Eye of the Tiger

I'm a big boxing fan. I don't know if that was an advantage or a disadvantage when approaching The Fighter. The Fighter is the story of 'Irish' Micky Ward; a man who is about as close to a real life Rocky Balboa as you are likely to encounter. A boxer of minimal talent but an over-abundance of heart and spirit.

I'm the one who's fighting. Not you, not you, and not you.

Ward's never say die, working class spirit made him the most televised fighter in boxing history. Ward was also involved in Ring magazine's fight of the year consecutively from 2001 to 2003. Memorable fights against Arturo Gatti are the highlights of Micky Ward's career and are widely acknowledged as proof that the sport of boxing still has a life to live. Ward opened a tanning salon in his home town after retiring from the sport and reportedly turned down a seven figure offer to return to the ring. Boxing lesson over.

Portrayed for film by Mark Wahlberg, Ward remains an engaging character throughout the piece and his struggles between family, partner and business are presented well enough for the viewer to experience genuine empathy for the character. Wahlberg and Bale have clearly gone to some extent to visually prepare for the film with Wahlberg bulking up for the part and Bale going to the other extreme.

If you follow my Twitter account you will probably be aware that I am not a big Christian Bale fan; by any sense of the imagination. However, I would struggle to fault his performance in this film. Playing the drug addicted older (half) brother of Ward, Dicky Eklund is the local town hero who fought, and lost to, boxing legend Sugar Ray Leonard. Dicky is a constant drain on Micky and his career but his redemption comes in his tactical awareness and advice which is priceless to Micky in the ring. Outwith this, Micky tolerates his brother only in the name of family. It is clear from the movie that family is important to Micky. He is loyal to the core, even at the expense of his career. This is apparent in the prolonged employment of his Mother as manager. Critical of all outwith the family, she arranges fights for Micky in the name of fast cash, and accuses others of disregarding her son's interests. The rest of Micky's family consists primarily of an immeasurable number of sisters who resemble the female cast of Jersey Shore gone eighties.

Going back to my enjoyment of the sport, and of course the Rocky series, I did feel slightly let down by the fight sequences in The Fighter. The manner in which the scenes were presented was faultless and extremely successful in recalling the look of the era (think early Mike Tyson on ESPN etc.) but the actual boxing was slightly unconvincing. I remember my Dad telling me that Carl Weathers could have been a boxer; you could tell by the way he moves his feet and threw a jab. The same could not be said of Wahlberg. The punching looked unnatural to a boxing purist but to the untrained eye posed no apparent issues. Maybe just a gripe of my own but I never pretended to be anything but a perfectionist.  

The film has received generally positive reviews and you can count this as another. It has received nomination for seven Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress. In my opinion the film is available for the enjoyment of both boxing and non-boxing fans alike. You can call it predictable but you have to remember it's a true story.

Official Site - http://www.thefightermovie.com

True Romance..?

Originally due to shoot in 2008, the filming of Blue Valentine was delayed due to the death of Heath Ledger. Filming took place in Brooklyn, New York and stars Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams. The main attention grabber for the film was hype generated by the NC-17 rating given for release in American cinemas. Changed through appeal the old no such thing as bad press adage has been well applied.

The story follows the tribulations of a young couple falling in, and subsequently out of, love. Removal man Dean pursues the unrealistically sought after student Cindy and cannot be deterred by pregnancy or beating. The story you expect to shift from bliss to misery never really reaches the heights of bliss as the undertones of the film are relatively desperate. From meeting to marriage the couples encounters, although realistic, are not particularly heart-warming save for the stand out scene that sees Dean serenade the dancing Cindy on his old ukulele.

There are two musical elements that are intrinsic to Derek Cianfrance's Blue Valentine. The first is the title shared with the 1978 Tom Waits album containing classics Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis and Kentucky Avenue.The second was less obvious but lies within the narrative of the film. If protagonist Dean had debts that no honest man could pay we would have the on-screen projection of the pertinent storyline apparent throughout the work of Bruce Springsteen. The problem is that the film does not live up to the promise offered by connections with these two artists.

Dean is an honest man trying to make an honest living but that's not enough to maintain an ultimately antique relationship. It seems that we follow our parents and as such replicate their (un)successful attempts at love and marriage. Are those who come from a broken home ultimately destined to create the same for their children and is this lesson learned of our parents suffering? Shall we abandon ship before it is too late? In Blue Valentine we do.

The narrative problems are caused in part by the manner in which the story is told as we jump from meeting to greetin' (crying if you are not Scottish) and back again. This serves to break the story and contributes to the problem that I never believed that Cindy loved Dean.. she settled for the best offer available.

I feel like men are more romantic than women. When we get married we marry, like, one girl, 'cause we're resistant the whole way until we meet one girl and we think I'd be an idiot if I didn't marry this girl she's so great. But it seems like girls get to a place where they just kinda pick the best option... 'Oh he's got a good job.' I mean they spend their whole life looking for Prince Charming and then they marry the guy who's got a good job and is gonna stick around.

Throughout the film I never doubted that Dean was honest in his intentions however the relationship built between the two main characters of 500 Days of Summer (2009) for example, is never replicated in Blue Valentine. This results in the dissolution of the relationship having less of an impact on the viewer. Honestly, Cindy's happiness is of no concern to me come the end of the film and the painter's efforts to reconcile with the newly redundant nurse are obviously vain form the outset.  The film is not without redemption and Gosling's performance is particularly good. The overall sense is one of unreached potential rather than overall disappointment.

Official Site - www.bluevalentinemovie.com