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#definitely the hottest disney channel couple
lobeliamaximoff · 1 year
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THEY
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themoonsings · 3 years
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hi y’all! my name’s blue and this is my good sis luna! you can find some info on her below! 
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luna song was spotted in the fashion district adorning red bottoms , with some airpod pros on . they’re most likely listening to love me 4 me by rina sawayama . you may know them as @lunasong or as that rosé lookalike . their twenty-third birthday just passed . while living in tribeca , they’ve gained a bit of a reputation . they’re known to be ruthless but on the other hand captivating . wonder if they’ll be the next person to hit the headlines . [ ciswoman / she/her + blue / 24 / she/her ]
she’s 2nd gen & gave her parents gave her a korean name mainly to appease their parents and one in english. her korean name is ae-cha while her english name is luna. pretty much everyone calls/has always called her luna except her grandparents and sometimes her fanbase in korea.
she grew up in one of the boroughs and her family was middle class.
grew up knowing/speaking korean and english.
she had three best friends growing up, and they did practically everything together. they were in their tweens when luna got the idea that they should start a girl group, like so many that they always listened and looked up to and her friends readily agreed. 
they were still young so people didn’t take them seriously at first, much to a 12-year-old luna’s chagrin. but they were actually pretty good. in the beginning they didn’t know how to read sheet music super well yet and mostly did covers so luna would help with figuring out which parts each of them would sing and scheduling rehearsals, even pestering classmates into getting them gigs. (sidenote: luna’s group/bandmates are a wanted connection and on the main if you wanna know a little bit more you can click here! I’d love to have some/all of her groupmate spots filled!)
her parents were always super supportive of the group and were driving them to competitions, auditions, etc. luna was driven and annoying as hell in the way she pestered all these grown ass adults and even recording labels into trying to hear them/let them in to no avail. 
it wasnt until luna was 16 (about seven years ago) that they were able to actually get signed to a record label. at first no one took them seriously and no one wanted to sign them because people insisted that girl groups didn’t do well, didn’t last long, that people didn’t like them, etc. and there was a lot of back and forth over creative differences, as by that point the girls wrote their own music. 
BUT, their debut album actually did surprisingly well and better than even their management expected. soon they were having their music videos features on disney channel tv breaks, playing on the radio, getting lots of views on youtube. they were everywhere and people seemed to like the “realness” of their story--it made for good interviews and whatnot. 
they continued on like that, dropping three more albums which broke records, lead to worldwide tours, won grammys, lead them to several tv cameos, and even their own movie (think spice world but like better/funner plot, although still not super serious cinema) and documentary. they’re absolutely HUGE now, think peak destiny’s child type shit. they had their own reality tv show at one point, perfume, and even a make-up line with different shades and colors to match each girl’s “personality”. 
the aspects of their personality were played up a little bit to make them more marketable, i.e. one was the more “sporty” one, one was more “free-spirited”, etc. and how they’re styled usually reflects that, although now that they’re pretty established and older, they’ve been able to kind of be less characterized and more themselves. 
luna’s personality was always kind of the diva/primadonna meets relatable girl next door type role. basically she was just always dressed usually very hyper-feminine and has always publicly been considered/seen as kind of the “leader” of the group. 
that doesn’t come from nowhere because she’s very driven. she’s work hard play hard but you gotta tear her away from her email account enough for her to play hard. she’s nice and friendly but can be kind of intense. her biggest fear is not growing into her full potential. 
she knows how to play basic guitar and piano but her two main talents are her singing and ability to harmonize and understand different parts of music and her lyricism. 
can definitely be a drama queen at times. 
very adamant about using her platform to speak up for things when she can. her and her group faced a lot of hardships and discrimination within the industry because they were made up of a group of young women of color and she wants to make it easier for others to achieve their dreams, even if they weren’t born famous or rich. 
can definitely be judgement and bossy at times but will also 100% be there for you and supportive of you when you need her. 
she’s bisexual but the media hasn’t really caught wind of that yet. in the past, her management was adamant that she hide it but now it’s a thing where even if she is spotted with a girl, it’s very “just gals being pals” type headlines that usually come from it. 
she’s smart about her image and pretty much everything she does can make headlines. she’s usually pretty good about keeping her shit in line. she’s had advantageous relationships, both for pr and forreal and she’s something of a trendsetter in a lot of cases. luna dates someone and they’re hollywoods hottest couple, luna wears something and suddenly everyone on instagram is wearing it too. 
does a lot of philanthropy and likes to travel whenever she can. 
she’s friendly and open but don’t piss her off or stand in her way or be on some bs ‘cause she’s helped her and her girls fight their way to the top and she can be ruthless to her enemies, though only when she absolutely has to be. she probably has a little too much fight in her for her own good. 
constantly rumors of her going solo. her and her bandmates have an understanding where they’re chill with doing some individual work (i.e. releasing a single, doing a movie or tv show, starting their own fashion line, etc.) because they know the group’s more important and they’re always coming back to it but luna lately has been kind of worried they’re going to split up and she doesn’t want them to because they’re basically like sisters to her at this point since they grew up together. 
admittedly, luna does want to release her own solo album and she has been brought other projects but the group comes first and they’re working on their fifth studio album together. 
can probably find her working late or running off in the middle of something because she suddenly gets an idea. she also carries this cute lil notebook around with her for jotting down ideas and yes she could technically use her phone but she likes the tangibility of physically writing stuff down.
she always grew up in a house that was very much a home--always open to other people and her parents always willing to bring in food and entertain for the holidays, etc. and that’s how she likes her place now. she’s made her house just how she likes it and the door’s always open if you need someplace to crash for the night and no matter the hour, she’ll put the kettle on, whip up or order some food, and get the guest room ready. 
that’s luna! i’m working on a connections/wanted connections page now but in the meantime, my messages are open to plot or if you like this i can come to u!
