When I take one for the team, I take one for the team hard. Clocking 8/10 damage on a weeknight is regular practice here at BMC and I bring it like there’s never going to be another movie in the history of ever. Some of you may think you have the edge but I met Hunter S. Thompson once on a Tuesday and after the perfunctory getta knowya jibber-jabber he told me I reeked of booze, ass, and sex. In that order of pungency. So when I go to the movies rest assured, dear readers, I take it to the next fucking level.
Martyn, on the other hand, decided to have an unwaveringly sober January, and hence we’ve been seeing only serious movies, which on principle I seldom review. This is largely why the blog has been inert for so long (also because that last posting about MIGP was the dog’s bollocks and I was hungover from that night until last week). This glaring absence of content and a reticent acknowledgement that I am (yet again) hungover as balls and will accomplish nothing today has prompted me to deliver an interim posting to keep y’alls appetites nice and whetted.
A recurring theme in my blog has been to travel gradually down a vague, nebulous list of men who I consider to be the Iciest Coldest Motherfuckers Alive™. They come in different shapes, sizes, and exist for different reasons but I thank Almighty Jesus for the fact that they exist at all, because it would be a bleak and sober world if things were otherwise.
Now before reading you must divorce yourselves from the notion that this is going to be a formulaic, facile enumeration of the biggest, baddest shitkickers of all time, because let’s face it the list would look like
1. The Rock
2. The Rock
3. The Rock
and we would all go home early. Sure, some of these guys below are bona fide destroyers, but most of them are doing more illin’ than killin’, if you catch my drift. Maybe you don’t. But whatever, here’s the list and some descriptive stuff. If you think you can come up with a more better one I double dawg dare you to, peasant.
1. Vin Diesel
The guy has to be number one for a variety of reasons. Foremost, motherfucker is HUGE. No, he is beyond huge. He is his own unit size that everyone will from now on refer to as “size Vin Diesel.” From now on everyone will go to H&M or Gap and find items in sizes: small, medium, large, extra-large, Vin Diesel.
Second, his delivery of lines in movies is the most blasé, “I could give a shit” affair in the history of line delivery. He interacts with dozens of people in each of his movies and clearly does not give a toss about a single one of them. This guy just got bored in between segments of ownage and decided to say something to pass the time. The only reasons why people exist in Vin Diesel movies is to a) get owned by Vin Diesel; or b) keep Vin Diesel occupied while the narrative is resupplying with guys for him to own. And he knows it.
Third, he is an avid, lifelong Dungeons & Dragons player. In an age when actors lose their merit or bankability for stuff like following Scientology (which, when you think about it, is no more preposterous in its core tenets or assumptions than any of the Desert Religions), Vinny is putting his shit right out there for everyone to smell. As if to say “Sure, call me geek if you like, but we both know that were we in a jail cell together you would become my PROPERTY.”
Which brings me to my next point. I’m not going to straight up say that Vin Diesel is gay, merely that he gets spotted in gay bars. Like, often. And hey, to be fair, maybe it’s just because he knows that’s where all the cool straight girls are (it’s true) and gays can decorate a property and throw a party better than just about anyone. Maybe that’s alls there is to it. Okay, benefit of the doubt given… but the idea of Vin being out there actually, legit sodomizing dudes ON THE FUCKING REGULAR not only cements him #1 on the list but just about smashes everyone else thereupon.
2. Justin Timberlake
I could ramble on ad nauseam (which I have in the past), but essentially he makes the list because his M.O. is
a) Find a girl that everyone wants to bang
b) Bang her
c) Leave her by the side of the road
In fact, this guy’s general level of I-do-what-I-want-ness is straight off the fucking charts. His career turns and artistic output are erratic at best, he goes on dates with servicewomen who proposition him on YouTube, invests in dotcoms that no one has ever heard of, and probably has Jack Daniel’s in his cereal for breakfast.
Oh, and did I mention he tore Britney Spears’ hymen?
3. Goat
On a separate list of ways to off yourself like a champ, this guys places right above Elliott Smith and just below Ernest Hemingway. Plus he’s just generally hard as fuck.
4. Kiefer Sutherland
When it is insufficient to merely pop a cap in a guy’s ass, when it is paramount that you first torture, maim, and humiliate him, Jack Bauer could write the goddamn how-to handbook.
If he didn’t start out as enough of a hardass, the fact that everyone this cat has ever cared about was assassinated propelled his level of icy coldness into interstellar overdrive. For the last seven seasons of 24 it was like motherfuckers in L.A. was just doing massive lines of cocaine and in their coke-addled stupor having conversations like
“Hey, Ahmed! You know what I think I can do today?!”
