Chuck

Prophet 5, Fans 0

The End The season finale of “Alias” aired on Monday night. There’s a bit where Sydney tells her evil mom, “I’m through being disappointed by you.” That pretty much sums it up.

I’m not going to bother with spoilers, since it’s already up for free on ABC’s website, and anyone who’s still interested in this show has probably already seen it.

As episodes of disposable television series go, it wasn’t all that bad. There were explosions, and stunt scenes, and espionage setups, and a teary dramatic moment between Sydney and her dad that was actually pretty well done. Still, the whole thing soured me on the series and was enough to make me kind of embarrassed I ever got into the show in the first place.

The deal with “Alias” was always that you go the sense they knew exactly what they were doing. They knew exactly how ridiculous their plots were, but damn if they weren’t going to give you the best CIA family drama with evil twins and zombies and explosions story it’s possible to make. When it worked, it was populist without being pandering, not taking itself too seriously but also not resorting to arch parody.

When you’ve got that balance, you can keep ratcheting up the action sequences without worrying about its getting too unrealistic — as long as it makes dramatic sense, you’re golden, ancient prophecies and sentient bee swarms and all. And you can throw in character drama without it devolving into melodrama or being just a whiny soap opera. But without that balance, it just lays bare the unbelievability of the plot and the characters.

That’s my problem with the finale; it just made it obvious that they didn’t know what they were doing. There’s really no excuse for it, either — they had a long maternity leave, and they knew that the series was going to end, so they had plenty of time to build up to a big finish. Instead, they dicked around for five or six episodes, and then tried to tie up everything in the last 15 minutes or so. I’m even fine with what they did, just not how they did it. It was like they had a bullet list of things that had to happen: these people have to die, these have to live, we’ve got to blow up headquarters, we’ve got to have clandestine picture-taking, two bomb countdowns, tie up the Rambaldi business, have dramatic death scenes, and tie up Sydney Bristow’s Personal Journey. You’ve got an hour and a half. Go.

It was all so by-the-numbers that none of it mattered, and it in retrospect, it made the whole series seem pretty stupid and cobbled together. The whole season has been like that — storylines like the one with Tom that just went nowhere. To get into “why can’t you be more like your brother?” territory — when “Lost” had its big shocking episode a couple of weeks ago, the episode of “Alias” that aired the same night technically did the exact same thing (killed off two major characters with one plot twist). But while “Lost” had me sitting on the couch feeling like I’d had the wind knocked out of me, “Alias” just had me thinking, “Well, that happened.”

The worst is that I can take their bullet list of things that had to happen, and come up with a much better scenario that would’ve worked and tied everything together, without even trying that hard: All they had to do is have the first hour be the build-up to a big showdown on Mt. Subasio. Most of the main characters get killed as Sloane does the “horizon” thing with the sunlight (skip the bit in Rambaldi’s tomb; that was dumb). Jack sacrifices himself to save Sydney and kills Sloane in the process. Sydney’s left standing there looking just like the drawing in the manuscript, then she decides to use the horizon’s power to “fix” everything. (In this version, it actually lets you control time and such, instead of some immortality juice that’s a huge let-down after five seasons of build-up).

The whole second hour is flashbacks/alternate reality type deals where she’s going back through series and saving people she couldn’t save before. Like her fiance, and Francie, and everybody that got killed in the first hour. But the whole time, she keeps being reminded that people choose their own path, and she can’t save everyone. When she sees the results of all her changes, it’s the end of the world, with the “stars falling from the sky” and all the other prophecies we were promised. Irina gives her speech about power being the most important thing, but Sydney tells her she’s wrong, because she has all the power in the world now and still can’t fix everything. Jack tells her he wanted to keep her safe from the whole spy business, but now he realizes that he didn’t control her; she made her own choices to save the world. With that, she goes back to the final showdown and lets it play out with most everybody surviving. Jack still sacrifices himself to save her, Irina and Sloane die, and we get the exact same epilogue we had in the “real” episode.

There. (If you want a better resolution for Sloane, he could be in a mental institution with Nadia and Emily haunting him for the rest of his life). That only took about 20 minutes, and even that is better than what they came up with after five months. You get all the stuff they were trying to say about power and choices and sacrifice, and you get all the cheesy sci-fi spy stuff, and you still get a semi-happy ending.

