wanna tell you about the girl i love, my she looks so fine

Charlotte Martin was a French model who was popular during the mid-60s to 70s. Like pretty much all gorgeous models during this time, Charlotte dated her fair share of rock stars. She dated Eric Clapton for nearly three years, from 1965 to 1968. Charlotte became involved with Eric around the time that his band Cream was forming, meeting at the Speakeasy Club in London, where she was then-living for her modeling career. Eric, in his autobiography “Clapton,” described Charlotte as “one of the great loves of my life…I was smitten with her from the very first moment I set eyes on her.” In early 1967, Charlotte and Eric moved in together and she began to become better friends with George Harrison and Pattie Boyd, even participating in the Beatles’ worldwide broadcast of “All You Need is Love.” Of his relationship with Charlotte, Eric said that she “was an incredible girl, more interested in films, art and literature than in modeling, and we had a great time together.” Despite this, their relationship would last about another year or so before it came to its abrupt end. In late 1968, her relationship with Clapton ended because he fell in love with Pattie Boyd, who by then was a close friend of Charlotte’s. In Eric’s mind, Charlotte stood “in the way of someone else, who, even though I couldn’t have her, was commanding my every thought.” After the breakup, she briefly moved in with Pattie and George at their bungalow Kinfauns. Charlotte, aware that Pattie was the cause of her breakup with Eric (even though Pattie didn’t know it at that time), had a brief affair with George in early 1969. After Pattie found out, she was devastated that Charlotte, her friend, would do that; Pattie left Kinfauns and refused to come home until George had ordered Charlotte to leave. The betrayal that Pattie felt apparently never healed, as Pattie referred to Charlotte in her autobiography as “a French girl,” never saying her name and revealing barely more than she “was going out with Eric Clapton” and was “always flirtatious” and “uncomfortably close with George.” After leaving Kinfauns, Charlotte returned to Paris to continue modeling. In January 1970, Charlotte was introduced to Jimmy Page by Roger Daltrey and his future wife Heather Taylor on Jimmy's 26th birthday. Later that year, she moved into Page’s Pangbourne Boathouse and had a daughter Scarlet with Jimmy in March 1971. Charlotte continued to travel with the band, going with them to Bron-Yr-Aur, Knebworth Festival, Rhodes in Greece, and Montruex. Robert Plant once said that Scarlet was conceived “about half an hour” after “That’s the Way” was written at Bron-Yr-Aur. Her relationship with Page was a happy one for a time, with him calling her ‘my lady’ and they together throwing parties for each other. Though they broke off the relationship in late 1983, Page said in 2004 that his relationship with Charlotte is a good one, maintaining that “we are a close-knit family.” “Every Christmas we are all together, all the mums and all the children.”
A lot of attention was always paid to Charlotte’s beauty. Eric Clapton wrote that “she was very beautiful in an austere way, classically French, with long legs and an incredible figure, but it was her eyes that got on me. They were slightly Asian with a downward slant, and a little bit sad.” Richard Cole, former tour manager for Led Zeppelin, wrote that “Charlotte was the type of girl who you couldn’t look at just once. Tall. Thin. Blonde. Perfect features. You have to glance a second time.”

