Lego Batman for the Wii

If you played the previous Lego offerings for Star Wars or Indiana Jones, you know what you’re getting into here. Lego Batman’s gameplay follows the exact same formula of simple brick smashing and puzzle solving, but I suppose that’s par for the course. The Lego games are targeted to Lego’s primary audience: kids. This is a pretty easy game. Cross promoting with franchises like Batman and Indiana Jones widens the audience though. What they’re really successful with, as was the case with Lego Star Wars (thought not quite as well with Indiana Jones), is capturing the mood and feel of the original material, through the Lego lens.

Play as The Riddler and confuse the shit out of your opponents!

The cut-scenes, for example, are entertaining in a cute Lego way, but have a humour that plays up the Batman mythos. A few times, after a boss is defeated, Batman will decipher a clue or free a hostage while Robin ends up in a slapstick struggle with the defeated boss. Without taking his attention off what he’s doing at all, Batman will blindly throw a batarang that will loop around perfectly, knock out the villain and, and return perfectly to his hand. It’s a send up of a lot of the moments you see in the comics and the various movies and animated programs. I call them “He’s Batman” moments, where he does something so spectacular the only possible explanation is the fact that he’s Batman. Or as he would put it, if you asked him about it, “I’m Batman.” Another touch I laughed at was having Killer Moth (who’s a lame joke of a character anyway) playing comic relief. While Joker is explaining his grand plan, Moth keeps starting at the light in the room, mesmerized, until Scarecrow smacks him in the back of the head.

Another great touch is the references to the Tim Burton Batman films. The soundtrack is taken entirely from the 1989 film, which adds tremendously to the atmosphere. Levels take place in the art museum, and the cathedral tower, and The Joker’s face even reminds me a little of Nicholson’s Joker. While I’ve made it no secret that I enjoy the Nolan series of Bat-films more, the Burton films are a much better fit for the Lego treatment. That being said, as much as I liked having “tropical” Joker (as in the scene from The Killing joke where he cripples Barbara Gordon) as an unlockable character, it would have been great to have a Ledger-style Joker in there, not to mention a Dark Knight style Batman.

“You ever dance with the Lego Devil in the pale moonlight?”

The one big difference between this game and the previous entries is that the lack of a previously established storyline. There are some heavy allusions to the first series of Batman films, mostly through the distribution of teams throughout the chapters. Riddler and Two-Face (Batman Forever) are on a team with Mr. Freeze and Poison Ivy (Batman & Robin), and Catwoman and Penguin (Batman Returns) team up on another, though thankfully, Penguin is not the mutant Tim Burton version. Regardless, not being tied to the plot of a series of films, they changed the layout of how the game is played. When you start, you can choose to begin the first level of either of the three Hero chapters, in which you battle five (wo)man villain teams over five levels. You access the chapters from the central hub of the Batcave, which functions the same way as the Cantina or the Museum in the previous games. Once you beat a chapter, however, you can jump over to Arkham Asylum and access the villain missions from there. Villain missions follow the same story as the Hero missions, but from the opposite point of view. Thankfully, this takes us through different routes and paths around the same landmarks in the Hero missions, rather than simply playing Hero missions with villains. This adds a fun duality to the game, and the atmosphere and look of both the Batcave and Arkham Asylum are great. In Arkham, along with the villains you’ve unlocked, dozens of Joker, Penguin and Mr. Freeze’s thugs wander the halls, starting fights and raising hell.

The villains are a lot of fun to play with. Joker is my favorite right now, as he has the best gun, an immunity to toxins, and a great joy buzzer grapple move. Actually, the toxin immunity is pretty funny, as any character with chemicals involved in their origin at all has it. I can understand Poison Ivy, Clayface and even, to a certain extent The Joker, but I have no idea why Two-Face or Bane are immune to toxic waste. Regardless, while this game has a much smaller roster than it’s predecessors, I find it’s more focused this time around. The characters that are there are more useful. Riddler and Mad Hatter both use mind control on lesser NPCs, Catwoman and Harley Quinn are both great jumpers, in their own ways. Ivy can grow plants and Joker can power some machines with the joy buzzer. Killer Moth and Man Bat have distinctly different flying styles. My favorite might have been Bane’s grapples which include the iconic Bat-breaker move, which actually breaks the Lego victim into pieces (and harkens back to Chewbacca’s arm rip off move in the Star Wars games).

Overall, while not posing much of a challenge (though the “collect and unlock” nature of the game adds to replayability), I find it’s a pretty solid game. If you liked the previous Lego games, you like this. If you like Batman, you’ll probably enjoy it as well. If you like one and not the other, well, you’ve got a fifty-fifty chance. Two-Face would like those odds.

The other game I got this week is the complete opposite in a lot of fundamental ways…

Mega Man 9 for the Wii

This frigging thing caused me no end of frustration. While the spinning column of flowers threatens to knock you into insta-kill spikes, that little flower pecker pops up. I’m not certain, but I think the number of petals he shoots at you corresponds with what clock position he pops up at (i.e. 3 petals if he’s shooting from 3 o’clock).

While certainly doing a fine job with graphic overhauls on their older games (the remade Mega Man, Ghouls n’ Ghosts and the, apparently awesome, Bionic Commando Rearmed) Capcom took a different approach with this one. Available as a Wiiware/PSN/Xbox Live Arcade downloadable title, Mega Man 9 is as old-school as it gets. Sporting 8-bit graphics and sound, Mega Man 9 will bring you in for nostalgia, but you’ll stay for the gameplay.

Hardhats, or Mets as they’re more properly called, return to their roots here. Previous games saw flying Mets, swimming Mets, giant Mets and even Mets who drove trucks. These simple triple-shot Mets a generally strategically placed to be the biggest pain in the ass possible. Note the flying saucers at the top of the screen, which are also trying to kill you.

To be blunt, this is the hardest goddamn game I’ve played in a long, long time. And I’ve been spoiling for a good challenge. By doing away with graphical concerns, Capcom poured all their efforts into level design and A.I. behaviour. In Plug Man’s level, there’s a spot of classic “disappearing and reappearing” blocks over a bed of spikes, with a hard hat shooter guy waiting on the platform you’re trying to jump on. 10 lives later, I finally found where to land and when to shoot to be able to land safely. In Jewel Man’s level, there are large cannons that can take off about a fifth of your energy with one shot and aim directly for you. While you’re trying to deal with that, a little green pod flutters to the ground. Upon landing, is sprouts spikes and turns into a fast moving, whirling hazard that moves just below your line of fire. After a couple of retries, you start to get the pattern of when to shoot the green thing before it hits, in between the cannon’s shots. Mega Man 9 is a study in mastering thousands of little situations like that.

Striking a blow for robotic women’s rights, Splash Woman is the first female Robot Master (boss) to be introduced in the series. I finally kicked her ass and took her Lightning Trident earlier tonight. Back to the kitchen, hussy!

In keeping with the retro feeling, the slide (introduced in Mega Man 3) and the charged shots (introduced in Mega Man 4) are done away with. You can jump and you can shoot, that’s it. And that’s all you need. I remember borrowing Mega Man 6, the last NES entry, shortly after its release and beating it in one evening. While my gaming efforts were certainly divided this week, I only managed to beat two bosses on the first night of playing. Yesterday I picked off one, and I beat two more tonight. The difficulty really makes you appreciate when victory comes. I’ve only actually beaten one of the bosses with the right weapon so far, I’m looking forward to discovering The Pattern.

