You Say Tomato, I Say Tomei-Whoa!

Christmas came early for me this year--36 hours early, to be exact, when I entered the Landmark Sunshine Cinema to see The Wrestler and left two hours later shedding tears of joy. Yes, it’s a terrific film--heartbreaking, funny and well written, featuring incredibly striking symmetry between an aging exotic dancer and an over-the-hill wrestler, to say nothing of the art-vis-a-vis-life symmetry one could point out between the characters Ms. Tomei and co-star Mickey Rourke portray and the actors themselves. Most importantly, however, the 45 minutes or so that Marisa Tomei spent almost completely in the buff might be the best screenwriting ever put to paper.

Simple math shows why Marisa Tomei’s big splash in 1991 (My Cousin Vinny) remains a turning point in the lives of most men who today are in their early 30s, myself included. As a 13-year-old, I could not possibly be prepared for the sight of Mona Lisa Vito, she of the thick Brooklyn accent, stepping out of Vinny Gambini’s convertible in that unforgettable, trashy tights/high heels combo years before Dennis Rodman would perfect the look. From the moment she snapped her gum and bitched about the lack of Chinese food in Alabama, I, like so many other teenage idealists out there, longed for a whiny, trashy woman to call my own.

As an aside, let this be a lesson for all you whipper-snappers out there: be careful what you wish for. For as I have learned, not all whiny, trashy women have the charm of Ms. Vito. If you think you can just take a trip to Flatbush with a $50 bill and a bag of Popeye’s and meet the woman of your dreams, think again. It takes several trips. Trial and error is a dangerous game when your emotions are the proverbial chips. But thanks to years of counseling and drinking, I’ve learned from my errors and am not afraid to say so. Have I made mistakes? Of course. Do I have any regrets? A few, sure. But deep down, would I change any of it? Yes. Almost all of it, actually.

Until recently, that is (hi sweetie).

You might wonder just exactly who the “sweetie” is that I’m referring to. That would be 44-year-old Marisa Tomei, coming off the performance of a lifetime in...The Wrestler. As one can imagine, seeing my biggest childhood crush this side of Joan Rivers in a g-string was something I never thought would happen. But better late than never, I’m happy to say. Better then than now, you might ask? Strangely, no, and most likely better now than later, or never, and better everything than nothing at all. Because that’s what you get in The Wrestler: everything. Now. And later on DVD.

I understand Miz Tomei laid her angelic figure bare in a critically acclaimed movie with Philip Seymour Hoffman last year, but none of my friends had the courtesy to notify me at the time. I can’t say I blame them; had I known, I would have hoarded all copies of the movie and kept them for myself, out of fear that too much viewing would deteriorate the content, much like an acetate disc in the olden days of phonographs and Indians.

“Whoa, Travis!” you’re saying. “No offense to the over-40 crowd, but at 44, wouldn’t Marisa’s cadaver be riddled with cobwebs and asbestos?” Well, here’s something else I didn’t know: nipple rings and back tattoos have anti-aging benefits. So we’re getting Marisa Tomei, gyrating with great prejudice, clad in nipple rings and some huge tattoo of something on her back. I think it might be a dragon, but every time it’s shown in the movie my eyes tend to—ahem—wander…

…(to Mickey Rourke’s vulnerable eyes)...

Christmas is over, but treat yourself in the New Year and see The Wrestler. It’s everything I was hoping for when I was 13, but had it happened then, I probably would have exhausted the world’s Kleenex supply.