We're on the fence about Valentine's Day--on one hand, it does seem like a made up holiday. On the other, we always approve of telling our loved ones how much they mean to us. With that in mind--these Philosophy bath products are perfect for Valentine's Day. Don't know what to give your partner? How about the "Soul Mates" grapefruit bath and body wash? Your mother can have the pomegranate "Gratitude," your daughter gets the lemonade scented "You Are My Sunshine," and your best friend who broke up with her boyfriend just before V-Day gets two--"let go, let love" and "begin again."
Purchase them at Sephora. There's free shipping on all orders over $75.
Here’s a few facts you may not know about Lenny Kravitz:
He has reportedly sworn off sex til he remarries. (Does this mean he and rumored ex-fiancé Nicole Kidman didn’t do the horizontal tango?)
He’s on our list of 5.
His mom played Helen on the Jefferson’s.
He’s even sexier in person.
He’s Al Roker’s cousin.
He kicked serious ASS in concert last week at NYC’s Hammerstein Ballroom (yes, we were lucky enough to be there!)
He once checked us out with our friend Cari at Atlantis in the Bahamas.
And he designed a bar in South Beach, which JSG is very excited to check out tomorrow night!
We’re headed to Miami tomorrow and top on our list of hotspots to check out is Lenny’s Florida Room underneath the Delano.
Lenny’s inspiration for the bar, in his own words: My aunt had a place in her house where everyone played, hung out, listened to music and where all the fun was had, called the Florida room. We decided to create a space with this theme in mind but that also had the feeling of the old piano lounges in the resorts back in the 50's in Florida, Cuba and New York City. I love the rich musical history of Miami Beach. The Beatles, James Brown and Frank Sinatra all spent time here. We see the Delano as having this same kind of rich history and also took cues from this to envision the place I always wanted at the beach, but hasn't existed here in a long time.
Here’s hoping Lenny shows up and checks us out again!
Hey, I'm reminding you about the Dead Lantern Splatcademy Awards and how Final Girl is, like, nominated for a "Spooky" and stuff. If you'd like to vote for...you know, whoever (a-HEM), then you should do so ASAP, as I believe voting will end soon. Seize the day! Tell someone you love them! Practice random acts of kindness and senseless beauty! Let me tell you about my grandchildren! My other car is a broom! Don't blame me, I voted for the other guy!
In other me news, there's a little interview with...uh, me up at AMC's Monsterfest Blog. So, like, go read it if you want to know how I answered some questions and stuff. Or don't. See if I care. Jerk.
In other not me news, I can't wait until April 8, when The Nanny is released on DVD. No, I'm not talking about the Fran Drescher vehicle series (although if I were, would you hate me?)...I'm talking about the 1965 film featuring Bette Davis as an eeeevil nanny. Did I just say "Bette Davis as an eeeevil nanny"? Yes...yes I did. Which is why I've already picked out an engagement ring and when The Nanny comes home I'm so totally popping the question. Do you think I should do it in a public arena, like at a sports game? I think the added pressure of public scrutiny might guarantee me a yes and The Nanny and I will soon thereafter be bound in most unholy matrimony!
The Fabulous Moolah agrees, this Friday is indeed fabulous. But then, every day is fabulous for The Fabulous Moolah because she is fabulous. Although, perhaps things aren't so fabulous now because she's dead. Or maybe...just maybe...things are even fabulouser for her now because she's dead. Think about that.
I saw Diary of the Dead last night, and now I'm gonna talk about it. I'm sure I'll be giving away lots of spoilers (which, quite frankly, I always do here at FG) so if'n that ain't your bag, turn away now like a little baby. Go on! Git!
Side note: I like the idea of The Blair Zombie Project, and I'd like to see the franchise expand even further, to wit: The Blair Dracula Project, The Blair Lepus Project, The Blair Blob Project.
Now then. Any of you who are my MySpace fake friends (and why aren't you if you aren't? MySpace is totally hip and happening and so very now amongst the kids and 'hackers', and I know this because Diary of the Dead told me so!) who happened to read my blog over there know that the DotD trailer didn't particularly get me all a-touchin' mahself with anticipation. There were plenty of you who were excited about it, though, and sometimes that can be infectious. Before the movie last night, I was ready. Romero is calling DotD "...a whole new beginning for the dead". I was all "Zombies. Romero. Independently financed. Free screening. Yessssss." And then...
