Older men, younger women.

Lolita.

They made Lolita both hotter and older than the character is portrayed as being in the novel, which I always thought was weird.

My vote is for Entrapment.

NEXT. Nicolas Cage and Jessica Biel. That's less believable than a guy that can see the future.

Bill Murray & Scarlet? What was she? 19?

Manhattan- Woody Allen and Mariel Hemingway.

I think this is the reason I've always like 'Annie Hall' more.

I don't think that was that type of relationship. They were kindred spirits and lonely souls, but not romantically involved. We're talking LOST IN TRANSLATION right?

And I don't think she was that young. She was married to Spike Jonze's character right?

She was married to Giovanni Ribisi's character who was based on Spike Jonze.

Scarlett was 19 at the time of filming, but her character was written as someone in their mid-20's. And I think the original point is when a much older man is paired with a younger woman but rarely, if ever, does the reverse happen. Even if you consider Lost in Translation a romance, the difference there is part of the point.

I don't think Sherlock Holmes is the best example, though, since McAdams' character is of a non-descript age and Robert Downey Jr. isn't THAT old (He's 45, she's 32). Entrapment is a better pick for ridiculous disparity between men and women romances in modern film.

Yeah, he's old enough to be her grandfather. The only thing I've caught that does an age difference that extreme in reverse is Elizabeth I and the two things it has going for it is its the dramatization of a biographical account and--character-wise--they present her as being so lonely and arrested in her social development that her attraction, on a mental level, makes sense.

Pretty much any later Woody Allen movie is a hilarious example of this phenomenon.

See also... GHOST RIDER.





And KICKASS. Ewwwwww.

This never bothers me, as I have found older men can be very charming, but good example:

Dexter - Jennifer Carpenter and Keith Carradine. The relationship is the subject of some scrutiny on the show, given the age difference

Dracula and Mina Harker. Am I doing this right?

That doesn't really count. The entire point of that storyline is outlining--in a really, really heavy-handed way--that Deb has an Elektra complex.

Ah good point I guess, I'd not thought of that. I just thought they were a cool and unconventional TV couple

Anyway Mina would not count since she was just a reincarnated version of Elisabeta/Argesh (Drac's River Princess)

It's a phenomenon that speaks as much to Hollywoods disgraceful natural aversion to any female over the age of thirty while simultaniously letting their leading men continue to salve their own egos while wandering into decrepitude as they keep being portrayed as sex symbols.

Bruce Willis is actually one of my favourite examples actually.

Back when ole Bruno was starting out he was being paired first with Cybill Shepard who was five years older, then Bonnie Bedelia, who was seven years his senior. Hell even around Hudson Hawk he was still getting paired with women in his age bracket like Andie MacDowell who was only three years younger.

But then, as the nineties moved towards their mid-point and Bruces fortieth birthday beckoned, a funny thing happened. Suddenly there was this leap backwards in the ages of many of his co-stars...

Sarah Jessica Parker - 10 years younger

Jane March - 18 years younger

Maria de Medeiros - 10 years younger (but looked about 20)

Milla Jovovich - actually 20 years younger

Jessica Alba - 26 years younger

Rosamund Pike - 24 years younger


...that's what he loves about these female co-stars man, he keeps getting older and they just stay the same age. Yes they do, yes they do.

RDJ's had some hard living. Bruce Willis basically has looked the same for the past twenty years.

Ya think?

You old enough to remember the big deal that was made out of him finally not wearing a hair piece in Pulp Fiction and actually trying to look his age for a change?

Not really, I think he looks pretty similar in Die Hard with A Vengeance compared to Die Hard 4, or even Red.

Maybe I'm not looking closely enough. Or it's just that he went full bald for Die Hard 4.

I dunno neo, maybe it's cause I remember young Bruce the megastar and have watched him age but all I know is this guy sure aint this guy no more.

What's Moonlighting?

reshinfreshingetoffmylawnbiffincutter

Wasn't that based on a real life affair/hook up Sofia C had with Bruce Willis though?

Kubrick's Lolita was more mature and wordly than Humbert. Kind of a point they were making regarding changing sexual politics.

McAdams is in her 30s (1978 on imdb, but apparently that might be a slightly massaged year) and RDJ is in his 40s (1965) which in Hollywood terms is really close. RDJ looked very very young for much of his career too.

In basic hardwired terms I'd say it's a fertility issue. If the couple looks like they can't conceive it might send up red flags in the audience's minds (Dead End/Doomed relationship?). Usually the younger man/older woman dynamic is played up as an over-sexed situation to counter-act that. The younger woman represents a new life/fresh start or similar.

That movie with Keanu Reeves and Barbara Hershey did a nice job though. They created a genuine anxiety the two of them wouldn't get together because of the age difference. IMDB has it listed as "Tune in tomorrow" (it was called something different when I saw it) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100822/

Fuck. 1990. I'm old. Better go fuck a younger woman!!

Older men and younger women is a Hollywood convention that will never change.

Older women seem to be breaking a stride now (Kim Cattrall just keeps getting hotter), but they're still in a small market of their own compared to all of the older men in Hollywood getting movies with younger actresses breaking into the business.

