Let me begin this post by thanking, many times over, our guest bloggers for this week and for as long as they can stand to do it. I very much enjoyed each of the three posts from The Christopher Myers, Mike Ward, and Timothy J. Huff. Having four people currently posting here certainly keeps it fresh, and offers a much needed alternate perspective to my daily ramblings. I can't thank these guys enough. Over the course of a week they saved this blog from the path of destruction that it was headed it down. It may still be headed down that path, but it is at least going much, much slower now. And they seem to have big plans for future posts, so you will definitely want to stay tuned.
It looks like we have a Steve Colmus list coming in soon, and a second TJ, and I think a second BrotherHop as well. So it is still working like this: I post on Monday, TCM on Tuesdays, Wardo on Wednesdays, TJ on Thursdays, and lists on Fridays if we have them. If we don't have them I'll either do a second post for the week, or we'll have some rotational guest bloggers. Already, George and Colmus have expressed interest in guest blogging. That option is open to other people as well, if that have some insight they are dying to let loose via the world wide interweb. OK, great. Business taken care of. I hope the readers are enjoying the guest blog team posts as much as I am. Nothing quite on the level of a poopy Friendly's booth yet, but I'm sure we'll get there.
I had a couple of other ideas for a post today (it is great to have a couple ideas, BTW, and not be straining to come up with one!), but when I came to HSV's after my gig she had The Fountain just waiting to be watched. So we watched it, and I'm certainly glad that we did. She had already seen it, so had some clue as to what was going on, but I was left in the dark for the majority of the film. I am constantly impressed by this Darren Aronofsky fella. If you remember my rave reviews of The Wrestler from January, you know how much I enjoy this guys work. The Wrestler is still my favorite of his films, but I really enjoyed The Fountain and would recommend it to anyone else as well. Also as previously mentioned, Requiem For a Dream was cerainly an amazing accomplishment for the director, and I think the film was incredible...I just can't bring myself to recommend it freely like his other works. I remember loving Pi too, but saw it so long ago that I couldn't tell you a thing about it. Netflix, HSV?
Anyway, a plot summary of The Fountain is out of the question. To give a plot summary I would have to first understand what went on in the film, which I didn't, and need to watch again. There are three very interesting storylines occuring simultaneously, and I just need to see it again to keep everything straight. The storylines themselves are actually very easy to keep track of, because one is in the far past, one the present, and one the future. It is just how they all eventually unfold that left me a little confused. All of the three plotlines feature the character of Tom (or Tommy, or Tomas) play by Wolverine and his modern day wife is the leading lady played by Rachel Weisz. All three plotlines revolve around the idea of immortality (and mortality) with a central image being the Tree of Life. Of the four Aronofsky films I have seen, this is by far the most sci-fi/fantasy based and he does it very well.
The visuals in the film are out of this world, or stunning as one might call it. Really, I could have even less of an idea as to what was going on with the plot and would still enjoy the movie for the filming alone. You get a good idea of this from the trailor I've included below. You also get to hear some of the great film score by Clint Mansell (who scored Requiem and Pi as well), performed by awesome rockers Mogwai and The Kronos Quartet (who recorded the entire score for Requiem). Awesome, right? The second clip below gives you more of an idea of this soundtrack pairing. See this movie. If you buy it and don't like it, TJ will refund you in full. Clips...trailor first, clip for soundtrack purposes second:
This movie is simultaneously one of the greatest and most terrible movies I have ever seen. From the director of Pi and previously mentioned on Friends Recommend The Wrestler, Darren Aronofsky. I had heard that it was a depressing movie, but good friend Aaron Gause insisted that I watch it during my senior year of JMU. I agreed, and he said if we watch it in the daytime and hang out and maybe have a beer then it isn't so bad. So I went over to his house to watch Requiem, we put it on, and 15 minutes into it he gets up to go hang out with his roomates and leaves me sitting there for the remainder of the movie. By the time it ended it was dark out, and I was severly depressed. It was a Friday night of my senior year in college, and I remember going back to my apartment and just sitting in my room sulking.
Requiem for a Dream follows the lives of four people who begin the movie as (relatively) mild drug users but over the course of the movie turn into full-fledged addicts. I won't tell you where they all end up, but I'll just tell you that they start in a low but hopeful place and steadily decline over the course of the whole movie. Ellen Burstyn (not Laura Palmer's mother) plays an amazing older woman who gets addicted to caffine pills and it is terrifying. Jennifer Connelly, Marlon Wayans, and Jared Leto also play great parts in the film. As upsetting and terrible as the message of the movie is, it is very well done and overall one of the better movies I have seen in my life. It sucks that I swore I would never watch it again. I think it should be shown in all high schools. I really can't imagine anyone wanting to do drugs after watching this movie, and I'm sure it would stop a couple teenagers from considering it. It is dark. Real dark. The music is also fantastic. World-renowned string quartet the Kronos Quartet plays Clint Mansell's score and it is amazing. Really modern string quartet writing with the use of some electronics. It is so good that it was also used in the trailors for the Da Vinci Code and Lord of the Rings 2, I Am Legend, Babylon A.D. and video game Assassin's Creed. I highly recommend anyone who hasn't seen this movie once to see it. You may hate it because of how it makes you feel, but there is no denying that it is a great film. Here is one clip of the soundtrack from youtube:
Please, don't consider this a snub of The Christopher Myers' list. He will get his due, I promise. It does however require a little more research than some of the others, and I need to get my notes together before I dive in. I'm going to watch some TV shows, that's for sure.
But for today I will state that Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler is the best movie I have seen in a long time. I know it is hyped, and a couple days ago I posted John Waters' top movies of 2008 and the Wrestler sat at a strong number 7. For me all the hype is warranted, and true, and this movie is amazing. There have been a slew of (supposedly) great movies released in the past month, including the highly acclaimed Slumdog Millionaire. Both were good, but The Wrestler was great, great. They are both sitting very very high on the IMDB top 250 (Slumdog at 34, Wrestler at 47) but in time they will come down a little from that.
The Wrestler follows the story of Randy "The Ram" Robinson (Mickey Rourke) in the years of his wrestling career well after his prime. Rourke and Marisa Tomei are both great in the movie, but Rourke especially stands out. The Ram, a world-famous wrestler in the 80's, is now living paycheck to paycheck wrestling on weekends and working behind a deli counter during the week just to pay the rent on the trailor he lives in. I was never a wrestling fan growing up so I was very surprised by how much I liked this movie. It is pretty heartbreaking to follow the dark and lonely life of a guy who was once worshipped as a wrestling king, and see him now barely living off the fame. And on top of that his daughter, the only family he has sort of hates his guts.
The movie depressed me a little, partially because it was sad, and partially maybe because HSV and I went to the movie right after a visit to my (now tied for first with The Windup Space) favorite Baltimore bar, Birds of a Feather. Maybe good scotch makes me overly emotional? Regardless, The Wrestler is a movie not to be missed, wrestling fan or not. Also, I was sure that the song in this trailer was Tom Waits, but alas it is Bruce Springsteen giving us his best Tom Waits impression. Enjoy, and go see this movie:
