Monthly Archive for May, 2008

Lost Season 4 Finale: It Was Actually Good!

Published
by
Alfina the Vague
on May 31, 2008
in Lost, TV and TV Drama
. 0 Comments

[Some spoilers! ALERT! Go watch the episode ASAP! Then come back!]

As all fans of Lost know, the show can be a bit, uh, spotty when it comes to the quality of individual episodes. It’s the overall effect that keeps the show going, but it can get frustrating from one week to the next. Thankfully, the Season Four finale that aired on Thursday was fantastic! I am now just dying to see what will happen next year. Unfortunately, by “next year” I do not mean “Fall,” but actually “2009.” Sigh.

Anyway, Jack, who tends to annoy much of the audience (though not me, really) was less potentially annoying throughout the whole episode. Good job, Jack.

It should also be noted that he was looking, as usual, mighty hot. Except of course when he was made up, as below, to appear with a beard of pubic hair all over his face. Facepubes are not OK, people. Let’s get the makeup team on that!

The best moment of the episode was the appearance of Penny, who’s all casual-like “Oh yeah, I have a tracking station!” She and her badass tracking capabilities show up just in time to reunite with Desmond (steamy kissing! love! yay!) and whisk him away dog knows where. I hope it’s not the last we see of them, though.

In the picture below, we see that the rescued Oceanic Six are being helped out by some Other Others on the island where their rescue boat lands. These are not spooky Others with dubious motives, but merely Others in a Post-Colonial, philosophical sense. See?

Anyway! Moving on from my bad literary criticism jokes, may I just mention that Sun revealed herself to be a complete and total badass in this episode? I have always been a fan of Sun and Jin, and the scene where they got separated was just awful. I’m hoping that, whether we somehow see Jin again or not, Sun’s demonstrated badassedness will continue.

Charles Widmore may have seemed to be a total badass before, but witness his consternation when faced with the badassedness that is Sun:

“Oh shit, now what?” That’s right, Widmore, you bastard! NOW WHAT?

No seriously, though, now what? I am ready for next season right away!

Sine Qua Huh?

Published
by
Alfina the Vague
on May 31, 2008
in Asides
. 2 Comments

Who watched last night’s BSG? Did you also see the previews for next week’s? Did they really just reveal the final Cylon IN THE PREVIEW? I hope not. Jesus. Stupid preview.

Also regretting falling asleep halfway thru the previous episode. So confused about what happened to Roslin.

Top Chef Will Not Succeed in Sabotaging My Rice

Published
by
Alfina the Vague
on May 30, 2008
in Reality, TV and Top Chef
. 4 Comments

If you’re a fan of food (and who among us is not, I ask), you’re surely as addicted to Top Chef as I am. The dishes! The knives! The drama! The fauxhawks!

What more could we ask from a television show, besides the much-needed smellovision, of course? Even without being able to smell and taste the chefs’ awesome-looking (and, occasionally, hideous-looking) creations, it’s one of the best reality shows on TV. I have been devouring it this season, and I’m thrilled that the contestants I predicted as the top two are both still in the running going into the finale. This year, with Blais (above) and Stephanie, there is a very good chance that the winner won’t be a pompous, self-satisfied dickweed. (For examples of such winners, please see the Season Two winner, Ilan, King of the Dickweeds, and — occasionally — the Season Three winner, Hung, who has serious dickweed tendencies but towards whom my heart softened in the end). I’ve loved Blais and Stephanie all season, and I’ve grown to like Antonia, who’s also going to the finals, as well. All three of them are clearly talented, but they also seem to be the kind of people you could imagine working with: passionate about what they do and exacting in practice, but also generally nice, reasonable, and not raging beasts.

Here’s Stephanie making some eggs in a short-order challenge held at a Chicago breakfast diner. I bet those were good!

She did not even threaten to murder anyone while frying those Sunny-Side-Ups. She also, strangely, makes me crave foods I have never tried before:

Looking at those sweetbreads and hearing the judges glowing descriptions of them, I suddenly decided that I needed some sweetbreads in my life ASAP, thymus glands or not. Who can argue?

