2011: The Year in Movies

So, I’ve been planning on doing something like this for the past 2 or 3 years and I’ve let my laziness get the best of me. Not so this year. What follows is a list of movies released in the year 2011 that I saw, plus my assorted thoughts on each movie. I may update this post at a later date, since there are still approximately 20 or 30 more movies released last year that I want to see, but haven’t yet (listed at the end of this post). Also, as a bit of a bonus, I’ve included my favorite non-2011 releases that I saw last year and my least favorite non-2011 releases I saw last year.

Note: The movies are listed in order of when I saw them, not in order of their release date.

MC DoodBallz & The Oven Fried Rap

This morning I announced to my (long suffering) husband that it was time for us to give up our jobs. I had a new career in mind.

I introduced him to....MC DoodBallz.
 

I then attempted to drop a beat. The beat turned into me spitting while making weird puffing sounds with my mouth. He offered to drop a beat on my behalf.
 

MC DoodBallz had been around for less than one minute & was already in need of the assistance of an entourage. DoodBallz was on the scene!

I then busted out a rap that started out about Chickens - as in ladies. Then Chickens turned into chicken. Which turned into oven fried chicken. Because deep frying is bad for your heart. But you want to replicate the texture without any of the fat. So cornflakes are a good substitution. So is Melba toast - for a more crunch, rye type flavor. 

However one then begins to venture into a place where oven fried chicken is ultimately a poor sub-in for fried chicken.
 

Then it devolved into me musing about oven frying & occasionally calling out "Melba Toast!" while raising the roof.

My name's MC DoodBallz & I'm here to say!
To all of you chickens that come round ma way!
Keep your fat & cholesterol out ma game
I've got a recipe that'll make yours lame

Crush up some melba toast & mix with panko
Don't use no cornflakes! you're off your crank, yo!
Heats up your oven & gets your racks out
Your shit'll be crunchy, don't have no doubt!

Mix mayo! some egg whites! some mustard in dere
Now chunk up that chicken...no dont' you dare!
don't even look at those fatty chicken thighs
it's breast meat, baby - or a larger pant size!
I could go on....unfortunately.
Alas, I do not think that MC DoodBallz is going to have a lucrative recording career. I'm ahead of my time. If time is circuitous & if by 'ahead' i mean 'behind' - if time goes in a circle & 1988 comes around again I could have a nice career writing cheesy horrible "rap" songs for used car dealerships.

On second thought, I think we may need to keep our day jobs. Which blows. I almost had an entourage.

Thoughts on Moneyball

I'm a huge baseball fan and always have been. A lot of people find baseball boring, and it definitely can be. Baseball doesn't have guys running up and down the court and dunking all over the place like basketball does or gigantic freaks of nature crashing into each other at impossible speeds like football does. Baseball takes its time. There's no clock in baseball, so the games just go on until one team wins.

Sed......uc......tion

I don’t do fancy lingerie. Like…at all. I’ve tried. It doesn’t work.

Prior to June of 2009 I owned a single item of “sexy” underwear. It was a black corset that had formerly been part of a Halloween costume (whip crack!). Sure, I had the usual assortment of lacy panties & thongs, but none of them were coordinated separates. I didn’t have what I would later refer to as any ‘little numbers’. Because I am an AARP member & I call lingerie ‘little numbers’.

My best friend decided to remedy this situation by organizing a lingerie/bridal shower. The invitation specifically stated that I was not a woman who owned any lingerie. It then listed my sizes & instructed all participants to buy me undergarments.

Extremely mortifying on every level.

So here I was, a (formerly) non-lingerie girl in a lingerie world. In the space of one day I acquired a shit-ton of lacey, ribbonny , see through-y things that I was supposed to wiggle into in order to perform the act of seduction. Seduction on a person who had already decided to marry me without the benefit of see through lace & ruffled panties.

I decided to take some of my new ruffles on a test drive. I picked out my favorite little number. White bustier with black accents, frilly thong, black garters, black thigh high hose. I simpered "give me a few minutes while I slip into something a little less comfortable..." at my soon to be husband. I thought this was extremely clever.

I got into 3/4 of the ensemble with no problem. Then came the stockings.

I tugged the hose on & started to snap the garters in.

A few minutes later I was still attempting to figure out the snapping mechanism. Black clasp. Black stretchy satiny fabric. Do I put this little strap in here & snap it? Does this bend this way? How does this stay on?

After about ten minutes I figured out the clasps...in the front. Now it was time to do the back.

I twisted back to reach the back of my thighs. I busied myself fumbling with the clasps & the straps. As the garters slipped through my fingers for the hundredth time I realized that I'd gotten shorter.

Nope! I was slipping. Into the splits. In my stocking feet. With my back garters a dainglin'.

