The 411 Top 5 04.04.08: Week 107

Posted by Trevor Snyder on 04.04.2008

The Top 5 Most Unlikely Onscreen Couples

Last week we celebrated those onscreen couples that are just too cool for school, so this week we're switching it up and taking a look at the kind of pairings that make you go "huh?" These kind of onscreen duos are certainly noting new, nor unexpected. After all, Hollywood is nothing is not a fantasy factory, so it's only natural that it spends a great deal of its time giving us completely unbelievable couples…whether it be to give the less attractive audience members a glimmer of hope, or simply for good old fashioned comic relief.

Not looking to discriminate, I've decided to open up the category to include both the couples that initially seemed unlikely, but actually ended up working thanks to the actors and filmmakers involved, and those that tried to work, but just never quite made it. So join us as we present:

THE TOP 5 MOST UNLIKELY ONSCREEN COUPLES


Trevor Snyder

5. Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones in Entrapment

Now I know that a lot of younger women actually do find Sean Connery attractive to this day (I guess that whole "pro slapping women" attitude of his is quite the turn on). Still, that doesn't mean anyone wants to watch Connery at 69 getting it on with Zeta-Jones at 29. Well, I'm sure Connery probably does, but it's not like he has to buy a ticket, right? Honestly, I don't even remember if this movie was a hit or not, but if it was I guarantee it had less to do with this unsettling pairing and everything to do with that one shot in the trailer of Zeta-Jones stretching underneath the laser. Yeah, you know the shot I'm talking about.

4. Anthony Geary and Genie Francis (Luke and Laura) on General Hospital

In this case, it's not the actors I'm taking issue with (for all I know, they could have great chemistry together), but the characters themselves. Now, I freely admit I've never seen an episode of General Hospital, but like any other pop-culture junkie I'm pretty familiar with just how big of a deal this pairing was, and the massive TV event their eventual wedding would be. But does anyone remember how these two came together? Yep, that's right…Luke raped Laura. Let me repeat that. He raped her. And thus followed one of the greatest romances in television history! Uhhh, yeah, right.

3. Kelly Clarkson and Justin Guarini in From Justin to Kelly

I don't care about American Idol, and I'm not a Clarkson fan by any stretch of the imagination. Still, from everything I've seen or heard of her, I at least have enough respect for her to believe that she would never lower herself so far as to actually contemplating a romance with this loser (and no, that's not so much an insult as a statement of fact – he did lose American Idol). This movie was a pretty massive bomb at the box-office, and I think that's pretty telling. After all, American Idol-mania was still in full swing at the time, so you have to think the only reason people avoided this flick was because, like me, they just couldn't buy these two actually falling for one another.

2. Harrison Ford and Anne Heche in Six Days, Seven Nights

No, I'm not gonna go the easy route here and declare this one unbelievable because of Anne Heche's sexuality, even though plenty of people did at the time. Why should that matter, though? Gay actors play straight all the time, and vice-versa. Besides, as we now know, Heche wasn't exclusive for that team, anyway. So nope, that's not my problem. My problem lies more in the fact that it's Harrison Ford and Anne Heche! I know what you're thinking – "dude, they guy is dating Calista Flockhart in real life." Well, OK, you got me there. Still, there was just something that didn't really seem right about their pairing in this flick, something that was confirmed upon seeing the movie and realizing the two had absolutely no chemistry together. How bad was it, you ask? Well, I felt like I was watching it for six days and seven nights. Ha! Zing!

1. Woody Allen and…well, take your pick.

We get it, Woody, you like young chicks. As if your personal life wasn't enough of an indication of that fact, now we have to deal with dozens of films telling us the same thing. I mean, I'm not gonna lie. It must be nice to be such a legend that you can continuously make film after film depicting women like Charlize Theron, Elisabeth Shue, Tea Leoni, and Mira Sorvino lusting over your old ass. And, I suppose on some level, the guy has earned it. But still, that doesn't make it any less tiresome for the audiences. It's pretty sad when your most believable leading lady in recent years was Helen Hunt, who was still about 30 years younger than Allen. Seriously, I'm surprised the guy hasn't lined up Lindsey Lohan to play his wife yet.



Owain J. Brimfield

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala (Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman) in the Star Wars prequels - this is more for the complete lack of any screen chemistry whatsoever than anything else.

Rafe McCawley and Evelyn Johnson (Ben Affleck and Kate Beckinsale) in Pearl Harbor - really, why on earth would anyone, let alone someone as hot as Kate Beckinsale, fall for the perpetually irritating Affleck?

