Fat Wife
I have been imagining how this kind of sitcom would go down for years now, and someone has finally animated it. Dreamy.
Target Women: Your Garden
This is my favorite yet:
Liz Lemon + Don Draper = ROFL
I was just about to commence stress-baking when I came upon early footage of Mad Men‘s Jon Hamm’s arc on 30 Rock. You can watch it at Videogum. I laughed so hard I almost threw my back out – but then that’s probably because I share an Achilles’ heel (or two) with Liz.
They look so good, that’s why I keep ‘em in the front
Thank God a certain friend of the blog put Critical Darling onto Flight of the Conchords. I’m fist-deep in the first draft of my thesis, but this has kept me laughing all morning — ladies and gentlemen, I give you “Sugar Lumps”:
Multitasking
On the way home from a laundry-detergent run this evening, I passed by a bus with an United States of Tara ad plastered onto the side of it, just as I had finished listening to Louis XIV’s “Pledge of Allegiance.” This was undoubtedly a sign telling me to stop living and start updating my blog once in a while. It is also a sign that I apparently don’t own enough underwear and listen to the music of very bad men.
Technically, United States of Tara premiered on Showtime tonight, but I took a look last night, courtesy of Netflix, and was pleasantly surprised. When first I learned of the premise of the show — a woman and her family learn to function with her dissociative identity disorder — and that Juno-scribe Diablo Cody would be writing and Steven Spielberg producing, I thought gimmick. It’s not that I dislike those fine people — I don’t – it’s just that the combo struck me as too … something. Plus, I get very uncomfortable thinking about mean-spirited critics shoehorning Cody into some sort of cranny when she’s only just begun.
So, I watched, even though half of my brain was counseling, “If you don’t watch, you won’t have to feel all protective.” The other half reminded me how much I love to see what people are able to do with their bodies (ahem) — like, how magical it is to realize that Catherine O’Hara was just holding her face to look post-op at the end of For Your Consideration. I’m constantly undone by how many people, male and female, Amy Poehler was able to be on Saturday Night Live and with the Upright Citizens Brigade.
In Tara, Australian actress Toni Collette plays four very different roles — a “normal” mom, a housewife, a reckless teenager, and a somewhat backwoodsy dude — in 29 minutes. (OK, so actually it’s three “alters” in the first episode; we’ll see from here on out.) Collette, to me, is a bit like the female Ed Harris in that she’s been in everything, and yet, because she is such a generous and non-showy actor, she’s seldom remembered. Playing all over her range in Tara, I really believe she’s got a shot at the household-name status that she’s probably more or less uninterested in. That’s if she can continue to chew all she’s bitten off, and if the pathos generated continues to meet the level of acting gymnastics performed.
I wouldn’t buy a TV and subscribe to Showtime based on the pilot, but if you happen to have those things, and you like to be told stories, take a peek.
Target Women: Vampires
At last, Sarah Haskins weighs in on our national obsession with sexy blood-sucking teens:
No! Touch it back to life!
Let one of the other ABC shows in the vicinity croak instead! Like … The Bachelor.
Looks like Pushing Daisies will bite the dust after all.
Excuse me while I download Mad Men, season 2, and cry.
