Stuff and Things

It seems that someone like Kevin Costner has, by this point, became a name so ubiquitous with movie stardom that you really don't ever feel the need to trace his career journey. He's one of those people you get the impression came out of the womb fully formed as Kevin Costner and someone happened to start filming him at some point in his mesmerisingly handsome life. However, like everyone else on planet earth, Kev also had to toil his way up the proverbial ladder until reaching that crucial moment in all successful people's lives - the big break.  While Kevin Reynolds' 1985 indie road trip gem, Fandango, can't accurately be described as that, you could possibly describe it as the big break before the big break. Indeed, legend has it that Brian DePalma saw this film and decided to hire Costner for the star-making role of Elliot Ness in 1987s 'The Untouchables'. The rest, as they say, is history.  Based on director Reynolds' time at Baylor University, Fand...

If you are a person who has somehow happened upon this blog, or whatever this is, then you will know that I unashamedly love WWF (now WWE) wrestling. Back in the day I loved it so much that I dressed up as a wrestler for my 10th birthday, and that wrestler was Bret 'The Hitman' Hart. Well, I was actually Jim 'The Anvil' Neidhart because the kid I was sharing a birthday with was harder and cooler than me, but that's beside the point. The point is, in the early 1990s no one was cooler than the pink-clad, permanently sunglassed, Bret Hart.  The Hitman comes from one of the maddest family situations known to man. He is one of 12 children born and raised in deepest Calgary, Canada. The patriarch of this crazy clan was legendary wrestling promoter Stu Hart, who was famous for two things: being the chief of Stampede Wrestling (a territory in Northern Canada) and beating the living shite out of up and coming wrestlers in the basement of his house - affectionately known as t...