Addicted To Love

Andrea Merkx's 2004 cover of Robert Palmer's Addicted To Love.

The Shit

Hooper Place
Lying, cheating, stealing, seduction, betrayal, jealousy, greed, murder... it's just another day at Hooper Place.

Good-Bye Bret

Have you read this interview with Bret Easton Ellis. I don't even know where to start. Maybe with this or this or this.? Oh well Bret, I guess this is good-bye. Can womankind make some sort of pact so that he never gets laid again?

Also, I just realized the only one of his books that's ever been made into an actually good movie is American Psycho directed by Mary Harron.
As for his male directed movies : The Rules of Attraction was an okay fun college movie but The Informers and Less Than Zero were sad butcherings of the books. So what is he even talking about?

here is the full article
http://www.movieline.com/2010/05/bret-easton-ellis-on-american-psycho-christian-bale-and-his-problem-with-women-directors.php?page=all

What are your thoughts on women directors? After you saw Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank, you tweeted that you might have to reevaluate your preconceived notions about them.
I did. And after I saw [Floria Sigismondi’s] The Runaways, too.

Really?
I loved it.

I wish I’d loved it.
Well, I wasn’t looking forward to it. I avoided it, and then I was with some people and they said, “It starts soon at the Arclight. Let’s go.” So yeah, I do have to reevaluate that, but for the most part I’m not totally convinced, [except for] Andrea Arnold, Kathryn Bigelow, Sofia Coppola…

Not Mary Harron?
Mary Harron to a degree. There’s something about the medium of film itself that I think requires the male gaze.

What would that be?
We’re watching, and we’re aroused by looking, whereas I don’t think women respond that way to films, just because of how they’re built.

"Regardless of the business aspect of things, is there a reason that there isn’t a female Hitchcock or a female Scorsese or a female Spielberg?"

You don’t think they have an overt level of arousal?
[They have one] that’s not so stimulated by the visual. I think, to a degree, all the women I named aren’t particularly visual directors. You could argue that Lost in Translation is beautiful, but is that [cinematographer Lance Acord]? I don’t know. Regardless of the business aspect of things, is there a reason that there isn’t a female Hitchcock or a female Scorsese or a female Spielberg? I don’t know. I think it’s a medium that really is built for the male gaze and for a male sensibility. I mean, the best art is made under not an indifference to, but a neutrality [toward] the kind of emotionalism that I think can be a trap for women directors. But I have to get over it, you’re right, because so far this year, two of my favorite movies were made by women, Fish Tank and The Runaways. I’ve got to start rethinking that, although I have to say that a lot of the big studio movies I saw last year that were directed by women were far worse than the sh***y big-budget studio movies that were directed by men.

Which are we talking about?
I mean, do I want to say this on the record? Did you see The Proposal? Anyway, whatever.

The Best of Lindsay Bluth

The best of Lindsay Bluth in Season 1 of Arrested Development as played by Portia De Rossi.

Seafaring Lass

Jessica Watson has just become the youngest person to sail around the world solo and unassisted. The 16 year old started out last October and just finished today, May 15th, in Sydney, Australia.


VIDEO: Jessica's final night

The Color of Beauty

This short documentary was posted on Racialicious and follows the hopeful path of model Rene Thompson. Through following Rene the documentary manages to out some of the institutionalized racism of the fashion industry.

A lot of times with topics like fashion and models I generally feel like talking about exclusion can be kind of obvious - i mean in the way that it doesn't just suck for plus sized models it also sucks for the girls whose teeth aren't all capped or whose shoulders or hips are 1.5 inches too narrow or too broad. Basically exclusion is the name of the game and its unproductive to hold models as the goal for girls because, well, how productive can you be in a career plan that ends in your 20s.
However, I think that when you exclude women of color to the extent that we do these days it sets a firm and extremely messed up standard for what beauty is. And that standard of beauty is impressed upon the zillions of little girls who don't see anyone like them being desired. As they say in the documentary, designers are interested in black models if they look like white models who are dipped in chocolate.

According to a 2008 survey about models in New York fashion week: 6% are Black 6% are Asian 1% are Latina 87% are White

These are just a few selections of the rockin' babes who are managing to make it happen.




