I never really cared about Sex and the City, but I watched the movie last night. Here are my thoughts:

a. The sequences about fashion seem like commercial breaks. You have to sit through boring fashion shows or Carrie trying on fancy-pants wedding dresses before you get back to the story. I couldn’t care less about fashion so this was extremely tedious.

b. Jennifer Hudson, why are you in this movie? You cannot act at all. And this is all the more disappointing because the writing for your part is funny. So you can’t act AND you are screwing up a funny part.

c. Spoiler, sort of (if you have read anything about this movie, it is not a spoiler): The part where Big leaves Carrie at the alter is goooood. Also the part where she is sad afterwards is good. Good and juicy! Great acting going on there.

d. The chick who plays Miranda has gotten weird. What happened to her? It’s not just that she has aged, it’s that her anger toward men in the movie seems very… shall we say … authentic.

e. According to this movie, love is depressing. When you get older, love is as hard to deal with as ever, and on top of that, you have given up hope that it will ever work out. So you are just lonely and unloved and approaching death. Unless you are Charlotte, who seems to be in the movie to give us hope that some people are not miserable.

f. Samantha is a bad person. She just is. I have never liked that character, and this movie made me hate her. However, the actress who plays her looks amazing.

g. We find out that these women originally came to New York to find love. Well, no wonder they are having so much trouble! Who does that? There is no love to be had there. Haven’t they seen Taxi Driver?

h. In the end, the movie suggests that the shallow consumerist values it puts forth by pimping Vogue and handbags and shoes is not what is important in life. What is important in life is friends, making up your own rules, and that illusive love word. However, this moral message contradicts everything we have seen before and comes off as false.

i. That said, this movie isn’t bad at all. It is entertaining, stays true to the original show, and has some darn good writing in places. Also, it’s nice to see a movie about older women. It’s like an exotic adventure for Hollywood to make a movie about them. Scary untapped territory.

What does a girl do when there is a writers strike and TV is even stupider than ever? Experience life more, you say? Go to concerts and plays and literary events? Have people over for food and sparkling conversation? No! She watches movies. Lots of movies. Here are some I’ve seen recently and what I think of them:

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead — David-Mamet-wannabe script, annoying clippy editing, overrated on all accounts.

Juno — Entertaining and sweet, despite quirky indie status.

Sweeney Todd — You know how in Kill Bill, the blood spurts ironically from people’s bodies in fight scenes? Blood spurting, not ironic here.

East of Eden — Was James Dean drunk when he made this movie? Why is he lying in a bean field? Oh no, now he is howling like a zombie. Watch out for zombie James Dean!

Broken English — Admirable. Parker Posey rocked, the writing is excellent, and character development/emotions are interesting and fresh. Nice to see an intelligent movie about a woman.

I Am Legend — A satisfying zombie flick. Will Smith is still cool. But the scene with the dog made me cry and cry and cry. And cry. Seriously. I was traumatized.

Sex and Death 101– Could someone explain to me what the hell happened to Winona Ryder?

I’m Not There — Refreshing to see a movie with a non-linear plot. Very enjoyable movie until Richard Gere appears. Then suddenly not a movie about Bob Dylan anymore–is a movie about Richard Gere being a cowboy.

The Waitress — Made me want pie.

I am bummed about Heath Ledger passing away. He was one of the few young actors I liked. To cheer us up, here’s Jerry O’Connell making fun of Tom Cruise.

(Transcript of the original video)

I just can’t get over how hard Lindsay Lohan looks. This chick is only 21! Lots of people sleep around and do drugs and still manage not to look like 35-year-old hookers by the time they are barely over the drinking age. How did she achieve this in such a short period of time?

Granted the old-lady-Housewives-of-Orange-County hair doesn’t help. Neither does the orange skin.

I am sorry to pollute my blog with pictures of Lindsay Lohan, but this baffles me. She looks like people look after they’ve gone through 5 divorces. She looks utterly and completely without joy.

Another favorite from Flight of the Conchords.

Given the quality of most TV shows these days, I’m not sure Hollywood writers deserve more money. Ha ha. Just kidding. Here’s an interesting little video from the very excellent writers of The Office about the writer’s strike. Hey I’m sympathetic. After I cancel TV when we move next week, I will be watching The Office exclusively online, and yes, they deserve a cut of those advertisements that I won’t be clicking on.

I don’t know when it was that I lost interest in movies. I used to watch nearly every film that came out in the theater. Literally. I spent thousands of dollars on movies. But nowadays, I don’t seem to have any interest in them. I don’t even know what is coming out, which is crazy for someone who used to watch movie previews online just for fun. When I do watch a movie, I can barely sit through it and tend to turn it off half way through.

I think it may be because every movie I can remember looking forward to this year has disappointed me. Most recent example: Into the Wild. I love that book, but the movie was a let down. For one thing, I don’t think Sean Penn, who directed it, understood Christopher McCandless–the character was a lot stupider and darker than McCandless seemed to be. And all the philosophy behind what McCandless did got completely lost in the movie, or worse, boiled down to cliches like kid hates his father/American consumerism makes people numb. Boring! McCandless was anything but boring.

For another thing, the pacing of that movie is awful. There are oodles of voice-overs and loooooooooong montages. And that’s made even worse by the fact that large chunks of action from the book were cut out of the movie, like when McCandless almost died in Mexico. Why? Action is interesting! Montages are not.

The thing is, I love movies, movie theaters, going to the movies, eating popcorn, etc. But they so rarely suck me up and carry me along in them anymore. So I would rather watch an episode of The Office or read a book than watch most movies. And that makes me a little sad. Is it the overall quality of movies these days, or is it just me?

My TV viewing for the summer has been limited. It consists of:

Big Love
Top Chef
So You Think You Can Dance
Flight of the Conchords

I never get tired of Flight of the Conchord’s Boom Song. I can watch it over and over again and still laugh. But I also like their rap, which I recommend you watch forthwith:

Update: Kat pointed me to Mel’s video blog. Awesome.

So far I am liking Flight of the Conchords on HBO.

The plot: Two guys from New Zealand are in a band in New York. In between their adventures, they sing songs and imagine they are in music videos.

Is it mean I find Sarah Silverman’s joke about Paris Hilton going to jail hilarious? Am I mean? Because I don’t want to be mean. So if that’s mean, just pretend I didn’t laugh.