Monday, September 24, 2007

Enough with these boring "it" girls!


Just about every other female my age watches this borefest called The Hills. It follows four girls in their early twenties as they party, hook-up and feud in LA. It should be interesting, but it's not. We never really get a peek into their lives, the conversations, the fights, the romance always has that unnatural feel to them, as if they were staged by a producer. The girls are all one blur of tan skin and blonde hair, with the occasional brunette version of them thrown in. The boys come in "pretty boy" or "slimy K-Fed lookalike".

The star of the show, the Marcia Brady lookalike Lauren "L.C." Conrad is our heroine. This is one of the main problems I have with the show. Were supposed to root for because eons ago (on another "unscripted" reality show), Lauren's crush, Stephen chose to date another girl, Kristen. Kristen was cute at first, but soon became obnoxious and annoying. Thus, the show devolved into a Jennifer Aniston/Angelina Jolie sort of rivalry, with the fans splitting into Team Lauren or Team Kristen. Most people seem to be a member of the former team.

In reality, (real reality), Lauren is probably the girl many would have hated in high school. A snobbish, rich, cheerleader type who, when in charge of making up a seating chart for her high school graduation, decides to put her and her friends together in the front row. She claims to have an interest in fashion, but she mostly wears yawn-worthy ensembles such as black flip flops and jeans, with a black tank top.

This chick too vanilla to be interesting. She's got friends, but if I ever had to converse with these people on a regular basis, I would probably shoot myself or die of boredom. Audrina, the shows only brunette, is the major stunner of the group, comes across as dim most of the time (she's also rumored to be a cokehead). Audrina hooked up with some shady dude that looks like a greasy lounge lizard version of Johnny Depp, who ironically, once abandoned her in Vegas- literally, he flew home without her and left her to fend for herself. Whitney works at Teen Vogue with Lauren, and there's not much to write about her, other than I love her name. Heidi is Lauren's ex-best friend, she and her boyfriend helped spread a rumor about Lauren having a sex tape. Their confrontations are like watching two plants have a disagreement.

The people on Laguna Beach/The Hills and the rest of MTV's reality shows, are disapointing. It's as if they walked out of a Bret Easton Ellis novel. It's almost like a race of Stepford people. We rarely see them have any meaningful conversations, that don't aren't awkward or rehearsed. They care about things like who saw who at whatever club last night, and non-existant sex tapes. It's almost scary to watch. It's not enough that we have Paris Hilton.

From Bret Easton Ellis's Less Than Zero:

"But I thought you were going out with Warren," Kim says to Blair.
I glance over at Blair.
"I was, but I'm not 'going-out' with Warren," Blair says, missing a beat.
"You were not. You fucked. You didn't 'go-out,'" Alana says.
"Whatever, whatever," Blair says, flipping through her menu, glancing over at me, then away.
"Did you sleep with Warren?" Kim asks Alana.
Alana looks at Blair and then at Kim and then at me and says, "No, I didn't." She looks back at Blair and then at Kim again. "Did you?"
"No, but I thought Cliff was sleeping with Warren," Kim says, confused for a moment.
"That might be true, but I thought Cliff was sleeping with that creepy Valley-turned-punk, Didi Hellman," says Blair.
"Oh, that is not true. Who told you that?" Alana wants to know.
I realize for an instant that I might have slept with Didi Hellman. I also realize that I might have slept with Warren also. I don't say anything. They probably already know.

Friday, September 7, 2007

I Love a Good Pair of Eyebrows Part 1:Jennifer Connelly

It's one of the first things I notice about a person. Eyebrows help make the whole face, they can practically make someone beautiful. Jennifer Connelly has some amazing brows:

Jennifer Connelly photographed by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott for V magazine


She's a great actress. A good thing about her is that she's fearless as an actress. She's not afraid play characters like in Requirem for a Dream. She managed to work her way out of the sexpot ingenue roles and make herself an interesting career. I admire that even though she's gorgeous, she didn't go off on a Jessica Alba "I'm too hot, so I don't get any good roles/no one takes me seriously even though I posed in Maxim, woe is me" tangent. Jennifer actually worked hard to get where she is.

Though people actually do criticize Jennifer Connelly's looks a lot. One of the main complaints people have about her is her eyebrows. The usual complaint goes something like this: "Jennifer Connelly would be so much prettier if she did something with her eyebrows" or "eww she has man- eyebrows!" To those people, I give you a picture of the 21 year-old Megan Fox:
Megan Fox by Brian Bowen Smith

Is this how you want Jennifer Connelly to look? With porntastic eyebrows that make her look 20 years older, evil, and constantly pissed off?

Rock on with your perfect, full eyebrows Ms. Connelly.


photo by Steven Shaw

Thursday, September 6, 2007

My Afternoon Browsing for Madame Alexander Dolls

So I've been looking for a birthday gift for a my niece, and what could be a more classic gift than a Madame Alexander doll? What I found turned out to be far more interesting than I expected. I was suprised to find out that Madame Alexander has a doll line similar to Barbie, only way more classy. Seriously, they make the Bratz dolls look like crackwhores. Of course, they come with a hefty price tag though, ( they can run from $80 to $200). But check out how freaking cool they look:




The one on the left is even carrying a tiny birkin bag.

However, "Newport
Alex" looks freakishly like Maureen Dowd:

I wonder is she also comes with a tiny New York Times and a copy of Are Men Necessary?.

I don't think I'm willing to drop that much cash for one of these though. Even the clothes for these things are ridiculously expensive. For example, this tiny dress is available for a whopping $80:



On the other hand, I could totally see myself wanting to buy a "Psycho Doll". How cool is this? It even has Anthony Perkin's shadow in drag!


And after buying the Psycho doll, how could I not buy this Tippi Hedren "Birds" doll?



They also have a range of "Gone With the Wind" dolls. They even have a "Prissy". She's cute, but I keep having bad flashbacks of that Nip/Tuck episode where Brittany Snow's nazi character's mom collected mammy dolls. However, I like to pretend that racist assholes like that don't exist and are not the one's buying the doll. They also had a Scarlett with two interchangable dresses entitled "Dinner with Rhett: Then and Now". One in the traditional full circle skirted garb as seen in the movie hence the "Then". The other one is a little black dress, hence the "Now". Seriously, what the fuck? I believe they ran out of ideas with that one.

All in all, I didn't end up finding a suitable doll for my niece. Maybe when she get's older I might buy her one, but I really don't think a 3 year-old is going to appreciate a Madame Alexander doll. And seriously, they're too damned expensive (and that's not even counting the shipping and handling).

I'm remembering all of those cool fancy dolls I used to have. Most of them ended up without their original clothing, ratty hair and short necks from having their heads manually screwed back on. But I'm totally getting that Birds doll.