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Call Me Shirley
by Molly Lambert
Shirley MacLaine and Billy Wilder on the set of The Apartment, from fabulous film journal Cinebeats, written by mod babe Kimberly Lindbergs
Whoa huh wait, women aren’t hilarious free-associating slacker-stoner-doofuses? Guess Tess and I have to make up new personalities. Fuck.
Louise Despont makes the most beautiful artist’s books. And her incredible stop-motion films are the offspring of Jan Švankmajer and Sesame Street. Too cool for words, check them out.
Science quizzes you on your Sex Myths. Informative!
Speaking of surreal dreamstuff; this Shirley Temple movie The Bluebird of Happiness made a big weird impression on me as a kid, and since we live in the 21st century I can find a fan-vid cut to Neil Young on YouTube. It was apparently intended to be Fox’s answer to MGM’s success with The Wizard of Oz but bombed.
Apparently audiences didn’t like Shirley playing a bitchy spoiled brat. It’s also, notably, the only movie where Temple gets spanked. It found a cult following with geeks like me since it is as strange as Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Holy Mountain at times. I vividly remembered the scene where they go to heaven and see unborn children being loaded into boats. Some very trippy and sinister stuff.
1, 2, 3, 4, I will never touch yr boner
Perhaps unsurprisingly the video game industry is full of misogynist douchenerds hiding behind computer screens, while indie rock sad lads pine after unattainable skinny white girls they’d be far too puss to ever talk to IRL.
Disney Princesses are the date-rape drug.
Real life Disney Princess Julia Allison is trying to drown her heartbreak with philosophy. We hear you sister, we’ve been down that road and we’re all about self-reliance but I think introspection will get you nowhere right now. You should really put down the Nitch, pick yourself up and go see Enchanted.
Do some karaoke and wail on some Abba or Mariah’s Xmas jam. Then go sign up to volunteer at a soup kitchen for the holidays if you’re genuine about this whole “search for meaning in life” thing. And don’t forget, you are full of GIRL POWER!
PLURRRRRRRRRRR………..
Nu-Rave Kitty Klones in Korea
STAIRWAY TO OLD DUDES
Yeah that’s pretty good but can you play John The Fisherman?
Beers in heaven with Eric Clapton, John Mayer, and Bill Murray. I think it’s pretty obvious who to FMK in that bunch, but I’m interested in your takes.
12 year old Amy Winehouse as Rizzo in Grease
Get ready for THE CHRONICLES OF XENU, aka the Scientology fantasy film THE OTHER SIDE, starring Level Ten Pluses (certified Sea Org?) Jason Lee, Katie Holmes, Giovanni Ribisi, and fellow travellers Dave Matthews (also composing the score!) directed by the oddly credited and strangely ungooglable David Michaels III. Also Tom Clancy’s pseudonym for his Splinter Cell books?
So uh, thinly disguised anti-psychiatry screeds and Ayn Randian relativism in a Tim Burton rip? It’s written by an actor Phil Reeves, who wrote bizarro 90s indie gay farce Happy, Texas.
GILF Helen Mirren loves ANTM: “I love it. I love Tyra Banks. It’s wonderful to watch the appalling nature of females. We are so awful.”
Head Clover Gabrielle Union hates racist film promoters: “No one calls Fred Claus the white Christmas movie. The Perfect Holiday is a movie about the holidays. It’s not race-specific. If there’s more than one black person in the movie, it’s an urban romantic comedy, an urban thriller – it’s just a flipping movie.”
MEEEEEEEEE WAAAAAAAAANT FOOOOOOOOOD!
Yeah I call just Fred Claus “the last nail in Vince Vaughn’s career’s coffin.” If I wanted to see Trent from Swingers face-deep in snow I’d have gone to see his Wild West comedy show. Zing!
HEART EXPLOSION!
What Michael Kors meant by “Shirley McLaine as a French hooker” = Irma La Douce
It’s the beginning of a new age
My fellow ginger nut Shirley MacLaine is the O.G. Quirky Indie Girlwoman, paving the way for the many adorably neurotic Zooeys, Parkers, Maggies, and Mirandas to come.
Irma La Douce really kind of sucks actually, see the brilliant article from Bright Lights Film Journal about the late sixties rash of overbudget bloated bomb-coms. If you’re in the mood for Shirley (and who isn’t?) rent The Apartment, or even Sweet Charity if you can stomach musicals. I love to picture Shirley and her brother Warren Beatty’s childhood in Arlington, Virginia. Older sisters make you cool. It’s science.
Shirley as Irma, channelling Tess’s smoking fetish profile photos
Egg City Radio
Han Solo and other Star Wars action figures reenact the Geto Boys paranoid classic music video My Mind’s Playing Tricks On Me. I don’t know why, I just know wow. There’s also an Elmo version, and of course the haunting original.
The Geto Boys are from Houston. UGK are from Port Arthur. People all over are way sad about the death of legendary Texan rapper Pimp C in Hollywood a couple days ago, including me, but especially Bun B, Three 6 Mafia, Devin the Dude, Too Short and my brother.
This Recording sends our California Love out to the Lone Star State. Remember to pour out a little liquor for Pimp C, R.I.P.
To get you psyched for my adolescence post, I’m putting up some songs from another dearly departed homie, Elliott Smith because Either/Or was my favorite album when I was fourteen. Pretty much everything from tonight’s holiday episode of 30 Rock about Liz Lemon suing her high school to make the football team co-ed was also true of yours truly.
Either/Or is still one of my favorite albums ever and I’m still one of the most annoyingly confrontational feminists you will ever meet in your life. Some things will never change.
Alameda – Elliott Smith: mp3
Between the Bars – Elliott Smith: mp3
The Rose Parade – Elliott Smith: mp3
Angeles – Elliott Smith: mp3
Cupid’s Trick – Elliott Smith: mp3
2:45 am – Elliott Smith: mp3
Molly Lambert is senior editor of This Recording. She enjoys being a girl.
PREVIOUSLY ON THIS RECORDING
The scene of our August childhood.
These last three years, I know they’ve been hard.
Molly heads to Georgia.
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[...] Nichols’ floppedy The Fortune, starring Nicholson and Warren Beatty as con men, still isn’t out on DVD. The studios banked on the stars for success and only gave [...]
Pingback by In Which Too Much Play Makes Jack A Melancholy Baby « This Recording December 18, 2007 @ 1:24 pm[...] ppzbyxmkvq wrote something noteworthy recently.Here’s a little excerpt:Beers in heaven with Eric Clapton, John Mayer, and Bill Murray. I think it’s pretty obvious who to FMK in that bunch, but I’m interested in your takes. 12 year old Amy Winehouse as Rizzo in Grease. Get ready for THE CHRONICLES OF XENU, … [...]
Pingback by How To Stop Smoking » Blog Archive » In Which Friday Links Dismantle The Patriarchy January 5, 2008 @ 12:51 amI wonder if this is the same Louise Despont I went to elementary school with. Huh.
Comment by tesslynch January 25, 2008 @ 7:00 am[...] Nichols‘ floppedy The Fortune, starring Nicholson and Warren Beatty as con men, still isn’t out on DVD. The studios banked on the stars for success and only gave [...]
Pingback by In Which You Genuinely Respect Her Character And Intelligence « This Recording March 4, 2008 @ 2:16 pm[...] am always looking for a new Shirley MacLaine to cling to, but even she was not really a redhead. Consider how much upkeep goes into dyeing and [...]
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