Weekend In Reviews

It doesn't take much to make me happy. I like cold weather, warm clothes, yummy food, good books, and TV and movies of varying levels of quality.  This weekend made me very, very happy. 

Chicken Tortilla Soup - I make the best chicken tortilla soup in the world. You don't have to believe me but it's true.  And nothing tastes better on a cold, grey, rainy day than a big bowl of soup.  Thick with chicken, hominy, black beans, tomatoes, and corn.  Spicy and hearty, topped with sour cream, cheese and tortilla strips.  My mouth is watering just talking about it.

Mockingjay - If you haven't read the Hunger Games series of books by Suzanne Collins, you're missing out on something really special. I don't believe I've ever read anything that so captured my imagination and my heart. Collins' writing style is economically vivid and emotionally intense without being manipulative. Mockingjay, the third and final book in the series, was my favorite. It was a satisfying, if heartbreaking end to the story of Katniss Everdeen and the country of Panem as well as an exciting adventure in its own right. 

Every book in the series brought me to tears but none more than this. With happiness, with grief, with worry and with relief I wept for these characters whose fates I genuinely cared about. 

I read these books because the people who had read them before me seemed to love them so much.  Because the casting for the movie had people so vocal. Because I have heard from so many different people how fantastic they were.  That's the sort of buildup that can lead to disappointment.  When you go in expecting something truly amazing it is often impossible for the product to live up to the hype.  My every expectation was met and, in fact, exceeded. I will now recommend these books, above all others, to everyone I know.

Prom - I love me some high school-set romcoms. Actually, if you make a movie or a TV show that involves teenage romance in any way, I will watch it at least once. And the chances are solid that I'll end up loving it on some level no matter how bad it is. 

Prom is not bad. Prom is just...not good. The movie follows a handful of random people in the weeks leading up to their senior prom. Nothing special about it necessarily. The main focus of the narrative is Nova (Aimee Teegarden), the head of the prom committee, who's somewhat obsessed with throwing the "perfect" prom. When the boy she likes asks her to go "as a friend" and then bails, she ends up falling for misunderstood bad-boy Jesse (Thomas McDonell).

Other stories include the nerdy stoner kid and the girl who doesn't believe he's bringing the "Canadian" "girlfriend" he's told her about; the prom queen finds out her king is cheating on her with a gullible sophomore and dumps him, going to prom alone, looking gorgeous, and showing teenage girls everywhere that you do not need a boy to be awesome. Especially if he's a cheating dickhead; the kid who never bothered to make friends in school who's determined to take this last chance and asks nearly every girl to be his date before taking his step sister; the perfect couple who end up fighting when she acts weird rather than just tell him that she isn't going to college with him as they planned; and the sophomore boy with a crush on the king's strumpet-on-the-side. 

The movie had a metric ton of shit going on and it mostly did a fine job weaving it all together but it seemed to me like it all could have been more interesting if it weren't trying to squeeze it into the 2 hours a movie provides.  This would have made a much more interesting ABC Family series than a movie.

Take Me Home Tonight - I guess it's a post-college, transitioning-to-adulthood, coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of the mid-'80s but mostly it was one '80s pop culture reference and pop hit after another that made a fine 90 minute soundtrack to doing laundry and dusting. 

Topher Grace is reliably cute and likable and Chris Pratt was funny, slightly douchey, and completely idiotic in that way that he has which is impossible not to enjoy. But Anna Faris was practically a non-entity, Teresa Palmer was blandly forgettable, and Dan Fogler was unappealing bordering on appalling.

The movie seemed to want to be a throwback to the Sixteen Candles, Breakfast Club, Weird Science days but it only made me miss John Hughes, who didn't have to try this hard to be entertaining.  Like the story that Faris and Pratt repeat several times during the film, Take Me Home Tonight is intended to be funny but comes off redundant and tired. Skip it and watch the three I just mentioned instead. Maybe throw Can't Buy Me Love in for good measure because who doesn't enjoy the African Anteater Ritual, you guys? Come on.

Something Borrowed - Where to begin? I don't recall ever watching a movie with such loathsome characters. From the very start of the movie, when Kate Hudson's Darcy is throwing Ginnifer Goodwin's Rachel a birthday party, I was filled with rage. Darcy is repellently full of herself, obnoxious, rude, and not at all self-aware. She repeatedly mentions how attractive she is and why she "totally gets" people loving her.  When her best friend Rachel quickly falls into bed with Darcy's fiance, Dex (Colin Egglesfield), I didn't feel bad for Darcy at all but I also didn't think much of Dex for having dated and gotten engaged to Darcy in the first place.

