this week July 1st - July 14th
Mad Men Seasons 1, 2 and Now 3
Monday, July 6, 2009
I am pretty excited about this and have been waiting for the right time to write about it. The right time is now as Mad Men is returning for Season 3 in August and Season 2 DVD will be on sale July 14th. EXCITING!!! No one quite understands my obsession with this show, and I assure you it's more than my simple crush on Jon Hamm (leading character Don Draper). I personally believe this show is dramatic, suspenseful, intelligent and stylish all in one box. Good entertainment always takes a backseat to silliness, sad non? But shows like Mad Men deserve the millions of audiences that flock to insulting-to-my-mind reality television that follows couples, their kids and the fake drama involved.
NO SPOILERS!!! NO SPOILERS!!! NO SPOILERS!!!
Mad Men Season 1
We are introduced to the Mad Men, a self-given nickname of Madison Avenue men at the height of advertising's glamour, that is the late 1950s-1960s. At this time, everybody chain-smoked like chimneys. The irony, they had severe coughing fits and didn't see the relationship between the two. The start of show is just about this particular subject, the men of Sterling-Cooper, a small time advertising agency, are given the challenge of selling cigarettes glamourously when Reader Digest had just published an article stating cigarette smoking is linked to cancer.
The pilot episode starts with a young newly graduated secretary Peggy Olson (Elizabeth Moss), who comes to work for Sterling-Cooper. She walks into the working world completely fascinated, a great parallel for the audience's introduction to the show. It is her first day working for Don Draper, the dark-handsome creative exec. Draper is the show's main character as well as the most-respected man in the agency. He cheats on his wife, like everyone else in the agency, but not in the secretary pool. The office manager aka head secretary Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks) makes a comment indicating he is the one man no one can get to. He is completely mysterious, shows up for work, hangs out long enough to be seen but not long enough to be known. At night, or some nights (as sometimes he 'works late'), he goes home to Betty Draper (January Jones), his perfect blonde Grace Kelly-like wife, his 2 perfect looking children (girl & boy) and his perfect suburbian home. What is the mystery then? Who is the Don Draper? No one knows, not his wife and not even his Beatnik uptown girlfriend. As the show continues, the mystery behind Don Draper slowly unravels, Peggy Olson's mysterious weight gain (obvious to us, but not her) and most characters' realization that life is not as 'perfect' as they all thought.
The show is very subtle in its messages, assuming we are intelligent enough to 'get it'. In a timely manner, the audience is introduced to the ways of the late 50s: the excessive drinking and smoking (particularly in advertising), the sexual harassment, the Blonde-Betty wives, the pressure of realizing the nuclear family and, the post-war and post-depression glamour.
Mad Men Season 2
Without revealing too much (or anything b/c my friend Robbie will simply kill me), I will say that this season moves to an even higher level of intellectual than the first. As the men are facing the challenges in life and at work, so are the women. And the women's lib is right around the corner (give or take a couple of years) from this time. You can imagine, their strength and confidence rises as they begin to stand up for their own rights, whether in the household or at work.
The glamour of advertising is fading with time because the consumers are beginning to catch on. Therefore, the methods of advertising need to continously be on top of their consumer. After all, advertising is all about psychological manipulation with a real understanding of consumer perspective and behaviour. And who better to do all this than Don Draper? In Season 1, most of Don Draper's mysteries are revealed, or so you think. There's actually more to look forward to and most people will mistakently believe once the mystery's gone, the show's ambience goes along with it. This is absolutely not true as Don Draper is now faced with having to reconcile his past with his present. I'm thinking he will do this in Season 3 (cross-fingers on my prediction).
I think the show's biggest surprise comes from the women: Joan, Peggy and Betty. As mentioned earlier, some of the women begin to be more assertive (boy do they!) and shockingly, one takes a back seat, perhaps believing that assertion only leads to disappointment and loneliness.
The season finale leaves the show in great suspense as to what will become of the characters as they face the consequences of their choices in Season 2.
Season 2 will be availabe for sale on July 14th.
Mad Men Season 3
Season 3 will begin in August. Hoorah for smart television!
Gossip Girl Clothes by Anna Sui
Oh believe me, I was going to post this for last week. It's not 'new' news as I received it from being a GG stalker. But, I noticed someone online actually had the nerves to say "first look", are you kidding? How is first look if the official GGs made the announcement? And so did NY Mag! I hate information thieves! Anyway...
GG-lovers... now you can look like GG's character, all thanks to Anna Sui. I, for one, will definitely not be following as 1) I hate headbands, 2) I hate plaid/kilt skirts and 3) I hate looking 'put together'. I do, however, like the hemlines!!! This is all about the Upper East Side look, if you are interested... or rather, Anna Sui's take on the UES. If you likee, buy it at Target!
Blair, Serena, Jenny and Vanessa looks
For the full collection, go here!
Source, Nitrolicious.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Review
happy canada day!! for those in toronto, hope you guys had great festivities even though we were provided with pretty much nothing this year. so this week the Chief asked me to review Transformers 2: Rise of the Fallen. before i actually saw it, i asked her how she liked it and instead of tainting my expectations she let me judge it on my own. so here goes the email i sent her the follow day, which pretty much sums up all my thoughts and feelings towards the movie.
okay, so thanks for not telling me "it sucked" when i asked you how the movie was or else i would've paid reluctanty only to be even more disappointed. or... maybe you would've lowered my expectations & it would've been better?
