Friday Fun Video: Learn Italian Gestures

   

GRAZIE.

Monday Therapy: Need Some Help With Your Coiffure?

OK, so this is really for the ladies in the audience, but ... Hey, a comic actor AND action hero who can also braid your hair for you?  THAT'S HOT.

Friday Fun Video: No Green Screen!

Friday Fun Video: Cookie Monster and Delayed Gratification

Well, how delightful! Tom "Loki" Hiddleston stops by "Sesame Street."  That means cookies for Cookie Monster and eye candy for me!

Film Culture Commentary: Asian Leading Men

Looky here, Buzzfeed has finally discovered that there are some cuties and hotties in Asian cinema.  Welcome to the party.  At least Takeshi Kaneshiro is in the top 10.  But no Shin Koyamada? No Ian Anthony Dale or Russell Wong?  At least the delightful Ken Watanabe on the list, but he's only #24?  Shame, Buzzfeed!  Dishonor on you!  Dishonor on your cow!

Couch Potato Chronicles: "Justified"

Television programming can be a fickle thing ... or maybe I'm a fickle viewer ... or both.  I've loved shows and hated shows, and sometimes they were the same shows.  (For those of you keeping track, I'm out of love with Doctor Who and Supernatural for now but hoping they get better writing.)  So what to do?  Look for something else to watch, of course, because sometimes the news is so terrible you just can't watch it anymore.  I'm not feeling too well anyway, so I'm basically passed out on the couch in front of the TV.

So!  There are actually a number of very watchable TV shows available streaming online via Netflix or Amazon Prime and such (and certainly available on physical media), so maybe I'll occasionally post a suggestion.  Right now I just want to talk about FX's Justified (2010-present), which I had heard good things about (it's been nominated for a basketful of awards and won some), but I had never made a point of sitting to see it for myself until now.  Here's what all the fuss is about, because it really is a good, often great, show.  Watch it from the start, though!

Movie Review: "Magic Mike" (2012)

It's feigning men.

The movie is pretty much just an animated version of the its poster: all flash and no depth.  Neither fully guilty pleasure nor truly incisive storytelling, Magic Mike shows us a lot of muscles while neglecting the two most important organs of all: the heart and the brain.  

Gorgeous Photos from NatGeo's Annual Competition

Look at these lovely photos submitted by some of the world's best shutterbugs.

Satire Alert: The Onion's Sexiest Man Alive for 2012

In a brilliant takedown of People magazine's annual feature (the winner this year is Channing Tatum), the Onion too has chosen its Sexiest Man Alive for 2012.  You'll never guess who it is.

UPDATE: GLORIOUS.

My Crushing Depression Is Now Complete

First the election debacle, now this?  Ryan robbed again.  

My/his/our theme song should be Bob Seger's "Beautiful Loser."

Monday Therapy: Office Coffee

Ugh, it's Monday. Time to chug a potful of coffee so we can get our work done ... We might as well have some fun with the whole idea of coffee at the office!

Apparently I'm Not the Only One Enjoying the Olympics

Heh.  By the way, ladies, I think our equivalent is men's water polo.  Or swimming.  Definitely swimming.  UPDATE: Um, yeah!  While we're talking, note this caveat, girls.

Fashion PSA: Suit Up, Guys

I stumbled across this hilarious image online, and I simply had to post it because ... well, I think it's mostly true.  I even gave you a real-life bit of evidence after the fold.  Oh, and you'll recall my previous bit of fashion advice. (What do you think, La Parisienne?)

Happy Mother's Day!

Here's a charming Mother's Day greeting from Hugh Jackman on the set of the new film Les Misérables:

Friday Fun Video: "Quiet Ryan"

Since the name of Ryan Gosling has been splashed all over this blog for the last few days, let's just go whole hog and finish out the week with this fake movie trailer from Funny or Die that's really a supercut of a ton of Gosling's wordless movie moments.  It's actually not a bad demonstration of non-verbal communication.  Ryan doesn't say a single word during the entire two minutes.  I don't know if I've been quiet for two whole consecutive minutes in my entire life.

DVD Movie Review: "Crazy, Stupid, Love" (2011)

"The lunatic, the lover, and the poet are of imagination all compact." 

~Shakespeare, right on target as usual

I hate, loathe, despise, and abominate romantic comedies.  I couldn't get enough of Crazy, Stupid, Love. Clearly there's something special about this film ... and there is.  In fact, this movie succeeds because of numerous somethings special (and an excellent ensemble cast) that together add up to a surprisingly charming, ultimately sweet look at the many complications of romance.  The course of true love never did run smooth ... but the bumps along the way, with their genially Horatian pokes at human foibles, make for a hilarious two hours' traffic of our stage.

Hey Girl, Here Are All Your Ryan Gosling Memes

To help La Parisienne in her convalescence and to amuse everyone else, here's the motherlode for memes of Internet sweetie-pie Ryan Gosling.  Enjoy!  I love the medieval historian version myself.  (Did you know this meme?  No?  Tsk tsk. Time to brush up your Internet culture cred!)  RELATED POSTS:  Taking issue with People magazine and saying no to SOPA.

LOL: False Dichotomy Du Jour

Is it better to be hot or to have a college degree?   Why choose? What's wrong with being both hot and educated?  Isn't that what my buddies and I have been trying to promote?  Oh, and let me add this too: during job interviews, it might help to be hot and all, but it also helps to have good social skills -- something that a LOT of people, especially egghead academics, do not have!  

Monday Therapy LOL: Hey Girl, It's Ryan Gosling

Oh, the life of an Internet meme!  OK, you have to go in order.  First there was this.  Then there was this.  Now there is this plus the accompanying photo in the aftermath of People magazine's pick of Bradley Cooper as Sexiest Man Alive for 2011 (itself a hilarious annual tradition):

Recount.

I've given this the "eye candy" tag because apparently some people think Ryan Gosling really is all that and a bag of chips.  Me, I'm indifferent.  He's like any of the undifferentiated gaggle of Hollywood pretty boys who look like so many showy, overtanned, animated Ken dolls.  I look at them and laugh and think of this video.  That photo is still darn funny, though.

Couch Potato Chronicles: "The Cape"

The series premiere tonight of NBC's "The Cape" had its ups and downs, but it was enough to get me to decide that I would watch the next episode.  In the meanwhile, read this.  By the way, I had never before seen lead actor David Lyons.  "Who is that dreamboat?" I asked the Cine-Sib, who rolled his eyes (or would have, if they hadn't been glued to co-star Summer Glau).  "Well," I said, "whoever he is, I bet he's from Australia."  After the show was over, I went to IMDb, and lo and behold, he's a native of Melbourne.  Aw, yeah!   

OK, all that aside, give "The Cape" a chance.  It's got the potential to be a good show; let's see what happens.  Still, the presence of Summer Glau likely means that the show is (a) decent and (b) doomed to cancellation if "Firefly" and "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" are harbingers.  Then again, third time's the charm?