I went to see Black Swan the other week and the moment Vincent Cassel came on screen the two biddies behind me started crapping on to each other in the way that, in my experience, Women Of A Certain Age seem to feel they have the right to do.
"Now WHERE do we know him from?" one said to the other, not making any attempt to keep her voice down.
"Oh he is SO familiar," the other one said.
I wanted to turn around and tell them to shut the fuck up - I'd just forked out 15 bucks - but of course I didn't.
It's not just that I hate people who talk during a movie, although I really really do. I think maybe it's more that I can't fucking stand people who talk during a movie when Vincent Cassel is on screen.
Interviews with Cassel always seem to refer to him as an "unlikely" sex symbol to which I think Hmm, Really? He seems like a kinda likely sex symbol to me. I mean, firstly the man is French which is, honestly, pretty hot. Yes it's a big fat cliche to find the accent hot it just is. Secondly he's married to Monica Bellucci, one of the most blazingly scorchingly smoking hot women who has ever graced the silver screen so obviously he's got something going on in the looks department.
And yet, of course, I can see what they mean. He shouldn't be hot. His nose is too big. His face is... kinda cragged. It's sort of difficult to believe he's hiding a smoking hot body under his clothes. Yet somehow he comes off sexy, like a hot professor and semi-dangerous, not like he's going to cut a bitch but like maybe he might be willing to put his hand up your skirt at a party before you've been properly introduced.
Oddly enough he hasn't been mentioned all that much in the reviews of Black Swan that I've read but I think he deserves a lot more credit. Part of the reason that Black Swan works in spite of the fact that it's kind of nuts over the top and ridiculous is that it's also pretty sexy. And the sexiest thing about it? Well, the boys will disagree, but my vote goes to Cassel, even though his character is a bit... um... well I guess...look, I'm trying not to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it, but he borders on the side of being kind of a sexual harasser, is all I'm saying.
And yet, perversely, he makes it look good.
