My Favorite Oscar Dresses

Amy Adams in my favorite designer (well of the moment) L'Wren Scott in 2011.

This is probably my favorite Oscar Dress ever and something that looks like it belongs on Tilda Swinton, this Avent-Garde Givenchy was the best look of 2012.

Cate Blanchette makes the list again when she wore this groundbreaking John Galliano in 1999.

Who can forget Charlize Theron in her I-know-I'm-going-to-win-so-I'm-really-going-all-out Gucci sparkly number that echoed Marilyn's infamous skin-and-beads dress. She looked flawless in 2003.

Freida Pinto paying tribute to her Indian heritage in this stunning blue John Galliano gown in 2008.

Grace Kelly in who else? Edith Head. There was never a better star-designer match since Joan Crawford and Adrian. This is 1954 for The Country Girl.

Although usually making serious fashion faux pas, Gwyneth Paltrow in this Tom Ford dress was freakin' flawless in 2012.

Hilary Swank channeled the 30's with this stunning backless Guy Laroche gown the year she won for Million Dollar Baby in 2005.

This is kind of a given, if you ask anyone which is their favorite Oscar dress, they will probably say 'that Julia Roberts one' in 2001 when she won for the titular role in Erin Brockovich. Nothing beats vintage Valentino.

This is another personal favorite of mine, unfortunately apparently the only good fashion choice Marion Cotillard has made as we've seen of late. This Jean-Paul Gaultier mermaid gown stunned in 2008 when she won for La Vie en Rose.

Before she started looking like some scared socially awkward 6th grader, Michelle Williams was flawless at the 2005 Oscars in this luscious yellow Vera Wang and bright red lipstick. The most like Marilyn she's ever looked ironically.

If I have three personal favorites on this list, this would definitely be the third one. Natalie Portman always looks stunning (except her pregnancy dress in 2011, yuckville) but this Lanvin grey Ancient Greece inspired number was just flawless in its simplicity.

Pre-botoxed Nicole Kidman in 1997 rarely looked awful in anything, but this lime-green silk Dior creation was practically built for her, in fact it was. John Galliano's handy work yet again.

Emma Stone tried to recreate this dress down to the letter and miserably failed last year because honey, nobody looks more statuesque in a red Valentino than Nicole Kidman, pre-botox or post-botox. This is her in 2007, and out of all the bright red dresses to clash with the red carpet of the Oscars, this is by far the best one, and there have been a lot of them.

And true to her bo-ho chic style, Sienna Miller looked fabulous in this Matthew Williamson dress in 2004. 

Well that's it folks, be sure to check my best and worst list after this year, you know how much of a mean bitch I can be!

Politics, Not Sex Rules at This Year’s Oscars

Look at the films in this slate, pretty depressing huh? The Iranian hostage crisis, Osama Bin Laden’s manhunt, a dude surviving in the Ocean with a tiger as his first mate. Wah wah. Just kidding, I’m all for serious films especially when they’re done artfully and in a non-pretentious way, and the only one I can say that that’s true of out of the politically charged films which are Zero Dark Thirty, Argo, Lincoln, and Beasts of the Southern Wild (arguably) is Argo. So therefore I hope it wins Best Picture.

Of the risqué in the bunch the only one we can remotely put in that category is Silver Linings Playbook. Remember when Moulin Rouge (2001) was nominated? Scratch that, remember when Midnight Cowboy (1969) WON?? Has the Academy totally gotten prude over the years, the answer is a big fat sticky yes.

If we look at the history of the Oscars, it’s usually sappy love stories and wildly inaccurate bio-pics of historical figures cases involved; Gladiator, Amadeus, Titanic, The Best Years of Our Lives…and snooze. When Midnight Cowboy won, it was a battle year. 1969, perhaps one of the most vibrant years of the 20^th century; one fraught with racial tension, sexual experimentation, and general aggression against social morays and reflections of which. Therefore, the Academy picked the most controversial film that challenged everything it used to stand for as it’s top prize winner and they were right. For once, sex lead the way, and a film about a prostitute cowboy and his Puerto-Rican drug addict friend trying to make it in New York City garnered top prizes. Since then we’ve lowered the bar a bit. Raunchy films get nominated but they don’t win. I think the one that showed most boob-grabbing of late was Chicago (2002). 

Promo still for Midnight Cowboy the most controversial film to garner Best Picture honors, 1969.

