Seann William Scott delivers his best performance yet as Doug Glatt, a sweet, lovable Canadian bar bouncer who is troubled by the fact that he doesn’t have a “thing” that defines him. His father (Eugene Levy) and brother, Ira (David Paetkau), are both doctors, and his best friend, Pat (Jay Baruchel, who co-wrote the film with frequent Seth Rogen collaborator Evan Goldberg), has a public access show about hockey, but Doug feels aimless, searching for his life’s real purpose. That changes one night at a hockey game, when he knocks out a player who climbs into the stands to beat up Pat, who has instigated the fight by being his usual loudmouth self. The fight in the stands garners more attention and applause than the game itself, and Doug soon finds himself recruited as an enforcer for a local minor league hockey team.

As an enforcer, Doug’s job is to injure successful players from other teams, as well as to protect his own teammates by beating up the other teams’ enforcers. It is the sense of being a protector of his team that resonates with Doug and makes him feel like he’s found his calling. It also helps him to earn the love of Eva (Alison Pill), a woman he meets one night in a bar when he knocks out an obnoxious drunk who is hitting on her, and the friendship of his team’s star player, Xavier LaFlamme (Marc-Andre Grondin). Ultimately, though, what the film is building to is a showdown between Doug and his idol, Ross “The Boss” Rhea (Liev Schreiber), a brutal enforcer from the majors who has been demoted for his unsportsmanlike conduct. Though Goon follows the expected beats of a classic sports movie, its formulaic nature does not detract from its quality, and by the time Doug “The Thug” Glatt inevitably faces off against his rival, Scott’s charismatic performance and the film’s surprising likability should have even the most ambivalent viewer ready to cheer.

Hidden Netflix Gems is a new feature designed to help readers answer that burning question, “What should I watch tonight?” It will be updated every Saturday before the sun goes down.

After a three-week hiatus due to NBC’s coverage of the Winter Olympics, “The Biggest Loser” returned with a bang last night, with lots of controversy. First, you may remember that they left us hanging three weeks ago with Cheryl and Darrell hanging on in squat position balancing an Olympic torch replica. Darrell’s knees finally gave out, and he went home, with Cheryl remaining on campus.

Then, host Alison Sweeney announced that the teams would no longer be couples but would be broken up into blue vs. black. They do this every season and it doesn’t get any less annoying. Really, do they have to keep confusing us and messing with the show’s format? Alison then announced the initial challenge, which would give one person control in the game. But first, before they agreed to play a game of Memory, they had to agree to the fact that with the game came the possibility of eating a lot of calories, mostly in the form of chocolate chip cookies that were worth 100 calories each. Behind each memory card were food items, and behind two of them were golden tickets that would determine the game’s winner. The only two that stepped forward to play were Michael and Andrea. After the game went back and forth, and after both consumed way more calories than they wanted to, Michael won…despite eating 2310 calories worth of cookies and other junk. He was then given the right to choose the teams, and he also would have the power to give immunity this week to either himself or to one other player.

Michael chose Sam, Cheryl, Drea, Stephanie, Sherry and Ashley for the black team and to train with Jillian, while he chose Koli, Daris, Lance, Miggy, Sunshine and himself for the blue team to train with Bob. He gave O’Neal immunity, putting himself on a strong team instead of giving himself immunity. Next week, O’Neal would join the team that eliminated someone this week. Michael’s strategy was to put the potential big weight losers on one team, and making the black team weak and vulnerable. In the process, he broke up several teams and showed favoritism to Lance and Miggy.

The trainers were pissed, especially Jillian, who was left to coach a team that didn’t have much of a chance to lose weight like the blue team did. Well, on paper anyway. Then the first challenge as blue vs. black was to raise their team colored banner up a huge building. The winning team would receive letters from home. Blue won, as you would expect looking at them all.

Then they had Dr. H meet with some of the contestants to track their progress, and I admit I skipped through both this and the last chance workout. Blah, blah, blah. Then came the weight in….

