I am use to seeing the Dracula being very sauve, luxery, elegant and the were wolf man be hairy and scary, I was brought up with those kinds of trademark being elegant actors like Bela Lugosi..This generation is not what Dracula and Wolfman seem to be...The new Draculas and Wolfmen ttends to be sexy, masculine, and appear nude..lots of nude on True Blood and Twilights. It seems like Dracula of my generation is to be scary and classic comparing to this generation is about romance, sex and nude!
Today, Dracula is widely regarded as a classic of the era and of its genre. In 2000, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". To many film lovers and critics alike, Lugosi's portrayal is widely regarded as the definitive Dracula. Lugosi had a powerful presence and authority on-screen. The slow, deliberate pacing of his performance ("I … bid you … welcome!" and "I never drink … wine!") gave his Dracula the air of a walking, talking corpse, which terrified 1931 movie audiences. He was just as compelling with no dialogue, and the many close-ups of Lugosi's face in icy silence jumped off the screen. With this mesmerizing performance, Dracula became Bela Lugosi's signature role, his Dracula a cultural icon, and he himself a legend in the classic Universal Horror film series. However, Dracula would ultimately become a role which would prove to be both a blessing and a curse. Despite his earlier stage successes in a variety of roles, from the moment Lugosi donned the cape on screen, it would forever see him typecast as the Count.
True Blood is an American television series created and produced by Alan Ball. It is based on The Southern Vampire Mysteries series of novels by Charlaine Harris, detailing the co-existence of vampires and humans in Bon Temps, a fictional, small town in the state of Louisiana. The series centers on Sookie Stackhouse (played by actress Anna Paquin), a telepathic waitress who falls in love with vampire Bill Compton (Stephen
Moyer). The show is broadcast on the premium cable network HBO in the United States. It is produced by HBO in association with Ball's production company, Your Face Goes Here Entertainment. It premiered on September 7, 2008.The series has received critical acclaim and won several awards, including one Golden Globe and an Emmy.
The Wolf Man proved popular, and so Lon Chaney reprised his signature role in four more Universal films, though unlike his contemporary "monsters," Larry Talbot never enjoyed the chance to have a sequel all to himself. Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943) had Talbot’s grave opened on a full moon night, causing him to rise again (making him, in the subsequent films, technically one of the undead). He seeks out Dr. Frankenstein for a cure, but finds the monster (Béla Lugosi) instead. The two square off at the climax, but the fight ends in a draw when a dam is exploded and Frankenstein’s castle is flooded.
In House of Frankenstein (1944), Talbot is once again resurrected and is promised a cure via a brain transplant, but is shot dead with a silver bullet instead. He returns with no explanation in House of Dracula (1945), and is finally cured of his condition. But he was afflicted once again, in the comedy film Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948).
This time the Wolf Man is a hero of sorts, saving Wilbur Grey (Lou Costello) from having his brain transplanted by Dracula (Bela Lugosi) into the head of the Monster (Glenn Strange). Grabbing the vampire as he turns into a bat, the Wolf Man dives over a balcony into the sea, taking Dracula with him.
The Twilight series falls under the genre of young adult, fantasy, and romance, though Meyer categorized her first book, Twilight, as "suspense romance horror comedy."] However, she states that she considers her books as "romance more than anything else.:" The series explores the unorthodox romance between human Bella and vampire Edward, as well as the love triangle between Bella, Edward, and Jacob, a werewolf.[12] The books avoid delving into provocative sex, drugs, and harsh swearing because, according to Meyer, "I don't think teens need to read about gratuitous sex. The books are written in first-person narrative, primarily through Bella's eyes with the epilogue of the third book and a part of the fourth book being from Jacob's point of view. When asked about the structure of the novel, Meyer described her difficulty to pinpoint the premise of the novels to any specific category:
I have a hard time with that. Because if I say to someone, 'You know, it's about vampires,' then immediately they have this mental image of what the book is like. And it's so not like the other vampire books out there–Anne Rice's and the few that I've read. It isn't that kind of dark and dreary and blood-thirsty world. Then when you say, 'It's set in high school,' a lot of people immediately put it in another pool. It's easy to pigeonhole with different descriptions.
