Confession time.

I made it through four years of undergrad as an English major without reading a lick of material by the Brontë sisters. I've also never read a Jane Austen novel and I somehow managed to escape taking a single class on Shakespeare. The first and only time I ever read Charles Dickens was as a freshman in high school and I think that "read" is a very, very generous word. This isn't necessarily something I'm proud of but I find it kind-of amusing that I managed to dodge some of the more "typical" works in the English literature canon.

So when I watched the 2009 television serial version of Wuthering Heights, I knew absolutely nothing about it. I knew it was supposed to be moody and melodramatic and atmospheric and I knew there was a guy named Heathcliff in it but the only Heathcliff I'm familiar with is of the feline variety. There was also this Monty Python sketch where they were waving flags at each other or something? Look, all I knew was that there was some brooding guy and some cliffs or something.

I watched T. Hard's version on a recent family vacation to Toronto. The trip up there was littered with pit stops that catered more to my brothers' interests than mine and for the most part I found myself sitting in the van or a hotel room waiting ... and waiting ... and waiting for the day to end so that we might be one day closer to something that was just remotely more interesting. How convenient that my budding Tom Hardy obsession should coincide with all of this sitting-around-doing-nothing! Per a recommendation from a friend, fellow English major, and Tom Hardy enthusiast, I downloaded Wuthering Heights before my trip and whew! Am I forever grateful! This thing was a hoot!

I thought the entire thing was outright ridiculous. Overacted, melodramatic, absolutely bizarre. And I couldn't stop watching it. I couldn't stop laughing. Guttural guffaws. The ugly typography used for the opening credits imposed over shots of the ground leading up to an unimpressive-looking dilapidated manor with overdramatic instrumental music playing in the background confirmed the obvious: this was definitely made for television. We first see Heathcliff lying on the bed, moaning about something, and then he abruptly jerks out of bed and makes this face:

Ghost sex dreams! Quelle horreur!

The movie then jumps to a scene with Rick from the Walking Dead with mutton chops speaking in a British accent (I mean I guess it's his normal accent because he's from England but throughout the entire film I was waiting for that Southern twang to come out). And then there's a bunch of teens being angsty. And then the teen girl runs away on her birthday and who does she stumble upon while looking for eggs but Mr. Handsome himself.

[insert quote about being the moors' reckoning or somesuch]

She goes back to Wuthering Heights with Heathcliff and finds two male teens and I witnessed some of the finest moments in horrible, overwraught teen acting in a British serialized drama adaptation. "I AM EIGHTEEN YEARS OLD, AND I AM DYING!" a mere wisp of a teen emotes. "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU!" I yell at my computer.

Some stuff happens and then all of the sudden Heathcliff is digging into a grave and practically making out with a corpse. Y'all, I can't make this stuff up. And it made no sense to me w h a t s o e v e r. We then go back in time when Heathcliff was a child but these parts really aren't interesting because now it's overdramatic CHILD actors and it's not Tom Hardy so o b v i o u s l y I am not interested. Basically Heathcliff was adopted by some rich fart and his blood children have feelings about letting an adopted child into the family, especially since he might be a -gasp!- gypsy (I should have done a count to see how many times they insinuated Heathcliff was a gypsy). How foolish of them to discount him so quickly, don't they know he's going to grow up to be Tom Hardy???

Revenge is a dish best served smoldering.

Hindley, the brother, loathes Heathcliff. We know this because the boy who plays Hindley seems to have forgotten he's acting on television and not in his local community theatre. Cathy takes a liking to Heathcliff and they just want to do rugrat things together, like throw stones in the pond outside of the church on Sunday like the little heathens they are. Thanks to the magic of transitions in film, Cathy and Heathcliff grow up (physically, not emotionally) before our very eyes and what do you know! Two attractive people who have formed tight-knit bonds only with each other over the span of several years have seemingly fallen in love! Even though they're not technically related, there's still a certain ick factor when you watch the two call each other "my love" and get thisclose to kissing while they're frolicking in the moors.

One day their frolicking goes too far and they're caught spying on Rick Grimes and his bug-eyed sister. Rick sics his dog on the twosome and it attacks Cathy's leg. Obviously the only course of action at this point is for Rick to pick Cathy up and insist that she stay at his house for five weeks to recover. Because it's not like that's kind-of, sort-of kidnapping and it's not like she has a home to go back to and people who genuinely care about her. Not at all. So Cathy is some sort of hostage for five weeks and when she comes back to Wuthering Heights she is hot to trot and super stuck up. Now Cathy is tormented between marrying the obviously very attractive Tom Hardy or the apparently wealthy Rick Grimes. Is this even difficult? Do you really need to take more than a second to decide?

