Style Sunday.

This Dolce & Gabbana dress with lace appliques is nothing short of stunning but Julia makes it look so matronly. Or perhaps the dress is already too severe for her? I keep imagining Sophia Loren owning this big time. This time not even Julia's smile can save her from the utter lack of oomph.


Cate Blanchett on the other hand is pure sartorial perfection.
This look is just so wow. Words aren't enough to encompass just how mind blowing this is. Is Cate trying to make up for Robin Hood by looking so glorious?
This vintage Christian Lacroix is already gorgeous (the detail in the embroidery!) and Cate's porcelain skin gives the intense burgundy a great contrast.
What makes this even more perfect is the simple bob she went for. I don't think we'll see a better look in any celebrity this year. This is just too much.
Hats off to Cate.

What do you think of these two? Remember when Cate dropped out of Closer and Julia got the part? I know this has nothing to do with anything but watching that Lacroix is making me delirious...

Sheet-y Saturday.

Where we take a look at posters for upcoming movies.


Now we all know I probably won't be attending Jackass 3D although the idea of feeling like I can touch Johnny Knoxville might tempt me for a while (let me be, we're all entitled to our gross little crushes).
This poster caught my attention because it's exceptionally made. The idea is simple, straightforward and the execution is marvelous. Watch how a little piece of the picture outside the frame gives the rest of the composition real depth and perspective.
One simple detail like this can spark so much curiosity from the audience who will probably want a larger, and nastier, than life experience when they attend this movie.
We could've done without the too-big 3D title, perhaps just the trademark skull would've sufficed? But the rest is poster perfection.

Salt **

Director: Phillip Noyce
Cast: Angelina Jolie, Liev Schreiber, Chiwetel Ejiofor
Daniel Olbrychski, August Diehl, Olek Krupa, Hunt Block, Corey Stoll

For about one third of its running time Salt is a damn good, almost spectacular, thriller. Then it's not.
Angelina Jolie plays Evelyn Salt, a CIA agent accused by a Russian defector (Olbrychski) of being a KGB sleeper agent sent decades before to accomplish a top secret mission ominously called "Day X" (i.e. complete world destruction).
Since this happens within the first minutes of the movie, the next hour and a half has Salt on the run, while agents played by Schrieber and Ejiofor pursue her. She goes all MacGyver and builds explosives with cleaning supplies, infiltrates top secret bunkers and thinks of her German arachnologist husband Mike (Diehl) while wearing fabulous ushankas.
The energy contained in the first part of the film is akin to J.J. Abrams superb spy series Alias, in how it builds a strong female character, hints at some heavy emotional background and provides her with badass qualities without ever reducing her to a mere male fantasy.
What goes wrong here is that director Noyce doesn't seem able to juggle every aspect of this character. He tries to make three different movies with her, one where Evelyn is a wrongfully accused woman trying to clear her name and save her husband (which gives Salt its only chance of having a heart), another where she is a fembot wreaking havoc wherever she struts. Plus another movie where she's an excuse to resurrect the Russians as America-hating villains often bordering on the ridiculous.
It's this movie that's the most troubling because its flirting with parody makes the others seem completely preposterous and incoherent.
Of course, nothing about Salt is supposed to make much sense and Jolie seems to be having a ball in the part. Besides making most of her amazing stunts her exotic beauty doesn't interfere with the insanity of the plot and we somehow still believe that someone like her would end up married to a complete nerd.
What the film fails to do is give Salt a soul and as Jolie travels seamlessly from genre to genre she does so with all the professionalism of an actor but none of the je ne sais quoi of a movie star.
For a star vehicle, this one's on automatic mode for way too long.

"My, was she yare!"

Beware of the Bob.

I am always surprised when I remember that back in 1929, the character of Lulu from Pandora's Box was a bit like the Bridget Jones of our times.
Not in the out there sexuality and femme fatale-ness mind you (although arguments could be made for both cases) but in how German audiences were appalled when American actress Louise Brooks was cast to play one of their most iconic characters.
Brooks, it seems, had a hard time adjusting to the hostility she received at hands of the cast and crew. They weren't only against her because of her nationality but because they thought she had no talent and was pretty much a temptress who had put director G.W. Pabst under her spell.
Now if that doesn't sound like the perfect embodiment of who the character of Lulu was, then nothing else does.
You either hate or fall for Lulu and given how the 22 year old Brooks created that sort of extreme thinking amongst people behind the camera makes a great case for what a genius Pabst was in choosing her (Marlene Dietrich was second choice).

This polarizing nature is best captured in my favorite shot in the movie.



In it, Lulu has just received her former employer Schigolch (Carl Goetz) in her apartment. We can assume there is more than meets the eye by the way in which Schigolch demands things of her. Most surely he was her pimp too.
She sits on his lap and smiles in the sweetest of ways. He asks her if she still knows how to dance. One of the philosophy that "actions speak louder than words" Lulu stands up and proceeds to show him she's still got the moves.
As she approaches her stage, we see a painting hanging on the wall behind her.
Something in the setting feels slightly disturbing.
It hits us. She's the woman in the painting!
This masterful work of framing pretty much encompasses the entire film's spirit. We have two Lulus.
There's the one men want to possess-in the form of the painting- and the irrepressible force of nature she actually is. Then it does make sense that people feel so strongly towards her. It's not her fault she can't become the fixed artwork they all want to contemplate and behold.
But it's not their fault that her exuberance makes them want to do just that to her.


As she dances for Schigolch she covers the painting behind her revealing her true nature. At least who she is to herself.

But things make even more sense when we realize that the apartment where she lives is the one where she's kept by her lover, the great newspaperman Dr. Ludwig Schön (Fritz Kortner) who also comes to visit her and demand his rights.


Surprised by his visit, she hides Schigolch in the balcony and tries to distract her lover.
Once again the painting obtains prominence as Lulu takes lies in a similar position on the couch.
Notice though how Pabst places them in opposing directions. The two Lulus make a ying-yang of sorts.


As she seduces her lover we get the antithesis of the moment when she was dancing, for here it's Schön who covers the flesh and blood Lulu as we see more of the painting (the Lulu Schön desires).

For the rest of the running time we are left wondering who this woman actually is. Sinner or victim, Pabst makes sure the only thing we know about her, is how much of an enigma she actually is.


This post is part of the Hit Me With Your Best Shot series hosted by the fabulous Nat of The Film Experience.

Betty Crocker.

I'm sorry. I just couldn't help myself.

J'adore Blair Waldorf.

"Blair, come and meet Lou Doillon"

"Maybe you can ask Lou Doi-LLON to be your new best friend, because I'm done."


Why the hell is the brilliant work of Leighton Meester in Gossip Girl snubbed for all awards?