And that doesn’t count as “fan fiction,” so shut up.

Rogue Wave

I looked through both X-Men movies frame by frame and would you believe Rogue doesn't wave once? Tonight I went with Mac to see Poseidon. Yes, on purpose.

The reviews will tell you this movie is bad, and the reviews will be correct. It’s really tough to recommend; we had fun watching it, but we had to put a lot of effort into it. I think even if I were Joel Siegel and I were desperate to come up with quotable blurbs to put on the poster, the best I’d be able to come up with would be “Guaranteed to make you have to pee!”

It was pretty clear it was going to be bad as soon as the opening shot started. It was a long fly-over of the boat that didn’t look like an ad for a cruise ship line as much as an ad for a piece of open-source CGI rendering software. Set against a sunset straight out of one of those inspirational “Footsteps in the Sand” posters.

I think the whole point of the scene was to introduce us to our hero, who is not Matthew McConaughey. Dude likes to run, and he had some type of previous career involving the Navy. That’s about all the character background we get for him, but that’s all right because that’s pretty much all the character background we get for anybody. The movie’s got an assload of dead bodies throughout, meant I guess to imply how horrible a disaster the Rogue Wave caused but without having to go into a lot of exposition as to who these people are. But you don’t really care much more about the main characters than you care about Random Immolation Victim #38.

There’s the ex-Mayor of New York who loves his daughter, the daughter who needs to prove to Daddy that she’s a grown woman, the boyfriend who’s there, sleazy greasy gambler Lucky Larry, a waiter, a captain who’s clearly slumming after “Homicide” got cancelled, and a woman who has a kid.

Fergie from the Black-Eyed Peas is in the movie. Ironically, she’s the only actor in the main credits who remains dry throughout the entire film. When I’d heard she was in it, I was hoping there’d be a dramatic scene where everybody’s standing hip-deep in water and they say, “Wait… did it just suddenly get warmer?” And then the camera pans over to Fergie and she shrugs and there’s the sound of tinkling bells and a slide trombone.

Richard Dreyfuss goes against type and plays a mopey, fussy, annoying old gay architect. I couldn’t tell if he was acting so prissy because they wanted to play up that he was old, or because they wanted to play up that he was gay, or because he’s Richard Dreyfuss. Mac pointed out that he exclaims “oy vey!” at one point, and also calls the waiter guy “gorgeous,” so I’m guessing his role in the movie was to combine Shelley Winters’ and Red Buttons’ characters from the original into one show-stopping performance.

Nadia from “Alias” is also in the movie, playing the Catholic claustrophobic Elena who’s Catholic. Also, she’s Catholic. This is crucial, because her crucifix is the only thing the movie has that resembles a plot point. In case you were in danger of forgetting that she’s Catholic, they make sure to show her making the Sign of the Cross every 30 seconds. This was clever re-enforcement of the idea (to wit: she’s Catholic), otherwise audiences would be completely bewildered at the sight of a Hispanic woman wearing a crucifix. On “Alias,” she only appeared for like 20 episodes, and by my calculations, she was impaled by glass shards about 18 times and turned into a zombie. In Poseidon, she isn’t much less clumsy.

I never liked disaster movies, because they always seemed completely pointless. This movie is so pointless and inessential it makes the original seem profound. I kept hoping for some sign of cleverness or suspense, or even irony, but the people making the movie just wouldn’t meet me halfway. They just really wanted to be faithful to the canon of the original, I guess, and exhaustively document the story of a ship that sinks and almost everybody except a few people dies.

Which reminds me: the death count is disappointingly low. I kept hoping for random shark attacks or electrocutions or getting sucked into jet engines or even ravaged by an unexpected shipment of snakes that break loose from the cargo hold. There’s only two main character deaths that are cool at all, and they’re both telegraphed way in advance and happen too soon and too close to each other. The annoying child character comes tantalizingly close to death about a dozen times, but for whatever reason he shows a Terminator-like knack for surviving.

There’s exactly one sequence in the movie that’s genuinely kind of cool. It’s after crash when Kurt Russell suddenly climbs out of a pile of open-eyed dead bodies, horrifying the mom and her kid. It lasts about 8 seconds. That’s not too good for a movie that’s about 100 minutes long.

