Happy 39th Birthday Ewan McGregor!

Born March 31, 1971

"I'm just looking for that moment to drop my Jedi knickers and pull out my real light saber."

CHEEKY MONKEY!  This kind of playfulness is the reason Ewan will always, always have my heart.

Photo I Love

Mikhail Baryshnikov and Rob Besserer, Cumberland Island, Georgia, 1990 by Annie Leibovitz Gorgeous.

Children's Drawings Painted Realistically

[Source: buzzfeed.com]

Holy Versace Batman!

The Atelier Versace Spring 2010 Collection
Model: Kasia Struss

GORGEOUS!

[photos: versace.com]
[originally posted on projectrungay.blogspot.com]

If Wes Anderson Directed Spider-Man

Between Two Ferns with Ben Stiller

Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis: Ben Stiller from Between Two Ferns

Perfectly uncomfortable comedy. Love it.

Vintage Irish Book Covers

I know. I should have linked to this on St. Patrick's Day, right? Oh well.  Click on the link below to see samples of these great book covers.

http://www.hitone.ie/blog/

Happy 80th Birthday Steve McQueen!

Born March 24, 1930

Died November 7, 1980

"There's something about my shaggy-dog eyes that makes people think I'm good."

Love him.

Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland - Not exactly a review.

This film left me with a profound feeling of "meh."  Therefore, I'm not going to do a proper review.  I'm going to bullet point this beyotch.

Things I liked:

• The Cheshire Cat - Indeed, this was my favorite part of the film.  Stephen Fry's voice work was perfectly delicious and the smokey, now he's here, now he's gone animation was delightful.
• Crispin Glover - I adore this man and am just happy to see him get some work.  I didn't love the awkward stretching effect they used on his character, but I liked him.
• Helena Bonham-Carter as the Red Queen - She was fun, although as my friend Martyn pointed out, her characterization borrowed a lot from Miranda Richardson in Blackadder.

And we've come to the end of the things I liked.  Sad, isn't it?

Things I didn't like:

• Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter - I'm just sick of him and his silly, lispy, whackadoo characterizations. I just didn't get his Mad Hatter at all.  I think he and Burton need to take a break from one another.  It's like they aren't GOOD for one another anymore.
• The Wizard of Ozness - Am I the only one who felt they ripped off The Wizard of Oz?  First there were people in Alice's real life that were obviously supposed to mirror folks in Wonderland, "and you were there, and you, and you!" Secondly, they totally turned the Mad Hatter into Alice's Scarecrow, "Mad Hatter I'll miss you most of all!" Blurgh.
• Alice - Did that actress snooze her way through that role?  She was so boring.  I felt no sense of urgency in the character. 
• Anne Hathaway's Hands - PUT YOUR ARMS DOWN! I get what she was trying to do - kind of satirically making fun of Disney princesses, but honestly? Amy Adams already did it and much better in Enchanted.
• The battle scene - There were several times during this film where I nearly dozed off, but shouldn't battles be more exciting? If you feel it necessary to have a battle in Wonderland in the first place.  I really hated that entire plotline, which was pretty much the entire movie, so yeah. 

Art I Love

Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose by John Singer Sargent, 1886

Beautifully magical.

John Lennon Speaks - "I Met The Walrus" Short Film

This short film is incredible.

Here is the description from youtube:
"In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan snuck into John Lennon's hotel room in Toronto and convinced him to do an interview. 38 years later, Levitan, director Josh Raskin and illustrators James Braithwaite and Alex Kurina have collaborated to create an animated short film using the original interview recording as the soundtrack. A spellbinding vessel for Lennon's boundless wit and timeless message, I Met the Walrus was nominated for the 2008 Academy Award for Animated Short and won the 2009 Emmy for 'New Approaches' (making it the first film to win an Emmy on behalf of the internet)."

I love when the kid says he's not too keen on George Harrison.

Happy 52nd Birthday Gary Oldman!

Born March 21, 1958

"I don`t think Hollywood knows what to do with me. I would imagine that when it comes to romantic comedies, my name would be pretty low down on the list."

Isn't that too bad?  I would love to see Gary Oldman in a romantic comedy.  Doesn't Hollywood understand that he can play ANYTHING?

Kathy Griffin and Johnny Weir

I love Kathy Griffin and I love Johnny Weir and in this video, an extra from Kathy's My Life on the D-List Season 2, you can watch Johnny give her a skating lesson.

CLICK HERE

The Last Station - My Review

I had never even heard of The Last Station until Oscar nominations came out and even then, I didn't know what the film was about. It was only after I started seeing the clips during various awards ceremonies that I discovered it was about writer Leo Tolstoy. Having read Anna Karenina about a year and a half ago, I was very interested to see this film.

The film centers on Valentin Bulgakov (James McAvoy), a young Tolstoyan, who is handpicked by Vladimir Chertkov (Paul Giamatti), Tolstoy's closest friend and the overseer of his legacy, to act as private secretary to Leo Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer) himself. In truth, Chertkov wants Valentin to keep tabs on Tolstoy's wife Sofya Tolstaya (Helen Mirren).  Nearing the end of his life there is a battle raging for control of Tolstoy's literary legacy.  Chertkov wants it to be willed to Russia and its people, while Sofya wants it to remain with the family to ensure future financial stability.  Poor Valentin is just eager to work on a daily basis with the man who inspired his way of living, but instead he gets drawn into the household drama and doesn't know which way his allegiance should lie.

