The tragic love story of Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake, the filmmaker and artist who mysteriously killed themselves last year (believing they were being harassed by Scientologists and the government), is headed to the big screen. American Psycho author Bret Easton Ellis will be writing the screenplay and director Gus Van Sant has signed on as a consultant for the movie, which is being produced by Braxton Pope and Andrew Weiner of Ithaka films along with Lionsgate. Ithaka bought the rights to Nancy Jo Sales’ Vanity Fair article about the doomed duo, who have become cult figures since Theresa overdosed on Tylenol PM and bourbon last year and Jeremy followed by walking into the ocean. “The story is remarkable and explores profound loss and the tragic dimensions of love,” says Braxton.

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http://www.vanityfair.com

Shana Tova from Google Israel 2008

Zeljko Ivanek accepts the Emmy award for outstanding supporting actor in a drama series for “Damages” at the 60th annual Primetime Emmy Awards in Los Angeles

The exhibition Ron Mueck includes about 15 mixed media works on loan from the artist’s collection, major museums, and private collections. Mueck employs imitation and illusion to explore the ambiguous relationship between reality and artifice, creating figures that express the contradictions between the real world and the imaginary. The figures seem to be alive: every detail – veins, wrinkles, moles, body hair, rashes – is crafted to such perfection that the result is remarkably convincing and deeply troubling. The size of the works – always smaller or larger than human scale – is equally disconcerting.

Ron Mueck is a London-based photo-realist artist. Born in Melbourne, Australia, to parents who were toy makers, he labored on children’s television shows for 15 years before working in special effects for such films as “Labyrinth,” a 1986 fantasy epic starring David Bowie.

His work, while proportionally correct, is either over or under-sized. For example, an enormous 4.5m crouching Boy, a 3 ft tall naked man, a 20 ft long newborn, a replica of his own head (seen above) 6 times its actual size. Consequently his hyper-realistic sculptures, while extraordinarily lifelike, challenge us by their odd scale. The “psychological confrontation for the viewer is to recognize and assimilate two contradictory realities”. However, the real magical appeal of Mueck’s sculptures lie in the meticulous process, which begins with…

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French President Nicolas Sarkozy is ready for a makeover a la Richard Gere in “American Gigolo.” Or so he joked to the costumer of that landmark film, Giorgio Armani, moments before he decorated the Italian designer as an Officer of the Legion of Honor at the Elysee Palace in Paris Thursday. The event, at the tail end of couture week, also saw Italian actress Claudia Cardinale elevated to the level of Commander. In a speech packed with one-liners that had the crowd roaring with laughter, Sarkozy played up his honorees’ origins. “As you know, I’m rather close to Italians,” he said, alluding to his new wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, who did not attend the ceremony. “You are two individuals with great merit,” he continued, lauding Armani’s capability “of speaking to everyone” with his diverse designs and products that run the gamut from couture to pastries.

Actress Helen Mirren bowed before Armani in offering her congratulations. “The first time I had a posh dress, it was Armani,” she related earlier, also recalling how he did the costumes for her 1990 film “The Comfort of Strangers.” Mirren, who made a rare couture week appearance, recited the inscription she penned in the guest book at the Ritz: “I feel like Cinderella who got to stay in the palace without having to marry the boring prince.” Then she hastened to add: “I’m not referring to any British prince incidentally.” Carla Fendi, Silvia Venturini Fendi, Nathalie Rykiel, Lady Helen Taylor, Eugenia Silva and Tina Turner were among the notables who gathered in the sunlit Jardin d’Hiver for the ceremony. Turner accessorized her sparklinggreen jumpsuit with her own Legion of Honor medallion. “I’ve got my little shiny one,” she said with a laugh, patting the prize. But soon she’ll be rigged up with a microphone, with a concert tour kicking off in America this October and next January in Europe.

WWD