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.