By some divine miracle I had a 3-day weekend, and I'm not ashamed to admit I wasted the whole thing in a Matt Dillon K-Hole: nonresponsive, unshowered in tri-blend leggings, and glued to the couch with Diet Dr. Pepper in hand. Dillon even showed up in every dream I had. But for good reason. In less than 24 hours, I watched The Outsiders, Rumble Fish, and Little Darlings.
Some may say that Dillon plays the same role in each of these films, but I beg to differ. Dally, Rusty James, and Randy are each carefully nuanced yet gloriously remain classic rebel archetypes, riffing off James Dean and Marlon Brando, of course.
The Outsiders'* Dallas Winston is definitely the coolest. He walks the fastest, hates little kids the most, smokes the most, and puts up the biggest front with the ladies. He's not a rebel without a cause. He has a conviction: take care of yourself first, and at any cost even at the hardening of your own heart. But like all good bad-asses, Dally has a heart of gold, and when his protege Johnny dies, he cracks at the seams and gets himself shot in the pretty, pretty head.
Russell James is the "dumb jock" brother of still-normal-faced Mickey Rourke and son of drunk-as-a-skunk Dennis Hopper in Rumble Fish. He might be slack-jawed and so stupid it hurts, but who doesn't wish they were Diane Lane in the make-out scenes? His earnest idolization of his big brother and naive idealization of gang life is heart-breaking.
Randy embodies the teenage boy who literally bleeds cool. He fronts the tough guy posture but mid-movie his ambivalence crumbles, and he's left heartbroken and outsmarted but still cool as shit.I personally believe Matt Dillon can do no wrong, and I just like looking at his face. I even watched Wild Things of my own free will, like, 2 months ago, and I saw You, Me, and Dupree in theaters (Okay, so that might have been a mistake.) Whatevssssss. I just wanted an excuse to post pics of his mug all over my blog.
Matt Dillon should get a PULLITZER a NOBEL an OSCAR a VMA a TONY a GRAMMY and a MEDAL OF HONOR for being the ultimate sex of all time! *On a side note, Matt Dillon manages to escape The Outsiders with dignity and sex appeal in tact, not to mention absolutely justified, verified, and magnified. Tom Cruise, on the other hand, in a series of monster gaffes (see back flip off a truck, chocolate cake all over his fucked up face, and hick monster screams) exists in the film as a grotesquely hilarious relic of truth: TOM CRUISE ALWAYS HAS BEEN A CRACKPOT FREAK ANIMAL/GHOUL OF CRAZYTOWN, and his erratic behavior (acting? I think not!) in The Outsiders only prophesizes the Scientology wacko-quacko Oprah couch jumping that was to come.