The books are based on the vampire myth, but Twilight vampires differ in a number of particulars from the general vampire lore. For instance, Twilight vampires have strong piercing teeth rather than fangs; they glitter in sunlight rather than burn; and they can drink animal blood as well as human blood. Meyer comments that her vampire mythology differs from that of other authors because she wasn't informed about the canon vampires, saying,
Inspiration and themes According to the author, her books are "about life, not death" and "love, not lust." Each book in the series was inspired by and loosely based on a different literary classic: Twilight on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, New Moon on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Eclipse on Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, and Breaking Dawn on a second Shakespeare play, A Midsummer Night's Dream .Meyer also states that Orson Scott Card and L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables series are a big influence on her writing.
And yes, I live for Halloween, and yes, Halloween is my favorite Holiday next to Christmas...why? Because Halloween is my Birthday! ;)
PLEASE Nooooooooo! Marc Jacob is no DIOR! Leave him with Viotten! Tom Ford would have been the perfect replacement for Dior or Christian Lacroix for Dior, Not Marc Jacob!
After the sensationalism of John Galliano's scandalous departure from Dior earlier this year, one question remained: Which designer will finally step up as the new creative director of the legacy brand? After months of breathless speculation, all indicators seem to point decisively in the direction of one man: Marc Jacobs. The Daily is reporting that "high-ranking industry sources" confirm that the deal is now final. A final and official statement from Dior is expected imminently to confirm the news.
\Jacobs' dynamic relationship with the music community cannot be underestimated. He spearheaded the early 90s grunge trend in his brief, but catalytic role as Perry Ellis's creative director; from there forward, his sly and shape-shifting design manifestations have compelled everyone from Kim Gordon to David Byrne to Madonna. Like pop music's own vagaries, Jacobs' visual mechanics can shift dramatically in scale, narrative, and tone every 6 months.
No wonder fellow restless firebrand M.I.A. was an ideally unconventional poster girl for Marc by Marc Jacobs in 2008, a year of many musical camaraderies for Jacobs: Kanye West wore the designer's pixelated heart pin, ensuring it as instant pop iconography; Sonic Youth performed at his show. A year later, pop royalty changed thrones and, fittingly, Lady Gaga stunned his audience as the surprise performer at his Spring 2010 collection after party.
Suffice to say, Jacobs' musical loyalists will follow his travails at Dior, a brand already valued chiefly by the entertainment universe mainly for its aspirational status. The beacon of French luxury remains a red carpet staple, and countless rappers routinely namedrop Dior (alongside stalwarts Gucci, Vuitton, and Chanel) in materialist anthems. But the primary pop figure to truly live and breathe the contemporary Dior ethos has been Gwen Stefani, who played Galliano's unofficial muse for the better part of a decade (he made her an unforgettable wedding gown; she dedicated "Rich Girl" to him in thanks.)
Both Galliano and Stefani favor deviant interpretations of 1940s glamor: any No Doubt video confirms this, while latter day Dior shows exhibit the same playful admiration for vignettes of the past. At the core of both creatives' priorities: beauty, even when off-kilter. This was not the willfully Dadaist realm of McQueen or Lady Gaga. In his tenure for the label, Galliano fixated religiously on creating inspired iterations of "The New Look," Dior's original breakthrough 1947 silhouette; Stefani, and other female starlets, wore them in videos, and in photo shoots.
By 2011, Galliano's retrofitting trick, in its various guises, was starting to bore a few critics, inviting the industry to speculate whether fresh creative blood at Dior was advisable. Like a chart clogged with hits produced by one overarching entity, the Dior aesthetic was turning staid.
