Friday, November 28, 2008

Black Friday Alternatives

Take some time away from your shopping (or from contemplating the horrors of consumerist America) with some quality entertainment tonight. Here are a few suggestions.

1. The Psych 2008 Christmas Special

The clearly-superior-to-CBS-rip-off-The-Mentalist fake psychic / real detective show is back with a Christmas special tonight on USA. I’m sure it will air a few dozen times between now and Christmas so there’s technically no rush to go see it, but all the cool kids are gonna watch it tonight, and you want to be one of the cool kids, don’t you?

2. Australia

I’ll do a full review this weekend, but I went to go see it this afternoon and holy crap is it fantastic. Normally, anything resembling a Western makes me break out into hives, but never fear, this is a big, lush, sweeping romantic epic that’s sure to please any fans of Baz’s other movies (Moulin Rouge!, Romeo + Juliet), as well as anyone with a still-beating heart in their chest.

3. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and The Namesake

Thanksgiving’s all about celebrating immigration (and the slaughter of indigenous people...with pie). In that vein (immigration, not slaughter), why not pick up two great books exploring recent immigration experiences, The Brief Life of Oscar Wao by Dominican author Junot Diaz and The Namesake by Indian author Jhumpa Lahiri.


Or just watch this hilarious clip from yesterday's Thanksgiving Day Parade:

2 comments:

richgoldstein13 said...

When people talk about Baz Lurhman, they never mention Strictly Ballroom even though that is arguably his best movie; at the very least, it is certainly the funniest.

You're right, that clip is hilarious.

Sex Mahoney for President

smd said...

I'm guilty of that, I admit. Moulin Rouge is my all time favorite movie, and Romeo + Juliet makes my top 10, I even went to see the Bazified version of La Boheme on Broadway a few years ago, yet I've never even seen Strictly Ballroom, which seems kind of silly. In my defense, when I was at the height of my Bazmania, Netflix hadn't yet been invented, my local Blockbuster never had a copy, and it was never on TV, so somehow I just never got around to seeing it. But now I don't have the Netflix excuse, so I should definitely put it at the top of my queue.