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markhotstar · 3 years
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Prime 10 YouTube Clips About Hotstar Premium Accounts
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aion-rsa · 3 years
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Marvel’s Hawkeye Trailer Breakdown and Analysis
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With What If…? still in the middle of streaming on Disney+, it’s never too early to start thinking about MCU Christmas, and the first Hawkeye trailer has arrived to let us get a feel of that expensive present way ahead of time, even as Marvel continues to add the bows (sorry) and trimmings to Clint Barton’s upcoming TV series behind the scenes.
Starring Jeremy Renner reprising his role as Barton/Hawkeye and introducing Hailee Steinfeld to the MCU as his eager archery prodigy Kate Bishop, Hawkeye also boasts a supporting cast that features Vera Farmiga, Fra Fee, Tony Dalton, Zahn McClarnon, Brian d’Arcy James, and Alaqua Cox as Maya Lopez (aka Echo). There’s no sign of Florence Pugh’s Black Widow character Yelena Bolova in the trailer, but you can expect to see her pop up, too. The series has been directed by Rhys Thomas (Documentary Now!, Comrade Detective) and duo Bert and Bertie (The Great).
Now, if you haven’t seen that Hawkeye trailer yet, check it out below…
And here’s an official synopsis from Marvel:
“Former Avenger Clint Barton has a seemingly simple mission: get back to his family for Christmas. Possible? Maybe with the help of Kate Bishop, a 22-year-old archer with dreams of becoming a Super Hero. The two are forced to work together when a presence from Barton’s past threatens to derail far more than the festive spirit.”
Hawkeye will be heading our way at the end of November, but the trailer does give us a pretty good idea of what to expect, so we’re breaking down everything we learned from it right here.
Matt Fraction
Like so much of the MCU, Hawkeye isn’t adapting any particular storyline beat-for-beat. It is, however, drawing a lot from one particular (and excellent) run of comics. Matt Fraction and David Aja’s Hawkeye series is essential reading, not just if you’re a Marvel fan, but if you love comics in general. A lot of the characters (human and otherwise) that we’re meeting here, and the general tone of Clint as an exhausted everyman getting his ass handed to him at every opportunity, are really straight out of those stories.
Linda Cardellini
It’s winter in New York and Clint is determined to give his kids a proper post-blip holiday. During the events of Avengers: Endgame, Clint was able to help bring his family back from Thanos’ brutal Snap, so it looks like he’s going to go all out this Christmas with dinner and tickets to the hottest new show in town: Rogers: The Musical (more on that in a bit).
But missing from the family trip is Clint’s doting wife Laura (Linda Cardellini). Perhaps she couldn’t join the gang in New York for whatever reason (Cardellini may have been busy filming Dead to Me Season 3), but we do later see Clint assuring Laura on the phone that he’ll be back with her very soon.
Clint Barton’s Hearing Aids
The character of Hawkeye has been depicted as partially deaf in the comics at multiple points in his history since the early 1980s. It’s never been implied that the MCU’s Clint Barton suffers from hearing loss, but Clint is clearly shown wearing hearing aids in the trailer. We’ll probably get some kind of in-universe explanation for this, but really, Clint has been around enough explosions in his life that it’s probably self-explanatory. Now, in the comics, the incident that brought on new hearing loss for Clint was tied very directly to the story that this show is drawing a lot of inspiration from, but we won’t get into that for now.
The Captain America Musical
We get an amazing glimpse of the Captain America show that Clint is taking his kids to. Rogers: The Musical even has its rave reviews plastered outside the theater, like “a timeless story of a timeless hero” and “a super-powered sensation” but the actual stage performance is just so wild.
Actors cheaply dressed as Thor, Loki, and Tony Stark perform a group number while a couple portraying Clint and Natasha Romanoff are higher up on stage. The actor playing Steve looks like more like Antony Starr’s Homelander in The Boys than Steve Rogers, but the jury’s out on whether that’s purely accidental or a cheeky nod to Amazon’s uber-violent superhero series.
A Captain America musical really was genuinely in the works at one point, and if you’re not familiar with that very strange tale, we wrote about it in more detail here.
Kate Bishop
There’s a lot of Hailee Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop in this trailer, as you would expect from a series that plans to hand the Hawkeye mantle onto her, just as Marvel did in the comics.
From how we understand it, Kate is Hawkeye’s biggest fan, and has modeled her “world’s greatest archer” thing on him. Something tells us that she’s going to be a little disappointed in her hero once she gets to hang out with him up close, as their relationship in the comics is definitely not your usual superhero/sidekick dynamic. Expect lots of fun banter and exasperated looks from both.
Young Avengers
The arrival of Kate is yet another massive key to what appears to be the MCU’s version of the Young Avengers being slowly introduced through all these Disney+ shows. WandaVision brought Wiccan and Speed to the party, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier gave us Elijah Bradley, and Loki introduced Kid Loki. While we wouldn’t expect this any time before 2023, it sure does look like Disney+ wants an MCU Young Avengers show in the not-too-distant future.
Ronin
If you thought the MCU was going to forget Clint’s Ronin killing spree during the Blip, you thought wrong. It looks like the damage he inflicted on criminal gangs during the time he stayed off the grid is going to come back and bite him in the ass during this series, reignited by Hawkeye fangirl Kate Bishop choosing to don the Ronin garb and dish out some local justice with her bow and arrow.
The Ronin situation did seem to have been quickly swept under the rug when Natasha dragged Clint back to Avengers HQ for some time travel shenanigans in Endgame, but we learn here that there are plenty of people who haven’t forgotten Clint’s vengeful sword work, and they’re extremely pissed off.
News reports in this trailer (which come via actual NYC local cable news outlet NY1 rather than the usual fictional MCU channels) indicate that people think that Kate’s darkly hooded attire means that Ronin is back, but we have another theory on this…
Is Ronin really Maya Lopez/Echo?
We’re pretty sure we only get one very brief shot of Alacqua Cox’s Maya Lopez in this trailer. Maya Lopez briefly took on the Ronin identity in the comics, as well, and began her career as a Daredevil antagonist (we’re not going to open the MCU Daredevil can of worms just yet). Is it possible that when we first meet Echo here, she’s hunting down Clint while wearing the Ronin garb?
