On Our Radar: Our Annual Girls’ Get Together!

Every year, the weekend after New Year’s, we get together with our four best friends for our annual girls’ get together. This weekend is great because the holiday craziness is over and it's pretty quiet. We met pre-training bra, grew up together in Virginia, and use D.C. as our meeting spot. (That's our picture in the Hotel Rouge last year.) It started out four years ago as a brunch then morphed into an overnight stay at a hotel. The dynamics change depending on who is preggers and who has young kids, whether the Redskins are in the playoffs (they are again this year—WooHoo!) and if we hit the bars late night or stay in. We visit, exchange racy presents, drink copious amounts of wine (watch out, girls, we're bringing margaritas this year!), make fun of each other, eat dinner, and finally pass out from all that revelry. But of course, somethings never change at all—like how much fun we have when the 6 of us are all in one room. Shannon put it well when she said, "I really just love getting to see how the women I've known longest and best have grown, changed, and yet remained the same friends I've loved since childhood."
This year, we’re headed to the Hotel Palomar, another of the fabulous Kimpton hotels.

We encourage all of you to create your own tradition.

awesome movie poster friday- THE DESCENT edition!

I was intending to do a 'posters from some of my favorite movies' edition, but when I came across 7 different posters for The Descent, I decided it should probably have its own special day. So there.









Thanks to JA (aka The Man) for that last one!

Worth Brown-Bagging Lunch for a Month

First off, our apologies if your resolution is to start saving more money. And don’t get us wrong—we love a bargain as much as the next girl. We proudly wear our Go International jackets and Banana Republic jewelry and will brag to anyone who will listen about how much we didn’t spend on them. But there are a few things that we have found that are truly worth the extra dough and sacrifice.We’re starting this column to introduce you to a few of them. (Just don’t go into debt for an item of clothing. That’s plain stupid.)

First up, Jimmy Choos. The other night at dinner, our friend Heidi said she didn’t think they were worth the money (Her husband, one of our most loyal readers, is going to be so pleased as punch when he sees this. Hey, Michael!) We, however, strongly disagreed.
Where to start? Jimmys are undeniably works of art. When you see one in a magazine or a store, they just make you smile. But that alone is not a reason to break out the peanut butter. What is? They are actually comfortable, even the 4” F**K Me Heels, because they’re well made and the leather is supple. That means it moves with your foot—Bye! Bye! Blisters.
The shoes make your feet look sexy and by extension your legs. When trying on a pair, be sure to catch a glimpse of your hot self from the back. The super-skinny heels make your calves look skinny. Take a pair of more stolid heels with you and you’ll see the difference. It’s like you take a 3-mile jog every morning! Even the classic pumps make our feet look sexy in an unbuttoned librarian kinda way. You can see just the right amount of toe cleavage. You just feel smokin’ hot when you wear them, even on a bad hair day.
Not sold yet? On a recent night outside NYC’s obnoxiously hot Beatrice Inn, while others we’re being told there was a private party inside, we shimmied up to the bouncer. He looked us up and down and down again. We both had on our Jimmy’s. Said bouncer welcomed us past the velvet ropes.
Note: It is possible to find Jimmy’s on sale. It’s towards the tale end, so sizes may be limited, but try Bergdorf Goodman and Net-a-Porter. You can thank us for it later.

foreign relations

Did you know that they make movies in languages other than English? I know, I know...I had no idea either! According to my brand new 2008 Fact-A-Day desk calendar, however, it's entirely true.

It seems serendipitous*, then, that I stumbled on the trailer for the new Norwegian horror flick Rovdyr on the very day I learned this startling fact. The film seems to be about a group of teenagers who travel via van into the woods for one reason or another, wherein they are set upon by some woodsy-types intent on doing them harm. I know, I know...but it's not a remake!

See the trailer for yourself.

What I almost find the most interesting is the teeny-tiny logo for Lee Jeans in the bottom left corner of the poster. It's just not right, somehow.




*Yes, 'serendipitous'. Last year I had a Word-A-Day desk calendar!