I mean he's going to try to fornicate with your corpse regardless so either way you can't lose.

Cathy's got it twisted. She chooses that pasty dude who couldn't grow a decent pair of mutton chops if he glued them to his face. Heathcliff can't deal with the repercussions of her actions and runs away for three years but when he comes back, he's lookin' foooooooyne! The rest of the movie is more or less Heathcliff destroying everyone around him and it more or less rules.

By all means, good sir, relent away!

Hindley is driven to alcoholism and gambling after the death of his wife and Heathcliff manipulates those vices in order to make Wuthering Heights his. He has a note delivered to Cathy on her wedding day that states "I know you have betrayed me"; I don't know about you but that would kind of put a damper on my wedding day if an intense old flame that I probably should have just married in the first place told me I ruined his life. Cathy won't make a cuckold out of ol' Linton Truffles so Heathcliff marries Bug Eyes, knocks her up, and then leaves her when he's done. And guess what! EVERYONE DIES. Including Heathcliff.

Garfield ain't the only orange cat who hates Mondays

Let me just say that I was thoroughly entertained and almost, just almost forgot that I had been sitting in a parked car for almost two hours. I had no plans on actually reading the book (at least not in the near future) but then I started this blog and I felt like maybe I should have a better understanding of the source material before I start ripping into it full blast.

After watching the movie the first time, I thought I could sort-of understand why people would like the book so much because it has that whole star-crossed lovers "they could be together but they can't!" hopeless romantic thing going for it. Not necessarily my cup of tea but I guess that's the kind of stuff love-lorn angsty teen girls eat for breakfast. So I could buy Heathcliff as a gothic romantic hero (I don't even know if he would even be considered a gothic romantic hero, please forgive me Professor Benis I mean your class was interesting and all but Romanticism and gothic literature just ain't my thing) and I found him attractive during the middle part of the film where he cut his hair and stopped wearing horse blankets. But like, have you read the book? DUDE, Heathcliff is a TOTAL bunghole on Miss Havisham levels. And in reading the book a month later, every time Heathcliff was mentioned in the text all I could think of was this face:

I haven't watched any films for my blog since my last post, but that doesn't mean I've lost interest, dear reader! I've just been trying to get other parts of my life back on track, like studying for the GRE. Or rather, attempting to study for it, then realizing I don't understand fractions or algebra and even though I'm pretty good with words I can't for the life of me memorize ones that I don't know nor will I ever really need to know. I've also started reading Wuthering Heights so I can present a more ~intellectual~ argument when I talk about it soon (next, hopefully!).

I DO have a few items I'd like to address in the interim, comments that have come from my peanut gallery of haters.

This blog is in no way in chronological order. I mean, I would assume that was obvious but I have gotten wind that there may or may not be some people out there in that vast universe of ours who question how much of a True Fan I am because I haven't addressed the older stuff, like Star Trek: Nemesis, like I don't know it exists or something. Look y'all, don't get your panties in a bundle, I'm doing this at my own pace and choosing whatever movies I want to talk about in whatever order I choose. Got a bone to pick? Start yr own Tom Hardy blog! The internet is great in that you can do whatever you want!

I have also received a comment in which someone seriously doubts my commitment to Tom Hard-On, giving it a month tops. Wow, I can just feel the jealousy seething through that one! I know it probably upsets you that I've found my calling in life whereas you have yet to find yours, but can't we all take joy in the fact that I'm finally doing what I love, which is facetiously blogging about a celebrity? Where is the love. Where is it.

And I know it may surprise you, but Tom Hardy does have a pretty large body of work. Just because you don't know about it doesn't mean it doesn't exist! A cursory glance at his wikipedia page should be enough to back up that claim. So all y'all doubting Thomases just need to STEP. DOWN. I got this one, I really do!

ANYWAYS.

I hope to have a new post up by the end of the week. I wanted to write about Lawless but I think I'll need to see it again before I try giving it a whirl. I'm not sure I cared for it that much but I'd like to have my thoughts and feelings more fleshed out, lest I incite some sort of e-riot.

Here's a picture of T. Hard with a kitten for your troubles.

A TomCat we can believe it.

