Monday, December 30, 2019

Netflix DVD - Brigsby Bear: A Mental Disorder to Rally Around

I can work to find the bright side of any situation, so my girlfriend's 24-hours of sleeplessness on Thursday (was it inspired by concluding "Fight Club" or just her buyer's remorse on skipping a B1G1 deal at Rue 21?) allowed me to finally get comfortable enough to explore a feature about captivity, mental illness, and Teddy Ruxpin, "Brigsby Bear".

James Mitchum has been growing up in a post apocalyptic world where VHS is the only thing that allows him to escape the isolation. Every week, a new video is delivered to the bunker. It is the only TV show anyone born after the fall of man knows. At least that is how it was for James. Once Ted and April Mitchum are captured for abducting him as an infant, he is thrown into a world where nothing that he grew up knowing actually exists.

"Brigsby Bear Adventures" was a show produced and developed by Ted to serve as educational programming for his pseudo son, so in order to keep up the illusion of "Fallout: New Salt Lake", James was the only person to ever watch the show. It is the only thing James is interested in, but after his real father, Greg, takes him to see a movie, he discovers there is a way to still hold on to the world he knew, or at least grow beyond it. He is going to conclude the Brigsby story by writing and producing his own feature film.

Being James's only passion, people who try and get to know him cannot help but be mesmerized by his tales of a Chuck E. Cheese robot battling a bearded, cackling sun. His sister Aubrey's friends are all in on making this film and aspiring director Spencer uploading the old tapes to Youtube, the kidnap kid's popularity only grows. With some sympathetic former actors in the police department having access to the show's props, the only things that could possibly stop the film from wrapping up are his real parent's need for him to identify with them and his Google search history that raises a lot of red flags at Homeland Security.

Practical effects are a lost art. If their was ever a greater reason to destroy the Patriot Act, I would like to hear it.

At one hour and 37 minutes, "Brigsby Bear" is a work of genius. You get this convoluted story on top of actual moments of dealing with the trauma of being throw into a world that you have never known. The story is an inspiring and great tale about the need for compassion and understanding.

There are still some nits to pick. Imagining this film with a budget is something you cannot help but do. The feature does not offer anything in exceptional in terms of primary cast and direction. I think it is a bit too meta to direct the film like the characters directing their own film.

The lead and primary writer Kyle Mooney displays passion well, but the characters who turn out to be his adversaries are too restrained. Perhaps they could have been exaggerated in their efforts to make James face reality, but with Greg Kinnear, Mark Hamill, and all the adolescent characters shine when they get their chance, director Dave McCary's approach may have been appropriate.

With concise direction and writing, it is a shame that "Brigsby Bear" did not get a wider release. It is funny and clever and has a message that I think everyone could benefit from. The actors you came to see deliver and any one from Generation X to Millenials can appreciate the celebration of not quite ready for PBS productions.

My only other wish is that it was released eight years earlier when I started trying to promote "Main Event of the Dead" my low-budget, pro-wrestling themed zom-com. Feel free to request a treatment at russthebus07@gmail.com. It may have let more of my acquaintances giving my weird and passionate self a chance.

Lonely Island, are you interested in another sub $7 million project?

http://www.brigsbybear.jp/

MFK: Hypocrisy, Harry Potter, Hockey (Delusions, Earnings, McNuggets)

*Date this blog entry was started, December 30, 2019

I suppose I need a little chaos. That would make being a hypocrite a little easier. My dreams seem to be themed around a need to just go nuts. Some play into my desire to be involved with the wrestling business. If I just abandoned any sense of normalcy or security, the world could be mine regardless of being 40 and having little cardio. Adrenaline can get me through strong-style, but slowing down for psychology would kill me.

A coworker at the day job said he was reading through a list of "straight edge" celebrities. I cannot say anything bad about them, especially the athletes, provided they do not make that their identity (i.e. I am better than you). Before I actually started living like an adult, my alcohol consumption was rare. But, I appreciated the freedom to have a drink, so there was a fifth of vodka in my closet incase I felt the urge to indulge. At least in my early 20's, that was something I did not need in my life, but I would rather have it than wish for it. Hence, my feeling that I am walking hypocrisy.

