So. It’s Monday. And tomorrow I report back to school. I’m a tiny bit sad. Teaching is cool, but summer is the best. And as I say often, I do summer very well. I mean, I don’t mean to brag, but I’m just good at summer. When you get the back-to-school blues, there’s only one thing that can help…and that’s Carlton Banks.

Or maybe this one.

I’ve been watching those over and over, trying to get my happy on. Between that and the Fruit Loops, it has helped.

I saw Julie and Julia this weekend. It was pretty good. The first half was excellent. I fell in love with the first half. Meryl Streep was just phenomenal as Julia Child. And the movie has fave Stanley Tucci (who lost his wife to cancer just a few months ago), as well as Jane Lynch, now of Glee. She is not a wise-acre in this movie at all. I’ve never seen her as anything but. I vaguely remember watching Julia Child’s TV show as a young child with my grandmother, but I do not recall her being so full of life and joy as she apparently was. It was truly inspiring to see Julia’s positivity and sense of fun and fearlessness. And there were a few lines that if you didn’t know some back story, you wouldn’t catch it. If you see it, look for the dinner party scene in which Julia and her husband’s friends ask the husband if he was ever a spy. It’s funny given the fact that after Julia’s death it was revealed that SHE was a spy in her early years. Anyway, the second half…the second half was when I started remembering that this is a movie about cooking. And I don’t like to cook. And I had only eaten a brownie for lunch. And I was starving. And the movie is a bit longish. But cinematically it’s beautiful, and if Meryl Streep doesn’t win an Oscar (especially after being robbed for Doubt), then our world is cracked in the skull.

Previews are my favorite part of movies though. I live for them. In fact, if I can’t get to the show in time to catch the previews, I don’t want to go. There’s something magical about seeing something “coming soon,” something that is two minutes of the best clips they’ve got. I might’ve posted this clip already, but Gilmore Girls fans, Alexis Bleidel is back in Post Grad. Looks pretty good.

They showed this preview before Julie and Julia, and I was all teared up. School related or struggling kid movies ALWAYS get me. Check out Blindside, starring Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw. I think it was on Natalie Lloyd’s blog where she said she hated fake Southern accents. I TOTALLY agree. I think every God loving Southern girl does. And sometimes the accent can be pretty true to a specific region, like Sandra’s in the preview, but because you KNOW she has a twangless voice, it’s just too much. Who cares about accuracy–tone it down just a bit for tolerability.

Love Happens with Jennifer Aniston looks good.  And it has Aaron Eckhart in it, which is a plus. I disliked him to the point of continuously laughing out loud at his role in The Dark Knight, so I really want this movie to be solid for his sake and for Jennifer’s. Team Aniston needs a home run. And Aaron? Well, he just needs to be in a movie where he doesn’t have a dangling eyeball.

Then there’s Open Road with Justin Timberlake. Um…I dunno.

I’m glad to see J-T in a movie–especially in the lead because I think it’s about time he tested those wings. He is simply THE BEST guest host on Saturday Night Live. But Britney’s movie was Crossroads. And this one? Open Road. And both about–road trips. I think the dual roadness is a bad, bad omen. He should’ve avoided.

So interesting article on Self magazine’s September “body confidence” issue. You can read it HERE.  I’m so sick of air brushing, I could barf cellulite. This Self article popped up the same week pictures of Twiggy, new model for Oil of Olay, showed some serious Photoshopping. Check it OUT. That is some good moisturizer… And in case Self is wondering what to do with the rest of Kelly’s arms they erased, maybe donate the extra flesh HERE?

For those of you digging 500 Days of Summer, which I have yet to see, check out the dance video they created. Kinda cute.

Last weekend I saw Wicked with my lovely mother and aunt in Tulsa, Oklahoma. If you ever get a chance, you HAVE to see it. This was my second time to catch it, and it still blows me away. I thought the book Wicked was depressing and dark and disturbing. So it’s crazy that the same author could take his work and flip it so much and create this play. I mean it’s night and day–the difference between the two. The musical is happy and beautiful and funny and just freakin’ brilliant. It’s the back story of The Wizard of Oz and explains what happened before Dorothy showed up in town. Why is the Wicked Witch wicked? Or…is she? Why is Glinda the good witch…or is she? NOTHING is what it seems, and I love that Maguire can full the sheet off of any story like that. So many story elements that just make you think “OH MY GOSH, how did that guy come up with that? It’s perfect!” Maybe Gregory Maguire watches Carlton Banks for inspiration too. . .

Okay, I must go. I have to spend my last day of freedom doing glamorous things like laundry and cleaning. Because nothing says celebrating the final day of vacation like Tide and Endust. Have a great week! Wednesday…Just Between You and Me giveaways.

JEN

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