BEST REVIEW EVAH!!!
BIG squishy hugs to jenmstar for pointing me to Dana Stevens' great review of Eastern Promises over at Slate.com:
"And, at the risk of sounding like the proprietor of one of his countless fan pages, Viggo Mortensen is just amazing as Nikolai. He's the ideal Cronenberg anti-hero: gentle and macho at the same time, as charismatic as Steve McQueen and as beautiful as a saint in a master painting. When Nikolai gets his star tattoos-the Russian equivalent of being "made"-Mortensen sprawls nude on a red banquette, lit from above like a Caravaggio martyr. But the audience's longest glimpse of Viggo's zero-fat bod, man-bits and all, comes in a scene that can be watched only from between clenched fingers: Nikolai's climactic battle with two Chechen gangsters in a steam bath. If you saw A History of Violence, you know Mortensen can fuck up a guy something fierce, but till you've seen him do it buck naked and covered in mob tattoos, you haven't lived." (emphasis mine, fan link is Dana's)
*squee!* and *giggle* I'm glad she took the risk of sounding fannish...lol! But seriously, that is beautiful poetry about the man, and I agree with every lovingly bestowed word. Viggo just inspires admiration of this kind, doesn't he?
*dreamy sigh*
P.S. I wonder if Dana is a secret VigBean tinhatter, since she made that clever Caravaggio reference...*snerk* Or maybe David Cronenberg is, for putting that scene in in the first place! LOL!
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