Congratulations to me!

Zac Efron? I am on board that train, finally, because while High School Musical makes me want to stab myself in the forehead, "17 Again" rocked my freaking socks off. It was like, oh dear God how charming and funny can this kid BE? Please gtfo Matthew Perry! You were never as pretty as Zac, and he will hopefully age a lot better than you did! Okay, the plot was lamecore, but the execution was generally good, especially all the scenes featuring Zac and Leslie Mann (disturbingly hot), and the very funny Thomas Lennan, as Ned. Is Zac truly that awesome with a basketball or was that scene in the lunch hall cgi'd?

He's not on my lust list though, because that would be creepy.

My current top six:

1. Damian Lewis
2. Jason Dohring
3. Tom Welling
4. Joseph Gordon Levitt
5. Alexander Skarsgård
6. James McAvoy

Yours?

( Weeds, 5.05: Van Nuys )

~

I also watched the "10 Things I Hate About You" pilot.

Being such a huge fan of the movie this was always going to be a hard sell, but I think Lindsey Shaw and Ethan Peck are well cast as Kat and Patrick, and Dana Davis as Chastity is pretty funny. Nicholas Braun will never ever ever compare to Joseph Gordon Levitt (♥), of course, and really, the show can never compare to the film because the film is a Classic (yes it is don't argue with me). Whatevs, I'll still watch, for a while at least, and hopefully it'll become more original and interesting as it progresses.

I saw that Michelle Pfeiffer/Harrison Ford movie, "What Lies Beneath" last night for the first time. Jesus H Christ it scared the shit out of me! Objectively I get that it's an exercise in silliness, but you gotta respect the craftsmanship. Truly heartstopping suspense is a hard thing to pull off, but Robert Zemeckis was clearly paying attention in Hitchcock's classroom. I actually had to watch chunks of the film through my fingers.

~

James Franco cracks me up.

~

A really good article: Why "Bruno" is bad for the gays.

(Not that I needed a reason to avoid "Bruno" like the plague - SBC's brand of comedy appeals to me about as much as a poke in the eye - but Rakoff's argument struck a chord with me because I've found the assaultive marketing campaign in recent weeks pretty darn cringe-worthy.)

~

And now for a quick but important poll.

( Eric Northman. )

Poll #1427279
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Would you hit that?

I prefer him with:

Who is hotter?

Thanks to serenography for alerting me to this trailer because it is absolutely the best thing I've ever seen in my ENTIRE LIFE, no exaggeration, and if you watch it and are not then totally psyched out of your mind about this film, you probably ought to see a doctor.

Exclusive! The Red Band Trailer for Jennifer's Body!

Look at the freaking cast! Megan Fox (OH GOD I WORSHIP YOU), Amanda Seyfried, Adam Brody, Kyle Gallner, Chris Pratt, JK SIMMONS (who's not in the trailer but whatever), and it's written by Juno scribe Diablo Cody, and it's about MEGAN FOX (spoiler alert) KILLING BOYS. THAT IS AWESOME.

Am I a fool for believing a trailer? YES PROBABLY BUT I DON'T CARE. THIS FILM CAN'T POSSIBLY NOT BE GREAT.

I irrationally hate the made up words hir and ze, as used by people who choose not to presume a gender when they're talking about someone. I think they sound look fucking stupid.

I'm finding "This." to be an extremely irritating response to anything now. Mix it up, fandom.

The word "problematic" is also getting on my nerves. I vote we start saying "problematical" instead, for the lulz.

eta: dear metafandom, don't link to this post plz.

The 4th of July party was good. Everyone liked my Lois Lane costume (which was just me in normal party wear, flashing my press pass at people whilst saying, "Lois Lane, Investigative Reporter"). Lex was dressed as Hunter S Thompson, which meant we began the night arguing about whether or not he killed himself. I was, of course, the winner, insisting to Lex that he'd shot himself in the head a few years ago, and Lex was all, "no that was William S Burroughs" and I was all, "no, he died ages ago but he didn't shoot himself". He didn't believe me until someone else confirmed it, but that's okay because I was right.

~

This morning was terrible. For the first time since I got him Charlie didn't turn up for breakfast, so naturally I freaked the fuck out and spent the morning crying and panicking and fearing the worst, only to go home at half eleven to find the little sod perfectly happy and fine and pleased with himself. So now I'm back at work and in a much better mood.

