I've loved the Dandy Warhols ever since I heard one of their songs on the "Veronica Mars" soundtrack. "And Then I Dreamt of Yes" is perfect to listen to before heading off to bed...which I did before I went to sleep last night.

I slept pretty well, actually. Coincidence? I don't know, but I slept better than I did when I used my natural sleep aids the rest of the week:)

Maybe listening to quieter music and less rousing stuff (like dance tracks and loud crime shows on tv) in the evening is the way to go...

You could have knocked me over with a feather this morning when a library patron came in and asked me if we owned "If Tomorrow Comes" on DVD...We don't own it at all so I've offered him my copy when he is able to track down a VCR player...can't wait to talk to him after he's watched it.

When I first wrote about this VHS I was so sure that it would be out on DVD someday, but alas it still is not...definitely one of the best mini-series of the 80s. I just saw that it IS available in a non-USA region DVD...darn! Wish it were available here...





The tv mini-series, in all its true glory, died in the 80s. Jane Seymour and Jacqueline Smith were the queens of the shamelessly fun ones such as "Crossings" and "Rage of Angels," but the oh-so-underrated Madolyn Smith brought adorable innocence to the table when she debuted in "If Tomorrow Comes."

I used to drive my sister crazy during 1986 as I'd watch "ITC" over and over on the VHS cassette I'd used to tape the 3-night miniseries. One day in the late 90s I was shopping and I spotted the movie on professional VHS. Forgetting where I was, I squealed out loud in excitement and an elderly woman nearby looked at me with alarm before she scurried off faster than I'd ever seen anyone move. I probably should have restrained myself, but I had lost my copy years before and all the good memories I'd had of it came flooding back right there in the store.

If only "If Tomorrow Comes" were on DVD...It seems clunky now to go through all three tapes, but it's still worth it, watching the story of the way-too-trusting Tracy Whitney as she faces betrayal and injustice before she battles her way back with a charm and vengeance that can only come from deep suffering and a need for closure.

There are so many reasons to like "ITC," but if I had to list five of them...

--Revenge has never been so sweetly calculated or free of violence. (I enjoy David Mamet's brand of the dirty double cross, but sometimes it's nice to see the softer side of retribution.)

--It's always neat to see talented actors in their earlier days (i.e. CCH Pounder, Tom Berenger, Liam Neeson.)

--Madolyn Smith is so endearing here AND she shows so much promise as an actress. You have to wonder why she didn't go on to do bigger and better things. ("Funny Farm," while cute and harmless enough, just doesn't hold up to what she does in "If Tomorrow Comes.")

--Tom Berenger!! (Those of you who appreciate Mr. Berenger's sex appeal and understated acting will understand! To this day, I still don't get why he isn't more well-known and valued.)

--No other tv movie that followed ever recaptured the true guilty pleasure spirit of the "big" mini-series (except for the very serious and unforgettable "War and Remembrance," which falls under "big" rather than "guilty pleasure" since it had a very important message and hardly could be considered light fare.)


Give "tomorrow" a chance! I would suggest you hold out and wait for a DVD release (which might offer a clearer picture resolution) but it doesn't look like that's on the horizon...

I thought "New Adventures of Old Christine" was pretty funny tonight...loved it when Christine said to Blair Underwood's character (Mr. Harris) when they were at his 25th high school reunion: "Did you EVER go through an awkward phase? My senior year...my acne medication had dried my face out and I looked like a block of Parmesan cheese with a Joan Jett haircut."

The episode was one of the best this season, which has been a little lackluster compared to the first and second and some of the third...maybe because of Blair Underwood's return? The very likable actor lends a charm to his character that you don't see everyday in sitcoms and that charm is sort of an inside joke (and even exaggeration) because pretty much everyone who meets him falls in love with him, including Christine's brother and even her ex-husband.

Of course I think the writing also had something to do with it AND Wanda Sykes was on tonight's episode...Christine's brother Matthew also had some pretty hilarious moments, too!:)


If you don't watch "New Adventures of Old Christine" here's a little bit about the show:



Meet Christine. She’ll make you laugh. She’ll make you cry. She’ll make you feel a LOT better about that time you accidentally wore your slippers (bedroom, not ballet) to pick up your kids from school.

With a cast including Wanda Sykes, Clark Gregg and Hamish Linklater, The New Adventures of Old Christine: Season One stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus and proves that the Seinfeld curse CAN be broken. The actress formerly known as "Elaine" even won an Emmy for the title role she plays here.

If you haven’t seen The New Adventures of Old Christine, you better get started watching now; it’s THAT good! Dreyfus plays a single, divorced mom trying her best to survive in a world where "meanie moms" rule the fundraisers at her son’s private school and running a gym with business partner Barbara (played by the wickedly funny Sykes) is mostly an excuse to diss the members.

Throw in some bad dating that’s worse than a root canal and the fact that her ex is currently dating a much younger woman also named Christine and you get an idea of all that could go hilariously wrong. (Hint: the messy purse pictured on the top of "old" Christine’s car is nothing compared to her usual self-absorbed, but somehow endearing faux pas of the day.)

I found the late fall (four week) airing of the re-vamped "V" to be pretty interesting, especially the last of the four back in November. In the episode entitled "It's Only the Beginning" the alien leader Anna, played so well with cold calculating precision by Morena Baccarin, is upping her mission to convince the world she can be as human as the rest of them and has everyone's best interests at heart. (Of course, as any loyal "V" viewer-past of present-knows, this is far from the truth since she and her reptilian co-horts are secretly plotting the world's demise)

"It's Only the Beginning" has an amazing closing moment where Anna goes off to meditate in a quiet part of her spaceship (sounds kooky, but this scene really works!) and the Sigur Ros song "Svefn-g-Englar" begins to play. The moment I heard this song my blood chilled. I have long loved it ever since it was used (just as well as it is in the scene from "V") perfectly in the often-hated, but actually-pretty-good film "Vanilla Sky."

