First Look: The Edge of Love

Now, let's just begin this by saying that I'm not a huge fan of either Keira Knightley or Sienna Miller. But when I caught a glimpse of these stills from their upcoming film together, The Edge of Love, I got that little tickle of fashion inspiration. A kind of biopic about poet Dylan Thomas, Knightley and Miller play his rival muses, and while that's all nice and everything, I think what I'll be digging most is that perfectly British countryside mix of sweaters, floral frocks and Wellies. (My other favorite film with this sort of deshabille-aristo look is I Capture the Castle, based on the charming book by Dodie Smith.) I wouldn't completely write off the film in and of itself, though -- it's directed by John Maybury, who did an idiosyncratic, fascinating movie about painter Francis Bacon, Love is the Devil, which also featured a then relatively-unknown Daniel Craig as one of Bacon's lovers. (This was before Craig got all James Bonded out, of course.)

My favorite Winona

So Sex and Death 101 - the new movie sorta-starring Winona Ryder and directed by the guy who did Heathers - came out last weekend. Supposedly it's wretched, and I'm guessing there's a 3 percent chance I'll ever get around to seeing it. That sheer lack of enthusiasm notwithstanding, I was going to use the movie's release as an opportunity to do some kind of Heathers nostalgia post, all full of references to Swatch dogs and Diet Cokeheads. But then I caught Beetlejuice on TV a little while back, and I realized that's the Winona I most want to pay tribute to: Veronica Sawyer's a bad-ass for sure, but at the end of the day I feel so much more fondness for the gothy loner photographer-girl. Plus, 16-year-old Winona makes an unspeakably grand entrance (perched atop a chair as movers carry it into the house, carefully clutching her camera), utters one of the most brilliant bits of angsty-girl dialogue ever ("My whole life is a darkroom: One. Big. Dark. Room"), and generally out-stranges Emily the Strange all through the entire movie. I wish I could post the scene where her family's eating Chinese take-out and Winona's wearing that crazy black-lace veil, but we'll have to make do with a more sunny version of Lydia Deetz: This is the "Shake, Shake, Shake, Senora" bit from the last few minutes of Beetlejuice, and really the freakiest thing about it is Alec Baldwin's now-unfathomable skinny geekiness. Also, let me take this moment to profess my undying affection for Catherine O'Hara, who I wish would appear in every movie ever made.

Boyfriend of the Week: Nigel Tufnel

For a long time I held out on seeing This is Spinal Tap. Every time the movie came up in conversation, someone would inevitably go, "OMG, you've never seen Spinal Tap?", because supposedly I'm a big nerd about all things rock. And while I pretty much fully embrace my big rock nerdom, I also like to defy people's expectations about it (mostly because my opportunities for rebellion are slightly limited at this stage in life).

Another one of my reservations had to do with this weird thing I've got about Christopher Guest: The only time I'd really ever enjoyed his presence was in The Princess Bride. I tried to watch Best in Show once and was bored outta my gourd, and then later I watched a bunch of his other movies and liked them even less. Sorry! I know a lot of people are really passionate about Waiting for Guffman and all that, but I'd basically rather watch paint dry.

So in many ways it seemed like a good idea to go on forever without ever experiencing Spinal Tap. But then I was stuck on a plane for six-and-a-half hours on Friday and at one point my most appealing DIRECTV options were that and Castaway, so guess which one I picked. And I'm happy to report that Spinal Tap was everything I could have ever hoped for - and more! I could watch it 8 million more times, and maybe I will (although at the moment I'm going through this major repeated-viewings-of-Mean Girls phase, if you really want to know).

And here's the most magical/mystical part about everything: I'm maybe kind of a little bit in love with Christopher Guest right now. Or at least with Christopher Guest as Nigel Tufnel. I think it's partly because of the bangs. Also, I like a man who compulsively chews gum. But the most important thing is he's a somber dude who rocks, and what's more irresistible than that? Especially when he's wearing his black leather jacket with yellow trousers and a sleeveless t-shirt that captures his exact inner structure in medically accurate shocking-green. (You can actually buy the shirt here, but I guess you'll have to rip the sleeves off yourself.)

So here's my - and probably nine million other people's - favorite Nigel moment. It makes me feel regretful that the only song employing the saddest of all keys that I can actually play on guitar is "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want," which is really not very rock-nerd at all.

