Mubi Monday: The Wrestler (2008)

I'm pretty sure I have said this when reviewing every other Darren Aronofsky movie, but it's pretty safe to assume that nobody has ever taught him the meaning of the word subtle. You can get a lot from his movies, but subtlety is nowhere to be seen.

The Wrestler is the story of Randy 'The Ram' Robinson (Mickey Rourke), a wrestler who is battling age and his aches and pains to keep making a living that might afford him a very basic life. He is quite smitten with Cassidy (Marisa Tomei), a stripper who is pretty much in the same situation. As he tries to take a step away from the wrestling ring, perhaps also rebuilding some bridges with his daughter, Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood), Randy struggles to live a life without that rush he gets when playing to the crowd.

Written by Robert Siegel, who has built up an impressive selection of projects inspired by real events and characters, The Wrestler is an impressive character study that is as hard to watch as it should be. Randy seems to be someone that truly believes he is best in the ring, but also may believe that the injuries and the bloodshed are all very much due to him. There's sometimes a huge difference between the man inside the ring and the man outside of it, but trouble happens when Randy blurs elements of his two different personalities.

Aronofsky makes the most of a very committed leading performance from Rourke, and he keeps the camera close and intimate for many of the interactions between his lead and the other people in his life. He also gets up close in the ring, especially when showing a couple of the tricks used to sell the hits and the wounds, but remembers to move around enough to show the crowd and the bright lights. 

Enough has been said already about what an amazing turn this is from Rourke, so I'll just say that I agree with all of the praise he received for this. The fact that both Tomei and Wood acquit themselves so well alongside him, particularly without feeling that they have to overact or shout to hold your attention, says everything you should need to know about their performances. Both have done consistently great work over the years, but both find just the right way to be believable and impressive in roles that could have easily been overshadowed by the large shadow cast by Rourke.

While it's very much about the life of a wrestler, and the toll that can take on the human body, this is also a film about anyone who has given their all to something, even as the rewards seem to dwindle while the losses grow. That might be a hobby, a trade, a sport, a relationship, or even a standard career. We don't always get back what we put in to things, but sometimes the crumbs that can be scavenged are as temporarily satisfying as the most sumptuous feast. Even as the dinner table starts to look more and more like it's being prepared for a last supper.

9/10

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Shudder Saturday: Nightmare Cinema (2018)

The main thing to take away from Nightmare Cinema is this; if you're in a cinema and you find out that Mickey Rourke is smirking as he projects the movies onscreen while slinking his snakehips up and down the aisles to chat to the patrons then you need to get the hell out of there.

The second thing to take away from it is not to be fooled by an anthology horror movie that tries to squash together some big names alongside some lesser-known names to provide solid entertainment for horror fans. This is not solid entertainment. It is, sadly, quite the disappointment.

There are five main tales here, framed by the scariest element of the whole thing (that Rourke-shaped projectionist), and only two work as well as they should. First up is a strong opener, The Thing In The Woods, written and directed by Alejandro Brugués. It's a fun romp through familiar territory until viewers are given an extra piece of information that turns everything on its head. Great fun, a decent twist, and a solid ending. Exactly what you want from a short film/anthology segment. Next up is Mirari, written by Richard Christian Matheson and directed by Joe Dante. I wanted to love this, it's been a while since the last thing I saw from Joe Dante, but that wasn't to be the case. It's not bad, and becomes increasingly twisted and gross in the second half, but it's all far too close to a very famous episode of The Twilight Zone (that I won't namecheck here, it gives too much away). Things get worse from there, with Mashit, which is written by Sandra Becerril and directed by Ryûhei Kitamura. This tale of demonic possession gives you nobody, and nothing, to care about. And it goes on for far too long. This Way To Egress is directed by David Slade, who also co-wrote the tale with Lawrence C. Connolly (writer of the short story it is based on). Funnily enough, although this is a big step up after the previous two tales, the biggest problem it has is that it's VERY similar to one of the newer episodes of The Twilight Zone. Again, naming the episode would give too much away, but it will feel very familiar to anyone who saw the latest series. Last, ending with a whimper instead of a bang, is Dead, written and directed by Mick Garris.

