An actor who appeared in "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" was charged with attempted murder Tuesday after police said he stabbed his former girlfriend more than 20 times.
Shelley Malil, 43, remained in custody on $2 million bail. He was arrested late Monday as he left a train in Oceanside, California, the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department said.
Malil was charged late Monday with attempted murder with uncommon circumstances of premeditation, causing great bodily injury and using a deadly weapon, said Deputy District Attorney Steven Carver.
Malil was scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday in Vista, north of San Diego, said Paul Levikow, a spokesman for the San Diego County District Attorney’s office. He faces a limit sentence of life in prison if convicted on all counts.
Authorities confirmed the victim’s identity as Kendra Beebe. According to her Facebook bellhop, she is a 35-year-old mother of two who works as an indemnification broker in Carlsbad, California, a coastal suburb.
She was listed in critical condition Monday, according to the San Diego Sheriff’s Department. Spokeswoman Jan Caldwell said Tuesday she had no update on Beebe’s condition.
"Malil and the victim had plainly been in a dating relationship which recently ended," the Sheriff’s Department said in a averral.
Malil’s agent, Mark Measure of Abrams Artist Agency, declined to comment.
Malil, who lives in the Los Angeles suburb of Sherman Oaks, had infatuated the set to the San Diego area to meet his attorney, who had joined the actor’s family and friends in persuading him to turn himself in, deputies said.
Deputies bring about the victim Sunday night while responding to reports of screams in place of help and breaking glass in San Marcos, about 15 miles east of Oceanside.
Malil appeared in the Budweiser "What are you doing?" commercial that aired during the 2001 Super Bowl, a spinoff of the "Whassup?" spots from the year before. He also played a co-worker, Haziz, to comedian Steve Carell’s title character in "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," and has appeared in dozens of TV shows including "NYPD Blue" and "Scrubs."
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Global warming and the state of the planet aren’t exactly laughing matters, but into comedian Abie Philbin Bowman, the dire environmental position has at least one bright side.
"In 50 years, my generation will be in its 70s and we’ll be able to boast that we were the only generation to press contraception, iPods, cheap flights and an ozone layer."
If the New Economics Foundation’s current predictions are correct and we have only 100 months to come up with a solution to reverse the most catastrophic impacts of climate change, then Bowman won’t even reach 40 before he can begin to exalt the ‘benefits’ of being a Gen-Yer.
In the meantime, he’s using climate change and terrorism as material for his latest comedy offering at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland, "Eco-Friendly Jihad."
Bowman told CNN it’s the over reaction to terrorism and comparative under-reaction to global warming that has his central character — a Bangladeshi nature-lover — on a mission to join Al Qaeda in an effort to reduce global carbon emissions.
"The longer we do nothing, the more radical the action we bequeath ultimately from to take. The most extreme strategy would be to start killing the world’s worst polluters — Westerners — preferably in a way which discourages others from flying," he said.
And so begins the eco-friendly jihad.
Having grown up in a mountains plagued sooner than domestic terrorism for three decades, the Irish humorous insists he is staunchly anti-terrorism, but he told CNN he was ready to be extinguished b depart where no one else bequeath.
"It’s much more fun to tell jokes about religious nuts and neo-cons, but the fit purpose of any federal joke is to reveal an ‘annoying truth.’
"Climate change is the biggest crisis in the history of the world and for a political humorist it’s not inherently funny, but it’s something that no one wants to talk about."
Susan Mansfield said as much in her review of the show in regard to "The Scotsman": "Bowman has a gift for winning an audience over, and coaxing original, friendly humour from subjects that are neither friendly nor facetious."
She adds: "he’s done his homework, and there are plenty of facts here, but the underlying message is a bleak one: as long as we proceed with being middle-class consumers, it ain’t looking good for the human race."
On debut in 2006, Bowman took the Edinburgh Fringe Festival by storm with "Jesus: The Guantanamo Years", which he then toured in the direction of 18 months. Having had the success that comes with five-star reviews and a run of sold non-functioning performances, he seems a little underwhelmed by the response to "Eco-Friendly Jihad."
Rather than pan the show as extremist, one reviewer thought he didn’t like far enough: "he should hold back less and fall headlong the knife in further. Not only does Bowman get better laughs when he’s being more controversial, he also makes you think more."
