WWE Wrestlemania 31

Just a heads up this is going to be a doozy of an entry, so make sure to have ample time on your hands before starting up on this entry. With that out of the way, welcome to my annual Wrestlemania tradition of reviewing the prior year’s event just days before the newest Wrestlemania transpires. We are a few days away from Wrestlemania 32, which will involve a two hour NXT Takeover live special, a Hall of Fame that will likely go four hours like last year, a three hour Wrestlemania kickoff/pre-show that will have four matches, and will be topped off with the four hour plus overrun edition that will be WM32. The hype and build has been all over the place and I got a feeling this will be a letdown of a Wrestlemania this year, but I am still oh so looking forward to the biggest 13 hours of content WWE will deliver this weekend.

With that little bit of super-fan hype out of my system, let us revisit WM31 from last year. The BluRay features the entire main WM31 card, both kickoff show matches, and the hall of fame ceremony. I will make a feeble attempt not to spend too much time on the hall of fame. Here goes. The HoF starts with the Usos inducting Rikishi. Did you like this duo the first time you saw them when Rikishi accepted for Yokozuna three years prior? Thankfully both the Usos and Rikishi are both natural talkers and both gave great speeches and the trio appropriately gave one last Rikishi dance party to close out their induction.

Larry Zybysko was up next. Bruno Sammartino gave a fitting induction speech where he recited their entire history together and how he brought Larry up as his apprentice and their legendary feud together. I am continually amazed at how great Bruno looks for his age. I always heard how Larry was renowned as one of the best talkers in the business and from witnessing a few classic promos online and memories of his commentary on Nitro I was really looking forward to his speech. Unfortunately, I think Larry thought he could just wing a natural acceptance speech with no notes and he just got caught up in the moment and kept repeating the same story over and over. Seriously, take a shot every time you hear Larry say ‘hedges’ in his acceptance speech, and I bet you will be gone by the time he walks off stage.

Madusa/Alundra Blayze was up next. I will give props to Natalya for giving an induction speech full of gratitude for Madusa being courageous in her jump to WCW instead of bashing her for trashing the WWE Women’s title on Nitro. I presumed the WWE would be nudging Madusa to be super gracious and apologetic for her past actions in her speech, and was surprised when we got a 180 and she held nothing back and declared she had no regrets and I was fully behind her when she essentially exclaimed, “deal with it, now I’m outta her because I got monster trucks to drive!” Easily Madusa had the best speech of the entire ceremony.

Next up was WWE patting themselves on the back with the first ever Warrior award. In Warrior’s hall of fame speech he asked to have an award for the hard workers behind-the-scenes that go unrecognized and name it after a deserving behind-the-scenes worker in the 80s. WWE perceived that to name it the Warrior award and to make it all about philanthropy as they gave it to Conor the Crusher, the unfortunate child who had brain cancer that inspired the WWE roster at WM31. Do not get me wrong, the speeches given by Dana Warrior, Daniel Bryan and Conor’s dad were all very heartwarming and it is definitely a feel good moment I am all for, but rename it something else as this is not the award that Warrior originally envisioned.

I never thought the Bushwhackers would wind up in the hall of fame, but my childhood favorite tag team is now enshrined. John Lauranitis gave a nice induction speech on how the Bushwhackers mentored him in New Zealand and the Bushwhackers had some real fun stories the audience ate up such as a certain Royal Rumble payday. Japanese legend Tatsumi Fujanami was inducted next by Ric Flair. Due to Fujanami’s very limited English, his speech went understandably short, but Flair gave him a fitting induction filling us all in about his success in Japan. Triple H inducted this year’s celebrity inductee, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Knowing that Hunter is a weightlifting guru, he was the right guy to induct Arnold and he went on to enlighten about all his various charity programs and how Arnold laid a beating on him on a vintage episode of Smackdown. Arnold gave a very genuine speech on how he loved wrestling and how it influenced him in his career.

Onto the two main event inductions! The Hulkster was still a few months away from being blacklisted from the company, and he inducted the Macho Man. Savage’s brother Lanny accepted the award, and he bestowed us with many classic Randy tales and filled us in on how he found solace in helping special Olympic contestants and in his second marriage in his final years. Shawn Michaels inducted Kevin Nash to finish off the evening and he informed us on how he brought Big Kev to the WWE where he found big success for the first time. Nash gave a very humbled speech, and rightly patted himself on the back for doing business first and paving the way for guaranteed contracts for other superstars in the future.

It was another entertaining hall of fame, and I love it almost as much as I do Wrestlemania. As I stated in the intro, the BluRay has both kickoff/pre-show matches as bonus features. The fatal four way WWE Tag Title match started it off and featured the Usos, Los Matadores, New Day and champs, Tyson Kidd & Cesaro. This was when New Day was the unlikeable, please ‘cheer and clap for us’ babyfaces before they hit their stride as the New Day we know and love today. This match actually got some decent time and was filled with all kinds of inventive tag team spots in a bout that saw Kidd & Cesaro successfully retain their titles. The second ever, Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal was next and it was surprisingly well booked. There was never a dull moment in the match as no more than 20 to 30 seconds went by between a meaningful moment/elimination happened and it was filled with lots of impactful eliminations. This match saw the long overdue breakup of Miz and Damian Sandow that saw Sandow eliminate Miz to face off against Big Show in the end, but it was to no avail and props to Big Show for winning his first, yes first ever battle royal.