This mosaic shows all the bosses from the first 6 games. This will make a snazzy desktop photo/”name the robot trivia game” for drunken geeks.

The Pattern is a tie that binds all the Mega Man and Mega Man X games together. Beat a boss and you get their weapon. The weapon generally, will be the achilles heel of another boss, but figuring out which one is another part of the challenge. So, you develop an order to fight the levels in. For example, here’s my order for Mega Man 2- Air Man, Metal Man, Bubble Man, Flash Man, Crash Man, Wood Man, Heat Man, Quick Man. Everyone can develop their own plan. My first objective is to get Metal Man’s metal blades, which are the most useful weapon in the game as you can throw them in 8 directions. That’s a big help in some levels like Crash Man’s. I’ll fight Air Man first, though, so that I can have the rocket sled when I play Metal Man’s level and can reach an energy tank. These are the kind of considerations and strategy you can apply to the games. I’m still trying to figure out my strategy for Mega Man 9. And I love that, I haven’t really had to develop a strategy for a game in a long time.

A nerd’s wet dream, here’s a picture of all the original series and directly related Mega Man games. The original series (the six NES games, plus the five Gameboy, one SNES game and a PS1 game) are set about a century before the Mega Man X series (three SNES, three PS1, two PS2), which were followed by the Mega Man Z and ZX series on Gameboy Advance and DS. One of Z and ZX is a prequel series, I think, but I’m not sure which.

I should also mention the sound. The music is 8-bits, and kicks ass. Capcom has always been known for having great music in their games, from Mega Man to Street Fighter and everywhere in between. They deliver perfectly here. Tornado Man’s level music ranks up there with the best Mega Man songs in my opinion. It just gets you really pumped up for the level.

So, to sum up two great games, for entirely different reasons. Lego Batman, you shouldn’t have to guess whether or not you’ll like it. You should be able to tell from your enjoyment of either Batman or the other Lego games. Mega Man 9, I recommend to everyone, particularly younger gamers. Give this a go, and take a look at how effective simplicity can be. Instead of having a hundred buttons and complicated command sequences you’ve got two buttons and one helluva challenge. Back in the days before a game could really hang its hat on things like graphics and cut scenes, the bottom line was gameplay and challenge. Mega Man 9 exceeds my expectations for both.

I figure this is as close as this site will come to a 9/11 retrospective. One of the best parts of that is an excuse to post that great Tetris gif. Ah, what the hell, here’s this one too.

I digress.
From my view, it seems like every year there’s slightly fewer little stories in the various media about where people were, and what they were doing on 9/11, and what the long term repercussions have been. As horrific as it might have been at the time, people don’t dwell on it as much as they used to.

The proof is in the pudding. The “bring up 9/11 as a justification/brag about how you handled it” technique that got Bush re-elected didn’t work the same magic for Rudy Giuliani. Maybe people are a little more savy this time around, having recognized bullshit when they see it. Nah, that’s probably not it. They’re probably swept up in Obamamania. Or McCain Fever. Or are recovering Clintonites.

Back to the topic at hand, however, I’ve read a lot of different articles in years since that painted a picture, without outright stating it, that the United States was kind of becoming a place where you wanted to be careful before speaking your mind. Maybe if you had a dark thought about politics, some sort of filthy, pinko idea about better ways to do things, you’d keep it to yourself. Nobody wants to hear that. It’s un-American.

I wouldn’t know. I don’t live in the States, and there’s entirely too much conjecture about America and its people by folks who don’t live there, and may have never even visited there. Honestly, it’s something a lot of Canadians are guilty of. And probably a lot of people in other places in the world.

Regardless of whether America has an undertone of repression these days or not, I was sent this article this week. It’s all people admitting things they’ve thought about 9/11 that they wouldn’t say in public. Sprinkled in there, there’s also some well known quotes from shortly after 9/11 that seem really out there in hindsight.

“We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity” – Ann Coulter, in a Sept. 14, 2001, column that focused on the death of Barbara Olson, wife of the U.S. solicitor general, Ted Olson

It’s really interesting, funny and sad. Here’s the link for the comments that were posted after the article, which are just as interesting. A few of my favorites-

“And really, what’s all this shit about the fireman being heroes? That’s their job, to be heroes. That’s why they signed up. Once a month you go run into a burning building and grab a cat and the rest of the time you sit in the firehouse and play cards.

“I used to think all firemen were hot. I now think they are slimy. At least four times last October I was in a bar where a fireman was so forward and sleazy, saying things like ‘It’s been so hard. You can’t believe it’ while pawing me. I’m sure his buddy who died running into a building on fire would feel vindicated by this slimeball getting laid, but I’m not going to participate.” – Anne, 31, an advertising sales manager in New York

There’s always been a joke among African-Americans about black folks and white folks during a disaster. My father was quick to point out a black woman who had managed to get out of the towers when she was actually on a floor above where the plane hit and she was still trying to get out of downtown when the reporter stopped her.

The fact that tons of white people just stood there near the towers looking before they fell cracked him up. It confirmed the stereotype of white folks never thinking anything is ever going to happen to them. And since black people are used to fucked-up crap happening to them all the time they were trying to get the hell out of there.

Of course I spotted a few African-Americans looking lost. My dad just said that they’ve been around white people too damn long. Real black folks run.– Name withheld

During the whole awful day, I was kind of excited that something had finally happened for MY generation so I didn’t have to listen to my grandparents bitch about Pearl Harbor endlessly and ask why doesn’t my generation get some direction.– Todd VanDerWerff

My husband and I were playing Jenga afterward. When the Jenga collapsed, I shouted “North Tower.” Then the second round of the game, we shouted, “South Tower.” Now we don’t call it Jenga anymore. We call it North Tower.– Marisa

1- Fatigue from an intensified workload.
2- Efforts in toilet training the cat, which has resulted in, amongst other things, poop in the bathtub on two non-consecutive occasions.
3- Finally beating Symphony of the Night.
4- Playing various combinations of We Love Katamari and volumes 1 and 2 of the Capcom Classics Collection.
5- Working to get a band off the ground. Anyone in the general Fredericton area who drums or plays bass or sings who likes weird alternative-ish music, feel free to leave a comment. We’re looking to grow our army.

My sixth excuse is perhaps the most important, which is that I’ve started writing a script for a graphic novel. I’ll keep the details close to the chest for now, but I expect it will be a very long term project. It’s something that I’ve sort of been researching for the past 12 years, in a roundabout way.

I’ll let you know more as things develop.

I am seriously considering shaving off most of my beard and reclaiming that air of action tempered with maturity. Like a fireman, or somebody’s dad. That is all.

Alright, you got me. I’m being a little facetious. I know who she is. She’s a singer. You know how I know that? Because the news reports of her being a drug addict show up under the “music” section of 411mania, a site I’ve frequented recently. But I guess my more specific question is “why does anyone care?”

I’ve never heard any of her songs (that I know of), I’ve never seen anyone talk about how they enjoy her music, hell, I’ve never heard anyone outside of a tabloid newspaper or internet “news” site even mention her name. Purportedly, she’s a musician of some sort, but I have never heard a word spoken about that. All I’ve ever heard is that she’s a human train wreck. Let me take a moment for some “research” here (when you’re just looking on Wikipedia, you have to put research in quotation marks).

