Style Sunday.

Mila Kunis rocks this Cacharel mini in completely unexpected ways. Gotta love how the print goes straight to the sleeves creating a sense of continuity that reminds us why fashion can be pure art sometimes. Paired with simple white pumps and loose hair she's a poster girl for effortless sexiness.

Gotta love how the delicate lace details in this Emilio Pucci dress make the wholesome Jessica Chastain have more of an edge.

Enjoying Mila's amazing fashion streak as of late?

Style Sunday.

Someone should tell Mila Kunis that the audition is over; Nina Sayers got the part of the Swan Queen. I kid you. Mila looks absolutely ravishing in this delicate Elie Saab dress. The color and the ethereal top make it seem a bit too ballet-y but Kunis proves she can always play the part.

Rose Byrne's hair usually annoys the crap out of me, somehow I truly love it here. She's the image of careless hip fashionista (she was going to a concert) in this stunning ensemble which includes a leather skirt courtesy of Zimmerman. I wonder if she pulled off the mosh pit in those shoes though.

Has Rachel Weisz always been this freaking gorgeous? This Louis Vuitton dress and the way in which it highlights her stunning body is sex. As simple as that.

How do you feel about Rose Byrne's fringe? Has Rachel, indeed, always been so sexy?

Oscar Fashion: Best Dressed

This column is dedicated to my friend Luke, who knows how much I hated the Oscars this year but still wanted to hear my opinion on fashion. Hope you enjoy sir.

10. Jennifer Lawrence in Calvin Klein

At first glance I was so disappointed with Lawrence's look. She had been so flawless and risky all season long, wearing bold colors in even bolder designs (girl's got the legs) so when she showed up in this simple red column with practically no accessories and free flowing hair I was like "what?".

As the night went by however, she looked just radiant! The silhouette is perfection and unlike other actresses, she never looked constricted or restrained by what she was wearing. Can't wait to see what she comes up with next!

9. Sandra Bullock in Vera Wang

This is how it's done Anne Hathaway's Valentino (I felt terrible typing that by the way...Annie knows I worship her)

8. Natalie Portman in Rodarte

The Best Actress winner was the image of pure joy and her simple fashion choice proved to be flawless. I'm not sure what everyone was expecting of her given that she's pregnant and all which must make dress choices much more difficult.

However the color was stunning (anyone else had flashbacks of Keira Knightley in 2006?), the hair was lovely and she accessorized like a pro.

7. Jennifer Hudson in Versace

Va-va-voom Miss Hudson! The Oscar winner looks absolutely hawt in this orange Versace.

See how her dress is a bit of Sandra Bullock's and Gwyneth's all rolled into one bomb of sexiness.

The accessories are perfect, the hair is incredible and you just gotta love the boobs. Beyoncé's "style" must be rolling in its grave of tackiness.

6. Anne Hathaway in Givenchy Couture.

Anne changed dresses a LOT and while some weren't fully successful (that weird Tom Ford from the end) this vanilla construction was a delight.

The bodice recalls the Versace January Jones wore to the Emmys once but while Jones is all about the cutting edge, Annie fits more of a princess mold.

This dress was shown on the runway as a wedding dress and Hathaway makes it look positively regal.

5. Gwyneth Paltrow in Calvin Klein

The Oscar winner/country singer was stunning in this metallic CK column. She let her hair down and in all honesty looked like what Oscar would look like if he was a gorgeous woman.

The Louis Vuitton brooch was a bit off putting though, it was one of those situations when you like and then hate something. Good that you almost can't see it!

4. Anne Hathaway in Atelier Versace.

See what I meant about the Givenchy looking like Versace?

This is the kind of dress the house of Donatella is magnificent at: simple, sexy and delicately elaborate gowns that look as comfortable as shorts with the grace of couture mortals can't afford.

3. Anne Hathaway in Oscar de la Renta.

Disco was back for a few seconds as Anne rocked the stage in this beaded Oscar de la Renta which could do flashy nice things and made her look more beautiful than she did all night long (although it must be said she was all sorts of stunning in her masculine tux as well...)

