An Evil Job Well Done--By Carmen

As previously established here on Weekend Fat, some actors nail it and others just do not.  In my viewing experience there are some actors who did such a great job with an evil character that I now can’t see past it.  These people will forever be these characters and as you will see, that’s not necessarily a good thing.

Meryl Streep- Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada

That's all.

In a previous post I state that I don’t really like Meryl, and this is why. She was the horrible to Anne Hathaway in this movie.  I know it was just a movie but I felt sorry for all the people in it.  I understand that this movie was maybe a little bit based on Anna Wintour. And so I’m thinking, do people really have to be that nasty in real life, or do they do it for fun?  Since I don’t know Anna, Meryl took the hit.

Philip Seymour Hoffman- Reverend Veasey in Cold Mountain

Philip was never my favorite guy.  I saw him as Sandy Lyle in Along Came Polly and he was just gross.  So when he showed up in Cold Mountain as a (still) gross, adulterous, murderer, there was just no going back. 

I'm glad they shaved his hair off.

And as Sandy Lyle for good measure.

Edward Norton-Aaron in Primal Fear

It’s been a long time since I last saw this one.  But (as is the point of the movie) you spend the whole movie feeling sorry for this kid, and then BAM!  It’s really Ed’s face and laugh that sell it.  

There never was an Aaron either...

Anjelica Huston-Rodmilla in Ever After

I was an impressionable 18 year old when this movie came out. I don’t remember being familiar with any of Angelica’s work before this. Her proper hatred and demure arrogance as Danielle’s stepmother was hard to watch.  And that jet black hair helped to sell the package.  She is now the voice of the wise Queen Clarion in the Disney Tinker Bell franchise.  I think her voice is perfectly sweet for Queen Clarion, and then I remember who it is……

These two cannot be the same person. They just can't be.

And I am  on the fence on this last one. 

  

Kevin Bacon-Sean Nokes in Sleepers

I've seen a picture more wrinkled than this, I swear.

Kevin has done so much (hence the game 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon) but this character stuck with me.  Kevin has one of those faces that seems too wrinkled and worldly to be good. I remember a scene where the boys he abused encounter him in a bar and he is all boozed up and lonely. Creeptastic.

Is there an evil character that stayed with you?

It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine) -- Carmen

In 1998 everyone was talking about the world ending on New Year’s Eve 1999.   Y2K was coming and word was that everyone should be ready. Computers wouldn’t know what to do with the date change and so the world would cease to exist. Pack your bomb shelter folks!!  Me and all my 19 year old wisdom thought, “what if the world ends on New Year’s Eve THIS year?”  No one would be ready, it’s the perfect set up. So I actually got myself worked into a bit of a tizzy about it. I was visiting Amber and her friends in their hometown, and was very concerned that I would not ever see my family again. Of course a bunch of 19 and 20 year olds don’t stop their plans just because someone is being overly dramatic about the end of the world.  In the car on the way to our chosen restaurant the song "It’s the End of the World" as we know it by R.E.M. came on the radio. OH MY WORD! I might have started hyperventilating, I really can’t be sure. Can you believe I had never heard that song before that night?  It did not help my inner panic attack. And I believe everyone else in the car just cracked up laughing!  Later that night I realized that because of time zones, the world couldn’t end at midnight for everyone.  If it ended at midnight for the Eastern time zone then we in the Central time zone would have some time to prepare. After that I relaxed. (Yes, it was the thought of time zones that did it, no actual coming to my senses involved.)

In the spirit of the world ending I have compiled a list of disaster movies, those that I would watch again and the one I will not.

The Day After Tomorrow- I enjoyed this movie and would watch it again.  It was a disaster movie with heart.  The dad treks across the frozen waste land for his son, and since I live in the south I would have been fine. There is that whole plot to keep the impending doom a secret in the North because they aren’t going to make it and who really wants to cause all that panic. Probably not the best move by the administration (but I am sure they are covering up something as we speak). My favorite part of the movie is when everyone is in the library trying to figure out what books to burn to stay warm and they are arguing over whether to burn Friedrich Nietzsche. And one of the character says “uh…’scuse me?  You guys? Yeah…there’s a whole section on tax law down here that we can burn.”

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go, but not really, I'm just gonna throw your dad under the meteor.

Armageddon- I would watch this one again. The only thing I really remember about it was thinking keep the dad, kill the boyfriend. You can always get another boyfriend.

Titanic- This one is not a good movie to watch the week before you are getting married.  I have always been intrigued by the Titanic’s story (I say intrigued because are you really supposed to LOVE a historical tragic movie where a lot of people die?) The movie made learning the history behind the Titanic more real.  I am a firm believer that it sank because that guy supposedly said “God himself could not sink her” Uh, yeah He can.

