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Sparkle (2)
The Fighter is a major contender for bringing home some of those gorgeous and buff Oscar statues, with six nominations in major categories: Best Supporting Actor category for Christian Bale, Best Supporting Actress for Melissa Leo and for Amy Adams, Best Original Screenplay, Best Director for David O. Russell, as well as the heavyweight belt of Best Picture.
Each of those nominations is well deserved, and all of them, especially Best Picture, are coups for Mark Walhberg, who in addition to starring in the film was on deck as a producer and by all accounts willed the project into being. But I can’t help but feel pangs for him, because the absence of a Best Actor nod for his incredible performance as boxer “Irish” Mickey Ward is glaring and a bit shocking. It seems as though all of the other nominations are dependent on his work.
Image: Paramount Pictures
It also seems like Walhberg perpetually comes close to greatness but hovers at the 98% downloaded mark.
Mark Walhberg is a Hollywood powerhouse who doesn’t need anyone to cluck over his few-degrees-shy-of-perfection status in a highly successful career, so why do I feel a little protective of him? Somehow watching him evolve from the Marky Mark of the past into the Mark Walhberg of today has made me feel somewhat invested in the story of him, or at least in the myth of him. Somehow Mark has made himself feel like my long lost brother.
Watching Mark Walhberg's career has been one helluva ride:
1971: Mark Robert Michael Walhberg is born, the baby of nine children to struggling parents in Boston.
1981: His parents divorce.
1983: Mark is already in big trouble. Gangs, violence, addicted to cocaine at 13. Rough stuff.
1984: But then this is crazy: He's recruited by his brother Donnie as one of the original members of New Kids on the Block, but though he gets close to epic success, he drops out before the first album is cut. The group's too bubblegum and squeaky clean for him. Um, that's a red flag right there.
1987: Mark beats two Vietnamese men in a hate crime, blinding one of them. Tragic. He’s charged with attempted murder, pleads to assault and serves 45 days of a two-year sentence. Graduate from high school? Nope. He says the sentence woke him up, though, and started him on the path to turning his life around.
1991: Forget NKOTB. Mark wants to rap and starts his own game. Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch releases Music for the People, which goes platinum thanks to “Good Vibrations” and “Wildside.” The music video for "Good Vibrations" is sizzling hot thanks to Mark’s supafine bod -- interestingly, boxer Irish Mickey Ward is credited for training him in preparation for the boxing moves. (C’mon c’mon c’mon! feel it feel it!)
1992: Big year for our bro. He’s 21, and those crazy crotch-grabbing Calvin Klein ads are plastered everywhere from Times Square to high school lockers. But still with the anger management problems, Marky breaks his neighbor’s jaw, losing his freedom again. After release, he seeks help from his parish priest and starts to toe the line. That unfortunate incarceration doesn’t slow him down: Mark gets nominated for an MTV Music Award and an AMA Award in ‘92.
1993: He's nominated for a Grammy just as Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch is fizzling. But he parlays his notoriety into a role on a TV movie, and a screen star is born.
1994: The big screen loves Mark. His first film is the Penny Marshall-directed Renaissance Man, followed by Basketball Diaries and a string of incredibly successful roles throughout the next decade and a half, including:
1997: Boogie Nights. Dirk Diggler. Wow. You've seen this, haven't you?
1999: Three Kings
2000: The Perfect Storm
2001: Mark starts dating Rhea Durman, who eventually becomes his bride and mother of his children. (Awwww. And, please, please tell me he has mastered that anger management problem.) He also starts a the Mark Wahlberg Youth Foundation. Has Marky Mark grown up?
2003: Italian Job races through theaters and Marky Mark becomes a daddy dad.
2004: I Heart Huckabees. Mark steals the show (as the petro-hating mid-breakdown fire fighter Tommy Corn) while also playing off an incredible ensemble in this existential wallop of a comedy. He reportedly loved working with director David O. Russell, whom he later brought in to direct The Fighter. Entourage premieres on HBO this year, too. Loosely based
