And the Oscar for Best Actor goes to ... Mickey Rourke?

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117938197.html?categoryid=2863&cs=1

Variety gives Rourke's film, The Wrestler, the rave review of all rave reviews.

I can't wait to see this.

 

Ask John Cusack about actors who enter September as Best Actor favorites, they rarely get nominated.

 

What film?

As good as Cusack is in everything, I'm having a hard time thinking about performances I would consider Best Actor-worthy.... Being John Malkovich would be one, I guess.

 

He was talked up a lot last year for both that scary hotel movie and "Grace is Gone." I'm not even sure Grace is Gone got wide release after being so widely praised on the indy film festival circuit.

 

What are...10 words I never ever thought I'd hear?

Dude was on the fast track in the early-to-mid '80s, no doubt about that. His essaying (love that word) of the Motorcycle Boy was uncanny. But he better be unfuckingreal to even have a shot at winning this thing. Somehow I don't see the prissy, prickly electorate voting for an ex-boxer with a rap sheet a mile long (not to mention the decidedly raunchy Nine Weeks and Angel Heart on his resume).

I'd pay good fucking money to see the Oscar acceptance speech though. 5/2 odds his face melts right in the middle of it.

 

OK I just read that review. Now I'm stoked too.

I've always liked Rourke, even if I haven't seen a film of his in years, and this sounds like the role of a lifetime and one he was born to play. And he's 57? No fuckin way. Damn.

All that said, this is the money line: As vibrant -- and as naked -- as she was in last year's "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead," Tomei...

 

I've seen the movie thanks to one of my Brooklyn connections. Liked it a lot, and Rourke was very good, but I don't think he is quite at that level.

 

Rourke is a great actor. He's also a colossally messed up person, but it doesn't surprise me for a second that he might be able to win an Oscar.

He was amazing in Sin City. Anyone is that surprised by this hasn't seen his early work.

 

He should have been nominated for "Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man."

 

But can it top Barfly?

 

He's been nominated for an Oscar before hasn't he?

 

According to wikipedia, he turned down the Bruce Willis part in Pulp Fiction.

After he turned it down, so did Matt Dillon and Stallone before Willis grabbed it.

Oops.