Archive: July 2009 (41-50 of 56)

Jul 9 2009 11:40 AM ET

'Top Chef Masters': Neil Patrick Harris masters another TV genre

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Categories: TV Last Night

Bravo to Neil Patrick Harris for proving himself the master of yet another TV genre: the television cooking show. As the special guest hosting a dinner at Los Angeles’ Magic Castle, Harris was more tartly critical than many other celebs have been on the Top Chef shows. Good for him: who needs a wishy-washy diner on a show like this?



The four competing chefs were given their challenge via a card trick performed by magician Max Maven, and you won’t catch me making fun of his pulled-tight ponytail and hocus-pocus airiness: I’m a magic fan, and admire Maven’s skills. (As cornball as it looked, I’d love to get invited into that invitation-only Magic Castle, wouldn’t you?)

Each chef’s playing card revealed his or her theme for the main-competition dish: Surprise, Mystery, Spectacle, and Illusion. This was a tad unimaginative on the part of the producers. I mean, when it comes to cooking, is there really much difference between making something that’s a surprise or an illusion?

Anyway, Harris was as articulate a judge as any of the professional ones surrounding him, pronouncing, for example, chef John Besh’s icky-sounding horseradish and creme fraiche sorbet “executed as [well as] he had probably imagined.”

I have to say that the winner [spoiler alert!] made a dish that looked — well, chef Anita Lo covered up most of her “illusion” with another plate, so it didn’t look like much to me, but Harris and the judges were impressed with her braised daikon with kombu caviar and steak tartare. Lo described it as “a seascape that if you listen really carefully will crackle,” because she’d coated it with something like Rice Krispies. Personally, I think someone in charge of sound on Top Chef Masters should have put a microphone right on that plate, and if it didn’t make a crackling sound, I’d have docked her a few points.

But once again, Top Chef Masters worked its overall charm: the competition brings out the best, not the worst, behavior in the competitors, making this one of the most civilized and pleasant of all summer reality-competition shows. 

What did you think of Harris and the food magic?

Jul 9 2009 01:27 AM ET

Mariah Carey apologizes for her Michael Jackson memorial performance: Why did she do that?!

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Categories: Music, Television

Mariah Carey apologized for her performance at yesterday’s Michael Jackson memorial, saying she “wasn’t able to pull it together and really do it right,” and that she was “sorry.” She made the comments via her Twitter page. Check out her version of “I’ll Be There” and I’ll tell you why I think she’s being too hard on herself:

I don’t think Carey has anything to apologize for. In fact, at a time when so many singers are trying for the kind of note-for-note “perfection” that shows like American Idol have convinced too much of the population is the way singers should sound, I found Carey’s emotionally jagged performance all the more moving. Indeed, this is what first-rate pop singing is truly about: emotion expressed through the grain of the voice, not impeccable, often sterile, pitch and timbre.

Do you think Carey should have apologized?

Jul 8 2009 12:52 PM ET

'Warehouse 13': Why, Syfy, why?

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Categories: Television

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Well, I guess it was only fitting that a cable channel with a goofy new re-branding should premiere a goofy new series: Syfy’s Warehouse 13 is not, I think it’s safe to say, the series that is going to replace Battlestar Galactica in the hearts and minds of us old Sci Fi network fans.

Did you watch this thing? Some unholy cross between The X-Files, Bones, and Raiders of the Lost Ark, Warehouse 13 gave us a couple of supposedly-mismatched, but we knew made-for-each-other, federal agents (Eddie McClintock and Joanne Kelly, looking at each other as if to say, “How many episodes of this did you sign up for?”). These two were teamed up with the caretaker of a storehouse of supernatural objects, played by the usually-fine actor Saul Rubinek.

There’s a lot of talent here, both on and behind the camera. CCH Pounder, so great in The Shield, is an officious officer of some sort; she huffs and puffs without much effect. And the series was co-created by writer Jane Espenson, who’s done such terrific work on BSG and Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Warehouse 13 lacks both chemistry between its stars and a clearly-defined “hook” beyond its vast acres of secret, fantasical items.

I suppose Syfy is hoping Warehouse will tap into the soft-sci-fi audience that enjoys Eureka — which returns July 10 with new episodes — but so far, Warehouse doesn’t possess anything like Eureka‘s often-witty whimsy.

Am I wrong?

Jul 8 2009 03:31 AM ET

Bill O'Reilly rips Michael Jackson: He's 'fed up with all the adulation'

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Categories: Michael Jackson, Television

Bill O’Reilly launched a strikingly hostile “Talking Points Memo” attack against Michael Jackson this evening on The O’Reilly Factor. Announcing he was “fed up with the adulation” and “phony platitudes” of the Jackson memorial service, he labeled the sentiments expressed by the participants as “pathetic in the extreme.”

