Sunday, August 23, 2009

What Would Brian Boitano Make

I was serendipitously (is that a word?) channel surfing and came upon one of my go to channels .... Food Network, I was hoping that my goddess of all things pretentiously delicious, Ina Garten was on ... and caught this show called What Would Brian Boitano Make. Ok, I got the South Park reference, ha ha, but the show is an absolute SCREAM!!! Here's Brian Boitano, former awesome skater and here he is in his kitchen whipping up stuff ... that even I think I could make! The dude has some serious comedy chops ... pardon the pun ... too. He nails perfectly the basic comedy rule of self deprication. Yea, South Park has their way with him, but he uses it to his advantage. I sat there laughing my head off because he is so dang funny. I love it when I can stumble on a new gem on tv. Made my day.

And my new guilty pleasure show is Househusbands of Hollywood. Again, I found myself laughing out loud at these fellas. They have no clue and they aren't ashamed to admit it. This is such a fresh contrast to the housewives shows where the women are overly concerned with image and keeping up. These guys are in survival mode. They are competing in a woman's world. There are 2 childless househusbands. One of them is Tempest Bledsoe's boyfriend, who was on Different World. He's going to be a great father. He's all about having fun and relaxing, letting the kids direct the fun. The other one, Danny, the henpecked houseboy, is a sap. His uber lawyer wife wants to be impregnated and he's just not ready and he's losing the battle ... poor thing. He's such a bottom.

I think the season finales for Hung, Nurse Jackie and Penn & Teller are coming up this week. We have 3 more episodes of True Blood ... sigh, then it's time to see what new shows I need to start watching.

In my Afghan film festival, I watched The Kite Runner. It was good ... not as great as Osama, but it was good. Never read the book, so I couldn't tell you if it's different, but the Taliban regime is truly brutal. I cannot fathom how anyone with an ounce of sanity can follow such a misguided view of Islam.

Nurse Jackie was a very pleasant surprise. I think what I like about it the most is that Nurse Jackie isn't the reason to watch the show. It's all the other characters in the ER. Edie Falco is great, don't get me wrong, but the cast is all very balanced and each character is very well developed for not having very many episodes.

And ... sigh, Mad Men. So happy it's back on the air. The Brits are now in charge and the first episode's main thrust was UK v America. I'm sure this will be a recurrent theme throughout the season. Don, I'm sure, will be fine, Ken will outstay Pete, but he's such a weasel, I think the show would have a big hole without him. Peggy, also, I see big things this season and it will all work in her favor. Sometimes it's hard to watch, but from what I understand, it truly is true to the time period.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Nick & Nora's Infinite Playlist

Sigh ... double sigh ... triple sigh. I really had high hopes for this film. As far as gawky teenage movies go, this one isn't very good. The one thing this film conveys incredibly well is NYC. This is a very Manhattan movie. I like Michael Cera as an actor. He plays that boy on the verge of being a man character very well. You saw glimpses of it in Arrested Development and really saw it in Juno, Superbad, not so much, but I still liked it. Maybe I'm just an old fogey, but I kept wondering what kind of parents would let their high schoolers run around NYC all night like that? I know mine sure wouldn't! And I guess I was expecting the music to be better. The whole infinite playlist thing got shoved aside I guess. It was worth watching for Michael Cera and his bandmates, but the rest ... meh.

Mad Men started up again!!! Wooo hooooo!!!!! I'm about halfway through the episode and ... let's just say I'm so happy this show is back on tv again.

Watching a new guilty pleasure show, Househusbands of Hollywood. It is an absolute hoot!!! This show kicks all these Bravo housewife shows in the butt. You have these husbands of actresses and one supremely henpecked husband of an attorney that you just feel sorry for. This guy can't do diddly squat without her yammering and bullying him. There's one husband who is really gross ... his best friend is Ryan O'Neil, euuuuu! He robbed banks and sat in the can for several years and is now married to a psychologist and takes care of their daughter. There's a former LA Dodger who is helping his makeup artist wife launch her business while he takes care of their daughters. They're all good guys overall and a lot more fun to watch than the housewives. They aren't mean to each other, they just want to have a good time and be good dads. There are some women on these housewife shows that I wonder how much they want to me moms.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

I have a good excuse this time!

My computer totally died ... not sure why, only speculative at this point. But now I'm back.

Here's what I've been watching:

Keith
Daily
Hung
True Blood
Penn & Teller Bullshit
Being Human
Heartland Highways
Globe Trekker
Parklands of the Midwest
Corner Gas ... lots and lots of Corner Gas
Z-Rock
Dirty Sexy Money

Ah, Corner Gas. I wish that WGN would move on from the 2007 season. I've seen several over a couple times now. Not that it's a bad thing, every episode is worthy of several viewings. But come on ... there are something like 6 or seven seasons ... let's get going!

