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

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

Top Ten Things: Black Sabbath Albums

Welcome to an emotionally charged Top Ten Things, here at Enuffa.com!

The world has just lost a legend.  One of the most influential figures in rock n' roll history, one of the founding fathers of what has for me been the life-altering genre of heavy metal, has left our existential plane.  This week, Ozzy Osbourne lost his battle with Parkinson's disease at the age of 76, only two weeks removed from his farewell concert in Birmingham.  The timing really supports the idea that when people have something they want to accomplish late in life, they tend to stay alive long enough to do it.  I can't imagine how thankful all those musicians must feel to have been part of what was truly Ozzy's swan song.  

As for my relationship with Ozzy and his work, I've always been sort of a casual fan.  I discovered, or more accurately sought out Black Sabbath when I was thirteen, motivated by having heard "Iron Man," or more accurately a knockoff of "Iron Man" used as the entrance theme for legendary wrestling tag team The Road Warriors.  So I decided to buy a cassette of Paranoid, and slowly explored that album.  But for a while that was as far as I got with Ozzy's music.  It wasn't until 1991's No More Tears album that I began to appreciate his solo work, and a couple years later the first of two Sabbath tribute albums, Nativity In Black came out, introducing me to many more of their classic songs.

One interesting thing I've noticed about Sabbath's songwriting: on the early albums especially there are almost no vocal chorus hooks.  Ozzy would sing verse sections and then leave the guitar riff as the main feature and de facto "chorus."  You don't notice it until you really stop and think about what's happening in the songs, but there it is.  Next time you hear "NIB" or "War Pigs" or "Symptom of the Universe" or "Black Sabbath," notice how its the guitar and not the vocals that get most of the glory.  This approach really did pave the way for bands like Metallica, Megadeth and Slayer, where the guitar riff is king.  

Having grown up with 60s rock n' roll parents, I wasn't exposed to much 1970s music as a kid, thus I was very late to the party in acquiring a taste for artists like Led Zeppelin, Queen, Rush, David Bowie, Stevie Wonder, and yes, Black Sabbath.  So my ranking of the band's best works may differ from some of yours.  But let's take a look.....

NJPW G1 Climax 35 Preview & Predictions

Well this snuck up on me fast.  It's already that time again - the most grueling four weeks in pro wrestling, the NJPW G1 Climax tournament!  The company is still scrambling to find the next It Guy to build the company around, and while there are numerous promising contenders to the throne, the new Ace has yet to fully emerge....

It's been a very challenging time in NJPW.  With a host of really strong talent JUST BELOW the very top, there hasn't been an obvious choice yet to truly succeed the retiring Hiroshi Tanahashi or the departed Kazuchika Okada and Tetsuya Naito.  Nor have Zack Sabre Jr., David Finlay or Gabe Kidd quite filled the void left by their gaijin predecessors Kenny Omega, Will Ospreay and Jay White.  The G1 can help the cream rise to the top, but the fans need to connect with and plunk down their money for the Ace before he can be considered as such.  This tournament has a ton of young talent but is missing the usual star power, with Naito gone and Tanahashi nowhere near his peak.  Even perennial G1 MVP Tomohiro Ishii is absent this year.

Still there is plenty of in-ring ability on display in these two blocks, and hopefully our next top star will cement himself in this tournament.

Let's look at the blocks below:

Block A: Boltin Oleg, Evil, David Finlay, Callum Newman, Ryohei Oiwa, Sanada, Taichi, Hiroshi Tanahashi, Yota Tsuji, Yuya Uemura

Block B: El Phantasmo, Gabe Kidd, Drilla Moloney, Ren Narita, Great-O-Khan, Zack Sabre Jr., Shingo Takagi, Konosuke Takeshita, Shota Umino, Yoshi-Hashi

 

As always I'll only go through the individual names who have a snowball's chance in hell of winning this thing (or at least their respective blocks), rather than the entire field.  

Block A: Evil, David Finlay, Yota Tsuji, Yuya Uemura

Block B: Gabe Kidd, Zack Sabre Jr., Shingo Takagi, Konosuke Takeshita, Shota Umino

AEW All In Texas Review: Hangman Adam Page Saves AEW

AEW All In Texas was a truly epic wrestling show, pushing the boundaries of how much hot graps an audience can endure.  The main show was an astonishing SIX hours, and yet somehow aside from a few lulls during the less important matches, the Arlington crowd was up for all of it, especially the main event.  That the fans were so nuclear for Jon Moxley vs. Hangman Page so far into the show says a lot about how compelling this story has been.  Compare that with WrestleMania 35 for example, where the WWE audience was super excited for Becky Lynch to headline the show, until she actually did, five and a half hours later in front of an exhausted crowd.  The level of heat for a match so deep into a show is in itself a remarkable achievement.  This was one of those shows where you want to say "That was amazing, Tony.  Now let's never do that again." 

The Texas Death Match was as expected a veritable bloodbath with a bunch of interference at the end.  But the rest of the show was wisely booked without blood and without much outside the ring shenanigans, to set the main event apart.  Mox and Page used lots of weapons (the most visceral moment came early when Page took out a fork and in real time poked holes in Mox's forehead), built to lots of false finishes, and incorporated run-ins by not only the Death Riders but Will Ospreay, the Young Bucks, and a returning Bryan Danielson and Darby Allin; the latter repelled from the stadium's ceiling.  But it was the involvement of Swerve Strickland that proved the most memorable, as after Prince Nana handcuffed Marina Shafir to a table, Swerve knocked out the Bucks with the chain Hangman had given him on Collision and slid it into the ring.  As Swerve looked on smiling, Hangman used the chain to once again choke Moxley out (after hitting a Buckshot Lariat that deposited Mox on a bed of nails), shades of their previous Texas Death Match.  Moxley sold this brilliantly, flailing for his life for several seconds, before tapping out.  And Globe Life Field EXPLODED in cheers.  This was one of the all-time great match-ending pops, the culmination of literal years of the emotional roller coaster that has been Hangman's arc.  Another incredible pop followed soon after, as Page finally freed the AEW Title from its briefcase prison and held it up, tears in his eyes.  An absolute masterpiece of a Texas Death match, followed by chill-inducing catharsis.  ******

Top Ten Things: Weird Al Yankovic Albums, RANKED

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

Today I'll be talking about a musical legend.  And a comedy legend.  And a certified genius (Seriously, he skipped second grade and was senior year valedictorian at sixteen).

Weird Al Yankovic burst into the American lexicon in 1984 with an off-beat parody of a Michael Jackson hit, and has somehow managed to build a hugely successful forty-plus-year career lampooning our most cherished pop music stars.  As an eight-year-old Michael Jackson fanatic I was initially offended that anyone would parody one of his songs, but Al won me over when I first saw the video for "Eat It."  Here was a dorky, bespectacled nerd mimicking all of Jackson's dance moves (badly I might add) and conjuring comedy from already-tired rock video imagery.  By age twelve I'd bought all of Al's records, and I've been a huge fan ever since.  In 2000 I got to see Al from the front row, and he even yelled at me for not singing along to "Dare to Be Stupid."  It was indeed a privilege.  Twenty-two years later I took my son to see his Ill-Advised Vanity Tour, a proud inter-generational moment. 

Despite originating as a zany novelty act on comedy radio, Weird Al's career has endured a staggering four decades.  For many artists, being parodied by Al is a badge of honor, a sign that they've truly "made it."  Al is like a pop culture mirror, making light of our society's latest fads and popular music heroes.  While he seems to be all done putting out full albums, he still pops up every so often with a new video to remind us he's still out there, ready to either lampoon or pay homage to whatever's grabbing headlines.

Here now Weird Al Yankovic's albums, ranked....

14. Polka Party!

It should come as no surprise that the album which nearly derailed Al's career ranks last.  Without the benefit of a strong single to help move sales ("Livin' With a Hernia" is a fun James Brown parody but didn't exactly light up the charts the way "Eat It" or "Like a Surgeon" did), Polka Party! would need to overachieve as a cohesive album.  Sadly it did not; the album's parodies tackled mostly less-than-memorable material, while its originals were largely pretty pedestrian.  The Talking Heads-inspired "Dog Eat Dog" and the Phil Spector-style "Christmas at Ground Zero" serve as a pair of standouts, but beyond those, Polka Party! lacks a strong catalogue of original tunes to make up for the rather uninspired slate of parodies.  Thankfully Al's career would resurge in a big way two years later with the release of Even Worse.