In theory, I guess we're supposed to find Rachel the most likable because she's the self-deprecating, nice-girl heroine but...not so much. She has spent a lifetime humoring Darcy and letting her have everything she wants. Having horrible friends means you either don't think enough of yourself to believe you deserve better friends or that you're secretly horrible yourself. And she's been mooning over her best friend's boyfriend since before Darcy and Dex even met. That's not uncommon in romcoms but in this case, Dex was so obviously into Rachel (as we're repeatedly shown in flashbacks) but Rachel's non-existent self esteem made her believe that he could never like her over Darcy so when Darcy showed up and flirted, Rachel practically FORCED the two of them to date.  Dex gave her numerous opportunities to pick up the hints that he'd rather be with her but she willfully ignored them all.  It's hard to like someone who doesn't like herself at all.

Still, of the three of these people, Rachel might be the most affable because in addition to carrying on a years-long romance with a wretched beast of a woman he doesn't seem to even remotely like, Dex also doesn't have the balls to live his own life or make a single decision that his father doesn't dictate for him. I don't care what he looks like, I can't find a spineless man attractive. Especially not one who'd rather cheat on his fiance/wife forever than admit he doesn't love her, or want to marry her just to mollify his parents.

Once they've front-loaded the picture with the worst people you can imagine, you meet the secondary characters - Marcus (Steve Howey) is a douchey, frat-rat type who thinks "charming" and "vile" are the same thing. He's full of himself, too loud, and just plain too much.  How does he fit into the picture? He's a friend of Dex's. Ew. Claire (Ashley Williams) is Darcy's friend who can not take the hint that Ethan (John Krasinski) is not interested in her. She is up in his face, she's all over him, she's gross and clueless.  Ethan has been friends with Rachel and Darcy since they were all children though it's pretty clear that Darcy and Ethan merely tolerate each other the way you tolerate that awful cousin you are forced to see at family holiday gatherings.

Ethan is likable. He's funny and charming and normal when everyone around him is the worst kind of fake and put-on. He's the only person in the entire movie who deserves better. He deserves better friends, better love interests, a better life and a MUCH MUCH better movie.

It wasn't just that I didn't care what happened to these characters - whether or not Dex dumped Darcy for Rachel or married her and lived a miserable, loveless life; whether Rachel found happiness with Dex or continued believing that she didn't deserve love; whether Darcy ever learned how to love someone without making every bit of the relationship all about her - it was that I actively wanted terrible things to befall these characters.  I wanted Dex to be alone, miserable and loveless forever. I wanted Rachel to settle for someone awful that she would never love who would never love her because that's all she thought she deserved. I wanted Darcy to be hit by a bus.  I hated these people and even now, a day later, I am angry that this movie exists and that I've seen it.

And goddammit, if John Krasinski is cast in another movie wherein he does NOT get the girl, I'm going to fucking riot.

Party Down Season 1 - Like Veronica Mars minus the drama plus extra comedy and foul language, this show was a gem that's just different enough to be strange without being absurd.

The characters are sketches based in a darker reality than most comedies venture into and most of the humor comes from misery rather than levity. Adam Scott and Martin Star are outstanding straight-man comedic actors who can be in the middle of the most ridiculously humorous moment without ever cracking a smile, Ken Marino and Jane Lynch excel at being the wacky, insane butt of the joke, and Ryan Hanson is simply adorable as the well-meaning, good looking, semi-doofus. Lizzy Caplan, for my money, is perhaps the least compelling member of the cast but that might be because her character has the least to do. Sometimes being the love interest when everyone else gets to be funny is the worst job there is.

So far, nearly every episode has featured a Veronica Mars alumnus (or, rather, an additional alumnus besides the three that star in the show), giving me a burst of joy with every familiar face because Veronica Mars is a show that I love so much I literally want even the smallest bit players to be wildly successful.  I look forward to laughing my way through the second season before being disappointed in the state of television that yet another terrific show was gone too soon. Sigh.

Weekend In Reviews

I had big plans this weekend to marathon Felicity and eat ridiculous amounts of junk food with my 16 year old cousin Claire but at the last minute she had to cancel which left me with a gaping hole in my agenda and no good excuse to eat my weight in sugar and carbs.  Fortunately I found a way to fill the time. 

