Goodbye, 2004

So there's less than 36 hours left until 2005, and I'm trying to think of something to talk about.

I'm glad I live where I do, where the only things I have to worry about are tornadoes (which very rarely come through my neighborhood, anyway) and the occasional thunderstorm. I just can't begin to imagine how horrible it must be for those affected by the earthquake and tsunami. My heart goes out to them.

2004's been a weird year. I know I've spent 90% of it in front of a computer screen or at a movie theater, but I'm not gonna complain. Those are two places I like to be. I also developed an affinity for White Castle cheeseburgers this year, too. So I don't really have anything bad to say about my 2004. But now I'm ready for 2005. I'm ready I'm ready I'm ready.

One of the DVDs I picked up the other day was the Chris Benoit DVD. While I don't think the actual documentary is as good as The Rise and Fall of ECW (then again, what is?), the gold here is in the extra features. I never thought I'd see matches from New Japan Pro Wrestling on a WWE release. I'm not familiar with this style of Japanese wrestling (considering I've only seen a few random death matches from Japan, and that's it) but these matches are absolutely awesome. The DVD definitely lives up to its reputation as being great. I just have to track down the Eddie Guerrero DVD now, and I'll be all set. I still think the Benoit DVD could have used the 2004 Royal Rumble match on it, but that's a minor complaint on a great DVD.

I spoke the other day about how Maury Povich's show makes me stupid. I can say the same thing about Passions. They've been doing a storyline about two star-crossed lovers for years now, and every time it looks like they'll get to be together, something happens to muck it up. It's like the soap opera equivalent of the old Tommy Dreamer/Raven feud in ECW. It's just going to keep going and going and going and going with no foreseeable payoff. And it's not like the story will end if one of them quits the show, like the Dreamer/Raven feud. They can just hire a new actor to play the role. Geez, I'm getting sick of this crap. The stupidity than is Passions is really rubbing off on me.

I hear Regis Philbin is hosting the New Year's bash in Times Square this year, and I'm of the opinion that anyone other than Dick Clark hosting is just weird. They should start cranking out Dick Clark robots on an assembly line so this doesn't happen again. Or maybe the Dick Clark we know and love was a robot all along, and he just had a slipped gear. I'm on to you, Dick Clark! I know your secret!

Once again, I'd like to thank my readers who make the pilgrimage here to read me. I know I don't have much to say a lot of the time, but if I occasionally illicit a laugh or some other reaction from you, then I've succeeded. Thank you for your patronage here at Sutton's House of Chickin 'N Waffles, and I'll see you in the 2K5.

Sutton out.

"Sutton At The Movies" Achievement Awards

Caught Meet The Fockers last night. Funny stuff, three and a half stars, "Sutton At The Movies" says check it out.

Christmas swag acquired: lots of DVDs, the Resident Evil: Apocalypse soundtrack, a book adaptation of the Resident Evil Zero video game (I'm a big Resident Evil fan, sue me), a CKY T-shirt, and True Crime: Streets of LA for my Cube.

And now for something a little different, the inaugural "Sutton At The Movies" Achievement Awards. Basically, I just give out random awards to movies from 2004.

• Best Movie (Overall): Collateral
• Best Movie (Horror): Shaun of the Dead and The Grudge (tie)
• Best Fight: Thomas Jane vs. Kevin Nash, The Punisher
• Best Movie You Probably Forgot About: The Butterfly Effect
• Most Disappointing Movie: The Village
• Worst Movie: Catwoman
• "Do A Movie Without A Nonsensical Twist Ending For Once" Award: M. Night Shyamalan
• Best Movie Based On A Comic Book: Spider-Man 2
• Oddest Movie News Of The Year: Sam Raimi puts off Evil Dead 4 to do a remake of The Evil Dead
• "It Should Have Been Rated R" Award: Alien vs. Predator
• Best Use Of A Song In A Movie: "Don't Stop Me Now" by Queen, Shaun of the Dead
• Best Cameo: Neil Patrick Harris (a.k.a. Doogie Howser, M.D.), Harold And Kumar Go To White Castle
• Best Cameo By A Celebrity Played By Another Person: Nadia Dina Arigat as Britney Spears, Seed of Chucky

And to steal an idea from a blog I faithfully read, I would like to take the time to thank my great sponsors...

• the great state of Alabama
• Dynamite Kudo and all those at F.O.E.T.
• Angel Investigations
• Wolfram & Hart, Attorneys At Law
• Umbrella, Inc.
• CKY
• Element Skateboards
• Camp Crystal Lake
• the Smallville Torch
• the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense
• the super troopers at the Vermont State Highway Patrol

Thank you to the sponsors, and most of all, the readers. Without you, I doubt I'd be doing this whole blog thing. You guys rock!

Sutton out.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas! It's a celebration! With excitement! And pizzazz! And friggin' pomp! And drinking! Drinking and revenge! Wait, I think I just got Christmas mixed up with the feast of Alvis. But if you're Christmas celebration features excitement, pizzazz, and friggin' pomp, that's one awesome celebration.

