Obscure Celebrity Crush of the Week!: Raul Julia

Alright, it's probably tasteless of me to usher in the new blog by objectifying the talented yet deceased Puerto Rican superhunk Raul Julia, but ever since the very funny TBS played The Addams Family Values, thus bringing me back to my childhood when I had some sort of eerie obsession with that cinematic gem, I realized just how hotter as a faun Mr. Julia could be. Ok, but without the faun. I mean, look at that! The one slightly bulging eye, the subtle debonair smile, the ability to grow impressive facial hair at a moment's notice.

I've slowly been working my way through the Iowa City Public Library's collection of Señor Raul's tantalizing film canon. Homie made a ton of movies! Seriously, who hasn't he played? Gomez, Othello, Selena. I still have quite a few of his films to work through, most direly Frankenstein Unbound and Street Fighter.

What can I say; he looks good in a tux.
But boy oh boy, I just rented the masterpiece One From the Heart --a Francis Ford Coppola picture that he made between Godfathers II and III*. I think of it as the '80s answer to Moulin Rouge, but with less quality and more of Teri Garr's boobs. It's fantastic; he plays the perpetually topless Garr's fantasy man, and Lainie Kazan as the totally against type Jewish best friend character has to keep over-compensating, saying things like, "Ooh, he's so gorgeous!" Clearly she got the memo too. As a Raulphile, this rates as not one of his better flicks, though he does both sing AND dance --a fate that has saved almost all of his movies**.

Cute!

Oh! And let me not forget Kiss of the Spider Woman. I can't believe it took a Raul Julia movie marathon to discover this movie, since I like to pride myself on having seen every film in the That's Rentertainment! queer cinema section. This movie is fantastic. It's super gay (namely, William Hurt, with his red hair, make up, and kimono), has a bearded Raulia, and discusses politics blah blah but no one really cares about that. They totally kiss. "Move over, you're squishing me!" Amazing.

I've officially sunk to a new low.

*a.k.a., a time when his career was still salvagable.

**Namely, Mack the Knife, the contemporary movie version of Brecht's Three Penny Opera starring an aged Richard Harris doing his best Sean Connery impression, a young hot Bill Nighy, and Roger Daltry, lead singer of the Who -who until this point I thought could do no wrong. I WAS WRONG.