Notes on Pop Culture: What Films Are You Jonesing to See? Would You Pay Theater Prices to See Them at Home?

I finally got to set foot inside an actual movie theater last weekend. My plan was to, at long last, catch The Ides of March, the film about the loss of innocence of a political operative (Ryan Gosling)who’s working for a flawed presidential candidate (George Clooney). However the universe and the movie theater people conspired against me and I was unable to see the movie, the one that's perfect for a presidential primary season, that night.

Last Friday was my chance to revel in the political film but when I showed up, money in hand, The Ides of March was only showing at 10 p.m., too late for my husband and I to be out when our 13-year-olds were watching their occasional recalcitrant younger brother. So we wound up seeing J. Edgar instead. (It was an interesting flick, though the film was wildly uneven, unfocused and was grappling for a raison d'être. Leonardo DiCaprio was outstanding however and I was intrigued enough to want to delve more into the events of J. Edgar Hoover’s initial rise in the FBI.)

I still want to see The Ides of March, but seeing as though it’s now playing at awkward times that don’t fit all that well into my schedule, I’m going to have to accept that I may just have to wait until it’s available on DVD/On Demand.

In the meantime, I was able to watch the excellent, infuriating and taut Margin Call – about the 2008 economic crisis -- on its opening weekend only because it was simultaneously released in movie theaters as well as through my cable provider’s On Demand system. Even though I paid a higher price than I would’ve for a movie released on DVD and regular On Demand, it worked out great because, once the kids were all in bed, I got to watch the film at my leisure, at a time that worked out for me.

The On Demand-while-still-in-the-theaters set-up is how I’m planning to see the critical darling Melancholia  – about a woman (Kirsten Dunst) who gets married just as the world is about it end – that’s currently playing in theaters. (The title just appeared on the list of new releases on Friday.)

Would I have liked to have see Melancholia and Margin Call in actual theaters with actual other grown-ups and not have to worry about letting the pile of unfolded laundry on the sofa taunt me with its unfoldedness? Of course I would have, plus I would dressed a lot nicer to go out to see the movies than I would to watch them in my living room. But for right now, for the kid-centric space my husband and I are in where we've got youth hockey and hoop games in the mornings and in the evenings, this is where we’re at.

I was very disappointed to see that independent-minded film The Descendants, which is amassing oodles of critical plaudits, hasn’t been made available On Demand-while-still-in-the-theaters like Melancholia. Instead, The Descendants is only playing in “selected” theaters. (Note: If you’re going to go the “selected” theaters route with your movie – meaning the film won’t be run at most movie theaters outside of a handful of big cities – you’ll boost the number of eyeballs watching if you simultaneously make it possible for people like me to watch your film On Demand. I’ll pay a theater price, I just can’t get to the theater, especially when you make it so difficult by limiting the number of showings.)

What films are you anxious to see in the theaters and would you be willing to pay theater prices for the chance to watch it On Demand at home?

The Top 5 Current Films on My Want-to-See List

I haven't had any chunks of time available to run out to the theaters and catch any of the good flicks that are currently showing -- my family's Christmas tree has been standing naked in its stand in the family room since Sunday because we haven't had time to decorate it, and our outdoor lights aren't up yet -- but if I do find some time, here's what's on my want-to-see movie list right now:


Image credit: Warner Brothers


1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1. Can't believe I haven't seen this yet! I saw Half-Blood Prince opening weekend. I'd planned to go with my daughter, but at the last minute, she went and saw it with her friends, though she promises to accompany me when we get a spare three hours.

2. The Social Network. I know, I know, should've seen this some time ago as well. I blame all the youth hockey games. And youth soccer games. And now youth basketball.

3. Morning Glory. This got mixed reviews, but I could use some lighter fare, certainly to counterbalance the darkness of the Potter film.

4. Love & Other Drugs. This also got mixed reviews, but I love the director/co-screenwriter Ed Zwick -- the man behind thirtysomething and Once and Again -- and like Anne Hathaway, so I'm willing to risk it. Hope that's not a mistake.

5. Black Swan. Speaking of dark films . . . critics are buzzing positively about this Natalie Portman film and I want to see what the fuss is about, though I'm nearly certain there's no way The Spouse will accompany me to see this, especially if I tell him it's about a ballet dancer.

What current movies do you want to see?

Image credit: Warner Brothers via Comingsoon.net.

Entertainment Weekly's Fatherly Flicks

In honor of Father's Day this weekend, Entertainment Weekly is out with a list of the top 24 movies to watch with dad.

