Four of Them

There are always the unspoken heroines of cinema...not the obvious Kill Bill veins, but the ones who kill with their wits, their sarcasm, their boredom, or their coolness. So, what I should rephrase as, is 'awesome'.

Bonnie Parker, Bonnie and Clyde



She is our first frame of the film, a closeup of her lying naked on her bed with a look of disdain and frustration on her face. As played by Faye Dunnaway, she may start out as a novice, naive, maybe a bit bumbling, thrill-seeking girlfriend, but by the end, she's a smart, sharp, weary, and cool bank robber who can easily match up to Warren Beatty's Clyde. Course, anyone would look cool next to Estelle Parsons' hysterical Blanche Burrow.

Modesty Blaise, Modesty Blaise



She, a former crime boss turned British Intelligence agent recruited to prevent a diamond robbery, is the spawn of a comic strip/novel series (first heard of by me in several Vincent Vega toilet scenes). Played by Italian actress Monica Vitti, I fell in love with this lady flipping through the channels, to a scene where she was leading a man on, undercover, eating an apple and rolling her eyes while his back was turned. She is a perfectly (am I saying this too much?) cool, and, better yet, aided by her right-hand Cockney dude Willie Garvin (Terrence Stamp playing my second favorite Willie, first always going to Willie Parker...but enough of this shit).

Hedwig/Hansel Schmidt, Hedwig and the Angry Inch



So, not technically a chick (the surgery didn't go well, hence the title), but awesome all the same. A German "slip of a girlyboy" (John Cameron Mitchell), in a loving relationaship with philosophy and rock music, but trapped in East Berlin pre-1989, he takes his mother's name and tries to get a sex change so that he and an American soldier can marry in West Berlin, but it is botched, and the soldier ditches him in Kansas for a man. From there, she forms a rock band of Korean army wives, and meets shy Christian teenager Tommy (Michael Pitt). This entire movie, as The Sister would put it, is made of awesome, thanks to the flamboyant, witty, and confident main character. No matter what shit is thrown at her (which is a lot), she never falters in her quest for adoring crowds and gigs not on chairs in fast-food restaurants.

Shosanna Dreyfuss, Inglourious Basterds



We all saw this coming, if we cared to think about it...this lady, while not sniping at Nazis from hilltops as originally written by Tarantino, still plays her quiet, low-key, furious vengeance against the Germans with pursed lips, French arrogance, and an unbelievable amount of stone-cold badassery.

Hm...that's it for now. Did I miss any?