When I went through a big movie buying phase in eighth grade, I bought a few movies sight unseen because I wanted to have something new if I was ever in the mood for that kind of thing.  To quote Julia Roberts in “Pretty Woman,” “Big mistake.  BIG.  Huge.”  Why did I spend $10 on “The Longest Yard?”

All good girls wear a pair of glasses. Don’t you think? Ok let’s line them all up. Kajol – she is never spotted anywhere without them off screen ofcourse. Then there is Shabana Azmi. Julia Roberts! You know what am saying! Good girls wear glasses. Not just any glasses but a pair of cute and sexy glasses. Glasses that bring out the geek side In them yet make them look girly and cute. Glasses that go with their personality and without a doubt help them see better but also let them look good! Now I got my pair made last year – and boy am I tired or am I tired of wearing the same pair for over a year now. Iam hunting for that perfect pair of charming chashmas that will make me look all cocksure and confident? Where do you suggest I get them made? Your local store or a branded boutique? I’d love to know.

Quem não lembra dos cabelos volumosos e cacheados da Vivian, personagem da dear Julia Roberts em Uma Linda Mulher, que levou muitas meninas ao cabeleireiro loucas por um permanente nos anos 90? E os super cachos da nossa eterna musa Carrie Bradshaw que até hoje domina a telinha em Sex and The City? Quase 20 anos depois da febre Vivian’s hair, os cachos continuam reinando nos salões do país, agora muito bem representados por Taís Araújo em Viver a Vida. Antes disso, o desfile da Animale previu a tendência mais rebelde, trazendo o frizz como estrela-quase-principal do seu desfile na SPFW (Raquel Zimmermman que o diga!)…

Julia Roberts. Sarah Jessica Parker. Taís Araújo. Raquel Zimmermman.

Hoje, o babyliss e os bobes substituíram a chapinha e quanto mais balanço nos cabelos, melhor.

Julia Roberts. Sarah Jessica Parker. Lauren Conrad. Whitney Port.

Dica: para cachos como os da Julia, use babyliss com fixador de volume. Para um efeito mais “liso” como o da Lauren, bobe grande é a melhor opção. Sarah e Whitney? Bobes médios ou pequenos!

Blake Lively. Leighton Meester. Taylor Momsen. Taylor Swift.

O meu cabelo é liso daqueles que não segura uma presilha e desde pequena tive paixão por cachos. Dormia com tranças, fazia babyliss e papelote (alguém conhece isso?!) pra dar um jeito de acordar ondulada, cacheada ou frizzada! Vai, não dava muito certo, mas hoje acho que eu ganhei um pouquinho mais de habilidade!

Charlize Theron. Ísis Valverde. Nicole Richie. AnnaLynne McCord.

Eu escolheria esse ondulado da Charlize! E vocês?

Beijinhos,

B.

NOISES ON: Can’t believe it, but they swear it’s true. The Frantics, the certifiably insane, oooh, oops, sorry, the mentally extrvagant comedy troupe

THE FRANTICS: Noises-makers

comprised of Paul Chatto, Rick Green, Dan Redican & Peter Wildman, are about to turn 30. (I know, I know, they don’t look a day over 29 .) To celebrate they’re launching a new Greatest Hits CD, Frantic Noises, and working on anniversary release dates for (1) The Very Best of Frantic Times (“more than 1,000 bits compiled from our CBC Radio show,”) (2) The Frantics Walk Upright

STOJKO: Red Door booster

(“the lost tapes of our final performance together in 1998,”) (3) an all-music CD that they’re recording now, and (4) the DVD of their Frantics Reunion Show, which aired on the Comedy Network. Big news is, they’re set to perform live at The Royal on College street — for one performance only, to launch their new CD — on Monday Dec. 7 at 7 pm. All proceeds from tickets ($10 +tax in advance, $15 +tax at the door) will go to PAL (the Performing Arts Lodge.) To order your tickets now, go to their website at www.thefrantics.com, or just click here.

GOING, GOING, GONE: Today is your last chance to bid on a unique online jewelry auction where all of the proceeds raised benefit the Red Door family

PINSENT & PINSENT: all about Uniti (photo: Zoomer magazine)

shelter. Called the Uniti Collection, the pieces are created by 18Karat Goldsmiths and inspired by celebnties partnered with designers. Sparklies adding their lustre to this cause include Leah & Gordon Pinsent, Elvis Stojko and Breakfast Television charmers Dina Pugliese and Jennifer Valentyne. To review the collection and get your bid in, click here … surfers are finding more and more treasures at on-line auctions, which is why they’ve become so popular. BID 2 BEAT AIDS, LIFEbeat’s fifth annual 10-day eBay Celebrity Memorabilia Auction honouring World AIDS Day starts December 1 at 12 noon, with proceeds going to ongoing AIDS/HIV programs in the U.S. Up for grabs are personal items from Michael Feinstein, Debbie Harry, Cheyenne Jackson, Lady Gaga, Cyndi

PUGLIESE: Breakfast jewel

Lauper, Patti LuPone, Madonna, Ricky Martin, Tim McGraw, Liza Minnelli, Stevie Nicks, Cynthia Nixon, Bernadette Peters, Joan Rivers, Henry Rollins, John Waters, Vanessa Williams and the late Bea Arthur, among others. For more information, including a complete list of participating artists and images of many of the items, click here … and  Julia Roberts is among the glitterati reportedly ready to act up for the Labyrinth Theater Company’s seventh annual gala benefit called Celebrity Charades 2009: Jackpot. Beginning

ROBERTS: charity charades

December 7, celeb teams do battle in charades competition, so in addition to Julia look for Eric Bogosian, Bobby Cannavale, Mariska Hargitay, Christopher Meloni and more. And feel free to  follow the action online — where else?!? — at  www.LABtheater.org.

Like I said — not yer average rock band.

TOMORROW:

Why Liz Smith always makes me laugh.

Plus, Brangelina update, and more!

For her 17th the Hannah Montana starlet had an 80’s themed party, very different to last years where she had all Disney Land to herself and fans, and she dressed up as Julia Roberts in the film Pretty Woman, although many critizied for what she wore to her own party it wasn’t unusual to see the contreversial popstar wearing short shorts. Check out the photos of the star looking rather hot stood by her cake.