If that’s the case, then the individual in the Ronin costume wielding a sword during what appears to be a little dust-up at a renaissance fair isn’t Kate, but Maya! Echo has the Taskmaster-esque ability to mimic other people’s fighting styles, so it’s easy to imagine how easily she could pick up a sword and become a big hit at an event like this. Anyway, while we can’t be sure, for the moment our money is on this being our first real look at Echo in the MCU.
Vera Farmiga
The Conjuring and Bates Motel star Vera Farmiga is playing Kate’s mom Eleanor Bishop in Hawkeye. The character seems very fancy from the brief shot we get of her, and that’s no accident. In the comics, Eleanor was the matriarch of a very wealthy Manhattanite family.
She apparently died at one point but was later revealed to be very not dead, and behind the actions of Kate’s nemesis, Madame Masque. You don’t get Vera Farmiga in for a throwaway role, do you? Nah, we can almost definitely expect some villainous stuff from the actress here, but those secrets are kept closely guarded in this first trailer. Did we mention that she might also be a vampire? Look, comics are wild, folks.
We have more details on who she’s playing here.
Lucky the Pizza Dog
The very best boy in all of Marvel Comics history finally makes his live action debut. While Clint and Kate were the obvious headliners of Matt Fraction and David Aja’s Hawkeye comic, Lucky was unquestionably the third star, even getting an entire issue told solely from his canine point-of-view. It is, no joke, one of the best single issues of any Marvel comic of this century and you should read it immediately.
You’ll note that Lucky appears to have only one eye in this pic. That’s because Clint names him “Lucky” since the poor pup is anything but. Kinda like Clint himself. Pet Avengers, please continue to assemble!
Tracksuit Draculas
The “tracksuit mafia” are a group of low level Russian organized crime operatives who make it their business to harass Clint Barton. We don’t appear to see their boss, the Clown (played by Fra Free) anywhere in this trailer, but these guys aren’t terribly bright, are pretty ruthless, and like to refer to everyone and everything as “bro.”
It’s definitely them chasing Clint and Kate, not just as evidenced by the fact that someone is hanging out the window of a car while clearly outfitted in a tracksuit, but also because of this delightful detail:
Well, bros? What did you think? Did you spot anything we missed? Let us know in the comments!
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Hawkeye will be streaming on Disney+ from November 24.
The post Marvel’s Hawkeye Trailer Breakdown and Analysis appeared first on Den of Geek.
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morganbelarus · 5 years
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A Definitive Ranking Of Miley Cyrus Exes Betches
In case you missed it, a Christmas miracle took place last weekend, and I’m not even talking about my mother uttering the words “you were right” in my presence. No, last weekend Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth GOT MARRIED in a private ceremony held in their Nashville home. That’s right, the woman who made twerking a national pastime and the second-hottest Hemsworth brother are married. Are you squealing yet? BECAUSE I AM SQUEALING. I don’t know about you, but I’d say this is definitive proof that love is real you can get your ex back after miming a sex act during your VMAs performance and it’s a win for me, personally delusional girls all over the world.  
Now, if you’ll recall, the couple met in 2009 on the set of The Last Song, way back when Miley had brown hair and was still legally allowed to associate with the Disney Channel. Ah, simpler times. They first got engaged in 2012, before calling it off a year later so Miley could have her space to grow as a person go through that wild phase.
Sure, Jan. Whatever you have to tell yourself to sleep at night.
But they reconnected in 2015 and seemed to be really happy, despite the fact that it made her new music only subpar. (Sorry, but it’s true.) Personally, I’ve been rooting for these two for a long time. And I’m not just saying that because after a drinking a bottle of moscato I used to drunk dial my ex and belt “Wrecking Ball” into his voicemail box. No, I’m genuinely rooting for Miley and Liam as only a complete stranger with no personal or emotional ties to them can. And now they’re married!! So to celebrate the occasion, I thought it would be fun to revisit her exes in what I like to call “Thank U, Next: The Miley Cyrus Edition.” Let’s get started, shall we?
6. Justin Gaston
If you’re wondering who this person is, you’re not alone, because I had to Google him as well. According to his IMDB page his greatest claim to fame is playing Romeo in Taylor Swift’s “Love Story” music video. So basically he’s about as relevant as my Juicy tracksuit Plato’s Closet passed on last weekend. They dated for about nine months when Miley was 15, and broke up right before she went to film The Last Song. Some say they broke up because she rekindled her friendship with Nick Jonas, and I guess 20 year old Justin felt threatened by a 14-year-old boy with a straightening iron, but I think it’s because she realized he was going about as far as Nashville’s Broad Street. Last place for you, Justin.
5. Patrick Schwarzenegger
After Miley called off her engagement to Liam, she dated Patrick Schwarzenegger for about five months and, honestly, it’s a solid rebound. The boy is fiiiine in, like, a preppy, rich kid who will definitely keep your nudes for revenge porn kind of way. So snaps for you, Miley. They broke up after photos surfaced of Patrick hanging out with his ex, which feels very on brand for him personally. He gets fifth place because he reminds me of my ex while he’s p attractive he’s also probably a piece of sh*t and I’m not tolerating a**holes for one more godd*mn minute in 2018.
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Patley at pre-grammys party in 2014. #mileyfuckingcyrus #mileyraycyrus #destinyhopecyrus #destinyhope #smiley #smileymiley #relationshipgoals #couple #patrickschwarzenegger #mileycyrus #mileyandpatrick #grammys #patley #patleyforever #cutest #couplegoals
A post shared by MILEY FUCKING CYRUS (@mileymileys) on Jan 30, 2018 at 6:12am PST
4. Stella Maxwell
I have nothing to say about this relationship mostly because I don’t think there was a relationship. There were rumors that Miley and Stella Maxwell were dating in 2015 because they made out a few times in public but, like, what’s your point? If I had to formally acknowledge every person I make out with I would legit need witness protection. Nah, I’m not buying it. This was also the year that Miley and Liam reconnected, so let’s call this what it is: too many vodka crans. Next.
