Nineteen-year-old Johnny (Vincent Spano) is a charismatic but ruthless gangster, running the mob’s drug trade in Alphabet City — New York’s toughest neighborhood, on the lower East Side of Manhattan.

(oh wait, there’s more)

But when Johnny’s bosses order him to torch the building where both his mother and sister live, Johnny refuses. Now a marked man, he must find a way to protect his family and get out of Alphabet City before the mob takes him out … for good!

Brilliant.

1) Adam Savage is awesome.

Every week I’m impressed by how good Mythbusters is and it’s all because the Savage/Hyneman team. The fact that they can put out such a great show while managing the constraints imposed by the Discovery channel and television in general is really impressive.

2) Could Smash Lab be any worse?

Smash Lab is a completely derivative television show that is basically the reverse of Mythbusters- rather than try to prove or disprove a myth they try to solve a problem. The first season was miserable, mostly thanks to a poorly chosen team and lots of bad editing. For the second season (I DVR it and watched my first episode last night) two of the original four people were replaced. One of the new guys is “Reverend Gadget”… I’m not kidding.  Anyway, they found a way to make the show even worse.

I would say, that with a completely new team the show could be OK. They would need to work on the editing (don’t ruin every crash and explosion with going to slow-mo cuts first) and picking better challenges. Plus they insist on trying these outlandish solutions (for example: an indestructible car that has an explosion under it so it can jump over other cars when they are going to hit it) which not only wastes time, but prevents them from trying more practical solutions. Overall though, its foolish to think that in an hour of televison- maybe a week of testing/shooting- four people (seemingly dilettantes) could make an indestructible car or a hurricane proof house.

The Village Voice has a great post calling out Iron Chef America. We all knew the show was stupid and staged (though the original one was very good), but this is too much… I can’t believe I’m writing this, but I have lost even more respect for the Food Network. I did not even think that was possible…

At one point, with only minutes in the real-time hour to go, one of Nicotra’s sous chefs—an attractive and poised brunette named Lara—was seen kneeling next to the ingredient table, stacking and restacking the spice jars so that the one she had used would fit perfectly back in the shelf. Urgency, indeed!

In most cases, the recipes were being executed a second time for the judges, mostly by the sous chefs, but with help from the Oompa-Loompas. I was shocked. If the actual dishes produced during the contest weren’t being tasted, the competitive validity of the whole show was further undermined: What was the point of the race if the dishes were casually recooked for judging an hour later?

The worst part is that the Food Network managed to drag Alton Brown, probably their best and only respectable host into this charade.

1. Two injuries in the first 20 minutes
   A female contestant was hurt in the first round ever and a gladiator hurt his arms on the first ring event) It is too rough? Are the people too big? The male gladiators are definitely more like bodybuilders than they are athletes.
2. Wolf?
   This is so stupid and contrived- it’s a gladiator who has to howl like a wolf all the time. After he did it once it was tired, but he kept at it.
3. Pyramid
   This is brutal, there is no good way to score here unless the gladiators screw up. And you get thrown down a flight of padded steps if you are caught.
4. Hulk
   This guy is ageless. He hasn’t changed at all in like 20 years and talks just like he did back then. I’m still waiting for him to call a female contestant “bro”. It was weird how he kept pointing out how beautiful the female gladiators were.
5. Eliminator
   It’s okay, nothing amazing, though the barrel roll is amazing. The hand bike seems too hard for the woman, as it requires an incredible amount of upper body strength, especially after climbing that cargo net. The reserve escalator (travelator) is a clearly a killer after all that.
6. Major Disappointments
   They killed two of the best parts of the show- the tennis ball machine gun and at the end of the Eliminator when they crash through the wall and possibly run into a gladiator. The tennis ball course (Assault) was the best part of the show, but I also like the one when they ran around in the spheres, which was also left out.
7. Announcers
   These guys are terrible. So cheesy and forced. They would be great it I was still 6.

Overall, after watching part one I am not impressed at all. I’ll watch it, just for old time’s sake but it’s just as ridiculous and dumb as you remembered. It’s really sad that it’s on during primetime.

So yeah, the only reason the original one was any good because we were in elementary scho at the time.

Edit- apparently part 2 of night 1 DOES have Assault. How could you leave this out of the come-back episode?

Check out the trailer- http://www.apple.com/trailers/universal/thebourneultimatum/th_medium.html

I have to admit, I have a major weakness for these movie trailer mashups. This one features Pokemon and 300, but some other good ones have done Mary Poppins and the Shining, as well as a great horror version of the West Side Story.

