Shane Life

I’ve never made a secret of the fact that Top Chef is easily my favorite reality show. I love the competitions, the drama and I think that the judges are some of the most knowledgeable and respected minds in the culinary world (although I think that Padma sometimes pretends to be a little more knowledgeable than she should).

Last night was the competition finale. Held in the historic Commander’s Palace in New Orleans, Hosea, Carla and Stefan competed in the best competition of the season - cook [the judges] the best three-course meal of your life.

Even Stefan responded by saying something to the effect of, “No challenge? That makes it tougher.”

I had some high hopes for this season. I felt like it was deep with talented chefs, particularly Team Europe (Stefan and Fabio), but I felt like two of the most talented chefs (Jamie and Jeff) were eliminated entirely too early. And while Carla grew on me eventually, the fact that she made it as deep as she did was pretty shocking. She took far too long to find her groove and should have been eliminated earlier.

As far as Hosea winning…I picked him around week four as a finalist and Alli put it best last night when she said, “He seems like a small-town chef. He needs more everything. More experience, more exposure, just more.” Too true. Because currently, I’d say that Hosea is battling Ilan as the worst winning Top Chef of the five seasons. He has a lot of potential and he cooks good food, but there were two huge problems that Hosea encountered:

• He was far too motivated by Stefan. Stefan will not be in his kitchen down the road to challenge him, so he’d better find some more motivation.
• The whole thing with Leah. That was not classy at all. And the on-the-mouth kiss after he won it all…well, we’ll see what that meant in the horribly-hosted reunion show next week.

My highlights of the season:

• The Super Bowl challenge. I loved that one, especially seeing the crazy “I have a culinary boner” Andrew again.
• Thanksgiving dinner for the Foo Fighters.
• The Le Bernadin challenge. Having to recreate Eric Ripert’s food in his restaurant for him…that’s nothing short of daunting.
• The premiere. It was a great way to weed out people and gave them plenty of opportunities to save themselves.
• Toby Young. He can’t really replace Gail, but he was a decent replacement for Ted Allen, who went off to host that horrible Chopped show on the Food Network.

It certainly wasn’t my favorite season of all, but I’m ready for the next season to start. I’m hoping that in the future, they’ll downplay Padma a little more and bring back Tom C. into the mix. He’s such a great chef and I felt like he was lacking from this season.

I detailed my experience at the AMC Best Picture Showcase already, but one thing that I didn’t talk about was how I got to hang out with some other bloggers and twitterers during the day and even shot a video with JJ and Jeff for (jeff)isageek.net. I show up about 3 minutes in…

Last night was our Super Bowl, the 81st Annual Academy Awards, or The Oscars, for short.

We had our 4th annual Young Adult Oscar Party…about 30 people at the house watching our favorite awards show of the season. 

What a great show! Slumdog Millionaire won 8 of its 10 nominated awards, although it only could have won 9 since it had a double nomination in the Original Song category. 8 out of 9 possible wins is just about as close to a sweep as you can get. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (my favorite movie of the year) was the most nominated of the night with 13 nominations, but it only managed to win 3 awards. 

This 81st installment of “Hollywood’s Biggest Night” was about as good as I’ve seen. Even though there was a really rough start (whoever missed that curtain opening probably got an earful), Hugh Jackman did a great job as host, opening the show with a “low-budget” opening number that was absolutely hilarious.

I was so impressed with the production of the show. They really did some great things, especially the way that they did the Acting nominations with previous winners talking directly to the current nominees. I thought that was a brilliant touch and it seemed to move all of those nominated. Very cool.

My other thoughts about the show:

• Nice call having Tim Gunn host the ABC part of the red carpet. He’s better than any of those clowns on E!
• Baz Luhrmann’s musical number and Judd Apatow’s short Pineapple Express film were nice additions.
• Loved the “this year in this genre” and how they connected it to an award. Action 2008 = Visual Effects. Terrific.
• Ben Stiller as Joaquin Phoenix…just hilarious.
• Tina Fey and Steve Martin…also hilarious.
• Jen Aniston looked a little uncomfortable presenting with Jack Black considering Brad and Angelina were right in front of them.
• LOVED that they brought all the kids from Slumdog Millionaire to the show.
• There were some bad dresses, but Amy Adams looked terrific. Marisa Tomei looked good as well.
• So glad that Kate Winslet finally got her Oscar. It’s been long-deserved. She is, by far, the most talented working actress around. And that includes Meryl Streep. She has surpassed even Meryl.
• Domo arigato Mr. Roboto. That guy wins hands down.
• Brad told me while we were watching the show that Peter Gabriel, who was in the audience, refused to participate in the Original Song performance because he didn’t get to perform the whole song. John Legend filled in and did OK, but was out of his element with the song.
• Tilda Swinton will be known as Tom Swinton from now on until she starts looking less man-ish.
• Loved the bit with Daniel Craig and Sarah Jessica Parker presenting on what looked like a sound stage.
• Queen Latifah singing over the In Memoriam section was nice. Glad they didn’t have Beyonce do it.
• The whole show felt extremely personal…the stage design was brilliant.
• Kate Winslet’s dad whistled. That was awesome.
• The joy and familial feel of the cast and crew of Slumdog Millionaire is a lot of the reason that it won. People like to be hopeful.

I mean it when I say that the actual show was one of the best I’ve seen. I wasn’t fully invested in any of the films, but I enjoyed the show a lot. It went over time, yet it didn’t feel long. That’s a success, in my opinion. What did you think?

About a week ago, I shared that I had been invited to attend the AMC Best Picture Showcase at the Olathe Studio 30 for free as a part of a blogger outreach program headed up by AMC’s Social Media guru Justin Gardner. Starting at 10:30 in the morning with Milk and ending at almost midnight with Frost/Nixon, the Showcase required almost 14 hours of our Saturday. Were we up to the challenge?

Absolutely.

We arrived at the theater around 10:00 and were greeted by Justin and his team. We were handed our full day passes, our unlimited refill popcorn bags and some goodies. Just as we were about to join the throng of people in the main 400-person theater, Justin brought us aside and said, “I’ve got a surprise for you guys…you’re gonna watch it in the Fork & Screen.” Our amazing day just got a little better. We had planned to eat at the Fork & Screen between movies, but now we wouldn’t even have to leave our seats. This day just kept getting better.

We took our seats down the row from (jeff)isageek and vivid13 and listened as Gene from AMC Corporate told us all about the day. Then, almost in passing, he asked if any of us had a bee in the back of our badge booklet. Alli and I reached into our badges, pulled out the booklets and found that glorious little bee sticker on the back page. Could this day BE any better? The bee got us upgraded from the standard Fork & Screen theater into the grandaddy of them all, the Cinema Suites.

All of this happened within 15 minutes of us arriving at the theater. We hadn’t even begun the movies yet.

We took our seats in the Cinema Suites theater, kicked back in our seats and let the good times begin.

Milk

I do not know a lot about the gay rights movement. I’m not a homophobe and I don’t judge. It’s just something that I’ve never studied. Harvey Milk was one of the most influential leaders of the gay rights movement in the ’70s and was the first openly gay man to be elected to public office. Milk is portrayed by Sean Penn, who despite his truculent relationship with the media and…well…everyone else, is still one of the most brilliant and talented actors of our time. Not only that, but he is surrounded by other brilliant actors in this film, particularly James Franco, who (in my opinion) was one of the many actors we saw on Saturday who got totally robbed in the nomination process.

I like Gus Van Sant for the most part. He is, after all, responsible for my favorite movie of all-time. But there was an instance in this movie where I thought to myself, “Hey, wasn’t that a boom mic? What is a boom mic doing in this shot? Isn’t this movie supposed to be up for Best Picture?” But hey, it happens.

I can understand why Milk is up for Best Picture. With the controversy surrounding Proposition 8 as well as the catch phrases and speeches that the dynamic Milk gave during his political career, it’s easy to understand why this movie resonates with people. At the same time, it wasn’t my favorite of the day. Both of the movies that I’d already seen (Slumdog, Benjamin Button) were better, in my opinion. But it was a good start to the day.

In between movies, Alli and I ordered some food off the menu…quesadillas for me and fries for her. Then the AMC staff came in and did some Oscar trivia giveaways. The first three questions were as follows (there may or may not be prizes for the correct answers…and no using the Google): 

1. How many Oscars did Titanic win?
2. What movie did Sean Penn win his Best Actor Oscar for?
3. How much does the Oscar statue weigh?

