I hate Jake Gyllenhaal's ugly face.

There will probably be a lot of posts about ugly faces here. But seeing Jake Gyllenhaal so much lately in promotion for the woefully miscast Prince of Persia just has his ugliness on my brain a lot recently. The interesting thing is he's not nearly as ugly as I think of him being...not, say, Gary Oldman ugly. In fact, it was difficult to find a picture that I thought adequately conveyed Gyllenhaal's ugliness. I think the key is in the looks he gives. When he's trying to look brooding or thoughtful, he just looks like a retarded child that no one wants to play with. His eyes are too big, but not nearly expressive enough, only really mastering that annoying and frequent puppy-dog look (See photo, which - true story! - is actually of a girl dog nursing puppy-dogs. I'm just sayin'.). His nose is long, like a cartoon character (or, say, a collie). He has no upper lip. And, as is often the case, my distaste for his face is only exacerbated by the unanimous gushing about how cute he is, especially among the homos. (Sorry, playing gay in a mainstream movie may be admirable, but it's only as sexy as the guy playing it.)

His casting in Prince of Persia only annoys me further. First of all, I hate it when dorky boy-next-door types get buff for big roles (Part two of this might be on Tobey McGuire, eh? - not ugly, but I might hate him.). People think it's sexy - dork turned stud. I think it's weird and kind of gross. I'd cast the guy that played Aladdin in the Disney movie instead of Jake Gyllenhaal, except Aladdin wasn't live action and he wasn't really an actor. He was cute, and he was a cartoon...not just cartoonish, like Jake. He also happened to be ethnically relevant, since Aladdin was Persian, or at least close enough to play Persian. I guess Jake looks ethnic next to Gemma Arterton, though, since the only thing whiter than American is British...with freckles, no less. And I suppose the long hair is supposed to be hot and edgy in an vaguely ethnic sort of way...or like a collie.