Matt of the Dead

Happy birthday, dad. :)

In addition to being my dad's birthday, it's also Tuesday, which means that a slew of movies are hitting the home video market. I actually have a review of one of them, Shaun of the Dead. So read the review, then go buy the DVD. It's a total marketing thing.

I also have a review for The Rock's remake of Walking Tall.

Have fun reading the reviews. That's all I've got for now. Sutton out.

Maury Povich Hurts My Brain

Kentucky 60, Louisville 58. That pretty much sums it up how I feel. :)

I finally did get to see Blade: Trinity, and I enjoyed it. Unfortunately, it seemed like it had a real lack of focus. You'd think Dracula (or "Drake," as the characters call him for some reason) would be the main villain here, but no, it's Parker Posey and her goons. They get Dracula with the intention of using his blood to create an Aryan race of vampires, but that subplot is almost completely ignored. Also ignored after one quick scene is what the characters called the "Vampire Final Solution," which entailed a warehouse in the middle of nowhere filled with comatose homeless people in giant ziplock bags having their blood drained. Most of the cast is just kinda there, though I did like Ryan Reynolds and Triple H. Reynolds steals most of the scenes he's in (which is okay with me because I liked Van Wilder), and ol' HHH was better than expected. I certainly wasn't expecting his character to have an affection for a tiny vampire dog, but it just added to the character's charm. Two and a half stars for Blade: Trinity.

They rolled the trailer for Star Wars: Episode 3 in front of Blade: Trinity. Since I don't feel like having to kick the snot out of a bunch of nerds who've been camping out in front of the theater since before the movie started filming, I might just wait a few weeks after it's released. I do want to see it, despite only seeing bits and pieces of the other two prequels (even though I own DVDs of them both). I just needs to see me some Darth Vader.

I've been watching Maury Povich's talk show lately, and I've discovered something. It's one of the stupidest talk shows in the history of ever. My IQ drops 30 points every time I watch it, but I can't force myself to turn away. If only there was something better on TV at 4:00 in the afternoon...

...wait, I own 150+ DVDs. If only I'd realized that sooner, thousands of brain cells would still be alive. My brain looks like that one episode of The Twilight Zone, where Burgess Meredith is the last man left on earth and he finds a huge library still standing, then he breaks his glasses. That episode, you know the one. That episode ruled.

These commercials for the new Top Gun special edition DVD have got that Kenny Loggins song stuck from the movie in my head. You know the one, "Danger Zone." That song is too catchy for its own good.

I hate having to wait until the end of January to see new episodes of Smallville. Stupid winter hiatuses.

I was watching the music video for "The End Of Heartache" by Killswitch Engage (which is a great song, by the way), and I noticed something. Is it just me, or does the lead singer look like Tony Todd? Wait a second... how many of you know who Tony Todd or Killswitch Engage are? I do go crazy with the vague references.

Hey, somebody else has an Amazon wishlist too! Go buy her stuff!

A Kentucky newspaper ran an article recently about who people preferred, University of Kentucky alumnus Ashley Judd or ESPN commentator Dick Vitale. I think they even ran a poll on who readers would rather spend the evening with. If someone would turn down Ashley Judd to be with Dick Vitale (with the exception of Mrs. Vitale), I weep for society.

I have nothing left to say that is either relevant or true, thus this post comes to a close. Sutton out.

EC f'n W!

Hey, folks. It's been a while since I last posted, and the rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. The rumors that Libby are smart, however... those are true.

If you've been wondering where I've been lately, I have a perfectly good reason: I was out of town. Wednesday night, I went up to the bright lights and big city of Louisville, Kentucky, to visit the hell out of some friends I hadn't seen in months. Without going into detail (since there's not really a lot to say about it, in all honesty), it was a 24-hour party with a bunch of geeks. Warcraft-loving geeks. Good times.

I came home from Louisville on Thursday night with some minor swag too. Picked up a CD by a European rock band none of you have heard of ("Deep Shadows And Brilliant Highlights" by HIM), and I scored the new "The Rise and Fall of ECW" DVD. As a diehard fan of ECW, I'm absolutely loving the DVD. I still don't like how WWE replaced the original music with in-house stuff they wouldn't have to pay for, but eh, what can you do? The DVD is probably the best that WWE has ever produced, ever. Anyone who has even the slightest of interest in ECW should buy it. It's definitely worth the 19 bucks I paid for it (hooray for Wal-Mart's low prices), and as an ECW fan and a fan of independent wrestling in general, this is definitely the best wrestling DVD I own.

