Movie Review: Waitress (2007)

“I’ll never get away from Earl now.” That is what diner waitress Jenna (played capably by the beautiful Keri Russell) says in the opening scene of the movie, upon discovering that she’s pregnant. As you might surmise from the quote, Jenna is unhappy to be stuck in her marriage and now unhappy to be pregnant. She thankfully never considers abortion, but does immediately start trying to figure out a way to escape her abusive marriage.

The often comedic dialog, particularly in the opening sequences, is clever and enjoyable. Jenna’s doctor, Dr. Pomatter, is played very well by Nathan Fillion. Andy Griffith, who I admit I didn’t even know was still alive, is hilarious as the curmudgeon who owns the diner Jenna works in. I could do without the poor attempt at southern twang put on as Cheryl Hines (Curb Your Enthusiasm), who plays one of the other waitresses in the diner. Hines, who I do like in Curb, mostly irritates me in this movie.

11 innings, 2 runs.

The Mariners are trying hard to kill my will to write about them. Make no mistake about it, they had no business winning last night’s game…they were gift-wrapped a lucky run in the 9th just to keep it going, between a wild pitch and an error by the 3rd baseman when Ichiro was certainly going to be caught stealing. The whole thing should’ve ended earlier than it did, but once they caught that break, they really had a chance to steal one…and still found a way to give it right back.

Yes, I’m concerned.

The Office: “Did I Stutter?”

I’ve always prided myself on being like Stanley Hudson…but for at least one episode, I wanted to disown him. Finally we got a Stanley-centric episode, his biggest starring role since his pretzel day in season three, and he just seemed to take his grumpy act too far. I’m with him when he’s non-plussed, apathetic, and above the silliness that goes on all around him in the office; that is when I identify with him. When he blatantly disrespected his boss in a completely unfunny way, though…I didn’t like it.

My friend Brandon, knowing my affinity for Stanley, asked me after Stanley’s tirade: “Is this something you’re going to do someday?” I quickly assured him that I wouldn’t. I often find Michael’s humor to be too stupid, his character to be too over-the-top…but in the final scenes, I was pulling for him to put Stanley in his place. Stanley was just too much of a jerk tonight; I also didn’t like his talking head where he talked about his refusal to apologize to his last wife, his current wife, or his future wife. He was just far too emotional and angry this one; the charm of Stanley is that he’s aloof and has a hilarious “I don’t care” attitude, and that despite his irritation, his grumpiness is always a lot more controlled.

That isn’t to say I didn’t like the episode, though, because I really did. It didn’t have any gut-busting moments like the Toby-Pam moment from last week, but I laughed quite often throughout the episode. Some of the funniest moments…