Never let it be said that the Fanning sisters are trying to slide by on cuteness alone.

Oh, they're cute all right, but they also are freakishly good actors. (Dakota freaks me out, period, but that's another matter.) At last year's Sundance Film Festival, a rape scene from Dakota's film Hounddog was so disturbing that the film still doesn't have a distributor. The scene itself was not graphic, but Fanning's performance was so powerful and convincing that conservative groups called for the arrest of Fanning's agent and mother.

This year was Elle's turn in a less-disturbing, but equally gripping, performance in Phoebe in Wonderland. Elle plays Phoebe, a nine-year-old girl whose wild imagination and obsession with Alice in Wonderland alienates her from classmates and gets her in trouble with teachers.

Sounds like a sweet little Disney-like film, right? But several things made me take another look. First and second, Felicity Huffman and Patricia Clarkson. What would you pay to be Elle Fanning in this next photo? … continue reading

Sometime over the last decade or so, glasses became cool. And hot. And the world began to see what lesbians always have known: that women who wear glasses are both cool and hot. And downright sexy.

Personally, I'm glad views have changed. As a little tomboy, I resisted glasses as long as I could, to the point of memorizing the eye chart every year so I could pass the vision exam. When I finally was too blind to resist specs any longer, my family was about to move to Texas from Pittsburgh. One of my friends said, "Wow, glasses don't seem very Texan." At the time, I was devastated. Now I know better. Texans with glasses rock. … continue reading