Since I’ve been laid up with the crud the last couple days, I started watching HGTV again during my waking hours.  I hadn’t watched the channel in quite a long time (somewhere between 5-10 years, I’d guess).  It’s interesting how the shows have changed in the past few years.  Nearly every show is about selling your home.  (I’m talking daytime here.)

Used to be Designed to Sell was the only show that prepped homes for the market.  It’s still there, but there’s also Get It Sold, The Unsellables, and a whole bunch of property and real estate shows.

Another difference:  in the olden days, every house featured on Designed to Sell sold quickly after the open house, usually for more than the asking price.  Now, every show ends with the seller saying “I’m confident I’ll have an offer in a couple weeks.”  I suppose it doesn’t help that every house featured is listed for at least $850,000.

If you’re not in the market to sell your house, there’s still the standard home decorating/renovation shows. There’s Divine Design, if money is no object.  Or something more up my alley, Design on a Dime.

After my So You Can Think diatribe yesterday, the judges actually judged last night’s performances.  Well, most of the performances.  I credit Adam Shankman.  Once he critiqued, the others felt they needed to, too.   And for the most part, the judging was right—i.e., they agreed with me.  (You know I’m kidding here, right?)

However, I do smell shenanigans.  Billy, one of the front-running dancers dropped out due to a serious, but undisclosed illness.  So they brought in a replacement, Brandon, less than 2 days before performance.  And did they give him a break like they gave Phillip the popper last year?  Shit no!  (As you may recall, Phillip performed a horrible tango, but Nigel told America to take it easy on him.)  Last night, the judges evaluated Brandon against all the dancers who’d had an entire week to prepare.  Poor Brandon (a hip hopper doing a waltz, for Pete’s sake!).  They ripped him apart and immediately booted him off the show.

Then, one of the gals, Noelle, tore up her knee and couldn’t perform.  Even though her entire leg was in a cast, the producers gave her a bye this week. So she gets to stay on the show for another week, even though she did nothing to deserve it.  Instead, another gal, Ariana is out.  Well, unless Noelle can’t perform next week, in which case Arianna will be back.

Sometimes this show makes my head hurt.  See why I say I hate to love it?

Oh yeah!  And they never did tell us how the contestants are paired up.  *pouts*

With the airing of the last night’s special “Meet the Top 20,” I was reminded what I hate about So You Think You Can Dance:  Everything except the dancing.  And Cat.  And Adam Shankman.

Nigel Lythgoe spends all his time congratulating himself and fawning over the choreographers (and thus himself for bringing the choreographers on board).  What makes the choreography good is the dancing.  Would Nigel congratulate the choreographers if the dancing was shit?  Oh wait, we had one of those last year with the horrendous Russian Folkdance.  He did blame the choreography rather than the dancers (even though the male was the weakest dancer there).  But, to be fair, Nigel also blamed himself for trying to bring something so unusual to the show.  (Sort of like how he explained why they won’t be pulling tap dance out of the [literal] hat this, or any other , year.)

As for Mary Murphy?  Oh please, she’s just become a caricature of herself.

The thing is, these people could provide real praise and critique to the dancers, but they seldom do.  It’s usually just a bunch of fawning and screaming.

I should put Adam Shankman in the same category, since he often reacts emotionally to the dance rather than critique it.  But he gets a pass because he’s so adorable.  I’m hoping his constant presence on the show doesn’t jade me towards him.

It should have been called “Around the World in One Day” since it was, once again, another 1-day challenge.

My “auf-prediction” record remains an untarnished .000!

Not that I’m complaining.  I’m glad Gordana is still in the game.  But the girl cannot get a break.  Heidi browbeats her mercilessly week after week.  Then when guest judge Milla Jonovich (who was great, by the way) tells her she needs to be more confident of her work, Heidi chastises Gordana for it. Jeez!

I admit, I am a fashion moron when it comes to this show.  One week “being wearable” is a detriment.  Next week, the design should be more predictable.  For example, I understood Christopher’s soft blue and sand tones being inspired by Santa Fe (although Milla’s suggestion of using Georgia O’Keefe’s bright, bold colors was awesome).  I also thought the chiffon fabrics he chose were a nice unexpected touch.

Nicolas's Greece-inspired pants

The horizontal pleats on Nicolas’s pants reminded me of Greek columns, and his top of the white hillside houses.  But apparently the challenge was to create something you could wear in your chosen place, not actually be inspired by it to design something unique.

