ILLINIWrestlingBlog

Everybody has their blind spots. Mine is The Princess Bride. Even though my best friend thinks it is the greatest movie of all time, I don't particularly care for it. I go to him for advice on every possible topic except the best movie of all time. But to your point: The movie that I saw on regular television did not have rodents of an unusual size. I had to look it up. So, I just went to YouTube and found it. They must have edited the scene out of the movie I watched to save children from that particular scare? To fit in commercials? Run time? I don't know. I can see that kids of a particular age would find these rodents of a particular size to be unusually scary:

Thanks for this! I haven't seen any of the new movies, but I'd love to hear what people think after watching Megalopolis, Deadpool & Wolverine, Bob Marley: One Love, The Beekeeper, Dune: Part Two, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and The Wild Robot. I don't want to hear about The Garfield Movie.

I'm laughing at your pain, D3! A lot of people mention The Thing as one of their scary movies. I really liked Kurt Russell, the blood test, the tension. The Whodunit aspect. Creepy. Very good movie! As for The Blair Witch Project, my brother, I'm laughing again. As a constant practical joker, my Wife and Buddy decided to get me back. We had planned on going to see Blair Witch for date night, and she told my friend about our plans. He had already seen the movie and came up with a devilish scheme. While my wife and I were out on our dinner-and-a-movie date night, he arrived at our back yard with some landscaping stones and bundles of twigs and branches. If you've seen the movie, those were signs of the Witch. When my wife and I got home, she said, "I think I heard something out back!" I took the flashlight out there and had one of the most genuine scares of my life. It was scary for me because I thought The Blair Witch Project was a good, scary movie. In fact, my Wife and I talked about the ending the whole way home. The "Found Footage" idea was pretty new (although it was used in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein as found letters). I thought it was inventive, and it let your imagination wander.

I'm a squeamish little pussy myself. I hated the slasher movies. They weren't that scary, just gross. Freddy Krueger was the best of that lot because it did prey on the imagination. The Ring might have been the last true horror movie I watched. I thought it was very good and pretty scary. This means, of course, that I may have missed out on some real masterpieces. As a high schooler, I must've scared some youngsters at the drive-in theater. I was a projectionist, and I would get 4 to 6 reels of film in the mail to splice together and put on a huge platter next to the giant projector. Then, thread the film through the projector. Wait for dusk, and hit the on switch. I spliced together Scanners and Phantasm. Those had to scare some little folk because whole families would come in their cars.

You are referencing The Wizard of Oz? Yes, the witch and the flying monkeys frightened me as a wee one.

THE MOVIE THREAD HALLOWEEN SPECIAL I have two questions for all movie lovers during the Halloween season: First, what is the scariest movie you have ever seen? Second, what movie scared the jammies offa you as a child? SCARIEST MOVIE For me, there is The Exorcist. Everything else is at least 150mg of Adrenaline behind it. There are only two changes I would make in this masterpiece. They did the backward crabwalk down the stairs shoot for the original movie, but they didn't originally release it. I'm glad it is in the movie now. That was so creepy, and so far ahead of its time. Second, I wish they had good CGI at the time they did the 360° head spin. They used a dummy for the movie, and it worked on me as a child, but it could've been better. FIRST MOVIES THAT SCARED YOU AS A CHILD There was The Exorcist, of course, but there was also Trilogy of Terror. The latter had three episodes in one movie, and one of the episodes freaked me out. You know which one it was. I saw the movie with my little Sister, and we were both frightened. She brought it up a while back, and I determined to get her a Zuni Warrior figure as a goof for her birthday. As a way to exorcize a bit of shared childhood trauma. I found only one on the internet, and it sold for something like $600 to $800. Outside my practical joke budget! So, I made a papier-mâché figure, boxed it up, and wrapped it in festive birthday paper. What you don’t see below is that I decided to wrap a tiny thread around the ankle of the monster, punch a small hole in the box and wrapping paper, and keep the end of that thread in my hand as I handed the gift to my Sister and she unwrapped it. After she had opened the box, I was going to pull the thread so that the little monster moved around. Unfortunately, the thread got tangled in the unwrapping process and did not work. Still, she loved that ugly little creature while it lasted.

