tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54400199630141825782009-12-07T12:27:59.752-05:00Watercooler observations on pop culture, news & politics fueled by lots of caffeineMeredith O'Brienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13931703511561742340meredithobrien@hotmail.comBlogger566125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5440019963014182578.post-11715371581486525312009-12-07T12:20:00.001-05:002009-12-07T12:21:08.327-05:002009-12-07T12:21:08.327-05:00

Men of a Certain Age on TNT Okay, okay TV reviewer people. I’ll program my DVR to record the premiere of TNT’s Men of a Certain Age tonight at 10. It’s a dramedy about three men -- one divorced, one single, one married -- dealing with a variety of dispiriting events that have happened to them as they flounder about in middle age. You critics have convinced me that Ray Romano demonstrates a

Meredith O'Brienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13931703511561742340meredithobrien@hotmail.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5440019963014182578.post-76209832745125981952009-12-04T12:19:00.001-05:002009-12-04T12:20:35.521-05:002009-12-04T12:20:35.521-05:00

The Daily Beast’s Rebecca Dana was able to shoehorn Betty Draper, Taylor Swift, Jenny Sanford and Tiger Woods’ wife Elin Nordegren into the same column, lauding them for not taking adverse events that befell them lying down. Dubbing 2009, “The Year of Women Not Taking Sh**,” Dana wrote that Woods’ wife taking a “golf club to his Escalade” was only one among many instances of women striking back.

Meredith O'Brienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13931703511561742340meredithobrien@hotmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5440019963014182578.post-34498094173303084032009-12-04T11:32:00.001-05:002009-12-04T11:33:19.123-05:002009-12-04T11:33:19.123-05:00

* Warning, spoilers from recent episode of FlashForward. * After an uneven first half of the season, ABC’s FlashForward made up for it with its last handful of new episodes which have propelled the story forward in interesting ways, while sprinkling in some character depth along the way. By having two scientists admit publicly that their experiment MAY have caused the killer global blackout --

Meredith O'Brienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13931703511561742340meredithobrien@hotmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5440019963014182578.post-60086944574599738182009-12-02T17:17:00.001-05:002009-12-02T17:18:20.394-05:002009-12-02T17:18:20.394-05:00

I know, I know . . . Thirty-thousand more American troops are being sent to Afghanistan. The health care reform bill's still being heatedly debated in the U.S. Senate. No one knows for sure what REALLY happened with Tiger, the golf club, his wife and his car, although for his "transgressions," he's very, very sorry. But what piece of news really surprised me today? My local CBS affiliate in

Meredith O'Brienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13931703511561742340meredithobrien@hotmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5440019963014182578.post-910959525071888572009-12-02T16:24:00.000-05:002009-12-02T16:24:33.373-05:002009-12-02T16:24:33.373-05:00

Warm up your DVR people . . . I found a comprehensive list of Christmas specials and holiday movies being shown on TV on the web site TV Tango. (I found it via Pop Candy.) However for those of you expecting Christmas specials which were supposed to air in the 8 o'clock hour on ABC on Tuesday night -- ABC heavily promoted them -- you likely were unhappy campers. Due to the president's speech

Meredith O'Brienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13931703511561742340meredithobrien@hotmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5440019963014182578.post-73711967882776520952009-12-01T17:26:00.000-05:002009-12-01T17:26:01.604-05:002009-12-01T17:26:01.604-05:00

While everyone (including yours truly) has been musing at length about the box office smash of a tragic love story between a vampire, a werewolf and a teenaged human gal, movie theaters have been playing a trailer for a distinctly mature love affair between a divorced couple who have adult children but suddenly find themselves attracted to one another again after all these years. The trailer for

Meredith O'Brienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13931703511561742340meredithobrien@hotmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5440019963014182578.post-14047868565622021662009-12-01T12:06:00.000-05:002009-12-01T12:06:12.059-05:002009-12-01T12:06:12.059-05:00

When I went to see New Moon in the movie theater last week, there were a ton of trailers for love stories, angsty teen tales of affection, stories where the lovers have been kept apart for one reason or another, which makes sense, given the subject matter of the latest Twilight film and the fact that New Moon references the star-crossed Romeo and Juliet so much. However it did surprise me to see

Meredith O'Brienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13931703511561742340meredithobrien@hotmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5440019963014182578.post-81561768920183934682009-12-01T11:30:00.000-05:002009-12-01T11:30:47.288-05:002009-12-01T11:30:47.288-05:00

Sunday nights have felt so . . . empty . . . lately without Don, Betty, Peggy and Joan. And we can't forget about Roger, whose killer one-liners were reliable moments of humor amid the disintegration of Don's personal life this past season. New York Magazine compiled Roger's one-liners (and two-liners) from the third season in this video below . . . making me miss Mad Men just a little bit more.

