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THE HUNGER GAMES: A Movie Discussion from Three POVs

Life’s been so busy, I haven’t had a chance to blog in about a week, a fact that probably only three of you noticed. But I managed to finish my work on time last Friday to take in a screening of The Hunger Games, which made $155 mil at the box office this past weekend. I’ve never read any of the books by Suzanne Collins because the idea of adults manipulating children into killing each other for sport is horrific to me. I can’t even watch gladiator movies, and still remember how much William Golding’s Lord of the Flies and Richard Connell’s short story “The Most Dangerous Game” shocked me when I read them as a teen.

**Spoilers**

But Mr. PCN wanted to see the movie, having devoured the books, so off we went. I was stunned by the violence, despite the PG-13 treatment, but I was also greatly moved. Rue’s death had me sobbing into my snack tray. It left me wanting to discuss it afterward, so I asked two other people—my regular contributor, Eric Edwards; and my YA reviewer/10-year-old niece, Mena Dolinh—to participate in a Q&A.

We’d come at it from three different POVs: me as the adult approaching the movie cold, Eric as the adult who’s familiar with the novels, and Mena representing the books’ first and most ardent fans—the tweens and tribute-aged kids.

Pop Culture Nerd: How did the movie compare to the book?

Mena Dolinh: I thought it was good and covered all the main parts of the book, but sometimes I wished they would go into more detail on something, like how Katniss hated Prim’s cat, Buttercup. I suppose it they included every detail the movie would be really long.

I really liked how they added the Gamemakers controlling the arena so you could see how they could manipulate all the tributes and see the game really coming together. In the book, you could only see everything from Katniss’s perspective. I thought that the changes in the movie were necessary because if the whole movie was completely the same as the book then it just wouldn’t be very exciting at all.

Eric Edwards: I was surprised by how bleak the movie was. I figured the filmmakers would make it less disturbing than the text. Even the editing for the film was lean and cold. The movie gives you only hints of exposition instead of drawing it out in the beginning so in that sense, it sticks to the tone of the book.

PCN: One of the reasons I resisted reading these books is because the subject matter is so disturbing. I’m a wuss when it comes to kids and violence. What drew you to the stories, and why do you think they’re so popular?

MD: My older sister got the books for her birthday and was engrossed in them so I was curious. I like the characters and read all three books to find out what happened to them. The first one is the best. By the end of Mockingjay, the story was more focused on the rebellion than the characters and it went on too long. I can’t speak for my friends or why other people like the books.

EE: The book is unapologetic in the way it shows us Katniss’s world and life amongst the populace of District 12 versus the residents of Capitol City. What kept me reading was the lean prose. There isn’t a lot of frou-frou, which makes it a page-turner.

PCN: I thought Jennifer Lawrence did a remarkable job, so strong and steady, and with excellent archery technique. I also enjoyed Woody Harrelson’s performance as Haymitch. The Capitol costumes were dazzling and fun. Did the look of the movie come close to how you imagined everything? Was anything just wrong or done better in the movie?

MD: Most of the things in the movie were pretty close to what I imagined. The only thing I was expecting was a big golden Cornucopia instead of a black one. Some of the fight scenes were a little too rushed and I couldn’t really tell what was going on. I was really impressed with the casting. I really liked the costumes because the Capitol is supposed to have all these outrageous costumes but they weren’t too exaggerated.

There weren’t any parts that were just completely wrong but I thought Effie and Haymitch could have been included in more scenes. In the books, they were the main characters who actually trained Katniss and Peeta and guided them, but in the movie, the only times you saw them was at dinner or when they were giving the tributes [survival] tips.

I really liked Seneca Crane’s beard because it looked like someone just said, “Hey, this guy looks too normal. Let’s use a stencil to make his beard look weird.” I found out his beard has its own Facebook page!

EE: District 12 and the Capitol were as described in the book, but Katniss’s community was bleaker and more squalid than I had imagined, and the Capitol even more plastic and fake.

Also, in the book, the view of what happens within the games is more from Katniss’s point of view. We never get to see the gleeful attitude the Gamemakers have in the creation/manipulation of the obstacles and contestants. It was strange to see how proud they were of the mutts they created. In the book, those beasts were contestants who had been killed already, then genetically altered into a kind of wolf-human hybrid. Kinda like werewolves, I guess.

PCN: Was there anything left out from the book that you missed seeing?

