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!

While watching San Andreas, I thought to myself, dear god, these shoes will be the death of me. And this thought didn’t disturb me as much as it should have because:

a) I’m not a survivor. I don’t believe in survival. It’s gross. It hurts too much. Better to have a slab of concrete crush you right at the outset than to spend the next hour and a half running for your life and probably getting lots of blisters.

b) If I’m gonna die, please jebus let it not be in flats. I’d rather die like the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz – crushed, sure, but with a gorgeous pair of heels sticking out.

But watching Carla Gugino do acrobatics atop a blazing, rapidly collapsing building only to stick a pretty landing on a failing helicopter, well, she didn’t do that in Jimmy Choos. You might have thought, like I did, that survival in heels would have been unlikely, even impossible, but this weekend Bryce Dallas Howard showed us: not so.

This girl ran through the jungle in heels. From dinosaurs! They’re modest, mid-height, Kate Middleton-esque nude heels rather than kinky boots, mind you, but still. I’ve heard a lot of people criticizing Jurassic World for this choice, calling it supremely stupid, but hello – when did she have the chance to swap them out? We don’t wake up in the morning thinking, well, maybe the practical shoes today because who knows when a hungry dinosaur may chase me. And just because that particular scenario might be 0.1% more likely for a woman working at a dino park doesn’t mean she anticipiated it. I think she probably wore those shoes because they looked cute with her skirt, and made all of her wardrobe choices that day believing subconsciously that today was just a day like any other. Of course, we know this franchise, and we know that security at these parks is never up to snuff. So, poor thing has to run in heels. Crappy, sure, but still preferable than running barefoot. But the truth is, I don’t keep ‘just in case of dinosaurs’ shoes in my car either. When disaster hits, I’ll have to swallow the impractical decisions I’ve made and just deal. I do know, however, that she was likely to sink in the moist jungle dirt. I learned that lesson wearing brand new red satin pumps of course. The heels pierce the dirt. And she likely had to run on the balls of her feet – better to just forget about the heels and keep your centre of gravity in just once place. I learned that one as a bridesmaid when my friend’s grandmother went missing just moments before the ceremony.

But if I was smart, I might instead learn the lesson that Melissa McCarthy learned in Spy: in one scene she’s vamped up and looking glamorous but suddenly has to give chase. She’s clearly wearing black high heels, but those are cleverly swapped out by a sympathetic costume lady for a pair of wedge running shoes that are painted to look like high heels. I noticed that little swap when she was on her scooter about to land in the cement. Nice trick if you can hack it. But let’s face it, I’m not wedge girl. I like a pair of sky-high stilettos, and if they’re glittery enough to sparkle long after I’ve bled out, all the better.

So many movies are prefaced with those five sneaky little words: “based on a true story.” But what exactly do they mean? The answer is: nothing. Unless it’s a documentary, in which case you’re still not getting a complete truth, but at least you’re getting close. But in film we play pretty fast and loose with those words, and it’s up to the audience to decide how much weight we give them.

I got to thinking on the subject this week when I watched Intouchables, which is “based on a true story.” You may remember it’s about a tough young black guy who works for a paralyzed older rich one, as they touch and inspire each other’s lives for the better. In real life, the young employee was actually an Algerian named Abdel. Does this change the heart of the story? Maybe not. But it does make me question the screen writer’s motives: did they just love this particular actor, who happened to be black, or did they feel it would resonnate better with us that he was African rather than Algerian, or did they think they’d get more mileage out of a bigger racial disparity? It doesn’t matter, I suppose, if you’re just there for a good story and some entertainment. But why then are directors still insisting those little words preface their fudged facts? We rarely have any of this information at our fingertips when we sit down with popcorn in our laps at the theatre. No one’s telling us what’s true and what’s just a cinematic embellishment.

Think back to that Will Smith vehicle The Pursuit of Happyness, based on the true story of Chris Gardner, who in the movie solves a rubik’s cube to get a shot at being a stock broker, and spends the trainer caring for his son in various subway bathrooms and homeless shelters so they can turn their lives around. In actuality, there was no rubik’s cube. Shocking, I know. Also, there was no kid. I mean, he had a kid, he conceived him while cheating on his first wife. But he dumped the kid with the mother and didn’t know where either of them were during his training. So, you know, not exactly the father of the year material that the movie pushes down your throat. Oh, and you know that big arrest (for unpaid parking tickets) that almost derailed his interview? Yeah, that was actually on a charge of domestic violence. That rosy little detail was left the fuck out.

In the movie 21, a professor recruits star students, teaches them how to count cards, and takes them to Las Vegas to win lotsa money. Did this really happen? Apparently so. Only the MIT Blackjack team was almost entirely Asian. The movie? Completely whitewashed. Does Kevin Spacey look like a cross-dressing Asian to you? I mean, he’s phoning in his performance, but no, he doesn’t. There are a couple of throwaway Asians somewhere in the pack, but you’ll have to squint pretty hard past all the handsome white dudes to find them.

To make up for this sad racial bias, Hollywood presents to you: the “true” story of Rubin Hurrican Carter, an about-to-make-it-big boxer who is wrongly accused and convicted of a triple homicide thanks to an oppressive white system and spends 22 years in jail before some random Canadians turn up a piece of evidence that finally vindicates him. Great story, none of it true. First, the big match where Hurricane beats his (white) opponent soundly only the mean (white) judges give the win to the other guy? Yeah, didn’t happen. Well, I mean, it’s a historical fact: the fight did happen. But that other guy won fair and square – and by quite a long mile. A mile so long and so definitive that he sued the producers of the movie and won. Oh, and the part about him being wrongly convicted? Well, I hate to break it to you, but…I cannot attest to his guilt or innocence. All I can say is that he did have a colourful criminal past. Heavy on assault and battery. He was court-marshalled four times before being booted out of the army. He failed his lie detector test with flying colours and was convicted not once of these murders, but twice. The first verdict was overturned on a technicality. During his second trial a bunch of witnesses were now confessing that they’d lied for him about his alibi. He’s convicted again – but what about that vindicating piece of evidence? No such thing. Again, technicality. But it had been so long that no one was interested enough to put up a third trial, and so they all went home. But that doesn’t make for a rousing movie, now does it?

Fargo is one of my favourite movies, opens with a card that tells us that this too is based on a true story. Exact words: The events depicted in this film took place in Minnesota in 1987. At the request of the survivors, the names have been changed. Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it occurred. But the true truth is that it’s a bunch of baloney. Yeah, there have been crimes in the world, sometimes even husbands killing wives. For money. But this story, friends, is a work of fiction. At the end of the Coen brothers’ screenplay, there is a note: “[the film] aims to be both homey and exotic, and pretends to be true.” The “true story” moniker has become a stylistic device.