Any kid actors who actually were cute?

[Rev. Powell]

Well, as so often happens, I got a new movie for my queue out of you guys. Never heard of TIDELAND or Jodelle Ferland.

Hope you're prepared to be disturbed.  It's a very unpleasant movie at times (OK, most of the time), but I think overall a worthwhile one.   

[BTM]

Dunno... many may disagree with me, but I've always liked Dakota Fanning.  I know a lot of people thought she was annoying in, for example, War of the Worlds, but I thought was silly.  They're like, "Yeah, she was always screaming and yelling and stuff."  And I replied, "Yeah, way she's carrying on, you'd think people were being killed around her.  Oh, wait..."

When she was younger, I had an obsessive crush on Christina Ricci, especially as Wednesday. 

I thought the kids who played the child and teenager versions of the main two characters in the Butterfly Effect were pretty good.

[Rev. Powell]

Dunno... many may disagree with me, but I've always liked Dakota Fanning. 

Her sister Elle (by far the best thing about the recent PHOEBE IN WONDERLAND) is excellent as well.  Her parents could make a real fortune if they keep churning out cute little girls who can act.

[Derf]

Well, as so often happens, I got a new movie for my queue out of you guys. Never heard of TIDELAND or Jodelle Ferland.

Hope you're prepared to be disturbed.  It's a very unpleasant movie at times (OK, most of the time), but I think overall a worthwhile one.   

I'll second the good Rev.'s sentiments. Tideland is an excellent but very disturbing movie. It took me several days to process it, and I'm still not sure exactly what I think about it. I'm glad I watched it, but I doubt I will ever again.

[peter johnson]

I'm an absolutely HUGE Dakota Fanning fan -- The wife and I got "I Am Sam" not even knowing her name -- we wanted to see Sean Penn do his Full Retard -- and were utterly gobsmacked by how incredibly good she was -- "Screw Penn!  Who's this girl, again??"  Since then, we'll see things we wouldn't otherwise be interested in because she has a hand in it.  She can disappear completely into a part, something I think any "actor" worthy of the name should be able to do.  You forget it's her voice completely in "Coraline", for example.

She seems to be growing up okay too (Touches wood/waves rabbit foot/shakes 4-leaf clover) -- One can only pray she escapes the Lindsey Lohan/Charlotte Church puberty meltdown.

Yeah, I'll give props to Wendsday/Ricci too . . .

peter crane/denny full retard

[Hammock Rider]

A young Kim Richards in Escape to Witch Mountain was cute. The dude who played her brother though grew up kinda ugly. I think he was in Wrath of Khan as an engineering cadet.

I also liked Maia Brewton, who played the bratty little sister obsessed with the Marvel version of Thor in Adventures in Baby Sitting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yogtP-fpm-U

[schmendrik]

I also liked Maia Brewton, who played the bratty little sister obsessed with the Marvel version of Thor in Adventures in Baby Sitting.

I'll second that. I also thought the casting of Vincent D'Onofrio as the mechanic she decides really is Thor was wonderful. And being a parent, partly because she is so cute, the scene were the kids are stuck on the *outside* of the skyscraper saying "Mom? Dad?" is a real killer.

[BTM]

Found some more:

The two boys in Son of Rambow (Neil Dudgeon and Bill Milner) were great and a lot of fun to watch.  You can tell they were good friends off screen as well as on. 

(Good movie, BTW, you should watch it if you get a chance.)

And did we mention Ivana Baquero, from Pan's Labyrinth?  Be interesting to see what she does in the future...

[asimpson2006]

I'm an absolutely HUGE Dakota Fanning fan -- The wife and I got "I Am Sam" not even knowing her name -- we wanted to see Sean Penn do his Full Retard -- and were utterly gobsmacked by how incredibly good she was -- "Screw Penn!  Who's this girl, again??"  Since then, we'll see things we wouldn't otherwise be interested in because she has a hand in it.  She can disappear completely into a part, something I think any "actor" worthy of the name should be able to do.  You forget it's her voice completely in "Coraline", for example.

She seems to be growing up okay too (Touches wood/waves rabbit foot/shakes 4-leaf clover) -- One can only pray she escapes the Lindsey Lohan/Charlotte Church puberty meltdown.

