TV 1H 2014: Hellos and Goodbyes (tv, entertainment)

As we enter finale week of May sweeps, I want to comment on a couple of new and ending shows from this year. Some of these shows ended a while ago, but the Olympics kind of blurred February sweeps for me.

Thank you and goodbye:

How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM)
At its best, HIMYM was one of the best comedies on TV. Great story-telling through interwoven flashbacks from different points of view, deeper characters than your usual group-of-friends-in-NYC sitcom, continuity through frequent callbacks to earlier plot points, and the occasional just plain awesome outrageous moments such as The Naked Man, Robin Sparkles, and many more. The middle seasons did, however, drag on, and they repeated too many jokes. I was ok with the Barneyisms but got tired of the Canada jokes really quickly.

The final season was kind of in the middle of those two extremes, but overall quite enjoyable. There were glimpses of greatness (eg. How Your Mother Met Me) that reminded me of the earlier seasons, while there were all sorts of callbacks that served as a thank you to fans who stuck with the show to the end.

Of course, no discussion of the final season is complete without talking about the controversial ending. I was ok with the concept of the ending as it neatly wrapped up the narrative. It explained why a story about how Ted met the kids' mother was mostly focused on him and his group of friends. What I thought was unnecessary, was that if this was where the producers were always going with it, why did they have to make the mother so damn loveable? Cristin Milioti absolutely killed it as the mother, and was the best thing about the final season.

That pretty much sums up my view of the series as a whole. If it had been a shorter show, maybe 5-6 seasons of its best stuff, it would have been right up there with the very best sitcoms of all time. Instead, there was just too much that was unnecessary. It was legen- and then they waited too long to make it -dary.

Psych
While the usual descriptions of Psych often start with mentions of The Mentalist because of the basis of the plot, the show that it reminds me of most is Castle. It's basically a procedural that revels in its silliness. It's fun, simple, and easy to pick up. Psych took pop culture themed episodes (like Castle's sci-fi, zombie, vampire, etc. episodes) and took them up a notch, doing special Xmas episodes and changing the language of their theme song and opening credits. It was a "let's all have fun together" show, rather than "here's how smart we are, look at all these plot twists and turns", and I will miss it dearly. For now, at least there's still Castle, that is when they're not doing the overly dramatic episodes.

Hello and come again:

Marvel's Agents of SHIELD
This show is, by itself, an excellent, action adventure that reaches across sci-fi, spy thriller, and other genres. But what separates it from other shows that have come before it is how it has been woven together within the bigger Marvel cinematic universe. The constant callbacks to the Marvel movie franchises such as the Avengers, Thor, and Captain America give the story a grander perspective and the viewer a sense that they are watching something that is an integral part of a epic adventure. It also offers a sense of security that the producers know where the story is going and that it will actually come to a satisfying conclusion.

Hi, bye:

Growing up Fisher
I feel that this is the comedy that NBC hoped for when they brought on Michael J Fox. An endearing, feel-good family comedy that features a main character coming to grips with and overcoming his disability, which in this case is blindness. It has some genuinely funny moments, whereas the Michael J Fox show was slow and boring from start to finish, and barely touched on his Parkinson's. It's unclear whether the show's handling of the dad's blindness will continue to be funny for a longer stretch, but for now this is as good of a traditional (one) family comedy as I've seen the past few seasons. It's appalling to me that this is getting cancelled while that unfunny but more heavily marketed comedy About A Boy gets renewed.

Rake
I really liked this show, and am sad that it's not returning. Kinnear did a good job playing the biggest degenerate on TV since Greg House. It had its completely outrageous moments, and the courtroom stuff reminded me of Boston Legal. I don't really recall many degenerate gambler lead roles in TV, so it was fun to have an antihero to root for. I think the show might have had a better chance if it had been on the edgier FX instead of Fox.

Anime Recommendation: Baccano! (entertainment, tv, manga/anime)

While we're all waiting for September to bring us the fall tv season, real MLB late season drama, and the start of the NFL season, let's kill some time by watching a truly fun anime. At 16 episodes, Baccano! is something that can be easily finished in one weekend.

Here's a reminder of the basic criteria that I have used for choosing this recommendation. It's the same as from my last recommendation of the anime Death Note.
1. Something that is easy for newcomers to get into. Minimal self-referencing and tropes.
2. Something that is easily accessible, available in its entirety on Youtube, Amazon Prime, or Hulu.
3. Something that can be finished over the course of a binge weekend or three. Not something with 150 episodes.
4. Something recent, within the last decade or so.
5. Entertaining. You may or may not feel like you want to recommend it to everyone you know, but you won't feel like you wasted your time watching it.

As written on its wikipedia page, "The anime adaptation of Baccano! has received universal critical acclaim." In my mind, this is deservedly so, and Baccano! is not only fun, but also perfectly utilizes the medium of animation in its art direction and the expansiveness of the cast to go beyond TV and movies.

Quick description: The story focuses on a bunch of characters and how their paths cross and lives intersect. The story is told non-linearly, jumping back and forth in time and featuring the different viewpoints of the many characters. The majority of the anime is primarily set in the US during the early 1930s, with the major backdrops being a cross country train and a town with many competing mafia gangs and thugs.

One word review: Fun
Although it doesn't have as much of the witty dialogue, it's essentially Pulp Fiction on steroids. There is more (although animated) gore and there are many more characters, from your standard heroes and villains to comic relief, antiheroes, and just plain psychopaths. It's a chaotic ride, but it's gripping, and while the story jumps around for a while, the pieces do fit together at the end.

Other notes:
1. Because of the non-linear nature of the storytelling, I recommend reading an episode summary after watching each episode to make sure you get all the main bits and pieces.
2. I find the opening theme introducing the characters to be pretty catchy and worth watching.
3. Semi-Spoiler, highlight to read: Although there are 16 episodes in all, the core story pretty much ends at episode 13, with the 3 remaining ones more like an epilogue.
4. I tend to watch anime in the original language with subtitles if possible. You can watch the entire series for free on Hulu, in both the subtitled version with original Japanese voice acting as well as a version dubbed in English. But because of its mature rating, you need to have a Hulu account. If you can't be bothered to create a Hulu account, you can also watch the entire subtitled version for free on Youtube.