Let us now praise Anna Faris

Until last weekend I'd never thought too much about Anna Faris, even though I loved her madly in Lost in Translation. But then on Saturday I watched Gregg Araki's stoner masterpiece Smiley Face and completely had my dome blown, and not just due to the utter shock at actually enjoying a movie by Gregg Araki (who usually just makes me go BLECHHH all over place). I can't think of another film in recent cinematic history that's carried almost entirely by a female actor who's mega-funny in this geniusly goofball way that's got very little to do with sex appeal. (I mean, Anna Faris is total bombshell hotness for sure, but we're worlds away from Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle-style jiggle here - just witness Anna's one wardrobe change from t-shirt + pajama pants to hoodie + baggie jeans.) It all sort of makes me feel like a total sucker for being so grateful for Ellen Page's whole smarty-mouth shtick in Juno. (Not that Ellen Page isn't great - I'm just kinda over it. Plus, in the February issue of Vogue she named "rap music" as one of her "guilty pleasures," so right there she loses about 500 points in my special book.) And, despite the fact that - for better or worse - I'm pretty much hook, line, and sinker for anything born of the Judd Apatow empire, Smiley Face has got me all, "To hell with stupid Apatowland, where only the boys get to have dumb fun and the girls are all boring whiners!" Seriously. Sheesh.

Anyway, Smiley Face is about what happens when Anna's Jane F. unknowingly eats a dozen pot cupcakes and somehow ends up with her hands on the original manuscript of the Communist Manifesto. I don't know if it's possible to fully appreciate it without ever had the experience of consuming too many fun treats and then totally bugging the hell out, but I'd say it's definitely worth a shot. Especially since you get lots of fantastic co-stars and cameos, everybody from Dave Gruber Allen to Mrs. Cunningham from Happy Days to the fabulous Jane Lynch to John Cho (aka Harold of Harold & Kumar) to Danny Masterson (aka my 18th or 19th favorite radio DJ of all time). And Jane's pot dealer is played by a dread-headed, heavily tattooed Adam Brody all dressed up like Perry Farrell in 1992, and John Krasinski is adorably brilliant as a sci-fi nerd who's head over heels for Jane.

It's hard to find a YouTube clip that truly captures Anna's Smiley Face awesomeness, but here are a few nice bits. Netflix it! Netflix it now!

Random Video Entry: "Addicted To Love," Robert Palmer + Ciccone Youth

The more "left-field" offerings from the recent fall collections in New York got me thinking about dark clothes, slouchiness, a certain "cocooning," loosening and experimentation in silhouettes -- and about the sort of 'character' that would wear the clothes. As I fell asleep, it hit me: it's like those Robert Palmer "Addicted to Love" femmebots grew up and gone to art school and, like, melted themselves trying to escape a post-Soviet winter. Okay, so that's a bit silly and quick, but it gives us an excuse to post the video:

I think it's incredibly hilarious how all the 'bots are totally out of sync rhythmically. Our favorite skewed take on this song, of course, is the Ciccone Youth version of this song, found on The Whitey Album. Dig on the wry brilliance of Kim Gordon, yo:

In which we try to talk about Kim Gordon and Miranda July and Jasmin Shokrian, but somehow end up fawning over Vincent Price instead

So Pitchfork tells us that Kim Gordon and Becky Stark of Lavender Diamond are starring in a new short film by Alia Raza, an L.A.-based filmmaker who's directed videos for Winter Flowers and The Chapin Sisters (as well as a number of video pieces that will be shown at Green Naftali in New York next month, featuring the likes of Devendra Banhart and Chloe Sevigny in "one take, real-time based diptychs dealing with grooming rituals, luxury consumerism, and decay" - three things we can't really ever get enough of). The movie's titled Pure White Light and adapted from a short story by Miranda July, with Becky taking on the lead role as an "insecure, lonely ingenue" and Kim playing a "sadistic doctor" (yikes stripes!) And, according to The Stylefile, designer Jasmin Shokrian is donating and making clothes for the film.