oh darling, please believe me, i’ll never do you no harm

I have mentioned briefly my admiration of the nutty Ruth Gordon in Rosemary's Baby, but my love for this Polanski classic extends far beyond the stylings of Minnie Castevet. Personally, this film has everything that I love in a movie -- the fantastically fragile Mia Farrow, charming devil-worshipping neighbors, a fabulous mid-sixties wardrobe and hairstyle (courtesy of Vidal Sassoon), and Ralph Bellamy (ohh, Ralph Bellamy!).
Rosemary's Baby is the story of a young wide-eyed housewife Rosemary Woodhouse and her older actor husband Guy. After the couple moves into the Bramford, an apartment house with a long histories of gruesome deaths and questionable tenants, and they meet their seemingly innocent neighbors, Guy's acting career suddenly and inexplicably takes off. After this, Guy becomes eager to have a child with Rosemary, despite his previous rejections on the matter. After becoming pregnant, Rosemary finds that Guy ignores her and can barely look her in the eye; this hurts Rosemary, who has had a very painful pregnancy thus far and barely has strength to leave her apartment anymore. As the months carry on, Rosemary begins to suspect something sinister is occuring as the people around her are cursed blind or struck dead, and her neighbors the Castevets take an unusual interest in her pregnancy.
The film is a true horror movie classic -- not in the blood-spurting, girl-runs-in-slow-motion sort of way that scary movies are made nowadays. Rosemary's Baby succeeds in being a horror classic because of what it doesn't show us. We the audience are right there with Rosemary trying to figure out if there's a plot against her and her baby, or if she's just suffering the prenatal crazies. We learn slowly along the way what is going on, Polanski reveals just enough that we are never bored and are almost always in suspense. The film, which made both Mia Farrow and Roman Polanski international stars, has been plagued with rumors of a curse for years. Some cite the fact that Farrow's involvement in the film brought a swift end to her marriage to Frank Sinatra (he served her divorce papers on the set while she was filming the scene where she breaks down in the kitchen during her dinner party). Others cite the long theory that Rosemary's Baby is somehow tied to the Manson family murders and the death of John Lennon.

they look just like two gurus in drag

John and Yoko-- love them or hate them, you have to admit that they were a pretty fantastic couple. Whether holding Bed-Ins for peace or creating music-- experimental or otherwise -- John and Yoko (or as they preferred 'johnandyoko') made some pretty great and groundbreaking things together. Personally I think that they are quite adorable together. I used to be an adamant anti-Yoko type of Beatles fan, one who was convinced that she singlehandedly broken up the Beatles and lured John into her spell and successfully controlled his life. But after watching "Imagine: John Lennon" documentary the other night, and after reading bits of interviews, I have come to think that they were just so overwhelmingly in love that they sort of blocked out their world around them (like the Beatles, Cynthia Lennon, etc.) and saw only each other. As John said in 1980, after he met Yoko, "the boys [the Beatles] became of no interest whatsoever other than being old school friends," going on to quote saying,"'those wedding bells are breaking up that old gang of mine'."

http://www.john-lennon.com/playboyinterviewwithjohnlennonandyokoono.htm

My 10 Favorite Villains in Film

My favorite villainous characters (some evil, some just gave me bad vibes and therefore I decided were evil) in no particular order:


1. Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer) in Gaslight
This guy was a genius (minus the parts where he screws up royally by murdering a woman and, y’know, getting caught in the end). He convinces his emotionally scarred new wife that she is slowly going crazy…when (spoiler alert) in fact she’s not.


Quotable quotes:
Jewels are wonderful things. They have a life of their own.
You know, Nancy, it strikes me that you're not at all the kind of girl that your mistress should have for a housemaid.


2. Jack Favell (George Sanders) in Rebecca
This guy is awesomely bad. If I were to encounter well any number of George Sanders characters in real life, but particularly Favell, I wouldn’t know in a conversation with them to feel complimented or deeply embarrassed. His ruthless and egotistical mind, combined with his rich sly way of speaking acts as a lethal combination in Rebecca.


Quotable quotes:
I'd like to have your advice on how to live comfortably without working hard.
I say, marriage with Max is not exactly a bed of roses, is it?


3. Minnie Castevet (Ruth Gordon) in Rosemary's Baby

If you ignore the devil-worshipping and the whole getting-you-raped-by-Satan-and-then-stealing-your-baby thing, having a neighbor like Minnie (and even Roman Castevet for that matter) would be magnificent. First off, she is a fabulous dresser. Really, who else could pull off heavy rouge, a tulle hat, and pedal pushers? That’s right, no one.

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Quotable quotes:
Now that's what I call the long arm of coincidence!
As long as she ate the mouse, she can't see nor hear. Now sing.