This is of course ignoring the big elephant in the room which is all of Tarantino films ever which will win for other awards (Screenplay, Supporting Actor, what have you) but will never get the lord of all knick knacks especially not after what happened in Sandy Hook. Hollywood would much rather condone sex than explicitly gratuitous violence. But even then, the sex is toned down, and has to be within a context of love, which is why I keep going back to Midnight Cowboy. That was a pure sex-movie, that’s why it was rated X when it was first released. There’s little more to it, except of course the touching bromance, but it’s explicitness worked in it’s favor back then, it’s completely the opposite now. If you look at Silver Linings Playbook, the most those two ever do is kiss, though both talk about sex endlessly like they know everything about it, and yet somehow you just don’t believe either of them. In a way Silver Linings Playbook is the most unsexy romance film there is. Amour is more sexy than it, Sorry David O. 

Jennifer Lawrence tried very hard to play Femme Fatale to Bradley Cooper's troubled soul, but too young for the part, somewhat missed the boat. Though a solid effort on her part.

So in conclusion, give it to Argo please. It’s well directed (way to really fuck up by snubbing Affleck, btw), it’s mostly historically accurate, and it’s most importantly, interesting. Hollywood loves nothing more than a history lesson they don’t have to read.

One Day Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Hollywood

Frances Farmer as a glamor girl. 

Last night I was feeling very shitty. One of those days you know, we've all been there. Instead of drowning headfirst in a tub of crappy no-real-strawberries-in-our-ice-cream strawberry ice cream, I decided to do something I think we all indulge in. Pick a movie in which the main character is in like a million times worse shape than you are. One such film is about one of my favorite actresses/hot messes Frances Farmer. The film is aptly titled Frances (1982) and stars a very young Jessica Lang who actually looks like the spitting image of Frances Farmer back in her heyday. Now she looks like someone left a plastic version of herself near the oven for too long. 

Frances in her fuck-it-all moment. Waiting in court to give a big finger to the judge.

Here's some background on Frances Farmer, the original. She was never a Hollywood player. She was a major bank draw and obsession of the studios for a while but never did she play by any of their bullshit rules. She drank, she smoked, and she never played the lady elegant. She talked to men like they were her equals; something pretty unheard of back in the 30's, and never shot the shit with anyone or kissed ass to get what she wanted. What she wanted was to be a serious actor, and in the middle of her height at the studio she made a midnight run to Broadway to be a 'serious actress' and fuck the shit out of her playwright Clifford Odettes (at that time, the darling of contraversial and relevant theater in New York). He dumped her so she was forced to come back and degrade herself for money, not as a hooker (which came later) but a different kind of prostitution; being the glamour girl to thousands of adoring horny Hollywood nuts. Eventually, she started going off her rocker, and was eventually institutionalized where she was sexually assaulted on a regular basis and then lobotomized. Her life was indeed a tragic one. Needless to say, it's one of those uplifting films where you can think to yourself 'hey I've got my problems, but I'm not that girl'. 

The late great.

The story of Frances Farmer is one of the most notorious and secretive in Hollywood because people don't want the world to know that sometimes this is what happens when you're reluctantly part of the machine. I think in a way, I love her. She took no shit, and she paid a very heavy price for it. We can all take lessons from it, and I hope one day we all will be able to. 

Below, Hollywood was patronizing enough to let Frances have her own This is Your Life moment, and she for some reason went along with it, though post-lobotomy was not exactly herself anymore. 

Below, trailer for the film based on her life, which is as accurate as I've ever seen a bio-pic be. 

Compliance: The Most Contraversial Film of this New Decade

Dreama Walker reduced to sitting naked in the backroom with nothing but an apron to cover herself up with, not even knowing how much worse it's about to get for her.

If you thought the torture scenes in Zero Dark Thirty (2012) were rough to swallow, once you turn on compliance make sure you have an air sickness bag nearby. Here are a few reasons why, and they may be double standards, but those exist for a reason too. 1, the torture occurring in this dark indie sleeper hit are occurring in your very own back yard and not in a black sight somewhere not on a map in the middle east. 2. They are occurring to a woman, basically a girl barely out of her teens rather than some nameless affiliate of the Taliban. Here's the plot and I'll try to avoid spoiler alerts when I can. 