I was going to post a scene from one of Becky's other movies, High School Record, but then I remembered I'd already shared my favorite part with you, along with practically every other Lavender Diamond-related video available online. Then I found this trailer for Willa: An American Snow White, in which Becky plays the fairest one of all. Not sure if I'll be knocking myself out to track that one down anytime soon, but it did happily remind me of the Faerie Tale Theatre production of "Snow White," starring super-scary Vanessa Redgrave as the Evil Queen and glorious Vincent Price as the mirror! If you're different from me and don't ever take advantage of your local Video Hut's free rentals of kids' movies, you can watch the whole thing on YouTube. Here's part one:

R.I.P. Heath Ledger

I'm really sad about Heath Ledger: He's become one of my favorites over the last year or so, partly because of his performances in I'm Not There and the little-seen Candy. But my most adored of his movies will always be Catherine Hardwicke's Lords of Dogtown, something I got super-obsessed with a little while back because I'm secretly 14-years-old. I love it for the skating and surfing and the Stooges/Deep Purple/Cher soundtrack, and for Venice and all the Z-Boy cameos and Emile Hirsch's dreamy hair, but Heath as Skip Engblom is really the heart and soul of the movie. He's got that mouth full of false teeth and the stoner-surfer wardrobe, always smoking and drinking gooey blender drinks and spouting weirdo street poetry. And he also looks great on a skateboard, as evidenced below. I wanted to post either the part when Heath is singing "Maggie May" at the back of the Zephyr shop or the party scene when he's dancing around to Funkadelic's "Super Stupid," but this (slightly out-of-sync) clip also nicely showcases his irresistibly goofball role in the film:

Sex and the City movie trailer!

Here 'tis:

Doesn't really tell us anything we didn't already know about the movie (Carrie's getting married to Big, the girls are all back together again, blah blah blah), but kinda fun nonetheless. However, I'm officially never going to jokingly sigh the words Hello, lover! ever, ever again. Oh, Carrie, how you confound me.

nogoodforme Cinema: Top Six Off-the-Radar Fashionable Films, Katwise

There was a fun question over at lovely Bunnyshop about favorite "fashionable films," and it got us thinking. It's a tricky business with fashion and film: having just served as costume designer on something, the job of clothing in most films is to serve the overall vision of the film by offering insight into the character and often the world of the movie -- without horribly dating the film in a painful way. (I often think that you can get a sense of fashion trends better from television -- witness Sex and the City, Buffy, Friends, The O.C. and now Gossip Girl, etc. -- but a better look at the overall ideas and concepts of a fashion era from film, which often distills the effluvia of style into a few, clear ideas serving a linear story.) Yet it's clear that everyone from designers to everyday peeps loves to watch film for ideas on style. (The many times Anna Sui has referenced Performance, for example, is kind of astonishing.)

In terms of enduring fashion/film favorites, Audrey Hepburn's entire oeuvre shows up, as do lots of Faye Dunaway movies (Chinatown, Bonnie & Clyde, Network -- all great films, of course.) Sofia Coppola's films make the cut and Annie Hall is an eternal favorite, as is In the Mood for Love for its incredible beauty. And of course Catherine Deneuve films like Belle du Jour rank up there. But these are my own slightly-off-center choices, informed by equal amounts fashion love and cinephilia:

1. Gas Food Lodging, directed by Allison Anders

This underrated film is a finely observed coming-of-age story about two sisters and their single mother. It takes place in the middle of the deserts of New Mexico, and there's something really worn yet beautiful about the clothes, especially those worn by the two sisters played by Ione Skye and Fairuza Balk, one sexually adventurous and rebellious, the other a dreamy misfit. The whole "floral dress with cowboy boots" thing makes a showing, but it illuminates women characters finding strength within themselves and fits the overall story of the nooks and crannies of feminine existence. I wanted to show you the clip where Fairuza Balk gets dressed up to seduce the Donovan Leitch character where she has amazing silver-y old-school matinee idol makeup on, but you'll have to settle for a shot of the movie poster here and a cheesy movie trailer elsewhere. (Ignore the music in the trailer, the music in the film is ten times better!)

2. Smithereens, directed by Susan Seidelman

I thought about whether it would be this film or Desperately Seeking Susan that would make it on my list, and despite Madonna and "Into the Groove," I ultimately chose Smithereens. Seidelman's film is like a French New Wave take on a very particularly milieu -- punk rock New York in the early 80s -- and the costumes are like a time capsule into the era. (Love the checkerboard sunglasses!) What makes this film more than a fashion relic, though, is how the main character Wren uses fashion to try to fit into the world -- so the clothes are intimately tied to her desire to "make it" as a punk rocker. (The idea of "making it" being slightly ludicrous in punk ideology, of course, is part of Wren's pathology in the film.) The film is definitely one of Seidelman's best -- it has verve, affection and energy, not to mention a young, gloriously vacuous Richard Hell. And the music completely rocks, which you can tell from the trailer below:

