Fucking ROBBERY!!

Yeah, yeah... so this is a post about the Oscars. Now, I could spend a few pages talking about the shame and embarrassment Hugh Jackman must feel for nancy-prancing through a medley of cheap parlor renditions of this year's nominees. Or lament appropriately about the loss of Paul Newman, Richard Widmark and Van Johnson. Or make some sort of cynical statement about how predictable the Academy is with its lavish flowering of Slumdog Millionaire for all sorts of awards. But instead, let me just take a couple of minutes to sink into the myre of blog conformity and whine from my digital toadstool about this year's Best Actor category... And I'm well aware I'm about to do this... Mickey Rourke was FUCKING robbed. I don't care how good you thought Sean Penn was - how great it was that his portrayl of gay rights martyr Harvey Milk brought to light even more details of the long struggle for equal rights in this country or how much it illustrated his tenured acting abilities to play a career's worth of bad boy hardasses and then oscillate seamlessly into a bright, flamboyant smiling gay man... These things are undeniably true - and Penn's acceptance speech was both proof that he is an actor that, despite public persona, can't and shouldn't be ignored and that some actors can prove a larger value to their work in the social sphere (Yet, as it was pointed out to me, he didn't thank his wife - neither at the Golden Globes or the Oscars, and this I frankly think is inexcusable regardless their personal issues).

But that doesn't change the fact that Mickey Rourke should have won the award. His portrayl of Randy "the Ram" Robinson may not have been the biggest departure from his real life. The film's subject matter may not have had the social weight that Best Picture winners typically have. And Rourke's reclusive, spotted past may not be the sort of pedigree that the Academy feels moved enough to reward, but FUCK man, that film was so... honest. When I watch a film I like scripts with powerful, prosaic dialogue. I like beautiful cinematography. I like well-weaved narratives. But more than anything else, what really moves me is a parallel to reality that offers me a clearer possibility of how things could be and then an exploration of how things often turn out. I like films about the total cost of a story, of people and their choices. And I like the actor that sells it to me. That's Rourke. At so many points in the film, you see him holding himself together (literally with duct tape) just to provide a few kids with a laugh, a few fans with a thrill, a stripper with her dignity, a few deli patrons with a little light entertainment, and he's rewarded with little more than a few moments of opportunity for himself - with his estranged daughter, with his addiction to steroids, with the stripper. But the weight is just too great and the plebian complex of the deli manager is too large and the pockets of the trailer park manager are too shallow and his daughter's capacity for pain has just run her down too much. And in the end it's a matter of bad timing. A man once a star to many - as delusional as his fans - has awakened to a future he never prepared for, a humility few could bear and he's just too beaten to take another risk, to suffer any more indignity. He's become a plastic action figure, a symbol of dying fantasy and fading paint and all he can think to do with his tired, broken life is make that leap one last time from the top ropes and pray that when he lands he is remembered for where he started and not where he ended up. A name in the credits. One of a million bulbs burning, shattered and replaced.



So Mickey, that one was yours. Fuck the lot of 'em. Even Penn knew it. He told you. We saw your hands quiver, your eyes clench tight behind those glasses. That was your award. You earned it. I've never been so caught up in the outcome of an Academy Award in my life, and I know that's a little weird. Like guys and sports teams. But I just don't want to see you become the man in real life that flounders in parallel to one you played on screen. Don't go out like the movie, Mickey. Don't flicker. Keep coming on strong.

Our condolences about Loki.