I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but death is kind of a bummer. Tuesday, Alice Ward, the 79-year-old Lowell, Massachusetts mother to a boxing champ and a crackhead, portrayed in The Fighter by Melissa Leo (who went on to win Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars), was taken off life support at a Boston hospital after a cardiac arrest.

Alice Ward, 79, the mother of eight who managed both sons’ boxing careers, was taken off life support at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital on Tuesday after lapsing into a coma.

“She was a great mother who had a big heart and loved everybody fully,” Micky told the Track. “She had 19 grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren, and she loved them all.

Back in January, Alice suffered a heart attack, a stroke and was “dead” for 45 minutes. But in true Ward fashion, she rallied, regained consciousness and began breathing on her own, Dicky Eklund told the Lowell Sun, the family’s hometown paper.

Funeral services for Alice Ward will be held tomorrow at St. Margaret’s in Lowell. [BostonHerald]

She is suhvived by the whole crew from the neighbahhood — Fitzy, Lahdass, Tawmmy, Wawp Tawmmy, Squeezebawx, Pink Eye, Rich, Spic Rich, Gloansy’s whoah sistah, Bahnsy, Hoahse Lips, Matt Damon, Irish Pete, Stinky, Mike the Dahkie, Matt Damon, and Matt Damon. AND DON’T YOU EVEN THINK ABOUT DISRESPECTIN OWAH MOTHAH BY BRINGIN THAT MTV HOOKAH TO THE FYUNRIL, CAWKSUCKAH.  Boo Boo, wheyah’d you pahk the caaah!

Sorry, I couldn’t resist.  She will be missed.

Focus Features released some new stills and TV spots for the upcoming Channing Tatum film, The Eagle. And you can look at the pictures and you can watch the TV spots, but that’s not going to help the pain go away. What pain, you ask? Channing Tatum was named only the second most desirable male body this week, behind The Fighter star Mark Wahlberg. Our beloved Channing beat out male model and “actor” Tyson Beckford, according to the 14th Annual Famed Hottest Look Survey, but that’s just not enough for the Hardest Twerkin’ Man in Show Biznasty. As always, C-Tates was willing to stop by and share his thoughts, but he’s just not himself today…

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I loved The Fighter, but as I wrote in my review, I thought the actual fight scenes were the weakest parts (NAWT GRITTY ENOUGH, TAWMMY.  I DON’T THINK THIS CAWKSUCKAH’S HISTAWRICKLY ACCURIT).  On that note, the folks at Fandor recently put together this little clip comparing fact with fiction in The Fighter, mainly through one fight in particular, Irish Micky Ward’s title fight with Shea Neary. 

[OBVIOUSLY, DON'T READ THIS NEXT PART IF YOU WANT TO AVOID SPOILERS {though I wouldn't consider any of this very important to the plot}]

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(the player below takes a second to load. here’s a direct link to the file.)

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This week on the Frotcast, we begin with a discussion of Tron Legacy.  Ben loved it, Bret thought it was okay, Brendan and I thought it was better than expected, but still fairly crappy. It made for a spirited discussion.  About 40 minutes in, we bring on Lindy West to talk The Fighter.  I’m gonna be honest, this was our last Frotcast of the year and we drank a little too much.  Things may have gotten a little… busy. Drunk Lindy was fairly entertaining

• 3:10 – Brendan tricks me into being the only guy wearing a silly hat and business suit at his holiday party

• 17:00 – Bret is finally off work (at 9:40 pm, I might add) and the Tron Legacy discussion can begin

• 30:00 – We get our first visit and movie review from a newcomer to the Frotcast, Junior College Armond White.

• 46:00 – The Kafka-esque Cluster-F that was the San Francisco press screening of Tron

• 52:00 – Lindy West calls in to discuss The Fighter, possibly as many drinks deep as the rest of us.

• 53:00 – A British man with a speech impediment on YouTube reads Lindy’s Sex and the City 2 review. “Va-va-va-va-va-va-vagina…”

• 60:00 – fade out: Lindy and I start talking The Fighter, which the other guys haven’t seen, which leads them to get bored and begin talking amongst themselves, and me to scold them, and then we all begin drinking more heavily and shouting things at each other.  At some point I remember the subject of Kirk Douglas’ corpse with his penis out going down a log flume coming up.  …I don’t know, dude.

[UPDATE: Here's the file on the FilmDrunk server if you've been having trouble with the podbean download.]

DOWNLOAD IT HERE. SUBSCRIBE ON ITUNES. NOW AVAILABLE ON ZUNE MARKETPLACE.  [Intro/Outtro music is still "For Good or For Awesome" by the seminal female a capella group, "Satan's Buttcheeks"]

Our drunken arguing makes Gary Busey sad

Drunk on, y’all.  Send your tips, complaints, naked pictures, bits, game ideas, questions, etc. to frotcast@gmail.com. (Gary Busey gif via)

Oh thank gawd, it feels like it’s been three fackin’ weeks since I gawt ta offah my two cents on a motion picshah set in my fayah state of Mass.  It seems like these days, Hawllywood has the audacity ta offah three a foah movies every mont that ah NAWT SET NEAH BAWSTON.  And that is PISS POAH.  Everyone knows New Yawk is a queah. But The Fightah is about bawxin, Mahky Mahk, bein blue collah, and most of all, Lowell, Mass. GO SAWX, oah whatevah.

(*clears throat, shuffles papers*)

In Zadie Smith’s award-winning debut novel White Teeth, which also happened to have as its central characters two brothers, she wrote perhaps most brilliantly about the often burdensome but defining nature of one’s own family history, writing that the brothers of her story “could not escape their history any more than you can your own shadow.”

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