Director: Darren Aronofsky (Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain)
Writer: Robert D. Siegel
Producers: Darren Aronofsky, Scott Franklin
Starring: Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood
MPAA Rating: R
Running time: 109 min
The prints of Darren Aronofsky’s new film, The Wrestler, have barely dried (or what is the digital equivalent?) and already it has won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival and is on its way, possibly, to the Peoples Choice Award at Toronto. After the emotional and visual epic of The Fountain, the director has scaled the scope of his new film down to about as intimate as one can get (this sentence is amusing in and of itself considering the subject matter is Pro Wrestling). There are essentially three characters in the film, the stylistic tics are kept to a subtle minimum and the actors are simply allowed to perform. At the packed pubic afternoon screening in Toronto, Aronofsky, who was on hand to introduce the film, kept the words to a minimum saying simply all one needs to make a good film is a lens and good performers and that is what he has done here, due largely to a career high from Mickey Rourke. Rourke himself has seen enough trials and tribulations over his acting/boxing career that much of the weathering is quite naturally etched on his face and skin. Fulfilling the promise of his work in the 1980s (Johnny Handsome, Barfly) that was squandered with personal problems and junk-cinema starting with Wild Orchid and throughout the 1990s. While he made a fair bit of a splash covered in make-up and acting against digital backdrops in the testosterone-noir of Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City (and for that matter, shines amongst the equally bombastic Domino), here he is given a role that allows for a gamut of emotions in a rich, patient bit of intimate storytelling. The actor has never shone brighter than here. But The Wrestler is no ‘comeback’ 
sports story. Rourke’s take on the public and private life of a (fictional) professional wrestler, 20 years past his prime yet still grinding it out in gutter venues, despite the protestation of an aging body, is a warm, generous, and sad portrayal. Likewise, Marissa Tomei, in a rich supporting role, continues to prove that she is one of the most talented actresses working today. Going as the stripper with the heart of gold is about as rote and cliché as one can get, but Tomei realizes her character as a full fleshed role, all the while being mostly naked up on screen. Yes, The Wrestler deserves every bit of praise it is garnering. Those worried that The Fountain (despite its cult audience) may have been a career killer, worry no more.
The Wrestler poses one of the most fundamental questions: what do you do when your entire purpose of being has been stripped away? Will you keep on keeping on even though it is now the mere shadow of past glories even if continuing is painful, potentially humiliating, and likely fatal? What is the cost of comforting over the difficult struggle into unknown territory? The story follows Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson, who, back in the 1980s wrestling boom, was one of the biggest names in the business. Headlining massive stadium shows, Nintendo wrestling games designed on him, and all the fan worship he could handle (note to fans of great opening credit sequences, the information and mood are elegantly set in a scrapbook fashion here). But bad choices and tough breaks (perhaps the nature of the business, chewing up and spitting out the athletes while the money flows to the suits) and the inexorable passage of time has left him living in a hovel of a trailer park (where even still he has trouble making rent), wrestling on the lowest of professional circuits for pennies, and having work a day job stocking shelves during the week. Along the way he has a daughter, one he has neglected over the years (the mother is never mentioned). While he neglects his life, he is actually quite disciplined about his profession, even practicing it at the bottom of the food chain, a day in the life showing him making visits to his steroid and pharmaceutical provider, a trip to the hair dresser for blond highlights, an hour on the tanning bed and a solid gym work out. All this attention to the body, which then gets put through the meat grinder during the bloody matches in the ring where broken glass, razor wire, and other blunt paraphernalia are then used to smash and abuse the same flesh to appease the bloodlust of a hardcore crowd. His evenings are spent in bars and strip clubs where he has an almost-relationship with one of the long-time strippers, Cassidy (aka Pam) her own struggle with age impinging on the practice of her trade, she is old enough to be sent out of the VIP room by a horny bachelor party that is looking for someone younger. Much like The Ram, she seems to be more or less holding up, but her ‘glory days’ are well past her.
After a serious medical issue, the doctors are pretty explicit with him that his wrestling career is over. The Ram’s struggle to adjust to real life is the center of the film. A day job at (of all things) a meat counter, reconnecting with his 20 something daughter. Scenes spent first shopping for a gift for his daughter with Pam and later a pleasant afternoon with said daughter is the stuff of great emotional cinema. But despite being a pretty likable guy (he’s great with the kiddies), Robin Robinson (his real name), who even manages to excel in customer service at the meat counter, there is a lot of baggage that makes the shift to the real world a very difficult one. You can’t help but shed a tear for this guys problems, as the film really doesn’t dwell on Robinson’s ‘asshole’ years. An easy way out? Perhaps, but the rest of the story does speak for itself quite well. Finally a movie that knows the exact right place to end without glad-handling its audience with unnecessary extended endings. The film itself is a denouement to a story of universal resonance.
It was nice to see, like the director is telling a smaller story, that his regular composer, Clint Mansell has scored the film in an equally subdued manner. Most cinema goers are familiar to the point of irritation with his Requiem for a Dream score, which despite being a marvel of modulated assault (much like the film for which it provides the soundtrack) seems to be the muzak for every other science fiction and action film that has came afterwards. His Fountain score is equally operatic, but here he lets 80s stadium rock (as easy to please and skin deep as Pro Wrestling) do most of the musical heavy lifting. The film is even dedicated, of all people, to Axl Rose.
The Wrestler is built kind of like the sport that it is set in. The story is familiar, a bit shop-worn, even contrived, and perhaps a bit faked. While things are playing out on screen, it archives a genuine emotional workout: the best kind of cinematic magic. The film is a weepy and a crowd- pleaser in the best sense of both of those terms. It is a a solid and accomplished work which shows a talented filmmaker at the pinnacle of his career. While it may or may not do any favours to legitimize the modern cartoon that is WWE, it is a strangely positive love-letter to the sport (witness the charming ’shop talk’ in the Wrestlers greenroom) and those who grind themselves away practitioning it
MORE IMAGES:
I saw the guy he fights in the hardcore match (staples) at an indie show in Scarborough back in July. His ring name is Necro Butcher and even though it wasn’t his match, he shredded himself up pretty bad. It was for the same promotion, ROH, that is doing the show at the end of the Wrestler. not a huge crowd but much bigger than any you see in the movie. We’re talking local hockey arena packed to capacity.
I grew up with wrestling. Since I don’t have cable and since its nothing like it used to be I don’t follow it much anymore other than to occasionally check in with it/results the way people check in with their soap operas after they’ve stopped watching them.
So I know enough to be able to know all the inside phrases in this movie, all the people Ram is based off of and specifically what parts, what is actually unrealistic about this movie, and who some of the people in the background are.
Examples:
- Ram wouldn’t only be in that Nintendo game. He’d whether he wants it or not likely have his character in a ‘legends of wrestling’ PS2 or XBOX game fighting other famous retro wrestlers. Retro figures also outsell modern figures. ANd i dont mean old ones off ebay, i mean they’re actively making them now.
- if Ram was that huge of a star, unless he severely burned his bridges he wouldnt have to be just a broken down piece of meat. He could easily have a wrestling school, become a ‘commissioner’ or announcer figure in any of the big leagues, a talent agent or a trainer.
- Ram’s family issues are mostly based off of Jake the Snake Roberts, and Jake’s failure to capitalize off those things listed above are probably why its still believable in the face of opportunities for washed up stars. The heart condition is clearly a reference to Bret Hart. The damage done to his body through those extreme matches are clearly based off of Mick Foley, whose own autobiography is probably the only wrestling book worth reading and whose life story would actually make a good movie on its own.
A lot of press compares his superstardom to Hulk Hogan, but his failure to capitalize off of anything is more a reference to someone like Randy Macho Man Savage, Scott Hall or Kevin Nash, who have major personal issues or injuries but still are out there thinking they can make it back to the top.
btw, has anyone seen Rourke lately promoting this thing?
He looks kind of fucked up. it would be hard to picture him on stage accepting an award looking like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_eJ870SHgg
that weird hair, that weird facial hair, those clothes. its like he’s doing a bad Johnny Depp impression.
“a bad Johnny Depp impression.” lol – that’s pretty funny, because that’s what it looks like.
I just realized I hate these talk show interviews. They are so boring. I don’t give a shit about his dogs. Does anyone actually sit through this and find it compelling, interesting stuff? I always get excited when I hear this star or that star is going to be on Conan or Leno or whatever. Then I tune in, see what they look like and what they’re wearing, then I’m bored almost instantly. I wish they would discuss philosophy or how a barometer works or something. Because this stuff is brutal with a capital B. I saw Goldblum the other night and it was the same thing. I love Goldblum, haven’t seen him for a while, I was interested to find out what he’s been up to and they talked about his fucking glasses for ten minutes. Yaaawn.
I mean Jesus; even some typical bullshit questions would be more intriguing than this: What was it like working with Aronofsky? Is Tomei as hot in person? Was that your real hair? Shit like that would be better than this. Gah.
/ irrelevant rant
Just saw The Wrestler over the weekend, and I’m still processing my thoughts on.
Goon brings up an interesting point about that the character could have done something else within the wrestling world as an opportunity. I keep bouncing back and forth on whether or not I would have believed that. I think there are enough hints dropped throughout the film to guide you to the reasoning that he either wouldn’t have been able to do that (i.e. wasn’t that bright) or didn’t want to.
Still thinking on it though.
Mick Foley reviewed THE WRESTLER for slate:
http://www.slate.com/id/2207076/
As a palette cleanser to the Letterman puff piece, here is that really great interview with Rourke:
http://www.rowthree.com/2008/11/18/must-watch-mickey-rourke-video-interview/
Actually the 2nd half of the letterman interview is pretty good: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czC3rK0zgWA&feature=related
That this is an Aronofsky film makes me like Aronofsky even more. I like Pi, Requiem and Fountain alright, but I never loved them like everyone else. But the fact that he’s gone back and done something a little bit more raw and realistic gets me excited about this guy.
I like that he did something sort of high concept and dare I say “glitzy” with The Fountain and then immediately following that goes ahead with something like The Wrestler, that almost feels like it was directed by someone like Ryan Fleck (Half Nelson) or Jonathan Demme (Rachel getting Married).
If this had been his first film, I think I might’ve been less impressed in some ways. Because of Fountain and RfaDream, this movie “feels” more. It has heart and I kind of think Aronofsky really cared about and really wanted to make this. Not that the others didn’t have heart or that he didn’t care, it’s just that because he isn’t interested in making a huge concept film with SFX and hoopla, he made a little movie that feels indie and special. And it is special.
I really really disliked The Wrestler. Utterly contrived and so many of the emotional payoffs to the various storylines were lazily written and totally unearned. The entire thing felt like a simplistic paint by numbers account of wrestling that was surprisingly flat and uneventful and with plot holes you could drive a truck through.
Aronofsky is quickly climbing my list as most overrated director.
You’re an asshole. The emotional “payoffs” as you call them worked really well I thought. Maybe they were lazily written, but the way the actors pull them off makes it work like solid gold. Even Evan Rachel Wood was decent here.
I loved the scene in the deli where Ram finally starts to realize he kind of like working with customers. You can tell that though life has shit on him, he still likes and cares about people and is one of the friendliest guys you’ll ever meet. I love how he calls all of the customers “darlin’, champ, shooter, brother, spring chicken,” etc.
I thought overall it was fairly realistic. Then again, I know nothing about the world of wrestling (and to be honest, don’t really care). Like some of the points Goon brings up didn’t even cross my mind while watching the film. In hindsight maybe it doesn’t work so well. But straying from the overly-analytical, I thought the story was nice. And again, I like the “indie” feel to the whole thing.
The Evan Rachel Woods scenes were a fucking joke. Three scenes. She hates him. She loves him. She hates him. The end. I’ve seen Saved By the Bell episodes with more depth and emotional investment.
(Remember the one when the Zac Attack discover oil on the football field and the developers come in and promise everyone three wishes and then somehow spill oil everywhere and kill Spano’s pet chicken or some shit? Yeah, that one!)
The scenes with Rourke and Tomei reflecting on their miserable lives was laughably bad as well. Aronofsky might as well have slapped everyone in the face with a fish labelled “Ennui”, it would have been far more subtle.
At this point I am labelling anyone who likes The Wrestler as a mouthbreather.
Oh, I believe that the picture brings out a lot of the ‘old tropes and fakery’ That is where things get kinda meta. You know the whole thing is contrived, but its spell works completely in the moment, kinda like Wrestling in general…That is the Coup de grâce of the film, its entire execution is a strange bit o’ meta. (And Yes, the film geek in me gets off on this sort of thing…)
Considering you’re also the same person who boycotted James Bond because your arthouse theater ran it, it’s just another on the pile of unreasonable conclusions. Mouthbreather?
And I actually think Aronofsky has to date been overrated. The Wrestler is probably my no. 1 of 2008 and I still don’t think he’s as good as people say he is.
“She hates him. She loves him. She hates him. The end.”
I’ve known enough people, including my own half-brother, who have gone through this sort of thing with friends and relatives, who could have their complex issues broken down into such crass terms. I could go into detail but if they somehow ever read this thread I’d be disowned for even going there.
So..
“You’re an asshole”
Quoted for truth
Your complaints about Tomei and Rourke’s reminiscing ooze out a pretty repulsive smugness far beyond Henrik’s levels of condescending asscockery.
Go watch “Beyond the Mat” and dare again say this is ‘utterly contrived’ – even with the list of things Mick Foley and I are able to poke at, its more realistic and natural than almost anything I can name. There’s no forced irony, there are no absurd twists or tacked on appendages to Ram’s crisis – every single problem he encounters in this film is something that either I have experienced, someone I know has experienced/still experiences, and absolutely what not only what a washed up pro wrestler experiences, but what successful and young up-and-coming wrestlers often experience as well.
If you think anything is contrived, well if you want to throw ‘mouthbreather’ around, all i can say is you’ve made a failure to empathize with the obvious.
You troglodyte
Let the record show I’m kidding on the square.
Yeah, boycotting a film that did less then $5000 on opening weekend (for comparisons sake Slumdog did over $40K) at the theater by claiming it was a poor business decision by the company I work for. Yup, I totally was wrong about that. Oh wait …
I’ve known enough people, including my own half-brother, who have gone through this sort of thing with friends and relatives, who could have their complex issues broken down into such crass terms.
So have I (evidently Goon thinks everyone but yourself lives in a plastic bubble with Jake Gylenhall and John Travolta), and I’ve never seen such a thing boiled down to such simplistic terms. It might as well have been an after school special. It was horseshit writing further demonstrated by the completely pointless exposition that she is a lesbian. Where did that plot line go? Oh that’s right, nowhere. Because once again it was shitty writing and a clear example of useless bloat. But I guess complaining about truly horrible writing, character development and the lack of a reasonably believable plot makes me the crass one.
Go watch “Beyond the Mat” and dare again say this is ‘utterly contrived’ – even with the list of things Mick Foley and I are able to poke at, its more realistic and natural than almost anything I can name.
Seen it. Been a wrestling mark before you were even a gleam in your father’s sperm count. Also saw the film with a former member of The Killer Bee’s (I rule). Is the film accurate? Not really, but close enough that the masses will slurp it up because The Village Voice says so. Go them. Do I need to watch Showgirls to comment on how stupid Marisa Tomei’s character is (She has been dancing over 25 years in some tiny pissant town and now, conveniently, she finally realizes she’s been dancing for over 25 years in some tiny pissant town. Oh, and that she’s old.)?
Oh, I believe that the picture brings out a lot of the ‘old tropes and fakery’ That is where things get kinda meta. You know the whole thing is contrived, but its spell works completely in the moment, kinda like Wrestling in general
Or kinda like movies in general. I do believe this is the exact same argument you rejected when used in conjunction with Iron Man, jerk.
