Oscar-Worthy Life
Upper West Side actress makes comeback in ‘The Fighter’
Watching Bianca Hunter sip champagne in her leopard-print faux-fur coat and laughing with the music promoter friends she’s just made during Sunday brunch at a chic Upper West Side café, you would probably guess “movie star” before you’d guess “working mother of three.” The truth is, she’s both.
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The Fighter
By Armond White
Americans used to seeing tricked-up versions of themselves in the movies will be startled at the honesty of David O. Russell’s The Fighter. Even I was thrown by the vivacity in Russell’s semi-realistic account of Dicky Eklund, the Boston Irish welterweight tagged “The Pride of Lowell, Massachusetts”; his younger sibling, the upcoming boxer Mickey Ward; and their boisterous, blasted troop, which is an example of the social phenomenon known as a “blended family.” Dicky and Mickey are half-brothers whose mother, Alice, gave birth to nine children, including seven sisters—who got nuttin’ to do with them prestigious Ivy League colleges for girls. Read more
MINIMUM GOODNESS
There’s something in the New York City air that Detective Max Payne (Mark Wahlberg) doesn’t care for. Oddly, it’s not the perpetual shower of snowflakes (or rain or sparks) that surround him, turning Manhattan into a gritty fairyland. Inclement weather isn’t what’s bothering Payne; those winged creatures killing junkies are.
And no, the movie doesn’t make much more sense than that. Gorgeously shot as a color noir (though the colors are more likely to run the gamut from gray to black than red to gold), Max Payne is one of those ludicrous action movies based on a videogame that’s all style and little substance. Read more