3. 3 Women, directed by Robert Altman

Those used to a certain ranginess and level of talk in an Altman film might be surprised by this movie of his. 3 Women is one of Altman's genuinely experimental films, with its dreamlike feel and elliptical, offhand narrative, concerning an unusual friendship between two women that turns eerie and bizarre. The main character, Millie, played by an amazing Shelley Duvall, is a strange bird, a determinedly optimistic girl who tries to breeze through an arid existence armed with ideas gleaned from women's magazines and popular culture. She tries hard to be sophisticated and impress her naive roommate, played by Sissy Spacek, but the relentlessly girlish dresses she wears let us as viewers know that something is a bit off between the real person and the persona. The use of the color yellow in the film's costumes and props is beautiful and aggressive: the color starts off as spots of cheer within a desert setting and slowly becomes oppressive, like a warning signal that something strange will happen.

4. L'Eclisse, directed by Michelangelo Antonioni

Many noted European art films of the late 50s/early 60s endure not just because there were amazingly innovative during a particularly fruitful age in cinematic/modernist history -- but because everyone in them looked so gorgeous. There's the iconic Parisian gamine played by Jean Seberg in Breathless, the evening dresses in Alain Resnais' Last Year at Marienbad, and the beautiful suits on Marcello Mastroianni in just about every movie he's been in. And of course there's Antonioni, who made films like L'Avventura and Blow-Up. I chose L'Eclisse over a more obvious film like Blow-Up not because it's a better film (even though it is, with one of the most remarkable endings in a modernist film) but because Monica Vitti's clothes were never more simple -- or elegant. (The presence of a genuinely beautiful Alain Delon doesn't hurt, either.) Vitti wears mostly a series of simple, slightly loose shift dresses -- a perfect analog to a bourgeois, straitjacketed existence that provides protection but no real emotional expression. Anyway, here you can listen to Martin Scorsese discuss L'Eclisse and see some of its remarkable images; Uncle Marty explains way better than me what's so beautiful about the film:

5. Jesus' Son, directed by Alison Maclean

There must be some unwritten rule out there that movies about drug culture must feature grunge-y, 70s-influenced fashion. Certainly that's the case with Gus Van Sant's Drugstore Cowboy, and that's the case with this little-seen gem of a film, which gets it right in even more subtle ways. This movie made me love Jack Black, squeaky shoes, Samantha Morton and that song "Sweet Pea" (And I'm honestly surprised that there seems to be no clip out there showing her booty-shakin' down to this song yet.) What's great about the look of the costumes in the film is how beautifully integrated it is with the overall cinematography and setting: there's something timeless about it, befitting a story about one man's subjective experience about fucking up and redemption. (And don't miss the appearance by Miranda July as a nurse during a trippy drug experience.) There's a fan-edited clip out there that shows a wider variety of shots from the film, but I'm way too irked by the Kid Rock song they chose to edit it to so you're getting this scene instead:

Jesus' Son - Billy Crudup meltdown

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6. How to Marry a Millionaire, directed by Jean Negulesco

I used to watch this movie every time it came up on the Sunday afternoon movie slots during my childhood, and I loved it every time for its total silliness and "girls in the city" aspect. This light, diverting comedy gets on this particular list for you vintage fashion fans out there. It's a movie about three models looking to snag rich husbands (but of course finding true love in the end, which is what you should do in movies, of course.) The nice thing about movies about models is that it's a legitimate excuse to stop the movie for a fashion show and take a good look at the dresses. Nicole Kidman is currently developing a remake of this film, so get in the know now:

I love songs about extraterrestrial life, don't you?

My family has this tradition where every year on Thanksgiving night we watch Hannah and Her Sisters, because it's my mom's favorite movie and because of the bookending Thanksgiving dinner scenes. This year I was really taken with the wardrobe of Barbara Hershey's character, Lee: She's always in blue jeans and these seemingly boyish grey sweatshirts or faded old plaid flannel shirts, which has really done a lot to change my mind about the latter (something I haven't thought about fashionwise since I was 15 and tried to turn myself into some sort of Eddie Vedder lookalike). With Lee it's not a proto-grunge thing, nor the least bit lumberjack-esque; she makes plaid flannel 100 percent New York and sexy in this quintessential-Woody-Allen-girl kind of way that's pretty much irresistible.

