On the Sanctity of Fruit: From Farm to Fable

 Strawberry Stand Brooch

Top: Delia's

Skirt: Modcloth

Shoes: Ami Clubwear

Bag: H&M

Belt: Izod, Marshalls

Sunglasses: J. C. Penney's

 Simply Strawberry Brooch

Dress: Modcloth

Shoes: Dolce by Mojo Moxy, DSW

Bag: Katie & Kelly, DSW

Belt: Apt. 9, Kohl's

Sunglasses: Relic, Kohl's

 Simply Citrus Brooch

Dress: Modcloth

Shoes: Ami Clubwear
Bag: Modcloth

Belt: Marshalls

Sunglasses: J. C. Penney's

 Mandarin Market Brooch

Top: So, Kohl's

Skirt: ELLE, Kohl's

Shoes: Qupid, Alloy

Bag: Call it Spring, J. C. Penney's

Belt: Candie's, Kohl's

Sunglasses: Cloud Nine, Ocean City boardwalk

I've always loved fruit.  The kind you can eat is delicious and nutritious, and the kind you can't brightens up a dull day.  The latter has two basic style personas: realistic and cartoonish.  Realistic fruit looks like the stuff at your local farm stand; cartoonish fruit looks like it's about to get up and dance.  But they're both appealing (and I don't just mean the bananas), forming a tapestry rich in lifelike and surreal motifs.  Also, antioxidants.

So you can imagine how perturbed I was to find that certain cereal bars and cookies (which shall remain nameless, lest I receive crates of rotting fruit from the snack company bigwigs), have been passing off cranberries as strawberries.  It's a clever if exasperating ruse, and for a while it works.  That is, until you're chomping on one of these carb clusters and think, "Hey, I know that's a strawberry on the box, but this wrinkled red thing kind of looks like a cranberry.  And it kind of tastes like a cranberry too!"  So you read the ingredients on the side of the box and confirm your suspicions; there are no strawberries in this thing at all!  Why would they do that?  Because nobody likes cranberries, despite Thanksgiving's campaign to convince us otherwise.

That's why this week's pieces pay homage to that master of masqueraders: extract.  Flavorings frank about their fakeness, these enticing elixirs keep things real by having the integrity to pretend to be the fruits displayed with such lifelike detail on their iconic McCormick boxes.  Naturally, this makes me think of the always wry, sometimes ribald comedy Extract, specifically that part toward the end in which Jason Bateman's Joel explains why he loves running a small extract factory.  Even after all the trouble caused by his affair-that-wasn't with line worker Cindy (Mila Kunis), he gets sentimental about the vanilla, almond, and root beer flavors that his plant churns out year after year.  Why?  Because they make people happy.  In other words, it's the seemingly small, extraneous things in life that give it its sweetness and -- ahem -- flavor.  That's why Joel did what he did, and that's why I do what I do, too.  It's probably also why the bogus cereal bar and cookie people pull their strawberry scam.

Next week I'll attempt to apply the same logic to Fruit Loops.

Movie Moment: The Change-Up

If ever there was a movie made up of equal parts sleaze and schmaltz, then it's The Change-Up. A weird way to begin a post I know, but that's what comes to mind. Although the identity switching comedy is as old as the hills (Freaky Friday, anyone?), it remains intriguing. After all, who wouldn't want to trade places with someone else for a while, if only to find out what that person's life is like? It was this thinking (along with my love of stupid comedies, which, incidentally, requires almost no thinking) that lured me into the theater.

The Change-Up centers around best buds Dave (Jason Bateman), a family man on the fast track to law partner, and Mitch (Ryan Reynolds), a playboy out-of-work actor. Their moment of reckoning comes when they pee in a public fountain one drunken night while confessing jealousy for each other's lives. The lightning crashes, the lights go out, and before they know it, they've swapped bodies.

Workaholic Dave realizes how much he misses having the time and privacy to do things like Rollerblade and use the bathroom uninterrupted. But he also learns that Mitch's life isn't all fun and games, eventually appreciating just how good he has it and how much he's been neglecting his family. Likewise, Mitch laps up the full-time attention of "people who care about his day," and the perks of an always-full fridge. Still, balancing work and family is tough for this perpetual slacker, and he longs for his freedom.

Ground-breaking it's not. But it is interesting in an introspective, "what does it all mean?" kind of way. Not that I imagine that that's the movie's message, or that it even has a message. I caught an interview in which Reynolds and Bateman were quipping that The Change-Up has lots of levels, and that you have to look deep - real deep - to get them all. To be sure, the gratuitous nudity, F-bombs, and just plain gross-out bathroom shenanigans lent the story a B-movie quality that undercut its discordant and often desperate sappiness (and made me look away - far, far away). But then, like most moviegoers, I know that the quality of movies takes a nosedive come August, the glitter of the June and July blockbusters already in the dustpan to be resurrected into DVDs and the winter holiday features still months away.

