Live Long and Prosper: My Ben Cooper Spock Halloween Costume

It seems like only yesterday that my older brother Tom and I watched Star Trek on the family’s old Sony 15-inch color television set. I wasn’t sure whether the technicolor of the original show was reduced even more by our tiny set (our oldest brother watched the first moon-landing on it – that’s how old this TV was) but every show came across as if drenched in vibrant, primary colors. So, it wasn’t much of a stretch when September came around and we made our traditional pilgrimage to the Bantam or Woolworth Five N’ Dime to make the most important decision a kid had to make: What Ben Cooper Halloween costume, with their larger than life masks and uber-bright costume fronts displaying your favorite character – would you get?

Like everything else in life (I would learn this the hard way later on) what I ended up being for Halloween came down to timing. Specifically, how long it took to convince Mom that you had to get your Halloween costume NOW because if you waited too long, you’d end up as something stupid (i.e. all that was left on the shelf). The high-ticket items like Spider-Man, Superman, Batman or Spock would be long gone if you procrastinated about such an important decision. It happened every year. We’d wait too long to go to Woolworth’s, I’d have to “settle” for some inferior pop-culture iconic costume character meant for a little kid like “tweety-bird”, then suffer the indignity of seeing some wretched neighbor’s kid on my street wearing the exact costume I should be wearing on Halloween night. Such was the case with Spock from Star Trek.

Spock was the best character on the original show, hands down. He was smart, strong, logical in an illogical universe, and had those awesome ears. He had the added benefit of being tall and skinny, which I was for my age, too. He projected such a commanding presence, in fact, that I felt I would be “in charge” on Halloween night if I went out as him. No Captain Kirk for me. Spock was the real brains behind the operation, and with my other props – a tricorder, communicator, and phaser set on stun – I could explore my neighborhood as if an alien world full of exotic and dangerous creatures; all dressed up in Halloween costumes so you couldn’t easily identify what they were behind those brightly-colored, deceptive masks.

Alas, we never made it to the five-n-dime on time to get Spock. It might have been that our local Woolworth’s didn’t rate more than one or two of him, or, more likely that Spock wasn’t as popular in other households as he was in ours and they may never have ordered a Ben Cooper Spock costume in the first place. So, I would have to go out as Spider-Man again, or, god forbid wear the same Batman costume I’d worn the previous year. That’s why I always kept my mouth shut and never complained to my Mom. Because in a kid’s world back then, going out in the same costume on two consecutive Halloweens was a fate almost as bad a the kid whose Mom kept him home that night because he had something stupid like walking pneumonia. After all, Halloween was all about the action. And the action was walking around in your neighborhood in the pitch black behind a Ben Cooper mask – a new one that smelled like vinyl and made you sweat no matter how cold it was outside. And in that dark abyss of the imagination, whoever said I couldn’t “act” like I was Spock, even if I wasn’t wearing the costume?

But then a wonderful thing happened. Thirty years after the fact, I was finally able to purchase my Ben Cooper Spock costume on ebay. I’m a little embarrassed to say how excited I was when I opened the brown box that it came in the mail and from the first second I laid eyes on Spock’s mask staring up at me (from within the famous cellophane window all Ben Cooper costumes came in) I was beamed back in time. Spock brought me right back to those days I spent watching the original show with my brother Tom. He brought me back to those chilly Halloween nights I’d wished I’d been dressed as TV’s favorite Vulcan. But most of all, that Spock costume with it’s bright mask and tableau on the front, transported me back to when our neighborhood transformed for a precious few hours into a dark and wondrous galaxy, populated by strange yet familiar colorful characters, all running around together under a blanket of stars.

