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Showing posts with label Renee Zellweger. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Renee Zellweger. Show all posts
Sunday, March 15, 2015
Wednesday, October 22, 2014
Why fuck up your face?
It's not just Renee Zellweger.
Actors do this to themselves, which for some reason is supposed to make it OK, or at least "more OK": "well, MEN do it too, you know!" "Oh. Yeah." End of discussion.
For, you see, if men do it too, it is now OKAY to mutilate your face. It has been justified. Go home now.
This bizarre beforeandafter belongs to Mickey Rourke, an actor I never much liked anyway, but he must have gone to Acapulco for his surgery. It just looks bad. He has that bizarre OMG look, that instant recognition that something awful has been done to his face. He does not look "young"; he merely looks weird.
This one is really sad. I've never been a Kenny Rogers fan (except for that "know when to hold them, know when to fold them" thing - who doesn't like that?), but this was just desperate, and shocking. He really pulled a Zellweger here, and went from a rugged silver-fox-type cow-dude to a sort of mincing hairdresser with a Bugs Bunny smile, a brow-lift and a weave. He doesn't look like ANYBODY, let alone Kenny Rogers. Renee at least looks - well, if not attractive, then at least doll-like in her new guise. She looks kind of like Renee Zellweger's distant cousin (who has had a lot of work done). As for Kenny, I wonder how he sees out of those things?. Maybe he can start a new career as a Kenny Rogers impersonator. That is, if anyone believes him.
Ah, um, her, uh, ugh. Barry Manilow.
Burt Reynolds, who no longer needs to buy a Halloween costume. He can go as Burt Reynolds and scare little children. Note how he never shows up in movies any more: I guess directors want their actors to look like they're alive.
It's slitty-eyes syndrome again. Women's eyes are pulled up slantwise (which is funny, because meanwhile Asian women are busy erasing every trace of their heritage from their faces), but for some reasons dudes' eyes are pulled sideways so aggressively that they can barely see. In this case, it looks as if his eyelids were simply removed.
Is there a "worst case" in this macabre house of wax? Yes, there is, and you're looking at it. Even on the left, he's had significant work done, especially around the eyes. But that wasn't enough. These guys never leave well enough alone, do they? They always go back for more. His eyes are now closer together than the Royal Family's, and have that disturbingly sunken look that makes me wonder if men aren't supposed to have eyes after a certain age. Cheek implants, chin implants, God knows what sort of other implants. When this monstrous freak walks out onto the stage in Vegas, the crowds scream with recognition, even though they don't have a clue who he is. But they've paid for Wayne Newton, so this must BE Wayne Newton.
But soft! What light from yonder window breaks? What former Shakespearian actor is this, what good Canadian boy, what Governer-General-Award recipient? This is the man who made a deal with the devil not to age. It has little or nothing to do with his face. He looks like a person. His face does not look messed-with at all. He has gained weight, but carries it so well it makes YOU want to gain weight too (well, not quite). He still sits a horse remarkably well at - Jesus, he's 83! He is 83 goddamn years old, and this past summer he was the Grand Marshall at the Calgary Stampede. The white hat looked pretty swell on him, too.
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You don't look at Shatner's face and think. "Work done." You don't look at Shatner's face and think, "Ewwww." You don't look at Shatner's face and think, "83". You think "65-ish, ruddy, virtually unlined, outdoorsman, in good shape. Healthy." His voice, his energy, his endless new projects (always a few going on at the same time) are so astonishing that we don't even see them any more.
Shatner went through several phases: his young manhood, which makes me want to kvell:
(and I don't know why exactly, but I want to jump on top of this young god with the 100% self-assurance)
. . . his Star-Trekkian phase, in which he was older and more conventionally handsome;
. . . his little-bit-obvious-hairpiece stage, soon to be replaced by transplants or something else more natural. . .
. . . but NEVER did he go through a "monster" stage like Kenny and Wayne and Mickey and all those other poor sods who were so afraid of the monstrosity of ageing that they ruined their faces.
