It's Time To End My Love Affair........

It's nearly the new year and like most people I am in the process of making a few resolutions that I intend to stick by in 2012. The most important of which is stopping smoking.

Now I know it's one of the most cliche resolutions to make, I will not be alone in choosing this, however I need to put my cynicism firmly aside.

I don't need to list the various problems with smoking, they have been well documented over and over again. In fact, here in the U.K we are constantly reminded of them via the beautiful images that grace our cigarette packets. Impotence, Cancer, disgusting rotting teeth, wrinkling of the skin, etc etc. I have more than enough incentive to get rid of my lovely habit.

What always tends to happen however is that when I make any effort to stop smoking I become overly aware of how many people there are out there who do. Whether it's fashion editorials with glamorous models smoking, films with movie stars lighting up (well it's less of a fad these days but I won't deprive myself classical film goodness !) or just walking around the city and seeing people constantly lighting up on the street. However, this time I am not going to let it get to me and I WILL overcome my addiction.

I've had a great time with you, in fact, you have been there for me in my darkest hour, you were my friend who I could rely on to get me through, to make sure I didn't get fat and you even improved my social skills ( god I will miss 'social smoking') but unfortunately you are also killing me on a daily basis, so like all relationships that are inherently evil I have to say goodbye.

It won't be easy and I expect you will be on my mind always but like any difficult breakup, time heals all and in the end I know I am better off without you my old friend.

Goodbye Lover xoxo

Biography Of Steve Jobs Hits Bestsellers List Unsurprisingly

Rush released to capatlise (yes I'm incredibly cynical :) on the recent death of former Apple CEO Steve Jobs is an 'authorised' biography by Walter Isaacson. It's already at the top of the Amazon book charts and according to the Wall Street Journal is on track to be the bestseller of the year so far !

The book covers the whole of Jobs's life, from procious teenager through to the recent release of the iPad 2.

I finished the book yesterday and it's a real page turner. Jobs's come across pretty much as you would expect him to. A control freak obsessed with the smallest detail, the king of putdowns, the boss from hell etc etc

What you do get surprisingly is a real appreciation of Steve Jobs and his work ethic. He was in love with the idea of marrying the latest technology with the best style and design had to offer.
You learn about his fondness for spirituality and how the effected the many products from Apple that we know and love today.

Even up until his last days he was constantly moving forward, thinking how Apple could push the boundaries further and for that you have to really admire the guy.

The book is well researched, contains interviews with Jobs, Bill Gates and other major players in the computing industry. It's full of juicy gossip about the rivalry between Gates and Jobs so for that alone it's worth purchasing.

Highly recommended!

Pic Of The Day - Tilda Swinton

In honor of her latest film We Need To Talk About Kevin winning the Best Film Award at the LFF I have devoted pic of the day to Tilda Swinton.

Not only is she an amazing actress but a real fashionista also. Designers from Viktor and Rolf through to Lanvin use her stunning looks as inspiration and she is never far away from appearing in a daring fashion magazine editorial. She is both muse and creative force in her own right.

Now in her early 50's she seems to have somehow avoided the aging process that we mere mortals have to endure and has a real regal/aristocratic air about her.

I LOVE YOU TILDA !

Tilda Swinton's New Movie- We Need To Talk About Kevin- Scoops Award

Tilda Swinton's new film We Need To Talk About Kevin has scooped the coveted Best Film Award at the recent London Film Festival.

I've been looking forward to seeing this ever since the trailer hit the web a few months back and it's based upon the best selling novel of the same name.

I expect nothing less than brilliance from Ms Swinton. Her consistency in acting is unparalleled(well besides Cate Blanchett possibly) and she always picks films with dark/interesting themes.

She's dark haired for this one so you know it's serious. I hope to check it out over the weekend and will post a review as soon as I have seen it.

Lady Gaga- Born This Way Album

Consider me a newly converted little monster. Lady Gaga has managed to release the best pop album, probably of the last decade. Sure time will be needed to judge the work properly but I will tentatively say that she has created a pop masterpiece that will be remembered for a very long time.

