This movie seems to be on the verge of falling completely under the radar. That would be a huge fucking shame. Darren Aronofsky (Pi, Requiem For Dream, The Fountain) has created a modest masterpiece and Micky Rourke deserves an Oscar or at least a nomination for his role.
This is a deeply moving and satisfying drama about a aging pro-wrestler who is long past his time. The wrestling scenes are like something out of Rocky and the drama is ten times better.
It's hard to say too much about it ...it's just a great, character driven drama. Just see it, I promise you will not regret it for a moment.
This has been one of my most anticipated movies for the past year. I will buy the dvd for sure. Nick Cage was set to do the role, but passed it willingly on to Rourke because he was always Aronofsky's first choice. He didn't have to pass. He did it for the good of the film. Total class act.
Aronofsky is such a fantastic director. He has a great vision and is not afraid of taking chances. Actors love him too. Apparently he is very good to work with both on and off the set. Keep a lookout for The Fighter. It's set to star Marky Mark and Brad Pitt. Pitt is playing Mark Wahlberg's trainer. It keeps getting delayed, but I believe it will eventually go into production. Mark Wahlberg has stayed in peak physical condition to play the role for going on 3 years now, still waiting to actually shoot.
Last edited by Fairweather Pure on January 14, 2009, 1:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
Also, I think Micky Rourke may actually win that Oscar. I have a good feeling about it, but he has some goddamn good competition this year. Any other year and he would be a shoe in.
I saw a trailer for this and was immediately hooked. It looks like it could really be a truly fantastic film. I definitely think Aranofsky is massively over-rated, the people who tend to have hard ons for Requiem for a dream and Pi tend to have no fucking clue about cinema, although they are interesting and unique films I don't think they deserve their near deified status amongst the oiks.
Still, rant aside, this looks a little more mainstream and entertaining for once from him so I think it has the possibility of being really really good, as opposed to "quirky cool to drop on your friends for coolness rating dude."
Not sure about the Oscar talk, I'll wait until I see the film. There are an awful lot of really brilliant films coming out this year, I think 2009 is going to make 2008 look terrible (the dark knight as the best film of the year? Puh fucking lease, don't believe the hype).
Nick wrote:I definitely think Aranofsky is massively over-rated, the people who tend to have hard ons for Requiem for a dream and Pi tend to have no fucking clue about cinema, although they are interesting and unique films I don't think they deserve their near deified status amongst the oiks.
I'm interested to hear your opinion on a film that deserves "near deified status". I would also like to hear about a favorite director of yours who is around the same age/experiance level of Aranofsky that you could compare and contrast to support your opinion that he is overrated.
As for same age/etc, I didn't know we had to rate directors proportionate to their age? Since when did this have anything to do with personally liking or disliking a director? I don't dislike him, I just tend to find his films sort of peter out before the end a bit in terms of keeping me gripped.
Nick wrote:As for same age/etc, I didn't know we had to rate directors proportionate to their age? Since when did this have anything to do with personally liking or disliking a director?
Age has to do with experiance and body of work. It's more than a little unfair to compare him to a David Lynch or Scorsese (even in thier early years) because times and techniques have changed so much. However, I would consider someone like Chris Nolan a valid and justified choice to compare and contrast Aranofsky because they are so close in age and experiance. But seriously, I guess believing an actual conversation might develop by asking you an engaging question is asking way too much.
You also get to see a lot of Marissa's boobies in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead.
I can't decide if I like that one though... it was interesting, but I thought a bit thin on plot. Like someone tried to make a Cohen brothers movie but fell that bit short. Still, it's apparently the only thing the writer has got produced thus far, might be one to watch.
May 2003 - "Mission Accomplished"
June 2005 - "The mission isn't easy, and it will not be accomplished overnight"
-- G W Bush, freelance writer for The Daily Show.
For anyone who didn't like Pi or for those that haven't like Aronofsky's previous films...The Wrestler is a complete 180 from anything he's done. It is not driven by images, music and talented editing...it's driven purely by good writing, believable characters, and great acting (especially by Rourke).
P.S. I don't normally like Springsteen, but he wrote a song for this film and for his friend, Mickey Rourke. It's a good song by itself, but is perfectly crafter for this film.
One of the best dramas I have seen in years. Rourke truly deserves an Oscar. If Marissa were in the film more, I would have given her a nod as well. Simply fantastic all around.
After watching this I kind of sat here thinking, "Huh.." I'm not quite sure how I feel about it, though the acting was great, Rourke did a fantastic job (though it's probably much easier to play a down & out used up wrestler when you're a down & out used up actor) but I thought Marissa was lackluster. I guess I just didn't care for seeing her look like trailer trash, but it's as it should have been in this movie. The feeling after watching this was similar to Hotel Rwanda for me in that it's just a depressing movie with no happy ending. It did seem to drag on several times as well.
All in all I'd rate it a 7.5/10 but I'm not sure I'd recommend it to anyone.
Ultimately, this film is undeniably incredible. But that's pretty entirely down to Mickey Rourke's performance. How he didn't get the Oscar is a mystery to me (although I haven't seen Milk, going to watch it tomorrow - so maybe that will make more sense then )
Also, Marissa Tomei? Or whatever her name is - jesus she is so hot.