~

Enty revealed his blind items this weekend on Crazy Days and Nights. For scandalous tales of celebrities behaving like douchebags (and occasionally like diamonds), scroll through the first several pages and feel better about yourself.

A very enjoyable pilot indeed! Spoilers and some brief commentary behind the cut.

( Hung, 1.01: Pilot )

Yesterday I watched two terrible movies:

"Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen" because it's Megan Fox's first film. Avoid like the plague. It's like, you think with a title like that it would be passably amusing, mindless fun, but in reality it's deeply unfunny, mindless drivel. I WANT MY TWO HOURS BACK. (Megan was cute though.)

Then I watched "Pulse" because I'm a Kristen Bell fangirl who apparently must watch every shitty film she's ever made (including "Fanboys") even though I'm not like that. Normally I don't care enough about actors I like to watch their suckiest endeavours, and actually, I will never ever watch Kristen's episodes of Heroes so maybe I haven't changed after all and I was only bored. "Pulse" was kind of awesomely bad though, in that I found it highly entertaining (and quite scary in places!) even while it was being embarrassing.

~

I am working my way through Catherine Breillat's oeuvre, because I love her take on male/female relationships and that her films often feature explicit sex: in fact, "Romance" and "Anatomy of Hell" both star porn legend Rocco Siffredi, and yes, we do get to see plenty of his magnificent, hard penis, which Breillat clearly admires greatly. Now, this is a man who also stars in a series of pornos called "Animal Trainer", which are as brutal and misogynistic as they sound (I watched part of one a few years ago and found it traumatising) so I never imagined I would find him attractive, but in Breillat's films he's interesting and sexy (although his French accent is horrific).

( Anatomy of Hell got dire reviews but I found it riveting. The story is simple: a depressed, beautiful woman pays a handsome gay man to spend four nights watching her... )

Sometimes when I'm bored I google my LJ name to see what the internet is saying about me. This is what I found out recently:

1. I feature on a web page entitled "how to give a wank". At first I was all, "did I post instructions? That sounds like something I might do!" But actually it links to a post I made about a Smallville wank, which is less interesting.

2. One of my posts about Weeds is linked on a Martin Donovan fansite, I think because I mention how much I love Martin Donovan. It's described as a review, but that's kind of stretching it. I guess I'm the only person ever to talk about Martin Donovan in relation to Weeds?

Google your name and tell me what you find.

What happened to literaryll? I hope she's not gone for good.

Do you know what we all need? No? I'll tell you.

We need a mindless poll, followed by an equally mindless discussion, about how good and/or bad certain hotass fictional characters are in bed.

( Cut for awesomeness )

I have 2 dreamwidth codes - let me know if you want one.

The metafandom reader subscribed to my dreamwidth account. That's weird because I don't actually use it. Are they trying to encourage me to? Should I post some meta to my DW account about how much I don't think (the majority of) lj fandom is ever going to migrate there?

Have any of you seen Catherine Breillat's arresting and unforgettable "The Last Mistress"? If not, you should.

I adored it. The central relationship, between Vellini and Ryno, has got everything I love best: passion, hate, devotion at the expense of everything and everyone else, fun, cruelty, helplessness; it's epic, deeply sexual, and dangerous. (Thinking on it, they remind me a lot of Veronica and Logan.)

The way Breillat trains the camera on the exquisite Fu'ad Ait Aattou (who plays Ryno) is almost perverse. It's not that I find myself particularly sexually attracted to him, it's that he's so phenomenally beautiful that anyone with eyes, male or female, would enjoy gazing at him all day, and Breillat clearly understands this (seriously, she makes love to him with the camera). And then there's Asia Argento's Vellini, whose raw, untamed sexuality practically leaps out of the screen and eats you whole.

---

Cats are stupid!

I love all the outraged comments at the bottom. "BUT MY CAT OPENS DOORS AND IS THEREFORE A GENIUS". LOL.

~

H&M are collaborating with Jimmy Choo!!! This excited Sharan and me so much that we put the date in our diaries (14 November) and we're planning to get up early, queue for ages, buy some shoes and then spend the day drinking bubbly.

True Blood is back!

