The week before last, I attended a private screening for Netflix’s new show, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt at the Tribeca Grand Hotel in NYC. I drove myself into the city on a cold winter night for this special event. I had already screened the first episode and was intrigued by the show’s premise about a young girl who escapes after spending  15 years as part of a cult and heads to NYC.

NBC initially passed on this new comedy, co-created by the fabulous Tina Fey and Robert Carlock, and I can’t figure out their rationale.

The event was so very Netflix and perfect for a TV junkie like me. We were welcomed by a room packed with monitors playing ads for their original programming and iPads streaming episodes of one of my favorite shows ever, Friends, clearly an inspiration to the writers of the show. The bar was decorated with pillows and artwork with Netflix logo colors. They served Netflix cocktails and had a candy table that included Twizzlers, Snickers, Twix, and M&Ms, presumably to give the event a Bat Mitzvah-like feel for the stars of the show, also in attendance.

Then we watched the first two episodes of the show, and I can honestly say I was laughing out loud. There is so much to love about this show. For one thing, it’s written and created by the team from 30 Rock so you have a little Liz Lemon, a lot of NYC and much snark. Then you have Ellie Kemper. You might remember her from The Office and Bridesmaids. She plays the role with the right amount of innocence and chearm. She’s reminds me a lot of Marlo Thomas from That Girl - you can’t help but fall in love with her. Then you have Titus Burgess, who plays her roommate. Fresh off the Broadway stage, I feel like he was born to play the part of a struggling actor in NYC. The role must come pretty natural to him. There’s also Jane Krakowski, who plays Kemper’s nanny employer so perfectly. I keep expecting her to break out in song and dance one of these days.

Then came the icing on the cake: an interview and meeting with the three stars. The three were gracious, forthcoming and thrilled with their new show. I’m pictured above with Kemper and Burgess, who I promised I would promote the heck out of the show to! Look for an upcoming post on BlogHer with further bits from the interview.

So, please watch it – it debuts tonight at midnight PST/3am EST on NETFLIX.

Disclosure: I’m a member of the Netflix stream team and receive complimentary Netflix to facilitate my review but all opinions are my own.

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I’ve written about Netflix often here on ye olde blog. I’ve written about my binge watching habits, getting my Indie film fix, what I watch with my tween and my deep, fervent love for Orange is the New Black.

In a piece on The Broad Side, I wrote that Netflix is championing women’s voices:

With a staff full of female executives starting from the top down, Netflix is producing original programs that truly are telling important stories about women and raising the bar like no other network to date.

Now I’m excited about another one of their female-driven programs being offered as part of their original programming line-up. I got sent the trailer for Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and I’m kind of excited. Take a look:

Set to premiere on March 6th, the series stars Ellie Kemper as Kimmy, who I hope breaks out into stardom with this role, and is created and exec produced by Tina Fey and Robert Carlock, both of 30 Rock, along with Jeff Richmond, Jack Burditt and David Miner (husband of my fab friend, Jennifer Miner, of Vacation Gals, funnily enough – I just had to mention that).

As the trailer starts out, we see Kimmy being rescued from an underground bunker where she’s been cooped up for 15 years as a member of a cult. She moves to New York City to start her life over and is ready to live life like a normal person. She gets a job as a nanny for a socialite, played by Jane Krakowski, finds a roommate, played by Tituss Burgess and is ready to take on New York City. The cast also includes Lauren Adams, Sara Chase, Sol Miranda and one of my faves, Carol Kane.

It’s a little bit That Girl, a little bit Mary Tyler Moore, a lot 3o Rock and it looks like a show I’ll be binging as soon as it hits the network. I hope we learn more about Kimmy’s stint as a cult member and how she ended up there in the first place (the trailer alludes to her dislike for velcro – there’s a back story), but I look forward to seeing how she takes charge of her life after overcoming many obstacles. It looks like it has humor, sensitivity, laughter, tears and…best of all, a woman’s touch.

Disclosure: I’m a member of the Netflix Streamteam and receive complimentary Netflix. However, all opinions are my own and I was a fan before I became a part of this amazing group.

