Red Carpet SAG: Slinky Angie, Cute Emma, Winning Viola

Red Carpet Conversations continues on the road to Oscar night. The Critics Choice Awards fashions were like something out of easter but the Globes stepped it up with all the colors of the rainbow. Now we've reached the Screen Actors Guild Awards and Pajiba's Joanna has returned!

Joanna:  ‪wooo hoooo fashion‬

Nathaniel:  ‪Welcome back Joanna‬. So how is awards season treating you? You were sick yesterday when we were supposed to talk. Was it red carpet overload?

‬Joanna:  ‪There's only so many ruffles one girl can take.‬ 

Nathaniel:  ‪So we start on a sun-drenched field.

Lane, Wiig, Carpenter, King, and Mol

It was sunny at the SAGs and I'm not just talking about Jean Dujardin's disposition. Look at all the solar rays powering this first group.

 ‬Joanna:  ‪I love love love love love the sparkles on Jennifer Carpenter.  Also, the length.  It's not something you can wear to the Oscars, but is delightfully SAG worthy.‬

Nathaniel: ‪I think the dress is great but maybe not on her. There's something about the lines on the side (gorgeous) that resemble a jutting rib cage. So skinny that one. But I included her as a thank you for being the only good thing about Dexter anymore (done with that show)‬

Joanna:  ‪Oh, yes, our Deb is in need of a sandwich or two.  That's for sure.   Speaking of curves, I'm not usually a fan of frou-frou, but that purple number looks great on Regina King.  She looks very dishy.  Not quite Viola territory, but close.‬ 

Nathaniel:  ‪She is SAG's Social Media Ambassador so I want to click "like" on this‬.

Joanna:  ‪Is she? If I were an ambassador I would demand a sash.  A REALLY fancy sash with Twitter birds on it. ‬

Nathaniel:  ‪That's over capacity fo the red carpet.‬ 

Joanna:  ‪Speaking of accessories. I am not a fan of whatever it is Kristen Wiig has on her neck.‬ A choker? From Wet Seal?  It's competing with the neckline of her dress. 

Nathaniel: I can see that but independently I would digg it. I like that she doesn't try to soften her angularity much on the red carpet. She's got a bit of a dark side, yes?‬ 

Joanna:  ‪Are you saying you think she has handcuffs in that bag?‬ 

Nathaniel:  ‪Shhhhh. ‬No one must know.

 Joanna:  ‪Ugh, her date is so lucky.‬ Can we talk about Gretchen Mol who looks like the fanciest lady on the USS Enterprise? 

Nathaniel:  ‪Hee.‬  ‪I keep wanting not to like it but I totally do. Which is sort of how I have always reacted to Gretchen Mol. No one remembers this but Vanity Fair was trying to make her happen for the longest and I was like "does Conde Nast have stock in her career?" so I was suspicious but i almost always like her in things.‬ 

Whenever I see Diane Lane I think "movie star without the movies"‬

Joanna:  ‪Mol's fancy space collar looks itchy.‬ ‪Oh I remember her and "Vanity Fair"!  I always felt like Weinstein had his sticky fingers all over that situation.‬ But, speaking of Real Genuine Movie Stars, Angelina Jolie was back in her Cruella style. All slinky and drapey and eeeeeevil. 

MUCH MORE AFTER THE JUMP

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Rose is Sad; Rose is Comedy

Robert (author of Distant Relatives) here, pondering why Rose Byrne is always so sad. Have you noticed this? Which is why I was shocked to see her show up in the ensemble comedic cast of Bridesmaids. Now from what I hear Ms. Byrne is something of the straight man of the group. Most of the buzz for this film is falling in the laps of Maya Rudolph and especially Kristen Wiig, the lead, as it should be.

But still, as long as we're talking about whether this film can put to rest the notion that women can't be raunchy funny, can we also put to rest the typcasting rut that too many particularly good actresses fall into. If anything it would make Rose Byrne less sad.

Rose Byrne in Insidious, "Damages", Knowing, 28 Weeks Later, Sunshine, The Dead Girl

Yes, No, Maybe So: "X-Men: First Class"

The trailer has arrived.

Travel back in time with me to the late 70s. Yes, I know the movie we're about to discuss takes place in the early 60s. But I wasn't alive yet and neither were many of you. Wee Nathaniel was alive in the 1970s (shut up!). Jump forward to Christmas 1979. In Nathaniel's Christmas stocking, the greatest gift he'd known until that time: The Uncanny X-Men #129. He tore through the pages, died right on the spot from joy and went to heaven. The End.

The point is this: no matter how many bad superhero movies may come, no matter how glutted the superhero genre becomes at the movies, no matter how many bad X-Movies arrive (Hi, X-Men 3 and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. You suck!) Nathaniel will always be susceptible to Charles Xavier and the School For Gifted Youngsters. He will always hope that the movies will ever capture the magic of those first comic books. He will always be glad that Bryan Singer's X-2 (the second or third best superhero movie ever made) nearly managed it in a few scenes.

To this point the X-Men movie series has ignored The Hellfire Club, who were all introduced in this very (personally sacred) issue that changed my young life. I was a junkie thereafter for mutants, comic books, and spectacularly-bodied superheroines like Storm & Phoenix and spectacularly-bodied ice queens like Emma Frost, The White Queen. Kitty Pryde was also introduced in this movie but she was only 13. (Even then I preferred the older ladies. Storm and Phoenix were probably only 20 or something but to me that was ADULT. anyway.... reign it in. geezus!

This time the movies are going there, Emma Frost (January Jones) and all.

X-Men: First Class trailer and further anxiety after the jump! Wheeeee

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