Saturday, March 22, 2008

Beware of Men in Beards

Note: This is completely useless post frankly to see if I can post with my new iPod Touch (belated birthday gift due to early tax refund). Rather hopeless being (sorta) geekish, but I wanted to see if it were possible, hence a post while seeking refuge from the deluge of the family and friends. I know it makes me rather dreadful and anti -social to sneak off to find a quiet corner for a few minutes to check the mail and make a post this am, but really my capacity to tolerate endless NCAA basketball playoffs, scores of children (my son, nieces nephews and various friends) shrieking playing Avatar and Bionicle and *woe* High School Musical 2, not to mention the endless dying and hunting eggs (in the endless SNOW to top it all) is really at the brim for the moment.

It is Easter of course, and while I struggle mightily with matters of faith and wont go into any of that, I couldn't help but notice that one of my favorite actors is appearing this week on the BBC in another movie/series highly relevant to this weekend, called The Passion. Jamie Sives ( Alastair in Hallam Foe, Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself) is portraying John the Baptist and one of the disciples of Jesus. In the part of course he and all the other actors had to sport a beard.

Now personally I think men in beards are usually handsome (although not a fan of the icky Abe Lincolnish big bushy long beards, but neatly trimmed, some of the more scruffy look that is popular lately esp is really attractive..or should I say really hot?;)) but in movies it is so hard to get them to look natural or attractive. Plus I would imagine beards can be quite uncomfortable and bothersome after a while. Frankly too, while most men do not wear beards much as they used to obviously (well yes the are still stylish and maybe it's me, but it seems they appear more often in the winter) you obviously have to have fake ones for a part in a film if the part demands. Hence having skilled makeup artists who can create a realistic beard is a plus LOL. Understatement duh, because clearly if they are not done well they can take away from the movie, which is sad yet true, as there have been times I know me miss average movie goer was distracted by the beard on the actor (in one case really bad mustache that it ruined the whole movie for me because I laughed totally every time he talked and the thing flapped in various scenes when clearly it was not meant to be humorous and irritated the people sitting in front of me- oops failed on proper theater etiquette that day!).

The Glasgow Daily Record of course didn't pass on the chance to write about the frivolous (such as I clearly am doing lol) and included mentions of the beards the men wore for the film. One of the stars of the film is quoted as saying: "There was some serious competition from Denis Lawson and Jamie Sives," even though they sported this in the heat of the Moroccan desert which I can imagine was less than desirable heh. While being over here in the States I can't see this film, but the reviews of it have been well so-so I guess, with the one noting sadly "Jamie Sives' soft Edinburgh lilt has been buried behind his character John's beard in a bland nowhere-land, which now matches the Lancastrian strains of brother James (Dean Lennox Kelly) even less.

As a bit of an Easter egg surprise this morning, I did manage to find the trailer and this short clip HUZZAH which features Jamie, full beard and all.

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