Tuesday, August 13, 2002

Review of XXX Vin Diesel represents a new breed of secret agent in XXX.  Something big is going down in the Czech republic, but all of the agents sent to find out what it is exactly have been killed.  So head of the NSA (Samuel L. Jackson) decides to try a different approach, recruiting somebody who’ll fit in more with the criminal element.  He picks up XXX, who is an extreme sports star, but also bends the law when he see fit (like stealing and destroying a car of a senator who views he doesn’t agree with).  XXX has to infiltrate a group known as ‘Anarchy 99’, and find out all he can about them.     007 this ain’t.  XXX is more brash, and not nearly as smooth and sophisticated, but it’s not really supposed to be.  Diesel has the look and attitude down, as he obviously really embraced his wild side for this role.  It’s too bad the rest of the movie isn’t up to the task.  The writing all around is really bad, even for a cheesy action flick, with lines like “think Playstation!” (I’d swear this was a blatant add to play videogames with how many cheesy lines they have about it, like Diesel saying he learned how to shoot playing first person games).  The villains all are cartoony comic book like villains who are cardboard cutouts, especially the leader (and if this is supposed to be an American homage to Bond films, where’s the cool deadly villain like Oddjob or Jaws?).  It’s a damn good thing most of the movie centers around Diesel and the excellent stunts in the movie.  They are a little over the top, but pretty well done (especially one with an avalanche), and Diesel is just a great presence on screen, and he is definitely what makes this movie enjoyable.  Diesel has already proven he can carry a movie, so let’s hope that next time they give him something a little more worthy. Final Grade: B- 9:28:39 AM    comment []

The Bottom Rope for 8/11     Hey, sorry about there not being a column for the last couple of weeks, but I was trying to do a detailed roster analysis of RAW & Smackdown, which was impossible due to all the talent switching going on, so I’ve decided to postpone it until there are no more talent raids for awhile (although if they decide to stick with the brand extension angle, this will probably happen every year).  Now, moving on to a column I’d like to call “breaking through the glass ceiling”.  In wrestling, the “glass ceiling”, is a term that plagues many wrestlers.  It’s that invisible barrier that separates guys like Rock and Angle from guys like D-Lo Brown & Hardcore Holly.  Sure, Holly & D-Lo are extremely talented, and guys like them are pretty much the backbone of this business, and they’ve have some periods of time when they have been pretty popular, but they’ve never been able to ascend to that superstar level where they are in the main event on a regular basis, or headline ppvs (maybe an occasional house show, but that’s about it).  It takes some people their whole career to break through to the top (and others take no time at all, like Angle), Austin didn’t do it until he had already been in the business about 8 years, and Foley is the prime example, as he didn’t make main event until the last couple of years of his career.  So this week, I’m going to look at two very different wrestlers, Edge and Tommy Dreamer.  Edge is a guy who is right up against that ceiling, just one real key feud or angle away from being one of those guys who you can see in the main event at Wrestlemania (that it is the one thing all the top stars have in common).  Tommy Dreamer is a guy who has killed himself in minor leagues like ECW (yes, ECW was minor league, now accept it and move on) for years and is just now starting to get noticed in WWF for his talents.  Both these guys have the potential to be the next generation of main eventers, because in a couple of years, Hogan, Flair, Taker, HHH, and possibly Rock will be gone and career-ending injuries will probably take out a couple of other key players.  So what I’m going to do in this column is suggest what I think that key angle would be for both of these superstars to break them through the glass ceiling. Edge:  Ok, I think that WWF made a big mistake by having him and Hogan split amicably.  A major feud with Hogan would’ve catapulted him right into main event status, and the perfect time would’ve been at the last ppv.  All they had to do was wait until Hogan started ‘hulking up’, and then Edge could’ve speared him to make Hogan get pinned.  Then he could get on the mic and talk about how Hogan personifies everyone that is wrong with the country.  He thinks he’s so great, and so on.  That’s all they really had to do, and a feud between these two leading up to Summerslam would be pretty damn big.  They still have time, I say they team Hogan and Edge up this week and have him do it then, since neither of them have a match at Summerslam yet, and that would be perfect for them.  Edge is a close as you can get without actually being main event; this would be the key thing to make him solidly there. Tommy Dreamer:  Now Dreamer is a little less obvious, but nevertheless, he’s one of the few guys I see on the Raw roster who has the opportunity with the changes his character has been going through.  He’s gone back to the innovator of violence gimmick that made him a big fish in a small pond, and I think it can make him a big fish again.  You’ve got him started right by winning the hardcore title.  Now what he needs to do is start cutting promos about how hardcore he is, possibly being interlaced with footage of his most brutal highlights from his ECW days.  Have him start no only taking on, but dominating all the hardcore talent on the Raw roster.  Spike, Bubba, Bradshaw, Crash, Jeff Hardy, maybe even RVD.  Then after a couple of months of this, he starts saying that he’s tired of all of these supposedly hardcore guys, that he’s dominated them all.  He wants something bigger, somebody more hardcore, somebody who’s fallen off the Titantron and survived, somebody who’s been suplexed through glass, somebody named Shane McMahon.  He starts saying all he ever hears about is how hardcore Shane McMahon is cause he’s been in a few street fights, but if he wants to prove just how hardcore he is, he should step into the ring with the innovator of violence.  Of course at first, Shane completely ignores it.  But then Dreamer gets more aggressive, beating up friends of his (like Test and Big Show), showing up at places where Shane is having meetings or having meals, generally stalking him.  Shane can talk to Vince and ask him to do something, which of course Vince will say no to.  Then Dreamer finally does something extremely drastic like attack Stephanie or Linda to finally provoke Shane into the match.  And by the time this all happens, it would most likely be time for Wrestlemania or even Summerslam depending on how much they want to build the matchup.  At this point, win or lose, Dreamer’s a mega star, ready to move up to the big leagues.  It’s long drawn out feuds like this that are really memorable and stick out in fans’ minds, not these two week deals that end at the monthly ppv.  You need to look no further than HHH/Rock or Austin/McMahon for proof of that. 9:26:18 AM    comment []

Dave Arneson, the lesser known co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons "GameSpy has an interview with Dave Arneson, the lesser known co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons with Gary Gygax. He is at Gen Con in Milwaukee. 9:21:16 AM    comment []