In honor of Elizabeth Taylor's death today yesterday, I dampened my cheeks to the stylings of Katharine Hepburn in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.
The movie was enjoyable and I even laughed out loud a few times, which is rare (ask my biographers that follow me everywhere and never have a good tip on a horse). Sidney Poitier was dashing, aggressive, and effective. Katharine Hepburn killed several monologues and the rookie from Connecticut, Katharine Houghton (Hepburn's niece, whom you might remember from her recent performance as Katara's Grandma in The Last Airbender), was the one who made me laugh the most.
Spencer Tracy, on the other hand, reminded me way too much of Robert DeNiro in a comedy, which is a polite way of saying he turned in a poor performance, but unfortunately one not as poor as those of Scott Baio in Arrested Development, which are so poor they come back around again to be funny and are therefore unique and redemptive.
'Maggie the Cat' indeed
If only Most Hideous Man Alive® Bruce Vilanch hadn't stolen my copy of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof I might have cut a more respectable figure this evening as four of the world's leading massage therapists worked me over in the screening lounge aboard my jet and my biographers scribbled wildly. Blaming him for everything that went wrong is so fun these days, especially when the accusations are true.
As it was, the only movie of Ms. Taylor's I had lying around was Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and even though she knocks that role right out of the galaxy it isn't exactly how anyone would like her to be remembered.
In your honor, Liz, I am going to bed with this image on my brain instead:
Probably nothing nearly as cool as what this mook did:
Miljenko Parserisas Bukovic at the top of his game
The gruesome details:
Parserisas, a 56-year-old newspaper seller from Mexico, revealed his inked artwork in a photo shoot in Valparaiso city.
He has so far spent a million Mexican pesos (just over £51,000) for the 82 tattoos. The newspaper vendor's obsession with tattoos of Roberts started after he watched her in Erin Brockovich.
In the film Roberts plays a legal assistant who brings down a US energy company single handedly.
The American actress is tattooed all over Mr Parserisas' body in artwork inspired by a number of scenes from the film.
The Roberts fanatic has said that he has plans to get more faces inked on his chest, back and arms.
As long as he has the space on his body and the money, his tattoo tribute will continue.
I guess if you can't figure out a feasible way to have sex with your (questionable) celebrity crush, you might as well (semi-) permanently ink her face all over your naked body and get your picture in the papers so she at least has an opportunity to fly down to Mexico and make your dreams come true before you die from unfulfilled lust (the silent killer).
Celebrities do that all the time, after all--make dreams come true. They're very generous people who unfortunately cannot afford good public relations personal and so they get a bad rap as greedy selfish millionaire Vanity Smurfs afraid of intimacy, aging, death, and--most of all--obscurity.
If you see your favorite celebrity today, give them an awkwardly-long hug and kiss them softly on the neck with moistened lips. It'll make everything they do finally seem worthwhile. If you DON'T see a celebrity today, cash out your Roth IRA early and head to the nearest tattoo parlor to cover every square inch of your flesh in their likeness (worth it). It's the next best thing you can do for them.
What might cause a woman like her to stoop to such a level? Well, I'm no omniscient psychiatric genius*, but clearly she is going through a phase--a rebellious phase wherein she gleefully thumbs her nose at the absurd world of high-fashion whilst huffing fifty-gallon drums of industrial-strength disinfectants behind a dumpster with a bunch of asexual private-school bad boys in leather jackets.
Do you think she even cares that she is up the stick? No, you don't. Because she doesn't and it shows. She will rock whatever shit you throw over her shoulders to tea with the queen or her cousin's wedding, no questions asked. She's got other things on her mind and knows the world's either gonna roll along with her or she'll tell it to fuck off and lose no sleep.
Now, before you get too excited about the whole huffing thing, please keep in mind that mothers have been huffing industrial-strength disinfectants for centuries and there have been no conclusive studies funded by the international chemical conglomerates that link frequent chemical-huffing by pregnant women to three-limbed children who reach maturity unable to spell or locate themselves while staring into a mirror.
