Posted on by Alexander Case

Movie Review: Mission Impossible (1996)

When I first watched Mission: Impossible, and Tom Cruise’s first outing as Ethan Hunt – I was much younger – still in High School, with a degree of familiarity with the TV series from watching reruns on TV on Saturday mornings, or on cable on TV Land, and with a limited degree of familiarity with the spy or the suspense genre as a whole. So, I don’t think it worked for me the way that Brian De Palma intended. However, the passage of time has lead me to have more experience with thrillers, the spy genre in its multiple flavors, and some of De Palma’s other work (such as The Untouchables), which has lead me to a place where I think I’m able to re-appraise this film on its own terms – and I think it fares much better in this re-appraisal.

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Posted on by Alexander Case

Manga Review: Cipher Academy

Nisioisn, the creator of the Monogatari series, recently ran a new manga in Shonen Jump, and which ran in on the app in the US – Cipher Academy. The series gained a degree of infamy due to a level of wordplay that lead to a change in translators partway through the run. Well, I’ve read the whole thing, following its conclusion, and I have a few thoughts.

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Posted on by Alexander Case

Opening The Forbidden Door: My current AEW vs. WWE Dream Card

Earlier this week I had a thought come in my head – “You know, if you put Orange Cassidy in an angle with The Rock, having Cassidy do his usual ‘ignore-you-because-I-have-no-fucks-to-give’ schtick would probably work to have The Rock get angrier than he’s ever been – like white-hot-I-will-brutalize-you-in-the-middle-of-the-ring rage.” Not that I want Cassidy to jump ship to WWE, though I think the Triple H regime would handle him well. However, arguably, AEW and WWE is truly the last forbidden door – people go one way or the other but you never have them truly acknowledge the other, and have cross-programming material. So, I thought, if that Forbidden Door was to open, with The Rock on the table – how would I do it? As someone who, like Tony Kahn, has spent a fair amount of time playing not only Total Extreme Wrestling, but also Total Extreme Warfare and Extreme Warfare Revenge, I feel like I can put some good ideas out there.

Tony, Triple H, in the event you decide to read this, you have my permission to use these.

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Posted on by Alexander Case

Book Review: Emmanuelle

After I finished reading Emmanuelle, I was very hesitant to discuss the book on my blog, because normally I don’t get into 18+ material here. However, that said, when it comes to the topic of literary erotica, Emmanuelle is the 500 lb gorilla. 50 Shades of Grey couldn’t dream of provoking a multi-million dollar film franchise lasting decades, complete with a big-budget high profile reboot in production with (at least previously) a major actress attached in the title role. Only D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover even remotely comes close to the level of impact. But in the year 2024, approaching 60 years since its initial publication, does it hold up?

Content Warning: There will be some descriptions of explicit content in this review – described less explicitly than the source material, but still explicit enough that you couldn’t say it on the radio.

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Posted on by Alexander Case

Quick Updates on the Surgery Procedure

So – I have more information on the procedure! The short news – I will definitely not be streaming that weekend, and might not be streaming for the week after – or if I do, I’ll have to not be on camera. This actually leads to another thing – the doctor’s estimated recouperation time after the surgery is going to be about 2 weeks minimum, with the thing that makes me not able to be on camera hopefully being done after 1 week.

What this may end up leading to is me doing is, if I do a video during that period, it’s probably going to be SF Debris style – with me strictly doing voiceover and editing – which is more work, but the good news is I’ll have the time to do it.