someofusarebrave

Y'know, I loved most of the Harry Potter book-to-movie adaptations. It's such an amazing world to get to spend time in, I felt privileged that the movies offered me an excuse to retread previous territory in the books. I enjoyed seeing certain details as if for the first time while watching all of my favorite scenes-the most poignant ones--still present in the movies.

That is, until this drivel.

This movie is shot like an action movie, perhaps 'Heat' or the like; it plays as though the only major conflicts are between Ron 'n Hermione, and between Harry and Malfoy. It plays Harry 'n Malfoy off one another in classic 'hero/antihero' way..the only problem being that anyone who's read the books knows full well that a) Malfoy is no antihero, just a scared little boy forced into something beyond his ken by family loyalties, 'n b) that Malfoy does not in the end directly contribute to anyone's death, least of all Dumbledore's--not intentionally, certainly, 'n c) that in the end Harry saves Malfoy, thus redeeming him sort of. Malfoy has become the antihero by the end of the movie to the degree that any memory of Voldemort's role or presence in Harry's life has been virtually wiped out; the flashbacks regarding Voldemort's childhood seem to be completely irrelevant. Meanwhile Harry dedicates the year practically to finding out whether Malfoy's a bad man and what he's been up to, only to discover this was all wasted energy as Dumbledore engineered the whole thing himself, several books later. This is all a set-up for the 'Harry's not infallible nor is Dumbledore Dumbledore messed up this is how Malfoy's not such a bad guy nor is Snape goodness/evil are more complex than we first thought' message of the later books. This is necessary in a child's book, btw, to prevent the kid getting the wrong i.e. overly religious/black-'n-white world message, from the books in question. In this book, it just comes off like an overly simplified action movie sequence between two not too complicated men, 'n guess what? HP is a FANTASY. It's not a goddam action movie!

Apparently the writer is the same for all the movies, so I'm gonna go ahead 'n blame the director for cutting important scenes for time 'n altogether making a hack job out of it. Although they could have used a female writer consulting on how women ACTUALLY behave, like, ever IMO. The women in these films all seemed rather--masculine, or else were Ginny Weasley 'n disapparated after a few minutes of dialogue when she even appeared at all.

I mean, c'mon, like we don't have enough of those in the world already, now we have to make children's movies suit that structure?

It's almost like--meaning it's EXACTLY like IMO!--the writer 'n director sat down 'n said, hey, let's cut anything from this movie that a religious white adult male wouldn't appreciate, then DID SO.

I hate that they got their hands on my movie.

Meanwhile quidditch barely featured in a book that had many fantastic quidditch sequences; Ron 'n Lavender stole Harry's first kiss with Ginny, which became a g-rated nonsense bit of tomfoolery in the longest- feeling scene since the beginning of time rather than the triumphant bit of post-win snogging it was designed to be in the book. Difference? The latter was an EFFECTIVE scene; the former just made everyone in the theater start tapping their feet hoping it would be over soon.

The writer clearly did not understand the spirit of the story, nor did the director bother to demand a rewrite that would have included, say, any character development whatsoever?

The thing I liked about these books is that they so well played to both the masculine desire for action 'n sports 'n snogging etc., as well as the feminine desire for conversation 'n humor 'n emotional conflict.

The books managed to meet both of these needs, thus providing the best of both worlds--all packaged together in a fantasy land so rich with detail 'n life as to make one want to visit it again 'n again.

This movie managed none of this.

This was also the only movie I had a severe problem with, lest you believe I am simply a self-declared aficionado unwilling to accept minute changes to some of my favorite childhood stories.

From a situation with a movie adapted from a book thus attempting to communicate the spirit of the book, presumably, to audiences--from a situation with a writer presented with a well-loved story who needn't have bothered adapting much at all to make the story in question big- screen presentable--from the basic fact that this movie alone did not even manage to project a world I wished to spend time in, let alone to visit again 'n again--from the basic reality that this movie creeped me out regarding human character as well as a generally oily, icky tone to it--this fan is willing to never see any film written or directed by those involved in the writing/directing processes for this film again.

"Like, EVER!"

The women totally kicked ass in this movie. Anne Hathaway beat all my expectations to a bloody pulp; she is officially a rock star musically.

Samantha Barks was a revelation; I can't wait to see what she does next.

Whatever project is wise enough to cast her, I will be sure to see.

Amanda Seyfreid was infinitely better than I expected her to be; her inexperience vocally totally worked for her here, adding to her character's believability as an innocent, cloistered teenager.

I wanted more development for Eponine's character, because just as in the musical, I found her to be the most relatable of all of the characters-certainly of all the female characters. The lack of extreme anguish in her character, the primarily silence of her suffering in a loud musical made it all the more poignant.

I was tremendously disappointed the director cut the latter half of 'Turning', as well as his choice to include the incestuous-seeming, terribly-worded 'Suddenly.' The only real note I have on this film is that the director seemed too inexperienced, certainly too unaware of the layers behind the female perspectives this script presents, to do his job at a beyond merely 'satisfactory' level.

Thanks to him, what should have felt like a revelation instead at times felt jolting and unnecessarily grim. This is a story about hope, not despair, and he seemed to linger in the bleakness with a troubling glee.

The choice to cast Russell Crowe rather than an older, stiff-upper-lip, snarling and sneering at the "less moral" from his perspective individual was..not wise. That's been said already. Russell Crowe seems like a genuinely good guy, real down-to-Earth; his character is among the most difficult in the movie, and the actor clearly got little help either from the script which should have been edited to portray the layers of contempt behind Javer's interactions with Val Jean when Val Jean was still Mayor, for example, to make it more clear that Javer suspected Val Jean all along but could not speak up about it, due to Javer's station being so much lower than Val Jean's as mayor was.

This, again, the director should have caught, as well as the simple fact that you cannot cast a novitiate, as The Phantom of the Opera's casting Gerard Butler in the titular role to flop reviews clearly evidenced to play a role that has been consistently offered only to the greats-with good reason. Russell Crowe was clearly trying, but receiving no help with his performance--it's not his fault he was miscast.

That choice I blame sorely on the director.

The choice to demand the actors speak lines which were originally intended to be sung was also a grave mistake, in my opinion. These lines rhymed--they made no sense as spoken lines. It seemed the director was just trying to include more dialogue in the movie for those who don't like musicals, but-it is a freakin' musical! They sing! Get over it.

I mean that for the director as well.

The choice to include 'Suddenly' was unfortunate. The director I suppose was trying to make his mark on the story, but the song came out all wrong for the script--too long, indicative of a romantic relationship between Cosette and Val Jean-ew!..awkwardly worded even for the romantic song it darn well seemed to be. A song filled with language like that belongs on a Britney Spears record, not in a musical.

