The episode in which

Sean raves about the new Portishead album
Victoria indulges all her Marianne Faithful fantasies
Sean discovers that Johnny Razorlight Borrell is a poor singer
Sean has a cunning plan for ensuring no more Calvin Harris albums
Sean is loving the new Raconteurs album
Victoria has the latest Glastonbury news

OFFICIAL WHITE WIDOW SITE

Austin City Limits is coming up this month. Beck, Foo Fighters, Iron & Wine, Jakob Dylan, Robert Plant & Allison Krauss, Tegan & Sara, Neko Case, Band of Horses, The Swell Season, Gillian Welch. Stay posted.... I'll have lots to write about!

ALBUMS I AM OBSESSING OVER:

Beck - Mellow Gold

Lindsey Buckingham - Under The Skin

Lucky Dube - Respect

XOXOXO,
White Widow

Trouble in Mind (1985)

Directed by Alan Rudolph, and featuring Kris Kristofferson, Keith Carradine and Divine, this demented parable succeeds against overwhelming odds in delivering a moving denoument in which the assembled losers, gangsters and freaks discover some value in each of their miserable lives. Memorable for many reasons, chiefly Carradines tragi-comic degeneration from country hick into preening, big haired, lowlife scumbag and Marianne Faithful’s glorious interpretation of the title song.

Jayne managed to extricate herself from the clutches of the late April heatwave to make a getaway to Napa along with longtime friend and San Francisco fashion stylist Ameliana Kamstra.  Ameliana's stepfather is none other than Bill Fink, sole US importer of the great Morgan motorcar, affectionately known as a Mog.

Bill started doing left hand conversions of the vehicles for US export back in the late sixties while studying and rowing crew at Oxford.  Great way to make a few bob for the enlightened greaser.  Suddenly Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithful were seen cruising around London in their Yellow Mog Plus 8 during the much publicized Old Bailey drug bust when Mick, Marianne, Pattie Boyd, George Harrision and Keith Richards were busted for drug possession at Keith's London flat.  Its came as no surprise that suddenly everyone wanted a Morgan.

Bill found his way back to San Francisco where he was intent upon importing his beloved Mog.  He spent years wrestling with the DOT and EPA to be able to bring this vehicle into the states and sell it legally.  It was the early seventies at this point and there was a serious overhaul of vehicle standards.   Sleek, thin chrome bumpers turned into masses of plastic and rubber, engine compartments were packed with emission equipment and major crash standards were implemented.   Fink spent years going back and forth retrofitting with Pinto, Triumph and Cortina engines, running on gas then propane then gas again, fitting the car with the required safety featured before finally being able to trickle the car into the states.   The whole story can be read in this article from 1977 Issue of Car and Driver.

Jayne was up for a big weekend so she and Ameliana asked Bill if they could borrow one of his cars. Not only were they able to borrow one but Bill outfitted them with one of his Plus-8 Mogvettes, a Morgan retrofitted with a 400 hp LS2 Corvette Engine.   The result is a car clocking in a neck snapping 0-60 time of 4.2 seconds.  Not bad for a car looking more Chitty Chitty Bang Bang than Ferrari.

Decked out in driving caps with their faithful 4 legged companion "Lovelight" riding shotgun, the gals were ready to hit the road.

It was a beautiful drive up to Napa and the blazing hot weather Jayne left in Southern California seemed to extend all the way up into wine country. Perfect weather for the convertible. 

Note Ameliana ridiculing Jayne's fiance Jon slaving away back at Jaynes in the second video below.

First stop was a cave party at Chateau Boswell.  There is a growing number of wineries carving out their own caves for wine storage and aging.

Festivities continued in St Helena at Tra Vigne with amazing rustic wood fired pizza, made to order mozzarella and some desert island whites including the 2006 Hofstatter Kolbenhoff Gewurztraminer and the unbeatable 2001 Trimbach Clos Ste Hune Riesling.

Festivities continued with some fiercely competitive rounds of bocce at the absolutely beautiful home of Jayne's friends Joseph and Caroline.

The gals made their way back to San Francisco with an especially beautiful drive over the Golden Gate where their return was documented by an endless barrage of tourist flash photos.   Our girls returned their trusty Morgan back to its home at San Franciso's Pier 33.   An epic weekend with great friends.  Special thanks to Bill, John, Joseph, Caroline, Lonnie and Lisa.

