scenes i love - the fog

Mona Moore Boots

This is the time of year to find great deals on boots. Our sis-in-law, Jen, turned us onto Mona Moore, the super chic Montreal designer shoe boutique with a huge selection. The advantage to using their website is there's no sales tax and all of our picks were 50% off.

These dark grey suede Jil Sander boots would look good with everything from dresses to jeans:

Jen bought these Marni boots :

Still looking for booties? These Dries Van Noten would be great for day or night.

awesome movie poster friday- the SLASHER edition!

Man oh man! Between My Bloody Valentine 3D and tonight when I might just be going to see something that rhymes with "shmiday shma shmirteenf", I gotta tell ya- I've been stricken with a bad case of THE SLASHERS! Actually, that sounds like something you may suffer should you travel to Mexico and unwittingly drink the water. Let's say...I've got SLASHER FEVER! Because I do. And here are the posters to prove it!

I love love love the poster for The Prowler. And yes, those are posters for Alice, Sweet Alice with one of its alternative titles, Holy Terror (the third title is Communion).

So many pointy objects, masks, people running in terror, and hulking kookadooks standing both silhouetted and menacing!

On Our Radar: The Standard New York

We have fond memories of The Standard in West Hollywood. A few weeks before our 10th high school reunion we took a trip to L.A. simply for the sole purpose of having a glamorous answer when our former classmates asked what we had been up to recently. ("Oh, I just got back from a trip to the West Coast.") We laid out by the pool, which has a killer view of the city, drank apple martinis at lunch and flirted with boys from San Diego. If you haven't been to The Standard, we promise you've seen it: It's where Carrie and the gang stayed when SATC traveled to L.A.

Fast forward to now: The Standard Hotel in the Meatpacking District, along the Highline, opened quietly last month. NY Mag reviewed its architecture and another lucky writer, Sarah Bernard, got to spend the night there. Her report: The views are spectacular, the staff is not only gorgeous, but helpful, too. The downsides: there's no restaurant or room service just yet and the rooms lack full length mirrors.

What we're curious about is the lobby. At the WeHo branch, one could happily curl up on the plush sectional sofa, pretending to read a book and people watch for hours. We'll make the trek over to the Hudson just as soon as the weather warms up and report back.

MAC, Stila, Two Faced and the 80's Character

Nostalgia is all over the makeup counters this month. Answer this: were you a Hello Kitty collector (we had a stationary set) or a Barbie enthusiast (you know who you are…) or even a Smurfette lover (Anne's Halloween costume)? Some of our favorite brands have collaborated to bring you a makeup flashback.

MAC has the most extensive collection with Hello Kitty which is available in February.

Stila has four different Barbie Loves Stila Paint Cans from 1959 Ponytail Barbie to the 2000 Jewel Doll. Our favorite sets are the Malibu and Foxy Dolls available now at Sephora and Stila.com.

And Two Faced is offering a Smurfy Illumination Face Powder which brightens your skin (let's assume it doesn't turn you blue).


Which is your favorite?

everything is all right!

In honor of yesterday's post:



In honor of the discussion thread over at The Final Girl Seven:



Yes, The Final Girl Seven of Facebook "fame". See, I started a thread regarding the taking of requests and how I'll be doing that for some sort of Review Event Week...so head over there and request your heart out!

By the way, I watched a late-night episode of Match Game last night and CNR was not on. What, pray tell, would be the point of that?

What to Wear in Florida When It's Cold...

A few weeks ago, we tackled the question of what to wear when traveling from a cold weather destination to a warm with the help of Smashing Darling.

Unfortunately we're not quite so lucky to have that problem as we head down to Tampa for Super Bowl festivities this weekend. We're looking at a high in the 60s and a low in the 30s!!! Brrr...If it weren't for the thought of all those free cocktails and the hope of scoring a ticket to the game, we might even stay home.

