Requiem For Leap Day

Happy Leap Day, everybody. You'd better make the most of it, otherwise you're stuck waiting four years for the next one. It's like the Olympics, only not.

It's hard to believe that tomorrow is the first day of March. This year's just trucking right along, isn't it? Spring will be here before we know it, and that means only one thing: the beginning of drive-in season is coming soon.

Oh boy, do I love drive-in theaters. I've made that no secret in the past, but I just have to reiterate it. here aren't a whole lot of things that are quite as fun as going to a drive-in theater. I know it's hard as a rock to find them nowadays, bu I'm a firm supporter of such establishments. If you have the means, I highly recommend visiting one sometime.

Honestly, I'm not completely sure what it is that makes them so appealing. Maybe it's the whole retro atmosphere. Maybe it's just being able to enjoy some fresh air and some movies at the same time. I'm not completely sure. But no matter what the draw is, there's something inherently fun about them. And if there's anything I enjoy, it's fun.

Game Talk

I've been playing my Xbox 360 an awful lot lately, to the point that I nearly forgot I owned any other video game console. (Which is kinda sad, since they all sit right there next to each other on my entertainment center.) So I decided to take a break from the 360 and fire up an oldie but a goodie, Resident Evil 4 on the Gamecube. Remember all those posts last year about how I was dominating the game? After playing it just a little while ago, I feel like I've totally forgotten what to do.

It's primarily because of how foreign the controller feels now, since I've fallen so far out of the habit of using it. Of course, if there was a way for me to utilize my Xbox 360 controller with my Gamecube, I totally would. But alas, no go.

Perhaps I should get back into playing games on the ol' Cube more often. Resident Evil 5 is being released in 2009, so it might not hurt me to go through and replay the six games in the franchise that I own. Just as a little plot refresher course, y'know? I still have yet to ever actually play Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles over on the Wii, so I'm sure I'm missing out on one or two big plot points, but hopefully, that will be remedied sometime this year.

Luckily for me, though, I still have the other six games. And with them, I can reintroduce myself to the little purple lunchbox from Nintendo that I used to love so much.

Vroom, Vroom

Yesterday was a pretty long day. My buddy Mo and I headed up to Louisville for the annual Carl Casper Auto Show and to see what kind of mischief we could get into. And outside of the outrageous $14 admission fee, it was some good times.

Naturally, I don't believe there's going to be a whole lot to say about a car show, other than "we saw a bunch of cars, the end." But the four or five hours we spent at the show were really entertaining. Plus, as an added bonus, WWE diva Victoria was there signing autographs and showing off a custom car she helped design. That alone made the whole trip worth it.

All that matters about the day, though, is that we had fun. I also learned that I'm just not built to properly get into and out of a Corvette. I didn't realize until it was too late that their interiors are a lot smaller than you'd think from just looking at them. But either way, I enjoyed myself. I'm not a huge car enthusiast or anything, but if they lower their price, I'd totally go back next year. That is, as long as I remember to wear more comfortable shoes. I love my Chuck Taylors, but they just aren't made for all the walking I did.

Three For The Price Of One

Howdy, folks, and welcome back to the MSX.

There's not a whole lot to report today, but there is some new material over at "Sutton At The Movies." This time, it's a review for Grindhouse, the Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino double feature from last year. And just to be silly, I've also done individual reviews for Grindhouse's halves, Rodriguez's Planet Terror and Tarantino's Death Proof. Go check 'em out.

I've got my next review in mind, but it's just a matter of getting around to watching the movie. I am, though, considering doing it as part of a doubleheader with a movie in the top ten on my Netflix list. We'll just wait and see how that goes.

Anyway, have fun reading the three new reviews.

Left High And Dry

I've made it no secret that I'm a fan of pro wrestling, and about a week and a half ago, there was a real bummer of an announcement. As of February 7th, WWE has ended its relationship with Ohio Valley Wrestling, and all WWE-contracted talent in OVW will be transferred to WWE's developmental territory down in Florida by the end of the month. OVW is going to stay open, but with the majority of their talent heading to Florida, their roster is going to be a little bare. They've got plenty of people in their training program, but I don't know how many of them are ready for prime time, so to speak.

As an OVW fan, this is a real downer. Up until the announcement, there was a certain novelty to watching OVW's TV show and live events during their time as part of WWE's developmental program. Watching an indy promotion and knowing that many of its performers could be called up to the big leagues at any time was neat. Seeing a handful of current WWE wrestlers in my neck of the woods before they were famous was very cool. But without WWE backing them, they're just another independant promotion. I'm not sure I can see them matching the cult popularity of, say, Ring of Honor or ECW's early days, but here's hoping that they can.

Who's Next For The Hall of Fame?

I said in the previous post that I really wanted to start posting more often, so I might as well actually start doing that. Otherwise, I'd be a liar, right?

WWE just announced a few minutes ago that they'll be inducting Ric Flair into their Hall of Fame next month. That's great, and a much deserved honor for Flair, but I can't say that it's really all that surprising. The real surprises lie in the next six or seven names they announce. I've actually heard Mae Young's name bouncing around as a possible inductee, but I can't say I'm very enthusiastic about that. Now I know that Mae Young was a pretty well-known wrestler in the '50s or whenever, but is that going to be her legacy? Are people going to remember her as a wrestler from fifty years ago, or as a super-horny octogenarian that was always tagging along with the late, great Fabulous Moolah, got impregnated by Mark Henry and gave birth to a hand, and took her top off live on pay-per-view?

