It was saddening to learn that former wrestling legend “Macho Man” Randy Savage tragically passed away last week. He and Hulk Hogan were the two primary reasons why the then-WWF exploded into the mainstream in the 80s and early 90s. Growing up with wrestling I always remembered him as the crazy guy with the colorful outfits who always yelled nonsense in his promos. “Freak out, freak out!” “Oh yeahhhh!” “Dig it!”

“The Mach” was one of a kind outside of the ring with his in-your-face style of interviews and extraordinary outfits that only he could make look badass because there is not another man who could pull off wearing that outrageous, over-sized cowboy hat and shades in tandem with hundreds upon hundreds of tassels and still come off as a tough son of a gun in the ring. And let us not forget about the lovely Elizabeth that always accompanied Randy. Inside the ring, Savage was one of the pioneering high flyers of wrestling, where all it took back then was a flying elbow drop off the top turnbuckle to dazzle crowds instead of the countless backwards flips in midair that we see today.

Randy was not all flash, either. He backed up his gimmick as one of the top in ring technicians in his day. Back when the World Wrestling Federation was primarily known as the Hulk Hogan Company, where the Hulkster would be squaring off against stereotypical wrestling villains and resting on his laurels, Randy Savage and Ricky Steamboat stole the show at Wrestlemania III in a match that is still regarded as a classic today.

When Hulk decided to take time off wrestling to attempt a movie career, Savage was finally given the ball to run with the company and became the WWF’s heavyweight champion. When Hulk Hogan came back from filming his latest disasterpiece, he teamed up with Macho Man to form the quintessential tag team, The Mega Powers. This new partnership was not meant to be, because Randy was led to believe Hulkamania was running wild on Elizabeth, and thus the Mega Powers exploded into another classic Wrestlemania match with Savage between him and Hogan at Wrestlemania V.

After Savage turned villain, he transformed his persona into the Macho King, and dumped lovely Elizabeth for the not-so-lovely Sensational Sherri. I prefer not to remember the next two years of Macho’s career because I always will remember him as being one of the memorable heroes of wrestling. I will remember, though, him carrying the Ultimate Warrior to the best match of his career at Wrestlemania VII, where Warrior kicked out of three straight flying elbow drops to my dismay, and according to the stipulation, sent Macho Man into early retirement. Retirements are meant to be broken in wrestling and Savage was brought back to the forefront in half a year after suffering enough torment from Jake “The Snake” Roberts. I still remember being terrified as a kid when Jake made his pet snake Damien take a chunk of flesh off of Savage’s arm, and was ecstatic when Savage got revenge on Roberts.

It was around this time in the early 90s when Randy Savage became synonymous for being the on-air mascot for Slim Jim. The outlandish Savage was the perfect match for maniacal Slim Jim commercials. Too young to remember them? Then check out this link, filled with plenty of early 90s “extreme” advertising showcasing the Top 10 Randy Savage Slim Jim Commercials.

Randy Savage stuck around the WWF for a few more years, capturing the WWF title one more time time in another Wrestlemania classic against Ric Flair before being transitioned into an announcer, as the WWF tried to focus on promoting newer stars. Savage was not content on being an announcer however and quickly followed Hulk Hogan into WCW in 1994 and spent the remainder of the 90s feuding and aligning with the likes of Hogan, Ric Flair, Diamond Dallas Page and the nWo. Other than a couple brief cameos in TNA Wrestling in 2004, Randy Savage has remained out of the spotlight from the wrestling scene this past decade. His most memorable pieces of work in the 21st century was his appearance as the wrestler Bone Saw McGraw in the first Spider-Man film, and landing a minor voice role in the CG movie, Bolt. The less said about his rap album, Be a Man, the better.

Considering how many times WWE nowadays brings back legends like Hulk Hogan, Steve Austin and Rowdy Piper to make special appearances on television, it was surprising the WWE never brought back Macho Man for an official television appearance since he left the company that made him famous in 1994. According to the rumor mill, he did some dastardly deed that made him persona non grata for many years. As a matter of fact, this past year WWE and Macho Man started to patch some of those old wounds and were working together again, with Randy doing some brief promotional appearances to promote a new action figure of him, and Savage filming a commercial for the WWE All-Stars videogame released just a couple months ago.

