UWC 101...or was it 107?

The title kind of indicates the worst element of United Wrestling Coalition’s return to the Homer Opera House. More than most people, I appreciate Ramstein’s forgotten song from Vin Diesel’s “XXX," but a wrestling show is about the grapplers not the music (at least I assume that about Freelance and F1rst, working in hotels over the past four years makes it difficult to keep up on the Indie scene). If you do not hear the names and info about the performer, you can only rely on the local crowd to tell who to cheer and who to boo. When they are putting over the referee more than the competitors, you do not know how seriously you should take this promotion.

It may seem that I am not doing much to put over UCW, but it is a promotion that seems to have a lot of potential in spite of the middle of no where location in Homer. There seems to be a solid booking mind and they are the only kind of show that can effectively use the facility they are in. With all of the support posts holding the building up, I do not know how you can arrange seats for any other show.

Check out the rest of the blog at the Rip 'Em System Tublr.

"Don't let your babies grow up to be Cubs Fans, and always remember to spay or neuter your White Sox Fans," Russ Stevens

AAW: Art, Wisdom and Other Things Randy Doesn't Understand

I think it is difficult to argue the statement that All American Wrestling provides Chicago with the best wrestling. It does not have the perceived outlaw persona of Freelance Wrestling or Resistance Pro, and that is because it does not need it. You buy a ticket, and you are rewarded with the best wrestling showcase the region has to offer.

@AyyoLex - Pinterest

AAW currently seems to have an over abundance of riches. It may sound foolish to say there is a downside to showing off the best, but the promotion seems to lack identity. The best wrestlers will inevitably get signed to exclusive deals. When that happens, the most talented members of the undercard should be expected to step up to fill the vacant roles. Unless you can just find main eventers from other territories which is what the promotion that developed Tyler Black is ironically doing.

AAW feels like a YouTube Wormhole that you can check out in person, instead of a team you come to cheer on. As pro-wrestling's premier Cubs fan, I loved cheering on the team for 36 years as they developed into world champions. There were times that I wished ownership would just buy a title, but if that occurred, I would then be bitching about any time they did not win a title. That would make me a Yankee fan who is not from the five boroughs. To those fans, they are not your team.

Check out the rest of this blog at "Rip 'Em System - Tumblr" https://ripemsystem.tumblr.com/

January 2016: For Your Consideration: Wrestling not the Oscars

I left my journal/"Pokemon X" notebook in the car, so hopefully I'll have some interesting to blog about because otherwise I'll just look like a twat who can't take his eyes off their phone at a wrestling show.

I doubt anyone wants to hear about what I can definitely define as a midlife crisis (both my grandfathers passed away at 74, so I suppose we can call this my 39), and because my elbow is tensing up from overly aggressive lab work, sticking to overdone and ill ideas in wrestling seems like the wise thing to write about. This seems like a premise I can finish up with just quick quips between matches.

Bodily Fluids to Avoid:

This one isn't really overdone, but you have to pick the right crowd to do it in. Chicago's indie crowd allows you to get away with it thanks to Shimmer. The January 16th, 2016, AAW show had a crowd that liked to make the show about them, but had enough respect for wrestling being wrestling regardless of gender.if this was a WWE crowd, I would advise that woman not spit at each other. You're just asking for obscene chants.

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www.dailystar.co.uk

Goon: A Good Heart for the Worst of the Game

Goon (2012) - MovieWeb

I must be working too much. Creatively, the best I've come up is pondering how little trauma is present in those children who witness their parents being senselessly murdered. You would think with the frequency in which it occurs, and no one can say it is too few, we'd get a Batman, Nightwing or Red Hood out of it. Being a millionaire is not necessarily a requirement, all you have to do is find someone who wants justice as much as you and was a trust-fund baby. If only we had a mass shooting at an Ivy League university...

That's a little too dark to tweet. It's definitely a tough premise to tag @midnight under #PointsMe.

The problem with the lack of creativity is namely the lack of Twitter and Facebook activity. It is awkward for my last three post to be a request to read the same screw the WWE blog (which reminds me that I have two hours left to jump on #Raw...phew...took care of that). Also, despite they were playful jabs about the girl I've been hanging out with recently (and I'd like to think all of my jabs as playful [it's my straight left and left hook you gotta worry about]), you don't want to place the Facebook friend request when they the bruises are still fresh.

