Hair Off

Recently on Facebook I had a contest on who had better hair in GI Joe: The Baroness or Scarlett. Baroness won by a landslide, but I got to thinking about who would win the "Absolute Hair Title." Of course, this is a very interesting question, as the more I think about it, the more people would win hair category titles.

So let's begin.

Best Beautiful Movie Wig - Scarlett Johansson in Iron Man 2, Kate Beckinsale in Van Helsing or Natalie Portman in Closer.
Scarlett takes the lead with having both curly hair and red hair. No one has this kind of hair in real life, especially if you have to get into a car while fighting the elements, much less fighting bad guys. The color goes perfectly with her fair skin though, and props if this really is her hair.

Photo credit: shockya.com

Kate's expression below is, "Don't you vampires find my hair pretty?" I'm sure the dialog is different, as I haven't seen this movie in years. However, I always think this is what my hair should look like when it's rainy and chilly, because that's Transylvania's weather forecast for you. 

Photo credit: gather.com

Natalie is so beautiful that she can wear whatever she wants, including this very pink wig in the movie Closer. I have never watched this movie, so can't vouch for the content, but I think pink hair is only appropriate in a limited setting, such as a grocery store or a night club. The point is that you are either expressing or hiding your true self with such a wig.

Music Video Hair - Lady Gaga in Poker Face
This has to be the most iconic hair piece of the decade: the hair bow:

Photo credit: thefrisky.com

Runner ups:
Diana Ross - beautiful and her hair was her power. I'm so glad she kept it natural throughout the years. Go curls!

Photo credit: celebrity-lifestyle.com

Cyndi Lauper - wee! Those 80s were fun!!! I can only describe this as crazy McDonald's colored hair.

Photo credit: rad80sfashion.com

Best video game hair: Bayonetta
This lady's hair can look cool and also stomp out evil! You know what else? She's got guns on her heels. Damn.

Photo credit: pinksquadron.com

Crazy hair days. Photo credit: ripten.com

Runners up: Lara Croft from Tomb Raider and Flemeth from Dragon Age 2.
Lara's hair stereotypically reminds me of Anna Kournikova's tennis braid, which is as feminine as it is functional.

Crazy adventure braid. Photo credit: tomb-raider-anniversary.com

Flemeth is a witch and a shape-shifter, who decided in Dragon Age 2 to keep it in a very satyr-esque style while in her human form. I think I saw one of those headband things in Forever 21 on sale...

Hairspray fan. Photo credit: fanpop.com

Comic book hair: Medusa
This competition wasn't one really - Medusa can kick butt with her hair, and she can also shape shift her hair into whatever it needs to be. Finally, I think her hair can probably clean itself. I don't know much about Medusa, other than she's married to Black Bolt. I would expect her to have some stocks in Pantene to afford pink knee high boots.

Would you like to date my hair? Photocredit: marvel.wika.com

Honorable mention: Wolverine. So he's got a regeneration super ability. This also includes hair, which is unfortunate should he want to go clean shaven.

Photo credit: andimnotlying.com

Non-hair category: Bald and beautiful
Winner: Patrick Stewart
Runner ups: Demi Moore, Sinead O'Conner, and George Foreman

My personal hairspiration: Kelly Brook
She is always smiling, and looks like is having a great hair day everyday.

Kelly Brook - Naturally Beautiful Photo credit: topnews.in

I didn't include cartoons, or the bigger category of "TV" because there are too many hair icons to mention. The hairstyles seemed to follow trends more than making some kind of classic statement that was timeless. Personally I'm thankful that people have the choice to wear whatever they'd like - everything is in style, including fake and none.

Sy Fy

We watched Dark City last night, which is a relatively old movie - certainly before high definition and GPS. If you don't know the story, basically everyone wakes up at midnight with new memories. While parts of the movie were disjointed (how did the main character know where the automat was?) and unbelievable (Jennifer Connelly makes the worst club singer), there were some really cool concepts to this movie.

Photo credit: Ugo.com

The whole reason we were watching it was because I keep referencing it to my husband - "You know like how they erase your previous memories, sort of like in Dark City," and he had yet see it.

The cool concepts of this movie were about how your can't really remember certain things, like how many times you blinked today for example. The quote from the movie was, "How do you get to Shell Beach?" and no one remembers, or "When was the last time you remember doing anything during the day?" It's quite spooky if you think about it, especially if that happens in real life to you.

I started mapping out all the movies I've seen that involve either mind experiments, implanted memories, time travel, or other futuristic science fiction.  Here's my list so far:


Mind Experiments:
Dark City

Implanted Memories:
Blade Runner
Inception

Time Travel:
12 Monkeys
The Butterfly Effect
Returner
Pleasantville
Groundhog Day
Back to the Future
Terminator

Psychosis:
Shutter Island
Beautiful Mind
Vanilla Sky
Event Horizon
Memento
The Cell
Fight Club
The Shining - although there is the ghost element

Other:
Being John Malcovich

Of course, this list is by no means complete. What I like about the science fiction piece of movies is that we get to isolate and explore an interesting concept about people. With Dark City, we find out that people are more than a compilation of memories, even though the main character still clings to Shell Beach - or the memory of Shell Beach enough to recreate it with his mind.

What isn't said with this movie is that memories that we visit are really of places we went to, or what someone said or did. It's rarely what we did or said. In other words, if I woke up with a knife in hand and a body in the next room, I wouldn't go out for a killing spree. I might want to go to Virginia Beach, or Greenville, as these places have a "feeling" for me over a specific setting.

Anyway, I thought I'd make that point... The producer probably had to cut out that nuance because of budget constraints and the actors getting fed up with the director.

Movie Lineup Demise

Last night we went from watching the Bourne Identity to TimeCop to Anaconda. That's like starting off the evening with surf n turf at a fancy restaurant, then getting Taco Bell, then garbage out of the can (or maybe leftovers from the work fridge).

In case you are unfamiliar with TimeCop and why it's a bad movie, it's got Jean Claude Van Damme traveling through time to save his wife and house, which is the creepiest house ever built. The "future" of 2004 has cars that drive themselves and all white kitchens. Neither flat screen or cell phone was available yet though.

Photo credit, Jean Claude Van Damme, courtesy of deathofmovie.blogspot.com

Anaconda was more horrible because Jon Voight was supposed to play one of those crazy John Locke characters who "knows the river" and has an indistinguishable accent. The accent requires him to make the Mean PacMan face, which is priceless. Also, Ice Cube and JLo (pre-makeup, surgery, pimping out her twins) were in this movie, so we pretty much know who did the soundtrack, if there is one.

Photo credit: Jon Voight, courtesy of bolegernow.com

-L

"There's an evident lack of light tonight"