I recently dug up a comment from 7 years ago about electronic dance music, and now I'm ready to respond to a request from a year ago to give my opinion on the late Paul Walker, star of The Fast and Furious car heist movies, who died sadly but kind of awesomely last year when his agent drove his brand new Porsche with Walker in it into a telephone pole at high speed. So, don't give up hope if I don't respond for months or years to your comments. I might just be mulling it over at length.
Walker was presumably chosen for the F&F movies because he looked somewhat like the late Steve McQueen, who came from an era of movie stars who loved auto racing (e.g., James Dean, Paul Newman).
Watching the fifth movie, Fast Five (the one in Brazil in which professional wrestler Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is introduced as the FBI agent hunting the crew), I'm reminded that back in the Steve McQueen era, movie stars typically had skulls that were less deformed than the normal man's. As a good-looking guy with a head that apparently hadn't been rearranged by massive Performance Enhancing Drug use, Walker is the odd man out in his scenes with Diesel and the Rock (who looks and talks these days rather like the late Wilt Chamberlain).
If they had decent hair covering we wouldn't see their heads. Is the shaven-savage look a matter of choice, or do the drugs embalden them?
ReplyDeleteWhat's strange about The Rock is that he went from very muscular to grotesquely muscular mostly *after* he left professional wrestling full-time to pursue a film career.
ReplyDeletehttp://tribalwrestling.com/wp-content/uploads/the-rock-wwe-superstar.jpg
http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20131014061946/prowrestling/images/9/9e/The_Rock_18_GD.png
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PbqNmPU4HqI/UQGbia_j2LI/AAAAAAAAOFY/nl4hANMR-MA/s1600/The+Rock+Dwayne+Johnson+steroids.jpg
Steve, we can finally rest easily now that you have acknowledged that Paul Walker had the most perfectly shaped head in Hollywood. You must feel better now after getting that off your chest.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't HGH have a link to increased head size?
ReplyDeleteIt's the neck muscles that are rooted in the shoulders, shooting upward in a knot of tree limb girth to coil around the skull that distorts it all. That and the veins on the temples that look like rivulettes of mercury pouring from a sweaty brow.
DeleteThrow some ice water on me!
That's it?
ReplyDeleteFour sentemces arranged into three paragraphs?
Is this supposed to be some sort of a minimalist artsy-craftsy psychobabble humanities-major thingamabob which symbolizes the triumph of form over substance?
Steroids are said to accelerate the male balding process if one is prone to it. HGH can deform the shape of the head by giving it the Frankenstein look seen in cases of acromegaly. Walker looked like a normal person in comparison to those shaven headed cartoon characters. No big tattoos either. Looking normal might be getting to be an unusual thing these days.
ReplyDelete"That's it?
ReplyDeleteFour sentemces arranged into three paragraphs?
Is this supposed to be some sort of a minimalist artsy-craftsy psychobabble humanities-major thingamabob which symbolizes the triumph of form over substance?"
Try the NYT for more words, sentences and paragraphs. And the gravest substance on all matters.
GP
The Rock played football at U of Miami (just before Ray Lewis took his job). He was a linebacker and had to be light enough to run to the ball. He was still light when he got to the WWF, but had bitch tits because of past steroid use/being half Samoan. Once he had breast reduction surgery he got big.
ReplyDeleteThen he lost weight when he got into movies. About 2 or 3 years ago he returned to the ring and just blew himself up.
The Rock was an incredible wrestler and hugely charismatic.
OT: the results of the European elections are (mostly) in. UKIP has won big in Britain and the Front National in France. Anti-EU and anti-immigration parties are in the ascendancy across the continent.
ReplyDeleteUKIP has even won a seat in Scotland, to the dismay of Scottish nationalists who like to sneer at the plebeian English and their increasing tendency to vote for anti-immigrationist candidates (easy to do when your own country hasn't been inundated with immigration).