Meredith O'Brienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13931703511561742340meredithobrien@hotmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5440019963014182578.post-46533845902601918562009-11-30T14:47:00.001-05:002009-11-30T14:47:50.770-05:002009-11-30T14:47:50.770-05:00

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the latest episode of Desperate Housewives.* In short order, the Desperate Housewives’ writers have transformed the Solises into a remarkably unlikeable and wildly self-centered couple who’ve progressed not a bit since season one. Why on earth did they do this? Why did they take Gabby and Carlos -- whom they spent much of last year building into a warm,

Meredith O'Brienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13931703511561742340meredithobrien@hotmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5440019963014182578.post-47401201678736773132009-11-30T12:10:00.001-05:002009-11-30T12:10:36.341-05:002009-11-30T12:10:36.341-05:00

When I wasn't doing the whole Thanksgiving celebration thing last week, I was immersed in the world of Twilight. My editor at Mommy Tracked had asked me to write a column about the film New Moon, the second film based on the four-book series, which has become a mega-hit. To prepare to write the piece, I Netflixed Twilight and watched it with my Twilight fan daughter (who's read three of the

Meredith O'Brienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13931703511561742340meredithobrien@hotmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5440019963014182578.post-27190513986824657052009-11-25T12:14:00.002-05:002009-11-25T12:16:26.583-05:002009-11-25T12:16:26.583-05:00

Last week, it was Sarah Palin who Newsweek editors put on the cover of a newsweekly in running shorts to coincide with the release of her memoir, Going Rogue. The editors argued that the photo was the most "interesting" one they could've selected from the thousands of Palin to place on their cover. The cheap shots at Palin -- which were not about her policy positions -- prompted me to write

Meredith O'Brienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13931703511561742340meredithobrien@hotmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5440019963014182578.post-51971484245723061672009-11-25T11:22:00.001-05:002009-11-25T11:23:21.605-05:002009-11-25T11:23:21.605-05:00

ABC's sci-fi drama V concluded its first handful of episodes last night with the promise that it'd be back with new episodes in March 2010. But will it? One TV critic reported that: "The future of V is about as up in the air as one of those giant spaceships hovering over a major Earth city. The day that the show premiered, ABC announced that a new executive producer/showrunner had been hired

Meredith O'Brienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13931703511561742340meredithobrien@hotmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5440019963014182578.post-60161255178518983192009-11-25T10:46:00.001-05:002009-11-25T10:48:09.842-05:002009-11-25T10:48:09.842-05:00

Big Love is slated to return for a fourth season on January 10. The season three finale concluded with Bill Henrickson flying by the seat of his pants and forming his own Church of Bill in his backyard, handing out trays of bread and water for communion to his three wives and their offspring, as Nicki introduced the family to the daughter from her first marriage whom she'd left behind. So what

Meredith O'Brienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13931703511561742340meredithobrien@hotmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5440019963014182578.post-24799542645083872502009-11-24T12:02:00.002-05:002009-11-24T12:15:17.649-05:002009-11-24T12:15:17.649-05:00

If you're a person who's concerned about what odd/uncomfortable/upsetting/infuriating thing might occur during your Thanksgiving celebration with your family, then you might want to consider taking a peek at my 2009 Dysfunctional Family Bingo card which I've posted on my other blog. It's a Bingo card whose squares are filled with weird/irritating events that could plausibly occur during your

Meredith O'Brienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13931703511561742340meredithobrien@hotmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5440019963014182578.post-23028272212672969712009-11-19T11:12:00.003-05:002009-11-19T11:18:38.033-05:002009-11-19T11:18:38.033-05:00

*Warning, spoilers ahead from recent episode of The Good Wife.* The recent episode of The Good Wife was a game changer, bringing the sex scandal that sent Alicia Florrick's (Julianna Margulies) politician husband Peter (Chris Noth) to jail squarely back into the Florrick home. For several weeks, Good Wife episodes have tilted too heavily for my taste toward becoming a legal procedural with only

Meredith O'Brienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13931703511561742340meredithobrien@hotmail.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5440019963014182578.post-61776210634855441692009-11-19T10:44:00.000-05:002009-11-19T10:44:15.117-05:002009-11-19T10:44:15.117-05:00

It was heartening to see that the panelists on The View -- with the exception of Joy Behar -- put politics aside and agreed that for Newsweek editors to put former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on the cover while wearing jogging shorts was demeaning and disrepectful. (The link to a terrible quality video of the segment is here. You have to really punch the volume up to hear it.) I

Meredith O'Brienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13931703511561742340meredithobrien@hotmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5440019963014182578.post-23757386169195950092009-11-19T10:15:00.001-05:002009-11-19T10:16:35.482-05:002009-11-19T10:16:35.482-05:00

Following days of uproar after a federal government panel told fortysomething American women that regular mammogram screening doesn't save enough of their lives to justify the costs or the "anxiety" caused by biopsies and additional tests (which don't often result in a cancer diagnosis), the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services yesterday told everyone to basically ignore the new guidelines