First single Born This Way, despite doing very well on the charts, divided a lot of people. They wanted another Poker Face, another Bad Romance, what they weren't expecting was a dancefloor hit with incredibly preachy lyrics that sounded like a Madonna rip off. If you spent anytime on Twitter after the single's release back in February the names Gaga and Madonna were buzzing around like wildfire and she caught a lot of flack for it.

Next single Judas was released to give the people what they wanted, Bad Romance 2.0. It has a very similar song structure, industrial hard hitting beats but strangely enough it has failed to set the charts alight, despite a very creative/gorgeous video.

Shortly after a 'promo' single was sent out for Edge Of Glory (i.e damage limitaion), which has done very well on the charts despite not being an official single release (Gaga now plans to shoot a video for the song due to it's success). Lyrically it should be a ballad of sorts but instead it is set to a pulsing dance beat that never lets up.

That's a perfect way to describe her new album. Gaga has thrown in everything but the kitchen sink for this record, which is an hour in length with 17 tracks in total. In that hour the listener is constantly bombarded with the kind of hard hitting music that an industrial club in Germany would be proud of and boy is it killer.

Standout tracks include Government Hooker (a song with the dirtiest of lyrics and an even dirtier production), Americano (a techno, latin flavored stomper of a song that has a timely political message), Scheisse (previewed at the Mugler show but now even better with a great chorus and faster/harder techno beats), Bloody Mary ( Gaga getting all religious over a gothic, industrial, moaning background) and Heavy Metal Lover ( a sparse fuzzy track where she sings the praises of dirty sex and leather!).

It's one of those albums that you can't stop listening to and every time that you do, you notice something completely different. The production is absolutely top notch, the albums themes are complex and far reaching making it a deep record with a lot of replay value.

Gaga's vocals shine on a lot of tracks, unlike singers such as Christina Aguilera she doesn't feel the need to show off on every song, she pulls herself back when it's required and that restraint pays off (my ears thank her very much !). Of course everyone knows she can belt out the vocals with best of them and that's reflected in songs like Marry The Night, Highway Unicorn and Edge Of Glory.

Personally I'm more of a fan of the dancefloor flavored tracks, however, they are just the sugary instant hits on the record and I can imagine in a few months that I will be giving nearly all of the tracks a 10/10 (bar Bad Kids- something just isn't clicking with that song for me).

The two singles, Judas and Born This Way, sound a hell of a lot better when put in context with the rest of tracks from the album. I think that time will be much more forgiving to these songs that were victim to too much hype (calling something 'the song of our generation' is never going to go down well) and impossible expectations.

In conclusion, Gaga has made a pop masterpiece that is right up there with Madonna's Like A Prayer album, a watershed moment in her career. Very few artists are releasing albums of this quality, especially in pop music. While Britney put out a good record with Femme Fatale it doesn't come close to the depth and sophistication Gaga has shown on this record.

A very solid 9/10 overall for me.

Now back to the replay button :)

Lady Gaga- The Edge Of Glory

Lady Gaga released her new promo single The Edge Of Glory on Monday and its a real grower.

I loved Judas as much as the next guy but it's nice to hear a fresh new sound from Gaga and she's gone retro. Roping in a member of the E Street Band to play Saxophone over a modern dance beat.

Sorta sounds like the 80's marrying the 00's and this being the mutant offspring.

It shouldn't work but boy does it ever sound amazing !

Pic Of The Day- Bret Easton Ellis

Oh how I love Bret. Author of some of the great American classics like American Psycho, Rules Of Attraction, Glamorama and of course the one that started it off Less Than Zero.

Sure he's not as famous as he used to be and is hardly a prolific writer, churning out only a handful of books over the years.

But it's quality not quantity that counts and Mr Ellis sure is a stylish dude. What else would you expect from a guy who manages to list every major fashion label repeatedly over the span of 600 pages in such obsessive detail.

Gotta love a man who knows how to wear a suit.

Lady Gaga - V Magazine Asia Cover

Gaga's stylist and current director of Thierry Mugler (how fancy !) Nicola Formichetti posted a preview of her new cover for V Magazine Asia.

