Channing Tatum, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Rooney Mara and Jude Law (Patrick McMullan)

“Tickets out!” they barked. “This area is not cleared for standing!” It was as if the AMC Lincoln Square had been converted into an international airport and Shindigger was preventing aircraft from landing.

The multiplex was bursting with the arrivals of Michael Douglas, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jude Law, Rooney Mara and Channing Tatum for the premiere of Steven Soderbergh’s Side Effects, hosted by Open Road Films, The Cinema Society and designer Michael Kors.

Turns out no area was cleared for loitering, and Shindigger wound up in a circling pattern—up and down the escalators—trying to take it all in. When even Donna Karan was told to keep moving and make her way promptly to her seat, we finally surrendered to the cineplex goons and followed suit.

“I’m on a beta blocker right now and I feel fine,” joked Mr. Soderbergh before the movie began. “The less I say the better!”

His pharmaceutical humor was very apropos for a psychological thriller that tells the murderous tale of a seemingly depressed young woman (Ms. Mara), who struggles as her husband (Mr. Tatum) is released from prison following a white-collar banking crime. After an alleged suicide attempt, she begins to see a psychiatrist (Mr. Law) who prescribes Ablixa, a powerful, fictitious antidepressant, to combat her illness. The movie was The Cinema Society’s trippiest in recent memory, and we weren’t the only ones wandering about in a daze afterward.

“Are you on medicine? Are you having a vision?” Shindigger overheard Ms. Karan saying to her daughter Gabby Karan De Felice with a laugh. “Oh my God, I can’t believe how old I am!”

We dashed through the wintry chill to the Stone Rose Lounge in the Time Warner Center, wondering if we were still hallucinating when we spotted Liza Minnelli—face aglow—as she preened herself in the back of a black Lincoln Navigator SUV. Shindigger sidled up to knock on her window and say hello, but the driver shot us a look of “don’t you dare.” (My, how security people get crankier the farther north you travel.)

Ten minutes later, we had nestled into the warmth of Stone Rose with a medicinal glass of rouge.

“I love, love, loved it!” Ms. Karan screeched over the deejay’s music as Cinema Society founder Andrew Saffir escorted her behind Mr. Kors, who had designed the dress Ms. Zeta-Jones just happened to be wearing. We shuffled over to Ms Zeta-Jones and exchanged a few words, unbeknownst to her just-as-cranky-looking gatekeepers.

“The script was so well-written—it just jumped off the page,” the Oscar winner explained. “With Steven Soderbergh at the helm, it was just a dream.” Shindigger leaned in for a bisou-bisou, but she had already moved on.

We grabbed some fiery libation off a passing tray and darted toward Ms. Mara. The Vogue February cover girl was mum. Had she signed some exclusive with Anna Wintour not to talk to the press? Or was she simply too big for words these days? Shindigger played nice and tried to butter her up with a compliment. “Your couture is phenomenal,” we said.

“I’m wearing Alexander McQueen,” she replied sharply, then slunk away.

We surveyed the crowd and came up with what looked like a Baldwin. “Which one is that?” we asked a pair of friends. “It’s Stephen,” one ventured.

Unconvinced, we wound up chatting instead with Richard Kind, who plays screenwriter Max Klein in Argo. He went on for a bit about the upcoming Clifford Odets play he’s starring in at The Roundabout, but we had more pressing matters to discuss. “Will Argo win the Oscar for Best Picture?” we asked.

“If I say yes, I will put the kibosh on it. But I do believe—and this is the honest to God’s truth—and not just ’cuz I’m in it and not just ’cuz I know the producers ... I do believe that it should be Best Picture. I feel it fills every category that a Best Picture should.”

Shindigger nodded in agreemnt. “We have the SAG copy at our house,” we confessed.

“So you didn’t pay your 11 dollars? That’s money out of my kids’ mouths!” he yelled with a smile before we departed for a refill.

Over by the bar, we found Laila Robins and complimented her performance in the movie as one of Jude Law’s psychiatry associates. “He was so lovely to work with. He had seen me in a play. I showed up on set, and he was so nice to me,” the delightful Ms. Robins explained. “We had this nice little icebreaker about all the things he wants to do in the theater. I think he wants to do Henry V. It was a nice way to even the playing field!”

