Are You Kidding Me with this America?

Recently I've seen in the tabloids the headline "Is Jessica Simpson Fat?" Really America? Do we have to keep chastizing celebrities for gaining a few pounds? And what do we really mean by fat? She's not a size 2, so therefore she must be fat? Seriously is there anyone out there looking at this picture who thinks that Jessica Simpson is anywhere near fat or even obese? At most she's maybe gained ten pounds, as most people do over the holidays.

Secondly that outfit wouldn't flatter anyone, not even Heidi Klum. She's wearing high-waisted jeans with two belts. Not a good look for anyone. Frankly after seeing these pictures, I would fire my stylist, if I were her.

But don't we have more important things like the Middle-East imploding and the economy being in the toilet than to pick on poor Jessica Simpson because she ate too many buffalo wings at Cowboy's game?

The Last Templar

I started watching this last night after I watched the SAG Awards, and now I'm sorry that I did. Oy, what a horrible adaptation of a best selling novel. It was like watching an extended episode of the TV series BONES but without the wit and acting talent. If the Templars knew all the crap and conspiracy theories that have come up around their demise, they would probably roll over in their graves.

The other problem is that this storyline is old. We've all seen the DaVinci Code and read other books that feature the same storyline of an ancient secret having to do with Jesus. We pretty much know where this storyline is going from the minute Dr. Vance mentions what the Templar treasure might be.

For someone who went to Harvard and speaks Chinese fluently, Mira Sorvino comes across as a bimbo who likes expensive shoes in this TV mini-series. There is nothing about her mannerisms or attitude that suggests that she is an archeologist with a PhD. She screams Valley Girl. Scott Foley comes across a little better, but the banter and sexual tension is done much better in BONES. All you have to do is watch any episode, and you can see how this TV miniseries could have been done better.

And Mira Sorvino, if your agents think that your career would suffer from doing Dancing with the Stars and not this, you should fire your agents.

Scandalous Women nominated for Lady Blog Award

My lovely agent just let me know that my other blog Scandalous Women has been nominated for a Lady Blog Award in the Pop Culture/Entertainment Category.

http://www.culture11.com/article/36557

The voting ends January 26th, so please vote and vote often!

Something's Rotten in the State of New York

Sorry I've been such a bad blogger, but I'm deep in the job search, since I can't live off the $405 that New York States offers per week for unemployment. And I just read that the state is so broke now that they are borrowing money from Washington to pay unemployment claims! Yes, 500,000 people in this state so far this year have filed claims. And we don't even pay as much per week as NJ, CT or Massachussetts. NJ pays almost two hundred dollars more per week than NY. I take back all the awful things I've ever said about NJ. At least I'd be able to live off unemployment if I lived there. NY has not raised the unemployment check rate since 2000 people! And they defeated a bill to raise it last year.

New York sucks!

Hail to the New Chief!

I sit here writing this as I listen to our new President give his inaugural speech on BBC America (I had to watch it again). Despite the fact that I have crappy dial up service, I felt that I had to weigh in on such a historic moment, a moment that I wish that my parents could have lived to see.

My paternal grandparents were British citizens, born in Barbados, who came to this country to have a better life for their children. In fact, my grandfather didn't become an American citizen until after my father and uncle were born. And now almost a hundred years after my father was born, an African-American man, the son of a Kenyan immigrant, and a young woman from Kansas, is now the 44th president of the United States.

The first President to be born in the 1960's, a president of my generation (how ironic that he was elected the 44th President, the year that I turned 44!). There are no words to describe how I felt standing downtown on Wall Street watching the ceremony on the jumbo screen. I'm not ashamed to say that I cried watching him stand so calmly in the capitol building waiting to be announced. And how I loved listening to Aretha Franklin sing "My Country tis of thee" sung to the tune of 'God Save the Queen,' which funnily enough BBC America didn't pick up on (the commentator called it our national anthem. Ah, no, that would be the Star Spangled Banner).

I looked through the crowd hoping to catch a glimpse of the lovely Leanna Heiber and her significant other, who won tickets to go to the inauguration through Chuck Schumer's office. I was also interested to see that members of Congress gave the new first family gifts. I wonder what New York got the Obamas!