Christopher Plummer and Helen Mirren were both nominated for Oscars for their roles as the Tolstoys and it is well deserved.  They give powerful performances, full of drama, romance, heartbreak, wistfulness, vulnerability, and mischief - perfectly matched, neither one outshines the other.  Next to those incredible actors, James McAvoy is once again overlooked by the people who give out the awards despite the fact that he gives a wonderfully realized and touching performance as the naive, earnest secretary, seemingly in over his head.

Aside from the struggle over Tolstoy's literary legacy, this film is really about love.  The well worn love between a man and wife who have been together for decades, the new love blooming between two young people who share ideals, the question of whether love can be too powerful, too all consuming for one's own good?   

I am woefully ignorant of Russian history and although I have read Anna Karenina, it was not an easy read, and I still don't know as much about Tolstoy as I would like.  But even with my small familiarity, I was pleased to recognize some things in the film that were little nods to his work.  For example, Sofya tells Valentin that Tolstoy wrote her a letter before they were married that recounted all his past indiscretions, just as Levin made Kitty read his diarires before they were married in Anna Karenina.  I also know that at the time of his death Tolstoy was the most famous author in the world and this is shown in the film by the "paparazzi" (I used quotes for this word since this film takes place in 1910, at least 50 years before "paparazzi" came to be a used term) camped outside his family estate.  He and his family can't go out of doors without being photographed or pestered for a quote for the newspapers.  It's a rather fun little side story in this many layered film.

According to the official website, The Last Station was filmed mainly in Germany and it's stunningly beautiful. There are a lot of shots outdoors and the forests and fields and ponds are all captured in a golden/green light that shimmers with a heaviness that can almost be felt on your skin.  There was one outdoors scene in particular between Plummer and McAvoy that felt almost suffocating in its headiness and the overwhelming number of insects flying around their heads.  The only thing I could think about as I watched it was it must have been a horrid shooting day.

Apparently this film is based on a novel by the same name by Jay Parini. It's a mix of fact and fiction and is inspired by the diaries kept by several members of the Tolstoy household.  I'm now eager to read it.

Honest Movie Posters - Oscars 2010

[Images: colleghumor.com]

7 Most Mind-Blowing She-Daredevils in History

This article is so cool.

7 Most Mind-Blowing She-Daredevils in History

Could Zooey Deschanel BE any cuter??

I'm so excited for the new She & Him album!

Art I Love

Spring by Lawrence Alma-Tadema, 1894

Fitting, no? The weather right now is GORGEOUS.

I have lost the ability to read.

I’m finding myself stuck in a real reading rut. I can’t for the life of me finish a book! Since December I’ve started half a dozen titles, sometimes getting as far as halfway through, only to lose interest and set it aside. This is despite the fact that I may actually have been enjoying the book while I was reading it! What is this? Has anyone else ever had this problem? How do I get out of it?

I was on goodreads.com and looked at my “read in 2010” shelf and it is EMPTY. This is outrageous!  I’ve always been a voracious reader with set reading habits. I carried a book with me at all times and would read on my lunch break at work, while waiting in any kind of office or line. I would read every night for at least a half hour before bed. But lately those habits have fallen away. I haven’t carried a book with me for months.

My iPhone is partly to blame. Who needs to kill time with a book when there’s an iPhone with a million time killing apps on it calling out for your itchy fingers to play with it?  Although, truthfully I have a bunch of books on my iPhone and I don't read those either.

At night, I find myself sucked into reality television and silly sitcoms.  Things that I don't have to think too hard about: Project Runway, Shear Genius, Kell on Earth, Modern Family, The Office, The Big Bang Theory.  I watch this mindless television and don't even think about picking up a book.

I have a shelf full of books waiting to be read but no desire to pick them up.  Am I broken?  Can I be fixed? Help!

RIP Corey Haim

I found myself more saddened than I expected myself to be over the tragic death of Corey Haim. My eleven and twelve year old self would beg my mom to buy me every teeny bopper magazine from Bop to Tiger Beat every time I accompanied her to the grocery store and I would lovingly clip the photos of my current celebrity crushes and paste them to my bedroom walls. Corey Haim was of course one of these crushes along with Chad Allen (I didn't know he was gay, I swear!), Kirk Cameron (I didn't know he was a religious nut, I swear!), and, the ultimate hearthrob of my younger days, River Phoenix (thinking of his untimely death still breaks my heart). I must have watched Lucas, License to Drive, The Lost Boys, and Dream a Little Dream dozens and dozens of times in order to bask in the boyish charm of Corey Haim with his lopsided grin, spiky hair, and squeaky voice. Of those films Lucas holds up the best. It is still a remarkably touching story of a geeky boy who never quite fits in until his showy ploy to impress the girl of his dreams grabs the attention of everyone around him with his bravery in the face of his stupidity. I watched this film just a few months ago when I came across it on cable and the final scene where Lucas finds the letterman jacket in his locker and all the kids applaud him still makes me tear up a little. From now on when I watch this film, and I have no doubt that I will watch it again, it will be with an entirely new level of sadness in realizing that all the promise Corey showed with this role was never realized and now that he is gone, never will be.

Rest in peace, Corey.

Happy 88th Birthday Jack Kerouac!

Born March 12, 1922

Died October 21, 1969

"Avoid the world, it's just a lot of dust and drag and means nothing in the end."

[photo: Corbis]

Alexander McQueen's Final Collection

Alexander McQueen's Fall 2010 Collection - sadly, his final collection - was shown very quietly in Paris this week.  Looking at these incredibly beautiful pieces, it just reinforces what a loss the fashion world has suffered.

[photos: catwalking.com]