While Macho Man may have been second banana to Hulk Hogan throughout a majority of his time in the ring, that will still not deny the impact he left on pro wrestling as one of the top draws and one of the most fascinating personas of all time. Have a favorite memory or moment of Macho Man? Please share and post in the comments below so we can all relive the Macho Madness! Now if you excuse me, I am going to watch my best of Macho Man DVD set and go on a Slim Jim binge.

Road Runner – Fur Of Flying from Animation-HD on Vimeo.

Awhile back, I read somewhere that WB was going to give Looney Tunes a comeback. It was easy to ignore since everything that was brought back in my childhood from Ninja Turtles to Transformers had a pattern with reminding me that being a little kid was not that cool; or the new updates just sucked balls.

Then this new business was uploaded last week. Coyote & Road Runner were some of my favorite cartoon shorts back in the day. This is probably because nobody spoke a word. There’s a certain timeless appeal of silent characters in short animation from Pink Panther to Tom &; Jerry. Thankfully, these new shorts are some surprisingly good reimaginings of the 2D classics. I would like to watch more. Matthew O’Callaghan is the director, Tom Sheppard is the writer, Greg Lyons is the producer, and Christopher Lennertz did the music. Since nobody can get Zombie Tex Avery to make anything nowadays, I think I’ll follow these new guys around and see where it takes me.

Road Runner – Coyote Falls 2010 from Animation-HD on Vimeo.

The bad news is since western animation instantly means “child programming”, these shorts are supposedly coming out on a new half-hour block called The Looney Tunes Show premiering on Cartoon Network next month. Since I get a hold of short video podcasts already, what I was hoping somebody would do is put their four-minute animations out there as a podcast/vodcast so my podcast catcher apps could let me watch short animations on my phone on my lunch breaks. I dunno how I haven’t found anybody who has done this yet. Why WB won’t give YouTube style web cartoon shorts its own podcast/”vodcast” is beyond me.

If Warner Bros. is back on the scene, can somebody point me toward the nearest “Bring back Freakazoid and Animaniacs” petition?

In the “brag about your wife” category of this site, I make the following entry. My wife is now the voice of OfficeMax ads and you can (or probably already have at this point) heard her on the most recent television commercials. Check one out:

Oh, and go buy some paper clips or something.

You know, I think I talked about most of this stuff already, but it’s too damn awesome not to be remembered for this year.  Let’s begin! 

Back Dynamite:  Okay, so technically the movie was released in 2009, but how many of us saw it in the theater? The awesomeness of this film became truly widespread when it was released onto DVD back in February. The internet was abuzz at the uniqueness of this film, and after at least six different viewings this year I can see why. The brilliance of this film isn’t in it’s clever writing, quotable one-liners, or how it never really takes itself seriously; no the magic comes in how every time you watch it you pick up on something new and funny. It has become my “go to” movie whenever I have company over, and I’m always thanked when the film is done. As of last week, this film was one of the few Netflix streaming videos that won’t allow you to have a Netflix party with. The reason? Everybody would be doing it as this movie is even more awesome in a  shared viewing. I don’t believe Netflix has the bandwidth available for the nightly Black Dynamite parties that would no doubt be going on.  Until then, I say you go just go and buy this film.  It will sit nicely next to The Blues Brothers, Animal House, and Caddyshack.

The Walking Dead: You know, the sad thing about a zombie movie is after two hours the feature ends and we are left wondering what happens next. But what if we could watch what happens to our survivors for a long period of time? At least that was the concept behind the popular comic series developed by Robert Kirkman. For a comic, The Walking Dead is unique as it focuses far more on character development and less on the zombie hoard.  The zombies, in fact, act much like a dangerous natural element that the characters have to deal with and less of a plot element. The other cool thing about The Walking Dead is how real it is. People resort doing doing some pretty nasty things to one another in their quest to stay alive just one more day. Main characters come and go and we should expect that in a world where the dead rule the Earth. This past Fall, AMC released a six-part mini-season based on the comic. I was both excited and a bit anxious as to what we might see onscreen as Hollywood has a tendency to mess things up or dumb things down for their audience. But this was AMC, and the first episode stuck true to the comic storyline. And with over five million viewers, it was the highest-rated premier on AMC and became the most watched cable series for its demographic. The storyline would eventually split from the comic, but the overall tone and emphasis of character development over action stayed the same. AMC has picked up this classic for another 13 episodes, and I personally can’t wait to see what happens next. 