All those liberal communists that claim huffing is bad for children have been clamoring for government action for a while now. Does the government care? Not really. A brain-damaged pool of wage-slaves happy to have any job you throw at them is actually a very desirable underclass in this era of increasingly disgusting income inequality. People cut from such cloth are notorious for being unable to figure out how to cash paychecks or even maintain a mailing address for more than one day, much less mount a well-organized rebellion intent on wealth redistribution.
If I may be so candid, the real problem with these little huff-baby fellers is that they're so stupid they keep falling into the machines at the plant! Do you know how much more difficult that makes it to abide those job-killing, anti-business FDA/EPA laws regarding pieces of humans in things you sell?
As we all know by now it's pretty easy to get away with whatever you want in taco meat, hot dogs, and shit like that, but once multiple fingers start showing up in bottles of shampoo you're probably going to have to send some handsome-ish publicity wonk around the network talk shows to explain away the situation with a propaganda chuckle and a Beck-ish explanation for the accident that perversely blames the government regulations for causing employees to make stupid mistakes due to stress. Then you pay a $10,000 fine, raise the price of your shampoo, cut employee salaries, and voila--you're even higher up that golden ladder to rich person's heaven.
But I digress. Back to the meat:
- How did Natalie look in the dress? Youthful, vibrant, magnetic.
- Was it a pretty dress? No.
- Does it matter? No.
- Would it look great on my living room floor? Yes.
- Do I care that she is pregnant? No.
- Why not? The likelihood of child support payments are essentially zeroed-out, which is where I'd like them to be when I'm tomcatting my way around the green room at the Kodak Theater. In fact, it makes the exit strategy so much easier it's almost worth converting to a career of cruising prenatal clinics. Also, I have a pregnancy fetish.
"You think you're a fucking badass, Charlie? You're a small-screen trained monkey whose audience is far from discerning. They're gonna replace you with John Stamos, for Pete's sake. I'm Batman, Patrick Bateman, John Rolfe, John Connor, and a boxer from Boston.
"I grew up in Wales and even though you're nine years older than me I was chewing kids' ears off in the park for no reason at all ever since you were in short pants. I beat-up every single person I see, just so they know not to fuck with me. Your Dad is Martin Sheen and mine was a pilot (who later married Gloria Steinem). My Mom was a circus performer. I had to be exponentially more crazy than you could ever imagine in order to escape my humble beginnings and beat you out for all the good roles and all the good girls (the kind you don't have to pay for).
"I think we all know it's been a long time since Platoon + Men at Work, but still you were the highest-paid actor in television history until the other day and I guess that is a commendable accomplishment for somebody in your field. It takes dedication to put up with the grueling schedule of a television show. I know I would never want to do it, that's for sure. I prefer to do my work in intense chunks, in exotic locations, and then take several months off to drink vintage wine and fornicate with native women on a white-sand beach somewhere warm while the footage is edited in preparation for a lavish premiere and I marinate in Cuban rum, fresh pineapple, and rare orchids.
"But I no longer need to fake my respect for your humble dedication because you were fired by your boss--an ugly guy who made even more money than you, had more than enough of your annoying bullshit, and put you in your place on the world stage.
"Boy, that must be fun. Can't wait to watch you get shot-down by Barbara Walters on The View before your on-air pedicure even begins to dry.
"Oh! You think you got a comeback for that one? You don't. You never will. You're a puff pastry at heart. You'll never have the fire your dad has and it kills you. Even with a full arsenal of Hollywood stylists at your disposal you look about as bad-ass as an Olsen twin. Proof:
"In conclusion, shut up and go to bed, Charlie Sheen. You're wearing out the world's patience. You're tired. You're broke in every manner of speaking other than financially. Make sure you get a good long sleep by finishing the entire bottle of pills and I promise everything will be better in the morning. The whole world will be a safer, happier place for everyone--especially those closest to you--and it will help set-up another Oscar win for my 'vicious,' 'lifelike' portrayal of you in the made-for-TV movie of your pitiful life."
[Disclaimer: Nothing in this post was written or spoken by Christian Bale although he may have thought it at some point and nobody can prove he didn't. -Ed.]
Even if Matthew McConaughey were naked the entire movie and I was a raging homosexual with only McConaughey on the lower brain I would still avoid this movie like the plague.
