Welcome Back Dawson

Have you noticed that James Van Der Beek of Dawson's Creek fame is making a come back or at least trying to? First he was in one of my delightful Holiday movies last year that was played in constant rotation this year and then more recently he was in a short lived TV show called Mercy about nurses. Also telling is the fact that after years of silence he is starting to surface in the tabloids. All in the last half of 2010 he was divorced from his first wife, remarried, and had a baby. Most telling though, is the fact that he has participated in a new FunnyorDie video. Check it out here: http://http//www.funnyordie.com/videos/2fbe5df820/vandermemes?rel=player.

It's pretty funny with him making fun of how the clip of him cyring on Dawson was circulated online. The video even has a corresponding website where he has created other video emoticons for people to use online. You can see that here: http://www.jamesvandermemes.com/. The best are Dramatic Dawson and No You Didn't.

I have to admit, James, you are making me feel like you might matter again, even though I was rooting for Pacey the whole time.

Reunited And It Feels So Good

You know how it feels when you hang out with a friend you haven't seen in a while and you remember all the reasons you liked them in the first place? Well, I get that same feeling when I rediscover a show that had previously been kicked off my must watch list. Unlike sports teams (I'm looking at you UNC), you don't have to stick by TV shows even when they suck and I've been known to bail. Rarely, but sometimes shows that were previously dead to me have been resurrected. Here is the top 5 from my walking dead:

1. Grey's Anatomy - I bailed on Grey's a few season's back. It was about the time that everyone was broken up, broken down, and depressed. Everyone had been with everyone, everyone had had every illness, and they were starting to recycle couples and diseases. It was literally painful to watch and I felt I had to follow it with a sitcom chaser to pick me up just enough that I could get out of bed the next day. Then, I started seeing a lot about the amazing season finale from last year, so I watched and I've been hooked ever since. It's interesting again. Some of the characters are actually happy and there are storylines and couples to root for.
   
2. The OC - I was there for the final music montage that ended this pop culture driven show, but there was a time before Mischa Barton's character, Marissa bit the big one that I was starting to drift. The couples had gotten together and broken up so much it became meaningless and the ulitimate sin...they were starting to mess with Sandy and Kirsten, the parents whose loving relationship really gave the show its heart. But, once Marissa flew off that cliff to her death, the show had new life and I was back. Kirsten and Sandy were on solid ground and Ryan and Taylor gave us something new to root for.
   
3. Lost - One can only take so many unanswered questions - I mean seriously, what is the smoke monster? I've seen the finale and I still don't really get it. I bailed on this show before they announced the end date only to be drawn back in when they offered a light at the end of the tunnel. I was hooked to see what happened to Kate, Sawyer, Jack and the rest, but I have to admit I probably wouldn't have stuck with it if I didn't know the pay off was coming soon.
   
4. Days of Our Lives - Yes, I know this is a soap opera, but it has been in my family for three generations...literally my grandmother watches. I grew up on the drama that surrounded Salem and it's most prominent families, the Bradys, the Hortons, and the DiMeras. However I have walked away many times, only to be drawn back in months or years later by Hope and Bo, Marlena and John, and their endless supply of secret babies, devil possesion, kidnappings, and evil twins. We are currently on the outs but I have not doubt that it could rise again in the future.
   
5. House - I'm all about suspension of disbelief but the main character on this show is a horrible horrible person that treats people like crap, constantly disobeys orders, and risks lives. It's hard to watch a show when the main character seems so deeply flawed with no indication of progress or growth. There is no way he wouldn't be fired, so when the show did nothing I fired him myself. I was out a few seasons when I heard House and Cuddy were hooking up and he was off the drugs. I tuned back in hoping they were going to write a different story then House is offensively rude, thinks it's Cancer, has an epiphany, smugly saves the day. The jury is still out on this one and it could end up back in the grave.

Are Jake and Taylor for real?

