Writer/co-director Gavin O’Connor’s “Warrior” opens with an emotionally bruising scene that not only sets the tone of this intensely moving story but beautifully uses silence and what remains unspoken to communicate a gulf so wide between an estranged father and son that it seems impossible to bridge. Dad is Paddy Conlon (Nick Nolte), a bear of a man who traded in the drink for the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. Today, alone in his beat up, working class house, his only companion is the terrible cost abusive alcoholics pay for their sobriety, the memories of the physical and mental abuse inflicted on a family eventually lost.

The son is Tommy Conlon (Tom Hardy), a former Marine just home from Iraq, who didn’t drop by after fourteen years to see how dear dad was doing,. He’s here to hurt the old man in every way possible without laying a hand on him. Tommy expected to find a drunk, and Paddy’s sobriety only angers him more. Dad doesn’t deserve forgiveness, Christ’s or anyone else’s. Tommy is a seething young man made dysfunctional by the baggage he carries around like the bulk of his muscle — an unreachable force of anger and bitter resentment that extends to his older brother Brendan, as well.

Brendan didn’t run away from his father like Tommy and his mother. He was older, had a girlfriend, and had already planted the seeds of a life. Eventually, he married that girl, went to college, became a teacher, had kids, and bought a house. Though they’re very different in so many ways, Tommy and Brendan do at least have one thing in common. No matter how many days sober, they will never forgive their father.

Paddy is a former martial-arts trainer, and this experience is the only thing these three still have in common. For reasons I won’t spoil, Tommy needs to make some quick cash, and that means getting back into the octagon and the competitive world of mixed-martial arts. The same goes for Brendan (a former UFC contender) who refuses to accept charity or file a bankruptcy to save his family from financial ruin. “I don’t do things that way,” he tells a banker, and though he’s a little long in the tooth, into the octagon he goes looking for whatever prize money he can scrape up.

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“Warrior” is this generation’s “Rocky.” Too bad precious few ticket buyers got that memo.

“Warrior,” available now on Blu-ray, DVD, Video on Demand and Digital Download, failed to connect with audiences despite the kind of crowd-friendly elements that usually spark blockbuster status.

Perhaps the rising sport of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) remains too niche for mainstream appeal, but if any film could make the masses embrace its furious battles, it’s “Warrior.”

The film gives us not one but two fighters to cheer on, a mismatched pair plowing their way through a rogue’s gallery of MMA foes. But the fighters can’t out-grizzle Nick Nolte, sure to gin up Oscar votes for playing an alcoholic shadow boxing his own demons.

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Two brothers are forced to confront their past inside and outside of a mixed martial arts (MMA) arena in the new film, “Warrior.” Starring Joel Edgerton, Tom Hardy and Nick Nolte, “Warrior” focuses on a family coming together after being separated for over a decade. I recently had the opportunity to conduct a phone interview with director Gavin O’ Connor, who wrote the script alongside Anthony Tambakis and Cliff Dorfman.

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O’Connor, who previously directed the inspirational film “Miracle,” talked to me about the film which tells the story of two brothers named Brendan (Edgerton) and Tommy (Hardy) who were separated early in life. Brendan lived with his alcoholic father (Nolte) while Tommy moved away with their mother. The two brothers, who don’t see each other for fourteen years, are eventually forced to fight each other when they both compete in a mixed martial arts competition.

I asked O’Connor about the genesis of the story. The idea, he noted, was an amalgam of things happening in his life combined with his interest in telling the story “of two brothers that are estranged that have to reunite and sort of heal and repair the damage of the past.” As a fan of mixed martial arts, O’Connor wanted to use that in the film and he “liked this idea of what I call an intervention in a cage.” That cage, of course, is the arena in which the two brothers find themselves battling each other for the MMA championship.

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Warrior seems a likely candidate for induction into the pantheon of great boxing movies. It’s even more ferocious than many such pictures in that it focuses not on standard sluggery, but on the bloody caged combat of mixed martial arts, with leg swipes, head kicks, and resounding body slams packed in among the savage pinned-down beatings. The story—although you can see its resolution coming from a few miles away—has some unique twists. And the three lead performances—by Nick Nolte, Tom Hardy, and Joel Edgerton—are, in an unavoidable word, terrific.

