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Buzz Gift Guide: Best of 2008 For Gals

BuzzSugar — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 08:30:45 -0800

Welcome back to my Buzz Gift Guide series for all the entertainment lovers in your life. Yesterday I sifted through the stacks (er, Web pages) of music, DVDs, and books to find some of the best 2008 has to offer dudes. Today I will share with you some 2008 entertainment gift ideas for the ladies.

It's no secret how much I love Jenny Lewis and I will be spreading the gospel this year by handing out her newest album Acid Tongue to my girlfriends (or at least including her songs on the mix CDs I'll make this holiday season). I'll also be giving out Aimee Mann's newest album, as I think it's pretty awesome.

It was a good year for books: I read both The Opposite of Love by Julie Buxbaum and Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner and would definitely recommend them. In the movies department, might I suggest the hilarious Baby Mama or Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day on DVD?

Since I watch more TV than most people I know, I use the holidays to not-so-subtly suggest to friends what I know they would love, like 30 Rock or Greek. And many of my friends have grown to love Lipstick Jungle, so it would be a treat for them to receive the show's first season on DVD.

A couple more ideas below, so have fun scrolling on through.

Check out HolidaySugar for all of our holiday coverage and gift guides.

Jennifer Weiner Brings Her Relatable Storytelling to ABC

BuzzSugar — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 12:32:33 -0700

In a smart and savvy move, ABC has struck a deal with bestselling author Jennifer Weiner to develop a television series, presumably focusing on what Weiner knows best - highly relatable women.

ABC already has many shows geared toward females like Grey's Anatomy, Samantha Who? and Desperate Housewives, and I give them kudos for thinking outside the box in their search for the next hit series. Handing over the reins to a known name like Weiner - an author who has built a career creating memorable (and often hysterically funny) characters - seems like a win for them, and for audiences (like me) who love to see a little bit of themselves in the female characters on TV. An ABC representative said of Weiner's fans: "They respond to her wry wit, embrace her smart characters and want to live in the worlds she creates."

Weiner's book In Her Shoes was adapted for the big screen in 2005 and her new book, Certain Girls (the sequel to Good in Bed) hit bookstores earlier this month. She's a hot commodity these days: in addition to her deal with ABC, two different studios are working on adapting her books Little Earthquakes and The Guy Not Taken.

Are you as happy as I am to see someone this talented get so much love? Will you check out a TV show if she's behind it?

Source and Source

Book Review: Certain Girls

BuzzSugar — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 06:30:00 -0700

When I was first introduced to the smart, hilariously sassy Cannie Shapiro in Jennifer Weiner's Good in Bed, I felt like I'd made a friend. She's clever, outspoken, fun and talented, though she also, like many of us, struggles with her weight and her feelings of self-worth. Thus, I was delighted to find out that we get a continuation of Cannie's story in Certain Girls - and this time there's another voice talking: Cannie's now-13-year-old daughter, Joy.

Joy, whose premature birth left her with hearing problems, has always known that her mother wrote a salacious, bestselling novel many years ago but never had much interest in reading it - until now. And what she reads horrifies her. She starts to question her mother's honesty, and goes in search of the truth about her family's history. Meanwhile, Cannie's husband Peter wants to find a surrogate so he and Cannie can have their own baby together. Not loving the idea, Cannie explores their options while also trying to plan a bat mitzvah for her surly teenage girl.

In a rare occurrence of the sequel surpassing the original, I enjoyed Certain Girls more than I liked Good in Bed. To find out why, read more.

While I like the character of Cannie and the collection of hilarious characters that surround her in Good in Bed, that book is a whole lotta Cannie. It's also fanciful in ways that I couldn't quite swallow at times. But Certain Girls benefits from Joy's voice and her teenage perspective. At times it struck a chord so familiar I had to put down the book, recognizing as I did the painful experiences of puberty. It's also surprisingly fun to get a new, inside look at Cannie through her daughter's eyes. Certain Girls is also darker, in many ways, and though there's still a good amount of fantasy-world fun, there's also a hefty dose of real-world drama. Perhaps because of this, I became powerfully attached to this mother-daughter duo and had to do that thing where I lingered over the final few pages to try and make it last.

Bottom line: Certain Girls isn't literary perfection, but it is a funny, absorbing and emotional read.

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Precious: A Dark Tale With a Hopeful Light

BuzzSugar — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:30:00 -0800

When Precious first caused rumblings at Sundance, I thought, "There is no way I'm seeing this film." There are certain things that I find uncomfortable to watch - pregnant teens, abuse, Mariah Carey. But I'm so glad I did. Because despite its drawbacks on paper, Precious provides a big payback to those who watch it. It's one of those few unforgettable films that stays with you days later - for better and for worse.

Based on the novel Push by Sapphire, Precious follows the story of Claireece Precious Jones (Gabourey Sidibe), an overweight high school student who is pregnant for the second time by her father and living with her abusive mother, Mary (Mo'Nique). She struggles at school, because on top of her circumstances, she's also coasted through the system without ever learning how to read. So after the news of her recent pregnancy reaches the administration, she enrolls in a special program to get her GED.

