She appeared in two films in 2003, the first of which is some movie called Death of a Dynasty that I’ve never heard of that according to the write-up on imdb is about the rap music industry (YAWN!). And considering how far down the credits list her name is, I’m guessing it wasn’t exactly that big a part. Her larger (and much, much more important) role that year was as the spunky female street racer Suki in 2 Fast 2 Furious. She rocked in that movie. Hell, she was one of the main reasons to actually see that movie!! Now don’t get me wrong, Eva Mendes is quite the hottie, no argument, but I’d take Devon over her any day (plus, the fact that she was a street racer just made her character that much cooler). I’d say the only thing more enjoyable to watch in that movie would have been the street races themselves, which is of course the main reason to watch a movie like 2 Fast 2 Furious.
From there
So up to this point I had enjoyed both movies I’d seen Devon in, and figured she was an actress to keep an eye out for, but she hadn’t done anything to really grab my attention (and certainly nothing to put her on my list of favorite actresses). Then I went to the theater to see what is easily one of my top 10 favorite movies of all time –
But before she does that, she’ll be appearing in another role that I’m really looking forward to checking out, and that’s as Kasumi in DOA: Dead or Alive (based on the video game). Obviously I wasn’t the only one impressed with her performance as Miho, as this is another martial arts character. And that’s due out the end of August (I can’t wait!!). And it looks like she’s scheduled to be in several films next year as well (including Sin City 2), so I look forward to seeing much more of her on the big screen.
[Update] – Okay, so all of the above was written a couple years ago. Since then, Sin City 2 STILL hasn’t come out yet (which is killing me). DOA: Dead or Alive has come out (but sadly it never made it to the theaters around here, so it ended up being another of her movies I just bought on DVD without having previously seen it). Sadly DOA suffered the same problem as entirely too many video game based movies – the director/producers couldn’t be bothered to make any effort to take the source material seriously (since it’s just a video game, after all), and so the movie is decidedly silly (a topic I’ll have to cover one of these days in a future blog entry). It would have been nice if this had been done as well as Mortal Kombat, but instead you get something much more akin to the Street Fighter movie. But any movie featuring hot women kicking butt is worth a look in my book.
The next movie of Devon’s that I saw was War. This should have been a fantastic movie, as it was the first pairing of Jet Li and Jason Statham together (both of whom are next appearing in The Expendables, a movie I can't wait to see). Here’s the big problem with War: the idiot director made the unbelievable decision that he didn’t want to do a martial arts movie!! He was strictly interested in doing an action/crime movie. And what I want to know is this: what kind of a complete moron puts two martial arts GREATS into a movie together, but doesn’t want to do a martial arts movie?! Needless to say, critics and fans alike hammered this one because of how disappointing the fight scenes were, especially considering who was starring in the movie. And I can’t say I disagree with them. However, since the topic of this post is Devon Aoki, I’ll focus on her instead. And I have to say, I absolutely loved her in this! She’s wonderful as the cold blooded daughter of a Yakuza boss. Which just makes me that much more eager for Sin City 2 to finally come out one of these years.
Mutant Chronicles is the latest movie of Devon's that I've seen (which also didn’t make it to the theaters here – an occurrence that happens way more often than I’d like, but that’s one of the joys of living in a boring, podunk little town – and so this was another of her movies that I just bought on DVD without having seen it at the theater). This movie isn’t for everyone; in fact, I’d say more people will not like this movie than will like it. But I, being the contrary individual that I am, really enjoyed it. It’s a combination historic war movie/zombie movie/retro sci-fi movie, which seems an odd combination, but they make it work. I liked the washed out visual style, I loved the setting, and the cast is great. I’m sure I’ll take flak from people for liking this one, but by this point I’m used to it. Devon once again plays a kick-ass martial artist, but also a mother who is going on a suicide mission to protect her children. Once again I really enjoyed her performance.
Devon's most recent movie, which I've not only not seen, but had never even heard of until I saw it on her imdb page, bears the odd and amusing title of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead. The title is taken from the book Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, while the movie (from the plot write-up on imdb) is a weird mesh of Shakespeare, Da Vinci code, and the recent vampire craze. You'd have to read to go to the imdb page and read the write-up to fully appreciate how off-the-wall this movie sounds. And at a guess, I'd say the reason I'd never heard of it before is that it's a low-budget, indie sort of movie. While imdb lists it as a 2009 film, according to Box Office Mojo it's release date is currently June 11th of this year. At a guess I'd say this is one that will never get released anywhere near here. However, this one is odd enough looking I'm thinking I'll be renting it when it becomes available, as opposed to just buying it sight unseen.
