Car Stars and Raised Bars: Let's Hear it for Team Tangerine

I have two posts with "orange you glad" in the title.  Which, in my opinion, is two too many.  Today I'm making up for it by subbing in tangerines.  Plus a whole orchard -- or perhaps I should say body shop -- full of color in this Gear Cred charm bracelet and earrings.  

Gear Cred Charm Bracelet

Gear Cred Earrings

Granted, these charmers aren't the kind of thing that you'd normally see on a lady mechanic -- at least not while she's working.  She wouldn't want to get them wrapped around the axle or lose them under the hood or whatever.  But what she wears when hitting the town is fair game . . . not to mention her business.  

Just like whom Charlize Theron as Charlotte Field dates is her business.

See what I did there?

I'd so wanted to see Long Shot in the theater.  Theron as super serious Secretary of State and Seth Rogen as her goofy speech writer presented a premise ripe for ridiculousness and hilarious hijinks.    But I guess most people didn't agree, because Long Shot was booted off the marquee within two weeks.  No matter.  It was just the thing to tune into On Demand for some late night crafting.  Now, it wasn't as funny as I'd anticipated -- but it was more romantic than I'd hoped to expect.  You see, Charlotte's always on team underdog, both when lobbying to save the environment and -- yes friends, this is where is gets sappy -- for the happiness of her heart.  And Rogen's Fred, a neon windbreaker-wearing, freshly unemployed journalist who speaks before he thinks, is about as downtrodden as they come.  Still, he has a superpower: getting Charlotte to reconnect with that idealistic sixteen-year-old he once knew.  Which is no small task considering that she's a presidential hopeful whose every word and eye twitch are dissected.  

Do these star-crossed lovers face challenges?  For sure.  Does Charlotte's right-hand woman hate Fred?  Like Guy Fieri hates low cal dressing.  Is it weird that Charlotte used to babysit Fred?  As weird as Guy Fieri eating low cal dressing.  (Fieri, by the way, makes a quasi-cameo as a dating don't.)  Do Charlotte and Fred find a way around it all and steal each other's hearts as well as those of the American people?

I think you know the answer to that one.  

That said, here's to strong women.  The kind who fix cars and run countries and fight for love found in unlikely places.  

And who buy orange juice instead of squeezing it.

Although for the record, if given the choice between rebuilding a carburetor, climbing Capitol Hill, or eking out some OJ, I'd reach for the juicer.

Carnival Meats and (Un) Savory Treats: Food Fight or Flight on the Midway

 Fabulous Felt Cotton Candy Barrette

Dress: Modcloth

Blouse: Kohl's

Shoes: Charles Albert, Alloy

Bag: Xhilaration, Target

Sunglasses: Michaels

Carnival Candy Bag

Merry Cherry Necklace

Tee: Marshalls

Shorts: ELLE, Kohl's

Shoes: Betseyville, Macy's

Belt: Apt. 9, Kohl's

Orla Oval Necklace

Dress: Modcloth

Top: XOXO, Macy's

Belt: Marshalls

Shoes: Not Rated, DSW

Bag: Eleven Peacocks, Etsy

Sunglasses: Relic, Kohl's

 Dandy Candy Bag

Sailor's Sweetheart Necklace

Tee: Merona, Target

Shorts: ELLE, Kohl's

Shoes: Ami Clubwear

Belt: Apt. 9, Kohl's

Sunglasses: Mudd, Kohl's

Ah, the carnival.  That bastion of horror and glamour catered by corn dogs and deep-fried everything.  I was inspired by its strange, seedy splendor when I made this week's stuff, buoyed up by some leftover summer snack wagon (for this was no hallowed hipster food truck) photos.  My favorites are the two bags, castoffs from my closet that I prettied up with paint and rhinestones.  The Carnival Candy one reminds me of the Gravitron because its rows of rhinestones look like the Grav's lights against the stark white of that flying saucer-like vessel.  (Not that I'd ever ride such a beast, the Tilt-a-Whirl being far more my speed.)  To really seal in those carnival juices, this bag and its pastel twin also each sport an explosion of -- Flash Charms!  Yes, it's Flash Charms, Flash Charms, and more Flash Charms, now enough to open a shop up on Ebay.  But enough about that; time to get to the meat of the matter.

