Thursday Talk: Looking forward

J: It's the last Thursday Talk of 2010! What entertainment things are you looking forward to in the new year?

Jennifer: I'm looking forward to the last Harry Potter movie, of course. On TV, the final seasons of Greek and Friday Night Lights, and the new Masterpiece series Downton Abbey. I'm also very curious and somewhat concerned about the American remakes of the British series Skins (MTV) and Being Human (SyFy). I'm hoping they're decent but am prepared to pretend that they don't exist!

Mira: I'm looking forward to the last installment of HP, too! On TV, I'm excited about Glee's post-Super Bowl episode. I also am interested in how they'll end Greek. One other thing I'm curious about is Spiderman, the musical. There's been all this press about injuries and crazy stunts; hopefully this show will actually get on ground and maybe one day (probably not 2011), I'll get to watch it. Songs written by Bono and The Edge. That's all I can think of for now. :)

Happy 2011! Stay tuned for a slight change in our Thursday Talks...

Thursday Talk: Movies and TV of 2010

J: Continuing to wrap up 2010...what were your top movies and TV of this year?

Jennifer: As usual I didn't watch a whole lot of movies in theaters this year, but my favorites were Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World and Inception. Scott Pilgrim had perfect perfect casting, great music, great video-game-esque action, and was just FUN, while Inception was cerebral and mind-twisting and pretty visually stunning.

On TV, I'm not sure , I think the show I found most entertaining was certainly The Vampire Diaries. Runners up: Community and Parks and Recreation (can't wait for it to come back in January). Continuing excellence: Friday Night Lights and Mad Men. I also really enjoyed Sherlock, Justified, and Parenthood.

Mira: I saw very few movies this year, too. In fact, I get the vague feeling that I only saw two movies in the theater this entire year: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I and Step Up 3D. Haha. I get the feeling that most of my movie watching is on airplanes these days. I did get to watch Despicable Me, Sex and the City 2, Knight and Day, and Going the Distance on the way to and from Europe recently. And on the way to and from Rome in July, I saw... I don't remember. :) Okay my favorite of those movies... Harry Potter. The movie series has only gotten better with each subsequent movie.

My favorite on TV for the year would be Glee (because there is no TV I look forward to more than this show). In particular, my favorite episode was "Duets."

Top Chef: Match Point!

Whenever I see a big "event" on Top Chef, I assume it means catering which I don't think really produces the best food so I was happy to see that the Elimination Challenge was NOT catering, but kind of a culinary tennis game held at Flushing Meadows with a middling pro tennis player as a judge, which had chefs from two teams "serving" up dishes head to head. The food ostensibly had to be geared towards athletes but that seemed pretty open to interpretation.

So let's talk about Jamie. She hasn't necessarily changed since her season, she was smug and defensive back then and she still is. But as Blais pointed out, she's "got a story going on." This is the second time in four weeks that she hasn't put out anything. I don't think I'm alone in finding this...problematic. A Top Chef should win because they consistently cooked great food, not because they're great self-preservationists. She's clearly not a team player and her general air of "whatever" is extremely tiresome.

As for Spike, I actually thought his strategy made sense...the problem was that none of the chefs were going to admit that their dish was the weakest and automatically put themselves up for elimination. And I don't know why he let Angelo bulldoze his dish. It sounded like the shrimp was his downfall though and that was all him. Angelo seemed to kind of screw up Tre's dish as well...I don't think he's deliberately trying to sabotage people but it is a little odd that his own dishes win challenges but when he interferes with another chef, they end up on the bottom.

Really happy for Carla! She'll always be underestimated because she just has a kooky personality but her soup was one of the more interesting things I've ever seen on Top Chef and I'm glad she's breaking out a little earlier this season.

Odds and ends:
- Have we ever seen the chefs socializing outside of their house? The opening segment with them at the "bar" must have been in the morning or something because they seemed to be drinking coffee and eating like...fruit and bread.
- The Quickfire was wacky but kind of comic gold. Using the handle of pan, a cob of corn, a big piece of bacon, a celery stick as stirring utensils? Whacking everything with anything? Apparently a pepper grinder is not a tool though.
- It's "undone-te."
- Mike's childishness vs. Marcel's childishness. Mike is the crazy fun kid that makes everyone laugh. Marcel is the annoying kid everyone wants to smack.
- Mike got a free pass this episode too but nobody really said anything about that...
- Did the "tennis fans" watching get to eat anything?
- Tennis is one sport I actually know the rules of. They were following normal tennis scoring but if they had gotten to 40-40 with only one chef left on each team then I guess they would have skipped the whole deuce thing...
- Next episode looks EPIC. Cooking head-to-head with Tom and then serving dim sum to crotchety Asians? Can't wait!!!