8. Moon Lee – Since we’re on the subject of Asian women and martial arts roles, I figured I’d move next to an actress that most of you have probably not only never heard of, but have probably never seen a single one of her movies, either. But that’s to be expected, since even though she starred in 36 movies in the 80s and 90s, all of them were made in
I won’t go into all of her movies, just because of how many of them there are (and sadly there are way too many of them that I haven’t seen), but among the ones I do have that I really like are Dreaming the Reality (incredibly kick-ass movie), The Avenging Quartet, and Angels 1 & 2 (these are, of course, the American titles for the movies). And I have to take back my previous statement. In going over her list of films on imdb, I see that she has a small role in one movie that American audiences may have seen – a Jackie Chan movie called The Protector (which according to Amazon is his first American movie, and also stars Danny Aiello, both great actors). This is a pretty good action/cop movie (that I have to buy one of these days, although in researching it online I discovered that there’s a Hong Kong version of the movie re-edited by Jackie Chan that’s supposed to be a superior film from the
Well, I guess that’s about all I have to say about Moon Lee. Her movies are definitely worth checking out for anyone who likes action/crime/martial arts films, and she’s a prime example of why you haven’t truly experienced cinema if you haven’t delved into foreign films of one sort or another. While my personal preference is for Asian cinema, there are great movies coming out of countries all around the globe, and numerous phenomenal actors & actresses whose performances have yet to grace these shores. And subtitles aren’t nearly as big a deal as a lot of people seem to think they.
9. Jennifer Garner – Ah, what can I say about Jennifer? She’s beautiful, she’s talented, she kicks major ass! This is a girl that can do it all. As I went through her profile on imdb, I was surprised by how much she’s done that I haven’t seen. Of course, as is common with most actors/actresses, if you look through their whole career, you discover most have done numerous small parts before they made it big (hell, I’ve run across people who’ve actually had fairly big roles in movies but you don’t realize who they are because it was before they were famous). Jennifer’s career starts back in the mid-90s, when she was doing mostly TV movies and guest appearances (including in an episode of The Pretender, a show I’m a big fan of. Since I have that series on DVD, I’m going to have to make a point of re-watching that episode one of these days and seeing if I can spot her).
Naturally the first role that comes to mind when people think of Jennifer Garner is the TV show Alias, which is where she first came to prominence. There are a couple of movie roles that she did just before Alias or right as Alias was starting that I’d like to mention (seeing as how they’re movies I’ve seen that I knew she was in). The first of these I’m only going to briefly mention as I thought it was a horribly, horribly stupid movie, and that is Dude, Where’s My Car?. Right after that she had a small but very well performed part in a movie that I absolutely loved (regardless of what the idiot critics had to say about it), and that was Pearl Harbor. The only sad part was that her character got killed in the movie.
From there she went on to star as Sydney Bristow in the wonderful spy drama Alias. I loved that show. Everything about it was just cool. And naturally Jennifer rocked! All the different costumes (and wigs) and various characters she played within the show really showed off her acting skills, and who didn’t love watching her in a fight scene? It’s no wonder this show put her on everyone’s radar. From there she continued to show off her action skills in Daredevil (which was an okay movie) and its spin-off Elektra (a solid, enjoyable film, regardless of what the critics have to say). It’s too bad that Elektra did so poorly at the theatre; I was really happy with how it turned out, and would have loved to see a sequel. At the same time, though, I can see where a combination of comic book superhero movie and martial arts movie might not draw a large audience. Oh well.
Another movie of Jennifer’s that I loved (so much so that I bought the DVD, which is unusual for me considering that it’s a romantic comedy) was 13 Going On 30. This was just a funny, cute, wonderful movie. And Jennifer really showed off her acting talent by doing a role completely different from the many dramatic roles she’d done previously. She was so perfect playing the teenage girl suddenly inside an adult body (the scene where she’s hitting on the teenage boy and her friend asks her, “Do you want to go to jail?” is just priceless). Jennifer was hilarious in this movie. I’d love to see her do more of these sorts of roles.
10. Carol Kane – This entry is one that differs significantly from most of the rest of my list in that she’s not the young, sexy starlet that I mostly tend to be drawn to when I’m thinking of favorite actresses. But Carol Kane is such a talented and funny actress, and I love pretty much everything I’ve seen her in, so I just had to include her. Her career started way back in the early 70s, but I’ve never seen any of her early pictures. There is one I’d like to see, though, and that’s the 1979 suspense thriller When a Stranger Calls (which was remade recently). I’ve read a few good reviews of it, and I’ve seen the sequel When A Stranger Calls Back (also starring Carol Kane) and I very much enjoyed it.