 

Maika Monroe: It Follows

This weekend’s breakout movie hit is IT FOLLOWS, a slasher movie that begs, borrows and steals from many different genre classics that is surprisingly more than the some of its stolen parts. But more than anything that makes IT FOLLOWS work is its star, Maika Monroe. And boy does the director know it because a fair portion of the movie rests on this rising young star’s face in close-up. So much so that you not only know the movie lives or dies by its lead-actresses understated performance, but that the movie-makers are relying on the character’s point-of-view more than any other narrative device to suck you into this new twist on the seemingly inexhaustible zombie movie.

Maika is perfectly cast in the role of the beleaguered heroine. Like so many horror movie scream queens before her, evil itself is going to pay for her having sex. The twist here is that once she has sex and is being stalked by evil (conveniently passed on by her lover to her) she has to have sex AGAIN to pass it on to the next person. I won’t spoil the twist to this ultra-simple device because that would be to take away from the enjoyment of seeing how Maika’s character is going to get away – or not – from her apparent fate in this moody, gloomy, often existential exercise in ultra-low (read: no) budget horror fare that is going to make a ton of money one it’s limited theatrical run is over and it haunts cable forever.

Now here’s the good part: IT FOLLOWS works on a couple different levels because the filmmaker’s know their genre and know their audience. There is, in this order, the ever-popular loss of innocence, existential malaise of teenage ensemble cast followed by teenage angst like you wouldn’t believe, general fear of the unknown and, last but not least, distrust of anybody over 30. The genius is that the filmmaker’s STEAL from some unexpected, classic psychological thriller sources dating back to the 60’s – Michelangelo Antonioni’s BLOW UP (1966) being my favorite. In fact, they use the classic BLOW UP as a template for exuding dread – many, many moody POV shots of rustling trees, lakes and nature in all its glorious indifference to our collective human fate that for a minute I thought I was watching (or wanting, at least) to be watching the counter-culture classic.

Now here’s the bad part: IT FOLLOWS is so self-aware of who their target audience is (tweens into early teens and maybe a sprinkling of college-age) that it misses the opportunity to become a true genre classic because of that narrow focus. I get it, of course. Not many people my age seem to go out to movies anymore, let alone will blow good money on a movie marketed at teenagers with the requisite scream-shots that have become so cliched after BLAIR WITCH PROJECT and PARANORMAL ACTIVITY have blazed a path for films shot on digital video with next to no production value. But there again, I think the filmmaker’s (either consciously or unconsciously) have sold themselves short. They obviously know their craft and have the sense to steal from the best, albeit with a twist here and their to merit the hype and attention their getting. What sucks to me is that they didn’t take it one more level up, and by that I mean do what LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (2008) filmmaker’s did and make this a story for the ages – all the ages.

But back to the best part about IT FOLLOWS and that is it’s breakout star, Maika Monroe. She’s young, beautiful and virtuous in an age that is cynical, a generation that is predisposed to nihilism over optimism, and seem to know something that generations before her didn’t know until they got into their 40’s: that the burden of everyday life for some is incredibly hard and will never be understood by the majority. And therein lies the rub for both Maika’s character and the success or failure of IT FOLLOWS as an enduring classic in the psychological-horror genre that predominates our culture today. America, at least a strong minority, understand that things are not getting better but getting worse. Depression, paranoia and affliction (of whatever variety) plague our youngest citizens and the future, while forever uncertain, seems to become finite at a much younger age than to any generation before it. Not only does the dread of growing up and becoming a zombie (i.e. an adult with adult responsibilities) present clear and present danger in this movie (as it did in LET THE RIGHT ONE IN) it’s as if the characters are being preyed upon by time itself. Slow, creeping, inevitable time eating away your youth as it heads straight for you. And that’s the one, definitive universal theme at the end of the movie that took me by surprise and made IT FOLLOWS worth watching.

Because what’s worse than growing old (here considered an affliction) in this modern world? The filmmaker’s know. It’s growing old alone.

FDR: President was Wannabe Screenwriter

That’s right, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, our 32nd President (1933-1945), wanted to be a screenwriter before he got into politics. Here’s the article from 1947 illustrating how Paramount Pictures went about letting down gently the future Leader of the free world.