But Bowman counters saying that he wouldn’t go as far as to actually advocate people join Al Qaeda to save the planet. After all, this is comedy.
"I didn’t in the flesh develop climate change and I probably can’t explain it in an hour," he jokes.
So what then does he want his audience to walk away thinking?
"I guess I want people to start out next to being honest. To say ‘okay, we are destroying the planet and we are either okay or not okay with that’. People pleasure have to make a decision as to whether or not to then change their behavior."
Bowman says until any longer he’s adopted the ‘every Lilliputian bit counts’ approach to feeling change abatement, but concedes it’s not ample supply.
"Buy some locally-produced potatoes, a some energy-saving light bulbs, put them all in a re-usable plastic dog and don’t mark twice about your weekend break in Paris."
On a perilous note, he adds: "People are causing the supreme destruction of the environment and essentially our fate is in our hands."
And that’s no laughing matter.
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Stoners are riding exorbitant nowadays. Fans are buzzing about the reunion of Cheech and Chong after a long feud, and a couple of tokers are lighting up the box office with "Pineapple Express."
From the pot partakers and dealers of "Weeds" to Harold and Kumar to Sean Penn’s dude in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," stoners from been a beloved subset aggregate Hollywood fringe players.
Some win Academy Awards (Kevin Spacey for his suburban sad-sack in "American Beauty"). Some lose their wheels (Ashton Kutcher in "Dude, Where’s My Car?"). Some merely abide (Jeff Bridges’ "The Dude" in "The Big Lebowski").
The canon of stoner flicks is almost as old as Hollywood itself, with the 1936 propaganda film "Reefer Madness" high on fans’ must-see list. Other favorites include the ’70s high-school flashback "Dazed and Confused," the demented Hunter S. Thompson history "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and the inner-city romp "Friday."
"Pineapple Express" upholds a platitude known to rightful about anyone who has lit up: That it’s more fun to party in pairs than it is on your own.
The movie casts Seth Rogen as a pot smoker hunted by druglords and crooked cops after he witnesses a waste. He leaves a smoking gun — or rather, a smoking roach — at the scene, a strain of pot called Pineapple Express that’s so potent and rare, the awful guys can track it back to its source: Rogen’s dealer, played on James Franco.
So the duo ends up as an extra combine on the run. Rogen’s pot-hound is a fairly responsible guy with a day job as a process server, while Franco’s peddler is so lovably fuzzy-headed from the weed that it’s a wonder he can tell a nickel bag from a potted fern.
Jack Black, no slouch himself as a big-screen stoner, has been high on Franco’s performance since he caught an early screening of "Pineapple Express."
"He should win the High Times Stoner of the Year Award, hands down. I’ve been the recipient of that by the way, not to show off," Black said at last May’s Cannes Film Festival. (His memory’s a bit clouded: Black’s "Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny" won 2007’s Stoner Film of the Year Award presented nearby High Times magazine, while Rogen won Stoner of the Year, for "Knocked Up" and "Superbad.")
"Pineapple Express" inhaled a healthy $40.5 million at the box office since opening Wednesday, no doubt securing Rogen and Franco a perpetual place expanse partiers’ pantheon of Hollywood bong buddies.
Here are some other favorite cannabis comrades from film and TV:
— Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong. The undisputed marijuana monarchs of Hollywood. Cheech and Chong turned their comedy enactment as loopy stoners into a big-screen job with "Up in Smoke," chronicling their everlasting search for honourable stuff to smoke.
"Is that a joint, man?" Cheech asks in "Up in Smoke" when Chong hands him a spliff the size of a pepperoni penetrate. "Looks like a quarter-pounder, man."
"Up in Smoke" was followed by a series of lesser Cheech and Chong bank comedies, and the pair later split over creative differences. But they’re reuniting for their first comedy tour in 25 years, rightly billing it "Light Up America."
"We’re definitely still smoking," the 70-year-old Chong said at a news conference in July.
Added the 62-year-old Marin: "I get transfusions now."
— Harold and Kumar. John Cho’s Harold and Kal Penn’s Kumar prove that bright college boys can turn their brains to mush with the best of them.
They made a massive patient of the munchies into material for an uninterrupted movie when they set effectively on a quest for burgers in "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle."
In this year’s sequel, "Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay," they uniform got to smoke with the Partier in Chief, George W. Bush, after they parachuted into the president’s ranch.
