Out of all the ways to declare your love for another person — hiring a skywriter, proposing via Jumbotron, shouting it from the rooftops, standing outside their window playing a Peter Gabriel song out of a boombox — a tattoo is by far the most permanent. It’s also the riskiest, because if your puppy love should ever go sour, you are presented with only two options. Do you go through the expensive, painful, and tedious process of having the ink removed, or do you get it covered up with something a little more timeless?
If you’re Kylie Jenner, you go with the latter. That’s right: Just a few months after reportedly ending her three-year relationship with Tyga, Kylie pulled a Wino Forever and had her tattooed tribute to the rapper turned into a shout-out to something else entirely. Photos of the makeup mogul in London over the weekend show that what was once the lowercase letter “t” on the inside of her ankle has now become “la” — which one can only assume is an homage to Kylie’s American city of choice.
Considering that the star has been rumored to be dating rapper Travis Scott since her split from Tyga in April, it’s safe to say that with her new beau and the new tattoo, the exes are not planning on a reunion any time soon. No word yet on what Tyga is planning on doing with the “Kylie” tat on his forearm, but if he’s been holding out in hopes of a reconciliation, now would probably be a good time to throw in the towel and make that first appointment at a laser center.
Senate Republicans behind the proposed healthcare bill that would repeal and replace Obamacare postponed a vote until after Congress' July 4 recess. Now, members of the Senate are returning to their home states for a week, holding town halls and appearing in other public events. The break is the perfect opportunity for constituents to tell their representatives what they think of the drafted healthcare reform, and below we outline exactly where to find them through next week.
If you need a refresher, the Senate's Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA) would drastically cut Medicaid, defund Planned Parenthood for a year, and allow some insurers to stop covering essential health benefits (which include emergency services, prescription drugs, mental health services, and maternity care). And according to recent polls, it's even more unpopular than the similar American Health Care Act (AHCA) approved in the House in May.
If your senators are holding town halls, show up and voice your opinion. That's what town halls are for, after all. And if they'll be present at other public events, it's worth trying to get a few minutes with them or their staff to talk about healthcare. Here's where they'll be:
Where: Wednesday, July 5: California City Council Chambers, Co-Mo Electric Operations Facility, Morgan County Library, Eldon Community Center, and then Ashland Optimist Club.
Thursday, July 6: Moberly City Hall, Macon High School Cafeteria, Monroe City Senior Nutrition Center, Monroe County Courthouse Circuit Courtroom, and then Audrian County Courthouse Farnen Community Room.
Her stance on the BCRA: Before the bill was released, McCaskill raised concerns about the secrecy of its drafting.
When: Wednesday July 5, 2 p.m. PDT; Thursday July 6, 2 p.m. PDT; Friday July 7, 1 p.m. PT; Saturday July 8, 11 a.m. PDT and 3:30 p.m. PDT.
Where: Wednesday, July 5: Edward C. Allworth Veterans’ Home.
Thursday, July 6: Conestoga Recreation and Aquatic Center.
Friday, July 7: Redmond Senior Center.
Saturday, July 8: Springfield High School gym and Newberg High School auditorium.
His stance on the BCRA: Wyden tweeted the healthcare plan “is heartless. It is brainless. It is cruel. It means more Americans will suffer or die without access to care.”
His stance on the BCRA: Toomey supports the bill. When the drafted legislation was first released, he called it “an important and constructive first step in repealing Obamacare.”
Under #BetterCare bill, Medicaid expansion stays—and fed. funding levels will eventually match all other Medicaid categories. pic.twitter.com/PurdhY2BHM
Where: University of Washington Roethke Auditorium
Her stance on the BCRA: On the Senate floor, Cantwell said, “it's time to work in a discussion about these ideas, in a broad way, not just another Hail Mary pass, just get rid of this notion that cutting poor people off of Medicaid is somehow going to magically fix the individual market. It’s not.”
We cannot pass the disastrous Republican #healthcare plan – not today, not ever. The fight is not over yet, but your resistance is working.
— Sen. Maria Cantwell (@SenatorCantwell) June 27, 2017
His stance on the BCRA: Sen. Moran doesn't think this legislation goes far enough, issuing a statement June 27 saying he wants to "find a path forward that truly repeals and replaced Obamacare. "
His stance on the BCRA: Blumenthal opposes the bill. When Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell announced the delayed vote, Blumenthal said, “This titanic fight for the American healthcare system is far from over.” This is the second town hall meeting for Blumenthal during the July 4 recess.
Make no mistake: The faces and voices of Connecticut must have a say in this high-stakes #healthcare fight.
What:Empty chair town hall (The senator did not call this town hall, nor did her staff organize it. Instead, a group of healthcare providers and citizens organized the event and invited Sen. Murkowski.)
When: Friday July 7, 5 p.m. UTC
Where: Sheet'ká Ḵwáan Naa Kahídi in Sitka, Alaska
Her stance on the BCRA: Murkowski is still undecided on the bill. She told CNN “I don't have enough data in terms of the impact to my state to be able to vote in the affirmative."
The exact relationship status of Rob Kardashian and Blac Chyna was up in the air before today. After their huge December blow up, there were some signs of reconciliation, or at least cordiality, between the two of them — a couple of endearing Instagram posts and a trip to Lego Land among them. However, it is safe to say that as of today they are officially off. According to Rob’s Instagram, Chyna sent him a video of herself in bed with another man. He claims this footage was sent out of spite, just a day after he bought her some jewelry. You can get into the specifics here.
I get it: seeing the person you love with someone else is hard. It’s heartbreaking and sometimes embarrassing. And while there is certainly no right way to respond to such a betrayal, there are definitely some wrong ways to do it. What Rob did crossed the line.
He started posting photos of Chyna’s nude body. I shouldn’t need to clarify this in 2017, but this is a form of sexual violence. When you use sexual exploitation as a reaction to a woman hurting your feelings, it is sexual violence. Releasing nude photographs and videos of someone’s body without their consent is sexual violence. Despite this, it’s still an all too common practice that is, in my opinion, linked to a special brand of fragile masculinity and toxic rape culture.
The idea that women deserve whatever happens to them if they don’t acquiesce to the demands of men’s feelings and egos is unacceptable. When street harassment turns violent, people insist that the woman should have been nicer or dressed differently. If she is killed by her boyfriend, she should have left. If her nudes are leaked online, she should have never sent them in the first place, or agitated her scorned lover. That women’s bodies suddenly become disposable or collateral damage in love and war is a byproduct of our pervasive rape culture.
While I think the idea that Blac Chyna is a gold digger who wanted nothing but fame and fortune from Rob is invalid, I can get behind the theory that their relationship was motivated by revenge and pettiness — and for what it’s worth it, the revenge plot was executed flawlessly. But hurting someone’s feelings simply doesn’t compare or warrant this kind of behavior.
On Wednesday morning, Rob Kardashian took to Instagram to share sexually explicit photos of his ex Blac Chyna. The photos, which have since been taken down (and reposted, and taken down, and reposted, and taken down, etc.), were posted in the midst of a larger Instagram rant about Chyna sleeping with other men and her plastic surgery. Accusations are flying back and forth from both parties involved in this dispute, but, in the process of airing this dirty laundry, Rob committed a much bigger crime: revenge porn.
In California, revenge porn is defined under the Penal Code 647(j)(4) and is essentially the act of sharing an intimate picture or video of a person — that the people involved had previously agreed was private — for the express purpose of causing distress.
"In California, there are both criminal and civil courses of action that an individual could take," says Carrie Goldberg, a prominent internet abuse and sexual consent lawyer. "What Rob Kardashian has done, which is post nude photos of his ex clearly without her permission based on the information provided by Rob, could not fit more squarely the California law of non consensual pornography."
It's specifically California's stipulation that the act causes distress that Daniel S. Szalkiewicz of Daniel Szalkiewicz & Associates, a firm that specializes in internet defamation, privacy, and revenge porn, believes bodes the most poorly for Kardashian.
"There's never been a case like this where the offender has such a massive audience."
"There's something called mens rea under law where you have to have a guilty mind and you have to have intent in order to violate the statute, and if he's going out there and saying 'I'm doing this because I'm hurt and I want to hurt her back' that shows ill will," Szalkiewicz explained. "He's actually hitting on all of the different elements that make this a crime."
But this isn't your average crime, Goldberg says.
"What's different about this case is that the offender has 8.9 million followers and so the distribution of the images is so much more vast," she continued. "There's never been a case like this where the offender has such a massive audience."
The next step for Chyna, if she chooses to take it, is to take back control over the images, which is expensive to do (and difficult, considering anyone who managed to screenshot the posts can repost them — and risk violating the law themselves) and therefore would merit seeking damages in civil court.
According to Jill Stanley, a former Assistant District Attorney, criminal defense lawyer, and founder of a civil litigation law firm who now runs the website Proof with Jill Stanley, civil court is where things could get tricky based on the couple's already public relationship. She points to the case of Floyd Mayweather, who was allowed to post about his ex's abortion online because the court ruled that their high-profile relationship was for public consumption. To seek damages in civil court, Chyna would have to prove that she had a reasonable expectation that her pictures would stay private and that this aspect of their relationship was not for public consumption.
On the criminal side of things, Rob Kardashian could ostensibly be found guilty of this crime, which is considered a misdemeanor in California, and face up to six months in jail. Whatever both parties decide to do going forward, this is clearly just the beginning.
The commission is now asking states to turn over voters' personal data if allowed by its respective local laws. But while the Trump administration believes obtaining this information could help "enhance the integrity of federal elections," watchdogs are concerned the request could lead to new voter suppression efforts and security issues.
Keeping a voter roll is required under the 2002 Help America Vote Act, which determined that each state must keep a central file of all its registered voters. However, the amount of information that is collected varies from state to state. While the data is technically public, states typically charge a fee for access to the information.
This is one of the reasons why the panel's request and plan to compile a centralized database of the nation's voters is so unprecedented. Ahead, we break down why you should care the Trump administration is requesting states to provide voters' personal information.
What has the commission asked for?
Vice President Mike Pence is the chairman of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach serves as the vice-chairman.
On June 28, Kobach sent a letter to all states asking for feedback on election administration, the process' integrity, and the possibility of fraud.
Some of the information the panel is asking for includes the name of the voter, party affiliation, voting history since 2006, address, last four digits of the Social Security number, felony convictions, and military status. (Ironically, Kobach himself won't be able to turn over all of Kansas' information to the commission because voters' Social Security numbers are not public in the state.)
How have states responded to the commission's request?
As of Wednesday, secretaries of state, governors, or other government officials in 44 states had told CNN they won't provide certain voter information to the commission.
Some Republicans have welcomed the commission's request, but others have been highly critical. Delbert Hosseman, Mississippi's Secretary of State, provided a strong-worded answer to Kobach's letter.
"My reply would be: They can go jump in the Gulf of Mexico and Mississippi is a great State to launch from," Hosseman said in a statement last Friday. "Mississippi residents should celebrate Independence Day and our State’s right to protect the privacy of our citizens by conducting our own electoral processes."
Democrats have also argued against the request. California Secretary of State Alex Padilla went as far as calling the commission "a waste of taxpayer money" and "a distraction from the real threats to the integrity of our elections today" last week.
"I will not provide sensitive voter information to a commission that has already inaccurately passed judgment that millions of Californians voted illegally. California's participation would only serve to legitimize the false and already debunked claims of massive voter fraud made by the President, the Vice President, and Mr. Kobach," he said in a statement.
Why watchdog groups find this request problematic
There are many reasons why requesting this data concerns voting rights advocates.
Timing: Kobach asked states to reply by July 14 in his letter, meaning that states have a little over two weeks to submit their responses along with the voters' data.
Loyola Law School professor Justin Levitt, who worked in the Justice Department during the Obama administration, said in a blog post that it was "irresponsible" to build a national voter database in two weeks without discussing how the information may be used.
Security concerns: Kobach is asking states to submit all the information via email or through an online portal. He also said that the data would eventually be made public.
Experts worry that compiling all the information could make it susceptible to hacking and digital manipulation. This is especially pertinent considering that Russian hackers were able to access voters' data in 39 states, and attempted to alter or delete said data during the 2016 election. Thus, having the nation's entire voter roll in one place could be dangerous.
"The bigger the purse, the more effort folks would spend to get at it," Joe Hall, chief technologist at the digital advocacy group Center for Democracy and Technology, told Politico. "And in this case, this is such a high-profile and not-so-competent tech operation that we're likely to see the hacktivists and pranksters take shots at it."
Voter suppression efforts: The commission has not yet stated the purpose behind collecting the voter roll data of every state, besides investigating "fraud." But Kobach has a history of championing initiatives that could lead to disfranchising voters: According to the Brennan Center for Justice, he has been the architect of several voter suppression laws, such as the Safe and Fair Elections Act. The measured required people to show proof of citizenship when registering to vote in Kansas; it also required people to show identification in order to cast a ballot. (The proof of citizenship requirement was blocked in federal court last year.)
"We're concerned about unlawful voter purging, which has been something that Kris Kobach has been leading the charge," Vanita Gupta, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and former chief of the Justice Department's civil rights division, told The Washington Post. "It's a real concern that he's building a nationwide database of voters. The question is: How does this data get used?"
For example, Kobach stood behind the use of Crosscheck, a voter information database, in Kansas. The main purpose of the system is to match voters' names and dates of birth to check whether they're registered to vote in more than one state. If this data shows up for people in different states, Crosscheck flags it as a potential double registration. Theoretically, this is a great idea. However, a recent study found the system's algorithm is very flawed: For every real double registration, Crosscheck flagged about 200 false positives.