MD: I wished they had included the avoxes in the movie. In the beginning when the hovercraft was passing through, I expected the avox girl to get caught then so when Katniss goes to the Capitol, she would recognize her. I also wished they had included Peeta losing his leg while fighting the mutts because it affected him throughout the whole trilogy. When the movie ended, I expected to see Katniss and Peeta in the hovercraft having their cuts or injuries being tended to, but you don’t see that at all.

EE: The ships that hovered over the dead contestants and spirited them somewhere else. The three-fingered salute was never explained in the movie. And I know this is going to sound silly, but I miss Madge.

PCN: I was so tense during the whole movie, watching through my fingers at times. Did it manage to be suspenseful or surprising for you?

MD: Yes, because even though I knew what would happen, I didn’t know when or how. Like the mutts scene in the jungle. I knew it was coming but when the mutts just appeared, I was really startled. And you also see the movie from a different perspective than [Katniss’s] in the book, so when the Gamemakers started a fire or placed an animal into the arena, I was still wondering, “What is Katniss going to do?” I thought the reaping was suspenseful because even though I knew that Katniss would volunteer in her sister’s place, I didn’t know what her reaction was going to be at the moment she decided to make that sacrifice.

EE: Seeing it reimagined on the big screen made it more intense overall. I didn’t expect the movie to have that effect on me.

PCN: For people who have only seen the movie, would you recommend we go back and read the book? Or should we just read the second and third books since we already know what happened in the first? I actually want to read them now, which is weird because I didn’t originally. And I usually read books before the movie adaptations.

MD: I think you should read them all because the last two books make references to things that happened in the first one. You should read all the parts that weren’t included in the movie. It could also help you picture things differently and you can compare them.

EE: A resounding YES for me.

Thanks, Eric and Mena, for chatting with me!

What did you all think of the movie?

Photos: Murray Close/Lionsgate

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Book Review: CLAWBACK by Mike Cooper

This review originally ran in Shelf Awareness for Readers, and is reprinted here with permission.

When Wall Street’s worst-performing financiers start dying in suspicious ways, financial “consultant” Silas Cade—who happens to be a black ops vet—is hired by an investment banker to investigate. Are angry investors who lost their life savings targeting money managers? Clara Dawson, a fledgling financial blogger looking for a big scoop, wangles her way into Cade’s investigation and soon gets caught up in the violence. Cade’s role expands to protect her, as he discovers that greed has no boundaries, not even murder.

“Clawback” is a term used in the financial industry to describe cases in which a firm reclaims payouts that it’s already made—or money managers agree to return dividends they’ve already received—to cover subsequent losses. Cade demonstrates the concept on one of his clients’ investment bankers early in the proceedings. (Mike Cooper is a pseudonym for a former financial executive, who’s also been published as a thriller writer under a different name.) Even with Cooper’s explanations, some of the intricacies involved in investment strategies went right over my head, but the action was tight enough to keep me turning the pages. And there’s humor in the scenario of nervous bankers packing heat to defend themselves, which doesn’t bode well when they all get together for a fancy event.

Cade is a likable character with a wry worldview, though he’s a little slow in figuring out some of Clara’s motives and those of the people doing the—and making a—killing. Perhaps, though, this makes him more accessible than an infallible hero. The ending suggests he might have something in common with Jack Reacher and, like that character, Cade may not be such a loner when readers follow him to his next adventure.

Nerd verdict: An easy sell even for financial laymen

Buy it now from Amazon| Buy it from an indie bookstore

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Book Review: BLUE MONDAY by Nicci French

This review originally ran in Shelf Awareness for Readers, and is reprinted here with permission.

Nicci French’s Blue Monday is the first novel in a new suspense series featuring Frieda Klein, an insomniac London psychologist who does her best thinking while taking long walks through city streets at night. She has a lot on her mind, including a patient named Alan Dekker who tells her he desperately wants a child—right before five-year-old Matthew Farraday goes missing from a local school. Alan wants a son who looks like him, with red hair and freckles—attributes Matthew happens to have.

Frieda takes her suspicions to the lead inspector in the case, and together they uncover perplexing similarities to the unsolved disappearance of a little girl twenty-two years earlier. How much truth is contained in Alan’s desires and dreams? Should Frieda betray her patient to try to bring Matthew home?

