Tuesday, July 03, 2007 Rant Archive
The honeymoon is over almost as soon as LICENSE TO WED begins. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with brainless entertainment for a summer evening, but brainless and stupid — well, that’s a bit too much.
This really should be a good time for singer/actress Mandy Moore, particularly Mandy Moore the actress. All the pop tarts (I’m sorry, I mistyped. I, of course, meant pop stars) who might take Mandy Moore-type roles are either in rehab or taking lessons in how to put on underwear. So, she has the entire sweet, virginal all-American girl category pretty much to herself.
That makes it more difficult to understand why she took a role in LICENSE TO WED, an insipid, silly movie — even by summer chick flick standards.
Life is a rough journey, and you need your family and friends to help you balance it all. That was the life lesson in the latest episode of KYLE XY. Not a bad lesson to learn, when you think about it. Because this show is geared towards families and teens, there has to be a message woven throughout the episode, then spoon-fed to you at the end.
This can be a little tedious for those of us in the older age bracket, but if you can get past the after-school special feel of some of the dialogue, KYLE XY isn’t half bad. In fact, it’s much more sophisticated and less condescending than most other family-friendly television. I say condescending, because most other shows of this genre talk down to their young audience. KYLE XY really does deal with important teen and family issues, but is able to merge them into plots that are intriguing and emotionally engaging, plus they manage to keep you guessing. That’s a pretty big accomplishment for a show that has taken on not just teen angst and family drama, but also sci-fi themes.
HELL’S KITCHEN hears wedding bells and one contestant may have lost her mind.
Would you hand over your wedding reception to a game show, just so you could be on TV? Carlota and Cyrus decided to, and for their willingness to subject their most precious day of love to a middle round of HELL’S KITCHEN, they got a honeymoon package to the Green Valley Ranch Resort, Spa and Casino in Las Vegas. This is sort of like getting food poisoning and the restaurant giving you a gift certificate to come back. This season’s winner on HELL’S KITCHEN will become head chef of a new Italian restaurant at … Green Valley Ranch Resort, Spa and Casino in Las Vegas. Hope you liked the food, Car and Cy!
Whittled to almost the halfway point, the teams are poised to start making bolder food and leadership choices in the kitchen. The men (Blue team) have to learn to live without Vinnie from Jersey — they are better for that — and the women (Red team) are more of an open field with Julia still struggling with the unfamiliar products they are using and Bonnie ready to weep, pee herself, or expel something if Chef Ramsay looks at her cross-eyed. This is the chance for Jen or Melissa to assert themselves and really deliver a crushing blow to the men, who would be down to two chefs if they lost. In an interesting choice of tactics, Melissa decides to go right ahead and sabotage everything she could. I like that initiative.