I'd already been thinking about dads and movies when I read this online because, just last night I bought my father three DVDs of films I thought he'd really like: Field of Dreams, Bull Durham and Hoosiers. (Yes, we're a sports-fan family.) I've watched all of these films, albeit a long time ago, with my dear old dad, and to me, they have a special meaning. (No, I'm not worried about revealing my father's Father's Day gift in this space because he doesn't read anything that's online unless my mother prints it out for him. Mom, please don't print this one out, 'kay?)

However only one of the classic films I bought made it onto Entertainment Weekly's dad-kid movies list: Field of Dreams, which came in at number 17. My father's all-time favorite flick, The Godfather -- which he watches every, single, time he stumbles upon it on TV -- only made it to number 15.

The EW list is eclectic and unconventional. Here's the top 10:

1. Paper Moon (Starring the father-daughter combo of Ryan and Tatum O'Neal.)
2. Revenge of the Nerds
3. The Champ
4. Father of the Bride (This came out at the same time I was getting married, so it reliably makes my dad teary-eyed.)
5. Elf (One of my new favorite Christmas movies.)
6. Return of the Jedi ("Luke, I am your fa-a-a-theeer." I know, Darth Vader uttered that line in The Empire Strikes Back, but in the last final Star Wars movie, Luke and Darth made amends, hence it landing on this list.)
7. Say Anything (Have boombox, will travel.)
8. Wall Street (I don't get this one. Seriously.)
9. Rudy
10. Full Metal Jacket

If you were going to make up a top 5 list of the best films to watch with your dad, which movies would be on it?

Image credit: Entertainment Weekly.

New 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince' Trailer

A brand, spankin' new trailer for the new Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, is out. (Link to the video here.)

A little over four months 'til it hits the theaters, on July 17. My resident Potter-a-philes are excited (plus I can't wait to see it either).

Holiday Weekend: 'Bedtime Stories' and Catching Up on 'Lost'

Been in holiday hell for the past week, thus, no blogging in this space:

Lost too much time trying to load up The Spouse's Christmas gift (iPod Nano) with iTunes as well as songs from the CDs we have in the house that we haven't listened to since the first George Bush was in office. Looking at the Reality Bites and Friends soundtracks was a trip down Memory Lane, I tell ya.

Played happy homemaker (key word played) by baking a ton of cookies, including the batch of peanut butter/chocolate kiss cookies into which I realized, as they were cooking, I'd neglected to add baking soda. (The non-baking soda cookies were like little rocks.)

Attempted to wrap gifts while keeping my sick 10-year-old girl (who had a bad pre-Christmas cold) at bay so she wouldn't get an advanced preview of the gifts.

Lightly prepped the house for my parents' two-night stay. Made dishes for our family's traditional Christmas Eve dinner at my brother's house, then, with The Spouse, made Christmas dinner for parents and brother's family.

Once Christmas concluded -- I always feel a giant letdown after Christmas -- The Spouse and I took the three kiddos to the movies to see Adam Sandler's Bedtime Stories, which also featured the luminous Keri Russell. The kids had been dying to see this film since they saw the trailer this past autumn when we went to see High School Musical 4047, The Pepto-Bismol Years and were hooked.

It was typical Sandler fare: Harmless, mildly funny and sweet at times. The two older kids laughed aloud more than once and were particularly fond of the pointless, big-eyed guinea pig named Bugsy, which had essentially no relevance beyond making the kids chuckle. However at several points during the film, our 7-year-old was confused about what was happening and The Spouse attempted to fill him in. It was never really explained, for example, why Adam Sandler's niece and nephew suddenly possessed the power to tell stories about their uncle that would, in some form, later come magically true, such as Sandler getting caught in a hail of gumballs or talking in alien-like gibberish. But hey, it's a family-oriented Sandler comedy, I wasn't expecting a Mad Men-esque tight production.

Once the kids got their movie fix, I got my DVD fix by cracking open the season four Lost DVD set The Spouse gave me for Christmas and watched an embarrassing number of episodes back-to-back (suffice is to say that I'm almost through season four). While watching the episodes, which I'd only viewed once during the truncated fourth season, it's amazing how much I've forgotten, including little details I'd missed this past spring.

Watching the eppies is good preparation for the fifth season's premiere on January 21. Speaking of which . . . ABC has uploaded another new sneak peek of the Lost season premiere online, complete with references to John Locke, last seen in a coffin in Los Angeles by a bearded Jack Shephard.