Now onto the proper WM32 feature. It started off with a super slick opening video package narrated by LL Cool J. The first match was a seven man ladder match for the Intercontinental Title between Bad News Barrett, Daniel Bryan, Dean Ambrose, Luke Harper, Dolph Ziggler, R-Truth and Stardust. Like many past ladder matches at Wrestlemania there were countless highspots to keep track of, with Harper powerbombing Bryan through a ladder being the most jaw-dropping for me. It bordered on a RoH level of a forgettable spotfest, but it also made sense because of the number of superstars involved gave everyone time to sell these devastating-looking moves. In what would be one of his last matches, Daniel Bryan won the IC title after an ill-advised headbutt war with Dolph Ziggler that he got the best of. Next up we saw Seth Rollins and Randy Orton settle their feud that was several months in the making. This match made me forget how short J&J security was, and made me miss Seth’s old curb stomp finisher that got banned shortly after this match. Orton wound up victorious after a sweet looking curb stomp-reversal into an RKO-FROM OUTTA NOWEHERE!

Following this was Sting’s debut WWE match against Triple H. Let me tell you something, if you love over-the-top Wrestlemania entrances you will not be disappointed as both Sting and Triple H pull out all the stops. I was hoping this match would deliver after some promising opening sequences, but Sting’s cardio is not what it used to be and he was visibly gassed after five minutes. WWE compensated for this a few minutes later by pulling out the bag of tricks and having the DX and the nWo run-in to assist both guys and the crowd absolutely ate it up. I vividly recall originally watching this live thinking who would make sense to run-in and assist Sting to fight off DX. For a minute I thought it had to be his WCW buddy Goldberg, and I was poised to see Goldberg spear the shit out of everyone, but instead scratched my head to see the nWo, who Sting prominently opposed in his WCW days, oh-so-slowly take their time walking down the entrance ramp to save Sting. Regardless, it was still a fun spectacle to indulge, even after Shawn Michaels ran in and superkicked Sting to give Triple H the victory. I am expecting another bag of tricks match this Sunday for the Shane/Undertaker Hell in a Cell bout.

Do you want to see a live Kid Ink performance? I did not a fan so I skipped it this time around, but did not skip the annual Wrestlemania legends comedy sketch that ended with yet another memorable one-liner. Our requisite Divas match of the night saw Paige & AJ Lee team up to face the Bellas. This bout will go down as AJ’s last match, as CM Punk’s spouse surprisingly stuck around on the roster for a little over a year after Punk walked out on the WWE for one more Mania payoff just a couple days after this match. Surprisingly, AJ & Paige won after AJ made Nikki tap out to her Black Widow submission.

John Cena faced Rusev for the US Title next. Remember when Rusev was the unstoppable Russian? WWE gave him the deluxe Russian villain treatment with a unbelievably bonkers Russian Hero entrance that somehow eclipses the Rocky IV Drago entrance. The comparison is stunning! How about that tank!! Cena use to be notorious for his elaborate Wrestlemania entrances, but stunned me with nothing special for him this year. The match was pretty good, but a notch or two away from being truly great. Cena naturally walked away victorious and went on to have the best half year of matches in his entire career with his US Title Invitational series of matches. Rusev and Lana were on the cusp of becoming main event tier players going into WM31 and instead wound up going on a career downward spiral in the following months of awful booking and storylines where today both are now barely clinging on to lower-card, bit player roles.

Steph and Hunter came out to talk themselves up to the crowd, but The Rock would have none of it and berated them both to the crowd’s approval. Steph talked down Rock, so the Rock got a pre-defeated, Ronda Rousey from ringside to stand up to Steph’s loudmouth. Lots of great lines from Rock in this segment that greatly benefitted from Rock & Rousey’s star power. Undertaker redeemed his only Wrestlemania loss last year with a victory against Bray Wyatt in the proceeding match. It was good to see ‘Taker in far better health than the previous year, and this match was a far better encounter than his clunker against Brock. However it was still a notch under his Wrestlemania classics against HBK, Triple H, Batista and Edge.

The main event saw Brock defend his world title against Roman Reigns. My initial viewing thoughts going into this were WWE was going to go with Reigns walking out of this as champion, and just being pissed off the entire match waiting for Reigns’ eventual comeback. Knowing how things played out on this second viewing, the match was exponentially more enjoyable and is just a couple slivers under Brock’s excellent bout where he dominated Cena at Summerslam 2014. Reliving this was a treat as a vast majority of the crowd was feeling the same way as I was and dumped all over Reigns whenever he had his brief flurries of offense. Brock was believably intense and pissed off throughout, and it was a joy watching him beat down Roman’s face whenever he smirked at him throughout this contest. Also witnessing Brock’s organic debut of the line ‘Suplex City’ was a special moment right up there with Austin busting out his first ‘3:16’ line in 1996. I did not see Seth cashing in his Money in the Bank briefcase in the middle of this match as a possibility, but the way it played it out resulted in myself and the WM31 crowd going home happy!

Looking back I was expecting WM31 to disappoint, but instead got a show that delivered on nearly all fronts. Both kick-off show matches did not hold anything back and proved they belong on the main card unlike most past preliminary Wrestlemania matches. Undertaker redeemed himself and proved he can still go in the ring. We got our usual entertaining spotfest ladder match. Most importantly, I thought Sting/HHH, Rusev/Cena and Brock/Roman were both going to be underwhelming and disappointing matches but my hat is off to WWE for finding creative ways to salvage all three matches and make them all legitimately enjoyable in their own right. It all combined for a far better Wrestlemania than it had any right to be. Hopefully, WWE will strike lightning in a bottle twice because I am just not all that stoked for WM32 this Sunday. If WWE could prove me wrong like that again this Sunday I will be a happy fan because Wrestlemania 31 served as a prime example where the company came together and everyone stepped up to deliver a show that overcame all expectations.

