Mystic...Actress?

Not to get all Andy Rooney-esque with the rando ruminations, but what, I implore, is up with Lili Taylor? I feel like I've been seeing her everywhere and I just don't get it. She always seems to play the most detestable characters that are supposed to be likeable. Though admittedly sometimes she's the out-and-out villain (Pecker) and sometimes she's the misunderstood koo-koo-krazy villain (I Shot Andy Warhol), most of the time she frumps around with that grating voice trying to elicit sympathy from the audience. But it doesn't work because: she bugs like no other. Let's see. Hammy, doomed female protagonist of a horror movie? Check. Overprotective spouse to an already unlikeable broody male lead? Check. Betrothed whiner to Vincent D'Onofrio who, hello, why are you complaining about shagging Hotty McD'Onof, even before he got kinda bloaty but he's still a nine-foot-tall fox? Erm, yeah...check. (And that was The Haunting, Six Feet Under, and Mystic Pizza for those playing along at home.)

She also dated Michael Rapaport, which, blarckk.

I guess I'm just wondering if anyone anywhere has ever liked a character Taylor has played. Do casting folks see her as a go-to for unlikeable characters, or is it just my interpretation? I'm sure she's lovely in person but on film: bugs.

The Freshmaker: Years, Yuppie Fash & Yankee Generals

Fresh: 1980
Fresh Last Week: 1993
Stale: 2007

Fresh: Ascots
FLW: Argyle
Stale: Oxford cloth anything

Fresh: Ambrose Burnside
FLW: George McClellan
Stale: Ulysses S. Grant

Quelle Suprise!

At the conclusion of a largely ho-hum year that will be remembered mostly for...I don't know, Britney's vagina?, it seems appropriate to give props to the more pleasant surprises of 2006.

Ta-Dah!
The sophomore release from the Scissor Sisters turned out to be just as much of a party as the first with the perfect amount of dancers and downers. The upbeat songs are the best, particularly "Lights" and the first single "Don't Feel Like Dancin'".

Marie Antoinette
Upon first seeing the trailer last year, my eyebrows were raised, and not so much in a good way. Fortunately, Sof.Co. went way beyond the dreck of Lost in Translatzzzz...with this visually fun and dialogue-lite film. And the soundtrack goes without saying.

The Devil Wears Prada
Not a cinematic masterpiece but decently entertaining, though Emily Blunt deserves most of the credit.

Project Runway
It's hard to imagine that Bravo assaulted us with two seasons of PR in the past year. Although there have been some disappointements, (Not everyone was happy with Jeffrey's win, you know) the ball keeps on rolling and the show really just keeps getting better.

Little Miss Sunshine
I definitely did not want to see this movie after initially seeing the trailer. It looked like another indie-by-numbers...but with children. Which makes it worse. Though it strays into overly self-aware at times, the actors give some amazing performances.

Democrats
Who knew they'd actually turn it out?

Sia
The Zero 7 chanteuse went off on her own with her debut album, and despite slight overexposure from the Six Feet Under finale and the promos for that Hilary Swank Dangerous Minds II: Inspirational Boogaloo movie, the album is soft, personal and absolutely wonderful.

Chain Reaction
Whether for the sheer dorkness of named-straight-from-the-nineties host Dylan Lane or the spazzocity of the contestants during the bonus round, this game show is hard not to love.

Impeach My Bush
Peaches's latest album is rad for "Slippery Dick" alone, but then throw in "Two Guys (For Every Girl) and "Tent In Your Pants" and you've got a classic.

No Dancin' Today

Sorry for the neglect here. Things will be sporadic until I get grad school stuff figured out. Le sigh.

In the meantime enjoy this and join my internal debate over who is hotter: purple leather-clad, ex-stripper Jake or adorably babyfaced Del. Beware though. The song positively infects your head.

"What did you expect? Con-dams?"

I know everyone and their mother is all about it, but here are my top five reasons for loving "Shoes":

5) Tom Skerritt

4) "I'm gonna bitchslap ya, shitbag!"

3) The stoic girl with the guitar

2) The talking-on-cell phones montage

1) "These shoes are three hundred fucking dollars."

Remembrance: Addendum

Okay, so I was just sitting in yet another coffee shop and Beck's "Devil's Haircut" came on and oh my God, JUNIOR HIGH.

Remembrance of Fop Music Past

It's my last year of college and I'm finding that, at a time when I desperately need to be looking at my future, my surroundings are making me nostalgic for the past. More than ever I'm realizing how much my music reminds me of places and people of my past. It's like, I was sitting in a coffee shop and the barista was playing Rusted Root on the stereo. (Which, I swear, only in Ann Arbor.) Rusted Root is so undeniably autumn-of-my-junior-year-of-high-school that I am unable to separate the two. Neither realities exist without each other. If Rusted Root did not exist, my memories of that high school semester would be completely altered. So you can see why I get so nostalgic about these things. And this is why I'm unable to get work done in coffee shops.

