A2ZWEBDESIGNSUSA

Month: January 2024

Stallone par Netflix : il a refusé trois films de Tarantino !

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Sylvester Stallone aurait pu devenir l’acteur fétiche de Quentin Tarantino s’il n’avait pas refusé d’apparaître dans ces trois films du réalisateur américain !

La participation de Quentin Tarantino dans le documentaire Netflix consacré à Sylvester Stallone est peut-être ce qui se rapprochera le plus d’une collaboration entre les deux légendes du cinéma américain. Le réalisateur de Pulp Fiction n’a jamais dirigé l’interprète de Rocky dans l’un de ses films. Et pourtant, le chemin des deux stars aurait pu se croiser à trois reprises !

Mais au bout du compte, Sly a toujours refusé les avances de Quentin Tarantino. La première occasion manquée remonte à la fin des années 90, quand le cinéaste préparait son troisième long métrage, Jackie Brown.

Sly : Stallone par Stallone

Sortie :
3 novembre 2023
|
1h 35min

De
Thom Zimny

Avec
Sylvester Stallone,
Arnold Schwarzenegger,
Quentin Tarantino

Spectateurs
4,0

Voir sur Netflix

Ce polar conçu comme un hommage aux films de la Blaxploitation des années 70 met en scène une galerie de personnages emblématiques, parmi lesquels Louis un ancien gangster en dehors du coup en affaires avec le marchand d’armes Ordell Robbie (Samuel L. Jackson).

Stallone était le choix numéro 1 de Tarantino pour camper le personnage, mais l’indisponibilité de Sly a obligé le réalisateur à se tourner vers Robert De Niro. Ironiquement, Stallone et De Niro sont apparus cette même année au générique du film Copland de James Mangold.

Quand les Inglourious Basterds deviennent les Expendables

Ce refus n’a pourtant pas empêché Quentin Tarantino de penser à nouveau à Sylvester Stallone quelques années plus tard, pour jouer le méchant de son film Boulevard de la mort. Mais Sly a préféré décliner l’offre car ce rôle de tueur de jeunes femmes ne lui convenait pas. Le rôle de Stuntman Mike a finalement été confié à son partenaire du jeu du film Tango & Cash, Kurt Russell.

Enfin, une première mouture du scénario d’Inglourious Basterds a été écrite par Tarantino au milieu des années 90 avec en tête les trois plus grandes stars du cinéma d’action dans les rôles principaux : Aldo Raine aurait été campé par Sylvester Stallone, le soldat Donny Donowitz par Bruce Willis, et l’allemand Hugo Stiglitz par Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Inglourious Basterds

Sortie :

19 août 2009

|
2h 33min

De
Quentin Tarantino

Avec
Brad Pitt,
Mélanie Laurent,
Christoph Waltz

Presse
3,7

Spectateurs
4,3

Voir sur Prime Video

Ces trois rôles ont finalement été incarnés par Brad Pitt, Eli Roth et Til Schweiger, tandis que le scénario a fait l’objet de plusieurs réécritures passant d’un film de guerre parodique à une véritable fresque se déroulant durant la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Les trois action hero culte se sont, quant à eux, retrouvés au casting du film Expendables réalisé par Sylvester Stallone.

Tout espoir n’est pas perdu de voir Sylvester Stallone jouer sous la direction de Quentin Tarantino, qui prépare actuellement le tournage de son ultime film. Un long métrage intitulé The Movie Critic, dont l’action se déroule dans le Los Angeles des années 70…

Le documentaire Sly : Stallone par Stallone est à retrouver dès à présent en exclusivité sur Netflix.

Découvrez la liste des films actuellement disponibles sur la plateforme !

Authorities accused of intentionally botching woman’s autopsy to “cover up for the killer” in Mexico

Posted on by A2ZWEBDESIGNSUSA

The killing of a young woman in Mexico City brought accusations Monday that authorities in a neighboring state intentionally botched her autopsy to cover up for the killer.

