A change is coming!

I'm joining forces with Jen, The Pop Culture Curmudgeon, and will now be blogging at her website. I hope to see you there!

Am I fooling myself?

Over the past couple of years, spending time on the internet has taken up more and more of my time. It happened so gradually. Then I realized that between blogging, spending time first on MySpace and now on Facebook and Twitter, reading articles/editorials/blog posts, etc., I spend at least two or three hours a day on the internet - and that's not counting time spent watching t.v. online or working.

I love that it's so interactive, that you can find information on anything or anyone, find old friends, make new friends with similar interests, and feel like someone is listening when you comment on a blog post or online article. I love that if I tweet Maureen "Mo" Ryan of AOL's TV Squad (and formerly of the Chicago Tribune), chances are better than decent that I'll get a response. I love reading Roger Ebert's blog posts and the accompanying comments and knowing that there ARE other people out there that think the same way I do.

One of my favorite parts of internet life is reading articles, making comments, reading the responses of others, and responding to those as well. I love knowing that there are other people out there interested in the same things that I am; I even feel like I've made "friends" with people I've never met in person. (Hello, @pccurmudgeon and @StaceyKade!)

For the first time, I feel like I've had a negative experience with this.

I was reading a "cheat sheet" on a popular pop culture website about the upcoming Hunger Games movies (c'mon, you know they'll make more than one) and the books by Suzanne Collins that they're based on. It was a helpful, well written explanation of who the different characters are and how they relate to each other. The only thing I didn't like about it was that the author was obviously very excited about the casting of Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen.

In response, I thanked the author of the article for the information provided and mentioned another article that had a conflicting view point (specifically about Katniss' appearance. In the book she is 16ish, olive skinned with dark hair; Jennifer is 20, fair, blonde and blue-eyed.), explaining that I was reading several different viewpoints before making up my mind.

Initially, I was excited about the thought of Jennifer as Katniss - she was phenomenal in Winter's Bone, so I know she has mad skills. The more I thought about it, though, the more that casting seemed wrong to me. The second article that I referred to objected to Jennifer's casting because of Hollywood's history of "white-washing" characters to make them more appealing. That wasn't really my objection, though. My objection is that she's too old, not that she doesn't have the talent or is too fair. I can look past that.

Anyway, I literally felt attacked by the author of the cheat sheet when they responded to my comment. It was very much a you're wrong, you weren't in the casting sessions, how could you possibly know what happened, skin color didn't and shouldn't have anything to do with it, don't be stupid kind of response.

Maybe I didn't word my comment carefully enough; maybe I'm overly sensitive, but it's the internet. It's filled with people who make comments that you may or may not actually agree with. What did I do that triggered such a response? And was the response really that severe? When I first read it a couple of days ago, I felt attacked. When I re-read it half an hour ago, it didn't seem nearly as belligerent, but I'm not sure if that's because I read it wrong in the first place, or if it's that I've gotten used to it and now it doesn't seem as strongly worded.

Do you comment regularly on articles/blogs/commentaries? Do you go back later and see if responses have been made to your comment? Have your experiences been negative or positive?

Mildred Pierce

HBO is releasing a new mini-series, Mildred Pierce, which features award-winning actress Kate Winslet, Guy Pearce, Melissa Leo and Evan Rachel Wood. It's a period piece and seems to be a tailor-made, guaranteed lock for a slew of Emmys. However, the reviews on it seem to be rather mixed.

Maureen Ryan of AOL's TV Squad, and formerly of The Chicago Tribune, says "I came away from HBO's five-part series with a great deal of respect for Winslet's impassioned performance, but so many other aspects of 'Mildred Pierce' worked against Winslet's naturalistic style that parts of the miniseries ended up being, frankly, a slog." You can read her full review here.

James Poniewozik of Time says "Haynes is trying some interesting things here, in particular, making a film that wants to update the picture of a generation of women from the way Hollywood portrayed them in, well, movies like Mildred Pierce. He does this not by making Winslet's Mildred an icon, but just a person, with flaws and uncertainties as well as deep strength and an unapologetic sense of what she wants." His full review is available here.

Alan Sepinwall of Hitfix.com makes this comment in his review, "So it's nearly six hours of an otherwise smart, likable, admirable character consistently doing stupid things for the benefit of someone who's completely insufferable - and doing it in a way that doesn't track with anything else we see about our heroine. You can blame Winslet, or Haynes, or both, but something doesn't fit, and it wrecks everything, above and beyond spending so much time on a story that could have been just as satisfyingly told at half the length."