With Jacobs at Dior's helm, the brand's legacy looks will certainly be modernized and musicians who favor Parisian styles will find their looks subtly shifting. In essence, two of France's most decadent labels will be seeing major changes: while Jacobs indulges his inner decadent for Dior, someone will take over as creative director of Louis Vuitton, a position he's held since 1997. His successor is likely to be ultra-minimalist Phoebe Philo, says WWD. If that's the case, expect Vuitton's sexual opulence and grandeur to be toned down into something sleek, discreet, and sophisticated — a lux economy Philo does brilliantly for Celine, as Kanye West appreciates.
As for what Dior under Jacobs might look like? It would be foolish to conjecture: it's impossible to predict Jacobs' own trajectory from season to season. But it's worth noting that the designer's past interpretations of vintage glamor usually point out the uglier and more trite aspects of an era. That irreverence may alienate those who favored Galliano's florid romanticism and theatrics, on and off the runway.
There was a lot of buzz about Victoria Beckham baring it all for the Marc Jacobs skin cancer awareness T-shirt this past August. And since then, as well as prior to that, many other celebrities stripped in support of the Cancer Awareness campaign.
There are numerous iterations of the t-shirt that bear the slogans: "Protect the Skin You're In", "Protect Your Largest Organ" and "Save Your Ass" all strategically placed over parts of bodies of many celebs. Some are printed front and back, some on color and some on grey.
Despite the fact that the celebrities, models and Marc Jacobs get most the press, the unsung heroes of this campaign are Robert Duffy, President of Marc Jacobs International, LLC and the late Dr. Jesse Ruben, who inspired the campaign and photographer Brian Bowen Smith who shot these celebrities. Not to mention the New York University Interdisciplinary Melanoma Cooperative Group, shown below: Chances are you are not aware of exactly how many female celebrities have since showed some skin in support. I certainly wasn't. I noticed most blog and reports have incorrectly reported the number of celebs who have donated their time and beautiful bodies to this campaign. There seem to be far more than most people know.
First off, I didn't realize that the shirts did not begin with Mrs Beckham, but she was instead later added to the impressive roster of celebrities supporting this cause. The campaign actually began in 2006 with Naomi Campbell, Winona Ryder, Rufus Wainwright, Julianne Moore and Selma Blair. The shirts were sold at the initial fund raiser only and subsequently in marc jacob boutiques.
Since then, more models have joined the cause and several new shirts have been issued- however now only in grey, at marc jacob boutiques (and probably on ebay as well).
Who actually posed in the buff?
I have found the following females, in addition to Mrs. Beckham, shot by Mr. Bowen Smith for the shirts are: Winona Ryder, Helena Christiansen, Eva Mendes, Selma Blair, Heidi Klum, Dita von Teese, Naomi Campbell, Carolyn Murphy, Joss Stone, Julianna Moore, Christy Turlington, Hilary Swank, Alison Lohman .. and yet there are probably more.
The males are: Marc himself, Brandon Boyd, Rufus Wainwright, Jason Thompson as well as many other male models Initially available in colors and for 20$, they are now harder to find, include the models name on the right arm and retail for $35 at Marc Jacobs boutiques and only 15 now seem to be available (shown below).
Every hour, someone dies of melanoma, but if caught early, the cure rate could be 100 percent. Melanoma is the easiest cancer to detect early because all you need is a trained pair of eyes. The message is don't let embarrassment stop you from stripping down before your physician or someone you love, and use the ABCDE rule--developed by physicians at NYU Medical Center--to determine if a mole could be cancerous: A for asymmetry; B for irregular border; C for color variation; D for diameter larger than a pencil eraser; and E for evolution of existing mole.
For more information about melanoma and other cancers go to www.nyuci.org
All proceeds from the T-shirts will go to support the NYU Cancer Institute.