With our San Francisco debacle fresh in our mind, when we had to wear every item of clothing we brought with us in order not to freeze in the middle of summer, we set out to pack for our Super Bowl weekend. Adding another wrinkle to our packing dilemma, JSG is along for the ride on this trip so don't totally know what we'll be doing, though we were told to dress casual. While we pride ourselves on the ability not to overpack, we also want to be ready for every situation. Here's what we've come up with so far for our three evenings out:



All the tops can be worn with jeans and can go from day to night -- the blue sparkly shirt, too. (Keep in mind, we are founding members of the "Sequins for Day" club.) As for the dress, while it's not exactly casual, we couldn't help ourselves. We hardly ever get to wear it and we expect the sexy dominatrix vibe will win over Steelers and Cardinal fans alike.

To stay warm, we're bringing our fave brown Generra leather jacket, scarves and gloves. As for our daytime wear, well, it's a good thing we don't leave til Friday a.m!

Leggings Making a Comeback?

Or, more specifically, stirrup pants. It is a little scary when you're old enough to remember the first time a trend was really big. That's exactly the case with JSG and stirrup pants, but it's not stopping us from embracing them this time around. Hope already bought a pair of Vince stirrup pants at Neiman's post-Christmas blowout sale and has been wearing them ever since. Now we see that Sak's is giving a free pair of Kova & T leggings with any Louboutin purchase. Is it wrong that we kinda want them? They would be just the thing to wear with our pink Miu Mius.

compare and contrast, part deux

Ever since I bought a region-free DVD player (aka the best purchase I've ever made EVER except, perhaps, my fog machine) and thus have looked for DVDs from all 'round yon globe, I've come to a startling conclusion. STARTLING I SAY: 9 times out of 10, the Region 2 DVD covers are better than the Region 1 covers. Now, I'm not saying this to be anti-American, so don't start busting out Lee Greenwood or some shit. Perhaps your aesthetic tastes differ from mine and you'll disagree anyway; the point is, I am just saying.

R1 vs R2

NOTE: Dear Region 1...it does not speak well to the talents and originality of the filmmakers when you say "A Saw-like twist at the end!" on the cover for a movie from the creators of Saw.









NOTE: This Region 1 Prom Night cover is especially heinous (not just ugly) because it uses a photo of Jamie Lee Curtis from Halloween H-fucking-20!


Of course, sometimes Region 2 gets it very, very wrong.

Sally Hershberger Facial Review

We’ve experienced just about every type of facial out there: diamond, oxygen and budget, to name a few. But all that knowledge still didn’t prepare us for the utter wackiness—and wow-worthy results—of the Sally Hersberger Face Place facial with Tom Woodhouse.

He started out by layering our skin with cotton soaked in a yucca solution to soften skin and cleanse pores. On top of that, went a sort of facial tepee—a cone with an opening, which produces a dry heat and amplifies the softening and cleansing affect of the yucca. We soaked in our own personal sweat lodge for 15-ish minutes. We felt relatively comfortable with it despite our slight case of claustrophobia. Tom tells us some of his clients like to read or send emails on their Blackberries. We opted to chat with our adorable manicurist Erica Marton.

After our face was thoroughly cleansed, Tom put a Hannibal Lecter-type mask over our face. In Tom’s words:

The mask works to penetrate a water soluble vitamin and mineral solution deeply into the skin. It stimulates the cells to increase collagen production helping to firm the skin. At the same time it tightens the pores, minimizes bacterial growth in the skin and decreases inflammation.

We experienced a slight metallic taste in out mouth, but other than that it was perfectly pleasant.

The results: Our face was immediately glowing and our monster pimple was in retreat. Best of all—our skin was healthy and breakout free for weeks, despite a grueling travel schedule.

Palm Springs - a Hot Destination?

JSG has been to Palm Springs a surprising amount for an east coast girl--around four or five times. But still, we were pretty shocked to see the desert city landed the cover of February's Condé Nast Traveller. See, most of our trips were actually work related--we don't think we would head to this sleepy town by choice.

As author Adam Platt (also the food critic for NYMag) states in the story, "Sunny Daze":

Palm Springs is a refuge, a place for ultra-public personalities to disappear for days, weeks, or even years at a time, to realign their senses and get their heads screwed on straight.

