This is too a blog

So much cooler than Waking Life. The rotoscoping actually makes sense in this one. Plus, Robert Downey Jr. I take back what I said about my new movie boyfriend. It’s definitely Robert Downey Jr. At least when he’s rotoscoped.

Who:

What:

Where: Prospect Park Bandshell

When: Last Night (sorry…)

How: Celebrate Brooklyn, baby!

Why: Because sea creatures are very, very pervy.

Why don’t you ladies start a show together? Star, look for Amanda here. Amanda, I am sending you a copy of Star’s new book, Shine. Now talk amongst yourselves.

The first rule of happiness, according to an article in the current New York Magazine:

“Decide where to go to college by picking two decent schools and flipping a coin.
The relatively unexamined life is worth living. Barry Schwartz’s The Paradox of Choice documents numerous studies in which thinking too hard about multiple choices leads people to preemptively regret the options they’re going to miss out on. This triggers a stress reaction that tends to focus narrowly on random variables—producing unwise decisions, paralysis, and superfluous law degrees. Those who seize the first option that meets their standards (which don’t have to be low, just defined) are happier than those who insist on finding the perfect solution.”

A bonus of my own personal coin toss: I avoided being at Lewis and Clark with pre-b.j. Monica Lewinsky.

Oh, Johnny. You tried. Oh how you tried. Indeed, when you were swishing about the screen, I sat rapt, delighted. You look much better as a pirate libertine than as a syphilitic one. I like the smudgy eyeliner - it suits you.

My one complaint, and it does lead me to suggest that moviegoers considering seeing POTC:DMC (catchy, non?) in the theater hold off and get the DVD, which will hopefully have a “Depp scenes only” menu option, is that the Johnnyless scenes are unbearable.

If you must see it in the theater, rest assured that you can use the bathroom and/or visit the concession stand during the touching reunion between Orlando Boringloom and his pirate daddy. You won’t miss out on any entertainment, or plot points for that matter. And no matter how long you take, it will still feel like forever before Johnny is back on screen.

Although I expected a bit more Marty Markowitz-style hoopla to surround the historic lighting of the Parachute Jump, I still though it looked quite pretty:

Before Lighting

After Lighting

Also, I know these people have been generating a lot of press, but I sampled their wares and I must report: coney island shortcakes are vile, damn near inedible. Someone went a little heavy on the baking soda, imparting a metallic/bitter flavor to the cake and highlighting the oversugared and limp berries. The whipped cream is fine, I guess.

Here is my contribution to this evening’s Independece Day barbecue:

Why has no senator introduced banning flag eating as an amendment?

Here’s how to make it:

• Toss 5 sliced bananas in lemon juice (or your flag will be red brown and blue).
• Arrange about 35 blackberries in the upper left-hand corner of a serving tray. These are the stars.
• Arrange lemony banana slices onto the rest of the tray. Shoot for as many stripes as will fit.
• Top bananas with quartered (or halved, if they’re small) strawberries. Spear together with toothpicks.

Note: If you are not serving this immediately, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate.

I wish I’d had fancier toothpicks…

Half way through Bryan Singer’s very very long Superman Returns I had finished my soda and snacks. With my oral distractions subtracted, I could give the movie my undivided attention.

That was a mistake.

It took some scanning of my mental mood magnet

(anxious? frightened? confused?)

to identify the feeling I was experiencing: boredom. But how? Studly superhero? Check.

Wittily cast indie movie queen? Check. Doggie cannibalism? Check. Explosive effects, adorable precocious moppet, and Eva Marie Saint? Check, check, check.

And yet, absent something to chew on, I was bored bored bored. So, do yourself a favor if you must see Superman Returns: get the bucket o’ popcorn and the drink that’s too big to fit in the cup holder.

On the other nattily gloved hand, The Devil Wears Prada is entertaining enough to see sans snacks. Perhaps a diet soda and some sugarless some gum for the dull scenes between Anne Hathaway and her laddie love Adrian Grenier, but definitely no buttery popcorn. This is, after all, a movie where Meryl Streep refers to Anne Hathaway as “the smart fat girl”.