The Next Iron Chef: Super Chefs week 3 power rankings

I enjoy The Next Iron Chef but it's not without its shortcomings. I've already mentioned how episodes are largely drama-free, since all competitors are extremely talented and not looking to do much trash talking. But there's also the fact that the Secret Ingredient Showdown - the cook-off that takes place between the two chefs whose dishes were the judges' least favorites - is more entertaining than the Chairman's Challenge. There is more at stake, and with fewer competitors there is more focus and a stronger narrative. And Alton Brown's presence as host is almost superfluous. In Iron Chef America, his play-by-play is the glue that holds all the madness together. But here, he adds little value. He'd do better in a head judge role, like Tom Colicchio on Top Chef. The challenges are also growing monotonous. This is the second straight episode where the chefs haven't left Kitchen Stadium (or wherever), and they've only had to cook for the judges, never a cocktail party or wedding reception or other such typical Top Chef rigamarole.

Anyway, on with the power rankings:

OUT: Chuck Hughes. I admit, I fell for the editing, which set up Beau's tofu trilogy to fail from the second he announced he was preparing the tofu three ways.

1. Geoffrey Zakarian - Hasn't erred much so far, and besides, he has the look of a man who knows he's superior to you in every way.
2. Elizabeth Falkner
3. Alex Guarnaschelli
4. Beau MacMillan
5. Anne Burrell
6. Michael Chiarello
7. Marcus Samuelsson

There still aren't any obvious weak links, and there still aren't any runaway favorites. Nobody is pulling away as a sentimental favorite either, since nobody has developed a real personality yet. I don't know whether that's the fault of the editors or if Food Network is banking on the viewer being familiar with the contestants through their other shows. Which is fine if you watch Food Network on a regular basis, but I don't.

The Next Iron Chef: Super Chefs week 2 power rankings

Ah, the traditional "elevate a common cuisine" challenge, this time focusing on ballpark food. If you loved the tailgate-themed episodes of Top Chef: Chicago and Top Chef: Masters, and the baseball concession stand challenge from Top Chef: DC, then you'll love and/or tolerate this episode.

OUT: Robert Irvine. The judges aren't messing around, aren't they?

1. Beau MacMillan
2. Alex Guarnaschelli
3. Geoffrey Zakarian
4. Chuck Hughes
5. Elizabeth Falkner
6. Michael Chiarello
7. Anne Burrell
8. Marcus Samuelsson

Honestly, these rankings are leaning on the arbitrary. They may not even be worth doing. With so many high-caliber chefs, nobody is going to truly be bad. The degrees of separation are negligible - it wouldn't surprise me if Samuelsson won three straight challenges and MacMillan lost in the next episode. I'd imagine that a favorite will emerge in a few weeks but right now the playing field is completely even.

Premiere League: The Next Iron Chef, "Primal: Heat and Meat"

If you've seen your fair share of reality cooking shows involving established chefs - namely, Top Chef: Masters or The Next Iron Chef - you already know that since the contestants are professionals with reputations to uphold, you're in for minimal amounts of drama. Nobody will be thrown under a bus. Cursing and antagonizing will be at a minimum. In fact, some of these chefs may actually be here to make friends.

This is a "Super Chefs" edition of Next Iron Chef, meaning that the contestants are of a higher profile than previous seasons, mostly because they are connected to established Food Network properties. I don't know whether Iron Chef is directly firing shots at Top Chef, but the appearances of Michael Chiarello (Masters contestant), Marcus Samuelsson (Masters winner), and Spike Mendelsohn (All-Stars contestant) are especially conspicuous.

The first episode contains a ballsy challenge in that the contestants have to cook outdoors on an open fire. This restriction has been the bane of Top Chef competitors in the past, but doesn't faze any of the potential Iron Chefs. Indeed, these chefs are cooking on a higher level and their dishes look appropriately delicious. Even the losers of the "Chairman's Challenge," Mendelsohn and Samuelsson, don't completely bomb it.

In a good twist to the reality-cooking formula made familiar by Top Chef, the "main" challenge is first, while the shorter challenge is reserved at the end for the chefs the judges thought performed poorest. The sudden-death, secret-ingredient format provides for good drama in the premiere and should continue to deliver throughout the season.

There isn't much else to say about the first episode. Reality show premieres are rarely interesting anyway. My biggest complaint is that the judges are pretty bland - where's Donatella Arpaia when you need her? It's nice to see chefs at the top of their games cook well; unfortunately (and Top Chef: Masters has had problems with this in the past), that doesn't always translate into compelling television.

Work of Art s2: week 4 power rankings

OUT: Tewz, whose piece wasn't terrible but could've connected to the original work better.

1. Kymia - On a hot streak.
2. Michelle - Has cooled since early success but had a solid piece this week. Took Simon's advice to heart.
3. Dusty - Last week's piece, which the judges didn't like, has grown on me.
4. Young Sun - Last week's piece, which won, has not grown on me.
5. Sara - Spelling "divorce" with an S was her most egregious decision. She can do better than to pander.
6. Sarah - Truly middle of the pack; the only artist who hasn't been up for a crit yet.
7. Lola - Fairly uninspired this week.
8. Bayete - Liked his re-drawing of the original piece but the accompanying video wasn't necessary.
9. The Sucklord - He's not that bad but nobody else has been up for elimination twice.

Premiere League: Top Chef, "Everything's Bigger in Texas"

I skipped out on Top Chef franchise overkill this year. Other than the odd episode here and there of Masters and Just Desserts (which to be fair, was much improved on the terrible first season), I haven't watched regularly since the all-star season. As Top Chef seasons go, it was excellent, but it was an anomaly given that all the contestants - even Mike Isabella! - were the real deal. It was all wheat and no chaff, as opposed to most seasons where the first five episodes (minimum) are devoted to eliminating the schmos. Compare All-Stars to the especially woeful DC season, with only two or three half-decent chefs and a total non-entity as champion and you'll see why I'm nervous about this season.

Even the producers knew they had to shake things up, so this season starts with a staggering 29 chefs, who are whittled down to 16 in a process reminiscent of the audition episodes of MasterChef. I'm not particularly a fan of the new gimmick - too many cooks spoil the broth, ho ho ho. And some chefs aren't even eliminated outright but rather live to cook another day for a final chance at a spot in the final (initial?) 16. But it does lead to satisfying moments like the world's smuggest babyfaced jerkwad being PYKAG'd by Tom before he even plates a dish. The rest of the preliminary eliminations, "preliminations" if you will, are more in line with your usual episode, but it's nice to see some spontaneity in a now-familiar format.

There's not much else to say about the episode, since it's largely a bunch of chefs we don't know and barely care about presenting one after another. New guest judge Emeril Lagasse adds some schlubby authority to the proceedings, whereas other new judge Hugh Acheson won't appear until the second episode. Given how sparingly Eric Ripert and Anthony Bourdain were used in previous seasons, though, they likely won't make much of an impression overall.

Of course, I'm pleased that Chicago is doing well; five chefs from the Windy City presented dishes this episode and all five advanced. Suck it, East/West Coast!

No power rankings yet, of course, and I'm hard pressed to even come up with an early favorite. It's good to see Top Chef back, but will the good vibes last once the new gimmickry is over?

Work of Art s2: week 3 power rankings

OUT: Leon and Jazz-Minh. Of the four contestants up for elimination, they were the two who deserved to go, although Jazz-Minh was pretty cute. Quit voting off the hot chicks!

Rankings are still a bit all over the place week-to-week. There aren't any clear favorites yet.

1. Young Sun - Not my favorite piece of the night but the judges gave him the win and he's performed well so far.
2. Kymia - Again, not my favorite, but the judges like her piece and she hasn't done badly yet.
3. Sara - I liked her piece more than the two favorites'.
4. Tewz - Ditto.
5. Michelle - This week she proves that she's mortal. Can't decide whether her work was too derivative or appropriately Warholian for the 2010s.
6. Dusty - The judges had valid critiques but Dusty deserved much better than being up for elimination.
7. The Sucklord - Not a bad piece, but unfortunately dated by the episode's air date.
8. Sarah - Would have preferred to see it in person to gauge its impact.
9. Lola - The subject had tons of potential but it didn't inspire me.
10. Bayete - Decent idea, horrid execution. The judges were right that he was lucky to have immunity.

Work of Art s2 Power Rankings: Week Two

OUT: Kathryn, duh, because she's a one trick pony even if she's art-school hipster hot and I hate myself for being attracted to her.

1. Michelle - The judges have taken to her so far, even if I haven't. I liked this piece better than last week's, though.
2. Leon - I totally looked up how to curse in ASL.
3. Sara - Creepy, in a good way.
4. The Sucklord - Seems like it was a lot of fun.
5. Jazz-Minh - Wish I could've seen it in person to get a good look at it.
6. Sarah - Another I wish I could have seen in person.
7. Dusty - A little too convincing as a creep, don't you think?
8. Young Sun - Very pedestrian considering how much I liked his piece last week.
9. Kymia - I liked the idea but the execution wasn't quite there.
10. Lola - See above, only even more lacking in execution.
11. Bayete - Seriously, he won for this? Maybe you had to watch it for a while.
12. Tewz - Totally uninspired.

