Trailer Watch: The Fighter

So.... this is awkward. In the first trailer, David O. Russell's latest film, The Fighter, could not seem any more like "Generic Biopic Starring Movie Star A". Now, that could be just the marketing - which I surely hope is the case - but the only interesting/exciting thing about this preview is the glimpses of Christian Bale as Mickey Ward's drug addict brother. I blow hot and cold on Mark Wahlberg. I've seen him be pretty exceptional and two of his best performances (I Heart Huckabees and Three Kings) came when Russell was behind the camera, but he seems to be pretty common and self-serving here. He's been working on this film for close to a decade, but the level of nuance in this character seems a notch below the Lifetime Channel. I'm going to see this film and I hope that I'm wrong, but this is exactly the by-the-books bio-drama that says nothing new but collects statues come awards season. I just like to see films win awards because they were really god, and not because they were trying to win awards.