Monday, January 31, 2011
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Friday, January 21, 2011
'No Strings Attached'
I'm on board to see this movie this weekend with my sister...I hope it's not a dozer because I sure can sleep in a dark, cozy movie theater...
MOVIE REVIEW
No Strings Attached
Dale Robinette/Paramount Pictures
Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher in “No Strings Attached.”
A Firm Commitment to Casual
By A. O. SCOTT
Published: January 20, 2011
Having recently endured starvation and battered toes in the service of her art, Natalie Portman now encounters another of the ordeals laid out for ambitious young actresses who want to be movie stars. Less than a week after gracing the Golden Globes broadcast in a rose-bedecked gown and collecting an award for her work in “Black Swan,” Ms. Portman pops up on Friday on the big screen in a pre-Valentine’s Day romantic comedy with an instantly forgettable title.
More About This Movie
Let me check my notes. The name of this one is “No Strings Attached,” and it also stars Ashton Kutcher, a perfectly nice-looking fellow and an old hand at this kind of thing. His character, a television writer named Adam, is described as “sooo tall” and “almost annoyingly happy,” which pretty much captures Mr. Kutcher’s salient traits.
Ms. Portman, playing Emma, a Los Angeles doctor who works emergency room rotations, is quite a bit smaller and more emotionally complicated. What are these two doing together? A possible solution to the mystery emerges if you recall a particular scene involving Mila Kunis in “Black Swan.” Ms. Portman can now claim what appears to be a unique distinction: She may be the only Golden Globe-winning actress to simulate sex on screen with two former members of the cast of “That ’70s Show.”
While the full import of that astonishing fact sinks in, let me say that “No Strings Attached,” directed by Ivan Reitman from a script by Elizabeth Meriwether, is not entirely terrible. That is high praise indeed, given that this is a film aspiring to match the achievement of “27 Dresses,” “When in Rome” and “Leap Year.”
Actually, it is rougher and randier than those movies, earning its R rating with a lot of naughty talk and a dose of semi-cynical sexual candor. The first scenes flail in the direction of various coarse comic subgenres, as we see an icky, awkward summer camp encounter, followed by a frat-house blowout in which we catch sight of Greta Gerwigdrunk and wearing shorts with the word “whore” emblazoned across the back. Then there is a funeral, some family awkwardness and a drunken evening that leads to morning-after sex in the wake of a one-night stand that did not happen. It’s not really as confusing as it all sounds, but it is hard to escape the feeling that Mr. Reitman shot six or seven movies and then went into the editing room blindfolded to splice them all together.
The one that predominates is basically “Love & Other Drugs” without the disease. LikeAnne Hathaway’s character in that movie, Ms. Portman’s is the one who insists on keeping things casual, physical and commitment-free. The arrangement that Adam and Emma agree upon is that they will have as much sex as they want — and Mr. Reitman’s way with montage suggests that it’s a lot — without the emotional entanglements that everyone watching knows are inevitable and that they both want. Emma’s resistance seems particularly unmotivated. She obviously likes Adam but refuses to fall for him, as if adhering to a deeply held conviction or trying to win a bet.
The pleasures of “No Strings Attached” are to be found in the brisk, easy humor of some of Ms. Meriwether’s dialogue and in the talented people scattered around Ms. Portman and Mr. Kutcher like fresh herbs strewn on a serving of overcooked fish. Kevin Kline, who played a goatish older literary gent in “Definitely, Maybe,” does something similarly mischievous and amusing as Adam’s father, a louche former sitcom star who takes up with his son’s ex-girlfriend (Ophelia Lovibond).
Mr. Kline has some room to work, but too many other actors are crowded into too few scenes. Chris Bridges (a k a Ludacris), as the owner of Adam’s favorite bar, could surely do more, and so could Olivia Thirlby as Emma’s radiantly monogamous younger sister. Lake Bell, as a smitten co-worker of Adam’s, is funny even as her character is set up from the start to be hurt and humiliated, a fate the film tries unconvincingly to soften.
