organizedkaos

Person of Interest (also Jonathan Nolan) managed to maintain p strong plot/themes/characters over the course of it's entire run. It probably helped that it had to act like it was a procedural "case of the week" for 2 seasons which means they couldn't burn through stuff as quickly.  

They also weirdly ripped themselves off by copying a bunch of it's better ideas for late Westworld and doing them less good.

As I said in another thread I just don't see him being good enough to be at the top of the card. He's clearly improving his promos (finally, he used to be straight embarassing) and obvious he has a good look and athleticism but as LaGoosh said, he rarely actually has good matches. In retrospect the MJF thing, whilst satisfying, should really have been an opportunity for them to try him out at doing a more complicated match (i'm not saying it should have been presenting them as equals as much as letting them do anything beyond 10 of the same move)

I just never much understand their booking of him (which isn't an unusual thing to say of AEW). TNT title holder would've been a perfect spot for him. Makes him look important, have him defend against loads of people, use the fact your roster contains some of the best wrestlers on the planet as to improve him whilst keeping him visible and strong with TNT belt.

Instead (and I'm guessing maybe due to injuries) he kept winning and losing it mostly to other hench people.

Now they're pushing him towards World Title and I just don't see how that works. He's not good enough to put on AEW main event matches. Sure, Samoe Joe isn't exactly top of his game either but he's a legend and essentially his reign is going to be about transitioning the belt from MJF to probably Swerve. Wardlow is supposed to be one of their break out homegrowns, you need to make a World Title reign about him not about moving chess pieces around.

So, either he wins the title and AEW shows get noticeably worse/he gets exposed or he loses again and yet again momentum is killed just as it was seeming like he could get it back...

I think AEW's focus on "workrate wrestling" also creates somewhat of a glass ceiling.  To some extent, especially as a singles wrestler, there's a certain level of match that you're expected to have if you're at the top of the card. Obviously people like MJF tried to play around with that but most of his more lauded moments as champion were the big workrate matches rather than the attitude era reference fest (parts of Adam Cole storyline were the exception - and that still had multiple big athletic matches).

There's maybe an argument that with better booking and more character work you could avoid this issue but I think it might just be baked into the DNA of the promotion.

Thing is that means certain people who might absolutely have a place on an AEW card find it hard to push past a certain level. Sammy Guevara is absolutely one of them (he's got plenty talent but he can't hold it together in that upper tier) and Ricky Starks might be too (his matches with Danielson were of the style I was talking about but that's with Bryan Danielson... who is arguably one of the best wrestlers in the world).

I was thinking this with Wardlow too. His look, certain skills (and the fact they're basically playing off fans having seen this "heavy for group becomes mega star" path before) give people the impression he's a main eventer in training. Can anyone genuinely picture him selling a main event as champion? What does that look like? Possilby as a mega badass heel against underdog but can you do that every PPV for 6 months?

I don't believe that AEW has to always have an attempt at an MOTY candidate as the main event but that seems to be the vibe they're going for. Especially when you're adding Okada, Osprey, maybe PAC and the like into the main event scene. Do they want to be having the bangers on the undercard and then make "standing closeline, headbutt, cruiserweight spot, play with your suspenders, powerbomb" the main event?

(I do realise there's a chance giving some of these people the main event spots might encourage / allow them to perform at a higher level but yeah these were some thoughts rattling around my head when I saw in other places people thought current Wardlow had a genuine chance at being next world champ)

Realistically every employee has probably been told not to talk about the subject at all and anyone we hear talk about it has probably been vetted. It's not outlandish for a visible company to take the line that any time an employee speaks about the company you can be interpretted as being a spokesperson for them

8 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

It seems like some people would be less disappointed in him if he just hadn't expressed any women's or trans rights support in the first place. Which is just bizarre to me.

Maybe disapointed isn't the right word but do you really think that if you have two celebrities; A who is very outspoken about fighting for womens rights and B who is not that people might pick up on celebrity A's silence over B when it comes to a sex abuse scandal involving a person who personally knows both A and B? That's even before you get into the anti corporate schtick etc.