I only have two quibbles. 1) Given how many Starbucks there are in the Wall Street area, they couldn't have sprung for some hot chocolate for all of us who were standing outside? and 2) if George H. W. Bush who had hip surgery could toddle his way to the inauguration, Dick Cheney couldn't hauled his ass out of his wheelchair.

God save our new President Barack H. Obama!

Lost in Austen

Just by chance I happened to notice in Entertainment Weekly that the Ovation Channel was going to be showing the four part series called 'Lost in Austen' on Sunday and Monday. I had heard about this series which is about what happens when a modern London woman stumbles into the world of Pride and Prejudice by mistake.

I have a confession to make. While I loved the book P&P and all four movie/TV versions of the story, I am not one of those people who read Austen paraliterature. Meaning the many sequels that have been written to P&P about everyone from Elizabeth's sisters, to Bingley and Darcy's sisters to various cousins. There is even a mystery series starring Elizabeth and Darcy. As well as a host of other books that are continuations of Emma, Mansfield Park, and Sense and Sensibility (no one seems to write sequels to Northanger Abbey!).

So I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about this story, but funnily enough I loved it. It was clear that the screenwriter had great affection, not only for the book, but also for the wave of Darcymania that was created when Colin Firth played Darcy in the 1995 BBC miniseries. The story is pretty simple. Amanda Price has a boring job, and a lout of a boyfriend, who proposes by popping the top on his lager can and presenting her with the ring. She adores P&P which she has read many times, primarily for the reasons that most of us do, the language, the costumes, and the manners. One day she opens her bathroom door and finds Elizabeth Bennett standing in the bathtub. Apparently there is a door that goes from her world to the modern world. Amanda is intrigued and walks through only to find the door shut behind her and no way to get out. While she is trapped in the Regency world, Elizabeth is in the modern one.

Amanda can't believe that she has stumbled into the world of P&P. When she is discovered by Mr. Bennett, she tells him that Elizabeth has gone to Hammersmith to write. Soon everything that can go wrong can wrong. Mrs. Bennett immediately hates her, Wickham isn't as bad as he's made out to be, Bingley is still a wimp, and Jane finds herself married to Mr. Collins! And to top it all off, Darcy falls in love with Amanda!

I won't give away the ending but this was an amusing way to spend my weekend. The series should be out soon on DVD in the states and I would recommend renting it. Jemima Rooper was great as the perplexed Amanda who finds Darcy a little bit more than she can handle at times, and Gemma Atherton, who also appeared in Quantum Solace and Tess of the D'urbervilles, is a worthy addition to the list of actresses who have played Elizabeth Bennett. I thought that Elliot Cowan who played Darcy had the hardest act to follow, that of Colin Firth and Matthew MacFadyen in the recent movie and I thought he was fine, just haughty enough but he showed a nice vulnerability. It was nice to see Hugh Bonneville as Mr. Bennett, and Alex Kingston as a more human Mrs. Bennett.

It is no Masterpiece but a pleasant way to spend a few hours in Austenland.

Organ Moaner

I just read this article in the New York Post and I thought I would share it because it was just so outrageous and sickening. Yesterday, while flipping the channels, I had head a bit about it, but I thought the anchorman had to be joking but he wasn't. It's like a bad episode of Law & Order. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if ended up on one of the Law & Order shows.

"She stole his heart, but it's his kidney that he wants back.

A Long Island surgeon who dumped his wife after she allegedly had a steamy affair wants her to give back the kidney he lovingly gave her, or fork over the $1.5 million he claims the organ is worth.

"I saved her life and then, to be betrayed like this, is unfathomable. It's incomprehensible," said Dr. Richard Batista, 49.

"I feel humbled and betrayed and disregarded. This divorce is killing me."

Batista, a vascular surgeon at Nassau University Medical Center, claimed his wife left him after getting physical with her physical therapist.

He said the couple married on Aug. 31, 1990, in "a very nice, lavish wedding," but two years later, the relationship began a "slow downward trend."

Since he filed for divorce in 2005, he said, she has made it increasingly difficult for him see their three children.

"The main reason the doctor is doing this is because of how he's been treated in this case," said Dominic Barbara, Batista's lawyer.

They are asking for the $1.5 million as part of the distribution of assets based on a medical expert's estimated value of the kidney.