Unfortunately, the jobs don't let me visit my folks and get satirically charged from my culturally insensitive mother. Fortunately, this give me a perfect transition into my review for the Jay Baruchel penned attempt to revive the hockey comedy genre, "Goon."

I think Baruchel's characters maybe a little too over the top with their obscenities (and homophobia) to prep the movie-going public for a "Slap Shot" reboot, but the film's story of misfits that few people, even fewer parents, seem to understand makes it a sports film that anyone with a never say die attitude can thoroughly enjoy.

Doug Glatt (Seann William Scott) is a kindhearted bouncer in Orangetown, MA, who just wants to find something to be passionate about. He is not cut from the same fabric of his Jewish-doctor father (Eugene Levy), has difficulty relating to his gay brother (David Paetkau) and just does not have the mean streak of his trash-talking, hockey-loving best friend Pat (Jay Baruchel).

Watching hockey seems to be his primary way of relaxing, but that is even made difficult when a visiting hockey player to Orangetown decides that Pat needed to shut his mouth during a five for fighting. Standing up for his less athletically-inclined friend, Doug decimates the "tough guy" to the point where the hometown coach decides that he is the ideal minor league enforcer regardless of actual hockey...or skating...talent.

With a little work from coach Rollie Hortense (Nicholas Campbell), Doug seems to have found his role in the world. Rollie's brother who coaches AA, Ronnie (Kim Coates), determines that he is the perfect addition to the Halifax Highlanders. Ronnie needs someone to protect and spiritually revive the play of the former first round pick, Xavier LaFlamme (Marc-Andre Grondin). Since Doug's idol, fellow enforcer and known headhunter Ross Rhea (Liev Schreiber), has returned to the minors to end his career, Xavier and his chemistry better develop quickly or the Glatt experiment will be for not.

As a fan of minor league hockey (sorry Hawks fans, I had to get to know the guys with the Indian Head on their sweaters before I cheered for them, hence, I cheered the Flyers on [Broad Street=Bush League] back in 2010), I really enjoyed "Goon," despite the strained attempts to remind us of the Paul Newman classic. It just cannot be that movie since the characters were not mean enough. After one locker room sequence in Halifax, you feel that the crude dialogue and scenario were just a desperate attempt to recreate the hockey cinema standard bearer's atmosphere.

The lack of meanness almost made the casting of Scott a mistake. Dimwitted characters, we know he can do that, but without a Stifler edge or at least a "Dude's Where's My Car?" confidence, the actor loses his charm. To Bauchel's credit (and perhaps casting experience), he knows how to incorporate a caring love interest (Amanda Pill in this case) to provide a third dimension to bring out his depth. His dialogue also features some great spots that shows there's something working in our naive protagonist head, so it works out well.

Scott and Schreiber's performances show the good spirits that tough guys can have which you do not usually see in sports films about bullies. These characters are far more admirable than the Hanson Brothers who were only dense and comic relief. The issue anyone would have with the movie, and discourage olde time hockey fans from watching it, is that it is a celebration and justification for what most consider to be the worst element of hockey. This element is fighting. With the exception of Don Cherry, no hockey pundit (who didn't play) will advocate that anyone should see this film.

Hopefully, if say...Michael Wilbon, saw this, they would leave knowing that this is not a film about violence, but one about good people trying to find their place in a world that just assume write them off. This is the story of my life, and I envy the characters for making it the way I try to live. Pardon that stint of cynicism because "Goon" is based on a true story. It is actually a message of hope, all be it for a short time of the emotional high I have been searching for.

The persons behind "Goon" could have probably spent more time studying the locker room atmosphere, but they do a fine job in presenting characters who have goals that most of society seem to feel are worth spitting on. It displays a great understanding of why some of us love the sport of hockey, and any one who wants to see the International game, should leave with an appreciation of why it's okay to drop the gloves.

If I've convinced you to watch this film, available on Netflix Streaming, maybe you'll give me a chance to convince you to give my B-movie zombie/wrestling project "Main Event of the Dead" support.

If you need a treatment of the script for "Main Event of the Dead" please e-mail me at russthebus07@gmail.com.

 

 

Robo Vampire: Hopping Taoist Vampire Monks and Some Thai Movie on the Side

With a premise like that, I should not feel like there is a need to rush writing this review before this hotel shift ends. How can you forget that? If anything, Amazon should contact me in regards to writing their Prime Video movie descriptions. After all, Walmart let me do their groceries for two years.