As uneven as the cast are throughout this selection of horror stories, that feels slightly unimportant anyway, considering the main draw for many people will be those involved behind the camera. And yet . . . just how many of these names ARE a big enough draw for all but the most die-hard fans of their work. I'll watch anything Dante does, his name is the hot ticket here, but I can take or leave the rest. Brugues and Slade have, for the most part, worked on TV content or other shorts over the past few years, which perhaps explains why they do better within this format. Kitamura impressed me with the vicious Downrange just a couple of years ago, but he's still not someone I would necessarily seek out. As for Garris, I remain perplexed by his "master of horror" status. It always seems like a little club he made up for him and his friends after spending a number of years riding the coat-tails of Stephen King (and this is coming from someone who has a major soft spot for The Stand).

It's glaringly obvious where the main flaws lie here, from the stories that have the weaker scripts to the general inability to pare things down to a more appealing runtime. Both Mashit and Dead would have been improved by being cut down to about 50% of their current length, for example, and cuts could also have been made elsewhere. There's also a feeling that not every director was paired up with material best suited to their style. Dante, for example, has to work with a tale that is set largely in a sterile hospital environment. Who thought that was a good idea? His "home ground", as it were, is American suburbia, either realistic or cine-realistic, and something that allows him to use everything he has genuine affection for in ways that he always makes fresh and more entertaining.

There's not much more to say. I don't want to make this feel like a review of the worst anthology horror movie ever. It's still worth a watch for the better stories (and other viewers will have different opinions on what works and what doesn't). It's just disappointing for those who want something a bit more memorable. Having said that, it's STILL largely better than the new Creepshow series.

5/10

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June-Claude Van Damme: Double Team (1997)

There are so many things that you could mention about Double Team that would (correction = SHOULD) make me nod in agreement with you as we conclude that it's a fairly terrible film. Let's face it, just the fact that it pairs Jean-Claude Van Damme up with Dennis Rodman gives you enough ammunition, and that's just the sprinkling of hundreds and thousands on top of this action comedy knickerbocker glory.

Van Damme plays an anti-terrorist agent named Jack Quinn, a man reluctantly brought back into duty when an elusive criminal named Stavros (Mickey Rourke) reappears and starts to cause no small amount of trouble. Things go sideways, a child dies, and Quinn is knocked out in an explosion. He comes to in a facilty named "The Colony", he's informed that his pregnant wife has been told that he is dead, and he also finds out that the place is nearly impossible to escape from. So he escapes. Which leads him to Dennis Rodman, a handy dealer in dangerous goods who might be the key to helping him track down Stavros and putting an end to his criminal plans.

Although they might not be the best people to watch onscreen, Double Team has one hell of a cast. As well as Van Damme, Rourke, and Rodman, you also get Paul Freeman as a fellow agent/"guest" at The Colony. And, well, those are the only names worth mentioning, I suppose, but what other film can you say features that particular quartet of actors? AND features a scene that has JCVD delivering a sidekick to a tiger? No other film delivers such goodness.

Written by Don Jakoby and Paul Mones, this is enjoyably over the top from start (with Van Damme driving a huge truck through a building as we see him end a successful mission) to finish (a showdown that involves that tiger, a motorbike, and a number of mines). It mixes in elements of James Bond, some buddy comedy moments, and a very entertaining turn from Rourke as the crazy villain.

Tsui Hark may not want to remind anyone that he directed this but he's got nothing to be ashamed of. Okay, I hated this the first time I watched it. I somehow ended up revisiting it and ended up not hating it. Now I quite like it for what it is. Nobody involved is taking things too seriously, with the possible exception of Rourke, and it rattles along at a cracking pace to ensure viewers are never bored.

