Not quite live from beautiful downtown Culver City, watch as the ubiquitous NPH — who’ll be hosting the Emmys on Sunday night — shows us the craft of being a highly trained voice thespian. In this extremely serious promotional clip for “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs,” he explores the various meanings, shades, contexts, and subtexts of “Steve” and “poop.”
H/t Whedonesque.
Last night was the fourth preliminary round of “Top Chef Masters” on Bravo, and the challenges are surely not getting any easier. For this one, the four contestants were Mark Peel from Los Angeles; Douglas Rodriguez, who owns several restaurants nationwide; John Besh from New Orleans; and Anita Lo from New York City.
Host Kelly Choi announced the quickfire challenge, and as they have been using some of the more interesting challenges from past seasons of “Top Chef,” they continued that by asking the chefs to create a dish with eggs, but with one hand tied behind their back. The judges were “Top Chef” regular Gail Simmons, as well as two other experts in eggs including a diner owner. Douglas went first and made a corn cake with eggs and ham. Mark, who said his dad was born with one arm, knew a little something about this particular “disability,” was a bit more ambitious, making a duck egg pasta with an olive oil cream sauce. Anita cooked the egg in its shell with shiitake mushrooms and truffle oil. And John made simple slow-cooked eggs, but he cooked them too slowly, because they weren’t done in the 25-minute alotted time.
If you’ve been jonesing for your “Top Chef” fix since Hosea was crowned Season 5 champ a few months back, you’re in for a summer treat–a new reality series called “Top Chef Masters.” Unlike the original series, “Masters” pits top-notch professional chefs against one another each week for charity, and then the winners of the first six rounds will square off the last few weeks of the season, with one chef being eliminated each week until someone is named Top Chef Master. That winner will receive $100,000 for their charity.
Guest stars and judges will include Neil Patrick Harris, Zooey Deschanel and Jeff Lewis, as well as “Top Chef” regulars Tom Colicchio, Padma Lakshmi and Gail Simmons.
The first episode airs this Wednesday, June 10 on Bravo at 10pm ET/PT and 9pm central and will feature chefs Hubert Keller, Christopher Lee, Tim Love, and Michael Schlow. Hosting the show is Kelly Choi, food journalist and creator/producer/host of “Eat Out NY.”
After watching a screener of the first episode, I can only say that I cannot wait to see more of this show and to see how it all unfolds over the course of the summer. It doesn’t matter if you’ve seen “Top Chef” before or not–if you’re a foodie, or if you just like good reality TV, you’ll want to watch this or season pass it on your TiVo. We’ll also be blogging the show each Thursday after Wednesday’s episode, so follow it all here on Premium Hollywood as well.
No, this is not a reference to last night’s Tonys. True, the movie-inspired “Billy Elliot” did take the night, continuing a “trend” for B-way musicals that go back to the classic film era, and it’s also true that host Neil Patrick Harris is a winner both for his show-closing/show-stopping musical summation, and because Empire Online has announced a couple of movie gigs for the still up-and-coming Doogie Horrible. (h/t Whedonesque).
However, it seems that the battle for the #1 box office spot discussed on my last post actually had a somewhat different result than we thought. It’s important to remember that those numbers I talk about on Sunday are really only estimates, though they are treated by press-sters as just this side of gospel. The upshot is Variety is reporting that both “The Hangover” and “Up” did better than expected business yesterday, but the former did just a little bit better better business, if you follow me. Sayeth the big V’s Pamela Mcclintock:
Final figures will show that “Hangover” grossed $45 million from 3,269 runs. “Up” should finish at $44.3 million to $44.4 million from 3,818 theaters.
I don’t suppose it really matters that much in the final analysis; nobody’s going broke here. (Well, I can’t speak for degenerate gamblers. Someone, somewhere, just lost a big bet.)
In other box office news I didn’t have time for yesterday, “Angels and Demons” cracked the $400 million mark over the weekend worldwide, sayeth the Finke. “Terminator Salvation” is not doing so badly overseas, actually. “Land of the Lost,” however, may be doing even less well than expected. Critics, you may step up your gloating.
Tonight, for just a few hours, the show business center of gravity shifts back to its old home of New York City for the Tony Awards, tonight hosted by Neil Patrick Harris — a guy just talented enough to get me to break my usual one-award-show-per-year regimen (Oscars, naturally). But we still have some box office news to report…
After yesterday’s b.o. surprise, the world has set itself right on its axis and Disney/Pixar’s PG-rated, family (if not toddler and kindergartner) friendly “Up” managed to nose out this week’s genuine sleeper, Warner’s “The Hangover,” $44.2 to $43.3 million. And, hey, it’s no revelation to say that “Up” appeals to people of all age groups and genders, but can someone make Nikkie Finke and the Hollywood denizens she writes for stop calling it a “four quadrant” film? They could say it was a film that appeals to “all audiences” or that it attracts, say, “everyone,” but then people might understand what they’re talking about.
Of course, where there are winners, there are losers, and that would be what Variety perhaps laughingly refers to as a Will Ferrell “laffer,” “Land of the Lost.” The picture was apparently avoided by more grown-up audiences as one would avoid a Sleestak with digestive issues, netting a subpar $19.5, about one-third shy of the studio’s expectations. (Those seeking an extra bit of schadenfreude need only see the comments by Dave, Jason, and Will on yesterday’s afore-linked “Hangover” surprise post.) Another, even less surprising, loser was “My Life in Ruins,” which netted a horrendous $3.2 million from 1,164 screens, coming in at the #9 spot in its first week. How many quadrants would that be?
A movie like “Ruins” really can be hurt by reviews, which is why it’s interesting to note that the week’s highest per screen average of $35,750 was achieved by “Away We Go,” the small Sam Mendes-directed comedy written by Dave Eggars and the alliterative Vendela Vida, and starring John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph, I eluded to on Friday. As Anne Thompson pointed out in a post which I think I’ve linked to multiple times for multiple self-serving reasons, the film doesn’t seem to have the kind of reviews required for an indie hit, so I’m expecting this one to fade as it goes into wider release. Not that there might not be an audience for the film, which, going (unfairly, I’m sure) by the trailer, looks like a sweetened-up version of David O. Russell’s 1996 farce, “Flirting with Disaster” (am I borrowing this thought from someone?). Personally, I’ll take the tangier version.
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