PRIMETIME

A MODEST (WRESTLING) PROPOSAL

Posted: 12:00 am
January 25, 2009

The state of elected government in this country is beyond belief, beneath contempt and out of its mind.

Connecticut Gov. Jodi Rell on Jan. 12 nominated Greenwich resident and World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda McMahon, Vince's wife, to - are you ready? - the state Board of Education.

That's right, Gov. Rell chose for the school board a woman whose TV-delivered family enterprise is synonymous with every conceivable act of social deviance, including indescribable vulgarity, rampant drug use and sudden, early deaths of its performers.

Hasn't Linda McMahon already done enough for kids?

Gov. Rell need not take my word for it. Here's a challenge she should, as a matter of post-nomination conviction, be eager to accept:

At a public forum, choose at random any video recording from the McMahon family's "Raw" series or pay-per-view presentations of the last 20 years. Next, play that recording, in its entirety, for her assembled constituents.

Better yet, just select from the WWE (nee WWF) shows that included appearances by Mrs. McMahon and/or her two children. Those "angles" are up there with the most twisted ever produced, shows so reliant on children and teens - school-aged kids - to form its TV audience that WWE merchandise lines aisles in toy stores.

At the video's end, and to conclude the challenge, Rell can address the assembled with the same words she granted Mrs. McMahon in announcing her nomination to the state's school board:

"Linda clearly understands the skills and education needed to succeed in business and the type of highly educated and skilled workforce that must be available to ensure that success.

"I am confident that her leadership abilities, input and advocacy as a mother and grandmother will be key assets to the Board and its mission of ensuring quality education for all Connecticut children."

Why not, Mme. Governor, let Mrs. McMahon's years of work speak for themselves? Why not, Madam Governor, display why you're confident that her leadership will be beneficial to Connecticut's children?

If not for the sick condition of American politics, the sickness of Rell's nomination would be unfathomable - a dark satire, a cruel joke.

Throughout America, schools have banned kids from wearing WWF/WWE clothing - some of it carrying obscene slogans or images - as highly inappropriate. TV stations have removed WWF/WWE shows due to their objectionable sexual content.

A few days before Rell's nomination of Mrs. McMahon, transcripts were released of Mr. McMahon's testimony before a Congressional committee investigating illegal drug use in sports. As the long-reigning king of a quasi-sports industry that, for the last 25 years, has steadily produced dead wrestlers, McMahon (himself a former steroid user) was questioned as a person of great interest.

I'd further suggest that Gov. Rell inspect his answers to that committee. They're on-line. She'd find that he was rude, contentious and evasive, while feigning ignorance of what goes on in a business he has controlled for more than 25 years.

Mr. McMahon's previous responses to allegations of rampant drug use - to create massively muscled action figures WWE/WWF performers - has vacillated between total denial of any problem to an admission that there's a "profound" problem to a dismissive "no one cares."

But put aside the drugs and the deaths, Governor. Just randomly show a WWE TV or pay-per-view show, then announce to Connecticut that you'd like to repeat your previous statement:

You're pleased to have nominated the CEO of the WWE to the state's school board. Why not?

http://www.nypost.com/seven/01252009/sports/moresports/rourkes_wrestler_portrayal_is_a_rare_spo_151990.htm?page=0

ROURKE'S 'WRESTLER' PORTRAYAL IS A RARE SPORTS-FILM CLASSIC

Posted: 3:13 am
January 25, 2009

MICKEY Rourke may not actually take home the Best Actor statue for his performance as Randy "The Ram" Robinson, the washed-up and washed-out wrestler from the aptly-titled film "The Wrestler," but Rourke has done something that future generations of people like myself surely will appreciate:

He has saved his best for a sports movie.

Now, maybe this wasn't what he was trying to do as he was wandering aimlessly through the past 15 or so years. Maybe he wasn't trying to personally cater to people like me, a sizable demographic whose two principal affinities, all things being equal, are sports and movies, and who spend a disproportionate amount of time wondering why sports and movies can't have a more agreeable marriage.

I have trod this territory before, because it fascinates me, and the simple truth is this: For some reason, for whatever reason, we have somehow allowed even the greatest film stars to take a pass when it comes to sports movies. Sports fans are detail people. We absorb statistics. We have absurd memories. Years ago, when Billy Crystal was promoting "61*" for HBO, I asked him about how carefully he and his f/x people had recreated Yankee Stadium in the movie, and this is what he told me:

"If I was watching the movie and I'm a sports fan and I saw that the director had gotten the wrong measurements for right field at the Stadium, I would change the channel immediately," he said. "At HBO, they don't really want a lot of viewers to change the channel."

Actors never seem to bear the same responsibility. There are exceptions, sure: Robert De Niro in "Raging Bull" looked as if he could walk right off the film and win the middleweight championship of the world. Same deal with Will Smith and "Ali." And Hilary Swank in "Million Dollar Baby."

We're probably on to something, of course. Boxing is hard to fake. You strip down to your altogethers, you start throwing punches, you start sticking and moving and jabbing and upper-cutting, you're not going to be terribly convincing if you look like, say, Kevin James. As a rule, mall cops and pugs are never supposed to be interchangeable.

It may explain why, of all sports, boxing always has seemed to get the best treatment from Hollywood, whether it's "Somebody up There Likes Me," or "Requiem for a Heavyweight," or the first three "Rocky" movies, or "Cinderella Man."

Whatever weird path Rourke took to getting the body he has now and the face he has now, it has paid off because he not only seems to play the Ram, he seems to be the Ram. It isn't likely that Rourke could have stepped right out of character as Boogie in "Diner," for instance, and taken on the Ram. Boogie was cool, but he was a hairdresser, for crying out loud. As Charlie in "The Pope of Greenwich Village," he did work over a heavy bag pretty good, but in that I'm-playing-a-tough-guy-so-here's-a-real-tough-guy-thing-to-do kind of way. And in "91⁄2 Weeks" he had other exercise on his mind than getting ready for a steel cage.

Whatever, this works. This worked. Wrestling and boxing are close cousins, after all. The surprise is that someone hadn't thought the subject would make a good movie before Darren Aronofsky and Robert Siegel did.

It also begs these questions. Why would De Niro care so much about nailing the role of Jake LaMotta in "Raging Bull," and seemingly care so little that he looked like someone who missed the junior varsity cut as Bruce Pearson, an allegedly major league catcher, in "Bang the Drum Slowly" (even before we know he's dying)? Why would it matter to Paul Newman to be so convincing as Rocky Graziano and look worse than Rocky Balboa on skates in "Slap Shot?"

Baseball always gets brutalized, of course. Whether it is John Goodman and William Bendix tag-teaming the legend of Babe Ruth five decades apart, or Gary Cooper looking completely overmatched as Lou Gehrig (if Marshal Will Kane had been as inept in "High Noon" Will Kane would have had big, big problems). Or it is Tim Robbins' Nuke LaLoosh's improbable pitching delivery to Ray Liotta's playing Joe Jackson as a right-hander (that alone should have given Jimmy the Gent reason enough to whack him a few years later in "Goodfellas").

Only Kevin Costner, in both "Bull Durham" and "For Love of the Game," allows you to suspend your disbelief even temporarily.

And let's just leave football alone. Outside of Paul Crews (and you had better believe that refers to Burt Reynolds' Crews, not Adam Sandler's) I defy you to name one football player in one football movie who doesn't make you cringe. Keep trying.

And even if anybody wanted to, it is going to be hard for anyone to top Rourke now, anyway. The Ram is now residing in Cy Young territory. Unapproachable. Give him the trophy. And retire it.

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