The 'Boss' returns, for better and worse
Steve Johnson Tribune reporter 
Meet the new "Boss," almost the same as the old "Boss." This works without qualification as a line in a Who song about teenage rebellion. Applied to the TV series about the autocratic Chicago ruler played by Kelsey Grammer, it is both good and bad.
It's good because the show, in the second season beginning Friday, retains its satisfying dramatic heft, its accumulation of dark shadows and portent as Grammer's Mayor Thomas Kane grapples with a disease he is trying to hide and a legacy he wants to burnish.
It's bad because at times in its debut season, and early on in the new one, the show has swooned over its own naughtiness: the stand-up assignations in public hallways, the cartoonishly heavy-handed retribution dealt to political turncoats.
Chicago politics are a dark and slimy place, "Boss." We get that. Hell, we live that. But a gubernatorial candidate and a mayor's aide in the lobby of a downtown hotel? An ear chopped off to teach a lesson, like the twisted whim of a child king?
"Boss" presents one of those rare circumstances where the freedom of pay cable — it's from Starz, one of the also-ran movie channels — might be impeding, rather than enriching, the storytelling.
Any admirer of the female form will appreciate Kitty O'Neil (Kathleen Robertson) assessing herself, all of herself, in the mirror in the new season's first episode (8 p.m.). And the dramatic case is clear: She's pregnant, tossed out of the Kane administration, retreated to her childhood home, vulnerable.
But the nudity feels like an intrusion, a sudden change of tone from stately to tawdry, from "All the King's Men" to "American Psycho."
Fortunately, such moments are fleeting in the first three episodes, and Grammer, it perhaps goes without saying, does not have an equivalent moment of corporeal revelation.
What he does have is a new reality to contend with, 20 years into a rule that he achieved in part by marrying, lovelessly, the daughter (Connie Nielsen) of a previous mayor. Season 1, shot with real vision in Chicago, was about things crumbling around Kane, beginning with the diagnosis of a degenerative brain disorder.
O'Neil, his longtime aide, betrayed him. So, it turned out, did Ezra Stone, his even longer-serving senior adviser. The press, embodied by crusading editor Sam Miller, was sniffing around at Kane dealings, past and present. His estranged daughter (Hannah Ware) was dating a gangbanger, maybe using drugs again, while his wife was working her own schemes.
Yet slowly, and with stunning ruthlessness, Kane regained control. His doctor, the woman who knew too much, was forced out of town. The mayor had his daughter arrested to prove how tough he could be. Bodies fell, figuratively and literally. And in the end, Kane, played by Grammer with a spellbinding, brooding force that will surprise those who think of him only as Frasier, was back in command. But of what?
Now, in Season 2, he has to rebuild his team, which leads to new aides joining his staff: a young, eager type (Jonathan Groff) and a competent veteran (Sanaa Lathan) whom he hires away from a black alderman, his chief rival on the City Council, after a superbly choreographed floor fight over a vote on shutting down a public housing project.
Such atmospherics are, once again, spot on. The talk of O'Hare expansion. The conversation held on the Frank Gehry bridge east of Millennium Park. The newspaper reporter who says, in an echo of recent Chicago reality, "No one cares and no one reads. … They know he's corrupt. They don't give a" care.
Creator and executive producer Farhad Safinia, with Dee Johnson ("The Good Wife") brought on as showrunner, oversee a series that is shot beautifully, depicting a city both muscular and tired. Even their minor characters resonate, especially, in Season 2, Maggie Zajac (Nicole Forester), who saw her husband become Kane's protege choice for governor and now is the first to realize the mayor has abandoned him.
And the writing is potent, but with an elegance: "Conflict. Entanglement. Moves. You've just described my job," Kane says at one point. At another, he inveighs against "the Oxford comma," the rare municipal official who has an opinion about a heated debate in copy-editing circles.
"Boss" is, in other words, not shy about its artistic pretensions, but it also, most of the time, justifies them. Hallucinations, for example, are a side effect of Kane's condition, but the snakes and dead people he sees mostly illuminate his predicament, something that can rarely be said about imagination rendered on film.
But what's really compelling in the new season is that Kane, his physical condition worsening, seems to have decided that now, after all that has come before, he wants to do some real good.
His impatience with process is palpable, his interpersonal dealings blunt. The gubernatorial race going on as a backdrop — an increasingly complex and interesting one, by the way — doesn't seem so important to Kane anymore.
So he sides with his new African-American aide and, daringly, tosses aside downtown business interests in the awarding of a contract. "Greed stops here," he says in the speech announcing the news. "Spring has come to Chicago."
And then we see that this man is, perhaps, not wholly ready for reform. He's had cameras installed in the home of the aide, eavesdropping on her family dinner conversation. He may want to change, but he needs to know loyalty is not another hallucination.
'Boss'
8 p.m. Friday, Starz
Talking About Office Romance with Kathleen Robertson
By Mark Svartz
If anyone knows about workplace trysts, it's Kathleen Robertson, who plays the extremely personal personal aide on Starz's extremely excellent Boss, which returns this Friday. Also, she is an actor, and actors are apparently always sleeping with their coworkers. So I talked to her about that and quite a bit more.MARK SVARTZ: Have you ever worked in a traditional office environment?
KATHLEEN ROBERTSON: No, never have. I've been an actor my entire life. But I have worked "regular" jobs in high school. I worked at a place called the It Store, which was basically a joke shop. I also worked at a place called the High School Cafe, which was a bar for teenagers before you could go to an actual bar, so it was done up like a bar, but instead we served root beer. And I didn't last very long at either one.
MS: I don't know how long you really want to last at the It Store.
KR: Yeah, they were weird jobs.
MS: Did you end up having any jobsite romances during those summers?
KR: No, definitely not. But even though a movie or TV set isn't the typical office environment, whatever would be a normal sort of office crush, on a movie set, is always completely heightened, because everybody's living out of a suitcase and plunked down in a random small town — places like New Mexico or Bulgaria. So there's always these set relationships that pop up.
MS: Who's getting down?
KR: It's usually the lead actress with a grip. That's a very common one. And it's usually the cute female makeup artist with the lead actor. That's always the most common "office relationship" on a movie set. I've always been terrified about it, though. I've never gone there, because I'm very private, and I'd be worried of everybody knowing my business.
