When this Jane Campion-directed thriller starring Meg Ryan was released in 2003, almost no one gave it any love. Receiving only 33% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, it was called “A flaccid thriller as lifeless as the film's many decapitated corpses” that “builds slowly, slowly, slowly, towards a truly stupid climax”.?And yet, it's one of my most beloved, not-even-that-guilty pleasures. I just don't think the world was ready for it.

Imagine a skinamax movie full of dirty talk and dirty deeds with The Piano director Campion at the helm.

It's an odd pairing and I think that's the main reason people reacted so negatively to it: if you were looking for a raunchy steamy thriller, you got it–but what was the deal with the frames being half out of focus, the deliberate pacing, and the art school sequences of sienna tinted ice skaters?

If you were looking for a Jane Campion classic, you also got it. Meg Ryan acts tall and reserved like she though Nicole Kidman would, and Campion's arty photography (used unnecessarily here, but to great effect) gives the movie a unique look, like a modern, live action photo book reminiscent of the work of Diane Arbus or Robert Frank, shot entirely in New York City… But you probably weren't as psyched to hear lines like, “You want me to be your best friend, f**k you, treat you good, lick your p***y? No problem”; you probably found Ryan's occupation as an Ebonics professor laughable; and you probably weren't expecting so many bloody and gory sequences.

The hybrid makes more sense when you know that the source material, a reportedly gruesome novel by Susanna Moore, (quite out of character for Moore,?a writer best know for her memoirs about growing up in Hawaii) was written while she was reading every mystery novel she could find?and tons of pornography. She felt the two genres had not been handled by women, and she decided to have at it.

Though most will disagree the end result is nothing short of totally awesome. Mark Ruffalo is at his best here, making a stud cop straight from women's porno fantasies, delivering lines like the dirty one previously mentioned, as a believable realistic character. Ryan is fine as the icy teacher embroiled in the murder plot, and the supporting cast is phenomenal.

Jennifer Jason Leigh, who I for some reason I just can't manage to like, is really superb as Ryan's kind of crazy/kind of slutty sister; and Kevin Bacon embodies the kind of stalking ex-boyfriend we've all known or heard about so well that I'm surprised more people haven't utilized him in creepier ways more often.

I even watched it a second time to ensure I was not insane when I loved it the first time. I am not insane.

My sister and I took playing with our Barbie dolls very seriously. Not only did every single doll have her own name, she also possessed a detailed and complex personality and background. I say “she” because we only had two Ken dolls: a moppy haired gentleman who usually wore a fast food uniform, and the Derek doll from Barbie and the Rockers who's name in our play universe was Todd O'Neal–we even changed the lyrics of Manic Monday to “I was kissin' Todd O'Neal by a crystal blue Italian stream” when we sang it.

Our two most beloved characters, (the ones we would pitch our voices differently to act like) were Staretta Aldo (my sister) and Cheryl Phillip (myself). We were best friends, members of the Bangles, and the Frugal Gourmet was my dad, Mr Philip.

Yes, we took it very seriously. And this pink tape, which we still have somewhere, with its four amazing tracks was no less revered. I could have recommended it as album of the week, but with only four songs, each under two minutes, it's more like a medley. The most popular song, of course is “Barbie and the Rockers” a genuinely catchy tune, but my most favorite is “Born with a Mic in Our Hands” a story of how the whole gang: Barbie, Derek, Deedee, Diva, and Dana were destined to form a rock band since birth.

Many Jem fans claim Barbie and the Rockers were just a fake rip off and, well, they were–but I seriously love this tape.

Is chronic male gold digging and preying on teenage socialites and millionaires really reason enough to boo me off the table for saying I find the reptilian heartthrob Johnathan Rhyes Meyers hot and awesome? I swear, I haven't been glared at so incredulously since I last told someone that R. Kelly's illiteracy doesn't bother me (the peeing, though–I'm TOTALLY against!).

True, he tends to come off more creepy and insolent than dashing and gallant when cast in the role of lover (see: Match Point, the (awful) Tudors, and especially, Bend It Like Beckham), but creepy and insolent is the way I like him?On screen.

