TV Guide: The Knocked Up Broad Edition

For real, I am seriously hormonal right now. Like can't even deal with reading my e-mail emotional, on the off chance someone sends me something about puppies because I'll cry for two hours. It's not just normal pregnancy stuff; they're also pumping me full of extra hormones (progesterone injections) weekly to keep this baby baking til it's good and done. So yeah, I keep sobbing at seemingly innocuous things on the TV. It's gonna happen for a few months until the baby gets here, and then about a year after that. And then sporadically for probably the rest of my reproductive years. Then all through menopause. So all I can do for now is try to avoid the worst triggers. I've prepared a handy list for other pregnant ladies in terms of what's safe as far as TV and movies, and what should be avoided at all costs (and what should wait for a few adult beverages and Netflix a few months down the line). I hope that this can spare you some of my pain.

Totally Acceptable Viewing:

• Slasher Flicks. Seriously ok, because they never harm pregnant people or kids in slasher flicks. 
• Zombie movies and TV shows. The Walking Dead is ok until they get to the parts with people and emotions and whatnot, then it's a crapshoot. World War Z was ok too because you never had enough time to connect with the characters before they became zombie feed.
• Sy-Fy Original Movies. I thoroughly enjoyed Sharknado, and not just because I thought Tara Reid might get eaten. These are generally mindlessly fun movies unless you have totally irrational fears of things like flying sharks. This week's Ghost Shark was not quite as good, but thankfully it also did not elicit a serious emotional response (like crying or screaming at the screen) either, just a few comically mis-timed chuckles. Also appropriate are most regular science-fiction movies and TV shows, because these days they're all too ridiculous to deal with real issues that would leave a prego super-emotional.
• Any episode of The Nanny, with the exception of the last one or two (when "The Way We Were" plays as Fran is getting her makeup case in the last episode, I can't help but sob, hormonal or not). The Golden Girls is also, shall we say, golden. 
• Most grown-up cartoons. I've been watching a lot of The Simpsons and Regular Show lately, mostly the latter because it's pretty G to PG and I can watch it with Stenni. Not much to offend there, and they skip the heavy stuff. 
• Musicals. Pretty much all of them. Except Moulin Rouge, which makes me cry like a baby even without the extra hormones. 

Not OK Under Any Circumstances:

• Any episode of Little House on the Prairie. Do yourself a favor and set the parental controls to block the Hallmark Channel as soon as the pregnancy test comes back positive. Trust me on that one.
• Celeste and Jesse Forever.  And I feel like someone should have warned me about this, because they had to know I'd see it eventually. Cute movie, but not even my girl-crush on Rashida Jones could have saved me from openly weeping at all of the awkwardness.  During pregnancy skip this one and move directly to the somewhat-similar 500 Days of Summer, which offers a 50% less chance of weepiness. 
• Skip Law & Order: SVU  if you are prone to watching things and thinking, "That could conceivably happen to me and/or my kids" because while it could, it probably won't, and you'd be better served by thinking about what to make for dinner and who is lurking around what corner.
• I remember watching a movie about Ted Williams when I was pregnant with my daughter, and sobbing uncontrollably when they wouldn't acknowledge that he was the greatest hitter of all time. So I skip the baseball movies, and if you get emotionally involved in sports, you should too.  Hubs still rips on me for this too, so I'll never live it down. Double shame.

 Surprisingly OK: 

• Take Shelter, which dealt with some heavy topics and had a pretty down ending, but was easily handle-able for some reason. Maybe because I've long considered building a storm/bomb shelter and did not think the idea was crazy at all.  
• Midnight in Paris. This was my intro to Woody Allen (with all of the movies I've seen, my husband couldn't believe it), and I might have to look into some of his other work in the future. Aside from the shrewish fiance, there was nothing really objectionable at all in the film and it was just a pretty nice way to spend an hour and a half. 
• I watched every episode of AMC's The Killing this season with bated breath. It was fabulous, even though they kept killing innocent people and misguided teenage girls (and they were involved in some pretty serious business. If you don't like your dramas dark and adult-themed, skip this one), and the ending was honestly kind of a downer. I didn't get as furious with my television this season as I did at the end of season 1 where they left me with the "Who Killed Rosie Larsen" cliffhanger though, so that's a plus (I almost cancelled my cable and shot my TV right then and there. Almost).