Lie Down: Sleep Hunter

I think we can all agree that Netflix is just a tiny little bit the best thing ever, yes? You make a list of movies, they send you stuff, it's swell. My queue is an unwieldy beast; I've had titles on there for well over a year that I've yet to see. I'll do an event week or some such that'll require stacking up the top of the list and thus older movies linger at the bottom, wondering when they'll get a chance to spend some time with me. Every once in a while, a movie shows up in my mailbox that makes me think that perhaps someone has hacked into my account; I'll open the envelope, read the title, and think "Hmm. Funny. I don't recall...why the hell did I add this to my queue? Why in God's name did I suddenly take an interest in the works of Nora Ephron? Who's done this to meeeeeee?" I scratch my head and ponder a bit, and maybe I'll remember. "Oh yeah, that was the time I was hopped up on Vicodin and peanut brittle and watching an Andie Macdowell movie seemed like a good idea. *shudder*" Sometimes, no matter how much pondering takes place, I honestly have no clue as to why I added a film to my queue- all I know is, I have the DVD now and them's the breaks. Such is the case with Rise: Blood Hunter, the 2007 Lucy Liu OMG she's a vampire AND a vampire hunter vehicle. Why did I want to see this? I'm not especially into vampires. Am I especially into Lucy Liu? I don't remember. Who can say? It's all just another mystery lost to the sands of time. And like those sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.

At any rate, I watched the movie and surprisingly enough it didn't make me want to kill myself.

Lucy Liu is Sadie Blake, a plucky reporter for the LA Weekly who gets in a bit over her head when she investigates a cult of young vampire-wannabes. She soon finds more than a mere group of goth "Dungeons & Dragons with nipple rings" kids- she finds...real live vampires! Before you can say "OMG this is kinda just like that Hellraiser movie with Kari Wuhrer where she plays a plucky reporter investigating a cult of weirdos who gets totally over her head and there's Pinhead and stuff...I loved that movie! No wait, that movie kinda sucked.", Sadie is rolling around with Bishop (James D'Arcy) and Eve (Carla Gugino) and there's biting, boinking, and blood...ing.

Sadie wakes up in a drawer at the morgue, totally dead but not at all dead, for she...is...A VAMPIRE! Unfortunately, she hates being a vampire so she decides to seek revenge on Bishop and Eve. Accompanied by a drunk-n-maverick plays-by-his-own-rules grizzled detective (Michael Chiklis), Sadie sets out with her trusty crossbow for a little good ol' fashioned revengening.

Yes, I said "her trusty crossbow".

"Wait, have I ALWAYS had this second vagina on my neck?"

That's a cheeky little plot summary that's a hell of a lot more straightforward than the film itself. The narrative zips back and forth throughout time as Sadie's story is pieced together, and I found myself spending a bit of time going "Wait, are there two Sadies? Why does her hair keep changing? What happened to that guy? Lawd a'mighty, where did she get that crossbow and how did she get so damn tough?" before it all made sense. By the time Rise was over, I'd experienced a wild and magical rainbow tapestry of feelings and emotions: by the half-hour mark, I was disappointed; by the hour mark, I was into it; by 1:15, I was really into it; at 90 minutes I was coming down; by the time it was over- clocking in at about two frickin' hours- I felt as if I'd just completed a tour of duty, finally finishing a movie I'd started watching when I was 12.

Writer/director Sebastian Gutierrez attempts a different approach to The Vampire with this film and it's a hit-and-miss operation. There are no fangs to be found- rather, the bloodsuckers slash throats and...uh, suck blood. There's no silly hissing, super jumping, or weird contact lenses...in fact, I don't think anyone even uses the word "vampire" during Rise. On the one hand, it's like, well, if I don't end up wearing a sweet cape and a bitchin' medallion and I can't turn into a bat, then what's the point of being a vampire? On the other hand, it was completely and totally refreshing to find storytelling unencumbered by mythos.

Unfortunately, the result is a bit, well, dull. Rise is ultimately short on action and long on...long on...umm...I don't remember! A large amount of time is spent meandering from one plot point to the next, and it ends up feeling a bit bloated. Not that it had to be all action, certainly; the ten minutes or so spent with Sadie when she first "turned" comprised, in my opinion, the best ten minutes of the film. She was confused, remorseful, and desperate as she engaged in her first kill to quell her growing hunger and contacted her family one last time. Had this sort of character development continued throughout the movie (Sadie evolves into a tough killing machine without much onscreen evolution), Gutierrez really would've knocked it out of the park. Liu does the best she can with what's given, but she's not always given much.

