Yesterday I went to see an advance screening of Defiance, with Daniel Craig and Lieb Shriver. On my way there I was on the bus going south on Second Avenue and got stuck in traffic. Low and behold there was a demonstration at 42nd St and 2nd Avenue between Palestine and Isreal. Each side was on a corner, waving flags, using bullhorns, blocking the avenue. The police was there, but they were not helping one bit. I got off the bus at 42nd to go to Times Square, to see my advanced screening and waiting for my next bus to go across town (BIG MISTAKE) some guy with a flag from Palestine came to the bus stop and started saying "DIE ISRAEL DIE". He repeated it until a Jewish woman started yelling back at him and they got into a confrontation. While this was happening other guys with Palestinian flags crossed 42nd St over to the other corner to egg-on the Israelis and jabbing them with their flags. The Sargeant and/or Lieutenants that were standing by us at the bus stop ran across the street all of a sudden to help the uniform cops to break up all that was going on. Then we find out that the buses were not stopping at the stop because of that crap... I am not giving my opinion in this post. I looked for footage on YouTube, which I found, but all the footage gave opinions, so I'm not posting any of them here.
I walked over to Third Avenue just to get caught in traffic. I finally got on a bus, but then had to get off at Fifth Ave (there a quite a few blocks in between) and walk through all of the tourists to get to the theater. I'll never go back to Times Square the week of Christmas or New Years ever again.
So now for the movie... I was ready with my hanky, but it was not needed. Yes, I shed a tear or two, but I cry at the drop of a hat. This means you won't need one. The movie was touching, don't get me wrong, but not in the way you think. You are rooting for them. The makers of this film aren't dwelling on death the way most Holocaust films do. This movie concentrates on the fight for life. I enjoyed it thoroughly.
There were two lists to get in to the screening. One was the list I was one, the "regulars", for those of us that go to the advanced screenings all of the time. Then there was another list. These people were not regulars, and I assumed they were from a Jewish association, invited to see the film. The woman sitting to my right during the film was one of these people. She cried through the entire freaking film. She outwardly wept, not using a tissue, but her hand to wipe tears from her face constantly. It didn't bother me, but she kept looking at me as if embarrassed. I just wondered if she was not only a Polish-Jew, but a descendant of one of the people depicted in the film.
Today I met my friend, Susan, for an after-Xmas-lunch (and for her birthday). We went to this great diner called Big Daddy's. She thinks it's a chain, but I've never seen it anywhere before. It's two blocks from her apt. We met there, had lunch and went to see "The Wrestler." I'll just say this, my side order was Tater Tots. I LOVE food that serves me tots.
The Wrestler is a film that took me by surprise. It had a documentary feel to it. After seeing it I have now read that the role was written for Rourke. Nicholas Cage would have trashed this role. OMG! It would have been a waste of money to make this film with him. Both Rourke and Tomei were incredible and so unbelieveable. My brother and I watched wrestling like it was a religion when we were kids. Both sets of our grandparents were avid wrestling watchers and it was a big sport in Tampa when we lived there in the 70s. When I moved to NY my first boyfriend and all of his friends were big wrestling fans. He used to buy us tickets to go to Madison Square Gargen to watch matches. Romantic huh? I was probably 15 or 16, what can I say? I don't watch wrestling now, but my son does. I was watching the few matches in this film and cringing from the violence, but I hate to say, it was entertaining - only because they showed how fake, and not fake it really can be. Some of it I could not tolerate. Other parts turned me into a kid, or a teenager again. I didn't expect any of that. Back to the acting, go see it for that. Don't let the wrestling violence make you stay home. There is a relationship between him and Tomei, and one with a daughter. Both are worth seeing played out.
These comments I copied from a board, but I thought they were worth posting:
-Ric Flair attended the premiere and told Jim Ross that he was very impressed with Rourke's performance and the bumps and such that he took at age 52. He said that Rourke "reminded him of one of the boys from back in the old territory days of wrestling," which is pretty high praise coming from the Nature Boy.
-Foley did an article saying that he went into the film with a lot of skepticism but "I was hooked within a minute. Within five, I had completely forgotten I was looking at Mickey Rourke. That guy on the screen simply was Randy "the Ram" Robinson, a '80s mat icon on a two-decade-long losing streak in the game of life, searching for a way, any way, to fan the dying embers of his career. Rourke somehow makes the pathetic seem heroic and imbues in this sad, broken man a sense of quiet dignity and deep-down decency that makes the prospect of not rooting for him — in both his life and the ring — impossible." He said he loved the wrestling scenes and was impressed with all that Rourke did, although he didn't like how they lingered on the blading and felt that no wrestler would do such a thing on a show in front of so few people. Perhaps Foley needs to attend more indy shows. People do a lot of *beep* stupid things. He also said he felt the steroid transaction scene was a little too contrived, and noted that in his entire career he'd never actually seen something like that happen backstage.
-Bill Simmons also loved the film: "Mickey looks and acts like a washed-up wrestler. He nails every mortifying moment, like the scene in which The Ram, waiting for fans at a depressing sports memorabilia show, glances around the room at the other pathetic ex-wrestlers and sees a little too much of himself in each of them. Or the scene in which doctors pull thumbtacks and staples out of his back after a vicious match — it's shot so tight, Rourke has to be taking all the bumps — and he can barely hold himself up. The movie is filmed in the grittiest way, almost like a documentary. You feel every cough, every wince, every clothesline. There is a broader theme addressed here: the allure of fame and how poorly so many people react when it's taken away. The film captures the underbelly of washed-up celebrity culture, the irony of fans who snap pictures of ex-stars only because they meant something 20 years ago. And the filmmakers know the danger of being trapped in the past, when you've executed Plan A, lived it, loved it, made some mistakes, ultimately screwed everything up and then can't come up with a Plan B -- so you keep trying to relive Plan A".
-And the big one -- Vince McMahon. He got his private screening of the movie this week. I don't know what he said to Aranofsky immediately after the film ended, or what he told him to his face, but apparently his private reaction was such that "the word negative isn't strong enough to describe Vince's reaction." One person noted, "No surprise because Vince's vision of the 2008 image of wrestling and even fading stars directly contradicts what The Wrestler accurately portrays." Others who know him knew going in that this was the kind of movie he was going to abhor.
