Music
Chai - Punk (3/5)
An enjoyable album if not a bit of a slow ending. The first half of this album is stellar in my opinion, every track delivers a catchy punk tune that makes your blood pump. But the second half peters out for me, it feels less urgent, and more tepid, the catchy choruses are still there but the sound from the beginning is lost.
Movies
Little Miss Sunshine (3.5/5)
A really touching, funny, heartfelt movie about a dysfunctional family on a road trip. The characterisation is amazing in this movie, the father is initially despicable but as the film progresses you also get moments of him being thoughtful and kind. It is stuff like this that make the movie, definitely a watch.
Vice (2/5)
I don't wanna spend much time on this, overall it is just a bunch of naff messaging about how we the people need to be more aware of the world even though people were aware of Cheny and his shit. Film making wise I do think the way this movie is made is at least interesting albeit messy and a bit shit. Overall pretty awful, at least Bale and Adams were putting on great performances.
Toy Story 4 (4/5)
I am a huge fan on the original 2 Toy Story movies, I consider both of them 5 stars, I was however a little disappointed with Toy Story 3, not because it was bad, it definitely wasn't, but I felt it failed to capture what was so great about the original two movies. Toy Story 4 corrects that, not only do we go back to original characters, we get new characters that feel fresh but still feel like they would fit right in those originals. A great movie with the only downside that we didn't get to see some of those original characters more like Jessie, Rex, Hamm etc.
Bad Times At The El Royale (3.5/5)
A really fun movie that feels like anything can happen at any moment, with great character moments and flashbacks. Everyone pulls out a great performance in this movie but I have to give the biggest applause to Cynthia Erivo who is the best in this movie. Although everything in this movie is really interesting while watching, after the movie finishes you start to reflect on the movie and for me, it feels like it has to many similarities to Pulp Fiction, and for me that ruins a bit of the films magic. But overall a pretty good movie!
Wrestling
NJPW Best Of The Super Juniors Last Night & Finals
The Last night of official tournament bouts didn't produce much for me so we're going to leave that and go straight into the Finals as it had my top 2 matches of the year so far and another excellent top 10 contender on the same card. So lets start off by saying that I think Jay White and Tanahashi have had some bad matches and some ok matches, and this one was clearly the best they've had, a far cry to their STINKY Wrestle Kingdom 12 match. Next up is the debut of John Moxley in New Japan up against MY BOY Juice Robinson, amd yeah this is my second favourite match of the year, the intensity the brawling nature, Juice specifically came out of the match looking like one hell of a star, he always is in my mind, but I hope this showing enlightens people behind the camera as well as us fans because I really want this new attitude to shine through in his G1 points. Moxley also just came out all guns blazing, when he said he was devising a new moveset he wasn't kidding and it really added to the match here. Extremely excited about him in th G1 aswell. Finally the main event and Final of the BOSJ Ospreay vs Shingo, my match of the year so far, just incredible from start to finish, just could not be touched, Ospreay is his own competition this year and he still rose to the top with this, Shingo as well is in line for being one of the wrestlers of the year, just exceptional.
NXT Takeover: XXV
Overall a pretty good show, NXT seem to be treading water a little bit, theres always somethingt good, but never anything truly amazing. Though saying that Adam Cole vs Johnny Garagano was the best match these two have had and if it wasn't for some of these other matches that happened this month it would pretty high on my MOTY candidates as well. Not just that but I also enjoyed Breeze/Dream, I know it's clear that Breeze was a little different stuck in Main Roster mode perhaps? But I still thoroughly enjoyed this match and him.
NJPW Dominion
Show was pretty good, not the best of the year that has been before but it had some really cool undercard matches, Moxley/Umino was a fun match showcasing more Moxley. Shingo/Kojima was a great new guy vs veteran big boy beat down that was enjoyable. Taichi surprised against Ishii in a really good match, makes me excited for his G1 run. As well as some good main event matches, Ospreay/Lee was a good match but no where near as good as Ospreay/Shingo. Naito/Ibushi had my favourite match they have ever had, usually with their matches they go too far and too fast that I am no longer invested and I'm like 'ok now its just crazy' but this match felt like they restricted it correctly and it gave them their best bout.
AEW Fyter Fest
Overall another good event by AEW, some slip ups but nothing too awful I didn't think. Private Party really got over in their first match which was the triple threat tag. I usually hate the way those work as why would you ever tag in another team, which means you always have to book the match as one team gets in by tagging themselves in, and you can only do that so many times before its just annoying, I think, but for the most part here they basically treated this as a tornado tag match where everyone was doing everything everywhere. Lots of people hated The Librarian gimmick and match, I think the gimmick is actually interesting tbh, idk I just got an old school gimmicky vibe off of the two of them, I'm way in the minority and I concede that if this was on WWE I would probably have a way different opinion, but I think because this is a new company and a new set of bookers and writers I'm willing to give them some faith before I start shitting all over them. As for the match however, it wasn't great. Nakazawa/Jebailey was a goofy, stupid, enjoyable, comedy, hardcore match, I know I'm in the minority again but anyone who is taking this too seriously obviously lost the point of the match, and that was to have a light comedy match. As for the other matches not much stuck out apart from the Women's triple threat which was phenomenal, I thought Cody/Allin was extremely lack luster as Cody is so in love with the long slow matches that it didn't allow Allin to be the crazy, guy that they should've shown him off to be. Although people went crazy at the post match chair shot I kinda just wanna focus on the storyline implications here, as Shawn Spears is one of my guys so I'm happy to see him in a prominent role. The Elite vs Lucha Bros and Laredo Kid had the match of the night in my opinion, they just had a classic Elite match but it just ticked all the right boxes for me, more than the 2v2 match from DoN. and Moxley/Janela also had a really good match, Moxley is completely different here to how he was in his New Japan matches, different gear, different moves, and different name for the finisher, but overall it was great.
