The Week in Pop Culture

• The "new" Office this week was a clip show.  It actually wasn't so bad, and I admire their restraint in waiting so long to do one.  Friends did a clip show in, like, season two.
• Painful: Julianne Moore's wicked bad, bad Boston accent in 30 Rock.  Oh, just BAD.  Didn't someone have the heart to take her aside and tell her?
• Madonna in the Dolce & Gabbana print ads: Yikes.  Her lips are puffed out beyond recognition, and her face has that plastic filled-in look.  This kind of work is just so obvious.
  
• I don't care, I'm still not planning to see Avatar.
• Last season was the most boring Project Runway ever, but I'm giving it another chance.  It's back in New York, which helps a lot, and Michael (salute) and Nina (wave) appear to be back on as regulars.  Tim just seems to be getting crankier and crankier with every passing season, though.
• Flight of the Conchords Season Two, Disc One has now been in my home for 30 days and I have yet to watch it. 

Bad.

Movie Round-Up

We saw several movies recently. My thoughts:

The Ugly Truth - Ugh. A week after seeing this movie, I both can't remember it and also kind of can't stop thinking about it. I can't remember it because there was absolutely nothing memorable about it - nothing funny or touching. Yet I also can't stop thinking about how Hollywood really just cranks out a lot of pointless drivel, and this movie is a perfect example of that. I'm also not a big Katherine Heigl fan, which doesn't help (I am so not one of those girls who's all into Grey's Anatomy).

Funny People - Good movie. Seth Rogan is thinner. He's still likeable, though. I think the last Adam Sandler movie I saw was The Wedding Singer, and it's weird to see him being rather serious and morose, and kind of a jerk. I remember when he was the young cute guy on SNL, so I felt a little old seeing him depicted as a middle-aged guy. Leslie Mann? Well, she certainly married well. She's guaranteed a role in every Apatow movie made. Though that's not such a great thing - I didn't like any of the women in this movie - all two of them. The female characters were just so flat and unsympathetic. Jason Schwartzman was in the movie - an interesting addition to the Apatow gang. Is he looking to branch out beyond the Wes Anderson circle, especially since the last couple of movies weren't so good? Final thought: I am just not very interested in watching home movies of the Apatow children.

Up - Finally saw it - this is the first movie I've taken the kids to. I thought it was sweet, touching, and a little sad. It was kind of intense in some parts -- this is really supposed to be a children's movie? I kept looking at Ben (8) & Bridge (6) to make sure they were OK. They were.

One of the best parts of Up for me: the picture that Ben drew of it afterwards. I really liked his carefully depicted balloons, and I LOVED how he included 4:15, the showtime we went to (we didn't see it in 3D though, so I'm not sure why he included that).

Matthew McConaughey's Best Role Ever

We've had cable for just over a month now. Before that, I lived sans cable for four years. And last night I experienced one of the forgotten joys of cable: flipping around and catching the last 1/2 hour of a movie you love. That just doesn't happen when you only have the major networks plus one Spanish and two Chinese channels (and the latter three get the best reception, natch).

Juno seems to be on every time I turn on the TV, but last night Sweetie and I caught the last half of Dazed and Confused, a movie we both love. And we got to experience the joy of MM's best role ever, the deliciously creepy Wooderson. He is SO much better here than in any of his subsequent rom-coms.

Away We Zzzzzzz.....

So far, this has been the summer of lackluster movies. It's so sad when you really, really look forward to seeing something, and then it's not so great. The latest example of this is Away We Go, a movie that seemed to have so much going for it: 1) It stars John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph, 2) directed by Sam Mendes, 3) written by Dave Eggers and his wife with the fun name, Vendela Vida. PLUS, as a happily engaged person, I am a sucker for anything relationship, wedding and/or baby related lately.

But...it kind of just dragged on. The best part was with Maggie Gyllenhaal, who played a super-annoying, hippie-dippie earth mother chick. She was good because you were grossed out by her enough to be interested in what was going on. But that only lasted 15-20 minutes. Another good part was with the friends they visited in Montreal who were having their own problems, but again, that was over quick. The rest of the movie was pretty much zzzz....

Other disappointments: The Hangover. It lacked the surprising warmth of I Love You, Man, and wasn't nearly as funny or clever. And Management? Sorry Jennifer Aniston - I'll bet you were expecting it to be another Good Girl? It's not.

Oh well. I'd still rather sit through any of them again than watch Star Trek.