Beyonce Anything

BOOM.

xo kate

All grown up

When did this happen?

So, we're big Zac Efron fans hear at W&W (but if you've ever clicked on the "About Us" tab, you already knew that).  We love the High School Musical movies, we were totally enchanted with his teenage dream romance with co-star Vanessa Hudgens, and even loved his freaky Friday-style comedy 17 Again.  (And maybe I've watched Charlie St. Cloud once or four times on HBO.)  But we had our limits, Zac Attac was a cute kid with a fantastic voice, but he wasn't a sex symbol.  However, I got over that in a hurry last week.  My sister and I went to see New Year's Eve, which was exactly as bad as all the critics said, with Zac Efron as the sole bright spot in an extremely accomplished cast. (And, while we're hovering around the subject, how the fuck did Hillary Swank win two Oscars?)  But my attitude about Mr. Efron changed before the movie even started, when I saw the preview for the new Nicholas Sparks drama, The Lucky One.  When did this Disney star get so hot?  I feel like I should be arrested for even writing that, but seriously, watch the preview.


I guess Troy Bolton is all grown up.  Eat your heart out, Vanessa Hudgens.

xo kate

I believe I can soar. I see me running through that open door.

This is one of those times when I have no words...


I Believe I can Fly ( flight of the frenchies). Trailer from sebastien montaz-rosset on Vimeo.

Preach.

I know this isn't the greatest picture, but
I'm absolutely obsessed with the coat he
wore in The Ides of March.

I've seen three movies in the past two months.  They have all starred Ryan Gosling.  He's fan-fucking-tastic at everything ever in life.  Clearly, others feel the same way.

xo kate

GTL Thursday: Cinema Italiano

The 2009 film Nine is pretty much crap compared to the Fellini film on which it was based.

Fellini's masterpiece, 8 1/2, cast a gritty fantasy of characters, flashbacks and dreams, that the musical was never able to capture. Even the pure genius of Daniel Day-Lewis couldn't save the updated film.

That said, I love Kate Hudson's rendition of Cinema Italiano.  Total wildcat. Thoughts?

Time is making fools of us again --Albus Dumbledore

Yes, I am 29 years old.

Yes, I already have my ticket to Harry Potter for this weekend.

Yes, I'll probably blubber through most of the movie.

No, I am not ashamed.

Are you going?

More on wizards here.

Ronnie and Julie

I miss the way we were, Mr. Cruise.

When I was leaving Boston and packing up my entire life to move to DC (via 1300 Cecil B. Moore Avenue) I had to make some pretty difficult decisions about what to pack and what to get rid of (give away, sell, donate, etc.).  Priceless family heirlooms, presents from former students and gifts from boyfriends past have to go through the "is it worth my $400 a month storage unit to pack this thing that I have no use for and probably won't think about again after today" gauntlet.  Perhaps no decision was as difficult as the decision to get rid of my VHS collection.  I went back and forth on this for days and eventually decided that since I was giving away my old school TV with the built in VCR to a happy and loving home, I should give away the old video tapes with it.  It was hard, but I did it.  Most of the tapes were things that you can pretty easily get on DVD or Netflix streaming, like Tom Cruise's entire collection from the late eighties, or Good Will Hunting (Why did I own this on VHS? And why do I watch it so often?  The first answer is unclear. The second is because it's awesome.)  I also owned the 2-tape sets of Braveheart and Gone With The Wind.  There was a certain romance to having to switch the tape in the middle of these epic tales that I rather enjoyed, but it's not like I couldn't see Rhett and Scarlett in another form.

One tape, though, sticks out as one that is more difficult to find, and equally epic.  Ronnie and Julie, a 1997 Canadian made for TV movie starring a pre-Dawson's Joshua Jackson and Margot Finley (who must have been sleeping with Pacey at the time, because her only famous movie is D3: The Mighty Ducks, also starring a young Mr. Jackson).  It was a reinterpretation of Romeo and Juliet set against the backdrop of a local mayorial race and featuring a hockey-playing Romeo and a figure skating Juliet.  It was Romeo and Juliet meets The Cutting Edge meets First Daughter.  Only Canadian.  And made for TV.  In middle school, me and my friend Julia used to rush home from school everyday to try and catch the end of it playing on Showtime, just praying that it wouldn't start to snow and mess up the signal. (If you want to see the business end of a hissy fit you should just try to mess up me and Julia's TV reception when we're watching anything starring Joshua Jackson.  And, yes, I wrote that sentence in the present tense on purpose.)  In short, it was phenomenal.  It also just happened to have an incredible theme song, Something Happened to My Heart, that Jules and I tried to buy on CD, but seemingly wasn't released in a pre-iTunes world.