MS: I figure Hollywood must be readymade for work romance.
KR: Oh, one-hundred percent.
MS: Some industries are suited for it, and some aren't. The music industry seems pretty natural. Working at a church, less so.
KR: It's tailor-made for that. Especially for actors, because you're being given permission to not only flirt, but people have to kiss and do lots of other sorts of things. It's part of your job.
MS: When everyone is beautiful, and you're being directed to get naked and go to town, it's a little more conducive than, say, the plumbing industry, even though plumbers are popular porn characters.
KR: Any time I ever have to do any steamy scenes like that, I always look at the actor before or after the first take, and I say, "Weirdest job in the world." The guy is often on the ground doing pushups before the first take, hoping that it'll pump his chest up just a tiny bit more on camera, and I'm standing there in a bathrobe thinking, Oh my God, what am I doing here?
MS: I think office romances are pretty natural, especially in America, because we work so many hours. We spend more time at work than at home. Probably the same reason everyone gets together in high school and prison.
KR: Yeah. Where else do you have a chance to meet anyone — at a bar? Unless you meet someone in school, once you start your career, that's who you spend time with. I guess a ton of people I know do online dating, which I can't even imagine doing personally, but I don't hold it against anyone. If it works, it works. But the natural pool of people you're looking at are the people you're with every day at work. Unless you're working at the It Store, in which case, I'd advise against it.
MS: I have friends who work at ad agencies where the hours are so intense, inter-office dating is kind of unofficially officially encouraged.
KR: Oh, that's interesting.
MS: It's just convenient. Even though it's often frowned upon, at the end of the day, I don't see how office romances are that bad of a thing.
KR: Absolutely. I mean, if it's an affair, that's a whole other thing. But if you're both single, go for it. Like I said, even though it's common on a movie set, people still keep it pretty secretive, because even in this day and age, it's not something considered appropriate. That's why, for us, at the wrap party after filming — that's when you can see who's gotten together on the job. That's when they finally allow each other to hold hands and kiss, and everyone's like, "Oh my God, are you two together?" There's always the chance that certain bosses will disapprove and say that it'll get in the way of your performance, and they want your total focus on the job. It makes sense.
MS: But what's the worst that could happen? It's not like we're talking about dating on a nuclear sub.
KR: Right. You would hope that coworkers who are dating can act professionally. But then again, some people can handle it, and some people can't. And those who can't kind of ruin it for the rest of us. Sometimes it's hard to be around an office relationship that went sour. When two actors have to be onscreen together, it can get really, really awful.
MS: Have you been on a set when two people were dealing with a romantic conflict?
KR: Many times. I will not name names, but I did a movie with an actor who was my love interest in the film, and he was dating one of the ADs... We were on location, and they met and they were wildly in love and everyone knew it. It was this big secret, and they broke up halfway through the movie, and it was awful. I mean, you could hear them in the trailer screaming, and she would then come out and be like, "Okay, we're ready for you on set" — trying to manage this movie while dealing with this huge breakup. It was a nightmare. Everybody was ticked off, because it really did affect the energy and feel of being on that set.
MS: I guess the good thing about being professional actors is that, if anyone can hide it, it's you guys.
KR: It's why we get paid.
MS: In most professions, another concern about office romances is the potential for sexual harassment lawsuits.
KR: On movie sets, they always have a crew meeting about that, but I'm sure they do that in most offices, right?
MS: Definitely. But it must be tough to have a fling at a law firm, because everyone's got those statutes memorized.
KR: Everyone knows what you can or cannot do, down to the letter.
MS: If you loosened your necktie in a conference room while licking your lips, according to California v. Jenkins...
KR: Totally not allowed!
MS: I read somewhere about how there's often an overnight room in hospitals where surgeons and residents will sneak off to when they really want to play doctor.
KR: No kidding.
MS: It's weird to think of brain surgeons having office flings. Though I wonder how many people actually choose their profession based on the potential for office affairs.
KR: That would be sad, if that's what determined your career.
MS: But you know there are hedge-funders who went into to get rich and get women. If they had been smart, they could've skipped the MBA and gone into fashion or cosmetics and been surrounded by lovely female coworkers.
KR: There are plenty of people who do that. Straight hairdressers.
MS: Being that you're in a political drama with plenty of office affairs, I have to ask: If you were a White House intern and could have a fling with any U.S. president, past or present, who would you choose?
KR: None. Never! I would never be that stupid. I'm a good girl. I'd never go there.
MS: Really? How cool would it be to have Abraham Lincoln as a notch on your bedpost? KR: None for me.
MS: I'll have to chalk that up to you being Canadian.
KR: Exactly. Let's go with that.
Will Sanaa Lathan and Kelsey Grammer Hook Up in ‘Boss’?
Season 2 of the Starz original series “Boss” premieres Friday with new cast member Sanaa Lathan bringing all kinds of fresh challenges to Kelsey Grammer’s manipulative mayor of Chicago, Tom Kane.As previously reported, Lathan plays Mona Fredricks, a principled political adviser who eventually becomes Kane’s Chief of Staff.
“Mona is a very smart, politically savvy woman who grew up on the South Side of Chicago,” Lathan told us at the recent TCA press tour. “She grew up in a community that was very disenfranchised, and I believe that she pursued politics to be an advocate for those people in that community.”
Throughout the season, Mona supports residents of a housing project called Lennox Gardens (think Cabrini Green). “She’s really concerned about the community there and wants to make sure that they’re not abandoned,” said Lathan. “And I think Kane is really the only one who can do something about it, so when she has the opportunity to work with him, she takes it.”
As for any sparks flying between Mona and the mayor, Lathan warns, “It’s really about the community. It’s not really about her admiration or devotion with him.
But…
“He takes a little bit more interest in me than is political,” she admits. “You will have to watch and see what happens.”
In an upcoming episode, Mona goes back to Lennox Gardens, where Kane believes she has a lot of influence, only to find out that the residents there no longer trust her. The scene was shot inside of Chicago’s real Cabrini Green housing projects. Below, both Kelsey and Sanaa describe what it was like to film there, and what the residents thought of Hollywood coming into their neighborhood.
“Boss” season 2 premieres Friday, Aug. 17 at 8 p.m.