Work of Art s2 Power Rankings: Week One

As opposed to Top Chef power rankings, my views may not parrot the judges' since I can appraise the art for myself.

OUT: Ugo, even though I didn't think his piece was that bad.

1. Young Sun - So help me, I liked his performance piece.
2. Jazz-Minh - Even though I hate her name.
3. Michelle - Not my favorite but I'll give her points because she won.
4. Lola - Not my favorite but I'll give her points because the judges liked it.
5. Tewz - Initial vision sounded cooler than the end product.
6. Leon - No thoughts either way.
7. Kymia - Ditto.
8. Dusty - His piece was less than the sum of its parts.
9. Sarah - Meh.
10. Sara - The judges liked it. I didn't.
11. The Sucklord - Not a good piece but at least he realizes how to improve.
12. Bayete - The dollar bills were overkill and ruined what could've been a passable piece. I would have voted him out.
13. Kathryn - She's got that hot art girl look that slays me but I didn't care for her piece and between that and her self-portrait, seems one-note.

Premiere League: Work of Art, "Kitsch Me If You Can"

God, that's a terribly punny episode title.

Work of Art isn't a huge Bravo hit on the level of a Real Housewives series or Top Chef, but I enjoy it. In a sense, it's a tough show to talk about. On Top Chef, you can't personally taste a dish to appraise it but can trust that if the judges didn't like it, it was rubbish. On Work of Art, however, you can definitively say if you liked or hated what the contestants made, even if art is so subjective that evaluating artistic talent in a reality show competition format is laughable.

The first episode of a reality show is never good. There are too many characters, too much exposition, and no narratives. That said, it's good to see the show back. Simon is as lovable as ever, the contestants are as interesting as they are talented, and Jerry had some killer lines and reaction shots. One of the show's weaknesses in its first season was that it's judges and hosts were non-entities. Jerry showing some life gives the panel some sorely-needed credibility.

I would have given Bayeté the boot - his piece really was overkill, with the money serving absolutely no purpose other than to bludgeon the viewer. Ugo's piece didn't work, but I felt he had more to offer. Then again, with him gone we won't hear Keith Haring's name dropped again (SAY HAS ANYONE EVER HEARD OF THIS GUY AND HOW MUCH UGO'S ART RESEMBLES HIS? NO WAY). As for The Sucklord... the show is obviously marking him as the breakout star and/or villain, and even he knows it. He does have some charm but the routine could get really old really fast.

As for the winner, Michelle, good for her. Not much else to say other than I liked it. I was surprised I liked Young Sun's piece as much as I did, given that it was - shudder - performance art. But it was cheeky and not too pretentious. Big fan of Jazz-Minh's piece, too, if not her name (worse than The Sucklord). Kathryn, though, could be a one-trick pony. Enough with the guts already.

Power rankings to follow in a separate post, incidentally.

Premiere League: Person of Interest, "Pilot"

It's been a few years since I've watched something on CBS that wasn't sports, an awards show, or Letterman. 2007, to be exact, when I watched Jericho because I thought that surely all those fans sending nuts to the network execs in order to save the show couldn't possibly be wrong (they were). However, Person of Interest stars Michael Emerson, whose Ben Linus was one of the best things about Lost for several seasons. His presence merits at least 44-minutes-plus-commercials of my time, if only for one night.

It's probably going to stay at one night. While Person of Interest has some sci-fi intrigue and decent action scenes, it's a police procedural at heart, and that's a genre I've never taken to. Even then, the particulars of the show don't work for me. It tries to create vague uneasiness about the surveillance state while claiming that eavesdropping is okay when done by the right people - for instance, the heroes hack into somebody's phone without qualms. Jim Caviezel, the show's lead actor, is portrayed as a badass but also a white hat good guy, which means he shoots a lot of people in the leg. By the eighth person, it becomes comical (the fate of one antagonist is left ambiguous, probably because the show is chickening out). It's also ludicrous how Caviezel's character goes from suicidal bum to Bruce Wayne/Batman hybrid in the span of a few hours, and one of the episode's plot twists is telegraphed a mile away because otherwise the story would be too straightforward.

Person of Interest isn't without merit; the action scenes are good, Caviezel is a convincing asskicker, and Emerson can play the role of the mysterious man pulling all the strings in his sleep. But as long as the stories lag behind the production and acting, I have no time for this show.

Let's talk about Hobo with a Shotgun & Escape from New York

Hobo with a Shotgun is a movie about a hobo with a shotgun. If you are still unconvinced about whether or not this movie is the kind you'll like, it isn't.

Director Jason Eisener has the faux-grindhouse look down a little better than Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez did in their Planet Terror/Death Proof double feature. It's more akin to House of the Devil, probably because of both films' low-budget aesthetic. It's easy to replicate the look and feel of a cheapie when your budget is only $3 million (I know it sounds ridiculous to call $3 million low-budget, but it's low). The synth-heavy score and ending credits power ballad are dead-on accurate, too.

There's a lot of cursing, a lot of titillating violence, and a lot of gore. Surprisingly, there is little nudity. The actors eschew actual acting for scenery chewing. Nobody is watching Hobo with a Shotgun for character development and I'm fine with that.

Of course, this means that the film lives and dies by its outrageousness. Eisener and screenwriter John Davies swing for the fences in every scene and they strike out as often as they hit home runs. But you can at least see the effort when they strike out; Hobo with a Shotgun does nothing half-heartedly, which sustains it through its leaner moments.

If anything in Hobo with a Shotgun can qualify for artistic merit, it's the cinematography, deliberately lush with garish reds, blues, and yellows. It's as over-the-top as the dialogue.

After taking in Hobo with a Shotgun's exploitative delights, and reading about the rioting in London, the next logical step was to watch John Carpenter's 1981 cult classic Escape from New York. It's the third Carpenter film I've seen, and the second starring Kurt Russell. Sadly, I have yet to be totally impressed with the director's work.

In its time, I'm sure Escape from New York's post-apocalyptic setting, antihero, and don't-trust-the-government spirit were all fairly revelatory. But now the movie has turned 30. When watching Escape from New York I got the feeling that I'd seen this all before, when really I've seen it all since.

Even then, there's little to recommend. All the characters are flat, even Russell's stoic, supposedly iconic Snake Plissken (give me Jack Burton any day), and the action scenes aren't thrilling. The final twist is too telegraphed to be effective. To his credit, Carpenter does a good job of capturing the feel of New York City gone to pot, and the use of light and shadow is especially effective. Escape from New York must be a product of its era, because aside from a really cool poster, I just don't see the appeal.

Let's talk about X-Men: First Class

X-Men: First Class is a first-class movie!

LOLOLOLOL. Now that we got that out of the way, here's some assorted thoughts on the film.

- First Class skims a fine line between prequel and reboot (a term that is frequently sloppily applied). Comic book continuity is notoriously hinky, and even the first four movies in the X-Men series didn't have ironclad continuity. Nonetheless, the series needed a fresh start. X3 was mediocre; X-Men Origins: Wolverine didn't even reach those heights. Origin stories are a reliable framework, and in First Class' case you get to cast dashing James McAvoy instead of (awesome but) ancient Ian McKellen. Besides, the dynamic between Professor X and Magneto has always been the intellectual backbone of the story, something the film franchise had moved away from.

- More supervillains need to do their dirty deeds in suits. Kevin Bacon's henchmen look pretty badass in their finely-tailored duds. Mr. Bacon himself, meanwhile, looks like a total dick in his 60's gear. I'm pretty sure he was wearing an ascot in one scene. Ascot = hate. No more spandex for anyone, please.

- Thor already had the title character eschew luscious Kat Dennings for stick figure Natalie Portman. Now compare Rose Byrne's skinny figure in a miniskirt to fuller-figured (which is to say, normal-figured) Jennifer Lawrence in a miniskirt. I'll say it again: friends don't let superheroes fall for skinny chicks.

- He'll never eclipse Jon Hamm as Man Crush #1, but Michael Fassbender has a rather square jaw, and piercing eyes, and he smolders, and he kills Nazis with such ease... sorry, where was I?

- January Jones is as lackluster as advertised. I'm not bothered by her interpretation of the character - her name is Emma Frost, so why not play her as an ice queen - but her iciness is flat instead of intimidating. The character is supposedly tempestuous in the comics, anyway, so maybe Jones really bungled this one more than I realized. On a side note, I wonder if I'm the only one who watched her seduction of the Soviet military head and couldn't help think of Nikolai Jackov, head of the KGB.

