Gabriel

Edmonton has fired Jay Woodcroft. Another coach bites the dust. lol, Oilers.

How much about them should the songs be? Because I could go digging through my horror punk collection and find you probably over 100 songs that are about classic horror icons, either directly or just heavily referenced. Wednesday 13, The Other, Argyle Goolsby... in fact, Gools wrote a beautiful song about Theda Bara, silent actress and Hollywood's first vampire. Dear Theda by Argyle Goolsby

A couple weeks ago, Nikita Zadorov called out some of the under-performing Flames players during an interview. Big Z didn't throw any names under the bus, but he said some very honest things, and unfortunately it looks like it had the opposite effect he was looking for. Obviously, as a leader, you call out the bullshit and hope the responsible parties use it to light a spark. It seems like this interview ended up driving a wedge between him and those under-performing players, because now after an off-season talking about wanting to stay in Calgary long term and as recently as last week hoping to sign an extension... well, he's requested a trade. Sutter was a problem. We're not even going to pretend like his archaic thinking and bully-mentality works to develop players in 2023. He was a problem. But it's really starting to feel like Treliving gave money to a bunch of soft ego's who would rather push out one of their hardest working players than try harder themselves. I really hope that Conroy doesn't just pull the trigger on a move here. If I'm the new GM, I'm flying out to wherever Zadorov is and sitting down with him to figure out what the fuck happened. If Z just wants out and there aren't bigger issues in the locker room, then do the guy a solid and find him a new home. He's been a great professional and fantastic representative for the team. He deserves to feel valued. BUT, if Zadorov has asked for a trade because of the "star" players not putting forth the effort to turn this around, then Conroy should be trying to talk him into staying with the promise of moving those soft, big money "leaders". I think the coach and GM are fairly well aligned here. Big Money Jon sat the entire third period of their win the other night. The dollar amount on your contract dictates higher expectations. It shouldn't dictate ice time. If you're going, you're going. If you're not, collect your easy money sitting on the bench until we can send you somewhere else and let the kids play.

I love it mostly because it's giving Calgary time to get their shit together before anybody really panics. If the Oilers weren't so shit, eyes would be on Cow Town and the pressure cooker would get hot. Thanks, Edmonton. Less attention meant that my boys could sort through their shit quietly. Still need to get Hubie going, and get better goaltending (not that it's been a tire fire, but it's not good enough)... but the young guys are really going. Get some of those big money guys going too and see what happens.

See, and I'm the opposite of you guys. I loved Kills, and it's up at the top of my list in terms of how much I enjoyed each movie in the franchise. Kills hit exactly what I was hoping it would, and then Ends just shat all over it. For clarification though, I thought Ends was a bad Halloween film. But I quite enjoyed the premise and ideas present, and on its own merits, outside of the Halloween bubble, it's actually pretty good. As a franchise-ender, with the direction that it looked like Kills was going to take things, it's a failure... but still, a solid little movie, that I believe would have benefited greatly from being detached completely from Michael Myers and the Halloween franchise. I enjoy me some gore, but I'm not what I would call a gore-hound. I still want lore and mythology, and a good mind-fuck trumps any amount of blood and guts that a movie can throw at me. I just love the genre, from one end of sanity to the other.

I decided to go back to Dead Island, as it's part of the PS Plus Catalog and I remembered enjoying it enough on the PS3 until it got real buggy and I couldn't advance any. It's not awful, but it's frustrating as hell. It feels really clunky, especially in comparison to similar games. They got driving right though, which is usually a massive piss-off in most games. It's really making me wish I could play Dying Light though. I can't remember any vehicle stuff from Dying Light, but the combat and movement was so much better in that game.

Be wary with pre-owned consoles from Gamestop. They're not all bad, but it's hard to get them to replace a dud unless you bought the warranty, and even then, they typically "use" the warranty and you have to pay for that again on your replacement. (Unless things have changed since I left the company.) I once spoke to someone who worked on the refurbishing end of things, and what I was told is that basically, unless there's an obvious issue that needs fixing, they aren't actively seeking out repairs that may need to be made. Essentially, that means that people who know their consoles are on their last legs can trade them in and if they seem to run just fine when tested, they're cleaned up and sent out for sale. Pre-owned consoles gave me all kinds of headaches as a store manager there. On the one hand, you're held to a standard in regards to how many you can move, but on the other hand, it's kind of shitty to sell something to someone that you don't have faith in. They did, however, have a much larger success rate than the pre-owned phones and tablets we sold. I'm pretty certain the refurbishing team had no idea what they were doing with those beyond doing a factory reset and maybe replacing a damaged screen.

I love the idea of turning things on their head like that. In fact, I brought up something very similar to my partner recently. Off the top of my head, I can't think of anything that fits the bill exactly... though if you haven't seen them, you may enjoy both Tucker and Dale Versus Evil, and You Might Be the Killer. Both are horror comedies, but kind of play with that idea a little bit.

We still haven't really found out. But...