Fred Lavery and Sheila Kingston (Dan Aykroyd and Rosie O'Donnell) in Exit to Eden - just plain wrong.

THE TOP 5

5. Bill and Alice Harford (Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman) in Eyes Wide Shut

You'd think one of Hollywood's famousest couples, playing an on-screen husband and wife, would at least exhibit some sort of chemistry, or look like they belonged together. Yes, I know the movie concerns troubles with their relationship, but surely there should be something there. No? Ah well. Here, the Cruiser runs through an entire kinky movie with the same slightly-baffled expression on his face, as both he and his wife contemplate the distance that has come between them without ever giving the audience the slightest hint that they may once have bonded as a couple. Still, at least the scene where Kidman gets taken from behind by a stranger kind of makes up for the total absence of any convincing chemistry.

4. Robert MacDougal and Virginia Baker (Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones) in Entrapment

Not quite as unlikely as CZJ and Michael Douglas, but about as close as you can get on the big screen to the real-world creepiness that nowadays means you can't look at Douglas without getting the slight feeling he reminds you of the pervy science teacher from high school. I'm not sure how bad the age gap really is here (thirty years maybe?), but it's unnerving in that it reinforces the idea that a gorgeous looking woman like Zeta-Jones may in fact prefer wrinkly old film stars to normal people, which is immensely disheartening. I mean I know it's a bit like hooking up with James Bond (or at least Bond's dad), but still, doesn't Connery have a touch of the woman-beater about him? But hey, maybe that's what Welsh women go for, and who am I to judge.

Nah, of course I'm going to judge, I'm a twat like that. Keep off our screens with your grandad-baiting ways!

3. Quinn Harris and Robin Monroe (Harrison Ford and Anne Heche) in Six Days, Seven Nights

Mid-50s rough-and-ready action star, meet late-20s short-haired homosexual. How can that pairing fail! Maybe it's because Ford and Heche are so completely unbelievable as the leading couple in this mediocre movie that it's impossible to take the exercise seriously. It's not even the age difference that matters here, even if it is more than a quarter of a century - Ford is still charismatically handsome, and what older man wouldn't want to make out with a young lesbian? However, as anyone who's seen the film can rightly attest, there's just no way that the two work together, on any level. Call it lack of chemistry or something more innately fine-tuned… perhaps it's the lingering memory of Heche's fling with Ellen DeGeneres (America's most famous lesbian!) that grates, or maybe it's something more intangible, but the fact remains that these two just don't fit, period

2. Woody Allen with any young romantic lead

Allen's comedy is wonderfully witty and intelligent, but if there's one thing that prevents me from recognizing him as the masterful auteur he is generally accredited as being, it's his insistence on casting himself in the romantic lead time and time again with a variety of sexy young actresses apparently falling head over heels for a small, vaguely ginger Jewish prune. Yeah, so maybe it did happen in real life (apparently women prefer a good sense of humor to good looks, but who would you rather date ladies, Billy Connolly or, say, Ryan Phillippe?), but I don't want to see it on my TV screen. Allen just doesn't have what it takes to portray a convincing screen partner, unless his companion is a giant sperm suit, and I can't think of a single one of his movies in which he and the leading lady make for a halfway convincing couple.

1. Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist (Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal) in Brokeback Mountain

Convincing, yes, but by golly you wouldn't have expected it, which is why this pair gets my top vote. I don't want to get into the whole 'kitten politics' of the movie, which have been frankly overwrung and hung out to dry by any number of armchair critics and redneck homophobes, so let's instead look at Ledger and Gyllenhaal on a singular level - who would have EVER thought that the two actors would be portraying a loving couple on screen, let alone giving as convincing performances as they did? Combining that with the characters they play - taciturn cowboys in pricks 60s smalltown America - and you have yourself a pairing that's double unlikely. Who knows, maybe cinema will one day have advanced sufficiently far for same-sex couples to be treated equally, but for now, it's a fact that any boy/boy pairing is bound to attract more attention as being an unlikely coupling than any other.



Bryan Kristopowitz

HONORABLE MENTIONS

- Swamp Thing and Abby Arcane (Dick Durock and Heather Locklear) in The Return of Swamp Thing (1989): Swamp Thing is basically a big, hulking plant in human form, and Abby Arcane is a smart alecky hot blonde chick. Now, in a general movie sense there's nothing particularly strange or weird about this combination because sympathetic monsters in monster movies always end up with babeish women. But in this flick, the babeish female is Heather Locklear, an actress I never thought I'd see in a very proud of itself B-movie directed by Jim freaking Wynorski. And you can tell she's really into it, and she's got surprising chemistry with Durock.