There's lots of talk about sex during Rise, and I think the whole "turning" deal is supposed to be super duper wicked erotic, but...it's not. Not really. It's fairly brief and quite bloody, and most of the nudity in the film is of the disturbing "OMG that meat locker is full of human meat!" variety. Vampires and eroticism tend to go hand in hand, but Rise seems to be more about telling than about doing.

Overall, I think I enjoyed Rise: Blood Hunter. The DVD running time is wayyyy too long, and as I said I was a bit exhausted by the time it was over...but it really wasn't bad. Then again, take my hesitant recommendation with a grain of salt. You see, I'm one of those people who dig a movie if there's some little nugget or idea in there that strikes me; the movie as a whole might stink, but then I find myself saying "Yeah, but that one part was cool!" which leads to "Rise was awesome" which leads to "Wait, I love Lucy Liu and I need to go add all her movies to my Netflix queue!"

*GASP* I think I'm on to something here...

Don't Get Gamed

We first read The Game a few years ago on the suggestion of our hedge fund manager friend, Bobby. For the uninitiated, it’s a book of pick up techniques for lovelorn- loser- nerdy boys. We’re all for confidence builders, but The Game focused heavily on how to trick girls into bed. It’s also what VH1 based its show, The Pick Up Artist on with Mystery, who always wore crazy hats like this furry, Mad Hatter-inspired one. (Hello! We know you're trying to hide your thinning hair!). Mystery, who features heavily in the book, teaches boys who either a) have really bad skin b) still live with their parents c) play way too much XBox or d) all of the above how to pick up chicks. In the shows defense—it did have a sweet element to it that the book lacked. All the boys inevitably cried when getting kicked off and thanked Mystery for showing them that they could talk to girls, have friends and aren’t destined to live in their parents basement forever.

Regardless, it has been a few years since the book came out and we thought the show would have blown the cover on all of the techniques. But at The Park in D.C. recently, we had a boy try to “game” us. We don’t want this to happen to you. Be on the lookout for flamboyantly- dressed guys who:


1. Ask if your friends are sisters or if you are best friends.

2. Ask you to describe a cube in a field or your ideal house or something similar that ends up revealing “deep psychological issues.”

3. The neg. This is where he’ll say something slightly negative to you, like you blink too much or your friend smiles more than you. This is supposed to mess with your mind and make you want to win him over.

Now, if you like the guy or are bored and just want to play along, by all means, do it. But if you find him overly aggressive or annoying, we find it best to go ahead and blow his cover, by telling him you know he’s “gaming” you. Word of caution: Move on quickly after that. The point of the strategies above is to keep you talking to him for longer, so it’s kind of a boomerang effect if by calling him on his scheming you end up spending more time with him. But we find that if you point it out, the guy will usually turn around with his tail between his legs.

Update: We love this hilarious spoof on The Game with alway adorable Paul Rudd.

Happy New Year!

Who says all resolutions need to be life changing? You're probably not going to keep them past January 15, so why not have a little fun when you set them, too? In that spirit, in 2008, JSG resolves to:

Never be hungover again! Not to mention no more flying drunk or shopping drunk.

Eat more orange food.

Visit more cities that have an A in them.

Always take the stairs.

Wear metallic whenever possible.

Worry a little less if our outfit matches (a la Sienna, NOT Britney).

Meet more bloggers.

Bring back better souvenirs for our friends and families. See ya, magnets!

Learn to be a better flirt.

Make some new playlists so we're not forever listening to the same songs on our iPod.

Experiment with makeup more. We'll look to our friends at Makeupbag.net and All About the Pretty for advice.

Delete e-mails after we read 'em. No more in-boxes that top 718 for us!

Use fewer napkins. We've been good about turning down plastic bags now for years, but still take a handful of napkins whenever we go to Starbucks or Pinkberry. Must save those trees!


Check back in and we'll let you know how we're doing!