Movie Star Monday: Emma Stone

             I was just watching Easy A last night so I decided this week's MovieStar Monday would focus on Emma Stone. At 15 she persuaded her parents to let her drop out of her all-girls Catholic School and move to LA with a powerpoint presentation, impressive right?!?
            Her breakout film was Superbad, which was when she dyed her hair red. She's best known as a comedic actress, and for good reason, she's got impeccable timing and a natural understanding of what makes a character funny, without letting the character's whole identity become the jokes. Easy A stars Emma as a girl who agrees to pretend to have sex with a guy so that people will stop bullying him for being gay and gains a reputation as she begins helping others (for giftcards of course). The movie is hilarious and hosts a great cast, Patricia Clarkson and Stanley Tucci as her parents are standouts to me; the scenes o the family at home had me laughing out loud. I also really loved Crazy, Stupid, Love, definitely a movie worth seeing.
A movie that got a lot of attention during last year's awards season was The Help which emma Stone starred in, I haven't seen the movie but I've heard great things :)

One of the things that really shocked people with her, and by people of course I mean me, was when she dyed her her hair blonde. She is a natural blonde but I really think she's a great redhead. It was done for a movie (The Amazing Spiderman-excellent movie by the way) and I was eventually won over by the blonde, which is not to say that I wasn't glad when she went back to red.

I'm really excited to see her in Gangster Squad next January! What are your thoughts on the lovely Emma?

Fitness Friday: Spin vs Biking

I've been a longtime fan of biking, I guess it was unavoidable considering how much my dad loves it. I love how fast it gets you to the places you want to go. I used to bike down along the hudson so that I could eat lunch downtown and shop. Biking is tailored to your level of proficiency, which is why it's an easy sport to pick up. If you want to go all Lance Armstrong you can participate in races and long distance cycing, but if like me you want to cruise sometimes and work other times, its easy to just adjust your settings and pick another path.
Spin is a type of indoor biking  which provides an intense workout and is tons of fun. All of my gym classes are spin classes, so I've had some experience by now. It is tons of fun and forces you to push yourself. With music on time passes super fast, I love spinning to old school hip hop, nothing like Usher, JZ, and Missy Eliott to make you work hard. 
All in all, bies rock, spinning is the workout of a lifetime.

Costume Breakdown-Mirror, Mirror

 I loved the costumes in this movie! Each one was beautiful and inspired and if you can they would make beautiful halloween costumes.

 I'm going to start with Snow's outfits, the first being her blue wedding dress. The dress is light blue over puffy medium blue and orange sleeves. It has a wide, white neckline and a floral base on the light blue skirt. It also includes a sheer baby blue petticoat that you see when the dress is pulled up. The back features an oversized bright orange bow (the same orange as the sleeves). Its one of the awesomest wedding dresses I've ever seen, one of two in the movie. Here it is in action:

As you can see, it appears less shiny on screen, and the folds of the sleeves look great in motion. The dress is paired with a tiara, and the light blue low 17th century France style heels from the picture above.

Her first dress in the movie is the pink and yellow floral dress to the right, with green sleeves, yet again puffy. Where the pink top meets the skirt the pink breaks into wide fringe pieces. The skirt is SUPER wide like most of the skirts in the movie and continues the floral pattern from the top. 
On screen it appears bluer, and personally I prefer it on screen, it takes away some of the sugary sweetness of the dress in person. 

At the queens costume ball she wears the white swan dress, with the wings, gloves and memorable swan hat. It's hard to see the detail of the dress but its beautifully white on white embroidery. The skirt has a layer of intricate lace and the top combines beading and lace with a scalloped neckline. The gloves are sheer and the wings are delicate wire and fabric. Also- don't you love Armie Hammer's (the Prince) hat!

Here she is in the dress after being spared in the forest by the queen's henchman. 




It's great for fighting too :)

When she joins the dwarves and learns to fight she puts on her kick-ass fighting outfit. Here it is full length, you can see the blue off-shoulder blouse under the black and gold vest. (Wow it took me a while to remember the word vest) She wears the blouse with a black, floor-length a-line skirt. It's one of the only seperates look featured in the movie, and way more practical for fighting than her other looks. Okay-its not super practical but I like to imagine she's wearing leggings underneath, so if she needs to she pull off the skirt and really get to work. 

I love the ponytail she pairs it with I think it really shows off her beautiful face (uh oh major girl crush forming:)) I've always been a major fan of teal and I think this teal is especially lovely, I think it's called peacock blue.








Onto the Queen, whose costumes perfectly reflect her over the top personality. They're large and bright and over-accentuate all the parts of the body. It's pink but on screen its rose gold. The top arrows down past to the hips and starts the gold and white embroidery that the skirt continues in different sizes. The shoulders are sculpted and the sleeves are fringed with gold.      