All criticism aside, it was entertaining to watch Bateman and Reynolds be catapulted into caricatures of the respectively priggish and wise-guy types they typically play only to be reeled back in to portray polar opposites. I wasn't laughing hysterically along with my fellow theater-goers, but I didn't long for my $10.00 back either.

Movie Moment: Horrible Bosses

It's no secret that popular culture likes to poke fun at bosses. But it's not often that we hear a tale in which disgruntled employees turn to murder.

In Horrible Bosses, three friends have been pushed to just such limits. Nick (Jason Bateman) battles his boss's (Kevin Spacey) sadistic mind games as he doggedly pursues VP status; newly engaged dental hygienist Dale (Charlie Day) has a hard time saying no means no to his sexually aggressive supervisor (Jennifer Aniston); and chemical plant accountant Kurt (Jason Sudeikis) loses the best boss ever (Donald Sutherland) to a heart attack only to answer to his cokehead son (a comb-over-sporting Colin Farrell). At first, the three consider quitting their jobs. But then they run into an old friend who graduated from Yale only to become a permanent unemployed fixture on his mother's couch. Presented with this walking cautionary tale, they conclude that quitting isn't for them. Then Kurt jokes that they should just kill their bosses, and everyone laughs. But the germ has been planted, and before long the trio is trolling unsavory bars in search of a hit man.

This is where things get a little dark. Which came as a surprise to me. I know, I know. What did I expect from a movie about murder? Frankly, silly high jinks. Slapstick. Failed attempts at poisoning coffee. You know. Someone slips rat poisoning into a mug and waits for the fatal sip only to have the intended victim get coffee somewhere else that day, or, better yet, spill it down the front of his/her shirt. Or maybe car/elevator/even mail tampering gone hilariously awry. Or doom-destined limos that somehow end up at vacation hot spots. (I'm reaching, but you get the idea.) Then after so many failed attempts the would-be killers would realize that the murders weren't meant to be and walk away, finding some other means of solving their professional problems.

But none of that happened. There's no string of murder attempts, amusing or otherwise. There are several surveillance scenes, some of them funny, some of them seeming like dead air. An unlikely connection links Nick's and Kurt's bosses, creating an unexpected but not-so-light twist. Yet even so, the story wraps up in the way you'd expect it to - it just takes a strange route to get there.

Although the plot is questionable, the characters make up for it. Playing his typical cold fish self, Kevin Spacey makes an ideal tyrant. Farrell and Aniston step outside of their comfort zones to become power-hungry bullies. As for the three musketeers, it's hard to say whether Bateman or Sudeikis plays the lead. Bateman's job situation is probably the most dire, and the story begins and ends with him. Yet it's Sudeikis who spearheads the murder operation - and drives the getaway car (which, by the way, is equipped with some weird, omniscient OnStar type navigation system that goes by the name of Geoffrey). Still, I found Day's character to be the most likable. Reprising his go-to lovable moron role, he lends an endearing quality to this dark comedy.

Make and Tell Challenge, Day 117: Another Gift Tote, Bold Bracelets, and a Few Flicks

Today I finally got around to beginning the bf's sister's tote. She's a nurse, and the bf thought it would be good to run with that. Next I finished decoupaging yesterday's bangle, then started another. I went over the first bangle with an overall coat of Mod Podge (that's in addition to the layer I applied to each candy wrapper) but still think the whole thing can stand another type of sealer. Maybe Elmer's glue. While working I watched bits of National Lampoon's Vegas Vacation and The Ex. Vegas is always a little unsettling -- yet still strangely entertaining. As for The Ex, I wish I could have seen it in its entirety, because it seemed interesting. Jason Bateman always plays such a weirdo. Speaking of which, the bf and I went to see Up in the Air tonight. I was a little disappointed. Not because it was bad, exactly, but maybe because there was so much hype. It wasn't the absence of plot that bothered me -- I like indie flicks and novels that center on character -- there just seemed to be something missing. There was a character that reminded me of myself, though. It was George Clooney's character's trainee, this young, uptight, overachieving girl who seems cold but is really this emotional mess of a person always trying to get everything right. I hated that she reminded me of me, but on the way out the bf mentioned it before I did, so it must be true. So much for my illusions of being a free-wheeling artist.

Movie Moment: Couples Retreat

After a tasty dinner at the Laguna Grill in Brigantine and an impromptu trip to Target, the bf and I went to see Couples Retreat last night. It didn't disappoint. Vince Vaughn portrayed the usual hilarious everyman, and the supporting all-star cast was entertaining, too. My only complaint may be that the squabbling couples seemed to make up pretty tidily at the end. But then again, I guess they all just realized what's most important in life: having someone to go to Applebee's with. (If you saw the movie, hopefully you know what I'm getting at.)