- But the misguided casting of Jones can't hold a candle to Glenn Morshower's role as a corrupt Colonel. You can't cast Aaron from 24 as a sellout! That's just wrong, man! A cameo by James Remar and a bit part for Michael Ironside, on the other hand: awesome.

- I didn't notice this until Adam and Matty pointed it out, but First Class' fight scenes are actually comprehensible. There's no Jason Bourne/Dark Knight shaky-cam, quick-cut fighting.

- Director Matthew Vaughn helmed the postmodern super-anti-hero film Kick Ass, which I didn't particularly care for. He plays First Class straight, with superior results.

- I caught a matinee showing of First Class; that night, I watched the Tony Awards. Hugh Jackman appeared in both, reminding me of this SNL sketch. It'll never be a classic but I have a soft spot for it, and I'll probably be shouting "TWO SIDES!" to myself for years to come.



- Henry Jackman's score during the end credits deserves a shoutout. It's not an iconic theme but it's tonally perfect.

Let's Talk About Captain America

As I walked through the theater lobby after watching Captain America, I saw a poster for the latest Spy Kids movie, starring Joel McHale. After a few seconds of thought, I developed my new rubric for evaluating action movies: if the film is at least as entertaining as one of Community's paintball episodes, it has succeeded.

Captain America is never boring, the special effects are good, it isn't stupid, and the cast has no weak links. Yet, it's never truly entertaining. It's a perfectly average film. If I ever need to explain the concept of "less than the sum of its parts," I'll point to Captain America.

As several critics have noted, Captain America is not a flashy superhero. Chris Evans plays him perfectly earnestly because that's the essence of the character. I understand that. He's still boring. Nothing against Evans, that's just how the character is written. Perhaps in the upcoming Avengers movie, where he's a man out of his era, he'll have more material to work with.

The rest of the cast can be characterized the same way. Hugo Weaving plays the villainous Red Skull, leader of too-twisted-even-for-the-Nazis group HYDRA. Weaving is a pro, he knows how to play an antagonist, and he does a fine job but he's totally unmemorable. Hayley Atwell is the love interest, the role isn't an insult to women, and she turns in an equally fine but sparkless performance. Only Tommy Lee Jones, cast perfectly to type as a crusty Colonel, stands out. Stanley Tucci also brings some much-needed character to the film but his role is merely a minor one.

Captain America is also curiously devoid of action scenes. There's a fun jailbreak, and the climatic invasion of a HYDRA stronghold isn't bad. Mostly there's a lot of talking about whether Captain America is ready to be a hero or not. I said previously that Captain America isn't boring, which is true, but it's rarely thrilling.

Director Joe Johnston has helmed a WWII-era superhero film before, 1991's The Rocketeer. The Rocketeer isn't a perfect movie by any stretch of the imagination but it's an interesting failure. Captain America is a pedestrian success.

Thor was Shakesperian, X-Men: First Class was heady, Iron Man was cheeky. Captain America is... competent. That's not good enough anymore.

Let's Talk About Misfits: "Episode Five"

"No matter what I do, the ones I love will be the ones who pay." - Curtis

Yes, Curtis stole the line from Spider-Man but it works in ending his relationship with Sam, and it turns out to be somewhat true in the end. Simon doesn't love Sally, but he cares about her in his own creepy way, and yet because of his powers he unwittingly takes part in her demise.

(Uh, spoilers.)

(Also, yes, I've been watching Misfits on Hulu this summer but I haven't been discussing each episode.)

That segues into the big question the episode presents: is Simon a villain?

If any of the main group of Misfits was pegged to fit the archetype of "supervillain" it's Simon, although the show has avoided common tropes thus far in making any of its protagonists actual superheroes. He's a loner, he's the most genuinely antisocial of the group, Nathan picks on him all the time, and he just plain acts weird (I'd love to see him in a British television stare-off with Ruth Wilson from Luther). Like the rest of the misfits, he's covered up two deaths, so he's already on the fast-track to villainy.

But hold on a second. He's also a disturbed kid who could use a little therapy and a few good friends. He's been manipulated by Sally the entire time. And he didn't really mean to kill her, right? Right? Let's not even get into Sally, whose personal quest for justice crossed a whole ton of boundaries.

It's this kind of moral relativism that sets Misfits apart from, say, Spider-Man. I'm sure that the majority of the fans would like to see the series subvert the typical origin story in that the protagonists are all juvies (not an exact equivalent but close enough). Instead, it subverts the genre by not having anyone do anything remotely heroic. Curtis tries in the fourth episode, but by trying to fix his mistakes he ends up juggling girlfriends as an unforeseen consequence. Nathan isn't Peter Parker (thank God) and Simon isn't the Green Goblin. They're all just messed-up people who got thrown into an even more messed-up situation and they're having a hard time coping.

The first season is only six episodes long, so perhaps in the finale the show takes a sharp left turn and tries to become Heroes although it's extremely unlikely. There's only one cliffhanger; the other storylines are fairly stable at the moment, save for the inevitable part where Nathan and Kelly hook up, but that's hardly a game changer. Misfits inhabits some nebulous grey area between dramedy and genre show, and arguably if not for Nathan it would be a straight drama. I'm not sure what Misfits' game is but I want to know where it's heading.

The unexpected nerd cred of De Palma's The Black Dahlia

I recently finished James Ellroy's The Black Dahlia. Since I'm a glutton for punishment and it was on Netflix Watch Instantly, I checked out the reviled 2006 Brian DePalma film adaptation.

About the film's content, there's little new to say. The novel was already incomprehensibly plotted in the second half, and while some plot lines were mercifully condensed, the finished version of the film is an hour shorter than the initial edit. Virtually everyone but Aaron Eckhart and Mia Kirshner was miscast (and even Kirshner was nearly ten years too old to play the title character). Because it's a De Palma picture it looks fantastic, but it's still a fairly lousy movie. Granted, it's hard to objectively consider a film when you've just finished reading the source material.

But what's really amusing about The Black Dahlia is its unexpected geek connections. Consider:

- One of the major plot points in the novel and the film is a painting of Gwynplaine, the main character in Victor Hugo's novel The Man Who Laughs. You probably haven't read the book or seen the 1928 film adaptation, but you know what Gwynplaine looks like: he's the visual inspiration for The Joker. Coincidentally, two years after The Black Dahlia's release, Aaron Eckhart would appear as Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight, alongside Heath Ledger as The Joker.

- Screenwriter Josh Friedman created the (underrated) Fox series Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles, and helped meme-ify Snakes on a Plane.

- Fiona Shaw, who played Ramona Linscott, is better known as Petunia Dursley in the Harry Potter films.

- Patrick Fischler, who played Ellis Leow, was a member of the Dharma Initiative on Lost. You know, the guy who wasn't Horace Goodspeed or Radzinsky.

While not explicitly geeky, it's also worth noting that veteran character actor Mike Starr (you probably know him from Dumb and Dumber or the NBC show Ed) has a supporting role, and the Dahlia herself, Mia Kirshner, was Naked Mandy in 24. But it's funny that you can find nerdiness even in a place like crime noir.

Let's talk about Thor.

I know zip about Thor. He's not one of the more popular Marvel characters, and Norse gods don't get the pub that Greek or Roman gods do. The lack of name-brand recognition is a bit of a liability for a tentpole release in the current studio system, but it's also a benefit. With each new Batman franchise, whether on film or television, the audience brings a new set of preconceived notions into the viewing. Thor, in Kenneth Branagh's new film, is a blank slate: who is this guy?

Well, he's an alien. A superpowered being from a faraway planet, which totally explains why in Thor everyone has a British accent and Idris Elba is a deity from the Norse pantheon (I guess Marcus Samuelsson wasn't answering his phone when the casting director called). Heimdall isn't a black Norseman, he's a black alien who happened to be worshiped by Norsemen! Makes sense, right? But seriously, between this and How to Train Your Dragon, where the Vikings are voiced by Scots and Americans, Scandinavians are getting the shaft. And now the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is an American? Low blow.

As played by Chris Hemsworth, Thor is more than just the Norse god of P90X, he's a good-natured hunk, commanding and noble in Asgard and charmingly out of his element on Earth. He may not know the etiquette of eating breakfast at the corner diner, but he'll kiss ladies on the hand. After suffering through movies with moribund Sam Worthingtons, it's nice to see a jock with charisma. The romance between Thor and Natalie Portman's astrophysicist is barely developed, of course, but nobody watches these movies for the love stories. Side note: why pursue Portman when Kat Dennings is right there? It's like passing up Joan Holloway for Betty Draper. Friends don't let Norse gods pick up skinny chicks.

Thor is chilling in New Mexico because his father Odin, king of Asgard, banished him for his impetuousness. Anthony Hopkins is suitably regal as Odin, and Asgard looks fantastic. The design of the otherworldly kingdom is composed with a stunning visual palette, and is doubly impressive when compared to the look of Green Lantern, which makes me flinch whenever I see an ad for it.