Frieda makes a couple of leaps in reasoning that require suspension of disbelief, but the inner workings of the mind are mysterious, so anything is possible. The authors (“Nicci French” is a pseudonym for husband and wife Sean French and Nicci Gerrard) write in a cool, understated style befitting a protagonist who keeps her emotions at bay, and it works well for the story. Their restraint is helpful; the reader doesn’t need all the horrific details of a child in jeopardy spelled out. But the story still manages to resonate, especially in its depictions of the families of the abducted children—the lack of closure tears them apart to the point their souls go missing, too. The dark ending also delivers a gut punch, taking Blue Monday a shade closer to black.

Nerd verdict: Mesmerizing Monday

Buy it now from Amazon| Buy it from an indie bookstore

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Book Review: STARTERS by Lissa Price

This review is by my YA contributor, Mena Dolinh (aka my niece), 10, who’s no slouch in her pop culture knowledge.—PCN

This book is about a sixteen-year-old girl named Callie who decides to become a starter. Starters are teens who rent their bodies to rich old people, but Callie wakes up during her rental and finds out that the renter is planning to commit murder while being inside her body.

I think this book can appeal to kids and adults alike but the concept of renting bodies is kind of creepy. Besides the fact that all my friends wanted to read Starters when I had it on my desk in class since they knew it was an advance copy, I think young adults in general will be attracted to this book because it’s filled with fighting and action, like in the Percy Jackson and The Hunger Games books. It keeps Starters fast-moving and not sappy like Judy Blume books that can appeal only to girls. Adults can enjoy this, too, because it has lots of gadgets. The evil guy in the book is called the Old Man, and he wears an electronic mask that keeps flashing a series of different computer-generated faces, like a character in the episode of Doctor Who called “The Idiot’s Lantern.”

While I like the idea of renting bodies because it’s kind of dark, in general the concept of the book is not entirely new. I can find many similarities in The Hunger Games and [Scott Westerfeld’s] Uglies. For example, in Hunger Games, Katniss lives off her hunting to support her mom and her sister, Prim. In Starters, Callie supports her brother, Tyler, from her high-paying job as a starter. In Uglies, Tally, the main character, gets an operation that all teens get when they turn sixteen to make them pretty. After the operation, everyone lives in New Pretty Town where they spend their life partying. In Starters, the same thing happens when Callie has to get a complete makeover so the renters can go and have fun.

The concept also doesn’t really make sense. Renting bodies would take a while to get approved [by the government], and if you do it illegally, it’d be hard to keep it a secret and would cost a fortune since you have to make over all the dirty kids. And it would be really hard to keep teenagers looking perfect all the time because their bodies are still changing.

I wish the author had gone into more depth with the characters because when a character is introduced, it’s not detailed enough for me to really picture him or her in my head. Callie is a tough girl who knows how to fight and use a gun and is always being chased by the bad guys, but I don’t know if she has blond or brown hair or what color her skin is. Another example is Callie’s close friend Michael. He’s introduced as a friend who stays with Callie and Tyler. He helps Callie find shelter while they are on the run but the author never describes what he looks like or what his backstory is.

This is the first book out of two [Ed. note: Enders, the sequel, will be published in December] so the ending is a cliffhanger. It’s a little predictable because Callie keeps making references to and having flashbacks about someone, but overall the book is a page turner.

Buy Starters from Amazon| Buy it from an indie bookstore

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TV Review: GCB

Are y’all watching GCB Sunday nights on ABC? Would it help if I told you it stands for Good Christian Bitches, which was the original title (based on Kim Gatlin’s novel of the same name) until somebody got scared it’d be offensive? Watered-down title aside, at least the powers-that-be have left the show’s content pretty spicy.

Bibb and Aspen

Last week’s pilot opened with a man grabbing a whole lotta cash and making a run to Mexico with his girlfriend in his fancy car. She decides to give him some, ah, oral stimulation on the way, which causes him to drive off a cliff, crashing and burning and killing both of them.

The man was Bill Vaughan (Greg Vaughan), a Ponzi schemer who just made his wife, Amanda (Leslie Bibb), a widow, and left his family with nothing. Amanda has to move from California back to Texas to live with her controlling mother, Gigi (Annie Potts), until she can get on her feet again. Problem is, Amanda was a mean girl in high school, and the local girls she used to terrorize, now supposedly righteous Christian women, can’t wait to help her reap what she sowed. It’s like the flip side of Revenge, only the cruel person has repented and we’re laughing at the vengeful people.

As expected, most of this is over the top, but if you accept it for what it is, it’s pretty entertaining. One of the show’s writers is Robert Harling, who wrote Steel Magnolias, Soapdish, and the adaption of The First Wives Club. The man knows about soapy plotlines and saucy women.

