Phographer: Paolo Roversi
Magazine: Vogçue UK
Date: May, 1996
Model: Amber Valletta, Shalom Harlow

When i decided to start this blog, i wanted as a first post to be the one that i am about to write now. I have been searching on the internet for weeks, but i had no idea who the photographer was, nothing about the shoot or the model. I was only about 8 years old when my mother was riffling through Harper’s Bazaar and she showed me that editorial.

It was Peter Lindbergh’s in 1993 and his photographs for Harper’s Bazaar, in which Amber Valletta was cast as an angel who had unaccountably landed in New York. This shoot was mend to be one of the most tender and warmly received series he has made.

Baci  e  Abbracci

Ele

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Rated: R for frenetic sequences of strong brutal violence throughout, sexual content, nudity and language.

Science-Fiction/Fantasy

Theatrical Release:Sep 4, 2009 Wide

GAMER is a high-concept action thriller set in a near future when gaming and entertainment have evolved into a terrifying new hybrid. Humans control other humans in mass-scale, multi-player online games: people play people…for keeps. Mind-control technology is widespread, and at the heart of the controversial games is its creator, reclusive billionaire Ken Castle (Michael C. Hall). His latest brainchild, the first-person shooter game “Slayers,” allows millions to act out their most savage fantasies online in front of a global audience, using real prisoners as avatars with whom they fight to the death.

Kable (300’s Gerard Butler) is the superstar and cult hero of the ultraviolent “Slayers.” Kable is controlled by Simon, a young gamer with rock star status who continues to defy all odds by guiding Kable to victory each week. Taken from his family, imprisoned and forced to fight against his will, the modern day gladiator must survive long enough to escape the game to free his family, regain his identity and to save mankind from Castle’s ruthless technology.

GAMER stars Gerard Butler (300, THE UGLY TRUTH), Michael C. Hall (“Dexter”), Amber Valletta (TRANSPORTER 2), John Leguizamo (RIGHTEOUS KILL, ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13), with Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges, and Kyra Sedgwick (“The Closer”).

(2009, USA, 95m)

★★★½

A wrongly convicted death-row inmate who becomes a player in a real-life first person shooter video game to win his freedom. Frenetic action-thriller with style to burn that is worth watching for the ultra-violent action scenes and an amusing supporting performance by Dexter’s Michael C. Hall.

Starring Gerard Butler, Amber Valletta, Michael C. Hall, Kyra Sedgwick, Logan Lerman, Terry Crews, Ludacris, Ramsey Moore, Aaron Yoo, John de Lancie, Milo Ventimiglia, Zoe Bell, John Leguizamo. Directed by Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor; written by Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor; produced by Gary Lucchesi, Tom Rosenberg, Skip Williamson, Richard S. Wright; original music by Robb Williamson, Geoff Zanelli; cinematography by Ekkehart Pollack; film editing by Peter Amundson, Fernando Villena, Doobie White.

por Jenny Gage & Tom Betterton

François Nars released his book: 15×15 at a party in New York City last week. Nars as a beauty company has turned 15; and thus he has released his third photo book on its anniversary. The photo book is available for only thirty days after its release. It features all of Nars fabulous friends from photos of Olivier Theyskens to pictures of inspiration by the likes of Naomi Campbell. The party was November 12th at Superstudio, and upon arrival with Nars was Daphne Guinness to claim the spot as first to wear an entire spring ensemble of McQueen (as predicted). Marc Jacobs wore a skirt, which is one of the many personal statements he does best, and Amanda Lepore was decked out in crystals with Louboutin shoes. Other guests included Lorenzo Martone with Marc, Lisa Marie Smith, Amber Valletta, and Erin Fetherston.

Pictures: by Mike Coppola (Getty Images North America)

Amber Valletta in November’s issue of Elle. Love love the pictures of her in the car with her shades, tousled hair, blazer and that handsome man beside her.

