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Entries in October 2016
More than three months into the ‘New Era’ brand split and it’s a bit late now to give you a full-on essay on the whats and whys and wherefores. Suffice it to say it’s hard to call it a disappointment when the overall results are about as much as I expected. Does that mean they can’t do better? Of course not. But with the people WWE has in charge right this minute, change for the good is at best piecemeal, or accidental.
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What Is American Cheese, Anyway?
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An hour and 15 minutes of Devo live in concert. Just because. #video
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People will try to dismiss it, but their relevance speaks for itself. #link
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You know what? I agree with this, pretty much. [c/o MetaFilter] #link
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‘Poetic impressions’ of the annual Royal Rumble. Just three months till the next one! #link
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An oldie but a goodie. You know you’ve made it in The Business when they give you one of those satin jackets. #link
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There are two types of Marvel movies, it seems: the entertaining ones, and the rest. This one fits in the former category, thankfully. #link
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‘Weaponised ennui’ is a great way to describe it. #link
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There’s no accounting for it, that’s for sure. #link
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Filing this for future reference. #link
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If the concept of shipping makes you go ‘huh?’ then you’d better also read Canon, fanon, shipping and more: a glossary of the tricky terminology that makes up fan culture. (Better make that youth fan culture, where everything has to be a competition. If only you young’uns were more philosophical about shit.) #link
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Take it with a pinch of salt – the food marketing myths we’ve swallowed whole
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It’s one that turns out to be not so much strange as particularly complicated, as copycat acts in the pre-video age were all the rage. #link
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I saw some ragging on this piece for being a lift from Vince’s infamous Playboy interview, and not even a lift of the juiciest quotes. But the point of it is more as a sampler for people to go read all of these sources in greater depth, is it not? Take it for what it is, not what you think it is, people. #link
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For keeping track of upcoming events when I catch up from being weeks behind, again. #link
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Garlic Rubbed Roasted Cabbage Steaks
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Blogs are still going, even if the denizens of the internet have moved to social media apps and all that noise. On a related note: The Favelog Writes Itself — on building a self-updating website that archives and catalogs your personal collections of favorites, saves, stars, and likes around the web
. It’s something I’ve wanted for a while but haven’t technically been able to do, what with not using Wordpress and all. #link
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It’s like something from a movie — as a matter of fact, the story inspired a TV series — but it’s real, and I can’t even begin to imagine the existential crisis these guys are going through. #link
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If the spirit of what she’s saying is sound, Lionel Shriver doesn’t help her case with hyperbole like ‘shrill’, ‘fraught with danger’ and ‘weaponised sensitivity’. (And that headline? Sheesh.) She also (wilfully?) misses the point of what Abdel-Magied was trying to get across, as much as I rolled my eyes at her pained prose: that it’s really no longer acceptable for the relatively privileged to write about others less so, when the latter are given fewer — or no — opportunities to do it themselves. #link
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It's funny because it's probably true. #link
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Or 'centre', depending on your version of English. Here’s one of those 'one thing well' sites that will always come in handy on occasion. #link
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Despite the presence of a likeable Tom Hanks, a magnetic Audrey Tautou and an EEEEEVIL Paul Bettany (playing yet another religious figure), not nearly enough happens to justify its near three-hour running time.
A marked improvement over The Da Vinci Code, but still loses its way when Hanks and co stop solving puzzles and get led around the Vatican on a wild goose chase.
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"With all the clubs, gigs and activity happening in Dublin, you’d be under the illusion that there’s actually a real, thriving scene here. There’s not. There’s a disparate number of different groups all struggling to do something for their respective audiences. The only thing that really sells is nostalgia." #link
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This masterclass in cinema is showing exclusively at the Light House in Dublin from today, but you might be able to stream it already. #link
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Chickpea, Butternut Squash and Spinach Curry Recipe from Blazing Salads
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Nigel Slater’s halloumi with beetroot and sesame bread recipe
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Reblogged from my Letterboxd list:
Another concentration-camp flick from Brian Trenchard-Smith, though a damn sight more sedate than the terrors of Turkey Shoot. Perhaps too much so, as the only thing really keeping the ‘residents’ of the Star Drive-In within its electrified fences is the fact that the outside world is far worse, freedom be damned. The social commentary is blunt, though it still rings true today, and it’s definitely a saving grace – that and its suitably grimy atmosphere. Yet I can’t help feeling there’s a more exciting film at the other end of the road, in the war on the streets between the tow-truck scrappers and roving gangs of ‘car boys’ that’s only teased at in the first 10 minutes, and can’t not have been in the mind of George Miller when he was writing Fury Road.
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Reblogged from my Letterboxd list:
An intrepid journalist (Warren Beatty) goes up against a sinister corporation in this conspiracy thriller from Alan J Pakula, who would give us a more triumphant ending with his similarly themed, truth-stranger-than-fiction story All The President’s Men two years later. That film is rightly lauded, but it doesn’t have the Hitchcockian tension, vague sci-fi trappings and general sense of unease that make The Parallax View so compelling.
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Reblogged from my Letterboxd list:
Funny to consider James Caan’s master thief in Michael Mann’s debut feature is even more of an anti-hero now than he was back in the day, what with his loose way with racial epithets a la Dirty Harry, and his, well, less than ethical treatment of his love interest (Tuesday Weld). Sure, the film does lay out why he’s such a hardened individual, but explanation is no excuse.
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Reblogged from my Letterboxd list:
Imagine an extended episode of The West Wing with Godzilla in it. That’s Shin Godzilla. It’s better than that sounds, but it is what it is.
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