‘Bloody’ awful in all three dimensions

My Bloody Valentine 3-D
Review by Nathan Weinbender

I stopped to look at the posters for “My Bloody Valentine 3-D” before I went into the theater. It shows a cinema filled with clean-cut teenagers, all wearing goofy 3-D glasses and orgiastic expressions of terror and glee. A giant pickaxe has broken through the screen and is swiping at the teens in the front row, no doubt an accurate representation of the film’s effects. “A 3-D ride to Hell!” the tagline screams. It looked like it could be fun.

Turns out that the posters are more exciting than the movie itself. “My Bloody Valentine” is a routine hack-and-slash gorefest that plays like a shopping spree at Cliché Mart, and the fact that it’s in middling 3-D merely underscores the fact that the filmmakers obviously had no faith in the quality of their production from the get-go.

See, 3-D is a blessing for movie producers. It’s a cheap gimmick that secures big box office intake—not only are ticket prices for 3-D features higher, but people can’t replicate the 3-D experience at home and will be sure to check it out in theaters (the movie has already grossed more than $40 million in two weeks of release).

But it also takes a lot of pressure off those poor, poor movie financiers, who normally have to worry about delivering a quality product. They can sit back and relax, because with a 3-D picture all they have to think about is what objects they can throw at the audience to make them jump in their seats.

In “My Bloody Valentine” we get gouged eyeballs, splattered blood, tree branches and a severed jaw tossed at us. Oh, and pickaxes—lots and lots of pickaxes. I grew wearier with each new plunging pickaxe shot, and I told myself that there’s certainly no way this movie could possibly muster another one. And then, whaddaya know, the bloody end of a pickaxe came tearing through the screen, and I checked my watch again.

The plot, recycled from a 1981 Canadian film, is a real yawner, involving a killer miner on the loose in a small town on Valentine’s Day, and it doesn’t have a single original thought in its beaten, bloodied head. Its only concerns are gore, nudity and the 3-D effects, which I’m sure is all its target audience cares about anyway.

But I was bored. Really, really bored. I appreciate that 3-D technology has made leaps and bounds in the last few years, but they are still far from perfecting it. 3-D movies rely heavily on their effects, but I have yet to see a 3-D feature that really benefits from the 3-D, or one that uses the technique as a way to bolster its story.

And although we’ve advanced beyond the days of cheesy cardboard glasses with red and blue lenses, we’re still being treated to the same silly effects. Will there ever be a 3-D picture where the characters don’t point gun barrels directly at the camera? It has all grown so tiresome.

Grade: D-

Directed by Patrick Lussier. Written by Todd Farmer and Zane Smith; based on a screenplay by John Beaird. Starring Jensen Ackles, Jaime King, Kerr Smith, Betsy Rue, Edi Gathegi and Tom Atkins. R; 101m.

Killer cops, killer beats, killer lips

The DVD Beat
Reviews by Nathan Weinbender

WHAT TO RENT THIS WEEKEND:

Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Woody Allen is one of my favorite writer-directors, and the fact that I haven’t really admired anything he’s made since “Bullets Over Broadway” is distressing. But “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” although far from a masterpiece, is the best picture he’s made in a very long time. It’s a breezy romantic comedy, as light and airy as a soufflé, concerning two students (Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall) vacationing in Spain and their brief but tumultuous relationship with a toothsome artist (Javier Bardem) and his eccentric ex-lover (the brilliant Penélope Cruz). Like an Eric Rohmer mosaic, the film revels in showing us beautiful people in beautiful locales—the Spanish scenery is absolutely gorgeous, as are Johansson, Hall and Cruz. But Allen doesn’t treat his characters as asides: The women especially are written with refreshing complexity, and this is Allen’s best portrait of female psychology since the great “Hannah and Her Sisters.” Read my original review here.
Grade: B+

ALSO ON DVD:

Lakeview Terrace
Neil LaBute, once a great indie provocateur, seems to have lost his edge as he’s gone mainstream. His newest film is “Lakeview Terrace,” a wannabe social commentary that plays it safe when it should be ruffling feathers. Samuel L. Jackson stars as a prejudiced cop who resents the young, interracial couple (Patrick Wilson and Kerry Washington) who move in next door, and he makes their lives a living hell: He installs bright security lights that shine through their windows, he spies on them in their backyard, he slashes their tires, he assaults and humiliates and frightens them. Why does he do all of this? Well, we wouldn’t question his actions if he hadn’t been written as such a hate-spewing cartoon, but the movie’s explanation for his behavior is so clunky and superficial that it undermines the film’s attempts at legitimacy. And by the time the picture reaches its last reel, it has completely deconstructed into a contrived Hollywood thriller.
Grade: C

