Danny Franks

The fact that the Snuka thing was so briefly mentioned was a surprise, but I have another podcast recommendation to cover it in more detail - Crime in Sports did an episode on Snuka, and painted a very clear picture of him as an abusive asshole. They covered statements made at the time that strongly suggest Vince paid the cops off. As for the steroids, I remember a quick scene in Beyond the Mat that showed how wrestlers could easily be influenced into using steroids. There's a thread in the film that follows two young guys who wrestle in an indy federation and get a dark match in the WWF - a chance to impress and get hired. The WWF guys (I think it was Jim Ross and Jim Cornette) quickly dismiss one of the guys as not what they want, but express interest in the potential of the other - he's taller, handsome and looks like an athlete - Jim Ross tells him specifically to "work on your upper body, get bigger," and they might give him another look. There's nothing at all in that conversation that tells the guy to use steroids, but you could easily draw that implication from it. All wrestlers will talk about working hurt, because they knew they needed to take every chance they were given. And that's where other types of drugs - painkillers and stimulants - entered the picture. Vince takes no responsibility, as he made clear in this series, but his entire business model was abusive towards wrestlers and pushed them towards using drugs to progress their careers.

This has always been a key part of the Vince McMahon narrative - wrestlers talking about how great he is, even while acknowledging how terrible he can be. Vince regularly did things like pay for rehab for wrestlers who used to work for him, or hired people, in the words of Mick Foley "just to be nice." He'd fire someone over a disagreement, then rehire them and never mention the falling out. And it's too simplistic to say he did those things because he is nice, or because he's an evil schemer. From everything that I've heard, sometimes he was a great guy to work for, and sometimes he was terrible. And that always served to keep people off-balance and unsure. One guy might get a slap on the back and a "that's how a real man acts!" for standing up to Vince, another guy might get fired. And I doubt any of the wrestlers knew for sure which reaction they'd get. Basically, he ran the WWE as a capricious overlord. He didn't treat people the same, he played favourites, he regularly lied to talent to manipulate them, and he clearly abused his power in horrendous ways. But this is a guy who believes sneezing is a sign of weakness, who eats food as quickly as possible because he finds having to eat annoying, who had to be shown Asian porn to be convinced that people actually find Asian women attractive, who apparently shaves at least twice a day because he "can't let the hair win". He's impossibly maladjusted and I can't even fathom how his mind works. Seeing Cena, Taker and others be lost for words when asked about Vince's legacy at the end should have been a message about how they were disillusioned in this man because of the accusations. Instead it came across like they were being reticent on camera, and probably feel the same way Tony Atlas does. Martha fell out with most of the Harts long before Bret went back to the WWE. While she was suing the WWE for killing her husband, Owen's brothers and sisters (except Bret, who sided with Martha) were cosying up to Vince to get hired, or get their husbands hired, by the company. They even took Owen's dad, who by then had dementia, to a WWE show and got front row seats for the cameras. She fell out with Bret for reasons they've never really discussed, but I'd guess it had to do with Owen's wrestling legacy, which Martha wanted no part of. Bret had a stroke five years after Owen died, and one of the first people to call him while he was in hospital was Vince (see above, about him being capricious and capable of surprising kindness). They talked and Bret said he didn't want his career to be forgotten or diminished, so Vince said they could work on a DVD documentary about Bret's career. I think him agreeing to work with the WWE again for that documentary solidified the break with Martha. A few years after that, Bret was back on WWE TV and finally buried the hatchet with Shawn Michaels (they had no contact at all, from the night of the Screwjob to the day Bret made his return, thirteen years later).

