SYTYCD week 3 - Paso Doble

Really enjoyed this Paso Doble. Everything else on the show was eh.

SYTYCD 2013 week 2

Love this Argentinian Tango with Jasmin and Alan.  Everything else kinda sucked.

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SYTYCD Top 20 6/18/13

Really enjoyed the ballroom routine.



LOVED the Top 10 Guys routine to music "Sand".  The dance starts at about 1minute 11seconds... skip the commentary before that.
The sand prop is beautiful.  Reminds me of the dancing water fountains in Las Vegas.  There are some good moves from different genres, and there is strength display.  The costumes are good.  But why do the guys get to wear slacks and a long sleeve shirt when the girls have to wear the crap costume in their group routine??

I HATED the Top 10 Girls routine to music "Let's Have A Kiki".  I've seen better High School JV dance/cheer squad routines.  The costumes sucked.  The music sucked.  The choreography sucked.  It was horrific.

Dressing in the dark

Poor Emma Watson!  For the 2012 MTV Video Music Awards, she dressed in the dark and did her hair in the dark!

Check out her tragic look in the fourth picture of this slideshow, as she poses with equally tragic Ezra Miller.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/06/showbiz/gallery/mtv-video-music-awards-2012/index.html?hpt=en_t1

Do you live in the Panem Capitol?

I read the three "Hunger Games" books this week.  Partly b/c the movie is coming out.  I read the first book a long time ago and disliked it.  But I wanted to be able to tell people WHY I was not going to go see the movie: I don't like the books.  Now that I've read all three, I can still say "I don't like the books".  And I will not be seeing the movie.

But let me ask you a philosophical question...

Premises:
1) The barbarity of having children murder each other in the arena was considered prime entertainment for the citizens living in the dystopian Panem Capitol.
2) The Hunger Games books are quite violent.  The movie is also quite violent.  Violent and bloody and gory enough that the "British censors agreed to give the film a "12A" rating only after some footage was cut."  In America, "The Hunger Games has been rated PG-13 "for intense violent thematic material and disturbing images - all involving teens.""

Intense, violent, disturbing images.

So here's my philosophical question:

If you judge the citizens of the Panem Capitol to be idiots (or whatever word you choose) because they view the Hunger Games as entertainment...

Why the HECK are YOU viewing the intensely violent and disturbing movie as entertainment???

Shouldn't you be applying the same measure of judgment to yourself?  If it's horrible for the fictional characters to find murder entertaining, why are you excited about the film?  You'll be viewing that same murder as a form of entertainment.  So...  what the heck??

Ok, let the flame wars begin, and may the odds be ever in your favor.

"Top Shot" fashion discrimination

This is a screen capture from this week's "Top Shot" episode.  The shirt styles are really irking me.  Why does the female have to wear a shirt that doesn't protect her as much as the man's shirt style?

Notice the man can choose how many buttons he wants to button or unbutton at the neck.  The woman doesn't even HAVE buttons.  So if she wants more sun protection or protection from flying bullet fragments, she has no way of closing up her shirt.

Second, notice the man's shirt sleeves go all the way to his elbows and protect all of his upper arm from sun and bullet fragments.  The woman's shirt only goes half way down her arm.  He can push his sleeves up to adjust the amount of arm to show, but she has no way to bring her sleeves down to protect her skin.

Finally, notice that the man's shirt is a nice square shape, but the woman is forced to wear a "Tailored" fitted style that fits close to her curves.  Even though these are probably somewhat-stretchy knits, the close-fit shirt will be more binding and restrictive of movement than the loose-fit shirt.

ARGH!

Kidd Video - Where Did Our Love Go?

SYTYCD top 10

Yeah, Mitchell's broadway number was pretty bad.

Clarice's bollywood was also pretty bad.

Marko's Samba was pretty good.

Tadd's hip hop was pretty good.

Sasha's hip hop was very well done. First time I've liked her dancing at ALL.

I really enjoyed Caitlynn's Argentine Tango.

I adored Melanie's Viennese Waltz.

SYTYCD Top 12

Last week's SYTYCD was so pathetic that I didn't even bother to blog about it. This week was much better.

I enjoyed:

Melanie & Marko's tango. Loved it a lot.

Sasha & Alexander's paso doble. Loved it. would have liked to see even a sheer skirt over Sasha's pants so that we could see the fabric twirl.

Clarice & Jess's jive

Caitlyn & Mitchell's hip hop

Ryan & Ricky's cha-cha (though Ryan was really sloppy with her footwork)

Routines that were adequate:
Clarice & Jess's lyrical hip-hop
Jordan & Tadd's broadway (nice costumes)
Ryan & Ricky's broadway

SYTYCD top 16

Liked the Samba by Caitlynn and Mitchell

LOVED the foxtrot by Clarice and Jess (of course, it helped that the music was one of my all-time favorite songs)

Jordan & Tadd's hip-hop was ok (dancing was good, just really didnt like the 'story'), but I really liked Melanie & Marko's hip hop better.

So You Think You Can Dance episode 2

This episode's Bollywood routine by Nick and Iveta didn't do anything for me. It just looked like an aerobics routine to me. I have enjoyed the Bollywood from previous seasons, so this was disappointing. However, I'm sorry to see Iveta get eliminated because I was looking forward to seeing more of her ballroom specialty.

The Viennese Waltz was really a contemporary routine that happened to employ ballroom steps. It was disappointing.

