NJPW King of Pro-Wrestling 2026 Preview & Predictions

The other big wrestling show this weekend is NJPW King of Pro-Wrestling, their traditional October event.  And like Destruction, this show essentially consists of five important matches plus some tag bouts.  

New Japan is definitely regaining The Feeling in 2026.  The new guard of top guys and rising stars has made this product feel fresher than it has in a long time, and the steady crossover with AEW has helped fill in the gaps.  Destruction's five big matches were an easy watch and included a couple strong highlights like Gabe Kidd vs. Drilla Moloney, while helping to set up the important bouts on this show.  

Let's take a look....

NEVER Openweight Six-Man Championship: Will Opsreay, Henare & Great-O-Khan vs. Yuto-Ice, Oskar & Jeff Cobb

The AEW Champion being one of New Japan's Trios champs is pretty weird, but I ain't complaining that he's here.  Should be a very fun party match.  Yuto and Oskar just regained the IWGP tag belts from Henare and O-Khan, so the question is, do they make it two and a row or is it a 50-50 scenario?  "Mystery partner" Cobb could certainly use the win here, and Ospreay obviously doesn't have to get pinned.  We still have an Ospreay-Newman match on the horizon, maybe at the Dome.

Pick: I'll go with the challengers

George Romero's Living Dead Trilogy: Day of the Dead (1985)

Welcome to the final part of my Living Dead Trilogy retrospective.  If you missed Part 1 and Part 2, check 'em out.....

Dawn of the Dead was such a success the distributor, United Film Distribution Company, signed Romero to a three-picture deal, provided that one of those three films would be a sequel to Dawn.  Romero, fearing that if said sequel wasn't a hit he'd lose the chance to direct the two non-zombie films, opted to save it for last.  His next two movies were Knightriders, a Renaissance faire drama which flopped due to poor distribution, and Creepshow, a horror anthology which was a modest hit but by no means a smash.  As a result, UFDC hedged their bets with the Dawn sequel, only willing to adhere to the original $7 million budget if Romero released it as an R-rated film.  Up to this point George had planned for Day of the Dead to be a massive, sweeping zombie epic, "the Gone With the Wind of zombie films," but refused to compromise the intended violence and gore for an R rating.  Thus the budget was slashed in half and Romero was forced to completely overhaul the project.  The resulting film was initially seen as an underwhelming, depressing letdown after the thrill-ride of Dawn, and made most of its money overseas and on home video.  Amazingly though, Day of the Dead has developed an enthusiastic cult following in the years since, in many ways becoming just as influential as its two predecessors.

Day of the Dead takes place a considerable time after Dawn, when the human race is all but wiped out, and only a few pockets of civilization remain, mostly underground.  The story centers around a small military/scientific contingent occupying an abandoned mine, hoping to find some sort of solution to the zombie infestation.  Living conditions are nearly unsustainable and the scientific team is at the mercy of a crazed Captain, who is uninterested in studying the zombies and simply wants to destroy them.  What follows is a power struggle and clash of ideas between the two factions that actually contains more thematic human drama than any other film in the series.

This guy's a whackaloon.

One of the main plot threads concerns the lead scientist, Dr. Logan (a compellingly demented Richard Liberty), who has begun experimenting on zombie specimens, hoping to "tame" them.  His most promising subject is a ghoul called "Bub," who seems to understand/remember how to work basic tools and appears almost civilized.  This subplot exploits a fascinating story element: that the zombies are no longer the bad guys.  Zombies simply act according to their instinctual nature and the only evil left in the world is that which is perpetrated by the survivors.

WWE Money in the Bank 2026 Preview & Predictions

WWE Money in the Bank is this Saturday.  Yup, they're still doing this tired-ass gimmick where they give someone a free title run instead of actually taking the time to build them up as a credible challenger with plans to permanently elevate them.  Laziest booking team this side of Vince Russo.

Anyway, this lineup looks like....a show.  Ladder matches in both major companies are too common nowadays but WWE's version tends to be tame and skippable.  Then we have three other bouts, two of which are forgone conclusions, the third could go in any direction.

Oba Femi vs. Bronson Reed

It's the "meat" match of the night and they're billing it as a battle of giants.  I wouldn't exactly call Bronson Reed a giant, he's a big short dude who's lost a bunch of weight recently.  This could be fine if given enough time and if Oba's matches going forward aren't booked like Brock's were.  Oba's the current chosen one so he's obviously winning.

Pick: Oba

George Romero's Living Dead Trilogy: Dawn of the Dead (1978)

Welcome to Part 2 of our retrospective on George Romero's Living Dead trilogy.  Check out Part 1 HERE...

With Night of the Living Dead, George Romero and his collaborators stumbled onto an unexpected cult hit, and while it sadly didn't make any of them rich (Due to an unfortunate copyright snafu the film fell into public domain where it remains to this day), they now had careers as filmmakers.  George directed four feature films after NOTLD with little box office success before returning to the genre that put him on the map.