There's also the issue of including the voter's party affiliation in the database. The Privacy Act of 1974 prohibits the federal government from keeping a record of voters' affiliation, even though states are allowed to collect this data. It's unclear why the commission wants states to divulge this information, but advocates fear that the database could be used a starting point to enact voting suppression laws, targeting particularly minorities and other groups that tend to lean Democratic.
"This is the Trump administration creating a government database that hasn’t existed before, and it’s one that asks for voters' political parties," Jason Kander, former Missouri secretary of state and chairman the Democratic National Committee's Commission on Protecting American Democracy from the Trump Administration, told Mother Jones. "It looks more and more like they’re going to target certain voters who aren’t going to vote for them."
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We're only days away from season 4 of Degrassi: Next Class dropping on Netflix, and now, we're getting a sneak peek at the struggle one character is coping with. In a preview for the new season made available by Entertainment Weekly, gamer Yael (Jamie Block) is grappling with their identity: specifically, they are struggling to figure out why they doesn't feel comfortable with the "girly" things that their friend Lola (Amanda Arcuri) loves. That's when Lola introduces Yael to a new term: gender fluidity.
"I don’t like makeup or stuff like you do. I really, really hate my boobs… But I’m definitely not a boy either," says Yael in the new clip.
The revelation makes a lot of sense for Yael. For as long as we've known Yael on Degrassi: Next Class, they have seemed uncomfortable with femininity. When Lola began creating makeup tutorial videos for gamer club, Yael was totally put off — until the pair came to the conclusion that there's no right or wrong way to be a woman. Though Lola is ultra feminine and proud of that fact, it's Lola who recognizes that Yael might wish to identify as gender-fluid.
"[People who are gender-fluid] feel like they’re between a boy or girl. Or both. Or neither," Lola explains to her friend. "If being a boy or girl is made up, then you can make whatever you want."
As Lola states in the preview, people who identify as gender-fluid (like Lola's favorite vlogger) don't identify with a fixed gender. While there are plenty of public figures — like Miley Cyrus and Ruby Rose, for example — who identify as gender-fluid or gender-queer, the concept is not often discussed in mainstream media. That's why having a gender-fluid character on Degrassi: Next Class feels so revolutionary: it's making the topic a little less taboo for young fans.
Of course, it's all par for the course with Degrassi, a franchise that prides itself on breaking down barriers with its audience in order to discuss tough-but-important issues. Season 4 of Degrassi: Next Class promises to continue that trend, and I can't wait to see where Yael's self-exploration journey takes them.
The Game Of Thrones season 6 finale, "The Winds Of Winter," could not have been more jam-packed. Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) returned to Westeros and murdered someone. Jon Snow (Kit Harington) was named King In The North. And Daenerys Targaryn (Emila Clarke) set sail for the Seven Kingdoms. Amid all of this excitement, it would be easy to forget the quieter, more political moments of the season closer.
That is where Olenna Tyrell (Diane Rigg), Thrones' sole living Tyrell family member, comes in. The Queen of Thorns isn't making pies of human meat or traveling with dragons, but she's still an integral part of Westeros' upcoming queen vs. queen battle. Yet, you might have forgotten just how Olenna will play into Daeny's upcoming conquest of Westeros.
To jog your memory, we put together all the details on where we left off with Margaery Tyrell's grandmother and where her story is heading for Game Of Thrones season 7. Scroll through the gallery for the refresher course you need — it's the only way you can avoid one of Olenna's trademark shady barbs.
As one of the smartest characters in Game Of Thrones, the Queen Of Thorns quickly noticed just how bad things were getting in Westeros’ capital as the Faith Militant gained more power than the crown itself. Instead of staying and fighting the fanatical religious group, Olenna decides in episode 7, "The Broken Man," to escape the "wretched" city and return to the Tyrell castle of Highgarden in The Reach. That way, the High Sparrow can’t throw her in a cell next.
But, Olenna had one task to complete before returning home: dragging Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey) for filth. The Tyrell matriarch tells the former queen their respective "ancient families" face collapse because of Cersei’s "stupidity" and reminds her she’s surrounded by thousands of enemies who "despise" her. "I wonder if you’re the worst person I’ve ever met. At a certain age it’s hard to recall. But the truly vile do stand out through the years," Olenna tells Cersei.
However, it seems Olenna did give her enemy an idea, asking Cersei of her haters, "You’re going to kill them all, by yourself?"
Photo: Courtesy of HBO.
Olenna’s Entire Family Was Murdered
Cersei proved the answer to Olenna’s "Broken Man" question is yes, she will kill her thousands of enemies — and in one fiery swoop. On the day Cersei’s trial was meant to take place in season 6 finale "The Winds Of Winter," she skips the proceeding and explodes the entire Sept Of Baelor, killing Margaery Tyrell (Natalie Dormer), Loras Tyrell (Finn Jones), and their father Mace Tyrell. In one single move, the entire future of the Tyrell line is wiped out, leaving only Olenna remaining.
This means the Queen Of Thorns was right to escape the city when she did, but now has to live as the sole remaining member of her family tree (that we know of).
Photo: Courtesy of HBO.
Olenna Joined Team Daeny
Olenna is officially in mourning by the end of season 6, wearing a full black outfit even in the extremely hot climate of Dorne. And why is the Queen Of Thorns in the southern most region of Westeros? To strike up a partnership with the Sand Snakes of course.
Earlier in season 6, Ellaria Sand (Indira Varma) and her three daughters with Oberyn Martell (Pedro Pascal) murder Dorne’s prince, Doran Martell (Alexander Siddig), and his son Trystane Martell (Toby Sebastian). Now leading Dorne, the Sand Snakes put their support behind Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke), who is officially beginning her conquest of Westeros. The Dornish women invite Olenna to their castle of Sunspear and ask the Queen Of Thorns to throw her support behind Daeny as well.
“It is not survival I offer. It is your heart’s desire… Vengeance. Justice,” Ellaria promises, ringing a bell for Varys to appear. Yes, Varys is now in Dorne after leaving Daenerys’ castle in Meereen. He offers the older woman, "Fire and blood," the official words of House Targaryen.
Photo: Courtesy of HBO.
Olenna Already Sent Ships To Meereen
The Sand Snakes and Varys’ pitch seem to have worked, as Olenna has already put her money where her rebellious mouth is. In the final scene of season 6, when Daeny sails across the Narrow Sea, flanked by her advisors, the Greyjoy fleet, the Unsullied, the Dothraki, and her Dragons, a few ships bear the Tyrell sigil of a golden flower. That means Olenna is publicly backing Daenerys’ claim to the throne.
We’ll find out where this major battle development takes us in season 7.
Photo: Courtesy of HBO.
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As if it weren’t hard enough to get in and out of Target with just the EOS shaving cream and lip gloss that you came for, now the shopping mecca wants to make an even more emotional connection with its shoppers — on Wednesday, Target introduced four new brands that are guaranteed to make your heart skip a beat and fork over your cash (sorry!).
This is part of Target’s strategy to get you to spend more time in their stores. In addition to playing upbeat music (to get your heart racing and encourage you to spend), the retailer wants to offer a boutique experience at a lower price point that’s focused on lines that are actually cute. A New Day, a women’s brand that is meant to be mixed and matched will be available in September, as will Project 62, a chic home offering. JoyLab, an activewear line that’s “fitness-meets-fashion-and-function” hits shelves in October, and so does Goodfellow & Co., a menswear brand that provides modern takes on clothing and accessories. Seems like Target is getting fashion-y AF.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Target took a look at the brands that were performing the best and began to phase out the ones that weren't (like Merona and Mossimo) to create niche labels that speak to customers’ need to feel special. “People are looking for something that is more curated and meaningful to their specific lifestyle,” said Mark Tritton, Target’s chief merchandising officer.
These four collections are the first of over a dozen new brand launches coming to Target over the next two years and will be available in stores and online in early September. Good luck trying to get out of Target now!
A New Day
Photo: Courtesy of Target.
A New Day
Photo: Courtesy of Target.
A New Day
Photo: Courtesy of Target.
A New Day
Photo: Courtesy of Target.
A New Day
Photo: Courtesy of Target.
A New Day
Photo: Courtesy of Target.
JoyLab
Photo: Courtesy of Target.
JoyLab
Photo: Courtesy of Target.
JoyLab
Photo: Courtesy of Target.
JoyLab
Photo: Courtesy of Target.
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Lavish weddings evoke all sorts of complicated feelings. Say, we come across the Swarovski family throwing a three-day extravaganza in Trieste, Italy, for which the bride wears a $1-million dress that weighs 100 pounds ( how?!). The reactions are inevitably somewhere between, "Well, there are definitely more useful ways to spend that kind of money" and, "Oooh...shiny."
Today is an "Oooh...shiny" kind of day. The wedding of Lolita Osmanova, an Instagram star and the daughter of an energy tycoon, and Gaspar Avdolyan, the son of a millionaire mogul, was held at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles and estimated to cost about $10 million, as The Daily Mail reported. It included a performance by Lady Gaga, a 10-tier cake, and so many flowers ($500,000 worth of them) we dearly hope no one had an allergy attack.
As far as over-the-top weddings go, it's not the most expensive — that honor might have to go to the early-2016 nuptials of Russian oil elites Khadija Uzhakhova and Said Gutseriev, who reportedly spent one billion dollars on a reception with performances by J.Lo, Enrique Iglesias, and Sting. Then, "the Kim Kardashian of China " threw a $31-million party to rival Will and Kate's $34-million royal wedding.
Run-of-the-mill celebrities, however, tend to do things a bit less lavishly, if you can call any wedding that costs in the millions less lavish. Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel racked up a $6.5-million bill for their wedding week in an Italian villa, George Clooney and Amal Alamuddin spent $4.6 million on their Venetian affair, and not even Kim and Kanye can match the opulence of these millionaire offspring with their $3.3-million Florence wedding, which included a performance by Lana del Rey, a 7-foot cake, and that famous flower wall.
This wedding topped them all. Feast your eyes, ahead.
We had two thoughts while watching this cake-cutting: 1. Aah, it looks like it's about to topple over! 2. A cake that looks this crazy better taste good...
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Among its many lovely effects, cannabis seems particularly well-suited to enhancing sex. But, if you're new to marijuana, internet anecdotes suggest you may experience a weird and possibly painful side effect: vaginal dryness.
Unfortunately, there's very little actual research out there when it comes to this. And what research does exist is "far from conclusive," says Dustin Sulak, DO, a medical cannabis expert based in Maine. Plus, the potential biological mechanism behind the effect is pretty much entirely unknown.
However, Dr. Sulak also says that many of his patients have mentioned dryness or pain during penetrative sex while using cannabis. So it's not totally made up. But, considering the plethoraof evidence we have that marijuana can actually enhance the experience of sex, this is pretty surprising. How can one plant have two totally opposite effects?
Well, when we're talking about dryness, it's "baseline vaginal dryness," Dr. Sulak says. Meaning: You might feel drier than you would without the cannabis during your normal, everyday life. But, once sexually stimulated, you can expect to be just as aroused as usual — if not more so.
The even better news is that the dryness often goes away after a while. "Like dry mouth, it seems to happen more in new users," Dr. Sulak says. "Over time, they develop a tolerance to that effect." So, if your dryness — oral or vaginal — is causing any issues, know that they are probably not permanent.
In the meantime, though, there are a few ways to make sure your sexual experiences are as pleasurable as possible. First off, Dr. Sulak recommends not having penetrative sex until you're already stimulated and aroused. But if you do happen to be a penetration-right-away sort of person, using lube will help keep you comfortable.
And, of course, if you're someone who's new to cannabis, it may help to keep your dose on the lower end until you build up a tolerance. Indeed, if you can cut back, there's no reason to think that you have to give it up in order to have great sex — especially because it may lead to even better sex. "[That's] not just through the enhancement of physical pleasure, but also emotional openness," Dr. Sulak says.
"There might be times where you think you’re using cannabis to have sex," he continues, "but you’re really using it to talk about what’s blocking a productive sex life, improving communication, fostering forgiveness, and feeling more connected — that’s all part of enhancing sexual pleasure."
Refinery29 in no way encourages illegal activity and would like to remind its readers that marijuana usage continues to be an offense under Federal Law, regardless of state marijuana laws.
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There are a number of traditions associated with the wedding experience: The exchange of vows, the "first kiss" that follows, and the tossing of cheerful confetti over the happy couple, to name a few. Of all the nuptial-related beliefs out there, "‘something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue" is one of the most widely-known, and yet, no one seems to know where this random adage came from.
As it turns out, the rhyming phrase originated from the superstitious Victorian times, where the presence of all four things is believed to bring good fortune to the bride on her big day. She's expected to carry an old item that symbolizes her past, a new item that represents the exciting promise of the future, the borrowed item from another happily-married wife is mean as a metaphor for borrowed bliss, while the blue item — typically a garter — stood for purity and fidelity. The Old English rhyme concluded with "a silver sixpence " — a coin widely believed to bring luck — in the bride's shoe, but this custom is only practiced across the pond these days.
As for the celebrity brides of our time? Well, they are not all like us. Many of them forwent the blue garter when they got hitched, and instead found creative ways to modernize the tradition. Click on for six of the most inspiring ideas — courtesy of Beyoncé, Chrissy Teigen, and more — to incorporate the color on your big day.
Beyoncé Queen Bey deviated from the wedding tradition and opted for a cobalt blue manicure, which looked amazing alongside her 18-karat Lorraine Schwartz engagement ring. Sadly, we're only to catch a glimpse of the nails from the wedding clips shared in the On The Run Tour promo video.
