Getting Rowdy: The Unreleased Matches of Roddy Piper

A few months ago I covered the DVD set WWE released chronicling the ‘unseen’ matches of “Macho Man” Randy Savage. Today I continue that trend covering those lines of DVD collections with 2019’s Getting Rowdy: The Unreleased Matches of Roddy Piper (trailer). Like with WWE’s other ‘unreleased’ line of home videos, all the matches and segments featured in here have never been released on video before. With WWE already releasing a comprehensive three-disc DVD set to Piper with 2006’s Born to Controversy, that means we are getting a collection full of deep cuts here.

This two disc DVD is compiled similarly to the Randy Savage set where we get original, newly recorded interviews intersperse with the archival content. The interviews are from Piper mega-fan, “Rowdy” Ronda Rousey which are mixed in with archived home video interviews with Piper for added context. There are six sets of Rousey interviews, and they are sporadically inserted throughout the collection which also features 19 matches, nine promos and 12 editions of Piper’s legendary interview show, Piper’s Pit. WWE has established that Rousey is essentially the endorsed successor to carry on the Piper legacy, with Ronda paying homage to “The Hot Rod” by rocking her version of Piper’s entrance attire and carrying on his nickname. With that in mind, having Ronda being the featured new set of interviews to draw from seems like a fitting choice to commemorate Piper’s career here and are nice ways to mix up this collection.

Ronda’s interviews are insightful on how she drew on Roddy for inspiration on MMA needing an antagonist, and how excited she was to finally meet him. I presumed she maintained a close relationship with Piper, and was surprised to learn in Rousey’s interviews here that she only met him once early in her MMA career when she got the blessing from Roddy to use his nickname and then a second time when she appeared on Pipers podcast, which was just a month shy of his death in July of 2015. Rousey went on to say one of her biggest regrets is not having a close relationship with him.

There is a nice variety of the nine Piper interviews/promos included. There is a handful of the vintage Rock ‘n Wrestling era promos where Piper bellows out promos in front of a blue screen backdrop. A nice nostalgic bonus is a few vintage commercials where Piper maniacally shouts at you to purchase the latest WWE action figures. There are a few standout go-home PPV interviews here where Piper is on fire and by the end of them he got me just as fired up as Virgil for his upcoming WrestleMania match against Ted Dibiase, and on top of that is an especially intense promo with Bret Hart leading up to their WrestleMania VIII battle. There are three Roddy promos from his late 90’s WCW days, with a bewildering rant from a cell in Alcatrez and Hulk Hogan provoking Piper to cut loose on him and Bishoff in front of his son, Colt, standing out the most. These WCW promos have boisterous crowds capturing the high times WCW was riding at that time in the ‘Monday Night Wars.’

It is no surprise that Piper’s rougher, brawling style will not warrant many five star classics, but a fair amount of his 19 matches here have crowds eating up the chaos Piper is delivering. I have only seen a handful of Piper’s early NWA work before, so seeing a few more of his NWA matches unearthed for this set was a treat, and his match against Jay Youngblood is a smashmouth brawl that goes to a time limit draw, and I loved seeing Piper tag with Ole Anderson against Mike Davis and Buddy Landell. There are a lot of the big arena house show matches here that were previously televised only in local markets, and like a lot of those matches in other sets, usually feature good action until a hokey finish. That is the case here with a killer clash against Paul Orndorff in 1985 fresh into their rivalry, with the crowd going bokers for them until a double countout finish. Just as riveting is Piper’s match in this set against Rick Rude where the crowd is losing it throughout, but a lot of tomfoolery I will not even begin to explain transpires and is the catalyst for one of the strangest DQ finishes I have seen.

Piper teaming with Eddie and Blue-tista, looking like gold! Piper feuding with the nWo had the crowd on its feet!
There are two matches on here against Mr. Perfect worth going out of your way to see. I know Mr. Fuji was an accomplished wrestler in the 70s, but never seen him in a match until this set where he is pummeled for a couple minutes against Piper until his fellow managers run in for the save. A lot of the latter matches in the back half of Getting Rowdy are quick TV matches with wonky finishes unfortunately, but for what it is worth, still draw rabid crowd reactions. There are two Nitro bouts included against Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage in 1998, but both bouts have several nWo run-ins that result in both matches being thrown out. I forgot about Piper’s brief 2003 run with Sean ‘O Haire, so it was nice to see those two again when Piper had a short encounter with Rikishi. The last match is an awesome impromptu bout against The Miz for $5000 of The Miz’s money, with Alex Reilly (remember him!?) as guest referee in 2011. I have zero recollection of this match, and even at a couple minutes long it was an absolute delight!

Getting Rowdy was jacked with 24 installments of Piper’s Pit, but WWE had quite a few more to draw upon from the vault with 12 more here. Some of the early ones in this collection that were a riot were where both Jimmy Hart and the Brooklyn Brawler ruthlessly provoke Roddy to giving them a a well-earned beatdown. There are a bunch in the second half of this set when Piper would periodically show up on RAW and SmackDown for a special Piper’s Pit. Two that really got me were one with John Cena where Piper does a tremendous job at needling Cena into living up to his then-current t-shirt slogan, ‘Rise Above Hate’ and another where Roddy moderates AJ Lee attempting to get back into Daniel Bryan’s good graces after costing him his WrestleMania match against Sheamus.

I enjoyed this collection more than I anticipated. As I mentioned earlier, Piper was not known for his epic wrestling abilities, so I was not letdown from the wide range of match quality from the 19 matches in the set. There are a few matches that are hidden gems in here for what it is worth, but the real reason everyone should check out Getting Rowdy: The Unreleased Matches of Roddy Piper, is for the many unreleased promos and Piper’s Pit interviews. While he may not have been a five star wrestler, Piper was easily a five star entertainer, and that is readily apparent from beginning to end in this collection.

