TMC
05-21-2014, 05:55 PM
http://news.moviefone.com/2010/01/09/fan-rant-career-killing-crushes/
Rachael first made a splash as the young Jackie O in The House of Yes (1997), and then starred in a genuine hit, She's All That (1999), as the nerdy girl who gets the question: "do you really need to wear those glasses?" Following that was a flurry of five major films in two years, all of which landed with a giant, collective thud. There was Sylvester Stallone's remake of Get Carter, the lame comedy Blow Dry, and the tepid Western Texas Rangers. The paranoid thriller Antitrust may well qualify as a guilty pleasure, at least, and Josie and the Pussycats is definitely a guilty pleasure. I loved that film; I loved the punk/pop music and its cheerful parody of the music business. But of course, everyone else hated it.
I think that small window of releases was Rachael's big chance. She needed to use that time to establish a screen persona, and couldn't do it with those five roles. It has nothing to do with her talent or presence, and certainly she has a unique combination of porcelain beauty as well as an adorable, approachable quality, matched with a tough tomboy matter-of-factness. I think she needed either to work with a great director or to score a big hit, or at least a cult classic. After that I saw disease-of-the-week movie Stateside (2004) at a press screening, which then never opened theatrically. The terrific little movie 11:14 was rescued from video oblivion and given a small theatrical release in 2005. And she appeared in Nancy Drew (2007), and that's about it. Fortunately she works a lot, and her IMDB resume has more than 60 films and TV shows on it over the course of 15 years.
Rachael first made a splash as the young Jackie O in The House of Yes (1997), and then starred in a genuine hit, She's All That (1999), as the nerdy girl who gets the question: "do you really need to wear those glasses?" Following that was a flurry of five major films in two years, all of which landed with a giant, collective thud. There was Sylvester Stallone's remake of Get Carter, the lame comedy Blow Dry, and the tepid Western Texas Rangers. The paranoid thriller Antitrust may well qualify as a guilty pleasure, at least, and Josie and the Pussycats is definitely a guilty pleasure. I loved that film; I loved the punk/pop music and its cheerful parody of the music business. But of course, everyone else hated it.
I think that small window of releases was Rachael's big chance. She needed to use that time to establish a screen persona, and couldn't do it with those five roles. It has nothing to do with her talent or presence, and certainly she has a unique combination of porcelain beauty as well as an adorable, approachable quality, matched with a tough tomboy matter-of-factness. I think she needed either to work with a great director or to score a big hit, or at least a cult classic. After that I saw disease-of-the-week movie Stateside (2004) at a press screening, which then never opened theatrically. The terrific little movie 11:14 was rescued from video oblivion and given a small theatrical release in 2005. And she appeared in Nancy Drew (2007), and that's about it. Fortunately she works a lot, and her IMDB resume has more than 60 films and TV shows on it over the course of 15 years.