BlackBook

Our former fearless leader Joshua David Stein may have left BlackBook earlier this fall, but that doesn't mean we cut ties completely. What's so weird is that he has yet to mention this video of him modeling those crazy-ass pants designed by Yoko Ono and Opening Ceremony. What's up with that? (I will go on record and say that it's probably not because he's embarrassed, as I'm still convinced it's impossible for him to experience shame.) If you adore crazy man-on-the-street antics as much as I do, or if you just want to watch old men shoot uncomfortable looks at a thirtysomething's crotch, this video is for you.

Sleep, according to those who don’t like to do much of it, is just practice for death. Two terrific new monographs, one from German fashion photographer Jork Weismann and the other by Mexican crime photographer Enrique Metinides, contemplate both the nightly practice for the afterlife and the real thing.

For nine years, John Goodman appeared to millions of Americans as Dan Conner, Roseanne Barr’s beleaguered husband on the sitcom Roseanne. It is a testament to the breadth and believability of his post-Roseanne roles that nearly a decade of constant exposure hasn’t pinned the actor to that one character specimen. Goodman has brought his heft and range to iconic roles, such as the overbearing Walter Sobchak in The Big Lebowski, the Polyphemus stand-in “Big Dan” Teague in O Brother, Where Are Thou?, and the curmudgeonly studio head with a heart of fool’s gold in The Artist. In Robert Zemickis’ Flight, one of the three movies Goodman stars in this season, the actor plays Harling Mays, a man whose personality, like that of many of Goodman’s characters, is expansive to the point of offensive and, although perhaps not good, always loveable. We asked Mr. Goodman to describe the process of becoming Mr. Mays.

It’s the belly of August, and by the time Zac Efron reaches the Valley, the mercury is scraping the three–digit mark. An hour later, after Efron goes through hair and makeup, and meets the animals with whom he’ll be working—Richard the hawk, Kina the gray fox, Eddie the monkey, Zeus the screech with cataracts—it’s 115 degrees Fahrenheit. The dead dry heat sits over Sylmar, the northernmost town in Los Angeles and the home of the Wildlife Learning Center. In a two-acre plot, on a street lined with cookie cutter exurb houses, David Riherd cares for over 50 wild animals, many of whom were kept as illegal pets or found abandoned. It used to smell of olive groves here years ago when the mistrals swept up San Fernando Valley. Now no breeze moves the desiccated air, and the scorched earth smells, understandably, like a zoo. Nevertheless, Zac Efron, who is wearing a full suit on which Zeus is pooping and whose pockets are full of bunnies, is beaming. “Animals are dope!” says Efron as his cherubic lips part from pucker into a SoCal surfer boy grin. Shit, if that smile don’t outshine the sun.

Angela Lindvall, one of the world’s most famous supermodels, is in the shower when I arrive at her Topanga Canyon home. When she emerges, Lindvall, 33, is wearing a silk dashiki and no shoes. She looks like some sort of golden sylph. The Lindvall ranch is a mountainside utopia. It’s easy to see what lured John Phillips here to record Wolf King of L.A. in 1970. “The first time I came out here was to visit [his daughter] Bijou,” Lindvall says in a husky voice that still holds a drip of her native Kansas City, Missouri. “I thought ‘Oh my God, I’m back in the country!’” An organic garden blossoms in front of us, and in the yoga studio she built on her property, her yoga teacher is giving birth. Her yelps punctuate the thrum of bees and the susurrus of apple trees rustling in the warm mistral. This is what 19 years at the top of the fashion game gets you: a chance to check out.

Before email Blasts went out proclaiming “Celebrity X spotted in Brand Y at Red Carpet Event Z,” the relationships between actors and designers were less transactional. One of the most intriguing of these relationships is the subject of an exhibition at the Museo Salvatore Ferragamo in Florence. The exhibit, entitled simply Marilyn, explores the disparate worlds of the Florentine cobbler and the Hollywood starlet and how they overlapped from the late 1950s to her death in 1962.

When Total Recall was first released in 1990, I had not yet seen my first topless prostitute and California had not yet learned to call Arnold Schwarzenegger the Governator. The realities of both, when they eventually happened, did not live up to the promise of the film. Happily, this weekend, a redo is in order. Colin Farrell and Bryan Cranston co-star in a Columbia Pictures remake of the movie and, as many comic book bloggers have been eagerly reporting, there’s still a three-breasted hooker in it. Of course, she is. She’s the best part.

Blindness has traditionally been auspiscious for prophets but not so much for barbers. Tiresias could divine the future but he couldn't give a close fade worth shit. 

Guy Pearce talks about the creation of his character in the new film 'Lawless'.

The heart of the world's biggest heartthrob weighs in on the life of a young man caught in the flashbulbs and the pages of glossy magazines.