The Charm of Justin Bieber

One thing that cracks me up on Twitter is when people ask, "Who the heck is Justin Bieber?" because he is always in the top 10 trending topics.

I know who he is - he's a cute kid, catchy songs... haven't downloaded any yet but I'm sure at one point I will. But I wouldn't say I have Bieber Fever or anything but I can see why he is so popular.

This past weekend I was in DC with my sis and we were watching Saturday Night Live with host Tina Fey and musical guest - you guessed it - Justin Bieber. Now my sister didn't really know him too well... she knew the name but I don't think she knew any of his songs or what he looked like, etc.

Fast forward to his first musical performance of his big hit, "Baby".

At this point, I wasn't really watching. I think I was engrossed in a game of WordPops on my iPhone at the time. Meanwhile, I heard the following outbursts from my sister:

"Oh, this kid is cute."

"Ooh, look at him dance!"

"Wow, he's gliding!"

"He can rap, too? He's so good!"

"Wow, this kid is gonna be big!"

"Man, he can do anything!"

"This kid should be in movies!"

"He's gonna be a big star!"

And so on and so on... it was so funny! I think it ended with her saying something like how she has Bieber Fever now. LOL.

It was just so amusing to witness firsthand Justin Bieber charming an older lady, aka my sister.

I guess he's got IT, whatever IT is.

Later, I had to see for myself what was so special about him. If you haven't seen his music videos, you can find them here. They're pretty cute - usually him chasing down a dark haired girl. And I like any video with a dance break in them.

You should also check out his personal videos here - which is how he got started. It's cute to see the old videos where he is singing acapella and stuff and even plays the guitar!

Step Up 3D Trailer

Twitch!!!

I didn't see the second Step Up but am thinking about seeing this one!

Oscar Fashion Report

What did you guys think of the fashions at the Oscars? I noticed lots of deep reds, ruffles, and big flowy dresses.

Here are my faves (click to enlarge):

My Girl Crush, Kristen Stewart: The dress was BEAUTIFUL, a work of art. Loved that she wore her hair back in an elegant bun with simple makeup. And I thought it was very Kristen to keep the jewelry simple as well - no earrings or necklace but instead one heck of a bling bling bracelet.

Rachel McAdams: Loved the dress - it looked like a painting in motion! Not sure if I like those particular earrings paired with that dress but Rachel can pull anything off in my book.

Cameron Diaz: Thought this dress was a little more formal/classic that what Cameron typically wears but I thought it was really beautiful. Nice she kept the hair down in her typical Cameron style.

Amanda Seyfried: Loved the intricate pattern throughout the dress - very beautiful overall effect paired with perfect hair and makeup.

***

And now on to my least faves of the night...

Miley Cyrus: Alright, I'll be honest - Miley drives me nuts so I was already biased against her before she set foot on the red carpet. Hair and makeup was nice but the top of her dress really bothered me. I mean, it's pretty much a bustier, right? And she's a teenager, right? So it's weird.

Charlize Theron: What was up with the boobie detractors? Seriously, when she was presenting - all I saw were two eyes staring at me from her chest. An unfortunate design, really.

Sarah Jessica Parker: I didn't really hate her dress, just wasn't loving it. No shape and stuff. But what really got to me were the insane amount of fly away hairs she had. That's all I could look at when she was presenting. Her stylist couldn't have smoothed that stuff out?

Zoe Saldana: I love Zoe so it hurt me to put her on this list. But c'mon - what was up with that dress? There was just so much going on - top half looked very disco ball-y and the bottom felt very Vegas showgirl. Still love ya, Zoe!

How about you guys? What dresses were you loving and hating last night? Post your thoughts below!

I'm such a dork!

On photoshoots, I enjoy being behind the scenes. In fact, I prefer it. Why? Because when a fancy camera is pointed in my direction, I just end up acting like a freak!

Exhibit A was highlighted in a previous post.

Exhibit B is below. Prepare to get dizzy again!

Romantic Dress Shoot

OK... so I haven't been doing a very good job with blogging about makeup and the work I've been doing on photo shoots and what not. Well guess what? Today someone did the job for me! So let me just send you over there to see the fun shoot I worked on today.

