ayumidah
Wade Wilson
The ace-iest bi you'll ever meet
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Post by ayumidah on Dec 26, 2023 2:07:38 GMT -5
Watched it with non wrestling fans and I laughed in the theater when I noticed MJF's cameo and my friend gave me such a weird look, lol I only noticed him by the wig, and I knew it was going to be like that as soon as I heard he was only in for a brief part because that wig was horribly distinctive, so it made me laugh too.
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Post by Killah Ray on Dec 26, 2023 13:18:28 GMT -5
It’s weird to me on how I feel about this movie. On one hand I think it’s probably the best wrestling movie ever, but with a lot of the omissions and screwing around with the timeline for dramatic effect, I came out the theater kinda hating the movie at the same time.
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Post by Confused Mark Wahlberg on Dec 26, 2023 13:52:09 GMT -5
How are you gonna just delete a whole-ass brother? The movie might be good but that really bothers me.
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Post by Aceorton on Dec 26, 2023 17:22:45 GMT -5
A day after seeing this (and really enjoying it), I'm coming back to the omission of Chris as a major mistake. There are interviews with the writer or director where they're saying it would have been "too much" emotionally and added an hour to the run time. I don't think either of those things is true. Chris just needed to be in the background as the younger guy admiring his brothers for the first half of the movie, with a couple of scenes of story arc in the second half to show him growing to be undersized and frustrated (plus bearing the weight of losing David and Mike) before taking his own life, too. Five tragic deaths is more powerful than four in showing what Kevin has endured. And THAT'S WHAT REALLY HAPPENED. The truth is worse than fiction. Ultimately, I think this big breach in accuracy is going to the lasting knock on this movie. Other thoughts:
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Post by RareTradU on Dec 26, 2023 21:43:03 GMT -5
Just finished watching the movie and I thought it was really really good. I'd tell any wrestling fan to check it out as it opens the door for a lot of wrestling biopics to be made. However, there was a lot that bothered me about the movie. First of all, the Ric Flair actor was horrible and I cringed during his scene. Did not capture Ric's aura at all. The rest was timeline issues and skipping around so much that if you didn't know the story you wouldn't be able to follow along. Also, I thought they could've dug in deeper to the brother's issues more. They didn't show much of the darker side of their lives before they all died. Seemed really rushed for a two hour movie. Not much of a Zach Efron fan but he played the role of Kevin very well. The actor playing Fritz did as well. I'd watch again.
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fw91
Patti Mayonnaise
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Post by fw91 on Dec 27, 2023 23:43:58 GMT -5
Just finished watching the movie and I thought it was really really good. I'd tell any wrestling fan to check it out as it opens the door for a lot of wrestling biopics to be made. However, there was a lot that bothered me about the movie. First of all, the Ric Flair actor was horrible and I cringed during his scene. Did not capture Ric's aura at all. The rest was timeline issues and skipping around so much that if you didn't know the story you wouldn't be able to follow along. Also, I thought they could've dug in deeper to the brother's issues more. They didn't show much of the darker side of their lives before they all died. Seemed really rushed for a two hour movie. Not much of a Zach Efron fan but he played the role of Kevin very well. The actor playing Fritz did as well. I'd watch again. just saw it, and this is pretty much my thoughts. Fanf***ingtastic film, but not a lot about each brothers separate issues, with the exception of maybe Mike. Once "their time was up" it kinda rushed through.
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Post by Muskrat on Dec 28, 2023 20:54:21 GMT -5
Just got back. Thought it was a really well done movie, excellent acting. The wrestling scenes were very well done, and overall I really liked this flick.
However, there was a weird blending of real and kayfabe with some of the wrestling stuff and that bothered me. But I’ve personally chosen to go with the theory that the movie is Kevin cognitively reframing how he handled a lot of the tragedy in his life
EDIT: I do agree with the post above me, the deaths felt like real “to the back” moments where the audience wasn’t given much time to process the major event they just saw. Like, they do the dramatic build to revealing the aftermath of Kerry’s accident and then he doesn’t appear for like 15 min until he’s getting a prosthetic.
EDIT 2: I expect Zach Effron, Holt McCallany and maybe Lily James to get some Oscar buzz and wouldn’t be surprised if any or all of the 3 get nominated but don’t think the film as a whole is gonna get a tonne of Oscar traction
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Post by booty2shoes on Dec 28, 2023 22:33:30 GMT -5
Saw it tonight.