So now I want to wear faded old plaid flannel shirts again, and it's a bit of a challenge. In order to escape the Eddie-Vedder-in-'92-ness, they have to fit snugly, which means no shopping the men's department of the thriftstore like way back when. I did some Salvation Army scouring over last weekend but no dice: All the ladies flannel shirts seem to make their plaid out of lavender and rose-pink, and I am not a girl who wants to wear pastels, ever. (And herein lies the greatest struggle of my life for today.)

Anyway, despite my renewed admiration of Lee's fashion sense, my favorite sister will always be Holly, the caterer/actress/singer/writer fuck-up played magically by Dianne Wiest (aka my most adored actress in the history of the universe). The best is when she takes Woody Allen to CBGB. (P.S. I totally just bought the song in this scene off of iTunes - thank you, Wikipedia!)

Do you suffer from sore eyes, groovy foreheads, and curly hair?

Today in the New York Times there's a story about how Todd Haynes's next movie I'm Not There - the one where Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, and a few other folks all play Bob Dylan at various moments throughout his life - is set to play in only four theaters across the country when it's released this November. Lucky for me one of those theaters is in L.A., 'cause I feel like I've been waiting a thousand years for I'm Not There to come out (and I can't remember whether or not I liked Todd Haynes's last movie, Far From Heaven, but Velvet Goldmine is probably the only movie in my life to obsess me more than Star Wars did when I was five - I used to watch it every single day for several months when it was first released on VHS).

So, yeah, there's this clip of I'm Not There up on YouTube, and it's got Cate Blanchett playing Dylan, plus David Cross as Allen Ginsberg (whoa). It's awkward and great and now I'm really not sure I can wait till November. And below that, just for kicks, my favorite scene from Don't Look Back.

The Kinks, Boys In Suits, So Much Preciousness

I keep watching the trailer for Darjeeling Limited (the new Wes Anderson movie, co-written by Roman Coppola and Jason Schwartzman, out this September) and waiting for my excitement to transcend the "Yay, a new Wes Anderson movie!" phase and arrive at something like "Yay, a new movie I might actually want to see even if it weren't directed by Wes Anderson!" but it's just not happening. But maybe I'll dig the movie anyway. As I am a pretty much a total cliche, I generally always love Wes Anderson's movies (although there's none that I've ever enjoyed upon first viewing, for some reason). And this one's got three of those classic Wes Anderson's ingredients, now equally endearing and annoying in their consistency: highly emotive songs by The Kinks (the trailer uses "This Time Tomorrow" & "Strangers," both of which can be downloaded at The Playlist); smartly dressed boys that we sort of wish we could pretend not to be intrigued by, but there you go; and a whole lot of precious dialogue spoken by precious people at precious moments. At first I'm kind of like, "C'mon dudes, knock if off already!" but then I start to feel really fond of Jason Schwartzman in that fantastic yellow robe and crazy mustache.

To Go: A Conversation with Basquiat by Tamra Davis, Brooklyn

If I lived in New York, there's a 99.9 percent chance that tonight I'd go to BAMcinematek for A Conversation with Basquiat by Tamra Davis (part of the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Afro-Punk Festival, and paired with Afro-Punk by James Spooner and a compilation of Bad Brains shorts by Nicola Lazenberg). Centered around an interview conducted just before his death, the 21-minute documentary features some of the only known footage of the painter/graffiti artist/musician at work. It'd be so exciting to watch Jean-Michel as himself, rather than Julian Schnabel's vision of him in Basquiat (though Jeffrey Wright is so amazing) or the fucked-up-fairytale version of his life as seen in the Maripol-produced Downtown 81 (though that movie's crazy-fun, and we especially adore Debbie Harry as the bag lady princess).

