Book Club: It's All About the Dress

(Photo: Kathy Yl Chan)

That shit storm of a Liz Taylor Lifetime movie with the once actress Lindsay Lohan touches down this Thanksgiving weekend, but if you really wanna know all about La Liz and Richard Burton, well "Furious Love" is really the go-to. But as Liz's longtime wardrobe go-to and wife of her personal make up artist, Ron Berkeley, Vicky Tiel had insider, entourage level scoop. And she dishes in her memoirs, "It's All About the Dress". But this isn't backstabbing tell-all, this is the kinda secret sharing you get from a bestie. 

However, that said, tales come out about other celebs like Faye Dunaway, Marlon Brando, Woody Allen, Martha Stewart, and more. 

And boy does she have something to say about designers like Yves Saint Laurent,Mary Quant, DVF and Louis Feraud, the former three she claims all stole from her! According to "Dress", Vicky invented the mini skirt, the wrap dress and designers posing nude in ads, amongst many other boasts. 

Yes, Ms. Tiel is one of those Janice Dickinson types trying to undercut others who claim they were the first. 

This is the perfect side dish this week for a full plate of trash TV and turkeys. 

We'll Always have "Midnight in Paris"

Last nite Mr Taurus and I had a sweet date nite at BAM to see Woody Allen's latest, "Midnight in Paris". 

Yet another Allen flick set in a European capital rather than his home turf, Paris, like London and Barcelona before it, provides a renaissance of inspiration. Allen hasn't been this creative and smart and light in awhile with the plot centering on an American writer in Paris nostalgic for the great times of the expat Lost generation. Soon, through an easy, breezy unexplained fantasy turn, he is hobnobbing with those great literary and artistic giants he's idolized for so long

Cast is great with Alison Pill doing a mighty fine Zelda Fitzgerald

And sexy thang Adrien Brody turning up for a quick, delightful Salvador Dali

I wasn't mad for Rachel McAdams' nag of an ungrateful shrew, but I guess that was her role, so split hairs

(You know you're a frigid B when you can't find the romance in Paris)

Owen Wilson is pretty great as the protagonist and he manages to pull off sweet and naive without being a twit. His chemistry with Marion Cotillard as a 1920's French mistress of Pablo Picasso is not as heavy handed or obsessive as it can be in an Allen flick

As for the writing, there are a lot of great quips playing up public personas and the myths of these famous folks, but also on bougie white people, infidelity, where inspiration comes from and the plague of the proverbial "grass is greener". 

Allen himself could be a victim of this "what he used to be" type of neglect for the now, the present works. In a funny twist, the flapper played by Marion Cotillard tires of the 20's instead longing for the Belle Epoque of Paris. She's exactly where Wilson thought was the perfect idealistic time, yet she's at unease and bored. A nice reminder that we must forget skewed daydreams about rose colored years gone by and live in the now.