Yeah, I'll give props to Wendsday/Ricci too . . .

peter crane/denny full retard

I'm interested too to see if she ends up with a puberty meltdown as well.  Anyways,  I know she did some voice acting work a few times (her first VA role was part of the Disney's English dub of My Neighbor Totoro which I need to listen to the English dub to see how good it is, since I've only seen the original Japanese language track.)  I'm curious to see if she will do some more VA roles in her career.

[Hammock Rider]

Mary Badham played Scout in the '62 To Kill a Mockingbird. She was pretty natural, not some stage-mothered super-kid. She was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for that role.

[Raffine]

Mary Badham played Scout in the '62 To Kill a Mockingbird. She was pretty natural, not some stage-mothered super-kid. She was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for that role.

Her performance as Scout is certainly one of the best performances by a child, or by anybody, for that matter.

About your only chance to see Badham in another role was in The Twilight Zone episode The Bewitchin' Pool, where she plays a character named "Sport". Somebody apparently didn't like her her voice or her natural Southern accent so she was dubbed by June Foray using her 'cute little girl' voice. The results are, uh, very weird.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgoA66bmby4

EDIT: Watching this again, it's very puzzling as to why they had Foray (whom I still worship!) try to do a Southern accent, since neither parent has one. Please note when Foray says "We won't fight!" at app. 1:20 it comes out sounding like "We won't fart!". 

[Psycho Circus]

Jill Banner Jill Banner Jill Banner Jill Banner!!!!!!

[BoyScoutKevin]

I've had this list for some time, but I never posted it anywhere, so I thought I post it here. And here "cute" is used as in "Don't get cute with me."

The 50 or So "Cutest" Child Performances

Mary Badham in "To Kill a Mockingbird"
Fairuza Balk in "Return to Oz"
Freddie Bartholomew in "David Copperfield" (the short title)
Jamie Bell in "Billy Elliott"
Linda Blair in "The Exorcist"
Abigail Breslin in "Little Miss Sunshine"
Keisha Castle Hughes in "Whale Rider"
Jackie Cooper in "Skippy"
Quinn Cummings in "The Goodbye Girl"
Brandon DeWilde in "Shane"
Karen Dotrice in "Mary Poppins"
Bobby Driscoll in "The Window"
Patty Duke in "The Miracle Worker"
Jodie Foster in "Taxi Driver"
Matthew Garber in "Mary Poppins"
Judy Garland "The Wizard of Oz"
Peggy Ann Garner in "Jane Eyre" or "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn"
Bonita Granville in "These Three"
Marilyn Harris in "Frankenstein"
Justin Henry in "Kramer vs. Kramer"
Ron Howard in "The Courtship of Eddie's Father"
Olivia Hussey in "Romeo and Juliet"
Claude Jarman, jr. in "The Yearling"
Tommy Kirk in "Old Yeller"
Mark Lester in "Oliver"
Patty McCormack in "The Bad Seed"
Roddy McDowell in "Lassie Come Home"
Hayley Mills in "Pollyanna"
Sal Mineo in "Rebel Without a Cause"
Emil Minty in "The Road Warrior"
Margaret O'Brien in "Meet Me in St. Louis"
Tatum O'Neal in "Paper Moon"
Heather O'Rourke in "Poltergeist"
Joel Haley Osment in "The Sixth Sense"
Anna Paquin in "The Piano"
Chris Pitt in "Lair of the White Worm"
Kurt Russell in "Follow Me Boys"
Sabu in "Thief of Bagdad"
Meredith Salenger in "The Journey of Natty Gann"
Jonathan Scott-Taylor in "The Omen II"
Anne Shirley in "Anne of Green Gables"
Harvey Stephens in "The Omen"
Martin Stephens in "The Innocents" or "The Village of the Damned"
Dean Stockwell in "The Boy with Green Hair"
Elizabeth Taylor in "National Velvet"
Shirley Temple in "The Little Princess"
Jack Wild in "Oliver"
Jane Withers in "Bright Eyes"
and
Natalie Wood in "Miracle on 34th Street" or "Rebel Without a Cause"