Is it weakness or just boredom? With my retail job seemingly scared to schedule me after the 19-day stretch into Black Friday (I should check the deal of the day to see if they can trap me for a few hours tonight like they did last week. An 86" LG 4K TV for $1,800 is tempting.), the holiday season has kind of felt like a winter break. There is no way that I should have the freedom to watch both nights of Wrestle Kingdom live or get to go to a Saturday poker night.

Read the rest of this blog and other stories at Main Event of the Dead.com and determine if this thought process can be translated into a B-movie comedy about pro-wrestling zombies

Truck Stop DVD - "Countdown" Good, but Not the "Sudden Death" Remake We Were Hoping for.

Dolph Ziggler the Movie: Good, but Not Title or 3,000 Screen Ready

Finally, my wrestling-themed Tublr (Rip 'Em System) can promote my movie rantings. If only I could have debuted my Danny Glover, Rutger Hauer, Darryl Hanna, and Michael Madsen masochistic experience by comparing that Stephen Baldwin to the bloodless era of WWE. A missed metaphor?

After the failure that was "No Holds Barred", WWE has yet to make movies to truly promote their primary product. It anything, these films are just opportunities for Vince McMahon to display what would be too much for even the Attitude Era: The horror franchises that fit Kane's gimmick; Rape being the ultimate heel move; Gimmick matches based around murder.

"Countdown" promoted itself as the first film to include the product. It was supposed to be "Sudden Death" at a house show. Since that feature was one of my favorite Jean-Claude Van Dam flicks, Dolph Ziggler's first starring vehicle's premise had potential.

Ray Fitzpatrick (Ziggler) is a burned out cop with nothing to lose, and that gets results. Unfortunately for him, internal affairs frowns upon shooting your partner like Sterling Archer would shoot Cyril to avoid blowing your cover, regardless of how many Russians you irritate to preserve the American way of life. Concerned for his pension, Lt. Cronin (Glenn "Kane" Jacobs) places the super cop on paid suspension with hopes that the critics will forget about his antics.

It is not his critics that the Seattle Police Department should be worrying about. The next day, a Russian obsessed with Ray's exploits sends them a video of a child who is strapped with enough explosives to obliterate a 40-yard radius. If Ray does not deliver $2,000,112.35 to the bomber at the WWE show, he will make a phone call to vaporize the youngster and any neighbors.

Like one of every three WWE angles, the exchange does not work out. Ray is able to kill his foil before he can set off the bomb, but that leaves us with no one who knows where the kids is. With the suspension leaving our hero with no regulations, he is going to harass every criminal west of the Urals until he saves the day while IA member Julia Baker (Katharine Isabelle) will try to piece the chaos together and keep Cronin off his tail.

"Countdown" decides to be clever instead of obvious and ridiculous, and it works. This is good because the direction is not there.

The first act was put in the can very quickly and the false and actual finales are chock full of continuity flaws. Michael Finch and Richard Wenk's script is a fool proof 80's film and Dolph Ziggler is not expected to emote anything but Mel Gibson's hippest, pro semetic attitude.

The script goes to some odd places, but with every ridiculous hunch Ziggler's character has, Isabelle's role is there to make sure the cynics will suspend their disbelief. Eventually, your only complaint is that they only cast two WWE talents to act. And they still find a way to emasculate Rusev.

/www.pinterest.com/negretealex5

Alexander Kalugin is a great Willem Dafoe knock off, but the rest of the thugs should have been "superstars". If you watch Southpaw Regional Wrestling, you know all of the Smackdown roster attempting Russian accents would make this a VOD rental/purchase instead of waiting for it to be streaming for free.

If you need a WWE fix while you are waiting for the WWE Network to give you a promo to return, first watch "AEW Dark" and "NWA Powerrr". If that is not enough, then "Countdown" is your methadone. Like any illicit drug, you can find this movie at truck stops, in the DVD bin with at least two other good WWE Studios flicks packaged with it. (I have yet to watch "The Condemned 2" so perhaps four.)

