Iron Claw: The Von Erichs

If you happened to grow up in Texas in the 1980s like I did, there’s a good chance that we have some shared reverence for The Von Erichs. A family of wrestlers that performed primarily for World Class Championship Wrestling in and around Dallas, Texas. A film titled “Iron Claw” came out over the weekend, that chronicled the life and times of the Von Erichs family and caught a screening with my college roommate Nano on Friday. I couldn’t think of a better person to see the movie with, seeing that he’s originally from San Antonio and also shared a love for the Von Erichs. I vividly remember the topic randomly coming up when we were both in college and he was the only person I ever met that was so familiar with the “Curse of the Von Erichs”.

After seeing the movie, I’m glad that they managed to treat the family and their highly publicized tragic story with a good bit of detail and respect. If you’re a fan of wrestling and you hope to go out this weekend to see a movie that will play up the HIGH notes of their accomplishments, I believe you’re going to be highly disappointed. The film roots itself into the mind and body of Kevin Von Erich, the only living member of the group. Curiously enough, the film completely omitted one broth (Chris) for one reason or another…. I haven’t looked up why that is but suspect that putting the audience thru an additional DEATH would have been to much for anyone to stomach and it would have extended the movie to an uncomfortable length.

Prior to catching the screening of the movie, my friend Gaby told me that her parents used to babysit the Von Erichs. The photo above was the boys here in San Antonio circa 1989 at Mi Terra.

One thing I think the movie does well is acknowledge how hard this was on the mother of the Von Erichs and the wife of Kevin Von Erich. Examining parental decisions the movie is also kinda fascinating but the tragedy is too real. Six total brothers where 5 had untimely deaths, its unreal. It’s an absolute watch for anyone that really loves wrestling. I think there’s some performances in the movie that will earn some award nominations. I don’t think it will garner any wins but the performances were great.

Leave The World Behind (It's Time I Had Some Time Alone.... and I feel fine.)

On any given night, there’s a good chance that I have a hard time falling asleep and I find myself doing gloom scrolls on Instagram or TikTok. Most of the time it’s just me looking at mindless videos from friends around the globe, but I’ll occasionally find myself seeing a trend appear in the random reels. The movie “LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND” became said trend so I threw it on to see exactly what people were collectively watching on Netflix. I jotted down a number of notes while I watched so i’m going to share some reflections but it’s going to be broken out into some categories that will make sense if you’ve screened the movie.

Adaptation from the page to the screen:
At some point during the movie, I did a google search to see if I could snag a screenshot from a specific scene in the movie. It was at that point that I learned that this movie was adopted for the screen from a novel that I hadn’t read. This isn’t exactly the type of fiction I go out and try to read on my own accord, but if someone would have recommended it to me I may have read it. Having seen the movie, I’m kinda curious to read it to see what decisions the director made for the adaptation of the novel. I’m leaning towards not reading the book

Art of the Implausible:
When I watch movies, I really enjoy the process of allowing myself to enjoy the art of implausibility. When I saw this movie, it occurred to me that many may see this and feel alarmed that something like this can happen. I’m firmly not in the camp… but the film did however make some overtures to undertones and sentiments in America that are very real.

They kinda go out of their way to say that this isn’t the Hamptons or Martha’s Vineyard. So it’s totally plausible that this would occur in the Non-Hamptons/Non-Martha’s.

Race:
I admittedly think about race more than most. I don’t really know why or when it started. I think I happened to come up at a specific time in America where “race” seemed to be imbedded in everything I listened to, watched or read in the 80s and 90s. I haven’t had a chance to talk to anyone directly about this movie but one of the questions I would ask is what aspects of ‘racial implications’ did they happen to pick up during the movie. The film goes out of its way to introduce some heavy handed RACE themes when they introduce the main group of characters when the blackouts occur.

How many home invasions occur in America where the perpetrator wears a Tux?