Romero got the idea while visiting the Monroeville Mall, owned by a friend of his.  The facility had a secluded suite of rooms, fully stocked with food and water, which his friend claimed could sustain a person for months in the event of a nuclear attack.  "Hmm, what about a zombie attack?" George replied.  From this simple premise sprang the narrative seedling for his next project, which would go down as the Citizen Kane of zombie films, Dawn of the Dead.

I gotta see this place (Update: I DID see it over the summer)

Romero's second foray into the zombie genre picks up some time after the events of NOTLD, when the entire country is now swarming with the risen dead, private residences have been declared illegal, the emergency networks have taken over all broadcasting, and society as a whole is just about to completely break down.  Four survivors, two from a Pittsburgh TV station and two from a local SWAT force, escape in a traffic 'copter and set up shop at the Monroeville Mall.  As the outside world crumbles, our protagonists find themselves in a shopper's paradise, the entire plaza at their disposal.

As with NOTLD, Romero peppered Dawn with underlying social commentary befitting the era of its release, in this case 1970s American obsession with consumerism and the futility in trying to find happiness in material goods.  And while not as purely terrifying as its predecessor, Dawn of the Dead is a rollicking, action-horror film with moments of humor and a ton of over-the-top gore.  Where Night was filmed in expressionist black & white, Dawn depicted these grisly events in bright, garish colors, using the mall's ample lighting to save time and money during the down n' dirty shoot (The vast majority of the scenes were filmed overnight while the mall was closed, thus time and availability were limited).

George Romero's Living Dead Trilogy: Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Since it's Halloween season I thought I'd go back and rewatch the legendary Living Dead trilogy, wherein the humble, gentlemanly indie filmmaker George Romero created one of the most disturbing film series of all time.  An aspiring, self-taught director with a background in commercial work, Romero and his associates decided in 1967 to make a feature film, choosing the horror genre for its marketability on a small budget, and a whole new subgenre was born. 

The result of course was Night of the Living Dead, a bloodcurdling guerrilla-style picture about seven survivors holed up in an old farmhouse during a zombie outbreak.  At a time when audiences were conditioned to expect cheeseball horror and sci-fi movies that were playfully scary but ultimately toothless, Night of the Living Dead was truly a shock to the system.  Here was a stark, brutal nightmare of a film depicting in gory detail people and zombies being shot, bludgeoned, stabbed, and eating human entrails, where none of the heroes make it out alive.  The overall tone is so bleak and upsetting I can't imagine how 1968 audiences took it.  NOTLD became a major hit on the midnight movie circuit, eventually grossing over $30 million worldwide on a $114,000 budget.

Romero also unintentionally pulled off a coup by casting an African-American as the film's lead.  Duane Jones, an experienced theater actor, gave the best audition for a role originally written as a white character, thus lending the narrative a poignant layer of political subtext.  The film's tragic finale, where Ben is mistaken for a zombie and shot before being dragged out of the house and burned by the redneck law enforcement posse now paralleled the racial tensions and unrest of the Civil Rights era.  The choice to depict the aftermath in grainy still photos echoes violent newspaper clippings of the time, making it that much more upsetting.

Romero's use of light and shadow is superb

Other cast standouts include 23-year-old Judith O'Dea as the hysterically frightened Barbra, and producers (and real-life married couple) Karl Hardman and Marilyn Eastman as the antagonistic Harry Cooper and his anxious wife Helen.  Given the non-professional status of most of the actors, the performances are by and large quite effective.

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....

Movies of Disbelief: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986)

Welcome to another edition of Movies of Disbelief, here at Enuffa.com!  If you're unfamiliar, MOD is where I examine a film, good or bad, that's based around a far-fetched premise, but find one aspect or scene that not only stretches or breaks the bonds of credibility, but pisses all over them.

Today's subject is a little different though.  As patently absurd, campy and over-the-top as this film is, the part of it I refuse to believe isn't even something that happened in the story.  It's the idea that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 was directed by the same guy as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 1.  Yeah that's right, Tobe Hooper, the man who in 1974 created a horror masterwork with no budget, no stars, under the worst imaginable filming conditions, somehow followed it up 12 years later with a sequel that basically sprays moldy diarrhea over everything that was great about the original.  I cannot wrap my brain around the fact that the same director made both of these movies.

