After slogging through The Fountain, a strenuous mindfuck dirge about death and time travel and Ponce de León (sort of?), and watching its resounding failure at the box office, it was easy to think that the film's writer/director/envisioner Darren Aronofsky might never be trusted with a film again. And certainly the exciting director of Pi and Requiem for a Dream's next effort, The Wrestler, is significantly scaled back from the tens-of-millions of dollars fountain of youth blunderbuss, but it's proving to be bigger than the previous film could have hoped for. An early-career Aronofsky comeback! The Wrestler, which stars Mickey Rourke in what is said to be a career-reviving performance (though, didn't they say that about Sin City too?), was a huge hit at the Toronto and Venice film festivals, and has found both domestic and foreign distributors. This all lines up nicely with Aronofsky's next film, a high profile picture for Paramount called The Fighter, starring little-known actors named Brad Pitt and Mark Wahlberg. So maybe he's been forced to genre himself up a bit (I mean, was Requiem for a Dream genre? Arm-Sever Cinema?), but he's back in the ring (har) after one terrifically nasty KO. Plus he's married to Rachel Weisz, one of the most beguiling and enchanting actresses working today, so he's got that going for him too.