Monday, January 17, 2011



BAAAHHH HAAAA HAAAA HAAAA!!!!





Hysterical.  It's our favorite game.  Here is Eva Longoria at Sunday's Golden Globes in, yep...you guessed it...another fish tail dress.





This Golden Globes was full of truly horrendous fashion.  And Eva and her weird/vampire/fish tail hyrbid is just the beginning...so let's go!


Lea Michele








In the words of Bridget Jones: "Oh. Holy. Jesus."  I almost fell out of my chair I was laughing so hard.  I don't even have room to be embarrassed for her. Only room for laughter and joy.


Julianne Moore





And then Julianne comes along and picks up the scraps from Lea Michele's dress and hand sows them together.


Olivia Wilde








That face says it all. She knows she made a horrible mistake. She let the stylist and herself get more and more giggly and squeal-y as the dresses got bigger and bigger, and so she totally lost sight of what Coco Chanel taught us: Edit, ladies. Edit.


Julia Stiles





She should have stuck with Julia Stiles Styles Shants because I am in awe that black can look this heavy (and mind you, she is a skinny, skinny girl).


Emma Stone





You know its bad when your face is more orange than the dress.


Jennifer Lopez





Apparently, American Idol doesn't pay as much as we thought it did.


Megan Fox








Maybe it's because she's wearing it, but this dress looks as cut up as her face.


Michelle Williams





Michelle, if you pull this kind of a stunt again, I can't vote for you to win that Oscar.  I know that you are one of the truly nice ones in Hollywood though, so this time I'll cringe and overlook it.  But, next time...phone a friend.


Halle Berry





I guess if you're a single mom with infinite wealth and resources at your disposal, you are still so busy you're bound to leave the house with half your dress missing.


Jennifer Love Hewitt





I thought she was invited by mistake and now that I'm seeing this dress, I'm sure of it.


Christina Hendricks





Your body is so hot and amazing.  But, listen.  Us girls with tits...they are our natural chest accessories.  You don't need additional ornaments.


All in all, fashion at the 2011 Globes was bad or weak. Because besides these, there are many, many that I'm not posting simply because they were BORING.  We've seen it again and again and again and again. Pale Pink. Column dress. A few sparkles. Ugh. (And I'm also looking at you Miss Kunis).


In fact, there were only a couple I really loved:


Leighton Meester








Yep. Those are long, blouse-y sleeves.  And she is totally rocking it. Do you know how hard that shit is to pull off?  Well, she did it.  And knows it too. Look at that smug face. 


Hailee Steinfeld





She is 14 and new to Hollywood.  And yet, she doesn't look like she's prematurely 35 or straight out of a "Toddlers and Tiaras" competition.  Hailee, please thank your mother for me. 


Kyra Sedgewick





This dress is so well cut and so well made.  But more than that, it is her. This dress suits the woman wearing it.


Angelina Jolie





I love green.  I love her in green.  Go ahead, say it.  She looks like the main character in "Wicked." Whatever, You're just jealous.


Lastly, I have one "undecided:"


January Jones








I don't know if it's "Fifth Element Ugly" or truly unique and eye changing.  Maybe it's just that it fits so well on her.  But that red is so obnoxious. Maybe I would love it more if it was Navy.  Yes, that's it.  It needs to be Navy.


Thoughts?


On Ricky Gervais





Listen, I get that he was mean.  I get that he took un-fair left hooks to people.  Fuck, in less than five minutes the man absolutely destroyed Angelina Jolie, His Most Holiness Johnny Depp, an organized religion based in Hollywood that shall remain nameless out of fear for my personal safety, Charlie Sheen, hookers, and the entire Hollywood Foreign Press Agency (who hired him).


Of course it was mean-spirited, which is...


AS IT SHOULD BE!!!


If you are one of those people bitching about how Gervais "crossed the line" last night, then you can just fuck right off and never read my blog again.  I'm serious about that.  Because if you honestly thought that Gervais did anything wrong, then you and I can't be friends.


Let me clarify: not every joke was a great joke. I'll agree that some lines were more clever and better delivered than others.  In fact, some of his jokes fell flat.  But that's a different conversation. That's being critical of Gervais comedic craft and delivery. And that is NOT the argument raging in the Twitter-verse today.  The argument today is about whether or not he was "appropriate."  The conversation is that he was "too mean to the poor little celebrities who he insulted and hurt their poor wittle feewlings." 


Ugh. Some people have no f-cking sense.  THEY ARE CELEBRITIES!!! They make un-godly amounts of money shooting what are often times terrible movies. And this income allows them to go off and do whatever the f-ck they want with little to no concern about anything beyond their immediate desires.  Do you honestly think that most celebrities are nice people who put others first?  Do you think they are humble? Do you think they live "pure" "clean" "sober" lives? Do you think that they never lie, manipulate, or plot? Do you think they don't live in a permanent state of narcissism?  Do you really think that it's unfair for one man to get up and poke fun at them for ONE NIGHT OF THEIR LIVES?  





Please.  Johnny Depp can f-cking deal with it. He can put on his big boy pants and take one moment of not being fawned over.  And Charlie Sheen?  Don't even start with me.  Yeah, he's an addict.  But he's also a chronic asshole.  Take away the addiction and you would still have an asshole: a racist, misogynistic, unfaithful sober asshole.  So no, I don't feel bad that Gervais called him on it.  


And for those of you who were mad at his "I want to thank God for making me an atheist" line at the end of the night...let me tell you something.  I believe in God. And I was NOT offended.  And you shouldn't be either. Why? Two reasons. First, do you honestly believe that everyone who accepted their award and "thanked" God really lives like they appreciate or even acknowledge God? If you do, you're a fool.  


