Kevin Kline Vs. Bookmarks

The Case For Kevin Kline

Oh, where to begin making a case for Kevin Kline? The man's got kind of a lot going for him, on several fronts.

1. Professionally: When you think back on some of your favourite movies, you'll notice he's in a lot of them -- both snooty, respectable efforts like Sophie's Choice, Cry Freedom, and The Ice Storm, and popcorners you'd be embarrassed to admit that you watch when TBS airs them on a Saturday afternoon, like Soapdish, Dave, French Kiss, and In & Out. Hey! Quit smirking! And judging! We're talking about you! If you ever saw those movies on at our house, it's probably just because someone accidentally put a hand on the remote and changed the channel from Vera Drake, which we were watching on premium cable. ...FINE, Soapdish rocks. Moving on! Where you place The Big Chill and The Anniversary Party on the spectrum of guilty Kline pleasures is a personal choice. (You might say that the latter is sort of a next-generation way of closing the door the former opened, except then where does that leave Grand Canyon?) Oh! And A Fish Called Wanda. We know that the "Oscar winner" tag has been somewhat devalued since Ben Affleck could legitimately claim it, but Kline really deserved it -- if, for no other reason, showing that he could inflate a boot just by breathing into it. Neat!

2. Personally: Kline's been married to the lovely Phoebe Cates since 1989; they've produced two quite lovely children, one of whom starred in The Squid And The Whale, our second-favourite movie of 2005. Sure, there are rumours that he cheats on his wife all the time. But those rumours couldn't possibly be true: no Hollywood marriage stays together out of mere convenience!

3. Tonsorially: Rare is the man who looks good either with a moustache or without. Kline is one such man. Quick: get his ass on Deadwood so he can show off that talent, before it's too late!

The Case For Bookmarks

Unless you have copious amounts of free time, no distractions, and insomnia, the odds are that you seldom finish a book at a sitting, without needing to set it down to do things like put some Visine in your eyes or eat. So you probably have, on occasion, needed to mark your place in your book. With a bookmark, for example.

And it's not just books: we have a Vanity Fair in our bathroom that we've been hacking away at for about three weeks, and with a big, fat, perfect-bound bad boy like that, you can't even fold it back on itself to keep it on your page about the Anthony Pellicano investigation the next time you need to answer nature's call. (An Us, on the other hand, is so text-light that you can knock it off in the course of a long pee.)

This is not to say that we mark our places in books with cutesy brass things that have, like, bumblebees that stick out on the spine, or with laminated strips of cardboard embellished with a Bible quote and a yarn tassel. The beauty of the bookmark is that it can be improvised out of just about anything. Speaking of magazines: they're positively rife with potential bookmarks, from the eight dozen subscription cards stuck in them to the card-stock ads we always tear out. You can even rip part of a cover off an old magazine and stick it in a new one.

"Balderdash!" you say. "I never need bookmarks because I am a speed reader/only read really short books/don't read anything that's not on the internet." To you, we say: your life makes us sad.

The Decision

Of course, you might also say you never need bookmarks because, now that you aren't under constant surveillance either by persnickety parents or controlling librarians, you can just mark your place in a book by folding down the corner of the page, or by leaving it open on your page, face-down on a table or bathroom counter. We're not going to say we understand the sort of person who would be so cavalier about the condition of his library, but that's your business, we suppose, and it's true that, if you're prepared to live with a bunch of books that look like they've been pawed through by hobos, bookmarks aren't necessary. And Kevin Kline? ...Yeah, we'll admit that his recent run of movies -- including Wild Wild West, Life As A House, The Emperor's Club, De-Lovely, and The Pink Panther -- hasn't exactly made him seem so indispensable. However, even given his latest missteps, the man does have a lot to recommend him: a lovely singing voice, a couple of Tonys, a role in the promising-looking A Praire Home Companion, and, always, the potential to grow some truly gorgeous facial hair. You just can't underestimate that tremendous gift.

The Winner

Kevin Kline