Did I mention that Hugh Jackman did his job here perfectly? Cuz he did.

I can't imagine any other male acting in Hollywood today who could have performed this role better. Hats off.

There are reasons why I have stopped watching musicals of all kinds.

Perhaps it was the collective sexism that was the final straw for me.

Maybe I gave up once I realized that almost inevitably some white guy was called upon to stand up to a poorer, invariably less socially privileged person of color with a Point. Maybe it was the portrayal of crazy people doing things no human member of this society would EVER in a million years be allowed to do, like screaming at kids you have stuck into a dumpster during "rehearsal" for a play you are "directing".

The screenwriters cannot write women as non-victimized humans, either.

Maybe it's the pure sexism of only ever portraying women as useless innocents constantly in danger from hulking men these women do not know how to defend themselves against and for whatever reason do not try.

The sub-par voices coming from pretty-faced lousy singers doesn't help.

This is the worst of the worst so far as that style of story goes.

Inserting a transgender woman into the movie does not improve matters.

Not even that obviously heartstrings-tugging move works in a show like this one. Sorry, folks, better luck next time.

I am actually really not eager to review this show, mostly because I do genuinely like Jill Hennessy. She is one of those pretty, unassuming women who looks as though she could have done pretty much anything she wanted to do--model, run for governor, 'stick it to the man' by turning every radical liberal leader within fifty miles to violence--but instead she has chosen to act. Acting is a difficult, artistic pasttime, of the sort you rarely see pretty girls engage in seriously without involving a host of men designed to teach them how to, well, act as they are attempting it. She was one of the first of a slew of women in some line of police work to star in her own show, and there is a lot to be said for that. She also manages to be engaging and impossible to look away from as an actress. Unfortunately, this character spawned a slew of knock-offs which all carried the original's inherent flaws. First off, this character's first actual, well, characteristic that we are introduced to as viewers is the fact that she is angry. We soon find out the reason for this is that her mother was murdered when she was just a child, leaving her father alone to raise her. Now, in real life angry people usually make a slew of mistakes, because they are too busy fighting back against anyone and everyone they consider to represent their enemy for even a moment or two to focus real hard on any other pursuit. They are typically willing to fight anybody, if that is their anger has gone on long enough. Jordan's, of course, being decades old, has. However, this is television, and so of course Jordan manages to be an insightful and driven M.E. in addition to being an Ineffectively Angry Person. She does not, however, manage to be a particularly interesting one. Anyone who has spent more than two seconds around somebody suffering from poor anger management knows that there is little "fun" or "sexy" about it all--you are simply trying to get away from the person as fast as humanly possible, to preserve your own skin. Yet in this gem of a series, an entire office of people are falling all over themselves to help Jordan in her first case back at an office she left years ago? Right. Women do not tend to all gather around a near-stranger this way unless they know this person is equally capable of having their backs…and the confused look in Jordan's eyes whenever directly confronted about her behavior or anything else that's real and current news would seem to imply her inability to do so. So that's odd. Also, Jordan returns to town and immediately moves back in with her father. Now, I think most of us can agree that a thirty-sum-odd woman might be just slightly uneasy about becoming a dependent to her daddy again, can't we? Jordan however accepts the idea with seeming ease, even going so far as to break into her father's house without telling him she is in town and attempt to sneak up on him. This would be cute behavior with someone her own age, but with her Dad or with any other male relative, it sends up some serious red flags. First, the two of them have poor boundaries: from Jordan's "cute" story of staying up late at night as a child watching him work while trying to remain hidden to him to their game of putting themselves in the victim's and murderer's shoes and verbally playing out the scene of the crime, both Jordan and her father seem to be people unwilling to admit when enough is enough. She seems desperate even now to hold his attention no matter what; she is clearly put off by a woman who her father is dating, although her mother has at this point been dead for decades. Many young girls left behind by dead mothers and left to their fathers to raise become the victims of some form of incest, emotional if not physical; this situation has all the signs of an incestuous relationship between father and daughter, but of course it is television and so our "badass" heroine cannot possibly be the victim of incest!. She is I suppose too pretty. It is not the actress' fault that that the character does not have what it takes to hold my attention for long. She is simply not written it seems to have much of a personality, other than being a Woman who Suffers. These women were probably rare once upon a time, but they are not so rare now. More, most of them manage to have some sort of inner strength or fire which remains strong throughout the series and carries them relatively unscathed through everything they have suffered. Most of them are champions of survival, women capable of living through it all and of inspiring that same trait in others. At least, the women on television shows that I choose to spend my time with are. Perhaps the reason is because these women are the victims of specific and individualized male violence of some form or another--the way that most women suffering in the world today are. Crossing Jordan is a relatively inoffensive, none-too-gory crime-solving show with a weekly mystery at its core. Its lasting power lies in the fact that it can hold the attention of the entire family, or of a couple or a couple of couples, for an hour once a week without once bringing up a single point for them to argue about. This may be a rare quality in television shows--but ought it really be confused with what qualities equate excellence in them? A solid effort, with a good ensemble cast; to bad the entire effect is so, well, boring.

Better once the detective is on more.

Also--the show is like CSI--but with powerful women. Nice.

was in love with this show when it first came out; all of us were. We were so desperate for a lesbian-centered television show back then. Any television show that even began to touch on the issues pertinent to our lives seemed well worth the investment of our time and affections.

I know better now.

I can see the way that Shane's abused, traumatized self masks her pain via her many addictions, and I can recognize that this show glamorizes the drug and alcohol co-dependencies which prevent her from being happy.

I can see Jenny's self-centeredness, and I can recognize the spoiled-little-rich-girl background of a woman able to live on the money she makes waitressing! yet still have the time and money to attend a rather prestigious writing class...who cheats on her longtime fiancée with a woman she knows next-to-nothing about...who attempts to kill herself because she was molested once fifteen years prior, and was recently broken up with.

I can see that Carmen's desperate desire to win Shane's love via her stick-to-itiveness is kinda pathetic, and that her willingness to be involved with even a fractured, barely-functional Shane rather than demand Shane heal into someone worthy of Carmen's time leads directly to the events of the season three finale.

I can see that Alice is pathetically obsessed with tracing connections between other people because she feels so disconnected herself.

I can recognize her involvement with her best friend, Dana, is an attempt to become more connected to the world at large and particularly to her other "best friends" so as not to be left in the dark by herself.