Maybe that's our problem--we're not screwed up enough to appreciate the town as a refuge. Even though Palm Springs has breathtaking scenery (one of our trips was for a photo shoot), a gorgeous Viceroy Hotel (above), sister property to the Santa Monica branch, and the visually intriguing Parker Hotel (below), built on a former Merv Griffin estate, it's just too slow for our tastes. There's not much in the way of nightlife, shopping (unless you drive to the Desert Hills Premium Outlets) or even cuisine (a point Mr. Platt glazes over in his piece. Curious omission for a full time restaurant critic. Let's blame it on his editor.)




Is it just us, or are we missing something?

Lululemon Apres-Ski Yoga

After a hard day of skiing, we could use some stretch and healing. Lululemon, our pick for the best yoga attire, is offering up free apres-ski yoga classes in their Park City and Whistler stores. Even though we tend to hit happy hour (and some hit the hot tub), our bods would be better off from an hour of yoga.

By the way, yoga pants make a great base layer: they breath, the move well while we're skiing, and they look great when we take off our ski pants. If it's particularly cold, we'll put silk underwear underneath but otherwise our yoga pants are plenty warm.

Who knew two such different sports could benefit each other so?

ghd Travel Hair Dryer

We took to the slopes for a last minute ski trip this weekend. It's snowing outside, we've got a great place to stay; but we're missing one thing: our favorite travel hair dryer. Cold weather and high altitudes are great for our frizzy hair. There's no reason to straighten because there's no humidity. We have some of our best hair days ever with so little effort, unfortunately we have to wear a hat most of the time.

We didn't pack our ghd dryer because we knew the condo where we're staying supplies their own. Unfortunately, it's one of the short curly-corded attached to the wall varieties. Standing within two feet of the wall seriously hinders any styling and its low wattage means twice the drying time. Since last month we been using the ghd as our everyday dryer. It's lightweight, easy to grip and dries our hair just as quickly as our old full size dryer. It's not cheap, but neither was my ghd ceramic iron that I've had for years and has served me very well. Next time, we won't forget to pack it.

Available at Sephora as an introductory set including shampoo, conditioner, styling cream and thermal protector and (our fave!) two big, strong, salon quality hair clips.

Happy travels!

compare and contrast!

So, it's 11:30pm and I'm about to start writing my column for AMC, which is due in the morning. Though I'm kicking myself in the BEhind for starting it so late, it happens every week so I shouldn't be surprised. The topic for this week (ooh, top secret!) has me trawling through my archives in search of the title of a movie I've written about in the past. Said trawling has brought about this Final Girl post, which I'll call Ancient History Regarding the First Time I Was Edited Severely for an Article I Was Asked to Write and How the Results Made Me Want to Kill Myself and No It's Not Something I Wrote for AMC and Yes I Should Be Over It and I Mostly Am Although Reading It Again Brought Up Residual Feelings of "What the FUCK?" and I Probably Shouldn't Even Do This Post But I'm Going to Anyway Because I Feel Like Sharing So There.

The article in question I was asked to write- I stress this because it indicates to me that the editor was at least aware of my writing "style", which is perhaps a bit unconventional as it was born and bred exclusively on this here blog where I am THE BOSS OF ME- was to be a piece about lesbians and Halloween and all the...I don't know, getting the lesbian chocolate in the Halloween peanut butter or whatever. You know what I mean. Like, what horror movies feature lesbos? and that sort of thing. It took me forever to write that damn article, and when I saw the finished product online, well, let's just say that steam came out of my ears. In fact, steam probably came out of most, if not all, of my orifices.

You know, I was going to delete that last sentence because it's really gross and perhaps mostly untrue, but I'm tired and I have a long night ahead of me and at the moment I find it amusing so it stays.

Onward to the worthless past-dredging-uppening! Here are the opening two paragraphs I wrote:

If you’re anything at all like me, then Halloween trumps all as the most wonderful time of the year (that’s right- in your face, Escalator Safety Awareness Week!). There are scary movies on TV ad nauseum, cheap horror DVDs appear in the unlikeliest places (I picked up Salem’s Lot at my grocery store; it was displayed next to the frozen pizzas, and for just a moment I thought maybe I’d somehow passed into The Great Beyond and didn’t know it), and there are rubber-n-cardboard decorations everywhere. Walking past fake cobwebs on my way to find the Q-Tips makes me feel like my local CVS is haunted, I swear. “Mayhaps it was built on an Indian burial ground!” I say to myself, often followed by something like “Ooh look! My shampoo is on sale. Thank you, kind spirits of the underworld!”

