Glitter! Taxidermy! Alice Cooper! Time Travel!

Annakim Violette (daughter of Tom "heartbreaker" Petty) is an artist living in LA who specialises in "psychedelic taxidermy". 

The Selby photographed her home/creative space, which Dazed and Confused describes as "her small, pink wisteria-covered orange and purple bungalow in Silverlake, Los Angeles" - it's everything you could expect and more!

Violette really is unique..I've been thinking about it and 'unique' might be the best word I could come up with to describe her, her home, her art, her wardrobe. Day of the Dead meets The Krofft Supershow meets Lady Haversham...unique.

I Lovefilm

The Wackness ohhhhhh MAN The Wackness - this was as good as I'd hoped and so much more. I really think Dr Jeffrey Squires MD is one of my favourite characters of all time

Colin Farrell really surprised me. From the hilarious trailer I'd guessed he was going to be making me laugh...but making me cry? That I was not ready for. I think I need to watch it again, there was more going on than I had anticipated.

I think I liked Babel, but I'm not so sure. I'm sure I was supposed to like it anyway.

About three quarters of the way through I just remember thinking "so basically, Americans + foreigners = life-threatening situation for American?", which, to be fair, probably isn't what the film is saying at all.

Considering Iñárritu's previous films, this stank. I blame Amores Perros for getting me excited about Babel.

Overall, this was completely underwhelming (okay, except for Adriana Barraza and Rinko Kikuchi's parts) and actually left me feeling quite annoyed.

Psychedelic Pandas

Takashi Murakami for Louis Vuitton:

Zimbabwe

Mike Thomson, BBC World Service:

As I stopped for a toilet break on the South African side, signs placed above each lavatory summed up just how far Zimbabwe's economy had fallen.

"Toilet paper only", they read. "No newspaper, no cloth, no Zimbabwe dollars."

I've been sick in bed for a day and a half with just a radio for entertainment (have finally worked up the energy to wield a laptop). Have listened to the radio so incessantly that I've heard numerous shows more than once.

The above quote struck me as outrageous and depressing, a real illustration of the crisis in Zimbabwe.

Lovefilm

My beau recently gave me a voucher for two months free of Lovefilm.

The first two films to arrive (be watched and sent back in record time) were Doubt (2008) and Ne le dis à personne/Tell No One (2006)

They were both very good - I never felt my attention wavering - but I suspect that I expected too much from them and was actually a little disappointed.

From the start of Doubt it's pretty clear this was adapted from a play. And, to be honest, I don't know that it gained much more in movie-form. Well, besides four Oscar-nominated actors. 

The film takes place in 1964 at a Catholic school in the Bronx. Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep), after a couple of convenient and exaggerated assumptions shared by Sister James (Amy Adams), accuses Father Flynn (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) of child abuse and paedophilia. As can be inferred, the film leaves you with numerous doubts. About people, about propriety, religion, race, relationships...everything.

As you've also probably inferred, the performances are astonishing. 

Meryl Streep is pretty much the Chuck Norris of acting. 

However, I would have liked to have felt more tense and more uncomfortable during the various Streep-Hoffman showdowns. I realise that's a strange thing to say, but I think I mean that there could have been more chemistry between the two. 

Adams is beautiful and tragic. Watching her innocence slip away from her is heartbreaking. 

I also would have liked to have seen more from Joseph Foster and Viola Davis, who play, respectively, the boy Father Flynn is accused of abusing and the boy's mother, Donald and Mrs. Miller. I was immediately impressed by Joseph Foster, while Viola Davis artfully became a character that, in some ways, it could have been hard to believe in. I suppose their lack of screentime is appropriate since the film is about gossip. Afterall, the subjects of gossip rarely seem to have much say in the rumour that concerns them or its consequences.

Doubt is an effective allegory that really embraces its theme of uncertainty. It did absorb me, but I wouldn't watch it again for a good while.

I don't think I really understood what to expect from Tell No One. It's a murder-mystery thriller whereas I'd anticipated something more subtle. All the same, this is a really great piece of French Cinema.

So, the plot: the film begins eight years ago where we are introduced to Alex and Margot Beck and their idyllic married life in the French countryside. One night at Lake Charmaine, Margot is murdered and Alex beaten unconcious. Despite many inconsistencies in accounts of the crime, the case is closed and a serial killer is blamed. 

Then, after eight years of attempting to put his life back together, Alex receives a link to a video that shows Margot on a busy street.

I have to admit, I am a sucker for a good thriller mystery plot and this really is a great one. Every attempt I made to beat them to the conclusion was thwarted. With a lot of style.

So as to avoid ruining the twists, I won't say much more but a couple of general thoughts:

The soundtrack really kicks ass. It isn't traditional, but it fits wonderfully. It made me believe in the film more thoroughly. I became invested in these characters and the soundtrack made this more intense emotionally.

There's a whole spectrum of beautiful French women in Tell No One. It's kind of mindblowing. Clearly, I'm going to have to watch I've Loved You So Long after seeing Kristin Scott Thomas in this.

Another beautiful French female that features in Tell No One is Nina, the Briard.

Nina is Beck's dog, but she moonlights as Bubastis, Ozymandias' pet and protector.

I'm excited for my next films to arrive, but chances are I won't keep up these indulgent review posts.

Zooey Deschanel

Why is everyone not obsessed with Zooey? Like we are?