"Countdown" is silly like the current product and clever like ECW. The only thing it lacks is the nudity and graphic violence to be an ideal 80's action flick. Most importantly, this is the best of use of Dolph Ziggler since April of 2013. This feature is a product for the smarks who need to see this guy fully utilized.

I think Dolph is overrated as a wrestler, so please see this film to put Ziggler's career in an ideal direction. Or petition WWE to create a TV Championship if we must compromise. Just cheer for him cashing checks instead of hoping he wins world titles.

Thursday, December 26, 2019

90 Min Netflix: "Yoga Hosers" Kevin Smith's Ode and Betrayal of Millenial Canucks

How would you spend the eve of your first night off in 19 days? My mom wants to see Netflix's "The Irishman" and being a good son, in spite of her belief that Robert De Niro must be suffering from some mental disorder do to his curse-filled anti-Trump rants that have no valid base or articulation, I cleared out my queue devoted to movies I would probably never get around to buying (under 30 titles, surprisingly) to allow her a queue of her own. While I was reinserting these films into my primary queue, notices of titles being removed caught my attention. "Philadelphia" was one of those films, but since it was 125 minutes, Kevin Smith's "Yoga Hosers" was what I watched in its stead.

It seems that "Yoga Hosers" is widely considered to be the most pathetic directorial effort from the auteur, and being one of the biggest apologists for Smith, hearing that his flick about two Canadian clerks fighting off Nazi bratwursts sucked made me hesitate viewing it since the 2016 release. But I am a completist for better or for worst. (My restraint should be admired for the amount of times that I have typed worst without grabbing the pun.) Perhaps it is because I am apologist for the best screenwriter to not win an Oscar, that I was pleasantly surprised by this flick.

Or I was rewarded for being a completist in terms of collecting and viewing. Because I know what Smith finds funny, nothing awful came out of this feature. This film was to be expected at some point, and it is better to get it out of his system before he gets an AARP cover. Boomers will not stand for this kind of fun filmmaking.

Two years after Eh-2-Zed clerks Colleen C. and Colleen M. helped save the American podcaster who was transformed into a walrus, odd things are once again abound in Winnipeg. That figures since everyone seems to be against these Instagrammers. Their prep school P.E. teacher is fed up with the amount class time they spend on their phones. Yogi Bayer, their yoga teacher, is under constant threats from Warner Bros. over the name of his studio. And their 35-year drummer for their back of the store rock band, Glamthrax, still is not on the same page as his sophomore counter parts. But the biggest problem seems to be Tabitha, Colleen C's stepmom.

The two have just been invited to their first Grade 12 party, but because the Colleens keeps getting in the way of any chance she has to get intimate with her husband, as the convenient store manager, Tabitha is going to make them work that night as she whisks him off to Niagra Falls. In all actuality, the worst things for them is that the grade 12 party was being hosted by homicidal Satanists who are more than happy to bring the party to them. To make matters worst, these may not be the only killers out on a Friday night. It will take all their defensive Yoga skills to survive the night, but how will they explain the body count and sauerkraut that will be left in their wake?

"Yoga Hosers" biggest problem is that it does not know what it wants to be. I think it could have just been Canadian "Clerks" and work, but I am a customer service specialist. Just because I can deal with a new 90-minute set of irrelevance directed at idiots does not mean that the masses can. Hence you get a story about Generation Z versus Bratzis. The problem with that is not being able to see straight women doing that. If one of the C's was Belushi or Murray-esque, no question the film would be better.

So this movie is a concept that is unsellable, which is sad because there is plenty in it that is worth buying. Who would not be curious if the Canadian Nazi played by Haley Joe Osment was looking menacing over the convenience store from the heavens, complete with armband of course?

