Oscar Film Journal: Barbie (2023)

Welcome back to the Oscar Film Journal here at Enuffa.com!  Yes, my years-long trek toward viewing every Best Picture nominee continues for the fourth Oscars season (286 out of 601 as of now)....

***SOME SPOILERS AHEAD***

Catching up on some of the 2023 summer fare I missed (trips to the movie theater are sadly all too few and far between these days), I finally took a gander at the year's top blockbuster Barbie.  Directed and co-written by Greta Gerwig (with her husband Noah Baumbach), this monumental smash-hit pulled in over $1.4 billion at the worldwide box office and alongside The Super Mario Bros Movie and Oppenheimer, became part of the first triumvirate of films since 2001 to top the charts without a sequel among them.  Granted, two of the three are based on well-known toy/game properties, but it's a start.

But all that is neither here nor there, is the film any good?  Yes, quite actually.  Starring an absolutely magnetic Margot Robbie as "Stereotypical Barbie," Gerwig's first popcorn movie is rife with her signature biting sense of humor and quick wit, but also plenty of valuable social commentary.  

The film opens with an homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey, with narrator Helen Mirren explaining how for generations girls' dolls were designed with one objective: to help prepare their target audience for motherhood.  They were dolls modeled after babies and toddlers, and playtime consisted of little future homemakers caring for pretend offspring.  But with the advent of Barbie in 1959, suddenly girls were given a new type of role model, the impossibly statuesque career woman - Barbie could be a doctor, an astronaut, an athlete, etc.  And in a perfect world that would've been enough to create equality among men and women.

WWE Royal Rumble 2024 Review: Was That the Best They Could Do?

The 2024 WWE Royal Rumble was....a show.  Some stuff happened, there were some winners and losers, and the ending was the right one.

Whereas last year's Rumble show, while not a great PPV, felt purposeful and featured one of the best Rumble matches of all time in the men's edition, this year's felt rather obligatory and pretty bereft of memorable events, some surprise entrants excepted.  Both Rumble matches where just kinda there, and the crowd responded as such.  The hot San Antonio crowd from 2023 was sorely missed, as the St. Petersburg audience this year sat on their hands for a lot of the show, which dragged down large chunks of the two Rumble bouts.  The two non-Rumble matches likewise failed to light up the fans, no doubt in part because the results were a forgone conclusion.  Even CM Punk's return to a WWE ring for the first time in a decade didn't land the way it should have (which just further points to AEW executing his return better).

WWE Royal Rumble 2024 Preview & Predictions

It's that time of year again, where WWE actually makes an effort to get people excited, which means it must be Royal Rumble season....

Aaand once again this stupid company has barely announced anyone for these Rumble matches, because they've trained their audience to think "surprises" are preferable to a field of 30 viable contenders who have ongoing storylines with each other.  Nah, just a series of entrance pops, people do some stuff, and everyone gets thrown out except one.  I've said it before, but for a company (and fanbase) allegedly so concerned with "where's the story?" WWE sure puts no thought into making these Rumble matches meaningful.  Aside from a few of the big names confronting each other with "I'm gonna throw you over," "Nuh uh, I'm gonna throw YOU over," there's zero going on here.  Eh, who are we kidding, everyone in that company is just keeping the place warm till Dwayne shows up.

Let's pick some winners....

US Championship: Logan Paul vs. Kevin Owens

This might actually steal the show, as Paul is always fun to watch and Owens is one of the best workers in the company.  With only four matches on the card as of now, this should get plenty of time to breathe.  Sounds like fun.

Pick: Logan retains

Women's Royal Rumble

**Note: WWE couldn't even be bothered to make website graphics for either Rumble match.**

Seriously, these assholes have only announced six women for this thing.  Six.  You have Bayley, Becky, Nia, Bianca, Maxxine Dupri, and Ivy Nile.  The last two you can scratch off the list of potential winners.  Bianca just won it a few years ago, Becky won it five years ago, and Nia stinks.  So that leaves Bayley, who if she wins will I assume choose to challenge her stablemate Iyo Sky, thus turning babyface.  It's possible Jade Cargill debuts here, although considering how green she still is, debuting her in a 30-person match could be a disaster.  It's also possible Mercedes Moné returns to WWE but the rumors claim she is AEW bound.  Aside from that, you'll have your regular midcard women and a few names from the past like always.  And no real stories told, just a buncha random entrances and exits.

Pick: Bayley

NJPW New Beginning 2024 Preview & Predictions UPDATED

It's 2024 and New Japan has four, count them, FOUR New Beginning shows this year.  Seems a bit much but on the bright side there are more matches of consequence as a result.  

