Archive for the ‘TV & POP CULTURE’ Category

A lot of you have been telling me that you miss my celebrity snark, and/or my Real Housewives recaps. (And some others have told me that they don’t watch the RH of anything and that the recaps drag down the blog.) I didn’t purposely stop writing the recaps of the Real Housewives franchise, I was just so disenchanted with it after the suicide that I thought I’d be better off not  touching it.

Sunday is kind of dead blogging day, so maybe I’ll use this  day to discuss little bits of pop culture that interest me? What do you think?

First up, La Lohan’s “comeback” on SNL last night.

Here are my thoughts: I just can’t get over what she did to her face. It’s ravaged. Can you have a comeback if you look SO SO terrible? Its obvious that she doesn’t listen to anyone because if she did, she would go right back to her red hair. In almost every skit they had her in red wigs and she looked noticeably better. The “new old Lindsay Lohan” should have had red hair.

As for her performance, it was spotty. There were moments where her old Lindsayness shined through, gravely voice, cute personality. BUT she read from cue cards and flubbed some lines… which wasn’t the main problem, it was that she was treated with kid gloves. Not in that they didn’t poke fun at her checkered past, in that the SNL cast did all the heavy comedic lifting. She wasn’t in that many skits and when she was in them, she didn’t have that many lines.

So, do I think she can have a comeback? Yea maybe. But in what role? She can’t play someone under 30 with her face looking like a bloated ball of injectables, although her body looked great through out. Unless she took a role like Angelina Jolie in Gia, or Anne Hatheway in Rachel Gettting Married… All I know is she definitely cannot play a cute kid anymore. I’d be interested in seeing her in some serious roles.

I usually skip Lindsay articles and I kind of wrote her off in my head as a lost cause, but last night made me want to route for her again even though it was somewhat sad, and so maybe her mission was accomplished?

Anyway, in closing, the best skit of the night, BY FAR, at least to me, The Real Housewives of Disney:

I actually had real out loud guffaws from this skit.

What did you think of her performance?

 

Let me preface by saying, I kind of think everyone here looks good. No one dress (except for Michelle Williams) really blew me away, but none were AWFUL. All were safe. So it’s not so much a WORST dressed list, but its a best and not so best dressed list. No one was really truly horrible, right?

I decided to color code it for easier comprehension.

THE REDs:

First, and all-time winner of the night:

Michelle Williams, Louis Vuitton. AMAZING!!!!!!!!! I’m told this dress is really coral, but whatever, it looks red and  it’s amazing!

She wins the best of the night for me, by far. The other two red dresses were something of a disappointment. They just didn’t have the wow factor – sex appeal + youth + elegance that Michelle’s dress had. They weren’t bad, but they pale in comparison to her stunner.

Runner up reds:

Emma Stone in Giambattista Valli.

Natalie Portman in vintage Dior.

 The Nudes:

Now this always seems like a good idea, and indeed, I sometimes think I should wear nude too… but I feel like the nudes are VERY hard to pull off. It’s got to be perfect in every way to work. And not just a good dress, GOOD ON YOU.

I liked Kristin Wiig in her dress the best. It fit her perfectly and played well with her brown hair, which was also styled nicely. Cameron Diaz, like I said earlier, its surely not terrible, but its just ok, I don’t like it with the blond hair, especially with that cut. But she may win for best jewels! Did you see that necklace on TV? AMAZING. And last, J LO. When I go shopping look at a dress and think “That’s so J Lo” this is what I mean by that. Too tight, too shiny, too many holes.

The WHITES:

All good? Could it be? Did you like Gwyneth’s cape crusader Tom Ford look? She took that thing off to present, but still… Superhero Gwyneth? Dare I say that I LOVE it? Giuliana- I don’t love the slick hair, but otherwise, she looks glamourous and happy… not what I would ever wear, but SHE looks good.

Mila Jovovich in Elli Saab, Octavia Spencer, and Shailene Woodley in Valentino Couture. She told someone she was obsessed with this dress. Good for her. Am I crazy that I like it? A lot of other people didn’t… I think maybe I would wear something like that.

The purple: 

With the exception of Maya Rudolph(far left), I hate them all. It brings me back to Good purple, bad purple. 

