“I’m not quiet sure of Your Tactics…”

Being Russian I felt this Video on both Kettlebelling and Wrestling would be a bit… Different?

Not sure how to feel about that….

Posted by: Z

“So what the f@#k are we talking about?”

This is it folks, we have come to the finals of the I/C Bigger Dance. We have had screen heroes rise and fall with a fair share of arguments in between. But it was worth it, all for this, the big dukeroo. In one corner the challenger to the Hollywood throne, Leo,  and in the other corner the champ, Jack Nicholson, in a matchup people are calling the “The Floorside Lakers Game Championship” (ok really only me).

Leo on the road to the finals beat Welsey Snipes, Ed Norton, Sean Connery, and in the final four match up legend Robert DeNiro. Leo has Big Mo’ on his side, converting voters as they acknowledge how good of an actor he really is. He has faced adversity in the competition and has pushed through it.

What more can you say about Jack? The Man, the Showstopper, the Icon. He has been a out of control freight train this whole competition, smashing Liam Neeson, Kurt Russell, Arnold, and Clint Eastwood. The overall #1 seed, can he finish off the youngster and keep what is his?

For some reason, when I think of this matchup, I am drawn to one of the first movies where I discovered how much I liked Leo, The Quick and the Dead. One scene in particular really determines in my mind the outcome of this matchup…cue clip.

But thats my opinion man, tell us yours.

Posted by: Nickay

“Gorillas don’t bark dude”

The Club is on the road back from the Oregon Summer Games. This story and more will be told when we get back from OR. Till than keep frosty readers.

“Just Do Nothing”

So there was a little bit of turmoil today in the world of MMA. Here is a quick break down of what was supposed to be UFC 151 next Saturday. Jon Jones was supposed to fight Dan Henderson in the main event. Dan Henderson tears his MCL, he cannot fight. UFC is worried, they have never cancelled a card since Dana White has taken over. No other light heavyweight is willing to take the champ on short notice. But one middleweight was. Who would have the brass balls take such a fight. The People’s Champ, Chael Sonnen, thats who!

Chael said he would step up for the company and fight Jon Jones.

Great, what do you say Jon? Fight the People’s Champ?

No, thanks.

Excuse me?

Me and my coach Greg Jackson have thought it over, we don’t want it.

So why would Greg Jackson tell Jones not to fight Sonnen? My guess is that the discussion between them went something like this.

So Dana White pulled out the remaining hairs left on his body out. But it’s cool, call Lyoto, he has the next shot. Him and Jones will fight at the next PPV. He is on his way to his family farm in the Amazon ok, get him on the phone. Wait he does’nt want the fight on that short of notice. Cue Dana losing it in, 3, 2, 1…

Remember Chael took the Michael Bisping fight on 8 days notice, you know why? Because he is from the tough streets of West Linn, OR. He has the old school fighter mindset, let’s just fight and we will short the rest out later. But rejoice Sonnenaniacs worldwide. This means one thing, that Jon Jones was scared of losing but more importantly that Jon Jones forfeitted his championship match. Add light heavyweight champion to the People’s Champ list of accomplishments.

On a serious note, Jaime is good friends with Jeff Houghland, a local fighter who was scheduled to fight on that card. Hopefully his fight gets rescheduled soon but no matter what he has been screwed out of his time, preparation, and the money that went into his training. So Jon “Bone” Jones, can you send Jeff some Nike shirts for his kids for school? I mean seeing as you cost their dad a shit load of money, that’s the least you can do.

Posted by Nickay

‘But you can’t make an omelette without cracking a few eggs”

Alright it’s late, really fucking late. Like if I eat anything right now I will turn into a gremlin late. So this will be short and sweet. We are down to the Final Four for the IC Bigger Dance. Let’s get to the matchups.

DeNiro v. DiCaprio

The old guard vs. the new guard. One of my favorite director of all time (Martin Scorsese) first go to guy (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas) vs. his current go to guy (Gangs of New York, the Aviator, the Departed). Both actors are able to convey different sets of emotions without saying a single word perfectly. Tell you the truth if I were asked to name a counterpart of the opposite generation for either of these actors it would be the other guy.  Here is a scene from the one movie they were in together.

Eastwood vs. Nicholson

Icon vs. icon. This matchup will push all the limits of decision making. Does Clint’s combination of acting and directing help overcome the sheer disadvantage in acting the Nicholson have This is in my opinion the classic movie star vs. actor argument. Eastwood had the classic films of his youth (Man without a name, Dirty Harry) combined with the critical acclaim of his twilight years (amazing success as a director, 2 nominations for acting, 2 movies in which he starred in which would Best Picture). But how does that compare with the sheer critical acclaim of Nicholson.  Nicholson has starred in 10 movies nominated for Best Picture (second all time for actors) 3 of which won  all of which he played a key part in. He has 13 Oscar nominations for acting (all time record for actors) with 3 wins in acting (tied for first all time for actors). I think the answer is clear who the winner here is Clint lovers but you don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about on the blog, you want watch Nicholson, you need me on that wall.

