Top Chef Carolinas is over, and no spoilers here as I look at the season and the franchise to ask: Is Top Chef deserving of the title of top culinary reality show?

There are a lot of bad movies in the world. There are, of course, good movies and bad movies, but there’s also a special third category of “good bad” movies. I had a feeling going into the theater to see Masters of the Universe which category it would fall into. Despite never having actually watched any He-Man content before, I was surprisingly really excited for this movie. Not because I thought it would be absolutely amazing, but because I thought it would be fun. And boy oh boy, I was right.…

We watched the new Ryan film (it’s bad). After we were done, Amazon had suggestions from the broader continuity: If you’re taking notes, that’s: Two different Jacks Ryan; Two different Jacks Reacher; An actual spin-off of the right universe starring Michael B. Jordan; The Jackal; and, of course, Jackass. Obviously.

For me, one of the standout young male dancers in Europe right now (if not the standout) is Giorgi Potskhishvili. He is exceptionally strong technically (especially in classical roles like Swan Lake) and considered a rising international star, still relatively early in his peak career. These excerpts from the Dutch National Ballet’s Don Quixote, performed with Prima Ballerina Anna Tsygankova, show off his exemplary talents perfectly. The first round of applause is one of delighted spontaneity –…

WORTH SINGING ALONG TO? Ask ourselves in all honesty: did we all schlepp out to Richmond for press night because national-treasure Dame Maureen Lipman, at 80, is doing eight show a week on tour before the West End, as doughty as any McKellen? Or because it is good to see her onstage again and in something lighter after the haunting, profound solo performance she gave us in ROSE, as a Jewish woman sitting shiva for all the lost, including an Arab child killed “by my own blood”? Or is it furious…

Many of you know of my love for Audrey Hepburn. She is my favourite film actress. While I love her as an actress and a fashion icon, I have always loved her most for who she was as a person in everyday life. Audrey was a tireless humanitarian working on behalf of UNICEF. She was compassionate, generous, sincere, courageous, down-to-earth, humble and gentle. She bought joy and hope to millions around the world and helped make the world a better place in so many ways. Truly one of the loveliest…

Evergreen twins atop Flagstaff Mountain, Boulder, Colorado. The post Twin Pines appeared first on 75CentralPhotography.

A fierce dove racing in a fiercer gale June the 9th is Saint Columba’s day, a saint who has a special place for me, as somehow, he feels bound up in my own journey to Faith. When I was 19, and moving from atheism, towards a greater spiritual openness, but by no means yet a Christian, I went for a long slow walk round Ireland. I went without a map because the Zen practice in which I was interested at the time, and on which I still draw in prayer, was always emphasizing ‘The map is not the…

Top Chef Carolinas is over, and Laurence, Rhoda, or Sherry won the $250,000 prize. Spoilers plus sponsor and Sieger jokes within!

Wenn zwei Kristallgläser aus Val Saint-Lambert aneinanderstoßen, erzeugen sie diesen unverwechselbaren, hellen Ton – ein akustisches Versprechen von Qualität, das seit 200 Jahren in den Werkstätten einer ehemaligen Zisterzienserabtei an der Maas eingelöst wird. Die Kristallmanufaktur Val Saint-Lambert in Seraing bei Lüttich ist älter als Belgien selbst und feiert in diesem Jahr ihr 200-jähriges Bestehen (Bicentenaire) mit einem außergewöhnlichen Programm. Gegründet 1826 in einer restaurierten…

This isn’t as exciting as the source album, but the melancholy is the point.

We're not kidding - June 6 indeed is National Pick Your Poison Day. Here, a bon vivant version of Charlie celebrates with fellow inebriate Roscoe Arbuckle in the 1914 Keystone comedy THE ROUNDERS. Even better: Charlie and the DTs in one of his Mutual masterpieces, 1 AM. In another Mutual masterpiece, THE CURE, Charlie attempts to get un-inebriated, 20 years before 12 step programs and over 60 years before the Betty Ford Center. This scene from MODERN TIMES gets one wondering if by happenstance…

It just occurred to me that in the 1994 film The Lion King, when Zazu sings “This child is getting wildly out of wing,” that’s a joke about the expression “out of hand” because he is a bird. I think my kid brain just assumed “out of wing” was something grownups said sometimes and I didn’t question it for 32 years.

Metafilter recently discussed the Boston Globe’s ranking of Steven Spielberg’s 34 movies (before his newest arrives), a list which excludes Duel for spurious reasons and which, like any listicle, is obviously wrong in key respects. I’ve seen 28 of the 34 and have a few gaps to fill; I haven’t seen The Fabelmans or The Post yet, and need to do something about that. I’m in less of a rush about Always, Sugarland Express, and Twilight Zone. I can’t remember if I sat all the way through 1941 or if…

Whether you know him as Oscar Wilde, the Prince Regent, Shrimpie, or one of his

Wesley Snipes as John Cutter in Passenger 57 (1992) Vitals Wesley Snipes as John Cutter, airline security chief and ex-Secret Service agent In flight from Miami to Los Angeles, Spring 1992 Film: Passenger 57 Release Date: November 6, 1992 Director: Kevin Hooks Costume Designer: Brad R. Loman WARNING! Spoilers ahead! Background To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, sometimes there’s nothing more necessary than to sit back and turn off your brain to watch a pleasantly absurd ’90s action movie. Luckily…

When David Lynch and Mark Frost cast Piper Laurie in the role of Catherine Martell, it was a big deal. This incredibly talented actress had a long acting career before she joined the groundbreaking series in the early 1990s. In early 1991, reporter Joey Berlin published a profile of Laurie for the Copley News Service.... The post Reviewing Peaks – Profile of Piper Laurie from Joey Berlin in 1991 appeared first on TWIN PEAKS BLOG.

