Cinematical Seven: Terrible Movie Tattoos
Filed under: Fandom, Cinematical Seven, Images
Tattoos in the movies have a storied history, from the simple, classic LOVE/HATE knuckle tattoos in The Night of the Hunter to the slick and sexy additions to Angelina Jolie's existing body art in last summer's Wanted. Recent movies like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Eastern Promises have used tattoos to great effect; in Button, Captain Mike's homemade tattoos both referred to his life on the sea as a sailor, which in that era was the most visible tattoo population, and his own father's discouragement of his hopes of becoming an artist. Instead, he brings his art with him everywhere he goes. And Eastern Promises based its tattoos (hello, Viggo in his undies sipping a shot of vodka getting tattooed) on the heavily researched Russian tattoos and their different signifiers in the gangster underworld.
Unfortunately, most recent movies have the tendency to slap some crappy tribal on a character to make him or her seem more bad-ass, which, given the context of tattoos in the movies, is kind of understandable. But what's not is just how freaking terrible they are! Here are my personal picks of the worst ink spilled onscreen, plus a bonus mention for the most gorgeous tattoos in a movie, both in design and story use.
1. Doomsday
Look, I'm not blaming the lovely Lee-Anne Liebenberg for what the makeup artists did to her face. Surely in the future, we ladies will all be fire-spinning, ass-kicking, Mad Max characters, but do we really need to have eyeliner schmeared all over our faces in terrible pseudo-tribal designs? Also, couldn't they have at least gotten an actual factual lovely tattooed lady like, say, the real-life Coney Island superstar Insectavoria? They could have saved so much dough on makeup and stunt doubles, at the very least!
2. Strangeland
Dee Snyder has his heart in the right place, but holy crap. And let's not even get into the serial torturer/body modification mumbo jumbo. And how about that scene when he's got all that pancake makeup on to look "normal" and then suddenly after the townspeople beat him up even though he's reformed, he's all, I got facial tattoos and piercings and stuff again and I'm back to being Captain Howdy! That said, I can't wait for the sequel.
Star Tattoos
This actress' inked Arabic script covers up another tattoo she got with ex Billy Bob Thornton.
JEWEL SAMAD / AFP, Getty Images
Angelina Jolie arrives at the 15th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California, on January 25, 2009.
JEWEL SAMAD / AFP, Getty Images
This singer-slash-actor proudly displays a cross on his upper-left shoulder.
Eliot Press / Bauer-Griffin
Justin Timberlake enjoys some fun in the sun with a friend at the famous Hotel Eden Roc during the Cannes Film Festival, on May 13, 2004.
Eliot Press / Bauer-Griffin
This often shirtless actor has dated several high-profile actresses.
Atlantic Photo / Bauer-Griffin
Colin Farrell arrives at a London Hotel before going to a mystic tarot card reading shop and tattoo parlor on July 05, 2003.
Atlantic Photo / Bauer-Griffin
This starlet's tattoo has a striking resemblance to Barack Obama's presidential campaign logo.
Dimitrios Kambouris, WireImage for The Michael J Fox Foundation
Scarlett Johansson attends A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Cure Parkinson's 2008 benefit for The Michael J. Fox Foundation at the Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers on November 5, 2008.
Dimitrios Kambouris, WireImage for The Michael J Fox Foundation
This actress had the initials her of three kids inked on her upper back.
Steve Granitz, WireImage
Susan Sarandon arrives at the 15th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards at the Shrine Auditorium on January 25, 2009, in Los Angeles, California.
Dan MacMedan, WireImage
3. xXx
Vin Diesel stars as Xander Cage, an adrenaline junkie who's recruited by the government to infiltrate a sexy group of terrorists that includes Asia Argento, who is actually tattooed in real life with some gorgeous tattoos. Nothing says exXxtreme like tribal armbands!
4. RocknRolla
Toby Kebbell's prodigal son-turned-crackhead has some shady, shady tattoo scratch on his scrawny body, like ROCK and STAR above each nipple, MUM on his flank, and CHIP on his shoulder. And while they're bad on purpose, I still have to include it. Mostly because even as a junky, Kebbell is hot. What?