Onto the Attitude episode now, and we're still getting almost complete praise for Vince and his supposed creative genius. These episodes will not age well. I will never stop finding it funny that the thing that saved the company - Vince allowing wrestlers to be themselves and responding to what fans were saying they wanted - is exactly what he abandoned after winning the Monday Night Wars. Becoming an obsessive control freak who wanted fully scripted promos, who decided who would be on top and pushed them even though fans wanted other people, actively sabotaging those wrestlers who the fans did pick. If post-2001 Vince was running the WWF in 1997, Stone Cold Steve Austin as the main guy never happens. Vince would have actively buried Austin in favour of Triple H or Ken Shamrock. Mankind as champion never would have happened. The Rock would have crashed and burned as scripted, bland babyface Rocky Maivia. Also funny - the clip of Stephanie's briefly stupefied look when she realised, mid-interview, that Tyson had been convicted for rape long before the WWF brought him in. The bit of that show I can't get my head around, even with everything else, is that the main event that night was The Undertaker vs Stone Cold. I can't even imagine how Taker must have felt, having to go out and be that character when he's just seen a co-worker fall to his death in the ring, and Owen's blood was staining the canvas. And I'll never forget that look on Jerry Lawler's face in the clip from the commentary table. But Vince having the gall to say their treatment of Owen was about making him a star is disgusting. By that time, it probably wasn't about Bret, but it sure as fuck wasn't about making him a star. Owen had vetoed storylines that he didn't agree with, including one where he would have an affair with his tag team partner, Jeff Jarrett's, girlfriend. He didn't like the sleazy angles that they were coming up with for him, so they gave him a character that was designed to make a joke out of his principles - an oafish, clumsy, wannabe superhero who did nothing but fail. And it was the WWF's fault. The quick release system they wanted for the stunt was deemed unsafe by the company who they'd hired to do the rigging, so they found some other guy who agreed to do it. They knew it wasn't safe, but they went ahead with it.

I like this show but, as someone who gets terrible second hand embarrassment, I have to leave the room for some scenes to avoid squirming in discomfort. I don't think the show needs to lean nearly as hard on "Gordon does or says something weird and offends people" as it does. Especially when it's combined with him not understanding Ashley's friends because they're so young. That runner of Gordon being seen as unreasonable because he was looking for Ashley after making dinner plans then her not answering the phone was weird. He wasn't being possessive or controlling, he was being worried, and James saying "party trumps dinner," didn't make sense. Because no one blows off their significant other without even telling them, to go to a party. Megan's new girlfriend was the absolute, overbearingly boring and self-important, worst. And I thought the show was going to focus on her "I feel Indian" nonsense as something that would make Megan realise it, but they went in the other direction and forced Gordon to be an ass, again. While still uncomfortable, I enjoyed the episode with Gordon's family more - bigoted dad and doormat mother, and generally rundown and bitter sister-in-law. And I appreciated the theme of falling into familiar behaviour patterns with your family, that your significant other may not recognise or enjoy. I hope Harriet Dyer becomes a bigger star off the back of this series, because she's so charismatic and engaging, and can do everything from dramatic scenes to full on slapstick comedy.

I watched the first three episodes of this yesterday, and can definitely see where it was going to be a "Vince is a genius" hagiography, before the sexual assault allegations came to light (though there have been allegations floating around for a long time). I found it curious that the Montreal Screwjob was presented relatively one-sidedly, with Vince, Hunter and Shawn getting the lion's share of the narrative and Bret not really being able to expand on his side of things. It was far, far more complicated than the episode showed and there was a lot more duplicity from Vince - towards Bret and towards other wrestlers and officials. Still, it was funny to hear Undertaker accidentally expose Vince's lie about "giving Bret one shot" to punch him and reinforce Bret's version that there was a scuffle and a struggle, before Bret got a good punch in. Also interesting that they didn't talk about wrestlers threatening to quit, and Rick Rude actually quitting, in the aftermath. Mick Foley wrote in his book about having to be talked back from leaving the company by Jim Ross, the night it happened. Something else that's fun - spotting Hogan lies, which occur basically every time he speaks. He's such a shameless carny that I'm not sure even he knows what's true any more. He didn't know if Andre would let him win at Wrestlemania III (at least he didn't repeat the one about "Andre died shortly after"), he didn't enjoy acting and wanted to go back to wrestling, as opposed to Thunder in Paradise being a flop. Just two that immediately spring to mind. Bruce Prichard is as bad, with his revisionist history of everything that ever happened. There's a reason he's been so close to Vince for so long, and it's not because of his integrity and honesty. Anyway, the Behind the Bastards six parter was a much better and much harsher examination of Vince, and of pro-wrestling in general. I highly recommend it.

