By staff writer Simonne Cullen
November 11, 2007
Can we take a minute to address the man who has verbally charmed his way into our DVD players? An absurdly tall man who exhibits absolutely no physically attractive quality, and yet manages to win the heart of the beautiful Jennifer Aniston? The man who has absolutely no range as an actor and yet has pioneered his own genre of films, “Vince Vaughn, starring Vince Vaughn.”
Now, I'm all for Vaughn bringing his movies to Chicago. The studios employ the locals, there is the rare Hollywood-esque premiere in the city, and what actor hasn’t made the rent by being an extra for one of his movies? I know I have, but as much as Vaughn loves to brag about how much he loves Chicago, and represents the North Side in only a way one who grew up here would know how to do, it kind of pisses me off that he grew up in Lake Forest. Support the Bears, be a Cubs fan, use the city as a backdrop of every movie you make, but don’t deny the fact that you’re from a local suburb.
“I went in to Fred Claus expecting Swingers with a bunch of Christmas decorations.”
I could go into how he didn’t have to take public transportation to and from school, daily avoiding the cross-eyed preaching Jesus guy who carried a concealed weapon. Or waiting in line at the only clean bowling alley on the North Side for two hours for a lane, only to hear your name called and realize you can’t even bowl a whole game because your car insurance expires at the city’s 11pm curfew. But the bottom line is, Vince, stop fronting; you’re from a land of gated communities and trees, where creepy men jack off in their own 5-bedroom homes, not jizz all over your garbage cans in the alleyway.
I don’t deny that my DVD collection holds all of his classics: Wedding Crashers, Old School, and of course Swingers. What it doesn’t contain are his feeble attempts to be a serious actor. He’s so appealing just acting like himself in most of his flicks that when you stick him in a drama, like the remake of Psycho, it’s impossible to take the former playa seriously—“It’s money, baby!”—when he’s donning a wig and granny dress.
Which brings me to my point about Fred Claus, which I watched last night with my college roommate and her family (part of the movie was filmed on her street in the city, so it was quite a production seating everyone at the movie theater). I must say, I went in there expecting Swingers with a bunch of Christmas decorations, and left filled with holiday cheer…thanks to the other big name actors and the fat chubby child Santa in the beginning, certainly not Vince playing Vince, only named Fred.
Sure the evil Kevin Spacey could have replaced the elves with cheap Mexican immigrant labor, but that was too unrealistic since most Mexicans are not partial to snow, and it’s widely known that only vodka is exported to the South Pole, not tequila. And in my opinion, Vaughn’s love interest in reality would have chosen the battered heart Denny DuKett guy from Grey’s Anatomy over Vince’s ever-growing extensive collection of trash bags under his eyes. Sure, it looks like he’s snorted a stocking full of cocaine in every scene, but we’re paying to hear him say, “Let’s have some fun, make some bad decisions.” And for some reason we can’t resist it.