T-shirts will be sold nationwide at all Marc Jacobs stores. For store location go to http://www.marcjacobs.com/
The most infiuential woman in the history of television, Lucille Ball remains among the medium’s best-loved performers. She appeared on weekly series almost continually for 23 years, always playing a variation on “Lucy,” the wacky, red-headed scatterbrain who, unlike Ball, had ambitions that far outstripped her talents. Born on August 8, 1911, Lucille Désirée Ball overcame a desperately unhappy childhood. She spent her early years in Jamestown, New York, where her father died when she was three. Her other remarried and left Ball in the care of her stepgrandparents, stern disciplinarians who tried to stifie Lucille’s natural bent toward theatricality.
With her mother’s support, Ball left home at 15 to attend John Murray Anderson/Robert Milton School of the Theater and Dance in New York City. Doubtful of her own talent and intimidated by her fellow students (who included the future film star BETTE DAVIS), Ball quit the school and returned to Jamestown after only a month. She quickly recovered from her bout of insecurity and started visiting New York to find work as an actress. A striking beauty, she had more initial success as a model. Her image in an ad for Chesterfield cigarettes attracted an agent and won her a role in Roman Scandals (1933), an extravaganza directed by Busby Berkeley and starring Eddie Cantor. With characteristic focus, Ball used the opportunity to watch and listen, hoping to learn everything possible about working in films. Show business legend holds that when, for a comic bit, the filmmaker needed a beauty to have her face sprayed with mud, Ball volunteered. Impressed with her pluck, Berkeley supposedly said, “Get that girl’s name. That’s the one who will make it.”Ball began appearing in small film roles and was placed under contract first by Columbia and then by RKO.
Although she received regular work, the film industry had difficulty using Ball well: With the looks of an ingenue and the spirit of a comic, she defied attempts to type her in conventional roles. Her best early role was in Stage Door (1937), where as a smart-mouthed aspiring actress she stood out in a cast that also included KATHARINE HEPBURN, GINGER ROGERS, and EVE ARDEN.
In 1940 Ball was cast in the film version of the Broadway musical Too Many Girls. One of the performers recruited from the Broadway cast was DesiArnaz, a young Cuban musician who was five years her junior. Immediately, Ball and Arnaz were attracted to each other, even though early in their romance, it was obvious their personalities clashed. Despite their tendency toward frequent and ferocious arguments, the practical Ball and reckless Arnaz were married within months. Ball thought she had found her breakthrough role as a bitter nightclub singer in The Big Street (1942). But, instead, soon after it appeared, RKO chose not to renew her contract. Ball, then 33, signed up with another studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). Seeing her years as an ingenue warning, she welcomed the studio’s attempts to remake her image.
As part of her MGM makeover, her brown hair was dyed a fiery red designed to make her stand out in Technicolor films. Although her red hair would become her trademark, Ball’s stint working for MGM was a disappointment. A studio that specialized in musicals, it produced few vehicles that could showcase the nonsinging Ball. After several years of being cast in ever smaller parts, MGM released her from her contract in 1946. From 1947 to 1951, Ball starred in the radio program My Favorite Husband, a role that brought her to the attention of the early television industry.
When CBS approached Ball with the idea of featuring her in a television version of her show, she was hesitant at first. At the time, movie industry leaders so looked down on the new medium of television that starring in a television series would essentially end any chance she would ever have at movie stardom. The offer, however, was still intriguing to Ball for personal reasons. She had been looking for a project on which she and Arnaz could work together, believing that might help save their rocky marriage. A bandleader, Arnaz was often on tour. His infidelities while away had already led Ball to file for divorce in 1944, but the couple soon reconciled.
Ball proposed that Arnaz be cast as the male lead in My Favorite Husband, but CBS balked. A Cuban American with a strong accent, Arnaz did not strike the network executives as right for the part of a midwestern banker. They were also not convinced that America would embrace Ball and Arnaz as a couple because of their mixed ethnicity. To change their minds, Ball and Arnaz set out on a touring act, blending music and comedy. Hailed by Variety as “a socko new act,” the show was such a success that CBS became interested in designing a program for the couple.