I realize that by now you're probably nixing this one as a weepy, formulaic melodrama, but hear me out. As you may have gleaned from my interviews with its stars, the film is indeed a hopeful story at its heart, so to see what I mean, read more.

Part of the story's positivity is thanks to Precious's new teacher, Ms. Rain (Paula Patton), and an almost unrecognizable Mariah Carey as her social worker, Mrs. Reiss. Both women reach out to Precious and uncover a girl with joy despite her abuse - but the tension at home with her mother continues to climb.

As you might expect, many of the scenes between Precious and her mother are incredibly difficult to watch, but the saving grace is director Lee Daniels. He weaves in daydreams during the most brutal scenes, transforming Precious into a movie star or a popular girl with a good-looking boyfriend. These diversions are how Precious copes, and like her aspirations, you begin to yearn for her happy ending, too.

Newcomer Gabby Sidibe portrays Precious with an understated realism that's remarkably convincing, and Mariah Carey delivers a restrained performance. But the real eye-opener here is Mo'Nique. As Precious's mother, she is raw, always spitting out vile words - and she is easily one of the most bone-chilling villains of the year. Mary truly believes that Precious deserves the hand that hits her due to her own mixed-up past.

After you leave the theater, Precious will have made an impact on you. You will feel uncomfortable in parts, you will cringe, and you may just hate it for putting you through the turmoil. But keep watching, because there is strength and spirit to be found even in the bleak subject matter - and perhaps a few award nods.

Zombieland: The Feel-Good Zombie Flick of the Year

TresSugar — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 11:30:23 -0700

A Note From Buzz: With so many new movies this week, my friend Très was nice enough to apply her scary-movie expertise to review the box office's newest zombie flick.

In the United States of Zombieland, zombies outnumber people. A mad-cow tainted burger tipped the population in favor of the drooling, limping, and grunting set, and now zombies roam a crashed-car littered, empty-minimall-blighted zombiescape.

Columbus (Adventureland's Jesse Eisenberg), the virginal antihero of horror-comedy Zombieland, has learned to survive this zombie apocalypse by keeping a list of necessary survival skills. Rule #1? Cardio. If you don't want zombies gnawing on you like an hors d'oeuvre, you'd better be fast and limber. In addition, beware of bathrooms, practice the "double tap" (make sure your zombie's actually dead after you kill him), and don't be a hero. (Regarding this last rule - some rules were made to be broken.)

When Columbus meets up with Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), a swaggering cowboy type with a penchant for tank-like cars, shotguns, and Twinkies, and the spitfire sister duo of Wichita (Emma Stone) and Arkansas (Little Miss Sunshine's Abigail Breslin), Zombieland takes off like a scary/fun amusement park ride. To find out what happens on this motley crew's wild road trip from hell, read more

There's something funny about zombies and the zombie genre, and in his first feature film, director Ruben Fleischer plays their comic possibilities to the hilt. Zombies don't have what you'd call well-rounded personalities; they're pretty predictable. They have bad attitudes, come out of nowhere, grunt, and see all nonzombies as food to feast on. They're the perfect foil (or straight men, even) to a cast of characters with more than enough personality to make up for the zombies' boorish one dimensionality.

Take nebbishy Columbus. The world changed for him, he tells us in an early voice-over, when a pretty neighbor he calls #406, asks to stay over because a crazed homeless man tries to bite her. Sadly, although she falls asleep on Columbus's shoulder, she wakes up as a rabid zombie and begins chasing him around his apartment, forcing him to repeatedly knock her over the head with a toilet lid. "The first time I let a girl in my life," deadpans Columbus, "and she tries to eat me."

This kind of witty dialogue abounds in Zombieland, and although fans of gore and violence against zombies will be more than satisfied (Tallahassee's scenes of zombie-killing, especially, have a Tarantinoesque choreography to them), it's really the mismatched goofball characters and how they bond and evolve, surprisingly, that hold the film together. A hilarious cameo from Bill Murray in the Beverly Hills sequence of Zombieland, also, is practically worth the price of admission.

Harrelson chews the scenery as Tallahassee, but as we find out, part of the reason he's hell-bent on killing zombies is because they took away his baby boy. As for the sisters, tough-girl Wichita just wants to take care of her little sister Arkansas (who, as a good shot, doesn't seem to need much help), but a beautiful girl has needs, too, and before long she develops feelings for Columbus. Will he or won't he finally be able to live out his nerd-boy fantasy of brushing the hair over a girl's ear?

You probably know the answer to that question, but just because Zombieland adheres to certain formulas doesn't mean that it doesn't revive them in witty ways. Although the zombie-killing gore fest may not be for everyone, Zombieland's amazing visuals, charming characters, and witty dialogue may leave a goofy grin on your face as you leave the theater.

Photos courtesy of Sony Pictures

The Opposite of Love: Julie Buxbaum ($16.50)	Break Up the Concrete: The Pretenders ($11.99)
Acid Tongue: Jenny Lewis ($12.49)	Certain Girls: A Novel: Jennifer Weiner ($17.79)
@#%&*! Smilers: Aimee Mann ($13.99)	Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day ($12.99)
Baby Mama ($17.99)	Greek - Chapter One ($19.99)
30 Rock: Season 2 ($25.99)	Lipstick Jungle - Season One ($24.99)