Although TBH I'm about as fussed as Punk not speaking up about Vince McMahon as I am about Marcellus Wallace not speaking up about Harvey Weinstein.   

I'm sure he does care about the things he speaks about but he's also just a flawed human being trying to make money in an environment that lends itself to bluring reality. Doesn't mean his character's words still don't have power, they're just not built on a solid foundation.

Podcasts might render them less relevant these days as they often achieve the same intimate long form interview effect.

Having said that I went to see "An Evening With Ottolenghi" and enjoyed it. Almost no anecdotes nor practical informmtion but I came away from it p inspired. Hearing people who are good at something and passionate about it has an infectious energy. Maybe it's just that our human brains are a bit dumb and the effect of being in a room with a person talking about something very relevant to them (even if they've no idea you're there) connects us to them. I'm not even a big fan (although like any other person who likes to cook i've made many of his recipes) I just like going to things and it seemed like it might be interesting.

1 hour ago, Lion_of_the_Midlands said:

I don't think this is the best way of describing the women's matches. Makes them sound like a cut price peep show. 

Could've been worse. "o" was probably the best vowel there that still made sense

I assume it also many of the more inexperienced wrestlers not getting the reps in. Skye Blue has noticeably improved in the last year or so and also noticeably had a lot more matches. But there's only one slot per show. I guess it's sort of a self defeating loop; the womens matches often are the worst match on the show, so you get less of them, so the performers have less experience, so they often put on the worst matches of the show.

You then get the side effect of the quality performers being relegated to shorter matches (because of what the women's slot is perceived as) so they don't get to show what they can do and reinforces the idea that the women put the worst match on the show. Tony Kahn probably loves you less if your average star rating is below 3 too.

To be clear "worst match on the show" relates to AEW's whole "workrate promotion" thing.  They're mostly not bad matches, just often noticeably worse because you've Bryan Danielson fighting Mexico's best technical wrestler on your TV show. If TV matches are seens as mostly filler for storylines etc then you can get away with more average matches.. More average matches means more experience which means better matches eventually. I don't think AEW's brand works with more average matches though..

Solution isn't just more matches I don't think. Using ROH well seems to be helping. Good characters and storylines can cover for lesser wrestling however AEW is more a "good wrestling sometimes covers for lesser storylines and characters" promotion (empahsis on sometimes, I'm not being one of those people). I think a lot of the issue is baked into the DNA of the promotion

EDIT: Everyone else has said exactly the same things I was going to about why they're doing this match. In my defence I was confused by questions being asked after they were answered

I assume they're trying to court this intangible "mainstream audience" (although these days the internet and social media are where the mainstream hang out). The thought being that Rock/Reigns gets more eyes on the product and that builds into the Netflix deal etc? I assume part of the WWE purchase was to maybe try and grow beyond it's dedicated fanbase?

As pointed out, hardcore wrestling fans are... not always the most fun. I could see a situation where TKO don't really much care if they push away those sort of types (especially when you've got another promotion that might cater to them). UFC seems gain attention from the buzz around the match as much as the build? (I don't follow it so apologies if i'm talking complete nonsense but I remember how Mayweather/McGregor seemed to permeate everything that weekend it was on, I only know a handful of people who watch UFC and it seemed like that weekend everyone was chatting about it)

I'm not saying they're deliberately doing this to push away the usual fanbase. However I don't think it's too pie in the sky to imagine they want more mainstream eyes and to grow the brand into something bigger.  In which case, why cater to the existing audience? They tune in anyway, moan in their own corners of the internet and the more you're associated with them the more your brand seems like it's for nerds and children.

Wrestling fans complaining that Rock/Reigns is just a big flashy spectacle, won't necessarily be a good match and throws out other long term storytelling seems it might be like art house cinema fans complaining that Marvel films don't use a lot of visual metaphor or subtle character development.

I've seen both done incredibly well, i've seen both done incredibly badly.