“I don’t know if he’s here tonight,” she continued, looking around.

She apparently missed Mr. Law lounging alongside co-star Ms. Zeta-Jones on a scarlet leather banquette. Unfortunately, Shindigger was not fortunate enough to grab a few words with the dashing star. Maybe we don’t do enough theater?

blehay@observer.com

Ms. Mara (Getty images)

Heading to Brooklyn: it's a life change made by NY1's Pat Kiernan, zillions of adulterous mommies, and now Westchester native Rooney Mara. Ms. Mara's arrival in the borough comes with a set of italics, though--she's set to play the lead in an adaptation of Colm Toibin's novel Brooklyn. Ms. Mara is to play a young Irish immigrant in an indie film that is to start shooting in spring 2013. She proved in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo she's a master of accents--but can she bear to be shorn of her baby bangs?

It made sense that Ms. Mara, blandly pretty in her Social Network days, would hitch her rising star to her character’s signature look. Trish Summerville, the Dragon costume designer, had already capitalized on the best-seller heroine’s appeal with a capsule collection at also-Swedish H&M.

But who would have guessed that when Ms. Mara showed up for the Oscars last month in a lacy cream Givenchy gown, Lisbeth’s weird baby bangs—short, black and severely straight across her forehead—would stay in the picture?

The look was created for the film by Danilo Dixon (Gwen Stefani’s hairstylist), with the logic that Lisbeth would need her hair out of her eyes during those all-night hacking binges. Kind of like the DIY crop Angelina Jolie wore as Acid Burn in Hackers, but with a minimalist precision suited to a chick who has probably hacked Ikea.

Since then, bangs have shortened on stars as diverse Zoe Kravitz, Krysten Ritter and indie music It girl Grimes. High-fashion magistrates have given baby bangs their seal of approval in back-to-back seasons.

In October, John Galliano juxtaposed fresh-cropped baby bangs with sheer boudoir gowns adorned with ruffles, ribbons and beads. The effect: Barbiturate-addled silent film star locks self in bathroom with scissors.

In February, Versace models walked in kinky mesh boots, fitted leather dresses embroidered with Christian iconography, and uniformly baby-length bangs. (There are reports of clip-ons.) Were the fringe a half-inch longer, it would have been your standard Opus Dei bondage thing. As it was, the stunted bangs gave the models alien ovoid foreheads and the look evoked a conspiracy of femme cyborgs in the Vatican.

Generally, bangs are too functional to be trendy. Zooey Deschanel’s brow-grazing Françoise Hardy bangs are part and parcel of her She & Him ’60s songstress act. When Nicole Kidman wears bangs, celebrity blogs wonder if she’s trying to conceive. (Botox is discouraged during pregnancy.) For others (Olivia Wilde, Rose Byrne) bangs may simply be the fastest way for a starlet to differentiate herself from the herd of identically proportioned brunettes.

But baby bangs are different. For one, they flatter no face shape. On the contrary, they can make even the most golden ratio-adherent beauty look a little off. We might have mistaken Ms. Ritter for Penelope Cruz’s other sister until she adopted the baby bang. She was prettier then, but now we can’t stop looking at her.

“Short bangs can be flattering if it is professionally done and the person really owns it,” Jennipher van Bogart, a stylist at Woodley and Bunny in Williamsburg told The Observer, adding that the girls coming off the L have been asking for short bangs more frequently since January, many citing Michelle Williams. Women with square-shaped faces especially should seek professional guidance, she cautioned.

“It’s a major commitment,” agreed celebrity stylist Sally Hershberger. “That is going to be your look, you know? It’s like a piece of art.”

Despite having hit the runway, baby bangs remain a DIY hallmark. Laia Garcia, a 20-something stylist and fashion writer, accidentally got the look back in September when she overdid it on a home trim. “But once I remembered the late ’90s Raf Simons portraits of dudes with asymmetrical haircuts, I decided to embrace them,” she explained.