Saturday I hung by the pool with some family friends, splashing and laughing with a couple of tots and my wacky water-loving dog who has taken to hurling herself into the pool at great speeds and from rather impressive heights.  All that swimming meant I didn't have to feel guilty about the guacamole and homemade mac and cheese I ate. 

After such an eventful day, it seemed like the best thing to do was lay low on Sunday.  So I basically stayed in bed and read The Hunger Games all day.  I can not say enough good things about this book and there is no way to convey how mad I am at myself for not reading it sooner.  The only compliment I could ever muster for the wretched Twilight series was that Stephanie Meyers writes in such a way that makes the book go by fast.  Virtually nothing happened in the entire series yet I was able to speed through them as if the action was propelling me the story.  There was a briskness to her prose that was able to get you through it all fast enough that if nothing else, kept the books from stealing too much of my free time. 

Suzanne Collins writes with a similar, if more enjoyable and less treacly briskness.  And while that style can make a terrible book almost bearable, it can make an excellent book exquisite.  It takes only a few sentences to make me care about Katniss and her story and all of District 12.  Post-apocalyptic, distopian society stories aren't usually an easy sell for me but The Hunger Games didn't feel like some kind of sci-fi warning about the perils of American excess so much as the story of one girl in an extraordinary circumstance doing what she has to to survive and take care of the people she loves.  It could have been 100 years in the past just as easily as 100 in the future. 

How did Katniss not see that Peeta was genuinely in love with her?  Why wasn't she in love with him?  Why doesn't Gale marry the Mayor's daughter?  These are all questions that haunt me still.  Oh, I'm also desperate to know what becomes of these relationships so I started reading Catching Fire at lunch today.  I might try to make this one last a bit.  Savor the story for a week rather than devouring it in a day.  Plus, I'm trying to rally my book club back together with the whole series.  I think it could give us just the boost we need to get back together after almost a year. 

After a day in bed, Monday called for some shit to get done so I cleaned and did laundry while I watched the first 10 episodes of Everwood's 4th season.  I am not going to lie to you, I know what shit is coming down the pike from Bright and Yarn Slut and still I think he's perfect.  Perfect.  The love I have for Bright Abbott is real and deep and can not be swayed by one, horrible moment of horrible judgement and so much horribleness.  He thinks about her EYELASHES, you guys!  Besides that, I'm really just trying to love Little McQueen despite the fact that he's a huge pain in the ass and to not scream "get a HAIRCUT!" at Ephram every time he's on screen.  There was so much emotion in the 4th season! 

Good Morning

Sam Page

Weekend In Reviews

The Book Thief - An incredibly beautiful book and engrossing story. Told from the unique perspective of death about the life of a young German girl during World War II, it's well worth the read. But be sure to keep the tissues handy because the last 100 or so pages will definitely make you cry.

Glee Live In Concert - So, so good! They've created a production that make it feel very much like you're seeing a Glee Club concert. From the Cheerios that came out into the audience before the show started to hand out complimentary Sue Sylvester Barf Bags, to the high school auditorium curtains, the risers on the stage and the performers coming into the audience a la their Sectionals performance.

They sounded great and sang live the vast majority of the time. The notable exceptions were the two Vocal Adrenalin numbers - but they're mostly there for their dancing - and the girls mashup number during which they were simply dancing too fast and crazy to manage to sing at the same time.

A couple of small technical difficulties which are to be expected for the first show of the tour and nothing that would ruin a number.

I very much enjoyed the video packages from Sue and Shue and the occasional Brittany moments.

After the show, Mike and I managed to see Corey Monteith, Mark Salling, Jenna Ushkowitz, Heather Morris, Kevin McHale and Amber Riley signing autographs outside of the theater. Our camera phone pictures aren't the best but Mike got a pretty good one of Corey and thanks to his mohawk, you can certainly tell which one is Mark but in that last one, Jenna is in the same pic with Mark and is the tiny girl in black with her hair up sandwiched between security people, and that's Heather Morris in the blue skirt and white top.

If you're a Gleek, I can't recommend the concert enough! Worth every penny!

Camera Phones: A Parent's Biggest Enemy

MTV is going to celebrate Valentines Day with one of their documentaries titled Sexting In America: When Privates Go Public. They're out to shed light on the consequences of the racy text and pix messages that teens and pre-teens send each other.

Reading about this reminded me of a book I read a few years back - Slut! Growing Up Female With A Bad Reputation. I'd like to take this moment to encourage anyone who has a daughter to read this book. I know us girls were all teenagers once and so if we really try we can remember what it was like, but a good reminder from time to time about the very real hardships that girls go through in their formative years is a good thing.

