Things Annoying Me Today...

• Nancy Grace and her endlessly yapping mouth! I realize that the case of Caley and Casey Anthony (the 2-year old apparently killed by her mom) is hot news and right up Nancy's aisle of sensationalistic journalism revolving around the deaths of young children, but if I have to listen to her call Casey Anthony "tot mom" one more time, I'm gonna seriously slash my wrists. It's one thing to debate the case on your show, but shouting down anyone who doesn't immediately advocate for the death penalty and makes any point apart from "the prosecution is gonna slam dunk this case because "tot mom" is 100% guilty and there's nothing else to discuss" is getting so old. And her constant "tot mom" refrain just seems like a pathetic and demeaning attempt to make the story compact and soundbitey (similar to the horrendous moniker "Octomom").
• All the press coverage of the Sascha Baron Cohen Bruno movie. It might be hilarious - I thought Borat was a riot - but I'm already sick of seeing this guy show up everywhere in character looking like a goddamn rejected stunt cupid with Zoolander face. It's making me not want to EVER see your movie, dude! The upside of Michael Jackson's death is that it's pushed this loser off the front burner on E News (not that I'm particularly proud I watch that), but now I'm sick of the MJ coverage on every single news station. Can't win.
• Those Credit Report dot com commercials seem personally aimed at me in order to make me feel as pathetic as possible. Isn't it bad enough that I'm in massive debt without being reminded of the fact that I may end up a decrepit spinster as a result? "Hey loser, not only will you never be able to by a brand new car but your husband's gonna leave you!!! How do you like dem apples?!!?" What if I promise my future prospective husband that even though I'm his "dream girl with bad credit" we won't live in my parent's basement? (They don't have one, ha!) And what's really so bad about working at a Renaissance Faire anyway?
• Is Pixar sexist? So that's a huge exaggeration of the issue at hand. Apparently a female writer at NPR posted an open letter to Pixar requesting a female lead in one of the upcoming films. (See the original letter here.) This has sprouted a lot of controversy and an extreme distortion of her request. Cinematical has covered this debate and links to another blogger's overly defensive response: "Dear Pixar, How about a Chick Flick?" (See that article with link to the "Chick Flick" post here.) So now both sides are getting overly reactionary. The feminists are complaining about the lack of female leads in the Pixar cartoons and the guys are complaining about feminist shit that wants everything to be politically correct. But here is what I think the actual point of that open letter was: Pixar, you make the best cartoons around. And though you have created a lot of great female characters, the stories haven't been theirs - they've been supporting characters. And since you're the best around, could you please make one of your future flicks about an awesome female lead who's not a princess, cause the lead female characters are always princesses. That's all. It's not a criticism of Pixar or their films, or a request for there to be an equal number of male/female films. Just that we'd like to someday see a Pixar cartoon where Ellie from Up or Violet from The Incredibles were the main character.
  

But there are a couple of redeeming bits of pop culture on the horizon...

• I found this great clip of an SNL "Sex and the City" sketch with Christina Aguilera doing a kick-ass impersonation of Samantha. It gave me a chuckle. This is the only clip of it I could find.
  

• I really liked ABC's recently canceled mid-season replacement show "The Unusuals." It had a great cast (Harold Perrineau, Adam Goldberg, and Amber Tamblyn to name a few) but the guy that stuck out to me was Jeremy Renner. I've seen this guy around a lot, mostly in small, forgettable roles, and Elizabeth likes to tell me he was terrifying in a movie about Jeffrey Dahmer (where he starred), but other than that, don't know much about the guy. But after watching him in "The Unusuals" he's on my radar, I have a little crush, like his ability to be tough and tender and funny and cute. His current film, The Hurt Locker, is getting great reviews, so be on the lookout for that if you're interested. (Reviews of The Hurt Locker: Stephanie Zacharek, Entertainment Weekly, Pajiba)