And I know I did a post like this last year, but I think there's a few people that WWE should get around to inducting into the Hall of Fame. Big names like Bruno Sammartino and Randy Savage deserve it, but I doubt it'll happen as long as they're not on the best of terms with WWE. Or how about Dory and Terry Funk? They've been on a kick of inducting wrestlers from the '80s lately, so why not induct guys like Jake Roberts, the Honky Tonk Man, or Jim Duggan? I've heard the Von Erich family getting thrown around as a possible induction, which would be great. It would be bittersweet, though, since only one member of the family is still alive. Other posthoumus names that I'd love to see inducted would be Owen Hart, Davey Boy Smith, Rick Rude, Brian Pillman, and Miss Elizabeth. All of them totally deserve it, though I'm not sure if they would induct Miss Elizabeth without inducting Randy Savage as well. And if they induct Davey Boy Smith, they'd have to induct Dynamite Kid as well. It wouldn't really feel right to honor one British Bulldog and not the other.

It's apparently an unwritten rule that they only have one or two posthumous inductees per year, so I guess I should throw out a few more names of wrestlers that are still alive. With Ric Flair being inducted, why not induct Ricky Steamboat and Arn Anderson too? Those would be two perfect inductions any year, and inducting them the same year as Flair would seem rather poetic. Heck, why not go a step further and induct Tully Blanchard and Ole Anderson too, just so all four of the original Horsemen are inducted in the same year? I would say to unduct the Four Horsemen gimmick as a whole into the Hall of Fame, but do we really need the idea of Paul Roma and Steve "Mongo" McMichael ostensibly being Hall of Famers?

So who else is there? Why not make a few more inductions into the Hall of Fame's celebrity wing? They've inducted Pete Rose and William Perry, but why not induct someone whose made a more memorable contribution to WWE? Lawrence Taylor would be great, but I'd love to see Mr. T and Bob Uecker get inducted. I'm actually surprised they haven't inducted Mr. T yet, since he main-evented the original WrestleMania, and they've already inducted the other three wrestlers in the match.

And I know it's probably too soon, but there's quite a few wrestlers who've retired within the last few years that I'd love to see get inducted. Mainly three names: Steve Austin, The Rock, and, believe it or not, Trish Stratus. Yes, I said Trish Stratus. It'll probably be another ten or twelve years before they start looking at the Attitude Era for Hall of Fame candidates, but don't tell me those three wouldn't deserve it.

But that's just one person's opinion.

I'm A Lazy Blogger

I apologize for being rather lax with the blogging lately. It's just there really hasn't been a whole lot going on that I felt like talking about. That, and I'm just plain lazy. Sorry. I did, however, get out yesterday and visited a brand new pizza place over in Springfield before buying a copy of Batman #673. My guess is I need to go track down Batman #672, because I really had no idea what was going on. This issue was still an intriguing read in spite of me being totally clueless, though. And this reminds me, I really should go buy some bags and boards for my comics.

Anyway, I'm definitely going to try working on getting more posts up here. I'd really rather not fall back into that "one post a month" routine I was in a few years ago. I've got to do something to get my readers, all three of them, to stick around. I will say that I've been working on osme new entries for "Sutton at the Movies," and I've downloaded two movies that I may or may not write about sometime in the future. These all depend on if I can get off my butt and put some work in on them. If only I could find a way to do this and get paid...

Eyes Wide Open

After the outright disaster that was One Missed Call, I have to say that I've been more nervous than ever about future remakes of Asian horror movies. I thought Pulse was bad enough and One Missed Call was even worse, so I was a little worried about the new remake of The Eye. I went into it this afternoon hoping that it would at least be better than One Missed Call, and I have to say that I was pleasently surprised.

Having seen (and enjoyed) the original Chinese version of The Eye, I didn't think there were a whole lot of surprises during the remake. It follows the original relatively tightly, with only a handful of minor differences. But that isn't a negative at all. The American version of The Eye is a very solid movie from start to finish. The scares are really well done, the suspense is tight, and Jessica Alba puts forth a great, convincing performance. Truth be told, I can't think of anything negative to say about it.

I don't know if I'd put it on the same level as the remakes of The Ring, The Grudge, and Dark Water, all of which I thought were fantastic. But The Eye is a pretty darn good remake, and an entertaining movie in general. I'll give it a thumbs-up with three and a half stars on the patent-pending Five-Star Sutton Scale. Go check it out, horror fans.

The only bad part of my trip to the movies this afternoon? The kid sitting in the row behind me. Some adults were chaperoning a group of adolescents, and the youngest one couldn't have been much older than seven or eight. This kid just wouldn't sit still; he would only actually sit down for maybe ten minutes at a time. He was up walking around for at least half the movie. And it wasn't helping that he would have conversations with the adults, who apparently had no clue how to whisper. At least the kid kept quiet. And every so often, you'd hear the adults to tell the kid to cover his eyes. Why let a kid watch a horror movie if you're not going to let him see the scary scenes? Watching a horror movie and covering your eyes during the scary scenes is like watching a musical and skipping over the songs. I guess I'm just not a proponent of taking young kids to see movies they probably shouldn't be seeing. For example, I remember someone bringing an infant into the theater with them during the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake a few years back. Who does that? If you can't get a babysitter, can't you just wait a few months for it to turn up on DVD or pay-per-view? There should be some kind of theater policy or something about this.

So anyway, I liked the remake of The Eye, but I don't particularly care for people that bring their kids (especially the unruly ones) to horror movies.