Shor, Chenoweth, and Aspen

The cast is appealing all around, with each actress imbuing her character with a little more depth than first meets the eye. In the pilot, hotshot businesswoman Cricket (Miriam Shor) tries to prevent Amanda from getting a decent job. In the second episode, she has a moment at home with her husband that makes us look at her differently. Sharon (Jennifer Aspen) drowns her insecurities in food because she’s certain her husband Zach (Brad Beyer), who used to be in love with Amanda in high school, will leave her for the new widow. The MVP is Potts, whose signature drollness can’t disguise how much Gigi loves her daughter.

Potts and Bibb

Bibb is okay as Amanda, but she’s not the most interesting character since she has to be the straight woman. Maybe there will be a flashback episode and we’ll get to see her cut loose as that awful person everyone keeps talking about.

Nerd verdict: Funny Bitches

Photos: ABC

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Adventures in the Real World

I’ve been quiet this week partly because of work (editing Brett Battles’s The Destroyed, among other things), and partly because certain recent events made the Internet explode in anger and ugliness that just wore me down. I looked outside my window one day, the sun was shining, and I realized I should step away from the computer, go outside, and hang out with people in real life for a while.

One of the fun things I did was go to a party Mulholland Books threw for author Nick Santora for his upcoming novel, Fifteen Digits (out April 24). It was held poolside at the Avalon Hotel in Beverly Hills, where Mr. PCN and I munched on arugula pizza and fried calamari and shrimp as Nick regaled us with funny stories about his experiences as a lawyer who won a screenwriting competition that got him his start in Hollywood (he’s written and produced shows such as Prison Break, Lie to Me, and Law & Order). CAA called him after the win but he didn’t return the call at first, assuming the biggest agency in NY (and LA) was some shady business that would charge him $300 a month to represent him. Luckily, someone set him straight.

Poolside at the Avalon

Nick (center) telling tales

My favorite anecdote was the one he told me about why he named a character in Digits Elyse, a moniker I obviously like. (It’s a personal story so it’s not my place to repeat it here.) It was also interesting to see how much of Nick is in his lead character, Rich Mauro.

After the party, I had to go check out the brand-new Sprinkles 24-hour cupcake ATM (yes, it’s a real thing!) that had just started operating to alleviate long lines inside the store. Since it was after nine p.m. on a weeknight, I figured I could sail right up, order a couple of red velvets, and be on my way. Wrong! There was a mass of people queued up in front of the machine, which kept needing to be restocked by employees baking their buns off inside the store to keep up with the demand. It would’ve been much faster if they’d just opened the doors and served us that way, but I guess the point was customers had to use the ATM after hours.

Now, I usually stay faaaar away from long lines because crowds scare me. I would fear for my life at a Black Friday sale, or at an Apple store the day a new iPad comes out. That’s why I almost left every time the line at Sprinkles stopped moving forward due to technical issues with the machine or because it was out of cupcakes. I didn’t want to be around if a riot erupted.

But something funny happened. The people around me encouraged me to stay, saying the cupcakes were worth the wait. The guy in front of me talked about the chai-flavored one like it was a sexy woman. He fretted that his girlfriend at home might get mad because he’d been gone so long. I said he should tell her he was only standing out in the cold for her, that he was being romantic and chivalrous. He said that wasn’t true, and that she may never even get to see the cupcakes.

We had a good laugh over it, and I realized a sense of community had descended over the crowd as we patiently stood in 48-degree weather waiting for cupcakes at ten o’clock at night (notice how I said earlier it was nine when I got there). And as much as I love cupcakes, after a while they were no longer the reason I was standing in line. For a moment—that lasted an hour and ten minutes—I was among people united over something, the mood was light and giddy, and that was the real treat I brought home.

Happy Friday, and may your weekend be full of sweet surprises.

Look at all the different flavors!

I chose Red Velvet

Finally, success!

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Winner of Cristina Alger’s THE DARLINGS

The name selected by Random.org was:

Sheryl

Please use this contact form to let me know where you would like Penguin to send the book. If I don’t hear from you by noon on Wednesday, March 7, an alternate winner will be chosen.

Thank you to all who entered. Your fake (or are they?) scandals cracked me up. Happy Monday!

