Pedro Almodovar’s Broken Embraces (which we previously brought you a sneak peak at the trailer) is a film featuring women, amazing and conflicted women, but not one that is necessarily about them. This is strange for the director, whose body of cult classics is virtually devoted to the art of women on film– their strength, their coyness, their sexiness, their hilarity, their vitality. Women, the guy loves them! However, as any fan of Almodovar’s work knows, if there is one thing he loves more than women, it’s the cinema.  And Broken Embraces is a love note for the most part to his first love, the celluloid world, but also a less-than subtle nod to his mistress, the almighty woman.

Broken Embraces is the elaborate story of blind screenwriter Harry Caine (played by Lluis Homar), who lost his sight years before in a tragic car crash. Since the loss of his vision, Harry  has abandoned his budding directing career, and buried his former identity, including his real name Mateo Blanco. Life seems to be going well for him as Harry Caine, but the writer and his staff–namely his production manager and former lover Judit (Blanco Portillo)– are shaken one day by the visit of a mysterious director referring to himself as only Ray X (Ruben Ochandiano), who wants Harry to write a script about the decline of famous business tycoon Ernesto Martel (Jose Luis Gomez). This request exposes a tangled web of past confusions, including a tragic and dramatic love triangle between Martel, Mateo/Harry and the beautiful Lena (Penelope Cruz).

Penelope Cruz’s performance as Lena, a troubled woman who starts off as tycoon Martel’s secretary and becomes his mistress, is a strong one. Almodovar, who previously directed the actress in several films including Volver, seems to coax the most layered performances out of the Hollywood starlet. Cruz’s Lena goes through several layers of character transformations in the film; from an emotionally shaken woman, to a woman willing to sacrifice her body for financial gains, to a woman battered and abused, and finally a love sick fool. Her performance throughout all of these is true to life– people are always complex, and Cruz wraps all of Lena’s complexities into one resilient, if emotionally tested, package.

The Leica M7 Hermes is one very special limited edition camera

At last!  A camera more beautiful than the all white Special Edition Leica M8 that I can spend my future children’s college savings fund on!  Collaborating with parent company Hermes, Leica has dropped another stupid expensive camera in the form of the M7 Hermes Very Special Limited Edition.  For a mere 8550, or almost $14,400 (the price of a used Honda Civic) you can be the proud owner of either an orange or etoupe (read: brown), silver chrome and calfskin leather adorned 35mm film camera.  Beyond that, that original design of the camera hasn’t been fiddled with too much; there’s just been a few color details changed around to match sure everything matches perfectly.  Features wise the M7 includes a Leica SUMMILUX-M 35 mm f/1.4 ASPH. wide-angle lens, lens hood, and LEICAVIT M winder.  And lest you think the camera might get scuffed up while traveling in your purse, Leica thoughtfully included a matching carrying case.

Only 200 of these will be available in the UK starting in December.  I expect to see one in my stocking this Christmas.

M.I.S.S. Gold Star: Gilah!

Congrats Gilah! The Editors at M.I.S.S. appreciate everything you do and we think you deserve some shine!

Name: Gilah a.k.a. GEE
Astrological Sign: Sagittarius
Hometown: Born in the Bay! A San Francisco girl…
Location: NYC
Short Bio:

American's under 24 are the biggest group of people with STDs

Americans tend to believe America is numero uno in terms of, well, everything. Granted, we do have a lot of amazing things happening in the United States, you know with the election of our first biracial President and all, but there are just some areas of life we just shouldn’t excel in, Uh like being the nation to set a record for sexually transmitted diseases. Yes, that’s something we shouldn’t be good at…right?

So maybe that whole “abstinence only” thing hasn’t been working out so well. And when one contrasts our head-in-the-sand attitude to sexuality compared with, say, the frenzied response to H1N1, it is to laugh, albeit ruefully. On the bright side, those big numbers represent a spike not just in transmission, but in diagnosis.

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Little M.I.S.S. Frustrated sez: Click THIS!

The internet has made me suspicious of EVERYTHING. Even with the protection of a Mac, I have still fallen victim to spam and unwanted pop-ups that prompt me to “force quit” out of my Firefox session. Now that fake online forms are designed so well, it is increasingly difficult to tell when a request for personal information is from a legitimate source or a from spammer.

Most of the unwanted email I get is from legitimate sources, but alas, they are still not emails that I welcome into my inbox with joy. Most of this junk is a result of hasty online purchases in which I blew through the checkout screen without bothering to uncheck the default “yes, please send me so-and-so offers” radio button that is usually already (cleverly) filled in. Such promotional email blasts, although not technically spam, clog up my email and my beloved BlackBerry to a point where it becomes impossible to weed through/recognize the emails that actually contain valuable information. Thus, last week I embarked on a mission to sit at my computer and unsubscribe to all the commercial drivel that plagues my inbox on a daily basis.

As i