(diaryland) July 22, 2001 - 12:19 p.m.

I went and saw Raging Bull at the movies last night. Neither Rosie nor I had seen it before. Rosie pretty much hated it, but I thought it was neat. Martin Scorcese is one of my all-time favourite directors because things just happen in his movies. For instance, in this movie, a whole important emotionally-charged etc. scene happened while Robert De Niro was trying to fix the antenna on his TV. And the length of screentime for one particular boxing match was about one second.

I've decided that no matter how despicable the main character in any given film is, they're always slightly likeable simply because they're the main character. Directors of course need to think the character is pretty nifty in order for them to bother filming, so that feeling is always going to rub off. I can't think of any main characters I've not sympathised with. There's a film I haven't seen about a kid who poisons his entire family and I'd put money on it that he comes off as a beady-eyed kid who simply wants to get his secret strychnine cocktails just right.

And when you're watching one of those films where the main character is a real bastard, you make excuses for him. In Raging Bull, I was all like, "Oh, poor guy. He's beating up his brother because he's had a difficult life and just wants to be a good boxer etc. etc. etc." And I cringed along when, after he finished his boxing career, he did really bad stand-up comedy. And when his awesome wife left him for perfectly good reasons, I was all like, "Oh, man. Don't leave." And when he headbutted the wall a disturbing amount of times, I thought, "Hey. That's gotta hurt."

Did he wear a fat suit in this movie, or was that funny tummy all real?