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.)
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.
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.
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.
Last edited by Zotis; 12-16-19 at 02:44 AM.