SIN CITY

year: 2005

cast: Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Brittany Murphy, Nicky Katt

rating: *

The look of this movie and THE SPIRIT, both written by "Graphic Novel" guru Frank Miller, is the same: scantly hand-drawn, purposely cheap looking discolored backdrops. Whatever this "new look"...feeling as if a punchdrunk Roger Rabbit molested cheap Japanese anime while giving birth to a braindead Matrix wannabe... is called, it should be forever done away with. This vapid, tacky mess, directed by Robert Rodriguez and with a "special director credit" to Quentin Tarantino, both who've gotten mossy in their middle age... is simply horrible. Porno-esque slowly timed acting and gloriously lame violence all seems like a lonely comic book reader euphorically visualizing his melodramatic dream-film.

THE WRESTLER

title: THE WRESTLER

year: 2008

cast: Mickey Rourke

rating: *

The director doesn't know whether he's making a documentary-style film or a underdog story with a documentary style. The documentary style doesn't work because the subplot involving Rourke and his daughter seems too "movieish" and cliche-ridden, as does his relationship with stripper Marissa Tomei: dialog out of a late night cable movie. Meanwhile, every other actor, like his bully deli boss, his opponents in the ring, his managers, all seem out of a droll documentary: boring, uninteresting, and seemingly purposefully mundane. With all its trying for originality, this is basically a wannabe "Rocky", but there's no Burt Young or Burgess Meredith or Carl Weathers to carry our hero: a professional wrestler past his prime who loves bad hairband heavy metal music, and has a life without purpose, like the film itself.