Growing up, I was OBSESSED with Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen and ALL of their movies. My mom always says, “All you ever wanted to watch were those stupid Mary Kate and Ashley movies.” (It’s rude as hell that she would call them stupid!) While most kids my age were watching cartoons and the Disney channel, I was watching Holiday in the Sun and It Takes Two on repeat. Cartoons weren’t my thing because I don’t have an imagination. Talking sponges and fairy godparents just didn’t do it for me and I didn’t have Disney channel so my VCR got a lot of use with my MK&A VHS tapes.
I recently watched two really good movies starring their very talented younger sister, Elizabeth, who is way more active in Hollywood than I realized. Both movies, Wind River and Kodachrome, were really, really good. In Wind River, she stars alongside Jeremy Renner and plays a bad-ass FBI agent who is assigned a case in Wyoming after a teenage girl is found dead. She plays a completely different role in Kodachrome as a nurse taking care of a dying man, played by Ed Harris (who is in one of my favorite movies, Stepmom). The nurse, the dying man, and the dying man’s estranged son (Jason Sudeikis) take a road trip from Jersey to Kansas to make it to the photo lab, Kodachrome, before it shuts its doors forever.
Both movies, which are both on Netflix, were so much better than I expected them to be. I think my expectations weren’t that high because just a few years ago, Netflix had a terrible reputation when it came to their movie selection. However, they have definitely stepped up their game because I have watched a lot of decent movies lately, including Netflix originals.
Elizabeth is super talented. It is cool to see her play roles that we never really got to see her sisters play. These roles are serious and emotional and totally opposite of the humorous, more playful roles her sisters had in their prime. I am for sure going to start paying more attention to Elizabeth and the movies she stars in. I know she is in the new Avengers: Infinity War movie that is in theaters now but considering I lack an imagination, I most definitely will not be seeing it. Seeing her be so successful in playing totally different characters absolutely makes her more talented than her sisters. That is hard for me to admit because I am a die-hard MK&A fan but I have a lot of respect for the range of characters Elizabeth is successfully able to portray. I am not quite sure I would be able to appreciate the characters as much if it were her sisters playing them.
It took me a (New York) minute to realize Elizabeth could fill the void I have from her two sisters being basically out of the spotlight since 2004, but I have decided she is completely worthy. I am super excited to see what roles she takes on in the future.
Sarcastically Callie 