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Thread: Fighting With My Family (Stephen Merchant)

  1. #1
    Evil mind, evil sword. Ivan Drago's Avatar
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    Fighting With My Family (Stephen Merchant)

    Last Five Films I've Seen (Out of 5)

    The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the Horse (Mackesy, 2022) 4.5
    Puss In Boots: The Last Wish (Crawford, 2022) 4
    Confess, Fletch (Mottola, 2022) 3.5
    M3GAN (Johnstone, 2023) 3.5
    Turning Red (Shi, 2022) 4.5
    Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953) 5

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  2. #2
    Evil mind, evil sword. Ivan Drago's Avatar
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    Last Five Films I've Seen (Out of 5)

    The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the Horse (Mackesy, 2022) 4.5
    Puss In Boots: The Last Wish (Crawford, 2022) 4
    Confess, Fletch (Mottola, 2022) 3.5
    M3GAN (Johnstone, 2023) 3.5
    Turning Red (Shi, 2022) 4.5
    Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953) 5

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  3. #3
    Scott of the Antarctic Milky Joe's Avatar
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    I dug it too, inaccuracies notwithstanding.
    ‎The severed arm perfectly acquitted itself, because of the simplicity of its wishes and its total lack of doubt.

  4. #4
    The Pan Spinal's Avatar
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    Thought this was very disappointing. Kinda funny, kinda sweet. But the finale is lacking. It's hard to understand why Paige is given such a big opportunity based on what we've seen on screen.
    Coming to America (Landis, 1988) **
    The Beach Bum (Korine, 2019) *1/2
    Us (Peele, 2019) ***1/2
    Fugue (Smoczynska, 2018) ***1/2
    Prisoners (Villeneuve, 2013) ***1/2
    Shadow (Zhang, 2018) ***
    Oslo, August 31st (J. Trier, 2011) ****
    Climax (Noé, 2018) **1/2
    Fighting With My Family (Merchant, 2019) **
    Upstream Color (Carruth, 2013) ***

  5. #5
    Scott of the Antarctic Milky Joe's Avatar
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    They really glossed over the NXT stuff and jumped to WrestleMania way too fast. They treated it like it was tough enough or something that nobody saw, but she had her own journey to NXT champion, her matches with Emma for the NXT title were the first real rumblings of the so called women's revolution and of NXT itself which has become more its own brand than a developmental system. Paige had a big part in that. The movie is quite bare bones, but the stuff with her family is the best. Better to just watch the actual documentary about them (shown in clips during the credits)
    ‎The severed arm perfectly acquitted itself, because of the simplicity of its wishes and its total lack of doubt.

  6. #6
    The Pan Spinal's Avatar
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    I was just flat-out confused by what happened. The final match did not seem to have a fixed outcome and I wasn't sure why that was.
    Coming to America (Landis, 1988) **
    The Beach Bum (Korine, 2019) *1/2
    Us (Peele, 2019) ***1/2
    Fugue (Smoczynska, 2018) ***1/2
    Prisoners (Villeneuve, 2013) ***1/2
    Shadow (Zhang, 2018) ***
    Oslo, August 31st (J. Trier, 2011) ****
    Climax (Noé, 2018) **1/2
    Fighting With My Family (Merchant, 2019) **
    Upstream Color (Carruth, 2013) ***

  7. #7
    Scott of the Antarctic Milky Joe's Avatar
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    Yeahhh... I could have sworn that I heard The Rock say while he's on the phone with her parents that Paige was going to debut on the next night and win the title (not just have a match for it). Did he not say she was going to win? Other wrestling fans are telling me he didn't say that, but I coulda sworn I heard it... maybe you remember if he did or not?

    In any case it was a very by-the-numbers Hollywood climax lacking any of the nuance or backstage politics that makes it actually interesting... I'll bet Vince McMahon loved it...
    ‎The severed arm perfectly acquitted itself, because of the simplicity of its wishes and its total lack of doubt.

  8. #8
    The Pan Spinal's Avatar
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    I don't recall that being mentioned by The Rock. Even if it was, it just raises another question, which is why would they put her on live TV in that situation when she hadn't found her voice yet? It just didn't make sense based on what we saw in the film.
    Coming to America (Landis, 1988) **
    The Beach Bum (Korine, 2019) *1/2
    Us (Peele, 2019) ***1/2
    Fugue (Smoczynska, 2018) ***1/2
    Prisoners (Villeneuve, 2013) ***1/2
    Shadow (Zhang, 2018) ***
    Oslo, August 31st (J. Trier, 2011) ****
    Climax (Noé, 2018) **1/2
    Fighting With My Family (Merchant, 2019) **
    Upstream Color (Carruth, 2013) ***

  9. #9
    Scott of the Antarctic Milky Joe's Avatar
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    Right. Like I said, in reality she HAD found her voice and when she debuted on RAW most of the audience already knew who she was (it was a crowd of hardcore fans) and went crazy for it. That doesn't quite jive with the story they wanted to tell though, I guess.