I can see that she perhaps should be, as her "bisexuality" is actually the result of the fact that she is at heart still a toddler, stumbling around after anybody who might take the place of Mommy or Daddy while they are gone, willing to do whatever she has to do to feel loved.

I can see that Dana is determined NOT to be loved and so she deliberately sabotages every romantic relationship she ever enters into.

I can see that Tina is stupid to the point of utter incompetency at life, that she goes back to Bette again and again because she feels she does not deserve better, and because it seems easier than finding someone else to be that "better." I can see that she is depressed to Bette's bipolar, and thus they make the perfect mutually unhealthy team.

I can see Bette's utter incapacity to love anyone nearly as much as she loves herself, let alone respect them...and that Tina is far better off without her. I can see her as the self-centered, coddled child-woman that she is, that she is the kind of woman whose friends make sure never to directly confront about anything for fear of being screamed at. I can see that she does not temper her rage for anybody.

I can see how misplaced that rage is--indeed, it is as misplaced as her sister Kit's struggles to be accepted, approved of and desired are.

I can see how everybody on this show looks for love in all the wrong places, and that what they find thus is not love but simply indulgence.

I can see that this indulgence benefits no one, and never would.

I can see that they obsess over romantic relationships because the rest of their lives are so entirely empty of passion and of satisfying intellectual pursuits and athletics.

They do not really care about anything save themselves and one another.

In spite of the attempts this show makes at throwing gender and particularly feminine stereotypes into harsh relief, as much as the show makes claims to be doing this in order to criticize them, it fails.

These women are entirely feminine creatures, whose lives focus around gossip, relationships or lack thereof, and making and earning money.

They do not understand themselves at all, nor do they seem in a hurry to do so. They act insanely carefree in order to cover up what they are truly feeling...and thus, they depart from the women whom I know who are lesbians, and from the reason I admire them so much.

The women I know who are lesbians express themselves without fear. We know what our feelings are and we speak up on their behalf.

We do not cover up our feelings in the name of having a "good time."

That's something straight girls do.

Meanwhile, there's the whole 'sex' issue. Mark's character in season two actually brings this up in a really interesting way in season two.

However, the creators and writers of the show never appear to actually listen to themselves. Mark is filming these women having sex without telling them what he is doing. Meanwhile, the actresses are featured on this show in all kinda undress for no apparent reason other than the audience's titillation. I mean, yes, many "straight" shows include straight sex scenes...can't think of any right now that are nearly as explicit as the scenes on this show are, but I'm sure I will in a second. Nope, still nothing. There is no really great reason I can think of to be revealing the naked bodies of your actresses on a regular basis, or be showing intimate and fully-naked full-on sex scenes on this show. Just, none at all. Besides, how do these horny boys differ from horny Mark on the show?

Jenny finally ranted at him, which he deserved--but she cannot unfortunately do the same for every horny and misguided boy viewer.

Thus they walk away believing their "interest" in lesbians is okay.

As you might imagine, I severely disagree.

Actresses, y'all are my heroines.

This could definitely have been a better movie.

It could have been a worse one too, but. Well.

I am not trying to denounce what this movie attempted to do.

I think it is brave to attempt to trace a frakked-up teenager's journey from a loud-mouthed, grieving kid whose sadness has turned to anger, into an excellent, brave and capable human being.

I just happen to think that process is a lot more complicated than suddenly becoming great at something I happened to be great at anyway.

I also think it's a lot easier to offer the sort of absolution, forgiveness and redemption this Teacher is offering to his Pupil when the pupil happens to excel at one of the things he is being taught.

I think it's high time we as a society stop deeming sports skillz the kind of talent that makes somebody 'great' as a person, rather than simply as an athlete.

Growing up as a man has got to come to mean more than succeeding at football or baseball--or, in this case, swimming. It has got to come to mean more than successfully throwing a ball or running faster than anybody else around. This movie only offers half the story.

Yes, Ashton Kutchers' character does try to reach beyond the typical athlete persona by attempting to become a member of the Coast Guard.

However, once there, he does nothing but screw up.

Because he is "great" at swimming, however, he never once has to face the consequences. He simply sails along getting into barfights, snarling at his supposed teammates and mouthing off to his superiors.

All in all, he clearly has some ambivalence about being a "hero."

None of that matters because he is a great swimmer ergo he seems presumed by all to have every right to get into a 'few minor scraps' along the road to the sure success his superiors all predict for him.

This cute, small-town white boy is thus taken under the wings of several older, good-ole-boy types and made into a man--or their version.

Somehow, he is also surrounded by a team of other boys--and teachers--who look exactly like him. Oh, there is one black student and one black teacher just for the sake of paying lip service to diversity...but they have about six lines combined. The ONLY female rescue swimmer has got literally just about one line during the movie.

The screenwriters pay no attention to the difficulties that any of these people would surely face in any military institution, nor to the complexity of the issues surrounding their entrance into it.

Of course not.

This is an easy movie, designed to provide easy answers to complex questions. It is designed to trace the 'hero's journey' of one white boy who really does not so much deserve the opportunities he is given.

It is designed to give a second chance to a man who would not need it if he had not given in to his depression and hidden out for a year to begin with, then decided the solution to his internal agony was to "save" other people. This has never in the his- and her- stories of the world provided an effective solution to intense grief.

Too bad we still have so many movies that suggest otherwise.

I get it now.

Really, I do.

What a relief.

See, I never understood before why so many people in such oppressed, marginalized, persecuted and low-quality ways of living would insist upon standing up for the capitalist system that oppresses them.

I do now.

Batman represents that heroic figure, that capitalist who secretly has the needs of the "little people" on his mind.

He represents that mythical figure who actually, against all hertorical precedence, chooses to use his wealth for good.

However, in real life this figure never seems to quite exist. Real-life billionaires give millions to charity; their actions are well-publicized in papers thus shamed out of publishing their various other, less-moral exploits. Few if any sources ever criticize the fact that so long as they HAVE millions to casually give away in the first place, there will never be equality in this world and thus never any real justice. So long as justice is arbited by the few elite against the many, it will never be ought but a ploy to perpetuate the few's oppression. The rich are never convicted, the poor are thrown in jail...and the lawyers who put 'em there come from middle-class families that Really Believe in the "democractic" system of justice.

It's all sickening.

Bruce Wayne's 'superpower' is essentially being wealthy. Nothing he does could not be done by a man with the time, money and resources i.e. connections that he has. There is nothing special about him personally.

Like most so-called "superheroes", Batman enters the trade by accident.

What he really wants is revenge, as well as perhaps the chance to break out of "Daddy's shadow" and become more than a wealthy playboy.