He chose you out of all the world - out of all the women in the whole world, he chose you. He arranged things, because he wanted you to be the mother of his only living son.

4. Regina George (Rachel McAdams) in Mean Girls

Regina George is flawless. The junior suburban version of Miranda Priestley, with just a dash of Heather Chandler-grade blonde bitchiness, Regina had the whole North Shore high school wrapped around her little finger. She rules the high school with the best of them (Mussolini, Stalin…) with an iron fist and icy heart. Perhaps it was just my unsophisticated thirteen-year-old mind, but when I first saw the part where Regina puts herself in the Burn Book, my mind was reeling. I thought that was the most ingenius thing ever.

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Quotable quotes:

Get in loser, we're going shopping.
I like *invented* her, you know what I mean?
[After learning Cady is home-schooled] But you're, like, really pretty.
I know she's kind of socially retarded and weird, but she's my friend, so just promise me you wont make fun of her.
I gave him everything... I was half a virgin when I met him.
Boo, you whore!
We do not have a clique problem at this school.

5. Alexander Sebastian (Claude Rains) in Notorious

Have you ever seen a kinder or sweeter Nazi in all your life? Really, at the end of Notorious I almost felt bad for poor Alex Sebastian, not Alicia (there’s something truly wrong with me, isn’t there?).

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Quotable quotes:

I am married to an American agent.

I'm not afraid to die.

I'd like to be convinced. Would you maybe care to convince me, Alicia, that Mr. Devlin means nothing to you?

An old friend is never an extra guest.
Many things have died for all of us. We mustn't let our spirit die with them. Perhaps I can help you to forget. I'd like to.
You know my dear, I knew this was going to happen. I knew when we met the other day that if I saw you again, I'd feel what I used to for you. The same hunger. You're so lovely, my dear.

6. The birds in The Birds

Oh god. I thought Melanie Daniels was fab and all, but she spends the majority of this film chasing after Rod Taylor’s character (who, keep in mind, is a mama’s boy in vain with a CERTAIN OTHER Hitchcock character and list member, and he wears an ascot). Honestly, I wouldn’t blame the birds for attacking solely on the grounds that they were witnessing how desperate Melanie was being and wanted to do anything to stop it.


7. Alex Burke (Gig Young) in Young at Heart

I waited through this entire film for Gig Young’s character to act like the supreme d-bag I suspected he was. No one is that nice to everybody unless they like to rape hobos on the side or something. The worst thing he did was offer a guy money after chatting up the guy’s wife – bruising his ego, but nothing too bad (that we know of!) He wasn’t a villain, per se; Gig was just the ‘other man’ in the love triangle with Doris Day and Frank Sinatra. Ole Blue Eyes won out (natch) and Gig was never heard from again.


8. Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten) in Shadow of a Doubt

Cotten in “Shadow of a Doubt” must be the hottest serial killer in history. Even when his ‘Uncle Charlie’ admits to his wrongdoing, calling the world a filthy sty, he is still oddly attractive. He has a strangle close bond to his niece Charlie (Teresa Wright) where they consider themselves to be twins but act as though they are a couple. I don’t know, maybe I’m just perverse.

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Quotable quotes:

What's the use of looking backward? What's the use of looking ahead? Today's the thing - that's my philosophy. Today.
I can't face the world in the morning. I must have coffee before I can speak.
Hello, Joe. Can you stop embezzling a minute and give me your attention?

You think you know something, don't you? You think you're the clever little girl who knows something. There's so much you don't know, so much. What do you know, really? You're just an ordinary little girl, living in an ordinary little town.

How do you know what the world is like? Do you know the world is a foul sty? Do you know, if you rip off the fronts of houses, you'd find swine? The world's a hell. What does it matter what happens in it? Wake up, Charlie. Use your wits. Learn something.