The Rocker
Rainn Wilson of “The Office” has his first star vehicle, a pleasant but predictable feel-good comedy about a goofball rock ‘n’ roll drummer who’s kicked out of his band right as they’re making it big (think Pete Best). After years of slumming it, he becomes a replacement drummer for his teenage nephew’s garage band, which ends up becoming massively popular. The movie is slightly better than most in its genre: It doesn’t resort to mean-spirited or gross-out humor, and I appreciate that the characters are smart and that Wilson has a shaggy dog appeal. If only the script hadn’t recycled a formulaic story that involves the band’s meteoric rise to fame, the perils of the cutthroat music industry and Wilson’s tepid romance with the underused Christina Applegate.
Grade: C

RocknRolla
You’re either with Guy Ritchie or you’re not. I’m with him, but I say that with some hesitation: He certainly knows how to shoot and style a picture, but the jury’s still out on whether he can create compelling human drama (his remake of “Swept Away,” which actually attempted pathos, was a disaster). I can’t deny, though, that I’ve been mostly entertained by his films, and, almost in spite of myself, I liked “RocknRolla,” even if it’s a pale shadow of his “Snatch,” which was itself a pale shadow of his first feature, “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.” The plot is almost comically convoluted. Its characters include a powerful crime boss, a Russian real estate magnate, a sexy accountant, a drug-addicted rock star and a gang of foolhardy bandits. It plows along at a mile a minute, exploring London ganglands, the music industry and the art world, and it’s told in an aggressive, self-aware manner that excels in some scenes and becomes aggravating in others. But the movie mostly works—as a comedy, as a crime caper and as an example of cheeky, excessive style.
Grade: B

Performances that should be nominated...but won’t be

The Academy announces the 2009 Oscar nominations tomorrow morning, and I’ve decided to help them out a little bit by throwing out some names they may have not considered.

While Mickey Rourke, Sean Penn, Meryl Streep and Heath Ledger will be locks in their respective categories (and have better chances of winning than almost anyone else), it’s important that the underdogs—either lesser-known actors, performances in small productions or terrific work that just got overlooked—get at least a little recognition.

I have picked one underappreciated performance for each of the four major acting categories, and I have carefully considered every movie I saw this year (two of the performances I picked were from films I didn’t even like).

These actors likely won’t have their names announced during the nomination telecast tomorrow, and although I don’t believe these performances would deserve to win even if they were nominated, hopefully this entry will steer you in the direction of some terrific work.

Best Actor
Richard Jenkins, “The Visitor”
Of my four picks, Jenkins has the highest chance of getting a nomination. In Thomas McCarthy’s wonderful “The Visitor,” he plays a stick-in-the-mud college professor whose life is changed when he finds two illegal aliens staying in his vacation home. The picture could have easily resorted to manipulative histrionics, especially after one of the immigrants is arrested and threatened with deportation, but McCarthy’s script (which should, if there is any justice, also get a nomination) and Jenkins’ quiet, humble performance elevate this from cheap melodrama to intriguing character study. He finds a warmth and timidity beneath his character’s somber exterior, and he is completely believable at every moment. It is a testament to him that the movie works so well.

The runner-up in this category is Robert Downey Jr. in “Iron Man,” who used his trademark sardonic wit and self-debasing humor to great effect (he could easily get a Supporting Actor nom for his race-defying work in “Tropic Thunder”). I also admired Sasson Gabai in “The Band’s Visit,” Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson in “In Bruges,” Andrew Garfield in “Boy A,” Ricky Gervais in “Ghost Town,” Dev Patel in “Slumdog Millionaire,” Sam Rockwell in “Snow Angels” and Michael Sheen in “Frost/Nixon.”