So she won an assload of Grammies in 2006 and had a fair degree of critical acclaim. Critical acclaim don’t mean shit though, as the cast of Arrested Development will tell you. I know that I didn’t have a frigging clue who she was in 2006. Oh wait, she’s the chick who did that Rehab song. I think I remember that. She didn’t want to go. Well that puts a different spin on this doesn’t it? (Or for those who knew the Rehab song first, vice-versa)

Her manager is blaming fame for her drug addictions. Shouldn’t that be out of bounds for a celebrity whose major hit was about her not wanting to go to rehab? Is anyone supposed to feel sorry for someone whose whole gimmick and persona is based on being an addict? If she sat down for a Barbara Walters interview, would she tearfully confess that “I only wanted to be a junkie up to a certain point, I didn’t want to be this addicted, this go way out of control”? It’s tantamount to Tommy Chong blaming pot for his career dwindling. Not a chance. Chong is smart enough to know that if it wasn’t for pot (either his use, or that of his audience) he wouldn’t have any career at all left. He knows which side of his bread is (bud) buttered.

Now obviously, there are always more sides to a story, and an angle of heartless music executives exploiting her notoriety at the expense of her health for profit is certainly tempting. But that’s ignoring personal responsibility. Unless a record executive tied her up and forced her to smoke crack, I don’t buy that as any sort of excuse.

Let’s remember, this isn’t like your typical rise and fall story, where Elvis gets addicted to drugs and slowly his handsome charm transforms into bloated death. This is a girl who got famous for being, to steal a great turn of phrase, “a drunk with a singing problem.” I fail to see the tragedy here. She’s doing exactly what she seemed to set out to do.

In the meantime, the funniest thing is on that 411mania link, there’s a further link for “more on Amy Winehouse,” and none of the stories that show up have anything at all to do with music. It’s all just personal drama. It’s to the point where I wonder if any of it is real.

Is it all just staged to get people hooked into her personal dramas, so that when she finally puts her life back together people will rise up and congratulate her with a thundering ovation of free publicity (and pursuant comeback album buys)? Did a British record exec get wind of the shitstorm of tabloid coverage (read: free publicity) given to the public breakdowns of Britney Spears and whoever else, and decide to manufacture that for themselves? For that matter, is all of the Britney Spears bullshit a failed early attempt at this sort of manufactured public drama (if it is a fix, it qualifies as a failure)? So, I restate the question, who the hell is Amy Winehouse?

Christ almighty. I’d also read that Spears story when it was on 411mania. Note to self: stay away from everything but the wrestling, video games and politics sections on 411. Speaking of video games…

It’s been joked about for years but it’s true, nobody does a better job of making the same games over and over again than Capcom. I want it made clear though, that I’m not complaining. I just tried out Mega Man Powered Up recently, and it’s pretty kickass. It’s an updated version of the first NES Mega Man game, with a few new bosses, an updated style, different levels, and to the pleasure of some, an adjustable difficulty level. Of course, if you’re a sadist like me, they also have a version that’s the original game but only the graphics are updated; it’s still one of the hardest games of all time.

As I said before, between the Mega Man and Street Fighter games, it’s pretty clear that Capcom loves to update old games. And around the same time as MMPU came out, a similar update of Ghosts n’ Goblins came out (also on PSP). Plus they’re also doing both a 3D remake, and a 2D update of Bionic Commando. The 2D Bionic Commando looks amazing.

Based on how satisfying the gameplay on MMPU was, personally I’d love to see them remake all the classic 8-Bit Mega Man games into that style. Of course, I can’t mention that without mentioning Mega Man 9, which has ensured the dampness of my pants lately. But that’s for another day.

Time to take it easy!

Still went to Aikido, but was very relaxed. We practiced posture, unbendable arm, and some more static techniques that don’t require a lot of motion. But I can’t find any pictures or videos of the related activities.

Perhaps I should take some time off and, oh, I dunno, watch batman or something. I still haven’t even gotten around to seeing Ironman yet. :/

On Friday night, Lindsay, Matt and I took in The Dark Knight. For two and a half hours, I don’t think I blinked once. Here’s my thoughts. I’ll try to avoid any gratuitous spoilers, but no promises, so SPOILERS THROUGHOUT.

I know I’m biased, but I agree with Kevin Smith. The Dark Knight is the greatest superhero movie ever made. Without question. The movie is a sprawling epic with twists and turns galore, multiple themes and motifs cross over each other. The concept of a white knight (Harvey Dent), and a black knight (Batman). Order and chaos (Batman and the Joker). Faith lost and faith renewed or rewarded (Gordon and Lucius Fox). There’s a lot going on with this movie. The story is dense, but not overwhelmingly so.

A lot of little details that only occur to you later, or upon repeated viewings, add extra emotional depth. Harvey Dent and Batman each think the other is the most important symbol of hope for the people of Gotham. That difference costs them much in the long run. Late in the film, a truly grotesque Two-Face screams at Batman and Gordon that he was the only one who lost anything.  But Dent was Batman’s hope to someday end his mission against crime, and by this point of the film, Batman has lost as much as anyone. The best part about this is, he doesn’t say any of this, but you can read it clearly on his face, impressive considering most of his head is covered with a mask.

Dent is a classic tragic hero. He’s a good man who’s only crime at the start of the movie is an abundance of ambition. By the end of the film, that ambition costs him everything. Whether it was his arrogance (taking on the mob, one would be well aware of the potential consequences) that caused his downfall is irrelevant to Dent. Terrible things happen to Dent here, and it’s all just chance. Maybe he spent too much time “making his own luck,” and it was karma putting a thumb on the scales to balance the score. As the battle with the mob and the Joker escalates, Dent’s becomes reckless making bolder and bolder moves that all lead to his own downfall. Unlike some previous versions of Two-Face, Eckhart’s Dent clearly is a man who’s path from hero to villain is the cause of more than just monstrous facial scarring.

As expected most of the attention on “entertainment news”* programs and the internet message board community is Heath Ledger’s Joker. Believe the hype kids. Heath Ledger just disappears into the role and his performance delivers in the best possible way. In the first part of the movie, the audience laughs at The Joker’s antics, being wowed by the “pencil trick” or his various odd inflections stops laughing by the climax. As is desperately needed, by the end of the film, it doesn’t matter how showy and darkly funny he is, the audience wants to see him get what’s coming to him. The audience can’t identify with The Joker. You might be able to relate to some of the things he says (on anarchy: “when the chips are down, these people will eat each other,”), but you can’t identify with his goals. He’s not Dr. Octopus or The Green Goblin or even Harvey Dent (good men who fell from grace). He’s as close to pure evil as you can get without getting into a religious discussion.

I was expecting to be impressed with Ledger’s Joker, but even my lofty expectations were exceeded. I wasn’t expecting Ledger to outdo Mark Hamil’s voice work on the Batman animated series, but he did just that. Ledger’s very physical performance is manic and unrestrained, but just up to the line of being so out there as to loose the sinister edge. “Does Gotham really seem like a better place because of the Batman?” he asks from off camera to a Batman imitator who’s torture he’s video taping. His tone is taunting, playful even. Out of nowhere, he explodes “LOOK AT ME!” terrifying both the hockey-pad Batman and the audience. That he can run the gamut from trickster clown to psychotic killer as quickly as he does, and still be believable, is what seals the deal on Ledger’s performance, in my books. On the other end of the spectrum is the scene where the Joker, disguised as a nurse, sits down by Dent’s hospital bed, and says “Hi” with the delivery and facial expression of a high school girlfriend trying to get back a guy she had cheated on.

