AUTOGRAPHS

Sunglasses And The Silver Screen

Designer sunglasses show no signs in losing popularity, even with the recession having taken a chunk out of the economy. Spending on personal fashion accessories is still on the up, and many seem to be saying “the hell with it” and splashing out on their personal appearance to feel good about themselves. It must be more than a desire to shield our eyes that has led to this insatiable demand for top-quality sunglasses!

There’s been a huge influence of course, from films. Being associated with films for a lot of its history, Ray Ban sunglasses have been adorning film stars both male and female for decades. Screen icons like Audrey Hepburn set the fashion world alight with Breakfast at Tiffany’s, whilst the Blues Brothers Ackroyd and Belushi defined a whole new era of cool. Now the modern film industry is picking up people like Robert Downey Jnr in Iron Man as the next product evangelists.

Getting a major screen star to wear your product is nothing new, but now companies are helping to create the look of a film as well. The X-Men series of films utilised designs of Oakley glasses, and this is only one of a set of summer-scale action blockbusters which no doubt are intended to boost the company’s reputation as an active and sporty brand. Oakley could also exploit its military connections, so Black Hawk Down featured a number of pieces that were authentic part of the US Rangers outfits.

The most persuasive thing about seeing sunglasses in films is that it’s quite easy to emulate the stars we admire by purchasing them. Not everyone can bring off a designer gown as well as Audrey Hepburn. The rugged sci-fi trenchcoat look may fit well with Keanu Reeves, but for others just makes us look like geeks from the 1980s with no social life. We’d all love to have Brad Pitt’s abs, or Scarlett Johansen’s curves but can’t face the diet or exercise torture required. A good pair of designer glasses however won’t require you to go to such extreme lengths to capture that specific look, and although you may not be mistaken as an A-List doppelganger, you’re bound to feel more stylish and confident regardless..

black hawk down pt2

Cuisinart GR-4N 5-in-1 Griddler $185.00 The Cuisinart(tm) Griddler makes “multifunctional” an understatement! Make perfect panini… plus! With four separate cooking options, it can handle everything from pancakes to sausages to grilled cheese to steaks, hamburgers and panini. It helps you prepare more servings of more kinds of food in less time, so you can cook for a crowd — no one has to wait!Simply change the cooking plates and adju…

Keurig B70 Platinum Brewing System $115.00 The Elite Brewing System is Keurig’s gourmet home brewing made affordable. The Elite Brewing System, the most affordably priced Keurig kitchen brewing system, offers K-Cup® coffee, tea and hot cocoa brewing as the elite choice to any drip coffee maker. The Elite offers two cup sizes for brewing options with the programmable feature of Auto Off. The 48-ounce removable water reservoir holds up to 6…

Oster Counterforms Blender – Stainless or Black $109.99 The Counterforms 2-In-1 Appliance with Oster Fusion Technology BVCB07-L and BVCB07-B handles the functions of two machines. It mixes liquids like a blender while also performing many common food-processor tasks, such as chopping and pureeing fruits and vegetables. Both units consist of a sturdy base containing a 600-watt motor, a stainless-steel 6-point Star Blade, a large 48-ounce (6-cup) glass b…

Blackhawk – Greatest Hits $5.27 All products are BRAND NEW and factory sealed. Fast shipping and 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed….

Warner Brothers Home Entertainment Academy Awards Animation Collection – 15 Winners, 26 Nominees $9.93 The Oscar for Animated Short Film has been a useful if not entirely accurate gauge of the state of American animation, as this three-disc set demonstrates. The Academy created the category in the early ’30s to honor Walt Disney’s contributions to the art form. But most of the films in the collection date from the ’40s and ’50s, when Warner Bros. and MGM artists won most of the Oscars for pushing t…

Black Hawk Down $6.50 After the success of Gladiator, it wasn’t unusual to see director Ridley Scott turn to Hans Zimmer again for the score to Black Hawk Down, his fierce adaptation of Mark Bowden’s account of the tragic 1993 American military intervention in Somalia. What was more surprising was the schedule Scott imposed on the German-born composer: 15 days to write, arrange, and record the film’s nearly two hours o…

Only Angels Have Wings [VHS] $7.00 Hands down, Only Angels Have Wings is one of the most buoyantly entertaining movies in the American cinema. It is also a razor-sharp example of the action-oriented films of Howard Hawks, the wide-ranging auteur who would go on to make To Have and Have Not and Red River. This one is set in Barranca, a South American port city swathed in perpetual night fog, where a band of mail pilots struggle dail…

Sergeant York [VHS] $15.99 Gary Cooper plays Alvin York, the real-life country lad and sharpshooter drafted to fight during World War I but blocked from killing by his pacifist sentiments. Howard Hawks makes a rousing, heroic film out of the tale, and Cooper gives one of his best performances (for which he won an Oscar). The 1941 feature seems as much a valentine to wartime America (and a not-so-subtle piece of propaganda) …

The Eagle and The Hawk [VHS] $5.98 …

Dalen OW6 Gardeneer 16-Inch Molded Owl $11.33 DALEN GREAT HORNED OWL *18″ high *Hand painted *Plastic *Natural predator of small animals and birds *Effective scarecrow…