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FILM OF THE WEEK : Compliance
by Vadim Rizov
In April, ten Portland youths performed a quick hit-and-run clothing raid on a Nordstrom's, collaring six jackets in under two minutes. One employee's comment board response (recorded, unfortunately, by racist website WND.com, but of note despite the source) spoke volumes about minimum-wage morale. "I have to wonder why you think that we care?" wrote Nordstorm's employee Jacob Handleman. "Things like this make work more interesting and I hold no ill-will toward anyone in this group. Our security personnel spend more time concerned with employees than clientele."
Craig Zobel's second feature Compliance considers a particularly dire case of employees turning on each other in a quest for status. It's a scrupulously fact-based dramatization of the infamous "strip search prank call," the 2004 climax (an arrest followed shortly) to over 70 such incidents. A male impersonating a police officer called a small-town McDonald's and convinced the assistant manager a cashier had stolen money from a customer. What exactly was said to convince the manager to strip search the blameless employee, then leave her naked and shivering for three and a half hours (under the supervision of males directed to perform acts of sexual humiliation and assault) is not on public record.
Zobel's dialogue suggests some possible motivations. Manager Sandra (Ann Dowd) has more responsibility than her largely teenaged crew, but presumably not much more compensation. Since there's no credible way to motivate them, she addresses them like underperforming elementary school kids ("Kevin, get off the counter"). When "Officer Daniels" (Pat Healy, a Ghostface-ish voice offscreen eventually shown at home) calls in with a description (blond, female, about 19) that could find a match in almost any fast food joint, Sandra matches the amorphous prompt with Becky (Dreama Walker).
Daniels offer the illusion of choice: Becky can submit to a strip-search while his men search her house, or she can come downtown and presumably spend the night in jail. "Ma'am? Ma'am?" Daniels says with scrupulous faux-politeness when Sandra demurs. "I need you to do me a favor and calm down, OK?" He verbally rewards Sandra's zombie amenability with his strip-search instructions, praising her as "very professional." (In contrast, he asks if Kevin is "disobedient and unprofessional," as if the two were synonyms.)
Making his requests plausible isn't hard: cooperative Sandra understands that anything's justified when (other people's) money is involved. With legal authority added to her formerly figurehead position, Sandra feels free to be nasty to Becky, who mocked her earlier for using the term "sexting" in an ill-advised attempt at manager-underling bonding. She condescendingly explains the obvious ("We can't have employees stealing from a customer, you know?") and snaps "Why are you talking to me? Can't you see I'm on the phone?" when Becky asks, after a few hours have passed, if she can have her clothes back. Daniels is building up to getting some sexual kicks, but he equally enjoys bringing the petty tyrant worst out of Sandra.
Zobel's first feature Great World of Sound examined how businesses treat both workers and customers poorly, focusing on two debt-ridden salesman (Healy again and real-life preacher Kene Holliday) whose best job option was fleecing credulous aspiring musicians by forcing them to pay to have their unreleasable songs "professionally recorded" and brought to market. Compliance removes customers from the dynamic, leaving powerless employees to turn on each other, no upper management presence required.
Sandra's the narrative focus, while Becky's mostly a martyr: a massive, Passion of Joan of Arc close-up focuses on her near-tears face against the blinding light through a mirror. But Sandra feels she was the real victim, telling a TV interviewer she felt she did "what anybody would do." Filmed largely in dispiriting widescreen close-ups by Adam Stone (DP on Take Shelter and Shotgun Stories), there's one heartbreaking visual highlight when Sandra's ordered to take Becky's clothes out to her car for "safekeeping." Like a Gerry outtake, she marches to her grimy, dust-covered 2000 Subaru, leaves the clothes and throws out a dirty disposable cup sitting on the seat. She's trying to impress someone who isn't even visible, and the camera follows her every mournful trudge. At this moment, Sandra's the victim of a total theft of self-respect: how and why she becomes, however briefly, the oppressor is convincingly argued by Zobel's vital dissection of the near-lowest rung of the American service industry ladder. REVIEW – COMPLIANCE
Courtney Howard
When someone in a position of power tells you to do something, you do it. Right? Even if it goes against our beliefs, most of us wouldn’t think to question it. According to the Milgram experiment – a psychological study conducted in 1963 which measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience – 65% of people blindly went along with it. Based on true events, writer-director Craig Zobel’s COMPLIANCE plays around with this notion of implicit trust and obedience like a cat plays with a ball of yarn. It’s an intense, physiologically taut thriller that will have you on the edge of your seat and talking back to the screen. 
What begins as a typical busy day at the fictional fast-food restaurant ChickWich ends in an appalling nightmare of epic proportions. Stressed-out branch manager Sandra (Ann Dowd) is awaiting the arrival of franchise control and she’s started her day off with a crisis: They are out of pickles and the bacon supply is dwindling. Little does she know this won’t be the worst crisis she faces today. She’s instructed her employees – who include counter clerk Becky (Dreama Walker), employee Kevin (Philip Ettinger) and assistant manager Marti (Ashlie Atkinson) – that everyone is to be on their best behavior and to do things “by the book.” By this defining and subtle character trait, she will make for an easy mark. Soon after opening, Sandra receives a phone call from a Police Officer Daniels (Pat Healy) saying that Becky has stolen money out of a customer’s purse. The authoritative officer tells Sandra to pull Becky off the floor and interrogate her. Convinced she’s just doing what’s right, and not trusting her employee (could there be residual hatred there, perhaps?), Sandra follows the officer’s step-by-step instructions – no matter how invasive (and ludicrous) they become.
What makes COMPLIANCE a phenomenal film is its ability to take a fairly simple subject and turn it into a complex, haunting, and – best of all – relatable nightmare. The story goes beyond what you may have read about in the papers and spins it into a layered, riveting, and compelling masterpiece. How many of us are so distracted that we too wouldn’t go along with this? What happens when we are accused of a crime we didn’t commit? What’s your fight or flight response? Zobel’s sterile, matter-of-fact direction helps build tension at a steady pace. He and editor Jane Rizzo brilliantly interweave and juxtapose the stresses of what’s going on in the break room with the relative calm of the restaurant floor (which if you think about it, are usually the opposite in real life). Shots linger the perfect amount of time to catch all of the actors’ nuances and let the impact of the scene sink in. Pivotal moments are allowed breathing room and never overstay their welcome.