Plus, we're just wild about Tamra Davis. She directed a bunch of my favorite videos ever, like "Bull in the Heather" and "100%" and "Dirty Boots" by Sonic Youth. Seeing Guncrazy's been on my things-to-do list for about 14 years, and I kind of even dug Crossroads. But my two most beloved Tamra-directed things are "Netty's Girl" (the Beastie Boys at their wonderful-wackiest, and it's shot down the street from my house! The moment from 2:09-2:13 is purely transcendent) and the documentary short No Alternative Girls. Featuring interviews with Courtney Love, a ski-mask-clad Kathleen Hanna, Kim Gordon, the ladies of Luscious Jackson, Yoshimi P-We from The Boredoms, Julie Cafritz from Pussy Galore, and Niki Eliot from Huggy Bear, the latter first came into my life on a Thurston Moore-hosted 1994 episode of 120 Minutes that guest-starred a very wee Beck and Tamra's husband Mike D. I taped the whole thing and replayed No Alternative Girls like 8 kajillion times, yet I still get goosebumps watching it today. Now you go:

A Conversation with Basquiat/Bad Brains Shorts/Afro-Punk screen tonight at 7 p.m. and July 3 at 4:30 p.m. at Brooklyn Academy of Music (30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn).

Say It In Broken English

I hardly ever think of Zoe Cassavetes as "John Cassavetes's daughter" - I always think of her as "Sofia Coppola's friend." They had that magazine show "Hi Octane" on Comedy Central in the early 90s, which I can hardly remember now but watched obsessively then out of some intense fascination with that little segment of young hip L.A. royalty (the Coppolas, the Cassaveteses, the Leitches, the Blahblahblahs). There's only one clip available on YouTube, and you might want to just skip to the very last second to catch the three or four unintelligibly Valley-Girl-accented and thus self-caricaturing syllables that escape from Sofia's mouth* (although the death metal band in the middle is fantastic as well).

* It's okay for me to make fun, since all I ever do the rest of the time is make big kissy faces at her (textually speaking, of course).

The point of all this is that the former Marc Jacobs/Anna Sui muse's new movie Broken English is premiering this weekend. I've heard mixed things but will probably check it out anyway, because (1) I pretty much dug Zoe's short film Men Make Women Crazy Theory when I saw it last January; (2) it is good to support women-directed films, especially on their opening weekends; (3) maybe she named it after the Marianne Faithfull song?; and (4) the cast is so awesome: Parker Posey and Gena Rowlands and Justin Theroux and my boyfriend Josh Hamilton. Here's the trailer:

There's also a fun little style-related bit in Zoe's interview from the latest issue of Mean:

...we're running a special summer fashion report in this issue and I have a fashion-related question for you: Do you have an outfit that you love and hang on to mainly because it's tied to a specific memory?

...I guess maybe this skirt that I wore the night I met my fiance. Every time I look at it in the closet I'm like, "Oh! That's what I was wearing." When I was a kid I was so lucky because my grandmother would make me these outrageous costumes that I just wore as regular clothes all the time. Like, gold lame dresses with fake pearls on them and things like that. And capes! I don't have them anymore, which is unfortunate. I have no idea where they went.

What are your favorite labels?

They change all the time. I love APC, Marc Jacobs and Anna Sui. These designers ended up being my friends too, so maybe there's an emotional attachment in that too, although the clothes themselves are good and I like to wear them. I always say that I like clothes but I hate fashion.

Yet you were a part of that world. You did some print ads for Donna Karan in your 20s and walked the runways for various other designers.

Yeah, I did that. It was kind of fun. And it was good money; I can't lie. But fashion was such a different thing 15 years ago. Now you have to have this bag and you have to have these shoes in order to be accepted within the ranks of the fashionable. It's gone completely out of control. Whenever someone asks me now, "What's the one thing you can't live without?" I have to say, "I guess it's jeans." I want to get out of the jeans, but I can't.

The Runaways, Queens of Noise

I'm not all that worked up about the possible weirdness of Kirsten Dunst playing Debbie Harry in Michel Gondry's as-yet-untitled Blondie biopic: Although I would never try to deny that Debbie rules harder than most any other human who's ever walked the planet, I've never had all that much of an emotional investment in Blondie (except when their version of "Hanging on the Telephone" comes on the radio, at which point my heart always melts into a puddle of mushy goo).

Besides, I'm too busy being all psyched about Neon Angels, an in-production movie about the hot life and times of The Runaways. Directed by Floria Sigismondi - who's made videos for David Bowie and The White Stripes - Neon Angels should finally debunk the myth that The Runaways were a manufactured band with creepy/legendary Kim Fowley as their svengali. We're big nerds for that sort of juicy rock-history stuff, but we're equally anticipating lots of leather stage-wear and wild feathered hair. Because just like so many modern-day rock-and-roll cupcakes have ripped their look from Joan Jett and the other girls, each Runaway modeled her image after a beloved rock star: Cherie Currie went for the Bowie thing, Joan was Suzi-Quatro-meets-Keith-Richards, Lita Ford was some hybrid of Deep Purple's Ritchie Blackmore and Jeff Beck, Sandy West did her best imitation of Queen drummer Roger Taylor, and Jackie Fox was a girl Gene Simmons.