No Ordinary Family:  2010 had some great TV shows: Madmen, Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, but this little show on ABC has become a guilty pleasure for me. The show is essentially a live-action version of one of my favoriute films, The Incredibles. The Powells are an ordinary, dysfunctional family who gain super powers after their plane crashes in Brazil. The father (Micheal Chiklis) has super strength, can leap several blocks, and is seemingly invulnerable. The mom (Julie Benz aka Rita from Dexter) is super fast, and as a scientist by trade she is more than curious about how they got their powers. Their kids (Kay Panabaker and Jimmy Bennett) have lesser powers as the girl can read minds while the son has become a Reed Richards super genius. There is a bit of Heroes-like mythology going on in the back-story, but the real strength of the show is the characters and how they interact with one another and grow from their new found abilities.  Whomever is writing the reboot of the Fantastic Four should pay attention to this show, as Disney and ABC “get it.” It’s campy and fun, and even the bit characters play their roles to the tee. Even the unlikely pair of Chiklis and Benz seem to pull off a believable couple together. Bottom line, the show is just plain fun, and I hope I get to see more of it in 2011.

Kinect: I’m one of those people Microsoft was targeting when they thought up Kinect. I don’t own a Wii, but I am interested in what it can do. But with all the shovel-ware and stories about it collecting dust, I could never get myself to drop the cash to jump into the experience. Kinect seemed like a more logical transition for me, and upon purchasing one last Fall I can finally understand what motion gaming is really all about. Folks can argue that there really isn’t a lot out there right now, especially for the hardcore gamers. I can admit that may be true, but I am also convinced that Kinect is here to stay and that the future looks bright for the peripheral. I say this for many reasons, but mainly because the tech just seems to work and there is something magical about gaming with no controllers. It has revitalized the gaming experience for my entire family, and for me that is well worth the money I paid for it. Here’s hoping that the new titles that come out for the system are as tantalizing and cool as Dance Central and Kinect Sports.

Red Dead Redemption:  I might piss off some Grand Theft Auto fans out there, but Red Dead Redemption is a better game.  In fact I do believe that it is RockStar’s BEST game yet and one that I can’t seem to stop playing. Maybe it’s the newness of the Old West that got me hooked. Or perhaps it was the amazing storyline and characters. Or maybe it was the surprise ending that got the internet abuzz with discussions. Whatever the reason, Red Dead Redemption is in my top ten list of favorite games ever played and the new DLC keeps me coming back to the environment for more fun partners.  Not to mention that the DGR night we had in the game, holding the fort from sleazebags on our server was quite frankly one of the best times I have had on Xbox Live ever.  Thanks guys (and Token). 

Inception: Christopher Nolan has proven that he’s the King of the Mountain when it comes to directing movies. Not only did he make us rethink how we view one of the most iconic super heroes of all time, but he can take us to places we never dreamed of before. Such is the case of Inception, a movie that is as close to perfect storytelling as I can remember. We follow Leonardo DiCaprio and his team into the world of the dream and are left wondering if what we experienced was ever real at all. When asked if he could explain what he actually meant by the end of his film he stoically explained, “If I did that it would ruin the entire reason why I filmed Inception. The movie is supposed to leave you questioning. If you feel that way, it did its job. The man is a stud, and I can’t wait for how he ends his Dark Knight trilogy and the upcoming Superman project.

Lost Finale: Never has a show left me feeling so satisfied and with so many unanswered questions at the same time. For six seasons we watched the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 unravel the mysteries of the strange island they were stranded on. The storytelling and acting were top notch, and the show spawned several podcasts as viewers tried to decipher the clues left behind in each episode. Whether you enjoyed the final episode or not, Lost and its canon have secured their place in our society and lore. Just the other day my colleagues warned us not to open the hatch when dealing with a sticky project. It is a show that I will miss, and one that I will also enjoy revisiting on BluRay. 