Ms. Garcia said she pulls out the scissors every two weeks or so. Her bangs usually end up crooked, which she also embraces. Failing that, she side-combs. Around Fashion Week, she said, she shortened them even more, to a length she called “fetus bangs.”

“Looking at the pictures where I am sporting them, I can see that I went over the line,” she said.

But according to Calvin Klein, she hit the mark. That week, creative director Francisco Costa sent Patricia van der Vliet and Tatiana Krasikova down the runway with full fetal fringe. Ms. Mara sat in the front row.

The baby bang is not to be confused with the curled and bowed bangs Beyoncé Knowles wore in videos for “Video Phone” and “Telephone.” Those were Bettie bangs, an homage to ’50s dominatrix pin-up Bettie Page. Or were they a reference to Page’s ’90s Third Wave revivalists (Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction; Janeane Garofalo in Reality Bites)? Or, worse, the fetish-y hybrid sported by Katy Perry?

No, unlike last year’s “Bettie” bang, the baby bang ends before the middle point of the forehead, Louise Brooks length or shorter. While Bettie bangs lend the wearer a touch of childlike surprise, alarm is often in the eye of the beholder of baby bangs. When coupled with a little eyebrow modification—the lines penciled on Mariacarla Boscono in Yves St Laurent’s spring print campaign or Die Antwoord rapper Yolandi Visser’s bleached brows, for example—it’s downright freakish.

This is the critical distinction between Bettie and baby bangs. Page’s dominatrix pics seem to subvert pin-up objectification, but she was still posing for the pleasure o f a male audience. Salander’s bangs were defiantly unattractive, like a dare not to fall in love with her long neck and high cheekbones.

Could baby bangs be a move to overthrow the male gaze? Is this what an apathetic generation’s political haircut looks like? Is ugliness the only remaining expression of sexual empowerment?

Leandra Medine, whose fashion blog The Man Repeller specializes in such topics, likened the baby bang to “a cross between Isabella Blow—who stands for most everything I do—and Jim Carrey’s Dumb and Dumber character. A shroom groom, if you will.”

So that’s a yes?

The look betokened “a crucial-to-mankind personality,” she said, “but most certainly not the person you intend to take home at night’s end.”

Like Ms. Hershberger said, big commitment, these bangs. Depending on your audience, you could be projecting associations as disparate as “melancholy milliner” and “mentally handicapped chauffeur.”

"To have baby bangs is to enter a weird world of associations that you just gotta be able to run with," Ms. Garcia explained. "Although I did make sure to tell everyone who commented on my bangs that they were Raf Simons bangs and not Girl with the Dragon Tattoo bangs.

But all of the baby bang associations seem to coexist harmoniously in Montreal electro-pop artist Grimes, a.k.a. Claire Boucher.

The 23-year-old’s music is often described as “post-Internet” because her influences are so apparently random (she has named Nine Inch Nails, Outkast and Christina Aguilera, for instance).

Her personal style might be called post-Internet too. She resents being cute, and her style icons include Marilyn Manson, the graphic novel Tank Girl, Leeloo from The Fifth Element and Princess Zelda.

It probably goes without saying that she cuts her bangs herself.

Ms. Boucher said the look’s reception varies geographically. “Like, people in Miami will try to have sex with you, people in Mexico want hugs,” she explained. “Phoenix was like 60 percent bros and I got tons of love letters and there was a fight. San Francisco was like 80 percent girls and all the guys were gay and everybody was dancing.”

That said, her baby bangs have evolved over time. She wore a black Mia Wallace bob in her self-directed video, “Vanessa.” In a follow-up, “Crystal Ball,” the bangs were cropped to Lisbeth length with the sideburns shaved, a kind of modified Chelsea. On the cover of April’s Dazed and Confused (shot by Hedi Slimane), they’re shorter still and natural brown—so as not to distract from her massive Givenchy septum ring.

“Everything I do is about empowering myself,” she explained. “Not as a female or anything, but just in general. I’m realizing that the way one is marketed is directed primarily by visual presentation.”

