You just can't ignore Beethoven in Warrior.

Rating: 10/10 (1 April 2012)

With all due respect to the excellence of film artists amidst the hype of Hollywood stardom (even without having seen the other movies), this one, "WARRIOR," I really wanted to get BEST PICTURE 2012, and I could see no other in its place. And far be it from me to say, but I think the voters kind of dissed Beethoven because he was too wonderful in this picture, but then again, I'm a musician. Nobody could have rightly fit Beethoven into personal tragedy in these times involving the effects of war rising out of decades of U.S. conflict in the Middle Eastâ€”beginning back with Desert Storm and Kuwait and Iran, and then later Afghanistan and Iraq after 09/11, and God knows what after. Fittingly, the film brought much of this into play. Called "Warrior," the story tells of two, warrior types, brothers in conflict affected by the unexplainable things that face our own human condition, just trying to grow up and raise a family in this world, and then with this utter senselessness of war pounding them further down. Immediately you pick up on the tension happening with the brothers. And Eegad! They're Irish! And thenÂ…catharsis takes you inâ€”you begin to feel that purging, evolving steadily, slowly out of the Beethoven streaming "Ode to Joy" gloriously all throughout. And you felt this burliness too, of the fightersâ€”despite the terribly awesome intensity of emotions the brothers were called to portray, their smash-down burliness served only to heighten an indescribable "machismo" in these two actors, whose names I did not register immediately, so much were they into their characterâ€”Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton. Nick Nolte, on the other hand, was just coolly brilliant. Right at the beginning, you caught glimpses of his saddened eyes of repentance for his derelict ways, with just a wee smile of hidden pride in the boys. Aw jeez, I felt like I was almost watching "Long Day's Journey into Night" â€” seriously! The whole cast and crew should still be partying up! Amen?