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Book Review: BLEED FOR ME by Michael Robotham

The novel begins with a diary entry by a girl named Sienna about how she cuts herself because “when i bleed i feel calm and clear-headed. it’s like the poison inside me is dripping out. even when i’ve stopped bleeding, i finger the cuts lovingly. i kiss them goodnight.” As if that’s not disturbing enough, we find out the girl is only fourteen. And one day she shows up at her best friend Charlie’s house covered in blood. But it’s not her own—it belongs to her father, a former cop who lies dead back at their house. The police suspect Sienna of murder, and she claims she can’t remember what happened.

Charlie’s father, Joseph O’Loughlin, is a psychologist who tries to help Sienna through the trauma. As he probes into her mind and life, however, he discovers more horrors than answers. Despite his failing marriage and worsening Parkinson’s disease, O’Laughlin becomes determined to protect Sienna from the evils that threaten to destroy her and the community he lives in.

Normally I don’t like a lot of descriptive prose, which can slow the pace, especially in a thriller. But Robotham has such a facility with language that I found myself savoring every word and taking copious notes of my favorite lines. He’s even good at describing the weather:

Outside in the weak sunshine, looking across the hospital grounds, I watch a mower creating verdant strips of green on the turf, light green and dark green. A curtain of rain is hanging above the horizon as though unsure whether to spoil the day.

Here, he paints a less-than-desirable neighborhood:

There are hookers walking up and down Fishponds Road: women who are women and men who are women and crackheads who will be anything you want.

A flash of humor found in a bathroom:

Someone has scrawled a message in marker pen above the urinal: “Express Lane: five beers or less.”

But the author is best at depicting his characters, especially O’Loughlin, a flawed, complex, and immensely sympathetic creation. His estranged wife sums him up when she tells him, “You’re like an archaeologist piecing together his own remains, finding bits and pieces but nothing whole.” We root for him because he keeps trying to come close to happy and whole anyway, knowing his limitations. His Parkinson’s makes him unique as a series protagonist (this book is number four) but it’s neither the focus of his life nor a random trait just to make him quirky. At one point, the affliction makes his body fail at such a harrowing moment that my heart almost failed as well. In my reading experiences, I sometimes have to choose between novels that are strong in either plot, language, or characters. Unlike O’Loughlin with his bits and pieces, I found something wholly satisfying here.

Nerd verdict: Bloody good Bleed

Buy it now from Amazon| Buy from IndieBound

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On the Road with Hilary Davidson

Award-winning author Hilary Davidson‘s second crime novel, The Next One to Fall, was released on Valentine’s Day to ecstatic reviews, such as the one from Publishers Weekly, which said, “Davidson’s exciting follow-up to her debut, 2010’s The Damage Done, takes travel journalist Lily Moore, who’s still reeling from her sister’s death in The Damage Done, to Peru…The rich history and geography of Peru add depth to an engrossing mystery that constantly keeps the reader guessing.” The book also received glowing notices from Jen’s Book Thoughts, The Maine Suspect, and Book Reviews by Elizabeth White, among many other publications.

Hilary has begun her World Domination Tour to promote it, and since she’s also a travel writer, I thought I’d ask her to do a travelogue. The idea was for me to text/tweet her at random times, asking her where she is, who she’s with, what she’s doing, etc., and have her take a candid snapshot at that moment to capture her experiences on the road. Not only did Hilary allow me to intrude upon her travels this way, she took the initiative and snapped photos for me even when I couldn’t reach her in pockets with bad cell/Internet reception.

Hilary’s back on the road today, with an event at Book Revue in Long Island, so I thought this would be a good time to present a glimpse of her life on tour. (Note: All times are local to Hilary’s locations.)

Hilary Davidson: When I checked into Houston’s Hotel ZaZa at midnight on Thursday night, there was some confusion. My first room was a themed room, known as the “Hard Times” room; this skull was on the wall. A few minutes after I got there, the front desk called up and said they had to move me; the people at the front desk were deeply upset at the thought of me being stuck in this room. I told them I was a crime writer, but they insisted on moving me to a swanky room with…

HD: George Clooney on the bathroom wall??? I liked the skull better, actually.

Pop Culture Nerd (Friday, Feb. 17, 2:42 p.m.): Hi Hilary, where are you right now?

HD: Grey Houston, pounded by rain. Wondering if anyone will show up at the event tonight!

PCN: I’m betting they’ll show. Everyone showing up wet will just make your signing more fun!

As I predicted, people did come, and Hilary had a surreal moment when she saw herself on Crimespree magazine’s cover for the first time at Murder by the Book.

