As Stirlitz in classic Soviet WWII spy drama 
“Seventeen Moments of Spring,” where Tikhonov played his arguably most famous and iconic role, always gave me the warm fuzzies with its ending. It talked about how this Soviet spy, who doesn’t yet know that the war will be ending later in the year, in May, is going to Berlin to continue with his work. It emphasizes the importance of doing your job, regardless of your delicate fee-fees.
Anyway, besides all that, Tikhonov was simply a great actor.
And, you know, the thing about Patrick Stewart, what makes him so infinitely watchable, is the fact that whenever a character of his has a supremely difficult moment, you know that it’s coming from a real place inside of him, and yet it is also very dignified. And I don’t mean “dignified” as in “uptight.” I mean that Patrick Stewart has freaking dignity, man. A single half-smile from Stewart is more profound than an entire lifetime of shenanigans from most of Hollywood. And there are reasons for that, reasons that have to do with his talent, and reasons that, I realize now, must have so much to do with what he lived through. Patrick Stewart, I salute you.
…
And because things are getting intense around here, here’s a LOLPicard (I guess technically it’s a LOLPatrickStewart, since he’s not really in character here, but no need to get pedantic, really):
He most likely could, dudes. He most likely could.
I admire Chekhov, and not just for his writing, and not just because he was startlingly hot either. To paraphrase Ivan Bunin, Chekhov was not a little bitch. Even when he knew he was dying from TB, he didn’t whine hysterically from the pages of Russian literary journals. He didn’t ask his readers for hugs. His last words were, “I haven’t had champagne in a while,” as opposed to “OMG OMG IS DYING HALP.”
Dearest sheepie, won't you hold me tighter in this winter of discontent (and sketchy hot water issues)
As you can guess, I admire Anton Pavlovich for qualities I lack. It’s like admiring a purse on someone else’s shoulder – a heart-patterned Moschino, maybe – something you couldn’t afford if you pimped yourself out to every halfway-decent publication in this city. It’s not jealousy per se, it’s more like awe. “Anton Pavlovich, where did you get that heart-patterned… I mean, Anton Pavlovich, how on earth did you manage to keep your cool like that? Is it a genetic thing? An ancient art?”
Because of passport issues, I’m grounded in Ukraine right now. On one hand, this is good, as it forces me to save money. On the other hand, this is bad, because there is nothing that I can physically do to escape the soul-crushing, cold, deep, starless darkness that blooms in vivid, elaborate splotches all over my being, like the bubonic plague. I’ve been depressed since last year, since moving to Amman. But it’s like a fever that’s spiking now. I knew I’ve lost some weight recently, but nothing could have prepared me for the actual numbers when I finally stepped on a scale. It affords me with an excuse to go shopping, and I can’t even muster up enough energy to rejoice about that. Unmoved by bright-lit shops and the swish of plastic. The seventh seal has been opened.
A Vulcan would be bemused by depression. There’s nothing logical about it. Friends will say, “you have a job, a family, and your tits are still fairly perky. Snap out of it.” By all rights, you should. The world does not suffer from lack of tragedy. Your grandmother is in hospital with a crusty rash on her skin that makes it hard to move. Someone tried to rape your friend, and there will be no legal repercussions. Your aunt’s heart has been reduced to a vaguely pitter-pattering piece of gristle after her daughter’s death. Ralph Lauren is threatening people for making deserved fun of its “X-Files”-inspired Photoshop disaster. “Peace is an illusion, says Israel FM.” And so on.
Ultimately, it’s hard to get depression to kick off the blinders and be appraised of its own insignificance. Pain is narcissistic. It’s the belle of the ball. It’s a douchebag with spiky hair, a miasma of Axe, and a publicist.
Alyosha Popovich, Dobrynya Nikitych and Ilya Muromets
Crappy phone camera, crappy light, good subjects. It’s rare to have three intense young men in a marshrutka, in a row, and none of them swearing at a girlfriend over his mobile or something jarring like that. It’s rare – or maybe I don’t keep my eyes peeled all that much.
He is not half through yet, and to what he will come in the end not even Elrond can foretell. Not to evil, I think. He may become like a glass filled with a clear light for eyes to see that can. – The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Chapter: “Many Meetings.”
Tell me they’re not flirting here. In that whole mannnly way. You know. The kind I like.
Nose-to-nose, baby.
Hat-tip to Sarah.
I shit you not, my fair friends, someone has actually posted the line above.
I had a sarcastic response lined up, and then I thought, why bother? Why bother with someone who’s invested in the idea that Star Trek belongs to a noble subculture of dudely doodz whose responses to it are so much more profound than anything the silly ladies might think or feel? Why bother with someone who is outraged by the fact that the new film featured male babes as well as female ones, struck down by the possibility that “holy shit, they didn’t just have heterosexual males in mind when they made this”?
Although I encounter this thinking with some regularity, I can never be bothered to address it properly. This type of territoriality is amusing in bullfrogs and gorillas. In the human species, it just seems so… sad. Sad in a way that a kid crying over an overturned ice cream cone is sad.
You just want to go – “awww. Here’s a dollar. Buy yourself more ice cream, sweetie.” And tousle their hair a lil bit.
Or, in other words, the new Star Trek is pretty damn sweet.
Enjoy.
So unless the gods fail me in a major way (it’s been known to happen), I’m off to London this Friday. I don’t think I’ve ever needed a holiday more. I fully intend on doing some traveling outside the city, as well as within it, and there are people and places on my agenda.
The other part of my agenda is “chilling the fuck out.” I wish I could put it in a nicer way, but I can’t.
