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July 30, 2004
More Sizzling Christina Aguilera Ads on the Way! Skechers Campaign Shows Off Sexed-up Xtina!
Christina (oops, we mean "Xtina") Aguilera has piled on another endorsement deal and will be heating up yet another series of print ads with her photogenic hotness, this time for the Skechers shoe brand. The advertising campaign is called "Naughty and Nice" and will roll out in August to support Skecher's Fall 2004 line of shoes. The ads feature Christina (er, Xtina) playing dual roles in scenes that illustrate fetishistic male sex fantasies.
More Sizzling Christina Aguilera Ads on the Way! Skechers Campaign Shows Off Sexed-up Xtina!
Aguilera appears in one ad as a hospital patient and as a syringe-wielding nurse in tight hip-hugging white uniform that barely covers her panties and shows off legs sporting white stockings and garters. In another, the pop diva and her doppelganger play both mini-skirt clad student in pigtails and open-blouse teacher holding a long pointer like its a weapon. In a third, more overtly erotic scenario, Xtina is dressed in a leather mini-skirt police uniform, complete with dangling handcuffs, and she eyes her twin who washing a car, soapy sponge in hand.
The iconic and erotic images have a vaguely lesbian undertone, but only in so far as the ads are designed to titillate like those rote color-by-numbers girl-on-girl sex scenes in many male-produced porn videos. These images have an airbrushed, illustrative quality that imbues them with the veneer of innocence and draws out the eroticism into greater, more effective contrast. In other words: these ads are freaking HOT!!!!!
BTW, just in case any of you folks unfamiliar with the current pantheon of sexed-up MTV divas, Christina Aguilera is the blonde who can actually sing‹the one with the amazing voice.
--Shibuya Kid
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RELATED LINKS
+ Christina Aguilera Official Web Site
+ Skechers Web Site
Posted by at 05:14 AM
July 29, 2004
Hip-Hop's Bling-Blingiest Fashionista / Former Model Kimora Lee Simmons Gets Busted in NJ!
Everyone's favorite hip-hop-fashion mini-mogul Kimora Lee Simmons has just notched the first--of what may still be many--scandalous revelation in a future episode of E! True Hollywood Story. She got arrested. Way to go, Kimora!
Everyone's favorite hip-hop-fashion mini-mogul Kimora Lee Simmons has just notched the first--of what may still be many--scandalous revelation in a future episode of E! True Hollywood Story. She got arrested. Way to go, Kimora!
Police arrested Kimora outside her New Jersey mansion Sunday night after the queen of Baby Phat allegedly failed to comply with police requests to pull over the Mercedes Benz she was driving. According to the news reports, Kimora led police on a two-mile pursuit. After pulling over outside her Bergen County home, her Benz was searched and a small amount of an illicit substance was found in her vehicle.
Count on the Smoking Gun to get out the requisite mug shot (see above). What's is first striking about Kimora's booking-photo (and surely a disappointment for the media) is that she's doesn't look like a crazed, matted-hair, Nick Nolte-esque celebrity coming down off a bender. She looks normal (well, relatively normal for Kimora). She's got a pleasant smile. And though she doesn't look like the glamorous made-up supermodel like she in those Baby Phat ads, she doesn't look that bad.
So what's the dealio? The incident involved not just failure to pull over and possession of herb, but several other minor offenses, including driving a vehicle with a busted taillight and reckless driving. Kimora's husband, hip-hop and fashion billionaire Russell Simmons, is already crying foul. He's alleged that the arrest was a result of racial profiling.
Kimora has also said that the illicit substance found in her vehicle belonged to one of the other passengers riding in the car at the time and that she did not immediately pull over to the side of the road when police signaled her because there wasn't a shoulder along the stretch of road she was driving at the time.
Whatever. We can't wait to see how the press will feed on this. They need a new celeb to bash now that the Martha Stewart story is all played out. Luckily for her, Kimora's arrest comes during a very busy news week, so the negative media has been virtually non-existent. That could change in the next few days.
But, hey, let's face it ... Kimora may be A-List, but she isn't a household name. She isn't Martha Stewart. Kimora who? Exactly, kidz.