Enjoy! Please watch and let me know what you think!

HBO Game of Thrones The Exhibition, NYC (tv, entertainment, rambling)

Game of Thrones: The Exhibition made the second stop of its five-city international tour in New York City over Easter weekend. Lines ranged from 1/3 to 1/2 an avenue block long.

In NYC, HBO partnered with Time Warner Cable, allowing special access to Time Warner Cable customers. While I'm very happy Time Warner Cable helped me avoid the long line, they didn't exactly do a great job of handling the logistics. On the first day of the exhibition, time warner cable customers were allowed to just go right into the exhibit. Soon, they realized there were too many people, and began scheduling specific times for TWC customers to enter the exhibit. Only they never told anyone that you now had to register, and many disappointed people were turned away. Not only that, you could only register a spot on the scheduled list ahead of time in person, which meant that you had to take two trips there to get in. Ok, enough ranting about Time Warner Cable for now.


The story begins in the North, and that is where we will begin as well. The left pic features costumes from Winterfell while the right pic features costumes from The Wall. The costumes really are quite stunning in terms of the extraordinary amount of detail, and how they were able to bring the books to life through them. However, I assume that the actors all had lots of thermal underwear on underneath as these did not seem to be warm enough outfits for the cold tundra that was captured on film.


Next up are costumes from King's Landing. The Tyrion outfit looked a lot taller than I would have thought, especially next to Jaime Lannister's armor. I looked it up and it turns out Peter Dinklage is 4'5", taller than I originally thought, while Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is indeed an impressive 6'2". The one item that caught my eye immediately however, was Cersei's outfit. I did not know she was so slender and couldn't imagine her fitting into how thin that looked. Lena Headey must have an amazing figure.


With a little more meat on her bones, but no less attractive, is Emilia Clarke. The actress plays Daenerys Targaryen, more popularly known as just Khaleesi. In the Targaryen section of the exhibit, they had her costumes as well as the actual-sized prop of one of her dragons. Actual-sized with respect to the third season. It appears those things grow pretty quickly!


Also on display were fairly detailed maps. Maps are super important for the fantasy reader in being able to visualize the novel. I think the map on the left was actually used by one of the characters on the show for war strategy planning.


Also of importance to fans of fantasy, whether through books, tv, movies, or RPG games, are the weapons. The main disappointment here was Robert Baratheon's war hammer (leftmost on the right pic). I thought it would be this humongous smashing weapon. Before he got fat from all the eating and drinking and whoring, Robert Baratheon was supposed to be a powerful and intimidating goliath with this war hammer.


There were also a range of other props, or artifacts. Again, the attention to detail is marvelous, including the letter that Eddard Stark wrote to Stannis Baratheon informing him that he's the rightful heir.


My favorite props from the exhibit, however, included the stuff from Qarth in the left pic as well as the prop in the right pic. The intricacies stand out, as Qarth was supposed to be a great trading city of vast wealth. Have you found the prop in the right pic yet? It's Ned Stark's chopped off head!

There were two interactive experiences at the exhibition that fans could participate in. One was to get a picture taken sitting atop the Iron Throne. The other was to play this game where you pretended to be archers in the Battle of the Blackwater, wielding huge bows. It was actually pretty interesting, except that (another logistical failure?) the person in charge of the line to play didn't make it clear that you were supposed to be aiming for the green stuff (to spread the wildfire) and not trying to actually hit the ships. Or maybe they were just expecting the real diehard fans to know.

Anyway, it's a fun exhibit and a great way to showcase all that went into this amazing show.

Thank Goodness for DVR! (tv, entertainment)

Opening day of the MLB season came and went, but what I'm really excited about is the new TV season. I'm especially interested in the upcoming season of AMC's Mad Men. I bought the first season on iTunes long ago and watched the whole second season on AMC when they did a marathon right before the start of the third season. I've been watching ever since. I still think the first season was the best one, much darker in tone and more emotional. While I don't think it'll reach the depths of the first season, the show has gotten darker again the last two seasons. The writing continues to be superb, and I'm fully invested in these characters at this point.

Another series I'm excited about is the third season of HBO's Game of Thrones, but I'm most likely going to wait until the entire season finishes and then binge watch it on demand. One show that I do watch every week is ABC's Castle, which just aired its 100th episode yesterday. It is not an epic television show like the ones mentioned above, but it is whimsical and entertaining. Of the network detective fiction/police procedurals out there, it's the one that most focuses on having fun with its characters and pop culture themes. Over 100 episodes, they've covered zombies, vampires, mummies, voodoo, steampunk, spy thriller, phone sex, S&M clubs, pickup artists, sci-fi conventions, late night TV wars, and many other themes that come up in pockets of pop culture. Yesterday's 100th episode was a delightful homage to Hitchcock's "Rear Window".

The show is not without its flaws, one of the most cited being how it's a continuous parade of red herring suspects until new information comes to light in the penultimate segment. But isn't that how most procedurals work? Knowing that the patient must go into cardiac arrest before Dr. House comes up with the correct diagnosis off some passing comment near the end of the hour didn't detract from my enjoyment of Fox's House(M.D.), which was one of my favorite shows for quite a while. Even the acclaimed Agatha Christie's mysteries were full of deus ex machina back in the day.

The show that I am most excited about this season, however, is BBC's Dr Who. It's the best remaining sci-fi series on TV in my opinion, and a great family show. It has its flaws too, often magnified by the scrutiny of its sci-fi fanbase, but the writing can be very clever at times. It's actually the 50th(!!!) anniversary of Dr Who this year, and I'm very excited about what they will do this season in celebration of such a milestone. Yet... I didn't even know the new season started until it popped up on my DVR! Thank goodness for DVR!

Recent Interesting Articles About Food Part 2 (food, rambling, economics/politics, entertainment, tv)

There were a couple of very interesting articles about food in mainstream media recently. I wanted to share them with everyone because they are thoughtful, interesting reads. I'm also going to offer up my opinions on certain points discussed in the articles because this is Rambling$ and Gambling$ after all and I haven't done any rambling in a while.

