Nancy Drew, Or Why I'm Irritated With Greta Van Susteren

I used to like Greta, actually. But as she leaned more and more right, I grew more and more disenchanted with her. When I heard she brought Todd Palin to the White House Correspondents dinner, it only sealed my feelings, or so I thought.

Nancy Drew has been in the news a lot lately, for inspiring many women and irritating others. And Greta said that of course, she read just Nancy Drew-families didn't buy both Nancy Drew AND the Hardy Boys. I have news for you, Greta-my family did. And not only that, my older brother and sister read both series-we didn't discriminate amongst the genders in my family. We read all of them and that science fiction series with Tom Swift as well. And they were handed down to me.

I'd like to thank my parents and my brother and sister for not only buying both, but for showing me at a young age that your gender didn't matter when it came to books-there were no such things as books for boys and books for girls. They were books for all and all meant to be read by whomever wanted to read them.

Is The Hurt Locker the Best Movie of the Year?

In a nutshell, yes.

I went to see Public Enemies last week, and while it was very good and looked even better (you better not be filmed in HD unless you have great skin) it didn't move me like this movie did. Public Enemies may be an art movie masquerading and an action movie but The Hurt Locker is both an art movie and and action movie. And due to the acting of everybody in it, you care about them. Public Enemies left me curiously unmoved. You know nothing about Dillinger and while Depp gave him flash and charisma to spare, there wasn't much else there. Christian Bale clenched his jaw a lot looked very determined but the star of Public Enemies is the director. This movies could be an exercise in how to frame a shot, how to film it and where to have the camera. But when I caught myself thinking (as I did near the end, during the scene right before Dillinger got shot) "wow, that is an AMAZING shot", it took me right out of the movie.

The only things that took me out of The Hurt Locker was when unexpected guest stars showed up. Otherwise, it was a perfect movie. The characters are compelling (Jeremy Renner, please get at least a nomination for this movie) the story is edge-of-your-seat scary and the whole thing just works. Renner plays Sargent William James, a specialist in bomb disposal. Every war has these guys-the ones who go in to get rid of bombs when no one else will or can do it. And whey do they do it? Are the adrenaline junkies who get off on it? Do they like solving the puzzle? Do they even know why they do it, aside from the fact that someone has to do it? It's clear that James gets off on it-he keep mementos of bombs he's disposed of that didn't kill him-if he were a serial killer, he'd trophies but these are trophies of each time he didn't die. He's not a great soldier-he's cocky and reckless and puts himself and his team into unnecessary danger. And yet...he's great at his job. And he hasn't died yet.

This movie will haunt you, not only for the scenes set in Iraq (actually filmed in Jordan) but for the look on James's face as he heads down to take care of another IED. It's as chilling as anything I've ever seen.

I notice I haven't said anything about the other actors-and I need to rectify that because Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty as the other members of the team are fantastic as well-Kudos to all, but especially to Kathryn Bigelow for telling a story in a compelling way and letting the actors do what they do best. This movie was extremely well-directed and by that I mean it was unnoticeable. It was a story, without anything else (like period costumes and slick shooting) getting in the way. It serves the story and that's the best thing a movie can do.

I Hate What You're Wearing, Special Underwear Edition.

I get the feeling I was the only who ever watched Carson Kressley's show "How to Look Good Naked". Considering it only ran one (I think) that's probably true. Yes, it was a bit repetitive-he took a variety of women, young, old, fat, thin, black, white and gave them a makeover. The kicker? At the end, when they were feeling good about themselves, he would talk them into doing the shoot naked. of course they did it-by that point they liked themselves and were comfortable enough to do it. It helped that he was gay and acted more like their best girlfriend, but he also gave them confidence and showed them how beautiful they were-and what was possible-something they had never seen or believed.

So, yay, Carson! Every woman should have someone like you in their lives as a cheerleader and style consultant. But the most important thing he did was when he started the clothing makeover, he first took them to a lingerie store. You know why? Because without properly fitting underwear, the best clothes will look awful.I don't care if your bra is too tight and pinches into you (and MANY women wear the wrong-sized bra) or you over fill the cups or it's too big and crumples under your clothing-even the most expensive clothes will look ill-fitting without properly fitting underwear.

Why do I say this? Because just in the past few days, I've so many examples of badly fitting underwear, I could scream. It doesn't look good when your your bra pinches and everyone can see it. No one wants to see your thong (even if you like showing it, trust me, no one wants to see it, unless it's a 12 year-old guy). No one wants to see it, black-bra-under-white-shirt-girl-Sex and the City ended awhile ago-even Carrie Bradshaw stopped doing that.

Here endeth the lecture. Stop it now before I scream-no one wants that.

Warehouse 13

Oy. I just finished watching the premier of Warehouse 13, SyFy (another oy. Why the name change/rebranding? You've alienated the scifi fans, who are your base and just confused the people who MIGHT watch). I watched the first half the other night and went to bed before I saw the end, and I sort of wish I hadn't seen it. Don't get me wrong, I liked 3/4 of it. The stars had chemistry, Saul Rubinek was quirky and funny and I'm always happy to see CCH Pounder in almost anything. And the plot is good, if a bit one-note.