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5. The Number 23
Another attempt at a serious movie for Carrey, another bomb. But this bomb is full of conspiracy theories and an alternate universe where Carrey's character is a sweaty, saxophone-playing creep. According to Contact Music, his real-life lover Jenny McCarthy likes his tattoos a whole lot -- so much so that he was considering getting real ones. Although they described her interest as "an extreme body art fetish," I seriously doubt she would love it if he came home with a giant ring of metal in his you-know-what.
6. The Salton Sea
This movie rocked my socks, but Val Kilmer's Danny Parker sports a stylized half-sleeve that looks like it was red paint slapped on haphazardly is ridic. His backpiece features an Angel of Death spreading his arms over what's supposed to symbolize where his wife was murdered, at the Salton Sea, and is only slightly less ridic. However, there are a ton of bad tattoos in this movie -- speed freaks aren't known for their good judgement or planning -- the most hilarious yet touching is sported by Peter Sarsgaard's Jimmy the Finn, who gets a tattoo of Danny Parker's face on his arm. Except he didn't bring a picture of Danny, so he just sort of described him to the artist. Awesome.
7. Dishonorable mentions: Love and a .45 (bonus points for tattoo-as-torture scene), The Bucket List (I can't bring myself to watch this, all I know is that Jack Nicholson's character gets a tattoo as part of his Bucket List), Romper Stomper specifically for the horrendous skeleton arm tattoo that's sported by Hando (a very young Russell Crowe -- we're just not even going to discuss the neo-Nazi tattoos), and Star Trek baddie Nero.
Bonus round: The shining light in all of this can be seen in Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York. Robin Weigert displays a gorgeous flowered body suit designed by world-famous tattoo artist Tim Kern. There's also a split-second of Michelle Williams with a full backpiece designed by Charlie Kaufman. Tim did most of the painting for both. This is a picture from his blog of him painting Weigert, but you really need to see the entire movie for the full effect. And because it's a great movie.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
6-10-2009 @ 12:29AM
spilatro5 said...
How about the stupid one Bai Ling has on her back in The Crow, stupid as all get out!
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6-10-2009 @ 1:46AM
Tom Kapinos said...
I think those tattoos aren’t bad. Especially in Vin Diesel’s movie XXX, he really looks to masculine to me. Anyway in relation to movie industry, Tom Kapinos isn't exactly a household name, but his resume is pretty impressive. Tom Kapinos was the executive producer of Dawsons' Creek, and then created the wildly successful TV show Californication, for which he is executive producer and chief screenwriter. He won't need an instant payday loan anytime soon. He's been getting flak lately for an interview in which he compared working on Dawsons' Creek to a boot camp, and dealing with the young egos of show stars like Katie Holmes, James Van Der Beek and Joshua Jackson wasn't exactly the best thing since sliced bread. (See also: http://personalmoneystore.com/moneyblog/2009/06/04/tom-kapinos-trashed-dawsons-creek-stars/ ) Not exactly the most amicable statements, but Tom Kapinos isn't likely to need credit repair over them.
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6-10-2009 @ 4:47AM
yani said...
One of my favourite movie tattoos would have to be the one that Brad Pitt sports in Oceans 11... it's never mentioned or pointed out by any of the other characters and you only ever see the very end of it where it pokes out of his sleeve onto his hand/wrist.
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6-10-2009 @ 11:07AM
ames said...
oh yeah, that's a cool one. really subtle
6-10-2009 @ 7:30AM
Will B said...
More favs:
George Clooney in From Dusk Til Dawn i was 14 when i saw this, and I'll be damned if i didn't have my sister draw that tattoo on me at least 3 times with a sharpie.
The Rock in Southland Tales: In the movie he had tattoos from several different religions, and the graphic novel did a slick job of explaining why/how he got them.
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6-10-2009 @ 9:23AM
mdk said...
All tattoos look like crap, especially when the person has them for a few years and they start getting all faded and the skin starts sagging and wrinkling. These idiot hipsters with full sleeves are going to be spending a lot of money on painful laser surgery once Daddy's trust fund runs out and they have to find a job at Dillard's or wherever.
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6-10-2009 @ 10:11AM
Jenni Miller said...
Somehow I doubt that, MDK. There are plenty of people who aren't hipsters or trustfunders who have tattoos. You just might not see them. Check out the book INKED Inc., Tattooed Professionals by Dave Kimelberg and you'll see what I mean.
