APR
2014
06

Up All Night to Get Lucky

Manolo says, because, sometimes, even the Russians are amusing.

MAR
2014
28

Have A Nice Day

Manolo says, because the Japanese are amusing!

OCT
2012
30

Shoes in Cinema: Kinky Boots

I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing cobblers glue.

I’m in Virginia now, and although the worst seems to be over, the whole DC Metro area got pounded like British currency. My fella, Hot Latin Boy, is holding down the fort at Plumcake Cottage in Baja, Mexico where a previously inactive volcano has started to be less inactive as one might hope. Frankly I’m just one Aimee Mann song away from that crazy scene in Magnolia and I’m pretty sure my wiper blades won’t be able to take it.

I’ve got this weird survivalist streak that means my hatches were battened down days ago, and friends, let me tell you: once I batten something, it stays battened, so my best friend and I had nothing to do but watch old movies and wait for the power to go out.

Miraculously, our grid has stayed up and we made it all the way through my All Time Favorite Movie About Shoes: Kinky Boots.

I have been told by people who would know that I was at the American premier of Kinky Boots, but I’m not entirely sure that’s true. I was working for a film festival  so it’s certainly possible, and that was the year I discovered the magical hallucinatory powers derived from a heady combination of extreme sleep deprivation and a diet consisting entirely of Chupa Chups lollipops and absolutely unforgivable cheap champagne. Still, I’d like to think I’d remember something.

It’s not every day you see a six-foot tall black British man with a voice for Othello in a wig for Diana Ross, at least not since my circuit party days.

For those who were also chasing the Chupa Chups dragon and managed to miss it, Kinky Boots revolves around Charlie Price whose family has been making high-quality men’s footwear for over a hundred years. When the company hits the skids thanks to an influx of cheap competition, he realizes his factory must change or die.

Enter Lola, a SoHo (the proper one, not the fake Yankee one) drag performer with a penchant for red patent leather, riding crops and Eartha Kitt.

Although it’s based on a true story, it is a bit formulaic, but so was Romeo and Juliet and they didn’t even have cute shoes (well, maybe they did, they WERE Italian) but it’s well worth a watch if only for the soundtrack and the Blue Angel Boys.


(ignore the cheesy American voiceover. Please.)

So what’s your favorite movie about shoes? The Wizard of Oz? The Red Shoes? Or maybe it’s just a scene. Put it in the comments!

What Miss Plumcake is…

It’s Tuesday, time to find out What Miss Plumcake is…

(more…)

AUG
2012
13

In The Summer Time

Manolo says, da da da dee da doo dee da dee da dee da da.

P.S. 1970.

JUL
2012
26

The Hoop

Manolo says, amazing and wonderful!

JUL
2012
16

Washed Out = Washed Up

Manolo says, the other day, on the Facebook, the Manolo was complaining about the samey-sameness of most of the stylebloggers.

The Manolo must have looked at 20,000 style blogs over the past few days, some of them exceedingly popular, and all of them featuring the same clothes, the same poses, the same washed-out, overexposed style of photography.

Time for the change!

The Manolo decrees: the washed-out style photos are all washed up. Color is the new black!

Out = Identical style bloggers all obsessed with being part of the in crowd
In = Crazy girls who throw on the clothes they love and dare you to criticize them!

Above all else, what agitated the Manolo was the ubiquity of the washed-out, vintage-looking photos, photos that use the Instagram filter to excess, in every possible case.

To which the Manolo says, Death to the Instagram filter!

Happily, however, the trend appears to be abating. How does the Manolo know this? The latest Madonna video, “Turn Up The Radio,” …

P.S. No need to watch the entire tiresome affair. You will get the idea after the first ten seconds: Madonna suffers from soul-wrenching ennui, which she cures with random casual sex and bad pop music played loudly.

JUN
2012
21
JUN
2012
14

Overly Attached Girlfriend

Manolo says, alternately hilarious and horrifying.

APR
2012
19

Levon

Manolo says, somedays it seems as if 1976 were just yesterday.
.
.

Other days it seems so very far away.

APR
2012
18

Hot Mess

Manolo asks, perhaps rhetorically, remember back in the day when humility was considered the admirable trait?

JUN
2011
08