But if one were marketing the baby bang, it’s never looked better than in the video for “Oblivion,” the single off her latest album, Visions. Trimmed halfway between a Bettie bang and the YSL microbang and dyed bubblegum pink, the cut completes a look that involves a baggy sweatshirt, a tulle skirt and combat boots. Grimes interpretative-dances her way through a football stadium, singing about finding someone to hold her hand in a breathy, lispy falsetto.

“I love putting together an image that I think is really beautiful, feminine, even sexual,” she said, “but it’s also very important to me that I don’t feel exploited and that I feel tough.

“So I dunno, yeah,” she added, “it’s a fine balance.”

kstoeffel@observer.com

We braced for the worst on the last day of New York Fashion Week, when Calvin Klein (and KCD) sent The Observer this alarming email warning:

“As a reminder, you are confirmed to attend the Calvin Klein Collection Fall 2012 Women's show today at 2PM.  We have been made aware that the Occupy Wall Street movement has plans to stage a non-violent demonstration in the vicinity of our show.  Please note that we have taken extra security efforts to ensure the safety of our guests and that the entrance process into our venue is as seamless as usual.  In light of this, all guests will be required to show email verification of a seat assignment and a form of photo identification. Please bring both with you this afternoon.

The event will be held at 205 West 39th Street and your seat assignment is L-2-2.”

Duly noted!

The rain that day didn’t justify an umbrella (besides which we lost ours at Michael Kors…) Turns out—the PR precaution, while wise and considerate, was unnecessary as well.

“Occupy fashion week!” one pitifully quiet and tattered protester yelled as we marched past him.

Well-accustomed to the photo I.D. process by now, we dutifully cooperated before entering the pitch-black showroom.

Only two rows of seating boasted an impressive roster of fashion bigwigs, whose names were perfectly printed in each spot. Calvin Klein Eternity eau de parfum accompanied the name placards… perfect for re-gifting!

Patrick Demarchelier, Mario Sorrenti, Vinoodh Matadin and Inez van Lamsweerde sat directly in front of us!

“Tout va bien?” Mr. Demarcherlier greeted Ms. van Lamsweerde.

A quick span of the room, revealed even more glitterati. The arrivals of Lara Stone (supermodel/spokeswoman for Calvin Klein), Emma Stone and Rooney Mara gave Billy Farrell and cohorts plenty to do…

Creative director Francisco Costa has evolved the brand’s signature aesthetic to an unparalleled level of ultra-refined, minimalism. Mr. Costa didn’t disappoint for winter 2012/13 either.

The click-clack of the models’ heels was still audible over the austere soundtrack...

They wore firmly structured, glazed wool/mohair collarless coats with hammered silver belts--in exaggerated proportions. There was a weightlessness with the severity, however. On the lighter end, were shades of poppy and sienna on wool tweed shift dresses, with strong pleats. The texture of the fabrics easily conveyed their value.

Leather skirts, tops and dresses were balanced by soft cashmere—some in bold tones. What really made a statement, were the onyx embroidered, laser-cut wool separates and knotted silk embroidery bodice dresses (that glistened as if beaded appliqué).

Beautiful!

As we slowly sauntered out, it seemed that the fashion frenzy had sobered… Calvin Klein Collection was a peaceful end.

Images: Dan Lecca and Patrick McMullan.

Rooney Mara, 2012.

Rooney Mara, 2009. (Getty Images)

On the occasion of a typically grim portrait snapped at the Oscar nominees' luncheon, we decided to look into Ms. Mara's pre-cyberpunk period--turns out she does know how to smile.

Or at least she did at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival! Fun fact: the oldest result on a Getty Images search for the term "Rooney Mara" is a 1937 shot of her ancestors, the owners of two professional sports teams, comparing a race card. With that lineage, is it any wonder our Rooney wouldn't eventually act out?

Since 1995, Vanity Fair has released an annual gatefold cover spotlighting hot new stars (with occasional breaks for covers featuring "legends" or Barack Obama). This is a risky game: the 1995 cover featured Nicole Kidman, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Julianne Moore, while the 2000 cover included Wes Bentley and Chris Klein.

This year's cover, released this morning, includes 11 stars lounging in a vaguely boudoir-ish setting; many of them were not especially recognizable to begin with (that's rather the point), but they're made up to look even less so! Herewith, a forecasting of the futures of these bright young stars (some of whom we've seen on this cover in past years), measured by stars featured on past Hollywood Issue covers.