And then we got to the last 20 minutes, during which all the bad things that had been happening got blamed on Lucrezia Borgia. Lucrezia, the poisoner, the evil woman who wanted to rule a young man, kill his girlfriend and was hungry for power.

Jesus Christ. Did these people do ANY research on her before they wrote this show? Actually, I know the answer to that, and it's clearly no, because the truth (and rumors) about Lucrezia Borgia are far more disturbing, complicated (and not) and nuanced than being a power hungry cougar. A woman who was used both by her father (you know, Pope Alexander VI), and her brothers (Cesare and Rodrigo, two nasty pieces of work) is being maligned as a power hungry cougar, when the truth is that she was used by all of them to further their alliances and when her husbands had served their purposes, they (father and sons) had them killed. Lucky for her, she survived her father's death, and that of her brothers as well, her third marriage was reasonably happy and she lived and longish life-rising above her family to become a respectable Italian matron with eight children.

But I guess that's not as good a story as the power hungry cougar who wants to kill the younger girl and take over the life of that nice young man.

I'll say it again. Oy.

One Cool Thing

I was watching Nova last week-mainly because the host is a very cool guy. Don't know him? His name is Neil deGrasse Tyson. He's an astrophysicist, a scientist and the Director of the Hayden Planetarium. And right now, he's the host of Nova Science Now. Last week's show was very cool. It had man-made diamonds and the creator of the auto-tune (something that could fix even my voice although I think it's bad for people who do it professionally) but to me, the most interesting part was a profile of Luis Van Ahn-professor of Computer Science at Carnegie-Mellon and all -around genius. He created Recaptcha, a program designed to thwart autobots and spam. You've seen when you sign up for lists or go to buy something-at that rectangle that has words drawn out and difficult to read. Human beings can read them but autobots cannot.But you know what happens every time you type in one of those words? You're helping to digitize 140 years of the New York Times.
If you don't like the Times, this is a problem. But I LOVE the Times and I think is is just so cool-using one program to solve one problem and also help in a tedious task. Good job, Dr Von Ahn. And thank you, because those stretched out words have puzzled me for awhile. Why Tilson? Why gallifraumy? Why tree frog?
Now I know.

4th of July Weekend: 2 books, Random Clothes, Friends and Family.

I have not seen any movies lately-not even my netflix movie-The Fog of War. McNamara just died, so I should watch but it seems so depressing right now.
And I've seen so many crazily dressed people-so many I can't count that high. There was:
The girl I saw walking in a rainstorm-barefoot.
The other girl saw wearing plain pants with a subtle plaid in them-they weren't bad until I got closer and saw they had shiny gold thread in them-not good.
The woman wearing the MOST unflattering pair of capris I've had the misfortune to see. The cut her off at the worst spot on the leg, the were white and they were so tight I thought she was going to bust out of them.
And various other miscreants of fashion.
I went to see my family for the 4th and it was really nice. I went shopping (DSW, Banana, resale and outlets), went out to dinner with D and her step-mom and hung out with M and the dogg. Dinner was especially good-mainly because of my family (and how rare it is I would write something like that). Usually at dinner with my family, someone says something, someone else gets angry and yells, or says something mean or is quiet the rest of the night. But this time, everyone was on their best behavior. We all seemed to be funny and charming (and I only had one drink, so it's not the alcohol talking). It was really nice and everyone had a good time.
And I read two great books.
The Skull Mantra isn't really for the faint of heart. Shan is a Chinese prisoner sent to Tibet for the crime of exposing corruption in the wrong political circles of Beijing. What's he doing now? He's breaking rocks and building roads in one the most inhospitable areas of the world. The Chinese are trying to take over Tibet and destroy it's people-and the Commander running the camp and his people beat the prisoners for no reason-just because they can. And it's in this climate that Shan is ordered to discover who murdered the local prosecutor. But there's more to this story than meets the eye. There is Shan's story, the Tibetans story, the Chinese version and even some Americans tossed in. It's both uplifting and terribly depressing-I loved it. And he doesn't die at the end! Yay!

At the opposite end of the scale (although not really when I think about it) is Proust Was a Neuroscientist. This book takes some very well known writers (and a couple of musicians) and demonstrates how their works ties into the how the brain and our senses work and interact-it was fascinating. Proust's sense of taste ties into neurology and the falsity of memory, Escoffier's sense of taste ties into how was actually taste things physically (this chapter made me hungry), and Walt Whitman's heightened senses reveal themselves in his work and how the body functions. For me, the most moving chapter was on Virginia Woolf. Woolf's sense of herself, her belief in her core being the was used to hold together various parts of her struck very close to home to me. And the parts of her diary in which she deals with depression were a bit unnerving-but she was right-looking at it closely and writing about it makes it better.
Why are these books alike? Many of these writers (Proust, Eliot, Woolf) had disease, depression and heartbreak that made it hard for them to get through life-and yet they did. They lived and wrote and did well (well, until Woolf killed herself and Proust died fairly young) but they tried. And that's what Shan is doing in the Skull Mantra. he is living and learning about himself and Tibet-and what he is capable of doing and others as well. This kind of knowledge can be hard and hard-won but is it worth it? The answer is always "yes".