Save for Netflix and Adult Beverage Time:

• The new season of Arrested Development that came out around Memorial Day. I mostly enjoyed it, especially towards the end, but I have a feeling that I'd have liked it more with a large rum and coke in my hand. 
• Most other binge-viewable TV series that I want to catch up on, like The League and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and 30 Rock. 

I'm sure there are a TON of things I'm not thinking of. What do you recommend for any of the above categories? Anything you thought was safe that absolutely wasn't (like the Volvo commercial where the boy make that bracelet for the girl at the end of camp and gives it to her in that engraved, hollowed-out, awesomely decorated log box? Because that made me sob.), or didn't think to watch but were ok with? Please let me know if I'm too severely limiting my options! 

If you go in expecting a summer blockbuster...

you won't be disappointed. If instead you expect anything even remotely like the book, prepare for some serious frustration. This, in a nutshell, is my review of World War Z. Brace yourself for a few spoilers.
The movie is a quick-moving, action packed thriller. Most of the people you meet only stick around for like, a minute (they're zombie chow the next). The infectious virus doctor who is kind of funny and supposed to be the reason for the international mission? Yeah, he makes it to the first stop, just barely, and then? Yeah. You know the rest. So it goes with everyone Brad Pitt encounters for pretty much the entire film.
Let me give you the similarities between the book and the movie...don't worry, it's a pretty short list: there is someone with dubious connects to the UN (in the book it's a "postwar council" to record things, and in the movie it's just a guy who used to work there and is apparently good enough at life in general for them to send out a helicopter for him and his entire family to Newark, where no one ever wants to go, especially if it's filled with zombies), they go to a few different countries to show some differences in how the situation is handled (though North Korea is dealt with TOTALLY differently in both), and oh yeah, there are zombies. If you have read the book, you should know not to to expect much more than that. The cool bits about the ineptitude of the government, the rabies vaccine, establishing safe zones, what happens to the rest of the world, and how they started rebuilding? Well, they're just not entertaining enough to share screen time with Brad Pitt (apparently neither was his co-star, Mirielle Enos, who doesn't have enough time here to be as wonderful as she is in TV's The Killing). I also expected something to be mentioned about how the boats in the book were not safe at all, since in the movie they spent some time on a boat, but that was also ignored, sadly (would have made for a minute or two of interesting viewing).
All in all though, I enjoyed the movie. The "zombies" here are of the 28 Days Later virus-made super fast and strong variety, not The Night of the Living Dead slow and dumb variety. That kind of makes for better viewing, though it may not be totally accurate (but who am I to say?). It's a fun bit of zombie fare, if you're into that sort of thing, and Lord knows I am. But it's also a little trite. You know when you're supposed to remember something, and it's obvious if something will be important later. It also wraps up a little to cleanly at the end for my tastes, but that's just me.
If I were giving it stars, let's say 3 1/2 out of 5? Not the best movie, but I was entertained for about 2 hours, and it made for a good drive-in date night movie with the hubs. But don't bring the kids, unless they're not easily scared and also love zombies.

(Extended) Book Week Kind of Wrap-Up: I have read, I am reading, I will read.