This second article is from Grantland on the state of food TV. For Part 1 click here.

It was no longer enough to...instruct. The new goal was to entertain.

Another example of this way of mixing instructing/entertaining that has proven successful is Jim Cramer on CNBC. I think it says more about the way people consume media than about food TV itself.

And so the TV part of the equation began to outweigh the food. Legit cooks...went out the door.

While this is true, the Food Network did spin off the Cooking Channel. There may be no more new episodes of "Good Eats", but you can find reruns, along with new shows that still actually teach cooking, on the Cooking Channel. While I might agree with the conclusion, I don't think it's fair to focus exclusively on the one Food Network channel.

Bourdain was...a thoroughly undistinguished line cook lifer

I'm pretty sure this is just plain wrong. I did read Kitchen Confidential, and I remember he was already executive chef when he wrote it. This just sounds like what someone who watches too much Top Chef would say. They think all real chefs are these endlessly creative artist types. Every real restaurant kitchen has line cooks, and actually running a successful kitchen is a legitimate big deal, especially for a place that did as many covers as Les Halles.

Look, it's perfectly fine for Bourdain to cash in

Yes it is, although my belief is that this happened well before The Taste. The last couple of seasons of No Reservations and The Layover show focused way more on already-known critical darlings than the earlier seasons.

Slumming alongside Bourdain as judges/mentors are Ludo Lefebvre, an actually gifted French chef....

I actually did not like Ludo when he first appeared on Top Chef Masters. I thought he was playing a character. But I think he's rediscovered his passion for food and has won me over, especially with his appearance on the Burgundy episode of No Reservations. I do watch The Taste (it's an easy show to have on in the background), and he's the only guy on there whose taste I trust even a bit. I think Bourdain's taste buds have been killed off by the all the alcohol he's drank over the years.

Bourdain's Rolodex is put to good use, too, as a dazzling assortment of legitimate geniuses, from Gabrielle Hamilton to David Kinch....

Those are some nice names, but did you know that "Master Chef", the Fox show about HOME COOKS, once featured Guy Savoy, Alain Ducasse, and Daniel Boulud as judges? That's a combined 33 Michelin stars. (Recent review of Boulud's restaurant Daniel here)

The main takeaway here is that amateurism just isn't all that interesting.

That to me was the best part of the article and my main takeaway as well. Unfortunately, he then loses me when he heaps praise onto Chopped and Top Chef. While the contestants on Top Chef do tend to be stronger as a whole than other shows, let's not get too carried away. There's a reason that every fcking season someone gets reprimanded for not seasoning their food. As for Chopped, I'm just not a fan of the whole food challenge thing. It goes back to this focus on chefs as artists, and forgets about chefs running a restaurant and feeding people. Even though Fox focuses too much on the whole cursing Gordon Ramsay schtick, both Hell's Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares do illustrate what it's like to run a kitchen professionally. The BBC versions of these programs, where the Ramsay character is dialed down a bunch, are very watchable.

Again, I think this article speaks more to how people (Americans in general) consume TV media than specifically to the state of food TV.

Anime Recommendation: Death Note (entertainment, tv, manga/anime)

There's really not much to keep us entertained at this time of the year. It's still too cold to go out, the NFL season is over, February sweeps is almost over, March Madness hasn't begun, and MLB spring training is just barely getting underway. I'm not sure who's getting ready to watch the World Baseball Classic, and the NHL and NBA are in the middle of their grind of a season. I mean, this is exactly why Vince McMahon created the XFL right?

So I'm going to recommend an anime for the coming weekend. For those unfamiliar with anime (Japanese animation movie/series), it's a terrific entertainment medium filled with a variety of genres and amazing stories. I know every one of you loved Toy Story 3, so don't use the fact that it's animated as an excuse.

A few points as to my criteria for choosing this and (future) recommendation(s):
1. Something that is easy for newcomers to get into. Minimal self-referencing and tropes.
2. Something that is easily accessible, available in its entirety on Youtube, Amazon Prime, or Hulu.
3. Something that can be finished over the course of a binge weekend or three. Not something with 150 episodes.
4. Something recent, within the last decade or so.
5. Entertaining. You may or may not feel like you want to recommend it to everyone you know, but you won't feel like you wasted your time watching it.

My guess is I'm mostly recommending this to people who are new to anime, so it's kind of fitting that I chose Death Note as my first recommendation. It is one of the most popular animes of the past decade, helped by the fact that it was actually broadcasted on Adult Swim in the US. The original material was manga (Japanese comics), but in addition to the anime version, they also made a live-action movie of it in Japan. That's how popular it is.

Quick description: Genius high school student finds a shinigami's (think grim reaper) notebook which allows him to control people's deaths. There are moral issues at play, but the real meat of the story is the cat-and-mouse game between the student and the genius detective out to stop him from using the notebook.

One word review: Smart
Much of what goes on is explained through voice-overs from the main characters. Think of it like Dexter. The thought process is deep and detailed, and really, really smart. It makes you want to follow what happens next as they go back and forth. In many ways the series is comparable to the first season of Dexter. The ability to go through the thought processes of both sides will also be familiar to fans of The Wire. I was hooked on The Wire about 3 episodes in. I was hooked on Death Note by the end of the second (half-hour) episode.

Other notes:
1. Death Note is technically a shonen manga, meaning teen/young adult. Think of it like Harry Potter. Adults will find it enjoyable, but this explains why the main characters are so young.
2. The opening and closing theme songs are important parts of the production of an anime. I personally did not enjoy the opening theme that much in terms of how it matched with the tone I wanted from the anime.
3. Semi-Spoiler, highlight to read: Although there are 37 episodes in all, in episode 26 there is a plot device such that I would tend to consider the episodes from there on out to be like a season two or a sequel, and I believe that that is the best mindset with which to watch those episodes.
4. When I first watched it, I watched the English dubbed version on Youtube. The distribution company has since asserted its copyright and you have to pay to watch the episodes on Youtube. You can watch the entire series for free on Hulu, but it will be the subtitled version with original Japanese voice acting. Embedded below is episode 1:



Enjoy! Please watch and let me know what you think!

