I’m borrowing this from Sheila and adding my own caveat, just to keep my choices down. It’s really, uhm, “20 Favorite Actresses Born After 1930.”
Here are just some loves of mine ….. some with comments, some without:
Win the Oscar, already. I can’t take the suspense.
I worship her.
She is charming, from another era almost.
Goddess.
From The Man in the Moon until now. Love her.
There is something about this girl. (Forget that she’s dating Marilyn Mason.) I loved her most recently in Across the Universe. Truth be told, I’m a little obsessed with that movie.
I always root for her. Loved her in Frida. And, please, look at her.
She was in Bring It On, the best movie ever. Anyone got a problem with that?
Okay. So it’s a little racy, but, damn, Helen Mirren. Plus … damn.
She is so soft and luminous. Sometimes I think she’s not real.
I wish this picture were bigger. I love everything about her. Her goofy face, her big- boned figure, how she makes every moment of every role count.
Anna Maxwell Martin. Oh, my. Fell in LOVE with her in the BBC Masterpiece Theatre version of Bleak House.
Well. This ones goes back a long way.
I love that picture of Frances!!
Great list, and I agree with almost every pick! Oh, and…
AWESOME! OH WOW! LIKE TOTALLY FREAK ME OUT! I MEAN, RIGHT ON! BRING IT ON SURE IS NUMBER ONE.
I love Reese Witherspoon. One of the most talented.
I can’t believe I left off Joan Cusack! I meant to put her on my list. I’m also a big Salma Hayek fan. They both should have made my list.
I think Evan Rachel Wood finally dumped Manson.
Who’s green sweater girl?
I am such a fan of all the Cusacks. In my mind, John is not the uber-asshole, Peter Pan Syndrome poster boy he is in real life, he is Lloyd Dobler, my perfect boyfriend.
Green sweater girl is Amy Adams!!
sheila — Many of mine overlapped with yours, so I tried as much as possible to pick other ones!
sarahk — You know, I’ve been meaning to tell you something important … how to say it …. uhmmm … okay, well, you really need to know and I’d rather you hear it from me than anyone else, but … Missy’s the poo, so take a big whiff.
Cullen — Did she really dump him?? That makes me SO happy!
Word on the street is that she’s with Mickey Rourke now, so I’m not sure how THAT will work out, since he is in his 50s and obviously insane. She’s obviously a wild child. She’s good in The Wrestler although he tends to dominate the whole film. But she does a good job.
I like her sense of weirdness … I think it’s perfect in a way that she was with Manson … she’s kind of a bad girl, but with a perfect angelic almost preppy face. Wise beyond her years. It’ll be very interesting to see what she does next.
I was so pumped going through the list until I saw Diane Keaton, ugh she gives me a rash. I’d sub me in a little Catherine Zeta-Jones.
sheila — Wild child for SURE. I am just personally freaked out by Marilyn Manson, so I felt — it’s stupid — like worried for her. In a totally non-controlling, non-condescending way, of course.
But on the Mickey Rourke thing
/since he is in his 50s and obviously insane./
Hahahahahaha. Just based on that NY Times mag article ALONE, yes, the dude is, sadly, bonkers.
I knew that Wood was in The Wrestler, which I have yet to see but am SO looking forward to. Apparently, she’s slated to play Mary Jane whoever — is that her name, Spider Man’s girlfriend? — in a Broadway version of, well, Spider Man. I think with Jim Sturgess, her co-star in Across The Universe. Have you seen that? I need to discuss that movie with someone! People either love it or hate it, it seems. I have watched it repeatedly this year, for various reasons. The extras on the DVD — the footage showing the way they rehearsed together, the way Julie Taymor worked with them, that kind of camaraderie and freedom, I almost ached when I watched it, having gone through many similar experiences myself. The singular camaraderie of the theater. There is nothing else like it. So I LOVED the extras on the DVD almost as much as the movie.
Oh, and speaking of Salma Hayek — not that we are here, right now, but she’s in this post — she has a cameo as the sexy dancing nurse in Across The Universe. Apparently, Taymor contacted her and said something like, “I think I’d like you to be one of the dancers in this scene.” And Hayek said, “ONE of the dancers??” So — haha, Taymor agreed and they ended up with, like, SIX dancing Salma nurses in the scene.
Brian — Well, it IS all personal preference. I happen to LOVE Diane Keaton. She gives me joy. There is no one quite like her.