O’Reilly criticizes Jackson for “spending millions of dollars on himself while singing ‘We Are The World.’” Huh? Would O’Reilly say the same thing about other wealthy singers who performed on the original 1985 recording, such as Bruce Springsteen or Bob Dylan or Paul Simon? I doubt it. What happened to O’Reilly the ardent capitalist? Aren’t we supposed to make and spend as much money as we want in America, and is charity work also “pathetic”?

Did you note that O’Reilly also ridicules CBS’ Katie Couric for interviewing Kenneth Babyface Edmonds? He called their talk “surreal” because… well, as far as I can figure, for no reason other than to sneer at the producer-writer’s nickname, Babyface. Bill O’Reilly thinks it’s “bizarre” for a network anchor to interview an expert on Michael Jackson’s music: Why? He probably could have used an expert on Jackson’s music in his own studio this particular evening.

Jul 7 2009 07:42 PM ET

Michael Jackson's memorial: a review

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Categories: Michael Jackson, Music, Television

In one sense, it seems odd to review a memorial as though it was a television show. On the other hand, that’s exactly what Michael Jackson’s televised memorial was, and, really, what else could it have been, given the kind of born-in-his-blood entertainer that Jackson was?

With that in mind, and knowing that it’s not just me who sat in front of the TV screen making value-judgments about various performances and testimonials — you know you were, too — here’s what I thought were some high points, and some lesser moments.

• Smokey Robinson and Berry Gordy’s spoken remembrances of Michael’s abilities — both of their senses of history and humor and affection — were tremendously moving, particularly Robinson’s songwriterly analysis of how Michael performed a definitive version of Robinson’s own song, “Who’s Loving You.”

• Jermaine Jackson may not have given the most technically “perfect” performance of the memorial — Jennifer Hudson, Usher, Stevie Wonder, to name just three, turned in superlative vocal efforts — but I nonetheless found Jermaine’s performance of what Brooke Shields told the assembled audience was “Michael’s favorite song,” “Smile,” not just moving but a passionate R&B interpretation of a classic pop song:

• The Rev. Al Sharpton on Michael’s life? Say what you will about the man, he knows how to coin a phrase: “It’s not about the mess, it’s the message.” That may not always prove true as the years go by, but it was a rousing sentiment this day.

• Poor Queen Latifah spoke her own sentiments eloquently, but then was obliged to recite a perfectly dreadful piece of Maya Angelou poetry written for this occasion, called “We Had Him,” which included the lines, “In the instant we learn that Michael is gone we know nothing,” and “Though we are many, we are achingly alone,” and “We had him, and we are the world.”

• The best use of humor on this sad day must surely have been Magic Johnson’s funny anecdote about visiting Jackson and being so happy to learn that Michael liked to tuck into a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken now and then. It was one of those down-to-earth, non-reverential moments that make a memorial vivid.

All in all, this was a remarkable, mostly-dignified event that still managed to capture the ordinary humanity of a great, complicated musician. What did you think?

Jul 7 2009 06:50 PM ET

Michael Jackson: the good, the bad, and the ugly surrounding the memorial

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Categories: Michael Jackson, Music

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Leading up to this afternoon’s Michael Jackson memorial service, TV was doing its usual job when a mass-culture event such as this occurs: reporting with a mixture of accuracy and inaccuracy, sincerity and cynicism, knowledge and ignorance.

Some moments that caught my eyes and ears:

• NBC’s Brian Williams reporting that Elizabeth Taylor had used Twitter to say she wouldn’t be present for the “public hoopla” surrounding the memorial held at L.A.’s Staples Center. I did not know Liz Taylor Twittered.

• ABC’s Martin Bashir boasting in one breath about his “unprecedented access” to Jackson, and in the next breath, whining about how he was “demonized” for his career-making interview with Jackson, Living With Michael Jackson. I felt a bad taste in my mouth. Click!

• On Fox News, sly Shepard Smith was noting reports of various celebrity attendees being seen in different places at the same time and adding, “Who knows? It’s Michael Jackson’s funeral: People may come with body-doubles.” You gotta like Shep.

• Of course, Fox being Fox, another correspondent could not resist pointing out that the funeral procession to Forest Lawn included “10 Range Rovers sponsored by a local dealership,” thus simultaneously giving a plug for Range Rover and implying there was something craven about the Jackson family using those cars, if indeed any of this was true.

• ABC’s Charlie Gibson was the anchor whose calm demeanor I appreciated most. He didn’t pretend to be a Jackson expert, and his questions were nearly always ones the average viewer would ask, seeking facts about attendance, security, and the mood of the crowd outside the Staples Center.