The death of Ariadna López, 27, brought up all the issues that have enraged women in Mexico: officials blaming the victim, poor police investigation and misconduct that has led to a growing number of unsolved killings of women.

Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum alleged that the prosecutor of Morelos state, just south of the capital, had ties to the woman’s alleged killer though she refused to describe their purported links.

“It is clear that the prosecutor of Morelos state tried to cover up for the killer of a woman because of his ties to the killer,” Sheinbaum said.

The woman’s body was found last week in Morelos, so officials there initially investigated.

Morelos state prosecutor Uriel Carmona said a state forensic exam showed López choked on her own vomit as a result of intoxication. But officials in Mexico City said Sunday that they had evidence she was slain in the capital.

Carmona “categorically” denied the accusations, and said they “lack any basis,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

The Morelos state anti-corruption office announced later Monday that it had opened an investigation into “possible crimes” and “alleged acts of corruption committed by personnel of the Morelos state prosecutors’ office.”

On Sunday, Mexico City prosecutor Ernestina Godoy said a new autopsy carried out by Mexico City experts found “several lesions caused by blows” on López’s body and listed the cause of death as “multiple traumas.”

López was found dead on the side of a road last week in Morelos state, home to the city of Cuernavaca, a frequent weekend getaway for Mexico City residents. She had vanished after visiting a restaurant with the suspect and his girlfriend and later visiting his apartment, Mexico City authorities sid.

On Monday, Sheinbaum showed an image from the apartment building’s security cameras purportedly showing the suspect walking through a basement garage with the inert body of a woman over his shoulder.

The suspect, who was apparently a friend of the victim, turned himself in to prosecutors in the northern city of Monterrey on Monday and said he was innocent of the killing. Another woman, described as the suspect’s girlfriend, was arrested in Mexico City.

Some saw suggestions of police incompetence from the start. López disappeared from a trendy central Mexico City neighborhood Oct. 30. Her body was not found until days later when cyclists discovered her on a path that leads from Mexico City to Morelos.

Her body was identified by relatives only because the cyclists took photos of the victim’s tattoos and posted them online in an attempt to help identify her.

On Monday, dozens of women and their supporters marched in downtown Mexico City to demand justice in López’s case.

“We feel enraged, impotent, above all, mad,” said Omar Rodríguez Díaz, the victim’s brother. “They treat us like garbage and that is sad.”

“We want justice done and prosecutor Uriel Carmona to pay the consequences of his words. He made a mockery of Mexico and of all women,” Rodríguez Díaz said.

Sheinbaum is considered a leading contender to replace President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in 2024 elections. The dispute Monday sets up a conflict with the governor of Morelos state, who is an ally of López Obrador but not a member of his Morena party.

Mexico City has its own problems with women’s killings. A young woman, Lidia Gabriela, apparently threw herself from a taxi and died on a Mexico City street Wednesday. Witnesses said Gabriela thought the taxi driver was trying to kidnap her and so she leaped from the vehicle

Morelos state has also had a particularly bad stretch of women’s killings.

On Friday, the bodies of five women were found in the Morelos city of Cuautla just south of Mexico City. The bodies were found at two different spots in the city, known as a weekend getaway for Mexico City residents.

The prosecutor in Morelos state said the killings appeared to have been carried out by a drug gang, possibly as part of some sort of dispute. Carmona said the bodies were found near a hand-lettered sign of the kind often used by drug gangs.

Between January and September, Mexico recorded the murders of 695 women, compared to 978 in all of 2021, official figures show. Most of these crimes went unpunished.

Also on Monday, a 46-year-old woman who had been searching for her missing son was shot dead outside her home in the northern state of Guanajuato, the local prosecutor’s office said.

Maria Carmela Vazquez was the latest in a string of family members of the missing to be murdered.

Her mother told local media that “two young boys” had knocked on the door and asked for her daughter. “When she came out, they killed her.”

