The Wrestler: Movie Review

Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson (Mickey Rourke) is a washed-up pro wrestler, popping pills and bandaging limbs in an effort to keep his broken body in the ring and pay his rent. His estranged daughter (Evan Rachel Wood) hates him, and the only person he has any connection with is disillusioned lapdancer Cassidy (Marisa Tomei).

Rourke, with his puffy, reconstructed face and battered body, looks a bit like a plastic He-Man action figure that’s been left on top of a radiator all winter (or, alternatively, Meg Ryan on steroids). He’s essentially playing himself here, but that shouldn’t distract from what is a really gutsy and compelling performance (Jack Nicholson has played himself for 40-odd years, and won three Oscars in the process). Both Rourke and Tomei are deservedly BAFTA and Oscar nominated.

Tomei is a consistently watchable actor who previously won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar a full 16 years ago for My Cousin Vinny. She offers a brave and heartfelt turn as the lapdancer who, like The Ram, knows she is too old for her chosen career. Like Rourke, she puts everything out there on the screen. Surprising film fact: Marisa Tomei is 45 years old.

But the most interesting thing about The Wrestler is that it manages to avoid ‘doing a Rocky’. There is nothing too sentimental or overblown about it, and the ending feels pitch-perfect. It’s a great little movie, sympathetically told by screenwriter Robert D Siegel and director Darren Aronofsky, and driven by two huge performances.

8/10

The Mist: DVD Review

Despite containing only half as much moisture density as John Carpenter’s The Fog, this Frank Darabont/Stephen King affair is fun CGI-monster B-movie, with Thomas Jane leading a group of smalltown folk trapped in a supermarket by a plague of supernatural beasties. It’s pretty standard fare – until the last few minutes, because The Mist has one of the darkest and most memorable endings you’ll ever see in a mainstream Hollywood movie, changed by Darabont from King’s original novella ending, and is worth seeing for that alone.

7/10

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With computing becoming increasingly cloud-based, it no longer seems necessary to download or store music. As network connectivity becomes pervasive, the possibility of having every piece of commercially available music at our fingertips, instantly playable via our next-generation portable music players, mobile phones and Wi-Fi home entertainment systems comes closer. So will downloading digital music to an iPod soon seem as archaic as taping the Top 40 on to a C90..?

Read the full story at The Guardian

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Slumdog Millionaire: Film Review

A former Mumbai street kid takes part in India’s version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and, despite having no education, goes on an incredible winning streak. The show’s host, and the police, reckon he’s cheating, but in fact it turns out that each answer has played a part in young Jamal’s eventful life. How very convenient.

The first thing to say is that Slumdog Millionaire looks great. It’s stylishly shot by directors Danny Boyle and (his overlooked co-director) Loveleen Tandan, and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle, and Mumbai makes a thrilling and colourful setting. But is it worthy of the blanket of plaudits it’s currently receiving? I’m not so sure.

The central concept of events in Jamal’s life matching, chronologically, the quiz show questions, is a contrivance perhaps more suited to a knockabout comedy than a sometimes gritty (and sometimes brutal) drama. There are also fundamental holes in the plot – for a start, it relies on the conceit that the Millionaire TV show is transmitted live, which is obviously not the case.

So why so many five-star reviews and award nominations? I dunno. Don’t get me wrong – it’s a decent film. But it’s by no means a great film. (I’m not sure it’s as good as Boyle’s previous movie about a kid magically coming into money, Millions.) It’s entertaining and rattles along a a fair old pace, but if Slumdog Millionaire sweeps up during the forthcoming awards season that doesn’t bode too well for the rest of this year’s offerings.

6/10

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Masal Bugduv does not exist, which seems strange as The Times included the supposed 16-year-old Olimpia Blati and Moldova striker in a list of the world’s most talented young footballers earlier this week. The paper has now removed the list from its website, although The Guardian has helpfully reposted the Bugduv entry.

The Guardian reports that the fakery was first spotted by a Russian poster at The Offside. (The poster called The Times’s slip-up ‘a very fanny misteak’.) Soccerlens then took up the investigation and discovered that an unknown hoaxer had, for reasons unknown, littered the web with references to the fake player.

Masal Bugduv is by no means the first fake footballer to fool the press. The Times made a similar error in 1999, when they announced that Liverpool’s Gerard Houllier was set to sign French under-21 international Didier Baptiste for £3.5 million. Baptiste was a fictional character from the Sky One soap opera Dream Team, where he played for made-up team Harchester United.

In 2003 The Observer reported that Leeds United manager Peter Reid had invited a player called Ernest Gund for a trial. Gund, they reported, was an Austrian under-21 international striker, and top scorer with his side DSV Loeben. He was also reported to be Austria’s sexiest sports personality, and a host of websites dedicated to the player illustrated his popularity.

Unfortunately for Peter Reid, and for the journalists who ran the story, Ernest Gund didn’t exist. He was actually a character in popular football computer game Championship Manager, and the websites listing his statistics, likes and dislikes, and diary arrangements were hoaxes, initiated by an Everton fan called Neil Clegg.

But my favourite tale of a fake footballer involves that font of all football knowledge Graeme Souness. In 1996, the then Southampton manager received a call from Liberian legend George Weah. The caller recommended that Souness take a look at his former Paris Saint-Germain teammate, a Senegalese international footballer called Ali Dia. Only the caller wasn’t George Weah, and Ali Dia wasn’t a footballer.

But Souness fell for the scam, and invited Dia over for a week-long trial. Dia was registered to play, but missed a chance to impress in a reserve game against Arsenal when it was postponed. With the trial coming to an end, Souness decided to put Dia on the bench for a Premiership clash with Leeds. After an hour, an injury forced Souness to make a substitution. Ali Dia got his chance.

Unfortunately, it soon became clear that Dia was not a real footballer. A thoroughly unimpressed Souness subbed his sub ten minutes later. But Souness refused to be red-faced. ‘I don’t feel duped in the slightest,’ he said. ‘That’s just the way the world is these days.’

(As a postscript, Souness later paid £8 million for Jean-Alain Boumsong, who was perhaps even less of a real footballer than Ali Dia…)

For more made-up footballers and general soccer shenanigans you should probably read my book Balls: Tales From Football’s Nether Regions.

Football