Tag Archives: entertainment

What I Learned This Week – 6/22/14

Posted on June 22, 2014 by funnygurl2

This week I was searching online for a picture of a thin male actor with shaggy blond hair in his 20’s I could use for some inspiration for a character in one of my novels. I tried Shaggy Rogers, but he is too animated. I tried to look up Disney actors, but they were all too buff or Zach Efron. I ran across a picture of Devon Sawa. I thought he might be perfect, if only I could find a picture of him a little older.

This week I learned that Devon Sawa grew up and got buff.

Devon Sawa before

Devon Sawa before

Devon Sawa Now

Devon Sawa now

Of all pictures of him on the Internet, he is skinny and young, or older, with muscles and tattoos. Not that that is a bad thing! It just isn’t what I was interested in for my character.

I also found out that Devon Sawa still acts! I just assumed, as happens to many teen heartthrobs, that after Night of the Twisters and Final Destination, he went off to college or something and never came back.

Apparently one of his more notable recent acting jobs was on The CW’s Nikita. I noticed that while he still keeps some of his young Devon sweetness, mostly he is all muscles and action now. He even got his gap-toothed smile fixed, which totally changes how he looks and talks. (It makes me a little sad.)

This leads us into the second thing I learned this week: The CW’s Nikita is a really good show.

I looked for it on Netflix, and IT WAS THERE! That NEVER happens!

I just started watching it this week. It actually aired from 2010-2013. Dang. It appears I found it about 6 months too late.

There have been a lot of previous versions of stories about Nikita. Just the ones I am aware of are:

La Femme Nikita (movie 1990) French

Single White Female (movie 1992) English remake starring Bridget Fonda

La Femme Nikita (USA Network TV Series 1997-2001) starring Peta Wilson

My asbestos friend totally loves the USA TV series La Femme Nikita. She doesn’t write about entertainment on her blog, as I do. But if she did, she totally would have written about that show by now. I have never watched it.

Devon Sawa doesn’t show up until the fifth episode on CW’s Nikita. By the time I got through the first four episodes, I was hooked.

I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to follow the black ops type plots, or that I wouldn’t like the characters. I was worried there would be nothing for me to like about it.

I was wrong.

The plots seem to be simplified, for people like me. I hate that they feel “dumbed-down”, but I like that I can watch it at 3:00AM and still follow the action with a cloudy brain and bleary eyes .

I don’t really like or hate Maggie Q, the actress who plays Nikita. But I love Shane West. I love Devon Sawa. And I was sooo pleasantly surprised to discover that Melinda Clarke (Julie Cooper-Nichol-Cooper-Atwood, herself!) is a regular in the cast. (Thank you, McG!) Clarke is sooo under-appreciated. She is under-used in the episodes I have watched so far, but I have a feeling that may change.

There is an actress named Lyndsy Fonseca who has a very big part as Alex. She is kind of a double agent. She has hair so amazing I start watching her hair and forget to listen to the dialogue. She looked familiar, but I didn’t know from where. When I looked it up, to my surprise, she played the “daughter” on How I Met Your Mother! The poor daughter who was stuck on the couch for eight years listening to Ted’s rambling story.

Lyndsy Fonseca as Alex on Nikita

Lyndsy Fonseca as Alex on Nikita Photo: IMDb.com

 

Fonseca is really good on Nikita. She can do more than just stare into a camera and look bored.

The show is a lot about missions and training and revenge. But as it is the CW, there are lots of hot guys with their shirts off who care more about the women around them than they let on.

I LOVE THAT!

Shane West performance as Michael, Nikita’s mentor, enemy, ally, love interest mesmerizes me. Admitted, so far his part mostly involves a lot of brooding. But there is a great scene where he finds out Nikita is alive after believing that she is dead. The emotions that cross his face are great. In real life, his boss would pick up on that in a moment and kill him for having feelings for her (but we will ignore such realism;).