Terrifier 3 drops next October and will see Art tackle the Xmas season. Damien Leone has done a bunch of interviews of late, and some interesting tidbits included that he felt like there was a lot of backlash to three areas of the 2nd film. 1st, the length of the movie. For myself, yeah, it's a long one, but we just watched Terrifier 2 again last night, and there's very little I would cut. That being said, I do suppose that more could have been added and it could have been separated into two films. First part being the backstory for Sienna, Art and the Demon Child... second part being Sienna really stepping up and playing the character that her father created for her. Stretching it out into two movies may have actually been a good idea, as it would give more time to explore the connection between all the characters. I'm sure Terrifier 3 will address that, but that was my biggest lingering question from 2. 2nd, Leone has said a lot of the negativity that he saw was about the hard shift in tone from the grindhouse style of the first film to the second film including and leaning into 80's fantasy type elements. People who complained about that can suck it. It's an interesting and unique way to continue the series. There's clearly something supernatural about Art, and there are a million different generic slashers out there. Let's get fucking crazy with this. Make him a vessel for an old demon. Make Sienna a vessel for the angel or warrior or whatever that once put him to rest and needs to do it again. 3rd, was that people were mentioning that Art was too likeable, and not despicable enough to be hated. Fucking what? Yeah, I cheer him on, he makes me laugh and I love to see what Art's got up his sleeve. There's a morbid enjoyment in the glee he exhibits when torturing people. It's a beautiful sight for a fucked up mind, but if you're sitting there and thinking to yourself "Man, I really can't get behind anyone wanting to stop or kill Art"... the problem isn't Art the Clown being not evil enough. The problem is that you need to go seek psychiatric help immediately because you're probably a god damn psychopath. Sienna is clearly the good guy in the film, and as much as I enjoy me some Art the Clown, I was firmly behind seeing her overcome the villain. You know, because he's quite despicable and I'm not a danger to society.

Prometheus veered too far off-course, and despite it being a fresh direction, there was an abrupt course-correct that they tried to do with Covenant. Unfortunately, while it's a perfectly acceptable movie to sit down and watch, the course-correct took everything interesting about Prometheus and tossed it out the window, and it didn't lean enough into being a more typical Alien movie to counter-act that. The original drafts of Prometheus that were much more tied to the Xenomorph were infinitely more interesting than what we ended up with, and I think that if they had stuck with that instead of giving in to Ridley's insistence that the creature was played out, we would have ended up with quite the interesting little trilogy of movies leading directly into the original Alien. Fortunately for us, Fede Alvarez wrapped production on his upcoming Alien film. Alvarez has a great respect for the IP's that he's worked with in the past and wanted very much to make a Xenomorph movie. Reports are that he screened it for Ridley and got a very favorable reaction from him. So, we've got a fan in the driver's seat and approval from the guy who thought nothing more could be done with the creature. For the record, I quite enjoy Prometheus and the questions it asked. I was very interested in seeing where this whole thing was headed, and then corporate stepped in and demanded more of the Xenomorph and less of Scott's grand ideas. I did also enjoy Covenant, but it was severely impacted by a lack of cohesiveness creatively.

I can't really pinpoint why it's a favorite in our house, but we typically watch through the whole series every year now around Halloween. I feel like it might be that they let our imaginations run wild with the possibilities, but unlike most other cinema-verite styled films, they still show us some of the things that those other ones won't. I think that's my biggest issue with that format, is that most film-makers use it as a way to try and hide their shortcomings instead of accentuate what it is that they're trying to accomplish. Hell House doesn't feel like that, and it keeps me engaged instead of taking me out of the experience. Also, I just randomly had this pop into my head, so I need to tell everyone that if you're looking for a top possession based flick, you NEED to check out The Cleansing Hour. Absolute must. Best possession film I've ever seen. Easily.

The fourth Hell House film, the Carmichael Manor, dropped yesterday. If you enjoyed the first three, it keeps adding onto the lore despite being separate from the Abaddon Hotel. The limitations of the cinema-verite style are apparent though, for sure. I would have loved to have seen them set off on this new path in a different format. 3.5 rotting corpses out of 5. They answer some questions, ask some new ones, and set up what is hopefully going to be a new trilogy of films from the franchise. The frights are as good as they've been in the series, but the usual trappings of cinema-verite are more obvious than in the first three.

The Exorcist: Believer... not a bad movie. Not a great movie. I ended up just kind of sitting there afterwards, wondering why. I know they've planned one or two more and that could have played a role in how I felt about Believer, but they didn't break any new ground. They didn't really add anything to the lore. It's just kind of there.

This guy: EDIT: Images not working I guess... it's Evil Ash, by the way.

They already made a better FNAF movie called Willy's Wonderland. We watched Saw X the other day, and I quite enjoyed it. The hype about it being gorier than Terrifier 2 can suck it, because it didn't deliver on that, but it's a really cool twist on the franchise. X and Spiral are two of my favorite of the series. It's definitely got that gore turned up a bit from previous entries, but it's the changing of the story beats and playing around with the established ideas that really kept me interested.