...I kind of disliked it. Scratch that- I really disliked it. Diary of the Dead didn't work on any level for me, and that really bums me out. I adore Romero, and even though I don't always adore his films, he's made some of my absolute favorite horror movies. Hell, I even liked Land of the Dead when I saw it in the theatre...though not so much when I watched the DVD at home a few months later. So what happened with Diary that left me feeling like an old, used up whore, all bitter and dead inside? Unfortunately...everything.
Photo by: Steve Wilkie/The Weinstein Company, 2008.
A group college kids are off in the woods filming a no-budget mummy movie when they hear reports on the radio about a few dead people returning to life and making with the chomp-chomp on the living. The kids are unsure what to think, but they decide to stop filming and head home. They pile into a Winnebago and have various wacky and gross zombie-laden adventures all caught on camera by mummy movie director Jason (Josh Close), who can't put down the camera because he is the voice of truth!
I'm not one to nitpick a film, really I'm not. Unless there's something glaringly obvious that doesn't gel (like, "Wait, didn't his head just get cut off? How is he walking around?"), I'm a very-forgiving movie-watcher. After Diary of the Dead, though, I found myself going "Well, what about this? And that? And why did that happen?" because if you look at the film on anything deeper than a "zombie eat people! me like!" level, it all falls apart.
I know that The Blair Witch Project has its detractors and it always has. No matter how you feel about the content of that film and whether or not it scared you, there's no denying that the movie felt real...basically, because it was. Directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez handed lo-fi cameras over to Heather Donahue, Josh Leonard, and Mike Williams and the result was as verite as verite can get. Though Diary purports to be shot in the same way (every shot in the film is accounted for and explained away: it's this camera, it's that security camera, I found it on YouTube) (yes, YouTube. And MySpace. And Panasonic. I guess "independently financed" means "product placement".), it's too slick to ever feel "real". Romero is still very much in charge and the man has been making movies for 40+ years...it's gonna look professional. The characters talk about editing, talk about their shots, blah blah blah, but it all feels like a conceit.
It doesn't help, either, that the acting was dreadful. Part of this, I think, is a result of the script: a lot of the dialogue felt completely unnatural and the characters were all unlikable. Seriously. I wanted them all to die, right across the board- especially the "director", Jason. Despite the fact that the world was falling apart around them, despite the fact that the dead were returning to life and killing the living, despite the fact that they had to, at times, kill loved ones who had 'turned', no one was emotionally affected by anything for more than a few seconds. The girl who had to shoot her undead boyfriend was all "Don't mess with Texas y'all! Can I have this lipgloss?" an hour later. The girl who was attacked by her own undead family brushed it off with little more than a "Phew! Okay, where to now?".
Diary of the Dead takes place over a 3-4 day period at the very beginning of the zombie outbreak. Romero makes sure we know the film is jam-packed with Katrina and 9-11 symbolism, but none of the reality of those terrifying situations, none of the confusion and fear and urgency of those events comes across on screen. The world has fallen apart so very much and so very quickly that a hospital is completely empty a few hours after the first zombie attack? That's a frightening prospect, if unbelievable, but our plucky filmmakers encounter little more than a few zombies here and a few zombies there as they make their way across Pennsylvania. The real footage spliced in- of car crashes, of Katrina aftermath, of riots in some vague Middle Eastern venue- feel completely out of place and unnecessary. They don't add to a sense of "the world is fucked" because the actual goings-on in the film don't add to a sense of "the world is fucked". Jason's "the government is lying to us and holding out on us and I have to keep filming because I am the voice of truth!" reasoning just doesn't...well, it doesn't ring true when the zombie outbreak is 4 hours old and he's one of a group of privileged college kids traipsing across Pennsylvanian back roads in a nice camper with no sense of imminent danger. Had the perspective been that of a poor, inner-city family with no alternatives and no way to escape the danger, then Romero might have been on to something.
Photo by: Steve Wilkie/The Weinstein Company, 2008.