Best Actress
Dakota Fanning, “The Secret Life of Bees”
Although “The Secret Life of Bees” was a minor fall hit and female audiences seemed to adore it, I didn’t find much to like about it other than the strong performances (without a cast that includes Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson, Sophie Okonedo and Alicia Keys, this movie would have premiered on the Lifetime Channel). Despite that star wattage, the movie’s best work came from young Dakota Fanning, who was only thirteen when the film was shot. She conveys more maturity than any actor her age, but her performance is not impressive because of her age—it is impressive because she is a tremendous actress. Fanning has the most difficult role in the picture, one that requires a number of emotional scenes, and she pulls it off so convincingly and so honestly, you’ll forget your watching a teenager. If she continues this caliber of work, she’ll have an Oscar by the time she’s twenty.

This was a harder category to fill, mainly because the best actresses are the ones that are the more obvious choices (Meryl Streep in “Doubt,” Kate Winslet in “Revolutionary Road,” Anne Hathaway in “Rachel Getting Married”—all astounding turns). So the runner-up here is Melissa Leo in “Frozen River,” who would have been my first choice had she already been the subject of Oscar talk—don’t be shocked if she gets a nomination, but the fact that her superb performance was in such a small film decreases her odds. Other terrific performances in this category include Kate Beckinsale in “Snow Angels,” the severely underrated Téa Leoni in “Ghost Town” (get this lady a star vehicle, stat!) and Anamaria Marinca in “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.”

Best Supporting Actor
Eddie Marsan, “Happy-Go-Lucky”
Most of the accolades for Mike Leigh’s “Happy-Go-Lucky” go straight to its star, Sally Hawkins, and rightfully so. But Eddie Marsan’s portrayal of a short-tempered, bigoted driving instructor is stupendous, mainly because his character becomes crucial to our understanding of the film’s heroine. In one of the movie’s final scenes, Marsan has a meltdown and unleashes a verbal assault on Hawkins that, although painfully honest, gives us a shocking bit of insight into the character—is she really as happy and selfless as we thought she was at the beginning of the picture? Leigh is one of my favorite directors, and I especially love how he pulls out the rug out from under an audience and completely alters our perception of a person in a matter of minutes: Marsan’s character begins as a cute, curmudgeonly counterpoint to Hawkins’ effervescent Poppy, but his performance evolves into something much more profound.

The runner-up this time is also likely to get an Oscar nomination this Thursday, but for a different film. Brad Pitt is a favorite in the Best Actor category for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (curious, indeed, because he’s the least interesting character in a very interesting movie), but he was brilliant in the Coen brothers’ goofball espionage comedy “Burn After Reading.” Since comic performances are so often overlooked, I’d also like to mention Russell Brand, the eccentric British comedian who ran off with the best lines in “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” Also of note were Jason Butler Harner in “Changeling,” Bill Irwin in “Rachel Getting Married,” David Kross in “The Reader,” Michael Shannon in “Revolutionary Road” and Ben Whishaw in “Brideshead Revisited.”

Best Supporting Actress
Anjelica Huston, “Choke”
Why Anjelica Huston hasn’t received more accolades for this performance is beyond me. I imagine it has to do with the fact that “Choke” was not a very good movie that hardly anybody saw. Still, her turn as Sam Rockwell’s elderly mother, a former con artist slipping away with dementia, was heartbreaking, a welcome source of tenderness in a movie that desperately needed it. Her scenes with Rockwell—she doesn’t recognize him, thinking he is a lover from her past, and he plays along with her delusions—have a poignancy that you may not expect from a sleazy movie about sex addiction, and their interaction was an island of humanity amidst a sea of jumbled plot strands and labored comedy.

Marisa Tomei is likely to get a nomination for her wonderful work in Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler,” but likely to be overlooked is her co-star Evan Rachel Wood, who appears in the film for about ten minutes and makes a tremendous impact. Also of merit were Rosemarie DeWitt in “Rachel Getting Married” (if anybody from the terrific supporting cast will get a nod, it’ll be Debra Winger), Beyoncé Knowles as Etta James in the middling musical biopic “Cadillac Records” and Hanna Schygulla as a grieving mother in the Turkish film “The Edge of Heaven.”

You better get off his lawn

Gran Torino
Review by Nathan Weinbender

Clint Eastwood is both the best and worst aspect of “Gran Torino.” Eastwood the actor is really terrific here, utilizing his legendary screen persona—leathery skin, squinty eyes, intimidating stature—to create a protagonist that at first seems like a broad caricature and slowly evolves into a fascinating human character.

Eastwood the director, on the other hand, doesn’t know the meaning of the word “subtlety,” and here he has the tendency to overemphasize elements of the story that are already obvious. It’s dramatic overkill.