In May, Lopez Obrador met with the family of 18-year-old Debanhi Escobar, whose body was found in a motel water tank 12 days after she disappeared. Her death triggered a national public outcry, after an independent forensic report concluded that she was raped and murdered.

AFP contributed to this report.

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In:
Mexico
Murder

Emilien et Jessica (Les 12 Coups de midi) “vieux couple” ? Cette activité qu’ils adorent faire le dimanche

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Emilien et sa copine Jessica continuent de régaler le plateau des 12 coups de midi avec leurs anecdotes. Dimanche 5 novembre 2023, une nouvelle fois, Jean-Luc Reichmann a été très surpris de leur activité favorite du dimanche.

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Si Emilien impressionne grâce à son parcours dans les 12 Coups de midi, le couple qu’il forme avec Jessica est maintenant indissociable de la compétition. En effet, à chaque début d’émission, Jean-Luc Reichmann leur pose quelques questions pour continuer d’apprendre à connaître le couple. Si les allergies de Jessica avaient fait réagir les internautes sur les réseaux sociaux, les habitudes d’Emilien et son amoureuse font également beaucoup rire l’animateur. Dimanche 5 novembre 2023, ils ont raconté leur habitude préférée du dimanche.

Une habitude de vieux couple ?

Comme son habitude en début d’émission, Jean-Luc Reichmann a demandé au couple comment ils occupaient leur dimanche quand ils n’étaient pas sur un plateau de télévision. “On est fidèles à notre réputation de jeune vieux couple, c’est-à-dire que nous jouons aux petits chevaux” a alors répondu Jessica. Une réponse qui n’a pas manqué de faire rire l’animateur, très surpris de cette activité. “Mais c’est tellement vieux, mais c’est tellement bon ! Vous jouez aux petits chevaux”, leur a-t-il demandé, hilare.

Le jeu préféré de Jessica

L’explication est assez simple. En plus d’être le jeu préféré de Jessica, c’est l’un des rares où elle a une chance de battre Emilien, un adversaire redoutable. “Donc je saisis ma chance une fois par semaine”, a-t-elle confirmé. Jean-Luc Reichmann, lui, n’en revient absolument pas, au point qu’il revient sur le sujet plus tard dans l’émission. “Non mais ça fait 20 ans que je n’ai pas joué aux petits chevaux ! Et tagada tsoin tsoin, et tout ça”, a-t-il demandé. “On passerait le dimanche après-midi à faire ça s’il n’y avait qu’elle. C’est moi qui dois dire stop, au bout d’un moment”, a confié Emilien. Pour le moment, le couple est bien trop occupé avec Les 12 Coups de midi pour s’adonner à quelques parties de petits chevaux. Emilien et Jessica continuent en tout cas de construire leur réputation de “vieux couple”, ce qui fait beaucoup rire Jean-Luc Reichmann. Ce dernier est tout autant impressionné par le parcours d’Emilien, qui continue de faire grimper sa cagnotte.

North Korea keeps up barrage of missile tests, “significantly heightening” tension

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Seoul, South Korea — North Korea fired a short-range ballistic missile toward its eastern sea on Wednesday, extending a recent barrage of weapons demonstrations including what it described as simulated attacks on South Korean and U.S. targets last week. Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the missile was launched from the western town of Sukchon, north of the capital, Pyongyang, and flew across the country toward waters off the North’s eastern coast.
 
The South Korean and Japanese militaries assessed that the missile flew about 155 to 180 miles at a maximum altitude of 18 to 30 miles. The relatively low trajectory seemed to align with the flight characteristics of some of North Korea’s newer short-range weapons designed to evade missile defenses.

South Korea scrambles jets as North flies180 warplanes 

Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada said the missile landed in waters outside of the country’s exclusive economic zone. He said North Korea’s intensifying testing activity was “significantly heightening” regional tensions and that Japan had lodged a protest with the North through their embassies in Beijing.

