“Conviction” is a true story about Kenny Waters, a man convicted for a murder he didn’t commit, and Betty Ann Waters, who always believed in her brother’s innocence and fought her way through law school just so she could prove his innocence.

It’s a really touching story, in some ways. I can admire Betty Ann Waters’s drive and determination in defending her brother. When Kenny was convicted, she didn’t even have a GED, but she earned that, earned her Bachelor’s degree, and subsequently, her law degree. In the process, her husband left her, not being able to deal with what was undoubtedly an obsession. Her time in school took away time she could have spent with her children, and at times she came close to losing them as well.

There were so many times I wanted to just slap her across the face. She lost 18 years of her life working so that she could defend her brother, who, quite frankly, could very well have been guilty. He was a loose cannon, violent, the smallest thing able to set him off. If Kenny had not ultimately ended up being not guilty, the story would have been so much harder to handle.

As it was, the movie was slow moving. As my boyfriend’s stepdad put it, it was like watching paint dry. A fairly accurate description. The movie really could have easily been a half hour long and included all of the pertinent plot points.

Hillary Swank plays Betty Ann Waters, and the makeup artists did a great job making her look homely and worn; her Boston accent wasn’t quite believable, but her performance was fine–definitely not her finest.

Sam Rockwell plays her brother Kenny, and at the end of the movie, when a picture of the real Kenny Waters is shown, you realize, hey, this guy looks nothing like the man he’s supposed to be playing. Nonetheless, Rockwell’s performance is slightly better than Swank’s.

Peter Gallagher, with his awesome hair and caterpillar eyebrows, makes an appearance as the man who ultimately helps Betty Ann prove her brother’s innocence via a blood test.

And Minnie Driver makes her first appearance since “Goodwill Hunting” (or at least it seems like it) playing Betty Ann’s only friend and original ally in the fight to prove Betty Ann’s brother’s innocence.

With its sluggish plotline and sub-par acting, “Conviction” isn’t really a movie I’d recommend you waste nearly two hours watching. Look up the story on New York Times’s website. Or, you know, just read my blog. It sums up in 100 words what takes almost two hours to unfold in film. There really isn’t any suspense. The name “Conviction” alone makes it apparent that Betty Ann is successful in proving Kenny’s innocence, even if you didn’t already know the story behind the film.

One of the  most interesting things about the story–and the thing that the movie leaves out, so as to leave its ending on a happy note–is the fact that Kenny Waters died six months after he was released from jail. Apparently he was taking a shortcut to his brother’s house and he fell from a fifteen-foot wall.

What 200-lb guy climbs a fifteen-foot wall just to bypass a couple of feet? The real-life Betty Ann claims that Kenny was enjoying getting to know the daughter who never knew him while he rotted away in jail, that he was enjoying being out of jail in general, so suicide seems unlikely, but something still seems a little off.

The part that really gets me is that Betty Ann Waters spent 18  years busting her ass to get her loser brother out of jail, all for just six months of freedom. I suppose it’s selfless, but at times her dedication came off more as obsession, and was extremely frustrating to experience.

The other thing that frustrates me is that she went through all of that schooling, obtained her law degree, but she doesn’t even practice law. She still works at a pub. However, she does work with Barry Scheck at the Innocence Project, which uses DNA to prove inmates’ innocence, much like in the case of Kenny Waters.

Like I said, it’s an interesting story, but if you’re really interested, look at news articles, don’t watch the movie, because “Conviction” lacks conviction…among other things.

The trailers for “The Town” didn’t do it any favors. All I remember is seeing the image of cartoony nun-faces staring out the windows of a mini-van, moving in slow motion, while the narration described a town in which bank robbing is prevalent. I suppose bank robbing piqued my interest a bit, but then I saw that Ben Affleck was staring in it, and I immediately lost interest. Sorry, Ben Affleck.

That being said, my dad had told me it was a decent movie, so my boyfriend and I decided to watch it last week while I was on my “winter break.” (Side note: I use quotation marks because, aside from getting to watch movies such as “127 Hours” and “The Town,” it wasn’t much of a break at all.) We tried to watch it twice. The first time I fell asleep about 10 minutes in and Jeremy lasted about 30 minutes. That’s not so much a reflection on the movie as it was on just how late it was and how tired we were. The beginning of the movie is actually rather action-packed, as it opens with a bank robbery.

