A Movie Nearly Every Night: It's a tough racket double feature

The September Issue (2009)
Dir. R. J. Cutler
Starring: Anna Wintour, Grace Coddington and all kinds of fashion folk

Anna Wintour: focused on paper; distracting with pencil

By now the person of Anna Wintour is overshadowed by the media creation of Anna Wintour: She's the Ice Goddess. She's the Pope of Fashion. She is demanding, persnickety, and exacting. She's the devil in Prada.

Yeah, well? She's Editor of Vogue. That's a lot of responsibility, and while I won't say I'm completely suckered in by the somewhat lonely somewhat lovable image offered by The September Issue, I can't imagine how she'd do her job if she wasn't demanding, persnickety and exacting. She makes great and terrible decisions every second of every day. Those photo shoots really are incredible and beautiful and awesome, but something's got to go and people look to her to be the cutter. She's not your friend.

But just look at the way she sits in her metal chair -- metal, people. metal.

She's got to be demanding because she works with self-centered, flighty, emotional fashion people and she's got 5 minutes to tell them what's right and what's wrong with their work. There's no time for nice.

Unless you're Grace Coddington.

Grace gets inspired by cameraman Robert Richman.

Grace is the Creative Director at Vogue and is warm and accessible in comparison to the cold fabrication that is Anna. Grace started out as a Vogue model and now she works on the other side of the camera, creating stunning layouts that are as much a part of the "new" look of Vogue as Anna's focus on celebrity and fur.

Young Grace strikes a pose.

She's also one of the few, if only, members of the Vogue staff with enough savvy and gusto to stand up to her editor. She knows her limitations, but she's also smart enough to know how to work her boss.

In one scene Grace brings up the matter of a budget for a Couture photo shoot, because she knows Anna's not going to talk money while the cameras roll. This comes after seeing some of her best photo layouts rejected, so it's a small, but sweet victory.

But, sure, if this movie teaches anything it's that fashion is stressful. (Not that body image is dictated by Photoshop or fashion is absurd or any of that unimportant stuff.) You've got to get it right or you end up at the bottom, and in fashion publishing, forget it. You get it wrong once and you're out of a job, even if you're the editor.

Of course it's not like driving a gravel truck.

Hell Drivers (1957)
Dir. C. Raker Endfield
Starring: Stanley Baker, Herbert Lom, Peggy Cummins, Patrick McGoohan

"I want fast drivers. 50 miles an hour right round the clock. Bad roads, wet or fine ... if you don't think you can handle 10 tons at that speed just say so." Then you've got to go out in the truck and speed through the run without brakes -- and that's just the job interview.

Once you're hired you find yourself constantly harassed by "Red" who likes to spit at you and challenges you to a fight all the time. But he's Irish, right? That's how they are. Don't get yourself in trouble fighting with him.

He's crazy weird anyway.

But it hurts that your your mum doesn't understand, although she's still bitter about you crippling your little brother, Jimmy. (It's okay, tho', because he went on to better things like Ancient Prophesies and N.C.I.S.)

But you made a good friend in Gino "Spaghetti" Rossi, who takes you into his confidence on the first day and tells you how he's going to marry the office round-heels, Lucy.

Although this seems to come as a surprise to her,

since she isn't afraid to tell you and any other nosy Nellie at the tea bar how she's not anybody's girl.

And you're tempted by Lucy/Loosey, while poor Jill Ireland can't keep her eyes off of you even though she's dancing with Sean Connery (who clearly isn't pleased with her attention on someone else).

Still, that Red is a crazy bastard, and Who does that boss man think he is anyway?