Before we get into the crime against cinema that was TCM 2, let's just recap the first one a little.  The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, loosely inspired by the Ed Gein murders (as well as those of Dean Corll - look up that saga, it's revolting), was shot using grainy 16mm film, on a budget of roughly $150,000.  Like Night of the Living Dead it made use of real rural locations (see Herzog, Werner: "the voodoo of location") and was filmed in a cinema vérité style, allowing the horrific tale to come to life in a way that felt totally authentic and heightened the terror.  We as the audience feel like we're experiencing these ghastly events along with the protagonists.  The cast of unknowns is first-rate, playing the scenes in a casual, naturalistic way and largely improvising the loose dialogue.  By the time everything goes to hell in the second act, we've been given a reason to care about the five young adults.  We're given no background about the family of maniacs - they are simply an evil force of nature, with no discernable reason for what they do; making sense of it would undermine the senseless cruelty Sally endures in the final half-hour.  But despite the film's grisly tone and subject matter, almost all the violence and blood is left to the imagination.  Only once for example do we see chainsaw meeting flesh, and it's when Leatherface (one of the great boogeymen of horror cinema) falls down and accidentally gouges his own thigh.  But the film's timbre is so intense and macabre we think we're seeing more gore than we are.  It's brilliantly understated.  The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is far greater than the sum of its parts; all the unconventional elements came together - off-putting locations, genuine performances, innovative cinematography (the closeup montage of Sally's face during the dinner scene is mindbreaking), and unsettling musique concrète-inspired score (courtesy of Wayne Bell and Tobe himself) - to create a fully immersive experience of palpable terror.  It's one of the all-time great horror films.

This guy is terrifying.

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.

AEW All Out 2026 Review, Plus a Few Words for PAC

I was all set to review AEW's All Out PPV as per usual and then the bombshell news item dropped: Pac, real name Benjamin Satterley, has died at the age of 40.  There is as yet no information about how or why.  I can't even wrap my head around this.  We just watched him have a banger of a PPV opener on Saturday, and one day later he was gone.  Pac was an incredible talent, one of the most athletically gifted, precise wrestlers on the planet, and in many ways one of the most underappreciated.  He gave us so many great matches and memories, and by all accounts was a thoroughly decent fellow to boot.  

His Revolution 2020 match with Orange Cassidy is one of my favorite singles bouts of his - their clash of styles was incredibly entertaining and this was the match that made me appreciate Cassidy's abilities, something Pac deserves a lot of credit for spotlighting.  Then of course there was the unparalleled Best of Seven Death Triangle vs. Elite series.  Some of the most stunning trios bouts you'll ever see.  Pac made everyone he worked with look like a million bucks and he could hold up his end of any match, regardless of the opponent.  I'm sure as more information comes out we'll at least gain some sort of insight into his sudden passing, but it won't make it any less tragic.  Rest in peace, Pac.  And thank you for the memories.

AEW All Out 2026 was another very strong PPV with a slew of good-to-excellent matches, but it was missing that automatic Match of the Year candidate we've come to expect as AEW's spoiled us over the years.  A few of the bouts reached 4.5-star territory for me but the Will Ospreay-Jon Moxley main event in particular, while certainly very good, fell significantly short of my expectations for it.  It was a slow-burn, story-heavy match, but for me it was missing the big signature Ospreay climax.  

NJPW Destruction in Kobe 2026 Preview & Predictions

AEW All Out isn't the only big wrestling show this weekend, there's also WWE/AAA Worlds Collide!.....Wait, what?......They're not even airing it?......They booked it just to fuck with All Out's ticket sales and it didn't work?......Wow......Buncha screwups over there at TKO....

Anyway, ANOTHER big wrestling show this weekend is NJPW Destruction in Kobe!

This'll be another one of those half-shows where they start with a bunch of tag matches to kick things off and then we get five singles matches, so those are the ones I'll focus on.  It's odd to me that the G1 winner isn't in a singles match here.  I know Ryohei Oiwa has his title shot next month but shouldn't he be featured more heavily than in a six-man?

Callum Newman vs. Jeff Cobb

Well, well, well.  Guess that gig as the 18th-most famous member of The Bloodline JC Mateo didn't pan out.  It will never not be simultaneously hilarious and embarrassing that WWE is so addicted to that one storyline they imported a buncha guys who LOOKED like they could be related to Roman, and then did nothing with most of them.  WWE is a parody of pro wrestling.  Anyway, glad to see Cobb back where he belongs, in a company that appreciates his unique abilities.  It's the new United Empire dude against one of the OGs.  Should be a fine contest.  I have to think Newman wins here, right?  He's a former IWGP Champion and Cobb just got back.  Newman losing to the guy who DIDN'T make it in WWE would make NJPW look third-rate indeed.

Pick: Newman

AEW All Out 2026 Preview & Predictions

We're four weeks removed from the big Wembley show, and that means it's time for its B-side, AEW All Out!

I call it the B-side just because it's following the biggest show of the year, but the last two times AEW ran Wembley its Chicago counterpart upstaged it, in my opinion anyway.  All Out 2023 and 2024 were absolute banger shows, and the 2026 edition has the potential to be on that same level.  We've got nine main card matches and thus far two pre-show ones, and with few exceptions I'm anticipating ****-plussers across the board.

Side note: How fucking hilarious is it that WWE tried to cockblock this show by running Worlds Collide (featuring CM Punk, mind you) across town, and this show sold out anyway, and now Worlds Collide isn't even scheduled to air on TV?  Epic fail from a shit company.  Hey WWE, maybe instead of continually trying and failing to hurt AEW, figure out why your audience isn't as into you as they used to be?