Time for another movie…

The Reader

I fully expected to dislike this movie. I’ve got an aversion to Nazi movies except when they have Indiana Jones in them. But I really like Kate Winslet (remember that I predicted her double win at the Golden Globes) and I was very surprised by how much I liked this movie. After it was over, Alli turned to me and said, “I can tell that you liked that one because you didn’t Twitter at all during it.”

And she was right. The Reader looked like a Best Picture. It felt like a Best Picture. Beautiful cinematography, powerful acting…just a terrific movie. Kate Winslet is a shoo-in to win the Oscar tonight, although David Kross was robbed of a nomination…he was great.

In between movies #2 (Reader) and #3 (Benjamin Button), AMC treated us in the Cinema Suites to some tasty free appetizers. We had their terrific chicken tenders as well as their fried shrimp and some cheese sticks, although after the quesadillas, I wasn’t sure I was up for all that fried food. They also brought us a hot towel, which was a nice touch and allowed us to freshen up before the longest movie of the day (and also my favorite):

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

I’ve said it before and watching it again did nothing to change my mind: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was my favorite movie this year. It is gorgeous in every aspect.

Things I noticed this time around worth mentioning:

• Cate Blanchett was amazing. Her performance was sorely overlooked. Especially the hospital scenes.
• If Taraji P. Henson loses Best Supporting Actress to Penelope Cruz, it will be a crime.
• The fog/stage/dance scene is so memorable.

I didn’t change my mind about this movie. It’s brilliant.

I had to run home in between The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Slumdog Millionaire to let Dreyfuss out. Alli’s parents had been kind enough to stop by while in town and let him out earlier and one more time would get him through the final two movies.

Slumdog Millionaire

This movie, along with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, was one of two Best Picture nominees that we had already seen. I reviewed the movie here when we saw it and the easiest way to summarize my feelings is to quote myself:

I still don’t feel like it was better than The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. There were times when I wanted to be surprised or taken aback during Millionaire, but found it somewhat predictable. I enjoyed it still, but I wasn’t blown away… 

Slumdog Millionaire is a terrific movie. It’s a gritty look at the city of Mumbai, but more importantly, it’s a story about love which is a theme that can live in any ghetto, any slum, no matter what.

Nate Silver, whose FiveThirtyEight.com was the place to go for political projections has predicted with a 99% certainty that Slumdog Millionaire will win the Best Picture trophy. I’m OK with that. It is a great film and certainly my second favorite out of those nominated. I’ve made my peace with the fact that The Curious Case of Benjamin Button may earn very little out of its 13 nominations. Slumdog Millionaire is a deserving movie and one that has a great message and lots of people should see.

Frost/Nixon

I wish that I knew more about the Watergate scandal. It’s an era of American history that I know very little about and so I was skeptical going into this movie. But since it was directed by Ron Howard and had generated as much buzz as it had, I was looking forward to the final movie of the evening. Alli and I settled in with our dinner (burger for me, veggie tray for her) and sat back for the final movie in an amazing marathon of films.

I’ll spare you the historical details, all of which I’d just be lifting from the Wikipedia page. Ultimately, this movie is about Frank Langella and his portrayal of Richard Nixon.

Langella transcends everything I ever thought about him as an actor. He inhabits the role of Richard Nixon (a role that he also played on Broadway) and makes the former president appear almost sympathetic. It starts a little slow, but by the third act, you are at the edge of your seat as Frost and Nixon finally sit down to discuss Watergate.

Of all the movies, this one surprised me the most. I didn’t know what to expect, but I ended up really enjoying this historical movie. Certainly there are places where the truth is stretched, but Howard manages to make us believe as if we’re watching a documentary, yet with all the high production values of an Imagine Entertainment film.

It’s unfortunate that Langella will not be honored this evening when the Best Actor Oscar is given out. He’s a guy who has worked tirelessly as an actor (the same could be said of all the nominees), but Langella was the one I saw who never once looked like Actor A playing Role B. He was just wonderful.

