It could be the best in terms of anything
Paul Newman: The Hustler, Cool Hand Luke, Exodus, From the Terrace, Paris Blues, Hud, Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man, Sweet Bird of Youth, Harper, Lady L, Hombre, Torn Curtain, Winning, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Secret War of Harry Frigg, The Prize, What a Way to Go!, The Outrage, and A New Kind of Love.
Gregory Peck: To Kill a Mockingbird, Mackenna's Gold, The Chairman, Cape Fear, Captain Newman, M.D., How the West Was Won, Behold a Pale Horse, Marooned, Mirage, Arabesque, The Stalking Moon, and The Guns of Navarone.
Steve McQueen: The Sand Pebbles, The Great Escape, Love with the Proper Stranger, The Magnificent Seven, The Thomas Crown Affair, The Cincinnati Kid, Bullitt, The Honeymoon Machine, The Honeymoon Machine, The War Lover, Soldier in the Rain, Nevada Smith, Baby the Rain Must Fall, and The Reivers.
Dustin Hoffman: The Graduate, Midnight Cowboy, The Tiger Makes Out, Madigan's Millions, and John and Mary.
Peter O Toole: Lawrence of Arabia, Becket, The Lion in Winter, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Kidnapped, The Day They Robbed the Bank of England, The Savage Innocents, What's New Pussycat?, The Sandpiper, Lord Jim, How to Steal a Million, The Bible: In the Beginning..., Casino Royale, The Night of the Generals, and Great Catherine.
Henry Fonda: How the West Was Won, Firecreek, Once Upon a Time in the West, Madigan, The Boston Strangler, Fail Safe, Sex and the Single Girl, The Longest Day, Advise & Consent, Spencer's Mountain, The Dirty Game, In Harm's Way, A Big Hand for the Little Lady, Welcome to Hard Times, The Best Man, The Rounders, Battle of the Bulge, and Yours, Mine and Ours.
Toshiro Mifune: Shinsengumi, The Battle of the Japan Sea, Red Lion, Safari 5000, Hell in the Pacific, Samurai Banners, The Day the Sun Rose, Admiral Yamamoto, Japan's Longest Day, The Sands of Kurobe, Samurai Rebellion, Grand Prix, The Mad Atlantic, The Adventure of Kigan Castle, Rise Against the Sword, The Sword of Doom, Fort Graveyard, The Retreat from Kiska, Sanshiro Sugata, Samurai Assassin, Red Beard, Legacy of the 500,000, The Lost World of Sinbad, Whirlwind, Chūshingura: Hana no Maki, Yuki no Maki, Attack Squadron!, High and Low, Yojimbo, The Youth and his Amulet, Sanjuro, Tatsu, Three Gentlemen Return from Hong Kong, Salaryman Chushingura Part 1 & 2, The Story of Osaka Castle, The Youth and his Amulet, Ánimas Trujano, The Last Gunfight, The Gambling Samurai, The Bad Sleep Well, Man Against Man, and Storm Over the Pacific.
Montgomery Clift: Judgment at Nuremberg, The Misfits, Freud: The Secret Passion, The Defector, and Wild River.
Burt Lancaster: Judgment at Nuremberg, Birdman of Alcatraz, Elmer Gantry, Seven Days in May, The Leopard, The Professionals, The Unforgiven, The Young Savages, The List of Adrian Messenger, A Child Is Waiting, The Hallelujah Trail, The Train, The Swimmer, The Scalphunters, Castle Keep, and The Gypsy Moths.
Marlon Brando: Mutiny on the Bounty, The Fugitive Kind, One-Eyed Jacks, Morituri, The Chase, Bedtime Story, The Ugly American, Reflections in a Golden Eye, Candy, The Appaloosa, The Night of the Following Day, Burn!, and A Countess from Hong Kong.
Tony Curtis: Captain Newman, M.D., The Boston Strangler, Sex and the Single Girl, Spartacus, Pepe, The Rat Race, The Great Impostor, The List of Adrian Messenger, 40 Pounds of Trouble, Paris When It Sizzles, The Outsider, Taras Bulba, Goodbye Charlie, Not with My Wife, You Don't!, The Great Race, Wild and Wonderful, Boeing Boeing, Chamber of Horrors, On My Way to the Crusades, I Met a Girl Who..., Rosemary's Baby, Drop Dead Darling, Don't Make Waves, Monte Carlo or Bust!, and Who Was That Lady?.
Robert Redford: The Chase, Tall Story, Situation Hopeless... But Not Serious, War hunt, Inside Daisy Clover, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Barefoot in the Park, This Property Is Condemned, Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here, and Downhill Racer.
Anthony Perkins: Tall Story, Psycho, The Trial, Phaedra, Pretty Poison, Five Miles to Midnight, Goodbye Again, The Fool Killer, Une ravissante idiote, Le glaive et la balance, The Champagne Murders, and Is Paris Burning?.
John Huston: Candy, The List of Adrian Messenger, The Cardinal, Casino Royale, and The Bible: In the Beginning
John Wayne: How the West Was Won, The Sons of Katie Elder, The Longest Day, True Grit, El Dorado, Cast a Giant Shadow, The War Wagon, The Green Berets, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Hatari!, North to Alaska, The Alamo, The Comancheros, The Greatest Story Ever Told, Circus World, Hellfighters, and The Undefeated.
Jack Lemmon: The Great Race,Pepe, The Apartment, The Wackiest Ship in the Army, The Notorious Landlad, Days of Wine and Roses, Under the Yum Yum Tree, Irma la Douce, How to Murder Your Wife, Good Neighbor Sam, Luv, The Fortune Cookie, The Odd Couple, and The April Fools.
Marcello Mastroianni: 8 1/2, La Dolce Vita, La Notte, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, Divorce Italian Style, Marriage Italian Style, The 10th Victim, Adua and Her Friends, Il bell'Antonio, Ghosts of Rome, La Notte, Family Diary, Family Diary, The Organizer, Kiss the Other Sheik, Me, Me, Me... and the Others, Casanova 70, Shoot Loud, Louder... I Don't Understand, The Poppy Is Also a Flower, Ghosts – Italian Style, Amanti, Break Up, The Stranger, and Diamonds for Breakfast.
James Stewart: How the West Was Won, Firecreek, The Flight of the Phoenix, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Cheyenne Autumn, The Mountain Road, Two Rode Together, Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation, Take Her, She's Mine, Shenandoah, Dear Brigitte, Bandolero!, and The Rare Breed.
Robert Mitchum: What a Way to Go!, Cape Fear, The Longest Day, El Dorado, Home from the Hill, The Sundowners, A Terrible Beauty, Two for the Seesaw, The Last Time I Saw Archie, The Grass Is Greener, The Way West, Mister Moses, Rampage, Man in the Middle, Anzio, 5 Card Stud, Villa Rides, The Good Guys and the Bad Guys, Secret Ceremony, and Young Billy Young.
Robert Duvall: Captain Newman, M.D., True Grit, To Kill a Mockingbird, Bullitt, The Chase, Nightmare in the Sun, Countdown, and The Detective.
Jean-Paul Belmondo: Breathless, That Man from Rio, Seven Days... Seven Nights, Trapped by Fear, Classe Tous Risques, The Lovemakers, Two Women, Lettere di una novizia, Love and the Frenchwoman, Le Doulos, Famous Love Affairs, Cartouche, A Man Named Rocca, Mare matto, The Winner, Sweet and Sour, Banana Peel, A Monkey in Winter, Backfire, Greed in the Sun, Weekend at Dunkirk, The Shortest Day, Magnet of Doom, Tender Scoundrel, Is Paris Burning?, Casino Royale, Male Hunt, Crime on a Summer Morning, Pierrot le Fou, Up to His Ears, Ho!, The Brain, Mississippi Mermaid, and Love Is a Funny Thing.
Kirk Douglas: Seven Days in May, The List of Adrian Messenger, Spartacus, Is Paris Burning?, The War Wagon, The Way West, Lonely Are the Brave, The Heroes of Telemark, Town Without Pity, The Last Sunset, For Love or Money, The Hook, The Arrangement, The Legend of Silent Night, The Brotherhood, A Lovely Way to Die, and Cast a Giant Shadow.
Charles Bronson: The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, Battle of the Bulge, Villa Rides, Guns of Diablo, X-15, The Bull of the West, 4 for Texas, Lola, Once Upon a Time in the West, Guns for San Sebastian, The Dirty Dozen, A Thunder of Drums, Kid Galahad, Master of the World, The Sandpiper, This Property Is Condemned, The Meanest Men in the West, and Adieu l'ami.
Orson Welles: Casino Royale, Is Paris Burning?, The Trial, Kampf um Rom, The Thirteen Chairs, The Merchant of Venice, Battle of Neretva, Tepepa, The Southern Star, I'll Never Forget What's'isname, A Man for All Seasons, David and Goliath, La Fayette, Austerlitz, Crack in the Mirror, The Tartars, The V.I.P.s, Chimes at Midnight, In the Land of Don Quixote, Marco the Magnificent, House of Cards, The Immortal Story, and Oedipus the King.
William Holden: Paris When It Sizzles, The Wild Bunch, The World of Suzie Wong, The Lion, Satan Never Sleeps, The Counterfeit Traitor, Casino Royale, The Devil's Brigade, The 7th Dawn, Alvarez Kelly, and The Christmas Tree.
Frank Sinatra: Cast a Giant Shadow, The Detective, 4 for Texas, The Manchurian Candidate, Tony Rome, Pepe, The Devil at 4 O'Clock, The Road to Hong Kong, Sergeants 3, Come Blow Your Horn, None but the Brave, Paris When It Sizzles, Lady in Cement, The Oscar, Assault on a Queen, The Naked Runner, Von Ryan's Express, Marriage on the Rocks, and Robin and the 7 Hoods.
Elvis Presley: G.I. Blues, Kid Galahad, Wild in the Country, Follow That Dream, Blue Hawaii, It Happened at the World's Fair, Girls! Girls! Girls!, Fun in Acapulco, Roustabout, Viva Las Vegas, Kissin' Cousins, Frankie and Johnny, Girl Happy, Harum Scarum, Tickle Me, Clambake, Easy Come, Easy Go, Double Trouble, Stay Away, Joe, Live a Little, Love a Little, Speedway, Change of Habit, The Trouble with Girls, Charro!, Spinout, and Paradise, Hawaiian Style.
Edmond O'Brien: The Wild Bunch, The Longest Day, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Fantastic Voyage, The Great Impostor, The Last Voyage, The 3rd Voice, Birdman of Alcatraz, Man-Trap, Moon Pilot, Sylvia, Rio Conchos, The Hanged Man, The Outsider, Synanon, The Doomsday Flight, The Love God?, Flesh and Blood, The Viscount, and To Commit a Murder.
Ben Johnson: The Wild Bunch, The Rare Breed, The Undefeated, Hang 'Em High, Cheyenne Autumn, Will Penny, One-Eyed Jacks, Ten Who Dared, Tomboy and the Champ, and Major Dundee.
Warren Oates: The Wild Bunch, The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond, The Rounders, Ride the High Country, Private Property, Mail Order Bride, Hero's Island, In the Heat of the Night, Welcome to Hard Times, The Shooting, Return of the Seven, Smith!, Crooks and Coronets, The Split, Something for a Lonely Man, and Lanton Mills.
Sidney Poitier: In the Heat of the Night, Lilies of the Field, A Patch of Blue, To Sir, With Love, A Raisin in the Sun, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Paris Blues, The Long Ships, Pressure Point,All the Young Men, The Bedford Incident, The Greatest Story Ever Told, The Slender Thread, Duel at Diablo, For Love of Ivy, and The Lost Man.
Rod Steiger: The Longest Day, In the Heat of the Night, The Pawn broker, Doctor Zhivago, No Way to Treat a Lady, Three into Two Won't Go, Seven Thieves, The Mark, 13 West Street, World in My Pocket, Convicts 4, Time of Indifference, Hands over the City, A Man Named John, The Loved One, The Girl and the General, The Sergeant, and The Illustrated Man.
Ernest Borgnine: The Dirty Dozen, The Wild Bunch, The Legend of Lylah Clare, Pay or Die, The Last Judgment, Barabbas, The Italian Brigands, McHale's Navy, The Flight of the Phoenix, The Oscar, The Split, A Bullet for Sandoval, Ice Station Zebra, Chuka, Go Naked in the World, Black City, and Man on a String.
George Kennedy: The Boston Strangler, Charade, Strait-Jacket, McHale's Navy, The Sons of Katie Elder, The Dirty Dozen, Shenandoah, The Flight of the Phoenix, Guns of the Magnificent Seven, The Good Guys and the Bad Guys, Cool Hand Luke, The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come, The Man from the Diners' Club, The Silent Witness, McHale's Navy, Mirage, Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte, Island of the Blue Dolphins, In Harm's Way, Hurry Sundown, Bandolero!, The Ballad of Josie, Gaily, Gaily, and The Pink Jungle.
Strother Martin: McLintock!, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Cool Hand Luke, Hurry Sundown, Sanctuary, Shenandoah, Harper, Nevada Smith, The Sons of Katie Elder, The Wild Bunch, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, True Grit, An Eye for an Eye, The Flim-Flam Man, Showdown, Invitation to a Gunfighter, and The Deadly Companions.
Clint Eastwood: The Dollars Trilogy, Hang 'Em High, Where Eagles Dare, The Witches, Coogan's Bluff, and Paint Your Wagon.
Eli Wallach: How the West Was Won, The Magnificent Seven, The Misfits, The Tiger Makes Out, Lord Jim, How to Steal a Million, A Lovely Way to Die, Seven Thieves, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Genghis Khan, The Poppy Is Also a Flower, How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life, Ace High, Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man, The Brain, Mackenna's Gold, Kisses for My President, Act One, The Moon-Spinners, and The Victors.
Lee Van Cleef: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, For a Few Dollars More, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Posse from Hell, The Big Gundown, Sabata, Death Rides a Horse, Commandos, Day of Anger, and Beyond the Law.
Richard Burton: The Sandpiper, Where Eagles Dare, Ice Palace, The Longest Day, The Bramble Bush, Zulu, Becket, Cleopatra, What's New Pussycat?, The Night of the Iguana, The Spy Who Came In from the Cold, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Taming of the Shrew, Candy, Boom!, The Comedians in Africa, The Comedians, Doctor Faustus, Staircase, and Anne of the Thousand Days.
Paul Scofield: A Man for all Seasons, The Train, and Tell Me Lies.
Warren Beatty: All Fall Down, Splendor in the Grass, Bonnie and Clyde, Lilith, The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, Mickey One, Promise Her Anything, and Kaleidoscope.
Albert Finney: Tom Jones, The Entertainer, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Two for the Road, The Victors, Night Must Fall, Charlie Bubbles, and The Picasso Summer.
Lee Marvin: Hell in the Pacific, The Professionals, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Comancheros, Paint Your Wagon, Point Blank, The Killers, Donovan's Reef, Cat Ballou, Ship of Fools, Sergeant Ryker, Hell in the Pacific, The Dirty Dozen, and Point Blank.
Anthony Quinn: Behold a Pale Horse, Barabbas, Zorba the Greek, Lawrence of Arabia, Guns for San Sebastian, The Rover, San Sebastian 1746 in 1968, The Secret of Santa Vittoria, A Dream of Kings, The 25th Hour, The Happening, Lost Command, Marco the Magnificent, The Visit, A High Wind in Jamaica, Heller in Pink Tights, The Savage Innocents, Portrait in Black, The Guns of Navarone, The Magus, and The Shoes of the Fisherman.
Michael Caine: Hurry Sundown, The Magus, Zulu, The Ipcress File, Alfie, The Italian Job, Deadfall, Funeral in Berlin, Billion Dollar Brain, Battle of Britain, Gambit, The Wrong Box, Woman Times Seven, Play Dirty, Foxhole in Cairo, Solo for Sparrow, The Wrong Arm of the Law, The Bulldog Breed, and The Day the Earth Caught Fire.
Rex Harrison: Cleopatra, My Fair Lady, Doctor Dolittle, The Happy Thieves, Midnight Lace, The Agony and the Ecstasy, The Yellow Rolls-Royce, Staircase, The Honey Pot, and A Flea in Her Ear.
