Lindsay Lohan, who granted does need a reputation makeover, is shooting for art star status, having teamed up with painter Richard Phillips on a film that’s set to officially debut at the Venice Biennale. Um, she looks pretty, and pulls off the Brigitte Bardot references rather well, but it also looks like a perfume ad. Or, a Lindsay Lohan ad. Says Phillips, who is approaching his film project(s) as a mode of portraiture, “What fascinates me about Lindsay are not her problems but the way she embodies an eminence on the level of a Bardot or an Ullmann. “She’s a combination of the fantastic and the real, which is what makes her so magnetic. She can also bring forward an existential presence that speaks to the isolated self.” Ya think?

Marjorie Skinner is the Portland Mercury's Managing Editor, author of the weekly Sold Out column chronicling the area's independent fashion and retail industry, and a frequent contributor to the film and...