One of my blind spots is not having ever seen a movie in an IMAX theater. I loved the first Dune movie -- even liked the 1984 version with Sting -- and I bet this new series would look really good as an IMAX experience.

I don't take **** from no Starburst guy. And yes, I used to wrestle humans. I found them to be very ... uncooperative.

Hard agree here. Unless the venue is offering a 3D movie where they spray **** in your face. You name three great movies that should be seen in a movie theater. A crowd is nice as well. I would go to a theater right now and watch them. Soda, box of Milk Duds, and bag of popcorn. Three Duds, two handfuls of popcorn. Wash down with soda. Repeat as necessary.

That's hilarious! Made me laugh. LUCAS BYRD: "I've narrowed my choices down to ILLINOIS and ILLINOIS."

HOW TO WATCH THE MOVIE TENET WITHOUT ENDING UP IN AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP I have Tenet as Honorable Mention in my list of best movies. That wasn't always the case. You see, the first time I watched it, I just let the movie run straight through, and it was extremely frustrating, as if the movie's director, Christopher Nolan, had decided to abuse me. Every actor was a Mumbly Joe, and even when they shouted, there was ambient noise that drowned them out. Additionally, much of the movie is dark and hard to see. Then, people started moving backwards. WTF! I wanted a divorce from the movie and full custody of the popcorn. But, then, my friends, I decided to give the movie a second chance. That's when I came up with these rules for watching the movie. Please note that these aren't suggestions, they are mandatory. There are no "mays" or "coulds" here. There are only "nots," "shalls" and "musts." If you fail to follow these rules, I will find you: Do NOT watch the movie for the first time in a theater. Do NOT watch the movie for the first time on somebody else's tv or screen. You MUST watch the movie at home first, with complete control of the remote. During first viewing, you SHALL put on close captioning. Your remote MUST have easy rewindability. Do NOT watch the movie with a Talkie Tina or a Gabby Greg. This is the absolute worst movie to see for the first time in a movie theater or with friends or without complete control and dominance of your remote. Tenet has a 70% critics rating and 76% audience mark on Rotten Tomatoes. Very underrated. The critical consensus reads: "A visually dazzling puzzle for film lovers to unlock, Tenet serves up all the cerebral spectacle audiences expect from a Christopher Nolan production." I would suggest that the puzzle was in how to watch the movie, and I thought that was pretty cool.

That's what's so maddening. There's a whole universe out there....

I'm expecting more All Americans than Edmond Ruth, Lucas Byrd and Kannon Webster. Both Brawlnagels and Luke Luffman are in striking distance in the rankings, and you can bet that the two Brawnys earned a doctorate in hand-fighting during their Greco Olympic redshirt year. They were both Honorable Mention AAs during the Covid Year. Zac has been a R12er his last two seasons wrestling. Plus, y'all know you are rooting for those guys! I'm also keen to see how Ramazan Attasauov does down at 125. He's been a NQ at 133, and there's no doubt that he could be one of the biggest, tallest and strongest at the new weight if he can handle the drop. Plus, he won U23 Nationals at 57kg in the past, beating RayVon Foley and Patrick Glory along the way. Is his transition to Folk now compete? There are a couple of others on the edge of consideration, Braeden Scoles has the pedigree, but 165 is tough as nails, Danny Pucino has the moves and hopefully he no longer gives up a weight advantage to his opponents, and Jason Kraisser was Round of 16 two years ago and is now in an environment with some serious middleweight coaching (Poeta, IMAR, AOC).

I was at a hotel a couple nights ago and saw that The Rise of Skywalker was coming on. Since I've only seen the movie once, I thought I'd watch it again. I reached the end of the standard Star Wars opening scroll and turned it off. I could not watch it. On Rotten Tomatoes, the movie has a 51% from critics and 86% from the audience. Here are quotes from a couple of the critics: It's hard to believe, at the culmination of 42 years and nine movies, that the last three would be essentially improvisational exercises by all directors concerned. Kudos to J.J. Abrams for doing something extraordinary: he has made me not care about Star Wars for the first time ever. I'm kind of relieved that it's over, because it has stopped being fun. Like all Star Wars movies, it has a great poster. It also made over a billion dollars at the box office. I'm going to count this as a me problem.