O’Neal had immunity so he went first, and lost 9 pounds, or 2.77%. Not bad at all, but he had immunity so they wiped him off the board. Then it was the blue team…..Michael went first and lost 15 pounds, now having lost 109 pounds in just 7 weeks! Sunshine lost 7, Lance lost 5, Miggy lost 4 and was furious with herself for letting the team down. Daris lost 7 pounds and then Koli lost 10. The blue team in all lost 48 pounds, or 2.7%. Not bad at all, and the black team then had to lost 39 pounds to win.

Andrea was first and lost 5 pounds, followed by Cheryl with 4 and Sherry with 6. Then came the big guns….Sam lost 8, Stephanie 8 and then Ashley lost 10 pounds! That gave them 41 pounds lost, or 2.82%….and the victory. The blue team was devastated, as Michael’s dream team didn’t come through. But lucky for him, since he had the highest percentage of weight loss on his team, he could not be eliminated. Instead, it would likely come down to the two worst performers this week–Lance and Miggy. Both of them pleaded with their teammates to stay.

Then after Lance and Daris voted for Miggy, Miggy and Michael voted for Lance, tying it up. Then Sunshine and Koli voted for Miggy and it was her that went home. Whew, you could feel the stress level in the house drop immediately! Miggy has lost 41 pounds, down from 240 to 179, and is training at home with Nicole from Season 7. Good for her. She is also meditating to ease her own stress levels.

Then they showed Darrell at home, and he has lost 120 pounds, down from 413 to 293. Good for him too!

So now with Michael having made a few enemies, there is some lingering bitterness among the black team, but the blue team is strong and even stronger now with O’Neal. Should be interesting to see how it all plays out. I like Michael’s overall chances but he’s playing the game a bit too much and that always winds up biting these contestants in the butt.

What do you think? Let me know below and see you all next week!

Last night’s episode of “The Biggest Loser” was a cliffhanger, and purposely set up that way because we’ll now have a three week hiatus due to the Winter Olympics. But it also had a few more twists and turns. First of all, at the weigh in, there would be a red line, and the person who fell below that with the lowest percentage of weight loss would be going home. Then, there would be the standard yellow line, which two more contestants would fall under and one of them would be going home.

Also, this week the contestants would be training in Colorado with the Olympic hopefuls. The first Olympic-related thing they did was to carry a torch replica along with para-Olympic contestant Allison Jones. Then they learned how the Olympic athletes ate, with all of their food having a “fuel” purpose. Then Koli from the gray team whined for about five minutes about feeling guilty that John went home last week and not him, that John deserved to be there more. Easy, dude!

Then the contestants got to work out with two Olympic skiiers, Julia Mancuso and Speedy Peterson. After that, speedskater JR Celski showed them how to work out on a slide board, which the speedskaters train on every day. They had a friendly competition to see who reached 500 “slides” first, and those three winners would have an advantage at the main challenge. Sam came in first, followed by Melissa and Sunshine.

Then for the main challenge, biathlete Kelly Underkofler led them in a challenge in which they had to run a lap (outdoors at gorgeous Garden of the Gods park) and then “shoot” at a target that represented another contestant. There were five targets next to each contestant’s name, and when all five were hit, that person was out. The winners of the previous challenge got a head start on shooting at the others’ targets. Everyone was quick to eliminate Lance, followed by Melissa, Miggy and Daris. The winner would be decided between O’Neal and Darrell, who chugged their lap and then had to shoot the other one off….O’Neal won, and what do you know? First prize AGAIN was immunity. Seriously, producers, can you quit giving this out like it’s candy? Mrs. Mike pointed out that this is unfair when there is a red line, and I agree.

Then, after a last chance workout with figure skater Rock Brubaker leading a boot camp, it was time to weigh in. They would be doing so this week as individuals, which meant one thing….an agonizingly long time to weigh them all in. Thank goodness for TiVo.

O’Neal went first and lost 8 pounds, but either way he had immunity. Michael was next, and lost 11 pounds, bringing him down to 432 when he had begun at 526. Stephanie lost 4, Sunshine 6, Koli 9, Andrea 7, Darrell 5 and Sam 12. So as of now, Darrell was in last place. Sherry was next and lost 3 pounds, followed by Ashley with 6. Daris lost 9 and has the highest percentage of weight loss among them all so far. Cheryl lost 3, which put her near the bottom with Darrell. Miggy was next and lost 7 pounds, bringing her down to 199, the first time she’s been below 200 in quite some time….Lance went next and lost 9 pounds. So it was now down to Melissa. Amazingly, Melissa GAINED a pound and automatically fell below the red line. I immediately thought, ” no gameplay this time,” but Mrs. Mike pointed out that her speech about wanting to go home and see her kids was quite well-rehearsed. Hmmmm. Bob and Jillian were mum, but I wonder what they were thinking.

