The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, 2008)

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mfunk9786
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Re: The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, 2008)

#126 Post by mfunk9786 » Thu Jan 15, 2009 2:33 pm

Yeah, how 'bout that Rouke

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Re: The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, 2008)

#127 Post by RagingNoodles » Fri Jan 16, 2009 5:15 am

flyonthewall2983 wrote: I pointed out earlier that there is enough backstage drama that's been going on in wrestling for years, that's all ripe for screen adaptation. My dream project would be to be able to tell the story of the Von Erich family, as it's both a bonafide American tragedy and a really fascinating narrative. This documentary does a really good job of painting the picture of what went on in the organization they helped build (and ultimately help destroy).

My other dream project would be to tell a heavily fictional (IE, names changed etc, etc) account of the Monday Night Wars and within that framework, try to put in as much of the backstage stuff that's happened since the 80's. My tongue-in-cheek pitch would be that it's a cross between Network and Gladiator.
If they ever get around to making a film on the Von Erich, I would love to see it and I would imagine it being one of the most depressing films around. It's a story that I would be very difficult to shoot and hard to structure.

I once thought a biopic on Eddie Guerrero would be very fascinating, as no one has ever had a career like him. He was a there at the peak of WCW in late 1990s, at the peak of WWF in 2000, a main eventer with Art Barr at the peak of AAA in 1994 (when they were drawing more people in major American markets than WWF or WCW were at that time), a Junior star in the NJPW promotion in the early 1990s, and at the peak of EMLL in 1990-1991. He was a 5'6 guy who was deemed to tiny to become a star, and had to pretty much become so charismatic, exciting, a draw amongst Hispanics and pump himself with so much chemicals that he become at the time the shortest WWE Champion ever. Another interesting thing was that he was scripted to actually win his 2nd WWE World Championship the day he died. One could really examine this obscure subculture of a world using Guerrero's story and the different things Japan, Mexico and American want in their peculiar form of entertainment. Or a documentary on Benoit could be really something if the right people got behind it.

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Re: The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, 2008)

#128 Post by dx23 » Fri Jan 16, 2009 10:06 am

I agree with you on the Guerrero biopic, but for the Von Erichs, it has to be a TV series. Actually, some network could step up and do something similar to the football series ESPN did called Playmakers and based it around the World Class Championship Wrestling and the Von Erich clan.

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Re: The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, 2008)

#129 Post by knives » Fri Jan 16, 2009 9:53 pm

He always has They Live and Hell comes to Frogtown.

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Re: The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, 2008)

#130 Post by bearcuborg » Sat Jan 17, 2009 3:18 am

mfunk9786 wrote:Yeah, how 'bout that Rouke
Not once, but twice! ](*,)

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Re: The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, 2008)

#131 Post by John Cope » Sun Jan 18, 2009 12:40 am

In certain respects I was reminded of Ron Howard's Cinderella Man as I watched this. The Wrestler is a far better film but I appreciated the fact in both cases that the melodramatic tropes were fully embraced. In the case of Cinderella Man, there is that one breath taking moment when Jim Braddock, beaten down in the ring to virtual submission, flashes briefly on an image of someone tacking an eviction notice on the door to his home; in this he finds the necessary inspiration. I loved that because whether intended or not (and I tend to think that Howard simply lucked into this as for once the material actually benefited from his shallow sensibility) such a moment is absolutely unabashed in its sentimental intent and effect. Actually, the effect may not have worked as well as it could have because many don't approve of the intent and many others (myself included) would have preferred some substance to go along with the boldly deployed devices.

Anyway, as to the subject at hand, The Wrestler evidences a similar unapologetic stance as far as its incorporation of melodramatically derived sentiment is concerned but it has the advantage of being good as well. Certainly it's all thought through to a remarkable degree and the elements beautifully synthesized and harmonized. The generic nature of the title itself indicates Aronofsky's willingness to refrain from unnecessary surface complications to supposedly complexify his film. At the same time, standard situations are enlivened from within by devotion of performance and wisdom of perception.