Mass Effect 2: This is my pick for the Daryl Awards this year. Why, you ask? No, not just because I can bone alien creatures (ohhh yeah) but because the character development in this game is so strong, I actually miss them when I am not playing. Bioware has simply mastered the dialogue tree and you can’t help but feel a connection to the characters in the game. That, and it’s the only game I can remember that built on my decisions from the previous game. Countless references to seemingly unimportant characters and my encounters with them solidify that the world of Mass Effect is uniquely mine; there are no two universes that are exactly alike. They fixed the combat system so things flow much smoother and no more tedious armor and weapon upgrade guessing games, just lock, load, and kick ass. Downloadable content for the title has been nothing less than stellar and the last installment (Lair of the Shadow Broker) dramatically changed the universe I play in. I have to wonder how the addition of that single piece of content will affect Mass Effect 3. That, my friends, is sheer brilliance in game design. 

Good BAD Movies:  As Hollywood searches for some creative ways to express itself without rehashing old ideas (thanks but no thanks Yogi Bear) certain directors have seemingly created their own genre by making really bad movies that are just plain FUN to watch. The story-lines (if any) are paper thin, the acting is laughable, and the effects are ridiculous, but for some strange reason they work. Maybe because these movies know they are bad and never try to be anything other than what they are. This summer, we saw what may be the goriest and most awesome killer fish movie of all time, Pirhana 3D.  A movie that took the 3D realm to new heights with 3D boobage (and mind you there was not one boob onscreen that I didn’t care to see, they were all excellent). It was campy and fun and one of the best times I have had at the movies this year. Later in the fall, I gathered my fellow DGR faithful for a Netflix showing of Bitch Slap, a movie that truly must be experienced in a group setting. The movie was awesomely terrible and one that I plan to enjoy with a group of friends over and and over again. Let’s hope that we see this trend continue as directors take their craft just a bit less serious. It may not make a good movie, but if we are entertained I certainly don’t care.     

Robot Panic:  I remember when I got the email from Hilden, “Hey Ryker thanks for submitting all this cool shit. Here’s access to the blog and keep up the good work.” Those that read my stuff know that I haven’t always been a good writer, in fact we might be able to make a pretty good argument that I’m the opposite. But at least I have the opportunity to contribute to a community that shares my interests and is pretty bad ass. I’ve also been blessed to help the guys do their live shows and that is a real treat.  I am always impressed with their passion in delivering a great show every week, and just how genuine they all are.  Last Summer we all got together at Moe’s for the 5th anniversary show and bonfire (sorry about your neighbor’s house Moe). It was one of the best times I have had all year; hanging with the good friends I have made here and enjoying a night together.  For the real magic in all of this isn’t in the articles I write, or the awesome shows the guys do, but it’s in the community that we all share. So thanks to all my friends here, your are truly amazing.  Here’s hoping for a great 2011!

ESPN 30:30 Box Set - ESPN has been running this incredibly awesome series of thirty sports documentaries this year to celebrate 30 years on the air. ESPN reached out to some of Hollywood’s top directors to create these films that celebrate some of the most talked about and under-appreciated moments in sports. The first box set just went on sale last week, and it collects the first fifteen films of the series. This collection covers such memorable spectacles as the OJ Simpson car chase on June 17, 1994, the rise and fall of the USFL, the Wayne Gretzky trade to LA and the tragic death of Len Bias.

No more Lost - I had a very strong love/hate relationship with Lost. For every good episode that saw a major plot development or great moments, it was usually followed with an episode that killed off one of your favorite characters or added yet another unneeded question to keep the WTF balance in check for the series. With Lost finally ending after six seasons in 2010, I am grateful that I will no longer have to anticipate any more episodes of this bizarre program that sent me on a whirlwind of emotions like no other show before it. I promise to never waste another moment on this show again…unless ABC will somehow manage to re-release the entire series in chronological order.

