Here is THEIR REVIEW. Below is my posted response.
Oh, for f’s sake, Tom.
I don’t want to be a total dick here, because you usually know your stuff about older movies, I like you, I’m sure it wasn’t you who fired Andy Klein, and you tried to keep the film pick of the weekend going in OC after I left. But seriously:
“Dwayne Johnson (who recently abandoned his “The Rock” moniker in a bid for more critical consideration) ”
No need to let it get in the way of a good wisecrack or anything, but the tiniest bit of research might have helped here. “The Rock” is trademarked by WWE, and any time Dwayne used it, he had to pay them part of his salary; he ditched it as soon as he was contractually able. It wasn’t about critical consideration in the least…do you really think “Race to Witch Mountain” is going to win a LAFCA award, no matter what the actor is named?
I knew that…, even over here in the UK where the wrestling world is somewhat less well known…
and I was under the impression it happened some time ago -
I’ve found that there’s a sizable WWE fan base in England…the major difference seems to me to be that there’s a larger segment of the population with no particular interest in entertainment/pop culture AT ALL, which is something of a sacreligious notion to us here!
I really don’t care if he changed his name (for reasons for any actor to distance himself from his wrestling fan base if he was to be taken seriously). It seems he is getting into the family-viewing audience. In any case, I would watch him on anything anyway because he can do more than just being The Rock…
And, I don’t think he is letting fo that persona entirely because that is his hook with the audience…for example, his skit on SNL as “The Rock Obama.”
I think there is a huge proportion of UK public interested in pop culture/entertainment (we listen to, go to gigs, export more music per capita than anywhere else in the world) but wrestling is (like Bingo and ten pin bowling) in a kind of minor entertainment league.
rightly IMO…
You let me know when bingo and ten-pin bowling sell out Wembley stadium…and toys based on their best players make it into every major UK toy store (even in smaller towns, I’ve seen ‘em…and the wrestling toy collector websites have almost as many UK participants as the US; enough that the toy companies make special exclusives just for Britain).
I base the pop-culture claim, perhaps unfairly, on family members — a certain one years after I compared him to Ned Flanders, admitted he really didn’t know quite who Ned Flanders was. And my mother had never heard of Rick James when he died.