The Sing-Off Finale!

So...finales of these kinds of performance reality shows are always kind of a mixed bag. I don't have all that much to say about the group performances with the special guests and judges....I loved Street Corner Symphony with Ben Folds singing "Gone" because I do love that song but everything else didn't really register with me.

The public voted based on the performances from last time so this week's individual numbers don't really matter but I'll review them anyway.

Backbeats - "Firework" by Katy Perry
Is it weird that I haven't actually heard this song before? Maybe that (and the fact that it's Katy Perry...) contributed to why I didn't enjoy this all that much. It was nice to hear Kenton actually sing...this is supposedly "his" group after all. I thought they should have cut last week so not too attached to them.

Commited - "Hold My Hand" by Michael Jackson and Akon
I didn't know of the existence of this song either, but it sounded very much in their wheelhouse and I liked it. Great harmonies and sharing of the lead vocals as usual and their gospel roots really came through.

Jerry Lawson and Talk of the Town - "Love Train" by O'Jays
I have tons of respect for these guys but I have to admit, if this were a longer competition, I'd probably have gotten tired of them soon. They do what they do really well but it doesn't seem like they have a whole lot of range. Which isn't a problem in the real world, just in the world of TV reality competition...

Street Corner Symphony - "Fix You" by Coldplay
I was actually a fan of Coldplay's first album but then they somehow got really annoying and I kind of stopped paying attention to them. But this is a pretty great song and these guys definitely did it justice. Not sure why all the other groups had to come and join in halfway though?

And the winner is...Commited! I think I was personally rooting for Street Corner Symphony but there's no question of Commited's talent, so I'm quite happy for them.

How GREAT is it that this show is already over??

Thursday Talk: Books and Music of 2010

J: 2010 is almost over, so of course that means coming up with end-of-the-year lists. Let's tackle books and music this week. What was the best book you read this year and what was your favorite song/album/artist of 2010?

Jennifer: I finally read Steig Larsson's Millenium Trilogy (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest) this year and while some parts were a little slow going (a lot of pretty detailed stuff about the government and the police and business), overall they definitely lived up to the hype. Once they got going I couldn't put them down! I also read all the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels and LOVED them. Funniest thing I've read in a long time.

In music, my favorite song of the year, hands down, is Robyn's Dancing On My Own. Robyn's been around for years but I never thought I liked dance music -- I don't dance or go to clubs. But this song is infectious. The lyrics are so simple and emotionally bare and I also kinda love Robyn's crazy dance moves in the video. For albums, my picks are The National - High Violet (listen to "Bloodbuzz Ohio") and of course Arcade Fire - The Suburbs (check out "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)").

Mira: (Will answer when she returns from vacation!) Finally answering! My favorite song of the year is Neon Trees' "Animal." It's one of those songs that for some unexplainable reason it makes me really happy to listen to. "Mr. Brightside" by The Killers is another such song. A close second is "The Only Exception" by Paramore. Favorite album, I pick Ingrid Michaelson - Everybody. It's actually from 2009 but I've listened to that album a whole lot the past year. (I first was introduced to her music at a concert in late 2009 and saw her again in 2010 because I like her that much.)

For books, I pick The Hunger Games trilogy. This actually is relevant to 2010 because the final book of the series, Mockingjay, was released in August. I had heard a lot of positive reviews for the series but had held off on reading them until the series was complete so I could read all three together. I also had a lot of school and very little time for fun reading. In any case, it was totally worth the wait and the books were fantastic. They were so good I read 2.5 of the 3 books on my loooong flight from Rome to Atlanta; didn't even nap!

2010 Resolutions: How Did I Do?

Back in January, I blogged about my entertainment-related resolutions from 2010. Let's see how I did!