His approach to directing has always been a simple one, and like David Mamet, John Sayles or Mike Leigh, he is a point-and-shoot filmmaker, focusing more on performance and plotting than on wild directorial flourishes. His films are usually pretty restrained, but “Gran Torino” feels as though it was written entirely in italics, as if Eastwood didn’t trust the audience to understand the picture’s major themes.

Take, for instance, a sequence in which Eastwood, playing an old curmudgeon named Walt Kowalski, interrupts a group of black teenagers assaulting a young Asian girl. He curses at them, threatens them with a gun, throws around a few racial slurs, growlingly pontificates about how the world has gone to hell and how punks like them have caused it.

Although Eastwood is magnetic in his delivery, the scene plays out in such a didactic way that, much like in the manipulative, sermonizing, simple-minded “Crash,” it doesn’t feel as though screenwriter Nick Schenk is using this film as an outlet for real human drama: This movie is like a soapbox upon which its characters vocalize various social, racial and political issues.

Now, I don’t object to what the film is saying, but to how it is being said: “Gran Torino” sometimes feels more like a thesis than it does a movie, and although it certainly isn’t ignoble, it makes its points with all the nuance of a term paper.

But there are some wonderful scenes in the picture, and they’re so good they made me wish that Eastwood had taken the script and gone off in a completely different direction with it. The most effective parts of “Gran Torino” focus on Walt’s relationship with the neighbor kids—the smart, confident Sue (Ahney Her) and the introverted Thao (Bee Vang), both of Hmong descent.

Walt, quietly devastated by his wife’s recent death and closed off from his family, is uncomfortable and unfamiliar with their culture. But he finds them warm and inviting and is soon drawn into their world. He calls them “chinks” and “gooks” and “slant eyes,” but they become, if you can believe it, more like terms of endearment than personal insults.

Sue, who is brazen and clear-headed, first adapts to Walt’s closed-mindedness. When he warns her to stay away from his dog, she corrects him: Her people only eat cats. Later on, Walt befriends Thao, who can hardly make eye contact with anyone, and teaches him how to be confident in the presence of other people.

Those moments are a joy to watch, and Eastwood and his actors find just the right tone. But those scenes are flanked by eye-rolling melodrama involving a local gang’s attempts to compromise the innocence of Sue and Thao, and Walt saying enough is enough and taking matters into his own hands.

The middle segments of “Gran Torino” are almost at odds with the rest of the film: Imagine a thoughtful, compassionate, humble novel interrupted halfway through with a long chapter typed entirely in capital letters. It’s jarring how Eastwood approaches the dramatic material here—every Big Moment is telegraphed with overbearing music and obvious close-ups.

And Eastwood employs superficial Christ imagery at a key moment in the film, and not only has it been shoehorned into the scene for cheap dramatic effect, but it distracts us from the realism of the scene and diminishes the power of the scene.

It’s a shame that Eastwood didn’t trust “Gran Torino” to be a simple character study, or that Walt’s relationship with the kids was far more interesting than the forced melodrama of the gang warfare and the stilted monologues of moral grandstanding. This picture has interesting elements all around the fringes of its story, but it seriously sags in the middle.

Grade: B-

Directed by Clint Eastwood. Written by Nick Schenk. Starring Clint Eastwood, Bee Vang, Ahney Her, Christopher Carley, Brian Harley and John Carroll Lynch. R; 116m.

The best films of 2008

2007 was such a great year for film, offering so many creative, surprising and intelligent pictures, that it was no shock that 2008 was a disappointing one.

It was especially disappointing for American cinema. On my 2007 list, only two (“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” and “Atonement”) were foreign productions; this year, half of the list is made up of films from countries other than the U.S.

But to say 2008 was a bad year would not be fair, and despite the fact that very few films really jumped out and grabbed me, the ones that did were really terrific.

Looking at the following films, most of which I have revisited for second and third times, I am astounded by the broad range of genres they cover—character studies, historical biopics, old-fashioned underdog stories; a quirky comedy, an enthralling documentary, an ambiguous morality play, a Romanian tragedy, a Scandinavian horror film and the best Hollywood blockbuster in years.

These are not the only great films of 2008, but they are the ones that moved, captivated and entertained me the most.