I hit the floor with a grunt & screamed in frustration.

This was about the time the "are you ok!?" calls from the other room increased in frequency.

"GIMME A MINUTE!"

Off came the hose (still attached in the front). With the flaps of black silky fabric dangling in front of me I went to work on fastening the back clasps. Once I had finally achieved some sort of garter fastening it was time to climb back into the hose.

I hopped on one foot while attempting to jam my leg into the dangling stocking. By the time the first leg was done I was covered in sweat & my hair was stuck to my face.

I somehow managed to get the 2nd leg half into the other stocking before calling it a day.

I flopped back on the bed & called to Jared.

"Are you ok?"

"Consider yourself seduced. I'm going to rest."

"Thanks?"

"You're welcome. I'm tired."

Seduction.

On Glee, True Blood, Pan Am and Escapist Television

For the most part, there are two types of TV shows that my DVR is set to record: critically acclaimed single camera comedies (Community, Parks & Recreation, Modern Family) or critically acclaimed super-serious dark dramas (Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy, Boardwalk Empire). I don't watch reality shows (with the exception of Top Chef), I don't watch dumb sitcoms that have a laugh track (all of CBS's comedies) and I don't watch procedurals (again, all of CBS's dramas). But, like most red-blooded Americans, I am not immune to the occasional pleasures of turning off my brain to watch and enjoy a TV show. Until recently, I used to get my weekly fix of "escapist" television from two shows: Glee and True Blood.

Glee started out very strong. Its pilot episode was a mixture young, attractive people singing fun, upbeat songs and those same young, attractive people dealing with high school life in a small town in Ohio. Season one of Glee mostly built on its pilot, fleshing out these characters into people I cared about while still maintaining a fun vibe with an ever-present undercurrent of melancholy. Plus, it had Jane Lynch yelling hilarious insults at people. Who doesn't like Jane Lynch? Season two of Glee was, unfortunately, a complete mess. The character work was scatter-shot, the songs increasingly auto-tuned and Jane Lynch's character became an insufferable caricature of herself. After much hemming and hawing, I stopped recording Glee and, if this AV Club review of the Season Three premiere is any indication, I did the right thing.

I'm still sticking with True Blood, but damn, is that an infuriating show to watch. What started off as a quick hour of television that was campy, gory and full of nudity turned into a complete slog. There are too many side plots devoted to characters who are boring (Hoyt, Sam, Alcide) insufferable (Sookie, Bill) or both (Tommy, Tara). The average episode of True Blood now consists of spending interminable amounts of time with characters who are little to no fun to watch, followed by about five minutes of sex, blood or both. The characters who I enjoy spending time with (Jessica, Eric, Pam and sometimes Jason) are just compelling enough to outweigh the characters who are a complete waste of time. Plus: tits.

So, with my television schedule in need of a little bit of levity and after reading this positive review over at The AV Club, I decided to check out Pan Am and so far, so good. Mad Men is one of my favorite shows, so I was a bit apprehensive about Pan Am trying too hard to be Mad Men, but set in the world of air travel, rather than advertising. Luckily, that's not the case. For starters, Pan Am doesn't take itself as seriously as Mad Men. This is meant to be a show about the adventures of pretty ladies jet-setting about the globe in the 60s, not a weighty drama about secret identities, adultery and the implications of alcoholism.

If anything, Pan Am doesn't call attention to the time period in which it takes place as much as Mad Men did in its first season. We don't see pregnant women smoking or close ups of people's laps without seatbelts while they're riding in their cars. (Granted, Mad Men got away from some of these more gimmicky touches as the show progressed, but early on, there was a definite "Hey, the 60s sure were a crazy time, weren't they?!" vibe about the show.) Pan Am uses its period setting to show us that flying used to be a bit glamorous and that these women were able to use their stewardess jobs to see the world and empower themselves a bit. Pan Am has yet to air its second episode, so there's definitely time for flaws to present themselves (and indeed, one sub-plot involving Kelli Garner's character being an operative for the CIA is already a bit ludicrous), but I'm excited to see what the show has to offer in the coming weeks.

Also, I'm a complete sucker for Christina Ricci. I was 14 years old when I first saw her on the big screen in Casper and she immediately became my first movie-star crush. It will be fun to have her on my television on a weekly basis.

Movie Review - Conan O'Brien Can't Stop

I've been a big fan of Conan O'Brien's since college. When my schedule allowed me to do it, I'd go back to my apartment during lunch and catch the re-run of the episode of Late Night with Conan O'Brien that had aired the night before. Conan's self deprecating humor really spoke to me. He never felt like he was trying to be the coolest guy in the room. If one of his monologue jokes bombed (and every monologue was good for at least one or two dud jokes per show), he'd laugh it off and just move on to the next joke. He was constantly making fun of himself for being a tall, gawky redhead and, while I'm not a tall, gawky redhead, I did (and still do) have issues with my self-confidence. The fact that Conan was rich, successful and talented, yet still saw the flaws in himself made him very relatable. Needless to say, I was very excited for Conan to take over The Tonight Show from Jay Leno and pretty bummed out when Leno ended up taking it back.