I just hope ABC does indeed bring "V" back in March and that the long absence doesn't kill its chances in the ratings...

I just finished watching the series premiere of "Life Unexpected" which will be airing Monday nights on the CW at 9 p.m. (hopefully) for the next few months...not only did I like it, it made me tear up at the end and feel all warm and toasty inside...The promos keep calling it "Juno meets the Gilmore Girls."

The show centers around "Lux," a 15-year-old (almost 16, she insists!) trying to find her birth parents so she can get her emancipation papers signed and escape the horrors she has found living in foster care. Britt Robertson, the actress playing the spirited teenage girl, has the tricky job of balancing street smarts and world weary soul with a perkiness that keeps her from being a hardened downer...definitely "Juno" material:)

It is a testament to both the writers and actors that what might otherwise be a hokey show with too many convenient plot devices actually has a lot of heart and soul to it. Shiri Appleby and Kristoffer Polaha are quite convincing as two 30somethings who never really managed to grow up. "You both can't be parents, you both need parents!" Lux says to them at one point in the episode shortly after she has met them for the first time.

And the music selection is great, too...or at least the three songs featured in the first episode, one of them being the lovely and vulnerable "First Day of My Life" by Bright Eyes.

The New York Times reviewed it yesterday, though I don't think they liked it as much as I did:)

Here's the review:

Television Review | 'Life Unexpected'
Wise Teenager, Unpromising Parents
By MIKE HALE

The CW network, with its interchangeable casts and its New Mexico-size audiences (current population: around 2 million), is often dismissed as the kid’s table of prime time. It’s not a bad place to sit, though: with “Gossip Girl,” “The Vampire Diaries” and “Supernatural” representing 30 percent of its nighttime schedule, CW has as high a percentage of purely enjoyable programming as any broadcast network.

It’s too early to tell whether “Life Unexpected,” beginning Monday night, will increase that ratio. CW shows tend to walk a thin line between escapism and soap opera, and after its witty pilot the show spends Episodes 2 and 3 massaging the tear ducts, hard.

But there is the potential for something at least as good as “Gilmore Girls,” to which “Life Unexpected” will be compared. The film “Juno” is another reference point, as are earlier shows like “Party of Five” and “My So-Called Life,” though “Unexpected” at its best is lighter and jokier than those forerunners.

The pilot sets up the situation with record speed. In six and a half minutes of screen time, 15-year-old Lux (Britt Robertson), a product of a one-night stand who has spent her life bouncing around the foster-care system in Portland, Ore., tracks down her birth parents and figures them out. Foster care is “Scope-drinking moms and creepy dads that try to hit on me,” but Lux’s parents are unpromising in their own ways: her dad, Baze (Kristoffer Polaha), is an overgrown adolescent with no sense of responsibility, and her mom, Cate (Shiri Appleby), is a jittery commitment-phobe with no visible maternal instinct.

It shouldn’t matter, because all that Lux needs them to do is sign the paperwork for her emancipation hearing. But faster than you can say unlikely plot contrivance, she has been remanded into their shared custody, where, over the course of 13 episodes, she can move back and forth between rebellion and grudging respect.

The “Juno” comparison is double edged: Lux is the wise child, taking her life in her own hands. (“You can’t be parents,” she tells Cate and Baze, “you both need parents.”) But instead of facing an unexpected pregnancy she’s the product of one. She’s Juno’s baby grown up, if that baby’s life had gone haywire early on. Cate thought Lux would be adopted, but it didn’t happen; Baze never knew that she had been born.

Unconventional families and arrested development (“Some of us peak in high school,” Baze whines, expressing the fears of a generation) aren’t the freshest subjects. And with its plaintive pop music and standard-issue CW stars — Ms. Appleby could be the older sister of both Nina Dobrev from “The Vampire Diaries” and Mischa Barton from “The Beautiful Life” — “Life Unexpected” could pretty easily settle into the network’s formulas.

The first episode avoids that with sharp writing and appealing performances, particularly from Mr. Polaha. (He was the shop-teacher love object on the short-lived Judy Greer series “Miss Guided” two seasons ago.) Baze, who lives above the bar he rents from his father, sums up his life by saying, “My dad said do what I love, and I love to drink for free.”

The show has fun with Baze and his high school pals, and with the wary relationship between Cate and Baze, who fall back in lust as soon as Lux reunites them. It doesn’t quite know what to do with Lux, however, and Ms. Robertson has to spend too much time being either primly disapproving or anguished. The subsequent episodes try to introduce complications for her — street-kid friends on one side, scheming grandparents on the other — in contrived story lines that drag the show toward melodrama.

CW thinks enough of “Life Unexpected” to put it in the Monday night slot usually occupied by “Gossip Girl,” so it’s likely that we’ll get to see all 13 episodes. Whether we see more may depend on whether the writers can readjust the balance between humor and heartache.

LIFE UNEXPECTED

CW, Monday nights at 9, Eastern and Pacific times; 8, Central time.

Liz Tigelaar, Janet Leahy and Gary Fleder, executive producers. Produced by Mojo Films in association with CBS Television Studios and Warner Brothers Television.

WITH: Britt Robertson (Lux), Shiri Appleby (Cate Cassidy), Kristoffer Polaha (Nate Bazile, a k a Baze), Austin Basis (Math), Reggie Austin (Jamie) and Kerr Smith (Ryan Thomas).