We talk a lot about it in the B-Thread, but Seagal has been notorious for having girls well over half his age as his romantic leads. Seagal. Romance. Not 2 words that should ever go together.

To be fair, Seagal's real life interactions with women are even more fantastic than they are in his movies. He sees himself as a religious figure in Buddhism and has taken it upon himself to be the personal protector of the late Panchen Llama's daughter, who is a stuck up rich girl whose only seeming redeeming quality is her refusal to let China use her as a pawn against the interests of Tibet. His real life is like a Kurt Russell movie from the middle of the 1980s.

Never heard that story. I'm more familiar with him trying to force himself on the ladies, or turning into a groping machine. I'm sure he's used the "I'm just trying to show you an Aikido move!" line on more than one girl.

Do Bear's Bear Do Bee's Bee?

This bothered me in RED, with Bruce and Mary-Louise Parker. But that's probably just because Parker looks about 31 as opposed to 46. Forty freaking six.

The only time an age difference has actively bothered was with Woody Allen and Charlize Theron in Curse of the Jade Scorpion. That was fucking ridiculous.

Bruce Willis on the other hand, well he may be older but I can buy that those women would be into him.

Hollywood is never been at the forefront of promoting awful attitudes. Its just always been a half-step behind any progressive changes to discriminatory dynamics. If the majority of people are okay with something, Hollywood sure as hell isn't interested in rocking the boat and potentially limiting their revenue.

People are asking why the movies are always showing an old man/young woman dynamic? Because that is something that people in general view as normal, at least more normal than the other way around. Seeing an old fart with a blue veined, scleroric, decaying arm around a pretty woman decades younger is dismissed with a shrug or a shake of the head. Seeing a woman in middle age partnered with a man in his twenties, she's an abnormal specimen, fit for labeling and TV style zaniness.

Here's an analysis of Okcupid preferences kinda laying it out. http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/th...n-older-woman/

Don't like at all. And weirdly enough I find it even more distasteful as I get older.

TV shows are even more blatantly on this. Ed O'Neill- Sofía Vergara is one of the latest examples.

That's more of the latest example of the overweight, homely guy/hot girl pairing that is old as the medium itself. It seems like straight-up pandering to the fantasies of the homely and overweight working age men who have always been the main target of television advertisers.

With movies, I don't know what reinforces it, since they've been skewing way younger in their target demographics for several decades now.

I both agree (see: King of Queens; According to Jim; Still Standing; et al, ad nauseum) and disagree. I disagree because I've seen far too many of these actual kinds of couples in real life; mildly attractive to ridiculously hot women married to guys who, in their teenage prime, were in great shape....but by their mid-30s, were balding, paunchy, and couldn't outrun a crippled turtle. My 20th high school reunuion was one big game of "What's wrong with this picture," in viewing some really hot women paired up with guys with huge guts and several chins.

High five!

O'Neil is nearly twice Vergara's age; their age difference is only eclipsed by their cultural difference as the relationship's defining trait. "Homely" and "overweight" don't enter into it.

Answer: $

My favorite is Micheal Douglas and Gwyneth Paltrow in A Perfect Murder. Fairly sure Douglas was the same age as her dad.

Yeah but, y'know... Michael Douglas.

Yeah, when the character is supposed to be stupidly wealthy and the actor playing him is actually married to someone who is old enough to be his daughter, I don't think that's a big stretch.

If we're going to TV, Angel and Buffy should be front row center for this conversation. As in, for fuck's sake, Angel and Buffy start dating when she's 16 and he's, what, 240? They look fine together, but it has ALWAYS bugged the shit out of me.

Harrison Ford & Anne Hache should be the reigning king and queen of this thread.

Only if you have no idea who Bogie and Bacall are.

Not always. Some people just peak REALLY early. Some of the couples MichaelM describe were at my reunion, and had been together since high school. I laughed.

But that's a story issue in the former, not just the kind of fantasy-pandering casting a lot of this thread's been about.

I'm with you in the sense that she looks better than a lot of women her age, but she's nowhere near as hot as she was in Big Trouble.... So rosy-cheeked.

Also, Cary Grant was 59 in Charade, 25 years Audrey Hepburn's senior. Yes, I learned this from last month's Empire. No, I haven't seen Charade; though, I plan to now that I know how good Hepburn looked in it.

Hitchcock believed Vertigo's failure at the box office was due to Jimmy Stewart being 25 years older than Kim Novak. If that was true, Rear Window would have been a financial disappointment as well.

It's a weird thing. Sometimes I find it creepy but it also depends on if you enjoy the actors and the film they are in or not. Obviously, Vertigo and Rear Window are two of the greatest films ever made, so you're more than willing to let it slide. At least a film will sometimes acknowledge the fact, like Willis/Alba in Sin City (it's been awhile since I've seen Lost in Translation but I'm sure the age difference is brought up, right?). Sometimes we don't even notice it. In a film like The Wrestler, you forget that Marisa Tomei is actually 12 years younger than Mickey Rourke but it seems right because of the world-weary characters they are playing. Now, Rourke and Megan Fox is a a little more hard to swallow but I'm sure it will nevertheless be hilarious.

Grant had a problem with the age difference so the filmmakers added dialogue of them discussing it.