Past Wrestling Blogs

Best of WCW Monday Nitro Volume 2
Biggest Knuckleheads
Bobby The Brain Heenan
Daniel Bryan: Just Say Yes Yes Yes
Dusty Rhodes WWE Network Specials
ECW Unreleased: Vol 1
ECW Unreleased: Vol 2
ECW Unrealeased: Vol 3
For All Mankind
Goldberg: The Ultimate Collection
Its Good to Be the King: The Jerry Lawler Story
Ladies and Gentlemen My Name is Paul Heyman
Legends of Mid South Wrestling
Macho Man: The Randy Savage Story
Memphis Heat
OMG Vol 2: Top 50 Incidents in WCW History
RoH Supercard of Honor V
RoH Supercard of Honor VI
RoH Supercard of Honor VII
RoH Supercard of Honor VIII
RoH Supercard of Honor IX
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
Superstar Collection: Zach Ryder
Top 50 Superstars of All Time
Tough Enough: Million Dollar Season
Warrior Week on WWE Network
Wrestlemania 3: Championship Edition
Wrestlemania 28
Wrestlemania 29
Wrestlemania 30
The Wrestler (2008)
Wrestling Road Diaries Too
WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2015
WWE Network Original Specials Second Half 2015

Man of Steel

I meant to write this up a little sooner, but as fate would have it, I wound up cutting my self-imposed deadline close because in honor of Batman vs. Superman opening tonight, today’s entry will be dedicated to 2013’s Man of Steel (trailer). This retelling of Superman’s origin had a very divisive reaction among fans, as I have talked to multiple people who both passionately enjoyed and despised this film.

Man of Steel opens with the fall of Krypton. I am not 100% sure if this origin story was adapted from one of the many origin tales of the DC Comics series, but I am on board with how it evolved on the big screen here compared to the cartoons and comics I grew up with. The opening 20 minutes transpires on Krypton where we see Superman’s parents Jor-El (Russell Crowe) and Faora-El (Antje Traue) be there for their son Cal-El’s birth. Not all is well though because Krypton is on the verge of apocalypse so they send their son off in a mini-space shuttle to Earth shortly before Krypton’s doomsday.

From there we see a montage of events as the film bounces around in Clark Kent’s (Henry Cavill) life as a child to his young adult years accomplishing feats of strength and discovering the true nature of his powers. Throughout this act of the film, Clark’s stepfather, Jonathon (Kevin Costner) keeps reminding Clark to hide his powers so the world does not discover him and reject him for being dynamically different that everyone else. When Clark meets the “ghost” of Jor-El, he delivers Clark an opposite message of being a symbol of hope to people of Earth and to rise above and lead them against all evildoers.

This leads to a series of scenes of Clark being self-conflicted if he should expose who he really is when Earth is facing the impending threat of General Zod’s (Michael Shannon) forces invading Earth. When you combine that with award-winning reporter Lois Lane (Amy Adams) in the midst of publishing a tell-all piece on Superman, you get a Clark Kent with some big decisions to make.

Compared to the Lois & Clark TV series I grew up with in the mid-90s and even 2006’s Superman Returns, Man of Steel easily features a darker version of Superman than I am accustomed to. Going by reactions to friends and fans online this is what rubbed a lot of people the wrong way with this film as they desired a more customary all-American Superman, but I thought the way this film evolved Superman’s character came across naturally on screen. It would seem appropriate that Superman would be questioning his true self before embracing who he really is, and I felt the film did a great job at conveying that message before he finally donned the iconic Superman uniform.

Man of Steel goes all-in with the special effects, as it features some eye-popping battles with massive explosions and a city that is falling apart all around where Superman and Zod wage war in the film’s final act. One does not need to wonder how Warner Bros. could afford the budget for this after a couple of gratuitous product placement spots surely helped foot the bill, and it only seems the right thing to do considering Superman’s theatrical product placement legacy. The final fight scenes are a lengthy encounter, but they have a couple of spots in there to catch your breath and let the action breath before another epic battle ensues. I was still caught up and bought into the action all the way through Zod and Superman’s decisive final moments of battle. This moment features a bold filmmaking decision on director Zach Snyder’s part, but the way it played out I absolutely found believable and I can only applaud the filmmakers for going in that risky direction.

While I do l love the film, I would be remiss if I did not have a couple of hairs to split and nitpick over. I could have done without one or two more of the many flashback scenes. Man of Steel features a huge supporting cast, and they probably felt obligated to give most characters a certain amount of film time, and there were a couple times I felt they could have reduced or cut a couple other scenes to shave down the near two and a half hour runtime.

Man of Steel is loaded with extra features. There are five separate extra features totaling an hour detailing the training the actors had to endure for the film and expand on the lore and mythos of Krypton and Superman that all have good production values and do not come off as cheap, thrown-together extras like I have viewed on many other DVDs. The primary extra however is Journey of Discovery: Creating Man of Steel and it clocks in at just under three hours. If you remember how Zach Snyder did “Maximum Movie” mode on a previous film of his, The Watchmen, this is almost exactly like that where it is like a second-screen experience where the film plays out in one window on screen, and in another window we get inserted with interviews with many cast and crew members talking about the scene that is transpiring.

Other Journey of Discovery moments features windows of alternate takes, outtakes, or raw pre-CG shots of the film taking place to show the vast difference of what special effects had on the film. It runs about a half hour longer than the main feature film because there are moments where the film pauses from playing and focuses instead on a pivotal interview moment or alternate take instead. While it is quite the commitment to watch all the way through, Journey of Discovery is a great way to relive the film and find out many more behind-the-scenes details and anecdotes in a way that is more entertaining than getting lost in countless menus of extra feature options. If you have the time, do not skip out on this highly entertaining extra feature.

As you can tell, I am a big fan of Man of Steel, and I am glad to see it get a fully featured BluRay release. If you have problems with the way how Superman is portrayed here, than I respect your opinion on not wanting to accept the way how Warner Bros. evolved the character. Once again, I thought it seemed a very fitting way to grow the character to today’s times and not too far off from the character’s core beliefs and values. If you enjoyed the film like I did and never got around to watching the BluRay I highly recommend checking it out because Journey of Discovery is hands down one of the best extra features I have ever seen, and this is coming from a person who has watched countless extra features over the years.

