Top Five – modern actors with alluring eyes

“The eyes are the windows to the soul”, or so said some stoned hippy at some point in time somewhere. And with my latest list blog I’m taking a closer look at the ‘Top five modern actors with alluring eyes‘. Now, there are plenty of beautiful peepers on the scene, but these actors have a certain je ne sais quoi when it comes to their gazes. Let’s take a dive into the depths of their gloriously hypnotic eyeballs.

First up is my Number Five pick, the smoky-eyed Spanish siren, Penelope Cruz. She’s got eyes that could stop a charging bull in its tracks. This lady’s almond-shaped eyes are so bewitching, you’ll sometimes forget what movie you’re even watching. Her stare demands attention, and you’ll gladly give her all of it (even if your wife’s in the room).

In at Number Four we have Ian Somerhalder. Sure, he’s known for his smoldering stare on The Vampire Diaries, but have you ever really looked into those almost translucent, soft baby blues? It’s like two sapphires have been plucked from the depths of the ocean and surgically implanted into his skull.

Taking the bronze at Number Three I’ve plumped for Angelina Jolie. Her piercing blue-green eyes are so intense and intimidating, they could hypnotize a cobra. One gaze from her and you’re either quivering in fear, or feeling an overwhelming urge to do her bidding. And if she ever looked at you the wrong way, you’d probably end up selling your soul to the devil just to appease her.

My Number Two choice is the stunningly doe-eyed, Amanda Seyfried. With their large, soft, dreamy appearance, her eyes are like two giant, oceanic orbs that could transport you to a paradise island, far away from the drudgery of having to work for living and take the bins out every Thursday. I’m pretty sure if she wanted to, she could make the moon crash into the earth just by blinking.

Sitting at the top of the pack, and my Number One pick is White Lotus and True Detectives star, Alexandra Daddario. With their icy-blue hue, it’s like being surrounded by glaciers in the dead of winter. Her gaze is like a conspiracy theory, making you feel like you’re onto something big one minute and then questioning your own sanity the next. Just a single stare from her and you’re either joining a cult or booking a one-way ticket to Vegas.

They’re my Top Five – who would you pick?

Top Five – actors with beautifully big ears

Over the past couple of years it appears this blog has become slightly fixated on thespian body parts. There’s nothing strange or sinister about it I promise, but some of Slacker Shack‘s best read posts are Top Five lists about famous actors’ iconic eyebrows, expressive nostrils, bushy moustaches and amazing necks.

It seems only logical that the next step is ears. We don’t often talk about actors ears. I guess it seems daft. But every now again an actor comes along with jug ears, big flappers or little sticky outies and we can’t help but have a stare.

Will Smith often jokes about his little fleshy wing mirrors, as does his Bad Boys co-star Martin Lawrence, but the truth is they’re both just a wee bit jug-eared. The same goes for Jennifer Garner. Sure, they’ve got a little bit of flap to them but I’m looking for something a little ‘meatier’ in this Top Five.

I’ve heard a few people talk about Adam Driver‘s ears. They’ve got a good mass to them, but the truth is he’s got such big features across the board, they kind of fade into the background and get lost in his well-quaffed thatch. The female equivalent of Adam is probably Anne Hathaway. An actress of true beauty with a fine set of listening posts. But once again her large features – that huge lipsticked smile, those pearl white teeth and glimmering eyeballs – mean her ears become mere background fodder.

Onto my five. My self-set requirements being – prominence, length, width, sticky outie-ness, the amount they’re talked about and to a slightly lesser extent, ‘how famous the actors attached to them are’:

In at Number Five, kicking off this list in fine style are Daniel Craig‘s lovely face nuggets. When I first saw Daniel in mid-90’s TV drama, Our Friends In The North I thought he looked like a strangely handsome Mr. Potato Head. 15 years later he was playing James Bond and causing ladies across the globe to hot sweat whenever he raised his naked torso from an ocean or steaming jacuzzi. He’s hot stuff. But those ears are pretty beefy. He’s like a square-jawed trophy.

