Jennifer Beals vs. Marisa Tomei
Battle of the Been-Around-the-Block-But-Still-Beautiful Women of Diminished Fame

To be frank, we like both Marisa Tomei and Jennifer Beals. And when we say "like," we don't mean it in a "we met them at a party a few years back and sort of hit it off, then started hanging out now and again, and now we're pretty good buds who phone each other last minute to catch a flick or just come over to watch The Daily Show" kind of way, but rather in a "the few times we've seen them on talk shows or in movies we've enjoyed, their attractive physical features and general celebrity aura of affability engendered in us a warm feeling that's somewhat at odds with the fact that we've never, and will never, meet them in person or know anything about who they really are" kind of way.

You know, the celebrity kind of "like."

We like Marisa Tomei and Jennifer Beals. We heart them. Hell, we even root for them. Actively! Sometimes we say a little prayer for them before bed. So it pains us a wee bit to say that, all things considered, we probably don't need them both.

Let's start with Jennifer Beals. Abnormally lovely-looking young woman, shoots to stardom in the lead of Flashdance, prompting a nation of girls to droop their sweatshirts off one shoulder and a nation of boys to plaster their bedrooms with posters of Beals in a chair, leaning back, soaking wet.

Soaking...wet....

Then, for some reason, she decides to reel off two monster movies: The Bride, a sort of Bride of Frankenstein-redux, and Vampire's Kiss, a pretty great screwy little movie with the then-likable Nicolas Cage. Maybe she didn't want to be typecast -- blah blah blah, whatever, you know the story.

But her career doesn't take off in the way you'd think it might after the whole off-the-shoulder, chair with the water, "She's a maniac! Maaa-niac!" thing. For whatever reason. We don't judge.

But then, ten years later, Beals starts showing up in charming little indie films like In the Soup and charming-ish indie-ish films like Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, and she's really good! And still remarkably pretty! And thus somehow way cooler than before! And you think, "Hey, good for you, Jennifer Beals." You overcame adversity -- or, at least, what passes as adversity in Hollywood (i.e. not getting as many starring roles as some observers think you should be getting -- it's not exactly black lung) -- and came back as a spunky indie queen and you still look fab to boot.

Great story, yes? But look at Marisa Tomei. You want cute and spunky? She's cute and spunky! You want unexpected success? Here's an Oscar for My Cousin Vinny. You want adversity? Well, we know of a certain someone who won an Oscar, then became the subject of cruel rumors that she only got it because the doddering old Jack Palance read the teleprompter wrong. Who? We're not saying.

And then she too dropped off the map, but then -- boom! Tomei's back in the charming indies herself (in so far as In the Bedroom, the yuppie Death Wish, can be called "charming"). And she's older, wiser, and still looking good, yo! And she's working that seen-it-all, weary-woman-of-the-world shtick, and it works, because, damn, she has seen it all and she is a woman of the world. Take that, Palance!

So then Beals was in Roger Dodger as the been-around-the-block-but-still-beautiful love interest, and Tomei is in Alfie as...well, ditto. So who's going to prevail? Mud fight!

Well, first off, don't count either of these women out because, as they've shown, they can bounce back quite nicely from adversity.

That said, it's got to be Beals. Why? Look at her! She looks fantastic! And, you know, she's smart, too. She went to Yale.

Advantage: Beals. Because she went to Yale.