Oddisee w/ live band was a highlight of gigs last year. They all worked really well together and friends who had gone not knowing much about Oddisee assumed they were always a band

Roni Size w/ live orchestra was tonnes of fun. Again, the original musician collaborating with the additionals.

Jeff Mills w/ orchestra was an interesting excercise in joining the dots between 20th century classical minimalism and techno minimalism (didn't actually see this one in person though, i heard it was maybe a bit less involving live because no-one quite knew what to do with themselves)

Any of these "full orchestra covers XXX band or YYY genre classics" tend to be fairly crap, probably due to the usual issues of cover bands. It's a copy not a recreation. Basically turning blue monday into a MIDI reconstruction. Whereas generally with original person involved their writing a variation on their music with additional tools in the toolbox

If someone said "God always provides" you would not think they're referring to themselves. Thus I put to you "The chef always delivers" could be referring to some sort of higher power (#notavincejoke)

Yeah i've definitely noticed a common online narrative of basically "Punk's too old to be straight edge and wrestling thast much" although more so seemingly suggesting he's more likely to get injured because he's not using performance enhancers? (I guess old steroid muscles are more resiliant?)

On 1/22/2024 at 4:19 PM, Chris B said:

Saltburn was okay, but I'm baffled as to why they played it like the ending was some big reveal. In fact, I think they did the final scene purely to prevent people going 'was... was that it?' at the end. Overall, if it wasn't for the more outrageous stuff, I think nobody would have paid attention.

I thought it was a fairly amusing dark satire about rich people in England. Possibly mostly because of Rosamund Pike and to a lesser extent Richard E Grant as both their characters felt real and completely exaggerated. The problem, as ever with things that make it big in cultural zeitgeist, everyone made to big a deal of it and banged on about the particularly OTT moments. So instead of them being some interesting stylistic moments they became the focus. It's also fairly niche, skewering a particular strata of English society. State school kid who went to posh uni here probably found more jokes landing than others might...

If it hadn't been for the hype it's the sort of film that would grow a cult following as people stumbled across it (like "Death of Dick Long" another film that ends up being funnier and more insightful than initially appears, with a couple of OTT moments thrown in for good measure). It's best place is as a "oh if you've not seen that you should, it's fairly up you street" film rather than "how have you not seen this, it's a must watch!". Instead it's been the latter and everyone judges it as such. 

That makes a lot of sense, also tracks with the fact Daily's Place is the only unique venue they do - a lot of the staff had a year to get used to how to setup/film that location

Regardless, they should probably find a bunch of smaller venues they can make look exactly the same. Last night was rough, there's clearly a audience saturation point below which silence gets a lot more noticeable.

27 minutes ago, air_raid said:

Imagine if that power expanded to your other tabs as long as you had their tab open?

To some extent facebook, instagram and others already do this if you're logged on that browser (the websites have to have agreed, I assume they get paid, you can also turn this off... suposedly ).

The more Netflix tries to gain money from advertising the more they might do a similar thing (although I'd hazard a guess they can extrapolate a heck of a lot from your viewing habits)

If you already have Netflix and don't watch WWE arguably you're actually making it clearer you don't watch WWE I think?

With the broadcast TV shows they don't know if you are or aren't watching unless you've a ratings box (I think, might have changed how things work these days). Ratings are extrapolated from a set of people's viewing habits.

With Netflix they know everything about you, what you watch, how long, when you stop, if you took a break, did you hover over something and ultimately decide not to watch it.. all that.

So your decision not to watch WWE on Netflix will count as a person who doesn't watch WWE. Your decision not to watch WWE on whatever TV channel it's shown on technically isn't counted (I assume it is broadcast in the UK, if it's only shown on the Network then this isn't relevant).  Obviously not paying for WWE PPVs/the network does count, I'm certainly not suggesting anyone's boycott doesn't matter.