Adam and Emma have the requisite nutty friends, though Adam’s best pal, Eli (Jake Johnson), is much blander than the crude dude you would expect to find in his position. The film’s great squandered opportunity — and also the source of some of its best comic moments — is that Ms. Gerwig and Mindy Kaling in effect share the role of Emma’s zany sidekick.
How can this be? Why are these two entirely original and of-the-moment performers marginal players in this agreeable, lackluster picture and not stars of the year’s greatest girl-bromance? (Or whatever you’d call it; that no apt label exists is surely symptomatic.) To imagine Ms. Kaling and Ms. Gerwig in a remake of “Thelma and Louise” or “The Wedding Crashers” is to experience an equal measure of frustration and hope. Why can’t we have a few movies like that and not quite so many like this?
“No Strings Attached” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Some talk, some action.
NO STRINGS ATTACHED
Opens on Friday nationwide.
Directed by Ivan Reitman; written by Elizabeth Meriwether, based on a story by Mike Samonek and Ms. Meriwether; director of photography, Rogier Stoffers; edited by Dana E. Glauberman; music by John Debney; production design by Ida Random; costumes by Julie Weiss; produced by Mr. Reitman, Joe Medjuck and Jeffrey Clifford; released by Paramount Pictures. Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes.
WITH: Natalie Portman (Emma), Ashton Kutcher (Adam), Cary Elwes (Dr. Metzner),Kevin Kline (Alvin), Greta Gerwig (Patrice), Lake Bell (Lucy), Olivia Thirlby (Katie), Chris Bridges a k a Ludacris (Wallace), Jake Johnson (Eli), Mindy Kaling (Shira) and Ophelia Lovibond (Vanessa).
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Nicole & Chanel
As quoted in http://lachanelphile.com:
Nicole Richie is Lucky Magazine’s February cover girl which hits newsstands on January 11th. In it she dishes about her vintage Chanel bags…when asked how many vintage bags she had she said: “That’s not a fair question! Okay, 30, but I stole a lot of them from my mom!…I’m a huge collector of vintage Chanel bags. My mom has given me a lot of the ones she had in the ’70s.”
I’m so jealous!! I would love to see the whole collection!
Chanel beaute
As quoted in http://lachanelphile.com/:
Mila Kunis is all grown up. I remember thinking she was so pretty as Jackie on That ’70s Show and it’s nice to see her as a young woman with a great career ahead of her. The Black Swan co-star was at the People’s Choice Awards in Chanel Beauté.
CHANEL Celebrity Makeup Artist Rachel Goodwin worked with Mila Kunis at the 2011 People’s Choice Awards on Wednesday, January 5th. Here’s how Rachel go Mila’s smoky, sophisticated red carpet look…
I wanted Mila’s makeup to be sophisticated and sultry like the soft lines and colour of her dress. I accentuated her incredible eyes with a very soft earth-tone smoky eye. I started by blending CHANEL Quadra Eyeshadow in Winter Nights, and finishing it with CHANEL Fluid Iridescent Eyeshadow in Torrent, a khaki shimmer, on her upper eyelid. I blended a smoky quartz pencil along the inner bottom eye for a bit more intensity. I kept the rest of her face very understated with soft peach cream blush, and a flesh toned gloss, CHANEL Rouge Allure Gloss in Insouciance.
I love the look of neutral lips and I think I may have to get Insouciance as my new go-to lipgloss.
Sunny days
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Amy Chua @ Booksmith
See below for more information on this author I'd like to check out and her controversial new book (which I can't wait to read):
**EDIT: I watched the Livestream of Amy Chua's book talk because I was curious and intrigued by her recent book. After the questions the audience asked- sparse, at best, perhaps due in part to a time constraint- I actually feel pity for the woman. She simply wrote a memoir of her experiences as a daughter of Chinese immigrant parents and subsequently, her own trials and tribulations with her children, but it seems as if she is defending her upbringing and trying to convince her audience that she grew up in a loving household, albeit a strict, disciplined one.
