BRB KIT SWAK

(In this photo: Me and my godmother Nancy who came to visit in the midst of my recovery and give my parents, who have been amazing, a little break so my mom could enjoy her 65th birthday. She's sitting at my feet as I write this post.)

My apologies for the lack of posts recently, kids, but I had to have my tonsils removed last week and found myself too sick to post the days leading up to the surgery and in too much pain to write anything following.

I just hit Day 8 of my recovery and it's still a beast but gets better, slowly but surely, day by day. Give me another week or so and Hollywood Bites will be back with a vengeance. In the meantime, the best thing I've eaten in weeks is Smart Water. For the first time in my life, food is not my friend, which is a very weird experience for me. On the plus side, I'm losing weight like my name was Valerie Bertinelli. But damn do I miss chewing.

Sigh. I just try to remember my friend Simone's tattoo: "This too shall pass"

Thanks for your patience. See you again very soon!

The Top Ten Best Sex and the City Quotes

As I marked another day off my countdown calendar leading up to the release of Sex and the City 2 on May 27, “I couldn’t help but wonder,” what are the best Sex and the City quotes ever? Sure, “He’s just not that into you” has a life of its’ own now, but “I got to thinking” about the lines that made the show the truly unforgettable phenomenon it is.

During SATC’s six season run, part of the water-cooler fun was recapping each week’s OMG, Did They Just Say That? moments, courtesy of the show’s writing staff of primarily single women who were invited to air their grievances and dirty laundry on national television, much to the audiences’ delight. Samantha, Carrie, Charlotte and Miranda were always able to express, with perfect eloquence, what every woman feels and these are ten of their best lines.

10. Samantha: “You have a lot of nerve telling me to get a wax. If you were in Aruba the natives could bead your back. And it’s not just there: every time I blow you I feel like I’m flossing.”

9. Carrie: “I will never be the woman with the perfect hair, who can wear white and not spill on it.”

8. Miranda: “Sexy is the thing I try to get them to see me as after I win them over with my personality.”

7. Charlotte: “My vagina’s depressed.”

6. Miranda: “I’m dating skid-marks guy. When your boyfriend is so comfortable that he cannot be bothered to wipe his ass, there’s a problem.”

5. Carrie: “You can stay here with your boxes of shit and your shoe-eating dog and knock yourself putting on the Rogaine and the Speed Stick.”

4. Carrie: “I revealed too much too soon. I was emotionally slutty.”

3. Samantha: “I’m a try-sexual. I’ll try anything once.”

2. Carrie: “Maybe some women aren’t meant to be tamed. Maybe they just need to run free until they find someone just as wild to run with.”

1. Samantha: “You men have no idea what we’re dealing with down there. Teeth placement, and jaw stress, and suction, and gag reflex, and all the while bobbing up and down, moaning and trying to breathe through our noses. Easy? Honey, they don’t call it a job for nothin’.”

Written for SheKnows.com

What's Playing: May 21st

Opening in theaters this week...

May 21

Shrek: The Final Chapter (Dreamworks Animation)


The fourth Shrek installment, this time in 3D, finds Shrek (voiced by Mike Myers) sick of domestic life with Fiona (Cameron Diaz) and their kids. After asking bamboozling Rumpelstiltskin to help him get back to feeling like a real ogre again, he finds himself in an alternate version of Far Far Away where Rumpelstiltskin is king, ogres are hunted, and he and Fiona have never met. All alone once again, he sets out to restore his world.

MacGruber (Rogue Pictures)

It’s not often a Saturday Night Live sketch successfully survives the trip from small to big screen. With the exception of The Blues Brothers and Wayne’s World, most attempts have been disastrous (Superstar, A Night at the Roxbury, It’s Pat: The Movie). With any luck, Macgruber will join the leagues of the former, rather than the later. First time director Jorma Taccone has been very successful with SNL Digital Shorts, but will that translate to this rip off of MacGyver starring Will Forte, Kristen Wiig, Val Kilmer and Ryan Philippe?

