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The Wrestler


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I reviewed "The Wrestler" on my blog. Check it out...

Darren Arnofsky's magnificent tragedy The Wrestler is getting a ton of attention for Mickey Rourke's note-perfect perfomance as the washed-up title character. What struck me, however, was how the film is really about the way in which fantasy and reality intersect, particularly in two performative careers that tend not to get much credit: Pro-Wrestling and Exotic Dancing. The film focuses on Randy "Ram" Robinson, nee Robin Ramzinski, a peroxide enhanced, 'roid fueled, fake tanned has-been of a pro-wrestler. Everything about Ram is fake...except for his pain. His only real human connection in the film is with a stripper named Cassidy (nee Pam). This makes perfect sense, since Cassidy exists in the same twilit world of low-class fantasy. Ram and Cassidy are mirror images. Like Ram, Cassidy is a fake. She pretends to be a breathy vixen for her paying customers when in reality she's a struggling single mother. Cassidy resists Ram's advances because she believes that he's falling for the fantasy. What she doesn't understand is that Ram is probably the one person who knows what it's like to live that lie.

Read the rest of the review here.

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Thank you Alexander. I really want to see Mickey Rourke succeed. He showed such promise at the beginning of his career.

Watched Angel Heart again last night and couldn't help but wonder what the hell happened to him?

Thank you again. The Wrestler is playing here and all I need now is to convince my son-in-law to go with me.:)

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I'd like to see this, parts of this were filmed right here in my neighborhood - as in a few blocks away. If they really did film at the library, well...that's next door and I missed all the action. I was probably sitting here at the computer at the time, oblivious to Hollywood doing it's thing outside.

dB

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I gotta see this, even though I have a profound visceral dislike for Mickey Rourke. Maybe the visceral like for Marisa Tomei will counter it...

Re. filming in the neighborhood, my experience in NYC is that it's difficult to miss, because a) big trailers park in the area for several days, b) stuff often gets shot at night w. huge lighting.

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Marisa Tomei is eternaly beautiful

Agreed, but why did she wait til she hit 40 to start taking off her clothes in every movie?

Because now, it's only for people who will truly appreciate it instead of every adolescent-brained horndog on Planet Earth?

Adolescent brained horndogs will still appreciate it, regardless of when it happens. I'm just curious why it happened at this point - I don't know of any successful actresses who've waited so long to alter a no-nudity policy.

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Maybe she's feeing insecure herself about aging?

Crazy it sounds, sure, I mean, we know she's beautiful (I hate to say "still" because true beauty is pretty much an eternal quality for me), but insecurity is quite the irrational nervewracker.

Wouldn't be the first time that somebody of either gender starts hitting 40 and gets anxious to prove that they've still "got it", more to themselves than to anybody else.

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Re. filming in the neighborhood, my experience in NYC is that it's difficult to miss, because a) big trailers park in the area for several days, b) stuff often gets shot at night w. huge lighting.

I know it's pretty obvious, I've seen that in NYC for years, I don't know how I missed it here in my own neighborhood.

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I always assumed that their permits to film include total control on the "set" - what kind of film was this if they would let non-performers potentially interact with the actors?

Of course the answer would be the type of film that doesn't necessarily have permits to film.

Reminds me of my sister's "film career". There was an indie film shooting in New York. My sister had no clue but she walked out of a building, saw a cab, and got into it, people started yelling at her, she stomps her feet and looks for another cab. So months later, she gets a call from a friend, "I saw you in a movie!" Turns out they had such a tight budget, they left the shot in (the camera was positioned way above, like a long-distance tracking shot). One of the stars was supposed to come out of the building and get in the cab. The movie did some pretty good business: Metropolitan.

So my Mom and I went to see the film in some art house theater in Norwalk, CT. And sure enough, even from way above, we could recognize my sister's walk. And her unmistakable pouting over being denied the cab.

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I gotta see this, even though I have a profound visceral dislike for Mickey Rourke. .

Well that's actually part of the appeal: watching an actor who so fucked up his career getting a second chance and doing something with it. One can't help but note the parallels between Roarke and his character. And I have to add, his character - Ram - has an incredibly tender and endearing side to him. Without giving much away, I loved the scenes of him playing with the kids and working the deli counter. It's quite a fearless performance.

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I gotta see this, even though I have a profound visceral dislike for Mickey Rourke. .

Well that's actually part of the appeal: watching an actor who so fucked up his career getting a second chance and doing something with it. One can't help but note the parallels between Roarke and his character. And I have to add, his character - Ram - has an incredibly tender and endearing side to him. Without giving much away, I loved the scenes of him playing with the kids and working the deli counter. It's quite a fearless performance.

I just watched The Pope Of Greenwich Village again and Mickey Rourke has that thing that makes you watch him. He still has it and surprisingly he is just as compelling now as he was at the beginning of his career.

I strongly recommend The Wrestler to see a really good story with, I think, one of the few who could embody Ram and be believable. This is not a mercy job given to Rourke because he is down and out. This is great casting.

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I gotta see this, even though I have a profound visceral dislike for Mickey Rourke. .

Well that's actually part of the appeal: watching an actor who so fucked up his career getting a second chance and doing something with it. One can't help but note the parallels between Roarke and his character. And I have to add, his character - Ram - has an incredibly tender and endearing side to him. Without giving much away, I loved the scenes of him playing with the kids and working the deli counter. It's quite a fearless performance.

I just watched The Pope Of Greenwich Village again and Mickey Rourke has that thing that makes you watch him. He still has it and surprisingly he is just as compelling now as he was at the beginning of his career.

I strongly recommend The Wrestler to see a really good story with, I think, one of the few who could embody Ram and be believable. This is not a mercy job given to Rourke because he is down and out. This is great casting.

I actually like The Pope Of Greenwich Village a lot, and Rourke was very good in the film. I agree that he's cast well in The Wrestler.

Tough to say just why I dislike Rourke. Probably it's because I was living in NYC during his heyday and the start of his decline, which were chronicled in tabloid newspapers. The characters he played on film all seemed to be somewhat assholic, and his off-screen behavior was fully consistent, but taking the assholicity to a much higher level. I know the off-screen life isn't relevant to movie watchers, so my reaction wasn't logical, but something just turned me off.

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