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs


3
12 Angry Men (1957)
21 Jump Street
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie
Atari: Game Over
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Bounty Hunters
Cabin in the Woods
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special
Dirty Work
Faster
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
The Fighter
For Love of the Game
Good Will Hunting
Hercules: Reborn
Hitman
Ink
Man of Steel
Marine 3 & 4
Mortal Kombat
The Replacements
Rocky I-VI
Running Films Part 1
Running Films Part 2
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Source Code
Star Trek I-XII
Take Me Home Tonight
TMNT
The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2
Veronica Mars
The Wrestler (2008)

RoH Supercard of Honor IX

We are within a month of Wrestlemania 32, so just like last year I am celebrating with two wrestling entries this month on the blog! Like last year I will kick it off with my recap of the last year’s Supercard of Honor (SoH) from the number three promotion in America, Ring of Honor (RoH). Make sure to come back in a week or two with my rundown of last year’s Wrestlemania 31. 2015 saw RoH bestow us with SoH IX, and like most years this event transpired, it happened on the same weekend and city where Wrestlemania took place in order to attract its biggest crowd and most ardent fans. SoH IX took place in Redwood City, CA, which is in the greater San Francisco/Santa Clara area where WM31 occurred.

I will preface with a little context on the state of RoH one year ago. At that time RoH’s weekly TV show could only be found for free on their website and on syndication at mostly odd hours in a growing number of markets around the country. After a brief run of the weekly TV show airing on Destination America network, the newly rebranded Comet TV channel started to air the show on Wendesday nights at 11pm CT. RoH’s parent company, Sinclair broadcasting recently acquired the Tennis Channel and speculation is brewing they are going to give the channel a makeover and make it a perfect fit to showcase RoH and finally give their production values a big upgrade to standout on the channel.

With that 2015 setup out of the way, SoH IX kicks off with Mark Briscoe squaring off against ACH. Like last year it seems the Briscoes are both on their own separate paths with Jay now rising above as the serious headliner, while Mark is all about his own unique brand of redneck kickass he has on display here. It also took awhile for me to get use to seeing a Briscoe with so much….hair. I enjoyed this fast paced opener, and got a kick out of Mark’s brand of ‘redneck kungfu’ he had on display. Mark won the opener after a sequence of rollup reversals.

The second match on the card saw Michael Elgin face Frankie Kazarian. For whatever reason I was never too big on Kaz from his days on Impact Wrestling, but Elgin I recall being impressed by in his bout with Davey Richards at Showdown in the Sun. This match just did not do it for me and it fell victim to the RoH stereotype spotfest. By that I mean it had little to no time to for selling and give the match time to sink in. Elgin got the winning with a spinning powerbomb-driver.

The next match was a 6-man Mayhem match, where two are in the ring and can tag in and out to anyone. Featured here were Moose, Caprice Coleman, Cedric Alexander, Tomasa Ciampa, Matt Sydal and Andrew Everett. Great seeing Matt Sydal (AKA Evan Bourne) back in action for the first time in at least three or four years after screwing up back-to-back drug tests and riding out the remaining two years of his WWE contract on suspension and somehow wound up with a nasty foot injury in a freak accident that sidelined him for even longer. As a result Sydal does not have the same spring in his step, but was still capable of several good spots in this match, including his trademark Shooting Star Press for the victory in a really good match that had the crowd the entire way. I want to give props to Moose’s dropkicks here. Moose gives me the vibe of a well rounded Titus ‘O Neil.

Up next was probably my match of the night as is pitted Decade faction members BJ Whitmer and Jimmy Jacobs against each other. Their steel cage match from several years ago is still my favorite RoH match, and this match had a very nice shoutout to that match with BJ teasing doing a move that went terribly wrong in one of their prior matches, but wisely backed away from it. While these two are getting up in age and are not as flashy as before, unlike a lot of matches on this card, these two allowed their match to breathe with lots of selling and psychology to help setup the next stage of the match. It even told a story with the Decade turning on Whitmer after the match. Christopher Daniels and Roderick Strong should have took note, because their match next was another match with nonstop spots with no room to breathe and resulted in me zoning out of the match before I realized Strong won with a submission.

The tag team title matchup was a bit of a mess for my liking. ReDragon (Kyle ‘O Reilly & Bobby Fisch) defended their belts against The Kingdom (Michael Bennett & Matt Taven). I actually enjoyed the early stages of the match that were filled with some fun comedy moments and good traditional tag action, but then they just went into RoH spot-spot-spot mode and some lousy interference at the end backfired on The Kingdom and lead to ReDragon successfully retaining the belts in a lackluster match.

The TV title match next helped redeemed the tag title contest. Jay Lethal won the TV title at last year’s SoH show, and he is still the champion in an impressive reign, that continued after this night with a successful defense against the legendary Jushin Thunder Liger. Liger is 50 and can somehow still go! I just watched him last weekend in a tag match off the WWE Network from Starrcade ’92…..1992…that is 24 years ago!!! Probably cause of Liger’s age is why this match was not nonstop spot-spot-spot, but it worked towards its benefit and made me believe Liger would come away with the title, but it was not to be after Jay hit his Lethal Injection for the victory.

The main event saw a returning Samoa Joe face Jay Briscoe for the RoH World Title. Samoa Joe is coming back to RoH after nearly 10 years in TNA Wrestling, and five years since his last RoH appearance. I was expecting Joe to emerge victorious here as he unleashed all his vintage moves in a bout that went nearly a half hour. It was not to be though as Jay successfully defended the title with a clean pin after his trademark Jay Driller. Really good match, but seemed to be missing something to make it a runaway match-of-the-year contender.

Supercard of Honor IX was an OK card overall. It had a mix of disappointing spotfests that resulted in me forgetting about them almost as soon as they were over, but it was good seeing Sydal and Joe back in RoH and both got plenty of moments to shine. My two matches of the night however go to Liger/Lethal and Whitmer/Jacobs for having me the most invested throughout. There is one bonus match on the DVD featuring a quick bout between Romantic Touch and Shane Taylor, along with plugs for other RoH merchandise.