It’s not all roses. While Harvey Dent’s arc is beautiful and tells a wonderful story of pride going before a fall, Two-Face is almost “Venomed” if you know what I mean (though there are some members of the online community who have different ideas on this). The “Batsonar” is overused in the climax. Batman Begins’ much hated “If it gets underneath Wayne Tower, this thing is gonna blow!” guy get’s a spiritual cousin in “That’s not good!” guy. And while Maggie Gyllenhall’s turn as Rachel Dawes is way better than that of Katie Holmes, it’s still the weakest performance in the film.

These complaints are really nothing more than nitpicks, though. This is easily the best movie I’ve seen in years, and that includes Batman Begins. When people used to ask me about Batman Begins, my standard line to emphasize how good I thought the movie was always “about halfway through the movie, I realized it was already better than all the previous Batman movies put together, and he hadn’t even put on the costume on yet.” A parallel moment occurs in The Dark Knight where The Joker introduces himself to the mobs by way of the aforementioned “pencil trick,” and you immediately know that this is going to be something really special.

It looks like most people agree with me, since the movie seems to be on its way to setting a record for breaking records. Nonetheless, the movie lived up to the unbelievable hype that was applied to it (by myself, amongst others), and I am very happy with the results. It was well worth the three year wait, and I’ll gladly wait another three for one more from Nolan. As I said to Matt later on in the night after first seeing that movie, the only real problem I see with Dark Knight is that it’s about 23 hours too short.

*Entertainment News programs are neither entertaining, nor news.

Besides that though, meditating didn’t work at all. The particular excercise we were doing was imagining a grape-sized sphere in the middle of your being, and with every exhale it doubles in size. I started getting self conscious that my ‘being’ was starting to touch other peoples beings; then I started wondering how big doubling it would be (if it’s the size of Victoria, would doubling it take it to Saltspring or Galiano?), and finally I started thinking about how fast it would have to be expanding to cross half the country in a single exhale, and I found myself slowing my breathing as I didn’t want to break the laws of physics.

Yeah that’s a relaxing excercise. “Tear the universe apart at the seams! Now breath calmly in through your nose…” Right.

One of the students has a blackbelt from a different brand of Aikido, and Sensei allowed him to show two or three different throws that he had learned. They were geared for a large attacker to be taken down by a small/light defender, and since I’m a big guy… well… heh.

I found one particular throw really, really effective:

That’s a much more flourishey version with lots of spinning around - my basic variant did the same particular motions but with a taste of minimalism.

I found it really interesting as the attacker, as your leading leg is like a solid tree trunk nailed to the ground - if the defender tried to push you back it just wouldn’t work. So the defender first pulls you a bit off balance, does a half step to yank your head down (which makes your leading leg buckle), and once your leading leg is gone a tiny shove backwards makes you topple. It was really cool.

After that we did more Jo training. I think the word is - kata? Which means single-person doing a routine with a Jo. I did 3 steps last time, and this day got up to 13 steps. It feels really neat to swing that piece of wood around in a controlled fashion (and having it effective as well).

It’s really fun. Here’s me looking at something amusing off screen:

It’s also the first of two nights that Ween will be playing in Denver, so I will definitely have my hands full, but it should be fun and I’m hoping that my teammates are both cool and skilled (but not too much better than me). I’ll keep you posted. Here’s to grown men having fun!

We’re now a mere five days away from The Dark Knight. I was planning on putting together a big review of all the viral marketing stuff, and include all the links to the different websites, but the Joker was kind enough to do that for us. Not only that, but he also took the time to vandalize all the other sites as part of his last game before the movie.

In preparation of the big wrap up, I got a phone call from, well basically, from the movie today. I’d given them my phone number previously for a viral thing that ended up with Commissioner Gordon entrapping me. Basically, the call today was a collage of the audio from earlier viral fun like the guy the Joker was holding hostage, the Harvey Dent hostage negotiation, Gotham News talk shows and the aforementioned Commissioner Gordon call. This viral campaign has been really well done on all fronts and people are certainly well hyped for the movie. You can get a lot of the specific audio and video from the campaign on this site.

Lots of glowing reviews. Kevin Smith called it the best comic book movie ever made. Certainly looks that way to me. Obviously I’m biased, but there’s just so much great potential, and every little bit of the movie I’ve seen (and I have seen a decent bit, at least 13 minutes worth of little clips between released scenes like the Two-Face tease and the various TV trailers) has been stellar. I’ve had to swear off the internet scavenging though.

There’s just too much access these days, you know? It must be frustrating for Chris Nolan, et al, to look on the nerd websites and see camera phone pictures from press screenings. They seem to have put a decent amount of care into controlling what information is available and what isn’t. Through following the movie online, watching spy shots of the filming in Chicago for the better part of the year, I’ve got some of the basic points down. I know a lot of the big beats. But I have no idea about how a lot of them fit together. And I know there are things I’m missing as well. I’ve got a lot of random puzzle pieces and only a few of them seem to fit together. Sure, there’s been a fair number of leaked photos, but there wasn’t anything too spoilerish out there before they started screenings.

Apparently there are two very spoilerish pictures out there, purportedly, one of each Joker and Two-Face (possibly the fates of each character at the end of the movie?). Took me about 5 minutes to find them. But I thought about it, and decided not to open the page. I’ve seen enough. In the meantime, I did download the score, and today picked up the animated DVD, Batman: Gotham Knight. It’s 6 stories in 6 different styles that all sort of link together. It’s really well done, though. It’s anime-styled and really comes across better than the last DC animated project, Darwin Cooke’s Justice League: The New Frontier. Not that TNF was bad, but it seemed a little underwhelming. There is a preview on Gotham Knight of a new Wonder Woman animated movie, which looks decent. Keri Russel is playing the titular heroine, with Alfred Molina as the villain. I like both those casting choices. I couldn’t buy Keri Russel as Wonder Woman in live-action, but I think she has a good voice for it. As for Molina, he gets to play Ares, the God of War. Wasn’t that Kratos?

Anyway, the other big thing people are talking about is obviously, Heath Ledger’s performance, which is being bandied about for an Oscar nomination. Honestly, I hope he gets nominated, but doesn’t win it. It may be a cliche that it’s “an honour just to be nominated,” but it is probably true. When people are running down an actor’s accomplishments, they mention the nominations as well as the awards. But my concern is that I expect if he did win it, regardless of whether or not he deserves it, a lot of cynical types will bitch that he just got it because he’s dead.But we still haven’t seen the film. Maybe this time next week, we’ll all be talking about how it would be insane not to give him a posthumous Oscar. We’ll find out soon.

Oh, also, I should mention that I just watched the newest Venture Brothers episode, “What goes down, must come up” and this one was as funny as the previous seasons. All you need to know is that Dr. Venture got lost in the sewers beneath the compound, and the guy from Prodigy was running around down there.

“He just keeps saying he’s the Firestarter. I’m trapped in a sewer with a confessed arsonist Brock!”

For my safety I’m pretty much ordered to take it slow - I don’t actually get thrown with any force (I’m not too stable anyway so it doesn’t take much), and I don’t really know how joint locks or bending motions work and I can cause some damage to other people if I don’t defend slowly as well. It’s making it somewhat frustrating, but still a lot of fun. Last class I went to, I’d get to a certain point (as an attacker) and the defender would just let go; let me naturally stumble backwards so I can fall on my own time.