Next up on Saturday was…

HD: BookPeople in Austin. Um, wow.

Then it’s on to…

HD: Austin’s Broken Spoke on Saturday night after my event, listening to a band called The Derailers.

It’s on to Scottsdale, AZ, but first…

HD: I love Ray Benson of Asleep at the Wheel—and here he is at the Austin airport!

PCN (Tues., Feb. 21, 3:38 p.m.): Where are you? What are you doing? Where were you last night at 11 p.m.?

HD: Right now I’m working on a Peru slideshow for the Poisoned Pen (yes, for tonight—eeep). Last night at 11? In my room, on phone with Dan! [This is] my suite at Scottsdale’s Hotel Valley Ho.

PCN (Tues., Feb. 21, 9:16 p.m.): Where are you? Anyone you know show up at your signing?

HD (Tues., Feb. 21, 11:02 p.m.): Hey, I’m back! Tonight was AWESOME. Lots of friends turned out: Keith Rawson, Jason Duke, Lesa Holstine, Chantelle Aimee Osman, also my gluten-free friend Liisa Perry. Also huge crowd of strangers. Store had to get more chairs! Afterwards, Liisa & I went for dinner at a restaurant called Citizen Public House (that’s why I didn’t see your message until now). Oh, Rhys Bowen was there tonight, too! Very excited to meet her!

With Patrick, Keith, and Jason

PCN (Weds., Feb. 22, 9:09 a.m.): What are you eating/drinking/reading right now?

HD: Right now I’m packing because I have to check out of the hotel before my event at Lesa Holstine’s library!

PCN (Weds., Feb. 22, 1:22 p.m.): What are you doing to prepare for your appearance? [Her event was starting in about half an hour.]

HC: Hmm. I drove to the library with Lesa (I love her!). Does that count as event prep? Seriously, what do authors do to prep for an event?

PCN: Different things I’ve heard: have a drink, nap, go for a run/to the gym, put clothes on.

HD: Had dinner at the Hotel Valley Ho’s restaurant just before my flight home. “Table for one, please,” is never fun to say, but I had a great meal and the restaurant staff was terrific. Looking forward to going back!

Thank you so much, Hilary, for sharing your travels with us, and letting me bug you along the way. Readers, I hope you all have enjoyed being on the road with her. She’s doing it so she can meet you in person so check out Hilary’s upcoming events and go see her!

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Oscars Fashion 2012

OK, so you’ve read what I thought were highlights from the show, but what you really want to know about is the fashion, right? Let’s do a rundown of the beautiful, the bad, and the bland:

1. Meryl Streep. She fittingly came dressed like an Oscar, but the dress was ill-fitting. You can even see some kind of black undergarment peeking out from the right side of her chest. The queen of cinema should be decked out in a much better gown than this.

2. Angelina Jolie. This black velvet dress looked too heavy for a warm sunny day. I have no idea why she kept posing with her leg sticking out like that, but it now has its own Twitter account.

3. Viola Davis. The dress was pretty but the color of her hair clashed with it.

4. Berenice Bejo. Speaking of strange hair color, her new carrot top didn’t do her any favors. And her gown was kind of frumpy.

5. Rooney Mara. This is droopy and sad.

6. Natalie Portman. The polka dots made it look more like a casual summer dress than a formal gown.

7. Michelle Williams. If it didn’t have all that frou-frou action around the waist and hips, this would’ve looked much better.

8. Jessica Chastain. This reminds me of drapes or bed covers at a hotel.

9. Jennifer Lopez. This dress isn’t something I’d wear, but she looked striking in it. Don’t like that tight, gigantic bun on top of her head, though. A softer upsweep might have been more romantic.

10. Judy Greer. I like the slinkiness of this, and the built-in optical illusion that makes the wearer look really thin (not that Greer needs that).

11. Kelly Osbourne. I have no words for this mess.

12. Emma Stone. She looked really pretty, until you realized the dress is a rip-off of Nicole Kidman’s from 2007.

13. Penelope Cruz. The dress is bland, and her hair aged her by about twenty years.

14. Christopher Plummer. His velvet tux jacket made him look dapper and put him in a league of his own.

15. Louise Roe. I had no idea who she was before tonight (she interviewed stars on the red carpet for ABC), but her great look immediately had my attention. It’s…business formal?

16. Gwyneth Paltrow. I saved the best for last. I normally loathe white dresses but this is sleek, fashion forward, and super(hero) cool. She has a cape! And a badass (bulletproof?) cuff! And with that, she rescued the red carpet from being an endless parade of safe, boring gowns.