--Pixelator (aka, Instamatic)
RELATED LINKS
Taking the Baby Phat Out of Hip-Hop Mogulette Kimora Lee Simmons [Air Massive]
Russell Simmons' Wife Faces Drug Charges [New York Newsday]
Kimora Lee Simmons In Pot/Traffic Bust [The Smoking Gun]
Kimora arrested as hubby politicks [New York Daily News]
Kimora Lee Simmons Arrested [All Hip Hop News]
Baby Phat Web Site
Posted by typhoon at 03:14 AM
July 25, 2004
Meeee-OW!: Critics Dump Hate on Catwoman Reviews Crown Flick Big Crap Movie of Summer!
Well, it's official. Catwoman, starring Halle Berry as the feline superhero, in a word, SUCKS! The movie sucks Big time! And the critics agree. But the weekend box office tells a different story as of late Sunday night. According to estimates by Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc., which tracks box office performance, Catwoman came in third place in earnings during its opening weekend on U.S. screens, earning $17.16 million.
That's a moderately healthy showing, but far shorter than what studios execs at Warner Bros. Entertainment and the film's producers had hoped the flick would earn in its first weekend. (The Bourne Supremacy and I, Robot, came in first and second places respectively. See totals below.)
While the box office and Marvel Comics fans have given Catwoman some love at the theaters, the critics' negative reviews and bad word of mouth during the next week or two might cause audiences numbers to slide and sink the film over the long haul.
The movie cost just under $100 million to produce, and if the studio hopes recoup all of that money, it would need to have had a much bigger opening weekend. Huge overseas box office receipts and high sales figures for the eventual DVD later this year could still financially save the would-be blockbuster.
Anyway, enough biz chat and micropunditry. Let's check the vitriol starting witha look at what Wired News had to say about Catwoman. The Web news site let loose with an attack on Friday in a review by Jason Silverman.
"Catwoman is the least urgent, most unconvincing superhero film I've ever seen. It's a fraction as scary as the evening news, and is also stiff, poorly acted and, worst of all, dull."
Ooooooooh! That's gotta hurt! On National Public Radio's Weekend Edition, former New York Times film critic Elvis Mitchell concluded that "Catwoman can carry a movie, but no one bothered to write one around her."
Mitchell, who is Black, noted an important fact about Catwoman--that Halle Berry is the highest paid African-American actress in history. What's more, Catwoman is the most expensive film vehicle built around an African-American actress. The point being that the movie, despite its being derided by critics, is a milestone for Hollywood and American cultural history.
Meanwhile over at the love-it or hate-it NY Post, Lou Lumenick went for the kill with this pun-filled graf:
"A purr-fectly ridiculous and boring cat-astrophe, "Catwoman" more than lives up to the lethal advance buzz and -- even with Halle Berry cavorting like a third-rate dominatrix -- is about as sexy as a hairball."
There was no love from the Village Voice, either. (Though, the Voice being the Voice, harsh words on a movie like this would not be a surprise even if every other critic in the country had thought the film was greatest piece of celluloid ever created.) Mark Holcomb had this to say about the comics-inspired flim:
"Faithful neither to Batman creator Bob Kane's original femme fatale nor to any of the filmed incarnations thereof (including those essayed by Julie Newmar, Eartha Kitt, and Michelle Pfeiffer), this plodding, by-the-numbers superhero flick has all the feline grace of a walleyed mastiff."
At the New York Times, A.O. Scott weighed in with the comment that Catwoman is "A howlingly silly, moderately diverting exercise in high, pointless style." Elsewhere, Connie Ogle of the Miami Herald described the movie as a "Silly, tedious, inept disaster."
But leave it the Chicago Sun-Times film critic and At the Movies co-host Roger Ebert to best sum up his sentiments on the film with this wittily concise and barbed thought: "The director, whose name is Pitof, was probably issued with two names at birth and would be wise to use the other one on his next project." (We doubt Pitoff will pull a Vincent Gallo on Ebert and wish colon cancer upon the critic.)
As noted above, "The Bourne Supremacy," the sequel to "The Bourne Identity," came in first at the box office. Its estimated take was $53.5 million. That's almost double the $27.1 million brought in by the "Bourne Identity" in its opening weekend two years ago. "I, Robot" took second place and $22.05 million in its second weekend, bringing its cumulative take to $95.4 million since it opened ten days earlier.
Links to more reviews below.
