Word: fight
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...interest rates offered for industrial companies with shabby credit ratings have soared over the summer, making the federal option even more crucial. All three of Detroit's carmakers have had their credit ratings downgraded; GM has had to fight off rumors of an impending bankruptcy; and Cerberus, Chrysler's principal owner, has been hammered by a new round of cutbacks. Ellen Hughes Cromwick, Ford's chief economist, said this week that the unfolding credit crunch has a had a palpable impact on the carmakers. "The credit crunch could persist for some time," she said. "That's a situation that adds...
...anticipation sank with the opening credits: "Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood." That list spelled out the plot: damaged veteran, middle-age girlfriend, young daughter. The Wrestler never rose above fight-movie bromides, never disspelled my gloom. The character stereotyping makes Sylvester Stallone's Rocky Balboa, by comparison, seem as swathed in moral twlight as Luchino Visconti's Rocco and His Brothers. The movie's serioso sentimentality is doubly strange since the script is by Robert Siegel, an ex-staffer of The Onion and co-writer of The Onion Movie. His old job was puncturing cliches; here he recycles...
...Anyone who's seen a boxing film will be able to predict the rest of The Wrestler. Randy gets one more chance: a 20-year rematch in Wilmington of his Ayatollah fight. Will he pass it up to save his life? (Not if there's gonna be an Act Three.) And the woman in his life - will Randy manage to connect with his estranged daughter (Wood), who hasn't forgiven him for abandoning her? (That's Act Two, where the only innovation is that the girl's mother is never mentioned). And will a local stripper, well played by Tomei...
...various ways: the first whacko, the second gritty, the third sumptuously romantic, and all marvelously dense with imagery. The Wrestler is the first Aronofsky film to be visually inert. His main camera habit is to follow Randy, just his imposing back, as he trudges through corridors toward another fight. (Martin Scorsese virtually patented that shot, in Raging Bull and Goodfellas). The trope does pay off later in the film, when Randy, briefly retired, winds up behind a deli counter. That's a deft touch, as is the easy camaraderie Randy shares with the other veteran showmen. But Aronofsky's main...
...push to help re-arm Iraq - helicopter gunships are already in the pipeline, and Baghdad is looking to buy 400 armored personnel carriers and six C-130 cargo planes - suggests an Iraqi government eager to fight its own battles without U.S. help. "Given Iraq's history and its location, it's going to create regular forces that are capable of not simply dealing with an insurgency but defending the country," says Anthony Cordesman, a military scholar with the Center for Strategic and Independent Studies. "And when a country is looking for prestige - a symbol of coming back as a fully...