Goodnight.

Posted by Nickay

“That Escalated Quickly…”

Another Flawless PipeHitters in the Books. I’m still taking it all in personally and have a busy week ahead of me before The Clubs down in Bend next Weekend for Oregon Summer Games. So I’d ask you guys to list your favorite moments from the weekend while you wait on my recap.

The writeup will be pretty similar to this…

Posted by: Z

“May the Odds be ever in your Favor…”

Well its here folks…

It’s our Third Annual PipeHitters Classic. 

The word here being Ours.

I put this event on for you guys. I put it on to give you a place to have your day. We don’t train for any one sport. Yes, we’re good at lifting. Yes, we’re good at Crossfit. Yes, We’re good at Kettlebells. Yes, we are good at Kicking the Shit out of Life. Really fucking good at that.

We excel in these areas because of a program you all have decided to dedicate to. And because of all your hard work we put this event on for you guys. It’s our event and I’m proud of everyone taking part or helping in it.

Because of all you we have again been able to Raise money for the Behind the Badge Foundation which is very important to the Club.

Competing is important to the Club too. I use to post an inspirational video before each time the Club would go out to waive it’s flag. Traditions are another thing that are important to the Club. And the one I’m following going into this weekend actually started before Regionals. I’m not sure who started it but getting on facebook and seeing everyones profile changed to the Club Badge sure ment a lot to me as competitor.

So here we go, if you dont have any issues posting your Badge as your profile pick tomorrow and saturday show your fellow Club members and your fellow competitors your support and who we are.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is our Event boys and girls take pride in that. Good Luck and Good Hunting.

Posted by: Z

“I’m More than just a Pretty Face”

This following announcement is being brought before the final votes are cast on the Elite 8 of the I/C Bigger Dance.

Hi, my name is Leonardo Dicaprio, you may remember me from such films as Titantic, The Departed, and Blood Diamond. I am here to talk to you about a serious problem afflicting actors in Hollywood today, being classified as a pretty boy aka Pretty Boyitis. How do I know about this problem, because I suffer from it myself.

Yep, that’s a picture of me years ago. The common side effects of Pretty Boyitis include 1. Irrational distain,  2. Lack of Respect of Acting, and 3. Constant joke making. It commonly inflicts younger actors but the impact can last a lifetime. What is especially troubling is that people suffering Pretty Boyitis have no control over this condition. Some people are just naturally better looking than others. An actor should not have to apologize for being good looking.

Take me for example. I am carry the moniker of being just a pretty boy when I have making serious movies my whole fracking career. At 18 I held my own against Robert DeNiro, at 19 I was nominated for an Oscar. It’s not my fault that I became a teenage heart throb in Romeo and Juliet and Titanic. Hell Titanic won 11 Oscars and is the second biggest movie of all time. I have two other nominations for acting and four movies where was one of the lead actors have been nominated for Best Picture (The Departed won). In fact what was the last movie that relied just on my looks and not on my acting, the Beach? That was 12 years ago. I am a damn good actor!

Sorry, I got carried away. But this is a serious problem. If you don’t believe me I have brought a friend along to talk about his battle with Pretty Boyitis, Brad Pitt.

Thanks Leo. I too have battled Pretty Boyitis throughout my career. Just because I am blessed with perfect cheekbones, boyish good looks, and flowing locks people took to objectifying me and not taking my acting seriously. It’s not like I have been making rom coms, I have been making serious movies my whole career. But that doesn’t matter to people because I am radiant like a golden god. And that hurts. So tomorrow when you vote, don’t just vote against an actor because they are naturally good looking, instead vote on whatever personal parameters you have been using as your guide in the tourney.

Posted by Nickay

“See, I’m not a monster. I’m just ahead of the Curve…” Your Full of Shit and I’ll tell you Why: Volume Three

“Nothing. No matches on prints, DNA, dental. Clothing is custom, no labels. Nothing in his pockets but knives and lint. No name, no other alias…”

So far Z has looked at Joker and Bane in discussing why he feels The Dark Knight is the supeior movie to the The Dark Knight Rises. Rather than rehash those arguments again, I decided to look at the remainder of the movies sans those characters to see if the argument still holds firm.