Today’s class was somewhat opposite. A quite interesting throw was put into the mix; using my own forward momentum and twisting my arm so I end up carrying myself heavily to the ground. The whole key to the move is the forward energy I have, so it was really difficult to “do it right” for me as a beginner.

As defender it feels so right to do it quickly - you move as fast as the person is moving at you, and a little twist and light pull and whomp, they are on the ground. It takes a lot of effort to slow down the motion, and if you go too slow the momentum isn’t there and the attack is left standing with an elbow in your face.

So I got thrown properly for the first time today - quite by accident, but it was nice to see how you can actually fall over so easily as the victim.

End of class today we broke out the Jo (short staffish thing) and practiced some neat moves with that too. That was a lot of fun.

I’ve often been interested in doing more than just watching Martial Arts movies, but getting up motivation to go or even selecting a brand of Aikido is difficult. I got a yellow belt in Karate when I was 9 or so but the Sensei there was very angry and shouted a lot. Then some chick called me a pussy for not doing what I want so here I am in a dojo.

I’ve settled on Kokikai Aikido.

Why Aikido? Well, Aikido’s main focus is making sure nobody comes to harm, not even the attacker. It is a Martial Art that is nearly entirely defense, and usually ends in a throw or a grapple, with the attacker on the ground. Being a peace-loving well-wisher this really rings true to me - all duels should be fought with rubber bullets, and causing unnecessary harm is a horrible thing to do.

Why Kokikai? Kokikai is a minimalist variant of Aikido. It focuses on using as little energy as possible, and making smooth, fluid movements to accomplish your task. It also focuses on relaxation, balance, and control of the body. In a way, it’s kind of like Parkour, except with no running away [heh]. I’d label it as “Lazy Aikido” but lazy has all these negative connotations to it, so I won’t. :P

Of course, I like to think I’m an honorable kind of guy, and this is a totally honourable, nice way of fighting. Badguys usually aren’t so honorable. Though I hope to refine the art to a true real-life self-defense state, I have some doubts on it’s actual application in modern times. Maybe though, I’m still new!

Day one of my training was really nice. It is a small class (Sensei, a black belt student, and 3 normal students including myself) and was a really relaxing atmosphere. Sensei is a friendly approachable guy with a sense of humour, maybe in his 30s. He welcomed me in and took me aside and showed me how to fall down on my back without hurting myself, then proceeded to teach as per normal.

We start with some light stretching and warmup before moving on to the lesson. One of the warmups was shoulder rolls, which I was really jealous of, because I’m not allowed to do them yet (maybe next time) so I just practiced flopping on my back some more.

I learned how to grab, punch, and chop (in a half-assed way) so that I could take part in the excercises. It is usually Sensei demonstrating what an attacker wishes to do, a counter for it, the reasoning behind it, and some slow-motion examples. Then we pair off and practice, practice one throw on left side, one on right side, then switch back and forth. I learned 4 or 5 throws and it was really cool - like magic even!

I had to fight a lot of my instincts to move my body in certain ways, or to apply force, or to shove/pull… But it’s really such a relaxed art. I’m simply amazed how a tiny turn of my wrist can make someone fall over. A lot of moves that I would think would twist my arms into pretzels actually sort themselves out with a little turn of the hips and ends with someone slamming onto the mat.

And all of this, and not even breaking a sweat! I swear the defending is incredibly easy. Where I do get my workout is standing up from falling down so many times; it’s really telling that I’m absolutely exhausted at the end of the day as an attacker, but as a defender it’s easy peas.

I’m super suprised at how fluid it all is too. Once you get into the initial position (getting your hands in the right place), you simply “go with the flow”, twist as your body feels natural, and the attacker seems to go sailing by. It’s really cool, I’m so happy I started.

For the last four months I’ve been bugtesting a new game my friend Colin Northway has been slaving away at. The game just went “public” today.

Fantastic Contraption is an in-browser flash-based physics-puzzle/sandbox game similar to Armadillo Run or The Incredible Machine. You are given a selection of simple tools (wheels and sticks) and have to build a contraption that can overcome an obstacle.

It reminds me a lot of Tinker Toys; it isn’t one of those physics games where you get a million tools. There’s a beauty in the simplicity and it’s not hard to imagine a variety of solutions for each puzzle.

The game allows you to save your solutions or even design your own levels, and offers a handy way to link to them so you can share you designs directly with people. For example, this is my design Flexy Reverso, one of my favorite contraptions. It’s beautifully simple and I love it to bits. Likewise, this is a lumbering walking device made by Alan.

Here’s a screenshot of the interface (and my player-designed level “Shaky Ground”):

Everyone should check it out right the hell now!

Link: Fantastic Contraption

The funny thing about it though, is the subtext. Because Burger King isn’t the restaurant known for their Angus burgers; Harvey’s is (and to a lesser extent, Arby’s are also long time Angus practitioners). Hence the subtext: like the douche bags in their commercials, Burger King is claiming the an Angus Burger as their own original creation.

Another interesting element of this is the “Certified Angus Beef” brand, which is the name, but is the name accurate? Remember, MacDonald’s usually makes their burgers with 100% Pure Beef. Notice that is capitalized, because 100% Pure Beef is the brand name, not the actual beef content.

It’s kind of silly when you think about it. They’re proud of appropriating another store’s trademark meal for themselves. Not that it’s a really huge deal compared to some restaurants. MacDonald’s seems to take particular delight in putting as much random crap as possible on their menu. Chicken, pizza, fajitas, and even lobster (blasphemy!) have all made their way on to the MacDonald’s menu. Knowing their history though, I suppose that is what they’re known for.

After the failure of the Hula Burger (a burger with a ring of pineapple on it, ugh, I just threw up in my mouth a little), the item that put MacDonald’s on the map was the Fillet of Fish Burger. At the time, a fish burger was unthinkable but it was a hit nonetheless. So I guess MacDonald’s is generally the sponge of fast food, absorbing and appropriating whatever comes their way.

But they haven’t shown the chutzpah that Burger King has. When MacDonalds comes out with their deli sandwiches, they don’t have ads that basically say “hey, you know how much you like Subway sandwiches? Why not come eat them at MacDonalds?” Burger King though is just straight up saying “Fuck Harvey’s! Come get your Angus here!”

That’s business though. They gotta do what they’ve gotta do. If it’s not an actual legal copyright issue, they’ll do everything they can up to that line. So, I guess if you’re the owner of a fast food company, why not do that? It’s what you’re supposed to do. Hell, that’s the capitalist system. Do everything you can possibly do to make money, up to the edge of the law (or futher if we don’t see you do it). So why not?

If you’ve never heard of it, The Venture Brothers is a parody action/sci-fi cartoon. Like Harvey Birdman and Sealab 2021 before it, The Venture Brothers is a somewhat under the radar animated show with what’s been described as a “cult following” (What the hell does that mean anyway? Do they wear robes?). The first two seasons were finished some time ago, and it’s been a bit of a wait for the new season to start.

“Bartender, where’s that Suffering Bastard?.” - Dr. Venture

The collective internet generally seems to obsess about deciding when a show has jumped the shark. It’s actually a little sad, there’s people out there just looking for new things to come out and excitedly try and show that they have the biggest dick and the most incisive wit on the message board.