The movie works as a great B-movie, but when you get something from the director of "Chasing Amy" on a five-million dollar budget, you are expecting an indie film. This is definitely the wrong way to approach this feature because Kevin Smith has established who he is and what you should expect. "Yoga Hosers" seems to be the most fun on screen many of these actors have had. It may indicate that Smith is currently short on ideas, but by creating some new characters that he knows friends will comeback to, we may get a new Askewniverse.

This is definitely sounding like an apology to Smith for the backlash, so let me just list what is worthwhile about the flick. Nazi Osment; Yogi Justin Long; Work for stars who have taken a chance on this director; Johnny Depp collecting a check while having fun; An impressionist/mad scientist; Everyone you want to see lay down an overly thick Canadian accent, delivering on that accent.

The latter portion leaves me fearing what the Canucks will think of us. It is fun enough to pop in fun Canadian stereotype items (the "Good Old Hockey Game" cover during a Bratzi battle kept my interest), having Natasha Lyonne and Genesis Rodriguez be annoying with it may cause a culture war. Like "South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut" animosity.

If you want a great B-Movie, "Yoga Hosers" delivers. It leaves me thinking that I may have under complicated my zombie-wrestling comedy "Main Event of the Dead". (You be the judge by requesting a treatment via russthebus07@gmail.com.) Just know that you are seeing a B-Movie and appreciate that a director is allowed to make what he wants.

www.reeltalkinc.com/reel-review-yoga-hosers/

http://www.reeltalkinc.com/reel-review-yoga-hosers/

Contention, Toy Envy, and Blood Transfusions for Xmas

*Time of this passage: December 23, 2019

The last weekend was sort of a return to normalcy for me. "Star Wars" movie and "AEW: Revolution" tickets on Thursday, 12-hour workday for Friday, Rivermen and strippers on Saturday; it was all the good things that I had left behind close to four years ago.

Fortunately, I cannot complain about Sunday in East-Central Illinois. Christmas with the better quarter's (Eva the Cat gets half) was a nice affair. The siblings did not go overboard with the gifts, the father seemed to have dug The Police Funko Pop! line up, and the little ones seemed to love their stuffed vintage Ty cats. They enjoyed them to the point that I was sort of regretting buying them. The youngest was chewing on a face while the biggest cuddled hers as she wondered round the residence with Monical's Pizza on a plate with their special dressing.

And I have been accused of being too rough on Shadow, Sherlock, Pearl, Pounce, Mercutio, Hobbes, and Sox. If you do the math, they had a life span of three years a piece, but they were treated as pseudo-pets not toys. I am not replacing these cats annually. If I did, it would eventually kill me to see them "grow" up from them. That insult to felines would by on my head.

The only controversy over the weekend (a side from me sneaking off to Big Al's when my girlfriend said she was going to bed before I got to the I-74 junction and in turn a lecture of what she would consider to be "okay" if we became legally responsible for each other) was when my girlfriend gave her mom an art print of Toothless from the "How to Train Your Dragon" franchise.

"Russ just bought the picture."

And helped pick it out (it was my third from a Wizard World B2G1) and framed it (speaking of responsibilities). If I go into the details of the frame price and make, I would just sound petty.

It is tough to write when you cannot really complain about anything. I would have liked more (scheduled) hours at the retailer this weekend (I had only requested Saturday evening off.), but why trade that for a sense of holiday sanity? Do I have things I want to say about "The Rise of Skywalker"? Yes, but do they matter four days since the debut? With AEW taking Christmas off (stupid "A Christmas Story" marathon), what do I have to say about pro wrestling right now. Maybe I should wear myself out and head to the AAW's Windy City Classic the night before a Columbus Blue Jackets road trip on Sunday.

Being content brings contention.

There is still 90 minutes left in the shift, and I spent too much money on iTunes last night. I am planning on skipping "Monday Night Raw" and I doubt "The Daily Show" will be new, so I may have a movie review. Which brings me to something to be ticked about. DVD.com waited till today to ship out my latest DVD, "The Room".

Friday was a business day. "Dr. Chopper" made it back to you on Wednesday.