sold those stocks in November the same year, due to ineptitude of the industry. Second, My entire family, going even back to my late grandfather, all loathe McMahon with a passion, so we’re highly biased. I have no doubt that all the allegations were true and hopefully him and everyone involved get what they deserve in court. That said, this documentary isn’t without flaws from the beginning.

WRITING: Fine

VISUALS: Fine. It’s a documentary, not much to deal with.

EDITING: Swamy and misleading.

CONTENT: Worthless. It’s billed as being about Vince, but is an an unstructured mess that deals more with wrestling in general than the subject matter.

CONCLUSION: This thing is plagued with Swamy Micheal Moore style editing from the beginning. This automatically brings into question its journalistic integrity. They quote-mine and edit things out of context to make certain people or peoples look worse than it is. Bill Simmons is no better than McMahon is with the way he edited this documentary to favor his anti McMahon bias. Which, while I share his bias, still think it’s a disingenuous thing to do. Mind you, this is the problems with this “series” from episode one and I’m only 20 mins in and it’s insufferable.

This doesn’t really know what it wants to be. It wants to be journalism, but fails. it wants to be about its subject matter, but fails. it wants to be about wrestling, but fails. It stacks the doc with ass kissing McMahon sell outs, whilst being a hit piece at the same time. Billy Simmons is proven incompetent as a director and we’re no better off for see this documentary. Maybe in the future, someone could do a legit piece and have it make sense. Perhaps Netflix would have been smarter to have sold this to McMahon and let him destroy it.

2 out of 5 stars

Writing

Ghostbusters 4 1/2: Frozen Empire movie review.

Leave a comment

INTRODUCTION: So I waited a bit to see this movie until the BS died down, much like with the 2016 Ghostbusters. I think it’s helpful, especially when approaching a movie you loved for decades.

PLOT: The New Busters move back to NYC and fight a new big bad.

CHARACTERS :Very good and very well developed. Even the introduction of new characters is interesting. Pecks characters change is intriguing and interesting.

ACTING: excellent! Everyone brought their a game here.

DIALOGUE: Very well done.

STYLE: Excellent!

FX: Awesome. The mix of CGI and Practical work so well.

SUBTEXT: None. Regardless of what some people seem to say on the internet about an interpersonal relationship between one of the characters and a ghost be more than friendly ain’t there either.

CONCLUSION: Very slow burn of a movie that sets up a lot of interesting characters and equipment for a third installment. Gil Kenen did an amazing job with this movie and it made it Al the better. I very much look forward to a third installment.

4 out of 5 stars.

Writing

Football Season and the Bets

Leave a comment

So Football is upon us! Rejoice for those of us into sports betting. So if you read my post Draft Kings: A Primer then you know I have tried my hand at sports gambling. I was always pretty good at picking winners with no investment on Twitter, but that doesn’t mean I could make money on it. Whilst I have not made a sizable amount yet, I still can wager that I know a thing or two. That said, like in the premier guide

Warning: There is no such thing as in “expert” in sports betting. I write these to relay my thoughts and experience on sports. I do not recommend ever taking advice on gambling from anyone, including myself. Should you risk any money, you do so at your own risk and assume all responsibility on the outcome. I, nor anyone else, bear any responsibility in your bad decisions.

With that out of the way, I also pointed out that The Cleveland Garudians are looking like they will at least make the World Cup Series in 2024 as I predicted. I first made this prediction back in June of 2013, kinda as a joke with my best friend. 10 years later I posted it online and well, slap my ass and call me Nostradamus. Still, we shall see! I also think Cleveland will win the series again in 2027.

I bring this up, because my next pick came to me before Superbowl 58, which is that I think 2024-2025 is going to be the Chargers year. So we shall see.

I’m also hoping The Orlando Magic Win in 2025. NHL is a bit too evenly matched to really call it, but I think the Kings might put on an amazing showing, maybe even getting the Stanley Cup.

EDIT: October 1 2024, I foresee a Columbus Blue Jackets as season winners.

I already won my first NFL bet of the season, kinda, by picking the bears to win the Hall of Fame game and thanks to inclement weather, well, they kinda won. so I’ll take it.

Still not a big fan of parley picks, but I’m kinda getting my bearings on them. I still favor money line bets as well.

So let’s look at the games and see what I think

Week One

Source: ESPN for the screenshot. Red marks my own.

I’ll be the first to admit in this roster, my Cleveland and Carolina Panthers picks are wishful thinking. Ohio has made me some decent money in recent memory, barring 11/24/23, a day that will live in infamy, when all but one Ohio team lost. I don’t know what games I am going to pick to bet on, but this is my starting list and like with pro wrestling my card is subject to change.

Week Two

I’m going to admit that my pick on Cin and Detroit seem weak and will probably be wrong. I can also admit that the Seahawks have a good chance in their game as well. Washington is also a weak choice, but not going to stop me from calling it how I see it.