"In theory, we are asking for the return of the kidney," Barbara said. "Of course, he wouldn't really ask for that, but the value of it."

Dawnell Batista, a physician's assistant at Winthrop Hospital in Garden City, had her first kidney transplant as a baby, with her father as the donor, and a second one years later, from her brother. Her body rejected both kidneys.

Her husband then donated one of his healthy organs to her in June 2001.

"There's no greater feeling on the planet" than to save a life, said the surgeon, who lives in Ronkonkoma.

But Dawnell's new lease on life left her with a wandering eye, he claimed.

Within two years of the lifesaving transplant, he said, she suffered a knee injury during a karate class - then hopped into bed with her physical therapist.

Even worse, she flaunted her romance - once leaving her lover's clothes in the family laundry, he claimed.

The physical therapist, David Cazalet, vehemently denied the accusation.

"We're friends - we've never had an affair," he insisted, calling Batista a "big monster."

"I feel bad for her because he's a wackadoo," he said.

Dawnell Batista's lawyer refused to comment.

"She's a wonderful person," said her mother, Cynthia Carroll.

A brother, who asked that his name not be used, said, "You expect the worst from a bad person."

The Bachelor: What the Hell?

You know I forget how desperate some women can be until I watch another episode of The Bachelor and then I remember, and I convince myself that I will never, ever act that way around a guy. Seriously reading a dude a poem that you've written? Telling him that you have created a vision board about him? Reciting statistics from his MySpace page? (Well that one actually worked because Shannon the Stalker is still on the show). I get that you need to stand out when you are one of 25 women on the show but come on? Nikki got the first impression rose for not seeming desperate.

And what was the point of making the women put the name in a box of someone they wanted booted off and then keeping the woman who got the most votes? Personally, I would have refused to do it, because it could get nothing but ugly because of it. Loved Megan calling the girls assholes on TV!

And what is this about Deanna coming back and telling Jason that she made a mistake? Jason has said in interviews that he didn't know that Deanna and Jesse had broken up until halfway thru filming, so when did she just pop up? And is she sincere or just looking for 15 more minutes of fame.

Seriously just when I think I'm done with this show, it sucks me back in.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to everyone! Wow, 2009, who would have thunk it? In less then 18 days we will be inaugurating a new President and I can't wait. So far this year, I've already had to take my new laptop into the shop to have the hard drive fixed. Thank god for flash drives! My proposal for my non-fiction book is 96% finished and ready to go off to lovely agent. And I spent a glamorous New Year's Eve with the always lovely and delightful Hope Tarr (hurry out and buy her book now!) out in Brooklyn at the Montauk Club.

We met a lovely woman who made her own evening gown from a vintage Vogue pattern. This dress was so fabulous, you would have thought it was couture. We also got to watch many people dance the Charleston like it was 1929 and not almost 2009. The 1920's are my favorite period of 20th Century history, so I was right at home. I didn't even mind not having anyone to kiss at midnight this year.

Yesterday, I just relaxed and watched a marathon of the TV series Bones on TNT. I really like this show, and for once it doesn't bother me that the TV Bones bears almost no resemblance to the fictional Bones in Kathy Reich's books. Probably because she's a producer on the show, so she had some say in how they translated her creation into the TV version. Made a lovely veggie burger for dinner and then retired to do some research for my other blog.

Extremely mellow.

Yes, there are Mens who are Gentlemen

Saturday night I went out with the lovely Hope Tarr to an event given by 9 different Meet Up groups. To tell the truth, I wasn't really interested in going out, but I felt that I should really make the effort. After all Mr. Right is not going to come knocking on my door while I'm in my jammies watching Baby Mama with Tina Fey.

I'm really glad that I ended up going because there were lots of men there and they actually went out of their way to talk to us! And buy us drinks (well actually only one of them bought Hope a drink, I was still nursing my Cosmo). I'm not saying that we met the loves of our life Saturday night but it restored my faith in mankind, which has been sorely battered this past year.

My only quibbles were the fact that the so-called fashion show consisted of just people at the party voguing while Benny Ninja (from ANTM) exhorted them to give their fiercest poses. And the open bar was only for an hour, so hordes of people were thronging the bar trying to get their free Vodka drinks before 8 p.m.