- Jack Gable and Janet DuBois/Louise (John Candy and Mariel Hemingway) in Delirious (1991): On TV sitcoms, fat guys always have smoking hot wives or girlfriends. That doesn't happen all that much in movies (at least I haven't noticed it). In Delirious, we're supposed to believe that soap opera producer and loveable fat guy Gable has somehow "bagged" a hot, midwestern esque babe, the kind of gal who would probably be nice to a fat guy but could never really be interested in him because he's, well, fat. But by the end of the flick, when we see Gable and Louise ice skating as a couple, it actually seems right and plausible. Well, it helps, too, with Candy being Candy and Hemingway not being a bitch (this wouldn't have worked with Emma Samms).

- Lt. Frank Drebin and Jane Spencer (Leslie Nielson and Priscilla Presley) in The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!" (1988): It's a strange pairing because of the age and the nature of the relationship. Nielson is an old guy playing an action hero, and Presley, while not exactly a spring chicken, is much younger than him. And there's supposed to be a sexual attraction between the two, grandpa and the cougar. And yet you completely believe that they're in love and lovers.

THE TOP 5

5. George Newman and Teri (Weird Al" Yankovic and Victoria Jackson) in UHF (1989)

I always thought that it was extremely weird that Yankovic's George Newman would even have a girlfriend. I always saw him as either a guy in love with a woman that didn't "see him in that way" or as a guy pursued by a mousy but still attractive woman that he doesn't pay any attention to because he's too busy doing whatever (as in the case of this movie, trying to find something creative to do with his life). That being said, I think the reason we totally believe Teri is into George is Jackson's soft voice. You get the sense that she really wants him to succeed. And, ultimately, why they end up working together is neither one is a threat to the other. It doesn't seem like they should be together (why would a professional hang out with a guy who can't keep a job for more than a day?) but they are.

4. Norman Kane and Maggie Cavanaugh (Eugene Levy and Meg Ryan) in Armed & Dangerous (1986)

Norman Kane is a timid, disgraced former lawyer forced to become a security guard because the job, or so he thought, easier than being a lawyer, less stressful. Maggie is the cute daughter of the owner of the private security firm Norman works for. Even if Maggie claims to like "nice" guys, it's kind of hard to believe that she'd like this nice guy. But it works. I think it's because they're both always ready to laugh at one another. Their serious relationship is based on the assumption it's all a big joke. And it kind of is.

3. Roy Munson and Claudia (Woody Harrelson and Vanessa Angel) in Kingpin (1996)

Roy Munson is a disgraced never was former Iowa state bowling champion with a rubber hand and a drinking problem, and Claudia is a street smart, tough as nails pseudo whore. They don't trust one another at all. Both of them are just waiting for the other to turn on him or her and leave him or her behind. But then there's that moment in the car as they're about to enter Roy's old home town and Claudia tells him he looks "real sharp." Suddenly all the fighting they've engaged in no longer matters. At this very moment they trust the other. This is the scene that makes them plausible and ends up carrying the rest of the movie.

2. Jack Murphy and Arabella McGee (Charles Bronson and Kathleen Wilhoite) in Murphy's Law (1986)

As big Chuck got older he, well, got older. If he wasn't paired up with a woman over the age of thirty, it was just creepy. Why is Grandpa trying to nail the college cheerleader? you'd likely ask yourself. In the case of Murphy's Law, Chuck's relationship with Wilhoite is more father-daughter than anything else. And thank God for that. There's a hint of potential sex at the end as both Murphy and Arabella are in the ambulance, but I'd like to think that it's more an extension of the constant back and forth between the two as they ran together from the cops. Chuck is like a hundred here. At least they do a pretty decent "buddy cop" thing until then.

1. Terry Doolittle and Jack (Whoopi Goldberg and Jonathan Pryce) in Jumpin' Jack Flash (1986)

For a big butt majority of the movie, Doolittle and Jack communicate via computer. We get to hear Terry think and type and talk to her computer, and until the very, very end of the movie the only thing we know about Jack is he's English and we only really know that because of the "voice" that comes out of Terry's computer. Jack could really be anyone. So when we finally see them together it's kind of amazing because I know I sure as heck didn't think Jack would turn out to be the guy he turns out to be. But Goldberg and Pryce, in that one minute of screen time they share together, end up being a perfect fit. It's amazing how director Penny Marshall made it all work out.

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