Author Archives: Flash Gorem

Monstrosity Championship Wrestling arises at the Rock ‘n’ Roll Monster Bash

Dragula (left) gets the best of the Alabama Wolfman (photo by Danielle Boise)

On an unseasonably warm and starry night last October, a strange thing happened in the parking lot of Atlanta Zombie Apocalypse. A wrestling ring was assembled and members of the Platinum Championship Wrestling roster showed up to do battle with … MONSTERS! It was a sight like none other until the following weekend, when monsters and wrestlers grappled yet again in an effort to prove their dominance over one another.

This freak occurrence went somewhat unnoticed, perhaps because such things are a bit more expected in the weeks leading up to Halloween at a venue where vigilante soldiers are forced to protect pedestrians from the creations of the Centers for Disease Development on a nightly basis. And though the zombies, demons and other assorted creatures of the night seemed to go dormant in the months following Halloween, they once again arose in March as the Silver Scream SpookShow’s Professor Morte resurrected Monstrosity Championship Wrestling to take on PCW’s finest in battles of living vs. dead (and undead) for the Wrestling with Pop Culture Anniversary Party at the Masquerade.

PCW's the Washington Bullets (Trey and Jon Williams) were turned into zombies at MCW's last show (photo by Harold Jay Taylor)

There, we saw the likes of a flamboyantly gay vampire known as Dragula as he got the better of his bigoted beast of a rival known as the Alabama Wolfman. In an event that also included a demon possession, a zombie infection spreading amongst the PCW competitors and other phenomena never before seen inside (or outside of) the squared circle, PCW’s “Do or Die” Chip Day took on “The Zombie King” Papa Marko and his mindless minions.

Though things have since returned to normal (well, as normal as can be expected from PCW), the monsters arise again for their Starlight Six Drive-In Theatre debut as part of the 2012 Rock ‘n’ Roll Monster Bash! As the previous three events have proven, you never know what to expect when MCW is involved. And with all the other monstrous music, movies and other mayhem already involved with the Monster Bash’s tenth anniversary, Morte’s monsters may decide to make the Starlight their permanent new haunt! And who will survive as the living do battle with the dead once more?!

WWE Studios’ “Bending the Rules” just isn’t Edge-y enough

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Having set records such as his 12 WWE Tag Team Championships and seven World Heavyweight Championships in WWE, Adam “Edge” Copeland is clearly deserving of his induction into the WWE Hall of Fame this WrestleMania weekend. And with his unexpected retirement from wrestling less than a year ago, it’s only fitting that Edge take his charisma to the big screen as peers such as The Rock, John Cena, Triple H and “Stone Cold” Steve Austin have done before him.

Nick Blades (Edge) and Theo Gold (Jamie Kennedy) team up in "Bending the Rules"

Edge makes his leading role debut in the new WWE Studios movie Bending the Rules, in select theaters today and on DVD and Blu-ray March 27. In this comedy cop caper, Edge plays Nick Blades, a New Orleans cop known for bending the rules to get the job done. Jamie Kennedy is Theo Gold, the down-on-his-luck District Attorney on the opposing side of the courtroom. In what is supposed to be a comical twist of fate, these two opposing forces become an odd couple who, despite their differing motivations and methods, are determined to get to the bottom of some sort of crime racket.

See, there’s this list of license plate numbers and someone is going down that list and taking out the owners of the vehicles. Somehow Gold’s beloved 1956 Studebaker Silver Hawk comes up missing, presumably because it is on this list. Blades hangs out with Gold’s mom (played by Jessica Walter, who is basically reprising her overbearing and self-entitled mother role from Arrested Development), Gold’s assistant (Alicia Witt) gets kidnapped, some gunfights break out and funniness fails to ensue.

It’s not that Bending the Rules is a bad movie. It’s just that it’s also not that great. Edge is basically playing Edge, but for some reason the charisma he portrays when talking to in-ring opponents doesn’t come across very well here. Jennifer Esposito plays his friend on the force, and she looks damn good in that blue uniform. But for some reason all of these ingredients don’t seem to gel, perhaps because Bending the Rules follows the rules of an action comedy too lazily. There is an attempt at a surprise twist at the end of the movie, but by that point it’s hard to even care about anything that’s happening anymore. And ironically, the Rated R Superstar only got a PG-13 rating.