You ever make homemade popcorn on the stove and right as the popcorn starts popping you realize that you're all out of real butter and the only thing in the fridge is vegetable oil spread and you let out an audible groan because you can't believe you don't have butter but who likes to eat plain popcorn and how's the salt supposed to stick so you grudgingly melt that blue bonnet shit and then when you go to pour it over your popcorn it just all comes out at the same time so everything is soggy and then you add too much salt and it just tastes disgusting and totally not worth it but you just really want a snack so you eat it anyways?

The things I do for love.

Well this happened right before I started watching RocknRolla and more or less accurately describes how I feel about it. It's like eating your cultural vegetables but actually the exact opposite of that.

The first time I watched it, I just fast forwarded through everything until I got to a Tom Hardy scene, waited to see if he did anything interesting, and then fast forwarded to the next scene. Which worked well enough for me but this was before I decided to make sacrifices for the greater good of the internet. I did this all for you, Internet.

I really didn't understand the movie at all. London's on the rise! Let's buy an old factory? Old factories are expensive and Tom Wilkinson is standing in our way! Now there's a Russian stereotype and a hot accountant. We're stealing things! Now there's a drug-addicted son! People just keep getting involved in ... a plot to buy a factory? No really I don't understand why everyone is so angry! Money keeps getting stolen? What's so great about this fucking painting? Why is this movie titled Rocknrolla when the only thing "rock and roll" about the movie seems like it's being shoehorned in?

Looks like I'm not the only confused one here.

I mean okay, cool, it's just that these types of movies aren't my thing at all. Boys' clubs and what-not, women are just sexual objects and aren't in any real position of power. The "no homo" vibes were really off-putting as well. Instead of accepting that dudes can be attracted to dudes, let's make fun of it! And even though some people seem to be okay with a "poof" (their words, not mine), the blatant homophobia still sticks.

From what I understand, Handsome Bob is about to go to jail. I think. I don't know why exactly but he is, I guess everyone goes to jail at some point in their life in this film, kind of like jury duty or church in our reality. Gerard Butler's character plans a going away party for him in which there will be copious amounts of drugs and strippers. Visably distressed at the thought of breasts, he tells Gerard Butler that he doesn't want strippers, he wants ....

wait for it ...

GERARD BUTLER!

Look at your life, look at your choices, Handsome Bob

I mean I guess when you're Tom Hardy, where else can you go but down.

Gerard Butler doesn't like this, slams the breaks, and calls him a dirty bastard. Hey now, G. Butt, that's not very progressive! Your friend just came out of the closet (kind of?) and you call him a bastard? RUDE. And you know what, G. Butt? (I'm going to call him G. Butt because I think he kind of looks like a butt) Gay men can have sex with women and still be gay! Wow! A lot to process, I know. Think you can do it? I think you can, I believe in you! G. Butt regrets his freak out seeing that Handsome Bob doesn't seem to be taking it very well and asks him what, exactly, Bob would do to him if given the chance. WAY TO SPIN THIS TIME OF TRAUMA INTO SOMETHING ABOUT YOURSELF!

What a brave man, touching one of those ho-mo-seks-you-alls.

Throughout the rest of the movie, the running gag is that G. Butt is completely freaked out by the idea of Handsome Bob's homosexuality and keeps him at ten arms' lengths, especially after he let Handsome Bob dance with him. G. Butt is upset that Handsome Bob isn't in jail, G. Butt is upset that Handsome Bob is at a party, G. Butt (okay I am getting tired of typing G. Butt) doesn't want Handsome Butt to be the driver anymore. I mean, look, we've all been there. Someone who you view in a sexually neutral way decides to tell you how they feel and now everything's awkward. Can we just keep it together for the remainder of the movie? Once the movie's over, your relationship with Handsome Bob doesn't matter to the audience anymore (with the exception to the fanfiction community).*

It took me two days to finish watching RocknRolla and I had a lot of unanswered questions, the most pressing being "What the hell was that even about?" Generally if I watch a movie that I rather disliked and couldn't wait to finish I just forget about it and move on with my life. But I'm a responsible parent of a BLOG now, I can't just act like that never happened!