1. Aim to blog at least once a week.
Well, we didn't miss any Thursday Talks, so I'm going to claim success on this!

2. Stop watching trashy TV, e.g. The Bachelor, most things on MTV.
Check! I gave up the Bachelor/ette and didn't watch a single episode of Jersey Shore, The Real World, or any RW/RR Challenges. I did watch a few episodes of Millionaire Matchmaker here and there though...but at least that has more standalone episodes, not the same idiots every week.

3. Catch up with Lost before the series finale (yes, I started watching it again, but more on that later. I just started season 5).
Another check! I caught up just in time to watch the series finale live.

4. Catch up with Doctor Who (currently on season 4) and Torchwood (still on season 1, though I watched Children of Earth).
Fail. I'm still on the David Tennant specials and haven't started on season 5 of Doctor Who yet. And I haven't touched Torchwood.

5. Make a better effort to attack my Netflix queue (currently nearing 300) and stop keeping discs over a month (waste of money).
Fail. My queue is up to 341...

6. Read more, especially books that I own but have never read/finished.
I'll claim success on this one too, but next year I think I'm going to keep a list of every book I actually finish.

7. Go to at least 1 concert this year. Everyone makes stops in DC but I haven't been to any shows since I moved down here.
Technically success, as I did go see Weezer and Ben Folds. But it's been years since I've been into their music. I'll have to try this one again next year.

So...5/7. Not too shabby!

Top Chef: Getting serious!

Interesting how they're beginning each episode with an extra little elimination recap from the past week. I guess there's more interest since we already know these people and theoretically every elimination should be a shocker since these are the All-Stars?

After some silliness last week, Top Chef gets down to business. This week had the kind of challenges that are usually reserved for later in the season. The Quickfire was the a twist on the now-class mise en place relay race: each team of 4 prepped 3 ingredients simultaneously, then had to create a dish with the ingredients, but time expired for all the teams 15 minutes after the first team finished their mise en place. Superstar NYC chef David Chang was the judge, who I'd been waiting to come on the show (especially since he and Bourdain seem to be pretty chummy), but I thought he was kind of wasted here. At least he was part of the Elimination too. Anyway, two teams elected to do carpaccio since they didn't have enough time to actually cook the lamb, but the team with most time ended up on the bottom. No immunity.

The Elimination challenge was kind of awesome but definitely tough. The chefs were split up and sent to 4 top NYC restaurants: Marea (Italian), WD-50 (molecular gastronomy), Ma Peche (French Vietnamese), and Townhouse (eclectic American, emphasis on eclectic). They sat down for a special meal, then had to create their own dishes that would fit in with their assigned restaurants' menus.

On top: Dale T, Antonia, Angelo, and Tre. Asian Dale capitalizes on Wylie Dufresne's obsession with eggs and wins despite not using any of WD-50's crazy techniques or equipment. Very smart. Nice to see Tre starting to break out a little bit, and man, Angelo is kind of killing this competition so far.

On the bottom: Fabio, Tiffani, Dale L. and Stephen. All of them were pretty aware that they messed up, so no Jen-like outbursts. Two were eliminated this week, so bye-bye to Dale L. and Stephen. I can't say I'm all that upset--while I like Dale as a person, I never really saw him as having as much competitive drive as some of the others. I hear that he and Sara Nguyen from his season have a new restaurant in Chicago that's doing extremely well, so good for him. As for Stephen, he's obviously more of a front-of-house guy now. Nothing wrong with that, but this is a cooking competition.

I'm thinking Fabio's days are numbered, but obviously anything can happen, especially as it seems we're returning to the world of catering next week. But really, he's been on the bottom 2 of 3 eliminations and he's not even saying that many amusing things anymore!

Random observations:
- I can't stand how Angelo must describe all his food as "beautiful." Let the people eating decide if it's beautiful or not, ok?
- The green team's aprons did not look particularly green to me.
- Why am I not surprised that Jamie made soup?
- I can't remember a single Bourdain quote! There's something wrong with that.
- 6 night trip to New Zealand is pretty sweet...but not nearly long enough!

The Sing-Off Night 4

Thanks Mira, for getting me totally hooked on this show! Round 1 of Night 4 had the groups put together a "superstar medley," which led to some pretty varied results.

On the Rocks - Elton John
So last time I declared my love for Peter of to-be-eliminated Groove for Thought. Now I totally have a thing for the Peter in this group! Loved his solo on "Kyrie" last time and continued to love him with "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" tonight. The judges never seem to mention this, I guess because it's secondary, but these guys have pretty great choreography. They cover the stage and change up their formations and I think they've been getting much cleaner and tighter.

