Ach. I saw the news yesterday evening about the passing of the lovely Kelly Preston, and my heart aches. I don't follow the trades and celebrity stuff as much as I used to, but the actress always seemed so lively and gracious from my memories of when I did watch programs of that sort. If you believe in that sort of thing, then you'll have to agree that Heaven earned itself a delicate flower of a woman with her exit from our world.
Her genre credentials are interesting, to say the least. She roared onto the silver screen in the somewhat campy and forgettable Metalstorm: The Destruction Of Jared-Syn, a Fantasy/Adventure whose most memorable facet is probably the fact that it was made during the brief 3D craze of the 1980's. She had some solid screen time as part of the charming ensemble that lifted 1986's SpaceCamp to perhaps better heights than it deserved: while I found the flick largely a notch better than TV fare for its time, I did enjoy it a bit more when I screened it not all that long back for its special DVD release. I've yet to see 1988's Spellbinder -- a Romance/Horror entry -- but I've read that the only reason to do so is to enjoy Preston's work in it; I think I have it on my DVR from a recent airing on Turner Classic Movies, so maybe I'll have to see what all of the fuss was about.
Then, in 2000, she joined hubby John Travolta in the silver screen adaptation of L. Ron Hubbard's Science Fiction classic Battlefield Earth. (Ahem) As can happen when star's allow vanity projects to become as big and clunky as Earth did, the critics were unkind; audiences didn't exactly warm to the interpretation either, and the result is a flick which is often cited as one of SciFi's worst. This is no fault of Preston, mind you; I'm only mentioning it as it's part of her cinematic record.
Still, it's probably the Walt Disney Superhero flick Sky High which most fans remember her for, and -- dare I say? -- she's downright delicious soaring across the big screen. As imperfect as I found the release, I still think the pairing of Kurt Russell and Preston as parents to the young man only just finding his powers is downright genius: Russell's always been a favorite of mine, and the chemistry between the two worked wonders for an otherwise light-and-fluffy tween narrative.
Alas, the end comes for us all, and the lady finally succumbed to what I've read was a two-year struggle with breast cancer. I choose to find comfort in knowing that she's at peace now, but I'll always miss her smile when it played out in whatever tale she found herself a part of.
Her genre credentials are interesting, to say the least. She roared onto the silver screen in the somewhat campy and forgettable Metalstorm: The Destruction Of Jared-Syn, a Fantasy/Adventure whose most memorable facet is probably the fact that it was made during the brief 3D craze of the 1980's. She had some solid screen time as part of the charming ensemble that lifted 1986's SpaceCamp to perhaps better heights than it deserved: while I found the flick largely a notch better than TV fare for its time, I did enjoy it a bit more when I screened it not all that long back for its special DVD release. I've yet to see 1988's Spellbinder -- a Romance/Horror entry -- but I've read that the only reason to do so is to enjoy Preston's work in it; I think I have it on my DVR from a recent airing on Turner Classic Movies, so maybe I'll have to see what all of the fuss was about.
Then, in 2000, she joined hubby John Travolta in the silver screen adaptation of L. Ron Hubbard's Science Fiction classic Battlefield Earth. (Ahem) As can happen when star's allow vanity projects to become as big and clunky as Earth did, the critics were unkind; audiences didn't exactly warm to the interpretation either, and the result is a flick which is often cited as one of SciFi's worst. This is no fault of Preston, mind you; I'm only mentioning it as it's part of her cinematic record.
Still, it's probably the Walt Disney Superhero flick Sky High which most fans remember her for, and -- dare I say? -- she's downright delicious soaring across the big screen. As imperfect as I found the release, I still think the pairing of Kurt Russell and Preston as parents to the young man only just finding his powers is downright genius: Russell's always been a favorite of mine, and the chemistry between the two worked wonders for an otherwise light-and-fluffy tween narrative.
Alas, the end comes for us all, and the lady finally succumbed to what I've read was a two-year struggle with breast cancer. I choose to find comfort in knowing that she's at peace now, but I'll always miss her smile when it played out in whatever tale she found herself a part of.
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