With that in mind, this Monday Music edition must start off with the new Tori Amos single – a song about not forgetting who the hell you are when you’re living in a place that’s utterly Not Home (and for me, that place is Jordan): “You better bring your own sun, sweet girl.”
I am…er…transfixed.
Wait, did I say “playing Prince of Persia”?
I meant reading Jameson on Jameson: Conversations on Cultural Marxism. What did you think I meant? What, you people like me participate in mass entertainment culture? A mass entertainment culture with Orientalist elements? And write about it? Using our own names? While struggling to maintain the veneer of genuine intellectual engagement with the, uh… the… uh…
What do the kids intellectually engage with nowadays? Genuinely, I mean.
Anyway, I’m just seeing if you’re paying attention.
This game is so sweet – I can taste it in the back of my throat. And, you know, a lot still needs to be said about the exaggerated portrayals of women in the video game ‘verse – but it’s good to remember that fellas like my Prince here are pretty exaggerated as well, and that is sort of endearing to me at the moment. I’ll admit it, I’m not above ogling game characters. There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s a work of art. It be pweety.
Perhaps there is a lesson in the fact that Boyfriend doesn’t immediately drop and do a hundred push-ups upon watching me spend my entire day with the Prince. Perhaps it is a grim one.
Yeah. So. Be back. Er. Whenever.
I’ve been reminded that for all of the blathering about sexxxay, sexxxay men that I engage in around here, I haven’t been providing my readers with a whole lot of practical ogling options. Well, Stephen Moyer is featured below, and now it’s time for a return to my fangirl roots, with a few notes on Mr. Wahlberg and Mr. McGregor.
every dog has its day... picture from TheStranger.com
Mark Wahlberg, formerly known as Marky Mark, of course, is a surprising success story. Few people believed that this guy could ever shed his former image. He was hot, sure, but nobody took him very seriously (possibly because he was so hot), and his career was mostly a sort of punchline to many, his talent vastly overlooked.
Well, haters, I invite you all to do as the doggie does – eat Mark’s shorts.
I remember walking out of “Three Kings” and going – “wow, you know, that man can really act.” My companions said something to the extent of “Marky Mark! *haw haw* Marky Mark!” I had to politely disagree (“Boogie Nights” had already come out by then, but it took me a few years to see it, I was still a kid). Or was it impolitely? I can’t remember. Anyway, I think that Mark Wahlberg is the perfect example of someone who gets trivialized because he’s just another “hot piece of ass” but, in reality, is great at what he does. The best of both worlds.
Mark doing is thing in The Departed. Picture from thecinematheque.com
I can’t believe that there are still people out there who act shocked that Mark Wahlberg has already been nominated for an Oscar. It’s like they get up every morning, brush their teeth, feed the cat, flip on the news as they pour their cereal into the bowl and then go – “Wait a minute, MARK WAHLBERG was NOMINATED for an OSCAR?” It must be pretty tough, to have to face that, over and over again.
Now, Ewan McGregor, on the other hand, people take pretty seriously, especially in the States. Even the dreadful Star Wars 1 – 3 couldn’t really do anything to this man. I wonder if the fact that he has an accent has something to do with that. Or perhaps GQ (or was it Esquire?) got it right when they said that Ewan McGregor was more “ugly-pretty” – on one hand, he’s attractive, on the other hand, you’re still trying to figure out what’s so special about the man. I have a theory that people like McGregor simply don’t threaten the more male-dominated facets of the media as much. Although that theory tends to fall apart when you look at just how much time McGregor has spent naked on the screen. Considering that we are still trying to unpackage (*haw haw haw*) most of the discomfort surrounding full-on male nudity – seeing as female bodies are OK for consumption, but there is still something “shocking” about seeing male bodies this way (I could go on a long rant about sexist double standards here, but I will save it for another day) – people should be *terrified* of Ewan McGregor. They are not. Ewan McGregor appears to be made of hotness, brilliance, and teflon.
i couldn't resist the creative censoring. from Film Experience Blog: filmexperience.blogspot.com
It must be noted that Ewan McGregor’s nude scenes did a lot for my development from a girl into a woman. Much more than any Judy Blume book ever could.
No matter how much I giggled over them, truth was, I was getting an education.
I was weirded out by the idea that it’s OK for women to run around nekkid on the screen, but not for men. Male nudity was what I really craved. I hated how there was a lot of nervousness about the whole thing, or how it was almost obligatory to refer to the male body as “funny-looking” or whatever. Ewan McGregor knew he had to provide for my needs, and the needs of millions of other women out there, and provide he did. I’m glad that he became angry when Sony Classics decided that his naked body, as featured in “Young Adam,” was not fit for viewing on American screens. It’s quite fit actually, love. 
And we wants MOAR!
... and I dig the hair. picture from ibabuzz.com
I think the other reason why Ewan McGregor remains such a big star – why girls like me where able to grow up on him, and still have him in our celebrity drool matrix today, has to do with other issues of non-conformity. McGregor, for example, wears eyeliner just as well as his naked body. “Eyeliner,” you’re thinking, “what’s the big deal about eyeliner?”
Seeing that as a teenage girl, I became excited. As much as I like to adorn and decorate myself, I also rather enjoy it when men adorn and decorate themselves as well. Much like Cher from “Clueless,” I don’t think it’s particularly great that for so many years, men just weren’t asked to consider make-up and other fun trappings. Men still aren’t required to try as hard as women, and even though I think that we should all essentially try a little less since the beauty industry is out of control, I think the idea of a man adorning himself this way is pretty great. I’m a woman who’s into make-up, and I wish more men were into it. Because it’s hot and it’s fun to play around with that sort of thing. Being able to share something that you consider hot and fun with a man is nothing short of awesome. And McGregor does it so much better than Zac Efron (learn from the masters, Zac).
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