I thought giving it away meant that I wouldn't get the chance to ever see this masterpiece again, but some lovely soul has uploaded Ronnie and Julie in it's entirety on YouTube.  Thank God for the Internet.  Here's a short clip, for those who aren't sure they want to commit to the whole thing, but be forewarned, you're definitely going to wanna watch the whole thing.


xo kate

Stop trying to make fetch happen.

xo kate

Stepping toward funny

I don't know about you guys, but I'm feeling enormous pressure for Bridesmaids (billed as the female The Hangover) to have a huge opening weekend.  I don't want to feel this pressure because it implies that everything women do has to be some statement about feminism and I don't like that.  But I feel it anyway.  Apparently, the future of comedic women in film is entirely riding on Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo's ability to write a funny movie, starring women and about women that can entertain men.  Although I think this is kind of a ridiculous premise -- if Bridesmaids doesn't do well it's not like women aren't going to continue to be funny and maybe a studio will even take a chance on them again in 75 years or so -- I do heavily resent the prevalent notion that women aren't funny.  Women are hilariously, smartly, stupidly, subtly and not-so-subtly, funny.  And, yet, men (and generally men who aren't very funny) are always telling me that we are not.

How many wedding photographers will force women to pose like this this
wedding season?  I'm guessing it will be roughly equal to the number of
wedding DJs playing Train's Marry Me at receptions.

While I agree that there are far fewer women comedians and women comedy writers than men, I think that this is attributable not to the fact that women aren't funny, but to the massive sexism throughout the entertainment industry.  It's much more difficult for women to get and stay in jobs as comedians and writers because these organizations are run like old boys clubs. (Even Jon Stewart, love of my life, has been accused of being a part of this institutionalized sexism in the workplace.)  From the earliest days of Saturday Night Live female cast members have been underrepresented (both on screen and in the writers room), under-promoted and over-terminated. Allegations abound of SNL producers of firing women over their weight.  Anyone who have ever watched SNL knows that this is not a problem that men on the show experience.  Women writers and cast members have routinely been undermine by male performers -- including SNL darling Jim Belushi who reportedly went out his way to undermine women because "women aren't funny."   SNL cast reunions are notoriously awkward with men squirming, denying and joking as women bring up the mistreatment they experienced.  Ingrained, institutionalized sexism exists throughout the film-making industry, and never is it more obvious than in comedy.

Funny girls.

But "women aren't funny" refrain is not just heard in Hollywood and live from New York, it prevails throughout society.  When describing what they look for in a mate, women consistently look for a man who "is funny", while men are more likely to describe a woman who "laughs at his jokes" or who "has a good sense of humor."   Women aren't expected to be funny, they are just expected to think that men are.  I think this common misconception comes from the same segment of the population that believed (or still believes) that women aren't smart.  Vanity Fair writer Christopher Hitchens writes that men are funny because they are trying to attract women and women aren't funny because they are trying to attract men.  Men don't wish to see women as rivals for comedy or anything else.  He then goes on to write a bunch of bullshit about how this relates to conception and men's overall inferiority to women and how the human condition is about the march to death women can't find the death of a child funny.  That part is a whole load of crap.  But the part about attracting the opposite sex is on the nose.  Women aren't thought to be funny because they aren't allowed to be funny.  If they are too funny, society assumes that they must be making up for something that is wrong with them, like they are fat, or ugly, or barren.  And, if they are pretty and thin and fertilely abled, they should only be funny in a way that is stupid -- like Cameron Diaz, or in a way that plays off the man's humor (the joke is the woman's reaction to the man, not the women herself) like Jennifer Aniston in every movie ever.  It's all part of the societal narrative that teaches women (and men) that they should never be equal to men.  This narrative is so insidious that even the most self-aware and feminist men and women don't realize that they fall into it.  But the root of the problem is not that women inherently aren't funny, it's that they are taught (implicitly and explicitly) that being funny isn't for them. 