I can't decide if I belive that Jake Gyllenhaal and Taylor Swift are really dating. The whole thing is just so weird. First of all, they in general seem like an ulikely pairing. I mean, how does he go from dating older more mature women like Reese Witherspoon to a girl who is 9 years younger? That's not a big gap when you are talking adults, but she's 20! She would be a junior in college...still taking her laundry home to mom...going to bars called "The Library" with a fake ID...eating ramen...in other words YOUNG! I mean her previous boyfriends were ripped from the pages of Bop and Tiger Beat...a Jonas and Taylor Lautner. Also, Taylor has a tendency to air her dirty laundry publicly in her songs, while he seems more private and reserved (probably beacuse he is an adult).

Even the way this is rolling out seems weird. There is nothing about them and then they are in NY together and hanging out in Nashville. Blurry cell phone photos pop up all over the place with witnesses claiming they are acting like a serious couple. Then today we have this:

I mean it's just too perfect really. They act coy about the relationship when asked direct questions but have no problem with hanging all over eachother in public?

Could it be some kind of publicity stunt? I know that was a common hollywood practice back in the old days when Rock Hudson was playing straight, but do people besides Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt do that these days? I hope it's not a publicity stunt, but I also kind of hope it's not real so I don't know what to think.

Your Majesty

Sometimes my obsession with pop culture makes me stand out more then others. For example, I was recently at a dinner with a group of people - some friends, some people I had just met. Someone was talking about a book club she was about to start that was going to only cover the classics. From there the conversation flowed in that funny way it has where later when you try to follow the thread back you can barely remember how you ended up where you did. With a little nudge from me, we somehow went from a relatively high brow conversation about British literature and colonialism to a detailed conversation about Prince William and Kate Middleton. Of course, I'm using the word conversation loosley since it was more of a lecture.


"Did you know," I said, "that Prince William proposed with his mother's engagement ring. The boys inherited it after she died, though she had stopped wearing it after divorcing their father. It was actually Harry that ended up with the ring but when he knew William was going to propose, he said he should have it because his wife would one day be Queen." I went on like this for a while with nods and smiles my only encouragement from my audience.

Eventually someone tried to insert a comment. "I understand," this brave soul said, "that they had been dating for quite some time before he proposed. Wasn't it like 9 years?"

"Actually," I replied, "It was 8 years, but with a brief separation in 2007 that some people claim was only a ploy to get the paparazzi frenzy away from Kate."

It was at this point that polite smiles and mild interest turned into wrinkled brows and blank expressions. Someone expressed amazement that I knew that much about them and suggested that I must be a fan of the royals. Finally feeling a little sheepish, I claimed I had learned it all from a Dateline special I watched the night before.

This was only partially true because while I did watch the Dateline special, my intel came from a variety of sources. Also, I couldn't help think about all the interesting things I knew that I hadn't shared. Like how Kate was shown video of Princess Di to see how to handle herself, or how William used to cook for Kate when they first started dating.

The conversation at dinner moved on and everyone there probably left thinking it was a novelty that I knew so much about them, but I knew it was only a product of the obsession.

'Tis The Season

Every year when the leaves start to turn and the temperature starts to drop I get excited because I know it's almost time for one of my favorite traditions...the annual viewing of the painfully cheesy yet somehow touching holiday TV movies. About this time I start doing weekly searches of the Hallmark, Lifetime, and Family Channel schedules because they start playing these things like 24 hours a day leading up to Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Now, I'm not making an argument that they are quality entertainment, but much like the Holiday foods that are staples of the season, they just good even if they aren't good for you. So, if you decide to partake, here are a few things to look for.

• They usually have some vaguely holiday title involving the word miracle, such as "Mrs. Miracle," "A Season for Miracles," or "Our Christmas Miracle."
• They typically involve some element of magic - santa is real, miracles are real (see above titles), or angels are real.
• Often the main characters are orphaned or partially orphaned children, single parents, and kindly older neighbors, relatives or strangers that have a slightly magic quality (see above note on magic).
• The best ones have a little bit of romance where some lonely soul learns the true meaning of the season and falls in love with the previously mentioned single parent and partially orphaned child.
• They often star previously famous TV stars from shows past. Some examples include Dean Cain, James Van Der Beek, Doris Roberts, and Henry Winkler .

If you find any combination of the above, you are in for a treat. It may be so cheesy at times that you have to look away from the screen, but you might be a little dead inside if these don't tug at the heartstings even a little. Happy Holidays!