Holy Rollers (First Independent Pictures)

Inspired by the true story of a young Hassidic Jew in Brooklyn (Jesse Eisenberg) who became an Ecstacy courier thanks to a friend with ties to an Israeli drug cartel (The Hangover’s Justin Bartha). Told to “mind your business and act Jewish,” he finds the ultimate cover and entre into an exciting new life.

Hollywood Bites Reviews: "Micmacs"

Jean-Pierre Jeunet is a selfish bastard. How else can you explain the French director's half decade absence from cinema? Thankfully, the man who helmed "Amelie," "A Very Long Engagement," "The City of Lost Children" and "Delicatessen," is back with a new film told as only he can.

"Micmacs" (known in France as "Micmacs a tire-larigot") is a fantastical, breathtaking jaunt about Bazil (marvelously rubber-faced Dany Boon), the son of a bomb disposal expert who died on a job in Morocco. Years later, after he survives being struck by a stray bullet which remains lodged in his head, though it costs him his job and home, Bazil falls in with a motley crew who help him exact revenge on the two weapons manufacturers who made the landmine that took his father and the bullet which almost killed him. His adoptive family includes a contortionist (Julie Ferrier), a pixyish math whiz named Calculette (Marie-Julie Baup), the bombastic human cannonball (Dominique Pinon), and Remington, a man who only speaks in clichéd turns of phrase (Omar Sy).

Filled with magical realism and a sense of wonder, Jeunet has created a savvy and insightful satire about the world's arms trade that's surprisingly funny, warm and charming. Using a palette that moves from somber sepia tones to jewel shades that share a kinship with painter Wayne Thiebaud, the film is as beautiful as it is visually witty, like when a blast sends a pinup calendar flashing through the months like a flip book, leaving the Petty Girl nude or a jauntily animated sequences recounting famous deaths by lame accidents.

An intricate and well-plotted caper in a heightened, slightly magical, alternate reality, "Micmacs" has shades that may remind some American audiences of both "Pushing Daisies" and "Ocean's 11," not exactly shabby company to be keeping. Rich and clever, it's yet another feather in Jeunet's cinematic cap.

Jesse Eisenberg is a Holy Roller

Despite what you may think, Holy Rollers isn’t about grandmas heading to Pentecostal church bingo, nor does it have anything to do with a virginal roller derby team. It’s the true story of young Hassidic Jews who smuggled Ecstasy from Amsterdam to Brooklyn in the late 1990s.

Jesse Eisenberg stars as Sam Gold, a good Jewish boy studying to be a rabbi and awaiting approval for his arranged marriage. But when he’s rejected by the family of his would-be bride for what he thinks are financial shortcomings, he allows himself to be sucked over to the dark side by his neighbor, Yosef (The Hangover’s Justin Bartha), who has ties to an Israeli drug cartel. Told to “mind your business and act Jewish,” Sam finds his religion is the perfect cover for an unsuspected drug runner in the middle of a major crisis of faith.

Watching the movie, it has shades of The Believer, the film that launched Ryan Gosling’s career. Many people felt Gosling was able to connect with the role of a Neo-Nazi Jew because he was raised Mormon and could understand, not necessarily zealotry, but what an intense religious connection can mean. Similarly, screenwriter Antonio Macia is a converted Mormon who’s gone on lengthy missions. Could it be that his background is one of the reasons he wanted to write this film?

"The other thing about him is he grew up in a Catholic family,” Eisenberg points out. “He chose Mormonism himself, which I think makes it that much more interesting. He’s is very interested in religion. He has, this is something I have trouble relating to, very complicated ties to his faith; conflicts in it, great affection. When he wrote the script, the great conflict for my character of faith and blind faith, how much does he feel invested spiritually in Judaism and does he feel it strongly enough to stray? That was the main interest for Antonio.”

Daily Solution: Updating Your Kitchen

You can hear that I was super sick when we shot this one, but they're good tips nonetheless.

