BuzzSugar

What to Netflix: New DVD Tuesday

BuzzSugar — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 08:30:44 PDT

All of the new DVD releases hit stores (and Netflix) on Tuesdays. So each week in What to Netflix: New DVD Tuesday, I sort through the best of the batch and tell you what to add to your queue. In addition to my selections below, you can also add Speed Racer, Made of Honor and a little independent film starring Kate Beckinsale called Snow Angels to your lists.

TV-to-DVD Debuts
Today's a big day for several television series that are now available for the first time on DVD. Whether you love these shows and want to cherish them forever or just need a refresher before the next seasons start up again, here's a guide to what's out this week.

Pushing Daisies: Season One
Special features include the cast and creative team members chatting about the show secrets.
Dirty Sexy Money: Season One
Special features include bloopers, deleted scenes, and creator commentary on the inspiration for the Darling family.

Private Practice: Season One
Special features include a featurette titled, "Practice makes perfect - Journey with Kate through her acting career to see how she landed one of TV's most sought-after roles," behind-the-scenes footage, extended episodes, deleted scenes, and outtakes.
Chuck: Season One
The DVD includes special featurettes like, "Chuck's World: Character development and original casting sessions," "Chuck vs. the Chuckles: Gag reel," and "Chuck on Chuck: Series stars join creators for some point/counterpoint."

Two more movies out on DVD, so

Deception
This thriller boasts an exciting cast, and in my opinion the performances make this a great choice for some at-home entertainment. Of course, this is at-home adult entertainment as the plot of Deception centers on a secret high-class sex club for New York's elite. Ewan McGregor plays Jonathan McQuarry, the quiet and reclusive accountant lured into this world, Michelle Williams is the beautiful member of the club he falls in love with, and Hugh Jackson slithers into the skin of a mysterious evildoer.

Special features include commentary with director Marcel Langenegger, a featurette on the making of the film and something titled "Club Sexy." Your guess is as good as mine on that one.

Young @ Heart
Oh man, elderly folks singing rock songs - is there anything more soul touching? It made me cry, but they were tears of joy, the result of something wonderfully life-affirming pulling at the old heart strings. Young @ Heart is a documentary that follows a group of older folks who learn "young people's" tunes, like those by the Ramones, David Bowie, and Gloria Gaynor. The result? An adorable, funny, inspiring, hopeful little movie about growing old in America.

Special features include 10 deleted scenes and a featurette titled "Young @ Heart Goes to Hollywood."

You Asked: Can I Move on From This Deception?

DearSugar — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 06:00:00 PDT

Dear Sugar,

I have been dating my boyfriend for almost two years now. He is an amazing boyfriend; in fact, I've never dated a guy like this before. About six months into our relationship, his ex became a problem. She called him constantly, along with text messages and emails. I had no problem with it in the beginning, because she's never been a threat to me, until I found out that he hadn't even told her about me! Instead, he was telling her he missed her, and on a couple of occasions, he even saw her.

I honestly felt bad for this girl because it was clear that he was stringing both of us along - I knew it wasn't solely her fault. When I confronted him, he claimed that he was over her, but I've lost all trust. He is an amazing guy, but I feel like he's been withholding the truth about our relationship since day one. Can I overcome this? I've never been a jealous person and I don't want to turn into one now, but I have no idea how to conquer this problem. - Deceived Dianna

To see DearSugar's answer,

Dear Deceived Dianna,

To be completely honest, I'm not sure this deception is worth moving past. Not only did he allow his ex to continue to contact him, but he crossed the line when he told her he missed her while in a relationship with you - that's cheating in my book! When the trust is broken in any relationship, a serious decision has to be made as to whether you can truly forgive and move on. If you hold on to your anger, or if you feel like he's still not being trustworthy, it'll just be a matter of time until your jealousy and doubt creates a rift that can't be fixed.

People make mistakes in relationships all the time, so if you believe that he's truly sorry, over her, and willing to change, give him another shot, but you'll have to be the judge of that. He could be the greatest guy in the world, Dianna, but what's important is how he treats you, and from the sound of it, he hasn't been respecting you or your relationship. Good luck.

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Do, Dump or Marry?

DearSugar — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 11:18:52 PDT

Hugh Jackman sure is a tall drink of water in his new movie Deception! I've always been a sucker for a man with an accent, but Hugh has the looks to match making him all the more desirable. He can sing, he can act, and he's great with kids, so even though he's off the market, tell me ladies, would you do, dump, or marry Hugh Jackman?

Source

Box Office: Tina Fey and Amy Poehler Win the Weekend

BuzzSugar — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 05:30:38 PDT

It's always exciting when a comedy that's genuinely funny does well with audiences, and that was the case this weekend with the female buddy comedy Baby Mama starring Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.