When Sandra Bullock drove into our hearts.

Speed- I L.O.V.E. this movie.  Seriously I watched this movie and Dirty Dancing both, every day for two months when I was a freshman in high school.  Sandra Bullock was a newbie and Keanu Reeves was gorgeous.  Dennis Hopper is crazy and horrible. Even though he wasn’t the worse bad guy ever, he was just kind of weird and I still don’t like him because of this movie. My favorite line is “Jesus. Bob, what button did you push?”

Space Cowboys –I would watch this again, I have good memories of the experience.  But really what I remember is a dead Tommy Lee Jones floating in space.

Making the dying of a species, cute.

The Land Before Time - This is a children’s classic and then the franchise got ruined because they made 27 more movies and none of the others are any good.  Five dinosaur children survive the great earth shake and band together out of necessity to find the Great Valley. They are sad and determined but most importantly they are cute!!  My brother and I used to quote the movie all the time.  “I smell… I smell…I smell… um Ducky”

I Am Legend- I will never, ever, ever (to infinity) watch this movie again.  It still haunts me.  The hemocytes/dark seekers were truly terrifying to me.  It was their special effects look plus their aggression.  During the whole movie I was so thankful that he had his dog and then when she was bit, and he had to…well you know, and Will Smith cried because then he was truly alone. At the end of the movie when Will knows he’s a goner and they are beating on the special bullet proof glass to get in with this smug look on their faces… I just could not handle it. Some basketball players at the school I work at have this t-shirt where the player has an outlined face and it looks like a hemocyte.  I can’t look directly at it.

Which disaster movies will you watch again?  
Is there any end of the world movie you won’t watch again?

Stop the Hate: Otherwise Known As, "Did We Even Read The Same Book?"--By Carmen

If you are not a fan of the Twilight novels, stop reading this post now.  No really, stop, go do something else.  Come back tomorrow for some non-Twilight related Weekend Fat.

Now, everybody who's still reading should either like Twilight or be on the fence.  Okay….  

I am not a hater.  I can usually find a redeeming quality in almost anything.  I think it comes from being a teacher.  A kid can be a failing terror in the classroom but you still have to come up with something positive to tell the parents.  So I don’t understand how people can be so against something and only see the bad in it.

I saw a pin on Pinterest of a blog post entitled 10 Books you must read to your daughter (or How to keep your daughter from ending up like that horrid girl from Twilight) Here is an excerpt:

“What if someday she wants to read Stephanie Meyer’s literary atrocity, the Twilight series? You know the one, the books featuring a non-descript female protagonist who, in addition to having no interests or talents of any kind (other than smelling delicious to a sparkly 100-year-old vampire), is helpless, boring, and basically suicidal when her 100-year-old sparkly vampire boyfriend breaks up with her? Yeah, those books. So, I’m coming up with a reading list containing female characters that could put a smack down on Bella Swan any day of the week and reveal what a real woman looks like.”

Wow! This lady clearly did not like Twilight.

It is no secret that I liked the Twilight novels.  It wasn’t the great American novel, but it was a fun read with interesting characters. I really think this write was so clouded with hatred she missed some key points.  Here they are.

1. Bella was her mom’s emotional caretaker even in childhood; she had to grow up fast because her mom was basically a flake.
2. Bella came to live with her dad after years with her mom.  It was the right thing to do to help her mom’s new marriage. 
3. She was a caretaker for her dad too.
4. Bella kept an important secret to protect Edward’s family. 
5. When Bella flees to Phoenix it is apparent she cares more for her parent’s safety than her own and in the end her friends also. (This is seen in Twilight and Eclipse)
6. She worked a job to make money for herself, even though her boyfriend would have taken care of anything she needed or wanted, any whim she had.
7. After being heartbroken she picked up her life and moved on the only way she knew how. She made new friends and had new experiences. She even got her grades up in school.
8. Bella flew halfway around the world to keep Edward alive in Italy, even though she believed there was nothing in it for her.
9. Bella took her punishment from her father for leaving the country without complaint.  And continued to keep Edward’s family’s secret.
10. She was willing to sacrifice herself to save Edward in his fight against Victoria. Cutting her arm was the only choice her mortal body allowed her and she took it with only Edward in her thoughts.
11. She seriously considered the validity of marriage before saying “Yes”
12. Bella maintained her virginity until marriage (whether she really wanted to or not).
13. Bella continued a hard pregnancy she could have easily aborted.
14. She stood by her husband’s family when they were attacked
15. Bella fought for her child’s future against an unstoppable enemy.

And to answer the no interest or talent comment.  

1. Bella was an avid reader (and of the classics no less).

I know Bella oddly passed out the first time Edward kissed her. And I know that she fell apart when Edward left.  It is tough to lose the love of your life.  I had a tough breakup once too.  I cried a lot.  But eventually you move on.

