it's that time of the year again -- oscars.

i confess, i am not very excited by the show this year. the lack of diversity in the nominees have me down and frustrated. i was really disappointed by the lack of oscar acknowledgement for selma last year. this year is even worse with the exclusion of idris elba, beasts of no nation, director cary joji fukunaga, actor abraham attah, and straight outta compton. also, excluding transgender singer anohni from the awards show is so, so terrible!

however, i will watch the show as i watched it since i was four months old. also, my superpower is correctly predicting the winners, (i've won the oscar pool 15 times in the past 16 years!), so i'm going to give it another crack this year.

i've only seen a handful of films this year (i usually see them all), partially due to my lack of enthusiasm and nominee disappointment. for the record, my favorite films this year were ex machina and mad max: fury road.

okay, let's get on with the predictions. keep in mind, i vote head over heart. that is key to winning the oscar kitty. hence...sylvester stallone.

HERE WE GO:

best picture: spotlight (this category is the BIGGEST toss up! i'm going with the underdog. winner may be the revenant or big short, though.)

best director: alejandro iñárritu (the revenant)

best actor: leonardo dicaprio (the revenant)

best actress: brie larson (room)

best supporting actor: sylvester stallone (creed)

best supporting actress: alicia vikander (the danish girl)

best adapted screenplay: charles randolph and adam mckay (the big short)

best original screenplay: josh singer and tom mccarthy (spotlight)

best animated feature: inside out

documentary feature: amy

foreign language film: son of saul

best cinematography: the revenant (emmanuel lubezki)

best costume design: mad max: fury road (jenny beavan)

best film editing: mad max: fury road (margaret sixel)

best original song: "til it happens to you" from "the hunting ground" (lady gaga)

best makeup & hair styling:mad max: fury road (lesley vanderwalt, elka wardega and damian martin)

best production design: mad max: fury road (colin gibson - production design; lisa thompson - set decoration)

best original score: the hateful eight (ennio morricone)

best sound editing: the revenant (martin hernandez and lon bender)

best sound mixing: the revenant (jon taylor, frank montaño, randy thom and chris duesterdiek)

best visual effects: star wars: the force awakens (roger guyett, patrick tubach, neal scanlan and chris corbould)

best animated short: sanjay’s super team

best documentary short: body team 12

best live action short: shok

there you go, darlings. now go primp for the red carpet! oh, and my guess for best dressed: alicia vikander.

kittens, it's that time of the year again -- OSCARS!

i confess, i have watched every academy award show since the beginning of time. the red carpet is my drug of choice. i even watch pre-red carpet coverage, because i am insane. 

AND, i have won every oscar pool (with the exception of one) for the past 15 years. because i love you, i am going to post my predictions here and hope that nobody at my oscar party steals my picks. i'm living life on the edge and i'm doing it for YOU, darlings!

feel free to use my psychic gift for your oscar party ballot. just split your spoils with me 50/50. you can pay me in gold and/or non-conflict diamonds.

please note, i have seen every film with the exception of american sniper. my favorite films were grand budapest hotel and whiplash. that being said, they will not win best picture. the key to winning the oscar pool is to vote with your head and not your heart.

okay, enough chit-chat. let's boogie on down to the WHORANGE ballot:

best picture: birdman

best director: richard linklater (boyhood)

best actor: eddie redmayne (theory of everything)

best actress: julianne moore (still alice)

best supporting actor: jk simmons (whiplash)

best supporting actress: patricia arquette (boyhood)

best adapted screenplay: the imitation game (graham moore)

best original screenplay: grand budapest hotel (wes anderson and hugo guinness)

best animated feature: how to train your dragon 2 (should be the lego movie...bastards!)

documentary feature: citizenfour

foreign language film: ida

best cinematography: birdman (emmanuel lubezki)

best costume design: grand budapest hotel (milena canonero)

best film editing: boyhood (sandra adair)

best makeup & hair styling: grand budapest hotel (frances hannon and mark coulier)

best production design: grand budapest hotel (adam stockhausen [production design] and anna pinnock [set decoration])

best original score: theory of everything (jóhann jóhannsson)

best sound editing: american sniper (alan robert murray and bub asman)

best sound mixing: whiplash (craig mann, ben wilkins and thomas curley)

best visual effects: interstellar (paul franklin, andrew lockley, ian hunter and scott fisher)

best animated short: feast (patrick osborne and kristina reed)

best documentary short: crisis hotline: veterans press 1

best live action short: the phone call

there you go, darlings. now go primp for the red carpet!

{top image: fake oscar statue photography by whorange. background art by brandi strickland.}

over the weekend, i boogied on down to the hammer museum to catch the closing day of jim hodges' "give more than you take." it was gorgeous and moving and magical and textured. much of his work revolves around the fragility of life, transformation, and growing up gay in spokane, WA.

if you get a chance to see hodges' work in person, drop everything and check it out. it's worth every step to the journey!

{photos by whorange.}

"the biggest sin is sitting on your ass." -- florynce kennedy

voting day is today, darlings! better lace up your skates and roll on down to your local polling place. 

when i was young, my mom said, "if you don't vote, you can't complain when things don't go your way." not that i like to complain, but i'm pretty opinionated when it comes to a handful of issues and love to voice them in voting booth. in fact, i've voted in every presidential, midterm, and local election since i turned 18. guess you can say, i'm an election groupie.

also, when you vote, you get a groovy "i voted" sticker as a parting gift. the perfect accessory to take you from office-to-evening!

okay, enough chit chat. let's boogie in the voting booth!