After all, Mean Girls is a funny movie but let's not forget that it was based on the non-fiction book Queen Bees & Wannabes (Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends and Other Realities of Adolescence). Girls are incredibly mean to and hard on each other, making it all too easy for girls to end up with a bad reputation - deserved or not. While you're talking to your daughters about sex, you might also want to talk to them about how things that might seem harmless to them at the time, can have consequences they don't expect.

I know teens who think that they're grown up enough to have sex (and I know teens who are having sex), but I'm not so sure they take into account how having sex could lead to them being considered a slut and how hard it'd be on them if they had that reputation. And in the case of sexting, I'm quite sure that none of the kids who send naked pictures of themselves to their boyfriends and girlfriends expect those pictures to become public, but they always do. Breakups happen and people borrow phones and before you know it, everyone in your school could easily pick your boobs out of a lineup. That's something that might be worth mentioning to your daughters when you sit down for that talk.

I mean, the more they know, right?

Holidays in Reviews

The holidays are over and I'm going to stop spending my work days napping at my desk and get back to spending my time at work posting on my personal blog like I should be. So let's talk about all the things that I read and watched over my holiday hiatus.

A Tree Grows In Brooklyn (Betty Smith) - An excellent book. I really enjoyed both the story and the writing. A book worthy of being called a classic, I thought that all of the characters were compelling and multi-faceted so as not to seem like simply the story of a little girl struggling with poverty in the early 20th century but rather the reality of life for a great many people in that place, at that time as told through the eyes of one girl and her family. For all the ways that life was incredibly different 100 years ago, there are so many other ways that it is just the same. I was struck by how many pederasts there were in the book - the junk man who pinched the little girls, the candy store owner who took girls into the back room, the school principal who made the boys take down their pants when they were spanked but let the girls keep their clothes on, and the child rapist and murderer - because people so often make the argument that the problem of pedophilia is bigger now than ever before. Judging by the number of them that Francie came into contact with in the 17 years that this book spans, I'd have to guess that the problem is just as big as it ever was and merely receives more publicity with each passing year.

Four Christmases - I watched this one the weekend after Christmas and in the 9 or so days that have passed since then, I've mostly forgotten everything about it. I think that pretty aptly demonstrates why this one gets a big fat "meh" from me. The thing is, I actually really like Vince Vaughn and his whole shtick which, let's face it, is essentially the same in most of his movies (the only one I've seen where he dialed the shtick way down was A Cool Dry Place which, incidentally, is a movie I really like) and I guess it would have been fine here too but for the complete lack of chemistry with Reese Witherspoon (who, like Vaughn, was fine on her own) and a series of ridiculous, boring and pointless scenes that added up to nothing in the end. That said, I probably will think of Vince Vaughn every time I hear the word swaddle from now on.

Extract - I wanted to like this because I love Jason Bateman as well as nearly everyone else in the supporting cast, especially J.K. Simmons, Kristen Wiig and Clifton Collins Jr. But unfortunately this movie was just a whole lot less funny than the sum of it's parts should have been. Bateman was as delightful as he always is, Simmons and Wiig probably could have been given more to do but Collins was great. David Koechner and Beth Grant were terrific. Mila Kunis was tasked only with being attractive and she can certainly hold up her end of that bargain, so there isn't much to say about that. Ben Affleck was pretty good as the stoner friend and Dustin Milligan was downright funny as the moronic gigolo. Matt Shulze probably would have been forgettable in his microscopic role as the dealer if not for the fact that I noticed for the first time that he's insanely hot. See? All the parts are great but they came together into a mostly uninteresting 90 minutes.

All About Steve - Well, having developed a crush on Bradley Cooper during his tenure as Will on Alias and possessing eyes capable of appreciating his exceptional attractiveness, I can say that I understand why a person might become instantly smitten if set up on a blind date with him. However, there are no circumstances under which I can fathom how anything else that happens in this movie could possibly come to pass. Sandra Bullock's Mary has a genius IQ and apparently no common sense whatsoever. She never stops talking and she never misses an opportunity to show those around her how much smarter she is than them. So, Mary takes one look (literally) at Steve (Cooper) on their blind date and instantly decides that she's in love with him. Just as they've gotten into the car outside of her parents house to start their date, she jumps on him, rips his clothes off and starts to have her way with him. Because he's a man and Mary looks like Sandra Bullock, he's into it...until she just will not shut up and begins to really freak him out. That's when he halts the proceedings with a faked phone call from work, gets her out of the car with some faux niceties and drives away. After that 4 minute date, she proceeds to stalk him around the country. The part of the story that makes perfect sense to me is when, in the end, Mary and Steve do not end up together. The only thing about this movie that I genuinely liked was DJ Qualls. If you haven't seen this yet, skip it. Trust me.