Much is said, appropriately, about the performances and accuracy to the milieu but Aronofsky is not given enough credit. Unlike, say, recent David Gordon Green, he demonstrates an understanding of the style he chooses to apply as well as the tropes he chooses to employ. This enriches the whole experience. Also, unlike with Kelly Reichardt, the characters and the tropes are not just self-justifying props for a thematic agenda, though Aronofsky's own thematic agenda goes far deeper than Reichardt's wan political invocations.

What I like best here, what I love, is Aronofsky's insight into how and why Randy and Cassidy are defined by the roles they play on their very public stages. This has, of course, been remarked on ad nauseam, but I'd like to add an observation or two. First, I want to refer to Karina Longworth's comments, particularly this:
The Wrestler is about two people whose professions are in some way dependent on 80s-dated, surface oriented ideas of gender and entertainment and escape, who were left behind in a way when pop culture took a turn away from fantasy, towards something supposedly more authentic, more real. But fantasy is a tool that most of us use to deal with reality.
This is true but, like so much similar superficial criticism of Mendes' Revolutionary Road, simply does not go far enough. Because fantasy isn't just some ephemeral projection or appendage. It can be that, of course, but it can also point to deeper conceptual recognitions and available routes for personal transformation through their idealization. Compare the above comments with these from the blog Unemployed Negativity:
One of the film’s most interesting scenes follows Randy and another wrestler through one of the many ubiquitous “99 Cent Stores” that can be found throughout this country. The wrestlers scour the cornucopia of commodities searching for cheap aluminum cookie sheets and other things that they can more or less harmlessly beat each other with, drawing a connection between the devalued commodities and their own flesh.

This connection so thoroughly permeates the movie that it could be seen as a corrective to theorists who fail to see the very real and embodied nature of immaterial labor, of the service and entertainment industry. Randy and Candice/Pam, the stripper played by Marisa Tomei, have given their bodies and minds to the production of affects. (Although Randy is definitely worse for wear, but there is something oddly affecting in the scenes where he is shown getting his roots died and going to the tanning salon. The particular aesthetic of pro-wrestling, the odd combination of buff and pretty, makes Randy’s desperate attempt to hold onto his looks fundamentally ambiguous and universal. He could be seen as just an affect of a particular subculture, but there is the way in which he is the subject of a consumer society that valorizes only youth and beauty.)The conflict between these two characters, their difficult relation as stripper and client and friends, raises interesting issues about the nature of alienation in service work. Candice/Pam does not identify with her stage presence, with Candice, keeping it at a distance, preferring instead to see herself as Pam, a mother struggling to raise a boy alone. Randy cannot do this, or at least does not want to, refusing to be called anything but Randy, even at his day job. Randy has no life other than that which the ring provides, his attempts to find another job, to connect with family, all fail. Randy is Lukacs’ picture of the virtuoso, someone who in selling his or her body and soul has nothing left with which to resist. When the applause of the audience dies, when the money ceases to come in, he dies as well.
This is one of the best, most attentive readings I've seen yet. While I don't want to go all WSWS on us (unsurprisingly their painfully inattentive critic responded with indifference to the film), I will say that the idea of capitalism as a dictating contextual principle looms huge here and is the source of the film's great strength and power. Aronofsky (of all people!) does right by it as well, never over emphasizing the context as subject. Downplaying that element respects us and the characters because we shouldn't need it spelled out and the characters (specifically Randy of course) live as though it didn't matter or was not ultimately relevant. Randy exists forcefully within his realm and does not question any other surrounding assumptions. This move is far different from condescending to the characters. Aronofsky sympathizes with Randy but most emphatically does not pity him.

It's in Aronofsky's shockingly careful control of all his big moments and big feelings that something else comes clear. It's true that Randy is a product of an environment that idealized fantasy as fantasy, as only escapism, and thus degraded its value and potentiality. It's also true that he may have unwisely fused himself, all of himself, comprehensively to this projection and thus became a victim as an object of commerce. But what this misses is the fact that our grasp of these facts allows for a determination on their ultimate value and legitimacy. It allows us to consider alternate social contexts in which Randy's fusion of vulnerable human personality to idealized ego would not be understood as automatically and obviously self-destructive. And this would be because such an integration of vision would be naturalized and not merely the province of the deluded and not merely subject to the marketplace. In other words, Aronofsky is calling upon us to consider the ramifications of predominant attitudes and assumptions in our own time and culture.

