PeaceBang

Two Teenie Weenie Suggestions, Miss B

Eye Cream Alert
Originally uploaded by Peacebang.

To adorable Drew Barrymore: I have two bits of advice for you. (1) You’re an American acting legacy, dear heart. Time to hire a voice coach to help rid you of that lingering Valley Girl dialect that so limits your choice of roles. “Rrround tones, Miss Lamont, round tones!”
(2)Philosophy makes a wonderful eye cream called “Eye Believe.” Eye believe you need some. Heavens, you’re so wealthy you can afford Caudelie, which has grape seed extract in it. Send your assistant out for some, dear. Until you achieve the acting chops of an Annette Bening or an Imelda Staunton, we’re counting on you to be smashingly adorable at all times. Crow’s feet just won’t do.

Sartorial TMI

pelvic bones
Originally uploaded by Peacebang.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your consideration: two gorgeous stars of the silver screen in high fashion for the Oscars 2005, but sharing just a little bit too much information about the exact state of their physiques for my comfort level. Miss Berry, I should not be able to see your pelvic bones jut out — one after the other in undulating regularity- when you walk onstage. And Miz Swank, swanky as you are, you are nevertheless coming so dangerously close to sporting derriere cleavage as to give me a case of the vapors.

Sartorial TMI, Exhibit 2

Oh mi gawd
Originally uploaded by Peacebang.

77th Annual Oscars

The. Worst. Ever.

Chris Rock: well, he said “s^&s” and “a**” in the first three minutes of his opening monologue, and I couldn’t agree more. I’m too much of a lady to say it, but I appreciate that he said it for me.
He was a disastrously bad host. Out of place, stiff, terrible material, nothing witty about him. See you back at HBO where you belong, Chris.

Technical errors and ill-conceived directorial decisions abounded. This wasn’t a case of “somebody’s gonna lose their job.” This was more like, “None of the people involved in this travesty should ever work again.” WHOSE idea was it to drag all the nominees onto the stage like a black tie version of “The Weakest Link” again? Fire him first.

Worst gowns ever. It was the year of Zombie Skin Grey. Did you see yummy young thing Natalie Portman looking like something off the side of a Grecian urn, only more stiff? The color scheme was beyond dreary, and Beyonce’s glittery black eyeshadow would scare even Celine Dion (she of the perpetually Black Buttered Eyelids). And ladies, no more yellow, I beg you. PLEASE. Renee Zellwegger got away with it a few years ago because it was a cheery vintage shade. That should have been the end of that. I’m telling you, it’s not doing any of you any favors. Not even you, Miss Cate Blanchett, but you looked beautiful anyway.

You can blame Jennifer Lopez for the ubiquitous “flesh-colored lips” shade of lipstick that washes out even the likes of Selma Hayek (in ridiculous choppy bangs) and Penelope Cruz (Ay, Dios! Not a beehive!!) Let me make it really clear, girls, since you obviously weren’t listening to me last year: You can only wear that color lipstick if you’re blessed with the dewiest skin and your make-up artist has given you petal pink cheeks. You cannot rock that look if you’re haggard and emaciated, and you really shouldn’t attempt it if you’re over 50, no matter how good your facialist is. Helen Mirren, I’m talking to you, luv. Elegant and stunning at any age, but m’lady, rouge and lipstick are your friends.

Vanessa Paradis just sat there with her dishy French self, smirking in her bright red lipstick. Vanessa is Womanhood Personified. She lives with Johnny Depp and bears his love children. You wouldn’t *catch* her in flesh-colored lipstick. He, on the other hand, was so badly dressed as to cause my mother to keep murmuring “Oh, just look at that.” Peacebang and her mother always watch the Oscars together on the phone.

Annette Benning, darling, they already cast “Finding Neverland” and you didn’t get the part of Peter Pan. That spiky quasi-punk boyish haircut is so out, honey. Please. It’s more OUT than Barbra Streisand’s molto grande tummy, which La Babs vainly tried to cover with “creative” chiffon sleeves. Isn’t it good to see La Babs chunky and happy?

And I don’t care… I’m still not interested in seeing “Million Dollar Baby.” I feel so sorry for Martin Scorcese I can hardly stand it.

Little "Flava"

DSCN1298
Originally uploaded by Peacebang.

I was saying to R. that I haven’t found much new music that really rocked my world lately, and asking her if she had any favorites she thought I might like (I am doing this with everyone lately — H. and R. came through with Madeleine Peyroux so I’m taking more suggestions). She said, in all seriousness, “Let me put some flava in your ear.”

LET ME PUT SOME FLAVA’ IN YOUR EAR.

This from a diminutive feminist Catholic urban goddess theologian who walks around in this crazy Hobbit hat we got some years ago from a Tibetan lady on the Upper West Side. God, I wish you’d been there.

Peacebang at the Gates

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Originally uploaded by Peacebang.

Oh no, I just “outed” myself as a short, chunky woman in a blue hat!

