Something New is one my favorite “guilty pleasure” film. It’s one of those movies that I have to stop and watch whenever it’s on the Oxygen Network and it’s on at least once a week. Simon Baker is always to-die-for (gurrrrrrl, he is foiiiiiiine) and this is Simon Baker at his best. He’s laid-back, handsome, charming, an owner of a golden retriever named Max, and isn’t afraid to get dirty (he’s a landscape architect). He is just diiiivine. And those laugh lines around his eyes when he laughs or smiles… oooh yeah. Gimme some of that. Ahem. Sanaa Lathan, on the other hand, is one of the most beautiful women on the planet. She’s so poised and elegant, has beautiful bone structure and the cutest button nose (I can eat it with a spoon. nom-nom-nom). She is just yummy. So pretty. I just really enjoy looking at her and listening to her talk. “It’s not about skin color or race, but the energy, the vibe between a man and a woman…” says one character and these two make it work. They’re beautiful people and have electricity like whoa. It is one of my favorite romance trope: she is an uptight, image-conscious, career-driven woman and he is an easygoing, happy-go-lucky charmer who runs a successful business, but doesn’t let it run his life. They clash at first meeting, eventually warm up to each other, go out on a date, get caught on a torrential downpour while out and about; he puts his arm around her, she looks at him, they start kissing (warily at first, cautiously, testing the waters), and she tells him it’s not going to work. He drops her off at her house, they awkwardly say goodbye, and she walks out of his car and into her house, dejected and wondering if she’s made a mistake. The doorbell rings. She opens the door. It’s him. They go at it like Bonobo monkeys in her all-beige foyer. I swoon.

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(Lost in Austen was a 4-part mini-series originally broadcasted in September of 2008 on ITV.)

I love Jane Austen. Ever since I was a teenager, I’ve devoured her books from Northanger Abbey to Mansfield Park to Sense and Sensibility. I love getting lost in the world of manners and propriety and terribly clever dialogue, where the women are headstrong but not precocious and the men are so dashing and handsome and swoon-worthy. But my favorite and probably the most well-known of Jane Austen’s heroes is Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, played to perfection by Colin Firth in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice (Jennifer Ehle, who plays Elizabeth Bennet is equally perfect). Mr. Darcy is the ultimate in British propriety: he is an intelligent, wealthy aristocrat known for his principles and the rigid standard of behavior that he imposes upon himself. He is also an unbearable snob. When he encounters the feisty, mouthy, headstrong Elizabeth Bennet, he finds himself rather discomfited for the first time in his life. She is not at all like the proper, biddable girls he had known in the past. She is a pain in the ass and a baggage. On top of that, she belongs to a loud, boisterous family led by an anxious, nagging mother desperate to marry off her five daughters and her feisty attitude is not only tolerated by her fond father, but often times encouraged. Naturally, Darcy soon finds himself bewildered and madly in love with her.

There might be spoilers if you haven’t already read the book.

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I picked up this anthology because I love J.D. Robb’s Eve Dallas series and was particularly intrigued by the Eve Dallas novella included in this anthology. Have you ever wondered what Eve Dallas would be like if she were possessed by a 90-year-old Romanian woman? She even learns how to make goulash! This definitely does not disappoint. The ones by Ruth Ryan Langan and Mary Kay McComas are cutesy ghost stories, but Patricia Gaffney’s contribution to the anthology—a ghost story, yes, but so beautifully written that it made me miss the splendid Wyckerley novels she wrote back in the days. *Sigh* The one story that intrigued me and made me chuckle at the same time, however, was the novella contributed by Mary Blayney— a Freaky Friday gimmick that involves the switching of the bodies of a husband and wife… in Regency England. I don’t know if there are any books that contain this trope in Romancelandia—and please, give me some titles if you can think of any—and this might be the first time I’ve ever seen in it. Good times. Anyway, let’s break it down.

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The tag-line for this book is “How much trouble can a bunch of babies be?” Oh, Mary Anne, you’re a professional babysitter. You know exactly how much trouble they would be. For those of you who don’t know who Mary Anne Spier is, she is the best friend of the founder of the Babysitters’ Club, Kristy Thomas, and one of its original members. What is the Babysitters’ Club, you ask? The BSC was a business venture hatched by Kristy Thomas when she saw how hard it was for her mother to find babysitter. Kristy figured, why call around looking for a babysitter when you can call one number and reach all seven at once? The original members of the BSC include: Kristy Thomas (the Innovator, softball coach, and lover of turtlenecks, jeans, and baseball caps), Claudia Kishi (junkfood junkie, slob, fashion plate, “not very good at school,” Token Asian), Stacey McGill (sophisticated, diabetic, fashion junkie, best friend to Claudia, New York native), and Mary Anne Spier (dead mom, best friend to Kristy, the first one in the BSC to have a real steady boyfriend, former wallpaper, suffers from self-esteem issues). The four of them are all thirteen years old, in the eighth grade, and attend Stoneybrook Middle School. They are FOREVER going to be thirteen years old and in the eighth grade. They will never grow up, go to college, get out of the babysitting gig and Stoneybrook… *sobs* The BSC later on expands to include Dawn Schaeffer (displaced Californian, dirty hippie, healthfood junkie, possibly token Democrat), who is Mary Anne’s step-sister; there is also Jesse Ramsey (ballet dancer, former babysitting charge, Token Black Girl), and Mallory Pike (redhead, braces, oldest child in a family with eight kids, loves ponies, best friend of Jesse). The members of the BSC meet on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, from 5:30 to 6 PM; the meetings are held in Claudia’s room because she is the only one with her own phone (with its own phone number and line), and every week, Stacey the club’s treasurer collects dues from the other girls, which they compile to buy things that the club needs like junk food, paying for Claudia’s phone bill, and replenishing the Kid Kits (another one of Kristy Thomas’ bright idea). They don’t have to share the money they get from their babysitting jobs, but they do have to pay taxes dues. Got it now?

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Why do horror movies want you to believe that dirty foreign people from Latin America and “under developed” countries in Eastern Europe do nothing but sit around all day and wait until a bunch of dumb Americans come through so they can kidnap them, stick them in cages, and cut them open one by one so they can steal their precious organs or torture them for shits and giggles? Why is this such a popular trope in American horror films? In the Hostel movies, psychos from foreign countries who pay people to kidnap victims for them to kill, are wiling to shell out more cash for Americans; in Turistas, the locals specifically target Americans to abduct and steal organs from; in Shuttle, the girls are told that there’s a huge market for white girls in foreign slavery before they’re locked up in crates and shipped off to God knows where (probably to Slovakia or something). In this movie, an entire train of people enough to fill up a small town, conspire together to trap a group of young Americans on a moving train bound for Odessa, Ukraine, cull them off one by one, take out their organs, and sell them on the black market. At one point, the outraged Final Girl, walks up to a group of people on train to beg for their help; when they only stare at her, she screams and says, “What is wrong with you people? What do you want from us? Why are you doing this?” They want your braaaaaains, Thora Birch. Not to eat, but to sell on Ebay.

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