Category: TV (Page 144 of 595)
You don’t realize how long the season is of any reality show until they roll the intro showing all of the contestants, including the ones who were eliminated in the first few episodes. Then you think to yourself, “Self, this has been going on forever!” And so it is with Bravo’s “Top Chef: Las Vegas,” which is essentially the sixth season of the extremely popular show. It’s also, at this stage, maybe the most competitive yet.
Last night they began with host Padma Lakshmi and Gavin Kaysen, who competed in a global cooking competition known as Bocuse d’Or, which they say is the Olympics of the culinary world. Kaysen made something for his entry in the competition called a “ballantine,” which was in essence putting a protein inside of a protein inside of a protein. So Padma asked them all to make their own version of a ballantine for the quick fire challenge. Jen joked that she was going to make a turducken…but the thing is, that’s sort of exactly what they had to do…the catch was, they only had 90 minutes to do it.
The finals take place next Monday, pitting three teams against each other. After 19 introspective weeks of watching this show, I think I’m going to throw a party – a party just for myself. During the season finale, I’ll toss back some cheap whiskey (only the finest), put some Neil Young on the record player, grab some Chinese take-out, and maybe even watch some funny YouTube videos. Sorry, you’re not invited.
It’s elimination time!
We have the dancers from the upcoming movie “Nine.” I don’t know much about “Nine,” but I doubt my buddies and I are going to drop everything to see it on a Friday night. Flash forward 30 years and I’m probably sitting alone on my couch watching this movie, wondering where it all went wrong.
This show has forced me to confront mainstream musicians I would never give the time of day. A few weeks back, Norah Jones took the stage and impressed the hell out me. Now we have Alicia Keys — another talented musician and singer. I hope she writes these songs.
On the other hand, pretty women who are above-average guitar and piano players might just easily impress me. If Taylor Swift ever learns to bust out a solo, I’ll go nuts.
Man, how many guests are they having on tonight? Leona Lewis sounds too much like Alicia Keys, whom we just saw. Let’s have some diversity! Where’s Weird Al when you need him?
Holy smokes — Donny and Kym are going to the finals. Middle-aged women must have flooded the phone lines to keep Donny alive.
I wish the Bee Gees had chosen a different song, particularly a cut from their album Horizontal. Ozzy Osbourne looked completely confused watching their performance. Ha!
Up on the elimination block, Joanna seemed to know that she was going home. Her and Derek are now dancing a Viennese waltz, directly after finding out the results. The contestants are usually heartbroken after losing. Not Joanna. She obviously outperformed Kelly last night, so maybe she’s just happy she doesn’t have to learn any more routines.
It’s hard to believe we’re just a few short weeks away from the finale of NBC’s “The Biggest Loser,” but there it is. Last night we went from six contestants to five, and either they are going to have a final 3 again, or they are going to throw us another curveball and let someone else back in….these tricky producers have done it before, and I have a funny feeling it’s coming.
Meanwhile, last night the six hopefuls were treated to makeovers, led by “Project Runway’s” Tim Gunn, and a TV Guide sponsored event that had each contestant share their personal journey wth their families and an audience of about 300. Most of them looked pretty good, but I’m not sure why they insisted on cutting Rebecca’s hair so short…both her and Amanda were made to look like ten years older.
In the post just below this one, I write quite skeptically about a planned upcoming movie that commercial director Carl Erik Rinsch is said to be “circling.” Aside from my other strong misgivings about the project, I was initially unimpressed that yet another big movie was being helmed by a commercial director.
Now, as Ridley Scott (one of the bosses at Rinsch’s commercial production company) proved, the demanding field of commercials can yield some fairly great directors. At the same time, commercials are great proving grounds for visual flash and style, but don’t require the kind of sustained storytelling that even dramatic short subjects require. I think one reason old Hollywood worked better from a film consumer’s point of view was that directors started on dramatic short subjects, then moved on to low budget “B” pictures, and finally on to main features. I don’t think I need to remind anyone where Michael Bay started.
Still, things haven’t worked in the old school way in a long, long time and I thought it was only fair for me to see if I could find some of Mr. Rinsch’s commercials online. And, I have to say, I was impressed — not that they’re all perfect or indicate he’ll be the next John Ford, but he certainly has a way with an arresting image and with some very cool CGI work as well. I just wish Rinsch could find a more promising project than “47 Ronin” — or figure some brilliant way to make the thing not as wrongheaded as it sounds. We’ll see about that, but I do think these are very intriguing pieces of work. There’s a bit of a Spike Jonze/Michel Gondry vibe here, alongside something else.
Much more after the jump.
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