OMG it was sooooo BORING! & it felt long too. by the time shia was caught by megatron i felt like it should've been over, BUT they still needed to find the dagger and when i thought it could be over, BUT he still had to put that dust in optimus AND optimus had to battle. and wtf was taht part when shia "dies" and he talks to the primes?? LAME. the matrix of leadership needs to be earned. baaarf. so basically, if he didn't die then he wouldn't've "met" the primes and the dagger would've been dust and optimus would still be dead... and the movie would continue....
oh yeah and also didn't appreciate having "megan fox is sexy non??" shoved in my face during the entire movie. since the first minute she was on screen they had to have her ass there. then it was all that super low, implant boosting tops she had on. and to top it off the slow motion running sequence. i get it... its a guy movie... but whatever happened to subtlety? or are guys too dumb?
also some of it didn't make logical sense... like WHY WOULD YOU RUN INTO THE LIBRARY WHEN A GIANT ALIEN PSYCHO ROBOT IS RUNNING AFTER YOU???? and then why would they think to run UP stairs when they were being chased in the dessert?? did they think they would have somewhere to go?? its better for the "action" but...it doesn't make sense!! people that dumb deserve to get caught by aliens and have their brains sucked.
oh but i did like that little decipticon that they caught, lol
Pensive Misses School
Throughout my university career, I always dreamt of the freedom afterwards. The thoughts of life post-graduation would be perfect, I thought. I dreaded the amount of readings, the 25-page papers and all-nighters that I had to pull before final exams. During university, I absolutely could not wait until the day I graduate. Finally, after being “released” in April this year, I felt a sense of accomplishment and most of all, freedom. I could now do whatever I wanted, find the perfect job and start my life. I guess in reality, life never flows according to your imagination.
After 2 months, I have no job and even though I have all the freedom I want, it is not necessarily a good thing. Yes – too much freedom is a bad thing. I now sleep over 10 hours a day, slug around at home doing nothing, watch useless reality television shows, stalk people on facebook (I’m sure I’m not the only one that does it…lol), I no longer know what day of the week it is, nor do I know the time. Without school, my life seems as if it is totally unscheduled, it is running uselessly on its own. I feel so unproductive now. I actually do miss school. I hate to admit it, but I did enjoy the lectures and the routine tests or exams, maybe, essays aren’t so bad after all.
Public Enemies Review
Some Spoilers!
This is not a film for everybody. It should be, simply based on its excellence. But, as many of us know, smart-films and television is dead and most people flock to below-basic entertainment. Public Enemies should be seen as a classic, an all-star cast demonstrating impressive acting with a superior script. Public Enemies is about John Dillinger (Johnny Depp), a mid-depression era bank robber and murderer. The film begins during one of his 3-known planned jail escapes (not his, his buddies). Right at the beginning, you see his melancholy as he stares into his dying friend, Walter Dietrick's (James Russo) eyes. Dillinger is all about living the good life with his friends, Homer Van Meter (Stephen Dorff), most loyal, John 'Red' Hamilton (Jason Clarke) and Harry 'Pete' Pierpont (David Wenham). During his 'high' times, he meets a coatcheck girl Billie Frechette (Marion Cottilard), very charmingly played, and promises to take care of her because she's "his girl now". Ironically, it is his loyalty that gives him enough problems to make him continuously 'public enemy' number 1 to FBI Agent Mervin Pelvis (Christian Bale), greatly subdued character, who is recruited by a very frustrated John Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup).
Public Enemies is not only about John Dillinger, but about him and his friends. Moreover, it is about the different ways that people attempt to escape the mundaneness of 'normal' life by being grandeur than 'normal' people. There is a whole lot of gun fighting from the beginning to the end, and if you have to be able to handle watching that kind of video game-like violence. By the end, most of his friends are 'deceased' as he even sees for himself on the FBI wall (funny scene btw). And his fate parallels his friends, although clearly showing the FBIs' cowardice behaviour as they shoot him from behind and unarmed, without ever bothering to read his rights (probably in fear that he would escape again).
While doing research on the film, I read that Dillinger was also a murderer, which is not portrayed in the film at all. This proves to be a bit misleading as you completely sympathize with the character, bad guy or not, and forget that he has killed others. Regardless, I would say this is one of Depp's greatest acting achievements as he sits into the character with a familiarity that demonstrates his substantial skills.
Go here to hear the soundtrack online, which is excellent by the way because it captures the ambience of the time.
Trailer
The Tudors 3
A very boring season indeed. That is Season 3 of The Tudors. What happened to all the exciting drama that accompanied the first two seasons of the Tudors period drama. Season 3 follows King Henry VII's short-lived marriage to Jane Seymour and subsequent quick marriage to Anne of Cleves, a Prostestant girl from Germany (whom he likes her not!). King Henry also loses his friend and trusted ally Thomas Cromwell to the plotting of Henry's best friend Charles Brandon. The period was short and uneventful, sounds like King Henry's new libido.
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