Robert and Miranda's hip-hop was performed well, it just didnt have a great story. Seemed lower energy because of that.

Just the opposite, Missy and Wadi's Cha Cha had a great story/music, and seemed fabulously performed. Loved it. Too bad they were eliminated.

Sasha and Alexander's hip-hop also had a good story/music and was performed well. Enjoyed it.

I didn't even bother to watch this week's contemporary and jazz routines.

So You Think You Can Dance 2011 ep1

My favorite performances from the first episode of "So you think you can dance" 2011 were:

1) Iveta and Nick's quickstep. (though the music was kinda sucky)
2) Miranda and Robert's jive

The two hip-hop performances were borderline...could have been great but seemed a little lacking on energy. As usual, I just don't like contemporary/jazz dance.

Weekend movies

Watched "The Tourist" today... it was not nearly as thrilling as I was expecting. The pacing was quite slow, and the 'surprise' ending could be seen from about 1/3 through the movie. Still, the costumes were lovely, and the scenery was nice. And Johnny Depp has an interesting prancing run. As Mike said, it wasn't an action movie or a thriller...it was really a chic-flick with a well-edited trailer. Next we watched "Jule and Julia"... loved the Julia Child scenes, which were rudely interrupted by the Julie blogger chick. Very nearly made me want to go upstairs and debone a duck or make beef stew. Will never make an aspic though. Blech.

Syfy shooting self in foot

I can only laugh hilariously at SyFy channel's newest attempt to kill itself.

In the fall, they are moving the Friday night dramas (Stargate Universe, Sanctuary, and Caprica) to Tuesday night.

Because they're bringing WRESTLING to friday nights.

Yeah. Wrestling = SciFi. Where are the people that say it is a real sport, again?

How does this shoot SyFy in foot? Easy. They get their ratings from Live, and Live + 24 hours. So a show that I DVR on friday night and watch on saturday still gets them the best ratings. A show that I DVR on TUESDAY and don't watch until saturday gets them much fewer ratings points. They insist that more people will watch Live on tuesday. Not this household. Tuesday is our beloved NCIS and we dont even watch that live. In fact, I betcha that the DVR list for Tuesday is already full and we wont even put SGU on ths list for a tuesday.

Comic relief

I think this is hilarious.

For Mike, the Magnum PI nut

Catchup

A bit of this and that:

• Saw "Inkheart" today. Not bad. My mom and sister hated it. I wouldn't necessarily watch it again, but I wouldn't say it was horrible. We like Brendan Frasier around here, so if you set your expectations to "Brendan Frasier" level, you'll not be disappointed.
• Saw "Knowing" today. Not bad. I like Nicolas Cage. This is a typical movie for him too. Could have been something that M.Night Shyamalon wrote (but it wasnt).
• Finished reading "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Book 4)" today. Not bad. The movie did a good job of leaving out the Winky/Dobby House-Elf story line that didn't contribute much to the action nor was it wrapped up in the book.
• Finished reading "The Host: A Novel" the other day. Not bad. The jacket says that the book explores what it means to be human. Seems too lofty a goal for what I saw in it. Nice sci-fi story. I would say it was like Stephanie Meyers watched Stargate SG-1 and asked herself what it would be like if the Goa'uld parasite wasn't inherently evil and did manage to invade Earth, then wrote this.
• Finished reading " The X and Y of Buy: Sell More and Market Better by Knowing How the Sexes Shop (NelsonFree)" recently. Some fascinating trivia, but poor on the application thereof.

Review: "The Mutant Chronicles"

We watched this on the SciFi channel because we like some of the actors in it. This is a rather typical post-apocalyptic 'save the world' storyline. The movie starts with steam-punk trench warfare a la World War One; and then the mutants are unleashed. Of course some nice monks have been saving the knowledge of how to defeat evil (think 5th Element) and they gather a band of unlikely heros to destroy the machine that is making the evil mutants. Meanwhile a small portion of the Earth's population flees to colonies on Mars. Lots of predictable fighting transpires as the hero team gets killed off one by one. Then the main hero plugs in what is supposed to be a bomb and activates it, and we discover that the evil mutant machine is actually a spaceship that launches instead of being destroyed. The closing scene shows the ship arcing towards Mars. Poetic justice and all that. A solid B-level movie, very dark, very violent, and pretty boring.

Deja View

"Stargate Universe is about survival" is the article at Gateworld.net.

Quoting one of the actors in the new show, “What makes this Stargate different from the previous shows in the franchise is, it’s a lot darker than the other ones,” the actor said. “This has less to do with interaction with an alien race and more about survival on the ship itself.”

Um...wait...this sounds familiar.

I KNOW I've seen this plotline somewhere...lesse...where was that?

Oh! That's right! .... Battlestar Galatica!

Not looking forward to this

This is the crew photo for the new Star Trek movie coming out May 2009. I *really* like Karl Urban. And I'm slightly tempted to see this just to see him as McCoy (blue shirt, above).

Hmm...just noticed that Quinto as Spock is missing. Here we go. ALL I CAN SEE in this photo is evil Syler from "Heros". I detest Syler. I detest "Heros". This one shot alone almost makes me promise I will NEVER watch this movie. Ever. Poor Karl Urban.


This movie is what happens when you say that Star Trek needs to be revamped for a new, younger audience.

And this is exactly the **&$#(*@# that we will see on the "younger" Stargate Universe show that starts next spring.