Photo: Getty Images
Olivia Palermo The socialite made headlines when she wedded model Johannes Huebl in a cashmere sweater-and-tulle-skirt combo, but her choice of "something blue" is equally creative: The bride sported a pair of cobalt blue Manolo Blahnik pumps — which also happens to be the bridal footwear of one famous Carrie Bradshaw.
Photo: Via OliviaPalermo.com/Johannes Huebl
Christina Applegate The actress and comedienne carried a bouquet of white lilies and lavender blossoms — designed by renowned Brooklyn-based florist Jeanne Costello — on her wedding to ex-husband Johnathon Schaech.
Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge For the what many would call the royal wedding of century, Middleton kept things understated when it came to her "something blue": A blue ribbon was sewn into her Alexander McQueen wedding gown to honor the tradition.
Jerry Hall The legendary supermodel wore a powder blue gown designed by Vivienne Westwood on her wedding to Rupert Murdoch. Seemingly a big fan of the color, she also had her group of bridesmaids — consisting of her daughters with Mick Jagger and Rupert's two daughters with Wendi Deng — dressed in a similar color.
Photo: Getty Images
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WARNING: So many spoilers ahead! Plot twists unraveled. Endings revealed. Proceed at your own risk.
March 16 marks the 15th anniversary of the release of Christopher Nolan’s Memento, one of the greatest mindfuck movies of all time. What makes something a quality mindfuck movie? Sometimes, it’s a twist ending that seems to come out of nowhere and truly shocks you, because the reveal means you have to go back and rethink everything that happened during the course of the entire movie.
Take The Sixth Sense, for example. After you found out that Dr. Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) was dead the entire time, you had to recall every scene in which you thought Dr. Crowe interacted with characters besides Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment). Nope; it turns out he only interacts with Cole after he gets shot in the beginning of the movie. He really has been dead the whole time. M. Night Shyamalan, you trickster, you.
Other times, a movie fucks with your head from beginning to end. It leads you one way, then swerves sharply to the left. The plot isn't remotely linear, although it appeared to be (ahem, Triangle). Or you can’t even figure out what’s going on at all. Think Christopher Nolan’s Inception, or Shane Carruth's Primer.
And then there are psychological thrillers like Black Swan and The Machinist, which trap the viewer inside a character’s breakdown without providing a complete picture of what’s happening. In the words of U2, “Now you're stuck in a moment, and you can’t get out of it.” Also in the words of U2: "Don't say that later will be better," because you'll be obsessing about what happened in that goddamn movie you just watched. (Sidenote: Is Bono a mindfuck movie prophet? Please discuss.)
But when it comes to this magical mindfuckery that makes you wonder what you just watched for hours on end, why would you ever want to want to get out of these moments?
And one more reminder that there are MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD — so major you may as well call them majorettes and stick 'em in front of a marching band twirling batons.
The Skin I Live In(2011) Starring: Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya Directed by: Pedro Almodóvar Written by: Pedro Almodóvar
When you see an Almodóvar film, you know to expect a certain level of weirdness — typically in uncommon relationship pairings and deep, twisted histories between people. In his take on a psychological thriller, Almodóvar keeps those elements (especially the deep, twisted histories) and cranks them up to terrifying heights. In the film, Banderas plays a plastic surgeon, Robert Legard, intent on developing a synthetic skin able to save the lives of burned victims, since his own wife had died of burns. With the help of his faithful servant, Legard takes a woman named Vera captive to function as his in-house lab rat. As the movie proceeds, you see that Vera's relationship to Legard is far more complicated than just prisoner and captive. Unweaving The Skin I Live In 's many plot twists would require a thesis. Better to watch and bite your nails yourself.
Sound Of My Voice (2012) Starring: Brit Marling, Christopher Denham, Nicole Vicious Directed by: Zal Batmanglij Written by: Brit Marling, Zal Batmanglij
This 2012 thriller starring Brit Marling will send you reeling. The film also stars Christopher Denham and Nicole Vicious as two journalists Peter and Lorna who attempt to infiltrate an insular cult in order to take it down. Marling plays Maggie, the leader of the cult. Maggie is from the year 2054, and she's here to collect a group of people to save the future world. Her followers wear all white and perform a super-secret special handshake. She's also wanted for several felonies.
The mind fuckery in this movie never allows you to decide if Maggie is lying or not. First, you're with Peter and Lorna, doubting this snake oil-peddler. But when Peter starts to buy into Maggie's narrative, you begin to doubt your own conviction. Maybe Maggie is from the future.
The moment of decision occurs when Maggie instructs Peter to kidnap a little girl — the girl is allegedly Maggie's mother. Will he comply? Yes. And then the big shocker happens: the little girl knows the cult's secret handshake. Ostensibly, the girl taught it to Maggie at some point in the future.
But before you can say, "gee, that was a whammy," Maggie is arrested, courtesy of Lorna. And you, the viewer, still don't know who was lying and who was crazy.
Primal Fear(1996)
Starring: Richard Gere, Edward Norton, Laura Linney Directed by: Gregory Hoblit
A meek, young altar boy with a stutter is charged with the murder of an archbishop. Martin Vail, a Chicago defense attorney who likes a challenge, agrees to take Aaron Stampler's case — though the evidence is racked up against Stampler. As the case proceeds, Vail uncovers that Stampler was part of a sex ring the Archbishop was running. After years of abuse, Stampler developed a violent alter ego named Roy, who carries out the murder.
After the judge finds Stampler not guilty by reason of insanity, Stampler reveals that Roy isn't his alter ego. Aaron is. The stutter and the meekness was all a front.
Blade Runner (1982)
Starring: Harrison Ford
Directed by: Ridley Scott
Written by: Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, based on a novel by Phillip K. Dick
In this distant future, androids, called replicants, are physically indistinguishable from humans. They can only be rooted out through the Voight-Kampff interrogation system, a series of questions replicants are incapable of answering.
Replicants aren't allowed on earth, but sometimes they escape their off-world colonies and seek refuge amongst humans. People like Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) are blade-runners, and it's their job to sniff out replicants. While he's on his biggest mission yet, Deckard falls for a highly advanced replicant — so human he begins to doubt his entire society's system.
The ambiguous ending implies that Deckard may be an android himself.
The Lobster(2016)
Starring: Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz
Directed by: Yorgos Lanthimos
Written by: Yorgos Lanthimos, Efthymis Filippou
In this dystopian future, all individuals unable to find a long-term relationship are turned into animals. Single stragglers are sent to the Hotel, where they're supposed to find a partner within 45 days, or be sent into the Woods in their new beastly state. Colin Farrell plays David, a man at the Hotel who decides to join the loners, people who drop out of society and abstain from sex. How you read the film's ambiguous ending determines how you feel about love, relationships, and sacrifice.
Pan's Labyrinth (2006)
Starring: Ivana Baquero, Sergi Lopez
Directed by: Guillermo Del Toro
Written by: Guillermo Del Toro
Five years after the Spanish Civil War, a girl named Ofelia becomes pulled into a fantasy world outside her doorstep. In a twist straight out of Narnia, she's led to a labyrinth, where she meets a wily faun and lots of other unforgettable creatures. The faun swears that Ofelia is actually a princess, but in order to unlock her status, she has to complete a series of tasks.
Meanwhile, Ofelia's pregnant mother becomes sicker and sicker. Her sadistic army captain of a step-father becomes meaner and meaner. And the fantasy world becomes incredibly dark.
The Truman Show (2013)
Starring: Jim Carrey, Laura Linney, Ed Harris
Directed by: Peter Weir
Written by: Andrew Nicchol
Truman Burbank has lived his entire life in the quintessence of small-town America. His community is tight-knit and supportive, and everyone plays their roles. That's because, of course, they're all playing roles. Truman is the only non-actor in the reality TV show about his life. Slowly, he begins to put the pieces together — and then he'll do anything to get out, and trod a world that's much better than he ever could've imagined.
Even more mind-blowing than The Truman Show 's plot are its implications. What if everyone you know is in on the joke?
Synecdoche, New York (2008)
Starring: Phillip Seymour Hoffman
Directed by: Charlie Kaufman
Written by: Charlie Kaufman
This is an indie film with the mantra, "art imitates life imitates art, and repeat." In Synecdoche, New York, Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Caden Conrad, a troubled theater director who throws himself into a strangely realistic theater piece. In a warehouse in Manhattan, a group of actors live out their fictionalized, constructed lives. Soon, the warehouse takes on the realism of the bustling city outside. The years pass. The plot grows convoluted. Caden hires doppelgangers for the actors to make the endeavor even more hectic. As Caden loses his mind, who will be there to give the play direction?
A Scanner Darkly(2006)
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey Jr., Winona Ryder
Directed by: Richard Linklater
Written by: Richard Linklater
Based on the mind-bending novel by William S. Gibson, this movie uses an uncanny animation technique to capture the interplay between reality and unstable mental states. A Scanner Darkly is set in a totalitarian state in the future, after America has lost the war on drugs. Over 20% of the population is hooked on a drug called Substance D. In response, the government has developed an underground network of informants to try to infiltrate the drug supply chain.
Detective Bob Arctor is a cog in this machine, assigned to immerse himself in the shady underworld. But once he's in with the addicts, it's impossible to stop becoming hooked himself. At the New Path recovery center, Bob begins to lose his identity and experience schizophrenic behavior.
Spider(2002)
Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Gabriel Byrne
Directed by: David Cronenberg
Written by: Patrick McGrath
After years in a sanitarium, Denis Cleg moves to a halfway house for the mentally disturbed. And for an hour and a half, we enter into the suffering, shifty mindset of a man trying to piece together a formative memory from this childhood. In flashbacks, Denis sees his father, his mother, the prostitute with whom his father is involved, and a younger version of himself. Within Denis's mind, the four characters go through a choreography of remembrance. What are the events that led to his mother's murder? You'll find out the answer to that question in this psychological thriller, but it's not the twist that'll stay with you. Denis's twisted perspective will haunt you.
The Matrix(2013)
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Lawrence Fisburne
Directed by: Lana and Lily Wachowski
Written by: Lana and Lily Wachowski
Neo lives through every 1990s kid's nightmare: finding out that he's living, essentially, in The Sims. Our trusty protagonist discovers that everything he thinks of as "reality" is actually a video game-esque simulation. Once he realizes that nothing is real, then everything (including dodging bullets) is possible.
But The Matrix recognizes the burden of such knowledge. In one of cinema's most iconic scenes, Neo is offered the red pill to proceed on his journey, or the blue pill to forget and go back to the way he was. Neo chooses the red pill; the rest is movie history.
The Fountain (2006)
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Rachel Weisz
Directed by: Darren Aronofsky
Written by: Darren Aronofsky
We can tell you what happens in The Fountain, but we can’t confirm what actually happens.
This intricate magical romantic drama interweaves three storylines separated by centuries and miles. In the first, Hugh Jackman plays Tom Creo, a 21st century doctor losing his wife, Izzi (Rachel Weisz), to cancer. Tom’s consumed with finding a cure using samples from “The Tree of Life,” a species found in South America, and forgoes quality time with Izzi for time in his lab.
While he’s in the lab, Izzi takes to the pen and writes a story about a conquistador, Tomas Verde, searching for the Tree of Life for Queen Isabella. But Izzi doesn’t have time to finish the story — she asks him to finish it. While they stare at the stars, Izzi imagines they’ll meet, once again, the stars. Appropriately, the final narrative is set in deep space, with an astronaut named Tommy.
But we’ve laid things out in an easy way. In truth, nothing is told in chronological order, not even the storylines themselves. The three storylines are confusingly connected and difficult to unweave.
Acknowledging the infinite interpretative possibilities of the movie, Aronofsky said, “[The film is] very much like a Rubik's Cube, where you can solve it in several different ways, but ultimately there's only one solution at the end.” He believes the film is about coming to terms with your own death. It’s a beautiful film, if a grim message.
Timer(2009)
Starring: Emma Caulfield, Michelle Borth
Directed by: Jac Schaffer
Written by: Jac Schaffer
What if you could count down to the exact moment you’d meet your soulmate? People in this alternate reality can opt into just that. When a TiMER device is implanted, a countdown begins to establish just that. Oona O’Leary, Timer ’s protagonist, faces an uncommon quandary: her TiMER is blank, which means her soulmate — whoever he is — has yet to get his TiMER implanted.
Steph, her roommate and sister, has a TiMER that indicates she won’t meet her soulmate until she’s 43. She’s been seeing Dan, a widower who doesn’t have a TiMER so not to cheapen his marriage.
Instead of twiddling her thumbs until Mr. Right comes around, Oona dates off the TiMER. She falls for Mikey, a supermarket clerk with a countdown of four months.
After a while, Oona and Steph decide to get their TiMERs removed irrevocably. At that precise moment, though, Oona's countdown suddenly starts, meaning that her soul mate has finally gotten his TiMER. It’s the night of Oona and Steph’s birthday, and Dan, the widower, is there. As soon as she sees Dan, her own TiMER goes off. Feelings will be stepped on — what’s a girl to do?
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Mr. Nobody (2004) Starring: Jared Leto, Diane Kruger, Rhys Ifans Directed by: Jaco Van Dormael Written by: Jaco Van Dormael
In this sci-fi-meets-coming of age movie, we see the three different paths that Jared Leto’s character’s life could have taken. A nine-year-old boy stands on a platform facing an impossible choice. He chooses to go with his mother; he chooses to go with his father; he chooses to run away. What happens next? Each path has its glories and its difficulties, and Nemo explores them all.