Carole Lombard: Way Before Her Time

This is my favorite photograph of the amazingly luminous Carole Lombard. Carole died in a plane crash in January 1942 after appearing in a USO show to sell War bond during World War II. She was a brilliant and beautiful actress with a bawdy sense of humor and loved men almost as much as they loved her.

Only 33 when she died, Carole lived the high-life in Hollywood, was known for hosting some of Hollywood’s legendary parties and attracted some of the most handsome leading men both on and off the screen. Clark Gable would ultimately take the role of Rhett Butler in Gone With The Wind because he needed enough money to divorce his previous wife and marry Carole. They were married in 1939 and by all accounts the love of one another’s lives. That’s saying something even for golden age Hollywood where marriages lasted almost as long as the Santa Ana winds.

I encourage any film lover to check out Carole Lombard’s screwball comedies of the 30’s. She was the highest paid actress (next to Garbo) and made five-times what the U.S. President made in a year. Carole was accompanied by her mother and publicist on the flight that would ultimately take all their lives, including 19 other people (mostly servicemen). She wanted so much to get back to Gable, her husband that she chose to fly rather than take the train. Her colleagues, both afraid of flying, begged her not to go. So Carole flipped a coin – heads by train, tails by plane – and the rest was sad Hollywood history.

I’ll always love Carole for her bawdy sense of humor, the way the light caught her eyes and that lovely blonde hair. She was as smart as they get, and I like to think that, if she lived, she would have been one of the greatest actresses ever to grace the screen. Even though her life was cut short at the top of her game, Carole lives on with a gay spirit and infectious laugh in the movies that capture her essence for all-time. And death can’t even tarnish such a pure, luminous light as Carole Lombard.

Eva Marie Saint: Oscar Royalty

It’s amazing that actresses today who strike Oscar gold with their first foray into film are immediately subject to the Oscar curse. This should not to be confused with the Oscar Love Curse – in which actresses from Vivian Leigh to Julia Roberts to Sandra Bullock win the little gold man of their cinematic dreams, only to lose their significant others in real life immediately after. No, I mean the Oscar curse where an actress hits paydirt her first time out and is relegated to terrible roles forever after. One classic beauty who defied this particular tinseltown superstition is the legendary Eva Marie Saint.

Eva Marie was a little known though already incredibly talented actress on Broadway and television when Elia Kazan cast her as Edie Doyle,  Marlon Brando’s love interest in On The Waterfront (1954). The film was a tremendous hit – sending Brando into the stratosphere and taking Saint with him. The breakout role for the beautiful blonde resulted in an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Eva Marie was crowned the latest Hollywood princess of cinema – with every director circling her for their film. But Eva Marie was smart and, in a town that eats their own on a regular basis, chose her directors and her roles wisely.

On the Waterfront showed the diminutive blonde as a naive though curious young woman who had little experience with men – let alone the domineering and larger than life presence of Brando. Maybe that’s what was so refreshing about her – she was able to keep her head amidst the carnage of Kazan’s black & white world. Saint’s performance was the perfect contrast to the rest of the film’s cynical world view. She stood out as pure and unaffected. It was a performance that deserved the Oscar, so the pressure was on for Eva Marie to find roles that would not typecast her – even at a time when so many actresses were interchangeable.

To understand the role is to understand how acting as an art was changing in Hollywood. Eva Marie was part of a new breed of realism. She was able to convey a vulnerability without being weak at a time when women were still constrained in the “50’s mentality” of what a woman’s role was. That’s why I loved her next huge hit and the one that introduced me to her. Of course, I’m talking about Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (1959). In choosing Saint, Hitch was to transform Eva Marie from her trademark sweet, naive blonde persona into a femme fatale. Always the obsessive-compulsive auteur, Hitchcock literally took the scissors and cut Saint’s locks. It was a gamble that turned Saint into a sophisticated, world-weary spy who is able to control men in the dangerous world of espionage.