I am getting ready for a killer week. Close the retailer, open the retailer. Evening shift at the hotel, open the retailer (an hour earlier). Evening shift at the hotel, open the retailer. Tuesday will be wrestling video games and completing "American Gods." I am working Wednesday and Thursday, and then heading up to catch my first AAW show of the year on Friday. Then I gotta make it back in time to open the retailer the next day. Just try to will the idea that there will not be an eight o'clock meeting Saturday morning on top of all this.

So, I now realize that the next blog will have to be a review of the wrestling. It is not right to let something that hot simmer. Then again, publishing this movie review instead will extend the life of AAW's Never Say Die.

It can be fun planning for the future, at least one that you have under control. The rest is just ignorant customers and loud and incompetent guests. I could romanticize it with the battle of loved ones and personal passion, but things would be simpler with lousy Halloween costumes portraying robots and gorilla masks portraying vampires...so you would think.

Robo Vampire

It looks like the U.S. is at least making strides against the drug trade in Southeast Asia's Golden Triangle. Their patrols are so effective that the top exporter has turned to a Taoist priest to resurrect an army of vampires to counter them. After the priest makes a pact with the ghost of his premier vampire beast's lover, he seems unstoppable. Unbeknownst to them, the Americans have their own methods of resurrection.

Death will not keep top agent Tom Wilde down. With some simple welding, he is revived as the Robo Warrior, something that does not play by the rules of Chinese black magic. Perhaps this is why the main supplier has kidnapped Sophie, an American agent whose cover has just been blown.

Stretched thin, the Yanks have assigned the rescue to Thai mercenaries. Hopefully that gamble will pay off. Otherwise, all of the secrets of the Robo Warrior will be exposed.

The last three sentences of my "Robo Vampire" plot synopsis required more thought than any placed in the production of this film. This 1988 release was a quick turnaround rip off of "Robocop" but without the class that Italian directors provide. When the quality of the film stock immediately reminds you of a Rifftrax or MST3K short, you know you should not watch this without a fifth of whiskey and robot friends. Sadly, my Tom Servo tattoo remained silent through this presentation.

Maybe I am selling my screenplay for "Main Event of the Dead" at too high a level. I may have to call it a Q-Movie instead of a B-Movie Zom Com. Ask for a treatment by emailing russthebus07@gmail.com.

The last statement comes from Godfrey Ho's film being called a Z-Movie. There is such a discrepancy in quality, I better pick a different letter. This film makes the idea of filming in portrait seem okay. To try and ensure that someone will enjoy this, Ho more than likely only shot 45 minutes of robot and vampire stuff and attached a Thai Commando movie to pad out the runtime. This causes the film to quit being good bad and just be all bad as you are pulled away from the premise that you clicked on to watch something that would only be interesting if it was exploitative foreign cinema. No abuse of women or graphic violence, no value to a scum aficionado like me.

It is sad that Ho decided to take this route because the cheap effects that feature no concept about how any weapon works is constantly hilarious. The Robo Warrior story already tries to be something for everybody. You have the gore of vampires ripping out a throat or too. You have the "lady ghost" fighting in completely sheer white "robes". The vampires can only hop as conveyance, so no one will be scared from the theater. You have a slapstick scene when you realize that vampires can get hyped up on sugar, so you better keep them neck deep in heroin for storage purposes.

When you use firecrackers and bottle rockets instead of scribs, you cannot change it up for half the film with Cannon like action. You have not earned it and by the first cut to the Thai movie, the audience knows they do not want it. We were too busy enjoying the nonsensical cuts, why would we want this feature to suddenly make any sense?

"Robo Vampire" could have been and enjoyable mess, but chose to be a monotonous chore. There is no Wikipedia page for this film, but after enough Google searches, I had found there to be two "sequels". As a lover of the concept of "so bad it is good", I am considering tracking them down in hope that Godfrey Ho could nail this down once. With that said, leave it to me because you should not object yourself to watch a Break.com video that will more than likely become a train accident.

If your blissful ignorance can be stolen by "Robo Vampire", how can you trust Ho to not go after your soul with his other works? His techniques are the only vampires of his that makes sense.

https://makeagif.com/gif/robo-vampire-YcpVlw?ref=yo3Yhg