Those Piper action figure commercials are iconic, and this set is full of iconic promos I have never seen before where the Hot Rod made Virgil look like a million bucks!
Past Wrestling Blogs

Best of WCW Clash of Champions
Best of WCW Monday Nitro Volume 2
Best of WCW Monday Nitro Volume 3
Biggest Knuckleheads
Bobby The Brain Heenan
Daniel Bryan: Just Say Yes Yes Yes
DDP: Positively Living
Dusty Rhodes WWE Network Specials
ECW Unreleased: Vol 1
ECW Unreleased: Vol 2
ECW Unreleased: Vol 3
Eric Bishoff: Wrestlings Most Controversial Figure
Fight Owens Fight: The Kevin Owens Story
For All Mankind
Goldberg: The Ultimate Collection
Hulk Hogans Unreleased Collectors Series
Impact Wresting Presents: Best of Hulk Hogan
Its Good to Be the King: The Jerry Lawler Story
The Kliq Rules
Ladies and Gentlemen My Name is Paul Heyman
Legends of Mid South Wrestling
Macho Man: The Randy Savage Story
Memphis Heat
NXT: From Secret to Sensation
NXT Greatest Matches Vol 1
OMG Vol 2: Top 50 Incidents in WCW History
OMG Vol 3: Top 50 Incidents in ECW History
Owen: Hart of Gold
Randy Savage Unreleased: The Unseen Matches of the Macho Man
RoH Supercard of Honor 2010-Present
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
Scott Hall: Living on a Razors Edge
Shawn Michaels: My Journey
Sting: Into the Light
Straight Outta Dudley-ville: Legacy of the Dudley Boyz
Straight to the Top: Money in the Bank Anthology
Superstar Collection: Zach Ryder
Then Now Forever – The Evolution of WWEs Womens Division
TLC 2017
TNA Lockdown 2005-2016
Top 50 Superstars of All Time
Tough Enough: Million Dollar Season
True Giants
Ultimate Fan Pack: Roman Reigns
Ultimate Warrior: Always Believe
War Games: WCWs Most Notorious Matches
Warrior Week on WWE Network
Wrestlemania III: Championship Edition
Wrestlemania 28-Present
The Wrestler (2008)
Wrestling Road Diaries Too
Wrestling Road Diaries Three: Funny Equals Money
Wrestlings Greatest Factions
WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2015
WWE Network Original Specials Second Half 2015
WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2016
WWE Network Original Specials Second Half 2016
WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2017

Angry Videogame Nerd: The BFG Collection

It has been awhile since I have crafted an entry dedicated to the latest home video collection of Angry Videogame Nerd videos, but I am here today to resolve that with my ramblings for the BluRay disc containing seasons 11 and 12 off the AVGN BFG Collection. While most of the AVGN episodes on this disc do not disappoint, what I am disappointed with and have to address right away is one major detail of how this collection was released. The AVGN BFG Collection has all the prior past AVGN BluRays (X1-X3, Ready 4 Revenge) plus the aforementioned disc with the latest episodes from seasons 11 and 12 available on disc for the first time. Sounds nice and good on paper when visiting their store page and seeing all that available for $79.99. Problem is that is the only way to buy the disc with seasons 11 and 12.

For people like myself that have already bought all the original collections as they were individually released on DVD, and then upgraded to the BluRay releases, that means we will now have to buy all the older video releases for a third time in order to get that disc with the latest seasons since there is not a standalone BluRay for seasons 11 and 12. I vividly recall when Cinemassacre tweeted out the announcement for this and was going to reply to them and ask about a standalone release, but saw countless others beat me to it asking them about why this is so and noticed that Cinemassacre was not responding to any of the inquiries to my dismay. Even odder is that James Rolfe released a video ranking the reasons why BluRay sucks in general, and at the end of it was where the BFG Collection was announced. I understand the irony of it, but something about it rubbed me the wrong way. It is perplexing why Cinemassacre went ahead with this, and despite getting gouged for an extra $50-60 more than I should have paid for, I still went ahead and purchased the AVGN BFG Collection because like I mentioned in my previous entries about them, I have always been a big fan of them and want to support that crew.

As far as seasons 11 and 12 go, it is a return to form with more videos per season compared to the last few years of AVGN videos before them. They combine for nearly five hours of new videos and I will elucidate on a few of my favorites. Season 11 has an excellent montage of the awful 8 and 16-bit wrestling games, with a bulk of them coming from LJN. The Nerd character demonstrates some pro wrasslin’ theatrics which culminates with him pinning an oversized WCW SuperBrawl SNES cartridge. There is also some interesting Robocop cosplay tomfoolery when the nerd dissects the trilogy of NES Robocop titles. A big standout for season 11 is a redux of the 2006 Sonic the Hedgehog with a thorough recap of the Nerd’s trials and tribulations experiencing one of the most panned Sonic games ever.

Season 12 has a ton of superb material. It kicks off with a 39 minute video dedicated to Earthbound where he gives an in-depth review of his many highs and lows with the highly collectible SNES RPG. I dug how the Nerd creates his own version of Magicant with cameos from infamous characters in past AVGN videos and ties it all together with an homage to Earthbound’s climactic final battle. If there is one video that usurps the rest it is easily this one. I will give props to his Resident Evil: Survivor video where he also recreates some of the clunky battles and menu mechanics seen in that PSone gem. I always am a fan of whenever the AVGN dedicates a video to an obscure console, and he does that with a video for the European and Canada exclusive system, the Amiga CD32 and its unique line of underperforming titles. Finally, Cinemassacre scored a surprise get when they had Macaulay Culkin guest on an episode posing as an unassuming pizza delivery boy on a Christmas themed episode where he helps the Nerd tolerate a heaping pile of abysmal Home Alone games. I remember how awful these games were as a child who loved the films, and it was a delight watching Culkin and the Nerd rip them apart.

