SURPRISE!

Hello, all, I have returned from vacation. I hope you enjoyed the guest posters I had this past week:  Heather from New German Girl, and Lissa from Take Me With You. I appreciate the blog sitting and have enjoyed the casts they put together for Summer Sisters and Vampire Academy. 

As I said, I just got back off vacation, and during the week prior to flying to Phoenix with three kids under age 5, two weeks with family and friends across the country and the aftermath of unpacking and putting our lives back together here in Orlando, I have not had time to read a single book all the way through. Maybe I'm not vacationing the right way...

Since I have no books, I thought I would point out some of the most surprising casting choice, all of whom wound up being pretty on-the-money.

First up, I start with some Shakespeare. Because, really, everything starts in Shakespeare, more or less, right?

Tybalt, from Romeo and Juliet, is a hot-headed young gun who is basically leading the charge in the new generation against the Montagues. He's a prince and eventually kills Mercutio in a fight that dooms the star-crossed lovers. In the past, he has been played by Michael York and  the venerable Alan Rickman.

In the 1996 Baz Luhrmann production, he was played by...

John Leguizamo.

Leguizamo did a fantastic job, but who would have guessed that the guy who got his start in a Madonna video, played Mario in one of the worst video game to film adaptations of all time, was The Pest and a cheese-ball drag queen, could handle Shakespeare? Not to mention the fact that he was Hispanic, cast into a family of Caucasians. It was an unconventional choice that paid off, big time.

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*EDIT: Untypically Jia reminded me that John Leguizamo played Luigi, not Mario. She's right. My bad. 

In 2005, the Batman franchise got a facelift. A major facelift. Christopher Nolan, a practically unknown director was at the helm of the rebirth of one of the most popular comic book characters of all time. In the past, Batman was from a generic, large American city with a lot of crime problems. He was also dark, mysterious and sometimes a little zany. So it makes perfect sense that Nolan chose...

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Christian Bale? Wait. First, he's Welsh. Second, this guy has been anything but zany. American Psycho, The Machinist, The Prestige... the dark and dreary go on and on. OK, so he did a couple of Disney flicks, but that's not really the direction that Batman goes either.

I've compared Batmans before, and I overwhelmingly believe that Bale has been the best Batman, but really, who would have guessed?

While we're on the topic of Nolan and his unconventional choices: let's talk about Joker. Now, this is one character that, while sinister, has definitely been played as "zany" in the past. Jack Nicholson immortalized The Joker, and he has long been a favorite of the comic book fans. He's a homicidal maniac with a varying backstory. Of course, he ought to be played by...

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pretty boy Heath Ledger.

I remember when this was leaked/announced, my husband and I stared at the computer screen for a solid five minutes, and then gave each other quizzical looks. Hubby then declared the whole announcement a practical joke. There was no way that pretty boy Ledger was ever going to be convincing enough as a sadist...

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Whoops. Looks like we were wrong. I will admit to the world at large that the Dark Knight version of the Joker is the only human villain I have ever actually been afraid of in any movie. Absolutely terrifyingly psychotic. And brilliant. This is the real shame of Ledger's early death: look at the phenomenal talent that was lurking behind that gorgeous face. This man was poised to take over the world.


Please post your ideas in the comments- whether you agree with me or not!