{need to find your polling place? consult the aptly named where's my fucking polling place.}

{photography by WHORANGE.}

it is amazing what paper, thread, wood, and a whole lot of patience and creativity can do.

this week , steve and i boogied on down to jacob hashimoto's breathtaking exhibition "gas giant" at the MoCA at the pacific design center. comprised of 30,000+ kite-like, paper sculptures, hashimoto's  installation is so sweeping and magnificent, you may curl up on the floor and cry, kittens.

just warning you.

behold the 50-foot strands of papery, gravity-defying grandeur...

"gas giant" runs until june 8th, so shimmy on down now!

more info at moca.org.

hi kittens!

my hair rollers are spinning with olympic figure skater excitement. i am honored to report that WHORANGE has been nominated in round one of apartment therapy's 2014 Homies Awards! 

if you feel so compelled, please slip on your dancing shoes and vote for little ol' me by clicking here along with all of your other favorite blogs.

of course, i'm up against some of the most fabulous blogs in town (many of which are on my blogroll), but since i was nominated, i figured, why not give it a shot, right?

thank you, darlings! and if i make it into the top five, i promise to go for the gold, just like elizabeth taylor would do.

xoxo & xoxo,

tula

ps - and THANK YOU to the lovely charles for nominating me!

something special is going on in los angeles, kittens. if you're a local denizen, or plan to visit our humble city, you, too, may participate in this marvelous wonder.

alexander calder, darlings. alexander calder.

a WHORANGE hero. at LACMA. now.

experience this!

and this!

and this! it's called "little face." see the face?

calder mobiles = instant joy.

with their slow and subtle movement, abstract shapes, and delicate balancing act, it is easy to feel like a little kid marveling at a gigantic, magical toy. hopefully, calder would be happy with that comparision considering that he once built a mini circus out of cardboard, pipe cleaners, and bottle caps.

oh, and frank gehry designed the exhibition space. inspired by a calder show he experienced at the guggenheim museum, gehry designed guggenheim-esque wall curvature. yes, he went there. behold the curves...

WARNING: photography is not allowed in the exhibit, so no instagraming yourself replicating these mobile poses side-by-side, okay? don't say i didn't warn you!

hello, darlings!

a few years ago, steve found this groovy old payphone at a garage sale and had it painted orange for my birthday! now, the whorange phone sits lovingly in my office, longing for the days when payphones were the "it girls" of on-the-go communication.

i wanted to give our whorange phone a little lovin', so i entered it in modernica's "name your color" contest. you can read all about the contest here.

our whorange phone just needs some sweet "like"-ing from you! simply CLICK ON OVER to facebook and "like" and/or "share" the photo. that's it!

thank you so much! and, if i haven't told you lately, your hair looks fabulous today!

xoxo,

tula

over the weekend, i boogied on down to the los angeles county museum of art with steve and our friend denise to experience the closing weekend of LACMA's stanley kubrick exhibition.

i confess, i have been obsessed with kubrick since childhood. sure, his dark, controversial, and sexually charged films are not, um, appropriate elementary and jr. high viewing, but i simply could not get enough of the groovy '60s space costumes and decor in 2001: a space odyssey. i was also fascinated by malcolm mcdowell's false eyelash in a clockwork orange.

the true complexity and subversiveness of kubrick's films didn't kick in until i was much older. i studied his films in college and collected his screenplays when i landed a job in development at a film production company.

kubrick's characters are simply iconic. they make an impact emotionally and visually. they are the darkest of antiheroes and even manage to make us laugh (uncomfortably) when they do very, very, very bad things. it's impossible to go to a halloween party and not see at least one kubrick-inspired costume -- from alex's jaunty white jumpsuit and codpiece, to the grady twins' blue baby doll dresses and black mary janes. 

{above: kubrick's many, many, many camera lenses.}

{above: "dr. strangelove" props; the war room sketch by production designer ken adam; the war room miniature model on display.}

{above: steve peeks through kubrick's camera for barry lyndon. NASA zeiss lenses were used to capture the candlelit film.}

{above: props and costumes from "the shining."}

{above: on the set of "the shining."}

{above: saul bass's letter to kubrick regarding five sketches he submitted for the shining's poster; kubrick's handwritten note states that bass's eye maze is "too abstract." by the way, how much do we love saul bass's signature?}

{above: "a clockwork orange." alex's infamous white jumpsuit and codpiece; porn statue from the korova milk bar.}

{above: "2001: a space odyssey" hot pink lounge furniture; arne jacobsen's cutlery featured in the film.}

{above: "2001: a space odyssey" costume sketches and design by hardy amies.}

{above: 2001: a space odyssey's giant baby.}

{all exhibition photography by me. hope you enjoyed it!}

Q: what is better than a wall of magnificent chair drawings?

A: a wall of magnificent chair drawings...in france.

{the works of ronan & erwan bouroullec displayed in their "album" exhibition at arc en rêve.} {via designboom.}