Here's a 1977 clip of the Runaways covering the Velvet Underground's "Rock and Roll" live in Japan. We especially love that Cherie's silver sleeveless jumpsuit perfectly matches Lita's knee-high boots.

And a few classic shots of the band:

Oh, and a totally gratuitous side note: One of the giddiest moments of my preteen years was meeting the original Runaways bassist backstage at a concert in 1989 - although back then she was simply known to me as Michael from The Bangles.

See Waitress, Wear Loyale

One of the loveliest things about the movie Waitress besides its warm, affectionate treatment of its characters is the bright, sheer visual gloss that director Adrienne Shelly wafts over her quirky, good-natured depiction of small-town Americana. It's a sun-filled world, full of golden hues and punctuated with the yummy candy colors that make up the luscious pies made by the main character, Jenna, played by a radiant, unexpectedly mature Keri Russell. But even though everything looks so delicious, all is not well for Jenna, pregnant and trapped in a bad marriage with a boorish man. She falls into an affair with her obstetrician (a totally fantastic Nathan Fillion) to relieve some of the pressure, and while the film falls into expected narrative territory at times (okay, a lot), it never loses its essential good-heartedness or sense of whimsy. And it's a worthy legacy for indie movie heroine Shelly, whose life ended tragically before she could savor her achievement.

The movie's a candy-colored fable that ends with a riot of colors that would make a Juicy Couture ad jealous and momentarily made me want to sell off all my black and neutral-colored clothes to run riot in all the bright spring dresses out now. The charming yellow Pasadena dress from one of our favorite new labels, Loyale, would fit the bill, but the frock is sold out everywhere, probably because not only is it pretty in the most relaxed way, but it's made out of organic cotton by a company known for its good-for-the-planet practices. If you find the dress, will you let us know? Because it's on our online fashion stalk list now.

Here's the trailer for Waitress:

Vintage Denim & Fuzzy Hearts (or, Please Go See Diggers This Weekend)

Something about movies set in 1976 makes me wanna buy new/old denim. After Dazed and Confused I found these amazing jeans for about $5 at Salvation Army - they had flared legs and buttoned front pockets, and the fabric was sooo soft and faded to perfection. And now there's Katherine Dieckmann's Diggers (coming out tomorrow), co-starring beautiful Lauren Ambrose as a Manhattan girl who's escaped the big city to spend the summer lying around her uncle's backyard and reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Her wardrobe's fantastic: huge pink-lensed sunglasses, stripey blouses, clunky hot-pink hoop earrings, t-shirts tucked into some fantastic jeans that remind me so much of that $5 pair that left my life sometime mid-college.

And the boys've got good denim too, especially Josh Hamilton, possibly my #7 or #8 actor crush of all time. (Seriously, why can't he be in every movie ever made? I think the last time I saw him before this was the Sex & The City episode where he's Miranda's phone-sex friend.) There's even one scene where Josh's pot-dealing character is wearing jeans + denim vest + t-shirt and it's kind of heartbreaking because you realize no boy could ever pull that off now without being so ironic and lame.

But Diggers - written by and co-starring Ken Marino, whom I've missed so hard since The State left MTV - isn't just eye candy for vintage-denim junkies. The center of the story is cuteface Paul Rudd and his circle of clam-digging bros, who spend much of their time drinking beer and getting stoned and being bored in their sleepy Long Island village. Not much happens, but if you're the type to fall for densely boy-populated, small-town-set, immensely sweet and melancholy stories like Beautiful Girls, then you'll be totally into it. You even get to watch Lauren and Paul chastely make out to Big Star in his pickup truck, and what could be more adorable than that?

