Sep 6 2024 - TIFF Celebrities

 

Who are the celebrities that will be at TIFF this year?  Daniel Craig, Tilda Swinton, Tom Hiddleston, Ben Stiller, Sandra Oh, Amy Adams, Hugh Grant, David Cronenberg, Pharrell Williams, and Andrea Bocelli.   Superstar Angelina Jolie is scheduled to attend the festival this year, where she will be honoured with the TIFF Tribute Award in Impact Media.   There's a premier of Road Diary:  Brue Springsteen and The E Street Band.   And what about this description:  TIFF 2024 is expected to bring Selena Gomez to town for the Canadian premiere of her new film Emilia Pérez. Described as a combination of “pop opera, narco thriller, and gender affirmation drama.”  I can't decide between narco thriller or genre affirmation drama.  That's like having to choose ice cream flavours.   Here's the summary of the plot: 'In Emilia Pérez, Mexican criminal lawyer Rita Moro Castro (Saldaña) helps notorious kingpin Manitas Del Monte (Karla Sofía Gascón) stage their own murder and secretly undergo a gender transition. Castro must also make plans for Monte’s wife (Gomez) and their children — all the while the film parades through musical detours." And there's Elton John: Never Too Late world premiere - it is expected that Elton John will be there. That's a lot of celebrities - something for all ages.  I can't believe how young everyone looks.  Is it botox and plastic surgery or is it photoshop?  For example, Nicole Kidman is 57 years old and stars in an erotic drama Babygirl.   I don't think that would have been the case 50 years ago.  Remember poor Marilyn Monroe thought she'd lost her looks at 36 years old.  But there's a major discussion on how much she weighed "really" at points in time before she died.  The term "plus sized woman" occurs quite often and that is not a compliment.  Anyway, back to the Toronto International Film Festival - on from Sept. 5 to Sept. 15, 2024.

California's celebrity tree -  the Lone Cypress Tree on the Monterey Coast.

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April 21 2022 - Angels vs Celebrities on the Head of a Pin

 

Are we more obsessed with celebrities now than in past times?  I expect so.  And that we consider them in a higher sphere of living than the rest of us.  "Celebrities are fascinating because they live in a parallel universe—one that looks and feels just like ours yet is light-years beyond our reach."  I wondered about whether this might be the case that we could debate celebrities on the head of a pin.  The original question is attributed to medieval times.  "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? " This is considered key to medieval scholarship.  It was "used to challenge medieval theologians."  Others say this expression is a past urban myth about the middle ages.  You can see many more medieval myths HERE. Things like the earth is flat, some medieval Pope instituted fasting from meant on Fridays to help the fishing industry of the Papal States, they burned millions of witches at stakes, and so on. And if we want a bit of entertainment, one article gives this ironic answer:  "Perhaps the final answer to this medieval conundrum lies in a casual remark made to Senate by the Vice-Chancellor of Newcastle University, Professor Raoul Mortley "The answer is of course well known; fewer if fat, more if thin". (The Editor)"   Today the angel expression is a metaphor for unimportant intellectual debate while more important and urgent concerns accumulate.  Substituting celebrities for angels seems to make sense.

I was in Toronto yesterday dropping my brother off at Toronto Western Hospital for his knee surgery.  I didn't get any such motion blur pictures.  I did get to experience the very bad state of Toronto streets with winter's potholes.  It seemed like another universe to Niagara, given I haven't driven through Toronto's streets for two years. And how will today's experience go? We pick him up to take him home post operation with the knee in a less ambulatory state. Yesterday I wasn't allowed into the hospital to assist him with his bag and walker. Without any assistance, his bag was misplaced.  He didn't get it till much later in the day.  Let's see if they let me in today to retrieve him and the bag. It made me wonder how anyone actually gets out of a hospital during the Pandemic.   Maybe the question is how many discharged patients can dance on the head of a pin in a hospital? Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

May 28 2021 - I forgot watches

 

I got to wondering if celebrity living involves more than cars, houses, and vacations.   I remembered that key personal item which would likely be number four on the list - watches.  And there are lists of celebrities and their watches.   I couldn't comprehend that Martin Luther King Jr. had a Rolex, likely gifted to him by Rolex.  This is likely as Rolex noted in an advertisement that he wore it when he delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech in 1963.  That seems a sad moment for 20th Century advertising.  But it is telling of the 20th Century's elevation of wristwatches to celebrity status.  Watches aren't like cars to the wealthy. Bill Gates skipped the expensive watch experience:  he supposedly wears a $70 Casio. Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Cook wear affordable consumer watches.  So the assumption is that cars have a higher ranking of success than watches. There is a long history for the clock/watch.  One article says that the first wristwatch was created in 1812 to fit the wrist of the Queen of Naples. They were worn by women.  Men used pocket watches until the 20th century.  They started to wear wristwatches to allow them to have their hands free - WWI was the defining event that spurred this development. It is clear that cars are higher on the status list than watches. The most expensive watch ever sold at auction: Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime Ref. 6300A-010, for 31.19 million US dollars in Geneva on November 9, 2019 (by Christie's).  Wikipedia has a long entry on the most expensive cars ever sold.  Number 1 on the list is the 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO for US $48,405,000 at auction.  Another entry lists that model was sold for $70,00,000 privately.  In the articles about what rich people buy, cars always shows up.  Watches don't always show up. Gold toilets, private islands, private planes, super yachts - they show up on the lists. Even fossils show up on the lists.  Watches are viewed as "another easy way rich people make their wealth known."   I went looking for car pictures - I remember we visited a car display on Yorkville one year, but I didn't find the pictures.  This picture comes from one of the Porsche Fun Run events a few years ago.

