What the years do to people

Here's an edited and complemented posting, which I first wrote as a reply to a forum posting I originally made on an IMDb forum:

Only that he was about 25 while playing an 18-year-old (the film was released on 15.03.1991 and Grieco was born 23.03.1965), but this might have been a running gag about how much older actors play teens. The movie was funny, but not necessarily because of Richard Grieco.

To provide some context, then I am gay, too.

I should say that I kinda fail to see anything hot in him, despite his above-average looks at that time (I had to Google to see what he was like back then :-).

When watching the movie, I only passingly noticed him as the lead there, where the best-performing actor was actually Linda Hunt. Thereafter, I often confused Hunt with Mindy Sterling, who played Frau Fabrissina, a cohort of Dr. Evil in Austin Powers movies. Granted, Hunt's Ilsa Grunt and Sterling's Frau Fabrissina were both very similar characters and I think that Fabrissina may have in part been modelled after Ilsa Grunt: both characters are evil, diminutive, authoritarian and murderous women who are not in their first youth anymore and who have or have had an affair with the main antagonist.

In Estonia, "If Looks Could Kill" (will be referenced below as ILCK) was never seen in cinemas, with the reason being that the film was released in 1991, which was the year when Estonia regained its independence from the Soviet Union (the first widely seen and distributed Hollywood flicks were "Home Alone" and "Hot Shots" or "Hot Shots 2").

Instead, ILCK had a few airings on TV many-many years after 1991 (2000-ish and later), when I wasn't young enough anymore to see what was it in Grieco that charmed the generation before me.

When searching for pictures of Grieco in Google Images (using "Richard Grieco" with quotes for the exact phrase search), I stumbled upon a blog called "My New Plaid Pants" with a post ("The Hall of Hubba-Bubba", dated April 5, 2007) praising the various famous male physiques of the era (mostly 1980's and very-very early 1990's). There, one of the images near the top was the Diet Coke Guy, or Lucky Vanous (who I think was much hotter than Grieco). Since I had then just seen from my Google image search what Grieco looks nowadays, I was intrigued to see what Lucky Vanous looks now...

Despite both having had different fates (Grieco evidently continued acting; yet while Vanous (born 1961) became instantly famous, he struggled as an actor, so a few years back he opened a successful healthy fast food restaurant in L.A.), it is my judgment that Vanous now looks much-much cuter than Grieco:

• 1996 look
• Hottest Restaurant in LA
  The page links to a large large image with a long URL, so I only referred to a blog article: Find the image with this description next to it: "Gordon Naccarato, Lucky Vanous, Mariel Schneider", then click on it for a 1600x1200-res original.
  
• http://luckydevils-la.com/news
  The page features a more-or-less viewport-wide image of Vanous.


• Some images on flickr

Other Lucky Vanous information:
• People Magazine: Lucky Vanous
• Canyon News 11.2009 article
• Getting Lucky in the New Year - Lucky Vanous a pop culture icon
• Lucky Vanous: career pursuits and life lessons.
• Blogger posting (just one)

From then-and-now comparisons of Grieco, I thought that his face does not look as natural than it did in his youth or in 12-year-old basketball images on his IMDb profile's gallery page, when his face appeared more natural.

Two points: World's soundest banks and how forward-looking Estonians are

In July, a family member in Canada wondered if another depression is going to happen in the U.S. and how it will affect Canada.

Well, it may be somewhat early to think of a depression yet (I'm trying to be an optimist, or maybe is it, that my worrylessness may actually be complacency), but it's always best to be careful. "Better safe than sorry" sounds perhaps a bit too cliché. At least right now, people are bracing for the impact that this negative growth is (also called a recession, mostly after the fact).

I do have to add that Canada has soundest banking system in the world, with Sweden at #2 and most large Estonian banks belong to Nordic banking companies.

Of course, the latest Time article about Estonia is not so bloomy anymore about Estonia. After all, if you're exemplified all around the world for being great when times are good, remember to expect being reported on at difficult times (and how you're faring).

This Time piece by Andrew Purvis reflects on Estonians' reputation for "being practical, down-to-earth, and forward-looking." The latter notion being rather telling, because in "The Baltic Mourning After", the same author has noticed "Black banners for a lecture series [...] in Tallinn asking: IS THERE LIFE AFTER CAPITALISM?"

The lecture series happened in October (with the end of the month culminating with the screening of "The Corporation", a Canadian documentary) and still continues to happen in November.

Links and comments

• 21.10.: Canada rated world's soundest bank system
  You just have to love those oddball news sites that still keep their articles :-)
  
  Op-Eds:
• 31.10.: Strong, safe and open for business
• 03.11.: Mel Watkins . Still strong and free
• 10.11.: Why Canada's Banks Don't Need Help
  — With a link to a somewhat sardonic gallery of Top Ten Scared Traders at the end of the article. || I guess the guys and gals there will be remembered as really-really brave for having had the guts to yo-yo, swing and zigzag through the precarious financial mêlée that befell in their midst.
  
  Doubt has also been creeping in:
• 13.11.: Experts not sold on bank strength
  I'd say rather that a sound banking system allows a country to tough it out through the rough times with less pain than those rated to be in their forties. I remember a piece in The Economist which mentioned that wealthy countries will have it harder than poor countries, because the latter have a difficult life anyway.