Let the record show I’m kidding on the square.
Let the record show that comparing me to Henrik automatically costs you the argument. He is the cinematic criticism equivalent of Hitler.
PS – You are all sheep. SHEEP!
You smell like pee and poo.
“He is the cinematic criticism equivalent of Hitler.”
I do like this idea of turning comparison towards Henrik into a R3 version of Godwin’s Law. That’s one hell of a legacy.
“Yup, I totally was wrong about that. Oh wait”
It doesnt matter if its Bond, Benjamin Button or Backdoor Sluts 9, I thought your boycott was like those kids who boycotted Superhero Movie to make a statement about Fanboys, kind of an empty jesture, a lot of bluster over something the ‘victim’ film isn’t responsible for that these people didn’t care if they missed anyways. Silly and irrational.
“I’ve never seen such a thing boiled down to such simplistic terms.”
Do you hate Rocky?
“..further demonstrated by the completely pointless exposition that she is a lesbian. Where did that plot line go? Oh that’s right, nowhere.”
how come whenever someone is gay in a movie I hear this shit like it’s supposed to go somewhere or mean something? her girlfriend was also black, should we complain that the interracial relationship doesn’t go anywhere? It isn’t okay for it to just be? A character can’t be gay without requiring some explanation?
And this is your go-to example?
“the lack of a reasonably believable plot”
How is it lacking believability? As if there are no wrestlers that keep working despite medical concerns and recommendations to quit *cough Kurt Angle cough Terry Funk cough* ? And plot isn’t even what makes this movie particularly great – We simply see how Ram functions as a washed up star, and how he functions as ‘retired’ – how it turns out positive until his past and ego crosses over into his new life. His new life is kind of like a rehab, and he relapses.
“because the Village Voice says so”
I didn’t know the Village Voice had sway over 98% of critics and the 53% of IMDB voters who gave it a ten. Not trying to play the ‘popular = good’ card, but that line is lame the same way the “You only like Obama because the media wants him to win!” line is lame.
“She has been dancing over 25 years in some tiny pissant town and now, conveniently, she finally realizes she’s been dancing for over 25 years in some tiny pissant town. Oh, and that she’s old.”
How is this unbelievable exactly? Old strippers are all over the place. Her daughter is 9, reaching the age where they might start figuring shit out. Seems like a pretty realistic time to get yourself off the pole to me. Also considering her realization of moving on ties in to Ram’s retirement, that she’s taking cues from him…
“Been a wrestling mark before you were even a gleam in your father’s sperm count.”
Good chance I’m older than you, so you may be wrong about yet another thing
tying in Saved by the Bell and wrestling, my fridge adorns a photo of me with Screech side by side my roommate getting hit over the head with a chair by King Kong Bundy.
A list of films where the criticism of bad or uninspired writing could be made, but which despite this, are great films:
Gerry
Last Days
Elephant
Paranoid Park
L’Enfant
Passion de Jeanne D’Arc
400 Blows
Silent Light
Aquirre Wrath of God
Chungking Express
In all these cases characters do not express themselves through cunning writing, they express themselves by their auras, by their physical presence, and Aronofsky appreciated in the Wrestler that the story was not the point, much like most good art films, its about tapping into the tacit dimension of the experience. Savoring the thousand little wounds on Mickey Rourke’s face when he says he is a broken down piece of meat its not about good writing, he EMBODIES that sentiment. The same way Faye Wong EMBODIES the love interest in Chungking by her performance, the same way Falconetti EMBODIES spiritual ecstasy… Christ not everything has to work through the medium of words, through clever devices, through craft… great stuff can come out of embracing the accidental, embracing the tacit dimension of performances, of impromptu situations, of getting to the ‘story’ through feeling it out.
The Wrestler is a tragic story that if it was a cartoon would not work… it works because it is lived-in, its performance art.
Iron Man has no tacit dimension, the film is a series of deliberately arranged storyboards that aspires for superficiality and achieves it. It has nothing to express, nothing to say. One does not need to attack fanboys to show that, its right there in the material.
The Wrestler is an open circuit requiring the viewer to invest their emotional experience into the situations and inhabit its contexts; Iron Man is a closed circuit that sits before you pre-made and considered and wants nothing from you but a pair of eyes, you don’t even need a brain because it has worked out a formula for you so that you already know the beats of every scene, just watch the purty colours.
Wow. Unbelievably well said sir!
Fatality
in addition to rot’s list, I suppose I would add Once, Rescue Dawn and Dancer in the Dark.
I’ll join in on the discussion and elaborate when I have more time, but this was one hell of an awesome movie.
“Savoring the thousand little wounds on Mickey Rourke’s face when he says he is a broken down piece of meat its not about good writing, he EMBODIES that sentiment. The same way Faye Wong EMBODIES the love interest in Chungking by her performance, the same way Falconetti EMBODIES spiritual ecstasy…”
I fucking totally agree. I just saw The Wrestler and thought it was pretty great, but all of the shit that stands out as obnoxious or horrible (ie. first daughter scene, or the more dramatic elements of it having to a stripper and a lesbian which feels contrived) is completely insubstantial when talking about the movie, Mickey Rourke is so convincing all the way through. It is the personification of what the movie is about, so even when they have shit like talking about the passion of the christ, it’s extraordinary. Goon, Mickey Rourke in this is what could have made There Will Be Blood extraordinary, this is what it is supposed to be, this is some of the best I have ever seen. He is The Wrestler, the character, the ideal, the idea, the myth, the movie. PRAISE PRAISE PRAISE.
I don’t care for the namecalling though, why do I have to be dragged into something like this and only learn of it when I join in innocently, to add to the discussion? Not cool. Please stop.
God grief, perhaps you guys should trying arguing against my actual point instead of what you perceive it to be.
Savoring the thousand little wounds on Mickey Rourke’s face when he says he is a broken down piece of meat its not about good writing, he EMBODIES that sentiment.
Have I complained about Rourke’s performance or his embodiment of the character? Nope. Point of fact I think Rourke is deserving of all the accolades he has been given for his performance. But a great performance does not make a great movie. Perhaps you can’t see that though. Oooooh.
Christ not everything has to work through the medium of words, through clever devices, through craft… great stuff can come out of embracing the accidental, embracing the tacit dimension of performances, of impromptu situations, of getting to the ’story’ through feeling it out.
Never said everything had to, only that for The Wrestler the frame work of the story is unbelievable, cliche ridden and overly weak. None of the characters carry any of the emotional impact Ram does, thus it creates a lopsidded and one dimensional film.
The Wrestler is a tragic story that if it was a cartoon would not work… it works because it is lived-in, its performance art.
Try and say this with a straight face after you watch Waltz with Bashir.
The Wrestler is an open circuit requiring the viewer to invest their emotional experience into the situations and inhabit its contexts; Iron Man is a closed circuit that sits before you pre-made and considered and wants nothing from you but a pair of eyes, you don’t even need a brain because it has worked out a formula for you so that you already know the beats of every scene, just watch the purty colours.
I’d argue The Wrestler requires no emotional investment either. It trots out blatantly manipulative characters and storylines, continually manipulating the situations to bring about the greatest amount of emotional reaction for the least amount of investment. Their is nothing challenging about the characters whatsoever. They are likeable, and their failures are not their fault, so you have no recourse but to feel sorry for them. Counter this to something like The Woodsmen, which involves tragic characters that may or ma not be truly evil, and it is clear that The Wrestler is easily digestable fodder for the masses and far from any sort of emotional or engaging work of art.
Using The Woodsmen even further, take the two main actors from the film. The Wrestler is wholly dependent on Rourke looking the part to creat faux attachment with the audience while Kevin Bacon is truly creating a unique and individual character that the audience can’t understand or engage with in the slightest. It is easy for people to like the Ram, but incredibly hard for people to emotionally connect with a pedophile, yet The Woodsmen is more then capable of pulling off such a connection, creating complex feelings and a relationship of amazing depth with its audience. The Wrestler? It’s melodrama of the junk food variety. Easily made, packaged and digested.
You want fries with that?
It’s not an intellectual movie Matt, you are right about that. It is emotion. It is not thoughts, it is sensations. Easily accesible, yet extraordinarily complex, if you are interested in yourself at all. Maybe you just know yourself too well Matt, or maybe you’re just not very tolerant when it comes to art.
The Wrestler is as banal and simple as a cock going into a vagina. It’s the sensation that counts.
“The frame work of the story is unbelievable”
You go girl, keep on repeating this in the face of example after example of it already having had happened in real life. For a wrestling mark you sure don’t show it.
“They are likeable, and their failures are not their fault”
Bull. fucking. Shit. If you think their failures aren’t their fault, the decision to forgive them was your doing. If there is any sympathy towards these characters, it is because their performances ooze their lifetime of regret.
Matt, your post read like nothing else but squirming your way through a terrible argument. But between the existing posts castrating your Soylent Green Is People rampage, and now that Henrik has joined the fray, I can sit back and eat popcorn, watching you explode.
Please keep on ranting, because at this point your posts are almost as funny as the deli scene. If this were a cartoon there’d be a screw and a baseball in front of your face.
“He is The Wrestler, the character, the ideal, the idea, the myth, the movie. PRAISE PRAISE PRAISE”
Daniel Day Lewis is The Oilman, the character, the ideal, the idea, the myth, the movie. PRAISE PRAISE PRAISE.
I’ve already explained why several times. Go back to those threads if you’ve already forgotten.
Actually maybe I should see There Will Be Blood again. It would be interesting to imagine it had it been called The Oilman and seing how the idea holds up. I still think I would be bothered by the performance though, Mickey Rourke embodies the qualities, he doesn’t act them out.
I actually like the comparison to There Will Be Blood. Though I would argue that TWBB’s epic scale allows for a lot for subtlety and complexity which is why that film is more then just a mere performance. Add an hour onto The Wrestler to flesh out the other characters and create a better storyline and I bet I would have enjoyed myself a lot more.
The other film TW reminds me of is JCVD, what with the down on their luck “characters” that are reflecting the woes of their true life counterparts. But JCVD does a better job of introducing more then a simple one note style and plays on genre conventions. It’s even more “meta” then The Wrestler, which is evidently all Kurt goes on nowadays.
It is a simple story, but presented in a far more complex way. There is more too it then just a great performance by its lead actor. That makes for a more enjoyable and better film IMO.
Actually a better formulation would be that Mickey Rourke is The Wrestler and Daniel Day-Lewis performs The Oilman. But meh, enough about There Will Be Blood!
Okay I bite, because its too easy:
“The Wrestler is wholly dependent on Rourke looking the part to creat faux attachment with the audience while Kevin Bacon is truly creating a unique and individual character that the audience can’t understand or engage with in the slightest. It is easy for people to like the Ram, but incredibly hard for people to emotionally connect with a pedophile”
Apples and oranges, attacking a likeable character for being likeable, for not having ridiculous additions to the script to overcome to earn likebility? What was supposed to be here to add that level and still be believable, which you also are complaining about?
Looking the part creates faux attachment? Wholly dependent? How about being sweet, hilarious, dumb, disturbed, sorrowful, a fuckup without any good excuse. and having every one of these things being entirely present at once? You root for him when he’s earnestly working to fix things, you shudder when he makes the stupid decisions he naturally makes. I bet you could make Harvey Keitel look the part of a Malenko-ish retired scrapper wrestler, it doesn’t mean that alone could create what Rourke did.
We watch this character lust after strippers, barge in and beat people up where his help isn’t asked, destroy other people’s property, do blow, bang random chicks, buy drugs, abandon his daughter, disrespect his body, and you act like he’s being presented as a saint, that there was nothing for him to have to fight to win the audiences affection. If this was a Noah Baumbach movie I highly doubt we’d end up with a character or performance that could connect like this, who wouldn’t look like a cynical portrayal of this world. Or is that what you’re asking for?
I guess I have to keep asking all these questions, because again – you’re not making much sense, and if you have a real argument in your head, you’re certainly not presenting it the way you think you are.
“JCVD does a better job of introducing more then a simple one note style and plays on genre conventions. It’s even more “meta” then The Wrestler”
There is absolutely no good reason for The Wrestler to have a more complex style, play on genre conventions, or be meta. And now you’ve resorted to reviewing based on what you want rather than what it is.
“You root for him when he’s earnestly working to fix things, you shudder when he makes the stupid decisions he naturally makes.”
There was a point in the movie where I thought all his fixing stuff was a little obvious and boring, but during the last bit, I was emotionally engaged the way the movie wanted me to be, I felt exactly what they wanted me to feel, which rarely happens for me. I hoped! That very end of the ending is absolutely extraordinary though, I would say perfect.
I pretty much consider Mickey Rourke and Bruce Springsteen in The Wrestler Americas apology for all the shit they throw out. And what do you know, since Wrestling is non-existent here, this movie has NO RELEASE DATE. NONE in Danmark at all. Great job!
And I don’t mean it to start shit, I say it so that everytime I go off on another rant about the cesspool of american cinema that is ruining my life, you can point to The Wrestler and shake your head.
“And what do you know, since Wrestling is non-existent here, this movie has NO RELEASE DATE.”
It’s currently only playing in a few theaters in only so many cities, its not a wide release. When it hits multiplexes (ha. wrestling. “Plex”), unless it picks up a bunch of Oscar nods, it probably wouldn’t last there more than a couple weeks. And that is something you can tsk the average moviegoer about, American or otherwise if and when it happens.
if i wanted to provoke though I’d say “It’s not playing in Denmark not because there isn’t wrestling, but because you people don’t care about great film”
Not that I believe it, but it would be a nice needle.
You go girl, keep on repeating this in the face of example after example of it already having had happened in real life. For a wrestling mark you sure don’t show it.
Which example is The Wrestler emulating? Jake the Snake, the crack whore? Nope, no drug use there by The Ram. He certauinly wasn’t doing crack and running tricks out of his trailer. In fact, The Wrestler went out of its way to demonstrate that Ram avoiding illicit drugs. Hell, they avoided illicit drug use almost entirely, when you should know it runs rampant in wrestling. Nope, just a quick mention during one scene and that was it, yet again glossing over a detail that might actually add depth, complexity and realism to the film.
Hulk Hogan, who the film is clearly modelled after yet you keep denying it? He only made millions acting in television and movies all while he kept wrestling. McMahon may be a douche, but he doesn’t drop a product that he can still sell.
Seriously, name off a totally drug free superstar wrestler with no health problems and a good repoir with his fellow workers that can’t get some sort of a job in wrestling and I’ll go back on my statement.
Bull. fucking. Shit. If you think their failures aren’t their fault, the decision to forgive them was your doing. If there is any sympathy towards these characters, it is because their performances ooze their lifetime of regret.
Did you even watch the movie? Everything they do is candy coated to lessen the poor choices they make so that the audience will continue to empathize with them. The whole daughter sequence is utterly painful in its obvious machinations. He oversleeps and his daughter is angry and oh poor Ram, you are trying so hard but just can’t pull it off. Keep trying buddy. One day things will finally work out and you’ll be adored again and your daughter will love you. God forbid the film actually depict him as the dick he must truly be, but then that probably won’t win Oscar votes.
Matt, your post read like nothing else but squirming your way through a terrible argument.
You’re the one putting Dancer in the Dark on a pedestal Goon. A more terrible argument for your viewpoint I can’t imagine.
Not sure if you saw the movie Matt, because there is a specific scene where Randy indulges in hardcore drugs, which is directly related to him missing the daughterdate. Not that that is very complex, but all of this machinery talk, convincing of depth is pathetic, because it’s all in the face. It’s all there in the person on the screen.