The film is narrated by Nemo Nobody, the man the little boy becomes, on his 118th birthday. In a sexless, ageless world, Nemo is the last living relic of the world as it was, and he’s able to track the permutations of his life. A journalist attempts to get to the truth of his story: which life did Nemo truly live? The answer will surprise you.
Mr. Nobody is an astounding, visually stunning movie that doesn’t shy away from toying with our existential quandaries, and the infinite paths of "what if."
Shutter Island (2010) Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Kingsley, Mark Ruffalo, Michelle Williams, Max von Sydow, Emily Mortimer Directed By: Martin Scorsese Written By: Laeta Kalogridis, Dennis Lehane
Listen, put a few characters in a hospital for the criminally insane, and some mind-fuckery will occur. Leonardo DiCaprio plays a U.S. Marshall (well) in this Martin Scorsese flick. He and his new partner Chuck (played by Mark Ruffalo) investigate an escapee named Rachel Solando, who once killed her three children.
The plot twist in this series is pretty predictable: the detective is actually the patient. Surprise! Leonardo DiCaprio's stubborn Boston boss is imprisoned in the mental hospital because he killed his manic depressive wife. Cheery, no? The "investigation" was just an exercise concocted by the doctors at the asylum to help the patient escape his paranoia. The final scene of the movie implies that DiCaprio's character will soon have a lobotomy, so at the very least, there's a happy ending.
Triangle (2009) Starring: Melissa George, Joshua McIvor, Jack Taylor, Liam Hemsworth Directed By: Christopher Smith Written By: Christopher Smith
Ah, the best mind-fuckery relies on weird time jumps, and Triangle has time jumps a-plenty. The story opens like any other horror film. A few friends go yachting and end up in dangerous territory. They jump ship — literally — and head to a different ship, which ain't so friendly.
The big reveal: the "abandoned" ship forces everyone into a time loop. Events keep repeating themselves, and each time they do, a new incarnation of the person appears. As in, by the end of the film, the main character Jess (Melissa George) has at least 10 other Jesses to reckon with.
If you're still confused after viewing the movie, you're not alone. There's a 15-minute explainer on YouTube if you have the quarter hour to spare.
The Prestige (2006) Starring: Hugh Jackman, Michael Caine, Christian Bale, Rebecca Hall Directed by: Christopher Nolan Written by: Jonathan Nolan, Christopher Nolan
Before there was Westworld, there was The Prestige, the movie that made absolutely no sense until it all made sense. Borne from the bananas brain of the Nolan brothers, the film focuses on two magicians, Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Christian Bale.) After coming up together as young magicians, the two engage in a violent rivalry.
The big "huh?" of the film lies in Borden's "transported man" trick. Borden falls under the stage, and appears somewhere else in the theater entirely. Wow! Magic! Angier seeks to duplicate this trick, and he ultimately does by enlisting the help of Nikola Tesla. (Fun fact: David Bowie plays Tesla.)
Tesla invents a machine that clones Angier. Here's how it works: the magician clones himself. The original Angier drops beneath the stage into a water tank, where he drowns. The clone appears somewhere else in the theater, wowing the audience. Okay, cool trick, but the cost is high. Every time Angier completes the trick, he kills himself, or a version of himself. The eye-opening visual of the film occurs when Borden chances upon all the water tanks that contain versions of Angier's dead body. Damn.
Oh, but there's another twist. Want to know how Angier completed the trick? You may have seen this coming — I certainly didn't, but my father did. Angier had a twin the whole time, which is the oldest mind-fuck trick in the book. Nolan elevates that particular trick, which can seem a little cheap, by involving two separate women, both in love with Angier. The end of the movie reveals that the two women were actually in love with separate men, not the same man. (Mind. Blown.)
After Hours (1985) Starring: Griffin Dunne, Rosanna Arquette, Linda Fiorentino, Tommy Chong, Cheech Marin Directed by: Martin Scorsese Written by: Joseph Minion
Paul Hackett (Griffin Dunne) just really, really wants to go home. But this is New York City after hours, and only the weirdest and wackiest things happen.
Hackett is a word processor (back in the 1980s, when jobs like that actually existed). He's bored by the corporate drudgery and the uptown apartment that bookend his days. When he meets a Marcy, a woman at a diner who seems to like the same books as him, he's intrigued. Later that night, he calls Marcy up and takes a cab downtown to meet her in Soho. That's when the fun begins.
Everything goes from bad to worse for Hackett. First his cash flies out of the cab window, then he's freaked out by Marcy's weirdly intense roommate, Kiki. When he finally gets Marcy alone, she's busy rubbing some weird burn ointment on her body (but he can't really tell why). Soon enough he gets fed up and leaves. When he feels bad and returns a few hours later, Marcy has killed herself. So now he's broke, tired, and kind of on the lam, eventually taking refuge in a dive bar. Just as the Tim, the barkeep, agrees to lend Paul some money, it turns out the bartender's girlfriend killed herself in apartment in Soho. Yep, that's right: Marcy.
But Tim is a nice guy, and says that Hackett can have some cash if he runs around the corner to Tim's apartment to grab his keys to the bar's register. Twist: there's been a series of robberies in the building, so when Tim's neighbors see Paul, they assume he's the burglar, fresh from a robbery. Paul narrowly escapes their clutches, but the neighbors organize into a witch hunt, putting up posters all around the neighborhood. He then tries to hide out at a Soho nightclub, where Kiki told Marcy she'd head later.
From there, things only get weirder. One woman hits on Paul, another screams at him. When Paul asks a random guy on the street if he can crash at his apartment, the bespectacled man thinks Paul is trying to seduce him.
Finally — finally! — Paul escapes the mob and ends up in the backseat of the van of the real robbers. He's embalmed in a papier-mâché statue (that's how he escaped the mob), and falls out of the truck bed. Where does he end up? At the golden gates of his midtown office building.
Se7en(1996) Starring: Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, Gwyneth Paltrow Directed by: David Fincher Written by: Andrew Kevin Walker
William Somerset (Morgan Freeman) is a careful, wise detective who is just a few days away from retiring. He's assigned to take a young rookie under his wing and show him the ropes of the gritty metropolis that's their turf. The young investigator, David Mills (Brad Pitt), is short-tempered and impatient, but eager to learn and get his hands dirty.
The pair slowly stumble upon a series of murders all bound by one familiar thread: the seven deadly sins. An obese man was forced to eat himself to death (gluttony); a defense attorney has his insides taken out (greed). Soon enough, Somerset and Mills find a good lead. A man named John Doe (Kevin Spacey) has been checking out library books about serial murders. They settle on him as their prime suspect and try to track him down as the murders continue.
After the fifth murder, a bloodied man meets Mills and Somerset at the police station, identifying himself as John Doe. He's been peeling off the skin on his fingertips all along, so it's impossible to perfectly ID his prints, but the men are convinced it's him. He promises to lead both detectives to the final two victims, but under very specific terms or he'll plead insanity.
Per Doe's instructions, the two detectives accompany their captive to a remote desert location. A delivery truck meets them, handing Somerset a box. Inside is the head of Mills' wife (Gwyneth Paltrow). When Doe brags about killing her and says that she was secretly pregnant, and he killed her out of his own envy. Mills weeps and hold Doe at gunpoint. Somerset protests, but he shoots him six times. Doe is the final death of the seven, because he forced Mills to give into his own wrath.
Hard Candy (2005) Starring: Ellen Page, Patrick Wilson, Sandra Oh Directed by: David Slade Written by: Brian Nelson
Patrick Wilson plays Jeff, a photographer with a thing for teenage girls. He's charming and good looking, but the set up is as creepy as it sounds. Jeff preys on young girls, messaging them online and cultivating fake relationships that he seems to hope will end with real sexual favors.
Hayley is the latest girl talked into meeting him in person. But Hayley, who wears a notable red sweatshirt, has a plan of her own. She knows of Jeff's past transgressions with his victims, and she's decided to put a stop to it.
Jeff, it turns out, doesn't just flirt with underage girls. He also rapes and kills them, according to Hayley's spying. When he lures her back to his apartment, she drugs and tortures him to get information about a dead teenage girl whose death she suspects he had a hand in.
The tension in Hard Candy mounts with an eerie quickness, mostly because of the shifting power dynamic between Jeff and Hayley (the former thinks he's in control, the latter always is).
The Invitation (2016) Starring: Logan Marshall-Green, Michiel Huisman, Tammy Blanchard, Emayatzy Corinealdi Directed by: Karyn Kusama Written by: Phil Hay, Matt Manfredi
It's been two years since a tragic accident killed Will (Marshall Green) and Eden's (Blanchard) young son in their Hollywood Hills home. Their marriage soon dissolved and, in an effort to move on, lost touch with one another. The movie begins with Will driving to his old house with his new girlfriend Kira (Corinealdi) — they've been invited to a dinner party, even though he hasn't heard from his ex-wife or her new husband in months.
Things start out warm enough, even as the stylishly modern house manages to dig up pained memories for Will. Then, out of the corner of his eye Will notices Eden's new husband David (Huisman) casually lock doors and cabinets. There are other couples there (old friends of Will and Eden's when they were married), good food, ritzy wine... it's a nice enough evening, albeit a bit awkward. Suddenly, the tone shifts. This isn't a reunion, it's a recruiting session for a cult.
A new, unfamiliar guest arrives. Everyone nestles into the living room and David asks them to keep an open mind as they watch a documentary of sorts. In the movie, a creepy pastor talks a dying woman through the end of her life. The couples all recoil, until the unfamiliar guest gives a kind of testimonial about loving his dead wife so much, and how this quasi-spirituality helped him overcome her death. The twist? He was the one who went to prison for killing her.
From there, Kusama perfectly manipulates the tension. Doors lock and unlock, and Will confronts Eden about blocking out their son's death between flashbacks of their former life together. In the thrilling climax they sit down to dinner. Eden serves a special drink. Will can't take it anymore — he demands everyone throw it out, and begs his girlfriend to leave with him. Just as he seems crazy, someone takes a sip and dies instantly. Will was right, the drink was poison.
The "invitation" was really an entry into a murder-suicide pact. Will and his girlfriend run frantically through his old house to escape Eden and David's wrath.
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) Starring: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal, Sandy Dennis Directed by: Mike Nichols Written by: Ernest Lehman
Married couple George (Burton) and Martha (Taylor) arrive home from a party. Martha informs George that she’s invited a younger couple that she met there — Nick (Segal) and Honey (Dennis) — over for more drinks. Everyone is already quite drunk, but George and Martha get increasingly more drunk and verbally abusive towards one another.
Honey says that Martha told her about she and George’s son upcoming 16th birthday. This angers George. Honey runs to the bathroom to throw up from drinking too much. The night goes on and on with more upsetting moments.
George and Martha engage in a series of increasingly escalating games of psychological manipulation that makes their guests feel more and more uneasy. Finally, it becomes clear to Nick and Honey that the overarching game is for George and Martha to invent more and more details about their imaginary son, but to never mention his existence to anyone else. It seems that Martha lost this round, because she answers the title question, saying "I am."
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) Starring: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester Directed by: Stanley Kubrick Written by: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clark
As one Reddit commenter summarizing the movie very succinctly describes it, “Black box gives superpowers. Black box plus monkey equals human. Human plus black box equals star baby. Star baby is awesome.” To expand on that a little, watch the four videos on the website Kubrick 2001, which delve into how it’s not just the monolith (black box) that speeds along evolution, it’s actually the discovery and improved development of functional tools that advances first apes, and then the human race.
The question is, though, what are the three monoliths that appear in the film — one one Earth, one on the Moon, and one on Jupiter? Since they have right angles, they aren’t naturally occurring in nature. As Roger Ebert wrote in 1968, “Who put [the monolith] there? Intelligent beings since it has right angles and nature doesn't make right angles on its own.” The monoliths are merely a device Kubrick uses to advance the plot, Ebert argues.
It’s not just the monoliths’ possible meaning that throws viewers into a quandary. The ending of 2001: A Space Odyssey usually confuses viewers the most. After Dr. David Bowman (Keir Dulles) defeats HAL 9000, the supercomputer that conspired to take over the humans’ spaceship, he receives a signal from the monolith on Jupiter. Bowman travels toward the monolith only to be captured by a vortex of light.
Rather than finding himself in a sort of Gravity situation, which viewers could much more easily understand (we all know that a human left adrift in space would just perish among the glowing stars and big, black holes of nothingness), Bowman winds up in a bedroom. He watches his older self eat his final meal and die in the bed. Bowman becomes one with this older version of himself. After he dies, another monolith appears by his bed. He reaches for it and becomes the “starchild,” a glowing fetus that is transported by float beside planet Earth.
“Now where did the bedroom come from? My intuition is that it came out of Kubrick's imagination; that he understood the familiar bedroom would be the most alien, inexplicable, disturbing scene he could possibly end the film with. He was right. The bedroom is more otherworldly and eerie than any number of exploding stars, etc.,” Ebert writes by way of explanation.
It’s quite the trip.
Soylent Green (1973) Starring: Charlton Heston, Edward G. Robinson, Leigh Taylor-Young Directed by: Richard Fleischer Written by: Stanley R. Greenberg
Altered States (1980) Starring: William Hurt, Blair Brown Directed by: Ken Russell Written by: Sidney Aaron, Paddy Chayefsky
Edward Jessup (Hurt) is a Harvard scientist who starts experimenting with sensory deprivation tanks. He wants to take his work further, though, so he starts working with psychedelic mushrooms — only the type he uses makes everyone who takes them have the exact same trip.
