Harper's Brown Loves Making "A Fantastical Idea A Reality"

Harper's Bazaar features and special projects director Laura Brown spoke with FishbowlNY contributor Diane Clehane for a "What Do You Do?" article on Mediabistro.com earlier this week.

The Australian editor and special judge on Bravo's "Project Runway" spin-off "The Fashion Show" spoke about the challenges of her unique job including celebrity wrangling and conceptualizing the special features that get the magazine noticed, like last year's photo feature with Tyra Banks as Michelle Obama.

On what celebrities are most influential today:

"There was a time a couple of years ago when everybody was following Paris [Hilton], Nicole [Richie] and Britney [Spears]. That's passed a bit now. I think the women for our readers who we find compelling are the politicians -- the lens is more on them than it has been. I think a woman who manifests curiosity about being compelling and straddling all different worlds would be Angelina Jolie. She manages to compel all of us in various incarnations, whether you work at the United Nations or read Us Weekly. The actresses like Jennifer Anistonare never going to go away. 'When times are tough' -- it's a cliche -- but you want to read a bit of candy. You want to see a nice girl wearing a nice dress. We have enough news and swine flu to deal with. Also, women who live their lives well are important to us -- they have families and rewarding careers. One of the greatest examples of that is Sarah Jessica Parker. I think she lives her life with such integrity, and she's such a professional. She's a mom and she takes James Wilke to school every day and goes to Gourmet Garage [grocery store]. She's a Bazaar woman and another archetype that we like. A lot of these women are in the 30s and 40s. We like to think we can relate to them."

Earlier, box office analysts thought The Hangover would be neck and neck all weekend with holdover Pixar/Disney's CGI toon Up, because of this four-quadrant pic's usual Saturday crowded matinees for kiddies. With the great hold everyone expected from last week's No. 1 opening (-35%), Up was a strong No. 2 Friday with $14M from 3,818 plays and an expected weekend around $45M. Pixar's 10th straight smash, Up will post a $120M cume, so that's two success stories this weekend.

Universal told me its expensive Land Of The Lost needed to debut with at least $30M for the studio not to sweat. It's now officially one of the first turkeys of the summer. (Because aren't dinosaurs related to birds?) Land Of The Lost opened Friday a distant 3rd with just $6.8M from 3,521 runs and a projected $20M weekend. That's unusually low for a Will Ferrell summer comedy, but this one received dismal reviews. Still, how typically Hollywood that rival studios are taking obvious enjoyment in Universal's distress, especially on the heels of Uni's recent underperforming thriller State Of Play and last week's disappointing grosses for Drag Me To Hell horror flick.