Thursday, June 24, 2004

Child stars Grow Up

It's always interesting when child stars grow up and turn in to young adults. I don't have kids of my own yet (but certainly hope to before I'm too old) but I imagine there could be similarities in with regard to the "where did my little boy/girl go?" feeling when you see them growing up. One of my favorite movies of all time is My Girl starring Anna Chlumsky, Macaulay Culkin, Dan Akroyd and Jamie Lee Curtis. That is one of the very few movies that I have videotaped off of TV (years ago), purchased on VHS and purchased on DVD. I just love the Vada Sultenfuss character because Anna was such an incredible actress, even at 11 years old. The wide range of emotions she showed in the film were wonderful. I liked Macaulay too, but Anna absolutely stole that movie. But, anyway...television, and film in particular, by design have a way of freezing ideas and images of people, and the characters they portray, in our minds so for the longest time Anna Chlumsky was Vada Sultenfuss in my mind. Not in the crazy, can't tell make-believe from reality way, but just in the normal like-to-remember-you-like-that way. Since Anna has stayed away from Hollywood, graduated from college and has a normal life, she's one of the lucky ones that don't have to keep their lives secretly guarded from every photographer and news hound on the corner. But, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen are a whole different story. I'm sure I'm not the only person who watched Full House when I was younger and thought they were not the most attractive little kids (well, they weren't). However, flash forward a couple hatefully of years and they started to get very cute. Now, that they are 18 (and millions of teens probably have wet dreams starring the twins) they are very beautiful young women. Honestly, there are probably more 30-somethings+ lusting after them than the teenagers. And, I really don't envy them when they do go off to college, especially with the anorexia thing getting so much play in the media.
...but anyway, where was I going with this in the first place...?
I have no idea anymore and I'm getting hungry so I'll just say if you have never seen My Girl I highly recommend doing so. My Girl 2 is good as well, but definitely not as good as the first. Another highly recommended movie is Harriet The Spy starring Michelle Trachtenberg (Dawn, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer if you don't know). She was also 11 when that movie was made and she was excellent as well. It also has Rosie O'Donnell (not a big fan), Vanessa Lee Chester (of Jurassic Park 2) and Gregory Smith (on Everwood, which I've never seen but got to like the name...everwood...:D).
So yeah, two good movies to go and watch by yourself or definitely good to watch with kids, although the death themes in My Girl may need some parental explanation. I'm going to eat now. By the way, I ended up watching Rugrats In Paris last night, if you were curious.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

If you want to know more about Anna, just visit

http://www.livejournal.com/community/annachlumskyfc/