Alright enough of that, let's get into it....

Buy-In Tailgate Brawl: Bang Bang Gang vs. The Dogs & Death Riders

The Jay White-David Finlay feud continues in a gang warfare format, as eight guys fight all over the ringside area with no tags.  This could go either way as either team could afford to lose.  Might be time to put this feud to bed soon but there should be one more big singles match between the two leaders.

Pick: Wheeler Yuta's in this one so he's probably eating the pin.  BBG wins.

Buy-In: Jack Perry vs. Katsuyori Shibata

Jack has been calling out former AEW Champions and is thus far 0-2 against Swerve Strickland and Jon Moxley, but his next quarry is Samoa Joe.  Before that happens though he has to get past Joe's Opps pal Shibata.  Should be a fun little hard-hitting match and I think the goal is for Jack to really grow into a guy who can carry a main event match (the two aforementioned bouts were both great).  Perry vs. Ospreay for the title at some point would certainly be enjoyable.

Pick: Jack

Top Ten Things: George Carlin HBO Specials

Welcome to another edition of Top Ten Things, here at Enuffa.com!

George Carlin.  For me no two words better encapsulate stand-up comedy.  George was a wordsmith, a philosopher, an iconoclast, and above all a goddamn funny motherfucker.  He was in love with the music of language, he enjoyed picking apart human idiosyncrasies and traditions, and he lived to offend.  George consistently evolved with the times, going from a laid-back hippie channeling Lenny Bruce to an angry, filthy old man fed up with society's inability to get out of its own way.  His greatest bits were conceptual and universal; material like "Seven Filthy Words," "Baseball vs. Football," and "Hello and Goodbye" have stood the test of time and are still hilarious now because of their everlasting relevance.  I'd wager nearly every comic working today was at least indirectly influenced by Carlin, the same way nearly every current band owes at least a roundabout debt to The Beatles.  George Carlin, Richard Pryor and Lenny Bruce are pretty universally considered the Holy Trinity of stand-up.

George began releasing comedy records in 1971 and grew such a following that in 1977 he performed an extended comedy special for HBO.  From then on Carlin's HBO specials were event viewing, and eventually his albums were simply audio-only versions of the shows.  His 1970s album output was quite prolific and included gems like Occupation: Foole and FM/AM, but today I'll just be talking about his HBO shows.

So which Carlin specials were the best?  Let's take a look.....

10. Life Is Worth Losing (2005)

George only had three specials in the 21st century, and this was the second.  He'd been through drug rehab earlier that year and announced that he was nearly a year sober at the time of the recording.  Life is Worth Losing, as the name suggests, contains a lot of material about death and mortality, plus some reworked items originally intended for Complaints & Grievances which had to be cut due to the events of 9/11.  This show has grown on me a lot over the years, particularly the segments about suicide ("That's probably the most interesting thing you can do with your life - end it..."), extreme human behavior ("A buncha people stranded in the wilderness, run out of Pop-Tarts, you gotta eat something.  Might as well be Steve."), and education ("There's a reason education sucks and it will never ever ever be fixed - because the owners of this country don't want that.").  LIWL is probably George at his most gleefully pessimistic.

9. What Am I Doing in New Jersey? (1988)

As a teenager this show was one of my two favorites - Jersey was the show where Carlin fully transitioned into the angry old man persona, railing against the Reagan Administration and complaining about traffic.  Most of his work after this was tonally similar in terms of his delivery.  This one hasn't aged as well as I thought it would, partly because of the segments specifically topical to the late 80s, but the material about keeping people alert with bizarre behavior still cracks me up.  "Stand on line at the bank for a long time, and when you get to the window, just ask for change of a nickel..."  The first time I watched this one I was damn near incontinent.

Top Ten Things: Coen Brothers Films

Welcome to Top Ten Things, here at Enuffa.com, where I'll count down my ten favorite something-or-others....

Today's topic is Joel and Ethan Coen, the co-director brothers who specialize in strange characters, meticulously crafted dialogue, and sometimes head-scratching endings.  The Coens have built a tremendously diverse and idiosyncratic slate of films spanning multiple genres, often involving film noir elements and seedy criminals, but sometimes taking the form of a sardonic comedy or scathing satire.  I've been a fan of theirs more or less since they debuted with Blood Simple, but it was in the mid-90s that Joel and Ethan reached their full potential, and they've helmed multiple classics over the past thirty years.

But which Coen films are the best?  Let's look at the top ten now, shall we?

