Thursday, December 31, 2009
The women of the UK and I are in total agreement
Kate Winslet has the celebrity body most desired by British women, a survey has found.
The Oscar-winning actress scored 16 per cent of the vote, pipping equally shapely Kelly Brook to second place with 15 per cent.
And skeletal stars Victoria Beckham and Kate Moss finished bottom of the poll of 2,000 women alongside Katie Price, also known as Jordan, who all got just 1% each.
Perfect celebrity body:
Kate Winslet 16 per cent
Kelly Brook 15
Halle Berry 12
Cheryl Cole 10
Beyoncé 6
Megan Fox 5Lily Allen 4
Keeley Hazell 2
Kate Moss 1
Jordan 1
Victoria Beckham 1
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Jennifer's Body is a mess
An overwritten, uneven mess.
Ok. As you know, I've been questioning the apparently common assumption that Megan Fox is dumb. I hadn't seen her act in anything, not counting that SNL she hosted, but some of the things she's said in interviews and such led me to question the assumption.
Well, now I've seen Jennifer's Body. The fact that Fox chose it as her attempt to show that she could "open" a film (didn't work) is the best evidence I've seen yet that maybe, y'know, she isn't actually all that smart.
I haven't seen screenwriter Diablo Cody's much-hyped Juno, but I have to assume it is a much better screenplay. Because if JB is a credible sample of her screenwriting then she's going on the list of Worst Screenwriters Ever to Win an Oscar. With Akiva Goldsman, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.
To be fair, I like what I think she was trying to do. Which I think was to say something about female friendships and the quickly alternating, rotating currents of wanting and being scared of sex that runs through teenagers of both sexes.
These are not unheard-of themes in horror movies. Think of Carrie, based on the breakout novel by Stephen King, who now alternates column space in Entertainment Weekly with Cody. Even the Friday the 13th movies play on the fear of sex, if only in the most crass of ways.
Jennifer's Body doesn't add as much to this as I would've liked, or as I think the filmmakers wanted it to. And here I can feel my heart softening, because I want to say, at least JB tries to be something a little different; smart, which is better than frickin' Alvin & the Chipmunks: The Squeakel.
But--and I think I just put my finger on the problem--the screenplay is smarter than the characters. And that's death. Any feelings we have for these people are based almost totally on what appeal the actors have (the boys as well as the girls).
The screenplay thinks these people are really, really dumb and that this is really, really funny.
And, it's half right. They are dumb.
(You're a teenager alone late at night in a dark house and you're feeling creeped out. A knock comes at the door. Which of these things would you do first? 1. Turn on the lights. 2. Peek out the window to see who is outside. Or 3: Open wide the door. If you answered 1 or 2, you're smarter than Amanda Seyfried's character.)
(It gets better. Shortly thereafter, a bruised and bleeding Jennifer shows up the house, sloppily eats food out of the refrigerator and projectile vomits some black goo at Seyfried's feet. Later, we are shown in flashback Seyfried cleaning up the aftermath of this distressing event...still without turning her goddamn lights on.)
So yeah, they're dumb...but it's not funny.
This strikes me as the kind of movie I would really like to hear a commentary for after the filmmakers have had a few whiskey sours to loosen their tongues because I want to know: Who had the final decision making power?
I get the feeling (based on Karyn Kusama's director's commentary to the extended version, which is the one I watched) it was no one person and that may've been to its detriment. I have little or no trust in the "auteur theory"--as the saying goes, you rarely see any director do much with that theory and 100 blank pages. But here, it seems like, a more consistent eye and voice would've helped the film.
And actually, I may've liked the direction best of anything. It keeps a nice tension sometimes, and delivers at least one genuine "jump scare" which is rarer than an un-flexed muscle in James Cameron's ego.
As for the question: Is Megan Fox the worst actress of the year? For me, the jury is still out, though I'll admit, it's not looking good.
Watching her in this movie lends support to something I noticed on her SNL gig. On that show, in virtually every sketch she did, her blocking consisted of walking onstage, standing stock-still (or sitting down) and delivering her lines.
In one case, they even gave her character an otherwise extraneous leg in a cast as if to answer the question of why the heck she isn't moving around the room.
But, ever giving the benefit of the doubt, I was prepared to suppose that had some more to do with nerves (a live nationwide TV show, after all) than a lack of talent.
In Jennifer's Body, however, she had the benefit of retakes and assorted other ways to "sweeten" her performance. And she still seems to exist only in motion or in dialogue, never (or very nearly so) at the same time.