Not only are the direction and editing top-notch, the cast is amazing. Walker turns a refined and understated performance. You can see the moment when Becky loses her innocence (all done in a blessedly not over-the-top manner). Even though he’s been cast as the stereotypical villain, Healy with his soft, soothing voice is anything but. He’s played as just a normal, friendly guy who’s unaffected by the mental anguish he’s inflicting. It’s terrifying to think that this guy can be “your average Joe.” But who really steals the show is Dowd. Even when she doing the most abhorrent things, audiences will still identify with her struggles. You may be disappointed in her willingness to blindly follow orders, but you are constantly transfixed on her reactions.
There’s precious little to complain about here which makes this a must see cinematic experience.
COMPLIANCE opens in New York on August 17 and at the Nuart Theatre in West Los Angeles on August 24.
Lengthy interview with Compliance's Craig Zobel (very geeky dude), Dreama Walker and Pat Healy
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Joy Bryant Wins The Role Demi Moore Played In ‘About Last Night’
Parenthood’s Joy Bryant has won the female lead in the currently untitled Screen Gems’ romantic comedy that is based on the David Mamet play Sexual Perversity In Chicago, which was turned into the film About Last Night. Bryant will join Michael Ealy (in the role originated by Rob Lowe), Kevin Hart (in the Jim Belushi role), and Regina Hall (in the Elizabeth Perkins role). Steve Pink is directing a script by Bachelorette‘s Leslye Headland, and production will begin on September 17, with Will Gluck and Will Packer. They are in the process of retitling the film, which is closer in spirit to Mamet’s play than About Last Night, but which will take place in Los Angeles and not the Chicago setting of the play and first film.
“Since I first saw her in Antwone Fisher, I could tell she was going to be a movie star, and I’ve offered her several things that didn’t work out for one reason another,” said Screen Gems president Clint Culpepper. “Finally, it looks like this is going to work out because the Parenthood line producer and creator have given us warm assurances they will move mountains to make this possible for her. I really believe this will be the one that makes her a movie star. This girl is funny, smart, gorgeous and a good actress and I am excited to be delivering the role that I know she will knock out of the park.” Bryant’s repped by KillerMoxie Management.* They going with someone quite comfortable with nude scenes rather than a first timer. Anyway I expect the sex and nudity to be all vanilla.
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'Fifty Shades of Grey' Movie: Shailene Woodley Is E.L. James' Anastasia Steele?
by Aida EkbergThe young star certainly seems like a solid choice since she caught the eye of critics by working with George Clooney and Alexander Payne in the Oscar-nominated movie The Descendants (she played the daughter of Clooney's character). The 20-year-old's other claim to fame is
starring on the TV series The Secret Life of the American Teenager, which does feature a lot of plots involving sex (but no hardcore BDSM, of course).In her upcoming movie The Spectacular Now, she'll also be playing a teen. So is she ready to grow up by playing a college student who catches the eye of a billionaire businessman that wants to make her his sex slave? Perhaps not, but she could have a big edge over the other actresses dreaming of winning the part in the 50 Shades of Grey movie—she's reportedly one of E.L. James' choices.
The Hollywood Reporter recently did a list of actors and actresses on the cusp of stardom, and at the very bottom of the article, there was this little blurb:
"Shailene Woodley demonstrated her acting chops in the Oscar-nominated The Descendants and is said to have caught the eye of Fifty Shades of Grey author E.L. James."
* While I'm fairly certain Shailene will perform nude scenes in near future it's unlikely she will accept the racy lead role so quick into her burgeoning movie career. Her agent will be against it for one; recognizing Shailene is still way too young and perhaps will advise her to wait until she is in mid-20's before disrobing all the way on-cam. But I'm positive we'll see Shailene tits in couple of years. She is working with Gregg Araki in White Bird.
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22 Reasons to Love Jennifer Lawrence on Her 22nd Birthday
By Adam Wenger
Jennifer Lawrence turned 22 today, and the young star has plenty of reasons to celebrate. She's beautiful, amazingly talented, and one of Hollywood's fastest rising stars.
But that's not all Lawrence has going for her. In fact, there's so much to love about the Hunger Games star, we've decided to lay out 22 reasons in honor of her big day. So without further ado:
1. She's from Louisville, Kentucky - Lawrence's success proves the city offers more than the Kentucky Derby, baseball bats, and Papa John's Pizza. And that's a very good thing.
2. She's blonde, and smart - She graduated high school with a 3.9 GPA.
3. She's been in a music video
4. She wasn't afraid to star in a movie (The Beaver) with Mel Gibson - That takes nerve.
5. She likes comic books - In 2011, she starred as shape-shifter Mystique in X-Men: First Class.
6. She can shoot a bow and arrow - Her role as Katniss in The Hunger Games required her to become an expert archer.
7. She can climb trees - (see above)
8. She can skin a squirrel - In Winter's Bone, her character skins and eats a squirrel for dinner. Really.
9. She's the highest grossing action heroine ever - Thanks to The Hunger Games' $684 million world-wide box office haul.
10. She proves that women can carry blockbusters - Hunger Games is currently the second highest-grossing film of the year.
11. She's avoided the pigeonhole - By the end of 2012, she'll have starred in an action film (Hunger Games), horror flick (House at the End of the Street), and a comedy-drama (The Silver Linings Playbook).
12. She cares for children - She used to serve as an assistant nurse at her mother's summer day camp.
13. She's comfortable being a sex symbol - “It feels weird. But not bad at all," she told Flare magazine.
14. She's incredibly humble - She admitted to Jimmy Fallon that she's uncomfortable flying first class.
15. She's totally candid and honest with her body - "I hate saying, 'I like exercising.' I want to punch people who say that in the face," she told Glamour.
16. She's happy to show some skin - After posing for a sexy spread with Esquire, Lawrence told the LA Times: "Honestly, that photo shoot is what helped me get [X-Men: First Class].
17. She has amazing eyes - Lawrence landed on the "Victoria's Secret What Is Sexy?" list this year, scoring the honor of "Sexiest Eyes."
18. She plays guitar - Thanks, IMDb!
19. She can chop wood - Another skill she needed to learn for her role in Winter's Bone.
20. She doesn't envy other stars - "I look at Kristen Stewart now and I think, 'I'd never want to be that famous,'" she told Glamour UK magazine before all the unpleasant business surrounding KStew's now infamous dalliance.
