Monday 17 May 2010

Funny Face (1957)

Robert Flemyng plays fashion designer Paul Duval



























Funny Face on IMDB

Maggie Prescott (Kay Thompson) is a fashion magazine publisher and editor, for Quality magazine, who is looking for the next big fashion trend. She wants a new look for the magazine. Maggie wants the look to be both "beautiful" and "intellectual". She and famous fashion photographer Dick Avery (Fred Astaire) want models who can "think as well as they look." The two brainstorm and come up with the idea to find a "sinister" looking book store in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan. They subsequently locate a bookstore named "Embryo Concepts".
Maggie and Dick take over Embryo Concepts, which is being run by the shy bookshop clerk and amateur philosopher, Jo Stockton (Audrey Hepburn). Jo thinks the fashion and modeling industry is nonsense, saying: "it is chichi, and an unrealistic approach to self-impressions as well as economics". Maggie decides to use Jo in the first fashion shot, to give it a more intellectual look. After the first shot Maggie locks Jo out of the shop to shut her up.
Jo wants more than anything else in the world to go to Paris and attend the famous philosopher and professor Emile Flostre's (Michel Auclair) lectures about empathicalism. When Dick gets back to the dark room, he sees something in Jo's face which is "new" and "fresh", and which would be perfect for the campaign, giving it "character", "spirit", and "intelligence".
They send for Jo, pretending they want to order some books from her shop. Once she arrives, they start treating her like a doll, trying to make her over, pulling at her clothes and attempting to cut her hair. She is outraged and runs away, only to hide in the darkroom where Dick is working. When Dick mentions Paris, Jo becomes very interested in that she would get a chance to see Professor Flostre, and is finally convinced to model.
Soon Maggie, Dick, and Jo are off to Paris to prepare for a major fashion event, shooting photos at famous landmarks from the area. During the various photo shoots Jo and Dick develop feelings for each other, and they fall in love.
One night when Jo is getting ready for a gala, she learns that Professor Flostre is giving a lecture at a cafe nearby. She attends, forgetting the gala. Eventually Dick finds her and they get into an argument at the gala's opening, which results in Jo being publicly embarrassed and Maggie outraged.
Jo goes to talk to Professor Flostre at his home. Through some scheming, Maggie and Dick make it into Flostre's home. After performing an impromptu song and dance for Flostre's disciples, they confront Jo and Flostre. This eventually leads to Dick causing Flostre to fall and knock himself out. Jo urges them to leave. When Flostre wakes up, he tries to make a pass at Jo. Shocked at the behavior of her "idol", she smashes a vase over his head and runs out.
Before the group leaves for home, there is a final fashion show. Jo and Maggie try to get in touch with Dick, who has made plans to leave Paris. Jo does the runway show and before her wedding gown finale, she looks out the window and sees the plane Dick was supposed to be on, take off. Heartbroken, she runs off the runway in tears at the conclusion of the show.
Meanwhile, Dick is at the airport. He runs into Flostre and learns that Jo bashed him on the head with a vase. Dick, realizing how much he cares, goes back to find Jo. He goes back to the runway show, only to find that Jo is nowhere to be found. Finally, after a long search, Dick finds Jo (in the wedding gown) by a little church where they shared a romantic moment during the photo shoot. They embrace and kiss.
read more on Wikipedia

Liquid Sky (1982)

Nina V. Kerova plays the designer





Liquid Sky on IMDB

A New Wave fashion show is to be held in a crowded Manhattan nightclub. Among the models are bisexual, cocaine-addicted Margaret (Anne Carlisle) and Jimmy (also played by Carlisle). Jimmy is Margaret's rival and nemesis and also loves cocaine, constantly hassling Margaret's drug-dealer girlfriend Adrian (Paula E. Sheppard) for drugs despite not having any money to pay for them.
A UFO about the size of a dinner plate lands on the rooftop of the penthouse apartment occupied by Margaret and Adrian. Jimmy accompanies Margaret home before the show, but he's actually trying to find Adrian's drugs. Margaret meanwhile is being watched by a tiny, shapeless alien from inside the UFO. Margaret and Jimmy return to the club to participate in the show. During preparations both agree to a photographic shoot the following night on Margaret's rooftop. They are assured that there will be plenty of cocaine available at the shoot.
Jimmy's upper-class, highly libidinous mother, Sylvia (Susan Doukas), a television producer, lives in the building across from Margaret's penthouse. German scientist Johann Hoffman (Otto Von Wernherr) has been secretly observing the aliens from the Empire State Building. Johann needs somewhere to continue his surveillance when the observation deck closes. He seeks help in this from the only person he knows in America, college drama teacher Owen (Bob Brady). Owen fobs Johann off as he plans to go meet a former student, who turns out to be Margaret.
Seeking a vantage point on his own, Johann stumbles into Sylvia's building. Lascivious Sylvia, who happens to have a free evening, eagerly invites him to her apartment for dinner. Across town middle class Katherine (Elaine C. Grove) revoices her objection to the heroin use of her boyfriend, failed writer and heroin addict Paul (Stanley Knap).
Margaret meets various people in the club and in her apartment. She is raped or seduced by several of the visitors. She is seduced by her former acting professor Owen, a representative of the erstwhile hippie generation. Then she is coerced into sex by Adrian's client Paul. Paul had returned to seduce Margaret after walking out on a party held by Katherine when she insisted he pull himself together and help greet her business clients. The people who have sexual relations and reach orgasm with Margaret promptly die, with a crystal protruding from their head. Margaret realizes she can kill people by having sex with them.
From Sylvia's apartment, Johann intermittently continues his observation between dinner and dodging Sylvia's various attempts to seduce him. Adrian arrives home and helps Margaret hide Owen's body. Later the crew arrives at the apartment for the fashion shoot. During the shoot Margaret is taunted by Jimmy, so agrees to have sex with him knowing it will kill him. Later a vengeful Margaret reconnects with Californian upper-class socialite and soap opera actor (Jack Adalist) who had raped her the night of the nightclub fashion show.
Johann reveals that the alien is extracting the endorphins produced by the brain when an orgasm occurs—apparently a fatal operation. Margaret survives because she never experiences an orgasm. Margaret finally learns of the aliens from Johann. Seeing the alien craft leaving, Margaret injects herself with heroin to induce a wild autoerotic orgasm to ensure the aliens take her with them.
read more on Wikipedia