Miley Cyrus got a rude awakening call the other day whilst out in New York at Pop Burger, when Cyrus approcahed the counter the woman asked her for her name to place her order. Miley fired back with “Are you serious? I’m Miley Cyrus!” the woman just shrugged her shoulders and wished the star a good day, uh-oh Miley don’t be starting these diva demands of yours just yet, please!

Because it’s mostly full of mildly interesting stories of the paranormal, I don’t typically rely on Bio’s “Celebrity Ghost Stories” for serious discussions/thoughts on the afterlife.

And that’s why a recently aired episode caught me completely off-guard.

During a segment on Eric Roberts (brother of Julia, father of Emma), the character actor recounted his near-death experience following a vehicle accident in 1981. (According to IMDB and other online sources, Eric suffered significant facial and head trauma and was comatose for several days.) When he awoke from the coma, he said he remembered little of his life and was concerned his acting career was over.

In addition to an out-of-body experience, Eric spoke about how an elderly Romanian couple he didn’t recognize came to visit him in the hospital and gave him specific instructions for taking medication that would help him regain his memory. After writing down the names of the drugs, the couple disappeared and no one at the hospital recalled ever seeing them. Eric took the medication as they suggested and within a week, he said, his memories began to return.

While that story was interesting, it was a short, off-hand comment Eric made that really got me thinking. He was talking about how peoples’ spirits are made of energy, and that it’s not so much about the physical body – although we tend to associate the spirit with its human form. So when someone dies, Eric suggested, it’s really only the outward shell that is gone forever.

And then he said this:

“You can’t kill energy. You can only displace it.”

I find that way of thinking to be extremely comforting.

It also makes me wonder what New Yorker Joe Tiralosi – who WCBSTV.com reports was considered dead for 47 minutes before being revived – experienced and/or saw. Unfortunately, that particular aspect is not mentioned, except when reporter Chris Wragge’s co-host, Kristine Johnson, asks him outright at the very end.

2006: Fireflies in the Garden di Dennis Lee

Scarso successo di pubblico per un film che, sulla carta, sembrava possedere più di una freccia al suo arco.

Giustamente la critica non è stata tenera: “Somministrato alla sera, in gocce, per accompagnare il sonno” (Corriere della Sera), “Attori divi e divi attori: da sempre il punto di forza dei film americani. Talvolta, però, il bonus non basta a tamponare le perdite: qui le belle presenze… non riscattano il film dalla sua mediocrità di fondo” (Il Mattino), “…un goffo melodramma a spasso tra passato e presente, privo di sostanza e di dialoghi sensati” (Ciak), “Un teatrino di provincia con interpreti di nome chiamati a una rappresentazione senza un copione adeguato e con un’idea di fondo talmente sempliciotta da risultare noiosa” (Il Manifesto).

Un segreto tra di noi (titolo fuorviante, preferibile l’originale, più evocativo e suggestivo, tratto da una poesia di Robert Frost e riferito a una delle poche belle scene del film) risulta un mélo freddo e poco coinvolgente che fa rimpiangere i capolavori di Sirk Kazan Minnelli… a cui probabilmente si ispira e che inspiegabilmente il Festival di Berlino ha ospitato (sui nostri schermi è giunto con quasi due anni di ritardo).

Ritmo colpevolmente lento, scarsa tensione, regia piatta e anonima, sceneggiatura non sempre chiara (e non priva di luoghi comuni), situazioni viste ripetutamente altre volte (e meglio realizzate), mancanza di scene-madri che si imprimano nella memoria, scenografia e fotografia poco curate, passaggio tra presente e passato non ben illustrato… Si aggiunga che i personaggi appaiono non sempre credibili e dalle azioni spesso immotivate. Una trama non gradevole che dovrebbe mostrarci cosa si nasconde all’interno di una famiglia americana apparentemente normale e tranquilla ma che non desta l’attenzione dello spettatore che più di una volta si chiede come mai non si sia sgretolata fin dall’inizio. Un comportamento da parte di tutti i protagonisti che dire assurdo è poco, inspiegabile e non realistico. Finale eccessivamente accomodante ed inverosimile.

Il cast è stellare ma sprecato. A nessuno dei celebrati attori si dà modo di mostrare il proprio notevole talento e questo è uno dei maggiori difetti di un’opera che dovrebbe avere il suo punto di forza nelle interpretazioni. Dennis Lee è un regista debuttante e non sembra all’altezza del compito affidatogli (…ma sembra che la storia sia autobiografica).

scheda

I don’t think anything will top the Most Beautiful TV News Women of 2008 blog, but this’ll have to do for now.

So this is my list of the 20 most attractive actresses in movies.   I list them as the most “attractive” instead of “beautiful,” because though most of them are beautiful, “attractive” implies personality traits and other intangibles.  The roles are also important, though this isn’t a list of great actresses – it’s a list of the most attractive women in my opinion based on their roles in these movies.  So it’s sort of more the character than the person, since obviously I don’t know them.

Without going through the whole list, this competition was over before it began.  Linda Hamilton has the nice girl, innocent look in “Terminator” and she shows she has a lot of heart.  Then in “Terminator II” she becomes a bad ass.  Franka Potente in “Bourne Identity” has moxie and style.  If I had just seen her without her being in the role, she might not make the top 100, but she is pretty phenomenal in the role of Marie.

Sometimes it’s a particular scene that leaves the impression, like when Sigourney Weaver is possessed by a ghost in “Ghostbusters,” or when Phoebe Cates walks by the pool in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” with an assist by the song “Moving in Stereo” by the Cars (one of the most underappreciated rock bands of all time).  Then there’s the woman as authority figure, like P.J. Soles who played an MP in “Stripes,” a variation on the teacher theme.  In “Silver Streak,” Jill Clayburgh looked wholesome; in “Basic Instinct” Sharon Stone did not.

Back before older women were called cougars, you had Jacqueline Bisset (“Class”), Anne Archer (“Patriot Games”) and of course, Anne Bancroft in “The Graduate,” who just edges out Katherine Ross from the same movie.  Believe it or not, Linda Fiorentino of “Vision Quest” was also an older woman although she played someone who was only 21 in the movie.  Her suitor in Vision Quest was 17.  I always thought her character was more like 25 until I saw the movie again.  Cheesy movie but great.