I got to Season 1, Episode 9, One Way. It is the first time we see Michael and Nikita working together, side by side. I was so enthralled that I literally had to tear myself away from the TV and go to work. It was brutal, having to wait 8 hours to watch the final 10 minutes of the episode. I forgot my cell phone at home, so I could not even cheat and watch it on my lunch [half] hour! Then I came home and could not tear myself away from watching Nikita to go to bed. I blame the Netflix feature that automatically starts the next episode when the one you are watching has not yet reached the end of the credits.

So, ya. Now I have to watch all four seasons. I love the act of binge watching, but it really f’s up my life.

And, oh ya, I also found the body type I wanted for my story character:

Shane West

Shane West

Oh, and I am spending time dodging Facebook messages from my former high school classmates who want my address to send me an invite to our 20 year class reunion. We haven’t had any reunions before, why start now?

And, they totally must not read my blog. >:) [Insert evil laugh here.]

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What I Learned This Week – 5/11/14

Posted on May 11, 2014 by funnygurl2

This week a big, momentous achievement was reached in my goal toward self-publishing my own book.

I printed it out.

The longest story that I have ever written and printed, to date.

The longest story that I have ever written and printed, to date.

I know, that sounds really stupid.

In high school, I used to print out my stories all the time. But,

1. I didn’t have a computer at home to edit them on, so I had to use the hard copy.
2. My stories were short enough that I could print them out repeatedly.

My husband incorrectly assumed that because I printed out my story, that it was done. He questioned me when he saw I was immediately writing and editing on my newly printed pages.

No, it is not done. But, the achievement is in that it got to the stage where I needed to look at it on something other than a computer screen. And, I felt that it was worthy of “wasting” 115 pages of paper and ink to print it off. My husband is not a writer. He doesn’t understand my convoluted stages of writing, or the value I put on our limited supply of ink and paper.

I will revise, edit, and put away this draft, while I then proceed to do some preliminary editing on books 2 and 3 in the trilogy. Afterall, I need to make sure that the details and characters are consistent through all three books. Then, I will come back to book 1, update the file, and proofread it.

When I print it out the next time, I will tie my asbestos friend to a chair, hold her eyelids open, and force her to read it. And if she gives me any negative feed back, I will shock her with my dog’s shock collar.

But don’t tell her that.

Unfortunately, I also learned this week that 5 of the 12 TV shows I regularly watch will not be back next year. The following shows were cancelled this week. Some have links to other posts you can click through and read more about that show.

Star-Crossed
The Tomorrow People (This has consistently been one of my most popular posts for the last few months.)
Suburgatory
Super Fun Night
Enlisted

Most are not surprises, but I will miss them anyway. I believe that Star-Crossed and The Tomorrow People were The CW’s attempts at putting some of that special effect heavy, super-hero type stuff that plays well in the theater on their channel. And they were really well done. But, I think already having shows like Supernatural, Vampire Diaries, and The Orignals, The CW probably just couldn’t keep up the special effects budges on all those shows. The CW will have to stick to cheaper shows, such as Hart of Dixie. Which is a real shame. These two shows were like reading a short sci-fi teen romance novel each week, except better, because you could just watch it. They were the perfect shows for me. Or maybe I was the perfect audience for them.

The fact that ABC cancelled Super Fun Night isn’t shocking. ABC never really promoted it, and therefore it never found an audience. It was a nice little bit of escape on Wednesday nights that I enjoyed, along with actor Kevin Bishop who played Richard Royce. Now he will be off on his business trip to Berlin, indefinitely:(

I loved the first two seasons of Surburgatory, but it was just off this season and never regained it’s footing. I hope the series finale will find Ryan and Tessa reunited. In real life, that relationship wouldn’t work. But I think the actors both have chemistry and I like to watch it.

Ryan & Tessa breaking up on Suburgatory

Ryan & Tessa breaking up on Suburgatory

And it is possible that Ryan could show up on Suburgatory again, now that the actor who plays him, Parker Young, have more spare time, as the show he left Suburgatory to co-star in, Enlisted, has now been canceled by FOX as well. I was never a fan of the army setting, but the cast was great. Playing the other two Hill brothers were Geoff Stults (of the cancelled “October Road”, which I own the DVDs of both seasons) and Chris Lowell (who I just recently got to watch as Piz on the cancelled “Veronica Mars”).