Week Three

I think most of these will be strong choices in this week.

Week Four

So this we’ll be the last week I’ll be predicting, for now. By this time we should all have a good understanding of where the season is going and what to expect.

I’m fairly confident in most of these picks and think I’ll come out the other side on them, should I choose to bet any money. One thing is for sure, it seems this season will be interesting.

-Kage

“The Pauxatwany Phil of Sports Gambling”

Writing

Fireball Wiskey BBQ

Leave a comment

Remember this in The 40 Year Old Virgin?

Well, apparently the good people over at Fireball decided it needed to be a bbq sauce flavor. It taste smoky, cinnamon flavored with a hint of booze and pepper. While I can discern all three, it’s hard not to notice that the real discripton should read

“Warning, taste like that “girl” your frat brothers introduced you to, your freshman year of college and all you could remember the next day was thinking your mouth tasted of Virginia Slims, booze and big red chewing gum.”

To be fair, if you don’t use it as a dipping sauce, like I did and you put it on the food that you cook, it’s almost tolerable, given most the flavor burns off.

This video sums up how one should feel about it, not just the bad sex you had that night but the taste of this fuckin bullshit!

1 out of 5 stars

Writing

Ingnorantrum ex priortium

Leave a comment

I have a lot of thoughts on this thing called the Mandela effect. I think it’s mostly bullshit, because the science shows it’s known as an effiecint memory when you can’t recall stupid worthless stuff, like the lyric to the song. I got to thinking this morning and tonight, as I’m apt to do, about memory and priorities. When you’re a singer, you might be more prone to remembering vocals better, it impacts the mind more. Same for whatever instrument you fancy most. I love guitar, so I see a lot through the lens of a guitarist.

So this morning, I busted out my Slash AFD Epiphone Les Paul and plugged it into a Femder Mustang amp, with a cry baby. I was just mesyaround as I am apt to do. So for some reason, Crmison and Clover popped into my head. The Tommy James and the Shondells song. My parents were born in the 60s mind you and I heard the song growing up, my parents had albums of a lot of different 60/70/80s bands. So while I’m not overly familiar with it, my mind can still recall it, via something like pitch perfect. So as I am working out a rendition by ear, I was thinking of that one echo fx in the chorus and I was like “oh, cry baby it.” This was before I decided to listen to the song and see what parts of it i might be forgetting.

The echo effect is in the vocals, via plugged in mic with the tremlo set high. My priorities have always been to guitar though, so it isn’t weird that my first thought for that part was the cry baby. Especially since I’m not a vocalist, since the only ways I can carry a tune is by doing death metal vocals or punk vocals. I can use the stuck chords and almost sound like I know what I am doing. Granted I can do a few vocal parodies, but those do not count. So naturally my thought is to make my guitar sing for me. this is a form of thinking things out, just not entirely honed for most people. Since one of my goals since I was young, was to always be a better guitarist, I am aware of this because I want to hone that thinking aspect in the same way I have honed all my other thinking aspects since I was younger. Be razor sharp at as many things as I can be.

I watched a few YouTube videos after I worked mine out to see what others were interpreting and while I found some interesting arrangements. I noticed that, similar to myself, their memory of the song was based in what was a priority to them.

So to recap, I believe this is actually one of the many things people blame on the mendala effect, which isn’t. I call it ignorance from priority. It’s when you have a priority, even if it’s unbeknownst to you and your mind attempts to work it out as if you would as a guitarist or anything else for that matter, even if you’re not a musician, actor, director or anything else for that matter, because feasibly you could do any of these things, even if it’s not at the highest level. People then take it as if they got it wrong, when they didn’t, they just weren’t aware of a cognitive bias working the figurative math out.

Writing

Thanksgiving by Eli Roth

Leave a comment

INTRODUCTION: So about 14 years ago, a movie came out called Grindhouse. It was making fun of 70s/80s exploitation films of the past. Not a bad couple of flicks in Tarantino later, but far from his best. The best part of the whole double feature billing was the faux trailers during it. Thanksgiving was one of those trailers that really stood out besides the Rob Zombie one and the other from Shaun of the Dead director Edgar Wright. So, all these years later and this movie is a trailer no more. What to make of it?

PLOT: Thanksgiving is upon Plymouth Massachusetts and there is a killer on the lose. Oh noes!!!!!

CHARACTERS: Not bad, but a tad bit more development would have been nice.

ACTING: Very strong given the source material was a joke, throw away thing.

DIALOGUE: Excellent

STYLE: Excellent

FX: Very good

SUBTEXT: Zero

CONCLUSION: I normally hate everything Eli Roth has ever done. Hostel sucked, Cabin Fever sucked, everything but this trailer sucked. Incidentally, this movie, trite in certain ways though it may be, really worked. A few jump scares got me and Eli finally struck a nice balance between gore/fx and nuance. There only a couple small flaws, but otherwise this is a horror movie and I would love a sequel.

3.8 out of 5