Who needs to pay for a nap these days? Even if you wanted to, would you choose to take that nap while upright in a chair next to an old woman who smells like diapers? Don't answer that, perverts; you probably would.
In case you think I'm being too harsh, here is the one-line synopsis that elevated this turd from the page to the (now even more tarnished) silver screen:
A lawyer conducts business from the back of his Lincoln Town Car while representing a high-profile client in Beverly Hills.
Hahaha! I get it! It has nothing to do with Abraham Lincoln at all! What a curveball! He just works out of a Lincoln automobile! A really old one, from back when they actually had personality! And it's still running really well because in Hollywood things always go according to plan!
Oh, man--me and the fellas totally gotta sneak away from the wives to see that on Friday, March 18...unless I can hack into the Lionsgate servers and get my jollies ahead of schedule...though I would still probably wanna see it on the big screen anyway...
You know what they say about dominoes, right? As soon as one falls, they all knock into each other and make a mess or something. I think Sartre probably said it better in the original French, but you get the idea.
Yesterday, in a manner of speaking:
After decades of being an asshole in obscurity, John Travolta was finally outed as a Scientology freak who not only generously supports one of the world's largest, fiercest cults (blackmail's a bitch) but also--allegedly--would rather let his son die than have the medical care he needed. Both those links are must reads, by the way, so take your time on this one.
Today, in the same manner of speaking:
Travolta is outed as hiding for years and years what I would officially consider 'not-that-bad baldness' (see photo above). Apparently, Johnnyboy didn't think he should wear his cute little widow's-peak hairpiece to the beach one day and he was dead-wrong. A guy who demands reshoots of publicity photos because his piece ain't workin' right just doesn't make a mistake like this, folks. Is he slipping? Is he cracking? Are we on the verge of something big here?
[I must insist we also discuss how pale, flabby, and death-like JT's face looks in this photo. Are you trying to tell me those are human eyes? If so, you're wrong--that is clearly a robot from space sent to eat medium-rare hamburgers and destroy squirrels for a greater purpose we will never begin to understand (Dianetics, page 317). -Ed.]
Travolta at his most naked, his most honest, his most creepy. Coincidence?
Tomorrow:
What can we expect? Will His Travoltaness finally be broadcast live in streaming HD blasting some beaverboy between the buttocks on a beach in balmy Bermuda?
Well, as they also say, in Hollywood anything is possible...so stay tuned, people of the ether!
And a special message to all the beaverboys out there: Please do not underestimate the seriousness of your task to capture your delicious deeds on digital video. Truthseekers and anti-cult crusaders (whose memberships admittedly overlap considerably) everywhere are counting on you; you're our only hope.
Although Black Swan was a fantastic cinematic experience--the best ending since There Will Be Blood?--and a just-in-time tour-de-force effort from Darren Aronofsky (I also loved Requiem for a Dream, but that's about it), after watching the vast majority of the movies I wanted to watch from this past year I can confidently state Blue Valentine was my favorite.
Sorry, Clash of the Titans, but I don't need to see you to know you suck and that says a lot about what you are!
Much like the equally-brilliant A Prophet(2009, France), Blue Valentine is gritty, real, and uncompromising. The actors are allowed to breathe in the frame, the camera records the action free of any agenda, the audience feels like intimate participants in a drama with limitless possibilities. There are tears-of-joy-inducing moments of beauty and there are moments that hurt your soul a little bit, irreparably. In short, it is a lot like real life--which is astonishingly difficult to recreate onscreen even when that is your goal.
Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams are both reliably-talented actors, but there is something particularly engaging about their performances in this movie, something about the air that exists on-screen between these two fictional lovers that is truly something special.
How was this delicate feat accomplished? Well, an insightful piece from HuffPo Entertainment Editor Katy Hall today--reprinted in its entirety--explains a lot about the method behind such success:
Yes, she sometimes has a penis; she's that talented.
In a ceremony presided over by Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II this morning in the throne room at Windsor Castle, everybody's favorite shining star Gwyneth Paltrow received what is heretofore considered the United Kingdom's highest honor--the title of 'Renaissance Woman.'