The Best Thing I Ate Today: India's Sweets and Spices

Before settling in to watch last night's finale of "Private Chefs of Beverly Hills," the girls and I struck out for some pre-crafting fun at Michael's, my first trip to the mega-amazing Super King and a brilliant to-go dinner from India's Sweets and Spices.

Caroline and Erin in the feather aisle.

Rachel and I getting our swerve on in the oversized glass aisle. Seriously, what are you supposed to use a 10-gallon cognac snifter for?

$12 dollars later, from Sweets and Spices, we had enough food for everyone to enjoy. Our two item combo came with fragrant pea and carrot-studded basmati rice, raw cabbage salad, chapati, pappadam, a fiery somosa flecked with whole cumin seed, spicy curried chickpeas, and punjabi kahdi, which is a creamy vegetarian yogurt curry. Because I'm obsessed we also got a ton of extra green chutney, a spicy, refreshing mix of cilantro, mint, garlic and chile, to pour over everything.

Masala Dosa in the house! Fresh off the griddle, yeasty and crispy, brimming with turmeric spiced potatoes, the dosa comes with a super gingery lentil stew of sorts that you pour into and over it, followed by the roasted red pepper sauce and a creamy version of the aforementioned "green chutney." Total mouth-gasm.

My half massacred plate.

I can't think of a better way to wish "Private Chefs" bon voyage (That is, unless we get picked up for 13 more episodes). Crawling into bed, my fingers still scented with curry and cilantro, I was one very happy camper.

India's Sweets and Spices
3126 Los Feliz Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90039

Jews Mellowing at Super King

Tonight, before the finale of "Private Chefs of Beverly Hills," Erin, Rachel and Caroline introduced me to Super King Market, the most mind-blowing supermarket I've ever experienced outside of my beloved Berkeley Bowl.

Wandering the aisles, dancing to The Pointer Sisters' "Jump," gasping in delight at the sight of five kinds of bottled Mole, eight varieties of fresh Baklava, or mammoth tubs of sheep's milk feta in brine, we stumbled upon something I've never heard of before but is my new favorite ingredient: Jews Mellow.


Apparently it's a vegetable similar to okra that was described in one web search as "mucousy" (delightful), and is often used in soup. I prefer to think of it as the spinach Popeye might pound if he were a member of the tribe. It's also something this Bat Mitzvah girl can always use a hefty dose of it.

The Best Thing I Ate Today: Hunan Cafe

Every week for the last three seasons, my dear friends and I have gathered to watch Lost, a show whose end is so unfathomably traumatic, I can't even think about it. Last week, when my pops was still in town, we gathered as we always do for delivery dinner and one of the best hours ever to grace a television set.

John, Jenny, Leah and I have a few restaurants in heavy rotation for Tuesday dinner. Bossa Nova often gets a call for their Chico's Salad and mysteriously disappearing and reappearing Black Bean Soup (it's the Christian of menu items). RoRo's Vegetarian Platter and Chicken Breast Plate make a frequent appearance. But we decided to go hog wild and order Hunan Cafe.

As a transplanted child of New York City, there is many things about Los Angeles I have come to love, respect and admire. LA Chinese food is not one of them. For over a decade, I have choked down “Chinese” Chicken Salads (don’t call it Chinese just because there’s some sesame oil and a wonton in there) and low sodium, steamed, white meat only abominations to my palate. In truth, a trip to Panda Express is usually far more satisfying. But then I found Hunan Café. Tucked between a supplement store and a cigar shop, dwarfed by the Virgin Megastore and The DGA, sits a West Coast restaurant that makes you feel like you are supping on 81st and Broadway.

For anyone who has ever enjoyed East Coast Chinese food, there are three magic words; “Cold Sesame Noodles”. The mere mention sends chills of ecstasy down my spine and joy leaping to my heart. You will not find a better version then at Hunan Café. Slippery, al dente noodles covered in a light, spicy, sesame dressing, chopped peanuts, and scallions, offer an improvement on the overdressed peanut butter noodles you occasionally stumble upon in the Big Apple.