Which gowns were your favorite?

Photos: Getty

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84th Academy Awards Highlights

When I first heard Billy Crystal named as host this year, I thought it was a very good choice. He’s one of very few hosts who can improvise and riff on unexpected moments that occur during the show. But then a friend of mine who went to the rehearsals told me the skits were boring and the banter dull. So I approached the show with somewhat lowered expectations but ended up enjoying it quite a bit, definitely much more than last year’s ceremony.

First, the winners in some of the major categories:

Best Picture: The Artist

Best Actor: Jean Dujardin, The Artist

Best Actress: Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady

Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer, Beginners

Best Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer, The Help

Best Director: Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist

Best Original Screenplay: Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris

Best Adapted Screenplay: Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, and Jim Rash, The Descendants

(For a full list, go here.)

Some of the highlights:

Funniest but least helpful focus group: Christopher Guest and Co. as an early focus group, giving feedback on a test screening of The Wizard of Oz. Favorite comments were Catherine O’Hara’s complaint about the use of little people to play munchkins (she thought they were kids): “You hire all these children and little people when there are plenty of capable, full-sized men out in the bread lines still.” Jennifer Coolidge chimed in with “there’s lots of ugly faces in this film, lots of elevator faces, faces that look like they were caught in an elevator, smushed together, hatchet faces, long chins…I’ve never seen so many unattractive people.”

Most inclusive thank-you: The sound editing duo of Philip Stockton and Eugene Gearty, for Hugo, who said, “I’d just like to thank everybody who is here tonight, and everybody who isn’t, and everybody who’s ever been born, or may be born or be born again or reborn. If I’ve forgotten anybody then you probably know who you are.”

Best live special effects: The Cirque du Soleil performance. I’ll take them over lame musical numbers any day.

Funniest reality check: Chris Rock on why “I love animation. You could be anything you want to be. You’re a fat woman, you can play a skinny princess. If you’re a short wimpy guy, you can play a tall gladiator. If you’re a white man, you can play an Arabian prince. And if you’re a black man, you can play a donkey or a zebra.”

Randiest presenter: Melissa McCarthy, doing a take on her Bridesmaids character by coming to Crystal’s dressing room in a robe and asking him, “How about we make this dressing room an undressing room?”

Longest wait for an Oscar: Christopher Plummer’s. The 82-year-old actor started his acceptance speech by addressing the Oscar: “You’re only two years older than me, darling. Where have you been all my life?” He continued, “When I first emerged from my mother’s womb, I was already rehearsing my Academy thank-you speech.”

Best quip after a boring speech: After Academy president Tom Sherak gave his obligatory dull remarks, Crystal said, “Thank you for whipping the crowd into a frenzy.”

Funniest improvised bit from a winner: The Descendants‘ co-writer Jim Rash (who also plays Dean Pelton in Community), striking the same pose as Angelina Jolie when she came out to present his award.

Most exciting moment for a Flight of the Conchords fan: When Bret McKenzie won best song for “Man or Muppets” from The Muppets. Who knew half of that brilliantly goofy duo would one day be an Oscar winner? He said, “I grew up in New Zealand watching The Muppets on TV. Never dreamed I’d get to work with them. I was genuinely starstruck when I finally met Kermit the frog, but once you get to know him, he’s just a normal frog. And like many stars here, he’s a lot shorter in real life.”

Most, ah, interesting way of presenting awards for the short films: Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph making double entendres about the shorts, though Rudolph claimed they were talking about movies, not “wieners.” Wiig: “See, I’d rather have a short film with some heft that’s nice to me, rather than a long film that just lies there and makes you do all the work.” Rudolph: “But sometimes a film can be too long.” Wigg: “Not for me, not for me.”

Goofiest running gag: The Scorsese drinking game that the Bridesmaids ladies started at the Golden Globes, in which if someone says the director’s name, they have to drink. The best part was Scorsese’s delighted but completely befuddled reaction, having no idea what was going on.

Presenter who best managed to make scripted bits seem funny and sincere: Colin Firth, who presented the best actress award. When paying tribute to Meryl Streep, he said, “Mamma Mia! We were in Greece, we danced, I was gay, and we were happy.” He also told Michelle Williams she was his mentor on the movie they did together (A Thousand Acres), and that he aspired to be like her “even though you were 12 and I was 35.”