That's all admirable in its own right, but it must be noted that he did not become a hero to save people's lives. He did not become a hero to better the quality of life of the average citizen...because he doesn't care about the quality of life of the average citizen.

What he cares about based on all available evidence is his own ability to buy fancy cars and have sex with fancy women and do so uninterrupted.

Here's a man who would be happily lost to his own playboy tendencies had his own personal life not been touched by violence, make no mistake.

Meanwhile the public valorizes him because he represents the hope they need. They place their faith in him and in so doing take the easier route to freedom from whatever forces or individuals happen to be oppressing a person--trusting someone else to take care of it for you.

Unfortunately Bruce Wayne does no such thing.

Look at the people he tends to take down--drug dealers, The anarchist Joker, thief and sometimes-whore Catwoman. These are not people who came from powerful families, like Bruce did; these are people who came from poverty and only were able to survive via petty crime. Petty crime can spiral into large-scale crime if a person is not careful to take the correct roads in life, and that is what seems to have happened here.

These are not "bad people", not as such--besides the Joker, most only kill those who cross them. That's not so different from Batman, is it?

Who is Batman to decide who lives and who dies? Are we to believe that anybody who breaks the law has earned the punishment any civilian wishes to dole them, so long as it is administered while they are suspected of committing or in the process of committing a crime? Great.

What a great world to live in, huh?

This is not Superman, defending the world against a much-wealthier, playboy enemy who has never worked a day in his life. Batman neither holds down a normal job nor maintains friendships with anyone save his butler. He does not 'date' so much as 'have conquests.' He is a jerk.

Much as I like to believe everyone is redeemable...about men like Bruce Wayne, I'm on the fence.

One thing I do know...I wouldn't want this guy defending my city.

No way.

Way to make wolves seem terrifying and potentially murderous, y'all.

This movie is interesting, in its own way--if by interesting you mean 'tremendously bloody and unnecessarily perverted.'

The main character, Vivian, is a sulky, broody, somewhat rebellious twenty-something whose guilt over her parents' death hangs like a cloud.

She falls for Aiden, a decent, good-ole-boy running from an assault charge in the states and perhaps his own dorkiness--he writes comics.

Anybody who calls themselves a "graphic artist" in defense against accusations of being a comic-book writer is well aware he is a dork.

Meanwhile Gabriel, Vivian's other potential love interest, is a jerk.

He's not just a jerk in the teenager, he-never-called-me-back style.

Rather, he is a cold-blooded killer who has instituted a habit of killing a human being at random judged unworthy of life by himself.

This is his idea of pack bonding.

In this version of the story 'Blood and Chocolate', Gabriel is also Vivian's uncle, which just adds a terrifyingly 'ick' factor to it all.

As if mercilessly hunting down humans in the forest wasn't 'ick' enuf.

This story is kind of entertainingly interesting in its own way. The 'girl/boy breaks away from old community by breaking its rules, falls in love with the wrong guy/girl, and thus learns to forge their own way in life' is an oldie but a goodie. The werewolf thing's a twist.

The problem is that this movie has nothing to do with the original novel except the names. In that far BETTER story, Viviane's mother had escaped the fire with her, and no member of the pack blamed her for her father's death. She lived in the U.S., not Romania. She went to school with Aiden, and she met him there. The entire pack had lived with child!Vivian and her parents before the fire, and they lived together still.

They were not the only werewolf pack in the world, which made more sense as Werewolf legends seem to exist everywhere these days.

Vivian was seventeen, and her mother was pushing her to commit to Gabriel because he was the new leader of the pack; there was no talk of some "mysterious" prophecy, which is an always groan-worthy insertion.

The book is more a story of coming to terms with one's relationship with one's community, and accepting every sacrifice that must be made to maintain the natural order within that relationship...

The film is more a story of accepting oneself at the cost of one's family.

Gabriel in the novel is a cigar-smoking, motorcycle-riding, consonant-dropping hunk, five years older than Vivian at most but totally hot.

Vivian is meant to feel somewhat afraid of his sexual prowess and his total ease with himself and his rebellious, leather-clad attitude.

She is also meant to feel drawn to Aiden's more laid-back self.

She also chooses to reveal what she is to him, and he freaks out.

The important difference between book and movie--the most important one, anyway--is that in the book, killing humans is against pack code.

While the book is a live-and-let-live treatise, the movie is a for-god-sakes-fear-the-outsider, chances-are-s/he-does-want-you-dead masterpiece. It is a masterpiece of FEAR-MONGERING, but oh well.

Can't have everything I guess, but was a smart script too much to want?

In fact, Rafe and Astrid, who is not his mother but rather his consort, wind up dead at Gabriel's hands because they murder a girl.

They also set Vivian up for the murder...anyway, the plot is tight.

The plot is also twisty, at times difficult to follow and a mystery on top of everything else. The book is in fact incredibly intelligent.

I wish the same could be said for the movie.

This is the kind of totally misogynistic movie that does such an excellent job of masquerading as a movie about female empowerment that it fools all but the most discerning types.

There would be nothing wrong with that, except that it lulls us all into a false state of comfort. Police will always be kind, gentle folk, escaped convicts will always be 'really good' at heart, and a woman can be rescued from the worst types of spiritual and emotional pain by the 'power of the penis'. If only, right?

Wrong. The world is not like that. In this world we all live in, police rape young homeless woman wandering around on their own as often as they help them out. Women who have been convicted of felonies rarely get second chances, regardless of how generous or good-hearted they happen to be. People are shaped by their circumstances and rarely manage to "rise above" them, instead dragging everyone else down with them often as not. There are no second chances.

Nor should there be. Women who murder ought not to be let off the hook from the ramifications of their actions for "good behavior." Policemen ought not do the job of the non-government organizations and social programs which do not exist in the South for all intents and purposes.

We ought not be able to work or charm our way out of being who we are.

Everyone deserves the opportunity to start again, but part of that process MUST involve some acknowledgment of why things went so badly wrong in the first place. Teaching young girls that all they have to do to improve their lives is to trust the people around them unconditionally to help them out of any scrape they get into is morally bankrupt. Movies like this one do a terrible job of preparing young girls for the world they will actually be entering upon adulthood.

It does a terrible job of describing the world they exist in now.

We need to learn how to be less sweet and giving, rather than more so.

Women are taught to be caring at the cost of everything we love about our lives and ourselves. Because we are so open-hearted, we are easily taken advantage of in our naivete. We need movie heroines who encourage us to be MORE wary, more suspicious of who we place our trust in, rather than less. We need heroines willing to stand on their own two feet and to work to accomplish their own dreams, rather than to fight for the dreams of those around them without a thought for themselves.