This, unfortunately, brings us to the fourth contestant to make it to the finale, Lisa. Oh, Lisa, Lisa, Lisa, the “obligatory psychotic jackass” of this season (to borrow a useful turn of phrase from Veronica Mars). She’s had a deadly case of bitchface all season, and tends to stand there at Judges’ Table with her arms crossed and her jaw clenched as she “receives” her criticism. The Best Judges’ Table Ever, of course, was the time she accused everyone and no one of trying to “sabotage” her rice, as if someone had deliberately come by her cooktop and turned the temperature up on the burner, making her rice burnt on the outside and underdone on the inside. She refused to name names, though, so this compelling mystery will likely remain unsolved. Unless, of course, the solution is that Lisa fucked up her own rice and CLEARLY SHOULD HAVE BEEN ELIMINATED BY NOW BECAUSE A PERSON WHO CAN’T COOK RICE IS NO TOP CHEF IN MY BOOK BY GOLLY.

Well, as you can see, Reader, I have strong feelings on the matter. At least one can find solace in the fact that Lisa provides hours of fun for anyone who enjoys mockery as much as I do. “Sabotage my rice” has now become my substitute phrase for anything shitty or undesirable a person/entity might do. When the internet connection on campus went down earlier today, for example, it was a clear case of the IT people trying to sabotage my rice. The cat howling all morning long on the one day this week I could sleep in? Sabotaging my rice. You get the picture.

No one is safe from Lisa’s Reign of Bitch, however. Here, I believe she is threatening Stephanie and Antonia.

“I will snap you in half if you fuck with me,” she seems to say. Stephanie is so over it, but I would caution her to watch her back. Lisa is a maniac!

Not even this blender is safe:

“FUCK YOU, BLENDER,” I would caption this, blatantly ripping off one of B-Side’s captions in his Top Chef Photocap. (For more pictures of Lisa looking bitchy and some of Padma looking smug and sexy, please to visit his hilarious blog, which basically kicks the ass of mine up one side and down the other). Thanks to B-Side, I am now telling off all inanimate objects, concepts, or entities that spark my ire. “FUCK YOU, WEATHER,” for example. Or, “FUCK YOU, CIGARETTE BREATH THAT I STILL HAVE FROM LAST NIGHT.” As my friend C. and I were chatting last night, this elegant verbal construction truly never got old. Try it, you’ll like it.

Seriously, though, the way Lisa is looking at that blender is also the way she looks at the panel of judges at the end of every episode — judges who have never directly called her on her horrible, horrible attitude and who have, for mysterious and unfathomable reasons, let her continue to the finals of this season’s competition. She fixes them with a bitchy glare, quietly implying that if they continue to bash her food, she will rip their heads off and suck their brains out of their eye sockets. You know, now, maybe that’s why they haven’t had her pack her knives and go. Who wants to face a beast like Lisa and then suggest she go get her set of several sharp, sharp knives?

The finale is (or begins, if it’s a 2-parter) Wednesday at 10:00 (9:00 Central, bitchez!). I am rooting for Stephanie over all, as I’d love to see a lady take the title for once. Solidarity, sisters! Unless the sister in question is Lisa, of course — and let’s face it, the judges would have no business putting her through to the top three. I guess we’ll see just how much longer the judges will keep trying to sabotage my rice before they finally let Lisa get her comeuppance.

TV Boyfriends: John Cusack (”Looking for a dare-to-be-great situation.”)

Published
by
Alfina the Vague
on May 28, 2008
in Comedy, Film, Film Drama and TV Boyfriends
. 3 Comments

Let’s face it: every girl in the world has declared the amazing Lloyd Dobler of Say Anything to be her boyfriend at least once in her life. The dude is legendary. He is a non-conformist, planning never to work for The Man: he’ll never sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. He doesn’t want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, he doesn’t want to do that.