The mention of Sandra Bullock reminds me that I saw her twice in bars in Washington, D.C. about 10 years ago.  Each time she had her hair colored blond (or was wearing a wig) like she has it in her new movie “The Blind Side.”  It was definitely her.  Once was in Atomic Billiards in Cleveland Park.  I honestly can’t remember where the other time was.  Anyway, I went up to her to talk.   I didn’t mention anything about her looking like (or being) Sandra Bullock – just tried to talk with her but I have to say she was pretty underwhelmed.  She blew me off both times.  Then after that I told her I knew who she was.  Again, she was a little bit unimpressed.  Oh well.

So here you have it.  I’m going to add pictures later.

1. Linda Hamilton, Terminator
2. Linda Hamilton, Terminator II
3. Franka Potente, Bourne Identity and Bourne Supremacy
4. P.J. Soles, Stripes
5. Jacqueline Bisset, Class
6. Sigourney Weaver, Ghostbusters
7. Jill Clayburgh, Silver Streak
8. Linda Fiorentino, Vision Quest
9. Sharon Stone, Basic Instinct
10. Anne Bancroft, The Graduate
11. Katherine Ross, The Graduate
12. Anne Archer, Patriot Games
13. Julia Roberts, Ocean’s Eleven
14. Sandra Bullock, Speed
15. Lucy Liu, Charlie’s Angels
16. Jessica Lange, King Kong
17. Debra Winger, Officer and a Gentleman
18. Halle Berry, Swordfish
19. Robin Wright Penn, Forrest Gump
20. Ashley Judd, Double Jeopardy
21. Phoebe Cates, Fast Times at Ridgemont High

Honorable Mention:  Lynda Carter.  I know she was a TV actress and hardly did any movies, but I had to include her on the list. She can occasionally be spotted in Bethesda, MD and looks as great as ever.

Anyway, I’m sure I’ve missed a ton of attractive actresses but this is the list.  It was almost a year ago that I did the list of the most beautiful newswomen of 2008, and that blog entry has gotten more traffic than all my other blog posts combined.

So as I put this one up, and the previous one just below this, part of the hope is that more people will read the other parts of my blog that deal with www.mikeneedsakidney.com, which by the way, isn’t just for me but is designed to raise awareness for all people who need kidneys.  While I’m on the topic, check out the song that the Dirtbags, the Redskins Appreciation Club band did for me.

The Movie Overdose attempts to contain the apocalypse with a review of Roland Emmerich’s 2012. We chat about how we would change Eddie Murphy for the better, what kind of sequel we want for Star Trek and whether we are glad to see Sean Connery coming back, if only in voice form. Tom slightly dampens the praise given to An Education and Sam revels in the madness of Running Scared and the flawed ambition of Dogma. The conclusion involves a discussion of actors that, no matter what, we always look forward to seeing on screen.

Download The Movie Overdose Episode 42

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Cast: Clive Owen, Jude Law, Julia Roberts, Natalie Portman

Directed By: Mike Nichols
Written By: Patrick Marber
Cinematography By: Stephen Goldblatt
Editor: John Bloom & Antonia Van Drimmelen 

The beautiful thing about this movie is the words the language used which is both smart and cruel it’s amazing how sentences can hurt and destroy so much

This is not a film to watch if you are looking for action it’s more about Character , Drama and situations then anything else. This is just a adult relationship drama and everything here is beautiful.

This is a drama but feels more like a horror movie there are so many scenes of emotional violence that this is like watching a massacre. Since there are only four characters it’s easy to get to know the characters even though they don’t talk about there pasts much you get to know them so much that you feel the pain and despair that they do.

The Switching allegiances, mind games and harsh words make this like a british David Mamet film though you can tell the film is based on a play for it’s limited locations and exclusive intimate closed spaces that the action takes place in. Mike Nichols wisely knows how to open the film up to make it looks sumptuous.

Even though the cast is all good the person who walks away with the film is Natalie Portman this is what award winning acting is all about een thought she didn’t even get nominated it was a chance for her to escape her shackles of her teen and lightweight roles to show that she is not only grown but a fully sexual being. From her scene in the strip club where even though she is taking orders she is in total control while also letting herself be completely vulnerable by actually telling the truth for one of the first times in the film. To when she is being vulnerable when she is supposed to be running away with the love of her life. Mike Nichols also knows how to make this beautiful lady into a goddess with color, dress and showing just enough skin.

Cate Blanchett was originally cast in the Julia Roberts role she played the role in the play that Julia Roberts plays but she got pregnant and could not do the role so she was replaced by Julia Roberts who does pretty good in this role since this is really one of the few times where she plays a three dimensional character that is kind of like her usual self of being likeable but also capable of being hateful. There is no cutesy sweet girl we are used to here. Jude Law and Clive Owen were both also in the play but here they switched the roles they originally played. Both are too perfection.

The film also has a beautiful opening scene with the song the blower’s daughter by Damien rice that this movie seem to put on the charts for people to discover which in itself is a haunting song that hovers over the rest of the film     

A definite must see

Google.com

My girlfriend was looking at the cover of “Pretty Woman” and said that Julia Roberts had bushy eyebrows in the movie.

My girlfriend’s friend agreed. I couldn’t agree nor disagree.

“You don’t know what ‘bushy’ means, Arthur?” my girlfriend asked me.

Of course I didn’t.

“It’s like your eyebrows,” she continued. “Thick.”

We piggy-backed off my parents’ movie rental with this one. They told us that they really didn’t like it because it was too confusing. Well, typically those are the movies that we like the best, the confusing ones with twists and turns. But that wasn’t exactly the case with Duplicity.

Joel Says: Clive Owen and Julia Roberts play corporate spies that are  hired  to protect a multinational corporation’s internal secrets. However, the two lovers decide that it’s better to sell the company’s secrets than it is to protect them. The problem is that you don’t figure this out until about an hour into the movie, which would have been fine if I didn’t have the attention span of a third grader or if the movie was half as cool as the movie Memento. Unfortunately it’s not.

The movie was so predictably cast. Clive Owen plays James Bond, I mean, a spy. Julia Roberts’ character was pretty much Tess from Oceans Eleven. And, once again, Tom Wilkinson plays the emotionless authoritarian. It’s as if the actors just learned their lines and reprised old roles. Plus, I’m growing tired of the whole underlying anti-corporate rhetoric that Hollywood likes to spew. Big business is bad. CEOs are evil. Capitalism equals greed. We get it already.  Basically, Duplicity is a like a math problem that you can’t figure out. And when you finally do you feel like an idiot for wasting your time trying. Do you yourself a favor and pass on Duplicity.

