anna kendrick : life upon the wicked stage - video

i certainly mean no vile juxtaposition by featuring this song just above a tribute to peter lorre who played the pedophiliac child murderer in 'M.' it was just a coincidence, i swear, that i chose to showcase this precocious ribbon-haired ponytail darling miss kendrick and her rendition of the classic song from rogers and hammerstein's 'showboat.' (backed by the sluttish german chorus of the girls from 'cabaret.') i have no idea what year it was filmed or what broadcast it was taken from, but i love it. the kid's great.)

peter smokes

as i mentioned last night, after seeing fritz lang's 'M,' i have a new found respect and admiration for peter lorre. up until then, i must confess i knew him best from 'casablanca.' and don't get me wrong, he was excellent as ugatti, the black marketeer... but after seeing 'M,' i realized he was a criminally underrated talent. its clear to me he was quickly typecast by most American movies. if you ask me, he could've played anything. even a leading man. i should really learn more about him. i'll bet his story is well worth reading. here's to you, peter. wherever you are.

smoking party

umm, i don't think i've posted this one yet. its a slice of notebook art jean-lucien sent me a long time ago. i like the composition. the young long haired guy getting a light is none other than a very young jools holland. i think there's some alphonse mucha in there, along with some well-chosen dreamy paint. so dig it.

deliberate ash

if you ask me, you can never have too many shots of ian holm in his 'science officer' uniform. costume, whatever. if you know the film, you know he and ripley have finally gotten down to getting physical. and i know i've said it before, but i think their fight scene could've gone on a lot longer... with a lot more clawing and hair pulling and rolling around on the floor on top of eachother... but apparently ridely scott wasn't thinking about my future twisted voyeuristic kinks when he filmed this back in 1979. (hey, like i was seven in '79...and had only been thinking about sex for a couple of years.)

bitten

ahhh, anything goes tonight, right? so jean-lucien will recognize i'm going wayyyy back for this one. yes, its a shot of ronan vibert from the cult hit 'the shadow of the vampire,' in his stunning role as the tormented photographer wolf muller. the devotion to his craft can clearly be seen as he trembles on the ground with a little pale make-up on his face. pardon me for being sarcastic, i mean, i love ronan vibert as much as the next guy, but his acting in this flick seems to range from 'slight smirking' to 'pale trembling.' then he sort of disappears. i think we're supposed to assume john malkovich fed him to willen dafoe. then cary elwes shows up to mystify us further with his weird smiles and breathless, forced german accent. still, its a wonderful film, you should check it out.

sally's back

i don't really feel like posting too much tonight, so here's something just to mark my place. its a shot of liza minelli's back during a costume test during the filming of 'cabaret.' i love the composition. jean-lucien tricked the colors perfectly, and just let her back and shoulders and everything 'speak for themselves,' so to speak. i wish i had more interesting junk to say about it, but i'm not really feeling all that poetic or descriptive. like, i need to start getting some real quality sleep around here, dammit. hopefully i'll be back on track soon. i love you all.

french penny

here is a shocked still jean-lucien took of a psychedelic dancer from the most-often underrated movie 'head.' i wanted to end the night with a bit of color, so here she is. she's davy jones' frugging partner during the hard and thumping peter tork number entitled 'do i have to do this all over again?' like many other films i advocate, it is required viewing for the devious mind.

francoise hardy : la maison ou j'ai grandi - video

ladies and gentlemen, i present the tough and lovely miss francoise hardy. the song is haunting and well worth your 3 minutes and 37 seconds. yes, i know its in french. but its so nice it doesn't matter. please, allow yourself the pleasure of digging it.

lorre

after having seen fritz lang's 'M' sunday morning, i have a new respect for actor peter lorre. here is one of the more interesting pictures of him i could find.

witch hunt

here is a cover to the paperback version of aldous huxley's 'the devils of loudun.' this was the work on which ken russell's film was based. the artwork on the cover is actually a still from the film. the chained nun is vanessa redgrave, and the priest is none other than the marvelous murray melvin. as i have often said, the film, which was banned for several years in the u.k., is required viewing for anyone interested in film. i think i've read the text, but i could stand to read it again. i love this cover. it seems to have a light of its own. like a stained glass kind of thing... which i suppose is fitting. dig it.

foxhunt

there have been times over the last ten years when i felt odd about princess diana. it wasn't until she was killed that i realized i always liked her. like most people, i remember where i was when i 'heard the news today, oh boy.' i had just come home from the beach. since then, i've often felt as though it was all too common of me to express any sadness or sense of loss at her death. but i think the five year old girl in me saw the kindergarten teacher in her. and that five year old girl was duly stunned. diana, the smart shy flirt from wales, got far more out of life on earth than she bargained for. may god bless her.

two ladies

jean-lucien recently sent me some screen test shots from the film 'cabaret.' i really should dig around real quick and come up with the names of these two actresses who share the spotlight with joel grey in the 'two ladies' number. but hey, it's late. i love the colors jean-lucien was able to coax out of the film stock. and i dig the poses... it almost looks like they're posing for their mugshot after tangling with the law near the wild end of some glam oktoberfest. st. pauli girls' gone wild.

love you cool

here is a very cool yet very small detail from one of jean-lucien's earliest collages. he artfully cropped a small rectangle, embellished it with some well-chosen print, and voila... gorgeous. i don't think i'm being too presumptuous when i say that he intended it to be sort of a love note to me. i don't know what i would do without him. we're almost like two halves of the same person. all that aside, this slice of art is juicy and teasing. at least a dozen individual artistic desicions went into the cutting of this detail. very nice.

