Ruffle Kerfuffle: Of Monsters and Zen, What a Mother

 Red and Yellow Roses Necklace

Top: Bisou Bisou, JCPenney

Skirt: Xhilaration, Target

Shoes: Ami Clubwear

Bag: Betsey Johnson, Macy's

Belt: Apt. 9, Kohl's

Sunglasses: Rampage, Boscov's

 A Tribe Called Zest Necklace

Top: Maison Jules, Macy's

Skirt: Xhilaration, Target

Shoes: Chinese Laundry, DSW

Bag: Apt. 9, Kohl's

Belt: Marshalls

Sunglasses: Rampage, Boscov's

Creamsicle Circle Necklace

Top: So, Kohl's

Skirt: Xhilaration, Target

Shoes: Ami Clubwear

Bag: Nine West, Marshalls

Sunglasses: Brigantine beach shop

Rainbow Pearl Necklace

Blouse: American Rag, Macy's

Tank: Macy's

Skirt: Xhilaration, Target

Shoes: Payless

Bag: Modcloth

Belt: Wet Seal

Sunglasses: Rampage, Boscov's

Every outfit in this post features a swallow-print, ruffle-tiered mini I got from Target, that one-stop trend candy shop.  Part festival, part fairy tale, this skirt is the kind of sassy yet muted not-so-basic staple that Snow White might've worn if the seven dwarfs had ever carted her off to Coachella (now, there was a damsel who could rock crazy colors).

Speaking of which, it's time to talk about some ladies who put the rough and tumble in ruffle, namely the casts of two of summer's biggest blockbusters: Ghostbusters and Bad Moms.  Fun and frothy with a topping of let's-take-on-the-world, both center around fantasies, some supernatural, some suburban.  Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones do battle with poltergeists in New York City while Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell, and Kathryn Hahn take on the PTA outside of Chicago (the latter is, in my opinion, the more formidable of the two villains; when faced with a bitch or a beast I'll take my chances with Slimer), putting it all on the line in the name of justice, whether it be for the safety of humankind, some much-deserved me-time, or a heady elixir of the two.  Sure, on the surface, these women couldn't be more different.  Ghostbuster McKinnon zings zany one-liners as she builds whoa-Nelly weapons; bad mom Bell daydreams about getting into a (minor) car accident so she can spend a week in the hospital eating Jell-O.  World-class physicist Wiig gets tongue-tied at the mere sight of delicious but dumber-than-dirt secretary Chris Hemsworth; come-hither Hahn flashes married dads in the school drop-off zone.  But at the end of the day, they're all women fighting adversity, whether in the form of phantoms or frenemies.  As such, both casts shine with brave yet vulnerable, laugh-a-minute comediennes.  Ghostbusters was funnier, but I enjoyed the plot of Bad Moms more.  Maybe that's because Bad Moms is a little like Mean Girls: Mommy Edition.  The cliques are the same; just the ages have changed.  And there's not a woman alive who doesn't appreciate a good comic commentary on (as Tina Fey so eloquently put it in Mean Girls) the age-old theme of girl-on-girl crime.  In Moms, the pressure doesn't come from the need to be popular, but the need to be perfect, which is, when you think about it, merely popularity all grown up.  

In Bad Moms, Amy Mitchell (Kunis) is the poster child for mother martyrdom.  Put-upon and stretched-to-the-limit, this marketing maven is an always under-it everywoman who bears the added burdens of dealing with an incompetent fetus of a boss (Clark Duke) and an overgrown frat boy of a husband (David Walton).  So, when Amy ambles into a PTA meeting, late as always, fresh from a horribly hellish day, and resident queen bee and PTA president Gwendolyn (Christina Applegate) shames her into bake sale police duty (no sugar, no oil, no dairy!), Amy tells her to forget it, makes a grand exit, and plops down on a bar stool at the nearest dive to drown her proverbial sorrows.  There she meets perennially-on-the-prowl single mom (and, may I add, dressed-to-kill) Carla (Hahn) and eager-to-please mother of four Kiki (Bell).  The liquor flows, the ladies vent, and before you can shout "Tequila!", the trio is wreaking havoc at a grocery store, Fruit Loops and inhibitions flying.  What follows is a wicked spin on sugar and spice and everything nice as the fast friends turn the stereotype of the perfect mom on its head, blowing off cooking and cleaning to day drink and cruise guys.  But when Gwendolyn gets Amy's daughter kicked off the soccer team, what began as a game turns into a full-fledged revolt against the powers that be.  Amy launches a campaign to run for PTA president in a brush with the dark side that is faintly reminiscent of Cady Herring's (Lindsey Lohan's) in Mean Girls.  Yet although Amy tries on a new persona and even sometimes stumbles, unlike the callow Cady, she never loses sight of who she is.     

Bad Moms is a sweet satire sprinkled with the surprises that make movies sparkle.  SPOILER ALERT: if you read any further, then this one will be a surprise no longer.  (I'm talking to you, party scene headlined by paragon of perfection Martha Stewart offering up Jell-O shots.)  Although lighthearted, Bad Moms touches upon the complexities of female relationships, intertwined with that old chestnut of a theme: freedom vs. duty.  That having been said, once the chaos has run its course, peace predictably descends upon suburban Chicago, more than restoring the status quo as each mom, mean ones included, embraces a more warts-and-all way of life.  Peace, after all, is the goal of most stories (and, indeed, of that great story life), dressed in the finery of happy endings.  

Yep, peace is pretty important.  As Gavin Rossdale once sang, "everything's zen."  Of course, he followed that up with an angry "I don't think so," and now his ex is doing a duet with Blake Shelton.  

So maybe he needs to try yoga.         