Pundits are bemused that the Labour party has done well in London but is fading into insignificance in other parts of the country (including its working-class heartlands). Of course, the truth is that Labour is rapidly becoming the non- and anti-white party, and with London being the most non-white city of course it's doing best there. In the white working-class towns of e.g. the north of England, Labour is dying.
Paul Walker has what they call boyish good looks, and was probably targeted at the teenage girls who are dragged to the movies by their boyfriends.
ReplyDeleteSteve McQueen on the other hand has thuggish dark bad boy looks like Daniel Craig.
The autopsy showed Walker died of "thermal injuries". Witnesses say they saw him moving while the car became engulfed in flames.
ReplyDeleteI hope I die in a less awesome way.
That's it?
ReplyDeleteFour sentemces arranged into three paragraphs?
We have waited 12 months with bated breath for your tribute to Paul Walker, and this is it? If Paul Walker were still with us he would never have allowed this disrespect to go unanswered.
http://www.dawn.com/news/1108154/arabicising-pakistan
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dawn.com/news/1108023/a-leaf-from-history-bhutto-nabbed
I'm often confused by posts here. I think smetimes Steve is being opaque in what he wants to say and you have to already "get it" to understand what he's talking about.
ReplyDeleteIs there anything here being implied?
The Rock gets paid handsomely for looking the way he does. Incidentally, even though he looks like a most fearsome football player, he wasn't very good at football in college.
ReplyDeleteIt's simple, really: if you could increase your income manyfold and look awesome, why *wouldn't* you use more PEDs? And get surgeries to remove man-boobs, as he did.
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21602683-narendra-modis-amazing-victory-gives-india-its-best-chance-ever-prosperity-indias-strongman?fsrc=scn%2Ftw%2Fte%2Fpe%2Fed%2Fstrongman
ReplyDeleteSteroid supplementing leads to hair loss.
ReplyDeleteQuid pro quo.....
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21602683-narendra-modis-amazing-victory-gives-india-its-best-chance-ever-prosperity-indias-strongman?fsrc=scn%2Ftw%2Fte%2Fpe%2Fed%2Fstrongman
ReplyDelete"Mr Modi has a mandate for economic reform. Although his core supporters are religious nationalists, steeped in the glories of a Hindu past, it was the votes of the young, urban and educated that won him the election. They were turned off by Congress’s drift and venality, and its preference for welfare handouts over fostering opportunity. They want the chance of self-advancement that Mr Modi, a tea-seller’s son, both represents and promises."
the gop dream
urban rich + social cons
urban rich will side with social cons only if the 'left' is too tough on business
but if, like clinton, the 'left' is pro-biz and pro-law/order, urb rich will go with 'left' which is seen as 'cooler'
http://lionoftheblogosphere.wordpress.com/2014/05/26/final-summary-of-elliot-rodgers-autobiography/
ReplyDeleteSorry to go off topic but Elliot Rodgers was roommates with three Chinese-Americans.
ReplyDeleteWhat sort of a white supremacist was he?
Paul Walker, as blonde and blue-eyed and perfect-headed as he may have been, had a massive following among Blacks and Latinos. His character in the F&F series was one of the rare white characters to "submit" to an underground, illegal, minority-dominated subculture - and instead of pulling an Eminem, growing more successful than the master (Dr. Dre) and taking it "mainstream", willingly stayed in the loyal sidekick/apprentice/nephew role to mixed-race Vin Diesel's Dom. The adulation he received from the black/hispanic communities is directly related to this - you could see just how much of an impact he had on Tyrese's life (his black sidekick in the films), along with the constant refrain among black commentators after his death that "he was a real one" (read: he was one of us).
ReplyDeleteThere's a class angle here as well, but that's for someone better versed in those things to explore.
He wasn't in a "nephew" role. He was Dom's brother-in-law.
DeleteI never thought of the Steve McQueen resemblance, but Walker probably looked more like him toward the end of his life than in the first F&F movie.
ReplyDeleteThe one in Brazil was probably the best, btw. It's bookended by two of the best chase/heist scenes in the series.