Sorry for the mid-book-week absence. I had a much longer than expected ultrasound on Thursday (no worries; me and the little guy are fine, he was just not feeling cooperative for the sonographer), an up-all-night sicky toddler, and a bit more stuff to do than I had planned on before we left on Saturday for our camping trip (and as you know, there's no phone service or wi-fi anywhere near where we camp...such a blessing!). So I didn't get a chance to relay to you my awesome summer reading plans. Here's what we've got so far:

What I've Read:
 Barefoot Contessa, How Easy Is That?: Fabulous Recipes and Easy Tips by Ina Garten...In short, not as easy as I'd like it to be. The tips were ok, if a little obvious (only a few were truly clever and none mind-blowing), but the recipes were somewhat complicated for a woman with a toddler hanging off her leg and 15 minutes to make dinner. I wanted to like this book because I really like Ina Garten (and the book was even a WNYC member gift this year during their pledge drive!) but unfortunately, I didn't get terribly much out of it.
The Paris Wife by Paula McLain I don't like Ernest Hemingway. I don't like him or his writing, despite what my husband or my freshman creative writing teacher think (I distinctly remember almost being thrown out of class for never having read Hemingway by my freshman year of college. By now I have; I don't think I missed out on too much). Now I know that this novel hovers around the "historical fiction" genre, but it's based on fact, and it gave me more of a reason to believe that I've always been right about the man, that he was something of a scoundrel. That said, I couldn't put this book down. Hadley Hemingway was such an endearing character that I really wanted her to be happy but obviously knew how the story ended beforehand. If you haven't read this yet, do it now.
Double Delicious!: Good, Simple Food for Busy, Complicated Lives by Jessica Seinfeld I liked the recipes in this book better than Seinfeld's Deceptively Delicious. I'll be making her pumpkin ravioli, cinnamon-maple quinoa, and and butternut tomato soup (def fall recipes though), and the carrot orange popsicles will be a staple in the house throughout the summer. I'm still not sure how I feel about her use of things like all low-fat tub margarine, super-low-fat and/or skim only milk products, and a ton of cooking spray, or how I feel about tricking those in my house into eating healthy, but some of the recipes seem worth a try (I'll stick to those that obviously contain fruits and veggies though, to steer clear of any produce-related feeling of treachery from those I feed).

What I'm Reading:
Homeschooling: Take a Deep Breath- You Can Do This! by Terrie Lynn Bittner I'm still on the cusp of organized homeschooling for Stenni, and I don't know if I can handle it myself. That said, this book gave me a good bit of info that I hadn't run across anywhere else (and admittedly, I thought that I could get almost everything I needed from the library and the internet. Silly V). It answered a lot of practical questions I had about building a curriculum and even what to do when met with resistance (and how to answer snarky questions). I'm glad I found this one and looking forward to finishing it. 
The Art of Fielding: A Novel by Chad Harbach At the urging of hubs and the NPR book review, I finally picked this one up a few days ago and guys...I didn't want to put it down. Not to go camping or hang out with family or even see the sunlight. Like anything worthwhile, it's about life and baseball and the intersection of the two, but so much more than that. It's about the college experience that I didn't have, the hopes and expectations of so many people who are so different and being on the cusp of adulthood and all sorts of things. AND it's really well written. I have read the reviews though, and heard that the last half isn't as great as the first (I don't want to believe it yet, and will tell you soon if it's true or not).  

What I Hope to Read:
The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch by Neil Gaiman I don't know much about this, except that I've never read any Neil Gaiman and everyone says I should. Oh, and it's a graphic novel. I think I'll stick to those for beach reading this year, since I can only sit on the beach for so long and not swim (I really hate sand) and my attention span is really short in bright light. Oh, and the word "nightmarish" keeps coming up in the reviews, and I'd be a liar if I said I didn't kind of dig that.
The Before Watchmen Series (they're pretty much a series of comic books that come before the Watchmen story, chronologically speaking) So when I was in the city in April for a Yankees/Blue Jays game, I stopped at Midtown Comics and picked up one issue from each series of this title (each series is based on a character). I don't know why I did that. I didn't get them in any order, and now I've read from the beginning, middle and end of a few different stories with no idea what happened as a whole. I'd like to read the rest. I should probably re-read Watchmen too, just to be on the safe side.
I like reading comics and graphic novels while I'm pregnant. Right before I found out I was having Stenni a few years ago, I got The Walking Dead Compendium and read it cover to cover while lounging in front of the fireplace. It's just a strange thing that comforts me while pregnant. I can't explain it, but I fully intend to keep doing it. Maybe it just keeps the menfolk around while I chub out (ha, you know, since comic-geek-girls are so well-loved).  

