Modern Hip Film Icons

I am not sure I get it-- like Parker Posey or something?

All potential answers will be subjected to the "yes, but will twee bands of the future / a 70-year-old Stereo Total write a song about you" test.

xpost - Yes, Parker Posey is a perfect answer here!

actually i think that the kinds of "icons of cool" that youre talking about tend to be the same 70s stars, mostly because nostalgia is the new cutting-edge

maybe thats a different thing tho--idolization of the era becoming idolization of the stars of the era

i don't see any "it" in parker posey or claire danes, but that's just me.

I was going to say, Claire Danes doesn't work for me in this capacity, but I thought maybe it's because I'm not a dude.

sarah polley?

wtf claire daines who died and made you gabbneb

Maybe in the future these people will all be replaced by YouTube heroes and internet porn stars.

xpost - Claire Danes is totally beloved of the appropriate My So-Called Life age group: I could name like half a dozen rock songs about her just off the top of my head! (The best, admittedly, being Sifl & Olly's "Claire Danes, it's insane" song.)

wait clarification--are you asking about who's going to be cool 15-20-30 years from now?

or whos cool NOW

ask max--whoever is cool is probably @ his school RIGHT NOW shooting a film

I do not understand the Clare Danes thing

sarah polley works.

the problem with everyone i'm thinking of is that as soon as I think of them, it seems like they're already too recognizably associated with a certain kind of "cool," and therefore played out? maybe this is the problem with "cool"?

i'm gonna vote for tony leung chiu-wai

anthony wong

ask max--whoever is cool is probably @ his school RIGHT NOW shooting a film

-- Mr. Que, Thursday, September 20, 2007 2:57 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

if this is true, cell phone ad actors are the next big thing

maggie cheung

oh come on nobody gives a fuck about Claire Danes nabisco!

I think I'm asking all of the following:

(a) which stars from the 80s forward already have that quality
(b) which stars from the 80s forward we think will have it in the future
(c) which stars from the 80s forward we think SHOULD get that treatment

(my C answers would probably revolve around Martin Donovan, Campbell Scott, and Mary-Louise Parker)

xpost - one problem now is that people never get to GO AWAY effectively enough to develop this -- it's kinda contingent on being awesome for a short while and then disappearing (cf Winona)

otm on Martin Donovan and Campbell Scott!!!

I don't even think I get this thread, but I love them!!!

(clarification: point being Winona stuck around and got boring / embarrassing, whereas if it were just memories of Heathers and Beetlejuice and whatnot she'd have great icon quality)

one could argue that johnny depp fits in here, but i'm not sure that's completely the case anymore

who is the modern-day Steve McQueen? does such a person exist?

i think nabisco is asking what film actors we think should die

Parker seems like a good bet - in predicting the future you have to consider what actual material is likely to endure. No one's gonna be watching any of Claire Danes' movies 20 years from now - they'll be out of circulation and forgotten (not just because she's in them, but because they're all crap and none have really succeeded). But Parker's been in a wide enough variety of stuff, and with enough critical cachet, that you're still likely to see her face years from now. Whether or not she's ICONIC or exemplifies a particular era/lifestyle the way McQueen or Bridgit Bardot or Clint Eastwood or something remains to be seen (I kinda doubt it when I think about it)

Depp's definitely reached icon status.

I didn't think Winona was boring or embarassing as a puppetfucker.

johnny depp is sort of an obvious example

perhaps in 30 years, people won't feel the need to name-drop anti-icons of a gauzy past era in rock songs

(esp now that a whole generation of kids will remember him from Pirates, while the snootier folks will remember his previous goofy/artsy roles)

lolz @ puppetfucker!!

x-post

john cusack is or was also sort of hip-cult dude despite being a bag of dicks

clooney

I nominate S-Jo, if she manages to make any (more) decent movies

unless Scarlett Johanssen is cast in a very specific kind of role, though, she utterly sucks.

but I mean maybe that doesn't matter. is this thread about people who always seem like themselves?

I liked her in that movie where she got murdered haha

i think clooney has that sort of charisma but he's maybe not weird enough

christian bale

crispin glover

john turturro

crispin glover otm

viggo mortensen

francis ng

(ILX pls note that was a joke and I am not wishing that S-Jo is dead altho I was serious that Match Point is a good movie and she was great in it)

Crispin OTM!!

x-post

i think johnny depp is the only major working actor who you can really say this about

at one time, chow-yun fat

"Claire Danes, If You Ever Get a Nose Job, I Swear to Jesus I'll Hang Myself" -- Lesser Birds of Paradise

xpost - As mentioned, she has it NOW-ish based on television, not in future based on films

Paquin?

less indie than jake/maggie gyllenhaal. takes some doing.

ha i meant just maggie actually. Jake's another story.

also i guess that that might change soon too after The Dark Knight with Maggie G playing Rachel Dawes. fine, replace gyllenhaal with jennifer jason leigh whatever ya know what i mean.

Sevigny?

ding

I could kinda imagine Sevigny getting old and turning into Zsa Zsa Gabor, which is precisely the kind of thing that would ensure this status.

james spader?

I mentioned him already. Unless you're questioning my mention?

whoops! nope, didn't see it, jaymc. guess i missed that one.

trying to imagine any of these people as a Steve McQueen/James Dean type icon that people would put a b&w photo of on a t-shirt is hilarious.

I've also been told I resemble him.)