ESPN Films: Charismatic (entertainment, horseracing, tv)

I've been a fan of almost all of the documentaries in ESPN Films' 30 for 30 series. While the 30th anniversary has passed, ESPN continues to release documentaries that had originally been planned, and they continue to be of extremely high quality.

"Charismatic" is the story of both the horse and its jockey, Chris Antley. Chris Antley was an extremely talented jockey who had battled substance abuse throughout his career. The kind of talent that is now completely gone from American horse racing in my view. I especially remember Chris Antley, as his first Kentucky Derby win aboard Strike The Gold was the first Derby winner I ever picked. Charismatic was an underachieving horse that became one of the biggest upset winners of the Kentucky Derby, and had a chance at the Triple Crown before breaking down in the final furlong of the Belmont.

Like most of the 30 for 30 documentaries, the subject matter transcends sports and is a human interest story that delves into real human drama. It was directed by Steven Michaels, son of legendary sportscaster Al Michaels. I highly recommend it, and you can watch it on Youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVY9M3Gyfmo

While we're at it, here's my favorite race call ever, featuring an exciting finish between two legends in turf racing and a roaring crowd: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sfUKPLowpM

TV: Some New, Some Old, Some Good Some Bad (TV)

The summer TV season is upon us, and for me, it usually means that basic cable dominates my DVR. But before we get to those shows, there were still a couple of shows that I had to finish.

Some Good: I tend to rotate my premium cable subscription depending on which series have finished and could be viewed in entirety on demand. I'm about to switch over to HBO to watch Game of Thrones, but I currently still have Showtime, where I just finished watching and enjoying Shameless. It's very much in the Showtime style where the plots can get pretty out there, but the producers have done a pretty good job of trying to include comedy, drama, and emotion into each episode. The characters are well-developed and very well acted, and I look forward to watching the second season.

Some Bad: A series that I won't be looking forward to the second season of, but will probably still watch begrudgingly, is AMC's The Killing. If you search online, most of the reviews will be similar. It started out with potential, then just became slow and directionless. Just a bunch of red herrings and meaningless plot points about characters that I couldn't get myself to care about. But whatever, most of us continued watching it just to get closure and find out who the killer was.

SPOILER ALERT***

Except that they didn't reveal the killer! While I originally thought that they would wrap this up and offer a new case in season 2, the producers apparently did not feel that way. It was a big slap in the face to those of us who persevered just to see it reach its conclusion. I didn't get anywhere this upset from the Sopranos ending.

END OF SPOILER ALERT***

As for the summer season, the USA network tends to dominate my DVR. Most of the shows are light and entertaining, which perfectly fits the summer theme. In Plain Sight, Royal Pains, Covert Affairs, White Collar, Burn Notice, Psych. There are a lot of them, some better than others. My favorite is still Burn Notice, the first of the bunch that really helped put USA on the map for original series following their "characters welcome" theme. It has been a while since last season, and I was pleasantly surprised by how much fun the new season premiere was.

Some New: USA is also adding two more new shows to that lineup, and the first one, Suits, had an ok pilot. I'm usually not much for legal dramedies since the end of Boston Legal, and I don't expect that I will put this one or TNT's Franklin and Bash on my DVR. However, they're not bad and I certainly would watch them over some random rerun.

Some Old: Speaking of reruns, BBC America is showing Battlestar Galactica from the very beginning. I've heard a lot of praise from friends about this series, and even though I've only watched the miniseries and the first two TV episodes (BBCA is airing two per week), I definitely have to agree with them. While I'm not completely sold on all the characters, the tension and drama have been captivating. As opposed to Spielberg and TNT's Falling Skies, which had a such a huge premiere that there were talks of a second season renewal already. I found it boring, I didn't like any of the characters, and most importantly I didn't feel any of the kind of tension that would arise from the direness of the situation.

A Little Time Off (tv, movies, entertainment, food)

It might seem counterintuitive that someone who doesn't have a job needs a little time off, but between going to the gym to kill time, the job searching, and constantly hearing nothing, the stress adds up almost as much as back when I was trading. So I took a couple of weeks off from the gym, watched some TV, movies, and did some non-diet eating.

Besides February sweeps, I managed to watch all of the past season of Dexter on demand. I thought it was an okay season. I think the best seasons were when it was all about perfect execution and not this dealing with and teaching amateurs stuff. I think Dexter plays to the level of his competition and if they forgot about Lumen and focused on strengthening the Jordan Chase character the season could've been better.

I also managed to catch a couple of movies for the first time in a long time. The Fighter was extremely good. I tend to like good boxing movies in general, but this was much more than that. If they had decided to cover the Ward-Gatti fights as well I would have been happy to sit there and watch for two more hours.

While waiting to catch another full movie, I saw about half an hour of The Black Swan, and I really enjoyed it. I think I definitely have to catch the whole thing. Aronofsky's vision and direction looked terrific and I'm a big fan of The Wrestler. I'm also a fan of the Japanese anime Perfect Blue, which bears some similarity to The Black Swan, and the rights to which Aronofsky bought.

Based on a recommendation from my friend BL, I saw Cedar Rapids and enjoyed it very much. It's an enjoyable, entertaining film, the kind where I doubt anyone would think that they wasted their time after watching it. It had a good mix of jokes, wasn't too over the top, and had good characters played well by a quality cast.

Then there was food. The same friend, BL, has been talking up the burger at J G Melon for a long time, and I finally got a chance to try it out. It was indeed magnificent.

The bacon cheeseburger with sauteed onions. An interesting patty size that is between a Shake Shack burger and a pub burger. The bacon was crispy, the cheese was melted, and there was a plenty of good beef flavor and a good griddled crust. This was a winner.

A glorious cross section shot after one bite. Notice the loosely packed meat there. The only thing is that they tend to cook slightly over requested, so my medium rare showed more signs of medium. I probably should order it rare next time.

Cottage fries, which are just regular fries but cut like pickle slices. Increases the fried surface area and was pretty good. They also have a signature drink here called the bloody bull which I did not try. It's essentially a bloody mary with beef broth added in.