2. Mila Kunis in Ellie Saab

As you know, I've had a love/hate relationship with Kunis' red carpet choices. Sometimes she looks stunning but more often than not she looks like she's trying too hard.

This lavender Ellie Saab was wonderful. Notice the gorgeous lace details on her cleavage and the way in which the dress flowed making her look radiant and quite sexy.

She was classic Hollywood with a slight edge and all throughout the night I kept telling myself "this is the classy version of this".

1. Cate Blanchett in Givenchy Couture

My prediction was right. This woman is a goddess among stylish women. The truth is her dress couldn't be more simple if it tried but it's such a well designed gown that like Cate's work, you find yourself uncovering layers and layers of what makes it so wonderful.

For starters the color! This delicate mix of lavender, violet and white makes for a warm look that's also aggressively imposing.

Next, that flowered frame is a thing of real beauty. It's sexy withou being vulgar (like ScarJo's back window) and reminds us that we are indeed watching a lady.

The yellow details on the shoulders accentuate her tasteful earrings and the simple bracelet completes the look. Also, Cate's hair has grown into something absolutely stunning. If this was a better world it would be her and not Jennifer Aniston who'd inspire fashion choices the world over.

Some have complained that the dress is a bit too weird and pastoral, when it's actually evoking and utterly magical.

So Luke, agree or disagree? Who would you add or remove? And the rest of you guys, get out your inner fashionista and let's discuss this! After all we know the clothes are usually better than the Oscars themselves right?

Black Swan ****

Director: Darren Aronofsky
Cast: Natalie Portman, Vincent Cassel, Mila Kunis
Barbara Hershey, Winona Ryder, Benjamin Millepied