Study: Romantic Movies Harm Your Love Life

All of those who think that your love life will and should play out like a 1990s Meg Ryan flick raise your hands. If you've got a hand aloft, I've got a really great investment for you, a simply fabbbbulous opportunity where you just hand over your extra cash to a nice man named Bernie Madoff . . .

But seriously folks . . . there's a new study from an Edinburgh university -- Heriot Watt University -- which asserts that romantic comedies offer unrealistic portrayals of intimate relationships and that fans of the genre misapply those views to their own relationships, according to the BBC.

One of the authors of the study told the BBC:

"Marriage counselors often see couples who believe that sex should always be perfect, and if someone is meant to be with you then they will know what you want without you needing to communicate it . . . We now have some emerging evidence that suggests popular media play a role in perpetuating these ideas in people's minds . . . The problem is that while most of us know that the idea of a perfect relationship is unrealistic, some of us are still more influenced by media portrayals than we realize."

The movies reviewed for the study -- for the full list, click here -- included: You've Got Mail, My Best Friend's Wedding, America's Sweethearts, While You Were Sleeping, How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days and Two Weeks Notice.

So, as a public service to my readers, I'll take it upon myself to hereby declare that your romantic life will not be perpetually filled with happy endings (take that in whatever way you wish), romantic gestures, destiny-filled moments and kooky side-kick gal pals who are at your beck and call to over-analyze everything your loved one said and did. You are NOT Meg Ryan or Julia Roberts (circa the 1990s, that's important to note), nor are you Sandra Bullock, Kate Hudson or Hugh Grant, titans of romantic comedies over the past decade.

When I told The Spouse about the study, he likened it to the fanciful delusions men might develop after visiting strip clubs or leafing through a Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue (where the women are airbrushed within an inch of their lives). The women at whom the men are leering, he suggested, provide men with irrational expectations as to what a woman should look like and, by the argument advanced in the study, could damage the men's love life. Touche Spouse!

Image credit: DVD town.

New Trailer for 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince'

It's been less than a week since I completed the last book in the Potter series. Now I'm planning to catch up on the films. I've only seen the first two and have Netflixed the others. (Need to decide if movies four and five are too violent for my two 10-year-old Potter maniacs to watch.)

While I wait for those DVDs to arrive, I discovered a new trailer for the next Potter film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on Entertainment Weekly's Pop Watch blog. The film was originally slated to be released this fall, but studio execs pushed the date back and now it'll come out in the summer of '09.

Amidst the cool effects in this trailer -- love the dramatization of the Pensieve -- I like that there were moments of levity, like when Harry told Hermione Granger, "But I am the Chosen One," and she batted him on the head with a paper.

Presidential Pop Culture Preferences: McCain as Batman, Obama as Spider-Man?

Entertainment Weekly has an interesting feature in this week's issue where a reporter asked Senators and presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama about their pop culture preferences. Aside from identifying McCain as Batman and Obama as Spider-Man, other observations from the article:

Their favorite fictional presidents: McCain picked 24's David Palmer (in the show, he was portrayed as the first African-American president), while Obama went with Jeff Bridges in the movie The Contender. What, no love for The West Wing's President Jed Bartlet?

Their families have voted for an American Idol: McCain's wife Cindy has voted for Arizona's Jordin Sparks. Obama's girls voted for David Archuleta, the magazine reported.

Their TVs are frequently tuned to: McCain watches Seinfeld repeats, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Dexter, The Wire and Big Love, which he said is one of his wife's favorites. Obama says his 7- and 10-year-old daughters frequently watch the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon (Hannah Montana, Drake & Josh, That's So Raven, SpongeBob SquarePants, the last one Obama says he finds "pretty funny") while his wife Michelle puts on HGTV ("I suffer that silently") and he makes the case for sports and ESPN.

The last movie they saw in the movie theaters: McCain saw the latest Indiana Jones flick ("I enjoyed that so much. The old guy wins.") and Obama saw Shrek 3 with the kids.

When asked what superhero they'd be if they could choose any: McCain said Batman because, "[H]e does justice sometimes and against insurmountable odds. And he doesn't make his good works known to a lot of people, so a lot of people think he's just a rich playboy." Obama says: "I was always into the Spider-Man/Batman model. The guys who have too many powers, like Superman, that always makes me think they weren't really earning their superhero status. It's a little too easy."

Image credit: Entertainment Weekly/Ward Sutton.

My Husband's Secret Pop Culture Life

I don't know how it happened. We've been married for over 15 years, been together as a couple for more than 20. But somehow, my husband has developed a secret life that I never knew about.