The sautéed string beans are incomprehensibly delicious. Coated in a spice rub and dry fried in a wok that has been seasoned for decades, these are vegetables on a whole other playing field.


Of course, because this is LA, they offer low carb, white meat only, low sodium renditions of everything and certain dishes even have the caloric breakdowns. I was initially cynical, but one bite of their lo-cal Kung Pao Chicken studded with whole peanuts, chopped water chestnut and melted scallions and I was convinced. If I could be like Jared and eat that instead of subs all day, I would be on that diet forever.

Marty P eagerly awaiting a plate from John.

Jenny and I before we stuffed our faces.

Leah and Jenny priming their chopsticks.

As if the end of Lost weren't miserable enough, now I have to give up my Tuesday night dinner party. We need a new show obsession. FlashForward, anyone?

What's Playing: May 14th

Opening this weekend...

Robin Hood (Universal Pictures)

Sherwood Forest just got a little grittier. Don’t expect any merry men in tights or Bryan Adams power ballads now that Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe have arrived in Nottingham. Robin Hood gets the Gladiator treatment and is retold as the story of an expert archer (Crowe) toward the end of the 12th century who assembles a gang of mercenaries to rise up against a tyrannical sheriff (Matthew Macfadyen) and the ruling class.

Just Wright (Fox Searchlight Pictures)


Although the posters make it look confusingly like Love and Basketball 2, this film, starring Queen Latifah and Common, is a sub-par rom-com about a physical therapist (Latifah) who can’t find a good man until she falls for the basketball player (Common) she is helping recover from a career-threatening injury. Problem is, he’s already dating her knockout best friend (Paula Patton). Actually, the real problem is, this movie is a tremendous waste of time and talent.

Letters to Juliet (Summit Entertainment)

Even Amanda Seyfried and her impossibly perfect golden mane, pillowy lips and Keane painting doe eyes can't save this tale of a New York City fact-checker on vacation in Verona, the setting of Romeo and Juliet, who finds a letter written to the fictional lover and sets off on a Tuscan adventure to search out true love. Critics are calling it "insufferable,""flat," and "like a Taylor Swift pop hit." Ouch.

"Just Wright"? Yeah, Not So Much

Those billboards around town you keep confusing for "Love and Basketball 2," they're actually ads for "Just Wright," an overly simplistic romantic comedy starring two very talented and charismatic rappers, though you wouldn't know it by this film.

Queen Latifah takes the lead as Leslie Wright, a 35-year-old physical therapist who may or may not live at home, and, if she doesn't, her omnipresent parents, James Pickens Jr. and Pam Grier, sure do stop by a hell of a lot. A die hard Nets fan, she meets their alarmingly tiny star player, Scott McKnight (Common) one night at a gas station and they very platonically hit it off. When he suffers a potentially career ending injury, she nurses him back to health, predictably falling for him along the way. The problem is he's already engaged to her vapid, gold digger god-sister and best friend, Morgan, (the unspeakably beautiful Paula Patton).

Gasp!

Will these two get together? Will he choose inner beauty over a trophy wife? Will someone please tell us who green-lit this trash?

Seeming less like a film and more like a very loooong tedious episode of a sitcom, the only thing missing from this in-aptly titled flick is canned laughter. Without chemistry or pizzazz, the plot trudges along with painful predictability until all you can do is roll your eyes and whisper to your next door seatmate, "Did they really just do that?" Oh yes, they did.

Let's just start with the main characters' names, shall we?

Wright and McKnight.

Get it, get it? He's her McKnight in shining armor. She's Miss Wright. No really, someone got paid a lot of money to write that. And it's nuances such as those which make "Just Wright" so very wrong. Director Sanaa Hamri, who previously helmed the very loveable "Something New," as well as the offensively awful "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2," turns her leads into caricatures. Forced and unrelentingly cheesy, the only thing worse than the writing is the acting which is best compared to a basketball groupie's silicone implants: stiff, inorganic, and implausibly overblown.

