Bridesmaids: 2 minute movie review

Two words: totally hilarious.

I won't say too much because there's already been so much written about how great and truly funny this movie is, and how supremely hilarious Kristen Wiig is in it. Suffice to say: it's about time! Women are funny and this totally proves it (as if Tina Fey hadn't already done that) - they just need a good vehicle.

I read an article about how the time for women's gross-out comedy had finally arrived, and how previous punters like Cameron Diaz's The Sweetest Thing were just ahead of the market, but I say pooh pooh. That movie was just plain crap with a terrible script and cliched storyline. This one is just flat out funny with no dull bits.

If you haven't already seen it, I highly recommend it.

The Happiest Refugee, Anh Do

I honestly can't remember the last time a book had such an emotional impact on me. The Happiest Refugee constantly had me alternating between laughing out loud and being on the verge of tears.

I almost didn't read it. I'd seen Anh Do on TV occasionally, but never particularly followed his comedy or had any particular interest in him. Also, I don't do memoirs. I tried to read The Long Way Home once upon a time but even the embiggening story of Nelson Mandela couldn't catch my fiction fancy. However, one day I read a positive book review about The Happiest Refugee, so with a Borders gift card in hand, I toddled over and bought it. Little did I know it would be the best $34 I would spend on a book in all of 2010.

It's not exactly a literary tour de force - sometimes there are awkward turns of phrases that highlight the fact that the author is a comedian, not a writer by nature - but it's an absolutely compelling read. Through anecdotes and smaller bite-sized stories of a larger whole, Do tells us about his family's harrowing escape from Vietnam, the struggles of their early arrival in Australia and the career that took him into the loungerooms of families across the country.

When you read the book, you understand the reason for his success. Do is revealed through every word and every page as someone with good sense, keen humour, high intelligence, a lot of determination and even more gratitude. It's an uplifting and positive read that celebrates the richness of life, rather than dwelling on the poor-me aspect that many memoirs tend to do.

Through the funny stories and anecdotes, we're told about the enormity of his love and respect for his mother, his struggles with and ultimate forgiveness for an absent and alcohol-abusive father, and the mark they left on this young Vietnamese boy who would grow up with a never-say-die outlook on the world interpreted through a humorous eye.

Not only is The Happiest Refugee funny and touching, it's also full of (dare I say it) immigrant wisdom. It reminded me of moments when I was growing up, like my dad looking sadly at the vandalism of a public train and telling me, 'Why destroy public properly? It's there for our benefit, so destroying it only destroys ourselves'. I could identify with Do not only in the physical things (both being Asian and growing up in western Sydney), but also in the non-tangibles, like the instilled gratitude towards our adopted country and the desire to give back.

Regardless of whether you can identify with him or not, I guarantee you'll enjoy this book. It's the sort of book I wanted to buy as a gift for everybody I know, but three bookstores I went to had already sold out of them. I'm not surprised. Get your hands on it if you can, however you can. You won't regret it.

The Shopaholic Series - 3-in-1 review, Sophie Kinsella (The Great Library Challenge author K)

When I got to K in my great library challenge, I decided to go with Sophie Kinsella because her novels are so hugely popular and I wanted to know what the big deal was.

I have to admit that my expectations were low. So very sadly low, reflecting the state of chicklit, in my opinion. Good ones are very few and far between. But Kinsella delivers on every count: slightly dizzy but very endearing character? Check. Romance? Check. Funny-slash-disastrous situations that make you laugh? Double and triple check. And this is where the books really win out: Kinsella has masterful comic timing and uses it to great effect.

The heroine is the shopaholic herself: disaster-prone Becky Bloomwood, who starts off in the first book (The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic (also published as Confessions of a Shopaholic)) as a bored journalist at a money magazine who is unable to curtail her love of shopping, despite threatening letters from the bank and maxed out store cards. She's irresponsible and a bit ostriche-head-in-sand when it comes to finances, leading her into impending disaster, which of course she'll bounce out of better than ever, and with a super-hot boyfriend to boot.

What did you expect? I told you it was chicklit, right?

In the second novel, Shopaholic Takes Manhattan, her adventures take her to the Big Apple, where super-hot boyfriend Luke Brandon is starting a new branch of his super-successful business. But her super-spending (amongst other things) takes their relationship to the brink of disaster, which she deftly handles in the end, learning a little something along the way.

