Waiting . . .
Still waiting . . .
Making sure . . .
Ok. For those of you that are still reading, I'll actually be posting thoughts on 3 different "movies" (you'll see why I use quotes momentarily) that are all centered around one topic: pro wrestling. You may be wondering why. Well, when I was a wee young boy (and teenager and young adult) I watched pro wrestling religiously. I loved the grandeur, the spectacle, the artistry. Yeah, I know it's fake, but you know what, it's no more fake than a live theatrical Broadway play and has way more athletic artistry. So for all you haters that are like "people who watch this fake crap are stupid," you obviously don't understand that the roots of pro wrestling come from carnivals, which feature bearded ladies and fire eaters. Moral of the story: don't be a hater.
Anyway, two of the documentary features, On the Road with Jake the Snake Roberts (JTS) and On the Road with the Honky Tonk Man (HTM), are distributed by RF video, which is so low budget you can't get it on Netflix; you'd actually have to seek these videos out at their website (props to Kelvin Rodriguez for loaning me these videos). Off the top that brings up one of my biggest problems with these videos: these guys do not know how to make a documentary to save their lives. Either the guy operating the camera is a moron or they don't have the requisite video editing equipment to at least make it look moderately entertaining. As a result, you get a ton of nonsensical camera angles, zooms, pans, and a whole lot of extra material that is unnecessary and outright boring (I don't care that HTM bought coffee on his way to the show from the airport. Move on).
As for the actual content, HTM is pretty good while JTS is pretty awful. If you know anything about JTS you know he's had a hard life and all those years of partying, pills, drugs, and booze are showing, and not kindly I might add (if you're interested I strongly recommend the WWE documentary JTS: Pick Your Poison. Very illuminating). Throughout JTS, he mumbles, is somewhat incoherent, and seems like he might still be on something (he does drink an entire bottle of Jack Daniels before heading to the ring). His in-ring performance is lackluster at best; this is due to age and the aforementioned drinking. Had I been a paying customer to that show, I would've demanded my money back. Jake got beat up for 10 minutes, did a DDT, then went backstage. Not exactly thrilling. If he had at least shared some of his knowledge of the business or his memories of his long career I would've enjoyed it a lot more.
HTM is a whole different story. His documentary is filled with all kinds of insights into his career as "The Greatest Intercontinental Champion of All Time" and of his days now on the independent circuit. He shares lots of insights into the business and shoots (speaks truthfully) about many wrestlers, promotions, wrestling incidents, and the WWE. If you have been a fan of pro wrestling since the glory days of the 80s, you'll get lots of goodies from HTM. While his in ring performance didn't exactly set my world on fire, the film was at least moderately entertaining, as was he.
To their credit, both HTM and JTS give fascinating looks into the current state of independent wrestling. It's interesting to see how these independent promotions try to operate considering the lack of deep talent and notoriety. If you want to hear some legends speak on different wrestling issues or get an inside glimpse into independent wrestling, pick these up (preferably HTM).
The other documentary I saw, or rather revisited (see my Iron Man post for my definition of revisited), was Wrestling With Shadows (WWS), an inside look at Bret Hart's last year with the then-WWF before and through the infamous Montreal Screwjob.
Now, no matter what your opinion of Bret Hart, Vince McMahon, and WWE, if you follow pro wrestling you have an opinion on that infamous night in Montreal. This documentary, which profiles many of the events and key players leading up to the event, probably won't shed light on any new information or change your opinion.
What it might do is give you a new appreciation for Bret's career, his legacy within WWE, and what it takes to run a huge pro wrestling enterprise such as WWE. If you watch WWS or are a tremendous fan of Bret Hart's (I am), I strongly recommend you watch what I believe is a great companion documentary, Survival of the Hitman (you can see it in its entirety on youtube). This documentary does a more in-depth profile of the Hitman's career and chronicles his last 12 years since the Screwjob, as well as gives insight into his motivation for finally returning to the WWE. Greatness all around here.
If you like pro wrestling like I did (and still do to a great extent), I think HTM, WWS, and Survival are worth your time. Otherwise, you'll probably wish Jake would do a DDT on you.
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