Re the Rock: that move where he flips himself up to a standing position from his back is an incredible bit of athleticism for someone his size. His shirt looks a couple of sizes too small though.
i actually know a neighbor of Dwayne's - by all accounts he is a very nice person. well liked by neighbors & friends.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.juancole.com/2014/05/palestinians-terrible-humanity.html
ReplyDeleteThe WORLD is to blame?
You mean like the Nepalese, Somalis, Hindus, Chinese, Cameroonis, Bolivians, etc?
No, globo-Zionist Jews did this and Jews are doing the same thing to western nations by pushing for policies that will lead to huge demographic displacement of the indigenous populations.
http://forward.com/articles/198758/ukraine-presidential-frontrunner-petro-poroshenko/
ReplyDeleteOff topic, but you're blocked at Syracuse's airport and tagged with "discrimination" and "hate site."
ReplyDeleteAn awful lot of photogenic women (Marilyn Monroe for example) have really large heads. And in films they are careful the man does not visibly have a smaller head than the women. For a man, David Niven had a very small and smooth cranium. He really looked odd.
ReplyDeleteThe amazing thing to me is how tall actors were right up until the 60's. Wayne, Peck, ect towered at least 6 inches over the average height for men of their generation. On TV the stars like Clint Walker, James Arness and Fess Parker were all 6'6''. Back then, if they wanted lumpy huge headed actors they had to look for pituitary cases.
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2014/05/our-oppressed-oppressors.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+FromNyToIsraelSultanRevealsTheStoriesBehindTheNews+%28from+NY+to+Israel+Sultan+Reveals+The+Stories+Behind+the+News%29
ReplyDeleteLearn the HTML for an anchor tag, and try describing what your linking to instead of being a sperg about it.
DeleteThere he goes again, old skull studying Steve Sailer, studying skulls like the 19th century race scientist he wishes he could be.
ReplyDeleteWhy Steve? Don't you know skulls are a social construct?
The worst example I ever saw of the head-deforming properties of HGH was a local cashierette who used to be a cute sexy young lass, though slightly airheaded. Saw her again after an interval of a few months. She looked like Frankenstein's monster with caterpillar eyebrows, and it wasn't even Halloween.
ReplyDeleteWell, the blockish shape of Walker's head does seem peculiar to certain ancestries.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's ultimately a Neandertal thing?
When Vin Diesel first became famous in 'Pitch Black' I looked him up on the web. I thought that he was a professional wrestler. So by mistake I ran across this dead wrestlers website.
ReplyDeleteThere were plenty of exhibits describing guys who had been in the business for decades. These were the geezers. There were a few geezers. But the disturbing part was all the guys whose heart blew up when they were thirty five. There were a lot of wrestlers who never made it to forty.
I don't seem to remember any testosterone abuse stories in wrestling. Maybe people expect pro wrestlers to take anabolic steroids in the standard course of events. So there is no room for scandal. But steroid use seems to catch up with them anyway.
Pat Boyle
"""""""""""""""That's it?""""""""""""""""
ReplyDeleteLike, yeah. It's Memorial Day and he doesnt have to post tons of stuff today if he doesn't feel like it. Not like Walker was bigger than Pitt or Clooney, come on!
""""""""""""back in the Steve McQueen era, movie stars typically had skulls that were less deformed than the normal man's. As a good-looking guy with a head that apparently hadn't been rearranged by massive Performance Enhancing Drug use, Walker is the odd man out in his scenes with Diesel and the Rock (who looks and talks these days rather like the late Wilt Chamberlain).""""""""""""""""""""
Woah, woah, Wilt didn't do PEDS. Now Elgin Baylor, he could've used them to help him out at the end of his career. If Baylor had done PEDS in '71, he'd have gotten to play in the 71-72 NBA finals.
Translation: Contrary to the AFL Chargers of the 60s (always exempting HOF Lance Alworth) classic Hollywood was PED free. After all, PEDS wouldn't have helped them for the parts they played anyway. They weren't athletes.
Humphrey Bogart, Marlon Brando, and John Wayne weren't popping roids.