Playing opposite the dapper and always glamorous Cary Grant, Eva Marie more than held her own in Hitchcock’s suspense classic. The performance was controlled and masterful. It was sophisticated and modern to have a woman so capable of holding her own – a realism that was rare for film of the day and set a tone that would be as influential to the spy genre as On The Waterfront had been for crime dramas. And all the while, Saint captivated audiences with that beautiful face that only let you see what she wanted you to see – until the end.

Eva Marie’s role in North was a revelation to many who had remembered her as the diminutive blonde in Waterfront. She had matured as an actress between 1954 and ’59 and audiences knew it was no accident she had received the Oscar nearly a decade before. But to her credit, Eva Marie was more interested in spending time with her family than being in the Hollywood limelight. Her marriage to Jeffrey Hayden (1951) is one of the most enduring in Hollywood, largely because Eva Marie put her marriage and her two children first before her career. So, in a way she eluded both the Oscar curse of work and marriage falling apart, post winning her gold statuette.

Now, at age 90, Eva Marie is still very active in Hollywood. While her roles have been sporadic over the intervening decades since North By Northwest, Saint has been nominated for Emmy’s in standout television roles. And as Oscar royalty, she’s been active in the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences. Eva Marie is a judge in the prestigious Nicholl Fellowships for Screenwriting – the single-biggest amateur screenwriting award that gives aspiring scribes the opportunity to break into show business with their cinematic dream projects. Many a newbie screenwriter has been blessed with meeting Eva Marie at the annual Finalist dinner and Awards in early November. What a treat it would be to meet the legend in person!

Eva Marie Saint is one of Hollywood’s greatest success stories. She is one of the few that has TWO Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame – both for her film and television work. Makes you wish more actors were as down to earth, generous and inspirational as her. And it makes you wonder if Hollywood’s biggest stars of the day will still be around – and still so inspirational – when they’re in their 90’s. Seems like the industry has changed too much for that to be possible. Then again, Eva Marie called her own shots back when it really was an old-boy’s club.

Here’s to Eva Marie, one of the most gorgeous and talented actresses of Hollywood. Oscar royalty who never looked down on anybody, but instead used her talent and compassion to lift them up. If you haven’t seen On The Waterfront and North By Northwest then rent them as soon as you can. And for a different film experience altogether, watch Eva Marie in Raintree Country (1957), 36 Hours (1965), and the formidable A Hatful of Rain (1957) one of the first Hollywood movies to tackle drug addiction.

Jennifer O’Neill: Summer Lover

For most of us there are images that stick in the mind long after their context fades away. That was this image of Jennifer O’Neill in SUMMER OF ’42 (1971). Actually, it was this nearly identical image in black & white below:

Taken a few seconds apart, they are virtually identical except for Jennifer’s hand placement. The Black & White version of this photograph is famous (available as a poster, it remains a seminal image from the early 70’s) while the color-version is not. What makes the difference is the virtually subliminal image the second image conveys. In the movie, Jennifer plays a wife who’s husband is engaged in WWII. She is lonely, waiting for word from her husband while living in a beach house over the summer during one of the worst chapters in the war’s history. Her wedding ring in the second photograph is visible wherein the first image it is not. And it makes all the difference in the photograph, the character in the story and in the classic film.

Summer of ’42 is a novel by Herman Raucher which the film was based. It was shot in 1969-70 and released in 1971. The film catapulted Jennifer into stardom, as much for her wholesome looks (the hope of a generation of Americans some have called the greatest) as for her action – which my opinion is superb. In fact, Jennifer would go on to act in almost 30 films throughout the 70’s and early 80’s but never again attain the starry heights of Summer of ’42.