Now, here is why I think people don’t like Twilight.  There is no moral point, or deeper meaning.   It is just a fictional story.  Believe it or not everyone in life is not a “strong” person.  That’s life.  People looking for a role model in all their stories, can’t even turn to the Bible for that.  There are flawed people everywhere (yes you who don’t like Twilight and are still reading, you are flawed, you didn’t follow directions). And Stephenie Meyer was a mom of three young children who hadn’t written anything in years.  She was inspired by a dream and wrote a best seller.  I wish I could turn some of my crazy vivid dreams into a best seller.  Don’t you? She created a whole new mythology.  If you don’t like Twilight or Stephenie (which all of you do because you are still reading this) don’t spend your money and time on it.  Leave everyone else alone. Stop the Hate.

So, sorry unnamed blog lady…. If my daughter wants to read Twilight or (gasp) turns out like Bella, I’d be just fine with that.

Ch-Ch-Changes!

If you're a Weekend Fatty and keep up with this blog on a regular basis, you've probably noticed we have some repeat offenders, er, bloggers. I think it's time to introduce them and to let you know about a few changes here at Weekend Fat.

Amber (For those of you who don't know, that's me.)

I started this blog back in May for a few reasons:

1. I am living in China this year and found myself with a MASSIVE amount of free time. 

2. I am a pop-culture junkie and found myself wanting to start conversations about things I was reading. 3. I noticed that the things I wanted to talk about were being written about on other blogs, sometimes with the exact same angles I had in mind. I didn't want to stand on the sidelines anymore.

4. I have another blog that's more personal, more about me and my life. I noticed when I blogged about Glee or music or Helen Mirren, the readers for those posts were TOTALLY different than the ones who normally read. Market discovered.

5. My friend Meredith gave me a boost of encouragement one weekend that inspired me to stop talking about it and just do it.

It's been 6 months and I gotta say, I am very pleased with the results so far. The average post gets about 90 readers. The most read (my friend Julie's rebuttal/defense to me about Jennifer Aniston) has over 400 hits. The next few most popular (ringing in at over 300 hits) were the ones about Magic Mike and Honey Boo Boo. The total number of individual readers that have come into contact with the blog and stayed for at least a minute, is around 12,000 from what I can tell, though I think it's safe to say that we have a steady following of about 250. Considering I only have about 750 Facebook friends, I think it's safe to say that the Google machine is putting Weekend Fat "on the map." Of course, the world of pop-culture is big, and while I will never run out of topics, I know (hope) that my schedule will change once I go back to America. 

In preparation for that, I will be cutting down to 3 posts a week. But my friends will be contributing, and you, are more than welcomed to do the same. Just email me your post (or ideas!) at catidwell222@gmail.com and we will go from there.

Now...here's who you might see blogging in the future:

Vicky

Vicky-Timing is everything, and I met Vicky through an awesome organization back in Auburn, Alabama that we both got to be a part of, The Layman Group, before it disbanded. We hit it off. Vicky is a theater junkie and super talented with all things related to it. She and her husband now live in Tallahassee, Florida. In my mind, Vicky likes pretty things and laughing a lot. 

Julie

Julie-I met Julie through The Layman Group too, though when I was working at Starbucks in Auburn, she was a regular, so it's hard to know how we actually became friends. In all honesty, she reminded me of someone (no clue who) so it felt like we'd been friends for a while. Julie is a brilliant event planner who has an appreciation for all things Jennifer Aniston, fashion, and Greyhounds. The dogs, not the bus. I cannot imagine Julie on a bus. You can find her blog here.

Sandi

Sandi-I met Sandi in New Orleans when she was 12, but now she lives in Boone, North Carolina and works as a nanny while finishing her degree in Child Development. Sandi devours a lot of really thick books and TV, her greatest fault is that she doesn't like scary things. Her take on pop-culture is fresh and transparent. She is just as likely to be seen watching Game of Thrones as she is Ina Garten. I'm not sure how she'd do in a sword fight, but I know she's a great cook.

Carmen

Carmen-I met Carmen while working at a camp in my teenage years, and though we might be as opposite in personality as two people can be, I liked her snark, her honesty, and the way her hair was always perfect. Now she lives in North Alabama and we have shared pop-culture interests for well over 10 years, including the summer we spent in Montana speaking in movie quotes over long distance calls across the state. She is quite possibly the biggest Veronica Mars fan on the planet, but I have heard her perfectly quote entire episodes of Friends. I pick on her about liking Kristen Stewart, but she does make a convincing case. And that's the thing about Carmen, she can always defend, justify, and explain in detail her reason for liking whatever is that she likes. 