So below the yellow line then was Cheryl and Darrell. But Alison announced that they would not be voted on by the others this week.
Instead, they would have an elimination, head-to-head challenge to determine who stayed. Their challenge was to balance a torch stem on their head while squatting. It looked to be excruciating, but both knew what was at stake. And then….that dreaded “To Be Continued” came across the screen. Which means we won’t know who went home until after the Olympics.

As for Melissa, she started the show at 233 and now weighs 175, down 58 pounds. Good for her, but I still wanna know if she threw this weigh in too.

So that’s it…we’ll see you back here after the Olympics!

* Regarding the decision to place the new reality series “Undercover Boss” in the plum spot following the Super Bowl, she said that it was a combination of good timing and a good series. “We’re very high on the show, but we spent a lot of time talking about what the right strategy would be,” she said. “We’ve seen five or six episodes of ‘Undercover Boss’ by now, and there is a tone and a quality to the show that we felt was a great fit after the Super Bowl. It is aspirational. It is a feel-good program.
Everybody who is sitting and watching the Super Bowl, be you 8 or 80, can stay right there and enjoy the program. I think 15 years ago, that spot was used to launch new programming. Obviously, in the last 10, 15 years it’s been used more as a platform to get greater exposure for existing shows. But we thought, ‘You know what? We have a great project, we’re very high on it, and we think we’re going to launch another big-branded reality show.'”

* Obviously, NBC’s continued fall from grace via the great failure that was “The Jay Leno Show” was a topic of conversation that everyone wanted Tassler to weigh in on. “Through it all, we have to realize that ABC, CBS and FOX…we’ve all fared, I think, very well during this experimental phase for NBC,” she said. “But if we can harken back to when there was that grand proclamation about 8 o’clock at NBC…? Remember? We all wrote about that: 8 o’clock was over at NBC. They were going to have a whole different strategy developing for 8 o’clock. And then along came 10 o’clock, and they were going to have a whole different strategy for 10 o’clock. You know, I think ultimately, there is no substitute for developing great shows, working with great talent, and getting your program on the air.”

“The unfortunate thing is that our creative community was to some degree somewhat bruised by this,” she continued. “I think that the talent as this was taking place, a lot of people were put out of work. A lot of people really saw this as having a pretty negative impact on our business. But I think right now for us, it just allowed us to get a bigger piece of the ad revenue pie at 10 o’clock, and again, what I have the most trouble with is for their company, their decision to do what they did, to sort of turn that and say that his is a reflection on the whole network business, I think is misguided. Our business is thriving right now. We are enjoying success with new hit shows, as is ABC, as is FOX. So I think at the end of the day, it was an experiment that obviously did not work, but for us, like I said, there’s no substitute for just developing and producing and launching great shows.”

There’s certainly no question that a couple of CBS earned some additional success from viewers’ indifference to “The Jay Leno Show.” As Tassler observed, “We moved ‘The Mentalist’ to 10 o’clock on Thursday night and launched ‘The Good Wife,’ so 10 o’clock has been good business for us.”

“So, Bill, did you hear CBS canceled my show again? Goddammit!”

* The same, however, cannot be said for at least one of the network’s 9 PM shows, “Three Rivers,” which Tassler confirmed has been canceled, despite liberal use of the word “hiatus” in most statements. “We’ve all known each other long enough to say when something’s on hiatus, it’s code for something else,” she said, earning a huge laugh.

She sobered the room a bit, however, with her next statement. “The reality is we are very proud of that show, and it’s not too often that you get mail that lets you know as a network that eight lives were saved as a result of the organ donation that people became aware of because of that show,” she said. “At the end of the day, knowing the fact that that show was on the air and had that kind of impact is pretty extraordinary.”

