Helene Kwong: Renaissance Woman

Yesterday I went to go see “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan” movie with one of my cousins. It’s another one of Adam Sandler’s satirical movies: this time, about the tension between the Jewish and the Muslim people in Israel/Palestine. Of course, there was humor in it: Sandler plays the protagonist, Zohan, who is a counter-terrorist wanting to follow his lifelong dream of becoming a hairstylist (“I want to make people silky smooth”). Everyone around him thinks his way of life should be to continue on as a counter-terrorist, that being a hairstylist was a froufrou job. So Zohan fakes his own death and runs off to NYC, where he tries to start his dream career into the hairstyling world. At first it’s a tough road, but as usual, things end up working out in the end. A small cameo appearance by Mariah Carey occurs near the end of the movie.

I thought the movie was played out pretty well; Sandler and his fellow actors all seemed to do pretty well with Middle Eastern accents–the accents were convincing enough to me anyway. They played up on some stereotypes, but as usual there was a moral to the whole story. I liked the movie, at least for its humor if not other aspects.

Watching this movie made me really wonder though: Is Adam Sandler an eccentric genius? I feel like his more recent movies tackle some rather sticky issues (take last year’s “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry” about gay marriage). Somehow, Sandler is always able to weave a crazy satirical story and in the end give it some sort of clever storyline. The endings may be cheesy, but they work.

I am not sure if I have mentioned this before, but for those of you who may not know already, one of my biggest hobbies these days has been exercising/eating well/leading a healthier lifestyle. This whole journey started almost two years ago, and along the way I have been subscribing to health/fitness magazines in order to keep me motivated.

Near the end of last year, I started receiving some offers from magazines that I was not subscribed to; I assume they received my mailing information from my subscriptions at Fitness, SELF, and Weight Watchers Magazines. One of these offers was from Women’s Health: they offered a free trial issue plus a booklet with mini-guides/articles on different aspects of health. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try out another health/fitness magazine; after all, for the past couple of years I had been curious about Women’s Health after all.

Only recently, I was able to peruse through the trial issues I received from Women’s Health. The verdict in the end: the magazine is okay, has some good tidbits of information, but I think overall I don’t like the magazine too much. The layout of it makes it appear like a tabloid, which seemed to distract and take away the authenticity of each article. The articles themselves did not seem meaty enough to me.

I wonder if the target audience of the magazine is meant for women older than I am? The cover models are youthful looking (around 20s-30s), yet perhaps the aim of the magazine is for women in their late 30s-40s instead. I’m not too sure; I did not feel “fulfilled” with the articles I read in the magazines though.

I guess I am at least glad that I was able to read a couple of issues before I decided to jump in and subscribe to this magazine. Not saying that the magazine is bad, but it probably just doesn’t have the type of information that I need and want at the moment. I’ll re-visit it again in a few years time.