In terms of plot, Thor is a combination of a two familiar stories, the comic book hero origin story, and a tale of a brash warrior's redemption. It's nothing new, but it's told well (credit Branagh on this one). When Thor is finally worthy enough to wield his hammer and kick ass again, you'll think "hell yeah."

Rounding out the cast are Stellan Skarsgard as an avuncular scientist, Tom Hiddleston as the shifty god Loki, and Ray Stevenson as a husky Asgardian warrior. They perform admirably. My only real complaint is that Idris Elba isn't allowed to be more awesome.

Thor won't go in the Marvel film pantheon alongside Iron Man or X2 but it's a solid, good-looking, fun time at the movies. It may in practice be no more than an extended prequel to the upcoming Avengers movie (the Jeremy Renner cameo is useless and the post-credits stinger falls flat), but it stands on its own.

How good is this?

In which I talk about some things I've really liked lately.

1. The Hunger Games
How good is this book? Suzanne Collins' dystopian YA novel is conceptually nothing more than The Running Man meets Battle Royale (a movie where the concept far outshines the execution, incidentally). What it lacks in originally it makes up for in worldbuilding, characterization, and pacing. Collins zips through the story with breakneck speed; sometimes the novel seems to go by too fast, but by the time the Hunger Games start I was too busy reading to see what happens next to care. The first-person perspective prevents all characters but protagonist Katniss from getting the fleshing-out they deserve, but even then there are a few character deaths that I felt remorse over. And while the plot by necessity requires Katniss to be occasionally submissive and passive, she's thankfully no Bella Swan (in my dreams, Katniss treats Bella like a pincushion). Even a forced love interest, which caused me to initially roll my eyes, eventually makes sense within the narrative. Collins' prose is appropriately spartan for the audience and the tone, all the better to make me want to mainline the other two books in the series.

And since the film adaptation is currently being casted, let me play armchair director for a second. I get why Jennifer Lawrence was chosen to be Katniss after her role in Winter's Bone, but there's no reason Hailee Steinfeld shouldn't have been cast (okay, there is, but not from an artistic standpoint). Ironically, Lawrence would make a great Glimmer. Several fans have claimed that Amy Poehler would make a great Effie Trinket and I have to agree. As for Haymitch, there's a whole laundry list of old tough bastard character actors to choose from: Ray Winstone, Ray Stevenson, Ron Perlman, etc. For some reason, I'm picturing Matthew Morrison as Cinna. And there has to be room for Chloe Moretz somewhere, for God's sakes - Foxface, perhaps?

(On even more of a tangent, my all-time unrequited bit of fantasy casting was Ludivine Sagnier as Fleur Delacour for the Harry Potter series, but did Hollywood listen? Nooooooo.)

2. Sons of Anarchy: "Balm"
How good was this episode? I've been burning through the second season of Sons now that it's newly on Netflix Instant Viewing, and it hasn't disappointed. But "Balm" takes the series to a whole new level. The scene at the end with Jax, Clay, Tara, and Gemma made me a little misty eyed - something The Wire never even accomplished. In fact, the entire ending montage is powerful, which is saying something for a series that specializes in ending montages. The moment with Tig flipped out on shrooms and crying his eyes out is hilarious until you realize why he's crying, and then it crashes into poignancy. Brilliant.

3. SyFy's decision to re-air Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
How good is this decision? I'll go to the mat for T:SCC; it was one of the most underrated shows of the past few years. I doubt I'll be re-watching most of it, since it is airing during the highly competitive Thursday night slot, but hopefully sci-fi geeks who missed it the first time will find it.

4. The current season of Archer
How good has this season been? "Placebo Effect" was one of the funniest episodes of any show this year, and "El Secuestro" had me oddly attracted to Pam (more importantly, it was an outstanding showcase for voice actress Amber Nash). Giving Krieger and Gillette more to do this season has also paid extraordinary dividends. And all of this praise takes for granted H Jon Benjamin's work as Sterling Archer, the funniest douchebag on television.

Top Chef All-Stars final power rankings

How do all 18 cheftestants compare now that the season is over?

1. Richard
Win the competition, get crowned #1. It's not rocket science. And besides, Blais deserves it.

2. Antonia
Was screwed out of a Quickfire win on a technicality and could've picked up another Elimination Challenge win if her teammates hadn't been terrible. Otherwise she measures up equally to the season's runner-up...

3. Mike
Too bad nobody likes Mike (albeit for good reason) because he could've been named Top Chef. He's certainly improved since his season - I had him pegged as one of the first to go. Sure, he never sparkled, and only started winning Elimination Challenges once stronger chefs had been kicked out, but he made it to the final episode. That's an achievement.

4. Dale T.
Amassed a lot of wins, and showed maturity since being his season's resident hot-head.

5. Carla
Still maddeningly flighty.

6. Angelo
Peaked too early by winning the first two Elimination Challenges but none after that.

7. Tiffany
Like Mike, she had the luck of outlasting more talented cheftestants. Unlike Mike, she didn't have the chops to back it up. She didn't win a single Elimination Challenge. Even Marcel had an Elimination Challenge win.

8. Fabio
Fabio ran red hot or ice cold, placing in either the top or the bottom of every Elimination Challenge.

9. Tre
Solid middle-of-the-pack contestant.

10. Marcel
Got an Elimination Challenge win, but shared it with teammates Richard and Angelo. One of these chefs is not like the other.

11. Spike
Managed to not be a total asshat, which was accomplishment enough, and somehow proved to be Richard's ideal sous chef. Who knew?

12. Tiffani

13. Casey

14. Dale L.

15. Stephen

16. Jamie

17. Jennifer

18. Elia
The bottom three are two who clearly didn't want to be there, and one who self-destructed. I had Jennifer as #5 in my preseason rankings, but even then I knew that she didn't perform well under pressure.

Disconnected thoughts on The Killing: "Pilot" and "The Cage"

- Maybe crime dramas set in the Pacific Northwest aren't for me. The pilot to Twin Peaks didn't rope me in, and the first two episodes of The Killing I stuck with based on critical opinion and the fact that AMC does no wrong. (I bailed on Rubicon after the first episode and it apparently got better so what do I know)

- Rain should get first billing in the cast.

- I seem to be the only one who doesn't like Mireille Enos as the lead. She looks like she's 25 and should be working on her MFA in poetry, not a homicide detective. Joel Kinnaman as her shifty partner, though? Brilliant. If I keep watching the series, it will be because of him. Case in point: the scene with the two soccer players.

- I immediately recognized Jasper's house as Daniel Greystone's from Caprica (both series were shot in Vancouver). And yet I don't remember half of what I learned in college.

- Better know a character actor: Eric Laden, who plays the douchey assistant to Darren Richmond (Billy Campbell), also plays Betty Draper's douchey brother on Mad Men.

- Seriously, enough with the goddamn rain already.

Wire Madness

Pitting television characters against each other isn't a new idea. But there's no reason we can't have fun with it.

Wire Madness. 64 characters from the HBO series The Wire, competing in an NCAA-tournament style battle. I'm sure there will be some controversy but it's my bracket, so it's my rules.

The bracket is a fairly big picture, so here's a sample:



The full image is available below (click to enlarge).



I'm sure I'll get a lot of flack for Omar's loss, but I always thought he was a tad overrated - I preferred the cool demeanor of Daniels and Freamon to Omar's swag. String's great too but Daniels' moral backbone makes him one of the few incorruptible characters in the show, and I have to reward that.

The 2011 Oscars Power Rankings

So I did it. It took me from last summer until tonight, but I watched all ten films from 2010 that were nominated for Best Picture. I didn't intend to explicitly, I just wanted to see all of them. Most years there's at least one that I have no desire to watch - for instance, The Blind Side last year. Naturally, I've seen all of these roughly over the course of a year, so direct comparisons are difficult. I'll just do things based on tiers.

The Social Network
Inception

The Kids Are All Right
Black Swan

True Grit
The Fighter
Toy Story 3

The King's Speech
127 Hours
Winter's Bone

Bear in mind that none of these movies were bad, or even mediocre. The bottom three had some great performances, case in point, Colin Firth in The King's Speech.

Order really only matters with the first two; I genuinely believe that The Social Network was the best picture of the bunch, and possibly the best movie I saw in 2010, but I'll be damned if Inception wasn't really, really fun. The next two movies were a step down in quality but still very good albeit for completely different reasons (TKAR's cast, Black Swan's aesthetics). I think this list also makes it pretty clear where I stand on The King's Speech winning Best Picture... but that's a different topic entirely.

Top Chef All-Stars: week 13 power rankings

A lot of people crapped on last week's Top Chef for keeping all five cheftestants to go into the finale, but I fell for the sentimental approach hook, line, and sinker. Every competitor brought his or her A-game, everyone's family was present, and we even found out that Mike and Antonia are distant relatives. What's not to love? I can forgive a cop-out on the judges' part (and quite possibly the producers' part) in not eliminating anyone.

