I'm not sure why in the world anyone felt it necessary to track Carrie Bradshaw's teen years. Julia and I watched The CW's The Carrie Diaries last night, but my misplaced initial curiosity about it was quickly tampered and dispelled. Who cares about Carrie Bradshaw at 16? It's just a bland show, too CW-y. I suppose the star, AnnaSophia Robb, pleasant enough, could maybe morph into Sarah Jessica Parker in fifteen years or so, but the actress doesn't have of the actress' tart bouyancy - or angular features. Can't imagine that this show will be renewed for a second season.
When that was over, it was only 7:30. Julia and I decided to start a movie - The Sitter, a comedy we didn't exactly have high expectations for. Jonah Hill, looking blobbier than usual, is the thirty-year old layabout forced to babysit three kids for a night that goes from bad to zany to surreal to sort of funny. Never quite on the level of the movie it clearly emulates, Adventures in Babysitting, though the kids do generate some laughs. Sam Rockwell hams and slums as a drugged-out criminal. It's the kind of movie that vanishes from your mind a half hour after it ends, but it was certainly watchable.
Being Flynn, with Robert DeNiro as a pompous, completely obnoxious dad who walked out on son Paul Dano (giving a non-performance, registering zilch), only to appear in his life years later, needing a room for the night at the homeless shelter Dano works in? Bland, bland, bland. I like Paul Weitz's films (well, two of them - About a Boy and In Good Company), but this one just seems like an under-realized misfire. DeNiro has his moments, but a softer, less strident performance might have helped.
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I realize that I've forgotten to post my entries this month for my list of Charles' 200 Essential American Films:
Here are this month's entries (bringing our total to 130):
- All That Heaven Allows (1955 - directed by Douglas Sirk)
- Almost Famous (2000 - Cameron Crowe)
- Anatomy of a Murder (1959 - Otto Preminger)
- Laura (1944 - Otto Preminger)
- McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971 - Robert Altman)
- Moonstruck (1987 - Norman Jewison)
- Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981 - Steven Spielberg)
- Say Anything (1989- Cameron Crowe)
- A Streetcar Named Desire (1951 - Elia Kazan)
- The Wild Bunch (1969 - Sam Peckinpah)
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One month until the Savannah Book Festival. Here are the authors who will be there who I'd like to see or hear or sign for me:
- T.C. Boyle
- Ben Fountain (his novel Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk was just nominated for the National Book Award).
- Al Gore
- B.A. Shapiro
- J.R. Moehringer (really want to read his novel Sutton)
(and if I happen to catch David Baldacci, James Patterson, Dave Barry, or Gregg Allman, walking around, I might bug them too...)
Image courtesy of:
http://styleiseternal.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/The_Carrie_Diaries_TV_Series-233306192-large.jpg
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