Barfly is back, scarier than ever

Mickey Rourke used to be a pretty good actor, then he sort of disappeared, and now he's back in the new movie Sin City.

I haven't seen the new movie yet cause I quit going to the picture show after hearing some of my brother in-law's stories about being a theater usher. (When they'd turn the house lights on and he'd go to clean up the mess, it'd be crawling with mice and rats.)

Anyway, back to Mickey Rourke. He was great in Barfly, a movie about the drunken writer Charles Bukowski. And maybe, just maybe, Mickey was kinda playing himself, too. See, I have this buddy who spent some free time in LA, hanging out on the Sunset Strip, and he ended up drinking with Mickey. That's all I'm gonna say.

I read an interview in which he was asked to explain his acting revival.

"Not making any decisions myself anymore," he said.

(Rourke reportedly turned down the Bruce Willis role in Pulp Fiction. Maybe he got queasy at the male rape scene, even though his character wasn't the one being raped.)

Mickey appeared on Late Night With David Letterman on Tuesday night, and he was quite charming. He told a great story about how he adopted the 7th of his seven dogs. They're all chihuahas.

He talked a bit about his short-lived career as a club boxer (during his hiatus from acting) when he fought 11 bouts, ending with 9 wins and 2 draws. And he mentioned something to Dave about "seeing a professional," which leads me to believe he probably went through some sort of substance abuse rehab.

Regarding his movie career, he expressed some regret about being a "whore" for doing certain movies just for the money. Finally, the acting roles, shitty or not, dried up when he didn't show up on the set for for some of the films, preferring to ride his motorcycle around with his buds. Hence, the detour into boxing.

He returned to the movies after meeting this guy in a coffee shop. Turns out the guy was one of the people in LA who "bonds" actors, which is to say, he insures them for the movie people. The guy told Rourke he had refused to bond him for the last movie role that he failed to get. He asked him if he wanted to get back into the game.

Dave was real interested in the stories. You can always tell when Dave's interested and when he's not. The thing of it is, Mickey Rourke doesn't look anything at all like the old Mickey Rourke from the 1980s due to what appears to be major plastic surgery. It's a damn shame. Maybe there were legitimate reasons for all the work, but good God, this man looks nothing like he once did. It looks like he's wearing a mask. Too bad Dave didn't ask him about it. I guess he didn't want to hurt his feelings. Judging from the film clip of Sin City , the reconstructed look works fine in a black & white film based on a comic book, but don't look for him in any romantic leads.
[awfulplasticsurgery]