I loved Across the Universe!
Insane as he is as a man – Rourke is wonderful with her in The Wrestler, there is one scene where they dance in an old abandoned ballroom on the Jersey shore (there is no music, no one else is there) and it is so awkward and he so WANTS it to be a good moment that I had to look away. The movie is full of moments like that, where you feel you have to look away. But he really LOVES her (she plays his daughter in the film) and he has messed up one too many times, and she really gets that angry / hurt thing.
I can picture (as insane as it is) the two of him tooling around on his motorcycle, drinking cheap beer on the beach, and going skinny-dipping or whatever, and hopefully that will be that. Like, please don’t get INVOLVED you too!! (Sheila, why are you so invested.)
Diane Keaton is one of my favorite actresses of all time. She also reminds me of my mother – there’s just something about her. I also love that she has surged back into leading lady status in her 60s – which is so unheard of as to be completely mindboggling. Good for her. I’m not surprised at all!
I love how we both are somehow personally worried about Evan Rachel Wood’s love life, and trying to reassure ourselves that she is okay.
hahahahahaha
I am so looking forward to seeing The Wrestler. My wife had to go see her guilty pleasure film a few days ago (Twilight … I know), I think The Wrestler will be mine.
I’ve read reviews from actual professional wrestlers (current and former) who saw advanced screenings and were awed by it. There were reports that “Rowdy” Roddy Piper was bawling after the movie.
I hope I’m not getting my hopes too high up, but still being a wrestling fan (no, it’s not still “real” to me, just entertaining) I can’t wait to see it.
Cullen – The real-life wrestlers who are all in the film as his buddies and guys he meets up with in locker rooms and at autograph signings just soooo add to the power of it. They are wonderful. I am glad they didn’t cast actors to play these guys – but went with the real thing … because there are scenes of all of them bantering and laughing in the locker rooms which just feel so authentic.
Anyway, I was blown away by it. Not a perfect movie – but Rourke’s performance at the heart of it is amazing – and the details of that whole world were fascinating.
I WILL SAY NO MORE UNTIL THE FILM OPENS.
Oh, and it doesn’t surprise me at all that a real-life wrestler would weep after seeing the movie.
I will now REALLY say no more.
Cullen — Really? Rowdy Roddy Piper was bawling? Wow. Yeah. Looking forward to it, too, in a biting-my- fingernails kind of way.
sheila — Yes! Listen to us, clucking over the wee chile like mother hens. Uhm, Tracey, she has dated Marilyn Manson, for God’s sake. She is more “worldly wise” than you are, I imagine — you sad Amish woman still waiting for your rumspringa.
On the other hand, if I cannot make mountains out of molehills, I do not feel alive. Let’s face it.
sheila — I was posting as you were posting, but your comments are cracking me up. You are SO DYING TO SAY MORE!! YOU CANNOT STAND NOT BEING ABLE TO SAY MORE!! HAHAHAHA!!
Roddy Piper has come here to cry his eyes out about The Wrestler, and chew bubblegum…. and he’s all out of bubblegum.
That’s one of my favorite movies, ‘Fly, and I’m on a John Carpenter revival stint right now. I started watching Prince of Darkness last night. Gotta try and finish it sometime this weekend.
I was trying to find the original article I saw, but Mickey Rourke references it in this article:
http://www.lordsofpain.net/news/2008_/1229099666.php
If I can’t angst about Evan Rachel Wood’s love life then I don’t know who I am anymore.
Without it, we would surely drift. It forms our very rudder in life.
If she ever settles down, I might have a nervous breakdown.
Tracey, uhm… I have something to tell you, too… it’s that… you’re a great cheerleader. But maybe you’re just not boyfriend material.
I, too, LOVED Across the Universe. We own it, but we’ve only watched it once. We really should watch it a second time.
sarahk, you knowww, it would be so easy to be wounded by your callous words but really …. I’ve decided … that’s all right, that’s okay! You’re gonna pump my gas someday!
Also: We are terrible terrible geeks.
Speaking of Susan Sarandon, I stayed up until the wees last night watching White Palace for the 400th time. One day we will speak of the beautifulness of a young James Spader.
One day.
PSHAW! Pump your gas, huh? Well… I said… BURR! IT’S COLD IN HERE! THERE MUST BE A SARAH IN THE ATMOSPHERE! I said, O-E-O-E-O. Ice. Ice. Ice. (said the cheerleader)