Ironically, there is no "Everyone loves 
a funny girl" shirt.

So, is Bridesmaids the key to changing all that?  No.  And even Bridesmaids, with it's sparkling "Judd Apatow Produced" headline, and women-are-obsessed-with-weddings-and-getting-married-concept is certainly not a pillar of feminist values.  But a funny movie that is written by women and about women, but aimed at both women and men, is a step in the right direction.  Having women who are funny as writers, as actresses and as producers is a step in the right direction.  Creating a new normal, where women's humor is valid and appreciated on it's own and not as compensation for something else is a step in the right direction.  This week, in honor of Bridesmaids, I'm going to write about some women that I think are very funny.  Call it my step in the right direction.  Hope you enjoy.


xo kate

Oh, and Ashton Kutcher is extremely good looking.

This movie poster is delightfully
cheesy.  And I love how they
look like wax figurines.

So tonight I was watching No Strings Attached, because it recently came out on iTunes and because I have thousand other things that are less fun to do.  It was exactly what you would expect.  Exactly.  And I mean that as an absolute compliment.  I love chick flicks.  Love em.  There's nothing that I hate more than when I sit down to watch a chick flick and something unexpectedly tragic happens, or there's not a happy ending.  There's enough in my life and in the world that is unpredictable, so I want my mindless entertainment to be enjoyable and satisfying.  Period.  Don't try to make it more than it is.  So, I enjoyed No Strings Attached for it's serious, grade-A, chick flickiness (we're talking starts-at-summer-camp-ends-at-a-wedding chick flickiness) and because it has too of my biggest girl crushes, Natalie Portman (you know about this one) and Mindy Kaling (you'll hear about this one at some point).

Beyond those fine qualities, No String Attached also reminded me about the fantastic Hugo version of 99 Problems.  I completely forgot that this existed and now it's back in my life and I'm happy.  Remembering an old song is sometimes just as good as discovering a new one.

So the moral, wildcats, as always, is sometimes you've gotta forget you have actual responsibilities and watch a chick flick on a Wednesday night.

xo kate

When Harry Met Sally 2

Billy Crystal was on Jon Stewart on Monday talking about this, and it was the longest two days ever waiting for it to show up on funnyordie.  Totally worth the wait.  This is four and a half minutes that will make your day better.  Be sure to keep watching until the end.

When Harry Met Sally 2 with Billy Crystal & Helen Mirren from Billy Crystal

xo kate

The Internet is Funny Today

I love movies.  I love Boston.  And I really, really love movies about Boston.

So, naturally, I love this.  From the comedy troupe that brought us internet movie-spoof classic The College Town, here is The Oscar Winning Boston Movie:

xo kate

Paging President Bartlet...

My sister and I are known for our unusual taste in children's programming.  We loved 90210 (the original) long before we hit double-digits, and our favorite movies to rent as children were the underappreciated 1990 classic, Ski Patrol and the movie that made Charlie Sheen comic gold, Hot Shots!  We just loved Hot Shots!  (Yes, you need to exclamation point every time.) It was completely inexplicible, since we hadn't actually seen any of the movies that it was mocking -- in fact, it's unclear if we even knew it was a parody -- but we loved it all the same.  Rewatching the trailer now, it seems like at least 87% of the humor was deduced from people falling down.  Maybe that was all it took?

At any rate, I had a major soft-spot for Charlie Sheen.  It's never that I really thought the guy who played Superman and Rhett Butler in the same movie was a great actor, or even a great person, but I just really wanted to like him. 

As such, for years I've been willing to ignore the headlines: "Charlie Sheen checks into rehab after week-long bender," "Charlie Sheen admits to paying $50K for hookers," "Charlie Sheen dons fake mustache to conceal affair," "Charlie Sheen held wife at knifepoint," "Charlie Sheen found drunk, naked in NYC hotel room," "Charlie Sheen admits to fathering four panda cubs," "Porn Star, Charlie Sheen trade nasty barbs over hotel fiasco."  (I only made up one of those.) 

One of many trips to the clink.  And not the one in The Liberty Hotel.

In the last few weeks, however, I've been forced to ask myself: has the the former Lt. Topper just gone bat-shit crazy?

