“Friends with Benefits” surprised me. I don’t understand why Justin Timberlake is famous – what is remarkable about him, really? – and Mila Kunis does nothing for me. We live in the age of decline of the Romantic Comedy. “Friends with Benefits” was not the forgettable, rote, mass-produced studio product I expected. It was actually really good.

“Friends with Benefits” began really fast, and I found myself bobbing along on the script’s energy. I noticed how much I was enjoying it and I kept waiting for the film to drop the ball, to let me down, to betray itself, to fall into predictable clichéd traps. That didn’t happen for quite a while, and the film’s failings were slow in coming, minor, and didn’t ruin the film.

What “Friends with Benefits” does right it does very, very right. The script is amazing. There are jokes that you’d need some literacy and maturity to understand. They fly right by, no pause for the viewer to laugh, or to google the references, before the next one-liner or trenchant observation rolls down the chute. Our culture has been so dumbed down that hearing a joke that one would have to have some knowledge of history or culture or even just the front page of the newspaper to understand amazed and gratified me.

The movie’s strong point is that it is so fast; that’s also a bit of a weak point. Legendary director Frank Capra said that “sometimes your story has to stop and you just let your audience look at your people. You want your audience to like them…these scenes are quite important to a film. When the audience rests and they look at the people, they begin to smile.” “Friends with Benefits” is so frenetic, it never creates a memorable screen moment where Dylan (Justin Timberlake) and Jamie (Mila Kunis) do nothing but look movie-star lovely and get under our skin.

Richard Jenkins works some powerful mojo. He’s a character actor, older, bland-looking and bald, but in every movie I’ve seen him in lately, especially so in “Eat Pray Love,” he seems to be visiting from a different, better movie, and I want, after the movie I’m watching is over, to watch the superior film from which Jenkins has visited. In “Friends with Benefits” Jenkins plays Dylan’s father who is suffering the early stages of Alzheimer’s. He is funny, profound, arresting and truly lovable. What is Jenkins doing? Whatever it is, more actors should do it.

Jenna Elfman, Patricia Clarkson, Woody Harrelson, Nolan Gould and Masi Oka are all very, very good in supporting roles. Clarkson, as Jamie’s mother, delivers a liner about Jamie’s father that made me laugh out loud.

On the surface, “Friends with Benefits” looks like too many other, lesser movies. It’s not. It’s a really good, worthwhile film.

The outline of Chai’s account runs as follows. She was born in a small seaside fishing village. Her parents were the local doctors, committed communists and officers in the People’s Liberation Army, dedicated to a life of public service.

Excelling at school, she won the village scholarship to attend Peking University — China’s Sorbonne — a great honor that filled all of her family — even her demanding father — with pride. At the university, her experiences and ideas expanded, ultimately leading her into participation and then leadership of student protest movement.

Finger Tapping and Finger Painting Fun

Have fun painting while learning letters and numbers
To begin playing, first choose from three options: uppercase ABCs, lowercase ABCs, and numbers (1 to 10). After a selection is made, the app presents a letter or number, pronouncing it as it appears on the screen.

A connect-the-dots puzzle is presented next, with the number of each dot pronounced as it appears. Tap each dot to create the outline of an image and then finger paint the picture with vibrant colors. Kids will have fun painting a zebra, a butterfly, a snail, and much more. You can also access a Tutorial section.

Connect the Dots & Color introduces numbers (1 to 10) as well as uppercase (A to Z) and lowercase (a to b) letters both visually and aurally. It also strengthens fine motor skills through the magical experience of creating something beautiful.

The author’s fail-proof method allows you to put yourself into a hypnotic state and then use that state to improve your life in myriad ways. And because the hypnotic state is induced while you read, you remain aware of your surroundings and can bring yourself back to normal consciousness slowly and gently, using the instructions provided.

Armed with date-appropriate clothes and a detailed game plan she arrives to meet her potential loves, only to be dumped… on a remote island with seven ex-boyfriends.

Seven exes! Could this be any worse?

Reviews for this book!