THE BLACKS:

I like a good black dress. Always have…. I think all the women look great. Tina Fey looks simple and chic, and I feel like this is what she has been trying for for years and only just nailed it. No? Angelina looks beautiful, but she loses points for that leg sticking out of her slit. She shouldn’t have to try so hard for us to notice it. The whole point of the dress is to look effortless! Rose Byrne would have been one of the best dressed of the night if it weren’t for those platforms. She should have gone with the pointy toe, clear sided Louboutin’s that I can’t find anywhere.  Anna Faris- I always want to wear long sleeve dresses, and my mom always tells me it’s too old for me. I have to say, this kind of makes me see what she is talking about. Anna is around 30 years old but from a distance it could be Ellen Barkin (who’s also beautiful!). Sandra Bullock is wearing whats probably one of my least favorite dresses EVER. EVER!!!!!! This is why I think Marchesa is awful, over embellished crap. (Although Stacy Keibler looked pretty good in her gold Marchesa number, I really love how she looked, but not the dress.)

THE GREENs:

Maria Menounos. Viola Davis in Vera Wang. Berenice Bejo in Elli Saab. 

Maria you look FREAKING AMAZING. I love that dress. I would wear that dress. My runner up for the night!  Viola, the color is amazing, the actual dress has flaws, but you look great. Bernice, this gown is a wash out.

The Golds:

Stacy Keebler scores points because she looks like an actual Oscar, but like I said earlier, Marchesa- you just dont do it for me. Jessica Chastain’s embroidered Alexander McQueen is just ok to me. I think I would love it on someone older… and Meryl… she looks glowing and happy. I can’t even say if I like the dress or not, because separate from her I wouldn’t like it, but on her, I think I do.

So thats that… The show was kind of boring wasn’t it? I read an article this weekend describing the Oscars “as an absurd spectacle of remarkably successful people congratulating themselves for work that barely nudges at the borders of meaningful human achievement.”

What did you think?

 

 

( If you want, scroll down to the bottom of the post- click play so you can listen to the music while you read.)

In my mind, Lana Del Rey should be starring in this campaign, or at least wearing these clothes daily.

Lana Del Ray, who rose to fame on Youtube with her iMovie-made vintage infused home videos, subject of mass ridicule for her performance on SNL, is absolutely fascinating. She is one part manufactured Bridget Bardot, one part “Gangsta Nancy Sinatra” and then she is an also a Cat Power wannabe meets modern day Lolita and a wounded Elaine from The Graduate… all at once. Her face, with its fake lips, is just so interesting. I think this is the only time I’ve ever liked fake lips. I almost want to call her a sad indie Katy Perry, if you know what I mean… Retro inspired, almost caricature like, and while one is super saccharine California Girl, the other is Hollywood Sadcore.

And I think she’s going to be the next biggest thing in fashion. What I like about her and her music, is that you don’t have to be technically masterful at music to move people. And intrigue.

Enter Prada SS 2012. Its Go Greece Lightening retro hot rod heaven… Why does it feel like Prada’s campaigns just DESTROY all other campaigns ever?Steven Meisel, that’s why.

But I think she needs to star in them, these models seem so prim compared to the sadcore faces she could make with those lips. Her whole persona is just so textured… even if it is fake. (Its 2012, of course, she rose to fame on the internet.)

 

(OH  MY LORD! Those green pump/mules. The white sling backs. HOLY AWESOME.  The floral ankle bracelets!!!! Yowsa.)

 

Look, someone already mocked up a fake Prada campaign starring Lana:

 

 

And its good. Isn’t it?

I have to tell you, I’ve also been digging the album, and the videos:

 

Love her or hate her?

 

OK, So I decided when Russell Armstrong hung himself that I wasn’t going to talk about this crap anymore.

It was too dark, too sad and heaven forbid that poor Kennedy googles her dad one day and comes across this blog… But then Taylor herself went on a speaking tour across the country and published every punch, hit and text message all in the name of helping others.

Last night 3 very important things happened:

1. The women planned a Coup De Lisa.

2. Adrienne revealed that she is not above the fray and is indeed quite petty and sensitive.

3. Taylor acknowledged her abuse, again, but finally Camille was able to express herself on the matter.

Now here’s what I think about it all:

The women went into reunion revved up and ready to go. In addition to having visited Dr. Paul Nasif for a bit of pre-show tweaking, they all seem to have made a stop to the pharmacy to refill their bitch prescriptions.

Unlike in former years, they hit the ground running on the cattiness and first in line for the fire was Lisa. Sure, she is a tad harsh sometimes, and sure she doesn’t take shit and says it like it is, but MALOOF HOOF? Is THAT worth making yourself look like an ass on TV, Adrienne? You have an unbesmirched record until now! And Im sorry Adrienne, but Lisa is allowed to make a party somewhere other than your hotel. You can handle it. You don’t ONLY eat at Villa Blanca do you?