There is absolutely no good reason for The Wrestler to have a more complex style, play on genre conventions, or be meta. And now you’ve resorted to reviewing based on what you want rather than what it is.
Kurt is the one claiming The Wrestler is meta Goon, perhaps you should take that up with him. I’m reviewing on what will make it a better film by directly comparing it to a similar film and pointing out where it is inferior, and thus, less interesting/complex/challenging/engaging/enjoyable/insert your metaphor here. I do that for your sake to understand why I was underwhelmed by the film, simply because you are intractable in your stance that it is perfect. It wasn’t, and your inability to recognize that only reflects poorly on your competency at reviewing.
/heel turn
“Nope, no drug use there by The Ram. ”
“God forbid the film actually depict him as the dick he must truly be”
Bam, you lose. Can’t even remember the drug use and rat-banging, something so significant that helps cause the entire downfall of his character’s progress at the end. I believe the kids like to call that “Epic Fail”. Only a piss break could save you now.
“Seriously, name off a totally drug free superstar wrestler with no health problems and a good repoir with his fellow workers that can’t get some sort of a job in wrestling and I’ll go back on my statement.”
Drug problems, both with steroids – which doesn’t help you anymore – and with coke, shown on screen. Obvious health problems. Good rapport can only get so far, it doesn’t generate buy rates. Just because he was a big star and was battling an Arabic stereotype doesn’t make him Hogan. Hogan built a family and kept a marketing machine around him from his charisma. Ric Flair is one of wrestlings biggest stars of all time, and while he can keep a job when he needs it, he’s just barely out of the poorhouse. Except for the fact that Warrior is a nutjob, here you have one of the biggest wrestling stars of all time who is living an absolutely pathetic existence.
The assumption of Hogan is yours, and entirely your fault. The federation in the Wrestler is entirely fictional with absolutely no reference of his true level of stardom outside of the introductory wrestling magazines. For all you know the fed he was in was considerable to WCW or the NWA. After all, it took that long to get recognized in a deli. While most wrestlers still have something that could keep them employed past their due date at least as an agent, it is completely plausible that you can make so many wrong decisions to end up there. Ram isn’t one person, he’s a readers digest of so many wrestlers who have gone wrong. If it wasn’t so, Foley and Piper and every wrestler and reporter like Meltzer brought to tears by this would be crying fraud instead of flat out crying.
You have even less of a leg to stand on than Mad Dog Vachon.
“simply because you are intractable in your stance that it is perfect.”
I guess you didn’t read the thread earlier where I was nitpicking.
Bob Backlund held the WWF title for 5 years, whose last appearance was a couple-minute-long battle royal where he was tossed out by Skinner.
So again, top-level-star doesn’t equal shit. There’s way too many falls from stardom to piece together into The Ram.
I have been away and not going to be able to catch up properly with this discussion but I did want to say that, Matt, I just caught Waltz with Bashir, and it was fucking awesome. But I never said all cases, if made animated, wouldn’t work, I was saying The Wrestler, if animated wouldn’t work, because the whole point is the performance art of the film… and by that I do not mean ACTING… something that was confused in your response, and something I thought I made clear by capitalizing EMBODIES, but it is about human beings onscreen embodying sentiments, something distinct from acting out sentiments. Meryl Streep will almost always be Meryl Streep being Meryl Streep playing a character and be admired for her acting, and that is fine. I am not saying Mickey Rourke deserves an Oscar for his performance, its the accidental or incidentals to him being onscreen in this film that makes the film, that gives it its life. Here actor and role merge into one, it becomes meta but more than meta because it is not done to be ironic, its done because they fit perfectly, they co-mingle and become one vision of a wasted life… its not how well Mickey said his lines, its his aura, an aura you grasp or you don’t. You engage with the film in this subtext, this tacit dimension, or you don’t. But it is wholly in that realm, and this is why I said if animated the whole essence of the film would be gone. This is not the case with every story, and clearly Waltz with Bashir shows this. But The Wrestler is entirely one designed that way. Aronofsky said so much in his introduction to the film at TIFF, that all he required was a camera and Mickey Rourke’s face, and he had his movie. Its nothing new, its called an art film.
there is more than one way to tell a cliched story, some quite excellent.
I just spent a couple days at a family members house and watched Iron Man, Hulk, Hellboy 2, and a bit of Casino Royale. That was painful, that had nothing to offer, that is not just mindless fun, I truly believe it depreciates one as it is viewed, it takes a bit of your soul every time. Defenders of these films, these defenders of mediocrity, I do not understand them. I question the kind of person you must be, the indifference you have to existence, to not only watch these films voluntarily but defend them as if they were something of significance. To wallow in explosions and cool CGI, to think that there is something of value in mindless entertainment. I should so valiantly defend masturbating, eating junk food and passing out on the sofa, or graduating to a new hole in my belt. I just do not get this celebration for things that give you nothing but a distraction, nothing but two hours of your life bemused, as if our modern middle class lives are not full of bemusement, not full of flashing lights and gadgets and quick fixes. We are drowning in mediocrity, in empty pleasures. Maybe it is an age thing, certainly children like things bright and colourful and inconsequential. I’m 32, and I have grown out of wanting to be distracted all the time, I have grown out of most addictions, I have an interest in experiencing things that could qualitatively change my outlook, could make me sap the marrow from my bones, rather than die a fat blob on a hovering chair laughing at shit that was old three centuries ago. This redneck lowest common denominator aspiration needs to stop, we are addicts with needles in our veins telling each how good our shit is. It ain’t good.
sorry, had to get that out of my system.
there is a specific scene where Randy indulges in hardcore drugs, which is directly related to him missing the daughterdate.
But that kind of makes my point, it was recreational use. The movie avoided depicting him as a hardcore user or an addict, which would have made a lot more sense contextually and would afforded the opportunity to create a character that was more complicated and more difficult for the audience to empathize with. Trying to make the Ram a sympathetic drug addict could have made for a very interesting film, but knowing Aronofski that would have meant he would have been talking to his fridge or getting butt fucked by a black man. Meh.
My biggest complaint with Aronofsky is his inability (reluctance?) to have tonal shifts in his films. He picks something and he sticks with it and rarely alters his course. I find that style boring, and The Wrestler followed suit like his other films and as a result I found that difficult to remain engaged with it. Really the only film of his I really liked was Pi, and that was because I liked the mathmatics in it and was engaged in that part of the story. The rest of his films simply felt lifeless to me, more interested in shock and awe then anything that might truly be emotionally honest and worthy of investment.
Also, Goon is a fucktard.
The assumption of Hogan is yours, and entirely your fault.
Oh that is bullshit and you know it Goon. Hogan had an epic early 80′s battle with a middle eastern heel, same as Randy. Hogan was the biggest star in wrestling during the 80′s, same as Randy. Christ I saw the film with a wrestler that worked in the WWF for over a decade and even he believes the character was primarily modelled after Hogan. If you can’t see the connection, then you are being as deliberately obtuse as Shawshank prison wardens.
To wallow in explosions and cool CGI, to think that there is something of value in mindless entertainment.
Have I argued that Iron Man is an art film? Good grief if I have I’ll retract that right now. My argument isn’t so much about Iron Man (I was trying to point out to Kurt that he was defending The Wrestler for doing something he condemned Iron Man for which I think is a fair point for me to make), but that I view The Wrestler as a mindless film in its own right. It is easy to engage with it, as it is constructed specifically so you will. But I will always take greater offense to something like The Wrestler, which claims to aspire to something greater then easy to recognize pathos, then Iron Man, which fully admits it is shameless fun. An art film should aspire to be something more, and again and again I see “Indie art films” trotted out that are nothing more then Oscar bait that will be easily consumed by the masses rather then something that might actually challenge or inspire. I just find it hard to believe that any true art film would garner such unanimous praise straight out of the gait. Something like a 50% approval rate on an art film would catch my eye, as it is actually challenging people and creating diverse reactions. As evidence by the reactions of this site evidently their is only one acceptable reaction to this particular “art” film. And if that is the case, then it can’t be great art.
I couldn’t emotionally connect with The Wrestler, specifically because I was identifying the areas where it was blatantly attempting to manipulate me into doing that. To me something like Waltz with Bashir, which fully admits it is lying to you within the first 20 minutes, yet then finds a way to draw you into the story and emotionally batter you is a far more interesting film, and a greater artistic achievement.
that all he required was a camera and Mickey Rourke’s face, and he had his movie
And this illustrates my point. No effort was required. It merely suckles at the life of Rourke and adds nothing of its own to the process. It risks nothing, yet gains everything. It is a parasitic relationship and IMO far from artistic as a result.
Which is why I once again compare it to JCVD, which has a similar relationship with its star. Yet it takes plenty of risks itself by playing with convention, toying with the frame presentation, using long takes (to be fair The Wrestler has its own share of long takes yet none are of the grandeur or difficulty of the opening to JCVD) and as a result both the film and its star push each other to greater heights then they can achieve by themselves by virtue of this sybiotic relationship. It inspires where The Wrestler merely goes through the motions. It isn’t art, nor do I see how it aspires to be. All I see is a Royale with Cheese. Sure it sounds fancy, and the packaging might be more appealing, but when it comes down to it it’s just the same crappy Quarterpounder with Cheese being served at the multiplex.
And for those who think I always value story over performance, The Fall is easily my favorite film of the year. A film which has an inceredibly simplistic story and relies heavily on the performance of its two stars. So there.
For Your Consideration:
Goon is a Tool
I guess you didn’t read the thread earlier where I was nitpicking.
Nope, must have missed it. For the sake of drama I shall continue to assume you love The Wrestler so much you want to have 10,000 of its babies.
“these defenders of mediocrity, I do not understand them”
I think you and I have a different sense of mediocrity. I can look to cheesy comedies or action films, and even if they are not something that will make you a wiser person in the Harvard intellectual sense, there are things in even the biggest piece of shit film, yes I’m talking of my beloved Showgirls, that can develop your personality into something wonderful that I want to be a part of and share. You are here calling them just worthless and that they depreciate you as a human being – I’m not saying “be the opposite”, what I’m saying is that its part of a healthy diet, part of my ideal healthy mind/person. Like any tasty burger, there’s probably going to be a bit of feces in there somewhere.
I couldn’t live with someone who couldn’t rent The Love Guru with me to bask in its awfulness, consider that the Brady Bunch Movie is actually pretty good here and there, or listen to the Toronto Blue Jays rap album in the car on a whim instead of Vivaldi. Chuck Klosterman is a mildly overrated writer who I still love who has a full book praising low art, and I’m fully on board with that way of thinking.
“But that kind of makes my point, it was recreational use.”
Oh so here come the qualifiers when you get totally fucked out of your argument. The drugs were a bad decision that led to bad shit. So you don’t see some character moment of him sucking dick for coke, but you see his characters relapse and spurning relationship and real respect for fairweather pathetic celebrity. It’s one sad sorry situation instead of another. Any more straws to grasp at, lets see…
“Hogan had an epic early 80’s battle with a middle eastern heel”
Backlund didn’t? Let’s see, who did he lose the title to again? Until the first Iraq war, Hogan’s feud with Sheik lasted about as long as Bob’s did. And again, you’re ignoring the fact that Ram is again, a Readers Digest of tragedies. Insisting he’s Hogan is a losing battle. Especially since this film is fiction, and the only required argument out of this is “What if Hulk Hogan made every possible wrong decision and refused to have anything to do with wrestling that wasn’t in-ring performing” – I mean seriously, is Ultimate Warrior currently that far off from this? The answer is no, no he is not.
“It merely suckles at the life of Rourke and adds nothing of its own to the process.”
Instead of arguing, why don’t you make a list of all the movies you no longer like because of excellent casting or writing a script around a performer.
A tool is useful. Your Wrestler review is not. BAM
“It isn’t art”
Sub-Henrik comment, Hitler associations be damned.
Hey Matt, which part of my ass do you want to kiss first?
Aronofsky:
“Randy was never supposed to be Hulk Hogan style fame. He was supposed to be like a middle ranged star. He was never supposed to be that famous. And, you know, none of these names will mean anything to you, but like a Brutus Beefcake, Greg the Hammer Valentine level.”
http://www.moviesonline.ca/movienews_16103.html
At this point in the discussion I’d like to go on record as saying that “The Brady Bunch Movie” is actually pretty awesome.
as you were.
“It is a parasitic relationship and IMO far from artistic as a result.”
You talk as if acting isn’t a key component, and isn’t an artform. Reminds me of John Campea basically saying actors are craftsmen and instead of building chairs, they portray emotions. The line of thinking that leads to praise of Daniel Day-Lewis, but misses the point of Mickey Rourke or Sacha Baron Cohen in Borat. It’s not a performance anymore. It’s beyond portraying emotions. There is no act. Which elevates it. And a performance as good as this, is as worthy as any good script or a long take or whatever other bullshit you think a film needs to have to be art. The complexity is in the human being, it is the character which defines the events, not the events which defines the character.
rot, I sympathize with your rant, but you have to make room for aesthetics in your life. I go around telling people they might as well masturbate if all they want to do is watch british TV dramas and mediocre american thrillers all the time, but something like Hellboy 2 has some things that are new and fresh, and film is still visual. Stagecoach is masturbation, but you can admire the technical accomplishments in stunts, camerawork, tension etc. Never forget aesthetics, they won’t allow you to move on. On the whole, I agree with you though, and definitely agree that Iron Man was as close to the end of the rope as I wanted to feel.
What does the name-calling do for you Goon? Please stop.
Henrik, using you as an adjective is the result of being on the ‘hater’ side of 99% of movie convos.
I’m looking at your awesome post above here and its only now coming back to me what you’re capable of when you’re defending a movie instead of attacking one.
Life is complicated, better to avoid labels.
“they might as well masturbate if all they want to do is watch british TV dramas and mediocre american thrillers all the time”
trying to stop people from watching popcorn flicks because they ‘rot your brain’ or something along those lines, just doesn’t make sense. I know a guy who is essentially an amateur forest ranger, massive nature lover, camper, who has philosophical and spiritual beliefs based on his connections with the outdoors, who only hits the theaters to see a major blockbuster that catches his eye.
A line like “This redneck lowest common denominator aspiration…” is something I can sympathize with, because yes, people throw around ‘elitist’ unfairly as a one second rebuttal to any critique of an ignorant viewpoint. But at the same time yes, I can see why these backwoods deer-raping rednecks learned it in the first place – because so often its actually true, and the “Everything must be high art” mentality is actually the ignorant, short sighted one.
I mean in the context of this conversation, attacking popcorn flicks first off implies that our interest in film is some ultimate barometer of intelligence and that we can judge others based on what they watch. Some of the smartest people I know only have time for something seemingly random like “Marley & Me” or “The Bucket List”. Secondly, as frustrating as it can be to watch X amount of people vote their religion, ignore factory farming, deny people rights, and any other thing you want to list – as much as I want to see people progress, I consider what life would be like if everyone was following their dreams, if nobody failed, if every piece of art aspired beyond mere entertainment.
In the pursuit of a multiplex filled with art films, everything around it would pretty much be a nightmare. And who’s to say world full of art-film minded people wouldn’t produce the most escapist fantasy instead, slapstick comedy, or give up film entirely and only read books… or you know, create machines? How far do you take the “stop being distracted” mentality, and can anyone really actually have it now?
“Life is complicated, better to avoid labels.”
It’s also good to acknowledge these ‘labels’ are being thrown around, jokingly and mostly-jokingly, by everyone in this thread (save rot, probably). But I guess you’re singling me out since I used you as an adjective?
