In which I try video-blogging

I don’t know why the audio is not synced, but I am not invested enough to try to fix it.

Also, I love how YouTube froze my face in a truly weird and unattractive expression.

Movie Trailer Snap Judgments: New in Town

Every time I see the trailer for this extremely crappy looking movie, I think about blogging about it and the idea just makes me exhausted.  Because while this film appears to be crappy, it looks crappy in such a conventional way that I can’t work up much ire about it.  Also, the movie opens next weekend and the trailer only started popping up on TV recently, and I am at least thankful for that.

Let’s see … Renee Zellwegger, who is actually an Academy Award winner but seems to lose more and more credibility with each passing year, stars as one of those career gals we’ve heard so much about.  She wears fancy high heels and Amanda Woodword power suits, but we know she really means business based on her “Take me seriously” bobbed haircut.  Anyway, her Super Important Job sends her to Minnesota for some reason where she will meet some wacky locals and fall down a lot. 

As her plane is landing in the Great North, Squinty Renee squints out the window and is all aghast: ”What’s that?” and the folksy (of course) woman next to her is like, “It’s snow, dear.”  Ugh.  I don’t know how Renee got through business school if she cannot even make a visual identification of snow.  Sure, some people might have not seen snow before, but I would think that they might have some sort of idea as to what it might look like and where they might expect to see it (i.e. Minnesota in the winter).  I mean, I recently went to Kansas for the first time and while I had never before had laid eyes on the rows and rows of cornfields that they have in the Midwest, I wasn’t like, “What’s that?”  when I saw them because, you know, I have spent my life watching television and reading things and all of this gave me a mental concept at what cornfields in Kansas might look like.  Also, I’m not an idiot.

I digress.  Once she arrives in Minnesota, Renee has many “fish out of water” adventures blah blah blah.  It’s cold; she has trouble driving in the ice (which is difficult, I will give her that), and – shocking! – she becomes charmed by the locals and their small town life.  I know.  Who would have seen it coming?  Her love interest in this movie is played by Harry Connick Jr., an actor I really just cannot stand.  He looks like a Matt Groening cartoon and sucks the life out of everything he is ever in, which granted, are typically projects that don’t have a lot of life to begin with like Hope Floats.  (Doesn’t Hope Floats actually have basically the same plot as this movie?) There’s some sort of bit where they are out in the woods and Renee is in some complicated snowsuit and has to pee and she can’t unzip it or something and Harry, like, lifts her up by the snowsuit and it all just looks very unpleasant. 

The trailer voice-over describes this movie as “a cross between Legally Blonde and Sweet Home Alabama,” which only made me reflect on how much more charming I find Reese Witherspoon than Renee Zellwegger.  Stories like this annoy me because I feel like they usually make both the city people and the small town people look stupid.  The small town people are always, like, condescendingly precious and out-of-touch, not having seen cell phones before or whatever, and yet are much more “pure” and “real” than the city people, who generally only care about work and being mean and are clearly incapable of leading authentic lives.  New in Town looks really unoriginal – even the title is blah – and to add insult to injury, stars Harry Connick Jr. as the male lead.  No, thanks!

On Yoga

Surprisingly, one aspect of my life that has actually improved during unemployment is my physical well-being.  Instead of going to work, I actually have time to go running (er, and by “running,” I mean “walking fast and occasionally jogging for a block until I get out of breath and wheezy”)  and to plan healthy meals.  I’ve already lost all of the weight I gained during the Disgusting Bingefest Month of December and am feeling pretty fit and good about myself. (This doesn’t mean I don’t want a job, though.  Hire me, please.)

I attended a yoga class the other day.  I have a complicated relationship with yoga.  I like it, but I think I always think I like it more than I actually like it because 90% of the time I either find that the classes a) make me want to die because I just CANNOT MAKE MY BODY DO THAT, or b) are too touchy-feely and boring.

I don’t think that I am that acquainted with my inner, spiritual life.  I cannot meditate.  When I try to meditate, I end up pondering the plot of LOST, which is a subject well worth pondering, but I don’t think it’s exactly the point.  I hate saying “Namaste” when the class ends.  It makes me feel sort of phony, like I am pretending to be all, like, down with Eastern culture in sort of a shallow way, like that annoying woman who wrote Eat, Pray, Love.

The super yoga-intense people kind of freak me out, too.  They always seem serene in a way I admire, but also … sort of uppity as if they think that they are better than me just because they weigh 100 pounds and have expensive yoga clothes while I am wearing a shirt with Strawberry Shortcake on it.  Before class starts, the hardcore yoga-istas contort their bodies in bizarre positions while I try to touch my toes.  I get a little closer every day!

I do like yoga, though.  I like the stretching and I like the way I feel after class is over.  I finally found a class filled with mostly 70 year olds who have undergone hip replacement surgery and I think it just may be the class for me. 

Namaste.

Embarassing Moments at the Laundromat

I avoided Marley & Me when the movie opened this Christmas, mostly because the trailers reminded me of Beethoven (with Owen Wilson in the Charles Grodin role).  However, I picked up the book recently because … well, because I like to read and am currently unemployed.  I don’t claim to be highbrow.  I already admitted to having read Confessions of a Shopaholic, okay?

Anyway, the book is not really like Beethoven, but is actually a fairly entertaining slice of life story about family, marriage, and dog ownership.  The  prose is certainly nothing special and it won’t go down as one of the Great Reads of Our Time or anything like that, but it was a breezy read that I had been finding entertaining enough.

Entertaining enough, that is, until I reached the last several chapters at the laundromat today.  I don’t think it’s a huge spoiler to say that in a book about a life with a dog, the dog will get old.  And we all know what happens when dogs get old. 

As I read about the aging family pet, I started to get that choked up feeling in the back of my throat.  I sniffled a little.  I should have known to put the book down then and just succumbed to watching the hypnotic dryer cycle, but I kept reading.  My eyes welled up.  “HOLD IT TOGETHER!” I yelled at myself internally. “YOU’RE IN PUBLIC!  IF YOU START CRYING NOW, YOU WILL BE EVEN WEIRDER THAN THAT WOMAN WHO INTRODUCED YOU TO HER CATS AT THE LAUNDROMAT A FEW WEEKS AGO!”

My internal monologue was all for naught, however.  I cried.  I wasn’t emitting huge, racking sobs or anything like that, but I was definitely crying.  At the laundromat.  Over a book with Jennifer Aniston on the cover. 

I think I need to find a new place to do my laundry.

The Most Delicious Thing in the World

Most people find themselves adapting to the tastes of those in their environment.  I don’t even think it’s a conscious effort in most cases.  We just see people enjoying a certain food/beverage/activity and think, “Hmm.  That looks interesting,” try it for ourselves, and then all of a sudden, we’re one of the masses.

For example, I was never really a beer drinker before living in Boston, and then, was introduced to the fact that Samuel Adams has an ale for every season.  There is light and lemony Summer Ale for lazy June nights or (best of all) Pumpkin Ale for the crisp New England falls.  Anyway, people in Los Angeles don’t really care about good ole Sam that much, and I think I reveal myself as a transplant every time I ask for it in a bar.

One thing Angelenos do enjoy?  Frozen yogurt.  When I lived in LA several years ago, I was obsessed with Penguin’s Frozen Yogurt. There was a Penguin’s on the corner of my old street in West LA and I would often takes walk there to imbibe in a delicious sundae-that-is-not-actually-a-sundae.  Chocolatey goodness without the guilt! 

Since I moves back to California, my frozen yogurt obsession has resurfaced in full force, but in my absence, a new type of froyo has emerged that is LACED WITH CRACK. (Not really, but it’s so addictive that it may as well be.) And it can be found at a dealer known as Pinkberry. 

When I first tried Pinkberry’s frozen yogurt, I didn’t even like it.  Now I love it so much that I cannot even imagine what it must feel like to not enjoy Pinkberry.  It’s like not liking … coffee or air or John Hughes movies.  I have no idea what they put in this stuff.  Some people say it’s not even yogurt.  According to the website, “Pinkberry is swirly goodness. It’s a love affair with chilly bliss.”  Usually, I would scoff that this description doesn’t really elucidate what Pinkberry actually is, but you know … YES, it IS a love affair with chilly bliss!  It IS swirly goodness!  I can’t think of a better way to describe it. 

Not only is Pinkberry amazingly delicious, but there are only 100 calories per half cup, which makes it a favorite with all of the body and health-conscious types here in southern California. I was once at a Pinkberry eagerly awaiting my turn to order, while the woman in front of me asked the girl behind the counter, “So … are there more calories in yogurt chips or chocolate chips?  I mean, which one is HEALTHIER?  How many grams of sugar are in chocolate chips?”  (I bit back my own response: “Try FRUIT, lady. I guarantee you strawberries are healthier than chocolate chips.”)

If you live in LA or New York City and haven’t tried Pinkberry, go.  Go now.  Start with a plain with strawberries and kiwi.  Oh, and they have mochi – you just have to ask for it. I recently decided to cut back on my Pinkberry consumption, not because it was too caloric or too expensive, but because I thought that if I ate it too much, I’d lose my taste for it, and I cannot imagine anything sadder.

Movie Trailer Snap Judgments: Confessions of a Shopaholic

When I first saw the trailer for this movie, I thought, “Oh, this looks stupid, but I like Isla Fisher,” but then it occurred to me that I actually like Amy Adams, and I don’t really have an opinion on Isla Fisher at all.  So that leaves my opinion of this trailer as, “Oh, this looks stupid.”

I actually read Confessions of a Shopaholic years ago and while I don’t remember the details of the plot, I do remember being frustrated while reading because all of the heroine’s problems would be solved if she would JUST STOP BUYING THINGS. I am no financial whiz, but even I can figure that out.  Rebecca, stay home. Bake cookies. Watch a TLC What Not to Wear marathon.  Just STOP SHOPPING.

In these trying economic times, I think that a story about an idiot who keeps purchasing designer clothes and bags and whatnot when she has no way of paying for them is even more infuriating than it would be otherwise.  Can audiences really relate to the idea of dropping thousands of dollars on luxury items when they are struggling just to make rent?  The entire trailer makes the movie look like a mishmash of discarded jokes from Bridget Jones’ Diary and Sex and the City with additional shrieking and squawking.  But I don’t think Carrie Bradshaw would be caught dead in Rebecca Bloomwood’s wardrobe and Carrie wore a weird blue feather in her hair on her wedding day. 

This movie appears to fall into the category of “There would be no plot if the main character showed a modicum of common sense,” which makes it skippable. However, just to prove I am not a total romantic comedy curmudgeon, I actually think the trailer for He’s Just Not That Into You looks sort of - dare I say it ?- cute.

10 Things about the Golden Globes

1. Drew Barrymore, your HAIR!  I know that hair-wrangling can be hard, especially when it is windy as it has been here in LA recently.  But I think a better way to combat the windy hair mess is a tight updo, not that psychotic bouffant you were sporting.

2. Colin Farrell, what is WRONG with you?  The awesome thing about the Golden Globes is that all of the celebs get a little drunk which makes for amusing acceptance moments, but dude could barely get a coherent sentence out.  I know he said that his on-stage sniffling was “a cold, not what it was before,” but I’m not sure that can be believed.

3. Alec Baldwin is so funny as Jack Donaghy that I cannot argue with any award going his way, but the X-Phile in me was still pulling for David “the man, the myth, the monotone” Duchovny, even though I am only a sporadic viewer of Californication.  He’s had a tough year.  Also, he looked fantastic – younger than he has in quite awhile. His little anecdote about his wife while presenting seemed calculated to prove to Hollywood that his marriage is back on track, though.

4. I want to be Kate Winslet when I grow up.

5. Or Tina Fey.

6. Slumdog Millionaire was excellent – inspiring and gritty and really, the most special movie I’ve seen this year.  It was fun to see Dev Patel’s and Freida Pinto’s growing excitement as the evening went on. Kudos!

7. Aw, Heath: his win was sobering and bittersweet.  I rolled my eyes when Tom Cruise was the first to burst out of his chair in applause with that oh-so-serious look on his face, though, ostensibly to prove what a Good Person he is.  Tom, your appearance in  Tropic Thunder was mildly amusing, but you still creep everyone out.  Don’t push it.

8. Mickey Rourke!  Loved his raw performance in The Wrestler.  The shallow side of me wonders what it would feel like to have people say things about you like, “Did you see Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler?  He was amazing!  He looked like shit!”

9. Shallow fashion/style notes – Not a fan of the asymmetrical shoulder thing.  Maggie Gyllenhaal, liked that your dress was interesting, but really didn’t love the dress. Zellwegger, you looked horrific. Wow, Seth Rogan lost weight.  Miley Cyrus – GO AWAY! Rumer Willis – GO EVEN FARTHER AWAY!

10.  All in all, glad to have awards season back in its full glory this year.  Watching the Globes was a great capper to a lovely, sunny weekend here in Los Angeles.

Lessons Learned from Gossip Girl: Turtlenecks

I was looking for a screencap to better illustrate the point I wanted to make in this entry, but could not find one.  But if you saw Monday’s (excellent) episode of Gossip Girl, you will know what I am talking about.

I have always been a fan of Rufus Humphrey.  In fact, I’d say that Rufus is my favorite Humphrey.  I’ve always rooted for Rufus and Lily’s relationship, and I did not even roll my eyes too heavily at his “Being a father is what I AM” speech this Monday night.  That’s how much I like Rufus.  (The Rufus-Lily child better not be a current Gossip Girl character.)

HOWEVER, the turtleneck Rufus was sporting on Monday night was a GIGANTIC NO!  Here is what I learned from Rufus’s turtleneck:

1. Beige turtlenecks make one look pudgy, even if they are not at all. (Matthew Settle is no doubt very handsome and lean and if it made him look pudgy, then the rest of us should stay far, far away from these offending sartorial items.)

2. If one must wear a beige turtleneck, do NOT wear said turtleneck with bangs brushed forward.  This will make a person’s face look squished together.

3. Likable television characters might be a tad less likable in episodes in which they are clad in beige turtleneck sweaters.  I am not certain if this is a result of the turtleneck itself or simply a coincidence, but the correlation cannot be denied.

Let’s hope we never see that thing again.

5 reasons why Edward Cullen is a BAD boyfriend

Warning: Spoilers for the Twilight series therein. And I guess I am now outing myself as someone who had read the entirety of the Twilight series.

A lot of pre-teens – and their moms – are swooning over Stephenie Meyer’s vampire creation, Edward Cullen, these days.  The series of novels about the romance between vampire Edward and human girl Bella is extraordinarily popular, even drawing comparisons to J.K. Rowling’s (much, much superior) Harry Potter series.  And the film version of the first book brought in a whopping $70.6 million at the box office during its opening weekend, the highest ever gross for a female director.

While there is a certain pulpy fun to these novels (except for the last one which may be the worst thing I’ve ever read, full-stop), I am sort of disturbed by girls wearing “Team Edward” tee-shirts and even more disturbed by Facebook groups called things like “Because of Edward Cullen, human boys have lost their charm.”  No! While Robert Pattinson, Edward’s portrayer, is very handsome and has cool hair, Edward Cullen should not be held up as some sort of romantic standard for young girls.  Here’s why:

1. He’s really condescending.  I didn’t count the number of instances in the book where Edward chuckles at something (admittedly probably bone-headed) Bella has said, but it happens a lot.  And he calls her “absurd” MORE THAN ONCE.

2. Edward sneaks into Bella’s room to watch her sleep.  Weird, stalker-esque, and Not Okay.

3. He uses sex to emotionally blackmail Bella into marrying him.  In the third book, Eclipse, Bella is hesitant to marry Edward since she is only 18, but informs Edward that she would like to have sex with him before he turns her into a vampire. (Yes, she’s cool with committing herself to an entire afterlife as a member of the undead, but is twitchy about marriage. It makes no sense. Just go with me.) Edward responds that he will have sex with Bella before she is turned – but only if they are married.  Regardless of where one stands on the issue of teen sex, can we agree that using sex as a tool of manipulation is not a good sign?

4. He’s really controlling.  He pays his sister to kidnap Bella to keep her “safe.”  And slashes her tires so she can’t go somewhere. Basically, he is constantly doing manipulative things under the guide of “protecting” Bella.  Like, abandoning her for her own good in New Moon or telling her other suitor, Jacob, to have non-vampire spawn with her in Breaking Dawn.  What about what BELLA wants? Granted she’s an idiot who can barely cross the street on her own, but Edward never gives her a say in her own life.

5. Weird about women/sex/gender issues, in general.  So he’s over 100 years old.  Still.  Scenes like this make me cringe:

I ended up in my only skirt – long, khaki-colored, still casual. I put on
the dark blue blouse he’d once complimented. A quick glance in the mirror
told me my hair was entirely impossible, so I pulled it back into a pony tail.

Okay.” I bounced down the stairs. “I’m decent.”

He was waiting at the foot of the stairs, closer than I’d thought, and I
bounded right into him. He steadied me, holding me a careful distance away
for a few seconds before suddenly pulling me closer.

“Wrong again,” he murmured in my ear. “You are utterly indecent -
no one should look so tempting, it’s not fair.”

“Tempting how?” I asked. “I can change. . . “

He sighed, shaking his head. “You are so absurd.”

(See what I mean about the “absurd”?)  Why can’t Edward just say that Bella looks pretty?  Instead, he calls her “indecent”!  And it’s not as if Bella is decked out in hooker-wear; she has on a KHAKI SKIRT!  Sigh. At another point, he refers to her virginity as her “virtue” and says that he doesn’t want to take it so she still has a chance of getting into heaven.  ARRRGH!

I hope the young girls idolizing Edward are not dooming themselves to lives of dealing with dysfunctional men.

Movie Trailer Snap Judgments: Last Chance Harvey

Somehow, I’ve managed to see the trailer for Last Chance Harvey approximately 87 times.  For some reason, it has preceded almost every movie I’ve seen over the last couple of months and now to my chagrin, it is making it’s way onto the television landscape, as well. I have seen it so much that I have it memorized.

This movie stars Dustin Hoffman as a divorcee or something who may be kind of a jerk or maybe just lazy.  He travels to London for his daughter’s wedding only to find out that she is having her stepfather give her away.  Dustin is sad.  So Dustin stops in a pub and orders a drink and Emma Thompson is sitting there reading a book and drinking a glass of wine. And when Dustin orders the drink, Emma’s all, “That won’t help,” and Dustin snarks back, “Neither will that trashy book and glass of Chardonnay.”

Already I hate these people.  If I go into a bar by myself to order a drink, the last thing I want is some know-it-all commenting on their perceived notions about my life and problems. But since it is a romantic comedy both of them are charmed by snotty behavior and the flirtation commences.

Anyway, Emma and Dustin end up hanging out around London and at one point, Emma’s mom calls and she’s like, “I’m out. YES WITH A MAN,” and Dustin’s standing there, all smirky.  (I bet Emma’s mom is WACKY!) Oh, and then Dustin invites Emma to go to the daughter’s wedding and she’s like, “I can’t go in green polyester!” (And I admit, she sort of looks cute at that point.) And Dustin’s like, “Are you trying to get me to buy you a dress?” Blah blah trying on dresses montage blah. I can’t believe that even the trying on dresses montage is in the trailer. They go to the wedding and dance and sparks fly and – oh no! – it’s time for Dustin to leave town.  But will Emma meet him to carry on their whirlwind romance?!  Even though they BARELY KNOW EACH OTHER?!

Yes, ALL OF THAT IS IN THE TRAILER.  I know.  This trailer does the world’s most annoying thing movie trailers can do in that it pretty much depicts the entire film.  We see the characters meet cute; we see them bond; we see them face splitting up.  It’s all there!  Money’s tight these days; why would I spend $10 on a movie I’ve essentially seen already?

Last Chance Harvey is actually getting decent reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, so I may be wrong about its level of annoyingness.  But I have to say, it looks really twee and predictable.  Emma Thompson is a lovely and charming actress, but Hoffman appears to be smug and leering throughout most of the movie.  (Hoffman hasn’t done a lot for me in recent years in general, as accomplished as he is.)

Basically, it is doubtful that anything surprising occurs in the thin plot of this movie.  If anything surprising did happen, I’m sure it would be in the trailer.

Oh, and I lived in London for a year, and it is never as consistently sunny there as it looks on film.