From a review of the movie 'The Marine' starring John Cena in the role of John Trident (hee hee: John Trident):
'.... exploring John Cena's two facial expressions. Some people might say he only has one, but if you look closely you'll find two. The first is the most obvious, mule-headed stubbornness. The other is more subtle, but I'd describe it as barely constrained confusion. '
From later in that same review:
'....His fingers are like cucumbers, so large they're almost incapable of doing things like grasping. His arms are so muscled they're almost immobile, in battle the guy looks a lot like an angry Tyrannosaurus. '
Now I'd say that's a little unfair. Or confused. Tyrannosauruses have tiny little claw arms.
This review was a bit like prose caricature...
But John does not have hands. Or wrists. He has meatwise embiggened Thundermitts.
I hadn't done anything that satisfied me but I had loads of drawings. So I put them on this blog.
This could go in several directions. Actually it will. So munch on that!
10 comments:
As always, it's delightful to see your sketches. For some reason, it had never occurred to me until just now, when you said "hee hee: John Trident," that the word trident actually means "three tooth," which then struck me as hilarious; I don't know if that's why you were laughing, though :).
I have a friend who received, for his birthday this year, a caricature of himself playing basketball in t-rex form.
John Trident is a funny name for an action man as far as I'm concerned.
Esp with the added factor of his real name being John so John Trident seems like a boy called John's fantasy name or something.
Plus it suggests maybe the character's name was John so as to avoid confusing John. Not that I think wrestlers are thickos. Got to be careful about that.
Though the whole film was allegedly a rip of Commando in which Arnie played John Matrix. Hee hee
It's subtle, I think the suggestion of the idea that wrestlers are thickos can be funny. I don't literally think that wrestlers are all thickos. Because they aren't. Cena isn't. But the strategic submitting to certain achetypes and traditional prejudices has humour potential. At least where sausage finger people are concerned.
a 'rip off of' is what I should have done said
It's funny on a multitude of levels, I think - it's always amusing to me when an actor's real name is the same name as their character (do they ever get confused between takes?). Trident made me laugh because it also implies he only has three teeth (which would be more of a boxer stereotype, I suppose). And it does indeed sound like something a little boy would call himself (most likely while wearing a towel as a cape, and jabbing big pointed sticks at imaginary enemies - and missing at least a few front teeth).
For some reason, when I think of people having sausage fingers I always have a mental picture of them doing something absurdly delicate, like sipping from a little teacup with their pinky-finger sticking out.
As to the intelligence of wrestlers, I've often been under the impression that they play up the thicko personas, but in reality you have to be at least somewhat smart to be able to do what they do and not be rendered comatose or dead.
I know that a lot of action actors are often given characters whose names match their own real names. Or given scripts in which their names are not mentioned. As it's often easy to say the wrong name in the middle of an expensive explosion scene and have to shoot the whole scene again.
If you've ever seen the outtakes from a Jackie Chan film, there are usually a dozen or so shots of Chris Rock or Owen Wilson calling him Jackie.
p.s. I really didn't think anyone could do a piss take of Commando, as that movie itself could be considered the biggest action move piss take of all time.
p.p.s. the sketches are great!
Your "the" modern leonardo da vinci.
Hi John
Well I confess I've not actually seen either the marine or Commando all the way through. My understanding is that the Marine's not so much a piss take as a disappointingly less camp interpretation of the outrageously camp original. You know how folks remake films these days completely pointlessly and come up with blander versions. But it does have John Cena's barely constrained confusion face to make up for it.
Thanks mr Figment!
I've not invented any helicopters lately.
I spilled tea on my modem and I was offline for a day and a half or somesuch. then I got a new one. It was nice to come back online to find two new comments.
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