The enterprise, though, was still considered so risky that CBS insisted Ball and Arnaz take a cut in salary. They agreed in exchange for CBS’s grant of ownership of the show to Desilu, a production company the couple borrowed $5,000 to form. Six months pregnant with her first child, Lucie Désirée Arnaz, Ball filmed a pilot for I Love Lucy in early 1951. On October 15, the program premiered and quickly became the most popular show on television. At its height, as many as two-thirds of American families with television sets were faithful viewers. One of the most successful shows in the history of the medium, it was rated the number-one show for four years of its six-year run.
I Love Lucy featured the adventures of Lucy and Ricky Ricardo, played by Ball and Arnaz, and their friends and landlords Ethel and Fred Mertz (played by Vivian Vance and William Frawley). The show often focused on the mayhem set in motion by Lucy’s desire for a performing career against Ricky’s wishes. At the core of its success was Ball’s fiair for slapstick, a talent her film career had never exploited well. Using Ball’s comic skill and innate appeal to their best advantage, I Love Lucy struck a chord with the public almost immediately. Recognizing the effect, Ball once recalled, “I never found a place of my own, never became truly confident, until, in the Lucy character, I began to create something that was truly mine. The potential was there. Lucy released it.”I Love Lucy was also an innovator in the television industry. At Ball and Arnaz’s insistence, it was filmed before a live audience using three cameras, a technique then rare but now almost universally used for situation comedies. It also explored new subject matter when Ball became pregnant with her second child during the show’s second season. She persuaded CBS to allow her character also to become pregnant, leading to one of the most successful ratings stunts in television history.
On January 9, 1953, Lucille Ball gave birth to Desi Arnaz Jr. by a cesarean section scheduled for the day that Lucy Ricardo gave birth to “Little Ricky” on I Love Lucy. A record-making 44 million viewers tuned in to see Little Ricky’s arrival. While still America’s number-one show, I Love Lucy went off the air in 1957. Although Ball and Arnaz reprised their characters in a series of specials, their offscreen marriage had completely unraveled, owing largely to Arnaz’s drinking and philandering. They finally divorced in 1960. The next year, Ball married a young comedian, Gary Morton, who remained her husband until her death.
In 1962 Ball also severed professional ties with Arnaz by buying out his share in Desilu. Because of their television work, the production company had become so successful that it was able to buy RKO, the movie studio that years ago had unceremoniously declined to renew Ball’s contract. From 1962 through 1967, Ball served as Desilu’s president and CEO, giving her more power in the television industry than any woman had held before. Although Desilu began to struggle financially, during Ball’s tenure it produced two enduring television classics—Star Trek and Mission Impossible. Ball finally sold the company to Paramount for $18 million, when she decided she could no longer perform both the role of executive and of television star. After I Love Lucy, Ball returned to television in The Lucy Show, which was later renamed Here’s Lucy. From 1962 to 1974, she played a widow and working mother whose constant scheming exhausted her boss Mr. Moody (Gale Gordon). Initially, The Lucy Show reunited Ball with Vivian Vance, and on Here’s Lucy she eventually costarred with her two teenage children. Even after she left episodic television, Ball still appeared regularly on specials and occasionally in films.
She also made a splash on Broadway in Mame in 1974 and was recognized for her dramatic range in Stone Pillow (1983), a television movie in which she played a bag lady. A late effort to return to television in a situation comedy, how ever, proved a disaster.
The much-hyped Life with Lucy (1986) drew few viewers and was yanked from the air after only eight episodes. The debacle did little to tarnish Ball’s reputation as the queen of television comedy. Three weeks after the last Life with Lucy program aired, she was in Washington, D.C., to receive from President Ronald Reagan a Kennedy Center Award, the United States’s highest honor for a performer. Following her death on April 26, 1989, the many glowing tributes from her peers and fans gave further testament to her enduring appeal and infiuence.
