If Alexander Skarsgård shows up at my front door, knocks three times (no doorbell and no knocking two, four or five times) and says, “Leave all this and come run away with me.” I’m going to abandon everyone and leave here with this slightly broken very handsome tall man.

Ok, maybe he’s not slightly broken but his character in What Maisie Knew sure is.

Yesterday William and I saw a screening of What Maisie Knew and it was a ridiculously uncomfortable movie to watch. It was a great movie (see William’s review) but I found myself not breathing regularly. I was holding my breath and my hands would unconsciously find their way to my chin where I’d just hold myself steady and hope for better. Onata Aprile made me forget I was watching a movie. It was that good.

So I left the theater moderately disturbed. I think that these are the best sorts of movies, the ones where you can’t get it out of your head. I had two hours left in the day before picking kids up with a few errands to run. The first was to exchange Alexander’s XL shirt from the Gap to get him an XXL. The kids have a performance at school and they’re meant to wear plaid shirts like ranchers do so I bought him one and asked him to try it on two weeks ago. He tried it on alone and told me that it fit. Two mornings ago I thought I’d like to see it on him and when he put it on the sleeves were ridiculously short. Apparently the solo try on session hadn’t included rolling the sleeves down.

The Gap doesn’t carry XXL shirts. I guess they do online and I don’t think I’ve shopped there in 10 years prior so I wasn’t sure what to expect and as I returned his XL shirt I had this moment where I realized I would no longer shop for my son in children’s stores. I didn’t expect to be moved by this but I was and immediately ducked outside to catch my breath and text my friend Laurie begging for time with her kids. I adore Laurie but let’s face it, yesterday I just wanted to use her for her toddlers.

Immediately after texting Laurie, still reeling from What Maisie Knew and feeling uncomfortable in my own skin, who should come tromping through the mall but my ex-stepmother and her favorite shopping buddy. Lucky me. I sort of smile and fake a hello, get the updates on her kids, get the updates on which celebrity kids are going to kindergarten where, mentally make a note that I’m so so happy that my kids aren’t at that school, smile, nod, marvel at the odd look of plastic surgery and get on my way to find my son a shirt that’s too big to belong in a kid store but really small for an adult one.

Maisie and I didn’t have a lot in common in the ex-stepmother department.

In any event I loved the movie and obviously William did too but we have different frames of reference. My parents were divorced by the time I was four, Williams parents are married. I’m a mom, William is a very young adult and had better not have any kids (do you like how I managed to squeeze in some finger wagging?).

The folks over at What Maisie Knew want to do a little giveaway. There will be three winners in this one so be sure to enter to win What Maisie Knew poster signed by Alexander Skarsgård, an autographed copy of Julianne Moore’s newest children’s book from her Freckleface Strawberry Series and What Maisie Knew pens from Millennium Entertainment.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Keep in mind I never do giveaways but Cassie asked me in a moment of weakness. Don’t ask!

What Maisie Knew is a gem of a movie. Its subject matter – divorce, family dysfunction, loss of innocence – is the stuff of made-for-TV movies. But, accompanied by a talented cast, Scott McGehee and David Siegel manage to navigate the titular character’s story with great skill and empathy.

Maisie is six years old. Mother Susanna (Julianne Moore) is a has-been, middle-aged rocker who dreams of returning to her days of glory, while father Beale (Steve Coogan) is an art dealer with the attention span of a squirrel. The two are engaged in the aftermath of a bitter divorce, where Maisie serves as a pawn in their constant struggle. Alexander Skarsgård (Lincoln) and Joanna Vanderham (Margo) provide supporting roles as Susanna’s well-meaning boyfriend-cum-husband and Beale’s nanny-turned-wife, respectively. While unrelated to Maisie, they care for her deeply and provide the support she desperately needs.

The first half of the movie is dedicated to Susanna and Beale fighting over time with Maisie, both in and out of court. Any good editor would tell you that these first 40 minutes could be reduced to a simple 5-minute scene, but McGehee and Siegel use the repetitive nature of the struggle to underscore Maisie’s perseverance and uncanny maturity.

In one scene, Susanna succeeds in gaining custody of Maisie, only to take her home and immediately leave her alone while she complains to a friend about what an irresponsible parent Beale is. In yet another scene, Beale is scheduled to pick up Maisie for his court-ordered time with her. Maisie waits patiently in the lobby, but he never shows. Notice a pattern?

Throughout the movie, Maisie maintains her composure, never buckling under the pressure of her parents’ need to use her as a bargaining chip. When Susanna pries about Beale’s life, Maisie is careful to answer with a meek, “I don’t know.” And yet, she sees everything and knows what’s at stake. In the heartbreaking opening scene, a pizza delivery man shows up at the door while Maisie’s parents are fighting about money in the background. Without missing a beat, Maisie runs upstairs to her piggy bank and returns with a wad of bills for the delivery guy. “Here’s your tip,” she says with a smile.

