Greatest Thing I've Seen This Week - the Marry me, Aaron Johnson's hair! edition

Yesterday I had the day off to attend a memorial service in the morning. As the afternoon approached, and the heat and temperature rose I decided that I should see a movie. I've been totally excited for Oliver Stone's latest outing, Savages, but none of my friends were too jazzed about it, so I decided it was the perfect choice to see by myself on a Monday early afternoon.

You guys? You guys! It's awesome. Please go see this movie. I couldn't believe how empty my theater was; true, it was a Monday, on a sunny Seattle afternoon, but I went to the Metro near UW, so I expected a bunch of college boys or at least a smattering of film nerds to join me. I was all by my lonesome until 1 minute into the film when a young guy in his early twenties came in and sat about 5 rows ahead of me.

I can't possibly do a better job at reviewing the film than the great Joe Reid did over at his blog Low Resolution; so go read his review and come back here...I'll wait.

I will just re-emphasize some of the best parts of Savages:

Salma Hayek and her GLORIOUS wigs. Those bangs! They deserve their own Oscar y'all.

Taylor Kitsch! Finally (maybe) he'll get some respect for his acting, post-FNL. I thought he was just fine in John Carter, and Battleship was just a fun, stupid action film. But Stone gave Taylor something to really work with in the character of Chon. He's complex and quietly riveting. And hello gorgeous!

Really both Taylor Kitsch and Aaron Johnson do a great job with their lead characters Chon and Ben. They're able to believably convey the deep love they feel for each other and for their shared lover O, played by Blake Lively and her legs. They manage to not make this menage a trois a silly thing; it seems totally plausible and you're rooting for their relationship the entire film.

And seriously, enough praise can never be given for Aaron Johnson's luxurious mane of bouncy curls.

Also, as Joe suggested, I would love for someone with more time on their hands than I, to come up with a Tumblr about Salma Hayek's character Marina eating lamb chops. So awesome!

One reason to want to go to China

The Jiaozhou Bay bridge opened today in the Chinese eastern port city of Qingdao, linking it to Huangdao island. The bridge spans across the sea for a little over 26 miles making it 2.5 miles longer than the previous longest bridge over water, the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in Louisiana. I love bridges. The longer the better. The higher the better. LOVE THEM. I mean, not love like that one Belgian lady who wants to have sex with that bridge in France, but I just think they're very cool to look at and to cross. Just look at these pics of the Jiaozhou bridge -

Cool right? It's definitely going on my "bridge-cross" bucket list.

Greatest Things I Saw on TV this week: May 16 - 21

1. The Other Woman - First, you should know that this past weekend Lifetime Movie Network did some awesome programming by having the "The Stars of Spelling Weekend Movie Marathon". 48 hours of made-for-tv-movies featuring the stars of the plethora of Aaron Spelling television shows spanning almost four decades. So many gems, but the movie that Tivo Suggestions decided to record for me was this 2008 spectacular movie starring the awesome Josie Bissett (Melrose Place) and Jason Priestly (BH 90210).

Where do I start? It's a story about a lady (Bissett) who traded a successful career as a tv journalist to teach at a college part time and marry David, a successful defense attorney with a 16yr old daughter from a previous marriage. One night at a company party, a sexy young legal aide named Nicole, boldly tells Jill that she's going to steal her husband. Jill is of course shocked by the weirdo, but kind of blows it off. The psycho stalking, manipulation, and crazy pranks that Nicole pulls off escalate until Jill can no longer ignore the problem and she decides to fight.
When David's boss is murdered in his sleep,and his wife confesses to the murder claiming self defense, Jill turns to old friend and fellow journalist Pete (Priestley) to figure out if Nicole didn't have something to do with it. As soon as Priestly's character is introduced in the first 30 minutes it's telegraphed that he and Jill are going to get together in the end, but you don't really know how it's going to play out because in the beginning Jill's husband is a decent, if COMPLETELY IDIOTIC, guy who clearly loves his 2nd wife. But guess what? Jill and Pete don't hook up! They just renew their friendship and help solve a crime together. Sure, you can surmise that they might get together somewhere down the road, but the ending of this movie was really satisfying because it had such a realistic ending. Also by the end, Jill's hubby is revealed to be a total tool who has in fact been cheating on her. Turns out there isn't really anything sinister about the crazy Nicole chick; she didn't kill the boss guy. She's not a murderer, she's a delusional psycho! The movie ends with Jill wishing David and Nicole the best - she realizes that they're both getting what/who they deserve.
Considering how melodramatic and cheesy this movie could've been I was pleasantly surprised; damn Lifetime, you got me again!

2. The two-part James Frey "apology" episodes on the Oprah Winfrey show - Oy. I've been a Frey defender from the beginning, so I was surprised at how annoyed I was with him during this 2-part reconnection with Oprah, where they rehashed his January 2006 Oprah-thrashing. In the end I was more impressed with Oprah because of her honesty about the criticism she took from close friends of hers about how inappropriately mean and condescending she was to Frey, and about how she lashed out from a place of ego. Oprah actually APOLOGIZED and cried! It was something to behold. But James Frey almost didn't deserve it. I don't know. He just bugged me for some reason. Still, the whole thing was certainly worth 2 hours of my television viewing this week.

3. America's Next Top Model cycle 16(?) finale - For the first time in years (maybe since cycle 5 or 6) my two favorite girls were the finalists. I loved Brittani and Molly from the very first episode of this cycle and my love for them never waned. I championed them through the good times when they both consistently rocked photo shoots and challenges, and I was still there with them when they each had their struggles like Molly having to live with a HORRIFIC weave, or when Brittani lost her shit in front of the client (Ford) and yelled at Alexandria for being such a tool. I told myself going into this week's finale that I loved Molly and Brittani equally and didn't care who won; that was true for the most part but damn if I didn't tear up a little for Molly when she ultimately lost out. I hope IMG is smart enough to give her a contract anyway. They would be fucking fools to lose her to another agency. Happy for Brittani though!

Greatest thing I've seen on TV this week

I watched an episode of the television show Fame this week. It was from season 5 titled "His Majesty Donlon", which focused on Chris (*in a staggering performance by Billy Hufsey) who gets caught up in political intrigue when a Prince Freddy of Vatonia visits New York to make a speech for a United Nations' event.
You see, Chris is the prince's perfect look-a-like, except of course for a birthmark on his chest, so is chosen to switch places with him after Prince Freddy's life is threatened because he's trying to marry some baron's daughter from the USSR?
Oh and CRAZILY the Russian baron's daughter? Is a doppelganger for Nicole (Nia Peeples) who coincidentally is Chris' dance partner for the big ballet performance that the highschool is doing that week. But for some reason they don't really make that big of a deal about Nicole looking identical to the Russian chick? SO confusing.



A couple of things that struck me while watching this gem -

• The whole "fake twin" plot was such a late 70s/early 80s go-to device but it was usually reserved for shark jumping stage when the show was taking its last gasps before cancellation. And yet, Fame went on for another season and a half after this turd aired.
• Another cliched trope from that period of television were infinite fake eastern European countries that they were always coming up with. Vatonia? Really?
• I had completely forgotten that every episode of Fame ended with a song/video/dance routine montage done on the streets of "New York". EVERY episode. 
• I loved this show so much in my early teen years. I mean seriously loved. Was I on drugs?

*Sarcasm used liberally