Awesomely Shitty Movies: Alien Resurrection

Welcome to another edition of Awesomely Shitty Movies, here at Enuffa.com!

Since I examined the gorgeously shot suckfest that was Alien 3 last week, I thought I'd move on to its sequel, 1997's Alien Resurrection.

As I mentioned last time, the third Alien film was a massive disappointment for me, as I'd been led to believe (through no fault of my own, mind you - d'ya need to see that teaser again?) that we'd get a true continuation of Aliens, wherein there'd be some sort of battle between xenomorphs and humans taking place on Earth.  Instead we got a languid, uninspired retread of the first movie, with one alien killing off humans in a confined location, Ten Little Indians-style.  Then Ripley dies.  I hated it.  I hated it all.  The franchise that should really have ended after two films got a completely unnecessary, tacked-on third installment just so Ripley could be killed off.

Fast-forward five years, and suddenly the series was resurrected (I see what they did there...), with a Ripley clone having been created 200 years after her death, on a military/scientific vessel that has begun experimenting with the aliens.  As part of the breeding process the scientists on board have illegally purchased cryo-frozen humans for use as hosts.  A mercenary ship arrives, delivering said hosts, but before long the aliens escape captivity and all hell breaks loose.  That's about all there is to the plot of this film, though I guess that's about twice as long as the premise of the third film.

My hope going into this was that it would really be something different and maybe even right the ship.  We'd finally see something in line with my expectations for Alien 3, or so I thought.  As it turned out Resurrection was just as poorly received as 3 (if not moreso), and the possibility of ever seeing another truly good Alien film again was all but gone.

Still, Resurrection did have some intriguing elements, some amusing horror-action, and plenty of gooey xenomorphs.  Let's take a closer look at this awesomely shitty movie....

(Note: I think if I were making a fourth film around this time I'd have simply revealed at the outset that Alien 3 was a dream, and have Ripley wake up from cryosleep to find Newt and Hicks still slumbering in their pods.  Then the story would adhere closer to the original Alien III script, where the xenos end up on Earth and the company actually intends on exploiting them for their Weapons division.  But that's just me.)




The Awesome


Something Different

After the dull, lazy retread that was Alien 3, it was nice to see the franchise go in a different direction with this film.  Ripley is back, but as a clone of the original character, and with a bit of xenomorph DNA which gives her some superhuman abilities.  It's corny, it's a bit comic booky, but hey, at least they tried something new with this film.  Setting it 200 years after Alien 3 also adds an element of the dystopian future, where the infrastructure is breaking down and mercenaries like the Betty crew have become commonplace.




Sigourno-morph

Sigourney Weaver clearly has a lot of fun with this new incarnation of Ripley, getting a chance to show off her newfound skills but also to convey the conflict arising from her longtime arch-nemesis now being a part of her.  This creature that has ruined her life is now ingrained in her biology.  A smarter, more thoughtful script would've done a lot more with this, but it's a start.  That theme comes into play later in the film when the alien queen seems to treat her almost as a loved one and the alien/human hybrid regards her as its mother.  Joss Whedon's script introduces some novel concepts for this franchise, and it's refreshing to see that at least. 

Oh, Ripley 8 will fuck you ups....

Awesomely Shitty Movies: Alien 3

Welcome to another Awesomely Shitty Movies, here at Enuffa.com, where I complain about someone else's hard work!

Today I'll be talking about one of my least favorite sequels ever, Alien 3!  Yup, it's gonna be a struggle to come up with many positives about this film, as I hate it.  HATE. IT.  But I wouldn't be telling the truth if I failed to talk about its good qualities.  Directed by the great David Fincher, Alien 3 is a stylish, exceedingly bleak sequel to the mega-popular thrill ride that was James Cameron's Aliens.  Picking up where that film left off, Alien 3 finds Ripley stranded on a penal planet populated by the worst criminals in the galaxy, when a stray alien breaks loose and starts butchering people by the dozen.  Ripley and the others must find a way, sans weapons, to kill the alien before a Weylan-Yutani supply ship arrives to bring the specimen back to Earth.  And, well, that's about it.  Nothing terribly complicated about this story, and the film was such a troubled production for the first-time director that Fincher long ago disowned the movie.  The studio began shooting without a completed script and questioned Fincher on nearly every creative idea, to the point that his intended cut was very different from the theatrical version (The "Assembly Cut" as it's called is widely considered superior to the latter, but I still don't like it).

But before I begin shredding this movie, let's take a look at what did work.....



The Awesome


Acting

Sigourney Weaver is back as Ellen Ripley of course, and she once again brings a sense of both empowerment and vulnerability to the role that made her famous.  She doesn't have quite the emotional arc here as she did in Aliens, but considering what she's given to work with she excels as always.  This film has a number of strong supporting performances as well, the two biggest standouts being the dignified and understated Charles Dance as Dr. Clemens, and Charles S. Dutton as the reformed murderer and spiritual leader of the prison, Dillon.  Add accomplished character actors such as Pete Postlethwaite and Brian Glover, and there's no shortage of convincing work on the acting front.

There are some fine thespians in this tripe movie.

Visuals

As with all of his films, Fincher lent Alien 3 a distintive, stylish look, with filthy, gothic sets and a muted color pallette of yellows and browns.  The one area where this film surpasses Aliens for me is its unique visual style.  This is a gorgeously photographed movie from a young director already demonstrating his superior skill.  'Tis a shame the story didn't have more going on, as it's akin to a beautifully painted but mostly empty landscape.

There are also some fine visuals.

Effects (mostly)

Most of the special effects in Alien 3 still hold up, from the grotesquely sloppy chestburster scene to the amazingly lifelike Bishop head/torso, to the frightening closeups of the full-size alien.  The blood n' guts look first-rate, and aside from terrible compositing of the rod puppet used in wide shots (The puppet looks great, the blue screening looks like garbage), any xenophile should be satisfied with the effects.

