I love Mary Steenburgen. She's one of those actresses who slips in and out of roles, seemingly with little effort and she brings a quiet, steely, strength to whatever character she plays. Her latest movie, "Four Christmases" is about a couple, Kate and Brad (Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn) whose yearly plan to avoid family Christmases is thwarted by a blizzard. Since their parents are divorced, that means four visits with four sets of dysfunctional parents, siblings, step-siblings and significant others. Mary Steenburgen plays Kate's Mom, Marilyn.

Are you gearing up to watch spooky movies for Halloween? Obviously Tim Burton is a good choice for some spooky films. What I didn't think about until recently is how many of his films are a homage to classics in the horror genre. You could plan a double feature night with a classic horror film followed by the Tim Burton homage. Frankenstein

The Dow is down, the S&P is tanking and we're all tightening our budgets to cope, right? Well yeah, except when it comes to entertainment. A recent poll by Movietickets.com via Pop Watch Blog asked people "how the economy had changed their movie going habits," 31 percent said it had done so "noticeably," 33 percent said, "drastically," and 36 percent said, "No change."

Before I was asked to be part of a conference call interview with bestselling author Nicholas Sparks, I had never read one of his books. I knew of his books like, "The Notebook," "Message In A Bottle," "A Walk To Remember." I also knew that to speak with a bestselling author would be a treat so I eagerly agreed. With the Warner Bros movie, "Nights In Rodanthe" set to open tomorrow, I figured that was as good a place as any to get to know Mr. Sparks and his work. The book was a quick read and the kind of lovely story that makes you do a little soul searching and maybe a little life altering.

Confused about new media? Wondering what all that streaming of TV shows online will mean to your regular viewing patterns? Curious about how the new media business models will affect how you consume news and entertainment? Never fear, if you're reading this post, odds are you probably know a little something about blogs, the internet and new media, but if you want to learn more, listen to my podcast interview with Julia Boorstin, the media and entertainment reporter for CNBC.

With all the talk about Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton, and Michelle Obama in the news during this presidential election, issues of racism and sexism have risen to the top of the American consciousness.  What better time than now to look back at an important moment in American feminist history? The documentary film "Sisters of '77" tells the story of the 1977 National Women's Conference held in Houston, Texas.  The weekend long meeting was attended by a wide range of prominent women including former First Ladies Rosalyn Carter, Betty Ford and Lady Bird Johnson, civil rights activist Coretta Scott King, writer Maya Angelou, and feminist activists Gloria Steinem and Betty Freidan.

Julia Boorstin of is an entertainment and media reporter for CNBC.  Her job allows her to cover issues as varied as the projected opening box office for films like "Dark Knight" and "Mamma Mia," to interviewing the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg.  She also writes a blog called "Media Money" for CNBC's website that covers new media, old media and everything in between.  Next week I'm going to have the pleasure of doing a podcast interview with Julia about her job, her life and above all media and money. 

You know the movie "The Truman Show?" The one about Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) who discovers his whole life is a TV show? Since the day he was born, he lived on a TV set disguised as a town, was followed by hidden cameras, and his friends and family were really hired actors and actresses. Well sit down, because I've made a disturbing discovery. I've discovered I'm the star of "The Megan Show."

I'm back from BlogHer '08 and it was such a jam packed weekend, I'm still processing all the great experiences.  The women were as varied as their blogs, the parties were loud and fun, and the event itself ran, from my point of view, flawlessly.Melissa Silverstein of Women & Hollywood and I had the pleasure of hosting an entertainment bloggers' meet-up and I wanted to use this first post after BlogHer '08 to showcase some of those women and their blogs.  Anyone I don't mention in this post, I will make every effort to mention in upcoming posts.

Screenwriter and author Amy Ferris (guest posting on Women & Hollywood) tells us what she initially loved about Charlize Theron's character in Hancock, and explains why her love had waned some by the film's end.

A few weeks ago I boasted about how I wasn't going to be strutting my stilettos over to see the new "Sex and the City" movie. Then a few weeks later my summer movie preview post included the following quote under the heading "Movies I Would See To Please A Good Friend:

Next Saturday is the first day of summer and you know what that means, don't you? Hollywood's summer movies! Well, er...sort of. Several of the so-called summer movies have already been released because in Hollywood summer starts around Memorial Day. But I refuse to operate on Hollywood's timetable. Megan operates on her own timetable---and er, BlogHer's---so here's your summer movie preview based on my own strict movie going standards.