I just don’t like being talked about behind my back. I don’t mind playing a villain, when I’m here and I understand the need for it, but I walk in on this conversation and already feel like I have to disassociate myself from Matts opinion because you bring me into it, with all these preconceived notions, perpetuating the stereotype, that, while I understand the need for it and will fulfill the role when in the mood/in the right situation, I don’t think is very justified, nor particularly enjoyable because it diminishes the content.
Full circle? Stereotypes diminish content in art as well.
“In the pursuit of a multiplex filled with art films, everything around it would pretty much be a nightmare”
I think your division is flawed and simplified Goon. You talk as if intelligent things are boring. I think that art is highly entertaining. The masturbation analogy works, because we all do it, but we also know what happens when you do it too much. And there is never any insight, and it never matters the second after its done. When something doesn’t matter after it’s done, is it worth doing? Intellectually no, but we are also animals. We should strive though, because we can.
Anyways rot, movies are probably not going to change the world, they are going to reflect it. So if the kind of mind that watches Iron Man bothers you, you might actually be better off nurturing the next generation’s interests for fighting as an activist for certain ideas instead of just attacking their entertainment on the Internet.
I guess I do take a personal offense to it as well. It’s not because I have Iron Man anywhere near my top ten or not – I rarely even read comic books – but having grown up as the ‘kid in the class who draws’ – ending up in an art school where almost every kid who draws likes at least some kind of comic book (Most of them loved any story that is drawn). It’s these people I’ve known who have been the most passionate and excited when the comic book movies have come along, because its bringing a childhood hero to life, and there’s nothing wrong with that and being blown away when its done well. Is Spike Jonze wasting his time making “Where the Wild Things Are”? Is that story actually particularly deep, and is a grown adult supposed to feel sorry when (‘if’ at this point) they see it and have another wish fulfilled?
The whole comic book movie thing – and for that matter, fantasy movie thing – is the result of technology catching up with decades worth of demand for these characters to be presented as best they could be. if you don’t like the characters or their simple villains and life situations, fine, but treating it like an indicator of the downfall of western civilization is kind of insulting, and one hell of an exaggeration. the sky is not falling.
I want to see “WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE” it should be fun, and it is interesting to see a childrens film that basically amounts to a fantasy reflection of a temper tandrem (hopefully) rendered in a smart, sharp and whimsical way. This is not usually the case with childrens movies.
I don’t consider anything on this forum as ‘behind your back’ Henrik. Everything is out in the open.
“I think your division is flawed and simplified Goon. You talk as if intelligent things are boring. I think that art is highly entertaining. ”
i’m not talking about the nightmare only being art-related. but for the record, the lack of diversity and different slope of quality would cause some problems.
i’m talking about the fact that some people need to be garbagemen. some people need to spend all their waking days tinkering with widgets to make everything work. and so on.
we need people of supposed “less intelligence” who aren’t capable of much more than their simple menial jobs. and those people need entertainment too which suits their life experience and developed mentality.
and there should be the freedom for the interests of the ‘smart’ and the ‘stupid’ to overlap, be it for ironic or earnest purposes. the effects of the Fountain could not exist without years of development for the purposes of selling other films to children and multiplex-goers. most art films that make it to your neighborhood did so on the backs of people who may not have any interest in watching them.
“it never matters the second after its done.”
Ask some 23 year old whose parents couldnt afford to pay for his education, who works a crappy 9 to 5 job, who goes to see this ‘fluff’, who walks out with a grin, being blown away by the best effects money can buy and simple comedy which appeals to his tastes, if it doesn’t matter anymore the second its done.
Saying a movie “doesn’t matter” is a line from someone who sees too many movies or does not suffer nearly enough in this life to require simple entertainment once in a while. Or maybe you just don’t require simple entertainment to do something about it. Well a lot of people do, and it matters. If a friend if feeling down and wants to go to the movies, we’re more likely to end up in front of Valkyrie than Synecdoche.
The point Kurt was that WTWTA in art school is just another in a diverse group of illustrated stories that most people grew up with, and that there’s a passion and desire there to see them that isn’t much different from the passion and desire to see Iron Man, Watchmen, even the stupid Punisher movies. You’ve seen the fantasy casting sessions and rumors on the internet from fanboys, you should see them from the fanboys that specifically have an art background. it may seem more or less annoying for all i know, but I think you’d get a glimpse into a different world and perhaps a different appreciation/understanding of why it matters, and why you’d probably walk out of that room with a new asshole and an apology if you dared say it ripped off Robocop again.
“You talk as if intelligent things are boring.”
Legitimate intelligent people find art films a lot of other people like boring all the time. Absolutely everything is boring to someone.
I think guns in boring, and that guns in movies are especially boring – of course there are exceptions to every rule, but I’m certainly in the minority of this opinion.
“does not suffer nearly enough in this life”
Take it back.
“If a friend if feeling down and wants to go to the movies, we’re more likely to end up in front of Valkyrie than Synecdoche.”
I lack empathy like this. It disgusts me to lie to make people feel better, but my boat gets rocked the more i live in this extreme honesty. It eats me no doubt, I understand why nobody understands this tendency as it brings no happiness.
One more quick generalized comment
Complaining so much about Iron Man and ‘distraction’ movies, but going to see them anyways… complaining that Kung Fu Panda doesn’t aspire to much and has THAT SONG, but going to see Igor… its these sort of things that make those titles pop back up into these conversations…
a movie you find not worth the time, instead of something you do.
(I guess here I turn heel and sort-of-join-Matt?)
In other words, the way you attack some popular films often spreads the wound instead of healing anything. If its nothing but a mere distraction, you could forget it and move on after a days worth of “this was shit” – but here we are again, always having to go back to the well explaining why the same movie sucks and how it isn’t completely inconsistent with the convenient excuses and free passes you give a zillion other movies, movies with the benefit of being populated by unknowns, coming from Bhutan, or having a camp quality that you enjoy at the time and have to struggle to intellectualize later
Simple mindless entertainment is fine so long as its your simple mindless entertainment.
LAME SPOILER ALERT
LAME SPOILER ALERT
LAME SPOILER ALERT
“I lack empathy. It disgusts me to lie to make people feel better”
What lie? It’s “hey dude, I know you had a bad day. want to see that movie about death and failure, or Nazis who try to kill Hitler?” – My parents’ yellow lab died this year. They wanted to go see Marley and Me. My mom gets blubbery in theaters easily, my aunt stepped in and spoiled that Marley dies at the end. That’s kind of lame in one way, but my mom was glad she did, and they went to go see Doubt instead.
“It eats me no doubt, I understand why nobody understands this tendency as it brings no happiness.”
A lot of people get eaten up by too much shit during the daytime to pay for more of it in a theater. if you can’t empathize with that, i can’t help you.
There is no activism coming from me, I do not expect to change anything, I think you will stay Goon, Henik will stay Henrik, and the people that make Chihuahua a number one box office hit, they will keep doing so. If there was actually a balance in the market I wouldn’t be so upset but there isn’t, the lowest common denominator sells because the vast majority of people have no interest in living up to any potential, they want to hang out with their friends, get married, pop a baby out, live in a nice big house, and imitate the lives they see in the films they watch. I suspect when alone in the dark they do have thoughts about how to be a better person, or how to be happy, pangs of existence reveal themselves and maybe a panic attack or a mid-life crisis settles in, and generally people endure, they live for the small pleasures of life and keep doing what their neighbor does and the balance does not need to upend, there is enough comfort to keep such a lifestyle a viable option for people.
geek culture is just another stronghold for this embrace of mediocrity. It tells you that you do not need to know about anything other than what has been writ, and its not the bible but whatever cool shit someone has created that need be your obsession. For some people it is just a pastime, or a phase, for others it is their lives, it is what they have dedicated their functioning organs to. And the people that ridicule sports fanatics or religious fanatics and yet cling to their own idols just as feverishly, need to see the hypocrisy for what it is. Iron Man is a tester thrown out on the corner for the geeks to take and reconstitute their affiliations with a group that hides under the banner of good clean fun, the kind of knee-jerk consumerism spirit that Bush told his sheep to engage in as the towers still burned.
The argument, much like a drug addicts argument, is that its just today, its just for the here and now and sometime in the future I will get a hold of life, examine it, find out what I want from it, but for now, shiiiiiiit, just hang back, put in a film and close your mind. And unless your body reacts to the repetition, the formulaic over and over of your obsession, until you hit bottom as they say, you will die bemused and stunted.
The alternative is NOT intellectualism, it is not watching Bergman in a beret or ascribing to films that are overtly deep and pensive. Hell that is just another geek culture, just another crutch. Its about cultivating an aesthetic appreciation that works to make you evolve, think, feel, so that you can apply that inspiration in other parts of your life. I consider The Wrestler to be such a film and it is the entire opposite of the intellectualism label I keep getting thrown at me. I could give a shit about academic theory, I am talking about films that possess something pertaining to our human condition, pertaining to being alive and conducting ourselves, not didactic necessarily, but representative at least. Is that so elitist to want? Is it so bad to want to seek works that are life-enriching rather than life-stagnating?
There will always be Iron Mans, and like I said before, its the balance not one particular film that bothers me, its the over-saturation of crackhouse mentality in our culture, the wanting to drag everyone down with lame arguments about your right, or your disinterest in uppity ideas, or just wanting to relax. Its not so much the mediocrity that bugs me, its the constant reaffirming and defense of it that bothers me. I never said anything about Iron Man until it was praised as the second coming.
And Rusty, if you are out there, all the drug allusions in this comment is due to your recommendation of The Corner… fucking awesome!
“I enjoyed it”
rot, on Cloverfield.
“I question the kind of person you must be, the indifference you have to existence, to not only watch these films voluntarily but defend them as if they were something of significance. To wallow in explosions and cool CGI, to think that there is something of value in mindless entertainment.”
rot, on Cloverfield?
i report, you decide.
“the lowest common denominator sells because the vast majority of people have no interest in living up to any potential”
WHOA, nelly. I’m calling ‘elitist’ on that one, in the deserved way. There are a zillion reasons the lowest common denominator sells, one of which being that by definition, it should – something that appeals to the basest instincts of all people… sells. You paid to see Iron Man too, right?
Without the people you’re snubbing your nose at, “The Wrestler” wouldn’t exist for you to enjoy.
“Its about cultivating an aesthetic appreciation that works to make you evolve”
You can only get this from film? you cant get it from nature, racing, painting, or any other hobby? I think you need to talk to some of these hobbyists. I bet most of them saw Iron Man too.
I mean what do you want? “Congratulations, you’ve watched enough movies to at the age of 32, have seen many of the best ones, and have trained your mind to know good art when you see it” – I mean sorry man, but a lot of the films we like really do come from training.
Go to a metal forum, or punk forum, or indie music forum, or jazz forum, and watch the hardcore fans there talk about your taste in any other music the same way you talk about other films. yes, there is an elitism there. These people can justify their views quite well to themselves and many others, and believe in their heart that they are right, but they arrived to appreciating black metal from Turkey, unsigned punk demos from Brooklyn, and electro-pop from Norway by training and experience, and not by being better people with aesthetic perceptions that rise them above all other human beings. I look at those forums and am thankful they actually exist, because they will expose me to a number of things I couldn’t find by myself, but at the same time I can tsk at little myself, feeling that they are missing out on a whole hell of a lot of good art and/or entertainment. And I guess for better or worse, to some degree I’m saying that about you if you put yourself above the ‘distraction’ movies.
And I’m not even trying to justify ONLY watching movies like Iron Man. My argument all along is a “Part of a balanced breakfast” one, that for me includes comedies, overly arty films, action movies, prestige pictures, and the occasional ironic cheese. i like a tent so big a rich man could go broke catching up with what you’d enjoy watching.
But even these people I’m describing who only go see a movie every so often, I only know a few of them who ONLY see shit. My youngest sister has what I’d describe as the shittiest dvd collection of anyone I know. She doesnt even have the comic book dvds everyone agrees are good, she has like, Fantastic Four 2 (but not 1), Hancock, Coyote Ugly, She’s the Man type stuff… but she still has in there Pride and Prejudice, Atonement, The Pianist, and other things along those lines. I’d say her diet is ‘unbalanced’, but I’m not particularly concerned about it.
If a person is watching an Iron Man to feel better for a couple hours, and have ‘wasnt it awesome when ____’ conversations later, how is that life stagnating? Who determines the quantification of mind expansion and better life experience? You?
““Its about cultivating an aesthetic appreciation that works to make you evolve”
You can only get this from film?”
If rot speaks only of film then he fails, but I think he means art in general.
You experience something, you get bored. You look at an inordinate amount of people enjoy it and you try and figure out why. When you ask they say “Boooom! Pretty! fun-fun-funny big bang yay!” It’s hard to not be frustrated. It’s like watching adults placing square bricks into square holes all the time, you can’t help but wonder thinking it’s a waste, and hate the people marketing the bricks as heavily so as to suggest you could not live without this particular brick and then next week the new brick.
“When you ask they say “Boooom! Pretty! fun-fun-funny big bang yay!” It’s hard to not be frustrated. ”
Well for one, some people are simply incapable, and again, untrained, to explain nuanced things that cinephiles learn to discuss over time.
Second, there are things I could describe as pretty and funny that I still like better than a number of more nuanced detailed things, regardless of how much on a technical level the other may be superior. There’s a hell of a lot of fine art that I love quite a bit, but Keith Haring is my favorite artist, and if people want to give me shit because he doesn’t have varied line quality or brushstrokes, and that he’s done paintings of Cruella de Ville instead of reflections on god, then tough shit. In the end you like what you like, and just because some people can’t explain what they like better than what you like better, doesn’t mean your love for it is more intense or worthy.
I know some jazz fans and yes, death metal fans, who look at the complex technical aspects of their favorite songs, and scoff at those who would like any AC/DC song better than any random song from their collection. Because choruses are for the uneducated masses.
It’s those kinds of people that just drive me up the wall.
To be clear, I realize that if you boil things down to ‘you like what you like’, you can almost justify liking anything – what I really mean is that its ridiculous to have to forfeit to the next thing on the ladder that aspires to more, or on a technical level may be more successful. When we critique things we often ridicule sentimentality or pure emotional response to something, and that’s annoying. Everyone deserves a long enough leash to explore the entire yard.
I agree with that Goon. I think is room for both, I like to think I like everything that is good. But to take your personal example, I’m sure you are aware of why you like Keith Haring. I would guess it has to do with the specific circumstances in your life when you first encountered it as much as the masturbatory aspects of looking at it and thinking it’s pleasing on the eye. But look at this for instance:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/C_W_Eckersberg_1841_-_Kvinde_foran_et_spejl.jpg
Called “Woman in front of a mirror”. Its depth and complexities dumbfound me, and at the same time I can’t understand how you could make it. This is what I talk about when I talk about art, this is what pierces my skin, rapes me, comforts me. And from the same artist:
http://130.226.236.38/globus/optagelser%5Cglobus%5C40412628%5Cimg0335.jpg
The same thing applies to this. I have not chosen to like these things, I do not choose to praise these above other things because of politics, they inherently draw praise out of me. When I encounter them they floor me, I try and make meaning of it, I engange in conversations about them to try and hammer out sensations, to learn about the experience. That, to me, is much more worthwhile than the pure masturbatory effect, because really, I could just masturbate. It’s quicker and even feels better.
I guess I don’t subscribe to the idea that collecting rubberbands can bring as much happiness as playing an instrument, but I will say this: if the rubberband guy talks with passion about his rubberbands, he is bringing me pleasure – vampire pleasure sure, I am exploiting his sensation for my own amusement in a way, but that’s the way of the world I guess.
Lost track of any point I was making, I try to be open to watch anything, listen to anything, look at anything, and what I end up liking is no more a choice than being righthanded was a choice. Nobody likes being bored.
lazy admins approve my comment yo.
