Thursday 23 May
 
 

Dexter: The Seventh Season

There's no way to discuss the seventh and penultimate season of Showtime's hit Dexter without acknowledging how the previous year ended. Therefore, if you haven't finished the sixth season, stop reading now. You've got work to do.
05/21/2013 | Comments 0

Nightfall

As Simon Lam gets older, he gets better. The veteran actor has appeared in such in seminal HK action films of the 1990s as Once Upon a Time in China (opposite Jet Li) and Bullet in the Head (directed by John Woo); in the aughts, he graced audience and critical favorites Election and Ip Man.
05/20/2013 | Comments 0

Grand Duel

Lee Van Cleef enjoyed a secondary career in Italy cranking out spaghetti Westerns, with little regard to quality. However, 1972’s Grand Duel — aka The Big Showdown — is deserving of its Grand label. No wonder Quentin Tarantino borrowed its sweeping theme song by Luis Bacalov for Kill Bill; you'll recognize it in two notes.
05/20/2013 | Comments 0

The Last Stand

Early in The Last Stand, the small-town sheriff played by Arnold Schwarzenegger says, "It's my day off. Should be a quiet weekend." That's the new way of saying, "I've got one week to retirement," because it signals — with flashing neon and everything — that life is going to royally upend those plans.
05/17/2013 | Comments 0

Texas Chainsaw

One of the most inconsistent franchises in movie history is the one beget by Tobe Hooper's 1974 classic, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. How does one follow all those less-than-beloved sequels? Lionsgate's latest in the series — the seventh — has a solution: Ignore 'em.
05/17/2013 | Comments 0
Home · Articles · Movies · Drama · From tusk till brawn
Drama

From tusk till brawn


Weird and winning, ‘Walrus’ makes sport of an arm-wrestling champion whose life gets turned topsy-turvy.

Rod Lott October 19th, 2011  

Walrus
8 p.m. Saturday
City Arts Center
3000 General Pershing
cityartscenter.org
951-0000
$5

Somewhere on your Google machines, you can find a Top 10 list of the best arm-wrestling movies of all time. Perched at No. 4 is “Over the Top,” Sylvester Stallone’s 1987 flop opus about the sport. And the other nine spots are completely blank.

I’d like to think that even if the chart weren’t a joke, the brand-new “Walrus” would sit pretty at No. 1, but it’s about more than mere intertwined fists. Much more. See for yourself when the feature film makes its worldwide debut Saturday at City Arts Center, with free beer and a live musical performance by Samantha Crain.

The latest opus from local director Mickey Reece (“Punch Cowboy,” “The Seducers Club”), “Walrus” tells the sad story of underground arm-wrasslin’ champ Wallace Mulroney (Kameron Primm), he of the wet-mop hair and little words.

Managed by one-armed Tommy Pistino (Oklahoma Gazette contributing writer Danny Marroquin), Wallace feels like he’s “lost it,” despite a winning streak. With the arrival of his Russian mail-order bride, Olga (Rebecca Cox, pictured), comes a life-upending twist I’m not about to spoil. Sexually abused by her father, Olga sees Wallace as her salvation, even if she misspeaks his name as “Walrus.” Observes an amused Tommy, “She can’t pronounce your name right! She’s foreign! Ain’t that somethin’?” The film truly is. Reece has fierce comic timing, and he’s able to draw strong performances out of actors who aren’t necessarily actors, especially for a production with an estimated budget of $500. It’s a testament to Reece’s ridiculous amount of talent that one can tell of the limitations only when the Russians’ home looks like a house in Moore, with a photo of former Gov. George Nigh smiling down from the living room wall.

Reece and his ever-capable cast take us down one weird path you’ll be more than happy to follow. The director has peppered the trail with music cues as apropos as Martin Scorsese, ranging from Del Shannon’s “Runaway” to Petula Clark’s “Downtown.”

The latter arrives in a semi-fantasy scene sure to crush the hearts of many viewers, as Olga conveys her joy of having escaped from under her father’s thumb (so to speak) by lip-synching the optimistic pop hit. Cox pulls it off with admirable aplomb.

It’s kind of like that polarizing scene in “Magnolia” when the various characters take turns singing Aimee Mann’s “Wise Up”: You’ll either get it or hate it with the passion of a thousand suns.

I get it. I totally get it.

 
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