Here is to hoping that all these fine actors find new shows in which to star in future television pilot seasons.

Oh, how cool would it be if they ALL ended up in the same show together!

Mind blown.

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What I Learned This Week – 4/27/14

Posted on April 27, 2014 by funnygurl2

This week I learned that Avril Lavigne had a new music video debut for her song “Hello Kitty.”

I also learned that the media has nothing good to say about it.

You might be wondering why I like songs by a young girl.  But she will actually turn 30 this year.

Then you will wonder why I like songs by a chick who can’t dress her age.  Maybe because I also tend to dress strangely on occasion.

Her music keeps me feeling young.  I have all her albums.

It is a wonderful, candy-coated cupcake land to make my senses dance! Still from "Hello Kitty" video

It is a wonderful, candy-coated cupcake-land to make my senses dance!
Still from “Hello Kitty” video

First, the media was saying that the song was racist.  I’m not sure why.  I read in one article that it was because the Asian women behind her were expressionless as they danced, perpetuating some sort of ‘Asian women are submissive’ stereotype.  I’m not sure what that says about the white women behind Robert Palmer or African-American backup dancers in a rap video.

Then Entertainment Weekly (who I usually love), came out with this article:

A serious attempt to explain Avril Lavigne’s ‘Hello Kitty’ music video  http://popwatch.ew.com/2014/04/22/avril-lavigne-hello-kitty-music-video/

NOTE:  The guy who got assigned to the article didn’t even know that he was supposed to find the video racist.

The article angered me for many reasons.  It compares Avril to every other female artist in the last 20 years. Why?  She has to compete with Katy Perry shooting whip cream out of her tits.  Everyone thought that was a stroke of genius.  Avril is herself. That is who she has always been, even when she was being dissed for her skater girl clothes and pop-punk songs.  The writer also decides to go take advantage of his page space to “go off” on pop-punk.  Guess what?  She is still punk-y and pop-py and wearing her raccoon eyeliner and still selling tons of albums and getting radio airplay.  She must be doing something right.

The article spends more time talking about Gwen Stephanie’s “Hollaback Girl” than it does Avril’s video.  And I rewatched Gwen’s video, and find no similarities.  Gwen’s Harajuku girls are dressed up as gangstas.  What the hell is THAT about?

When the writer runs out of other nonsensical things to criticize Avril about, he start on the grammar of her song.  Really?  Since when are song lyrics held up to the same standards as that of high school English students.

Here is Avril’s response to the racist allegations, complete with more put-downs from EW:

Avril Lavigne responds to criticism that her ‘Hello Kitty’ video is racist  http://music-mix.ew.com/2014/04/24/avril-lavigne-hello-kitty-video-racist-response/

I am mad that the video has poor directing, but part of that could be that Avril used a Japanese director.  They do things different there.

People should be offended that I am pretty sure this song is sooo dirty:

Come come Kitty Kitty
You’re so pretty pretty
Don’t go Kitty Kitty
Stay with me
Come come Kitty Kitty
You’re so silly silly
Don’t go Kitty Kitty
Play with me

Um, is “Kitty” what I think it is?

If anyone should be mad about the video, it should be diabetics!  The song includes the lyrics:

Let’s all slumber party
Like a fat kid on a pack of Smarties
Someone chuck a cupcake at me

If I was a fat kid, I would be offended by that!  And the video is enough to put anyone into a sugar coma.  But I can’t stop listening or watching it because it is so catchy & I find her cupcake skirt mesmerizing.

Here is Avril’s “Hello Kitty” video, so that you may judge for yourself.  It is near 3 million views.

My conclusion is that you should not be mad that the video is racist or cheesy.  You should be mad that it is dirty and sugary.  But hey, it worked for Def Leppard.  (Hey, their NAME isn’t even spelled properly!)

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Get To Know Dinky Bossetti

Posted on April 9, 2014 by funnygurl2

I have always had a problem when someone (or an Internet quiz) asks me what my favorite movie is.