Too bad this episode was a total suckfest. Having the remaining chefs cook against the winners of their respective seasons should've been highly entertaining, but it turned out to be a worthless gimmick. At least we know that Hosea is still a dick, only this time he's a dick with a horrible beard. Even worse, nothing in the Elimination Challenge stood out. You know it's a sorry slate when Mike cooks the best dish.

Poor Carla. She had faltered a bit in the preceding weeks, but unlike other contestants in this episode she kept her spirits high and cooked food she believed in. So long, hootie.

1. Richard
Despite second-guessing himself at every turn, Richard is still making good food. The specter of his Top Chef: Chicago choke job has loomed over him all season long, and advancing to the finale has only made him more neurotic instead of more confident. He's also increasingly becoming more of a dick. It's a real shame.

2. Mike
It only took thirteen episodes, but Mike finally won his first Elimination Challenge of the season. It helps to finish strong, I guess, but we're talking about Mike. This is the first Elimination Challenge he's won on Top Chef, period. And beating Michael Voltaggio in the Quickfire - what was that all about? I am not afraid to give credit where credit is due, and Mike has shown definite improvement since Top Chef: Las Vegas. But he should be thanking his lucky stars that Dale and Angelo aren't his competition anymore.

3. Antonia
Antonia is clearly superior to Mike as a chef, but she clearly could've been sent home for tonight's dish. Cooking in the final episodes is a skill in and of itself - that's how we got Top Chefs Kevin and Hosea, and almost got Top Chef Lisa in the fourth season. In the finale, you either have it or you don't, and right now Antonia looks like she doesn't have it.

4. Tiffany
In five of the last seven weeks, Tiffany has placed in the bottom group at Judge's Table. She hasn't won an Elimination Challenge, and tonight was her first Quickfire win - a win she split with four other chefs. Enough already!

Spartacus: Gods of the Arena - "The Bitter End"

Spartacus' lone big misstep for its final episode of the season was its title. I get it, it works on a certain level, but when I think of a finale and "bitter" I think of fan reaction to the final episode of Lost. Not good.

Otherwise, "The Bitter End" was surprisingly satisfying. After last week's episode I wondered what ground was left for the show to cover, since most of the storylines had come to a climax and three major characters had already died. Spartacus' solution: have everyone fight each other for most of the episode. Good call. Compared to Blood and Sand, Gods of the Arena was curiously light on gladiator battles. Fortunately, the entire third act takes place in Capua's new arena and provides us with the CGI-blood spurting action we know and love. We also get more epic crowd shots, which means those of us playing Spartacus Bingo can finally mark down "people having sex among the spectators." Like all of the series' big action set-pieces, it's a pulse-pounding, over-the-top, tremendously scored and edited spectacle and an excellent high note to end the prequel with. Gannicus' big kill was pretty disgusting too, and the one gladiator being immolated was satisfyingly predictable.

And how about Gannicus winning his freedom? Good for him. Even though it was a ploy by Solonius to undermine Batiatus, Gannicus certainly deserved it, and not only because of his prowess in the arena. He's one of the few decent characters in Spartacus, and although he did go behind Oenomaus' back by boning his wife, he tried to remove himself from the ludus so it wouldn't happen again. Early in the episode, Batiatus says something to the effect of that his House is built on the foundation of honor, which of course is a complete lie. The most honorable characters are usually the slaves, and Gannicus is one of the better ones. Spartacus usually doesn't allow a decent character to get the fate he or she deserves, so Gannicus' sendoff was refreshing.

On the douchier end of the ludus, Batiatus continues the slow process of digging his own grave. Tullius is dead and Vettius is run out of town, but Solonius has finally had enough of Batiatus' shit and completes a full-blown heel turn. We all knew it was coming, but it was deserved and actually pretty awesome. Nothing is better than seeing Batiatus helpless while backed into a corner. Unless it's Batiatus being blind with rage. Or Batiatus... okay, anything he does is amazing, but backstabbing and mind games are surefire ingredients for a good time.

The rest of the episode is filling in the blanks. Hey, that's how Ashur injured his leg! That's why Crixus cut his hair! Gee, Barca really was only ever around for the gay sex scenes! And so forth. Plus, Gannicus and Vettius have their exits so they can return for the true second season of Spartacus, and that's that.

That's that for Gods of the Arena, too. It was a prequel series, so it was by nature limited in what it could accomplish. Being half as long as Blood and Sand didn't help it either, since the newer characters didn't get a chance to have strong arcs. But there was blood, nudity, cursing, and backstabbing. It didn't reach the delirious highs of Blood and Sand, but it didn't have the low points either. Even an average episode of Spartacus is nothing like anything else on television. I can live with that. Gratitude.

Top Chef All-Stars: week 11 power rankings

Top Chef clearly isn't afraid of letting good chefs go home if they cook a bum dish. First Angelo, now Dale. Either one of them could've won this competition. Honestly, after last week Dale looked like the odds-on favorite. And call me easily manipulated, but it's good to see Dale admit that he was a jerk in his first go-round as a cheftestant.

On a side note, anyone drooling due to the deep frying Quickfire should check out Wiener and Still Champion in Evanston, IL. It's a fried foods paradise.

1. Antonia
Poor Antonia keeps getting screwed over. She could've won an Elimination Challenge if her teammates hadn't flunked their dishes, and now she forgets to plate an additional portion for her Quickfire. Her resume should look much stronger. Otherwise she's cooking like a champ.

2. Richard
Richard and Fabio vacationing together? Comedy gold. Is this the season of bromances or what?

3. Mike
"Plagiarized" dish aside, Mike is cooking competently down the stretch. He's not hitting anything out of the park, but he's not letting the pressure get to him either, which is more than can be said of some of his competitors. Just making it this far is an accomplishment for him - I thought he'd be one of the first to go.

4. Carla
If Carla can stay focused and keep her head on straight, she makes the finale. Knowing Carla, of course, this is easier said than done.

5. Tiffany
Being saddled with Marcel as a sous chef is unfortunate. That said, she should've known to keep a tighter leash on him.

Spartacus: Gods of the Arena - "Reckoning"

Spartacus has never been afraid to shock and surprise the viewer by killing off major characters or by introducing stunning plot twists. "Reckoning," the next-to-last episode of the prequel series, does not disappoint. TItus? Dead. Melitta? Dead. Gannicus? On his way to Tullius' stable of gladiators. Crixus? The new big dog at the House of Batiatus.

So... where do we go from here?

Sure, there are a few loose ends to tie up. There's no way that Oenomaus doesn't find out about Melitta's mini-affair with Gannicus, or at least that she was visiting him at the time of her death. Tullius is still an asshole, and Lucretia is in the middle of framing him for the death of her father-in-law. Ashur isn't hobbling. But it's all small potatoes. With Titus out of the way, Batiatus can run the ludus the way he wants to. He doesn't have to leave Capua, and he can stay married to Lucretia. He's just lost Gannicus to his arch enemy, but given Crixus' rise, he probably won't lose much sleep over the deal. The penultimate episode of Blood and Sand built to a frenzied climax and carried major implications for the finale. When Spartacus said "There is but one path... we kill them all," it sure as hell made you want to tune in to the last episode. The foreplay was over and the climax was within tantalizing reach. "Reckoning," however, promises no such climax. Spartacus isn't a show based on strong character moments. A dramatic confrontation between Gannicus and Oenomaus regarding Melitta and the shattering of the friendship between Batiatus and Solonius aren't exactly the types of showdowns I'm looking forward to. Capua's new arena needs christening, so the finale probably won't be free of bone-shattering action, but it will be free of any personal investment.

While disappointing, "Reckoning" wasn't a total waste of an episode. John Hannah and Lucy Lawless are good actors playing good characters, and they're a genuine pleasure to watch. They're overly ambitious, untrustworthy, backstabbing serpents and thus perfect for each other. It's even oddly romantic that they're willing to destroy lives for each other. Aww. Nick Tarabay continues to be entertainingly callous as Ashur, and if Dagan busts his leg up before being sent to the mines, I'll be a happy camper. There's the rare Spartacus feat of thematic depth, as Lucretia learns for the first time - but certainly not the last - upon Melitta's accidental death that the best laid plans always go awry. It's even a little sad to see Lucretia's first reluctant dalliance with Crixus (seriously, Lucy Lawless is a good actress).

I don't ask for much with Spartacus. It doesn't take much skill to show some boobs and decapitations every episode. But solid plotting is hard to come by and Spartacus has excelled at it in ways other genre shows haven't. The series has one episode to redeem itself before a long hiatus. Let's hope it delivers.

Let's talk about June 17, 1994.