Queen Latifah was nominated for an Oscar for cryin' out loud. Usually, we would pay to watch her read the phone book. Could this be Common's fault? He may be easy on the eyes and a great musician, but after a solid debut in the otherwise wildly misguided, "Smokin Aces," he's done nothing but recycle the same corrupt cop performance from "Street Kings" to "Date Night." Phylicia Rashad, a sitcom veteran, gives the only grounded performance in the entire film, perhaps because she's so comfortable with the construct, and, sidenote, what the hell was Mercad Brookes' agent thinking? The poor guy is a glorified extra.

It's sad to see so much talent squandered on a paint-by-numbers rom-com that's less satisfying than a rerun of "Saved by the Bell."

This Week's Daily Solution: Refreshing Infused Water

Dishing Robert Downey Jr. and Iron Man 2 on Fox News' Lips & Ears

The Best Thing I Ate Today: Urth Caffe's Tuna Sandwich, Eggplant Panini and Pecan Pie

Check out the food porn. It's an embarrassment of riches, baby!

I used to visit Urth Caffe two or three times a week until I became so complusively addicted, I burnt myself out and now rarely return. But this week I found myself in Santa Monica with time to burn and a yearning for a tuna sandwich.

Urth, here I come.

The thing I love about Urth's tuna is they use mayo on the bread rather that mashed it into the fish, instead adding chopped onion, cucumber and tomato, and a few splashes of oil and vinegar to the mix, creating a surprisingly refreshing and mouth dazzling blend of zip and richness on crusty cibatta.

The Panini Portobella with roasted portobello caps, grilled yellow peppers, artichoke hearts, arugula, pesto and herbed goat cheese was equally delicious, though it did require a few visits from the salt shaker. Served with a bright spinach salad topped by fresh, sweet cherry tomatoes and caramelized pecans, it was a quickly forgivable minor misstep.

Finally, a mini pecan pie whose nuts gave way to an eggy, luxurious custard held in puff pastry.

Oh, Urth, how could I have forsaken you? I've missed you, m'love, and will see you again very very soon.

Feel the Love for "Mother and Child"

Rodrigo Garcia loves women. With a decade of filmmaking experience, his ability to create small, interwoven, deeply personal portraits of the fairer sex has been well demonstrated in works like "Things You Can Tell Just By Looking at Her" and "Nine Lives," but never before has his esteem for the role of wife, mother and daughter been more beautifully captured than in his latest offering, "Mother and Child."

The film begins in dreamy soft focus, the edges of the frame blurring the way a memory would over time, as a fourteen-year-old girl has sex for the very first time only to find herself pregnant, surrounded by other sequestered young mothers, in labor and then forced to give her child up for adoption. Jolting forward forty years to present day, we meet the first of three women, Karen (Annette Bening), the once young mother still tormented by giving up her child, Elizabeth (Naomi Watts). Rounding out the tale is Lucy (Kerry Washington), a woman incapable of bearing children, trying to adopt as her marriage withers.

Bening is crushing as a haunted woman trying to fortify herself by holding the world at arm's length until she meets Paco (Jimmy Smits), who embraces her despite her prickly exterior. Watts' cold calculation and deep seeded resentment boil under an alarmingly placid façade, making for a fascinating character study, especially when she slips into a romantic entanglement with her boss (Samuel L. Jackson), a man she introduces to her aghast neighbors as her father. Washington does slightly less with what she's given, vacillating between poised, sunny perfection and undone hysterics, but has moments of stunning truth, like when she can't make her baby stop crying so she breaks down herself.

Delving into territory that has seen one too many passes on the Lifetime Movie Network, melodrama and schmaltz are easy pitfalls for a story about the ramifications of adoption. But Garcia braids his narrative so successfully, though the trajectory can be predictable, it's no less heartbreaking. Moving, captivating, beautifully shot and filled with stellar performances, "Mother and Child" is one of the best films so far in 2010.

The Best Thing I Ate Today: Hostess Cherry Pie

Yesterday was horrible. My car crapped out, I got a letter from the IRS informing me I owe them the equivalent of three months worth of rent, my dad left to go back to Northern California, and I was innundated with work, none of which is the work I should be doing on my book.

