Beauty Break: Ewan in Blue

GQ is selling blue as the color of the moment. I tend to wear purples and greens -- not "The Joker" saturation levels, mind -- and browns but whatever Ewan McGregor sells I'm eager to buy so perhaps if I ever go shopping again, it'll be blue blue blue. 

Just looking at Ewan McGregor raises my melatonin levels. In 2005 I placed him on a ten favorites of the decade list as my least analytical choice. I just respond to him is all. I wrote...

He rises up jubilantly. I don't care if this sounds cheesy or sentimental but Ewan makes me feel and smile. 

Some actors we relate to as identity surrogates. We want to be them or see the story through their eyes. In the case of McGregor I find I'm always the other characters. I'm always with him. In the 90s when he first came to fame I was rooming with him in a conspiratorial way, painting words on his body, rocking out like a lustful fanboy at his concerts, or killing time and brain cells with him in illegal ways (just like his co-stars in Shallow Grave, Pillowbook, Velvet Goldmine, and Trainspotting) On this last: he's the only actor for whom I would dive into a toilet bowl.

I'm only sharing this to set up the quintessential film in my personal history with Ewan McGregor: Moulin Rouge! The apotheosis for me is probably the "Elephant Love Medley" scene. Like Nicole Kidman's 'Satine' I usually start out trying to resist him (my critical/cynical self usually in control). As he keeps battering away at my defenses with his unique spark, humor, and openheartedness (both as character and actor), I eventually start to cave. I resist, I complain, I explain all the reasons why not. But before long I am totally his.

It still applies. More New Blue Ewan after the jump.

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Beauty Break: Rose, Uma, Michelle & Tilda

Thanks to reader Emmanuel for sending me this photo...

Rose Huntington-Whiteley, Uma Thurman, Michelle Yeoh and Tilda Swinton this week in Milan. What a photo, eh? This was taken at a launch party for the Vertu’s ‘Constellation’ smart phone. I thank the smart phone for requiring this much collective gorgeousity for its debut.

Though she's clearly the odd girl out here, what with three bonafide screen goddesses on the coach, I don't have the heart to photoshop Rose out (but, yes, I was tempted). She got such a severe beating for Transformers: Dark of the Moon and please... we've seen much worse when it comes to models acting! You know I'm right. People were just ready to pounce because she replaced Megan Fox and because it's Transformers which only requires that the girlfriend be fuckable.

More photos after the jump...

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Beauty Break: Vanessa Redgrave, Bewitching in Any Season

♪ if i ever i would leave you
how could it be in springtime?
knowing how in Spring, I'm bewitched by you so?
oh, no, not in Springtime...

Summer...

Winter...

...or Fall 

No never would I leave you.... at all ♫.

Sigh.

So excited to see Vanessa again in Coriolanus, aren't you? And potentially at the Oscars?

Just recently I was suddenly remembering how perfect she's been in virtually all the seasons of her career. I love her in Camelot (1967) but mostly for her gorgeousity and because the Arthurian Legends have bewitched me since I was a kid. My favorite Vanessa performances are off the top of my head..

1. If These Walls Could Talk 2 (2000)
2. Julia (1977 -Oscar win)
3. The Devils (1971) 

Share yours, please! Is it from the spring, summer, winter or fall of her career?

Beauty Break: New Heartthrobs According to VMan

VMan magazine offers up a black and white survey of future heartthrobs, the leading men of tomorrow today. All of the photos are shot by Hedi Slimane. These round-ups always amuse in retrospect because will we even know who they are in 10-20 years? (like when today's teenagers see those old Vanity Fair Hollywood covers wherein they tried to predict the new generation of Julia Roberts and Tom Cruises and half the faces have zero meaning).

This particular future stardom candidate above, Logan Lerman, declares himself a cinephile in the capsule icons and influences bios (you know the kind: it's the legit actors version of a centerfold's romantic preferences masturbation fodder quotes). Though they aren't pictured, Lerman has real balls. Consider this: the 19 year old actor (best known as Percy Jackson) is starring in Paul W.S. Anderson's Three Musketeers and has the stones to name Paul Thomas Anderson as the director he's dying to work with. W.S. must HATE that! Talk about biting the hand that just fed you. You know more than once poor Paul has had to explain that he's not that Paul and the person's face has inevitably dropped with disappointment.

Nobody else's bios has anything quite so off-mag image-conjuring but the photos are pretty. 

There are more young would-be stars after the jump if you're so inclined but I wanted to give Josh Pence (to your right) his due right away since he got so shafted in the whole Armie Hammer Debutante Ball (AKA The Social Network) last year. It was Pence's face that was digitally removed to make room for twinned Armie. Maybe he'll catch up to his physical twin, career-wise, if his work in The Dark Knight Rises as the Young Ra's Al Ghul gives Hollywood whatever it is that they're looking for? 

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Beauty Break: The Cast of "Magic Mike"

Channing Tatum: The Early YearsSteven Soderbergh's Magic Mike, must be nearing cameras, since casting news is dropping regularly now. No one can ever claim that Soderbergh dawdles... though wasn't he supposed to be retiring? He seems awfully busy for someone winding down. The film is a pet project of Channing Tatum's and loosely based on his experience as a stripper at 19. He had never hidden his body as cash machine past (see also: much modelling) so the surfacing of that video a couple years back was more novelty than scandal. 2012 is going to be a huge year for Tatum as he has not one not two but five movies that'll be hitting theaters.

Channing plays the title character of Magic Mike and will school rising star Alex Pettyfer (of I Am Number Four)  on the fine art of hustling. Earlier this week we heard that Matthew McConaughey had joined the film as their pimp boss and just last night news came that White Collar's Matt Bomer has also signed on. I've never watched an episode of White Collar but I've watched several episodes of Bomer photographs (His fans be feverish with the posting of them, you know). TWO MORE ANNOUNCED: True Blood's Joseph Mangianello also added to the cast as "Big Dick Richie" and now Cuban model/actor William Levy update again (08/29) Levy has turned down the role. Bad move. He's not famous and this is a major director we're talking about with a starry cast.

Other rumored members of the cast include Shiloh Fernandez and Demi Moore (!!!) who, well, ⇒⇒⇒

I'm not sure I believe either rumor -- especially the Demi one. But if it's true, I guess Soderbergh isn't superstitious about invoking the ghost of infamous bad-movie Striptease (1996)!

Care to help Soderbergh out with the rest of the casting? Who should join Pettyfer, Bomer, Levy, Manganiello, McConaughey and Tatum in bum-shaking and tip-taking?

Poor Johnathon Schaech. Anyone remember him from the 90s? Wasn't he supposed to star in (or wanted to star in) a Chippendales movie? It never happened but he's still working and still beautiful at 42. So come on Soderbergh, isn't there room for a middle manager or a McConaughey rival?

Tatum, Pettyfer, McConaughey, Bomer, Fernandez

Striptastic photos of the cast after the jump... (if you're into that. if you aren't don't go clicking)

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