The Book of Basketball - This was actually released in 2009, but the paperback edition just hit shelves a couple weeks ago and it includes all kinds of bonus content! I finally finished the hardcover edition of this book a few months ago, and even only being a casual hoops fan I found it to be an extremely informative and entertaining read. Bill Simmons knows his hoops, and his humorous writing style features all sorts of imperative footnotes that makes catching up on basketball history fun for everyone!

Season Two of The Tester & WCG Ultimate Gamer - As much as it pains me to lay this out there, I love both of these shows. Say what you will about reality television and the usual hi jinx that it contains, but I was entertained by second seasons of The Tester and WCG Ultimate Gamer this year. Both shows are eight episodes and features video game themed challenges where the goal is to win to become either the next PlayStation game tester (yes, really), or for a one year roster spot on WCG USA. There are a few characters and moments on each show that are pretty groan inducing I will admit, but that is par for the course with almost any reality show. If you can manage to stomach that, than you will be in for a fun ride that brought back memories of old video game contest shows like Video Power and Nick Arcade.

Heavy Rain, Alan Wake & Red Dead Redemption - If you happen to remember my article half a year ago here ranking the top 10 games for the first half of the year, you may recall that it was a particularly strong first half of the year for games. Rest assured, now with 2010 nearly in the bag, I can say without a doubt that 2010 is the first year where the first half year of releases easily outclassed the second half. It outweighed it so much so that my top three from the first half of the year are my top three for my overall game of the year. And I hold all three of these games on a high pedestal with not much ground separating them in my rankings. Pardon the cheap plug, but to hear my final top 10 rankings, please subscribe to my podcast where we will be having our game of the year episode within a few weeks.

Pinball FX2/Marvel Pinball - Hats off to Zen Studios for their consistency at pumping out nonstop awesome video game pinball tables! Almost every time I sit down to play games, I tend to warm up with a couple of runs on a pinball game made by Zen Studios. Whether it was them supporting Pinball FX and Zen Pinball with frequent DLC tables throughout most of 2010, and then proceeding to blow us away with Pinball FX 2 and its amazing evolution of table design and leaderboard upgrades. They did not stop at Pinball FX 2, because just a couple months after that fine release, they pump out Marvel Pinball, with four more addicting tables themed after some of the best superheroes in the Marvel Universe…and Blade. I dare you to download a table or two and not get hooked to the amount of sheer fun each table provides and the addictive nature of score chasing everyone on your friends list.

Miz as WWE Champ - This just would not be a “stuff of the year” list from me without a couple wrestling mentions. Mike “The Miz” Mizannin had quite an interesting journey to becoming the current WWE champion. From debuting in the entertainment world ten years ago on The Real World, to riding the MTV reality circuit for a few years until finally debuting in WWE in 2004 on its Tough Enough competition. Being one of the few Miz fans from his early beginnings in WWE when no one thought he would last a year in the company, I nearly lost it when he finally proved all the doubters wrong and  won the WWE championship.

The Nexus John Cena Beatdown - Just one more wrestling moment to add to this list. If you used to be a wrestling fan, odds are you watched during the WCW/WWF Monday Night Wars when each company was raising the bar each and every Monday to get you to flip the channel. With no real competition, WWE has become complacent with its storytelling and features less and less must see moments each year. In 2010 they managed to capture some of that old fire with the debut of the Nexus stable. Here they made an impact with an 8-on-1 beatdown on John Cena and literally tore apart the ring and beat up the entire ringside staff in a moment completely unprecedented. The Nexus has since become one of the most interesting stables of wrestlers in quite a few years.

When you follow cool people, brilliant unintentional collaborations happen. We have enough to shoot a new television episode and make $thousands; hundreds of $thousands. This is a twitter happenings from the Tuesday before thanksgiving. We are gifted writers.

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@SimpleNate Ugh. Sick AGAIN for the last 24 hours. Why do I get sick when I’m trying to make healthier decisions in my life? Where’s Dr. House?

@DJIncompetent It must be Sarcoidosis. And Lupus. Sarcoidlupus!

@phneri It’s never Lupus!