My Number Four pick might not be Daniel Craig famous but he’s got a bloody decent list of film roles tucked behind his mighty mug handles. Plenty of film buffs will remember Lukas Haas as the sweet, big-eared Amish kid from 1985’s Witness starring Harrison Ford, and more recently in films like Inception, The Revenant and First Man. And whilst his ears are clearly big they look splendid paired with a large-brimmed hat and tufty sideburns.

In at Number Three is the English actor, Russell Tovey. I’m a big fan of Russell and his cheeky monkey-esque face wings. His roles in sitcoms Being Human and Him & Her made him a bit of an alternative national treasure and his girthy, handsome ears always look like they’re about to ever so gently flutter and allow him to hover on the spot, should the feeling take him.

We’re stepping back into Hollywood’s Golden Age for my Number Two pick. When Clark Gable filmed a screen-test for the lead role in 1931’s Little Caesar, American film producer, Darryl F. Zanuck shunned him in favour of Edward G. Robinson, saying, “his ears are too big, and he looks like an ape“. Following that undignified slur, Gable went on to become one of the best known actors of the 30’s and 40’s (and an Oscar winner in 1935 too). In a 1938 poll he was named the most famous actor in the world and Ed Sullivan nicknamed him ‘The King of Hollywood‘ – not bad for a bloke who frequently had to have his big ol’ flappers taped back during filming.

When I first started thinking about this daft Top Five it became quickly obvious who’d end up topping it and claim the hallowed Number One spot. Generations of kids and adults know who Dr. Spock is and the most famous characteristic about Leonard Nimoy‘s Star Trek creation is definitely his ears. “But they’re fake ears!” I hear you cry – and yes, they are, but check out his actual ears – they’re massive, gigantic, almost BFG-like in their dominance. Leonard found fame with fake ears but his real ears deserve their own plaudits – so here’s one, posthumously, Mr. Nimoy, may it find you safe and sound, somewhere beyond the stars…

Check out the trailer for FX’s new ‘Y: The Last Man’ TV adaptation

The entertainment world is (and has been for quite some time now) a glut with comic book adaptations. As a teen in the late 80’s I dreamt of a world where superheroes like Spider-man, Iron Man, Wolverine, Punisher and Daredevil would all appear in new blockbuster films and TV shows. Then in 1989, with Tim Burton‘s Batman, my dreams started happening and the superhero movies and TV shows have been mounting up ever since. There are so many I love, and over the past ten or so years lots of indie comic books have been adapted too, which has made things a bit more interesting. There’s a still a lot of crap though. There’s been so many success stories everyone’s hunting for the next comic book series to adapt and hopefully reap the rewards with.

Like loads of middle-aged, old comic book fans I’m a bit bored of the whole superhero thing now. I’m too old for it. I do still like to collect graphic novels though and love to hunt down something new every now and again. One comic book I dipped into a few years back was Vertigo‘s Y: The Last Man, and whilst it’s post apocalyptic premise was a bit ‘same old, same old’, I did enjoy writer Brian K. Vaughan‘s stories and it’s three Eisner awards and sixty issue run lay testament to it’s quality and popularity.

The comic ran until 2008 and over the past ten years there’s been countless rumours that a TV adaptation was close but nothing materialised. Nothing until now.

Next month see’s the TV debut of Y: The Last Man. The show starts with a cataclysmic global event that causes all beings on Earth with the Y chromosome to suddenly die, except for one male human named Yorick Brown and his pet monkey, Ampersand. The new TV series is set to stream on Hulu in the US and internationally via Disney Plus Star from the 13th September- check out the trailer below:

HBO releases new teaser trailer for season 3 of Succession

I reckon Succession may be the best TV drama of the last 3 or 4 years. It’s only two seasons in so far but it’s got a bit of everything – acidic comedy, high drama, riveting plot lines, great actors and absolutely brutal put downs.

HBO has just released a new trailer for season 3 of the show and it looks to have lost none of its bite. It’s out this Autumn/Fall – check out the trailer below:

All you need to know about the new Sopranos prequel movie ‘The Many Saints of Newark’

If, like me, you’re a Sopranos fan that’s feverishly excited about the new prequel movie, The Many Saints of Newark, I’ve compiled three videos below that’ll help fill in any blanks ahead of the film’s release this October. There’s lots of chatter so I’ve made sure to pick just the best stuff – check out the videos below:

Check out the trailer for new Amazon Prime horror series ‘Them’

Amazon has finally dropped the first trailer for highly-anticipated horror series, Them: Covenant.

