A bizarre set of circumstances not worth going into here found the 'Fesser and your pal the cinetrix seeing out the old year at a "luxury" [reserved plush seats commodious enough for the humans in Wall-E; meals and drinks available, naturally] cinema in the no-there-there city of Charlotte. The untz-untz-untz and blue-light vibe of the adjacent bar/nightclub, where we watched flat upon flat of Red Bulls get loaded in, ready to play their role in revelers' final bad decisions of 2010, may have also played a part in making our choice of The Fighter seem even more discordant but also oh so right. It was wickid fahkin fancy.
So, the movie. You may not have heard, but there is a lot of ACTING all up in this film. Melissa Leo's hair, Christian Bale's teeth, Amy Adams's tits all vying for the title -- it's quite something. There is also a mise-en-scène of general oppressive cruddiness. Yeah, boxing gyms have been run down since long before Fat City, and Atlantic City warrants the full Springsteen treatment, but was every fucking house in 1993 Lowell a green triple decker with peeling vinyl shingles? Or did it just feel that way?
It sure sounded right, though. By which I mean the soundtrack toggled back and forth between indie and classic rock playlists like Adams's Charlene and Bale's Dicky aren't fighting so much over the soul of Wahlberg's Mickey Ward as they are over the radio dial in some clapped-out Datsun parked out front: Breeders' "Saints" or Whitesnake's "Here I Go Again"? Or, to keep it local, Til Tuesday or Aerosmith? 'FNX or 'AAF? Don't believe me? It only switched over to AM soft rock when it was time to salve the fury of one of the flinty ladies: Hall & Oates for Charlene, Bee Gees for Alice. Serrriously, it's a note-perfect soundtrack, kind of like you'd imagine the radio station in Grand Theft Auto: Lowell.
When we peeled ourselves from our "classy" Courvoisier-upholstered crushed velvet seats as the end credits scrolled, the 'Fesser ventured that The Fighter would make a great video game. I think he's right. Can't you just see it? Only you wouldn't play Mickey in the ring, he explained; you'd be Dicky leaping out of the crack house window into the dumpster two storeys below to avoid Alice coming in the front door, over and over and over.
The absurd man says yes and his efforts will henceforth be unceasing. If there is a personal fate, there is no higher destiny, or at least there is, but one which he concludes is inevitable and despicable. For the rest, he knows himself to be the master of his days. At that subtle moment when man glances backward over his life, Sisyphus returning toward his rock, in that slight pivoting he contemplates that series of unrelated actions which become his fate, created by him, combined under his memory's eye and soon sealed by his death. Thus, convinced of the wholly human origin of all that is human, a blind man eager to see who knows that the night has no end, he is still on the go. The rock is still rolling.