10. A Serious Man

This uncomfortable dark comedy about a physics professor whose life begins spiraling out of control was quietly nominated for multiple Oscars and largely flew under the radar.  Michael Stuhlbarg stars as Larry Gopnik, a husband and father of two whose wife wants to leave him for his best friend, and whose slightly delinquent kids don't respect him.  Stuhlbarg carries the film with an understatedly comic performance, reacting to each new hardship with annoyed disbelief.  The Larry character reminds me a bit of Barton Fink in that he never seems to give up hope or accept that he's simply screwed.  The film has a philosophical tone but ultimately appears to arrive at the conclusion that bad things sometimes happen to people just because.  An unexpectedly strong inclusion to the Coens' filmography.

9. Raising Arizona

This zany western-comedy stars Nicolas Cage and Holly Hunter as a robber and cop, respectively, who inexplicably fall in love and decide to steal a baby from a rich couple who has just had quintuplets.  But soon Cage's ex-cellmates escape prison and pay him a visit, and he goes back to armed robbery, while the baby's actual parents hire a grizzled bounty hunter to retrieve their child.  The film blends screwball elements with those of Mad Max to show off the Coens' bizarre sense of humor, and also marks their first of several brilliant collaborations with John Goodman.

8. Barton Fink

Possibly the weirdest Coen Brothers film is this dark, moody period piece set in 1941, about a playwright-turned-screenwriter plagued with writer's block.  John Turturro's title character lives in a Hollywood hotel and befriends his next door neighbor Charlie (John Goodman), who turns out to be a brutal serial killer.  This psychological drama was written over three weeks while Joel and Ethan struggled to complete the Miller's Crossing script, and though difficult to fully categorize, contains elements of film noir, horror and surrealism.  Barton Fink is read by some as symbolic of the rise of fascism in Eastern Europe, while others see it as a parable about a man trapped in Hell.  Whatever the interpretation, Barton Fink is a darkly unique, haunting entry in the Coen pantheon.

Awesomely Shitty Movies: Flatliners

At long last we're back with another edition of Awesomely Shitty Movies, here at Enuffa.com!  For those unfamiliar, I take a popular (or not so popular) film, pick it apart, separate the good stuff from the bad stuff, and more or less ruin it for everyone.  Sooo, let's get after it....

Today I'll be talking about the 1990 suspense thriller Flatliners, starring Kiefer Sutherland, Kevin Bacon and Julia Roberts, and directed by Joel Schumacher.  The premise involves a group of medical students who each decide to briefly experience death, hoping to prove once and for all what happens in the afterlife.  But each character unwittingly brings something back with them, and they all end up haunted by demons from their past.  Flatliners got mixed reviews but made a solid profit upon its release and later became a bit of a cult favorite.  Aaaand therefore Hollywood released a remake sequel several years back.  Just fuckin' shameless, those people.....

But does the film actually work?  Let's take a closer look.



The Awesome


Acting

The whole cast is quite good in this film, from Keifer Sutherland's turn as the tormented visionary and original "flatliner" Nelson Wright, to Kevin Bacon as the likable pragmatist David Labraccio, to Julia Roberts as the generous and gentle Rachel Manus, to Oliver Platt and William Baldwin as the sarcastic worrier Randy Steckle and the hopeless horndog Joe Hurley, respectively.  Each actor gets clear territory to explore, and each of them brings their character to life admirably.  The two standouts are Sutherland and Bacon, who begin the film as best friends and gradually become romantic rivals as the story progresses.  I especially like the scene when they all confront Nelson outside David's apartment and all the cards are laid on the table.  Solid work all around.

A fine cast.  And handsome too.  Except Platt.  Sorry, that was mean....

Cinematography

Schumacher and Director of Photography Jan de Bont fill the frame with a visual richness and atmosphere that lends itself to the material and the mood.  Chicago's Loyola University served as the bulk of the film's locations, giving everything a very old-world, gothic feel.  The breathtaking opening helicopter shot for example takes the viewer across Lake Michigan right up to Kiefer as he stands on West Devon Ave.  This is a fine-looking film.

One of the most striking zoom-in shots I can recall.

Concept

The whole idea of a med student voluntarily dying so he can be revived with the secrets of life and death is certainly intriguing and creative.  It's oddly relatable on some level - who wouldn't want to know what lies beyond and live to tell about it?  Not to mention it's ripe material for farming cinematic suspense.  After all, reviving someone who's clinically dead is no exact science and there's little room for error.  The film doesn't explore this theme nearly as effectively as it could have (more on that in a bit), but the initial story idea was pretty inspired.

Top Ten Things: The Office (US) Episodes

Welcome to another edition of Top Ten Things, here at Enuffa.com!

Today I'll be talking about my ten favorite episodes of one of my all-time favorite TV series, the US version of The Office (The original UK one is great too, but I'm partial to the American remake).  For nine years (six of them consistently excellent) The Office reigned as one of the most beloved shows on television.  Who can't relate to an awkward boss, dysfunctional co-workers, and office crushes (My wife and I met in much the same fashion as Pam & Jim, three years earlier, so this arc resonated with us on a profound level)?  The show had it all - memorable characters, palpable tension between its romantic leads, engaging storylines, and above all, truckloads of uncomfortably hilarious moments.  It lost its way a bit toward the end, as most sitcoms do, but taken as a whole The Office holds up as one of the great TV shows of the past thirty years.