3. Dylan Sprouse
Lol. I know, right? According to Popsugar the two dated for “a day when they were 11 or 12” and a day is all it takes for me to be jealous of any b*tch lucky enough to date a Sprouse. For those of you who read my Riverdale recaps, you know The CW has been making me feel things about a Sprouse that is legit making me question my mental health. And even though Miley only dated the twin whose most successful business venture since The Suite Life has been opening a “meadery” in Williamsburg, I’m still ridiculously jealous.
2. Liam Hemsworth
Technically, Liam was her ex at some point so he makes the list. He’s not number one because although I root for him, there’s someone else who tops the list. SORRY NOT SORRY. Which brings us to my favorite Miley ex…
1. Nick Jonas
Nick f*cking Jonas. That’s right, people, I still stan this relationship and I will stan this relationship until either one of them releases a song that’s better than “Before The Storm.” I’m sorry but “Standing out in the rain /Need to know if it’s over /Flooded with all this pain /Knowing that I’ll never hold her /Like I did before the storm”?? F*cking iconic. I don’t care that Nick gave his purity ring to Priyanka Chopra or that Miley and Liam have been together for ten years, 14 year old me is still hoping Disney will pull rank their contracts out and make them contractually obligated to write another teenage love ballad. PLEASE IT’S ALL I ASK FOR.
But, like, every happiness to you and Liam, Miley!
Images: Giphy (3); @mileymileys /Instagram (1)
Original Article : HERE ; This post was curated & posted using : RealSpecific
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weekendwarriorblog · 6 years
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WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND – June 8
For the first time since April, the box office won’t be topped by either a superhero or a Star Wars movie, and maybe it’s the sigh of relief the box office needs after last week’s disappointing showing. This weekend is just as much a mixed bag but the one movie that’s likely to dethrone Solo is Steven Soderbergh’s re-imagining of his Ocean’s 11 remake with  some of the hottest female stars around. Other than that, there’s a couple of buzzworthy movies that are likely to split business.
OCEAN’S 8 (Warner Bros.)
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This weekend’s “big” movie isn’t exactly a sequel or a remake, but it’s a movie that has its roots in a movie that not only was a remake but also led to two sequels. In this case, it’s the return of the high concept heist movie that helped pave the way for Steven Soderbergh to become a studio director after forging his path on indies. Before we get to the box office history of Ocean’s 11 and its sequels, we should look at what makes Ocean’s 8 special, and that’s just one word: WOMEN! That’s right. Someone, whether it was someone at Warner Bros. or Soderbergh himself, came up with a modern-day twist to help reinvigorate the heist franchise and that was by bringing together some of the biggest woman actors in the business including four Oscar winners.
There’s no question that having Oscar winners and box office stars like Sandra Bullock, Anne Hathway, Cate Blanchett and Helena Bonham Carter on your masthead is going to make Ocean’s 8 a big draw for both women and men, but there’s a lot more to the movie than just that. The premise of a group of women robbing the annual Met Gala in New York City seems like the perfect way for the franchise to go, and though Soderbergh himself isn’t directing, he is producing with filmmaker Gary Ross at the helm. (Ross, in case you didn’t know the name is a four-time Oscar nominee for movies like Seabiscuit and Big, plus he successfully brought Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games to the big screen, turning it into a $400 million blockbuster.)
Now let’s get to some box office history….
Released in December 2001, Ocean’s 11 was partially a blockbuster hit because Soderbergh had just won an Oscar for Traffic, but he also was able to remake the classic Rat Pack movie with a modern version of the Rat Pack, namely George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts and Matt Damon, who were already becoming box office stars on their own. (The movie also starred Don Cheadle pre-Iron Man, Casey Affleck pre-Oscar and many more.) The movie opened with $38 million in the normally slow early December and then grossed $183 million thanks to holiday legs. Its sequel Ocean’s 12 opened on a similar Dec. weekend with $39.1 million and grossed $125 million, but it wasn’t received as well. Still, it made $362 million worldwide on a $110 million budget so Warner Bros./Soderbergh gave it another go and Ocean’s 13 opened softer on the same day (June 8) in 2007 to a weaker $36 million and $117 million domestic. So that’s it. Franchise over, right?
Nope… go forward ten or so years and someone comes up with the idea to have a bunch of women doing a heist, and though Julia Roberts is nowhere to be seen, but Sandra Bullock continues to be an even bigger star, especially after winning an Oscar for The Blind Side ($256 mill. domestic gross) and being nominated for Gravity ($274 mill.). She also co-starred with Melissa McCarthy in Paul Feig’s action-comedy The Heat ($159 mill.) although her 2015 film Our Brand Is Crisis was a huge bomb, grossing just $7 million. Still, that movie is definitely an outlier.
Anne Hathaway has been a star for almost seventeen years since her early appearance in Disney’s The Princess Diaries, but she’s followed that with big studio blockbusters like Disney’s Alice in Wonderland, hit animated movies (Rio and its sequel), awards-worthy musicals like Les Miserables (for which she won her Oscar), as well as Christopher Nolan blockbusters like The Dark Knight Rises (as Catwoman) and Interstellar. For women in their 20s and 30s, Hathaway could be one of the bigger draws as they’re likely to have grown up with her.
The Oscar-worthy cast continues with Cate Blanchett (fresh off her Marvel debut in Thor: Ragnarok) and Helena Bonham Carter, who also appeared in Les Miserables, but that followed her role in the last few Harry Pottermovies, her Oscar nomination for The King’s Speech, Disney’s Alice in Wonderland and more. That’s not to take anything away from the likes of Rihanna and Mindy Kaling, each of whom have their respective audiences, as well as the relative newcomer, New York’s own Awkwafina. The diverse mix of women featured in the movie should help bring in a similarly diverse audience of women.