I really need to stop playing Connect Four with myself on these threads.
An example of the “you should aspire to more” thing that happened on R3 was last year when Walk Hard came out, complaining that John C. Reilly was starring in these comedies when he could be doing more character actor stuff in the background of other movies. It didn’t matter that Reilly is good at comedy and enjoys being able to do whatever he wants, it simply mattered that he wasn’t “acheiving his potential” as determined by film snobs. I seriously find that sort of thing extremely condescending – it assumes comedy is easy, that the experience of working isn’t as important as the end result on screen, a large number of judgments that frustrate me greatly.
You’d think film snobs would know better and could rationalize these things out, but so often they absolutely do not, only concerned with the fact that they’re not getting what they want, and thus assume it must somehow be ‘masturbation’ for this actor – simply because he’s capable of “more”. Anyone capable of “more” who does something fun or different is ‘wasting their talent’ – its so condescending.
With great power comes great responsibility Goon.
Well henrik, in regards to the paintings its a little like this, for me personally:
I know a lot of people who can paint. a LOT. and a lot of them produce works that I think are as good if not better than some of the most famous paintings of all time. It’s like anything else, some of the best music or films go completely unloved and undiscovered.
But a lot of the artists I love most are ones who are completely capable of painting or drawing as good as just about everyone else, but who combine their way of thinking into a drawing style that is not exactly abstract, but not exactly a cartoon either. On the more refined, painted end you have someone like Mark Ryden:
http://www.markryden.com/paintings/index.html
and then on the other side you have people like Keith Haring, who can draw an outline of a baby with shining lines around it and I swoon. I like both, for different reasons, and I like classical paintings too. But when pushed, I gravitate towards something Haring can produce from his imagination as he goes along rather than the more time consuming, researched, more realistic and more timeless work.
I didn’t simply choose to like these things. If we had hours to psychoanalyze we could look at when Haring popped into my life, vs. the possibility of getting overexposed to classical styles of painting, rejecting it based on some rebellion, or a personal connection to the method and speed I do my own drawings, who knows. the end result though can be boiled down to “I like what I like”.
“I guess I don’t subscribe to the idea that collecting rubberbands can bring as much happiness as playing an instrument, but I will say this: if the rubberband guy talks with passion about his rubberbands, he is bringing me pleasure – vampire pleasure sure, I am exploiting his sensation for my own amusement in a way, but that’s the way of the world I guess.”
And this is why Man on Wire works for me so much. You can break it down to just walking and balance, and someone might argue that doing it a foot from the ground requires no more or less school than 500 feet, but apparently this means so much to him he will put himself through more and more dangerous experiences to do it, will remember every detail so much that he can tell animated stories of it years later, and draw so many people close to him to help him, like a Tightrope Cult.
“With great power comes great responsibility Goon.”
Great or greatest? Why do we judge Reilly as having a greater responsibility to live in the background of a prestige picture instead of mocking them through a character like Dewey Cox.
Love the irony of something from ‘low art’ to make the case for ‘high art’.
I also suppose this means we are all masturbating here by talking about other peoples artwork instead of making our own, huh?
But Goon painting is not about being able to paint, no more than directing is about being able to turn on a camera. It’s what you paint that matters, and how you paint it. And painting something simplified or childish or whatever means nothing if you can’t paint it properly first. Some things are so experimental that anybody could do it, which can be a very comforting thing for an artist to realize, especially one who has little talent. You need to know the rules, before breaking them has any meaning.
“Love the irony of something from ‘low art’ to make the case for ‘high art’.”
I was fond of it myself.
“I also suppose this means we are all masturbating here by talking about other peoples artwork instead of making our own, huh?”
Depends on how you perceive yourself. I don’t think of myself as having particularly great powers, I am Salieri, the desire is planted in me, and I get for reward only the abilities to recognize the mockery.
That being said, I am also very lazy. So maybe I have just convinced myself of my own powerlessness in order to justify sleeping in all day. This is all shit that needs working on – but one thing is certain, if I was ever going to be an artist, I would hold myself up to what I consider the greatest of all of it, and if I did not hold up, I would not pretend what I did was worthwhile.
“It’s what you paint that matters, and how you paint it.”
I know, and I like the way Haring paints his own imagination, and that most of the time its essentially improvised. It doesn’t mean I don’t like anything else, but to date the end result of Haring’s process does more for me than anything else.
There was no “But” needed in your post, you’re saying things I completely agree with. “You need to know the rules, before breaking them has any meaning” is dead on, but there are still great artists and illustrators out there who never learned the rules. Some people simply have enough focus and enough technical talent to get there without anyone’s help. It happens.
Have you seen Helvetica (the documentary)? It’s not like its the greatest documentary of all time or anything, but you see a lot of things from art debates translated into a war over a typeface, European vs. American attitudes and how they’ve changed, utility vs. expression, etc. You should check it out. A typeface becomes a jumping off point into wars between mindsets and generations, and a lot of the people with the greatest insights are also the most stubborn and intolerant. it’s neat.
Can I shamelessly plug this article I wrote for FilmJunk? It includes my thoughts about Helvetica, I liked it alot:
http://www.filmjunk.com/2007/11/22/cphdox-2007-documentary-film-festival-report/
“Some people simply have enough focus and enough technical talent to get there without anyone’s help. It happens.”
The rules is not necessarily schooling, you can look at a human being and be able to draw it perfectly without somebody telling you how best to achieve the elbow joint, but untill you can draw that human being realistically, your mangled bodies hold little water, have no resonance, express no process. We agree on this, I just wanted to clarify that I didn’t mean that the rules were things learned by teaching or scholars or studying, they can come naturally.
“I was ever going to be an artist, I would hold myself up to what I consider the greatest of all of it, and if I did not hold up, I would not pretend what I did was worthwhile.”
I know people like this – very well – and all I can tell you is that they’re miserable to be around, that no compliment can make them bearable for very long, and that their self-analysis of not being great only makes it harder for them to succeed.
its fucked up, the people with higher aspirations end up scared to show their work to the public until they are perfect (like Caden Cotard in Synecdoche and his play), and terrible artists (even ones that know they arent that great), sell themselves better, because they know the only way to get better is put yourself out there, make a living and take the criticism so they can GET better.
And you know what? i know a lot of people who I had written off long ago as never being capable of doing anything good, who produce better work now than the people who make themselves the only judge and hide in their room until they are perfect.
Goon that means nothing though. Selling stuff is not an objective, being critiqued is not an objective, the only thing that matters is yourself excruciatingly spilling yourself out in expressions other than words. If you do not achieve yourself expressed, it’s meaningless. Easier sold, look at Iron Man, but if you start to think like that you are compromising what should be the motivation to begin with, to bear existence. An artist is an artist because the world makes it necessary to puke up all the overwhelming sensations in order to function. I don’t think it’s a choice, and I can think of nothing that would qualify somebody as an artist, other than the need to puke out themselves and their thoughts to deal. Or maybe some other definition is needed. Because anyone can cook, right? It’s the intentions, ambitions and emotions that matter.
I didn’t dislike The Wrestler but I didn’t love it as much as Aronofsky’s other films. It may be less showy with the visuals but what makes the film work are the performances from Rourke and Tomei and I’m with Matt on Evan Rachel Wood – I found her a bit over the top. That said, the wrestling loving hubby loved the film and went on for 40 minutes after the fact about how realistic it was. It’s the type of “artsy” film I like: well made and appealing enough to make hubby happy.
“, the only thing that matters is yourself excruciatingly spilling yourself out in expressions other than words.”
I’m saying that the act of selling yourself and being critiqued has almost universally in my experience allowed people I know, as well as myself, to spill out better, both to my own satisfaction as well as for the people viewing the work. Art entirely as self-expression is fine for some people, but the communication element of it, and the community you can build around it, can mean a lot.
Evan Rachel Wood was over the top, Marisa Tomei was very cutesy in her performance, the dialogue is dated in places, the story contrived in others, but none of it matters. It’s all insubstantial to the experience of the (perfectly titled) movie. To me at least, everything is picked up, saved and elevated by Mickey Rourke in the film, and extraordinary feat.
Henrik: Agreed. Agreed. Agreed.
@Goon: It is sounding like you are talking about Gondry’s BE KIND REWIND! Those were the selling points of that movie, even if it didn’t quite gel together in a satisfying way (due to its high ‘goofy-quotient’ which broke the spell of the film often)
“It is sounding like you are talking about Gondry’s BE KIND REWIND!”
It does, you’re right, even though I was bored with the movie and didn’t find it all that funny.
I guess it also fits into a movie I saw today which I’d like to shoehorn into this thread just because diversions are good – The Visitor, and the drum circles Richard Jenkins wants to be a part of.
Man did this movie go unnoticed, it has a bit of a Broken Flowers vibe, but its a bit more political (as in Bill O’Reillyish views on immigration may have a problem) and more sentimental. Jenkins is meek and sad with an angry undertone that cuts through only a couple times. i didn’t realize this was the same director as the Station Agent, which I’ve never seen but heard a lot about, which I am now in a rush to see as a result of this movie being so good.
So um yeah, if you havent finished your 2008 best of list, check that one out first. It’s a good’un. Technically 2007, played one festival in Canada, but its 2008 everywhere else.
You talk as if acting isn’t a key component, and isn’t an artform.
Where exactly do I say that? I even offered examples of films that are incredibly dependent on there actors and there performances, and could probably come up with a half dozen or so from this year that I liked quite a bit. My argument is that for The Wrestler it failed in this relationship and was simply utterly reliant on Rourke and knowing his past history to elevate the film. Other films found other means to eliminate that conundrum while The Wrestler didn’t.
As for Brutus or Valentine being influences on Randy I think it is interesting, but then I’d argue that the film then fails in portraying him as such. Brutus may have had “The Barber Shop” and Valentine was part of The Heart Foundation for a bit, but neither had their very own video game. That kind of stuff is reserved for top level talent, so Aronofsky is failing to illustrate that for the viewer, thus further reinforcing my point that the story of the film isn’t written, nor executed very well.
And as much as I hate The Fountain, and I do hate that movie, The Wrestler makes me appreciate it more then I ever thought I could. Where The Wrestler is safe and simplistic The Fountain is incredibly ambitious. Sure it fails miserably, but at least it took some risks and put everything on the line. I just never saw that in The Wrestler.
(I guess here I turn heel and sort-of-join-Matt?)
I’m pretty sure our film tastes tend to run relatively close.
“but neither had their very own video game.”
Neither did The Ram. I can remember one of my friends back in regular school had a wrestling game for PSX with several wrestlers. One was The Undertaker, and one was Yokozuna, but it was like a Mortal Kombat setup. So the videogame made total sense to me.
And for the record, and this is completely honest, I had no idea of any backstory to Mickey Rourke, I only knew he was in 8½ weeks (right? with Kim Basinger) and Sin City before this, and I only saw Sin City of those and didn’t think much of him. I saw the interview earlier today on the site where he talked about hanging out with gangsters or something, but I didn’t know anything about Mickey Rourke when I saw the movie.
“Where exactly do I say that?”
Oh and this childish shit. I didn’t say you said that, I said you talked as if that was the case. R-e-a-d-i-n-g. Reading. It helps.
“I’d argue that the film then fails in portraying him as such. ”
Everyone I know got it and afterwards were talking about the various people assembled together. Another one we talked about was Koko B. Ware, who was at one point getting EXTREMELY delusional about getting back in there, and never explored any of the other routes a wrestler can go.
And Henrik is right, there is no indication it was the Ram’s own video game, he was just a selectable character.
Roster of WWF Wrestlemania Challenge for the NES: The Ultimate Warrior, Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Andre the Giant, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, Big Boss Man, Ravishing Rick Rude, and Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake.
“And for the record, and this is completely honest, I had no idea of any backstory to Mickey Rourke, I only knew he was in 8½ weeks (right? with Kim Basinger) and Sin City before this, and I only saw Sin City of those and didn’t think much of him.”
Same here, except swap out 81/2 Weeks for Diner for me, and I liked him in Sin City.
Oh and this childish shit. I didn’t say you said that, I said you talked as if that was the case. R-e-a-d-i-n-g. Reading. It helps.
Says the guy who completely ignored the examples I had already submitted that refuted his claim.
Everyone I know got it and afterwards were talking about the various people assembled together.
I never claimed he was solely Hogan, only that he was a clear influence. You’re the one who keeps claiming he has nothing to do with it. That multiple reviewers and people associated with the WWF also see it and Aronofsky claims it isn’t PROVES that Aronofsky did a poor job of providing exposition and fleshing out the character.
BTW, your examples really do nothing to refute my case that the character is unbelievable. Koko B Ware, Brutus Beefcake, Scott Hall, Jake the Snake all had serious drug addictions. All got multiple shots at coming back. Ultimate Warrior had his own issues and now is a born again Christian who thinks Dinosaurs never existed. He got multiple shots at returning even though he’s insane. Backlund came back at least 4 times, and still works in wrestling today. Yet the Ram was dropped for no discernable reason and never could get back in. It just doesn’t happen that way. Hell the guy I watched the film with was fired 3 times by McMahon, and he was a career mid-carder. And with mic skills like Randy, they would have found something for him even if he couldn’t wrestle anymore, like Flair or Lawler and all sorts of other past their prime wrestlers.
It’s like talking to a wall.
A wall made of shit.
I guess Matt refuses to believe his precious Wrestlers aren’t doted on after they reach a certain age. That’s fine.
“I never claimed he was solely Hogan, only that he was a clear influence. You’re the one who keeps claiming he has nothing to do with it.”
When you said things like “Hulk Hogan, who the film is clearly modelled after” and that “Hogan was the biggest star of the 80s, same as Randy” what am I supposed to think you’re saying?
“That multiple reviewers and people associated with the WWF also see it and Aronofsky claims it isn’t PROVES that Aronofsky did a poor job of providing exposition and fleshing out the character.”
You’re the one citing that since he had a feud with a Middle Eastern stereotype its Hogan, and saying the story is unbelievable because he would have been too big of a star. The way you’re arguing I might as well say “nuh uh – Hogan didn’t have any top rope moves”.
Also at the same time your’e arguing that the character revolves around people knowing Rourke’s past, ignoring the fact that everyone I know and myself are barely familiar with Rourke and enjoyed the film immensely. You seem to have to pin all of this to existing wrestlers rather than enjoy the character on its own terms and then do an autopsy of the character as an exercsise later. I merely bring them up as noticing the nice touches and references and don’t have to make any ‘meta’ crap up.
“BTW, your examples really do nothing to refute my case that the character is unbelievable. Koko B Ware, Brutus Beefcake, Scott Hall, Jake the Snake all had serious drug addictions… etc etc”
All of this proves to me his story is entirely believable, and there are more and more and more stars to list who headlined major cards and eventually essentially disappeared. Bam Bam Bigelow headlined WM11 and spent the last couple years of his life as a complete recluse, and even before that he was working smaller promotions than ROH and CZW.
“Yet the Ram was dropped for no discernable reason and never could get back in.”
You have no idea how many times Ram was fired and re-hired, or how good his chances are of getting back in. Until the heart attack, they very well could be good. All you know is at the current time he is down on his luck and washed up, just like dozens upon dozens of 80s stars are at this very moment.
Every argument of unbelievability is based on assumptions that you yourself are making up, and are pinning on the director as if they are required, when they are not. Doesn’t show much imagination on your part, apparently you have to have everything overly spelled out for you.
I mean that video game thing there. Fuck, that was nuts dude. I guess Aronofsky had to show the kid come to the house, the Ram dust off the game, show the loading screen so we know its Konami or Acclaim, and the selection screen of other wrestlers and their attribute levels to know that he’s not the main guy.