In the beginning of the film Becky (Dreama Walker) was just another 19 year old girl working a part time job at a fast food restaurant.

based on more actual occurrences we would like to admit, the film takes place mostly in a low-level fast food restaurant where a mysterious caller phones in telling the easily manipulated manager that he's with the police and a woman who matches the description for a young thin blonde, which of course could be anybody was caught on surveillance stealing money from a customer. She is then subjected to increasingly degrading and dehumanizing tasks, most of which involve forced sexual activity on another. After the mysterious caller is realized to be a prankster, basically the manager who has forced this poor employee to such horrors is beside herself and can't ever recover for how she was manipulated into doing something like that to an innocent person.

Anne Dowd, the Fast food restaurant manager being asked not only to perform a strip search without a supervising witness but to comply with things much worse.

his film cuts immediately to the bone. It tugs at our most vulnerable heart strings, as do most things when we see innocent people punished and dehumanized in such cruel ways, and what's more difficult to believe is that this happens basically all the time all over rural America where people don't even think twice to ask proof of law enforcement such as a badge or a search and seizure warrant. It's cinema verite style makes it even more difficult to take in, but that much more relevant and important. Not only is Dreama Walker brilliant as the innocent victim in all of this, but the star is Anne Dowd, who is actually perhaps the bigger victim as she gets blindly conned into subjecting one of her employees to such horrors. This is a vital film for everyone to see, not only because of the daring exposé on something that has been rather glamorized in our culture, case and point 'Fifty Shades of Grey'. Sometimes it's good to take a deep breath and look at the darker side of sadomasochism, and this is just the film to do that. 

Trailer below: 

Some of my biggest Filth Influences

Gore Vidal. Playwright, social commentator, and general threat to polite society extraordinaire.

Elinor Glyn. One of the first female scenarists who never held back, and paved the way for the next two waves of feminists.

Adrian. One of the film industry's most prolific and daring costume designers.

Barbara Stanwyck. Always told it like it was, before it was even legal.

Alexander McQueen. His designs and contribution the the fashion world elevated sex into an art form.

David Bowie. Nuff said.

Sam Fuller. The man who said 'fuck you' to the Hollywood censors and got away with it.

Quentin Crisp. The Naked Civil Servant.

Otto Dix. Perhaps the most explicitly controversial painter of the 20th century.

Gus Van Sant. A master of sensuality and subtext.

Joan Crawford. Fucked everyone in her path to get to the top and never apologized. Why would she?

Marilyn Monroe. If she hasn't taught you a thing or two you're doing it all wrong.

The Marquis de Sade. Banned, condemned, imprisoned, institutionalized. His writing was that saucy.

Paul Verhoeven. Extremist is his middle name.

Vladimir Nabokov. His greatest novel 'Lolita', which was banned in most countries upon release, influenced my writing the most.

Edie Sedgwick. Warhol's most beautiful of superstars.

John Waters. The filthiest filmmaker of all time.

Anaïs Nin. Made biographical writing all about sex.

Tennessee Williams. The most controversial and brilliant scenarist of ours or any time.

Andy Warhol. The great voyeur.

And of course, Oscar Wilde. Who spent ten years in prison for his work, his beliefs, his loves, and his brilliance.

Least Romantic Love/Sex Scenes Ever

Dawn Weiner tries her 'hand' at finger fucking (Welcome to the Dollhouse, 1995)

House of Cards. Filthy, Naughty, Politics

Kevin Spacey sitting in the same style as the Lincoln memorial. Rather offensive no? But I suppose that's part of the show's Caché.

If you haven't noticed, I've been in quite the creative lull lately, but I've had two cups of coffee in a half hour so let the inspiration rain down. Also, as it seems I have had nothing to watch unless it's either Real Housewives of Beverly Hills or Downton Abbey and I usually choose the latter because klonopin can only go so far, and Housewives always gets me so darn riled up. It's basically the only thing I have time for because I have what in the soft sciences is called a 'a job'...it's something you apply for and they pay you, nevermind I don't want to spoil the surprise. Anyway! 

I smell a lot of hate sex in their future.