And a boss-looking alien.

Movie Review: One Battle After Another (2025)

Plugging away at what's shaping up to be a busy fall movie season, it's time to review the latest from Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another!

Based on the 1990 Thomas Pynchon novel Vineland, PTA's tenth film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro, Teyana Taylor and newcomer Chase Infiniti.  Leo and Teyana are Pat Calhoun and Perfidia Beverly Hills, members of a far-left revolutionary group called the French 75, who run rescue operations for incarcerated undocumented immigrants, rob banks, and conduct after-hours bombings of financial and political offices.  The couple has a child together but Perfidia is arrested during a botched bank heist, and Pat and their daughter Charlene are forced to go into hiding.  Sixteen years later their past catches up with them when a military squad begins hunting down the remaining French 75 members.

I won't divulge more plot than that, as the trailer leaves vague all but what I mentioned above; this film is better experienced without knowing much.  Suffice to say PTA has loosely adapted this Reagan-era story for the 2020s and created a powderkeg of a film, a blend of piano-wire-taut suspense, absurdist comedy, and biting political satire.  

AEW All Out 2025 Review: Stat Is the New Champ, Kyle Is In Fact Ready...

AEW All Out 2025 is in the books and as expected it was a helluva show, with a slew of good-to-great matches, a ton of variety, some surprise returns, and an epic main event that cemented its challenger as a new top star.

Despite WWE's best efforts to cockblock AEW again, All Out was a creative and commercial success, pulling in around 13,000 live fans for a $1 million-plus gate, and apparently drawing a strong PPV buyrate (exact numbers aren't in yet but at the post-show media scrum Tony Khan made it clear he was happy with the early metrics).  Last year's 105k is the number to beat, as it would mark the first time since 2021 that three consecutive AEW PPVs outdrew their counterparts from the previous year.

The show opened with the much-hyped Adam Copeland-Christian Cage homecoming, as the two longtime friends teamed up to face FTR.  The match was a good solid tag bout with a lot of false finishes, wherein Cope paid tribute to John Cena with a Five Knuckle Shuffle/AA combination.  Late in the match Cope hit a Killswitch on one FTR member while Cage hit a spear on the other.  Stokely Hathaway pulled the referee out of the ring, which prompted the surprise involvement of Beth Phoenix Copeland.  Beth speared Hathaway and carried him to the back.  Cope kicked out of a spike piledriver and Shatter Machine before hitting a very sudden spear (too sudden I thought) to win the match.  Beth came back down to celebrate but Nick Wayne and Kip Sabian ran down and laid out Cage before handcuffing Cope to the ropes.  Beth, knowing she was outnumbered, kissed Cope before attacking FTR, but they got her up for a spike piledriver and ran away.  Very good match, excellent angle afterward.  This feud is clearly not over.  ***3/4

AEW All Out 2025 Preview & Predictions

The other half of this Saturday's wrestling PPV double-shot is AEW's All Out!  While there are arguments to be made both ways about Tony Khan's decision to move this show to the afternoon and avoid WWE's cockblock, I'd say it was overall the right move.  Had WWE tried to counterprogram a lineup as big as All In with a main roster show, that's an easier gamble to take.  But All Out, while a loaded show in terms of wrestling quality, doesn't have the company's biggest possible marquee bouts (not to mention Will Ospreay, Swerve Strickland and Kenny Omega are all on the shelf).  Still, as I said in my Wrestlepalooza picks, I think All Out would've drawn around 100k buys even head-to-head.  With the 3pm start time I'll predict 120k.  But we'll see....

Anyway, this show has several potential Match of the Night candidates, perhaps too many multi-man bouts, and a big Toronto reunion, plus they're building for the future by putting 26-year-old Kyle Fletcher in the main event.  Let's take a look.....

The Hurt Syndicate vs. Ricochet & Gates of Agony

Lashley, Benjamin and MVP have fully turned babyface and are now feuding with Ric's crew.  The two singles matches from this feud featured on the last couple Dynamites have been very good and amazingly Lashley actually sold for Toa Liona!  I could see MVP eating the pin here but back-to-back PPV losses for THS seems unlikely.

Pick: The Hurt Syndicate

WWE Wrestlepalooza 2025 Preview & Predictions

It's a head-to-head (sorta) weekend in the wrestling business on Saturday, with both WWE and AEW putting on PPV events.  Of course AEW had this date booked months in advance and WWE decided to try and cockblock them because their product doesn't have the momentum it had 18 months ago.  Thus they threw together this little number out of nowhere and even half-assedly resurrected the name Wrestlepalooza from a now-defunct promotion they bought during the first year of the Dubya administration.  Hey guys?  The whole "palooza" thing isn't relevant anymore.  Hasn't been in decades.  'Course if you've taken a look at this lineup it does feel a bit like a late 90s WCW show.  

This will be the first WWE PPV broadcast via ESPN+ and supposedly if you have cable or YouTubeTV you get to watch it for free, but apparently that part hasn't been sorted out yet.  I can't wait to hear about all the pissed-off cable viewers who either didn't get to see it or had to pay the thirty bucks.  For the record I will not be going back to spending $30 to watch a WWE PPV.  Not now, not ever.  There are some potentially good matches on this card but the main event isn't one of them.  More on that in a bit...

Side note: Zero black wrestlers on this show.

Women's World Championship: IYO Sky vs. Stephanie Vaquer

Welp, that whole Naomi push went up in smoke in a big hurry, didn't it?  Naomi announced a few weeks ago that she's pregnant, so they had to cancel her scheduled match with Stephanie and vacate the title.  This should easily be the best thing on this show, like by a lot.  Both of these women are far too talented to wrestle for a promotion that doesn't value good wrestling.

Pick: I think Steph wins her first main roster gold, and then she probably won't be seen again on PPV until the Rumble.  Nor will IYO.