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Are you like me and you love to read the book before the movie? In high school, I took a film adaptation class and we read books before we saw the film, analyzing The Great Gatsby to The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. We discussed what was left in and what was left in, discerning the screen writer’s decisions and how literary elements are transported to the screen. Ever since then, I’ve always been interested in films that are adaptations and I look for faithful re-tellings of stories.

This is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper is one such book about to be released as a feature film featuring an ensemble cast including Golden Globe winner Jason Bateman (“Arrested Development”); Golden Globe and Emmy Award winner Tina Fey (“30 Rock”); and two-time Oscar® winner, multiple Golden Globe honoree and 2013 Emmy Award nominee Jane Fonda (“Klute,” “Coming Home,” HBO’s “The Newsroom”). Tropper wrote the screenplay and he certainly knows his material better than anyone – so will that make this a great film? Check out a sneak peek here:

The story goes like this: When their father passes away, four grown siblings, bruised and banged up by their respective adult lives, are forced to return to their childhood home and live under the same roof together for a week, along with their over-sharing mother and an assortment of spouses, exes and might-have-beens. Confronting their history and the frayed states of their relationships among the people who know and love them best, they ultimately reconnect in hysterical and emotionally affecting ways amid the chaos, humor, heartache and redemption that only families can provide—driving us insane even as they remind us of our truest, and often best, selves.

I plan on reading This is Where I Leave You and hosting a book club at my house and I plan to join the #TIWILY/ #TIWILYbookclub discussion on Twitter and on the film’s Facebook page, running every Wednesday. By taking part in the conversation, I’ll have a chance to win signed movie posters and a trip to the premiere in Hollywood. Not only that, but I was fortunate to receive a book club kit that includes copies of the novel by Jonathan Tropper, journals, and even a few wine glasses. I’m giving the books out now and we ‘ll be meeting around September 10th to talk about it, and then we’ll see the movie about a week later.

You have time to read it, too, and you can even stop back here in a few weeks and discuss the book with me before the film comes out. Disclosure: This post was sponsored by Warner Brothers.

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Tina Fey was just as cute, tiny and down-to-earth as I expected (seriously, could you just gag?).  I particularly liked her response when asked if getting into NYC schools is harder than getting into Princeton. About the interview process, she said:

What if you have to take them that day and they have to poop? It’s over.

Gotta love that.

I even made Paul Rudd blush during a conversation about his theater acting.  Note: actors love being praised for their theater work. Whenever you want to make them smile, talk about the stage work. Paul Weitz also appreciated the question, which i put forth to him as I know he has done considerable stage work.

When I sat down to see the film the day before the press conference, I quickly realized that I didn’t know a soul in the room. As I sat down to read my press information, a woman slid into the seat next to me.  We started to talk and she explained that a book she just wrote on college admissions was potentially going to be on display in the film and would I please keep an eye out for it.  Then we realized we knew each other from the world of blogging.  I enjoyed locating and squealing at the sight of her book in the film, along with her.  Her name is Nancy Woodward Berk and you should also keep an eye out for the book called College Bound and Gagged.  It was front and center in one scene as one character was removing books from an enormous box.

I told Nancy that I feel years away from the college admissions process. She laughed and said it will be here before I know it.  I can’t even begin to think about it….(but I do promise to read the book).

The film revolves around Tina Fey, who plays an admission counselor at Princeton University. She plays Portia Nathan, a Princeton University admissions officer.  She’s a feminist at heart that has lived by the book and has made a choice not to be a mother. When she finds out that a child she gave birth to and put up for adoption 18 years ago is applying to Princeton, she finds herself bending the admission rules and puts her future at risk.  It’s an honest portrayal of a woman fighting her maternal impulse, struggling to maintain the independence she has worked so hard to maintain.  The thought of having a love in her life never particularly interested her either.  I like what Fey said about why she was attracted to the script:

It was such a rich story. There are so many roles where women are chasing motherhood and desperate to experience it. I thought it was clear that this woman was very clear that did not want to be a mother and she did not want to be married.  She has to face the reality that this person does actually exist and how will this work within her life. It was a nice thing I hadn’t seen before.