The big buzz around my office has been the Netflix exclusive House of Cards (2013) The newest Aaron Sorkin show not written by Aaron Sorkin. It's a little bit of Game Change (2011), a little bit of Recount (2008), through the Richard III filter comes a story that Kevin Spacey constantly breaks the fourth wall to tell you about, kind of like a mean Woody Allen. But the big scene stealer is alpha male incumbent Peter Russo (Corey Stoll) who's first scene is him basically tearing apart some poor young Washington player who THINKS he's in love with her. Oh to be 22 and stupid out of your fucking mind. Washington is Washington people, lest we forget is the worst town ever. Covered in red tape and richeous indignation bullshit coated in dirty games and backhanded backstabbing, there's a reason why the word 'politics' is used as a pejorative. So anyway, first scene is him destroying this girl with his penis so immediately I liked him. Then the second scene was him being arrested for driving drunk, and at that point I was wondering if he was single. My kind of guy. Not that I condone driving drunk, but everyone knows I love a badass. And in a city of phonies that would make the most plastic of Real Housewives jealous, he's a real bitch baby. 

Coley Stoll as US Representative Peter Russo. Don't fuck with him, but if you do, make it messy.

Clearly I've only seen the one episode but don't worry dear readers, I plan to continue, just give me some fucking time! I have a feeling there's going to be a wildly graphic scene involving Robin Wright because it's been a whiiiiile since she's been let out of a constricting dress so I'm sure she's begging for it. Anyway, you're probably watching House of Cards already so I won't even bother recommending it. Let's all tune in to see what happens next shall we? 

Kate Mara as Zoe Barnes. Don't fuck with her or you'll end up in her blog...same goes for me too.

PS Rooney Mara's less hot and more annoying younger sister Kate Mara is on the show as the hipster blogger wants-to-stir-up-trouble next-Woodward or Bernstein low-level journalist who's probably going to have a few affairs and bunny sex scenes of her own so, tune into that!

 Trailer below. 

Downton Abbey: One Giant Metaphor for Abstinence

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First lesson I learned from Downton Abbey. Don't fuck a hot stranger visiting your family because he'll probably die in your bed and then your mom is going to help you carry his corpse across the house.

I’m starting to get it now. For everything that Downton Abbey is supposed to satirize; stuffy British society, social morays, hypocrisies of class culture etc., it is actually following all of those guidelines, particularly the sexual connotations of the time. Basically I’m saying that Downton Abbey is a giant metaphor for abstinence. Hang in there baby birds, let me explain.

Everyone that engages in any kind of devious behavior, especially that which is not acceptable at that time under those circumstances gets severely punished in life, usually it’s death. So let’s start. Just look at poor Sybil. Poor pants-wearing, feminist, slightly communist, way-to-hot for Crawley house Sybil. Not only did she run away with someone way below her class, a goddamn commoner chauffer, who’s Irish at that…wait, who’s Catholic at that! I’m surprised the church elders weren’t called in. And what happens to her? She dies in childbirth. And if you haven’t heard this news maybe it’s time to crawl out of the hole you’ve been living in, ya freak. 

Lesson #2: Never wear any fucking pants because you'll eventually die at childbirth.

Let’s look at other characters. Ethel Parks the horny maid from Season 2 bangs an Army Colonel on the floor of the kitchen and ends up knocked up and forced into prostitution, and though she’s somewhat rebuilt her life, no one in Downton will give her a fair shake. Apparently you just have to be completely sexually repressed until you turn into a giant wad of farts like Carson the butler or dying-for-her-first-orgasm housekeeper, Elsie.

Thomas Barrow is another example. I mean can’t a guy just hit on another guy even though that other guy is probably not gay anymore? He is the most unlucky in love ever, and it’s basically because he’s hypersexualized. The man he nursed after the war ended up killing himself. Way in the beginning of the series, he was having an affair with some Duke and that went to shit faster than Barrow’s wandering hands.

Basically anyone who acts on his or her feelings, which has always been a huge British taboo is reprimanded for it. When Lord Grantham basically threw himself on one of the housemaids, she decided she should basically fire herself for leading him on. For chrissake. Can’t anyone get it in at Abbey Shore?

And whatever you do, don't get pregnant in an age before birth control because you'll eventually have to prostitute yourself to support your child and then give him away despite all of the sacrifices you've made to keep him.

 The people who are doing the most well are those who haven’t had the dust knocked off their private parts since the mid-1800’s, case and point The Dowager (Maggie Smith) who looks like she’s going to continue living forever even though she died 10 years ago, and always have smart ass things to say that put her on top of everyone else.

Also, let’s face it but Edith. Who is clearly still a virgin and likely to stay that way. And we just know she’s going to be turning into the Dowager soon enough, or the slightly insane old maid sister, perhaps that’s a better path for her. Lady Edith Blanche Dubois. I like the sound of that don’t you?