Key Tracks: Livin' With a Hernia, Dog Eat Dog, Christmas at Ground Zero

13. Alapalooza

Cashing in on both the mammoth success of Jurassic Park and the alternative music tour Lollapalooza, Al's 8th album dropped in 1993 and didn't quite make the splash its predecessor Off the Deep End did.  It probably didn't help that the lead single was a parody of an old 1960s tune rather than a hot 1993 alternative chart-topper (though Al's "Jurassic Park" song is pretty great).  Al did send up the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Give It Away" and "Under the Bridge," with mixed results (RHCP bassist Flea expressed disappointment in Al's choice of The Flintstones as the song's inspiration), and Aerosmith's "Livin' on the Edge," returning to the subject of food, in this case the kind that's been in the fridge too long.  The original songs on this album were a letdown for me, aside from the excellent REM-esque "Frank's 2000" TV."  To my mind "Traffic Jam," "Waffle King" and "She Never Told Me She Was a Mine" sounded like outtakes from previous albums.  But Alapalooza does finish strong with "Bohemian Polka," a sped-up, accordion-driven version of Queen's megahit "Bohemian Rhapsody."  Overall though, Alapalooza is one of his weakest efforts, and the worst of his 1990s output.

Key Tracks: Jurassic Park, Frank's 2000" TV, Bohemian Polka

12. Straight Outta Lynwood

Notable for boasting Al's highest-charting single "White & Nerdy" (a parody of "Ridin" by Chamillionaire), Al's 12th album was from a commercial standpoint another career highlight.  Other parodies include "Canadian Idiot," based of course on Green Day's "American Idiot," "Confessions Part III," a sendup of Usher's "Confessions Part II," and the epic "Trapped in the Drive Thru" based on R. Kelly's "Trapped in the Closet."  The originals on this album are quite varied, with "Pancreas" parodying the style of The Beach Boys, "I'll Sue Ya" capturing the sound of Rage Against the Machine, and probably the strongest original "Don't Download This Song" going after 1980s all-star charity tunes like "We Are the World."  Overall SOL is ambitious and sonically diverse, but not all of it landed for me.  Still it was satisfying to see Al achieve such mainstream success once again.

Key Tracks: White & Nerdy, Pancreas, Don't Download This Song

11. Bad Hair Day

Falling just shy of the top ten is Al's 1996 return to prominence after the critical and commercial disappointment of Alapalooza.  The ninth album in Al's catalog surged to double-platinum status largely on the back of "Amish Paradise," a parody of Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise."  Coolio infamously disapproved of Al using his song as comedy fodder and publicly objected, though Al did get written permission from Coolio's management to use the song.  This was ironic considering the Coolio tune is itself a reworking of Stevie Wonder's "Pastime Paradise."  Aside from the hit single, Bad Hair Day boasts an excellent parody of Presidents of the USA's "Lump," about Forrest Gump, some standout originals such as "Everything You Know is Wrong" the a cappella "Since You've Been Gone," and "The Night Santa Went Crazy," and maybe his best-ever polka medley, "The Alternative Polka," which makes use of numerous mid-90s grunge and alternative hits.  Bad Hair Day is a bit uneven but contains enough standout tunes to almost make the vaunted top ten.

Key Tracks: Amish Paradise, The Alternative Polka, Gump

10. UHF - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack and Other Stuff

The soundtrack to Al's 1989 summer flop sadly didn't fare much better than its film counterpart, but it did contain some fun parodies and solid originals, plus a few snippets of the film itself.  Al's spoof of Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing," which is essentially the Beverly Hillbillies theme set to different music, was accompanied by an excellent sendup of the Straits video.  Other highlights were "Spam," based on REM's "Stand," and two hilarious originals, "Generic Blues," which literally just recycles all the woe-is-me blues lyrical tropes, and folk-rock epic "The Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota," which recounts in great detail a trip to go see the World's Largest Twine Ball (Yes, such a thing actually exists).  Released at a time when a) the summer movie season was quite cluttered (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Batman, Star Trek V, and Lethal Weapon 2), and b) Weird Al's record sales were somewhat contingent on including a Michael Jackson parody, this album and film kinda got lost in the shuffle (though UHF has since become a cult classic).  But it's not too shabby at all and shows evidence of Al's growth as a musician.

Key Tracks: Generic Blues, Spam, The Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota

9. Dare to Be Stupid

Al's third album, and the first musical comedy album to see a CD release, showed that Al was growing beyond his reputation as "that funny guy who does the Michael Jackson parody."  With songs like "Like a Surgeon," "I Want a New Duck," and the superb "Yoda" (based on The Kinks' "Lola"), Al was attempting to last beyond the fifteen-minute lifespan most gave him.  But it's in the original songs where this album really achieves.  Style parodies like the hilariously descriptive doo-wop ballad "One More Minute" and the Devo-inspired title track demonstrated Al's gift for recreating different genres (Devo frontman Mark Mothersbaugh once said that "Dare to Be Stupid" captured the exact sound he himself had been trying to create).