So I'm forced, nay compelled, to wonder aloud: Is it possible Megan Fox can't walk and talk at the same time?
But the thing is, sometimes, she shows signs of life.
Whether as a "straight" actress or commedianne, she'll pronably never be in this line-up:
(that's Christina Applegate, Christina Aguilera, January Jones, former studio exec Sherry Lansing, Maria Bello, Anne Hathaway and Sigourney Weaver)
But there are enough signs of life here for me to think that with a stronger director and a much stronger script, she could be better than she is too often, in too much of this movie.
Oddly, those moments of life come more when she is speaking than when she's moving.
When her character is being sacrificed to Satan by some indie-rock wannabes, she manages to imbue her pleas with some reality. Certainly more than we've seen in the more than a few variants on this scene in other horror films.
But...she's tied down in that scene. When she has to move, well, I'm gonna suggest something here that may seem counterintuitive if not all-the-way crazy.
Not only am I not sure if Fox can walk and talk at the same time, I'm not even sure if she knows how to walk as a sexy woman.
Now hear me out.
Compare her, first, to some of the women of Nine, to pick examples from a current film.
Nicole Kidman may no longer be at her peak as a beautiful woman, but she sure knows how to work her beauty.
Penelope Cruz knows how to act with her legs.
You put Kate Hudson's ass in a bikini and her feet into some high heels and most men would follow her anywhere.
(And the line would start behind me).
Stacy Ferguson's got her sexy body routine down so tight it manages to make up for the face, which is not--I'm trying to be honest but not mean--classically beautiful.
But Fox, at least in this movie where she is supposed to be a freaking seductive siren, strikes me differently.
More as a girl who has been told she's so sexy so often, now she thinks all she has to do is show up in a short skirt.
Ok. As you know, I've been questioning the apparently common assumption that Megan Fox is dumb. I hadn't seen her act in anything, not counting that SNL she hosted, but some of the things she's said in interviews and such led me to question the assumption.
Well, now I've seen Jennifer's Body. The fact that Fox chose it as her attempt to show that she could "open" a film (didn't work) is the best evidence I've seen yet that maybe, y'know, she isn't actually all that smart.
I haven't seen screenwriter Diablo Cody's much-hyped Juno, but I have to assume it is a much better screenplay. Because if JB is a credible sample of her screenwriting then she's going on the list of Worst Screenwriters Ever to Win an Oscar. With Akiva Goldsman, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.
To be fair, I like what I think she was trying to do. Which I think was to say something about female friendships and the quickly alternating, rotating currents of wanting and being scared of sex that runs through teenagers of both sexes.
These are not unheard-of themes in horror movies. Think of Carrie, based on the breakout novel by Stephen King, who now alternates column space in Entertainment Weekly with Cody. Even the Friday the 13th movies play on the fear of sex, if only in the most crass of ways.
Jennifer's Body doesn't add as much to this as I would've liked, or as I think the filmmakers wanted it to. And here I can feel my heart softening, because I want to say, at least JB tries to be something a little different; smart, which is better than frickin' Alvin & the Chipmunks: The Squeakel.
But--and I think I just put my finger on the problem--the screenplay is smarter than the characters. And that's death. Any feelings we have for these people are based almost totally on what appeal the actors have (the boys as well as the girls).
The screenplay thinks these people are really, really dumb and that this is really, really funny.
And, it's half right. They are dumb.
(You're a teenager alone late at night in a dark house and you're feeling creeped out. A knock comes at the door. Which of these things would you do first? 1. Turn on the lights. 2. Peek out the window to see who is outside. Or 3: Open wide the door. If you answered 1 or 2, you're smarter than Amanda Seyfried's character.)
(It gets better. Shortly thereafter, a bruised and bleeding Jennifer shows up the house, sloppily eats food out of the refrigerator and projectile vomits some black goo at Seyfried's feet. Later, we are shown in flashback Seyfried cleaning up the aftermath of this distressing event...still without turning her goddamn lights on.)
So yeah, they're dumb...but it's not funny.
This strikes me as the kind of movie I would really like to hear a commentary for after the filmmakers have had a few whiskey sours to loosen their tongues because I want to know: Who had the final decision making power?
I get the feeling (based on Karyn Kusama's director's commentary to the extended version, which is the one I watched) it was no one person and that may've been to its detriment. I have little or no trust in the "auteur theory"--as the saying goes, you rarely see any director do much with that theory and 100 blank pages. But here, it seems like, a more consistent eye and voice would've helped the film.