A number of snippets appear on the screen before the movie starts, informing the viewers that Charlestown, a part of Boston, is an area in which bank robbery is very prevalent; in fact, it is a job for many people, passed down from father to son. It is clear from the first minute of “The Town” that these bank robbers are extremely smart. They know exactly when to make their moves, they wear different masks every time (this first robbery’s specialty is ghastly masks with dreadlocks), they know how to disarm the video cameras and destroy the videos, they know to use bleach to eliminate all traces of DNA.

One of them (played by Jeremy Renner) is more dangerous than most, and he smashes an older gentleman’s face in with the buff of his rifle when the man starts to panic. But there’s another bank robber, the one who forces Claire (Rebecca Hall), the bank’s manager, to open the safe, that has a different quality. He is patient with her when she struggles to remember the combination. He speaks to her in a soft, non-threatening voice. This bank robber is Doug, played by Ben Affleck.

Because Claire trips the silent alarm, the bank robbers grab their loot and go, with Claire in tow. They drive her to the beach and tell her to walk until her toes hit the water. When she talks to the FBI, the only thing she can tell the FBI SA Adam Frawley (John Hamm) is that she saw a tattoo on the neck of one of the men, a Fighting Irish tattoo.

When Jim (Renner) finds out that Claire lives in their neighborhood, he decides the risk of being caught is too great and that he needs to do something about the girl. Doug offers to take care of it, mostly because Jim is a loose cannon prone for a killing spree. Doug sets up a “chance encounter” at the local laundromat, where he consoles Claire when she sees the bloody shirt she was wearing “that day” and starts crying. They then foster a bond.

The rest of the movie is a smash-up of violence, drugs,  and plotting, and amidst this, a romantic relationship blooms between Claire and Doug, who decides he is done robbing banks. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. His fellow bank robbers and the “elder” robbers in the neighborhood threaten him into doing one last robbery.

And, since I don’t want to give anything away, I should probably stop there. All of these events lead to one awesome climax, and I was on the edge of my seat the entire time.

Affleck gives a believable performance as Doug, the bank robber with a conscience. (The only thing that felt a little weird was when he was in the middle of confiding this deep story from his childhood with Claire, and he very seriously uses the word “under-roos,” which is just plain ridiculous.)

Affleck also wrote the screenplay and directed the film, and I found myself begrudgingly impressed.

So, if you have a couple of free hours and want to watch a fairly quality Ben Affleck movie, I recommend you watch “The Town.”

Ever since my boyfriend and I first saw the preview for “127 Hours,” we’ve been trying to see it, but something’s always gotten in our way. Initially, it wasn’t in any theaters within 30 miles of us. Then life got in the way (and by “life,” I mean grad school, which is the bane of my current existence). Finally, we made plans to go see it last Saturday–and of course, both of us were not feeling well. Fast forward to Monday–we had to drive 20 minutes, but we finally got to see Aron Ralston’s true story unfold on the big screen.

James Franco plays the real-life Ralston, an avid outdoorsman who loved canyoning (I think that’s what it called) and who found himself “Between a Rock and a Hard Place” in April 2003. (Coincidentally, that is what Ralston titled his book, which documents his experience.)

Although others are credited in the film, Franco is the film’s main focus–supporting players like Amber Tamlyn and Kate Mara only share the screen with him for 15 minutes, max–and he delivers what is truly an Oscar-worthy performance.

Much of Franco’s screen time is divided between fear of impending death, resourceful attempts to free himself from the rock that holds him captive, and hallucinations both of his childhood and of his future wife.

However,  there are moments where Ralston speaks directly into his personal video camera, which provide, at times, the most humorous parts of the film, along with some of the most heart-wrenching–not the least of which is his apology to his parents for not letting the know where he was going and his description of the conditions. At night, when it got cold, Ralston had to wind rope around his legs and arms in order to keep some semblance of warmth. Over 5 days, he had to ration a canister of water, which wasn’t even full when he fell down the canyon; by the end, he was drinking his own pee.

This was not the worst he had to endure, though. For those of you who have heard Ralston’s story or anything at all about the movie, you know that Ralston has to use a blunt knife in order to sever his own arm in order to make it out of the canyon. I’m not going to lie, that part is pretty gross. (I’d heard horror stories of people puking in the theater at this particular point in the  movie, but I am happy to report, I kept my dinner safely in my stomach).