Past Wrestling Blogs

Best of WCW Monday Nitro Volume 2
Biggest Knuckleheads
Bobby The Brain Heenan
Daniel Bryan: Just Say Yes Yes Yes
Dusty Rhodes WWE Network Specials
ECW Unreleased: Vol 1
ECW Unreleased: Vol 2
ECW Unrealeased: Vol 3
For All Mankind
Goldberg: The Ultimate Collection
Its Good to Be the King: The Jerry Lawler Story
Ladies and Gentlemen My Name is Paul Heyman
Legends of Mid South Wrestling
Macho Man: The Randy Savage Story
Memphis Heat
OMG Vol 2: Top 50 Incidents in WCW History
RoH Supercard of Honor V
RoH Supercard of Honor VI
RoH Supercard of Honor VII
RoH Supercard of Honor VIII
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
Superstar Collection: Zach Ryder
Top 50 Superstars of All Time
Tough Enough: Million Dollar Season
Warrior Week on WWE Network
Wrestlemania 3: Championship Edition
Wrestlemania 28
Wrestlemania 29
Wrestlemania 30
The Wrestler (2008)
Wrestling Road Diaries Too
WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2015
WWE Network Original Specials Second Half 2015

redvsblue Season 11

After taking a month off from the primary seasons of redvsblue with my entry last month on the RvBX bonus discs, I am back with today’s post covering season 11 (trailer). With season 10 marking the end of the Project Freelancer arc, season 11 kicks off a brand new story arc where 10 left off. Season 11 also marks the first season with Halo 4 being the primary game engine used to capture machinima.

Wash (Shannon McCormick) kicks off the season with a handy recap. When we left off season 10, the reds and blues teamed up to take down the director at his private base. Church and Connie vanished at the end of the season, and their disappearance is addressed several times throughout this season, but do not get your hopes up for a surprise return from them anytime soon. We thought the reds and blues were on their way back home to Blood Gulch, but their ship mysteriously crashed in a random canyon. There are several mini-flashbacks explaining why the ship crashed, and these little asides had me cracking up and were part of my favorite jokes of the season.

Even though the reds and blues are aligned, like most Halo maps, this canyon is symmetrical so Wash commands blue soldiers Caboose (Joel Heyman) and Tucker (Jason Saldana) on one side. On the other side Sarge (Matt Hullum) takes care of Grif (Geoff Ramsey) and Simmons (Gus Sorola) while also constructing another Spanish speaking robot in the form of Lopez 2.0, and yes version 1.0 returns also to team up for some of the best Lopez moments in the series. Seriously, if you have been craving more Lopez after being limited to mostly cameos in recent seasons, then you are in for a treat because Rooster Teeth made sure to deliver with a ton of Lopez goodness this season. There are a few other cameos and returns of other former RvB stalwarts midway through the season, but I do not want to give too much away.

We come to discover the name of the planet the reds and blues crashed on is called Chorus. Unlike, Blood Gulch, there is a lot happening on Chorus as we come to discover later in the season. Wash has premonitions of this and tries his best to get Caboose and Tucker ready for whatever it may be in some awesome training sessions. Caboose ends up meeting a new friend this season that leads to a big change this season for him, and only more awesome tomfoolery that only Caboose is capable of. Speaking of tomfoolery, Simmons introduces his new social media sensation, Basebook that captures everything I enjoy and detest about social media in a few simple quips throughout the season.

Season 11 wraps up with an impressive big firefight, that leaves big changes for the reds and blues as we learn more of what is going on with Chorus and the new roles the reds and blues have that impact Chorus by the end of the season. I applaud Rooster Teeth for taking a season off with their in-house animations that dominated the three previous seasons. It was much appreciated to have Rooster Teeth have a return to form with the straight-up machinima I have come to know and love from the first seven seasons, with little touches of charmingly awful photoshop flourishes sprinkled throughout. One small quip I do have is I am perplexed that this many seasons into RvB there is no option for subtitles. A couple times in past seasons when watching late I went to turn on the subtitles and was surprised with none available. Not a deal breaker by any means, but I am surprised by their omission.

The usual extra features round off the season 11 BluRay. There are several minutes of outtakes, two deleted scenes and a short five minute behind-the-scenes video detailing the crew’s excitement about the new story arc. There are also three PSA videos with my vote going to Sarge’s dream movie trailer for RvB getting the nod as my favorite. Finally there is a commentary track with Miles Luna, Matt Hullum, Burnie Burns and Kyle Taylor. It gets quite technical in some spots, but their commentary is on point and constant throughout and I got the impression they really loved what Halo 4’s theater mode made possible for improvements to machinima. If going by the interviews in the behind-the-scenes video is true, season 11 is part one of a new three part arc. I really dug the new setting and was definitely on board with what they left off with going into season 12. Most importantly, I liked that they dialed back the in-house animations and brought back a return to form with season 11. Here’s to hoping season 12 keeps up that trend!

Past redvsblue Blogs

Season 1
Season 2
Season 3
Season 4 and Grifball Bonus Discs
Season 5
Season 6
Season 7
Season 8
Season 9
Season 10
RvBX Bonus Discs

Take Me Home Tonight

I finally got around to digging out one of my guilty pleasure favorites out of my movie backlog box. I was a little trepid going in if it would hold up or not knowing that it bombed at the box office, and was not a critical darling by any means. It is not a five star comedy, but 2011’s Take Me Home Tonight (trailer) still had me cracking up as much as it did when it first hit nearly five years ago.

