Work of Art – Pairs

In this latest episode the remaining six are paired off to tackle topics like heaven & hell, order & chaos, and man & woman. First of all, there is no way the paint tubes were random. The producers totally set those pairs up. They had to get Miles and Jaci together and they had to assign them man & woman.

Glorious reality tv ensued. Holy fuck you couldn’t script Miles 23 year old jerkoff skeeziness! I mean, you could, but its so much more fun when its a reality tv show. The bulk of Miles’ camera confessions were all about his evil plan to get Jaci to do something naked. The glee on that kid’s face when he convinced himself that he had tricked Jaclyn into do a portrait of herself masterbating was pretty priceless.

The truth is, no manipulation needed to get that girl to take her clothes off and call it art. Have you seen the other episodes?  She would have done it even if she had been assigned heaven (I’m totally taking my clothes off to be Eve) or order (look at the perfect beauty and order of my Vajazzled private lady.  LOL! Ok that was low, but I do love sneaking in a J.Love.Hew reference where I can.) So really Miles, you can try and take credit, but at this point we’ve well established it’s her thing.

All kidding aside, of all her nude art this season, this one was the best and most though provoking. Miles “man” piece not so much. He’s hardly the first man to punch his fist through drywall. Stealing Ryan’s left-over tar was also stupid. Ryan should have poured it out before leaving. The Miles school of thought boils down to this: just doing something he’s already done in school and repackage it. The only thing new to him this challenge was playing with tar.

Abdi and Nicole had order & chaos. That topic I thought was pretty hard. The judges hate when you go literal, so what could they really do? Nicole’s mousetrap game didn’t make sense. Abdi’s painting was something for Etsy.com.

Finally there was Peregrine and Mark.  Heaven and Hell as a topic is quite frankly the most awesome of the bunch. There is so much you could do with it. Peregrine’s suggestion to do two portraits of Mark and his stomach scar was a pretty bullshit idea. Did she not pay attention to Ryan? The judges don’t like narcissistic portrait art. They are even tiring of Jaci’s pictures. So strike one.

Strike two is that Mark doesn’t feel strongly about his scar. It’s not hell to him. It’s not heaven. It’s not a moving subject matter for the main subject.

Strike 3: when Pergrine got exactly what she asked for she didn’t do a damn thing with it. Again, just like last week, I ask the same thing about her art. How is what she does any different than a 16 year old doing it in an art class in Ohio? All she did was cover a photo with glitter, grommets and cigarettes. Cigarettes are to Peregrine what nudity is to Jaclyn. She needs cigarettes for some weird reason.  I don’t get it.

Mark got the short end of the stick on this one. He tried to be a good guy and compromise for his partner and got the boot for his trouble.  For the curious, this is what Mark originally wanted to do for heaven. He went back and shot it on his own after he was off the show.

Work of Art Contestants – Follow them on Twitter

I’m surprised that these people don’t have more Twitter followers given the TV Show. Some of the folks I’ve found so far…

• Abdi Farah = @abdiart
• Mark Velasquez = @markvelasquez
• Nicole Nadeau = @NicoleNadeau
• Jaclyn Santos = @Jaclyn_Santos
• John Parot = @JohnParot
• Erik Johnson = @plumprumpjumper
• Peregrine Honig = @peregrinehonig
• Nao = @NaoBustamante

As well as host / judges:

• China Chow = @China_Chow
• Jerry Saltz = @jerrysaltz

Work of Art – Miles the Douchebag

I freakin’ LOVE the fact that Hulu.com now has a clip just entitled “Miles the Douchebag.”

I have much to write about last night’s episode with Miles plan to get Jaclyn to do something as skeezy as he possibly could (and still convince her it was art.) Plus his elaborate plan to take Ryan’s tar.  But for now this gem of a clip.

SALT – the movie, not the seasoning

SALT was good. It was very much like the Jason Bourne movies, but with Angelina Jolie, Russians and no memory loss.

Like the Bourne movies, the love interest is a German. The guy playing Angelina’s husband was very European looking. Garden gnome-like in his and chin-cheek-only beard and overall German-ness. I actually really digged the fact the Angelina was with a normalish weird looking little guy in the movie and not a Brad Pitt. I mean, yeah in real life she’s with a Brad Pitt, but I found it awesome that her super spy character was not. It gave her some relatable gravitas. She marries this science nerd who studies spiders for a living. Why? Because he loves her. Dude freaking moves the moon and the stars to get her out of a North Korean prison at the beginning of the movie. He’s total marriage material, even with his Dieter German weirdness. So they get married and live in a modest apartment with a cute little dog. Apart from her being smoking hot, I actually was buying this as a plausible life of a CIA agent.

From the trailers you already know that this Russian Gary Busey-like guy shows up and accuses her of being a Russian spy. She goes on the run.