One of the guys that we met, a Brit, apparently spends a lot of time in Miami working for drug lords, which I hate to tell him, is not exactly a selling point, at least not for me. Keeping criminals out of jail is not exactly what I'm looking for in a man. But he was certainly fun to talk to.

I'm so glad that I joined like 9 Meet Up groups in the past week!

Movie Review: The Spirit

On Christmas Day, I took myself off to the AMC movie theater for my annual xmas movie. This year I decided to see The Spirit. Since I was planning on seeing the movie before noon, my ticket was only six dollars which was great, because I'm unemployed and also because that's about all the movie was worth.

The plot is fairly simple, the Spirit is sort of like Batman, in that he fights crime alongside the cops of Central City. No one knows where he came from except this one cop who knows that he's really a cop named Denny Colt that everyone thought had died, hence the name The Spirit. The Octopus (played by Samuel L. Jackson) and his gang of cloned goons, are trying to take over Central City. The Octopus wants the vase of Herakles which is supposed to make him immortal. Meanwhile The Spirit's old flame Sand Serif is in town looking for Jason's Golden Fleece. Due to a mix-up, The Octopus has the fleece and Sand has the vase of Herakles. And The Spirit wants to stop them both.

To say that I was disappointed in this movie is an understatement. Perhaps my hopes were just too high, but I thought hey, it's Frank Miller and the late Will Eisner, this should be awesome. I had familiarized myself with the character of The Spirit in it's new incarnation from DC Comics and was thoroughly intrigued by him. However, the movie while stylistically beautiful, falls short on things like character development, fun, and action.

The lead actor Gabriel Macht is not nearly charismatic enough to play the role of The Spirit or at least he's not allowed enough moments in the film to let the audience see why women swoon so much over him, and why Ellen, the doctor who tends his wounds, spends all her time waiting for him. There is a cute little backstory of his relationship with one of the female villainesses Sand Serif (and not one person made a joke about how her name is the same as a computer font). But again, her character is not very well-fleshed out, and Eva Mendes, although beautiful, is not a good enough actress to give her any weight beyond what's on the page.

Scarlett Johanssen comes off much better, but as much as I love Samuel L. Jackson, I think he needs to take a step back and not do every single film script that comes across his desk. The man needs to work with directors like Ridley Scott or even Martin Scorcese, even Clint Eastwood for god's sake. I'm even willing to add Spike Lee to the list. He does way too much crap. He's like a black Michael Caine, and Caine didn't start winning Oscars until he took a step back and became a bit pickier about his film scripts. Put Samuel L. Jackson in a movie with Will Smith or Denzel or DeNiro, actors who are worthy of his talent.

The Spirit, even for the most-die hard graphic novel and comic book lover is a miss.

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah!

I hope that everyone has a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah or Winter Solstice!

I'm off to the movies tomorrow to see The Spirit and then over to a friend's house for holiday cheer and lots of wine.

It's raining here in New York today so I leave you with this lovely image of Daniel Craig to keep everyone warm and toasty for the holidays.

Fat Free Phooey!

I have a recipe for the most amazing gingerbread ever made that I got from my ex-best friend, but it requires buttermilk. Now that wouldn't be a problem except every single grocery store and supermarket that I have been too lately is only selling 'Light' buttermilk. Yes, low-fat Buttermilk, which the recipe doesn't call for.

When did this become an issue? Who out there drinks buttermilk like every day? As far as I knew buttermilk was just used in pancakes or ranch dressing or in my case gingerbread. So what's up with the low-fat option? And if you are going to offer low fat buttermilk, don't stop selling the full fat stuff.

Anyway, according to Wikipedia, buttermilk actually has less fat than regular milk anyway, so there is no need to make it low-fat!

I tried to make the recipe with the 'light' version but it just didn't taste the same.

Arghh!

Play that Funky Banjo!

Saturday, I dragged myself to The Philoctetes Center to see Bela Fleck and Lewis Porter in a roundtable called Living in the Musical Moment: Banjo Innovations. Although the week was pretty good, I had been suffering from female problems of a certain nature and I was pretty under the weather. Plus it had snowed on Friday and all the pretty snow had turned to slush, meaning I couldn't wear a cute outfit. Still I perservered.

