Thinking About Ioan

When we saw "Sweet Land" yesterday we also saw a preview for the new film "Amazing Grace" and I'm afraid it has got me in a bit of a lather. "Amazing Grace" tells the story of William Wilberforce, the British abolitionist, and his friend, a former slaveholder, who composed the famous hymn. It's not a big budget blockbuster but it is poised to be the new "Christian" film on the block, one that its makers hope will have congregations flocking to see it. I, too, am looking forward to it keenly but not for the same reasons.

No, my reasons are quite the opposite. When I look at it I see *sex* because it stars (hubba hubba) the Welsh actor, Ioan Gruffudd.

To go all ga ga girly-he's dreamy. (insert Eartha Kitt growl here)


To satisfy my movie crush lust I have:

-repeatedly watched an A&E miniseries and wrote the network demanding more ("Horatio Hornblower" or as Halle Barry infamously said "Horatio the Hornblower")
-suffered through an annoying superhero movie ("Fantastic Four")
-slogged through an earnest retelling of Romeo & Juliet half in Welsh, half in Yiddish ("Solomon & Gaenor")
-ordered a BBC miniseries on VHS which I had to have transferred to play in my American VCR ("Warriors")
-taped a weird 'lawyers in the future' show, which was not surprisingly, short lived ("Century City"


and even

-fastforwarded through the non Ioan parts of a sequel to a Disney remake ("102 Dalmations")

Hell, I look through all the fashion mags every month just to see if there's a new Burberry ad because he & Rachel Wietz are the models in their current campaign. Now I could make a very compelling arguement that he's actually a fine actor but I'm not even going to try. So when all you good church going folk are lining up this weekend, I'll be lining up with you and the smile on my face won't be cause I'm thinking about the abolishment of slavery.