Last week, I referenced the classic and dignified novels of Agatha Christie.  This week . . . I'm going to talk about Sausage Party.  An animated raunch-fest from the minds of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, it's about what happens when anthropomorphic supermarket items discover their fate when someone buys them -- which is to say, that instead of going to paradise as they've been told, they get eaten.  As premises go, it's kind of a jarring one, so much so that I was thankful not to be chomping on popcorn or Junior Mints at the time.  Luckily, the voice-over cast is entertaining and helps to take the edge off.  It includes Jonah Hill, James Franco, Micheal Cera, Bill Hader, Danny McBride, Craig Robertson, Paul Rudd, and . . . Ed Norton?  What's he doing slumming it here?  Apparently, playing the Hulk back in 2008 was his gateway drug to more lowbrow fare.  Also puzzling, Selma Hayek.

No, this ain't no Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, a title, incidentally, I find much more offensive than Sausage Party, what with its balls of sauce-covered meat falling out of the sky and ruining everyone's outfits.  This one's not for the kiddies, a message my local theater sought to drive home with hand-written signs just in case the movie poster of a hot dog grinning under the words "a hero will rise" didn't send the message.  That having been said, there's a good, old-fashioned boy-meets-girl story sandwiched somewhere deep in here.  Seth Rogen and Kristen Wiig reprise their roles as star-crossed lovers in yet another bizarre what's-the-meaning-of-life-anyway movie (I refer, of course, to Paul, which was headlined by an extraterrestrial instead of foul-mouthed food).  Rogen is Frank, the aforementioned hot dog, and Wiig is Brenda -- what else? -- a hot dog bun.  Now, this movie is weird.  Like, weirder than Vanilla Sky weird, and that starred Tom Cruise.  For one thing, it employs a strange juxtaposition of cute and grotesque imagery.  Like Garbage Pail kids or Inside Out Boy from "PeeWee's Playhouse" -- only X-rated.  Also, you know how we all sometimes wonder if aliens will take over the world and eat us?  Well, this is like that, only with cartoons and cursing.  

As ever, a high point for me was Michael Cera.  (Sorry Paul Rudd, but your mean geek grocery store cashier just didn't do it for me.)  Ever the self-deprecating beta in a crowd of crude alphas, he plays Barry, the runty and misshapen hot dog who -- spoiler alert -- not only defies death, but gets the girl -- or, in this case, the smushed hot dog bun.  

Gross-outs and nihilistic worldview aside, it cannot be denied that Sausage Party asks some of life's most probing questions: What happens when we die?  Is anarchy ever the answer?  Will my Twinkies ever talk to me?  And, of course, is Sausage Party a trenchant social satire or just the by-product of a hallucinogenic spree?  

The movie plays at answering this by sending Frank and friends through a magic portal at the end, making us think, wait, maybe there is something out there after all.  Then, before we can start reading too much into it, Frank cheerfully reminds us, hey, it's just a cartoon!

I've heard they say the same about SpongeBob.      

Movie Moment: The Guilt Trip

About this picture:

gold = gilt = guilt

luggage = trip

It's not every blogger who will go to the trouble of unearthing her luggage just to make a bad pun.  But then, this blogger makes bad puns her business.

So, Barbara Streisand and Seth Rogen.  On a cross-country road trip.  As mother and son.  Need I say more?  Not only does The Guilt Trip hit both the stoner and baby boomer demographics, it's funny and heart warming without being mawkish, infusing new life into the aphorisms "mother knows best," and "it's not the destination, but the journey."

Andy (Rogen) is a thirtyish, Los Angeles-based chemist-turned-salesman trying to peddle his home-grown, organic wonder cleaner to legions of unfeeling superstores.  His endeavor is heartbreaking, and Rogen is perfect in his go-to role of the put-upon everyman, even if minus his raunchy edge.  Joyce (Streisand) is a sixtyish coupon-clipping, frog collecting, Weight Watchers member of a widow from New Jersey.  Her husband has been dead for decades, and Andy is her only child - as well as her favorite project.  A well-meaning but unrelenting nag from the school of passive-aggressive mothering, she has always driven Andy crazy, a dynamic that reaches its zenith when he guilt-riddenly invites her on his coast-to-coast, door-to-door sales odyssey.  Clad in her signature track suit, she obliviously and hilariously spit cleans his face, criticizes his sales pitch, tracks down his high school girlfriend, and plays tourist - all while listening to the Oprah's Book Club-approved Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides.  (Brief detour: Although I'd heard of Middlesex before seeing this movie, I'd assumed it was about the underbelly of a quaint New England town, not the misadventures of a hermaphrodite.  Imagine my surprise.)  But she does it all in the name of love, a truth that Andy cannot help but accept by the time their story makes its bittersweet landing in a San Francisco airport.  

As I left the theater I felt hopeful and happy and a little bit sad.  Which was just the right cocktail of emotion with which to greet 2013.