Committed - Usher
Good choice for them, as I think gospel voices transition really well to R&B. They had fantastic transitions between songs and their harmonies are just sick. I personally don't really like Usher so I can't say I loved this but I so respect their talents.

Street Corner Symphony - The Beatles
"Eleanor Rigby" is my favorite Beatles song but I kind of hate when people try to cover it because it just never sounds quite right. No exception here. The rest was really good though...it was nice to hear some of the other guys get their solo moments during "Help" and Jeremy was great as usual with "Hey Jude."

Backbeats - Lady Gaga
The judges are really in love with Courtney, huh? I thought the "Paparazzi" segment was the best, "Poker Face" was way too fast and had too much going on, and "Just Dance" was fine but nothing special.

Jerry Lawson and Talk of the Town - Otis Redding
This was very, how do you say it, "in the pocket." This was very classic, no percussion or beatboxing but still sounded wonderfully full. Again, nice to hear someone else besides Jerry take the solo in the middle section (don't know the name of the song...I admit ignorance on this genre of music).

Aaaand On The Rocks is eliminated??? Sigh, I was just starting to really like them. LOVED their quippy last words referencing all three judges and "The Final Countdown" as their "swan song."

Ok, Round 2: Judges' Request.

Committed - "Let's Stay Together" by Al Green
Loved this. Very clean and restrained with great trading off of the vocals. It's like Talk of the Town: the Next Generation.

Street Corner Symphony - "Down on the Corner" by Creedence Clearwater Revival
If Nashville is full of these kind of guys, in the words of Liz Lemon, "I want to go to there." They're just so laid back and cool and this was a great choice for them. They're so great when they get into the choruses and sound like they're just...jamming.

Backbeats - "Landslide" by Fleetwood Mac
The judges are really going for the classics huh? I know I've been kind of down on Backbeats in general but this was really quite good. Kenton being the "cello" kind of cracked me up a little bit and how they started crying at the end was a little ridiculous but Joanna is always great and they didn't make it too complicated.

Jerry Lawson and Talk of the Town - "House of the Rising Sun" by the Animals
Pretty fantastic...almost haunting. It's kind of hard to say bad things about them...

Ugh, fakeout with the second elimination. It was slightly cruel to make Talk of the Town think that they had gotten eliminated for that split second.

Odds and Ends:
- Opening song was alright. "Use Somebody" still my favorite so far.
- This is neither here nor there, but my favorite color is purple, so I love how much purple all the groups are wearing, especially the guys!
- Liked the little holiday song segments.
- Ben Folds is awesome. So is his Sing-Off blog.
- Not going to vote, but not sure who I'd vote for anyway.
- Bizarrely enough, I think this is the most on-time blog I've ever written...

The Sing-Off Night 3

As Mira is on vacation, I might as well step in and take over our Sing-Off coverage. I think the best thing about this show is its limited run: just 2 weeks, 5 episodes. Short but sweet! (Just for the record, the worst thing is Nick Lachey. I assume his ridiculous puns and such are written for him, but his blandly cheesy delivery doesn't help.)

Anyway, night 3 had the groups singing two numbers each: a rock song and a "guilty pleasure" song. Here's my rundown:

Backbeats - "You Give Love a Bad Name" by Bon Jovi and "Love Shack" by the B-52s.
Catherine takes the lead vocals for the Bon Jovi song and while there's nothing really wrong with her voice, I find her sound to be slightly...empty. Kinda reminds me of all the teenage girls on American Idol trying to sing big "diva" songs. I thought they did a much better job with "Love Shack"...kinda crazy with the arrangement and dancing and costumes but I think that's what they were going for anyway.

Street Corner Symphony - "Creep" by Radiohead and "Come on, Eileen" by Dexy's Midnight Runners.
They're one of my favorites and I'm a big Radiohead fan so I was super psyched to hear them do "Creep", and I LOVED it. Radiohead and a cappella, who knew? "Come on, Eileen" was fun but rather messy. I'm surprised none of the judges mentioned their sloppy dancing. I love their lead singer's voice though.