And actually, I may've liked the direction best of anything. It keeps a nice tension sometimes, and delivers at least one genuine "jump scare" which is rarer than an un-flexed muscle in James Cameron's ego.
As for the question: Is Megan Fox the worst actress of the year? For me, the jury is still out, though I'll admit, it's not looking good.
Watching her in this movie lends support to something I noticed on her SNL gig. On that show, in virtually every sketch she did, her blocking consisted of walking onstage, standing stock-still (or sitting down) and delivering her lines.
In one case, they even gave her character an otherwise extraneous leg in a cast as if to answer the question of why the heck she isn't moving around the room.
But, ever giving the benefit of the doubt, I was prepared to suppose that had some more to do with nerves (a live nationwide TV show, after all) than a lack of talent.
In Jennifer's Body, however, she had the benefit of retakes and assorted other ways to "sweeten" her performance. And she still seems to exist only in motion or in dialogue, never (or very nearly so) at the same time.
So I'm forced, nay compelled, to wonder aloud: Is it possible Megan Fox can't walk and talk at the same time?
But the thing is, sometimes, she shows signs of life.
Whether as a "straight" actress or commedianne, she'll pronably never be in this line-up:
(that's Christina Applegate, Christina Aguilera, January Jones, former studio exec Sherry Lansing, Maria Bello, Anne Hathaway and Sigourney Weaver)
But there are enough signs of life here for me to think that with a stronger director and a much stronger script, she could be better than she is too often, in too much of this movie.
Oddly, those moments of life come more when she is speaking than when she's moving.
When her character is being sacrificed to Satan by some indie-rock wannabes, she manages to imbue her pleas with some reality. Certainly more than we've seen in the more than a few variants on this scene in other horror films.
But...she's tied down in that scene. When she has to move, well, I'm gonna suggest something here that may seem counterintuitive if not all-the-way crazy.
Not only am I not sure if Fox can walk and talk at the same time, I'm not even sure if she knows how to walk as a sexy woman.
Now hear me out.
Compare her, first, to some of the women of Nine, to pick examples from a current film.
Nicole Kidman may no longer be at her peak as a beautiful woman, but she sure knows how to work her beauty.
Penelope Cruz knows how to act with her legs.
You put Kate Hudson's ass in a bikini and her feet into some high heels and most men would follow her anywhere.
(And the line would start behind me).Stacy Ferguson's got her sexy body routine down so tight it manages to make up for the face, which is not--I'm trying to be honest but not mean--classically beautiful.
But Fox, at least in this movie where she is supposed to be a freaking seductive siren, strikes me differently.
More as a girl who has been told she's so sexy so often, now she thinks all she has to do is show up in a short skirt.
Oh come now--surely somebody in All About Steve did a worse job than that*
Megan Fox has been voted the worst actress of the year in a Moviephone survey.
*I'm just guessing, but it seems likely.
*I'm just guessing, but it seems likely.
Now this might've actually gotten me to go see the movie
PS: It may (or may not) be worth noting that besides Avatar, Eva Amurri here is spoofing a role her mother played. Kids! They're such a trial...
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
To shock of all, ass continued to be peddled on magazine covers in 2009
Here's another one of those end-of-year things.
This time, the "Sexiest Magazine Covers" of 2009.
Here are some of their choices I agreed with, and some I thought they missed.
Can you tell which is which before checking their list?
This time, the "Sexiest Magazine Covers" of 2009.
Here are some of their choices I agreed with, and some I thought they missed.
Can you tell which is which before checking their list?
Monday, December 28, 2009
No, I'm sorry, I can't accept that either
Ok, here is a photo gallery allegedly of The sex symbols of the last decade, both female and male. Now, most of these I either agree with, or at least, I understand.
I mean, I might've included Kylie Minogue, but hey, at least Sarah Jessica Parker or Pamela Anderson didn't make the list, and it's not like I don't know why Beyoncé's there.
But Demi Moore?
...Do the words "1994 called. It wants its sex symbol back." mean anything to you?
I mean, I might've included Kylie Minogue, but hey, at least Sarah Jessica Parker or Pamela Anderson didn't make the list, and it's not like I don't know why Beyoncé's there.
But Demi Moore?
...Do the words "1994 called. It wants its sex symbol back." mean anything to you?