In some ways, the film reminded me of “Cast Away,” in that it focused primarily on one character who was stranded in some remote location apart from society, and just like “Cast Away,” “127 Hours” was a bit slow at times. But that did not lessen the power of the story that inspired it, nor did it detract from its entertaining quality. I never once thought, “Is it over yet?” I knew how it ended, but that didn’t stop me from raptly paying attention to every little detail of Ralston’s journey. At the very end of the film, the real-life Ralston appears on the screen in a series of photos which show him canyoning and climbing mountains regardless of his handicap. This made me appreciate Ralston’s story even more, because if I had had to cut my own arm off due to a mishap in canyoning, I can’t say for certain that I would have the guts to get back on that horse.

“127 Hours” definitely deserves its Academy Award and Oscar nods; for a Fox Searchlight film, it is incredibly well-done. Franco delivers an impeccable performance. But these things are secondary to the fact that “127 Hours” depicts a true survival story. I’m a sucker for a true story.

Zac Efron plays Charlie St. Cloud, who is driving his little brother around their small town when a drunk driver plows into them, pushing them into an intersection, where an oncoming car crashes into them, turning Charlie’s car upside down.

Next scene: Charlie is being shocked by a paramedic who refuses to believe that he is dead. After a few dramatic seconds, Charlie’s startlingly blue eyes flutter open, and the paramedic (played by Ray Liotta) kisses the St. Jude medallion that hangs around his neck, saying he doesn’t believe in lost causes. Of course, when Charlie wakes up, his thoughts are jumbled; he doesn’t know where he is and he immediately becomes agitated when he turns his head and sees his little brother’s limp hand. The paramedic sees no choice but to sedate Charlie, and the screen goes black.

Flash forward to Charlie’s little brother Sam’s funeral. Charlie grasps Sam’s baseball mit at the gravesite, prepared to throw it in the grave, but at the last minute, he finds himself unable to. On the night before Sam’s death, Charlie had promised Sam that he would meet him every day at sunset to practice throwing a baseball (Sam’s dream is to become an MLB pitcher). Charlie runs from the cemetery with his brother’s mitt in hand, until he stumbles and falls in a clearing in the woods. There, Sam appears, imploring Charlie to keep his promise, which Charlie promises to do.

Five years later, Charlie is still residing in the same small town. He deferred his sailing scholarship at Stanford, trading it for a job taking care of the cemetery in which his brother resides. He lives a sad, lonely life that revolves around his sunset meetings with his dead brother. His only friend appears to be Alistair, another groundskeeper at the cemetery. Everyone seems to be scared of Charlie St. Cloud, claiming he is certifiably nuts ever since his brother’s death. Other than Alistair, the only person who appears not to be afraid of him is Tess (played by Amanda Crew). She went to high school with Charlie, but hadn’t seen him since then, until she demands that the garden around her father’s grave be tended. Charlie calmly asks what kind of flowers she’d like, to which she replies, “Live ones.” Fair enough.

I don’t want to give away all the details (which includes a rather surprising twist at the end), but a love story ensues, followed by a heroic search and rescue. The film was much more in-depth and emotionally-gripping than the previews would lead viewers to believe. I found myself holding my breath, wondering what was going to happen next, and I was strangely enchanted by Efron as the boy who can see dead people (which is not limited to his brother; it also includes his friend Sully, who died overseas while in the military).

Seeing the movie “Charlie St. Cloud” has made me want to read the book that it is based upon, “The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud” by Ben Sherwood. Normally, I like to read the book first, but perhaps I will read the book despite my viewing the movie first, as the reviews are very favorable. Books always end up being better than the movie anyway, but watching the movie first usually quenches any anger toward the “artistic” changes made by the director. But if the book is half as good as the movie, I think I will really enjoy my reading experience.

Washington plays Frank Barnes, a train engineer with 28 years of experience, two daughters who are working their way through college by working at Hooters, and a wife who died of cancer four years ago. Pine plays Colson, a rookie conductor whose wife has filed a restraining order against him. We learn about the characters through mini-dialogues that happen during all the action, but it doesn’t interrupt the action.

Because Colson added too many cabins onto the train, they are unable to get off of the main line, while the runaway 777 barrels toward them at 70 mph. 777 barely misses Barnes and Colson’s train 1206, and when it passes, Frank notices that the last car could potentially be connected to the back of their train if they can catch up with 777–in reverse. With little fanfare, Frank takes it upon himself to stop the rogue train.