Ashley Says: Um, what? What just happened? This movie had me completely lost the whole time. I kept thinking that I would understand everything at the end of the movie. But at the end I was still scratching my head.

It’s no secret that I love Julia Roberts. She was my celebrity look-a-like when I was a freshman at Iowa. Yeah, I don’t see it either, but who doesn’t want to look like Julia Roberts? And Clive Owen isn’t unfortunate-looking. But the cons conning the cons who are being conned by other cons story line went right over my head. I would only recommend renting this one if there really is nothing else.

“I just love that Sandra Bullock.”

“Oh, I know!  She’s so natural and perky and down to earth!”

“She was great in that one movie — oh, you know the one I’m talking about, that one with the guy, and they’re from the South, and oh, it’s just adorable.  She’s just adorable.”

“Oh I know, I watch that one every year.  She’s just great.  I just love her.”

This is not an actual transcription of a conversation, but an approximation of one I’ve heard numerous times  — at church potlucks, on airplanes, in the waiting room at the doctor’s office.  Because WOMEN LOVE SANDRA BULLOCK.  More specifically, middle-aged women, many of them members of the ever powerful minivan majority, love Sandra Bullock.  They love her for her inoffensive humor; they love her natural, unexotic beauty.  They love the fact that she ends up with normal looking, wholly likable white bread men in the movies (Bill Pullman, Harry Connick Jr., Hugh Grant, Benjamin Bratt, Ryan Reynolds) but they most especially love the consistency of her roles.

Normal looking nice guy makes normal looking nice girl happy!

Of course, these women are victims of selective amnesia:  Bullock has attempted to complicate her star image with risky roles, including parts in Crash, Murder by Numbers, and the second of the two Capote films, Infamous. (She played the Harper Lee character.)  But such roles have done little to alter her overarching image as likable, slightly madcap, and always the recipient of  pure and genuine love.

For Bullock is no sex object.  She’s a girls’ star — a Julia Roberts, a Meg Ryan.  Men do not generally find her attractive, but girls want to be her best friend.   The director of The Proposal explained “After I met Sandy for the first time, I remember thinking, This woman has been my friend for 100 years.”  She has a beautiful body, skin, and hair, but such attributes are generally revealed through the course of a narrative — she starts out an ugly, somewhat masculine, awkward duckling, only to be transformed through the quiet yet strong love of a good, honest man.   Indeed, she is often nearly asexual at the beginning of a film — see her business-minded superboss in The Proposal or her scorned, weepy break-up victim in Hope Floats.

You can tell she loves her career too much by the suit and the unmussed hair.

Bullock’s picture personalities is infused with promises and possibilities: you, too, fair viewer, can be transformed by the power of love.  Not all of her films are makeover fantasies — indeed, only Miss Congeniality features an explicit makeover — but the most popular of films repeatedly position a non-glamorous protagonist as a site for transformation, both emotional and physical.  Bullock’s presence in the lead encourages identification; she’s an awkward Jennifer Aniston, Julia Roberts with her makeup off and hair flat.  She’s the supporting actor/best friend made central, and women love her for it.

Her extra-textual persona supports this image.  In Glamour, she is described as follows:

Sandy loves her job but is not defined by it. And she knows how to have a life outside of Hollywood: She splits her time between L.A. and Austin, Texas, where she owns a popular bistro, Bess. She has a barn. She’s done a ton of good work for charities, like giving money to a New Orleans high school impacted by Hurricane Katrina. Hello, she even does her own home renovations, like tearing down walls with her bare hands! (OK, I might be exaggerating a bit.) But if I had to pinpoint what sets her apart, it’d be this: She’s humble. She’s real. It’s easy to lose yourself in this business, but Sandy hasn’t gotten swept up in any of it.

See!  She likes people!  She’d be friends with you!  “She’s humble. She’s real.”  She’s not a diva.  She probably makes her own food and drives her own car and goes to the grocery store.  Or so we are led to believe.

The other day, my friends and I were attempting to make a list of stars that our parents just love: stars who make them feel comfortable.  Stars whose movies they’ll rent without any foreknowledge of plot; stars who will entice them to go to the movie theater for one of their 2-4 yearly trips.  Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts made the cut.  But Sandra Bullock was the most unanimous nominee: there’s something so wholly inoffensive and uniquely attractive about her, something that Julia Roberts has lost and Jennifer Aniston never really had.  She makes 50 year-olds go see her fall in love with Ryan Reynolds.  Her films make big bucks overseas.  Her style and charisma translate.  She appears virtually ageless, but not in an envy-inducing manner (Demi More) or as a grotesque (Nicole Kidman, Sharon Stone).  She’s not stuck up (Renee Zelwegger/Aniston/Courtney Cox), she’s not intimidating (Jolie), she’s not perfect (Halle Berry)  and she’s not too madcap (Roseanne).

Indeed, the only thing potentially controversial about Bullock is her choice of husband: motorcycle producer and heavily-tateooed Jesse James.

Bullock and Her Teddy Bear

Discursively, James has been constructed as the culmination of Bullock’s domestic fairytale.  After being chased by many a prince (Tate Donovan, Troy Aikman, Ryan Gosling, Matthew McConaughey, Keanu Reeves) she settled with the least moviestarsish, least expected of the bunch — a man who simply made her happy.  (And, coincidentally, recreated a narrative conclusion manifested in her most successful films).

In recent weeks, Bullock has been in the gossip weeklies — not to promote her upcoming The Blind Side or to apologize for the train wreck that was All About Steve, but because of her attempts to adopt James’ daughter from a previous marriage.   In US Weekly, the article’s title declares her “Battle for Her Stepdaughter.”  Bullock and James are attempting to receive full custody of James five-year-old daughter, whose mother, Janine Lindemulder, is a former drug addict, porn star, and general ne’er-do-well.  The article is smattered with pictures of a dressed-down, casual Bullock carrying and holding hands with the young girl.  Bullock’s image is placed in sharp contrast with the girl’s porn star birth mother: she is everything this blonde bimbo is not.  Bullock is quoted declaring “My greatest joy is…being a good wife, a good stepmom.”  She loves this child – and that’s what she’ll fight for.  (Again, sounds mysteriously similar to the storyline of one of her films — only The Blind Side involves a black male high school student, not a cherubic blond girl).