--Rob "Whiskers" Samra
RELATED LINKS
Roger Ebert /Chicago Sun-Times Review
Posted by Supercore at 11:01 PM
July 17, 2004
All That You Can't Leave Behind ... in France! U2 and the Incredible Disappearing CD!
Imagine it: You're a 40's-ish Irish musician and member of one of the most successful bands in rock music history, one of the biggest, most loved groups in the world. You've had an incredible run--some 20-plus years of touring, platinum records, awards, pop hits and critical acclaim. Your last album was a Grammmy winner. It was a beautiful thing.
Now, you've just spent the last two years writing and recording songs for your next album--your band's first new collection of songs in over four years and the record is almost finished. There are just a few tweaks left to perform in the studio and with those the disc will be done. All the songs--the so-called "rough cut"--are on a single compact disc. The title of the new album is rumored to be "Vertigo."
You keep the disc in your bag, which you take with you to the balmy South of France where you and your band mates will finish recording the album using the tracks on that CD. While you're there you do some press, a photo shoot, to supply publicity images for the media maw. During the shoot, you leave your bags unattended, naturally, as you go to work mugging and posing for the camera.
After the photo shoot, you come back and notice that the rough-cut CD is missing. It's gone. Vanished. You look around you everywhere. You ask around, "Hey, anyone seen a CD lying around here?" You start to worry. You get a little pissed off. You get a little scared.
You think, "Two years of work is on that disc. An entire album--OUR entire next album--digitized on a single round piece of plastic, which is gone. Did I mislay it? Did I forget it? Dear God--PLEASE!--Tell me I left the disc back in Ireland!"
No, that's not it, matey. The logical conclusion is someone took it. Thieves . Or a thief. But who? Why?
Technically the disc (or rather, its contents) doesn't even belong to you; the rough-cut tracks are property of a record company, the corporate entity to which you are contractually obligated.
"Holy sh*t!" you think.
Oh yeah, and it's 2004 and there's that thing called the Internet, upon which are run peer-to-peer file-sharing networks like Kazaa, connecting millions of users via personal computer via which the digital contents of an audio compact disc can be easily copied and transmitted via a few simple mouse clicks. And at last count you heard there were something like, maybe, 40 million Internet users worldwide.
"F**************************ck!" you think.
But the French police are on the case, hunting for the missing disc and the culprit, if any. Your loyal and adoring fans sympathize. The press is all over this news, especially the entertainment media. Britain's vicious, rabid music journalists are frothing at the mouth on this one. Your homeland's newspapers give the story big play, after all, you're among Ireland's biggest, most famous native sons. The media in general have a field day whipping out pun-filled headlines that make heavy use of some of your back catalog's most popular song titles.
You make some comments to the media about the incident. You say, "A large slice of two years' work lifted. It doesn't seem credible but that's what's just happened to us... and it was my CD."
Your band is named after an American spy plane made famous by an incident in the 1960's in which one such plane was shot down over Soviet Russia. You don't use your real name; People call you "The Edge" or sometimes just "Edge," minus the definite article. Your band is named U2.
And, yeah, you still haven't found what you're looking for.
--Ivan "Micropundit" Corsa
RELATED LINKS
U2 Official Web Site
"U2" Google News Search Results
Not a Beautiful Day: U2 Tunes AWOL [E! Online]
French Police Still Haven't Found What U2 Are Looking For [Belfast Telegraph]
Posted by typhoon at 07:49 PM
July 12, 2004
You Will Buy and Obey! Street Artist Shephard Fairey Launches Stunning New Pop Culture Mag!