Top Ten (Eleven) Things: Spinal Tap Songs

Welcome to the only edition of Top Ten Things that goes to eleven!  Today we're ranking the songs of everyone's favorite fictional heavy metal band, Spinal Tap!

Made famous of course by the 1984 Rob Reiner "mockumentary," Spinal Tap's three core members are David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean), Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest), and Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer).  The largely improvisational masterpiece This is Spinal Tap lampooned the world of hard rock n' roll, taking no comedic prisoners and delivering some of the all-time great metal-related, "too close to home" comedy bits.  Who can forget Nigel's wireless unit picking up the control tower at the Air Force base?  Or Derek setting off the airport metal detector with the foil-wrapped cucumber stuffed down his pants?  Or undoubtedly the most famous bit, Nigel's custom Marshall head whose dials all go to 11?  The film is an absolutely hysterical satire of the rock industry, featuring totally authentic performances from the entire cast and a flawless script.  It's simply one of the most quotable films ever made.

But what sets This is Spinal Tap apart from other fake documentaries is the legitimacy of the musicians.  McKean, Guest, Shearer, and the rest of the band played their own instruments, and along with Rob Reiner, wrote all the songs.  And despite the lyrics being mostly tongue-in-cheek (and brilliantly funny), this band put out some pretty great hard rock tunes, including a full album's worth featured in the film, and a follow-up eight years later (which in my opinion is the better of the two records).  McKean and company are all great comedic actors but I'll be damned if they aren't accomplished rock n' rollers too.

So here are the best songs ever recorded by England's loudest band.......This list goes to eleven.... 

11. Christmas With the Devil

A title that dates back to the production of the film, "Christmas With the Devil" is exactly the type of song its moniker implies; a Satanic Christmas carol complete with jingle bell accompaniment and morbidly descriptive lyrics.  "The elves are dressed in leather and the angels are in chains," intones David to kick off this Sabbath-esque dirge.  Featured on the second album Break Like the Wind, this might be the most purely "metal" sounding of all their tracks.  Notice also the word "Hallelujah" sung backwards in the bridge.  Hilarious.

10. Rainy Day Sun

Another song from BLTW, "Rainy Day Sun" is meant to be one of the band's late 60s recordings, from when Spinal Tap were a psychedelic hippie band.  With heavy Beatles influences including some backtracked vocals and snaky string accompaniment, this song captures the spirit of the era, lending some tangible depth to the band's fictional backstory.

9. Just Begin Again

A power ballad duet from BLTW, "Just Begin Again" features a guest appearance by Cher and makes use of deliberately trite love song lyrics like "Life is just a meal/And you never say when," and "Life is just a show/Go reload your gun."  And despite the silliness of the words, this song is actually poignant and powerful, led by two strong vocal performances.

8. Rock n' Roll Creation

In the context of the film this tune is from the "pretentious, ponderous collection of religious rock psalms" known as The Gospel According to Spinal Tap.  Melding biblical elements with hard rock tropes, "RNR Creation" has one of the more evil-sounding main riffs in the catalog, mixed with simple but memorable vocal harmonies.  This song was featured in the unforgettable movie scene where Derek gets trapped in his "body snatcher" pod for the duration of the tune.

Movie Review: Spinal Tap II - The End Continues (2025)

Taking a break from reviewing films of Oscars past to review a current film in theaters now!

After forty-one long years the follow-up to the iconic rockumentary This Is Spinal Tap has finally dropped, in the form of Spinal Tap II: The End Continues!  Documentarian Marty DiBergi (Rob Reiner) is back to catch us all up on what's been happening with our favorite fictional heavy metal band.  Not seen together in public since their Back From the Dead tour in 2009, the members of Spinal Tap have seemingly had a falling out and gone their very separate ways.  

We learn Nigel Tufnil (Christopher Guest) now runs a Northern England cheese and guitar shop, whose store policy includes trading used guitars for fine cheeses, and vice versa.  He's finally found love in Moira (Nina Conti), a customer-turned-co-owner.  On the other side of the Atlantic, David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean) lives alone in Morro Bay, California (His former partner Jeanine left him years ago for a surprising new career), and now composes music for podcasts and telephone on-hold lines.  Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer) runs a London glue museum, having chosen this line of work because he's always seen himself as "the glue" that held Spinal Tap together.

Oscar Film Journal: Broadway Melody of 1936 (1935)

And now it's time for yet another Oscar Film Journal entry, here at Enuffa.com!

We're time-traveling back to the 1930s again, for what I guess could be considered the first pseudo-sequel to earn a Best Picture nomination, Broadway Melody of 1936.  Narratively unrelated to the original 1929 Broadway Melody, and actually released in September of 1935 (not sure why it was called 1936 then), this follow-up is another song and dance vehicle held together by a shoestring plot.  

Gossip columnist Bert Keeler (Jack Benny) is ordered by his editor to find an eye-catching story and he stumbles onto a juicy piece about Broadway producer Bob Gordon (Robert Taylor) and wealthy socialite Lillian Brent (June Knight), who's agreed to finance Gordon's latest play.  Gordon's high school sweetheart Irene Foster (Eleanor Powell) arrives in town hoping to land a part in the show, but Bob at first doesn't even recognize her and later tells her to go back to Albany and avoid getting mixed up in the Broadway racket.  Gordon and Keeler develop a heated feud over Keeler's gossip articles (complete with multiple physical altercations), so Keeler tries to sabotage the play by talking Bob into signing a French dancer (who in actuality doesn't exist).  When Irene catches wind of this plot she decides to take up the persona of the Frenchwoman to get Bob's attention.  It's a very complicated case, lotta ins, lotta outs, lotta what-have-yous....

Oscar Film Journal: MASH (1970)

Welcome to another Oscar Film Journal entry, here at Enuffa.com!

