74 lines
5.2 KiB
Plaintext
74 lines
5.2 KiB
Plaintext
Hotness in Hollywood
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<p>I had planned my string of meditations on the movies to stop with<br />
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three. But, having succumbed to the mischievous blandishments of my<br />
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beloved wife Cathy, here’s a fourth. Today I shall consider hotness in<br />
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Hollywood — some movies that at least partly sold me with<br />
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sex, and how they did it.</p>
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<p><span id="more-276"></span></p>
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<p>So, without further ado, my personal tribute to the most<br />
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incandescent lovelies in recent movies.</p>
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<p>First, Kelly Ann Hu in <cite>The Scorpion King</cite> (2002). No<br />
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swashbuckling sword-and-sorcery movie would be complete without a<br />
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scantily-clad sorceress in it. Kelly Ann Hu fills her chainmail<br />
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bikini in a way guaranteed to make any red-blooded geek fall to his<br />
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knees and howl at the moon. This is your most traditional sort of<br />
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starlet role, as a sexy arm decoration for the male lead. You<br />
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feminist killjoys out there can grump all you want about all that<br />
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exposed flesh, but <em>oh</em>…<em>my</em>…<em>Goddess</em>…she<br />
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was <em>fine</em>. And I didn’t hear any of you gals complaining<br />
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about The Rock running around in nothing but a loincloth, did I,<br />
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hmmm?</p>
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<p>Next, Liv Tyler as Arwen in the Lord Of The Rings movies<br />
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(2001-2004). Another fantasy, another fetching wench. This one,<br />
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however, displays much less skin and gets to kick butt occasionally<br />
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— one of Jackson’s better plot changes was having her replace<br />
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<strike>Gildor Inglorion</strike> Glorfindel in the rescue of the hobbits from Weathertop. Most<br />
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erotic moments for me: the close-ups on Liv’s face and lips as<br />
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she was speaking Elvish. This is surely the most beautiful woman<br />
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on the planet.</p>
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<p>No discussion of recent screen hotness can possibly be complete<br />
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without a nod towards Angelina Jolie in the Tomb Raider movies<br />
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(2001, 2003). Given Ms. Jolie’s luscious natural abundance of curves, I<br />
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thought it silly and unnecessary that they padded her for this role.<br />
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I admired her game efforts to perform something resembling acting in<br />
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the first movie; I feel she she might even have succeeded but for the<br />
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horrible dog of a script. In the second movie she gave up, but no<br />
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blame attaches. My favorite moments were the homages to Diana Rigg<br />
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playing Emma Peel back in the sixties.</p>
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<p>Now we come to Kate Beckinsale in <cite>Van Helsing</cite> (2004).<br />
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Much more active butt-kicking here, albeit conducted in an improbable<br />
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leather corset vaguely recalling Frank’n’furter in the old <cite>Rocky<br />
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Horror Picture Show</cite>. There is no question about Kate’s gender,<br />
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however, and her sexiness is only enhanced by the array of exotic<br />
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weapons and martial-arts moves she wields. Made me want to spar with her,<br />
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then bed her, then spar with her again…</p>
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<p>Halle Berry in <cite>Die Another Day</cite> (2002) gets plenty of<br />
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alpha-female things to do and ought to have been more convincing at<br />
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them than Kate Beckinsale or Angelina Jolie, if only because she isn’t<br />
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trapped in as absurd a setting. But Halle has a problem, which is that<br />
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she’s as dumb as a box of hammers and it shows. Even Kelly Ann Hu<br />
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playing an arm decoration looked more involved and alert.<br />
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Still…still…Berry was so exotically gorgeous and graceful<br />
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that I forgave her for sleepwalking through her role. On some women,<br />
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still photography just works better. Hollywood, take the hint!</p>
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<p>In <cite>Troy</cite> (2004) Rose Byrne managed to out-hottie the<br />
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lead. The way she did it is instructive — where Diane Kruger<br />
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settled for playing Helen as the lacquered blonde bombshell to end all<br />
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lacquered blonde bombshells, Rose’s Briseis seems warm and human and<br />
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touchable. Sometimes, personality matters even when all you’re really<br />
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supposed to be is an object of desire.</p>
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<p>Reaching back a little, Sigourney Weaver re-confirmed the proposition<br />
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that smart can be sexy in <cite>Galaxy Quest</cite> (1999). Her comic<br />
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turn as a bright woman pretending to be a dumb blonde and chafing at it<br />
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was wonderful — now there’s a female lead you could <em>talk</em><br />
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with the next morning. I heard a rumor that Weaver was equipped with an<br />
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inflatable device that gradually pushed up her breasts to make them<br />
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appear larger even as her costume disintegrated during the course<br />
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of the movie. If so, this was funny but just as superflous as<br />
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padding Angelina Jolie — <em>some</em> women have the knack<br />
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of being delicious without a centerfold figure, and our Sigourney<br />
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is one of them.</p>
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<p>And here’s one I’ve added for gender balance:</p>
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<p>Daniel Radcliffe in <cite>Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire</cite> (2005). I have it on good authority that the sight of young master Radcliffe with his shirt off can make a woman weak in the<br />
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knees. I’d solicit some more detailed analysis of this phenomenon, but Cathy tends to drool and mumble incoherently when the subject comes up. I’d rather look at Cho Chang, myself.</p>
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