State of Play - A perfectly adequate movie that probably should have been a good movie had it not been just a little too pleased with itself. Ben Affleck is surprisingly perfect as a US Congressman (Stephen Collins) whose lover is killed forcing him to enlist the help of his college roommate, journalist Cal McAffrey (Russell Crowe). The murder turns out to be tied to the murders of at least two other people and then to a Blackwater-esque company that former war hero Collins is presently interrogating in a Congressional hearing aimed at deciding whether or not to keep throwing money at the company while simultaneously not holding them accountable for their many atrocities. Cal tries, much to the chagrin of editor Helen Miren, to help Collins but eventually has to team up with fellow reporter (or rather blogger) Rachel McAdams to get to the bottom of what the hell is going on. I didn't mind the added bit of drama that came from a past affair between Cal and Collins's wife (Robin Wright-Penn) but a red herring that actually wasn't with the final twist that everyone was guilty in some way seemed a bit unnecessary as did the pregnancy revelation that begat the final twist. Not surprisingly, I really enjoyed Jason Bateman's cameo as the sleazy pimp-like friend of the deceased. It reminded me ever-so-slightly of the weird lawyer he played in Smokin' Aces, though I'm not entirely sure why.

(500) Days of Summer - I really, really liked this movie. The slightly disjointed back-and-forth of the timeline was, at first, a little bothersome for me but eventually I began to appreciate how it added to the comedy. It isn't a love story and there is no happy ending except that it actually is a love story and there is a happy ending - though perhaps not in the way that movie goers are used to. While the character of Summer is meant to be both a pure delight and easily loved she's also not terribly hard to dislike if, like me, you have completely fallen for Tom Hanson during the course of the movie. Fortunately they've cast Zooey Deschanel as Summer and it's virtually impossible to believe that Summer did anything maliciously because Deschanel's portrayal of her is so sweet, honest and un-phony. The best thing (in a sea of great things) about the movie is Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I know I've mentioned my affection for him before and have noted here how much I've enjoyed him in other movies but this is the movie that has prompted me to fill my NetFlix queue with all of his movies that I've not yet seen because he's so fantastic and so incredibly cute. I don't understand how Summer managed not to fall in love with him. I changed my mind...I think I love this movie.

That's it for movies (I think) but I also watched a smattering of TV shows, though nothing necessitating a review. Oh, but as long as I've got you here, I do want to air a grievance - on one of the DVDs I watched this weekend was a trailer for Smokin' Aces II. A prequel to the ridiculously violent Smokin' Aces that features one of the assassins from the first movie as well as a whole passel of mew ones all out to kill one guy...again. Here's what chafes my hide - the movie was called Smokin' Aces because the assassins were all out to kill - or "smoke," if you will - Buddy Aces. So if they're all out to kill - or "smoke" - another guy entirely, shouldn't it be called Smokin' Another Guy Entirely rather than Smokin' Aces II?

Shut up.

This morning on my way to work I was listening to NPR as I always do. They had author James Ellroy on promoting his new book Blood's A Rover and during the interview I learned something very interesting. I learned that James Ellroy is an enormous dickhead.

He repeated asserted that he had a great talent and was a brilliant writer. As if that heft dose of self aggrandizement weren't enough he then said that his book was "perfectly structured" and went on to note that he writes for God and Ludwig von Beethoven.

I just thought I would use this space to tell Mr. Ellroy what he could not hear me shouting at my radio this morning: SHUT UP!

Speaking of movies I'm anxious to see...

The lovely Alexis Bledel is staring in a movie called Post Grad in which she plays a girl fresh out of college who can't find a job and is forced to move back home to live with her parents (Michael Keaton and Jane Lynch). Because no movie would be complete without a cute boy friend who will eventually become her cute boyfriend, Zach Gilford co-stars.

Please let me know if you can think of wackier people to cast as the parents or cuter people to play the romantic leads because I cannot.