10. Happy-Go-Lucky
Reflect for a moment: How many movies have you seen in which the protagonist is simply, truly happy? Mike Leigh’s pictures are often dirges, dreary portraits of middle-class British life. But this one, despite harboring some dark undertones, is a mostly buoyant comedy about a woman who tries to turn dark clouds into rainbows. She is played by Sally Hawkins in the breakout performance of the year, and she is a joy to watch, turning a potentially annoying character into a lovable one.

9. The Visitor
Thomas McCarthy’s “The Visitor” is a small-scale picture with tremendous emotional resonance. It is an unexpectedly moving picture, with veteran character actor Richard Jenkins making a real impression as a bull-headed college professor who befriends two illegal immigrants and embraces African drumming. The story could have been heavy-handed in lesser hands, but the film is acted and written with such conviction that it pulls you in, despite the fact that it is deceptively simple.

8. The Dark Knight
Did anybody miss seeing “The Dark Knight” during its theatrical run? Did anybody dislike it? It was that rare film that seemed to unite everybody—it was morally complex and dark, a thoughtful meditation on good versus evil, but, most importantly, it was damned entertaining, with some of the most sensational action sequences I’ve seen. Here we see superhero movies developing into a mature art form, and this film represents the height of the genre so far. I doubt it will ever be topped.

7. Doubt
Here’s a movie in which every scene could come with a “for your consideration” disclaimer at the bottom of the screen. “Doubt” is based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning play, but it rarely seems stagy, and yet it still captures the spellbinding power of watching a live performance. Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams are all reliable actors, and they are simply stellar. But it is Viola Davis, whose performance lasts for barely ten minutes, who really strikes a chord—she finds a quiet humanity that stands out amidst the fire-and-brimstone intensity of the rest of the film. If ever there was a film to see, ponder and discuss heatedly, “Doubt” is it.

6. Man on Wire
If “Man on Wire” had been told in the format of a fiction film, nobody would believe it. Such a sensational story could only happen in real life, and this look at wirewalker Philippe Petit’s feat of walking between the towers of the World Trade Center is breathtaking. Petit is an energetic narrator, director James Marsh re-creates images as dreamy and striking as Errol Morris, and the “plot” unfolds so unpredictably that you could liken it to a heist picture and not be far off. This is the best feature documentary of 2008.

5. Slumdog Millionaire
Danny Boyle is a diverse, edgy filmmaker, but none of his movies have struck the same chord as “Slumdog Millionaire.” This is the Little Film That Could, the story of a poor kid from India who captures the country’s attention during his stint on the Hindi version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?,” this is an old-fashioned rags-to-riches plot approached in a way we’ve never seen before. Dev Patel and Frieda Pinto, relative newcomers to acting, are revelatory in their roles, and the plot moves along with unrelenting energy.

4. Milk
Gus Van Sant, another veteran director, has hit his highest mark with this exhilarating movie, a true-life portrait of Harvey Milk, a San Francisco man who became the first openly gay political official, and who later became a martyr for the gay community after his murder. Sean Penn plays Milk, and although we know he is the best actor of his generation, we are not expecting how uncannily he embodies this man, how brilliantly he brings his quirks and courage and flaws to life. Josh Brolin, James Franco, Emile Hirsch and Diego Luna round out one of the best ensemble casts in recent years. “Milk” is a moving evocation of a great man’s legacy.

3. Let the Right One In
Here’s one that should never have worked: A Swedish film about the relationship between a young social outcast and a twelve-year-old vampire. But “Let the Right One In” is an invigorating picture, superbly cast, impeccably photographed and written and acted with more insight and heart than you might expect. Kåre Hedebrant and Lina Leandersson are the stars, and although they have never acted before, they capture a vulnerability and honesty that no amount of theatrical training can imbue in a performer. This movie excited me when I first saw it, and I wanted to shout its praises to everyone I knew. See this movie before Hollywood has a chance to remake it.

2. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
Winner of the Palme d’Or at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, this bleak Romanian drama was released in the U.S. way back in January. It was the first great film of 2008, and it was only outranked in the final days of December. It is a wrenching film, set in 1987 during the “Golden Age” of Romanian politics, as a college student helps her sheepish roommate arrange for an illegal abortion; over the course of one very long day, the responsibility falls squarely on her shoulders. Director Cristian Mungiu photographs the film in a way that makes us a part of the action, and it is so unflinching that it forces us to watch on when we want to turn our eyes away. “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” is not an approachable picture—it will take everything out of you—but it is as potent as any film I saw this year.