OK, maybe not.
I think you two do look alike, jaymc, but his face looks thinner than usual in that picture.

we no longer live in a world of towering genius or broadly consensual stardom

otm

trying to imagine any of these people as a Steve McQueen/James Dean type icon that people would put a b&w photo of on a t-shirt is hilarious.

-- Alex in Baltimore, Friday, September 21, 2007 5:26 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

not really. the mcqueen cult was largely retrospective -- and the james dean cult too, really. he was obviously a bit deal at the time but a mainstream star and they didn't have t-shirts of that kind. (only made three mediocre films too.)

uh, aren't we talking about retrospective icons, predicting who will be treated that way in the future? I mean nabisco said "present and future" but it seemed to me like there's an emphasis on predicting the latter.

yeah exactly. i'm saying you can't guess what shitty indie bands 30 years hence will like. they'll see something we don't. in the same way: why james dean and not montgomery clift?

it can happen to anyone.

r.e.m. wrote a song about montgomery clift

I'm just saying, picturing teenagers earnestly wearing James Spader or Jennifer Jason Leigh t-shirts in 2037 is giving me serious giggles. If I had photoshop skillz I'd be all over that.

Film characters I have seen on t-shirts lately: Ferris Bueller, Edward Scissorhands.

why james dean and not montgomery clift?
Because he had the right profile? Oh, wait.

no one around today is really mysterious enough, and the ones that are tragic aren't considered as such but rather made the object of fun on tmz/gawker/idolator or some other useless site. i think there will likely be some weird revival of some actor not even mentioned yet.

Predicting the latter, yeah, but also picking out who today also has a little of this quality already! I mean, who knows what might happen, but I don't think it's weird to predict that Sevigny or Depp have more of a shot at this than lots of other people.

If this thread were a few years back, I might have said Dan Hedaya.

<i>trying to imagine any of these people as a Steve McQueen/James Dean type icon that people would put a b&w photo of on a t-shirt is hilarious.</i>

^^^This.

People on here are deluded or something. Parker Posey isn't going to be the Veronica Lake of the future, come on.

well thank God Owen Wilson didn't succeed a couple weeks ago, he'd be a prime candidate.

...strike that. The way things are going, Dane Cook will be the cool icon of 2037.

(gah)

I mean, someone like Angelina Jolie is probably closer to Veronica Lake.

ICON: Alicia Silverstone

There is something to be said for the fact that people we don't think of as cool in 2007 may become cool in 30 years just because they're old.

I mean, "retro."

PS: People who are all like "WTF none of these people will be remembered" would be well served by offering more of their own predictions here

I would also note that everyone who thinks this can't happen to non-superstar actors are somewhat foiled by Jean Seberg

Jean Seberg = "one great outfit" rule

trying to imagine any of these people as a Steve McQueen/James Dean type icon that people would put a b&w photo of on a t-shirt is hilarious.

what and you think in 1955 people were saying, "that james dean will definitely have his face on t-shirts some forty years in the future"??

but Jean Seberg is largely remembered for one film, and Godard is not going to cast Parker Posey in anything.

"less is more" for icons

Shatner

One film guy who has a shot:
Robert Romanus for Fast Times at RH

One film guy who doesn't:
Vincent Spano for Baby It's You

http://www.nytimes.com/pages/style/t/index.html

r.e.m. wrote a song about montgomery clift

-- omar little, Friday, September 21, 2007 6:05 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

still nowhere near as iconic, though.

to be honest, i think the phenomenon of retro-culty hollywood star worship is a pretty specific 80s-90s postmodern thing and doesn't even exist now that much.

it was kind of campy but also maybe based on a situation where not every film was instantly obtainable at all times. and also on stars where their image was almost entirely limited to their movie image. i suppose the paradox of the hollywood era was that the celebrity cult was just as big as it is now, only the celebrities were always in character.

but it it were to happen it wouldn't be incredible talentless and inexplicably vaunted "indie" people like sevigny or posey.

One film guy who has a shot:
Robert Romanus for Fast Times at RH

I was going through one of my many piles of magazines the other day, and found a Spin from 2002 that had an interview w/Romanus in character as Damone wherein he went after the Strokes for ripping off his image.

Martha Plimpton is mostly remembered for ZERO films, Morbs

Posey's film history is diffuse enough that she's totally just "Parker Posey," not "Parker Posey from X film" -- added benefit that she's so firmly linked with a specific 1994-1997 period that she can be iconic for a specific retro period.

Hel-looks.com, 2035: "I am inspired by styles of new fashion cyborgs from Japan, also 1990s film stars, like Parker Posey. I am somewhat like a homeless hamster."

Dude-that-quit is right about not being confined to movie-image anymore, or else Gwyneth-in-Tenenbaums would be an easy bet.

is "opaquely lesbian" for "hip" good enough to nominate Jodie Foster?

There already is a song about Parker Posey. She is rhymed with Joseph Losey!

I am not going to name the song, for fear I might incriminate myself.

Jason Schwartzman?

Russell Crowe

Jason Schwartzman?
Another guest on the F&G "Carded And Discarded" episode, although he is not in Slums as far as I know.

Mark Wahlberg will be on T-shirts.

wait
no one said Brad Pitt yet?
brad pitt

i'd say Leonardo DiCaprio should def be high up on this list

i also have a feeling abt Casey Affleck

Here's a clue: the cult people say interesting things in interviews.

I'd agree on Sevigny, Bale, Toni Collette.