21. She holds made-up world records - "I'm the fastest pee-er ever," she told Rolling Stone.
22. This -
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Peter Lindbergh: The Naked Truth
"Naked Truth" is another beautiful photoshoot from the legendary German photographer Peter Lindbergh for Vogue Germany June 2012. In this series, Lindbergh photographed eleven well-known women unadorned, makeup-free and unadulterated by Photoshop, just their pure, natural beauty.
" I try to be truthful in my work. There are no short cuts -- if you set out with the intention of making people ugly to achieve a powerful photograph it is a fake. On the other hand beauty cannot be 'done'. Again I come back to this nebulous word 'truth': perhaps more than anything it is trying to explain something truthful about yourself and about your perception of the way the woman sees herself. "
" I try to be truthful in my work. There are no short cuts -- if you set out with the intention of making people ugly to achieve a powerful photograph it is a fake. On the other hand beauty cannot be 'done'. Again I come back to this nebulous word 'truth': perhaps more than anything it is trying to explain something truthful about yourself and about your perception of the way the woman sees herself. "
Model Nadja Auermann
Model Toni Garrn
Polish actress Karina Krawczyk
Model Hanna Wähmer
Photographer Donata Wenders (Wim Wenders' wife)
Editor in chief Christiane Arp
Actress Nina Hoss
Model Katrin Thormann
Model Luca Gajdus
Model Jana Drews
Model Julia Stegner
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Cassie TOPLESS Aboard A Yacht With Diddy!
by Natasha
View the uncensored pics at your own risk...
The ridiculously gorgeous Cassie just reminded everyone of why Diddy likes to keep her in his pocket.
The "King of Hearts" singer ixnayed the tan lines and pranced around the yacht looking hot and topless while laying out on the deck. Diddy was spotted rubbing sun tan lotion on her back before they changed clothes and headed out to lunch on land via a small boat.
And Cass even landed an ass grab.
Will we see Diddy taking his baby moms Kim Porter on a similar trip in a few weeks? It's not like that hasn't happened before...
BONUS: Cassie and Diddy recently Instagramed their matching Capri views:
Must be nice...
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Lone Star Cinema: Logan's Run
By Don Clinchy
And on a related note: Those who cannot remember bad Seventies sci-fi movies are condemned to remake them. Alas, humanity has not learned this lesson, for a Logan's Run remake is in the works.
To be fair, there are far worse ways to kill a couple of hours than watching Logan's Run. Released in 1976, the Texas-made film is mostly schlock, a cheese-smothered exercise in ridiculous, clichéd sci-fi silliness. But in its better moments, it's highly entertaining silliness. And when viewed through the lens of cinematic history, Logan's Run serves as a great primer in the look and feel of Seventies sci-fi filmmaking, one that begs the question What were they thinking?
The central premise of Logan's Run is that in the 23rd century, civilization has been mostly destroyed. Surviving humans live idyllic (if tightly regulated) lives in domed cities, with little work to do and many pleasures to be had. (This being a very Seventies vision of the future, most of these pleasures derive from commitment-free sex and drugs.) There is a nasty little catch, however: When people turn 30, they must be "renewed" in a public ceremony known as Carousel; actually, they're just incinerated.
Of course, not everyone buys into the whole renewal thing; those who try to escape this fate are known as "runners" and pursued by police known as "sandmen." Logan's Run's central characters are the titular Logan (Michael York), a heretical sandman who questions the morality of his job, and Jessica (Jenny Agutter), a would-be runner who belongs to a secret society that believes in a mythical place called Sanctuary, where people are free to live however they want for as long as they want. (Yes, they still can have sex and do drugs.)
Logan and Jessica eventually do run, escaping the city in search of Sanctuary and finding a beautiful, natural world unknown to almost everyone inside the dome. Logan's Run's second half -- which I found far more interesting (if no more logical) than the first -- follows Logan and Jessica as they experience the outside world, fall in love, meet a charmingly daft old man (Peter Ustinov) and must decide whether to return home and tell everyone there is more to life than hedonism and not having to worry about crow's feet or gray hair.
Of course, the more you think about all this, the less sense any of it makes. But Logan's Run isn't about logic or plausibility; it's mostly about futuristic sets, standard-issue form-fitting sci-fi costumes, chase scenes in which people blast each other with lasers, and occasional commentaries about the dangers of conformity and subservience to authority.
Oh, yeah -- Logan's Run also is about gratuitous nudity. And not just any gratuitous nudity; we're talking nudity so bizarrely gratuitous that it borders on being an in-joke about gratuitous nudity. The major female characters (including one played by Farrah Fawcett) wear ridiculous see-through costumes designed, it seems, to distract the audience from the dopey story and silly dialogue by showing us plenty of half-exposed buttocks and generous amounts of side-boob action. There is a requisite orgy scene, but of course (butt of course?). And in a couple of non-orgy scenes, the dialogue is carefully crafted to explain why the characters remove their clothes for no logical reason. (Speaking of nudity, I've seen Jenny Agutter partially or totally naked in more than a few Seventies films. Not that this is a bad thing -- but I can't help but think that by 1978 or so, she must have been awfully tired of shedding her clothes on camera.)
Nudity aside, Logan's Run is also notable for its horrid special effects, even by the era's standards. If the domed city looks like a model, it's because it is indeed a model, and not a very detailed one. The countless explosions and fireballs look laughably fake, and the outside world's ruined buildings look like painted backdrops. Many of the sets are no better; they look less futuristic than Seventies modern, as if much of the action takes place in the lobby of a nice Marriott or freshly built shopping mall. This is because the sets are, in fact, thinly disguised hotels, shopping malls and other public buildings, such as the cavernous Dallas Market Center.
(Out of fairness, I must mention that Logan's Run received Oscar nominations for Best Art Direction/Set Direction and Best Cinematography, and won a Special Achievement Award for visual effects. I'm completely mystified; many other sci-fi films of the era had far better production values. The best example is 2001: A Space Odyssey, which looked fantastic and was released eight years earlier.)
Despite my many complaints, I do recommend Logan's Run to fans of B-movie sci-fi and cinematic Texana. The film is full of obvious gaffes and begs laughter whenever it tries to be serious, but it never bored me. There also is some food for thought in what it says -- or at least tries to say -- about humanity's future. And of course, there is all that gratuitous nudity; maybe a return to the Seventies wouldn't be such a bad thing, after all.