The previews paint this movie to be a hero-type story, and it is. It is fairly predictable, but I still found myself to be on the edge of my seat the entire time.

Part of my interest in this film came from the fact that it was based on a true story. As it turns out, the movie was VERY LOOSELY based off of a true story about a rogue train in Ohio. From the brief research I conducted about the “Crazy Eights” incident in Ohio, the real incident was very anticlimactic–the train never went over 30-some mph. Also, the real Frank Barnes is white; obviously, Denzel is not white. What was the purpose of making Frank Barnes African American? Diversity?

While watching the movie, I wondered why I hadn’t heard of this runaway train incident, but after researching, I realized why it seemed so surreal and sensational in the film: of course, to make the film interesting, the real story had to be exaggerated, and that was somewhat disappointing.

Hopefully this information doesn’t put a slight damper on the movie like it did for me, because by itself the movie is highly entertaining, enjoyable, and suspenseful.

As anyone who knows me knows, I have been a (huge) fan of Keith Urban since I first heard “I’ll Think of You” on 96.3 in the summer of 2005. Until that moment, I was anti-country music, and it was surprising for me to hear a “country” song played on a non-country radio station. I had never heard of Keith Urban before, and I don’t always like songs the first time I hear them, but I liked “You’ll Think of Me” immediately. As it was playing, I commenced a speedy Limewire search of all Keith Urban songs. And so began my love of Keith Urban and, subsequently, of country music.

Since I wore out my copy of “Defying Gravity” two years ago, I was looking forward to a new CD from Keith, and on Tuesday, Keith Urban’s “highly-anticipated” sixth studio release, “Get Closer,” appeared on the CD racks in retail stores.

For previous albums, their “taste-test” first singles had drummed up the appropriate amount of excitement in me, but the first single from this CD, “Put You in a Song,” left much to be desired.  When I received the alert announcing the song’s arrival on iTunes, I promptly checked it out maybe twice, then didn’t listen to it again until I saw the video on CMT, and I was equally unimpressed with it then.

Last week, it occurred to me that his new CD was going to be released soon, and I actually uttered the words, “I’m not even that excited for this CD.” Which, if you know me at all, a self-proclaimed giant Keith fan, is a statement akin to complete blasphemy.

“Put You in a Song” is nothing special. It’s kinda catchy, sure. But that’s about it. The lyrics are sub-par. The melody leaves much to be desired. But the song does do something well: It sets you up for the rest of the album, which consists of 5 other songs that are without a doubt about much he loves his wife and 2 songs about living in the country or something equally blase. Woop-de-doo.

Oh, and yeah, you’re counting that right. Eight tracks. You get 11 if you get the CD from Target, plus 4 live tracks, which save the CD from being completely boring. And why is that? Oh yeah, because they’re old songs that truly represent the amazing talent that Keith possesses.

Here is my question: If all you’ve managed to come up with in the past two years is 8 mediocre songs (and 3 okay “bonus songs” for Target buyers only), why put out a CD at all? Isn’t quality better than quantity? No one’s forcing you to put out a CD every two years, right? (There were three years in between “Be Here” and “Love, pain, & the whole crazy thing.”) I was actually pretty angry when I saw the non-Target version of the CD only had 8 tracks.

But after listening to the CD, I actually found myself grateful that there are only 8 tracks.

The only song that I kind of like on this CD is track 4, “Long Hard Summer,” and even that song isn’t all that original. It’s just a feel-good, summery song with an intro that sounds way too much like the beginning of the Police’s “Message in a Bottle.”

What I want to know is, what happened to the Keith Urban of 2006? I want him back. “Love, pain, & the whole crazy thing” is his fourth studio release and is by far the best music he’s ever put out.

Sure, 2008′s “Defying Gravity” is good; it has the inspiring “If Ever I Could Love” and the beautifully lamenting “‘Til Summer Comes Around,” but none of the other songs TRULY blew me away the way that the songs from his previous album did.

Think about track 8, “Used to the Pain.” It’s emotional and powerful and honest.

Think about “I Told You So.” The lyrics are not only catchy, but the music that accompanies the lyrics is innovative and unique in the way he uses instruments and melodies.

