Lionel: I believe sucking smoke into your lungs will kill you

King George VI: My physicians say it relaxes the throat

Lionel: They're idiots

King George VI: They've all been knighted

Lionel: Makes it official then

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I know that I have been a little m.i.a. lately and I really have no excuse, except laziness.  But I am back and have lots to talk about, so get excited!

Over the past month I have seen True Grit, The King's Speech and Country Strong.  My TV shows have also started to come back and I have checked out a few new ones.

True Grit was very good...until the end.  I will not ruin it for those of you who have not seen it, but I just did not like the way it ended.  It was a little too drawn out for my taste.  I also did not think the narration was necessary.  Other than that, I really enjoyed it!  I have not seen the original, so I have no idea how similar the movies are to each other, but the performances from Jeff Daniels and Matt Damon were as good as usual and even funny at times, and newcomer, Hailee Steinfeld, was excellent.  It has the Coen brothers typical quirky humor and is a fun, modern Western.

The King's Speech was amazing.  Colin Firth as the stuttering King George VI, Helena Bonham Carter as his Queen and Geoffrey Rush as his quirky speech therapist, Lionel Logue, are all excellent performances.  The story is based in fact, is very interesting and, apparently, was not allowed to be told until Queen Elizabeth I (the current Queen's mother) had passed away.  Firth has already won the Golden Globe for this role and I would not be surprised if an Academy Award is on the way as well.

In contrast, Country Strong was not horrible but it was also not that great.  I just felt like they were trying to do too much and it would have been so much better if they had just simplified the plot a little bit.  On top of the story of the country star just getting out of rehab, there is also a love-square-type-thing going on. Garrett Hedlund is having an affair with Gwyneth Paltrow, who is married to and still loves Tim McGraw, but he also falls in love with Leighton Meester, who Gwyneth thinks is having an affair with Tim.  My brain almost exploded just writing out that sentence.  The soundtrack, however, is awesome and if you are a fan of country music, I highly recommend buying it now.  The movie you can probably skip, or at least wait until it comes out on DVD.

I still would like to see Blue Valentine and will hopefully do so in the next week.  Also, Oscar nominations are announced on Tuesday, so a few other movies will probably be added to my list of things I need to watch before the end of February.

Now onto my crazy television-habit...

The second and final season of Party Down was just as awesome as the first season. This season brought us the return of Jane Lynch, Kristen Bell and Joey Lauren Adams, as well as appearances from Tamala Jones, Loretta Devine, Rachael Harris, Paul Scheer, and Patrick Duffy and Steve Guttenberg as themselves.  As I have mentioned before, I do not get Starz, so I unfortunately could not watch the series when it was on.  However, I really do not understand why no one else watched it!  It was so funny!

As always, a few new shows have had mid-season premieres.  I do not plan on checking out all of them, but there are a few that seemed worth trying.  The first two episodes of Shonda Rhimes' new show, Off the Map, were pretty good.  I was definitely not blown away, but I will keep watching for now.  I also really enjoyed Harry's Law with Kathy Bates, mostly because of Nathan Corddry who is HILARIOUS.  Other new shows that I will probably test out are Mr. Sunshine (which has not gotten good reviews, but stars Matthew Perry and Allison Janney) and The Chicago Code.

I have also, finally, started watching Arrested Development.  I know, I know, I am a few years behind, but better late then never, right?!  I am only about a third of the way through the first season and I am not yet sure how I feel about it, but I will forge on and let you know how it goes.  I never really had any interest in watching the series, but have been pressured into it by a friend :o)

We are almost one month into 2011 and many places in the world still need our help, including Haiti, Australia and the Gulf Coast (land and water).  So, as I have done before, I give you my plea for assistance and my suggestions for where it can be sent.  I am generally a bigger fan of hands-on mission when possible, but money is always good too:

Presbyterian Disaster Assistance

Habitat for Humanity

United Way

StillerStrong

The Nature Conservancy

National Wildlife Federation

American Red Cross

World Vision

I hope that everyone is having a good start to their year and I look forward to hearing about what you have been watching!

xoxo

c

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"Okay, new plan: we’re gonna fashion a cow costume out of this gauze and then we’ll just mosey on outta here like a cow walkin’ out of a hospital."

