T LOunge

Minions! We've failed you!

Aqua Kyoto bar and restaurant in Japan

Quick, let's all head to the boarding gate while we explain.

You see, we wrote three lovely posts to entertain you today and then we looked at each other, matching sparkles in our eyes, and said in unison, "Shopping? Shopping." Before we knew it, we were out the door and looking for deals. After finally finding the perfect lampshades for our TV room, we realized that 4 hours had gone by and we had neglected you, our unborn fawns. So, here. First round's on us.

The Fashion Show Episode 4 Preview:


Glee Preview:

Discuss the previews amongst yourselves while we pay for the drinks and scramble to get that A-List post up, darlings. Kisses! Sorry! Love you!


[Video Credit: bravotv.com, YouTube.com/GleeonFox - Photo Credit: aqua.com.hk, Heidi Gutman via bravotv.com]

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The A-List: "I Love You Up to the Sky" is a Stupid Lyric

"I think a capella means, like, with electricity."

Really?

That's it?

Not that we were expecting an epic, let alone closure, but didn't last night's finale seem a little... we don't know...flaccid? No one seemed particularly committed to the storyline, possibly because none of it made a damn bit of sense, so everyone just bitched at each other, squeezed out a couple of tears and went home. We don't know... we guess we can try and recap it, but we're feeling a little flaccid ourselves. We can only take so much vapidity, after all.

Fine. Everyone goes to Maine, where Reichen and Rodiney serve breakfast in their underwear and TJ keeps thinking they're at a toga party. Everyone has behind-the-back conversations about everyone else while complaining about how the weekend sucks. Austin realizes that no one has looked in his direction for 5 whole minutes, so he takes off his clothes. Reichen seems (inexplicably) obsessed with Austin's nakedness, but Rodiney, God bless him, knows he's won the abs race and only smirks at him. Later, Austin realizes that no one has looked in his direction for 5 whole minutes, so he starts sobbing and apologizing to Rodiney. Later, he tells the girls that he hates Rodiney. Everyone flees Maine because it keeps forcing them all to talk to each other and obviously, these girls can't handle that without contradicting themselves every 30 seconds or so.

Back in the city, Reichen meets with a bunch of very serious music producers to talk about his recording. "So you're going to keep practicing, right? asks one of them nervously. Austin meets with his former agent again. His former agent informs him he's a big fattie. Again. "I don't want to be a model anyway!" says Austin, explaining very seriously that he's in a relationship and as we all know, once you're in a relationship you should quit your job and devote all your time to it. TJ visits Ryan to tell him the news that they're meeting with a surrogacy counselor. "You're gonna have a baby!" shrieks TJ, more than a little prematurely. They both dab at the tears in their eyes, again, more than a little prematurely. Or does "meet with a surrogacy counselor" mean "there's a baby in my belly?" Either way, the point has been made with all of these queens: They've got absolutely nothing going on in their lives.

Which is kind of the problem here. The only one who has anything really going on his life obviously wants nothing to do with the vapid little backstabbers in the rest of the cast. Although to be fair, Mike's hair was probably our favorite member of the cast this season. So unpredictable!

Anyway, Austin visits Derek (again, because what else do these bitches have to do?) and immediately they start talking about Reichen and Rodiney (see previous parenthetical). Austin informs him that he's moving back to England. "That makes me sad," says Derek. They decided to go out and drink and be "catty little bitches," which is sort of like saying "Hey, you know what? We should breath IN and OUT tonight!"

They go to Reichen's "performance" and Derek is once again livid that Rodiney is still there. Mike shows up in both a ridiculous coat AND ridiculous hair. Ryan arrives all flustered and informs everyone that "I was late because I was front row at my designer's fashion show," a sentence that is pretentious on so many levels we'd need a couple hours to break it down. Derek and Austin go outside to smoke and make fun of everyone else. "I can't get enough of you. I really love you," says Derek. "You're my besty!" These people have no personalities whatsoever. It's all just tics and sound bites.

Reichen "sings" to the crowd, all of whom look like they've been forced to eat something in aspic. TJ imagines that Reichen is singing to their children, which we hope turn out to be deaf for their sakes. Derek and Austin get drunk and loudly start making fun of Reichen, apparently because there wasn't enough drama being generated by all the "we might break up/we might stay together/I might move to England/I might have a uterus after all" non-storylines. A synapse fires in Reichen's brain and he suddenly realizes that he's surrounded by nasty little assholes. He and Austin fight, Derek and Austin smoke, drink and sneer, Reichen and Rodiney kiss and make up (again) and Mike cluelessly asks "So, we're all friends now, right?"