Think about “STUPID BOY.” The lyrics are tongue-and-cheek and honest all at the same time, with a wicked guitar solo in the middle.

And the first track, “Once in a Lifetime”? When I first heard that song, it made me long to find the kind of love he describes.

I can even get behind songs like “Got It Right This Time,” which he openly dedicates to his wife, Nicole Kidman. It’s a beautiful song and I can appreciate the fact that she “saved him from himself.”

But if I wanted an entire CD of songs about Nicole Kidman, well…I guess I would just buy “Get Closer”…which I did. (I was looking for something much more clever to insert there, but…it just didn’t happen.)

The lyrics for the songs on “Get Closer” are just so VANILLA. That’s the best way I can describe them.

They’re not unique.

They’re not inspired.

He’s basically just saying “I love you I love you I love you I don’t know what I’d do without you” over and over again.

In track 3, “All for You,” Urban sings, “You changed my life / You changed my ways / Don’t even recognize myself these days / It must be a reflection of you, only you.”

You don’t recognize yourself these days, Keith? Yeah, neither do I. What happened to you? You’ve lost yourself. I’m glad you’re happy, don’t get me wrong. Everybody deserves to be happy. But isn’t the challenge of songwriting not only writing from experience but putting yourself in other people’s shoes to get different perspectives? Otherwise an artist runs the risk of falling into a rut and writing about the exact same thing a million times over. Which you did. Good job.

As for the music, some variety wound be nice. Every song kind of sounds the same. And there are SO MANY ballads. And I know Keith can produce amazing ballads. “Shine” is one of my all-time favorite ballads. It just touches me somewhere deep inside. These new songs, while seemingly inspired by an amazing, all-encompassing love seem to lack the spark and specialness that songs about true love should possess, a love that songs like “Shine” and “Can’t Stop Loving You” portray so beautifully. Perhaps those songs weren’t written about Nicole Kidman. Perhaps she’s killing his spirit. I’m just making conjectures here, but his downfall started after he married her. I see a correlation. (Then again, I suppose we could also blame sobriety, but that one seems less likely.)

The worst part about this is not only knowing that other people are starting to feel the same disenchantment with Keith Urban that I’m feeling but also knowing that he is capable of much more impressive and powerful music than is displayed on “Get Closer.” I have listened to the CD perhaps four or five times now, each time hoping it would get better, but it actually just makes me more and more dissonant. After seeing Keith Urban in concert for the first time, I vowed that I would always see him whenever he came to Detroit; after listening to this CD, however, I don’t want to see him next time, because I know the concert will be focused primarily around these new songs.

I hate to say it, but I feel as if Keith has sold out a little bit. His new songs seem to have been made just for the radio, as if he came up with some equation that determines the quality of a radio-worthy song and he made these new songs fit into that highly misguided formula. As I write this, I’m listening to “Love, pain, & the crazy thing” just so I can remind myself of what an amazing artist Keith Urban truly is. It’s a shame that instead of showing growth as an artist with each album he produces, he seems to be going backwards. I hate to say it–it’s a terrible thing to say, it really is–but I liked pre-Betty Ford Keith better. He was in love, but he also had a dark and brooding side. Perhaps Keith reached his peak of brilliant-ness in 2006, but it saddens me to think that might be true.

Yesterday, my boyfriend and I went to see “Due Date.” The previews made it look hilarious, and I figured we couldn’t go wrong with Robert Downey Jr., who is good in just about everything I’ve ever seen him in.

This was probably my favorite role for him, even more so than Iron Man or that dude in “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.” Downey Jr. plays Peter, whose sole intent is to get home to LA for the birth of his child. Unfortunately, he has a run-in with Ethan Tremblay (Galifianakis), who (however inadvertently) lands Peter on the no-fly list because Ethan practically accuses Peter of being a terrorist who has a bomb wired to his cell phone. Once the federal authorities release him, Peter is left with no wallet and thus no way to get home. Ethan sees Peter in the car rental lot and proposes to drive Peter across the state, and since Peter has no other options, he takes the offer from the odd duck with a perm.

Peter is very high-strung and not very friendly, finding Ethan to be very annoying (go figure – it’s Galifianakis; he only knows how to play disarmingly annoying yet lovable characters) throughout the first half of the film. The constant straight face Peter maintains actually makes some of his outrageous actions funnier (like when he ever-so-calmly gut-checks the child of Ethan’s pot dealer). A life-changing event (getting high) causes Peter to loosen up a bit and actually go along for the ride.