But the summer movie season ain’t over yet. Next week: The DaVinci Code. I really want to go to the theater a day early and wait in line, wearing my albino monk costume. Incidentally, every time a big blockbuster movie comes out, there’s always a porn movie with a parody title released soon afterwards. When are they going to come out with The DaVinci Choad?

Caffeine Free

Bugs! Through the Scientific Process I have made a discovery: drinking caffeine makes me stay awake.

Shocking yes, but science doesn’t lie. I thought I’d developed a tolerance to caffeine what with the years of swilling Coke non-stop. When I got sick a while back, I swore allegiance to the Un-Cola for a while, and ended up sticking with it. It didn’t take too long to ween myself off the Coke, down to one a day and then none at all for a week and a half. I can’t shake the Lymon monkey, though, so I’m still going through twelve-packs of Sprite and 7-Up. But at least it’s a start, and even though I remain a fat-ass, I’ll be a well-rested fat-ass.

After a week and a half caffeine-free, I was actually getting to bed around midnight and feeling slightly but noticeably better off. This weekend, a home intruder left a pack of Cokes, and I’ve been drinking them, and I’m back to being up at 2 AM, watching “Lost” (sure, I would’ve done that anyway) and making rambling blog posts. A connection!

But I have been having cooler dreams, which is the only point of this post; I want to write it down before I forget. Last night I was part of a mystery-party contest in an old Japanese castle in Kyoto. Shigeru Miyamoto (creator of Mario Bros. and Link and Donkey Kong) had gathered people who work in videogames to solve a murder mystery, using a Nintendo DS.

That part is just because of what I’d been doing all day; reading about E3 on the internets and then reading a Japanese comic book about a murder mystery in a German castle. The cool part, though: I was in Miyamoto’s secret lab to find the crucial clue that would unlock the whole case. I found that he’d been cross-breeding different species of plants and animals, and his secret lab was a giant terrarium.

The whole table was littered with Chinese take-out boxes, which I’d assumed he’d been eating out of while he worked. Suddenly, one of the boxes unfolded and started hopping across the table. When it moved, you could tell it was a tree frog, but when it stopped, it looked exactly like a take-out box. Kind of like a stick bug, or the insects that look exactly like leaves. Miyamoto explained that there was so much litter now, that insects that used leaves and sticks as camouflage would stand out, so he was working on versions that would blend it with urban environments.

He then said that since I’d discovered his secret, he was going to have to kill me. He pulled out one of the Wii remote controllers to club me, and then my alarm clock went off.

Your Summer Movie Season, Should You Choose to Accept It

He's so refreshingly un-PC! A few weeks ago I was outside the multiplex of the soulless Glendale Galleria, looking at the posters of coming attractions and dreading the summer. Larry the Cable Guy was still playing, and the movies we had to look forward to were The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift and Garfield 2.

I was thinking that there is a reason people aren’t going to see movies much anymore, and the MPAA needs to learn that it’s not because of pirates or bootleggers or DVRs.

But I just got back from seeing Mission: Impossible 3, and not only was it good, but every single trailer they showed beforehand looked like something I’d want to see.

Tonight’s movie first: it’s not going to make anybody’s best movie ever list, but it’s a good, solid summer action movie with plenty of explosions and enough intelligence behind it to never kick you out of the experience. I’d heard people say it’s like “Alias” with Tom Cruise, but not really — it’s a good bit less goofy than “Alias.” And I’ve heard people were averse to see it because of Mr. Cruise, but for all his faults you’ve got to give him credit: once the movie starts, he usually disappears and does a good job. There’s only one bit where he was acting, where he’s telling his fiancee to trust him. The rest is all running from stuff getting blown up, and, which struck me as unusual for an action movie, acting like he’s winded afterwards.

