A toast to Dangerous Women

I do a lot on my inspirations here, as you might have noticed.  I really, really like kickass female characters.   My favorite X-”Man” was Rogue–in the comic book, not the movie.  They made her a pansy in the movies and I hated that aspect of them.  Rogue should be able to go toe-to-toe with Superman.

I hated the Buffy movie and didn’t tune in to the show until the end of the first season.  Felt like pounding my head into a wall when I realized what I’d been missing.  Buffy rocked.  So did Faith.  I’ve already mentioned how much I enjoy Xena.  And I aim a salute at Renee O’Connor for her part in it as well.  Gabrielle was a perfect partner for the Warrior Princess and Renee pulled it off with great panache.  It bothers me to see that both she and Lucy get so little work these days.  They showed a lot of acting chops, as well as chopping acts.

My first intro to Milla Jovovich was in The Fifth Element, which probably has something to do with how much I enjoyed that movie.  She’s a great female action star and even though I don’t particularly care for zombie flicks, I loved all three Resident Evil movies.  She’s ultimately convincing in her action roles, whether as Alice or as Violet in the much deprecated Ultraviolet.  Which I also enjoyed immensely.

I liked the first Tomb Raider–but not the second so much.  Angelina Jolie impressed me with her guts and nerve, her willingness to do her own stunts.  Her willingness to work hard to get good at what she did.  The stunts in the first one were amazing.

I even liked Elektra, which almost no one did.

It should be no surprise that my fiercest, my most dangerous, characters are women.  Jaz and Nyx are, in a way, modeled after all of these characters, and a little on the actresses who played them.  All it takes is the ability to convince me that they really know what they’re doing, to lose my imagination in the role they’re playing.

An interesting game my friends and I used to play was to try to cast movies that hadn’t been made yet.  It would be interesting to hear what others might think about casting Nyx or Jaz.  I have my own ideas, but I have the feeling that some of the actresses haven’t been discovered yet.

Or maybe they haven’t.