Happy Memorial Day to all!
Not that Google noticed.
a head that apparently hadn't been rearranged by massive Performance Enhancing Drug use
ReplyDeleteAnd now even Godzilla is juicing:
Japanese fans accuse the new 'American' Godzilla of being too fat
If we had to elect a half-black guy, why'd we have to get stuck with the dweeby version Chicago's Jews were pushing. We couldda had "The Rock" as President. If we're going to hell, let's at least have some style.
ReplyDelete(Since we were supposed to vote black, i voted for Thomas Sowell, an *actual* black intellectual inside this phony bozo.)
To me, Walker always looked like a blond-haired Rob Lowe.
ReplyDeleteWhat's strange about The Rock is that he went from very muscular to grotesquely muscular mostly *after* he left professional wrestling full-time to pursue a film career.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that's strange. Wrestlers have to have "working muscles" while actors are all about visually impressive muscles.
I'm surprised this article hasn't gotten more attention here.
http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/building-a-bigger-action-hero-20140418
I've never watched an F&F movie. I had never heard of Walker until the day he died. I suspect I am far from rare in that regard.
ReplyDeleteI think Keanu Reeves is the new Steve McQueen. His mother was a showgirl, and his father left her before Keanu was born. A good athlete in high school but he didn't graduate. He went to Hollywood with no connections and succeeded well (net worth $300 million) but has stayed down to earth.
He doesn't seem to be too political, which is nice, and keeps riding motorcycles even though seriously injured in a wreck one time.
"If they had decent hair covering we wouldn't see their heads. Is the shaven-savage look a matter of choice, or do the drugs embalden them?"
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if either are 'naturally' (har har) bald, but having a shaved head certainly helps increase their 'ambiguously ethnic' appeal and relate to a wider audience (growing out their fro's would be too strong an ethnic marker)
"Off topic, but you're blocked at Syracuse's airport"
ReplyDeleteYou mean the wifi service?
According to quite a few random Internet postings, many young black females seem to be quite attracted to Paul Walker.
ReplyDelete... along with the constant refrain among black commentators after his death that "he was a real one" (read: he was one of us).
ReplyDeleteYes, just like Bill Clinton's appeal among blacks. He was, after all, the "first black president."
Tongan Mormon Crips gangs terrorize Salt Lake City, UT.
ReplyDeleteMormon missions to Tonga paying off indeed.
http://usat.ly/1h4UNCR
Google forgets Memorial Day?
ReplyDeleteSometimes a search engine is only a search engine.
errr, you are aware that various races have different shaped heads and looks, right?... steve.
ReplyDeletedwayne johnson was, probably, not much of a user when he was in WWE. his body was soft and did not have much definition. although he was physically large man like most of the wrestlers, he did not have a good physique. he wasn't even good on the microphone during his first stint as rocky miavia. it wasn't until his second gimmick as the rock that he used his natural charisma and acting ability to sell the matches, to spectacular effect.
ReplyDeletehe is now, very obviously, on high doses of whatever he is taking, and has been cycling regularly for a few years. his head, neck, shoulders, and arms are all bigger now than they were when he wrestled and his body fat is lower. he's in his 40s. you do the math.
it's harder to stay in great shape while wrestling on the circuit due to constant travel, so he can put in more gym time now, but most of the other guys had a better body while travelling just as much as him.
about the best you can look without any drugs or substances is mike o'hearn. if his claims are to be believed.
lol @ robert mathis. has his best season at age 32, tests positive. blames it on clomid. yeah right. do any of these guys admit it when they get caught?
the only person ever accused of clomid use who probably did not take anything was peter north!
The pro wrestlers quite obviously use roids, and some of them have been popped for it, including Hulk Hogan. WWE was under investigation for supplying roids for a while back in the 90's.
ReplyDeleteBest motor sport movie is John Frankenheimer's Grand Prix, I saw it in glorious Cinerama at the Cooper Theatre in Minneapolis in 1966.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous:"Steve McQueen on the other hand has thuggish dark bad boy looks like Daniel Craig."
