Nonononononononononononononononononononono!
NO! NO NO NO NO NO NO NOOOOOOOOOOO!
NO!
Humph! NO!
inarticulateangrygrumblingunderthebreathofanirritatedbutterfly.....
Okay. So. I just watched Rocky, yeah? And I liked it. Right. Good, great, big deal, fine.
FINE!
So I wikipedia'd Stallone just to see how he got his big break--writing and staring in your first big break is quite the break, sez me--and this is my blog, so DON'T ARGUE!
Anyway, I scrolled down and saw that he is currently directing (but not staring in) a production called Poe, which is about Edgar Allan. Well, I naturally was intrigued because I LOVE POE.
Well, I imdb'd it and learned that they cast frickin' VIGGO MORTENSEN as Poe! VIGGO MORTENSEN‽ As E A POE‽
WHAT THE--uh--FUDGE‽
Okay, so let's look at the pros--'tis only fair, I suppose. I suppose we can see some physical resemblence....
Okay, so it's workable; I'll give him that. But seriously--the man is holding a sword! I mean, Poe was crazy, but he certainly didn't go cavorting about with elves and hobbits! I mean--seriously, people!
Quick tangent: have you ever seen the movie The Majestic? There is a great irony in that movie in that The Day the Earth Stood Still is one of the movies played at the majestic, yet Jim Carrey starred in the flick.
What? Don't you see the irony? Don't you know the story of The Day the Earth Stood Still?
Well, let me enlighten you! Harry Bates came up with this great story that he pitched to a movie company, and they bought into it. Somebody--producer? director? not all that important, really--just some bigwig moron got this bright idea to cast some well-known actor as the alien, and he got said actor to agree to it, so he called up Mr. Bates and said, "Hey, good news: I got [so-and-so] to be your alien. Whaddaya thinka dat?"
You know what Mr. Bates said? He said NO WAY! NO FRICKIN' WAY, MR. BOSSMAN! WHAT ARE YOU THINKING‽
You know why? I'll tell you why: Mr. Bates knew what he wanted from his movie. He wanted an alien to step off of that spaceship not some celebrity. He wanted the audience to say, "Hey look! It's an alien!" not "Hey look it's Whatshisface! I love that guy!" or "Ooo So-and-so! He's the bee's knees!" So they cast some unknown, and it was a smashing success; everyone loved it, and now the movie's a classic (in the sense that it's a great movie that no one--including me--has ever seen).
Lesson learned? Good.
HEY STALLONE! DROP VIGGO! SURE, HE DOES THE GREASY BLACK HAIR THING WELL, BUT THERE'S A HECKUVA LOT MORE TO POE THAN HIS HAIR! WHY DON'T YOU READ SOME OF HIS STUFF!
That is all.
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ReplyDeleteI just gotta say, I can't think of any better person to play Poe--not off the top of my head. Maybe Johnny Depp? No. Too obvious. Christian Bale? No. Too broad a jaw. Crispin Glover? No. Not enough surface humanity. That pretty much leaves Viggo.
Look Viggo up--there's a lot more to him than swordplay. I think you'll come around.
For instance, the press he founded. And many of his photographs are quite Poesque.
And speaking of Poes, do you know the singer Poe, originally of Ogden? She's awesome.
(note: if the post was purely tongue-in-cheek, I apologize; I would just be much more worried about a Stallone-directed Poe flick than a Viggo-starring one.)
Indeed. I'm really not sure how I feel about Stallone directing it, either. I'm not really sure what it'll be like. He's an okay director, and I don't think he's WRITING the movie, so--I dunno; guess we'll see....
ReplyDeleteI don't doubt Viggo's ability to do it--I bet he can do it--I just don't know how I feel about a well-known, loved star playing Poe. Seems--idiosyncratic to me.
Oh. And I was playing up my passion quite a bit--I'm not really all that passionate about it, though I imagine I may be if when I see the movie, it disappoints me.
ReplyDelete.
ReplyDeleteI think someone like Viggo's okay because he disappears into his roles. Unlike, say, George Clooney who, though an excellent actor, is ALWAYS George Clooney and so should avoid being historical characters we already have an image of.