Oscars: What were people thinking?

February 28, 2012 / Lisa / 1 Comment

The Oscars were yesterday and all I can say about the dresses was, What were people thinking? Talk about bland, uninspiring, or gross. I struggled to find any that I liked, or thought something could be better about them.

Shall we start with the worst dressed?

Worst Dressed:

Emma Stone: She went from best dressed to worst in a matter of weeks. The bow is just awful.

Kate Beckinsale: The patterns, the cut-outs, the added extra frilly bits. Just no.

January Jones: Who knows what the designer was thinking with this dress.

Rosario Dawson: I can be a fan of block colours, when they are done right. This is not one of those times.

Sofia Getty: Who said a jumpsuit would be a good idea? Jumpsuits are never a good idea unless you are under the age of five.

Shailene Woodley: Are you trying to be a nun? No, just no.

Gwen Stefani: Usually Gwen has some good taste, but this is just wrong. It looks like a prickle bush. Although it might look alright if it was sleeveless and strapless and had a heart neckline. So yeah, get rid of the arms and chest bits.

Mena Suvari: Did you want to be a cloud when you grew up?

Lily Collins: I'm not sure how I feel about this dress. I think I'm coming down on the side of bad. Maybe without the sleeves it would look better.

Natalie Portman: So bland, so very, very bland. But at least it is better than that pink thing she wore to the Emmy's.

To bridge between the worst dressed and the best dressed, I would like to bring your attention to two very similar dresses to show how things can go completely wrong or look utterly fabulous.

Here is Rose Byrne.

And here is Anna Farris.

The dresses appear to be made of the same material, gorgeous, black and shinny. One is utterly gorgeous and the other looks like she is wearing a garbage bag. Can you guess which?

I’ll put you out of your misery. Anna Farris looks like she’s wearing a garbage bag.

Best Dressed:

Sarah Hyland: Simple and gorgeous.

Ellie Kemper: The colour and the sparkles are amazing. The cut is simple and elegant.

Kelly Osborne: She's starting to do things right. This dress is lovely.

Anna Paquin: I love this dress and Anna looks amazing in it.

Claire Danes: I love the colour and the fluffy, frilly skirt. I want a dress/skirt like this. She also looks amazing.

Cameron Diaz: She looks absolutely stunning in this dress. The dress is pretty amazing too.

Jessica Chastain: This dress is amazing. I love the gold on black.

I don't know who this is, but I love the dress.

Kristen Wiig: I love the frilly, floatiness of this dress, but I'm not sure about the colour. Perhaps something darker?

Wendi McCendon: I love this dress. I could possibly wear something like this to get married in.

Sandra Bullock: The reason I love this dress is the two-tone, the looseness and the detailing around the waist.

Lastly, I have to mention Angelina Jolie. Not because of the dress, but because of the leg. Just what, I don’t even…

Best and worst dressed.

January 16, 2012 / Lisa / 1 Comment

The Golden Globes were today. Usually a day of fashion and trying to catch the celebrities doing random drunk things. This year, the fashion wasn’t that great, but I still want to say which were my favs and which weren’t.

Hate

Amanda Peet looks like she’s wearing a nighty.

Julianna Margulies has a body which is way better than this dress, which does absolutely nothing for her.

I have no words for Kelly Osborne. Unless ‘ugh’ is one. And the hair? It’s grey!

Jodie Foster looks really uncomfortable in this dress. I feel the skirt should be more flared at the bottom.

Freido Pinto looks like her proportions are wrong. Hem needed to be skinny, not full.

Michelle Williams looks like she should be hanging on a wall, as a curtain.

It looks like someone just grab some hot pink material and wrapped it around Natalie Portman, then tied it at the waist.

Is Jessica Beil getting married in the 19th Century?

Love

Ariel Winter is so cute in this dress. I wouldn’t mind a dress like that myself.

Tina Fey. This is the type of dress I want when I get married, except, yanno, white/cream/black/whatever.

A lot of people have been bagging on The Buffster, but personally, I love what SMG is wearing.

I don’t even know who this woman is – Katharine McPhee. But the dress is simple and elegant and I love the champagne colour.

Debra Messing wears a very similar style to SMG, which is why I love this dress. But I’d prefer the oil/water version more.

It’s elegant, yet a little punky. Just like Emma Stone, which is why I like it.

Mila Kunis. This is something that I would see potential bridesmaids wearing, for my wedding of course. (No, I’m not thinking about getting married *shifty eyes*) In black too. Also perhaps a slightly shorter hem.

This is just beautiful. I love the feathery like skirt. Helen Mirren always looks amaze in navy blue.