Since I know you are all wondering, yes--QEII was looking particularly fine in the early morning British fog, her devilishly toned flesh frustratingly obscured by a brown chenille Alexander McQueen muumuu that flew off the shelves at Harrod's by lunchtime.
Gwyneth even once mastered the art of pretending to use crutches in a photo
Flush from the thrill of receiving a meaningless honor she created for herself, Ms. Paltrow bubbled-over as she addressed legions of fans from atop the tall tower while twirling her lustrous blond locks and inadvertently calling to mind a much-more-beautiful, modern-day Rapunzel:
Call me crazy, but I think 'Dames' are so old-fashioned. I'm a modern woman! Who just happens to be a throwback to Leonardo Davinci because I work so much harder than everybody else and I'm blessed. This is fun for me, but mostly it's great to think that the whole world now has a decorated role model that doesn't smell like Judi Dench and exhibits mastery in everything she touches but isn't afraid to still giggle and fart.
At that, Ms. Paltrow began launching rice cakes into the rowdy throngs of worshippers below, occasionally posing for the paparazzi with a million-dollar smile (literally) as the starving masses at the base of the stone tower tore each other limb-from-limb for a taste of the good stuff.
Scotland Yard helps quell the ruthless rioters (Photo courtesy Reuters)
Nothing Is Sacred Editor-in-Chief Goodtime Charlie had the pleasure of sitting down with Her Paltrowness for a few moments today once Scotland Yard was able to sublimate the rioters and enforce a thousand-meter safe zone around a nearby Jamba Juice with three artillery battalions and a few studs on horseback.
Goodtime Charlie: My dear Gwyneth, you look ravishing--but you probably already knew that.
Gwyneth Paltrow: Haha. I did. But that doesn't mean it isn't still nice to hear. I love positive things, I just really love being positive.
There was once a Dutchman named Robert Wolders. He was born in Rotterdam in September of 1936, to a man and a woman, although if you asked her, the woman did most of the work.
In 1965, Mr. Wolders became an actor, starred briefly in a TV show, but never achieved much success. By 1975, he decided to retire from acting and marry legendary Hollywood nutjob Merle Oberon.
Below are more than a few words about Merle Oberon, for your pleasure:
She was an exotic beauty born on the British side of Bombay to a British mechanical engineer working on the Indian Railways and her own (half) sister, Constance.
To hide this embarrassing bit of incestuous pedophilia, one of Merle's birth certificates listed her father's wife--a Eurasian from Ceylon with partial Maori heritage, who had Constance at age 14 with an Irish foreman of a tea plantation--as her mother and the story stuck.
Merle and her "mother" moved to England, where she dated a retired actor who passed her off to a studio in France when he realized her "mom" was dark-skinned and he was irretrievably racist. The "Sexy Extra All the Powerful Men Hit On at Craft Service" roles poured in and once famous director Alexander Korda got the hots and cast Merle as Ann Boleyn in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), she was officially going places.
Alexander Korda, Merle Oberon, and Samuel "Thug" Goldwyn
Scarred for life in an automobile accident a mere four years later, skilled lighting technicians were at least able to hide Merle's disfigured face long enough for her to tear up the silver screen opposite Laurence Olivier in Wuthering Heights (1939).
By the following year, Merle's face "suffered even further damage...from a combination of cosmetic poisoning and an allergic reaction to sulfa drugs." Mr. Korda, now her husband, paid for several treatments at a skin clinic in Nueva York, but to no avail--without makeup she was hideous to behold.
So Mr. Korda decided to join the knighthood and make Merle a Lady, to give her something else to do with her time. Three years later, bored of being a Lady knight and day, Merle divorced her knight and married cinematographer Lucien Ballard, who then created a special light--the Obie--to obscure her facial scars on film.
That act of devotion fell short, however, and Merle married twice more--to Italian industrialist Bruno Pagliai (with whom she moved to Mexico and adopted two children) and the Most Interesting Man in the World, Mr. Robert Wolders--who is 25 years younger than her.
But only four years after Merle marries Robert Wolders, she dies at age 68.