The nature of love, and especially of that between parent and child, is a major theme throughout the movie. While Maisie’s parents fight tooth and nail for custody, their actions belie any claim to actually wanting to care for their daughter. Both parents are extremely possessive of Maisie, and the courts are alternatively a source of validation, or a site of great pain and struggle.

In the final thirty minutes, the movie reaches its boiling point as Maisie falls asleep in a bar and is literally passed along from person to person until she ends up at home with one of the female bartenders. Upon waking up, Maisie panics and wants to go home, though her parents are nowhere to be found. Lincoln and Margo provide Maisie with stability from this point forward, and for the first time we see her be playful. In short, she is allowed to be a child.

If you enjoy a great story and fantastic acting, watch this movie immediately. Julianne Moore deserves great credit for playing what can only be described as a truly ugly character. McGehee and Siegel are fair, though, and grant her a moment of redemption at the end.

The only gripe I have about the movie is that the fantastically talented Onata Aprile is given sixth billing in the credits. Once you watch the movie, you’ll see why this is such a crime.

Thanks to William for this wonderful review. 

Except that Howard Stern has been doing it for at least 8 years if not more and his stylist Ralph had a laser pointer which he’d use to point out a woman’s cellulite. Ralph is so handsome that he’s actually qualified to do this.

You can stop laughing now.

The question is why we care? We’ve obviously decided somewhere along the way that men need to be rich and women need to be beautiful. There’s no good reason for men who look like Ralph Cirella or Thomas Blachman to be in a room with a very good looking naked woman unless money or power are involved.

These shows don’t bother me. They interest me and I think they demean the men as well as the women. It’s abundantly clear that if everyone in the room was naked the only things the men would be holding would be their own erect penises. I watch them appear and I’m drawn in by curiosity the same way that I’d rubberneck a car accident (sorry about the traffic snarls kids).

I understand why women take their clothes off for men. I understand why men want women to disrobe. I understand why it makes everyone uncomfortable and I absolutely adore the fact that it forces people to take sides (there are many more than two sides here).

My question for you is, who exactly is being exploited?

For hot male lesbians go to Benchwarmers.tv and watch episode 4. 

Bars in New York City never felt like bars in Los Angeles. There was one bar in Marina Del Rey that my father used to take us to and it felt like a New York bar because we weren’t the only kids there and food was served. We played pool, my dad smoked his pipe, Englishmen talked about cricket and other ridiculous games, they sang songs and the food was crap but everyone tried to convince us that fish and chips were delicious. We weren’t quite sure about that.

Mom came over for dinner last night and told me the most remarkable story. She started by telling us how New York’s drinking age used to be 18 so by the time she was 16 she would hang out in the West Village and she and Alice and Sandy would hang out in local bars drinking cokes and eating french fries while feeling both very adult and very safe. One of their favorite hang outs was Julius‘. They loved the cool factor of hanging out in a bar and with the added bonus of never being bothered.

When Mom would tell LA friends about wasting her teenage years at a bar named Julius’ which was inhabited by men who were really nice to teenage girls but didn’t hit on them her friends would roll their eyes. I’m pretty sure they thought that my mom was a little socially retarded or perhaps she’d neglected to mention that she was a morbidly obese teenager with cystic acne and a drippy nose. The bar she was describing could not possibly have existed.

This week she’s been reading John Irving’s new book In One Person and on page 111 there was a revelation.

Mom’s favorite “safe” hangout was a gay bar and she’s only finding out about it 55 years later.

I’m like, “Mom, how did you not know that it was a gay bar. Were you the only women there?”

“What did I know from gays? I was 16 and people called them fruits. There were no fruits there.”

Yesterday I pulled out the camera for Jane’s volleyball match and was able to snap a shot of her hypermobile arm in action. This is why I make her do plank every day. Those are some unstable joints.

When kids feel wet and uncomfortable they start to potty train.

With Huggies new TweetPee you can get a mobile notification every time your kid pisses. This is awesome for a number of reasons:

• You don’t have to actually touch your kid or pay attention to them to find out that a diaper is wet
• Those diapers that are supposed to keep your kid dry for more than one urine event can get replaced two or three times as quickly as before.
• More time with a cell phone! Bonus!
• Electronics, urine and your baby’s genitalia. What could possibly go wrong?
• Delay potty training indefinitely and you won’t have to share the bathroom. Kids are pissing and crapping all over the place

Have I missed any other benefits?

This Mother’s Day I have just one request. Leave my kids alone. I’ve honored your right to exist and I’d like to ask you kindly to honor their right to a McFood free childhood. I know, you’re going to say, “If you don’t like McDonalds just don’t patronize us.” And I don’t, and that’s a good solution but a better one would be where you stop marketing directly to children in insidious ways.

Your school can get a free visit from Ronald McDonald so that he can teach the kids about giving to charity. Although this sounds noble read the fine print:

This show is sponsored as an All-School Assembly. If all students do not participate in the presentation a show fee may be charged to your school.

