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Last night I finally got a chance to watch Noel and oh my god what a horrible, horrible movie. Chazz Palmintieri deserves to be drawn and quartered for inflicting this on an unsuspecting public. Paul Walker was definitely beeyooteeful, as always (that guy is just not normal, no human being is that pretty; it's freakish) but I couldn't even bear to watch the Susan Sarandon parts, especially when she was with Robin Williams, and I adore Susan Sarandon. It wasn't even just that the story was unbearably treacly (and I like treacly!) and the dialog was unbelievably phony and bad, but just that everyone seemed to not have a clue what they were doing, and worse, for me, it tripped every single embarassment squick I have. I was cringing in agony and FFing through most of it, stopping only to watch Pretty Paul, but that was torturous enough because my god! That story with Alan Arkin!! Aaiiieeeee... shudder. That was the most horrifying cringe-fest I've ever had. I'd willingly watch Mrs. Doubtfire again over this. (I am tired of suffering for my actors. Two weeks ago I endured the horrendo The Mountain for James, which was excrutiating -- and that I'm already enduring for Mitch Pileggi; I'm putting my foot down now.)
The only thing that made it remotely worthwhile was the conversation with his partner about who the old guy was cruising. It amused me that finally a movie had two straight guys arguing over which one was most "look"-worthy. And also, it helps confirm my theory that PW and Vin Diesel are slash magnets and that's why they work so stunningly well together in Fast and the Furious. At least Vin has chemistry with women; poor Paul, though, can't even muster a spark with fiery Spaniard Penelope Cruz, though he did have at least a little more going on with her than his usual female co-stars.
It cracks me up to watch him -- they keep putting him in these romantic leading man roles and yet every single time he fails to generate any chemistry with his leading lady. Timeline may be the worst; he actually managed to create a sucking black hole of chemistry in that with whoever the chick was who played his girlfriend. For years my friends have commented on Kevin Sorbo's slash shield... hell, his chemistry shield, and I never understood what they were talking about till I watched Paul Walker in other movies: he's completely, utterly unable to generate any sparkage or heat heterosexually, but put him with certain types of male actors, and stand back!
Vin Diesel, I realized the other day, is even more of a slash magnet than Paul, not because he doesn't have het chemistry but because he seems to just generate heat with almost anyone he's playing opposite. (For instance, he had just as much sparkage with Radha Mitchell in Pitch Black as he had with Cole Hauser, and equally as much with the girl playing Jack and Claudia Black.) But especially with men: every live action role he's had since Multi-Facial brought him to people's attention has given him at least one great slashy relationship. Even in Saving Private Ryan, which he's only in for a short time, he's very strongly connected to Adam Goldberg's character, as well as Giovanni Ribisi's, and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mlyn wrote an excellent manifesto on Vin's Boiler Room character's relationship with Giovanni's character here (though her LJ is friends-locked, you can ask to be added). It was watching Knockaround Guys the other night again that made me realize that he's always got someone he can be slashy with in a movie; his scenes with Barry Pepper are quite intense, and I love that they drive off into the sunset together, leaving their old lives behind.
So the Fast and the Furious is not an anomaly for either one of them, but you throw their slash magnetism together and instead of getting repellant positive forces pushing them away from each other, the magnetism is doubled, at least. And both of them seem to be perfectly happy letting it happen, which is kind of amazing for male actors in Hollywood these days.
Anyway, this is what I waste my time thinking about. There are times I believe I should just give up the fic and spend all my time on the meta, because it's funner to watch than to do.
If I'm feeling down, I go out looking for pictures. I love this picture, for some strange reason, and I go look at it from time to time because it makes me peculiarly happy. Both the fact that Vin is squished inside the front of the car, which is in itself pretty high-larious, and also because Paul's jeans are down so low that we get a huge glimpse of his tighty-whities. And they're both listening so intently to their direction. Such cute boys. (Probably I am being bad by linking directly to the photo but it's not like 500 people are going to go look. http://vdg.bitdark.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=14&pos=30 )
The only thing that made it remotely worthwhile was the conversation with his partner about who the old guy was cruising. It amused me that finally a movie had two straight guys arguing over which one was most "look"-worthy. And also, it helps confirm my theory that PW and Vin Diesel are slash magnets and that's why they work so stunningly well together in Fast and the Furious. At least Vin has chemistry with women; poor Paul, though, can't even muster a spark with fiery Spaniard Penelope Cruz, though he did have at least a little more going on with her than his usual female co-stars.
It cracks me up to watch him -- they keep putting him in these romantic leading man roles and yet every single time he fails to generate any chemistry with his leading lady. Timeline may be the worst; he actually managed to create a sucking black hole of chemistry in that with whoever the chick was who played his girlfriend. For years my friends have commented on Kevin Sorbo's slash shield... hell, his chemistry shield, and I never understood what they were talking about till I watched Paul Walker in other movies: he's completely, utterly unable to generate any sparkage or heat heterosexually, but put him with certain types of male actors, and stand back!
Vin Diesel, I realized the other day, is even more of a slash magnet than Paul, not because he doesn't have het chemistry but because he seems to just generate heat with almost anyone he's playing opposite. (For instance, he had just as much sparkage with Radha Mitchell in Pitch Black as he had with Cole Hauser, and equally as much with the girl playing Jack and Claudia Black.) But especially with men: every live action role he's had since Multi-Facial brought him to people's attention has given him at least one great slashy relationship. Even in Saving Private Ryan, which he's only in for a short time, he's very strongly connected to Adam Goldberg's character, as well as Giovanni Ribisi's, and
mlyn wrote an excellent manifesto on Vin's Boiler Room character's relationship with Giovanni's character here (though her LJ is friends-locked, you can ask to be added). It was watching Knockaround Guys the other night again that made me realize that he's always got someone he can be slashy with in a movie; his scenes with Barry Pepper are quite intense, and I love that they drive off into the sunset together, leaving their old lives behind. So the Fast and the Furious is not an anomaly for either one of them, but you throw their slash magnetism together and instead of getting repellant positive forces pushing them away from each other, the magnetism is doubled, at least. And both of them seem to be perfectly happy letting it happen, which is kind of amazing for male actors in Hollywood these days.
Anyway, this is what I waste my time thinking about. There are times I believe I should just give up the fic and spend all my time on the meta, because it's funner to watch than to do.
If I'm feeling down, I go out looking for pictures. I love this picture, for some strange reason, and I go look at it from time to time because it makes me peculiarly happy. Both the fact that Vin is squished inside the front of the car, which is in itself pretty high-larious, and also because Paul's jeans are down so low that we get a huge glimpse of his tighty-whities. And they're both listening so intently to their direction. Such cute boys. (Probably I am being bad by linking directly to the photo but it's not like 500 people are going to go look. http://vdg.bitdark.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=14&pos=30 )