Off screen, it's fair to say that I probably wouldn't like him one bit. Rumors of alchohol abuse and girlfriend beatings. BOO! And he once called all actresses “drama queens” and vowed to never date one again. This from a guy that wore a knit beanie cap, sunglasses and tightie whities into an LA pool after strutting around making sure everyone recognized him. That's no rumor, a friend witnessed it, so if anything, it's hearsay.

Still! I can't deny him as this week's hunk, as ashamed as I should be.

I'm becoming enthralled with the persona of modern Diva and spazmatazz Celion Dion. Every time I see her acting totally and completely bat shit crazy in a Talk Soup clip, I'm drawn a little bit further into her insane world. She is like a living, breathing, beat boxing Tex Avery cartoon; some sort of lunatic bird that got flattened by a steam roller or something.

I have absolutely no interest in her professional career, in fact there are fewer things I would turn off quicker than one of her songs (Amy Grant, I'm talking about you) but, as a superstar superfreakshow, I love her.

I also love the time she wore a Jon Galliano white totally crossed out tuxedo to the 1999 Oscars, leaving the inane peanut gallery of so-called fashion experts with there eyes bulging and minds blown.

Dion is definitely a blower of minds–and if you don't believe me, please watch this amazing video from one of my favorite bloggers, Rich Juzwiak of Fourfour.

I never thought I would become a woman who ate from the weight watchers frozen food aisle. When you see the hockey puck container this Smart Ones Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Sundae comes in, that “what kind of person am I, that I am eating this” feeling is overwhelming the first time.

But have eaten possibly hundreds of these babies and the processed, over packaged grossosity doesn't even phase me anymore.

So this category does not belong to the embarrassing theme of the week, though you should always get just drunk enough to act slightly silly, and I think the trend of only attending the reception and not the wedding (a trend I only just found about) should be considered embarrassing and totally wrong.

I just want to take the time to congratulate my friends Laura and Chris on the beginning of their life together as husband and wife. The wedding and reception were beautiful and we had a great time!

A drive through New Mexico can be both exquisitely beautiful and achingly depressing. Beautiful are some of the vistas, depressing are the poverty stricken towns; so when you hit a long stretch of the latter, any sign that promises wonderful things ahead is exciting indeed.

Signs for White's City litter the highways for miles, and we even ended up diverted off a highway through tricky signs and onto a rural route headed straight towards the biggest tourist trap in the Southwest.

We ate what can be barely described as a meal at the Velvet Garter Steakhouse, which the website's strange copy introduces like this: “What's this? An Italian Restaurant in the desert? You Bet!”

We took to calling the place The Golden Harlot. We didn't have time to go to Carlsbad Caverns due to all the time we lost getting sidetracked to the “resort” of White's City, but Jim did get an amazing tee shirt that I still wear to bed sometimes that says “Doing it in a Cave” on the front and has boxes checked off that read “Been there” and “Done that”.?Jim also bought a bunch of foam geckos that he vividly remembered from the rooms of girls he knew in junior high.

I blame the tranny who looks at the camera and says “I don't like jay-ale!” and the trashy girl that yells “there's a bullet in my Jaguar!” in the ads, because I seriously, normally never get sucked into these real life tragedy shows about miserable people and their miserable situations.

I avoid Cops, which depresses me (the other show created by the father and son production team of John and Morgan Langley behind Inside American Jail) but for some reason I simply couldn't avoid watching this new one.

I am so adverse to theses shows, like Most Shocking, that Jim was shocked when I asked him to not change the channel.

Embarrassingly and guiltily, I was riveted.

Loose meat Sandwiches don't conjure up the most appetizing of images. The words “loose” and “meat” themselves sound either like the meat that falls off saggy thighs or some slutty animal on the farm.

Perhaps even worse, it reminds one of late era Roseanne shows, when she and her sister Jackie made loose meat sandwiches inside a mall with Martin Mull. Shudder.

But would you believe me if I told you this is one of the best things I've cooked all year? It's simple and yummy in a totally American way. The key is to get a solid roll that can stand up to the filling without sogging.