Credits: Elle

Transporter: Extreme (Transporter 2) è il sequel di The Transporter del 2002, vede sempre come attore principale Jason Statham nel ruolo di Frank Martin, che dovrà sgominare una banda di terroristi, che ha come capo l’attore italiano Alessandro Gassman. Grandi scene di azione in un susseguirsi di inseguimenti e combattimenti.

Leggi altre notizie su: | Azione | Thriller | Louis Leterrier | Corey Yuen | Jason Statham | Alessandro Gassman | Amber Valletta

This has got to be the most inauspicious start you can imagine. The name in this headline on Yahoo! Shine is misspelled:

Oh, boy. After misspelling Agyness Deyn, is the writer able to redeem herself with spiffy, error-free copy in the article itself? Silly rabbit. Of course not. It just serves as a warning to the poor reader who dares venture further. I took up the challenge so you don’t have to. But I’m not happy about it.

I don’t know what’s up with the verb tense here:

And the writer continues to have a problem spelling Jean Paul Gaultier, although this is the worst of the manglings she’s produced.

Here’s a repeated word (wouldn’t a quick proofreading have found it?) and an overcapitalized Rio de Janeiro:

Halle Berry was a runner-up, though it’s missing a hyphen:

Brooke Shields gets the redundancy treatment and a superfluous comma:

Someone should remove the Comma key from this gal’s keyboard, cuz clearly she doesn’t know when to use it:

Oh, god, she can’t spell reprise and she’s totally lost when it comes to hyphenating compound adjectives:

I have no idea. No idea at all:

I’m still clueless:

I’m guessing she means transitioned:

And there’s another missing hyphen followed by yet another incredibly ignorant use of a comma:

Please tell me she was kidding with this misspelling of Steven Seagal’s name:

Oh, god. I’m speechless. She’s writing about models and can’t spell Amber Valletta:

Finally, one more meaningless punctuation mark:

Let’s see. There’s four misspelled celebrities (I believe it’s a Terribly Write record for a single article), punctuation thrown about like rice at a wedding, and at least three unintelligible phrases (or maybe they’re actually clauses). So it started off bad and went downhill from there. Fast.

“Assim que surgir o Game Over na tela, você deve esquecê-lo”

Num futuro próximo, as pessoas terão acesso a uma nova modalidade de jogo, onde de forma online poderão controlar outras pessoas. Existem dois tipos de jogos virtuais, o Slayers – algo como um counter striker da vida onde jovens controlam condenados no corredor da morte numa arena sangrenta, e o Sociedade – não menos indecente onde pessoas de forma perversa, controlam outras pessoas numa mistura de The Sims com Second Life. O que diferencia e que, os controladores do Slayer buscam emoção, tensão e violência, já os do Sociedade, não passam de sádicos em busca de perversão e promiscuidade. Ambas obras criadas pelo maligno Ken Castle (C. Hall), um engenheiro bem sucedido que em pouco tempo superou a fama e a fortuna do top-ranking Bill Gates.

Mas espera…Kable, Kable, Kable – todos só falam no cara, o jogador mais bem sucedido do Slayers (Butler) precisa apenas sobreviver em mais 4 batalhas para ganhar a liberdade.

Este futuro promíscuo e caótico foi escrito e dirigido por Mark Neveldine e Brian Taylor, responsáveis por também Adrenalina – o que não é de se estranhar já que toda freneticidade da câmera nervosa e das cenas de ação também estão presentes aqui em um tom mais dark.

A ideia e sem dúvidas boa, porem mostrar o futuro revolucionário dos games poderia ser muito melhor explorado aqui – ate porque este parecia ser a única forma de entretenimento da maior parte da população do mundo todo. Mas não deixa de ser interessante ver a forma como os roteiristas abordaram a interatividade de seus ‘controladores’ com seus ‘controlados’. Inovador então seria a melhor palavra para descrever Gamer, mesmo que este ainda mame do clichê ‘ valentão fodão’ (sem sentido) que acaba com 10 grandões de uma só vez, esperto e tal que sempre está a frente de todos e tem de salvar a donzela desamparada que precisa da mão do macho dominante. Gamer não é um filme para ser levado a sério, tão pouco para ser guardado na mente – é um puta blockbuster cheio de tiroteios, explosões, violência e mulheres semi nuas, coisa que deve chamar a atenção de muitos adolescentes e jovens, mas de forma bem passageira.