I admit that when I think of the banjo several images come to mind. One Steve Martin in his early comedy days. Two, Hee-Haw and Deliverance. Yes, I'm that kind of East Coast liberal. But I'm trying to be open to things and new ideas which was the whole point of going to Philoctetes in the first place. And I'm glad that I went.

There is a reason why Bela Fleck is one of the most well known banjo players in the world. I had never head banjo playing like this. At times, he could make the instrument sound like a guitar, at times he could almost make it sing. I had no idea that the banjo was such an incredible instrument. He's won 8 Grammys and been nominated numerous times for his music. He's even played classical music on the banjo. Who would have thunk it. The banjo is not just for bluegrass anymore!

I also learned that the banjo was developed by the slaves in the South (yes, another thing that people have color have come up with that has been appropriated by the white man! Just kidding). Bela Fleck told a story about traveling in Africa for a documentary that he was working on and meeting musicians in West Africa who played a similar instrument. Which makes sense because most of the slave trade was from West Africa. I love hearing stories that trace the origin of something which is why I watch too many shows on the History Channel and the Food Network that trace the origins of certain foods.

Anyway, I was so impressed by the music that I ordered a Bela Fleck CD from Amazon. Of course he's also pretty good-looking too. But of course, just my luck, he's taken. Although he did compliment me on my mint chocolate chip cookies, courtesy of Nestle. I just can't a break.

To cheer myself after yet another romantic disappointment (don't ask), I put on one of my prettiest and oldest party dresses and headed out to The Dove Parlour for a Christmas do thrown by the Rebels of Romance. They were serving mulled wine that was so hot you could see the steam come off of it. Despite the snow, it was a wonderful party and we all received little goody bags.

Sunday, I dragged myself to the library to do some research and ended up coming home and watching all ten hours of season 4 of Monarch of the Glen, a series set in the Scottish highlands.

So despite a few bad apples, it was a pretty good weekend.

Dancing in the Dark

Yesterday, I took myself off to the Betsey Johnson sample sale in the Hotel Millennium, which is a gorgeous art deco hotel located in the theater district on 44th Street. I was looking for a party dress for a Christmas party that I'm going to tomorrow night. Although I shouldn't be spending the money, I can't resist a pretty party dress. Well, I was tres disappointed. All of the party dresses were strapless! What's up with that Betsey? The last time I wore a strapless dress was for a beauty pageant in college, and I spent the entire night wondering if it was going to fall down. I just don't have the belle poitrine for that kind of dress. What happened to all the great dresses that she used to create? Oh, I know, they don't end up in the sample sale pile! I remember when her dresses used to actually be relatively inexpensive, now they cost like $300 and $400!

Afterwards, I schlepped over to Banana Republic to look for a dress and I couldn't find anything which may be God's way of keeping me from spending huge amounts of money I don't have. Still I had a good time trying on clothes. They had way nicer dresses on sale that the ones I saw at the Betsey Johnson sale.

I also went to the Best of 2008 night at Dancesport where I've been taking ballroom dancing classes for the past two years. This was a mammoth evening of 27 performances by either students or student/teacher combos. There were even a few wedding dances thrown in. I bought a class of Chateau Dancesport 2008 and settled in for the evening. Beforehand though was dancing, and I even got to do the hustle with Paul Pellicoro, who is the owner of Dancesport which was fun. By the time the evening was over at quarter of one in the morning, I had seen some great performances and some scary ones. I even got to vote for best performance of the evening.

I'm glad that I went instead of staying home and watching Grey's Anatomy re-runs, that would have been painful given the dismal state of the show this season.

Yeah, I have a laptop!

I finally went out and bought myself a laptop. I know, I know, it's the 21st Century, everyone has one. But I had gotten spoiled using the computer at my various jobs that I never bothered to either upgrade my computer at home, or buy a laptop. Of course, that I'm a lady of leisure, I need a laptop, since my home computer is 12 years old and doesn't really have a place for my flashdrive, and even if it did I would be afraid of blowing it to Kingdom Come if I tried to use it.

So I went over to Best Buy and Circuit City to buy a Netbook but the cheapest one they had was $279 and it didn't even come with Microsoft Word but some weird software that belonged to the company. Plus the screen was really really tiny, and I can't afford to go blind right now since my health insurance expires in March of 2009. So I remembered this place I had read about in New York magazine called The Little Lap Top Shoppe and I googled it and found out it was on the Lower East Side.