Cassidy doesn't have the same kind of integration of personality and it is perhaps to the benefit of her own mental health that she does not and yet as a performance personality she is still subject to the same whims of the marketplace as Randy. And, ultimately, Aronofsky is smart enough to show us the framework his participants don't recognize for one reason or another and savvy enough to encourage us to question its seeming absolute and unyielding validity.

Needless to say, Mickey is great here, iconic even. Is it his best perf ever? Who can say? As a devoted fan I wouldn't want to have to.

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Re: The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, 2008)

#132 Post by exte » Sun Jan 18, 2009 3:25 am

They love it.

I saw this tonight and really loved it. I was grossed out by the hardcore wrestling stuff and one bit near the end was a bit cliche, but the rest of the film is really amazing. A simple story very well told. And Mickey Rourke is just plain amazing, far and above Penn. I really hope he wins.

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Re: The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, 2008)

#133 Post by LQ » Sun Jan 18, 2009 9:37 am

John, as always...excellent write-up.
...he demonstrates an understanding of the style he chooses to apply as well as the tropes he chooses to employ. This enriches the whole experience.
You stated it perfectly here. Because of this, and of course thanks to the perfect lead performances, I felt the film really transcended its conventional trappings. Just like Eastwood's handling of Gran Torino's cliches, Aronofsky infuses the tropes of The Wrestler with earnestness and meaning. Like exte, I was taken a bit aback by the gore! I guess I wasn't expecting that kind of wrestling. However, I can't understate how much I really loved this movie.

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Re: The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, 2008)

#134 Post by margot » Sun Jan 18, 2009 3:26 pm

The best part about this movie, and I'm sure it's been mentioned already in this thread, is that Randy drives a Dodge Ram.

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Re: The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, 2008)

#135 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Sun Jan 18, 2009 4:30 pm

exte wrote:They love it.
Wow, very cool. I've always been a mark for Piper (his Eastwood analogy is hilarious), when he talks in and out of the ring. It's my honest opinion if any of his passion for wrestling translated into a passion for acting he would have done a lot better than doing the hundred's of bland straight-to-video/DVD action movies he has been doing. I should add that it's really cool to see that he looks like him old self again, I remember for awhile he looked worse for wear because of the Hodgkin's lymphoma he was battling a few years ago.

Saw it, and I was most impressed with how Mickey looked in the ring. I'm sure there was a bit of trial and error during filming as far as executing the moves to Darren's expectations but the final product looked as good as it gets from someone with no prior experience in wrestling.
margot wrote:The best part about this movie, and I'm sure it's been mentioned already in this thread, is that Randy drives a Dodge Ram.
I'll go you one better (and that is pretty cool btw). I watched the end credits and there were two that stood out. The first one was that Slash played guitar for the score of the film, the second one being something along the lines of the cast and crew thanking Axl Rose (for use of "Sweet Child Of Mine"). In some perverted way, that must be the only time in the last 12 years Axl and Slash have ever said anything nice to each other.

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Re: The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, 2008)

#136 Post by tavernier » Sun Jan 18, 2009 6:18 pm

Mickey Rourke heals all rifts.

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Re: The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, 2008)

#137 Post by dx23 » Mon Jan 26, 2009 10:17 am

There is a huge rumor around the wrestling world stemming from some comments that Rourke made in a recent interview that he is going to wrestle Chris Jericho in Wrestlemania 25.

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Re: The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, 2008)

#138 Post by Forrest Taft » Mon Jan 26, 2009 1:27 pm

That "comeback" didn´t last long...

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Re: The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, 2008)

#139 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Wed Jan 28, 2009 6:04 pm

I can only see this being a bad thing if the match stinks up the place. Jericho is as good as anyone to do this because he can wrestle a broom and make it entertaining. My first thought thinking into this though was that they'd give him to The Big Show, who did the match with Floyd Mayweather, Jr. last year and a sumo wrestler at one previous to that.

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Re: The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, 2008)

#140 Post by stroszeck » Wed Jan 28, 2009 6:07 pm

....shit, and thats why that idiot Sean Penn is gonna his second oscar win for that crappy film where he plays I Am Sam as a gay man. :(

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Re: The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, 2008)

#141 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Jan 28, 2009 9:03 pm

stroszeck wrote:....shit, and thats why that idiot Sean Penn is gonna his second oscar win for that crappy film where he plays I Am Sam as a gay man. :(
...I'm speechless.