We're out, bitches. It was fun for a while, and honestly, we had no problems with any of the bitchiness or even backstabbing. Its what you get with shows like this. But the constantly changing storylines (and all the shifting allegiances that went with them) just left us a little bored by the whole thing. We'll be back for the next season because making fun of people like Austin, TJ and Derek, why, that's like mother's milk to us, kittens. But producers, we're telling ya, figure out what you want from these people and stick to it. Think how much more delicious it would have been if the whole season had led up to a gigantic Austin vs. Derek fight. Instead, it's Rodiney and Reichen, two of the dullest homosexuals to ever smoke a pole, once again confirming their commitment to each other while Derek and Austin airkiss. Bleh.

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Labels: A-List: New York, A-List: New York Season 1

Crystal Renn for Vogue Paris (NSFW)

Tom Ford and Vogue Paris Editor-in-Chief Carine Roitfeld smoked some Crystal Renn and decided to put an editorial together. Fair warning: it's a button-pusher.

Vogue Paris December 2010/January 2011 Issue
Editorial: "La Panthère Ose"
Photographer: Tom Ford
Stylist: Carine Roitfeld








Okay, let's start with this: staging a fashion editorial around plastic surgery is kind of brilliant and subversive. We applaud the idea. Anything that eschews the fantasies of the industry in order to shine a light on the reality of it is something to be commended. On the other hand, both Tom Ford and Carine Roitfeld like to get people talking by pushing their buttons, so this is pretty expected from the two of them. What got us thinking, looking at these pictures, is how much Crystal Renn apparently likes to push those buttons too. We'll admit, our very first thought upon seeing these pictures was "What does this industry have against this girl?" A lot of her work lately seems to have her naked, gorging herself on food, or being compared to smaller models. You have to have some mighty thick skin to be a model (not to mention an inability to be humiliated), but there's been an undertone of, well, mean-spiritedness to a lot of her work.

But then it hit us: the common denominator in all her editorials is Crystal herself. We were set to trash this for once again giving the impression that the girl who has most successfully challenged the sizism of the beauty and fashion industry is being punished, but when you look over a lot of her work, it's obvious that Crystal herself likes to push both boundaries and buttons. She seems drawn to editorials that don't default to a generic standard of pretty.

Our point? If you're offended by this (and remember, it was designed to offend you), it's too easy to blame one person or even the industry itself. You put people like Tom Ford, Carine Roitfeld and Crystal Renn on a project together and you're going to get something that stops you in your tracks. Pretty? No. A showcase for fashion? Not really. But if you were flipping through a magazine and saw this, you'd stop and stare.

[Photo Credit: fashiongonerogue.com]

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Labels: Carine Roitfeld, Crystal Renn, Fashion, Magazine Cover/Editorial, Tom Ford, Vogue

TFS S2E3: House of Emerald

It's time to consider another name change.

"House of Emerald" just isn't working for us. It doesn't really evoke the qualities that define this team. We're thinking "House of Tacky," maybe. Or, "House of Really Shitty Fabrics."

CESAR:

It's weird; Cesar switches teams and suddenly he has no taste or ability to edit himself. He drank the Emerald Kool-Aid apparently. This dress is hideous and if he hadn't shown such talent in his earlier entries, he could have easily been eliminated for this. Technically it's fine; the seaming is interesting and it fits her like a glove. The problem is, she looks like drag queen Spider-Man.

CINDY:

For some odd reason that we can't figure out, the judges raved about this, going so far as to say that she could have won it if the rest of her team didn't suck so bad. Are we missing something here? It's not awful or anything, but it's hardly what we'd call great. Sure, lace is on trend right now, but there's nothing really going on from a design perspective. It's pretty basic. We realize this show isn't likely to put the emphasis on "innovation" that Project Runway does (and in PR's case is almost totally bullshit given how their judging has evolved), but we figured winning garments or potential winning garments would have to be at least a little interesting in some way.

GOLNESSA:

Did this team just dump a box of crayons on the floor to come up with the color story for this collection? Because there isn't one. It's just random bright colors and jewel tones that seem to owe nothing to each other and frankly, bring the sophistication level down a couple notches.

The more we look at this, the more we think this should have been the losing entry. The only design element that has any interest to it basically looks like an exit wound on her back. The rest of it is standard '40s redux with nothing new added.