The movie is brimming with the ridiculous shenanigans that Peter and Ethan get into on their trip from Atlanta to LA, including Peter getting his ass handed to him by a dude in a wheelchair while Ethan watches, brandishing his hairbrush in front of him like it’s a sword; Ethan falling asleep while driving, causing them to go cascading over a cliff; and Ethan’s dog, Sunny, mimicking Ethan’s self-love. Some of the funnier parts are included in the preview, which is always a risk that you take when you see a comedy, but there some of the parts were delightfully not included in the trailer and they were, by far, the funniest parts of the movie.

Overall, if you’re looking for a stupidly-funny movie that makes you forget about the real world for a while, “Due Date” is a good movie to see. If you’re anything like me and my boyfriend, you’ll laugh the whole way through, and it’ll get funnier in the day(s) after you’ve seen it. Downey Jr. and Galifianakis are an unlikely pair, but together, they create beautiful comedy together.

It is the songs on her third album, though, that hold even more weight, because the names she names aren’t unknown, but rather are very well-known celebrities.
Taylor writes in the albums jacket, “You should’ve known,” to all of those she writes about in her songs. (If I were a guy, I’d be absolutely terrified to date her, frankly.)

Those who follow the rumors about Taylor Swift were anticipating songs about Taylor’s various conquests, and they weren’t disappointed.

“Back to December” is about Taylor Lautner. In a USA Today article, she said that this is the first time she’s ever apologized in a song: “You gave me all your love / And all I gave you was goodbye / This is me swallowing my pride, standing in front of you, saying I’m sorry for that night / And I go back to December all the time / It turns out freedom ain’t nothing but missing you, realizing what I had when you were mine / I go back to December, turn around and change my mind.”

I’m sure there’s a song on there about Joe Jonas, perhaps the “Story of Us,” in which she describes a dissolving relationship, but it’s harder to pinpoint that one…

Then there’s “Innocent,” which is Taylor’s song about the Kanye West debacle at last year’s MTV Music Awards. In the song, she basically forgives Kanye, saying he may be 32 but  he’s still “innocent,” or, in other words, he’s still got some growing up to do.

The most talked-about song on “Speak Now” is, of course, the song about John Mayer. Honestly, before I heard the hype about this song, I had no idea they dated. I just thought they did a little duet together called “Half of My Heart.”

The song, called “Dear John,” lacks the ambiguity of the other songs, and is pretty harsh. Taylor laments, “Wondering which version of you I might get on the phone tonight / But I stopped picking up and this song is to let you know why,” “Don’t you think I was too young to be messed with?,” and “Maybe you and your sick need to give love and take it away / And you’ll ad my name to your long list of traitors who don’t understand / And I’ll look back in regret how I ignored when they said run as fast as you can.”

There is no denying that John Mayer is talented. I’ll give him that. But he also has a pretty well-known reputation as a womanizer. Taylor may have gotten a beautifully sorrowful song out of the whole deal, and I have nothing but the utmost respect for her and her talent, but come on, Taylor, YOU should have known. And you also have to take some of the blame. You were 19, he’s in his mid-thirties…how did you think it was going to turn out?

That being said, I was delighted when my boyfriend presented me with “Speak Now” on its release date last Monday. I’ve been listening to it on repeat non-stop. I fell in love with “Mine” the first time I heard it this summer, and I have similar feelings of love for the tracks “Speak Now” and “Mean” in particular.

“Speak Now” is a bouncy, tongue-in-cheek song about a girl who crashes a wedding because she feels the boy is marrying the wrong girl. She sings about the bride-to-be’s snotty little family all wearing pastel and how the bride-to-be’s dress is shaped like a pastry. Very funny. Go Taylor.

And, of course, the cherry on top: “Mean.” This song could easily have come off as childish, but somehow Taylor makes it work: To those critics, Taylor sings, “Someday I’ll be living in a big ole city, and all you’re ever gonna be is mean / Someday I’ll be big enough so that you can’t hurt me / And all you’re ever gonna be is mean / Why you gotta be so mean?”