I hopped on the train, well actually 2 trains and went on down. Sitting on the shelf was a Dell Latitude for $179, completely rebuilt! After I added the modem and a carrying it bag, it still came out to $237 which was way cheaper than the ASUS model at Best Buy.

So now I've joined the 21st Century!

The Word of the Day: Truthiness

Saturday I went to a roundtable at The Philoctetes Center concerning the twin topics of autobiography and biography. Given the fact that I write mini-biographies over at Scandalous Women, this topic was right up my alley. And the list of guests was impressive, Simon Winchester, Nicholson Baker and Judith Thurman who has written biographies of Isak Dinesen and Colette. One of the topics that came up was of course the infamous James Frey. One of the panelists, David Shields, felt that Frey had been made a scapegoat, which I disagree with. He set himself up by insisting that everything in his memoir was the absolute truth and then he turned out to be a big fat liar. Nicholson Baker brought up a good point that when people pick up an autobiography there is an unspoken pact between the reader and the author, that what they are about to read is the truth. And then Judith Thurman said that there are facts and then there is the truth and they are two different things.

Whoa! I had never thought of it that way, but after I thought about it for a bit, I realized that she was right. One of my favorite Scandalous Women, Lola Montez, completely reinvented herself. Born Eliza Gilbert in Ireland, she went to Spain to study dance and when she returned she was Lola Montez, complete with the accent and a made up story of an aristocratic background. She told this story so many times that she actually began to believe it, and when she wrote her autobiography, she kept up the lie. It had nothing to do with the facts, but with her own version of her truth.

I was so fired up that I actually got up at the end of the roundtable and actually made a comment and asked a question, which I never to do at the roundtables at Philoctetes. In almost two years, I have asked precisely two questions. Part of the problem is that I'm not exactly a quick thinker, quite a few times I've thought of questions I wanted to ask later on after I got home. The other problem is sometimes the roundtables are either so over my head or out of my comfort zone, I wouldn't know what to ask. Anyway, I made my comment about Lola Montez and then I asked Judith Thurman if she felt like Amanda Foreman, that if she had a chance to write her biographies of Colette or Isak Dinesen again, would she take a different tack, now that she's gotten older or would she emphasize another aspect of their lives? I felt really proud of that question, particularly when a gentleman after the roundtable told me that he thought my question was very intelligent. Yeah, score one for me! Oh, and I remembered to mention the blog when I made my comment. Got to self-promote.

I was disturbed however when Francis Levy, the co-director of the center, made an announcement that things were kind of dire at the moment, due to the economic climate and losing some of their funding (?). That worried me. What would I do with my Saturdays if I didn't have Philoctetes to go to? Even though some of the roundtables were over my head intellectually, I've always gotten something out of them, and I've felt like I've expanded my horizons considerably since I discovered the center.

It is times like this that I wish I could win the lottery, so I could set up a foundation and continue to make sure that places like Philoctetes continue to exist. I would be such a good rich person. I hate getting letters in the mail from worthy causes and not being able to contribute. It sounds a little like playing Lady Benevolent, but I've always thought if I had access to a great deal of money, I would set up a foundation to make sure that the arts, particularly small theater companies, were decently funded, as well as research into diabetes and lung cancer.

Ah well.

Fair is Foul, and Foul is Fair

Okay the weather has been particularly crappy this week here in New York. Either it's been raining like Noah is about to build another ark, or it's been cold and windy. Of course earlier in the week it was warm for December. I wish the weather would just make up its mind what it was doing so that I would know how to dress accordingly.

Still unemployed but not quite as depressed about it as I was last week. Perhaps it is because I had the best pizza of my life yesterday at Artichoke Basille. They are famous for their spinach and artichoke slice so of course I had to try it out. It's pretty pricy for a slice of pizza at $4.00 but it was humongous. Imagine the best spinach and artichoke dip possible, now imagine it on a slice of pizza and you have an inkling of what it was I ate yesterday. It was so good and filling, I didn't have to eat anything else for the rest of the day. Seriously.

Next week, I'm signing up with every temp agency known to man, plus I have a meeting with my career counselor, courtesy of my old company. Yes, they have a service set up to help you find other employment, which is pretty cool when you think about it. Plus, I'm hoping that the fact that I've employed for two jobs in-house and went for my orientation will help in the long run.