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May 27 2021 - This is the car Bill Gates drives

 

That subject line does spark our curiosity, without doubt.   What is the draw of the famous and celebrities?   ~Will we find out unusual things about them?  Things we can't imagine? What makes us curious about how they live their lives compared to our lives?   ~Will we be on the same wave-length for daily living, or find out how completely differently they live their lives? What makes us think there is something extraordinary about their daily living?   ~Don't we figure there has to be given the attention fans and the media? How do we decide what a normal life is? ~ Aren't we so immersed in the "everyday" that it takes a celebrity's normal day to show us the differences? What are banal things that a person would avoid to do if they were a celebrity? ~ Grocery shopping, laundry, getting gas...are these the things that people consider boring and tedious and want freedom from? These might be questions about celebrity living. I seem to think there are a few top things we are interested in: 1. Cars What are the 15 incredible female celebrity cars?  What are the ten unique celebrity cars? Celebrities and their A-List cars. How many cars does {  },  {  }, and {  } have? 2. Houses Which celebrity has the best house?  Most expensive celebrity homes. 10 celebrity homes on the market right now. 3. Vacations The 13 most popular vacation destinations to spot celebrities. What resorts do celebrities stay at? Celebrities and their vacation homes.     I found this one in the archives of the Photo of the Day - what a lot of great crackle and colour.

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Oct 25 2020 - Halloween Countdown with Celebrity Costumes

 

What can surpass the Elton John fun outfit yesterday?  The answer is Hollywood celebrity costumes.  I say "sort of" as some of these are creepy and some are hysterically funny. I took a look through 2018 and found Kim Kardashian and Jonathan Cheban as - who else?  Sonny and Cher. Isn't he perfect?       This one makes me curious about how the whole costume works:  Heidi Klum as Jessica Rabbit.   These pictures are from 2018, you can see the 2019 highlights at US News HERE.  And it will only be a week before we see this year's highlights. Our story today is a day with Baxter and Millie.  You can see Baxter in Millie's basket, then the two of them about to go outside, Millie wrestling with the Japanese Forest Grass, and then having a rest back on the sofa. There were leaves to chase, hostas to sit on (squash), and circles to run around in.

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Mar 2 2020 - Paul McCartney Spotted in second class on train

Are there really celebrities who don't spend their money buying dozens of racing cars and other luxury items.  There are lots of sites, such as moneycrashers.com that make these claims about popular stars.  Here are a few:  Kristen Bell As the lead character for Disney’s biggest animated movie all time, “Frozen,” Kristen Bell is sitting pretty as far as picking her next projects. And with an estimated net worth of $16 million, she could wear anything she wants on the red carpet. But Bell is known for her frugal sartorial choices, even rocking a $45 dress from Target at one event. Leonardo DiCaprio You’d expect a millionaire playboy like Leonardo DiCaprio to own the latest and greatest sports cars, but despite his vast $200 million fortune, the actor only has one vehicle: a Toyota Prius. He’s also known for eschewing private jets, choosing to fly commercial instead to both save money and protect the environment from unnecessary emissions. His main pursuit is charitable giving, as he supports a number of environmentalist causes. Paul McCartney As one of the most famous rock stars of all time, Paul McCartney – and his huge net worth of $800 million – stays pretty humble. He’s known for his frugal ways, including making his daughter, Stella, pay her own way for post-secondary school, and even asking guests to pay for their own drinks at a party. For Paul McCarney, there are further reports that these  stories spread by Dave Gilmour of Pink Floyd and by his own daughter.  And then in March 2018, this headline hit the Dailymail.com, That must have been fun to experience and report.   EXCLUSIVE - He's got a cheap ticket to ride! Frugal Paul McCartney stuns rail commuters by sitting in SECOND CLASS despite being worth $1billion Beatles legend Sir Paul McCartney was spotted sitting in second class on a train The 75-year-old is one of the world's biggest stars with a £780 million fortune He sat deep in thought - and almost unnoticed on the train from London Stunned commuter Oliver Wong was delighted to see the down-to-earth icon  Today we have a collage of abstract images.

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