South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said its nuclear envoy, Kim Gunn, held separate telephone calls with his U.S. and Japanese counterparts to discuss trilateral cooperation to counter North Korea’s increasing weapons tests and growing nuclear threat.

South Korean and U.S. officials say the North could attempt to further raise pressure by conducting its first nuclear test since 2017 in the coming weeks.

“We think they’re ready to go. Kim just has to give the thumbs up,” a senior U.S. State Department official told CBS News late last month, referring to North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un.

Wednesday’s launch came after North Korea fired dozens of missiles last week in an angry reaction to a massive combined aerial military exercise by the U.S. and South Korea that the North described as an invasion rehearsal.
 
Earlier Wednesday, South Korea’s military said the recovered debris of one of the North Korean missiles that flew southward last week was determined to be a Soviet-era anti-aircraft weapon that dates back to the 1960s.

The North’s military said on Monday that its launches last week were simulations to “mercilessly” strike key South Korean and U.S. targets such as air bases and operation command systems.
 
It said those tests included ballistic missiles loaded with dispersion warheads and underground infiltration warheads meant for use in strikes on enemy air bases, ground-to-air missiles designed to “annihilate” enemy aircraft at different altitudes and distances, and strategic cruise missiles that fell off South Korea’s southeastern coast.
 
The North described those launches as an appropriate response to the United States and South Korea’s “Vigilant Storm” joint air force drills that wrapped up on Saturday and which involved some 240 warplanes, including B-1B supersonic bombers and advanced F-35 fighter jets.
 
This week, South Korea’s military has conducted annual command post exercises meant to enhance crisis management and operational capabilities to cope with growing North Korean threat. The four-day training is to last until Thursday.
 
Wednesday’s launch also came amid vote counting in the U.S. midterm elections, though the results of those elections around the country were not expected to change significantly the Biden administration’s policies on North Korea.

South Korea’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday that an analysis of a nearly 10-foot-long piece of wreckage fetched from the water near the Koreas’ eastern sea boundary on Sunday showed it was one of North Korea’s SA-5 surface-to-air missiles. The ministry said a similar missile was used by the Russian military to execute ground attacks during its invasion of Ukraine.
 
Photos released by the South Korean military show what appears to be a mangled rocket engine and wires sticking out from a broken rocket body that is still attached with fins.
 
The missile, which was one of more than 20 fired by North Korea last Wednesday, flew in the direction of a populated South Korean island and landed near the rivals’ tense sea border, triggering air raid sirens and forcing residents on Ulleung island to evacuate.
 
The South Korean Defense Ministry “strongly” condemned North Korea’s firing of the SA-5, which it sees as a violation of a 2018 inter-Korean military agreement on reducing tensions.

The dozens of missiles North Korea fired last week also included an intercontinental ballistic missile that triggered evacuation warnings and halted trains in northern Japan.
 
Some experts say it’s possible that North Korea reached into the inventory of some of its older weapons to support the expanded scale of last week’s launches.
 
The launches added to North Korea’s record pace in weapons testing this year as Kim exploits the distraction created by Russia’s war on Ukraine to accelerate arms development and ramp up pressure on the United States and its regional allies.
 
“The North Koreans would want to display their range of missile technologies through these tests, but not all launches have to reveal the latest technological advancements,” said Soo Kim, a security analyst from California-based RAND Corporation.
 
“It may be in North Korea’s interest to hold some of its modern capabilities in reserve and test them at opportune occasions. Kim, again, is playing a longer game, so to reveal all of his cards – the different types of missiles and capabilities his country has acquired – would not work to his favor,” she said.
 
Nuclear talks between Washington and Pyongyang have stalled since 2019 over disagreements about U.S.-led sanctions against the North being dropped in exchange for the North taking disarmament steps. North Korea has so far rejected U.S. offers of open-ended talks, insisting that Washington must abandon its “hostile” policy first, a term the North mainly uses to refer to sanctions and U.S.-South Korea military drills.
 