Jackson Diner is pretty famous as an Indian restaurant in NYC. It used to be one of the most highly recommended Indian restaurants, but in recent years has received many more reviews expressing disappointment. They recently opened a branch in Manhattan, but I'm not going to go there when the Jackson Heights location is so close to where I live. Their lunch buffet is slightly more expensive ($10) than other nearby Indian places, but I found the quality of the food to be better, and they also had this as part of the buffet:

Freshly made masala dosa stuffed with a nicely spiced potato and onion mix.

Oh well, back to the gym and trying to find a job.

Boardwalk Empire on HBO (tv, entertainment)

One of the most hyped shows of the year was HBO's Boardwalk Empire, with Martin Scorsese at the helm. With my newfound free time, I set about watching it on HBO On Demand and plowed through it pretty quickly. I did find it an enjoyable series, and here are my somewhat scattered thoughts on the show.

First, it is a stunning period piece to watch. The sets, the costumes, everything looked great. I wish I had watched it in HD instead of On Demand. Scorsese definitely had a vision for what his 1920's Boardwalk would look like and he delivered it well. The story, on the other hand, I found muddled at times. There were too many characters and too many subplots to go through. Many of the characters were too underdeveloped to keep my interest, as opposed to a show like The Wire. The pilot was especially confusing. I had to go online and figure out who was who and what roles they played. I wasn't alone either, as the TV blogger that I looked up had the same problem!

That brings me to my view that in the modern age, television has become all about the writers while movies continue to be all about the directors. Scorsese, being the headlining name, did bring quite a vision to how the show looked and felt, but the writing was just not engaging enough. I felt that the female actors as a whole were better than the male actors, but there were just too many things going on for anyone to really stand out.

This leads me to my explanation as to why Steve Buscemi was cast as the lead. Buscemi was always one of those actors who did very well with his roles, but had never really carried a project. Some people even mentioned the fact that the real life inspiration for his character was a bear of a man, very different from Buscemi's thin appearance. My guess is that they felt they had all these stories they wanted to tell, and while the lead character is the guy who greases the wheels and sets everything in motion, they didn't want the show to revolve around him. Let's compare this to The Sopranos for example. While most of the actors did well on that show with their storylines, everything revolved around James Gandolfini's larger than life Tony Soprano character.

The lack of focus definitely hurt the show in the beginning, as it took until at least the third episode for things to settle in and some people had already given up on the show by then. Once settled in, I did find the show to be entertaining enough to go right through the season. If I had HBO and it was on, I'd watch it. However, I don't think it's one of those shows that people should get HBO just to watch, as opposed to The Wire, The Sopranos, or for some, The Pacific.

Top Chef All-Stars: New York's Finest (food, tv, entertainment)

I don't usually watch Top Chef. When I watch reality cooking shows, I tend to look for shows that deal more with the craft of cooking or the business of running a restaurant, such as Hell's Kitchen or Last Restaurant Standing. I've also watched Top Chef Masters, because everyone on there has already honed their craft. What I do not like is watching a bunch of wannabe artists who do not have all the basics down. However, this episode was titled "New York's Finest" and featured four famous New York chefs, so it drew me in. My first impression was that this being the Top Chef "All Stars", the contestants' skills are much more developed than I would expect of a normal Top Chef cast. That might be enough to sway me into watching the rest of the season.

The show featured four very different high end New York restaurants and the competing chefs were asked to draw inspirations from a meal at the specific restaurant they were assigned to. You can watch the show for how the competition went, but I want to share a few thoughts on the four restaurants that were featured.

Ma Peche
The midtown outpost of the Momofuku Empire focuses on French-Vietnamese inspired cuisine. I have never been to the restaurant since it finally opened, but did stop by a few times when the kitchen was serving lunch in the mezzanine of the adjoining hotel. There is clearly talent in the kitchen and when my body and wallet are up to it, I'd definitely like to give their version of beef 7 ways a try.

David Burke Townhouse
I used to go to this restaurant a fair amount back when it was David Burke and Donatella. They serve solid food with a whimsical twist in a fancy setting at a very good value. David Burke was probably the first celebrity chef whose food was strictly what is known as New American or Contemporary American. I remember the first I'd heard of him was when he was on an episode of Master Class at Johnson and Wales (PBS) demonstrating his cheesecake lollipops. His food is very playful, but classically grounded. One of my favorite dishes there is the cavatelli with wild mushrooms and mushroom chips (with beef short rib for dinner, as is for lunch).

Marea
My second favorite restaurant of 2009, and yet I didn't go there even once this year. Just amazing seafood and pasta. Michael White has certainly gotten himself noticed and opened two more restaurants this year. If I find suitable work again, I will go back for the branzino.

WD50
I did have a terrific meal there back in October and I'm hoping to get around to writing about it before the end of the year. An amazing display of artistry and craft that was not only whimsical, but practical in how it elevated the tastes and textures.

Quick TV hits (tv)

Just finished watching the season finale of Justified. Great show, great first season. Never been a fan of old westerns, but I do like the modern western and the futuristic western (Firefly). Acting was superb as the two big characters shined.

It's great that FX has continued to come up with great new shows. As The Shield finished up and Rescue Me is about to finish and Damages may or may not come back, they've replaced them with the terrific Justified, the outrageous Archer, and Louie which I'm really looking foward to. I'm a big fan of stand up and Louis CK is one of the funniest comedians out there. I liked his Lucky Louie show on HBO although that got cancelled. Here's a clip of his interview on The Daily Show which I found really funny, especially Stewart's reaction at the end.

There were a lot of ads during the NBA finals for ABC's Rookie Blue, and I wonder if it will be a cop show, or a Grey's Anatomy with cops instead of doctors.

Burn Notice and Royal Pains are back on, and as the summer season goes into full swing, I expect that most of my TV watching will be on the cable networks like TNT and USA.

Some Thoughts on LOST (tv)

These are my own thoughts on both the finale and the TV series as a whole. It's been an incredible ride and the finale is certainly up for interpretation. At first I felt more confused than I did watching the Sopranos finale, but all of it sank in slowly and I did feel a calm and understanding sweep over me.