One night while tripping balls in his tank, Jessup reverts back to the state of a Simian man. He climbs out of the tank and wreaks havoc on the lab and the campus security guards. A pack of wild dogs chases him to a local zoo, where he eats a sheep for his dinner. Jessup then returns to his human form.
His experiments transform him into increasingly troubling altered states. In one instance, he’s basically primordial soup; in another, he’s a vortex of light similar to the ones in 2001: A Space Odyssey. The only thing that can bring Jessup back from these states is his wife, Emily (Brown). She starts going through these altered states with him; sort of like the ying to his yang, or the fire to his brimstone.
In Jessup’s final experiment, he becomes a sort of pre-life protoplasm. His wife is the flesh into which the protoplasm fuses, and together, they form human life. It’s through this melding that they emerge whole, and Jessup learns to value his own humanity as well as his wife (they had been on the brink of divorcing).
Videodrome (1983) Starring: James Woods, Deborah Harry, Peter Dvorsky Directed by: David Cronenberg Written by: David Cronenberg
Max Renn (Woods) runs a Toronto TV station that airs sleazy shows (softcore porn; hardcore violence), but he’s always looking for the next sensational phenomenon. His coworker Harlan (Dvorsky) is responsible for pirating signals from other broadcast stations, and he picks up a show called Videodrome that he thinks is coming from Malaysia. On Videodrome, anonymous victims are brutally tortured before they’re murdered in a chamber. Then, Randy Jackson says, “A little pitchy, dawg.” (That last part isn’t true.)
Max thinks Videodrome is the future of TV and orders Halan to start pirating it for their station. He also gets Nicki Brand (Harry), a radio host, to sleep with him after she admits she’s turned on by the events depicted on Videodrome. Around the same time, a pop-culture analyst named Professor Brian O'Blivion (Jack Creley), who only appears on TV but is never seen in real life, predicts that television will one day supplant human life.
Harlan tells Max that the signal had actually been scrambled, and Videodrome ’s broadcast is really coming from Pittsburgh. Nicki goes there to audition to be on the show, which Max actually believes is fake. When Nicki doesn’t come back to Toronto, Max gets in touch with a feminist pornographer (Lynne Gorman), who tells him that Videodrome isn’t fake. It’s not just a TV show, either, it’s a political movement that Professor O’Blivion is behind.
Max finds O’Blivion’s office, The Cathode Ray Mission, and discovers that it provides homeless people with shelter, food, and water as long as they watch television, which was part of O’Blivion’s vision for the future. He’s actually been dead for over a year, though, and what people have been watching are hours of video he pre-taped in the event of his demise. O’Blivion’s socio-political movement, the Videodrome, is a war for the minds of North Americans.
The means of mind control is, of course, television; namely, viewing the Videodrome TV program. The show carries a signal that gives viewers malignant brain tumors. Max, who viewed Videodrome, also starts having hallucinations during which he thinks there’s a VCR in his stomach. O’Blivion didn’t want it to be used this way, though, but when he tried to stop his partners from doing so, they killed him.
Harlan actually showed Max Videodrome in order to get him to put it on the air as part of a government conspiracy to eradicate North America of homeless people. They insert a tape into the VCR in Max’s stomach (which has become real) that makes Max murder his coworkers. When he’s about to kill Professor O’Blivion’s daughter (Sonja Smits), who’s trying to stop the government’s plan to eliminate the poor, she’s able to reprogram him to instead kill Harlan, who’d been part of the government conspiracy to put Videodrome on the air.
Max shoots Harlan, then runs to an abandoned harbor. Nicki shows up on a television, saying that in order to completely defeat Videodrome, he has to "leave the old flesh behind." On the same television, we see Max shooting himself in the head. The set explodes, but when it does, it leaves behind bloody, human intestines. We then see Max, who watched the version of himself on TV shoot himself, do the same thing.
Jacob’s Ladder(1990) Starring: Tim Robbins, Elizabeth Peña, Danny Aiello Directed by: Adrian Lyne Written by: Bruce Joel Robbin
The movie starts during the Vietnam War, where an American soldier named Jacob (Robbins), loses most of his unit during an attack. He runs into the jungle and gets stabbed by a bayonet.
When he wakes up four years later, he’s on the subway in New York City reading Albert Camus' The Stranger. Jacob is living with his girlfriend Jezzie (Peña) in Brooklyn, but he remembers having a wife and three sons, the youngest of which died before the war.
Jacob keeps having disturbing experiences and seeing demons everywhere, until he’s contacted by a comrade from his old unit who went catatonic during the attack in Vietnam. The comrade recovered and is now living in NYC, but he's killed when his car explodes. At his funeral, the surviving members of Jacob’s platoon say that they’ve all been having horrible experiences.
They hire a lawyer to investigate what happened to them, but after he reads their military files that say the platoon was never actually in combat, and that the soldiers had been discharged due to psychological reasons, he backs out of the case.
All of Jacob’s comrades stop pursuing the case, but he continues his search for the truth. This gets him thrown in a car and taken to a hospital, where doctors tell him that he’s already dead.
When Jacob leaves the hospital, Michael Newman (Matt Craven), the man who treated him back in Vietnam, confesses that he was a chemist who had designed “the Ladder,” a drug that triggered aggression. A large dose had been given to Jacob’s unit, and they had actually attacked one another. Jacob recalls being bayoneted in the jungle, only this time he can see an American soldier wielding the bayonet.
Now that he knows what truly happened, Jacob feels at peace. He returns to his family’s apartment, where he sees his dead son Gabe at the bottom of the stairs. Gabe takes his hand and leads him up the stairs towards a bright light. In the final scene, Jacob is in a triage tent, where military doctors declare him dead.
The Usual Suspects(1995) Starring: Kevin Spacey, Gabriel Byrne, Chazz Palminteri Directed by: Bryan Singer Written by: Christopher McQuarrie
While being questioned about his role in a gun battle and drug bust gone wrong, Roger “Verbal” Kint manages to convince police that he should be let off scot-free. After he leaves the station and drops his limp, his interrogators look around the room and realize that the story Verbal concocted was based entirely on objects and names he glimpsed around the room.
Kint is actually Keyser Söze, the mastermind behind the whole scheme that led to the firefight on the ship. As he says, “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.”
Cube (1997) Starring: Maurice Dean Wint, Nicole de Boer, Nicky Guadagni, David Hewlett, Andrew Miller Directed by: Vincenzo Natali Written by: André Bijelic, Graeme Manson, Vincenzo Natali
Imagine five prisoners being stuck inside a constantly shifting, intricately booby-trapped, complexly mathematical Rubik’s Cube. They have no idea how they got there. They think they need to somehow escape in order to survive.
That’s what Cube is about, except in the end, the sole survivor ascends into a bright light. So, is the cube purgatory? A classic prisoner’s dilemma? Cube will give you a lot to think about.
The Sixth Sense(1999) Starring: Bruce Willis, Hayley Joel Osment Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan Written by: M. Night Shyamalan
A child psychologist named Malcolm Crowe (Willis) and his wife (Olivia Williams) return home from an event where he was being honored. A former patient of Crowe’s is waiting in their bathroom. He shoots Crowe and then kills himself.
The movie cuts to the following autumn, when Dr. Crowe starts working with 9-year-old Cole Sear (Osment), who claims he can see dead people and also has trouble in social situations. Malcolm works with Cole to develop his gift for communicating with the dead, but the doctor grows increasingly distant from his wife. They never talk anymore.
Eventually, Malcolm realizes what happened. He was actually killed the night he was shot. He hasn’t been able to leave the land of the living because he wants to let his wife know that she never came second to his work, and that he also can’t forgive himself for failing to help the patient who killed both Malcolm and himself. Cole really does see dead people.
Fight Club (1999) Starring: Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, Helena Bonham Carter Directed by: David Fincher Written by: Jim Uhls
The first rule of fight club is, of course, that you don’t talk about fight club. The second rule is that you disregard that one for the purposes of this roundup, with apologies to David Fincher and Chuck Palahniuk, the author of the novel upon which the film is based.
In this nihilistic tale, an unnamed insomniac office drone (Norton) meets a rebellious soap-maker named Tyler Durden (Pitt) on a plane. The two move into a dilapidated house on the edge of town and start an underground fight club that turns into a nation-wide organization called Project Mayhem, which protests capitalism and corporate organizations.
Eventually, the narrator realizes that Tyler Durden is merely a dissociation of his own personality. He discovers that as Tyler, he’s been plotting to destroy credit card companies by blowing up their office buildings. The narrator finally shoots himself in the cheek, killing his projection of Tyler. The film ends with the narrator and his sort-of girlfriend Marla (Bonham Carter) watching the city fall to the Pixies' “Where Is My Mind.”
Memento (2000) Starring: Guy Pearce, Carrie-Ann Moss, Joe Pantoliano Directed by: Christopher Nolan Written by: Christopher Nola, Jonathan Nolan
Leonard Shelby (Pearce) suffers from anterograde amnesia, which means he can’t create or store new memories. This is making it difficult to track down the man he’s certain raped and murdered his wife (Jorja Fox). To make things even more confusing, the film is told through black-and-white and color sequences, and it’s not clear to the audience which come first chronologically. It’s also unclear which characters Shelby can trust — or if he’s even trustworthy himself.
Session 9 (2001) Starring: David Caruso, Peter Mullan, Stephen Gevedon, Josh Lucas Directed by: Brad Anderson Written by: Brad Anderson, Stephen Gevedon
This movie was filmed in a real mental hospital in Danvers, Massachusetts, which just adds to the authentic, chilling vibe you’ll have while watching. An asbestos removal crew (Caruso, Mullan, Gevedon, Lucas, Brendan Sexton III) is tasked with cleaning an abandoned mental hospital. While on the job, they discover a box that contains tapes of nine interview sessions with a patient named Mary Hobbes.
Hobbes has dissociative identity disorder, and she has three personalities besides her own. Of these, she only displays two of them — “the Princess,” who is childlike and innocent, and Billy, who is protective and childlike. Hobbes’ third personality, Simon, is so hidden that the Princess doesn’t know anything about her, and Billy is afraid of him.
Everything starts to unravel when one of the men goes missing, and the ninth session tape is cut short, so they don’t know what happened with Mary, the Princess, Billy, and Simon. Eventually, it’s revealed that there might not be a Mary, and that Simon actually lives inside one of the men tasked with cleaning the asylum, and some members of the cleaning crew aren’t even real — they’re projections of his imagination. He murders some of the real men, though, because of course this movie is terrifying.
Mulholland Drive (2001) Starring: Naomi Watts, Laura Harring Directed by: David Lynch Written by: David Lynch
This one’s kind of tough to explain in a simple plot synopsis, especially since there’s been so much debate about whether or not the first half of the film is actually a dream sequence. This October 2001 Salon article provides a thorough analysis of not only the film’s plot, but also what the fuck it all means. Or at least what the writers think it means, because they’re still unable to explain things like the mysterious box.
Lynch originally wrote Mulholland Drive as a television pilot for ABC. Therefore, there might actually be some storylines in the film that leave questions left unanswered, since Lynch would have been able to get to them in the longer time that a TV series allots for storytelling.
In this January 2002 article from The Guardian, however, five top film critics couldn’t come to a consensus as to whether or not the film was divided into two halves, with one being a dream and one grounded in the reality of what actually happened when Diane (Watts) put a hit on her girlfriend Camilla (Harring). Diane’s actions drive her to commit suicide.
Still, the film might be intended as a larger commentary on how Hollywood places women in boxes, only allowing ingénues to look one way, while women become disposable and easily replaceable when they reach a certain age. That might just be the most important mindfuck Mulholland Drive gives to viewers.
Donnie Darko (2001) Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, Drew Barrymore Directed by: Richard Kelly Written by: Richard Kelly
A high school student named Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal) is woken up by a monstrous rabbit who calls himself Frank. The rabbit leads Donnie outside and says the world will end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds. When Donnie returns home, he discovers that a jet engine crashed into his bedroom while he was out with Frank.
When Donnie describes Frank to his therapist (Katharine Ross), she tells his parents that he’s suffering from daylight hallucinations, which can be symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia. Donnie confesses to flooding his school and burning down a motivational speaker’s (Patrick Swayze) house.
Finally, it’s the day Frank prophesied the world would end. A vortex forms above the Darko house while Donnie is driving in the nearby hills. He watches an airplane fall from the sky. The events from the last 28 days start to replay in reverse chronological order. When they reach day 1, Donnie is back in his bed, laughing maniacally as a jet engine crashes into his room. Donnie dies instantly.
When he dies, all of the people with whom Donnie Darko interacted during the last 28 days start to wake up with disturbed looks on their faces. Characters who met and interacted during the course of the movie revert to being strangers, although they feel as though they know each other. They just can’t remember where or when they might have met.
Vanilla Sky(2001) Starring: Tom Cruise, Penélope Cruz, Cameron Diaz Directed by: Cameron Crowe Written by: Cameron Crowe
Roger Ebert described Vanilla Sky perfectly in December 2001, “ Vanilla Sky, like the 2001 pictures Memento and Mulholland Drive before it, requires the audience to do some heavy lifting. It has one of those plots that doubles back on itself like an Escher staircase. You get along splendidly one step at a time, but when you get to the top floor you find yourself on the bottom landing. If it's any consolation, its hero is as baffled as we are; it's not that he has memory loss, like the hero of Memento, but that in a certain sense he may have no real memory at all.”
Vanilla Sky plays not only with linear structure, but with mixing dreams and reality, forcing viewers to question what’s real, what’s not, and whether or not reality is entirely subjective and surreal. It’s best to watch it rather than read a plot summary, really, but know that Tom Cruise jumps off a building at one point, and not in his usual badass Mission: Impossible type of way.
