Buckle your swashes!

Out in Hollywood, where life is cheap and sin walks naked through the streets, or would walk naked, if anyone out there ever walked.  Where sin drives naked through the streets.  Out there they've figured out what everyone who saw Fellowship of the Ring figured out thirty seconds after Legolas appeared on screen:  Orlando Bloom is a movie star.

A particular movie star.

Errol Flynn.

Actually, he's more like Flynn's nicer, more gentlemanly, better behaved kid brother, which is the part he played in Pirates of the Caribbean, where he seemed to be auditioning for a remake of Flynn's star-making vehicle, Captain Blood.

So the bold, original thinkers who run their studios with all the vision of frightened rabbits who trying to escape a predetor keep running straight down the side of the road for half a mile before it occurs to them to duck under the hedge that's been right there beside them the whole way, have tabbed Bloom as a swashbuckler and apparently do not plan to let him star in any movie without a sword in his hand any time soon.

Fine and dandy.  But never let it be said that the bold, original thinkers out in Hollywood see a forest when they can find a tree to focus on, which they then run into full tilt, again and again and again.  Afterwards they blame the forest for having trees in it and order in the lumberjacks to have it clear cut.

They'll keep casting Bloom in swashbuckling epic after swashbuckling epic until a string of box office bombs convinces them that their lack of imagination is all Orlando's fault and he's packed off to make movies in Spain.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest comes out next year, and a third Pirates movie in 2007.

Bloom does seem born to buckle a swash with the best of them, but he needs to develop more of a sense of humor if he's going to cross swords with the likes of Flynn, Tyrone Power, Douglas Fairbanks, and Stewart Granger, and live to tell the tale.

He's capable of it.  He showed a sly, deadpan humor as Legolas in Lord of the Rings and even as the stalwart and overserious Will Turner, straight man to Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow, he had flashes of wit and the devil may care attitude that all swashbuckling heroes must have in the face of impossible odds.

But then along came Troy.  All he was given to do in that one was pout and look pretty.

But that's all Brad Pitt and Eric Bana and the starlet we'll never hear of again who played Helen had to do, as well.

Troy was made by people who thought that the main attractions of swashbuckling epics are great legs, bare chests, and big swords, which, for some people I expect to hear from in the comments, is the case.

So Bloom pouted and posed and waved his big sword around and looked very pretty, prettier than the soon-to-be-forgotten starlet playing Helen but not as pretty as Brad Pitt, and the movie bombed.

Now he's in Ridley Scott's Crusader epic Kingdom of Heaven.  From the stills and the trailers it doesn't appear to me that he's pouting all the time or that all he's required to look is pretty.  In fact he looks pretty grubby.  He waves a big sword around but it doesn't look like he's having a good time.  Of course, he's on a Crusade and the Crusades weren't anybody's idea of a rollicking high times.  They were pretty grim, and grubby, affairs, and that's what everybody in the trailers and stills is busy doing, looking grim and grubby.

Bloom looks grim.

Liam Neeson looks grim.

Jeremy Irons looks grim.

The starlet playing the love interest, whom we'll never hear of again, looks especially grim, probably because she's thinking to herself, I can't believe they hired the same costume designer who managed to erase all traces of character, beauty, grace, and sex appeal from Natalie Portman in the Star Wars movies to dress me!

Edward Norton's in it, although I can't find him in any of the pictures or trailers, but I'll bet he looks the grimmest of them all, seeing as how he's playing a leper.

David Thewlis doesn't look grim.  But he never looks grim.  He looks debauched, like a Roman emperor who's been orgying for three days straight and is just waiting for his head to stop throbbing before he dives back in among the dancing girls.

All the way through Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban I was thinking of Thewlis's Professor Lupin that if I were a parent of a student at Hogwarts the fact that he was a werewolf would be the least of my worries about him.

But, bad as it is that the powers that be in Hollywood seem determined to deny Bloom the chance to show the high spirits of his swashbuckling forebears, they also seem to have missed or are deliberately ignoring the fact that Bloom's natural fan base is the kids who saw him in Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean.

They know he's a heartthrob, but they don't care that the hearts that are throbbing most violently beat in the training-bra clad chests of 13 and 14 year old girls!

What was Troy rated?

R.

What's Kingdom of Heaven rated?

R.

Meanwhile, on a related theme:

Johnny Depp.