“The guy I watched the film with was fired 3 times by McMahon, and he was a career mid-carder.”
Fuck stop citing your mystery expert and name him already. Unless of course, he has more value as an ‘expert’ if you don’t mention him by name.
From the very first comment in the thread by a certain goon.
A lot of press compares his superstardom to Hulk Hogan
Try harder, cause right now, you’re sucking.
Fuck stop citing your mystery expert and name him already. Unless of course, he has more value as an ‘expert’ if you don’t mention him by name.
“Jumpin” Jim Brunzell, formerly of The Killer Bees. His son works for MN Film Arts which is how I met him.
All of this proves to me his story is entirely believable, and there are more and more and more stars to list who headlined major cards and eventually essentially disappeared.
Except when they reappear right? Or reappear again? And again? The number of well known stars who were banished from wrestling you can count on one finger, and he is fictional. Randy has good mic skills, is a great locker room presence and is good with young wrestlers. He could have banged out a career in a power plant, as a manager or as an announcer without a problem. So what was he banished for?
Because it makes him sympathetic and it is easier to not actually come up with something.
“A lot of press compares his superstardom to Hulk Hogan”
Some lazy press are comparing him to Hulk Hogan because they are stupid and don’t know anyone from the 80s. Facts is facts.
“Jim Brunzell”
ha, then you say “Except when they reappear right? Or reappear again? And again?”
Brunzell hasn’t done shit since 1994, and his runs in the WWF for the years before that were as a complete jobber.
“Randy has good mic skills”
So does Randy Savage. but Savage is on drugs.
“is a great locker room presence and is good with young wrestlers.”
So is Lance Storm. but The Ram is stupid.
“He could have banged out a career in a power plant, as a manager or as an announcer without a problem. So what was he banished for?”
You don’t know, and “because it makes him sympathetic” is again – your shitty assumption. He does enough stupid shit in this movie that would kill his sympathy under a weaker performer or director. Again, you are acting like he’s Saint Randy, and he’s not.
“The number of well known stars who were banished from wrestling you can count on one finger”
Henrik is right, you are being extremely naive if you believe that.
And it doesn’t even have to be as extreme as banishment. Obviously once you reach a certain age, 20 years after your heyday, you’re not going to be the topdog, it doesn’t require banishing, that’s just facts. I mean tons and tons of soccer players who are normal people, who don’t indulge in anything as extreme as wrestlers apparently do (I have to say, wrestling as depicted in this movie is exactly as sick and pathetic as I thought it was), have mentioned what an extreme blow to them it was when they ended their career. You go from everybody wanting to talk to you, having contacts all over the world, people writing about you every week, performing in front of fans, training in front of fans, and then once you end it, all of it goes away. Especially south americans who have been big stars in europe but haven’t had the cultural background nor education to handle this, have suffered from this blow. I mean shit, nobody gets banished, they just get old and replaced. I don’t know if Wrestling management is populated with all the guys who wrestled in the 80s, but I find it pretty unlikely.
Exactly, I doubt the Ram wants to be a pity wrestler like Hacksaw Jim Duggan currently is, having to job each week and have your character gimmick as a has-been who never wins.
Marty Jannetty had his second and third chances and blew them, and even though he can still wrestle pretty good nobody can take him – too many drug issues, can’t be counted on to show up, if he gets another chance I’ll be shocked, and he’ll blow that too.
Scott Hall was a hell of a talker, one of the best of his generation, had the look and the physique – but his personal problems are so bad that he can’t be trusted and nobody would dare count on him to draw again, no matter how close he remains with Kevin Nash. And I don’t think Hall could even run a school or be trusted even as an announcer or commissioner.
There’s so many people who have burned bridges too bad with Vince or his higher ups to get another shot – Jarrett, Shane Douglas, probably Kurt Angle at this point, Savage. There is simply too much history to make unbelievability an excuse.
yikes, there is no way I can absorb all of this in the short time i have at present, and I am hoping I may be able to condense and clarify and exact a position into a post and then if there is still any interest a comment thread specifically on it could develop and work, as it is, too many tangents here to keep it up.
I notice Goon you didn’t quote the entire sentence, so I will put up my tentative thesis as it was completely written: “its about cultivating an aesthetic appreciation that works to make you evolve, think, feel, so that you can apply that inspiration in other parts of your life.” no explicit mention of film only there, I am talking about aesthetic appreciation whatever the medium. There is no one aesthetic appreciation to cultivate, its individual, BUT that does not mean it is anything goes, there are useful ways to stratify kinds of appreciation and from that convincingly see one that could be defined as mediocrity, and, not that hard to associate with that grouping, a kind of film product that is in fact paid for and designed, by and large, to suit geek and fanboy fetishes that are themselves linked to the idea of mediocrity.
now there is something to be said for the stratifying of levels, that maybe I could keep to Gladwell’s Tipping Point criteria and could fine tune this, what I have been arguing is rougher than what I actually envision our cultivating to actually be like.
Your mention of my liking Cloverfield indicates to me a massive confusion about what I am talking about. I don’t know if it is just the nature of this medium or our culture or what but everything gets polarized when it doesn’t need to be, arguments are made as either/ors, and the deathblow is assumed if you find something like I enjoyed Cloverfield… I never said I didn’t enjoy tawdry things, that sometimes empty pleasures are fine, what I do not do is invert their significance, or idolize them, or talk feverishly about Cloverfield for what little it did to enrich me. Again it isn’t so much Iron Man, its the over-saturation of that kind of product and the unusual celebration of that product by people SOME of whom one would suppose by their maturity levels would be interested in other kinds of films, more enthusiastic in fact about other kinds of films which contribute to their development as people.
I have lots of conversations with people, a lot of boring mediocre bullshit said day in day out, the same jokes and tired routines, and I do not elevate them to some significance, no I elevate the conversations where I feel fully engaged and almost electrified by the content of the discussion. The same goes with film, and I would think the same would go with most other people. I would think they would get more excited about the things that involve them personally, but geek culture is about getting excited over the plastic wrapped object, and tangentially about people getting together to talk about that object, about how cool it is, not about how it pertains to you and your life.
“Your mention of my liking Cloverfield indicates to me a massive confusion about what I am talking about”
It was quite simply a tease, and the other essay length posts that I’d pay more attention too. But I’ve got too much eye-hurt right now to focus more on what you just wrote to see what I have to bitch about now. At first glance seems its exhausted.
Darren Aronofsky: “I’ve learned that all you need to make a movie is an honest performance and a lens.”
Matt, with all the angles you’ve played against the Wrestler, all the hyperbole, how do you square it with what you just wrote on your own site?
“The huge new release of the weekend is of course The Wrestler which opens at The Uptown. It is a solid movie and Mickey Rourke’s performance is worth all of the accolades it is getting. The rest of the film? Not so much. But still well worth your time and money to go see.”
See it again, or were you trolling?
I think Matt often finds himself falling into the trolling rut.
Just watched it a second time, and it is even better than I remembered. Just perfect. There are os many sad little moments like when Cassidy brushes Ram off after he tells her about his heart attack… if it was really playing to cliche she would have warmed up to him then and there but she still shows this slight indifference.
It’s playing locally now (I went out of my way the first time) – will definitely check it again before it leaves theatres.
I found this quote in a book I was reading today rot, “Fargo Rock City” by Chuck Klostermann where he talks about growing up with glam metal and other ‘mindless entertainment’
“if we’re going to give metal credence as an art form, we have to give it the same benefit of the doubt we’d give Piss Christ or Robert Mapplethorpe or anything else that’s controversial. We have to live with the (sometimes uncomfortable) idea that it serves a benefit merely by its existence. The music creates discourse. It’s an idea. And if your’e willing to believe that something that’s often absurd can be occasionally insightful, then there are ideas in the sleaziest, most worthless trenches of glam metal”
@Goon,
That’s a watered down ‘idea’ of art… when everything that creates discourse is called art you lose any useful significance of calling something art… you might as well deny any kind of threshold altogether. Yet the rhetoric of fandom is that some things are arguably more significant than others… so the notion of a threshold still exists.
here is my barebones deinition of what entails ‘art’:
1) a rare level of excellence that transcends the purely technical achievements of a work
2) wholly authenticated by the individual’s reaction, not by any property of the work itself
3) requires a palpable momentary or long-lasting destabilization in the individual’s sense of being that induces a direct communion between him/her and the work.
so Glam rock could be ‘art’ to someone who is at the moment of awakening, or who is ripe for that, and lets be honest, these mindless entertainments, they are novel mostly to people who are early in their lives, they seem fresh and new because the person is fresh and new. Generally we are drawn to simplicity in our youth and become oversaturated and expand to other things, and if we do come back to simplicity it is for other reasons, for nostalgia, or for something else other than the literal message it provides.
All that matters for me to be art is for something to be expressed, and for one person to get something out of it in an artistic way. And if thats too broad for you, fine, but if we’re going back to the word ‘masturbation’, making such criteria is most definitely that, and setting up rules only steps towards robbing any art of authenticity.
“they are novel mostly to people who are early in their lives, they seem fresh and new because the person is fresh and new. ”
That’s an extremely ignorant and most definitely elitist statement. In the same book Klosterman for example, mentions that 99% of any other music genre is art, but it is only the ones that are either willingly dumb for whatever purpose, or just so happen to be dumb, that have to be defended with a “I know its stupid but…” – Someone defending glam or glitter rock is put in a position to apologize for everything, but someone who said they like 90s alternative wouldn’t have to apologize for every Gin Blossoms record to stand up for Radiohead.
Every song on “Appetite for Destruction” is better music and better art than any of your “ten songs” of 2008, and whether or not Axl is an idiot or a majority of people who like it did so first when they were teenagers is of no significance to me.
“..something else other than the literal message it provides.”
This is retarded. What’s the literal message of the Mona Lisa?
What is the literal message of Pulp Fiction? Once Upon A Time in the West?
Your statement is simply a qualifier to shield you against the very real and valuable development of everything from understanding whats “real” and “gritty” and how people actually think and are, to simply having a sense of humor and irony. To try to write those off is frankly, irresponsible.
I see wrestling as an art form. The literal message of wrestling is ‘pow kick oof blood’. But I see the work that goes into it, that they are telling a story in many ways, and that its live action action scenes, and theater. In addition, my understanding of it helped appreciate “The Wrestler” in ways that others perhaps did not.
I would argue that someone who understands extreme metal, sunset strip glam rock, most rap music (another item which would have to be written off as shit for its ‘literal message’ under your post) and other underground cultures, would more easily identify fake bullshit scripts that try to tackle race and political issues *cough Paul Haggis Crash cough*
So many supposed ‘low’ expressions that you’re making fun of and say can only be enjoyed for ‘nostalgia’ give a glimpse simply into how people think and live. The drugs or hard life that leads to it happening can give it additional relevance and yes, importance.
“Straight outta compton” is a more important record than anything Lykke Li will ever put out, and the fact N.W.A. have recorded a track advising women how to suck dick doesn’t change that.
When you were nine did you watch Herzog’s Nosferatu, or listen to a Bach symphony, or read or have read to you Shakespeare? probably not, and even if you had they probably wouldn’t rank as your favorite music, books, films at age nine because, and I hardly think this is controversial to say, you had different priorities at age nine.
That is what I meant by saying when you are fresh and new you are inclined towards things that are simple, and revel in their simplicity, in their ‘literal’ simplicity. By that I mean they intend to be appreciated on that level… The Engine That Could is intended to be appreciated for its very blunt moral message… something like Casablanca (which I don’t particularly like) which is also fairly simple, is not necessarily to be appreciated for its literal message, it comes with an aura of nostalgia, it has a socio-historical context to it that one can appreciate as well.
You are not understanding me Goon, there isn’t one path, one trajectory that art works on, its not just a matter of simplicity to complexity, but an argument can be made we do saturate in experiences and move towards new ones, like anything, if something dulls our senses we need something a bit harder to get the new feeling.
I am saying each of us has our own thresholds and they develop over time and age nine Goon is different from present day Goon, if only because more experiences mean more differentiation between what is good and what is bad. Now I am saying a USEFUL demarcation for what is art to you, is to say something that transcends mere craft, that has an emotive effect on you that cannot be explained away by mere technique. And that this effect be not fleeting, for what is the point of bringing such emphasis to something you forget the next day, you might as well call everything art then! No its the stuff that resonates deeper in you, that destabilizes you, that changes you in some way. Maybe the art contributes to your perceptions of the world, become fall-back ideas of how certain relationships or philosophy play out (The Wire for example is welded into my mind as a perfect portrayal of bureaucratic inefficiencies, when I think about people falling through the cracks I think of the Wire).
I guess one major point I’m trying to get to here as I keep consversing with myself is that with a lot of art, esthetics alone matter. You can look a lot of fine art and appreciate the technicality, but it doesn’t mean jack shit to you personally. It is only YOURSELF that defines what transcends the technical acheivement
So why shouldn’t movies or music get the same consideration? Because of the script or lyrics? Why the hell would you write “wholly authenticated by the individual’s reaction, not by any property of the work itself” but then try and dismiss liking something as “for something else other than the literal message it provides.”
If I seemed pissed off, its because Yo Ragin On My Boi Simplicity – if Keith Haring adopted your ideas, I probably wouldn’t have my favorite artist of all time.
You can have your wrestling and glam rock to destabilize you, enrich your life with new ways of thinking, if that is what it does… if it just is mindless entertainment, a means of passing the time, no matter how fun that passing of time may be, than what is the point of calling it art? masturbation would be art, everything and then nothing. no point differentiating anything. your inclusive argument is self-negating, it argues for the right of mediocrity… you might as well argue for the right of achieving nothing with your life. everyone has the right, what point is there in celebrating it?
“if something dulls our senses we need something a bit harder to get the new feeling. ”
It’s this sort of thing that has made a lot of comedy more shocking, and in fact dumber. But you can look at some of those movies that are doing that and just see dumb, and other ones that have a ‘knowing’ sense behind it, irony, etc. – yet by the guantlet you threw down about lowbrow entertainment, In Bruges gets nominated for ‘comedy’ at the Golden Globes even though its not funny, because stuff like Vicky Christina Barcelona feels more like ‘art’ than Role Models.
It’s that sort of thing I’m raging against. Not to rag on VCB or IB specifically, but it’s this mindset that gets dramatic actors nominated for comedy awards, and actual comedians get the shaft. Because they’re “simple”. Because they actually do the fucking job of being funny.
“if it just is mindless entertainment, a means of passing the time, no matter how fun that passing of time may be, than what is the point of calling it art?”
The phrase “mindless entertainment” gets thrown around because people like you insist on it, and it’s an easy way to placate film snobs and avoid day long discussions on the merits of Iron Man to the general populace. You can complain that they don’t ‘get’ the films you like because they lack a certain education, exposure or training, or as Henrik likes to say ‘complexity’ – and I argue back that an ‘overeducation’ and ‘overdedication’ to things that only meet certain criteria rob you of some very great worthwhile experiences, that are only ‘mindless’ if you can’t appreciate or examine the reasons why an AC/DC album pumps people up.
“Why the hell would you write “wholly authenticated by the individual’s reaction, not by any property of the work itself” but then try and dismiss liking something as “for something else other than the literal message it provides.””
ah, ok, authenticating and articulating are two different things, I can see the confusion. I mean there would be no ‘art’ if you were TOLD that the film was amazing because of x,y and z attributes of the film. The source of art has to be first and foremost your direct experience of it authenticating it… you feel it, you know it (if you are halfway cognizant) and then you can play out the articulations of why it affects you WHICH WILL ALWAYS BE FICTIONS.
