HERMES FALL WINTER 2010/11

I love this ad campaigns. This is the Hermes fall winter 2010/11 ad campaign featuring Constance Jablonski and Jonas Mason photographed by Paolo Roversi.

Battle of The Vampire Babes, Part Une

You could be forgiven for thinking we're in the midst of an unprecedented madness for vampires with True Blood, Vampire Diaries, and The Twilight Saga being all the rage these days. A better question might be, why vampires ever? Looking back, it's hard to think of a period when we weren't in the middle of a vampire craze.

Beginning in 1897 with Bram Stoker's gothic horror novel, Dracula, since then there have been numerous adaptations and appearances in the media. In 1922, the first vampire movie, Nosferatu was released in theater. Followed by numerous Dracula movies throughout the 1920s to 1960s. In the late 1970s, Anne Rice started raking in the money with Interview With the Vampire, and movies like Werner Herzog's Nosferatu the Vampyre and the comedy Love at First Bite were critical hits. Then came The Lost Boys, Near Dark, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Innocent Blood, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the movie), four more Anne Rice books, and Interview With the Vampire (the movie)—which could all be lumped into a rage for vampires that lasted clear through from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s. Vampires were back again in the mid-1990s, with Buffy (the TV show), the Blade movies, Southern Vampire Mysteries (the book series), and From Dusk Till Dawn. And now we've arrived at the highly touted mid- to late-2000s vogue of Underworld, Twilight (books and movies), True Blood (based on Southern Vampire Mysteries), and The Vampire Diaries. So you see, we might be further along in the vampire craze than what you have imagined.

However, I want to focus more on the contemporary occurrences (this is, after all, a pop-culture blog). Within the last decade there have only been, in my opinion, four significant vampire-madness-inducing franchises in the media. They are Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Twilight Saga, True Blood, and The Vampire Diaries. Now, we could go onto deep discussions concerning those four particular franchises, but we're not going to do that since it will only spark endless debates. I want to focus more on one aspect, which is the protagonists of each franchises. From my observation, I could gather that contemporary vampire franchises have shifted their focus on the vampire characters to the protagonists who are all happen to be females with the vampire characters being reduced to be the female protagonists' love interests or mere supporting characters. This might indicate a new wave of feminism in this era. What I want to do now is pit all these ladies together to find out who is THE best feminist cultural icon of the decade.Oh, and for those teenage girls who think Bella Swan is a good role model, I'm here to set things straight. Someone is going DOWN!!!

I'm gonna start with Buffy Summers from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Created by Joss Whedon, Buffy is a high school cheerleader who learns that she is the Slayer, a Chosen One gifted with the strength and skills to fight vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness. The character of Buffy was created to subvert the stereotypical and cliched female horror film victim, the little blonde girl who goes into a dark alley and gets killed in every film. Whedon wanted to create a strong female cultural icon.  Buffy avoids the "final girl" character trope seen in horror films, where the androgynous and celibate heroine gets to outlive her friends and exact revenge on their killer. She gets to have sex with boys and still kill the monster. 

Over the course of seven seasons and 144 episodes, Buffy has saved the world a lot of times, died twice, had sex with more than one vampire, lost loved ones, grew up without parents (her father left before the start of the series and her mother died during her sophomore year of college), and had to drop out to support her younger sister. She had to do all of these between battling forces of darkness on a daily basis and studying for exam, yet she still managed to find time to party.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer's thematic and metaphorical elements have inspired countless studies and academia. Buffy is notable for attracting the interest of scholars of popular culture as a subset of popular culture studies. Academic settings increasingly include the show as a topic of literary study and analysis. Buffy eventually led to the publication of around twenty books and hundreds of articles examining the themes of the show from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives including sociology, Speech Communication, psychology, philosophy, and women's studies.

Now if that's not amazing, I don't know what is.

TO BE CONTINUED...

VERSACE F/W 2010/11 Campaign by MARIO TESTINO

Versace present their Fall 2010-11 campaign. Their muses this season are Anna Selezneva, Valerija Kelava, Marcel Castenmiller and Tomek Szczukiecki. The campaign photography is the work of Mario Testino, who together with Donatella Versace decided to create a black and white campaign. It's a metaphor for the new direction Donatella is taking, abandoning saturated colors and pastels in favor of a more subtle, minimalist collection. She brings us geometric cuts and asymmetric lines, and experiments with the length of garments. For men, the image evokes a biker look and futuristic details.

GUESS by MARCIANO Fall Winter 2010 Campaign by Alix Malka

Guess by Marciano fall winter 2010 campaign shot by Alix Malka and featuring among plenty of other great models, Evandro Soldati and Heide Lindgren.

 

Back to High School with Morning Glories

Fresh from getting excited about the Charmed comic books that I tweeted about sometime ago and Young Avengers' new season, now from Image Comics, comes the latest creation that piqued my interest too. Along with DC, Marvel and Dark Horse, Image Comics is one of the four largest comic book publishers in America. Its best-known series besides Spawn include two of my favorite graphic novels, Invincible and The Walking Dead (which is in production to be a new AMC TV series). They also publish several books from Top Cow Productions including Witchblade and The Darkness.