Jennifer is a contemporary of Katherine Ross, Charlotte Rampling and several other actresses I’ve covered in this blog. What sets her apart is that Summer of ’42 was her movie, a star-making vehicle if there ever was one because the audience felt her pain and sense of loss while at the same time taking solace in the arms of a very young paramour during a summer infamous for death. She is so young, so alive and so beautiful that she embodies the hopes and ideals of what that generation of Americans stood for. At the same time, the subject matter was highly controversial because it portrayed an affair between a married woman (albeit war widow) and an under-age boy. By today’s standards the film’s so-called love scenes are chaste, but back in ’71 it was hot-stuff. And even today, no man can deny watching the movie that having an affair with Jennifer O’Neill in a summer house would be an affair to remember – under any circumstances.

Summer of ’42 is a beautifully-shot movie with an absolutely gorgeous actress in the prime of her youth and career. It is one of those rare cinematic occasions where you literally can’t imagine anyone else in the role. Sure, it has been remade in various incarnations since then – but none were able to replicate the magic. I think this is in large part to Jennifer’s ability to captivate with her performance as much as her looks. Even more, it is saturated in the hues and values of summer – that special time we all slow down, enjoy the sun and beach and invariably reflect on our lives; what’s been, what is and what will be. And for me, that’s the magic spell summer and Summer of ’42 cast no matter what the generation is watching it.

One more shot of gorgeous Jennifer and Happy July 4th!

Katherine Ross: Sundance to Stepford Wife

Thank god for the internet. Whatever else the internet may be it is definitely our species collective memory from now on forward. A visual and virtual archive of riches from the trivial to the earth-shattering. And on any given night, the internet provides a stroll down memory lane for a cinefile in love with leading ladies like myself. And that’s where Miss Ross comes in. I refuse to believe this fresh-faced, doe-eyes waif of a gorgeous woman is celebrating her 73 birthday this year! Katherine will always be one of the true beauties of the cinema and a goddess of the 60’s and 70’s when her look defined a generation. To me she defined the wholesome, bright and independent women who were emerging out of the 60’s sexual revolution. Her role in The Graduate opposite a very young Dustin Hoffman is only one example of Katherine embodying the changing attitudes and social morays that defined her generation – and subsequent generations to come – in trying to find their place in the world.

But I wasn’t part of her generation. I came later and experienced Katherine Ross on a different, much more primal level. By the time I caught up to her, I was watching her visage on a tiny (we’re talking 20-inch screen) color TV. All I saw was a ravishingly-beautiful woman so photogenic that she appeared to glow from within. So beautiful, that I instantly wanted to know more about this person – way before the internet could make that instantaneous.

My first blush with Katherine was Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid. A classic by any measure and one that captured Paul Newman, Robert Redford and Katherine Ross at the height of their physical and creative powers in a modern western fantasy. A fantasy in large part because of Katherine’s shear magnetism, magnified by her two leading men. Check out the “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” scene with Paul and Katherine, a bicycle and a bull and tell me it doesn’t immediately put a smile on your face. The beauty of that filmic moment plays on in the mind like an amber-hued echo, no matter how old they were when they first saw it.

Katherine wore a cowboy hat better than any cowboy ever could!

Of course, the true testament to a movie star will always come down to talent, no matter how beautiful and photogenic they are. Katherine Ross is a perfect example of this because her range was not limited to one specific genre. Name an actress who had a smash hit in a coming-of-age hit, a western and then segued to a sci-fi romp that would inevitably riff off the stereotype of beauty with no soul: in this case, men who replace their beautiful wives with beautiful, doppelganger robots!

It’s perfect casting because Katherine Ross is perfect. Perfect in that her beauty could easily be her defining trait, but also in that there is much more below the surface. “The Stepford Wives” is one of those films that stands up over time because of a visual sensibility and because the casting was the best special effect so they didn’t muck it up with stupid effects. And Miss Ross is perfect in the role of a woman trying to break the ’70’s stereotype of a woman so beautiful that she must not have brains and talent and right to a life of her own. But most of all, the film is watchable by today’s standards because Katherine is so watchable. Because she elevates the material beyond the mediocre like only a true movie star can transcend time and space and make a connection to their audience, even decades later.