But seriously, folks… hope you had a good time while I was gone. I saw a new musical by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty (the same team who did “Ragtime” and “Once On This Island”) called “Dessa Rose,” starring LaChanze and Rachel York. I cried a lot, but remained lukewarm about it in general. As J. suggested, “maybe slavery just isn’t a great topic for the musical theatre.” Also, P. and I saw “Being Julia” and absolutely adored it madly. It is a celebration of the neurotic neediness of The Diva, and features a gorgeously aging Annette Bening affectionately murmuring such lines as “You’re a revolting hag.” She has WON my heart, as has her creation Julia, and I hope she takes home a big, fat Oscar tomorrow night.

P.S. Hank, I blame YOU for getting everyone going on polyamory, you rascally rabbit.

Sad Little Doll

It seems that Paris Hilton’s PDA (some upscale little techno-item called a Sidekick) has been hacked, and her private little world revealed for all to see. So if you want to get Ashlee Simpson or Christina Aguilera or Gael Garcia Bernal’s phone number (and who doesn’t?), now’s your chance. I actually considered calling Christina from the church line to express my congratulations on her recent engagement but I lost interest. It would have been funny, though. “Christina Aguilera? Hello dear, this is Reverend Peacebang. We want to extend our most sincere wishes here at HomeTown Unitarian Church for a most beautiful wedding and blessed marriage, and we affirm your right to be beautiful in oh so many ways, no matter what they say.”

The extreme fame of this little Hilton creature fascinates me. She is so gorgeous and plastic and profoundly moronic it’s actually kind of endearing; I cannot imagine inhabiting her life for even one minute. At least, unlike another pathologically famous blonde with the initials MM, Ms. Hilton seems to have a sense of humor and fun and irony about her, and so far she hasn’t expressed any desire to be, gods forbid, “taken seriously.” The world is consuming her and she’s consuming right back. As despicable a spectacle as it can be, I’d rather that than watch her die of self-loathing and barbituates. Mark my words — we’re going to be seeing that mocking sneer for many years to come.

But I finally watched about 20 seconds of Paris Hilton’s famous porn tape this evening and wanted to bang my head against my desk for despair. The girl has such a body and she doesn’t know how to use it! She doesn’t inhabit it! I thought about that wonderful scene in the movie “Antonia’s Line,” when all manner of real, extremely unplastic men and women are making love through a long Scandinavian night, and how much more spirit and delight and authenticity they shared, even as actors portraying real people having sex.

And I thought, Paris dear Paris… when they said that there are some things money can’t buy, they must have had you in mind.

Saffron Is The New Pink!

The Gates (But Not Bill)
Originally uploaded by Peacebang.

I am hopping on that little Chinatown bus to NYC on Thursday morning to see these large napkins by Christo and — what’s his wife’s name? Gigi? Jeananne? Cher? Divine? Zsa-Zsa?

It’s terribly pretentious, of course, but I just have to go cast my vote for extravagant gestures of hope and beauty. My friend P. and I will probably wind up holding hands and running among the banners releasing primal screams all the while.

He got me to agree to meet him there by quoting the little dead twins from “The Shining:” Come play with us… forever!

How could I resist?

My New Boyfriend Michael Zelnaronok

frMichaelZelnaronok
Originally uploaded by Peacebang.

I have no idea who this is but he’s hot AND religious. Scott Wells (Boy In the Bands) sent him to me a few weeks ago with a comment that still makes me giggle. If you ask BITB really nicely maybe he’ll blog about him. I’m too tired tonight to google.

You know how you sometimes think back on the people you’ve been dating and you compare them to the kind of person you should be dating and then your head explodes? Yea, me too.

Maria Full of Fierce

Catalina Sandino Moreno
Originally uploaded by Peacebang.

The best thing about the film “Maria Full of Grace” is that it is totally bereft of the usual sentimentality that characterizes so many other similar films about po’ girls of color trying to escape their lives of boredom and poverty.
Catalina Sandino Moreno she is fierce, mami. Thank Dios that the writer/director insisted on shooting this film about Colombian drug mules (those who ingest drugs before smuggling them to the U.S.)in Spanish, and using unknowns. I kept thinking, “God, he could have cast, like, Claire Danes or something. And she would have had bad black hair dye like Winona Ryder in “House of the Spirits” and loads of mascara.

(Wait! I just saw a production of “South Pacific” where the girl playing the young Tonkinese beauty had this really obvious hair-piece, which my friend Michael described as “totally dry bad snap-on hair!”)

I’m so glad that Maria didn’t have totally dry bad snap-on hair.

There’s a great scene where (spoiler alert!!)Maria tells her boyfriend she’s pregnant and they just sit in hostile awkardness sniping at each other, until it just comes right out that they don’t love each other. I loved this scene. I loved its honesty, and I LOVED that there was no reconciliation later. None. No mention of the guy. Just like in REAL. LIFE.

It was a good film — interesting, engaging, moving at times, but not approaching “harrowing,” which is how one critic described it. I’m going right now to watch the commentary track to see how they filmed the scenes where Maria swallows dozens of pellets of balloon-wrapped heroin. I was getting acid reflux just watching it.