In real life, this kind of goodness is boring...it is scrappiness, it is the willingness to stand one's ground and to fight for one's right to exist at all costs, that makes a life entertaining to watch and live.

Instead, what this movie does is make us resent the people around us for achieving less than the perfection that the main characters of this movie achieve. We also hate ourselves for being less than wholly sweet.

No man will ever solve all a woman's problems for her. No woman can work her way into redemption by serving the people around her rather than serving herself. There is no opportunity for healing without pride.

No one can work themselves out of a pit of despair without honesty.

May I live to see the day when movies all represent heroines of reality, rather than of male fantasies of what a 'real woman' should be.

I gotta say, when I first read the reviews of this movie never having seen it before, I thought that the reviewers were being typically chauvinistic patriarchal drones and giving it such low scores because it was a movie about women, and they did not appreciate movies about women. I thought they simply could not understand the beauty of such a multi-generational film. I thought they were just being jerks.

I have since learned that they were right.

This movie IS awful. It did not have to be awful--in fact, it ought to have been good. Many of the actresses in this film are excellent and are stars in their own right; the supporting cast of men looked solid.

The acting was good. That was the only redeemable bit of the movie.

The fact that Sandra Bullock can be watchable even in the dregs like this movie speaks more to her talent than the movie's success.

If there is one theme however that films "about women" insist upon time and time again, however, it is that looks can be deceiving.

The direction of this film was terrible. The editing was worse.

The core story of this film--abusive mother becomes alcoholic in her old age after having raised a bipolar, far-too-straitlaced daughter.

They yell, they scream, they have conflicts and they resolve them.

Now, this movie could have been made in a new and exciting way.

It could have been great. It could have really called our mothers to task for using alcohol as a coping mechanism for all and sundry, and it could have called ourselves to task for using work and lack of a social life as a way to avoid the past. It could have opened our eyes to the ways we fall into whatever relationship opportunities present themselves rather than make truly genuine and thus difficult decisions.

It could have; it did not.

The movie spent half its time in flashbacks, which has never particularly been a favorite story-telling mechanism of mine. It spent its entire middle engaged in fairly useless fighting between the main character's mother and fiancée and father, which wasted time. The flashbacks' significance or impact on Siddalee were rarely explained, leaving us to guess as to Why We Should Care. For those of us who did not grow up in the South, the sudden entrance into a way of life we had no familiarity with whatsoever was jolting, to say the least. There was little-to-no context given to any of the revelations meant to explain it all. There was too much the rest of the time.

Meanwhile, no one stopped drinking, Siddalee never got the opportunity to actually confront her mother regarding her mother's abuses, and Siddalee's father never left the woman who tortured him for so long.

Meaning, no one ever got the opportunity to be human--instead they became caricatures in a story 'bout how Forgiveness Heals All.

This is a story about crazy white people doing crazy white people things and never acknowledging or even seeming to realize that the things they were doing were completely 100% insane and pointless.

Nice job, y'all, and I DO mean that sarcastically. Nice job.

Bill Maher's documentary would be a tremendous, life-changing event in my life if he wasn't so gosh-darned misogynistic. I mean, really, how am I supposed to take a man who uses the word 'pussy' every three sentences? My vagina is not a cat, thank you very much, and if you're not going to bring up male genitalia every five minutes you really ought to think twice before you use a slang term for female genitalia.

Otherwise, this documentary is clearly well thought-out. I think that some of Bill Maher's arguments are excellent, but at times he devolves into illogical, self-centered rants. The man needs therapy, and his me-first egotistic take on the 'personal anecdote' often interferes with his brilliant and incisive take on religion, along with everything else.

I very much wish too that Bill Maher would separate spirituality, or the belief in some sort of Greater Being/force, from religious practice.

Much of what we currently think of as religious practice has been oppressive towards nearly every people. I also wish very much that this had been discussed, as I find it to be the MOST logical argument against practicing Judeo-Christian religion.

The vague aspects of Judeo-Christianity--for example, a sinner will burn in hell but someone who repents, which of course cannot be objectively known, will be saved? WTF?--are another of religion's weak spots which was not touched on nearly enough in this film, I think.

I do think there is a difference between God, as presented by Christianity and other monotheistic religions, versus the concept that we are all connected via energy flows in the universe and that prayer acts as a general focus of one's energy on a desired outcome, which has been scientificially proved to create the specified outcomes.

There is a scientific explanation behind so-called "miracles." I think it would be much more useful practically speaking to compare and contrast religious practices with practices shown to be effective to control certain aspects of people's lives.

If only such a documentary existed...

That would really be something to see. f this society were able to separate excellent music, group sing-alongs, prayer/meditation in groups, and the acceptability of hugging forty people in a row, perhaps our "need" for religion would simply vanish. Here's hoping.

Oh writers, why do you hate us?

I am a loner. I make friends easily, but I prefer to spend a great deal of time by myself. I assure y'all, this does not in any way lead to me wanting to commit mass murder, nor has it ever.

Movies like this one, on the other hand, make me perhaps a bit more sympathetic to those who do.

What are we supposed to infer from this movie--any woman who appears to have no friends is a potential murderer? Women who spend a great deal of time alone are secretly plotting to murder their friends' friends? Beautiful women cannot play well with others?

If you make friends with somebody who does not appear to have any others, you are setting yourself up to be stalked and then murdered?

Seriously, women don't do this, folks.

Let's forget for one moment, shall we, that virtually every mass murderer ever born into this country has been male. Let's forget that 90% of the women imprisoned for murder have killed abusive spouses.

Let's forget that most stalkers are men, and most men who stalk place their female victims in far more danger than women accused of it.

In fact, most women who stalk simply use email and texting to make the lives of some guy unlikely to be much of a victim himself difficult.

Most men who stalk actually do endanger the lives of their victims.

Even with this reality that all of us are well aware of, you insist on

making men into victims of "crazy" women, and women into serial killers.

You insist on rendering women the assaulters and men the assaultees.

This is awfully hilarious considering the actual relationship most men and women have with each other in heterosexual partnerships: the woman fears the man, who insists on proclaiming any attempt on her behalf to fight back as "assault."

Why do you think so many women are in prison for essentially "battering their batterers" to death, despite the fact that while the WOMEN were being battered, the police stood by and did nothing?

Why doesn't the female stalker get to be a person in her own right? Even in movies with male stalkers, the man in question is typically as well fleshed out a character as any of his victims. Think 'The Dark Knight', 'Silence of the Lambs'...all movies in which the male serial killer gains far more attention than any of his victims, male or female.