Key Tracks: Dare to Be Stupid, One More Minute, Yoda

Movie Review: Superman (2025)

In the words with which New York Times critic Janet Maslin kicked off her 1982 review of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, "Well that's more like it."

James Gunn's new Superman film is just the cinematic rebirth this character and his mythos needed after decades of failed reboots and reinventions, tacked-on latent sequels, and joyless, unpleasant "realistic" takes.  I've said for a long time that Superman is a simple character, but simultaneously a very easy one to screw up.  He needs to be a paragon of virtue and a symbol of hope, but also needs real human frailty and uncertainty to make him relatable to us screwed up mortals.  He needs to be nigh invincible but still vulnerable, both physically and especially emotionally.  Gunn and his collaborators have threaded this needle so deftly I found myself choking up at numerous points during this film.  Turns out there was a very simple but vital ingredient missing from Zack Snyder's dour Superman films: pathos.

AEW All In Texas Preview & Predictions

It's finally here, the biggest AEW show of 2025, All In Texas!  

At a time when AEW finally feels like it has real momentum and is becoming the hot wrestling promotion again (partly thanks to an incredibly dull, I mean more than usual, WWE product), what this company needs is another defining PPV event, like they had four years ago at All Out.  And this All In lineup fits that bill nicely.  The product has felt very focused in 2025 and the build for this show has been among the best for any PPV in company history.  The 25,000 or so in attendance this Saturday will no doubt be a very enthusiastic mob, comprising AEW's biggest North American crowd to date.  This is an historic show already, as the largest non-WWE wrestling gate ever on this continent.  And if the results are booked as expected there will be plenty of history to go around.

Men's Casino Gauntlet

This show will have not one but two Casino Gauntlet matches, which I'm not crazy about, but both should be entertaining and they've done a good job of building stories to be contained within them, as opposed to just throwing a bunch of people in the ring.  We know for sure Mark Briscoe and MJF will kick things off, and the build for just their exchanges has been pretty sharply drawn.  Mistico will also appear as well as Ricochet, Bandido, and Brody King.  Lotta good star power and athleticism already.  I assume we'll see Takeshita, Samoa Joe, Claudio, Hobbs, Gabe Kidd and Wheeler as well (unless they add a Trios Title match to the card, which I wouldn't be sad about).  Anyway the story seems to be building toward MJF getting another crack at the AEW Title at long last, so I'm picking him to win this.

Pick: MJF

Oscar Film Journal: Patton (1970)

Welcome back to the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!

One of several calendar years where I have serious holes in my game is the year 1970.  Of the five nominees I'd only ever seen Five Easy Pieces, and that was decades ago (I'll need to give that a rewatch at some point).  So I decided to start at the top of the list and watch the Best Picture winner, Patton, starring George C. Scott as the titular controversial World War II General.

Patton is both a character study and a war film (some might even call it anti-war), which focuses specifically on George S. Patton's exploits and views the war mostly through his eyes.  We begin with the famous speech to his men, in the iconic opening scene depicting the General standing in front of a giant US flag that fills the entire frame, Patton himself lined up perfectly with the bottom edge, as though he's on a stage speaking directly to the audience.  This speech conveys a ton of information about the man, just through his attitude toward war.  "No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country," he tells his troops, "He won it by making the other poor, dumb bastard die for his country."  To call George Patton a war hawk would be an understatement.  War was his entire raison d'être.  "I love it more than my own life," he tells a colleague.  His passion for battle was so well-known even the German Captain Steiger, who had studied Patton's career, pitied his imminent obsolescence as the Allies took Berlin.  

Movie Review: Sinners (2025)

Hollywood is still battling to bring people back to the cinemas in a marketplace soaked to the skin with at-home streaming content, and one of its early 2025 success stories is Ryan Coogler's latest film Sinners.  Shot on a combination of 65mm and IMAX film stock, Sinners is a period vampire film set in the Jim Crow South of the early 1930s.  Twin entrepreneurs of sorts Elijah "Smoke" and Elias "Stack" Moore (a charismatic double performance by Michael B. Jordan) return home to Mississippi after a stint in Chicago gangland, with the intention of opening up a "juke joint," a house of live music, drinking and dancing, catered primarily to black clientele.  They recruit their cousin Sammie (a very natural Miles Caton), a prodigious blues guitarist, as one of the club's featured talents, as well as a host of friends and acquaintances to work on their staff.  The Juke Club's grand opening seems to be a rousing success, but things begin to go very awry when those damn vampires show up.....

***Some spoilers ahead***