Zotis' Favorite Actresses

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Kate Beckinsale
Claire Danes
Camilla Belle
Katherine Isabelle
Oksana Akinshina
Kirsten Dunst
Ellen Page
Michelle Williams
Greta Gerwig
Jenny Agutter
Brit Marling
Kaya Scodelario
Mary Elizabeth Winstead

I was posting in the Your Cinematic Crush thread, but it started getting pretty lengthy so I wanted to make my own thread to be able to collect my thoughts and feelings in more detail in one place dedicated to it. I'm going to talk about the actresses that particularly catch my eye and I think I'll come back to this thread from time to time. I have a habit of going through the filmography of actresses that catch my eye and watching every movie that interests me, but I don't do it with male actors. I started in 2003 after I saw Underworld in theaters. Kate Beckinsale was the first. Although I didn't find that much of her work interested me, it did lead me directly into my second object of desire, Claire Danes, when I saw the movie Brokedown Palace which they both starred in. (Actually, I shouldn't say that. I was already aware of Claire Danes, and other actresses that'll come up later, and a lot of the "crushes" overlap. But I guess I'm talking more about the time that one overtakes the other. When I saw Brokedown Palace is when my attention shifted more towards Claire Danes.)

Picture time:



Kate Beckinsale
Underworld

Brokedown Palace

(Edit: Pearl Harbor

Serendipity

Van Helsing

Underworld: Evolution

Click

Total Recall
)

I ignored her when she made chick flicks, but when I saw Underworld I was really taken. It took me quite a long time to realise the movie was pretty mediocre. I think it was just her and the visuals that transfixed me and prevented me from noticing its flaws. Since then however, nothing she did caught my eye again. The only other movie of hers that I really like is Brokedown Palace, which takes me to my next crush, her co-star in Brokedown Palace.



Claire Danes
The Hours

Igbey Goes Down

Brokedown Palace

The Mod Squad

Les Miserables

The Rainmaker

Princess Mononoke

Romeo + Juliet

To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday


Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

Stage Beauty

Shopgirl

Stardust


This crush lasted a lot longer. I went through as many of her films as I could find at Blockbuster Video. It was 2003/2004, The Hours was fairly recent Oscar bait, and I think Terminator 3 came out on video somewhere in the middle of me watching all the films of hers I could get my hands on at the time. There were plenty of good movies of hers so the crush lasted a while. She had a knack for playing very sympathetic characters and putting own a powerful display of intense sorrow. I was always excited to see her on screen even when she only played a small role. After 2003 I kept tabs on her, but gradually I became less interested. I still like her, but I don't pay attention to her projects much anymore. Shopgirl was the last thing she did that I liked. My dad told me that he liked my Claire Danes phase. We watched a lot of movies as a family back then. This was the time in my life where I started to go to video stores by myself and rent whatever I wanted. I'd share them with the rest of the family if they were interested, but before that we usually rented movies together or bought movies second-hand.



Camilla Belle
The Quiet

The Chumbscrubber

When a Stranger Calls

The Ballad of Jack and Rose

Push


This was the strongest crush I've ever had. It was a bit of an obsession for a while. I wrote her a letter, but never sent it. I was a little heart broken because I wished I could somehow meet her or talk to her, but thought it was just impossible. My soul was tormented. I first discovered her when I rented The Quiet and watched it 2 or 3 times before returning it, but I kept thinking about her so much that I rented it again. I think the second time I rented it I watched it 6 times in 5 days. I remember sitting on the floor in my room watching it in the dark twice back to back and just kept watching it day after day. It's still one of my favorite movies, but eventually it got bumped out of my top ten. She's one year younger than me, so I think her being around my age was a factor. At that time she wasn't a big star yet and only had a few movies, not including a bunch of stuff she did as a child actor. The only other movie of hers I could find was When a Stranger Calls, but she was the only thing the movie had going for it. I tried tracking down another one of her movies, The Chumbscrubber, but it literally took me years to find it. I finally found it at an obscure video store around the time that Blockbuster Video was going out of business. The Chumbscrubber rekindled my crush and I watched the movie about a half dozen times. The Ballad of Jack and Rose was one that I wasn't really hooked on watching, so when it wasn't very easy to find I didn't really look too hard. However, I actually found it second-hand about a year ago and bought it, and it's a pretty decent movie. I'm sorry I didn't watch it when I was actually crushing on her. After 2007 I kept tabs on her for a while, but she didn't do anything that caught my attention and I eventually stopped paying attention. I saw Push in 2009 and hated it.