I think it would have helped the movie had they simply cast MJF as Flair. You get a better promo out of the Flair character for that segment. And, as a film, it gets more buzz from the current wrestling fans if current wrestler MJF's role in the film is larger.
The omission of Chris is still something I can't get past. I do understand their reasons behind leaving him out for run time purposes (and even "might depress the audience too much if there's another death" purposes), but at the same time... it's one of the wrestling brothers who died tragically. He's a part of the story. He could have easily been kept in it, with small inclusion in early scenes looking up to his older brothers, and then during later scenes briefly showing how he was frustrated because of his lack of size, etc. It would add maybe 5 minutes to the film to be more true to the family's actual story. And would hold up more historically for decades to come as a good representation of what that family dealt with.
Oh well. It's not what they did.
The other big thing that kinda annoyed me about the film was how they couldn't decide if wrestling was real or not. In one scene, they're showing the guys calling a match in the locker room. In another, Kevin is explaining to his girlfriend how it's a work but guys get pushed based on their effort. But then they go back to Fritz getting crazy about the boys "getting title shots," rather than, I dunno, "selling out Reunion Arena next Saturday night." Like, as the promoter/owner, that would be more realistic. Instead we get this weird portrayal of Fritz at home with his family keeping kayfabe with each other about title shots and winning matches. Just odd. If they would have eliminated that aspect of the Fritz character and replaced it with being concerned about business, that would've been way better.
There should have been a scene depicting Fritz sending Mike back to the ring on a wrestling show after his accident. I'm sure they left it out because it would've made Fritz look like too much of a monster.
Also... the other big omission is... the role of drug use in their lives. They made it look like Kerry snorted pain pills once, right after his accident. I know you can't include everything in a movie, to stay true to life. But drug offenses/arrests and looking at likely extensive jail time was the tipping point for Kerry's suicide. I guess the snorting the pills once was "acknowledging drugs played a role," but... still. It was way more than that in reality.
As a whole, I thought it was a pretty good movie. Could have easily made some adjustments to be more true to the actual story, and made some better casting decisions. It was still very good for a wrestling related movie. I'd put it second to The Wrestler.
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Post by IgnahtaSempria on Dec 29, 2023 0:06:26 GMT -5
After having seen the movie, I agree with a take I've seen online saying that this should've been a miniseries, rather than a feature film. As much as I enjoyed it, the film's biggest flaw is how they basically speedrun all the tragedy in the second half of the movie. Oh, David just died in Japan? Well, let's do the funeral scene, and oh wait, now Kerry's lost his foot, even though that didn't happen until two years later. Well, we'll just let this one marinate and- well, no, now Mike's injury and death happened about ten minutes later. There's no time for anything to actually sink in.
Hell, I know that he was basically a glorified cameo to begin with, and his scene was cut, but how was anyone who didn't already know he was in the movie supposed to know that MJF was playing Lance Von Erich? How were non-fans even supposed to know who Lance was? His introduction was actually a pretty big conflict between Fritz and his sons, and it soured some fans on the Von Erich family for "lying" to the fans about this fake family member. In a miniseries, that could be a full episode on its own, but instead, Lance is just a random nobody Kevin is teaming with for no explained reason other than "Mike is dead".
And there's just so much that could have made it into a hypothetical miniseries. David losing his daughter. Fritz's fake heart attack. Kerry dropping the NWA Heavyweight title back to Ric Flair less than three weeks later, solidifying Fritz's paranoia that the NWA was out to get him. Everything involving Chris. There's just so much to talk about in the Von Erich story, and a miniseries probably would have served that story better.
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Post by hitman777 on Dec 29, 2023 8:44:00 GMT -5
I really enjoyed (if that's the right word!) it, but the story of Chris should have been told. I also thought the actor playing Kerry was a bit too thin compared to Efron's, Kevin.
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chrom
Backup Wench
Master of the rare undecuple post
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Post by chrom on Dec 29, 2023 18:07:31 GMT -5
Vice has put up the whole DSOTR episode of The Von Erichs
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Post by Muskrat on Dec 29, 2023 19:19:52 GMT -5
Vice has put up the whole DSOTR episode of The Von Erichs
I’m gonna try and re-watch this later. Haven’t seen it since it aired, but judging how much I cried during The Iron Claw this will not be a fun journey.
