The Pop Culture Addict’s Blog

…a lil bit touching and the rest was kind of so-so. I’m talking about the 2005 MTV Movie Awards. Jimmy Fallon was predictably cute and the skits were predictably too long. I loved the Rachel McAdams/Ryan Gosling kiss acceptance for their Best Kiss award – something for the “so cute” category. I try to refrain from judgment about people I don’t know but yes, I will concede that the celebrity hookup on everyone’s lips is …OTT. But I liked Collateral and I will see War of the Worlds. And Batman Begins is supposed to be good. In fact, if I had my act together, I would’ve gone to see the sneak preview of it this weekend. I guess I will have to be like the peons who have to wait 3 more days till it opens. The Breakfast Club tribute was surprisingly touching. That’s about all I have to say about the show.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith was completely underwhelming. I really wanted to like it. It was, as my mom so aptly described, “a waste of talent.” I expected more from Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie who are, yes, extremely good-looking, but that alone does not make for a very entertaining movie, and from Doug Limon, creator of Go, one of those movies I always enjoy whenever I get a chance to watch it. The scuttlebutt is that Doug Limon is, uh…”idiosyncratic” is how I always put it, my cuz likes to say “quirky” and others might say “difficult to work with.” But I do think we all have our idiosyncracies and quirks that make us difficult to work with at times. It’s a matter of managing them so we can get what we want done without burning bridges. Oh, whatever. I think I need to let Mister Rogers give us some inspiration. Let me see…

Here’s a long one but it’s nice:

Mutually caring relationships require kindness and patience, tolerance, optimism, joy in the other’s achievements, confidence in oneself, and the ability to give without undue thought of gain. We need to accept the fact that it’s not in the power of any human being to provide all these things all the time. For any of us, mutually caring relationships will also always include some measure of unkindness, intolerance, pessimism, envy, self-doubt, and disappointment. – Fred Rogers

And I think this is true of any type of relationship be it work, familial, platonic or romantic.

Edit 6/15/05: I realized I didn’t state the obvious that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have undeniable on-screen chemistry. That was fun to watch. And Vince Vaughan was funny. All in all, it was ok, light summer fare. But no great shakes.

So I needed an antidote to Mr. & Mrs. Smith so rather than sit through the apparently long Cinderella Man, which I will get around to seeing eventually, I chose to see Lords of Dogtown and loved it. I was feeling like Roger Ebert in that Stacy Peralta’s autobiographical documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys did an excellent job of informing and entertaining us. What was the point of a fictionalized version of the same story? But I found it well-acted, well-directed and I loved the set design. Not that I am familiar with Venice Beach in the 70’s but I liked the recreation of the times. I must say I re-watched Dogtown and Z-Boys soon afterwards. I learned some tidbits about Lords of Dogtown from the extras such as, did you know that Stacy Peralta and Tony Alva were skateboard doubles for the actors who played them in the movie – John Robinson and Victor Rasuk, respectively? They were saying even though they are 47 now and the movie takes place when they were closer to 17, their styles are very unique and thus difficult to emulate. Also, it worked because they could still do the moves. Very cool. And very nimble.

I couldn’t remember why I was looking forward to the new tv show “The Inside” but I dvr’d it anyway. Then when I saw the credits, I remembered it was because Tim Minear of Angel, Firefly and Wonderfalls fame was the creator of the show. I also recognized one of the FBI agents as the sister from Wonderfalls…Katie Finneran. Also Adam Baldwin from the last season of Angel and all of Firefly (and My Bodyguard) plays another special agent. Peter Coyote’s the Big Kahuna and he’s always interesting. It was quite dark and graphic for a tv show. It was not the same as seeing demons getting vaporized. But I’m invested in watching the show until it gets cancelled. Oh so negative! I’ll watch it until it’s not on anymore. I could already tell the Tim Minear, formerly of team Whedon, touch as he established it would be an ensemble show.

On the music front, first I’m very excited about the new Foo Fighters album coming out on Tuesday (6/14)! I’m also looking forward to the new Jason Mraz album coming out July 26th.

Finally, I’m no Nick Cannon (and this is my one and only Chappelle’s Show reference today), but this is the best I can do for my fellow PCA’s who shared in the hilarity of this image with me:

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