FanHouse The Rock

Who liked the movie 'Walking Tall'? Come on, admit it. Even though the plot was sub par and didn't have a whole lot of substance, it was FREAKING AWESOME to watch The Rock run around doing what he does best for 90 minutes -- kicking a lot of butt. Seriously, I don't know if there's been a better use of random, short fused violence since Steven Seagal made a relevant movie (OK so, I guess, never).

So long story short, I was pretty pumped when I heard from Wyshynski over at Yahoo! that Dwayne Johnson would be doing the same thing only on ice skates. Cool idea, right?

"The Rock is going to be an NHL hockey player named 'The Tooth Fairy,' and you can imagine why they call him the 'Tooth Fairy,'" said Ellis. "He's an enforcer-type character, and sometimes when he hits another player their teeth come ajar and land on the ice."

OK, so the name is a little on the weak side. Big deal. I'd love to see Walking Tall on Ice. But yeah, funny story ... That's not exactly what the deal is here. It has got the usual 'dumb subplot that probably only your six-year old will enjoy.' Total. Buzzkill.

"Johnson will play an ordinary man who's brought in to try to save the tooth fairy kingdom."

Wha ... WHAT????

Turns out that's the gist of it. IMDB.com, the best movie website there is, has a similar summation.

"A guy is forced to serve time dressed up as a tooth fairy."

Looks like I got my hopes up for nothing. It also looks like we could be in for another edition of the Love Guru. Ugh. If you're still waiting for the next great hockey movie, it looks like your wait just got a little longer.

For another writing gig, I had an opportunity to interview a personal hero this week: Celebrity Chef Anthony Bourdain, host of The Travel Channel's "No Reservations," author of the recently published "No Reservations: Around the World on an Empty Stomach" and simply one of the coolest cats on the planet. But there was something on my mind heading into the conversation, which was the continuing shock waves from my previous FanHouse piece on ESPN's Barry Melrose and his uninformed, and quickly retracted, comments about the New Jersey Devils' new arena in Newark.

The article stirred one hell of a debate. The Long Island Press pointed me in the direction of their column in support of Melrose's hack logic, in which Chick Dubinsky warns potential guests to the Prudential Center to bring their pepper spray because ... well, because he saw a hearse drive by him (boy, never see those in the suburbs) and was dumb enough not to take mass transit to a city arena.

Then there were some of the enlightened souls on the comments thread who called me an "idiot," a practitioner of "reverse classism" and, worst of all, that I was from Nebraska. Truth is I'm a Jersey boy, just like Bourdain -- he grew up in Leonia in Bergen County, roughly 16 miles away from Newark. Bourdain actually did a segment of his Travel Channel show in the Ironbound in Newark, so I decided to pick his brain on the controversy:

Is there anything more satisfying than heading to the arena water closet, sending a few beers back out to sea, looking down and having your team's logo staring back at you from the top of the flusher? Of course not, and that's one of the reasons why the Prudential Center, the Newark-tastic new home of the New Jersey Devils, is, as the kids used to say, "the shizz."

I was in the house for Opening Night at the new ice barn, after two-and-a-half torturous decades in that cement sedative now known as the IZOD Center. The less said about the Devils' pathetic offense -- which looked about as dangerous as a blind double-amputee trying to stab someone with a plastic spork in their 4-1 loss to Ottawa -- the better. Let's focus on the positive ... or at least as positive as a Jersey-born blogger can be, considering the fact that cynicism was actually a study unit in my kindergarten class.

After the jump, photos by yours truly and others, as well as reviews of the Devils' new den ...

By now, if you've watched any football or football-related programming in the last couple of weeks, you've seen ads for The Game Plan, the feature film starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as a pro football player. (Not an NFL player; the league wouldn't give permission.)

And you probably thought it looked like a great film -- would finding out he had a daughter warm the heart of this tough football player? And would his team win the big game at the end of the movie? Those are the kinds of things that the ticket-buying public is desperate to find out.

But it turns out that the critics aren't in love with The Game Plan. Rotten Tomatoes reports that just 37 percent of the reviews have been favorable. Here's what Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter had to say:

There is less of a story here than a series of gag situations where Joe "The King" Kingman (Johnson), football star and Elvis fan, meets such challenges as bedtime stories, dolls, an outing to a kiddie park and ballet lessons with his daughter. The film studiously avoids tackling any of the real challenges that would confront an instant parent. Joe's daughter, Peyton, played engagingly but with a heavy dose of sweetness by Madison Pettis, pretty much accepts her dad, warts and all. Meanwhile, Joe is nothing like real-life NFL or NBA head cases that dominate the crime blotter as much as they do the sports pages. Basically, he's as harmless as his bulldog Spike. What, you didn't think the Disney folks wouldn't throw in a cute mutt to increase the saccharine level?

Yes, they named the daughter Peyton. I do not expect to see this movie.

Trying to defend his brother, USC Trojan linebacker Kaluka Maiava intervened in a fight in his native Hawaii and ended in the Hospital.

As told to the Los Angeles Daily News, "It was 35 people against five and Kaluka was trying to pull his little brother out of there and somebody punched him in the side of the head," according to Maiava's stepfather Scott Mahoney.

Like myths that about gods living in volcanoes in Hawaii myths about Maiava's involvement in the row spread quickly according to Mahoney, who noted that one version had the linebacker punching a high school girl.

No comment from the Maiava's more famous uncle, The Rock, Dwayne Johnson.

"Blame for NASCAR going mainstream lies on the fans."

That was the original title of this article on NASCAR.com which is now titled "To some traditionalists, loyalty goes only so far."

Maybe NASCAR.com didn't want to incite the fans by pointing the finger at them. But the title change doesn't really soften the blow of the message, does it?

Fans like to complain that NASCAR has "sold out":

"They rail against big money and cookie-cutter tracks and the fact that California hosts more events than Darlington. They think NASCAR has become too corporate, too vanilla, too neglectful of where it came from. But too many of them aren't doing the one thing that will ensure their voice is heard the loudest. Too many of them aren't buying tickets."

But really, isn't that the goal? To sell out?

"Rockingham died not because of location or corporate greed or some sort of NASCAR manifest destiny, but because fans didn't show up. Even in the track's final days, when it became evident that only big turnstile numbers could save it, there were too many empty seats."

NASCAR isn't making that much money off the ticket sales. NASCAR lines its pockets with money from TV revenue and licensed merchandise.

The tracks are the ones that benefit from the sale of tickets. Fans sure aren't complaining about safety and security, hospitality and facility upgrades. Think this happens magically?

It costs money to host a race. And more money to market the race. Want your city to keep its race? Buy tickets.

Oh ... and act like you're worthy. I'm talking to you, Talladega. One of your races should be the next to go to another city. I love a superspeedway restrictor plate race more than the next person, but you do not deserve two races a year. Not when this is how you show your appreciation: