Movies that really shock people make a lot of noise. They create controversy, stir up arguments and discussions, generate a lot of buzz. The trouble is, in this jaded day and age, what can you possibly do that hasn’t been done and would genuinely be shocking?I have the answer.
When two actors are on screen making love you just accept that they’re acting. Sure, they probably ARE having an affair but not in all cases. When Woody Allen is in bed with Julia Roberts you know he would rather be with Soon-Yi. In REVOLUTIONARY ROAD, Kate Winslet did love scenes with Leo DeCaprio that were directed by her actual husband. (Don’tcha love Hollywood?)
And when a straight guy plays a gay guy audiences understand that he’s just acting. Sean Penn kissing other men in MILK has not only been accepted by audiences, he won an Oscar for it.
They’re actors. They’re just playing roles. Anthony Hopkins doesn’t really eat people. Bill Paxton isn’t married to three women. Robert Downey Jr. can’t really fly (since his latest drug rehab).
I saw that Michael C. Hall and Jennifer Carpenter (pictured above) recently got married in real life. They play brother and sister on DEXTER.
So what if…
Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal played lovers in a movie? Yes, they’re actually brother and sister, but again – it’s just a movie. They’re just acting.
Wouldn’t it be fun to see the shit storm that would cause??? It would be worth doing just for that.
I imagine many of you are going “Eeeeeeuuuww! Icky! Yuck!” Others are going, “Yeah! Great idea! I’d see that… as long as it’s not John & Joan Cusack.”
Who knows? Someday some audacious filmmaker may try it. And if it works, if it sells a lot of tickets and becomes a national topic, expect Harvey Weinstein to take it even one step further and remake BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN starring he and his brother Bob.
If a recent bio of James Stewart is to be believed, he was a dedicated family man and did not stray, but had he not married his wife, he would have married Margaret Sullavan.
ReplyDeleteHe was cast opposite her in "The Shop Around the Corner", in part, because of this.
I'm pretty sure Jason Bateman dated Justine on Arrested Development. Or tried to, I can't remember...
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I'm not really sure how people would react. I bet it'd sell tickets though.
It's already happened, bruh — but no one really paid any attention.
ReplyDeleteCurrent GREY'S ANATOMY star Chyler Leigh played opposite her brother, Christopher Khayman Lee, in the 1997 classic KICKBOXING ACADEMY. They made out and everything — it was nuts. But hey, don't take my word for it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYO2OdAI3H4&feature=related
I read an interview with Michael Madsen years ago where he said some director wanted to cast him and his sister Virginia as lovers in a sci-fi movie. He told the director he must be out of his damn mind, or something like that.
How about Shirley MacLaine and Warren Beatty? Well, maybe it's 40 years too late for that one.
ReplyDeleteVW: pangsts -- angst in my pants -- caused by thinking about the Gyllenhaal sibs playing lovers.
Brings to mind my cartoon fantasy of Wilma Flintstone coming home to find Fred & Barney in bed together....talk about your Bam Bam!
ReplyDeleteFor more along the same lines, read Terry Southern's hilarious (or so I thought when I read it many years ago) BLUE MOVIE.
ReplyDeleteHope Jane and Peter Fonda don't get wind of that great idea.
ReplyDeleteI would see that movie. They are both gorgeous people and haven't acted opposite each other (or at least I'm not aware of it).
ReplyDeleteThe reason why that thing on Dexter felt so icky is because they are playing brother and sister ON SCREEN.
So the Gyllenhaals wouldn't stirr up anything if you ask me, they grew up together, they are ACTUAL brother and sister so who would care, everybody would KNOW that they are just acting (well as long as they don't sell it too well) - what really stirrs people up is.
What really makes people go nuts is if what THEY believe is real is going "horribly wrong" meaning people playing father and daughter on screen getting together in real life or people playing brother and sister.
So I really think you are wrong, Ken.
Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher circa 1981 getting it on would've freaked out half the planet.
make that 1983, thought The Return of the Jedi came out earlier :-)
ReplyDelete"Hope Jane and Peter Fonda"
ReplyDeleteThat one's already been done, over 40 years ago, when Roger Vadim cast them together for his segment of "Histoires extraordinaires", one of those odd Euro-movies of the late sixties where a handful of directors each made a short film and they all got bundled together and released as something longer. Creepy is a pretty fair description.
If you continue with this line of reasoning, how about same sex siblings playing gay couples?
ReplyDeleteA couple drafted from Alec, Daniel, William and Stephen Baldwin (although Stephen would definately not go for it).
Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez.
