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Sarah

American Music Awards

I enjoyed live tweeting the American Music Awards last night, but I wasn’t all that impressed overall.

It’s great that Canadian singers have garnered critical acclaim internationally, but are the American Music Awards really the right time to recognize Michael Buble or Justin Bieber? We Canucks have our own version of the award show; it’s called the Junos.

1.    I think it would have been more fitting if Miley performed ‘Party in the USA’, but showbiz told her to do otherwise I suppose. In any case, I muted the TV after she took the stage.

2.    I loved when Enrique’s marching band emerged in the aisles. This was also the first time I saw what Pitbull looks like in real life.

3.    Bieber’s sneakers were cool, but his attempt to be the new Michael Jackson – not so much. It was no surprise when the camera immediately panned to Usher’s reaction after Bieber concluded the song by kneeling on the ground, as if he were praying. Anyone could anticipate that Bieber’s mentor would be smiling.

4.    It was nice to see Christina make use of the vocal chords that made her famous when Disney featured her in Mulan’s soundtrack. She was a cute pop star back in the day, but then she started releasing such awful music that I barely take an interest in her new releases. Nevertheless, I can’t wait to see her and Cher on the big screen next week in Burlesque.

5.    Rihanna is beautiful, but what was with her hair?! That shade of red is so unnecessary.

The Kids Are All Right

In his first few scenes of The Kids Are All Right, I thought Paul (Mark Ruffalo) was a strange, hippy guy. Driving a motorcycle may be dangerous, but Ruffalo makes it look très cool. As the movie progresses, Paul comes across as someone who would make for a cool uncle, which is convenient for a sperm donor who spontaneously enters his biological kids’ lives. Ruffalo has been in a number of cheesy chick flicks – Just Like Heaven, case in point – but this performance and his role in Canadian indie My Life Without Me prove why he is in the biz.

When Nic (Annette Benning) remarks how each kid is so similar to their respective biological mother, I suddenly realized how the film presented the characters precisely in this way. It wasn’t necessary for the movie to deliberately depict the ‘like mother, like child’ cliché, but this is precisely what writer and director Lisa Cholodenko did.

Considering that soap opera characters inspired the possible alternatives for my own name, I found it mildly funny that Joni (Mia Wasikowska) was named after Joni Mitchell. Let’s just hope that teen moms don’t think it’s cool to name their newborns after Ke$ha, or some other one hit wonder.

The hair department really should have done something different with Joni’s hair, instead of letting it look so plain and straggly. Just because she is more anxious about starting college and moving out than choosing which shade of lipstick to wear, doesn’t mean she can’t sport a ponytail every so often.

Without any spirited sophs carrying mini fridges in their jumpsuits, Joni’s campus is oddly quiet on move-in day when her unconventional family says their goodbyes. This would’ve been a good time to hire some college-aged extras looking to brag that they were on the same set as Julianne Moore.

Cholodenko tells an interesting story with minimal product placement courtesy of Volvo. She doesn’t conclude with a fairytale ending per se, as she leaves some questions unanswered (like Joni’s When Harry Met Sally situation), but reassures viewers everything will be all right, regardless of how dysfunctional a family is.

UWO Stereotypes

Hilarious Satire of UWO Stereotypes – Ke$ha’s ‘We R Who We R’ (Created by Sean Kelly)

Quoted: Two and a Half Men

Charlie Harper from Two and a Half Men would make some highly entertaining contributions to MIT tutorials!

Alan: Check it out! Rose’s engagement announcement is in the paper.

Charlie: Nah, I still don’t buy it.

Alan: What do you mean? It’s right here in the paper. *points to online edition on his laptop*

Charlie: Oh, grow up. Do you know how many times I’ve had that paper print my obituary?

— Episode 8.07

Lindsay + Lyndsy = Friends?

While perusing what Lindsay Lohan has tweeted in between her visits to jail and rehab, I immediately noticed when she called Lyndsy Fonseca her “friend”. I hardly think they bonded simply because they have the same name spelled a different way.

You may know Fonseca as Ted Mosby’s future daughter on How I Met Your Mother, or from this summer’s action-adventure flick, Kick Ass. As the face of Barbizon School of Modelling (for which an ad is often found at the back of teen girl magazines), she’s always been a charming actress famous for her girl-next-door look.

I’ve been a fan of Fonseca ever since she joined the cast of The Young and the Restless in 2001 to play Colleen Carlton. I’ll even admit that I was jealous of her character Colleen when J.T. sung her ‘Nothing At All’. The two lovebirds were one of the cutest couples in soap opera history, during a time when soap operas were still decent. The incestuous-like behaviour on Bold and the Beautiful and ridiculous new storylines on Y&R make it no surprise that two soaps have been cancelled within the last year.

I’m not an avid reader of Soap Opera Weekly or Star, so I haven’t been kept apprised about her personal life. Given Linsday’s recent behaviour however, I was appalled when I discovered that this is someone she spends time with. The fact that Lindsay calls her a friend and felt obliged to promote Fonseca’s role in Nikita makes me question what she is like behind the scenes.