Katherine Isabelle
Ginger Snaps

The Last Casino

Falling Angels

On the Corner

Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed

Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning

Insomnia

Show Me


Seeing Katherine Isabelle in Ginger Snaps started another obsession, and again I watched it about half a dozen times. When I first discovered her I had a hard time finding material to watch. She did a lot of small roles and TV cameos. She's a Canadian actress and I remember one random day when a corner store across from our apartment that rented videos got some stuff in that was pretty exclusive. My brother showed up with them and much to my surprise she was a lead role in a Canadian movie called The Last Casino. It wasn't anything special, but it was half decent and I liked her in it. I watched Freddy vs Jason only because she was in it. Normally I would never watch a cheesy slasher like that, and I actually stopped watching shortly after her character was killed. I was really disappointed that she did a nude shower scene, because I prefer modest women. Later I found out it was a body double, so that was actually a relief. I like it when pretty girls don't wear a lot of make-up, and I'm a sucker for a tomboy. I do find Katherine to be very sex too though. She's kind of in both worlds. There are still quite a few movies of hers that I want to see but haven't gotten around to. At the top of that list is Turning Paige (2001). I'm a little bewildered by how broad the range of work she's done both in style and quality. She just turned 38 and has 119 acting credits on IMDB. She's aging very well and is still a gorgeous beauty. Ginger Snaps was the cult classic that made me fall in love with her, but Falling Angels is my personal favorite.



Oksana Akinshina
Lilya 4-Ever

The Bourne Supremacy

Sisters

Moscow Zero


When I saw her in a very small role at the end of The Bourne Supremacy I was so curious I looked her up. Even though she was little more than an extra there was something about the emotion in her performance and her beauty that mesmerized me. To my amazement I discovered that she wasn't a complete nobody, but had actually won some impressive awards for a movie she did when she was 16 called Lilya 4-Ever. Although her IMDB page only had a few entries, Lilya 4-Ever looked so interesting that I just had to watch it. I went to every video store in my city (Ottawa at the time) trying to find it and everywhere I went they'd either never heard of it or started singing it's praise the moment I mentioned it. Regardless, no one had it. One film store owner said that if it ever gets released he would get it, and that was the devastating news. It only had a very small release and was practically impossible to find. I was so desperate to watch it that I ordered a bootleg copy off of Ebay. That was probably the most pivotal moment in my film-watching life. I'd never gone to such lengths to watch a film. I'd never seen such an obscure film. I wasn't into foreign films, or art films, and it was a turning point in the way I watched movies and treated cinema. I stopped watching movies with my family as they were more interested in typical Hollywood movies and I was branching into cult classics, niches, and the obscure. I hadn't really gotten into art films yet though. Lilya 4-Ever is to this day my number one favorite film of all time. Oksana Akinshina sadly wasn't very active as an actress, so she kind of fell off my radar. I watched some random movie she did with Val Kilmer, Moscow Zero, and it was terrible. I was really disappointed. But I owe it to her to check out her other movies since she has done a bunch more. I'm not sure when I'll get around to it though. Since Lilya 4-Ever, I've never heard any buzz about her, so I have the impression that she didn't do anything else noteworthy. I hope I'm wrong though.



Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
More Asian actresses. Kthxbye.
__________________
Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.





