Julia Roberts on the red carpet for the Larry Crowne premiere last night in Hollywood. She wore a beautifully tailored Gucci suit with in navy blue, a vintage Jean Mahie triple strand emerald bead necklace and diamond stud earrings from Beladora.com and a megawatt smile. Totally simple and non-fussy but totally chic, don't you think?
I know, I'm kinda slow about these things but I finally got around to watching The Kennedys miniseries. Have you seen it? I thought that the production value was excellent and that the acting was superb.
I was particularly impressed with Tom Wilkinson as Joe Kennedy Sr. and Barry Pepper as Bobby Kennedy. And who knew that Katie Holmes would make such a great Jackie.
Appreciate the Kennedys as a political dynasty or not you can't help but be impressed with Jackie. That woman was a study in grace under pressure. In spite of putting up with a lot of tawdry nonsense from her husband, she always kept up appearances and was an excellent First Lady.
It's no wonder that 50 years after Camelot, Jackie remains a style icon.
And on the topic of tawdry I rather enjoy these Marilyn vs Jackie videos
Like Faux Fuchsia, at times I must listen to the commands of the universe. Where FF is directed by the cosmos to bake I am directed to watch movies. Lately the black dog has been scratching at the door and I've keep it at bay by settling down on the sofa with netflix or amazon prime. For several years I've wanted to delve into a series of posts on films where jewelry is an important element of the story, and where better to start, as I am still in 18th Century Mode, than with The Affair of the Necklace
The film, based on the true story of an extortion plot aimed at Marie Antoinette, is told from the point of view of the con artist or should I say conne artist Jeanne de la Motte played by Hilary Swank. In the film, she is Jeanne de Saint-Remy de Valois, a woman of noble birth, who is forced into her role because she can't get the attention of the queen for restitution of her family estates. De la Motte / Valois claims to have favor and influence with the Queen in order to solicit patronage by the out of favor Count de Rohan, played by Jonathon Pryce.
and a reconstruction of the infamous Collier Reine Breteuil
Considering the historical importance of the actual Affair of the Necklace in terms of undermining Marie Antoinette and the Royal Family, I thought that this would be an excellent film. I was wrong. This film was bad on so many levels I won't name them all. But it needs to be said that casting Hilary Swank in the role of de la Motte was a mistake. And, seeing the many historical inaccuracies, large and small, such as watching Swank saunter around Versailles with unpowdered hair was so annoying.
For me, the highlight of the film was the closing credits because of the Lisa Gerrard/Brendan Perry song "Ariadne".
I was reading the post today at Maxminimus today about a football playing thug who earns $1.4 million a month. It reminded me of all the music industry thugs, if you will, who glorify a life of violence and drugs and who make bazillions of dollars doing it. I don't believe that in 200 years this music will be still be appreciated..but I could be wrong. In the meantime all these musicians are laughing their way to the bank.
What I've been listening to recently is music by a man who you could say also glorified violence, at least he did in one instance, by dedicating his Symphony #3 to Napoleon. But Beethoven later redeemed himself by renaming the Symphony Eroica after Napoleon declared himself Emperor in 1804.
I'm guessing that in 200 years, the music of Beethoven will still be appreciated.
Dreamworks vs Pixar? Blogger Gonzalo Lira explains why Pixar succeeds where Dreamworks falls short. What sets Pixar apart is the quality of its movies: They’ve all been good. A few have transcended the medium of film altogether, and become art. I would argue (very good-naturedly) that The Incredibles (2004), Wall-E (2008), and Up (2009) all fit into the category of art.
However—maybe precisely because Pixar films are so generous in spirit—few people seem to have noticed the incredible social satire going on, in Pixar’s movies.
What these pictures are offering is not “gentle satire”—Pixar movies offer the harshest social commentary of contemporary American society of anyone working today, in any medium that I can think of. It’s satire laced with acid, and it is incredibly powerful precisely because it is packed into something so seemingly gentle and sweet: Children’s movies.
At first, you don’t notice the acid-laced satire in Pixar’s movies, because all of them are swathed in such an immersive story-telling. The satire would be far more noticeable in a chintzy, “ironic” DreamWorks Animation production, precisely because of DreamWorks’ films’ constant wink-wink at the adult audience over the heads of the kids. Read his entire post to see why Pixar films, such as Wall-E, are cinematic works of art.