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9. The Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton) in Wizard of Oz

Margaret Hamilton was a criminally underrated actress during her time. She had bit parts in so many films during the 1930s and 1940s and it so delightful to be watching a Cary Grant or Mickey Rooney film and spot the Wicked Witch playing someone’s secretary or housekeeper. But her most famous role is most definitely the witch, rightly so – Hamilton was so dedicated to the role, her skin was dyed green and stayed like that for weeks after production ended.

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Quotable quotes:

I'll get you, my pretty and your little dog too!
I'm melting, melting! Oh, what a world! What a world! Who would have thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness?
Well, my little pretty, I can cause accidents, too!

10. Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) in Psycho

Perkins as mama-loving Norman Bates is probably Hitchcock’s most infamous villain. Right from the get-go, you can tell that there’s just something a little off about Bates in the way he talks, walks, and acts to poor Marion Crane (Janet Leigh). Bates suffers from multiple personalities – he is Norman (the mama’s boy), Norma (when in full costume), and Normal (how he operates day-to-day).

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Quotable quotes:

We all go a little mad sometimes.
I think I must have one of those faces you can't help believing.
A boy's best friend is his mother.
I think only birds look well stuffed because — well, because they're kind of passive to begin with.
You know what I think? I think that we're all in our private traps, clamped in them, and none of us can ever get out. We scratch and we claw, but only at the air, only at each other, and for all of it, we never budge an inch.

and she says, "your debutante just knows what you need, but i know what you want"

Edie Sedgwick, Part Four
POST FACTORY CAREER
A lot of people believe that just as Warhol had ‘used’ Sedgwick, that Dylan had done the same, that he never had any intention of making a film with her, and that he was just leading her on for the sake of it. Though it is evident that Edie perhaps believed she would be offered a contract with Dylan’s manager Albert Grossman, it has never been proven that Dylan offered her a role in a feature film. What he had apparently offered her was a part in what would become the documentary “Don’t Look Back,” where director DA Pennebaker had filmed footage of Sedgwick for.
Of her relationship with Neuwirth, Edie said (in the autobiographical “Ciao! Manhattan” tapes), “It was really said – Bobby’s and my affair. The only true, passionate, and lasting love scene, and I practically ended up in the psychopathic ward. I had really learned about sex from him, making love, loving, giving. It just completely blew my mind – it drove me insane…But the minute he left me alone, I felt so empty and lost that I would start popping pills.” Edie admitted she was ‘addicted’ to being with Neuwirth and was essentially dependent upon him after she left the Factory. After she announced her departure from the Factory, she tried modeling and appeared in “Vogue” in March 1966. Though everyone at Vogue was really passionate about her, she narrowly missed becoming a part of “the family at Vogue...because she was identified in the gossip columns with the drug scene, and back then there was a certain apprehension about being involved in that scene…people were really terrified by it…drugs had done so much damage to young, creative, brilliant people that we just were anti that scene as a policy,” said former senior editor Gloria Schiff. Most of the fashion industry had taken that stance, shunning most everyone with a known drug problem. She also tried her hand at acting, auditioning for Norman Mailer’s “The Deer Park,” though she didn’t get the part because Mailer thought “she used so much of herself with every line that we knew she’d be immolated after three performances.”
At the end of 1966 Edie left her residence at the Chelsea Hotel (she had burned down her Sutton Place apartment that October) to go home to Santa Barbara for the holidays. Her brother Jonathan described her as “really weird when she arrived at the ranch. She was an alien. She’d pick up what you were about to say before you’d say it. It made everyone uncomfortable. She wanted to sing and so she would sing, but it was a drag because it wasn’t in tune.” To the family, Edie had become “a painted doll, wobbly, languishing around on chairs, trying to look like a vamp.” Edie, in the “Ciao! Manhattan” tapes, admitted to being caught by her mother trying to buy Eskatrol (a form of speed) and was tricked by her parents (after giving her Nembutal, they claimed she held a dangerously high fever and needed to go to the hospital) into being checked into the psych ward at the county hospital.
After Edie was released from the hospital, she went back to the Chelsea and continued her drug habit. She had spent over $80,000 in drugs over six months and to fill her need, she would steal art and antiques from her grandmother and sell them. By early 1967, Sedgwick was so dependent upon drugs that Neuwirth, unable to cope with Sedgwick’s heavy drug use and violent mood swings, broke off the relationship.