ReplyDeleteShouldn't that be "thuggish blond bad boy looks like Daniel Craig?"
"It's simple, really: if you could increase your income manyfold and look awesome,"
ReplyDeleteDepends on one's definition of "look[ing] awesome," I suppose. It's not everyone dream to look like a steroid-bloated goon.
What sort of a white supremacist was he?
ReplyDeleteThe kind that stabs his 3 Chinese roommates to death? There's no indication that he was friends with any of them.
Sorry to go off topic but Elliot Rodgers was roommates with three Chinese-Americans.
ReplyDeleteWhat sort of a white supremacist was he?
I don't think he was friends with them. Presumably he ended up with them randomly through Craigslist or something and didn't like them. He stabbed them to death.
Teh best part of the last F&F film in Brazil was when Dwayne and his boys pulls out his guns to arrest Don, and then pretty much everyone in the crowd around pulls out guns on them in rsponse. There are many parts of Brazil where, if you pull out a gun, liteally pretty much everyone around you will pull out guns on you. Pretty exciting, huh?
ReplyDeleteI think I have to send some money to placate Steve. He's trying too hard lately.
ReplyDelete"""""""""""""""""""Teh best part of the last F&F film in Brazil was when Dwayne and his boys pulls out his guns to arrest Don, and then pretty much everyone in the crowd around pulls out guns on them in rsponse. There are many parts of Brazil where, if you pull out a gun, liteally pretty much everyone around you will pull out guns on you. Pretty exciting, huh?"""""""""""""""""""
ReplyDeleteZZZZZZzzzzzz.
Hard to believe that people got paid to write craft that script and actually write that dialogue.
If you've seen one, then.........
Anyway, The Rock's head looks pretty normal for a Polynesian to me. Not that he's not using steroids, of course. Anyway, he's a really nice guy, by all accounts.
ReplyDeleteYule Brynner looks surprisingly contemporary.
ReplyDeletehttp://medias.unifrance.org/medias/53/229/58677/format_page/yul-brynner.jpg
"Steve McQueen on the other hand has thuggish dark bad boy looks like Daniel Craig."
ReplyDeleteDark? I think I know what you mean (it's a metaphor), but it's strange. Steve McQueen was one of the most famous blue/blond actors that ever lived. Those eyes shot blue rays clear out of the screen into the audience.
"teve McQueen on the other hand has thuggish dark bad boy looks like Daniel Craig."
ReplyDeleteBlond haired and blue eyed Daniel Craig is considered "dark" now ?
Daniel Craig is not even dark by Caucasoid standards, let alone dark by the Human race standards.
If you see Daniel Craig as "dark", than you would probably think the Sicilian John Turturro as Wesley Snipes.
One question would be whether Daniel Craig would be handsomer if he hadn't done so many PEDs over the years. I don't know what he looked like when he was younger. Presumably, he was never Steve McQueen handsome, so that encouraged him to try a different route to fame. On the other hand, maybe the PEDs have messed with Craig's head shape, which might contribute to his ugliness.
ReplyDeleteA long time from now, people are going to look back at post-1980 movie stars and wonder "What were they thinking?"
Why do you think Craig did PEDs? He looks like a natural ectomorph who bulked up a bit by lifting weights.
DeleteWhat makes most actors' physiques stand out is their lack of body fat, but Craig looks naturally ectomorphic.
Is there any evidence that Craig used PED's? First I ever heard of it. He was certainly well built in the Bond movies, but not inordinately big.
DeleteKeanu had many connections in Hollywood. One of his "stepfathers" was an integral part of the Velvet Mafia, a lower down director of some sort. His former manager, Erwin whatever (still manages Bullock, I believe) has known him since he was 12, in Canada.
ReplyDeleteDon't believe everything you read about Hollywood. In fact, don't believe any of it.
How about Sailer shave his head?
ReplyDeleteDaniel Craig is not even dark by Caucasoid standards, let alone dark by the Human race standards.