Ficha do filme com informações, trailers, críticas, curiosidades e etc : www.xcine.com.br/filme_gamer.html

“I wish the word supermodel would just fall of the face of the earth. Anyone can be a supermodel now. My ugly big toe is a supermodel”

Amber, you’re right. You do have ugly toes. No, really she’s right. The term supermodel has been cheapened to near meaninglessness. The origin of the term is unclear. Janice Dickinson claims to have coined it in the 70’s,  but it’s well known that Janice Dickinson is delusional. Official modeling historian Michael Gross attributes the term to a modeling agent all the way back in 1943. But back then it didn’t matter. For decades models, super of otherwise, existed only inside the vacuum of the fashion industry. Some, like Grace Kelly, found fame in other careers. Most came and went, anonymously. In the sixties, with the rise of Twiggy, models became true cultural figures. It was in the 90’s that the idea of the supermodel was really invented. Cindy Crawford. Naomi Campbell. Claudia Schiffer. They were  capital S Supermodels. They were bigger than movie stars. Then, inevitably, movie stars became the new models. Movie stars got the magazine covers. Movie stars got the makeup contracts. Movie stars got the ad campaigns. Models went back to being, to the general public at least, anonymous pretty faces. Very,  very few models today qualify as super. And if nobody is a supermodel, then anybody can claim to be one. That’s how starfuckers like Miranda Kerr can put supermodel their resumes. Well, Amber Valletta is a real Supermodel. She started out in the early 90’s and by the end of the decades she was one of the biggest names in fashion. She’s recently made a bid for Hollywood, appearing is a handfull of frankly crappy movies,  but her modeling career has never cooled down. She’s long been one of my favorites. I think it’s those green eyes.

Amber Valletta

In the future video gaming has taken to a new extreme, people controlling real people . . . yes that sounds very strange but thats how far everything had come in the future in this film. Castle (Michael C. Hall) was the founder of two different “simulation” worlds the first having actors, who are controlled by the users doing what ever they want. Then second was a “TV Show” called Slayers which involved convicts from death row to battle to the death while being controlled by a user.

Kable (Gerard Butler) is the star of the whole show as he made it through 27/28 battles, the whole point of it was in any of them made it to 30 they would therefore be released from death row and therefore the show and have a second chance at life. Simon (Logan Lerman) is the user who controls Kable, he is a 17-year-old boy. Kable wants to get out so he can find and be with his wife and daughter again. But Castle has other plans, to increase his bank balance which I will not go into so I do not spoil the film.

I suppose the whole idea of the film is to say how far will it all go in relation to reality tv and computer games appearing more and more realistic. So this could have been a really good film, or at least potential to be. I did not really enjoy it, I cannot lie. I just found it rather pathetic at times mainly because of the terrible jokes which were difficult to figure out if they were actually supposed to be funny or not.

I do like Gerard Butler a lot (and yes I am referring to his acting, even though he is very nice looking) and I think the different roles he seems to take on is one of the main reasons for liking him more each time. I think he makes a very good action hero if you want to class a few of his roles in this category now. But he has also done some very different things such as “Phantom of the Opera” and then the rom-com genre with “P.S. I Love You” and “The Ugly Truth” which make him more appealing to women as showing a more sensitive side. But I definitely think he is very appealing to both men and women because of his wide range of roles. This role I think will be good for both men and women.