I'd be really excited for a sequel, but I hope it doesn't come with a slashed budget. It costs a lot of money to make a fantasy movie that looks as good as this one did. There was a lot of CGI, and it was mostly used really well and served the story rather than being empty spectacle.

I confess I was morbidly fascinated to see how this movie would do, given the narratives around the previous one. The first one was like a rallying call for every guy who thinks he's a special snowflake that's been ignored by the world and is bitter and full of rage because of it. Todd Phillips didn't help in the build up to it by whining about how "you can't even do comedy any more because of political correctness." So how would those guys react to a musical, a form of entertainment that's usually seen as non-manly? Would they embrace it because it was centred around the avatar of their misanthropy, or would they reject it because it was full of songs and had a prominent female character muscling in on their guy's supposedly righteous acts of vengeance? Unfortunately it seems like the movie is objectively bad, so all those guys have a ready made excuse for rejecting it. It also sounds like an incredibly lazy endeavour. A jukebox musical? Really? Not even musical fans want that.

Dreams by The Cranberries always makes my eyes misty. Partly because it's a gorgeous song, partly because it still makes me sad that Dolores O'Riordan is no longer with us, and partly because the song makes me think of a time when life was much, much simpler for me and hearing new songs was one of the most important things in the world.

Alanis Morissette's Hands Clean. I remember hearing it years ago and thinking she was singing about her relationship with a younger man, and thinking, 'this is a bit hypocritical, considering she's spoken (and sung) in the past about being taken advantage of by older men.' I listened to it yesterday and it finally clicked - oh, she's singing from the point of view of the sleazy older guy(s) who took advantage of her! Wow, did I feel dumb.

Lucy is really the only character in the show who is likeable at all. Maximus is a priggish, barely competent oaf who I'm sure still loves the idea of being hero worshipped too much. I genuinely don't believe I'm supposed to root for the guy, and I'm just waiting for what seems like the inevitable shoe to drop. The Ghoul is just fucking tiresome, with all his tropey 'badass anti-hero' bullshit. It's genuinely like he's written by a thirteen year old edgelord who wants to be cooler and tougher than everyone else, yet still have a tragic backstory that makes him the good guy. Oh, sorry, Dogmeat is also a likeable character and should have had way more screen time than a bunch of others. I guess I just don't really care very much about how Vault-Tec started, or the bullshit they were up to. That shouldn't matter hundreds of years later, when all these other societies have sprung up and built their own cultures. The show has managed to make its story feel really small and insular, in a world that has always been about expansive adventure.

No Ghoul this episode. Hooray. Long may that continue (who am I kidding? I'm sure they won't go more than one episode without Goggins). Lucy and Maximus make an interesting pair (though I don't get much chemistry between them). She's idealistic and brave, he's more cynical and cowardly. But he does know the world better than she does, and it pays to be cynical and suspicious. The vault storyline is probably the most interesting thing going on. So vault 31 may be the 'master vault' or at least be populated by people who understand more of the bigger picture, and vaults 32 and 33 were the unknowing dupes, or guinea pigs, perhaps? Did vault 32 learn the truth, and a rebellion turned into a massacre? Or did someone else (from vault 31, or from whoever gives vault 31 their orders) come in and wipe out the survivors after the uprising? Lucy learning that society had been re-founded and then destroyed again was a bit of a gut punch for her. So much for the great destiny of the vaults. That reminded me of the Red Rising series of books, where the people who lived their whole lives in a mine, believing they were mining resources to terraform the surface, didn't know that the terraforming had been done hundreds of years ago, and they were just being used as captive labour. I'm guessing Lucy is going to have a realisation that her dad wasn't quite the good guy she's always believed him to be.

I know everyone adores Walton Goggins, but I find this character utterly one-note and insufferable. He's smarter, he's tougher, he's more ruthless, no one can get the better of him. Except for when he's all woobie faced about his past. Blech. I am finding the gore excessive. I don't need to see fingers being chopped off and heads crushed. It did have some shock value in the first episode, but four episodes in it just feels puerile and immature. I always love Matt Berry, and having him voice one of the permanently cheerful, insane robots was a genius move. And the dorky kid who works in the arcade in Stranger Things is now a drug dealing raider. Not sure why the defibrillator was charged, mind. But Lucy definitely has her Luck maxed out, to get free from the table and then watch the ghouls and raiders kill each other while she's unharmed. But this would be a way more intriguing character if she'd put a bullet through the Ghoul's head instead of giving him the meds to prove she was better than him. The larger vault storyline is interesting, and harks back to the vaults you'd find in the games, where strange things had happened. Exploring and abandoned vault only to find seriously creepy shit had happened feels very familiar. It reminded me heavily of Miranda from Serenity.

