It's a happy birthday to Rachael Leigh Cook, who turns 28 today. Despite this summer's Nancy Drew cameo and appearing in the forthcoming The Final Season, Cook is stuck is a rut of inconsequentiality, the result of a really bad 2001 (Antitrust, Josie and the Pussycats and fabled Miramax washout Texas Rangers) and... oh, who am I kidding? The only moment of commercial note in Cook's career was the 1999 release She's All That, which topped $100 million theatrically (seriously), and momentarily catapulted her to the top of people's call lists.



So now, eight years on, Cook is just another working actress, plowing through indie projects that sometimes feature William H. Macy and sometimes feature Snoop Dogg. There are certainly far worse lots in life. Yet I still think there's a wrinkle-nosed charm to Cook that could — in the right project, with the right director — lift her out of the straight-to-video bargain bin. Maybe it's wishful thinking, I don't know. She's one of those young women I kind of pull for, however. Hard to say why fond memories of her linger so long. Maybe it's the powerful invisible hand of the anti-drug PSA lobby...