I think Kurt and Andrew talked about how you may dislike a film but then talk about it afterwards and convince yourself that it was good… well was it really the film, or the conversation that did that? Not that it matters so much, but it is ideas that generally interest us, and so wherever the idea comes from is not so important as it does resonate with us. it destabilizes us, and than the articulation is a way of enshrining that experience, making it mean something, even if their is no objective truth about the articulation.
does that makes sense?
I think You shook me all night long or Pour some sugar on me are way better than Iron Man. The difference? They last less than 4 minutes, whereas Iron Man is nearly 2 hours.
a summary of my view:
We feel and then enshrine experiences… the self-determined higher threshold experiences come to affect who we are and how we interact with the world. The enshrining ‘explanations’ of the feeling are fictions we make up, but they are useful fictions to move us in a certain direction.
all of us being different, have our own enshrined art experiences, our own higher threshold experiences that define us in a way. We may argue over the objects we associate with our feelings but this too is another useful fiction, a way to further elaborate or enshrine our valued ideas. It doesn’t matter so much if we convince another person one way or the other only that we refine our own ideas.
Each of us has a threshold and each of us has an idea of mediocrity, and it is not in any our best interests to defend or celebrate that mediocrity, because it stunts us, it denies us any growth emotionally, spiritually, intellectually.
This is what I am constantly fighting against, although I do generalize and say something like Iron Man is clearly formulaic (which it is) and therefore it should be universally perceived as mediocre, as uninspiring, having nothing to say about life, but taking it second-hand. But it depends on where you are, what your enshrined experiences are, and relative to you, what it means. This is why I bring up youth, because there is an indifference to formulas in youth because you have not yet become so jaded and familiar with them that they affect your experience of a film.
I’m not sure you’re getting my line of attack. To me what you had written was saying exactly that yes, only you can authenticate its greatness through your experience. But the second line about ‘for something else other than the literal message’ seems to be dismissing liking something if you’re not authenticating it the way it was intended at face value.
It seems/seemed to be attacking how you can find morals in films like Reservoir Dogs (even if its simply ‘honour amongst theives’) because Tarantino probably didn’t directly set out to do that, or attacking liking a song that may not have any ideas of its own, but still represents one merely by its existence or the way its expressed.
So we get saturated and want deeper or more complex ideas. Yeah sure, I’m fine with complexity and embrace it, but primal, instinctual, more simple ideas can still connect and are worth nurturing.
After “The Wrestler” I downloaded the Ratt and Quiet Riot songs from the movie. I don’t remember any of the words other than the titles which appear in the chorus. “Bang Your Head” isn’t much of an idea or a message, but it is indeed something if only a feeling.
And its not even a complex feeling – look at that right there “Bang Your Head” – if you’re feeling a particular groove, rock with it, enjoy yourself. That basic “enjoy life” FEELING from three words in a dumb song has as much artistic credibility to me personally, if not more, than the ‘enjoy life’ message of the Fountain and how it was expressed there.
And that’s simply because of the visceral connection and the very simple way it was expressed. And I don’t see why anyone should look down on that. It has value, and it isn’t nostalgia, or ironic sneering, it’s not pretentious, it’s real.
“whereas Iron Man is nearly 2 hours.”
and Zodiac is 3 hours. What’s the difference between 4 minutes of fun in a row, and 2 hours of fun in a row, so long as overall it balances you out in your life into something you can be happy with?
I mean Henrik, you’ve expressed so many times that you believe in nothing and have all this pain. You’re either secretly happy with this and you found your own sense of balance, or you should quit judging how other people find fun and happiness.
“..should be universally perceived as mediocre, as uninspiring, having nothing to say about life”
What Iron Man makes you feel about life is important though, and gives it importance and relevance. Iron Man made my life better than Snow Angels did, and a lot of serious movies did that I actually really like. Those other movies are much easier to convince people as ‘art’, but so what? it’s also apparently easier to convince people that Sarah Palin has better ideas than Noam Chomsky.
Andy Warhol painted soup cans. A lot of people saw something else, a lot of people felt something else, and a lot of people still only saw soup cans.
I can only speak for myself personally, and while 4 minutes of masturbation can be an amazing experience, 2 hours of masturbation is a fucking bore. I haven’t seen Zodiac, one of the reasons being the runtime, because a film that needs to be 3 hours, better be pretty damn special I think.
I only and always speak for myself Goon. I guess merely by expressing opinion I am judging people, but who the hell doesn’t judge people? If anything, you’re the master of putting people into little boxes and having them play parts, to the point of using them as charicatures in other conversations.
There is a stereotype of you out there that is certainly not even a fraction of my own doing, and that stereotype is that you don’t like anything and you make sweeping contrarian statements. you’re certainly not alone but still.. come on.
Using you as an adjective was to me like saying “Herculean” or “Machivellian”. But I guess they may not be happy about being put into a box and playing out parts either.
—————
In the last podcast, Andrew and Kurt were talking about how ‘warm’ the Wrestler is, and how you are affected by movies where you don’t like any character. These are both critiques that rely very much on feeling, emotional rather than analytical.
In the same book I’m reading Klosterman talks about how people will use the head vs. the heart in talking about pop culture – that those who attach themselves to a movie or artist over feeling are more likely to abandon it later, that we like to quantitate things. (He also thinks that females tend to be the more emotionally, less loyal fans because of this)
Either way, we afford these sentimental attachments or detachments to high-end movies. You can’t get away with “boring” as much though because it implies you didn’t make the effort to connect, when so often that’s not the case.
But people who fill their top ten lists with the most introspective films of the year I find don’t afford the same emotional feelings toward something like Iron Man, and that simply strikes me as unfair. So what if you can punch holes in it analytically? if it gave you the feeling, it did something right to make up for its flaws. Kurt says that warmness in the Wrestler makes up for flaws, well then that should allow some rope for my warm feelings towards Hellboy and Abe Sapien.
I’m not advocating a SImpsons-esuqe “Do what you feel festival” , and I’m not even pooh-poohing you if what appeals to you most during the year is stuff that messes with your head instead of your heart.
“Once” was my favorite movie of 2007. It’s a pretty simple movie that requires an attachment to the music, and that attachment to the music makes it so much easier to attach to the characters. But since that’s an indie movie and that music has a more inherent ‘arty’ quality, we can look past that it doesn’t really have many ideas, and isn’t very complex. There’s just so much double standard.
This is good stuff, Goon, I need to process it properly, not in between jobs right now, so will write something later tonight hopefully.
This threshold of greatness each of us has that I keep talking about, it is not about analytical value… if anything Kurt is more the person that equates the value of a film with how many layers it affords… Once was practically tied for first in my top ten as well… thats why I keep saying the experience first, than the articulating of it, or enshrining of it. Once is great because it genuinely moved me, and then comes the playtime of articulating it, and for me it has a nostalgic remembrance of how much music meant to me when i was a teenager, how I have lost that spark, and it codifies that ideal.
I hate Pop Art, I find it cheap and insulting… but when I first encountered it, when I was taught about it I thought it was cool, it played a part in my development, how I approached my own art, but then I grew out of it. I hate almost anything that is purely conceptual, that the way to get to the meaning is through some convoluted framework,
art should speak for itself.
Just because Kurt says something doesn’t make it so Goon. I feel nothing for Hellboy, but I feel something for The Ram. I got no feeling from Iron Man. Something like Hellboy, Iron Man, The Dark Knight, Hancock, Hulk, Transformers, these movies are all lies to me. The best they can do is be a well-constructed joke, to be interesting in their own universes, they never make me feel anything because they are just lies, jokes and fairytales, the kinds only children are affected by in my opinion. Some things do cross over, ie. HC Andersen, and that might be the greatest art of all, but other than those extremely rare instances, the overt simplicity and simplemindedness of these jokes just bores me. Life isn’t simple, why would you take comfort in somebody lying to you, trying to convince you that it is? And even if you do, to go from that and to actually say it’s not only a healthy supplement, but actually something worth celebrating on par with actuality, real life, with the truth, that’s the jump that leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and that I’m certainly not on board with.
Got a lot of time on my hands this week. Now that I finished the Corner (good stuff), I’m basically sitting by the phone waiting for a couple important business calls. Yipes.
———
I like some pop art, but it again depends on the connection, how its expressed, etc.
3 different statements on Warhol’s soup cans:
Robert Indiana: “I knew Andy very well. The reason he painted soup cans is that he liked soup.” (NY Times 12/1/02)
Marcel Duchamp: “If you take a Campbell’s Soup can and repeat it fifty times, you are not intrested in the retinal image. What interests you is the concept that wants to put fifty Campbell’s Soup cans on a canvas.” (PT148)
Martin Heidegger: “… at bottom, the ordinary is not ordinary; it is extraordinary.”
(“On the Origin of the Work of Art”)
I didn’t know Andy, obviously, I don’t know if he liked soup, I can see Duchamp’s point but it isn’t enough to justify something as good, and I think Heidegger is right, but not all the time.
But I can look at the soup cans and like the visual of it, and assume he liked soup. I may be wrong, so what? If I like how it looks AND appreciate the conceptual nature behind it, great. If I like how it looks and can get some life meaning out of it, wonderful.
But that only happens sometimes.
When the Movie Club did Freddy Got Fingered, Kurt was defending it on the basis of statement 2 pretty much alone, the prank nature that he somehow decided to go through with this, commit to it and make it. I on the other hand see FGF as being a prank and intentionally bad, but also liking the performance, am able to analytically argue that its actually constructed, shot and scored at a superior level to most comedies, make grand assertions of it being the film manifestation of punk rock, all this stuff. but i wouldn’t do any of that stuff if I didn’t also find the movie at times genuinely funny or watchable overall either. This is why FGF is my dada-movie-go-to, and something that its been compared to, like Bunuel’s “Un chien andalou”, isn’t nearly so much. FGF has a zillion layers for me, some on purpose, some absolutely not. I feel similarly about “Gremlins 2″, which has been argued on similar terms at length now.
I don’t think I like statements like “I grew out of it.” – I could make a laundry list but in my experience everyone retains a sense of empathy for what they leave behind, whether they show it or not.
“Just because Kurt says something doesn’t make it so Goon.”
Forgive me for trying to make the topic relevant to other people, the site or thread in general
“the kinds only children are affected by in my opinion. ”
You know for a fact that not only children are affected by them, so it can’t be your opinion, it can only be your judgment of other people as children.
“Life isn’t simple, why would you take comfort in somebody lying to you, trying to convince you that it is?”
This is a weird statement from a nihilist. Whether or not life is simple, it can absolutely feel simple sometimes, and there is no lie there, and no crime for trying to escape it once in a while.
And then there’s relativity. In some ways you may look at another person’s life and think its more simple, when it other ways its a much harder existence. A life flipping burgers may seem simple, but living with it surely is not.
Unless it is. Which it could be, depending on one’s priorities and philosophy. In other words Henrik, saying that life is not simple, is a gross oversimplification
“celebrating on par with actuality, real life”
So now we’re debating reality? Whose reality? Whose life?
“If I like how it looks and can get some life meaning out of it, wonderful.
But that only happens sometimes.”
Correct. We are in complete agreement. The jump that you’re making that I’m not, is that you think in order to bear life, you have to appreciate the shit as well, because you can’t avoid it anyway. Basically a defeatist mentality, saying that you can’t expect excellence all the time, and if you don’t concede to actually finding something to like about horrible shit, you won’t be able to bear existence.
I guess the difference between the two of us, is that I’m strong enough to bear the unbearable existence, and you refuse to and therefore compromise whatever needs compromising for comfort.
“A life flipping burgers may seem simple, but living with it surely is not.
Unless it is. Which it could be, depending on one’s priorities and philosophy.”
I suppose you’re right, and stupid people probably find life very simple. Mentally retarded people and children most likely lead the simplest lives of all. What I should say to avoid the simplification as you call it is: Life is not simple, unless you’re incapable of realizing, or refuse to realize, that it isn’t.
But that doesn’t make it simple. It just makes you an idiot.
“The jump that you’re making that I’m not, is that you think in order to bear life, you have to appreciate the shit as well”
You’re not getting it at all, I’ve been pointing out double standard after double standard to show that what you may call shit and meaningless is to someone else, not shit and in fact meaningful – and not just to people who don’t know better.
And that a lot of us have our heads up our asses being so analytical all the time that we fail to identify the good as being good, because we have preconceptions about what is ‘low’ and not ‘art’.
When I said ‘but that only happens sometimes’, i’m not saying that only some things have meaning, i’m saying only some things have meaning TO YOU.
“I guess the difference between the two of us, is that I’m strong enough to bear the unbearable existence, and you refuse to and therefore compromise whatever needs compromising for comfort.”
The fact that I just laughed my ass off at this tells me you’re wrong, but I forgive you because you’re hilarious.
That was one of the most Dieterish things I’ve ever heard you say. That you both thought it, typed it and committed to sending it brightens my day.
“I’m strong enough to bear the unbearable existence”
Wow. Shamwow even.
Yeah I know I went over the top, but you know, you gotta be extreme sometimes when you’re sick, your head hurts and you can’t be bothered to think as much. I found it fun to think it, type it and commiting to send it as well. There is something to it no doubt, but the way I phrased it definitely was impossible to take seriously, even to me.
“When I said ‘but that only happens sometimes’, i’m not saying that only some things have meaning, i’m saying only some things have meaning TO YOU.”
When I talk, there is no difference.
“You’re not getting it at all, I’ve been pointing out double standard after double standard to show that what you may call shit and meaningless is to someone else, not shit and in fact meaningful – and not just to people who don’t know better.”
You sound like a kindergarten teacher, desperately trying to instill a notion of care and gentleness into a ranchy 6year old, which pretty much was my experience with regular school. I’ve grown beyond trying to accept stupidity and idiocy, shit is meaningless, if somebody tells me shit is meaningful, I’m going to call him an idiot. But I want to make it clear, there is nothing wrong with being an idiot. People are allowed to be idiots as much as they want, and they can hang out with other idiots and be idiots together and live happy and fulfilled lives. Just don’t expect my tolerance or acceptance if you approach me, any more than I would expect your understanding of what I consider worthwhile.
“I suppose you’re right, and stupid people probably find life very simple. Mentally retarded people and children most likely lead the simplest lives of all.”
I guess you’ve never learned anything about Taoism or Buddhism on your path toward such enlightenment Henrik. Voluntary simplicity and such? Then again, if you met the lamas I’ve met, you’d probably find them very childish, and for all I know you think they look retarded too.
“You sound like a kindergarten teacher”
Maybe I wouldn’t if you weren’t being so… childish.
ZING.
Man you’re just so clever with the jokes Goon. I never saw that coming.
I have no clue what Taoism is, all I know about Buddhism is that Buddha is portrayed as a fat, bald man, which I find sympathetic, and I think I head he didn’t want people to idolize him, which I also find sympathetic. Lamas from what I know, are animals who spit.
Voluntary simplicity is lies, it is defeat, it is running scared. Ignorance is bliss.
You know, I always love it when nihilists who are “strong enough to bear the unbearable existence” take so much shit so personally and to heart, and have to make every conversation about themselves.
“I have no clue what Taoism is”
“Ignorance is bliss.”
Apparently.
Here come the potshots…
I claim Victory.
Since voluntary simplicity is a lifestyle characterized by minimizing the ‘more-is-better’ pursuit of wealth and consumption…
..and since nihilists say nothing has any intrinsic value anyways…
you’re a weird one. You don’t even consider that another perspective is that giving up all your worldly possessions and being in tune with the earth is the real search for truth, meaning and complexity, and giving up all that entertainment takes way more strength than “bearing the unbearable existence”, whatever that is supposed to mean other than sounding deep.