If you dig around in the message boards enough (but not enough that you reach a point where you can't believe you've wasted five hours reading the same illiterate drivel) you'll eventually find what you're looking for, and more. The second the credits started rolling, I closed that window as fast as I could. How foolish of me! If I would have only had the patience to revel in whatever testosterone-fueled jock jam that played over the credits, I would have gotten a little more resolution regarding that Handsome Bob/G. Butt pairing I was so desperately trying to bleach from my mind. Hinted at earlier in the film, G. Butt grants Handsome Bob a dance before (he assumes) the latter goes to jail (which isn't even a bad thing, GB thinks, because gay dudes should hypothetically love jail, right? right?). The end credits expound on an earlier scene wherein we see Handsome Bob holding on to G. Butt for dear life in what can only be loosely be described as dancing. Laughter is sure to ensue from the audience because wow does Handsome Bob have it bad and isn't it soooo funny to see Gerard Butler awkwardly dancing with a man who has feelings for him? Let me tell you, I was straight up IN STITCHES (you can check it out here, the video quality isn't up to the quality standards I have for this fine blog).

Even cinematographically speaking, Handsome Bob is kept at arm's length. Do you know how hard it was to take a decent screen shot of the guy? The movie's so daggum dark and shaky that you can't even properly look at his face. Maybe the same goes for the rest of the characters as well, but we all know I wasn't paying attention.

You will meet a dark stranger. But not by choice. Because the cinematography is shit.

There just comes a point in movies that very action-packed where my mind just shuts down. If there's a lot of punching and yelling and shooting and jerky camera work and loud music, my mind refuses to process what's going on. It's all a blur anyways, innit? What's the point of paying attention if there aren't really things to pay attention to?

Basically this is a movie that I would have never even considered watching if it hadn't have been for Tom Hardy gracing this turd with his presence. And before the hypothetical you gets all up in arms because, gasp, how dare I! let me just say this: it takes all different kinds of people to make this big, dumb, crazy world of ours to work and not everyone's going to like your energy-drink-commercial-stretched-from-thirty-seconds-to-two-hours kind of films. So if you like it, cool, great! I am happy for you! I didn't and I found it problematic and way too long.

NEXT!


*AND HOLY HELL it exists

We all do dumb things, paying too much for car insurance and/or having an adverse reaction to your friend coming out shouldn't be one of them.

Well I've got at least one positive thing to say about RocknRolla. It was really easy for me to write about it because I disliked it so much! Stay tuned kiddos.

Picture the scene:

It's a quiet Saturday night and I'm at my mom's house and there is not a drop of alcohol to be found (with the exception of my stepdad's Coors Lites and a few Smirnoff Ices, so basically no alcohol to be found). Still reeling from my original Tom hard-on after seeing The Dark Knight Rises, I decide that there is no better time than the depressingly sober present to start delving into Tom Hardy's body of work.

I decide to start with Bronson for a few reasons:

1. It has Tom Hardy in it
2. It was directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, who directed some movie called Drive, I don't know, I don't think anyone really saw it or cared about it, who is Ryan Gosling anyways? I heard the soundtrack sucked.
3. Bronson kind-of looks like Bane

Excellent choices, Lauren, I really commend you, you have excellent taste in cinema.

My younger brother, aged 15, is also sitting in the living room with me and like the good older sister that I am, I use this opportunity to broaden his horizons. He should be so blessed to have someone looking out for him like this, I had to find the things that define my impeccable taste all by myself.

Everything's going well, we are enjoying watching Tom Hardy-as-Michael Peterson-also-known-as-Charles Bronson-but-not-the-actor beat the living shit out of everything that crosses his path. Charlie Bronson sure does love being in jail, doesn't he? Charlie Bronson sure likes to beat people up, doesn't he? Hey Charlie, you just took that prison guard hostage! Why are you taking your clothes off, Charlie?  Oh Charlie, I don't think that's body paint ... please Charlie, we can see your penis! You're going to get yourself hurt down there if you fight a bunch of prison guards in your birthday suit!

This is, of course, the moment that my mother decides to wake from her slumber and come downstairs to walk in on what is decidedly a very awkward moment in the film, with or without the context of the rest of the film and ...

I can't pause the movie.

I can't turn the movie off.

I can't turn the TV off.

"What are you watching?" she asks as I spring from the couch to physically turn the damned thing off.

Moms have never seen penises in their lives and I am trying very desperately to save her from such an atrocity, it would be terrible if I had to be the one to break it to her that yes, penises exist and yes, there is a penis on her very large television.

"Oh just uhh ... this movie by uhh ... a director I like." All true things. The damned thing still won't turn off and I'm pushing the power button frantically.

I can only assume that she doesn't have her contacts in and her eyes are clouded by sleep as she does not seem to pay any attention to the spectacle at hand and continues to walk into the kitchen. The movie has now decided that it would like to be paused and does so accordingly and I take it upon myself to take a break until she goes away.