Or even an Arquette Threesome with some combination of Alexis, Rosanna, Patricia and David.
By the way, Penelope and Monica have already explored this in a music video directed by their brother Eduardo. Follow the link here:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/music/article624514.ece
WV: Yamet - The Vegetales version of David Mamet
For the above post, I meant Penelope and Monica Cruz (Edwardo Too).
ReplyDeleteCritic Jim Emerson wrote a big essay claiming that "Donnie Darko" was all about Jake wanting to sleep with his sister, played by Maggie:
ReplyDeletehttp://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041102/EDITOR/41022001/1023
What if you had real life brother and sister playing real life brother and sister who might have been lovers? Presenting The Borgias starring Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal as Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia.
ReplyDeleteThis is giving me a headache. Bring back Natalie...
ReplyDeleteBarefoot Billy: I'd like to bring back Natalie Wood, too, preferably in a lesbian drama with sister Lana. The tag line: "Twice the Wood equals twice the wood!"
ReplyDeleteCommence reinstatement of the blog's porn designation.
This post brings to mind the uproar when Angelina Jolie professed love for her brother and kissed him on the lips at the Oscars... it was not a long kiss but because it was frozen in time via photographs it didn't look like a peck.
ReplyDeleteIt never bothered me because I knew there was nothing incestual about it. It's like my gay male friends who kiss me on the lips when they see me though they're not actually my brother. It's a token of affection and is a buss not a french make out session!
Never mind siblings - what about parent and child, if you're going for the sick factor?
ReplyDeleteWV: adiondoo - Spanish/Scottish greeting
Dick Van Patten and his sister Joyce played Captain Andy and his wife in a national tour of "Showboat". Talk about life upon the wicked stage...
ReplyDeleteRacy suggestion, my friend. I like it!
ReplyDeleteThe Bateman thing was part of an episode wherein Jason was lecturing his "son" Michael Cera about the impropriety of his lust for his "cousin." It was kinda cute.
ReplyDeleteI'll wait until they get Emily and Zooey Deschanel
ReplyDeleteFinally, an Olsen Twins movie I'd enjoy.
ReplyDeletehaha.. oh man! that's why i don't like the actors/actresses role...
ReplyDeleteI always wondered if Fred Astaire and his sister Adele, who starred in numerous musicals together on Broadway, were ever cast as romantic leads opposite each other. Checking the IBDB, it appears they usually played siblings, but in at least one show, For Goodness Sake, Fred essayed his own sister's suitor.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it was easier in the early 20s, when girls called their own fathers "Darling," but I still say that strains the willing suspension of puke.
I'm begging you, Levine. Get some therapy.
ReplyDelete...or better yet!
ReplyDeleteImagine all the Sheens/Estevezes as some sort of polygamous cult in, say, Idaho.
Or the Jonas brothers, I'm not picky.
This is all so 77 years ago.
ReplyDelete1932, the movie FREAKS. The dwarf lovers, Hans & Frieda, are played by a real-life pair of sibling Munchkins, Harry Earles and Daisy Earles. And trust me, it makes your skin crawl, although the whole point of the film is making your flesh crawl. Plus, they look a LOT alike! "Hans" was later one of the Munchkins in "The Lollipop Guild!" Be careful of that lollipop, Dorothy! (I believe Little Dougie brings this fact up in his book THE Q GUIDE TO CLASSIC MONSTER MOVIES, though there is no point to reading that book; it's not about ME!)
And frankly, the big kiss between Luke and Leia in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, when they don't yet know that they're twins, never fails to make my flesh crawl.
But William & Alec Baldwin doing a hot sex scene together? I'd pay $10 to see that!
Porn actors Amber Lynn and the late Buck Adams were actually little sister and big brother Laura and Charles Allen, but kept it a secret from co-workers until the day they were assigned to a shoot together, at which point they revealed their relationship: regardless of anything else they were willing to do on screen, this was a line they refused to cross.
ReplyDeleteIf a recent bio of James Stewart is to be believed, he was a dedicated family man and did not stray, but had he not married his wife, he would have married Margaret Sullavan.
ReplyDeleteMargaret Sullavan had been briefly married to Jimmy's lifelong best friend, Henry Fonda. And Sullavan's daughter with Leland Hayward, Brooke, was married to Dennis Hopper, who did EASY RIDER with Peter Fonda...
How about Shirley MacLaine and Warren Beatty? Well, maybe it's 40 years too late for that one.
Back in the day Shirley said she'd like do a movie kissing scene with Warren, just to see what all the fuss was about.