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Nolte plays Paddy Conlon, a veteran MMA trainer who taught everything he knows to his two sons, Tommy (Hardy) and Brendan (Edgerton). But Paddy was a brutal drunkard back in the day, and he drove away his wife, who took Tommy with her, leaving Brendan—Paddy’s favorite—to be raised, unhappily, by his father. Years later, we find that Paddy has put booze behind him, but is now estranged from Brendan, who refuses to let him see the two children his son has with his wife, Tess (Jennifer Morrison). As for Tommy, he disappeared long ago.

Brendan is a popular high school science teacher. But financial reverses have put him in danger of losing his family’s home. Desperate for income, he decides to return to fighting in shabby local matches around the Pittsburgh area. Then he contacts a longtime friend, a gym owner and trainer named Frank (Frank Grillo). Frank feels that Brendan is too old and soft for the fight game, but agrees to start training him for a big MMA tournament soon to be staged in Atlantic City, where the top attraction will be the current world champ, a formidable Russian called Koba (Kurt Angle), who resembles a very tall, heavily muscled refrigerator.

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From Gavin O’Connor, the director of “Miracle,” comes “Warrior,” which opens September 9th.

The poster’s tagline is “Fight for Country.”

Hrm?

Here’s the synopsis, courtesy of IMDB:

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As the title suggests, “Arthur” focuses on the life of one man. Unfortunately, that man is played by the unappealing British comedian Russell Brand, who’s desperate for laughs throughout the story. Brand replaces Dudley Moore, who was nominated for an Academy Award for the original film. Brand has little of the charm that made the original “Arthur” worth seeing and most of the supporting cast are wasted in this remake as well.

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Brand stars the titular rich playboy set to inherit millions of dollars from his family. He spends his days sleeping with beautiful women and generally wasting his life under the supervision of his nanny, Hobson (Helen Mirren). When his mother threatens to take away his inheritance unless he marries a corporate executive named Susan (Jennifer Garner), Arthur begrudgingly agrees. At the same time, Arthur meets and starts falling in love with Naomi (Greta Gerwig), a New York City tour guide who is known by the police for not getting the proper permits for her tours.

The whole remake feels like a platform to showcase Brand’s abilities as a comic actor and as a leading man. Unfortunately, he tries too hard with most of the story’s lame jokes. He always seems to be waiting for the audience to laugh but most of the things he says aren’t funny.

The story takes some wrong turns on its way to get to the few laughs it merits. One scene feels like it belongs on the show “24,” not in a comedy remake. Nick Nolte, appearing as Susan’s sadistic father, decides to threaten Arthur with a table saw. He says that the blade will stop moving when it senses liquid and he tests this theory by almost cutting Arthur’s tongue in half. Aside from that disgusting scene, the entire storyline about Arthur’s fiance Susan is more disturbing than delightful. Susan is an obnoxious business woman who wants to marry Arthur so she can run his family business, an unfortunate arrangement that Arthur’s family approves of.

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EXCERPT FROM Burt Prelutsky’s: Liberals: America’s Termites or It’s a Shame That Liberals, Unlike Hamsters, Never Eat Their Young

These days, there is another blacklist taking place, but they’re calling it a graylist because the victims are scriptwriters who made the stupid career decision of allowing themselves to become gray-haired or, in some distinguished cases, even bald. 

Back in 1999, a class action suit was initiated by about 150 of us.  Today, there are over 600 of us who are plaintiffs suing the various studios, networks and major talent agencies, for conspiring to blacklist WGA members on no other basis than their age. 

Some people might find it ironic that Hollywood’s liberals, who are still inflamed over a blacklist that took place 60 years ago, not only condone it in their hometown, but practice it every day of their lives.  (more…)

5pm PST – Tree Grows in Brooklyn, A (1945) – A girl in the slums tries to find her way with the help of her devoted mother and alcoholic father. Cast: Dorothy McGuire, Joan Blondell, James Dunn, Lloyd Nolan Dir: Elia Kazan BW-129 mins, TV-G

Watch in awe as you realize this lyrical, timeless family drama was Elia Kazan’s feature film directorial debut. There was nothing this extraordinary explorer of the human condition couldn’t do and his work will survive as long as there’s a civilization, and much longer than anything made by those who refused to stand when the 89 year-old was awarded an honorary Oscar in 1999. Of course, that’s me being generous and assuming we haven’t already forgotten the classic canon of Nick Nolte and Amy Madigan. (more…)