Of the five hours worth of new videos in seasons 11 and 12, almost none miss the landing. I was looking forward to taking in a hearty amount of bonus features the past video collections have all had, but for whatever reason there are a complete lack of extras for the new seasons. If you have been collecting past seasons individually it is difficult to recommend the latest season because of the $80 asking price, but if you have not been purchasing them at all yet, then in that case The AVGN BFG is a hell of a value and well worth the investment.

The Nerd's version of Magicant is quite fitting, and so is his take on his optimal items in Resident Evil-esque menu screen!


Past TV/Web Series Blogs

2013-14 TV Season Recap
2014-15 TV Season Recap
2015-16 TV Season Recap
2016-17 TV Season Recap
2017-18 TV Season Recap
2018-19 TV Season Recap
2019-20 TV Season Recap
Adventures of Briscoe County Jr: The Complete Series
Baseball: A Ken Burns series
Angry Videogame Nerd Home Video Collections
Cobra Kai – Seasons 1-2
Mortal Kombat: Legacy - Season 1 | Season 2
OJ: Made in America: 30 for 30
RedvsBlue - Seasons 1-13
Roseanne – Seasons 1-9
Seinfeld - Final Season
Star Trek: Next Generation – Seasons 1-7
Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle
Superheroes: Pioneers of Television
The Vietnam War: A Ken Burns series
X-Men – The Animated Series: Volumes 4-5

Police Story I & II

I am not an ardent fan of martial arts films, but there was a fleeting moment in the mid-to-late 90s where I, and a hearty amount of the rest of America, hopped on the Jackie Chan hype train with his stateside breakout hit, Rumble in the Bronx. I did not go on to watch every single thing Chan did afterwards, but made sure to check out a few of his other hyped pictures in the theaters like the Rush Hour trilogy, Who Am I? and The Tuxedo. I dove into a handful of his pre-stateside hits also and have fond memories of a movie marathon sleepover night at a friend’s where we immensely enjoyed Operation Condor and the Supercop films. I then kind of fell off his films for most of this century as he seemed to pivot more towards family films that were not up my alley, and have neglected him for the most part since. Last year Criterion released a two pack of Chan’s Asian hits with 1985’s Police Story (trailer) and its successor, 1988’s Police Story 2 (trailer). I heard countless praise for these pair of films over the years, but never got around to watching them and decided tracking down this bundle was the perfect way to jump in.

Jackie Chan portrays policeman, Chan Ka Kui in both films and the first Police Story has an intense opening scene where Chan’s crime unit goes on an intricate chase through Chinese slums that sees Chan reprimanded for breaking protocol to get his man and is assigned as police protection for a key witness, Selina Fong (Brigitte Lin). An overplayed trope of the first film is Chan being ridiculously arrogant to impress Fong and his girlfriend May (Maggie Cheung). Chan routinely talks himself into a hole and finds himself at the butt of his bragging, but the whole song and dance comes off as pure schlock and parts of the crude humor would not fly in today’s world. These instances are regrettably too frequent, and ultimately mar the first film. There is one comedy scene that did win me over when Chan is attempting to field multiple calls at the police station, but most of his riff raff with May and Selina are major groaners.

Thankfully Chan’s mastery at martial arts helps compensate for the rest of the film. Chan’s meticulously choreographed fight scenes with his acclaimed stunt team are a treasure to consume. The opening and closing fight/chase scenes are the standouts of the first film. Chan goes into hysterics against his fellow officers and runs into a final blowoff fight in the mall that is filled with motorcycles attempting to run Chan over, many flying bodies shattering panels of glass and culminates in a breathtaking stunt for the ages. The stunt has Chan shimmying down a light-bulb infested pole and crashing down onto a platform that is such a gripping moment that the film breaks the fourth wall and replays it two more times from different angles immediately thereafter. It is a great way to make up for the aforementioned comedy.

Police Story 2 picks up immediately in the aftermath of the mall fight. Despite Chan saving the day, his police chief is not too happy with the wanton destruction he left in the mall so he gets demoted. Mae is initially thrilled, but soon enough the police rope Chan into helping track down a bomb threat-happy gang causing a ruckus in Hong Kong. The dynamic between Chan and Mae is drastically improved in the sequel. Chan dials back the pretentious-ness and cheesy double entendres exponentially which makes him incredibly more empathetic in his plight to track down the bombers and win back Mae’s heart. There remains an occasional lowbrow toilet humor gag with one of Chan’s superiors having bad bouts of gas throughout the film, but it is nowhere near the distraction as it was before.

About halfway through the film, Chan gets a support team specializing in the latest hi-tech gadgetry to track down the bombers. A few of their investigative and stealth tailing scenes of targets drag down the tempo of the sequel, but it is not that much of a detraction in the grand scheme of things. The bombers naturally kidnap Mae, and compromise Chan to work for them and it all leads to an awesome final fireworks factory fight scene where Chan goes ballistic dueling away with each thug at the factory.

Police Story 2 is leagues better than the first film, but surprisingly the bonus second cut of the sequel included in the supplemental material is even better. It is the original Hong Kong release that is about a half hour shorter, and complete with film scratching/tearing defects for authenticity. As much as I like the Criterion Edition of the sequel, I wound up leaning towards the original cut more because it is a snappier watch, and uses alternate footage that helps fill in some minor gaps in the pacing of the Criterion cut. Additionally, the original cut has a different translation of the subtitles that make some of the scenes come across differently and I found myself taking in some scenes with a different perspective. Props to Criterion by the way with their first-in-class restoration work with their HD conversions of both films. Both Criterion cuts on the BluRays have brilliantly restored visuals and audio that stand out tremendously when compared to the original Hong Kong version of the sequel.