So that’s one down. My take on the rest of the movies I’m interested in seeing, in order, just based on the trailers:

Pirates of the Caribbean 2: I dunno, maybe that makes me a company yes-man or something. The trailer kicks ass. (The trailer I saw tonight isn’t online yet as far as I can tell). Great villain, good one-liners, neat effects, looks like a hell of a lot of fun.
X-Men 3: The buzz around this one is looking worse and worse, but I’m sticking by it.
Superman Returns: I haven’t been able to put my finger on it, but this one just hasn’t really grabbed me. I still think the actor, the suit, Lois Lane, everything except Kevin Spacey as Luthor, just seems “off.” The new trailer is great, though, so that bumped it up the list.
The DaVinci Code: Remember this list is relative. I’m not expecting the movie to be good, but I’m going to see it anyway — I sure as hell am not going to read the book, and the story sounds just interesting enough to make me wonder what all the fuss is about. Plus, Audrey Tautou.
Over the Hedge: I know! I’m surprised too, but it looks like it might actuall be kind of funny. What sells it is William Shatner as a possum.
The Omen: Why do I want to see this one? For you, Damien! It’s all for you! But really, it’s for Mia Farrow as creepy nanny. And because the original is just about the stupidest “thriller” movie ever made, and I’m curious whether it’s possible to make a scary movie out of it. Seriously, the whole movie is like two hours of Gregory Peck going from person to person and having them say, “your son is the devil,” and then dying horribly, and still he never clues in.
Poseidon: And this getting down to the very bottom of the barrel, but it’s summer, and it’s a giant ship that rolls over and sinks. Which is a metaphor for something or other.

Not an outstanding line-up, but still. It should be enough of a diversion until Fall and Snakes on a Plane.

Superman Complains

I woke up this morning just after having a dream where I was Superman.

But it wasn’t a cool dream, where I was flying, or beating up on people, or kickin’ it with Lois or Lana, or even bringing back souvenirs for my pal Jimmy Olsen.

No, in my dream it was: “Oh HELL no I don’t need this! I’ve got enough to deal with as it is, and now I gotta be Superman? People are going to be asking me to do stuff for them, and I’m going to have to be flying all over the place getting in fights and stopping evil.”

So I didn’t even get to the flying part, or even put on the suit for that matter; I was too busy pitching a fit. In retrospect it’s a good thing I woke up when I did, because I hadn’t remembered about Kryptonite yet. That and Mr. Mxyzptlk would’ve probably gotten me on a tirade that would’ve lasted into the afternoon.

The whole incident reminded me that I’ve never had a dream where I was flying. If you believe what you read, it’s pretty common, but the closest I’ve ever come that I can remember was dreaming I was in the observation deck of the World Trade Center and the glass wasn’t there, so I fell out but didn’t hit the ground. I just kind of hung there, over that big globe statue that used to be there, then got bored and the dream switched to something else.

If I were into dream analysis, I’m sure this would all lead me to believe that I’ve got a lack of imagination and I’m repressed and inclined to be pessimistic and negative. But then, if I were into dream analysis, I’d have to start putting more weight in those dreams I keep having about me, Rachael Ray, Larry the Cable Guy, Velma, and Sayid from “Lost” all snowboarding down a mountain but it turns out the snow is actually sausage gravy and we all crash into a giant biscuit and then fall as one big pile onto the conveyor belt of a lumber-mill and as we inch closer to the giant saw blade I can feel one of them start grabbing me, you know, down there and I’m afraid to look down and see which one it is and I wake up screaming.

Greedo Went Out Like a Chump

I've been waiting for this a long time. Lucasfilm finally caved and are releasing the original Star Wars movies on DVD. I’m not happy about it.

Reason one: I already bought the “special editions.” I don’t like the special editions. The Death Star did not blow up with a shock wave. Either time. And as the Star Wars.com main page reminds us now, even though they’ve been denying it for years because of you know “original artistic vision” and all that crap, Han shot first.

I put off buying the special editions for a long time, and then finally caved when I realized it was the only way I was going to be able to have copies of the original movies on DVD. If I could exchange the special editions for the real ones, then I’d be okay with that. Something tells me they’re not going to let you do that, though. When I do some ciphering and calculate how much money I made from working for Lucas companies vs. how much money I’ve given to Lucas companies, I think I’m at a net loss.

Reason two: “This release will only be available for a limited time: from September 12th to December 31st.” On the press release, they should just replace this sentence with a picture of George flipping us the bird. Haven’t these guys heard of ebay? Don’t they realize that this is going to make it impossible for people to just go into a store and pick up a copy of the DVDs? There’s going to be speculators all over the place waiting in line to snatch up all the available copies, then sell them online for a huge mark-up.

