The most handsome male actor

Anna, in a comment below (in Finnish), was talking about Marlon Brando. It had to do with the Tuesday's book event in which I was able to talk actually more than five minutes about White Heat to the people at Tampere University and some folks working at the publishing house (Vastapaino) and other related people. After the actual event, we went to a local pub and started to talk about - what else? - movies. After we'd tried to pin down what has actually happened to slapstick comedy (I don't think it exists anymore and people don't laugh at it anymore, especially well-timed gags seem to be non-fashionable; Jackass and South Park aren't about timing, as you well know), we started an argument about who's the best-looking male actor.

Actually we started on the best-looking female actor, but got nowhere. The discussion didn't interest people enough. But when we got to male actors, everyone suddenly had a view. "Mel Gibson! Aah! He's a doll!" "Johnny Depp - screw that!" (And this coming from highly educated intelligentsia.) Toni, with his open shirt and hairy chest, claimed that the young Marlon Brando wins hands down. And I'm happy with that - so is Elina. When I think of Brando with the T-shirt in The Streetcar Named Desire, I'm oozing (but I am oozing).

But later I remembered that we had this same discussion some two years back, with Elina and two friends of mine who are both dedicated film buffs. We were in a bar and pretty drunk at the time. At the end, we had two contestants, Montgomery Clift and Buster Keaton. I think Buster Keaton won. No kidding! I mean, the guy has the looks, and just take a look at those eyes! So soulful! With a different style, he still might pass as an androgynous British pop icon, à la Brett Anderson.

***

I just saw another doctor and was prescribed another medication for the green slime. Ain't no fun to ooze (unless you're thinking about Marlon Brando).

But due to sickness, I've been able to read books. I finished Jason Starr's Hard Feelings. It has a shock ending, very disturbing, in the most disturbing book Starr has done. I also read Miami Purity by Vicki Hendricks. Mean mother, what a book! I mean, it's amazing no one has done this kind of book before - the normal noir plot is about a woman seducing a man into the life of crime, but this is about a man seducing a woman. And what seducing! At times, it reads like pure porn. And you have everything in the book, even loaded guns. I hear the stuff gets tuffer in Hendricks's other novels. Purrrrrr.... Seriously, it must be more common this way. Men commit more crimes and it's pure hokey about those femme fatales just winking their eye and asking men to kill their husbands.

(By the way, both Starr and Hendricks have stories coming out in Isku next year.)

I also started reading again some British paperbacks for my forth-coming book on the subject. I read a spy novel by Bryan Peters (= Peter George, who wrote Dr. Strangelove), a PI novel by Peter Chambers and a war novel by James R. Barton (= John Glasby). More about them later. And cover scans. Stay tuned!