The North has also aligned with Russia over the war in Ukraine while also blaming the United States for the crisis, saying that the West’s “hegemonic policy” has forced Russia to take military action to protect its security interests. However, the North has denied U.S. assessments that it has sent large supplies of artillery shells and other ammunition to Russia to support Vladimir Putin’s war efforts, amid what American officials describe as “severe supply shortages” in Russia. 
___

North Korea

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North Korea’s Kim brings daughter to visit troops in 4th known outing

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In:
Kim Jong Un
War
Missile Test
Nuclear Weapons
Russia
Missile Launch
North Korea

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This couple says Russell Crowe donated to their bookshop when they were trying to save it

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In the quaint town of Norwich, England, a cozy bookshop called Bookbugs and Dragon Tales opened in 2019 – just months before the pandemic struck. The owners, Dan and Leanne Fridd, managed to keep the shop open for two years before they decided they needed some help, so they started crowdfunding. When they saw someone had donated￡5,000 they were shocked. 

“And we checked the name, and I sort of was like, ‘Russell Ira Crowe?'” Leanne told CBS News. “And Dan was like, ‘It’s Russell Crowe!’ And I was like, ‘No, it can’t be Russell Crowe.'” The donation was about $5,832.95 in U.S. dollars. 

Leanne said they did a bit of digging and asked a mutual friend who has a connection to the actor. Now, they’re confident it is the real Russell Crowe, who has committed acts of kindness like this before. In 2020, Crowe paid for an aspiring actor to attend drama school by donating to his GoFundMe, according to People.

Dan and Leanne said the donation helped spread the word about their shop. 

“People wanted to come in and say hello and the press were interested and we were on Australian breakfast television, which was insane,” Leanne said. 

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“It feels like such a weight has been lifted,” Dan added. “It’s not just the crowdfunder, it’s not just the money, it’s the way people come into the shop.”

They may never know why Crowe chose their business, but perhaps it’s because the couple uses their bookshop to help the community in many ways. They hold wellbeing sessions for adults and coordinate activities for kids. And they also run The Dorothy Amery Reader Awards, inspired by a local man who wanted to honor his wife with good deeds after she died. They chose to honor her by giving away free books to kids in need. 

“Their parents are working really hard, but they just don’t have money for books and things like that,” Leanne said. “So, we ask for some nominations from schools and they recommend children they think would benefit and then we have a huge celebration evening and then we gift books to the children here.”

Last year, they gave away books to 30 kids in need. But this year, the crowdfunding will allow them to choose 50 kids. They’re also using the money to build a wheelchair ramp to make their shop accessible to everyone. 

They said the reason they used the donation money so selflessly is simple. 

“Someone took a chance on us. We are from very working class, poor backgrounds. We were certainly not able to have access to books to own necessarily as much as we wanted to as children and people took a chance on us,” Leanne said. “They saw the potential in us and we get to pay that forward through the shop by really believing in other people.”

If Russell Crowe ever wants to come peruse the shelves, Leanne and Dan are ready for him. 

“He is a gold loyalty card customer now so he gets 10% off for life, should he ever wander in,” Leanne joked. 

The Uplift

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In:
Russell Crowe

Caitlin O’Kane

Caitlin O’Kane is a digital content producer covering trending stories for CBS News and its good news brand, The Uplift.

TNA Announces Xia Brookside vs. Tasha Steelz For Thursday’s iMPACT On AXS TV

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A new match has been announced for this week’s episode of TNA iMPACT Wrestling.

 

On Monday evening, TNA announced via social media that Xia Brookside will go one-on-one against Tasha Steelz this Thursday on TNA iMPACT on AXS TV at 8/7c.

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As noted, Brookside was recently announced as one of the newest signees for the company.

Thor 5 : le super-héros Chris Hemsworth va-t-il revenir chez Marvel ?