Alright, I'm almost done with the nominees for 1970, having now seen four out of the five (Only Love Story remains, god help me).  Number four is the wartime comedy MASH, directed by Robert Altman and starring Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould, Tom Skerritt, Robert Duvall, and Sally Kellerman.  Based on the semi-autobiographical novel by Richard Hooker, MASH follows the day-in-the-life screwball misadventures of two prodigious military surgeons during the Korean War, Captains "Hawkeye" Pierce and "Trapper John" McIntyre.  Both doctors and their gaggle of debaucherous colleagues are virulent anti-authority mischief-makers/party animals, but they get away with repeated insubordination, hazing, pranks and scams due to their unrivaled skill in the operating room, and the inherent chaos of being stationed near the front line.  This anarchic romp paved the way for cinematic progeny such as Stripes and Animal House, but also seems influenced by the work of The Marx Brothers (There's even a throwaway reference to Groucho's game show You Bet Your Life).  And of course it was the inspiration for the landmark TV series.

Top Ten Things: Billy Joel Songs

Welcome to another song-related Top Ten Things, here at Enuffa.com!

I recently watched And So It Goes, the new HBO documentary on the life and career of the legendary Billy Joel!  So why not do a list of his greatest compositions?

I first became aware of Billy Joel at age seven or eight, around the time of An Innocent Man, Joel's 1983 homage to the music of the 1950s and 60s, with which he had grown up.  Each song is a pastiche of a particular artist or style from that era, and even as a young boy Joel's songs immediately stood out from other early 80s radio fare.  Though I couldn't have put it into words at the time, I was drawn in right away by Joel's relatable, working-class approach to songwriting; these were instantly memorable tunes with universal lyrical themes and more often than not a rock-solid groove (Billy's longtime drummer Liberty Devitto was a monster behind the kit).  Over my subsequent childhood and adolescent years I was exposed to many more of Billy's hits, and by the time his final pop album came out in 1993 he'd racked up no fewer than 25 timeless radio standards, no small feat for a 12-album career.

Joel's discography has covered so many genres and influences (probably the most prevalent of which is The Beatles; Joel has cited them as a major inspiration on many occasions and to this day incorporates a few of their songs into his live set), giving each album its own sound and feel, and demonstrating his consummate skill in crafting robust pop-rock songs that the radio simply adores.  His live performances over the years have been wildly energetic and entertaining, but he also shows genuine humility onstage and gives each of his backup musicians ample moments to shine.

Joel decided to stop making pop-rock albums at the age of 44, after River of Dreams, but his expansive catalog of evergreen songs continues to inspire and delight new generations.

Here is a list of his finest tunes....


HM: The Entertainer

Billy's satirical take on the cynicism of the music industry and the fickleness of its audience has a peppy, upbeat sound but lyrical content bordering on resentment, with lines like "It was a beautiful song, but it ran too long/If you're gonna have a hit, you gotta make it fit/So they cut it down to 3:05."  "The Entertainer" chronicled Billy's refusal to simply churn out homogenized product to stay atop the charts, and his desire to always push himself artistically.



HM: Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)

One of Joel's working-class anthems, "Movin' Out" explores the struggles of the New York 9-to-5 crowd, spending all their energy to achieve a higher status in life rather than attaining happiness.  In the end material wealth is not a substitute for inner contentment.  "If that's movin' up, then I'm movin' out."



HM: My Life

I first became aware of this song as the intro theme to the Tom Hanks/Peter Scolari sitcom Bosom Buddies, but its late 70s keyboard groove still gets the ol' toes tappin'.  "My Life" is an ode to individuality, doing things your own way regardless what others think.  Another easily relatable song from Mr. Joel.



HM: Goodnight Saigon

Joel's seven-minute opus from The Nylon Curtain is a tribute to the soldiers of Vietnam, its lyrics covering the details of what it was like for them, their sacrifice, their fears, their comraderie, rather than taking a stance on the war itself.  It is a poignant consideration of the Vietnam experience and a touching acknowledgement to all soldiers, living and dead.



HM: We Didn't Start the Fire

Maybe the ultimate guilty pleasure song, this iconic list song chronicling major news events throughout Joel's 40 years up to that point is undeniably catchy but also undeniably silly.  Joel himself has never been all that proud of it from a musical standpoint ("The melody is like a dentist's drill"), but it put him right back into heavy radio and MTV rotation after The Bridge's somewhat lackluster reception.  Also I can't hear this song anymore without thinking of this:

Okay, now for the Top 10...

Awesomely Shitty Movies: The Lost Boys

Welcome back to Enuffa.com for another edition of Awesomely Shitty Movies!  

Today we'll be examining the brazenly tawdry late-80s time capsule known as The Lost Boys.  Before the Twilight movies forever ruined the vampire genre Joel Schumacher gave us teenage vampire garbage we could really sink our teeth into.  Teeth, get it??  Cuz vampires like to bite people?  With their teeth? 

Buckle up and set the DeLorean for 1987, the heyday of such screen legends as Corey Haim, Corey Feldman (what's with all the Coreys??), Jason Patric, Jami Gertz, and the one teen heartthrob from this era whose career escaped more or less unscathed, Kiefer Sutherland.

Originally The Lost Boys was to be a Peter Pan-inspired film about pre-adolescent vampires, stemming from the idea that Peter could fly and never grew old (Kiefer's character was originally called Peter, while the protagonist brothers were Michael and John, later to be Michael and Sam).  However when Schumacher came on board he decided teenage characters would be much more marketable/sexier.

The resulting film is delightfully "late-80s," from the costumes, to the heavy metal-influenced fashion sense of the teenage characters, to the awesomely dated soundtrack, to the Central Coast, California setting.  It's a quintessential 80s summer movie.  And it's fantastically dumb.



