DVDs What I Got For Christmas And Other Assorted Items

So, delightfully, I received many awesome DVDs as Christmas gifts. I have a rockin' Amazon Wishlist with so many divergent items on it that a friend of mine deemed it "schizophrenic." Heh.

• The Dark Knight; I might have the teeniest obsession with this movie. It had the audacity to come out on DVD in December. Grr! I don't buy DVDs, CDs or books during November or December because you know, it's the holidays. But I did make the pronouncement that if I did not get The Dark Knight for Christmas that I would buy it on December 26th. But yay! My brother BW got it for me! He got me the super-duper, extra-chocolaty, 2-disc edition. Um. The extras suck! They suck! No commentary! No deleted scenes! In fact, no interviews with the actors at all! I mean, I respect the filmmakers not wanting to like, exploit Heath Ledger's miserably tragic death but come on. It's a glaring omission not to talk to ANY of the very fine actors in this film. There is one interesting little featurette about composing the music in the film, particularly the Joker's theme. That said, the movie is still AWESOME and I've watched it at least six times since I got it. Hi, I'm a geek, have we met?
• The Nightmare Before Christmas; Also from BW, it's the 2-disc special edition! I haven't watched it yet, because I'm watching The Dark Knight over and over, but I will! Soon! I love this movie! Love the songs! Love Jack the Pumpkin King! Love Sally the Rag Doll! In fact, the next time I go to a costume party, I'm totally dressing up as her. I'd make an excellent Sally, I think...
• Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie; My gift from Mame! This is our favorite show and one of our very favorite movies. We (and our dysfunctional little group of friends) used to quote it incessantly. Every time I sign for a package, in my head I say, "Wiiiilt Chaaamberlin."
  
• Mad Men, season 1; We do a gift exchange for our extended family and my Pap had my name this year and this is what he got me! Awesome! Now I can finish watching and BW doesn't have to wait for my slow ass to get it from Netflix. Jon Hamm RULES.
• Empire Records; I love this movie! It's one of the few movies I can tolerate Renee Zellwegger in! (The other two are Chicago and Cold Mountain) It has a great soundtrack and it's really funny. Stupid-funny but that's my kind of humor. I know it's not great, but it holds good memories for me and it's lots of fun. Besides, how can a movie go wrong when it brought us Rex Manning Day?
  
• Panic At The Disco: Live in Chicago DVD/CD: Oh, shut up. Technically, I bought this for myself but I paid for it with a Barnes and Noble gift card given to me by my stepsister, so yeah. Whatever, I like Panic At The Disco, it's not a crime.
  

I also got the third book in the Lenore comic series and I got my mom the Sookie Stackhouse series, the books on which the HBO show True Blood that we LOVED is based. Since I'd already read the first book, she's letting me zip through the series while she reads book one. Heh, I'm already on book five. I never said I wasn't self-serving, ok? It's a pretty great series and I highly recommend it. Also, my mom is cooler than yours. It's time you accepted it. Sorry!

What did you get for [insert appropriate winter holiday here]?

Movie Review: "Rachel Getting Married"

Ok, you guys. This right here? Best movie of the year. I loved this movie. LOVED. Full disclosure: I really like Anne Hathaway. I think she's adorable. I love The Princess Diaries, the books and the movies. No, I'm not 11. Shut up, they're really cute. And her hair was HILARIOUS in Brokeback Mountain. Anyway, I like her a lot and am generally prepared to enjoy her work.

In Rachel Getting Married, my girl Anne plays Kym, who is just a trainwreck of a human being. She's let out of rehab on a pass to attend her sister Rachel's wedding. And of course, all sorts of confrontations and fights and dramatics occur. But, not in the typical movie way. This movie unfolds more like a documentary. Or like real life.

It's a very interesting wedding, a mishmash of Eastern and Jewish and all kinds of other traditions. It's awesome. Full of music and dancing, it's exactly the kind of wedding I'd like to attend. The movie uses entirely diagetic music, emanating from the various musicians hanging out at the house. (Hey, I'm a nerd. I like to pretend like I know things.)

The acting is uniformly amazing. Hathaway does a beautiful job with Kym, a character who should probably be fairly unsympathetic. She's been an addict for years and put her family through hell. She is wildly self-centered and has absolutely NO filter. You get the idea that she's had way too much therapy and thinks being "honest" and "open" means saying anything that pops into her head. Heh. But Hathaway finds the heart in her and the courage and strength. She really is trying. She really does love her family. The scene where we learn what happened to Kym and Rachel's younger brother is incredibly compelling.