And can we just say that going '40s-inspired (as most of the team did) for a femme fatale challenge is pretty unoriginal?

JEFFREY:

We hate the color and we hate the lace because whether he looks like Morris Day or not, purple + lace is always going to remind us of Purple Rain.

He had a decent start of an idea because this owes a lot to '40s gowns while being a little modern and updated. Unfortunately, he went updated by putting her in a sports bra.




And the more we look at this the more we think it was to be commended. The pirate pants are awful; let's get that out of the way first. But we really appreciated that she approached the challenge from an unusual place - Mary J. Blige - and we liked that she took her design away from too-literal Mildred Pierce-looking numbers. "Femme Fatale" can mean practically anything in terms of style, so long as it evokes sexiness and danger. We think this outfit manages that and we're especially impressed by the jacket. No, it shouldn't have won. As we said, the bottom half is highly problematic, but she put some thought into it, and more importantly, she put some of herself into it.

[Photo Credit: Heidi Gutman, bravotv.com - Screencaps: www.tomandlorenzo.com]

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Labels: The Fashion Show, The Fashion Show Season 2, The Fashion Show Season 2 Episode 3

In or Out: Olivia Wilde

Earth girls are easy.

Olivia Wilde attends the "Tron: Legacy 3D" Press conference
at the Ritz Carlton in Tokyo, Japan.

Okay, sure. It's a press conference, not a red carpet appearance. Fine, but you're kidding yourself if you think these appearances aren't just as managed and styled as your average film premiere. This outfit, believe it or not, was (or at least should have been) chosen with the same care that a prissy high-strung stylist would devote to a gown. Ergo, ripe for our brand of bitchery.

We don't get it. Actually, we think we get it, but it fails so badly. This is an attempt at the "science fiction" starlet outfit. You know, you've got some sort of science fiction or superhero film coming up where you play The Girl, so you're trying to fire up the nerds with your sporty, youthful, slightly hipster look with anime undertones. Sometimes, it works and the starlet can wind up looking fun and sexy and young and not at all full of herself. Other times, it looks like this. Whoever chose this outfit for her also steered her away from full-length mirrors, apparently. We don't know this gal all that well, but we're fairly (100%) certain her dress size is a pre-school number, meaning she's as thin and small as most of her cohorts in the industry. And while we'd never go so far as to say this outfit makes her look fat, we're pretty sure she cried when she saw these pictures. The thigh-highs with the pink tights and flared skirt basically all combine to form a chorus of "Look at this strip of my thighs! Hypnotic! It's all you can see, right?"

If only that were true. If all we could see were her electric pink thighs, we wouldn't be so upset at her "my shift at the mall is coming up" hairstyle. WHAT is going ON there? Again, trying to go for that fresh-faced nerdgirl look, but failing miserably, mainly since she has a pretty angular face and these tight little 'dos do her no favors.

And we'll have to check the latest fashion mag covers, because we're pretty sure we haven't seen a tagline lately like "Wearing Your Loofah Around Your Neck! New Fall Trend!"

Okay, we think we're done here. OUT.

[Photo Credit: wireimage, getty]

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Labels: Fashion, In or Out, Movie Premiere, Olivia Wilde, Red Carpet

Boardwalk Empire S1E11: Paris Green

"I have lost not one second of sleep over what was done and neither have you."

As much as we enjoyed the performances and were intrigued by the directions the plot is going (sort of), we didn't like this episode as a whole and it took a second viewing to figure out why. The writing struck us as both a little lazy and a little impressed with itself. Rewatching the opening shot of Hardeen, brother of Houdini struggling against his bonds, we realized that the metaphor was more than a little heavy-handed and then as the rest of the episode replayed before us, we noticed more and more instances of it.

Worse, it was being reflected in the dialogue. "I don't know if I'm thinking about anything," says the annoyingly passive Angela to Jimmy, a line that captures her state of mind and way of approaching the world just a little too accurately to be realistic. "I knew you were misleading me yet you managed it anyway," says Margaret to Hardeen with wonder, foreshadowing just a bit too cleverly her coming argument with Nucky. "Deception requires complicity, however subconscious," Hardeen intones to her (and to us) gravely, just in case we hadn't been hit over the head quite enough. When Eli oversteps his bounds, Nucky brings up Hardeen again: "It's an entertaining act but if he wasn't Houdini's brother, nobody'd give a fuck." Not exactly subtle. We threw our hands up in exasperation when Gillian brightly responded to Jimmy's questions about how close she is to his father with, "Close is a relative term." Oh, come on. If everyone's going to speak witty metaphors instead of dialogue, they might as well do an all-Haiku episode.

