I am Dracula, and I bid you welcome....

This is a tribute to my favorite actor of all time, Gary Oldman. He is simply the most talented and underappreciated actor of our time. The only guy that comes remotely close would be Paul Giamatti since Johnny Depp has recently been recognized for his body of work. Gary as an actor has played everything from Sid Vicious to Dr. Smith.




His potrayal in True Romance as Drexl Spivey was classic!
In "The Contender" he plays Sheldon Runyon.
This was just another example of how he becomes a character.














Raise your hand if you have seen Bram Stoker's Dracula? This movie has the bizarre designation of the "Best" horror movie with the worst casting. Not understanding?Well allow me to retort. Gary Oldman single handedly carries this movie with what I believe is the best Dracula to ever grace the silver screen. He had to do this whilst being bombarded by horrible on all sides. His only ally in good acting is Tom Waits. I can deal with Hopkins in the movie but some can't stand the slight Hannibal nod, given by him. I once read that Gary verbally abused Winona to the point of tears just to try and get more depth out of her. That aside this still stands as my favorite Gary movie if only for the chance to hear him talk in Romanian. I love the first 20 minutes of this movie more than any other horror movie in it's entirety.

I want to give mention to a few of his best performances. State of Grace, Sid & Nancy, The Professional, & Romeo is Bleeding. There was no better choice than G.O. to play Jim Gordon in Batman Begins. G.O. as Sirius Black is my favorite part of that entire series. His performance in Red Dragon as Mason Verger.








Finally, the Scarlet Letter. This movie was so scorned by critics that I didn't bother to see it in the theatre. However, when I did finally watch it Gary makes this a completely enjoyable movie and that is not just Oldman reverence.

When watching a play or movie in which Gary Oldman acts, a curious thing often happens to the audience. The film ceases to be a film- it becomes real, it overwhelms the senses and draws one in to the fantasy. The emotions of the characters are one's own. The Greek word for such a powerful experience is 'catharsis', and seeing Gary Oldman act brings this word to mind. For such is his power- he completely draws in his audience- you feel you are there, living the character's events and feelings. An actor who can do this is often called brilliant, and that describes him perfectly.



All hail to the Old-man!

Yes even you Han Solo and Gary won't wait for you to shoot first!

"Uncle Owen, this R2 unit has a bad motivator"

This post is going to be about the allure, artistry, attraction, charm, and exquisiteness of Mark Hamill. So if you are a hater go ahead and click the next blog icon.

Let me start by saying that I am in no way being tongue in cheek or facetious when I talk about Mark he is truly one of my favorite Hollywood stars. Let me tell you I am not a fan of many Hollywood folk they disgust me actually. Mark and his family have become involved with Children Helping Poor and Homeless Children. This includes helping with the ongoing collection of items donated and participating in special fund-raisers, also Mark works with the End Hunger Network to create projects and events to help motivate people to help end hunger. EHN helps provide funding for food banks and finally did you know that Mark met his wife, Mary Lou York, when she was his dental hygienist. They've been married since December 17, 1978 and counting! Now that I have proven that he is not your typical hollywood windbag now let's get on to the body of work!

First off I am not going to go into his extensive voice work for everything from the Batman Animated show to Anime movies in Japan. The guy gets serious work in the animation field and I don't care what you may think about it taking talent to do this, just compare Mark's work as the Joker or as Twitch in the Spawn animated series to Brad Pitt's voice work in SinBAD. Brad truly does need the help of his looks to get people to look past his non-talent in any non-quirky role.

Now onto to live action, first and foremost, we have to start with Star Wars(1977), The Empire Strikes Back(1980) and Return of the Jedi(1983) even though he was in the pilot for Eight is Enough he got out of the contract so he could do more movies, the Star Wars trilogy is what he will ALWAYS be known for and rightly so. I don't think we need to delve too far into a trilogy that everyone should know about. I am instead going to delve into the obscure stuff you may not have seen!
1>Corvette Summer(1978)
2>The Big Red One(1980), one of the top 10 best War movies ever made! Mark stands toe to toe with Lee Marvin and Robert Carradine, this movie is a must see for war movie buffs and Mark Hamill fans. Mark plays a rifleman along with Lee Marvin as his Sgt. and the rest of the platoon who have grown blind to the horrors of the war until they end up in a Czech war prison. Must See!
3>Night the Lights went out in Georgia(1981)



Now comes the unknown trilogy in Mark's career: Slipstream(1989), The Guyver(1991), and Time Runner(1993). Like my other favorite actors' (Chuck Heston) holy trilogy these movies have nothing to do with each other but they are 3 that should be viewed multiple times. Slipstream also stars a young Bill Paxton. The Guyver is just a thing of beauty and I own this one as well on DVD as well as the sequel which unfortunately did not have Mark in it. Time Runner is a classic and it has the late(RIP), great Brion James in it as the leader of the bad guys that Mark has to travel back in time to stop!

