Month: February 2009 (Page 19 of 23)

Hell’s Kitchen: Watch your step, literally

February 6, 2009 /

Episode two of Season 5 of “Hell’s Kitchen” on FOX had an interesting twist last night, a twist of fate that was a real bummer, but more on that in a bit. The show began with the guys busting on Seth and the ladies busting on Lacey. Clearly, these two aspiring chefs are not going to win this thing, and the sooner the rest of the field can be rid of them, the better. At least as far as they are all concerned.

As they often do in the dorms of Hell’s Kitchen, a marching band woke up the contestants at 6am, three hours after they all went to sleep. Yikes. I mean, a freaking marching band? That is cruel beyond words. Anyway, the chefs had to then fish for scallops in big tanks. You probably haven’t seen scallops in their full form, but they come in shells and are utterly disgusting Continue reading »

External TV, Hell's Kitchen, Reality TV, TV

My Name Is Bruce

February 5, 2009 /

Bruce Campbell has never received the attention he deserves as a character actor. After two failed TV series and a lifetime of riding on Sam Raimi’s coattails, you’d think that he’d run into a bit of luck eventually, but the closest that he’s come to success is a supporting role on the USA drama “Burn Notice.” Sometimes, when you need something done, you’ve got to do it yourself, and though Campbell’s first trip behind the camera (the Sci-Fi Channel movie, “The Man with the Screaming Brain”) was ultra-campy, his latest effort is a big improvement. A self-proclaimed Bob Hope movie with decapitations, “My Name Is Bruce” isn’t the actor’s finest hour, but it’s a nice bit of fan service that will please his loyal following.

My Name Is Bruce

In it, Campbell stars as a fictional version of himself, a B-movie action star who’s recruited by a small mining town to stop the recently resurrected Chinese God of War, Guan-di. What follows is the kind of goofy, slapstick comedy that fans have come to expect from the actor over the years, and it’s littered with familiar faces like Ellen Sandweiss (“The Evil Dead”), Dan Hicks (“Evil Dead 2”), Timothy Patrick Quill (“Army of Darkness”), and Ted Raimi. Those expecting anything other than B-movie quality are bound to be disappointed, but if that’s the case, they’re probably not real Bruce Campbell fans either. “My Name Is Bruce” is the ultimate fan experience, and though it will probably never rank among the actor’s best work, it’s still a must-see. In fact, the vast collection of extras included on the Blu-ray release (like the audio commentary by Campbell and the making-of featurette, “Heart of Dorkness”) is worth the price of admission alone.

Click to buy “My Name Is Bruce”

Actors, Movie Comedies, Movie DVD Quicktakes, Movie DVDs, Movies

Anyone else confused by the ending of “Traitor”?

February 5, 2009 /

All in all, I enjoyed “Traitor,” which stars Don Cheadle as a former military man who may or may not be working with a terrorist organization. It reminded me of the Showtime series, “Sleeper Cell,” and fans of one should check the other out.

But I was a little perplexed by the ending of “Traitor.” (I should go ahead and warn anyone that still hasn’t seen the film that there are MAJOR spoilers ahead.)

So Cheadle’s character — Samir Horn — is working deep cover with an intelligence agency to infiltrate a terrorist organization that strongly resembles Al-Qaeda. Throughout the entire film, I was confused about Samir’s endgame. Was his task to stop a terrorist attack? Or was it to capture the organizers? At the direction of his handler, Samir distributed live bombs to 30 different sleeper agents who were to detonate those bombs on 30 different buses at the same time. He was conflicted about giving these terrorists the ammunition to strike such a major blow, but the implication was that it was something he had to do, presumably to gain access (again) to the operation’s organizer, Nathir. I thought his mission was to capture Nathir so the intelligence community could interrogate him and bring him to justice, but he ends up shooting the unarmed terrorist in the head. Meanwhile, he set it up so that all 30 “martyrs” got on the same bus, which made for a very dramatic scene when it came time to detonate the bombs.

Anyway, why distribute live bombs? Since he made them himself, couldn’t he have disabled them somehow? Even if that wasn’t possible, why didn’t he find a way to get the names of the 30 terrorists to his contact at the FBI? He had plenty of “alone time” during the distribution portion of the mission that would have allowed for this.

He was responsible for a bus blowing up — a bus that must have had at least a few innocent civilians on it — and he ended up killing the mastermind instead of capturing him. If that was his endgame, he could have killed the guy when they met for the first time in Toronto.

Like I said, the ending was gut-wrenching and dramatic, but it seemed forced — just to have the visual of a bus blowing up on American soil.

External Entertainment, External Movies, Movie DVDs, Movies

American Idol: Like Hollywood needs more drama

February 5, 2009 /

So last night’s “American Idol” brought us back to Hollywood week again, and Ryan Seacrest announced that there were 107 remaining contestants. Hmmm. The night before, he said there 104 left. Did the judges feel bad and bring three of them back? Or did they not count correctly? Regardless, it was time for group competition, something that polarizes the hopefuls of this competition like nothing else–you either shine brightly, or your ego gets in the way and creates enough drama to make the producers of the show start foaming at the mouth.

Such drama was prominent in three of the groups they focused on for the first half of the show. Remember Tatiana from the San Francisco auditions? The psycho with the annoying laugh? Well, watching her try to play nice in a group was just painful. She quit her group, joined another one and then went back to her original group, pissing off everyone along the way but then trying to act like she’s not the crazy one. There was also the group that included Rose and Katrina, a.k.a. “Bikini Girl,” a group that had exactly one singer worthy of advancing, but more on that later. Finally there was the group Tatiana was part of for five minutes….the one with Nancy, Kristin and Nathaniel, who called themselves The Divas. Yep, pretty much.

Well, Katrina was tired from her high heels, and tried to catch a few hours of sleep Continue reading »

American Idol, External TV, Reality TV, TV

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