Also, if you’re anything like me you can’t eat raisins for too long because after a while you start thinking that they’re not really fruit at all- they’re actually bug bodies- and you get grossed out. That, however, is a discussion for another time. We’re here talk about how you- yes, you!- can make this the most leztastic Halloween ever! I mean, above and beyond bobbing for fanny packs and eating Peppermint Patties until you burst, even.

I mean, it's certainly not the greatest thing ever written (that honor belongs to the novelization of the film 9 to 5, or at least so I thought when I was a wee bonny lass and I saw the paperback in the grocery store and I just had to have it), but it's definitely Final Girl-flavored.

Now...siiiigh...here is what those paragraphs were turned into for publication:

If you’re a horror fan like me, then Halloween trumps all as the most wonderful time of the year. Sure, there are plenty of awful movies out there, but I'm an optimist when it comes to horror films. I simply love a good scare and the adrenaline rush it provides. Even better? There are tons of horror flicks (and a few TV shows) with lesbians in them.

That's why I've put together this handy guide to lesbians and bisexual women in horror.

From the tried and true (Buffy, of course!) to the rare and scary (Robert Wise's The Haunting, for instance) and everything in between (including an almost-forgotten appearance by Amanda Bearse in Fright Night), this guide takes you beyond the lesbian vampire and into the gory world of murdered sorority girls, slumber party massacres and lesbian camping trips gone very, very bad.

So light up your jack-o-lanterns and get your spooky punch ready, because now you can make this the Best. Lesbian. Halloween. Ever.

See? That's what'll get ya steaming orifices. There are words- sentences- WHOLE FUCKING PARAGRAPHS- there that I did not write. "Spooky punch"? Spooky fucking punch? I would never in a million years type those words except for right there where I typed them to make the point that I would never type them.

What's the point of posting this when the article in question is well over a year old and isn't it a little ungracious or unprofessional or something besides? None! There is no point whatsoever! Except that apparently it's a pain that will never ever leave me, much like The Clap. Not that I have The Clap or even know, really, what it is- is it short for chlamydia?- and whether or not it is, in fact, painful. It's just that no one really talks about The Clap anymore, and I think that's a shame.

Yet another shame is the fact that I've now spent half an hour writing this diatribe instead of what I'm supposed to be writing. Damn you, old ire!

Note: posting a picture of this dog in a Halloween costume in a post about an article about the phenomena known as "Lesbian Halloween" does not mean that I'm insinuating that this dog is a lesbian. First, I don't even know if it has a vagina- as Yoda is male, I would assume the dog is also male. Then again, in first grade I dressed up as The Incredible Hulk for Halloween, and the last time I checked (earlier today) I'm a female. Of course, if the dog is a lesbian, that's perfectly fine.

Note the second: I "checked" my "femaleness" by attempting to do some math (I failed miserably) and I spent some time just nagging in a general sort of way. Viva la femme!

nom nom nom

As I've pointed out in the past, a general rule of thumb regarding anthology movies is that there will be one stinker in the bunch, one shining star, and a few segments that aren't stellar, but at least they're largely inoffensive. This rule can also be applied to the dynamics of groups of friends and salads...stupid carrots, always ruining everything. Well, not everything, exactly- I mean, they're fine when they're cooked or on their own, but in salads? Okay, fine, even in salads they're alright, but only if they're, like, slivers. A big, fat disc of carrot will fuck a salad up like no one's business--

Before I go on and on about carrots and the myriad ways in which I enjoy them or don't enjoy them, let me just say that the 2004 Malaysian film Visits: Hungry Ghost Anthology pretty much proves my theory on the portmanteau flick- to me, this means that I'm right about everything all the time, and therefore no one can contradict my views, whether they be regarding carrots or Battlestar Galactica (best show ever) or what you should do with your hair (I say shave it all off).

Sorry, BSG just started up again and I've got the fever for the flavor of a Pringle.