Summary

What a day! The AMC Best Picture Showcase is an event that I’m not going to miss ever again. It’s such a blast and AMC truly knows how to make it work. Big kudos to Justin Gardner, who put together the blogger part, but also to Gene at AMC Corporate, who organized the Olathe group (which was running in 3 separate theaters) with ease.

If you have a Saturday and you love the movies, I’d put this one on your calendar for next year. It’s totally worth it.

To see my pictures of the event, check out my Flickr photostream.

Even though I couldn’t get it for a buck at Redbox (stupid Blockbuster exclusives!), Alli and I rented Vicky Cristina Barcelona today. Frankly, this is something that I did against my better judgment. I am not a Woody Allen fan. I absolutely loathed Match Point (not even worth a link) and enjoyed Annie Hall, despite Woody Allen actually being in the film.

I had low expectations going into this movie, but was intrigued because of all the Oscar buzz surrounding Penelope Cruz for her performance as Maria Elena.

The movie is basically about two categorically different American tourists, played by Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall who travel to Barcelona for the summer and both have affairs with the same dashing Spaniard, Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), a stereotypical free spirit painter who meets them by proposing a tryst of sorts. He is plagued by the memory (and presence) of his ex-wife (Cruz), who is also a painter and may or may not be absolutely crazy.

The movie plays against the gorgeous scenery of Spain and the subject matter is interesting. On one side, you have Cristina (Johansson), the free spirit, free-thinking, free-loving creative-type who wants perhaps a little too much to be a part of Juan Antonio’s “scene” (and yes, I punched myself in the arm 3 times for saying “scene”).

Vicky, on the other hand, is settled, engaged, and doesn’t seem too interested in Juan Antonio. All the same, he’s a dashing, handsome, Spanish painter. So you can imagine what happens.

Like I said, I’m no Woody Allen fan. I’m especially not a fan of Woody Allen the Actor. Fortunately, the annoying little Manhattanite does not pollute the screen, but if I liked this movie at all, it wasn’t because of Allen’s writing or direction, but rather the gorgeous scenery and the subjects that the characters discussed: love and life. Their dialogue wasn’t well written or even all that clever. Not only were they not all that clever, but  there was also the offensive, ubiquitous presence of a narrator, which at times seemed just a very lazy way of giving us insight into characters that we could have easily figured out for ourselves.

Ultimately, the reason we checked out this film was to see what all the hubbub was about Penelope Cruz. I’ll be frank. While it’s nice to see her be able to act in her native tongue, I didn’t think her performance was anything NEAR what Taraji P. Henson put forth in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. As far as supporting roles go in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, I was more impressed by Rebecca Hall than anyone else. But that’s just me.

There are so many people who attended film school and would I’m sure love to espouse to me the greatness of the Manhattan Midget director. Save it. I’m not buying it for a second. He may be one of the most prolific writer/directors of all-time, but there’s a reason that his movies don’t sell tickets. They are not very good. 

If you want to see this movie, I’d wait until Blockbuster’s exclusive runs out. It’s not worth the $5 rental. I’d much rather have watched it for free on a Monday from Redbox. I wouldn’t waste your money on this one.

I don’t know if Jerry Bruckheimer will ever win a Best Picture Oscar, but he’s one of those guys who will get a Lifetime Achievement Award at the end of his career. He’s got Emmys galore for The Amazing Race, but he makes movies that sell tickets, not ones that necessarily win awards.

He’s been responsible for so many blockbusters, from Top Gun to Con Air to Bad Boys to Pirates of the Caribbean, effects-laden movies about air force pilots and cops and pirates and other dudes who like to blow stuff up. But people often forget that he makes movies for women too. (See: Flashdance, Coyote Ugly, Confessions of a Shopaholic.) He and his former producing partner Don Simpson are responsible for movies who make people buy tickets, but what they also do is recognize really great stories and put it together with the talent that fits.

Confessions of a Shopaholic is just another example of a long line of successes where Bruckheimer has managed to put exactly the right person for a movie in the role at the exact right time. No one can deny Isla Fisher is on the rise. She’s bubbly and cute and she certainly doesn’t take herself too seriously (she is, after all, with Sasha Baron Cohen). But up until now, she’s been in supporting roles, most memorably in Wedding Crashers where she played the certifiably nuts Gloria to Vince Vaughn’s screwball Jeremy. The fact that you remember her at all is an accomplishment in itself since Vaughn chews screen wherever he goes.