My college years are well typified by certain artists. Royksopp and Dandy Warhols are freshman year. Depeche Mode and Zero 7 are sophomore year. Metric and Utah Saints are junior year, with Hooverphonic getting tagged in during the sad times. The summers in between each year are embodied by Franz Ferdinand ('04), Fischerspooner ('05) and Sia ('06). Going even further, Annie is my 20th birthday. Esthero is my 18th birthday. Beck is working at the Italian cafe. Salt-N-Pepa is driving around York. The Cranberries is driving around Kalamazoo with my sister; Etta James with my mom. Rufus Wainwright's Poses is high school musical practice. Nelly Furtado is my old bedroom. Faithless is visiting Michigan with Sasha. Morcheeba is moving across campus for the first time. Nightmares on Wax is snowy Ann Arbor. Arcade Fire is cloudy New York. Cirrus is mountainous Pennsylvania. And so on and on.

I suppose the point is, the future is making me way tense and I don't want to think about it. Maybe I can reconcile my old music and memories with my anxieties for what's to come. Until I figure everything out, I'll just think about that time I drank too much wine in my old room while listening to The Faint.

Stop Being Polite and Start Getting...Shameless?

Oh my. Here I am, a mere twenty-one years old and faced with the most daunting existential question of my mortal life:

Should I or should I not audition for The Real World?

Ever since hearing about the open casting call that will happen a few blocks away, I've been racking my brain to the point of sleeplessness and self-starvation. On one hand, there is the potential for reality-based television stardom and all of the perks of actually getting on the show. Free rent for a few months. A cushy job. A series of promotional gigs and lectures after the taping. All of that good stuff. And if for some strange and unlikely reason I'm not chosen for the show, at least I could get a funny story out of the audition and the chance to wear the "Yeah, I auditioned for The Real World" badge for the rest of my young adulthood and beyond.

Yet, there is always the other hand to consider. I suppose the chances of me getting on the show are a weensy bit slim. Moreover, the audition might not even be interesting enough for any sort of story, funny or not, and it certainly doesn't help that I don't have anything remotely interesting about myself to say. But most importantly: the shame. The shame of actually showing up to a Real World audition and whoring myself out with my peers. Of having to share a campus with a group of other shameless losers not even losery enough to get on the worst show on television, and consequently spending the next year avoiding eye contact with each other so that no one else may know our shame. Yes, we were rejected by the goddamn Real World. Does that make us unworthy people, I ask you? Does it?

So is it worth it? I'm looking for some answers before next Thursday. And maybe a buddy to go with. Who'll get a stiff drink with me afterwards. So that we may laugh and forget, forget the shame.

Fargo Fop City

I'm debating whether or not to see Chuck Klosterman next week when he, rather inexplicably, comes to the Borders in Ann Arbor. He comes off kind of dicky in interviews. And I didn't even know he released a new book. And I've only had enough interest in him to read Sex, Drugs & Cocoa Puffs. Although I did like it a lot and now constantly ponder my position on the collarbone-breaking versus omnipresent-Alice-in-Chains-music dilemma as a result of my enjoyment of the book. So it could be fun. If anyone wants to go, let me know.

Project Runway Postulate #137B

Because if anything is lacking from this incisive dog-and-pony show of a blog, it's PR commentary.

Today's theory: Gay men love Laura Bennett but are far exasperated with Kayne Gillaspie. Somewhat contrarily, women (of varying attractional identities) are enamored with Kayne but hate Laura.* Discuss.

I have found very few exceptions to my theory. These two designers are arguably the two in most danger of being eliminated before the finals, with many sources already predicting a Michael/Jeffrey/Uli top three. The two stand on opposite sides of the design spectrum and, as if that weren't enough, aren't really known for getting along with each other. So whose opinion is more valid? The female viewership who would ostensibly be wearing the designed garments and who just love a florid-minded, redheaded gay boyee? Or the gay men that appreciate a prim, attractive olderish woman who never strays from all that is well-tailored and tasteful?

You can probably guess how I feel about the issue. Nonetheless, with Vincent's departure marking the end of this season's hangers-on, this week's elim is going to be affecting no matter who it is, as these five have proven themselves pretty damn well over the weeks. It should be exciting. Now I just wish I hadn't put Allison Kelly in my final three prediction after the casting special.

*Currently, no assumptions could be made for straight men as the sample size is far from significant.