The Awesome

The Cast

This movie's got a pretty great cast, all perfectly suited to their roles.  Corey Haim, while never ascending to the heights of great acting, was exactly right for the main character of Sam.  Sam is the audience's guide through the story, usually in way over his head and scared shitless the whole time.  Jason Patric as his older brother Michael is the character with the real arc (he goes from brooding, sullen pretty boy to brooding, sullen vampire), and he's the one whose relationship with the villains sets things in motion.  Dianne Wiest is excellent as always, as their mother Lucy.  Corey Feldman, whose childhood work was actually pretty underrated, is hilarious as the aspiring vampire killer Edgar Frog. 

Corey, Corey, and that other guy.

And of course the showstopper is Kiefer Sutherland as David, the leader of the vampire gang.  Sutherland was fresh off his breakout performance as teenage delinquent Ace Merrill in Stand By Me, and his performance here is similar, but with the volume turned way up.  In The Lost Boys he's a total badass motherfucker who repeatedly toys with the protagonists and kills rival gang members without remorse.  Great villain.

Oscar Film Journal: Fiddler on the Roof (1971)

Another day, another entry in the Oscar Film Journal.  Can't stop, won't stop....

Our latest subject is the 1971 adaptation of the uber-popular stage play Fiddler on the Roof, directed by Norman Jewison and starring Topol, with choreography by the legendary Jerome Robbins, and an adapted score by the even-more-legendary John Williams (who won his first Oscar for this film).  Fiddler is the story of a family of Ukrainian Jewish peasants - a middle-aged couple and their three adult daughters, all of whom have reached marrying age.  The parents are deeply traditional, expecting all their daughters to marry nice Jewish men of means, but of course none of them is interested in having her prospective husband chosen for her on the basis of wealth or security.  The father Tevye (Topol) is of course a big teddy bear despite his propensity for angry outbursts, and ultimately can't say no to his daughters' wishes (except in the case of the youngest, who wants to marry outside the Jewish faith).

Oscar Film Journal: Funny Girl (1968)

Time for yet another Oscar Film Journal entry here at Enuffa.com!

We're swingin' back to the 1960s for a look at Barbra Streisand's breakout performance, the one that won her an Oscar and made her a household name.  It's the 1968 Best Pic nominee Funny Girl, directed by Academy favorite William Wyler, based on the Broadway play.  Funny Girl is a very loose musical biopic about the rise of Vaudeville star Fanny Brice, a song and dance girl who made her fortune by leaning into her natural comic talents before marrying a rich gambler named Nicky Arnstein.  But his addiction to the card table coupled with his predilection for bad business deals led to his downfall and the eventual dissolving of their marriage.

WWE Clash in Paris Preview & Predictions

It's the end of an era once again in WWE, as this Saturday marks the final PPV to air on Peacock.  Yes, the ESPN+ deal is kicking off four months early due to ESPN reeeeellly wanting something big to offer during their launch.  And what better way to ring down the curtain on the Peacock-WWE era than a half-assed five-match show where their top champion is absent?

Saturday is WWE Clash in Paris, and once again the company has assembled a largely skippable show featuring mostly 40-plussers.  I'm not sure there's been a PPV field as old as this one since the men's Royal Rumble 2021 where the median age was 39 and a 47-year-old won the whole thing.  There are twelve wrestlers featured on this card and only four of them are under forty.  And aside from thirty-year-old Logan Paul, the remaining three are 37, 38 and 39.  Keep in mind the massive main event they have planned for Wrestlepalooza next month (Why are they recycling an ECW name of all things?) to go head to head with AEW's All Out features two 48-year-olds.  Man does WWE hate elevating young people again.  

There was supposed to be a Naomi-Stephanie Vaquer match for the women's title but Naomi had to vacate the belt after discovering she was pregnant, and the match was scrapped.  Given that they cut the match entirely rather than pit Stephanie against someone else for the vacant title I seriously doubt she was slated to beat Naomi. 

Update: Up until today's Smackdown episode there were zero black wrestlers on this show, but they just announced The Wyatt Sicks vs. Street Profits for the WWE Tag belts.  Is this Ford and Dawkins' first PPV match in 2025?  Remember when Ford was being primed for a big singles push?  Good times.

Side note: The poster for this PARIS-based show is a reference to The Starry Night by DUTCH painter Vincent Van Gogh, and the subject of said painting is the view from his St. Remy-de-Provence asylum window in the SOUTH of France (over seven hours away from the capital city), thus it has nothing to do with Paris.  Cultural illiteracy in action.

Side note 2: With WWE moving to a $30 a month service starting in September it's highly unlikely I'll be watching any more of their PPVs for the foreseeable future.  So unfortunately my reviewing their shows will largely be a thing of the past.  I already had a Peacock subscription prior to the existing deal, so I wasn't giving WWE any additional money.  But I sure as shit ain't shelling out thirty bucks a month to watch a subpar wrestling show from a company that openly embraces fascism, accepts blood money, or covers up human trafficking scandals.  WWE and everyone in charge of it can get fucked.

Alright, let's look at this thing....

WWE Tag Team Championship: Wyatt Sicks vs. Street Profits

As I said, this match just got added today.  Nothing like waiting till the absolute last minute.  Wyatt Sicks just won the belts a month and a half ago from the Street Profits, so I think they probably hold onto them here.

Pick: Wyatt Sicks retain

Women's Intercontinental Championship: Becky Lynch vs. Nikki Bella

Really, we're going with Nikki Bella as a challenger?  When was she last relevant, 2015?  Nikki was pretty good by 2013-14 women's roster standards but was rendered pretty obsolete when the Four Horsewomen were called up and the Divas Title went away.  Why are we pushing nostalgia acts from one of the company's lamest periods?  Is Adam Rose coming back too?

Pick: Becky retains

AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door 2025 Review: Lights Out Bedlam!

The fourth annual AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door PPV is in the books, and as expected it was a pretty excellent night of wrestling in front of a sold out O2 Arena crowd that apparently broke the wrestling attendance record for that venue.  The main show ran just over four and a half hours but because of the match order it never felt like it dragged.  AEW should always arrange the lineup like this, with the three or four most important matches saved for the end.  NJPW has done this for years and it makes the shows fly by.  We got some great wrestling, a couple big returns, and a show-closing injury angle to allow Will Ospreay the time to get a much-needed neck surgery.