Pretty gross monster. I'm not sure I remember them in Fallout 4, but it's been a long while since I played it. Mouth fingers are a great, body horror visual. Still not entirely sure which way Maximus is going to go. He enjoys being praised and kowtowed to way too much, but he did seem to forge a genuine connection with his squire. And he did save him. I'm sure Cooper is a fan favourite already, but I find him incredibly tiresome. As @Jack Shaftoe said, psychopaths with sob stories are so overdone, and so fucking tiring. Everyone died and he survived, boo hoo. He's clearly spent most of the two hundred years since ensuring lots of other people die, in horrific ways. Lucy has only ever known the communal, mutually supportive environment of the vault (which seems like it was being monitored by outsiders, and may still have been a huge social experiment), and doesn't seem to have grasped yet that it's completely different on the surface. Speaking of the vault, the two would-be overseers are setting up another disaster, by the sound of it. Norm is obviously right, those raiders cannot be rehabilitated to live in the vault. I'm guessing Norm will end up leading a faction that opposes the status quo, for better or worse.

Two episodes in and I'm already sick of the Ghoul being the coolest, baddassest badass that ever existed. Feels like he was written by a thirteen year old RPG kid. I get the jokes about him having all the perks because he's been around so long, but having one character that overpowered would break a game (and anyone who maxed out a character in Fallout 3 or 4 can testify to how boringly easy it makes the game). It could easily break a show. Other than that, I'm enjoying everything else that's going on. The inherent goofiness of the world is intact from the game, and the incredibly brutal violence that you sometimes committed completely by accident. The visuals are perfect, and we've already seen signs of the interesting, sad, human stories that are scattered throughout the Fallout world, with the family that committed suicide. The twist with Knight Titus actually being a whiny, petulant coward was fun, but Maximus sitting there and watching him die is another indicator that this guy might not be the hero he thinks he's going to be. Power hungry and thirsty for adoration. I already envisage him becoming a villain and the Ghoul being Lucy's ally. Ella Purnell is really good so far as the innocent, naive vault dweller who is confused by things like violence, dirt and animals. Everything she encounters is a wonder and a horror. But she's already shown a toughness and resolve that will see her through this bizarre world. The CGI is acceptable, although the mutant bear looked a bit ropey in some shots. I'm pretty sure I read that the show isn't doing super mutants, which is a shame, but understandable as they'd be expensive to do well. I hope we get at least one Deathclaw this season.

Season two of The Bear has the single best use of music I've seen in a long time: When Carmy runs into his childhood crush, Claire, and they have an awkward, wistful catch up, the song that plays in the background is Strange Currencies by REM. It's the perfect song for that moment, because it's not one of the most well known songs of the 90s, it's not even one of REM's most well known songs. But I had this moment of recognition and nostalgia, of 'oh shit, I remember this!' that is exactly what the show wanted to convey with Carmy and Claire bumping into each other. I'm sure everyone else aged between 35 and 50 had that exact same feeling. Also, it's a lovely song and the sound of it is wistful and warm and there's an air of love being a confusing mystery, which is again exactly what you can see between Carmy and Claire.

Yeah, Mojo has always been one of the worst villains/plot enablers in the X-verse (hell, in the entire Marvel universe). He's completely one-note and repetitive, a one trick pony and the stories involving him always feel like complete filler (similar to Arcade). The only good thing that has ever come out of the Mojo-verse is Spiral, who makes for a fun villain or antagonistic ally.

