flux de mots

[Click pic to enlarge] This one is Lisa Cant in an old(ish?) Vogue UK shoot. (Possibly December of last year?) Points off for the very literal Playboy Bunny interpretation, but points reawarded for lots of very literal bunnies.

I have to admit, this version of the poster is better, but that one has Serena & Nate (boring) and this one has my faves.

Unexpectedly good marketing from the CW, huh? Although slightly less funny when I realized this was part of the “narrated by a blog” concept and not just how to get through to Gossip Girl fans.

Also in TV news: I’ve been watching 1st season Ally McBeal the last couple of days (…) and Ricky from My So-Called guest stars as a transgender troubled teenager. Aspiring fashion designer and hooker turned aspiring fashion designer and secretary. It seemed weird, like different 90s entities existed together in a real world where things intersected and people could cross from one 90s show to the other. Also, Ally McBeal is no So-called Life. Terrible fucking show.

Update: Ricky’s character just got murdered by an angry john. Ally is making a sad face.

Obama doodle by Larry Roibal via Drawn!

Larry Roibal’s blog has a ton of doodled ‘news on the news’ and the ones of Obama on top of his race speech & responses to his race speech (the one shown here) seem especially perfect.

I keep getting the feeling that if I’d better start avoiding Obama-inspirational or the fake is going to outweigh the substance to an unacceptable extent. But then again, I keep seeing more fantastic stuff like this, so maybe I’m worrying for nothing. Also, this is a doodle, and even when my brain is maxed out on speechifying, doodles always resonate.

[via Mollygood]

It’s sort of surprising that I hadn’t seen Charade before this weekend, given all the Audrey Hepburn & Cary Grant & Americanized Paris it contains. Anyway, I’m glad I’ve seen it now because it was hilariously entertaining.

Not to be cutesy, but: A charade on so many levels

1. Okay, obvs the faux-Hitchcock style. I mean, it has nothing on (good) Hitchcock, but the way it primps the style into something much sweeter and more cunningly packaged is a good time. I mean, I am a sucker for manufactured gloss.
2. The Audrey-Cary couple. Riiight. Yes, agewise, they are decades apart. Cary Grant supposedly protested an earlier plot which had him pursuing Audrey Hepburn’s character more aggressively, in favor of this story where Audrey badgers and flirts as the very-gray Grant rightly protests the age-inappropriate romancing.
3. Yeah, and beyond the acknowledged age issue, Cary Grant is also gay. I have not seen gayer straight ever. That scene where he’s showering in his suit and talking in that voice and prancing around so adorably. Even Cary Grant usually plays straight more convincingly than this–perhaps, at this point in his career he was getting tired of the closet?
4. Okay, and WTF with the whole Audrey Hepburn “eating a lot” character quirk. First of all the anorexia is sort of showing in the face by this point in her career and it’s kind of tragic the way they play for giggles. But, how could you not giggle when she proclaims to her elderly gay gentleman-friend: “I’m staaaaarved,” while her twiglike wrists protrude adorably from one of her many brightly colored Givenchy coats?

Anyway, I would go on, if I was in a mindset for making lists that make sense, but I’m really not. Suffice it to say, each level of ridiculosity just made it better. Quick Cute list: Audrey ripping the filters out of the cigarettes (which she’s chain-smoking above the huge meal that she order because she was “staaarved” and which remains as untouched as every other food item that comes near her) because “it’s like drinking coffee through a veil.” Or when Audrey holds a bottle up to Cary and asks him if he can tell by the scent if it’s heroin. He delicately tastes a bit and replies that it is “peppermint-flavored heroin.” Aww. Oh, and Audrey’s clothes, of course. She may have had trouble eating, but she made Givenchy look impeccable.

Natalia Bunny, shot by Mario Testino for “To Russia with Love” from Vogue UK

Or Yale, anyway. Obviously I’m massively intrigued by what The Sartorialist thinks college girls should be wearing but this is the only female outfit posted at the mo’….and I’m…not that psyched.

Hopefully there’ll be more. That or I can stop being secretly bitterly jealous of ivy leaguers.

Whoa. Check out the project Exactitudes. Photographer Ari Versluis and stylist Ellie Uyttenbroek have been documenting “fashion tribes” all over the world since 1994. The scan at left is via stylebubble from the upcoming take on London street style.

On the one hand it’s all very “fuck, individuality doesn’t exist anywhere?” but on the other hand it’s sort of ridiculous. Like, are we just supposed to spend all our time making sure we look as different as possible? Even within these girls, I see a ‘uuuge variety in scarf print, and really, how much more individuality must be demonstrated to satisfy all the fucking idiots who have been brainwashed into telling us we’re all brainwashed.

Or, that’s the explanation I gave myself when I clicked through to the Exactitudes link from stylebubble–click it!!–because mostly I just thought it looked cool, but I will admit to shuddering with fear. Or cold, because it’s kind of cold in my room and I just drank 1.5 liters of very cold water because it was in my refrigerator and I’m on this kick where I’m trying to drink as much water as possible (AMWAP) in order to become a purer person.

Due out in May along with two others from Criterion in ‘The Delirious Fictions of William Klein. Finally.

I wonder if the library will buy it if I write it in the suggestions book. I’ve decided it makes a lot of economic sense to watch every Criterion film freely available to me while I’m in school. Just ‘cuz.

Is it wrong that I feel much better about loving this movie now that Criterion is releasing it? Like, ohhh, I was right! (Yes.) What about the fact that it also makes me sad that it makes one of my favorite movies ‘less unique’? (Yes.)

Update: Okay, so these are being released as ‘Eclipse Series 9′ and according to Criterion:

“Eclipse is a selection of lost, forgotten, or overshadowed classics in simple, affordable editions. Each series is a brief cinematheque retrospective for the adventurous home viewer. Once a month, Eclipse will present a set of these films, usually from three to five titles, focusing on a particular director or theme. Our goal is to make available to the public many important works that until now have been impossible to see outside of the theatrical revival-house circuit. These range from some of the most sought-after titles from the world’s greatest filmmakers to eye-opening discoveries from around the world. We are proud to present these classic works, which represent the full breadth and depth of cinema history.”

Wow, ‘the full breadth and depth of cinema history’! ‘cinematheque retrospective’! Anyway, I decided this makes Criterion even more awesome and much friendlier–I mean they’re making their secret revival-house circuit goings-on available to home viewers.