But which episodes are the cream of the crop?  Well it's a difficult question to answer since a) there were so many and b) some of the best story arcs on the show took place over multiple episodes (The Michael Scott Paper Company saga for example).  But I think I've narrowed it down to my ten favorites, in chronological order.  Here goes.....

1. The Dundies

For my money Season 2 was the show's best.  The abbreviated first season wasn't quite enough time for the show to find its true voice and set itself apart from the UK version (though it did have some great episodes in its own right).  But in the second season all the actors fully settled into their characters, the Jim-Pam storyline surged to the next level, and we were treated to a bevy of classic episodes.  The first, and possibly my favorite single episode in the show's entire run, was the season premiere, "The Dundies," wherein Michael and his employees have an outing/awards show at the local Chili's.  Pam gets hammered (Pammered?) and flirts with Jim all night, Michael bombs as the Dundies host, and we get to see all the characters outside their work setting.  This episode is probably the one that got me hooked.

Best Moment: A shitfaced Pam yelling into the camera, "I would just like to say that this was the BEST. DUNDIES. EVER!! WOOOOOOO!!!"

2. The Fire

Another laid-back scenario from Season 2, "The Fire" sees our office workers stranded outside the building after a fire breaks out in the kitchen, and numerous parlor games ensue, including "Desert Island Movies" and "Who Would You Do?"  We also see Jim interacting with his new girlfriend Katy (Amy Adams, introduced in Season 1), Michael trying desperately to become Ryan's mentor, and Dwight discovering the source of the fire: Ryan's cheese pita, prompting the best line in the episode.

Best Moment: Dwight, presenting the charred cheese pita to the camera, performs a revamped verse of Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire":  "Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television, North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Mon-roe, RYAN STARTED THE FI-YAH!!"

3. Christmas Party

The first Christmas episode of the series (one of three such episodes on this list - hey, I'm a sucker for holiday-themed sitcom episodes) sees the office holding a Secret Santa party.  Jim gets Pam in the drawing for the first time and buys her a teapot, but stuffs it with little personal gifts like his high school photo (which she found hilarious when she first saw it).  He also includes a card that expresses his hidden feelings for her.  But Michael throws a wrench into the works when after receiving a hand-knitted oven mitt from Phyllis, he changes the Secret Santa into a Yankee Swap.  Now everyone's gifts are up for stealing, and Jim's thoughtful gift to Pam finds its way into Dwight's hands.  The entire office rejects Michael's self-absorbed power play and abandons the proceedings, after which Michael makes a liquor store run to win them back.  This is yet another episode where we get to see everyone interacting in a more informal setting (Apparently I really like episodes like this) and it really captures the mood of office holiday parties.  Of course in the end, Pam, who had ended up with an iPod (Michael flagrantly overspent on his Secret Santa gift) trades it back to Dwight so she can have Jim's teapot, but Jim chickens out about the tell-all greeting card and secretly removes it from the box.  His confessional would have to wait until our next entry....

Best Moment: Michael opens his gift from Dwight, a bag of paintball pellets and a piece of paper entitling him to two paintball sessions with Dwight.  Michael gripes, "How is that better than an iPod?" and Dwight replies, "I never said it was better than an iPod."  Michael then takes Dwight's rubber elf ears off him and bounces them off Dwight's face before storming off.

Awesomely Shitty Movies: Hannibal

Welcome to another edition of Awesomely Shitty Movies, here at Enuffa.com, where I examine a movie that I want so badly to fully enjoy, but like a crappy, unreliable boyfriend/girlfriend, it just won't get its shit together and commit.

Such a description is very fitting of the film Hannibal (2001), the much-anticipated sequel to the iconic Silence of the Lambs, which saw Anthony Hopkins return to the role that made him a gazillionaire, Hannibal Lecter.  Hannibal had been planned for several years, after Lambs author Thomas Harris announced he'd be writing a follow-up to his defining work.  Hopkins, Jodie Foster, and director Jonathan Demme jumped right on board, and the world waited patiently while the novel came to fruition.  Unfortunately by the time of its publication in 1998, Demme declined to participate due to the novel's lurid tone, and Foster had already decided to direct her own film and would not be available.  The scramble was on to replace two of the three integral pieces of the puzzle, and eventually Ridley Scott was attached to direct, with Julianne Moore replacing Foster as Clarice Starling.

So why does this movie qualify as Awesomely Shitty?  In short, I find Hannibal a pretty infuriating example of a movie I was absolutely pumped for and ready to love, but so many things about it were executed just plain wrong.  And a few of these things could've been fixed so easily, either with a quick rewrite or an edit.  Before I get to all that negative stuff though, let's talk about what worked.



The Awesome

Julianne Moore

Excuse me for a moment.....JULIANNE, I F*CKIN' LOVE YOU!!