Disney gets a lot of grief — and very deservedly so — for their whole “Disney vault” nonsense and creating an artificial demand for DVD releases by only leaving them out for a limited time. It may generate revenue for them (although considering they’re down to doing it with direct-to-video stuff like Mulan VIII or Bambi’s Revenge, even that well may have dried up), but it just pisses off the fans.

Two for the Road

Holy shit!

Seriously!

I’m not used to having a television show, even the ones I like, make me genuinely feel anything, but this one hit me like a ton of bricks. Like, just sitting there like I’d just been in a car accident or something, with that feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach and thinking, “No way did that just happen.”

Now I’m even dreading watching the next episode and having to see the fallout. Until then, I guess it’s poring over The Hanso Foundation.org (1-877-HANSORG).

And after all that build-up, the spoiler warning: Seriously — if you’re thinking you might watch “Lost” at some point, skip the rest of this post. It’s for your own good. (And it won’t make any sense if you don’t watch the show anyway, so there’s no use in spoiling it for yourself).

Continue reading “Two for the Road”

Network Neutrality

I’d been reading bits and pieces about Network Neutrality for a while now, but for whatever reason I was never struck with how it’s A Really Big Deal. It took a post on Wil Wheaton’s blog to clue me in. Thanks, Wesley! This is a pretty messed-up situation.

This post on the Huffington Post by Adam Green explains the situation. In particular, his link to this editorial in The New Yorker which gives it some context and talks about the potential ramifications if the telco companies get their way.

I guess I assumed that the telecommunications companies’ position was such a transparently blatant case of corporate greed that it would never get as far as it has. But then, I have been living in the United States for the past six years, so I really don’t have any excuse to still be so naive.

The situation as they spin it is one of fair play, de-regulation — the capitalism that I’ve gone on record as being in favor of. The networks are outdated and broken, they claim, and it’s going to cost billions and billions of dollars to fix them. Big corporations like Google and Amazon (and now, YouTube, apparently) are using up an disproportionate amount of bandwidth on these networks, but not paying for them. They’re using more of the internets; isn’t it only fair that they should foot the bill? If the telco companies are allowed to institute tiered pricing, then they can charge big greedy Amazon more, while leaving the common internet user (you and me) alone.

Which is, of course, bullshit.

I don’t know about you guys, but I’m already paying over fifty bucks a month to AT&T (or is it SBC, or Yahoo!, or some other ConHugeCo conglomerate/cabal I’m not even aware of?) to get internet access. I’m assuming that Amazon and Google aren’t running their services through the same type of single DSL line I use. They’re already paying more.

And when the rates go up, are they just going to quietly eat the overhead themselves? Of course not. They’re going to increase the charges to me. (Or in the case of Google, however they make money, they’re going to do more of it. I’m sure I’ll end up paying one way or another.) So I, and every other one of the “common men” of the internet that the lobbyists are playing to, is going to have to pay AT&T or Comcast or Verizon or whatever service provider twice for the same service.

And that’s the best-case scenario. Far more likely is that the companies will have an unprecedented level of control over what gets seen on the internet at all. Somebody at AT&T doesn’t like what you post on your blog? They can just restrict bandwidth to it so that nobody ever sees it. Barnes&Noble.com outbids Amazon.com for tiered access? Suddenly, their site runs like a dream and Amazon acts like you’re seeing it over a Vicmodem.

And that’s not even to mention local bookstores who want to set up a web presence. Or just somebody like myself, who doesn’t have a whole lot to say but by damn is going to go online and say it.

Mike McCurry, the former Clinton press secretary who’s now shilling for AT&T and the like as a lobbyist, has already been caught lying twice in his defense of his claims, by other writers on the very same blog. What offends me the most about his nonsense is that it’s just a blatant copy of the same tired old shit that we’ve getting around just about every political issue for years, and has even been leaking into entertainment. Let’s break it down:

