Girls Fashion Hairstyles: May 2010

She's the pop singer seen jogging in Central Park. Madonna captured the style and fashion sense of generation. Especially teenage girls in the 1980s. Madonna is among the most influential people of the 1980s.

Madonna has always had a special relationship with the media. While many stars try desperately to avoid the paparazzi, Madonna has the power to manipulate the media to her advantage.

In 1985 Madonna ruled the airwaves and MTV too. Madonna at her peak was making music, videos and even movies at a fevered pace. Madonna had the media all sewn up by the mid 1980s. Madonna never had too much trouble from the paparazzi. She, in fact, seemed to embrace the photographers throughout her early career.

From her wildly teased and colored hair to the return of lace and fishnet stockings, her accessories were outrageous, and girls around the world wanted to be like Madonna even going so far as to add her trademark mole to their cheeks.

eighties fashion

Nascar 101

So while driving today, my car was driving really smoothly around turns and even when I put the brake on it was just smooth. I love that! Just you have complete control you the car and yet its perfect! Another one of my favorite things is to drive fast. Im not sure if many of you knew that, but I love it. I really want to learn how to drive stick because than I will have even more control of the car. The only thing that I dont like about my enjoyment I get from driving fast is I can never drive fast enough. I mean on the freeway when its just me and I feel the need to go like 15 or 20 its all fine and dandy, but I still want to go faster! Yet I could get in a lot of trouble for going even 20 over the speed limit. So I usually dont do that, although I would love to. Im not sure if its the adrenaline rush I get from driving fast because its not even a huge rush or anything. Its just another one of those things kind of like dancing I suppose where I can just escape reality (but still pay attention to the road). Its more enjoyable when theres no music at all even. Just me, my car, and occasionally the wind blowing my hair as if it were in a tornado. I hardly get in this mood when others are in the car with me, so dont be afraid to drive with me, although I know I tend to be a paranoid back seat driver, so I deserve the same reactions out of others since I give them so interesting reactions ha. I want to drive Nascar! how awesome would that be. Kinda like that one girl, the Go Daddy girl. Or thats who sponsors her car except she usually drives the smaller cars with no top oppose to a normal nascar car. I forgot her name its on the tip of my tongue UGH! Well if you dont know who im talking about im sure you can look her up if you really want to. Since this "dream" (fake dream I hardly consider it one I will go chasing after) is far from reality, my next goal to accomplish this desire (thats a better fit word for it) is to marry someone who races cars. And we can go to the race track and I can drive as fast as I want! eeeekkkk!!!! How exciting would that be. If I cant have that than maybe just date someone who does, or even just go on a date to a race track. Not a fake race track either, like a legit one. haha well I just thought I'd share, and figured it was time for a semi shorter post. But dont worry I can feel a super long one awaiting more time and thought. Thanks for reading!

Paris Fashion Week

Paris Fashion Week as always was a major destination for the designer crowd recently. Boasting some of the hottest names in the industry and an A grade guest list, Paris is the home of Haute Courture.

Naturally plenty of press were on hand to give a blow by blow description of each days high and low lights. Now that the closing ceremony has come and gone the critics have given their overview of proceedings and as always it has involved an over use of adjectives and overstating the obvious.

paris fashion week

Parting is Not Always So Sweet a Sorrow -- Malle's Au revoir les enfants

There are some wounds, both physical and psychological, that neither time nor therapy will ever fully heal. For Louis Malle such a scar was inflicted him when at age 12 he watched a friend being led away by the Nazis. That friend was a Jew and he would die at Auschwitz.

Malle undoubtedly found some catharsis in making a movie that climaxed with that incident, Au revoir les enfants (1987).

Some films are technically perfect but have no soul. There is not a wasted shot, the story flows, the performances are all spot on but while watching the movie is an enjoyable experience, it is also ultimately forgettable one. Not so with ARLE which embodies both the superior craftsmanship of Malle the director while being an expression from the heart of Malle the man.

Julien is a 12 year old mama's boy sent off by his glamorous mom to a Catholic boarding school to avoid the perils of war time Paris. It is early 1944 and liberation is still a dream for the French. The Nazis and their French collaborators have a firm grip on many aspects of life. The students at the school include three Jews living under assumed names, their true identities unknown by their classmates.

Gradually Julien and one of the Jewish lads, Jean, become fast friends. And gradually Julien discovers Jean's secret. Julien is no anti semite, indeed he's not even altogether sure what a Jew is.

The film is as evocative a telling of boys' pre teens years as you'll ever see. ARLE never veers into sentimentality nor stoops for easy laughs in its depiction of boys at school and play. Even with their country occupied by enemy troops and with occasional bombs being dropped by their supposed allies, boys will be boys. Math class goes on. English essays must be written. Piano lessons are taken.

Young men are by nature borderline cruel as they test and tease one another. They are forever pushing boundaries with adults and are not hesitant to break rules if its suits them. But at the same time boys are starting to find their place in the world, separating from parents whether mom and dad are near or far or in concentration camps. Talents are being discovered or perhaps already being refined. Strong friendships that can last a lifetime or maybe just a week are formed.

Having armed Nazis about is paradoxically of no consequence and the greatest bogeyman imaginable. Life goes on amid all manner of calamity. Boys are resilient, though not unbreakable.

At the 12 year-old Malle's school the three Jews along with the school's headmaster were betrayed and the Gestapo came to take them on one fittingly cold January day.
It is the headmaster who utters the farewell that gave the film it's title. "Au revoir les enfants" (good bye children). Julien and the rest of school can only watch.

It was over 40 years after the real events occurred that the movie premiered. The wounds of watching a friend, two other classmates and the headmaster being taken away had not been healed for Louis Malle. There was, he said after, a sense of relief to having told the story, but one can't imagine it served as a cure-all for the pain inflicted that day.

Remarkably, Au revoir les enfants is not a depressing film, nor particularly sad. Oh sure a tear or two may form as the closing credits roll, but that's not what one if left with. The story is too rich, too well told to be trivialized as merely "a sad story." The characters, in lead, supporting and small roles, are expertly realized. Malle's direction is perfect and thus all the events within the story too memorable to be left with just one closing moment, no matter how powerful. And indeed it is one of the most touching and beautifully told endings in cinema. Yet is is just one part of a masterpiece.

What great fortune for Malle to be able to share the story. The telling of it gave him some solace while giving audiences a film not soon forgotten.