Rolling Stone's Peter Travers makes this remark, "What can you say in a few words about a five-hour HBO miniseries adapted from James M. Cain's landmark 1941 novel that follows the rise and fall of an independent Los Angeles woman during the Great Depression? Let's try "perfection," which is what director Todd Haynes (Far From Heaven) achieves in his loyal, lyrical adaptation. Apply "magnificent" to the tour de force Kate Winslet delivers in the title role, a divorced mother who climbs from waitress to tycoon." His full review can be found here.

Mary McNamara of the Los Angeles Times says, "Todd Haynes' five-part HBO miniseries "Mildred Pierce" is not just great television, it's a revelation." Her full review is available here.

The one consensus that everyone seems to come to is that Kate Winslet is fantastic in the title role. Beyond that, opinions seem split down the middle.

Are you looking forward to HBO's new version? Or do you think Hollywood should have left well enough alone and stuck with Joan Crawford's Academy Award-winning original?

Sing it, Sister.

A couple of days ago on Facebook, I posted the official studio video for Adele's Rolling in the Deep because it's always a pleasure to hear a top 40 song from someone who's genuinely talented. I'm not sure exactly what the video is about, but I like the song so much that I don't really care.






Then I saw this acoustic version and was completely blown away. Not only is she accompanied only by an acoustic guitar, her vocal performance is so strong and pure that you don't even notice the missing instruments. No autotune for this girl. I wish I had a fraction of her talent.

Ink: art or trash?

A friend posted a link on Twitter to a webpage featuring some extraordinary tattoos. They were all works of art; in fact, I was surprised by how beautiful and/or interesting I found many of them to be. I don't have the patience to such complicated works with pen and paper, let alone by applying ink with a needle to someone's skin. You can view the web page here or see my favorite of all the designs below.



Tattoos are not my cup of tea, generally speaking, but these are rather amazing. How many trips did it take to have these done, do you think? What happens when you get old and saggy?

Do you have a tattoo? What is it of? Why did you choose that subject? Would you do it again?

Aaah! Zombies!!

Aaah! Zombies!! is a horror/comedy about zombies that don't know they're zombies. It has Matt Davis from The Vampire Diaries and Michael Grant Terry from Bones, both of whom I really like.

Theoretically, I should love this movie. I mean, it's a zombie movie with a new twist that features actors I like from shows I love. I'm practically predisposed to like it, right? I was really excited about it after viewing this trailer:



I'm not entirely sure where it went wrong, but I think it felt like it was trying to hard to wink at the audience. And the acting was bad even by horror movie standards. It also ran too long - it would've been much better at one third of the running time and it was only 1 1/2 hours.

Should you give it a try? Only if you're a fan of the genre interested in a new twist or appreciate a lot of frat house style comedy mixed in with your horror movies. I'd really rather you watched 28 Days Later or Shaun of the Dead, even if you've already seen them. That would be a better use of your time.

Have you seen it? What did you think?

Available to stream or rent from Netflix.

The New Wonder Woman

Don't get me wrong - I love Adrianne Palicki. As Tyra Colette on Friday Night Lights, she portrayed a strong, intelligent young woman who was willing to defy the expectations of others and create her own future. Since she's also tall and beautiful. she seems like a logical choice for the new Wonder Woman; I was excited to hear she had been selected to be in the NBC remake.






Then I saw the picture on the left from Entertainment Weekly and I vomited a little in my mouth. The troweled on make-up, the unfortunate seam in the pants that creates the illusion of a "camel toe," the extra-shiny vinyl, the silver tone bracelets, the list goes on. Adrianne's almost unrecognizable - and not in a good way.

Less than two hours later, I was already seeing solutions proposed by fans. The picture on the right was the easiest, most logical alteration of the existing costume. Just by darkening the bright blue to navy and changing the color of the boots, it looks much better. If only they could address the make-up scheme as well.

Honestly, it causes great concern in my fangirl heart for the show in general. After all, it's being made by the mind behind Ally McBeal, which was genius in some ways but in others just psycho. Maybe it isn't fair to judge a show I haven't even seen yet based my feelings for the creator's prior work, but there you have it.

What do you think of Adrianne as Wonder Woman? Do we need someone else? or just a new costume and make-up plan?