Reality TV NZ

New Zealand's Next Top Model - Week Twelve

2010-11-18T17:51:00.000-08:00

Illustrations courtesy of Alan Gray

It’s the penultimate episode and we’re really getting down to the wire now. Just one more week to go in the most intense cycle of New Zealand’s Next Top Model ever! Until next cycle that is.

Before we delve into the action, let’s put on our lab coats and peer into the test tube of reality TV for a moment. There’s more to winning Top Model than looking good, there’s a whole formula involved and it’s not necessarily the most attractive model that takes the title. You can’t have two winners in a row that are too alike (sorry Courtney, you’re similarity to Christobel doesn’t bode well for you), and its got to be someone the public supports (which is why Dakota never really stood a chance). My very un-scientific analysis of past winners of America’s Next Top Model reveals that brunettes are by far the most popular choice with 10 of the past 14 winners sporting chestnut tresses and only two blondies scoring the top job. Long hair rules the competition with only three cropped locked models making it as America’s Next Top Model. Racially, there have been seven Caucasian winners and seven of African/Latino heritage. It’s not unusual to have back-to-back African American or Caucasian winners, however they will generally have different hair length (i.e.: if a short haired girl won last time, no way will a buzz cut win next time around). So what does this mean for our final four models? I’m still not sure, are you? Let’s see what happened last night.

There’s a funny moment at the beginning where Danielle booby traps the poolside crocodile with a tempting slab of Whittaker’s Ghana Peppermint so she can heave the girls in the pool. In her haste to catch a fleeing Courtney, Danielle smashes a vase beneath the portrait of a very disapproving Colin. I was hoping the eyes might narrow with rage but sadly they stayed static.

Saramail

She who hesitates is lost. And remember, first impressions last. Love Sara.

Colin is waiting for them in a parking garage, elegantly poised as ever, and tells them he is sending them on go-sees, an opportunity to meet with and model for designers. The girls will be chauffeur driven by a clutch of guys from 62 Models, Sara’s modeling agency. They have five go-sees to get to and they have to be back by 5pm. Wouldn’t cab drivers give the girls a more realistic experience? I guess Sara Tetro wanted her share of the advertising too after last week’s Nivea blitz. Colin always looks like he’s modeling even when he’s just standing around. I bet he even poses pouting with one hand artfully placed on his hip as he scrubs the toilet, sorry,oversees scrubbing of the toilet. Courtney is especially excited at the prospect of go-sees as she was up all night practicing her walk and has been looking forward to this particular challenge.

The girls have to navigate themselves over the Harbour Bridge and around Auckland, which can be hard enough for locals but is all the more difficult for our out of towner models. Michaela is the first to arrive at World while Danielle makes her way to Nom D where both girls get a positive response. Sable and Minx designer Theresa Brady is impressed with Danielle's walk, what a difference ten weeks and private tuition with Colin makes! Unfortunately Courtney is blowing it big time; Francis Hooper from World says he wouldn’t book Courtney “simply because our brand is a very flamboyant brand”.

Courtney tries to make up for lost time and races to Westlake Girls High for a weird shoot in the school gym. Elza doesn’t look too sportive in her basketball shorts but Danielle is right at home in the sportswear. Michaela makes it back to home base first with Elza right on her heels and Danielle just makes it in with four minutes to spare. The first three girls made it to all five go-sees but poor Courtney, who seemed to spend most of her time crossing the Harbour Bridge, only got to four designers and arrives ten minutes late for the deadline. To make matters worse she didn’t get any bookings. Danielle takes the win for the most bookings and gets a Ford Fiesta to drive for 12 months and will be a Ford Fiesta ambassador at car shows. Does this mean she will have to pose on a revolving pedestal and make weird hand gestures?

Saramail

Here’s an opportunity to get loose girls.

The girls arrive at the Glassons ‘Funhouse’ and Danielle reveals another reason to like her, she hates clowns. Craig Owen from cycle one will be the photographer for this shoot and and he seems kind of, well, mean? Although a diplomatic Elza implies it’s good for them to get used to modeling in a real environment. Courtney is styled as a be-ringleted sad harlequin, quick, hide her from Danielle before she attacks! She’s supposed to be a marionette but she has a hard time getting the concept. Danielle is made up like the tattooed lady from a circus freak show; her confidence has just sky rocketed during this competition and she is really enjoying photo shoots now. Michaela has a big weep right before her photo but thankfully her smeary pink make up is easy to retouch. She thinks letting out her stress before the shoot was helpful but she still looks upset in the shoot and Chris picks up on it.