Bullock says she doesn’t want to do rom-coms anymore — in fact, with something like The Proposal, she’s attempting to forge a path for the ‘female Judd Apatow film.’  Whether or not this is true is beside the point.  For while The Blind Side is certainly not a rom-com, as evidenced by the trailer, it most certainly is a family melodrama.  As such, the film caters to virtually the same demographic as the rom-com: females, both single and married, between the ages of 20 and 60.  (Did you hear The Fray in the background?  Yep, they’re talking to you, Grey’s Anatomy fans.  Selfsame demo).

With that said, Bullock does not pull in the lower echelons of that demo.  She’s got what I’ve termed her Forever Fans — the 30-60-year-olds who will always see her films, like our mothers — but she has failed to attract a younger demographic.  Part of this is merely a matter of age — Sandra Bullock portrays 30-somethings and mothers, not teens and post-grads — but I’d also posit that it has something to do with her star image and its particular resonance.  Her particular brand of spunk, quirk, Southernness, and romance seems very 1990s to me.  Just as The Blind Side appears to be a remake of every film that’s ever told the story of white people saving black people, so too does Bullock’s star image seem to function as a reactivation and deradicalization of a certain type of female star: she’s Bette Davis without the teeth, Joan Crawford without the snarl.  Davis and Crawford often ended their films happily coupled, but just as often they ended them alone — sometimes in tears, but nonetheless triumphant.  Bullock’s characters never end unhappy; they rarely weather a storm without a silver lining already firmly in view.  Bullock is soft, quick to weep, and quicker to give in,  where Davis, Crawford, and even Stanwyk (especially in Stella Dallas) are steely, with a fierceness belied by their porcelain faces.  These women were also points of identification, but the women in the theaters at the time were hard-bitten by the times — hungry, over-worked, exhausted, and oftentimes, due to the demands of The Depression and World War II, without even the dream of the help of a man or romance.  The endings provided by the ’30s and ’40s melodramas emphasized a female independence that wasn’t simply a madcap act, neutralized by film’s end: it was a way of survival, a way of life.

Joan Crawford might eat Sandra Bullock alive…

Indeed, the ’softness’ and heteronormatively-coupled endings of Bullock’s films have everything to do with 1990s in general: I could describe most of Julia Roberts’ films using the same language I’ve employed to describe Bullock.  These films’ tone and conclusion likewise speaks to  what women — and 30-40 year-old women in particular –  imagine for themselves: how far they can reach, and what that place, and its potential splendors, might resemble.

Judging from Bullock’s recent films, happiness and fulfillment can come in the shape of a younger man, a retreat from strict professionalism, or venturing out of suburbia to participate in first-hand philanthropy.  To me, all of these choices seem to present female self-reliance and independence as a hollow promise; that those women who sacrificed marriage and family for professional development will realize, sooner or later, that they too need a man, a cause, something greater than themselves.  We can view this as selfless and a form of sacrifice…or as a troubling message that cultivating oneself, and one’s own desires, will never truly provide fulfillment.

I don’t dislike Sandra Bullock.  I like her (early) films.  But I do think that those who fail to understand her and her tremendous draw — as most clearly evidenced in Richard Rushfield’s perceptive yet reductive answer to “Why is Sandra Bullock Still a Star?” over at Gawker — they also demonstrate their lack of understanding of a key, if sometimes quiet, demographic.  Middle aged women may not ‘open’ a film at number one, but they certainly can keep a film going strong when everyone else is off Megan Fox getting chased by giant robots.  Media observers often express surprise when a film like The Proposal goes on to grosses $300 million international (on a budget of $40 million, no less).  Those very same observers — oftentimes male — simply forget the tremendous power, however ‘unglamorous’  it may be, of neglected demographics.

This post explicitly concerns Sandra Bullock, but I’m also writing it as hundreds of thousands of girls and women head to the theaters to screen New Moon, which is now headed for a ridiculously huge international opening gross.  Industry critics keep patting Summit Entertainment on the back for their luck in optioning the teen text, yet to attribute it to luck is to miss the point:  someone at Summit realized that the text wouldn’t just exploit the teen girl demographic, but the adult female one as well.  For The Proposal opened big ($33 million), but New Moon will open with $80 million domestic, if not more.  Why?  Women.  Some of them already Forever Fans.

To answer Rushfield’s question, Sandra Bullock is still a star — and will remain a star — so long as her forever fans keep consuming.  Her movies cost relatively little to make; even a bomb like All About Steve will not compromise her consistent palatablity.  And with small costs and a built-in audience, she’s a much more reliable bet than Angelina Jolie or the over-priced Julia Roberts.  The challenge for execs is how to cultivate new stars, equally inoffensive and socio-temporally resonant, to take her place in the years to come.  Who will be our Sandra Bullock?  Is it Jennifer Aniston?  Gennifer Goodwin?  Isla Fischer?  Kate Hudson?  Regardless, it’ll most likely be someone who men disdain, hot cultural critics ignore, and studios relegate to counter-programming.

Sandra Bullock matters, and is still a star, because women and their pocketbooks do, in fact, matter — and no number of billion dollar grossing smashfests will alter that fact.

O vestido é uma das peças mais valorizadas de nosso vestuário. Com um belo vestido ficamos com um visual mais feminino e atraente. Sem contar que é uma peça versátil, com um mesmo vestido podemos criar diferentes looks fazendo combinações certas com outras peças de roupa e diversos acessórios.

Para as fãs de um belo vestido foi lançado recentemente pelo Museu de Design de Londres em parceria com a editora Conran Octopus o livro FIFTY DRESSES THAT CHANGED THE WORLD sobre os 50 vestidos mais significativos dos últimos anos. Este faz parte de uma série de livros sobre os 50 vestidos, sapatos, carros e cadeiras mais significativos dos últimos anos.

Exemplos de alguns destes modelos inesquecíveis mostrados no livro são:

O livro já está à venda no Brasil pela internet na Livraria da Travessa, vale à pena conferir!