What does the most interesting man in the world do when this happens? Why, he immediately becomes companion to Audrey Hepburn (7 years his senior), of course--ever the proper lady, she was waiting patiently for her turn on the Wolders, no doubt--and the two of them even hang out with the Reagmeister General:
Thirteen years later, in 1993, the honorable Audrey Hepburn dies on him, too, leaving Mr. Wolders all alone in frigid Switzerland. How does the most interesting man in the world cope with this tragedy?
He hops on a train to France, where he becomes the companion of another older woman, of course. Then-64-year-old screen legend Leslie Caron is a French dancer discovered by Gene Kelly in 1951 who went on to become a successful actress at MGM for decades and dance with every famous dancer whose name you have ever heard.
Alas, their torrid, Metamucil-tinged affair lasts only two years before the furnace goes kaput and Mr. Wolders moves on--for the first time?--without anybody dying.
Where does he go? Sadly, one can only speculate.
Here goes:
Immediately after french-kissing his goodbyes to dear Leslie, Mr. Wolders steals her 1964 Peugeot 404 convertible and drives all the way to Marseilles on the wrong side of the highway, chain-smoking a box of Cuban blunts given to him by Johnny Depp at his birthday party last year.
After six martinis and a few bottles of cheap cognac in the backroom of a rough-trade dockside saloon, Mr. Wolders gets himself into a card game and wakes up to find himself at-sea in a 45-foot sailboat named Skye.
Upon hearing several members of the crew refer to him as "Captain" (as in: "Captain, you have vomit in your beard."), Mr. Wolders commands his crew to pull into the nearest harbor for supplies and a bit of barbering.
After a killer haircut and the trading of most of their food, medical supplies, and lifeboats for several dozen barrels of rum, six pounds of beef jerky, a prostitute, and two fishing poles, Mr. Wolders and his crew are able to outrun a couple police officers and set sail for anywhere else.
The crew becomes family as they drift around the Mediterranean with Mr. Wolders for the next 15+ years, mastering kung-fu, running guns for the Russians, trying to get invited to parties along the Riviera, counterfeiting their own Cuban cigars, making their own sushi, experimenting with mind-altering drugs...and subsisting solely on the bounty of nature, the naivete of strangers, and the small fortune Mr. Wolders inherited from his two famous dead lovers.
The crew was not terribly pleased to have their berths converted to rum storage,
but they eventually got over it and embraced the good life.
When his love of the finer things in life--coupled with his innate distaste for labor of any kind--catches up with him, Mr. Wolders sees no other choice but to adopt a fake Mexican accent and resume acting under an assumed identity in commercials for Dos Equis.
It's the closest he can get to not working while still getting paid, so that's alright with him.
Yes, at 74 years of age and still kicking, life has been good to Robert Wolders. I wonder if the next 74 will be so kind?
A mere glance at the poster for the new Vince Vaughn/Kevin James waste-of-time The Dilemma on my way to the sulphur mines this morning confirms what I have feared for a while now--Kevin James and Vince Vaughn have fused their hands together and are spinning around in circles laughing at each other's stale jokes as crumbs tumble from their bespittled lips, their jiggly centers of mass gradually moving closer to impact.
Eventually--I give it maybe two years, tops--their ever-enlarging torsos will collide, their bodies bursting into millions of pieces that will continue to orbit Hollywood along the same path until these little turdlettes coalesce into one larger, more formidably awful superturd that will indubitably acquire several sycophantic moons in the Brett Ratner mold and reign over a large swath of Hollywood for many years to come.
A bone-chilling reminder that the continuing evolution of the universe is not always a good thing; in fact, the creation/destruction cycle puts our odds at only 50%.
Is three dollars per day, according to the Harper's Index in the Jan.2011 issue.
Who rents these babies, you ask? Why, panhandlers, of course! Who else would you rent your defenseless baby to? It makes perfect sense--the panhandlers rent these babies to increase their daily wages by preying on sympathetic strangers and I guess the cost outweighs the benefit or there wouldn't be a market for it.
I also guess that for the most part these babies are returned unharmed or there wouldn't be a steady supply of babies, although that is just a guess. For all I know, the odds are 50/50 and the parents' desire to have the child/burden back is 50/50.