TMHT is a throwback coming-of-age comedy set in the mid-80s. Matt (Topher Grace) and Wendy (Anna Faris) are twins both facing major life changing moments on the same night. Wendy is about to move in with her boyfriend, Kyle (Chris Pratt) while Matt is struggling getting his ducks in a row after finishing college until he bumps into his high school crush, Tori (Teresa Palmer). Throw in Barry (Dan Fogler) as the stereotypical dumb-friend for comic relief, and you get a formula for a crazy night when everything comes to a head at Kyle’s annual mega party.

If you love retro films going over the top with the tropes of the times, then you are in for a ride with TMHT. All the pop hits of the 80s are featured nonstop throughout the soundtrack along with all the trademark fashion, hairstyles, cars, lingo and even stores since Matt works at a Suncoast video at the mall. Remember Suncoast and their ridiculously overpriced movies? It is probably best you do not. Not since Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and The Wedding Singer have I been so nostalgic for the 80s, and a big thing TMHT has going for it is experiencing that wild era.

Like another comedy I recently covered, Dirty Work, TMHT is a fairly predictable comedy that is all about the journey. You can almost anticipate how every scene is about to play out, but for whatever reason the dialogue had me cracking up for the most part and a lot of the jokes worked. Some of my favorite scenes were Matt conjuring up a great cover story to hide his real place of employment to impress Tori, and Barry competing in a dance off while on a cocaine trip.

The use of cocaine in a comedy film is why Universal sat on this picture for so long. The film was finished in 2007, but Universal held off releasing it until 2011. Topher Grace and TMHT’s writers, Jackie & Jeff Filgo were fresh off of That 70s Show when TMHT went into production. Chris Pratt was a couple years away from entering the public mainstream on the hit show, Parks and Rec, and well before his recent blockbuster films Jurassic World and Guardians of the Galaxy when he portrayed the stuck-up jock in TMHT.

It is too bad there is only one real extra feature that really shows the gap in release, and that is a brief, eight minute Cast Get Together extra where the five main stars meet up four years later and reminisce about auditioning and share random production stories. There are 11 minutes of deleted scenes I actually recommend checking out. A couple scenes are unnecessary early plot setup scenes, but there is a must-see deleted scene on how Barry handles getting fired from his car salesman job early in the film, and another with my favorite supporting character of the film, Carlos, as he just kills it with some fantastic ad-libbing with Matt. A music video featuring a cover of Don’t You Want Me rounds off the extras for the DVD. The crazy gap in the release leaves a desirable story to be told, and I would have loved an audio commentary track or a more in-depth behind-the-scenes feature telling that story. Someone track down director, Michael Dowse, stat!

If you are a fan of comedy period pieces like American Graffitti, Wedding Singer or Dazed and Confused then it is a safe bet to take a chance on Take Me Home Tonight. It more than likely went under your radar based on its theatrical and critical performance, but this is an ideal popcorn film to sit down with friends and your favorite beverages on a movie marathon night.

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs


3
12 Angry Men (1957)
21 Jump Street
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie
Atari: Game Over
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Bounty Hunters
Cabin in the Woods
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special
Dirty Work
Faster
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
The Fighter
For Love of the Game
Good Will Hunting
Hercules: Reborn
Hitman
Ink
Man of Steel
Marine 3 & 4
Mortal Kombat
The Replacements
Rocky I-VI
Running Films Part 1
Running Films Part 2
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Source Code
Star Trek I-XII
Take Me Home Tonight
TMNT
The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2
Veronica Mars
The Wrestler (2008)

ECW Unreleased: Vol. 3

Welcome to my third entry covering WWE Home Video’s ECW Unreleased line, if you did not read my previous entries here are a couple links for my entries covering volumes one and two . WWE took a year off in 2014, but came back in 2015 with another collection of matches from the Philadelphia-based promotion that laid the groundwork for the Attitude Era of the WWE. Without further ado, let us dive into ECW Unreleased: Vol. 3 (trailer).

Vol. 2 saw Joey Styles return to hosting duties every few matches, but he was accompanied by special guest and ECW legend, Tommy Dreamer. For Vol. 3 the WWE Home Video studios gets invaded by the bWo (the Blue World Order, which was ECW’s satirical take on WCW’s nWo), or at least two of them anyways with Stevie Richards and Blue Meanie serving as our special guest hosts with Joey. No idea where the other primary bWo member, Nova was and why he could not be here, but we do get a reference to Nova’s WWE personality, Simon Dean, and even the bWo cameraman, 7-11, makes a very brief cameo. The bWo are a fun addition to the hosting team, and it was fun watching them do little bits with Joey such as a failed bWo spray paint job, and also provide legit insight on ECW’s past.

Vol. 3 has a whopping 28 matches (five of which are exclusive to BluRay). I went in under the pretense that WWE would be scraping the bottom of the barrel since this is their sixth ECW branded release. I thought that among the previously unreleased matches being featured here there would only be a couple of gems surrounded by a lot skip-worthy content. I could not have been more wrong.

This volume does not feature a ton of pre-extreme ECW content, with only one match being from the Eastern-era of ECW which was a so-so tag title match with Tommy Dreamer and Shane Douglas against Taz and Kevin Sullivan. This bout was only worth watching to see Douglas immediately turn on Dreamer upon tagging in and costing him the tag titles. Speaking of the Dean, if you recall from my previous ECW Unreleased entries, Vol 3 keeps up the tradition of featuring at least two singles title matches featuring Mr. Douglas, and guess what we get three of them for Vol 3! The first is a brief 1995 encounter with….Ron Simmons!? DAMN, I had no idea Simmons wrestled in ECW, and I presumed he must have had a brief pit stop there before he landed in the then-WWF in 1996. There are two far better matches on here with Shane going to war over the TV title against Chris Jericho and another against Bam Bam Bigelow. I was surprised to see Douglas keep up move-for-move with Jericho in a bout filled with many near falls, and his TV Title match against Bigelow on here is far better than their slow, plodding match for the World Title that was featured in Vol. 1.