• 1900-1909

Lo irreal: La chica Gibson      

Dibujo creado por Charles Dana Gibson, pronto se convirtió en el ideal femenino de entonces y se transformó en todo un patrón de vida. Continúa…

Lo real: El vintage

El término era utilizado en las bodegas para señalar los vinos de las mejores cosechas, y derivó al mundo de la moda a partir de 1900 utilizándose en los diseños clásicos o retro. Como ejemplo actual tenemos los Oscar 2001 en los que Renee Zellweger y Julia Roberts lucieron uno de esos diseños vintage. Continúa…

1910-1919

Lo irreal: Fotografías de Hoyningen Huene para Vogue

Lo real: ‘La edad de la Inocencia’

Obra publicada por Edith Wharton en 1920, que recibiría el Premio Pulitzer un año después y que marcó un hito en el mundo de la moda, pues supuso una revolución para las mujeres que se vió reflejado en su forma de vestir. Continúa…

Lo real:

1920-1929

Lo irreal: ‘La Garçonne’

Publicada en 1922 supuso un gran eco a un nuevo estilo de vestir entre las mujeres de la época: pelo corto, pantalones y silueta tubular que masculinizan a la mujer creando una nueva feminidad. Continúa…

Lo real: Les Années Folles

A lo largo de los años 20′ la alta costura francesa vive su mejor momento. Son los años dorados de la moda, Vionnet, Poiret, Lanvin o Chanel liberaron a la mujer provocando un cambio en su manera de vestir y de pensar. Es una época para la exhibición del cuerpo femenino, la diversión y el consumismo. Continúa…

 1930-1939

Lo irreal: Greta Garbo y Marlene Dietrich

Son las máximas representantes de los años dorados del cine de Hollywood; años en los que la sensualidad, la provocación y el erotismo eran las máximas para toda creación filmográfica. Y no era menos en el mundo de la moda, en 1930 el modelo a seguir fueron las actrices como Greta Garbo y Marlene Dietrich, mujeres de hombros anchos y caderas delicadas, altas y delgadas. En este período el punto erótico se centró sobre todo en la espalda, resaltada por pronunciados escotes que provocaban más de un suspiro en el ámbito masculino. Las prendas de la época envolvían a la mujer en un halo de encanto, sensualidad y misterio. 

Lo real: Coco Chanel es quien lleva los pantalones

Su gran personalidad y su particular estilo a la hora de vestir marcaron un antes y un después en el pensamiento de la mujer. Después de que Poiret les quitase el corsé, Coco Chanel fue más allá en su provocación y les puso pantalones. Toda una revolucionaria. Continuar…
 

1940-1949

Lo irreal: Caldeando el ambiente

Pese a la austeridad reinante en toda Europa en estos años, Nueva York y París se meten de lleno en una lucha por ser consideradas capital del arte contemporáneo. La moda se concibe como un arte en su máxima expresión y los escaparates no se utilizan sólo para vender objetos, sino también para contar historias a través de fotografías. Continúa…

Lo real: El New Look de Christian Dior

Fue todo un acierto que le consagró a lo más alto en el mundo de la moda. Tras los oscuros años de la II Guerra Mundial, la Línea Corola presentada por el diseñador en 1947 y más conocida por New Look, pretendía reencontrar a la mujer femenina y coqueta con faldas con mucho vuelo, cintura ceñida y hombros redondeados. Continúa…

1950-1959

Lo irreal:  American Way of Life

Tras una época gris de austeridad y reserva, en los años 50′ las pasarelas empiezan a reflejar unas ganas enormes de vivir y,  por supuesto, de consumir. Es el momento de salir de casa, tomarse un tiempo para el ocio y divertirse, dejando todo lo malo en el pasado. Y eso lo saben reflejar muy bien las revistas que presentan la moda como un juego, el juego de jugar a ser la deportista, la chica sweater, la pin-up, la chica ‘Greace’; incluso ser ama de casa tiene su punto. 

 Lo real: La Jolie Madame

La colección otoño–invierno presentada por Balmain en 1952, que recibió el mismo nombre que uno de sus perfumes, Jolie Madame fue una propuesta que definió el estilo de la mujer moderna, “que debe vestirse de acuerdo al momento del día y a la actividad social que desempeña”. El estilo de los vestidos es: corte medio, talle marcado y decoraciones.

Notei um grave equívoco nesse blog: a falta de indicação para o clássico Um Lugar Chamado Notting Hill.

Embora a importância do Spiiiikeee nas nossas vidas já tenha sido mencionada (veja aqui), não consegui entender como tinha deixado passar uma das melhores declarações de todos os tempos.

Simples, sincera e direta.

I’m also just a girl standing in front of a boy asking him to love her.

Vale pontuar que essa declaração torna-se ainda mais corajosa após o mocinho usar o forte argumento de que I live in Notting Hill; you live in Beverly Hills.

PS1: Vocês não adorariam ganhar de presente um original do Chagall?

PS2:  Porque, afinal, ”a felicidade não seria felicidade sem um bode tocando violino”.

PS3: A trilha desse filme é uma delícia, vai muito além de She e está, é claro, no Blip.

PS4: Esse é o filme preferido do Abelardo. Bjomesegue, Pref!

PS5: Quer ver o final? Indefinitely?

INTE HÄR FÖR ATT BLI ÄLSKAD av Stéphane Brizé (2005)
Originaltitel: Je ne suis pas là pour être aimé
Med Patrick Chesnais, Anne Consigny, Georges Wilson, Lionel Abelanski, Cyril Couton, Anne Benoît, Olivier Claverie, Helénè Alexandridis, Geneviève Mnich

Jag läser stora mängder självbiografiska och biografiska texter, men ytterst sällan om framstående eller berömda personer. Jag tycker att det är mycket intressantare att läsa självbiografier och biografier om vad som till vardags kallas helt vanliga, obemärkta människor som lever eller levt alldagliga, anspråkslösa liv. Det är sällan sådana texter publiceras i bokform, men den engelska tidskriften Granta specialiserar sig på dem. Anledningen till att jag är så mycket mer intresserad av de vanliga människornas liv är att de storvulna, storskaliga berömmelseliven känns ungefär så isolerade och artificiella som jag misstänker att de ofta är, medan den vanliga människans liv är en inte så sällan djupt gripande, fascinerande berättelse. För länge sedan sa en god vän till mig när vi diskuterade en film – jag minns inte vilken – att det filmen skildrade, vad vi skulle kalla ett vanligt, obemärkt liv, inte är så dåligt utan tvärtom heroiskt. Jag håller med honom och i själva verket misstänker jag att det livet kan vara bra mycket rikare än Michael Jacksons eller Julia Roberts’ eller Silvio Berlusconis eller Kate Moss’ eller … och så vidare. Hur skulle det till exempel kännas att aldrig kunna röra sig någonstans i tillvaron utan att folk genast kände igen en och därför ständigt ha muren av berömmelse mellan sig och möjligheten att knyta mänskliga kontakter på lika villkor? För att inte tala om att, likt ett par av dem som nämns ovan, vara omgiven av livvakter dygnet runt? Och inte på ren ingivelse kunna ta ens en promenad?

