It’s no secret that I love a man with lots of ink. It’s not much of a secret that I love women covered in tattoos too. So. Fucking. Sexy.

But movies rarely feature tattoos as sex appeal. Tattoos in movies often serve one of two purposes. Either they help us identify the bad guy or it helps “transform” a soft Hollywood heartthrob into a dude with edge (Jared Leto’s The Joker seems to be taking pages from both of these books). In fact, I’d bet Hollywood spends more time erasing the existing tattoos of its stars than inking some in. Too bad.

Ryan Gosling, I’m sorry to say, is one such softie. He’s got such a babyface that he’s more Mouseketeer than badass so it’s no surprise that in The Place Beyond The Pines he gets painted into character as a motorcycle stunt rider turned bank robber. Gosling and his friend Ben Shields designed the temporary tattoos that adorn his arms, torso, neck, back, and even his face in the movie. The tattoos represent a history of bad decision making for his character, and they also make him a literally marked man – when he walks into a packed church full of people in their Sunday finest, the contrast is unsettling.

Tom Hardy, on the other hand, doesn’t need much help to look like a beast, as he does in Warrior. Dude was fucking ripped. Like many MMA fighters, Hardy sported lots of ink in the movie, but the truth is, every last one of them was his own. And if you check out a shirtless pic of him more recently (and I suggest you do) you’ll see that his inked space has nearly doubled and he has no plans to stop the growing artistry across his chest, only to avoid getting any on his neck, because that would mean he’s “checked out.”

The tattoos on Guy Pearce in Momento are not his own. If you’ve seen the movie, then you know how integral to the plot they are: a man with no short term memory keeps helpful information tattooed on his body in his quest to find his wife’s murderer. The tattoos are complex and the makeup artists needed to get them precisely right each and every time. ”The tattoo outlines were put on transfer paper and then onto my body,” remembers Pearce. Each outline transfer would last about a week, and at the beginning of each shooting day, makeup would paint them in.

Brad Pitt in Snatch is another pretty boy that needs to be roughed up with some ink – and some terrible ink at that. Single-needle, homemade looking stuff with greenish ink, his religious-themed tattoos identify him and are the image of poverty itself. But hat’s off to the makeup artist who did them because they never run NO MATTER HOW SWEATY HE GETS.

Brad’s pal George Clooney sported some ink in a movie from 1996. In From Dusk Till Dawn, he plays a criminal, and we all know that criminals helpfully identify themselves with evil-signifying tattoos. For most of the movie, we see a bold piece of tribal tattoo snaking up from the collar of George’s shirt. Only toward the end do we get the payoff of seeing (almost) the whole glorious piece.  If you think sitting still for tattoo application every day before shooting must be an ordeal, consider the removal: George’s work had to be removed with gasoline and a blow dryer at the end of each day.

The Night of the Hunter may feature the most famous movie tattoos of all time. Robert Mitchum plays a religious fanatic who marries a widow to gain access to her children, who know where their father’s misbegotten fortune is buried. Mitchum’s genius LOVE and HATE knuckle tattoos are used as props in his sermons and are a good representation of this unforgettable villain. This wonderful film is filled with rich symbolism, but it doesn’t take much to figure out what’s happening when the LOVE hand embraces and the HATE hand brandishes weapons. These tattoos belong in the hall of fame.

You can only have one favourite though, and I’ve saved the best for last. The Broken Circle Breakdown was one of, if not my favourite movie in 2012. It’s a powerful, fucked up film about a couple trying to survive the throes of grief. The woman just happens to be a tattoo artist and she wears her livelihood, and also her heart, all over her body. Veerle Baetens underwent extensive work in the makeup chair to perfect her character’s look and the director sought the help of a real-life tattoo artist to inspire and design all of the elements. The designs were tailored to fit the actor’s body and then laser printed on a special transferable paper that stayed in place for up to four days at a time. I love how the character uses her tattoos as a road map to her body, and her life. I love how she shows him all the names of ex-lovers she’s had covered up – beauty and realism all in one humble little spot.

And it fucking destroys me how hot she is.

What’s your favourite tattoo? Got any yourself? Ever seen a tattoo tribute to a movie?