@skreesha wow, it’s like I just started watching House again

@DJIncompetent Patient contact! Everybody lies! Onoz my leg! Vicodin-nomomom! I’m a goddamn genius! Idiot!

@SimpleNate It’s not Lupus. CT his liver, run a LP and biopsy his brain.

@phneri I found the solution! It’s fungus! Super cancer deathassfungus! Angry rant at Wilson and surgery scene!

@SimpleNate Wait, if you treat that fungus, it’ll kill him. First we need to make him worse.

@skreesha Force him to run on a treadmill until he collapses

@DJIncompetent Wilson! You weren’t there last night! You were seeing a girl you should break up with cuz I haxorz your email!

@DJIncompetent Freeze! Extreme face closeup! OMFG Epiphany! Dramatically walk out of the room mid conversation! next scene!

@SimpleNate It’s not the cancer that was making him sick. the patient is ALLERGIC to cancer!

@skreesha The cancer cells are allergic to copper!

@SimpleNate The patient, in the head, with a copper bullet.

@DJIncompetent House! Patient won’t accept treatment for copper-cancer-double-allergy because his son will die of his karma-religion

@SimpleNate You’re an idiot. Get Cuddy to reluctantly accept my bullet treatment and make a joke about anal sex.

@DJIncompetent Before that Cuddy will have to sign off on my fake test and waive 8 hours of clinic duty. Bump into her boobs!

@SimpleNate Patient had rabies. Let’s wrap this up so I can play piano, drink whiskey and stare off into space.

@DJIncompetent Cue montage with sad licensed song and show House at the only time he’s ever laughing but it’s inaudible.

@phneri Close out with final WTF drama scene of Wilson working on his hidden meth lab. Losing first tooth.

We’re going to end this one with a bang; with a gift that’ll keep on giving long after Halloween is through. The twist, however, is that a) it’s a TV show, and b) nobody’s seen it. Yet. That’s because Frank Darabont’s (The Green Mile, Shawshank Redemption) take on Robert Kirkman’s excellent comic book series premieres tonight on AMC.

Obviously, since I haven’t seen it yet, I can’t say much about the show. I can, however, tell you that the comic book series is absolutely phenomenal and one of the best zombie stories ever devised. Featuring Rick, an ex-cop who wakes up in a hospital to find the world around him destroyed and crawling with zombies, The Walking Dead is equal parts zombie flick and a story about human nature. You’ll follow Rick as he sets out to find his family while not just fending off hordes of zombies, but also those who survived the zombie plague.

AMC has been on a roll for the past several years with hits like Mad Men and Breaking Bad, and with a guy like Frank Durabont at the helm, I have high, high hopes for this one. Plus, we have this awesome preview:

So tonight, after the kids have stopped knocking on your door, sit down with the family and watch the beginning of one of the great zombie stories. I can’t think of a better way to spend Halloween.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the second annual SHOCKtober! It really is fun to go through these movies every year. Despite the fact that after sixty-two movies now, the well is starting to run a bit dry, I’m hoping to come up with something for next year. Until then, Happy Halloween!

Don’t forget! Tonight at 7pm CST, Ryker XL is hosting a special Sunday SHOCK Theater, featuring “Zombies of Mass Destruction”. Log into Xbox Live for our final SHOCKtober Netflix viewing party.

On a recent episode of Drunken Gamers Radio, John stated they could not get enough of my wrestling articles. So I figured it was about time to write a new one. Today, I will review one on the newly-released DVDs chronicling the career of one of my all time favorite wrestlers, Chris Jericho, with WWE Home Video’s Breaking the Code: Behind the Walls of Chris Jericho. This three-disc DVD features a near two hour documentary on the career of Chris Jericho on disc one, and nineteen of his best matches, handpicked by Jericho himself, on the final two discs.

