But it was still better than the abhorrent Bang the Drum Slowly, a movie which made me question how in god’s name Robert De Niro’s career possibly took off when he had this piece of trash on his resume. (Or maybe he succeeded despite it?) I took this one on a recommendation from someone whose name eludes me, probably for the best as I don’t really feel up to answering a manslaughter charge. I was waiting for something, ANYTHING, to happen here… As it was, the whole movie represented the longest 90 minutes of my life. I mean, literally: the length of the movie felt like twice or thrice the length of Amazing Grace which was over two hours… Hell, Bang the Drum Slowly felt like it was twice as long as The Godfather Part II, which was over 3-1/2 hours in length! At least THAT one proved that De Niro has some talent, you know?

The movie marathons have come to a temporary close. As mentioned in a previous precap, financial issues have coerced me to cut my Netflix account to a single DVD at a time. I still have unlimited instant watching, which is why I went for it: it sucks that I’m in such dire financial straits that the difference between $9/month and $24/month is significant, but really, I don’t watch a hell of a lot movies right now, and I won’t be once I get my hands on Borderlands.

Oh, that reminds me: my strategy guide for WWE SmackDown vs. RAW 2010 is up on IGN Entertainment! Follow this link here for the best goddamned writing about wrestling on the whole of the Interwebs outside Online Onslaught! Yeah, baby! Currently in the works are some montage videos of everyone’s finishers and signatures, so you’ll have that to look forward to in the near-future as well (probably the middle of next week).

Pre-Segment 1 [A Confession]: I wrote the precap you just read on Wednesday. Since then, I’ve come down with a dramatic cold that’s simultaneously making it hard to breathe AND hear. I’m not feeling too jovial, and my sense of humor is always pretty prone to hemorrhaging when I feel like this, so forgive me for any cheesy jokes. Well, any excessively cheese jokes.

Seriously, I almost typed something like “I feel so bad that I may have Swine Flu, but I haven’t even seen Vickie Guerrero yet.” Clearly, my sense of humor is function badly.

Segment 1: Lights go out? Wow, nothing pops the crowd like Undertaker! He comes to the ring wearing his old “Undertaker’s Ministry” robe, the overly gemmed one that straight out of Hot Topic… has he been wearing that often? I thought he’s just worn the Texas Ranger overcoat since his return a couple years ago.

Anyway… Taker is here to talk. He speaks in Undertaker-style prose that he started in Survivor Series, that everyone is always after the title that is now around his waist, and yet they all fall to his darkness, etc. Taker gives a quick promo against each of Big Show and Chris Jericho. His comment against Jericho, namely that Jericho beat up Kane too bad to have any sort of professional fight with Taker for or against him, was slightly better in quality.

Perhaps it’s that quality that summons Jericho to come down to ringside immediately after. Jericho is sure that the fans have been creaming their pants over this matchup, and that he is the true “phenom” of WWE, because “phenom” is defined as an ordinary person who has risen to lofty heights, and that Taker is no ordinary person by his own admission. Nice.

Jericho goes on that he’s on the roll of his career, how Taker doesn’t intimidate him. To punctuate that, Jericho gets in the ring, face-to-face, and calls himself the “New Phenom” because he is the best in the world at what he does. Taker responds by grabbing Jericho by the throat. Jericho counters with a kick, but after hitting the ropes, he eats a big boot and bails from the ring. Taker does a throat slash at Jericho as his music plays him off.

Segment 2 [6-Man Tag Match]: Dolph Ziggler & Hart Dynasty (w/ Natalya) defeat Cryme Tyme & John Morrison by pin. Match was formulaic tag match affair, watchable but not memorable. JTG was the Face In Peril, and JM tried to be the savior, but hurt himself in landing from a slingshot dropkick (that Referee McDoucher signaled with the Single Fist of Healthiness). JM tagged out to Shad, then did a vaulting corkscrew something-or-other to ringside to take out Tyson Kidd. At that point, Shad did House of Fire, but Dolph threw JM into the ringside barrier, tagged himself in, then hit his finisher on Shad behind his back. The ref somehow saw the tag while his back was turned, and the heels won.

Segment 3: Josh Mathews interviews Rey Mysterio in a pre-taped over-produced piece of crap. Josh can’t even take it seriously, getting entirely overly dramatic with his opening question… and Rey being entirely overly dramatic with his answers (including invoking Eddie’s name as somehow being personally insulted by Batista’s actions as well). It’s a bunch of crap, but thankfully it’s pretty short.

Segment 4 [Singles Match]: Beth Phoenix squashes Some Chick by pin. I refuse to recap squashes.

Pre-Segment 5: This was supposed to be a match between Drew McIntyre and Jimmy the Wang. Glad to see him back… except he was squashed before the match started. Drew picked up the mic (again moistening the potentially future Mrs. Falkon’s panties in the process) and said that he’s done with this shit until he gets some real competition.

DM starts to leave, but Jimmy gets back in the ring and insists the match starts. The bell rings, DM asks if he’s serious, then gets in the ring.

Segment 5 [Singles Match]: Drew McIntyre squashes Jimmy the Wang by pin. I refuse to recap squashes.

Segment 6: Josh interviews Batista in the back, who says that he was assaulting Rey because Rey cost him the title. Further, he only assaulted Matt Hardy last week because Matt got involved in his business. Bats declares that everyone who stands in his way to becoming World Heavyweight Champion again is subject to getting hurt.

Segment 7 [Singles Match]: Rey Mysterio defeats Mike Knox by pin. Match was standard power-vs.-light dude affair. Decent but nothing special, and nothing we haven’t seen these two guys do before. Knox continues to impress me by having a bit little more speed and agility than other guys his size, sorta like Kane shows when the handcuffs are off. Match ended on a slingshot seated senton, as is his MO.

Segment 8 [Singles Match]: R-Truth defeats CM Punk by pin. Match was low in quality overall. The story here is that Scott Armstrong was the ref, and Punk thought he had him in his pocket. After a close-2, Punk got in Scott’s face and demanded he count faster. Truth then rolled Punk up, and Scott did indeed count faster, making Punk lose. Punk, for his part, proceeded to throw a bouncing temper tantrum that really seemed like he needed his bottle and a nap.

Segment 9: Mickie James is at the makeup table, then turns and runs into Layla and Michelle McCool. A bunch of stupid talking later, not really a whole lot got accomplished.

Segment 10: Josh interviews Matt Hardy in the back, who says that he’ll totally fight and kick the ass off Batista.

Segment 11 [Singles Match]: Matt Hardy defeats Batista by DQ. Match was all right but nothing special, perhaps a bit overlong. The match ended shortly after Matt hit a Twist of Fate. Bats grabbed the ropes to stop the count, and shortly took the fight outside the ring after hitting a spinebuster out of nowhere. Outside, Bats disassembled the commentating table, then smacked Matt with a monitor.

After the match, Bats continues the assault, then dragged him into the ring and readied for a Batista Bomb… but called himself off. The commentators tell us that he stopped himself because we the fans wanted to see a Batista Bomb so he stopped just to spite us. All right, I guess I’ll take their word for it.

Final Thoughts: Meh. Maybe chalk it up to my cold, but I wasn’t very excited about anything that went down tonight. Jericho/Taker’s feud advanced a hair, and both Drew McIntyre and Beth Phoenix continue their squashing ways… but really, does anyone care? The Rey/Bats feud is also begging for someone to care, but they haven’t sold me yet.

Nothing further to really write about, folks. Skip it.

Rating (out of 5): 2.0