— The boys from "Weeds." While the ups and downs of Mary-Louise Parker’s marijuana empire take center stage on this TV series, her conniving opportunist of a brother-in-law, Andy (Justin Kirk), and graft-addicted accountant and municipality councilman Doug (Kevin Nealon) often steal the show with their banter over doobies.
"How can you be so recklessly pro-Bush?" Andy asks mid a discussion over the war in Iraq.
"I like his old lady, Laura," Doug replies. "Used to buy weed from her at SMU."
— Jay and Silent Bob. The hetero life mates Kevin Smith introduced as pot dealers outside a convenience store in "Clerks" became a common train through most of his movies, including "Dogma," "Chasing Amy" and "Mallrats."
Real-life partier Jason Mewes (Jay) in the final analysis cleaned up, so in keeping, his character and Silent Bob (played by Smith) also were off the mark the weed by the time of "Clerks II."
But they left a hanker, leafy legacy on screen, methodical anchoring their own movie, "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back," as they take on Hollywood to stop a large screen based on their comic-book alter-egos, Bluntman and Chronic.
— Spicoli and Mr. Hand. OK, so Ray Walston’s Mr. Hand, the authoritarian educator of "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," isn’t a toker.
But it’s hard to imagine Sean Penn’s doped-out Jeff Spicoli without the teacher at his side. Their night together in Spicoli’s bedroom, where Mr. Hand turns up to cram some tidbits of knowledge into this incorrigible stoner’s head preceding graduation, is one of Hollywood’s most inspiring classroom sequences ever.
To paraphrase Spicoli, "Hey, bud, let’s study."
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Soul singer and arranger Isaac Hayes, who won Grammy awards and an Oscar to go to the theme from the 1971 action film "Shaft," has died, sheriff’s officials in Memphis, Tennessee, reported Sunday.
Relatives found Hayes, 65, unconscious in his home next to a still-running treadmill, said Steve Shular, a spokesman for the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department.
Paramedics attempted to revive him and took him to a hospital, where he was distinct dead in a little while after 2 p.m., the sheriff’s be sure of said.
No foul play is suspected, the agency said in a written statement.
Hayes was a longtime songwriter and arranger for Stax Records in Memphis, playing in the studio’s backup gang and crafting tunes for artists such as Otis Redding and Sam and Dave in the 1960s.
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Dick Clark is still Mr. New Year’s Eve — but he’ll be sharing the title with Ryan Seacrest.
Starting this December, Clark’s longtime end-of-year special force be called "Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve With Ryan Seacrest," ABC and dick clark productions said Friday.
It was also announced that Seacrest will serve as co-host with Clark and as an executive fabricator on the broadcast for another three years, through the 2010 show ringing in 2011.
The show’s name change reflects Seacrest’s success in co-hosting "one of America’s most time-honored traditions," Orly Adelson, executive producer and president of dick clark productions, said in a statement.
"New Year’s Rockin’ Eve" will brand its 37th year on December 31 and include the customary countdown to midnight from New York City’s Times Square.
Seacrest, host of "American Idol," joined the program in December 2005, signing a act that would eventually make him the program’s swarm. Clark had a stroke earlier that month but appeared on the ‘05 show and in following years, his expression seized but enthusiasm entire.
The program was the top-rated New Year’s Eve show last year, drawing 29 million viewers at the midnight hour.
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When Americans go to the polls this November, there will be many factors that influence where they eventually decide to cast their vote:
The Iraq War, the economy, national allegiances, image, age and race — these are all things that could affect voters’ choices.
Yet as the two outstanding candidates, Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, do battle on these and other issues between now and election day, it could all boil down to one simple question.
Whose story do you prefer?
It may not approach as much of a surprise to be told that politicians are dexterous at telling stories. But in the modern political age, our leaders deceive increasingly relied on creating narratives around themselves and their ideas to communicate with us.
"If you look at the administrative landscape today, you comprehend leaders everywhere consciously building a story around themselves," says Tony Travers, a political analyst from the London School of Economics.
Take the Democrats’ great hope, Obama.
The Illinois senator’s team has woven a carefully crafted narrative around him based on the notion of exchange — a "change we can believe in" as the campaign motto puts it. Time and again in speeches, Obama also promises to unify a divided nation.