TV schedules are not what they used to be. Shows used to premiere in the fall, usually took a break at Christmas and had their finales in the spring. Sometimes there would be a break for the Olympics or Sports Playoffs/Championships or Presidential speeches. Nowadays (I sound so old :o) shows take hiatuses at random times for no reason and each channel starts and ends their seasons at totally different times. The USA Network, especially, just seems to do whatever the hell they please ;o) For instance, the third season of In Plain Sight just started a few weeks ago and White Collar starts their second season this summer. Even though it is only April, shows on all networks are already airing their season finales. I guess it makes for more things to watch throughout the year, but it is mostly just annoying and confusing.

While I am not going to run-down the list of all the shows I am currently watching (it is a lot), I will tell you about a few I think you should be watching but probably are not.

Aside from Justified, Party Down is another awesome show that I have just discovered. I knew about it when the first season aired, but as I do not have Starz, I could not watch it until it came out on DVD. I am even thinking about paying for Starz if I cannot get the new season any other way. This show is awesome and completely under-rated. It is a show about a group of actors and one writer who live in L.A. but have not yet hit it big, so they are working as caterers. And if you also watch the show Greek then you will recognize the uniform from Evan Chambers' caterer days, an homage to Party Down. I mean, how could a show created by Paul Rudd, Rob Thomas, John Enbom and Dan Etheridge (the last three all from Veronica Mars) be bad?! Add to that the fact that it stars Ken Marino, Jane Lynch, Lizzy Caplan, Adam Scott, Ryan Hansen and Martin Starr and this show is nothing short of hilarious. (Jane Lynch, obviously, has left for Glee, but is being replaced this season with the equally funny Megan Mullally) AND THEN there are amazing guest stars in every single episode including Kristen Bell, Joey Lauren Adams, Ken Jeong, Jennifer Coolidge, Ed Begley Jr., Enrico Colantoni, Jason Dohring, Breckin Meyer, Rob Corddry, Steven Weber, and George Takei and Rick Fox as themselves. Seriously, watch this show if you want to laugh a lot :o)

Glee has just come back from its winter hiatus. As much as I love this show, I feel like whenever they come back from a hiatus, the episode always underwhelms me. Maybe my expectations are just too high and I get too excited about the show coming back that I think it is going to blow me away and it just does not. That is not to say that last weeks episode was not good I just thought it could have been better. This weeks Madonna episode, however, was AWESOME. The only thing that annoyed me was that stupid American Idol ran long which messed up my DVR and I missed the last five minutes of the show, and consequently, the best musical number of the episode. Luckily, Hulu had it up the next day and FOX is re-airing the episode tonight. This is actually one of my shows that most other people are watching, and rightly so.

I know most people think that Modern Family is the funniest new show of this past season. I have watched several episodes and, while I do think it is entertaining enough, I just cannot get into it. My favorite comedy has to be Accidentally on Purpose. Jenna Elfman plays a thirty-something movie critic who has a one night stand with a guy in his early twenties, played by Jon Foster, and ends up getting pregnant. I seriously love this show and it makes me laugh hysterically every single week. Unfortunately, it did just have its season one finale this week and may not get picked up for a second season, which would make me extremely sad.

Foster and Nicholas Wright, the actor who plays his best friend Davis, also have an online talk-show that is super funny. Here is the first episode:



I follow these guys on twitter (@LunchItUp) and requested that they dress like pirates for one of their episodes. Which they did last week just for me because they are awesome :o)

One of my favorite shows, Ugly Betty, has unfortunately been canceled and the season finale aired a few weeks ago. Over the past four seasons, there have been some down times, but overall Ugly Betty was an amazing show that I will very much miss. It was different than anything else on TV and was extremely entertaining. This season especially has been awesome and if it weren't for stupid ABC constantly changing its time slot, I really think it could have kept going at least another season.

I am still loving The Vampire Diaries, Castle, NCIS, NCIS:LA, The Good Wife and others. There is actually a lot of smart, quality television on that I think a lot of people are over-looking because of more "popular" choices. I just wish I had more power to keep these good shows from getting canceled for crappier ones.

xoxo
c

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Veronica Mars is smarter than me.

So, I've already told you how I found my favorite actor, Ryan Gosling. Now it's time to talk about my favorite actress, Kristen Bell.