I don't care, but I know for a fact that I'm raising my children in a STRICT household. Watch out, unborn children! lol Honestly though, no good ever came out of spoiling a child and you don't need Parenting 101 for that advice!
AMY CHUA / Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
Jan 19 2011 7:30 pm
LIVESTREAMING AT 7:30 PM WEDNESDAY
Reserved seating tickets available, while supply lasts, with the purchase of The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Additional standing room will be available.
This is a story about a mother, two daughters, and two dogs.
This was supposed to be a story of how Chinese parents are better
at raising kids than Western ones.
But instead, it’s about a bitter clash of cultures, a fleeting taste
of glory, and how I was humbled by a thirteen-year-old. —Amy Chua
“A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what these parents do to produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies, what it’s like inside the family, and whether they could do it too. Well, I can tell them, because I’ve done it.”Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is bestselling author Amy Chua’s witty, awe-inspiring, and provocative memoir of extreme parenting, revealing the awards—and the costs— of raising her children the Chinese way.
When Amy, a first generation Chinese-American, married Jed they agreed that their children would be raised Jewish, like Jed, but would speak Mandarin Chinese. Amy also decided that she would hew closely to the Chinese tradition of child-rearing. Unlike your typical Western parents, who stress individuality and strive to create a nurturing environment, the Chinese believe you must prepare your children for the future by arming them with skills, strong work habits, and inner confidence. As Amy puts it: “the Chinese mother believes that 1) schoolwork always comes first; 2) an A-minus is a bad grade; 3) your children must be two years ahead of their classmates in math; 4) you must never compliment your children in public; 5) if your child ever disagrees with a teacher or coach, you must always take the side of the teacher or coach; 6) the only activities your children should be permitted to do are those in which they can eventually win a medal; and 7) that medal must be gold.”With remarkable honesty and a great sense of humor, Amy chronicles her and her daughters’ experiences: the constant drills, the endless piano and violin practice, the successes (hello, Carnegie Hall) and the challenges—including a rebellion that upends all of Amy’s carefully laid plans. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is an eye-opening exploration of the differences in Eastern and Western parenting that is sure to spark a national conversation about what it means to be a good parent.
"Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is the book we've all been waiting for – a candid, provocative, poignant and vicarious journey through the Chinese-American family culture. It will leave you breathless with its bluntness and emotion. Amy Chua is a Tiger Mother, a greatly gifted law professor and, ultimately, an honest, loving woman with a lot to say." –Tom Brokaw
Amy Chua is the daughter of Chinese immigrants, who arrived in the U.S. as graduate students in 1960. Along with her three younger sisters, Amy grew up in the Midwest under conditions of extremely strict but also extremely loving “Chinese parenting.” She attended El Cerrito High School in California and went on to graduate from Harvard College (1984) and Harvard Law School (1987).
After law school, Amy practiced on Wall Street for a few years, and then taught at Duke, Stanford, and NYU. In 2001 she joined the faculty of the Yale Law School, where she teaches in the areas of contracts, law and development, international business transactions, and law and globalization. She is a recipient of the Yale Law School’s “Best Teaching” award.
Amy’s first book, World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability, was a New York Times bestseller. Her second book, Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance – and Why They Fall, was a critically acclaimedForeign Affairs bestseller.
Location:
- 1644 Haight St.
- San Francisco ,
- California
- 94117-2816
- United States
Tough Love Gets it Done.
So, are Chinese mothers superior? New book creates big catfight
Posted: 01/14/2011 06:53:22 PM PST
Updated: 01/15/2011 02:20:53 PM PST
Click photo to enlarge
Amy Chua (2007) and the cover of her book (Chua, (CC) Larry D. Moore; book, Penguin Press)
In China, the tiger -- not the lion -- is the king of beasts. So perhaps it was inevitable that when Yale law professor Amy Chua published her new memoir this week, "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother," describing what she apparently views as the martial art of Chinese motherhood, the claws came out.
