Tuesday, February 2nd 2010
Vanity Fair Hollywood Portfolio, 2010 by Annie Leibovitz
The Real Deal Lee daniels with Mo’Nique and Gabourey Sidibebr
One film together: Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (2009).
Daniels may be the best thing that has happened to actors since Robert Altman. His unforgettable Precious, a harrowing but ultimately hopeful domestic drama, gets its power, in large part, from the brave performances turned in by newcomer Sidibe and the multi-talented writer-comedian-actress Mo’Nique. Sidibe plays the title character—so beaten down at the start of the film—in a blunt, forthright, almost uninflected manner that works nicely against the story’s moments of high drama. As the girl’s abusive mother, Mo’Nique pulls off something equally astounding: she brings a monster to life and then, without winking at the audience, she stirs our compassion as she shows how that monster came to be. Together Daniels, Sidibe, and Mo’Nique have given voice and form to characters who might otherwise be invisible.
Photographed in Atlanta, Georgia, on November 30, 2009.
Monday, February 1st 2010
Vanity Fair Hollywood Portfolio, 2010 by Annie Leibovitz
The Sprites Peter Jackson with Saoirse Ronan
One film together: The Lovely Bones (2009).
A 15-year-old student in County Carlow, Ireland, Ronan lives far from the TMZ glare. She played a wised-up child of L.A. in Amy Heckerling’s underrated romantic comedy I Could Never Be Your Woman before taking on a crucial role in Atonement, for which she was nominated for a best-supporting-actress Academy Award at the age of 13. Now she is being justly celebrated for her successful handling of the difficult lead role in The Lovely Bones. Jackson was lucky to have her, just as he was fortunate when he was able to rely on Kate Winslet as the foundation for his 1994 breakthrough hit, Heavenly Creatures. This time around, he needed an actress who could give life to a character who is at once a pitiful victim of a serial killer and a detective, of sorts, working from beyond the grave. This is dark stuff, but Ronan, with her game screen presence, brings a light touch and even some humor to the film.
Photographed in New York City on December 2, 2009.
Vanity Fair Hollywood Portfolio, 2010 by Annie Leibovitz
The Best Buds Todd Phillips (second from right) with Zach Galifianakis, Ed Helms, and Bradley Cooper
One film together: The Hangover (2009).
Book Two in Phillips’s continuing cinematic meditation on male regression, The Hangover offers a diegesis and mise en scène even more fraught with Oedipal snares and Odyssean detours than the auteur’s 2003 masterwork, Old School. Well, that, or it just has lots of funny scenes of guys getting coldcocked or Tasered in the groin. What sets The Hangover apart from your standard frat-boy laffer is that Phillips was shrewd enough to cast three terrific lead performers who, while well known to alt-comedy aficionados, don’t have the star wattage of Old School’s Luke Wilson, Will Ferrell, and Vince Vaughn. Cooper you may have seen as the jerk in Wedding Crashers; Helms you may remember from The Daily Show and The Office; Galifianakis you may have seen in those Web shorts where he wears a bouffant wig and stunt genitalia. Who knew that putting these three together, along with a baby, a tiger, a stolen police car, Mike Tyson, Heather Graham, and the cult Korean-American comic Ken Jeong, would result in the comedy of the year? Todd Phillips, that’s who.
Photographed in Los Angeles on December 22, 2009.
Vanity Fair Hollywood Portfolio, 2010 by Annie Leibovitz
The Beautiful People Tom Ford with Colin Firth and Julianne Moore
One film together: A Single Man (2009).
George Falconer is a gay Englishman transplanted to Los Angeles, but that only begins to describe his sense of dislocation. George’s lover has recently been killed in a car accident, and, since it is 1962, he cannot openly express his grief: it is the bereavement that dare not speak its name. Likewise, Christopher Isherwood’s novel A Single Man could not have become a movie in the year of its publication, 1964, but Ford—yes, that Tom Ford, he of the tinted aviators and easy homoeroticism—was the right man to bring it to the screen. Firth, magnificent as George, mopes elegantly in his skinny-lapel suit, his handsome, tensed face not quite concealing the inner battle between his self-pity and his self-assuredness. Moore, as George’s confidante, a sozzled divorcée named Charley, is a kohl-eyed period specimen of pre-feminist compromise: at once a pathetic mess and a (slightly wobbly) pillar of fortitude.
