RAW (July 9th, 2007) – R.. uh, Ruh, Ruh…Aww.

Some quick thoughts:

– No John Cena on the show; he was talking about steroids with Larry King. However, they managed to sneak in a taped interview. Boo.

– However, we could not get rid of Black Lesnar. The video promo he has just exposes his inability to cut decent promos or even look remotely intense.

– I love the commercial breaks where they cater to WWE events in Canada: “Hey, folks! This month’s Canadian Tour of WWE Live events have been postponed to a later date and the live appearance by Deuce and Domino at a shopping mall has been cancelled, but HEY! CHeck out the Great American Bash on PPV!” Idiots.

– Triple H is coming back. Who cares?

Actually, you know what? The show didn’t do much for me. I was paying more attention to my Doom game than I was the RAW show. Oh well.

MOVIE REVIEW – Independence Day (1996)

I remember the hype that went behind this movie. A fairly Super Bowl commercial, a FOX special, a bunch of related shows or something… I don’t remember the exact details, but I remember that there was a movement that was pushing this movie as a big deal. So much hype back in the day…

Back when it was released in 1996-ish, I thought Independence Day was a fairly satisfying movie. It didn’t have the most original plot in the world (aliens attempt to conquer Earth and it’s up to the humans to repel them – where have we NOT seen that one before?), but it was still a thrill to see the special effects, thrilling aerial battles, and whatnot. Some ten odd years later, the movie has lost much of its luster, but not so much its fun element.

Those “exciting” special effects? They still serve a purpose and they’re still okay, but nothing special. The plot is somewhat thin and the slow scenes are fairly slow enough to get you out of the mood. Even the tense moments seem predictable and it’s not due to repeated viewings. Despite all this, it’s still a fairly decent popcorn flick worth killing a night if you have nothing better to watch. It’s not a sophisticated movie, it’s not a masterpiece, it’s just a fun little action flick with aliens and lots of explosions.

Independence Day is worth a look if you’re looking for a quick fix of action movies, but anyone looking for high art should look elsewhere. Good messy fun.

RAW (July 2nd, 2007) – Average RAW This Week? Now Dat’s Cool.

After a depressing and tragic week that I hope you can all put behind us (I know I can), we return to our regularly scheduled Monday Night RAW program… and boy was it average. Doesn’t sound like high praise, but compared to what the show’s been shitting out lately, average is high praise enough. Some quick highlights from the show:

Continue reading “RAW (July 2nd, 2007) – Average RAW This Week? Now Dat’s Cool.”

DTM BLOG Classics #31 – Some Random Rantings

Got a couple quick things I gotta get off my chest.

– So there’s a random poster at Trekweb who started a poll asking who would boycott the upcoming Star Trek movie if it doesn’t include Shatner. The poster is a deluded fool to think that Shatner will make the movie good and that Shatner needs to be here. I don’t think Shatner needs to be in Trek. His time has passed, he did his bit, and now he’s getting a career revival as Denny Crane. And as for Trek, it’s done fine without Shatner. People like to say that Shatner is Trek, but last time I checked, Shatner only lasted seventy-nine episodes, a short animated series, and seven movies. Most modern (or formerly modern, I suppose) incarnations of Trek have lasted longer. So yeah, Trek is doing fine and will continue to do fine without Shatner.

– For those who missed it, the first Power Rangers convention was held this past week-end. From what I’ve heard, it was a pretty good time had by all, as some old faces from the MMPR days showed as well as the recent new blood. I’m almost sorry I couldn’t make it, but then, I’m not much of a convention-type person.

– I’m digging the current Marvel Zombies vs. Army of Darkness miniseries currently going on. For those who don’t know, this series is a crossover between Marvel Zombies (zombified versions of classic Marvel heroes) and the idiot Ash from the Evil Dead/Army of Darkness flicks. This is a great, somewhat hilarious mini that’s worth the read if you’re into AoD or Zombies.

So that’s it on my part…

Wait… am I forgetting something?

Oh right. That.

I’ll have my thoughts on the matter posted in a Bite commentary in a couple days.

Random Thoughts On Dragon Warrior

Pulled this one out of mothballs recently and popped it in my NES, which has a tendency of working when it feels like it. Man, this brings back so many memories. The Middle-English dialogue, the simplistic quest to save the damsel and slay the dragon, the one-on-one random encounters, and the dreaded STAIRS command.

The original Dragon Warrior (now Dragon Quest) was one of the first RPGs on the NES and it managed to be a fairly satisfying game even to a 12-year-old kid at the time who couldn’t be bothered with them long, complicated game. The menu system was fairly simple to navigate and the battle system is even simpler. There’s no worries about getting poisoned or determining which elemental power does more damage; you either attack, cast a spell, use an item, or run away. That’s all you do and that’s all you really need.

Yeah, leveling-up is a bitch because each battle nets so little experience points and the need to go back to the castle to save your game is a nuissance, but on the other hand, it’s not a bad game. It’s a test of patience, but in a good way. If you can find a copy of this game, go ahead and give it a try.

PPV Predictions – WWE Vengeance 2007

2007 Introduction

Let me get some negative energy out of the way: WWE is billing Vengeance as a Night of Champions. You know what? I don’t care. I just don’t care. After witnessing three tri-branded PPVs that ranged from “less than stellar” to shitacular levels only James Rolfe’s Angry Video Game Nerd would dwell into, why should I care about this one? So all the titles being defended on this one show. Who cares? It’s not that special anymore.

