In Which Mandy Moore Redeems Herself For “trite, blah pop music” Though She Already Had Done So in 'Saved'

I was a Mandy Moore fan from the time she screamed that she was full of Christ’s love and beaned a chick with a Bible. So the admission in the third to last graf in rather moot. But it’s certainly interesting.

Mandy Moore: I struggled with depression

NEW YORK – Mandy Moore has a lot going for her, including a starring role opposite Diane Keaton in the upcoming comedy “Because I Said So.” Even so, she says she’s grappled with depression.

“A few months ago I felt really low, really sad. Depressed for no reason,” the 22-year-old actress-singer says in an interview in the February issue of Jane magazine, on newsstands Tuesday.

“I’m a very positive person, and I’ve always been glass-half-full,” she continues. “So it was like someone flipped a switch in me. I wanted to figure out why.”

Moore, newly single after high-profile relationships with actor Zach Braff and tennis standout Andy Roddick, says her recent split with Braff didn’t help matters.

“The breakup added to what I was going through, but it’s not the complete reason,” she tells the magazine. “It definitely doesn’t help if you’re already in that place … .”

Moore, who is working on a new record at a studio in Woodstock, N.Y., and feeling better for doing it, says writing songs “away from friends in L.A. or New York” is good for the soul.

“Writing has been really therapeutic,” she says of her music. “These little nuggets that have come up over the past eight months have made me look at things in a different way.”

Moore started out as a squeaky-clean teen singer and later crossed over into movies with featured roles in such films as “A Walk to Remember,” “Saved” and “American Dreamz.”

“I feel bad that people wasted their money on such trite, blah pop music,” says Moore about her earlier music.

Moore has been looking inward a lot of late.

“I’ve been going through this really crazy time in my life it’s what I imagine people fresh out of college go through,” she says. “I’m asking myself life-altering questions, like `Who am I? Where do I fit in this world? What am I doing, what do I want to do? Am I living to my full potential?'”

Say Hello To My Little Friend

A few random comments regarding some popular culture, um, thingies.

Jesscita and I watched Scarface, both for the furst time last weekend. We have been trying to expand our basic background expertise in the realm of popular culture by renting those entirely quotable movies, the ones you sort of have to have seen to actually understand The Simpsons. We didn’t like it, not much, but I have to admit, it does stick. She and I decided that it has the world’s most twisted montage evar, and that it wasn’t very nice of that man to chainsaw that other guy’s head, and that the music was wretched, and that the film never really gives you a chance to actually root for Tony Montana, you go from a mild aversion to really hating this sadistic, wacked-out bastard. We concluded that it must have been a really powerful film when it was released…something that Ebert—who apparently LOVED Scarface—confirms in his review.

In other news, I’m watching Idol now. Yes, I know. I’ve eschewed this idiotic show—until now, but…sweet holy crap, Ottawa, Kansas, REPRESENT! Am also watching the White Rapper Show due to its excellent host, MC “Back To The Grill Again” Serch. Propah.

1-1-2007

I woke up this morning next to Jesscita. We were sleeping by 12:06 a.m. I might have stayed up a bit later. It coulda gone either way. But the par-tay at her howse went on without us, and then we woak up this morning and went to the breakfist and then watched an episoad of the “Monk” and then I went home. Then I went to the grocery store and bought things. Then I made lots and lots of whole wheat pancakes with razzberries. A yummy breakfist for following days. And I also bot the things to make meatloaf and smashed potatoes with.

These aren’t resolutions, but they are some things I’d like to do in 2007. The perennial resolution is to journal more. Last year, I bot a red 2007 journal book and promised a page a day. It lasted a month or so. But I do tend to blog regularly, so perhaps a personal journal online might werk. The second thing I’d like to do is to cook more. I am a pretty decent cook, and I do want to eat more healthfully (an adverb, not the more-often misused adjective), and so I want to cook more. And to do more. Maybe to even get involved in an issue or something. I dunno.