The 15th night of the 7th month marks, essentially, Chinese Halloween. During this time, "hungry ghosts" are released and spirits walk the earth to mingle with the living. Hungry for what, you ask? No, they're not here for your Cool Ranch Doritos, my friends...they're hungry for your face! At least, that's the way the film played out in my imagination. In reality, the hungry ghosts of Visits are just...sort of...here, despite the fact that we're promised some truly scary stories in the framing narrative, which finds a radio DJ recounting stories to his listeners.

1413

Two girls lie on the ground in a bloody pile. One of them dies, one of them ends up in the hospital with a concussion and amnesia. Was it a suicide pact? Why is the dead one hanging around the largely-empty hospital, showing off her scabby face? How does her boyfriend tie into all this? Flashbacks fill in all the predictable blanks, but unfortunately it all happens a bit too fast. There's no build to the story, and there's little tension- just a few jump scares. Honestly, 1413 had me dreading the hour-plus I still had to slog through in Visits; I'm happy to say that the stinker of the bunch was out of the way first.

WAITING FOR THEM

Sam receives a phone call from her childhood friend Anne, during which Anne imparts that she's recently broken up with her girlfriend and as a result her world has gone to hell. Her ex isn't returning her calls, how did things go wrong, she can't live with out her, blah blah usual breakup drama blah. Soon Sam can't get a hold of Anne- until she finds Anne wandering down a lonely road late one night. Anne has nowhere to go, so Sam takes her in. Anne sees clammy feet in Sam's closet and splits, and only later do we learn her fate.

Huh? Yeah, clammy feet peeing (typo but it stays) out from the back of a closet are about as spooktacular as Waiting For Them gets. It's much more a character study/drama with a few bizarre sequences (a moment that finds the two women brushing their teeth together was a highlight) (yes, brushing teeth was a highlight) than a straight-up horror story, ghost or otherwise. It's odd, then, that I enjoyed this segment- it's so quiet and still that you may wonder if there are actually actors or if the director has simply staged set pieces with mannequins. I liked getting my Murder She Wrote on, though, as I tried to figure out Anne's story. Your mileage, of course, may vary.

NODDING SCOOP

I know, that title, right? I was totally all "What the heck is a nodding scoop? Does it involve ice cream? 'Cause if it does, I'm totally nodding yes! HA HA HA!" Sadly, it does not involve ice cream. "Nodding scoop" is a device constructed from a ladle and a wig, and it's used as a sort of Ouija board when people attempt to communicate with the spirits. So, if you were like "Hey dead person, are you here?" and the dead person was, the scoop would, you know, nod. In this segment, which finds some college students filming themselves using the device as they perform a seance, the silliness of the contraption gave way to supreme creepiness. As can be expected, the students really do summon a spirit; the creepiness promptly goes out the window and the plot quickly devolves into nonsense. An extremely disappointing end to a very promising start.

ANYBODY HOME?

Here we have a security guard who's obsessed with one of the female inhabitants of the apartment building in which he works. He plants tiny cameras in her apartment to spy on her, and his behavior continues to escalate until he's spending time in her home when she's not there. Soon he finds out that she's got a secret of her own.

Anybody Home? was my favorite story of the bunch, and it's certainly the standout of Visits. The segment is almost completely wordless as we view life through the various cameras of the apartment building- we see the girl coming home drunk at 2 am, stumbling to the elevators; we watch every boring facet of her life, from doing the dishes to going to the bathroom- we see what's arousing the security guard. We watch him in her apartment, invading her space and reacting violently to something he finds in her freezer. This moment marks a shift in the story's narrative- the stalker becomes the victim- and unfortunately it's also a change in narrative devices. The security camera conceit is dropped and the rest of Anybody Home? plays out in standard style, which is a complete detriment to the piece. Still, it's an unusual spin on fairly standard Asian Horror fare.

That seems to be the biggest problem with Visits: Hungry Ghost Anthology- each segment treads overly familiar waters, waters that have been explored to much greater effect in other films. Each story here fell victim to the anthology format, in that they're essentially short films. Horror shorts need to pack a wallop, and if anything, Asian ghost stories are slow mood pieces. It's difficult to build ample tension and create an unsettling atmosphere in such a short amount of time. While none of these segments truly pays off in a completely satisfying way, there is some interesting material to be found for enthusiasts of the genre.