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Après un épisode 4 décevant, Thor sera-t-il de retour dans un 5ème volet au sein du Marvel Cinematic Universe ? À l'occasion de la diffusion de Ragnarok sur TMC, on tente de répondre à cette question.

Incarné avec puissance par Chris Hemsworth, Thor a été un pilier des Avengers pendant de longues années. Cependant, après Endgame, les dernières aventures du Dieu du tonnerre, Ragnarok et Love and Thunder, ont beaucoup déçu les fans de Marvel.

Thor : Ragnarok

Sortie :

25 octobre 2017

|
2h 11min

De
Taika Waititi

Avec
Chris Hemsworth,
Tom Hiddleston,
Cate Blanchett

Presse
3,4

Spectateurs
3,9

Voir sur Disney+

Même si ces deux films ont eu un énorme succès commercial avec 853 millions de billets verts récoltés pour l’un et 760 millions pour l’autre, cela n’a pas empêché le public d’exprimer une certaine lassitude par rapport à la direction prise par l’histoire de Thor.

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En tout, les 4 volets de la franchise ont rapporté la modique de 2,7 milliards de dollars, de quoi donner envie à Marvel Studios de ne pas abandonner cette poule aux oeufs d’or. Après Kenneth Branagh et Alan Taylor pour les deux premiers épisodes, c’est Taika Waititi qui a repris le flambeau pour Ragnarok et Love and Thunder.

Thor: Love And Thunder

Sortie :

13 juillet 2022

|
1h 59min

De
Taika Waititi

Avec
Chris Hemsworth,
Natalie Portman,
Christian Bale

Presse
2,6

Spectateurs
2,3

louer ou acheter

En août dernier, à l’occasion de la promotion du livre Marvel’s Thor 4 : Love and Thunder Movie Special Book, le cinéaste a livré quelques indices sur un éventuel Thor 5. “Que reste-t-il à faire avec ce super-héros ? Il faut que ce soit une histoire qui poursuive l’évolution du personnage, mais toujours d’une manière très amusante et qui lui permette de faire face à des obstacles qu’il devra surmonter. Je ne pense pas qu’on puisse avoir un méchant plus faible que Hela [la soeur de Thor et Loki dans Ragnarok]“, a-t-il indiqué.

Monter d’un cran

“J’ai l’impression que nous devons monter d’un cran et introduire un méchant qui serait encore plus redoutable. Il faut toujours plus de bêtes, de monstres, d’aliens fous et excentriques. Ce qui est amusant avec Thor, c’est qu’il possède une certaine désinvolture, une arrogance, quand il visite des mondes et rencontre des extra-terrestres, je ne pense pas qu’on puisse avoir ça avec un terrien qui voyage dans l’espace et explore l’univers”, a-t-il poursuivi, visiblement motivé à mettre en scène un 5ème épisode des aventures de cet iconique super-héros.

Thor 5

Chris n’a pas Thor

Si le réalisateur néo-zélandais ne serait pas contre rempiler pour un nouveau film, qu’en pense le principal intéressé, Chris Hemsworth ? “Je ne veux pas continuer à le faire jusqu’à ce que les spectateurs se lassent et lèvent les yeux au ciel en me voyant débarquer à l’écran dans la peau de ce personnage”, avait-il confié au micro d’Entertainment Weekly. Cependant, il avait ajouté qu’il ferait tout son possible pour réinventer le Dieu du tonnerre si une nouvelle aventure venait à être lancée.

“Si le public veut le voir et s’il y a quelque chose que nous jugeons excitant et amusant, alors génial. Je n’ai pas encore la réponse, mais j’aimerais bien”, avait-il conclu.

En attendant, le prochain opus du MCU, The Marvels, sortira en France le 8 novembre.

Cora Jade Injury Believed To Be An ACL Tear

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Bad news for Cora Jade.