She is wearing a gorgeous, opulent mask (Mugler ?) of some sort that no doubt costs the same as a third world country's yearly budget.

It's very pretty though, can't wait to see the editorial shots that go with it !

Chanel Unhappy With Blake Lively ?

Apparently the advertising bod's are unhappy with their latest ad's starring Gossip Girl's Blake Lively.

While the ad is well shot their problem lies with the fact that Blake is too 'all American' and does not represent the Chanel girl well enough.

Surely they should have contemplated this before they hired her to do the campaign ?

More here at Jezabel

Britney Spears Returns- GMA Performance

Britney kicked off the promotion for her new record Femme Fatale today on Good Morning America with a mini concert.

As usual Britney mimes to a backing track however she looks a lot more together than we have seen previously. She still hasn't got the IT factor back yet but with a great record behind her she could be on her way.

Anna Wintour- Cover Girl !- Wall Street Journal

Anna Wintour makes her debut as a cover girl, no not in Vogue, but a supplement for the Wall Street Journal, where she is also profiled.

The photo is shot by Mario Testino and is very iconic.

Is Anna Wintour craving the limelight in her later years ?

Pic Of The Day- Faye Dunaway- Network

Faye Dunaway won an Oscar for her role as a shrewd network executive in Network, a biting satire on the television industry.

Her role is also noteworthy for the amazing fashion, influencing designers/women decades later with her blouse/trouser combinations.

Never has Dunaway looked so beautiful (well except maybe in Polanski's Chinatown).

Do We Have A Choice When It Comes To What We Watch ?

Gawker just posted an interesting article on the pressures we now face when it comes to our viewing habits.

An overexposure to advertising, awards ceremonies, snobby critics and the blogsphere seems to have contributed to our lack of individual choice.

Check it out !

Mildred Pierce HBO- Kate Winslet

I watched the first two episodes of Todd Haynes's adaption of Mildred Pierce last night starring Kate Winslet ,Guy Pierce and recent Oscar winner Melissa Leo (with Rachel Evan Wood to follow next week as bitchy daughter Veda).

Having seen the 1950's version starring Joan Crawford I was already familiar with the basic outline of the story. The two versions do differ, Todd Haynes's series includes more daring adult content (well it is HBO after all, sex scenes are mandatory :).

Kate stars as Mildred, your typical all American mother who seems to have it all. Two beautiful children, a nice house and an adoring husband. However, it quickly becomes apparent all is not well in suburbia. Mildred's husband is having an affair, so she kicks him out of the house and decides to go it alone. Money is in short supply however as her husband's housing company 'Pierce Homes' has gone under. Therefore Mildred is forced to 'take a job', something unheard of in that period for a married woman.

While the premise may sound like a cookie cutter story it is actually very involved and detailed in a sophisticated way. The series premiere has been criticized for moving at an overly glacial pace, critic's describing it as 'two hours of nothingness'. The beauty of telling a story like this on HBO is that the creative talent involved actually gets the chance to flesh things out and take their time with developing characters (it is much less of a trial than The Wire, which was frustratingly slow at times).

While I enjoyed the original film very much, here the characters are much more detailed, specifically the character of Mildred herself. Winslet is brilliant in the role (when is she not any good ?), her face tells a million different stories of pain and anguish. You really feel for her character, a woman who could come across to modern women today as a spoilt, entitled housewife but instead comes across as a sympathetic character.

With the recent financial crisis many viewers will find her situation particularly timely and relateable.

Melissa Leo plays Mildred's supportive neighbor in a very subdued role, she is not chewing the scenery as she was in her Oscar winning role in The Fighter and it's much appreciated.

The series is very well directed by Todd Haynes, reminiscent of his film Far From Heaven, with gorgeous cinematography and very detailed visuals. As the story progresses and the main players are established things really do pick up. I can't wait for next week's episode.