Once upon a time black swans were thought to be a myth. White swans had been considered the epitome of royalty and beauty since times immemorial but its dark counterpart was thought of as a representation of utter evil; the antithesis of the pure, uncorrupted beauty in the white swan. What must've been the surprise of explorers when they stumbled upon the actual species in the Southernmost part of the world during the seventeenth century?
What could it mean that this creature did exist?
This uncertainty and eventual shock are the central dilemma of Nina Sayers (Portman) a New York City ballerina desperate to be cast as the Swan Queen in her company's production of Swan Lake.
Nina has perfected the graceful technique to play the White Swan but she is told by ballet director Thomas Leroy (a slimy Cassel) that she completely lacks the sexual energy and imperfection needed to portray its evil counterpart.
She struggles to win the part and gets it just as a new dancer joins the company; Lily (Kunis) from San Francisco arrives exuding the raw sexuality Nina can't muster, soon she becomes convinced that Lily is after her part and the only way to keep this from happening is for her to find the black swan within.
She descends slowly down the kind of, not-so-subtle, spirals Darren Aronofsky usually throws his characters into but unlike some of his other creations, Nina's breakdown has a flawless structure.
On the surface Black Swan feels like The Wrestler meets Suspiria by way of Cronenberg but once you look at it carefully, it really has more in common with Carrie than with Argento's horror film.
Like Stephen King's character, Nina's breakdown is parallel to her discovery of things until then unknown to her. While Carrie unleashed her telekinesis in a terrified attempt to exert some control over the unexpected changes brought over by womanhood, Nina begins to be terrorized by her doppelgängers who walk by her on the streets, haunt her house and spy from beyond mirrors as she finds that deep within she can also be dark.
Nina has decided she wants to achieve perfection and in her limited world view this can only be obtained with control; therefore when Thomas asks her to "let go" she doesn't know how to handle this.
It's as if she's been living in a fabricated world all along and has no awareness of the evil that exists in the world. This is represented by Nina's home which she shares with her possessive mother (Hershey) a former ballerina living vicariously through her daughter.
Watching their softly lit blood tinted apartment, where even the hallways seem to constrict Nina, we understand that in a way she has never left the womb, not because she doesn't want to but because it's what she knows best.
Black Swan is anchored by Natalie Portman's fierce performance. Like the movie, she first deceives us with her fragile beauty and we are led to assume this will be yet another of the actress' performances in which her delicate features harbor contrived fear and contempt.
Soon we learn that this isn't the case and we see her shatter before our very eyes. Beyond her method immersion into the character (her ballet technique seems outstanding!) there is something transcendental in the way in which she lets go of all vanity.
We see Nina's transformation from outside (Aronofsky's technical team does wonders showing bizarre wounds as Nina literally begins to think she's becoming a swan) but we also detect that something has changed inside her. It's something in her eyes that demands our attention in the way her body can't.
In the final scenes of the film, the Portman we are watching isn't the one we started with. During one particular scene as Nina finally becomes aware of what the truth is, she makes a choice. This moment isn't highlighted as much by the external elements (although the movie owes itself to Tchaikovsky) but by a heartbreaking look Portman throws at us, seemingly out of nowhere. How she's able to encompass fear, resignation and something that scarily resembles pride is what makes her decay so beautiful to watch.
In her search for perfection we could draw parallels about seeking artistic accomplishment but on simpler terms the film discusses this search in life as a whole. Therefore we are left wondering if Black Swan is a cautionary tale about the peril that comes with perfection (and if so, is it an ode to mediocrity?) or is it a reminder that everything that's worth something comes through a certain amount of pain?
Structurally Black Swan resembles a Russian doll, each containing a miniature double of the one before it. In a way, Swan Lake is Black Swan is Nina Sayers (again with the doppelgängers).
One of the biggest mysteries about Swan Lake is the fact that we never know why the evil sorcerer casts the spell on the princess. Why is he turning her into a swan? When the ballet begins this just is and we rarely get time to even question it.
Why are we to assume that this spell isn't some sort of deserved punishment?
Similarly in Black Swan we are never really sure of who is casting this spell on Nina, is the movie perhaps a prequel of sorts to the ballet in which we are to assume that maybe the princess had an insane mother or couldn't cope with homosexual thoughts?
Or is it finally a questioning? Is the Swan Queen actually fulfilling her fate? However twisted and tragic we might perceive it as.
It should be noted that Black Swan is a completely self aware movie. There is not a single camera move Aronofsky hasn't meticulously planned. From the way in which sometimes we follow Nina as if the camera is afraid to look into her face and see who she's becoming to the film's mirror motif, one that's not in the slightest original but the film doesn't really brag about inventing anything new.
It's also a selfish movie for it never pretends to worry about creating some sort of universal code we can use as metaphor. We are not supposed to identify with Nina. We either like her, hate her, pity her but we are not supposed to love her. After all the Swan Queen is never truly able to break the spell.
Structurally the film itself mimics Nina or at least the version of Nina it's letting us see and then it reaches a point where just like the ballerina in distress, the film too realizes that it doesn't know how to become the black swan. But how do you make a movie that loses itself?
In practice this would perhaps mean the director recurred to some robotic device or simply let the cameras roll without choosing what happens in front of the lens. Symbolically though Aronofsky settles on making it dangle dangerously between melodrama, camp and horror. Up to the very last shot the film seems to be trying to decide which one it will become and by then audience members will have made their minds about what kind of movie they just saw.
And whether it is high art or trashy exploitation, by letting each one decide, Aronofsky has created the perfect finale: the one that goes beyond "the world as a stage" conventions and bluntly reminds us that in the end we might be the only ones applauding our own curtain call.

Sheet-y Saturday.

Where we take a look at posters for upcoming films.


If someone had told me I'd be looking forward to a Paul Haggis movie I would've punched them right in the nose. However this is precisely what the marvelous posters for The Next Three Days have been doing for me.
This one sheet in particular looks like a lost piece of advertising from a Steve McQueen movie and as such it's perfection.


And the award for best campaign of 2010 has got to go to Black Swan.
I'm not crazy to see the movie as most are but I'd surely hang any of the posters all over my house. Such beautiful works!