1. The Wrestler
Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler” is a testament to the power of simple storytelling. The title says it all, doesn’t it? What is the movie about? A wrestler. That wrestler is Randy “The Ram” Robinson, who has fallen from glory since he hit the height of his career in the mid-‘80s. Now he works in the warehouse of a supermarket, lives out of his van and is forced to retire early after a heart attack. The movie is also a testament to career comebacks, and in this case we see Mickey Rourke making himself relevant again. His performance here is nearly beyond words. He brings a tenderness and sincerity to the role that I can’t imagine anyone else duplicating—this is not the case of an actor preening before a camera, but of an actor unapologetically baring his soul before us. I can’t readily recall a movie in which an actor so clearly relates with the character he is playing: When Rourke tells his estranged daughter that he’s “a broken-down piece of meat,” is that the character or the actor speaking? I think it’s a little of both, which makes “The Wrestler” such an emotional, personal experience.

I also greatly admired “Burn After Reading,” the Coen brothers’ goofy follow-up to their superb “No Country for Old Men;” Clint Eastwood’s “Changeling,” the true story of child abduction and police corruption in 1940s California; the fantasy “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” a tale of love, loss and the inevitability of time, directed with great panache by David Fincher; “Frozen River,” a low-budget masterpiece with a knockout lead performance by Melissa Leo; the dark comedy “In Bruges,” which will no doubt find a cult following over the years; “Iron Man,” the second-best superhero picture of 2008, and the film that officially marks Robert Downey Jr.’s comeback; Jonathan Demme’s divisive “Rachel Getting Married,” which features a remarkable Anne Hathaway performance; David Gordon Green’s overlooked “Snow Angels,” a haunting melodrama about love, death and deception in a small town; “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” a charming romantic comedy and the best film Woody Allen has made in years; and the Pixar gem “WALL-E,” which stands head and shoulders above any other family film this year.

Some great foreign films include “The Band’s Visit,” a charming Israeli comedy about a police band stranded in a small town overnight; Ireland’s “Boy A,” about a young man coming to terms with a murder he committed as a child; the German Oscar winner “The Counterfeiters,” the fascinating story of concentration camp inmates who assisted the Nazis in a failed economic swindle; and the Turkish film “The Edge of Heaven,” a moving, meditative character study that follows a college professor who goes looking for the daughter of the prostitute his father mistakenly killed. And among the year’s best documentaries are “Encounters at the End of the World,” Werner Herzog’s beautifully photographed study of the major scientific undertakings in Antarctica; Martin Scorsese’s concert picture “Shine a Light,” which proves the Rolling Stones as relevant and electric as ever; Errol Morris’ “Standard Operating Procedure,” a harrowing look at the Abu Grahib prison scandal; and the crowd-pleaser “Young @ Heart,” about a choir of rock-and-roll senior citizens.

Up against the ropes

The Wrestler
Review by Nathan Weinbender

Sometimes a performance is so good that you can sense the actor throwing everything he has at the screen. You can see him putting his heart and soul and blood and sweat and tears into every line of dialogue and every nuance, and you are held captive by the very fact that an actor can convey such emotion.

Such is the experience of watching Mickey Rourke in Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler.” Yes, that Mickey Rourke—the go-to tough guy in the ‘80s, relegated to pointless supporting roles in the ‘90s, now completely resurrected as an actor of tremendous power. It is such an immersive, hypnotic performance, and you can sense that Rourke’s own personal anguish and professional hardships have been siphoned into the role.

He plays Randy “The Ram” Robinson, a professional wrestler who was on top of the world in 1985. Twenty years later, he’s a has-been, a joke, the answer to a trivia question. He makes special appearances at rec centers and fan conventions. He lives in a trailer park but has to sleep in his van because he can’t afford the rent. He is not as fulfilled as he once was, but the work he does have gives him fleeting moments of joy, and he hurls himself, both literally and figuratively, into his job.

A brief aside: Professional wrestling is an intrinsically fascinating enterprise, I think. It is patently fake, and the fans are aware of it, and the wrestlers in the ring are self-aware actors who know how to throw a punch and fall and land just so. (See the fascinating documentary “Beyond the Mat,” and you’ll learn that the WWF superstars are sweet and non-confrontational, and that they do what they do because they look imposing and have an engaging presence in the ring.)