If a savvy parent doesn’t want their child to be McEducated the school will be charged. Why would McDonalds want to reach pre-school aged kids? Further, McDonalds has pledged to shift the mix of foods advertised to children under 12 to encourage healthier dietary choices and healthy lifestyles. I’m not seeing proof of that pledge when McDonalds uses a 17 year old Olympian and a couple of little kids to promote a breakfast sandwich and don’t even get me started on apples in plastic bags with a side of HFCS caramel.

I wonder if McDonald’s CEO Don Thompson would let his kids be part of this promotion?

The FDA/USDA/CDC/FTC already condemn the practice of marketing foods laden with sodium, fat, sugar and unidentifiable ingredients to our kids. Today, as a Mother’s Day gift to me I’m asking McDonalds to back off.

Readers, you can give me the gift of your signature. Join the movement and let McDonalds know that McWorld, their advergaming for kids is McWrong. Sign up with MomsNotLovinIt.org and share the message far and wide.

If Mother’s Day is a day for us, let’s talk about our passions. My passion is children’s health. Join me in sharing the #MomsNotLovinIt hashtag all over the web and hopefully McDonalds will get the McMessage. Their own shareholder’s meeting has children’s health and obesity as it relates to fast food on the agenda (see page 50).

Trudi lives in the house she isn’t supposed to live in. I mean, she thinks she should live there but that would only make one of us. Trudi should be in the neighborhood but not in that house. You see about ten years ago I had a fabulous neighbor with a daughter the same age as Jane. That fabulous neighbor was a professional lady (grad school professional not a hooker) and we would talk about being a stay at home parent. I told her that it was really important to me that I was at home with my kids and if I had to move to another part of the country to make that happen I would. That neighbor listened to me. No one ever listens to me. The first time anyone ever listens to me leaves me abandoned. Crap.

In any event Trudi bought the good neighbor’s house and the good neighbor moved 3,000 miles away. I was lonely.

Trudi and I had a lot of the same worries going to Mom 2.0. Is it like a sorority? What would a conference without men be like? Is there any valuable content? Would it be as silly as BlogHer? Why were we leaving our families?

The conference was lovely and I didn’t really have to worry about anything. It was very inclusive and I saw a lot of old friends and finally got to hug some of the folks I’ve gotten to know in the blogosphere. The sessions were good enough with one standing out as being incredibly useful. Sarah Gilbert shared her expertise on crowd funding. Now, I don’t see myself crowd funding anytime soon but I do ask people for money, support or things as part of my job and I hear “no” an awful lot of the time. I’m basically okay with that but I think that her session may bring my “no” rate down from a whopping 90% to maybe 80%. This one session was worth the price of admission. Getting unstuck is incredibly valuable.

My problem is that every time I leave the house I try to quantify it in time away from the kids and Mr. G. I sat in every session thinking, “Is this more important than being with Jane/Alexander/Mr. G.” and when it’s framed like that the answer will always be, “No.” It’s not a competition that could ever be close.

Perhaps it’s because I just spent eight days following my bliss in Australia. Perhaps it’s because the kids are at ages where they really need parents around or maybe it’s because Mr. G is knee deep in launching a new network and we are in need of more time together. I’m not sure if it’s because conferences aren’t my thing or if my family is just so much my thing that I can’t extricate myself gracefully that I don’t think I’m a good conference goer. I’m just not the right person for this. I can’t wrap my head around it.

The sponsorships were perfectly integrated, the parties were lovely and the follow up has been spectacular. Mom 2.0 is a really great conference if you love going to conferences. I’ve concluded that I don’t love them. It’s not you. It’s me.

Jane and I just came home from seeing the Great Gatsby. There was a fundraiser for Project Angel Food and since I’m absolutely delighted to give them money while getting nothing in return I was just as delighted to buy a couple of tickets to see Gatsby at the Real D screening room in Beverly Hills.

If you ever have an opportunity to see a movie at Real D say yes even if you care nothing about the movie. I’ve never seen a picture like the one I saw tonight and we weren’t watching the show in 3D.

If you loved Moulin Rouge you will love Gatsby, end of story. If you want to look at colors so vivid that you’re sometimes wondering if the film is animated this is the movie for you. If you get excited when the scenes are quick and jump back and forth from character to character sometimes while one is still talking then Gatsby is made for you. If you want to look at beautiful people, stunning homes and sexy as hell cars then Gatsby is for you.

If you think that overly narrated movies cheat on their story telling then you should stay home. If Toby Maguire’s inability to open his mouth when he speaks irritates you then you should stay home.

In keeping with the story the movie is absolutely over the top and in many places the voice over lends itself to the general sense that we’re with Nick Carraway (who is a writer) but at some points it’s distracting and I wanted to say, “Oh Spiderman just shut the hell up and show us the story.” But I think that was mostly me as the rest of the audience (there were about 100 of us) were positively enthralled.

The music was spectacular. It is genius to take hip hop and sell it to the audience as 20′s and speaks to the timelessness of the tale as well as to the import of music.

It doesn’t matter what I say, you’ll see the movie and you’ll love it in spite of yourself. It’s flawed, deeply flawed, but it’s tragic, beautiful and sexy and that’s what America loves in a movie.