Which is fine, I suppose. Whatever makes you happy. I don’t want to tell people how to conduct themselves on the interwebs. But that thought passed through my head when I didn’t find myself laughing very much during the new episodes. I let the thought go and started paying attention again.

“You lurid golem!” - Col. Hunter Gathers

As the first episode ended I took a moment to reflect on it. Here’s the thing that a lot of people will probably get hung up about, if they find the same thing I do: I don’t think the show is as funny as it was. Or at least not in the same way.

But the more interesting thing is that I’m enjoying these episodes as much or more than the previous episodes. I’m not laughing out loud as much as I did before, but I’m really into these episodes. Maybe the dialogue isn’t as snappy but the story is better.

“Our numbers are ranks?” - Henchman #24

Or maybe after everything I’ve been through with these characters, I’ve found myself caring about them. I’m looking forward to every episode more than the last. The story is really deep in each episode which seems to offer another piece of a larger story being told, though each episode is relatively autonomous. Seeming one note characters like Billy Quizboy and Byron Orpheus end up showing a lot of range. Characters who have been mentioned in passing for two seasons are just showing up now.

Maybe you won’t like it. In fact, there’s a good chance that if you’ve never seen the previous episodes you won’t be able to hit the ground running. But at least give it a shot. There’s worse things you could do with your time.

We’re a mere three weeks away, and even this close, there’s new and great little bits of the Dark Knight being dangled, carrot-like, in front of us. My recent favorite is another part to the party scene that we’ve seen a little of in prior trailers. “Where is Harvey Dent?” the Joker demands of the horrified party-goers. He starts walking towards Rachel, Dent’s girlfriend, shifting his knife around in his hand. In almost a sing-song voice, he adds “I’ll settle for his loved ones.”

It probably doesn’t read very well, but Ledger’s delivery is chilling. Search Youtube for Dark Knight tv trailer # 4 or 6.

The wrestling world was forever changed 366 days ago. Or at least that’s what we thought then. When Chris Benoit’s weekend long psychotic break occurred, taking the lives of his wife and child as well as his own, it seemed like it may have been a death blow to the industry. If Chris Benoit could murder his family, how could anyone look at wrestling the same way again? It seemed like a lot of fans would stop watching, leading the business to its knees. It was oddly poetic: the company that made it through endless sex and drug scandals, wrongful death lawsuits and the Katie Vick angle was going to be, if not brought down, changed forever by a short Canadian wrestler with a gap tooth and a lack of charisma.

That never happened, however. The more things change, the more they stay the same. For all the talk of Senate hearings and all the disillusioned former Benoit fans, the industry continues to chug along; derailment is not a concern.

I touched on this recently in the Birth of Hulkamania article, but the wrestling business is very cyclical. In the late 80’s and early 90’s, the WWF was rocked by charges of steroid distribution against McMahon himself and allegations of homosexual abuse by Vince’s right hand man, Pat Patterson (the exchange of sexual favors for a better position in the company). With the company rocked by this, and their public image tarnished, the WWF just refocused.

To draw people away from the awful sex and drug scandals, Vince positioned the WWF as family entertainment. He outlawed blading (cutting oneself to draw blood in a match), removed any sexual or violent elements in the company and replaced edgy dark characters like Jake “The Snake” with goofy kid-friendly characters like Doink the Clown, Aldo Montoya and the pig farmer, Henry Godwin. By making the WWF fun for the whole family, Vince was able to sweep the ugly spectre of sex and drugs under the proverbial rug.

The same thing is happening now. I haven’t seen anyone blade in months. Characters who looked like they were going to be very edgy have stalled (Paul Burchill and Katie Lea, for example, were reportedly set to play an incestuous set of siblings. That element of their relationship has yet to be explored and probably never will be). Hell, they just recently launched the WWE Kids magazine, perhaps the most telling evidence suggesting a new kid-focused approached.

If you look at this from a historical perspective, this may be a good thing for the industry in the long run. Vince’s kid focused entertainment, combined with the loss of Hulk Hogan allowed WCW to pick up a ton of steam in the mid-90’s, leading to direct competition and the most profitable period in wrestling history.

If history repeats itself, and it probably will, Vince’s kid friendly approach will probably drive off a lot of the coveted male 15-30 demographic. If the stars line up right, this may be the break that TNA needs to gain new fans, achieve financial stability and position themselves as a viable alternative to the WWE. That competition will, in turn, light a fire under Vince’s ass and bring on another glory age of wrestling, looked back on as fondly as The Hogan Era or The Monday Night Wars.

But that’s irrelevant. The business is cyclical, and if it’s not this situation that leads to another golden age, it’ll be something else. It would have happened anyway; a new star would capture the imagination of the casual viewing audience, or another well funded rival like WCW would pop up. But the Benoit family will still be dead, and Chris Benoit’s legacy will still have been tarnished.

I hoped in the months following the tragedy that there would be some good come out of this. Perhaps Benoit could at least cause some more vigorous testing for concussions and some more concern for wrestlers’ well being. Those hopes were dashed by one poorly chosen phrase: “consistent with an 80-year old man with dementia.”

Because this was the language that Chris Nowinski’s Sports Legacy Institute chose to use in their report on the findings from their study of Benoit’s brain, it gave Vince an out. The phrase was supposed to emphasize that some parts of Benoit’s brain had similar symptoms, not necessarily that his behavior or the effects on him would be the same. They were simply trying to explain how extensive the damage was. But that phrase allowed Vince an out to say that “an 80-year old man with dementia could never have done the things that Chris Benoit did. He wouldn’t have been able to book a flight or walk to the ring, let alone wrestle. This report is obviously flawed.”

It’s sad that because of this, Vince’s company line has become “Chris Benoit was always a monster.” It’s even sadder that because of this, concern over concussions will not increase in the company: that would be admitting that they’re wrong. Instead, Vince is happy to sweep this under the rug again, and get back to work at selling John Cena shirts and Rey Mysterio replica masks.

I’m awaiting delivery of a book called “Ring of Hell,” which supposedly delves deeply into the atmosphere of the Stampede Wrestling Dungeon, the New Japan Dojos, and gives insight into the insane world that shaped Chris Benoit. While I’ll certainly take a lot of the book with a grain of salt (I’ve heard that many of the writer’s sources are former WWE writers who probably have axes to grind), it makes some interesting points.

One of the more interesting points made that I’ve read on the internet is that Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Bret Hart and any other wrestler who put on great matches was crazy from the get go. Because if you’re in a business where the matches are scripted and the point is simply to make money, what would possess you to actually put your body on the line? It would be the equivalent of a stuntman actually taking a bullet on a movie set in the name of realism.

And since I read that, it’s been echoing in my head. That’s always been the part of wrestling I really enjoy: the wrestling. Great matches and moments. But what would possess any wrestlers to do that? Hulk Hogan made more money than most people in wrestling by just doing a big boot and a leg drop for 30 years. What would possibly convince someone to nearly kill themselves every night for a fraction of the pay? And what would convince someone like Benoit to, after seeing the toll this took on his mentor The Dynamite Kid (now confined to a wheelchair after years of steroids and putting himself through hell in the ring), continue to wrestle the same way even exceeding the risks his mentor took? These are very similar questions to “what could possess someone to kill their wife and son?” Maybe Vince is right. Maybe he was crazy from the start.

