Lulz @ The Hills - Season 4 Ep. 1 August 18, 2008

I knew I was going to do a live blog on my reactions to this season of “The Hills” when I read the quote in last week’s Entertainment Weekly where MTV exec Toni DiSanto said, ”It’s almost becoming like a novel at this point, like this generation’s ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ or ‘Oliver Twist,’” proving that he’s never read a Dickens novel. Although I must admit that, at times, “The Hills” can move as slowly as a Dickens tomb, the handy literary reference of choice for TV critics to describe the show is “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” because everyone in last season who isn’t Lauren appear to be a peripheral character with very little to say or do.

The TV show choice comparison for has become “Sex and the City” - with Lauren Conrad cast as the show’s answer to Carrie and thousands of young women identifying with her for the last seven years, from “Laguna Beach” to her current incarnation as a fashion designer/celebrity ingenue.

Watch this full episode on MTV.com.

10:00 - Recap of last season. Blah blah, crying.

10:01 - Open on Lauren and Whitney at work for People’s Revolution. Yay, more fashion diva Kelly Cutrone this season! Lauren dishes on a date named Doug, setting the stage for this season’s boy centric drama. That was a lot of alliteration.

10:02 - I really wish this show would get a new theme song or at least reinvent this Natasha Bedingfield song this season. It’s so outdated.

10:03 - Heidi goes to work and they do an overly dramatic set-up for a visit from her sister. Heidi got really orange.

10:04 - Audrina’s still toiling at Epic Records, which insures we’ll see special appearances from bands on Epic again this season! Audrina outlines the tension between her and Lo and sets up for the party scene at their house that’s to come.

10:05 - Heidi’s sister is rather country-music-singer looking. At least her skin is a normal looking color. Spencer immediately throws a fit about her sister staying over, petulant child style. Boring dude.

10:06 - Back to Lauren & Lo’s house. Yay, the first face to face communication entirely via facial expression moment of this season happens when someone rings the doorbell!

10:07 - Lauren on a date seems like the most boring Lauren of all. Apparently she used to pull drive-bys on this Doug guy years ago. How embarrassing.

10:08 - Drinking beer tells Lauren that Doug is a guy’s guy. Logic courtesy of Lauren who orders something called a Fuzzy Dragon, which I’m pretty sure says she’s a girl who’ll get drunk and sleep with you on the first date.

10:09 - Commercial break! Holy crap I never realized how many quick cuts are in this show. You never watch one vignette more than 2 minutes. No wonder these people lack depth - they’re not given time to have any in the editing room.

10:17 - Back from the longest commercial break known to man. There was a teaser for “Exiled” this awesome looking new show where they send the chicks from “My Super Sweet Sixteen” to developing nations to do good works. Perfect.

Cut to Heidi and Spencer’s where the latter has a frown on his puss and acts like a douche to Heidi’s sister and then tells her to mind her own business when she says hey be nice to my sister. Ironically it’s followed by the Ting Tings singing “I ain’t freakin’, I ain’t fakin’ this.” It’s funny because Spidey fake everything. To quote Lauren, “like, you need to stop rehearsing your breakfast.”

10:18 - Audrina’s BBQ! ZOMG, she’s friends with faux punks and rocker boys! Maybe she like, legitimately likes music and stuff? Oh and it’s also Audrina’s birthday! Lo doesn’t know anyone and acts like a snob about it with a big frowny face. Lauren looks vaguely surprised? Pissed? I can’t quite grasp that look.

10:20 - Heidi takes her sister for a make-over! Yay she’s gonna cover up those awful roots I hope. Her sis quizzes her about how different she’s become and how much she’s sacrificing for her relationship. Everyone who meets Spencer immediately hates him. It’s amazing.

10:21 - Lauren and Doug interlude. Wow, they’re hella boring. 15 seconds was plenty. Lo refuses to attend the party and goes upstairs to play with her dog because hates life and Audrina. Uh oh, bitchy Lo from the Laguna days is back in full effect.

10: 23 - Lauren tells Frankie she wants things to be like they used to be, foreshadowing a big fight that’s gotta be coming this season. Yay!