I don't remember watching the O.J. Simpson chase on television, nor do I remember where I was at the time. Most Millennials probably don't. Childhood memories from that era tend to blend together. I was nine years old at the time, not even a month removed from the Third Grade. To me, O.J. Simpson was that doofus I saw in the Naked Gun movies, not a Heisman Trophy winner or Pro Football Hall of Famer. Put another way, Justin Bieber was only three months old.

The chase itself, though, is an instantly identifiable image. I'd be willing to bet that a Ford Bronco ranks only below a Delorean as pop culture's most identifiable real-life automobile. The chase is shorthand for an era, an entire murder investigation, a media circus.

What's remarkable, however, is just how much else happened in the sports world that day, and that confluence of events provides the story, as it were, for June 17, 1994, one of ESPN's lauded "30 for 30" series of documentaries. On one coast, Arnold Palmer played his last round at the U.S. Open. New York City held a victory parade for the Stanley Cup champion New York Rangers that morning; that night the Knicks would host the Houston Rockets at Madison Square Garden for Game 5 of the NBA Finals. Moving west, the World Cup opened in Chicago and Ken Griffey Jr hit his MLB-leading 30th home run of the season at Kansas City. Finally, in California, the day-long ordeal in which O.J. Simpson, accused of two murders, failed to turn himself into the police and led them on a low speed chase that ended at his house. Truly, it's remarkable just how much can happen in one day.

Each of these events was captured live for posterity, and that news footage forms the entirety of June 17, 1994. There are no interviews, no talking heads, and no narration, making the film a rarity. It's not a cinéma vérité documentary like Salesman, a concert film like Stop Making Sense, or an experimental movie like Koyaanisqatsi. To my knowledge, only The Atomic Cafe compares. I don't know how many hours of footage director Brett Morgan had to sift through (obvious preference for ESPN footage likely simplified the ordeal) but if anything else, the film is a masterpiece of editing.

The format provides the film's few weaknesses; needless flourishes such as static interference and showy intertitles are added to spice things up, and the score is occasionally obtrusive. June 17, 1994 is otherwise flawless.

Theatrical docs from last year such as Catfish and Exit Through the Gift Shop played with the viewer's trust in reality, asking the audience to question what is real. June 17, 1994 reminds the viewer of what was real and has since been distorted. At the time of the chase, O.J. was still widely seen as innocent. Crowds swarmed overpasses and even the freeway itself to support him (one of the best moments in the film is when a shot of a cheering crowd turns out not to be footage of the Rangers' victory parade, but footage from Los Angeles - or was it the other way around?). Perhaps some of them simply wanted a chance to get a part of the action. How many of them knew that O.J. was being talked out of a suicide attempt at the time? The car chase was not just a media spectacle later parodied with Kramer on Seinfeld, a man's life was actually at stake. It's enough to pity the man. There is a genuine sense of remorse for what he did - or despair at the confusion he got swept up in through no fault of his own. To hear O.J.'s voice in the Bronco is to marvel that somehow he would later write If I Did It.

But then again, there's a lot we can't predict. Ken Griffey Jr wouldn't be able to break any hypothetical home run records; the MLB season ended prematurely due to the players' strike. The Knicks wouldn't win the NBA Finals, nor any in the years since.

It's a funny thing to see a time capsule of a year that you actually lived through. Keith Olbermann has a mustache! Robert was the most famous Kardashian! Of course, the more things change, the more they stay the same. The media remains vacuous and a slave to the 24-hour news cycle. The wisdom of crowds continues to not exist.

Iconography happens at the expense of context. We see an image and forget what happened in the preceding hours, weeks, even years. June 17, 1994 isn't just a dissection of an unusually eventful day, an examination of the low point of a former star athelete, nor a study of the media. It's a restoration of context. It's the best documentary of 2010.

Top Chef All-Stars: week 10 power rankings

Angelo, gone so soon? I thought they would've chucked Tiffany (one of the lesser of the remaining chefs) or Carla (honestly, she deserved it more), but Angelo? Admittedly, he peaked early, but he deserved to last a few episodes longer - certainly longer than his partner in bromance, Mike, who looked heartbroken that his new bestie would no longer be on the show. Ten bucks says he starts the next episode shedding some man tears.

1. Dale
Dale is back! He's taken three of the past four Quickfires, and won tonight's Elimination Challenge to boot. It's the first Quickfire/Elimination Challenge sweep since last season's penultimate episode. And he ramped up the douchiness this episode too, which is always a plus.
2. Antonia
Doing a hundred egg dishes takes guts. Antonia has them.
3. Richard
Demerits for making a Quickfire dish that was not a cookie under any current, historical, or future definition of the term. Credits for making a good dish in the Elimination Challenge that wasn't a soup. By the way, it's no coincidence that the strongest three chefs left were all in the Chicago edition of Top Chef.
4. Carla
Carla's dottiness means that when she falls, she falls big.
5. Mike
His performance tonight was identical to his performance all season: neither good enough to be up for a win nor bad enough to be up for elimination. Every remaining cheftestant has faced the judges at least twice as many times as he has.
6. Tiffany
Prolonging the inevitable.

Spartacus: Gods of the Arena - "Beneath the Mask"

Ancient Rome meets John Hughes in this week's Spartacus. Batiatus wants to hold a party at the ludus so he takes his father away for the night, and hijinks ensue! I'll grant that in your average teenage comedy there's a little fooling around in a closet instead of a massive orgy, and nobody's head gets bashed in at the end of the night. Otherwise, this was totally Weird Capuan Science.

Why not? High school, like Roman society, is a caste system. Batiatus wants to eat lunch with the popular kids, and he's trying to gain favor by turning the ludus into a Bunny Ranch. Unfortunately, now he's becoming more known for the sexual exploits of his slaves rather than their prowess in the arena. He's dead set on getting Gannicus into the primus of the upcoming games by any means necessary, though, so his hands are tied. Hosting an orgy is the next logical step.

In my mind, it's Batiatus' way of going big or going home. Word of his house's delights is spreading among Capua's elite quicker than he expected, so it makes sense to satiate everyone's hunger all at once instead of one by one.

But like any big illicit party in a high school comedy, there's always the one uninvited guest who ruins everything. In this case, it's Tullius. And not only that, he was invited by Solonius, for reasons I couldn't quite understand, but I'm assuming are a mix of Solonius miffed at playing babysitter at the party in Batiatus' place, trying to reverse the downward spiral of the ludus, and currying favor with Tullius. Like any good villain, Tullius is single-minded in his pursuits. He doesn't want to drink or screw, he just wants to bring the House of Batiatus down. If that means embarrassing Gannicus in an "exhibition" of fighting skills, that's great. If it means killing Gaia to send a message, even better (Jaime Murray exits the series too early, but bless her heart she got topless in all of her episodes).

Thus we get one of Sparatcus' beloved webs of hate. Tullius hates Batiatus and Lucretia, they hate him back, but Titus wants to ally himself with Tullius so now Batiatus and Lucretia are pissed at him too. In the last episode it seemed a foregone conclusion that Batiatus would commit patricide, now it looks like a footrace between him and Lucretia to see who will kill Titus first - if they don't gang up on him, of course. If there's one thing Spartacus excels at, it's capturing pent-up rage churning into vengeance in overblown fashion, and the final scene with Lucretia was very satisfying.

Elsewhere in the ludus: Gannicus can't hold back his feelings for Melitta, Crixus tries to make nice with Barca, Ashur is a prick, and Oenomaus is slowly learning to throw his weight around (and conversely, how to take orders from his superiors whether he likes them or not). The downstairs action isn't necessarily boring, especially when Ashur is involved, but the upstairs action is far more compelling. Batiatus, by Spartacus standards, is a fully fleshed-out character; we know why he's an arrogant bastard. Why makes Gannicus tick? So many of Gods of the Arena's storylines seem preordained; only his has the chance of surprising come the finale.

Top Chef All-Stars: week 9 power rankings

Poor Fabio. If his dish tasted the way the judges said it did, he was justified in being PYKAG'd, but his burger sure looked good.

1. Carla
Making a huge play to be in the finale. Her three Elimination Challenge victories are the most of any chef this season and she has been in a winning group for four straight weeks, another season high. Disregard her antics: Carla is not to be underestimated.
2. Angelo
Keeping steady, but his last Elimination Challenge win came way back in the second episode.
3. Richard
Coasting. Still a favorite to be in the finale but he's been settling for base hits lately and he needs that home run.
4. Antonia
Fabio thought she didn't deserve to win last week. She gets the last laugh.
5. Dale
It's a tale of two Dales: win the Quickfire, then be up for elimination. He looked invincible for a while but now he's in the bottom group for the second week in a row - a Top Chef first for him. Still capable of making the finale if he can recover his mojo.
6. Mike
Good showing tonight to make up for last week's poor dish, but he won't be around much longer.
7. Tiffany
If she'd been sent home, I wouldn't have batted an eye. As one of the diners said, she made tortilla soup.

Spartacus: Gods of the Arena: "Paterfamilias"

Quintus' tenure as lanista for the House of Batiatus is experiencing some growing pains.