I discovered this while perusing through a recent issue of Entertainment Weekly, one of my favorite magazines that I revere for its smart, clever take on film, television and books. The editors had compiled lists of what they called the "New Classics," films, TV shows, music and books that have been released in the last 25 years that the editors believed made in impact on American popular culture. (Yo editors, no Alias? Have you taken leave of your senses? But I digress. . .)

Convinced I'd crush him with my affection and knowledge of TV and movies, I decided to read the lists aloud to see who'd seen more shows and movies. (I didn't bother tabulating the book list because my husband doesn't read books. Not that he can't of course, but I don't think he's even gotten through my book yet. It came out last year.)

My bubble was burst as I was going through the film list and he said he'd seen several movies I hadn't, movies that came out after we'd been together, like Dazed and Confused and Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery.

"When did you see those? I never saw them," I asked.

"I don't know," he replied, "maybe you were asleep and I was just flipping through the TV stations late at night."

By the time I got to the end of the list, I found that I'd seen 54 of the top 100 "new classic" films, and he'd seen 60 of them. This did not bode well. However I didn't start to become truly troubled until we got to the TV list. Here, he kicked my butt, seeing 87 of the 100 TV shows to my 61. ("Am I too picky? Too snotty in my viewing habits?" I thought as he racked up the numbers and I had a crisis of TV watching confidence.) Among the shows I never knew he watched was Baywatch, number 50 on the list. He didn't directly admit to watching it but got a you-know-what-eating-grin across his face when I said, "Please don't tell me you watched Baywatch."

Among the other shockers, he'd seen Saved by the Bell, Jackass, Felicity and Xena: Warrior Princess. "How could I not have known that you've seen all these things?" I said incredulously. Maybe it's that I just talk and overtly analyze what I watch more than he does so he knows what I've seen but I don't know what he's seen because he's pretty quiet about it. But for a guy who doesn't seem to care much about discussions about pop culture -- with the exception of Lost which we watch together and dissect at length -- his tally of 87 shows stunned me.

Next thing you know, he'll be telling me he watches The Real Housewives of Orange County long after I've fallen asleep after watching a Lost DVD hunting for more clues. My husband, apparently, has a secret pop culture life.

Image credit: Entertainment Weekly.

HSM Hype . . . Startin' Early

While I was in a movie theater last weekend to see Sex and the City, I nearly walked into this huge cardboard display (pictured on the left) promoting High School Musical 3: Senior Year. Which premieres. In theaters (unlike the other two movies which were solely for the small screen). In late October. Four months from now.

Isn't this in-theaters promotion a tad early?

My daughter is an enthusiastic HSM aficionado. Her 9th birthday party last year was scheduled around the world premiere of HSM 2. Her room is decorated with a large HSM poster and other assorted paraphernalia.

But hyping a film four months in advance? You're going to make everyone -- specifically parents of tweens and teens -- sick of HSM 3 before it's even released. Trying NOT to drive parents crazy with over-hype, it could be the start of something new.

'Sex and the City' Reviewed

Despite having to watch Carrie Bradshaw & Co.'s triumphant return while seated next to a heathen (see my earlier blog post), I did find Sex and the City: The Movie to be entertaining, albeit surprisingly melancholy and sometimes dark. I review the film for the web site Mommy Track'd here.

Because SATC did so well in its opening weekend -- $55+ million -- the film studio is already musing aloud about a possible sequel.

What did you think of the film? Did it meet your expectations? What would you want to see in a sequel?

'Sex and the City' Experience, Tainted

To the creepy, old man who insisted on sitting right next to me during an opening weekend screening of Sex and the City:

You are a sick man.

Not only did you laugh in a sinister, odd way whenever any sign of human flesh was shown on screen, you laughed uproariously at several key, heart-breaking scenes.

One pivotal scene in particular, involving a character using flowers as a weapon, you laughed so hard and so loud that I couldn't hear what the actors and actresses were saying.

The person with whom I went to see the movie was likewise appalled because your sadistic laughter saw no end. You found another scene, where a character's humiliating emotional anguish was written all over her tear-stained face, to be a howling scream. You even pounded your fist on our shared arm rest to drive home the point that you found it so funny.

Nothing ruins a movie quicker than having a man who's well north of 70 come to a film like this, alone, loudly chortling in the seat next to you at the on-screen nakedness -- both emotional and physical -- especially when it's not meant to be funny.

Signed,

A person who'll need to see the film again and make sure to tell other suspect old men that the seat next to her is taken