Lilya 4-Ever (2002)



Directed by Lukas Moodysson, who is also well known for Show Me Love. I think people are divided between the two on which of his movies they like more, but everyone loves both of them. I would say quality wise as objectively as I can that they are on equal footing, but Show Me Love gets into my top 25.



Lilya 4-Ever won some impressive awards when it was released.

Gijon - Best Film, Best Actress
Rouen Nordic - Best Actress
Zimbabwe International - Best Cinematography
Brasilia International - Best Director
Guldbagge - Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Cinematography, Best Screenplay
European Film Awards - Best Film, Best Actress

Sweden's submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.


The thing I love about Show Me Love and Lilya 4-Ever is the way my own teenage years, family dynamics, pain, loneliness, and sorrow relate to the way they're expressed in these films. The natural way the movie is captured on camera adds to the realism.

I give Lilya 4-Ever five stars because I can't find a technical flaw, its critical reception and cult following, my personal discovery adventure, its imporrance in my life, its appeal to my particular taste, its intense themes, its realism, and its ability to invoke emotion.



Asians for Mr.Minio... He is the president of the Mafia after all...




Well, Tokyo Story was my first Ozu. Setsuko Hara is just incredibly charming, modest, pretty, and talented.





Etsuko Shihomi

Dragon Princess was where I discovered her, and is a charming movie with solid martial arts. She also did a pile of Sister Streetfighter movies following in Sonny Chiba's footsteps (one of the few male actors who's filmography I explored), who was famous for Streetfighter back in the seventies and also played Hattori Hanzo in Kill Bill.



Meiko Kaji

Blind Woman's Curse is my favorite of her movies, but she's done loads of awesome work. One of my top 15 favorite movies.



That's just a tease, and only a few Japanese. Asia is awesome, but most of my crushes were caucasian.



I started in 2003 after I saw Underworld in theaters. Kate Beckinsale was the first. Although I didn't find that much of her work interested me,
A couple of recommendations from me :

Cold Comfort Farm (1995)
Haunted (1995)



Not a personal recommendation (because I've not seen it) but if you're willing to watch a horror I've been recommended a few times, then check out American Mary to continue your Katherine fix.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Mary
__________________
5-time MoFo Award winner.



A couple of recommendations from me :

Cold Comfort Farm (1995)
Haunted (1995)
Cold Comfort Farm looks interesting, thanks for that.

Not a personal recommendation (because I've not seen it) but if you're willing to watch a horror I've been recommended a few times, then check out American Mary to continue your Katherine fix.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Mary
Oh yes, it's definitely on my to watch list. I'm not sure when I'll get around to it though. Have you seen Falling Angels?



@ScarletLion check this out:



My first copy of Lilya 4-Ever got destroyed in a flood when I lent it to a friend, and they never even got around to watching it. Perfect Blue also got destroyed in the flood and went unwatched by my friend. Perfect Blue was easy to replace, but Lilya 4-Ever I finally found a copy at that video store that went out of business, that's where I grabbed Show Me Love too.

Does Moodysson have a thing for blondes? Oh wait, everyone has a thing for blondes...



@ScarletLion check this out:



My first copy of Lilya 4-Ever got destroyed in a flood when I lent it to a friend, and they never even got around to watching it. Perfect Blue also got destroyed in the flood and went unwatched by my friend. Perfect Blue was easy to replace, but Lilya 4-Ever I finally found a copy at that video store that went out of business, that's where I grabbed Show Me Love too.

Does Moodysson have a thing for blondes? Oh wait, everyone has a thing for blondes...
Excellent. I've seen all three - mammoth was a bit of a disappointment, especially as I love both the leads. But the other two are great. I see a bit of 'Wings of Desire' in the latter stages of 'Lilya-h4-ever'



Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
Asians for Mr.Minio... He is the president of the Mafia after all...
Finally an underling paid tribute!!!
most of my crushes were caucasian.
Shows you're not hanging out with me enough.