The Assyrians haven't truly earned the mark of the brotherhood, so the rest of the gladiators don't accept them. Oenomaus isn't comfortable commanding the men who were so recently his equals, limiting his power as Doctore (he can't even crack the whip yet). Crixus is still green. And all of the devious back-door dealings are slowly unraveling.

In fact, it's hard to decide which of the developments in "Paterfamilias" is going to be a bigger thorn in everyone's side.

One is the return of Quintus' father, the titular "Paterfamilias." Titus Batiatus has credentials, he's bona-fide, and the first thing he does upon returning to Capua is walking in on his son cavorting with Lucretia and Gaia (Jaime Murray is now 3/3 for nude scenes!). He's a hard-assed, unforgiving father straight out of Lost and he isn't taking a shine to how Quintus is running things in his absence. He's so disappointed, in fact, that he immediately goes to smooth things over with Tullius and Vettius, removing Gannicus from the primus in the process. It's an act that gets Titus immediate heat - Batiatus is a slimeball, but Tullius and Vettius don't deserve apologies.

Maybe it's a good thing that Titus dragged Batiatus from the ludus for that meeting, because he misses the episode's other big development. Varus returns to the ludus, bringing his pal Cossutius with him. Cossutius heard of the show Gannicus and Melitta put on, and now he wants part of the action. Batiatus has yet to learn the slippery slope of lessening one's standards. Once you whore out two of your slaves, you've got to whore all of them out. It's up to Lucretia to play damage control, and that's how poor young Diona loses her virginity to an unwashed gladiator - and simultaneously loses another kind of virginity to Cossutius. If any of you had a DP scene on your Spartacus bingo card, mark it down!

Things don't turn out too badly for Batiatus in the end, though. Varus spares the life of one of his gladiators, thanks to his hospitality, and Crixus proves his worth in the arena. Even Titus can't help but show some approval for his son. But that doesn't mean that Batiatus won't inevitably kill him a few episodes down the road, as the ending intentionally foreshadows.

"Paterfamilias" wasn't a bad episode but it was more devoted to introducing and advancing storylines than deepening characters or doing awesome things for the sake of awesomeness (compared to the season premiere, the fights in the arena were pretty weak). We're halfway though the season and the endgame is still a tad ambiguous. The climax of Gods of the Arena can't be too earth-shattering, since we already know where most of these characters will be five years later. Gannicus is the presumed centerpiece of the prequel but we still know little about his character. The brilliance of Blood and Sand was how in its final third, it took upwards of eight episodes worth of plotting and brought everything together. Gods of the Arena only has six episodes to work with, period. The clock is ticking.

Top Chef All-Stars: week 8 power rankings

No major changes, just minor shuffling.

1. Richard
Now has the most Quickfire wins this season with three.
2. Angelo
Laughable performance at the Quickfire, but that challenge made everyone look silly.
3. Dale
The first time all season he's been up for elimination.
4. Carla
Just as in Season 5, she's finishing very strongly.
5. Antonia
Picks up the win, but she's been erratic lately.
6. Fabio
Also finishing very strongly. However, he - like the rest of my bottom three - hasn't won any Elimination Challenges.
7. Tiffany
Good rebound from last week, and salvaged what could've been a disaster this week.
8. Mike
Should've gone home instead of Tre.

Spartacus: Gods of the Arena: "Missio"

Has Spartacus done the unthinkable this week and gained - gasp - thematic depth?

Answer: maybe.

For the second consecutive week, Spartacus crosscuts a sex scene with a fight. This time it's Gannicus getting it on with Melitta while her husband fights Doctore. It's a situation that nobody wants to be in, although Oenomaus eventually grows into the title of Doctore and Gannicus and Melitta appear to eventually give in to some dormant sexual tension. That latter development is going to have some consequences very soon, though. Whatever metaphor the show might be constructing with sex as an act of violence is blunted by how pervasive both are. Do the writers have a larger purpose at work, or do they just realize that since fight scenes and screwing are part of the show's calling card it makes sense to give both to the viewer at once?

A more likely intentional recurring theme would be that of freedom, or more accurately the lack thereof. For slaves in Capua, it's either work in servitude, fight as a gladiator, or be sent to presumably die working in the mines. The gladiators can only aspire to be champions - as Gannicus says, it's the only time he feels free. Some freedom, but hey, it's the best he can do. No wonder Crixus is looking past becoming a mere gladiator and has his sights set on champion. However, even masters like Batiatus aren't totally free. "Missio" has one of those classic Batiatus plans in which he ultimately gets what he wants but not before several mishaps, detours, and a death or two. He's confined initially by the legacy of his father and grandfather. Rising in stature and making a name for himself requires becoming beholden to Varus, Vettius, and Tullius. And as seen in the first season, as his ambition grows he becomes more and more dependent on slaves and patricians alike. To be truly free is rare.

Then again, life isn't so bad for Batiatus since he gets to have a threesome with Lucy Lawless and Jaime Murray. Murray is 2-for-2 in episodes with nude scenes, a third of the way towards what I predict will be a perfect season.

Spartacus is still a wellspring of trashy delights - namely, the aforementioned threesome and sex/fight scene. But it's slowly doing more than just delivering lurid thrills on a meager budget. Batiatus' flashback/nightmare in the beginning of the episode showed unexpected panache for a show that is usually content to steal all of its style from 300. Manu Bennett, completely out of his element in the first season when attempting to show his love for Naevia, does much better playing a desperate underdog looking to prove his worth as a gladiator. Murray's character may be one-note, but she plays that note for all it's worth. The show's ambitions will always be outpaced by its excess, and its romantic subplots will probably continue to be laughable. But at least in this season, it's not missing the target entirely.

Brief thoughts on Dogtooth

Dogtooth (Kynodontas). 2009, Greece, directed by Giorgos Lanthimos. Nominated for Best Foreign Language film at the 2011 Academy Awards.

"This is one weird movie but I can't help wondering what - OH GOD NO WHAT THE HELL SERIOUSLY PLEASE DON'T DO THAT HOLY CHRIST NO AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH"

In conclusion, I give it a 7/10.

Spartacus: Gods of the Arena: "Past Transgressions"

Spartacus: Blood and Sand was the worst best show of 2010. Its conceit was wholly unoriginal (300 + Gladiator + Caligula). There was little character development to speak of, and that which did happen was laughable. Per the budget of a third-tier premium cable network, it was obviously shot on the cheap. But like a nightclub frequented by SNL's Stefon, this show had everything: penis candles, decapitations, abundant nudity, grudge sex, crucifixions, and statutory rape. That's just skimming the surface, incidentally. Although the show was purely plot-driven, it weaved storylines together brilliantly. The trump card was John Hannah's performance as Batiatus, the scheming, social climbing head of the ludus (gladiator school) who chewed scenery and spit out overwrought profanity with aplomb (the supporting cast as a whole was quite excellent, actually).

Spartacus was also a minor surprise hit, with the finale attracting nearly double the viewers of the premiere. Although most critics shrugged the series off after its admittedly choppy first episodes, those who stuck with it were generally enthusiastic. Unfortunately, Spartacus himself, Andy Whitfield, developed a lingering case of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Not wanting to lose the show's momentum, Starz decided to produce a six-episode prequel series documenting Batiatus' rise and fleshing out the backstories of the other supporting characters.

The networked hoped that Whitfield could recover from cancer with enough time to film the follow-up to Blood and Sand this year. Sadly, the cancer returned. With Whitfield's blessing, Starz recast the role. While I wish no ill will towards Whitfield, he was the weak link in the cast and his absence is probably to Spartacus' benefit. The characters in Gods of the Arena are far more interesting; the actors more talented.

Enough backstory. On with the review.

Casting spoilers to the wind, "Past Transgressions" opens with a montage of events that happened in Blood and Sand, most of which occurred in the final episode, and chiefly among them Batiatus' death (the montage is also notable as perhaps one of the few "previouslies" that is actually a "consequently"). Those who tuned into GotA with no prior knowledge of the series may be dismayed to learn a character's fate so quickly, but the reveal makes sense. Rest assured, he gets what he deserves. For veterans of the show, the following ten minutes pack in everything they loved about the first season: nonstop profanity, lurid violence, full frontal nudity, and scandalous depictions of everyday Roman life.

From there, the show goes about its considerable place-setting, introducing the multiple plotlines that will encompass GotA if not the series at large. Capua is a city on the rise, and Batiatus seeks to step out of his father's shadow and make a name for himself within it (he's also good friends with future rival Suetonius, who once again sports the douchiest hairstyle in all of the Roman Republic). Batiatus' prized gladiator is a hotshot named Gannicus, Crixus is a newly-purchased trainee, Ahsur walks without a limp, and Oenomaus has not yet assumed the mantle of Doctore. Meanwhile, one of Lucretia's typically slutty friends is back in town, fresh off a dead husband, and will be staying at the ludus for a while.