The Image Comics' new monthly series that I was talking about is called Morning Glory. The plot is centered around the prestigious and highly mysterious Morning Glory Academy prep school, and its newest crop of recruits. Written by Nick Spencer whose credits also include Existence 2.0, Forgetless, and Shuddertown, it was described as Runaways meets Lost, and like the latter, it’s intended as a long-form mystery. Morning Glory Academy is recruiting extraordinary teens from across the country, but we’re not sure why or what exactly is going on within the halls. 

Xavier Samuel and The Loved Ones

"Who is Xavier Samuel?", you might ask. You might not remember his name, but I bet you'll remember his face... at least if you watched The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. Xavier Samuel stole the first 15 minutes of the movie playing Riley Biers, a newborn vampire under the command of the deliciously vicious and conniving Victoria, played by the equally delicious and stunning Bryce Dallas Howard. Even though Xavier was only in the movie for a few scenes playing a bad guy, it was enough to make girls swoon over him.  Dubbed as the new heart-throb, he even managed to steal the spotlight from Robert Pattinson at the movie's premiere. 

Honestly, I found myself more interested in the twisted and dysfunctional relationship between Riley and Victoria rather than Bella's and Edwards campy and cheesy narrative. It also helped that Bryce Dallas Howard perfectly portrayed Victoria in all her subtle menace and vindictiveness. She won me over with her subtle performances, that in my opinion, made her the right replacement for Rachel Lafevre. The chemistry between the two was electric and that translated on and off the screen. Seemed like Xavier made a good friend in Bryce that she let him slept on the couch in her house while he was temporarily homeless during the shooting of the movie.

KENZO Fall/Winter 2010/11 by Mario Sorrenti

Here is a look at Kenzo fall winter 2010/11 shot by Mario Sorrenti featuring Lily Donaldson, Sasha Pivovarova and Ben Hill. It seems like that more and more labels are going colorful for their fall winter campaigns.

 

Future = Zombies + Aliens + Comic Books

Prepare  yourself folks because we're about to be invaded by all kinds of nasty things. And by nasty, I meant extra terrestrials and monsters. Upcoming movie releases will be flooded with aliens and zombie while comic books adaptations keep their dominant presence with releases such as Thor, Capatain America, Green Lantern, and The Avangers. Check them out! 

BATTLE: LOS ANGELES

Director: Jonathan Liebesman
Stars: Aaron Eckhart, Michelle Rodriguez, Bridget Moynahan 

The Plot: A Marine platoon faces off against an alien invasion of Los Angeles. Black Hawk Down meets Independence Day.

PRIEST

Director: Scott Charles Stewart
Stars: Paul Bettany, Cam Gigandet, Maggie Q 

The Plot: An adaptation of a TokyoPop comic book, the story is set in a world ravaged by centuries of war between man and vampire and follows a warrior priest who turns against the church to track down a murderous band of vampires who have kidnapped his niece. It fuses the western genre with supernatural horror, gun-fu, and dark fantasy themes.

SUPER 8
Buzz: From J.J. Abrams, enough said.
Co-produced with Steven Spielberg, this top secret project incites curiosity and excitement amidst the hearts of moviebuffs and geeks everywhere. The teaser trailer feels like a follow up to Cloverfield, which means... Maximum carnage!!!



MONSTERS
The Plot: Six years after Earth has suffered an alien invasion, a cynical journalist agrees to escort a shaken American tourist through an infected zone in Mexico to the safety of the US border. Watch this if you like District 9.

 

COWBOYS & ALIENS
Director: Jon Favreau (Iron Man, Iron Man 2)
Stars: Daniel Craigm Olivia Wilde, Harrison Ford
The Plot: Based on the graphic novels of the same name, Indians and Western settlers must lay their differences aside when an alien spaceship crash lands in their city.

GODZILLA
Legendary Pictures and its partner Warner Bros would be officially bringing back Godzilla in a new movie due out in 2012. Below's the first concept art.

SKYLINE
Stars: Eric Balfour (Hell Ride) and Donald Faison ("Scrubs")
Buzz: Cloverfield, War of The Worlds, and Independence  Day all rolled up into one movie.
The Plot: Los Angeles, strange clouds are moving in when out of nowhere, blue streams of light shoot out of the sky, stirring up smoke and what seems to be debris. Then from the clouds, hordes of alien ships emerge and it's not until later you realize the debris in the air is actually hundreds, even thousands, of people being sucked towards the ships in a chaotic yet familiar abduction style.

WORLD WAR Z
Buzz: Brad Pitt is officially signed on to star. Based on a popular book that contains numerous stories told by survivors of a worldwide apocalyptic war with the zombies.

RED

Stars: John Malkovich, Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, Mary-Louise Parker, Richard Dreyfuss and Karl Urban.

Plot: Based on the cult D.C. Comics graphic novels by Warren Ellis. Frank (Bruce Willis), a retired CIA agent, reassembles his old team after being targeted by a high-tech assassin. Now they must use all of their collective cunning, experience and teamwork to survive and uncover one of the biggest conspiracies and cover-ups in government history.

GREEN LANTERN
 

RESIDENT EVIL: AFTERLIFE
Buzz: Fourth installment in the franchise. Featuring characters Chris Redfields and Claire Redfields from the video game. Jill Valentine returns. Filmed with James Cameron's Fusion Camera System (Avatar), the world's most advanced 3D technology.