After the show, a friend of mine who was at the Oscars called and sent over a couple of fun photos she took. She said Octavia Spencer decided her clutch was too small so she also carried a giant handbag with her.

My friend also caught Kenneth Branagh photobombing John Corbett and his longtime partner, Bo Derek.

What did you think of the show? Favorite bits? Parts you hated? For my fashion roundup, click here.

Photos: The Artist cast/Ian West/PA; Cirque du Soleil/Kevin Winter/Getty Images; Angelina Jolie-Jim Rash/Entertainment Weekly; Rose Byrne & Melissa McCarthy/Kevin Winter/Getty

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Movie Discussion: WANDERLUST

My day was a little stressy and funky so by the time I got to the Wanderlust screening, I was ready to laugh. And, boy, did I. The movie, directed by David Wain, is about married couple George (Paul Rudd) and Linda (Jennifer Aniston), who find themselves homeless after George loses his job. On their way to Atlanta to stay with George’s brother, Rick (Ken Marino), they stop at a commune named Elysium that’s full of hippies, free love, and vegan dining. George is just looking for a temporary roof over their heads, but Linda may have other plans. The experience takes them out of their comfort zones, but in the end helps them find where they’re supposed to be.

I’m being intentionally vague with the synopsis because I don’t want to spoil any of the outrageous surprises. Instead, I’ll just post the discussion I had after the screening with my regular contributor, Eric Edwards.

Eric Edwards: It’s like the filmmakers drew a line, then decided to go a hundred miles beyond that line.

Pop Culture Nerd: No, it’s more like “What’s a line? We’ve never heard of such a thing.” This movie is definitely not appropriate for young people. It’s barely appropriate for adults.

EE: But I laughed, and that’s rare for me these days. A lot of the humor I’ve been seeing in movies lately is just cringe-inducing. The best comedy is grounded in truth, and I could see how this could happen, especially with George’s sudden unemployment, the couple’s feelings of uncertainty and questioning of everything.

From L: Lauren Ambrose, Rodney Peele, Aniston, Rudd, Justin Theroux, Malin Akerman, Kerri Kenney-Silver, Kathryn Hahn

PCN: You’re right, but that’s where reality stops. The characters at Elysium and some of the situations are pure zaniness and insanity. I haven’t laughed that hard at the movies in a long time. This is a good time to mention that when people go see this, they should be tolerant of their fellow moviegoers being loud. There were lots of gasping and guffaws and “Oh my gosh!”es all around. I might have seen flying nachos from the guy next to me.

EE: I think some of those guffaws came from me, and there was a lady behind me with a laugh that could only be described as “avant-garde.”

PCN: I’m so glad Paul Rudd finally gets another chance to be funny. Some of his recent movies have stuck him in the straight-man role—Dinner for Schmucks, anyone?—which is a waste of his talents. Here, we get to see him react to the hippies and slowly come undone. Many of the biggest laughs came from just the look on his face.

EE: I’m a fan of Rudd’s so of course I liked him in this, but this is the first I’ve liked Aniston in a very long time. Maybe since Friends.

PCN: Was it the material that made you like her? What was she doing that was different for you?

EE: I think Rudd both grounded her and pushed her to new levels.

PCN: She had a good script (by Wain and Marino), and was surrounded by so many strong supporting actors that she seemed relaxed. She didn’t have to try so hard to wring comedy out of crap. She also made a poncho look sexy. And useful.

Marino and Watkins

EE: From the supporting cast, Michaela Watkins stood out for me as George’s sister-in-law. She hilariously downplayed her character’s raging unhappiness. It was as though she wanted to pull out a gun or knife at any second.

PCN: If she could rouse from her drug- and alcohol-induced stupor, that is.

EE: Exactly.

PCN: She was funny because she made a lot of her mumbly lines sound like second thoughts or if she just improvised them. How about Joe Lo Truglio as the wannabe novelist?

EE: I found him annoying after a while. There are lots of other actors who could have done that part.

PCN: Um, I don’t know if many actors would’ve been willing to go as far as what that role demanded. (Readers, this will be clear to you, for better or worse, when you see the movie.)

EE: They kept pushing that one joke about his novel’s plot twist and it just wasn’t funny anymore after a while. It was probably the only weak link for me in an otherwise pretty funny movie.

PCN: I didn’t mind that running gag at all. I was too busy laughing.

Nerd verdicts: PCN—Wanderlust leads to hilarity. EE: You should wander into Wanderlust.

Photos: Universal Studios/Gemma La Mana