Seeing the familiar faces in unfamiliar positions is interesting enough, but it's the new blood that provides the most intrigue. The primary antagonists, Capuan bigwig Tullius and rival lanista Vettius, aren't around for Blood and Sand, and it would surprise nobody if both died due to Batiatus' machinations (Batiatus' infirm father is referred to but not seen, and it would be a bigger surprise if Batiatus doesn't eventually kill him). The biggest name in the new cast is Jaime Murray as Lucretia's friend Gaia. Murray was Lila in the second season of Dexter, and she's a perfect fit in Spartacus given her character's penchant for toplessness. Gaia will be appreciated the most by people who liked Paz de la Huerta in Boardwalk Empire but thought she didn't get naked enough, and it's a wonder that she nearly stays clothed throughout the entire episode.

The most notable new character is Dustin Clare's Gannicus, the "star" of Batiatus' ludus and given his placement in the show's marketing, not to mention how he looks shirtless compared to John Hannah, the star of the show. He's a hotshot gladiator who one-ups Crixus and Spartacus at their cockiest. He spends most of the premiere fighting, drinking, and screwing, so we don't have a good feel of what makes him tick yet. But a scene between him and Oenomaus is cleverly ambiguous - is he reckless, or genuinely suicidal? Either quality is, in some respects, necessary to be a gladiator. His fate is similarly up in the air. Perhaps Crixus' rises to prominence while he falls from favor, or perhaps he moves on to the "big leagues" in Rome, if such an achievement would realistically happen back then. I'll say this, though: don't Google him if you don't want a hint of his fate.

"Past Transgressions" is predictably heavy on exposition. It's not an unsatisfying episode but one wishes that there weren't so many pieces to put into position. Then again, the same could be said for the first episode of any season of The Wire. The bone-crushing violence still delivers, especially in the climactic marketplace brawl. The soap opera plotting hasn't skipped a beat. But best of all, it's good to see John Hannah back. Just hearing him curse brings a smile to my face. Even if Gods of the Arena can't match Blood and Sand's highs, the show will still have the best Villain You Love to Hate currently on television.

Top Chef All-Stars: week 7 power rankings

The post-Restaurant Wars breakdown is pretty easy this week.

1. Dale
2. Richard
3. Angelo
4. Carla
5. Fabio
6. Antonia
7. Tre
8. Mike
9. Tiffany

The top three are the top three. Duh.

Antonia has been on the losing team for three straight weeks. Last week almost shouldn't count, since the judges admitted she had one of the best dishes. But this is the second week in three where her team collapsed around her and she did nothing about it. To be fair, in the Chinatown episode everyone collapsed around her, but she still has a habit of observing chaos and staying outside of it. Tiffany cooked a bad dish and laid it on too thick as front of house. Mike did a good job at the Quickfire but couldn't handle working alongside Marcel (can't blame him, but still). Tre isn't in the bottom third because he's a bad chef, it's just that everyone else is better.

Top Chef All-Stars: week 6 power rankings

Feeling so fly like it's week six.

1. Angelo
2. Dale
3. Antonia
4. Richard
5. Carla
6. Marcel
7. Mike
8. Fabio
9. Tiffany
10. Tre

Our long national Jamie nightmare is finally over, but Tiffani? And I was just starting to get a crush on her. Mike finally gets chosen to be seen at Judge's Table, and Fabio is still wildly inconsistent. Antonia inches up for a very strong showing in a weak group. Richard inches down for a poor performance. You could tell from his body language that he was really pissed about how his team did. Tiffany and Tre aren't bad chefs - in fact, they placed high in tonight's show. But there aren't any noticeably weak links left. You could easily flip them with Mike and Fabio, but Mike does a great job of coasting under the radar and Fabio can follow up a crap performance with a brilliant one.

Let's talk about Black Belt Jones

I've had Winter's Bone languishing in my apartment now for about two weeks. It arrived in the mail while I was visiting my parents for Christmas, and then I was extraordinarily busy at work for the weeks following that. So this weekend has been the first time in a while where I've been able to set a few hours aside for a dvd. But it's been a long week. A long week. I've just torn through a big dinner and downed a few Rolling Rocks while flipping between college football and pro wrestling. It's not the kind of night for a grim, critically acclaimed drama.

But it is a night to watch Black Belt Jones.

The title character is played by Jim Kelly, aka the black guy from Enter the Dragon (the two films share producers and the director). Jones has some nebulous involvement with law enforcement or maybe the FBI, who knows, and in his spare time he teaches white women how to jump on a trampoline by the beach. His superiors want him to go after some mafiosos because they have some photos that are important for some reason. Jones isn't interested until he learns that the mob is looking to muscle an old friend (Scatman Crothers!) out of the karate studio he owns so they can buy the land and then flip it to the city government for a planned civic center. But the black hoodlums who are sent to rough up the old man accidentally kill him, incurring both the wrath of Black Belt Jones and the man's daughter, Sydney (Gloria Hendry). Sydney is coincidentally a martial arts expert herself and a badass chick besides (as she awesomely intones to some lecherous gangsters, "I ain't your momma"). Now it's time, as the film's poster states, to clobber the mob.

Before Black Belt Jones, the only true blaxploitation film I'd seen was Blacula. If, like me, you thought that Black Dynamite was intentionally over-the-top, Black Belt Jones makes it look like a documentary. There's a funky soundtrack, afros galore, outrageous leisure suits, stereotyping, misogyny, bad dialogue, and worse editing. It's hard enough to not shout quotes at the screen ("But Black Dynamite, I sell drugs to the community!"). And even though Black Belt Jones isn't a parody, it's hardly playing the material straight. As the only actor in the cast with a combination of athleticism, presence, and talent, Kelly remains unflappable. Everyone else mugs it up.

That "anything goes" style is part of the movie's charm. I've largely seen the genre through retrospective eyes. The Last Dragon was too self-conscious and tried too hard to be something for everybody - comedy, kung fu movie, musical. Black Belt Jones, which I'm assuming was cranked out fast and cheap, just shrugs its shoulders and plays to the rafters. Its lack of aspirations is its greatest strength. The action scenes aren't earth-shattering but they are competent, which is really all that matters. It's Kelly's movie and he ably carries it.

I'll have to mine Netflix for more blaxploitation. As a white guy, I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to defend it (Black Belt Jones is largely inoffensive) but in this case it's a lot of fun.

Don't believe me? Check the trailer:

Top Chef All-Stars: week 5 power rankings

Had a break in the action thanks to the holidays. Back on board for week 5.

1. Angelo
2. Dale
3. Richard
4. Marcel
5. Antonia
6. Fabio
7. Carla
8. Tiffani
9. Mike
10. Tiffany
11. Tre
12. Jamie

Sure, Jamie has deserved to go home for a while now but Casey hasn't exactly been Grant Achatz this season. Mike got a big Quickfire win tonight but his season has been the definition of mediocre. Solid top three. After that, it's muddled. It doesn't help that some chefs are all over the place - for instance, Fabio, who has been in the top or bottom group in every single Elimination Challenge thus far.

Pop culture resolutions for 2011

Not the boring personal New Year's Resolutions. The fun kind. So, as inspired by The A.V. Club, my resolutions for 2011.

Read more. Right now I do virtually all of my reading on public transportation, which is fine since I spend a lot of time on the train or the bus, but reading shouldn't be something I do just because I'm not in the same room as a tv or a computer. I'm also looking to read more books by female authors, since everything I read in the second half of 2010 was written by dudes. I could stand to add a few minority authors to my "to-read" list, too. On a related note, I'd also like to...

Take advantage of the library. The neighborhood branch of the Chicago Public Library is small and unimpressive, but I can get books (or other media) from other branches sent there. Evanston also has a great library with a huge periodicals section, if I ever feel like killing an hour flipping through magazines like I did in college (I was a really cool guy in college). The Chicago library system has a fairly good selection of graphic novels from what I've seen online, and I'd like to take advantage of that because reading them doesn't come cheap. Part of the reason it's taken me over a year to slog through Preacher is that I don't cotton to paying $18 for something I can finish during a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Take better advantage of Netflix Watch Instantly: The advantage to renting movies from Netflix is that in order to get your money's worth, you need to watch rentals right away and get a good turnaround on your next one. Netflix has a treasure trove of documentaries, independent/foreign movies, and tv shows available through streaming, but since they're always there there's rarely an impetus to watch them. A long, cold winter could be just the reason I need to finally watch Sherman's March and Big Man Japan.

Watch more television. Remember when I was talking about Netflix Watch Instantly? I've had Friday Night Lights languishing on my streaming queue for a year now. If I'm not vigilant, Veronica Mars and Battlestar Galactica could suffer the same fate. I've been putting off the second season of Sons of Anarchy for a few months, I've only seen four episodes of Community, and I've still never watched a minute of Breaking Bad.