So all in all, not a bad week, despite the fact that I'm apparently out of the age demographic for CrazyBlindDate.com.

Woo-Hoo, I got Canned

Sorry I haven't blogged lately. My position at my company was eliminated on Monday and I'm going through the states of grief, shock, denial, bitterness and chocolate. Trying to decide what my next move is. Keep you posted!

I Heart Hugh Jackman!

I hope everyone had a great thanksgiving and it is slowly crawling their way out of their turkey coma.



My thanksgiving encompassed seeing the movie Australia with the lovely Hope Tarr. This epic movie stars Hugh Jackman (sigh!), the sexiest man alive 2008, and Nicole Kidman. The description of the movie from Yahoo!:



"In Australia, on the brink of World War II, an English aristocrat travels to the faraway continent, where she meets a rough-hewn local and reluctantly agrees to join forces with him to save the land she inherited. Together, they embark upon a transforming journey across hundreds of miles of the world's most beautiful yet unforgiving terrain, only to still face the bombing of the city of Darwin by the Japanese forces that attacked Pearl Harbor. "



Sounds exciting doesn't it? And it was, up to a point. I'm not a huge Nicole Kidman fan, and she was working my last nerve in the beginning of the movie. I felt that she was overplaying just a little bit the whole "grand lady of the manor." But Hugh Jackman? Mamma Mia, is he hot in this movie or what? Just thinking about the scene where he's soaping up and washing himself off in the outback is enough to make me sweat. I have to admit that there was a good chemistry between the two of them, and I found the love story believable. Of course, Nicole Kidman's character, Lady Ashley has to spoil it by giving Hugh Jackman's character The Drover, a stupid ultimatum.



The movie is a strange hybrid of epic love story, war picture, and drama about what happened to the aborigines during this time period. At times, it didn't quite jibe. The young boy who plays Nullah, the half-caste child, is absolutely adorable and the movie is narrated by him. You really feel for what he's going through, and how hard it must have been to feel like you have no place in your own country. Watching the movie and seeing how all the aboriginal children who were what they derisively called "creamy" being removed from their families to as one gentleman put "to breed the black out of them" was heartbreaking. And the end note about how the Australian government only just apologized this year for a policy they pursued up until 1973, well it just doesn't cut it. By the way, as the American government ever apologized to the American Indians for stealing their land or for slavery? Just a thought.



Hugh Jackman is so wonderful in this film that I feel that producers should be whipping up romantic comedies for him. In fact I have a plot for one. It would star Hugh Jackman and basically any actress who is not Renee Zwellweger, Nicole Kidman, or Hilary Swank. Ideally it would star Julia Roberts or Sandra Bullock. Better yet, make her Tina Fey! Hugh would play an Australian newspaper tycoon like Rupert Murdoch but younger and sexier. Tina Fey would play the owner of a newspaper like the Wall Street Journal that has been in her family for generations. Her crazy relatives who also co-own the newspaper are a motley crew of hippies, greedy yuppies, and other assorted eccentrics. They are eager to sell the paper to Hugh, but Tina still has a significant number of shares that he needs to truly own the paper. So he decides to woo her into selling to him.



Meanwhile she has a fiancee, the Bellamy of the picture (The Bellamy is named after actor Ralph Bellamy who played this character in an assortment of 1930's rom-com's like His Girl Friday and the Awful Truth. He's the good guy, but just a little dull. He's the editor of the paper. Hugh has a secret weapon to neutralize him though, Lucy Liu as his sexy but vicious forensic accountant, who is also his girlfriend. I see the Bellamy as played by Peter Hermann or Patrick Dempsey. Tina, of course, doesn't automatically succumb to Hugh's charms, particularly since he owns tabloids like the Sun where there's a topless girl on Page 3. She's worried that he's going to do that to her respectable paper.



There has to be moment where Hugh shows his vulnerable side to make Tina soften towards him. Perhaps she accompanies him to his remote outback ranch in Australia and sees another side of him. Perhaps he has a mother who treats him like less than his older brother who died in an unfortunate kangaroo accident.



See where I'm going with this? More romantic comedies with Hugh Jackman where he takes shirt off in every other scene, and perhaps gets to sing a tune or two.