Also, in the same way that each and every person who wants to "thank God" has the right to do so, Gervais has the right to publicly declare atheism.  You now have literally no logical right to be offended by that comment.


And lastly, for those of you who didn't like the show because it made you "uncomfortable" to see the celebrities looking uncomfortable...you just have no sense of humor. Because that shit is hilarious.  





Have you ever seen an interview with a famous person? Have you ever seen a celebrity walk the Red Carpet?  They are sooooo confident, and self possessed, and "on."  They are actors for goodness sake.  Composure is their business. How great is it, then, to watch them freak out while struggling to keep their composure? To see Nicole Kidman's huge lips try not to frown in disapproval?  How funny is it to watch her pretend to be "cool" with Gervais's joking when you can clearly see that she is fuming inside (while also vowing not to eat for 8 weeks straight)?  


Guys, this is why awards shows put 5 different cameras on the 5 nominees as the winner's name is announced...to see the "fake" smiles.  For a split second, we get to watch the four losers' eyes turn red with demonic fury before the "oh, I'm so relieved they won and not me" face gets plastered on.  Come on, you have to love it.  Watching an actor's normally puffed up ego and confidence go down in flames is High Comedy.  Sorry if you are too dumb to get it.


No really. You might be stupid.  The reason American's don't like Gervais is because American's don't like or understand satire.  We like watching Will Ferrell fart and get hit in the testicles.  Because it's mindless.  And it doesn't really say anything about who we are as a people and what we value.  It doesn't challenge you while you laugh.


But Satire does.  Satire is defined as the process of "exposing human vices and follies to ridicule and scorn... ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...In satire, irony is millitant."


So yeah, Gervais was malicious.  He was sinister and mean. He ridiculed and shamed. He was not nice.  In short, he was the definition of Satire.  And, if you know about Gervais, he is an intellectual.  He knew what he was doing and meant to do it.


The sad thing is, the celebrities are too far up their own asses to comprehend what any of this means.  

Don't be like them.  Understand that Ricky Gervais is a Satirist.  Understand that what we witnessed last night wasn't a case of a man being mean.  It was a man performing a piece of Satire.


And finally, learn from satire. Learn to take a joke and then take the true part of it to heart. It may just make you a better person.

Monday, January 3, 2011

I hate Hemingway.

But I also understand him.  Or at the very least, I understand his compulsion to write while hung over. It really is the only thing that clears the mind.



Writing while drunk? Forget it.  Hemingway, who spent half his life sloshed, knew that it couldn't be done.  Sure, whatever your putting down sounds amazing and transcendent as the booze courses through your veins. Until you look at it later and realize you're a fucking idiot and need to burn the evidence immediately.  So, Hemingway spent half his life tanked and the other half hungover and writing.  There's probably a lesson in there somewhere, but my mind can only focus on one thing at a time right now (which, again, is the best way to write).

And right now, it's officially 2011.

Happy New Year!

And what better way to ring in the New Year/cure that hangover than with a nice, fun, accessible movie?  And what if that nice, fun, accessible movie was also running away with lots of Golden Globe and Oscar nominations?  And had Matt Damon? Well, that movie is called True Grit.

"True Grit"



The original True Grit won John Wayne an Oscar.  And now the Cohen Brothers are doing their take.
I saw the trailer for this over the summer and didn't really pay it any attention. Like, we've all seen the original...why bother?

But then, over the holiday at home, I realized it was probably a good "family movie time" bet.  See, my dad LOVES westerns.  And, by nostalgic extension, so do I.  So we went: David, Mark, Lin and me.  And it was great!



Okay...Pause.  When I say "great,"  I mean it was solid (that's better).  "True Grit" is good, solid entertainment. It's a film that everyone can like.  And during the holidays, any form of inter-family agreement is a good thing.

And, in all honesty, I got a lot more enjoyment out of it than I did out of "Black Swan."



Listen, I had high hopes for Black Swan.  Darren Aronofsky ('The Wrestler' and the amazing but sooo hard to watch 'Requiem for a Dream') makes good movies.  And you all know that I have a sapphic lady crush on Mila Kunis (and she even performs oral sex on Natalie Portman in the movie as an added bonus for you 70/30's and boyfriends).

But still...I was underwhelmed.  I know it has been getting stellar reviews and I do understand that it is well done.  But...fuck.  Could he have "telegraphed" the themes anymore clearly?  Like, the entire time I was sitting in the theater, I was thinking to myself:  "This is Film Symbolism For Idiots."

This was my actual thought process while sitting in the theater:  "Oh, look.  There's Natalie Portman's character seeing herself in a mirror while a huge, fucking picture of a black swan looms ominously in the background.  Oh look, there she is seeing herself turn into Mila Kunis.  Oh look, there she is dressed in white when she's being nice and then showing up in black when she's being bad."



Black Swan= The Scarlet Letter of movies.

And as far as "The King's Speech" goes...it was good. Nice. Pleasant. Colin Firth deserves the Oscar nomination.  But it wasn't Citizen Kane.  My Oscar picks are still brewing, but don't worry. I will have it all formulated and together for you by the time the Golden Globes roll around in two weeks.

And lastly, as per previous promise, the trailer for "Tree of Life."

Terrence Mallick will never win a popularity contest.  He will never be Speilberg, or Scorcese, or Coppola.  He is definitely an acquired taste. Because his movies plod.  They are slow.  They are what I like to call "Look! See!"   He will find an image and just shoot it for minutes at a time. He will let the action unfold, let the scenery move from the background to the foreground, he will give the viewer time to just look around.   And, in the MTV era of 45 frames per second, this can feel Boring.  Sure.

But DAMN.  His movies are just. so. pretty.  Look! See!



That's all for now.  More as award's season gets underway.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!