After four very fun multi-man pre-show matches the PPV proper kicked off with Adam Copeland reuniting with Christian Cage for the first time in fifteen years or so, taking on Kip Sabian and Killswitch (subbing for an injured Nick Wayne).  The match was fine, if a little sloppy in spots, but the bigger story was that neither team fully got along.  Christian still hasn't fully bought in to teaming with his best friend again, and Killswitch wanted nothing to do with Kip.  Not sure where the Killswitch thing is going, unless he ends up back together with Jack Perry to feud with Cope and Cage later.  I wouldn't be sad about that.  Team ACCC won the match when Sabian tried to hit Cage with a Killswitch but Cage vaulted him into a Cope spear and pinned him.  ***

AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door 2025 Preview & Predictions

It's crossover time once again, and for us sickos that means the fourth annual AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door!

This year FD is a couple months later than usual, and it's also in London instead of All In.  So instead of a hard-to-fill Wembley Stadium, the show will emanate from an absolutely packed O2 Arena.  Since AEW is still struggling with US ticket sales for their weekly shows it's always a treat to see a show take place in a full large-scale venue to give the PPV that extra atmosphere.  It's also neat that this FD has outsold the previous three.

The Forbidden Door concept is definitely losing its novelty due to NJPW not at all being a hot promotion right now, coupled with my not wanting to see AEW's storylines interrupted for special one-off stuff.  But this year feels much more like an AEW show that happens to feature a handful of NJPW talents.  Most of the matches do involve ongoing AEW content, so it should fit right into their continuity.  The card is quite loaded up, albeit with a few caveats, and on paper looks like the strongest Forbidden Door lineup to date.  Let's take a look....

AEW Tag Team Championship: The Hurt Syndicate vs. FTR vs. Brodido

Well the long-running tournament to determine new #1 contenders ended in a time limit draw, which feels a bit like a copout, but on the bright side the addition of Brody King and Bandido to this match will undoubtedly improve it.  It will also be held under elimination rules, so THS is either retaining the titles or actually losing to another team.  Conventional wisdom would favor FTR to win the titles and then defend them in Toronto against Cope and Christian, although I don't see why that match needs the belts involved.  I'd actually love to see Brodido win here but I think that's kind of a longshot.  If THS retains I dunno who else they have to defend against.  I guess I'll go with FTR.

Pick: FTR

Oscar Film Journal: Avatar - The Way of Water (2022)

And we're back with another Oscar Film Journal entry, here at Enuffa.com!

The slate of films nominated for Best Picture in 2022 included not one but two popcorn blockbusters, both of them late sequels, both of them made with impressive technical innovations, and both of them more or less devoid of substance beyond that.  I already wrote about Top Gun: Maverick, so now it's time to take a deep dive into the other one, Avatar: The Way of Water.

Set sixteen years after the first Avatar, this film catches us up via a narrated montage, showing us that Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) now have a family - two teenage sons, an eight-year-old daughter, and an adopted teenage daughter inexplicably birthed from the dormant husk of Sigourney Weaver's character's avatar, for some reason voiced by Sigourney herself (yes the septuagenarian actress plays a 14-year-old) - and everything is good on Pandora.  

Oscar Film Journal: Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985)

Welcome back to the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!  Even deep into August I'm still slowly chipping away at the list of Best Picture nominees....

Today's subject is the 1985 prison drama Kiss of the Spider Woman, directed by Héctor Babenco and starring William Hurt and Raul Julia.  Based on a 1976 Manuel Puig novel, the film would I guess be considered a character study of two men of very different backgrounds forming a friendship over the span a month of being trapped in a Brazilian prison cell.  Luis Molina (Hurt) is a gay man incarcerated for corrupting a minor, while Valentin Arregui (Julia) is a political prisoner who was arrested in a plot to overthrow the country's military dictatorship.  To pass the time and to take both their minds off their situation, Molina recounts in great detail the storyline of one of his favorite films, a German propaganda film (Molina confesses he doesn't care about its politics, he just likes the story).  KOTSW jumps back and forth between the real world and scenes from the fictitious movie, and we learn that Molina is a prison informant tasked with getting information from Valentin to pass onto the warden, in exchange for an early release.  

Oscar Film Journal: Airport (1970)

Welcome to another Oscar Film Journal entry here at Enuffa.com!

While perusing Netflix the other day I stumbled across one of the 1970 Best Picture nominees, the star-studded disaster drama Airport, featuring Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, Jacqueline Bisset, George Kennedy, and Helen Hayes.  Based on a 1968 Arthur Hailey novel, the film takes place all in one 24-hour period during a crippling snowstorm at a fictional Chicago airport and involves multiple story threads playing out both on the ground and in the air.  

Lancaster's character is the airport manager Mel Bakersfield, whose wife is on the verge of leaving him because he's married to his job.  His brother-in-law Vernon Demerest (Martin) is a pilot on an ill-fated flight set for Rome.  Jean Seberg plays Tanya Livingston, Mel's coworker in charge of customer relations, with whom Mel has palpable romantic tension.  Bisset is stewardess Gwen Meighan, with whom Vernon is having an affair.  There are too many secondary characters to list, so I'll stop there, but the plot is set in motion when a blizzard forces Mel to work late (much to his wife's objections) to coordinate the clearing of the airport's two runways.  As it turns out, Vernon's flight to Rome includes a passenger who plans to blow up the plane over the Atlantic Ocean so his wife can collect on a life insurance policy he's taken out.  These two main threads are woven with smaller ones involving an elderly woman who serially stows away on planes, a pain-in-the-ass passenger who constantly complains about customer service, an unexpected pregnancy, and an airport Commissioner who's considering shutting down one of the runways due to customer complaints.

