Bonus idiot points are scored for the people using their bluetool devices which causes them to get that expression on their faces, that far-away, concerned expression that babies get when they're pooping in their diapers. Or in their pants. Either way.
So the idiot on the cell phone in the Co-Op was annoying, but I was trying really hard to listen to his conversation because he was talking about having seen the movie Appaloosa and one of the stars in Appaloosa is Viggo Mortensen.
I'm struggling at the moment with a minor Viggo Mortensen addiction and, man, it's killing me. How can such a handsome guy have been in so many crappy films? Seriously. The other day I watched a Sylvester Stallone movie because Viggo had some bit part in it. (I turned it off when his character got killed.) And I couldn't, of course, make myself watch Carlito's Way, but I did find a clip the featured Viggo (in the bit part he had in that movie), and it was bad. I hate it when The Brain goes all gaga over some mildly talented actor type. (Past addictions have included Martin Donovan, Brent Spiner and, the earliest example of The Brain going haywire for some dud actor, Mark Hamill. There have been others. Those are the ones I'm willing to admit to.)
The most recent Viggo film was Appaloosa, which was a Western, which is a genre that already tries my patience. Like any young feminist, I loved True Grit, and, like any American, I have the requisite number of John Wayne films under my belt, but Westerns in general? Not unless it's Joan Crawford in the inadvertently hilarious Johnny Guitar, or The Red Elvises in the unexpectedly compelling Six-String Samurai. But like any old feminist, I appreciate reviews like the one Walter Chaw of Film Freak Central gave Appaloosa:
Appaloosa is macho juvenilia that espouses the idea of "bros before hos" and, thus, renders all the men unflawed in their limited, brutal glory and all the women bimbos, sluts, or bimbo-sluts. [. . . ] Appaloosa falls on its ass because its worldview is arrested and incurious, content to offer that women are mercurial trollops and men, good or evil, are the bedrock of civilization. When Appaloosa is described as "old-fashioned," hear spin on more accurate terms like "ossified" and "badly-dated" and "naïve" [. . .] Sexist because it's ignorant and not because it's trying to illustrate a point about sexism, the film is the logical, populist end-point of anti-intellectual entertainments that (and leaders who) steadfastly fail to challenge ideas.I appreciate this kind of review. I appreciate the hell out of it, and--goddamn--I wish this guy wrote movie reviews for The New York Times. (Because their reviewers? Are asleep at the goddamn wheel, let me tell you.)
Chaw further identifies why Viggo is not a bigger star:
Mortensen elevates the material as he is wont to do, but something Mortensen has never seemed entirely capable of is fixing a movie by himself.See this is the caliber of celebrity crush that The Brain gives me to work with. (Of course, I did also have a massive crush on Richard Feynman at one time, too, so yay that I guess.)
The idiot on the cell phone (remember him?) had a few complaints about Appaloosa, namely the story, the acting, the cinematography, and the lack of people in the town in which the movie was set. In the final analysis, he declared it "more like a movie you'd see on TV, the kind that's made for TV, not a real movie."
I'm in negotiations with The Brain right now. The Brain may--sigh--insist that we see it anyway.
4 comments:
I loved Carlito's Way! Was Viggo Mortensen, the one who was in the wheelchair? Trying to set up Carlito? He was wearing a wire?
Yes! That's him in the wheelchair! I can't look at his gorgeous face with that ugly 70's style moustache!! It just looks like...I don't know. Like he was sucking hair out of the shower drain or something! (>o<)
Ok I just have to say that I love any reviewer who uses the phrases "mercurial trollops" and "bros before hos" in his review. I have a bad crush on Viggo, too. It is so bad I loved him in 28 Days. And the other horse movie where he rides across the desert. Usually I have better taste in films.
I know, right? I'm, like, I can't see a Sandra Bullock film just because Viggo's in it! Can I? Maybe I'll just netflix it...*Sigh*
I'm debating over that "been through the desert on a horse with a dumb name" movie. Is he good in it? Or just onscreen a bunch? (That might be enough.)
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