Apparently violence at the hands of men is attractive, whereas violence at the hands of women is ugly and insane and awful...but then,

we knew that already.

Some time into this series, I realized this film rubbed me the wrong way in a manner very similar to 'Jane Eyre' and previous versions of 'Pride and Prejudice' had. Thinking more about it, I realized that the reason is because of the clear lack of comprehension exhibited by those in charge of converting these rather dense and equally beloved classics to film. These books are all deeply feminine--they were written by women, about women and for the past hundred years have been read by a primarily female audience, with the exception of reading assigned for school. These conversions have all been equally well-meaning on the surface, but at root something far more evil has been taking place. It is no accident of the industry that male directors and male screenwriters have been solely responsible for crafting these conversions. It is ALSO no accident that they are aimed at the sort of female audience who believes soap operas to be decent entertainment.

These stories are about the "female condition" within the social circles occupied by their female authors far more than they are about these characters romantic matches and mismatches. These are women who grow and change and act rather than be acted upon like most so-called "heroines" of today's so-called "great" stories. This is why these stories have appealed to women throughout the ages--they provide us women with both a template for growth and one for happiness.

This is something men can never understand. To cover for their own incomprehension, the male directors and writers who have in the past taken over such projects have focused on the men's stories instead.

Suddenly the women seem like victims, rather than act-ors in their own lives; they stand still in the center of rooms where men pace and rant.

If we want stories that actually reflect our lived experiences of the world, we have to fight to get them made. If we sit back and let whatever happens, happens, we simply wind up with dreck like this.

This is a movie about men trying to gain the attentions of women they do not particularly like all that much.

This is the same plot that most rom-coms seem to be made of: a man wants a girlfriend so that he can prove his masculinity to his friends.

Because he does not care so much that he date someone he actually enjoys spending time with as he does someone who his friends adore, he inevitably casts his affections onto the nearest woman possible.

Usually, this woman works with him--leading to endless workplace hijinks and misunderstandings eventually solved with a well-timed declaration of sentiment and a too-long kiss.

What creativity these writers have, to be able to churn out the same plot over and over!

However, there is something more nefarious at work beneath all this seeming "good not-very-clean fun". These men pursue women for sport, not because they agree with viewing women as objects but because their friends do. When they declare their feelings, they do so because they want the woman in question to like them for the sake of their reputations, not for the sake of their hearts. Movies like this undercut heterosexual relationships by encouraging mutual mistrust.

There is a reason why women are never sure that men who profess to love us are serious, or are just trying to get us into bed with them.

There is also a reason why men believe women need heart-shaped cards and mixed cds and grand declarations of love to take a chance on them.

The reason comes down to movies like this one.

It would be nice to see a few male heroes in teen romantic comedies once in a while who actually seem to LIKE women, rather than viewing them as trophies to dust off whenever their friends come to play.

I used to love this movie when I was a kid.

Now I'm all grown-up watching with fresh eyes and while I still enjoy the story, I have some issues with the way it is all carried out.

For example, the only female characters at least according to the presumed gender identity of the voices speaking for each of them are the hapless Ducky and the petty, revenge-happy Cera.

Ducky is always being rescued by 'strong silent type' big brother Spike, while Cera leads the crew of friends in the wrong direction after fighting the well-meaning Littlefoot for dominance.

What lessons are we supposed to take from this--that women are either petty beeyatches or else silly, confused victims constantly in need of a brawnier male to rescue them? Writers, Producers, you coulda done better.

Ya know--I re-watch movies like this one and I remember why I got the idea as a child that being female meant I did not deserve to be listened to...and why I believed the boys around me were inherently better...and why I lost all confidence in myself.

Y'all coulda done better, and girls like me DESERVED better.

Ye Gods, do I love this show.

I never would have expected that I would. The sole female main character is young and thin and blatantly, brazenly physical; this generally seems a recipe for disaster, particularly in shows that are just starting out.

Somehow here this works. Somehow with this show everything just WORKS, for absolutely no reason aside from the fact that it is all carried out so darn well. The writing is taut and entertaining, the dialogue is witty and humorous during the perfect moments for it to be. The directors of every episode so far that I have seen have been excellent.

That in itself is quite the feat, and props must go to whomever deserves them. Meanwhile all of the actresses and actors seem perfectly cast, and capable, and genuine enough to be likable.

I have never seen a show that WORKS from the very beginning so well.

Keep doing what you're doing, folks. You do it exceptionally well.

I remember really enjoying this movie, before I grew up and realized what was wrong with it.

This could have been a very different kind of movie. The lead woman could have remained rather frumpish and avoided the makeover scenes swiftly becoming requisite to any romantic comedy worth its salt.

The lead woman could have changed as she did but avoided the too-easy romantic comedy formula of changing FOR a man. She might have then dated around a while and learned how to enjoy herself again, or else she might have explored her sexuality with both men and women.

That would have been quite the welcome shock.

Instead, Tula chooses to change herself precisely to win the affections of one man. When this happens in real life, the women usually realize within anywhere from one month to fifteen years that the man is cheating on her behind her back. Instead, in this movie--which apparently takes place in fantasy land, in which patriarchy will vanish simply via the power of "love"--Tula and her husband seem very much in love. Normally I might say, more power to them--except that the precedent this sets for the young and impressionable girls who might stumble across this film on their way to a better, edgier one is awful.

People need to learn to take responsibility for the consequences of their actions--even if they are as well-meaning or possibly simply as self-obsessed as these folks are.

I must say, I like this show far better than I thought I would.

At first, I thought this show would be just like several other shows on currently involving either reformed bad guy thieves or do-gooder FBI consultants. I do think that Neal's brilliance is a little irritating.

So watch out for that.

However, I really do enjoy this show. I like both of the leading men, Neal particularly, and Mozzie and the women of the show are all eminently watchable. In fact, I cannot think of another show which presents such an excellent lineup of female stars.

This in fact is the primary point I would like to make.

The women involved with this show are excellent; please use them.

Right now these actresses are underused, and thus I spend roughly half the average episode somewhat bored and feeling disappointed in the show, for I am waiting for some of my favorite TV-show actresses to arrive and save the moment for me. I watch this show for the women first, the plots second and the actors third...

Please remember that you have a female audience who want to see ourselves represented on caper shows, too...and there's no time like the present to carry on the tradition begun by 'Leverage.'

Hmm?

I really wanted to like this show.

I was all set to love it, in fact. I love musicals and I love a good soapy high school drama--or so I thought I did, before this show began.

This is the show who taught me who I am, by teaching me whom I am not.