Lily Allen - Rags To Ritches- Channel Four

So I sat through the second episode of Channel Four's documentary on Lily Allen and her mission to enter into the world of retail. Alongside her sister Sarah the two Londonites had the bright idea to open up a Vintage boutique that specializes in high end designer pieces. Their gimmick being that if girls can not afford the full price of the garment they will be allowed to rent the piece for a fee.

Sounds like a good idea however in practice it's short comings are quite obvious. The girls enlisted the help of retail guru Mary Porta's as a consultant as neither of them have had any formal experience in the industry.

In short , she tore them a new one and gave them a reality check. As she correctly pointed out the shop will live and die based on the celebrity Lily Allen brings to it. By offering couture pieces at high costs she has automatically alienated about 70% of her fan base who are supposed to be the patrons of her shop. This is never a good business idea and their original intentions to offer a piece of high end lifestyle to girls who could not afford to buy the real thing quickly went down the toilet. Asking young girls aged 18+ to pay £100 + to rent a dress for an evening during a recession was not a smart idea.

It quickly becomes apparent that in fact Lily is not at all the type of girl her record company promoted her as. She is in fact your typical spoilt, Primrose Hill, middle class, rich girl. Not the wannabe chav running around London in a New Look dress and sneakers.

So as reality sets in the girls quickly realise that their initial target audience is not at all what they are aiming for and Mary Porta's points this out to them painfully, like a camp mother scolding her clueless children.

The other infuriating part of the documentary is Lily's constant admissions that she is over the fame game. If that were the case letting a Channel Four camera crew follow you around for months may not have been the best idea to gain some sort of annonyminity. The truth of the matter is Lily loves the spotlight. There were scenes of her contacting tabloid newspapers directly, in order to give them the story about her pregnancy, doing photoshoot's with her sister in order to promote the store, her sitting at her desk constantly whining about nosy journalists then taking to Twitter to confront them in a very public way. These are not the actions of someone who just wants a quiet life.

The show does have it's plus points though, the train wreck aspect of the documentary is entertaining and Lily is nothing if not charismatic/funny. Her sister Sarah comes across very well also, she must have the patience of a saint to put up with the constant tantrums her sister throws (and also the constant reminder that it's Lily's money, Lily's success that has enabled her to have a career in retail, what way to be humble..........). Bitchy celeb hairdresser James Brown also makes an appearance and he's always great to watch.

In conclusion I don't really understand the point of the documentary, if it was to promote her shop a featurette on her website and some photoshoot's would have been sufficient however it's obvious that Lily is not ready to step out of the spotlight and still craves attention. Perhaps instead of channeling her energy into retail she should put her mind to making a new album. Lily is in her 20's, its far too early for her to retire from the music business and I have a sneaking suspicion that in year or two we will hear something new from her.

Let's hope that her next venture is less hypocritical and more clearly thought out.

Woody Allen- Midnight In Paris- First Poster Promo

Sony Classics has released the first piece of promotion for Woody Allen's latest european romp Midnight In Paris. As usual Woody has assembled a first class cast, Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Marion Cotillard (yay!), Rachel McAdams and most strangely Carla Bruni (blatant stunt casting or maybe Woody got a tax break from Mr Sarkozy ?).

Hopefully the film will be more enjoyable than last years When You Meet A Tall Dark Stranger. Woody is well known for his inconsistency despite the great actors he has at his disposal so let's hope the script is up to snuff.

In any event it seems as though Woody is on a one man mission to improve European tourism, so I'm hoping for Vicki Christina Barcelona type visual/cultural feast and I'm sure Paris will look amazing.

Madonna and Lourdes at the Vanity Fair Oscars Party

Madonna showed up and quickly left the Vanity Fair after party for the Oscars. She brought along her stunning daughter Lourdes for the ride.

Controversy is never far behind Madonna and she has been recieving a lot of negative press for her choice of attire. Wearing only fish net stockings, leotard and a fur vest she certainly was an image to behold.

While we have obviously seen Madonna wearing much less (see her Sex book) the controversy is based around the fact that she was dressed like this while accompanied by her 14 year old daughter.