( True Blood, 2.01: Nothing But the Blood )

Title: A Hard Habit to Break
Rating: NC17
Pairing: Veronica/Logan
Word count: 5,630
Spoilers: Up to 3.20
Acknowledgements: Many thanks to my three awesome beta readers: annaalamode, turnonmyheels and goddessleila, whose help I found invaluable.
Summary: Nothing gets Veronica over her failed relationships better than Logan Echolls.



( A Hard Habit to Break )

I'm going to a 4th of July party on the 4th of July and the theme is "come dressed as your favorite american - alive/dead or imaginary".

I pretty much hate theme parties, mostly because I'm lazy, but I've been told they won't let me in if I don't dress up. But who should I go as?

My two favourite ideas so far are Liz Lemon and Sydney Bristow. If I go as Sydney I could totally wear my flatmate's pink wig.

I welcome any other ideas though, and would be particularly interested in hearing about women with bangs.

This is why I have nothing but love for the delicious Megan Fox. I seriously flip out with love for her every time I read snippets from her interviews, so you can imagine my joy when I saw that Jezebel had compiled her "50 Best (& Worst) Bon Mots". Haters to the left, this young woman is hilarious, intelligent, frank and refreshingly inappropriate.

A few of my favourites:

"Well let me tell you what [High School Musical] is really about. High School Musical is about this group of boys who are all being molested by the basketball coach, who is Zac Efron's dad. It's about them struggling to cope with this molestation. And they have these little girlfriends, who are their beards. Oh, and somehow there's music involved. You have to get stoned to watch it." - Esquire, June 2009

"Really my only job is to look attractive. I was so angry about that, that I went in the opposite direction. I turned into a really butch bull dyke for, like, six months... Then I went in the other direction. From being a giant motorcycle-riding lesbian, I turned into a zombie. I lost, like, 30 pounds. I was like, 'I'm losing weight for the movie'. I was telling myself I was being method (method acting), which was so outrageous and ridiculous and not true." - British GQ, July 2009

"I really enjoy having sex, and that's offensive to some people. Women are the quickest to call other women sluts, which is sad. I haven't met a lot of men who've said, 'You like having sex? What a dirty whore you are!' That's because they wish their wives or girlfriends would have more sex with them." - FHM, 2008

LOLOLOL. Also, hi. GUH:

( I'd be friends with her! )

I'm very nearly finished my Veronica/Logan futurefic, and I'm scared because it desperately needs someone to beta the shit out of it but I know there aren't too many fans of the show left on my flist (or anywhere), let alone experienced beta reading fans of the show. That said, can any of you help me? If not, do you know: where else I might ask/of anyone who might be willing to lend a hand?

~

This post about Tom and Michael's reunion at the Laker's game made my day.

See, I've wanted to get a fringe for years because I feel I have the right shaped face for one, but my hair is very odd and I've always been told by hairdressers that it's a bad idea, mostly because it would require daily maintenance. Understandably this put me off, because I am a low maintenance kind of gal who spends a maximum of five minutes getting ready every day.

Then I got these amazing Corioliss hair straighteners, which have totally changed my life. I can tame my hair within minutes, and if I spend a little longer on it I can create curls that actually keep their shape if I wear my hair down. So with this in mind it seemed like a good time to try out a fringe.

My plan today was to have a consultation, and the first hairdresser I went to wasn't crazy about the idea, because of something to do with my widow's peak and how my hair lifts up at the hairline, which is apparently not normal. Still, she said if I was willing to maintain it every day I could get one, so I booked an appointment for a full haircut this Friday. Then Sharan was all, "Let's pop into another salon and get a second opinion. You know, just to see what they say."

The hairdresser was called Emily and she was this gorgeous, bubbly kiwi girl who I instantly fell for, and she checked out my hair and was like, "Yes, because of your two cowlicks and your widow's peak it's going to look awesome." Which was exactly the answer I wanted! Next thing I know she's got her scissors out and I'm like, "Are you going to do it now?!!!!" And there was much squealing and laughter and me talking in a high pitched voice about how I totally wasn't ready but MAYBE I SHOULD, and Sharan was all "DO IT."

So we did it! And I am very happy with the results! Although my forehead feels very hot.

Before you look at the pictures, please bear in mind that I didn't do my hair prior to taking them, and I think I can get it looking a lot better when it's down then it looks here. I'm quite digging how it looks in a ponytail though.

( Hair styling. )