- My little brother

Because, Little Brother, they did not watch Almost Famous at one of the Top 4 Impressionable Ages (0, 4, 15, 17 so far) and fall in love with her and everything she said and wore. 

Just watch these trailers for some of her new films and tell me you dont't want to bake experimentally shaped cookies, play guitar hero and learn to rollerskate with her!

And hey, I'm sure My New Best Friend Zooey Deschanel would be totally up for letting Paul Dano, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ed Asner come rollerskating with us.

Actually, maybe JGL can bring along the Russian clowns with whom he gets along swimmingly:

Cause, I mean you know they'd be up for playing Guitar Hero on rollerskates..just saying.

I find it's pretty hard for anyone to appear likeable in those stifling faux conversation clips, but like pretty much all Deschanel's costars, JGL is just freakin' adorable.

Random thought: Devotchka in the Gigantic trailer as well as in Little Miss Sunshine? Devotchka likes Paul Dano. I like Paul Dano. Being even scarier than Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood is quite the achievement. Making any impression when DDL is your co-star is quite the freakin' achievement!

I just watched Olive's dance from Little Miss Sunshine. If I were a superhero, I'm certain my power would be digression.

Alright, so back to the title of this post (beeteedubz, not actually planning to do entire posts on one celebrity, just that Lil Bro's comment was too profound to escape blog-bound posterity).

Probably the most important reason I worship Deschanel is She & Him, the pop band of which she is one half, M. Ward the other.

Music Playlist at MixPod.com

M. Ward is the guy who made me appreciate albums again (no srsly). For these two to pair up was like...if I prayed, I would have prayed for exactly this. No actually I wouldn't have dared. Every song is perfection. You just don't dare ask for something this good.

Okay. Enough fangirling for today.

Almost.

Photographs of Deschanel kicking musical ass as She & Him, Munchausen by Proxy (the fictional band from Yes Man that I secretly wish were real) and as herself, singing 'Dream a Little Dream' at Erin Featherston's Fall 2007 show. I implore you to seek out Youtube videos of each of these last two endeavours.

Oh yeah and she has killer style.

And you know what..I'm sorry, I can't resist. Munchausen by Proxy:

Some of my motivation behind posting those is a genuine interest in knowing if anyone else finds them as perfect as I do.

And think of the summers of the past

This is exactly my kind of aesthetic. Like, spot on. 

(yeah, someday you'll see that exact line copy and pasted above another set of completely different photos...)

This is Neil Krug. Most of it's from the upcoming book Pulp, a collaboration between Krug and supermodel Joni Harbeck.

The combination of nostalgic camerawork and otherworldly subjects and settings..postcard images injected with menace or crude lust..brilliant.

Geography lesson

I know the names of all the Hawaiian islands, but only 40 of the US states.

Wait, what?

A Dedication to Little Brown: MIGAAAS!

For dinner tonight I made Migas à la The Pioneer Woman! 

Migas belonged in my life way before tonight and I shall long mourn those days that we were parted.

To summarise, migas consist of: lightly scrambled/fried/omeletted egg, red onion, bell peppers, tomatoes, cheese and crispy fried tortillas!

Here's the link: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2008/09/ree-drummond-migas/

I would post some pictures from The PW's website, but if you don't click on that link and see them for yourself I will force death by asymmetry on you (ask Little Brown how this works).

The great thing about the recipes on that site is that they're so easy to follow and adjust to your tastes or quantities. And you shall always be guided by Ree's stellar photos!

Some English-student-ifying notes:

I already had some tacos so I didn't buy tortillas. I fried them quickly anyway to up the crispiness and the saltiness. Little Brown and I reckon you could use tortilla crisps too. 

The recipe calls for 10 - 12 eggs (!) but I would just halve the amount you usually put into scrambled eggs. I used 3 and, by the halfway line, was too full to finish. 

I also didn't have a jalapeno at hand (being deathly afraid of them and all) so I just sprinkled in a very cowardly amount of chili flakes. It needs the jalapeno. Since giving up meat I've been more and more taken with spiciness.  Do not let me skimp next time. 

Ummm what else? If (when!) I make this for my carnivourous beau I think I will include some cubed chorizo. It doesn't need it, but if you're going to miss meat then a bit of chorizo would be a hit.

Other recipes I urge you to try:

Italian bacon drummettes - These are, yeah I'm gonna say it: DIVINE. Seriously! Please please please make this dish. I no longer can due to my current situation of self-inflicted meatlessness. But I can still peer and sniff over your shoulder while you stir it. Oh yes.

The Best Lasagna Ever - That's PW's title, but I am inclined to agree. My attempt involved too much mozzarella in the end - just a warning. It supposedly requires something called Jimmy Dean's pork breakfast sausage. Geh? I did some sleuthing and substituted it with the second recipe on this page.

Twice Baked Potatoes - soft, billowy cheesiness polka-dotted with spring onions and bacon, encased in crispy, starchy goodness. 

The PW will often use Lawry's Seasoned Salt. Again: geh? I fear this is a USA-bound product. Just get an empty spice jar, fill it with the following and mix it up good: 2 tablespoons salt, 2 tablespoons sugar, 1/2 teaspoon paprika, 1/4 teaspoon turmeric, 1/4 onion powder or onion seeds, 1/4 garlic powder, 1/4 teaspoon cornstarch. Season away folks!

This ended up being a love letter to The Pioneer Woman. Go make those migas and you'll know why.