The path scorched by the Arcade Fire’s orchestral bombast three years ago has left the pop music field wide open for more classically influenced records. Enter Patrick Wolf, an English musical wonder-kid who previously studied composition at Trinity College of Music. On his third album, Wolf does an everything and the kitchen sink job, employing every type of sound imaginable (oh yeah, Marianne Faithfull’s on there somewhere as well). Wolf creates an aural feast for listeners that’s more memorable than you realize – one listen and these tunes will be stuck in your head for the next week and a second listen just keeps them there longer. Ambition never sounded this good.

The film is a lot more subtle then what its synopsis suggests. It is actually surprisingly witty and charming. Marianne Faithful's performance is astounding. The horror in her face when she goes to work as Irina Palm is wonderfully touching and comical. This is an immensely moving and absolutely enjoyable British comedy.

(Photo: hjw223/flickr)

We can not appreciate Moss & Doherty without paying respects to the original model-y, strung out, rock glamour couple: Jagger & Faithful.

Sweet-faced Faithful, en route from a divorce, met Mick in 1965.... and it all started with one night of bliss with none other than that dreamboat of a man, Keith Richards. They spent together, in Marianne's words, "the best night I've ever had in my life", but alas, Richards nonchalantly suggested she seek out his buddy Mick. She was fond of Richards, still speaks dreamily about him, and was a bit disappointed when he rolled over and said, "Go on, love, give him a jingle, he'll fall off his chair. He's not that bad when you get to know him." She wasn't crazy for Jagger, but followed Keith's advice.

For the remainder of the 60s, she and Jagger were stuck like glue. When the police invaded Mick's pad during a party he hosted, in 1967 they found a group of guys hanging out listening to records and the Venus, Faithful, nude & swathed only in a fur rug. The cops busted Jagger and the London tabloids immortalized her: the "Scantily Clad Woman at Drug Party."

Outro ícone da música, Marianne Faithful, está em cartaz nas telas paulistanas. Se Um Beijo Roubado tem em seu pedigree participação no Festival de Cannes em 2007, Irina Palm tem Berlim.

O longa de Sam Garbarski conta a história de uma viúva, Maggie, moradora do subúrbio de Londres e com uma triste realidade: seu neto está com um doença gravíssima. O único tratamento factível é levá-lo à Austrália e o mais rápido possível. Caso contrário, não haverá mais chances. Tanto Maggie quanto seu filho e nora já esgotaram seus empréstimos possíveis em bancos e boa parte dos amigos e da vizinhança já fez sua contribuição.

Desorientada e com um único pensamento na cabeça - arranjar dinheiro - Maggie se vê dentro de um inferninho que continha um "procura-se atendentes" na porta. Conversando com Miklos, o dono do lugar, ela capta o eufemismo. Atendente, neste caso, não é exatamente uma recepcionista de videolocadora. A função? Masturbar os clientes através de um buraco na parede (os chamados 'glory holes') durante todo o dia.

O tempo corre e a viúva não exita muito. O dinheiro é necessário e se faz urgente. E a perspectiva de ganho de 600 a 800 dólares semanais é tentadora. O filho, as amigas e os vizinhos (e, ao lado destes estão duas das cenas mais deliciosas e engraçadas do ano e que só um filme passado na Inglaterra consegue ter) notam a sua ausência no bairro e na sua rotina de jogo de cartas e das visitas ao neto no hospital.

Mas Maggie está ocupada. Bastante ocupada e fazendo um bem à nação inglesa, como lhe diz uma de suas colegas de profissão. E agora ela já não é mais a viúva e careta Maggie e, sim, Irina Palm, a mão mais disputada e famosa do SoHo londrino. Filas de homens ávidos por um pouco de prazer formam-se no clube a sua espera.

Marianne Faithfull é uma atriz bissexta. Consultando seu perfil no site IMDb, você fica sabendo que ela foi a primeira pessoa a pronunciar a "f word" no cinema, em 1967. Ousadias, portanto, estão no cardápio desta cantora, famosa por seus versos em suas canções de rock, por sua conturbada relação com Mick Jagger no passado e, agora, quem sabe, por uma das interpretações mais singelas e corajosas do ano.