Sean Connery: The Longest Day, Dr. No, Marnie, Goldfinger, From Russia with Love, Macbeth, The Frightened City, On the Fiddle, Anna Karenina, Shalako, The Red Tent, You Only Live Twice, Un monde nouveau, The Hill, A Fine Madness, Thunderball, Woman of Straw, and The Bowler and the Bunnet.
Spencer Tracy: Judgment at Nuremberg, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Inherit the Wind, The Devil at 4 O'Clock, and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
Chishû Ryû: Late Autumn, Otoko wa Tsurai yo, The Human Bullet, Japan's Longest Day, The End of Summer, An Autumn Afternoon, The Human Condition 3, and The Last War.
Martin Balsam: Psycho, A Thousand Clowns, Trilogy, The Good Guys and the Bad Guys, Around the World of Mike Todd, Me, Natalie, Around the World of Mike Todd, Hombre, Among the Paths to Eden, After the Fox, Harlow, The Bedford Incident, Seven Days in May, Suspense, Youngblood Hawke, Everybody Go Home, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Ada, Cape Fear, Route 66, and Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed?.
Alan Bates: Zorba the Greek, Georgy Girl, Far from the Madding Crowd, Women in Love, King of Hearts, The Fixer, The Entertainer, Zorba the Greek, Nothing but the Best, Whistle Down the Wind, A Kind of Loving, The Caretaker, and The Running Man.
Alain Delon: Is Paris Burning?, Famous Love Affairs, Rocco and His Brothers, Purple Noon, The Leopard, Le Samouraï, The Yellow Rolls-Royce, Lost Command, L'Eclisse, The Joy of Living, The Devil and the Ten Commandments, Love at Sea, Carom Shots, Any Number Can Win, Joy House, The Unvanquished, Once a Thief, Texas Across the River, Adieu l'ami, Jeff, The Sicilian Clan, La Piscine, Spirits of the Dead, The Girl on a Motorcycle, The Last Adventure, and Diabolically Yours.
Peter Sellers: What's New Pussycat?, Casino Royale, Woman Times Seven, Dr. Strangelove, Lolita, The Millionairess, Never Let Go, Two-Way Stretch, The Wrong Arm of the Law, The Dock Brief, The Pink Panther, Only Two Can Play, Mr. Topaze, Waltz of the Toreadors, Heavens Above!, A Shot in the Dark, The World of Henry Orient, A Carol for Another Christmas, Casino Royale, Woman Times Seven, The bobo, The Party, The Magic Christian, and I Love You, Alice B. Toklas.
George C. Scott: The List of Adrian Messenger, The Hustler, Not with My Wife, You Don't!, The Flim-Flam Man, Dr. Strangelove, The Power and the Glory, The Crucible, The Yellow Rolls-Royce, The Bible: In the Beginning..., This Savage Land, and Petulia.
Walter Matthau: Charade, Fail Safe, The Fortune Cookie, The Odd Couple, Strangers When We Meet, Lonely Are the Brave, Mirage, Ensign Pulver, Island of Love, Who's Got the Action?, Candy, Cactus Flower, Hello, Dolly!, The Secret Life of an American Wife, and A Guide for the Married Man.
Jean-Louis Trintignant: Z, A Man and a Woman, The Great Silence, Austerlitz, Horace 62, Un homme à abattre, La Longue marche, Trans-Europ-Express, Le Combat dans l'île, So Sweet... So Perverse, L'Américain, Mata Hari, Agent H21, Journey Beneath the Desert, Il Sorpasso, Col cuore in gola, Death Laid an Egg, Les Biches, My Love, My Love, The Man Who Lies, Metti, una sera a cena, My Night at Maud's, The Libertine, The Sleeping Car Murders, Diamond Safari, Spotlight on a Murderer, Nutty, and Naughty Chateau.
Max von Sydow: The Greatest Story Ever Told, Shame, Hour of the Wolf, The Virgin Spring, Through a Glass Darkly, Bröllopsdagen, 4x4, Winter Light, Hawaii, Adventures of Nils Holgersson, The Mistress, Made in Sweden, The Passion of Anna, The Quiller Memorandum, Svarta palmkronor, The Reward, and Here Is Your Life.
Richard Attenborough: The Sand Pebbles, The Great Escape, Doctor Dolittle, The Angry Silence, Upgreen – And at 'Em, The Dock Brief, Only Two Can Play, The League of Gentlemen, All Night Long, Séance on a Wet Afternoon, The Third Secret, The Flight of the Phoenix, Only When I Larf, Guns at Batasi, The Magic Christian, Oh! What a Lovely War, and The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom.
Melvyn Douglas: Hud, Hotel, The Crucible, Companions in Nightmare, Rapture, Inherit the Wind, Lamp At Midnight, Advance to the Rear, A Very Close Family, The Americanization of Emily, and Billy Budd.
Woody Strode: Spartacus, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Sergeant Rutledge, The Last Voyage, Two Rode Together, The Sins of Rachel Cade, Che!, Once Upon a Time in the West, Boot Hill, Genghis Khan, Shalako, Black Jesus, The Professionals, Tarzan's Three Challenges, and 7 Women.
Yûsuke Kawazu: The River Fuefuki, Ken, Manji, Kiri no Hata, Cruel Story of Youth, Genocide, Fighting Elegy, and Black Lizard.
John Cassavetes: The Dirty Dozen, Rosemary's Baby, A Child Is Waiting, The Killers, Devil's Angels, Roma come Chicago, If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium, Machine Gun McCain, and The Webster Boy.
Laurence Harvey: The Outrage, Kampf um Rom, The Manchurian Candidate, The Ceremony, The Alamo, The Long and the Short and the Tall, BUtterfield 8, Walk on the Wild Side, The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, The Running Man, A Girl Named Tamiko, Darling, Of Human Bondage, Summer and Smoke, Two Loves, The Doctor and the Devil, Rebus, The Spy with a Cold Nose, The Magic Christian, L'assoluto naturale, The Charge of the Light Brigade, A Dandy in Aspic, Life at the Top, The Outrage, and The Winter's Tale.
Omar Sharif: Mackenna's Gold, Behold a Pale Horse, Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, The Poppy Is Also a Flower, The Fall of the Roman Empire, Funny Girl, More Than a Miracle, Che!, Mayerling, Trois hommes sur un cheval, The Appointment, Genghis Khan, The Yellow Rolls-Royce, El mamalik, The Night of the Generals, Lawet El Hub, Nahna el talamiza, Gharam el assiad, Hobi al-Wahid, The Beginning and the End, The River of Love, A Rumor of Love, and There is a Man in our House.
George Peppard: How the West Was Won, Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Carpetbaggers, House of Cards, Home from the Hill, The Victors, The Subterraneans, P.J.,What's So Bad About Feeling Good?, Pendulum, Operation Crossbow, The Third Day, Tobruk, Rough Night in Jericho, and The Blue Max.
James Garner: The Great Escape, Grand Prix, Duel at Diablo, 36 Hours, The Pink Jungle, A High Wind in Jamaica,Hour of the Gun, The Americanization of Emily, Cash McCall, The Children's Hour, Boys' Night Out, Action on the Beach, The Art of Love, Grand Prix: Challenge of the Champions, The Thrill of It All, Move Over, Darling, The Wheeler Dealers, Marlowe, Support Your Local Sheriff!, The Man Who Makes the Difference, Once Upon a Wheel, The Racing Scene, A Man Could Get Killed, How Sweet It Is!, and Mister Buddwing.
Donald Pleasence: The Great Escape, The Night of the Generals, You Only Live Twice, Creature of Comfort, Will Penny, Fantastic Voyage, The Greatest Story Ever Told, The Hallelujah Trail, The Caretaker, Suspect, No Love for Johnnie, The Shakedown, The Flesh and the Fiends, The Hands of Orlac, Hell Is a City, The Wind of Change, Circus of Horrors, Sons and Lovers, The Big Day, Dr. Crippen, Cul-de-sac, The Inspector, What a Carve Up!, Eye of the Devil, Matchless, Arthur? Arthur!, The Other People, The Madwoman of Chaillot, A Story of David, and Spare the Rod.
James Coburn: Charade, The Americanization of Emily, The Magnificent Seven, Hell Is for Heroes, The Great Escape, Our Man Flint, In Like Flint, The Man from Galveston, The Murder Men, Hell Is for Heroes, What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?, Duffy, Candy, The President's Analyst, Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round, Waterhole No. 3, Major Dundee, A High Wind in Jamaica, The Loved One, and Hard Contract.
Cary Grant: Charade, The Grass Is Greener, That Touch of Mink, Walk, Don't Run, and Father Goose.
Horst Buchholz: The Magnificent Seven, One, Two, Three, Fanny, Nine Hours to Rama, Marco the Magnificent, The Empty Canvas, Ankle Bone, Cervantes, That Man in Istanbul, Johnny Banco, and How, When and with Whom.
Jackie Gleason: Soldier in the Rain, The Hustler, Gigot, Requiem for a Heavyweight, Skidoo, Papa's Delicate Condition, How to Commit Marriage, and Don't Drink the Water.
Arthur Kennedy: Lawrence of Arabia, Barabbas, Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man, Claudelle Inglish, Cheyenne Autumn, Murder, She Said, Anzio, Shark!, A Minute to Pray, a Second to Die, Hail, Hero!, Nevada Smith,Murieta, Fantastic Voyage, Attack and Retreat, Joy in the Morning, Monday's Child, and Day of the Evil Gun.
Peter Finch: Kidnapped, The Trials of Oscar Wilde, The Day, No Love for Johnnie, In the Cool of the Day, I Thank a Fool, Girl with Green Eyes, The Pumpkin Eater, The Flight of the Phoenix, Judith, First Men in the Moon, Far from the Madding Crowd, 10:30 P.M. Summer, Come Spy with Me, The Greatest Mother of Them All, The Legend of Lylah Clare, and The Red Tent.
Hugh Griffith: How to Steal a Million,Exodus, Mutiny on the Bounty, Oliver!, The Counterfeit Traitor, The Citadel, Point of Departure, The Day They Robbed the Bank of England, The Inspector, Tom Jones, Term of Trial, The Poppy Is Also a Flower, Hide and Seek, The Bargee, The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders, On My Way to the Crusades, I Met a Girl Who..., Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad, The Sailor from Gibraltar, The Fixer, Il marito è mio e l'ammazzo quando mi pare, and Brown Eye, Evil Eye.
Jason Robards: A Big Hand for the Little Lady, Hour of the Gun, Long Day's Journey into Night, A Thousand Clowns, Act One, By Love Possessed, Isadora, Tender Is the Night, Divorce American Style, A Big Hand for the Little Lady, The St. Valentine's Day Massacre, Any Wednesday, Once Upon a Time in the West, and The Night They Raided Minsky's.
George Seagel: The Southern Star, No Way to Treat a Lady, Invitation to a Gunfighter, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Lost Command, The Quiller Memorandum, The St. Valentine's Day Massacre, King Rat, Act One, The Young Doctors, The Bridge at Remagen, The Girl Who Couldn't Say No, Bye Bye Braverman, and The New Interns.
Rod Taylor: Chuka, The Time Machine, Sunday in New York, The Glass Bottom Boat, 36 Hours, The Birds, Hotel, Nobody Runs Forever, The Hell with Heroes, One Hundred and One Dalmatians, Seven Seas to Calais, Colossus and the Amazon Queen, Dark of the Sun, The Liquidator, Young Cassidy, Fate Is the Hunter, Do Not Disturb, and A Gathering of Eagles.
Robert Ryan: Ice Palace, Billy Budd, The Longest Day, The Wild Bunch, The Dirty Dozen, Battle of the Bulge, The Professionals, Anzio, Captain Nemo and the Underwater City, A Minute to Pray, a Second to Die, Hour of the Gun, Custer of the West, The Busy Body, The Canadians, King of Kings, and The Crooked Road.
Christopher Plummer: Battle of Britain, The Sound of Music, The Fall of the Roman Empire, Inside Daisy Clover, The Royal Hunt of the Sun, Lock Up Your Daughters, Nobody Runs Forever, Oedipus the King, The Night of the Generals, and Triple Cross.
Michel Piccoli: Le Doulos, Contempt, Diary of a Chambermaid, La Guerre Est Finit, Les Creatures, The Young Girls of Rochefort, Belle De Jour, Danger: Diabolik, Dillinger is Dead, The Milky Way, Topaz, Lady L, The Day and the Hour, Masquerade, L'Invitée, Climats, Les Petits Drames, Adieu Philippine, La dragée haute, Le Bal des espions, Amazons of Rome, All About Loving, The Sleeping Car Murders, The War Is Over, The Game Is Over, Belle de Jour, Benjamin, Shock Troops, La Chamade, and La Prisonnière.
Tatsuya Nakadai: When a Woman Ascends the Stairs, Yojimbo,The Human Condition: A Soldier's Prayer, Immortal Love, Sanjuro, Harakiri ,High and Low, Kwaidan, The Sword of Doom, The Face of Another, Samurai Rebellion, Kill!, Goyokin, Portrait of Hell, Get 'em All, Daughters, Wives and a Mother ,Miren, A Woman's Life, Pressure of Guilt, Love Under the Crucifix, The Blue Beast, The Other Women, Kumo ga chigieru toki, Hakari, The Legacy of the 500,000, Saigo no shinpan, Blood End, Arijigoku sakusen, Kwaidan, Saigo no shinpan, Fort Graveyard, Cash Calls Hell, Illusion of Blood, Kojiro, The Age of Assassins, The Daphne, Today We Kill... Tomorrow We Die!, Rengō Kantai Shirei Chōkan: Yamamoto Isoroku, Blood End, Hitokiri, Eiko's 5000 Kilograms, and The Battle of the Japan Sea.
James Mason: Lolita, Duffy, Mayerling, The Sea Gull, Age of Consent, The Blue Max, Stranger in the House, The Deadly Affair, Georgy Girl, The Fall of the Roman Empire, The Pumpkin Eater, Genghis Khan, Lord Jim, The Uninhibited, Hero's Island, Torpedo Bay, Tiara Tahiti, The Trials of Oscar Wilde, The Marriage-Go-Round, and Escape from Zahrain.
Vincent Price: The Last Man on Earth, Witchfinder General, Convicts 4, Confessions of an Opium Eater, Tower of London, Tales of Terror, The Raven, Diary of a Madman, The Haunted Palace, The Masque of the Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, Twice-Told Tales, Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine, The Comedy of Terrors, City Under the Sea, The House of 1,000 Dolls, The Pit and the Pendulum, Nefertiti, Queen of the Nile, Rage of the Buccaneers, Beach Party, House of Usher, Master of the World, Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs, Spirits of the Dead, The Trouble with Girls, The Jackals, More Dead Than Alive, and The Oblong Box.
Jack Nicholson: The Raven, Easy Rider, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Shooting, Head, Hells Angels on Wheels, The Trip, The St. Valentine's Day Massacre, Psych-Out, Thunder Island, Back Door to Hell, Ride in the Whirlwind, Flight to Fury, The Wild Ride, The Broken Land, Studs Lonigan, Too Soon to Love, and The Terror.
Rock Hudson: Lover Come Back, Send Me No Flowers, The Last Sunset, Marilyn, The Spiral Road, Come September, Strange Bedfellows, Man's Favorite Sport?, A Gathering of Eagles, A Very Special Favor, Seconds, Tobruk, Ice Station Zebra, The Undefeated, Blindfold, and A Fine Pair.
Charlton Heston: El Cid, The Pigeon That Took Rome, 55 Days at Peking, The Greatest Story Ever Told, While I Run This Race, All About People, The Agony and the Ecstasy, Number One, Planet of the Apes, Counterpoint, Will Penny, Major Dundee, Khartoum, The War Lord, The Five Cities of June, and Diamond Head.
John Gavin: Psycho, Midnight Lace, Back Street, The Madwoman of Chaillot, Thoroughly Modern Millie, OSS 117 – Double Agent, Tammy Tell Me True, Spartacus, Pedro Páramo, A Breath of Scandal, and Romanoff and Juliet.
Stephen Boyd: Lisa, Billy Rose's Jumbo, Fantastic Voyage, The Poppy Is Also a Flower, The Big Gamble, Slaves, The Caper of the Golden Bulls, Shalako, Assignment K, The Bible: In the Beginning..., The Fall of the Roman Empire, Genghis Khan, The Oscar, The Third Secret, and Imperial Venus.
Dick Van Dyke: Bye Bye Birdie, Mary Poppins, Lt. Robin Crusoe, U.S.N., The Art of Love, What a Way to Go!, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Divorce American Style, The Comic, Some Kind of a Nut, Fitzwilly, and Never a Dull Moment.

