One for the thumb..and Santonio digs Lebron

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Ugggh. Another Super Bowl for what undoubtedly is the best franchise in the NFL. A franchise that every Browns fan is jealous of hell about for sure, up to and including this one. While we look like the freaking Kansas City Royals, and they look like the Yankees, and we pretend there's a rivalry while Pittsburgh could probably care less about the Browns.

At the very least, the bright spot is that Santonio payed LeBron homage after his touchdown...

WTF

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Kurt Warner's wife...

Movie Review: The Wrestler

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Readers (all seven of you) beware: This synopsis may contain spoilers:

The Wrestler is a hard movie to watch. A patina of doom and desperation shellacs every scene in this story about washed out, sad eyed professional wrestler Randy “The Ram” Robinson.

This is no uplifting Rocky-like tale. Nor does it follow the rise-fall-redemption template of the recent spate of musician biopics. The Wrestler is about a man who’s hit bottom only to discover there’s nowhere else to go but down. Watching that negative trajectory play out on screen is an exceedingly uncomfortable experience.

Part of that discomfort stems from Darren Aronofsky’s directing style. Several scenes resemble a documentary with a hand-held camera shakily following a shambling Mickey Rourke around the New Jersey hinterlands as he readies himself for a match. The bouts are held not in the packed arenas of The Ram’s 1980s heyday, but in the bingo halls and high school gyms of the low-paying indie circuit.

The wrestling action is intimately filmed; the camera tightens around the two performers as they wince from the real pain of pulled punches and chairs to the head. An ECW-style hardcore match is especially difficult to watch. Here, Aronofsky unflinchingly shoots The Ram and his opponent brutalizing each other with lamps, thumbtacks and barbed wire. He then shows us the cringe-inducing backstage aftermath of medics removing glass shards from the combatants’ scarred, blood-covered bodies. The latter is something you will not see during the average episode of Monday Night Raw.

What’s especially sad is that The Ram takes these beatings for essentially chump change, and must rely on a concoction of pain medications to push him to his next miniscule payday. Memories of past glories keep him going, as does the reverence of younger wrestlers and the adoration from the rabidly vocal group of fans who attend his small-scale shows. Ultimately, however, he keeps wrestling because there’s nothing else he knows how to do.

The punishment Aronofsky heaps upon The Ram is not just physical. The former star lives at the poverty level in a trailer pathetically decorated with newspaper clippings of his heroic past. His relationships with other people, meanwhile, are tangential at best:

During the week he works at a grocery store, where his mean-spirited dick of a boss humiliates him with cheap jokes. He spends much of his money on a hot-but-aging stripper, played by the still very gorgeous Marisa Tomei. Nor does he have a relationship with his teenage daughter, whom he deserted long ago. All of this adds up to a lonely, beaten-down existence with little hope for something better.

This sad circumstance is wholly embodied by Mickey Rourke, whose own demons have been well-publicized in the months leading up to “The Wrestler’s” release. Simply put, this movie wouldn’t work without Rourke’s pained presence. His straggly, peroxide-blond hair and craggy moonscape of a face are disturbing wonders to behold. Physical and psychic pain surround him like some weird dark aura. It is hard to separate the character from the man, a fact that only strengthens the gravity of Rourke’s performance.

Rourke’s work makes it easier to overlook the cliché-ridden elements of the narrative: The machinations of The Ram’s attempt and ultimate failure to reconnect with his long-lost daughter, for example, are trite and predictable. Tomei is solid as the stripper-mom with a heart of gold, but there’s very little chemistry between her and Rourke, making her actions toward the end of the movie rather unbelievable.

All that said it is morbidly fascinating to watch Rourke’s take on a man of a bygone decade where people listened to Ratt without irony and considered pro wrestling a legitimate sport.

I also admire Aronofsky for not bailing viewers out with an easy-to-digest message or feel-good resolution. His grim vision scarcely gives viewers a chance to breathe. While this kind of brooding meal may not be for everyone, those that can endure The Ram’s sad tale will have much to chew on afterwards.

A man has a choice...

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The Cleveland fan’s worst case scenario is taking place behind me as I write this entry. Steelers v. Ravens, the one AFC Championship game no self-respecting Browns’ backer would ever want to see. Cheering for either team is like choosing between syphilis and gonorrhea ...so while I’ve been keeping tabs on the game during dinner, I’m not really paying attention to the proceedings. And anyway, I need a rooting interest to get into a game, and I’m kind of rooting for a tactical nuclear strike.

However...if I had to choose between Pittsburgh and Baltimore to represent the AFC in the Super Bowl, I’m going with the Ravens, baby, all the way. My decision was surprisingly easy, and revolves around one simple concept: There are no Ravens’ fans in Cleveland.

Have you ever seen a Baltimore jersey around here? The only person I ever saw wearing Ravens’ gear within city limits was Jerry “The King” Lawler at then-Gund Arena during SummerSlam ’96. And Lawler’s not even a Baltimore fan; he was just trying to draw cheap heat from the crowd.

But you can’t turn around in this city without running into a transplanted Steelers’ fan, or worse, the transplant’s imbecile cousin, the Cleveland-born Pittsburgh supporter. A 30-minute trip to the grocery store this afternoon witnessed three decked-out Steelers’ fans getting grub and refreshments for today’s game. Drive around town and you’ll see Steelers’ stickers on back bumpers, Steelers’ flags flapping in the breeze from front porches, Steelers’ Starter jackets (do they still make those?), Steelers’ hats, Steelers’ enema bags, and on and on.

Pittsburgh fans routinely take over our stadium during the Steelers' bi-annual blowout over the Browns. I do not need to see these losers crowing over another Super Bowl victory for the next xx months/years while Browns 2.0 continues to flounder about like a beached trout.

Mind you, it would not be fun to see the Ravens get another ring. In my view, one of the worst moments in Cleveland sports’ history was when Baltimore, five years out from blowing town, won it all. It was awful watching a strangely addled-looking Art Modell hoist the Lombardi. But Art’s gone, and I don’t view the Ravens as “the old Browns” anymore. They’re just another team in our division the Browns have to overtake.

So join me my fellow Cleveland fans in choosing the lesser of two evils. I wish it did not have to be this way.

Shorthanded and Sick? No Problem

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Cavs last night--coming off a disastrous loss in Chicago Thursday (which I was unlucky enough to watch in person)--playing without Z and Delonte, and with Ben Wallace and (supposedly) LeBron fighting illness looked like a sure thing to get their first home loss of the night against New Orleans, one of the best teams in the West.

But it turns out that the team, in both on-court performance and coaching strategy, were amazing. A mixture of Lebron playing point guard, then center, frustrated the Hornets beyond belief. And it's kinda hard for me to believe LeBron is sick--check out 1:14 of the game highlights.

Now the road trip...