Inte här för att bli älskad handlar om ett par vardagliga människors liv och det är en lågmäld film – i positivaste tänkbara bemärkelse. Här finns inga stora åthävor, här finns inget väldigt schabrakande av något slag, här finns, för vad det nu är värt, en medelålders man som är utmätningsman och en ung kvinna som är syokonsulent och ett förhållande som inte ens är filmstereotypt passionerat. Och jag tycker att det är mycket värt, i synnerhet när denna vardagliga berättelse framställs så gripande och trovärdigt. För den här berättelsen är inte märkvärdig. Det här är inte ens en märkvärdig film, för den har gjorts i otaliga varianter tidigare. Poängen med den är en annan – i Inte här för att bli älskad kan vi nästan alla identifiera oss, i alla fall på något plan, och den har, liksom så många före den, något högst väsentligt att säga oss om våra liv, i synnerhet om våra liv råkar tillhöra de där vardagliga och inte de storskaliga, artificiella berömmelseliven.

Patrick Chesnais grådystra tillvaro som utmätningsman är molande tristessfylld, men han lever vidare, dag för dag, utan att beklaga sig. I hans tillvaro finns inga utsikter, inga vyer, inget hopp. Och att framleva en sådan tillvaro är mer heroiskt än man för det mesta låtsas om, för det är den som lyckas stiga upp ur sängen varje dag och leva vidare i en tillvaro av det slaget som verkligen är värd den respekt som normalt tillkommer superrika plastmänniskor som Madonna.

Den unga Anne Consignys tillvaro är på ytan lyckligare, eftersom hon står i begrepp att gifta sig med sin älskade men, som det visar sig, självupptagne sambo. Så självupptagen att äktenskapsplanerna knakar i fogarna, självklart utan att sambon märker något. Han är för självupptagen.

Dessa båda människors livssituationer är förstås så vanliga att de skulle kunna betraktas som banala och därför ointressanta, och det även när deras liv löper samman och den förutsägbara, av osäkerhet fyllda kärleksrelationen blir ett faktum.

Men det här är inte banalt och definitivt inte ointressant bara för att det är vardagligt. Tvärtom. För det handlar om riktiga människor i en riktig tillvaro, i en tillvaro som de flesta av oss känner igen. Och deras problem är allmänmänskliga problem och deras relation är allmänmänsklig och det sätt den utvecklas på är allmänmänskligt och jag tror inte att det fanns någonting i den här filmen som jag inte kunde förutsäga.

Vilket inte spelade någon roll alls.

För det här är så väl och gripande gestaltat att det inte är intrigen i sig som är huvudsaken, utan hur väl den och huvudpersonerna speglar allas våra ofta lika förutsägbara liv.

Kör hårt,
Bellis

SPOILERS for Ocean’s 12 (not that you should care), and maybe Ocean’s 11, which is worth seeing, ahead.

Forced together by a very convenient plot device (i.e. do what the screenwriter says or you all die) which renders the ending of the last movie defunct (a common complaint in sequels), the same gang of crooks from Ocean’s 11 do some stuff to steal and make money. Yeah!

However this time they’re not after the money, unlike last time, when they were not after the money. Andy Garcia’s casino owner is replaced by a far more deadlier and noxious foe.

The Eurobag

Far too self-consciously “cute” and “witty” for its own good, this takes the essential formula of the first film and removes the drama and suspense. An example that particularly infuriated me:

A major part of the film involves Julia Roberts’ character Tess impersonating Julia Roberts. Then she meets Bruce Willis. Here’s a clip:

WHAT.

Steven Soderburgh even has the audacity to repeat a plot point from the first movie with Brad Pitt instead of George Clooney. They both chase ex-wives/ex-girlfriends, at the expense of the team, possibly putting them in danger. Except in the first film, it felt organic. The audience didn’t know about it until it was revealed to Matt Damon. Here, a clumsy prologue sequence spills all, and Brad Pitt spends the whole movie violating his own advice.

The problem is the audience knows too much and yet too little. Endless jumps in time and pointless trailing scenes don’t help, filling in character details or backstory that I don’t really care about or need to see. Again in Ocean’s 11 it was organic, and came out while they were planning the robbery (which was the plot of the film). Here it’s just a diversion.

The ticking clock plot device, designed to ramp up the tension in an inherently flat and dull story, doesn’t work. After setting up Andy Garcia as this incredible threat in the first film, he’s relegated to inciting incident duties. Once he’s given them time to give him his money back instead of killing them all as he threatened, he’s no longer bad-ass, and poses no threat at all.

In fact the only stakes in this movie is the shame of losing a stealing competition to a douchebag. Oh the shame! The big reveal – that the entire film we’ve been watching was just misdirection for the real theft, which is then shown only in flashback – is just a giant FU to the audience.

What? People pay to see this? That's funny to me!

Brad Pitt saves this movie. He is a very successful actor, somehow managing to maintain a lot of mainstream appeal while taking some really niche roles between the big fat pay-checks (like this one). He’s a great actor, no matter how many stupid Japanese coffee ads he’s done.

Another good point (I try to find at least a few) is the luscious cinematography. Each frame is beautifully composed and shot, to the point that I tuned out all the “plot” and wallowed in the visuals. More Amsterdam would have be nice – it’s one of my favourite cities.

Any good story-teller’s job is to disguise the form so theme and story can shine through. Completely the opposite is done in this movie, but I don’t mind. The story is so boring and the characters so vapid and untouchable that this is the only thing that can excite me.

Rating compared to original: The original felt fresh. It brought a new style and tone to the heist movie, and was one of those rare ensemble star-studded films that actually worked. Boy do the jokes age quickly here. The characters are annoying and outstay their welcome. There’s not even a clear heist that we can get behind. Time to ascribe an arbitrary number to it.