Oldboy (2003) Starring: Choi Min-sik, Kang Hye-jung Directed by: Park Chan-wook Written by: Hwang Jo-yoon, Im Joon-hyeong, Park Chan-wook
Business man Oh Dae-su (Min-sik) is arrested for drunken and disorderly behavior in 1988. He misses his daughter’s 4th birthday because he is in jail. While his friend who picks him up from the police station is talking to Dae-su’s wife, he is kidnapped.
Dae-su is imprisoned with no human contact for 15 years in a hotel-like prison. He’s sometimes gassed with a mind-altering drug. Dae-su shadowboxes to pass the time. He has no contact with his captors, nor does he ever learn the reason for his kidnapping.
Fifteen years later, Dae-su is released onto a rooftop. His captor gives him a suit and some money, but he also calls and taunts him. Dae-su then befriends a young chef named Mi-do (Hye-jung), who takes him to her apartment after he collapses at her sushi restaurant.
Dae-su wants to track down his daughter, but all he can find out is that she was adopted by a Swedish couple. He turns his attention to his captor’s identity. He finally learns that his name is Lee Woo-jin (Yoo Ji-tae). Woo-jin gives Dae-su an ultimatum: If Dae-su can figure out why Woo-jin kept him captive in the next five days, Woo-jin will kill himself. If Dae-su doesn’t succeed in finding out, Woo-jin will have Mi-do — with whom Dae-su has begun an emotional and sexual relationship — killed.
Dae-su remembers that he and Woo-jin went to the same high school, and that he saw an incestutous encounter between Woo-jin and his sister Soo-ah. Dae-su spread the rumor about their relationship around the school, not knowing they were related. Soo-ah committed suicide after the rumor made the rounds.
Dae-su admits to Woo-jin that he drove his sister to commit suicide. Woo-jin tells Dae-su that his revenge has been meticulous and carefully plotted. First, he captured Dae-su and kept him in prison for 15 years, periodically administering hypnotic drugs. Then, he planted the false evidence that Dae-su’s daughter had been kidnapped by a Swedish couple. In reality, Dae-su’s daughter is none other than Mi-do. Woo-jin drove Dae-su to commit incest with his own daughter, and he plans to tell Mi-do what has happened as well.
Dae-su begs Woo-jin to spare Mi-do from learning this information. Dae-su cuts out his tongue to show that he will never convey this information, or any other secrets, himself. Woo-jin says he will heed this request, leaves, and shoots himself.
Dae-su goes to a hypnotist to have the memories of committing incest with his daughter erased, but afterward, Mi-do finds him and tells him she loves him. He smiles when he hears this, but then his smile is replaced by a pained expression, as if he’s remembering what he went to the hypnotist to forget.
The Machinist (2004) Starring: Christian Bale, Jennifer Jason Leigh Directed by: Brad Anderson Written by: Scott Kosar
A machinist named Trevor Reznik (Bale) is suffering from severe insomnia and has become extremely emaciated. Trevor is also troubled by mysterious Post-It notes that appear on his fridge, which have a game of Hangman on them. It starts to affect his work to the point where one of his coworkers (Michael Ironside) loses his arm in a machine accident. His coworkers blame Trevor for the accident, but he blames a mysterious new machinist named Ivan (John Sharian) that only Trevor seems to know about.
Trevor does have some brief moments of relief. He spends time with Stevie (Leigh), a prostitute, who enjoys his company. He meets a waitress named Maria (Aitana Sánchez-Gijón) at the airport diner he frequents and takes Maria and her son Nicholas (Matthew Romero) to a carnival. At the carnival, though, Nicholas has a seizure in a funhouse.
Trevor thinks all of these mysterious events are part of an elaborate plot to drive him insane. His life begins to fall apart even more: He explodes at a coworker and gets fired. He doesn’t pay his utility bill, and the electricity in his apartment is turned off. He thinks blood is seeping out of his freezer.
Trevor thinks that Ivan is the source of his problems, so he goes to the DMV to track him down using his license plate number. They refuse to give it to him, so he goes to the police, saying that he was a victim of a hit and run, and that Ivan was the perpetrator. When Trevor gives the police Ivan’s license plate number, they tell him that the car to which that plate matches is registered to Trevor, not the mysterious Ivan.
Eventually, Trevor pieces together the details of what happened. There is no Maria, nor is there a Nicholas. He was the one who hit a boy who looked identical to Nicholas a year ago — which his mother (who looked exactly like Maria) witnessed — and then drove away. At the time, Trevor looked much healthier. The guilt over the hit and run is what led him to his current emaciated, insomniac state. The mysterious Post-It notes have actually been coming from him (he’s been dissociating), and the hangman game spells out “KILLER.”
The movie ends with Trevor going to the police to confess his crime. They lead him to a cell, and he falls asleep for the first time since the accident.
Primer (2004) Starring: Shane Carruth, David Sullivan, Casey Gooden Directed by: Shane Carruth Written by: Shane Carruth
Primer is considered one of the most confusing movies of all time. People have even mapped out the various timelines in an attempt to explain the plot. Writer/director/star Shane Carruth has a degree in mathematics and is a former engineer, so the film delves into complex temporal anomalies.
Two engineers named Aaron (Carruth) and Abe (Sullivan) create a person-sized box in which a human can travel through time. They try to carefully map out rules for their time traveling to avoid meeting their past or future selves and messing up the past, present, or future.
Abe and Aaron’s different personalities lead to confrontations over how they should use the box and the way in which their collaboration in the experiment should play out. They try to use their time traveling ability to make profitable stock trades, but their future selves keep appearing in their present timelines, causing increasingly escalating problems in their lives. They also cause trouble in other people’s lives; for example, Abe’s girlfriend Rachel (Samantha Thomson) almost gets shot.
During an epilogue, it’s revealed that multiple versions of Aaron still exist, and at least one future version is colluding with the original one. Abe, on the other hand, wants to keep his present self in the dark about what Future Abe knows. In the final scene, Aaron is directing the construction of a warehouse-sized box.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind(2004) Starring: Kate Winslet, Jim Carrey Directed by: Michel Gondry Written by: Charlie Kaufman
Joel (Carrey) and Clementine (Winslet) meet on a train from Montauk to Rockville Centre on Long Island, New York. What they don’t know is that they’ve met before. They were even in a relationship before, but Clementine hired a firm called Lacuna, Inc., to erase her memories of their relationship after a fight, and when Joel heard about this, he decided to do the same.
Joel doesn’t want Clementine to be erased from his memory, though, and he struggles to preserve the moments they had together by hiding them deep in his subconscious. The last thing he can remember her saying is to meet him in Montauk.
After they meet again on the train, they discover their Lacuna records. Even though they know they dated, broke up, and had their relationship erased from their minds before, they decide to give it another chance.
Atonement (2007) Starring: Keira Knightley, James McAvoy, Saoirse Ronan Directed by: Joe Wright Written by: Christopher Hampton
This adaptation of Iwan McEwan’s novel of the same name earns a spot on the mindfuck movies list simply because of how it completely rips the rug out from under you at the end. There you are, thinking Briony (played by Ronan at 13, Romola Garai at 18, and Redgrave as an older woman) is writing this story to atone for her huge lie, and there's going to be a romantic, happy ending. That lie being how she falsely accused Robbie Turner (McAvoy) of raping Briony’s visiting cousin Lola (Juno Temple), which completely ruined not only his life, but that of her sister Cecilia (Knightley).
The incident tears Briony and Cecilia’s family apart, because Cecilia stands by Robbie; knowing he’s been falsely accused. Years later, Briony describes visiting Robbie and Cecilia, who are now married, to apologize. Cecilia says she can never forgive her, while Robbie demands Briony tell both her family and the authorities what really happened. Even if Briony were to tell the authorities; however, nothing could be done, because Lola actually married her rapist (Benedict Cumberbatch).
Decades pass, and Briony is now an author. Her final novel (she is dying of vascular dementia) is called Atonement. She gives an interview about the book in which she reveals that it’s only semi-autobiographical. While most of the beginning is true to life, the part where she visits Cecilia and Robbie is fabricated. Briony was never able to visit them to ask for forgiveness because they never met again after Robbie left to fight in World War II. He died at Dunkirk, and Cecilia died shortly after during The Blitz. Oh cruel, cruel fate.
Triangle (2009) Starring: Melissa George, Michael Dorman Directed by: Christopher Smith Written by: Christopher Smith
Jess (Melissa George) goes on a boat trip with a group of friends. The boat capsizes in a storm, and the group survives by climbing on the upturned vessel. They spot an ocean liner and board it, only to find it deserted. Jess experiences a flash of déjà vu once on board the ship, and she also gets the feeling that there’s someone else there.
One by one, the members of the group begin to die. Some of them are shot by a mysterious masked shooter, who then chases Jess, but she’s able to push the shooter overboard.
After everyone in her group dies, and Jess is left alone, she hears yelling. She sees herself and the others alive again. They’re standing on the capsized boat in the same position they were in before they boarded the ocean liner. Jess realizes that she’s stuck in a time loop, and she’s actually the figure on the ship who killed her friends.
Inception (2010) Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt Directed by: Christopher Nolan Written by: Christopher Nolan
Dominick Cobb (DiCaprio) and his team enter the dreams of executives to steal corporate secrets. In the big heist depicted in the movie, the team has a new type of challenge: plant an idea into a CEO’s (Cillian Murphy) subconscious, which the businessman (Ken Watanabe) tasking them with the job calls inception.
Cobb is also struggling with guilt over the death of his wife Mal (Marion Cotillard), who committed suicide after the two spent 50 years in a shared dreamscape and couldn’t distinguish between dreams and reality when they woke up. Cobb’s guilt causes problems with his team’s current mission, because he keeps projecting Mal into dreamscapes.
As the team travels into deeper and deeper levels of the dream labyrinth architected by Ariadne (Page), there’s more room for error, which obviously occurs. After Inception came out, people spent hours trying to map out the various levels of the dream landscapes into which the team traveled. Finally, Christopher Nolan released his hand-drawn version of the map to help viewers understand.
Audiences were also confused by the film’s ending. The movie’s last shot is of Cobb’s totem — an object the dream-invaders use to determine if they’re still in a dream or back in reality — a spinning top. If the top keeps spinning, he’s probably stuck in someone else’s dream. If it stops, he’s back in reality. Inception ends before we can see what happens to the top. Does it keep spinning, or does it fall?
Nolan finally explained the ambiguous ending during the commencement speech he delivered to Princeton’s class of 2015. He said it didn’t matter if Cobb was awake or dreaming, because he’d been reunited with his children, which is all he really wanted. “He was in his own subjective reality. He didn’t really care any more, and that makes a statement: perhaps, all levels of reality are valid,” Nolan said.
Black Swan(2010) Starring: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Barbara Hershey, Vincent Cassel Directed by: Darren Aronofsky Written by: Mark Heyman, Andres Heinz, John J. McLaughlin
Nina Sayers (Portman) has spent her entire life striving to be a perfect ballerina. It’s an obsession fueled by her stage mother (Hershey). When Sayers is cast as the White Swan in her company’s upcoming production of Swan Lake opposite a more easygoing newcomer (Mila Kunis) as the Black Swan, she begins to have a complete mental, emotional, and physical breakdown.
Monsieur Oscar (Lavant) appears to be a regular businessman until he enters a limo in the morning after having breakfast with his wife and children. Once in the car, he receives a dossier from his driver, Madame Céline (Scob), and takes off his banker disguise. He puts on a different costume; now, Oscar is an elderly beggar who walks the streets of Paris, asking for money.
Oscar is actually an actor, but his roles exist in the real world. Throughout the day, he returns to the limousine for more assignments from Céline. These take him everywhere from a motion-capture studio to a high-fashion photoshoot with a top model (played by Eva Mendes).
Even when Oscar gets physically injured while in character, he’s unscathed when he returns to the limo. At times, he interacts with characters that look identical to ones he played earlier in the day. Towards the end of the day, he meets a woman named Léa (L'Homea), who calls him “uncle.” Oscar pretends to die, and Léa cries.
At this next appointment, Céline pulls the car up next to an identical limo. Inside is a woman named Eva (Kylie Minogue), with whom it’s implied Oscar actually has a child. However, Eva appears to be an actress like Oscar, and she tells him that she has an appointment. She’ll be stepping into the role of a flight attendant who spends her final night in an empty building with a man. Oscar leaves the building so that Eva can meet up with the man, but he then sees the two jump to their deaths. Oscar cries as he runs past their bodies and gets in the limo.
At his last appointment, Céline hands Oscar a dossier saying that he’ll be going to “your house” to meet up with “your wife” and “your daughter.” When he goes inside; however, his wife and child are actually chimpanzees.
Now that the day is over, Céline takes the limo to the Holy Motors garage, which is filled with many limousines of the same make and model. She leaves for the night after covering her face with a mask. After Céline is gone, the cars start talking to each other, worrying about becoming obsolete.
Upstream Color (2013) Starring: Shane Carruth, Amy Seimetz, Thiago Martins Directed by: Shane Carruth Written by: Shane Carruth
Yup, it’s another Shane Carruth mindfuck masterpiece. In this one, a man called the Thief (Martins) kidnaps Kris (Seimetz) at a nightclub and drugs her. He keeps her in a hypnotic state of distraction, using techniques like getting her to transcribe Henry David Thoreau’s Walden on a paper chain. The Thief starves Kris so that he can infect her with a type of live larva that he harvests from blue orchids. He also manipulates her into liquidating her home equity and giving him the money.
