If you have a library card for the San Francisco Public Library, it turns out that you also have online access to the Oxford English Dictionary, Rosetta Stone (Online language learning), among other incredible online resources.
The best part of all: all residents of California are eligible for SFPL cards. The only downside is that you actually have to show up in person.
10.17.2007
10.14.2007
And Then It Clicked
So I'm sitting there watching The Next Iron Chef (TNIC), and it suddenly occurs to me why I dislike this format.
Let's back up. The original Iron Chef (OIC) program, in Japan, certainly had its own roster replacements, which is how Iron Chef America's (ICA) Masaharu Morimoto got his start on the show. When OIC needed new Iron Chefs, however, they went about it through the Old Boy network: the producers either asked chefs they knew (this is how Sakai became IC French) or they asked the retiring chefs to make recommendations (this is how Koumei Nakamura became IC Japan). There was no competition for the role, and if there had been, it wouldn't have been show on TV. This was strictly professionals at work; even getting invited as a Challenger meant that you'd already been vetted by the profession at large.
Of course, we Americans loathe the OB network (unless we went to Harvard, and then we don't understand why everyone distrusts the Skull & Bones Society or the Bohemian Grove), and we love competitions. Even if we find Survivor and American Idol distasteful on an aesthetic, moral, and ethical level, hey, we still understand the drive to crown winners. And so, at its root, we dig competitive shows in fields we like, like food.
At the bottom of the food chain we have Fox's Hell's Kitchen, where the crass and talentless battle for the grudging respect of abusive father-figure Gordon Ramsay. A huge step of dignity above that we have Food Network's Next Food Network Star, where people who actually know how to cook get to compete for a spot in Prime Time (while wondering how the hell plastic Stepford Wives like Sandra Lee and Ingrid Hoffman somehow managed to avoid any screening process whatsoever). A giant leap of talent above that we find Bravo's Top Chef, where some really talented people (who seem to have somehow weaseled enough time off from their top jobs to jet off to wherever the show is being filmed for, what, six weeks?) compete for prestige and money. And then supposedly at around the same level (though theoretically a touch higher), we have The Next Iron Chef, where (again, in theory) America's top chefs compete to show that they have what it takes to be the next Iron Chef America.
And here's the thing: they're all graded the same. In each show, there's usually some sort of challenge, some kind of prize (or immunity from elimination), and then another challenge, following which a panel of judges (or Ramsay, in the first show) lauds some of the competitors and lambastes the others. And inevitably, during the dress-down, somebody says, "We think we could be seeing more out of you."
Are you kidding me? Are you freaking kidding me? In Hell's Kitchen, this makes sense but if you, the producers, have already gathered a crack team of professionals to compete with each other for the creme de la creme spot, why the hell are your judges criticizing them like they're teenagers on pep squad? If I were a chef on such a show (and I know that I am not), I'd be tempted to tell them to shove my potential where the sun don't shine.
You know whom the judges on TNIC could take a page from? The actual judges on ICA. I don't always agree with them, but at least their comments are (usually) on target for the show: the flavor didn't come out, this didn't work, it was too salty, or my god, what made you think this would work as ice cream?
And this, I understand, is why I am not the target demographic.
Let's back up. The original Iron Chef (OIC) program, in Japan, certainly had its own roster replacements, which is how Iron Chef America's (ICA) Masaharu Morimoto got his start on the show. When OIC needed new Iron Chefs, however, they went about it through the Old Boy network: the producers either asked chefs they knew (this is how Sakai became IC French) or they asked the retiring chefs to make recommendations (this is how Koumei Nakamura became IC Japan). There was no competition for the role, and if there had been, it wouldn't have been show on TV. This was strictly professionals at work; even getting invited as a Challenger meant that you'd already been vetted by the profession at large.
Of course, we Americans loathe the OB network (unless we went to Harvard, and then we don't understand why everyone distrusts the Skull & Bones Society or the Bohemian Grove), and we love competitions. Even if we find Survivor and American Idol distasteful on an aesthetic, moral, and ethical level, hey, we still understand the drive to crown winners. And so, at its root, we dig competitive shows in fields we like, like food.
At the bottom of the food chain we have Fox's Hell's Kitchen, where the crass and talentless battle for the grudging respect of abusive father-figure Gordon Ramsay. A huge step of dignity above that we have Food Network's Next Food Network Star, where people who actually know how to cook get to compete for a spot in Prime Time (while wondering how the hell plastic Stepford Wives like Sandra Lee and Ingrid Hoffman somehow managed to avoid any screening process whatsoever). A giant leap of talent above that we find Bravo's Top Chef, where some really talented people (who seem to have somehow weaseled enough time off from their top jobs to jet off to wherever the show is being filmed for, what, six weeks?) compete for prestige and money. And then supposedly at around the same level (though theoretically a touch higher), we have The Next Iron Chef, where (again, in theory) America's top chefs compete to show that they have what it takes to be the next Iron Chef America.
And here's the thing: they're all graded the same. In each show, there's usually some sort of challenge, some kind of prize (or immunity from elimination), and then another challenge, following which a panel of judges (or Ramsay, in the first show) lauds some of the competitors and lambastes the others. And inevitably, during the dress-down, somebody says, "We think we could be seeing more out of you."
Are you kidding me? Are you freaking kidding me? In Hell's Kitchen, this makes sense but if you, the producers, have already gathered a crack team of professionals to compete with each other for the creme de la creme spot, why the hell are your judges criticizing them like they're teenagers on pep squad? If I were a chef on such a show (and I know that I am not), I'd be tempted to tell them to shove my potential where the sun don't shine.
You know whom the judges on TNIC could take a page from? The actual judges on ICA. I don't always agree with them, but at least their comments are (usually) on target for the show: the flavor didn't come out, this didn't work, it was too salty, or my god, what made you think this would work as ice cream?
And this, I understand, is why I am not the target demographic.
Short Review: Black Sheep (No Spoilers)
You can count on one hand the kinds of horror movies worth watching. There are horror movies that are genuinely scary (John Carpenter's The Thing), horror movies that are so unintentionally bad that they're great (Resident Evil), and horror movies that set out from the beginning to be bad and succeed in thoughtful, intelligent ways (Feast, Shaun of the Dead, Planet Terror). New Zealand, by way of that schlock auteur Peter Jackson, has a mighty reputation for producing oodles of the third kind, so it takes a certain kind of chutzpah, nay, testicular fortitude of ram-like proportions to attempt to take up the challenge of continuing the hirsute master's tradition.
Black Sheep does not disappoint.
The only caveat I extend here is that there is a lot of gore in this film. A lot of gore. More explicit gore than a half-hour of The Inconvenient Truth. Gore on top of gore and then some. Did I mention the gore? Can't see how I couldn't. Oh, yes, and gore.
That said, and now that you know not to eat a nice veal parmesan on a bed of tomato sauce pasta before seeing this, two hooves up.
Black Sheep does not disappoint.
The only caveat I extend here is that there is a lot of gore in this film. A lot of gore. More explicit gore than a half-hour of The Inconvenient Truth. Gore on top of gore and then some. Did I mention the gore? Can't see how I couldn't. Oh, yes, and gore.
That said, and now that you know not to eat a nice veal parmesan on a bed of tomato sauce pasta before seeing this, two hooves up.
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