As much as I don’t care for her bitchiness, Irina impressed me last night.  Not just with her Aspen-inspired design, but also to challenge herself with each design.  Of course, she had to caveat it by belittling the other designers as just trying to get by.

And something sort of unrelated:  Does anybody know where I can find screencaps of Project Runway?  I know some blogs post lots of them, but I’m looking for specific caps of the judges.

With the selection of “Your Top 20″ (which is not really our top 20, but rather that of the judges), So You Think You Can Dance finally becomes interesting.  Actually I enjoy the two Las Vegas episodes, but spending 1 hour going through naming the top 20 is a huge annoying bore.  But this is a show I hate to love.  There’s a lot that’s wrong with it, and last season I swore I wouldn’t agonize over watch it again.  But here I am, mildly excited to watch the special episode next Monday.  From the sounds of it, it looks like we might get to see how the judges pair up the dancers.  Cool!

My other “must see” reality show, as I’ve mentioned before, is Project Runway.  (And, I confess, my guilty pleasure is its sister show, Models of the Runway.  But more on that some other time.)  It has been kind of a lackluster season for Project Runway.  Last week the designers were supposed to dress Christina Aguilera ala Bob Mackie.  And only 2 colors came down the runway:  Black.  And white.  For shame!

Tonight’s another challenge.  The previews are always frustrating, because they give you only enough to whet your appetite without giving away anything substantial.  Heck, they never even let you know what the challenge is going to be!  How can I make my predictions on who will be “aufed” when I don’t even know what the designers will be making?  So far, my predictions have been wrong every single week.  But I’ll still go out on a limb and say it will be Gordana—mainly because Heidi seems to have it in for her.

There actually is  a blog that predicts who will win and who will be out every week.  Their means aren’t any more scientific than mine, but they put much more effort into making their decisions, so they’re sometimes right.  This week they predict Logan will be aufed.  I’d be down with that decision.  I thought he should have been gone a few weeks ago.

Last night, I went to the National Museum of the American Indian for “Dinner and a Movie.”   The event included dinner (after regular museum hours) in the museum’s “Zagat rated” cafe and a screening of La Mission, an independent film starring Benjamin Bratt, written and directed by his brother, Peter Bratt.  The Bratts collaborated one other time, about 12 years ago, with a film called Follow Me Home.  That film was never released to the general public and shown only in limited, pre-coordinated venues (sort of like the NMAI screening last night).  Following the film, both Peter and Benjamin discussed the film.  I took some video of the discussion on my new Flip (we sat very close to the front) but need to edit it (and perhaps get a release from the Bratts).  I also got one quick candid picture following the discussion that turned out better than I’d ever hoped.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have the SD card in my camera, and I don’t know where the camera’s USB cable is.  D’oh!

Because I’m exceptionally tired today (didn’t get home until about 11:30 last night—very late for an old fart such as myself), I’ll only discuss the superficial things today.

The viewing was less than optimal.  The museum folks weren’t able to correct the framing of the film, so heads were chopped of in some scenes.  And the soundtrack was a bit too loud, but that might be because we were sitting so close.

Speaking of the soundtrack, it was terrific.  But then, I kind of expected it.  The soundtrack for Follow Me Home, which included only original, indigenous music, is awesome.  This soundtrack included a few favorite classic soul and Latino hits (including one of my absolute favorites, Marvin Gaye’s “Gotta Give It Up”), but even the original music was great.   Someone even asked about a CD, and Peter said it would probably be released with the movie.

Which means the movie is going to be released and shown in theaters!  Yay!  But, being an independent film, it will have very limited distribution, and doesn’t have a large budget for publicity, so they’re relying on word of mouth.  The words from my mouth?  “Go see it!” And I don’t say that just because Benjamin Bratt is the star.  It’s a colorful, often humorous, moving film with great performances.  (And truthfully, I would not necessarily have recommended Follow Me Home, which was amateurish [even Peter admitted that last night] and very negative of all Caucasians.)

Moving on to the truly superficial:  Benjamin’s wife, the uber-gorgeous Talisa Soto (credited as Talisa Soto Bratt) was also in the film, as was Latino favorite Jesse Borrego, and my favorite team member from The Cleaner (who sadly wasn’t in season 2—maybe that’s why it was canceled), Kevin Michael Richardson.  Jesse Borrego played a close friend of Benjamin’s character.  Jesse looked amazingly like Peter Bratt (which is not a a bad thing), and Talisa Soto played his wife.  Freudians may now speculate. 