I still think that someone - anyone - else in the Rodman role could have improved things, and I would have relished the thought of seeing Van Damme interact with someone more naturally funny or cool (imagine if this had been made with a quirky performance from Nicolas Cage in place of Rodman - GOLD), but I am going to be one of the few people nowadays who doesn't think that this is deserving of half of the disdain it seemed to receive when released back in 1997. It's a fun, disposable, action flick.

6/10

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Noir November: Sin City: A Dame To Kill For (2014)

When Sin City came on the scene almost a decade ago, it was unlike pretty much any other slice of cool that mainstream audiences had ever scene. Hard boiled doesn't even begin to cover it. Those visuals, those archetypes, and that cool dialogue all just clicked together into a great celebration of everything noir.

It's a shame that Sin City: A Dame To Kill For feels tired from almost the first scene. Reprising the same stylistic choices from the first movie - largely black and white, but with splashes of colour popping out here and there - makes it feel like little more than a complete rehash, with less interesting characters for us to hang out with.

The tales to be told this time around had the potential to be just as entertaining as the tales that made up the first movie. Eva Green is the woman of the title, and she's pretty much a perfect choice for such a femme fatale. She gets one tough guy (Josh Brolin) in her grasp, but he in turn enlists help from another tough guy (Mickey Rourke, reprising the role of Marv). The badass girls of the street also return (led, once again, by Rosario Dawson), and Dennis Haysbert takes over the role, Manute, that was previously played by the hulking Michael Clarke Duncan. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a lucky gambler who is out for revenge. And lots of people rub each other up the wrong way.

Archetypes. That's all we have here, yet again, but they're just not as much fun this time around. For every moment of Eva Green being ridiculously sexy and callous, we end up having to endure a scene in which Jessica Alba tries to act drunk and tough and angry (hint = she can't). Gordon-Levitt and Brolin are great additions to the cast, but the film doesn't do well enough by their characters to make their tales as satisfying as they should be.

I'm assuming that most of what's here onscreen is hewn as closely to the source material, by Frank Miller, as it was in the first movie. In fact, Miller gets a co-directing and co-writing credit alongside Robert Rodriguez. Perhaps such slavish devotion to the material only works when it's cinematically strong? Or perhaps it was inevitable that the strongest tales were picked for the first movie, leaving any sequel to feel like second-tier stuff. A disappointing, disjointed air also doesn't help, with the stories never feeling that tightly intertwined, but there are still enough individual moments to make it worth your time. Just.

The visuals are as gorgeous as ever, if you go with the stylistic choices, and there's also plenty of fun to be had in the sprawling support cast, which includes the likes of Bruce Willis, Juno Temple, Ray Liotta, Stacy Keach, Jeremy Piven, Jaime King, Christopher Meloni, and even Lady Gaga.

Liked the first movie? You should find enough to enjoy here. It's just a shame that it never hits the heights of its predecessor.

6/10

http://www.amazon.com/Frank-Millers-Sin-City-Blu-ray/dp/B00N201WPM/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1415057588&sr=1-1&keywords=sin+city+a+dame+to+kill+for

Sin City (2005)

Cool, stylish, almost perfectly cast, and with many frames that look ripped straight from the pages of Frank Miller's original work, it's hard not to consider Sin City as one of the best comic-book movies of all time.

Director Robert Rodriguez, helped by Quentin Tarantino, also wrote the screenplay, and sets out from the very beginning to immerse viewers in a stark, black and white world of anti-heroes and villains. There are splashes of colour here and there, depicting bloodshed, strong feelings, or even just a nice pair of eyes. One other bonus, this was one of the last few films made to star Bruce Willis before he decided to sleepwalk into every paycheck.

There are little extra bits interspersed throughout, but the move iss mainly made up of three tales. In one, Bruce Willis plays an old cop who wants to get his man (Nick Stahl) at any cost. His perp is a sicko, but he's a sicko with a rich, influential father (Powers Boothe). In the second tale we get to meet Marv (Mickey Rourke), a big, brute of a man moves to action when he's set up for a murder he didn't commit. The murder of a woman that he felt great affection for. Clive Owen clashes with Benicio Del Toro in the third tale, leading to a situation that could cause a lot of trouble for the deadly working girls of Sin City. And then it's back to that dogged cop, many years later but no less determined.

