Mickey Rourke Will Break Your Heart

For those of you who don't already know this, the floppy-haired Midwestern kid who was the former proprietor of this site is an avid movie buff. While sitting in his parent's outhouse shucking corn as a young Mattoonian, he often dreamed of becoming a snooty film critic where he can tell the world how great Woody Allen is long after they're tired of hearing how great Woody Allen is. Sometimes it's not even fun to go to movies with Will because, after it's over he'll inevitably become condescending and make you feel stupid for liking or disliking something he feels strongly about. (Go ahead. Tell him "American Beauty" is your favorite movie. Then duck.) But ever year there's a movie that one William F. Leitch falls madly in love with just based on a trailer or a concept alone, then if the movie turns out to be everything he'd hoped it be, he becomes obsessed with it. One year it was "Punch Drunk Love"; this year, it's "The Wrestler" directed by Darren "Ass to Ass" Aronofsky and starring Mickey Rourke as a Randy "Macho Man" Savage-like character. Even though it's an odd premise, the film is inexplicably getting all sorts of Oscar talk right now. And, Will, of course, has vowed to pound this drum until everyone listens to him and Mickey Rourke gets his statue. (If you don't agree with this notion he will most likely say something along the lines of "I'm surprised you're able to walk upright" or something.) Somehow he kept his composure and pulled together "Ten Things You Need To Know About 'The Wrestler'" for New York magazine's Vulture blog. I admit, regardless of how awful an experience it is listening to him yammer about movies, he makes a compelling case for this one:

Rourke’s Randy “the Ram” Robinson was a star wrestler in the eighties, which means the whole movie is soundtracked by glorious, awesome hair metal, his preferred genre. Haven’t heard Accept’s “Balls to the Wall” in a long time? You’re in luck: The Ram rocks out, HARD. One particularly amusing exchange between the Ram and Marisa Tomei’s stripper, Cassidy, features the line, “The eighties fuckin’ ruled, man, till that pussy Cobain came and fucked it all up.” Expect to hear the soundtrack played ironically at Christmas parties on the Lower East Side.

And there are nine more of these. Ten Things You Need to Know About The Wrestler [Vulture]