I'm still waiting for the official pool sponsored by DraftKings. I got January 22, 2025. Their first day of classes after winter break. At this point, I'm the closest without going over, which means that, in a Price is Right kind of way, I'm the winner.

Glengarry Glen Ross is a stupid name now. Then, too. They could've named it "Shark Tank" or "The Watch." The watch was the best part. Or maybe, "Gettin' Real Estate."

SOME FREE MOVIES ON YOUTUBE I have listed below just a few of the free movies on YouTube. I will put them into categories as follows: (1) MUST SEE, (2) VERY GOOD, and (3) I REMEMBER THEY WERE GOOD BUT I DON'T REMEMBER MUCH MORE THAN THAT AND/OR I DON'T HAVE MUCH OF ANYTHING FUNNY OR POIGNANT OR RELEVANT OR INSIGHTFUL TO SAY ABOUT THEM. Please add other free movies that you find. Each movie name is a link. I have checked to make sure the links work as of the writing of this post. 1. MUST SEE Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. This might be a top 25 pick for me. Absomazing. 92% and 94% on Rotten Tomatoes. Deserves even better in my opinion. Idiocracy. The guy who brought you Beavis and Butthead also brought you a four-star movie. Terry Crews as President Camacho. Wow. I just went and watched a clip of the Costco greeter. Glengarry Glen Ross. A stupid name for a great movie. What a cast and script. The movie came out in 1992, then in 1997, The Simpsons introduced a brilliant recurring character by the name of Gil Gunderson. L.A. Confidential. Still another four-star free movie. There were shenanigans in the Los Angeles police department back in the day? Another all-star cast and a great script. There Will Be Blood. A must-see for Daniel Day-Lewis' performance. Tight script. The brutal world of capitalism is on full display. 2. VERY GOOD Downfall. You know all those video memes that show Hitler having a nervous breakdown while discussing how close the Russians were to Berlin that have been dubbed into anybody or anything losing? This is the whole movie. It has subtitles. Some critics said it humanized Hitler. I thought it made him look pathetic. Pitch Black. The movie that catapulted Vin Diesel to stardom. It's Sci Fi and action and horror mixed together like the raisins and carrots and jello in your Aunt's nasty salad thing. But the movie is yummy and a lot better than the 60% and 77% on Rotten Tomatoes. The Chronicles of Riddick. It follows the Vin Diesel character from Pitch Black. Not as much horror, but lots of Sci Fi and action. It absolutely deserves better than the 29% and 65% on Rotten Tomatoes. I will watch this again. You know, some days I just want to line up all the movie critics for throat punches. Riddick. You get to see all three of the movies in this Vin Diesel series for free! Pretty good deal. It's 58% and 56% on Rotten Tomatoes, but it's much better than that. 3. THE "I REMEMBER THEY WERE GOOD BUT I DON'T REMEMBER MUCH MORE THAN THAT AND/OR I DON'T HAVE MUCH OF ANYTHING FUNNY OR POIGNANT OR RELEVANT OR INSIGHTFUL TO SAY ABOUT THEM" MOVIES Rounders. A movie about Poker that really started (or at least anted up on) the craze that swept the country. Great cast, excellent story. I mostly just remember it being good, especially John Malkovich as the Russian at the "final table." Elysium. Gritty Sci Fi. I'm a sucker for that. It got a "Fresh" score of 64% on Rotten Tomatoes, but the audience score is an abysmal 58%. I blame all of you. It's a good movie. So I Married An Axe Murderer. I literally remember nothing about this movie other than I liked it quite a lot. Okay, I remember it involved Scots. They are an intrinsically funny people. The Arrival. The ending sticks in my mind as scary and funny in equal measure. That's an accomplishment! Oh, and the rest of the movie was good as well. It has a 66% rating from critics and a 44% from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes. You people disgust me. As a final note, I am looking at three free movies to watch next. Can you give a brother a hand? What do y'all think of Donnie Darko, The Signal and Once Upon a Time in America. Keep in mind that I'm a squeamish little pussy who scares easily. Also, I'll need a lot of convincing to watch Once Upon a Time in America given its nearly four-hour length. That's more time than I devoted to my marriage.