The thing that's so odd about these standards is that I believe they'll find many of us really desire some consistent variety. As I wrote about in my post on Kristen McMenamy, seeing someone who looked different and who I could identify with was a really big thing for me as a teen. I sort of feel the same when I see black models and older models and models of different sizes and anyone with unconventional faces. Its the whole reason that "real women" Dove Soap Ad campaign was working- women don't always want to buy stuff from small featured 15 year olds who seem like someone that was mean to you at summer camp. I believe as designers try to branch out to wider markets they are going to be forced to deal with what we as consumers want - as well as consumers in other countries. As one magazine editor in the film says "When you look at the emerging markets in the fashion industry, it’s China, Brazil, India. If we keep sending all white models down the runway, that isn’t going to speak to the consumers in those markets. And any designer who continues to do that runs the risk of being irrelevant. "

You should really go read the post and comments at Racialicious cause they're all pretty much PhDs on this stuff. I do have one thing though that I've wondered from watching this and the occasional America's Next Top Model episode. Race and class are so incredibly tied together in our culture and there is definitely a right and wrong way to present yourself as a model. Along with having to be "flawless" as many of the models and agents here note, it seems that black models also probably have to work harder to appear to be upper class- even if they actually are. And yet, the odd thing is that so many models are 14 year old village girls from Poland. In that case being poor and clueless is clearly valued higher in fashion -because they are white - its in fact framed as being fairly romantic to many people. However, being poor and clueless is pretty much a kiss of death for many models of color.

Last Note: Here is a breakdown of which NY show had how many models of color for Fall '09.

Wake Up And Get Real

Just wanted to draw y'alls attention to the new internet tv show Wake Up and Get Real. The show is BFFs Kelly Cutrone and Justine Bateman on split screen just shooting the shit with each other - its sort of an alternative to The View kinda thing. I like watching them hang out cause its genuine and feels like when you're hanging with your best friend and you're all like "I feel really strongly about this thing blah, blah, blah.....oh wait that's a good point, disregard everything I just said". Its nice to watch these two cool women getting along since so much of female talk shows dwells on conflict and the whole crap of "Can you believe Rosie O'Donnell said that mean thing to Elizabeth Hasselbeck". Oh and by the way I'm totally on Rosie's side.
But anyhow, so Kelly and Justine cover such important issues as headbanging, 90's club life at Limelight, finding a mouse in your apartment, and the wonderful Mothers Day Fairy -who is kinda like the tooth fairy but comes to the house of single moms and leaves their kids money so they can take their mom out for brunch.



As a side note finding this show was cool cause coincidentally I just watched the episode of Arrested Development when Jason Bateman thinks Justine Bateman is his long lost sister but it turns out she's a prostitute. That show is amazing.

AND I want to recommend this movie she was in in 1988. Its called Satisfaction and I believe its on instant play on Netflix.

SATISFACTION: Movie Trailer - Watch more top selected videos about: Movie_Trailers, Satisfaction, Deborah_Harry, Julia_Roberts, Justine_Bateman, Liam_Neeson, Scott_Coffey, Trini_Alvarado, Joan_Freeman

Daniel Dessario Eats Gold Wrapped Desert With Marina Abramovic

What will he do next? Release a never before heard track with 2Pac? Or perhaps start a Dalmation plantation? After he had the three way with Liz Lemon and an anime pillow I knew I had to give up predicting the next move.
In the below video the thinking woman's hottie James Franco learns some important lessons from performance artist Marina Abramovic. She's been really stirring shit up in NY lately. Here she dispenses such words of wisdom as "Studio is the trap" and "This is not food this is meditation". What a coincidence, I am currently meditating on some dark chocolate. Anyone remember that episode of Sex and the City where the show's metaphor plot line revolved around the Abramovic performance at Sean Kelly Gallery. Like isn't dating just like being trapped in a cube with a knife ladder as the only escape?
Anyhow, a million years ago in high school I was watching MTV cribs and they were touring this girl's place and she was dating James Franco at the time and had all these abstract paintings up that he'd done. So its nice that now that he's gone to UCLA, NYU, Columbia, and Yale he's getting back into his visual arts roots. I saw him outside my studio about a year ago and really wish I'd had the gumption to convince him to buy some paintings. Oh well here's some crazies! They should guest star as a couple on Cougar Town.

Today on Sick, Sad, World

You can now buy the Daria DVD box set!

Happy Mother's Day

HAPPY
MOTHER'S DAY
To My Awesome Mom!












And in celebration here are some of the highlights from last nights lady powered SNL.



This one is great for Mothers Day.


I really miss Molly Shannon. And I'm pretty much on board with everything she says in this skit. Who's up for cucumber face masks, a Demi Moorathon, and riding your bike on the carpet?


You can watch more here http://www.hulu.com/watch/147989/saturday-night-live-betty-white