Friday, January 13, 2006

At the Movies with Sascha Knopf

I will not name names here on this page (since it would entail most everyone on my site), but suffice it to say that even when these women are lucky enough to land a plumb role in a hit film, they are not blessed with the skill or charisma necessary to sustain their momentum, and soon enough fall back into the obscurity whence they came.

But some actresses on this site are just the opposite — they have skill and/or charisma, but no hit film to showcase them in. Take Michelle Williams. Attractive, quietly charismatic, and a good actress besides, she languished for years in post-Dawson’s Creek obscurity being very good in small films no one would ever see. Brokeback Mountain changed all that for her, of course, but it just as easily might not have.

Sascha Knopf, who has both beauty and charisma but no hit film, is still waiting for her Brokeback Mountain.

It’s been some years now since BlackMale has made the rounds on cable TV, and the best parts of the otherwise lame What’s the Worst That Could Happen? only appear in the British edition of the DVD. After 2001, Sascha’s films have not even made it to the video store, as far as I’m aware, so getting a sense of her in roles other than Hot Naked Chick has been difficult.

Recently, however, I got a chance to see screenings of two of Sascha’s latest films, Death by Engagement and Expiration Date. The first of these, an ultra-low-budget, semi-comedic horror movie, was badly written, badly told, and at 89 minutes, an hour too long, to boot; Sascha starred in it, but it did little to showcase her abilities. The second film, however, a low-budget dark comedy strongly influenced by Harold and Maude and with elements from The Princess Bride and Raising Arizona, was well-written, very funny, and showed Sascha in her most charming performance to date — with her clothes on, no less.

Now I was pretty sure when I saw Death by Engagement that nothing would come of it — and if anything does, it probably shouldn’t. And in this post-Miramax era, I don’t know what Expiration Date’s chances are, either, but someone should pick it up. It’s a fun movie, after all, and I’d like to be able to see it again someday without having to bug Sascha for a copy of whatever DVD version she has from the director. Expiration Date won’t be Sascha’s Brokeback Mountain, of course, but it still might earn her some overdue notice.