sweet miss georgina

as far as i know, i haven't posted this shot yet. yes, its my angel miss georgina hale. my guess it was taken sometime in the mid-to-late 1970's. theoretically, i'm not into blondes... but georgina surpasses all classifications. she is more platinum than blonde. she is more genius than cheesecake. she's a brilliant actress with beauty almost too great to chart. if you haven't seen her in ken russell's 'the devils' or in russell's 'mahler,' then you are missing the work of one of the greatest english actresses in my lifetime. in my opinion she is every bit as good as judi dench or either redgrave. she is a jewel. georgina, you have my undying devotion. i'd love to hear from you sometime.

morrissey italian style

...man, what a lame title-line, like even for me, that's pretty weak. but its one of my favorite more-recent pictures of morrissey. this was taken in italy presumably during the recording of his last album. ('ringleader of the tormentors.') i love the look of the rugby shirt on him. he looks good in blue, and you can tell from his slight smug facial expression that he loves to get his picture taken. really, i don't think i've ever seen morrissey like, hold his hand up in front of his face in the presence of photographers in that standard, 'don't take my picture' -fashion. he loves it. and deservedly so. what a face. i'm curious to hear what he puts out next. but i realize i may be in for a long wait. sometimes years pass between records.

kathe von nagy

the best thing about pearldiving is that sometimes you come up with a rare and intriguing beauty like this one. there wasn't much information on her. i think i saw her name associated with some early silent european productions. wow... what a face. she kind of reminds me of a melancholy rachel maddow. i know the photography in this particular shot is very flattering, but something tells me her face didn't really need much help. what a face... sigh.

how nice

i've been watching 'clue' a lot lately. (mmm, that's a big effing surprise.) and after all these years, i find there is some lobe of my brain that is still trying to reconcile the image of dr. frank-n-furter and the very much NOT in drag 'Wadsworth.' sometimes i catch Wadsworth looking exactly like dr. frank and vice-versa. personally, i think the tan gets in the way. in 'Clue,' tim curry is very California-tan, and in Rocky Horror he is '...as pale as pasteurized milk.' well, no matter the costume, tim curry has proven to be the 'best thing' in anything he's been in. in productions from 'rocky horror,' to 'legend' to 'oscar' to 'clue,' tim has proven to be unfailingly 'the best part.'

helicopter

i am a serious student of film. i have been so since i was about five years old. even at that age i was reading credits because i was curious to know who was responisble for freaking my little girl brain. my eyes have always been wide and thirstily focused on 'the screen.' that being said, my praise for filmmaker francis ford coppola has been historically selective. i've seen 'apocalypse now,' and i think the scene where the playboy girls are lowered under cover of darkness to entertain the wild troops is among the most eloquent scenes. it could conceiveably 'say it all.' i'm not sure who was responsible for costuming the girls in this scene, but what the girls are wearing really adds to the impact.

rosemarie

often i find myself taken by suprise when i'm pearldiving. but i must admit, i was markedly surprised by the exceptional beauty of miss rosemarie hillcrest. she was a playboy playmate. october... sometime in the late 60's. i chose not to post anything more than her face here, because it was her face i found the most remarkable of her arresting features. make no mistake, her body was incredible, too... but i was so struck by her face. i found myself opening my picture file over and over again at several times during the day just to look at her. it was like i had to keep checking... did i see her right? is she really that beautiful? apparently she was. is. so, if you're out there, miss rosemarie hillcrest, please accept my ardent and sincere praise. yours has become a face i would never willingly forget.

ash in control

i haven't posted a cool shot of my darling ian holm in a while. here he is once again as science officer ash, ready at the controls to help steer the ship to their dark destiny. he looks so damn good in the part. and he sounds even sexier than he looks. but beware, he has a cloaked agenda. i don't suppose that blows away too much of the plot. so enjoy the handsome face and cool manner of ian holm in the scientific driver's seat. (sigh, i haven't slept too much in the past five days... and whoa, is it ever obvious.)

le bon appetit

here's a slinky, sexy picture of a very young mr. simon le bon. fans can tell at once, that this is a shot taken from very early on in the days of 'duran.' yes, those days of the rum runner, and songs like 'faster than light,' and of course, their first video. it was an underrated video for an underrated new age-new romantic first single, 'planet earth.' when i hear it, the only thing i hear is pop. pure, cool, inventive, danceable, british pop. almost thirty years later, simon le bon is still doing it. many people don't seem to recognize they've lasted longer than the beatles, led zeppelin, and well... a lot of other bands that seem to get more glory. don't get me wrong, the beatles and zeppelin deserve their glory... and in my opinion, Duran Duran deserves some glory too. so here's simon le bon in the beginning. (and yes, that's his real name.)

use the force...

...on this new way-out video game apparently somehow based on 'the return of the jedi.' i honestly say i can't remember playing it. maybe my cool cousin eric had it, but somehow i don't think so. but i like the artwork. ummm, what else can i say about it? like, i assume there's a 'speeder-chase' thing included, but other than that, i can't imagine what the 'meat' of the game could be. ewoks thwarting those two-legged empire things? a shoot-out at the mouth of the Sarlaac? (hey, i'm sure i misspelled that.) ... like i said, i don't remember ever playing it. or seeing one at the local 'godfather's pizza.'

hmmm?

i've been away for about a week. i was out of town on pressing matters of business... and the heart. so, after rolling around with my One True Love for a few nights, i'm ready to get back to the wild elusive publication that IS planetcool! sigh. and i'm starting it off with this lovely shot of a younger ronan vibert. i think this is from some british film about some guy and a violin...? whatever. he's handsome and smooth. hey, its ronan vibert! (mmm, can you tell i'm a little out of practice with this?)