* Regarding the decision to pit “Survivor: All Stars” against the Olympics, Tassler responded, “We are so high on this season of ‘Survivor’ that we think it’s certainly going to continue to do well in its time period. I think it’s sort of a mixed bag between new shows and repeats, but our strategy is to continue putting the shows out there, letting the fans come to the shows as they see fit, and whoever is going to watch the Olympics is going to watch them anyway. They’re also different audience bases. So I think we’ll be fine.”

* When asked about Charlie Sheen’s recent arrest and domestic abuse charges, Tassler indicated that it had not resulted in any problems at the network or on the show, describing things as “business as usual.” “Right now we’re being very sensitive to the fact that this is a very personal and very private matter for Charlie,” she said. “There’s been no impact on the network right now. The show is proceeding along its regular project schedule and taped a show last night, so right now there’s been no impact. I really have to credit Chuck (Lorre); he runs a wonderful show.”

* Tassler concedes that “American Idol” remains in her mind “still the Death Star,” but that the network’s counter-programming of “NCIS” will stay the same. “‘NCIS’ does well against it,” she said, “but (‘American Idol’) is still a force to be reckoned with.”

* Fans of the network’s Canadian imports, “Flashpoint” and “The Bridge,” will be pleased to know that CBS is sitting on 18 and 13 episodes of those series, respectively. They will be less pleased, however, to learn that it’s not yet confirmed when we’ll actually see any of them. “We had a high-class problem this season: we had a terrific fall launch, we had a lot of shows that we’re working, so we had more content than we had real estate for,” she admitted. “So we’ll wait and see what happens. We’ve got both shows, and obviously, they’ll make it to air at some point, but right now, the schedule is stable and doing well. Like I said, it’s a high-class problem.”

* Despite both being the work of producer Jerry Bruckheimer, there are no current plans for the network’s new drama, “Miami Medical,” to cross over with “CSI: Miami.”

* Insofar as the future of “The Amazing Race” goes, Tassler said that it will last for as long as it continues to perform. “We had a great season this year, in particular,” she said. “Bertram (Van Munster) is a magician, and when he goes out in the field and when they’re investigating and designing new routes…I mean, they’re very, very smart about the way they select their routes and are very plugged in as far as the situations and countries around the world. They have never been a complacent production. They are always looking for new challenges. And the beauty of having a reality show like ‘Race,’ like ‘Survivor,’ like ‘Big Brother,’ these brands that continue to succeed, is because each cycle, when you go into the casting process, you really get an opportunity to almost reinvent yourself. So the combination of great casting, with Bertram finding wonderful, unique and unusual routes, I think just contributes to the longevity of the show.”

* “Let’s Make a Deal” is doing “comparatively better” than “Guiding Light” had been doing in that timeslot. “What’s really interesting is I think we’re looking at daytime through a whole new prism,” said Tassler. “We are looking at it perhaps as it once was, which was a pretty diverse daypart where you had talk, you had soap, you had game. And then as we look ahead, we are considering that, as well. ‘Price is Right’ is hitting all-time highs. It’s doing really well. ‘The Bold and the Beautiful’ and ‘The Young and the Restless’ are doing well. ‘Deal’ is doing well. So for us, it is looking at it with a fresh, new perspective and saying we have an opportunity to mix things up a bit, which is what we are doing.”

“I tell ya, Billy, they just don’t get me!”

* Tassler admitted with a smile that she doesn’t yet have a date for when “CSI” might finally adjust to William Petersen’s loss and find Laurence Fishburne’s character, but she acknowledged that they’re doing better and that Fishburne himself is coming along, too. “I think you can’t deny that Fishburne is a powerful actor and a force to be reckoned with,” she said. “What has happened last season to this season, he certainly has assimilated more into the ensemble. Audiences have found that as he’s more comfortable with his team, the team is more comfortable with him. And you are really now able to build greater intimacy with the relationships. And I think, yes, we have changed his wardrobe, which does reflect, to some degree, how comfortable he is now with the team and with the ensemble. But from all of the fans and our research entertainment panel, I mean, clearly people feel that he has arrived. He’s settled. He’s part of the team, and people are now able to see him actually have more humor. And I think as you look forward to the episodes that are coming up the second half of the season on ‘CSI,’ you’re going to find more irreverence. You’re going to find those sort of more iconic stories that we’ve done in the past that just kind of turn the whole Vegas experience on its ear.”

