Monday, September 01, 2008

LIES FLAT AND IN PERFECT ALIGNMENT



by Gina Sestak

[I'm running into problems inserting photographs -- pretend that the big square, above, that will not show the photo or permit me to delete it isn't there. I'm putting the photos in as links, below, rather than stay up all night cussing.]

"Lies flat and in perfect alignment." Those words used to appear on the spiral notebooks I used in high school, but I came to apply them to the desired appearance of my hair. It was the 60s, after all, and most of us wanted our hair to be long and straight, like Peggy Lipton on Mod Squad. To my mother's despair, I was born with naturally straight hair. I could achieve that look without even having to iron it, as so many others did.

Perfect alignment seems to be a thing of the past, at least when applied to the hair of characters in movies. I was noticing that this weekend, while watching Bottle Shock. This is a beautifully photographed film; the opening scene of vineyards is worth the price of admission even if you don't particularly care about wine or international rivalries. Chris Pine's hair, though, is badly in need of a comb. In fact, another character asks him if he has a comb. That character, Steven Spurrier, is played by my favorite actor, Alan Rickman, who looks as if he could use a comb himself, and a razor. Maybe he's just gunshy after what happened to Judge Turpin in Sweeney Todd.

Speaking of Sweeney Todd, the Oscar for messiest hair should definitely go to Helena Bonham Carter, both as Mrs. Lovett and as Bellatrix Lestrange.


What do you think? Should these rich and famous actors comb their hair?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Gina, you're right, and you make quite an observation - I was watching a Mystery! Inspector Linley last night and both of the main characters needed to comb their hair throughout the entire show, which represented days. It got to the point it was annoying.

What is up with that?

Annette said...

How can you mention Sweeney Todd without mentioning the king of bad hair, my beloved Johnny Depp?

I've seen so much uncombed hair on celebrities that I've given up on trying to style mine, too. Plus the summer humidity combined with my naturally sort of curly hair makes it useless. So I'm going wash and dry and run. Maybe I'll be mistaken for a movie star.

Jenna said...

My hair lies flat and in perfect alignment, too. No body at all. So if I had a lot of hair, I'd probably revel in letting it do whatever it wanted. That said, yeah, these folks definitely could use a combing.

I agree, Annette, Johnny Depp is the king of bad hair. Remember that greasy-hair phase he went through some years ago? Yick.

Anonymous said...

I think the best thing you can say about hair styles is, "This too shall pass." Whatever looks the coolest today will surely make us laugh our sides off 10 years from now. "Bedhead" was the catch phrase a few years ago, but recently, it's gone beyond bedhead!

Anonymous said...

OK, Johnny Depp, but I have to admit I kinda like that scraggly weird Captain Jack hair on him.
I like long hair. Especially on men. It's just the lack of combing that gets to me. I spent half of Sweeney Todd wanting to take a brush to Helena Bonham Carter's head.

Joyce Tremel said...

My hair was great back in the late 70s and early 80s when "big hair" was in. I could get the Farrah Fawcett do with no problem at all. Now that sleek, styled hair is in, I just keep it fairly short.

They keep saying big hair is coming back. I'm still waiting.