I have spent the last half-hour or so at this keyboard trying to find some subtle or analytical method of easing into the central thesis of this article but having failed to do that, I have decided to simply get to the fulcrum of my particular gist—Nastassja Kinksi is my all-time favorite actress.
This may seem like a bold and potentially questionable opinion to some of you, but having been mesmerized by her singular screen presence for more than 30-odd years at this point without having this view shaken in the slightest in that time, I stand by these words. 
Her combination of extraordinary beauty, raw acting talent, pure screen charisma and a facility for choosing projects that gave her ample opportunities to display those gifts made her into one of the most electrifying movie stars in the world during the peak of her stardom in the 1980s and even today, her mere presence alone is generally enough to make a film worth watching. Put it this way—I even have a bizarre fondness for the lunacy that is “Terminal Velocity” (1994) and I assure you that it has precious little to do with Charlie Sheen.
