Elizabeth Taylor has died. I loved her in nearly everything she did, from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof to Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf to A Place In The Sun, but the above scene has always been my favorite. The Film That Changed Hollywood, a feature-length documentary on the troubled production of Cleopatra, is an absolute must-see for anyone with an interest in the way cinema works, then and now.

Update: Here’s the obit I wrote for the Houston Press on her best movies.

Yes, I wear a nightgown from the thrift store. Whut.

And here is the accompanying story.

In a past life I was an entertainment writer, though covering music has really always been my thang. I went to this as a last-minute assignment. Covering kids’ puppet shows ain’t exactly my idea of a lively beat but it was a super fun laid-back interview and they insisted after the fact that I try my hand at it. My job, it is so hard.

And now a Patric Swayze reference.

God, that trailer is so ’90s. But there are two things I love about this movie (besides the obvious, because it’s awesome): 1. it was directed by a woman, and 2. the three main actors did all their own stunts.

Since then I’ve harbored a longstanding fascination with the film. It’s in the list of 350+ on my queue now, but last week, when Maud Newton tweeted about a story of the same name by John Cheever I realized the movie was based on the same short story, which you can read online here.

Summer ends today. Maybe I should bump the film to the top of my list?

But until Thursday night I would not have called myself a Rolling Stones fan. Since Thursday night, I’ve been reading obsessively on the 1969-1975 line-up, probably the best line-up in the band’s decades-long career. (Check out this awesome, informative chart.)

And also since Thursday I have become totally infatuated with Keith Richards. Mick Jagger’s onstage antics seem contrived and performance-arty, but when Keith Richards closes his eye and shakes his hair you can tell it’s because he feels the music, not because he’s on display. It goes without saying, but Keith Richards is so fucking cool. That I am 30 years old and just discovered this is some kind of pathetic, but hey. Better late than never.

Black and white, geometric figures. And I used to have that haircut, for like 10 years. Their version ain’t great, but I’ve also always loved this song.

Gaga just played two sold-out nights in Houston. I went Sunday night for work. You can read my review here.

Her music is mindlessly fun. But when she talks about her mission to free her fans of their insecurities, and when she talks about her relationship with her parents, she seems 100% legit, vulnerable and so honest and open-hearted. This is why I love her.

Uhh, language is NSFW.

(Via MetaFilter, where the comments are, as always, priceless.)

Those fuckers better not screw up my approaching Florida vacation, and they better not fucking kill off the 8,000 remaining endangered Ridley sea camp turtles that are just beginning to recover from a 1979 oil spill.