2 more worth seeing are Sleepwalkers, the Stephen King one yes, and Watchers Reborn!



NowI do have to go back and touch on the Greatest Lightsabre duel until Anakin fought Obi-wan in Ep.3. The duel in Return of the Jedi is THE best lightsabre fight in the original trilogy the Green sabre coupled with the orchestration by John Williams is VERY moving you can feel the anger in Luke's every slash at his father! Then he does the impossible and turns from the darkside deactivates his sabre and makes the choice the his father could not on that bridge while holding Dooku unarmed at the knees of Palpatine! whew! just awesome.

oh by the way so you all know Mark Hamill made $650,000 for Star Wars.

In closing I just want to say I love Mark Hamill and his body of work, I would gladly own any of his movies next to the tripe that is put out today. Long Live Skywalker! This photo is for Brad Pitt, suck on it loser!

"By Odin's Beard!", Thoust beard rocks my world...

The beard. A short and powerful, albeit fragmented, sentence. Has anyone noticed the growing resurgence of "the beard"? Mind you I knew of its return long ago and I have proof by way of photos of me with one many years ago when everyone was busy keeping their face as smooth as baby's buttocks. The beard is a cultivated look for a man that wants to look disheveled, beat up, bedraggled, blowzy, dirty, disarranged, disarrayed, disordered, frowzy, grubby, ill-kempt, messy, mussed up, mussy, raunchy, ruffled, rumpled, scuzzed up, skuzzy, sleazy, slipshod, sloppy, slovenly, tousled, uncombed, unkempt, or untidy! So says movies, newspapers, police case profilers, etc...

This opinion of the beard is poppycock, I believe it is the coolest feature a guy can add to make himself look, well, TOUGH! I have the following examples:


Charlton Heston without in The Naked Jungle = Ant Fighter in South America with a mail order bride? Limp!
Charlton Heston with in The 10 Commandments = simply a man that carried the tablets! Tough!


Brad Pitt without in Thelma and Louise = Wimpy pretty boy
Brad Pitt with in Kalifornia = TOUGH, yes he was also a lot of those adjectives listed above.


Guy Pearce without in Priscilla Queen of the desert = uh yeah, he was a drag queen!
Guy Pearce with in Ravenous = Hunts down and kills a cannibal? TOUGH!



Johnny Depp without in 21 Jump Street as Officer Tom Hanson = Teen beat Coverboy!
Johnny Depp with in Pirates of the Caribbean = Cool, swank, needless to say TOUGH!


Tom Hanks without in You've Got Mail = Romantic comedy douche bag.
Tom Hanks with in Cast Away = a guy who survived on an island by himself for FOUR years! TOUGH hombre!


Finally we come to the piece de resistance of "the beard"
Kurt Russell in The Thing, this beard is a thing of beauty. If you have never seen it please, I beg you to google: Kurt Russell and The Thing. You may then behold what is the most impressive beard ever seen on film, that thing(the beard not the alien) is the star of the movie. I started growing mine as soon as laid eyes on that baby!

So in closing I end with beards are amazing and tough, you bastard!

I don't know about you but I'm having a ball.....

Well what can be said about what I call the trilogy of indie comics movies. There have been 3 gorgeous movies made from source material by legends in the left of center comics world. I know of and enjoy the existence of Ghost World, Crumb, & American Splendor but I think those movies transcend the "we came from comics and you can still tell syndrome." Wow is that last sentence a common enough syndrome to both need quotations and desrve being dubbed a "syndrome"? But I digress, the 3 movies that prompted this write up are these: in order of release not favoritism or quality!
1)Hellboy
2)Constantine
3)Sin City

Hellboy - simply put the greatest casting job ever if not for the Sin Citys' casting of Mickey R. as Marv....and Constantine is most likely the most overlooked comic movie this side of Blade 3. Keanu was great as John C. even if he wasn't blonde, who cares! If you don't own these I suggest you go out now and get them! they all three deserve repeated viewings.

What's special, take ya in the back and suck your dick?

ok let's do it...