I did a rewatch of Scrubs and decided I might as well bite the bullet and watch season nine for the first time. I only got halfway through. Partly because it just isn't very funny and the entire setup is awkward and artificial, and partly because Dave Franco's character is one of the most unpleasant and annoying characters I've ever seen on a TV show. He is selfish, narcissistic, callous and rude. One of the first things he does is sleep with Kerry Bishe's character, then take a photo of her naked when she's not looking and share it with people at the hospital. Then, even after she's completely humiliated by that, she sleeps with him again. He's similar to another rich boy med student character who appeared much earlier in the show. In that case, Elliot humbles him and calls his bluff on his threat that his rich dad will pull his donation to the hospital. But there is no such humbling or humanising of Dave Franco in season nine.

And the reveal at the end of season two that Will is actually there in person. Not only that, the whole cluster is there.

I just saw the trailer for this at the cinema tonight, and my overriding feeling was, 'none of these effects look practical.' After how amazing Fury Road looked because of all the practical effects and stunts, seeing so much that looked completely computer generated was very disappointing. I'd still be way more interested in seeing The Further Adventures of Furiosa, starring Charlize Theron, than this young version.

I just got back from watching this, and I think I have mostly the same opinion of it as I did the first movie - visually stunning and incredible sound design were the standouts, but the pacing and storytelling weren't great. The scale of the desert was incredible, and that's something that Villeneuve does better than anyone else working in Hollywood at the moment. The expanses are vast, and Villeneuve loves putting visual markers into those scenes to show the scale - a tiny figure on a ridge, a sandworm that fills the screen, a giant silver Heart of Gold looking spaceship with battalions of tiny soldiers beneath it. The greyscale look of the Harkonnen world was so striking, and it's little wonder they're all deranged, growing up there. The story is still the weakest part of the movie. There's too much 'because mysticism said so' driving the actions of the main characters - Jessica drinks wormblood and is apparently guided by the knowledge of previous Reverend Mothers. She tries to manipulate Paul into doing what she believes he must (with the help of her magical fetus) but it's only when he also drinks wormblood that he realises what he has to do. The Bene Gesserit were just scheming for scheming's sake, by the end of it. The notion that Feyd Rauda was "controllable" was rather absurd, given he casually murdered people for no reason whatsoever, even when he was in a good mood. The first thing he'd have done if he became emperor was devise a plan to wipe out the Bene Gesserit, as he'd see them as the main threat, and the people who could remove him from the throne they put him on. Feyd Rauda was a bit of a non-event as well. Interestingly played by Austin Butler, but his role in the story was very clear - be scary and then be killed by Paul. I like the overall narrative -Don't trust messiahs (and boy, Paul would have been better off if his mum was more like Brian of Nazareth's mum) because they will lose sight of your interests as they pursue their own. Paul becomes a narcissistic saviour, caught up in his own legend and apparently willing to sacrifice thousands, millions, of his followers to secure his victory. I think Zendaya was the standout actor in this, and her character was the standout too. If there is a third movie, I'd much rather it focus more on her and less on Paul. And I'd like it if they actually diverged heavily from the books, regarding how Chani apparently accepts Paul's choices and agrees to be his lover again. Certainly, the final shot of the movie didn't suggest a woman likely to accept anything Paul says or does again. And I doubt audiences would readily accept Paul marrying Irulan (Florence Pugh was wasted in this, by the way. All she did was look pensive and wear crazy hats) but acting like nothing needs to change with Chani. A couple of bugbears - are we to believe that the Fremen can steer sandworms, with those tiny little hooks? These things are so big that the one Paul rode was passing him for about two minutes before he jumped on its back. I guess that must be how it works, unless they stand there all day, just waiting for the worm they summon to be going in the right direction. And how do they get off, when they reach their destination? And when, exactly, did Leto have time to construct a secret bunker on Arrakis and hide all of House Atreides' atomic missiles in it? Also, why would he? That would leave his homeworld unprotected.

The fact that an X-Men episode focused on four characters of colour is kind of great - Storm, Forge, Jubilee and Roberto. Especially after some of the histrionics of people who somehow missed the fact that the X-Men are representative of minorities of all kinds. Unfortunately, Forge is one of the dullest characters to ever appear in the pages of a Marvel comic, and he makes Storm dull by association. The little personality he had back in the day was being an insecure dick. I always liked Jubilee and felt like she got shunted off to the X-kids team too quickly by writers who didn't care about her, so I'm glad she got a bit of focus in this episode. Roberto is a character I've never really had an opinion of, but I quite like the version of him in the show, and quite like that they picked Sunspot over a whole host of others they could have used - Cannonball, Boom Boom, Cypher, Wolfsbane, Karma, Dani Moonstar.