What sort of person rents out their baby to a panhandler in Johannesburg for the day? Is this person so desperate that they don't have any other choice and have thrown caution to the wind in the hopes of mere survival? Is it easier to let your baby do the work while you chill at home eating a $3 package of protein-enriched (hopefully) bonbons?
Or is this proof of yet another impending global movement backward--engineered by a bitter father named Karl Rove, most likely--where the babysitter pays the parent/s and the baby gets exactly the kind of crash-course in life he will need to survive, the Right gets an unregulated, cheap supply of labor/altar-boys, and everybody's too tired and malnourished to mount an effective rebellion?
Or is this baby rental thing all about the economy and I'm an idiot? Is this bonus baby-rental money allowing the impoverished parent/s of these children the luxury of purchasing a carton of "so cool" American cigarettes every week and it's so good for the American economy that all the rich people and their duped grassroots puppets will shoot you in the face with their concealed weapons if you try to be all communist and poke a hole in what is a mostly sorta-fine scheme they have going on? Well, if you discount the visceral discomfort experienced every waking moment by every single baby involved, that is--especially by those poor souls that never make it back to the rental house.
You know what? I should probably stop talking about it right now, lest I be branded un-American by the uneducated. I can't:
Will these poor children grow up at a record clip? What sort of indignities will they witness while lying on the sidewalk, teething on dirty broken beer bottles and used condoms, covering themselves in their own filth, occasionally getting yelled at by their smelly drunken homeless master, on whom his/her survival depends? What manner of squalor will they one day consider luxurious by comparison to their daily existence?
Yes, much like the man himself this project was a bad idea from the instant it was conceived.
Yes, you will probably see it with your family this holiday season and/or receive it on BluRay from a friend as a Valentine's Day gag gift.
Yes, you all should be ashamed of yourselves.
Aside from the movie crew's community-saving bribes to dozens of unemployed+underwater homeowners near the shooting location pretending to mow their lawn every day, probably the only good to come of this debacle is all of the anti-fan art out there on the web.
Viz:
Probably a direct quote as he walked to craft service for a handful of Peanut M&Ms.
I would much rather see THIS movie.
Probably an accurate assessment of what Gibson's golden years would have been like
if he didn't have $400 million in the bank and a team of parasites that live off him.
For even more anti-fan art, check out the endless comments on the post that inspired mine at Videogum.
For your viewing pleasure, here is an old Japanese cologne commercial made by the director of Hausu, starring Charles Bronson:
What a crazy piece of shit, eh? I would love to have been a fly on the wall during the meeting where the director explained his vision to the ad agency and client.
"Okay, so...he's in a candle-lit bar by himself, making love to a black piano player with his eyes. After thanking an insane old doorman on his way out, he drives home really fast to take off his shirt and pour cologne all over his body as he gives himself a rubdown and shoots guns. Guys will love it!"
"Wait--there are no women in this?"
"No! There are no women in Mandom--just men. Men who like to choke each other to death with the overpowering stench of their cologne-soaked half-naked bodies as they dance around the room, giggling and flirting. And shooting guns!"
"I see...well, what the fuck do I know? I named my cologne Mandom. Let's give it a shot."
She may not know what the word means, but Heidi Montag should receive a Celebrity Merit Badge for Hyperbole.
First, her freaky, hyperbolically-curvy, wax-figurine body, courtesy of plastic surgeon Frank Ryan:
Second, the Team Heidi-approved Twitters after said plastic surgeon drove his Jeep off a cliff along the Pacific Coast Highway and died:
I am devastated to hear the news of Dr. Frank Ryan's death. He was the most amazing person I have ever known. He was an angel and changed my life and the lives of everyone he met. He was the most brilliant talented surgeon who will ever exist. Dr. Frank Ryan changed the world.
My thoughts and prayers go out to his mother, family, friends, and anyone who was ever blessed enough to meet him. He is in a better place.
"The most brilliant surgeon who will ever exist," who "changed the lives of everyone he met?"
Yeah, right. I believe that almost as much as I believe Heidi has the capacity to be "devastated" by anything, or that Dr. Moron "is in a better place"--he's in Hell, baby! Yeah!