The earliest movie of Carol’s that I’ve seen is the goofy horror comedy Transylvania 6-5000, starring Jeff Goldblum and Ed Begley Jr. While an incredibly dumb movie, it was also really darned funny. Carol played the sort of goofy, off-the-wall character that she became most known for, and was a lot of fun to watch. The next movie that I remember seeing her in was the wonderful, stellar The Princess Bride (just can’t say enough good things about that movie), where she played the wife of Billy Crystal’s character, Miracle Max. I loved the dynamic between the two of them. They were both a riot.
Next we have probably my favorite Carol Kane performance, and that was in the Bill Murray comedy Scrooged (my all-time favorite Christmas movie), where she played The Ghost of Christmas Present, and was constantly hitting Bill Murray over the head with things. Again, a hilarious, goofy, over-the-top performance that is just so memorable and fun. Her character is easily my favorite in that whole movie. From there she did a number of small roles in numerous films (some I’ve seen, some I haven’t, but none that her character really sticks out in my mind at the moment). Most recently that I’ve seen, she was in The Pacifier with Vin Diesel, playing Helga, a small but pretty funny role.
There’s one other Carol Kane movie that I just had to talk about that I caught on one of the movie channels recently, and that’s the very dark comedy Office Killer. It’s a bit of a departure from a lot of her other stuff, but I absolutely loved it. I watched this movie primarily because she played the main character, and I have to say I wasn’t disappointed. She plays a very quiet, mousy office worker who’s life basically consists of her job and taking care of her sick, overbearing mother. But then she’s fired from her job, and she basically snaps, and begins killing off her co-workers one by one. But wait, there’s more! She takes their dead bodies home and puts them in her basement, placing them in chairs and on the couch, basically building her own little dead family. She even kills a couple of little girl scouts selling cookies (which surprised me a little bit, even for a movie this dark). Obviously this isn’t a cheery, family-friendly sort of film. But just the bizarre nature of her actions, and the way she plays the character is just so much fun to watch. She does a fantastic job in the role, and if you enjoy weird, off-beat, dark movies of this sort, it’s certainly worth checking out.
11. Dakota Fanning – The final two actresses on my list are the ones I hadn’t previously written up (which is part of why this entry took a little longer than I expected to get finished, since I had to write these from scratch as opposed to having them already mostly written). We start with the very talented Dakota Fanning. Especially considering her age, this girl is a brilliant young actress, and unlike too many child stars, I think she has a very bright future as a successful adult actress. I would put her in the same category as such actresses as Christina Ricci, Natalie Portman, and Drew Barrymore, who all successfully made the transition from child actress to adult actress (and I would not be at all surprised to see her outshine them all as her career develops).
Dakota’s career started at the ripe old age of 5 years old, doing mostly TV roles (in looking her up on imdb, I was surprised to see that one of her first roles was playing 5-year-old Ally McBeal on the TV show). Her first role of note would come a year later, starring with Sean Penn in the critically acclaimed I Am Sam, for which she won numerous critics’ awards for her performance (sadly I still haven’t had a chance to see this movie).
She continued to act steadily from there, doing a couple of movies every year after. Among her earlier movies that I’ve seen are Trapped (a pretty enjoyable thriller with a very solid cast) and The Cat in the Hat (which sadly was a terrible, terrible movie). Her next movie was one that I absolutely loved – Man on Fire, with Denzel Washington. Dakota is great in this movie (as is everyone else in the cast). The next few movies of hers that I saw, however, were not so impressive (even though she did a good job in both of them). The first was the thriller Hide and Seek, where she starred opposite Robert De Niro. This was a movie I really wanted to like, but after it was all said and done, it was a mediocre film at best. She followed this up with a movie that while successful at the box office (sadly), was one I utterly hated – the complete train wreck that was War of the Worlds. I don’t know who’s more at fault, director Steven Spielberg or star Tom Cruise (I lay equal blame), but this movie is horribly stupid from beginning to end. You’d be much better served watching the 1953 original than watching this complete waste of film.