Having seen several of Weitz’s films, such as About a Boy and In Good Company, I was curious why he finally made a film with a female lead.  This is what he had to say:

Well, I hadn’t had a film with a clear female lead.  It’s fun to be in this terrain of comedy-drama because that’s so much of what real life is about.  For me, parenting roles are changing rapidly.  If I try to parent my kids like I was parented, my daughter would laugh in my face and my son would scream at me.  Tina’s character has made a decision in life that she won’t be a parent but has a boomerang effect that every year this kid she gave up for adoption is one year closer to the college essays that’s she reading and will be a part of the group that is touring the campus.  I liked someone making a decision with logic and hard mind but having to face the crack in the decision.  Paul’s character is at a point in his life where he’s making decisions for his kid and his kid is finally saying I want to make my own decision about my life and it’s a hard transition.  They’re both at a cracking point in their lives and falling for each other.

Rudd and Fey’s characters do fall for each other. But there are hurdles.  When Rudd convinces her that a child exists that she gave up for adoption in college, her career-driven self goes out the window. It’s obvious what attracted Fey to the role while finishing up her hit show, 30 Rock. She said,

It was such a rich story. There are so many roles where women are chasing motherhood and desperate to experience it.  I thought it was clear that this woman was very clear that did not want to be a mother and she did not want to be married.  She has to face the reality that this person does actually exist and how will this work within her life. It was a nice thing I hadn’t seen before.

But Rudd’s character isn’t emotionally available after years of teaching around the globe, while raising an adopted son on his own, and their love doesn’t come instantly.  About his character, he said,

For John, if you look at what he does, what he’s running away from, all of these attributes seem incredibly appealing and very cool but really the character is very selfish and insecure.  His life that he set up for himself isn’t working the way it used to and I liked that aspect, too.

Tina’s character has been raised by an ardent feminist, played by the incredible Lily Tomlin.  Every time she came on the screen, I felt a huge smile lift from my lips.  I grew up with her work and she will always be a part of what makes the big screen so dynamic to me.  It’s clear that despite her efforts to turn out like her mother, Portia has inherited her mother’s strong will. On working with Tomlin, Fey smiled and said:

I was so star-struck to be meeting her yet alone trying to act opposite her. She was so warm, so into doing everything fully and doing it right. Every scene has a complicated, physical thing that’s she’s doing.  She’s incredible.  She was making sausage, for real.  She is so electric as a personality on screen.  If there’s any slight change or variation in the take, you can feel her taking it in and being excited by it. She has an improviser’s spirit where she’s constantly really genuinely listening to her scene partner, reacting to what they are doing.

I particularly enjoyed the discussion about parenting.  Fey and Rudd both have kids, as does Weitz, and they all had a lot to say about them and how much life has changed.  When asked if he and his character have much in common as parents, Rudd said:

There were so many unknowns when you have a kid. Someone told me, “The child will adapt to your life.  You don’t need to adapt to the child’s life.” So for the first few months when we wanted to go out to dinner, we took our kid.  This character has a bit of that. In my life, I realized I had to adapt my life because I wanted the best for my child. That’s what this character is realizing, too.  It wasn’t so much that I learned the same lessons my character learned, but they were enhanced.

Admission is a film with a feminist slant which appealed to me, and that was the question I put forth to Tina Fey, asking if it’s a factor in the projects that she chooses:

Feminism is certainly something that appeals to me and I certainly try to avoid any roles that would offend me. 

The moral of the movie? Weitz left us with this:

The movie’s about not getting what you expect in life but understanding if you have the capability to change and grow, that’s the greatest tool. 

That was what the film was for me.  Written by novelist Jean Hanff Korelitz and produced by Kerry Kohansky-Roberts, it has a woman’s finger prints all over it. Weitz took what existed and gave it to us straight.  It’s a romantic comedy with compassion, and I’ll take that any day.

Admission starts playing in theaters nationwide on March 22nd, 2013.