WWE SummerSlam 2025 Review: Night 2 was Good Anyway....

Well we've now entered the era of two-night shows for all of WWE's Big Four PPVs.  SummerSlam 2025, probably Royal Rumble and Survivor Series 2026, and maybe even Money in the Bank will now be spread over two shows.  Thus WrestleMania is no longer all that special.

SummerSlam 2025 was another mixed bag of an extravaganza.  The first night was a bad overall show, the second night was pretty good up until the appallingly tone deaf ending.  This company has no line it will not cross, no scandal it will not gladly sweep under the rug if it gets in the way of their bottom line.  Between sex trafficking accessory Brock Lesnar being back on television and WWE just openly aligning itself with MAGA, I'm honestly not sure how much more WWE content I'll even watch going forward.

Night 1 as I said was a pretty bad show, with a whole bunch of mostly nothing matches and a dull as fuck main event that for some reason WWE's faithful have convinced themselves was some kind of Bret Hart-esque masterpiece.  I don't seem to recall Bret ever needing to stall after every move to let his gassed opponent recover for a while.  Certainly not in his good matches anyhow.

The show opened, 22 minutes in (that's TWENTY-TWO) with a solid tag match as Roman Reigns and Jey Uso took on Seth Rollins' buddies Bron Breakker and Bronson Reed.  Things started out not so promisingly as after a few moments of action Jey called for his entrance music again just to get a stupid Yeet chant going.  This company is a parody of pro wrestling.  From there they had a pretty good match and Breakker looked really good as usual.  Side note: Wade Barrett, who I find pretty insufferable on commentary, keeps claiming Bron can run up to 23 miles per hour.  I'd buy that for a dollar.  They of course had to squeeze in yet another Roman spear through the barricade (which now isn't even attached at one side so this spot looks even dumber now).  The Brons did a Steiner doomsday bulldog spot which was cool.  At the end of the match Roman shoved Jey out of the way of a Breakker spear, and Jey hit his big splash on Reed to win the match.  This show would never get this good again.  ***1/2

The History of WWE SummerSlam (2024)

WWE may have smashed a whole bunch more records at the 2024 SummerSlam (not that tough to do when you keep jacking up ticket prices and the city pays you to hold your event there) but as I suspected going in, the card itself was steeped in mediocrity, concerned more with bad drama than good wrestling.  At numerous times watching this show I found myself thinking "Christ, VINCE booked numerous recent SummerSlams better than this one."

After yet another Triple H "Don't forget who's in charge now" moment to kick off the show, followed by a Jelly Roll performance, the opening match was Liv Morgan vs. Rhea Ripley for the Women's Title.  They started out playing cat and mouse, with Ripley chasing Liv in and out of the ring until finally outmaneuvering her and going on offense.  After a few minutes of Ripley dominating, Liv sent her shoulder-first into the turnbuckles, which popped Ripley's injured shoulder out of socket.  Liv took over and worked the dislocation until Ripley finally got some space and slammed it into the announce table, Lethal Weapon 2 style.  Ripley made a comeback but Liv brought a chair into the ring and tried to use it.  Ripley flattened her with a boot, picked up the chair herself, and was about to swing it when Dominik on the outside grabbed the chair and reminded her she couldn't win the title this way.  Ripley let go of the chair but Liv knocked her into Dom and hit Oblivion for a close nearfall.  Dom then threw the chair into the ring for Liv to hit a second Oblivion to win the match.  The announcers sold this like Dom's plan backfired, but then Dom helped Liv up from the floor and kissed her, betraying Rhea.  Solid opener.  

The History of WWE SummerSlam (2023)

At SummerSlam 2023, WWE did it again.  And by "it" I mean snatched a pretty good show from the jaws of instant classic territory.

SummerSlam 2023 was yet another example of a show that should've been in contention for PPV of the Year (or at least WWE PPV of the Year), and was instead just a good solid PPV.  Between a live crowd that was oddly pretty subdued all night and some messy moments and their usual questionable booking decisions, this show overall fell short of my expectations.

Things started out very promisingly as Logan Paul and Ricochet had a very entertaining spotfest-type match that suffered a bit from WWE not being all that good at spotfest-type matches.  For a bout that was intended to "go viral" as an aerial spectacle this wasn't nearly as noteworthy as numerous other examples that year.  But it was very well-worked aside from a couple messy bits, and this was Ricochet's first main roster match with this high a profile (sadly he'd never get another).  After plenty of back-and-forth action and nearfalls, one of Paul's friends (who went unnamed) handed him brass knux, which Paul used to knock out Ric and steal a win.  Michael Cole's line "This was a great match but the ending sucked" was both amusing and a bit of unintentional commentary from WWE regarding their penchant for unsatisfying finishes.  

Overall the strongest match of the night, most unexpectedly, was the Cody Rhodes-Brock Lesnar rubber match, which from where I sit marked Brock's best work since the 2019 SummerSlam.  This still suffered from Lesnar Repetition Syndrome, with Cody limiting his own moveset to match Brock's, and a long stretch where Brock was inexplicably trying to get a countout win over and over.  But ultimately the match worked in the same way as Brock vs. AJ in 2017 and Brock vs. Bryan in 2018 did.  Cody overcame all the punishment and hit three CrossRhodes in a row to put a decisive end to this feud.  Brock then took off his MMA gloves, shook Cody's hand, and hugged him, in an apparently unplanned show of respect.  Good stuff overall.  

The History of WWE SummerSlam (2022)

It's time to look at the first WWE PPV of the Triple H booking era (except Vince set all this up so it was really still his show).

SummerSlam 2022 was kind of the end of an era coming off the heels of Vince McMahon's numerous sex scandals that resulted in his temporarily stepping down from power (of course he'd force his way back in less than a year later but for a while there we had nice things).  Triple H had fully taken control of Creative by this point but he was still obligated to present the lineup Vince had scheduled.  Thus SummerSlam still felt like a Vince offering.  And like most Vince offerings in the 2020s this one was just okay, one match had no business being on the show at all, and the Intercontinental Title was missing completely.  Because Vince hates secondary titles.  