* Both “Numb3rs” and “Medium” remain in contention for pick-up next year, the former being somewhat of a surprise, given that it seemed to be a veritable certainty that it would be its final season, but Tassler explained, “We just had to cut back on the number of episodes because we had to make way to get ‘Miami Medical’ on the air.”

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.

Eli made a scotch egg with bacon; Michael a poultry terrine; Jen a combo of calamari, steak and scallops; Bryan lamb and sausage; and Kevin catfish, scallop and shrimp. Kaysen would be the judge for this one and his least favorite, surprisingly, was Kevin’s. That dude never winds up on the bottom, and he made it clear that he disagreed with Kaysen’s reasons. Meanwhile, the winner of the challenge was Jen, and Padma even said to her, “Welcome back” after tasting her dish…mostly because Jen has really struggled lately. Jen would have an advantage for the elimination challenge.

That challenge was to compete in a mini Bocuse d’Or, with superstar chef Thomas Keller being one of the judges, as well as the regular contingent of Padma, Tom Colicchio, Gail Simmons and a few other esteemed Bocuse D’or judges. In other words….some heavy hitters with sophisticated palates and discerning tastes. They would have the choice to make lamb or salmon the centerpiece of their meal, along with two sides/garnishes. The winner would be guaranteed a spot in the final four, and also take home $30,000. Damn, that’s a huge prize.

In some of the banter as the chefs were preparing their ideas, Michael mentioned that Kevin’s food is so simple…in fact, it’s the type of stuff he cooks at home. This was an unnecessary and cocky statement, especially considering that Kevin has come so far based on the quality and flavor of his food, no matter how simple it might appear to everyone else.

So Kevin presented to the judges first, and his creation was a lamb loin, and asparagus with sunchoke cream. The judges loved the flavors but, as Michael may have suggested, it was a bit too simple, especially considering the 4-hour time frame they had to prepare the dishes.

Michael went next and made a Mediterranean salmon platter with a loin of salmon and champagne sauce. The judges felt a lack of “harmony” on the plate, and Colicchio gave him a hard time because salmon is not typically a Mediterranean fish, and overlooking that in a Bocuse d’Or competition is not smart. Plus, one of the judges pulled a bone from the fish. Ouch.

Bryan wen with a crusted loin of lamb, a caponata, and an orzo mac & cheese with garlic chips. His lamb was not quite cooked enough but the judges liked his concept maybe best of all of them

Eli was next and made a lamb sausage, carrot puree, and tomato/pepper marmalade. There was a big problem with his lamb, because it was undercooked and therefore had big chunks of undercooked and gristly fat.

Jen was last, and she made a salmon and caviar dish over celery root and mushrooms, and a shrimp flan with snap peas. She also had 30 minutes extra to cook because she had won the quick fire challenge, and while the judges mostly liked Jen’s dish, some of them had undercooked salmon.

The snooty Bocuse d’Or judges were extremely critical of all of the chefs, but that’s how they are in these competitions. But someone had to win, and someone had to go home. Then they announced that not only would the winner take home $30K, but also would be awarded a spot in the 2011 Bocuse D’or to represent our country.

Padma announced that the judges wanted to see all of the chefs in the elimination room. And the winner was…..Kevin! You could feel Michael seething….and despite Kevin’s simplicity, what it came down to was execution and his dish tasting the best. Dude was blown away and admitted that he might crap his pants having to compete in the Bocuse d’Or.

So it was between the brothers Voltaggio, Jen and Eli to go home. Mrs. Mike thought for sure it would be Michael….but it was….Eli! I think the judges really struggled with Eli’s fatty lamb sausage and that’s what was his ticket home.

Our final four….just like we predicted weeks ago….is Jen, Kevin, Michael and Bryan. The finals shift to Napa Valley next week and it appears the chefs will have to cook for a huge party that will no doubt have a wine theme. I still think Kevin is going to win it all, and that will inevitably piss off both brothers. Bring it on!