Thanks for the heads up Kotaku.

But the Discovery Channel has a new show that looks like it could be very good, Planet Earth.

From what I can tell the show is either Wild Discovery on steriods or basically the same thing (but the people at the Disocvery Channel finally figured out how to make a great trailer). Either way I’ll be watching at 8pm Sunday night. I am a big fan of Wild Discovery though I can’t ever figure out when they are aired so I very rarely get to see them.

I think a big-budget, well directed nature show could be awesome, pretty much my dream-come-true for television. This is an 11 part mini-series so I am thinking they pulled out some of the stops- from what I have they have a great trailer and a pretty extensive web site, so my hopes are high. Plus, I think they are going to be focusing on more unusual species and habitats, as opposed to the commonplace, so that should really help keep it interesting.

For months now I have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of 300. This is the movie adaptation of a graphic novel from Frank Miller and Lynn Varley. I finally got to go see it on Saturday (disappointingly, not at the Imax).

Let me preface this informal review by saying I have read the graphic novel a few times (albeit a few months ago) and have watched the trailer many times since it was first posted on Apple’s site.

All told, I would give the movie a rating of “very good” or, to put it numerically, 4 out of 5 stars. The movie was not short, but it was entertaining, a lot of very cool things happened, the characters were great, and it was mega-violent. Visually the movie was amazing, a bit cartoonish in its representation of the characters, but only because many of the people and situations were so extreme- for instance an armored rhinoceros charging at the Spartan line.

As with the book the plot was simplistic: a small group of Greeks fighting off the enormous Persian army at a place known as the Hot Gates. While the movie largely remained true to the book and did not leave out any material, it did add a few scenes and plot twists, as well as expand on others. These were, not surprisingly, where things went wrong. The movie added a great deal of politics to the dealings in Sparta while the 300 were fighting as well as one crazy scene where Xerxes makes a deal with Ephialtes (a Spartan outcast). The backstabbing that goes on in Sparta at the time that Leonidas and his men were defending Greece was extremely (almost ridiculously) un-Spartan and seemed very out of place in the movie- the blame originally fell to the corrupt Ephors not a Spartan. Also the movie took an exremely odd detour when Ephialtes met Xerxes. Here there was a tent full of oddities including- if I remember correctly- an executioner with some sort of crab claws for arms, a all sorts of woman of questionable repute, and a donkey playing a lute. Anyway, it was really strange and completely unnecessary.

The movie did have some awesome moments though. Interestingly these were not the ones I had loved so much in the trailer (those lacked the power and passion I expected, though still sounded cool and would have been the highlight of any other movie). One of the scenes I was very impressed with was when Xerxes met Leonidas. Xerxes, the Persian king, was about 8 feet tall and seemed very much like the god-king he claims to be. Both David Wenham and Vincent Regan also did excellent jobs (as did Gerard Butler, but that was no surprise after seeing the trailer).

If you are looking for some ultra-violence mixed with a brief history lesson, then I think you can’t go wrong with 300. The movie took some unfortunate liberties and it lacked the heart-pounding excitement of the trailer, but it was worth the price of admission. Of the two people I saw the movie with one liked it a lot and the other was a bit taken aback, but enjoyed most of it. The movie could have been about 20 minutes shorter and some aspects of it could have been thought out better, but still there are a lot “wow” moment. Fans of the graphic novel will not be disappointed and cinema fans will definitely enjoy the visual and technical aspects of the movie.

The trailer is, in my opinion, as close as anyone can get to perfect so definitely check that out before seeing the movie. It has all the best moments of the movie and edits out the discussions, voice overs, and deceit that gave the movie its 2 hour (or so) run time.

To generalize about the reviews I have read- particularly A.O. Scott’s in the New York Times-most were overly harsh and seemed to have, at times, missed the point. I would not rely too heavily on them and would be sure to check out the trailer and read book before passing judgement.

I actually WATCH Food Network now and again, more often than not drawn in by the progressive horrors on screen. I find myself riveted by its awfulness, like watching a multi-car accident in slow motion. Mesmerized at the ascent of the Ready-Made bobblehead personalities, and the not-so-subtle shunting aside of the Old School chefs, I find myself de-constructing the not-terrible shows, imagining behind the scenes struggles and frustrations, and obsessing unhealthily on the Truly Awful ones.