It's quite the hodge-podge of rematches, dream rematches, and guest stars on this tour.  And there are at least a couple names finishing out their NJPW deals.  Like I said before, New Japan needs a serious shakeup at the top of the card and there are numerous youngsters (yeah I said it) that to me seem fully ready to take up the mantle.  Hopefully starting with this year's New Japan Cup we'll see guys like Tsuji, Umino and Uemura positioned as this generation's Tanahashi, Okada and Naito.

But in the meantime....

Nagoya 1.20.24

KOPW Ring Fit Match: Taiji Ishimori vs. The Great O-Khan

This title is still stupid and this gimmick match sounds even worse.  As I understand it the Ring Fit match has a ten-minute time limit and whoever scored the final fall during that time is the champion.  Except ten minutes is awfully short to automatically expect even one fall, let alone numerous.  Plus every three minutes there's apparently a break for aerobic activity or some shit?  The thinking is O-Khan can't keep up with Ishimori's cardio?  Yeah, this is dumb.

Pick: Ishimori retains I guess?

The 2023 Enuffa.com Year-End Pro Wrestling Awards

Welcome to the 10th Annual Pro Wrestling Year-End Awards, here at Enuffa.com, where I hand out nonexistent awards for achievements in a pretend sport.....

Well 2023 was quite an eventful year in the world of professional wrestling.  The biggest story of course was the merger of WWE with UFC's parent company Endeavor, a move which finally at long last took creative control away from the 78-year-old malignant narcissist/serial philanderer/embezzler/accused sexual predator Vincent Kennedy McMahon.  Now running the company are Chief Content Officer/Head of Creative Triple H, and Nick Khan, who's become a more and more prominent executive over the last few years.  The results have certainly been positive for the company, which is breaking financial records left and right and currently offers the hottest WWE product since the Attitude Era.  The shows have been much better creatively as well, though that's a very low bar to clear since VKM's booking has been mostly terrible since he acquired WCW in 2001.  But things are looking rosy for WWE and its fanbase.

On the other side of the North American wrestling war, AEW's year was a mixed bag financially.  They pulled in an estimated $175 million for the year, way up from the $100 mil in 2022, but are likely still in the red, understandable for what is still a startup.  One big TV rights fees increase would solve that problem, but that's all up in the air at the moment, as WBD is considering whether to keep AEW's programming or swap it for WWE RAW.  We likely won't know much more till late next year unfortunately, but hopefully loyalty means something to WBD.  AEW also smashed their attendance record by a factor of four, drawing one of the all-time biggest wrestling crowds at Wembley Stadium for All In, while increasing PPV revenues by leaps and bounds with a slate of eight events as opposed to the usual four or five.  All In became the second-most bought AEW PPV at roughly 200,000 buys, while the rest of the events fell into the usual 100,000-140,000 range.  AEW also added a third weekly show, Collision, which has mostly drawn decent ratings for a Saturday night (as long as a major WWE PPV isn't airing opposite).  Like them or not, AEW is the most successful #2 promotion since WCW.

But it wasn't all good news for the company, as live attendance fell dangerously low for a few months (it has since stabilized thanks to better local promotion and lowered ticket prices), and their biggest draw self-destructed for the second time in a year, starting another backstage melee, this time with Jack Perry over a minor on-air verbal jab.  Yes, CM Punk was reluctantly fired from AEW after two years (half of which he spent on the shelf with injuries/suspensions), and went back to the company he'd spent a decade trashing, WWE ("I couldn't get well by going back to the place that made me sick" seemed like such a heartfelt sentiment at the time...).  The official over-under on how long he lasts there has yet to be determined.

On the other side of the globe, NJPW is setting the table for a new era after losing their two biggest gaijin stars in Jay White and now Will Ospreay, and possibly Kazuchika Okada, whose contract is up in January.  Couple that with Hiroshi Tanahashi and Tetsuya Naito no longer being close to peak form, and the company is long overdue for some new faces at the top.  Sanada's been the top champion since April but hasn't moved the needle much at all, while David Finlay has become the new top foreign name, and Yota Tsuji, Shota Umino and Ren Narita are being groomed as the next generation of Japanese main eventers.  Unfortunately NJPW is taking their sweet-ass time getting there and it's made the current product feel rather stagnant.

Impact is changing its name back to TNA, MLW won an antitrust settlement against WWE, and ROH continues to be a decent secondary brand for AEW.

So with all that said, let's hand out some awards....

