Check out the video for Icon Redux: Happy Birthday, Mr. President.

So I tried to Google the number of magazine covers Brad Pitt has graced since November 2008 vs. the number of magazine covers Abraham Lincoln has done posthumously since then. I couldn’t find hard numbers. But I’m thinking Lincoln would come out on top. Huge resurgence in popularity since Obama’s election. Huge. And understandably so -- he arguably laid the groundwork for Obama’s presidency, and Obama doesn’t mince words when naming Lincoln one of his political heroes. Plus, the man is turning 200 years old today, which warrants some sort of recognition. But Lincoln’s resurgence transcends birthdays and the thank-you nod we’ve all been giving him for catalyzing the rise of this new administration.

With the recession casting its ugly shadow over the holiday season, it seems reasonable that everyone and your mama would be cutting back on the gift-giving this year (although I’m still expecting big things from your mama -- I’m sorry, was that inappropriate?). We say bull puckey to cutting back. Bull-reindeer-puckey. And to prove it, Icon Redux Episode 3: Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies, is the most icon-studded installment of the series yet, offering you not one, not two, but 15 different icons in a Dickensian lineup of Icons Past, Present, and Soon-to-Be that seems recklessly irresponsible now that the Age of American Opulence is officially behind us. But what some call irresponsibility, we call love. That’s how much we love you. We’d give you the shirt off our backs, but it was an expensive shirt, and with the economy the way it is, who knows when we’ll be able to afford another one. So you get 15 Icons instead, all packaged neatly in a two-minute video and itemized after the jump. It’s our gift to you. You’re welcome. And ho ho ho.

The most famous rule in all of filmmaking: Never work with kids or animals. But hell, I’m a maverick. And I can see Russia from my house.

The best thing about working with kids is that they don’t know the meaning of the word “pressure” -- it hasn’t come up in their vocabulary lessons yet. And let’s face it -- re-creating Truman Capote’s iconic interview of Marlon Brando is a lot of pressure. Adult actors, limited by what they’ve seen and what they know, would have broken out their best Brando impressions or tried their damnedest to rip off a Philip Seymour Hoffman performance. And nine out of ten of them would have collapsed under the weight of it all.

(Watch "Icon Redux: James Dean @ Hotel Gansevoort" to get the frontstory for this backstory.)

“He doesn’t really look like James Dean,” says the woman at the cowboy hat store. We’re standing watching Yann Bean make James Dean faces into the store mirror a few yards away, tipping the hat down over his face, furrowing his brows. Tomorrow he’ll try to fill the shoes of one of the most iconic actors in history. Today he’s trying to fill his hat.

“That’s not really the point,” I answer back.

“Oh,” says the woman. She puzzles over it a few seconds longer, then gives up considering what the point could be, giving herself over instead to thinly-veiled admiration.

“Well,” she concludes, “he’s definitely got something anyway.”