It’s also related that in July 2015, Sony released Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters, which changed genders to focus on four hilarious women comics, something which was met with outrage by male Ghostbusters fans, but still opened with $46 million and grossed $128.3 million domestically. (Unfortunately, it also cost $144 million and the $100 million made overseas didn’t help matters.)
Even so, that seems like a pretty good barometer for Ocean’s 8, even though it’s likely to be targeting older women even though it has the same PG-13 rating as Ocean’s 8.  Reviews so far haven’t been bad with 77% Fresh on RottenTomatoes(just slightly higher than Ghostbusters), and that will certainly make a difference since negative reviews could have destroyed it.
In other words, Ocean’s 8has a lot going for it even without a lot of direct competition, so expect it to do very well with high-$30 millions on the low-end but more likely more than $40 million. We’ll have to see if it can get past the next two weeks of blockbusters to surpass the total for Ocean’s Thirteen, but there’s a good chance that the names involved will help the movie do well overseas as well.
HEREDITARY (A24)
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If all of the great female actors in Ocean’s 8 wasn’t enough for you, and you like the movies you see to scare your pants off (and then give you nightmares about walking around without pants), then you’ll probably want to check out Toni Collette in this directorial debut by Ari Aster.
One of the bigger buzz movies to come out of the Midnight section of Sundance in January, the raves and hyperbole for Aster’s horror movie are not unwarranted, although this isn’t your typical high concept horror i.e. it’s not based on a popular party game like Ouija or Truth or Dare.
Collette is a solid actor who was nominated for an Oscar for her performance in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense and has appeared in a number of great indies in the decades since, including this week’s Hearts Beat Loud (see below). She’s joined by Alex Wolff, one half of the Disney Channel’s “Naked Brothers Band” with brother Nate, who recently appeared in the Sony hit Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, as well as Gabriel Byrne, another well-established dramatic actor. It’s hard to tell whether Wolff will help the movie bring in the younger audience who normally would be apt to see a horror movie that could potentially eff ‘em up, but more discerning moviegoers should appreciate Colette and Byrne for sure.
A24 has had decent success with horror movies in the past, specifically Robert Eggers’ The Witch, released in Feb. 2016 (a year after its similarly rave-worthy Sundance debut) to open with $8.8 million and make $25 million total. Last year’s It Comes at Night opened on the same early June weekend and didn’t fare as well (less than $6 million opening and under $14 million total).
The question now is what makes Hereditary different from those two? First of all, it’s set in the present day and disguises itself as a grieving family drama, but when the supernatural enters the mix, the movie becomes something that has the potential of buzz on the level of The Blair Witch Project or even The Exorcist.
If you’re a horror fan, hopefully you haven’t ruined some of the movie’s bigger surprises by reading too much about it, but you’ll definitely want to see the movie. The movie’s 93% Fresh on RottenTomatoesis better than the two A24 horror films mentioned above, which also should build interest.
That drive by horror fans to see the movie as soon as possible and A24 potentially getting the movie into more theaters due to the timing i.e. post-Deadpool 2 and pre-Incredibles 2 should help the movie open in the low teens. Even if it winds up closer to $10 million, that would still make it A24’s biggest opener to date.
My Review
HOTEL ARTEMIS (Global Road)
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Continuing the theme of great women actors, this crime-thriller from Drew Pearce, his feature film directorial debut after writing Iron Man 3 and Mission Impossible – Rogue Nation, stars Jodie Foster, another great actor who has been fairly dormant in the last few years. In fact, it’s been five years since Foster appeared opposite Matt Damon in Neill Blomkamp’s unfortunate sci-fi movie Elysium. (It did okay worldwide, grossing $286 million, but it was a disappointment cause Foster wasn’t very good in it.)
Foster is joined by David Bautista, the former WWE superstar best known for playing Drax in Guardians of the Galaxy and the recent Avengers: Infinity War; Sterling K. Brown, the Emmy-winning This is Usstar who recently appeared in Black Panther; Sofia Boutella from Star Trek Beyond, The Mummy (ouch!) and Atomic Blonde; Zachary Quinto, also from Star Trek; Jenny Slate and Jeff Goldblum (making barely a cameo).
That seems like a pretty strong cast for an action movie except that Hotel Artemis is more of a high-concept crime thriller set in the title location, a hospital/safe haven for criminals who pay to become members.
This is only the second release from the newly-named Global Road (formerly Open Road) after the unfortunate Show Dogs, and it will be another test to see if their marketing is reaching the right audiences and doing much to get them interested.
This one is certainly going to have a tough time making a mark over the male-driven blockbusters still in theaters as well as the two movies above, and because of that, I can see this one ending with a disappointing $6 to 7 million this weekend and not more than $20 million total.
Mini-Review: While Pearce’s directorial debut should be the type of movie I would normally like, the bad tends to outweigh the good as his screenplay just isn’t up to the snuff. Some of the dialogue is so bad at times that you may wonder how Pearce got prestigious actors like Sterling K. Brown and Foster on board. They offer the best performances, the former as a would-be bank robber who comes to the Hotel Artemis for medical help after a botched robbery and the latter as Nurse, who runs the Hotel Artemis.  It’s certainly an intriguing concept to have a hotel/hospital for criminals willing to pay a hefty sum for membership, but this concept is used as the centerpiece for pseudo-sci-fi storytelling on par with The Purge movies, as criminals come to Hotel Artemis to hide from the law or evade the riots outside. There are certainly some interesting characters, although Dave Bautista’s bouncer/orderly doesn’t offer much range from other roles he’s played. Same with Sofia Boutella, who at least has a terrific hallway fight on par with Old Boy.  Although Foster is decent, you might wonder why she was made to look so old, and spurred Charlie Day to do give such an over-the-top performance with a horrible accent.  Jenny Slate and Zachary Quinto are so miscast as a social worker who knew Nurse’s dead son and the son of the city’s biggest crime lord that one wonders if they were Pearce’s first choice.  Worst of all, Hotel Artemis sells itself as an action movie but then offers very little action as most of the film is exposition from Nurse about her son, and the film quickly fizzles out and never quite recovers. Rating: 5.5/10
Ocean’s 8should win the weekend with relative ease, and though Hereditary might be held back by stronger returning fare, it could also pull off a surprise second place, mainly due to fans of quality horror not having much to appease them so far this year. Solo will have another drop putting it very close to Deadpool 2 in its fourth weekend, while Hotel Artemis will probably have to settle for a few scraps.