EDIT 2: Thanks for the gold kind stranger!
EDIT 3: And Platinum + Silver... appreciate it!
EDIT 4: shit I forgot some absolute gems which I’ll post at the top here for those who have already read it.

• Asked who he would start a franchise with today: Kobe said Giannis and he didn’t think very long about it.
• Asked what Ben Simmons potential is: Kobe said the sky is the limit, but obviously he needs to develop a jumper. Kobe said he needs a jumper because otherwise he will regret it, one day retiring and not knowing what could have been if he had developed one.

Image for proof: http://imgur.com/bEAnQ7O
The event was held the Palladium in Crown Casino. Kobe, unlike many other celebrities at various events, arrived at his scheduled time on the dot (what else would you expect from this man?). The interview touched on his childhood and all the way through to his current goals and future aspirations. Of course, a chunk of the interview focused on his insane career.
Maybe he has said some of these things before, so forgive me if these aren’t “new”. My memory isn’t fantastic, but here are some of the noteworthy things I do remember:

• Kobe said that when he was 10 or 12 years old (can’t remember exact age, but it definitely wasn’t 11) he didn’t score a single basket in a 35 game season. His dad told him it’s ok and he still loved him (or something to that effect). Kobe thought “fuck that” and that’s when he started ramping up his training and taking things more seriously
  
• Kobe’s daughter plays basketball nowadays and he said some parents are way too impatient with their kid’s progress. He said he reached out to MJ via text asking “what drills and skills did you practice at the age of 12?” so that he could advise the parents. MJ responded: “I played baseball”. In other words, chill out and don’t put so much pressure on these children.
  
• Probably been said before, but his all time starting 5: Magic, Jordan, Bird, Russell, Hakeem
  
• Strange question, but he was asked if him, LeBron, Magic, Shaq and Kareem were all on a team together, who would get the loudest cheer from the crowd when the team is introduced? He said it was an easy answer: Magic.
  
• How close was he to leaving the Lakers? So I’d never heard this story. I knew that he had once demanded a trade and was close to joining the Bulls, but he actually said he was also close to joining the Bulls after their 2004 finals loss. Obviously it was a case of Kobe or Shaq - one of them had to go. He says his family had already been looking at homes and schools in Chicago. While he was on vacation his agent (Pelinka) called him and said Shaq had just demanded a trade, and so Kobe stayed and you know how the rest goes...
  
• How long did it take him to write “Dear Basketball” (his Oscar winning short film)? He said he pretty much wrote it in one helicopter ride from his home to Staples. Obviously it was tweaked and worked on further until it was a polished product, but the bulk of it was done in that 20-25 minute ride. Side note: I find this hilarious, considering that some people spend a lifetime trying to achieve this accolade, and here is Kobe utilising his travel time to come up with the basis of an Oscar winning script. Extra side note: it wasn’t just a fluke, as Kobe considers himself a writer and says it is a skill he has been working on since about 2000. So he has been writing for close to 20 years now, but still...
  
• This one has been said time and time again, but it’s still so damn crazy to hear. Kobe’s routine was to wake up at 3:30AM (Three fucking thirty!) so he could be out on the track at 4ish and be home to have breakfast with his kids before school. He said part of the reason for this was also the feeling that “I don’t have to be out here at this time, but I am, and others aren’t” so it was empowering to know he was working harder than everyone else.
  
• Regarding breakfast, he said Vanessa is the superior pancake-maker but he can “scramble the shit out of some eggs”.
  
• What his goal in 20 years time is: Kobe wants his younger daughters to find it hard to believe he was a professional basketball player. Meaning, he wants his writing and production company to be so successful that they think “my dad is a famous writer and producer.. why are people saying he is a basketball player?”. To which Kobe would tell them “YouTube me”. To which he imagines them saying (in the future) “what is YouTube?”
  
• What he wants his legacy to be when he leaves this Earth: to be remembered as a hard worker, obsessed with his craft and to have inspired at least one person to do the same. (I’m sure he’s already reached that goal a million times over).
  
• How he felt after the famous air balls against Utah in his early Laker days: He apparently went straight to a gym after arriving home and put up shots until the sun came up. He kept making the same shots that he missed, sometimes 15 times in a row and thought how easy it was, wondering how he’d been so off in the game.
  
• Career regrets: ‘04 and ‘08 finals. Especially ‘08 he felt like he didn’t prepare his team to be tough enough. He said he went back to his hotel room and “trashed the place”. The interviewer asked “something like the scene from the hangover?” and Kobe said “yeh, kinda like that.”
  
• He said the Oscar was more special than an NBA championship, because people would sort of laugh and dismiss the idea that he could write and make a career of it post-basketball. So he said the doubt made the accomplishment special.
  
• for any locals, there were a bunch AFL guys in attendance. I saw Brodie Grundy close by, and the interviewer said there were a few more around (Marcus Bontempelli, I think Jaeger O’meara was mentioned.. probably others).
  
• Kobe said he went to see the Harry Potter play (only part 1) the day prior in Melbourne. He was walking and saw a billboard advertisement. It is sold out for ages apparently, but it’s Kobe. So he called his agent and naturally she set him up with seats.
  
• Kobe was asked what kind of people he hires at his company. He said “curiosity” is the main trait he looks for and of course people who are passionate at what they do.
  
• Kobe said the reason he skipped college was because he wanted to learn from the best. He also knew some of his idols, such as MJ, Stockton and Hakeem were on their way out and he wanted a chance to play against them.
  

If I think of more I’ll add it on. All in all it was a really fun hour or so. Kobe was very insightful and nice to listen to. He’s clearly a smart guy and really well spoken. I feel very fortunate to have heard him speak live after being a huge fan throughout my teenage years and early adulthood.
EDIT: I thought of some other things while massaging my client’s calf (I’m a physiotherapist and my mind wonders while doing boring tasks):

• The interviewer seemed to have a fetish for Roger Federer as he brought him up several times. He recalled a time when Roger said that “it clicked” that he was or could become one of the greats. He asked Kobe when it clicked for him. Kobe said it was on his farewell tour. He said the way the fans received him at each final away game, he realised “I must have done something special”.
  
• Kobe was asked what was the most fun he’s ever had playing basketball. Kobe said it was his high school championship game. He said scalpers were paying 1-2k for a ticket and the atmosphere was electric.
  
• He was asked about how he managed his wealth in terms of family and friends. Kobe said it was important to empower people and help them grow but not just give money and make them dependent on you. Otherwise you actually disempower them and stunt their growth, as they lose their drive to excel and prosper.
  
• He had some cool insights into his matchups with Jordan. He spoke about their back and forth trash talking, saying MJ was obviously very good but Kobe could hold his own. He said the first time they played he knew what MJ was going to do on a particular play in the triangle, but fell for it anyway. On the way back down the court MJ said something to the effect of “it’s a lot quicker in real life, isn’t it?”
  
• Kobe was asked who put their arm around him as a 17 year old rookie and guided him through those early days. He said no one really did and he had to fend for himself. He did say Byron Scott was nice to him and he would pick Byron’s brain about the Showtime Lakers a lot.
  
• Kobe said after his final game (60 points against Utah) his daughters praised him for “finally having a good game”. As they’re young, they wouldn’t have much of any memory of his prime.
  
• He also referenced a discussion with a free agent, who he didn’t name, basically telling them what he demands of them if they were to stay on the team. He said that player ultimately didn’t sign with the Lakers. I personally think he was referring to Dwight Howard, as he also said something along the lines of “that person walked out the door... and subsequently many other doors”. UPDATE: VSVPROCKY95 pointed out that the exact quote was: "There are uncomfortable conversations that need to be had and if you can't have those uncomfortable conversations, you're not going to get better."
  
• Kobe said during a game (it might have been against the Pistons in ‘04) Tex Winter said to Phil Jackson: “the team is playing like shit, but you’re also coaching like shit”. This was in reference to Tex always saying what he thought.
  
• Kobe had some good things to say about Phil. I can’t remember specifically what, but he did say Phil was an interesting/strange character.
  

1. Toothless Vanderbilt - A spineless weak little human, wears small circular rimmed spectacles, and it often the figure head for big businesses that use slimy tactics. He is in it for the money, and would spit out the truth if his life was in danger. He is a coward who is motivated by self preservation.
2. Daniel Starmoon - A member of the Grand leader's personal counsel. He is a handsome middle aged man who inherited great wealth from his father who sold a massive residential satellite that orbited an industrial planet. Daniel Starmoon spent his life traveling and living lavishly, this is where he met the Grand Leader and impressed him with his gusto. Investor in many things.
3. Halashan of Vorxe - A low ranking member of the government but is rapidly rising in the ranks thanks to his charm, suave and cutthroat practices. Born into the lower rungs of society he fought his way up to his position. Easily identifiable by his thick black hair and piercing blue eyes. Known famously outside of his position as the author of several erotic novels. A gambler, a ladies and mans man, a ruthless killer who will stop at nothing to achieve power and his passion.
4. Kassia Curio - The elected representative for a powerful and wealthy region. A sweet young woman with a golden bob haircut and a floral dress. She is always looking to keep up appearances and makes sure that the world is always watching her when she is out in public to see her charitable acts and charming personality. She stands for a Conservative platform on behalf of her homeland. Behind closed doors however she has a crippling narcotic addiction that she pays for with money from the treasury that if revealed could ruin her.
5. A.R.T.H.U.R - Artificial Resolution Taxation and Hard Unifying Restrictions, The technocracy of New New Eden are incredibly advanced. But horrible at acronyms
6. Brana Pye: a blackhaired general known for being strict and making all necessary sacrifices to protect the people of [city name]. he/she is kind to orphans and other slum-dwellers, having grown up as one of them.
7. Pythratraxx the Nexus of Becoming - An amorphous flesh-entity formed from the living remnants of a highly advanced planetary confederacy, this being has demonstrated an excellent skill in managing public works and civil planning. To better represent its non-assimilated constituents across the system after being elected to the sector parliament, it has chosen to relocate its biomass to a large area beneath the prime meeting chambers.
8. Kogrush 1 - This dignified member of a warlike people served many years in the military before being appointed to the prime designates defense committee. Unfortunately, his bond-mate Kogrush-2 was not appointed, leaving Kogrush-1 in an almost constant berserking state due to his people's innate biological response to being separated from his pairing.
9. Peter Cullen - old lifetime public servant who looks like an accountant and is particular about paperwork and record keeping. Will drag up obscure signed documents and decisions to support his position. Speaks governmentese fluently and always goes home at the same time every day without fail.
10. Ajaxes Parstifati, Secretary of technocratic affairs. Executive in charge of diplomacy with Engineers Unions and artificially intelligent nation worlds. His department is responsible for maintaining supply of goods and services from these groups by swiftly and amicably settling disputes, often as a neutral third party arbitrator between these groups and their employers.
11. Aarsivaal- a titanic diplomat of Daarza, a world containing several sentient races of flora. Resembles a maple tree, but is of the Giundi race. Strong of character as in body, rarely speaks but to ensure his world's safety, neutrality, and independence. Other races include the Alarune, an unfortunately venomous but outward-looking humanoid flower-folk; the Shaav, nomadic and ascetic shambling fungi; and the Tetera, an insular, tribal vine people which raid the settlements of the Alarune and Giundi.
12. Franjurm Jolknife: representative of the Janitors. Green and yellow hair arranged in a bun, on her shirt is a pin that signifies her position. She collects zero-G bobbleheads (they are basically small floating heads). She has a very public affair with one of her janitor friends, and a pet lizard named Soloman. Soloman tends to be missing alot.
13. Prolix Garrawoon: Ambassador of the Warrior Poets of Edda, one of the five nations from the war-torn regions of Salashtia. Every bit as pompous and stentorian as you'd imagine, although this is largely a front for a very canny and subtle politician.
14. Galadriel Moonchild Summerwine Starbeam: Representative of the Court of the New Shire, a bunch of nutjobs wearing fake ears and speaking in Quenya. In frequent opposition to the Tolkien estate.
15. 00100-00100: Senator for Hex 12E/811 zero alpha, representing a coalition of AIs from across the known area. Completely and utterly corrupt.
16. Kleg. A half orc barbarian who came to the town long ago with raiders, but fell in love with a human female and turned in his compatriots to defend her, eventually driving them off. She was grateful but did not accept his romantic overtures. He could not return home so he learned to be a blacksmith and still acts as defender of the town. He is unmarried and uses his surprising wisdom as an advisor to the town leaders.
17. Grigor Kill-you-all: a retired paladin that decided the best way to help his people in his old age is through public office, he says his last name is derived from a note he found on himself many years ago when he woke up in the middle of a field, he knows nothing of his life before but has become a hero to the town. He serves the god of law, life, and song.
18. Marzisha Raiwina - A Human woman known for her willingness to participate in genetic code testing. She sports a pair of elegant cat ears as well as a prehensile tail among other less public augmentations. She cares deeply about the future of mankind, and passionately lobbies to deregulate human genetic modification as she believes mankind must adapt themselves if they are to survive, and she believes herself to be heading up that cause. In her hubris, she doesn't realize her strings are being pulled by a Mega Corp who creates and researches unethical human GMO.
19. NIoIN (Nye-Oh-een) or Networked Interlace of Intelligent Nanites - A fully sentient AI, the first, but not the only of her kind to survive man's fear long enough to fight for the rights of Sentient AI across the universe. Her network of nanite processors currently inhabits a lifelike ambulant unit resembling the historic figure Kristi yamaguchi, a likeness she selected from a database and recreated. A staunch defender of non-human rights across the board, she often runs the old guard the wrong way. Behind closed doors, she hasn't been afraid to use blackmail, as well as the anatomical accuracy of her ambulant unit, if it means better legislation and living conditions for her kind.
20. Gin Hibiscus - She is the widow of a war general who died in a mission that was not scouted enough. The information that was gathered was not enough and that lead to her late husband's untimely death. She is a short human woman who wears loose cotton robes over her fragile skinny frame. Her brown hair is short and curly barley covering her ears. She has a small shake and shuddering tick whenever she gets really worked up. During motivational speeches that she gives to the public, between her strong well paced cadence, she is often seen shaking slightly at the end of a strong statement. She is raising a boy and a girl who are barely teenagers, and works for demilitarization to "help protect other fathers, so that they can be around to raise their children". She is a huge supporter of surveillance and gathering intelligence to counter those who want more military. Behind closed doors she has heard whispers that her surveillance programs have led to many in power being blackmailed with information, but she does nothing. She is not being blackmailed. She thinks if you are being blackmailed that you deserve to be blackmailed. She keeps quiet and does not acknowledge that she knows anything of this blackmail. Which there is no evidence that she would know.
21. France Nabisco - He is an elected planetary representative. A dwarf who is extremely fat, greasy, and psychedelic. He has bronze skin that glistens with sweat and oil always. His hair is long black and always wet with grease, so is his disgusting beard. His bushy eyebrows constantly move at a slow pace above a pair of blackout sunglasses that he always wears. He usually wears long sleeve tie die shirts, and a different variety of leather bracelets, necklaces, and medallions. He dresses like a hippy. His face is usually well hidden by his hair, beard, and glasses, but images have surfaced of him swimming with elves in a natural hot spring on the holy planet of Pardelvir, and his face and body was covered with cracked vein covered skin. His eyes were beet red and his pupils were dilated. A buzz in the news started about his obvious drug abuse, and he came out as a drug addict, but said he did not intend to change. Although many liked his personality, most did not want him re-elected. But he was. He didn't win the election fairly. He won through vote manipulation that was done by drug cartels, and everyone was a bit indifferent at the result, understanding that he is a likable guy even though he was an addict. Also no one really knew he won by illegal means. He now pushes for many changes that will help drug dealers and smugglers.
22. Cringle Badman - He is a good fat human. He actually is a good guy despite his name. He does a lot for the community. He volunteers at hospitals, and is a main factor in getting funding for underprivileged Orc schools near the asteroid belt. He has helped the disenfranchised and is here to be just an all around good guy. He was elected on a platform of helping those who fell in the cracks generations ago.
23. Widebrim Hemlock - A solider who has gone rogue and has become a vigilante that was accepted by the community of a small town on a planet that is never in direct sunlight. His work as a vigilante has convinced criminals, murderers, and other undesirables to avoid his domain. This brought a peace to the town and the townsfolk often pose questions for the masked man on a bulletin board who responds with very short sometimes one word answers on torn parchment the next day. He is a silent guardian, a watchful protector, he is Widebrim Hemlock.
24. Dilk Imole - A fool of a wood elf who serves as a lawmaker of the young planet Rykis. He has chestnut skin and white hair, sunken bloodshot eyes that sit behind thick glasses that fog up on a regular basis. He is a big fan of sports, hover racing, and gambling. He has been spotted at a the massive casino satellite 'Money Chateau' that tours the core of the galaxy.
25. Dritt Doran - A rich man who aims to fly below the radar, and he does so successfully. He is the owner of his fathers chemical company (D&D Chemical) that was passed onto him. He usually can be found in an empty library in a shady part of town where he reads a wide variety of fiction and nonfiction. A loner by nature, he enjoys people, but he pushes himself away from social interaction on a regular basis, but he doesn't realize this. He is a high elf with pale freckled skin, short shaggy white hair, thick glasses, and a very small nose that curves up. He wears back pea coats, dress slacks, and jewelry on his thin wispy frame. The jewelry he wears his of medium quality, and he usually sticks to rings, bracelets, wrist and pocket watches, and pendants that he pins to his jackets. His shoes are always filthy. He likes to walk and doesn't mind a rainy muddy road.
26. Salatori Vincente - He is a mayor in a fleet of ships that call their nation New Opal Space. There are two other mayors that govern over a select number of ships in the community. He governs Oscar Faction which consists of on average two extremely large stations, five very large ships, and dozens of smaller ships. He has a support staff that he gives responsibility to and often has a hard time keeping track of all the going ons of his territory. He is a very Italian fat satyr, think danny devito from hercules. He has good intentions, but between his love of human women and working for a criminally corrupt society he finds himself in dire straights at times.
27. Gillian Franz - He is a dwarven computer geek that never leaves his bed, except for hot pockets and to use the toilet. If you were to see him in person he looks like a fat ball of orange hair with flabby arms sticking out of it, and VR goggles on his face. He wears his 'Trust Me... I'm A Dwarf' shirt underneath his thick unmanageable beard and long thick hair. He looks like a frizzier orange version of the thing from the adams family, and if you were to smell his crusty oily skin it would make those with a weak stomachs blow chunks. His life consists of running a city that exists in the space net. He in the computer reality is the Grand Ruler, Gillian Franz, a handsome middle aged dwarf with slicked back oily hair, well groomed goatee beard, and muscles that ripple beneath his always silk wardrobe. He rules with an iron fist kicking people from his domain for small offenses, and adds more to his domain with his robotic friend and companion Vale. The city is named Paradise and has a wide ranging economy, bringing people from all over the galaxy together in this alternate reality. At any one moment, ten million people could be in the city, or it's surrounding lands, there for business or pleasure. At it's biggest event the marriage of Gillian Franz to Vale, there were a reported 400 million people there for the ceremony, and it stayed at an average of 150 million for the following week of festivities.