Speaking of supplemental material, the Criterion branding lives up to its name once again with the bonuses for both films. In fact I think I enjoyed the extra features for the first Police Story more than that film itself. There is just over an hour long extra titled Jackie Chan: My Stunts that is an excellent deep dive of the fight choreography and what minute details Jackie and his team implements to add that extra ‘oomph’ to the fights in the cinematography. Well worth your time checking out. There are two interviews with movie director, Edgar Wright about his fandom for Jackie Chan, and one of the interviews is with both Chan and Wright which was fascinating to take in. The last of the extras I highly recommend checking out on the first film is King of Kings II which is a 2017 television show excerpt where Chan is reunited with original members of his stunt team that provides some powerful moments with Jackie and his team.

Aside from the original Hong Kong cut, the standout bonus of the hour and a half of extras for Police Story 2 is the extra, Reinventing Action. The 21 minute feature dissects how Asian action films from the 1980s like Police Story were a big influence for Western action films and how they helped evolved the genre over the last few decades. Finally there is a foldout poster included with the two pack, but on the flipside of the poster is an essay by Nick Pinkerton that provides a comprehensive look at Jackie Chan’s early ups and downs before finding permanent success with films like Police Story and proceeds to breakdown both of these film’s finer aspects.

I was surprised I found myself so mixed on the first Police Story. Maybe I would have appreciated it more if I was exposed to it in my childhood, but as it stands now the humor drags it down a few pegs. I would recommend instead watching its opening and closing fight/chase scenes. Police Story 2 is well worth your time however, and you cannot go wrong checking out either version of the film included on the Criterion. Finally, for as lackluster as the first film is the bonus materials compensates greatly for it and the complete package all together makes the Criterion two-pack of Police Story and Police Story 2 a worthy recommendation.

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs

3
12 Angry Men (1957)
12 Rounds 3: Lockdown
21 Jump Street
The Accountant
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie
Atari: Game Over
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
The Avengers: Infinity War
Batman: The Dark Knight Rises
Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice
Bounty Hunters
Cabin in the Woods
Captain America: Civil War
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Christmas Eve
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special
The Condemned 2
Countdown
Creed I & II
Deck the Halls
Detroit Rock City
Die Hard
Dredd
The Eliminators
The Equalizer
Dirty Work
Faster
Fast and Furious I-VIII
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
The Fighter
For Love of the Game
Good Will Hunting
Gravity
Grunt: The Wrestling Movie
Guardians of the Galaxy
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2
Hell Comes to Frogtown
Hercules: Reborn
Hitman
I Like to Hurt People
Indiana Jones 1-4
Ink
The Interrogation
Interstellar
Jay and Silent Bob Reboot
Jobs
Joy Ride 1-3
Last Action Hero
Major League
Man of Steel
Man on the Moon
Man vs Snake
Marine 3-6
Merry Friggin Christmas
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
Mortal Kombat
Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpions Revenge
National Treasure
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
Not for Resale
Pulp Fiction
The Replacements
Reservoir Dogs
Rocky I-VIII
Running Films Part 1
Running Films Part 2
San Andreas
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
Scott Pilgrim vs the World
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Shoot em Up
Slacker
Skyscraper
Small Town Santa
Steve Jobs
Source Code
Star Trek I-XIII
Sully
Take Me Home Tonight
TMNT
The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2
UHF
Veronica Mars
Vision Quest
The War
Wild
The Wizard
Wonder Woman
The Wrestler (2008)
X-Men: Apocalypse
X-Men: Days of Future Past

The Fate of the Furious

A little over a year ago I reviewed Furious 7 to coincide with the theatrical release of the spinoff film, Hobbes & Shaw. On a quick side note Hobbes & Shaw was a surprisingly bad detour for the series that I would rank right at the bottom with 2 Fast 2 Furious as the only two subpar entries from the franchise. It is safe to say I do no plan on reviewing it here. What I am reviewing today is the latest core entry in The Fast and the Furious brand in 2017’s The Fate of the Furious (trailer). Fast & Furious 9 was supposed to hit theaters earlier this summer, but the pandemic and current closure of a majority of theaters prompted Universal to push it back to April 2021. So while today’s entry will not have the honor of coinciding with the latest theatrical release like I did with my blog last year, it does have consolation prize of coinciding with the blink-and-miss-it release of the critically panned videogame, Fast and Furious: Crossroads, a couple weeks ago. I have yet to play the game, but I feel safe to say The Fate of the Furious is likely exponentially better than it.

Veteran director Gary Gray takes his first attempt at directing a F&F film and opens The Fate of the Furious off with Dom (Vin Diesel) and Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) enjoying themselves in an extended honeymoon in Cuba before Vin’s cousin finds himself in trouble and Dom has to naturally race the local goon to settle the score. It is one of the best races of all the films where Dom tricks out his cousin’s lemon of a ride with a Cuban formula of NOS that propels Dom to push the car to its limits and have a thrilling finish which raises the ‘yeah, right’ factor of the F&F films to new heights, but in all the right ways.

Not all is peachy for Dom though because not long after that killer opening he meets this film’s antagonist, Cipher (Charlize Theron). Fate of the Furious quickly establishes that Cipher is no pushover villain as she forces Dom’s hand to turning on his team on a routine black ops mission in Germany where he steals an EMP for Cipher. From here the film shifts into how Cipher has her hooks into Dom and has him doing jobs for her across the globe to setup one ultimate heist in Russia to close off the film in a dazzling array of the eye-popping stunts and special effects the brand is known for.

