Robert Rodriguez has been responsible for some of the most intense sexual chemistry I’ve ever had with men I’ve never met. Obviously, he works with reasonably (or incredibly) attractive actors in the first place, but somehow, when he directs these guys on screen, he’s able to bring out a visceral, masculine hotness in them that surpasses the doability they exude on their own. Desperado, for instance, came out when I was 14 years old, and even when I watch the gunfight scene in the bar today, it still blows me away how well Antonio Banderas parlays a delicious and refined suavity into an erotic masterclass in badassery as the gunfight ensues. No offense to the casts of any of John Woo’s movies, but I’ve never been more fixated on a man wielding double hand cannons. And more recently in Planet Terror, I don’t even know if I would have recognized Freddy Rodriguez from Six Feet Under, but I know that watching him in ass-kicking, zombie-slashing, rescue-your-girl-and-then-attach-a-machine-gun-to-her-leg mode is an experience that even my deepest adolescent fantasies couldn’t improve on. I saw a clip or two of Freddy in some promotional interviews and don’t get me wrong, he’s a cutie, but he evokes none of the same blush-response that he does as El Wray. Maybe I’m an exhibitionist for exposing my fetishes to the masses, but I can’t believe I’m the only girl who takes such amorous delight in Rodriguez’s leading men. So thanks Rob, for sending us your messengers of sexiness again and again. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be dreaming about Clive Owen’s scenes in Sin City 2.