Today I worked with the wonderful stylist, Lim, and she is all over the blogging! Here are some teaser pics... headed over to her blog for more behind the scenes info. There are also some additional posts on Lim's styling and our team.

Just adding the final touches on Becky, our fab model

Ryan shooting and Becky working it

Team pic! Steph (hair), me (makeup), Lim (stylist), Becky (model)

Fave Superbowl Commercials?

Here are some of mine:


Snickers


(I mean, hello, you've got Betty White AND Abe Vigoda??? How can you go wrong?)

Google




Letterman




I'm happy for the Saints - nice to have a positive spotlight on New Orleans. Plus I rooted for them mostly because I think Reggie Bush is cute.

These accents are killing me!

I caught Owen from Grey's Anatomy, aka actor Kevin McKidd, on The View and I was immediately thrown off by his accent. He's Scottish, dudes!!!



Which reminds me of Kevin from Brothers and Sisters and his cute Welsh accent. I remember being shocked that he wasn't a native American.



The funny thing is that I would have guessed the Scottish and Welsh accents were the fake ones, LOL!

Who's seeing Dear John?

Eh, not me. Probably because I'm not too crazy about either of the stars. Lainey Gossip had a funny write-up about it here. My favorite lines: "I don’t believe that Amanda Seyfried would fall for him. I don’t buy that she’d be into poorly conjugated verbs." LOL.

It is weird that I am not on board with this movie because "A Walk to Remember" had me in tears and who didn't love "The Notebook"? Let's not forget that that film gave us this wonderful gift:

It's a great song but...

... I fear I will now always associate "I Gotta Feeling" with that Valentine's Day movie.



And don't get me wrong, I think the movie looks cute and will most likely see it but they are wearing down a great BEP song for me.

The Premiere of LOST: The FINAL Season is Tonight! Are you ready?

... 'cause I am not.



My problem is that I have missed almost the entire last season, however they are all sitting in my DVR as we speak. Here's the thing - yes, I'm a TV junkie but rarely do I just sit at home and do nothing but watch my TV. Usually I'm also on the computer or doing something else so my attention is never 100% on the show I'm watching. And if you're a Lost fan, you know that you do need 100% attention when watching that show.

Especially last season! I mean when the show first started you had lots of present day and flashbacks. Easy to follow because either they were either dirty or clean, right? (LOL) But then they totally tricked us with that season finale when we thought we were watching flashbacks of Jack when it was totally a flash forward to when they were off the island!!! Ok, WOAH... That was a good one, right???

So then you got some flash forwards and for the most part they were easy to follow. But then last season, they started time traveling!!! Now you've got present day characters hanging with characters when they were children and what not. After a couple of episodes in, I realized I had no idea what was going on so I wouldn't bother to watch the next episodes until I got a grasp of the earlier ones. Which I never did. And that's why they are all sitting on my DVR right now.

I'm excited that the final season of Lost is finally here. It's bittersweet of course, but it will be nice to finally have some answers, right? (Of course, I only started watching around season 3-4, so I probably don't have as many questions as the die hards.) But I am bummed that I can't watch the premiere tonight. Not yet - I've got some Lost homework to do first.

On a related note, an old college friend and author of one of the premiere Lost blogs out there attended the Lost Season 6 premiere party in Oahu over the weekend. She has a post about it here.





P.S. Sorry that this blog has been lacking lately. I tend to tweet my random pop culture-related thoughts. I'm going to try to change that so this will once again be home to my silly ramblings! :)

Want to see how a makeup artist works?

LOL!!!! Thanks to Ryan Chua Photography for the pics.

Enjoy while you can (until you get dizzy, that is). I may get embarrassed later and take this down. :)

More Makeup Stuff from Audrey

OK, I'm a bit behind in providing some updates from the makeup-loving side of Audrey. So here we go!

1) A few months ago, I emerged as a budding freelance makeup artist! I have a lot to learn but I've been having so much fun in the meantime.

