“This could either be the best or worst movie ever,” was my first thought upon hearing the premise of The Wrestler, which stars Mickey Rourke as Randy “The Ram,” an aging professional wrestler from the 1980s who is still active on the small-fry wrestling circuit in New Jersey, and also stars Marisa Tomei as his love interest Cassidy, an aging stripper who is still active in the VIP room. The Wrestler turned out to be highly entertaining, surprisingly compelling, and deeply poignant movie. And I’m saying that despite the scene involving the staple gun and barbed wire (apparently, wrestling theatrics aren’t all fake.)
I never thought I’d say this, but: Mickey Rourke was magnificent. Rourke plays “The Ram” as a gentle giant, willing to subject his body to anything in order to please the crowds because that’s all he knows what to do. How brilliant, and appropriate, was it to have Rourke and Tomei hanging out in a bar, rocking out to Rat Attack (!!!) and speaking fondly of the 80s as the glory days. It was a rare moment of relaxed comfort in a movie otherwise filled with blood, sweat, tears, destruction, and deli meat.
Superbad was 2007’s teen comedy of the year, earning raves for its profuse and profane laughs as well as its authentic take on the high school experience. And maybe I’m getting old, but… really?!? The gags were juvenile and sometimes gross, the characters were pathetic, and the plot was just stupid. Admittedly, the plot of every teen comedy is stupid, but three geeky sex-obsessed nerds makes everything seem so much stupider. It gets one star because I did laugh. But I could not help but comparing Superbad to the teen comedies I grew up with (Heathers, Dazed and Confused, any movie directed by John Hughes) and thinking how far we’ve fallen as a society if 2 hours of teenaged women objectification is being heralded as an instant classic and Michael Cera is the new John Cusack.
Outsourced, another comedy from 2007, takes a light-hearted and sometimes naive look at a controversial topic. Todd, a manager of a US novelty product company, is sent to India in order to train his replacement at the newly-outsourced call center. Todd is resistant to India at first, but gradually warms to the culture, the customs, and the people… especially one cute Indian co-worker named Asha. The fish-out-of-water laughs at the beginning made up for the dragginess at the ending. Still, it’s hard to get into Outsourced’s feel-good vibe when so many divisive angles of outsourcing were ignored or pooh-poohed.
(Yes, I know it’s 2009, but it seems like Netflix’s ‘Watch Instantly’ line-up favors cheesiness from 2007. So join me here next week when I’ll be reviewing Wedding Daze, Wild Hogs, and the second season of Heroes).