These twin messages of change and unity have struck a chord, particularly among the young and ethnic minorities. They are inclined to take Obama at his message, even though they might mistrust high-minded statements like these in the entry of another politician.
A key ratiocinate for this is that Obama’s life story perfectly echoes the central narrative of his campaign. The son of a black Kenyan and a white Kansan, who has apparently come from nowhere to become the Democrats’ presumptive presidential candidate, when Obama talks about unity and variation he sounds factual.
The Republican candidate also has a thriller to fall back on. Fearful of being too closely associated with an unpopular president, McCain’s together has painted him as a political maverick with a reputation for integrity and moral courage.
As with Obama, this fits neatly into his extraordinarily dramatic personal history: A Vietnam War past master, the senator for Arizona was shot down by the North Vietnamese on a bombing mission in 1968 and held imprisoned for five and half years. In that time he was repeatedly tortured after refusing repatriation on the grounds his father was a U.S military commander.
It is clear both candidates are aware of the appeal of their respective stories, having both published best-selling books about their lives. McCain’s memoir "Faith of My Fathers" was even made into a television film — and he frequently refers to his past in speeches.
Storytelling is a good way to reach short to an electorate who clout otherwise be switched off sooner than a lacklustre listing of policy. Do you think you could be persuaded by a politician’s story closed their policies?
Crafting an interesting narrative, by discriminate, is much more likely to get folk listening. After all, who doesn’t like stories?
McCain and Obama are not blazing a fall with this technique, however.
According to Travers, political storytelling has a long news. The British wartime prime minister and renowned orator Winston Churchill created a geste about the British national person to shoe morale and retain support into the war venture, says Travers.
"It was based on Churchill’s own slightly mystic conception of the British as this island race," he says. "This view of Britain — that divers were uncomfortable with — nevertheless became a usable, stylized picture in convincing the country to take up arms against on when all appeared lost."
Other factious leaders have unconsciously had narratives fixed devoted to to them, he says.
Ex-British leader Margaret Thatcher was the daughter of a grocer. After she was elected Britain’s first-ever female prime envoy the press picked up on this modest middle-class background, parodying her as the frugal housewife with a tight grip on the nation’s purse strings.
Although not of her own creation, she used the narrative to convey an image of herself as a safe pair of hands guided by economic common sense.
"It crept up on her. It was an evolved chronicling that she was ultimately quite comfortable with," says Travers.
In the modern factional era the pattern for great storytelling was created sooner than Bill Clinton during his 1992 election campaign.
The famous "Man from Hope" documentary distributed by the Democratic National Committee has Clinton recounting the going joke (about himself) of a little boy from a town called Hope, Arkansas, who dreams of "being some of something bigger than themselves."
Political experts have called it the "greatest narrative commercial ever written" and there is no have reservations that since it was made its format has been borrowed from heavily, as well as its content — Obama’s personal reportage is called "The Audacity of Hope."
However, should we welcome storytelling in politics or is it ultimately a upset from the real issues? Perhaps. But witness what happens to leaders who have tried to take politics away from narrative and go repayment to facts and figures.
The current British prime minister Gordon Brown retains an obsession in requital for statistics and numbers, but his monotone attempts to convey this avidity in speeches in the British parliament have contributed to his plummeting popularity.
The truth is we’re all suckers for a good story, and it’s just a matter of which united sounds the most convincing.
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Katie Holmes just keeps taking it unlikely.
Mrs. Tom Cruise, who made a huge hairstyle splash when she helped fuel Hollywood’s bob craze most recent matrix year, has been seen out and about in New York with a new pixie cut. Photos popping up on the Internet show Holmes sporting a shaggier rendition of the short ‘do, with long bangs and a tapered neck.
The style was popular in the late ’80s and prehistoric ’90s, according to celebrity hairstylist Porsche Waldo, adding that Rihanna has a similar cut that is more "spiky" and "punklike."
Last year, Holmes sheared off her long locks to create a glossy bob that some compared to the look popularized by Victoria Beckham, Holmes’ friend. Internet critics weighed in: Some loved it, others hated it, sniping that Holmes looked like her then 1-year-old daughter Suri.
Stylists are good wishes the new ‘do with mixed reviews.