And Kyle’s criticisms of Lisa are unfounded too. “Its like playing chess with bobby fisher”…. Kyle you DO love attention, and the point of these shows is to stir drama. The worst she said about you after you did that twirly hair thing and SPLITS at her daughters engagement party is that you love attention? YOU SHOULD BE THANKFUL! She could have talked about how you make every single thing about you, you cry at the drop of the hat, YOU single handedly ruined your husbands birthday by CAUSING the drama with kim and then crying about it… blah blah blah… its the same story every single week. And speaking of weak- you surround yourself with weak people because it makes you feel strong. Admit it. The only way you tolerate Taylor, is that she makes you feel good about yourself. And as for Lisa “praying on the weak” I wouldn’t call it praying, I call it not taking crap.

And now: On to Taylor, the reason I stopped writing about this show. Taylor makes me hate myself. She makes me angry at my own mind. Ya see, whatever she is selling, Im just not buying. I am not saying everything she is saying is a lie, but SOMETHING is, and I just can’t figure out what. I never want to be the person that says that a woman claiming domestic abuse is a liar. I just don’t want to be that girl. I actually do think he probably hit her.  But there is backstory here. Taylor and Russell had a sordid past, in which they are both implicated as criminals. Aside from numerous name changes (Who changes their legal name MORE than once? I could see doing it once…but more than that?!? Shady.) and originally describing her relationship with Russell as a “business agreement”, there have been many stories in the press about how she played the roll as “hot wife” to his “rich businessman” and helpd secure  investments around Hollywood…they were both involved in defrauding people.

Whatever it is, I think, like Camille, that Bravo was completely wrong. They should NOT have aired this season. Unlike Taylor and Adrienne who think that the show saved Taylor from a murder/suicide, I think perhaps Russell might still be alive today if it weren’t for all the public scrutiny. I mean who knows… What I do know is that a public shaming of a dead man is just too much. The man has children and his name, for all eternity has been dragged through the mud, then crapped on, then tarred and feathered and then left out to dry in the public square.

I just don’t think its right, for the sake of the children. He is not even around to defend himself.

The thing is: I just don’t like Taylor. Everything she does seems contrived to help her get the most possible attention. She does things like bringing her therapist, Dr. Inappropriate, to someone else’s party so that she could have a sit down with her friends about her problems?!? ITS SOMEONE ELSES PARTY! Lets not even get into last season’s stealing of the thunder at Kennedy’s party (who is named Kennedy Caroline Armstrong btw. Creeps!). How bout how she BROUGHT Kennedy to the suicide discussion party at Kyle’s house. WHA? Am I missing something. Even if she had no one to leave her with and HAD to bring her, couldn’t they have edited kennedy out? You know they make housewives “re-enter” scenes and such…  It was just too pitiful and sad. Or how about how she said she was going to have joint custody with Russell over Kennedy. Am I the only one who WOULD NOT leave my child with an abusive and violent man? SOMETHING is just not adding up with her. I don’t know what, but its something.

Seeing her on screen makes me uncomfortable. The combination of victim + attention whore makes me very very uneasy.

But again, how SHOULD a situation like this be handled gracefully? HOW? You are on TV and your husband is abusing you? What are you supposed to do? I just don’t know. I really don’t. (Aside from not going on TV in the first place.)

But everything she has done since his death has made my stomach turn.

So thats it…. thats my strong opinion. This is not appropriate TV for our amusement. I really wish Taylor health and happiness in life, and I hope she can grow to a place where she doesn’t fall into anymore abusive relationships. Its a very sad life, and I hope she can recover.

I just can’t WAIT for Brandi to come on next week and tell it like it is. Good lord, I love that woman!

What did you guys think? I know my mom loves Taylor and feels so bad for her, so Im sure some of you do too…

 

Now, when Bravo inexplicably took away Top Design from us, that small portion of the population that is both obsessed with design and crappy television, we wept a little inside and made do with Design Star and Real Housewives. But when Bravo announced this new MILLION DOLLAR DECORATOR show we did a little YIPPEEE inside!!!!