The Royal Navy has spent the past 14 weeks gearing up a mine countermeasures response to send to the Persian Gulf region. That mission will be the 16,000-ton civilian-manned Bay-class auxiliary RFA Lyme Bay (L3007), loaded up with lots of sorta ad-hoc bits and pieces, including the Video Ray Defender-Viper system, “four specialist mine-hunting vessels, three RHIBS, more than 20 containers packed full of tech,” and a skosh of good wishes. 20 May 2026 – HMS Stirling Castle is using their crane to…

Metro Goldwyn Mayer’s “Tell It To the Marines,” an interbellum silent film featuring the great Lon Chaney, began filming in the summer of 1926, specifically running from 7 June to 3 August, for a Christmas weekend release. The first film made with the full cooperation of the service, its shooting locations included Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego and aboard the top-of-the-line Tennessee-class dreadnought USS California (BB-44) while on a port call at San Francisco, with active duty…

It’s no secret that the Hollywood Comet loves musicals. In 2010, I revealed I had seen 400 movie musicals over the course of eight years. Now that number is over 600. To celebrate and share this musical love, here is … Continue reading →

1959 whodunnit, dir. Otto Preminger, James Stewart, Lee Remick: IMDb. The soldier killed the bartender who raped his wife. But is it really that simple?

There are few things which make me happier than Deanna Durbin movies, so I'm thrilled that her first full-length feature film, THREE SMART GIRLS (1936), was just released on Blu-ray.Given how much I love Durbin, I've been upgrading her films from DVD to Blu-ray as they're released, and I'm thrilled that this important movie in her filmography finally joins many of her other titles on Blu-ray.As a matter of fact, my earliest Durbin viewing, including this film, was on VHS; I first saw THREE…

I recently watched two East German movies about World War Two on Kanopy. Here are my initial impressions. “Star-Crossed Lovers” [Königskinder] (DEFA, 1962), dir. Frank Beyer This film is about two young men and a young woman, friends since childhood, who are separated in the Nazi era because of their circumstances and choices. The film is well made and interesting, but the scenes that depict the men fleeing the Wehrmacht for the Red Army and being well received strain belief, which interfered…

AuthorKatie HenryReviewHow does a YA book make me feel so seen?! I, too, believe in love and wish the church would evolve more quickly. But this book made me wonder about the nature of forgiving the church for being imperfect. 15 years working in the church and I never considered that. Powerful.🔍Data provided by Open Library

A country boy in the city falls into the clutches of a stylish vampire, forgetting his fiancee, his responsibilities and his self-respect. The perils of New York! Home Media Availability: Released on Bluray Oh, you vampire! Before Theda Bara menaced men onscreen with her vampirish antics, the Kalem company produced their own picture based on […]

Last month I reviewed Jean Gabin in the title role of the very enjoyable police detective movie MAIGRET SEES RED (1963).MAIGRET SEES RED recently had a single-title Blu-ray release by Kino Lorber; now that film has also been released as part of Kino Lorber's three-film Inspector Maigret Collection, along with MAIGRET SETS A TRAP (1958) and MAIGRET AND THE ST. FIACRE CASE (1959).MAIGRET SETS A TRAP, also known as INSPECTOR MAIGRET or, in France, MAIGRET TEND UN PIEGE, was the first of Gabin's…

Marshal Knight argues that RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars 11 episode 6 proves that the bracket format is broken—even more than the incomprehensible family resemblance criteria!

Reading selections from his Dictionary, and his Mohamet Marx and Engels mention:“The man who deprived seventeenth-century metaphysics and metaphysics in general of all credit in the domain of theory was Pierre Bayle. His weapon was scepticism, which he forged out of metaphysics’ own magic formulas. He himself proceeded at first from Cartesian metaphysics. Just as Feuerbach by combat-ing speculative theology was driven further to combat speculative philosophy, precisely because he recognised in…

When it was recently announced that a relaunch of the, "Avengers," comic was happening with Chip Zdarsky writing, my first reaction was, “Wasn’t this declared months ago?” You see, in my apparent ignorance, I thought the new, “Avengers: Armageddon,” comic which Chip Zdarsky is doing with artists Delio Diaz and Frank Allier, was the latest ongoing book about the Avengers, hence, you know, the book’s name. Apparently, it is merely a five-issue miniseries that will lead into the actual relaunch…