I may also re-read Sin City before the new movie comes out this October (who am I kidding...I totally will!), since I will drag my 9-months-pregant self to see it whether my water breaks in the theater or not.

So what have you been/will you be/are you reading this summer? Anything worth mentioning? Probably not a bunch of comic books, but hey, we can't all have such short attention spans. Stay tuned later this week for the zombie-related book-to-movie review that I know you haven't been waiting for on pins and needles.  

The movie review I almost didn't write...

SPOILER ALERT. FOR REALS. 

Have you seen Django Unchained? I have been waiting for quite some time for Quentin Tarantino to make a western, and so I wanted to see it almost as soon as I heard it was coming out. I went to see it this weekend, and I hesitated to write this review because I've seen the virulent opposition to this film by a number of writers and reviewers. If you know nothing else about it, let me just say that it's about a former slave who, with the help of a German bounty hunter, becomes a bounty hunter himself and loves it, but also resolves to find and free his wife. Additionally, Leonardo DiCaprio is getting pretty good at being a bad guy in his old age, and in this film he is a very bad guy with very bad teeth and a possible incestuous relationship with his sister. The movie was good. It was really good. But that being said, let me throw a few caveats up in there.

It was violent. 

So violent. As in, violent and bloody even by Quentin Tarantino standards. Far beyond like that scene in Kill Bill with the Crazy 88, which was bloody to the extreme but almost silly. I have a high tolerance for that sort of thing, but I still had to look away from the screen so many times I lost count (not only to people die, animals die too. But if you stay for the credits, it does say that no horses were harmed, which settled my stomach a little). Some scenes were particularly hard to watch because, unlike some bloody movies, this one had an emotional component.

It was long. 

Hubs and I thought we would be ok without snacks or popcorn, even though we went to an 11:40 am showing. By the time I got out of the theater (at almost 3) I was starving. I was clearly not adequately prepared.

It might have been racist. I'm not sure. 

As a standard, nondescript white person, I don't know what makes African American moviegoers particularly uncomfortable, but I can guess super-violent movies about cruel slave owners might be something that tends toward that end of the spectrum. Some things, such as rap music playing during a shootout, struck me as a little too racist, but then again, I'm not 100% sure. I know that some of it was probably intentional on Taratino's part as a filmmaker, to make the viewer uncomfortable as an effect of the movie-going experience. 

It was unrealistic. 

The first question I had, not 10 minutes into the movie, was whether or not the filmmakers consulted ballistics experts to ascertain what would have been the explosions, splatter patterns, noise levels, etc. caused by pre-Civil War-era guns and ammo. I doubt that they did, and I suppose shooting someone and having the person go flying 10 feet backwards through a doorway was just for dramatic effect. Also, I have a feeling that in the lawless southern areas of the country (which by my accounts are pretty similar today), the good doctor and the freed slave would not have been met with the "kind" reception that they received. There were a ton of things I wanted to research for accuracy as soon as I left the theater, but as my sister always tells me, it's just a movie. So it doesn't have to be realistic. 

All that being said, it was funny too. I laughed a lot, but sometimes I felt almost guilty laughing (the scene with the hoods that no one could see through? Kind of funny, if you forget what they're for). And I mean really, if the body count isn't taken into consideration, it ends on such a happy note, and the two lovebirds are reunited in the end. I liked it because it is a western, and I especially like the new westerns especially when they feel like the old, late 60's early 70's Sergio Leone westerns, which this does at times. Also, this was the only Quentin Tarantino movie that I've ever left the theater and thought, well I enjoyed that movie. Usually I hate them the first time I see them and I have to watch a few more times before they grow on me (which they always do). But while this one was very good initially, I don't know that I'd like to sit through it again. Some scenes were just too much, like the one in which a man is eaten alive by dogs. That's almost enough to haunt a person. 