Several DVD versions of Logan's Run are available, with various extra features; be sure the one you buy includes A Look into the 23rd Century, a nifty behind-the-scenes promotional featurette with cast and crew interviews. A Blu-ray version is available, but higher resolution is probably the last thing the special effects need. Save a few bucks and stick with the DVD.
Austin/Texas connections: Logan's Run was filmed in Dallas, Fort Worth, Arlington, Irving and Houston. Metroplex residents may recognize many settings, such as the Fort Worth Water Gardens and First National Bank Building in Dallas. Seventies pop-cultural icon Farrah Fawcett was born in Corpus Christi and attended The University of Texas at Austin.
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Miley Cyrus : The Marie Claire Photoshoot - September 2012 Issue
* That goddamn song always pop up in my head in auto-mode every time I catch a sight of Billy Ray Cyrus. For that crime against humanity Billy should tell his daughter to get naked in a movie or Playboy in order to balance things out. It may sound cruel but I'm not surprised his wife cheated on him. I'm just perplexed it took her so long. Imagine you have to listen to that tune in the house....in the kitchen....in the bedroom for nearly twenty years. No one.....even a pimp-my-own-daughter-out like Tish.....should ever go through that kind of hellish existence.
Personally I find Miley to be irritating and sorry for being so un-PC...I just want to punch her in the mouth. You know the phrase 'mature beyond her years' and Miley goes well together. But the constant toothy smile and grating persistent voice of hers will eventually bring down that boy wonder from down-under Liam. Don't be surprised if the poor guy commit suicide by breaking his own neck in attempting to suck his own cock (yep....lifted from one my favorite flicks ever) after just few months of marital 'bliss'.
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Video: Showtime's 'All Access: Ronda Rousey" second episode
Showtime debuted the second installment of the two-part "All Access: Ronda Rousey" series on Wednesday night.
The entire half-hour episode is now available for online viewing.
The follow-up to the well-received debut focuses on Rousey's photoshoot with "ESPN The Magazine's" Body Issue, including some accidental nudity and her arrival on the red carpet.
Check out the entire "All Access" episode above, which previews Saturday's title fight with Rousey (5-0 MMA, 3-0 SF) and former champ Sarah Kaufman (15-1 MMA, 6-1 SF).
You can also watch the entire first episode from this past week. Other speciality videos, including the "I Am a Fighter" series with Rousey and Kaufman, are available below.
Showtime also replays both "All Access" episodes ahead of Saturday's event beginning at 7 p.m. ET/PT on Showtime Extreme. Afterward, the "Strikeforce: Rousey vs. Kaufman" prelims begin on the channel (8 p.m. ET/PT), and then the main card shifts to Showtime and Showtime HD at 10 p.m. ET/PT.
* she is freaking out over an 'accidental' nippy shot more worried how her mom will react and soon to be immortalized on the net if it goes viral. Not strangers gawking at her nudity. Trust me....I'm talking from experience working with 'non-nude' models. At 11:39 Ronda talks about serious body issues so I'm kinda like understand why she posed 'nude'. Woman like Ronda needs constant validation and that's why I have great hopes for another girl with major body image issues: Jennifer Lawrence.
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Unrated: Cheetos Sex Scene | Dating Rules From My Future Self, Season 2
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The Day My Parents (and I) Found Out My Boobs Were on the Internet
Anonymous
We received an anonymous personal account this week from a woman who'd read about Reddit's "fusking" of private nude photographs that had been uploaded to PhotoBucket. The tipster had had a similar experience, only with a website we'd never heard of. PinkMeth.com (very NSFW), she wrote, had stolen nude photographs she'd never intended to be made public, and then—adding insult to a privacy breach she might never had known existed otherwise—linked to her Facebook profile so that her identity was matched to the embarrassment.
Here's her story:
One night about a month ago my mother called me, sounding distressed and mortified. "[We received] a very disturbing phone call," she told me. She proceeded to tell me a man, a complete stranger, had called and asked for me, after he'd seen my profile on a website called pinkmeth.com.Pink Meth's site has a submission form that seems to allow for the same kinds of vindictive entries that made Hunter Moore's now defunct Is Anyone Up so notorious last year. With a few basic (and easily bullshitted) pieces of personal information, anyone is free to submit anyone else's photos. The form also requires an example of "Internet Presence," though it's unclear whether or not it has to be connected to the submitter himself. There's also a key box to check at the end: "Person whose entry I'm submitting to Pinkmeth.com was at least 18 years old at the time when the content was produced."
There had been a snapshot of my Facebook profile page, featured prominently on this site. The man saw the town my parents were from and looked up their phone number online. He claimed he was acting as a "Good Samaritan" because his own girlfriend had lost her job after pinkmeth posted her naked photos and contact information online. He didn't want it to happen to anyone else.
I nearly died on the other end of the phone. How embarrassing, my parents had seen naked photos of me online, and wanted to know where they came from. I assured them I didn't put them up at all, ended the uncomfortable conversation, and hung up the phone. I immediately started panicking and looked at my featured page on the site. Sure enough, there I was, naked as a jaybird for anyone to see. As if that wasn't bad enough, someone had kindly taken a snapshot of my facebook front page, included a link, and also attached a link to my Google+ profile.
Even more annoying, the photos were from a private, password-protected photobucket account which I had created over five years ago and completely forgotten about. I had put the pictures up to share with my boyfriend. Whoops?
I immediately deleted my photobucket account, changed my full name on facebook (by this point, I already had a half dozen friend requests from weird guys all around the world...) and deleted my Google+ profile. Thank GOD they didn't find my LinkedIn account.
I emailed the site master asking him to take my content down. He replied, minutes later, "Nope!"
I started commenting on my pinkmeth "page" to try and inform other visitors that I did not approve of this content being online. My comments were promptly deleted and my page remained up.
I filed a DMCA complaint upon the suggestion of the man who called my parents, and sent a copy to the sitemaster. Nothing.
Since then, I've done research. I'm not the only one who's upset about this website. There are many other women who have taken similar action with the webmaster and had the same results as I have.