Friends:
I admittedly didn’t watch friends. It kinda had its heyday when I got to college and watching scripted TV was not a priority of mine when I fumbled thru my 20s. A poignant comment was made in the movie about how the show harkens back to nostalgic time that never existed. A very damming and kinda truthful thing to say about a show that depicts a New York I’ve never set foot in. Chuck Klosterman had an opinion that Friends did something that no other show has ever really done before. After college, there’s a period in life where a group of Friends become the immediate family that you surround yourself with. Marriages and kids splinter that core group of “friends” but for a number of years the spirit of that show is something that is very real. I kinda think something was being said generationally by way of the kid, her age and detachment of what the fuck is going around her.

the come hither blue yes on this one

So what was this movie really?
Not entirely sure if this was an end of times movie, as much as it was something I would liken to Night of the Living Dead. When I saw the movie, I sorta saw a circumstance that immediately put central characters to distill a number of real prejudices out of their system before trying reconcile what it means to be a human. If you want to be technical about it, there’s a Die Hard movie where a “Patriot” hacks America and brings it down from the inside. I don’t think it’s a particularly good movie. I would kinda describe this as a B+ episode of Dark Mirror…. I will however concede that it made me think at times.

Body Swapin'

When asked to help select a movie for “Movie and Wings” nite yesterday, I randomly selected the movie “Family Switch” without reading the synopsis of it. I thought I selected a random “holiday” movie, but I actually selected why might be one of my top five movie genre movies: “the Body Swap”.

Available on Netflix

This genre of film (in my head and heart) requires at least two people to switch their bodies/vessels so that they can experience what their life is like through the eyes of the other person. I think the memorable movie I saw accomplish this was the movie BIG with Tom Hanks. I’ve seen countless of these movies and believe that the last great movie to do this was the Jumanji reboot ‘Welcome to the Jungle’.

Family Switch isn’t a particularly good body swap movie… they kinda up the steaks by having 5 people and one dog all swap bodies. While its set at Christmas time it doesn’t really make that many holiday overtures. It just kinda runs down a number of traditional body swap tropes where they encounter someone magical. There’s a weird time frame that they have to all work together to reverse the body swap curse - but its never the mechanics of getting the thing to work - its as if all the characters have to realize something inside to make the magic happen.

The biggest highlight of the movie was seeing WEEZER make a cameo in the movie. They’re a backing band of sorts and it was just middle-aged-rock candy for people like myself. Kinda wanna stop myself from recommending this movie, but if you’re into this genre like I apparently am, seek it out.

Dream Scenario

Took in a screening of “Dream Scenario” last night and it kinda exceed my expectations. I saw a trailer for it earlier in the week and kinda assumed it was an extension to Spike Jonze’s fever dream ‘Being John Malckovich’. A film that came out roughly 25 years ago and it’s kinda wild to think how inventive that film was then and still is now. Dream Scenario by Kristoffer Borgli, explores other ground and I would recommend it to anyone who has any interest in communal thought/conscience.

Not entirely sure if the film/script is also a commentary on Nicholas Cage & our collective audience pop-culture affection/defection to his 100+ films. Of which, I’m pretty sure i’ve seen over 50 of them and for reasons that I can’t really explain, I seem to enjoy the bad ones.

Another reason for me seeking this film out was because I suffer from having very VIVID dreams. Absolutely nonsensical dreams where i’m in scenarios that don’t really make any sense. I’m pretty bad about writing dreams down, but there’s rarely a week that goes by where I don’t have a dream that doesn’t stay stuck I my head when I wake up.

I have a knack for having dreams where celebrities (minor ones for the most part) make cameo appearances. Just the other night I had a dream where Greta Gerwig appeared and asked me to help find a small but unique theater/stage in America to do a weekend of Stand Up Comedy dates. Her name was completely lost on me because in my dream Greta was “Frances Halliday” . She may have even appeared in black and white… when I woke up, I felt compelled to actually find interesting looking small theaters around the states and then try to convince comedians I don’t know to book the spaces to have an bizarre tour of intimate comedy dates.