The strange thing, though, is that the audiences at wrestling matches approach the event with the utmost earnestness, even though the wrestlers themselves are broadly sketched symbols of male machismo and products of blatant self-mockery. I have seen wrestling programs that are funny in their brazen, unabashed silliness—can you believe such a strange activity can draw audiences in the thousands? I have never seen the crowds at any of those events burst into laughter or knowing chuckles: They are immersed in a universe of good versus evil, where the outcome is always predetermined.

That has tragic undertones in itself: Randy’s victories can only be dictated by a series of scripted conflicts. He does not win because he is the better wrestler; he is not the harbinger of his own fate. Perhaps that is why his life is in such a shambles—he has always been a champion wrestler, but he never has to work for it. Sure, he bleaches his hair and works out and tans his body, but none of that matters when he steps into the ring: He will win no matter what.

Randy struggles to get by. He works part-time as a supermarket box boy, where he is relentlessly insulted by his pipsqueak boss. He has an estranged daughter, now grown up and played by Evan Rachel Wood, with whom he tries to reconcile but who does not want to see him back. He is a regular at the local strip joint and falls in love with one of the dancers, Pam (Marisa Tomei), who has clearly had a string of deadbeat men in her life and senses that Randy has a pure heart. But, she tells him, she can’t have relationships with customers.

The story is pretty familiar, but rarely have I seen a well-worn blueprint so invigorated by its performances: They have taken the old “Rocky” formula, which has been worked over time and time again, and have actually improved upon it. One of 2008’s other masterpieces, “Slumdog Millionaire,” also relied on plot developments that would normally be considered clichés, but it approached them in a new, fresh way. “The Wrestler” is another triumph of old-school storytelling, proof that what you say is not important, it’s how you say it.

Scene after scene in this picture is just right, acted in a way that people really act, written in a way that people really talk. In two of the movie’s best sequences, Randy convinces first Pam and then his daughter to go out with him. “We’ll just have one beer,” he tells Pam, and she accepts, yet when he makes his moves on her, watch how she handles it: I can imagine her response seeming phony as written, but Tomei handles it with such hard-bitten intensity that it works.

Later, when Randy and his daughter visit the old pier, they walk through the long-deserted carnival fairgrounds, and he opens up to her in a moment of heartbreaking sincerity. “I’m a broken-down piece of meat,” he says. “I deserve to be alone. I just don’t want you to hate me.” (I’m certain they’ll use this clip, which has a raw power, at the Oscars, where Rourke will no doubt be nominated.) Both Tomei and Wood are phenomenal here, playing women who love Randy, but find a hard time needing him. They are two of our best working actresses.

The last reel of the film, where the spell of the film could have easily come crashing down in sloppy sentiment, is surprisingly masterful. Randy has had a heart attack, and the doctors advise him to never wrestle again. When he is scheduled for a rematch with an anti-American wrestler named Ayatollah (we learn that their first fight twenty years ago was legendary), he accepts. Giving up is not an option.

Now, what follows is a series of events that could have been—no, should have been—cloying, trite, predictable and heavy-handed, yet everything miraculously falls into place. You know what will happen: Randy will make a moving speech to the crowd, he will struggle through the fight, his heart will start to give out, Pam will make an obligatory appearance, etc. Yet Rourke’s performance is so nakedly poignant that we buy everything, and the very last shot of the film is better than anything I could have expected (and the transition to Bruce Springsteen’s haunting closing credits song is really sensational).

Darren Aronofsky, who made “Pi” and “Requiem for a Dream,” is an edgy filmmaker, but here, working with Robert D. Siegel’s no-frills script, he puts all gimmickry aside and simply lets the story play out. It feels like real life, unimpeded by Acting or Writing or Directing, which, I think, takes more courage and artistry than it does to put obscure images and impenetrable symbolism up on the screen.

But Mickey Rourke is the heart of the movie, and he is so convincing at every moment that we believe this character really exists. We want so desperately for him to succeed, yet we don’t necessarily agree with his choices in life, nor with the consequences that his line of work entails. But we sit there in awe, not only of the resiliency of this man, not only of the control that Rourke demonstrates in his performance, but of the simple, honest power of this film. “The Wrestler” is a perfect movie, and I think it is the best picture of the year.

Grade: A+

Directed by Darren Aronofsky. Written by Robert D. Siegel. Starring Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood, Mark Margolis and Todd Barry. R; 109m.