Oh yes, it's definitely on my to watch list. I'm not sure when I'll get around to it though. Have you seen Falling Angels?
No, I haven't, but I see you really loved it. How much of that rating is Katherine?



Oh yes, it's definitely on my to watch list. I'm not sure when I'll get around to it though. Have you seen Falling Angels?
No, I haven't, but I see you really loved it. How much of that rating is Katherine?
Katherine is the most interesting character, and possibly the best acting performance, but the whole cast is great and the directing is very good, so I would probably say Katherine is 40% of the rating. Without her it would still be a great movie, but probably not a favorite of mine.





Kirsten Dunst
The Virgin Suicides

Jumanji

Small Soldiers

Luckytown

Crazy/Beautiful

Spider-Man

Spider-Man 2

Spider-Man 3

Mona Lisa Smile

Wimbledon

Elizabethtown

Marie Antoinette

Interview with a Vampire


This overlapped my Claire Danes crush in the early to mid 2000's. Kirsten has a great personality and charm that she brings to every character. She's great when she's happy, and even better when she's sad. The Virgin Suicides and Crazy/Beautiful were my favorite of hers. A lot of her movie choices haven't been great, but some have. I think she's a very talented actress, but I wish she had stuck to the quality of film and not gone for some of the really terrible movies she's done.




Excellent. I've seen all three - mammoth was a bit of a disappointment, especially as I love both the leads. But the other two are great. I see a bit of 'Wings of Desire' in the latter stages of 'Lilya-h4-ever'
It's hard to say when it's something like that. Michelle Williams is someone I'll talk about more at length. Mammoth was a good movie, but something missed. Perhaps it's the story, but I think it overall lacked the realism. The emotion wasn't as raw and intense as in other films. Moodysson can be a bit hit or miss.



I just noticed all these actresses have a similar look to them, at least in the photos Zotis posted. Which is cool, most people have consistent taste, which I guess applies to favorite actresses too



I just noticed all these actresses have a similar look to them, at least in the photos Zotis posted. Which is cool, most people have consistent taste, which I guess applies to favorite actresses too
I was thinking that as well, they mostly seem to have the same oval faces. The again I spose I can't really talk, if I made a list like this I'd probably have the likes of Mirren, Binoche, Johansson, Naomi Watts, etc on it and they tend to have a similar look as well, high forehead, prominent nose, etc.





Ellen Page
Mouth to Mouth

Hard Candy

X-Men: The Last Stand

An American Crime

The Tracey Fragments

Juno

Peacock

Whip It

Inception

Super

The East

X-Men: Days of Future Past

Into the Forrest


Hard Candy was when I first discovered her, but Mouth to Mouth and The Tracey Fragments were more recent surprises. I'd put those two movies over everything else she's done. Mouth to Mouth being the best, a real masterpiece. Mouth to Mouth was incredibly powerful and realistic. The Tracey Fragments was more artsy, but also a great coming of age drama.






I was thinking that as well, they mostly seem to have the same oval faces. The again I spose I can't really talk, if I made a list like this I'd probably have the likes of Mirren, Binoche, Johansson, Naomi Watts, etc on it and they tend to have a similar look as well, high forehead, prominent nose, etc.
Interesting, I hadn't noticed the shape of their faces. I was noticing that they all had a rough & tumbled look. None of them in the screen shots are glamorous or dripping in jewelry and make up, or look like the girl next door type. They're great choices BTW and a cool thread



Oh thanks Citizen, I'm glad you like them and the thread. I think I go for the pretty without much make-up look, sorta tomboyish. I didn't realise myself how many blondes there were until writing about them, but they are mostly blondes so far. Michelle Williams is coming up, so another blonde, and at least a couple more blondes, though brunettes as well. I think it's going to be a while before I get into Asians or even non-Caucasian. It's weird how much besides their physical appearance actually factors into finding someone attractive.