Yesterday I read the following on USmagazine.com (yep, that's where you get the hard-hitting news):
In his latest radio rant, Charlie Sheen blasted 12-step programs, calling them "bootleg cults" with a success rate of 5 percent, noting that his sobriety success rate was 100 percent. "News-flash," the actor told The Alex Jones Show. "I am special and I will never be one of you."

Sheen, 45, went on to dismiss the notion that substance abuse is a disease. "I have a disease?" he said. "Bulls**t! I cured it ... with my mind."

Calling Two and a Half Men creator Chuck Lorre a "turd," Sheen claimed to have embarrassed him "in front of his children and the world by healing at a pace that his un-evolved mind cannot process." 

Then today, it's this (also via USmagazine.com, obvs):

At least I still have Emilio...

"What does this say about [show creator] Haim Levine [Chuck Lorre] after he tried to use his words to judge and attempt to degrade me?" Sheen wrote. "I gracefully ignored this folly for 177 shows. I fire back once and this contaminated little maggot can't handle my power and can't handle the truth. I wish him nothing but pain in his silly travels especially if they wind up in my octagon," the actor, 45, continued, referring to his interview on The Alex Jones Show. "Clearly I have defeated this earthworm with my words -- imagine what I would have done with my fire breathing fists.  I urge all my beautiful and loyal fans who embraced this show for almost a decade to walk with me side-by-side as we march up the steps of justice to right this unconscionable wrong," he concluded. "Remember these are my people, not yours. We will continue on together."

CBS and Warner Bros. Entertainment have yet to comment on Sheen's rebuttal.

This is crazy rant is positively Gibson-esque in its antisemitism, anger and rambling incoherence.  I never thought I'd turn on the child of my favorite President, but the time has come.   Mr. Sheen, I'm sorry, you're out of the wolfpack.

xo kate

Pain heals. Chicks dig scars. Glory lasts forever.

Get motivated, wildcats.

xo kate

An Ode to Nineties Teen Movies

Written in a series of rhyming quatrains.  Presented in chronological order by release date.

My dream growing up was to have Cher’s closet

Still the coolest girls in school.

But I didn’t have the money for even a deposit

Di and Murray fight, Christian just wants to jive

And Tai tells Cher, “You’re a virgin who can’t drive!”

Lucas stole the money and someone has to pay

But forget all that – it’s Rex Manning day!

Starring a slutty Renee and a young Liv Tyler

Makes me yell, “Damn the man – save the empire!”

Neve tries really hard not to die

And we find out that boyfriend’s lie

The horror movie that mocks horror movies

Skeet better watch out or he’ll end up in juvie.

Color me excited for the return of the scream franchise.

J. Love Hew in a lead was a pretty huge gamble

My crush on Paul Walker has
held up better than his career.

She has a big chest but can’t scream like Neve Campbell

A fisherman with and ice pick is kind of scary maybe

But the best part of this was Buffy and Freddie’s baby

This is a teen movie at the genre’s peak

I cringe when J.Love attempts to speak

Ethan Embry plays a real smarty

And the whole movie’s set at one huge party

Sports and Texas and a whipped cream bikini

The team is great but their coach is a meanie

When the quarterback goes down the town’s filled with strife

Til Dawson finally says, “I. don’t .want. your. life.”

This one's for you, B.

My sister’s favorite is She’s All That

But I think it’s because of the falafel hat

It begins with a bet and a date to the prom

And the synchronized dance is definitely da bomb

Buffy and Ryan are step-sibling’s who screw

And Pacey Witter comes to play too

They are reckless and mean and totally wild

And little did we know that Reese was with child

This is what Heath did before there was Brokeback

And it also starred Julia Stiles and Alex Mack

To call it Shakespeare might cause some chagrin

The children of 90's teen movies --
and hopefully the future of the genre.
I'm looking at you, Deacon Phillippe.

And whatever happen to Andrew Keegan?

One of the first to bring mom’s into the fray

Besides Dustin Hoffman, back in the day

In the original movie Jason Biggs effed a pie

And this was the franchise that didn’t know when to die

Clarissa explains it all and changes her man

To get her perfect date – at least that’s the plan

Ends at the prom with a dance and corsage

And stars Vincent Chase – before Entourage

Fin.

And while we're dancing around the subject -- tell me this trailer doesn't give you chills.

I swear, I still get excited every time I see that MTV Productions logo at the beginning of a trailer.

xo kate