The Series

Does anybody still remember that the genius touted for the sensational pilot and first season of LOST was J.J. Abrams? Even though he was obviously instrumental to the early success of the show, the show as we all remember it now really belongs to Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof. What they did was revolutionary in making a show that went back and forth between science and spirituality. A show that debated the many extremes of light/dark, science/faith, free will/destiny, time/memory, etc.

This thematic shift worked for me because I am a fan of opening myself up to all subjects of interest. I have no problems with being a "jack of all trades, master of none." However, LOST picked up a lot of the nerd sci-fi audience with the Dharma and time travel seasons, and I would guess that many of them are dissatisfied with the spiritual turn at the end.

The one core element, especially from the 4th season onward (when the show had set a final episode count) was love. Whether it was couples or families, this really came through in the finale, which I'll discuss below. In fact, a spoiler had come out over a month ago that when asked whether Lost was at its core a love story, Damon Lindelof replied, "You are the very first person ever to get the meaning of the show. Yes. It is a love story. Always has been...always will be."

The Finale

You can call the flash-sideways purgatory, or heaven's waiting room, or whatever you want. I thought it was explained pretty well by Christian Shephard. Everything else Jack had gone through was real. This world was just a path for him to let go. To not just live together then die alone. To rediscover those he loved and accept their love. Remember when Locke said that Jack didn't have a son? I think Jack's son was just a way for him to come to terms with his love for his father. Time did not exist in that sideways world. All those people had died at different times, but brought together by their love for each other. A clear example that time had continued to move on in the real world before they all died and went to sideways world was when Hurley and Ben had the exchange about being great number one and two, suggesting that they had continued life (which ended) as protectors of the island.

The actual island part of the story left a lot of questions, however. Wasn't the plane rigged with Widmore's explosives? What actually happened with the unplugging of the light and MIB's return to mortality? What was going on with Desmond, who sounded like he thought the sideways world was how it should be and wanted to get there?

So what are your theories? I know one of the more prevalent ones believe that this was all Jack's test. He was the "lost" one and this was about him coming back to faith. I'd be ok with that theory except for Christian's insistence that everything on the island was real. To me that throws a monkey-wrench into that whole theory.

Catching up (stock/trading, sport, bridge, food, tv)

The past week has been very busy for me, and I think it will continue that way at least until I've finalized the move. Unfortunately it has also been one of my worst weeks trading in a very long time. Volatility has certainly come into the markets with the VIX in the 40s again, but there's just something I'm struggling with that I need to work out.

One of the main bits of news related to the market has been the financial reform bill. I think that most of the time spent by these lawmakers is on coming up with cute names for these bills. I personally would like to see all the derivatives stuff (and even stock dark pools) moved onto exchanges with no grandfather clause. I also think that Fannie and Freddie need to be addressed, although it looks like that's not going to happen with the Democrat-led charge.

One of the questions raised about the financial reform bill is whether the lawmakers actually understand how the markets etc. work. Obviously they don't, and my question is why we can't change that? I propose that every politician (either before running or after winning) be forced to take and pass a test that is at least at the introductory college level on basic subjects such as economics. If the person gets reelected, he/she would just have to take a continuing education course like what the NASD does for registered reps. And if the elected official is to take part in a special committee/subcommittee such as banking and finance, environmental protection, or military spending, he/she must take an even more specialized course or test to show adequate understanding of the field. Is this so hard to implement?

Staying on the subject of serious matters, this sunday is the big Lost finale. My friend SM was nice enough to get tickets to a live interview with the co-creators of Lost. It was an entertaining evening moderated by a New York Times journalist and Michael Emerson (Ben Linus) and Jorge Garcia (Hurley) also showed up. We saw a scene from the finale and they took some audience Q&As. The biggest revelation to me was when they discussed the end with Jorge Garcia. Garcia is known not only to be an actor on the show, but a big fan as well. Lindelof and Cuse offered themselves to him to answer any questions he still had after they finished the finale. His response was along the lines of, "Well I have no questions really. I mean, I got it." To me, this means that the narrative will be wrapped up in a coherent way, even though some diehards might not get the answers to some small details.

Also on TV is the NBA and I've still been watching the NBA playoffs and they continue to be a treat. Boston has a good chance to win this series now that they won both in Orlando. For those who are even thinking sweep, you have to remember that this year the Celts have actually been a better road team than home team. One interesting note is that with a "healthy" (playing) Garnett, the Celtics have not lost a playoff series yet. A Boston-LA final would probably draw terrific ratings.

I was on the winning Harvard Club team for the 2009-2010 Interclub Bridge League, a casual league that includes many social clubs in NYC such as the Yale Club, NY Athletic Club, Harmonie Club, Regency Whist Club, among others. We won the regular season by a record margin, and won the playoff as well. The playoff was a 24 board 5 team board-a-match. At halftime, we had a score of 6.5 boards and were actually in the lead as the other teams scored three 6s and a 5.5. To celebrate, one of the team members will be taking us out to Daniel, which recently won a James Beard award for Outstanding Restaurant. Looking foward to it and hopefully I'll post some nice pics.

Speaking of food, here are some more pics of recent good food I've had.

This is as close as it gets to food that I would miss once I move out of LIC. While most of the places around here are overpriced Italian, there is some pretty good pizza. This combination, from the Food Cellar market downstairs (like a Whole Foods), was one of my favorites. Cooked shrimp and sliced potato provided a terrific range of textures with the slightly chewy crust and the fresh mozzarella. There was no red sauce, but some EVOO and arugula added at the end provided the perfect flavor notes.

I should have included this one in the sandwich post but forgot. It is an oreja cemita from one of the taco trucks along the 7 line. I'll be looking forward to much more of this type of food once I move back closer to the heart of Queens. While eating pig's ear is not new, I find that most Chinese preparations I've had are chilled, and so the melty gelatinous feel of the heated ear was a nice surprise.

There's a reason classics are classics. This is the oyster pan roast from the Grand Central Oyster Bar. A deliciously creamy soup/stew that goes terrifically with the plump oysters. I had to get more of the lightly toasted white bread to soak up all the sauce.