Things To Get Psyched About: Fall '06

Reality shows
Project Runway is reaching its conclusion, and the nation could not be more anxious to find out who will take the crown and who will go down in flames. (Kayne.) We've also got two reality premieres that feature more ethnically diverse casts than in past seasons. Survivor has its well-publicized race brawl stirring up a commotion while The Amazing Race responds to its criticism of being mostly white by simply casting more people of color...without a gimmick! There is another answer after all. AND, we have Top Model coming soon. Or not, depending on the longevity of the writers' strike. Such drama!

Running With Scissors
The film adaptation of Augusten Burroughes's memoir looks promising in spite of Gwyneth. And who doesn't love a crizazy Annette Bening?

Leaves
Pretty!

Halloween
Alcohol + Costumery = Best. Holiday. Evar. This fop is still looking for good costume ideas, too.

Cancelled shows
It's always fun to watch the how the networks unwisely invested their money and guessing which shows will get booted first. Come on, Ugly Betty, big bucks, no whammies, STOP!

Scarves
AKA my little, colorful security blankets.

Oscar Nomination Predictions
Notice that doesn't say Oscar winner predictions. These are just predictions for who will get nominated. Although clearly filler in most entertainment mags, they're fun and totally inane since, après tout, even if your picks get nominated, they still have a healthy chance of losing.

Not snow
Sure, there's cold rain sometimes. But, say it with me class, at least it's not snow.

The Shaw Report: The End of an Era?

The people over at Entertainment Weekly seem to have wised up, twofold. First, they give Project Runway the cover story and, and!, put Heidi AND TIM GUNN on the cover. I saw it while loitering around the Philadelphia airport and got pretty giddy. It's too bad the rest of the issue had more filler than an American Idol season finale.

Secondly, as my subscription ran out back in the spring, EW and I have been estranged for quite some time now. And because I'm a masochist, while waiting for the plane I flipped right away to the Style page and...no Jessica Shaw? Just a tired feature on the red carpet at the Video Music Awards? Whuh? So I flip around frantically until, lo and behold, there's The Shaw Report on the News + Notes page. But now, instead of the usual three-by-three matrix of irrelevance, Shaw has been downsized to a tiny spot in the bottom-left corner and only one category instead of three. (Celebrity Offspring, no less. Girl, please. That's so two months ago.)

Did the editors realize how inane the feature is, and how it offers nothing whatsoever to the advancement of popular culture? I certainly hope so. Because if I wanted to read tired filler features about which citrus fruit is "in" right now, I would pick up an Us Weekly or, if I was feeling particularly shameless, an In Touch. EW gets its share of criticism, but I have yet to find another weekly mag that keeps me as unpatronizingly informed about what's going on. So, thank you, EW, but can't we just get rid of The Shaw Report altogether?

Mini-Fop

Finding a job. Unpacking my apartment. Reading. Writing something meaningful in this blog. These are all productive things I should be doing on my last few days off. Instead I just spent the last twenty minutes making this:



Admittedly it doesn't look like me. But I'm pretty sure I have that sweater. So, you know, it's good to know that even the animated version of myself doesn't set his sights much higher than H&M, too.

Crashvivor

It's official. Here comes Survivor riding the coattails of success of The Best Picture Of The Year. Because the only thing hotter than reptiles on aircraft right now is racial tension, the tribes on the upcoming season of Survivor will be segregated separated by race. Host Jeff Probst says that the move is in response to criticisms that the cast is not racially diverse enough. So why not just cast more people of color and have them assigned to tribes in other equally arbitrary but less offensive ways? Ah, because that's not enough of a "twist".

The whole thing just feels kind of icky. The cast members cannot really avoid feeling like they're representing their whole race on national television. And while there will certainly be opportunities for education on racial intra- and intergroup relations, Survivor doesn't really pack the educational punch that a show like Black. White. does. I guess it's not even that important since I haven't watched Survivor since that season where the Mormon girl didn't win, and Brian is the only person I know who still watches regularly. But it's because of these sorts of production ploys that, out of all the long-running reality shows, Survivor always will feel the most gimmicky. Feh.

Summer Movie Bonanza: An Addendum

I thought last week's Snakes on a Plane premiere would be my final film viewing of the summer, foolishly, as I did not account for the next week I would be spending in PA. Another week, that is, of the kind of hometown ennui that one can only experience a week before the start of an academic semester. Unfortunately, this led me to seeing Accepted out of sheer nothing-better-to-doedness. Despite the occasional funny line and the supporting role of Strangers With Candy's Tammi Littlenut, the less said about the movie the better.

Fortunately, the next day I cleansed my gray matter with a late-night viewing of Little Miss Sunshine. (And all by myself, might I add, being the trudependent single gal that I am. Holla!) (God, I need to get some.) Little Miss delivered on all accounts, mostly because I don't remember the last movie, especially the last comedy I saw in which I cared so much about all of the characters. None of the characters are remotely perfect, though I should mention that Toni Collette always looks supercute and Steve Carell had a subtle foxiness I've never noticed before. (Anyone agree? No?) Everyone just does such a good job. Admittedly, I felt like it was going into mawkish land, but the bits of darkness and characters prevent a total mushfest. One of the best this year. Suck on that lemon, Accepted.

