#255. Mr. Anderson, Film Fan

#255.

Really pleased that Mr. Anderson emerged as the only winner of the semi-finals at No Surrender last night, which means he is technically the headliner of Bound for Glory next month. If he faces Kurt Angle or Jeff Hardy, there are already built-in possibilities for both, so that's all the more awesome. This is by far the closest he's ever gotten to a company building itself around him.

I was reading an anecdote in a recent WWE book where Santino Marella remembers Anderson and Randy Orton (who would later go on to put the final nail in Ken's career in that company) hilariously sing along to "Bohemian Rhapsody," which reads so more interestingly and funny when you consider where that particular relationship ended up (read that other parenthetical phrase again).

And so it's all the better knowing that he's finally made it, and unlike Christian or Angle, he's not a former WWE star who was hopscotched to the top (Hardy is the only other one I can think of right now, and there are some big reasons why that would be), so his ascension would truly be earned, not just from his prior accomplishments and popularity, but for what he's been doing all year long.

I understand that there's lots of controversy around him, some of which explains why he's in this kind of position to begin with, the injury and drug issues (which might be tied up as cleanly, the former anyway, as he sometimes insists, and which might explain the latter as well, which he would be stupid to try and explain, one way or another, because right now, no one would really want to hear it in any kind of positive sense), but I've always stuck behind him. He just seems like an all-around nice guy (despite being an Asshole), who has long deserved success in the ring.

Hell, if anything, any obvious comparisons to The Rock are only intensied in that regard. WWE tried to push him so hard so fast, the fans had little time to adjust, and neither did he, which I think is what really screwed him over. But because he absolutely knew his character, there was no way of outgrowing that original resentment by becoming his own version of The Rock. WWE gave up, focused around a few of the guys they had already been working with, and so he had to look for other opportunities.

Thank god for TNA.

And thank god...for Miiiisterrrr Anderson.

Anderson.

***

Sorry, got a little carried away with that one.

Anyway, I finally finished ranking the 500 movies that will be featured in the Film Fan Companion, the follow-up project to the Star Trek Fan Companion I've been doing since June. I had the top hundred ranked for a while, but when it came to the next four hundred, even I was a little daunted, and I've been doing a version of this list for about the last five years. 500 will be the biggest yet, but I feel pretty confident about it. But there'll be more information on that later.