Another one that should have made the sandwich post but was hiding in my food pics folder. This is the grilled and sliced tuna sandwich also from the Oyster Bar. Perfectly grilled, still rare inside and served with a simple tomato salsa, this is a terrific value at $9 for simple, fresh flavor. They make a lot of these sandwiches during the lunch rush, so if you get there late, the main problem is that they might run out of bread to make sandwiches with (I got the last one that time at around 4pm).

TV gained and TV lost (tv)

TV gained:

Conan O'Brien signs with TBS to do their 11pm slot, with George Lopez pushed to midnight. This makes perfect sense for everyone. Lopez's audience is younger, so they'll definitely be in the Conan range, and Lopez will now be part of a duo, which should lead to stronger ratings than a standalone late night show against the networks. Given the NBC debacle, it's nice to see that they all handled this signing very well. Just goes to show once again that the best brains in TV are on cable (and not just the expensive premium cable). To use an analogy, it's like the brain drain from Wall Street (the networks) when many of the young and bright stars left and went into hedge funds (basic cable is responsible for many of the recent Emmy winners and keeps setting new ratings records).

Read online somewhere that the pre-finale show will be 2 hours long for LOST, meaning the full night's programming for that night will be 5 hours of LOST-related TV.

TV lost:

My first iPod blacked out last week and erased everything I had on it. Since I no longer have the original computer on which the files were kept, I lost all the iTunes store stuff I had on it. This included the first seasons of Damages and 30 Rock, and the first two seasons of The Loop, How I Met Your Mother, and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. A lot of good TV lost.

It's weird enough to me that TV advertising still works in this age of the DVR, but why do lead-ins still work? Are people still that lazy to change the channel or look ahead of time to see what might be good on other channels?

More Random Thoughts (entertainment, sports, tv, food)

This is what happens when I'm stuck at home (to watch the NCAA) over a long weekend. Lots of random thoughts.

Since The Lord of the Rings trilogy, there have been quite a few large-scale fantasy adventure movies. However, none of them have really been very good. Harry Potter is consistent but not breath-taking. The Chronicles of Narnia are just bleh. Pirates of the Carribean got worse and worse. So my vote for the best fantasy movie series since LOTR has never actually been in theaters. It is the God of War trilogy. Yes GOW is a video game, and it is completely animated. It also is not child-friendly because of its over-the-top gore and nudity. But the story is actually quite good and the visual effects are quite stunning. Someone finally put all the GOW3 cut scenes into a movie and it is definitely worth watching.

Also worth watching this year has been 60 Minutes. Maybe I'm just getting old, but the interviews this year have been very entertaining. Beyonce, Andre Agassi, Michael Lewis, Mikhail Prokhorov, etc. are all people I actually want to hear about. They also do a pretty good job when they report on medical discoveries. I don't care at all for Andy Rooney, but the main point is that every once in a while, 60 Minutes does come up with a can't-miss interview of someone really interesting.

Playing Bo Jackson on the old Tecmo Bowl or Tecmo Super Bowl (using a NES emulator online) is like watching the end scene of a Benny Hill episode. See here.

So I was eating my McDonald's Filet-o-Fish (hard to beat 2 for $3) and noticed on the box that they emphasized sustainable fish. Except that there's a little problem. McD's used to use cod, until cod catches declined and they needed to move on. Then they used hoki, and continue to use hoki, although they lowered its use as there began a decline of New Zealand hoki fishery sustainability. So they moved on to Alaskan pollock a few years ago, but now the catch numbers of that fish have declined as well. Anyone notice a pattern here? (information from wikipedia)

This is also a completely different problem from species such as chilean seabass, bluefin tuna, and shark (shark's fin), where they are endangered because of the high prices for them. I'm worried that we are going to approach a point of saturation. One where "normal" consumption habits of an overpopulated world would put too much stress on wildlife regeneration.

This problem will also spread to farmed fish. Cows that are not fed grass. Chicken feed that noone probably ever wants to know the underlying ingredients of. Fish need to eat protein too, and if fishing for smaller fish such as sardines also becomes unsustainable, we might see fish fed with chicken feed in the near future, if not already.

Random thoughts (entertainment, sports, tv)

Guess I've been a little disorganized since coming back from Reno. Continuing on that trend, I'll just blog about all the things that've crossed my mind lately in one post.

Great Sports Documentaries

I've mentioned before how amazing I think the ESPN 30 for 30 documentaries have been. The Reggie Miller one certainly lived up to that and was extremely entertaining, especially for someone who lived through that as a Knicks fan.

The next 30 for 30 is Guru of Go and will premier tomorrow. Looking forward to that one too.

Still on HBO on Demand is the Magic and Bird documentary. Two greats that changed basketball culture and saved the NBA just before my time. After watching both of these NBA documentaries, I must admit that I miss that edge the game had when teams hated each other. Now it's bordering on sports entertainment. If David Stern had the playoffs scripted, would anyone really care?

Speaking of sports entertainment, there was another documentary that I really enjoyed. Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows was only released on DVD in the USA last year, so it's great that someone uploaded the whole thing on youtube. It was a documentary about wrestler Bret "the hitman" Hart, and his family (who were all in wrestling, as his father Stu Hart was a legendary figure in the sport) during his contract negotiation year and through the Montreal Screwjob. For a kid who grew up loving wrestling (and still catches it every now and then), this was great.

Great TV

Enjoying my usual shows so far this year. Especially LOST, which has been very entertaining and hopefully building towards a satisfying conclusion. Even if it doesn't, why can't people just enjoy each individual hour of terrific acting and story-telling? Of the newer shows, modern family is my comedy of choice, as I just couldn't get into community. Mondays continue to be the day that fills up my DVR, with House and the CBS comedy lineup at 8 (end up watching Chuck on prime time on demand), Gossip Girl and more CBS at 9, then Damages and Castle at 10. Castle has continued to improve this year, and even beat a brand new CSI:Miami in the ratings last week. It's a light-hearted cop/murder mystery procedural that reminds me of Moonlighting.