Gah.

Worst of all, I didn't even have time to eat anything until almost 6pm and then it was just what I could grab at a 7-11 on my way to a screening of "Prince of Persia" (which was way better than I expected). Wrung out, exhausted and miserable, the only thing left to do was eat my feelings, so I reached for a treat I usually reserve exclusively for road trips: A Hostess Cherry Pie.

450 calories and 20 grams of fat later, I actually felt a little better. Thanks, Hostess!

What's Playing: May 7th

Opening this weekend...

Iron Man 2 (Paramount)

You know him, you love him, and this time he’s rocking out to the sounds of AC/DC. Robert Downey Jr. is back as everyone’s favorite billionaire inventor turned superhero, Iron Man. Gwyneth Paltrow also returns as Pepper Potts, while Don Cheadle steps into Terrence Howard’s role after some well-publicized bad blood. Filling in the role of resident baddie is Mickey Rourke as Ivan Vanko/Whiplash who’s out to destroy Iron Man. That is, if the US military doesn’t get to him first.

Spoiler alert: DJ AM, who passed away after an accidental drug overdose in September 2009, makes a cameo as himself.

Babies (Focus Features)

Just in time for Mother’s Day, a beautifully shot documentary following one year in the lives of four babies around the world; Ponijao (Opuwo, Namibia), Bayar (Bayanchandmani, Mongolia), Mari (Tokyo, Japan), and Hattie (San Francisco, California). It’s like Planet Earth, but with children.

Mother and Child (Sony Pictures Classics)

A drama about motherhood stacked with outstanding actors including Naomi Watts, Annette Bening, Jimmy Smits and Samuel L. Jackson. Bening is a 50-year-old woman who gave her daughter up for adoption 35 years ago, Watts is the daughter she never knew, and Kerry Washington is a woman looking to adopt a child of her own.

Casino Jack and the United States of Money (Magnolia Pictures)

Academy award-winning documentarian Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room) uncovers the corruption surrounding and perpetrated by Jack Abramoff, a lobbyist currently incarcerated for bribing members of Congress. Gibney’s gunning for Michael Moore’s thunder and this tale of mob hits, casinos and idiocracy proves he’s worthy.

Mother's Day Cupcakes

Here's a quick way to give your mom a present, bouquet and dessert all in one.

Happy Mother's Day! I love you, Miki.

Watch more AOL Living videos on AOL Video

Maybe That's Why He's a "Solitary Man"

Meet Ben Kalman (Michael Douglas), New York's one "honest car dealer," a smooth-talking wheeler and dealer with a great family, a beautiful wife (Susan Sarandon), a booming empire, and a sense of invincibility—on the day that all falls apart in the office of his cardiologist.

Six and a half years later, we meet Ben again, a little worse for the wear, this time in a montage that has him strutting through Manhattan, cloaked in black, to the sounds of Johnny Cash's cover of "Solitary Man." His wife is now an ex, his relationship with his daughter (Jenna Fischer) is seriously in peril and the business he built has imploded, a casualty of hubris. But thanks to Jordan, his tony new girlfriend (Mary-Louise Parker), Ben is on the verge of resurrection as he accompanies her college-bound daughter, Allyson (Imogen Poots), to his alma mate so he can pull a few strings with the dean.

His trip down memory lane is at once sentimental, as he visits the bench where he first met his wife and rekindles a friendship with a former friend (Douglas' real life chum Danny DeVito), and inflammatory as the swell of emotions sends him into a spiral of further bad behavior that ends his run at glory.

Directed by Brian Koppelman and David Levien ("Rounders," "The Girlfriend Experience") from Koppelman's screenplay and produced by Steven Soderbergh, "Solitary Man" has a pedigree which has you rooting for its success from the moment the theater darkens. But this tale of a man who's a constant disappointment to everyone around him is generally disappointing itself.