Photographed in New York City on December 7, 2009.
Vanity Fair Hollywood Portfolio, 2010 by Annie Leibovitz
The Hellions Quentin Tarantino with Christoph Waltz
One film together: Inglourious Basterds (2009).
From the raw material of an Italian-made late-70s Dirty Dozen knockoff called Quel Maledetto Treno Blindato (released as The Inglorious Bastards in the U.S.), Tarantino has whipped up his latest barmy bijou mashup: part World War II epic, part goofy Mike Myers comedy (literally—he’s in the movie), part grind-house gore-fest, part Eastwoodian revenge fantasy. The linchpin of this whole exercise—and the counterpoint to the film’s putative star, Brad Pitt—is the Vienna-born Waltz. As Colonel Hans Landa, he runs the gamut of cinematic Nazi-ness, from the cold menace of Ralph Fiennes in Schindler’s List to the high camp of Dick Shawn in The Producers. With his tight smile and pit-bull jawline, he bullies his way through his every scene, terrifying and electrifying. It’s the kind of performance that a prankster like Tarantino might call S-S-sen-sational.
Photographed in Los Angeles on December 14, 2009.
The Sarsenhaal family out for a walk. I sure do love this family. Maggie & Peter are two of my favourite celebs, their daughter is darling & whenever Jake is with them, they always look extra adorable.
Abbie Cornish, Kristen Stewart, Carey Mulligan, Amanda Seyfried, Rebecca Hall, Mia Wasikowska, Emma Stone, Anna Kendrick & Evan Rachel Wood - Vanity Fair Hollywood Issue by Annie Leibovitz, March 2010
It’s just so beautiful! I might faint. My smelling salts!
Sunday, January 31st 2010
Vanity Fair Hollywood Issue behind-the-scenes photos by Krista Smith
You wanna know what makes me happy? Looking at an apple cheeked red head smiling devilishly at a camera while sitting next to a prim brunette with excellent posture. Sweeney Todd & Judge Turpin were right, pretty women really are a wonder!
Vanity Fair Hollywood Issue behind-the-scenes photos by Krista Smith
Amanda looks like an impish little fetish dream come true in her ringlets & oxford saddle shoes. Between this & those pictures I found of her smooching on Julianne Moore in Chloe tonight, she’s my favourite person of the evening. No, that’s not true. Sir Lady Elton Gaga is still my favourite person, but Amanda’s the vision I’m taking to bed with me tonight.
Vanity Fair Hollywood Issue behind-the-scenes photos by Krista Smith
So happy that the final shot chosen for the cover has Kristen splayed out on the grass in front of the other ladies, it seems appropriate. The theme of the cover is so soft & inviting. I just have so many wonderful naughty thoughts swimming about in my depraved little mind. I am blissed.
Vanity Fair Hollywood Issue behind-the-scenes photos by Krista Smith
Abbie Cornish is so delightfully elegant. Look how prettily she’s posed while she applies her own makeup. Love Carey & Kristen’s poses too. I am so happy with this cover, fingers crossed that the portfolio is as gorgeous as the cover shoot & the inside shot of the cover ladies.
Vanity Fair Hollywood Issue behind-the-scenes photos by Krista Smith
Bunch of pretty ladies in a tidy little row. This is a gift, my friends.
Vanity Fair Hollywood Issue behind-the-scenes photos by Krista Smith
I am enjoying the shot of Evan Rachel Wood’s upper thighs very very much. Love the theme of this cover, lovely little school girls on an autumnal day. And then the inside picture? Dolled up debutantes. I approve! Vehemently.