Bending the Rules. Directed by Artie Mandelberg. Starring Adam “Edge” Copeland, Jamie Kennedy, Jennifer Esposito and Jessica Walter. Rated PG-13. www.bendingtherulesmovie.com.

“Friends with Kids” finds comedy in the tragedy of early-midlife mistakes

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Given the fact that my friends and I often have a hard time relating to the plights of the common man, given our superhuman abilities and all, it’s easy for me to forget what the average person’s worries are. I mean, when you’re busy saving the world and pummeling opponents in the ring, you don’t have much time to think about things like settling down and having babies.

Alex (Chris O'Dowd), Missy (Kristen Wiig), Leslie (Maya Rudolph) and Ben (Jon Hamm) share an elevator in "Friends with Kids." At least they're not sharing a baby.

That John Carter guy is someone I can relate to, but this new Friends with Kids movie is about as foreign to me as a four-armed Martian would be to you. So what happens is these three couples have been friends for several years. Leslie and Alex (Maya Rudolph and Chris O’Dowd) and Missy and Ben (Kristen Wiig and Jon Hamm) get married, have kids and become miserable. Jason and Julie (Adam Scott (not Tom Cruise, as I first suspected) and Jennifer Westfeldt) aren’t actually a couple, but have been close friends since college. Neither one of them seems to be good at relationships (well, Jason gets some hotties, but they never stick around for long, and neither of them wants to end up as unhappy as the two couples that got married.

A drunken late night joke about Jason and Julie having a baby without the constraints and expectations of a romantic relationship turns into, well, Jason and Julie having a baby without committing to a romantic relationship with one another. In fact, they both encourage each other to date other people, taking turns babysitting their offspring so the other can maintain a social life. Sounds like just the broken home recipe to spawn my next supervillain!

The other two couples are, at first, insulted, then shocked to see that Jason and Julie’s plan actually seems to be working. Julie starts dating a wonderful guy named Kurt (Edward Burns) and Jason’s latest little fling (Megan Fox) lasts longer than anyone is used to. But as Jason and Julie get more and more involved with their significant others, they expect more and more from each other in terms of taking care of the baby. They also start to exhibit signs of jealousy, implying that their feelings for each other might be stronger than either of them would like to admit. I think there was a TV show in the ’80s called thirtysomething that was similar to this, but I’m not certain of that.

Leslie (Maya Rudoplh) and Julie (Jennifer Westfeldt) prepare for another group gathering in "Friends with Kids."

Anyway, as their plan finally seems to start unraveling a little, the other two couples find relief in the fact that Jason and Julie may join them in their middle-aged mediocrity (misery loves company, after all). Everything eventually falls apart for everyone involved, which is when Friends with Kids actually starts to get interesting. I’ve heard about the complexities of many human relationships, where figuring out what you need versus what you desire is a difficult task. It’s just such a conflict that I found intriguing with this film.

From what I understand, friends with benefits and open relationships rarely work for the average person. But the situation with Jason and Julie is even more complicated than that, especially when one of them expresses a desire for something to pursue something more than platonic with the other, only to be denied. That kind of emotional pain is not something Flash Gorem is accustomed to, but it seems as if it is even harder to overcome than physical pain. I’ve heard a saying about not knowing what you’ve got till it’s gone, and that definitely becomes the case when the denier later realizes what got away (especially after things don’t work out with the new significant other).

At first, I really hated the seemingly happily-ever-after ending of this dramedy. Then I realized it may not be such a happy ending after all. If the decisions that have been made by all three couples previously in the movie are any indication, it’s highly likely that any new decisions (especially those driven by mixtures of emotion, lust and regret) could be even bigger mistakes. And with a conclusion like that, Friends with Kids is a somewhat unsettling look at people’s desperate attempts to find happiness as they feel their biological clocks ticking away.

Friends with Kids. Written and directed by Jennifer Westfeldt. Starring Jennifer Westfeldt, Adam Scott, Kristen Wiig, John Hamm, Maya Rudoph, Chris O’Dowd, Megan Fox and Edward Burns. Rated R. www.friendswithkids.com.