True Blood Sunday and Next Food Network Star Finale

Today's Sunday and you all know what that means...

True Blood

is on tonight!

Last week's preview was very promising:

1. King Russell says someone "will pay"... does he know gorgeous Eric was the one who killed his Talbot?

2. Sookie and Bill had sweaty, bloody, dirty make up sex... and now Bill says he knows what Sookie is... Will it be revealed? Will the writers stick to the original series? If they do, we'll soon find out that Sookie is a descendant of...

3. A new, gorgeous, old vamp lady says something about the Magister? Who is she? And what is she talking about?

4. Pam and Eric have a moment. Will Eric as a Master release Pam? 

I was re-reading Club Dead and Dead to the World and it seems to me like the writers of True Blood are combining both books in this season. I don't mind that at all, especially if it means that gorgeous Eric and Sookie will finally get it on... 

What I do mind, though, is how different Book Sookie is from t.v. Sookie. Check it out and I'm sure you'll agree:

1. Book Sookie is a size 8 to 10, 5'10', busty, curvy beautiful blonde. I still don't understand why Anna Paquin was chosen for this role. She's small, with small breasts, nearly no curves and an okayish looking face. There must be thousands of beautiful, curvy blondes that could do this part. Why settle?

2. Book Sookie doesn't screech nearly as much as television Sookie. On a previous episode, Sookie is trying to escape with Tara from Russell's mansion. She finds Bill and is stubbornly trying to save him. We all love Steven Moyer so we don't mind... what we do mind is that if she is trying to escape from a place, how is it possible that she screams for help (to save Bill)? Is she stupid or something? And how horrible does Anna Paquin looks screaming?

3. Book Sookie, with her Word of the Month Calendar vocabulary and life lessons is a sassy know-it-all. She doesn't bow down easily to other people and she is sure of herself. Television Sookie... Where do I begin? Her sweet, sing song voice... her shyness... sometimes she stands up for herself, yes, but most times she lets everyone do everything for her. In the books she saved people, she fought things bigger than her (in Club Dead she kills Lorena while fighting her. Bill was too weak and bound to be any help).

Do I need to say more? I feel like the writers decided to jump on the Twilight wagon and make Sookie more like Bella Swan. Why would anyone think that is a good idea? Bella Swan is the most pathetic Mary Sue I've ever read! But I digress...

Anyways... True Blood is on tonight. Yes. I'll be watching and recapping the whole thing tomorrow along with some commentary on how closely (or not) it resembles the books.

Also on tonight: The Next Food Network Star Finale!

After weeks of culinary challenges (Did Giada have to go through all of this?) we are finally down to the final three: Aarti with her annoying "Aarti Paarti", Herb with his "Cooking con Sabor" (I wouldn't mind having to watch him...) and Tom with his "Big Chef" (I like him as well).

Who will win?

Do we really care?

After losing cute Brad Sorenson, I have to say I don't really care all that much for the final three. But I've invested nine hours of my life to watching this thing so I'm going to finish. This is it. Of course, I won't watch it live (True Blood is at the same time) so I'm going to record it, fast forward it to see who won, and then sit down and watch the whole episode. If there is something particularly fun there I'll blog about it.

Enjoy your shows!

M.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

I was browsing MSNBC a couple of weeks ago and came upon an article (can't find it right now, sorry) in which it was revealed that Disney's The Sorcerer's Apprentice was a box office flop. Apparently Disney execs were very excited about this movie and had high hopes for it and couldn't figure out what had gone wrong.

To be honest, I hadn't watched the movie yet. And it took me three more weeks to go see it. Part of the hesitation was due to the fact that I had to pay nearly ten dollars to see this guy:

http://www.canmag.com/images/front/people2/jaybaruchel.jpg

Nothing personal. Really. I think Jay is a very talented actor. However, he does look like the guy-next-door-who-you-wouldn't-look-at-twice... Why would I pay almost ten dollars to go see the guy you avoid looking at in real life? 

