Raleigh wins

Raleigh is the best place to live in America!!!! Who knew????

The article states that Raleigh's housing market is growing faster than all other major markets except Las Vegas. Our proportion of young adults ranks third to Austin and D.C. So why don't we have things like SXSW and the Smithsonian? There's always this.

BOP: SATC 2 & POP:TSOT

Lovers of the Middle East unite! Girls and abs travel to the lands of sand to battle flirt with some guys and some dagger of importance. These two are flying under my radar.

Sex and the City 2: $151 million
Prince of Persia 1: $112 million

Now that LOST is over, let's move on to SATC 2!!

This Gawker article sums up everything I think about the Sex & the City sequel:

"This is an audience that is willing to overlook many shortcomings in favor of indulging a fantasy with their imaginary BFFs, and that's what movies like this are about."

and why I will see it, hopefully with Susan & friends & some kind of booze, at the dollar theater:

"And I'll be there, no question about that. But I also stare at car wrecks, love stories about Jonestown, and once spent an entire afternoon watching the Saw movies. A glutton for punishment."

Box Office Predictions: Shrek Forever After and...

MacGruber!

I saw the 30-second sketch stretched to 100+ minutes last night. It's raunchy, dirty, filthy, funny, and Forte-y. Get ready for poop jokes, dick jokes, and celery jokes (yes, plural). Leave your mom at home.

This movie doesn't have the family replay appeal that SNL classics Wayne's World and The Blues Brothers have, but it's still as funny. At least if you like throat rips.

Shrek returns again, and I can't remember ever being as disinterested in an animated flick. Does Mike Myers have written into his contracts that his movies must contain at least 30 pop culture jokes? In twenty years people will have forgotten what was so funny about "I want my baby back baby back baby back ribs."

Kids will come back, but not to the tune of the third, certainly not like they did for the second. But since this is "the very best Shrek since the very first," and it's in 3D, it'll do fine.

MacGruber: $55 million (only because I love Will Forte does this get a mention.)
Shrek 4: $311 million

LOST will go on

How great was this week's episode? Season 6 has really been just 'aight (Jackson, Randy. season: every single one. American Idol.) for me. "What They Died For" really brought back an excitement for Lost and the series finale (this Sunday! ABC!). I think one of the main characters will die before this is all over. My guess - Jack.


I know the creators say that this will be the end - no sequels, movies, etc. Although a movie would be kind of cool? Or maybe I'm too hyped up for this to think rationally? Either way, fun to think about and I see major potential for show spin offs. The one floating around the 'net about one focusing on Ben & Locke is a good one. They're a real buddy picture waiting to happen!

I would also watch a cop show focused around Miles & Sawyer. 2 of my favorite characters! Fightin' crime! Romancin' the ladies! Making wisecracks and having nicknames for everyone! The show would be gold.


On a lighter note - they could do a "Wings" style sitcom with Frank Lapidus in the lead. He's easy on the eyes! This guy doesn't get enough screen time and he would be killer in a lead role. (Who didn't love Wings anyway??)

I think we can also agree that Vincent's talents were wasted as well. Get this dog on Animal Planet stat!! He could be great as a dog with a double life: crime fighter at night, family dog during the day. Vincent would be a great new era Lassie.
Got other Lost project suggestions? Leave them in the comments!

Movie freewrite: Singles (1992)

JOP has enough movie reviews, movie articles, reviews in general, but something I've been missing lately is a good fifth grade-style FREEWRITE. I sat down tonight after a long day of moving, hoping to relax to some early-90's romantic comedy...here it goes: Singles!

- Nothing really compares to Reality Bites. Was RB derivative of the trailblazing (?) grunge collage aesthetic of Singles and Slackers and offered only a slicked-up, Ben Stiller'd version of it for the masses? Or was RB simply the best synthesis of those elements and a really good movie after all? Would I have enjoyed Reality Bites as much as I do if I had been in the target audience (18-25 yo) when it was released, or would I have been pissed at how "inauthentic" it is?

- Wondering where Bill Pullman is.

- Why does the male romantic lead (Campbell Scott? more generic name please!) send out such a teacher-y vibe? Mr. Rutherford, Mr. Williams my 10th grade Chemistry teacher...channeled by this actor. Blech.

- Bill Pullman shows up as creepy plastic surgeon, hits on Bridget Fonda so overtly it's surreal and the movie doesn't make sense anymore.

- Matt Dillon = never hot.

- JOP already has a "Bill Pullman" tag--this one's for you, Clamz!

- the Expect the Best dating service sequences are maybe the best thing about this film...and heyyy, is that Peter Horton from Thirtysomething??!? it is!

- holy crap, these girls are arguing over Peter Horton..."does that give you the right to just bone him in my kitchen?!"

- welcome to 1992: the computers in this movie actually make boop-beep-boop-boop sounds when you hit keys! (and the screen is black with green type, obv)

- dozed off for a while, but I saw enough to say that things wrapped up satisfyingly but not too crazily; no Garden State-like horrors here. It's sort of a feel-good movie!

- so: Singles gets a solid B from me.

Glory Daze

Kate Hudson you are no Courteney Cox! Is that a shirtless Charlie (Dominic Monaghan)?

Box Office Prediction: Robin Hood

Ridley Scott+Russell Crowe=Oscar winner
Cate Blanchett+medieval England=Oscar nomination

What happens when you combine all these elements? I'm guessing about $175 million and no attention from the Academy. Lightning might strike twice, but four times?

Summer Reading Roundup: The Swimming Pool

Remember the huge stack of books I got at the publishing convention? This was one of them, and I just finished it.

I wanted to like it, mostly because I wanted a reason to finish it. The "mystery" was only not predictable by a technicality, and the characters were flat and WASPy, and dare I say idealized versions of the author? That's a stretch, but honestly: has Holly LeCraw ever met a person? The Swimming Pool makes me think: no.

Everyone is beautiful, everyone has a perfect body, a tanned body, an unbelievable body, a flawless body (actual phrases used to describe characters as they lie sexily on a beach, their sun-kissed skin shimmering blah blah blah). Everyone is rich, but don't worry--they're not too snobby or entitled. Also, their cottage on Cape Cod doesn't have a television! So real! The happiest characters have a healthy awareness of how easy their lives are, but sometimes they're even suicidal, via pills (!!) and another might be an alcoholic (??). Was the teenaged daughter sort of flighty? Was the adult son a handsome lawyer with shit on his mind? Was the dad a philanderer? Was the wife really good at tennis? What do you think?

Basically: I wasn't buying it. McCraw did not write real people. These characters are maybe idealized versions of herself and people she knew growing up, and I know because I used to write stories like that. It was hard to care about them, much less see them as anything other than caricatures. The adverbs and cliches weren't helping, either!

But there was some suspense, and I always want to know how things will end up no matter how crappily it's presented. At the end of the day, I still read this on the bus and I still finished it in just a few days...it was kind of a page-turner. So I place The Swimming Pool on this spectrum:

The Room -----> my short stories, 2003-2006 ----> The Swimming Pool ---> Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood ---> Gathering of the Juggalos infomercial

Yes, it is really like that. This book gets a C- !

Inquiring Minds

Have any of our loyal readers tried BaconSalt? If so, is it good? I'm really curious! Even though they are the makers of Baconnaise "Everything should taste like bacon", I feel like BaconSalt would be more promising.