What about that guy?

Was anyone else taken aback by John Krasinski's blip appearance in Dreamgirls in what had to be one of the more bizarre triumvirates ever seen on screen: him, John Lithgow and Beyoncé? I am supposed to be totally crushing on him because my sisters are, but I'm kind of not, and that makes me feel badly, like I broke one of the unspoken white girl rules.

I am a late comer to the American version of The Office, mostly because I believe attemps at replicating perfection are doomed. But then my sister made me watch the one where Jim faxes Dwight letters from Future Dwight. And then I saw the Benihana Christmas episode and could not believe it when Michael Scott marked the waitress on the arm with a Sharpie. So I'm willing to admit that the newer version is slickly amusing.

I think the problem is that I cried when Tim and Dawn kissed in the BBC version, but...I kind of don't really care about Jim and Pam (those are their names, right? I can never remember the character names in the American one). If anything I want him to get together with Rashida's character. Admittedly, I'm coming to it after he's "moved on", but Jim and Pam don't really seem to have any chemistry at all.

And also...I have a problem with what Krasinski does when the camera cuts to him as a punctuation for whatever Steve Carrell has just been doing. His face always seems to say, "Of Course. Why are you cutting to me? I'm NOT REACTING, this all PERFECTLY rational behavior." Whereas Martin Freeman's Tim never seemed snarkily ironic like that. More stunned, or at the very least too unsure that anyone else saw what David Brent just did to be complicit in suppressing a reaction as a form of bonding. A recent issue of The New Yorker describes the two shows' differences much more eloquently. Sorry to get all macro, but I feel like snark is overtaking America, and it's not all that cool anymore, peoples. Being genuine just feels more fresh.