Archery

Pickles, get thee to YouTube and find a video with subtitles, asap! I avoided it for a long time cuz I don’t have toddlers, but when I finally caved, I was hooked. It’s so catchy and clever, and the animation is the bomb. That travesty last night was a crime. (You’ll want to watch Surface Pressure, too.). The actual nominated song, Dos Orugitos, needs a bit of context from the rest of the film to fully understand.

I loved Esperanza’s “Wonderful World” In Memoriam, and also Queen Latifa’s “I’ll Be Seeing You.” Just a stripped down, melancholy song done with no frills by the oldest instrument used to express grief—the human voice. I also love when they include everyone, from major actors and directors to costume designers and sound engineers. As a black church girl, I get that they were going for a joyful Homegoing Celebration kind of vibe with the upbeat “choir” medley. But this wasn’t the audience for it. I’m sure there weren’t too many people in that auditorium thinking, Hmm, I could go for some Bapticostal hand clapping and foot stomping to honor these deceased people right now. You could probably do something like that at the BET Awards, but not the Oscars.

I’m sure this is neither the worst nor the most violent thing that’s ever happened to Chris Rock at a comedy gig.

Damn. I was really rooting for LMM. Dos O is a beautiful song that is intrinsic to the plot and tone of the movie. NTTD is just cookie cutter Bond. Anyway, LMM will have many more chances. I like Will Smith, and I hate when someone I like does something really stupid. At least Jane Campion can let out a big sigh of relief, as she isn’t the biggest A-hole of the awards season anymore.

I liked the football “gimmick.” The blue team almost screwed itself over by trying to game the points (changing the order), but it turned out that the red team chef would have gone home in any event. It was cool that Dawn coached her team to a win in this challenge, since she won her season’s head-to-head drive in movie challenge with popcorn. I think I rewound three times just to see Padma’s face as she tried to chew that queso crisp thing.

I was annoyed by this episode. I do internal investigations IRL, and the FIRST thing I would do would be to have the TA walk me through exactly what happened in that lecture regarding the salute, instead of listening to her whine about her student debt. I like Prof. Joan partly because she is funny and not an “older woman” caricature, but also because she sets expectations for her students (do the reading) and isn't interested in their fragility. I wish the town hall were purely satire of cancel culture but, sadly, no. I dislike Juju, but the age, phase, and adoption processing are pretty spot on.

I just binged S1 on Amazon Prime, and I don’t think I will be returning for S2. Although it had a better budget than PR, the emphasis on “brand” over design or construction made no sense. Weirdly, Megan’s elimination made me see red for a couple of days. Honestly, I felt like Megan was held to a standard of perfection, while Jonny’s flaws were excused. Megan lost the branding win because her model was sitting down, even though Jonny’s whole brand name put one in mind of a burn victim unit. And then this episode, Jonny’s first look was, everyone already has each of the pieces in their closet, versus, the crotch on this one pair of Megan’s pants isn’t perfect, and also, Esther invented black clothing. Megan should at least have made final three, as her collections consistently were wearable across a broad consumer base.

My UO: Bill Cosby’s Himself is in the Comedy Trilogy, along with Murphy’s Raw and Pryor’s Live On The Sunset Strip. It was funny then and is funny now, and a whole lot of folks can still recite it from memory. Also, The Cosby show was often genius, and deserved every Emmy it won. It anchored NBC’s Must See TV Thursday night, pioneered TV for black people, and provided a little education on black culture for non-black people.

This was a quarantine catch up binge for me. I was so disappointed. The crooked cops were one dimensional—like they wanted to be the cops from The Wire, except they were made out of cardboard. The family started out as a realistic picture of grief, then fell apart from stupidity. A family so deeply-rooted in the church, particularly the black church, would never have been left to disintegrate like that. There would have been a church mother with Latrice daily. Urban pastors have extensive training and, unfortunately, experience to counsel families who lose loved ones suddenly to violence. The courtroom scenes would have been laughable if they weren’t so rage inducing. Did the writers not know any lawyers who could consult? I would have done it free just to spare myself the aneurysm. The constant disregard for criminal law and procedure was just fricking lazy. This could have been really great drama, with something to say—how often do we see a story centered around a black person’s death that isn’t gun related and completely innocent? Instead, it sucked, Regina’s Emmy notwithstanding.

On my second watch, I noticed that Angelica has tears in her eyes when she begins "It's Quiet Uptown," and at two other points (third watch), Eliza has rolling tears. That floored me, since, who would notice that from the audience, yet both actors were so totally committed. I had watched a video essay (relating to the film version of Les Miz) all about how actors should not cry when they sing a sad song, but L-MM's choked up verses in "Quiet," as Eliza will not look at him, were really effective. On the comedy side, I loved the transition of "can we get back to politics?" with Madison's tearful, "Please?!" Diggs as Jefferson is my favorite thing to watch in the background of any scene he's in.

While I’m sure there are tons of specific African country (Ethiopian, Nigerian, Gambian) restaurants all over America, that’s not at all Eric’s concept. And for celebration of white Southern cooking without acknowledging the buried racial heritage of it, see Exhibit A: Paula Deen. Her whole shtick was “here’s how we cook in the South” (unspoken: “just like our Negro domestics used to make for our family for generations”). I think Stephanie was in that same headspace that Cheeto-on-a-Snickers Mikey was in seasons ago. She literally did not have the first clue where to start with the restaurant concept. Without that added pressure, she likely would have done just fine with her schnitzel.

Yes! I very much enjoyed learning about new categories of food, and for the most part, Eric's food was very well received in both seasons. I really want West African cuisine and, for that matter, Haitian cuisine, to be held in high regard in restaurants, like French or Italian food, and not relegated to food you eat at your friend's aunt's house. I didn't get the sense that Eric's restaurant would have literal shackles and other reminders of the slave trade, but rather colours that tied back to the theme, and would be pitched as food of the African diaspora (basically, food of everywhere in the Americas). I do think the name, Middle Passage, will disappear somewhere in the development of his restaurant. He'll be talked out of it. Honestly, I was more skeeved out by the Caucasian Brian Malarkey's concept of marrying food from the Baja (Mexican) with Asian cuisine -- all I could think was, yes, go ahead and marry up the cuisine of two oppressed California peoples and act like you invented it. Padma's "FFS" expression whenever Malarkey gets going is priceless. Also loved Leanne's Brad Pitt in "Se7en" impression: "What's in the booooooox?"

I finally watched Perks of Being a Wallflower and was incredibly moved by it. I loved that when my mind said, "Oh, this dramatic plot moment is about to happen" (e.g., this girl is going to betray the boy's confidence and humiliate him), something else BETTER happened. The sweet moments legit made me tear up. It's rare to see a teen movie that is not a collection of mean things happening to a character. Every time a "friendship" moment happened instead of a "because, plot" moment, it lifted me up just a little.

Unintentionally timely episode (if I ever get to watch it -- FY Fios), since AP flour is hard to find in grocery stores right now.

Padma seemed to be having a blast during this Quickfire -- not in a "this is going to be really hard" diabolical way, but rather she seemed ... delighted. And the casual jeans look really suited her. I loved that the top 3 Elim dishes were non Euro-American condiments.