Logan/Jean was the absolute worst, and this is coming from someone who has never cared about Cyclops. It just seemed like Jean was too kind and good natured, and pitied Logan too much, to tell him to back off. Meanwhile, Logan was a significantly older guy who had an unhealthy obsession with a woman who was clearly in a relationship. Of course he had main character syndrome, and assumed that he could just put his feelings out there repeatedly, failing to respect that relationship, and of course he could just openly be a dick to Cyclops because he was jealous of him. As for Rogue and Magneto, that was almost as bad, for different reasons (although age difference was still a big one). In the case of the show, I do think it has to be a misdirect or they wouldn't be hitting Gambit over the head with it so hard (I don't think the writers of the show hate him as much as some of the X-book writers have in recent years), without actually showing them doing anything. Also, I have always preferred Magneto as a villain with noble intentions, rather than a hero who acts like an arsehole all the time. The obsession so many X-writers have with turning villains into heroes is truly tiresome.

I'm not @Dandesun, but I'll try to answer. The animated show is a loose adaptation of stories and continuity from the X-Men comics, so there are lots of things that will be different from the comics, or even completely absent, in the show. In the comics, Alex Summers has almost as long a history with the X-Men as Scott does. Alex was adopted after the deaths of their parents , but got involved with the X-Men and almost immediately learned that Scott was his brother. He joined the second iteration of the team, even before Wolverine or Storm, and has spent most of his time since then on various X-teams, most notably X-Factor (a spinoff team that worked for the US government, dealing with Mutant threats). Of course, Alex has spent some of that time being evil due to mind control or memory loss, notably when controlled by the Goblin Queen. Other than that, he and Scott are pretty close but have rarely worked directly with each other on the same team: Alex was gone from the books in the 70s, when Scott was on the team. Then Scott was gone from the X-Men for much of the 80s, forming X-Factor with the other four original X-Men, while Alex returned to the team. Scott came back and Alex went to X-Factor in the 90s. I think they were both active X-Men together for a period in the 2000s, but few people remember the stories of that era fondly. As for Corsair, they know he's their dad and they've had various adventures with him (Scott absurdly realised who Corsair was when he looked at his own unshaven reflection and saw such a strong resemblance). At one point Corsair died and Alex took over as leader of the Starjammers, but he may be alive again now.

They're really rushing through comic book stories at a pace even quicker than the original series did. At this rate, they'll be in the Krakoa era by the end of season two. Inferno could have been a whole season build up, but they crammed it all into one episode. It wasn't bad, but it could have been more. But I can't say it doesn't make more sense for Scott to believe Madelyn is actually Jean, rather than thinking he's met a woman who looks identical to the woman he believes to be dead and not really question it. I suppose we needed at least one occurrence of Jean fainting in Scott's arms because she's unable to control her powers, in the finest tradition of the original series. There was some genuinely creepy body horror stuff in this episode, which was executed well. I'm going to assume the Rogue and Magneto stuff is more like the Joseph storyline, where Rogue is tempted by the ability to touch but eventually decides against it, than it is the weird era where Mike Carey used Magneto as his self-insert character to bone Rogue, based on some lingering feelings Rogue had from an alternate universe. Another love triangle we absolutely don't need - Logan, stop being creepy about Jean and go find one of the several dozen other women you've had relationships with. Morph seems to only be included in this reboot to give cameos to characters we'd all rather have in the show - Colossus, Psylocke, Magik (and Darkchylde) - which is fine, but I would rather actually have one of those characters. I do like all the nods to classic X-Men covers and panels, like Gambit and Rogue on the basketball court, Scott and Jean's wedding photo, Rogue and Magneto in the Savage Land 'costumes.'

Dever would have been my first choice for Ellie, if the show had been made a few years ago. She's such a good actor, and I think she'll absolutely kill it as Abby. Her work in Justified and Dopesick and Booksmart is great. Talk about casting someone the audience has no choice but to empathise with.