I mean you keep saying you can only speak for yourself, but then you go around calling people children, retarded, liars, defeated, ignorant and scared.
How much more full of shit do you care to be today?
“Here come the potshots”
See post above, I didn’t call everyone who disagrees with me a frightened 7 year old melon headed failure at life. So if you want to claim victory because I’m attacking just you rather than anyone, I guess you win. You certainly attacked more people than I did today.
Soo…. who likes movies?
In an attempt to save this thread and get rot back here, I will quote again from the Klosterman book I’m reading. Take this statement and apply it to film:
“Too many indie bands are consumed with the misguided belief that their destiny was to recalibrate the American mind; they try too hard to seem significant. Despite all their espoused organic passion, everything they do is calculated: They know precisely how unwilling revolutionaries are supposed to act. There will always be this bizarre concensus that sporadically interesting, consciously under-produced music is inherently transcendent, mainly because almost no one appreciates it. And that defines the concept of elitism”
As it applies to film for me, I find that yes, (calling you out on this) Kurt
, and sometimes others, will make excuses and give free passes to the flaws of movies simply because they are almost unknown, are full of nobodies, are low budget, or are foreign. Jay mentioned on the Filmjunk podcast how sentimentality in foreign films is easier to tolerate for people than in American movies, and yes, Andrew and I are guilty of this when we gave 5 star reviews to “The Man From Earth”
Don’t get me wrong, that movie is an underseen little gem, but there are a lot of flaws with it that we acknowledged, but ignored when we rated it, perhaps because we thought a higher rating would get more people to see it, or because we have some secret sliding scale if its a smaller, more personal project? I don’t know, but that attitude towards music definitely applies to Pitchfork a lot of the time – if a band gets too big they will turn their back, they will come up with ironic non-reviews to get around an honest appraisal of the record (see their reviews of last years Black Kids album or the Hives “Tyrannosaurus Hives”) that might threaten their indie cred.
With film I think there’s some built in mechanism amongst internet movie fans who see more than 40 movies a year, to push little seen movies up their year end lists and devalue a number of movies they may have liked more, but don’t give you much cred. I’m sure a lot of people are being honest, but there’s enough fake-indiedom out there to make me cynical of a lot of reviewers. I don’t trust them.
In music overall locally in Toronto I manifest that in Tim Perlich, a transparently ignorant douchebag who clearly writes reviews before he’s even done the record, who may not even listened to the record, who has to discourage any purchase of the new White Stripes album or whateverthefuckisnew, so people will read his “Perlich’s Picks” column which is nothing but ridiculously obscure stuff that is simply not relevant, even if only because the albums he lists aren’t available almost anywhere, even in Toronto. There’s no critic I’ve ever trusted less. Everything he reviews is more about himself than the reader. And maybe its rude and ageist, but I don’t see the point of a 50 year old having a music column in an alt-weekly. If Rolling Stone actually bothered to pass the torch to the next generation, they’d still be relevant rather than giving 3 and a half star reviews to everything new and unknown, and 5 star reviews to all new Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, whether they deserve it or not.
I do want to write something, maybe a post, on some of the thoughts I am having about what I wrote, where I am coming from, and how that pertains to things you wrote, because I know there is something there, I just need to polish that turd and make it sparkle.
but as for this latest comment,
a couple points:
the free passes for films because of some hipster notion of what to say has got to stop, its got to be called out every time it is done. If I ever do it, I want to be called out. I think it is reasonable to say that we are not always aware of our motives for what we write, and these kind of empty statements are liable to be said by any of us, but if we shine a light on it, it becomes less likely, if we start to really invest ourselves with what we truly like and not pander to some other criteria, more value will be gained.
I really enjoy the filmcast podcast but I was disappointed with the criteria they had for the films they deemed best of 2008… one of them said he picked the films according to what he would feel comfortable recommending to a friend, and that to me negates the list, its supposing a hypothetical importance in place of actual importance. It also filters out the esoteric hard to work at films in place of films that are easier to consume. film appreciation becomes a social exercise, about the scene, not about the film experiences.
I am not saying it can’t be social, but some part of yourself needs to be invested and addressed. Goon, you mention this music critic who just writes about himself, I would prefer that then just writing about platitudes about music. When someone reviews an album or a film, if they are honest about their experience, they are talking about their relationship with what they just heard or watched. For style sake we edit out ourselves, but that is the style of our grandparents, in this blogosphere it makes sense to be more open about ourselves, to make our experiences part of the description. The whole podcast idea is about letting the guard down and being real people conversing about what we like. Style is fine in moderation… I find Filmspotting way over-produced, all about hitting notes of levity and chiming along and its not nearly as enjoyable as the verite experience of a bunch of people spontaneously talking… granted I like that style so maybe that is just me. The Dave Eggers approach.
At some point I would like to get back to writing reviews the way I ideally think they should be written… not sure if I have even done one yet here… it is just so much easier to give the description and go.
er, slashfilm podcast I meant
“When someone reviews an album or a film, if they are honest about their experience, they are talking about their relationship with what they just heard or watched.”
With Perlich its not like that though, it’s more of a transparent “I know things you don’t!” bragging rather than expressing anything personal or sharing an experience.
Filmspotting can be very good sometimes. I don’t usually trust their comedy reviews, but with dramas they can win me over. I have a problem with Matty Ballgame though and have ever since he took over. I think his actor background has given him a chip on his shoulder, and that he is very self-congratulatory with his own analysis. He’s smug in a way that well, we are all guilty of from time to time, but the way he does it comes off as particularly arrogant and hardline. When I compare the Filmspotting show to Andrew, Kurt, Jay and Sean, there’s really no comparison – FS more and more seem to regard themselves as experts, and the Movie Club crew more clearly see themselves as opinionated fans. Another podcast that shall remain nameless but may be obvious, well one of their members especially seems to think himself an expert, will censor anyone who undercuts his opinion for the flimsiest of reasons, and refers to his own opinion as “correct” in a way that used to be self-effacing irony, but now is a reflection of his own dictatorship over the show and his staff.
I’ve listened to the Slashfilm show a number of times. I don’t usually listen to the whole thing, the fact that I can’t tell the hosts apart from each other easily by voice or film taste doesn’t help much.
“Once is great because it genuinely moved me, and then comes the playtime of articulating it, and for me it has a nostalgic remembrance of how much music meant to me when i was a teenager, how I have lost that spark, and it codifies that ideal.”
Since we were talking about nostalgia early on, even albums that people still look back on now as the most intelligent or ground breaking work of its time, can be lionized in a way people hearing them now may not understand.
I was around 17 and at an emotional crossroads, pretentious as that sounds, when I heard OK Computer and “Adam and Eve” by Catherine Wheel for the first time, and then played them over and over, crushed and feeling outside myself as I absorbed them. I don’t get that lump in my throat much anymore, but “Once” did that for me, and most definitely helped me push that to the top of my 2007 list. So it’s benefiting from a weird form of nostalgia, it feels so much more important because it got something out of me I hadn’t felt in around 10 years. Do you look past that and rate it more analytically, or do you give in to how it made you feel?
“Filmspotting more and more seem to regard themselves as experts, and the Movie Club crew more clearly see themselves as opinionated fans”
exactly, and what is it to be an expert? You know the relative value of a film in context to other films, you know the terminology? That’s not enough, and I would argue not even all that important. Appreciating film is not like engaging in a philosophical debate… it makes sense that to do the debating you are benefited by knowing the lingo because they are agreed upon shorthands to getting to metaphysical ideas, but you do not need the same diligence when talking about film, especially when talking about your feelings about film. We weight ourselves down with emphasis on the product and its relative value, the stories usually are what is most important, what the story says, how it relates to us. We have been told stories our whole lives, its far less an academic necessity than a self-awareness, a curiosity of why you like the things you like, not striving for objective proof, but indulging in the creative act of enshrining the experience through conversation.
We can critique the product but it shouldn’t end there, it should start there. If inclined, one can employ a foreknowledge of film tropes and distinguish one film from another according to its conformity or deviation from a norm… BUT that is usually not where the value of the film is coming from, especially if it is because you really like the film. How shallow a reason is that, to say it operates smoothly. Should I equally celebrate my car? The reasons tend to be more specific, more personal, and tend to be left out of the discussion… especially with the more people you have involved in the conversation… you water down what the film is about and play at something that the social group can engage with.
I don’t think I have ever had a deeply intimate conversation with a group of people… it inevitably becomes superficial. I rag on geek culture because it rallies its wagons around this end, its keeps people buzzing about the things of lesser importance.
On the podcast front I really enjoy the guys over at Screen Geeks. They have a good balance of older and younger movie guys and a mix of movie tastes.
Have not heard the screen geeks guys, but just the name ‘Geeks’ makes me suspicious.
Where is the Screen Snobs podcast, thats my crowd
you know who else didn’t like the Wrestler?
I took a look at that site today for the first time in months and saw he didn’t even like the Springsteen song, and was rooting for the song from “Bolt” for Best Song at the Globes.
oh, and as a bonus, like Matt, he called those who disagree with him “Sheep”
I wonder if Matt would come hunt me down if I call him Matt Campea from now on.
Pssst…I liked The Wrestler Goon. But it is fun to rile up people who have an overinflated sense of selfworth.
Boom. Boom. Boom goes the dynamite!
Link please. Don’t think I can bear to search the site for more than a couple of minutes.
Oh yeah, and for the sake of argument:
People ARE like sheep
Yeah, I saw that review. People are entitled to their opinions I guess, but that site does that all the time. “The movie was boring.” That’s all we get. Why? Which parts were boring?
I got into a “tussle” over there once with the Zodiac review in which he said “nothing ever happens” in the movie. “Just talking.” I mean Jesus, don’t like the movie? Fine. But don’t say nothing happens in the movie. That’s simply not true. More “stuff” happens in Zodiac than almost any movie of 2007. Ridiculous.
I’ve stopped reading reviews over there because they’re only interested in seeing everything possible to get a review up (by their own admission in the comments of their “worst of 2008″ post). They honestly purposefully go to see shit they know they’re not going to like just to have a review go up. To each his own I guess. If going to see “The Hottie and the Nottie” is how you want to spend your life, so be it. I’ll go somewhere else to read my reviews – to people who actually have an interest in seeing film; not just going to see movies because they “have to.”
Jay C’s response in that thread is dead on.
To be fair, Campea wasn’t saying that anyone who likes the movie is a sheep. He was talking about the haters of his review. A distinction that should be understood.
I know, I know. I just knew if I sunk low enough to compare Matt to Campea, I could smoke him out of his hole
BAMM, DYNAMITE RETURN BEOTCH
In all seriousness though, in Campea’s review it is absolutely HILARIOUS that instead of explaining how it was boring or responding, he resorts to his catch-all response to anything that corners him
“Film is subjective”
Campea’s review here:
if visiting that site pains you, you can guess whats wrong with the review by the fact these quotes exist within the same review:
“You like him, root for him, your heart aches for him… you just get totally attached to this character and as a result get emotionally attached to the film as a whole”
“I was bored to tears through this flick and found nothing entertaining about it.”
“I did not like The Wrestler at all.”
This is just nonsense, how does one root for a character and get attached to them and still be bored? if you were bored, wouldn’t you be apathetic about the characters, rather than enthralled? Maybe if Rourke wasn’t in EVERY SINGLE SCENE, but GEEZ.
I get the impression John maybe didn’t even like the performance, but was only willing to go so far with his loathing, lest having to censor half his message board for calling him insane in the most appropriate language possible.
One more quote:
“To people who say ‘John only highly reviews blockbuster big special effects movies’. Did you not just read my reviews for Milk? The Curious Case of Benjamin Button? Frost/Nixon? Slumdog Millionare?”
You heard it here first: Benjamin Button is not a special effects film, and hasn’t made almost 100 million in less than a month. And those other films? Van Sant, Boyle, Ron Howard. Nobodies. Campea honored those indie spirits with his time.
http://www.themovieblog.com/2008/12/the-wrestler-review
I haven’t been to the movie blog since Doug left, but I went and read the review and was reminded why. I’m simply too elitist to pollute my eyes and thoughts with the SUBJECTIVE OPINION of a religious nutcase who thinks The House Bunny is a better movie than The Wrestler.
Jay did a good job on the comment though.
“…The House Bunny is a better movie than The Wrestler.”
mad lolz
I know, I know. I just knew if I sunk low enough to compare Matt to Campea, I could smoke him out of his hole
Touche.
Though I must admit I am amused at this site’s obsession with JC. I never visit that site unless someone here throws yet another hissy at one of his reviews. And by someone I mean Andrew.
Quit your crying crybaby!
I didn’t bring it up. I don’t think I ever bring it up do I? Not in public. Partly because I’m sure he’s well aware of this little conversation in this thread already. Hi John.
Whoa…
I missed something.
Doug left the movieblog?!?!?! Even the podcast? And Jay (cheel?) had some blow out with Campea?!!?
Seriously, fill me in on this.
This is turning into an episode of Gossip Girl.
^^^^^ alright alright, I admit it I’m engaging in gossip.
I can’t help but notice that in the time it took you to post some snark you could’ve just as easily answered my question.
I didn’t answer because I don’t know. I rarely visit TMB and had no idea that Doug had left (though I’d heard rumblings that there were problems). This is the first I’m hearing about it too.
“Though I must admit I am amused at this site’s obsession with JC.”
Jesus Christ? Jay Cheel? John Carpenter? Jed Clampett?
Oh, I get it.
I’m not obsessed with him but I will bluntly admit that when he says particularly stupid things, I fall into a pit of intrigue. Once in a while reading the Movie Blog is like reading one wikipedia page and then ending up reading 50. Just can’t help myself – but only once in a while. Too much is unhealthy. At one point I was paying too much attention to it, but that was back when I thought I could reason Campea into realizing the problems of his comments policy.
Anyways, now the main reason to not bring him up is not because you look obsessed, but because
a) Picking on him for his ‘correct’ film opinions is like pointing out Michael Moore is fat or that Avril Lavigne isn’t punk. It’s so easy that it’s mean.
b) If and when he does see the post, there is a good chance he will springboard that into a massive self-deifying post on his own site – which itself could be hilarious, but also may just give you unwanted attention from his followers, when you could keep talking more about what you actually like. it’s a distraction.
But what can I say? Once in a while I’m like the nun from Doubt. Sometimes I want to rip the pillow apart.
For the record, there are far, far worse major movie blogs than JC’s. If it weren’t for a few significant things, TMB would still be a daily read for me.
Goon, c’mon gimme the scoop on him and nagey parting ways.
I actually didn’t know anything until Henrik said something here. I went to Doug’s blog though and there’s a cryptic message some posts back about not being paid despite being on contract and looking for work. For all I know they’re still pals. I wouldn’t assume anything and respect that they’ve been friends long enough not to prod beyond what they volunteer.
“Pssst…I liked The Wrestler Goon. But it is fun to rile up people who have an overinflated sense of selfworth.”
Pathetic. You shouldn’t lie, except to make a joke.
Yeah, I don’t buy it either.
Goon, I sent you an e-mail a while ago but I think you may have changed addresses. If you still have mine, send me a message. I have some questions for you that are completely unrelated to the topic at the end of this thread, honest.
Dave! How the hell are ya? Good to see you around these parts. I wonder what could have spurred your interest in this particular thread? By all means, drop me a line; we have thing to talk about.
Thanks Andrew, both for the welcome and the other thing. I’ve been lurking for a few weeks as I always tend to sooner or later gravitate to where the good conversations are happening. Keep up the good work all around.
Oh, for the record, I was interested in this thread solely for talk about The Wrestler. I swear to whatever you believe in.