Rent

With my lease ending in less than 2 months, I just received the lease extension paperwork today. Not that I was going to renew the lease, but they actually raised the rent! That surprised me. Or maybe they were expecting some negotiating.

NYU Talk

Went to an NYU talk by Professor Robert Engle, a nobel prize winning economist. The talk on global stability and long run risks was horrible, but at least I got a good nap out of it. He was not very well organized, the talk was very superficial, with him mostly saying things like, "there's risk here, here, and here" without actually identifying what those risks were. In the end, he sounded like any other theoretical economist in that nothing he said had real world applications and his view on the markets and such were not very practical.

NCAA Tourney

What a fantastic tournament it's been. I haven't filled out a bracket in 5 years and had been losing interest, but this year has been full of great moments. There's still both a Cinderella (Butler) and a villain (Duke), so there should still be some good drama left.

NBA

A terrifically entertaining season will only get better in the playoffs. My NBA bet of the decade didn't work out, but I think that was more a reflection of the parity in the Western Conference. With teams like Memphis and Houston playing very well but still not making the playoffs, the remaining teams are sure to provide lots of entertaining games. I still want to keep a close eye on the Spurs as I don't think they will roll over against the Lakers.

Super Bowl Thoughts (sport, entertainment, tv, football)

Well, the team of destiny won. Congratulations to all the Saints fans and the city of New Orleans. Since most of my friends are either Pats or Jets (or Giants) fans, none of them wanted Indy to win. So that's good for them too.

First thought for tonight is that all the commercials were horrible. I think the only really funny one was the Doritos gym ninja. It was just a really bad night of commercials. Does Go Daddy even hire an ad agency? Every commercial is the same thing.

The opening theme song choice of Run This Town was good, thought it was pretty clear as soon as I saw them performing it that Kanye wasn't going to be in it. Carrie Underwood's Star Spangled Banner was very good. She can really belt it. I did not like Queen Latifah's America the Beautiful. Too much changing of the song for my taste. The Who was pretty good overall. I really liked the circular stage with the light show. I was surprised they didn't hire a crowd to run down to the stage this year. Don't know why they didn't do that.

On to the football thoughts. The thing that stood out to me was that this game was so incredibly clean defensively. No defensive penalties that stopped the clock or kept drives alive by giving up automatic first downs.

The Saints still had problems converting on short yardage, with the goal line stop adding to the woes from the Vikings game. At least they can't draw Eagles comparisons because they actually won the big one.

The onside kick was a good call. The fact that this option was always available for Payton made the decision to take the ball first make a lot more sense.

I don't feel that either team's WRs played well. They all caught well-thrown balls, but there were a lot of balls missed and none of them really made any plays.

The 51 yard FG call by Caldwell was horrible. Stover's a quality kicker, but that is not really his range. How many times this season have coaches gone for bad field goals? I think that was a bigger momentum swing because the Colts answered the onside kick with their own drive very quickly.

Caldwell was clearly outcoached in this game. They got an early advantage with the surprise play of Freeney, but the Saints made all the adjustments throughout the game while Indy made none.

The Saints played not to give up the big play on defense, and this worked really well when their offense was able to dominate the time of possession in the second quarter.

Manning lost his cool at the end, which was very different from his aura of invincibility throughout the season. I don't mean the interception, that was just good defensive play jumping that route. They didn't have that swagger in their final drive. The swagger of inevitability of the Colts scoring just wasn't there. It was clearly important to hold on to 3 timeouts throughout that drive to give them an extra chance to come back, but Manning called that timeout, and knew he made a mistake as soon as he did it.

In the end, Indy lived and died with Manning. With his receivers not making big plays, it was too much for him to do. In the end, New Orleans was the better team, and everyone played pretty well, including Brees, Thomas, Bush, Henderson, Colston, etc.

It's SHOWtime (tv, entertainment)

Now that both seasons have finished, I was able to watch both Dexter and Californication on SHOWtime on Demand straight through. Brilliant seasons for both and while they're definitely not for everyone, I was very entertained.

Dexter

This whole season was a great big mindfck. In my view the best season since the first. This show is probably the best on tv at creating suspense. From the twists and turns to John Lithgow's excellent performance (he's really been terrific in everything and very underrated), it had me captivated and I'm really glad I didn't have to wait a week between episodes.

Californication

Gratuitous nudity, depraved characters, over the top situations, smart and witty dialogue. What's not to like? While all that is thoroughly enjoyable, the show is really about a modern dysfunctional family with probably more raw love for each other than any family depicted on television. Then there's Eva Amurri's strip scene. Hot. She's young, cute round face, and has big tickets. Hot. Also there's Kathleen Turner's character who's just hilarious. I would strongly recommend this show, but you'll know very quickly whether you'll enjoy it or find it highly offensive.

Speaking of being offensive, even though this show is not on SHOWtime, I have to mention it. This season's Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO) was my favorite show of the year. From the plots that were even more wrong than usual to the Funkhouser joke to the brilliantly written Seinfeld reunion, I couldn't stop laughing and cringing at the same time.

As much as I love House, Mad Men, Gossip Girl, and 30 Rock, these three shows get my votes for best comedy (CYE), drama (Dexter), and guilty pleasure (Californication) on tv this year.

Must Watch ESPN 30 for 30 (tv, entertainment)

First of all, I must say that everyone should watch the ESPN 30 for 30 documentaries. Every one of them has been terrific, and they're not just for sports fans. They are well made documentaries with great old footage and while they're all linked by sports, they all have a bigger story to tell. Brilliant. Just brilliant.

Now a couple quick points on shows that I'm watching/DVRing.

House is still great, but the rewatch value has dropped significantly from the first three seasons. I watch it, I like it, but then I'm done.

The CW. I watch Gossip Girl and the new Melrose Place. Not amazing, but I watch. The eye candy helps.

Secret Girlfriend on Comedy Central is interesting. A bit weird, but it has its funny moments, and also a lot of eye candy. The title character is really cute, but they increase her attractiveness tremendously by making her a ridiculously awesome chick.

Dollhouse has been even better this season, but too bad the show will most likely be done. It's amazing enough that they managed to get a second season.