Everyone else in the cast is a knock-out as well. Rosemarie DeWitt plays the grounded Rachel. I was sure I'd seen her in something else and when I looked her up, she played Midge on Mad Men. (A sidenote: what is up with that? It seems like every time I like an actress lately and look her up, she's from Mad Men. The other notable example is Julie McNiven who played Anna, the angel girl on Supernatural. God, Mad Men rules.) Debra Winger pops up, as Kym and Rachel's distant mother, in the first role I'd seen her in in a really long time. She's awesome. Bill Irwin (Mr. Noodle from Sesame St.!) and Anna Deveare Smith (She's been in tons of things, but she will always be Nancy McNally from The West Wing to me. "Someone get me a change of clothes. I look like an idiot.") play the girls' dad and stepmom. It's a lovely performance from Irwin especially, I hope he wins lots of awards.

I cried off and on for the last 40 minutes of the movie. I'm not kidding. It wasn't pretty. Some of them were sad tears, others happy. Families, man. Families just get to me. Even when they're not perfect, even when they suck, even when they have NOTHING in common with you, you still want them with you and on your side. Rachel Getting Married is such a lovely, funny, ultimately uplifting ode to perfectly imperfect families.

Three Television (Sort Of) Reviews -- Two Short, One Long (ish)

**Oh, mild spoilers for True Blood and spoilers for season one of Mad Men. Don't say I never warned you. **

I really love True Blood. Like. It's currently my favorite show. Ok, I don't love it more than Supernatural. It's one of those shows that's awesome but when you try to describe it to people, you sound like a moron. Like Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Battlestar Galactica. Or The West Wing. You know? "So yeah, True Blood is about the Louisiana waitress named Sookie -- yes, that's her name -- who can hear people's thoughts. And vampires are real and live amongst humans. But Sookie, she can't hear VAMPIRES' thoughts so she falls in love with this vampire named Bill. And she's a virgin, but they have sex and he totally bites her too. And also, there's a serial killer and shape shifters and werewolves and the Japanese invented a drink called 'True Blood' so vampires don't have to kill people and -- WAIT! WHERE ARE YOU GOING?!" But seriously, it's so great. Funny and dramatic and well-acted. All the secondary characters are fascinating. I don't want it to end!

I don't care how many teenage girls it spontaneously knocks up, I love Gossip Girl. I am completely unrepentant about this. I love Chuck Bass. I want him to have his own show. I don't care that it's trashy and shallow and it's probably rotting my brain. IT'S FUN.

Ok, so, Mad Men. The show is so good, so well-made, so attentive to detail, magnificently acted, but it makes me feel so BAD. I'm watching season one from Netflix and there's seriously a two-episode limit before I want to kill myself. I just watched "5G," the episode where Don Draper's long-lost baby brother finds him and the poor kid just wants a connection with him and Don basically tells him to fuck off. I wept, ok? I WEPT.

Everyone on the show is SO miserable and trying to force themselves into roles that they don't fit. Except Joan. Joan is not miserable. She is awesome. I adore her interactions with Peggy, who is perhaps the only truly decent character on the show. It's so difficult to like these characters because every one of them has pretty much all the characteristics that would make someone a giant asshole today -- racist, sexist, classist, hypocritical.

I do giggle every time I see that pregnant character smoking and drinking a martini, which would be every time she's onscreen. And I loved when when Betty Draper was driving around with her two small children rolling around the car and climbing over seats. HA! Also, when she visits her shrink, she actually lies on a couch.

And Don Draper. What is his DEAL? Why is he so...so...LIKE THAT? Jon Hamm is great in the role. And handsome. Also great and handsome? John Slattery as Roger. He's such a smartass. I also have affection for him because I saw him be awesome in the play Rabbit Hole a few years ago and he was brilliant and cute. Even from the back row.

So, I like Mad Men a lot, but it makes me very sad. But when that happens, I can just watch clips from when Jon Hamm BRILLIANTLY and HILARIOUSLY hosted Saturday Night Live:

• Vincent Price's Halloween Special*
• Don Draper's Guide To Picking Up Women**
• Jon Hamm's John Ham***

Any thoughts on my favorite shows? Be warned, if you are going to tell me to elevate my sights and stop watching shows about vampires and werewolves and zombies, oh my! I will ignore you. Fair warning.

*"Where are the whores?"
**"Drink and some constantly."
***"Feel like a dummy yet?"