What happens next I won’t ruin because I actually found it to be a pretty tight well-written script for the bulk of the movie. It came unglued a little bit in the last 20 minutes or so, but until then I was really into it. I think my problem in the final act was Liev Schreiber turns out to be every character he seems to be in every movie I ever see him in. He’s big on the characters that are all “I’m one thing — YOINK— no I’m not!!! Ha! Ha! Dumb audience.” That was when I rolled my eyes and was kind of like… oh COME ON! I was really into this!! I think I would have been ok if it had been another actor. Oh well.

My support of Team Angelina continues. I know she’s whacky in real life but she performs well as a movie star. She’s like Harrison Ford at his height. Gorgeous and interesting to watch. What’s really interesting to me is that even though she’s young she actually pulls off looking a bit older and wiser in the movie. I think it’s the way the shadows hit the bones in her face. Skinny actually working to enhance the performance, not detract.

Thumbs up on this one.  Worth Netflixing if you don’t catch in the theaters.

Ivy Bean – the Oldest Twitter User – Dies

This is so sad!! A lady in England named Ivy Bean, thought to be the oldest Twitter user, died last night at the age of 104.

Ivy started tweeting from her retirement home in Bradford, England last year. She had over 57,000 followers, including the former Prime Minister of England Gordon Brown. Her tweets usually centered on her favorite meals (fish and chips) but in the last few weeks the account took on a more somber tone. Staff at the retirement home tweeted updates of her failing health. 6 hours ago they posted “ivy passed away peacefully at 12.08 this morning.”

I didn’t know of this nice old lady until today, but I’m actually weeping in my cube. Rest in peace Ivy. Say hello to @god for me.

RuPaul’s Drag U – Make ‘em Dateworthy

Episode 2 brought us three new ladies to the Drag U. This episode’s topic was ladies who haven’t dated in awhile.  The woman who won was a chocolate diva who hadn’t been with a man in decades because she was raising her son as a single mom. Ok reality tv, but I didn’t find her quite as interesting as the other two girls.

In one corner we had this great girl Bonnie who was pretty self conscious about herself because her sister was “the pretty one.”  This I can identify with this girl quite a bit. Even though my sister and I both are considered brainy nerds, she is far and away the prettier of the two.  Anytime I look at a picture to see what she looked like at the age I’m currently at (we are many years apart), there’s never any question.  She is the looker. My sister is more successful, has a husband and two kids, runs a business – she’s got it all. So I get Bonnie’s feelings of sibling inadequacy. It’s not sibling rivalry.  It’s not that you want to knock your sister down. It’s just that you feel so much less than her.

So I loved it when Bonnie got out there in her Geisha meets Marie Antoinette meets Harajuku girl costume and worked the stage. Best part of the whole episode is when she got on her knees and slapped the stage during the Chaka Khan song. L-O-V-E-D IT! She got into the show. She knew she was on camera. She even threw a diva fit in the workroom. She was as close to a girl being “me” on that show we’ve seen yet (although it’s only been two episodes). But sadly, she didn’t win.

In the other corner we had this lovely Eastern European looking girl Pegah who pretty much spends all her time with her mother/family.  Another girl I can identify with.  Given my father’s sickness and my mother’s inability to do much of anything for herself, I’ve logged most of my prime “20-something” hours on the homefront. It does make you very self-conscious. I understand her instant back-tracking on the dominatrix outfit. Now I probably would have been all over it and asking my Drag Mama where the baby powder was to squeeze into that sucker, but I understand her hesitancy.  You don’t want to embarrass the people you are closest to (and really the only ones you think that care for you.) It’s a hard line to tow.  I don’t think most people get the very real pressure of that position for someone at that age. So many people are just me-me-me from the age of like 13. Out on their own and f-you mom & dad at 18. Not everyone is like that.  I think the struggle we saw in Pegah might have resonated more in another country like India. But I digress. She was a lovely petite dominatrix.

So all-in-all I like this episode better than episode 1. I think the girls had more fun and the show is starting to find its feet.

Dark Dark Crash

I got really low over the course of last night. Wearing all black today, really depressed. Going to try to work through some of it with some pop culture blog posts,  but I am not in a happy place this Wednesday a.m.

Predators

Did I seriously not review Predators on here after I saw it? Faux pas!!

It was awesome. The humans are stuck on a game reserve planet along other nasty aliens for the Predators to hunt. There are big predators and little predators in this one. Basically they are waring clans. That is a new footnote in the Predator storyline.

Explosions!

Goo!

Adrian Brody and his giant nose team up with a little Predator to take down the big ones. Topher Grace gets all serial killer-y. The one lady in the movie gives a summation of the original movie with Schwarzenegger.

All-in-all, delivered on what it was selling. I liked it.

T-Rex Hoodie

This would be a lot cooler if the fabric didn’t look so chintzy. This is the cheap stuff they make kids’ jammies out of at Wal-Mart.  Too bad. Cute concept.

Celeb-u-Crush is back on: Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman

So my Oscar-season crush on Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman had a good run and then it sort of waned. I’ve been following them, but more from a polite “fan of their work” and less an envy of their super awesome relationship.

My crush is officially back on. Look at this picture!!! Seriously I wish I was one of them. Either one. They are both talented and gorgeous.