Kevin Wiltz, Don Hood and Daniel Rohanna brought attitude of classic, glamour, flamboyant and masculine into the Falcon Crest Collection. My Falcon Crest collection, I created a classic look of brocade blazers with matching black pants, vest and the long turkey crest brooches and I brought along James Murray Jewrly lines along with the project. He lended me his gorgeous necklace to go with the designs.With the British Photographer Joseph Sinclair flew in from London to work with me and I had a big male model casting and choose three beautiful and amazing looking men with various background. Kevin Wiltz had no problem striking the flamboyant pose with a classic attitude. With his Ballet background, he brought sophiscation and style in front of Sinclair's lens....
The handsome striking young male model seen in numerous fashion magzine from Teen Vogue to GQ, he brought such striking feature into his poses and Jospeh Sinclair had no problem snapping photographs at the New York male model. The photoshoot was taken a the studio across from FIT, and it was an amazing shoot and yes, I brought Jewrel back as my makeup artist who I have worked with him for several projects.
Daniel Rohanna, tall, handsome and a gorgeous hockey player! Yes he is actually a big name hockey player for the hockey leagues. I met him on the street near Parsons, he caught my attention and I asked him and we spoke while having coffee and wanted him to bring the masculine looks into my Falcon Crest Collection....
And yes, I dedicated my designs to one of my favorite show from the 80's, the theme song was what I love and brought those and created those turkey crest and the florial into exclusive brooches into my very flamboyant Falcon Crest Collection!
Happy Birthday to you MADONNA! I have followed Madonna Music since High School in 1984...I fall for her and her Lucky Star, Holiday, Like A Virgin, Material Girl, Pappa Don't Preach, Like A Prayer, and most of all my all time favorite Madonna Music will be in 1990 when Rock star, Lenny Kravitz wrote the song and MADONNA made history! I live for her Vogue dance and the Old Hollywood video.......
Madonna has sold more than 300 million records worldwide and is recognized as the world's top-selling female recording artist of all time by the Guinness World Records. According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), she is the best-selling female rock artist of the 20th century and the second top-selling female artist in the United States, behind Barbra Streisand, with 64 million certified albums.
In 2008, Billboard magazine ranked Madonna at number two, behind only The Beatles, on the Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists, making her the most successful solo artist in the history of the Billboard chart. She was also inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the same year. Considered to be one of the "25 Most Powerful Women of the Past Century" by Time for being an influential figure in contemporary music, Madonna is known for continuously reinventing both her music and image, and for retaining a standard of autonomy within the recording industry.
Madonna starred as "Breathless" Mahoney in the film Dick Tracy (1990), with Warren Beatty playing the title role To accompany the film, she released the soundtrack album I'm Breathless, which included songs inspired by the film's 1930s setting. It also featured the U.S. number one hit, "Vogue", and "Sooner or Later", which earned songwriter Stephen Sondheim an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1991
Rolling Stone called it an "elaborately choreographed, sexually provocative extravaganza" and proclaimed it "the best tour of 1990" The tour was met with strong reaction from religious groups for her performance of "Like a Virgin", during which two male dancers caressed her body before she simulated masturbation.
The Immaculate Collection, Madonna's first greatest-hits compilation album, was released in November 1990. It included two new songs, "Justify My Love" and "Rescue Me". The album was certified diamond by RIAA and sold over 30 million copies worldwide, becoming the best-selling compilation album by a solo artist in history. "Justify My Love" reached number one in the U.S. and top ten worldwide. Its music video featured scenes of sadomasochism, bondage, same-sex kissing and brief nudity. The second single, "Rescue Me", became the highest-debuting single by a female artist in Hot 100 chart history at that time, entering at number 15 and peaking at number nine.
late 1990 to early 1991, Madonna dated Tony Ward, a model and pornography performer who appeared in her music videos for "Cherish" and "Justify My Love". She also had an eight-month relationship with rapper Vanilla Ice. Her first documentary film Truth or Dare (known as In Bed with Madonna outside North America) was released in mid-1991. The documentary chronicled her Blond Ambition World Tour and provided glimpses into her personal life.