Douglas has enough innate charisma to make the used car dealer clichés he's saddled with faintly sparkle from time to time, but smarminess, an implausible script conceit and the carousel narrative inevitably lose the audience. With such a great cast it's a shame that Sarandon's time is largely wasted in the background, Parker is underutilized and Fischer demonstrates a general lack of emotional gravitas to come off as much beyond whiney. Without strong visuals or a story arc, this film is a lemon.

"Iron Man 2" is a Little Clunkier

What do you get when you take a relatively inexperienced director, a recovering train wreck of an actor and an under-the-radar superhero?

$585 million at the box office, glowing reviews and a career renaissance, that's what.

So what do you do for an encore?

In 2008, when the first "Iron Man" film headed into theaters, few expected it to create the tidal wave of success which followed. Two years later, hottest commodity on the block, Robert Downey Jr. is back as Iron Man/Tony Stark with some familiar faces and a few new playmates in tow, including director Jon Favreau with an expanded role as Stark's chauffeur Happy Hogan, Gwyneth Paltrow as his long-suffering assistant and love interest Pepper Potts, Don Cheadle, Terrence Howard's well publicized replacement, in the role of James Rhodes, Mickey Rourke taking up the resident baddy role of Ivan Vanko/Whiplash, Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer and Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow.

Phew. Overwhelmed? Apparently so were the filmmakers.

Whether the problem was a lack of focus or your typical sophomore slump, "Iron Man 2" is the tired, rusty, older sibling of its gleaming predecessor.

It could be argued that the first "Iron Man" was so spectacular and unexpected, it's an impossible act to follow. Or, it might be that the production crumbled under its own hype.

Whatever the reason, "Iron Man 2" fails to recreate the boisterous, combustible surge audiences were expecting.

Actor-turned-writer Justin Theroux, who co-wrote "Tropic Thunder," lost the fun this time around, filling the sequel with too many building montages and not enough of RDJ's riffing. Not that Downey Jr. can do any wrong, but you wonder if the best bits of his performance might have been left for the DVD special features. Meanwhile Rockwell, a chronically underrated actor, is the film's secret weapon, subtlety drawing humor from even his briefest moments on screen.

It's not that "Iron Man 2" is a bad movie, it's simply a "good enough" movie to kick off summer blockbuster season with a few cheap thrill but which fails to reach the stratosphere of the first film.

May Movie Predictions

May kicks off Summer Blockbuster Season with some of this year’s biggest tentpole offerings including the return of Iron Man, Carrie Bradshaw and Robin Hood minus the tights.

Here are my predictions for which films will rock and which will suck so you don’t go wastin’ your $15 bucks.

See It:

May 7-Iron Man 2 (Paramount)

You know him, you love him, and this time he’s rocking out to the sounds of AC/DC. Robert Downey Jr. is back as everyone’s favorite billionaire inventor turned superhero, Iron Man. Gwyneth Paltrow also returns as Pepper Potts, while Don Cheadle steps into Terrence Howard’s role after some well-publicized bad blood. Filling in the role of resident baddie is Mickey Rourke as Ivan Vanko/Whiplash who’s out to destroy Iron Man. That is, if the US military doesn’t get to him first. It’s not quite as rollicking as the first one, but whenever you can spend two hours in the dark with RDJ, it’s a good time.

May 21-Shrek Forever After (Dreamworks Animation)

The fourth Shrek installment, this time in 3D, finds Shrek (voiced by Mike Myers) sick of domestic life with Fiona (Cameron Diaz) and their kids. After asking bamboozling Rumpelstiltskin to help him get back to feeling like a real ogre again, he finds himself in an alternate version of Far Far Away where Rumpelstiltskin is king, ogres are hunted, and he and Fiona have never met. All alone once again, he sets out to restore his world.

May 27-Sex and the City 2 (Warner Bros. Pictures)

Bust out your Manolos, Carrie Bradshaw is back. And, this time, so is Aidan! That’s right, Sex fans, John Corbett’s beloved character returns in this sequel to the hugely successful 2008 film adaptation of the HBO show starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon. This time the ladies leave Manhattan (gasp) and head to Abu Dhabi for some R & R. Although the first film was so terrible, I call it “The Godfather III for Women,” redemption is just a cosmo sip away.