Seeing how Dom’s team responds to his betrayal and try to stay on his toes is a fun game of cat and mouse. Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell) returns to assemble the team on these unofficial black ops missions and has a new apprentice by his side going by Little Nobody (Scott Eastwood). Roman (Tyrese Gibson) has a fun friendly rivalry with Little Nobody throughout the film. This is probably the best performance Tyrese has put in throughout the series, with him disposing of several baddies with his signature flair in the last act especially standing out for him. Tej (Ludacris) and Ramsey (Nathalie Emanuel) return to display their hacking prowess. A quick line of dialogue addresses the Paul Walker dilemma by the gang respecting Brian and Mia’s choice to live their family life and not get them involved. Hobbes (The Rock) is as awesome as ever in his larger-than-life persona. One of the most entertaining scenes in the film is where Hobbes finds himself locked up with Furious 7’s villain, Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham). Watching the two go on a showcase prison break was a delight and a half to consume.

In a questionable twist, Hobbes ropes Shaw into working for the team to help bring down Cipher and Dom. Surprisingly the rest of the team has no problem welcoming Shaw into the team despite Shaw murdering their former beloved comrade, Han, in the Furious 7. I have a big problem with this since Shaw shows no remorse for his past and no one on the team confronts Shaw about Han’s assassination here. Shaw does play a big role in the final big Russia action scene to help assist the team, but it is quite the stretch to say it absolves him of murdering Han. Granted, there are a lot of suspend disbelief moments with any F&F film, but this is a glaring flaw that goes unaddressed in this film.

Speaking of ‘suspend disbelief’ moments, as far as the action and stunts in Fate of the Furious goes, I can safely assure that this film lives up to the high bar the series has established. There is a absurd scene involving an army of hacked smart cars that I was able to turn off my mind and roll with. Same goes for a military grade tank and submarine chase on the Russian ice. Gary Gray pulls out all the stops in that final act at the Russian base and the final half hour will fly by before you know it. I remember coming off my initial theatrical viewing of this thinking that Cipher’s ruthlessness seemed too forced and put on, but I came around on her in my second viewing. Her constant bullying over Dom to keep him doing her bidding throughout and being presented as the mastermind of all hackers makes Cipher reside in the top tier of villains for the films. It ultimately all comes together for another outstanding film for the franchise.

Like most past F&F BluRays and DVDs, there is a hearty amount of extra features on this BluRay. Gary Gray offers up a solo commentary track which offers up plenty of production facts and insight. Highlights include his love for the opening Cuban race, relating his past chemistry working with The Rock on Be Cool paying off dividends here, pulling off the ostensibly impossible feat of closing off Time’s Square and how Gray slyly snuck in a reference to his past work on Friday that went right over my head. There is a little over an hour worth of additional bonus material on here. They are split up into many smaller features, and of those I would recommend checking out Zombie Cars, Malecon Stunt Race, Streets of New York and Iceland Stunt Drops the most as they all do a masterful job at breaking down the stunt work and the logistics that made these ambitious scenes possible. I re-watched all the previous films along with a commentary track from the crew at Giant Bomb, but all their commentary tracks were planned in time to build up to the theatrical release of this film so instead of a commentary track they released a spoiler-cast analyzing the whole film and ranking all the films at the end. I re-listened to it last night and they do a thorough job dissecting their highs and lows with it. Click or press here to give it a listen.

The Fate of the Furious held up much better than I originally thought. Thinking back on it, a part of me likely felt awkward how to take in a F&F film without Paul Walker and Jordana Brewster undoubtedly played a role in my initial mixed take on the eighth film. It also helped that I came around on Charlize Theron’s performance on my second viewing too. Aside from my reservations with Deckard Shaw being fully welcomed into ‘the family’ by the end of the film, I had a riot with The Fate of the Furious and it continues the roll of outstanding entries in the series since the fifth film. Here is hoping the ninth film does not suffer any more delays and that it will hit theaters this April!

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs

3
12 Angry Men (1957)
12 Rounds 3: Lockdown
21 Jump Street
The Accountant
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie
Atari: Game Over
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
The Avengers: Infinity War
Batman: The Dark Knight Rises
Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice
Bounty Hunters
Cabin in the Woods
Captain America: Civil War
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Christmas Eve
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special
The Condemned 2
Countdown
Creed I & II
Deck the Halls
Detroit Rock City
Die Hard
Dredd
The Eliminators
The Equalizer
Dirty Work
Faster
Fast and Furious I-VIII
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
The Fighter
For Love of the Game
Good Will Hunting
Gravity
Grunt: The Wrestling Movie
Guardians of the Galaxy
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2
Hell Comes to Frogtown
Hercules: Reborn
Hitman
I Like to Hurt People
Indiana Jones 1-4
Ink
The Interrogation
Interstellar
Jay and Silent Bob Reboot
Jobs
Joy Ride 1-3
Last Action Hero
Major League
Man of Steel
Man on the Moon
Man vs Snake
Marine 3-6
Merry Friggin Christmas
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
Mortal Kombat
Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpions Revenge
National Treasure
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
Not for Resale
Pulp Fiction
The Replacements
Reservoir Dogs
Rocky I-VIII
Running Films Part 1
Running Films Part 2
San Andreas
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
Scott Pilgrim vs the World
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Shoot em Up
Slacker
Skyscraper
Small Town Santa
Steve Jobs
Source Code
Star Trek I-XIII
Sully
Take Me Home Tonight
TMNT
The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2
UHF
Veronica Mars
Vision Quest
The War
Wild
The Wizard
Wonder Woman
The Wrestler (2008)
X-Men: Apocalypse
X-Men: Days of Future Past

Star Trek: The Next Generation: Season Five

-Greetings and thanks for joining me for my semi-annual coverage of marching through Star Trek: The Next Generation. Today I am covering season five (trailer) of the BluRay collection that I continue to ever-so-slowly progress through at one or two episodes a week. I started season five off in February and wrapped it up a couple days ago by watching at this rate. Part of the side effect of that was taking advantage of extended free trials of CBS All Access and binging through all of Picard and the first two seasons of Discovery within two months while keeping up with an episode or two a week of season five of TNG. There happens to be a couple episodes of this season of TNG that play a notable role in Picard, so the timing of it all gelling together was a lucky coincidence. I gave brief recaps of both Picard and Discovery in my annual TV season recap blog that can be found by click or pressing here. I apologize in advance for the questionable-in-quality pics in this entry from my ancient Samsung Galaxy S7 which makes it worth it to grab so many subtitle moments from this season!

