BEST NEW SHOW TO WATCH Cashmere Mafia By: Amanda Leth
Sure the trailer for Cashmere Mafia looks about as funny and interesting as a show about senior citizens playing Bingo, but the actual show is surprisingly good. The premise is pretty basic: four young, smart, beautiful, successful women who are best friends. Think Sex an the City meets Desperate Housewives .
The most fabulous woman on the show is Lucy Liu; where has she been all my life? The main difference in this show is that all of the women have successful careers and have to balance them with their relationships.
Cashmere Mafia also has a non-cheesy romantic feel. The show opens with a marriage proposal but quickly extinguishes the campy vibe by throwing the newly-engaged couple into a highly competitive situation at work.
The show is a midseason replacement, and the network has already filmed seven episodes. The show premieres this Sunday on ABC at 10/9 CST.
BEST COMEDY TO MAKE YOU CRYP.S. I Love YouBy: Irene Medina
“Why can’t I be the cute, carefree Irish guy that sings all the time?”
If you want to cry and laugh for exactly 126 minutes then P.S. I Love You is definitely your match. This movie not only features Hilary Swank (Boys Don’t Cry), but she brings along a string of suave blue-eyed Irish men with sexy accents that will make you think twice about FAU guys.
Holly Kennedy (Hilary Swank) is a smart, funny, designer who fell in love with Gerry Kennedy (Gerard Butler), an Irish musician, when they were 19 and they have been inseparable since. But after Gerry dies, Holly finds herself lost without her soul mate and unable to move on with her life.
Until her 30th birthday when she finds out that Gerry has written her letters for her to read after he’s gone. For good or bad, Holly confides in her husband’s letters and they help her find herself after his death.
Be prepared to bring a Kleenex box, a couple of your friends, and some good ol’ popcorn, because this movie will bring out tears in you that you never even knew you had.
P.S.: I don’t love you, but you will love Ireland a whole lot more after you see this movie.
BEST TREND FOR THE WEEKENDBelts are backBy: Irene Medina
With a new year, there are also new trends and for 2008 belts are the next big thing. Again.
Belts are once more the accessory that everyone’s talking about. Wear them with jeans, shirts, or dresses: these are the one thing that will take you from average to fabulous in just a few minutes.
The trend has changed a bit since back in the day; for this season the must-have now in style has a thinner, longer, shape. Forget about those big, super-colorful belts. Pink, purple, and most of the spring colors are what’s in for belts for spring/summer 2008.
Accessorize your outfits with a nice purse, cute flats, and a belt of course and you’re set for the new year.
BEST MOVIE TO GET YOUR FIX OF WAR, LOVE, AND WHISKEYCharlie Wilson’s WarBy: Irene Medina
Congressman Charlie Wilson (Tom Hanks) is not like any other. His office is run by attractive women, he starts drinking at 10:00 a.m., and he is certainly not afraid of going off to countries such as Afghanistan in request of a favor.
Set in Texas in this drama about the war, we go into Charlie Wilson’s mind-a man who changed the world and history itself-after assisting Afghanistan in the war with the Soviets after visiting the country and receiving a shocking dose of reality when he went to the depressing local shelter full of sick, starving refugees.
With the help of a renegade CIA agent (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a Houston socialite with all the right contacts who leads Wilson to the cause (Julia Roberts), and a dictator fascinated with the socialite, Wilson manages to end the war with the Soviets and bring temporary peace to the Middle East.
Based on a true story, this movie tells the story of a man working for a cause and the spinning tale of what the world can come to when somebody like Charlie Wilson takes the lead and matters such as the war with the Soviets into his own hands.
BEST MOVIE TO WATCH OVER THE WEEKEND
Master DebatersNo pros or cons for this biopic – Debaters delivers passion, historical insight by Phillip Valys Entertainment Editor
As Denzel Washington’s last racially-conscious underdog crowd-pleaser Remember the Titans glaringly admits, ethnic prejudice went as angrily untamed on the football field as public transportation and segregated schools. Add another extracurricular to that list, says director Denzel Washington and producer Oprah Winfrey: the debate team.
Although The Great Debaters spotlights one gleaming segment of the life of Harlem Renaissance firebrand poet Melvin B. Tolson (also Washington), the camera lens sticks to meatier fare – his dynamo quartet of student charges.
Yep, and Tolson’s all-black debate team at the pint-sized Wiley College is wicked smart: Henry Lowe’s (Nate Parker) the fiercely intelligent rebel; Samantha Book (Jurnee Smollett) is the lone femme whose verbal jousting is matched solely by her beauty; James Farmer, Jr.’s (Denzel Whitaker) the 14-year-old wunderkind with unparalleled research skills; and Hamilton Burgess (Jermane Williams) is the, ahem, fat kid.
But hey, scratch that last one – Burgess quits after learning about Tolson’s Communist leanings. See, while the ace debate coach schools his crack unit by day with oral eloquence, he takes to the crowded barns at night swapping radical ideas with fellow Farmers Union sharecroppers.
So, minus one scholar, Tolson and trio travel cross-country debating the best black colleges – until they finally attract attention from the University of Southern California (Harvard in the film).
Washington (first directorial effort was 2002’s Antwone Fisher) shines here as always with good-natured charisma while Whitaker’s father (Forest Whitaker, no relation) delivers a simmering portrait as a Wiley professor. Credit to the young actors also, who inject potency and dignity into their often one-note characters.
But Debaters deserves kudos for dodging clichés and indulging in passionate storytelling. Never buckling under the praxis of Disney-fying its Hollywood underdog narrative, the film earns its victories without fail