Penn & Teller did a great show about the stupidity of the organic food movement! They set up food experiments at a farmer's market and almost 80% of the time the people couldn't tell correctly which food was organic versus mass produced. Now, I'm all for supporting the local farmer. I do it at least twice a week by visiting my wonderful farmer's market. But some people get too jazzed about the whole thing. In fact, one of their experiments cut a mass produced banana in half and people insisted that one was organic and the other wasn't ... it was hilarious! They had another episode about the US tax system. That was a stretch proving that the system is bullshit.

Keith Olbermann has new glasses and I don't like them.

Watched a film with Diego Luna called Criminal. The only reason to watch it is for Diego Luna. It's about a petty thief played by John C. Reilly, who sucked, and I hate writing that. His dialogue was forced and I just wasn't feeling it. And I also don't get the appeal of Maggie Gyllenhal. Seriously, I don't. She's such a shrew in everything she's in and I really got annoyed when everyone was hyper about how she was robbed because Sherry Baby wasn't nominated for any oscars ... boo hoo! I won't watch the movie for that reason alone. I won't be hyped into watching any movie .. so there! So anyway, Diego Luna really needs to work in more American films because he's just as good as his buddy, Gael Garcia Bernal.

Bollywood Hero. Chris Kattan is another one of those fellas that I cringe at whenever I see them. But ... but ... BUT!!!!! Bollywood Hero was fantastic. It was on IFC ... a 3 part miniseries. Kattan played himself, frustrated with getting crappy roles, so he goes to Mumbai with the promise of being a leading man in a film. I was incredibly surprised by how good he was ... seriously. This is the same head bobbing dork from SNL .. that Mango guy .. he's a good actor!

This season of Z-rock was the best. The guest stars alone were worth the time to watch.

Dirty Sexy Money ended on a total wimper. I felt obligated to watch the rest of the shows, but it was STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I guess I have a vampire thing going. Between True Blood and Being Human ... sigh. True Blood is good, as usual. Being Human is a total surprise. It's on BBC America and it's about 3 roommates .. one, a vampire who is trying to surpress his urges, a werewolf who is trying to figure out how to be more normal and a ghost who was killed in the flat where the 3 live. It's a little weird because the vampire can be in the sunlight and he really can't survive without feeding, but still, it's a good show.

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Summertime Blues ...

Ok, so Keith Olbermann has been off for the past couple weeks. I'm not going to complain about it because the last time I did, I found out it was because his mom died. So, here's what I'll do ... I'll complain about the fill-ins. David Schuster, a fellow Hoosier, but I complete dork during Countdown. Howard Dean, the dude's face does NOT move when he speaks into the camera! Maybe he's one of those creepy Japanese robots they seem to be cranking out on a weekly basis. And then there was Lawrence O'Donnell ... NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! He was the worst .. worse that Schuster! The only fill in allowed is Richard Wolfe. Seriously, he's the only one that is a good replacement .. a temporary replacement. I can watch him without cringing or wondering if he's alive. He's smart as a whip ... maybe even smarter than Keith, yea, he's definitely smarter than Keith. So hey, MSNBC ... Richard Wolfe only from now on, please!

Finally watched Sicko. I can't say I'm a huge Michael Moore fan. I liked Roger and Me, but everything else was ... Meh. Sicko is very timely. It's over the top, as usual, but the current debates over healthcare made watching it more relevant now. He touched on the one big issue in the healthcare debate ... health insurance companies and their stranglehold on patients, doctors and our elected officials. I can't say that I'm gung ho about the movie, but it's a good place to start to make our healthcare system work better for everyone.

Started watching another vampire show called Being Human. It's on BBC and it's about 3 friends, one is a ghost, the other a vampire and the other is a werewolf. The three of them live in the ghost's apartment and take care of each other. It's quirky and smart. True Blood is getting very violent, very gory ... Being Human is a nice alternative. It takes me several minutes for my ears to adjust to the British accent, so there's lots of rewinding.

Nurse Jackie, Corner Gas, 30 Rock (old shows I never saw before), still plugging along. Dirty Sexy Money is running out the rest of the series and it's just crap. I'm only watching because I've been with the show since the beginning. It looks like they hired a bunch of wannabe writers. The actors aren't even into it anymore. It's sad because this show truly was one of the good ones at one time.

Daily Show completely PWND Bill Kristol .. Kristol kept blathering about how the military gets the best healthcare in the world and Stewart seized upon it and wondered why he's opposed to national healthcare since the military healthcare is already government run .... oh it was poetry! And then having to listen to the dope Josh Bolton actually say that he feels the only country that should be allowed to have nuclear weapons is the US ... what a pig!!!!