“What??”
“Cross Jack Bauer… and live!!!!”
“HOLY SHIT YOUR PENIS IS HUUUUUGE!!”
and then of course Jack Bauer has to show them what’s up. When Jack Bauer is not busy showing these people what’s up, his hobbies include.
- Telling people he will execute them if they do not reveal a key piece of information and executing them anyway once they do;
- Executing people who do not have key information to reveal (just cuz, really);
- Doing horse at work;
- Playing Russian Roulette with hardened drug barons;
- Attempting to assassinate former Presidents because he’s in a bad mood;
- Handing out ultimatums like they’re leaflets for that new nail shop around the corner;
- Being the best dad ever (well… second only to Liam Neeson);
- Torturing and killing, or through inaction allowing HIS OWN KIN to die; and
- Saving the fucking day.
Back in reality Kiefer drinks and smokes like it’s a race and guess what: he’s winning. In terms of convictions and jail time served he wipes the floor with Charlie Sheen. In terms of everything, come to think of it.
5. Tom Cruise
Was there ever a doubt in your mind? On screen, sure, he’s the good guy, but offscreen this dude dedicates 100% of his time to ruining people’s shit.
The moment that someone decides they’re gonna try to out him, Cruise swoops in with the mother-of-all-legal-teams and basically sues them straight into bankruptcy. When he wins a lawsuit I’ll bet he burns the money or gives it to the Church of Scientology just to rub their noses in it.
He essentially cockblocks the entirety of mankind by taking the most bangable women alive (separate list) off the market and… fuck… I don’t know what he does with them. Plays Parcheesi? What a waste of a Holmes.
And then there are my two personal favourites. The first was when he sued Jeff Burgar into oblivion for owning TomCruise.com before he thought to purchase it (the Internet had been around for a decade!), and the second when he sought out Brooke Shields (who at the time was suffering from postpartum depression) and told her there was no such thing as a chemical imbalance. Fucking patently, scientifically wrong but he does it anyway just to undermine and further destabilise her.
I’m telling you, this cat only derives pleasure from salting wounds and kicking people who are already down. Cruise is Legend.
(Ha! See what I did there?!)
6. Tie: Kurt Russell and Liam Neeson
Two very different actors but their respective merit for inclusion in the ICMA™ list is predicated on strikingly similar paradigms.
In essence, when things are not going their way, their default solution is to kill EVERYONE.
On top of which Kurt Russell sees stuff he doesn’t like just about everywhere.
“Oh, so you think you can kidnap my wife and hold her to ransom? Looks like imma hafta park an 18-wheeler right on top of you.”
“Oh, so you think you can mosey into town, kill the Marshall, defile the justice system, and start calling shots? Looks like me and my buddies are going to have to gear up with matching black dusters and ‘taches and light you up like a fucking birthday cake. Son.”
“Oh, so you think you and your girlfriends can dress sexy have a fun night out on the town while I’m trying to eat nachos? Hmmmmmm, lemme get my souped-up, bitchin ‘71 Chevy Nova and respond to that by driving clean through you.”
“Oh, so you think you can be Chinese and hang out underground for a coupla centuries? Well guess what, Dave. Ya can’t.”
And then of course there’s Soldier. To say this film is the pinnacle of cinematic achievement is being waaaay generous to cinematic achievement. Watching Soldier is like being hit the face with a bag of awesome for 99 straight minutes. It culminates with pretty much the most steely-eyed, brass-balled exchange in the history of badassery (again, being generous to badassery), compounded by the fact that Kurt Russell says about 36 words in this movie and 26 of them are right here:
Not to mention Kurt is fucking HUGE.
Liam Neeson is pretty much on the same wavelength. Things that cause him to lose patience and open up a can of Zidane include (but are not exclusive to):
- Albanians
- His daughter being abducted or sold
- His hot wife being diddled by men who are shorter and have less hair
- Wolves
- Sith
- Batman
- People who mess with his hands
- Any kind of criminal
- Pretty much anyone who isn’t Liam Neeson
Oh, and when he’s not busy cleaving motherfuckers in half with a broadsword, stabbing guys to death with a CHAMPAGNE BOTTLE, bedding Claudia Schiffer, or shooting sheiks between the eyes he teaches Batman and Obi-Wan how not to be such huge pussies.
Word to you mother, Liam. Word to your mother.