***NEW ENTRY!***

Guess who just saw Southpaw this weekend!

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present for your consideration:

I particularly thought his forearm tattoos were sexy.

Oh man, apparently I need to find myself a lawyer who secretly looks like a boxer underneath his suit…

If you’re anything other than a baby boomer yourself, then I don’t need to tell you that baby boomers are the absolute WORST generation.

They raped the earth so they could have their cake and some of the other guy’s cake too. There’s a Chevy in every driveway and a chicken in every pot, but at what cost? They didn’t care. They wanted it all, and they took it, leaving things in perilous condition for us. And still they won’t get out of the way. I get it: your 60s aren’t what they used to be. For one thing, you’re still alive. And in relative good health! You still want to feel needed. And so you soldier on, hogging all the jobs with livable salaries and good benefits for yourselves way beyond what’s really fair, and kids out of college are forced to stay in demeaning jobs meant for pocket-money. Their student debt is astronomical and it’s unlikely they’ll ever achieve home ownership, but that’s fine, baby boomers. Keep working well past your retirement age. Your sense of entitlement really suits you!

But what REALLY gets my goat is when these jerks show up at the movie theatre.

First of all, they want the senior’s discount. They have more money than any subsequent generation will have access to, what with the disappearing middle class, but they will insist on every savings they can get, even though they’re 68 and still working full-time, while the ticket taker has a Master’s in theatre but goes home smelling like popcorn and broken dreams. If you make them ask for the discount, they’re mad, but if you give it to them freely, they’re even madder. Because in his head, he doesn’t look 68. He looks 48 at most! So how dare you give such a youthful looking chap the senior rate! Although definitely give him the senior rate because only an idiot pays full price. The only right thing to say, when taking their money, is: That will be full price sir, even though it’s senior’s day, because I can clearly see from your beard with just a tough of gray that you are much too young and full of vigor to apply, although if you happened to slip me some ID that would prove otherwise, to my complete shock, I would happily give you the discount!

They don’t want to look old or feel old, except for when it suits them. And then they’re playing up the old guy card with vim and pleasure. You see, baby boomers think rules don’t apply to them, and your local Cineplex is but one example of how they work the system.

1. They blatantly bring in their own snacks to the movie even though everyone and their grandmother knows this is patently against the rules. They walk right past the ushers with Bulk Barn bags a-burstin’. Just try to stop them, underpaid teenagers!

2. They’ll sit behind you and talk throughout the entire thing. Not whisper, but actually shout to be heard over the annoying volume of the movie by their similarly hard-hearing compatriots. Matt and I had a really trying experience at a showing of Mr. Turner for this exact reason – and the worst part is, the seniors are there because they get cheap tickets. They don’t care or even know what movie they’re seeing. The old fellow beside Matt used the film’s running time to take a nap, the kind that traps us in our seats for the duration, and beyond, but he was much less annoying that the gaggle of friends behind us who gossiped like they were in a coffee shop.

3. And they say the most racist shit! Sean and I had the unfortunate experience of being stuck in front of a chatty group of seniors when we saw Lee Daniels’ The Butler. Those boomers could not tell any of the black people apart. When a black guy showed up on a family’s porch in military uniform, one old guy told the others, who needed help following the plot, in full confidence, that it was the son, when in fact it was another soldier there to tell that their son was dead. And you should have heard their discussion when JFK was shot! I mean, these people LIVED through this time period, do they really need help remembering that this guy was assassinated? Assassinated dead? Like, all the way dead? Yes, yes they did.

4. A couple of weeks ago, Sean and I took in a showing of Infinitely Polar Bear during which an older woman texted the whole fucking time. Because the rules don’t apply to baby boomers! And this was still less blatant than the old guy at the premiere of Hot Pursuit who sat in the front row reading from an e-reader the entire time!! What the fuck?

I want to believe that not all baby boomers are terrible people. I really do. It’s just that they seem to insistently prove it to me over and over! So until they can show me that they’re willing to obey the rules that apply to everyone else, I think we need to lobby movie theatres to get special screenings for those over 60 – much like the screenings for parents with young babies, they should have theatres reserved for the elderly. And charge them DOUBLE.

Who’s with me? Every had a terrible experience with old people at the movies? I bet you have!