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Post by Muskrat on Dec 29, 2023 19:25:06 GMT -5
Also, having a day to think about it, I think the lack of time to process the death and tragedy in the movie might have been intentional. You don’t even have time to deal with one tragedy, and another is happening.
David- 1984 Mike- 1987 Chris- 1990 Kerry- 1993
Yeah, 9 years seems like a long time, but when dealing with the death of your brothers it probably would feel like they all happened back to back without being able to deal with the last one.
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Cranjis McBasketball
Crow T. Robot
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Post by Cranjis McBasketball on Dec 29, 2023 19:30:33 GMT -5
Vice has put up the whole DSOTR episode of The Von Erichs I’m gonna try and re-watch this later. Haven’t seen it since it aired, but judging how much I cried during The Iron Claw this will not be a fun journey. Watched it right after Iron Claw. Didn’t hit as hard after the movie because you’re kind of desensitized to the grief. Worth noting, it was Cornette who says Kevin said “I used to have 5 brothers, now I’m not even a brother”. Kevin doesn’t actually say it.
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Post by Muskrat on Dec 29, 2023 19:33:22 GMT -5
I’m gonna try and re-watch this later. Haven’t seen it since it aired, but judging how much I cried during The Iron Claw this will not be a fun journey. Watched it right after Iron Claw. Didn’t hit as hard after the movie because you’re kind of desensitized to the grief. Worth noting, it was Cornette who says Kevin said “I used to have 5 brothers, now I’m not even a brother”. Kevin doesn’t actually say it. Man, I f***ing bawled at the end of Iron Claw. “We’ll be your brothers”. That killed me
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Cranjis McBasketball
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Peace Love and Nothing But
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Post by Cranjis McBasketball on Dec 29, 2023 19:42:23 GMT -5
Watched it right after Iron Claw. Didn’t hit as hard after the movie because you’re kind of desensitized to the grief. Worth noting, it was Cornette who says Kevin said “I used to have 5 brothers, now I’m not even a brother”. Kevin doesn’t actually say it. Man, I f***ing bawled at the end of Iron Claw. “We’ll be your brothers”. That killed me I made it through without crying. Teared up, but no crying. Which is amazing cause I cry at everything now.
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Post by Muskrat on Dec 29, 2023 19:49:28 GMT -5
Man, I f***ing bawled at the end of Iron Claw. “We’ll be your brothers”. That killed me I made it through without crying. Teared up, but no crying. Which is amazing cause I cry at everything now. Yeah, I don’t know when that switch flipped with me. I never used to cry, and certainly never with movies. But now, 37 years of age, Kevin Smith would look at me and be like “Bitch, you cry too much” I watched the first Spiderverse movie last night, seen it before plenty, and I still had happy tears when Miles finally figures out his leap of faith. Me in theatres for Guardians Vol 3 was downright embarrassing, I’m pretty sure I cried at every happy and sad scene. I might not have as strong a grip on my emotions as I once did haha.
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fw91
Patti Mayonnaise
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Post by fw91 on Jan 5, 2024 22:17:35 GMT -5
Been searching for this song online since I left the theater last week. Finally released. Total banger imo, and fits the spirit of the movie so damn well. Still brings a tear to my eye. I hope it gets nominated for best original song lol.
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Post by hulksmash87 on Jan 6, 2024 22:01:42 GMT -5
I liked it my wife did also, she knew nothing of the Von Erich history. I do agree that it would have made a better mini series.
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PrimeTyme
Dennis Stamp
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Post by PrimeTyme on Jan 6, 2024 22:07:45 GMT -5
I went to see it last week. Hadn’t been to the theatre in a few years so once my wife and daughter went to bed* I headed out to treat myself to a late birthday gift.
*She is not a wrestling and had no interest in seeing the movie and was okay with me not taking her*
I can’t get over how good this movie was. Even knowing what to expect it still managed to give me a gut punch with each tragedy. I sat in the theatre absolutely glued to the screen.
I could tell some of the people in there were not familiar with the Von Erich story when there was a gasp at Kerry missing his foot.
The wrestling scenes were very well done, and the acting for the rest was fantastic and they really made you feel the emotions of the film.
I have recommended this to anyone who has saw the preview and asked me (the resident wrestling fan haha) about it. I keep telling people the same thing, this is not a wrestling movie, it’s a movie that happens to have some wrestling in it. The story will grip you.
Also thank you for posting Live That Way Forever. I agree that it should get a nomination for Best Original Song. It fits the tone of the film so well!
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