ReplyDeleteRight. He would be considered fair, not dark. Someone like Pierce Brosnan would be "dark and handsome".
>>Steve Sailer observed:
ReplyDelete"""""""""""""""""One question would be whether Daniel Craig would be handsomer if he hadn't done so many PEDs over the years."""""""""""""""""
That's a strong statement to make. Has Craig admitted to PED use or is there anything in the public record to indicate that he has?
Connery never did and was a Mr Universe runner up.
Also, Craig is the shortest Bond. He's only about 5'8".
"Also, Craig is the shortest Bond. He's only about 5'8"."
ReplyDeleteAlso the most charmless. Those supervillains would have shot Connery a thousand times over if he had been so boring.
I meant dark in the sense of sinister, mysterious, ...
ReplyDeleteRE: Daniel Craig and PEDs,
ReplyDeleteGeneral rule in Hollywood is to assume that every male who is going to do a shirtless scene (and is supposed to look good)is taking something. And the index of suspicion rises for every year the actor has on the wrong side of 40.
Any evidence that Craig used PED's? First I heard of it. He is very well built as Bond, but not inordinately huge. BTW, to anon, Craig is 5'10.
ReplyDeleteI think Keanu Reeves is the new Steve McQueen
ReplyDeleteNope. Steve McQueen was heterosexual and a white man.
Steve McQueen looks like Anthony Michael Hall. It's a pretty big stretch to act like he was some kind of matinee idol.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous:"Steve McQueen looks like Anthony Michael Hall. It's a pretty big stretch to act like he was some kind of matinee idol."
ReplyDeleteExcept, of course, for the fact that he was a matinee idol.....
David Davenport:"Nope. Steve McQueen was heterosexual and a white man."
ReplyDeleteAs is Keanu. In case you haven't heard, Keanu Reeves, Dean Cain, and the Tilly sisters count as White in Hollywood. Being part-East Asian just doesn't make you non-White these days.
There are many parts of Brazil where, if you pull out a gun, literally pretty much everyone around you will pull out guns on you.
ReplyDeleteSounds great. One can only hope that soon North America and Europe see this kind of societal enrichment.
Sorry to go off topic but Elliot Rodgers was roommates with three Chinese-Americans.
ReplyDeleteWhat sort of a white supremacist was he?
Apparently he wasn't friends with them:
"Virgin killer's two roommates he killed in rampage were set to move out next term because he was so strange"
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2639195/All-SIX-virgin-killers-victims-named-two-roommates-student-friend-visiting-two-sorority-sisters-male-sophomore-gunned-deli.html
"A friend of Elliot Rodger’s two roommates who were slaughtered on Friday night, has revealed that the students had planned to stop sharing with the killer because they found him ‘strange.’
Weihan Wang, 20, of Fremont, and Cheng Yuan Hong, 20, of San Jose, were both stabbed to death by Rodger on Friday at the apartment they had shared with him.
The body of another UCSB student, George Chen, 19, of San Jose, was also found at the apartment He didn’t live in the apartment.
According to friends of his who spoke to ABC7, he and Hong had said they felt uncomfortable living with Rodger and had described him as ‘strange.’
They were planning to move elsewhere at the end of the semester."
>>kingading said:
ReplyDelete"""""""""""""""""He is very well built as Bond, but not inordinately huge."""""""""""""""
He's way too bulked up for Bond. Bond's not a superhero. He's a standard spy, a government issue who's exceptionally licensed to kill but a standard killer.
The ideal look in modern era would still be Pierce Brosnan, except he isn't the greatest actor out there. But Brosnan fits the classic ideal look of Bond.
"""""""Craig is 5'10""""""""""""
Yeah, in his 2" lifts. John Wayne was 6'4" in his lifts er cowboy boots. Bogie was 5'7" in his lifts, etc. This goes way back in classic hollywood days when so many leading men were quite short.
At best, Craig's 5'8". But because he's James Bond, that's waay too short. Ian Flemming would've taken one look and said "Pass. Too short, and my character's not that short."
