Favourite Frenchie Friday... Marion Cotillard

There are many reasons I love Marion Cotillard. She was a massive mess as Edith Plath in La Vie En Rose. She was such a crazy mess as Edith that she won a BAFTA, a Golden Globe and an Oscar, becoming the first person to win an Academy Award for a French Language film. She was such a crazy mess that I didn’t realize that she was pretty until awards season, when she stole the show in her Jean Paul Galliano fish tail dress. It was amazing.

Not only that but she is a spokesperson for Greenpeace and even lets them hold meetings in her Paris apartment. She and her director husband are dubbed the French Bradgelina. But somehow she still doesn’t seem annoying.

What really got her in my good books was when I heard that she appeared in two Hawksley Workman videos. Like WTF? Hawksley Workman, for those of you not in the now, is without a doubt, the most underrated songwriter in all of North America. He is Canadian and passionate and writes the most tragic and earnest love songs that make Rufus Wainwright sound like he is singing about chocolate cake and potato chips. Oh Wait that is what RW sings about! ZING!

If you are not familiar with Hawksley Workman, youtube or download Jealous of your Cigarette and you will see what I’m talking about.

Supposedly Marion and hawksley have worked on a bunch of songs for her upcoming album. AMAZING.

She’s also going to be in the movie musical NINE. AMAZING.

She’s also in Public Enemies with Johnny Depp. AMAZING.

She always seems so happy and giggly. AMAZING.

I <3 Marion Cotillard and she is my favourite Frenchie for this Friday!

week in the knees wednesday.... Brandon Reilly of Nightmare of You.

So this week, I am staying with my rocker theme and picking the shaggy-haired, mumbling lead singer of Nightmare of You as my Week in the Knees Wednesday winner.

Brandon Reilly always looks like he will eitehr kick you in the shins or burst into tears. I like that. A lot. I’ve almost forgot aboutr him until I was going through my Itunes and found the precious gem, “I Wanna be Buried in Your Backyard.”

Oh 2002, how I missed you. Blogs were actually interesting. I actually felt like if I dropped myself off in the LES of NYC Ultragrrl and all her friends would invite me to live in their house with the big red door and pose like a heroine addict in front of the infamous wall at MisShapes.

“ For I haven’t slept a week since you’ve been gone/Now I want to be buried in your backyard/And when the flowers grow just know you’re still in my heart”… I used to listen to this song on repeat at work all the time. Imagining that there was someone out there who was sensitive enough to be so outwardly vulnerable, so grandiose and so earnest.

That is Brandon reilly. Tortured, skinny and rarely cracking a smile, he is a rockstar without the glamour, a hipster without the overwhelming irony and a regular guy without the regular.

He is a screw up and a romantic and his songs make me think I am in the 80s listening to the Smiths or the Commitments or some English band that has a really tortured lead singer with a non-chalant gay vibe.

I love you Brandon Reilly and I miss 2002!

Must Have Monday.... Green tea Ginger Ale...

I love me some pop. I know, it can be bad for you, what with the caffeine and the asparmatame and the glucose bi-carbonate, but pa-sha! I love me some zero cola and I don’t care what anyone says zero carbs, zero sugars, zero calories equal plenty of goodness for me. But then one day I was at the good ole Petro Can and I was like why should I buy a zero when I have zero at home? So I bought something else. Something different. And something magical happened. I discovered… Canada Dry Green Tea Ginger Ale. It is so good.

Now some of you might say Green tea pop is everything that is wrong with our consumerist culture. To you I say… Have you tried it? I can’t belive no one made green tea pop sooner. It’s AMAZING ( imagine me talking in my white girl drag queen voice) AMAZING!

I never really liked Ginger Ale. I used to think it was like th pop that those girls drink that are like oh I never have any sugar! (FYI these girls are the same ones who get tipsy after sucking on wine gums!) Or Ginger Ale is what you are forced to drink when you are sick and you’ve been forced to gargle with salt water for 3 minutes straight! (eek! Elementary school flashback!)

Whatever my deep psychological reasons for shying away from Canada Dry, I’m right on board with Green tea Ginger Ale. It’s so yummy and I have a feeling there might have to be a dance battle in my mouth between zero and greentea to see which is my tastebuds’ favourite.

Oh yeah! The gaunlet has been drawn!

Canada Dry Green Tea Ginger Ale is my first Must Have Monday.

Favourite Frenchie Friday.....Vanessa Paradis.

So why do I love Vanessa Paradis? Is it because she has a funny shaped head like and egg and a gap-toothed grin? Noo… but that is definitely part of her charm. She is the woman that has finally tamed Johnny Depp and together they seem to live this fabulous bourgeoisie hippie life on a farm in the South of France.

Actually my fascination with Vanessa Paradis began in the early 90s when she was dating Lenny Kravitz in his “Are you Gonna Go My Way” days and was the spokesmodel for Coco Perfume. She released a U.S. albulm to little fanfare except all the cool NYC girls in Jane magazine were in love with her; and so I was too. Download “Be My Baby” and you’ll see why. She’s child-like and bird like and a little weird. She has hardly aged since the 90s but she still manages to look her age.

She’s an accomplished actress in many French films including like the only one that I really know well, La Fille sur la pont ( the Girl on the Bridge). If you haven’t seen these movie. You must. It’s about a suicidal girl who becomes the target girl for a travelling knife throwing act. So. Good.

She always whispers in interviews and says her biggest vice is bubble gum. Hello? You are with Johnny Depp and you biggest vice is bubble gum?? Oh Mon dieu!

C’est la vie. I guess that’s what he’s into. Johnny Depp eats roaches ( it’s true… look it up) and Vanessa Paradis chews too much bubble gum. It’s a match made in weirdo heaven. And I love it. Vanessa Paradis is my first Favourite Frenchie Friday!

Thursday: You are a Robot if….

Today’s you are robot if features one of my favourite new singers, Taylor Swift. Sure she’s young and supposedly country.

But her diary confessional lyrics and her bouncy curly hair make me like her.. a lot. I bought her CD! Not ashamed to admit it. I sometimes cry when this song comes on my Ipod. A bit ashamed to admit it.

But I mean come on she relased this video around Mother’s Day. She says her best friend is her mom! It’s actual home movies of her and her mom!

I don't know who I'm gonna talk to now at school
But I know I'm laughing on the car ride home with you
Don't know how long it's gonna take to feel okay
But I know I had the best day with you today.

This video is so cute and heart warming and if it doesn’t make you cry or a bit teary-eyed or want to call your mom, then face it… you are a robot!

Weak in the Knees Wednesday - Kings of Leon’s Caleb Followill.

When the King’s of Leon’s lead singer, Caleb Followill sings the opening lines of Use Somebody: “ I’ve been roaming around, I was looking down at all I see/ Painted faces fill the places I can’t reach” I fall in love over and over again.

Even though that song is on every radio station every 20 minutes and without fail at 8:10 am every morning when I am first logging onto my computer at work. I still love it. His voice sounds so tired and aching and scratchy and sexy.

Caleb and his brother Nathan formed KOL in 2000 in Nashville TN. Their father was a Pentecostal evangelist minister and they named their band after him and their grandpa. I have never seen Caleb without his requisit scruff face and when he sings he moves his head around all cute like Stevie Wonder.

They play just regualr rock and don;’t try to get all fancy with hipsters or the sceney crowd in London, NYC or LA.

When they opened for U2, they said it was dream come true ( how many hipsters would admit to having a dream?)

Caleb has some model girlfriend but whatevs. He is supercute and once said his dad was his role model. AWWW!

Caleb Followill is the first Weak in the Knees Wednesday.