Michael C. Hall was very creepy in his role as Castle. I know he is from Dexter but have never seen that but remember watching Six Feet Under A Few Times. But the “got no strings” scene was soooo creepy. I actually thought he put in a very good performance mainly from the creepiness. But some of the lines he was given were shocking it has to be said.

I would use “Death Race” as a comparison for this film, and I was not a fan of that either. But I think the idea between this film was better than that of Death Race. With the rise of the internet and video games ever evolving. Maybe this is more of a guy film, who knows? I am interested to see what others think of this film.

Amber Valletta cute and colorful costume from Gamer

Read and see more at GlamCrunch.

Director: Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor
Starring: Gerard Butler, Amber Valletta, Michael C Hall, Kyra Sedgewick, Logan Lerman, Alison Lohman, Terry Crews
Running Time: 95 Minutes

Score: 8 / 10

This excellent review by Robert De Nijman.

Going into this movie, I wasn’t really expecting a lot. I had only seen one short preview, which made it look like any other post-Running Man fight-your-way-out-of-trouble action flick that sees the protagonist trapped in a game show-like fantasy, going through army’s of bad guys like Pacman through so many of those little pills. I didn’t know however, that Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, the writer/director duo that brought us Crank and Crank: High Voltage, were at the helm of Gamer. The first minutes of the movie made that distinctly clear, though, as high powered action and fast paced kinetic camera-work introduce us to the world of Slayer, a first-person shooter that has its inmate characters live and die at the control(s) of real world gamers. Movements of both players and camera and the feel of the game are right on the money if you’ve ever seen shooters like Counterstrike or Call of Duty.

The world of Gamer is a not too distant future where Castle, an overnight software giant shying the likes of Microsoft and Google, reigns supreme. Its young manager, media mogul Ken Castle, couldn’t be more offspring of Generation X or Michael C. Hall’s joyfully overacted and clearly Dexter-based part would be played by Coupland himself. The immense riches brought on by his revolutionary gaming technologies make him a have-it-all loner who has lost all contact with the everyday reality spawned by Taylor and Neveldine. The virtual world is slowly replacing the tangible one, as more and more people hook on to games like Society, where you get to control an actual human being in a more-or-less fictional setting, best described as Sims at a Mad Max-themed rave, dressed by Brüno. It is in these aspects that the directors are at their best, using internet and other digital references to portray these future playgrounds, hyper technological media and the next generation of adult entertainment. The kind of future not quite as dark as the one imagined by Orwell, but pretty scary nonetheless, like we’re all trapped in the Ministry of Virtual Reality.

If Castle’s virtual world Society laid the first bricks for his soon-to-be world dominating company, second invention Slayer certainly paved the rest of the way, captivating a loyal audience the world over. The hero of the game is Kable (a contemporary Ben Richards if you will), or John Tillman outside the map of the game, played by Gerard Butler. A prison inmate who gets a fighting chance for parole, if he successfully completes thirty missions in Slayer. Which means the seventeen-year-old professional gamer that controls him has to beat a world full of other gamers, most notably Terry Crews’ Hackman, an all-killing, all-dancing beast of man, whose impressive physique (neck), short singing routine (‘I haven’t got any strings’) and the fact there’s no-one in the real world controlling him make him more fierce than Dynamo, Fireball and Buzzsaw combined. Rich background casting is provided as well, seeing supporting parts for Ludicrous, John Leguizamo, Alison Lohman, Milo Ventimiglia and Keith David, among others (although some in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-’em capacity), but this is clearly an all-out Butler-show. Quite possibly due to the fact the makers intended to put moviegoers into the perspective of his character as well.

Tillman’s wife (Amber Valletta) and daughter on the outside are what keep him going, but we soon find out he hides an important secret as well; one that Castle would very much like to remain hidden. In the end, that gambit combined with the somewhat rushed climax are what amount to Gamer falling short of being a true original, but other than that I highly recommend you go see this movie. The extremely detailed look at a possible future makes it eerily clear we may be closer to an alternative 1984 than we are past it.