Romelle

Romelle-Romelle is a fellow blogger/wanna be writer who lives in North Carolina. She would want you to know that she has 6 children (one who was married in May and one who will be married in a few weeks) leaving her 4 at home that she Home Schools. She errs on the conservative side of life, loves British drama, hates Anne Hathaway and other shallow ridiculous things, and is probably one of the most quickly clever people I have ever met. We are currently in a stand off about my never having watched Freaks and Geeks. (I will get to it!) You can find her blog here.

Vanessa

Vanessa-Vanessa lives in Fresno, California and is the youngest contributor to Weekend Fat. Since graduating from high school last year, she has been working like crazy on her photography. She has a brilliant eye, and I am convinced she has potential to be the next Annie Leibovitz or National Geographic photographer. You can find her photography on her Facebook page, Vanessa D. Photography. Her pop-culture tastes are black and white, meaning she either loves things or hates them. She is a huge HIMYM fan, and recently called me crying at 2am because she finally finished Six Feet Under. 

Meredith

Meredith-I met Meredith when I worked at Starbucks in Auburn, Alabama, she was a fellow Barista, relocated from New York. She was also heavily involved in The Layman Group. I knew instantly that we would be friends, but she was slower on the uptake. Eventually we found ourselves making the shifts at the 'Bucks' fly, by talking non-stop about pop-culture. She's got a unique perspective on pop-culture, usually laser focused on what she likes, but unpredictable all the same. Though she hasn't written an actual guest post yet, she promises me that there's one (or more) coming. Even if it never materializes, she gives me lots of my ideas for posts and positive feedback that keep this blog going. You can read some of her insights at Verge Pipe Media's blog.

Um, first of all, aren't my friends supermodels? Yeah, I think so too.

Ok, so from here on out, you'll be hearing from me, mixed in a little more with these gals (and possibly even my mother!). I will put a "By" line in the subject when anyone other than me writes, and they will also be tagged in the labels so you can find more of their writing if you like what you see. And trust me, you WILL like what you see.

Thanks for reading, it's been a super fun 6 months. I'm looking forward to many more!

Amber

To Be or Not To Be...An Actor--A Guest Post

Recently I was sucked into a popular book and movie franchise. Whenever I get interested in a movie, person, author, or whatever, I read all I can about them.  I use Wikipedia (I know, I know, not a reliable source), IMDB, YouTube, reviews, soundtracks; whatever I can to know everything about everyone involved. In my “research” I learned that the actress playing the main character in this franchise is considered a bad actor. 

Okay fine, it is Twilight and Kristen Stewart (insert hanging of the head here).  These bad reviews baffled me a little bit.  I didn’t find anything in her portrayal bad (the only thing I can say on her performance is that I read Bella in my head happier than she played her). She gave Bella a few qualities, like eye blinking and being clumsy, and I thought her waking up screaming in New Moon was quite good. Did you see the scene when the change started, her internal struggling? 

After that I watched another one of her movies on Netflix, Welcome to the Riley’s.  She plays an under-aged, foul mouthed, stripper/hooker and I didn’t find anything wrong with that performance either. It was very different from Bella, so I thought, she has range.  But review after review said “she is a bad actor”.

                Clearly I don’t know what makes someone good at acting. 

I would think that the main consideration is being able to make others believe you are someone else.  I truly believe that Jim Parsons is Sheldon Cooper.  There is no one else who could make that character what Jim makes him.  He uses his voice, inflection, facial features, and body to make me believe he is a crazy dork. Wait, he’s not crazy, his mother had him tested.  I believe that Jim Parsons is not like that in real life, so he is acting. 

There are some actors I don’t believe have to act to play their characters. Rachel Green and Jennifer Aniston are the same person, so I don’t think any actual acting was happening there.   She is usually cast as an ingénue and I believe that is what she basically is. Now you will remind me of her character Justine in The Good Girl.  Yes, it was a vast departure from her previous work, but because it was so different I didn’t buy it.  On the flip side of the Friends coin is Lisa Kudrow, such a smart person playing a ditz. All Acting.

There are actors who have been around a while and have honed their chops who are supposed to be good actors that I don’t enjoy watching.  Meryl Streep is one of them as is Claire Danes.  But I immensely enjoy Enrico Colantoni from Just Shoot Me to Veronica Mars to Flash Point.

It is easy for us to name our favorite actors and call them good.  But really, what is it that makes a good actor?  What performances did you buy?  Or not?

Author’s Note:  The author understands that some people may not like Kristen Stewart because they don’t like Bella’s weak character.  But we can’t all be Katniss Everdeens. 

(CJ Mitchell is not a writer, but a reader and tv watcher. She recently tried to teach a youth group 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon and they said “Who is Kevin Bacon?”.   If she could empty her head of all the useless knowledge there might be room for something important like brain surgery or rocket science.)