Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Just like the Movies

I've been strangely entranced by colors in movies.

1st up, O Brother, Where Art Thou?



It features a kind of pale, washed out, old photograph color scheme that reminds me of a lot of the colors that went down the catwalks for Spring this year and last year. (Of course, we got some neons going on this year...) The video is about four minutes and is actually a music video, not a clip, but I think it shows off what I was talking about. As for the rest of the movie, I vote you go see it if you haven't already. Thumbs up from me. It's a bit of a modernized take on Odysseus's voyage (and I love my Greek/Roman mythology) featuring three men escaping jail in the south in the 1930s. Our main man wants to get back to his wife, but there's additional subplot about them searching for treasure. Plus, you know it's a good movie when they consider color. That shows some time, effort, and love put into the movie, versus the quicky sequels and blockbusters done just to rake in as much money as possible. Great movie, and it features George Clooney. Who needs more reason than George C. to go see it?

Alright, movie two is Under the Tuscan Sun



That's the trailer for it. It's all faded since it was uploaded onto youtube, so it doesn't really show you the colors I was talking about, but it gives you an idea about what the movie is about. To help you mentally see the colors, think vibrant sunflowers. I love the rich, warm colors it uses, and the fact that it totally supports my fantasy version of Italy. When I'm middle aged, I want to be like Catherine (the woman with the black hat and ice cream cone in the trailer). She is so awesome! And the white dress that Diane Lane's character buys to go visit her love interest is my dream dress for trekking around Italy. This is another good movie. I like that it leaves you with a warm, fuzzy, "I can do it!" attitude kind Legally Blond, but it also has more of an older/wiser/"everything is not rainbows and pink bunnies but that's okay" feel, if you know what I mean.

Movie number three is The Promise



Once again, crummy youtube quality, but the trailer gives you some idea of what it's about and even youtube can't totally distroy the beauty of this film. Beautiful costumes and color schemes! Designers should take note of this film. If it was an add campaign, I'd totally want to buy almost every clothing item in it. They made rags look beautiful! They convinced me that all men should were pink, flowery robes with impracticle long tails that trail so gracefully on the floor. I wasn't quite sold on the men in feathery poet sleeves though. Of course, that was worn by the villain, along with silver eyeshadow. This movie certainly had some conventions common in anime.

As for the movie, much of it seems devoted to creating etherealy beautiful scenes with flowing fabrics. It's not exactly a bad thing since I've been dreaming about incredibly beautiful but also incredibly impracticle gowns made out of yards of flowy fabric that moves as if alive for a while now. The story was interesting and certainly creative as was the special effects, costumes, colors, everything. I felt the ending was a little sudden drop off though. It didn't quite leave me questionless. (Hard to explain without spoiling it.) One more scene could have fixed that. Also, the general's character seemed a little random/flat to me. Why does he feel that way? Oh, because that's what the story needs. He goes from being hard and cruel, to kind of noble, to a whiny/mopey/childish crybaby, and then to hard and cruel again. I just don't get him, and I think a little more insight into him would improve the movie. I'd still say it's worth seeing though. Just make sure to watch it subtitled as the English dub is as jarring and disturbing as they usually are. Plus, who really cares about that other stuff with all the pretty, pretty colors and ridulously beautiful clothes?

And to end, the Spring/Summer 07 Couture shows are going on now and it seems Galliano is loving those Asian looks too. I think it's automatically breathtakingly beautiful if you do a show with inspired by or of traditional Asian attire. Memoirs of a Geisha, The Promise, and now Galliano's Madame Butterfly inspired couture collection. I know the Promise is kind of an outlier since it's Chinese, but Memoirs of a Geisha starred many Chinese actresses and Galliano certainly didn't use all Japanese models, so we loop it together. All outliers, but all together.

And of course, this wouldn;t be a post in my blog if it did not include pictures of the me. In my last post, I showed my Spring and Middle Eastern Asian inspired looks.

Doubletree Getten It On

He's one inspired by Japan, with the kimono sleave top and Asian dragon. I also double belted for that thick belt look, like the obi. Of course, wearing a fully Asian traditional dress inspired outfit isn't me, so I made it fun with lace and a flirty skirt. And this outfit doubly applies to today's post since the colors were carfully chosen to reflect my persona for the event this outfit was worn to. My persona was Ivy Frozen: Dragon, which is a white ice dragon with very sharp scales made to stand out with heavy black outlines and green eyes and horns. Note, I represented with black, white, and a touch of green.

You can kind of see the dragon depicted on me badge in the first picture, as drawn by my friend wearing the kitty ears in the picture on the right. She didn't make the black lines thick enough or the green dark enough, but that's okay. Easily remedied if she hadn't lamanated it before I saw it... Anywho, those are two of my best friends in the pics with me, MashiChan in the first and SabreKitty/Vampire Writer in the second. I'm feeling generous today, so I'll spread the spotlight.

My outfit: Click the first picture if you care.

I want you to be free,
Don’t worry about me,
And just like the movies,
We play out our last scene,

Ivy Frozen (& apparently Alien Antfarm- Movies)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

'O Brother' is definitely a favorite of mine. If you have time, you should watch the making of if only for the shocking reality of how they got those washed out, daguerrotype-like colors. Apparently the south in spring is quite green and they had to do a lot of work in the editing room to get the quality they wanted. Very cool stuff.

Ivy Frozen said...

Next time it's around I'll have to. Thanks for the tip!