If you signed up to Netflix about the time they add WWE then it might count towards "increased subscriptions in the month we added WWE programming" stats, but still, they know what the new subscribers watch so yeah... can't see why they'd ignore their own data

This is explicitly stated to be played at my funeral in the letter of intent in my will (there are other tracks that are more "serious", couldn't resist the opportunity to DJ my funeral)

Not intending to die any time soon and I imagine there may be a point I remove it but for now.. yep, it's in (DJ dettweiler remixes have been an ongoing thing within my social circle, and as I'm a sax player I imagine anyone who doesn't know what to expect will assume it's a very serious pick... until the recorder)

Oh agreed on all points, my issue there was particularly with reducing the idea to a rather cartoonish version a more complicated conversations is already ongoing. Not suggesting everyone is being ignorant to the history of Israel but also not suggesting that explanations for Israel's actions could any way be an endorsement (or an attempt to excuse)

12 hours ago, BigJag said:

A quite succinct piece on Israeli settler actions.

I'm sorry but do you honestly believe that Bath video is somehow helping or offering some understanding to the conversation? I'm not actually quite sure it was intentionally posted given it seems attached to a potentially more meaningful video?

But regardless it absolute trash..   I know someone acting like they're a government and being all nonsensical makes for funny viral videos but in the middle of a conversation trying to deal with some degree of nuance in this horrible situation why would adding a completely reductionist "The Jews arbitrarily and unilaterally decided to take Isreal cos of old history" seem like it's aiding the conversation? I disagree fully with the genocide in Gaza but I also think it behoves us to try and understand the situation properly?  Ignoring the reasons why it happened along with the part the international community played is at best ignorant and worst willfully misleading (and in that videos case incredibly hypocritical coming from a British mouth)

It sounds like there's some hope this at least temporarily gets a ceasefire I think?

Quote

A full judgement is likely to take years.

Evidence will be heard over the next two days, and South Africa is hoping that the court will issue an interim order ordering Israel “not to engage in genocide, and to prevent and to punish genocide”.

So I assumed from that the idea is to at least stop the bombing?  No idea what happens bigger picture wise if they are found guilty, I would assume just more of the same rhetoric from that linked article "South Africa is cooperating with a terrorist organization that is calling for the destruction of the State of Israel"

I would hazard a guess TV companies are even aware how pirated something is, occasionally there's news stories about how such and such show is the most pirated show of the year so someone's tracking that information and it's being used in a semi legit capacity.

Given how there's been a push to in media advertising it would track that those stats could get used when negotiating advertising rates given someone torrenting the media would see the advert.

It only occurred to me after reading this thread a few times since it started that I guess boycott Spotify. I just never really thought of it that way. I think it does way more harm than good for music I like and I generally find capitalism within niche media to be mostly terrible. Then again friends listen to stuff they wouldn't normally listen to cos it's on Spotify and might go and see those bands so there is a value there. I'd just rather my money went to musicians rather than the middle man.

Fair, I was thinking more news air time making him look like a viable candidate rather than someone who wants to be president cos of some perceived slight against him.

But yeah maybe he'd have got it either way - he's more visible than the others, none of whom have even appeared in a Home Alone film

Engagement is engagement, just cos you're doing it ironically/for the lulz/laughing at the thing doesn't mean social media puts a special asterisk next to your RT/like/view.

And hasn't this been cited as one of the issues with the conversation around these sort of far right people?  They get excellent interaction metrics on social media and thus new media puts them front and centre because news media is desperately trying to cling on to it's engagement in a social media world. Every time you engage you're saying "yes give me more of this" so you get more of it.

Thus your Trumps, Griffins, Farages etc get a tonne of air time, what they say is considered to be very important to the population and the ovaltine window continues it's move to the right (a lovely malty milky right). I get that Trump is going to be republican candidate so he should be part of the news but early on he was basically the equivalent of Farage and now he's the fact of the right wing in America. Sure there's plenty people who do agree with what he's saying but we've seen multiple instances of social media amplifying these right wing opinions and giving a distorted idea of how many actually believe in the
 

Or maybe none of this actuallly matters and these people get shoved down our throat regardless, so might as well enjoy the ride.

Sad to hear that's the case in Poland. I'd hoped the recent election results showed a general improvement in attitudes around such subjects