Everyone likes to talk about how rife with symbolism Romero's zombie pictures are, yes? I suppose they are. Night of the Living Dead can be seen as a statement about race relations, but according to Romero himself that was never the intent: Duane Jones was cast because he was the best actor who read for the part of Ben, not because of his skin color. Thanks to its shopping mall setting, Dawn of the Dead is a parable about consumerism, but let's face it- the symbolism really stops at "zombies in a mall". And that's fine. The audience can glean whatever meaning they want from Romero's early zombie films, interpreting the night away. The key is, Romero left it up to the audience. Whether his messages were intentional or not, he got them across with a light touch. In Land of the Dead and, to a much greater extent, Diary of the Dead, the audience is absolutely fucking bludgeoned to (un)death with symbolism and meaning and metaphor. The photo montage at the end of Night of the Living Dead, where human bodies are tossed into fire like so much trash, is disturbing, haunting, and silent. Here, we're literally asked "if we're worth saving". And please, don't get me started on this bit:
"It used to be us vs. us. Now, it's us vs. them. But they are us."
Obviously, that should read:
"It used to be us vs. us. Now, it's us vs. them. But they are us. Which means...it isus vs. us. Gah! Never mind. I don't know what I'm talking about."
Regardless of how...well, how retarded the line is to begin with, I have the same problem with it that I had in Tom Savini's NotLD remake: if you show me that humans are no 'better' than the very monsters we're fighting, I'll dig it. If you just say it, laying it all on the table with a big fat proclamation, I'm gonna sigh. Are people so stupid that they need everything spelled out for them? I certainly hope not, but maybe I'm overestimating things.
The biggest offense of all, in my opinion, is that Diary of the Dead comes up short even on its most basic level as a horror film. Yeah, there are a few jump scares. Yeah, there are some cool shots. But there was never really any tension, never any urgency, never any creepiness or real sense of danger. These kids get a handle on the situation pretty quickly and have no problem dispatching the undead in a variety of fashions, even loved ones. No one is particularly bothered by anything, and no one is ever grossed out. Why is no one horrified or disturbed when a head gets blown off right in front of them and they end up covered in viscera? I'm not saying it needs to occur throughout the entire film, but one "That's disgusting" can go a long way. I can't even deal with a squished bug, never mind seeing someone's guts spill out onto the floor (yes, the infamous guts-to-the-floor shot from Day of the Dead is pretty much recreated here...to far lesser shock effect). Everyone is blase about everything, which just ain't right.
I miss Tom Savini. Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of Greg Nicotero (DotD's Special Make-Up Effects Producer) as well, but the effects are almost all computer-generated now. I'd rather sacrifice a wicked cool shot to have some organic FX...and I'm sorry, but Savini produced plenty of wicked cool shots with karo syrup and latex.
It all comes down to good idea, exceedingly poor execution. It hurts me to say so, but I wish I had more thumbs so I could give Diary of the Dead more thumbs down. The more I think about it, the less I like it...so I'm just going to stop thinking about it.
Here's hoping that the other "keep the camera rolling" zombie movie, [REC], gets it right. Now that's a trailer that's got me all a-touchin' mahself with anticipation!
JSG appreciates a good pick up line (and could probably use a few ourselves). JSG’s best one we’ve ever heard isn’t a line per se, so much as a story: One day while waiting to cross an NYC streets, a handsome man asked if we could hold his phone for a minute and proceeded to walk away. When we pointed out he was walking away from his phone, he casually and coolly replied, “I’ll call you to get it back.”
Now we’re married to each other.
Just kidding! While we admired the gent’s suaveness and ingenuity, we were in a relationship at the time, so we gave him his phone back then and there.
You're probably wondering by now what we're leading up to: If you have a funny pick up line, not only do we want to hear it, Kenneth Cole Reaction does as well. They’re sponsoring a contest and the grand prize is a trip for two to Vegas plus a $500 Kenneth Cole gift card and $500 in spending money, which will just about buy you a table at Pure. (We’re not entered in this contest, but we can still use your votes in the Tourism France contest)!
Click here to enter. It's running through the month of February. If you do enter, drop us a line--we'll vote for you!
With Super Tuesday behind us, and election fever heating up, it's JSG's turn to join the campaign and we need your support! We were so excited to have been asked to enter a travel blogger contest: Color Me Martinique! If you vote for us, you could win a trip to this gorgeous French Caribbean Island. Full disclosure: if we win, we get a week in Martinique ourselves.
Our Entry is "Making Friends the Old Fashioned Way" and is written by Anne Fritz. We won't give too much away, but it does involve a drinking contest in Munich. Vote now! Tell your friends! The contest is open through March 1st. We appreciate your support!
