Susan Granger’s dvd/video update for week of Friday, April 24:
Mickey Rourke delivers a powerhouse performance as Randy “The Ram” Robinson in “The Wrestler” with Marisa Tomei as his tough-talking, stripper girl-friend and Evan Rachel Wood as his estranged lesbian daughter. Unflinchingly directed by Darren Aronofsky, the gritty, brutally authentic drama reveals the barbarous fakery of pro-wrestling, along with the bruising toll it takes on its masochistic participants.
Although it never made it to our local theaters, the irreverent, sweetly exuberant “How About You,” starring Vanessa Redgrave, Imelda Staunton and Brenda Fricker, tackles the edgy topic of old age with extraordinary empathy, capturing all the poignant regrets, frustrations, resentments and loneliness, as a free-spirited young woman (Hayley Atwell) goes to work at a residential elder-care home in the Irish countryside.
Starring Jamal Woolard, the biopic “Notorious” chronicles the life of Brooklyn-raised rapper Christopher Wallace (a.k.a. Biggie Smalls and Notorious B.I.G.), who became a superstar and was murdered at age 24 in a still-unsolved 1997 shooting.
Set in the poverty-stricken village of Melo, near the border with Brazil, Uruguay’s official Oscar entry, “The Pope’s Toilet,” focuses on a petty smuggler (Cesar Troncoso) who decides to cash in on the Pope John Paul II’s upcoming visit by building a WC in front of his house and charging worshippers for its use. In Spanish with English subtitles, it’s an unexpected delight with a surprising conclusion.
For film buffs: the most celebrated lawman of the Old West rides again in “The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp: The Complete Season One” (1955-56), starring Hugh O’Brian as the famed marshal of Ellsworth, Kansas, whose exploits with Doc Holliday, Bat Masterson and the Clanton Gang come to life in episodes based on actual events.
PICK OF THE WEEK: “Frost/Nixon” recreates the ferociously exciting 1977 TV battle-of-wills in which tenacious British interviewer, David Frost (Michael Sheen), interrogated disgraced President Richard Nixon (Frank Langella). Writer Peter Morgan and director Ron Howard present it as “an intellectual Rocky,” expanding the narrative by subtly delving into both men’s revelatory backstories.