Lady Business | Movies

Lady Business: Does it Hold Up?

When I first moved to California in 1989, I remember my college friends talking about Wynona Ryder. One had an acting class with her, and the other was her walking partner at high-school graduation. (He was told to move out of the shot by some photographers, and was bitter about it.) When I see her in a movie, I’m always oddly aware that she’s my age.

Imagine my horror last year when I saw her in the Star Trek movie as Spock’s mom. She was covered in makeup, but still. Sheesh! Then, I see Black Swan where she is described as old and washed up. For all I know, ballet dancers are considered old at 15. I still felt the hit.

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Television

The Killing: Everyone Killed Rosie Larsen

So, we’re still watching The Killing Sunday nights on AMC. It’s mostly still very good, though a half-season in, some of its flaws are starting to show.

First of all, the glacial pacing. At times, the show appears to be hanging around and checking its watch, waiting for the last five minutes to slap a revelation or cliff-hanger into our faces. It’s mostly forgivable, because it’s a full-season mystery, and if it was throwing suspects and clues at us every commercial break, it would be obvious that none of them would turn out to be legit. Still, it could use a little more content, more substance. Mood will get you only so far; some of the gaps could use a little filling.

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Netflix | Television

Stream Cuisine: Party Down

I discovered Party Down last week on Netflix Instant. I’d been aware of it for a while, actually, but I wasn’t a big fan of anyone in the cast until I’d come to really enjoy Adam Scott on Parks and Recreation this season. So, I finally decided to sit down and check it out, and wound up watching all twenty episodes in the span of a few days. It’s great, which sucks, because it got cancelled a while back.

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Lady Business | Movies

Lady Business: Summer Movies

Last year, I only went to see one movie in the theater all summer long. It was a combo of not having much out that I was interested in seeing, and also I am what you would call a ‘cheap bastage’. Of course, this summer is full of sequels and that lessens my choices. Typically, I’m not a fan of sequels unless they involve Han Solo, Legolas or some other hot nerd bait.

Hobo With a Shotgun, May 6th – Lordy, that’s a great title. If Rutger Hauer keeps to his tradition of saying only 13 lines of dialogue in any given movie, it’ll be a whole lot of silence followed by shotgun blasts. Truthfully, I’m on the fence for this one, but with a title like Hobo with a Shotgun at least I’ll know what I’m getting into.

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DVD

Black Swan

Quickie review: It was okay.

Longer review: Natalie Portman is a ballet dancer who is preparing for Swan Lake, and this one time she sees her face on someone else’s body and then when she looks again she doesn’t see it anymore, and then pretty much that same thing happens like five hundred more times and each time she’s like “Did I just see something weird?” and then she looks again and decides she probably didn’t. And I guess the audience is supposed to be spooked out about it and we are until maybe the 40th time it happens and then it just gets boring. And maybe we’re supposed to wonder if it’s something supernatural or if she’s just nuts, but it’s pretty clear she’s just nuts, as far as I could tell.

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