I am not a Gleeker. I am not somebody who can get behind a show which represents students surviving some of the most difficult things any student can ever face unscathed because of some innate self-confidence.

I am not all right with treating racism as though it is something which can be solved with a few choice solos and some rad fashion.

I am not okay with acting as though a young girl can survive through to her sophomore year of high school with utterly no friends her own age just because she has a supportive environment at home.

I am not so great with the idea of an episode dedicated to girlpower focusing on Madonna songs, when Madonna is the one female singer who made a career out of prancing around half-naked onstage and "reinventing" herself so that it was impossible to figure out who she actually was ever. I am not all right with the fact that even this episode concentrated mainly on the men's interpretations of events.

Rachel chooses not to have sex not because she does not WANT to, but because she wants to hold onto her virginity. Finn sleeps with a girl who clearly views her body as just one more thing for her to leverage to earn the popularity and success she wishes for. He has no problem with this, apparently, or at least none that would prevent him from sleeping with her. Will almost has sex, but when his partner of choice decides not to go there with him he switches into condescending "Daddy" mode almost immediately. Even this episode winds up being about the men "wising up" to how difficult the women students have it in this society, not the women actually rising up and DOING something about it.

Most of these episodes are about raising difficult issues but not doing anything about it. Discussing issues without taking action is kinda the foundation behind the feminist movement--and is also the reason that said movement failed.

Also, none of the women on this show ever talk to one another except to tear each other down or talk about boys. That makes this show entirely sexist, according to Inga Muscio...and I tend to agree with her.

I believe strongly that Lea Michele has a solid career ahead of her.

I just hope she finds something worthy of her talents. Ditto Kurt.

Nobody gets through their teenage years unscathed. The answer however is not "expressing yourself" in the sense of skipping down hallways singing other people's lyrics at the top of your lungs...it's figuring out who YOU are, what YOU need to say and who you need to say it to.

It is also learning the boundaries necessary to learn to say these things in private, rather than making your entire life a battle for others to decipher what you are actually trying to say versus what others have prepped you to say for a competition.

Express yourself, fine...but do the world a favor, please, and think about what you have to say and why first?

I really, really hate this movie.

I'm gonna have to disagree with the previous poster--I found this movie totally offensive.

From the women obsessed with their father's love life to the schlubby, unattractive man scoring a relationship with a woman way too good for him to the constant references to Diane Lane's questionable and certainly significantly less than extraordinary beauty, this movie bit.

Not in a good way.

Romantic comedies excel when they manage to be incisive and revealing of various societal truths and intimate and this one was simply not.

No one behaves like this in real life, and for good reason. Shame on you, lawyer-dude whose name I cannot be bothered to look up on IMDb right now. You are far better than this film.

Worst Michael Moore movie so far.

Before you begin stoning me, I like Michael Moore. I appreciate what he stand for and in my mind, anyway, he is intelligent enough to decipher the difference between socialism and the kinds of dictatorship and nepotism practiced in Germany and Russia during the 20th century.

It wasn't socialism, folks--any more than this is a functioning democracy, hee.

Seriously though, what Michael Moore does so well is give a voice to the little people who have been screwed over by stupid politicians and corrupt government officialsm and evil corporate emperors. The parts of this movie where he juxtaposes interviews with these people against the interviews and images of suffering "Middle Americans" work the best.

The parts of the movie where Michael Moore acts as narrator to the entire 'drama of the bailouts' rub me the wrong way. I don't feel he has any right to speak for everybody in that way, to tell the story of EVERYBODY in that manner. However, I still want him speaking up!

Keep talking, Michael Moore. Keep fighting, those jerks ain't seen nothing' yet.

I really hated this movie. I thought I was going to like it and then I didn't at all. I like Keri Russell all right, and I adore Nathan Fillion--as actors, people!--but this script really bothered me. The woman puts up with tons of b.s. from the people around her, and eventually this tendency to befriend gruff old coots everyone else has the sense to stay away from and to let herself be made into a doormat pays off in the form of enough money presumably to live off of. She talks about leaving her husband for months, but puts it off because pregnant women can't leave their husbands, apparently. She eventually falls for a married man, who falls equally hard for her and who she eventually becomes "best friends" with. Then, she decides she wants to run away with him after telling him she doesn't want to be "saved"--which he doesn't seem to be offering--but her baby arrives at precisely the moment she at last decides to run, of course. The baby she never wanted gives her the courage to leave her husband, but she turns down her lover's offer to be with her and perhaps leave his wife for her, which certainly seems to be real enough. Thus, we all learn that we will become as strong as we can possibly be once we have babies, regardless how we feel about this at the time. We also learn that we ought to stand up for women we haven't met--not for their right to know the truth, but rather to be coddled and treated like children by those who claim to love us most. Parts of this movie are definitely funny and it's worth seeing for the actors and actresses alone, but the end result of so much build-up to this woman striking out independently eventually left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I've never seen a woman suddenly transcend her troubles upon giving birth, and I believe the assumption that women immediately will has caused a lot of trouble and pain. This movie began with a clear and strident and welcome desire to tell the truth. It ended on a note that indicated women cannot possibly be happy if we follow our heart, but must instead follow our wombs to bliss. Apparently we are little more than baby-making and cooking machines, intended to give to other people rather than welcome unexpected surprises that come into our lives and please only ourselves.

I am so grateful that the TV series 'Firefly' was cancelled so early on, as entirely unjust as that was...because if it hadn't happened, we would probably never have been able to experience this AMAZING movie.

The writing! The drama! The shipboard romance! Exquisite.

The series was so much MORE than a television series from the get-go anyway...more visually, more dramatically and more complex and at the same time interesting in terms of characterization.

The series for me was like a meal too big to digest in one sitting, yet so good you want to try to do so anyway, because you're terrified you will die before having a chance to taste all of it.

Wow. Everyone involved with this did something amazing, and unique and innovative and then Fox went and mucked it up. This is why no one watches Fox anymore.

I'm glad it seems like all the rest of y'all are going onto big and good things, if not quite bigger and better cuz I'm not sure such a thing exists.

You will live on forever in our hearts, Firefly.

You more than make up for the heartbreak of Firefly's too-soon demise, Serenity...and have forever changed my concept of what a movie can be.

One of my top five favorites of all time, Serenity is...beauty in creation.

Wow. I did not expect to fall in love with this show.

I don't like capers, for the most part. I don't much like dramas that are not character-based, and after an unfortunate stint of over-CSI-ing myself I decided I was pretty much done with mystery-solving television.