Excited to see either of these?

Date Night ***

Director: Shawn Levy
Cast: Steve Carell, Tina Fey
Mark Wahlberg, Taraji P. Henson, Jimmi Simpson, Common
William Fichtner, Leighton Meester, Kristen Wiig
Mark Ruffalo, James Franco, Mila Kunis, Ray Liotta

Hollywood often has the mind of a child; they often team up rising stars and robots or famous legends and musicals, assuming that putting together A and B will always result in a hit.
More often than not this strategy implodes all over them but when they decided to put together the two funniest people in showbiz things actually worked out in the most unexpected ways.
Tina Fey and Steve Carell star as Claire and Phil Foster, a married couple from the Jersey suburbs whose existence revolves around their house, their kids and their jobs.
Watching their attempts at rekindling their sex life-with only five hours of sleep between the forced foreplay and the time their kids jump on them to wake them- is hilarious but also bittersweet.
As funny as they make the normality of their house scenes (you never see them as something other than the Fosters) they also keep the characters grounded and the comedy sometimes gives way to deep sadness.
After they learn a couple they know is getting a divorce, both decide it's time to relight the flame for good. They decide to venture out of their comfort zone and go have dinner on a Friday night in Manhattan.
They dress up, arrive at the hippest seafood place in the city and are sent to the oblivion of the bar until a table becomes available-if ever.
Trying to impress his wife, Phil steals a reservation from a couple that never shows up, called the Tripplehorns and after their fabulously overpriced dinner is over, they are approached by two men (Common and Simpson) who ask them to walk out with them.
Thinking this has to do with the stolen reservation (and an embarrassing moment involving will.i.am) the Fosters are surprised to learn the two men are actually looking for a flash drive the Tripplehorns stole from a big mobster.
Soon they're on the run across the city trying to clear their name and preserve their lives, in the process having the most exciting night of their lives.
Anyone who says they do not know how this movie will end is lying, the plot's predictability is obvious from its title. The one thing that might surprise you is that Fey and Carell create the chemistry one would've deemed too good to be true.
He's a master at his kind of goofy, heartwarming comedy (when he's called "androgynous" by a guy in a strip club his droll stare is priceless!) while Fey's own kind of dorky sexiness serves her to deliver her OCD bitchiness with enough oomph to make her more likable than not.
Together they have no fear of being absolutely ridiculous (scenes with Henson who plays a police detective make one wonder how did the actress contain her laughter with these two around) and awkward (an often shirtless Wahlberg gets the best out of the dynamic duo).
What's so special about Date Night is the fact that despite your best knowledge of how silly and preposterous the situations might get you are always willing to invest into the main characters.
It's not like one of those movies where you laugh against your better judgment, this one doesn't care to steal a random giggle from the audience, it makes your stomach literally hurt from laughing so much.
Even when they are involved in an oh so typical dance with a pole sequence, you won't be thinking "this is so stupid" but "boy, I wish I could bring someone to see this with me".

Max Payne *1/2

Director: John Moore
Cast: Mark Wahlberg
Mila Kunis, Olga Kurylenko, Amaury Nolasco
Chris O'Donnell, Nelly Furtado, Ludacris, Beau Bridges

