On The Lot and Top Chef

This is not movie related, but rather reality tv related.

I don't much like reality TV. E! and VH1 have destroyed the genre, as has MTV. Not that it was anything great to begin with.

In any case, I watch two reality shows, those being On the Lot (for directors) and Top Chef (guess). In my life, I watched early seasons of Real World, when they casted the show with unique people named Genesis and Montana, as well as the first season of Survivor. But really, that's been about it. So, moving on.

On the Lot began with about 50 contestants, which they knocked down to 18 in about 90 minutes or so of tv time. right now, we're at 13. basically a group of them air their short films, and America votes.

To begin, this show began as poorly edited and put together as shows get. From 50 down to 18, it was sloppy, they totally skipped the 24 to 18 elimination round, it was just shoddy. Eventually, if you stuck around, you got to the live movie premiere part, where we now stand.

The first round, wherein we went from 18 to 15, was one minute comedy shorts. I voted for maybe half, granting a lot of leeway. There is one guy named Zach is ridiculous, but otherwise nothing spectacular, nothing that said "this person deserves a 1 mil dollar deal with Dreamworks."

Now we're in round two, which was do whatever you want in three minutes. It's been rough. Most of the directors stuck with comedy, and did it poorly. I mean, the short films have been crap all around. That Zach guy did another good one, and others have done ones that have been alright, but I mean come on now folks.

The judges are Carrie Fisher (the woman that played Tom Hanks' wife in the Burbs)

sidenote- I know she's Princess Leia, it was just that when I saw the first episode of this show, a contestant says "so I walk in and there she is, Princess Leia herself) and I thought ' it would have been funny if he would've substituted Princess Leia with Tom Hanks' wife from the Burbs).

also included are Gary Marshall (did Pretty Woman and some other stuff) and then they get a guest judge, which have been DJ Caruso, Michael Bay, and Wes Craven in previous eps.

The guest and Gary Marshall typically give good interesting advice, but Carrie Fisher is stuck in this whole opinionated quagmire of crap advice. If i were on that show, I'd be a much better Carrie Fisher.

I hope the quality of the shorts picks up, because it's just rough. Everyone loves one contestant Will Bigham, who makes "sweet" little live action cartoons. He sucks.



On the other hand, Top Chef is awesome.... I just lost the desire to type anymore. I might finish this later, goodnight.

Pirates and Others

So it's been another long while between posts unfortunately.

I saw Pirates, and was not a fan at all. It started out well enough, slowly, was building nicely. And then the plot lost all cohesion. Things were happening that were not making sense. Maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention you might say. But I had the same problem with Pirates 2, so going into 3, I said to myself "The only thing you are concentrating on is the incredibly intricate plot of Pirates 3." And that's what I did. And STILL, characters are doing shit that makes no sense, there are a ridiculous number of plot twists and turns that don't really add up. If I had written this review right after seeing the movie, I might be able to go more in depth, but as it is, i have thankfully forgotten most of the ridiculous plot.

What is too bad is that the characters were a lot of fun in this one. I loved Geoffrey Rush' Captain Barbossa, Chow Yun Fat's short role was pretty good.

And then the ending fight scene. Well for one, the whole thing with Calypso was pointless. They built that whole thing up forever, and all she does is create a storm/maelstrom that did nothing. They might as well have not done it. And while Gore Verbinski (director) might not understand how cannonballs work, I believe I do. See, when they hit a ship, they create a hole, and in this hole, water might flow in. When this happens repeatedly, the ship begins to fill with water and sink. When it happens for a long period of time, as was happening between The Black Pearl and ... damn I can't remember it's name... ANyways, Davy Jones' ship, then the ships are going to be destroyed. I am nitpicking, I know, but I just wanted to see a movie, not a cartoon.

And also, there were maybe a hundred or so British ships, and ten or so pirate ships. The Black Pearl and Davy Jones' ship destroy the flagship, and that signals the end of the battle? It's still 99 on 10. I guess they really loved that commander.

In any case, I'm getting off track.

Knocked Up was great. I hope you have seen it by this point.

Saw Oceans 13. It was fun, much better than 12. Still, I had a major problem with this one also. This heist required an unbelievably complex setup. So complex, it's already pretty much in progress by the time the movie begins. The casino they're trying to take down is so well defended, it may seem impossible. And it would be, if Danny Ocean and his gang weren't involved. The movie builds up all these seemingly impossible to overcome conflicts and obstacles, but Danny Ocean et al constantly overcome them. And it's not really because of intelligence or finesse like in 11, but rather because of A.)The unexplained way in which they can get any of their guys a job anywhere doing whatever it is they need them to do
or B.)The fact that they apparently have hundreds of millions of dollars stored away somewhere.

And I Know, they're professional robbers, they would have a ton of money. But that is no excuse why everything that is defeated by our protagonists in this movie eventually can come back to the amount of money they can spend.

It just seems cheap. I gave up on logic maybe 20 minutes in, when they somehow got licensed a drill to shake the foundation of the casino as an exit strategy. They can also pimp out girls, which was a surprise. I guess you'll have to watch it to see what I mean. It just seemed that if you have the resources these guys apparently have, you could rob anything.

I just wasn't expecting this to basically be the least realistic heist film ever made. But that doesn't mean it's bad. It's really very funny, and the powerhouse cast doesn't nothing but help it. Of course, Pitt and Clooney don't really act so much as just be cool, but it's still fun to watch.

I have such a hard time commending a movie if I nothing to gripe about, and that's the case with Paris Je T'aime. This movie was a collection of short films by 18 famous directors, all based in Paris. Of course there were some meh shorts, but most were good, and a couple were amazing.

As we reach the midpoint of 2007, I'm still hoping it takes off in terms of quality. As of right now, I have maybe 5 or 6 movies I really liked, and of those, only three are actually 2007 releases (Zodiac, Grindhouse, Paris Je T'aime). I haven't really hated too much, only Ghost Rider, Breach, and Pirates 3. It's just been real middle of the road. Nothing has stood out yet, but hopefully that'll change.