Category Archives: very hot men

musing, twilight, vampires, very hot men

Vampiracally Speaking

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I have never been one for vampires.

There was that one class in college my senior year, when I needed a diversion from thesis writing and Honors seminars. It was memorable mostly for the professor, a youngish, spry fellow who you just knew would someday end up in bed with a student. One example of his questionable judgment: On the day that specs — i.e., high schoolers — were sitting in on the class, he showed us a long clip from an NC-17, campy Andy Warhol romp.

Anyway, I have no real complaints about that class. I ended up with an A and got to read Dracula for the first time, which I recommend as a perfect Victorian artifact.

Years before, as a young teenager, I read Memnoch the Devil, about which I only recall that two lovers bond when — spoiler alert! — the undead man laps up the woman’s menstrual blood. That would never fly in an age of AIDS education.

One Twilight movie was quite enough for me, thank you. The closest I’ve come to the books has been listening to Alex rip hilariously through them.

And so on. Vampires? Eh. They’re strong, I guess, generally European and high-class; they dress well. I remain unmoved.

Why then have I gotten so drawn into Buffy the Vampire Slayer over the last month? And how embarrassing is this to even admit? It’s a TV show (check) that aired on the WB (check) aimed at teenage girls (double check) featuring witches, vampires, and a sci-fi / fantasy plot (KILL ME NOW).

Even worse: I developed serious flutterings for one of the characters. You know which one. The one with the cheekbones and the (okay, fake, but still unfathomably sexy) British accent. Watching Spike — his name is Spike, for christ’s sake! what is he, a pit bull? — I felt like a 15 year old again unable to look away from Titanic.

I cried during Titanic. Then I went to the theater to cry through it again. Only on the third viewing, this time on HBO, did I notice how awful the script was. Sure, it was sad that the Irish moppets died, and the sweet old couple, and those noble musicians, but mostly I watched Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet and I cried because I thought I would never have a love that pure.

Spike is a much darker protagonist than Jack, of course, more in the line of merry, amoral Rhett Butler for whom I also nursed a teenage devotion. When push came to shove, though, Rhett Butler was willing to walk away from a passion that was killing him. Spike and Jack, bless their tragic hearts, see it through like characters in Italian opera, expiring to save the woman they love.

I’ve been in a happy relationship for almost ten years now, and apparently, for some reason, that moony 15 year old lives on. I am no better than the girls participating in the endless “Spike or Angel?” debates. To which, btw, I say, Are you kidding? One of them stomps around looking sullen all the time. The other?

The other is a funny, lanky, sex-obsessed, cheerfully profane Brit. You hear me, out there in tween land? NO CONTEST.

And now I’m telling you about it, because I have not even a smidgen of pride left.

movies, TV, very hot men

… and it’s over

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I have been a media glutton lately. Observe:

WEDNESDAY – Knocked Up. And if you think my reaction was conflicted, compare it to the spitting ire of the Flick Filosopher.

THURSDAY – An advance free screening of Becoming Jane, essentially Shakespeare in Love-lite with James McAvey as a hotter version of Joseph Fiennes. Where did all these smoking hot British men come from all of a sudden? Back in the day, our selection was limited to the admittedly more-than-acceptable Ewan MacGregor. Now he’s jostling for space with Colin Firth, Clive Owen, Daniel Craig, and Glen Hansard from Once, not to mention the whole cast of Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. Where were they before I got engaged?

FRIDAY – LA Story for Mr. Ben’s sake. I fell asleep halfway through since, before we settled in, we’d spent an indefensible amount of time trying to pick out the Perfect Bedset. What this means in practice was that we spent several hours with our ears to the computer screen, waiting to hear the sweet song of the Comforter-Pillow-Sheet-Duvet Combo that would really complete us as a couple.

SATURDAY – Chapter 2 of Angels in America with my viewing posse. I own the DVD so that, when I mention it Kushner’s version in conversation and someone hasn’t made the 6-hour chunk of time available to subject themselves to it, I can offer it up. (This is also why I own the A&E Pride & Prejudice, Pulp Fiction, and any number of other pieces of Essential Viewing.)

SUNDAY – and the reason I began writing this entry: the final episode, at long last, of the Sopranos, widely recognized as the best television series I’ve ever watched through my fingers. The fact that I — with my famously low tolerance for violence — have found it worthwhile to experience almost a decade of this show should testify to how impressive the acting, pacing, and scripting are, if anyone needs convincing. But you don’t, right? You’ve seen the show, starting from Season 1? Cuz if you haven’t, I have the DVDs …

In a way I’m glad we’ve gotten the final episode out of the way. I’m the sort of the person that likes to have suspense done with so that I can reread or rewatch and focus on details, not plot. But I did like the finale. Very few people can do suspense as well as David Chase; I nearly fibrillated during that last scene at the diner. When the screen cut to black and a string of curses rose up from the entire East Coast, I felt the same immediate frustration and disappointment I imagine everyone did. But I also think there was something genius about that Brechtian move on DC’s part — calling attention to the medium (how many people thought their cable had gone out?), reminding us that this is just art, that we shouldn’t let our emotions overwhelm us.

Also, whether or not you think Tony died in that moment when the screen went black, you have to believe that the best of his life is behind him. He’s caught in the same self-destructive, self-obsessed patterns, only now he doesn’t have Melfi to help him pan for small shiny bits of insight. He has his wife’s and his son’s loyalty but only because he bought them; and two of the closest members of his work family are gone forever. Instead of saving babies the way Tony hoped she would as a pediatrician, his daughter will spend her life trying to save mobsters as a lawyer and it’s because of Tony. He’ll always have to live looking over his shoulder and even if he isn’t killed, the specter of Junior lies ahead of him: wasting away toothless in a New Jersey state hospital with no memory of the pride or glory that made “this thing of ours” worth dying for in the first place.