Another Year...

Last night marked yet another chapter in my life as I turned the dreaded 22. There's not too much to look forward to after you hit 21. When you're turning 21 you have massive amounts of, now legal, alcohol and bars. Turning 22 is more a reminder that you have started your year checklist of "Amount of years older than 21". And hell, I'm only 1 in that case, right?All I do know, is that I have everyday to spend with you and that's more to look forward to than any year previous. Thank you for the best birthday in 22 years.

(Birthday #3 was one hell of a time and was tough to beat, but you did it!)

Gran Torino Review

A Long Road To Walk: Gran Torino Review
by M. R. Brown

Clint Eastwood is among the hardest working men in Hollywood. His second directorial effort of the year has him casting himself in a role Dirty Harry Callahan would play, if he were a retired racist. Just as Ernest Hemingway is a man’s writer, Eastwood is a man’s actor. Whether scathing off every racist term imaginable or wielding an M-1 rifle at anything foreign that walks, Eastwood can do no wrong with audiences in Gran Torino.
Walt Kowalski (Eastwood) is a Korean War veteran who has worked in the Detroit auto factories his whole life. After the death of his wife, Kowalski is left alone in a deteriorating neighborhood that has fallen to crime. Shortly following the arrival of new Hmong immigrants in the house next door, Kowalski is awoken by sounds in his garage where new neighbor Thao (Bee Vang) is attempting to steal his prized Gran Torino. Kowalski opts for a less vengeful path after he nearly shoots the boy, recognizing the gang culture that Thao has become mixed up in. Providing solace and a role model to Thao, as well as his sister Sue (Ahney Her), Kowalski is faced with answering to his own prejudices in order to save those around him.
The film centers on social issues of gangs and violence in American immigrant social systems as well as providing a look at the underlying racial attitudes towards these new waves of American immigrants.
Gran Torino is named after the 1972 car that sits in pristine shape locked away in Walt’s garage. Not only is the vehicle a product of the fading American car industry but it is also the last thing that Walt holds dear in his life, along with his dog Daisy and his Pabst Blue Ribbon beers. It is Thao who breaks through the walls of prejudice built up by Walt and begins the transformation of a truly in-depth character study by first time screenwriter Nick Schenk.
The film is surprisingly funny and quick witted. Eastwood’s character even admits that he has “been called a lot of things in his lifetime but funny is not one of them.” The style of mentoring Walt chooses to employ on Thao to help him with the ladies and the banter between he and his barber shows that even at age 78 Eastwood still has range left untapped.
Eastwood has adamantly insisted that this may be his final acting role. As cemented in memory as the Man With No Name, Walt Kowalski is a character befitting the aging icon. Nearly every utterance in the film is as raspy and gritty as though he had a cigar in mouth and twin revolvers in hand.

Gran Torino is rated R and is now showing at Showcase Cinemas Worcester North in Worcester and Blackstone Valley 14: Cinema de Lux in Millbury.

The Wrestler' Review

A Worthy Resurrection: The Wrestler Review

by M. R. Brown

As with most films worth Oscar acclaim, The Wrestler will not be as easily accessible to find in your local theater as other insufferable films such as Bride Wars. The problem? Not only will it be harder for The Wrestler to make money and reach an audience, but the movie must also be more enticing, dare more profound, than these exhibitions in abhorrent cinema in order to draw moviegoers out of their houses and towns to watch it.

Darren Aronofsky crafts a film with true heart and grit, a film that can be noted as nothing short of superb and touching. Randy “The Ram” Robinson (Mickey Rourke) is a battered and tired professional wrestler past his prime who is coming to grips with retirement, self-purpose, loneliness and his own health. He is a failed father of his only daughter Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood), who is left to her own devices of raising herself for most of her life. Besides the warmth and adoration shared backstage with young wrestlers, Randy leads a lonely life in which he frequents a strip club to visit love interest Cassidy (Marisa Tomei). After a heart attack following a fight, he must choose to either wallow in a life of working a petty supermarket deli or risk it all for a rematch for the ages.

Transitioning between the two characters of Randy and Cassidy lends insight into the juxtaposition of each one’s lifestyle. Both are entertainers in their own trade, Randy a wrestler and Cassidy a dancer. The difference between the two is Randy is forever unable to leave the only thing in life he can do while Cassidy escapes her job with plans on moving to a better place to raise her child.

Rourke’s performance deserves every bit of recognition it receives. A former hobbyist boxer who fell from grace in his acting career years ago, Rourke gives real-life experience and ache from such events to his character of Randy. He renders any other actor unfit for this role, much like Daniel Day Lewis’ performance as Daniel Plainview the previous year. The endearing film is a must see before it escapes the small theaters and is far more understandable than Aronofsky’s previous movie The Fountain, which to this day still leaves this writer baffled.

The Wrestler is rated R and is currently showing at Showcase Cinemas Worcester North on 135 Brooks St. (Article currently unedited).

Movie Lists of 2008

It seems about time I enter in my list for the top movies of 2008 as well as the worst movies of the year:

Top 10 Movies of 2008

by M. R. Brown

1. The Dark Knight

2. Wall-E

3. Gran Torino

4. The Wrestler

5. Milk

6. Slumdog Millionaire

7. Iron Man

8. Let The Right one In

9. Tropic Thunder

10. Man on Wire

Top 3 Worst Movies of 2008

1. The Love Guru

2. Meet The Spartans

3. The Hottie & The Nottie

Honorable Mention: Overlooked By Epileptics

1. Speed Racer

Driving by the Town of Ghosts...

Exhausted is the sign that sits
outside the tattered
ghost town,
and on the red wood it reads
"Sorry to see you leave,
Please come see us again."
We, as others, drive slowly
past and stare.

What I've Been Watching...

The Wrestler
Directed by: Darren Aronofsky




Gran Torino
Directed by: Clint Eastwood




The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Directed by: Andrew Dominik




Lost: Season 4 on DVD
Directed by: J.J. Abrams

Serenades from Bed...

[And in the back of the saloon, the piano rang out twinges of 1890]

"She passed through the tables with a grace of angels and a smirk of neglect. She felt as though her feet were forever to be held to the hardened, ever-creaking boards below her. She hated her reflection in mirrors she passed and glasses she handed, but she carried red lipstick on her person at all times. She found security in the smallest of things."




"Pulling apart the grains
of sand left lodged in his sole,
The hourglass was once again
upturned and dissolving"
He'll never forget the white shag carpet beside her bed.


Reading: Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain

Returning...

[In the shade
-with white wine in hand-
He stares at the only
woman worth a look.]

Red. Fused burst
in discarded whites.
A prick, upon black
that dances on greens.
An endless shade of
terrors twice lost.
Carry off. With low
winds on evergreen.
Never going to find me.