The documentary starts off like most previous WWE produced efforts, highlighting Jericho’s childhood years where he aspired to be a wrestler and rock star. The feature does a modest job at describing his early years in wrestling, from breaking into the business with Lance Storm at the Hart Family Dungeon to his days of being an international superstar in Mexico and Germany and getting his first break in the USA in ECW. I was hoping for a little more expansive look at this stage in his career since his autobiography, A Lion’s Tale, put a lot more emphasis on it, but the DVD does a decent job at covering a couple of his standout moments that he learned from. It is worth noting here that Jericho’s book is also the place to find his interactions and memories of Chris Benoit, who served as a big influence on Jericho’s career, but is understandably erased from WWE history (and is nowhere to be found on this DVD) after the double murder-suicide tragedy from 2007.

His exposure in ECW eventually landed him a job in WCW. During the infamous “Monday Night Wars” between WWE’s RAW and WCW’s Nitro from 1995-2001, one of the reasons I would usually tune into WCW was because of the high-flying action its Cruiserweight division delivered. I was more of a RAW fan, but Nitro usually started an hour before RAW, and that happened to be the hour most of its Cruiserweight matches took place so I got into the habit of seeing tons of incredibly athletic matches from classic Cruiserweights like Rey Mysterio Jr., Psycosis, Ultimo Dragon, Juventud Guerrera, Eddie Guerrero and Dean Malenko, to name a few. The DVD gives an accurate account on how WCW’s powers that be viewed the Cruiserweight division as nothing more than a preliminary attraction. If a wrestler was a Cruiserweight, than they may as well kiss any chance to climb their way up the ladder into the main event scene goodbye.

One of the few stars that escaped that stigma was Chris Jericho. After a couple years as just another faceless Cruiserweight, he took his opportunity to emerge out of the pool of high-flyers. Jericho talks about how he took every chance he got to cut a promo and develop his new bad-guy personality. The DVD goes into depth on two of his breakout feuds in WCW with Dean Malenko and Bill Goldberg. WWE used its archive interview footage with Goldberg and former WCW President Eric Bishoff to help flesh out a lot of his WCW years, and give their side of the story on why they held back Jericho from reaching true superstardom in WCW, which resulted in Jericho leaving the sinking WCW ship for higher ground into WWE in 1999.
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Alright, so this one is a TV series and not a movie. But that just means there’s more of it to enjoy.

Vampires are big business these days, for some fucked up reason. And believe me, before True Blood began, I felt the vampire schtick was the worst of all the horror genres. It just hadn’t been done right in so long. From the half a million takes on Dracula to the god-awful Twilight vampire/tween craze, it was just so played out. But then HBO got their hands on the Sookie Stackhouse novels and it all changed for me.

True Blood excels in just about every category. Every episode has buckets of blood, gory kills, hot naked chicks, and over-the-top plots. The show not only has vampires, but demons, werewolves, shape shifters, and other supernatural elements.

If you’re new to the show, the gimmick is simple: Japanese scientists have invented a synthetic blood, and as a result, the vampires that have been living in secret all these years are now able to “come out”, so to speak. After all, they no longer have to feed on humans and animals, so they should no longer be feared, right? Yeah…

The show takes place in a tiny town in Louisiana, where there’s a lot more crazy shit going on than just vampires. The star of the show is a character named Sookie Stackhouse, a young waitress who is able to read minds and who soon falls in love with a newly-outed vampire. As the episodes go on, complications arise and soon everyone in town is dealing with some sort of supernatural phenomenon.

True Blood’s third season just finished up, and the first two are already available on DVD. The show is nothing but campy, bloody fun and I highly recommend checking it out.

Reality shows. They’re terrible. They’re awful. They’ve always been SARS in a cup. Maybe 2010 is the year something decent comes out? Top Shot is run by The History Channel. It is about sixteen people fighting in a marksmanship competition to win $100,000. By marksmanship competition I mean shooting real life weapons in a test of accuracy. Contestants battle with pistols, antique rifles, modern automatics, knives, bows, and other weapons that are good for killings. Players fight in a variety of challenges sometimes reminiscent of arcade light gun games like Point Blank or Police Trainer. There are things like target shooting with explosives, busting glass plates from a zipline, speed runs, horse, tube shots, hammering nails, pattern memorization, base flipping, making long distance shots with mirrors, slicing ropes, cutting live wicks, and many other stunts I’d think I could do with a gun but definitely can’t.
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