To commemorate MLK Jr. Day, and because it's an excuse to write about beautiful women, I made a list of the 11 black actresses who make me sit up and take notice when they're on screen. (Alas, none of them are openly gay, but I've tried not to hold that against them.) You may be surprised that some of the usual suspects — like Halle Berry and Jada Pinkett Smith — aren't here. I've got nothing against them, and often enjoy their performances, they just aren't among my favorites. Feel free to tell me why I'm crazy for leaving them or someone else off the list in the comments (and I know you will!).

11. Vivica Fox

Whether she's playing a bank robber in Set It Off (1996), a woman on a mission in Independence Day (1996), the responsible older sister on Soul Food (1997) or an FBI agent role on two seasons of the poorly named Lifetime drama 1-800-Missing (2004-2006), Vivica leaves a strong impression. And she has a cool name.

We just won't mention Booty Call (1997) or Boat Trip (2002).

10. Gabrielle Union

Gabrielle first caught my attention in Bring It On (2000) — no easy feat considering the strength of that cast overall (Eliza Dushku! Kirsten Dunst! Eliza Dushku!). Some of her roles since then have annoyed me (most notably, her star turn as a stereotypical controlling bitch in Deliver Us From Evie), but as a general rule, I pay attention when she's on screen.

And I loved her guest appearance in Friends in 2001, where Ross and Joey fight over her so ridiculously that she finally shuns them both. She should have hooked up with Rachel instead. … continue reading

It's the end. That volcano towering over your hometown is about to blow, and you only have an hour to get out of town and save assorted important people and innocent children along the way No, wait. A gang of murderous strangers — or army of the undead, take your pick — is on your tail without adequate exposition, and your assorted armory is out of bullets. Or maybe it's that the asteroid approaches on a collision course, threatening the earth with a dinosaur-like extinction.

In any case, one question remains: Who do you call in an apocalypse? Which hero do you want to help you save the world, then take home afterward to celebrate your survival? Those were questions actually asked by a recent study. (OK, not the one about taking her home. That was me. But really, what's the good of saving the world if you can't snuggle with your honey when it's over?) Here's the only woman to make the top ten:

… continue reading

In this week's video blog, Lori and I discuss the cinematic women who've saved the world from impending doom — because nothing's hotter than a woman who chases tornadoes, electrocutes evil sharks, or creates a lot of complicated mathematical charts and graphs!

Since not everyone's as big of a disaster movie nut as Lori is, we're giving you a video cheat-sheat on the disaster movies with the best female leads: Saffron Burrows creates the perfect killing machine and then tries to undo it in Deep Blue Sea, Hilary Swank goes on a mission to jump-start the earth's motor in The Core, Vivica Fox rescues the First Lady from an alien attack in Independence Day, Shelley Winters does some deep-sea diving in Poseidon Adventure, Kim Delaney saves California from falling into the ocean in 10.5 and 10.5 Apocalypse, Kate Winslet floats in Titanic, and Anne Heche and Linda Hamilton duck lava bombs in Volcano and Dante's Peak.

All while slinging witty one-liners and sporting just the right kind of sexy mussy hairdo! (Um, them, not us - although we do make sarcastic comments in our vlog, and Lori does occasionally have a whisp of hair out of place.)

Because we've upgraded our software, we now have nifty new theme music! You'll also be happy to know the snarky captions are back; unfortunately, the new video editing software doesn't come with a spell-checker, so you'll notice a few typos. But life's too short to do it all over just because Hilary Swank insists on spelling her name with only one "l". (Although I don't have an excuse for leaving the "i" out of "premiere", except I had that old saying "there's no 'I' in "team" stuck in my head. You can blame my basketball coach for that.)

Besides commentary on the movies, you'll also learn about how I narrowly escaped a tornado in Fargo, North Dakota; why Lori believes mentoring is important even in the face of world annihilation; and why we're both hoping we're in New York when Mt. Rainier finally blows.

Watch the vlog here now! … continue reading

After a traumatic day of bra shopping Saturday, I flipped through the channels looking for women kicking ass. (If the logic of that sentence isn't clear, you haven't shopped for bras lately.) I came across a rerun of Missing (aka 1-800-MISSING), a Lifetime show with Vivica A. Fox and Caterina Scorsone.

The show was canceled last year, and while Fox has not strayed far from the public eye, Scorsone has no upcoming projects listed at IMDb. Never one to be deterred in the pursuit of a hot woman, I finally found a link to a recent interview on TheStream.tv, where she was a guest on Merrill Davis' show Merrillwood. Scorsone is smart, funny, engaging and, yes, hot.

The banter between Scorsone and Davis proves that straight women enjoy flirting with each other as much as lesbians do. Scorsone's bit starts about 6 minutes in.

www.theStream.tv