If Clarice had to be recast (and she did), I can't think of a better actress to inherit this amazing character than Julianne Moore.  I've been a big Juli-fanne (TM pending) for a few decades now, and so despite my reservations about Jodie Foster not returning I was pretty stoked to see Moore take the part.  Julianne is one of the most versatile and consistently great actresses working today, who for years was undeservedly snubbed by Oscar until finally taking home the gold in 2015.  Where Foster's Clarice was young and idealistic, Moore's incarnation of the character has become cynical and untrusting after a decade of petty FBI politics and unsavory treatment at the hands of the Old Boy Network.  Over ten years she has earned the dubious honor of having more kills to her name than any other agent, and at the start of the film she is forced to shoot yet another suspect when the uncooperative DC police undermine her authority in a drug raid.  The Bureau uses this incident as an excuse to take her out of the field, and she's reassigned to the seemingly futile case of the long-disappeared Lecter.  Moore plays Clarice as a woman who once dreamed of being an FBI agent, only to later find that the Bureau doesn't share her virtuous nature and in many ways isn't worthy of having her.

Cinema Showdown: Manhunter vs. Red Dragon

"I am the Dragon. And you call me insane. You are privy to a great becoming, but you recognize nothing. You are an ant in the afterbirth. It is your nature to do one thing correctly. Before me, you rightly tremble. But fear is not what you owe me.....You owe me awe!"

These chilling words from serial killer Francis Dolarhyde, the fearsome villain of Thomas Harris's novel Red Dragon, sum up perfectly his deranged mindset and motivation for murder.  He believes that killing families and arranging them like dolls will transform him into a god.  FBI Agent Will Graham, possessing a gift for empathizing with murderers, has been assigned to chase down Dolarhyde with help from famed sociopath Dr. Hannibal Lecter.

Red Dragon has twice been adapted for the big screen - first in 1986 as Michael Mann's thriller Manhunter, starring William Petersen, Dennis Farina, Tom Noonan, and Brian Cox; and again in 2002 as a direct prequel to the suspense classic The Silence of the Lambs, starring Edward Norton, Harvey Keitel, Ralph Fiennes, and of course Anthony Hopkins.

Manhunter was met with mixed reviews and anemic box office receipts but has since become a cult favorite on home video.  Red Dragon was fast-tracked following the massive financial success of Hannibal, and itself made a hefty profit and garnered generally positive reviews.

But which version is superior?  I will assemble a case, comparing the various aspects of each film, from casting/performances to sets to music, and decide definitively which adaptation works better.  ***Note: Interestingly both directors used Dante Spinotti for cinematography.***


Casting

Will Graham: William Petersen vs. Edward Norton

***Another Note: Hugh Dancy of the TV series Hannibal is actually the best onscreen Will Graham to date, in my opinion, but I'm only discussing the two films at this time.***

Both of these actors are quite talented and, in portraying the protagonist of this story, play to their individual strengths.  Petersen plays Graham as an emotionally wounded man, just barely recovered from his former profession of tracking serial killers.  His final assignment, capturing Hannibal Lecter, left him mentally broken and he subsequently spent time in an institution to heal his own psychological scarring.  Petersen's Graham carries an overwhelming hesitancy throughout the film, as he isn't sure he is up to the task of catching one more murderer.  Edward Norton's Graham seems less emotionally affected by his run-in with Lecter; his reluctance to participate in the Tooth Fairy case is borne more out of responsibility to his family and the fact that catching Lecter almost killed him (During the opening credits we learn that Graham was in a coma for a time).  So this Graham's motivation is a bit more physical in nature than that of his counterpart.  Norton is probably a bit more business-like, Petersen is more haunted.  Both of these interpretations of the character work fine, but I'll give a slight nod to Norton because he's just a more compelling actor than Petersen.  I think Norton more cleverly carries us through the process of Graham's work (and that's partly due to the script as well) while expertly portraying an everyman we can identify with.  Petersen's Graham is so morose it's sometimes hard to like him. 

Point: Red Dragon

Jack Crawford: Dennis Farina vs. Harvey Keitel

Again we have a close battle, as both actors are accomplished character veterans who tend to more or less play the same type of role - a grizzled but likable tough guy.  They both portray Crawford in the same way, and in both cases it works fine.  But for me the definitive Jack Crawford will always be Scott Glenn, who brought a sly intellectualism to the role and made you unsure if you fully trusted Crawford.  So since neither Farina nor Keitel quite nailed the character as I prefer him, I'll call this a push. 

Point: Draw

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.

Top Ten Things: Anthrax Albums, RANKED

Welcome to another edition of Top Ten Things, here at Enuffa.com!