Post Grad opens on Friday and I just happen to have Friday off. Now, I've got almost two full Twilight books to read before book club on the 31st so I was supposed to read all day Friday but since I've got two more vacation days between now and the 31st and it takes me just about one full day to read these tomes, I think I might treat myself to a movie this week and trudge through the books on my two vacation days next week instead.

How do I spell procrastination? M-E-L-I-S-S-A!

Weekend in Reviews

Twilight - I'm going to review each of the books in the series at the same time I review each of the movies - which means I'm planning to watch each of the movies, which is actually a really sad confession I'm making to you all right now.


So everyone everywhere loves the Twilight series except me I guess. It would be unnecessarily harsh to say that I hate the books; they're alright for what they are. But what they are, are books written about a sullen and whiny teenage girl, in the voice of said sullen and whiny teenage girl about "love" and "romance" as sullen, whiny teenage girls talk about those things. That is to say, I don't think it's really about love in any way and nothing about them is remotely romantic to me but I can absolutely see how a 15 year old girl would swoon over it all.


Young girls think that when a boy is a jerk, it's because he's misunderstood. When a boy treats them badly it's because he just doesn't know how to express himself. When a boy sneaks into their house in the middle of the night for months on end to watch them sleep without their knowledge, it's romantic. But you know what? That isn't romantic, that's stalking and it's creepy and if a boy does that shit to you, call the fucking police!


So whatever, the book is flawed. Bella is incredibly whiny and her self esteem is non-existent. She falls for Edward who is the only single guy in a "family" of vampires that don't eat people. He's also sullen and quite an extreme kill-joy. They're actually pretty perfect for each other. Absolutely nothing happens in the book for a good 350 pages and then finally some bad vampires show up and the shit hits the fan but everything works out just fine in the end (because did you really think that the main character would die at the end of the first book when there are three more to go?) and at last we're subjected to a whiny fit from Bella that we'll here again and again and again and again ad nauseum for the rest of the series - "please make me a vampire. Pretty, pretty, pretty please! Boo hoo hoo!"


The movie is a hundred thousand times less interesting than the book (which was barely interesting at all to begin with so...yeah). What the movie has done to perfectly nice characters is nothing short of an assassination and an outrage - all of Bella's human friends are made to seem like complete assholes in the movie and her father, Charlie, who is merely uncomfortable showing emotion in the book is a cold, hard, mean man in the movie.

You'd find better acting in a grade school production of "The Remains of Decay: Why We Brush Our Teeth."


The action starts a bit sooner in the movie version as the bad vampires leave a trail of bodies throughout the Pacific Northwest right from the get-go, but that doesn't really help ratchet up the intrigue because all of the action seems to take place off screen. The story is so watered down that I'm pretty sure it was one open-mouthed kiss away from getting a G rating.


Robert Pattinson is not good looking. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that the kid is ugly and I don't think Kristen Stewart is much better looking than that. The special effects are abysmal. While I don't love the books, there are characters in them that I do care a great deal for - Charlie, Jacob, Alice, Carlisle, Esme - but the movie has made the conscious decision to be all Bella and Edward, all the time so there's nothing there to hold onto and use to pull this piece of cinematic shit out of the depths of its own boringness.


If you haven't seen this movie, please don't. And if you haven't read the books, I wouldn't recommend that either. Just because the Pop Culture landscape is littered with Twilight garbage right now, doesn't mean you have to know anything about it to get by in life. This too shall pass.


Confessions of a Shopaholic - Stupid movies are not not limited to those aimed at the tweens. Confessions of a Shopaholic was trying to win over the 20- and 30-something women but as far as this 30-something is concerned, it was an epic fail.


Rebbecca Bloomwood (Isla Fischer in her most un-likable role ever) is a magazine writer who deeply wants to work at fashion magazine Allette (aka, movie Vogue) and who spends thousands and thousands of dollars she doesn't have on some truly hideous, exorbitantly expensive designer fashions. The less said about her orange Muppet shrug the better.


While being terrorized by collection agents and drowning in a sea of credit card debt that her best friend (the adorable Krysten Ritter) is constantly bailing her out of, she ends up with a job writing a column about being responsible with your money for a finance magazine. "Hilarity" ensues.


I didn't laugh one time during this movie. I wouldn't have paid $20 for her entire wardrobe, I can not to this minute understand why the dreamy Luke Brandon (Hugh Dancy) would fall for her, I don't know why Krysten Ritter's character didn't punch Rebbecca square in the face and most of all, I don't understand what the hell it was that was supposed to make this movie a comedy.


I'd give this one a pass even if it were on cable some afternoon when I was sick in bed and the remote was out of reach.