The site totally disgusts me. Not only did they steal MY photos, but they stole naked photos of me, and linked the photos to my personal information. I don't have a problem with an online presence, but being "presented" in this way makes me seem like I'm some type of easy, slutty woman—which I'm not. It calls negative attention to me. The photos were in an album I presumed to be private. I didn't intend on sharing them with the world, only with my boyfriend. It seemed easier than emailing them to him. And, since I don't frequently look at my photobucket (99 percent of my photos are on facebook), I completely forgot they were there until it was too late. I wish I had never put them online in the first place, but hindsight is 20/20.
A friend of mine emailed me the Reddit article about fusking and I realized I wasn't alone. At least, on that site, they kept the girl's private information off. I wasn't so lucky.
It's almost an afterthought.
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HK star Ron Ng denies sex romp with Malaysian actress Cathryn Lee
You got it.
Hong Kong heartthrob Ron Ng, 33, has denied cheating on his now ex-girlfriend, 25-year-old Chinese actress Viann Zhang, with two other women, including 26-year-old Malaysian actress Cathryn Lee, despite the media seeing evidence of their sex texts and photos, which Cathryn says were exposed without her knowledge-and now her manager has gone to the press with a story that Cathryn and Ron are not even friends anymore.
Hong Kong tabloid magazine 3-Weekly blew the entire messy affair out of the water recently when they confronted Ron about his alleged relationship with Cathryn, after she had apparently meet their reporters to confess that she had been dating Ron for six months since March this year, in an effort to secure her girlfriend status.
Ron denied knowing Cathryn at first, but when they decribed who she was, he finally admitted having met her before but insisted that they weren't an item.
The magazine then ran its story, which focussed on Cathryn's part in the sordid tale, including Ron's naked pictures and flirty messages to her mobile phone, and her reaction to his dismissal of their liaison.
"I've got nothing to say and I'm very disappointed with his response," the magazine quoted her saying. "We're only players in showbiz after all."
According to the article, Ron and Cathryn met when he was in Malaysia last year. (Our research shows that he was part of TVB's Be Charmed, Live In Malaysia 2011 Concert last October.) Ron claimed that he was single, when actually he was in a two-year relationship with Viann, and he starting seeing Cathryn in March this year.
The magazine said that Cathryn showed them proof of their relationship by revealing several sexy messages and hot photos that Ron sent to her phone, including one in which he's topless in bed and the text read, "When will you be in HK because I'm thinking of you", to which she replied, "Will you be free in July?" Ron then answered, "I'm free right now."
Last month, however, someone claiming to be Ron's missus contacted her on his WeChat-a Chinese phone text and voice messaging service-and wrote, "I'm Ron's wife. Who are you?" Shocked by the text, Cathryn replied, "You're crazy!" And when she confronted Ron about it, the article said that he insisted there was no one else but Cathryn.
This story gets even more soap opera-ish because after 3-Weekly ran its exposé, Cathryn posted a Facebook status update and denied being interviewed by the magazine. "I didn't reveal anything to the media. I can only say a friend had used me to gain personal benefits," she wrote.
However, her manager Jersey Chong has since confirmed the authenticity of the published sext exchanges. "They're real, but Cathryn didn't show them to the media. She suspects 'a friend' had forwarded the messages without her consent," Chong told Guang Ming Daily.
"Cathryn and Ron have been trading messages since they met last year. I believe they were attracted to each other but didn't officially date," added the manager.
Meanwhile, another media has reported that Ron and Viann split up last month, but that their break-up was caused by another woman and not Cathryn. The other woman also produced evidence of their illicit affair-the revelation of an intimate phone call in which he asks her to wear some pink knickers and tells her to send him her naked pictures.
HK media also got their hands on another phone conversation she recorded, this time of Viann confronting her about her relationship with Ron, which led to Viann dumping him after that.
* This is one dumb celeb. You don't maintain relationship with a groupie. You fuck her in the ass, praise her 'musical talents', buy her an expensive jewelry and move on. She is not even living in the same country as him! One of the best things about doing press junkets in foreign countries is availability of groupies and banging the shit out of em' without the troubles of paparazzi. You don't have to worry about your boyfriend/girlfriend finding out you been sticking your wee-wee in foreign objects. Mr.Ron here is stupid enough to juggle another girl as well.
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The Adult Industry Crash Is Hitting the Once Thriving San Francisco BDSM Business Just As Hard
Madame Katorga became a full-time dominatrix in the San Francisco area after cashing out as a dot-com executive at a startup during the first tech boom in the late ‘90s. A “high end” bondage practitioner, Kartorga’s clients at her East Bay dungeon come heavily from the tech world — older, “investor” types.With moneyed male workers currently flooding Silicon Valley and San Francisco, one might think that Katorga’s business would be booming. But no. Thanks to the unusually tight-knit, helpful community of sex workers around the Bay Area, Katorga frequently talks to people all over the spectrum of bondage and escort — and they all say the same thing. Even though the Bay Area is the center of another global tech boom, no one feels very bubbly.
“A lot of what I glean from my lady friends is that they are not feeling busier in a big way,” Katorga said. “The average clients are less stressed, but when another Euro crisis hits, people are afraid to spend again.”
San Francisco has been a town of booms and busts since the Gold Rush, an era that established Baghdad-by-the-Bay as a vice palace. “Nearly all these women at home were streetwalkers of the cheapest sort, but out here, for only a few minutes, they ask a hundred times as much as they were used to getting in Paris,” said one observer. In the ‘70s, S.F. was the porn industry: It was one of the few places were smut could be legally shown and distributed. According to scholars and industry workers, the first tech boom (as well as the years following the bust), were very kind to sex workers of all stripes, from web video pioneers to strippers.
But recent interviews with a number of sex workers in SF indicate that while the tech industry might have come back strong, libertine excess and Veuve in the champagne room didn’t come back with it: The sex bubble went flat a while back and hasn’t yet rediscovered its mojo. Technology has disrupted porn to the point of unprofitability; current tech culture looks down on strip clubs; even upper-echelon dungeon masters like Madame Katorga haven’t been able to boost their prices. It has been a decade, she said, since her rates went up.
What is it about the social web culture that makes sex less sexxxy? Experts say piracy, the rise of amateur porn and the availability of free online networking are all leading factors, but things seem to go deeper than that. The current wave of start-up entrepreneurs seems personally less interested in pushing social mores: sex used to drive commercial online innovation, but that’s not true any more. And skittish new tech workers, scarred by the economic collapses of the past few years, are not spending big, at least anecdotally, on sex.