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Really for no better reason than because I like her
...Here are some photos of Geri Halliwell from when she was a nude model.
(over a decade ago)
Two pieces of fair warning
1. Neil Tennant of Pet Shop Boys is not in good voice in this performance clip (especially on the chorus).
2. However, when you see the hotties-of both sexes-simulating sex-with both sexes...I don't think you'll give much of a fuck.
2. However, when you see the hotties-of both sexes-simulating sex-with both sexes...I don't think you'll give much of a fuck.
Madre de dios...
Yesterday by chance I happened across these images of two fashion models whose faces (and, be honest, bodies) were unfamiliar to me.
So I asked--more like begged--the woman (!) who writes the blog where I found them to tell me their names.
This is a Dominican model named Sessilee Lopez.
I urge you to click the photo so you can get a good look at her thighs.
I mean eyes. Actually, I mean both.
And this is Chanel Iman, who is American.
Near as I can tell, she is no direct relation to the "original" Iman, the one who married David Bowie. In case you're wondering (I did).
So I asked--more like begged--the woman (!) who writes the blog where I found them to tell me their names.
This is a Dominican model named Sessilee Lopez.
I urge you to click the photo so you can get a good look at her thighs.
I mean eyes. Actually, I mean both.
And this is Chanel Iman, who is American.
Near as I can tell, she is no direct relation to the "original" Iman, the one who married David Bowie. In case you're wondering (I did).
Saturday, December 26, 2009
There are times when I think that I ...
...haven't paid Jessica Alba enough of the kind of attention she so rightly deserves.
All together now, "This is one of those times."
All together now, "This is one of those times."
If this is the form that Death takes, then I, for one, will go along peacefully and quietly
Miranda Kerr could sell me anything.
A gallery of images from assorted naked calendars
The Ladies who Lunch.
Again, I can't help thinking this would be really, really distracting to find in a library.
I just
know this is the kind of thing which goes on within all women’s' locker rooms...it is, isn't it?
I'm reminded of a favorite Newsradio quote
Those nude pictures Vanessa Hudgens took of herself are still haunting her! The actress is now suing a website for refusing to take them down.
According to TMZ, Vanessa has filed a lawsuit against the website MoeJackson.com for continuing to run the photos on their site after being asked to remove them.
Vanessa claims she’s been trying to make the self portraits disappear for months now. But just to make sure no one else got credit, she registered them with the U.S. Copyright Office.
She is seeking an injunction to order the site to remove the photos, in addition to monetary damages.
Watch this, Miss Hudgens.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Monday, December 21, 2009
Sunday, December 20, 2009
I'm certainly glad they cleared that up
Ok, you know from Blind Items, right? That's when a gossip site prints something that no one will go on the record about, so they can't use names, but they give hints (some broader than others). For example, this:
Whew!
Former American Idol has fallen into a very bad habit. Very bad indeed. Not only are they heavily into drugs (which really isn’t a secret), we’ve heard a rumor that they are now selling themselves to get money to pay for the drugs. Very sad.
Not Katharine McPhee.
Whew!
You'd think Beta wouldn't have lost out, with marketing like this
An Australian blog found an ad for a Beta VCR from the early 1980's which actually dared to advertise what most people used them for--the ability to freeze-frame nude scenes.
BTW, my family's first VCR was one like this, a Beta with a pushbutton pause control attached by a cord.
And I would like to thank
Kitten Natividad,
Cindy Morgan,
and Angie Dickinson, for helping me break it, I mean, break it in...
For the record:
Ahem. Verona Feldbusch...
Felding her busch.
(Oh, I don't feel good about that...way too easy)
Felding her busch.
(Oh, I don't feel good about that...way too easy)
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Y'know, I don't know why I didn't notice this till just now...
...but damn, Christina Ricci has pulled off a lot of looks.
There's "Sweet Charity" Christina...
There's "Sweet lord, yes, I have tits" Christina...
There's New Wave Christina...
There's "In a green mini-dress, shopping" Christina...
There's model Christina...
There's talk-show guest Christina...
There's "You'll never have me" Christina...
...and there's "Girl next door" Christina.
And she's been sexy in every one...
There's "Sweet Charity" Christina...
There's "Sweet lord, yes, I have tits" Christina...
There's New Wave Christina...
There's "In a green mini-dress, shopping" Christina...
There's model Christina...
There's talk-show guest Christina...
There's "You'll never have me" Christina...
...and there's "Girl next door" Christina.
And she's been sexy in every one...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)