We haven't been this excited about a big new magazine launch in a long time, not only because Swindle magazine looks so fresh, but also because it's largely the brainchild of Shephard Fairey. If you don't recognize the name, you may recognize Fairey's street art-turned-brand Obey Giant--its logo is designed around an iconic image of the late great wrestler Andre the Giant. Obey Giant became a worldwide street-marketing phenomenon in the 90's. In a few years it went from a guerrilla sticker-art campaign to a global commercial brand in a way that has become a textbook study for marketers and culture-jammers alike. Now the same mind behind Obey Giant brings us Swindle magazine. According to the Swindle Web site, the quarterly magazine aims to be "the definitive pop-culture and lifestyle publication for young men and women." That's Cool. But that's also quite an ambitious statement. Advertisers, distributors and retailers, however, LOVE hearing statements like that and expect nothing less than bold, hyperbolic declarations from mag publishers. We mean, think about it, do the marketing team at, say, Diesel really want to hear that your magazine hopes, someday, to "humbly carve out a niche on the magazine rack" and be just "one of many voices attempting to define and document pop culture"? No. No, they don't. (Not unless they're on drugs.) But "definitive"? C'mon! If Swindle can pull that off or even half, that would excellent--we're rooting for Swindle all the way! So, Shephard, more power to ya'! Bring it on and be definitive! The essential content formula is--suprise, surprise!--fashion, music, art, etc. Yes, it seems there are more magazines like this than any other kind on the newstand. Though it also seems that the more ads pages the publication has the more commonly it is referred to as a "lifestyle magazine." Like several other high-quality, highly original and well-produced small mag titles in the fashion-music-art-lifestyle category, Swindle has the potential to be successful and important insofar that it can be influential. First the magazine will need to be deemed cool by the kidz that matter. That influence will be determined in part by the way Swindle styles its editorial voice and packages itself. The magazine could become truly inspiring. But to do this, Swindle will have to mine the richest areas of pop cultural evolution--the cutting edge, the underground. It will have to interpret and disseminate the 411 and style elements of what's happening at the fringes of popular culture in places under the mainstream radar, rather than what's obvious and truly "popular" in the mass culture. In other words, not Britney Spears, but Bebel Gilberto. (Hey, there's a mantra in here ... repeat: "Bebel, Not Britney! Bebel, Not Britney!") We have no doubt Swindle can do this and do it well. But even so, for how long can such a magazine remain niche (not mass) without collapsing under the intense financial pressures inherent in the print publishing business unless it packages its content for a broader readership and in a way that will appeal to more mainstream sensibilities? At what point does it cease to be relevant, especially in the face of the ever rapidly shifting ground that is pop culture. It's rare that such a delicate balance can be achieved and sustained. Tokion magazine (one of our faves) has managed to pull it off fairly consistently for close to a decade. Raygun--if anyone remembers it--didn't and folded. In its favor, Swindle will be a quarterly publication. That's a smart move. (Though our media metabolism is such that we could eagerly digest the magazine on a monthly basis.) That gives Swindle more time to put together something really special for each issue. And it puts a greater premium on its content. The Swindle crew have also upped the premium by offering two versions of the magazine, one a higher-quality "boutique" version published by Gingko Press that will be that much pricier. The content and overall design is essentially the same for both versions, but one will be more book-like with some small tweaks, the other more of the soft-cover magazine. The difference is akin to that between a hardcover and paperback novel, except with Swindle you won't have to wait a year for the more affordable paperback version to come out. It goes without saying that Swindle will serve as default brand advertisement for Obey Giant's work and product line‹everything from stickers to t-shirts with some variation on the Shephard Fairey iconography. The first issue of Swindle weighs in at a formidable 160 pages, with full color and quality paper. The graphics, layouts and page designs and photography look super-juicy delicious. Aesthetically the magazine is a sight for sore eyes. On the cover is an illustration of hip-hop godfather, Grandmaster Flash. Contents in issue number one include a feature on Grandmaster Flash, an interview with L.A.-based designers National Forrest, a six-page photo spread on old-school gangland fashion inspired by the 70's cult flick "The Warriors," and a cool story on Brazil's graffiti subculture-- way rad! --Instamatic + The Kid From Kyoto
RELATED LINKS
+ Swindle Magazine Web Site
+ Obey Giant Web Site
+ Shephard Fairey Biography [Gingko Press]
+ Grandmaster Flash Web Site
+ The Medicine Agency
+ Gingko Press Web Site
Posted by at 10:51 PM
July 07, 2004
Paris Hilton Does David Letterman... Uh, Let's Rephrase: Hotel Heiress Appears on Late Show
Everyone's favorite Hilton Hotel heiress and reality TV show star, Paris Hilton, held sway at the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York last night as a guest on CBS's the Late Show with David Letterman. (Note: Nicky was our favorite Hilton sister, but that was before the Paris-Rick Solomon sex video entered our lives.)
For the record, let's be upfront about one thing: Letterman's not really our cup of tea these days; at half past 11 P.M., the Daily Show ends and our channel surfing starts to wander aimlessly up and down the the rank-and-file cable offerings, often stopping for small doses of E!, Court TV, and VH1--in other words, gossip, dramatic re-enactments and pop culture punditry. But when it comes to a Hilton sister, especially Paris, then Letterman wins the vote of our remote control.