An excerpt from the book, which recently ran under the headline "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior" in the Wall Street Journal, drew more than 5,000 online comments -- most of them angry -- and Chua almost immediately began receiving death threats.
The loudest roar came not from "Western mothers," whom Chua characterized as self-esteem saps and disciplinary pushovers, but from the Asian-American matriarchy. Their
outrage spilled onto Facebook and across mommy blogs nationwide.The book excerpt was being argued about all week at Santa Rita Elementary School in Los Altos, where Minnie Ho's two boys -- 8 and 11 -- are students. Ho, 43, is a principal engineer at Intel and an accomplished classical pianist, both the result of being pushed by a tireless "Tiger Mom" when she was growing up.
Now, Ho and her husband are trying to prod their sons toward the same academic rigors that she endured as a girl. But she can't quite bring herself to buy Chua's maxim that "the solution to substandard performance is always to excoriate, punish and shame the child."
Ho was "harassed" by her first-generation immigrant Chinese mother to excel at the
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"I was exhausted a lot of the time," Ho recalled. "I don't do that to my kids, but I certainly like the idea of forcing them to do stuff."
She sees herself less as a Tiger Mom than as someone admiring the stuffed cats at a natural history museum. "It's not easy for me to do the kind of hard-ass things to our kids that my parents used to do," Ho said wistfully. "I wish I was harder on them, but I can't bring myself to be."
Garbage fight
Chua, who will have a chance to defend her tough-love techniques when she appears at a book signing Wednesday at Booksmith in San Francisco, won at least the grudging respect of Irene Lin Iwasaki, a family practice physician from Sunnyvale, who was encouraged to succeed -- relentlessly -- by her Chinese mother until she graduated from Stanford Medical School.
"There are certain aspects of the article that sort of ring true," said Iwasaki, now the mother of three small girls. "There was always an expectation that you would excel. I felt it when I was very young. If you didn't succeed, it was implied that you didn't try your best."
Chua's assertion that it was her custom -- and completely acceptable -- in her role as a Tiger Mom to call her daughters "garbage" when they displeased her, drew a sharp rebuke from Iwasaki's own Tiger Mother, however. Her reaction? "That woman is crazy!" Whei Mei Lin said.
But name-calling that might go unnoticed in China has often raised eyebrows in this country. "People in my generation definitely heard their parents say those kinds of comments to their kids," said Nancy Tsai, who says she grew up with a Tiger Great-Aunt. "They would degrade the kids at a party in front of other people."
Growing up in China, Tsai was one of five children. "At one point, we were all kind of chubby," she said, "so we became No. 1 Chubby, No. 2 Chubby, No. 3 Chubby." Those nicknames were handed down based not on relative weight, but by order of birth.
As "Battle Hymn" rose to the No. 7 spot on Amazon's best-seller list, Chua tried to distance herself from some of her book's more inflammatory ideas, saying the Journal excerpt represented a cobbling together of her memoir's most controversial fragments. This reminded some book lovers of the time NBA star Charles Barkley, tired of answering questions about some of the outrageous parts of his memoir, claimed he had been misquoted in his own autobiography.
Western influences
Although few Asian-American mothers seemed eager to align themselves with Chua, many did acknowledge a fear that living in America will be the ruin of their children. "I do have some concern that maybe I spoil my children a bit much," said Iwasaki. "It's hard because you want the best for your children, and I don't want to deprive them of things. But I worry that what enabled me to succeed might be lacking in the way I'm raising my kids."
Chua disparages the emphasis placed on the children's self-esteem in Western parenting, and on that point there seemed to be little disagreement among local parents of Asian ancestry.
