Trailer: Results with Guy Pearce and Cobie Smulders
Posted on June 2, 2015 at 3:53 pm
Trailer: Unexpected with Cobie Smulders
Posted on May 22, 2015 at 8:00 am
Samantha Abbott (“How I Met Your Mother’s” Cobie Smulders) is a dedicated and passionate teacher at an inner-city Chicago high school. Just as she is coming to terms with her school closing, Samantha faces some life-changing and unexpected news: she is pregnant. After breaking the news to her live-in boyfriend John and opinionated mother (Elizabeth McGovern), Samantha learns that one of her most promising students, Jasmine (Gail Bean), has landed in a similar but very different situation. As the women navigate their ambitions for the future, Samantha and Jasmine forge an unlikely friendship that will challenge their perspectives and leave a lasting impact on one another.
Farewell to HIMYM
Posted on March 31, 2014 at 8:00 am
Ted has met the woman who will become the mother of his children, Barney and Robin are married, and after nine seasons it is time for the beloved series How I Met Your Mother
I especially enjoyed the Hollywood Reporter’s list of HIMYM’s best musical moments. Though for me, the best will always be Robin Sparkles.
HIMYM was the “Friends” of the last decade, that show about young people negotiating their post-college years with the kind of close, committed friendships that help them weather everything from unfortunate tattoos, job disappointments, broken hearts, and the loss of a parent. Architect Ted (Josh Radnor) was the eternal optimist, always looking for love. His best friends from college, Marshall (Jason Segal) and Lily (Alyson Hannigan) were the stable, forever-committed couple (I’m just going to forget the misbegotten episodes where Lily left Marshall to pursue her art career). Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) was the debonair lady-killer of the group, unapologetically committed to as many one-night stands as possible. And Robin (Cobie Smulders) was a television journalist from Canada, sometime love interest for Ted but ultimately marrying Barney in the show’s season-long wedding weekend. What made it stand out was the narrative innovation, with unreliable narration and nested story-telling and the genuine chemistry between its cast members. Plus some great catch (wait for it) phrases and useful life lessons. In the Washington Post, Emily Yahr wrote about what made the show so meaningful to its audience.
In addition to capturing nostalgia, there are many reasons the show caught on with the younger crowd: It launched a thousand catchphrases (“Legend – wait for it – dary”), pick-up lines (“Haaave you met Ted?”) and teachings for 20-something life (“Nothing good ever happens after 2 a.m.”). Overall though, “HIMYM” offered a much more valuable lesson about the importance of adult friendship, as the intense bonding in post-college years means that those friends essentially become your family.
And if you want to catch up on nine years of HIMYM in time for the grand finale, here’s your cheat sheet (not to mention that you can pretty much catch it at any time in syndication). The characters may be gone, but the slap-bet, bro code, woo girls, suiting up, and of course the goat go on forever. And a spin-off, “How I Met Your Dad,” is set to premiere next fall.
Safe Haven
Posted on February 13, 2013 at 6:00 pm
Now that best-selling author Nicholas Sparks has rung every possible variation out of his core formula: damaged hearts, pretty people, syrupy pop-song montages, buttery, sunlit cinematography, the healing powers of a body of water (and rain), the healing powers of a small town community, a sad death, and a letter of great import, he has officially run out of new ideas and even thoughts about how to keep re-arranging the old ideas. An unnecessary twist at the end feels desperate and it feels like a cheat.
Damaged heart number one: Julianne Hough plays Katie, who is on the run from the Boston police for what looks like a violent assault. She has cut and dyed her hair (so efficiently that it never grows out or needs to be retouched), stops in small town on the North Carolina Coast (body of water is the Atlantic Ocean), takes a job as a waitress in a local cafe and somehow has the money to move into a dilapidated but picturesque little cabin out in a remote area of the woods.
Damaged heart number two: Josh Duhamel, as usual far better than his script, plays Alex, the extremely handsome widower with two children (one adorable and affectionate, one mini-me damaged heart who misses his mom) who owns the local store. At first, Katie just wants to keep to herself and resists making friends with Alex and with Jo (“How I Met Your Mother’s” Cobie Smulders), another single woman living alone in the woods. But soon Katie and Alex are out on the healing water and then, when it rains, getting drenched by the powerful healing effects of even more water. A not-very-surprising mystery about Katie’s past is revealed and pretty soon there will be a very significant letter.
Hough is not an actress of great range, but she looks very pretty and wears a bikini well. Duhamel has a natural ease on screen that makes it easy to overlook what a committed and subtle performer he is. Even when he is called upon to make Alex to have some improbable reactions, he manages to find a smidgen of honesty that elevates the material. Director Lasse Hallstrom (“Chocolat,” “The Cider House Rules,” “My Life as a Dog”) puts so much gloss on the images that it feels like a perfume commercial but never elevates the story above the Lifetime movie level.
Parents should know that this movie includes themes of domestic abuse with some graphic and disturbing images, fire with child and adults in peril, references to sad death of parent, sexual situation, some strong language, and alcohol abuse
Family discussion: What does Katie learn from Jo that she cannot learn any other way? What changed Alex’s mind?
If you like this, try: the book by Nicholas Sparks and some of his other movies like “The Notebook,” “The Lucky One,” and “Dear John”
HIMYM’s Cobie Smulders Joins the Cast of ‘The Avengers’
Posted on February 5, 2011 at 5:31 pm
I’m a fan of “How I Met Your Mother” and its talented cast and so I was delighted to hear that Cobie Smulders, who plays Canadian broadcaster Robin on the show, may play Maria Hill in the new Avengers movie.