 

The NXT star injured her knee at this past weekend’s house show in Florida, and now Dave Meltzer from the Wrestling Observer has an unfortunate update. Meltzer reports that Jade’s injury is an ACL tear, which means she will be on the shelf for many months.

Jade has just returned to NXT after a four month hiatus. Wrestling Headlines will keep you updated on how long she may be out.

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Working the Room

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As happy moments in one’s life go, this one was supposed to be up there: the time I first heard my stereo rig in the new, custom-built listening room in the back of my home. It had taken eight months to get to this point, starting with gutting the garage and rebuilding the floor and walls. (We kept the roof.) By the end, all-new doors and windows had been hung and treated with acoustical sealant. Extra-thick drywall and mass-loaded vinyl were installed for better sound insulation. A dedicated power line was brought in.


Credit where due: The new room was my wife’s win-win suggestion. For a few years, I’d performed my reviewing duties in our living room, a good-sounding space that nonetheless had three problems. A variety of stereo gear had begun to occupy practically a third of the floor, making our digs less suitable for family use and entertaining. When my wife and kids went to bed, I couldn’t really crank the volume anymore—and I love listening at night, at (I confess) elevated volumes. Lastly, the living room sits on top of a basement, suspended over joists. I had to be careful with the placement of speakers to keep the floor from acting as a tympanic resonator.


The new room avoided all that. Though it’s attached to the house, it was built with enough insulation that I can play music to ear-splitting levels at all hours. And as I type this, under my feet is a seven-layer, open-faced sandwich of gravel, a 10″-thick concrete slab, plywood subflooring, rubber sheeting, oak planks, a thick pad made of felt, and a wool rug that covers about 80% of the floor. No resonator effect.


During construction, there’d been surprises—some costly, others just a brief pain in the neck. Dolefully eyeing our dwindling funds, I learned that drywallers and electricians easily outearn journalists. Also that despite vertical tarps and scrupulously closed doors, construction dust is the most penetrative thing known to man, except maybe 1980s Radio Shack tweeters. The white, powdery substance somehow wafted into bedrooms up to 70′ from where the rebuild was taking place, giving our interior the appearance of a coke lab.


Then there was the glum discovery of—I kid you not—a dead dog, whose half-petrified corpse lay a foot or so under the crumbling, century-old concrete floor. The contractor surmised that the poor thing was a wounded stray that had worked its way into the garage’s shoddy foundation, perhaps needing a quiet place to die. I thought of Stephen King (who lives only an hour away), and how in Kingworld, the unearthing of the mutt would have set off a series of terrible events, Pet Sematary–style (footnote 1).


Luckily, we made it to early 2023 without gory calamities. January 27 was inauguration day. After we assembled the midcentury equipment console and chair, my teenage daughters and I maneuvered my Focal Utopia Scala Evo reference speakers onto the rug. I connected the Scalas to a HiFi Rose RS520, queued up some favorite tracks on Qobuz, and sat down in excited anticipation. This was gonna be great!


Read this out loud in your best Ron Howard voice: It wasn’t. The music sounded not just subpar—it sounded horrendous. Slap and flutter echoes skittered like high-velocity marbles exploding off the walls. Every song I played was smeared, muddy, incoherent. I had to wonder: The home theater expert who’d informed me that drywall is a pretty good absorptive material (footnote 2)… had he been pulling my leg? I felt the way Charlie Brown might after Lucy snatched his football away.




A panel discussion

To be honest, the disappointment wasn’t completely unexpected. In the fall of 2022, I’d absorbed much of the sixth edition of F. Alton Everest and Ken C. Pohlmann’s Master Handbook of Acoustics and all of Jim Smith’s Get Better Sound. It seemed inevitable that my medium-sized room (15′ × 21′, with a 16′ gabled ceiling) would need a good number of acoustical panels. My friend Aaron, a math-minded audiophile with a solid knowledge of acoustics, agreed to help. We settled on more than 20 panels of various sizes, most 4″ thick, including bass traps for the corners and a quartet of 2′ × 4′ clouds—overhead absorbers that tame reflections from the ceiling. We also ordered two skyline diffusers for the wall behind my listening chair.