And there’s my cue for Katherine Ross’s greatest quality: Timeless Beauty mixed with a tinge of sadness. Her eyes convey a soulfulness but also a certain melancholy that magnifies her outward perfection. Her stare is one of the best I’ve ever seen. It conveys (at least to me) that she wants to be respected, understood, loved and not trifled with. Projection, of course – but isn’t that what an actor at the top of their craft do with a single look? Capture and reflect back our own nature like a mirror for the soul? Katherine did this for her own generation and has been doing it ever since for those who see in her a collective sense of loss. Loss of meaning as in The Graduate, loss of the men she loves in Butch & Sundance; loss of our very humanity in The Stepford Wives. In each performance, Katherine embodied a character in the process of loss. And she did it so effortlessly that sometimes people forget what an amazing actress she was in addition to being a beauty for the ages.

Katherine will always hold a special place in my heart from the days I first met her on that tiny little color TV. For me, she’ll never grow old but stay young and vibrant in the collective memory of several generations of moviegoers.

Oh, and by the way – she’s still hot today at 73!!

Greta Garbo: Screen Goddess Found in the Men’s Room

Screen Goddess Greta’s Garbo’s personal belongings are on sale at Julien’s Auction in Beverly Hills this weekend. Many, many glamorous 30’s and 40’s hats, clothes, shoes and personal effects are being sold for 10 times what the auction house  set as their market value.  People not only remember Garbo, but consider her the most glamorous screen goddess from the golden age of Hollywood.  Garbo was the glamor queen of Hollywood, from a time in movie history when fans considered their stars gods.  Made famous by mogul Louis B. Mayer and MGM studios, Garbo was as big as they got.  Her appeal was her mystery, but in reality she was the most private of movie stars.

Seth Moseley was a  reporter during that same most glamorous time – the late 1930’s in New York City. A paparazzo 40 years before the term was coined, Seth worked for The Journal, the big-city newspaper to Manhattan, home to some of the world’s biggest stars. And he had his fair share of run-ins with Hollywood stars. But his favorite to tell was finding Garbo, the thirty-one year movie queen of the world, aboard the S.S. Gripsholm in the Port of New York:

“In those days, when a celebrity came in from Europe, half a dozen or sometimes a dozen newspapermen go down and meet these celebrities coming in from Europe. This means getting up early in the morning and going down to lower bay of Manhattan and meeting these ships coming up the narrows to interview celebrities. Garbo was on one of these ships. This was in 1937 and she’d become famous in the movies and had left Hollywood to go back to Sweden for vacation. She was purported to be in love with Leopold Stokowski, the conductor. We were (sent) down to the ship to find out.

Garbo came out and fifteen of us reporters and photographers held a mass interview. She was distinctly uncomfortable. Garbo was a very quiet, shy human being. She had made a fortune out of being shy and quiet and alone and she posed for pictures and they pursued her on the romance. I didn’t mention it. I don’t like mass interviews. I don’t think you stand a chance.

After everybody else had left, I stayed on the ship. I went to find her hoping I could get an interview. I went to her state room. I went to the Captain of the ship. I went everywhere for two-hours, and I couldn’t find Garbo. Finally, I had to go to the men’s room and that’s where I found her. She was in the men’s room hiding. I didn’t show any alarm, I just said that I’d love to see her for a couple minutes and could we take a walk on the deck. She said certainly.

We went out on the ship’s deck and talked. Then she told me something I thought was pretty important:

“You know,” I said. “you’ve said that you always wanted to be alone.”

“I’m glad you asked me that,” she said.“Because it’s not true. What I said was, I want to be left alone.”