Several vintage Chevrolets had supporting roles as beautifully restored low riders.  As a Supernatural fan, and someone who was weaned on mid-60s Impalas, this is highly important to me.  One of the key Impalas was a 1964 SS.  In one scene, a torn Che Rivera (Benjamin Bratt), beats the crap out of the hood, just as a torn Dean Winchester beat the crap out of his beloved 1967 Impala’s trunk in “Everybody Loves a Clown.”  One of my fellow baby boomers asked, caveating that maybe he didn’t want to know, if the Impala really had been beaten.  Interestingly, the Impala is Benjamin’s own car.  In fact, some of the scenes of the car’s restoration were real, but a fake hood was used for the beating.

The low riders actually had their own credits.  I didn’t catch the entire credit, but the ‘64 was credited to (something I didn’t catch, but now think may have been “Benjamin”) “and Mateo Bratt.”  Aw.  Mateo is Ben and Talisa’s son, who must now be around 4 or 5 years old.  Truly a family affair, and a labor of love.

Those of you who are Supernatural fans will get the title.  Those of you who don’t, that’s ok.

My television addictions just keep coming and coming.  First it was just Supernatural.  Then last year I got into Legend of the Seeker.  And while I wouldn’t put True Blood in the addiction category (it’s not “must see tv” for me), I have been watching and recounting the second season (somewhat haphazardly) at Sci Fi Chick/s.  Then, this year, I started enjoying Warehouse 13.  It was ok for the first few episodes, but then came a string of really great episodes. And the season ender was nothing short of terrific.  So, I’ve got that addiction going now.  (And while this season was only 12 episodes, I hear they’re going for 22 next year.  I think.  Don’t quote me on that.)

But now I’ve branched out into the non-scifi realm with Project Runway and Mad Men.  I’d watched season 3 of Project Runway but stopped because it just didn’t seem fair that an asshole (especially one who already had a design business) should win the whole competition.  But for some unknown reason, I decided to watch this season.  This year’s contestants don’t seem to be all that controversial (which some say makes the show boring), but it looks like some fireworks and backstabbing may be on the way.

I’d heard so much about Mad Men, and having grown up in the 60s, decided I ought to check it out.  I started at the beginning of season 3, so there’s a lot of background I’m missing.  I just finished watching the first 3 episodes from season 1, and it’s amazing how different the characters appear to be.  Of course, with such an awesome episode last week (“Guy Walks into an Advertising Agency”) I’m anxiously awaiting tonight’s.

There are still a couple episodes of The Cleaner I haven’t watched yet.  I don’t know why I’m not enthusiastic to watch them.  The last few episodes I have seen have been pretty good.  I guess it’s that William Banks isn’t always an easy character to love; and the family stuff, even less so.

I did catch the premiere of FlashForward (which I thought was “Fast Forward,” d’oh!) and enjoyed it.  I’ll be writing about it at Sci Fi Chick/s.  See you there.

Dammit!  Summer is over and I’m not ready for fall.  I used to love fall, it was my favorite season.  Even when I was in school.  I guess I always felt like starting a new school year was a new beginning.  And I loved fall clothes.  But now it simply means I have to return to wearing nyons and close-toed shoes to work again.  Blech.

And, I need to work on putting a fall banner at the top.

I thought about posting this at Sci Fi Chick/s, but since it’s a rather personal view, I decided to put it here.

Creation Entertainment’s “Salute to Supernatural,” Vancouver edition is over.  I tried following some of the tweets, but as I am officially Twitter-challenged, I found it rather annoying.  When I searched for #vancon, I came back with 100s of tweets about Jared Padalecki’s flatulence. Ack! Lesson learned.

While not made of epic!fail, it sounds like there was a bit of mini!fail on the last day.  Sadly, there will always be questionable fan behavior for other fans to bitch about.  That seems to be an innate part of the Supernatural fandom.

But falling behind schedule and canceling one of the headliner’s sessions is abominable!   All Most people go to these Supernatural conventions to see Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki.  And not all can (or are willing to) spend additional money to have their pictures taken with the stars or get their autographs.  Creation has been running these events for years.  They should know by now how to manage time and ticket sales.   But nooo! Apparently it is more important to oversell the money-makers than to provide the basic services.