In addition, Jimmy's father turned out to be exactly who everyone thought and with Gillian acting strangely breezy about her apparent ongoing relationship with him, the news that he was being poisoned by her was about as surprising as the news that he's Jimmy's father. Not that the writing was obligated to set up mysteries for us. This isn't a whodunnit, after all, but it was all just a little too neat and a little too expected, robbing these revelations of any emotional weight. Oh. The Commodore's Jimmy's father and Gillian's been poisoning him. Alrighty then. All of these developments make sense and we like what they do for Jimmy's character in particular, but the unfolding of them felt a little listless and haphazard to us. It was the same thing with Angela. Her trip to Paris was almost certainly not going to happen, so it was merely a matter of waiting for events to unfold and once again, they did, in exactly the manner expected. Angela's flighty and strange "kissing friend" Mary skipped out of town with her sleazy husband. No surprises, nothing of interest. Just another inevitable plot development clicking into place.

We sound cranky and we don't mean to. It was an enjoyable enough episode but to be honest, we're starting to get a little antsy. Even for a cable drama, this show moves slowly, but we were in for the ride because of the great cast and the vivid atmosphere, figuring things would pick up near the end of the season. And they have; the plot is definitely moving and we're definitely invested in at least some of these characters, but the writing is getting less impressive as the series goes on and we're wondering if they're relying just a bit too much on said cast and atmosphere to accomplish their storytelling goals rather than putting the work in on plot and pacing.

One character for whom all interest vanished (and the main reason for our negative feelings) is Van Alden, who in one episode plummeted down the list of characters from near-favorite to least interesting. We were willing to accept his obsessiveness, strict religious convictions and emotional distance, even though giving the law enforcement character those traits in a crime drama is a pretty big cliche. But we felt the character had nuance and that he was tortured by his demons, which made him interesting. He's still tortured by his demons, but the nuance went out the window when he lapsed into a bigger caricature than he'd already been. Rather than the obsessive, strict man who lives by the rules, he's spiraled out of control into pure villainy, murdering a Jewish man in front of a group of black people and walking away in a Christ pose because presumably, there's nothing anybody can do about it. Feh. Not interesting. After he slept with Lucy we were intrigued, wondering where he was going and what he was going to do next. Now, we couldn't care less.

Nucky and Margaret still manage to hold our interest, however. The argument was coming for a long time as it became increasingly difficult for her to lie to herself about the life she's living. Nucky was having none of it, however, pointing out quite accurately that she has always pretended to be bothered by the lifestyle while at the same time indulging in it. What was surprising and a little illuminating was his disappointment that she would use foul language and birth control, something he would expect from the Lucys and Annabelles of the world. Margaret is clearly held to a higher standard. Although she was just as right to point out that he had no right to criticize her if he had no intent to marry her. Nucky fired his brother for threatening her so it's obvious his feelings for her are deeper than he'd like to admit. This is the only thing we care about going into the finale: what's going to happen to Nucky and Margaret.

[Picture credit: hbo.com]

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Labels: Boardwalk Empire

In or Out: Kylie Minogue at the Macy's Parade in Chanel

Go and get it, girl!

Girl, we know how it is. You hear your agent say "float" and visions of sugarplum (among other kinds) fairies dance in your head wearing tiny silver short-shorts and body paint. You are Kylie Minogue, a goddamn gay icon in your own time. When you do floats, there are rainbow flags and naked men involved. End of story. So imagine your surprise when you found out there would be no naked men, no disco music, no drag queens and no throngs of adoring queens vying for your attention. Instead you would have to lip synch in front of children in the cold. What do you do? Bitch, I just told you. You're Kylie Damn Minogue...

You show up in a turban and Chanel, of course.

Chanel Fall 2010 Collection
Model: Dorothea Barth Jorgensen (ELITE)

SEE? Didn't we tell you that some fabulous diva could make a turban work? Listen to your gays! When we say "Turbans are coming back, girl," then you best get your Leontyne Price on, pronto.

Kylie, on behalf of your adoring gays, don't ever change, doll.

SO DAMN IN.

[Photo Credit: wireimage, style.com]

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Labels: Chanel, Fashion, In or Out, Kylie Minogue