When the Thief drops Kris off at her home, she wakes up ravenous with roundworms crawling under her skin, which she tries to remove with a kitchen knife. She fails at this.
A man called the Sampler (Andrew Sensenig) lures Kris to his farm so he can transfer the roundworms from her body a young pig’s. Again, Kris wakes up with no memory of what has happened to her. When she gets home, she sees the blood on her sheets from when she tried to remove the worms. Scared, she calls the police, but she hangs up because she’s not sure what she would tell them happened. Kris tries to return to work, but she gets fired after her unexcused absence. She tries to buy food at the grocery store, but the Thief has stolen all of her money.
One year later, Kris encounters a man named Jeff (Carruth) on a train, and the two have an almost telepathic connection. When they spend the night together, they realize they have identical scars — they were both infected by the larva and then had the roundworms removed, but they also have no memory of this happening. Like Kris, Jeff also had his personal funds stolen by the Thief. He then lost his job after trying to embezzle money from his brokerage firm to cover his tracks.
Kris and Jeff also have a telepathic connection with the pigs that received their worm transfusions, although they don’t know this. That’s another part of the worm-pig-orchid cycle, as Shane Carruth calls it. The Sampler is able to check in on people who are telepathically connected with the pig’s lives, and he writes songs about them. He sells these songs through a company called the Quinoa Valley Rec. Co.
When one of the pigs gets pregnant, Kris thinks she's pregnant. The doctor tells her she isn’t; she actually had endometrial cancer, which was removed, and is now infertile. When the pig gives birth, the Sampler throws her piglets into a sack, which he tosses into the river.
This sends Kris and Jeff into a deep depression. They turn against everyone else in their lives and hunker down in Kris’ house, expecting the worst. While this is happening, we see the sack with the piglet’s corpses, from which a blue substance — the same blue as the orchids the Thief extracted the larva from in the beginning — is traveling upstream into the surrounding waters. Orchids are growing out of the water, and farmers are collecting the blue flowers to sell.
Kris, Jeff, and the Sampler slowly start to remember the things that have happened to them. Kris starts mumbling Walden. In a dream, the three of them sit down together and discuss being aware of each other before the Sampler has a heart attack. Back in reality, Kris and Jeff are on the pig farm. She shoots the Sampler, and he dies.
Kris and Jeff find records of everyone who has been drugged the way they were and get them to come to the farm by sending them copies of Walden. They remodel the farm and start providing a better life for the pigs. No more pigs are drowned, so the Thief has no more blue orchids from which to get larva and start the worm-pig-orchid cycle again.
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For many of us, political debates on Facebook just leave us with lingering anger and a desire to punch something (or maybe that's just me.) But for an imgur user who goes by littlesb79, a Facebook debate in November actually left her with a new friend — or so she thought.
After their initial debate, the man and woman (neither have been identified) had a sporadic Facebook messaging friendship that the woman called "innocuous" in a post to Imgur. This week, however, it took a turn for the worse.
The man messaged her with a simple, "Maybe we should go out sometime." She kindly responded that she's married, but if she weren't then she would have definitely gone out with him because he seems "like a catch."
He then informed her that he, too, is married — but maybe they should just go out anyway, he said, "It will be fun lol." She, however, didn't really think it would be fun, and she had some words for a married man who would go after a married woman.
"When I got diagnosed with cancer last year I didn't have the heart to tell my boys (whom I have always protected) that I could die, my husband had to look in their eyes and say that I was sick," she wrote. "He subsequently took care of me during multiple surgeries, emptying drainage bags, giving me blood thinner shots, holding my hand while [I] was in pain and going to get chemo infusions. During this time there was a song lyric that would constantly loop in my head: "Love is watching someone die."
Explaining how her husband supported her through her cancer treatment probably would have been enough to prove that she wasn't down for a date, but then she turned her message to him.
"So my question to you is... Who is going to watch you die?" she wrote. "Get your house in order and please stop messaging me."
But every once in a while, Nyong'o uses wigs and curly clip-ins to try on a longer style... not because she's ashamed of her length, but because she can.
And we're so glad that she does. On Fourth of July, the Queen of Katwe star posted a squad pic, arm-in-arm with friends while casually strolling under a rainbow. A second poolside shot, where she stunned in a black and white-striped bikini and a dope denim jacket, also showed her new summer hairstyle: twists! And instead of doing them waist-length like most people, Nyong'o is wearing hers in a chic, chin-length bob.
A source tells Refinery29 that Nyong'o got her twists done by a local hairdresser in Los Angeles, but let's not forget that she's perfectly capable of doing them herself. No, really. The native Kenyan once told Vogue that she was inspired to learn the the art of braiding herself after getting subpar service years ago. "When I was in undergrad here in the U.S., I really wanted to get my hair braided," she said. And after being "morbidly disappointed," she got lessons from an aunt back in Kenya. "I learned how to cornrow and box braid and twist," she said. She had dreams of making braids her side hustle, but soon realized she didn't have the heart to charge her friends.
"What I love about my hair texture and this kind of hair is that you can do all kinds of interesting, angular shapes with it," she continued. "Braiding just tells a story." One that we're paying close attention to, for sure.
With all the crisp high resolution photos, aesthetically pleasing web design, and one-click checkout options that store your credit card information so you can make questionable purchases late at night without even having to get out your wallet, it’s easy to forget that online shopping was once just a landmine of broken links and Comic Sans. (And if you were born after 1999, you probably have no idea what we’re talking about.)
Here’s something to refresh your memory, just in case: Reddit user Potato_Quesodilla delved into the internet’s archives (it's called the Wayback Machine — and scarily enough, anyone can access it) to pull screenshots of website layouts that have since gone the way of dial-up. If you’ve been shopping Sephora.com since e-commerce first became a thing, and consider yourself an early adopter of all things Urban Decay, then these long-forgotten homepages are going to feel awfully familiar.
The images that look like someone just slapped on some text and a drop shadow in Microsoft Paint and called it a day and bright blue hyperlinks will bring you straight back to a simpler time, when computers were bulky gray boxes and you had to buy the AOL disk if you wanted to access the World Wide Web at all. For beauty enthusiasts who came of age alongside the internet, this walk down memory lane almost feels like when your parents fondly recall the wholesome appeal of Leave It to Beaver — except they were infinitely less likely to somehow stumble upon hardcore porn while searching for body lotion.
Some commenters on the Reddit thread are referring to the screenshots as “vintage,” but is there anything about the internet that’s truly vintage, the same way we think of vintage clothing and antiques? If that’s the case, then we’ve just started to feel really old all of a sudden.
Of all the small nuisances that can happen at the pool, getting water stuck in your ear is one of the most annoying — and possibly most dangerous. Although your first instinct may be to ignore a little water swishing around your ear, you really should try to get it out. It turns out that just a tiny bit of water could actually cause a serious infection.
Swimmer's ear is an infection of the outer ear or ear canal, usually caused by water getting in an "unprotected ear canal," says Erich Voigt, MD, otolaryngologist and clinical associate professor in the Department of Otolaryngology at NYU Langone Medical Center. It's pretty common, but swimmer's ear is no joke: "Outer ear infections, or swimmer's ear, are some of the most painful experiences a person may have," Dr. Voigt says.
If you have swimmer's ear, the first thing you'll notice is that your ear feels itchy or sore, according to the Mayo Clinic. "As the infection progresses, the ear becomes more more swollen and very painful," Dr. Voigt says. In extreme cases, the skin in your ear canal can swell, develop pus, and potentially impair your hearing, which means this is something you definitely want to avoid.
How can something so innocuous turn so evil? Well, it's very dark and moist inside your ear canal. And when water gets in there, it can get trapped and become warm. "This is a set up for certain germs, bacteria, or fungus to overgrow and make an infection," Dr. Voigt says. So you've got to get all that water out of your ear ASAP.
The safest way to do so is to tilt your head to the side or wiggle your ear with your hand so that the water drips out, Dr. Voigt says. You can also place your finger into a dry towel, and use it to mop out any water from the ear canal, Dr. Voigt says. There's also a chance that the water will just flow out on its own as the day progresses. "Normal daily talking, yawning, and chewing result in the very slow and natural flow of ear wax and skin from the inside of the ear canal to the outside," Dr. Voigt says. That also can help usher the water out of your ear canal.
Using homemade ear drops before or after you swim can help prevent swimmer's ear, according to the Mayo Clinic. "Rubbing alcohol, vinegar, and hydrogen peroxide can all be used to remove water from the ear canal," Dr. Voigt says. Just pour about a teaspoon of one-part rubbing alcohol and one-part vinegar in your ear, then let it drain back out, the Mayo Clinic recommends. Basically, these drops will dry out your ear canal, so that bacteria, fungi, or other germs can't grow. This all might sound a little high-maintenance, but swimmer's ear is a real pain. So it's important to take the right precautions, especially if you're a regular swimmer or get swimmer's ear frequently.
One thing you really shouldn't do if you have water in your ear is put a Q-Tip inside. "Q-Tips tend to push wax and debris deeper in the canal, and this material can then get stuck inside," he says. Ears are supposed to have wax (a.k.a. "cerumen ") in them, because it serves as a protective coating. But some people remove too much of their cerumen with Q-tips, and other people don't make enough cerumen. Either way, not having proper cerumen makes your skin vulnerable to infections like swimmer's ear, Dr. Voigt explains.
These home remedies might work like a charm. But if your ear is still clogged with water after trying them out, you should really see a doctor, Dr. Voigt says. You might need to have your ear cleaned out, or your doctor might prescribe medications, such as a steroid or antibiotic. "If your ear is painful, clogged, or you aren't hearing well, there is not much you can do on your own," he says. "See a doctor sooner than later, before the problem worsens." And, in general, it takes about a week or two for an infection to clear up. So you'll be back in the water soon enough.
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When you're a kid, summer vacation is the best. When you're a mom, it's a little bit different.
Karen Johnson, who runs a parenting blog called The 21st Century SAHM, drove that point home in a recent Facebook post about a particularly bad fight her two boys got into during one of these blessed days of summer.
It all starts off innocently enough, with a simple request from her eight-year-old to get the mail.
"Scene: I am cooking grilled cheese on the stove for the kids' lunch. 8yo asks to go get the mail (the box is a few houses up the street). Not to ever miss out on anything ever, 4yo pipes in, "Me too!" Okay, fine. I give them the mail key and out the door they go. How could this go wrong? Such a simple task," she wrote.
But, she wrote, she should have known it would all go wrong.
"The thing is, my boys fight. All day. Every minute that they are awake. And sometimes in their dreams. So apparently a battle breaks out at the mailbox. (I still don't know the whole story.) As I am cooking their grilled cheeses on the stove, my 6yo daughter (the reporter of all things non-compliant) comes tearing into the kitchen, yelling, "They're fighting at the mailbox! And then mail went flying everywhere all over the neighborhood!"
"Shit," Johnson wrote.
As anyone likely would do in that situation, she left the grilled cheese on the stove and ran outside.
"I see both boys scrambling around from yard to yard, trying to grab pieces of mail. We live in Kansas where it's windy 364.5 days of the year, so that helps," she wrote.
"My 4yo is now approaching the corner where our quiet cul-de-sac meets a very busy street, and I know him. He'll think nothing of running directly into the street in order to capture that last piece of random junk mail that Mommy will be tossing as soon as we get home.
I am now chasing him, screaming his name, and also trying to pick up mail that is blowing all over the neighbors' yards. I finally catch up to him, prevent him from darting into the busy intersection, and we all turn around to head home, hands full of papers."
At this point, she and the boys have the papers and are heading back inside. The end, right? But no, it only gets worse.
"But because he's 4, refuses to walk anywhere ever, and is on an anti-shoes campaign this summer, my son of course runs down the street barefoot and falls. He rips open his foot on a rock or the pavement or whatever is in the road because THIS IS WHY WE WEAR SHOES," Johnson wrote.
"So now I am half-carrying, half dragging a bloody-footed, crying 4yo, a crying 8yo who thinks he's in trouble because of mail-mageddon, and piles and piles of junk mail and flyers that I will never look at ever back to my house."
In all of that mess, no one could blame her for forgetting the grilled cheese...until she could smell it burning, that is.
"Once the papers are tossed and the bloody foot is bandaged, we all smell the sulfur of burning grilled cheese and I remember what I was doing before this all happened," she wrote.
"So I did what any good mother would do. I scraped off the burnt parts, threw them on plates, and said bon appetit, kids. And I poured this beer."
We'd say that cold one is very well-deserved.
Welcome to Mothership: Parenting stories you actually want to read, whether you're thinking about or passing on kids, from egg-freezing to taking home baby and beyond. Because motherhood is a big if — not when — and it's time we talked about it that way.
Highlighter is one of the worst kept beauty secrets: Everyone knows that if you want to fake a healthy glow, it's not really bronzer you're after — it's highlighter. Consider it concealer's sexy older cousin.
While a good concealer can hide a multitude of late-night sins, highlighter uses reflective properties to distract the eye away from those sins. When well-executed, it lends an effect that amounts to having your own personal lighting team wherever you go, adding dimension to your face without delving into some pro-makeup artist epic contouring session. Available in powder, liquid, or cream forms, with or without shimmer, the amount of highlighters available are endless.
Celebrity makeup artist Stella Kae, who is responsible for the glowing faces of Alyssa Milano, Brandi Cyrus, and Toni Braxton, says she always highlights "as a final touch," after she's completed the full face, to add more dimension. "The ideal places to highlight are underneath the arch of the brow, in the inner corner of the eyes, the bridge of the nose just between the eyes, on the high points of the cheeks, and right above the lips at the Cupid's bow," she says. "On a look that is more natural or uses light/neutral eyeshadow shades, you can also highlight just in the centre of the eyelid."