As well as those mentioned, Sin City also features Josh Hartnett, Jaime King, Michael Clarke Duncan, Rutger Hauer, Elijah Wood, Rosario Dawson, Brittany Murphy, Jessica Alba, Carla Gugino, Alexis Bledel, Michael Madsen, Devon Aoki, and many more. It's certainly a star-studded cast but, more than that, everyone feels perfect for the role given to them.

Featuring his usual cool soundtrack accompanying the visuals, this manages to feel both like a great Frank Miller film and also a great Rodriguez joint. It's almost a perfect marriage of material and director.

Unfortunately, it doesn't hold up quite as well on repeat viewings. It's still very enjoyable, and consistently gorgeous to look at (seriously, freeze frame it at almost any moment and you get a gorgeous comic panel), but the pacing could have been tightened up slightly to bring the movie in under two hours, with the Owen/Del Toro section of the movie dragging things down badly.

For those who like their movies steeped in traditional aspects of cinema, this is a love or hate film. Shot almost entirely on green screen, with only a few real sets utilised, it's a unique experience, but one that absolutely works, in my opinion, due to the nature of the material.

If you want nuance and realism then feel free to reach for a thousand other movies before this one. But if you want something cool, visually stunning, and with moments of painful ultra-violence, then this might just be the ticket.

8/10

http://www.amazon.com/Sin-City-Blu-ray-Powers-Boothe/dp/B00FAHYNYC/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1408780621&sr=1-1&keywords=sin+city

And UK folks, don't forget to check out a double-bill at the cinema this weekend, while a lot of venues are showing this and Sin City: A Dame To Kill For. Such tickets can be found at sites like this one - http://www.picturehouses.co.uk/cinema/Cameo_Picturehouse/News/item/Sin_City_Sin_City_A_Dame_To_Kill_For/

Angel Heart (1987)

A blend of horror and noir, Angel Heart is a highly regarded movie, and with good reason. If you haven't seen it yet then get to it. If you have seen it, give it a rewatch and find out just how rewarding it is on repeat viewings.

The story sees detective Harry Angel (Mickey Rourke) hired by Louis Cyphre (Robert De Niro) to find a missing singer named Johnny Favorite. As Angel starts to make progress, tracking down those who knew Favorite and trying to find out more about his past in order to lead him to Favorite's whereabouts in the present, people start to turn up dead. The finger points to Angel in each instance, but with the growing danger comes a chance to spend some time with the gorgeous Epiphany Proudfoot (Lisa Bonet).

Directed by Alan Parker, who also adapted the book by William Hjortsberg into screenplay form, this is a film dripping with atmosphere and full of wonderful details throughout, both in the visual style and design, and also in much of the dialogue. It's a hot and sweaty movie, taking place mostly in New Orleans, a film that can almost make you smell the surroundings. It also builds and builds towards a third act full of real, impressive, horror and nastiness.

Rourke has, in my opinion, never been better (but I have yet to explore more of his movies from this time, so that opinion is subject to change). He's a permanently rumpled, doggedly determined, figure. A man who starts to suspect that he's being played for a schmuck, even as he keeps digging for answers. De Niro is a lot of fun in the role of Cyphre, charming and quietly menacing in almost all of his scenes. Lisa Bonet is sexy as hell in a role that couldn't be further removed from her sweet, wholesome turn in The Cosby Show. Charlotte Rampling is also very good, playing almost the polar opposite of Bonet's character. And there are also small, enjoyable turns from Brownie McGhee, Michael Higgins, Elizabeth Whitcraft and Pruitt Taylor Vince.

As shocking, at times, as it is entertaining, I rate Angel Heart as a near-perfect movie experience and a bit of a modern classic. There's nothing to fault in terms of the construction and technical side of things, and it's all topped off by a central performance that ranks as one of the very best.