1. Movies are not my medium of choice. Television is.

2. Several come to mind, but none seem good enough to be called my all-time favorite.

But when I pulled Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael off my overflowing DVD shelf today, I knew that I might have a winner. I have watched this movie numerous times over the years.

Photo: Paramount Pictures

Photo: Paramount Pictures

Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael is a movie starring Winona Ryder. Now, you might think that an 80’s movie starring Winona Ryder was of course a huge hit. But it wasn’t. You probably have never even heard of it. It was more offbeat than her usual offbeat.

In the movie they talk about how bad her hair is. But I would look at this pic and wish mine looked that good. Photo: TV Guide, April 13, 1991

In the movie they talk about how bad her hair is. But I would look at this pic and wish mine looked that good.
Photo: TV Guide, April 13, 1991

I think the biggest reason it was not a hit was that it was a very 80’s movie…that came out in 1990. By then, the world was moving on from big hair and poofy clothes. It actually works in the movie, because it takes place in tiny Clyde, Ohio. You are supposed to get the impression that they are rural and behind the times. But that didn’t come across in the movie previews.

The main young guy in the movie that has a crush on Winona’s character, and she on him, isn’t exactly heartthrob material. Instead of a Jake Ryan from Sixteen Candles, Gerald is more of a wannabe Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High. We see how much he cares for Dinky by how he stalks her.

Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael also suffers because while it stars Ryder, much of the action and story of the film focuses on the adults around her in her life. Her adopted parents struggle with Ryder’s antisocial behavior. Ryder herself clings on to her guidance counselor and the local landscaper as mother and father role models, respectively. (Whoa. I never quite realized that until I just now typed it.) We also become involved in the life of the former best friend who is returning to town, which leads us to…

The fact that while the movie is called Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael, and Winona Ryder is the lead, she does not, in fact, play Roxy Carmichael. Ryder plays Dinky Bossetti. The audience never even SEES Roxy Carmichael’s face, and SPOILER ALERT, Roxy never, in fact, returns home.

So, it is a teen movie featuring adults. Or an adult movie with teens, I’m not sure. It is a movie behind its time in fashion and moral. But a bit ahead of its time, in that it does contain a big gay reveal for two of its characters. And a disappointing departure for a Winona Ryder film, in that she does not in fact lose her virginity in this one 😦

I believe I always deeply connected with this film not because of the large amount of carpet samples, but because it shows that no matter what your family looks like, as a teenager, you just don’t fit. Anywhere. EVER!

I watched this movie the morning of my high school graduation on HBO. It perfectly echoed everything I felt about my school career that would be officially ending in a few hours. From the scene where Dinky tries to make herself more attractive, only to end up on the school bus floor, to finding that you can’t make the world fit what you want it to be, you have to find a way to fit into your world (wow, deep).

The bus floor grime is highly realistic. So are the cafeteria horrors that she endures. The costumer dresses her in dog tags, hoodies, and boots to illustrate her anti-social tendencies.

Wait…that is what I wore in high school. Hmmm. Was I too cool to care what I looked like? Ahead of my time? Or just horribly dorky? These are rhetorical questions.

There was something fitting about her sitting on the lawn in the pink floofy dress, eating ice cream with Gerald and his new braces at the end that made me know everything would still be hard, but it would be OK.

Many other great things about this movie that I would rather list than try to fit into paragraph form:

My favorite quote from the movie:

“It’s good to want things.”

Dinky says it to Gerald, and he later turns around and uses it on her. It is applicable to tons of real-life situations.

Gosh, and I forgot to mention Melissa Etheridge’s great version of the central song in the movie “In Roxy’s Eyes (I Will Never Be The Same)”. We find out that Roxy Carmichael is only famous because a singer made her the object of a hit song. But, as an audience, we believe it, because Etheridge wrote and belts out a REALLY great song.

Or the other fine quote: “I’m gonna laugh at you someday Gerald Howells.” I want to say that to many of my former classmates.