According to Melinda Chateauvert, a professor at University of Maryland who is writing a book about the history of sex work in America, the relationship between sex and tech has never been static — and current data demonstrates the disrupting power (ugh) of the internet. Typically, she said that in a bad economy, more women — who comprise the bulk of sex workers — go into the sex industry. In the past, it has been seen as a way to make good money quickly.
“That was true in the 1930s, even in the recession of the 1950s, which people tend to forget,” she said. In the 2008 dip, though, she said that was not the case, perhaps because men were actually harder hit than women. Katorga’s experience confirms this: “People used to think that when the economy gets weak, this is a good business to get into. I don’t think that’s true any more.” Start-up costs are too high and there is too much competition from free services.
Another commonly held notion is that in a good economy, high-end goods always rise: “When there is money around, people spend money on luxury services and that is as true for hookers as dog walkers,” said Chateauvert.
But even at the high end, workers say that the current marketplace is only a little better than the previous few years —an uptick, not a wave. One key reason is that costs have risen disproportionately compared fees, for new spaces especially. “New spaces have quite a high overhead,” Katorga explained, noting that the expense of setting up a dungeon can run to $20,000. This is a problem because unlike the “Wild West” of the first tech boom, Katorga said that neither she nor her peers have been able to raise their kink rates for the last decade. “The economy is kind of a bludgeon on both sides — because guys are always hopeful that prices will go down,” she said.
This stands in sharp contrast to the heady times of the late ’90s tech boom. “The first one was when the internet became a way in which people met each other in serious way,” Katorga recalled. “There was an element of permissiveness, an element of excitement — suddenly, that stuff was not in the back of a seedy magazine, it was just out there.”
A former dancer at an S.F. strip club echoed those thoughts. “The golden age of stripping was the first tech boom,” she said. “The girls who worked there until around 2001 would be pissed if they didn’t take home $3,000 a shift. Now, I think they only get pissed if they make less than $1,000 a shift.”
It was also a different political time. “Eight years of liberal rule. It felt unregulated, unobserved — no one in Washington knew what was going on,” said Michael Stabile, a filmmaker and porn entrepreneur. “It you felt a little more like you were in on secret.”
According to Chateauvert, part of the reason S.F.’s sex scene bloomed in that time had to do with the big role porn and other vice services played in the tech boom in general — they were the early adopters. The first prostitution site popped up in 1994, the same year Playboy launched its website, which became the 11th most visited site on the Internet by 1997. And the promise of online video was seized on first by the porn industry, who managed to monetize “webcam girls” way before YouTube.
But profit didn’t happen overnight. Stabile, who worked at gay porn studio Naked Sword (a company that made Laura Croft game videos before looking for profits in porn) and creator of the “Wet Palms” series, said his porn career really took off after the dot com bust.
“The sex tech boom was 2004 to 2007, that was when things were really crazy. It was the equivalent of in the mainstream tech boom, companies that were overvalued,” he said. Many of the workers of the sex tech boom were refugees from the straight world: Porn was one of the few online businesses still making money. DVD sales were strong and porn stars like Jenna Jameson were the new celebrities, due in no small part to their huge online followings.
Web traffic was currency for sites looking to hook new customers. “There were so many crazy claims, ‘I can deliver you a million visitors,’ it was like buying drugs,” Stabile said. “I remember being at Internext, one of two big trade shows, in Florida at the Diplomat Hotel. I had a first generation iPhone and I remember being in a seminar on web traffic — how to get this magical stuff. I checked my phone and saw the stock market had plummeted. You could feel the sense of a bubble.”
Since then, other innovations have interrupted the sex world, both online and offline. Katorga pointed to the growth of online social networks, catering to every niche community imaginable, as a competitor to her business. If someone could log on to Fetish.Net, and find someone to administer a spanking for free, why would they pay for it? The whole professional porn industry is in crisis thanks to the availability of free amateur video sites. The excitement in the first tech boom around the possibilities of interconnectedness has now turned to a yawn.
Also, Katorga said that the culture around “no touch” sexual experiences — interacting (masturbating) with someone over video — has further damaged many sex workers’ business. Certainly, strip clubs are hurting thanks to the popularity of web cam: one local SF peepshow, the Lusty Lady, is approaching bankruptcy and making a last-ditch effort to incorporate video streaming into their website. How much revenue that will bring in remains uncertain.
And then there’s culture of the current tech boom. New York Times columnist Nick Bilton’s experience with caged tigers aside, many of the young tech workers coming to the city are living modestly. In a chat, Inspector Steven Ravelle of San Francisco Police Department said that he didn’t know of any link between the current tech boom and increased arrests for prostitution or other vice crimes, although he did say that technology had greatly changed the business mode of the world’s oldest profession: “Any level of prostitute has used the Internet at some point.” As one 2008 Ivy League grad working in IT told me, the experience of graduating into a recession was scarring — no one he knows goes to strip clubs for fun because they are constantly expecting layoffs. Tech CEOs might spend $15,000 on weekly get togethers but the tech workers pride themselves on productivity. The only growth sector that Katorga could point to were certain sites who do a “pay for play” model of a la carte porn, which serves those who don’t want to commit to pricey subscription plans.
Still, if any one can figure out how to make money from the current generation of tech millionaires, it would be sex workers. More than anything, Chateauvert said that the history of the sex industry is one of flexibility — both embracing and, at times, pioneering use of the technologies of the time. The classic example she cited was the growth in porn theaters during the ‘70s, an industry that went bankrupt when VHS and Beta made it possible to watch porn films in one’s homes. The porn industry obviously made the most out of that opportunity, shifting again to go online at the turn of the century. “That’s the dirty little secret,” she said, “The sex industry is usually the first one to figure out how to make money from new technology.”
Katorga hopes that she can start working with clients who value the efficiency of a professional relationship with a dominatrix over the amateur, social network experience. But she does admit to being worried about her dearth of new clients. “Do some young guys choose to play video games, jerk off to cheap porn and go to bed? Probably,” she said.
“I know a woman who’s been stripper for 17 years,” Katorga continued, noting that the woman “still looks amazing.” During dot com era, her friend made at least $5,000 a night. Now she’s lucky to make $500. “She does still make great money in certain places, like New Orleans,” she said, “but she can’t make shit here.”