The ladies won the top spot with an estimated $18.3 million, handily beating out the other comedy opening over the weekend, Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay. EW reports that while this wasn't the best movie opening for either Fey or Poehler, their film did much better than many box office watchers predicted. In fact, Baby Mama gave Universal Studios its first box office winner of the year.

The Forbidden Kingdom was No. 3 and Forgetting Sarah Marshall was right behind in the fourth spot, with both films earning approximately $11 million their second weekend out - a respectable achievement.

While Fey and company had good reason to pop the champagne, another film didn't post opening-weekend results worthy of celebration. Deception, starring Hugh Jackman, Ewan McGregor, and Michelle Williams, "fared dismally," as Variety put it. The thriller barely beat Street Kings for the No. 10 spot, earning only $2.2 million over the weekend. I thought that the very talented cast did the best they could with poor material, but apparently that wasn't enough of a draw.

So, which movies did you check out this weekend? Did any of you see both Baby Mama and Harold and Kumar?

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Deception: Quality Performances Save A So-So Thriller

BuzzSugar — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 08:00:29 PDT

Deception is an example of a hyper-talented cast saving - seriously saving - some so-so material. The script isn't bad, per se, it's just sort of generic, sometimes draggy and includes some absurdly trite dialogue. And yet, I bought into it and left feeling like I'd been treated to some great performances. The direction is often striking, though sometimes the strike feels like blunt trauma (we get it, the character feels alienated in New York City, etc. etc.), though it's mainly the actors who make you care about this story.

Ewan McGregor plays Jonathan McQuarry, a quiet and reclusive accountant who lives for the solid security of order and numbers - at the expense of having any kind of social life. I have to say, I appreciate that this is established within the first few minutes, in the way we first find Jonathan in silent isolation, working in a skyscraper with huge glass windows that overlook an exciting city that doesn't include him. Swiftly, we’re introduced to the dashing, gregarious Wyatt Bose (Hugh Jackman) who immediately becomes Jonathan's best buddy, taking him out to strip clubs, playing tennis and eventually involving Jonathan in a high-class sex club. People on "The List" of this club are the most elite of New York’s high-powered executives, people who have no time for dating and just want to get laid. It’s a nice arrangement: no names, no questions asked, no strings - usually. To see what happens with this seemingly ideal situation,

When Jonathan falls in love with one of the members of the club (Michelle Williams), who he knows only as "S", he decides he wants more just as he discovers that S has been kidnapped. Wyatt, too, has disappeared, just when Jonathan's questions are multiplying. Jonathan hunts Wyatt down, only to find himself in a worse position as the time is ticking on S’s life. All of this successfully builds up some great tension until about three-quarters of the way into the movie when there's a climax. But then there's another 20 minutes or so that draaaaag out before the final big twist, by which point we're kind of anxious to go home.

But again, the actors make this film worthwhile. Ewan McGregor manages to be utterly sympathetic while never crossing over into playing some kind of cartoony interpretation of what a bumbling, overly polite accountant with few social skills might look like. McGregor always seems to have such affection and warmth toward the characters he takes on, and this role is no exception. Jackman's character ultimately fizzles down into a two-dimensional, mustache-twisting evildoer, but it's not really Jackman's fault and he puts an admirable amount of energy into the performance.

As for Michelle Williams, I've often thought she's pretty but in this movie she is staggeringly beautiful. The camera loves her, clearly, and though her part is minor in comparison to the other two, it's like there's nobody else onscreen when she’s there. That's the thing about Deception - the people make the movie worth watching, though it’s not the best thing you’ll ever see.

To see the trailer and video clips from Deception, check out movies.ivillage.com.

Photos courtesy of 20th Century Fox

Movie Preview: Hugh Jackman, Ewan McGregor, Michelle Williams in Deception

BuzzSugar — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 07:30:05 PDT

Man, I love it when Ewan McGregor plays the neatly trimmed, straight-laced dude. And in Deception, his character's stable little life gets shaken to the core when he becomes a member of a high-class sex club which his lawyer friend (Hugh Jackman) calls The List. Then, as the description goes, "in this new world, he soon becomes the prime suspect in a woman's disappearance and a multi-million dollar heist."

Michelle Williams and Maggie Q also star in this thriller that looks way intense. The movie opens April 25. To check out the trailer and tell me what you think,

Source

Lies! Lies! Lies!

GiggleSugar — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 07:00:00 PDT

Alert the "too good to be true" police! Can't see the fine print? Look again.