I've read a few reviews from people who say things like "I don't think that this movie should have ever been made" and the like, because of the violent, almost callous way it deals with the subject of slavery. By that token, I'm sure that there are a ton of movies that should never have been made. But they were. It's art, but it's also entertainment. If we are to exist in a supposedly post-racial society, these things all need to be put on the table. If racial tension or violence (both of which are par for the course in Quentin Tarantino films) make you uncomfortable in the first place, this is clearly not a movie for you, and you aren't going to get anything out of it anyway. Additionally, this is clearly not a documentary. It didn't all happen this way. But you have to expect the cruelty. It's not like they glossed over the "slaveholders were bad" part of history class...maybe they did, I don't know where you went to school, but you know that they aren't going to be holding hands and skipping stones with slaves. I think that most of the opposition to this film comes from people who just don't want to think that things were ever that bad. But they were. Also, while slavery is a huge part of the film and definitely an underlying layer, it's not the whole film. It's kind of a love story in a way. It's also somewhat a story of redemption. But in most of the reviews I read, I think people are focusing too much on the wrong sort of things.

At any rate, I liked the movie. But I wouldn't bring kids, or my mom. And I don't think I'll be seeing it again any time soon.

a new year's eve eve treat:

despite the fact that she is like, the undisputed hipster princess of all time, i love zooey deschanel. she was in a made for the sci-fi (fine, now it's "syfy) channel original movie a few years back called "tin man" which was a "reimagining" of the wizard of oz. the miniseries was ok except for the ending, which was the stupidest, most ridiculous thing i've ever seen on tv or in person or anywhere for that matter (sci-fi movies are known for their terrible effects, but this one went beyond. the story was silly too). but i watched it religiously with a woman at work and we'd chat about it every week. after the last part aired, we never spoke of it again. that notwithstanding, i think that makes ms. deschanel more human, because she's done really awful made-for-tv things that i've watched and loathed, and not just made light, sing-song music that makes hipsters cry into their checkered scarves and campy movies that open to critical acclaim but a poor box office showing. to me, mr. jospeh gordon-levitt will always be tommy from third rock from the sun. however, he is scrumptious going to be in the dark knight rises which lends him some serious geek street cred. and they are both more than adorable in "500 days of summer" which is a movie my husband would never watch but i love because there's music and dancing and it's all just really cute. also it makes me want to go to ikea.
ANYWAY, here's a little ditty that they decided to sing together since they are so pukily-cutely-BFF-like and apparently hang out like friends, which celebrities aren't supposed to do:



go ahead, get nauseated if you need. or like, give yourself a hug and cry gently. you know, whatever works. hope your new year's eve is this adorable.

in short

AC was fun, but when we got back , life got really not fun, really quick. suffice it to say there's a ton of family drama going on right now that i'd rather not disclose in a semi-public forum like this.
but, AC was really fun. we had a hookah and went dancing and shopping and did girly stuff like face masks and pedicures. oh, but then my sister had a horrible allergic reaction to the face mask as soon as she got home, and her face swelled up so badly that she couldn't even see.
but see? the bad stuff only happened after we left to come home. we should have just stayed.
also, it's my hubby's 27th birthday today, and i'm soooo excited. we are having a party and a cake and everything! it's going to be awesome. oh and pretzels and beer, because what's a birthday without pretzels and beer? pathetic, that's what.

and now for all you geeks out there, some link love: you ready for your mind to be blown? shots from the dark knight rises. now you can do what i do, and speculate wildly. i also check out the catsuit and curse my giant self. you can do that too if you want.
speaking of my giant self, i won the contest against my sister, and the cash money! i lost 6 lbs. and we are starting another contest to go until the week before christmas, when we do our giant one-day shopping marathon at palisades mall. that way somebody will have some extra christmas money, and will also have had the motivation to stay away from the gravy boat and the christmas cookies. yay!
anyway i've gotta go finish getting everything ready for teddy-fest.