-The only notable cast change this season is the addition of Ro Laren (Michelle Forbes). She becomes a recurring character this season as someone who is essentially introduced as coming off work release after a court martial and working her way back into Starfleet in the lowest rack of Ensign and serves primarily at the helm of the bridge. Forbes is fantastic as Ro and she has a few landmark episodes this season with my favorite of hers being “The Next Phase” where Ro and Geordi (LeVar Burton) are de-moleculed and appear as ghosts to the rest of the ship who responds by throwing a funeral for them in the form of a Mardi Gras-esque party at Ten Forward. Forbes is absolutely sublime here in Ro’s pining curiosity at how Riker (Jonathon Frakes) will eulogize her.

-This was a big episode for other recurring characters this season too. That is kind of a big deal considering season five is the only season of the series without a Q (John de Lancie) episode. I like how they find new ways to bring back Denise Crosby, who was shown as a mysterious cliffhanger to the end of the two-part arc of “Redemption” that finished off season four. It picks up in a big way with how Denise Crosby’s new character is connected to Tasha, and how the Romulans get involved in the never-ending civil war of the Klingons that eventually has the gratifying conclusion of Worf winning back his honor among Klingons. Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg) has her biggest role yet in the series this season in the two-parter “Time’s Arrow” that has the first part wrap-up season five where we discover the origin of Guinan in the 1890s as the Enterprise crew time travels back then and also encounters an antagonistic Mark Twain in an intriguing episode.

Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton) returns for two episodes this season. One is an oddball episode where all on the Enterprise but Wesley and Ensign Lefler (Ashley Judd) are mind controlled by a mysterious augmented reality game. The other episode is much better as Wesley and a few of his squad mates deliver prepared depositions as they are ruthlessly interrogated on the death of one of their peers. The annual Lwaxana (Majel Barrett) episode is about the expected chore to get through in her continued struggles to find a partner where she sets up an arranged marriage that is doomed from the beginning. Props to Chief O’Brien (Colm Meaney) having a kid this season!

-Season five marks the addition of two major personal belongings to one Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart). One is the iconic jacket he dons throughout most of the season. I have no idea yet if he wears it in the remaining seasons, but it is a slick jacket and gives him a space cowboy type of vibe to him! I bet it sold boatloads in merchandise! The other item is a special flute that is gifted to him in “The Inner Light” when Picard’s mind engages in a Inception-like lifetime of memories in the span of under a half hour where he experiences an all new culture and life. It is a delight of an episode I appreciate the more I reflect upon it. I later learned in the bonus interviews that this flute melody became a common occurrence at weddings.

-I want to make sure to give kudos to some of my other favorite episodes this season. I loved seeing Spock (Leonard Nimoy) finally make an appearance on TNG. At this point of the show, appearances from the core Original Series crew has been extremely rare and limited, but TNG gets the most out of Nimoy with him playing a major role in another two-part arc where Spock tries to reunite the Romulans back into the Federation of Planets. One of the top episodes this season is “Ethics” where an accident leaves Worf (Michael Dorn) paralyzed and according Klingon ritual must self-sacrifice himself for the greater good. This results in some of the best speeches of the season where Riker and Picard implore Worf to reconsider before Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden) impresses with her surprisingly improving doctor skillset to resolve Worf’s paralysis.

An episode that initially appears to have a silly premise, but I outright loved by the end is “Darmok.” Picard winds up stuck on an island with an individual of an undiscovered species that only speaks in metaphors. Picard is as baffled as me trying to decipher the metaphors at first, but gradually picks up on it and by the episode’s end forms a kindship with him as the duo team up against a new threat. “I, Borg” is an episode that plays into Picard later on that sees the Enterprise take in an injured Borg and give it the ability to have independent thought again.

A guilty pleasure TV theme of mine in recent years is the time loop episode theme in the form of Groundhog’s Day. Discovery had a terrific rendition of it in its second season. I was thrilled to see TNG do their version of a time loop episode in “Cause and Effect.” It has a banger of an opening that sees that Enterprise exploding and eventually the scenes start to repeat that sees the crew start to recognize their situation and attempt to find a way out of the time loop. I came to discover in the bonus interviews that this episode preceded Groundhog’s Day by nearly two years, and unlike that film and all the TV shows that have pay homage to it over the years, TNG plays it in a serious manner and not as a comedy, but the writing for it is so well done that it works and is pulled off in a way that had me invested until the end!

-While there were a fair amount of standout episodes this season, I would be remiss if I were not to go this far and fail to mention there were several clunkers. Some of the ones I recommend skipping is where Riker falls for an androgynous being that has a non-committal ending and the episode plays out totally differently today than it was intended then. Another dud is where them dang Ferangi are up to no good again in failing to kidnap a seductive being that has a strong desire for Picard. The biggest abnormality this season is where according to my notes I surmised the episode as ‘imaginary friend comes to life, blargh!’ Trust me on that being all you need to know on the astutely titled episode, “Imaginary Friend.”

-I want to once again give a shoutout to the podcast, Star Trek: The Next Conversation. Hosts Andrew Secunda and Matt Mira breakdown every episode of TNG and help provide ample background, facts and insight with their analysis of each episode. Because of re-watching TNG and combined with their podcast I have been able to better pickup on countless TNG references in other TV shows and podcasts over these past couple years. Click or press here to give them a listen if you have not already.

