Lest you think me undiscerning, here’s someone whose appearance is NOT improved by a beard.
Jared Leto always looks ridiculous and I’m pretty sure there’s nothing he can do about it. Best of luck to you, Leto!
Bonus: Leto Mutilation Montage!
Bye Bye Bettie
Bettie Page, the woman who launched 1000 bangs and defined the pinup girl, has died. As you might have guessed, we’re big fans of Bettie at my house and very sad to hear of her passing. Recently someone asked if we’d heard the news…that Bettie Page was still alive. It’s true that she hasn’t been in the media much since she quit modeling. We forget that in the old days, when a supermodel retired, that was it. They dropped out of the public eye and returned to normal lives. Nowadays she probably would have had a recording contract and a reality show and/or talk show to help drive her career into the ground. Instead, her iconic and untainted visage was burned into the collective consciousness forever.
It was tarnished only slightly, 3 years ago, when Mary Harron made that corny biopic. It was then that I first saw a picture of Octogenarian Bettie. She was still gorgeous (and still had her signature hair). Now that she’s gone, I hope someone is inspired to make a decent celluloid tribute to her life. But we’ll always have those amazing pictures…and Rockabilly chicks, to remember her by.
Hotter with a Beard: Hugh Jackman Edition
Once again, Lindy West has crawled inside my brain and perfectly summed up my feelings with utmost hilarity. She’s absolutely the funnier version of me. I guess that makes her my nemesis though I have no desire to defeat her and my fist-shaking in her general direction is minimal.
I have always felt this way about Hugh Jackman, ever since I saw him as Wolverine (perfectly cementing my longtime crush on that little hairy dude) and then as someone called Leopold. Bearded Hugh Jackman is the only Hugh Jackman worth lusting after. Bearded Hugh is grizzled and sexy. Clean-shaven Hugh is, well, really effeminate looking. And while some people really enjoy that look in a man, I am not one of them.
The beard is the thing. Moreso than any other actor I can think of. Or even any other PERSON. It’s a practically supernatural phenomenon. Hugh Jackman has a magic beard. It’s the only explanation.
Hotter with a Beard: Peter Sarsgaard Edition
In fact, both halves of the HaalGaards are looking mighty fetching. I wish I could have them over for a lovely old timey dinner party, even though it seems like Peter might keep insisting on asking everyone about their childhoods and relationships with their mothers.
Poor Rebecca Romijn
Believe it or not, this woman is a model. Models are usually good at “modeling through it”. That is to say that even if they’ve been puking their guts out five minutes prior, they can still look amazing on camera. Rebecca Romijn is beautiful and I’ve always liked her. But you can tell by her eyes that she’s made some mistakes. That look that she is giving the camera says “I still can’t believe I actually married that jerkface, Jerry O’Connell. He was just a REBOUND from Stamos, and I let him put TWO damn future douchebabies in my belly. I have regrets, people. Regrets”.
Hotter With a Beard: Joaquin Phoenix Edition
Picture taken from a story about Joaquin’s announcement at a Paul Newman memorial that he is retiring from acting. I wonder if he said that he was pretty sure there is more to life than being a really really really ridiculously good actor and he plans on finding out what that is. I bet you didn’t even think he knew was a eugugolizer was.
XXX Files Re-Opened
Dlisted reports that David Duchovny is, in fact, a skank and it was the old “Don’t divorce me for cheating” compromise that sent him to “rehab” after all. I know that the “sources” come from the National Enquirer and Us Weekly so there still aren’t any hard facts here. I want to believe that Mulder isn’t a manslut but it doesn’t make sense that a wifey as down-to-earth seeming as Tea Leoni would force him to do something so humiliating over a little web surfing. In this case, Scully’s Razor stands.
Mulder is Not a Sex Addict
He just likes the porns. My very favorite entertainment blog, dlisted, reported that David Duchovny’s sex addiction (which, in my opinion, is generally code for “I cheated on my spouse but I don’t want a divorce”) is actually just an “addiction to internet porn”.
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I’m still trying to take this seriously and not think about that ridiculous Christian propaganda TV movie, Cyber Seduction: His Secret Life. It’s about a teenage boy who is “addicted” to (softcore, white bread) internet porn and it “tears his life apart”. I highly recommend seeking this movie out, by the way. It’s hilarious. Especially the locker room scene where his fellow teenage jocks are creeped out by him regaling them with tales of his porn escapades. Teenage boys creeped out by naked ladies! And it’s not even an all-boys military academy!
Anywho…my new interpretation to this story is that one of their children, really excited about playing their Dora the Explorer computer game, accidentally walked in on daddy going through his XXX Files one too many times.
These things happen. The ordinary citizen probably wouldn’t seek “professional treatment” for such things. They would just make sure the kids were napping or the door was locked. But D.D. is high profile and different rules apply.
I’m just glad Mulder isn’t a total cheating ho.
About That “R****d” Thing in Tropic Thunder
I finally got around to seeing Tropic Thunder. I didn’t laugh as much as I was hoping to. Perhaps I read way too much about it beforehand. That’s one of the downsides to living in the information age. It’s difficult to be surprised. There is also the small problem of me being incapable of liking anything that Tom Cruise does. I don’t find him funny or charming. I find that his every performance and appearance seethes smugness and I just want to punch him square in his smug jaw (after kicking him in the smugnuts).
But one thing I knew I would LOVE was the “r****d” bit. Not because I think making fun of the mentally challenged is funny, but because I think actors playing mentally challenged characters for Oscar bait is horrible and someone needs to call it out. Mr. Show did a good job of it with their Dewey Awards/Bob Lamonta sketch but it wasn’t mainstream enough to make an impact. Ben Stiller, on the other hand, brought people to the theaters in droves to expose this disturbing Hollywood truth. Of course, there were a lot of people who still didn’t get it.
Ben Stiller and co. aren’t “making fun of r****ds”. They are making fun of the Hollywood construct of the mentally challenged. Characters like Sam, Radio, the sister that rode the bus and The Other Sister. There is actually no such thing as a “r*****d”. They are as real as the Unicorn, invented by Hollywood to teach us “valuable life lessons” and “the true meaning of love”. They are caricatures of real mentally challenged people with real problems. They don’t say the darnedest things. They aren’t God’s Little Angels. They attempt to live normal lives. They have jobs and relationships. They get angry and depressed and yes, they also laugh and have fun, but not ALL THE TIME. Why? Because they are human beings. You know which film actor’s portrayal of a mentally challenged character was the most realistic? Billy Bob Thornton’s in Sling Blade. That is pretty pathetic.
I’m not saying someone NEEDS to make a reasonable movie about a mentally challenged character to rectify this. I’m just saying that the ones we have warrant dissection and ridicule. Even the “half-r****d” movies like Forest Gump (a film with several offensive characters besides the protagonist) and Rain Man.
I’d also really like it if audiences would maybe think about the context of a scene, especially one in a satirical movie, and not just get all reactionary about a single word. People can be so r******d sometimes.
Effed by the Wind 