An ‘American Beauty’ by any other name

Revolutionary Road
Review by Nathan Weinbender

Has there ever been a normal suburban family in the movies? I don’t think so; the happy ones are only reserved for sitcoms and ads for Wonder bread and laundry soap.

The family in Sam Mendes’ “Revolutionary Road” is one of the most self-destructive I’ve seen on film: Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet play a husband and wife who look to be the very embodiment of 1950s Middle America, yet who have fallen out of love and are determined to deflate one another in scene after scene of ruthless verbal sparring.

“You’re a sorry excuse for a man,” she tells him, and “I loathe the very sight of you,” to which he tells her that meeting her was mistake, marrying her was a mistake and having children with her was a mistake. It is brutal material, executed with blunt force.

Mendes and writer Justin Haythe are clearly trying to capture the marital tête-à-tête that Mike Nichols mastered in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,” but this movie doesn’t have the wit or the magnetism of that film, and it plays like a long, exhausting therapy session.

This movie must have looked smashing on paper. It is an adaptation of Richard Yates’ acclaimed 1961 novel, directed by the reliable Sam Mendes, shot by Roger Deakins, scored by Thomas Newman and starring DiCaprio and Winslet, who are two of our best actors and who haven’t appeared on-screen together since “Titanic.”

Theoretically, it should have been a masterpiece, and it is technically impressive, acted and photographed with great skill. But the movie has only one grim note to play, which it does relentlessly for two hours.

DiCaprio is Frank Wheeler, who has never decided what he really wants to do with his life, and finds himself stuck in the same monotonous nine-to-five job his father had thirty years ago. Winslet is April, who has grown weary of her duties as housewife and mother; she folds the laundry and makes the beds and cooks all the meals herself, but she really wants to be an actress.

Suddenly realizing that life has caught up with them too quickly, they decide they’ll move to Paris; April will find a secretarial job, Frank will stay at home with the kids. Their friends (David Harbour and Kathryn Hahn) seem surprised by their plans: “Frank isn’t going to work?” they ask, astounded. The woman will be the breadwinner? Unheard of.

Frank and April seem content by their future prospects, glad to finally pull the rug out from under their miserable conditions. But then Frank gets an irresistible promotion at work, and April discovers she’s pregnant, and how could they move, Frank wants to know, at a time like this?

Their animosity toward one another accelerates to the point where their living room shouting matches become a nightly occurrence. They both have extra-marital affairs—Frank with a young secretary at work, April with the next door neighbor. Their children completely disappear, likely in the care of a friend or relative. They are empty shells; all the energy they have is reserved for their heated arguments.

And yet, every morning, there April is, wearing an apron in the sun-drenched kitchen. With a forced smile spread across her face, she asks her husband, “Fried or scrambled?”

Recalling the plot makes me wish I could praise the film over the moon and back again. It reads as powerful. Winslet and DiCaprio are both very good here, and Mendes has a sure hand, the sets and costumes accurately capture a definitive time and place, and Deakins’ cinematography is sometimes stunning—one particular shot, which begins on Winslet’s face and slowly pulls back to reveal something truly horrible, will haunt you.

But “Revolutionary Road” just doesn’t approach its material in the most effective way. Think about “Virginia Woolf,” which centered on the relationship of two thoroughly unpleasant characters, but it had no better opinion of them than we did. And Mendes’ own “American Beauty,” which also followed a suburban family in crisis, was more voyeuristic—we were on the outside, looking in, at a life that we would not like to be in.

This movie doesn’t equal “Virginia Woolf” because it wants us to sympathize with Frank and April, even though they are despicable people. And it doesn’t replicate the power of “American Beauty” because we feel as though we’re trapped in a very small room with a couple who just won’t stop bickering, and it gets tiresome.

The film is also strangely antiseptic, a movie that, for all its attempted emotional fireworks, always feels like an exercise. I recommend you go back and watch “American Beauty,” which approached the subjects of marital disintegration and suburban alienation with more insight and humor. That movie at least allowed us to breathe; “Revolutionary Road” is stifling all the way through.

Grade: C+

Directed by Sam Mendes. Written by Justin Haythe. Based on the novel by Richard Yates. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Kathy Bates, Michael Shannon, Kathryn Hahn, David Harbour and Dylan Baker. R; 119m.