Things started of well with a Bianca Belair-Becky Lynch rematch from WrestleMania, that didn't quite live up to that one.  They got 15 minutes and worked well together as always, and Bianca retained the title after an exciting finishing sequence.  Becky hit a second-rope Manhandle Slam for a nearfall and went up to the top but Bianca countered with a Spanish Fly followed by the KOD to keep the belt.  This marked the end of Becky's ill-concieved heel turn (finally!) as after the match the returning Bayley came out to ringside, flanked by her new stable made up of Iyo Sky and Dakota Kai.  This moment felt like one of Triple H's few contributions to the show.  Anyway, a very good opener and the best pure wrestling match on the show.

Next up was the surprise hit of the evening as Logan Paul made his WWE debut against The Miz, proving himself maybe the best celebrity wrestler of all time.  The match wasn't truly great or anything, but it was very competently worked and exciting, and Paul looked like a natural.  This was a preview of much better things for the YouTube celebrity.  The highlight of the bout was Paul hitting a long-distance frog splash on Miz through the announce table, before finishing him off with his own Skull Crushing Finale.  Not too shabby at all.

The History of WWE SummerSlam (2021)

Well, as expected WWE's SummerSlam 2021 was yet another mixed bag of a show.  A few of the matches were very good, a few of the matches were utterly pointless, and God forbid we have a WWE PPV without a moment that flat-out pisses people off.  SummerSlam had all of these things.  Vince McMahon once again proved he could fuck up a bag of Doritos.

The PPV kicked off with the RAW Tag Championship, as AJ Styles and Omos defended against RKBro in a short but energetic bout that brought to mind old school PPVs where the opening match was just an easily digestible warmup.  AJ did almost all the work for his team and meshed well with both opponents, there were some fun spots later in the match as Matt Riddle took an Omos apron slam and an AJ moonsault DDT on the floor, perfectly executed.  It boiled down to AJ and Orton, who missed his first RKO attempt but scored on the second, pinning AJ to win the straps.  The crowd loved this title change and Riddle was ecstatic, and even Orton looked happy.  Decent little opener. 

Immediately the streak of good matches ended as Alexa Bliss faced Eva Marie in a useless regular match that didn't belong anywhere near a PPV.  There was no supernatural bullshit, which was good, but we were subjected to an Eva Marie match, which was bad.  Bliss hit Twisted Bliss off the top, followed by a DDT for the win.  I can guarantee this match did not garner a single ticket purchase or Peacock subscription.  Why was this on this show? 

The History of WWE SummerSlam (2020)

2020 was the year wrestling shows were mostly staged in front of no crowds due of course to the COVID 19 pandemic, and that year's SummerSlam felt those effects like every other show.  

The 2020 edition felt in a lot of ways like an old-school SummerSlam card, with only seven matches and a three-hour running time.  In that respect the show was somewhat refreshing.  It also felt like an old SummerSlam show due to the numerous big names missing from the card (AJ, Bryan, Owens, Zayn, Nakamura, Cesaro, etc.).  In that respect the show was somewhat stupid.

Kicking things off was the first of two women's title matches where Asuka was the challenger, and she took on Smackdown Women's Champion Bayley, with then-BFF Sasha Banks in the champ's corner.  Keep that in mind, as it would play into the story of both matches.  These three women nearly carried the show; Asuka and Bayley both worked hard to make this a strong opener, and it turned into a nice little rematch from their NXT rivalry.  There were some innovative moments like when Bayley countered an apron hip attack by catching Asuka's legs and slamming them into the edge of the ring.  Bayley then went after the injured leg, which would become a factor in Asuka's second match as well.  Asuka eventually snared the Asuka lock but Sasha distracted her from the outside and Asuka swung around with a kick to Sasha's head.  Asuka went for another apron hip attack but Sasha pushed Bayley out of the way and took one for the team, while Bayley got an airtight cradle to retain the belt.  Good, compact opening match with a well-executed screwy finish.

WWE SummerSlam 2025 Preview & Predictions

It's SummerSlam time again, as WWE brings us the 38th annual event, this time spread over two nights so we get even more commercials and video packages!  Hoorah!

This year's lineup looks.....okay I guess?  There are a handful of promising matches and a handful of not promising matches.  I'm betting as usual SummerSlam falls in the 7 out of 10 range, but we'll see.

True to WWE PR form the big media story this week is "AEW bad."  Yes, Cody Rhodes, WWE's babyface, who pulls down probably a good $5 million a year in that role, went on The Ringer podcast and pissed and moaned that AEW "disrespected" him and he "wasn't going to stand for it anymore."  Keep in mind this was close to four years ago these alleged events took place, they directly led to his returning to WWE as a conquering hero and becoming literally the face of the company, and yet here he is blathering on like a jilted ex-lover, the same way Punk did last year.  This shit is just embarrassing; WWE can't ever focus on hyping their own product, they always have to throw shade at their distant number-two competition and pretend to be the underdogs.  Fuck's sake, you insufferable sociopaths, your company is literally too big to fail at this point, grow your stupid asses up.  Hey Cody, no one who watches AEW in 2025 misses you.  Both companies are better off now.

Alright, rant over, let's pick some winners.  Side note: SummerSlam has four black wrestlers across 12 matches, for those keeping score.  That's above average for them I guess?  There are also four women's matches though, so that's progress.

Night 1

Women's Tag Team Championship: Raquel Rodriguez & Roxanne Perez vs. Charlotte Flair & Alexa Bliss

The company's least meaningful titles are up for grabs here and I'm kinda surprised Charlotte is relegated to this position on the card.  This will be.....a match.

Pick: Charlotte and Alexa capture the straps