To Every Season

Back to school displays assault the eyes at Target. Vanity Fair's Style Issue is out in all its twenty-seven pound (but mercifully Tom Ford-less) glory. These are the official signs of the end of summer. And I am considering my viewing of Snakes on a Plane last night the end of my summer movie viewing bonanza.

It's been a summer of good movies (A Prairie Home Companion), bad movies (Poseidon, Stick It), middling movies (The Devil Wears Prada), and those all-too-forgettable movies (Mission: Impossible 3? A Scanner Darkly? Wuh? Did I actually see these?) I, for one, am glad that we can all move into the Fall and Winter seasons that usually offer more interesting fare.

Which I guess brings us to Snakes on a Plane. First of all, I don't know why I was there on opening night, since I never, ever go to movies on their opening nights. But there I was. I have never seen so many scenesters gathered together in York County, Pennsylvania in my life. If a meteor hurled into the theater, there would officially be no "scene" left in all of central PA, which would also have unforseen economic effects on the 24-hour diner and Salvation Army branches. But anyway, Snakes. It was what it was. There is a plane. There are snakes. Snakes biting eyeballs and genitals. Snakes constricting. Snakes [Spoiler!] eating tiny dogs. Snakes delivering comeuppance. The ridiculous factor is high, which, being a vehement snakeophobe, I appreciated greatly. I don't think I'd ever see it again, but it's an experience. It's also nice to see a film live up to its hype. I guess.

TG + MW 4 Evah

Tim Gunn on Kayne's dress from last night's PR: "...it was still a hot mess. Frankly, it looked like it was going to Pattycake’s birthday party at Angela’s art camp. Oh my. Maybe we should inaugurate a Jubilee Jumbles award?"

This? Is why I love this man. He also mentioned his disapproval over the judges' decision. I hate how the producers have to throw in at least one mid-season, WTF elimination. (Season One: Alexandra elimmed over Wendy; Season Two: Emmett over Santino.) Now we've jettisoned lovely Alison over godawful Vincent. Le sigh.

Vacay All I Ever Wanted

I'm heading home to PA for a few weeks to see the fam/friends and celebrate the birthday (Eeee!). Hopefully I'll be posting from there unless I'm absolutely ravaged by laziness. Which, you know, good possibility and all.

Rock of MySpace

Vote for James or die! Vote vote now!

Heeeee. I nominated James for this Queerty Men of MySpace Award awhile ago and totally forgot about it. You have to vote so he can get the title. Go now! On with you!

Game Show Marathon

Having recently moved into an apartment that boasts, in addition to an empty keg and a nasty ant problem, the beautiful world of digital cable, I have found myself watching Game Show Network for hours and hours on end. Game shows always have had a special place in my heart, since from the ages of about four to eight, I told everyone that I was going to be a game show host when I grew up, to proudly join the ranks of the Martindales and Cullens and Dawsons. But enough about my shattered aspirations. Here is what Game Show Network appears to be offering nowadays.

Match Game
Always a classic. It really makes you long for the seventies, when it was okay to smoke cigarettes, drink G&Ts, and talk with racist accents on game shows. Between Gene Rayburn’s all-around creepiness and Brett Somers’s inability to comprehend her surroundings, the show makes for more than a little hilarity. I would be interested in any good Match Game drinking games, if anyone knows of any.

Starface
One of those unessential, celebrity-themed game shows where all of the contestants seem like they were referred by their agents. Danny Bonaduce's performance as host unsurprisingly falls somewhere between “awkward” and “gravelly”.

Chain Reaction
This is GSN’s heavily advertised update of the ‘80s game show. It’s wordy, so naturally I like it; plus, the theme song consists of detached lyrics and a synthpop beat that has kind of become my jam. It’s an entertaining and stylish little game show without too much gimmick (Russian Roulette much?). Great bonus round, too.

Lingo
Sush and I have a better time playing this game online than we do actually watching it. Those lingo balls still look fun to play with, though. Also, shut up, Woolery.

Password Plus
I have said it before and I’ll say it again: Password is the most boring game show ever to be conceived. The best thing to come out of this show is the Family Guy where Peter goes on the show and tries to describe the word flaming to Tony Randall.

Press Your Luck
And we’re talking the original here, before the whammies were updated to look like cats. My opinion remains the same from when I was seven and used to watch the reruns on USA: this the best game show in the history of the genre.

Family Feud
I have a theory that there is a huge game show contestant pool somewhere in southern California where contestants are screened based on what show is best for them. The stupidest people get sent to Family Feud, avec relatives.