She's The Man - I've watched She's The Man at least a dozen times and I really never get sick of it. It is a large wedge of (Gouda) cheese and it's 100% satisfying.


Viola (Amanda Bynes) is a soccer player, her twin brother Sebastian is a musician. Viola goes to Cornwall while Sebastian has been transferred to Ilyria boarding school for unnamed discipline problems (I'm guessing it's a truancy issue). When the girls soccer team is cut at Cornwall, and Sebastian asks Viola to cover for him with their parents and the school while he sneaks off to become a rock star in London for two weeks, Viola sees an opportunity to impersonate her brother at Ilyria, get on the boys soccer team there and show everyone how awesome she is.


This ruse creates a love...octagon? Monique is Sebastian's girlfriend but Viola hates her so when he leaves, Viola as Sebastian dumps Monique; Viola as Sebastian is roommates with Duke (Channing Tatum) who has a crush on Olivia who likes Sebastian who is really Viola who likes Duke. When Duke meets Viola as Viola he starts to crush on her too, which pisses off her ex-boyfriend Justin who wants her back. Duke's friend Toby likes Eunice who likes both Duke and Sebastian...who is still really Viola. Malcolm, the school weirdo, likes Olivia and therefore doesn't like either Duke or Sebastian (Viola). I like Viola's gay friend Paul.

This is a charming, cute, funny, wonderful movie and if you haven't seen it yet I HIGHLY recommend that you do, right away.

Weekend In Reviews

Angels & Demons - I find it hard to judge movies based on books if I read the book first, because it's difficult to separate the two and judge the movie on it's own merits as opposed to just comparing it to the source material.

I liked the book Angels & Demons quite a bit. It was exciting, fast paced, intricate, twisty and full to the brim with interesting shit going on all the time. But lets face it, there was a fair bit of ridiculousness with that helicopter escape and a LOT of people. Those are just two of the things that the movie changed - the reporter, camera man and director of CERN were all absent from the movie and Langdon never got in the helicopter so he never had to jump out and use the windshield cover or whatever it was as his makeshift parachute.

I knew they wouldn't make the Hassassin a Middle-Eastern man because that would be needlessly inflammatory so they turned him into an American (I think - at one point I detected a slight accent but then it was gone so I can't be sure) hired gun, in it solely for the money. The dead researcher was not Vitoria's father in the movie so they just went ahead and let her find him to minimize the drama there. And speaking of CERN, Langdon never even sets foot there in the movie, rather it's the Vatican that requests his help to find the missing Prefereti and the antimatter.

I could go on all day mentioning what was changed and arguing whether or not the change was for the better but the truth is, it doesn't matter. The book and the movie are two separate things and on it's own merits, I enjoyed the movie a lot. It was appropriately paced, it was well thought-out. Suspense, intrigue, action, drama - that's really all that are necessary in a movie like this I suppose and it delivers admirably.

The one quibble I won't set aside though, is why they changed the main Cardinal's name from Rossi to Strauss and then made another random Cardinal Rossi. It's certainly not a big deal and Lord knows that Armin Mueller-Stahl did a fantastic job as Strauss but could they not find any actors of Italian descent to cast and keep the name Rossi? Also, in the book I found Inspector Olivetti less than sympathetic while the Camerlengo seemed to be a protagonist the whole time. In the movie, the Camerlengo (Ewan McGregor) is kind of a douche and Olivetti (Pierfrancesco Favino) is awesome. It was disconcerting.

Damn it! I tried but I just can't seem to talk about the movie without talking about the book. Oh well. They're both worth your time I suppose.

Weekend In Reviews

Over the weekend I read a book, watched two movies and ate. That's about it. Here's what I thought of it all:

Angels & Demons by Dan Brown - I enjoyed the book quite a bit, even when it stretched the limits of believability (a windshield shade - really?). I've got to talk about this book in book club so I don't want to get it all off my chest now but all-in-all, I found the book highly entertaining and with plenty of expected and unexpected twists.