Madonna's portrayal of Eva Perón in the film Evita garnered her critical acclaim. In 1992, Madonna had a role in A League of Their Own as Mae Mordabito, a baseball player on an all-women's team. She recorded the film's theme song, "This Used to Be My Playground", which became a Hot 100 number one hit.
The first release from the venture was Madonna's book, entitled Sex. It consisted of sexually provocative and explicit images, photographed by Steven Meisel.
The book caused strong negative reaction from the media and the general public, but sold 1.5 million copies at $50 each in a matter of days At the same time she released her fifth studio album, Erotica, which debuted at number two on the Billboard 200.
Its title track peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot 100.
"This is the role I was born to play. I put everything of me into this because it was much more than a role in a movie. It was exhilarating and intimidating at the same time. And it was the farthest I've ever had to push myself creatively. At every level, I had a great education. And I am prouder of Evita than anything else I have done."
—Madonna talking about Evita and her role as Eva Perón.The following year saw the release of Evita in which she played the title role of Eva Perón. For a long time, Madonna had desired to play Perón and even wrote to director Alan Parker, explaining how she would be perfect for the part. After securing it, she underwent vocal training and learned about the history of Argentina and Perón. During shooting she fell sick many times, commenting that "The intensity of the scenes we have been shooting and the amount of emotional work and concentration needed to get through the day are so mentally and physically exhausting that I'm sure I will need to be institutionalized when its over."
Evita was a period drama and almost 6,000 costumes were needed for the scenes. Madonna herself wore 370 different costumes, earning her a Guinness World Record for the most costume changes in a film.After its release, the film garnered critical appreciation. Zach Conner from Time magazine commented "It's a relief to say that Evita is pretty damn fine, well cast and handsomely visualized. Madonna once again confounds our expectations. She plays Evita with a poignant weariness and has more than just a bit of star quality.
Madonna won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for the role.She released three singles from the Evita soundtrack album including "You Must Love Me" (which won an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1997) and "Don't Cry for Me Argentina ".
Madonna's music has been the subject of much analysis and scrutiny of critics. Robert M. Grant, author of Contemporary Strategy Analysis (2005), commented that what has brought Madonna success is "certainly not outstanding natural talent. As a vocalist, musician, dancer, songwriter, or actress, Madonna's talents seem modest."He asserts Madonna's success is in relying on the talents of others, and that her personal relationships have served as cornerstones to the numerous reinventions in the longevity of her career. Madonna's approach was far from the music industry wisdom of "Find a winning formula and stick to it." Her musical career has been a continuous experimentation with new musical ideas and and new images and a constant quest for new heights of fame and acclaim. Grant concluded that "having established herself as the queen of popular music, Madonna did not stop there, but continued re-inventing."
Conversely, Rolling Stone has named Madonna "an exemplary songwriter with a gift for hooks and indelible lyrics, and a better studio singer than her live spectacles attest." Mark Bego, author of Madonna: Blonde Ambition, called her "the perfect vocalist for lighter-than-air songs", despite not being a "heavyweight talent." Madonna has always been self-conscious about her voice, especially in comparison to her vocal idols such as Ella Fitzgerald, Prince and Chaka Khan.
Throughout her career, Madonna has written and co-written most of her own materials, as well as songs of other artists such as Nick Kamen's "Each Time You Break My Heart" and Gary Barlow's "Love Won't Wait." According to Freya Jarman-Ivens, Madonna's talent for developing "incredible" hooks for her songs allows the lyrics to capture the attention of the audience, even without the influence of the music. As an example, Jarman-Ivens cites the 1985 single "Into the Groove" and its line "Live out your fantasy here with me, just let the music set you free; Touch my body, and move in time, now I know you're mine." From 1983 to 1986, Madonna's musical productions were often girlish and naïve in nature, focusing primarily on love, romance, passion and boy-meets-girl relationships.