Disclosure: I was not compensated to write this review.  In exchange, I went to an early preview and interviewed the cast.  Another one of my stories appeared on Women & Hollywood that evolved from the interview here: http://blogs.indiewire.com/womenandhollywood/tina-fey-on-her-new-film-admission-feminism-motherhood-and-lily-tomlin 

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I saw the new film ADMISSION with Tina Fey and Paul Rudd a few weeks ago.  While I can’t express my thoughts quite yet on the film, I did recently write my interview with Tina Fey over at Women & Hollywood/Indiewire.  Please check it out.

I can’t elaborate much about the film for another week or so, so here is a generic summary:

Tina Fey (“30 Rock” and goddess) and Paul Rudd (“This is 40” and recently “Grace” on Broadway) are paired for the first time on-screen in the new comedy/drama directed by Academy Award nominee Paul Weitz (“About a Boy,” “In Good Company”), about the surprising detours we encounter on the road to happiness. Every spring, high school seniors anxiously await letters of college admission that will affirm and encourage their potential. At Princeton University, admissions officer Portia Nathan (Tina Fey) is a gatekeeper evaluating thousands of applicants. Year in and year out, Portia has lived her life by the book, at work as well as at the home she shares with Princeton professor Mark (Michael Sheen). When Clarence (Wallace Shawn), the Dean of Admissions, announces his impending retirement, the likeliest candidates to succeed him are Portia and her office rival Corinne (Gloria Reuben). For Portia, however, it’s business as usual as she hits the road on her annual recruiting trip. On the road, Portia reconnects with her iconoclastic mother, Susannah (Lily Tomlin). On her visit to New Quest, an alternative high school, she then reconnects with her former classmate, idealistic teacher John Pressman (Paul Rudd) – who has recently surmised that Jeremiah (Nat Wolff), a gifted yet very unconventional New Quest student, might well be the son that Portia secretly gave up for adoption years ago while at school. Jeremiah is about to apply to Princeton. Now Portia must re-evaluate her personal and professional existences, as she finds herself bending the admissions rules for Jeremiah, putting at risk the future she thought she always wanted – and in the process finding her way to a surprising and exhilarating life and romance she never dreamed of having.  The film was written by Karen Croner (“One True Thing”) and based on the novel by Jean Hanff Korelitz.

I have THREE pairs of tickets to the premiere screening of ADMISSION on Tuesday, March 5th.  You must live in NYC to win and I need to pick a winner quickly by Monday at 12pm EST.

To win a pair of tickets to the screening, tell me your greatest memory about the  college admissions process, good or bad.

You can get additional entries by doing one of or more of the following:

– Follow The Culture Mom on Facebook.

– Follow The Culture Mom on Twitter.

– Follow The Culture Mom on Pinterest.

This giveaway will end on Monday, March 4th at noon EST. Winners will be notified via email and will have 24 hours to accept their prize.

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So, Tina and Amy decided to host the Golden Globes because it’s a “sloppy, loud party, and their kind of thing.”

Oh, and Tina wants to win best picture, even though she decided to make a movie.

Also of interest, Amy wants to meet Angelina Jolie.  She has had a lot of imaginary conversations with her and wants to have a real one. And meet a blue person from the film “Avatar”.

They don’t seem to even know what or who is nominated! They seem to think it’s all about “Avatar”.  Wrong year.

Hilarious!

I have never been so excited about an awards show.  What was the last one hosted by ALL women? I loved the Emmy Awards and Oscars when they were hosted by Ellen DeGeneres but she didn’t have her best friend to share the limelight with.  Why?  Because women tell good stories.  They laugh together.  It will be a completely different vibe.

And they hold their stomachs in a lot.  They’re moms, after all. Watch the video.

The Golden Globes air next Sunday, January 13th.

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I enjoyed every word of Tina Fey’s new tell-all called “Bossypants.”  I actually call it a tell-all in gest.  She doesn’t really rat on anyone in show business.  She’s kind of gracious and scathing at the same time.  As someone yet to make my own mark in the world, I was really impressed with her story.  How she joined the cast of SNL at a very young age, after having been out in the world on her own for a very short time.  How she has always followed her heart, having had a love for theater and acting in high school and never left it behind.

