What do you think of Jenny McCarthy’s hair?

Put “Hollywood” and “It Girl” in the same sentence and you probably think blonde bombshell with a few cheesy action flicks bulking up her resume, not actress who lives with her sister, plays in an indie rock band, and loves clothing from the ‘60s.

But that’s why NYLON put Zooey Deschanel on the cover of NYLON’s It Girl issue: She doesn’t even have to try to be cool, she just is.

Here are four more reasons why NYLON’s obsessed with Zooey:

1. Before she could even talk, Zooey was singing the words to “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”

2. She’s a vintage fiend with a penchant for big hair. “I’m secretly a country singer at heart,” Zooey explains.

3. She comes from a Hollywood family yet calls herself a “homebody” and stays away from the velvet rope scene in L.A.

4. Although she loves being in a band—“Now that I’ve experienced what it’s like to stand up there and sing my own songs, I just can’t imagine wanting to do anything else”—Zooey’s not ditching acting just yet; she’ll be making several appearances at a theater near you in the coming months.

Source

I read this this morning, and was laughing sooooo hard. So I thought I’d share.

“I SEE YOU EYEIN’ MAH LEMON DRANK!”

M. Night Shyamalan’s latest movie, The Happening, is not merely bad. It is an astonishment, so idiotic in conception and inept in execution that, after seeing it, one almost wonders whether it was real or imagined. It’s the kind of movie you want to laugh about with friends, swapping favorite moments of inanity: “Do you remember the part when Mark Wahlberg … ?” “God, yes. And what about that scene where the wind … ?”

The problem, of course, is that to have such a conversation, you’d normally have to see the movie, which I believe is an unreasonably high price to pay just to make fun of it. So rather than write a conventional review explaining why you should or shouldn’t see The Happening (trust me, you shouldn’t), I’m offering an alternative: A dozen and a half of the most mind-bendingly ridiculous elements of the film, which will enable you to marvel at its anti-genius without sacrificing (and I don’t use that term lightly) 90 minutes of your life. As this is intended to be an alternative to seeing the actual film it is, of course, overflowing with spoilers. Those who still intend to see the film despite my warnings should probably stop reading now; those looking for a more typical review should stop by www.rottentomatoes.com and take their pick. For the rest, onward:

1. The single most absurd element of The Happening, the wellspring from which all other absurdities flow, is its conceit: Across the Northeastern United States, people are succumbing to a toxic airborne agent that makes them commit suicide, often gruesomely. At first it hits major population centers, followed by smaller towns, and on down to groups of even just a handful of people. Initially, it’s assumed to be some kind of terrorist attack. But as we learn pretty early in the film, it’s not. It’s trees. Yes, the trees (and perhaps some bushes and grass, too, the movie’s never too clear on this point) have tired of humankind’s ecological despoilment and are emitting a complicated aerial neurotoxin that makes us kill ourselves en masse. I bet you wish you were the one who came up with this blockbuster idea.

2. A bad plot can be only so bad without a bad performance at the center of it, and star Mark Wahlberg delivers. As science teacher Elliot Moore, he is not merely unpersuasive, but dim, whiny, indecisive, and self-pitying. Given the amorphous nature of the threat–the villain, after all, is foliage–the movie needed its star to bring some energy, some empathy, some heroism, some something to the proceedings. Not happening. From the start, Wahlberg looks like he wants to tear off his sweater vest and launch into a Departed-style tirade of obscene invective that never comes.

3. John Leguizamo plays Julian, the Minority Best Friend, so it’s easy to guess what will become of him in a high-body-count movie. Less easy to guess is that, in the midst of this deadly crisis, he will dump his 8-year-old daughter Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez) on Elliot and his wife, Alma (Zooey Deschanel, whose luminous blue orbs are the best thing in the film), in order to drive to another state looking for his own wife. This is especially odd given that Julian has made it clear that he dislikes Alma and wants to keep Jess away from her, and everyone in the film has made a point of very clearly enunciating that Elliot and Alma have serious problems in their marriage. (Yeah, this whole part was BULLSHIT)

4. The biggest problem, it is ultimately revealed, is that Alma had a dessert date with a male colleague named “Joey,” who has since pestered her on her cell phone. At first it seems that “dessert” may be a euphemism, or was perhaps a prelude to a greater indiscretion. But no: This tiramisu was just tiramisu and, as such, a marital misdemeanor by most reckonings. That does not spare us from the tearful, guilt-ridden apology, however.

5. But enough about the boring interpersonal melodrama: On to the boring arboreal genocide! Each time the airborne toxin strikes, everyone ceases what they were doing and freezes in their tracks for a moment. It took several such episodes before I stopped anticipating that they’d commence tapping their feet in unison, as in the beginning of a big musical ensemble number.

6-18 after the jump!! (more…)

Are you going to see “The Happening”? (Zooey was on Letterman to promote the film, which is out tomorrow)

I have a love-hate relationship with M. Night Shyamalan. I loved “The Sixth Sense”, “Unbreakable” and “Signs”. Signs scared the crap out of me… gotta say. But then I went on and hated “The Village” and “Lady in the Water”. The latter was so bad, it was comical. So I’m really hoping that “The Happening” will be his return to making good movies. Of course I’ll still see it… and probably be scared out of my mind…but I hope I love it.

WENN

Plot Outline: A comedy centered around a mattress salesman and the young woman whom he meets at his store.

Splash

The Sci-Fi channel reimagined The Wizard of Oz in more ways than one with the making of Tin Man. The mini series was a story of D.G. (Dorothy) who gets swept up by a tornado and taken back to the O.Z. (outer zone) where she is in search of the emerald to save the O.Z. from her sister Azkadillia and find her mother.

The tin man is an officer for Central City and he reminds us to have a heart. The zipperhead, Ambrose, has lost his brain due to Azkadillia having it removed to power her super machine. The lion is a clairvoyant of sorts, and Toto is an African American man who shape-shifts from dog to man.

I’m not going to give away the ending, but I liked it and the twist that they put on the entire storyline. It was definitely different.

What did you think?