Season 7 of Big Mouth was very good. There's an episode that explores the relationship between Matthew and Caleb, and it's just so touching and beautiful. As usual, they do a really good job of showing what Caleb is going through as a student with high functioning autism, and that episode just made me feel good.

Finished House of Usher last night. Absolutely god damned beautiful. In regards to Bly Manor, I felt like a lot of people dropped off that one because they expected something more like Hill House, but it's highly underrated. For me, Hill House is easily number one, with Midnight Mass and House of Usher fighting for the second spot. Bly Manor is a close fourth, and the Midnight Club, while still enjoyable, is easily the number five on my list. Flanagan's shows though, I can see people listing them in a myriad of different ways. For me, the connections to my mental health and supernatural experiences helped Hill House really hit me in a way that nothing ever had before. It all felt so familiar. Don't forget to watch Oculus and Gerald's Game though, if you've not seen those movies. Even more Flanagan goodness.

The big issue that I had with Guitar Hero Live is that it killed the idea of almost anyone being able to pick it up and play. I remember being at a manager's conference for EB Games when they were hyping the release and them asking people to come up and play on the stage. Nobody was able to score well because of the changes to the guitar. Nobody said they had any fun with it. Nobody said they were going to buy it themselves. Activision gave us all the game for free. None of us played it beyond 5 to 10 hours. They had a Rock Band 4 booth at our conference ending party. There was a line to play that game. Everyone had fun, because it didn't try to change the formula. Played the game before? You're good. Never played before? At least it's not super frustrating to learn and get better.

I'd love them to build on that 1+2 re-release we got. That was so cool to have. Unfortunately, they're seemingly focused on bringing back Guitar Hero. I love those games too, but Rock Band took it in the right direction, Guitar Hero Live fucking sucked, and the instruments are impossible to get for either game... so I don't really know if there's a market for that anymore. Guitar Hero, as a straight up party game, going back away from the Live aspects and returning to the older style guitar setup would probably do okay if the guitars are both affordable and easy to acquire. I think Rock Band is the better bet for success, as it understands the pick up and play style better and also caters to singers, drummers and bassists... but if they decide to put out a new Rock Band at any point, again, they need to make sure that instruments are affordable and easy to acquire. Last time I looked for a guitar for Rock Band, I think the cheapest one I found was well over $100. Drum set? Same deal. I remember getting the original game in a collection with two guitars, microphone, mic stand and drums for $250 total. Fuck, that went off the deep end. POINT OF POST: I also want Tony Hawk's, but it's more likely we get shit that won't work like Guitar Hero.

The Flana-Clan is one of my favorite things in modern horror. I love that he sticks with his actors and that everyone gets a chance to really show their skills by playing very different characters from show to show. Flanagan's work, and I'll keep saying this until I can't anymore... it just hits me differently. I feel so much more watching his stuff than I do with anything else. He's finding all of the right strings to pluck to initiate that raw emotional reaction from me. I have found his stuff to be very good at helping me on a psychological and emotional level. It's better than any therapy, psychiatrist or whatever that I've ever dealt with. We're three episodes into Usher, and I am profoundly happy with what we're getting. Just beautiful stuff. Plus, Carla Gugino is ❤️ . I've been crushing on that woman for nearly thirty years.

Good start last night. Flames weren't dominant, but Markstrom had a very solid first game of the season and gave them the opportunity to take advantage when they were given the chance. Also, LOL Oilers.

I am not a fan of team's receiving a bye for multiple reasons, but the downtime actually being a detriment is a big one. Sure, you're more rested, but you're also not going at top speed. The opposing team won't be as rested, but they're ready to go. I would prefer a four team per league playoff, with the top 4 teams getting playoff spots regardless of what division they're in. That said, the financial benefits to having a larger playoff pool are hard to ignore for the league, so it's likely we end up with 8 teams per league. If that's the case, I think each division winner should be granted a spot, and the other five should be the top five teams throughout the rest of the league. Seeding should be based on the records, which would make it possible that the number 8 seed would be a division winner in a weaker division. Playoffs should re-seed after each round with the top team playing the last ranked team. Either way, every series should be best of seven. In Jays news, Ross Atkins threw John Schneider under the bus and said that it was his call to pull Berrios... but if you watch Schneider comment on it, you can really see that he's trying his best to take the blame and not lay into the organization for what is clearly a poor mis-reading of how to properly use analytics. Maybe he made the call, but I don't think he does it if he feels like he has the support above him to ignore those analytics. Atkins also said it was the right call and the right strategy, saying it worked but the team didn't support the strategy with enough runs to make up for those that Kikuchi ended up allowing. What a dunce. Sure, they didn't score, but if Berrios gets through that frame without allowing those two runs, the hitters coming up are coming up with a different mind-set than that of a team trailing. Everything impacts everything else, Ross. It was a bad call, and somebody at the top of the organization needs to take responsibility for it and do better moving forward.