Dhalia takes on ...Josh Hartnett

(Review)

When the idea that we may start doing reviews and articles came up, I knew there was only one sensible place for me to start. I class myself as a bit of an amateur when it comes to watching movies that do not fall into the thriller/horror genre. I want to put on a loving face for my first appearance as an article writer man, and what better way to do that than writing about Mr Sunshine Smile himself, Josh Hartnett.

I'll tell you immediately where I stand, I think Josh Hartnett is fucking brilliant. I first remember seeing Josh Hartnett in the film 40 Days and 40 Nights which as we all know was wank. Yet somehow I managed to watch through the entire film, at the time I assumed it was because of Shannyn Sossamon, but the following years may reveal that I saw much potential in this young actor, and it soon became clear why Sweet Animosity publishers were quoted earlier this year as saying “Josh Hartnett is the best actor ever, if anyone could act better than him, then he would just act better”. A comment Josh Hartnett adorably replied to at this year’s ‘Man of the year’ awards by saying “Thank you, this means a lot to me”.

The movie that really made me sit up and think “Oh fuck, Hartnett is the boy!” was the 2006 crime thriller Lucky Number Slevin which is about some actors no one has really heard of as they fail miserably at trying to stop Hartnett from doing whatever Hartnett wants to do, because as we all know, Hartnett can do whatever he wants. Thus their plans don’t quite turn out as planned as Hartnett reached from the television screen and held this young man’s shoulder in the palm of his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze “Watch more of my films” he said, “Ok Josh Hartnett” I replied, I mean the kid replied, the one Josh Hartnett is touching. Josh Hartnett never touched me...

Reading through Wikipedia I realise he was in a few films I had previously seen but do not remember like Pearl Harbour, Black Hawk Down and Sin City, just little amateur films like that. I did read that he produced the Kid Cudi music video Pursuit of Happiness which was pretty kool though.

30 Days of Night was next on my list of the great works of Josh Hartnett and I thought this film would have been pretty good even if Hartnett wasn’t in it. I thought it was going to be cheesy, and granted all modern Vampire films has a layer of cheese smeared across them, but it wasn’t that bad. The story goes; somewhere cold the sun decides to chip off for 30 days, and during this time some vampires decide to cause a ruckus and munch the people down leaving Josh Hartnett to save the day. He obviously does so, but at what a cost! The viewer is left scarred with the image of Hartnett’s last moments literally burning into their retina. Hartnett makes no apologies.

I actually think the next film of his I saw was one of his very first credited roles, it was in the 1998 science fiction horror film The Faculty which he won a Saturn award for, and rightly so. The show is about a school that gets taken over by aliens and includes a rare insight to the life of the T-1000 as he works on one of his many ‘side invasion’ schemes, in a recent interview with Sweet Animosity reporter Militant Dave, Mr T-1000 stated that he “Thoroughly enjoyed working alongside Josh Hartnett...it was a career highlight and a great honour”

Recently, Josh Hartnett has returned in the television series ‘Penny Dreadful’ and plays a gun slinging, face smiling, hair swaying American Ethan Chandler. He ends up macking some Irish immigrant chick after she macked Dorian Gray, who tried macking Miss Ives, who macked a homeless man on a pile of rubbish in the street. (Macking means fucking)

I really enjoy the show itself, the story shifts from one characters story to the next smoothly and it has a slow pace that really focuses on who the characters are when they’re ‘not following the main quest’ per say. One thing that is slightly irritating me is the two main characters Vanessa Ives and Malcolm Murray. I just can’t seem to connect as Miss Ives seems rather twisted in a very stone cold way, whilst Malcolm seems to fit more with a ‘Basil the great mouse detective’ type movie villain. I understand he’s after his daughter, but you just end up not caring, you just want to see what the other characters are doing. Saying that, the show is fucking awesome!

Right, that’s my current musings of Josh Hartnett and a few things I’ve seen him in so far. If I was to rate Josh Hartnett’s career out of 10, then I would give it a 10 out of 10, if it was out of 100, I would give it 100 out of 100. That’s just how dam good he is, now I shall sign off with one of his many famous smiles.

Dhalia