"Chinese say, 'Whatever grows up in a greenhouse can't tolerate the weather,'" noted Albert Wang, a Fremont physician raised in Taiwan. "The Western style is parents wanting to be the best friend with their kids. Never discipline, never say no. Too much pampering, too much 'everything is great,' and they will have a hard time getting out in the real world."
At Renaissance Academy, a middle school in San Jose's Alum Rock district, classmates Kathy Lam, 14, and Chris Dang, 13, each religiously spend three hours a night on homework. Chris recently completed two math courses at a community college (A-pluses in both), and spends another hour and a half a day practicing piano. Both are expected to bring home straight A's, and they do. Chris said he does this to make his father and mother -- a custodian and a barber -- proud.
"Whatever they tell me to do," he acknowledged, "I just do."
Kathy is not allowed to go out except with members of her family. No sleepovers with schoolmates. "Among my friends, I'm probably one of the most stressed," she said. Her mother, a Vietnamese immigrant who speaks little English, listened silently to this.
"People think Asian parents push their kids all the time to get straight A's," Kathy said. "And of course I do get straight A's. My parents lecture me a lot, and like most stereotypical Asian families, they want me to become a doctor."
With that, her mother broke into a smile. The woman never said a word, but you could hear a mighty roar.
Contact Bruce Newman at 408-920-5004.
if you're going
Amy Chua will give a reading and sign copies of "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" at Booksmith in San Francisco, 1644 Haight St., at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. She'll appear at a fundraiser for KPFA-FM at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St., in Berkeley at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Easy A
Emma Stone-starring in the flick, "Easy A"- truly deserves the 'Easy A' in this shimmer frock. I had to do a double-take when I looked at her in this dress; she looks amazing! A fashion chameleon at best...
Latest word on the streets is that she was the winner of the 2011 Critics' Choice Award! Congrats, Emma!
Source: http://www.whowhatwear.com/blog/
This is her look in the movie, "Easy A." She's okay-looking as a redhead; not her best look though.
Ohmigosh, you know how much I LOVE red lipstick! She looks so gorgeous with a red stain, mostly because her eyes create such a contrast. Emma cleans up nicely.
She didn't look that great to me before, but the more you look at her, the prettier she becomes...
Friday, January 14, 2011
random Friday
I tend to gravitate towards stark details and a minimalist approach to living areas.
How freaking YUMMY does this cake look?! I made a cake once for my brother's birthday and it was only one color (devil's cake); I can't imagine how the baker differentiated between the layers and prevented bleeding.
All things NYC are always blog-worthy. I would love to be a journalist for this magazine and of course, The Times. Glad I'm not in NYC right now; it's frigid over there!
Thank God for my health, loved ones (my family, Lats, & Wooks), and friends (...you know who you are- a precious few because I refuse to let my social circle get too large).
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
bride-to-be
I wish I could sketch like this! Here are the portraits of what several designers envision Kate Middleton's wedding dress to look like:
I haven't read too deeply into Kate's life, but I think she embodies the essence of royalty and complements Prince William.
Friday, January 7, 2011
I die.
Geri Hirsch (http://becauseimaddicted.net/) is such a sweetheart for responding to my email in such a timely manner. Reading & following her blog made me feel as if I was getting my "fan mail" answered when she responded to one of my questions. Anyway, here are pics of my favorite fashion muse, Nicole Richie, featured in Geri's blog entry for today:
When in doubt just pile on the basics. #default
As quoted in http://becauseimaddicted.net/: Cut offs + burnout tank + black blazer + leopard scarf + tights + ankle boot + beanie + House of Harlow Cary Cat Eye Sunglasses + statement bag.
When in doubt just pile on the basics. #default
Source: http://becauseimaddicted.net/
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Mixing silver & gold never felt so good
Something about combining the silver watch with the gold jewelry is so mysterious. I also like how the purse strap adds to the litany of the accessories. So chic.
I love the color of this leather jacket and of course the Alexander Wang duffle she's wearing.
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