Todos sabemos que, para participar de um longa, é necessário tirar o registro profissional (no Brasil, chamado de DRT). Mas, se dependesse diretamente do mérito e talento para que cada profissional fosse registrado, Marianne honraria muito bem cada uma dessas letrinhas que lhe dão a alcunha de ATRIZ.

Cotação (0 a 5): 4,0 - Petit four

What would Marianne Faithful wear?

Ya ya Black Cropped Leather Jacket

(shirtless... true to the movie)

and

80s Tisserand Belt

Acne Hex DC Skinny Leg Indigo Jeans

and

Luscious Shu Uemura Lashes

with

Black Minnetonka Fringe Boots

(more like Faithful's own au natural, hippy-inspired closet of the late 60s)

Serge Gainsbourg has variously been described as: "...An agent provocateur, a scoundrel, unapologetic drunkard, and chain smoker." Further as: "Henry Mancini, Keith Richards and The Marquis de Sade, all wrapped up in a disheveled package."

Besides being all of the above, the man had an incredible talent for pulling beautiful women. A very partial list of his conquests includes:

Bridgette Bardot

Catherine Deneuve

Marianne Faithful

and Jane Birkin

Even more respectable is the fact that he continued to pull this kind of quality to the end of his life! Maybe instead of saying I wanted to be "Expressively French," I should have said "Expressively Serge Gainsbourg."

At the risk of alienating "big boy" I am posting Serge Gainsbourg's most famous, and one his most controversial, songs  "Je t'aime, moi non plus." This song (released in 1969), while tame by today's standards, was banned in most countries for being too explict.

So, for the cultural benefit of Big Boy and the always stalwart Driver of the Wartabago, here is Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin with "Je t'aime, moi non plus"

Scolai

Frodo - sorry - Wood's next few projects are yet more deliberately eclectic, yet decidedly interesting, movies, that should once again show that there's much more to this chap than furry feet, wide blue eyes, and a tendency to look a bit pathetic while evil ghost-like things on massive flying dragons whizz around the shop.

Though it came out in France in May this year, and is scheduled for a US release in April 2007, sadly no UK distributors seem ready to put out Paris, je t'aime - a quirkily ambitious project that counts cult favourites the Coen brothers and Gus Van Sant, Scream's Wes Craven, French superstar Gerard Depardieu, Children of Men's Alfonso Cuarón and Wong Kar-Wai's cinematographer of choice Christopher Doyle amongst its many directors. Broken into 18 five-minute segments, each overseen by a different directorial team, Wood appears as a young American tourist in "Quartier de la Madeleine", written and directed by Cube's Vincenzo Natali. Co-stars include the likes of Bob Hoskins, Steve Buscemi, Marianne Faithful, Willem Dafoe, Miranda Richardson, Juliette Binoche, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Emily Mortimer, Rufus Sewell and Natalie Portman - so quite why this has yet to hit our screens is anyone's guess.

Wood will also be cropping up in the hugely impressive ensemble cast of former brat-pack actor turned director Emilio Estevez's Bobby, revolving around the 1968 assassination of US presidential hopeful (and brother of the assassinated President JFK) Robert Kennedy. Due out in the UK on 26th January, the cast is padded out with the likes of Estevez' father Martin Sheen, as well as Lawrence Fishburne, Heather Graham, Anthony Hopkins, Harry Belafonte, Helen Hunt, Joshua Jackson, Ashton Kutcher, William H Macy, Lindsay Lohan, Demi Moore, Freddy Rodriguez, Christian Slater and Sharon Stone. Nominated for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival this year, it's definitely one to look forward to.

As for Wood's other projects, again they are typically diverse and interesting. He'll voice the young dragon Spyro in the latest in the popular computer game series - alongside Brit favourite Gary Oldman - The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning, and take on the role of a young man forced in to the US army as the draft is re-introduced in the timely exploration of duty in time of war that is Day Zero. Then, due for release in 2008, he'll play Albert Einstein in the film adaptation of comic Steve Martin's successful play Picasso at the Lapin Agile, alongside another impressive cast that includes the likes of Martin himself, Kevin Kline, Juliette Binoche, Sienna Miller, Jason Biggs and Ryan Phillipe. Pretty soon Wood's going to beat even Kevin Bacon for a Hollywood six degrees of separation...