Lady Gaga's 2011 VMA

 

CHARLES SYKES/AP PHOTOLady Gaga's arrivals look

Lady Gaga took home the VMA's best dressed and worst dressed looks, often in the same outfit. The reigning queen of outre chic did not disappoint, with multiple outfit changes, including a full-on face mask of red lace, tightie whities, feathers, headgear, and the must-have accessory of the season, a bejeweled crutch.
Lady Gaga, who won best new artist at the awards ceremony Sunday (and dedicated the win to "God and the gays"), also poked fun at her image, arriving at the show with Kermit the Frog, a nod at her July appearance on German television wearing a top made of Kermit stuffed animals.
Though Kermit stayed inside the limo, Lady Gaga gave him a kiss. "He's been a really good date," she says. "It's our first date, but we've been eyeing each other for a while.". 

Lady Gaga hits the red carpet at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards at Radio City Music Hall.

 

Review: X-Men: First Class

X-Men: First Class
Dir. Matthew Vaughn
Year: 2011
Aus Rating: M
Running Time: 132mins

After The Last Stand and Wolverine failed to recapture the X-Men franchise’s excellence, Marvel have decided to go back in time and show us the groovy beginnings of what would eventually become the “X-Men”. Or, as the case may be, not so groovy. Set in 1962, men and women of all creeds have begun to develop super-human powers. As the changing tides of the world’s social and political landscape take hold, these so-called mutants must discover their place in the world. They must choose either good or evil.

Read the rest at Trespass Magazine
In the review I call this movie X-Men: Muppet Babies, X-Men: Groovy Mutants and X-Men: Born This Way amongst others. Lady Gaga is an unofficial sponsor of this movie, I'm sure of it!

Bound for Glory

Have you heard the new Lady Gaga song, "The Edge of Glory"? It's a good one, isn't it? I agree with everything Xolondon has said. It's her best vocal performance yet, a bonza saxophone solo (although, it must be said that Katy Perry got their first with trying to bring this particularly golden pop moment back with her Teenage Dream track "Last Friday Night (TGIF)") by Clarence Clemons of my beloved The E Street Band (and that amazing swivel synth just before it), those rock solid lyrics and just a general lack of unnecessarily excess that has been the downfall of "Born This Way" and "Judas" (songs I like, but flawed in different ways).


I love that sounds like a modern day remix of one of those amazing theme tunes from the soundtrack of classic 1980s movies. The brat pack movies would have killed for a tune like this and lord knows they had a couple of knock out tunes, didn't they?


"Don't You (Forget About Me) from The Breakfast Club | "St Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion)" from St Elmo's Fire
And, of course, those big anthemic pop rock classic theme tunes like these:


"Power of Love" from Back to the Future | "No Easy Way Out" from Rocky IV
Well done, Gaga. You've finally made another song that I have no issue with whatsoever ("Bad Romance" was quite smashing as well, wasn't it?). Hopefully the rest of Born This Way is more "The Edge of Glory" and less "Born This Way", yes? Yes!

Revisiting In Bed With Madonna: She Was Born That Way

So, apparently there's a bit of a hubbub happening about the new Lady Gaga song, "Born This Way" resembling Madonna's anthemic "Express Yourself". Far be it from me to defend Gaga - I've been known to diss her mediocre albums - but I don't really see it. Oh sure, there's slight similarity between the two in that they feature the same beat structure, but aren't most pop songs generally working off of the same blueprint? I can hear the similarity, but don't think there's cause to fuss. And, hey, if you're going to borrow a quote or two from another musician, why not Madonna? She's done it herself (Madge's "Hung Up" quotes her own "Love Song" from 1989), why not Lady Gaga?

And, from what I've heard of her Grammy appearance - cone bra extravaganza - she certainly knows what people are saying and is turning it into her own sort of weird performance.

There's more to fuss about once you get to the song's lyrics, but this isn't a Gaga entry; it's a Madonna entry. "Express Yourself", from Madonna's 1989 masterpiece album Like a Prayer, is one of her definitive tunes - it was then and it still is now - so it wasn't surprising that the track got the best production in her 1991 documentary In Bed with Madonna (aka Madonna: Truth or Dare), which followed the on stage and behind the scenes workings of her Blond Ambition Tour.

Everything from the set, lifted from her David Fincher-directed music video that was inspired by Metropolis, to the choreography (note, Madonna has never been much of a dancer) and the camerawork. Love the way the camera zooms out from behind the backup dancers at 0:00 of the below video, or the quite epic pose she pulls at 3:27. I could write an essay on why the moment at 4:00 with the hand flicks is one of my all time favourite movie moments.


I've spoken of my love for In Bed with Madonna before and, watching it again, it never dulls. The performance sequences are expertly exhibited and the rest is sharp as a tack. Madonna may not get much credit as an actress, but the greatest role she ever had was playing herself. If Lady Gaga doesn't have a camera following her around her next tour then she might actually be as crazy as people suspect. Perhaps she can call it In Eggshell with Lady Gaga? I haven't seen that new Justin Bieber documentary, but I have little doubt that it can match the sheer energy and audacity of In Bed with Madonna, which I would rank as the greatest celebrity documentary of all time.

Three more clips, one of the trailer and another of "Holiday" and "Vogue". Watching this movie again and I can't quite comprehend how it missed out on an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary and Best Editing. But, they also didn't nominate Paris is Burning in the same year so I think that branch had a collective stroke in 1991. Let's not even get started on 1994, okay?