I had seen her in the one episode of American Dreams that she did in 2003, but had no idea who she was at the time.

Then, about three and half years ago, I was visiting some high school friends in New York City. They had started watching this new show called Veronica Mars on UPN and said it was awesome. It was the middle of the second season and they had the first season on DVD. I watched the first episode, really liked it and by the end of the weekend, had watched the first four episodes and could not wait to watch the rest of the season.

I came home from NYC and literally drove all over town looking for the DVDs. None of my local rental places had it and neither did the two Border's or the Barnes and Noble near my apartment. Defeated, I went home and ordered it online. When I got it in the mail, I watched the entire season within a matter of days...and then proceeded to watch the whole thing at least two more times.

UPN was in the middle of airing the second season and at first I was not going to watch it because I had no idea what was going on. Then I found the website marsinvestigations.net and it gave awesome episode summaries. It also had character descriptions (even for the obscure people who were only in one episode), a time line of events, quotes from every episode, cultural references, mystery speculation and much much more. This is probably the best fan site I've ever seen, and I was soon brought up to speed on what was happening in season two.

Unfortunately, even though it was a brilliant show with an amazing cast (I heart Sheriff Lamb), it was canceled after the third season due to lack of viewers. There is a very slight possibility that they will make a movie, but it's not looking too good at the moment. I'm keeping my fingers crossed though that Warner Bros will do the right thing (wink wink, nudge nudge).

The creator of Veronica Mars, Rob Thomas, has a new show called Party Down, which she has guest starred on, and is about a group of aspiring actors who move to L.A. and end up working as waiters. Sadly, I don't get Showtime and have not yet seen it. Although, I have heard very good things about it, and plan to watch it when it comes out on DVD. I mean, how can you go wrong when the main cast includes Ken Marino, Ryan Hansen, Jane Lynch, Adam Scott and Lizzy Caplan?! Most people (at least my friends) are probably going, "Who are those people?" But if you check them out on imdb.com you should recognize at least a few of them...because they're awesome.

But I digress....

After becoming hooked on Veronica Mars, I watched her in Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical which is an awesomely hilarious adaptation of a 1920's anti-marijuana propaganda film. It also starred Neve Campbell and her brother, Christian, as well as, Steven Weber, Alan Cummings and Ana Gasteyer. This actually came out during the first season of Veronica Mars but I don't think it was ever in theaters...or at least only in limited release.

She was hilarious in Forgetting Sarah Marshall which was written by and starred Jason Segel as well as Mila Kunis and Russell Brand. And, of course, every fan boy needs to see Fanboys :o) She's also the voice of Gossip Girl, which I love, and was on Heroes for a short while. I was already watching Heroes when she joined the cast, however, I was starting to lose interest and actually stopped watching before she left the show.

I've also seen Fifty Pills and Pulse and then the few things I have not seen are in my Netflix queue...of course :o)

The next couple movies she has coming out are:

Astro Boy - an animated film about a young robot (voiced by Freddie Highmore) created by a scientist in the image of the son he has lost.

Serious Moonlight - written by Adrienne Shelley (who wrote Waitress) and directed by Cheryl Hines. It's about an attorney who duct tapes her cheating husband to the toilet just before their home is invaded by burglars. It also stars Justin Long and Meg Ryan and should be out at the end of the year.

Couples Retreat - written by Vince Vaugn and Jon Favreau. A comedy about four couples who go on vacation together and, while one couple is there to work on their marriage, the other three don't realize that the resort's therapy sessions are not optional. It stars Vaugn and Favreau along with Jason Bateman, Malin Akerman and Kristin Davis.




When In Rome - She plays a talented real estate agent who is unlucky in love. She travels to Rome to visit her sister and steals some coins from a supposed "fountain of love" and is consequently pursued by a band of wannabe lovers, including Josh Duhamel (not too shabby if you ask me).


When Veronica Mars ended her career totally took off. Which made me a little sad only because I feel like if people had been paying better attention, they would have discovered her earlier and VM would still be on. But I am glad that people are noticing her now because she's an amazing actress and, though I don't know her personally, I really do believe she deserves all the attention and success.

Now if only Kristen Bell and Ryan Gosling would do a movie together...

xoxo
c

ps. i started using the "xoxo" to sign all of my emails thanks to Gossip Girl