Bottomless DVR

Top Chef Las Vegas: The Season of Unlikable Contestants

2009-09-24T17:01:00.000-07:00

Mike (not cool brother Mike) Isabella from Top Chef: Las Vegas

This asshole with his faux hawk and dumb smirk talks shit about the other contestants every week. Oh, how cool are you Mike? You say fuck and shit in your confessionals. How edgy? You show them, Mike. Do your shitty tattoos and smack talk get ladies?

Meanwhile, as he talks shit about contestants every week and their lack of skills, he shows his one skill: Greek cooking. How fucking ironic, buddy. You make kebabs, couscous, "greek salads" every week and rode the coattails of straight-laced brother to a top finish one week. Yet you think you're the Top Chef. You've shown the same cooking range as the guy who fries my falafel at Oasis Cafe.

And hey: FLORENTINE = FLORENCE FUCKING ITALY, YOU DUMB FUCK.

Which brings me to my other "thing I hate". It's you, Eli Kirstein.

You and your fucking horn-rimmed glasses talk a lot of shit every week, too. You also have absurdly spiked hair. Congrats. You are a chef at a restaurant in Atlanta and you're 25. I'm sure you're unequivocally the best chef ever.

Oh, way to be a dick, too, and call Robin out for giving a back story to her dish. I'm sure she loved having cancer and possibly dying because she thought, "Hey I can use it to my advantage on a reality show someday!"

When you get Type II diabetes someday will you think that way? That double chin of yours isn't without any repercussions.

Bottomless Grub: Bayless FTW

2009-08-21T12:48:00.001-07:00

I locked out on Top Chef: Masters for 95% of its original run. I was shocked that Bravo re-aired it the other weekend, but I finally watched and got hooked.

(Read more)

Bacon! Pleasecanihavebacon

2009-06-22T21:13:00.000-07:00

How many people watched J&K+8 tonight? Is it possible that more than 16,000,000 watched---which was the average Idol household audience?

It's not everyday you get to see the home video that will result in eight children wanting to rebel against their parents in their teenage years.

I think the winner here has to be Jon. He's got the earrings, the Ed Hardy, the Bluetooth head set...he's ready to drink some Jager and lure ladies to his west side apartment.

If Kathy Griffin Can Win An Emmy...

2009-06-16T05:30:00.001-07:00

...so can Kate Gosselin.

"I realized that CT isn't the guy I should be with."

2009-06-15T20:09:00.000-07:00

-Diem c. sometime in the finale episode

Really, Diem? It took CT almost mauling a 160 lb. dude--like how a tiger destroys its prey--in a reality competition for you to realize that CT is not the guy who you should spend the rest of your life with?

Career first. Career first.

The Hangover and Up

2009-06-15T10:20:00.001-07:00

I hit the Metro North of Boston's best two movie theaters* to see The Hangover and Up last weekend. Per my friends' facebook statuses, I was implored to "see The Hangover, you motherfuckers."

I need new friends.

Peer pressure is a bitch, so I did as I was told. I roared and laughed like a 23 year old male would at the sophomoric, piss-shit humor. Hell, it even had 40+ year old Heather Graham's areolas, and pictures of fellatio!

Alas it was not the best movie I saw last weekend; Disney Pixar's Up lays claim to this mother's basement blogger's title. (Spoilers ahead) Up's premise may be hard to surmise from its trailer and commercials, but its beautiful tale starts with Carl Fredricksen and his wife, Ellie. The two meet in their childhood and form a fast bond over their love for exploration, flight, and traveling. During the greatest** montage I've ever seen, we see Carl and Ellie grow old and we get hit with heartbreak after heartbreak for the two. After the montage we see an elder, widowed Carl. Very senile, bitter, and lonely, Carl now spends his days keeping immaculate care of the house that Carl and Ellie presumably lived in for 60+ years.

After Carl is forced out of his home due to a cutthroat developer and a tussle over his mailbox, he's seemingly resigned to his assisted living fate. Before being forced to heaven's waiting room, he uses thousands of his balloon to lift his house into the skies.

To this point, the movie was strikingly real for an animated film. The tale now requires a bit of suspension of reality by the viewer as the house is flying away, piloted by Carl and pseudo-Eagle Scout, Russell.

Russell stowed away on-board the flying house after volunteering to help the elderly Carl in his quest to fufill his environment-scout-whatever-merit-badge-sash.

The "B" story line was nearly as strong as Carl's; Russell naively explains a fatherless childhood. A physically weak child, Russell comes off as confused at why the other environmental scouts have a dad. But he shows strength as he combats those lost childhood moments with a vigor to help and care.

As Carl and Russ float away to Paradise Falls, South America--where Ellie and Carl had unfulfilled dreams of vacationing to---they get a bit sidetracked. The bulk of the film takes place in a South American jungle, and ends with another tearjerking and fulfilling moment.

I walked out of the theater with my mother and brother with a smile on my face that sunny and humid afternoon. Delightful is the apropos adjective for the best animated film I've ever seen. Whereas, horrifying was how I felt after walking out of The Hangover. "They can show that in an R-rated movie?"

*I contend that the Tyngsboro movie theater is superior to the Lowell theater in that: it's closer to my parent's house. And the people on a Friday night are more entertaining.

**I hate montages in movies, usually.