Meg Ryan has officially entered The First Wives Club chapter of her career. One year after starring as a spurned wife in the disappointing remake of The Women, she’s the lead in Serious Moonlight, opposite Timothy Hutton, Kristen Bell, and Justin Long. Hutton plays her cheating husband, and when she discovers his affair with Bell, she ties him to the toilet until he falls back in love with her.
The film, due in December, is equally notable for its writer and director. The late Adrienne Shelly (Waitress) penned the script, and Curb Your Enthusiasm‘s Cheryl Hines receives her first directing credit.
Did the trailer give you hope or merely make you nostalgic for Ryan’s cuddlier work? Compare and contrast Ryan and Sandra Bullock’s recent career moves and try to explain why one has thrived and one hasn’t. Go.
To continue The Simpsons‘ season-long celebration of its 20th anniversary, the show is inviting you (Yes, you!) to 
The show opened with a mush-mouthed disclaimer from Bravo that the episode had been shot before A.J.’s untimely death. The network extended its sympathy and then proceeded to air an hour of TV that largely questioned the man’s integrity. Poor Joyce—Kandi’s mother who so thoroughly disapproved of the possible union that her toast at her daughter’s engagement party consisted of “We’ll just wait and see…”—hopefully decided not to tune in to this episode altogether. It would be too painful for anybody in A.J.’s life to watch him immortalized in a therapy session that questioned his ability to properly take care of his six children. The therapist, the ingeniously named Ms. Bliss, struck me as a kind and reasonable woman. I’m not sure what she was hoping to accomplish by her word game, in which she asked Kandi, A.J., and Joyce to pick a random word in order to find some common ground. Kandi picked “delicious.” A.J. chose “time.” Okay, okay, I’m not sure where this exercise is leading but nobody is yelling so that’s a start. Then Joyce, without missing a beat, said “child support.” (Ms. Bliss patiently reminded Joyce that that was two words.) Again, Kandi’s mother must be feeling all kinds of awful. At its best Housewives is good for a guilty escape into the tacky lives of poorly behaved women who spend a lot of money in the pursuit of class. When a genuine tragedy looms overhead, everybody—the participants, the viewers, hopefully Bravo execs—just feels like kind of a heel.
Allow me to begin with the observation that Brennan’s delightful giddiness over the possibility of appearing on the cover of the American Anthropological Association’s journal was the equivalent of mine at the end of the episode when Booth appeared in a tux at the opening of the Jeffersonian’s Prince Anok exhibit. Honestly, I could stay in this will-they-or-won’t-they? limbo forever if we keep getting moments like that one: The two of them got closer and closer and lingered to the point that you became aware of just how long the scene was going on. Part of you needed it to stop, and part of you wanted the sweet torture to continue. (Sorta the romantic equivalent of the awkwardness you felt watching Timmy and Jimmy’s lengthy battle in the classic “Cripple Fight” episode of South Park.) Would they have kissed if the rest of the team hadn’t interrupted them? Instead, Brennan straightened Booth’s tie, he fixed her hair, and I tried not to hyperventilate. 
It’s been an uber-crazy season of Bravo’s addictive reality hit The Real Housewives of Atlanta. We’ve seen it all, from the legendary fight between Sheree and her party planner, to Kim getting her wig tugged, and the debut of Lisa’s fashion line, and Kandi’s battles with her mother. Oh, and there was “Tardy for the Party,” too. If that song isn’t legendary, I don’t know what is!
