There are two kinds of people in the world: hardcore fans of professional wrestling and those of us who think the “sport” is a big joke. But Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler may change all that. It may not influence the WWE’s television ratings or increase pay-per-view sales for the next Wrestlemania, but it could create more sympathy for the staged spectacle. And this is something that hasn’t really been achieved with past attempts to showcase the sad realities found within one of the fakest forms of showbiz there is.
I’ve listened to the audiobook of Hulk Hogan’s memoir, mostly for laughs. And I’ve seen the great documentary Beyond the Mat and learned enough of the truth to have gained some appreciation for wrestlers like Mick “Mankind” Foley, though it mostly made me feel bad for that guy’s wife and children. Meanwhile, the should-have-been most heartbreaking story from that film, Jake “The Snake” Roberts’ confession that he’s the product of incest, is so unbelievable that it’s hard to take completely serious. I hate to say it, but I couldn’t help laughing then, too.
Is multi-medal-winning Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps the next action movie star? Or will he merely become a reality TV staple with the occasional cameo appearance in sports-related films? A recent Hollywood Reporter article weighed Phelps’ future celebrity options, and in response Entertainment Weekly asked its readers if Phelps could possibly be the next Brad Pitt (the magazine also looked at a couple Olympian-turned-actors in a recent slide show). However, while one comment recommended the swimmer for the role of Captain America (wouldn’t Namor or Aquaman make more sense?), it otherwise appears moviegoers are skeptical about Phelps’ chances in Hollywood.
Here at Spout, of course, we’re looking more forward to the Nastia Liukin-Shawn Johnson reform school flick (also discussed on this week’s podcast), but we certainly have room to anticipate the terrible low-budget action pics that Phelps is inevitably going to star in. It’s highly unlikely that he’d gain the stature of Pitt or the greatest athlete-turned-action hero, Arnold Schwarzenegger. So the question is, instead: does Phelps have what it takes to break through onto the list of worst athlete-turned-action heroes of all time? And will his worst fight scene look anything as bad as the following ten examples?
The thing I love about YouTube is that you can usually find what you’re looking for even if you don’t know it exists. Case in point: I wanted to find a clip of Hulk Hogan acting like The Incredible Hulk, and I found this gem of an action sequence from the Hulkster’s 1989 movie No Holds Barred. I guess I was one of the few people who missed this when it arrived in theaters just one week after Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, but it was a busy time for action movies(who knew that 1989 was so much like 2008? You had Indy, Batman and Hulk all in the same summer!*) and despite opening at #2, the movie finished #64 for the year.