He won't because "something" happened, he found the secret, the way to slow ageing down so much that it is barely perceptible. A deal with the devil? I've written about this before. The older he gets, the more ruddy-faced, the more of those Priceline ads he does, the more I love the guy. I love him because he is 83. I love him because he is fucking fantastic. I love him because he is the real deal.
Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book
It took me years to write, will you take a look
Order The Glass Character from:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7NGDA
Barnes & Noble
Thistledown Press
Just walk away, Renee: Ms. Zellweger's radical transformation
Now comes all the commentary, the kerfuffle, and if she needed to call attention to herself, this did it. Strangely, she will not admit to plastic surgery but claims she's just taking better care of herself and is more "relaxed".
What's really sad is the need to deny you've had any "work" done. It's all due to a "healthier lifestyle". But the healthiest lifestyle in the world wouldn't change you into a different person.
These strenuous denials are a veil over desperation, and this is not something Renee created herself. She wants to work, but paradoxically, I don't think her "new look" is going to land her parts. No one is going to know who the hell she is.
Nobody else has said this, because everyone is so busy saying, "Duhhh. . . does she look different?" There are screams and squawks from all over the planet because this is a "trending" story that has knocked terrorism out of the ballpark.. Half of them are horrified exclamations along the lines of "What has she done to herself?"; the other half are more like, "She looks fabulous! I like her so much better now. Leave the girl alone! She can do what she wants with her face." I've also heard "She looks different? Not to me she doesn't. It's just her makeup. She looks exactly the same."
Just so. But this just isn't Renee. What would it be like, I wonder, if every time you looked in the mirror you saw a different person? It's like those old film noir movies where the gangster has plastic surgery to change his identity. One scene always involves the doctor cutting the bandage and winding it around, and around, and around (showing the hood's vision gradually getting brighter and brighter) until, voici et voila, the new face.
Plastic surgery existed back then, because John Dillinger had it done in a vain attempt to disguise his identity from the police. I don't see how they could have botched it any worse than they do now. In fact, though this is an issue I won't get into now, there is a TV show called Botched that deals with remedial boob/nose/cheek/jowl jobs, in which the doctors have to make do with what is left of normal tissue. Usually the results are still artificial, but somewhat less Frankensteinian than before that fatal "holiday" to Mexico or the Phillipines.
Just in time for Halloween. . . the Invisible Man. I can't help but think of the old Renee, mischievous as always, crouching down and hiding behind the new one. But still invisible.
Whole movies have been made on this theme, such as Ash Wednesday, in which the stunning Liz Taylor pretends to be (gasp, shock, horror) old, or at least old-looking. In the movie, she's maybe 40. Most of the sexpots we see around now, such as Sofia Vergara, are about that age.
I was going to make a few gifs of her movie transformation, but was so gobsmacked by the YouTube video that I posted it whole. It's 14 minutes long and if you can get through the whole thing, you're a better man than I am. Gunga Din.
We used to ask ourselves: what reputable plastic surgeon would ever surgically alter someone so much that they didn't even look like themselves? That was back when there were standards, and "would never" still held together as a stand-in for integrity. Now people transform themselves into Barbies and Kens, Michael Jacksons, Angelinas, etc. (remember that Octomom character? Whatever happened to her, anyway?) Pay up front, and you'll have any "look" you want. Slicing and dicing seems particularly popular, especially if you resort to Third World procedures. And a lot of people do. Then again, lots of people go to Thailand to have sex with little children, and no one stands in their way.
Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book
It took me years to write, will you take a look
Order The Glass Character from:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7NGDA
Barnes & Noble
Thistledown Press
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Renee Zellweger: The Incredible Disappearing Woman
I never thought it would have happened to Miss "You Had Me At Hello": a bizarre miracle of transformation that has rendered her almost unrecognizable to her fans.
We all know what she looked like "before", though sometimes it was evident there was a little brow-lifting and Botox-ing going on. She wasn't a ravishing beauty, but then, she wasn't supposed to be! She was Bridget Jones! She was the chick in Jerry Maguire! She was Rene Zellweger, everybody's girl friend, with the pouty lips and the great cheekbones and the Icelandic heritage that lent her a tinge of exoticism.
