I think I kind of love Brittany Murphy. Sure, she’s not the greatest actress ever, and she’s kind of insane, and those rings under eyes are probably never going to go away until she can fully repress the memories of her time with Ashton Kutcher, but still, she’s got a certain likableness that makes you want to forgive her many faults. She’s sort of like Meg Ryan that way, except that you would never see Meg Ryan fending off a drunken ex-boyfriend with a kitchen knife.
Where do I know Devon Aoki from? Her movie resumé is awfully short, and there’s nothing on it that I’ve seen. And it’s not like I spend a lot of time paying attention to who Chanel or Lancôme is hiring to do modeling work. At any rate, I spent half of her scenes in Sin City grousing about the continued portrayal of Asians as fetishized silent assassins, and the other half thinking, “damn, she’s cool.”
Mickey Rourke was great in Sin City, grizzled and tortured and almost as insane as Brittany Murphy. I’m pretty sure he was wearing lots of prosthetics and makeup for his role. Reasonably sure. It was a possibility, at least. I used to get Mickey Rourke mixed up with Bruce Willis, back in the 80s, when they were younger and had slightly fewer miles on their faces. This movie may mark the first time in years that Willis has played a character that’s anywhere near his actual age. He still makes out with a girl young enough to be his granddaughter, though.
Poor Alexis Bledel: for the rest of her career, she’s going to be stuck playing girls who have nothing better to do than prattle on the phone with their mothers. Hopefully she chatted up Elijah Wood while on set, and picked up some tips on how to get cast against type.
Oh, and the movie itself was good, too. You could just about see the word balloons popping up above the actors’ heads, which is the effect they were going for, so good job there.