Them is a limited anthology series that explores themes of fear and terror in America. It’s been created by Little Marvin and the ten episode long first season is subtitled Covenant. The story follows a black family in the 1950s who move from rural North Carolina to an all-white Los Angeles neighborhood where sinister forces, both neighbourly and otherworldly, threaten to ravage and destroy the new life they’re trying to forge.

The newly released trailer tips a hat to films like The Stepford Wives, Get Out and Us and builds an eerie mood without any dialogue. It looks great and the increasingly freaky clips ramp up the suspense and tension beautifully. Check out the trailer below:

Them premieres at the 2021 SXSW Film Festival this month before it debuts on Amazon Prime on the 9th April.

New dark-tech comedy ‘Made for Love’ lands on HBO Max next month

American author Alissa Nutting’s hilarious 2017 novel, Made for Love as been adapted into a new TV series. The show stars Cristin Milioti, Ray Romano, Augusto Aguilera and Billy Magnussen and is billed as “poignant, riotously funny story of how far some will go for love—and how far some will go to escape it.”

The story follows the chaotic life of Hazel, who has just run out on her marriage to Byron Gogol, CEO and founder of Gogol Industries, a tech company obsessed with making its products and tech indispensable to one and all. Hazel has moved into a trailer park of senior citizens, with her father and and his sex doll, Diane and their relationship is strained to the say the least. That’s the set up and it gets a whole lot stranger from that point onwards.

The trailer looks funny and has a kind of slapstick Black Mirror feel to it. check it out below:

Made for Love starts streaming on HBO Max on next month.

Top Five – 21st century TV shows that knew the perfect time to quit

We’re living in a golden age of television. We have been for at least 20 years now and with the power of platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+ and Apple TV, investment in ensuring this golden age continues is at an all time high.

When critics look back over the last 20 or 30 years of TV, and in particular shows considered classic box-set, binge-watch favourites, at least 20 shows always feature in Top 50 lists. I don’t need to name them all, you know what they are by know. But with this list I wanted to concentrate on shows that lasted the perfect length of time and never outstayed their welcome or let the quality slip.

Let me get to the nitty-gritty and list some brilliant, mind blowingly influential shows that won’t make this list. First up there’s no room for Breaking Bad. The drab, made for Netflix, El Camino revisit put paid to that. Mad Men doesn’t make it as it lost it’s sparkle after Season 4. Twin Peaks is out of contention due to the original TV series being too old. The last season of Game of Thrones means it doesn’t make the list. One of my all-time favourite shows, Lost gets excluded because of a saggy season 3 and a confusing last season (that I eventually grew to love but had issues with initially). Fringe and 30 Rock faltered a bit towards the end and classic sit-coms like Seinfeld, Friends, Cheers are obviously too old.

Before I reveal Slacker Shack’s Top Five, here’s a few comedy shows that came very close but didn’t make it (let the arguments commence) – Peep Show (I always wanted more of it and felt it didn’t have the impact it could’ve had because of that), Curb Your Enthusiasm (a couple of average seasons meant it was close but no cigar), The US Office (I loved this show but it sagged badly in it’s last couple of seasons), Flight of the Conchords (an all-time favourite of mine, but it could’ve and should’ve stayed around a lot longer) and (this breaks my heart) probably my all-time favourite sit-com, Parks and Recreation (because of its average first season).

No more waffling, here’s our ‘Top Five 21st century TV shows that knew the perfect time to quit‘:

Number 5 is Fleabag. I know it’s not to everyone’s taste, I have a few friends who thought it was awful, but for me it was a perfect zeitgeisty slice of 21st century comedy. It only lasted for twelve episodes, which to American audiences is barely a season, but unlike other recent comedies that have either overstayed their welcome (Arrested Development, Modern Family) or had ‘quality wobbles’ (Community, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia) it had a well thought out structure to it and seemed the absolute perfect length.