Here's the trailer:

Crushes: Natalie Press

Like many a girl with a certain lust for coming-of-age novels brought to screen, I first fell for Natalie Press (or Nathalie Press, depending on who you ask) in Pawel Pawlikowski's gorgeous My Summer of Love. Natalie's raised-in-a-pub Mona and Emily Blunt's rich-girl Tamsin made the most innocently glamorous duo, dancing around to Edith Piaf and joyriding on Mona's scooter and sunbathing among the heather in the Yorkshire countryside. Both actresses are divine (especially in scenes like the one where Mona's playing dress-up in Tamsin's princessy clothes), but there's something particularly irresistible about Natalie's mix of fierceness and vulnerability. She's like some tough girl from a Rod Stewart song, written back when you might actually want Rod Stewart to write a song about you.

While Emily went on to wear Prada, Natalie's future roles include playing Emily Bronte to Michelle Williams's Charlotte and co-starring with Cillian Murphy in the upcoming sci-fi thriller Telepathy. But for now she's appearing in Red Road (opening tomorrow in New York and L.A.), the first feature from the phenomenal Andrea Arnold. One of the most gripping and eerily atmospheric films you'll likely see this year, Red Road stars Kate Dickie as a Scottish surveillance camera operator who - for reasons I can't reveal - becomes obsessed with following a redhaired ex-con who one day appears on her monitors. (It also contains one of the most scary-intense sex scenes I've ever witnessed, complete with the beyond-creepy soundtrack of screaming foxes.)

Andrea first directed Natalie in 2003's Wasp, winner of the Academy Award for best short film. There, Natalie plays a single mom who, when she can't get a babysitter on the night of a very important date, takes her four kids along to the pub and leaves them out in the parking lot for the night. Like Wasp, Red Road is built on moments so gut-wrenching you might forget to breathe for a while. But in a movie that's sometimes almost unbearably dark, Natalie shines a warm light into every scene. I got a little flutter in my heart upon first sight of her, big green eyes peeping out from under her fur hood in a graffitied elevator, a little tired but still so bright and hopeful.

The Getting-Ready Soundtrack: Air Guitar Nation

If you really like rock and roll, and you really like other people who really like rock and roll, then the best thing you could possibly do tonight is go see Air Guitar Nation, Alexandra Lipsitz's documentary about the World Air Guitar Championships. I caught it at AFI Fest last year and literally wept with joy at its awesomeness (seriously - burning tears of love streamed down my face when C-Diddy totally blew away a very hostile Roxy L.A. crowd early on in the film). It's premiering tonight in L.A. and already out in New York (check AirGuitarNation.com to find out when it's playing in your city), and I'm kinda getting goosebumps at the thought of seeing it again.

Oh, and if you go to the 7:30 show tonight at the NuArt in L.A., you'll get a post-screening Q & A with Alexandra and one of the film's stars, Dan Crane (aka Bjorn Turoque, the shirtless dude right below). You might end up developing this big weird crush on Bjorn, which will lead to lots of fun inner debates about performance and identity, or maybe even some hot metal makeout action.

THE LOOK: Umm, rawk.

THE MUST-HAVES: A Motorhead shirt from Damsel World and some Urban Decay Heavy Metal Glitter Eye Gel (preferably in either the Power Ballad or Roadie shades).

THE SONGS:
"Ace of Spades" by Motorhead
"Yankee Rose" by David Lee Roth
"Love Gun" by KISS
"Rebel Rebel" by David Bowie
"Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple
"More Than a Feeling" by Boston
"Run to the Hills" by Iron Maiden
"Paranoid" by Black Sabbath
"20th Century Boy" by T. Rex
"You've Got Another Thing Comin'" by Judas Priest
"Walk This Way" by Aerosmith
"California Man" by Cheap Trick
"Feel Like Makin' Love" by Bad Company

Marie & Madonna

Valentine's Eve marks the DVD release of Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette, which was probably our second or third most beloved film of last year. We're certain it's going to be the best thing to watch upon stumbling into bed after a night of too much pink-canned champagne (and, hint: the movie goes perfectly with a few handfuls of rose petal raspberry macarons, which taste like sugary perfumey heaven). In preparation, we've been peeking at Madonna's Marie-inspired performance from the 1990 MTV Video Awards, where "Vogue" went all 18th century with powdered wigs and floor-sweeping gowns and some very impressive hand-fan choreography. It's a much saucier take on Marie Antoinette than Sofia's - what with all that groping and squeezing and showing off of knickers - but of course we'd expect nothing less of our all-time number-one idol. Seeing the clip now makes us so nostalgic for the Truth or Dare/Blond Ambition era (our favorite Madonna moment), and for a time when MTV actually got us all worked-up in a happy way every now and again. Le grand sigh.