Personally I don't see the problem, Lourdes's mother is Madonna for crying out loud, I'm sure she is well accustomed to her mothers daring style choices and the fact of the matter is that Madonna looks amazing. At 52 she has a body most girls in their 20's would die for so she is more than capable of pulling this look off.

Besides, I'd rather this Madonna than the one who a few years ago was dressing in an overly matronly way whilst selling books for children. While the press is constantly bashing her for being overtly sexual in her 50's , secretly I think a lot of these columnists have a real love for her.

Lady Gaga - Born This Way Video- Dir Nick Knight

Lady Gaga finally released her eagerly anticipated video for Born This Way on Monday 28th of February.

The video was directed by uber fashion photographer Nick Knight, known best for his work with Kate Moss and Vogue UK.

Gaga produced the script for the short, which revolves around the birth of a new race (literally shown in the promo), the battle between good/evil, zombie tuxedo wearing dance and of course a Gaga staple- dance routines in bra and panties only.

Visual references come from all over the place, Dali, Michael Jackson and of course most controversially Madonna.

Overall I was very impressed by the video and it's depth, although I do prefer her short film for Alejandro. What can I say, I'm sucker for anything Steven Klein :)

Nike Short- Black Mamba - By Robert Rodriguez

I caught this short film yesterday morning, essentially an advertising promo for Nike trainers, starring of all people Bruce Willis, Kanye West and Danny Trejo ! I hate sports so don't know much about Kobe Bryant however it is one of the more entertaining advertisements I have seen and Kanye West is hilarious as main villain 'The Boss'.

The style of the short is very much in the vein of Rodriguez's Machete and From Dusk Till Dawn with a bit of Sin City thrown in for good measure.

I also quite enjoyed the subversive nature of it with Rodriguez commenting on the increasing amount of product placement we see in films/music videos and how that relates to the budgets directors have to work with.

Pic Of The Day- David Lynch

Director David Lynch gets pic of the day primarily because of his amazing style, now in his 60's, just look at that lustrous grey hair and stylish formal shirt/blazer combo. He is not only stylish in my mind but also a man of extreme substance.

I've been on a bit of Lynch binge lately. Always been a massive fan of this director, his dream like films have continually defied any sort of logical explanation and really stay with you for days (even months !) after you have viewed them.

He is the director of films such as Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet, Lost Highway and the 3 hour long mind fuck that is Inland Empire !

If you have an open mind and don't mind doing a bit of work while watching a movie his films are among the most rewarding out there. Just be prepared not to sleep for a few days afterwards !

U.S Graduate Debt Levels Through The Roof

A variety of news reports today have highlighted the recent problem of graduate debt in the U.S.

The U.S has had a long standing policy on having a highly educated workforce but paradoxically no longer has jobs available for that workforce. The result has been that the majority of graduates are having to take low paying jobs that are in no way related to their degree or their skill level.

This is coupled with massive debts due to crippling student loans. The U.S is famous for having the most expensive tuition fees anywhere in the western world, many parents saving from a child's birth for their college education. However, it is becoming increasingly hard for parents to provide tuition money as the recession has hit their savings hard.

As a result the U.S is now populated with a high level of unemployed graduates whose futures are uncertain. The majority are now looking at work abroad where the jobs market is more fruitful or resorting to low paid work domestically in order to pay off their student loans, some totaling as much as $ 70,000 per student.

With recent riots in the Middle East started by a disenchanted highly educated youth, where unemployment and lack of jobs was also high, you really have to think how long this can go on for before graduates take action politically and start to turn their anger towards the state.

This situation is also not unique to the Middle East or the U.S, the United Kingdom is also having a current crisis with regards to the recent rise in tuition fees and the lack of jobs available to university graduates.

Perhaps governments across the western world would do well to stop cutting various forms of welfare for their population and start calling in the money that the administration gave to the financial sector during the bank bail out and use that money to stimulate the jobs market.

Banks are yet again giving out huge bonuses to their employees and posting huge profits (Barclays posted pre tax profits in the U.K of £ 11.6 billion !)

In any event it will be interesting to see how the U.S administration reacts to this crisis as it is only set to get worse with the economy still reeling from the bank bail outs.