Stupid polarizing terminology. Just like the attempts to turn “liberal” into a dirty word, and coin “neocon” as another compartmentalization. This dumb-ass keeps calling everyone “net neuts.” It’s idiotic juvenile name-calling, pure and simple.
Faux populism. They’re doing it for your benefit, you see! Why are you defending these Big Corporations like Google and Amazon? They don’t care about you! They’re getting a free ride off of you! And really, I mean, AT&T and Verizon and Comcast — they’re not all that big, right? They’re just regular joes like you and me. I bet the head of AT&T would be great to have a beer with, not like that elitist snob Jeff Bezos!
Followed by insulting elitism. At the same time they try to make themselves like the common man, they always throw in the tone of “you wouldn’t understand, so don’t worry your pretty little head about it.” There are so many complicated issues with global network infrastructure that are way way too technical to go into. All you need to know is that the damn liberals have made it sound like a case of the little guy vs. Big Corporations. Which it’s not. Even if it is AT&T and Verizon trying to institute a system that would let them charge you $500 a month to have a personal website.
Lying. Okay, this one isn’t unique to the last decade, but it’s still pretty damn insulting. Seriously, read this moron’s blathering again and tell me he’s not evil. It’s so obvious even before you read the cheat sheet.

So there’s an Internet petition, for whatever that’s worth. If you don’t like MoveOn.org (I don’t particularly, but signed the petition anyway), you can go directly to SaveTheInternet.com and participate in their campaign, with links to your representatives and such. You can also check out their blog, which collects the most relevant info about the issue and exposes what a bunch of greedy liars the telco company lobbyists are.

Hopefully this will get enough attention that we can put the smack down on any such blatant free-speech assaults as this one. And then once we’ve got the basics down, we can go back to bugging our representatives about stuff like not dropping nuclear bombs on Iran.

I Should Know Better

I sold my old PowerBook on eBay, and I was so paranoid about getting shafted that I apparently turned off all higher brain functioning.

Somebody’s running a scam where they send spam messages to eBay sellers. It’s done as a question from another eBay user, so it’s within the eBay messaging system with all the proper headers and everything. It asks something like “Is this the same item being sold at some url?” When you follow the link, it goes to a spoof site where they get your information, and then they use your eBay account to send more messages to other sellers.

Now, who can spot from that description exactly where Chuck is a moron? If you said, “it’s when you follow the link,” you’re absolutely right. I’ve really got no excuse, other than that I was watching the auction every thirty minutes and stressing out over the fact that there’d been no activity on it. It’s not even clickable in the message; I had to aggressively copy the address out of the message, then re-enter it in the browser.

And if you were to come up to me now and say, “Chuck, never follow hyperlinks in messages from people you don’t know,” I’d say, “Well of course not. Everybody knows that!” And if you added, “Especially if the link is just a numeric IP address,” I’d respond, “What do you think I am, an idiot?”

So now, someone is sending dozens of other users messages disguised as me, and I’m getting all the bewildered responses. And plenty of those responses start with, “I followed the link but don’t know what you’re talking about.” And this is one of the rare cases where seeing that other people have made the same mistake I did, doesn’t make me feel any better.

Now I’ve just got to wait and see if this whole transaction goes down with no major incident, responding to all the spam e-mail in the meantime. And then delete the account and never, ever use eBay again. I get the impression it’d be easier just to walk around Union Square with the computer in hand, yelling, “Anybody want to buy this? I’ll take personal checks or IOUs.”

They should’ve sent a poet.

I already admitted to tearing up reading The Catcher in the Rye and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, but that was because they were sad.

But there are times that a piece of language can be so beautiful and perfect in its construction alone that it can move the reader to tears no matter what its context. I’m thinking of A Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes, which so perfectly evokes images of joy that has been ruined, even before its ominous last line. Or the single perfect line “Fix it with your tiny fist there” from “Busting Up a Starbucks” by Mike Doughty. Or, of course, the best example is the opening of Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov.

Or, the dialogue in a recent panel of “Achewood:”

I have Airwolf. This is not code language. I am flying Airwolf because I own Airwolf.
Nothing else I could say would make more sense given what I own and what I am doing at this moment.

::sniff:: So… perfect. I need a moment.

I didn’t link to it above because the last panel doesn’t make sense unless you read the one before it.

And yeah, I can compare a webcomic to Nabokov if I want to. It’s my blog. Shut up.

The Next Food Network Star

Everything tastes better when you make it in your underwear. “The Next Food Network Star” ended last weekend, but I just got around to watching the finale. I’ve never really liked reality TV, so I’ve really got no excuse for getting sucked into that show. Of course, I can’t cook more than hamburgers and grilled cheese sandwiches, so I’ve got no excuse for watching so much of the Food Network, either.