May 28-Micmacs (Sony Pictures Classics)

From the director of Amelie, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, comes another fantastical, breathtaking jaunt. Bazil (Dany Boon) is the son of a bomb disposal expert who died on a job in Morocco. Years later, after he’s struck by a stray bullet which remains lodged in his head, him assembles a motley crew to exact revenge on the two weapons manufacturers who made the bullet that almost killed him. No one does magical realism like Jeunet.

See It…If Everything Else is Sold Out:

May 21-MacGruber (Rogue Pictures)

It’s not often a Saturday Night Live sketch successfully survives the trip from small to big screen. With the exception of The Blues Brothers and Wayne’s World, most attempts have been disastrous (Superstar, A Night at the Roxbury, It’s Pat: The Movie). With any luck, Macgruber will join the leagues of the former, rather than the later. First time director Jorma Taccone has been very successful with SNL Digital Shorts, but will that translate to this rip off of MacGyver starring Will Forte, Kristen Wiig, Val Kilmer and Ryan Philippe?

Be Warned:

May 14-Robin Hood (Universal Pictures)

Sherwood Forest just got a little grittier. Don’t expect any merry men in tights or Bryan Adams power ballads now that Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe have arrived in Nottingham. Robin Hood gets the Gladiator treatment in this retelling of the expert archer (Crowe) toward the end of the 12th century who assembles a gang of mercenaries to rise up against a tyrannical sheriff (Matthew Macfadyen) and the ruling class. The rumblings I hear around town say it’s skip-able at best, laughable at worst.

Don't Trip

My legs making a cameo in The Fishes' latest Ten-Second Clip: "Don't Trip"

The Best Thing I Ate Today: Caioti Pizza's Roasted Beet Salad and Porcini Pizza

My dad's in town! And nothing makes me happier than a few days spent hanging with my poppa.

Ladies and gentlemen: Marty Perlmutter...

And the crowd goes wild!

We kicked off his LA sojourn with a trip to Runyon at sunset where I saw my first ever gopher that wasn't either animated or dramatic and on YouTube.

I probably blinded the poor thing when I took his picture, but I was just so excited to have a Wild America moment.

Next, Sunday dinner.

Both my father and I would be more than happy to live our entire lives eating nothing but carbohydrates. While my mother not only requires meat at every meal, earning a reputation for cracking chicken bones open with her teeth to suck the marrow, when Marty and I are left to our own devices, we're more than happy to feast on bread alone. That's why we headed straight for Caioti for pizza and garlic rolls.

In Studio City, on Tujunga, there's a quaint, charming one block village where amazing pizza awaits. As the sun dipped down, twinkling lights lit the street and the smell of crisping crust and roasting garlic drifted through the air, welcoming us.

Garlic rolls are hard to come by in LA. Known as "garlic knots" in New York, they're sold at almost every pizza parlor in the city, but, here in LA, Caioti and C & O Trattoria in Venice are two of the only places they're found. Makes sense in a town where being "camera-ready" is the major focus since they knots are baked rounds of dough (OMG, carbs!), tossed in oil (OMG, fat!), minced raw garlic (OMG, my breath!), salt and herbs like oregano. Back fat be damned, they are scrumdiddily.

I can't say no to a roasted beet either. The beets in Caioti's Roasted Beet Salad are still warm, served with spiced pecans, goat cheese and mixed greens tossed in a lightly creamy vinaigrette.

For the Porcini Pizza a sauce of pureed porcini mushrooms, with their meaty earthiness, replaces marinara on the wafer thin crust, that's then topped with arugula, roasted cloves of garlic, cheese and tomato. The only thing that might make it better, is a little truffle oil to really bring out the woodsiness. Then again, these days I'm so into truffle oil, I want it on everything from eggs to toast so I might just be jonseing for a fix.

Caioti Pizza Cafe
4346 Tujunga Avenue
Studio City, CA 91604
(818) 761-3588