• On MSNBC, attorney Gloria Allred summed up 10,000 ignorant statements made over the past few days about Jackson’s various controversies with this pearl of non-wisdom: “His fans could see [Jackson] singing and dancing, but of course they could never see what went on behind closed doors.” And neither could you, Gloria, so put a sock in it!

Jul 7 2009 04:28 PM ET

Can you be a Michael Jackson fan and still think the TV coverage is excessive?

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Categories: Michael Jackson

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That’s my question: Can you feel that Michael Jackson is a pop star on the level of Elvis Presley, the Beatles, and few other figures, and still think the media has gone into pile-on overload of his death?

In this time of 24-hour cable news, producers sit in their studio control-booths looking at the competition’s coverage. And no TV news organization feels it can pull away from its own Jackson coverage to report on national news or, to pull a random item off the Fox News news crawl as I write, the fact that “The U.N. is condeming North Korea for firing seven ballistic missles.”

Of course we appreciate much of the cultural and musical analysis that is being provided by lots of music journalists who don’t usually get much TV face time. But I don’t care about some cable anchor filling moments telling me for the 438th time that he or she owned all of Michael’s records and had a glitter-glove growing up.

How do you feel about the wall-to-wall coverage?

Jul 7 2009 01:49 PM ET

Congressman Pete King uses YouTube to attack Michael Jackson: 'a lowlife, a pervert'

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Categories: Michael Jackson, Tech, Television

Over the weekend, Congressman Pete King posted a YouTube video making a specious connection between the death of Michael Jackson and the men and women who serve in our armed forces. It’s one thing for King to praise the country’s armed services on the Fourth of July weekend; it’s another to say that Jackson was “a low-life… a pervert… a child molester… a pedophile.”

Well, the Fourth of July is Independence Day, intended to celebrate the adoption of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. If you want to extend that to honoring people serving our country, fine — that’s King’s right. But equating the media’s coverage of Jackson (which is his real beef) with ignoring people “serving in Afghanistan,” as King says, while dismissing Jackson as “nothing worthwhile… he did some dancin’…” — that doesn’t make sense. Sullying Jackson’s reputation: what a great way for a congressman to get all over the Internet and get his own face all over the weekend TV news.

What do you think?

Jul 6 2009 12:12 AM ET

'True Blood': Where's our new episode tonight?

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Categories: Television

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It’s Sunday night, and what better way to end the holiday weekend than to settle in for a new episode of True Blood. Wait — what? No new episode of True Blood? What the fang is HBO thinking? This is a perfect night to please both regular viewers and capture some new, Fourth of July-relaxed eyeballs with some fresh Blood.

This whole, let’s-air-reruns-on-holidays concept is so broadcast-network circa, like, 1975. It is not HBO. Yes, I know we could sit through the two Blood reruns HBO is showing back-to-back starting at 9 p.m. ET, but it’s not the same.

What’s the TV alternative? A rerun of Dexter on Showtime at 9? (Not a terrible idea; I like the episode description: “Dexter feels distracted and unable to kill” — hey, I remember that one!) Or a new episode of Kendra on E! at 10? No thanks: Kendra’s laugh is like a scream made by someone who’s just been bitten by a vampire…

Which brings us back to True Blood, for which I’m jonesing, as the kids used to say. How about you?

Jul 5 2009 09:14 PM ET

Dear Sarah Palin: Here's some TV-career advice

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Categories: Television

Pretty soon, Sarah Palin will be a free agent, and you just know she wants to remain in the media spotlight. The question is, what should she do? Here are a few suggestions.

1. Become a new co-host on The View. Just think of the knock-down fights she’d get into with Elisabeth Hasselbeck over who could take the more righteous position on Hot Topics ranging from “Should you Twitter in Church?” to who should win So You Think You Can Dance. Added bonus: Joy Behar’s head would explode.

2. Become a Desperate Housewife. I mean, a new regular on Desperate Housewives. Don’t they need a new neighbor to replace Edie?

3. Enter The Amazing Race with husband Todd. Certainly this hunting, fishing, snowmobile-riding couple would be formidable competitors. Wouldn’t you tune in to see her yell at foreign-country taxi drivers, misplace her designer eyewear during a pull-that-rickshaw competition, and witness the pile-on when the other contestants are allowed to give them a “U-Turn”?

4. Do a guest arc on 30 Rock as Jack Donaghy’s new girlfriend. Think of the possibilities: She could play herself, but in this storyline, she’s newly divorced. She’d be just the kind of conservative Alec Baldwin’s Jack would find irresistible. Plus, Tina Fey could bust out her Palin impersonation and thoroughly confuse Jack in a case of wacky mistaken-identity!

5. Okay, I can’t think of a fifth job for Palin on TV. I open the floor to your suggestions in the Comments section below.

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