The show had the Marc Summers taint all over it: it looked like a real reality show, but it was overwhelmingly safe. Every time it seemed like there was going to be some drama, it quickly cut away. Everybody pretty much got along the whole time, they were all pretty supportive of each other and seemed genuinely sad when another person got eliminated. And whenever anyone did get eliminated, they learned something valuable from the whole experience. It was kind of like “Seventh Heaven,” but more boring.

Still, I was all over that. As soon as they introduced everybody, my favorite to go all the way was Jess Yang, who would’ve been great because she’s young and seems genuinely nice and enthusiastic, and she would’ve taught people how to cook Asian food, which nobody else on the network ever does. So she was the first to get eliminated.

After that, all my favorite choices got knocked off, right down to the final three. I thought it should’ve been between Carissa, who’s hot, and Guy, who seemed like a nice enough guy and charismatic enough to have a show. But she got eliminated. At least Guy won; it’ll be like every other show on the Food Network, but then pretty much every show already on the network is like every other show on the network. And at least he’s better than the annoying couple that won last year.

Watching enough of the contest convinced me it’d be a bad idea to enter with my “Bachelor Chef” series idea. It’d still be a good show — fat, lazy guy has thirty minutes to make a meal for one with only what he has on hand, meaning we finally see some interesting variations on hamburgers and grilled cheese sandwiches. I just don’t think I’m the guy to host it.

But it did make me realize what is the big gaping void in the network’s programming. They don’t have a comedy. Alton Brown tries to be funny on “Good Eats,” and George Duran gets a little closer on “Ham on the Street,” but they’re both more corny than genuinely funny. “Good Eats” relies too much on Atlanta-area community theater performers, and “Ham on the Street” relies too much on random people freaking out when he’s made them eat something with French cheese in it.

The network doesn’t have any original programming that’s nearly as compelling as “Iron Chef.” Their attempt at an American version of “Iron Chef” just proves that they don’t get what makes “Iron Chef” cool — it’s not really a cooking show.

So here’s my totally free pitch for the next Food Network breakout hit: it’s called “In the Night Kitchen.” It’s a combination of “Iron Chef” with “Dark Shadows” and “Passions.” (Food Network’s main audience are women and geeks; geeks love “Dark Shadows,” women love soap operas. It’s Science.) The main character is The Baron, who was considered the greatest chef in the world until some mysterious scandal ruined his career. He fled to a castle in the Czechoslavakian countryside, where he broods and cooks. If you want, you can make him a vampire or a ninja. He’s got secrets, is the thing. Sometimes, in the dark of the night, you’ll find him in his kitchen, preparing some of the most amazing dishes imaginable, and cursing the fact that only he will be able to enjoy them.

The Countess Porcheska is really hot and secretly an agent of Interpol trying to expose The Baron’s secrets. She frequently visits with ingredients. She’s drawn to the charms of the Baron as much as she tries to deny it and stay focused on her task. There’s assloads of chemistry there.

Occasionally, a challenger comes to the Night Kitchen, seeking to overthrow The Baron. The Baron must win the contest without revealing his true identity to the Countess. The loser of the battle (it’s never the Baron, obviously) must commit ritual seppuku with a ladle.

There are also frequent visits by aliens, werewolves, ronin, turn-of-the-century explorers with some rare theme ingredient, and pastry chefs. The other big drama on The Food Network is their pastry competitions, where you watch for an hour just to see somebody drop the sugar sculpture while trying to take it to the table. So there’s that.

And the real genius? Val Kilmer. The real genius about this idea? It’s only thirty minutes long. He never finishes an entire recipe in one episode. You have to keep watching to get the whole thing. I can’t imagine why they haven’t done that before.

This idea is pure gold, and I’m giving it away for free on the internets. It’s got cult hit written all over it.

Movie Literate

A couple of blogs have linked to this movie critic’s list of 102 Movies You Must See Before You Die. As far as I can make out, it was written in 1999 and brought back to life in response to this book of 1001 entries. Mac has a copy of that book, and from what I saw, it’s missing some key movies and includes some others that I would’ve left out.

The shorter list is a lot easier to deal with, though. I’m going to copy Emerson’s list and mark the ones I have seen in bold. I’m kind of surprised I have so few problems with the list — I don’t agree with it 100%, but as far as the nebulous concept of “movie literacy” goes, it seems to be pretty dead-on.
Continue reading “Movie Literate”