Number 4, Mackenzie Crook‘s recent comedy, Detectorists, has been a bit of a sleeper hit over the past twelve months, with lots of new fans checking it out during lockdown. Brilliantly acted and beautifully gentle and understated I fell in love with it back in May and binge watched all of it in a fortnight. At only 19 episodes longer some may argue it could’ve lasted longer but for me it was a perfectly paced dip into two men’s metal detector based friendship, and a show I know I’ll revisit from time to time when I just want to lie back and softly chuckle.

This might’ve made our number one spot but for possibly 2 or 3 needless episodes in the last season. In at Number 3 is The Sopranos. I came to the show very late and watched it over a three month period earlier this year. All the hype felt justified and whilst I don’t think it’s “the greatest TV show ever made“, it never felt saggy and even at whopping 86 episodes long it never outstayed it’s welcome – it was utterly captivating from start to finish and masterfully paced.

Our Number 2 pick might be potentially contentious to die-hard fans of Tom Perrota‘s source novel, as it expands on his book and takes it somewhere different, but for me The Leftovers is one of the greatest pieces of television ever made. A pretty bold statement but it really left a mark on me and emotionally affected me unlike any other show I’ve seen in the past twenty years. I’ve always loved what I call ‘earth based sci-fi’ and the mysterious and mesmerising story of Kevin Garvey is electrifying from start to finish. Like Lost, Twin Peaks, Fringe and recent German hit, Dark, The Leftovers revels in bending your mind in all kinds of different directions, but it’s magic lies in the journey it takes your heart on too. At it’s core it’s a love story and a perfectly paced one at 3 seasons and 28 episodes long.

It’s no real surprise to see HBO‘s The Wire at the Number 1 spot (maybe it’s even a bit boring – soz). It’s ingenious idea of examing the way a city (in its case Baltimore) works and functions from different perspectives, gave it a masterful structure. From the urban ghettoes to the docks and from the schools and newspaper to City Hall, it offered a fascinating insight into diverse worlds, all interlinked and co-exisiting in one city. It’s writing is peerless and characters like Stringer Bell, Jimmy McNulty, Bubbles, Omar Little and Avon Barksdale have made an indelible mark on popular modern culture. It’s 60 episodes seemed perfect.

So, that’s our top five. There was no space for shows like Better Call Saul, Ozark and Fargo as they’re still running – but all three could be in with a shout in the future as they’re all excellent. What would make your top five?

Discover Alien Worlds with Netflix’s new sci-fi documentary

Who doesn’t love thinking about aliens and what kind of life might exist in this vast universe of ours? For those who love the idea of science fact mixing with science fiction Netflix‘s new show Alien Worlds applys the laws of life on Earth to the rest of the galaxy and imagines alien life on other planets. It looks like a lot of fun – check out the trailer below:

Alien Worlds starts streaming on Netflix from 2nd December.

Check out the first trailer for Ridley Scott’s new TV series ‘Raised By Wolves’

Anything with Ridley Scott‘s name attached to it is worth a peek, especially if it’s sci-fi. Is there another director/alive with a track record that can beat Alien, Blade Runner and The Martian? That’s three sci-fi classics right there before even mentioning films like Thelma & Louise, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down and American Gangster.

Ridley Scott‘s also got a decent track record when it comes to executive producing TV series. His name features on hit shows like The Good Wife, Braindead, Taboo, The Man In The High Castle, The Good Fight and The Terror. Add to that list, Raised By Wolves, a new sci-fi series created by Aaron Guzikowski that debuts on HBO Max next month.

Raised by Wolves centers around two androids, a father and mother. The androids are tasked with raising human children on a mysterious new planet after Earth was destroyed by a great war. As the growing colony of humans threatens to be torn apart by religious differences, the androids learn that controlling the beliefs of humans is a treacherous and difficult task.

Check out the trailer below:

Next up for Scott is an executive production credit on Blade Runner: Black Lotus – an animated TV series that takes place 17 years before ‘Blade Runner 2049‘ – and director duties on another as yet unnamed Alien prequel.