Thursday, March 05, 2009

I've Seen THE WRESTLER

Mickey looking less natural sans his Marv from Sin City makeup.

This film is about the life struggles of a professional wrestler who is in the twilight of his career. It stars Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei.

Mickey Rourke's portrayal of the flawed fictional wrestler, Randy "The Ram" Robinson, rightfully earned him an Oscar nomination. Academy Award winning actress, Marisa Tomei, plays a pole dancing stripper. Usually those kind of roles go to up and coming actresses, but the display of Tomei's wonderfully naked 43-year-old body could very well have made women half her age envious that they could hope to look half as good as she does at her maturity. Apparently, not birthing babies is a far cheaper preservative for women than a plastic surgeon or a time machine.

It took just a little over a month to shoot the entire film. Originally, Nicholas Cage was set to star in The Wrestler, but when he learned that the fight scenes inside the ring required for him to be topless, he immediately dropped out of the project. Some reports say that once Nicholas Cage was literally out of the picture, studios drastically reduced the allotted budget. Supposedly, Mickey Rourke worked in this film for free and Guns & Roses lead singer, Axl Rose, didn't charge any fee for using his song, Sweet Child of Mine. Purportedly, the scene where Rourke slashes his forehead with a razor blade was actually executed using zero movie magic. In real life, Mickey is a chain smoking, boozing, pill popping 56-year-old actor, yet he somehow miraculously managed to physically bulk up and convincingly look the part of a washed up wrestler.


"Remember kids, smoke cigarettes and juice up on roids."

This is the first Darren Aronofsky directed picture I've ever seen, and I was left extremely impressed. To my surprise, the writer of this story used to be the editor of the reliable, trustworthy news source, The Onion. Although for the most part not to my liking, the soundtrack felt like it rightfully belonged and managed to compliment the movie (with the exception of Bruce Springsteen's contribution).

The Wrestler is worth paying full price to see on the silver screen for. I believe die hard wrestling fans and non-believers alike will enjoy this facinating piece of story telling.


"Banzai!!!"

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