Passing 40

Midlife for Paul and Debbie - Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
It’s mid-March and the weather has become blustery, cold and wet. Just last week I was wearing shorts for St. Patrick’s day. The weather is changeable like my mood, and like the topic of this blog. Because I’m not “on fire” with any subject, this will be a pot pourri of thoughts.

I bought groceries at Krogers today, and they were giving away samples of everything. I had homemade peanut butter (first time ever) and it was incredible. I was in peanut paste heaven. I didn’t even know it was a thing you could buy. I may still go buy some but it’s something like 100 calories for one teaspoon. They had almond and peanut varieties. I also had several guacamole chips from an untended sample stand. Oink!

Starbucks is giving “Pick of the Week” cards for WikiWeb. You can already get Wikipedia on the web, via their mobile web site. How many apps are really just web sites in thin disguise? I’ve noticed that apps reach overload pretty quickly on my devices. They trigger annoying updates and clutter the screen. Periodically I do spring cleaning -- uninstall things I haven’t clicked on maybe ever.

In politics, Republicans continue to astound me with their inflexibility and insincerity. I can’t imagine any self-respecting person who isn’t a white, mainstream male voting for that party. They remind me of the Whig Party of 1860 -- a party so buckled with archaic nastiness and internal dissension that finally nobody wanted to admit an affiliation with it. “What if you had a party and nobody came?” Mark Rubio, Ted Cruze and Paul Ryan are all tired and lame despite their fresh faces.

Enough blather, I’ll tackle today’s movie review …

THIS IS 40

This Is 40 is a romantic comedy written and directed by Judd Apatow. Apatow is a comedically gifted man known previously for The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up. I think This Is 40 is his best work yet. It's a “romcom” centered around the lives of Paul, a music producer, and his wife Debbie who manages a woman’s clothing store. They have two daughters (ages 13 and 8), played expertly by Apatow’s own daughters. Debbie (Leslie Mann) is approaching 40 and having a midlife crisis that sends her into bitchy rants, bouts of self-doubt, endless self-help psychobabble and therapy sessions.

Her husband (Paul Rudd) is at the receiving end of the rants and things aren’t going so well on his end either. Paul is also approaching the magic 4-0 while his music company struggles to keep alive. His moochy father is tapping into money the family needs for itself and his flaky employees seem to work against him as much as with him. The excellence of this movie is that it doesn’t rely on convoluted plot twists or complicated layers. It’s a fairly straightforward presentation of a loving family dealing with life situations. The humor is carried in the back-and-forth dialog of a family “on the brink”. In truth, it’s a loving family on the brink of discovering what’s important. Leslie Mann knocks this one out of the park -- her neurotic mannerisms and midlife freakout are very believable. Watch for the scene where Melissa McCarthy (a friend’s Mother) has a meltdown in the principal’s office. Another solid gold scene is a food orgy in a hotel room (enough said).

OK, that’s my review in a nutshell -- fairly compact this time around. I’m watching the news and nothing has gripped me. I truly hope that Valerie Harper’s recently announced brain cancer goes into remission. Rhoda Morgenstern was a hero to a whole generation of Americans and the wonderful actress who played her should live to see 100.

© 2012 blogSpotter