I don't care what all of you will say: this is the truth. If you are thinking about going to the movies and wonder which film you'll see, you take into consideration the people starring in it. More often than not, you go watch the movies with more eye candy (ever heard of Taylor Lautner, Leo de Caprio, Ashton Kutcher, and Johnny Depp, among others?). 

Now that I've actually watched the movie I have a few things to say to Disney execs. Pay attention:

1. There are two stars of this movie: the wizard Balthazar and his apprentice Dave. I understand that Dave is supposed to be a nerdy guy, and Jay Baruchel does an awesome job. However, like I've said before: we are shallow. We will choose to watch Inception with Leonardo di Caprio over The Sorcerer's Apprentice with Jay Baruchel. Shia Le Beof is a cute, nerdy guy. So is Justin Long. Couldn't they find a guy like them? I'm just saying.

2. Who's the target audience? I never really understood this. If it was children, they completely missed the mark with this movie. Dave as a kid was cute, endearing and engaging. You wanted to see more of him. It would have been fun to watch Jake Cherry as young Dave running around New York City with Nicholas Cage. Kids would have loved that because they'd be able to picture themselves doing the same things. But Dave as the apprentice is twenty years old. He's hardly relatable to kids. And to make things worse, a big part of the movie is devoted to Dave's attempts to woo this beautiful girl who, normally, would be out of his league. Do children really care about that?

If the target audience was tweens and teens, then they missed the mark again: Jay is not attractive and although Nicolas Cage is very handsome he is also very old for this demographic. Now... if the audience intended was tween and teen boys... well... between Monica Belluci's curves and the blond girl they'll be pleased. But what teenage boy would be caught watching a Disney movie that is not Pirates of the Caribbean?!

Obviously, the target audience were adults... nah! It wasn't.

The sad thing is that this movie is worth watching. Its not the best fantasy movie out there but its good. It's funny, the chemistry between Jay and Nick is fun and fresh and having all this action in NYC is just icing on the cake. But when it comes to movies marketing is everything. Without a clear target audience and a lackluster leading "apprentice", this movie was destined to belly flop at the box office. 

It really is a shame.

M.

What you should know...

Here's the thing:

I'm a twenty seven years old lawyer from Puerto Rico who has a ton of work to do, but gets bored easily. Every time this happens I take out my Blackberry and start browsing through the web. Everyone does it, right? 

As I'm sure a lot of people do, I watch a movie, a television show or read a particularly stupid celebrity tweet and I immediately want to know what other people think. Half of the time I read blogs and reviews and find their writing kind of... boring. Maybe I'm too much of a dork but when I read a blog about True Blood I want to know:

1. How is the series different from the books?

2. What is going to happen next?

3. When are Eric Northman and Sookie Stackhouse gonna get it on?

4. Is Sookie really that pathetic in the books? (Hint: She isn't.)

5. Why does Charlaine Harris says that she doesn't approve of Sookie Stackhouse fanfiction because it changes the essence of the book (or something) and yet she just loves True Blood (even though it couldn't be more different from the actual books)?

Etc. Etc. Etc. 

The same happens when I read Twilight... I wanted to know what people thought about the books. I have found quite a lot of websites devoted to pro and anti Twilight movements. But again, what I want to read about I can't find:

1. What do fans really think about Kristen Stewart and her whiny ways?

2. Why is it that even though Alice is one of the most loved characters in this series she didn't get to tell her story in the movie?

3. Why are so many men running to tattoo parlors to get Taylor Lautner's New Moon wolf tattoo? (What are they trying to say? "Hi! I'm ______ and I love chick movies!" Really?)

Again... etc. 

So instead of whining like Kristen Stewart, I decided to just write down what I think and hope some people will share their thoughts with me. It seems like a good idea, its free and who knows? Maybe some of you will like it!

Stick around. Weird things are about to happen...

M.