From the first page, the book hooks its readers in and makes it impossible to stop reading … strong and funny dialogue, a humorous plot and realistic and likable characters. –Danielle G. of “The Romance Reviews”

The behind the scene look of a craze that has swept society is an interesting concept for a novel, and with Wardell’s excellently placed humor and knack for bringing characters to life, it works. –chicklitplus.com

The pace is perfect, the story grabs you and keeps you moving along to see what could possibly happen next. –teresasreadingcorner.blogspot.com

Within a year, these three people of entirely different cultural and socio-economic backgrounds cross paths in New York. Value systems and self-interests clash. The curtain falls on a dramatic stage of ambition, sex, intrigue, and murder. The girl from Shanghai survives and thrives.

Editorial Reviewsfor this book.

“Compelling story … Fiercely feminine voice … Strong language … Great description … Inherently fascinating locale … Very likable narrator … A pleasure to read.” — The New Jersey State Council on the Arts

“A new voice from Shanghai.” — The Hong Kong Standard

“Shanghai Girl is superb literature … one of the best of contemporary novels written by Chinese authors … (Yang is a) Shanghai success … We eagerly await Yang’s next literary feat.” –EVE Magazine

“A novel that is hard to put down once you’ve picked it up … Yang masterfully transports the living onto the page in a way that is sure to make any writer jealous and any reader sit up and take notice.”  –Blogcritics.org

“Shanghai Girl – a feat in itself … Yang puts a new, often lighthearted spin on frequently covered topics like Chinese identity, the U.S. immigrant experience and reverberations of the Cultural Revolution.” — HK Magazine –HK Magazine

“Yang brings with her an expanded array of journeys and experiences, reflective of not only a changing America, but also of a world in transition.”  –The Museum of Chinese in America (MoCA)

“Another ‘Tale of Two Cities’ … Paris and London played roles in Dickens’ famous novel A Tale of Two Cities. In Shanghai Girl, it is Shanghai and New York.”  –The Sampan (Boston)

On her way to the presentation, tragedy strikes. After seeing a strange man with black eyes, Kara drops her cell phone in the road and gets killed by an oncoming bus.

Startled into awakening by an aggravating chimp, Kara realizes that she is dead. In Horizon, a kind of afterlife, she discovers that she has been chosen by The Chief to become a guardian angel.

Kara is thrust into her new “life” with her handsome boss, Petty Officer David, saving mortals from death, or their souls after death from demons. Unfortunately the demons seem one step ahead of the duo and are dogging every mission, not allowing the pair to save the mortals from their demise. Their first mission led to the complete destruction of a soul, as the demons consumed the soul before the pair could rescue it.

Marked follows Kara as she adjusts to her new life as a rookie guardian angel and her forbidden attraction to her petty officer David.

THE PROPHECY: Amidst the chaos of a dying world, a lone voice foretold the awakening of a warrior who would bring an end to this evil perpetrated against all of creation. But with the cataclysmic destruction of earth and rebirth of humanity, the prophecy went unfulfilled and eventually faded from the memory of our kind—until now!

THE AWAKENED: The physical dimension is fractured. What remain now are numerous fragmented worlds moving simultaneously through time, sharing a common history, connected only by a guarded portal. On a parallel earth, in the city of Bastul, Colonel Adair Lorus disappears while investigating the death of an informant, triggering a series of events which will tear his family apart and set in motion the resolution of an ancient struggle. Kael, sentenced to death after rising up against the cruel leadership of his new step-father, is rescued from prison and trained in the arts of war by a mystical order of clerics. Excelling in every aspect of his training, Kael inwardly struggles to give himself fully to the methods of his new family, or the god they worship. Maeryn, bitter over the disappearance of her husband and supposed execution of her son, fears for her life at the hands of her newly appointed husband. Finding comfort and purpose in her unborn child, she determines to undermine his authority by reaching out to an underground social movement known as the Resistance. After being forced from his home, Kael’s former mentor, Saba, uncovers a clue to Adair’s disappearance. Sensing a connection to his own forgotten past, Saba begins an investigation which leads to the discovery of a secret military organization operating within the Orudan Empire.

In book one of his debut series, Jason Tesar delves into the heart of an ancient legend, embarking on an epic saga that will journey from earth’s mythological past to its post-apocalyptic future, blending the genres of fantasy, sci-fi, and military/political suspense.