What's on my mind today is legendary thrash metal band, Anthrax!  One of metal's vaunted Big Four (along with Metallica, Megadeth and Slayer), Anthrax formed in New York City in 1981 and set themselves apart from other metal outfits with their muscular, kinetic sound and underlying sense of humor.  Where bands like Slayer strived to be as dark and demonic as possible, Anthrax kept things a little fun and nerdy, taking cues from heroes like Iron Maiden by including literary elements (mostly Stephen King) and comic booky subject matter.  Anthrax were also one of the first metal bands to tackle topics like racism, homelessness and genocide, attempting to raise a bit of social awareness and build their sonic brutality around positive energy.  And with their rap-metal crossover hits "I'm the Man" and "Bring the Noise" (the latter being a Public Enemy cover that actually featured PE), they foreshadowed the rap-rock craze that emerged in the late '90s.  Maintaining a drug-free lifestyle, Anthrax has aged much more gracefully than some of their metal brethren; their recent records have sounded just as vital as their earlier work and they show no signs of slowing down anytime soon.  The three-pronged rhythm section of Charlie Benante's impossibly ballistic drums, Frank Bello's gritty, pulsing bass, and Scott Ian's jackhammer guitar riffage (easily on par with their Metallica counterparts) has served as the band's signature foundation for over three decades and in 2018 is just as asskicking as ever.

Here now are the Anthrax albums, ranked...

11. Fistful of Metal

Anthrax's debut album for me sounds like a band still trying to find their voice, and the lineup differences between this and their glory days makes this sound like a different band altogether.  Neil Turbin had more of a Rob Halford-esque voice that didn't quite stand out from the pack, whereas Joey Belladonna's Steve Perry influence added a unique twist to Anthrax's speed metal sound.  Fistful has a DIY sound to the production, like so many quickly-recorded debut records.  Not a bad debut, but hardly a defining record for the budding metal quintet; their songwriting and production would improve exponentially on the second album....

Key Tracks: "Metal Thrashing Mad," "Howling Furies"

10. Stomp 442

John Bush's sophomore effort as Anthrax's frontman had a crisply produced, punchy sound that was initially very promising and a step up sonically from Sound of White Noise, but unfortunately the songs on Stomp 442 were nowhere near as strong.  This being the mid-90s, when metal was about as uncool as could be, Anthrax veered more into alternative groove-metal on this record (something akin to say, Biohazard), and the songs blurred into each other a bit.  This record is steeped in midtempo sludge, with only a few noteworthy tracks that for me don't even crack the band's top 20.  It also loses a point for the lack of Anthrax's cool-ass logo on the cover (their logo is one of the most awesome ever created); for some reason they opted for a totally generic stoner rock-type logo instead.  This album fared poorly on the charts and they were soon dropped from Elektra Records as a result.  But not to worry, things improved.  Side note: To this day I still don't understand what the title is supposed to mean.  Side note #2: The album cover was originally intended for Bruce Dickinson's second solo album but he couldn't afford it, so Anthrax scooped it up instead.

Key Tracks: "Riding Shotgun," "In a Zone," "Nothing"

9. Volume 8: The Threat is Real

The 1998 followup was no classic album by any means, but where Stomp 442 featured a slate of mediocre chugging tracks, Anthrax took a much more adventurous approach on this album.  The overall sound and production is muddy and has a late 90s DIY feel, but the songwriting is actually quite solid here.  It seemed like John Bush, whose vocals had up to now felt, for me, a bit "square peg" on an Anthrax record, finally found the right melodic strategy on Vol. 8.  Songs like "Catharsis," "Harm's Way," and the pretty superb "Stealing from a Thief" showed a band less concerned about fitting a particular style and happier just writing good, grungy rock tunes.  Volume 8 has a varied set of hard rockers plus the touching hidden track "Pieces" (written and sung by Frank Bello, whose brother had recently been killed), and the result is a significant step up from Stomp.

Key Tracks: "Crush," "Harm's Way," "Stealing from a Thief"

8. State of Euphoria 

SoE was the first Anthrax album I ever heard (back in early 1990) and it hooked me right away.  I was familiar with the name of the band and for some reason based on the T-shirts I'd seen I envisioned a band similar to Guns N' Roses.  I was surprised to find they had more in common with Metallica, albeit with Joey Belladonna's much cleaner vocal style.  Right away it was clear this band was a little different, letting their playful personalities shine through amid the high-energy metal heft.  The opening track "Be All, End All" carried an upbeat message, "Out of Sight, Out of Mind" took on phony, studio-enhanced pop stars, "Make Me Laugh" attacked the hypocrisy of celebrity preachers, and the sardonic "Now It's Dark" was inspired by the David Lynch cult film Blue Velvet.  But Anthrax scored a solid hit with their cover of "Antisocial," originally recorded by French metal band Trust (Incidentally this song is featured in the 2017 film It).  State of Euphoria runs out of steam about two-thirds in and Joey's vocal parts clung way too closely to the guitar riffs for my taste, but it's a solid record that still has sentimental value.

Key Tracks: "Make Me Laugh," "Antisocial," "Now It's Dark"