-There are nearly four and a half hours of extra features that are nicely spread out across all six discs. In addition, there are also four episodes that have commentary from cast and crew with one noteworthy highlight being Orville creator, Seth McFarlane guesting on the commentary for “Cause and Effect.” A lot of the bonus extra are carried over from the original DVDs, but like previous seasons there are a couple of new HD bonuses for the BluRay. Mission Overview deep dives into the production of a couple of my favorite episodes of the season, “Darmok” and Spok’s return in “Unification.” Tribute to Gene Roddenbury has clips of speeches from various Star Trek luminaries at a building dedication to Gene and has fond memories from the cast and crew of Gene. Intergalactic Guest Stars interviews many of the aforementioned recurring characters on why they keep coming back on.

These next two are new HD bonuses for the BluRay. The Music of TNG is an in-depth 75 minute discussion with three composers from the series that I truly appreciated hearing the composers dissect some of the most memorable scores and melodies of TNG history. Finally, Requiem is a two part, hour long look about writing the controversial conflicts that have been touched on throughout the run of TNG, and also has additional tributes and testimonials on Gene Roddenbury. Both are excellent thorough takes on both subject matters, and if you dig bonus features as much as I do, then I highly recommend both of them!

-Season five of The Next Generation continues the success of seasons three and four. I would only mark it a notch under those two strong seasons because there seems to be a few weaker episodes this season than in the previous two. I gathered from the bonus interviews that it seemed that this season tried to go all out exploring new conflicts and themes, and sometimes it worked exceptionally well in the cause of “Cause and Effect” but other times it worked against them a few more times than usual this season. Overall though I would still rank this in the upper tier of TNG season and hope to see the final two season keep up this high bar of quality.

Troi got a curious jump on Picard! Meanwhile, Worf cannot catch a break at the piano bar!

Past TV/Web Series Blogs

2013-14 TV Season Recap
2014-15 TV Season Recap
2015-16 TV Season Recap
2016-17 TV Season Recap
2017-18 TV Season Recap
2018-19 TV Season Recap
2019-20 TV Season Recap
Adventures of Briscoe County Jr: The Complete Series
Baseball: A Ken Burns series
Angry Videogame Nerd Home Video Collections
Cobra Kai – Seasons 1-2
Mortal Kombat: Legacy - Season 1 | Season 2
OJ: Made in America: 30 for 30 RedvsBlue - Seasons 1-13
Roseanne – Seasons 1-9
Seinfeld - Final Season
Star Trek: Next Generation – Seasons 1-7
Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle
Superheroes: Pioneers of Television
The Vietnam War: A Ken Burns series
X-Men – The Animated Series: Volumes 4-5

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

A movie podcast I listen to, The Big Picture, did a recent episode on the 10th anniversary of 2010’s Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (trailer). Coincidentally enough, that film remains in my backlog box all these years later, so I made sure to re-watch it before giving that podcast a listen. For those unfamiliar with this film, it is based on a series of six graphic novels of the same name by Bryan Lee O’Malley released between 2004 and 2010. The basic gist is that Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) falls for newcomer to town, Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). In order to win her over Pilgrim has to defeat Ramona’s “Seven Evil Ex’s.” Scott spends the rest of the film exploring Ramona’s mysterious past and dueling her ex’s while practicing with his band, Sex Bo-Bomb, as they progress through a battle of the bands tournament.

Sex Bo-Bomb is one slick act! Stephen Stills (Mark Webber) is the doom-and-gloom frontman of the band. Kim Pine (Alison Pill) is a 2010 take on Daria and effectively nails her vintage expressionless glares and blunt quips. Young Neil (Johnny Simmons) is the affable, DS-loving, always ready alternate for Sex Bo-Bomb. Their #1 fan and also other girlfriend of Scott Pilgrim is one Knives Chau (Ellen Wong). Knive’s arc is probably my favorite of this ensemble cast as her journey from adoring fan and girlfriend to her final destination is a fascinating quest to see develop and a faithful translation from the books.

I first heard of the books on the videogame podcast, Team Fremont Live where they reviewed the first book and their breakdown of it caught my attention when they dissected all the nonstop videogame references that are peppered regularly throughout it. The film captures that imagery to a T where it feels like Pilgrim is living in a real life videogame. In this world suspending disbelief is required because it is jam-packed with extraordinarily choreographed battle scenes, makes anyone capable of instantly pulling off bombastic martial arts moves in the blink of an eye without any training whatsoever, and quirky little animations of objects like Mario Bros.-esque coins and pixelated items inserted throughout that any videogame fan will pick up on. The fighting game fan in me popped a little each time a thunderous “KO” blared out each time Pilgrim emerged victorious after an evil ex duel. As a lifelong fan of videogames, it was fun picking up on all the references and Easter eggs in the background throughout.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World hit at an interesting time where Michael Cera was the only established star at this point in 2010 and was riding the last wave of critical success coming off of Arrested Development, Superbad and Juno. Brandon Routh is noteworthy appearing here as one of the evil ex’s after flaming out in his single appearance in a Superman film. However, a few other stars are here right before they exploded into bigger success like the aforementioned Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Chris Evan is here as another evil-ex shortly after his two Fantastic Four films, but a year before donning the Captain America costume for the first time. Anna Kendrick is here in a small role as Scott’s sister Stacey while in the midst of her initial Twighlight run. Finally, Brie Larson is here as Scott’s evil-ex, Envy Adams and she is the lead for her band, Clash at Demonhead in my personal favorite musical performance of the film as they belt out “Black Sheep.”