This is what the Top 10 should look like…
1. Ocean’s 8 (Warner Bros.) - $41.2 million N/A
2. Hereditary (A24) – $13.8 million N/A *
3. Solo: A Star Wars Story (Lucasfilm/Disney) - $13.5 million -54%
4. Deadpool 2 (20thCentury Fox) - $13 million -44%
5. Adrift (STX Entertainment) - $6.8 million -40%
6. Hotel Artemis (Global Road) - $6.5 million N/A *
7. Avengers: Infinity Warc (Marvel/Disney) - $5.8 million -45%
8. Book Clubc (Paramount) – $5.1 million -25%
9. Upgrade (BH Tilt) – $2.4 million -50%
10. Life of the Party (New Line / WB) – $2 million -43%
* Both these new movies are being released into more theaters than the estimated theater counts, Hereditary by more than 700 theaters, so that makes it even more possible that it will do even better than my original projection.
LIMITED RELEASES
One of my faves from Sundance is released this Friday as well as a hot Sundance doc that I only saw more recently but is already my favorite movie of the year.
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First up is Hearts Beat Loud (Gunpowder and Sky), the new movie from filmmaker Brett Haley, who directed last year’s The Hero (which made my Top 10) and I’ll See You In My Dreams before that. This one stars Nick Offerman and Kiersey Clemons (Dope) as a father and daughter who (sort of) start a band together, but there’s more to it than that, as Offerman’s Frank Fisher owns a Red Hook record store that’s in danger of going out of business while his daughter Sam is preparing to head off to L.A. to pursue a career in medicine and is torn when she falls for an artist, played by Sasha Lane. The movie also stars Toni Collette, Ted Danson and Blythe Danner, and it features some amazingly catchy songs by Keegan Dewitt (who also did music for Haley’s previous films).
My Interview with Brett Haley, Nick Offerman and Kiersey Clemons
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Next up is not only going to be the best movie of the weekend but possibly of the entire year and that is Morgan Neville‘s documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (Focus Features), which you may have guessed, is about Fred Rogers of the beloved PBS show “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.” If you’re like me, you watched this show religiously as a youth, and Neville does an absolutely fantastic job telling his story and covering some of the highlights of his life. So far, this is not only my favorite doc of the year but also my favorite movie of any kind. Neville finds a way to tell Rogers’ story in a distinctive way that really tugs at the heartstrings, and if you’re not completely sobbing your way through this movie, then you just don’t have a soul. (I’m talking to you, Dan Schindel of The Film Stage! Are you kidding me? A “C”?!?)
Andrea Riseborough stars in Christina Coe’s Nancy (Samuel Goldwyn), a drama that premiered at Sundance but one I wasn’t too crazy about even though I generally like Riseborough. In this one, she plays an odd woman living with her abusive mother (Ann Dowd, who also appears in Hereditary) who pretends to be the long-lost and estranged daughter of a couple played by Steve Buscemi and J. Smith Cameron.
I’m more thrilled that the Korean blockbuster Believer (Well GO USA) will be released into select theater this weekend. Lee Hae-young’s crime-thriller is about an investigator who is trying to bring down the head of Asia’s biggest drug cartel along with a disgruntled member of his gang. Check out the trailer below:
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A comedy that premiered at Slamdance and is getting release in theaters and On Demand is Dan Mirvish’s Bernard and Huey (Freestyle Digital Media), written by legendary columnist and cartoonist Jules Feiffer and starring David Koechner and Jim Rash.  They play friends from college who reconnect when Huey (Koechner) crashes at Bernard’s place as the latter has fallen in love with the former’s daughter Zelda (Mae Whitman).  In return, Huey tries to seduce the women in Bernard’s life.  
Also in select cities and On Demand is Colin McIvor’s Zoo (Samuel Goldwyn) about a group of young friends who try to save a baby elephant during the 1941 air raids over Belfast, Ireland. Art Parkinson (Game of Thrones) stars along with Toby Jones and Penelope Wilton.
As far as other docs, we get Lorna Tucker’s Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist (Greenwich), which is about Malcolm McLaren’s former partner, Dame Vivienne Westwood, who helped redefine British fashion over the course of 40 years.  After premiering at Sundance, the doc opens in New York Friday at the IFC Centerand in L.A. at the Nuart on June 15.
Opening in L.A. is Miao Wang’s doc Maineland (Abramorama) as the Beijing Taxi director spent three years in China and the U.S. to tell a story of two Chinese teenagers, Stella and Harry, as they attend a boarding school in rural Maine as “parachute students.” It won a special jury prize at SXSW.
The Quest of Alain Ducasse (Magnolia) is Gilles de Maistre’s French doc about the world-famous chef who manages 24 restaurants in eight countries and is preparing to open a new restaurant in the Château de Versailles.  Haven’t seen this yet, but it will be available On Demand as well as at New York’s Quad Cinema.
Speaking of New York theaters, my beloved local theater, the Metrographwill be playing restorations of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1963 film Dementia 13 along with his daughter Sofia Coppola’s early short Lick the Star from 1998. They’ll also continue with the Kubrick and Jane Fonda retrospectives and Bill Gunn’s Ganja and Hess.