    They also completely misrepresent and downplay AJ Lee... probably because her husband just got done beating the WWE in court after they sued him...
    ‎The severed arm perfectly acquitted itself, because of the simplicity of its wishes and its total lack of doubt.

  10. #10
    Evil mind, evil sword. Ivan Drago's Avatar
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    Yeah, there are more than a few places in the film where I thought the corporate side of WWE had a hand in telling the story, most notably the ending, if only because...

    [
    ]

    Sidebar: You watch wrestling too, Joe?
    Last Five Films I've Seen (Out of 5)

    The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the Horse (Mackesy, 2022) 4.5
    Puss In Boots: The Last Wish (Crawford, 2022) 4
    Confess, Fletch (Mottola, 2022) 3.5
    M3GAN (Johnstone, 2023) 3.5
    Turning Red (Shi, 2022) 4.5
    Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953) 5

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  11. #11
    Scott of the Antarctic Milky Joe's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Ivan Drago (view post)
    Sidebar: You watch wrestling too, Joe?
    Yep. But as I am sure you can relate, I have a complicated relationship with WWE. I love the genre but hate the programming, for the most part. Except NXT, which is awesome.
    ‎The severed arm perfectly acquitted itself, because of the simplicity of its wishes and its total lack of doubt.

  12. #12
    Evil mind, evil sword. Ivan Drago's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Milky Joe (view post)
    Yep. But as I am sure you can relate, I have a complicated relationship with WWE. I love the genre but hate the programming, for the most part. Except NXT, which is awesome.
    I'm right there with you. Raw and Smackdown pretty much pull storylines from a bag of tropes and copy and paste their booking from episode to episode and just rearrange the structure. NXT is consistently great, though. The characters of Tommaso Ciampa and Aleister Black are on another level.
    Last Five Films I've Seen (Out of 5)

    The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the Horse (Mackesy, 2022) 4.5
    Puss In Boots: The Last Wish (Crawford, 2022) 4
    Confess, Fletch (Mottola, 2022) 3.5
    M3GAN (Johnstone, 2023) 3.5
    Turning Red (Shi, 2022) 4.5
    Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953) 5

    615 Film
    Letterboxd

  13. #13
    The Pan Spinal's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Ivan Drago (view post)
    Yeah, there are more than a few places in the film where I thought the corporate side of WWE had a hand in telling the story, most notably the ending, if only because...

    [
    ]
    It was also really hard to understand (again, based on what the movie shows us) why Paige was considered a "freak". She had an accent and dark hair and ... what? A lip ring? I mean, by the standards of WWE, this is a freak? She's also a little short, but this isn't even relevant to the actual wrestler who is 5'8" compared to Florence Pugh's 5'4".
    Coming to America (Landis, 1988) **
    The Beach Bum (Korine, 2019) *1/2
    Us (Peele, 2019) ***1/2
    Fugue (Smoczynska, 2018) ***1/2
    Prisoners (Villeneuve, 2013) ***1/2
    Shadow (Zhang, 2018) ***
    Oslo, August 31st (J. Trier, 2011) ****
    Climax (Noé, 2018) **1/2
    Fighting With My Family (Merchant, 2019) **
    Upstream Color (Carruth, 2013) ***

  14. #14
    Scott of the Antarctic Milky Joe's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Spinal (view post)
    She had an accent and dark hair and ... what? A lip ring? I mean, by the standards of WWE, this is a freak?
    For the women? Yup, lol.

    This is a company whose name for their female performers was 'Diva' (as opposed to Superstar for the men) and who made them fight over a pink belt with a butterfly on it.
    Last edited by Milky Joe; 03-04-2019 at 05:53 PM.
    ‎The severed arm perfectly acquitted itself, because of the simplicity of its wishes and its total lack of doubt.

  15. #15
    Guttenbergian Pop Trash's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Milky Joe (view post)
    This is a company whose name for their female performers was 'Diva' (as opposed to Superstar for the men) and who made them fight over a pink belt with a butterfly on it.
    lol pro wrestling is such its own alternative universe
    Ratings on a 1-10 scale for your pleasure:

    Top Gun: Maverick - 8
    Top Gun - 7
    McCabe & Mrs. Miller - 8
    Crimes of the Future - 8
    Videodrome - 9
    Valley Girl - 8
    Summer of '42 - 7
    In the Line of Fire - 8
    Passenger 57 - 7
    Everything Everywhere All at Once - 6



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