Archive for the 'Reality' Category

So You Think You Can Resist The Awesomeness?

Published
by
Alfina the Vague
on June 13, 2008
in Dance Shows, Reality and TV
. 2 Comments

I am sure I do not need to tell you how really freaking excited I am at the return of my favorite reality show ever, So You Think You Can Dance. For the past few weeks I have been gleefully watching the rounds of auditions that culminated in Vegas Week, where the dancers who made the initial cut were tried and tested to see which of them would make it into the Top Twenty. While I do love watching the auditions and trying to predict which of my favorite dancers will make the show, my enthusiasm doesn’t really ratchet up to full force until the Top Twenty start to perform. I’m sure the producers (same as American Idol, or related, anyway) think that we love to watch the horribly bad auditions, but honestly that shit makes me uncomfortable. I have no taste for Schadenfreude (unless, of course, the misfortune is that of my enemy). I sometimes just can’t bear watching those earnest-yet-clueless dancers getting eviscerated by the judges.

Anyway, let’s move on to more positive things! Like the fact that the show’s first performance episode aired Wednesday, and it was chock full of good dancing! I won’t recap the whole show, or anything, but I will give you my favorite dancers so far:

This is Twitch, aka Stephen Laurel Boss. (Not only a cool nickname, but a cool real name too. When we marry I shall become Dr. Boss!) He auditioned last year and made it to Vegas, where he lost out to Hok (another of my all-time favorites) and didn’t make the Top Twenty. This year he did — and just in the nick of time, because, as he told the camera, if he hadn’t made it, he was signing up for the Navy. (When he said that, I was all, “Twitch, noooooo!”) Luckily it didn’t come to that. He’s an amazingly talented popper and just generally a likable guy. He seems passionate about dance and also humble and willing to work. This week he had to dance a Tyce Diorio broadway number, which might be the death of a hip hop dancer - he totally pulled it off and looked commanding and hot and graceful. I shall make him mine.

This is Joshua Allen, another talented hip hop dancer. He used to play football and certainly has the body type for that, which makes it a wonderful surprise when he lifts himself up off the ground effortlessly or does an incredible stage-crossing leap in the manner of a gazelle or some supernatural being. The dimples and braces make him pretty near impossible to resist, too. This week he got to dance a hip hop routine by Tabitha & Napoleon (SO rare when a hip hop or other “untrained” dancer gets to dance his/her style the first week!) with Katee and he was amazing. Here’s their routine on youtube. Please ignore the first few seconds where his partner dances solo - overwrought and silly. Wait for the moment where he falls to the side and she flips him back up by his foot. It’ll take your breath away with the grace and the synchronicity and the hard hitting.

This is Gev, aka Gevorg Manoukian (another awesome name), who is another hip hopper. I don’t love him as much as Twitch and Joshua yet, but he is clearly talented and really fun to watch. This week he did a disco routine that the judges basically called cheesy. Um, hello judges, it’s disco. Cheesy by definition. Also, shut up judges. I’m eager to see him either draw a hip hop routine or dance a solo in his own style (aka “dance for your life”) - so long as he isn’t eliminated!

This is William Wingfield, an amazing contemporary dancer. He’s a protegé of the awesome Debbie Allen, who is occasionally a guest judge on the show. She’s not going to be participating in the show so long as he remains a contestant — since he seems destined to go far, that may mean we won’t see much of Debbie this season. I do love Debbie’s commentary when she judges — she’s forthright and graceful and encouraging — but I’d be fine with not seeing her much if it means Will’s sticking around! He’s powerful and athletic, and dances with fluidity and musicality and is just a pleasure to watch.

This is Comfort Fedoke, whom the judges called the best female hip hop dancer they’ve had on the show so far. She’s one of the ones whose audition we only saw a 2-second clip of, and this week she danced a jive routine by Tony Meredith (which she did ably and well despite a dislocated shoulder), so I haven’t gotten to see her do her hip hop thang yet. I can’t wait to get the chance! I love a B-Girl (Sara last year was, I believe, the first B-Girl to make the Top Twenty, and she was great), and I am rooting for her to go far.

This is Kourtni Lind, and while I disapprove heartily of the spelling of her first name, she is a very talented and cool contemporary dancer. She’s the one whose audition piece was danced to a spoken-word Ani Difranco track — a move that is suspect at best. Let me tell you, though, she made that shit work. She’s one of the few contemporary dancers who doesn’t seem to be aimlessly flailing about*, but rather seems purposeful and thoughtful and lyrical. She’s the tallest female dancer at 5′9″, and dances with a 6′3″ partner - hooray for tall people! Like her.