10:24 - Another commercial break that’s a special preview of “The House Bunny” which kind of makes me contemplate poking my own eyes out.

10:26 - We’re back! Heidi’s sister is heading home with extensions and the bad roots are still there. Bumz. When she suggests moving to L.A. Spencer loses control of his hand and slams the door while grinding his teeth and Heidi gives it an, “oh really?” Ha!

10:27 - “How was the BBQ?” Whitney asks, stepping into her sidekick role to facilitate Lauren’s exposition. Lauren has word vomit as if Whitney is her LiveJournal. Really, if there’s a Whitney spin-off show as rumored (and there is) how’s Whintey ever gonna know what to talk about with no Lauren around?

10:28 - Lo is rocking a side ponytail and a mean frown as she heads to Audrina’s for a chat.

At this unfortunate point the power went out AGAIN on my block. I set the DVR to record the show again on the 11PM repeat and I’ll get you the last four minutes of the show then.

11:32 - Back to the Audrina/Lo showdown! Lo goes “it was fun” while rolling her eyes about the party and then launches into a heart to heart about how their friendship isn’t growing. Audrina tells her they’re just not clicking and that Lo has an “attitude”. No duh. This conversation gets more boring as they start every sentence with “I feel like…” until Audrina finally says, “We’ll never be friends.” WOW. Ok then.

11:34 - Magically they just had an entire fight in two minutes. Impressive!

Coming up this season on The Hills…

more blogging!

What Stopped Ancient Greece? August 1, 2008

The NY TImes (via the Nature science journal) ran an article a few days ago about the discovery of the Antikythera Mechanism, a recently discovered astronomical computer built by the ancient Greeks circa 100 B.C.

Long story short: after much studying of the device for the past two years scientists have discovered it was not only a complex astronomical tool but that it tracked the calendar of important Greek events such as the Olympic games. The NY Times originally ended their article with a question, since removed, that alluded to not understanding why Greek technology faltered not too long after this invention (around 300 A.D.) until around the 14th century. I can only assume the removed it after a few history professors emailed them and reminded them that western technology faltered during the great takeover of Christianity, when secular knowledge was suppressed by the church in favor of religious knowledge. Tony Freeth, a scientist mentioned in the Nature article, says it is “an instrument of unparalleled sophistication in antiquity, more or less unrivalled until the clockwork mechanisms of the later Middle Ages.”

The device is reportedly related to rough designs reported by the great Greek mathematician and astronomer Archimedes.

At any rate, I found the question interesting because I’ve just in the past few days finished reading a book called The Closing of the Western Mind: The Rise and Fall of Wisdom that outlined the history of the height of the Roman empire into the history around Biblical times and on through to the height of the Christian church in the empire. The first half of the book is especially engaging but if you choose to read it know the agenda is decidedly anti-religion and pro-logical thinking and sciences. The historical accounts of the writing of the Scriptures in the Bible were quite interesting and the book does present a believable theory on the church’s quelling of the ancient Roman and Greek traditions of logical reasoning. If nothing else the lack of technological, astrological and mathematical developments from the era of Roman emperor Constantine until the (eventually condemned by the church) works of Copernicus is something of interest to contemplate in the context of the Antikythera Mechanism.

He’s Just Not That Into You - Now An (E)motion Pitcure July 29, 2008

Were you one of the millions of women who were swept up in the frenzy for “He’s Just Not That Into You”- the book? Did “Sex & The City” turn you on to it? Maybe it was Oprah? At any rate, you are probably one of the millions of (largely urban, I suspect) women who were somehow exposed to the “would you stop devaluing yourself in relationships” message of the book. What can we say, years of watching “Sex & The City” totally fucked a lot of women up and somewhere along the way a lot of us lost sight of what to expect in relationships. Especially those of us living in New York where there are something like 13 million times as many women as straight men.

When I heard that Drew Barrymore’s Flower Films had optioned a movie adaption of the self-help book I was intrigued. Obviously it’s going to be a chick flick. And then when they cast a group of what seems like dozens (including Barrymore, Scarlett Johansson, Jennifer Aniston, Ben Affleck and more) of actors spread across their 20s and 30s it was clear that this would be one of those ensemble pieces a la Love Actually where every person’s story eventually intertwines.