Or the work of the always excellent Jeff Daniels, proud Michigan native, resident (30 miles to my north in the land of Jiffy Mixes), and friend of Adrian College. Daniels always plays such likeable characters, and he is good-looking. My best friend and I were going to stalk him one night, but she was driving and she chickened out. (I would not have.)

The school counselor: That’s a funny analogy.
Dinky: I’m here to amuse.

AND ALMOND ROCAS! Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael really plays as a giant Almond Roca commercial. I had never heard of this candy until I saw this movie. And then it would be another 20 years before I would actually see them in stores and try them. Soooo yummy, by the way.

“Dave, don’t be a cliché.” In the movie, this is told to a pig trying to steal another animal’s food. I tell it to my dog when she tries to pee on fire hydrants.

The movie also featured a great supporting cast of Dinah Manoff, Stephen Tobolowsky, Robin Thomas, and Micole Mercurio.

I feel like I am the only person out there who ever saw and/or loved this movie. Although that cannot be true, because it was released in DVD. So, if you are out there, please give me a shoutout.

BONUS MOM RANT: Oh, and FYI, the morning of my high school graduation my mom wanted to clean the bathroom after her shower, but before mine, so that when my gramma came, it would be clean. Except my gramma came over once a month or so, she had seen our bathroom dirty before. And my mom almost made me late for my own graduation because she just had to clean the bathroom.

 

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Kesha

Posted on March 12, 2014 by funnygurl2

The singer Kesha has bothered me since I first read about her in Entertainment Weekly. She has a lot of songs about partying and drinking, which made me think she isn’t a very good influence for the teenage girls that her songs attract. She also said in the interview that she didn’t like to wear pants.

Um, what?

Not in the ‘Britney Spears getting out a a car’ way. Kesha seems to mean it in the ‘I wear dance leotard-like outfits, instead of pants or shorts or skirts’ way. It seems to be just like how Miley doesn’t like to wear clothes.

What is with these girls today?!

My mom tells me stories about how she was not allowed to wear pants to school because she was a girl. Only skirts were allowed.

That was like an actual school rule!

Even in the winter!!!

I have always been VERY grateful that I live in a time that it is acceptable for women to wear pants and jeans. I am also grateful that I live in a time where yoga pants are increasingly accepted as outerwear as well.

But, damn it, all of Kesha’s songs are so catchy. Even the ones about partying and drinking. And I like that some songs seem to route for individualism, for the misfits. She is a good singer too.

And when she went off to rehab about two months ago for an eating disorder, she made a statement that I thought was very profound:

“I’m a crusader for being yourself and loving yourself but I’ve found it hard to practice,” she tells E! News. “I’ll be unavailable for the next 30 days, seeking treatment for my eating disorder…to learn to love myself again. Exactly as I am.”
From: eonline.com/news/

Apparently, she realized her own problem and checked herself into rehab. Which I think is sad, because looking at these pictures side by side, it seems obvious to me that she had a problem and was going through something. Anyone close to her in her family or “posse” should have realized and taken action.

You can't even tell this is the same girl...

You can’t even tell this is the same girl…

She just got out of rehab this week. I saw it reported that she plans to make important life changes, the first of which are changing her hair and dropping the “$” from her name. Hopefully, all these changes will stick and be for the better.

Here is a video of “Timber” with Pitbull featuring Kesha.  There are many things wrong with this video, including but not limited to: Pitbull, jumpy editing, objectification of women (including a too-skinny Kesha), video doesn’t match the song, video segments don’t match each other, etc.  But, the beat and Kesha’s parts are awesome.

This would be one of those cases where I feel overly emotionally involved in the life of a celebrity. Maybe empathetic is a good way to describe it. Like how bad I felt for Paris Jackson at her father Michael’s funeral. She has tons of money and people around her. She doesn’t need me to worry about her.

Except maybe when she goes to a treatment center for a suicide attempt as happened in June of 2013. I guess what I really mean to say is that my worrying or thinking about a celebrity I will never meet does them no good.

Unless you believe in the law of attraction.

That maybe somehow all those good wishes are reaching them.

Because I might believe that…

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