Iron Man - I'm way late in adding my two cents about this movie but holy CRAP is it good. I'm not usually much of a fan of the comic book movie genre. I have no problem suspending my disbelief for any number of things, but there tends to be a tone to the stories that feels aimed at someone who just isn't me. Like they're being made specifically for males age 12-28 and I just can't quite appreciate them on that level like they can. I liked Batman back in '89 with Michael Keaton as Batman and Jack Nicholson as The Joker; and Batman Forever in '97 with Val Kilmer as Batman, Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face and Jim Carey as The Riddler was ok-ish but that's about it...until now. Iron Man was 2 tons of awesome in a 10 pound bag. Robert Downey Jr. manages to play every facet of Tony Stark and his titular alter-ego to perfection starting out smug, greasy and repugnant in the opening scenes and easing effortlessly into scared, contrite, lonely, heroic and proud as the story unfolds. Also he's hot - even with that unfortunate facial hair. The story is engrossing, the dialogue is crisp, the actors are spot-on. Even Gwyneth Paltrow was great as Pepper Potts - there wasn't even the slightest whiff of superiority implying that she thought the movie was beneath her and let's face it, she's been giving off that stink pretty pungently since 'round about Shallow Hal in 2001 (like, if you think the movie is a piece of shite, maybe don't agree to be in it, huh Gwynie?). I knew that I was going to like her despite myself when her delivery of the line about taking out the trash was exactly as great as the line itself. Look who's decided to live up to her Oscar all of a sudden. On a side note - Faran Tahir as Raza is so my bald-headed flavor! Anyway, I may not be the biggest fan of the comic book movie, but this certainly isn't the last one I'll be seeing. Next month I'm going to give The Dark Knight a shot because that's the best marketing campaign in the history of movies and I'll also go see X-Men Origins - Wolverine even though I've never seen any other X-Men movie for the following reasons:

1. Taylor Kitsch as Gambit.
2. Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool.

Chaos Theory - And speaking of Ryan Reynolds...this movie blew. I will quite literally watch anything that Ryan Reynolds is in, although I haven't quite gotten around to watching The Amityville Horror remake yet because...ugh. But he's half naked and either in the tub or super sweaty through a good portion of the film according to every studio still I've ever seen so, now that I think about it, I may move that up the ol' NetFlix queue soon. It's not like the guy spends much time in award-bait movies but there are several things he's been in that I genuinely love and will watch over and over again for years to come - Blade: Trinity (I can not imagine anyone else in the world being that unbearably sexy while delivering the line "take a sugar-frosted fuck off the end of my dick!" [emphasis totally his]), Foolproof, Smokin' Aces, the just-releasing-on-DVD-tomorrow Definitely, Maybe, and his unfortunately-named television show Two Guys, A Girl and A Pizza Place (later re-named the only slightly less ridiculous Two Guys and A Girl) to name just a few. A few others were slightly less winning but still enjoyable enough - Waiting... and School of Life spring to mind. There have been other stinkers - Finders Fee is one I never need to watch again and The Nines was a little weird and disjointed for me and I doubt I'd ever give that another viewing if I have any choice in the matter - but Chaos Theory was the worst one I've seen so far. IMDb lists it as a comedy/drama/romance yet it wasn't funny, it wasn't terribly dramatic, there was no discernible romance and it just...kind of...sat there. It squandered the talents of not only Ryan but also Emily Mortimer, Stuart Townsend, Constance Zimmer and Mike Irwin (who somehow managed to look several years younger in this than he did playing Colin Hart on Everwood in 2003 where he already looked believably 18ish which was weird). Sarah Chalke however was pretty great.

The story is of a man who is anal retentive and type-A to a fault. His wife is one-dimensional and bitchy and even though he is no different than he was when she picked him to marry (based solely on him having the least-awful name for his penis of all of their mutual friends), she is bothered by his list-making ways so she tries to play a joke on him by turning the clock back 10 minutes but in addition to being a shrew, she's also pretty stupid because she confuses "back" and "forward" and ends up making him late for a very important speaking engagement. That sets off a chain reaction that includes an insanely hot Sarah Chalke, a lady in labor on the side of the road, him getting kicked out of the house for being a bigamist - which he isn't, the discovery that he's impotent do to a genetic defect he's had since birth and therefore his daughter isn't his but rather his best friend's, a shootout on a row boat, and a sweet moment with a little girl that somehow manages to fix a marriage that seemed not at all worth repairing to me. There were no funny lines, there were no charming moments, I thought it was going to show some promise when Ryan Reynolds prepared to streak a hockey game but they shot it from such a distance that it could have been anyone with two working legs running across that ice. Just skip it...trust me.

Not much to say about the food - I had half of a pretty good chicken sandwich from Logan's Roadhouse on Sunday, the always delicious Almond Tuna Salad Sandwich from Wildflower Bread Company for lunch on Saturday and Cuban black beans and rice last night for dinner which were very good.