Good Read - Clapton

Eric Clapton’s autobiography “Clapton” is one of the best rock autobiographies ever written. It is an immensely personal book, one that starts depressing and just gets worse as you read it. Yes, like all other memoirs of the sixties, Clapton talks a lot about the decadent sex, drugs, and rock ’n roll during that time, but he talks about the sex that destroyed his relationships, the drugs that nearly destroyed his life, and the rock ‘n roll that he sometimes had to fight to be a part of. Clapton goes back to the beginning, retracing every step he took to get from the being an abandoned child of the war living with his grandparents to becoming ‘God.’ He talks about his stints in the Yardbirds, Cream, as a solo artist, and his relationships with fellow musicians (particularly enjoyable was Clapton’s panic stricken introduction to Jimi Hendrix, who Clapton worried about because his playing was ‘the real deal’). Clapton isn’t shy to talk about his love affairs and drug use, going into great detail to describe his multiple addictions and his turbulent affair with Pattie Boyd (wifey of his good friend George Harrison, but if you've been on this site before, of course you already know that). Clapton also recounts his long road to recovery, discussing his struggle to find faith, and the death of his young son Conor.
The good thing is that Clapton made some mistakes in his life, and he more than owns up to them in the book. He even takes the blame for things that weren’t his fault. He admits to his indulgence in the over-the-top sixties, but also seeks redemption for past mistakes. He is funny and witty, yes, possessing the humor of someone who has seen almost too much in life. All in all it’s a very thorough look at a musician who has still remained an enigma in music history.

it's a love story, baby just say yes

* I apologize for the title in advance, I just couldn't resist

Pathetically, the first time I saw this film I said, "this so ripped off A Walk to Remember." Never mind that this movie came out say thirty years before before the Nicholas Sparks film, but I was eleven and ignorant.

Love Story is a really simple story -- rich boy meets girl from the wrong side of the tracks, boy falls for girl, boy marries girl, girl dies from an incurable disease, boy learns a valuable life lesson about love from said death. The lesson he learns, the oft-repeated "love means never having to say you're sorry," is indeed very lovely but believe me is entirely BS. When you're actually in love, you find that love means having to say you're sorry for everything that you do. (Going to the movies without letting your beau know about it? Of course you were trying to cheat on him! Apologize immediately, ladies!)

The movie has really great preppy collegiate fashion, and a beautiful musical score that always makes me want to cry (and was unexplainably used in an Oreos commerial like a year ago). I really love Ryan O'Neal in this movie, but to be honest I didn't really dig Ali MacGraw the first few times I saw her in it. I found her so annoying and pompous that I really didn't care that she was dying. I was only sad because my poor Ryan looked heartbroken crying over his fake wife's death. Eventually I got over and grew to like Ali's character, because I figured that if I had such stellar clothing and was considered a 'smart kid' at Harvard, I would be kind of stuck up too.

What I like about Love Story (apart from Ryan O'Neal) is that every character has a good heart. After the two lovers (O'Neal and Ali MacGraw) looked past his snobby friends and her snobby glasses, they find that they can really care for one another. Even Oliver's dad, who is openly a d-bag about his son's relationship with a 'poor Catholic Italian,' could arguably only acted so out of love for his son.

Hopefully if you haven't already seen Love Story you can check it out soon -- despite any corniness, its a really cute touching film. Also, to anyone who was worried that I gave away a major spoiler by saying Ali MacGraw dies, I really didn't -- the first line in the movie is 'What can you say about a 25-year-old girl who died? That she was beautiful and brilliant? That she loved Mozart and Bach, the Beatles... and me?' So smart are they at the tearjerkers, they get you right from the get-go.