I always used to take comfort, hell I would brag, that one of the reasons Benoit was a great wrestler was because he seemed to truly love it and it didn’t matter how much money he was making. He would be doing it anyway. That dedication was what drove him, and it may have been what ruined him. When I think about this, there’s a great deal of guilt that comes through me. Was I a fan of this man for all the same reasons that made him a murderer? A lot of people have been calling Benoit the O.J. Simpson of wrestling. Thinking about this, it’s probably a lot more accurate to call him the Syd Barrett of wrestling: the reason people loved his work was also the reason for his downfall.

Today, a commemorative article focusing on Benoit’s match work was posted on 411mania. You can see a clear divide in the wrestling fan community in the comments. Half are still Benoit fans. Half simply define him as a murderer who is a black eye on the industry and best forgotten. Those comments bring up weighty questions to be sure. Can a man’s entire life be defined by the actions of a single weekend? Do any of a man’s accomplishment’s matter when he becomes a murderer, a child murderer no less? I have no answers to these questions.

What I can tell you is that a year ago, Chris Benoit became the most well known wrestler in the world for all the wrong reasons. That is as deeply ironic and sad now as it was then. As for me, if someone asks me who my favorite wrestler is, I have to think about it. A year ago, I would have answered Benoit without hesitation. Now, I’m not so sure.

One thing I am sure of, no one has summed this situation up as well as Eric Bischoff, even a year later:

“God bless Nancy and Daniel Benoit. God forgive Chris Benoit.”

[Postscript: This day is one ridiculous downer. R.I.P. George Carlin. He made the world a better place by pointing out a lot of the bullshit we face everyday. Lewis Black, David Cross and so many others owe Carlin a huge debt of gratitude for breaking ground for them. I’ll have a Carlin retrospective in the works if no one else has one up in the next week.]

One of the more interesting shows they provided was the very historic January 23, 1984 WWF show from Madison Square Garden. Here’s a review-

Tony Garea vs. Jose Luis Rivera- I’ve never heard of Rivera before. Commentators Gorilla Monsoon and Pat Patterson put him over as a rising star. Ahhh, hindsight. Garea, on the other hand, I remember being one of the back stage officials who would come running to the ring to break up brawls from 1989-1999 or so. He was pretty talented here, and when Rivera tries a dive off the top, Garea uses his momentum against him and rolls him up for a three count. Not a bad little opening match.

Mr. Fuji, seen here trying to figure out what the fuck line dancing is, was one of the most feared wrestlers of all time, and one of the most hated managers of all time. He now works as a ticket taker at a movie theater in Knoxville, I think. His review of I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry: “Adam Sandler and Kevin James are firefighters who pretend to be butt friends for tax fraud. Jessica Biel in rainbow panties makes me feel good in coin purse.”

The Invaders vs. Mr. Fuji and Tiger Chung Li - The Invaders wear masks, are foreign (from Peurto Rico, I believe) and are bland good guys. So they really had no chance in mid-80’s WWF. Tiger Chung Li was the type of wrestler who probably would have been a champion in Japan, but again, this being mid-80’s WWF, he had the shelf life of margarine. The high point here is Mr. Fuji, who was a devious manager type for years, as I remember him best. Fuji is a great heel though, the crowd wants to kill him. Such great subtleties to his performance, like cheating and then beaming a huge smile at the crowd. Match went to a 20 minute draw, which was pretty common then.

Laugh if you want, but this mask helped Superstar avoid child support payments for 32 years.

The Masked Superstar vs. Chief Jay Strongbow - Masked Superstar is, if I recall correctly, Bill Eadie, best known as one half of Demolition in the late-80’s/early 90’s. Strongbow is one of the best known stereotypical Indian wrestlers. Less said about the match the better. Superstar gets the pin after a clothesline.

Sgt. Slaughter vs. Ivan Putski - Slaughter is, arguably, one of the best known wrestlers ever, so he probably doesn’t need much explanation. Putski was Polish, which was about the extent of his gimmick. Not a great match. Slaughter wins by count-out. Good crowd reaction, but watching it 24 years later, it’s hard to care.

Paul Orndorff, also known as Mr. Wonderful (or occasionally the more colorful, Mr. #1derful), was a great wrestler. He’s a living cautionary tale now, however, as an untreated neck injury caused his right arm to atrophy, making him look like the biggest chronic masturbator of all time.

Paul Orndorff vs. Salvatore Bellomo - I’ve never heard of Bellomo. Based on the announcer banter, they had the same high hopes for him as they did for Rivera back in the first match. Orndorff is one of the all-time greats and rarely gets enough credit. Match is decent, but Roddy Piper (Orndorff’s manager at the time) really makes it worthwhile, just being ridiculously entertaining yelling at Bellomo, the ref, the fans, the commentators and anyone else within earshot. Orndorff sends Bellomo back into obscurity with a piledriver.

Don “The Magnificent” Muraco was a loudmouthed, but undeniably charismatic, human volcano from Hawaii. It saddens me that these little John Cena kids these days wouldn’t know who the hell he is.

Intercontinental Title Match: Champion Don Muraco vs. Tito Santana- Commentators call Muraco “The Rock” a full 10 years before Dwayne Johnson even starts wrestling. Really good match. Muraco is a solid worker and Santana is probably the best pure babyface wrestler ever (or perhaps second only to Ricky Steamboat). Ending makes no sense, however, as the ref calls for a double disqualification for no apparent reason. I thought that Santana would win the title here, because I know that Randy Savage beats Santana for the title somewhere in 1985 or ‘86, but I guess he gets it somewhere else down the line.

Tiger Jackson in a moment of, believe it or not, pride and quiet dignity.

2 Out Of 3 Falls Match: The Haiti Kid and Tiger Jackson vs. Dana Carpenter and Pancho Boy - MIDGETS! YES! Haiti Kid and Carpenter I’ve never heard of. Pancho Boy is notable for being billed from Canada for some reason. Because when you think Canada, you think ponchos. Anyway, Tiger Jackson is most noteworthy here because he would go on to play Dink the Clown in the mid-90’s, breaking ground for Hornswaggle today (it’s up to you whether that’s a good thing or not). Jackson was a hell of a talent though. Fun match. Haiti and Jackson take it with two in a row.

WWF World Title Match: Champion The Iron Sheik vs. Hulk Hogan- Here we are at the Main Event, which actually isn’t the last match because they used to be concerned about running out of time, so they would have the main event second or third last. Here’s your background for this match-

A couple of months previous, Bob Backlund was the World Champion, and the fans were tiring of his purely technical style. Vince, having just recently purchased his father’s WWWF (the World Wide Wrestling Federation), has renamed it the WWF and wants his new golden boy, Hulk Hogan as the champion. Backlund, not wanting to turn heel, drops the title out of nowhere to foreign heel bastard The Iron Sheik. “Iran number 1! USA hack-patooey!” - The Iron Sheik.

The Iron Sheik, seen here breaking a back, fucking an ass, and making someone humble (in that order) was reportedly offered a large sum of money by a rival promoter to break Hogan’s leg in this match. I wonder if he ever regrets his decision? Still, even though he’s nuttier than a Snickers Pie, there’s arguably nobody who’s as entertaining a train wreck as Sheiky.

A month later, the Sheik comes here to Madison Square Garden and gets big-booted and leg dropped by Hogan in about five minutes. What’s interesting here is how quickly things happened. Sheik lost the title insanely quickly in a ludicrously short match.The average title run at this time would have probably been two years, with the average title match lasting about an hour. This would be the start of a trend of short title reigns, peaking in 1999 which saw 11 new world champions crowned. These days they seem to average four a year.

