The opposite of sex appeal

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Years ago, in a breathless love letter to screen luminary Greta Garbo, essayist Kenneth Tynan waxed rhapsodic on how the Swedish Sphinx radiated sex without gender. Garbo, like other stars of her era - Marlene Dietrich, Robert Taylor, and Tyrone Power come to mind - exuded pansexual musk, seducing everyone across the gender spectrum.

When Bette Davis tried to put her finger on the phenomenon, she cracked that "an actress is something more than a woman; an actor is something less than a man." Which is a euphemistic way of saying that actresses are a little butch and actors a little femme. (Naturally this is not the rule, as the ultra-feminine Halle Berry and mucho macho Denzel Washington can attest.) Yet as bisexuality doubles one's chances of scoring a date, so the erotic radiance of pansexuality doubles one's chances of seducing members of the audience.

One would think such sex appeal was the sine qua non of movie stardom. But there is a phenomenon among some actors today that I would call the opposite of sex appeal: Erotic inscrutability. Non-sex appeal.

Katharine Hepburn had it. So do Sandra Bullock, Johnny Depp, Jodie Foster, John Leguizamo, Keanu Reeves, Hilary Swank. Before the camera, they chip away at gender expectations and customize characters to their own specs. Erotic inscrutability is not unsexy. But Bullock, Depp, and Reeves are sexy because the battle of the sexes rages inside them.

Why has there been a shift from erotic radiance to erotic inscrutability? Does it reflect cultural acceptance of metrosexuality? That unavailability is a potent aphrodisiac? Your thoughts? Other actors with an offbeat vibe?

The face of Facebook

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Michael Cera or Shia LaBeouf?

Social networking sites are atwitter in anticipation of the book The Accidental Billionaires (to be published Tuesday) and the David Fincher film The Social Network (screenplay by Aaron Sorkin), about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

The two names bruited about to play the shaggy and shifty Zuckerberg, the socially challenged guy sued by his partners, are Cera (Arrested Development, Juno, Year One, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist) and LaBeouf (Transformers, Disturbia, Indiana Jones XXXVI). These gifted young actors share offbeat timing and self-deprecating humor but little else.

Cera is an Indieworld darling, while LaBeouf has been anointed Bankable Hollywood Youngling. I like them both, but if I were casting this movie I'd go with Cera, who would be a bigger surprise as the guy who sells out his partners than LaBeouf, so eager for big-time success that it would not be a surprise if he elbowed the competition to get to the finish line. (Not that it matters, but Cera more resembles Zuckerberg.) In other words, Cera plays lovable losers, LaBeouf eyes-on-the-prize winners. It's like the difference between Matt Dillon and Tom Cruise.