Despite our commitment to good acoustics, compromises were necessary. The goal was always to create a listening room that, big speakers notwithstanding, could just about pass for “regular” living quarters, preferably a combination of modern and rustic. So we had to find solutions that wouldn’t make the space look like a control room. The skyline diffusers can pass for works of art (and most non-audiophile visitors assume that they are). The Dorothea Lange black-and-white canvas over the electric fireplace—her gorgeous 1939 photo of a Southern country store with Black men sitting on the porch—is an absorption panel at the same time. (It was custom printed to my size specifications by ATS Acoustics, with a file downloaded gratis from the Library of Congress (footnote 3).


About that fireplace: I chose it for heat and atmosphere, even though the 3′ × 2′ glass front is highly reflective. For critical listening, I often end up covering the pane with a 4″-thick panel—after turning off the heater element, mind you! When it’s chilly out, a heat pump installed over the 18′ × 4.5′ gear closet to my right helps keep the place comfortable. (Hot tip: Running a couple of class-A amps can help, too.)


Footnote 1: For a Google-supplied Easter egg, search for “Pet Sematary” and watch the top of your browser window.


Footnote 2: See www.gedlee.com/downloads/HT/Home_theater.pdf, page 96.


Footnote 3: See loc.gov/item/2017772305.

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Eric Bischoff Praises TNA For Keeping Nic Nemeth Signing Under Wraps

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Eric Bischoff gave his thoughts on various topics on the latest episode of his 83 Weeks Podcast. 

 

During it, Bischoff talked about Nic Nemeth (Dolph Ziggler) joining TNA Wrestling as the big surprise signing at Hard To Kill on Saturday night. 

“I was excited about it. No, I didn’t watch it [Hard To Kill]. I don’t want to lie. I did watch a little bit of Collision. Last night. In particular, I wanted to watch Dustin Rhodes. I knew he was going to be on the show. So I made an appointment and made sure I was able to drop in on something that impressed us, and it’s incredible at this stage of his career. Notice I didn’t say his age at this stage of his career. And as he pointed out in the promo, I think 35 years in the professional wrestling industry, and to see a guy’s biggest Dustin move the way he moved in his match last night and pick up a win, I thought, was pretty damn cool. But going back to Nick and in TNA,  I’m here for it. Anybody who’s listened to this podcast over the last five and a half years absolutely knows I am a big fan. There’s a Nemeth. Either way, I’m a stickler fan and former Dolph Ziggler, I love the way they brought him in. It was surprising. No buzz, no chatter over delivering a big name. And I think I talked about it either here or on strictly business. By the way, AJ Francis, Top Dolla, is going to be joining us on Strictly Business this week, so be sure to check that out. When it drops, subscribe here at 83 Weeks. Do it now like it subscribes to, and do all that good stuff. So you’ll know when that strictly business episode drops with. But no, I’m excited for it. And it seems like TNA is kind of making a commitment that they rebranded themselves, or rebranded themselves, whatever. Everybody knows what I mean. Whether you think that was a good idea or a bad idea doesn’t really matter. It was big, it was a move. It was a step. So, let’s see where that step takes them. But to bring in a guy when we were talking about equity with regard to Nic, former Dolph Ziggler, how much television time has he had over the last ten years, a million hours? You know, if you look at him like a credit card, he’s got a huge limit on him. That’s available to TNA, so there are a lot of good moves there. And like I said, rebranding, now bring in and do it artfully. A big surprise, legitimate, credible surprise. Maybe there’s a re-focus and more energy there, and it’d be tuning in as a result.”

If you use any portion of the quotes from this article, please credit 83 Weeks with an h/t to Wrestling Headlines for the transcription.

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