Contributors: Baronnolanvonstraya GreenUnlogic serious_tabaxi fuckingchris RhesusFactor RollinThundaga greatGoD67 ElZoof Quibblicous Lord_Northwind Capraclysm

Going through old issues of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and posting highlights in my own words. For anyone interested, I highly recommend signing up for the actual site at f4wonline and checking out the full archives.
PREVIOUS YEARS ARCHIVE:
1991 • 1992 • 1993 • 1994 • 1995 • 1996 • 1997 • 1998 • 1999

1-3-2000	1-10-2000	1-17-2000	1-24-2000
1-31-2000	2-7-2000	2-14-2000	2-21-2000
2-28-2000	3-6-2000	3-13-2000	3-20-2000
3-27-2000

★★ READ THIS THREAD ★★

★★ Be The Match ★★

• WCW has made the decision to bring back Eric Bischoff and Vince Russo in a last-ditch effort to save WCW. The decision has been in the works for about a month and people are already doubting whether or not the two can co-exist with each other. Dave recaps what led us to this point. First, the group of Bill Busch, Kevin Sullivan, JJ Dillon, and others pretty much pulled the coup last year that got Bischoff canned and Russo was hired soon after. But once it became clear that Russo desperately needs someone to filter his insane ideas, those people also pretty much forced Russo out in favor of Sullivan as the head booker. But the company continued free-falling under Sullivan. Bischoff and Russo had been in talks with Brad Seigel and pitched an idea where they would lead competing factions of older and younger wrestlers fighting over power for the company. Bischoff tried a similar angle to this last year but it never got off the ground because, aside from Ric Flair, none of the older wrestlers (like Savage, Hogan, Piper, etc.) wanted to be portrayed as "old" and didn't want to be forced to put over younger stars that hadn't established themselves. Bischoff was officially hired back into WCW as the head of creative on 3/22, but due to the company losing so much money on his watch last year, he was not given control over the business end of things. Bill Busch informed Siegel that he would quit if Bischoff was brought back, and he made good on his word and walked out when he was told. Bob Mould, a somewhat famous musician who has also been part of WCW's creative and management team, also quit when he heard the news. Kevin Sullivan has been told he's essentially being sent home to sit out the rest of his contract and he no longer has any power either. Sullivan has argued that he was handicapped after inheriting the mess Russo and Bischoff left behind, plus the injuries to Goldberg and Bret Hart, and while that's true, Sullivan never really made any major changes either and it was clear things weren't going to improve with him booking.
  
• The initial idea was to cancel this week's TV tapings and shut down for a week and then return on 4/10 with a fresh start and new storylines. But they ended up not cancelling the tapings and as a result, this week's Nitro is expected to be the lowest rated in the show's history. There was also talk of shutting down for several weeks and cancelling next week's PPV, which Dave thinks might not be the worst idea so they can take the time to slap a fresh coat of paint on the company and basically reboot. But it doesn't look like that will happen either. On Nitro this week, the announcers played it up big, labeling Russo as the man who turned WWF around and Bischoff as the one who turned WCW around several years ago and literally calling them the geniuses responsible for the current pro wrestling boom. Dave says you can't argue with Bischoff's initial success. He took WCW, which was in the red for about $6 million per year and turned it into a $200 million dollar company by 1998. But even at their peak, it was clear WCW had no future because they built around stars who were past their prime and never had a focus on creating future stars to sustain that success. WWF capitalized on that failure and by the end of 1999, WCW was back in the red again, way worse than they were before Bischoff took over. After a series of dumb, expensive investments (KISS, Master P, Megadeth, Dennis Rodman the 2nd time, etc.), losing stars like Chris Jericho, and continuing to rely on old 80s relics, and blowing through millions of Turner's dollars with nothing to show for it, the company lost faith in Bischoff's business judgement. At one point, Bischoff just turned the whole thing over to Kevin Nash as the new booker, who seemingly had no interest in doing anything other than pushing himself and his friends, which sunk the company to even further lows.
  
• As for Russo, it's true that WWF did pretty huge numbers during the time he became more involved in creative and when he left the company, he did a good job of convincing everyone that he was the genius behind WWF's turnaround. But within a few months of his departure, it became clear just which Vince deserved the credit for WWF's success. WWF never missed a beat when Russo left and TV ratings and house show business continued to increase (and keep in mind, WWF hasn't had Austin or Undertaker for the last 6 months either, plus McMahon has kept himself off TV until recently also). Meanwhile, in WCW, when Russo took over, the company just skidded further off the rails. Russo did play a major part in pushing WWF to move away from the failing family-friendly approach. But really, they pretty much just copied Paul Heyman's formula so...ya know. To be fair to Russo, he seemed to be the only person in WCW who realized how badly the company needed a drastic change and he really did try to push new people like Benoit, Bagwell, and Jarrett to the top. But then he brought back Piper, brought in George Steele and Jimmy Snuka, and booked dangerous angles like the one that got Goldberg injured. He came in with a lot of hype and ratings initially went up a bit out of curiosity, but they quickly plummeted again. He booked a tired rehash of the Montreal Screwjob finish at Starrcade, rendered all the belts meaningless, booked absurd screwjob endings to nearly every match on TV and PPV, and essentially booked the company like a monkey throwing his poop at random. As a result, WCW has now fallen behind ECW in both PPV buyrates and live show attendance and TV ratings have continued to plummet.
  
• Here's some cold hard numbers for those Russo supporters out there who still, somehow, defend this guy 20 years later: when Russo took over WCW in Oct. 99, they were averaging 4,628 people per show. By January (his last month in power), average attendance was down to 3,593. Nitro's ratings in Oct. 99 were averaging 3.08. By January, the average was....3.10. Oh, you say! But that's higher! Yes, on paper, 3.10 looks higher than 3.08. But the reality is, during that time, Nitro went from three hours back down to two. On paper, that should have led to a significant increase in the average. If Nitro was still three hours, that 3.10 would be equivalent to a 2.9. So even though it looks like ratings slightly increased on Russo's watch, they actually went down. The loss of that third hour gives the illusion that they didn't. Oh and in Oct. 99, the Halloween Havoc buyrate was 0.52. In January, the PPV buyrate was 0.26. TL;DR - by literally every single metric, WCW business got worse under Vince Russo. But hey, it got even worse since he left, so...take solace in that?
  
• Quick note just at press time, it's been reported that they will announce the XFL will air in prime time on NBC due to a deal between Vince McMahon and Dick Ebersol. The two men were business partners back in the 80s and put together Saturday Night Main Event. If this ends up being true, it would be huge for both the XFL and WWF and is expected to play a part in WWF's new TV deal. More on this next week.
  
• With Wrestlemania just around the corner, Dave takes a long in-depth look at the biggest annual show in the business. He starts by talking about the 3 biggest annual events in wrestling. NJPW's Jan. 4th Tokyo Dome show has been the biggest wrestling event in the world for much of the last decade since starting in 1992 because NJPW was the biggest and most successful company. But NJPW is struggling these days and WWF has surpassed them as the top company. WCW has Starrcade, but the only year that show was ever the biggest was in 1997 (Sting/Hogan) and never really reached the heights of Wrestlemania or the Tokyo Dome show. From here, Dave recaps the entire history of Wrestlemania. Risking it all on WM1, the Mr. T and Cyndi LaupeMTV crossover promotion, the 3-arena debacle of WM2 (where 2 of the 3 arenas weren't even sold out), WM3 which is the most historically famous wrestling event ever and all the folklore surrounding that ("While the 93,173 number is a work repeated so often even those who should know better believe it's the truth. According to Zane Bresloff, who promoted the event, the actual number in the building was 78,000, but the event did sellout weeks in advance and it is realistic to believe the potential if the building was larger could have been 100,000 tickets," Dave says and I'm sure that won't lead to a tired ass discussion in the comments.) The next 2 WM events at Trump Plaza, which were held because Trump paid for them, hoping to do the same kind of business that major boxing events usually do. But the crowds sucked because they mostly weren't wrestling fans, they were high rolling casino comps. Dave also takes a moment here to detail the history of WWF and Jim Crockett running shows against each other's major events to attempt to hurt them, like Vince creating Survivor Series solely to try to hurt the 1987 Starrcade buyrate, and how Crockett retaliated by airing Clash of the Champions on free TV against WM4 and so on and so forth for the next couple of years. Then there's WM6 with Hogan/Warrior, the WM7 drama with the venue being changed due to low ticket sales and turned out to be a huge flop on PPV. WM8 with over 60,000 fans except a LOT of them were papered and it flopped on PPV. WM9 with Hogan returning to win the title, but it didn't help business and he refused to put Bret over later that year. WM10 with 2 of the greatest WM matches in history, WM11 with Lawrence Taylor, WM12 with the ironman match, WM13 which had the Bret/Austin classic but was the moment WWF hit the bottom of the barrel with the lowest WM buyrate ever, WM14 with Mike Tyson and the crowning of Austin as the new top star which did record business, and finally WM15 which mostly sucked but ended up being the biggest money show in wrestling history...until next week when WM16 inevitably breaks that record. Anyway, Dave goes into more in-depth recap of each Wrestlemania here, but you already know the stories on most of this so I...actually have no idea why I just wrote this big ass paragraph.
  
• Last year's Wrestlemania featured Austin/Rock main eventing and broke a bazillion records. This year's plan was originally to do a rematch, with the roles reversed (Austin as heel) but Austin getting injured screwed that up. This year's WM is still expected to become the biggest money grossing event in the history of professional wrestling. As for this year's plans, it's still up in the air. As of a few weeks ago, the plan has always been for Rock to win the title, essentially his coronation as the new top star and face of the company. But that may not happen anymore because Rock is scheduled to film The Mummy 2 movie and will be out for a couple of months soon after Wrestlemania. It's not in the company's best interest to build toward Rock's big moment for an entire year, only to have him win the title and then have to lose it again a month later. The company is pushing the idea that Foley will win and that's what they want everyone to believe, for the big feel good story. Dave thinks the only chance of Triple H retaining will be if Foley turns heel and helps cost Rock the match. Usually a heel retaining the title at Wrestlemania seems like something they'd never do, but Triple H (who was only supposed to be a transitional champion to begin with) has been a huge success as champion and has become a legit main eventer and top star. And Big Show pretty much isn't even in the discussion. Though for what it's worth, Dave says Big Show will probably become the tallest wrestler to ever headline a Wrestlemania, so hey, that's something! Of course, in kayfabe, Andre The Giant was billed at 7'4 (he wasn't) so even though Big Show is legitimately slightly taller than Andre was, they can't admit that without breaking the Andre mystique.
  
• Despite all the huge paragraphs above, they're really only 2 stories. I guess this is a slow week because Dave writes huge pieces about a former WCW jobber turned boxer who was exposed for fixing his matches and all the legal issues with that. And then he writes a big historical piece about Frank Gotch that stems from a letter someone wrote the week before. All really interesting stuff, but none of it newsworthy at all.
  
• Ratings news, Monday stuff is still the same. Thunder ratings reached a pretty horrible low and bottomed out with the main event of Hulk Hogan vs. Dustin Rhodes doing a terrible 1.91 rating. WWF Sunday Night Heat did a lower than usual rating because the Oscars were on. ECW did a pretty bad rating for the 2nd week in a row and was actually close to their all-time low, which isn't good news and kinda surprising since just a few weeks back, they were reaching all-time highs on TNN.
  
• Dave recently ran a poll on the radio show, asking fans which was better*: Wrestling With Shadows or Beyond The Mat? With 37% of the vote, Wrestling With Shadows wins, compared to 21% for Beyond The Mat. The other percentages were people who haven't seen one or the other. What say we, Wreddit?
  
• AJPW pulled a huge surprise in their annual Champion Carnival tournament. Jun Akiyama, who was expected to easily make it to the finals of the tournament, ended up losing to Takao Omori in a 7 second match in the very first round. It's the shortest match in AJPW history. It's a single elimination tournament, which means Akiyama has been eliminated. Dave isn't really sure what the plan is here, but it damn sure makes the tournament hard to predict now. He speculates that this means Steve Williams will probably end up in the finals against either Misawa, Kawada, Kobashi, or maaaaybe Vader (Williams didn't make the finals either. It ended up being Kobashi vs. Omori, because AJPW apparently decided to strap a rocket to Omori and try to make a main eventer out of him. Prior to this, it looks like he was just sort of languishing in the midcard).
  

WATCH: Jun Akiyama vs. Takao Omori - AJPW 2000

• Oh hey, in the very next paragraph, Dave breaks down the next tournament matches and wonders whether AJPW may end up pushing Omori to the finals in order to try to make him a star (yup).
  
• Speaking of Kobashi, he blew his knee out last week and doctors have told him he needs surgery. As anyone who follows AJPW and Kobashi in particular knows, he's naturally ignoring that advice and continuing to wrestle. Because Kobashi.
  
• Shawn Michaels will be returning to the ring next week for his own TWA promotion in Texas. Michaels is billing it as his final match, coming out of retirement to face Venom for the TWA title. The match is said to be a "bunkhouse brawl" instead of a regular wrestling match because Michaels has said his back can't stand up to doing a normal match.
  
• A website called TokyoPop.com is going to start airing live matches from FMW online (that seems like it would have sucked with 2000-era internet technology. Anyway, TokyoPop.com still exists. It's an anime/manga site).
  
• Dave recently caught up on some Memphis Championship Wrestling and gives his thoughts on some of the people there. K-Krush has good charisma (that would be R-Truth). Bobcat looks like every other blonde valet (she's most famous for being the Godfather's ho that won the hardcore title). Blue Meanie has lost so much weight that he doesn't even look like the same person. Lance Russell is still an incredible announcer. So on and so forth. Anyway, Dustin Diamond (Screech from Saved By The Bell) appeared yet again, continuing his angle of being obsessed with the Kat which once again led to Screech getting beat down and doing a stretcher job.
  
• ECW has a PPV scheduled for next month but have not yet picked a location. Heyman wants to run the show in a new market because the first-time crowds are usually the best. Heyman had negotiated with the Mandalay Bay casino and hotel in Las Vegas to do it there, but the talks fell through. Both Jerry Lynn and RVD are expected to be back from their injuries by then.
  
• Notes from the most recent ECW TV taping: Dusty Rhodes came out with 2 strippers who flashed the crowd, but of course that won't air on TV. Cyrus made fun of Mick Foley's "retirement." And the show ended strangely. Sandman and Super Crazy were beat down after the main event and left laying. And....that was supposed to be the end of the show. But the crowd was expecting to be sent home happy and didn't leave and kept chanting for Sandman (who was helped out of the ring, selling an injury) and Raven (who was at the show but didn't work due to illness). Heyman called an audible and sent Mikey Whipwreck out to tell the crowd to leave, which led to Raven making an unplanned run-in to give him a DDT, which is about all he could physically do. Then, with Raven in the ring, the crowd began chanting for Sandman to come back out, so Raven went with it and called for him to come out. But by this point, Sandman was already in the showers and thought he was done for the night and he legitimately didn't want to come back out. Ultimately, he did and he caned Raven to send everyone home happy, but he was upset about it and he had words with Heyman and Raven immediately after backstage.
  