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Re: The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, 2008)

#142 Post by dx23 » Thu Jan 29, 2009 10:47 am

It seems that the Rourke-Jericho match is off according to a press release sent this morning by Rourke's publicist. I don't want Rourke to jeopardize his Oscar chances, but for some reason I wanted to see him inside the ring, especially with Jericho, who could carry him to a solid match.

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Re: The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, 2008)

#143 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Thu Jan 29, 2009 3:58 pm

The idea that it would jeopardize his chances at the Oscar makes me think that it's both entirely possible, and that it shows how pompous and narrow-minded people are in Hollywood *exits soapbox*

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Re: The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, 2008)

#144 Post by Joe Buck » Thu Jan 29, 2009 4:06 pm

stroszeck wrote:....shit, and thats why that idiot Sean Penn is gonna his second oscar win for that crappy film where he plays I Am Sam as a gay man. :(
Naw, man. He won't win. Everybody knows you never go full gay. Check it out. Dustin Hoffman, 'Tootsie,' looked gay, dressed like a woman, not gay. "Brokeback Mountain." Man to man love, yes. Bi-sexual, maybe. But they went home at night and kissed their wives and tucked in their kids. That ain't gay. Dennis as Frank Booth in "Blue Velvet". Diabolical? Yes. Homosexual? No. Penn went full gay, man. Never go full gay.

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Re: The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, 2008)

#145 Post by PerfectDepth » Thu Jan 29, 2009 4:21 pm

Joe Buck wrote:Naw, man. He won't win. Everybody knows you never go full gay. Check it out. Dustin Hoffman, 'Tootsie,' looked gay, dressed like a woman, not gay. "Brokeback Mountain." Man to man love, yes. Bi-sexual, maybe. But they went home at night and kissed their wives and tucked in their kids. That ain't gay. Dennis as Frank Booth in "Blue Velvet". Diabolical? Yes. Homosexual? No. Penn went full gay, man. Never go full gay.
I know this was a joke but what about Phillip Seymour Hoffman as Capote?

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Re: The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, 2008)

#146 Post by Joe Buck » Thu Jan 29, 2009 5:08 pm

...and Tom Hanks for Philadelphia?

Just a joke. Made no historical sense, obviously. Just fooling around.

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Re: The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, 2008)

#147 Post by AWA » Sat Jan 31, 2009 3:15 am

I just read tonight this was shot on Super16mm film and transfered to 35mm for the final edit.... now I really want to see this. Anyone have any comments on how this contributed aesthetically?

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Re: The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, 2008)

#148 Post by Fierias » Sat Jan 31, 2009 12:02 pm

it looks grainy

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Re: The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, 2008)

#149 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Sat Jan 31, 2009 12:08 pm

Is it a by-far conclusion then the Blu-Ray version will even be more grainy then? (Keep in mind, my television is still shaped like a square *woe is me*)

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Re: The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, 2008)

#150 Post by domino harvey » Sat Jan 31, 2009 4:12 pm

I saw this last night and agree that Rourke is amazing here. Watching him in the film is watching someone literally give themselves completely to a role. I've always kind of liked Rourke, but this is the film he's going to be remembered for, and it'll be a joke if he doesn't get the Oscar (though this year has already proven itself a joke, so who knows). But the film surrounds him with so many cliched characters-- like Wood's damaged daughter or Barry's shitty supervisor-- that it's surprising to learn the script came from someone who should have known better, a former editor of the Onion. But Rourke's presence is so overwhelming, and Aronofsky's direction to surprisingly tight (who knew he had it in him?) that the whole thing still works.

To me the money scene was of Rourke's first day in the deli, when he goes from barely involved to really getting into it. He's happy for the first time in the film, and surprisingly he's not bad at the job either. You can see him lying to himself that he could be happy performing for customers on a small stage, playing to the old women and lonely men who come to the counter, until of course later a fan comes along and wrecks the illusion he'd made for himself. But that brief moment of him settling was quite moving.

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