I knew I had a good story. We talked, she was charming. She simply didn’t want to be overcome by a lot of people. Well, I jumped off the ship and got back to the newspaper and wrote the story about how Garbo had never said this remark about being alone, that she was not a recluse – she wanted to be left alone. Every newspaper in the United States picked it up.”

Seth had a special twinkle in his eye every time he told me the story of his and Garbo’s chance meeting, all because he wouldn’t give up on getting an exclusive. He said he even received a thank you note from the charming movie star, hoping that they would meet again someday. But they never did.

Greta Garbo, movie goddess and Seth Moseley’s favorite interview, passed away on Easter Sunday, April 15, 1990 in New York City. She was 85. Seth H. Moseley died Saturday, August 11, 2000 in Torrington, Connecticut. He was 92. Their fateful meeting in the men’s room aboard an ocean liner would forever set the record straight. Garbo never wanted to be alone, only to be left alone. Never to be forgotten.

Amy Adams: Magically Enchanting

How adorable is Amy Adams?

Adorable enough to be a major movie goddess and still accessible to mere mortals.  Adorable enough to withstand the pressures of Hollywood and still be a nice, beautiful person. That’s how adorable she is.

I love this photograph of her.  Amy looks sweet and natural as an ocean breeze. She exudes warm fuzzies. And behind the beautiful eyes burns an actress with intelligence, wit and comedic timing the likes of Meryl Streep. That’s right – I just invoked Streepdom on Ms. Adams.  Mark my words, she’s going to be around as long as Meryl – doing more dramatic roles while keeping up her comedic chops.

A Hollywood actress has to be very smart and lucky in today’s overcrowded, media-crazed world. Her persona has to be close enough to her own personality not to become engulfed by nasty headlines and even nastier paparazzi who wouldn’t mind destroying someone for a quick money-grab. I don’t know Ms. Adams but the way she manages to stay above the fray makes me think she’s an honest-to-goodness serious actress who just wants to be taken at face value. And what a face she has.

And now Amy is playing a totally sexy and intoxicating femme fatale in David O. Russell’s next film after the smash success of “Silver Linings Playbook.” Look at the transformation above. Amy has channeled the 70’s so completely with the perm and the sequined, silver halter top. But it’s the look she give the camera that makes me shiver. She’s come into her own totally in the last few films – she commands the screen in a way I never would have imagined with her earlier, fluffier work. Since “The Fighter” Amy has shown she’s got acting chops galore…and not afraid to use them.

But to look at this picture of her – she really doesn’t need me spouting off about her virtues on screen or off. I just wanted to let everyone know that I think Amy has the potential of being as ever-present onscreen in ten years as she is right now in 2013. And for a working actress in Hollywood, that’s quite a magic-trick.

Rooney Mara: Dark Angel

There are a lot of actresses that like to say they are chameleons but Rooney Mara is the real dead. So much so that she is virtually indistinguishable in several of her earlier incarnations (aka movie roles). Of course, that was before the American remake of The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo. Dying her hair jet-black and her coif cut so severe that made her angular body seem like post-modern sculpture art – she has become Hollywood’s goth version of the It-Girl. But even a cursory search on Google will turn up images of the actress that result in a double-take. Like the one below here:

No less beautiful, but virtually unrecognizable now that Rooney’s Lisbeth Salander character is imprinted on my brain. I was even stunned to find images of her laughing and smiling! Goes to show what evil typecasting can be to a young, incredibly-talented actress can succumb to if she’s not too careful. That’s why I’m hoping SIDE EFFECTS will be a huge hit for Rooney and we can see another side of this dark angel’s talent. Not that being typecast as one of the greatest female heroes in modern times would be such a bad thing.

I have a feeling whatever happens, Hollywood will continue its bad romance with Miss Mara for years to come. She’s obviously committed to her craft of full-immersion into her characters. And personally I can’t wait to see what she morphs into next.