This changed with the album Like a Prayer, when the lyrics became much more personal, such as in "Promise to Try", which references Madonna's lingering pain at the loss of her mother. Madonna's lyrics often suggest an identification with the gay community. Fouz believes that when Madonna sings "Come on girls, do you believe in love?" in "Express Yourself", she is addressing both the gay audience and the heterosexual female.
Even in the Erotica era, with its often adult-oriented lyrics, the songs appear free-flowing and gullible ("So won't you go down, where it's warm inside" — "Where Life Begins" from Erotica). Madonna's songwriting ability has been criticized, with Rolling Stone's Maria Raha calling her lyrics "flighty and not sophisticated. Madonna can only bring a trunk full of trite lyrics on the long standing tradition of pop music, love; when she wasn't singing about love, she was singing about partying and dancing." Her lyrics were considered banal, and her songwriting capability was largely ignored by critics until the release of Ray of Light and Music. According to Jarman-Ivens, lyrics such as "You're frozen, when your heart's not open" ("Frozen", 1998) and "I can't remember, when I was young, I can't express if it was wrong" ("Paradise (Not for Me)", 2000) reflected an artistic palette, "encompassing diverse musical, textual and visual styles in its lyrics."
Marilyn Monroe had a profound influence on Madonna.According to Taraborrelli, "Almost certainly, the defining moment of Madonna's childhood—the one that would have the most influence in shaping her into the woman she would become—was the tragic and untimely death of her beloved mother." Psychiatrist Keith Ablow suggests that her mother's death would have had an immeasurable impact on the young Madonna at a time when her personality was still forming.
the death of her mother: "It's not so much grief at her mother's death that drives her, as the sense of abandonment that left her unprotected. She encountered her own worst possible scenario, becoming a victim of male violence, and thereafter turned that full-tilt into her work, reversing the equation at every opportunity."
During her childhood, Madonna was inspired by actors, later saying, "I loved Carole Lombard and Judy Holliday and Marilyn Monroe. They were all incredibly funny ... and I saw myself in them ... my girlishness, my knowingness and my innocence>"Her "Material Girl" music video recreated Monroe's look in the song "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend", from the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. She studied the screwball comedies of the 1930s, particularly those of Lombard, in preparation for the film Who's That Girl. The video for "Express Yourself" .... was inspired by Fritz Lang's silent film Metropolis (1927). The video for "Vogue" recreated the style of Hollywood glamour photographs, in particular those by Horst P. Horst, and imitated the poses of Marlene Dietrich, Carole Lombard and Rita Hayworth, while the lyrics referred to many of the stars who had inspired her, including Bette Davis, described by Madonna as an idol.Influences also came to her from the art world, most notably through the works of artist Frida Kahlo.
Madonna performing at her Sticky & Sweet Tour, the highest-grossing tour of all time by a solo artist Madonna has achieved multiple Guinness World Records, including world's top-selling female recording artist and the most successful female recording artist of all time.On March 10, 2008, Madonna was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in her first year of eligibility.[171] Billboard magazine ranked her as the most successful solo artist (second overall, behind only The Beatles) on the "Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists." Madonna has also scored many hits on major international charts, including 13 number one singles in the United Kingdom, 11 in Australia, and 23 in Canada—more than any other female artist.[. Madonna is featured in the book 100 Most Important Women of the 20th Century, published by Ladies' Home Journal in 1998.In July 2003, she ranked seventh on VH1 and People magazine's list of the "200 Greatest Pop Culture Icons of All Time. She also placed as the number one artist on VH1's "50 Greatest Women of the Video Era."
Don Shewey from Rolling Stone wrote that "Madonna is the most media-savvy American pop star since Bob Dylan and, until she toned down her press-baiting behavior in the nineties, she was the most consistently controversial one since Elvis Presley." According to him, her self-celebrating dance music and outré videos provided feminism with a makeover. Throughout the eighties Madonna broke down sexual boundaries, making eroticism a crucial pop-song element, and challenging social and religious mores. Shewey fel that one fact was rarely disputed: "At nearly every turn, Madonna has maintained firm control over her career and image."