#movies #weekendwarrior #BoxOffice #Oceans8 #Hereditary #HotelArtemis
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At Raw 25, WWE Remains Mired In Nostalgia For Itself
On Monday night, the Empire State Building lit up red for the 25th anniversary of Raw, a frankly surreal bit of mainstream recognition for the unreal. But also, a 25th anniversary isn’t contrived like, say, a 1,000 episode celebration. The last time WWE broadcast this kind of spectacle of its own self-regard was 2012’s Raw 1000. Years are real and measurable in a way episode counts aren’t. And where Raw 1000 had its share of returning old-timers and legends for cameos, the 25th anniversary show was swimming in them. Not least was the opener, which consisted of Vince McMahon heeling it up with his kids to the Brooklyn crowd before Stone Cold Steve Austin came down, delivering stunners to both he and Shane McMahon. It was delightful in a way which will still feel good five years from now, unlike the limp D-X intro for Raw 1000.
On that Monday six years ago, the 1000th episode of the show marked Raw’s transition to three hour episodes, a decision which has contributed to the sense of malaise which accompanies the show’s off-peak episodes (where peak episodes are WrestleMania and SummerSlam seasons).
Three hours of pro wrestling each and every Monday, followed by two on Tuesdays with Smackdown, makes for turgid viewing, especially when they’re produced by a company so prone to seasonal doldrums as WWE is. The fact is that Raw is usually must-miss television, outside a couple 10 minute segments which WWE helpfully posts on its YouTube channel as an official reminder that cool things can still happen amidst all the trading of wins and meandering promos. As a reminder, Braun Strowman is their hottest property (even if they don’t fully realize it yet) primarily because what he does fits so well into those digestible bites of pro wrestling goodness WWE manages to slice away from the bloated Raw; his destruction of a truck netted 7.3 million views at the time of writing, a good five to seven times the number of views most of their videos get.
Before the 25th anniversary special, I rewatched as much of Raw 1000 as I could stomach. It was too long from the get-go. The pacing issues were immediately apparent. No number of yesterday’s stars could cover that up, at least not once the immediacy of their presence was gone. Yes, Raw 1000 opened with D-X, Bret Hart was there, and The Rock was in a big angle in the totally good main event between CM Punk and John Cena. There were also a whopping five matches for a grand total of about 28 minutes of wrestling. In three hours.
Still, the Strowman views don’t lie, and given how into the WWE Network, streaming, and social media the promotion is, there has to be a sense that they could theoretically leave cable television behind. A report in Variety hints at Facebook and Amazon possibly bidding on WWE’s broadcast rights, which are up for renegotiation soon. There’s a lot of corporate nonsense in there about content platforms and symbiosis, but WWE seems less than committed to USA, even as it pays lip service to its long-time home.
And there’s no way around the elephant in the room: Vince McMahon is old and seems restless. He’s registered a new entertainment venture which seems aimed at doing something with the defunct punchline of the XFL. A revamp seems like it could have slightly better odds given that the quality of the NFL mostly stinks, and that there’s a rabid, if small, group of the population who would go nuts for a Trump sanctioned, everyone-stands-for-the-anthem take on football. Dave Meltzer, while claiming no certain knowledge, stated on an episode of his podcast that he wouldn’t be surprised to see Vince sell out to someone—Disney, Fox, another corporation—in the next few years. Toss in the continuing global surge by New Japan and there’s a sense that WWE is on different, less sure ground than they were at the time of Raw 1000.
This was the backdrop for the 25th anniversary episode of Raw. It certainly felt like a bigger deal than the prior celebration of the self. But Raw fell into the nostalgia trap, as did I and countless other viewers. The legitimately fun sight of Austin delivering a Stunner to the septuagenarian Vince McMahon gave way to the Family Guy dynamic of pro wrestling pops: someone comes out, you recognize someone, you cheer, and they disappear. You thrill to the recognition, not the context or execution.
The nostalgia extended, disastrously, to space, as well. Someone at WWE decided it would be a good idea to broadcast from both the Barclay’s Center and Manhattan Center, the former to get 15,000 fans on television, the latter as a callback to Raw’s early days, when it was a staple at the venue. Only not much happened in Manhattan, save brief appearances by The Undertaker and D-Generation X, and a not terribly good match between the out-of-gas Bray Wyatt and certain to be overexposed Woken Matt Hardy. The rest of the time, the crowd—who paid hundreds of dollars for tickets—watched glorified dark matches and a big screen broadcast of the fun stuff going on at Barclay’s. It didn’t go well, with the crowd vociferously angry at the lack of action. Going to a bar to watch wrestling can be fun; it’s not $500 fun.
It would be a dour asshole, indeed, who says there was zero fun to be had at an event like Monday’s episode of Raw. There was some fun, just not enough. There was some substance, but not nearly enough. Paul Heyman summed it up at the end when he announced the arrival of Brock Lesnar: Lesnar wasn’t there for nostalgia, he was there to be relevant. Even at Raw 1000, The Rock stuck around for his match with John Cena at WrestleMania that year.
That substance may end up being Daniel Bryan. When he showed up with the Raw General Managers, he received a rapturous ovation. Here we are, years from his Wrestlemania moment and subsequent retirement, and he’s still the most over guy on the roster. That says an awful lot about WWE’s strengths and weaknesses: the weight of moments on a stage that big and gaudy can mean so much, but they still haven’t found someone to take his place, and it’s not down to a dearth of talent, but an unwillingness to ride the hot hand, whether that was Dean Ambrose two years ago or Shinsuke Nakamura on his debut.
No wonder, then, that the restless Daniel Bryan, who keeps threatening to come back if WWE would only clear him, is rumored to be both a surprise entrant in and possible winner of Sunday’s Royal Rumble. Even if it doesn’t come off, it points to the difficult situation WWE has created for itself and why the sand might be shifting beneath its feet, ever so slowly. Today is never as good as yesterday and, by definition, cannot be, because as soon as it is as good, it is consigned to yesterday. If it intrudes on the present, it still belongs to the past, an interloper into the now, owned and trademarked by World Wrestling Entertainment.
At Raw 25, WWE Remains Mired In Nostalgia For Itself syndicated from https://australiahoverboards.wordpress.com
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flauntpage · 6 years
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At Raw 25, WWE Remains Mired In Nostalgia For Itself
On Monday night, the Empire State Building lit up red for the 25th anniversary of Raw, a frankly surreal bit of mainstream recognition for the unreal. But also, a 25th anniversary isn’t contrived like, say, a 1,000 episode celebration. The last time WWE broadcast this kind of spectacle of its own self-regard was 2012’s Raw 1000. Years are real and measurable in a way episode counts aren’t. And where Raw 1000 had its share of returning old-timers and legends for cameos, the 25th anniversary show was swimming in them. Not least was the opener, which consisted of Vince McMahon heeling it up with his kids to the Brooklyn crowd before Stone Cold Steve Austin came down, delivering stunners to both he and Shane McMahon. It was delightful in a way which will still feel good five years from now, unlike the limp D-X intro for Raw 1000.
On that Monday six years ago, the 1000th episode of the show marked Raw’s transition to three hour episodes, a decision which has contributed to the sense of malaise which accompanies the show’s off-peak episodes (where peak episodes are WrestleMania and SummerSlam seasons).
Three hours of pro wrestling each and every Monday, followed by two on Tuesdays with Smackdown, makes for turgid viewing, especially when they’re produced by a company so prone to seasonal doldrums as WWE is. The fact is that Raw is usually must-miss television, outside a couple 10 minute segments which WWE helpfully posts on its YouTube channel as an official reminder that cool things can still happen amidst all the trading of wins and meandering promos. As a reminder, Braun Strowman is their hottest property (even if they don’t fully realize it yet) primarily because what he does fits so well into those digestible bites of pro wrestling goodness WWE manages to slice away from the bloated Raw; his destruction of a truck netted 7.3 million views at the time of writing, a good five to seven times the number of views most of their videos get.
Before the 25th anniversary special, I rewatched as much of Raw 1000 as I could stomach. It was too long from the get-go. The pacing issues were immediately apparent. No number of yesterday’s stars could cover that up, at least not once the immediacy of their presence was gone. Yes, Raw 1000 opened with D-X, Bret Hart was there, and The Rock was in a big angle in the totally good main event between CM Punk and John Cena. There were also a whopping five matches for a grand total of about 28 minutes of wrestling. In three hours.
Still, the Strowman views don’t lie, and given how into the WWE Network, streaming, and social media the promotion is, there has to be a sense that they could theoretically leave cable television behind. A report in Variety hints at Facebook and Amazon possibly bidding on WWE’s broadcast rights, which are up for renegotiation soon. There’s a lot of corporate nonsense in there about content platforms and symbiosis, but WWE seems less than committed to USA, even as it pays lip service to its long-time home.
And there’s no way around the elephant in the room: Vince McMahon is old and seems restless. He’s registered a new entertainment venture which seems aimed at doing something with the defunct punchline of the XFL. A revamp seems like it could have slightly better odds given that the quality of the NFL mostly stinks, and that there’s a rabid, if small, group of the population who would go nuts for a Trump sanctioned, everyone-stands-for-the-anthem take on football. Dave Meltzer, while claiming no certain knowledge, stated on an episode of his podcast that he wouldn’t be surprised to see Vince sell out to someone—Disney, Fox, another corporation—in the next few years. Toss in the continuing global surge by New Japan and there’s a sense that WWE is on different, less sure ground than they were at the time of Raw 1000.
This was the backdrop for the 25th anniversary episode of Raw. It certainly felt like a bigger deal than the prior celebration of the self. But Raw fell into the nostalgia trap, as did I and countless other viewers. The legitimately fun sight of Austin delivering a Stunner to the septuagenarian Vince McMahon gave way to the Family Guy dynamic of pro wrestling pops: someone comes out, you recognize someone, you cheer, and they disappear. You thrill to the recognition, not the context or execution.
The nostalgia extended, disastrously, to space, as well. Someone at WWE decided it would be a good idea to broadcast from both the Barclay’s Center and Manhattan Center, the former to get 15,000 fans on television, the latter as a callback to Raw’s early days, when it was a staple at the venue. Only not much happened in Manhattan, save brief appearances by The Undertaker and D-Generation X, and a not terribly good match between the out-of-gas Bray Wyatt and certain to be overexposed Woken Matt Hardy. The rest of the time, the crowd—who paid hundreds of dollars for tickets—watched glorified dark matches and a big screen broadcast of the fun stuff going on at Barclay’s. It didn’t go well, with the crowd vociferously angry at the lack of action. Going to a bar to watch wrestling can be fun; it’s not $500 fun.
It would be a dour asshole, indeed, who says there was zero fun to be had at an event like Monday’s episode of Raw. There was some fun, just not enough. There was some substance, but not nearly enough. Paul Heyman summed it up at the end when he announced the arrival of Brock Lesnar: Lesnar wasn’t there for nostalgia, he was there to be relevant. Even at Raw 1000, The Rock stuck around for his match with John Cena at WrestleMania that year.
That substance may end up being Daniel Bryan. When he showed up with the Raw General Managers, he received a rapturous ovation. Here we are, years from his Wrestlemania moment and subsequent retirement, and he’s still the most over guy on the roster. That says an awful lot about WWE’s strengths and weaknesses: the weight of moments on a stage that big and gaudy can mean so much, but they still haven’t found someone to take his place, and it’s not down to a dearth of talent, but an unwillingness to ride the hot hand, whether that was Dean Ambrose two years ago or Shinsuke Nakamura on his debut.
No wonder, then, that the restless Daniel Bryan, who keeps threatening to come back if WWE would only clear him, is rumored to be both a surprise entrant in and possible winner of Sunday’s Royal Rumble. Even if it doesn’t come off, it points to the difficult situation WWE has created for itself and why the sand might be shifting beneath its feet, ever so slowly. Today is never as good as yesterday and, by definition, cannot be, because as soon as it is as good, it is consigned to yesterday. If it intrudes on the present, it still belongs to the past, an interloper into the now, owned and trademarked by World Wrestling Entertainment.
At Raw 25, WWE Remains Mired In Nostalgia For Itself published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/
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