However, not all highlighters are created equal. Just like foundation, not every highlighter is made for every skin tone — here's how to find the perfect one for you.
If Amanda Seyfried and Dita Von Teese are your complexion twins, Kae recommends a pearl-colored pressed powder, like this icy, opalescent pick from Too Faced. With a unique, almost creamy texture and insane color payoff, you can dust it on lightly for a subtle glow or layer up for megawatt shine.
Too Faced Love Light Prismatic Highlighter in Blinded by the Light, $30, available at Too Faced.
This gorgeous pearlized compact from Guerlain is exactly what those with fair skin should be using, as it will add just the right amount of highlight to pale skin tones. The mix of soft colors helps to blur imperfections and adds just a touch of highlight to fair skin.
Guerlain Meteorites Voyage Exceptional Compacted Pearls of Powder, $179, available at Sephora.com.
Prefer a cream formula? This Smashbox highlighter is the easiest option. Simply draw anywhere you want to apply shimmer (like the tops of cheekbones) with one side, then buff into skin with the built-in sponge.
Tip: Draw the letter 'C' on your face starting under your brow, traveling around your temple and ending on the top of your cheekbone for a perfect application every time. (And don't forget to blend!)
Smashbox L.A. Lights Blendable Lip & Cheek Color in Hollywood & Highlight, $29, available at Nordstrom.
This Champagne-toned highlighter will give a healthy sheen.
Becca Cosmetics Shimmering Skin Perfector in Opal, $38, available at Sephora.
A believable highlighter should echo the texture of your natural skin. The center of this shimmer stick is filled with hydrating oils, which helps its outer, pearly shade sink seamlessly into the skin.
Glossier Haloscope in Quartz, $22, available at Glossier.
For that no-glow glow, this face gloss adds shine and highlight without all the shimmer.
Milk Makeup Face Gloss, $20, available at Sephora.
Fair To Medium Skin Tones "For fair to medium tones, like Jessica Biel, there is probably the widest product range to choose from, so those that fall into this category can afford to be less selective with their highlighters," says Kae. "Anything from Champagne to pale pink is flattering." She says her go-to for this shade of skin is the NARS Multiple in Luxor.
NARS, $39.00, available at SephoraPhoto: Courtesy of NARS.
This trio of illuminating powders can be mixed together to create custom shades or worn alone for a subtle glow.
Hourglass Ambient Lighting Palette, $62, available at Sephora.
This highlighter is a CC cream, primer, and SPF all in one. Bonus: it blurs out lines and wrinkles, too.
Too Cool For School Dinoplatz Cinema City CC Highlighter, $39, available at Sephora.
Not sure which highlighter will work best for your skin tone? This one incorporates both gold and silver pigments to produce a looks-good-on-everyone sheen.
Marc Jacobs Beauty Glow Stick Glistening Illuminator, $42, available at Sephora.
We like to call this liquid highlighter "tiny drops of sunshine" because of the dewy, radiant glow it imparts.
Kevyn Aucoin Celestial Skin Liquid Lighting, $52, available at SpaceNK.
This gorgeous illuminating powder from Laura Mercier works well on fair- to medium-skinned ladies (who can pull off basically any highlight). The soft, rose-gold shimmer looks just as good in the compact as it does on your skin. And feel free to use it everywhere — even on the décolletage.
Laura Mercier Face Illuminator Powder, $42, available at Sephora.
Medium To Dark Skin Tones For those with warmer skin tones or that have a lot of yellow in their skin — think Queen Bey or Mindy Kaling — try not to use anything too pink or your skin will look more disco ball than cleverly defined. Kae says your best option is a neutral peach shade such as MAC Cosmetics Prep+Prime Highlighter Pen in Peach Lustre.
M·A·C, $25.00, available at Macy'sPhoto: Courtesy of MAC.
This highlighting palette delivers a shimmery glow with just the right amount of bronze. Mix and match or hit the bottom of the pan on a single shade (you're sure to find your perfect one in here).
Tarte Tarteist Pro Glow Highlight & Contour Palette, $45, available at Tarte.
This game-changing new complexion palette contains everything — and we mean everything — you need to highlight, contour, and color correct for medium and deep skin tones, with both powder and cream formulas for endless options.
Urban Decay Naked Skin Shapeshifter in Medium Dark Shift, $45, available at Sephora.
This highlighter delivers a Champagne shimmer that flatters warmer skin tones. Smooth to the touch, it goes on best when you use your fingers.
Colourpop Highlighter in Wisp, $8, available at Colourpop.
For those looking for something on the natural-looking side of the spectrum, Josie Maran's liquid highlighter is perfect. The slightly shimmery, golden finish makes skin glow, whether dabbed over or under foundation — or mixed into moisturizer or makeup.
Josie Maran Argan Enlightenment Illuminizer, $26, available at Sephora.
On a budget? E.L.F.'s luminous, peach powder highlighter packs just the right amount of shimmer for the tops of cheekbones — and rings in at less than a latte. Tip: Use a tiny brush to dust it over your Cupid's bow and in the corners of your eyes.
E.L.F. Baked Highlighter in Blush Gems, $3, available at E.L.F.
Dark To Deep Skin Tones If your skin is as lustrous and rich as Lupita Nyong'o, go with gold shimmer. "The richer the tone of the skin is, the richer of a gold you can use," says Kae. "Avoid using anything lighter than the skin color since this will create a gray cast. A great trick I learned from fellow artist Saisha Beecham is using loose pearl eyeshadow pigments, such as NYX Loose Pearl Eyeshadows, in anything from pale gold to almost bronze depending on your skin color." If you can't find a shade that complements your skin the way you like it, skip color altogether. "Use colorless products that simply shine," advises Kae.
NYX Cosmetics, $2.00, available at Nyx CosmeticsPhoto: Courtesy of NYX.
When you want to glow — but not like a disco ball — this champagne neutral will do the trick.
Urban Decay Afterglow 8-Hour Powder Highlighter in Sin, $26, available at Sephora.
Use this lightweight illuminator — with hydrating hyaluronic acid — under foundation for a subtle glow or over for a strobed effect.
The Estée Edit by Estée Lauder Flash Illuminator in Spotlight, $28, available at Sephora.
This highlighting-and-bronzing duo is the perfect glow kit for anyone with a deep skin tone. We love the shades so much, we've even used them as eyeshadows.
Make Up For Ever Pro Sculpting Duo in 2 Golden, $39, available at Sephora.
This pigmented powder has a metallic finish, making it a perfect choice if you're looking for a strong highlight.
Dose of Colors Supreme Glow Highlighter in Gold Is The New Black, $28, available at Dose Of Colors.
Prefer powder? This light formula is the perfect way to highlight the tops of cheekbones in a flash, thanks to the convenient built-in brush and flattering golden hue.
Jay Manuel Beauty Skin Face Lift in Gold, $32, available at Jay Manuel Beauty.
The Universal Palette If you’re still struggling with picking out the perfect highlighter for your skin tone, choose a universal favorite. This palette from The Balm is flattering for all skin tones, and it includes Champagne, rose, and bronze shades so you can pick which one you’re most comfortable with for your highlighted effect.
The Balm The Manizer Sisters Palette, $28, available at TheBalm.com.
The Universal Liquid If you’re more comfortable with a liquid highlighter, but still don’t want to have to choose your exact shade, Benefit Cosmetics’ new Dandelion Shy Beam Matte Highlighter is for you. The soft-pink, shimmer-less formula gives just a hint of highlight for a subtle, luminous look.
Benefit Cosmetics Dandelion Shy Beam Matte Highlighter, $26, available at Sephora.
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Last night’s premiere of FX’s new show Snowfall contained a lot of what I expected from a series about drugs, and some of what I did not. I expected that much of the show, which details how the crack-cocaine epidemic began in L.A., to focus on men. The underworld is often framed as a bad boys club where women appear as props and extras. Trailers and other promotional material that ran before the show aired also seemed to be moving in this direction. And in the first 10 minutes of the pilot episode, where one woman gives a man a blow job and another blows coke up that same man’s ass, I accepted the fact that I’d likely be disappointed on this front. Luckily, I was wrong.
In Snowfall, women are more than than porn stars, partners in sexual trysts, and coke heads. While her exact role isn’t clear yet, Lucia (Emily Rios) clearly has more to offer than being a minor henchwoman in the business. She appears too prominently in the promo to be dismissed. On top of that, there are several Black women who made me want to tune in again.
Cissy (Michael Hyatt), the mother of the series’ protagonist Franklin (Damson Idris) , is struggling at a demanding but not rewarding job, and she obviously cares deeply for her son. Hyatt’s portrayal of Cissy manifests in an emotional display of both the joys and worries of raising an adult child. While I don’t trust Franklin’s neighbor Melody (Parker McKenna Posey), on whom he obviously has a crush, I loved that it was she who demanded to know why he gave up his opportunity to go to college. He has a pretty good explanation —he doesn't want to deal with racism and micro-agressions while being trained to work for someone else — but the question still needed to be asked when his reality in Compton is so bleak, for now. Even though Melody is disappointed with this choice and would make another one if she could, she supports him.
Appearing first as an unstimulated, almost sedated couch potato, Franklin’s Aunt Louie (Angela Lewis) almost immediately springs into action when she is summoned by her husband Jerome (Amin Joseph) to “handle” an unruly and uninvited guest at their door. Let’s just say she completes this mission successfully. However, Aunt Louie also has the connections and common sense to help Franklin with his new business venture — getting into the drug trade —and puts herself at risk to do it. She’s also tender and compassionate, with a strong sense of morality and family values. According to Twitter, she might already be a fan favorite.
Aunt Louie again proves herself valuable when she introduces Franklin to ruthless club owner and overall badass Claudia Crane (Judith Scott). Until this point, everyone at the top of their respective food chains on Snowfall had been a man. Claudia, who reigns over the club like a queen with a head of locs as her crown, immediately caught my attention. I’m not sure how long she’ll last, but she’s already my favorite character, even if she is potentially an adversary.
In reality, women play a significant role in every part of life. I’m glad John Singleton is acknowledging this in his latest creation by making women a driving force behind the action.
You're surrounded by sex toys at home, and you don't even know it. As they say, with a little imagination, anything can be a dildo. And rather than grab the handcuffs hidden away in a bottom drawer, why not simply have your partner whip off their belt? While we're all for building a sex toy collection, by using what's in front of you, you're less likely to interrupt the mood by stepping away to grab equipment. While many find sex toys exciting, others would rather put a pair of panties in their lover's mouth than a ball gag — and that's hot, too.
Using household items as sex toys also allows you to save money. Waterproof vibrators can create clitoral orgasms that feel like they last for days, but so can using the warm stream of water from the bathtub you already own. Plus, when the household items are location-specific — like your washing machine — they can spice up your sex life by encouraging you to make love in new places. From the aforementioned washing machines to the classic electric toothbrush, read on for a handful of household items that double as sex toys.
While we're arguably more in control of and confident about our sexuality than ever, there's still so much we don't know about female arousal. So this month, we're exploring everything you want and need to know about how women get turned on now. Check out morehere.
iPhone
You know you've thought about it — your phone already vibrates, after all. You don't even need to turn your alert settings up to get off; there's an app for that. In fact, there are a few apps that turn your phone into a vibrator, and they're listed discreetly in the "Health & Fitness" section of the iTunes Store. Just peruse, download (almost all of them are free), clean and cover your phone with a body-safe silicone case, and go to town. Your iPhone might not have enough vibrating power to make you come, but it's definitely an easy at-home start.
One of the most exciting sex-sations can be found right in your freezer (no, not the expired breakfast burrito you should've thrown out weeks ago — please get rid of that). Temperature play can stimulate your nerve endings in intense ways during sex. And when ice so easy to make, why not give it a try?
You may already know how the vibrations of a Clarisonic face cleanser can work wonders for your complexion. What you may not be familiar with is how that buzz-buzz could make you come if you place the back end (brush side facing out) of the Clarisonic against your clit. Orgasms may improve your complexion on their own. If you use a Clarisonic to clean your face and get yourself off, we can only assume you'll double the benefits.
Raise your hand if one of the first things you masturbated with was a hair brush handle (raises hand). The ribbed handle on this gel grip adds extra pleasure. Just make sure to wash with antibiotic soap and water after each use.
Conair, $6.49, available at AmazonPhoto courtesy of Conair.
Bondage ropes can be hot, but having your partner simply pull off the belt they wore to work in the heat of the moment and use it to restrain you can be even hotter.
1901, $49.50, available at NordstromPhoto courtesy of 1901.
Battery run out on your fancy grown-up vibrator? Have your partner hold the handle of their electric toothbrush against your clit (just make sure to wash after use!).
Oral-B, $199.99, available at AmazonPhoto courtesy of Oral B.
For light BDSM play, rather than buy a ball gag, have your partner remove your panties, ball them up, and then shove them in your mouth. (Germaphobes are welcome to grab a clean pair from the underwear drawer.)
La Perla, $58.80, available at La PerlaPhoto courtesy of La Perla.
No, we haven't figured out how to use a toilet as a sex toy (yet), but this bidet attachment may surprise you with its versatility. Tushy, which was created by Miki Agrawal of period-proof underwear Thinx, features temperature control — which means you can use warm water to stimulate yourself from behind. Or straddle the john to spray your clit. The fresh and clean feeling you'll have afterwards is just a bonus.
Tushy, $84.00, available at TushyPhoto courtesy of Tushy.
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