Excellent, of course.  And he was quite the surprise as a swashbuckling hero in Pirates of the Caribbean, wasn't he?

Like everyone else, I got a great kick out of the way he played Captain Jack Sparrow as Keith Richards.

I have to wonder, though, about what he's up to in Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

He's starring as Willy Wonka, which is great.

But why has he decided to play Willy Wonka as Mary Tyler Moore?

(For your further blogging and dancing pleasure:  George is working his way back into shape at A Girl and a Gun and he's posted a nice appreciation and biographical sketch of Errol Flynn.  George doesn't say, but I wonder if his post was inspired by the recent release of this.  Doggone it, I've got to get around to putting up my Amazon Wish List here.  Oh well.  There's always the tip jar.  Rattle, rattle.)

Comments

[mrs. norman maine]

"All the way through Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban I was thinking of Thewlis's Professor Lupin that if I were a parent of a student at Hogwarts the fact that he was a werewolf would be the least of my worries about him."

And I was thinking that the obvious U.K. actor to play Lupin with the right amount of humanity, poignancy and animal (heh) magnetism is Ewan McGregor. And that it's a bloody shame it is that he signed on to the Star Wars franchise when the HP movies would have suited him so much better.

By the way, where's Part 2 of the Sideways discussion? Is there nothing we can count on anymore in this crazy ol' world?

[Jaquandor]

Not to annoy you unnecessarily or anything, but my copy of the Errol Flynn Signature Collection arrived on my doorstep approximately ninety minutes ago. And I can't wait. The way I see it, the price tag is basically "The Sea Hawk" and "Captain Blood" plus three free movies and a free documentary.

If you buy it through Amazon, it qualifies for free shipping as long as you're willing to wait an extra few days for it to arrive.

[Linkmeister]

I'm sure I'm quoting someone, but "Hollywood! Where creative ideas go to die!"

Trite, mundane, repetitive...all adjectives which fit the studios to a "T."

[Dave Bell]

Either I'm remembering the advertising wrong, or Kingdom of Heaven, just like Pirates of the Caribbean, has Orlando Bloom playing a swashbuckling blacksmith.

A definite lack of imagination. And his muscles are wrong.

[mcnairk]

Actually, he plays a somewhat unusual Crusader - a very humanist one who's more interested in peace than in being a holy warrior. He actually does a brilliant job of the acting, but something about the movie didn't quite hang together properly. The first 15 minutes, where he actually has to act (before speaking any lines) are pretty impressive...

[Sara & Taylor]

Johny Depp is a hott hunk of sugar. I think he is the hottest thing that has ever walked the planet, I'd like to just eat him alive. He looks the hottest when he's a pirate...Sleepy Hollow... maybe....Edward Sizzerhands...cute,I feel pitty on his soul....Pirates 1 and Pirates 2.. Honka Honka Burnin' Love, oh yeah.... Hottie with a capitol T

[Andrea Vitali]

Hola, estoy encantada con las peliculas de Jonny Deep, me encantan sobre todo Eduardo Manostijeras, es muy buena. Tambien me han gustado mucho los piratas del caribe y espero que nunca os separeis Jack, Elisabeth y Will sin vosotros la peli no es tan guapa pero e escuchado que Elisabeth y Will se van de la peli espero que antes de iros os lo penseis muy, muy bien porque lo importante no es el dinero, sino hacer bien tu papel. Yo soy actriz con 13 años me pagan pero lo que mas me importaes ver a los niños pasarselo bien, no salgo en peliculas ni soy famosa solo ago teatro y me encanta nunca e azeptado my paga, porqe lo qe verdaderamente importa es que la obra le guste al publico, es lo mismo que en el cine. Enfin si quereis contactar con migo tenia my correo electronico o si no os lo doy ahora: andeita_la_chulita@htmail.com.

Adios.
Mucho besos: andrea vitali civico

[Riley]

I LOVE ORLANDO BLOOM!!!!!!!(KISS KISS)

[Farmer Blu]

ORLANDO BLOOM IS FREAKEN HOTT!!!!!!!!!!!

[LilMama679]

ORLANDO BLOOM IS SO FREAKIN HOTT!!!!!! HE LOOKS WICKED HOTT AS WILL TURNER ON PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN!!!!

HE IS SO FREAKIN HOTT!!!!!!!!!!

[Cat]

orlando is sssssssssssssmokin!!!!!!!!!!!

[crazy fan]

I luv him so ><