The Wrestler

One day until my round of the Hong Kong Comedy Competition, and I've been preparing mainly by sitting on the sofa, trying to persuade the cat to sit on me, and watching The Wrestler.

Goodness, it's grim, in keeping with Darren Aronofsky (or as I called him last night, to save a precious syllable or two for tomorrow, Daronofsky) and his ouevre of difficult, hard-to-watch films. (I love Pi, but you could never screen it as a relaxing Sunday afternoon matinee.) In fact, it's almost so bleak that it's funny: just skirting the edge of being too horrible to deal with.

Some parts I feel are laid on a bit thick - I'm only half way through, waiting for my accomplice to return so we can finish it together - Marisa Tomei plays the tart-with-a-heart-of-gold like her life (or an Oscar nom) depended on it. Then again, I'm informed she already had an Oscar for My Cousin Vinny, which also seems too ridiculous to be true. I'm sure she deserves an Oscar - I think anyone who survived My Cousin Vinny does, but that goes for the audience as well as the performers and crew - but this does feel a bit like Academy bait.

What feels less like standard let's-impress-the-judges fare is poor old Mickey Rourke in the ring, at one point getting stapled by an opponent. Yes, stapled. It's foreshadowed (well, there's an earlier scene where his opponent, a guy who should be playing an Appalachian grandpaw if there's any justice in the world, asks if he can use a staple gun on him) but I didn't realise this wasn't your standard fix-four-sheets-of-foolscap device, it's the kind of thing you could assemble a house from if you so desire. And this is during a scene which also employs a painting table, a stepladder and probably half the contents of a DIY store, all battered against two people's bodies.

Still, it's not all grim: a man gets a dustbin stuck over his head, and it then gets thwacked with a folding chair.

There's also a fairly unhelpful discussion of whether lesbians wear different clothes to heterosexuals (I derive all of my sapphic clothes-buying advice from Mickey Rourke films, and I think you should too), a distressingly sad scene at a merchandise-signing event, and some Eighties hair-metal. And I'm only half way through.

Still, feeling exhausted tonight (somehow, the more hummous I eat, the more tired I seem to feel) so it's an early night for me this evening, and then all of tomorrow wondering what to wear for my performance tomorrow night.

Wish me luck. Or at least wish that I don't end the night being bludgeoned with an oversized paperclip by one of the extras from Deliverance.