The Wrestler

broderic on January 31, 2009

Selfish acts of self deception happen throughout The Wrestler. They are performed by Mickey Rourke in another come back role as the eponymous wrestler. These acts affect the woman he likes a lot and the daughter he doesn’t know. Rourke after a near death experience tries to fade away into a ignominious retirement reconciling with his daughter and falling into the arms of an old stripper, but it’s not him.

He can’t be what is not him. A lover? A father? An employee? Not at all, for the siren song of the square ring calls. He wants to be good, because he’s so lonely. Life outside the glorious and somewhat non-glamorous wrestling circuit beats him down. He was never meant to be anything but “The Ram” head-butting his way through his opponents. The ring makes him happy and any attempt to distance himself from it is just as fatal as returning to it. Lead a sad existence behind the deli counter or bask in adulation on the top turnbuckle? He must choose.

I liked this movie a lot for the wrestling. It reminded me of the days of the NWA and WWF when the wrestling federations were more regional and the stars battled with the nobodies. In the end, everyone is a nobody.

Rourke is good, but Marisa Tomei is fearless. She struts her stuff in a way that I don’t think any actress has done in a long while. It helps that she has a kickin’ body. These two ground a decent story and they’re diverging paths make it a little sad. Love may conquer all, but a “ram jam” always wins out.
4 of 5 stars.

Quote of the Day [1.31.09]

broderic on January 31, 2009

I knew right from the beginning
That you would end up winnin’
I knew right from the start
You’d put an arrow through my heart

“Round and Round,” Ratt

Faces on iPhoto 09

broderic on January 30, 2009

IPhoto 09 has a new feature called Faces that aims in putting some facial recognition into your photo organization software. It scans your photo library and makes a note of all faces within a picture. Then once it’s done, you go through and start assigning names to faces. You can manually do the name entry one photo at a time. Some of the matches are hilarious

After you accumulate a few names and faces, then you can do it by individual faces in a batch mode. IPhoto will list out pictures which match the person. You accept or reject the set of photos. It learns faces and tries to match more and more of the unknown to the name. It’s gets kind of fun.

You see some of the matching going on when it asks if the name matches the face. This gets interesting as people age. Will it recognize by major facial features the same person as he or she ages?

Once you get a bunch of faces in your Faces portion, then the fun begins as you can look at each persons set of pictures and see them age before your eyes. It’s rather poignant.

I like this feature. One thing though, it needs access to AddressBook so that you don’t have to type in all the names.

Here’s a two examples:

browsermetrics friends in faces

Quote of the Day [1.29.09]

broderic on January 29, 2009

"Partisanship is about advocating for your own beliefs and discrediting
the beliefs that you reject and believe are harmful… [P]olitics is and
should be about defeating ideas — and people — that are discredited
and destructive."Glenn Greenwald @ Salon.com/opinion/greenwald

Link of the Day [1.29.09]

broderic on January 29, 2009

As you know, I'm a big fan of ghost stories. Stories set in decrepit
mansions, dark castles, or creaky houses always manage to raise the
goosebumps on my arms. It's a satisfying feeling especially alone in
your darkened house snuggled up in a blanket underneath the glare of
your reading lamp. Yet, for me the spookiness of ghost stories was never translated well in
movies. I like watching them but the fear or excitement isn't the same.
Mainly, I can't look at them, but I can't look away unlike in reading
where the haunting tale focuses me to the words unwilling to look
around.Today's link take you to a marathon of blog posts. Click through and
read Arbogast on Film's January posts for some reviews and of ghostly
movies. Makes me want to watch some to get spooked out. Then, it makes
me want to read some in a cold, dark corner of my house. What's that
coming up the stairs?http://arbogastonfilm.blogspot.com/2008/12/coming-up-in-new-year.html

Defiance

broderic on January 29, 2009

Defiance is about a group of Russian jews that hid out in the forest during WWII defying Hitler’s extermination scheme.

I don’t have too much to say on this movie.

Watch it because it tells some sort of historical tale of heroes doing things to make it through terrible times. Don’t watch it because it is non-descript and will leave your memory once you leave the theatre.

3 of 5 stars.