Paris made her appearance on the Late Show, she said, on her way to dinner with her family at East Village hot spot Butter, which she explained was "downtown" and "cool."
So why Letterman? Well, the darn girl she is a'workin'--it's called the Simple Life 2 (if you call that "work"), the road-trippy follow-up to last year's Fox reality TV show sensation the Simple Life. In the first season, Hilton and gal pal Nicole Richie as well as a camera crew spent a month down on the farm doing chores, some of which wealthy lifelong Manhattanites can scarcely imagine.
Whataver the critics thought of the Simple Life, the Nielsen ratings said that YOU loved it! Or, rather, that the American television audience tuned in to the series in vast enough numbers to help convince the folks marketing hair-care products to spend money on 30-second ads on Fox.
But Paris wasn't just plugging the Simple Life 2 (and herself, but that's a given). Hilton will soon have her first CD released on her own "independent" label. The hotel heiress sings on the album and wrote many of the songs. She described her music style as a cross between New York early 80's new wavers Blondie and "rock."
Among the other tidbits revealed in her interview with Letterman was Paris's middle name (it's Whitney) and that she once rented a limousine in Las Vegas to drive her and a small menagerie of animals to her home in Los Angeles. During one of her many visits to sin city, Paris bought on impulse a slew of exotic pets. But when she got to the check-in counter at the airport for her return flight to L.A., the airline told her she couldn't take all the animals on the plane with her. The animals included a goat. During the six-hour journey back to La La Land, the mini-zoo pooped and peed like they owned the hired limo. It was disgusting, Hilton explained to Dave, but, she added, "I love animals!" (Aaaaaaaaaaaw! Ain't that sweet!)
Our best moment ever during Paris's ten minute's on the Late Show hot seat came when Letterman dared her to scream like she did for in a horror movie she'd acted in. And Hilton did it! But, she agreed to do it only if Dave did it, too. And Dave did it , too.
*******
BTW, aside from Paris Hilton on the late Show, last night was also a big one for CBS because--in case you're still paying attention--Big Brother 5 premiered last night. As if you hadn't had your fill of televised human degradation, otherwise more gently refered to as "reality programming," Big Brother returns with twelve fresh-faced, soon-to-be mutually suspicious and back-stabbing candidates battling for a half-million dollar prize. It took a small crowded European nation like the Netherlands to turn essentially a micromanaged form of cabin fever into a successful global content property. What would George Orwell have thought?
--Instamatic
RELATED LINKS
The Late Show with David Letterman Web Site
Paris Hilton's Steamy Home Video (E!)
The Simple Life 2 Web Site
Posted by typhoon at 07:57 PM
July 02, 2004
Marlon Brando, R.I.P.: Great American Actor and All-Round Celeb Superfreak Kicks the Bucket
How does one go from being the hottest actor in the world to being the closest thing humanity has to a real-life Jabba the Hut? Well, it may help to be a little crazy, live on a remote South Pacific island and possess a propensity to carb load at a phenomenal rate. Oh yeah, and if your name is Marlon, well, that may be helpful, too. (Snark! Snark!)
OK, OK, for real now: How does one continue to be revered as THE greatest living Hollywood film actor in spite of being a maddening recluse with a severe weight problem, serious mental health issues and a string of foregettable movies. Simple. Brando was a brilliant film actor. As his personal life and waist size became the stuff of late-night TV jokes and tabloid fodder, he always managed to put in strong film performances, even in movies that were little more than celluloid train wrecks.
"On the Waterfront," "Streetcar Named Desire"--these are the film masterpieces that made Brando a star and demonstrated to the world his force as a cinematic thespian. "The Godfather" (see picture above) and, to a lesser extent, "Apocalypse Now" were the movies that reminded everyone of his genius and why he was a star in the first place. Though he always kept a wary distance from Tinseltown, he was never a mere contender there.
--J.
RELATED LINKS
The Time 100: Marlon Brando [Time]
The Facts: Marlon Brando [E! Web Site]
Marlon Brando Filmography [IMdB]
Marlon Brando, Oscar-Winning Actor, Is Dead at 80 [NY Times]
Posted by typhoon at 08:01 PM