Brosnan and Moore = 6"
Connery = 6'2"
Even Lazenby was around 6'1".
Any way you slice it, Craig's way too short to be Bond so he's compensated by beefing and bulking up.
Craig at least looks like he could handle himself in a fight. Lazenby and Connery did as well, but Pierce Brosnan didn't. And neither did Roger Moore.
DeleteDon't you know whiteness is a social construct? Keanu is white. There always rumors about actors -- including Steve McQueen.
ReplyDeleteWe couldda had "The Rock" as President.
ReplyDeleteSurely not as he is a Canadian from Hawaii.
Just before he died McQueen was a HUGE star. He began to pull away from the pack in Nevada Smith and by the time of Thomas Crown he was THE MAN, the King of Cool.
ReplyDeleteBelieve it or not, Christian Bale was crazy about McQueen when he was a teenager.
Before NS, people thought of McQueen as a poor-man's Paul Newman. Then he became bigger than Newman. Bigger than Newman - fact. Newman had the advantage of sanity, which enabled him to live a longer life & burnish his legacy.
Sadly, before he died, McQueen did a vanity production of Enemy of the People, to remind the word he began as a theater actor.
""""""""Just before he died McQueen was a HUGE star."""""""""
ReplyDeleteYes and no. His star had already ebbed since he hadn't been on the screen for five years.
""""""""He began to pull away from the pack in Nevada Smith""""""""""
That film sucks. Actually it was the Cincinnati Kid that helped him pull away. It's akin to Newman's the Hustler. Or even the Sand Pebbles.
""""""and by the time of Thomas Crown he was THE MAN, the King of Cool."""""""""""""
And that film sucked big time too! Now BULLIT, that's a cool and awesome film. Thomas Crown is nearly unwatchable today. It sucks. Poorly written, folks consciously "trying" to do something with a poor script ,etc.
Whenever an actor(s) have to try....never a good sign. It means the film sucks or that they were badly miscast.
"""""""Before NS, people thought of McQueen as a poor-man's Paul Newman.""""""""
That's all he ever was.
"""""""Then he became bigger than Newman. Bigger than Newman - fact.""""""
Lie. He was never bigger than Newman. He was the equal but never passed him.
Also, unlike McQueen, Newman had a much better range as an actor. Folks tend to forget that most of the critics always tended to dismiss McQueen as a second rate ham.
And for the most part (with a couple notable exceptions) he was. He was a poser, not an actor. Eastwood was as good an actor as McQueen and that's not saying much.
"""""Sadly, before he died, McQueen did a vanity production of Enemy of the People, to remind the word he began as a theater actor.""""""
Didn't help and that film sucked. Why do you name all the stink bombs? He may have begun work as a theater actor but so what? That doesn't mean he was very good.
No one ever claims that McQueen was a great actor. Cool, yes. Stylish, of course. An icon on the screen, no doubt about it.
But an actor with an amazing range? No way!
And, unlike McQueen, Newman won an Oscar.
I could see Newman in most all of McQueen's iconic performances but no one can say the same in the reverse.
McQueen in Sweet Bird of Youth? No way. The Sting? He'd ham and over act!
Newman never consciously mugged the camera and posed so much.
In some ways, McQueen's true successor for posing is Brad Pitt, and no one really considers Brad Pitt a competent actor.
Does anyone question the use of steroids in the WWE?! When the CEO is a juice monkey?!
ReplyDeleteaul Walker, as blonde and blue-eyed and perfect-headed as he may have been, had a massive following among Blacks and Latinos. His character in the F&F series was one of the rare white characters to "submit" to an underground, illegal, minority-dominated subculture - and instead of pulling an Eminem, growing more successful than the master (Dr. Dre) and taking it "mainstream", willingly stayed in the loyal sidekick/apprentice/nephew role to mixed-race Vin Diesel's Dom. The adulation he received from the black/hispanic communities is directly related to this - you could see just how much of an impact he had on Tyrese's life (his black sidekick in the films), along with the constant refrain among black commentators after his death that "he was a real one" (read: he was one of us).