I’m pretty cynical about conventions, especially Creation’s.   While I may think buying one minute of a star’s time for over $100 is a bit much, I understand it.  It’s part of the up-front package.  But what about those added “special” events that are auctioned off?  Bidding gets into the thousands of dollars.  And where does that money go?   For the All Hell Breaks Loose convention in Australia earlier this year, the money raised from auctioning the signed tee-shirts went to charity.   For Creation, my guess is some of it goes to the star and the rest lines the pockets of a very greedy organization.

What else would you expect from an organization that charges a $7.25 shipping and handling fee for each ticket purchased, which is then sent by e-mail?  What the fuck?

I’m really torn about conventions.   As much as I’d like to experience one, I don’t do well with crowds.  Not to mention I’m way too shy to do photo and autograph sessions, and too insecure (previous bad experience) to interact with other fans.  Guess I’ll just remain behind the faceless internet.

[Gak!  I wrote this a few weeks ago and never posted it.  I've actually gotten caught up with my Cleaner watching (see how much better that reads than "my The Cleaner watching"?), but had watched only "Split Ends" and "The Things We Didn't Plan" when I wrote this. ]

If “Split Ends” and “The Things We Didn’t Plan” are any indication of what’s to come, I’m there.  Well, I’m there with the remote in case I have to fast-forward through the family crap scenes.

I watched “Split Ends” last week, so it’s a bit dusty in my mind.  It took me a couple tries to finish the episode, but when I did, I liked it.  The family of broken women recovering together was… I’m struggling for a word here.  “Sweet” doesn’t work, nor does “nice.”  I guess “comforting” comes the closest to describing how I felt.

The episode gave us a  glimpse into the enigma that is William Banks.  At one point he tells Amber “You’re “beautiful,” because that’s what she needs to hear.  But he’s unable to forgive his friend Greg, even though recovery is supposed to be about forgiveness.  If we can have more views into William’s psyche, minus the family, I’m all for it.

“The Things We Didn’t Plan” was nearly perfect.  (And not just because there was no Melissa or kids.)  I  loved how the camera work at the beginning emphasized the episode’s key people in saturated color against a black and white background.  And I liked that William spoke of his team with pride in his voice.  Most of the time, William’s interaction with Akani and Arnie is to chastise them for screwing up, or getting too personal, or whatever. It was pleasant to see them all working together.

I’m not sure if this episode indicates a turn in the tone of the show, with producers realizing the family isn’t working and knowing they’ve missed a gold mine in glossing over Arnie and Akani.  Not to mention taking advantage of Benjamin Bratt’s appeal.  Maybe they took my comments about why season 2 hasn’t been working to heart.  Except that 1) I know they’re not scouring the internet to see what I have to say, and 2) the episode was filmed long before I voiced my disappointment.

I felt William was treated as “single” in this episode.  He didn’t mention his family, and even seemed to do a little flirting with Evan, the diner’s owner.  I thought they had a lovely chemistry and would enjoy seeing her again.  (Although the surprise of the wheel chair was a little hokey.  I mean, it was next to her seat.  William, the great observer, didn’t notice it??)

I loved the Arnie/Akani interaction.  I never want to see them hook up as a couple, but their sibling-like sparing is entertaining.  Akani trying to convince Sunshine, the homeless woman, she can take care of her dog because she has experience taking care of animals—she takes care of Arnie.  Of course, Sunshine wasn’t convinced Akani was doing such a good job with Arnie as she retorted “That scrawny thing?”  But underneath all the teasing, Arnie and Akani do care about each other.

I think perhaps we got a hint into Akani’s background.  When Sunshine’s daughter refused to take care of the dog, wanting nothing to do with her mother, it seemed to hit Akani particularly hard.  I got the feeling it’s something more personal for Akani than just trying to take care of a “client.”

In an episode full of good performances, Jamie McShane really stood out as Leonard, the cocaine-addicted detective.  Having the shakes as he was going through detox (the “for real” detox, not the “just pass the drug test” detox) was an inspired addition.  Even if it wasn’t the actor’s choice, he did it brilliantly.  Of all the stories, his was the most tragic, and his actions the most courageous.

I sometimes complain that the series goes for the rosy ending 99% of the time (3 separate cases, 3 positive outcomes?  Really?).   Even in the case of Evan and Leonard where the outcome isn’t pleasant, only the positive is emphasized.  Then again, maybe it’s not such a bad thing to see the good in a bad situation.