I was surprised to see WWE dig up another Jericho match from his brief run in ECW, and they were able to unearth two additional Dean Malenko matches from his short ECW run. Here he squares off against Scorpio for the TV title in a really good match featuring a lot of great mat wrestling and high-flying. Later on in this collection, these opponents would team up and tag against Eddie Guerrero and Taz in a very good traditional tag rules match that went against the ECW norm of weapons getting involved. As a matter of fact, there are a ton of awesome tag team match ups on here. A polar opposite of the traditional rules tag match featuring Eddie & Dean was a very hardcore affair with the Public Enemy squaring off against Sabu & Taz that had tons of blood, weapons and hardcore brawling all over the arena.

I want to run down the rest of the awesome tag matches on here! A rare 911 match got dug up as he teams up with Mr. 619, Rey Mysterio, against the Eliminators (back when Saturn rocked a mean mullet!). The finale of this match up features a bizarre, must-see tag team-jousting affair of sorts that I was surprised they pulled off, and not surprised to see another match attempt again since. The Dudleyz love to talk up the number of tag team titles they won over the year, and here you can see them win their first tag team championship in a great match against the Eliminators that features a hybrid of good traditional tag wrestling, combined with ECW’s signature hardcore style. Later on you also see the Dudleyz win and lose their final ECW Tag Titles in their last night in the company in 1999.

Did you know Dusty Rhodes had a short run in ECW? Relive it here when he tags with Dreamer against Steve Corino & Rhino in an entertaining hardcore brawl. In the BluRay extras you can skip the Eliminators match against Terry Gordy and Steve Williams. As excited as I was to see some old school NWA representation in ECW, Gordy was just too over the hill by this point and felt several steps behind everyone else in the match. However, the BluRay exclusive featuring Tanaka & Jerry Lynn against Mike Awesome & Justin Credible makes up for it with a ton of high impact, high energy moves from Awesome and Tanaka as they steal the show in this match.

Mick Foley fans get some love in this installment with three Cactus Jack matchups. The first is a ‘Olympic Rules’ match against Sabu, which was a riot to watch as Foley hilariously fails at attempting an amateur-rules match against Sabu. The second match is a rather short, forgettable match against Bam Bam Bigelow that only seemed included to show off the stellar Fargo strut Jack participated in with the bWo before the match. To make up for it, there is an awesome Raven/Cactus Jack promo immediately following it, and one more match I will touch on later. Taz gets some love in Vol. 3 with him emerging victorious in a couple solid matches against Rob Van Dam and a debuting Tajiri.

Other random matches worth mentioning is a really good bout featuring tag partners face off against each other with Chris Candido and Lance Storm keeping up with each other in another entertaining high-gear matchup. You can relive Stevie Richards’ brief run in the ECW Main Event when he won a three way dance against Sandman and Raven to face Terry Funk for the World Title. I was sad to see Kid Kash never make it too big wherever he went, but was glad to finally see a Kid Kash match on one of these collections as he went up against EZ Money in a very good up-tempo match that featured an awesome finish off the top rope. The main regular feature wraps with Steve Corino winning the World Title in ECW’s first ever Double Jeopardy match, a bout that features rules almost as complex as TNA’s reverse battle royal.

There are two matches left in the BluRay exclusives I want to touch on before wrapping up. First is an eight-man tag featuring The Pitbulls, Tommy Dreamer and Cactus Jack against Raven, Stevie Richards and The Dudleys (though not the two you are probably thinking of). Besides being a pretty darn good match, I could not help but get a kick out of Joey Styles attempt to explain the ongoing saga of the Tommy Dreamer/Raven/Beulah storyline. I forgot about how crazy it got, and hearing Styles recap it made me forget how their feud almost measured up to how bonkers the Kane/Undertaker saga eventually got in comparison.

The final match in the BluRay exclusives is a near five-star encounter between Rob Van Dam and Jerry Lynn. I will never forget the first ECW match I ever saw was a Lynn/RVD match off the Extreme Evolution DVD back when Pioneer Video was releasing ECW matches back in 2000. Even back when the Attitude era reigned supreme, I was still blown away by the infectious charisma of RVD, the rabid fans filled with chants I never heard of before and the explosive action and near-falls that RVD and Lynn proceeded to unleash on me combined for a wrestling thrill like no other when I got my first taste of ECW action back in 2000. The match featured in Vol. 3 is not that match, but it is another classic between the two as the duo always stole the show whenever they competed.

So that wraps up what I am presuming to be the final collection of ECW matches put out by WWE Home Video. Of the 28 matches on here, the good outweighs the bad as about 20 of them are worth seeing. Even among the duds on this release, they are kind of worth seeing just to see how other former WCW/WWE stars like Gordy/Williams/Pillman/Simmons/Sullivan fared in a different environment. In all three collections it was also impressive to see how fast ECW evolved from a production standpoint over the promotion’s nine-year run. The first couple years, ECW had DIY video standards comparable to almost any other indy-fed in the early 90s, but by its last couple years they were putting on PPVs with professional lighting and graphics that were just a notch or two under what WWE and WCW were outputting at the time. If you have already invested in the other two, you have to pick up ECW Unreleased: Vol. 3. Of the three collections, I will give it the slight nod to having the best collection of matches of the three volumes, and the best hosts with the bWo theme providing for some fun antics and insight between matches.

I will end on one little aside, none of the three ECW Unreleased volumes feature any matches from WWE’s relaunched ECW that lasted from 2006-2010. It is probably for the best, but there is a small part of me that would like what the predecessor to NXT is today to get their own best of collection. That version of ECW would usually get their world title defended on the monthly WWE PPV, but they almost always had to tone down their matches to make sure they did not steal the show, and instead would usually have a far better rematch on the ECW SyFy show that aired a couple days later. They had a lot of good TV matches this way, including the infamous ‘Gulf of Mexico’ match that I would love to relive! It was also fascinating watching the promotion evolve from a re-launched ECW hardcore promotion and gradually morph into a developmental brand by its final years, and operated almost exactly like how NXT is today. If WWE can put out home video collections celebrating the best of In Your House, then please WWE release a best of ECW on SyFy collection!!!