Male

The males always tend to dress the same – in a tux, so unless they tend to go a bit eccentric like Ricky Gervais did with his maroon tux, they don’t really stand out from any other male walking down the red carpet. But, Chris Colfer stood out, because he looks so darn cute.

(Obtained photos mostly from The Hollywood Reporter or by doing a simple, yet effective, google search.)

The one where I get a job.

September 23, 2011 / Lisa / 1 Comment

Wow. Well, I think the headline says it all really. I have been offered a job.

My hard work, perseverance and determination have all finally paid off to where I am torn between crying in relief or dancing around my room in excitement. Technically I have already done the crying, so I guess once I kick this flu thingy, the dancing will also take place.

It has been a long journey to get to this point. So much has happened in the last, almost, two years since I graduated from AUT with my diploma.

I have hit rock bottom more times than I can remember with my depression, but I have fought the whole way and come out on the other side with a very tame black dog as my shadow. I say shadow, because he will always be there with me, where ever I go in life.

It was needing to tame this black dog, which is why I took some time off after uni. I am all the better for it. Through all of this, the events of the last two years have been a roller coaster ride, which I have survived.

Our family felt the full impact of the Christchurch earthquakes, with my sister and brother-in-law experiencing it all and still doing so. I even felt a few myself in a trip down last October. I got a job and lost that job. I gained a Man Piece, who has supported me in my search for a job and helped me in the taming of the black dog. I lost my Grandfather, which has been a huge change to my family. I’ve struggled with job rejection after job rejection. I’ve looked after my mother while she was in and out of hospital for surgery and needed someone to administer medications.

There are most likely more things that have happened that I haven’t listed, but I’m just not thinking of them right now.

I can finally put down some roots and stop living out of a suitcase going back and forth between my parents and Man Piece. Obviously this means that Man Piece and I will be doing the long distance thing again, but we will work that out.

A big thank you needs to go to everyone who has supported me and told me to keep following my dreams, who have listened to me rant and moan and still stuck by me throughout this journey. Without that support, I would have given up (even though there were a few times that I almost did.)

So today, I end my journey of the #lifeoftheunemployed and enter the gainfully employed.

Tonight I am going out for dinner with my parents to celebrate, possibly have a drink (although I probably shouldn’t ’cause of the antibiotics) and breathe a huge sigh or relief for beating the odds.

So as my Granddad used to say in times like this, “Here’s lookin’ at you, kid!”

Oh, and cause I can’t do a happy dance, here is Neil Patrick Harris doing one for me. I guess I should tell you where it is too – I am to be a journalist at Pharmacy Today in Auckland.

The day our innocence was lost.

September 11, 2011September 20, 2011 / Lisa / 2 Comments

Today is September 11.

A rather significant date in recent history. What makes it even more significant is that it is 10 years since the attacks on the World Trade Centre, which ended in their collapse and the killing of thousands of people.

That day our world changed. I changed.

I remember how I found out. I was asleep, it was just another school morning, my alarm hadn’t even gone off. Dad came into my room without knocking. Not often has this happened, in fact only ever three times, but I’ll get to that shortly.

He kept it short and sharp and said, “The Twin Towers have collapsed.” For some reason I remember those exact words. It’s funny how these things stick.

The only thing I remember doing that morning was sitting on my parents bed watching the news broadcast. Seeing the towers collapse, people running. It made the world shrink.

I don’t remember getting dressed, having breakfast, all the usual things and somehow I ended up at school. It was the only topic of conversation in all my classes of the day. The one that stuck in my mind most was Social Studies. Our teacher, Mr Kane – who was one of the best teachers I have ever had to this day – explained it all. Even the bits we hadn’t seen on the news yet – who they thought did it etc. It was just so surreal, even on the other side of the world. There is no way you can even imagine what the people of New York and the US were even going through.

I kept newspaper clippings, or should I say entire newspapers from September. Papers like The Sunday Star Times did a special section dedicated to the attacks – the time lines, the aftermath, pictures. So many pictures.

You could say that it was the first significant event of the digital age that was broadcast around the world in seconds. That is just one reason why the world changed.

Even though I didn’t realise until a few years later, 9/11 changed more for me that I can even contemplate. The world shrank. I was more aware of what was going on in other countries and just in general. I began actively watching the news and reading the paper. For me 9/11 played a part in my career path – that of becoming a journalist.

Just some of the newspapers I have:

Even now, looking at these, the photos, I just can’t fathom it.

I don’t like saying RIP about people who have died, I don’t know why, so I don’t really know what to say here. But I hope those that died and their loved ones who lost them are doing ok. It was a horrible way to die.

I mentioned earlier that my Dad has only ever come in to my room three times to wake me without knocking. The first was 9/11. The second, the day my Nana died – April 20, 2003. Third – September 4, 2010. Each of them just as life changing as the next.