I have actually read both of the books that Confessions of a Shopaholic is based on, considered ‘chick lit’ by many. Sophie Kinsella wrote them (as well as a couple others) surrounding Rebecca Bloomwood, the extremely likable heroine of the movie who just makes really bad decisions. And often. I always thought when reading the books that they would transfer well to the screen. Turns out I was right.

Isla Fisher is a perfect Rebecca, although they’ve made her American (in the books, she’s British). She’s funny and charming and yet clumsy at the same time. And while the movie can be predictable at times, it makes you laugh. More specifically, Fisher makes you laugh. It’s a fun movie. Sure, it’s a chick flick and it might make you or your wife want to go shopping in Manhattan after it’s over, but it’s also entertaining.

Entertainment is something I always look for in movies. I can deal with serious character pieces and off-kilter indie flicks and epic dramas. I don’t like horror movies and I can tolerate Woody Allen, but I almost NEVER would choose to go see one of his films. Honestly, the movies that make me keep coming back to the theater are the ones like Confessions of a Shopaholic. They are the movies that Jerry Bruckheimer makes. And I’m OK with that.

I don’t officially start my position until March 9 and my verbally-accepted offer is contingent on my passing a background check, but for all intents and purposes, I have a job.

Starting on March 9, I will begin working for Cerner Corporation as a Sr. Program Analyst in the Online Marketing group. I’m really excited about this opportunity and it’s going to be a very new experience going to work for a large corporation such as Cerner. Up until now, I’ve worked for companies that were smaller than 75 employees when I was hired. (Although certain places grew to over 300 by the time I left.)

I’m no longer unemployed!

Well…I guess technically, I still am unemployed until March 9th, but you get the idea.

It’s no secret that I love my wife, but the truth is, I love the concept of relationships. This was originally intended as a post in honor of Valentine’s Day 2007…better late than never. I thought it would be good to write about my favorite all-time fictional couples. These are couples from movies, books, or television, but they have to be fictional and there has to be romance of some sort (that rules out Jay and Silent Bob). So here goes:

Jesse and Celine from Before Sunrise and Before Sunset

Effortlessly played by Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, these lovers meet on a train to Vienna first in Richard Linklater’s film, Before Sunrise, originally released in 1995. Fast-forward 9 years (both in real-time and in movie-time) and you get the sequel, Before Sunset, a movie that eclipses the first.
 

Chandler and Monica from Friends

Sure, it’s predictable and cheesy, but I don’t care. Chandler and Monica are the perfect example of how important friendship and understanding is in a relationship.

Viola and Will from Shakespeare in Love

This is such a genius flick. The fictional telling of how Shakespeare came up with one of the most famous love stories of all-time is such a wonderful interpretation and is so brilliantly played by Gwyneth Paltrow and Joseph Fiennes.

Lily and Marshall from How I Met Your Mother

Alli and I were thinking about starting a marriage and relationship blog called Lily and Marshall dot com (if you buy it, I’ll be annoyed). 

Jim Big Tuna Halpert and Pam Beesley from The Office

A relatively new couple, but when you watch The Office, you know just how perfect they are for each other. The writers of the show just try to indicate tension (see the episode with Pam’s parents’ recent problems), but it never works and they know it.

Now, I want to hear yours. But I’d better not see Annie Hall and Alvy Singer. I thought that movie was good, but Woody Allen does not equal a good romantic lead. Leave your own list in the comments. But remember…Woody Allen is banned.

For a long time I’ve been using Feedburner to track my RSS readers. It gives a little more information than is built into WordPress and has worked great up to this point. Unfortunately, when Google purchased the property a while back, they decided that it needed to change. They didn’t say when the change would come, just that it would.

Well, that change is now.

It would be freaking super if I understood the rhyme or reason behind it or how to fix it, but I don’t. All I know is that my feed is jacked up right now and I’m trying to fix it. I hope this doesn’t cause too many problems. I may end up abandoning Feedburner altogether and just returning to the standard WordPress feed.

We will see. I’m just giving you a heads up.