Season 11 critical for "Top Chef"

Cooking shows used to be found pretty much exclusively on PBS back in the day.  Julia Child, The Galloping Gourmet, Martin Yan ("...Can Cook!") and others were chefs with shows that I stumbled onto and discovered an early love of food and wanting to cook it.  With the advent of cable in the 1980's and 1990's, these cooking shows found larger audiences on many other channels.  Then with the subsequent advent of reality television, cooking competition shows started up too.  One of the first was "Ready, Set, Cook!" and it ran for years.  Nowadays that show seems primitive compared to what's out there, but frankly, most of what's out there now just isn't too exciting.  "Chopped" is OK.  "Iron Chef America" too (although a pale comparison to the original Japanese series that really was the single show that put Food Network on the map).  One show stood out.  Debuting in 2006 on the Bravo network, "Top Chef" was the first cooking competition to be of marathon proportions, and ultimately the food is what mattered.  It was an instant smash, and many of the winners (plus a few non-winners) have found their careers to flourish after competing on the show.  By the time Seasons 6-8 rolled around, this was legitimately one of the best, if not THE best, competition shows on TV, period.  As always seems to be the case though, producers always want to tinker.  And tinker.  And tinker.  And the result usually ends up a stinker.  And stinker.  And stinker.  In just over one year's time, "Top Chef" went from the heights of awesomeness to audience revolt.  And the worst of it is, Season 10 almost got it right and washed out the nasty taste of Season 9 from everyone's mouths.  But then that finale...ohhhhhh, that finale...

Les Misérablog: 2012 Oscar Predictions (February 24, 2013)

One of the more surprising Oscar seasons in recent memory comes to a close this Sunday night with the 85th Annual Academy Awards taking place in Los Angeles at the Dolby Theater. A wide-open race going in, there's a clear favorite for Best Picture now despite the fact that that film's director did not himself get a nod in the Best Director category. Unlike previous blogs, I'm stealing the format from Entertainment Weekly magazine and choosing who I think will win, but also perhaps commenting on who SHOULD win, and why. So without further adieu...

Oscar nominations: what we learned

All indications coming into today's announcement of nominations for the 85th Annual Academy Awards were that things were going to be unpredictable. To say that this came to fruition could be argued either way. I personally say yes. Several nominations were surprises. At least one entire category is a full list of surprises. The omissions of some names from select nominations, and some films from even a single nomination is something I can't say I saw coming (Sorry, fellow Batman fans). There is plenty to be noted from what we heard today.

Perhaps you missed...

The year in movies 2012 is shaping up to be a great year in terms of quality, quantity, and perhaps most importantly, big box office. There were plenty of great films that made a lot of money, including over the summer. The term "blockbuster" tends to be overused, but this year it seems just about every film that was hyped to no end actually delivered. Well, save for Battleship. As 2012 comes to a close, we're in the beginnings of what is termed "Oscar season". The first awards and nominations have been announced from several of the awarding guilds, and we're just over a month away from when it all goes full-throttle. However, before we start talking about the cream of this year's crop, I thought it would be fun to revisit last year. There were quite a number of great films from 2011 that didn't get a lot of awards recognition, so allow me to present these 13 titles for your consideration...

Moneyblog: 2011 Oscar Predictions (February 26, 2012)

This Sunday, February 26, the long Oscar season comes to an end. (Sorry, Razzies, but in moving your ceremony to April 1, you blew it. No one cares now.) With the exception of Saturday night's Independent Spirit Awards (which you can see on IFC at 10PM), all of the nominations have been made and all of the awards and accolades have been given out. Billy Crystal will host the 84th Annual Academy Awards on ABC with red-carpet coverage on about four networks all throughout the day. It's time for me to make my final decisions and predictions for who I think will be taking home the gold.

Best Picture nominees, "War Horse"

We've spent the last week or so looking at each of the nine nominated films for Best Picture. The Oscars are coming this Sunday, and my predictions will be announced either tomorrow or Thursday. I'm still working on a few categories and doing my best to see as many clips and films and shorts as I can. In the meantime, we've looked at eight of the Best Picture nominees, and we have one left. I was doing these in no particular order, but as it turns out, the ninth and final film is the last one alphabetically. Apropos of nothing but ironically, it was the first one announced the morning of the nominations. The film is "War Horse".

Best Picture nominees, "Moneyball"

As passionate as I am about movies, I am equally as passionate about baseball. Sure, I love tennis and I love football and I love hockey, but nothing comes close to baseball. So you can bet that after I read Michael Lewis's famed baseball book "Moneyball" last year, and soon afterwards learned of the movie coming as well, I was eagerly anticipating this one. The question was whether or not the movie would work, because the book contains a LOT of analytical and statistical data that would not transmit into making an interesting movie, which would mean the movie would need to "Hollywood it up", so to speak. I was thrilled to find that this film not only did work, but delivered one of my absolute favorite films of 2011.