Plot

Rises ends the trilogy by combining a couple of Batman stories (Knightfall, No Mans Land, The Dark Knight Returns) in a pot to get a plot where the League of Shadows to destroy Gotham with a neutron bomb. It is a very superhero movie based plot and unfortunately that is a mark when comparing it to TDK. Batman is always been one of the most successful comic book heroes because he has no powers, his storyline plots can be more down to Earth than others. He doesn’t need the threat level go that far out of the box. The threats in TDK where more real. Example, Bane after exploding what feels like 20% of Gotham threatens to set off the super nuclear bomb,  Joker threatens to blow up a hospital (which he does). It is the intimacy of the threat which helps drive TDK along. Rises up all the stakes but loses part of the connection that TDK had with the realism factor of the plot…for a comic book movie.

Action scenes

In the beginning of Rises, we are introduced to Bane in the form of a pretty cool air kidnap/resecue mission. It is gives us a bunch of cool lines from Bane to show us he means business. I liked it and I like it even more I saw it a second time.  It works…because Nolan had already done it TDK in introducing the Joker. It is a draw. Both movies have car chases scenes but this one ain’t close, the Gotham Stock Market chase scene/dump truck scenese are even close to the Harvey Dent trasnportation scene. Rises does have some awesome fight scenes between Batman and Bane which we didn’t get in TDK because well the Joker is just a pyschopth with knives. Both movies do have other collected action scenes in them but TDK Hong Kong and SWAT team assault scenes are just more Batmanesque. Even with Bane’s fight scenes, TDK just feels more complete.

Acting (outside the Big Bads)

Batman: Christian Bale sounds like he needs a cough drop playing Batman, same as always. He  is the Batman, but the rest of the cast are more memorable. Sorry.

Jim Gordon: While he doesn’t have as many juicy lines in Rises Gary Oldman actually does a better job acting, showing how the moral compass of the TDK was torn apart by keeping Harvey’s secret. Edge: Rises.

Lucius Fox: Morgan Freeman is pretty good in both but it really feels like he going through the motions in Rises. In TDK he dealt with his conscious over the giant Bat phone radar he built, in Rises he is just Joe Fix It. Edge: TDK.

Alfred: Michael Caine gets to cry in Rises, but I like his more distinct and memorable monologues in TDK better.

Girlfriend: Almost anyone would have been better than Maggie Glyenhall’s character in TDK. Didn’t like her at all. I really liked Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle. Edge: Rises.

Secondary Big Bad: SPOILER ALERT.

The true power behind by Bane is Miranda Tate aka Talia Ah Ghul (this was so blatant in the movie to fans of the comics the big reveal did nothing for me). Talia in the comics is a hotter than hell assassin who loves Batman, an Angeline Jolie type not Marion Cotillard. She did nothing for me in the entire movie. But in the TDK we get Harvey “Two Face” Dent. Harvey starts off as the white knight, suffers loss, and in the end becomes a villain. Harvey’s rise and fall showcases something that is missing in Rises, human development. Big Edge: TDK.

Quotes (The Deal Breaker you may ask)

Taking out the quotes from Bane and the Joker and you lose a lot of the best quotes in both movies, sad but true. And the movie is still only a few months old, but I have seen Rises twice and TDK lines are better past by the bad guys. Remember it’s not about what right or wrong, it’s about whats fair.

So looking at without Bane or Joker in the movie, it is a real close one but TDK is the slightly better film. But you throw an Oscar winning performance by Heath Ledger in there, Z is right TDK is the better film. The trilogy in my opinion is the original Star Wars Return of the Jedi is an amazing film and better than the first one but we all know that Empire was the best and so is The Dark Knight (second best comic book movie ever me and Z are going to have words about).

A Nickay and Z Joint

“Speak of the Devil and He shall Appear…” Your Full of Shit and I’ll tell you Why: Volume Two

Well we may have got slightly side tracked by the I/C Bigger Dance this Wednesday, but that doesn’t mean I’ve lost focus. The Dark Knight vs. Rises, more importantly…

The Joker vs. Bane

Bane… Bane was hands down one of my favorite Villains Growing up. Not just as far as Batman villains went, I mean any villains(even fuckin Sabertooth… well maybe). So dont think I ranked the Joker higher in my childhood, no that was Nickay. And No, Nickay didnt influence me on my choice in movies this go round. If you knew the two of us we make a habit out of disagreeing. Much like on the StarWars saga. Nickay says Empire I say Jedi, but you know what we agree on something this time. We agree that TDK is Better then Rises. And it’s because of the  performance turned in by the Joker in TDK.

But allow me to play Devils Advocate. Why did everyone seem to like Rises so much, simple…

Bane

Now let me tell you all the amazing Pros and Cons of Bane in Rises.

Where to start…

“No one cared who I was until I put on the Mask…”

The Mask, or more importantly WHAT the mask represented. In the Movie Bane was horribly disfigured while he was in prison. The wounds caused him awful pain. The mask (with the help of drugs delivered) helped keep the pain away. Now what’d I talk about in the last article was this.