Dakota’s next few movies are all sadly ones I haven’t seen yet, including Dreamer and Charlotte’s Web (which I do want to see, as I loved the original animated film when I was a kid). Following this, she did the controversial indie film Hounddog, a movie that was often referred to as “the Dakota Fanning rape movie” due to one of the key scenes in the film. This is one I haven’t seen, and to be honest, one I haven’t decided if I want to see (although I do admit to being curious as to what all the fuss was about). Several movies followed that I don’t really know much about, until we get to last year’s Coraline, which is a movie I’m still disappointed I didn’t get a chance to see in theaters. This is one I definitely want to see at some point, primarily because it’s based on a story by Neil Gaiman (a writer I’ve been a very big fan of for quite a few years now).
One of the other films that Dakota did last year that I did see (although I had to buy it on DVD to see it, as it was yet another movie that didn’t make to the theater in the hick town that I live in), was the sci-fi thriller/comic book movie Push. I really liked this movie. The basic concept of the movie is that there are people out there with heightened psychic abilities – telepathy, telekinesis, precognition, etc. (a concept I’ve always found fascinating, even as a kid). A sinister government group is trying to round them up to experiment on them. The main star of the film is Chris Evans (from Fantastic Four, although I liked him better in this), who plays a telekinetic on the run from this group. Dakota is a precog who joins him because she’s had visions of the two of them being killed, and together they try to prevent this future from happening. The movie also stars Djimon Hounsou as the villain (who is another great actor).
Dakota’s final movie of 2009 was some stupid non-vampire movie called New Moon (part 2 of that silly ass Twilight Saga that so many people are all hot and bothered about, for reasons that continue to escape me, as the first movie (which I got talked into watching on DVD) was mediocre at best, and the book series it’s based on (I made it almost halfway through the first book before giving it back to the co-worker who insisted I read it) is unbelievably boring and terribly written). I have not seen, nor do I have any interest in ever seeing New Moon, but at a guess Dakota’s brief appearance is probably the only redeeming quality of the movie (her character did look awfully cool in the trailers, with the crazy red eyes and all).
Coming up this year, Dakota is co-starring with Kristen Stewart in The Runaways, a bio pic about the first all-girl rock/metal band. Dakota plays Cherrie Currie, while Kristen plays Joan Jett. Should be an interesting film, and one I look forward to seeing (and then I guess later in the year they’re both in yet another Twilight movie). I really look forward to see where her career goes from here.
12. Eliza Dushku – For my final entry, I chose Eliza Dushku. Eliza first came to my attention when she joined the cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer as the rogue Slayer, Faith. She was fantastic in this role – tough, spunky, full of attitude, and sexy as hell. Of course, as is so often the case, it turns out this wasn’t the first time I’d seen her. The first movie I’d actually seen her in was the fun-filled, action-packed Arnold Schwarzenegger film True Lies, playing his teenage daughter (she’d done a few movies before that, but none that I’ve seen).
Eliza is primarily a TV actress. After Buffy, she went on to the wonderful (and sadly short-lived – thank you, idiots at Fox) show Tru Calling, playing a woman who saves the lives of people who’ve died by reliving the day they died over and over until she can figure out how to prevent their death. What seemed to be a fairly limited concept to begin with actual started to develop into a really interesting show right about the point it was canceled (especially when they brought in Jason Priestley as someone with her same ability, who’s goal was to prevent her from saving the person’s life).
Eliza’s final show (another that was sadly cut short, lasting only two seasons) was another Joss Whedon show, Dollhouse. This is probably her best performance yet. She plays someone who is imprinted with different personalities, and so she’s essentially playing a different character every episode. She really shows off her versatility and acting chops in this show. It was a real shame to see it get canceled.
Between TV shows, Eliza has done a fair bit of movie acting. She starred opposite Kirsten Dunst in Bring It On, had a sexy cameo in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, and was great in the very silly comedy The New Guy. And while it’s generally not my sort of movie, she made the horror film Wrong Turn actually worth watching. She’s done a number of more recent films as well, but sadly I have not had the chance to see any of them yet. But regardless of how good or bad the movies might be, I’m sure her performance in them is worth watching.
And with that, I end my list. Of course, as I was writing the list, I continued to think of other fine actresses I could add to the list, but then I realized if I didn’t draw a line, I’d be working on the list for God knows how long (and it’s taken me too long as it is just to get this much of it done). And so I will bring this topic to a close, and start wracking my brain for what to write about for the next one!
1 comment:
sorry, Ryan, I can't agree with your assessment of Liza on Dollhouse. I don't think it showed her versatility at all. Quite the contrary-- I think it showed her *lack* of versatility. That said, i think the show established Enver Gjokaj as a BRILLIANTLY versatile actor.
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