All of the media mentioned above? Total guilty pleasures. Will this adaption be any good? It looks hit or miss. I predict Gennifer Goodwin’s desperate for love character will be the best thing about the movie. The Aniston/Affleck coupling will be the most boring part. The Jennifer Connolly/Bradley Cooper/ScarJo love triangle will be dramatically overacted. And the casting of Kevin Connolly and Justin Long will lead to much chin scratching.

This adaption is a very interesting idea, but I would have written it with one particular female hero at the center who fumbles her way through dating a la Lucille Ball in a chocolate factory. She can have a sidekick and it could be the chick flick equivalent of an action movie with a rotating group of pretty man faces to gaze upon.

Queen Bees July 26, 2008

I am about 15 years too old to watch The N (Nickelodeon for tween to teen girls) and yet I find myself randomly DVRing reruns of Growing Pains or Saved By The Bell (PS - Screech is writing a tell-all a la Tori Spelling and 90210! Yes!) when summer TV boredom strikes. My secret shame DVRing yielded more than an 80s flashback - I came across the promos for their summer reality show Queen Bees.

Obviously the show is based on Rosalind Wiseman’s novel “Queen Bees and Wannabes” with all the emphasis on the Queen Bees. They placed a group of mean girls in a reality TV house together and then challenged them to open up about their feelings and turn into normal human beings instead of ruthless biotches.

See show trailer below.

Each week brings a new emotional challenge that makes them get outside of their own heads. It’s amazing to realize anew each week how slavishly devoted to their own point of view these girls are - it’s like the idea that anyone else migth have a thought or opinion has never occured to most of them.

Also on a weekly basis one Mean Girl is taken into therapy with the show’s sole judge, Dr. Michelle, for deeper training in self-awareness. Other girls are shown videos from home where their friends, family or boyfriends tell them what assholes they’ve been in the past. One or both of these things sometimes lead to an emotional breakdown.

Initially some of the girls hatch plans to the confessional camera to fake break throughs in order to get gold stars in the weekly judgement ceremony but after being battered with challenges by the show, verbal fights with the other girls in the house, therapy and reality check videos from the people who love them they seem to lose control of the process and realize the only thing they can do inside of this reality TV house is actually become a different person.

This show makes me wonder about the plasticness of a certain portion of our culture overall. Could you imagine if someone took all the girls who’ve been cast on Rock of Love and, instead of creating a show called I Love Money for them to continue to act like assholes on, put them through therapy and made them talk about all the messed up stuff that made them get to this point and then the person who grew up the most wins all the money?

It would be basically the same as the kind of reality TV we watch now, but in some way possibly redemptive to the poor dumb bastards who are being exploited for our entertainment.

Why Did I Start A Blog? July 25, 2008

For a long time now I’ve been very interested in these topics: psychology, neurology, feminism and terribly sappy movies. Actually, make that all forms of entertainment with absolutely no redemptive qualities that are aimed at women (sometimes even movies on Lifetime).

I regularly email stuff to a friend who has his own blog about movie music (although, come on, it’s clearly mostly a place for him to rant on the Internets) called The Playlist, but I can’t help noticing how very male centric both is point of view and, by extension, most of Hollywood are. I also spend quite a lot of time every day reading Jezebel and it’s become my primary source of news lately because they actually present items with a point of view attached. A female point of view.

So, I intend to blog about entertainment - movies, music, TV, video games, random online content, whatever is interesting and created by, for and/or marketed to women. Sometimes just to criticize and sometimes to just to laud but possibly just commentary in between the two as well.

I’ll end this first post with the trailer for the movie that finally inspired the launch of this blog: In Search of a Midnight Kiss. It’s an IFC film that looks sappy as hell and yet I cannot wait to go see it. Will it be as terrible as I’ve been told? Possibly. Will that stop me from watching it? Not in a million. Opening August 1 in independent theaters in the U.S. - or if your cable system has movies on demand you might also have the service that allows you to watch new IFC movies from home.