 

NJPW WrestleKingdom 18 Review: Not the Homerun I Was Hoping For

WrestleKingdom 18 is in the books, and it was a very good show but I have to consider it a mild disappointment overall.  Too many matches didn't get as much time as they should, even one of the main events, and it was missing that top Match of the Year candidate almost every Tokyo Dome show has had since 2013.  I think I liked last year's show a little better.  That's not to say there wasn't a lot to enjoy here though.

The main card kicked off with the Jr. Tag championship, as Clark Connors and Drilla Moloney faced Catch 2/2 in another rematch from last summer.  TJP, who had been stuffed into a casket in the last bout between these teams, came out dressed as a mythical Filipino creature called Aswang, or a cannabalistic shapeshifter, which was a little hokey but looked kinda cool.  These teams had a crisp back-and-forth bout lasting close to ten minutes before TJP sprayed Moloney with red mist and Catch 2/2 hit double knees to regain the titles.  Solid match to start things off.  ***1/2

Next was the first of multiple bouts that got shortchanged, Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi.  The technician and the new NJPW President exchanged a ton of grappling, reversals, submissions, etc. and packed a lot into their nine minutes, but five more would've taken this match to the next level.  The two men went back and forth with rollups until Tana finally held Zack down for the three.  Very good but could've been so much more.  ***3/4

AEW Worlds End Review: Adam Cole is The Devil

2023 is now in the history books, and with it AEW's final PPV of the year, Worlds End.  It was a good show, not a great one as we've consistently come to expect from AEW PPVs, but a good one.  I'd say it was their weakest PPV offering of 2023 but to be fair, it had VERY stiff competition.  We were treated to multiple ****+ bouts but the show was missing that one match to get everyone talking.  Instead it had a huge title change and a memorable angle to close the show, and it'll be interesting to see how the company follows up on it all.

After three pre-show matches, the best of which was Hook vs. Wheeler Yuta, the show opened with the All-Star 8-Man Tag, pitting eight of the Continental Classic competitors against each other.  This was a very fun party match with eight great workers exchanging a ton of moves on each other.  It got plenty of time too, running almost 18 minutes and culminating in a big series of finishers before Daniel Garcia scored the pin on Jay Lethal.  The two BCC members Danielson and Claudio showed some respect for Garcia and I think it's time he joined their stable.  In other news, Brody King attacked Matt Menard on commentary after the match, so they must be setting something up there.  Really strong opener.  ****1/4

Next up was Andrade El Idolo's final AEW match, and as I suspected CJ Perry dumped him in favor of helping her husband.  These two worked hard and Andrade to his credit didn't phone anything in.  I do question why AEW booked him so strong in the CC tournament if they knew he was leaving; maybe they were trying to change his mind?  Anyway this went about 15 minutes and CJ put the kibosh on Andrade's Figure-Eight by sweeping his arms out from under him, allowing Miro to hit the mafia kick and Game Over for the submission win.  Solid match.  ***3/4

NJPW WrestleKingdom 18 Preview & Predictions

Oh by the way there's a huge Tokyo Dome show this week.....

NJPW's flagship PPV WrestleKingdom 18 is once again taking place on January 4th, and like last year but even moreso, this lineup feels a lot closer to the show's glory years from 2015-2020 (minus the main event).  We have a loaded ten-match card that's a good mix of the promotion's cast of regulars, some up-and-comers making their Tokyo Dome main card debuts, and a pair of AEW guest stars.  Should be a pretty damn good show overall, and apparently the advance ticket sales are even better than last year.  WrestleKingdom was for many years a can't-miss event and this card certainly has a bit of that aura.

Let's take a look....

IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Championship: Clark Connors & Drilla Moloney vs. Catch 2/2 

Jr. Tags used to be the standard hot opening match at WrestleKingdom so I'm glad to see that tradition is being brought back.  There are few better ways to get a NJPW crowd hyped than with a blistering, fast-paced tag bout.  The Bullet Club War Dogs stable has been a welcome return to form for the longtime heel faction, after years of being so watered down.  Connors and Moloney have held these titles since July so I could see the babyfaces finally winning them back here.

Pick: Catch 2/2

NJPW World TV Championship: Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi

We are now a year into the lineage of the NJPW TV Title and only one man has held said championship.  Does ZSJ's run end here or does he hold on a bit longer?  If I'm booking this I keep it on Zack, as Tanahashi isn't really in any condition to be defending championships (plus he's still 1/3 of the trios champs).  Also he's the new NJPW President so he's got a lot on his plate.  But I could see this going either way.

Pick: Eh, I'll stick with Zack to retain, maybe via time limit draw