• New Jack and Tommy Dreamer will be appearing together in a small role in the CBS TV drama Early Edition.
  

WATCH: New Jack & Tommy Dreamer on Early Edition

• Every angle done on WCW TV this week was meaningless because the company is starting over with a clean slate in 2 weeks under Bischoff and Russo. Spring Stampede takes place on the 16th and there are no matches planned as of yet and there won't be until 6 days before the show when WCW resets. Word is Russo will be doing most of the writing. In an interview with 1wrestling.com, Russo said he hasn't watched a single second of WCW TV since he was relieved of his duties back in January.
  
• Notes from Nitro: it was the spring break show, so the crowd at least seemed to be having fun which is a break from normal WCW shows. Someone in the front row had an "I wish I was at Raw" sign that somehow never got confiscated and was there for the entire show on camera. At the very beginning of the show, a woman in the front row flashed Gene Okerlund, leading to him saying, "Young lady, you're very proud of those, aren't you?" on TV. DDP made his big return and pretty much just plugged the Ready To Rumble movie. Sid Vicious missed the show due to a shoulder injury. Dave can understand not wrestling with an injury but Sid is the WCW champion, and Dave thinks he should at least show up and cut a promo or something. But then again, nothing in WCW matters right now until Russo and Bischoff reboot it anyway. Sting and Luger fought onto the beach all the way to the ocean. And to his credit, Hogan did a promo during the show where he really put over Vampiro as the wrestler of the future and later in the main event, he worked against The Wall and allowed Wall to no-sell the leg drop. So kudos to WCW for finally making an effort to push some new people, even if it all gets wiped away in 2 weeks.
  
• Notes from Thunder: the show drew 1,700 paid fans. Literally 24 hours earlier, Raw sold out a different arena in the same city for Raw with over 12,500 paid fans. Lots of rumors were going around saying Bobby Heenan had been fired, but he was doing commentary on this show, so obviously that wasn't true. Chris Candido is already doing jobs to Chavo Guerrero so he clearly isn't getting any sort of push after debuting just a couple weeks ago. And no real storyline progression, just tons of hype about what the future for WCW holds under Bischoff and Russo. WCW is basically in a holding pattern right now and nothing matters until the reboot.
  
• Hogan appeared on another radio station doing an interview where he buries everybody. He said Bret Hart is in Canada and "can't remember what WCW is." He said DDP was out injured with a broken fingernail and said WCW needs people who will crawl through broken glass with one arm in a sling to sacrifice and get in the ring. He said Kidman needs to start training like Torrie Wilson. He did praise Vampiro again though, so Hogan seems to like him. Anyway, WCW head Bill Busch was on WCW's live internet show and admitted that Hogan has full creative control in his contract and also said that he still has 6 guaranteed PPV main event matches in his deal.
  
• Tammy Sytch is expected to make her WCW debut at the Spring Stampede PPV.
  
• Variety ran a big story about some marketing changes that WCW is making. New hires to take over various marketing jobs, new marketing strategies and promotions that the company is planning to run, etc. Dave says that's all well and good, but nowhere in the article did it mention the idea of maybe putting on good shows that people want to see. All the marketing geniuses in the world can't save a product as terrible as WCW is right now.
  
• Brad Armstrong will be out of action for several months with a knee injury suffered in the dumbest way possible. For some reason, before a show, Armstrong was goofing around in the parking lot with Juventud Guerrera and Psicosis and they decided--just for shits and giggles--to do the ol' famous wrestling angle of hitting someone with their car. You know, one of those dumb "you drive at me, I'll jump up on the hood like the stuntmen do in the movies" type of things. So.....they did it. And now Armstrong needs knee surgery because of course he does (that was pretty much it for him. He never wrestled in WCW again and in fact, he didn't wrestle anywhere for another 4 years before returning to the ring in 2004 and working indie shows periodically until 2011. Died a year later).
  
• Les Thatcher's Heartland Wrestling Association have signed a deal with WCW to act as a developmental territory for them. Power Plant wrestlers will go work shows for him for a little while before debuting on WCW TV.
  
• Various WCW notes: Mexican wrestlers Halloween and Damian are joining Sonny Onoo's racial discrimination lawsuit against WCW. Although with Bischoff returning to the company, Dave expects this lawsuit to ultimately disappear. Christopher Daniels starts with WCW next week. Dave thinks he has a ton of potential. Some people within the company are pushing for Shane Douglas to return. Konnan's suspension ends this week so he should be back soon.
  
• The legal red tape behind the scenes on WWF's new TV deal is still being sorted out. The FCC is expected to allow the Viacom purchase of UPN to go through, which will mean Viacom will own 2 networks (CBS and UPN) which used to be against the law but that's being changed now. Those in the TV industry pretty much believe this to be a done deal. The news has boosted WWF stock up to $17.31 per share (as I write this, WWF just announced the new FOX deal for Smackdown, which boosted the stock up to damn near $60 per share)(10/24 update: currently $80.64).
  
• The Rock was on Jay Leno's Tonight Show recently and movie critic Roger Ebert appeared also. Ebert told Rock that he has talent and told him to get into acting and get as far away from wrestling as he can. Rock laughed it off and said he was working on it.
  
• Notes from Smackdown: it was in San Antonio and a tag team called American Force 2000 worked a dark match. The team consists of two trainees from Shawn Michaels' wrestling school, Spanky and American Dragon. Lots of cool high spots but they weren't very fluid and screwed some stuff up. They also hyped up the Shawn Michaels vs. Venom match next week in TWA for the live crowd.
  
• A lot of the WWF wrestlers are using new entrance music right now to promote the new WWF Aggression CD. It's basically rap remixes of everyone's theme music and Dave thinks it sucks because the fans don't know these songs. So now even when the Rock is making his entrance, the crowd doesn't pop because it's an unfamiliar. Luckily it's temporary and they'll go back to the real versions eventually. Speaking of, WWF The Music Vol. 4, which was released 6 months ago, is still hanging on in the top 200 charts. It's at #152 this week and sold over 10,000 copies. In 2018, any album that is still moving 10k copies six months after it came out would be the best selling album of the year.
  
• WWF claims they have enough money set aside to fund the XFL for at least 3 seasons. They're hoping to expand to 16 teams by 2005. WWF has once again emphasized that they will own all the teams and aren't interested in outside investors. They also again promised that this is going to be legit and the games won't be fixed. Advertisers are said to be hesitant, because they don't have a lot of hope that this whole XFL thing is going to succeed.
  
• Shawn Michaels is said to be itching to get back on television in the WWF, but right now, they have no interest. Business is booming so much these days and they've attracted so many new fans in just the last year or two alone that Michaels isn't considered a top star anymore and WWF doesn't feel the need to use him in any way.
  
• USA Today ran a story about Mick Foley's alleged last match coming up at Wrestlemania. Foley was quoted as saying, "I was much more successful and, going over my taxes now, obviously a lot more profitable being more of a comedy character in 1999 than I ever was being the King of Hardcore. If I'd known I could make more money making people laugh than making people wince, I'd have done it a long time ago." He also said that if it hadn't been for Austin getting injured, he would have retired last year. He said he hated going back on his word so soon after he retired and says he spent 20 minutes trying to talk Vince McMahon out of bringing him back for the match. But ultimately, he admitted that the money was too much to turn down. "It may take some people a while to forgive me, but not as long as it would take me to forgive myself if I didn't do this. Realistically, it's probably going to be the most money that I've ever made. So 15 years from now, when everyone has forgiven me, my kids' college will be taken care of." But Foley super duper swears this time that Wrestlemania will be his final match. "By leaving now, I'm probably giving up on the most profitable year in my career. But I was named after Mickey Mantle. I grew up hearing about how Mickey Mantle stuck around one season too long. I didn't want people to make the same comments about Mickey Foley."
  

FRIDAY: Wrestlemania 16 fallout, XFL/NBC partnership, Vince Russo gives interview full of bullshit, New Jersey attempting to ban extreme wrestling, and more...

Friday, November 8th 2019:

• Manual Cinema's "Frankenstein", November 7 - 9: Hailed as “endlessly imaginative and exquisitely beautiful” by The New Yorker, Manual Cinema’s Frankenstein stitches together Mary Shelley’s classic novel and the author’s own biography to create a thrilling new gothic tale about the beauty­­––and horror­­––of creation. The internationally renowned multimedia company Manual Cinema, whose production of The End of TV delighted New Haven audiences at the 2017 International Festival of Arts & Ideas, combines handmade shadow puppetry, cinematic techniques, and innovative sound and music to create immersive visual stories for stage and screen. Various Times, $40-$50 University Theatre, 222 York St., New Haven
• A DAY TO REMEMBER, November 8th: --- "All I Want" Over the course of the past several years, each of A Day To Remember’s releases have hit No. 1 on Billboard ’s Rock, Indie and/or Alternative Charts, they’ve sold more than a million units, racked up over 400 million Spotify streams and 500 million YouTube views, garnered two gold-selling albums and singles (and one silver album in the UK) and sold out entire continental tours, amassing a global fanbase whose members number in the millions. All of which explains why Rolling Stone called them “An Artist You Need To Know.” 6:30PM, $25-$45 Mohegan Sun Arena, Uncasville
• SKID ROW -- NOT SEBASTIAN BACH :( November 8th -- "18 And Life": The first rebellion started in 1986. New Jersey kids, Punk and Metal attitude, determined to conquer the world. All for one, banded together with single-minded purpose. The battlefield was the stage, the songs their arsenal in an us-against-them musical coup d'état. As the energy for the new album and tour is reaching fever pitch, enter ZP Theart. “I've been a mad fan of this band since I was a teenager, and to now be a member of Skid Row, is beyond any sense of my imagination! We'll be hitting the studio to get started on some new material and I'm beyond excited to say the least. This is a whole new deck of cards and there's gonna be no holding back!” Theart adds. That sound is rambunctious exuberance. They got older, but Skid Row never really grew up. United World Rebellion – Chapter Three is still the youth gone wild, their musical spark still burning gasoline. ​ “I will always be that 16-year-old kid in front of the mirror, pretending to be Ace Frehley or Michael Schenker,” Dave “Snake” Sabo admits. “It's still about writing a great song with your friends, praying it connects with someone. That has never left me. That willfulness will always exist, and there's so much left to say!” ​ 8:00PM - FREE Wolf Den @ Mohegan Sun, Uncasville

Saturday, November 9th 2019:

• Moose on the Loose: Connecticut Moose Adventures November 9th Learn all the scoop about this incredibly majestic and …er…really big mammal from State of Connecticut DEEP Wildlife Biologist, Andrew Labonte and associate Jake Harton, aka Connecticut’s Moose Man. How did Jake acquire that moniker??? Andy will address our Connecticut moose population and teach us about its natural history, habitat, and where moose sightings are most frequent in our state. I won’t tell you what Jake is up to. He is a wonder! Pre-registration and pre-payment are required. 2:00 & 3:00PM, $5 White Memorial Conservation Center, 80 Whitehall Rd. Litchfield, CT
• The Machine performs Pink Floyd November 9th: The Machine performs Pink Floyd, America's top Pink Floyd show, has forged a 30-year reputation for extending the legacy of Pink Floyd, selling out theaters, premier showcase rooms and casinos across North America, Europe and Asia, performing at renowned music festivals such as Bonnaroo, Riverbend, and Gathering of the Vibes, and sharing the stage with full symphony orchestras, including the Atlanta, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Jacksonville and San Diego Symphonies, as well as the Buffalo Philharmonic. The New York-based quartet performs a diverse mix of The Floyd's extensive 16-album repertoire, complete with faithful renditions of popular hits as well as obscure gems. With stellar musicianship and passionate delivery, The Machine explores collective improvisation rivaling that of an early 1970s Pink Floyd. Their use of expanded theatrical elements and elaborate stage displays and lighting continues in the spirit of the later Floyd of the 1980s. The band is also known for recreating entire albums as a part of their show, accepting requests from fans, and for taking an A to Z approach in which one song is played for every letter of the alphabet. Special shows include lasers by the same company that provides classic Pink Floyd laser effects for Roger Waters and David Gilmour tours. 8:00PM, $29-$59 Palace Theater, 100 East Main St. Waterbury, CT
• "The Play That Goes Wrong" November 9 - 10: What would happen if Sherlock Holmes and Monty Python had an illegitimate Broadway baby? You’d get The Play that Goes Wrong, Broadway and London’s award-winning smash comedy! Called “A GUT-BUSTING HIT” (The New York Times) and “THE FUNNIEST PLAY BROADWAY HAS EVER SEEN” (HuffPost), this classic murder mystery is chock-full of mishaps and madcap mania delivering “A RIOTOUS EXPLOSION OF COMEDY” (Daily Beast). Welcome to opening night of The Murder at Haversham Manor where things are quickly going from bad to utterly disastrous. With an unconscious leading lady, a corpse that can’t play dead, and actors who trip over everything (including their lines) Various Times, $39-$96 Shubert Theatre, 247 College St. New Haven

Sunday, November 10th 2019:

• Disney Junior Holiday Party November 10: Interactive show features favorite Disney Junior characters, including Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Vampirina and Bingo and Rolly from "Puppy Dog Pals" performing live on stage to Disney Junior hits and other holiday classics such as "Jingle Bells" and "Deck the Halls." Various Times, $29.50-$59.50 Toyota Oakdale Theater, 95 South Turnpike Rd. Wallingford, CT
• "The Godfather Part II" November 10 Ridgefield Playhouse: A timeless classic best revered on the big screen, time tested fans and newcomers alike won’t want to miss this special event featuring exclusive insight from Turner Classic Movies! Francis Ford Coppola continues his epic Godfather trilogy with this saga of two generations of power within the Corleone family. Coppola, working once again with the author Mario Puzo, crafts two interwoven stories that work as both prequel and sequel to the original. One shows the humble Sicilian beginnings and New York rise of a young Don Vito, played by Robert De Niro in an Oscar®-winning performance for Best Supporting Actor. The other shows the ascent of Michael (Al Pacino) as the new Don. Reassembling many of the cast members who helped make The Godfather®, Coppola has produced a movie of staggering magnitude and vision, the film received eleven Academy Awards® nominations, winning six including Best Picture of 1974. A timeless classic best revered on the big screen, time tested fans and newcomers alike won’t want to miss this special event featuring exclusive insight from Turner Classic Movies. 7:00PM, $12.50 Ridgefield Playhouse, 80 East Ridge Rd. Ridgefield, CT

Here's a link to more activities in CT!

