Greetings,
I believe in miracles. I really do. Of course, every now and then, I may have weak moments where my faith is tried, but always something comes along to pull me back in. Recently, I experienced something that has erased any doubts I may have had about the validity of miracles.
About a month ago, I saw a movie entitled Coriolanus, and a mere three days ago, I saw Machine Gun Preacher, which I had been wanting to see for quite a long time. And what do these have in common? First of all, they were both, in my opinion, excellent movies. Second, Gerard Butler was in them. That's right. The Butler did it. He was in two good movies in a row. And therein lies the miracle. It appears that Mr. Butler has decided to be a good actor who appears in good movies again. Now some people may replace my word "again" with the word "finally". It all depends on the angle from which you've been looking at him. I personally have always held him in high regard, for one reason or another, and I have done so for longer than most people, especially in this country.
Now I have known about Gerard Butler for a really long time. Not only did I know about him before 300, which is pretty much considered his major "Okay, now I am a famous movie star" moment, but I knew about him even before The Phantom of the Opera, which gave him his main introduction to us here in America, albeit on a smaller scale. And I can prove that . . . sort of. See, when I heard about this new Phantom movie based on the Broadway show, I wanted to know who would play this iconic title role. I found out and my first thought was, "Gerard Butler? I didn't know he could sing". Yeah, I still don't know if he can sing, but we'll get to that later.
And so I will give a retrospective on my Gerard Butler experience. No, there is nothing else I can call it, but that.
My life as a member of the concubine of Gerard Butler began around the year 2000 when he played Dracula. Well, look at that, a guy from the UK playing a vampire. There's a trend that'll never take off. Anyway, I saw him and was immediately infatuated with him. Now this movie and it's alleged plot, particularly the ending, can be considered somewhat preposterous. So hilariously preposterous that, in fact, it kind of becomes entertaining. But Gerard has quite a commanding presence in this film, and he manages to hold his own against such a legend as Christopher Plummer. Yes, Christopher Plummer was in this, keeping his title as the face that can add legitimacy to any sub par movie of the last twenty-five years. Not to say that this film is super sub par. I'm just making a point.
Moving on. The next film I saw him in was Attila, as in Attila the Hun, where, again, he played the titular role. Let me say that again and more slowly. Gerard Butler, of the SCOTLAND Butlers, portrayed Attila the Hun in a movie. Okay, I was not a history major in college. I barely passed that class in high school. But I do not recall the Huns coming from anywhere near that area of the world. If you want to see a legit Hun, I suggest you watch Mulan. That's right. For maybe the first time ever, in a race to historical accuracy, Disney is actually in the lead. And, of course, it will not be the last time that Gerard's acting career coincides with inaccuracies such as this. However, I do find this production very well done and entertaining, so, give and take, I suppose.
Now between these early days and those of the Phantom, Gerard Butler did make a few movies that some people did not consider . . . well, good. No help was it to put him with overrated actors who shall remain nameless, but he did have a stint with Christian Bale in Reign of Fire and was a teamed up again in Timelinewith the great Billy Connolly, who was actually with him in his first movie Mrs. Brown in 1997. Despite all of this, Gerard was cast in the, no doubt, long awaited and highly anticipated The Phantom of the Opera.
It is this movie that proved I was truly blinded by love, or in this case, deafened. A lot of people were perplexed at his being cast in this role, citing the fact that he was too young or too good looking (Yeah, life sucks for him!) and when it came to singing, Michael Crawford he was not. But I certainly came to his defense on more than one occasion. I tried to explain to people that they wanted this Phantom to be different from the above ground character of Raul. The Phantom, dark and growling and brooding with his rock and roll-like persona versus girly-man Raul with all his on-key-ness. Who wants that mess? (P.S. Sorry, Patrick Wilson.) After all the years that have passed, though, here is my conclusion of this movie and its star. He wasn't the best singer, but he wasn't the worst. He was what Andrew Lloyd Weber wanted, if not exactly what the fans wanted. I guess I can still give it a thumbs up, and a good many people have also done that.
And then after a few more movies that maybe weren't seen by many, though in some cases they should have (I'm talking to you, Dear Frankie), the big break of 300 came along. I remember seeing a big display for this movie in the theater, and I had to do a double take. My Gerard just looked so mean and ferocious, but good, don't get me wrong. Yeah, that was the main buzz about this movie. How good he looked. Now I personally preferred his physique in the aforementioned Attila movie. He was built, but he looked natural, not like he borrowed the fake chest of Ricardo Montalban from Star Trek 2. And since I bring up the Attila thing, I may as well address the historical accuracy, or lack thereof, once more. Again, I am not a history major, but yet again, Sparta? Pretty sure it's nowhere near Scotland. No, it was in ancient Greece, and I don't even think they asked him to tone down his Scottish accent. In fact, everyone in this movie had an accent, but no one had a Greek accent. What the heck? Regardless, I enjoyed it.
Like I said, this is the one that really thrust him into the stratosphere of stardom. Unfortunately, this also put him into the category of people who get paid big money to make really bad movies. Again, don't get me wrong. I did enjoy a few of his post-300 films. P.S. I Love You was one I liked, as well as Nim's Island, the latter one there I mostly liked because it is something that we can one day show our children. Oh, there I go again. But for the most part, in the last four or five years, I have not been pleased with his choices. I would see these movies and say "What are you doing? You are a good actor! Do good things. It's not that hard. Just call Daniel Day Lewis and ask for his advice!". Well, it seems that all of my ranting made its way to him, and he has decided to do as I asked.
I must say that I am really proud of him. He has these two amazing movies, and I also heard that he quit smoking. So, if that's true, yay. Clearly, he is on an upswing. I just pray that it will last.
Love and full moons,
Becky the Writer