In the third novel, Shopaholic Ties the Knot, Becky digs herself further and further into a hole with her dithering as Luke comes to terms with his feelings for his birth mother, and two weddings are organised in different continents on the same day.

I have to admit, if Becky was my friend I'd give her a good shake and a talking to, because common sense seems to elude her until she's forced into a position to make good, but it does make for great comic fodder. And despite her dithering and disaster-proneness, she has a good heart. By the end of each novel she seems to grow and develop in character, but at the start of the next novel, she stumbles again, which is probably actually very realistic but could be frustrating if you cared too much.

There are classic chicklit elements that could get tiresome awfully fast (like the impossibly good looking and successful boyfriend, the ability to fall head over ass into good fortune), but Kinsella reinforces Becky's underdog status, ensuring that she remains endearing and flawed, and thus relatable.

In certain respects, Shopaholic reminded me of Bridget Jones's Diary, as Sophie Kinsella and Helen Fielding appear to have very similar comic sensibilities. Personally I think they're both really good writers (which shows in their books), and thankfully they redeem the overwhelming hovel of crap that chicklit tends to attract. Their heroines are larger than life versions of ourselves, and their adventures have a bigger arc with greater romantic rewards than you'd find in reality, which make them a great escape.

I'd highly recommend the Shopaholic series for light reading, suitable for holidays, on the beach, in-flight and when you're feeling down and need a pick up. I only meant to read one but ended up reading three!

There are three more books out now (Shopaholic and Sister, Shopaholic and  Baby and Mini-Shopaholic) but I think I'll space them out to avoid overdosing. Thank goodness for Christmas holidays!

What tickles my funny bone

Engrish mistakes really tickle my funny bone. I love these real-life marketing slogans that got totally lost in translation:

Pepsi slogan: Come Alive with the Pepsi Generation
Taiwanese: "Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the dead."

KFC: Finger Lickin' Good
Chinese: "Eat your fingers off."

Electrolux: something in Swedish
English: "Nothing sucks like Electrolux."

A cafe sign in Chinese: Welcome foreigners
In English: Welcome big nose friends

Speaking of things that make me laugh, these are a few websites I love to visit for a dose of serotonin:

Crazy Things Parents Say

Examples:

My Grandma on hooking a bowling ball on Wii Bowling:
Grandma: "I’ve always been a hooker. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t a hooker."
Grandpa: "You know, when I met your grandma, she was a hooker."

Mom: “Okay, go get the electric broom and sweep in here.”
Me: “Electric broom? We have an electric broom?”
Mom: “Yes.”
Me: “And where is it?”
Mom: “Right there.”
Me: “…that’s a vacuum, Mom.”
Mom: “…be quiet and get to work.”

My mom when my dad sent her a two page long text message:
“One of Two? Two of Two? What is he trying to say? Is it a secret code?” 

Clients from hell:

 Examples:

Client: A contact has a friend thats tight with Google so he’ll get us to the top ranking.
Me: I don’t think it works like that.
Client: Don’t worry, we have it covered. My friend’s friend is tight with that Zakenburger kid from Myspace.

Client: “We don’t want people to think that everyone using our service is black. Can you make most of the people white?”
Me: “They are stick figures, I don’t think there’s going to be any racial profiling.”
Client: “Well you’re using black lines for all of them. We want to see most of them as white.”
Me: “Don’t you think that would look even more racist? Besides, it’s a white background, the white stick figures would disappear.”
Client: “Then change it to a black background and make the black people disappear. I don’t know, just figure it out.”

Client: ”I love the job you did! Thanks so much!”
Me: ”Great! Best of luck with it! I sent you the invoice. We did more than what we had agreed to and did not charge you for it.”
Client: ”Yes, and as soon as I get your expenses, I will pay you.”
Me: ”What do you mean by our expenses?”
Client: ”Well, I need to get what you paid for materials, etc. so I know if what you are charging me is fair.”
Me: ”But we agreed to a price and you agreed to it and thought it was fair, we delivered more than the price we agreed to and you love it? I’m not going to give you what we paid for materials, printing, etc? When you go to a restaurant and order a meal and eat it, do you ask for the price of the lobster and ingredients when the bill comes before you’ll pay?”
Client: ”What I do or do not do in restaurants is not relevant. First of all, I never order lobster. Second, you don’t understand how business works. You really need to understand business better. I won’t pay until I see what your costs were.”

Apart from these ones, I also love the fail blog, occasionally check in on Wedinator (hilarious wedding photos - see above) and Probably Bad News. Got a better site I should be checking out?