I approve: Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Jack and I went to the Chi this weekend to pick up my furniture from Ikea aka heaven.

Have you ever driven through Illinois? 

Don't. Ever. It's worse than driving through both Missouri and Iowa combined, if you can imagine. 

On Sunday we drove 8 hours, through literal nothingness. Jack and I spent way too many hours (yes hours) at Ikea, me deciding between the birch-effect or white bookshelves and Jack probably contemplating how easily he could throw himself down the escalator. Afterwards, we went out for dinner and then wandered the streets of the Chi looking for some trouble, or at a least a bar. But, oh yeah, it was Sunday night and NOTHING WAS OPEN. Really, life? 

Upon deciding the night shouldn't be a total bust, we did what any sane couple in an unfamiliar city would do and bought some overproof Jamaican rum.

"I drank some last Saturday night and was still dancing in my underwear at noon the next morning," says the man at the liquor store. Try to say no to that. Overproof rum in hand, we headed back to the hotel and rented a movie on our TV for $13.99

There is good news, however. The movie we rented was actually really good...and I don't think it was the rum. 

"Forgetting Sarah Marshall" contains the same wit and style as other Apatow productions such as Superbad, Knocked Up and 40-Year-Old Virgin, but is effortlessly cool and laugh out loud at the same time.  A bunch of reviewers on Rotten Tomatoes agrees and says the film "finds just the right mix of romantic and raunchy comedy."

Plus, it has Paul Rudd.

I approve: This review of "The Happening"

Christopher Orr writes:

“M. Night Shyamalan’s latest movie, The Happening, is not merely bad. It is an astonishment, so idiotic in conception and inept in execution that, after seeing it, one almost wonders whether it was real or imagined. It’s the kind of movie you want to laugh about with friends, swapping favorite moments of inanity: “Do you remember the part when Mark Wahlberg … ?” “God, yes. And what about that scene where the wind … ?”

The problem, of course, is that to have such a conversation, you’d normally have to see the movie, which I believe is an unreasonably high price to pay just to make fun of it.”


Right on.

I approve: Sex and the City (the movie)

While I have always been an avid watcher of Sex and the City the TV show, I've never been one of those "What Would Carrie Do" or "What Would Carrie Wear" people. Mostly, while watching, I would try to figure out which character I would be if I had to be one. I lack Carrie's amazing ability to teeter in Manolos for hours on end, Charlotte's maternal nature (blech), Miranda's cynicism at the thought of true love, and Samantha's lubrication. Needless to say, I never really decided which one I am.

Anyways, after reading 1,000 reviews on the movie, both online and in my greater Cedar Rapids Gazette, I came to the conclusion that this movie was going to blow. The critics said that the character development was lacking and that the 2+ hours were filled with corny one-liners and nothing else. Oh, and shoes.

This is true.

The critics, however, failed to mention one other problem - the movie's HORRIBLE production. In almost every scene you CAN SEE THE MICROPHONES HANGING FROM THE CEILING. I expected more from a movie that manages to feature almost every major fashion designer.

Despite all its drawbacks, however, I still loved the movie. So much, in fact, that I'm seeing it for the second time in one day. No number of production mistakes and lack of plot cohesiveness can kill my love of the perfect combination of every woman; Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte. And, of course, their killer clothes and shoes.