The Wrestler (2008, Darren Aronofsky)

Major spoilers. This is not a review but an analysis of the film. Do not read unless you have seen the film.

It would be inaccurate to say that Darren Aronofsky’s film, The Wrestler, tells the story of one man. Instead, the film tells the story of two men living in the same body. Just as the listing of his complete name in the credits suggests, Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson (played by Mickey Rourke) has another person within him, ripping him apart from within. The Wrestler is my favorite movie released in 2008, and one of my top ten favorite movies of this decade.



Personally, I never expected that a film about professional wrestling could become one of my favorites. The Wrestler might be remembered as one of the greatest sports movies, except for the glaring issue that professional wrestling is not a real sport. The film itself does not make any claims to the contrary, and it embraces the premise that professional wrestlers are performers. From the beginning, the film seeks to explore exactly how real a fake performance can be. During an early fight scene, Randy removes a hidden razor blade from his wrist and slices his forehead while on the mat, to make himself bleed. Legend has it that actor Mickey Rourke actually cut himself to make the scene work. Although the competition is staged, the bodies in the ring are certainly real. The strain of the activity takes a toll on the human body as heavy as any sport, through the physical wounds and also the training and drug regimen that support the performance. Mortality rates for professional wrestlers are through the roof, a harsh truth that confirms the real damage from this phony sport. The Wrestler succeeds as a film, not only because it highlights the physical reality of the performance, but because it emphasizes the consequences below the surface as well.

Lost Episode 5.15 History Repeated by Luhks

In a few short months, the network television show Lost will complete its initial run. As time passes, people will begin to look back on the series from its proper historical context. Lost might be regarded as the biggest cult television phenomenon of its era. However, even the show’s biggest fans must admit that ABC’s Lost most likely will not be remembered as the best dramatic series of its decade. (The cable-television triumvirate of The Sopranos, The Wire, and Mad Men, will take the gold, silver, and bronze medals, in some order.) Within its own genre, though, J.J. Abrams’ Lost probably has ensured its spot on Mount Rushmore alongside Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone, Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek, and Chris Carter’s The X-Files. Tracing the history of those four shows reveals a great deal about the evolution of the medium. When The X-Files was peaking in the 1990s, writers were beginning to shift away from the same creative mindset that had prevailed since the 1960s, that each episode operates as a self-contained, one-time broadcast. The ambitious X-Files team struggled mightily in their early attempts to convert their Monster-of-the-Week drama into a Grand-Mythological-Saga. Over time, technological shifts have changed fundamentally the way in which the artists are approaching the medium. After syndication, DVR playback, streaming media, and most importantly the DVD market, television programming carries a more permanent life than ever before. Today’s Lost writers operate with the understanding that their episodes will continue to exist long after their transitory time slots. Any fan would be naïve to believe that everything was planned from the beginning, but Abrams and Lindelof certainly understood that their Pilot was a Beginning that would lead to a Middle and an End. Each episode no longer needs to operate as an individual short story within a compilation, but as interconnected chapters in one great novel.

Lost Episode 5.16 The Dark and The Light by Luhks

There are only two types of Lost fans: those who watch the show for the Characters, and those who watch the show for the Mythology. The statement I just made is, of course, a false one. It reflects a gross generalization, which oversimplifies the complex motivations of a wide spectrum of individuals into two categories. Look no further than the Season Five finale, The Incident, for evidence that the definitions of ‘character’ and ‘mythology’ overlap each other as to make the classification nearly meaningless. Jacob, the central force lurking behind all Lost mythology, is in fact a character. Nevertheless, that exact thought has probably crossed the mind of every person reading this article, in one form or another, at some point in time. Our world is so complex and chaotic, that if we never made such generalizations, if we never drew such dividing lines, then we could never understand anything. All science, art, and even language depends upon a binary choice between ‘X’ and ‘not-X’. Even when we stare into a random and meaningless abyss, a Rorschach inkblot, we instinctively need to find some greater meaning within it, to find some pattern in the black ink on white background.