So yes ladies, and also gentlemen, this is a movie with Tom Hardy's penis. If you're into those sorts of things. If you're not a mom. And if you're still interested, tumblr has a plethora of gifs and screenshots of said penis. You can find them on your own as I think it's hella creepy but I mean I guess this is coming from someone who took time out of their life to craft a blog called Tom Hard-On so who am I to judge.

Who the fuck are you calling a juggalo?

Is that a sawed-off shotgun in your hands or are you just excited to talk about Bronson?

Easily one of the more stylistic films I've seen in a while accompanied by a killer soundtrack (but really, what else would you expect from Nicolas Winding Refn)

Here it is, Internet! My first attempt at writing something other than a cover letter since I graduated from school in 2010. I figured if I want to be a published writer the best way to do that is to forgo any form of laborious training and schooling, skip right past all the heart-breaking rejection that comes with writing submissions, and just start a blog! Look at me now haters!

And what better way to make my mark on the internet than to chronicle my viewing of every single piece of celluloid Tom Hardy has been committed to.

Much to the chagrin of "true Tom Hardy fans" (mostly found in the #tom hardy tumblr tag), I didn't pay much attention to our lovely subject until I saw The Dark Knight Rises. I was smitten for reasons unknown. If my track record for crushes (both celebrity and plebeian) were a catalogue one could casually peruse, one might notice that there is a significant lack of:

1. men with very defined musculature
2. men with little to no hair
3. men without deep voices

Hey girl, you're still not ready to give up your card-carrying membership to the Ryan Gosling fan club yet, are you?

Has anyone made any jokes about Eames chairs yet?

If we revisit my list of things-Lauren-is-not-attracted-to you will notice that Tom Hardy now successfully defies an astounding three out of three. The swollen lips are something of a turn-off, but when we truly love someone we are able to overlook the imperfections in a selfless act to love the person as a whole (or so I'm told). Like all good consumers of fine goods, I decided to research the subject further before I made up my mind on whether or not I should begin a fascination of sorts.

Workaholicsaholics will note that this is not the proper way to cook a turkey

I was sold. Any man who could make me question my pretty set-in-stone standards for men who also happened to be featured in my favorite-movie-as-an-eighteen-year-old (Marie Antoinette) and has the gall to post the most ridiculous pictures of himself on the internet while still being a pretty decent actor deserves a spot in my obsession canon.

I then obtained several movies in which he was prominently featured and I found myself spiraling out of control, µtorrent running all night so that I might hope to wake up to a new Tom Hardy movie to sate my seemingly ravenous appetite. However, I had set boundaries for myself. Only watch the art house films, the films with ensemble casts which garnered critical acclaim. I’d seen Inception but didn’t remember any of it other than that I got a headache, I’d been meaning to get around to seeing Bronson, and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was on top of several year end lists so that means it has to be a quality film, right? And hell, why not re-watch Marie Antoinette, it couldn’t hurt to revisit it for old times sake. But these were not enough to sate me. I found myself desirous of more Tom Hardy films, despite all attempts to try to rationalize myself out of a burgeoning obsession.

The thing about Tom Hardy movies, however, is that I discovered that I really just didn't like them very much. Not because they were particularly awful films and certainly not because Tom Hardy is a slouch when it comes to acting. Therefore it became harder for me to properly explain why I needed to take fifty screen shots of a particular scene and why I felt compelled to fill my hard drive with films I normally wouldn't give a second thought, if I even thought about them at all. And like, you know, I like went to school for critically thinking about literature and media maaaaaan.

I was watching a particular film (which I will, of course, write about later) and I kept remarking on how I really didn't enjoy it and someone asked me why I kept watching it. And I knew why I kept watching it, but like, I like, asked myself why? on like, a deeper level. This isn't just because I enjoy Tom Hardy. This is because I have an inexplicablely compelling feeling that forces me to continue to watch something that I don't necessarily enjoy so that I can talk about it. And then it hit me! "Write a fucking blog about it, you dope!" I've wanted to write a blog for some time but didn't feel narcissistic enough to write about my life. But I certainly do feel narcissistic enough to write about a niche within my life that may or may not appeal to others and may or may not get the attention of it's subject (I KNOW YOU READ ABOUT YOURSELF ON THE INTERNET, T. HARD).

A lesser person than I would caption this with "ADORBZ"