STANDING AND POSING..

 

So Saturday night we got the chance to hit up the CD release party for Niki Haris's latest track over at neighborhood spot, here! lounge. You'll remember Niki was one of Madonna's backup vocalists back in the golden dizzles of the early 90s so it was so good to see her back in action! Our girl Debby Holiday joined us and upon arrival we met up with lovely ladies and DIVA extraordinaires Erin Hamilton and Billie Myers. J'amazing times were had by all.






I've been really lucky to get to know Billie over the past few months and she is really an exceptional woman and artist. I remember sneaking my huge AM/FM cassette radio player into my bed in the late 90s and being transported away by her vocals on Kiss the Rain. Sitting across the table from her at Kitchen 24 as she broke into an acapella rendering of this iconic jam was one of the most surreal moments of the past few years. The gorgeous and classy Calpernia Adams from Logo's Transamerican Love Story also graced us with her presence. It's always good to see her! Such a special soul!Anyway, also in attendance was iconic Pepper Mashay, hottie David Morretti from Here TV's The Lair, Jason Dottley from Logo's Sordid Lives, DJ Casey Alva, the ubiquotous Bobby Trendy, the never-aging Wilson Cruz and DJ/Producers The Perry Twins (Doug and Derek.) 

Yesterday one of our fave photographers and recent artistic obsessions, Justin Monroe, stopped by the studio for an experimental photo shoot.


Local celeb Detox was part of the shoot. It was fun! That's all. Check out some of Justin's work over here. The shoot started to go long and I was getting a little restless, so I popped open some Tequila, started pouring some cocktails, and popped in a Netflix'ed copy of a movie I've been wanting to see since the weekend it came out (nearly 2 years ago already), Hot Fuzz.

I'm sure the tequila helped a bit, but OMFG you guys, this movie had me LMFAO'ing for rillz, son!! I only made it half way into the movie before we had to head out to the Arclight, but I can't wait to get back to it to finish the rest.

After the shoot, we decided to take it easy and headed a couple blocks up to the Arclight to take in Duplicity.

So sometimes, it's just really good to enjoy a movie and Duplicity was pretty much exactly what I wanted it to be. Ultimately, this caper may make some demands that the payoff doesn't quite justify, but getting there is actually half the fun. So is staring at movie stars. And Duplicity has two thoroughbreds: Julia Roberts and Clive Owen. They each work for tycoons, Claire for Howard Tully (Tom Wilkinson), Ray for Richard Garsik (Paul Giamatti). Wilkinson and Giamatti have a high old time hamming it up while Roberts and Owen carry the romance part of the suspense-thriller equation. That would have been enough for any movie. But in Duplicity, Tony Gilroy (the mastermind behind one of last year's best films Michael Clayton) never meets a plot point he can't overcomplicate. As the film — shot with nuanced beauty by There Will Be Blood (which was officially IMHO, the best film of 2007) Oscar winner Robert Elswit — moves backward and forward in time across locations as diverse as Rome, London, Miami, New York and — yikes! — Cleveland (which besides Zurich is the only city in the film that I personally haven't spent some significant time in), I have to admit it will be a rare moviegoer indeed who keeps his or her bearings. It's Roberts and Owen who hold focus. Their love story is built on mutual mistrust. Is she playing him or is it the other way around? The actors make you care. Roberts has a great scene interrogating a homely travel employee (a terrific Carrie Preston) whom Ray banged brainless on her office desk to get info. The woman doesn't miss an erotic beat in detailing her one night with a hottie, action she assumes Claire gets on a regular basis. Roberts plays the scene in total, cold silence, but subtly registers anger morphing into hurt. Still, all emotions are suspects in Duplicity. "If I told you I loved you, would it make any difference?" Claire asks Ray. "If you told me, or if I believed you?" he answers. Gilroy is playing with play-acting, a necessary talent for spies and movie stars. You may leave the theater not knowing who to believe, but you're in for bright mischief with a dark streak that runs down to its core. Gilroy and his stars make it elegant fun to be fooled, but they sure as hell make you work for it. Those who come away from this slightly disappointed or generally non-plussed are simply missing the point. Considering the current milieu in this country, the fact that our two protagonists are laboring to shore up corrupt major corporations, is probably the least important factor of the film. And it's definitely not what the film's about. As the final shot slowly pulls out, 2 our times greatest cinematic forces featured squarely in the front and center of our attention, we realize that while the journey was fun, what remains is their relationship. And it's one of the most delectable relationships we've been treated to on film in the last few years. As the credits start to roll we realize, we really need Julia Roberts to come around more. And it's sure as hell great to have her back again! (B+)

Ugh. Time to go back to reality. I need more weekend, please. That's all.