I watched a reasonable but not-great Spanish noir called “Lisboa”. Really good cast (Carmen Maura, Federico Luppi from Men with Guns) with the standout star Sergi Lopez. The film itself, again, is mediocre: a traveling porn salesman–and, note to Mark, that may be the color of your parachute, my job-seeking friend–runs into a woman on the run, dreadful husband and family in pursuit. Will the salesman act, will he be moral, will he save her… or… well, it’s a noir film. So you guess.
But Lopez is what I wanted to post about. Damn, the guy can act. In “Dirty Pretty Things†I’m told he spoke his lines (in English) phonetically, yet he oozes a smug confident sleaze. In “With a Friend Like Harry,†he burns a hole in the screen–his eyes are just a little too close together, and they brim with possibilities going on behind whatever dialogue he’s been given. Lopez looks unassuming–he looks short on film, so in person he’s probably 2′3″. And he’s a bit lumpy. And he slouches. And yet I’d say he’s one of the most seductive presences on film today. The guy can act…
I’m pretty certain I posted this earlier, but I’m hoping Mike will share with us his complete list of “seductive presences on film today.” Are they all male? Tangent: I watched Girl on a Train today on the Sundance Channel–what a great film!