Posts from — May 2007

There are rumors circulating the internets that Isaiah Washington might not return for the 4th season of Grey’s Anatomy. That finale made it sound like he just split town. But there’s no way he would abandon Seattle Grace just cause he couldn’t get married. Burke is stronger than that!

I wish the actor well, but the show might be better without his real-life drama distracting viewers. He has made amends though: rehab, a full-time gay publicist, a PSA. The man is sorry, and I’m sure he’ll make out alright for the next year. I wonder who shot his PSA, perhaps they used a Hv10 to videotape it. It does seem to have been made very quickly. More power to him for trying to learn from his experience.

I wonder what sort of gay-awareness PSA I would have made for him. Maybe it would’ve gone something like, “if you don’t want to be harassed by racism, then don’t get all homophobic.” Pretty straightforward and honest.

I saw it, wasn’t very impressed. The effects are pretty awesome though. They show an entire boat go over the edge of the ocean. And the big finale has the two ships stuck in a whirpool/maelstrom as they fire canons at each other. There is a lot going on in this movie! But perhaps, it’s just too much for me since I’m not a 13 year old boy.

Effects are something to be desired, but they don’t have to overtake the entire experience. I’m not saying you can make this movie with a canon xl2 and After Effects. Certainly not. But once and while, I would like to know where the heck the story is going.

I was up late with my buddy, LNDSML, and we were transfixed by the latest episode of “Shear Genius” on Bravo. Jacquelyn Smith hosts the reality show where hair stylists compete against each other (like fashion designers in “Project Runway”).

This weeks challenge for the four remaining contestants was to straighten African-American hair. Lemme tell ya, I wouldn’t be caught dead letting people experiment on my hair. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, but you can’t be messing around with chemicals on hair you’re not familiar with. I feel so bad for the one girl with the guy who had absolutely no clue. You could really see the look of desperation in his eyes when the Gs500 zoomed in on him. He simply dumped a bunch of product on her hair willy nilly and “blow dried as he never blow dried before” (his words!). That girls hair looked so weighed down. At least, he didn’t relax it. Two of the stylists were black, so those girls were safe. And the one lady with red hair from Miami, didn’t do so bad.

Nevertheless, to no surprise to me, one of the black guys won because he had experience flat ironing that type of hair. The other black guy did good, but they said his style made the girl look older. Guess that’s a big mistake on “Shear Genius”.

Jordin won, big surprise. There was no way in hell that they let Blake “Beatboxer” Lewis win. I just can’t believe that they tallied 74 million votes for this freaking show! That many people care who wins “American Idol”? And they had a slew of stars: David Alan Grier, Teri Hatcher, Jerry Springer, Bette Midler, Joe Perry, Gladys Knight!, AND Smokey Robinson! I thought my eyes were deceiving me. That whole intro to Sanjaya’s song was way over the top with the 2001: A Space Odyssey music!

The production of the show itself still looked like some cheap game show shot on a JVC Everio camcorder. My final straw came when they gave out the awards to the idiots who auditioned for the show. It felt uberstaged. Plus, they were exploiting ordinary people who had no idea Ryan Seacrest was insulting them on national television. They didn’t sign a waiver that said you could treat them like their retarded (even if they do happen to be a little slow on the uptake). If they really wanted to do this award thing, they could of pre-shot the segment with one of those Canon Zr500 camcorders they used to film the auditions. Then, just show it as filler before commercial breaks. No reason to fly these people out to act like a fool (again!) for the live audience.

It was disgusting and the show went on way too long. I hope Jordin’s happy, she’ll be messing around with AI for years to come.

Ashley Judd stars in this new horror film. William Friedkin (The Exorcist) directs the tale of a parasite that turns people into murderers. I’m intrigued. I think it’s not focused on the special f/x, gore element but on the psychological changes the characters experience.

If I tried to remake the movie with a handycam, it could follow the same themes. I could add more effects if I used a sony hd camcorder instead, but it wouldn’t have the yellow saturation that the original film contains. I can’t wait to see the finished product. It has a limited release starting Friday.