*OK, I don’t necessarily understand contemporary dance - it’s very hit-or-miss with me, and I never have much of substance to say about it. I have a strong preference for the hip hop (which, duh, you can see represented here), and almost zero to say about ballroom. That may change as the show goes on, depending on the routines we get to see.

I have also really liked watching Courtney Galliano (left) and Chelsea Traille (right), who are both contemporary dancers as well. They are both gorgeous and compelling to watch, and neither of them look like the cookie-cutter blonde dancers who all seem like variants of the general model of female student who populates New Wye. I’d like to see each of them do their own style, and I’d like to see how well they can handle some hard-hitting hip hop, then I’ll let you know what I think!

It looks like this is going to be another great season! Luckily I won’t have much of a problem catching the episodes despite my cable-less existence: my friends are all watching it too, so I’ve been able to watch it at a friend’s house (much fun! but also too much girl screaming to hear the judges…) and it has been fairly easy to acquire through other means. Either way, I’ll be tuning in all summer, so be prepared for a lot of dance talk on this site! If you watch it too, please join in!

A Big Night for TV and Pants

Published
by
Alfina the Vague
on June 11, 2008
in Dance Shows, Reality, TV and Top Chef
. Closed

Tonight is the first performance (as opposed to audition) episode of the Best Summer Reality Show Ever, aka So You Think You Can Dance. The top twenty dancers will be paired up into ten couples and will each dance a number. I can’t wait! Two awesome hours of dancing! Or an hour of dancing, half an hour of filler, and half an hour of ads. Whatever, still PSYCHED.

Then! Just at the point when my TV-Happy brain chemistry will be at the apex of its intoxication, just when it will seem that things can’t get any better, it’s the Top Chef finale! Go Stephanie! Also, Go Blais! Also also, GO AWAY, LISA!

Not having TV at home makes the prospect of heading to my friend S’s place to watch these shows seem like a Special Event. I mean, I’ll be watching TV outside of the comfort of my own home — probably even wearing pants! I know, right?

What I’m Listening to Tonight: Thriller

Published
by
Alfina the Vague
on June 7, 2008
in Dance Shows, Listening Tonight, Music, Pop, Reality and TV
. 2 Comments

Obviously, you need no introduction to The King of Pop. What you may not know, though, if you don’t watch all of the dance shows I do, is that this year is the 25th anniversary of Thriller, one of the greatest albums of our time. Oh yes, indeed.

Dance shows have been capitalizing on the excellence of Thriller, making contestants do Thriller-related routines as part of the competitions. Rightfully so! MJ’s awesomely funky beats will make anything and everything better, even if that anything is a badly produced and badly edited dance crew competition show that should have been replete with extreme awesomeness and, disappointingly, was not. Randy Jackson Presents America’s Best Dance Crew, I am looking at you.

The reason Michael Jackson makes everything better is that when listening to his music it is completely impossible not to jump up off of your butt and start shaking your thang. This is as true today as it was 25 years ago. When the album came out, I was in kindergarten. I listened to it day in and day out, until my stupid mother got so sick of it (and so sick of the awesome dace routine I was choreographing to it, which necessitated a lot of couch jumping and, possibly, some crashing around into other furniture) that she took the cassette tape away. Luckily I am an adult now with my own furniture to jump on and my own very loud stereo. Well, what are you gonna do NOW, MOTHER? MWA HA HA HA HA.

Now that that’s out of my system, let’s listen to some tracks:

Billie Jean


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Beat It


<br /> <bgsound src="http://media.zemblangrammar.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/beatit.mp3"><br />

Thriller


<br /> <bgsound src="http://media.zemblangrammar.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/thriller.mp3"><br />

Top Chef, WTF?

Published
by
Alfina the Vague
on June 5, 2008
in Reality, TV and Top Chef
. 2 Comments

Although I didn’t get to watch the latest Top Chef episode until tonight (I’m off cable for the summer, and thus acquired the episode via other means), I have been hearing disgruntled scoffs from every corner of the internet all day long.

Top Chef viewers are nearly unanimous in our hatred of Lisa — Top Chef viewers on Twitter, Facebook, TWOP, and even Top Chef viewers I have seen live and in person! All around the world, a resounding cry of “Lisa? WTF!” is being raised.

Fuck off, Lisa! You and your perpetually-horrible-despite-intervention hair. And your bitchface, and your pandering Latin food. Quit sabotaging my motherfucking rice.

Go Stephanie!

That is all.

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.