Jerry Lawson and Talk of the Town - "Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones and "Easy" by the Commodores
These guys are just so professional. I really don't have anything bad to say about them. I don't always love their song choices but they win me over every time. And they're so cute!

Groove for Thought - "Changes" by David Bowie and "You Make My Dreams Come True" by Hall & Oates
Their jazzy style is just not my thing, but um, I think I kinda have a crush on their lead singer, Peter. His vocals are so smooth and he does that sideways mouth singing thing and he wears those hats and glasses and skinny ties...haha, I'm ridiculous. Possibly why I wasn't a big fan of the David Bowie song as Amanda sang the solo on that. Their second number was definitely fun but yeah, that doobeedoo stuff just doesn't do it for me in general.

On the Rocks - "Pour Some Sugar on Me" by Def Leppard and "Kyrie" by Mr. Mister
I originally wasn't sure about this group. I thought they were kinda all over the place with Bad Romance in the first episode and Live Your Life from last time just seemed silly but I really enjoyed them this time.  They're still silly, that's basically their vibe, but with so many members they definitely know how to really put on a show. "Kyrie" had the boys getting a little more serious with a more typical college male a cappella sound (complete with collegiate sweaters and letter jackets and rugby shirts) and I think it was my favorite performance of theirs so far.

Committed - "Every Breath You Take" by the Police and "I Want it That Way" by the Backstreet Boys
The judges kinda reamed the Police song for not being "rock" enough, but I am still really impressed by this group. It seems like every one of the guys is capable of a solo and their arrangements just seem really intricate. Neither performance tonight was a knockout but they're definitely solid.

Oh, and as for the opening song...I kind of dislike "21 Guns" and I don't love Catherine's vocals, so it was just meh for me.

I've been in agreement with all the eliminations so far. Groove for Thought was my least favorite group so I was fine with their leaving. I think I can do without Backbeats next, but it's going to be hard to pick among the rest...

Nikita: Midseason report

I've only kept up with two new shows from this fall season, Hellcats and Nikita (both on the CW...take from that what you will). Hellcats is just mindless fun but Nikita I think is something more. At times it can get a little repetitive but overall I've been really impressed with its quality and pacing and especially the acting.

I mean, this is definitely my kind of show: we have not one, but two female heroines, high stakes and lots of action and conspiracies, but the world of the show still feels intimate and personal. One of the things I didn't like about The Event or V or Flashforward or any of the other networks' attempts at doing action/mystery shows is that they have these huge, disconnected casts of characters and as a viewer, you're kept in the dark about what's going on. Even on Dollhouse, I hated how in the beginning Ballard was just on the outside doing his own thing...I just wasn't interested. But on Nikita, the setup is actually very tight: there's everyone in Division, there's Alex, and there's Nikita. No wondering what the point of certain plotlines are or where they're going to converge.

That said, it is slightly ridiculous that Nikita and Michael seemingly come face-to-face every single week and at the end of the episode, nothing has really changed. This week's midseason finale finally turned everything around though: Division finally finds out how Nikita has been getting information from the inside (but not from whom), Nikita is actually captured by Division (but then escapes of course), and most importantly, Alex graduates from recruit status.

And dammit, they killed Thom! How it happened did totally make sense and the fact that Alex did it, even unintentionally, does make it a really powerful plot point. Alex and Thom obviously had a connection (and chemistry too...their kiss from a few weeks back was HOT), which might now give Alex more drive, similar to how Daniel's death affected Nikita, but I just really liked Thom as a character and hate that he's gone now. Couldn't they have killed off Jaden instead??

I've liked Maggie Q as Nikita from the beginning--she's sexy and dangerous and decisive but with just enough pathos. She was such a good choice for this series. Lyndsy Fonseca as Alex was a little less convincing to me at first, but she's really grown on me. I like Alex a lot, she's smart and tough but still vulnerable. Xander Berkeley sometimes puts on the evil a little thick, but I don't think Percy is the kind of villain we're supposed to like. That's Michael's domain, and I think Shane West has been acquitting himself pretty well despite my original misgivings. I've also liked Devon Sawa (yes, it's Casper all grown up and buff) as Owen when he's popped up. He and Nikita are kind of hot together...as are Nikita and Michael. Lots of simmering sexual tension on this show!

I think there's still a lot of potential here and am very interested to see how things will operate now that Alex isn't chained inside Division. But sigh, no new episodes until the end of January!