The book isn’t necessarily a deep read, it’s light.  But not only is her story kind of relatable, but it’s also very cool to read about her career and personal life.  She uses very descriptive details in certain scenes and I envy her memory.

Rather than review the book detail by detail, I’m going to include a few of her brilliant passages.

On giving young women career advice (where were you when I was younger, Tina?):

“This is what I tell young women who ask me for career advice.  People are going to try to trick you.  To make you feel that you are in competition with one another.  ‘You’re up for a promotion.  If they go with a woman, it’ll be between you and Barbara.”  Don’t be fooled.  You’re not in competition with other women.  You’re in competition with everyone.  Also, I encourage them to always wear a bra.  Even if you don’t think you need it, just…you know what?   You’re never going to regret it.”

I’ve never been on a cruise.  After reading this book, I have less desire after reading the chapter about how on her honeymoon, Tina and her husband nearly went down with their ship.

“The most interesting thing I learned from this trip came when I told the story to my friend James, who had been a performer on a cruise ship years before.  When I told him the woman said, “Bravo, bravo, bravo, ” James froze.  Did she really say it three times?” he needed to know.  Then James laid it out for me.  Bravo is serious.  The more times they say it, the more serious it is.  The most times they ever say it is four times, and if they say it four times, it means you’re going down to your watery grave.  So, ‘Bravo, bravo, bravo’ was not terrific.  Interesting fact number two:  In the event of an emergency, it is the entertainers who are in charge of the lifeboats. Because the rest of the crew has actual nautical duties, the kids from Fiesta Caliente are trained to man the lifeboats. If you ever have to get on a lifeboat, the person in charge of your safety will likely be a nineteen-year-old dancer from Tampa who just had a fight with his boyfriend about the new Rihanna video. James also told me that each lifeboat has a gun on it and that once a lifeboat is in the water, the performer-lifeboat captain is trained to shoot anyone who is disruptive. This is apparently legal in accordance with maritime law.”

Among Tina’s “Twelve Tenets of Looking Amazing Forever,” are 12 tenets I can relate to like #11: Aging Naturally Without Looking Like Time-Lapse Photography of a Rotting Sparrow:

“At a certain point, your body wants to be disgusting.  While your teens and twenties were about identifying and emphasizing your “best features,” your late thirties and forties are about fighting back decay.  You pluck your patchy beard daily.  Your big toe may start to turn jauntily forward.  Overnight you may grow one long straight white pubic hair.  Not that this has happened to me, of course, because every six months I get a very expensive Japanese treatment that turns my public hair clear like rice noodles.”

On why we should accept the use of Photoshop in touching up photos:

“Give it up.  Retouching is here to stay.  Technology doesn’t move backward.  No society has ever de-industrialized.  Which is why we’ll never turn back Photoshop — and why the economic collapse of China is going to be the death of us all.  Never mind that.  Let’s keep being up in arms about this Photoshop business!”

On the debate between breast-feeding moms and non breast-feeding moms:

“Millions of moms around the world nurse their children beautifully for years without giving anybody else a hard time about it.  Teat Nazis are a solely Western upper-middle-class phenomenon occurring when highly ambitious women experience deprivation from outside modes of achievement.  Their highest infestation pockets are in Brooklyn and Hollywood.”

These are just a few of Tina’s strokes of brilliance in her book.  Having worked in television, I really appreciated the chapters about working on SNL and 30 Rock, and her relationships with Lorne Michaels, Jimmy Fallon, Amy Pohler, Alec Baldwin, and of course, her husband and daughter.

The parts of her book about her daughter are touching.  She admits that it’s not easy to be a working mom, and that she’s cried in her office several times about it.  In one of the last chapters entitled The Mother’s Prayer for its Daughter she says:

“And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord, That I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50am, all-at-once exhausted, bored and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up my back.  ‘My mother did this for me.’  And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental Note to call me.  And she will forget.  But I’ll know, because I peeped it with Your God eyes. Amen.”

Disclosure: I paid for my own copy of Bossypants and have not been in touch with anyone to promote the book.  All opinions are my own.

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