In the opening sequence of Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring, the titular crew of young, hot, rich-ish, mostly female thieves scale a fence, enter a Hollywood home through an unlocked sliding glass door, and — as loud, pulsing rock music plays — one turns to the other and giggles, “Let’s go shopping.” The credit sequence that follows is framed by conspicuous consumption: not just fetishistic product shots of the shoes, purses, and jewelry that they lift, but how those items are immediately incorporated into their online personae. A closet is opened, a loving close-up is delivered, and Coppola immediately cuts to the Facebook photo of the thief sporting said item. The members of the Bling Ring don’t rob for the pulse-quickening thrill of petty crime. They rob out of a sense of wealthy entitlement: go where you want, grab what you want, take and post a picture of yourself doing or wearing or waving it. … Read More
Lindsay Lohan
The Baddest Girl Gangs on Film
This summer’s cinema slate is all about teen girls gone wild, with Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers and Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring bringing the crime spree to theaters. Last week week, we listened to the Skrillex soundtrack for Korine’s neon bacchanal and looked at some awesome fan-made posters for the film. The trailer for Coppola’s Bling Ring also appeared online, and got us excited for celebrity-obsessed teens that rob from the rich. Girl groups that willfully break boundaries are rare in cinema, and we wanted to spotlight more of these troublemakers. These brazen all-girl gangs proved men don’t necessarily have the upper hand when it comes to kicking ass and taking… Read More
A Partial List of Things That Could Pop Up in Bret Easton Ellis’s New Novel
In early December, Bret Easton Ellis tweeted, “FYI: There. Is. No. New. Novel. Being. Written. Except for maybe The James Deen Story and something called ‘Come Over At Do Bring Coke Now.’” But now, he admits that there just may be, writing that ”It started with an image revolving around the blood-red Emser tile sign situated on a rooftop at the intersection of Santa Monica Boulevard and Holloway Drive: the view from behind the windshield, an accident, the mystery unfolding, something about the past, about that last year in high school, intimations of a murder disguised as a suicide.” These days, Ellis is probably at least as well known for his combative, sometimes apparently drug-addled Twitter feed as he is for his novels, so we decided to turn there to fuel our wild speculations about what themes a new novel from the writer might contain. Whether it’s The James Deen Story or Come Over At Do Bring Coke Now, here are a few things BEE has been obsessing over on Twitter in recent months — and might well find their way into the novel. … Read More
Five Movie Comebacks That Worked (and Five That Didn’t)
“RETIREMENT IS FOR SISSIES!” roar the posters for The Last Stand (seriously? “Sissies?” In 2012? But I digress…), the first starring role for Arnold Schwarzenegger since stepping away from the silver screen for a, shall we say, problematic stint in the California governor’s mansion. Its mid-January release date doesn’t exactly scream box-office or critical confidence, but who knows; Mr. Schwarzenegger has been underestimated before, and usually comes out ahead. Either way it goes, we thought it would be interesting to run down some of the other big-name actors who hit rough or absent patches and tried to work their way back into the spotlight with a well placed role; after the jump we’ll take a look at five comeback vehicles that took, and five that didn’t quite get the job done. … Read More
The Morning’s Top 5 Pop Culture Stories
1. James Franco explains that his band Daddy’s new song “Can’t Say Goodbye” was inspired by his father’s recent death. Watch the music video for the track — which features childhood home movies of the actor — here.
2. The National debuted four new songs during their performance at All Tomorrow’s Parties in England over the weekend. Listen to one of the tracks here. … Read More
The Morning’s Top 5 Pop Culture Stories
1. In case you’re curious, TVLine has the scoop on how Community writers plan to handle Chevy Chase’s departure from the show — including how they might work Pierce into the episodes that haven’t been shot yet.
2. Presented sans commentary: the woman who Lindsay Lohan punched in the eye was a psychic.… Read More
The Morning’s Top 5 Pop Culture Stories
1. A $30 million musical version of King Kong that’s currently in the works in Australia might be heading to Broadway, perhaps as soon as 2014. In case any part of you thinks that this sounds like a good idea, producers are reportedly eying the space currently occupied by Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. [via… Read More
Just How Bad Is Lindsay Lohan’s Lifetime Movie?
From the moment it was announced that Lindsay Lohan would be starring in a Lifetime movie about Elizabeth Taylor’s tumultuous relationship with Richard Burton, we knew that Liz & Dick was going to be bad. What remained to be seen was what kind of bad it would be: a delightful train wreck that begged for repeat viewings or just plain unwatchable. With the made-for-TV movie debuting on Sunday night at 9pm, most of the reviews are finally in (as well as a post on BuzzFeed entitled “The 32 Times I Laughed During ‘Liz & Dick’”), but we’re still not entirely sure what we’re dealing with here. What we do know is that even after reading these awful notices, we’re going to find it impossible to resist tuning in ourselves, drink in hand. Click through for some of the funniest zingers from TV critics, and let us know if you’ll be watching too. … Read More
Watch A New Video for R.E.M.’s ‘Blue,’ Directed by James Franco and Starring Lindsay Lohan
It’s hard to believe that R.E.M. broke up over a year ago — has it really been that long? Their fifteenth and final album, Collapse Into Now, dropped in March of last year, but it’s only now that this video, created by James Franco for the Collapse Into Now Film Project, has risen to the surface. The video is grainy and unsettling, if still kind of beautiful, like a grown-up version of Less Than Zero, with layered footage, bright lights, and shots of a sexed-up Lindsay Lohan modeling. All this behind a fuzzy track with echoing vocals by Michael Stipe and Patti Smith. Ah, the City of Angels. Click through to watch, and let us know what you think in the comments. … Read More
The Morning’s Top 5 Pop Culture Stories
1. Lindsay Lohan was actually pretty funny last night in the “Let Us Play With Your Look” segment on Jimmy Fallon — granted, she didn’t have to say anything. [via Pop Culture Brain]
2. “I just thought it was ridiculous. I mean, I’ve read reviews — there’s good and there’s bad in the… Read More
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