(Speaking of those housewives and all the Bravo Shows, I figured out a part of why I like them so much, and what makes them so ridiculous… I even managed to garner out a little lesson for us all to learn from them. These shows seem so ridiculous BECAUSE everyone is so important in their own mind. MAYBE they REALLY ARE important in the little society within which they live, but once its taken out of context and put on TV for us all to see, it seems like they are narcissistic egomaniacs even though that attitude may be founded in the reality of how people treat them. SO- No matter how important you think you are in your own little world, never lose sight of the fact that to the world at large, even being Kelsey Grammer’s ex-wife or the aunt of Paris Hilton doesnt quite mean what you think it means. I think this is what made Bethany the stand out star and so appealing- she knows this is all a joke and she managed to not take herself to seriously and to use it to her advantage in business, not just in an entitled “Im on TV” way.)

And that brings me to these decorators…. See the thing is, in their own world and their own minds, they are all REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT. It’s not fake, they really are important people in the world of design. And really talented too.

But as they all should be aware- this type of egomania does not go over well with a national audience.

Dont say shit like: I dont get out of bed for less than 1 million dollars. Dont go bragging about your CELEBRITY CLIENTS every other sentence Martyn with a Y.(Dude dropped more names than Courtney Love in this interview for The Fix!) And when your client is getting divorced, dont say- “OH NO! You cant sell MY HOUSE! Well, hey, I thought you were going to tell me something really bad happened- like, you lost all your money… hahaha!”

Since this is Bravo, I dont know how much of this is real and how much of this is craptastically edited play acting. Did anyone ever study Sartre in college? I was a philosophy major, and the entire Million Dollar Decorator episode reminded me very much of Sartre’s concept of “Bad Faith”  and his example of the cafe waiter:

Sartre cites a café waiter, whose movements and conversation are a little too “waiter-esque”. His voice oozes with an eagerness to please; he carries food rigidly and ostentatiously. His exaggerated behaviour illustrates that he is play acting as a waiter, as an object in the world: an automaton whose essence is to be a waiter. But that he is obviously acting belies that he is aware that he is not (merely) a waiter, but is rather consciously deceiving himself.

All these decorators seem to be playing the role of decorator on a tv series. Like Kathy Ireland’s entire interaction with her sons: “Im the cool mom that doesnt care about the fact that Im having friends over and I havent showered and my adorable sons are horsing around, please dont drown each other, Im so carefree, I love sex…” shtick. Im not even saying anything bad about her, its the EYE of the camera “The LOOK” according to Sartre- which is the presence of another human being that snatches your subjectivity away and makes you see yourself from their perspective- that is making them all act this way.

He gives this example:

The mere possible presence of another person causes one to look at him/herself as an object, and see his/her world as it appears to the other. This is not done from a specific location outside oneself, it is non-positional. This is a recognition of the subjectivity in others.

This transformation is most clear when one sees a mannequin that one confuses for a real person for a moment.

• While they are believing it is a person, their world is transformed, and everything exists as an object that partially escapes them. During this time the world comes on to you differently, and you can no longer have a total subjectivity. The world is now his world, a foreign world that no longer comes from you, but from him. The other person is a “threat to the order and arrangement of your whole world…Your world is suddenly haunted by the Other’s values, over which you have no control.”

• When they realise it is a mannequin, and is not subjective, the world seems to transfer back, and they are again in the center of a universe.

This is back to the pre-reflective mode of being, it is “the eye of the camera that is always present but is never seen”. The person is occupied, and too busy for self-reflection.

This process is continual, unavoidable and ineluctable. Subjectivity is competitive. This explains why it can be difficult to look someone in the eye.

Obviously this is true for all reality TV shows. And most of life in general. but I guess the more experience you have in front of the camera the more easily you are able to appear like your normal self?

In general, I think all the decorators behaved the way an older sibling behaves to the younger one when a friend comes over to play: extra mean in order to seem cool. Because of “The Look” of the camera, they exaggerated their actions, words and behaviors to behave like what they think a supremely talented decorator should do, like the example of the waiter.

And my last point on this show… if you are going to name drop every other line and come off like a sniveling asshole decorator that makes people shudder from the D word and buy stuff at Ikea- THEN PLEASE MAKE SURE TO MAKE SHARON OSBORNE A ROOM THAT LOOKS LESS LIKE A Z GALLERIE CATALOG!

Oh and also, dont use the word DELICIOUS to describe things that arent food… or babies. Thats all folks.

(And if you want a real recap of this show go HERE. I couldnt have done a better job if I tried. So I didnt.)

PS. I knew it was all down hill when MartYn spent $30K on a Beatles poster that looked like the one I bought from Bleeker Bob’s freshman year of college.