With that bit of negativity out of the way, however, I have to admit that this looks to be a pretty decent card… well, somewhat. With all the titles being on the line, it’s a chance for all the champions to showcase their abilities and an opportunity for the challengers to really step up their game. My biggest concern is how much of the fake death of Vince is going to dominate this show. Hopefully, it won’t be that much because people don’t feel like paying for footage that has been shown repeatedly on free TV. But I digress. Let’s look at the card.

2012 Introduction

Yeah, I want you to digest that opening spiel. It was written for a show that seemed like a throwaway show. Every match on the card being a title match isn’t a big deal; it should be, but when you have fifty titles and none of them mean anything, such a declaration has no weight. So for all intents and purposes, this should have been a typical B-level PPV.

Except there’s one little detail that became apparent during the week… this was the weekend Chris Benoit killed his wife and son before committing suicide. One of the most notorious and controversial moments in the history of professional wrestling, this was one of the contributing factors – if not THE main factor – that prompted WWE to drastically tweak and re-structure their product to the current form you see today. It was the event that had caused everyone to analyse the business and bring up the ages-old arguments of steroid and drug use. Whether you want to admit it or not, this was a big deal… and a very big problem.

I am not going to dwell on this matter, because this is supposed to be about the PPV… but the fact is that you simply cannot bring up Vengeance 2007 without bringing up the Benoit double murder/suicide travesty. WWE can certainly try – they’ve been deleting Benoit from their history as much as possible – but when you get right down to it, the Night of Champions concept got its start the same weekend as that tragedy. There’s no way around it. It’s simply the way it is.

I could have saved that rant for the end, but I felt it necessary to bring this up now.

Continue reading “PPV Predictions – WWE Vengeance 2007”

MOVIE REVIEW – The Marine (2006)

Yeah, so, for some weird, perverted reason that escapes me, I was compelled to rent a copy of John Cena’s hit WWE Film THE MARINE. You may recall WWE making a major push for people to watch this thing when it came out. Hell, you may recall that this was a bit on this humble web space for a time before the joke got tiresome.

Following the release of their first film See No Evil – the greatest horror movie ever made according to WWE – WWE Films begat THE MARINE, featuring then (and still) WWE Champion John Cena as a former Marine named John Triton (real creative in making the protagonist’s first name as the same as the actor’s. I’m sure Tony Danza would approve) who must save his girlfriend from a bunch of criminals. From there, we get a second-rate action movie that seems to rip off every single action movie in the book until the inevitable conclusion. Somewhere along the line, I stopped caring and read a book, which was unfortunately far more entertaining and enlightening.

The good news is that The Marine is not the worst movie I have bore witness to; that (dis)honor belongs to the Halle Berry flick Catwoman… though sometimes I will remember that Ready To Rumble exists, at which point I’ll ram my head against a wall once or twice before the selective amnesia kicks in. However, The Marine isn’t a bad movie in the sense that it’s so bad it’s good. It’s a bad movie in the sense that it’s not really that interesting or even exciting. For every action movie cliché this movie churns out, you can probably think of thrice as many flicks that could pull off the same trick, but better. “Perty ‘plosions” are nice and all, but mean nothing if there isn’t a strong backstory or even a remotely interesting conflict to drive the action. The Marine has neither of these things and it ends up being a ho-hum action film with a generic plot line. Not even the T-1000 himself, Robert Patrick, could save this flick.

I rarely have a good thing to say about Cena because I’m not a fan of his wrestling work, but given some good material, he could possibly shoot out a couple good movies. Those movies aren’t going to come from WWE Films, however. He has the talent and charisma to drive the movie, but the material he’s given is absolute garbage.

If you’re a fan of Cena, just stick with watching his matches and promos on RAW and avoid this movie. Trust me; you’re better off watching his crappy matches than his crappy movie.

DTM BLOG Classic #30 – Vince’s “death” brings out the stupid in people

So apparently, some non-wrestling sites picked up on the Vince McMahon whacking and the amount of user comments for this story is almost mind-boggling.  Not so much the frequency, but the message contained therein. People complaining about how they were offended by such a hoax and believe WWE has gone too far. This is something that has been mentioned several times on my part, but let’s get this out there just one more time.

Continue reading “DTM BLOG Classic #30 – Vince’s “death” brings out the stupid in people”

JDF Gets Into MMA

Former Power Ranger actor Jason Frank has taken up fighting in a cage. Actually, he’s had a couple fights already and has won them both, so he has a chance… then again, that’s what we all say when there’s a new fighter out to prove himself.

Click here to read random article about JDF.

Good luck, dude. You’ll need it since you have no Dragonzord to help you now. HA! HA! HA!

Er… forget it.

Later.

RAW (June 17th, 2007) – Down The Middle

Last night’s RAW showing wasn’t all that bad. The exploding limo business has been done to death already and we don’t need to see it anymore.

Some quick points:

– So you have the (fake) private investigator interrogating various superstars. Decent filler, but not much more.

– The Divas tag-team match was actually watchable. Mind you, it’s nowhere near as good or even average, but it was watchably bad as opposed to “RUN THE FUCK AWAY” bad. Shows that there’s actually some improvement in the wrestling from the women’s side of the fence. Hope this talent doesn’t get pissed on.

– Oh goody, it’s a main-event featuring three of my favorite (sarcasm) wrestlers. In actuality, the match wasn’t so bad, but it certainly didn’t keep my interest for too long.

– The Stephanie promo at the end of the show? Totally useless. Outside of the announcement of yet another three-hour RAW next week, there’s nothing interesting about her promo. Only notable thing was that this deep (fake) display of emotion was pissed on by the audience, showing how effective the exploding limo really is.

All in all, not a bad show, but not a good one either. Eh, it works.

Later.