"I’m personally not crazy about the look on anyone," says toast of the town stylist and beauty expert Billy Lowe, adding that the cut with its soft neckline reminds him of a wig. "I liked her much better in the bob. I thought it was positively sophisticated, very chic and very now."
Stacy London, co-host of TLC’s "What Not to Wear," raved about the cut, saying it paroxysm her front and her fashion persona much better.
"This whole sort of fashion evolution since becoming Mrs. Tom Cruise, I think it has enchanted her time to find her sea-legs," says London. "This haircut is clearly a step in the right operation."
The 29-year-old Holmes, who played Joey Potter on "Dawson’s Creek" from 1998 to 2003, is in New York preparing to luminary in a revival of Arthur Miller’s "All My Sons," which goes into previews September 18.
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According to UNICEF, there are 143 million children in the world who have frantic one or both parents.
In America alone, there are half a million children in foster care, and approaching 120,000 of these children are waiting to be adopted. In many countries, children are too day in and day out orphaned or abandoned because of lack, disabilities and complaint; every 15 seconds, a child loses a parent because of AIDS. These are staggering facts that can seem prodigious and discouraging, but I assume that God has a loving plan recompense each child, and that plan is you and me.
Caring for these children is not the job of governments or institutions; a substitute alternatively, it is the job of families, people and communities. As Christians, our compassion is simply a response to the love that God has already shown us. Mother Teresa would constantly remind those who worked with her that the Bible clearly teaches that whatever we do for the least of these, we do for Jesus. So in a very real sense, caring for orphans is a chance to meet the person of Jesus in "the guise of human tribulation." This is an invitation from the heart of God to know him and to encounter his love.
Nine years ago, my wife and my eldest daughter, Emily, traveled to Haiti on a mission trip. Having been exposed to extreme poverty for the first be that as it may, Emily returned home with a determined passion to make a difference in the lives of at-risk children.
Only 12 years old, Emily went on an all-out campaign to persuade us to adopt. She bought a book on international adoption with her Christmas money and would read it to us regularly. She began fervently praying and writing letters to Mary Beth and me, encouraging us to consider giving a waiting little one a home. Emily knew God was outstanding us in the direction of adoption; manner, Mary Beth and I were not yet convinced.
My wife and I had forever supported the idea of adoption, and as Christians, we understood the importance of loving and caring for others. But what I had not yet grasped was that adoption is a physical picture of what Jesus has done for me. I did nothing to be entitled to God’s love; in fact, I was living as an orphan, without hope. Yet God chose to pursue a relationship with me, and through the death of his son Jesus, I was adopted into God’s forefathers.
My wife and I began moving toward adoption with fear and trembling and asking all the questions people enquire after. I remember Mary Beth crying herself to sleep at night saying, "What are we doing? I can’t do this." However, God kept reassuring us that this was the direction he was important us. It was a huge journey of duty for us.
In May of 2000, we found ourselves in a hotel space in China’s Hunan province, welcoming the newest member of our family, Shaohannah Hope. From that moment, we began our journey into the world of adoption, orphan care and Shaohannah’s Hope. iReport.com: Send a video question for Chapman
We went on to adopt Stevey Joy and Maria. Recently, our youngest daughter, Maria, passed from life on this earth and is now safely in the arms of Jesus. We have been completely overwhelmed by the love and take of so myriad during this time of weighty, deep sadness. Through all that we’ve au fait, one chance we still know is correctly: God’s heart is to the orphan.
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Morgan Freeman’s lawyer says the actor and his wife of 24 years are getting a divorce.
Freeman’s lawyer, Bill Luckett, told the Memphis Commercial-Appeal newspaper that the divorce action is pending. Freeman’s wife is Myrna Colley-Lee.
The lawyer declined to provide details. There was no response advanced Thursday at phone numbers fitting for Luckett or for Freeman’s publicist.
The 71-year-old actor is recovering in a Memphis hospital after a car drive in neighboring Mississippi on Sunday left him with a broken arm, broken elbow and unequivocally damage.
The woman who was injured along with Freeman in the car mistake apparently is a friend of the Oscar-winning actor who had offered him a trip home, a crash witness says.
Freeman was driving a 1997 Nissan Maxima that authorities said belongs to Demaris Meyer, 48, of Memphis, Tennesee, when the car veered dippy a rustic road Sunday night a two miles from Freeman’s profoundly in the Mississippi Delta. The car flipped at least twice.
