Posted by
ChrisR on Thursday, January 08, 2009 2:54:38 PM
who's excited? I need some entrance video or something...
yea, thats about right.
So, anyways, beyond that. What's up? How's life everybody? A few weeks off gets the blood pumping and I am feeling good. Vacation was very nice - Christmas with the fam was great, a nice, white, snowy Christmas. Good friends, good family, good food, good drink. Same thing with New Years - things went well. My college roommate got married on the 2nd, and it was the most fun I have had in ages - possibly ever. Congratulations Sean and Annie - I hope you had as great a time as I did. (on a quick serious note, me being quite young, not many of my friends are getting married. Some are engaged, many are dating. Some more serious than others. However, Sean and Annie are literally the only ones that I have met that marriage was inevitable - there was no question of if but rather when - there was never even a question of them breaking up or going separate ways. They are on their honeymoon now, and when I say that this was forever - I mean it.)
And now I am back in DC. Going to NYC for the weekend to go to the Giants playoff game on Sunday. Expensive and time consuming and I am terribly sick of traveling - but seriously? I can't skip out on this. Not in a million years.
I am afraid for the inauguration. Now they are closing 395 and 66 in Virginia to handle the traffic.
And now, my review of the movie the Wrestler. In case you forgot, here's the trailer.
WARNING: I am going to spoil it to some degree. So please, if you plan on seeing the movie and don't want to be caught off-guard, just stop reading. I am going to review from 2 points of view - the moviegoer and the wrestling fan. And they are widely different.
From the point of view of the movie-goer:
It was fantastic. It was ridiculously depressing but unbelievably well done. Every time you expect it to pick up, it throws you back down, mirroring the activity of the characters. You leave the theater with the feeling that you just witnessed tragedy - a real tragedy. Mickey Rourke is nothing short of phenomenal in his role; you are not watching an actor play a broken down wrestling - you are watching the broken down wrestler himself. Everything from his voice, the mannerisms, the way he walked, carried himself, and mentality - you can feel it all. Evan Rachel Wood (Rachel Evan Wood?) is good, and Marissa Tomei is also good in her role, and at 44 years old (according to IMDB), she still looks great. The movie ends suddenly and you are kind of left with your mouth open. I read somewhere that the movie was predictable and I thought it was anything but - I expected a happy ending and it never came.
It should also be noted that I inherently dislike indy films - they are too artsy, overdone, and try too hard to embrace being indy. The Wrestler fell into some of these pits - the camera angles, the lighting, some poorly written dialogue. But for the most part, the indy nature of this film is what made excellent - Hollywood would never have embraced of this storyline about an old pro wrestler who never gets back up. There is no happy ending, no light at the end of the tunnel, no major climax. It just kind of progresses on, you follow it, and then it's over. It's not boring for an instant though - the relationships are enthralling, the characters believable and the action intriguing enough. It does not get too much into wrestling jargon that could have easily bogged it down and made it inaccessible to your non-wrestling fan. Despite the Bruuuuuuce song in the trailor, there really isn't even a musical score. It is dark, depressing, and ultimately a sad story. And everything about it felt real. This is the mark of an excellent movie.
From the point of view of the wrestling fan:
It was great. I love to see anything wrestling-related that will not judge us (too badly) in a negative light. There were some major problems with the logistics, though. These are from the point of view of the wrestling super-fan - the matches were called too loudly, there was no attempt to hide kayfabe (don't ask - essentially, wrestlers call moves that they are going to do throughout the match, but in the movie, they made it obvious. In reality, you would never know.) Along similar lines, the blading (when the Ram cuts himself) was so obvious it was ridiculous. The psychology of the matches (the move sequences used to build heat) was miserable. But this is neither here nor there. The distribution of the steroids, though, was a little hokey and over-the-top. Drug dealers do not work like this but it was necesary to the plot, so it was in there. The filmmakers should have been more discreet.
I also didn't like seeing Earnest "The Cat" Miller play the Ayatollah. He is too recognizable for the role - they should have cast someone else.
I loved the fact that Mickey Rourke went through wrestling training - he looked good on screen both in appearance and in his matches. He looked like he was supposed to for the role. The mind did not have to stretch to see him as the Ram.
What was most depressing, though - and this, as a wrestling fan, brought me to the edge of tears - is the reality of it. This is the lifestyle of countless guys who used to be in the big time who did not know when to let go. This is the life of the former star turned indy has-been in grimey towns across the country. Indy wrestling is not a thriving business, where a $50 payoff is a decent night, and going to unattended autograph shows is the norm. If you have money to even pay for that mobile home and don't have to sleep in your car every night - you are in better shape than others. I loved the desperation in Rourke - that maybe, just maybe, no matter how far down and out he may appear - he always thought that this was his ticket back to the top. This is the mentality of a lot of these old wrestlers - they just cannot let go. The mentalty that, no matter what, these guys can't seem to put it together - for every step forward there are 2 steps back. When you think The Ram has finally figured it out, with the daughter, with his girlfriend - he goes out and parties and does drugs and goes back to where he was before he even started. It is both sad and pathetic. And worst of all: true. Too many wrestlers have died too young because of what they do to their bodies, and they share the Ram's mentality.
As great as it was, though, I have a major problem with the portrayals of ROH and CZW. These are real companies. Ring of Honor is small but respectable and does not exploit former stars. CZW, the ultra-violent match the Ram has, is very real. Necro Butcher, the guy he faces, is very much real. What you saw in the match - from the staple guns to the barbed wire to the glass - this is all very real. Some fans are sick and into this, but this is the minority. There are few wrestling fans who are into this "ultra-violent" scene, but unfortunately, outsiders who view The Wrestler could easily judge us all. It makes me just as sick as it does someone who is unfamiliar with the product, but unfortunately, I am bound to be lumped together with this CZW crowd. I just ask - do not judge me based on this.