Reviewed: Sadness

I’m sad.

Maybe it’s the WGA strike. Maybe it’s the approaching winter. Maybe I'm not eating enough chocolate. But something has signaled the blues and I don’t know what it is, although if I thought about it in depth I could probably figure it out. (I’m halfway through writing the last chapter of my book? Eek!) And now, after spending the last year alone at my computer every single day, dedicated to figuring out the lives of these fictional people I created, I’ve realized that a large majority of my real friends have flown the coop. Oops. It’s lonely work, writing. It’s lonely, soul-crushing work…

…and then Sydney Pollack decided in 1973 that’s how The Way We Were was going to end. I wish someone would explain it to me—Hubbell just abandons his daughter? And everyone is okay with this? I guess the good looks of Robert Redford in the 70’s carries the same amount of redeeming power as Oprah's likability in the ought’s.

0 Stars. Even the scene on the boat--when J.J. says to Hubbell, "It's not like losing somebody. Like losing Katie" and you just want to fling yourself dramatically on the couch, smiling and crying because it's just so happy and sad--doesn't make up for that ending. How come Katie's got to lose 70's Robert Redford? I'll never get over it.

Reviewed: Guitar Hero on Gossip Girl

I’ve never actually played Guitar Hero, but I’ve heard things. Even though in fifth grade my nickname was Nintendo Nut, I have never actually owned a game system (we occasionally got to rent one from Stars & Stripes, and I played Super Mario with my sisters at the Laundromat about once a week.) Last night’s episode of Gossip Girl featured Blake Lively strumming, dancing, swinging her gorgeous blond hair around, making "rock star" faces, singing along without knowing the words and color-coded button-pushing her way to a Guitar Hero "Freebird" performance that ended with all the party guests cheering at how cool she was. It was weird. I felt really embarrassed just watching it.

For the past couple weeks they’ve been setting up a tension between Serena Van der Wootsen (Lively) and her boyfriend--Dan’s--best friend, the exotically beautiful Vanessa. Last night it finally played out when the two girls challenged one another to reign over the (Wii/Playstation/X-Box?—I have no idea) video game at Blair’s party. They took turns brandishing the plastic guitar in front of all the other cool kids.

Which means, the cool kids play Guitar Hero.

I always thought the cool kids were too, well, cool to play video games in front of each other on a Saturday night.

3 Stars. I don't know, it just seems like the scene didn’t play.

Reviewed: Tazo White Cranberry Juice

It’s juice and it’s white tea, and other than that it’s just really really really good. (Sorry, I’ve got nothin’.)

100 Stars!

Reviewed: Tell Me You Love Me

People have been ragging on HBO’s freshman series for being boring, and originally I thought so, too. I basically just TiVo-ed it and then fast forwarded to all the sex parts (which are quite graphic and pretty steamy.) But I couldn’t help but pick up on the basic plots, which are contained within each of four separate couples; some who are breaking up, some who are coming together, and some who are trying figure out which they should do. The couples are connected by very, very loose threads, or even, sometimes just chance encounters, and for most of the season have had little to do with one another (besides the fact that, save one couple, they all have frequent sex that is given significant screen time, whether or not it applies to their story line.)

Last night I watched the season finale, and there was one scene that just totally astounded me. It was one of those rare moments when two members of the separate couples meet one another. Palek (who has just left his pregnant wife because he does not think he can be both a good father and good husband) and Dave (whose wife seems to be considering leaving him because they have not had sex in over a year) end up meeting over a construction disagreement, Palek being the contractor with a shipment of the wrong I-beams and Dave being the representative for the steel company who shows up to deal with the problem.

The interaction quickly escalates to a screaming match between the two men who are strangers to one another, and we, the audience, knows there is something bigger at work here, something going on in both of their respective lives that fuels the anger issuing forth. To an innocent observer it would look like two hotheads on the street, something to watch with bored amusement on your way to work, but HBO has quietly given us the inside perspective, the key to what unlocks each of their buttons, makes them react the way they do, and it is a moment that is poetic in its direction. The scene lasts just a couple minutes.

80 Stars.

Fun Boss Movie Day: The Fast & the Furious 3

Yesterday during a depressive funk I watched the second half of the Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift (after the embarrassing-to-admit hour I spent on youtube watching kutegirl85 and others' compiled clips of, in their opinion, the best movie kisses of all time. For the record, Titanic is totally overrepresented.) Curiously, all of a sudden I felt a desire for two things I have never wanted before in my entire life: 1) a street-style racecar, and 2) a gun. It was like being an entirely different person. An enlightened person.

Also, this new, enlightened person had a little crush on one of the actors. Not the main character, not Little Bow Wow, not the bad guy, but the bad guy’s sort-of friend, the guy who dies near the end of the movie (…uh…spoiler alert.) I forget what his name was since I was mostly paying attention to his doll-like face and sweet Tokyo-drifting.

I kind of want to know if you can actually drive cars like this. And if cell phones work the way they do in this movie then I need to try and get one of those kind.

Reviewed: The Plumbers Talk To Each Other About Their Ass-Hair

They both use a Mach 3. It’s the closest shave next to a straight razor.

49 Stars. I’m sorry but I have to rate high, just for the fact that they seemed to forget I was in the next room. Or maybe, this is Brooklyn. Or maybe, boys are gross.