My feelings for the new ECW DVD can be summed up in one word: "wow." This is not only the best ECW DVD I've seen (I still haven't gotten my hands on the Chris Benoit or Eddie Guerrero DVDs yet), but the feature alone ranks up there with Beyond The Mat as a great pro wrestling documentary. It hits almost every major ECW moment, and even a few obscure ones. I never even expected them to even touch on the New Jack/Mass Transit incident. This is so in-depth, I couldn't believe it. They even gave Hat Guy five seconds of glory. I'd have worked in references to Sign Guy, Faith No More Guy, and quite possibly Sunglasses Guy (the Shemp of the ECW Arena Guys), but that's just me. I'm happy they at least highlighted Hat Guy. Good for him.

What also stunned me was this is a WWE DVD that's (for the most part) uncensored. Only once have I seen a performer saying one of the seven dirty words you can't say on TV without getting bleeped (Kurt Angle saying "bullshit" on the Invasion pay-per-view back in 2001), but the only bleeps in this one are there because of they're on the master tape. If there's no bleep on the master tape, then there's no bleep on the DVD. Uncensored ECW is good for you and good for me.

I've got the Ric Flair and "Rise and Fall of ECW" DVDs, so all I need now are the Chris Benoit and Eddie Guerrero DVDs. I want the Benoit one just for the falls-count-anywhere match with Kevin Sullivan. I've only seen bits and pieces of it, but I love what I've seen. Besides, I'm a huge mark for falls-count-anywhere matches. My only complaint with the Benoit DVD is the lack of the 2004 Royal Rumble match. I can see why they left it off (time issues, and whatnot), but still, it'd be nice to have.

I wanted to catch Blade: Trinity during my excursion to Louisville, but didn't get the chance. Maybe soon, I hope. And I still haven't seen Blade 2. I should get around to that sometime, I guess. I haven't figured out why Triple H's character in Blade: Trinity needs metal fangs. I bet the movie explains it, but it's fun to speculate. Maybe he's trying to be the vampire Flavor Flav, but has his fronts on a payment plan. Maybe he had to get false fangs after losing his real ones to the crippling disease known as gingivitis. Maybe they came from an ill-fated Marvel crossover where he bit Colossus from the X-Men. Or maybe ol' Triple H thought his trusty sledgehammer looked awfully yummy. Whatever the reason behind them, those metal choppers look really, really weird.

Recently added to "Blatant Movie Shilling": High Tension, a French horror movie named Haute Tension overseas. From what I've heard, the movie is insanely violent, and the plot is very similar to the Dean Koontz novel Intensity. But it's a foreign movie that's rated NC-17 (that is, if they don't cut it to get an R before it's released), and five bucks says you'll have to wait until the DVD release to see it. How many theaters show foreign movies rated NC-17? Also added to "Blatant Movie Shilling": the Tom Cruise/Steven Speilberg remake of War of the Worlds. From the look of the trailer (which you can see at the web site), it'll be awesome.

After going through my DVD collection and my Amazon wishlist, I've come to the realization that my DVD addiction has reached massive proportions. Feel free to buy me some new ones. :-P

Wow, this post has gone a lot longer than I expected it to. If you're still reading, you get a cookie. Sutton out.

Hmm, I wonder what's behind the Constitution.

Happy birthday to my grandma, who's 92 today.

I see way too many movies. Many of you can attest to this, and it's true. I caught National Treasure (that new Nicholas Cage/Jerry Bruckheimer movie), and it wasn't too bad at all. I prefer Con Air or Gone In 60 Seconds over this one, and this certainly could have used some improvement, but I liked it for what it was. Five bucks says somebody is gonna see this movie and try to steal the Declaration of Independence and look for a treasure map on the back, or go hunting for gold under a church on Wall Street and Broadway in New York City. Somebody's stupid enough to try it. But anyway, three and a half stars for National Treasure.

I've been downloading a lot of movies lately too (many of which I want to review for "Sutton At The Movies" one day). Methinks I should go search for a new hard drive for all my movies and MP3s. Too bad I can't scratch up a few hundred bucks, or else I'd just buy a new computer.

You know, all this baseball steroid abuse is just crazy. And why do baseball players need steroids anyway? Babe Ruth hit 714 home runs, and he wasn't exactly the paragon of an in-shape athlete. Sure, ballparks are bigger now than they were in Babe's heyday, but these guys are millionaires. They can buy gyms full of workout equipment and bulk up that way. If Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron can hit 700+ homers without steroids, and Sammy Sosa can beat Roger Maris without various performance enhancing drugs, then anyone should be able to. And people wonder why I don't watch baseball.

Christmas is coming up. Presents are welcomed, nee demanded. Get me something, I'm poor. :-P

Meanwhile, I've been putting some serious thought into buying a PlayStation 2 lately. If I did, it'd be my first non-Nintendo console. As a lifelong Nintendo fanboy, that would take some getting used to, but I guess I could get by that. Besides, I'm getting sick and tired of the Cube missing out on great games like Grand Theft Auto and the Smackdown series. I wanted to get the new Fight Club game, but I can't, because the stupid thing is exclusive to the X-Box and PS2. Stupid PS2 and X-Box! I want good games too! Why must everyone hate the Cube?

Anyway, Sutton out.