It is worth repeating that I highly recommend suspending all disbelief going into Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and simply roll with it. The battle scenes are a hoot to take in and feature a ton of CG that holds up well ten years later. It is also worth pointing out this film is part absurd videogame battles, part early 20s love triangle drama and to a lesser extent part musical with several performances from Sex Bo-Bomb and other bands throughout the film. Director Edgar Wright tracked down a few bands to play the tracks for some of the featured bands in the film such as Beck performing the handful of Sex Bo-Bomb songs in addition to a slew of other tracks from artists like The Rolling Stones and Blood Red Shoes that perfectly supplement the outlandish tone of the film. It is not too often on here I recommend hunting down the soundtracks for a film, but the soundtrack for Scott Pilgrim vs. the World I wholeheartedly recommend!

I think the Scott Pilgrim vs. the World BluRay may have set the record for amount of extra features for a single film in the near seven years of movies I have covered on this blog. A rough tally on my notes gives an approximate sum of nearly five hours of bonuses, and then four feature length commentary tracks on top of that! I will not detail every bonus, but will give some highlights of the ones that stood out for me. There is just under a half hour of deleted scenes with or without commentary from Edgar Wright. Most of them are extended scenes from the first act to trim out excess background info, but an alternate ending is what stood out the most that Wright explained he changed because it did not go over that well in test screenings. I can always appreciate a good blooper reel, and an excellent 10 minute reel is compiled here that I would rate right up with the stellar ones in the Marvel films.

There are three features grouped together in the ‘Docs’ section of the extras tallying up to a little over an hour. If you only had time for one of the five hours of bonuses I would go there because that has the core making of documentary which breaks down collaborating with Bryan Lee ‘O Malley, nailing the casting, detailing the extensive stunt training and interviews several of the bands about being featured in the soundtrack. Speaking of the soundtrack, there are four music videos included. Definitely check out the four minute animated short, Scott Pilgrim vs. Animation that is essentially a prequel to the film that dives into Scott and Kim’s former relationship. There are 12 ‘Video Blogs’ totaling 45 minutes that are raw on set interviews with the cast and crew between takes that sees the crew up to all kinds of mischief to kill downtime. This BluRay easily has the largest photo gallery of any home video I have covered with several hundred photos. One gallery is labeled ‘storyboards’ but each storyboard panel is nearly identical to the excellent quality of the art in Bryan Lee O’Malley books so that is essentially a free comic book adaptation of the movie buried in the extras!

I experienced all four of the commentary tracks in one re-watch of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World via jumping around to a different commentary about every five minutes. Edgar Wright is on two of them, one with Bryan Lee ‘O Malley and writer Michael Bocall and the other with photography director Bill Pope. The other two commentaries are split among nine cast members, with Michael Cera and the rest of the leading cast on one and the ancillary cast members on the other cast commentary track. Wright has tons of nonstop insight and production facts on his tracks, and the cast tracks are have a lot of fun anecdotes such as Cera failing at trying to get additional people on the commentary via phone call. On top of the commentary I had on during my re-watch was also a factoid subtitle track to really take in the extra features. Despite going on now for three paragraphs about the bonus features, I think I only touched on about half of what is available, and it is truly astonishing to see how much they crammed into one BluRay disc.

A part of me thought going into this that Scott Pilgrim vs. the World would not hold up after 10 years. I would chalk that up to thinking I may have got easily won over with all the hype from being vastly into the books back then and being too caught up into the build to the film’s initial release. I can put those reservations to rest thankfully as I immensely enjoyed this ode to videogame fandom as much as I first did in 2010. Throw in a plethora of extra features to last all year to make Scott Pilgrim vs. the World one of my highest recommendations yet! If you want even more commentary from me about this film than below I have embedded the podcast I originally recorded 10 years ago shortly after seeing the film on its opening weekend. I bring on a couple other special guest hosts that are also ardent Scott Pilgrim fans and we review the film, soundtrack, the books and the videogame. Enjoy!



I brought on a couple other Scott Pilgrim experts on as guest hosts on my podcast to review the film, books, videogame and soundtrack shortly after they all released 10 years ago. Check it out in the embed above for more Scott Pilgrim goodness or click or press here to queue it up for later.
Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs

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12 Angry Men (1957)
12 Rounds 3: Lockdown
21 Jump Street
The Accountant
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie
Atari: Game Over
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
The Avengers: Infinity War
Batman: The Dark Knight Rises
Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice
Bounty Hunters
Cabin in the Woods
Captain America: Civil War
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Christmas Eve
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special
The Condemned 2
Countdown
Creed I & II
Deck the Halls
Detroit Rock City
Die Hard
Dredd
The Eliminators
The Equalizer
Dirty Work
Faster
Fast and Furious I-VIII
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
The Fighter
For Love of the Game
Good Will Hunting
Gravity
Grunt: The Wrestling Movie
Guardians of the Galaxy
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2
Hell Comes to Frogtown
Hercules: Reborn
Hitman
I Like to Hurt People
Indiana Jones 1-4
Ink
The Interrogation
Interstellar
Jay and Silent Bob Reboot
Jobs
Joy Ride 1-3
Last Action Hero
Major League
Man of Steel
Man on the Moon
Man vs Snake
Marine 3-6
Merry Friggin Christmas
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
Mortal Kombat
Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpions Revenge
National Treasure
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
Not for Resale
Pulp Fiction
The Replacements
Reservoir Dogs
Rocky I-VIII
Running Films Part 1
Running Films Part 2
San Andreas
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Shoot em Up
Slacker
Skyscraper
Small Town Santa
Steve Jobs
Source Code
Star Trek I-XIII
Sully
Take Me Home Tonight
TMNT
The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2
UHF
Veronica Mars
Vision Quest
The War
Wild
The Wizard
Wonder Woman
The Wrestler (2008)
X-Men: Apocalypse
X-Men: Days of Future Past