What he does want to do, of course, is kickbox, boombox, and generally appreciate the awesomeness of shy smart girls like Diane Court — appreciate them in ways that steam up the windows of their new cars. Lloyd Dobler, I would like to sign up for your newsletter — especially if you would hand deliver it while playing Peter Gabriel on a boombox outside my window. Please bring the trenchcoat, too.

Of course, due to the popularity of Lloyd Dobler and the fact that he and John Cusack are synonymous in the minds of many, he has wound up playing a million and one Dobleresque characters — the quirky, creative, impulsive romantics in movies like Serendipity and Must Love Dogs (though neither film is admittedly any good) are clearly cut from the Dobler cloth. Occasionally, though, this works very, very well. He is completely perfect for the character of Rob Gordon in High Fidelity, a dude who spends time putting his records in “autobiographical order,” perfecting the art of mix-tape making, and creating lists of his top fives. (Sound like anyone you know?) Any dude who will put Stevie’s “I Believe (When I Fall in Love with You It Will Be Forever)” on a mix tape can commandeer my stereo any time, if you know what I mean, and I think that you do.

The quirky creative type works for him in Being John Malkovich, as well — here he plays the unkempt puppeteer Craig Schwartz. Also, here he earns his “Kaufman Cred,” which enables discerning viewers like you and I to take him seriously despite flicks like Must Love Dogs or America’s Sweethearts (which, just, ugh). I think there should be a rule that anyone who makes too many of those unappealing romantic comedies (completely different from appealing romantic comedies for a variety of reasons) should be legally required to balance them with a few mind-bending, poetically surreal, postmodern fantasies. Anyway, he’s decidedly less hot in this film, but awesome just the same.

I must, of course, mention his portrayal of Lane Meyer in Better Off Dead. The film, made in 1985, is four years older than Say Anything, and Cusack wasn’t quite the heartthrob commodity he would be later. While Lane, like Craig above, isn’t exactly someone you’d want to date (unless you like the idea of your boyfriend wallpapering his bedroom with millions of photos of you, in which case, fine), but he is a badass in many ways. Yes, that’s right, a badass. He may look like an awkward nerd to the naked eye, but witness: he’s a dedicated drag racer; he skis down dangerous mountains on only one ski; and he brazenly inserts his Q-Tips into any orifice he pleases, regardless of the warnings on the box.

See? He even has them in the ear canal! THE EAR CANAL, I TELL YOU. Badass!

Another Cusackian badass is the fantastic Martin Q. Blank, successful hitman and sensitive romantic. He’s still in love with his high-school girlfriend (the equally badass Debi Newberry (played by Minnie Driver), who spins punk and new wave at the local radio station) and is undergoing some sort of existential crisis and transformation. He spends the film (Grosse Pointe Blank) making frantic, anxious phone calls to his reluctant therapist and murdering people. It’s generally excellent.

Is there a little bit of the Dobleresque in Martin Q. Blank? Probably so. The soupçon of Dobler in all of Cusack’s best characters (even characters that pre-date Dobler!) leads me to conclude, albeit without too much analytical thought, that there must be something of the Dobleresque in Cusack himself. Or whatever. I mean, I will choose to believe that, anyway.

Who wouldn’t want to believe that there can be Doblers in real life? It’s like the human will to believe in a god even without any evidence that such an entity exists. We all want to believe in a Dobler, even though experience points to the conclusion that the world is instead peopled mainly by asshats, chowderheads, jerkburgers, and douchebags. Somewhere out there lurks a Dobler, biding his time, perfecting his mix tape, maybe stocking up on C batteries for his awesome boombox. Any day now, Dobler. Any day.

Girl Post

Published
by
Alfina the Vague
on May 23, 2008
in Asides
. 0 Comments

Just had my girl friends over for the premiere of So You Think You Can Dance. Also under discussion: many shoes, among which a new pair of mine that render me over 6′ and prone to break an ankle. How I have missed having local female friends.