​
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
​
How about see a newly released movie like these:
Doctor Sleep
Honey Boy
Last Christmas
Midway
Playing with Fire
Arctic Dogs

Here are two facts you should probably know:
Fact the first: When a human being is driven into a corner, you should never underestimate the levels of stupid and dangerous they will resort to in order to escape.
Fact the second: If a deal seems too good to be true, it is.
Normally, I wouldn't be the kind of guy you should be taking advice from. If I wrote an autobiography, it'd be called "Jesus Wept." But in this very specific instance, I have some valuable experience. It started, as most tragic stories tend to, with a series of short-sighted mistakes.
About a decade or so back, I was a few years out of college and trying to build a life for myself. I was single, educated, and driven - all the qualities someone needs to succeed in life. Well, not the "single" part, but you get the idea. I had prospects, some real potential - but, like Oscar Wilde once said, I can resist anything except temptation.
Yeah. I was an English major.
I didn't get hooked on meth or porn or anything like that. No, my vice was the thrill of chance. Gambling was the greatest rush I'd ever experienced - just giving up control, letting the gods of probability and randomness decide your fate. I got hooked, kept going to those damn casinos night after night. Looking back, I was naive, I was foolish. It'd take an idiot, blinded by a lust for sensation, to not realise another crucial fact: the house always - I repeat, always - wins.
To make a long, painful story short, at the tender age of 24 the local pit bosses had taken me for all I was worth and then some. As a result, I was indebted to some unsavoury characters who were not all that keen on giving me some leeway on the money I owed them. I managed to pull together just shy of a hundred dollars in a week doing odd jobs, but that was a fraction of a fraction of what I was in for.
At the time, it seemed like a better idea to just piss away what money I had at a local bar rather than carrying on my sad little exercise in futility. So that's exactly what I did, and by virtue of a few gallons of the cheapest spirits you can possibly imagine, I can't remember a great deal of what happened after that.
Next thing I know, I'm waking up in a puddle behind the bar, having been turfed out for making an ass of myself. The electric buzz of the neon signs above my head felt like I was taking a power drill to the frontal lobe, while the cold, filthy water below my face helped to sober me up a smidgen. Just enough to make me aware.
It was right then, in my lowest possible moment, that I met him.
"Hey there, buddy," He said, his voice pleasantly cheerful and melodic, "You look like you need a helping hand. Thankfully, I've got two."
There was a gentle tug on both of my shoulders, pulling me upright. He leaned me against a wall; I could finally take a better look at him.
To begin with, I wondered if I was hallucinating. He seemed so strange, so out of place.
My Good Samaritan was about six and a half feet tall, but he was built like a pack of uncooked spaghetti. A long, lean, string bean of a man. That being said, the black-and-white pinstripe suit he was wearing still somehow managed to be form-fitting, like it was just painted directly onto a featureless body. Above his collar - fastened to the top button and held in place by a large and ugly bow-tie - sat a pale, grinning head with black hair parted in the middle.
Truth be told, my initial thought after properly taking in the sight of him was as follows: holy shit, I died in that puddle, and this is death himself come to collect my pathetic soul. Sadly, that was not the case, I was, in fact, still alive.
"There we are, pal, that's a lot better, isn't it?" He said, kneeling down on his long, rail-thin legs to look me in the eye, "We'll have you feeling like a million bucks in no time. Never fear!"
While back then I just assumed that it was my drunken mind playing tricks on me, I remember his eyes seeming strangely...yellowish. They had a kind of jaundiced sheen to them, like sclera and iris just melted together into a single, formless mass. Eyes like goddamn egg yolks.
"It's always such a shame to catch folks in a pickle, such a shame," He said, largely to himself, I think, "Whatever happened to helping people out, you know? It's a good feeling."
"Who are you?" I managed to choke out.
The kind stranger smiled and turned his sulphuric eyes towards me.
"You're asking the wrong person there, amigo, I'd tell you if I knew. Honest!" He replied with a laugh, "What's your name, though?"
"Nate," I said, wondering if I was about to vomit or not, "Nate Wilson."
"Oh my god, that's such an awesome name!" The stranger said, as the sudden explosion of interest on his face told me that he wasn't faking his misplaced enthusiasm, "Nate Wilson. It has a ring to it, don't you think? God, what a great name. You're a lucky guy, Nate. Lucky to have such a great name."
"Uhh, thanks, I guess."
There was a long, awkward silence after that. I sure as hell didn't know what to say, and the stranger seemed more than content to just stand there and stare at me, grinning like a freak. It felt like it was my responsibility to break that irritating silence.
"Look, I really appreciate you helping me, buddy..." I began.
"Wait, you consider us buddies?" He asked. His tone was, at that stage, ambiguous.
"I mean, you saved me from breathing alley-water, so I guess so, yeah."
This might seem hard to believe, because I definitely didn't believe it at the time, but the stranger literally jumped up into the air and whooped loudly. A grown man, behind a dive bar, doing that. It was like something out of a strange dream that your one boring friend always wants to tell you about.
"This is fantastic!" He said, grinning ear to ear like he'd just won the fucking lottery, "It's so wonderful to make new friends!"
He extended a spindly arm towards me, his hand open and his spidery fingers outstretched.
"Put her there, friendo." He said.
And because that night wasn't weird enough already, you better believe I did.
"That's what I'm talking about," He said with another childish cackle, pulling me to my feet with disarming levels of strength, "Through the power of friendship, anything is possible."
Sure, he may have spoken like his only experience with the outside world was watching Saturday morning cartoons, but he seemed innocent enough. A benign weirdo, just trying to help people along his way. Though I must admit, the fact he was reluctant to tell me his name was somewhat of a red flag for me.
"Now, I'm going to be completely honest with you, Nate," He began, his amber gaze turned downwards in what might have been embarrassment, "There was a reason I followed you out here. It wasn't just a stroke of good luck."
My heart immediately sank. I knew he was too good to be true - this was when he stabbed me, cut me up, wore my skin as a suit and turned the rest of me into a makeshift lasagna. Nobody was ever that happy at that hour of the night if they had all their psychological ducks in a row.
"Well, if you're being honest," I said, swaying on my feet, still too drunk to defend myself, "Would that reason happen to be my murder?"
He seemed shocked at first, then began to laugh.
"Do you think a murderer would be this friendly?" He asked.
"Molestation, then?"
"Jesus, no way, Nate. You're a good-looking guy, don't get me wrong, but you're not really my type."
"Then what does a guy like you have to do with a guy like me?" I asked, the needle on my internal emotive scale creeping from 'curious' to 'irritated.'
"Well..."
He paused again, as though searching for the proper words. He was looking at everything but me.
"The bar," He finally said, "How much of what happened in there do you remember?"
"Somewhere in the margin of nothing, I think." I said, now leaning against the wall for support.
"You were talking to the bartender. Loudly," He said, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, "I wasn't eavesdropping, not at all, I just happened to overhear. You were talking about some kind of...money troubles."
I'd almost forgotten about them myself, but the second he said it, all the memories came barreling into me like some nauseating tidal wave. I'd ranted and raved, screamed at the top of my lungs. Debt. Debt. Debt. I got belligerent when I felt they weren't showing me enough sympathy, and when I got belligerent, I was rightly thrown out on my inebriated ass.
"Oh, don't worry about those," I said, my cheeks reddening with shame, "That's not your problem. I'll deal with it."
"But Nate, you didn't sound like you could deal with it."
"What the hell is it to you?" I snapped back.
The stranger stopped talking, and began reaching into his jacket. I got a sudden flash of paranoia that he worked for one of the casinos, and he was going to put a bullet between my eyes.
"You're my best friend, Nate," He said, "And friends are meant to help each other out of sticky situations, aren't they?"
He produced a stack of bills from a pocket inside his suit, and passed it over to me.
"Will this be enough?" He asked.
It was at this point that I was most open to the idea of this all being some crazy dream. With the ferocity of a madman, I quickly counted the money this total stranger, calling me his best friend, had handed to me.
Twenty-fucking-grand. It could bail me out, and then some.
"Holy shit," I said, though I can't remember if it was out loud or in my head, "I...I can't possibly accept this."
"Please do," He said with another ear-to-ear grin, "You need it an awful lot more than I do."
A sober me might have been too proud to indulge him, but - funnily enough - drunk me had a far more realistic take on my level of desperation. I was a desperate, desperate man, trapped in a corner.
Fact the first: When a human being is driven into a corner, you should never underestimate the levels of stupid and dangerous they will resort to in order to escape.
"But why?" Was the only question I could summon.
He smiled and shrugged.
"Because I like you," He said, "And I like helping people."
"But you've only just met me."
"So what? A friend is a friend is a friend. Why overthink it?"
I collapsed back against the wall, holding the stranger's twenty grand. It was a way out of my dire situation.
"I'll pay you back. Every penny, with fucking interest, I swear to god." I said.
The stranger laughed.
"No need. I've got no shortage of money. Just take it and bail yourself out, okay? Then promise me you'll stop gambling."
There were big, swollen tears running down my burning cheeks. The stranger's kindness was baffling, but it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever experienced. He was a true Saint in flesh and blood.
"I'll never gamble another penny." I said.
Without another word, I lunged forward and hugged him. A long, warm, tight embrace. By the end, I could feel his emaciated limbs wrapped across my back.
"Thank you so much." I whispered, my tears dripping onto the shoulder of his suit.
"What are friends for, right?"
When I finally prized myself off of him, I just couldn't stop laughing - it was nerves, probably. The stranger watched me, a kind of eccentric joy burning in his big, yellow eyes. He seemed to like just observing.
"Oh, one more thing," He said, reaching into his jacket again, "A little something I wrote up in the bar, just to help you out."
He passed me a piece of paper, folded into the size of a pamphlet. I didn't even think to check it at the time, I just shoved it into the pocket of my filthy coat and carried on thanking him. I needed that money, lord knows I did, but I couldn't just take it without giving something in return.
"There must be something you want, man," I pleaded, palms open in deference to his generosity, "Anything. I owe you my life, man, you just name your price. I can't thank you enough."
The stranger grinned and stroked his narrow chin in contemplation.
"Now that's an irresistible offer," He said, almost jokingly, "You drive a hard bargain, Mr. Wilson. Leave it with me, okay? I'm sure I'll think of something."
He began walking away after that, whistling - of all things - "Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows" as he did so.
Now I was laughing again. Half out of giddiness, half in acknowledgement of the sheer strangeness of the events transpiring around me. Right then, as I sat outside a shitty bar, covered in dirty water, my own tears, and more than a little puke, I was the luckiest human being on the planet,
"What do you give to the man who has everything?" I said aloud.
The stranger looked over his shoulder at me one more time, his odd eyes meeting mine.
"Almost everything, Nate," He corrected, "Almost everything."
And just like that, the stranger was gone. Almost funny, isn't it? How someone like that can have such a profound impact on your life, then just up and disappear just as quickly. Like a comet, just trailing past. You only catch its light for a brief instant, then it's dark again.
Using the stranger's money, I paid off my gambling debts in full, and still had a little left over. I swore to stick to my promise, for my own sake and his. In the ten years that've passed since that day, I haven't gambled a cent.
Once I was all square with the house, I finally took a moment to check the piece of paper that he'd left me with. At first I only sort of skimmed it, and it didn't make a great deal of sense to me: just a list of dates from 2007 to 2017, each accompanied by a sentence fragment. It was only when I sat down and took a long, hard look at what those fragments actually were that I realised the stranger couldn't possibly have been human.
No, he was so much more than that.
It was a list of instructions, specific down to the days, minutes, hours, and seconds. Where to be and what to do in order to maximise success at that given moment. He'd left stock tips for companies that didn't exist, but would come into existence exactly when he'd predicted they would. He'd left exact instructions on which house to buy, and how to get it at the best price. Clothes to wear, jobs to take, friends to make.
Fifth of October, 2009. Go to Starbucks in town. Meet Jessie O'Brien. 3:51:17 PM.
Two years later, Jessie O'Brien became Jessie Wilson. The stranger had even engineered me meeting the love of my goddamn life, precise to the exact second we'd first make eye contact.
I invested in the right stocks and pulled out of the wrong ones, avoiding company deaths and market crashes like some financial Houdini. My capital skyrocketed and my personal wealth just grew greater and greater.
Eighth of June, 2011. Buy House 10 Aspen Way. Don't Rent. 6:14:43 PM.
And so I did. Jessie and I moved into that big, gorgeous house once our honeymoon was over. We were wealthy, healthy, and deeply in love - but something was missing, something the stranger had accounted for, too.
Seventeenth of August, 2012. Conceive child with Jessie. 8:31:19 PM.
Our little girl is called April. The stranger picked it, not me. She's four now, and I love her with all my heart.
The stranger, a man who I'd known for less than an hour, had steered the entire course of my life in the best possible direction, out of nothing more than the kindness of his heart. He'd saved me, he'd saved all of us. Even though it'd been ten years since that day and I was drunk out of my mind at the time, I remember every detail vividly.
That's why, as I was walking down the street this morning - my arms full of grocery bags - when I heard someone singing "Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows" a few feet behind me, I recognised the voice instantly.
"Sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows, everything that's wonderful is what I feel when we're together!" His melodic voice sang, his tone screaming joviality, "Brighter than a lucky penny, when you're near the rain just disappears, dear, and I feel so fine!"
Without a moment's hesitation, I turned to face him. It looked like that strange, strange man hadn't aged a day in an entire decade. He even wore that same pinstriped suit that he had on the first night I met him.
"Just to know that you are mine." He finished the verse with a smile, and threw open his arms.
"Jesus Christ," I said, my face cracking into a smile impossible to hide, "It's actually you."
"The one and only, baby," He said with a laugh and a grandiose hand gesture, "How's Jessie, by the way?"
I opened my mouth to answer, but he raised a hand, as though to politely silence me.
"I'm sorry to drop in after - gosh, has it really been ten years? Jeez Louise, time really does tend to get away from me," He said, "Anyway, the reason I'm here is because I finally figured out what I wanted from you."
"Beg your pardon?"
"Ten years ago, you said you owed me something, anything," He replied, though I almost heard it back in my own voice as he said it, "I couldn't decide at the time, but I think I know now."
"Oh, of course! That's wonderful to hear, man," I said, my heart filled with a sudden trepidation, "So, uh, what is it you want?"
The stranger gave that same ear-to-ear grin that he was wearing back behind the dive bar in 2007.
"Well, I've thought about it for a long time, amigo, and I've finally made my decision," He said, "I know what I want from you, Nate."
He paused to take a step closer to me. His eyes were just as golden in the daylight.
"I want your name, Nate."
I almost laughed to begin with, but I soon realised he wasn't joking. He was deadly serious.
"My name?"
"Yes, Nate, I've always loved your name, it's so wonderful," He said, wringing his hands with glee, "See, I've never had a name myself, and it's always left me feeling a little left out, you know? I've wanted a name for so long, and I decided just recently that the name I want is yours. I think it'll fit me just right."
This man had given me my entire life. He saved me from getting killed by casino sharks back in '07, and every wonderful success I'd had since I owed entirely to his decade-long itinerary. With all this in mind, who was I to turn him down this last batshit crazy request?
If he wanted to go around calling himself Nate Wilson too, what right did I have to stop him?
"Sure thing, buddy." I said with a smile.
He leaned forward and embraced me, almost crushing the groceries against my chest.
"You have no idea how happy you've made me."
"It's the least I can do after all you've done for me." I replied.
The stranger - or rather, Nate Wilson - extended another spidery hand towards me.
"Let's shake on it." He said, his voice elated.
And I did.
We went our separate ways after that. I walked home, and he ran off into the city, singing and cackling with mirth. It brought me some peace of mind to know that my debt to him was finally repaid, and that some simple token gesture was all that I needed to do it.
When I arrived back at 10 Aspen Way, I saw April playing around with her toy lawnmower in the front yard. I smiled and called to her, but she didn't respond. She was too wrapped up in her fictitious duties.
I made my way inside with the groceries. Jessie was in the kitchen, cutting up carrots. Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows blasted out of the radio. Today just kept getting weirder and weirder.
"Hey, babe," I called to her, putting the groceries on the kitchen table, "You'll never guess who I ran into this morning."
Jessie didn't respond. She just carried on chopping, and hummed to the tune.
"Babe? Everything okay?" I asked.
Still no response. At this point, I was beginning to get a little...worried.
With a peculiar heaviness to my every movement, I walked over to Jessie, and placed a tentative hand on her shoulder.
It just went straight through. Straight though her goddamn body - like she was a hologram, or I was. I recoiled with a short, sharp yelp, and fell against the kitchen table. Again, no response from Jessie.
What the hell had happened?
"Honey, I'm home!" I heard a familiar voice call from the hallway outside.
Jessie suddenly perked up, turning her head towards the noise.
"Hi, sweetie," She said, "You were a while out there. I was beginning to get worried."
The stranger walked into the kitchen, a smile stretched across his waxen face.
"Sorry about that, honey-bunny," He said, "I met an old friend in town. We had a little catch-up."
As he said that last part, he threw me a sickening wink with one of his piss-yellow peepers.
"Huh," Jessie said, "Anyone I know?"
She leaned forward and gave the stranger a kiss. The kind of kiss she always gave me.
"Nah," The stranger said with a chuckle, "I don't think you've ever met him."
I felt like my mind was going to implode. Nothing going on was making any kind of goddamn sense. The whole world had gone crazy.
April called from outside, something about the grass.
"You mind taking over the carrots for a sec, babe?" Jessie said to the stranger, "I better go check on April."
"No problem, honey." He said, taking the knife from her hand and giving her another kiss.
Jessie left the room, leaving just me and the stranger, all alone. I quietly fumed, and he chopped carrots.
"What the fuck is going on?" I finally asked him, when I'd gained the modicum of composure required to do so, "What have you done, you crazy fucking weirdo?"
He carried on chopping the carrots. His eyes never left the chopping board.
"My name is Nate, stranger," He said, "I'd really appreciate it if you called me by it."
In my state of fury, I tried to grab him by the shoulder and turn him to face me. I could actually touch him, but he wouldn't budge. It was like trying to move a mountain.
"That's my name. This is my house. And that's my wife," I said to him, rage and confusion rendering my voice a crackly mess, "I want you out of here and out my life."
The stranger chuckled.
"See, that's where you're wrong, slick. All that changed hands," He said, "This is Nate Wilson's house. Jessie is Nate Wilson's wife, and this is Nate Wilson's life. And, by the terms of our recent deal, I'm Nate Wilson. And you, good buddy? You're nobody."
"I won't accept that." I yelled, slamming my hand down onto the kitchen countertop.
Without another word, Nate Wilson rammed the knife through my hand. There was no pain, no blood. It just phased through, as though I no longer even existed.
"Word to the wise, stranger, reality marches on regardless of whether you accept it," He said, as I pulled my hand away from the knife, "Everything you have, everything you've tricked yourself into believing you earned, you got from my instructions. You never owned this life, stranger, you just rented it from me, piece by piece. Now, it's mine, and there's not a thing you can do about it."
He stuck the knife into the chopping board and turned around to me.
"Except, of course, leave, and let me, my wife, and my daughter get on with our lives. Do you understand, stranger?"
I stood in crushing silence for a minute or two.
"But can I see them again?"
"Sure you can, you can see them any time you like, but only I can see you. Just like, up until around an hour ago, only you could see me. It doesn't feel good, does it? Being nobody. Being nameless."
The gravity of it all was finally closing in. I fell onto my ass and began to cry.
"God, I was so fucking stupid," I said, "How did I fall for all this?"
Nate Wilson shrugged and ate a piece of carrot.
"Don't blame yourself, buddy," He said, "I was waiting for centuries before I found someone who I could interact with. It isn't your fault you happened to be that person, or that you had such an awesome name at the time."
"My name..."
"You were only going to waste it, friendo. If I wasn't there that night, a heavy would have broken your legs the next day, you'd have gotten into painkillers, and OD'd a few months later. Nate Wilson becomes gravestone fodder. What a waste that would have been, huh?"
"But what do I do now?"
"What I did, stranger," Nate Wilson said, eating another piece of carrot with undue relish, "Ask around, find someone you can talk to. Might be this afternoon, who knows? Sure, could be a week, month, year, decade, century, but I'm an eternal optimist."
"A century?" I said, trying to ebb the stream of tears flowing out of me, "I can't wait that long."
"You'd be surprised, pal. Patience is something you'll learn, being nameless. When you finally do manage to wrangle yourself a name, you'll appreciate it a little more this time. You'll make something of yourself."
Fact the second: If a deal seems too good to be true, it is.
"So is that it?" I asked, "Is that all you have for me?"
Nate Wilson nodded.
"I'm afraid so, good buddy," He said, "But you seem like a nice enough guy. I'm sure you'll figure something out. You can always depend on the kindness of strangers, don't you know."
As the man who had just stolen my entire existence carried on hacking up vegetables, I left the room, walking out of the kitchen, through the hallway, then out of the house entirely. I stole one last look at Jessie and April, my - no, his - family, playing on the lawn, totally carefree. All smiles. They'd never even know that I was gone.
Perhaps it was better that way, no heartache.
I whispered a goodbye that they'd never hear, and closed my eyes in a pointless attempt to shut off the tears I knew would be coming either way. I set off into the city after that, walking alone, in search of something - hell, anything - to call myself.
And that was that. The story of my un-naming. Perhaps Nate was right, perhaps it was his life all along. Maybe he'll live it better, live it kinder. He might be a better father, a better husband, a better Nate.
I don't feel so attached to that name anymore.
But, if you know all this now, that means one good thing: you can read what I'm writing. If you can read my words, perhaps you can hear them? And if you can hear them, perhaps you can reply.
If so, I hope to hear from you soon. We have a lot to talk about, you and I, a lot to discuss. I think I can do some great things for you, dear reader, dear friend. I'll help you out of any bind you need, and I'll barely ask for anything in return.
Barely anything at all...
X