Bill Rogers, a retired police officer who was the first person to arrive at the participate, said a dazed Freeman told him that he and Meyer were headed to his home in Charleston, a peewee town some 90 miles south of Memphis.
"He said that she had offered him a trip home; that they were friends and she had offered him a ride home and she didn’t as a matter of fact know the way and so he was prevalent to drive the means," Rogers said Tuesday, recalling a dialogue he had with the actor.
Luckett told the Commercial Appeal newspaper that Meyer is the actor’s friend.
Rogers said he talked to Freeman and Meyer in attempt to keep them conscious — something he was trained to do as a police officer.
"They said they were coming from Clarksdale," Rogers said.
Freeman owns several businesses in Clarksdale, about 40 miles from his home, including the Ground Zero Blues Club and a restaurant named Madidi. Ashley Norris, the club’s manager, said Wednesday that Freeman had not been there the night of the accident. No one answered the phone at Madadi.
Rescuers used a jaws-of-life machine to free "The Dark Knight" star and Meyer from the wreckage. Freeman was airlifted to the Regional Medical Center in Memphis, Tennessee.
Hospital spokeswoman Kathy Stringer said Wednesday that Freeman had been upgraded to fair condition. The actor had surgery Monday to reconnect nerves and repair damage to his left arm and hand, according to his publicist, Donna Lee. Lee said Freeman will make a full recovery.
Hospital officials say Meyer isn’t listed in the clinic’s registry. However, under medical retreat laws, people can request that their names not be listed as patients at a hospital.
A Mississippi Highway Patrol officer said Meyer was in the Tennessee hospital when the agency called to see how she and Freeman were doing Monday night.
Calls to Meyer’s home Wednesday were not answered. Her condition was not as soon as convenient. Rogers said Meyer did not appear to be injured as forbiddingly as Freeman.
Not much is known about Meyer. Rogers said she appeared to be an avid gardener — a hobby reportedly enjoyed by Freeman and his wife — because several gardening tools were flung around the accident scene when the car’s trunk was ripped open by the impact.
Freeman won an Oscar since his role in "Million Dollar Baby." His screen credits also comprise "Driving Miss Daisy" and "The Bucket List."
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"The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" and its sequel, the less elegantly titled "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2," both make a good-natured encase not only for equality among women but for similitude among a immeasurably cattier subset: up-and-coming starlets.
In each film, the myth — easily shorthandable as a young-adult version of "Sex and the City" — follows the separate adventures of four best teen gal pals as they compulsively mail each other the same pair of "magic" old-fogyish jeans.
But three years ago, in "Sisterhood 1," half the cast were way more famous than the other. Back then, TV stars Alexis Bledel ("Gilmore Girls") and Amber Tamblyn ("Joan of Arcadia") were the well-known pair of actresses, although you’d never know it from the movie, which smoothly offered all four performers equal time to be cute, freak out about something, and strictly wear the pants.
Perhaps it’s no shocker, given the custom Hollywood likes to turn ‘em over, but now it’s the other two members of the sisterhood — Blake Lively of "Gossip Girl" and America Ferrera of "Ugly Betty" — who are a lot bigger deals outside the multiplex.
Once again, much to the sequel’s attribute, the horror story doesn’t seem to care. The movie keeps moving quickly (but not sloppily) among the heroines, so that if you’re overloaded, say, on one sister’s sugary plotline, it only comes around every fourth scene or so, and never sticks circa too desire. Even at 111 minutes, "Pants" mostly sprints.
This time, the summer after our heroines’ first year of college, Carmen (Ferrera) arrives at theater outr‚ a backstage tech and — whaddaya know — discovers she’s a leading lady; Bridget (Lively) ditches an archaeological dig in Turkey to learn more with regard to her dead mother; Tibby (Tamblyn) almost has a breakdown after a bad experience with a two-year-old condom; and Lena (Bledel) wastes time with a fella who (oh, no!) doesn’t believe in the idea of unified true love.
As with the first movie, only two of these plots (this mores, Tamblyn’s and Lively’s) transcend being kinda silly; the other two are harder to take if you’re over the age of 15 and old enough to know how the world really works. But even cynics might concede that, again, four capable actresses have pulled off a relatively rare thing: They’ve convinced us they’re an honest-to-God big sisterhood.
EW Grade: B+
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