The picture of the back shows the poufy hips more, like a bustle except not on the butt. They're like slightly deflated balloons.






At her ball the Queen wears a red dress featuring peacock embellishment and actual peacock feathers. The gown's all red and white palette add to the drama of the wide skirt and angled sleeves. Instead of shoulder pads at her shoulders are sculpted cut outs meant to echo the shape of the peacock embroidery on her dress. The neckline is lined with white "feathers" sharper than her temper! (sorry-had to make the cheesy joke) she wore the magnificent peacock feather back during the ball which added to the dramatization of the human shape and height needed to emphasize the grandeur of her personality and fancies.

Now to the other wedding dress in the film. For the Queen's marriage to the prince she dons an immense white gown. Like seriously, it's huge. The silk (I believe) is cut to resemble leaves or feathers. The top boasts the smaller leaves which trickle down to the skirt in vines. The sleeves are off shoulder-like most of the dresses in the movie-and droopy ending in tight white cuffs that arrow down to the middle finger.The queen also wears a long white veil held on her head by a small white crown (and probably a thousand bobby pins).
Check out the Queen's undergarments, it takes hard work to wear dresses that good!

Movie Monday: Lily Collins (with a bit of a movie review)

Now she's not quite a bona fide movie star but I think that her career has been impressive enough to join the list. She started as a columnist for teen magazines and a correspondent for Nickelodeon. She's been a few movies including The Blind Side, Abduction, and Mirror, Mirror. 

The Blind Side is one of my favorite movies and her character was touching. 

I recently watched Mirror, Mirror and loved it. It's of course a little childish but I've always loved the disney princess movies. Mirror, mirror was funny and I loved that it let Snow White become the heroine and see that the prince could be a bit of a a**hole (cuz truthfully, the prince is always a bit of a jerk). The visuals were amazing; the bright colors, and landscapes. The costumes were just right for the movie; bright and intricate and bigger than sets. 

There will be a costume breakdown later in the week.

Fitness Friday: Motivation

This post is a short one, but I find there are lots of different reasons for different people. Some people work out to get healthier, some to get stronger and some to look better. I have friends who workout so that they can get faster in track and field. Personally, I want to get stronger and slimmer. I have a wicked sweet tooth and working out keeps me from ballooning :) Also, after a while I get into a groove; now I look forward to my bike rides and intervals. a really good system is  to set short term goals. When setting goals make them specific and not based on the scale, because a scale doesn't represent how healthy you are, its just the force on you due to its gravity (thanks Wikipedia). Right now I'm working towards a belly-baring costume for Halloween. 
                                                           So what motivates you?

Straight Up: Love is Louder

            My school started a campaign last year called Let's Make it Better, encouraging straight men to support their gay peers, who are often the source of the most violence against gays if not homophobia itself. It was picked up by The Jed Foundation, a foundation to support students emotional health. Today Brittany Snow spoke at our school to speak about Love is Louder and her own experiences with bullying. She was nervous, which was adorable, and  I thought very interesting. I encourage people to get involved, change starts with one.

                                            Please be respectful in the comments.

Movie Monday: Rachel McAdams

               Rachel McAdams breakout role catapulted her to the top of everyone's list. You'd be hard pressed to find a kid who doesn't know who Regina George is. Mean Girls is a brilliant and funny movie that features a lot of GREAT actresses (Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Lindsey Lohan before she went crazy), and Rachel McAdams started her her path towards their ranks in this movie. Regina George is a perfect villain, she's mean, super smart, selfish, and she knows it. This is the point Janis makes, when Cady goes all Prima Plastic, what makes Cady so annoying is that she doesn't realize how horrible she is, unlike Regina. Regina commands respect, along with all the hate. 
                Her next film you probably already know, it's a big one, women everywhere cry at the mere mention of it. Yes folks, you guessed it, it's The Notebook. Now I have to say I jumped on this bandwagon pretty late, I guess I really just didn't get around to it until last Spring. It's a great movie (even though it didn't make me cry like it was supposed to). 
               She's been in several tearjerkers since (The Vow, The Time Traveller's Wife-to a degree) and a mystery (Sherlock Holmes). Overall she's picked pretty great movies to be in and always brings something to her characters which make them so real and likable, the sort of people you really want to have a conversation with. She was also in the Family Stone, a Christmas movie thats a little cliched but I liked it in a hokey way.

Now this girl has gone between super blonde and chocolate brown a thousand times but I've always preferred her with light brown hair. Now I know that there are people with other opinions on this but dark brown can seem harsh on pale people. Her as a blonde with lowlights is a close runner up for me. In Mean Girls the blonde she sports is a wig, but as far as wigs go its pretty great.