9/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Angel-Heart-DVD-Mickey-Rourke/dp/B001AOHPYY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1384155750&sr=8-1&keywords=angel+heart

Body Heat (1981)

Written and directed by Lawrence Kasdan, with no small amount of debt owed to the classic Double Indemnity, Body Heat is a slick, sexy, sweaty thriller that benefits greatly from the central performances, not least that of Kathleen Turner making an astonishing big-screen debut.

William Hurt plays a lawyer, Ned Racine, who falls for the gorgeous Matty Walker (Turner) during a stiflingly hot Florida Summer. The two begin a steamy affair, which then leads them to start thinking about how to deal with the oft-absent Mr. Walker (Richard Crenna). It's not long until murder is mentioned, with Ned clearly making decisions based on his libido as opposed to common sense, and Matty starts to show her ingenuity as the plan is put into effect.

With decent, unfussy, direction and a fine script, Lawrence Kasdan certainly puts all of the pieces in place to make Body Heat an easy movie to enjoy, but his biggest coup was with the casting of the main roles. Hurt has always been a very good actor, and he's as good here as he's ever been, but none of the twists and turns would be believable if he wasn't jumping through hoops to be with Kathleen Turner. Because I can't think of many men who wouldn't jump through hoops to be with Kathleen Turner in the early '80s. The lady dominates the movie, even when she's not onscreen, but that doesn't stop viewers also getting great performances from Crenna, Ted Danson (in what remains one of his best roles), J. A. Preston and a youthful Mickey Rourke. There's also Kim Zimmer, who manages to make a good impression despite only being onscreen for about a minute.

It may not be quite as clever as it wants to be, and certainly stretches plausibility on numerous occasions, but there's always something going on in every scene to entertain and distract from the plot holes. While this isn't on a par with the very best classic or neo-noirs, it still deserves to be allotted a place near the top tier. And Matty Walker is a character who ranks as one of the most memorable, for a mixture of right and wrong reasons.

8/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Body-Heat-DVD-William-Hurt/dp/B00004CX84/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1383511052&sr=1-1&keywords=body+heat

The Informers (2008)

Directed by Gregor Jordan and based on the work of Bret Easton Ellis (who helped to write the screenplay with Nicholas Jarecki), The Informers is far below other adaptations of the writer’s works (American Psycho, The Rules Of Attraction, Less Than Zero) but it’s not a terrible film.

There are a number of story strands running throughout the movie (some more entertaining and successful than others) all covering a variety of sins. There’s a debauched rock star, an unfaithful husband, a bad father, some carefree youths who keep themselves busy with sex and drugs and some other unsavoury characters. The details end up being rather inconsequential though the viewer can savour every little moment onscreen while events are unfolding, this movie feels more like a mood piece capturing a snapshot of 80s excess and exuberance on the cusp of being ruined by the encroaching harsh realities (the long-term effects of drug use, AIDS, etc). It’s very much along the same lines as The Rules Of Attraction with those involve neatly sidestepping to focus on the parents instead of the children, without audiences even noticing.

There’s a great cast. Billy Bob Thornton, Kim Basinger and Winona Ryder all hold their own in the best story strand but there’s able support from Mickey Rourke, Brad Renfro, Amber Heard (who spends an impressive amount of her time onscreen in a state of undress and, yes, yes I am shallow enough to have enjoyed the movie more because of this fact), Lou Taylor Pucci, Austin Nichols and Jon Foster.

There’s also a pretty good soundtrack accompanying the sleek visuals.

The film only really lets itself down in terms of structure and cohesion, but that’s a big failing. Ellis himself has expressed displeasure with the way the thing turned out but I think artists close to their own work can sometimes be their own harshest critics so I’ll have to repeat that The Informers is not a terrible film. It’s no modern classic, and perhaps someone else in the director’s chair could have made something better of the material, but it’s enjoyable enough and features some fine actors giving fine performances. And a hint of vampirism. And Amber Heard. Mostly naked. 
 
6/10

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