While Tuesdays are generally reserved for things that I recommend wholeheartedly, there are a lot of things out there that are… well… less recommendable.
Though, to some extent, I enjoyed them anyway. I can say “You NEED to go out and not only spend money on this thing instead of other things but spend your time enjoying it instead of other things you could be enjoying!!!” about some albums (not as often as in the 90’s, of course) or video games (often!) or movies (rarely!) but it’s much, much more likely that I’d say “if you are in the right mood, and have an evening free, and are looking to be diverted, well… you could do worse than to spend your time with this. But, hey. I don’t tell other people how to live unless we’re talking about Knights of the Old Republic. Because you need to play that.”
Anyway, I’d like to talk about Legendary. No, not the video game (though that’s one that I also cannot recommend wholeheartedly… though the idea of Pandora’s Box being opened in the modern day and playing a shooter against the griffons and salamanders and whatnot that show up is interesting enough to buy used, I guess).
I’m talking about the WWE movie starring John Cena.
Unlike the other movies that the WWE put out, this one is not a straight-up, two-fisted, let’s-blow-up-some-cars movie made for guys who like movies that guys would like. This is, instead, an attempt at a family movie. Of course, it’s PG-13 because Papa is on some continuum between “bats crazy” and “the Devil Himself” and, as such, only has so many tools in his tool kit. So… when he makes a family movie, it’s going to be PG-13 (some adult situations, some revealing outfits, some male nudity (dorsal (and, no, it’s not John Cena’s butt they’re showing)), some manic pixie girlfriend, and Danny Glover playing the magical negro).
That said: the movie isn’t awful. Maribou and I watched it on a date night and, between MST3K moments, found ourselves charmed. It’s the story of a young man (played by Devon Graye… the kid who is the young Dexter) who wants to join the wrestling team and become a good wrestler, John Cena plays the troubled older brother who was a wrestling hero at the high school, and Patricia Clarkson plays the mom as well as demonstrates that you only need one *REAL* actor to carry a movie.
You’ve seen this movie before. If you enjoyed it, you could do worse than pick it up for a date night. It does succeed at being charming.
But I’m not going to tell you how to live.
It was a nice movie. Still surprised at the ending for what is a motivational movie.
So, can you recomend Knuckleheads yet?
I’M GETTING THERE
The problem is that I am building a fence this weekend. Our fence in the back yard is collapsing and one of our friends came out to look at it and said “holy cow, this thing is ancient! Look at this! The boards are an inch thick! They don’t make them like this anymore! And look at the markings! This was cut with an old fashioned lumber saw in a mill! And look here!” and so on while I was staring mutely at him.
Anyway, it’s time for our 50ish+ year old fence to go to the fence retirement grounds and we’re going to replace it with something that won’t last 50 years but, we hope, will make it to the time when we sell our house, if we sell it.
Wow, is that a, “I need to dry my hair tonight.” Excuse or what.
Cinderblock is ugly as sin but it will last you until you die in the house.
We bought wood yesterday. I figure if I make it 20 years and if, at the end of the 20 years, I care about things like “fences”, I’m ahead of the game.