Here's the list!

As usual, this list is pretty much what you'd expect from our wonderful subreddit. There's a bit of recency bias and maybe some movies that are popular with the reddit demographic are higher than they might be if this list was voted on by paid critics or what have you, but my strategy with this list has always been check it out and if there's movies on here you haven't seen then give them a try because they are probably pretty good! If you spend too much time thinking about the numerical rankings you'll just drive yourself nuts. That said, here's some interesting points about the 2017 Reddit Top 250!

• This is the first year ever that Pulp Fiction did not take the top spot. That's huge, it usually wins by a mile no competition. So without further adieu, let's all welcome our new overlord The Dark Knight with open arms.
  
• Here is the list on letterboxd in case you crave their formatting!
  
• 43 films fell off the list this year with Synecdoche, New York being the one falling farthest from its former #125 spot. I actually blame myself for that, I submitted that one personally last year and I didn't submit any this year and I believe it didn't get posted for a day or so so it probably lost votes there. Oh how fragile this list is! I'll be posting the other movies that fell off the list in a comment in this thread.
  
• Six Tarantino films, six Coen Brothers films, two Kurosawa, seven Scorsese films, five Nolan films, five Fincher films, three Zemeckis films, five Wes Anderson films, four Hitchcock films, and four Paul Thomas Anderson films. All five Nolan films are in the top 50 and both of Damien Chazelle's films are in the top 25.
  
• Speaking of Chazelle, La La Land is exactly 105 spots ahead of Moonlight.
  
• 12 films that came out in 2016 made the list.
  
• We recognize that this list tends to have a recency bias so this year we also made an alternate version of the list where we didn't allow any movies from the past five years. It's called the No Recency Bias List and it's right here to check out!
  
• Lego Movie saw the biggest rise from one place on the list to another gaining 137 spots this year.
  
• The Terminator saw the biggest drop off while still staying on the list losing 132 spots this year.
  
• Our resident James Bond expert GetFreeCash also requested I mention that Casino Royale surprisingly went up 100 spots this year! I say surprisingly because usually movies in the 5-10 year old sweet spot don't move too much.
  

So yeah. There it is. Much earlier than we got it up last year. Big thanks to GetFreeCash and mi-16evil for doing some of the legwork on getting the list compiled and the fun facts for me, and as always a big thanks to everyone who submitted films and voted on your favorites! Enjoy judging this list harshly and looking down on everyone who uses the same internet movie forum you do!

• The Mods

The results are in for Match 8. The winner is…
Autumn Miranda Jasper, with a score of 72 to Garland’s 63!

Category	Winner	Point Totals	Comments
Popularity	Autumn Jasper	22-18	Despite Autumn’s early lead, Garland rode the tide of the classic “PHD Curse” to catch up, ending the vote 5-4!
Quality	Autumn Jasper	26-21	Reasoning
JoJolity	Tie	24-24	Reasoning

With that, we must now sadly bid goodbye to Team Earth, Tower of Terra, the third team to be eliminated from Tournament 4. They slipped under the radar in Round 1, and didn’t win a single match Round 2, but their high-profile ties that round proved they were a force to be reckoned with, as did their very close losses this round.
Let’s take a moment to remember…

8th/7th Place: Darwin Glerman and Bhangra Mendhi - This duo got caught in a game of Tetris played by Oscar K Computer, and they just couldn’t clear their rows.
6th Place: Jianbin Zhuge - For all his talk about his ancestral heritage, he lost to an upstart Baroness in a ski chase worthy of a spy thriller!
5th Place: Professor Bernal - The horse-whisperer ended up losing her match betting on the Kentucky derby by default when she attacked her opponent.
4th/3rd Place: Colorado Blue and Mars - Mars spent her first round winning a jungle relay race, while Colorado was defeated by Mylo Xyloto in a battle on the rooftops of Detroit, but through a twist of circumstance was still given the opportunity to move on to the next round, where he and Mars lost a game of Brazilian football to a Prince and a “Hero.”
2nd Place: Robbert Chitter - One of the only ACT Stand-users in the tournament, in the first round he advanced to Round and ACT 2 by winning a relay race in the jungle with Mars, and just scraped by into Round 3 after a double-tie in Guatemala. Sadly, this round he fell to the forces of ｢m.A.A.d city｣ in Los Angeles.
1st Place: Garland - It was only fitting that one of the strangest builds in this tournament had one of the strangest, and most impressive, runs to get to this point. First he faced off against the All-American cryptic Spider-Vic in a daring art heist, and followed it up with a stalemate against the equally confident and capable Killian Keyes in the site of Electric Grapevine’s second defeat. And how else could someone like Garland go out but by being turned into a salmon and coming in second place in a race up a waterfall?

Tower of Terra may be out of the game, but their presence can still be felt… For example, one of their former opponents is currently fighting for his life against a “superhero?” in an under-construction train tunnel.
Scenario - Las Vegas, Nevada:
The rack was lifted up from the balls, and the cue immediately clacked against them hard, two of them sinking on the break. Connor stood up, examining the table state and running quick calculations. “Good job setting them out, Kris!” He cheered, clapping the younger man on the back as 「Megalovania」 bickered and cheered behind him, inaudible to the others at the small dive bar.
The other man, clad in a pool-patterned polo Connor had acquired for him, almost certainly with Ric’s eponymous credit card. “You want to switch cues?” He asked, three different ones that Connor had carefully coached him in the differences between. Connor nodded, taking one made of a slightly different maple wood than the first.
He lined up his shot, easily sinking two more balls, and grinning. “I’ve been thinking about the game.” He said, standing up and straightening his back.
“...Nine-ball?” Kris asked.
“Well, I’m always thinking about nine-ball, but I’m talking about the tournament.” Connor responded. “I had some things I wanted to talk with you about it.” He smiled genially at Kris. “How did you like your match?” He asked.
Kris pursed his lips, thinking. “I think I’d prefer to have won, sure.” He said. “But I got to show off my abilities, and I must’ve made some sort of impression!” He fished out his phone, showing off the screen. “I’ve been hanging around third place in the popularity polls, for whatever reason.” He gave Connor a hearty thumbs up, 「Under Pressure」holding the cues.
Connor returned it, setting up his next shot. “I’ve been having some fun myself. The match against that nice girl was some of the most fun I’ve had in years, and pairing up with Noriko was certainly a unique experience!” He easily sunk two more balls.
Kris nodded. “Yeah, she’s seemed a little friendlier lately… though it’s still hard to get a read on her,” he said, not seeming too bothered about it.
Connor examined the table. I’ve been looking into some things, but I think with all of the excitement I’ve been dealing with, I could go with something… a little more easygoing.” He moved around the table, looking at the last three balls on the table. “Things have been really intense lately, I suppose. I’ve had enough excitement for a while.”
Kris perked up, and snapped his fingers. “Oh! Connor, that just reminded me of something I was thinking about!” He tapped his phone, reading off something from the UU app. “I think this is a match all about bingo. You know, a bunch of elderly with blotters, only danger there might be is you having to fend off fans! I’m sure you’ll fit right in.”
Connor set up his shot. “Hmm. ‘Bingo’, you say? I’ve never played it before… I’ve heard some of the people who play it can be dangerous if you get in their way.” He shifted over a few millimeters, cue perfectly poised on the ball. “In either case, Kris, something like bingo sounds….” With an audible ping, his eye glowed bright blue as he took his shot. “Perfect.”
The sound of knitting needles clacking together echoed in the front hall of the ｢Bohemian Archive｣. A small fire roared in the fireplace. Nora had put the only two members of Oceans 11 remaining in the Archive to bed. She didn’t expect them to be getting much sleep at all, with how much energy Jack had to go through all of the information Hadrian and Demis had stolen.
Not that she could blame the two, she had only glanced at it, and there was just so much to dig through. Mountains of information, all of which could be put together, making a web of culpability to point to… something. She hadn’t had that long to look at it, after all!
“I’m really very proud of the boys,” she mused. “Jack’s really come into his own, I think. He’s really relaxed around me and Hadrian, and he’s been doing some just lovely work with helping us out. Buggy’s been doing well too, recovering at least.”
“Hadrian’s really made me proud. He just seemed so… hopeless, when I first met him. I don’t like that Niyaz fellow one bit, but something that happened in Argentina has changed him, and for the better! He’s such a lovely man at times, I’d hate for him to die before such an old fart as myself when I can help it!” She let her head back, still knitting up a storm, cackling.
Calming down, she continued. “As suspicious as the ARG is, I can’t help but feel fond of some parts of it. Hmm. I’ve been so busy with my investigations and all I haven’t actually had any time for myself, thinking about it!”
A moment passed. “Well, I am between investigations and all, I could take some time for myself. I could probably give my spot to Jack, but that wouldn’t be much fun at all, would it?” She barreled on. “I remember seeing a hint about a bingo match. It’s a little bit stereotypical, sure, but a bit of bingo sounds like it could be fun. Besides, I want to save some of my energy, it wouldn’t do to beat someone up, and I can hardly see how they can turn bingo dangerous… though with some of the participants of the blasted thing, I should never doubt.” She nodded to herself. “...Maybe Cal would be there too. I do hope so, Stand users attract other ones.”
“All things considered, I think I’ll be going out to do it, as long as it hasn’t been snapped up by someone else. It would do to get out of the Archive and have a little fun.” She finished.
Paracadute, knitting as well, with the care of someone new to it, continued. He sat across from her, in a black and white outfit that was at once extraordinarily high quality, high thread count, and comfortable to wear. Yet it felt as much a straightjacket as the one that Nora had trapped him in days ago. “That’s… wonderful to hear Mrs. Kleid. Absolutely lovely to hear you getting out of the Archive.”
He hesitated, looking away and asking meekly, “May I please go out of the Archive too, Mrs. Kleid?”
Nora smiled at him, one cheery and genuine. She simply responded to him, “No.”
The Casino Chiaroscuro. A glorious, old casino built in the late 1940s to cater to men coming back from the war, to emulate the glories of old Europe. A gaudy place, built in the heart of Las Vegas, it was nonetheless relatively small by the city’s standards, tucked away, somewhere that catered to older, more refined clientele.
Connor sauntered up to the casino, in his normal outfit. He hadn’t seen fit to show up to a Match in anything different so far, and he wouldn’t change it now. He made his way in, poking around the area and making his way to the bar. He was used to glitzy places, it’s where he’d done quite a few matches in his heyday, and now it would be a match of a different sort.
He ordered a soda and sipped at it, checking his phone every so often, waiting for something to happen. He was one hundred percent sure about the location, of course, so he could only wait for an opponent to appear.
After waiting for a few minutes, he heard a clearing throat behind him, a kindly but assertive voice, making itself known. “Hello, is this seat taken?”
Connor turned around to it, recognizing the speaker immediately and grinning. “By all means, take it if you like!” He said, patting the stool and going back to his drink.
While she was always impeccably dressed, a trip to the casino was an occasion for Nora to bring out her best. Without impeding any of the thief’s range of motion, Nora’s dress was long, reaching the floor, and dark blue in color. Completely knitted, and with regular words on it. KLEID, KLEID, KLEID, with a small telescope after each word, in what would have looked chaotic and arrogant without the sheer bravado that Nora exuded. It opened over her chest, showing off a black cardigan underneath with an incredibly realistic pattern of Neptune on it. Her hair was worn in its normal way, a small hat in a jaunty angle, large, knitted feather drooping off of it.
Connor nodded approvingly at her getup. “My, I feel underdressed for such esteemed company!” He marveled. Nora laughed, shifting around in her bag a bit and pulling out a woolen mass and tossing it to Connor. “If you can’t handle life without some Kleidiscope goods, here you go!” He opened it up, revealing a lavender vest with a subtle, mesmerizing pattern and “FAIRY FELLERS” embroidered on the breast in large writing.
She slipped into the seat, ordering some water as Connor excitedly put his new vest on. She sideyed Connor’s drink. “Soda, huh? Maybe I should come back in a few years when you’ve ruined your body with that, hm?” She jabbed playfully.
Connor pulled his coat on and carefully took another sip. “Well, I’ve been having soda since I was a boy, and it’s done a worse job at killing me than being hooked on booze would have. And I suppose you’re here to face me?” He paused. “Dear, I suppose we’re so familiar with each other through the game that I forgot how to be polite! My name’s Connor Pruckette, 9-ball champion. Mind if I ask yours?” He extended his hand.
Nora took it, shaking it heartily. “Lenoir Kleid. Everyone calls me Nora. Came here because I felt bingo would be funny for such an old fart like me.”
Connor swirled his soda. “A teammate recommended it to me, and I just couldn’t turn down a challenge!”
Nora’s smile turned menacing, seeming to look through Connor. “And my teammate is currently still recovering from some bullet holes where your teammate had shot him.” She said, frostily.
Connor immediately waved his hands. “Jeez, I wanted some relative peace and quiet. Hey, if you should blame anyone, blame the other sniper there. Sofia has had some… bad experiences with those folk, I’m sure she wouldn’t have been as...driven as she was otherwise.”
Nora stared at him a few moments longer, the tension mounting, and suddenly dissipating. “Surely. Well, I’m not facing her, I suppose.” She laughed to herself. “If ‘Sofia’ cares at all, Buggy is recovering well.”
Connor graced her with a genuine smile. “I’m very glad to hear that!”
The duo continued to talk, first about their teams, and then about their family. Ten minutes passed, then twenty. Nora talked about how she had dealt with the death of her husband, and Connor about how he was worried for some of his wilder grandchildren. Thirty minutes. Forty. They talked about their professions. Secret, forbidden nine ball techniques. How big corporations were ruining fashion. By the time their phones rang, they had spent a full hour at the bar together, enjoying each others company.
Nora and Connor instantly scrambled as one to open their phones, identical grins wide on their faces. The eponymous mascot of Urban Uprising, Andromeda, was on screen wearing a suit. It wasn’t as bold as Nora’s attire, of course, but there was a certain chic air to it: typical black tie attire, but adorned with her favored iridescent trim and a faint eight-pointed star pattern tessellating along the lapels and sleeves.
Before Andromeda could so much as open her mouth, Connor interrupted. “Howdy, Andromeda!” He said, tipping his hat a bit. “It’s been a while since I saw you last, how have you been?”
Andromeda paused, seeming caught off guard, after recovering gracing Connor with a smile. “Oh, I’ve been stellar!” She beamed. “I may have been off the air, but I’ve been doing some... restructuring of the way things are done a little. It’s been a busy time for the people who are helping make this work, but it’s all worth it to make things more fun for everyone.” She cleared her throat, whispering conspiratorially. “You’re actually the first contestant to ask me that, I think.”
Nora spoke up herself. “Oh, speaking of which, Andromeda, is Cal sill working for you?” Andromeda nodded slowly, waiting for Nora to continue. Nora thought a bit about her words. “...I suppose he’s still not ready to talk.” She said with a measure of sadness. “Well! Is he doing well, at the least?”
“Calendar’s been doing very well in the Admin work, yes!” Andromeda smiled softly. “And… he still apparently hasn’t called.” She clicked her tongue in disappointment. “I’m really sorry about that, I’ll try talking to him again. I can’t make him do anything, but you deserve better than this.” Her guard seemed lowered for a bit before she transitioned back into her hostess persona. “Let’s get into the Match!”
Connor and Nora listened patiently as Andromeda explained the rules, Connor speaking up once she finished. “Well… I can say I’ve had a lot of fun meeting you, Miss Kleid.” He and Nora stood up as one, carefully making their way over to the center of the casino. Eyes locked, stalking like predators.
“Dearie me.” Nora said. “I can’t help but feel the same.” Her voice carried an undercurrent of danger, as if she could kill someone with a glance, with her Bingo Intent. “I’ve just had a lovely time, and I’d absolutely adore spending a little while more with you.”
Connor’s grin simply grew, echoing a cockiness of years long past as Aggravated Intent To Bingo filled his own frame, invigorating him. “Indeed… I came here for a challenge, you know. Something to cool down from all the excitement. Tell you what.” They got to the center of the casino, facing each other. “‘Loser’ 🥈 buys the ‘winner’ 🥇some ‘drinks’ 🍻 and ‘beverages’ 🥤 to cool off?”
Nora slid a hand up her leg, leaving it at her hip, the other on her neck. She snapped into a pose, eyes and body burning with energy, as ｢Doll Judgement｣ appeared in a flash, its arms interlaced with hers in a dynamic, impossible seeming pose. “If you wanted a ‘challenge’... then dearie, I think you’ve found what you wanted. I just wonder, is it more than you can handle, dear?”
Connor crouched down, an arm sweeping in front of him, and around, the balls of ｢Megalovania｣ coming out from behind it He locked into a pose, Stand spread out around him and crouched down further than seemed natural. In an instant, he looked up at his opponent, eye flashing. “I guess we’ll find out…. Well Nora… are you ready to have a GOOD TIME?”
“Yeah!” With a vim and vigour contrasting the relatively sedate surroundings, Andromeda cheered out her signature line from their phones, fired up and clapping her hands enthusiastically. However prim and proper she looked in her suit, her excitement at what was sure to be a great match got the best of her. “Here we go...”
“OPEN THE GAME~!”
Location: The (fictional) Casino Chiaroscuro in Las Vegas, Nevada. There are three floors, on Floor 1 are the slot machines, on Floor 2 are the card and pool tables as well as where the players start, and on Floor 3 is a bar and lounge area. Each floor is 50 by 50 meters, 5 by 5 meters per tile, and there is about 5 meters between floors.
The marked red circles are stairway rooms with openings and exits on all sides, the orange squares are slot machines, the brown rectangles are poker tables, and the teal rectangles are pool tables, the purple circles are tables, and the green L shapes are bar counters with bartenders denoted by the orange circles.
The area is packed with people around the slot machines, tables and bars with a decent amount of people also just walking around so you may have to squeeze past people in the more crowded areas. Every game table has a fully seated game going, people are playing on both sides of the slot machines, and people are drinking at the bar counters and at tables resting.
The people have 222 Physical stats and won’t pay much attention to you, but will shove back if you try to push them to get to one of the objectives. The bartenders have 433 Physicals and 4s in Bartending, they will also try to prevent anybody else from trying to get back behind their respective bar counter, however they may not always be observant while serving drinks or attending to other duties.
Goal: Score a bingo before your opponent does! The stars are colored oversized bingo balls about the size of a softball and are objectives to collect to win the match with more elaborations bellow. The balls are all on the floor, the stars that are on the tables just mean that the ball is underneath that table.
In the case that neither player can complete a bingo with the tokens taken, the current balls will immediately deactivate, losing their color, and new balls will be placed in the locations. In essence, the game state is entirely reset.
While nothing necessarily stops you from harming your opponent, you’ve spent a lot of time getting to know them and you aren’t here to hurt someone. Seriously harming your opponent will lead to you RETIREing out of shame!
Additional Information: Both players have the same three by three bingo sheet, and for an easier time remembering, the stars are roughly located in the area they are on the sheet compared to the map. The Dark Blue star being in the top left corner of the map for example.
The balls have to be in the player’s hands in order for them to be counted. Balls may not be stolen once they are already counted.

