CONFESSIONS OF A SHOPAHOLIC

Since I'm not their target demographic, I guess it shouldn't bother me that so many perky, theoretically harmless chick flicks these days are so breathtakingly shrill and stupid. But why doesn't it bother their target demographic? January gave us the offensively unfunny Bride Wars, and now, hot on that film's stiletto heels, comes Confessions of a Shopaholic, which trashes its promising setup and excellent performers in a candy-colored morass of clichés, contrivances, and incessant brainlessness. The film is like a rom-com take on Speed Racer - it even has John Goodman as a loveably ineffectual dad - and it doesn't feature one moment of recognizable human behavior. And audience members still applauded at the end.

If you're looking to win your workplace's annual Oscar pool, you'll likely do pretty well this year just by going with Slumdog Millionaire for nearly everything, by picking The Curious Case of Benjamin Button for the tech awards Slumdog isn't nominated for, and by not making wild-card predictions in the gimme categories. Heath Ledger is winning Best Supporting Actor and WALL?E is winning Animated Feature. Just accept it. Don't try to be a hero.

For choreographers, inspiration can sometimes come from a story, or a theme, or a series of dance moves. For Ballet Quad Cities' Margaret Huling, who makes her professional choreographic debut with the upcoming Configurations, it came from Tchaikovsky - specifically, the First Movement of the composer's Piano Trio in A Minor, Opus 50.

"I was kind of fighting with myself over what I wanted to do," says Huling, "and I kept coming back to the First Movement. It's music that really inspires me."

Yet choreographic inspiration can also come from the inspiration of others, as Ballet Quad Cities' Associate Director Courtney Lyon discovered in the course of re-staging original choreographer Johanne Jakhelln's Romeo & Juliet in the 21st Century.

For more than 30 years, Emmy-winning performer Vicki Lawrence has been best known for her signature character of Thelma "Mama" Harper, the snippy, drawling, and incredibly lovable matriarch she played opposite Carol Burnett, Harvey Korman, and Tim Conway on the long-running variety series The Carol Burnett Show. She subsequently revived the role for seven seasons on the sitcom Mama's Family, and both shows - to say nothing of the role itself - have proven so enduringly popular that Lawrence has a pretty fair idea of what age group Mama most appeals to nowadays: All of them.

"She's really never been off the air since she went on the air," says Lawrence. "I mean, [Mama's Family] has run and run in reruns like the little Energizer Bunny. So the demographic of my audience is just incredible. I mean, it can be 90-year-old men and it can be 20-year-old college kids."

On February 12, this comedic Energizer Bunny - and the Emmy-winning star who plays her - will perform at Bettendorf's Quad-Cities Waterfront Convention Center in Vicki Lawrence & Mama: A Two-Woman Show, and during our recent phone interview, Lawrence discussed Thelma Harper's ceaseless popularity, the influence of late co-star Korman, and the abandonment of Lawrence's youthful dream of one day marrying a rich dentist.