Past Wrestling Blogs

Best of WCW Monday Nitro Volume 2
Biggest Knuckleheads
Bobby The Brain Heenan
Daniel Bryan: Just Say Yes Yes Yes
Dusty Rhodes WWE Network Specials
ECW Unreleased: Vol 1
ECW Unreleased: Vol 2
For All Mankind
Goldberg: The Ultimate Collection
Its Good to Be the King: The Jerry Lawler Story
Ladies and Gentlemen My Name is Paul Heyman
Legends of Mid South Wrestling
Macho Man: The Randy Savage Story
Memphis Heat
OMG Vol 2: Top 50 Incidents in WCW History
RoH Supercard of Honor V
RoH Supercard of Honor VI
RoH Supercard of Honor VII
RoH Supercard of Honor VIII
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
Superstar Collection: Zach Ryder
Top 50 Superstars of All Time
Tough Enough: Million Dollar Season
Warrior Week on WWE Network
Wrestlemania 3: Championship Edition
Wrestlemania 28
Wrestlemania 29
Wrestlemania 30
The Wrestler (2008)
Wrestling Road Diaries Too
WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2015
WWE Network Original Specials Second Half 2015

RvBX Bonus Discs

Last month I finished covering the last season included in the RvBX BluRay set. There are still more redvsblue seasons that hit video after RvBX was released so look forward to blogs on those in the coming months! However, much like after I wrapped up my Star Trek line of blogs with an entry dedicated to bonus discs included in the BluRay sets, I will do the same here with a blog for the bonus discs included in the RvBX set.

Four of the 14 discs in RvBX are dedicated to bonus material. I already covered two of them way back in my blog for season four that was dedicated to both Grifball mini-series. The two bonus discs I am covering today highlight miscellaneous Rooster Teeth videos and another disc is filled with behind-the-scenes interviews.

The first disc I am covering, labeled disc 11 on the set, is filled with Rooster Teeth videos all making their home video debut. The menus are split up with “red team” and “blue team” menus, or you can enter the “command” for an alphabetical listing of them all. As I watched these videos I had some memories of a few of them from way back when I was a paid sponsor of Rooster Teeth which gained you access to a page filled with a bunch of exclusive video for sponsors. Focusing on the “red team” videos, there are a lot of old promotional videos hyping up Halo 2 and Halo 3. I got a kick reliving these as the redvsblue crew shilled how awesome Forge mode was, ran over the changes from the classic “Blood Gulch” map being remade into “Coagulation” and being bummed out that the pistol got nerfed and the Scorpion and Warthog were no longer indestructible. There are also a ton of exclusive convention videos on here, which are a bunch of quick videos that at the time were only exclusive to those particular convention attendees.

The “blue team” side of the bonus disc kicks off with the Recovery One mini-series that lasts 16 minutes. I already covered this since it was included as a bonus on the season six BluRay, but new on this disc is commentary from the Rooster Teeth crew on the mini-series. Next up are a smattering of the initial Rooster Teeth videos, including the infamous MacSwitch video from 2002 that featured Gus Sorola bragging about the superiority of gaming on a Mac. I had no idea Rooster Teeth was tight with the band, Bare Naked Ladies, and there are some awesome videos on here talking about how they collaborated for some exclusive redvsblue concert videos and how lead singer Ed Robertson came on board to voice the recurring character, Captain Flowers.

There are also some unearthed archived clips of them up to no good travelling to the San Diego ComiCon and their very first voice recording session. The “blue team” side of the disc wraps with some community themed videos including the very first RvB episode redone in LEGO animation, a montage of Q&A highlights and a music video. All told, the red and blue team sides combine for nearly two and a half hours of extra features of which there is a lot of entertaining bonus content on this first disc and very little came off as filler.

The second disc kicks off with a documentary about life behind-the-scenes at Rooster Teeth. It clocks in at nearly 40 minutes and interviews a lot of the talent over at Rooster Teeth. If you are not familiar with their history than this documentary is must-see as they talk about getting started and dealing with their rapid success, how they grew from an at-home operation and moved into an office, the pros and cons of the convention atmosphere and reflecting on being in business for over ten years.

Additional content on this second bonus disc is more extras pertaining to season 10 of RvB that did not make its way on the season 10 disc such as the deleted scenes and outtakes that are usually on the individual season discs but oddly exclusive to this bonus disc. Also on here are a few interviews with the animators going into detail about how they wanted to improve the already exquisite custom CG animation sequences by showing a few motion capture sessions and comparing them to the final product. Another cool season 10 extra worth checking out is Burnie Burns explaining how excited he was to get the cast all together in a room for the first time ever in the form of a live table read.

The final chunk of extras on the second bonus disc is interviews with the three musicians who composed music for RvB. There is a lengthy interview between Burnie Burns with Trocadero who has been composing for Rooster Teeth since nearly the beginning. You can tell Trocadero are passionate and proud of their work as they explain how they hooked up with Rooster Teeth and compare themselves to Limp Bizkit and run down their favorite musical moments of the series. The second interview on here is with Jeff Williams. He did not come on board until season eight, but he still has a lot to tell about how his mix of rock and rap contributed to the score and were a welcomed addition to the sound of RvB. The extras of disc 12 of the RvBX set clock in at a little over an hour and a half, and much like the extras on the first disc a lot of them are must-see material, so if you are a big fan of the series and want to know more about the production side of things and the history of Rooster Teeth then these discs are absolutely worth going out of your way to consume.

Past redvsblue Blogs

Season 1
Season 2
Season 3
Season 4 and Grifball Bonus Discs
Season 5
Season 6
Season 7
Season 8
Season 9
Season 10