Rooney Mara (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo):

Best-case scenario: Natalie Portman

Worst-case scenario: Noomi Rapace

Jennifer Lawrence (The Hunger Games):

Best-case scenario: Jennifer Lawrence (The Hunger Games)

Worst-case scenario: Jennifer Lawrence (The Beaver)

Mia Wasikowska (Jane Eyre):

Best-case scenario: Mia Wasikowska (Jane Eyre)

Worst-case scenario: Mia Wasikowska (Albert Nobbs)

Jessica Chastain (The Help, etc.):

Best-case scenario: Julianne Moore

Worst-case scenario: Claire Forlani

Elizabeth Olsen (Martha Marcy May Marlene):

Best-case scenario: Carey Mulligan

Worst-case scenario: Alison Lohman

Adepero Oduye (Pariah)

Best-case scenario: Angela Bassett

Worst-case scenario: Rosario Dawson

Shailene Woodley (The Descendants)

Best-case scenario: Emma Stone

Worst-case scenario: Selma Blair

Paula Patton (Mission: Impossible--Ghost Protocol)

Best-case scenario: Salma Hayek

Worst-case scenario: Jessica Biel

Felicity Jones (Like Crazy)

Best-case scenario: Cate Blanchett

Worst-case scenario: Minnie Driver

Lily Collins (Mirror, Mirror)

Best-case scenario: Kate Hudson

Worst-case scenario: Monica Potter

Brit Marling (Another Earth)

Best-case scenario: Chloe Sevigny

Worst-case scenario: Leelee Sobieski

Academy Award Nominee Rooney Mara

This morning, thousands upon tens of New Yorkers are realizing they have to go see Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, as that film was announced as one of nine Oscar Best Picture nominees.

Big surprises of the morning included that film's nomination for Best Picture, the inclusion of Best Actor nominees Demian Bichir and Gary Oldman, and the breadth of the Best Picture category, which found room for movies as different as War Horse and The Tree of Life after speculation tended towards the notion that there would be fewer nominees about which voters felt more strongly.

The predictions we got right? That Rooney Mara would take the place of Tilda Swinton in the Best Actress race, and that Albert Brooks would fall out of Best Supporting Actor--as well as the first five of those nine nominees. We didn't speculate on Best Animated Feature, speculating to ourselves that the field was a bit fallow, and with nominees including Chico and Rita and A Cat in Paris, we may have been right.

Hugo leads the race with 11 overall nominations, followed by heretofore perceived frontrunner The Artist with 10.

The nominations in top categories are below, and the full list of nominations is here.

Best Picture

The Artist; The Descendants; Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close; The Help; Hugo; Midnight in Paris; Moneyball; The Tree of Life; War Horse

Best Director

Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris; Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist; Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life; Alexander Payne, The Descendants; Martin Scorsese, Hugo;

Best Actor:

Demian Bichir, A Better Life; George Clooney, The Descendants, Jean DuJardin, The Artist; Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy; Brad Pitt, Moneyball

Best Actress:

Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs; Viola Davis, The Help; Rooney Mara, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo; Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady; Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn

Best Supporting Actor:

Kenneth Branagh, My Week With Marilyn; Jonah Hill, Moneyball; Nick Nolte, Warrior; Christopher Plummer, Beginners; Max Von Sydow, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Best Supporting Actress:

Bérénice Bejo, The Artist; Jessica Chastain, The Help; Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids; Octavia Spencer, The Help; Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs

Best Original Screenplay

The Artist; Bridesmaids; Margin Call; Midnight in Paris; A Separation

Best Adapted Screenplay

The Descendants; Hugo; The Ides of March; Moneyball; Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Best Animated Feature

A Cat In Paris; Chico and Rita; Kung Fu Panda 2; Puss in Boots; Rango

Michelle Williams--who will be nominated. Who else will join her? (Getty Images)

Tomorrow morning will bring that early-morning announcement of this year's Oscar nominees--with the attention-desperate wrinkle that no one knows how many nominees there will be. Herewith, our predictions, for last-minute entries into your office pool (if yours is the sort of office at which Oscar nominations are the subject of a pool. Ours is not, which is why we're writing a blog post).