Reimaging

This was a way to reimage Bane. Now I’m not sure with all the focus on the ScarCrows fear dust they chose to do this but they did. Bane was a merciless Juggernaut. He was bigger then any professional wrestler and had the rage to match a cast member of The Program. And how did he accomplishes this?

Venom

Venom was the Super steroid that Bane was dosed with while in the hell on earth prison he grew up in(way to stick to that part of the story). In the comics Bane was the king of his prison and he volunteered for an experiment the prison was doing(gotta love comics). He was exposed to Venom and became a super charged rage monster. In the end he faked his death to escape the prison with a sample of the Venom he would duplicate  so he could super charge himself at will.

Or he thought. Turns out he had to shoot up every 12 hours at least. When he was finally taken down (after EXTREME anarchy) it was done so by separating the tubes that ran to the back of his mask that supplied his Venom doses, much like in the movie when his mask was broken.

I understand the need to explain how he took inhuman amounts of damage, drugs. But Bane wasnt some fucking Bath Salt Zombie. They should have stuck with the roids.

“What a lovely, lovely voice…”

Banes Voice. There was a shit storm about this before the movie even came out.

No, I’m not hating on the voice.

I’m glad they cleared that shit up before the movie was released though. Because honestly I still couldnt understand some of the shit he was saying. STILL… Not hating on it, in fact I want to tell you why it was awesome.

Why? Reimaging thats why.

In the comics Bane and the prison he was born in were located in the Caribbean Republic of Santa Prisca. Meaning his accent would have been WAY different in the movie. I for one actually like the dialect that Tom Hardy decided to go with. Some kinda weird Mad Doctor scottish mashup. In fact if I was to say he nailed someones voice from the comics I’d say he fuckin killed it as Destro from GI Joe.

You Know the Scottish Arms Dealer who was part of a world wide terrorist organization?  Yeah that guy.

Well where ever Tom got the idea for that fuckin voice I applaud him. That took his character to the next level. Not the level that the Joker was taken to in Dark Knight but very well executed all the same. Check one for rad voice behind a mask.

“It doesn’t matter who we are… what matters is our plan…”

Oh now I loved this. Usually this is called  ”jumping the shark,” but fuck it right? They brought the League out in the first act may as well cut to it. Bane wasnt original League of Shadows. No he was a madman acting on his own to take down Batman (who reminded him of a daemon bat that haunted his childhood).

In the comics his one and only goal was to break Batman. He realized to do so he had to strip everything away from the Dark Knight. To “Break Both his mind and Body.”

He released ALL of Batmans enemies and forced him to catch and return them all to Arkham in a three month stint that left the Dark Knight hollow and almost unable to stand. And when he was weak and near final fatigue he attacked.

They showed this in their own way in the movie. Reimaging remember, instead of 3 months of battle, we had a broken Bruce Wayne. Years of sloth and allowing injuries to creep into his bones left him unfit for his battle with Bane.

In the Comic Bane wanted to Destroy BatMan, in the movie more simply Gotham. And know what? I’m ok with that.

“I was wondering what would break first… Your spirit, or your body.”

What I did have a problem with was the “Breaking” of Batman. Yeah thats right, the whole comic was based on one ideal. Bane was going to Break the Batman.

He was going to destroy him with his own two hands. and what did we receive in the movie? A over head slam to the knee that would have gotten someone fired from the WWF. Yes in the movie Batman was only suppose to end up with a “vertebrae protruding” from his back. But in the comics Bane fucking BROKE Batman.

Game Over. Batman was fucking retired. Literally.

Retired? Yes, that was it, he went the same time they tried to kill Superman off with DoomsDay(Another manic killing machine). Batman was broken, his back smashed. He could no longer walk. In respects to the I/C Bigger Dance and everyones talks of I saw that movie in the theatres and what not. I read that comic when it came out. And that little pitty pat that was delivered in Rises while understandable (couldnt have Bruce completely lame in that prison) was not what I expect. That was a fail in my book.

And Finally.

“If I pull that off, will you die?  It would be extremely painful…  You’re a big guy… For you…”

Bottom line. Bane was Fucking HUGE.

Tom Hardy was fuckin yoked for this film. Not like warrior abs and shit yoked. I mean it looked like he benched, did shrugs and four plate clean pulls all day to get ready for this fucking role. And we only saw him look that way once. In fact his vest, jacket or any gear for that matter only gave the illusion of being huge. They should have just let the man play his part.

The bottom line is this. Bane in Rises was fucking amazing. I loved the voice, the tie in with the League (which happens at a point in the comic) and the devilish nature in whic the character carried himself. Bane was amazing as the Devil.

Yes he was the Devil in the final scene of this drama. But he was only there because he was heralded by the Joker.

In our last installment Nickay will make it all clear.

A Z and Nickay Joint