View 2 Photos ›

Source

Meet the Euro Pop Princesses of the '60s: Yé-Yé Girls

Tara Block — Fri, 25 May 2012 14:52:29 PDT

Are the yé-yé girls having resurgence? First there was Megan's infamous Mad Men song and dance number, and now they've come up again in Wes Anderson's latest film Moonrise Kingdom. In the film - set in 1965, a year before this season of Mad Men - Suzy Bishop is one half of the lovesick preteen couple at the center of the movie. While her style is clearly fashioned after the yé-yé girls, Suzy's interest in the pop singers is brought up at one point when she shows her love interest, Sam Shakusky, her favorite album, Tous Les Garçons Et Les Filles by yé-yé girl Françoise Hardy. Later in the movie, Sam and Suzy have a very entertaining dance scene on the beach in their underwear to her song "Le Temps de l'Amour" ("The Time of Love").

Derived from "yeah! yeah!", the yé-yé movement was comprised of female pop singers from France, Québec, Italy, and Spain. The themes and lyrics of the songs, often written by men like Serge Gainsbourg, were deceptively innocent, as the girls beamed sexy naiveté. One not-so-innocent song Serge wrote for yé-yé singer France Gall was "Les Sucettes" ("Lollipops"), which was really referring to oral sex. It included the line, "Annie loves lollipops, aniseed lollipops, when the sweet liquid runs down Annie's throat, she is in paradise." Learn more about France and other popular yé-yé girls like Françoise Hardy, Sylvie Vartan, and Sheila.

You Can Now Read the Diary of President Obama's Ex-Girlfriend

Annie Scudder — Wed, 02 May 2012 11:20:48 PDT

When he was 22, living in New York City, and right out of college, Barack Obama dated Genevieve Cook. The relationship was significant to warrant mention in his memoir Dreams of My Father, but now we can read Genevieve's perspective in Vanity Fair. The magazine's piece, focusing on the now president's first serious relationship, is an adaptation of a new Obama biography by David Maraniss and includes love letters from Barack sent to another girlfriend, Alex McNear, and portions of Genevieve's very detailed diary. The realities of an everyday relationship are discussed, including fights, chores, and sex life.

Genevieve's diary provides details about what it was like to be in a relationship with Barack at the time. On Sundays, he would drink coffee, lounge around, and do the New York Times crossword. She described the scene in her diary:

I open the door, that Barack keeps closed, to his room, and enter into a warm, private space pervaded by a mixture of smells that so strongly speak of his presence, his liveliness, his habits - running sweat, Brut spray deodorant, smoking, eating raisins, sleeping, breathing.

In another entry, she describes her doubts:

The sexual warmth is definitely there - but the rest of it has sharp edges and I’m finding it all unsettling and finding myself wanting to withdraw from it all. I have to admit that I am feeling anger at him for some reason, multi-stranded reasons. His warmth can be deceptive. Tho he speaks sweet words and can be open and trusting, there is also that coolness - and I begin to have an inkling of some things about him that could get to me.

For his part, here's how Barack described the relationship in his autobiography, "You know how you can fall into your own private world? Just two people, hidden and warm. Your own language. Your own customs. That’s how it was." Can you relate to the young love?

What to Know About Credit-Card Debt Collection

Kiplinger — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:42:10 PDT

If you owe credit-card debt, educate yourself with these pointers from Kiplinger about how the whole collections process works and what your rights are.

Year after year, debt collection complaints rank among the most-common consumer grievances the Federal Trade Commission receives. In fact, reports of deceptive debt-collection tactics were the second-most common complaint (after identity theft) that the FTC received in 2011.

"Debt collection is complicated, and some collectors may push the boundaries of the regulations and law to get money out of you," says Bill Hardekopf, CEO of LowCards.com. In fact, JP Morgan Chase is being investigated by the government for improper credit-card collections, he says. If you're having trouble paying off your credit-card debt, you need to understand the collection process and know what your rights are.

You have at least 21 days after your credit-card statement date to make a minimum payment. If your payment is late, your card company will report it to the credit bureaus - but you may get up to 60 days if it's your first late payment and you're a good customer, Hardekopf says. That information will remain on your report seven years after the date you first missed the payment.

If your account is 60 days past due, the late payment is noted on your credit report and your credit-card company will turn over your account to its collections department.

If your account is 90 days past due, your card issuer will repeatedly call or send letters and will likely shut down your account.

Beyond the 90-day point, your card issuer will turn over your account to a collections agency or third-party debt collector, which will contact you through phone calls, e-mails and letters, Hardekopf says. The collector can sue you and send you a summons to appear in court. If you don't show up, the collector will automatically win the case and can seize your assets or garnish your wages to pay off the debt.

Read on to find out what you should do if the collectors are bugging you.