ReplyDeleteWell, Paul Walker grew up in Huntington Beach only 1.5 percent black, 17 or 18 percent Hispanic now and abut 11 percent Asian, more Asians than blacks. Its a white Beach town with the exception of the poor Hispanic Slater area which is illegal/ and legal Mexicans.
@anonymous know-it-all
ReplyDeletePaul Newman was an average actor who had a great agent -- Newman got more than his share of "star" parts; one wonders if he paid a "vig" to the velvet mafia to get them. Look at his performances today and they are awfully dated and nearly unwatchable (Butch Cassidy, Eddie Felson) he's either smirking or anguishing - pure ham. But let's be fair, as a popcorn/salad-dressing/holy-than though-charitable-man huckster, he was a titan for the ages.
John Wayne WAS 6'4" and change. Deal with it you Pinko!
ReplyDelete>>Marion Morrison said...
ReplyDelete"""""""""""""""John Wayne WAS 6'4" and change. Deal with it you Pinko!"""""""""""""
No, he wasn't. He was about 6'2", the same as his good friend fellow actor Ward Bond. He wore boots in most of his films which gave him the 6'4".
Get over it.
He also wasn't all that as an actor. About second rate who managed to become an icon.
Not bad for a draft dodger.
Oops!
>>Bert Gordon said...
ReplyDelete"""""@anonymous know-it-all"""""""""""
I know you are but what am I? I know you are but what am I?
Oh. Continue with your rant. You're almost as bad as Idle "Idly" Spectator.
"""""Paul Newman was an average actor who had a great agent -- """"""""""
Sour grapes. He was nominated 7 times, not too shabby. He had a pretty good range and certainly compared to McQueen who had next to none whatsoever. McQueen played a real good badass, off screen as well as on, and that's about it.
"""""Newman got more than his share of "star" parts; one wonders if he paid a "vig" to the velvet mafia to get them.""""""""""""""""
Sour grapes, sour grapes. Sour sour sour grapes.
"""""""Look at his performances today and they are awfully dated and nearly unwatchable (Butch Cassidy, Eddie Felson) he's either smirking or anguishing - pure ham."""""""""""""""
Actually you could say that about just about every era in film that came before.
Famous line in Stanley Donen's Singin' in the Rain'
"The faces on the screen just don't appeal to me. They don't talk, they don't act. They just make a lot of dumb show."
So that's basically what you're getting at.
But again we could say that about just about every thespian who came before this era and in 20yrs from now the newbies will say it about Pitt, Clooney, Bale, DowneyJr, etc.
Interesting thing I just noticed. All the Bond actors are mentioned in comments here (even Lazenby), but not Timothy Dalton. I wonder why that is.
ReplyDelete""""""""""Interesting thing I just noticed. All the Bond actors are mentioned in comments here (even Lazenby), but not Timothy Dalton. I wonder why that is.""""""""""""""""
ReplyDeleteLeast commercially successful and didn't woo and wow the chicks. Kinda bland for Bond, and Bond was never dull and bland. And only made 3. Lazenby had a real shot and it was an amazingly good script with actual real actors (Dame Diana Rigg; Telly Sevalas). Connery should've done that film and then left.
Also, remember that Albert "Cubby" Broccoli wanted Pierce Brosnan to take over from Roger Moore but by then he was committed to Remmington Steele so they went with bland for a couple of flix until Brosnan was available.
TYYY
ReplyDeleteSean Connery was a bodybuilder and then movie star, all pre roids. I reckon he looked right for a very above average man who very much looked after himself, today is digitally and chemically enhanced.
ReplyDeleteHello all newbies, how are you all. I am very big fan of Paul Walker. I am very sad after his untimely Death. But i am waiting for his last Movie Fast & Furious 7, which is coming in March 2015. So i am very excited to watch this Movie, which will be definitely a interesting as well as a huge Movie ever.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.furious7fullmovie.com/