Conan O'Brien Can't Stop is a documentary that picks up with Conan in the wake of his departure from The Tonight Show and follows him around the country on his Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour. Since NBC, uh, legally prohibited Conan from being funny on television for six months, he decided to put together a live show that consisted of equal parts stand-up comedy, live music, video sketches and old bits from his Late Night show. (Although they had to be re-named for legal reasons. Example: the Walker Texas Ranger Lever became the Chuck Norris Rural Policeman's Handle.)

(Side note: Simona and I saw the Legally Prohibited Tour when it came through Los Angeles, and it was very funny. We had a blast.)

I had read a few reviews of the movie and many of them focused on how Conan could be kind of a dick to the people around him (most notably, his assistant, Sona). I was a little concerned that the movie would sully my image of Conan and make me not want to watch his show anymore. Fortunately, I thought the reviews exaggerated a bit. Yes, Conan is not always loveable and yes, some of his jokes are mean-spirited, but overall, the guy comes across as someone who is under a lot of pressure and has a lot of people relying on him. He very much trusts and appreciates the people that work for him and, although he's very hard on them, he's even harder on himself.

The title, Conan O'Brien Can't Stop is very apt. The guy cannot seem to survive without a large group of people applauding and cheering for him. Even on the tour's off-days, he has to go out and perform. He schedules a secret show for some of his fans in Nashville at Jack White's recording studio, brings his band on stage to perform at his 25 year college reunion talent show and gets roped into introducing every musical act at Bonnaroo. Conan spends his down time lamenting that he doesn't have enough down time and that his producer has over-booked him, but it all seems like a bit of a ruse. Conan feeds off his audience and seems incomplete when he's not in front of a crowd. He seems to go out of his way to interact with fans, pose for pictures, and sign autographs.

The one thing that disappointed me about the movie is that it seemed to be about "Conan O'Brien," the character and not Conan O'Brien, the man. Conan is keenly aware of the documentary cameras and mugs for them at every opportunity. There are a couple of scenes involving Conan and his kids and only then did he seem to let his guard down. Still, I didn't watch Conan O'Brien Can't Stop looking for new insights into Conan's personal life or even new details about how NBC screwed him. I watched it because I wanted to hang out with Conan and his crew for an hour and a half. Conan O'Brien Can't Stop is a fun, if superficial, look into the mind of my favorite talk show host.

Twerk It

Three moves on the dance floor. That’s all I’ve got:

The Electric Slide: This dance is fucking A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. It goes with almost any song ever. Never fails. You can customize it with little kicks! I have this move in the electric slide, when you’re going back (after touching the floor); I wave my hand around at the wrist. It is seriously bad ass. All other group dances are derivative from this multipurpose awesome-fest.

The weird dance floor booty thrust/shuffle side to side: Bopping along to any usual dance type music in a public forum usually involves the weird bouncy shuffle from side to side. If you’re a girl you can also groove that booty out a few times. A dude can try to dance up on that ass (optional) by thrusting his groin at said booty bumping. It’s pretty horrible for all involved. Multiply the horrible by 10,000 if you’re in a circle of people who aren’t deeply impaired by alcohol.

Half Track: Take the running man. Ponder on how one can make it more terrible. Realize that throwing your whole body from side to side is the solution. I learned the half track because there were some “cool” girls in my gym class in fourth grade doing it. I studied their slick moves. Went home. Proceeded to spend 9 months mastering it. Finally! I would be accepted into their awesome dancing clique! Alas, I never had the opportunity demonstrate my half-track skillz. I never got in with the cool girls. I also didn’t get fingered at 13, so you know. Take the good with the bad.

All of my other moves are like the bastard step children of the moves above. I sometimes throw awkward arm thrusts in with my booty popping shuffle. I occasionally drop it like it’s hot (this has never ended well).The cabbage patch makes its way into the repertoire occasionally, but I don't consider it much of a dance as my feet don't have to move about while embarrassing myself with that little number.

When I’m in the privacy of my own home I attempt to master other moves. The temptation to divorce me is typically at an all time high when I demand that Jared witness my sad attempts at Booty Poppin. They look less like the rhythmic shaking of said booty than a horrible medical episode.

So those are the moves. Beyond that I got nothing.

Even our wedding dance was less ‘dance’ than ‘sway & hope no one notices we don’t know how to slow dance’. Maybe someday I’ll take a dance class & figure out how to work it.

In the meantime I’ll stick with the slide.