Meredith O'Brienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13931703511561742340meredithobrien@hotmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5440019963014182578.post-68340990510941274222009-11-18T09:57:00.001-05:002009-11-18T09:57:58.519-05:002009-11-18T09:57:58.519-05:00

* Cross-posted on the Picket Fence Post blog. * For the past few years I’ve addressed the issue of holiday stress – particularly when you gather multiple generations together for a high-pressure holiday dinner — by creating Dysfunctional Family Bingo cards. I take awkward-but-realistic scenarios that might occur during (before or after) your family’s Thanksgiving dinner and place each one into

Meredith O'Brienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13931703511561742340meredithobrien@hotmail.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5440019963014182578.post-80617068106320792952009-11-17T15:36:00.002-05:002009-11-17T17:41:43.860-05:002009-11-17T17:41:43.860-05:00

Entertainment Weekly’s Michael Ausiello is usually on the mark when it comes to intel on all things TV. So when I read his report that the creative genius behind the fast-talking quirkfest that was the Gilmore Girls, Amy Sherman-Palladino, had said that not only did she not watch its series finale (she left the show before the final season), but that she had other season-ending plans for the

Meredith O'Brienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13931703511561742340meredithobrien@hotmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5440019963014182578.post-60634225293815914132009-11-17T13:31:00.000-05:002009-11-17T13:31:46.835-05:002009-11-17T13:31:46.835-05:00

It’s about money, these new recommendations unveiled yesterday by a federal task force which tell women between the ages of 40-49 that, unless they know that they have the breast cancer gene or have had extensive chest radiation, there’s no need for them to get mammograms. You see, even though there’s data which says that women’s lives ARE SAVED by preventative screenings, such regular

Meredith O'Brienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13931703511561742340meredithobrien@hotmail.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5440019963014182578.post-23514696529136011182009-11-16T11:24:00.002-05:002009-11-17T13:49:02.045-05:002009-11-17T13:49:02.045-05:00

Seriously? Shorts? Sure, dissect Sarah Palin's speeches, her book (being released this week), her interviews, her political point of view. All of that is fair game. (I’m going to be among those ODing on Palin-Palooza this week because I’m working on a column about the former GOP VP candidate.) But putting Sarah Palin on the cover of a NEWSweekly while she’s wearing shorts (and I don’t care if

Meredith O'Brienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13931703511561742340meredithobrien@hotmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5440019963014182578.post-52453762060461150202009-11-16T11:12:00.001-05:002009-11-16T11:13:08.607-05:002009-11-16T11:13:08.607-05:00

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the latest episode of Desperate Housewives.* I was really, really ticked off after watching the latest Desperate Housewives episode, “The Coffee Cup.” Why? I couldn’t stop thinking about the treatment of Lynette Scavo by her so-called friends and neighbors Carlos and Gabby Solis because they learned that a working mother had the temerity to get pregnant and not

Meredith O'Brienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13931703511561742340meredithobrien@hotmail.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5440019963014182578.post-69565529603292561342009-11-13T12:24:00.001-05:002009-11-13T12:25:17.316-05:002009-11-13T12:25:17.316-05:00

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the recent episode of Grey's Anatomy.* I’m not big on trying to revive an occasionally creatively sagging TV show by haphazardly tossing a bunch of new characters -- particularly of the young and sexy variety -- into the mix just to see if the chemistry changes. In the "absence" of its lead actress and beating heart of Grey’s Anatomy, Ellen Pompeo (she wasn't a

Meredith O'Brienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13931703511561742340meredithobrien@hotmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5440019963014182578.post-67901037431346498102009-11-13T11:16:00.001-05:002009-11-13T11:16:54.969-05:002009-11-13T11:16:54.969-05:00

Whenever I do a review of a TV show the day after it has aired, I usually include a bolded, italicized warning at the very top, “Warning: Spoilers ahead from the latest episode of [NAME OF THE SHOW].” Likewise, when I Twitter about the show after it has aired, I try not to put reveals in them and instead write very generally. It’s a bit of courtesy I extend to my DVRing/TiVoing friends who’ve

Meredith O'Brienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13931703511561742340meredithobrien@hotmail.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5440019963014182578.post-36974402785688758212009-11-12T20:57:00.002-05:002009-11-12T20:59:09.077-05:002009-11-12T20:59:09.077-05:00

*Cross-posted from my parenting blog, the Picket Fence Post* My three Diary of a Wimpy Kid fans were eager with anticipation for the fourth installment of Jeff Kinney’s series, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days to arrive in our home. The day it came, it was in such high demand and there was such a struggle for each kid to be the first to read it that I decided to do the democratic thing and read

Meredith O'Brienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13931703511561742340meredithobrien@hotmail.com0