Why is it that the hero survives a shower of bullets and the seemingly invincible villain only needs one to be done with?
Based on a famous video game "Max Payne" is a dull, often preposterous attempt at neo noir that seems to be in love with fulfilling comic book aesthetic clichés.
Wahlberg plays the title character, a New York City detective investigating the death of his wife and daughter more than three years before.
After what sounds like the longest cold case ever, he suddenly gets a lead that has him meet the mysterious Natasha Sax (Kurylenko) who is murdered soon after.
When Max becomes prime suspect he uncovers a network of underground crime and drug trafficking along with Sax's pissed off sister Mona (Kunis) and clues that might finally get him the redemption he seeks.
While the film is stunningly shot, there is so much invested into the dark look and "Matrix" like action sequences that everyone forgot that the things they are lighting and animating so attentively needed to spark a bit of interest in the audience.
You rarely care about Max finding his wife's murderer, because apparently neither did he until he found out a movie was being made about him.
Even more, the film's need to show off visually is taken to the x level when they include Nordic mythical creatures that part the heavens like jelly and plague the film with a creepy presence. If you think they serve a purpose in the plot, then the film has pulled off a magnificent job of sending the audience into the wrong direction.
In a mystery you might admire their tricks, but in here you realize it's just part of their extravagant need for attention. And apparently this film thrives when it lies indiscriminately to the audience (watch out for the disappearing tattoos in one character that suggest plot twist at times but end up being just continuity errors)
Wahlberg is robotic and the rest of the cast doesn't really help much.
Apparently this Max is all about giving the audience some pain.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall ***

Director: Nicholas Stoller
Cast: Jason Segel, Kristen Bell, Mila Kunis, Russell Brand
Bill Hader, Jonah Hill, Jack McBrayer, Paul Rudd

Peter Bretter (Segel) is an average looking, music composer who happens to be dating hot TV star Sarah Marshall (Bell).
Sarah works in Crime Scene, a CSI type of show where she plays a sexy investigator who must deal with Billy Baldwin's smarmy one liners and later having her life commented by Billy Bush.
Peter watches all this from a distance knowing that despite the fact that he's the guy always hiding behind the spotlights and flashes, when the day is over, he has that woman in his house. Things change when Sarah breaks up with him after she falls in love with British rockstar Aldous Snow (Brand).
Shattered by the breakup, Peter goes on a one night stand frenzy, only to be left feeling emptier. Then, by the suggestion of his stepbrother Bryan (Hader) he takes a vacation to Hawaii, only to realize Sarah is staying in the same resort with her new man.
Following his male pride he decides to stay and face her, seeing the events as a sign from God he has to get over her.
During his stay he meets a colorful array of characters, including stoner surfer Chuck (the reliably scene stealeing Rudd), obsessive waiter Matthew (Hill), southern virgin Darald (a hilarious McBrayer) who's having a hard time satisfying his new wife's sexual needs and beautiful hotel receptionist Rachel (Kunis), with whom Peter sees the opoortunity of falling in love again.
Mixing raunchy humor with more emotional moments this film successfully continues the style that has made Judd Apatow (a producer here) and company so popular.
It seems as if these men are compiling pages of wisdom to aid men in future generations, as they deal with issues most hetreosexual males will go through at one point or another.
What makes their movies work in a way chick flicks never have, is that the things they put in practice are drawn from real life experiences.
While other romantic comedies always seem to rely on the need to blame someone for what goes wrong and assume its characters always need to be with someone else, Apatow's take on relationships infuses them with just about the same amount of romance and cuteness as of pain and melancholy.
Take for example the characters here: in some other movie the fact that this man, who is certainly not the most attractive specimen out there, is dating what is conventionally described as a hot girl, is never the issue they deal with.
We never know why and how they got together and when the time comes for them to break up, the very smart screenplay makes us empathize with both their sides.
Even when Peter calls Sarah "the devil" we know better than to just throw judgment around.
The ensemble makes the film work wonderfully; Segel has just the charisma to pull off some difficult moments and overcome them making us root for him, while Bell is simply delicious, showing us a side of stardom that few actresses would have gone for.
Brand's kind of careless, self parody humor that mocks European values fits perfectly with the rest of the cast's "all American goodness".
But the film's real treasure might lie in its painfully honest, too real to be completely funny screenplay, that even masters the tough art of creating uncomfortable silences in movies.
Some lines coming out of the characters might sound as lines you've said before in the exact same situations, or some, for that matter that you will start using from now on.
And the film only fails when it tries too hard to make its poinst, like a scene where Segel bares it all physically, assuming it will do the same emotionally.
A film that contains such wise words along with hilarious heartbreak should know better than to go and do that.