Not any more. This is what she looks like now.
Uh, maybe like Candace Bergen's younger sister? There's still something Nordic going on, but - hey, who the hell IS this anyway? The weird black line drawn around her jaw and chin had me thinking, just for a minute, that the glue on her mask was still wet and it was being held on with a string.
Uh. . . Liv Ullman's younger sister, maybe? One wonders who she was trying to model her face on. Not on herself, obviously.
What bugs me however is how she has lost her personality along with her old face. Renee was always sort of neurotic, sort of apologetic, sort of tearful. She fretted, she brooded, and sometimes she girlishly giggled and turned cartwheels of joy. It was just the kind of character she was good at playing. Now she's -
. . . extremely thin. Gone are the extra 20 pounds of puppy fat she gained to play Bridget Jones. She's thin as a stick, so that it looks like she's somehow attained a new body, too. I guess it goes with the blandly Barbie-ish face.
I've written about plastic surgery before, and I'm tired and weary to be writing about it again. An actress shouldn't erase herself like this. Though she may believe she'll get more parts now because she looks so "great", so "young", so "beautiful," etc., no casting director in the world will want her now because she is not recognizably herself. If you want Renee Zellweger, you want Renee Zellweger, someone who has a huge fan base and has been familiar to audiences for 20 years. If she shows up looking like this, with Renee's slightly nasal, slightly squeaky voice coming out of Barbie's mouth (unless she has also somehow erased her voice too), people will be more than slightly confused.
I have to reluctantly admit that, given Hollywood's dread and hatred of the ageing process, most actresses feel compelled to have some repair work done as time grinds them down. Susan Sarandon doesn't seem to have fallen victim yet, Helen Mirren has the best bone structure in human history, and Judi Dench can play anyone from age 40 to age 80, rearranging her face at will. But the rest of them - perhaps it's forgiveable, though a couple of years ago I was pretty horrified to see Helen Hunt with a completely paralyzed forehead. Her eyebrows never moved, removing half the expression from her face and clashing most awfully with her more age-appropriate 40-year-old throat.
For Renee, however, I predict this won't be a good move. She'll have to change her name or something, start all over again. If Tom Cruise showed up on a set looking like - God, like who? Like Shia Lebeouf or whatever-his-name-is - ? The point is, if Tom Cruise suddenly looked like a male mannequin approximately 30 years of age, he might have problems being cast in anything. Nobody would know who he was.
This is the most eerie example I've ever seen of a human being erasing herself. It could not possibly have been done as an act of self-love. (Narcissism, perhaps, but that's self-obsession.) I remember writing a post about Renee's public drunkenness at the Oscars in 2013 (which everyone seems to have forgotten). Though excuses were quickly invented that she had taken a Valium to calm down, her slurring and inability to read three words off a card that night created a lot of buzz.
I guess it's no stretch to say this isn't a happy woman, but what bothers me most of all is that she'll probably never work again. You can't start all over again and just be someone else (though in a sense, that's what the picture business is all about). In a very sad way, given Hollywood's obsession with appearance, Renee Zellweger no longer exists. There is no longer any brand recognition. She has erased it permanently. Her "old" self has been shoved away in an attic somewhere, like the picture of Dorian Grey.
It's been good to know you, Renee. I'm sad we'll never see you again.
Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book
It took me years to write, will you take a look
Order The Glass Character from:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7NGDA
Barnes & Noble
Thistledown Press
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Did somebody mention George?
I dreamed I was in a movie with George Clooney.
He was very well-dressed
and impeccable through the whole movie and had a Cary Grant manner about him.
Through the whole movie I felt this longing for him, wanted to kiss and make
out with him, but at the same time I
looked on him as a prize Arabian horse or something, just unattainable.
I was both in a movie
with him, and watching a movie with him in it. Some parts of the dream were in a movie theatre
and I remember trying to snuggle up to him. I wanted everyone to see that I was
with George Clooney and he was snuggling up to me. He allowed this, then seemed
to sort of lose interest.