The song “Mean” is in response to the critics who slammed her after she won Grammys last year, critics who believe that she is overrated and cannot sing. Sure, Taylor doesn’t have the strongest voice out there, but who can deny she’s talented? She single-handedly wrote every song on this, her third album, and with the exception of “Better Than Revenge,” which sounds way too much like a country version of Avril Lavigne for my taste, is well-written and aurally pleasing. Go Taylor. Congrats. I’m in love with your third album.

I don’t know how Handler gets herself into some of these shenanigans, but I’m definitely not complaining. It certainly helps that she’s blessed with a crazy family. Her father, for instance, is just about the cheapest man in the world; he owns a house on Martha’s Vineyard that he rents out for a crapload of money but that is also falling apart at the seams; he has no legitimate job, but considers beater cars to be a legitimate profession; and he’s a little too proud of his daughter for putting out a book chronicling her one-night stands, attempting to sell autographed copies with the aforementioned crappy “previously owned” vehicles. Handler refers to him more often than not as “Melvin” or “Bitch Tits,” among other endearing nicknames along the same vein.

Handler may be extremely vulgar and inappropriate, but, let’s face it, she’s also hilarious. It’s not often that I laugh out loud while reading, but I found myself laughing maniacally to myself more than once while reading Handler’s two most recent collections, Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang and Are You There Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea. (My Horizonal Life, a collection of Handler’s one-night stands and first book, is sitting on my nightstand just begging to be read.) As I sat outside reading these books, I’m sure my neighbors thought I was a crazy lunatic, but I was so engrossed in her stories, I honestly didn’t care. If I can get this much enjoyment out of someone else’s crazy life, then so be it.

(Of course, Chelsea Handler’s humor isn’t for everybody. I’m pretty certain my parents wouldn’t find her as humorous as I do, but they’re old school. They didn’t even think Wedding Crashers was funny, which is just sad. But for most people who have senses of humor, Handler’s books are truly a treat.)

I was introduced to Chelsea Lately sometime last year, but before that, I had never even heard of Chelsea Handler, who quickly became one of my favorite people. As I was reading chronicles from her crazy life, like the story about the dog who gave her boyfriend a blow job, or her mini-me, or her fistfight with three elementary school girls, I could just imagine her dry, distinct voice describing the situations and their outcomes, which makes them even funnier.

Now, I wouldn’t be an English major if I didn’t briefly comment on the writing of these books. It’s hard to tell just how much editing goes into Handler’s books, but aside from the funny storytelling, I was very impressed with how well-written they are. No offense to Handler, she’s witty and sarcastic and I love her to death, but I wouldn’t peg her for a capable writer, but surprise – she totally is.

So, if you want to read something light-hearted, witty, and wise, pick up any one of Chelsea Handler’s books. You won’t be disappointed.

Every time I see Jason Mraz perform live, he adds something new to the show. For this show, the changes were minor, but fun nonetheless. Because We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things. came out three years ago, I was hoping for a preview of some new material, but there were only two songs that I didn’t recognize, and I surprisingly disappointed. That being said, Mraz still puts on a highly entertaining show.

Mraz is the king of crazy lyrics. How he comes up with them…I have no clue. But they are so fun to sing along to. And, what I really loved about this show, was how he involved the audience. For the song “Not So Ususal,” he invited a female audience member up on the stage to dance while he sang. She turned out to be a dance instructor, and she danced very saucily across the stage (sometimes with Jason, who has better moves that he claims), which was very entertaining. During the last two songs, the first of which I didn’t recognize and the second of which was “All You Need is Love” by John Lennon, he brought up two more audience members, one male and one female, and they danced on either side of the stage while Mraz spit out some wicked lyrics.

Of course, Mraz busted out a reggae-infused version of “The Remedy (Don’t Worry),” his first hit. He also sang “I’m Yours” with a chorus of hundred of people backing him up. And he sang one of my personal favorites and one of the most romantic songs ever written, “Lucky,” and he had the female members of the audience sing Colbie Caillat’s parts. “The Dynamo of Volition” is still one of my favorite songs by him, full of crazy, disjointed lyrics that somehow really work. He even got my boyfriend to join in with the “high fives” and “low dos,” which was awesome in and of itself.

Jason Mraz is one of those artists who I will always go to see when he comes into down. He never disappoints. He interacts with the audience, sounds even more amazing live than he does on his albums, and always always always is humble and grateful that people listen to his music. If he ever comes to your city, Jason Mraz is definitely worth seeing live, again and again and again.