Best Picture

The Artist

The Descendants

The Help

Hugo

Midnight in Paris

We know any number of films between five and ten can be nominated for Best Picture, but with The Artist and The Descendants sucking up so much oxygen and so many first-place votes, it's easy to imagine no sixth choice gathering enough steam. The likely sixth entry, if there is one, would be Moneyball--but aren't many of those voters who love "adult dramas" more likely to vote in the buzzier Descendants first?

Best Director

Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris

David Fincher, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist

Alexander Payne, The Descendants

Martin Scorsese, Hugo

Mr. Allen, Mr. Scorsese, and Mr. Hazanavicius are clear locks, and Mr. Payne will get in on the strength of his film's reputation. For the fifth spot, Mr. Fincher and Steven Spielberg seem the likeliest (The Help's debut director, Tate Taylor, did not particularly distinguish himself), but the total fade of War Horse's repute gives the advantage to Mr. Fincher for what would be his third nomination in four years.

Best Actor

George Clooney, The Descendants

Jean DuJardin, The Artist

Michael Fassbender, Shame

Ryan Gosling, The Ides of March

Brad Pitt, Moneyball

Leonardo DiCaprio has been nominated for all manner of precursor awards for his role in J. Edgar, but that movie's disappeared from theaters and from the minds of viewers who've seen many, many better movies by now (J. Edgar really is uniquely terrible). Anyone who loves biographical films about controversial figures gets to vote one in with Meryl Streep in Best Actress--and the surprise nominee might be Ryan Gosling, who does nothing too special in The Ides of March but who'd be a big enough star to stand alongside Mr. Clooney and Mr. Pitt.

Best Actress

Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs

Viola Davis, The Help

Rooney Mara, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady

Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn

Ms. Streep, Ms. Davis, and Ms. Williams have all won early awards, and Ms. Close helped produce her own movie, in which she plays a traditionally bait-y role as a female impersonating a male. The notion that four people in Oscar-bait roles would be joined by Tilda Swinton in the avant-garde We Need to Talk About Kevin stretches credulity--silent for long stretches and chronologically disjointed, this doesn't seem like the sort of role that gets an actress to the Kodak. The narrative around Rooney Mara--plucked out of nowhere in the most extensive casting search since Scarlett O'Hara--seems to coalesce towards a surprise nomination.

Best Supporting Actor

Kenneth Branagh, My Week With Marilyn

Armie Hammer, J. Edgar

Jonah Hill, Moneyball

Nick Nolte, Warrior

Christopher Plummer, Beginners

Mr. Plummer is so far ahead here that the rest of the nominees seem plucked from thin air--an impersonation of Lawrence Olivier? Sure! A fairly quiet turn by a popular comic? Definitely! An attempt at a comeback in a movie no one saw? Okay! Armie Hammer's nomination seems the least likely, but the energy he brought to J. Edgar could make him the one element of the film they nominate.

Best Supporting Actress

Bérénice Bejo, The Artist

Jessica Chastain, The Help

Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids

Octavia Spencer, The Help

Shailene Woodley, The Descendants

Three movies with huge amounts of apparent support carry their supporting stars towards a nomination, with the addition of Melissa McCarthy, taking the spot that some believe might have gone to Janet McTeer in the little-seen Albert Nobbs.

Best Original Screenplay

50/50

The Artist

Bridesmaids

Midnight in Paris

Young Adult

This category seems fairly open--besides the two Best Picture nominees, the three other top entries are not traditionally Oscar-y comedies. The Writers' Guild of America nominated Win Win, a sort-of comedy also, here, but that movie seems even less up Oscar's alley than Young Adult, a movie in which past winner Diablo Cody deals with her relationship with fame.

Best Adapted Screenplay

The Descendants

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

The Help

Hugo

Moneyball

This category, on the other hand, has the real heat--it's hard to imagine anything sneaking into a set of screenplays this popular. It's also one of the few categories with true suspense as to the winner--because the real speculation only begins on Tuesday.