2) I have lots of new homes on the web in support of my makeup artistry "biz"

- Model Mayhem Profile: Model Mayhem is a really great networking site for photographers, models, hair stylists, makeup artists, etc. I find most of my "gigs" through this site
- Makeup by Audrey: Just my own personal Makeup Artist site. Looks nice, right? :) Made it for free using wix.com
- Facebook Fan Page: It feels weird to say I created myself a fan page but it's basically a more accessible way for my friends to see what I've been up to. I pretty much post all my pics here which includes several that don't make the other websites.

3) In addition to my personal twitter, I also have a separate, public one strictly for makeup talk :)

Follow @makeupaudrey on twitter!

4) And finally, I did another guest post for the Makeup and Beauty Blog. My first post was back in May and I was thrilled to be able to contribute again. Click the pic below for the post!



Hope you guys like the stuff I've been working on!

And now a funny clip of Rob...

Fun Taylor clip

Well obviously I'm Team Edward, but I thought this was pretty cute. Plus I found out Taylor is a fan of the Michigan Wolverines. Smart kid!



(Sorry, there's a short ad in the beginning.)

I'm pretty sure he can take him

Yeah, yeah, back to New Moon. I don't know about you, but I've been eating up all the New Moon press tour footage.

Anyway, as I've mentioned before, I'm really impressed with what they've done with the wolves. But this kind of made me laugh.



Now I'm pretty sure the books imply that if there was an Edward vs. Jacob battle, Edward would win. And I think RPattz confirmed the same in an interview. But looking at the film interpretation... c'mon! Jacob could totally tear apart Edward! How strong and fast could Edward possibly be compared to wolf boy?

Anyway, I am very excited for next Friday.

Making the most of my palette

So it has come to my attention that perhaps not all of my readers are as anxious as I am for November 20th to get here and actually aren't all that interested in Twilight. (the horror!!!)

And since I did declare this to be both a pop culture and makeup blog, I should talk some makeup, right?

As most of my friends know, I am a MAC addict. Although I am an equal opportunity "product whore" (stole that title from a biz card of another makeup artist), I have a special place in my heart for MAC Cosmetics.

Especially their eye shadows... I have two eyeshadow palettes both completely filled plus a bunch of their other eyeshadow compacts from some of their various collections (I realize this actually isn't that bad compared to most other MAC junkies). I recently picked up three new shadows with no home for them. I could buy a new eyeshadow palette but 1) why spend the $$$ and 2) why add one more thing to lug around in my already busting to the seams makeup bag(s).

Below is my cool/color palette. (The other one has my warm/neutral colors.) As you can see, there is currently no room at the inn.



I decided to copy some of the Youtube makeup people I follow and just take the tray out of my palette like so. It wasn't too tricky, you just have to be careful not to break the whole tray in half when snapping it out.



And voila! Now I have room for my three new shadows plus a whole bunch more :) For now, I organized them by splitting the shimmery shades from the matte ones but I'm sure that will change as I pick up new colors.



As you can tell from the pics, my new additions to my collection are white, yellow, and orange - all mattes. I got them for a look I did today which I am absolutely thrilled with! My best creation to date, if I do say so myself, heehee! See if you can guess what kind of look it was (except for those who are privy to what shoots I have this week!) and I'll reveal a pic in a later post.

Definitely bringing tissues to New Moon

SPOILER ALERT: The entire break up scene from New Moon



*sniff, sniff* I feel like someone just broke up with me.

And, by the way, the wolves are looking good!!! Definitely more scary and not as cuddly as I thought before.

PLEASE tell me you are watching Glee!!!

Because if you're not, you are missing out on some laugh out loud television. Last night's episode was a particular winner, as they did a fantastic job with utilizing Beyonce's Single Ladies in a really funny football storyline.

You can check out the final scene here - it is sooooo hilarious! (And adorable)

If you want to cut to the musical number, skip to 2:30. Don't miss Kurt's winning kick - I love the way he prepares for it!



(Nice to see Mike O'Malley guest star as Kurt's dad. My sis and I used to watch his old show "Yes, Dear" as filler TV, i.e. nothing else is on so let's watch this. They had a touching moment when Kurt came out to him.)

Yay for more Edward in the *new* New Moon trailer

Updated with full trailer:

So jealous of Ellen...