Team	Combatant	JoJolity
Fairy Fellers	Connor Pruckette	“Hap-py Joy-py Yorupiku-ne~!” You're here to blow off some steam, so do so! Have as much fun as possible in your strategy, with a focus on smooth moves and flashy applications of your abilities! For bonus points, win of course, but help your opponent have fun as well!
Ocean’s 11	Nora Kleid	“Well in this case, everyone’s happy, so it’s fine.” You're here to blow off some steam, so do so! Have as much fun as possible in your strategy, with a focus on smooth moves and flashy applications of your abilities! For bonus points, win of course, but help your opponent have fun as well!

Link to the Official Player Spreadsheet
Link to R3 Match Schedule
As always, if you would like to interact with the tournament community and be among the first to get updates for the tournament, please feel free to PM a member of our Judge staff for an invite to our Official Discord Server!

As a JRPG fan I have played almost every game of the genre out there except DQ XI and Persona 5, no game comes close to what Ao No Kiseki brings to the table and its an incredible big heartful game, lets take a look at what are those points:
Main Characters:
Despite being cliche at times where Lloyd super power is to abuse Talk No Jutsu, he brings some interesting strong points to the team, he is not the strongest at all but he brings leadership, detective skills and intuition, he connects with everyone on a deep level, is full of flaws which makes his bold decisions be even more meaningful and he doesn't always win with his talk as we see:

• The first time he faced Arios.
• keA didn't believe in him despite loving him. And well he did died against Joachim so she pulled so powerful stuff to revert time and made Renne appeared in The 3rd so Estelle and Joshua could be at Crossbell at the right time to meet him and having Renne save them in the end.
• Randy decided to abandon him not believing in his strength.
• Noel decided to ally herself with the State Guard instead with him not believing they could fend off the Imperial and Republic army powerhouse.

These points made him grow even more as he knew he wasn't decisive enough to get through them and with his actions he broke any wall he had on his face.
Storywise his strong points is that of a defensive unit, his Tonfas are meant to protect (like Estelle) and disable his enemy, its why Arios couldn't defeat Guy no matter how much he wanted to. I built Lloyd like this as well, made him as an evasion tank that casted Adamant Guard on his allies and pulled enemies attention to him.
Lets look at the others quickly:

• Ellie: Had more protagonism in Zero, very dissapointed in her in Ao tbh, her sole role was to be the love interest of Lloyd (I chose Rixia instead in game, worth it for the scene and super powerful double craft upgrade) and her lines were generic overall. One of her best moments was when I defeated Arianhord and Ellie poined out she is St. Lianne Sandlot due to multiple hints. Combat wise she was too nerfed for me to use, only time I did was when I faced Arianhord and needed her arts (Spark Dyne).
  
• Tio: We got to know a lot of her past in Zero and here, saved by Guy and now Lloyd taking his place as her home basically. She is invaluable storywise with her extra sensorial capacities detecting Time, Mirace and Space inbalance, her hacking capacities were indisputedly the best in the series, I loved her character a lot. Combat wise indisputed starter, Zero Field was too valuable (played hard mode) along with Energy Circle and Analyze, she played more of a support role casting Fortuna, reviving or just spamming End of Noah against mobs.
  
• Randy: He got a lot of protagonism here, his past was that of a soldier with a gift for combat enough to succeed the War God, all his decisions were smart, thought that Lloyd and co were gonna be hurt with his change of combat style but he was so wrong in the end. Combat wise he is very strong, he carried me early game a lot with Death Scorpion (favorite S-Craft) powered up with CP raising accesories but had better characters in the end.
  
• Noel: She had a great run and had a lot of development, especially after betraying Lloyd with sense of course since two countries were on the verge of bringing chaos to Crossbell. Lloyd got through to her with actions and trusted him to break the walls they had. Combat wise I used her a lot to clear mobs and inflict petrify attacks on them, her strength reduce craft was very useful too but got relegated fast.
  
• Wazy: One of my favorite characters in Zero and now in Ao, I didn't see it coming that he was actually a freaking Gralsritter under cover, like wtf. His struggle with Wald was incredible as well and their final fight was epic too with Demon Wald vs Stigma Wazy, great great character overall especially after you learn about his past with Lloyd and how told Wazy Crossbell was always gonna be his home, even if his first one banned him. Combat wise he was my most powerful character, his S-Craft saved me so many times and it was the most poweful in the game, I built him with over 1300 ATS and had him use Crimson Ray against bosses powered up by Tio and Lloyd's Fortuna casts, he was also very fast.
  
• Rixia: I thought she was more colder, but she was still the insecure girl who dreams to be a dancer, I loved her character a lot as well and she grew so much thanks to Illya, against Shirley is this were Yin she would've beheaded her, but after meeting Illya she gave her a second chance and defeated her. Her moment with Lloyd was so sweet as well when she cried her heart out after Lloyd said he was gonna watch over her in her Dad's place, one of the best moments in the series for me, it felt so right storywise but Ellie is the one for him sadly. Combat wise she was a starter for me, especially after having the super powerful double craft with Lloyd dealing over 15000 to bosses in Hard Mode.
  
• Dudley: Not much to say storywise about him. Combat he is amazing but in the final dungeon I had as starters Lloyd, Tio, Rixia and Wazy, so there wasn't space for him :/
  

These characters had such a fantastic relationship of friendship, family and love, its gonna be hard to find a better cast in a JRPG.
NPC:
Since Trails in the Sky we saw how NPC got much more protagonism but in this duology they are developed its crazy:

• Oscar: Lloyd's childhood friend who's dream is to create the ultimate bread.
• Illya: A strong hearted dancer who change the life of thousands of people watching her and of course Rixia and Sully.
• Sully: She matured so much under Illya and looks so charming in her Star Princess costume.
• Ian: His idea wasn't wrong but got too inside the rabbit hole to come out and even killed Guy to ensure his purpose, in the end Lloyd got through him. He was fun to talk to and get his insight of what was going on at different times in the story. His relation with Pete was cute as well.
• Harold and family: Didn't expect Renne's family to be so lovable and their moments in Zero made my cry with Renne inside the closet. I enjoyed them a lot.
• Imelda: This is what happens when you don't pass a broom and your cockroaches become super monsters. The moment with the ghost doll was quite interesting as well.
• Garcia: Fantastic! Surpised he helped Lloyd in the prison but he was always quite formidable and acknowledged Lloyd in the end.
• Dieter and Bell: I liked them a lot besides their BS which weren't wrong, Crossbell in the state it was had "accidents" which ended up costing Ian and Arios families life and Shizuku sight. They were always in favor of the SSS helping them in any way they could. Dieter fell really low sending Red Constellation to attack Crossbell City :( and about Bell... She was very good at hiding her true intentions and yeah I don't buy that she is stronger than Arios... but maybe she is since she is now an Anguis.
• "Ogre Rosso" Sigmund Orlando: I enjoyed him so much, that moments where the whole IBC falls under his back watching the SSS on their knees was a very powerful scene showing TRUE DESPAIR, an oponnent you can't defeat and a situation your powerless to do anything about. Surprised the cast got strong enough to defeat him, but having Randy with his true weapon, the legendary assasin Yin, a Gralsritter like Wazy, the Ace of Section One like Dudley makes it easier. Surprised also about how much he cared for Randy and I expect great things from him in future games. That was damn tempting offer he gave Randy, use the Red Constellation in any way you want, wanna protect Crossbell? We can do it for you as a War God. One of my favorite characters.
• Bloody Shirley: The definition of crazy who even Illya got through her with Rixia character development which made Shirley think more about what she's doing and it showed in the moment she could kill everyone when they turned their back to her and she played dead. Amazing showdown with Rixia and hated her for doing that to Illya.. and damn now she's an Enforcer? Gonna be great to face her with the Cold Steel squad.
• Arios and Shizuku: It was a routine to talk to Shizuku every single day and I'm glad she recovered her sight thanks to keA. Arios motives were very clear and I supported it tbh, Crossbell laws and the whole democracy was too slow and it made "accidents" happens which of course pissed him off and in that moment he decided to change it using power. You could argue it was BS to be able to defeat him but the first time it was the OG team of Lloyd, Ellie, Tio and Randy, this time you had a more mature Lloyd, Randy with his true weapon, the legendary assasin Yin, one of the twelve Dominions "The Azure Testament", the Section One Ace and Tio with a new gear she found, it made sense to made him bend the knee with an OP team like we had at the end. Glad to see him working with Lloyd against Erebonia on the ending scenes.
• Lechter: One of my favorite characters of the series! We got to know him in The 3rd with Kloe and here he has been so amazing... He got even honour by staying to help us recover Orchis Tower (well it helps with the invasion) and damn those skills! He is the real deal. He reminds me of Olivier and Wazy with their carefree style, very smart and strong, incredible character!

There were others like Cecil, Armorica Village chief and his son getting in trouble with an Erebonia dude trying to rip them off, mine folks, Zeit (love this doggo!), Casino owner and his relation with Randy, Arc D Ciel team, Wendy of the Orbal Staff, Fran, Detectives Scott and the other one, Bracers Ling and Eolia, Michel from Bracer's Guild, Old Dragon Dinner waitress caring a lot for Rixia, the nurses of the Hospital were a fun bunch as well with some air heads here and there, Kilika being absolute badass all game long with Lechter, Cao who was one of my favorite characters as well and so many others.
The NPCs stole the show a lot for me and its what made the game so full of heart and something few games will be able to manage, making you know Crossbell State like the palm of your hands.
Story:
There were stuffs I didn't enjoy much like Dieter and Bell being suddenly evil or Ian being persuaded by Lloyd a bit too easy with Ellie's help.
But omg there were some incredible hype moments like the fight against Ernest, the moment you meet Giliath Osborne and the Republic representative, when you meet Olivier and Kloe <3, the moment you got attacked by the Imperial and Republic terrorists and saw when Red Constellation put them on a wall and murdered them, the declaration of independence, trip to Michelam and fun times, the awakening of keA, Ouroboros lending the three Aions which freaking DESTROYED Garrelia Fortress, the moment we got defeated by Ogre Rosso, whole City under attack with lots of people injured including Illya, Demon Wald destroying Downtown everything according to Dieter (Ian) plan, the meeting with the 6th Anguis Dr Norvatis, facing Arios to rescue keA, got arrested after bending the knee, the prison break with Garcia, the moment you meet Divine Wolf Zeit, getting help from Wazy and KEVIN!, meeting with the team, facing Noel, then stoping the Bells you had to face CAMPANELLA (hated that fight), facing off The Valkyries and Duvalie, then facing freaking Arianhord! who acknowledge you after making her fall on her knees, finding out that keA reversed time and that you actually died facing Joaching due to not having Renne assistance so she made Renne appear in The 3rd and made the SSS meet with Estelle and Joshua, also that one of her powers was to make people love her... no wonder she had a sad face all the time in Ao, followed with Lloyd moment with her and the credit scenes were whe see Crossbell invaded and the different factions fighting back, Mireille with Randy, Dudley and Noel, Tio with the foundation and Jonah, Ellie with.. idk who were those, and Lloyd with Arios and keA.
Such a fantastic story that had everything and The Special Support Section is currently my favorite cast in JRPG, such a well written family.
Thanks for reading, I know its a bit long but I had a blast with this game and its fantastic music.
This game is currently my favorite JRPG of all time.