Cool Daddy-O Patio: Papa Don't Beach Without Sunnies

This is just the kind of post title that I always said I'd never use.  I mean, cool, daddy-O?  What am I, a beatnik?  But it is Father's Day, and I decorated these (albeit very girly women's) sunglasses.  So.

Speaking of Father's Day, I ordered Being a Dad is Weird, by Ben Falcone, online as a gift for my dad.  But when it arrived, it had an unidentifiable yet unmistakably sticky something smeared on the cover.  So I bought my dad another copy and kept the original.  After all, I like to read, and I like Ben Falcone.  Whether it's his performance as the sexually harassed Air Marshall in Bridesmaids, the power trip-fueled fast food manager in Tammy, or (and this is my personal favorite) the music teacher in that old Target commercial who plays the piano and sings about denim, Benji always brings the odd.  (He refers to himself as Benji at least once in the book, so I think it's okay for me too).

Filled with amusing anecdotes about growing up with an intellectual and outlandish writer father, Being a Dad is Weird is a lighthearted walk down memory lane.  Like many comedy writers, Falcone was an awkward kid (he rocked an acid wash denim jacket with Led Zeppelin and U2 pins).  But not that awkward (he played sports, dammit!).  Just awkward enough to use humor to defuse many a -- wait for it -- awkward situation.  Anyway, he compares having a father to being a father to his two daughters with wife Melissa McCarthy, and it's all very sweet and heartwarming.  Well, as sweet and heartwarming as something can be when liberally peppered with F-bombs.

Earlier today my sister and I were dismayed to find out that we had both bought my father this book.  So there are now not one, not two, but three hardbound copies floating around our family.  Perhaps we should start a Ben Falcone fan club.       

That said, maybe next year I'll shoot for a more PSA-themed Father's Day post, something like Ray Ban Man: Fathers Fighting Fried Retinas.  That way the dads get to be the heroes. And I get a free pair of Ray Bans.

Movie Moment: What to Expect When You're Expecting

Romantic comedy What to Expect When You're Expecting lets it be known that giving birth is a serious business.  More in line with the shadow-tinged ensemble He's Just Not That into You than the frothier Valentine's Day and New Year's Eve, What to Expect When You're Expecting stars a who's-who cast in a network of gently intertwined stories about impending parenthood.  It mixes the feel-good with the edgy for results that are relatably realistic.  Which isn't so unexpected a hybrid from a movie based on a pregnancy manual.

Of the movie's five mothers-to-be, three become accidentally pregnant, one is adopting, and one has been trying to have a baby for two years.  It is this last mom-in-the-making, Wendy (Elizabeth Banks), who centers the threads of the story and most strongly draws our sympathies.  As the owner of a baby boutique and a breast-feeding advocate ("Have a breast day!" she chirps when ending work calls), type-A Wendy has long nurtured the dream of starting a family with her kindly (and compatibly beta) dentist husband Gary (Ben Falcone).  With her wacky assistant Janice in tow (the scene-stealing Rebel Wilson, with whom we became first acquainted in last year's Bridesmaids), she goes to extremes to ensure the welfare of her baby while emerging as a goo goo ga ga guru, an effort she redoubles after learning that Gary's jerk of a celebrity racecar driver dad (Dennis Quaid) is having twins with his trophy wife (Brooklyn Decker).  Yet all of Wendy's resolve unravels during her keynote speech at a prestigious baby biz expo.  Clad in Janice's much-too-big rainbow unicorn-emblazoned tee shirt (she peed herself just before going on), she rages about hemorrhoids and crying jags, debunking the pregnancy-is-bliss myth that the expo, and everyone else, strives to perpetuate.  As someone who never imagined pregnancy to be pleasant, I found her diatribe to be candidly reassuring.  The scene marks the movie's stand-out comic moment, the absurdity of which is largely owed to Janice's well-meant but disastrous fumblings.

The other storylines, while less gripping, are amusing, and in some parts, sad.  The movie capitalizes on the increasingly popular reality TV spoof twofold in the character of Jules (Cameron Diaz), the winner of a "Dancing with the Stars"-type show (dance partner Matthew Morrison is her baby daddy) and a take-no-prisoners Jillian Michaels-esque weight loss show host.  Dueling food truck owners and near-high school sweethearts Rosie (Anna Kendrick) and Marco (Chace Crawford) must negotiate the curveballs of their fledgling relationship, and baby photographer Holly (Jennifer Lopez) enlists the help of the "dad's group," a Saturday stroller-wielding posse headed by wise-cracking but wise Vic (Chris Rock) to convince her skittish husband (Rodrigo Santoro) that it's time to adopt.

The movie's end holds a few tense moments that may, if you're anything like the audience I watched with, have you uttering, "Huh?"  Nevertheless, the message of What to Expect When You're Expecting is ultimately life-affirming, cutting through all the muck of fear and indecision in the middle to deliver the knee-jerk optimism that always comes with the stork.