Movie Moment: Hall Pass

This weekend the bf and I saw Hall Pass. It'd already been dropped from one theater and shunted to a small screening room in another, so I knew we had to act before it disappeared into the land of On Demand. Is it me, or do movies seem to move on at warp speed these days?

Anyway, I've set forth a nice little challenge for myself for this review. I'm not going to spoil the ending! I'll say here and now that this decision may mess with my formula, resulting in an unbalanced and lackluster write-up. But I'm willing to risk that if you're still willing to read it.

So, Hall Pass. We've got two couples: Rick and Maggie (Owen Wilson and Jenna Fischer) and Fred and Grace (Jason Sudeikis and Christina Applegate). As I'm sure you know, the wives are sick of their husbands gawking at other women, so they follow the advice of their psychologist friend (Joy Behar) and issue them hall passes - one week off from marriage, no questions asked. Even in light of this questionable proposition, Rick and Maggie are established early on as the moral compass, whereas Fred and Grace represent more of the "what if?" factor. The men inaugurate their week of freedom with a pig-out dinner at Applebee's, slowly working their way up to a golf course, a coffee house, and a gym, attempting the bar scene only on the last night when their notorious bachelor buddy (a really scary-looking Richard Jenkins) rolls back into town. Maggie and Grace, on the other hand, spend the week at Maggie's parents' beach house, where they are hit on by a college baseball coach and player, respectively, without so much as batting an eyelash, proving, of course, what most of us already know - that it's much easier for a woman, married or otherwise, to find a date than it is for man (regardless of how lecherous that man may be).

That having been said, Hall Pass offers a few plot twists and some sweet surprises. That's not to say that it doesn't serve up its share of gratuitous gross-outs. (It doesn't come from the Farrelly Brothers for nothing.) As for the characters, Wilson is unexpectedly and endearingly nerdy as family man/realtor Rick, and Fischer slips comfortably into the nice girl role that made her famous as Pam on "The Office." Sudeikis's Fred is the typical tries-to-get-away-with-as-much-as-he-can best bud, albeit not exactly lovable. At one point he tells Rick that women in general and their wives in particular get to live their dreams, whereas men don't, phrasing it something like this: "Maggie used to play house as a kid, right? So, you bought her a house. She used to play kitchen; you bought her a Viking (stove). She wanted to be a mommy, and you made her one. But what about us? You don't see me hosting "The Price is Right" do you?" Yep, Fred. Women have clearly won because that's all we want out of life: houses and babies. Thankfully, Applegate's feisty Grace is more than up to the challenge of tangling with him.

Overall, Hall Pass was more fun than I'd expected. Stay tuned for the next spoil-free movie recap. :)

Movie Moment: (Kicking Off the Fall Movie Line-up With) Going the Distance

It was a beautiful, sunny Labor Day weekend Sunday - which meant, of course, that I wanted to go to the movies. I hadn't been for the last couple of weekends and was feeling the void. So, on our way home from my sister's apartment (the bf and I had stayed there last night after attending our friend's [her best friend's] wedding), we stopped off to see Going the Distance, which had opened Friday. Undoubtedly, you've seen the commercials. Distance stars real-life couple Drew Barrymore and Justin Long. (They're an on-again/off-again kind of duo, but according to my most recent Google update, they're currently "on.") Drew Barrymore plays Erin, a Stanford journalism student spending the summer in New York doing a newspaper internship, and Justin Long plays Garrett, a New Yorker working for a soulless record label. Garrett has a history of misunderstanding women and has never been in love, and Erin once dropped out of grad school for a guy who broke her heart (this explains why she's a 31-year-old intern). They meet at a bar (where Flight of the Conchords stalker Kristen Schaal pours the drinks) and get together for a fling. Six weeks later, when it's time for Erin to return to San Francisco, they realize they're in love. So, they try the long distance thing. Heartache peppered with raunchiness ensues, with Garrett's buddies (Charlie Day and Jason Sudeikis) trying to drown his sorrows in pitchers of beer and Erin's sister (Christina Applegate) unabashedly dispensing tough love advice.

So, was it what I expected? Not really. It was more serious than the trailers let on, and not a little wrenching. But I liked that about it, appreciating its commitment to keeping things real. I could especially identify with Erin, a writer looking for a job in a world where print journalism is dying. She tries to get a permanent position at the New York newspaper where she interned to no avail and meets with the same rejection at every other publication in the city. Finally, she's offered a job with a San Francisco paper. Garrett is less than pleased, they fight, and he ends up asking her to move in with him, in New York. Touched, she accepts, planning to continue waitressing until a writing job opens up. Her brother-in-law (Jim Gaffigan) suggests she start a blog. (She doesn't).

At the last minute, Garrett steps in and tells her she can't throw her life away and needs to take the job. She does. At the risk of sounding like a cliché, their breakup is very sad, a classic case of two people wanting different things. They each go on with their lives, but of course it's not the same. Then Erin receives tickets to see the band that she and Garrett first saw together. She goes, and of course he's there. He's ditched his dreaded job, become the band's manager, and now lives in Los Angeles, which is only an hour's plane ride away.

For a minute there, I thought it might be one of those movies where they don't get back together. Kind of like The Break-Up, or 500 Days of Summer. So, I was relieved that that wasn't the case. But I was also left thinking that San Francisco and Los Angeles are still kind of far away for maintaining a healthy relationship. (That's the cynic in me showing its colors). Anyway, at least it was a more realistic ending than if Garrett had, say, landed a job in San Francisco. I gave myself more closure by deciding that the ending was trying to say that successful relationships thrive on never-ending compromise. (Although the movie delivered the message in a much less cheesy way than I just did.)

Overall, I think Going the Distance was good and undeserving of its bad reviews. But that's just this humble viewer's opinion.