30% of original’s quality.

I’ve actually managed to watch three DVDs in the last couple of weeks – not bad going for me! – and some capsule reviews are in order.

10,000BC

Since the adverts for Roland Emmerich’s latest blockbuster 2012 are all over the place, I allowed myself to fall into the trap of watching his most recent previous film. 10,000BC is basically about a pre-historic tribe in the snowy frozen lands, who are raided by slave traders. The hero sets off to rescue his beloved from their clutches.

And, err, that’s it. Simple quest film from there. And quest films can be pretty successful – a large part of Fellowship of the Rings is nothing more than a quest story, after all. But that’s because Lord of the Rings had far more interesting things going on below the surface, and interesting well-developed characters that you cared for.

10,000BC has neither. There is no story, and the characters are non-existent. The dialogue is so bad it’ll make you long for it being done Apocalypto style (but leave out the subtitles) and the cast are interchangeable. Any modicum of interest in the plot (such as: who is the “God” figure? What was the hero’s father up to when he disappeared? What’s the significance of “the mark”?) are squelched and dismissed almost as if the film is embarrassed to even hint at being anything more than a brainless action and FX blockbuster.

Emmerich clearly has a major Ridley Scott crush, but he can’t be bothered to stick to the historial detail of a Gladiator or Kingdom of Heaven. So he tries to create a quasi-mythic world-before-time, something Tolkien-esque in setting up mythos for the modern times; only Tolkien was incredibly intelligent and detailed in how he did this, and Emmerich doesn’t have a clue. So the film falls between two stools – too absurd for a historical epic, and too bland and realistic for a fantasy film like LOTR/Narnia. It’s like the historical epics that came at the tail end of the 60s after the fad had died – and which helped to kill it off completely.

If the film has any saving grace, it’s that it looks good: Emmerich really shoots the scenes quite beautifully and the cinematography at times almost bears comparison with Ridley’s. And the CGI effects are really quite excellent and don’t look nearly as plastic and fake as a lot of the current CGI crop tend to.

That just about lifts it out of one-star territory, but really it’s a close shave.

Rating: a barely tolerable * and a half stars out of 5

Star Trek – The Motion Picture

Or “the slow motion picture” as it’s been dubbed. I was feeling poorly when I watched this, and for me this film is rather like comfort food – chicken soup or crumble and custard. Basically it was the first film for the Star Trek franchise in 1979, ten years after the original series’ cancellation: the crew are reassembled to intercept a massive alien vessel heading to Earth. Only they can stop it, naturally.

The film makes the mistake of being overly reverential towards its source, with everything treated with solemn pretentiousness. Considering that the basis of the TV series was to be light, fun and action-orientated, this sudden re-purposing of it as some kind of grand po-faced epic along the lines of 2001 – A Space Odyssey couldn’t have been less appropriate. Fans (Trekkers) loved it purely because it brought the old crew back together again, but everyone else was left yearning for the next Star Wars film instead; fortunately the producers learned from this misstep and the next film was The Wrath of Khan which did a far better job of reviving the TV series’ spirit and joie de vivre.

Personally I’ve always really liked the first film too: it helps if you see it more like 2001 than the TV show. But there’s no doubt about how slow it is. The first half hour is full of sequences where four establishing shots are used when one would be almost too much. Considering that they’re meant to be racing the clock to stop an alien invader from reaching Earth, you’d think that some of that pace would have transferred to the film.

The FX get too much screen time, but at least they are very good effects – the journey through the alien vessel being comparable with the final sequences of 2001 and delivered by the top FX guys of the period. And the music (by the incomparable Jerry Goldsmith) is left to carry the film through long sequences of inactivity, and almost pulls it off. You’ll recognise the film’s main theme as the one that Star Trek – The Next Generation appropriated for use some years later, it’s that good.

The DVD I was watching was a new remastered version, and it looks wonderful – as good quality as any film just released in cinemas. Alas, they could only remaster the theatrical cut which means that many well-known sequences from TV and director’s edition versions are missing, which feels rather odd, but apparently these were never completed in high definition film and so can’t be remastered, which is a shame. Just occasionally the film looks as though someone’s gone overboard on the color rebalancing – the scenes on the Klingon bridge and on Vulcan look suspiciously neutral – but that’s a minor quibble to an overall excellent restoration.

The film’s faults are still there for all to see, but if you like the film then you’ll love the new version.

Rating: a well-restored *** out of 5.

Duplicity

This is essentially a con or heist film with a screwball romantic comedy plot involving Clive Owen and Julia Roberts as two spies collaborating (or competing?) in a plot to steal a company’s industrial secrets.

I’d expected this to be a light and fluffy film with little substance, but found I enjoyed it much more than that. Clearly influenced by the likes of Oceans 11 (or the TV series Hustle) this film puts a similar emphasis on style and fun over any serious substance. But if you liked the Ocean films of the classic double-crossing David Mamet puzzlers then there’s no reason why you won’t like this just as much.

This is a smart, stylish film with a fantastic visual sense to it – the title sequence punch-up between Paul Giamatti and Tom Wilkinson is especially stunning, and the writer-director Tony Gilroy is fond of the split screen technique we haven’t seen since the 60s. He’s also supplied his stars with some crackling dialogue reminiscent of the type that Grant and Hepburn used to snap back and forth, and while Owen and Roberts don’t have quite that class they do pretty well with it nonetheless.

If there’s a complaint, it’s that the film is just too complex to be fun: there are wheels within wheels within wheels just to get to the start of the enigma wrapped in a puzzle. No one could figure this one out until very late in the day, and you could well prove to be exasperated by the whole affair. The best con/heist films are the ones that look really simple – you’re sure you know what’s going on right until the moment the film pulls the rug out from under your feet and shows you how you were conned from the very start and nothing was as you assumed. But instead, this film takes pains to remind you at every opportunity by flashbacks and dialogue that no one has a clue who is doing what to whom or who can be trusted, and that can leave you feeling a bit tired and frustrated rather than entertained.

But if you let it slide past you, accept that you have no idea what’s going on, and just drink in the intelligent script and gorgeous locations, then there’s certainly a rewarding payoff at the end, with unexpectedly deep characters for such an initially frothy-seeming piece of fluff.

Rating: a generous **** out of 5.

Boa história, boa jogada da empresa que seria a vítima, bom final.