Which, for the record, is much worse than being paid millions of dollars for totally unnecessary surgical procedures and then using the money to cavort around Southern California changing people's lives for the worse, all the while giggling and doing lines of silicone off the dashboard.
I have no evidence to support this claim, but something tells me Dr. Frank may have driven off a cliff because his latest 'perfect' monster (Two heads with six tongues, mounted on a giant breast!) was giving him head and it was so fantastic he just couldn't take it.
Or maybe that's just some hyperbole right there...who's to know?
First there was Paper Heart, then Youth in Revolt (which, for the record, was disappointing mostly because there was no real romance going on), and now Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, so I think the citizens of moviedom finally have all the evidence we need to justly psychoanalyze the central figure in the imminent crisis known in the halls of power as the Michael Cera Problem, which, incidentally, is soon to be the Next Big Thing once the Looming Commercial Real Estate Crash has its way with us.
With that in mind, please enjoy the following fabulous entry to the research on this cutting-edge topic, from Stephanie Zacharek at Movieline:
I used to worry about Cera as an actor: He seemed like a talented kid in danger of being limited by his own acute boyishness. And I still think that maybe — maybe — smart filmmakers will figure out ways to bring out the best in him. But in Scott Pilgrim his wispy smile and quivery voice aren’t endearing; they’re an affront. In every frame, Scott appears to be begging us not just to love him (which would be bad enough), but to pity him.
I’m willing to suspend disbelief enough to believe that Cera’s capable of playing a character with a sex drive. In fact, Juno handled that aspect of his character astutely: We never saw him trying to get the girl; we simply knew that he had, and that fact alone suggested that maybe this sweet, gawky kid was really quite something in the sack. Sex is, after all, one of life’s great mysteries.
But Cera plays Scott Pilgrim as the kind of guy who thinks that getting an erection is an insult to a girl, damning evidence that he doesn’t just, as we used to say in the ’70s, “love her for her mind.” Men and women alike have plenty of sexual anxieties. But just as men — the good ones — will sometimes tell us women that we don’t need to be Victoria’s Secret models to be sexy, men should know that they don’t have to be Bruce Springsteen — or even, heaven forfend, Mick Jagger — for us to find them irresistible. But they do have to look as if they might possibly be interested in having sex, and that’s a bridge too far for Cera in Scott Pilgrim. So what if he passes the Herculean he-man test the story puts him through? He still has all the sexual charisma of an untied shoelace. And even a woman who likes the soft touch can’t do much with that.
I couldn't have said it better myself--after all, without any degree of sex drive detectable by modern scientists, what is the point of getting the girl?
First of all, the steroids.
Second of all, the jewelry.
Third of all, Brian Pumper?
Fourth of all, how bored is that "first-time" "bitch," who may or may not "cream," who also happens to be Laurence Fishbourne's ugly and stupid 18-year-old daughter?
Fifth of all, how come she doesn't know how to become a bad-yet-working actor when even a Baldwin can do it?
Sixth of all, why does she equate a sex tape with a hardcore porn movie?
Seventh of all, why is Kim Kardashian her role model?
Eighth of all, how many pennies will it take to bang this lost soul senseless in six weeks?
Ninth of all, make sure you watch the whole (interview) video and none of the other (porn) video.
Tenth of all, vomit.
For those of you living in Bumblefuck eating sandwiches made from the cheese between your toes, this wedding is between Chelsea Clinton and some guy who is not important right now and never will be.
Now, for those of you not familiar with the current woman-to-animal exchange rates, let me tell you this--those terms are very favorable, especially in this difficult economic climate. Ma and Pa Clinton would be wise to reconsider this generous offer on the eve of their daughter's wedding to some nameless loser, unless of course that guy's parents are providing an even more lucrative dowry.
But we all know they aren't. Instead, a portion of Bill's speaking gigs and book royalties are providing a $3 million wedding for some toothy girl who has done nothing to deserve such luxury. She was in college before her parents ever had that much money and now they are dropping it on her wedding.
WTF, America? This is why we will wind up killing each other during the apocalypse.
Well, whatever--the important thing is that nobody on the East Coast can fly or drive for an entire weekend and some fourth-cousin will make millions of dollars selling poorly-composed photographs to the tabloids on Monday.