I found Casino Royale (1967) on YouTube for free. I've now watched it for a second time. If they had just cut out the first 30 minutes from that movie, it would've been a huge hit with everybody. It's when Woody Allen and Peter Sellers make their first appearances that the film begins to party. URSULA ANDRESS AS VESPER LYND: "Mr. Evelyn Tremble?" PETER SELLERS AS EVELYN TREMBLE/007: "Yes, that's right." URSULA ANDRESS: "Isn't 'Evelyn' a girl's name?" PETER SELLERS: "No. It's mine. Actually." You have the spinning bed from Austin Powers, Burt Bacharach, beautiful secret agents and double agents. If anything, this version of Casino Royale was the inspiration for Mike Myers' spy parodies, and that makes it important in my book.

Interstellar is in my top ten. Contact was very good as well. So was Jaws. I had to look up the Reagan movie at Rotten Tomatoes, where it has one of the greatest disparities I've ever seen between critics and audience reactions: 18% versus 98%. That's insane. It got me to thinking about movie theaters. The last time I watched a movie in a movie theater was the same year that the Nintendo Switch was released. Brexit hadn't even begun to happen. The Atlanta Falcons were in the Super Bowl. That was around the time I cut the cable as well. Are they going to be extinct soon?

THE EMPTY MAN (2020) This is a horror movie that I originally gave two stars out of four. A weak recommend with caveats. It was released during Covid to almost no fanfare, and I don't even know why I watched it in the first place. One Candyman is fine, two's a crowd. In the end, there were three reasons I gave it only two stars: 1. The first 20 minutes constitute a mini-movie that is absolutely perfect. Horrifyingly perfect. 2. It is long. Bloated. Over two hours. 3. There's a special mechanical way the cult in the movie goes about summoning their demon, and it is laughable. But the movie stuck with me. I ended up giving it a much stronger recommendation. I changed my mind! Yes, there were flaws. But the underlying story was strong, and the scares and tension were real. What follows is my thought process in changing my mind. Maybe I shouldn't punish a movie for starting well? Even exceedingly well. It's not like a 1600m race in which the runner goes out at :45 for the first lap, collapses and finishes last. I needed to review the movie in toto. It should get credit for the great start. I think it is still a fair criticism that the movie is overly long. That critique is emphasized by how well it starts. I wanted to see that first-twenty-minute quality during the length of the movie. My third original criticism involves SPOILERS. Folks in the movie get trapped by, and later communicate with, their demon/alien/supernatural being by blowing into an empty soda bottle. In one scene, you see what amounts to a soda bottle band holding a rally by blowing into their pop bottles in unison. I laughed out loud at that. It reminded me of how guys in our fraternity, back in the day, would sit around and watch teenage slasher movies and come up with one-liners about the murders. For example, there was a movie in which the murderer snuck up behind a guy who was crouched next to his motorcycle, working on it. The murderer took the end of the victim's scarf and threw it into the running back wheel causing him to strangle. I said, "He was adjusting the choke." I won that movie. But years later, I decided to give The Empty Man the benefit of the doubt. Cults do weird things. They might bang on drums, chant or dance around in naked and erotic ways. They might sacrifice animals or even people. So, was blowing into a pop bottle that strange? Yes. Yes it is. But I still gave it the benefit of the doubt. Anyway, here's a movie reviewer with 2.03 million subs who came to the same conclusion:

LOL! And yet, I still like to watch him. Has he just gotten lucky with good parts in iconic movies? I don't know. But he is interesting to watch.

Did you ever watch Constantine for free during the afternoon on September 25, 2024 and make popcorn, and when you got to the bottom of the bowl of popcorn, you saw the stragglers, the strays, the unpopped, and you thought: "Should I try to pop these leftover kernels," and you did, even though the stragglers had been caught between two worlds, the world of the eaten and the world of the not eaten but not yet thrown away, and what happened when you popped them is that they popped just fine though they looked a little twisted, smaller, darker, different, bereft of any popcorn soul, if there is such a thing, but you ate them anyway because you'll eat just about anything that isn't a vegetable, and while you consider the hypocrisy of that last thought, you wonder if anybody has an opinion on the movie Constantine, which can be watched for free here: I will say this: Keanu Reeves acting chops were better in this movie. Constantine now goes into the category of movies that I have seen twice.

Fun stuff! Had to use the old memory hole and throw in some logic to fill in the gaps. Usually dangerous stuff, but my 190/197 pick wasn't too far off.