Regardless, the eradication of the Sheik was symbolic to be sure, as it would be the start of nearly ten years of Hogan big boots and leg drops. Something about the leathery ape just caught on with the people, and he was able to be the figure head of the industry.

Hogan’s title win made him the centrepiece of the entire wrestling industry. After his successful “Hollywood” reinvention petered off, his stock dropped significantly before he was able to get himself back on the map with his reality show. Unfortunately, that seems to have completely destroyed his family. Should have left well enough alone Hulkster!

I get a laugh out of the cyclical nature of wrestling though. At the end of 1994, this exact situation happened again, only this time it was Bret Hart playing the role of Backlund, Diesel as Hogan, and (ironically) Backlund himself playing the Iron Sheik role, dropping the title to Diesel at MSG in about eight seconds after a three day title run. Diesel didn’t turn out anywhere near as good for Vince as Hogan, but that’s another story.

Regardless, a very historic moment, as this was the first real concrete moment that can be pointed to as “the birth of Hulkamania.” The pieces were put in place in the AWA and in Rocky III and where ever else. But I always thought being the champ was such a huge part of Hogan’s character. His character was that he was this big hot-shit wrestler, and he seemed lost when it didn’t have the belt as a prop, or whatever. Considering the pop culture phenomenon that is Hulk Hogan, regardless of what bullshit he’s going through now, it’s an interesting thing to look back on. Speaking of back, let’s get back to the matches.

Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka vs. Rene Goulet - Goulet is another future-”backstage official.” Snuka is one of the greatest of all time, but the crowd really isn’t in to this after just cheering their guts out for Hogan. Nothing bad, but too quick to be meaningful (which is hilarious, considering the world title match might have lasted a minute longer than this one).

Andre the Giant, Tony Atlas and Rocky Johnson vs. Afa, Sika and Samula - Atlas and Johnson are the Tag Team Champions at this point. Lot’s of connections to The Rock here. Johnson is Rock’s father, and Johnson is married to the sister of Afa and Sika, if I recall correctly. Afa and Sika were three time tag champs under the name The Wild Samoans. I have no idea who Samula is, but he may have been Samu in the later Samoan savage tag team of The Head Shrinkers. Umaga and Rikishi, more recent Samoan stereotypes, are also sons of either Afa or Sika. This history lesson is actually a lot more interesting than the match itself, which ends when Andre just sits on Samula after five minutes of plodding action.

So, with this as a first touching off point, I will highly recommend WWE 24/7 to any wrestling fans, especially fans who can’t stand the current product. I’ve barely watched any new wrestling since I got 24/7. Why would I need to? I’ve got access to a ton of great old stuff whenever I want it. It’s a good feeling, let me tell you. I’m going to go watch some classics now, I think.

So, being the swell son of a bitch I am, I didn’t complain (much) about going to see the Sex and the City movie this week. It was…well, interesting in a lot of ways. From what Lindsay had told me (and from the recap montage at the start of the movie), everything had been wrapped up in a nice happy ending at the end of the series. So how do you create conflict where the happy ending is already there? You just throw everything to hell halfway through the movie, then have it all wrapped up nicely by the ending. Not that I expected much more, and not that it would really benefit from something more either. A Sex and the City movie isn’t exactly the place where I would expect, or want really, a very thought provoking and poignant message to come through.

It’s been said in numerous reviews, and it’s probably very true, that fans will love it, and non-fans probably won’t. I tried to keep an open mind, and it was fine for what it was, but nothing I’m too interested in on the whole. The material isn’t exactly Shakespeare but Chris Noth and they guy who plays the red-haired, giraffe-necked lady’s husband clearly come across as the most capable actors in the movie. Noth especially puts a lot of subtlety into his performance that keeps his Big character from being the one-dimensional womanizer/non-commital stereotype that’s so common in movies.

One question wheys on my mind though: don’t her friends mind her writing all this stuff about them in her columns? Lindsay says that they never explicitly say how much of her narration ends up in her stories, which is fair enough, I suppose. But the opening of the movie shows a bunch of different pages of books with their names explicitly named. And, from what I remember of flipping past the show a few times on tv, her narration, in Doogie Howser style, would sync up with her computer screen as she typed the words, also implying that everything said in the narration is in her columns. So are her friends just literary exhibitionists, getting off on the idea of all her readership knowing intimate details of their sexual lives? It certainly adds a nice level of perversion to the dark haired prim and proper chick, that’s for sure.

She’s supposedly Greek, but the whole ninja thing makes me think she’d be Japanese, and she’s played by Jennifer Garner. No wonder nobody cares about Elektra since Frank Miller.

Also this week, I happened to catch the majority of Ben Affleck’s Daredevil, which I have to say, is pretty awful. Aside from issues of characterization (or perhaps the more troubling issue  of “Is Ben Affleck really an action star?”), I just plain didn’t like the way this movie was shot. I’ve said it plenty of times, I love it when you lose yourself into a movie, and don’t notice shots or pans unless you force yourself to. In this movie, I was aware of everything the director wanted to do, and I really disliked every choice that he made.

I’ve got the vinyl of this album. “Theme for a Big Green Van” is a classic.

We got around to watching Police Academy and Up in Smoke this past week as well. Good times. Up In Smoke especially is always a nostalgic favorite of mine. Interestingly enough, like Lethal Weapon, Up In Smoke had a similarly hilarious trailer on the DVD.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q7bS2Wsz7M

I just find it very heartwarming that not only are they comparing Cheech and Chong to Abbot and Costello, but also that Paramount is basically instructing people to get stoned before coming to see the movie. The juxtaposition of the announcer’s voice and the subject matter he’s talking about is great too.

To finish off this week, here’s a quick review of Lego Indiana Jones.

Basically, if you played the Lego Star Wars games, you’ll like this. The game play here is virtually identical, just with new characters, new locations and new puzzles. And I certainly did like Lego Star Wars, so this one is a fun little romp. It’s also packed with nostalgia for any fans of the original movie series. There’s only a scant few problems with the game, like having the button to enter a vehicle being the same button the change characters. The gameplay can get frustrating at moments when the solutions to puzzles aren’t immediately evident, but that’s matched by the joy of finally figuring out whatever the hell it is you need to do.

Also, Nintendo recently released an updated version of Dr. Mario for the downloadable Wii-ware. It’s Dr. Mario, so I don’t need to tell you it’s some classic puzzle game fun. They’ve added flash mode (where a handful of your viruses are flashing, and you need only get rid of them to win), and a whole new version of the game, Virus Buster. Virus Buster is played with the Wii-mote pointing at the screen, draggin pills around to where you want them manually, and taking advantage of the game’s comparitavely slower physics.

The real fun though is the online mode, where you can take on friends and strangers from around the world. My only beef here is that there’s no online capabilities for the Virus Buster mode, which would have been fun as well. Overall though, speaking as someone who was appalled that Lindsay’s DS can’t play classic Gameboy titles (like the original Dr. Mario) this game is a great value. I think the Wii Points works out to about 10 bucks, which is a good price for the amount of fun playing online is.

We’ve got a month and a bit left until The Dark Knight comes out. I’ll be doing a large wrap up as we get closer to the release date, but for now, I’ll leave you with some new pics that were recently leaked. Man, that scene in the interrogation room is going to be intense.