I didn’t have too many
clothes on during this and was maybe in my late 20s. The movie (an art house
film) involved Elisabeth Moss (Peggy Olson in Mad Men) who was a poor
struggling harpist living in a garret. I remember seeing her in one scene very
badly miming harp playing, with awful out-of-tune music, and wondering why they
hadn’t tried harder to make it seem convincing.
It became obvious as the
dream went on that I WAS the Peggy Olson character and was both watching her in
the movie, which seemed to take place in an old apartment house with winding
staircases in Europe , and BEING her in the movie. I was also somehow
sitting with George Clooney in the audience. He did not seem to like the movie, and as I
kept on draping myself over him, it also became apparent he was bored. There
was some sort of play-within-a-play happening in the movie that involved
Elizabeth Moss, some gorgeous European scenes (? I think), and other famous
actors who now escape me. I looked down and noticed I had very hairy legs, and
so did the Elisabeth Moss character. George Clooney was now frankly bored by
the movie which did not seem to have a point to it. He said “Let’s get out of
here” and we left, and I grabbed his hand which he didn’t seem to want. I hoped as we left that people in the theatre
would notice I was with George Clooney, though I continued to worry about my
hairy legs.
Similarly to the old
apartment building in the movie, the theatre also had very elaborate winding staircases
with windows at each landing. I said “Let’s play a Dorothy Parker game.” I
grabbed his hand and we began to run up the stairs. When we got to a window I’d look out at the view and say, “Is
this a good place to jump?” Then we’d
run up another level. I was disappointed there were only a couple more levels,
but then we burst out onto a sort of balcony. The view was mostly obscured by
some sort of black-painted glass barrier, but George wiped off a bit of
condensation and I could see through it. I just began to gasp at how
beautiful it was: snow-peaked mountains, glaciers, blazing-white snow sparkling
everywhere. “Oh, it’s just like Alberta Switzerland
In another scene I was
trying to make my way through a maze of corridors (in the movie apartment, not
the theatre) which at one point led to a convenience store. I bought two
enormous bags of popcorn and felt guilty about it, but it was so cheap, two for
one! I blundered around trying to find
my way back. When I finally found George, he was totally annoyed and said, “Don’t
you ever go anywhere?” I tried to tell him I had no sense of direction and got
lost in restaurants coming back from the ladies’ room. (I didn’t have the
popcorn any more.)
Other parts of the dream
have already got lost or muddled. One involved Catherine Zeta-Jones who had a
very short skirt on. At one point I pointed out to George (who was barely with
me by now) that she had no panties on, and he took a look. Renee Zellwegger was
there but I don’t know what she was doing. I think Robert Downey Jr. was in it.
I had the thought that celebrities just had to stand around to be impressive. At
one point I felt like I was in that old Disney cartoon, Mickey’s Gala
Premier, in which every celebrity of the day appeared. I still wasn’t quite
sure if I was IN the movie or just watching it, but I definitely felt
outclassed.
I don’t know if this
scene is related or not. It involves bugs, an infestation of them. They were
crawling out from a crack in the baseboards which had huge gaps in it. Some of
them were enormous cockroaches which made me want to scream. I didn’t know how
to get rid of these bugs and ended up spraying very heavily out of a can all
along the baseboards (and there weren’t really any baseboards, just wall and floor
with big holes and gaps). The bugs retreated quickly, including the
cockroaches, and at one point I tried to crunch one under my foot and couldn’t
kill it. I knew they would be back.
Another scene (related
somehow) had the theatre manager talking to a lot of audience members out in
the lobby. He was going on and on about American Presidents. This is garbled in
my memory, but the gist was we should be proud and fascinated by how many
Presidents had been represented in movies that had played in that particular
theatre. At one point he said, very proudly, “We’ve even had an assassination.”
The audience was waiting around for some sort of bonus or prize, but I don’t
think it ever happened.
I don’t know what
happened to George Clooney.
http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.ca/2013/04/the-glass-character-synopsis.html
http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.ca/2013/04/the-glass-character-synopsis.html
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