6-10-2009 @ 12:48PM
Wayne said...
With a little sunscreen and moisturizer a tattoo can look beautiful forever.
6-10-2009 @ 1:10PM
Dan said...
That Vin Diesel XXX one is pretty bad, I can't stand those tribal or even barbed wire wrap around tats...they're just corny. Having said that, funny thing about the Rock 'N Rolla guy, is I met an artist at a convention last year who actually tattooed a potato chip on a guy's shoulder. I thought that was pretty hilarious.
On another note, MDK, you are tripping. Plenty of people from all walks of life have tattoos. I could introduce you to some of my friends in their 50s still looking to get some. And me, I'm no rich hipster (guess you'll have to take my word for it) but I've got six tattoos, and you can't see any of them if I have a shirt on.
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6-10-2009 @ 12:48PM
Wayne said...
I love the use of tattoos in "Memento".
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6-10-2009 @ 1:23PM
mdk said...
Jenni, it's one thing to have a tatt that you got in college somewhere on your person. Perfectly normal. It's another to be some frak who covers major portions of your body with them I'm sorry, creepy is creepy and those obsessed-with-ink types are creepy. And trust me, it's all gonna look like hell in 10-20 years as the ink slowly fades and blurs under the skin.
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6-11-2009 @ 10:36AM
Da7e said...
MDK -
Tattoos haven't been 100% permanent since the end of 2007.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19845335/
Therefore, those getting tattoos now have the ability to remove them at will (with $$$ - of course, but it costs to get the ink in the first place). Not to say that people don't get overly tattoo'd but the generation of this leading to prejudice should be OVER.
Now, I look at it sort of like the people who collect busts from comic conventions. It costs a lot of money, you look at it more than it's useful to play with, but GOD DAMN if some aren't well designed and displayed.
Tattoos are art for our body and old as hell. Older than the notion that people with a lot of tattoos are automatically punks, weirdos and idiots.
Though I might be an idiot (but that has nothing to do with my tattoos).
6-11-2009 @ 10:57AM
mdk said...
Tattooing started in ancient times as a way of marking "energy nodes" on the body in order to facilitate acupuncture for healing purposes. Acupuncture was actually well-known to many cultures even in the West until the Abrahamic religions, who viewed it as "sorcery", wiped it out in Muslim and Christian societies during the Middle Ages. While acupuncture today is known to relieve pain by manipulating nerve endings, the idea that it can cure diseases is, of course patently ridiculous. Meanwhile, tattooing evolved into a form of art. Perhaps I dislike them because, as a designer, so many of them are so poorly designed. It's just a personal aesthetic thing, I guess. That and maybe because it's also the instigatior of several crappy reality shows and we sure don't need any more of those! Anyway, by all means, all you ink fans go ahead and cover yourselves, sorry if I offended any of you. Just please, be original, design your own and come up with something new and different for once.
6-10-2009 @ 4:04PM
Sarah said...
Awesome(ly bad)! I love the work Tim Kern did for "Synecdoche, New York". GORGEOUS!!
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6-10-2009 @ 10:13PM
bunky said...
red dragon
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6-10-2009 @ 10:14PM
bunky said...
red dragon
Reply
6-15-2009 @ 12:21AM
renantech said...
i love this tattoo. This is a great movie. http://www.renantech.com
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6-11-2009 @ 9:30AM
Rich said...
I second Memento. The way in which they reflect both the character and the story is amazing. I know this isn't a movie, but Michael Scofield's in Prison Break are designed so perfectly down to the last detail. On the Dvd for the first season there is a great doc on the planning, design and application of these works of art.
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6-11-2009 @ 12:38PM
Dream said...
Ink is either your thing or it isn't. Personally I don't care if people like my tat's or not. One being a Celtic wedding knot around my ankle with my Husband's name in Gaelilc, the other being a tribal/Celtic thing my Hubby and I designed ourselves which has in fact turned into a "family" thing since now 2 of our 5 children decided to use the design themselves.
What gets to me in most movie tat's is that they don't even look like tats ... just paint. The ones that really look authentic whether they are good or not artistically should be given kudos.
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6-11-2009 @ 2:29PM
mac said...
No mention of the "Illustrated Man"?
It is the epitome of tattoo movies, check it out.
And YES, the sex is smoking !
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