Thank God I decided to take the chance on my gut instinct to watch this show. I was pleasantly surprised by everything from the get-go. The lead male is neither overbearing, obnoxious nor particularly chauvinistic. The women do not spend every episode in tight dresses. The lead female actresses create kind, caring, compassionate and empathetic characters who also, no question, kick ass. The crazy girl for once is working for the 'right' side, and she is portrayed as having every right to be crazy due to her background. The geek is hot.

The other lead female, the 'Mama' of the group, has a solid sense of herself and is not willing at any point to be bossed around by the rowdy men who surround her. She wants her partners to be safe, happy and healthy, but she doesn't exactly sacrifice any semblance of having her own life to make that happen. I like that. She's not a people-pleaser. It's refreshing to watch a strong, confident woman on television who is also in touch with her own femininity and doesn't fall absolutely to pieces the first time men show an interest in her.

She even leaves the crew at one point to go 'find herself'. So awesome.

A show like this one could not happen on any other network. Go TNT!

I also like the slow build-up of Sophie's and Nate's relationship. It's not constantly shoved in our faces, and it's also never forgotten.

There is a fine balance between maintaining some romantic tension between members of a pair, while satisfying sufficiently to keep viewers interested in whether they eventually wind up together.

Congratulations on excellently maintaining that fine balance thus far.

The writing on this show continues to be both humorous and delightful.

One thing I could live without--I'm not a huge fan of the potential romantic relationship and current flirtatious interaction between Parker and Hardison. I just don't quite buy it. He seems misogynistic ['I got into computers for the pictures of naked chicks'] and way overly possessive of her. He doesn't seem able to see past the crazy and into the woman who is quite level-headed about certain things he doesn't seem to have any desire to know about, i.e. gender oppression.

I think he thinks he can teach her how not to be the kind of woman who stabs a guy with a fork when he makes an unwanted move on her. Guys overly confident of their own suave-itude often think they can make some woman they are somewhat physically attracted to and consider to be a 'poor little lost soul' into their ideal woman. Don't let them win. Parker deserves better. She deserves some guy who will like that she stabs guys with forks after they hit on her, rather than view this tendency as 'unfortunate' or worse, as further "evidence" of her 'insanity.' I'm not sold on the idea that Hartisan is that guy.

So she likes kissing him and he plays the violin well when hypnotized.

Big whoop.

Parker and Eliot would make a much better couple, says me. Why? He needs to be with a woman he can't manipulate or charm into letting him off the hook when he messes up. She needs someone who will bring her further into the actual, physical, real-live human world she hasn't spent much time in over the course of her life.

The last thing Parker needs is someone who likes spending days in front of a computer screen, someone who is just as lost in his own fantasy-land version of reality as she is in hers. Recipe for disaster.

Give us fans what we want, please? Get these two crazy kids together?

Find a nice beautiful woman for Hartisan--a dancer, if you will.

Overall though, great series, I can't wait to see what happens next.

Please take on an environmentally unfriendly company at some point.

I am still waiting to hear Nate say 'let's go steal a forest.'

I spent the entire season wanting Kris to end up with Matt.

In fact, after midway through season two when it seemed as though that wasn't going to happen, I stopped watching the show. Junior bored me, and I couldn't understand why the writers devoted so much airtime to his stupid little 'finding himself' journey. Dani never stopped bothering me with her 'spoiled little rich girl traumatized by Daddy's lies, no one else's needs matter as much as mine do' routine. Matt frustrated me with his immaturity and unwillingness to "man up" and take some responsibility for his own life.

I have to say, the only part of the show I missed was the horses.

I've recently started to catch up on ancient episodes of this show, and I have to say, I am less than impressed. I still enjoy the horses, the actresses and actors are excellent, and there is the occasional funny line. The music's nice.

I was two inches from tearing my hair out over the whole 'Kris becomes the other woman' storyline. I don't believe for a second that two people who've been living alongside one another and spending most of every day together would suddenly "realize" they've had feelings for each other all this time. I don't believe that they would then repress those feelings, avoid eye contact and act totally awkward and embarrassed around each other despite considering each other among their "best friends." I don't believe that Kris would knowingly have sex with a guy who had a live-in girlfriend--certainly not without first at least asking if he was planning on leaving her!

Basically, I think the writers so butchered this storyline that by the time they were through, everyone hated the idea of Matt and Kris because it brought up some of the worst writing to ever grace the silver screen.

Also, with Kris running after Junior and Dani like the little do-gooder, people-pleaser she never was before season three, I wanted to smack her.

Junior reacting like a kicked puppy dog whose favorite bone had been stolen upon finding out that his friend, who had always had feelings for a certain ex-girlfriend of his, finally had a shot with her...eew. What a slimeball.

Kris and Matt had no obligation to tell Junior anything about their barely-existing romance at that point. So they slept together once--big deal. What, was Kris supposed to be celibate until Junior found a way to win her heart back?

Obviously, the Davises have some issues with the concept of loosing the controls and allowing their significant others the freedom to make their own decisions and to take responsibility for their own lives.

Let's put it this way--by the time Kris and Matt finally "discovered" that they had feelings for one another, Kris and Junior had already been on-again, off-again like five times already. Matt had shown absolutely no interest in dating Kris for two years, and had dated several other people super-seriously during the in-between time. In fact, the only reason why Matt 'lost her' in the first place was because he wouldn't stand up to his Mom and demand she allow him to date Kris. He never truly got over his unwillingness to directly confront the women in his life when they walked all over his rights.

Until he learned how to do that, he would never really deserve Kris. Yet wouldn't it have made a better, more interesting show if he HAD learned how to do that, rather than simply letting Kris get away from him for lack of the guts to fight? Wouldn't it have been nice if Matt had actually stood up to Junior, instead of letting Kris' overactive guilt complex compel him to make peace with a guy who was clearly willing to use his money and power to manipulate everyone around him into doing whatever Junior wanted them to do?

It would also have been real nice if everyone else would have acted like the adults they claimed to be instead of relying on Kris to be the grown-up for them. That was so much pressure I'm not surprised the poor girl cracked.

Deliberately marrying into Davis Farms is DEFINITELY an insanity warning sign.

Jean and Pablo finally getting together was nice, but frankly, that should have happened years before it did. By the time it happened, kinda like Luke and Lorelai of 'Gilmore Girls'...no one cared anymore.

We only have so much patience for the will-they-or-won't-they tug of commitment-phobes who are more afraid of humiliation than unhappiness.

In real life, people don't get married at 21 and they certainly don't consider themselves as having "lost" someone forever simply because someone else is dating that person at the moment. Sixteen-year-olds think that way.