Judging

Elza tells the judges she loved the go-see challenge and getting to see Auckland, which she also loves. Ooh it loves you back Elza. Danielle says she loved “getting out and meeting the designers”, something she would never have said back at the beginning. They aren’t too thrilled with her photo though and I think they’re trying to pull back on the praise because at this late stage they don’t want anyone to be perceived as a favourite. The judges do like Michaela’s photo surprisingly enough, even though it looks like exactly the same frame that Chris was critical of. Why are they making out that her shoot went well? Courtney starts crying because of her poor performance in the challenge and guest judge Francis Hooper from World basically tells her to keep her lips zipped at go-sees and says they didn’t book her because she said she “wasn’t a model”. I thought it was because World was so “very flamboyant”!

Francis says when he heard Elza was from Dunedin he thought she was going to be a ‘gothbag’ (titter) but instead she floored them. Chris says Danielle’s photo is the weakest of the four and Francis is also surprised with her photo considering how good she was on the go-see. Maybe if they hadn’t plastered her with bubblegum tattoos she wouldn’t have receded into the hydrangeas, as they claim. After a bit of praise slinging for Michaela’s photo shoot, Chris finally speaks up about her attitude on set. Michaela gets first photo, hmmm surely a questionable decision. Danielle is called next to our relief and, Elza, who should have gotten first photo by rights, is breaking out in a nervous rash already. It’s just down to Elza and Courtney now and is it ever getting painful to watch! Elza is deservedly through to the final three and wee Courtney is the tenth girl to be eliminated. Next week is the FINAL and it looks like it’s going to be a good one, anything featuring a baby elephant has got to be fabulous!

Project Runway Season Two - Hard Wear

2010-11-18T17:37:00.000-08:00

Illustrations courtesy of Alan Gray

Precious metals and precious little else collide in this weeks challenge as the designers work with hard ware supplies to create futuristic outfits for elegant robots, malfunctioning droids, ill-attired automatons, and an exotic dancer who got lost on her way to work and wandered in the wrong door.

All the designers are gleefully shrieking at landing in the top ten, but really, big wow, there were only 16 contestants to begin with. That’s like getting excited over coming third in a three-legged race with only four contenders. You can start gloating when you’re top three, babies.

Heidi shoos the designers off to meet Tim and a ‘secret designer’ who just turns out to be, yawn, Michael Kors, at the Michael Kors store. Michael tells them that for this challenge they will be shopping at a hardware store. Wait, so they had to hike over to Michael’s store just to be told that? Maybe business is bad so he needed to pimp out his wares to keep his kitchen stocked with cream cakes, although I predict a rush on shoe orders after his pink pumps turned up on Lea Michele for her saucy Glee shoot in GQ. The designers will also have to create an accessory to “enhance and compliment” their look on a budget of $150 for the entire outfit and just 30 minutes to shop. Hardware is expensive, I bet a tradesperson would spend double that just getting supplies to caulk a sink. The options are also limited for what they can use as ‘fabric’, it’s garbage bags, sheet metal or sandpaper. Exfoliate while you look fashionable! Emilio eschews a base fabric and selects a butt load of washers and cord, but when he gets to the counter he discovers he is over budget and has to dump some of his supplies. It might be more of a bikini than a dress he winds up with.

A lot of the designers break out the tin snips to create metallic bodices for their garments. Emilio turns his nose up at this practise as he says its “been done”. It does have an air of high school fashion show about it. His plan however, is no better; he wants to create a macramé dress with his washers and hot pink nylon cord. If all else fails maybe he can adapt it into a creepy 70’s kitchen owl. The other designers think Emilio’s ‘Paco Rabbane’ inspired outfit has borrowed more from stripper culture than couture. I hope there are some Lucite heels on the Bluefly.com wall to really complete its exotic dancer appeal.

Tim arrives to do a once over, and as usual he looks like he smells something ghastly in the workroom, however today he probably does what with all the paint, glue and chemical compounds littering the studio. Mila is the self confessed queen of colour blocking and the hardware challenge is no exception; she is banging bits of monochromatic plastic together. Tim says Jesse’s is looking “so school project/school play” just as I said EXCATLY the same thing! Maybe great minds do think alike? Or more likely, it’s just totally obvious that it sucks. Tim asks, “What is with you guys and all this copper?” there is an inordinate amount of the flashy metal around the room. Copper might yield easily but it rarely looks good when it’s scrunched like the wrong side of an Easter egg wrapper, as Jesse has done with his piece. Emilio describes his thing (it can’t be called a garment as yet) an “intergalactic macramé flapper……….something” but chooses to omit the obvious influence of stripper ware. Tim asks if Emilio has enough hardware to complete his look and worriedly says, “you may end up with a bikini”. Oh Tim, our minds are so in synch!

The models arrive for their fittings and Emilio realises he will never have enough washers to retain the modesty of his 6 foot tall model and decides to rejig his design into a bathing suit. We called it Tim! Jay has a disaster when his garbage pants won’t even go over his models feet as they have shrunk during sewing. If his skintight pants split on the runway his outfit could be more revealing than Emilio’s bits of string!

None of the designers feel confident in their garments and they all joke about being in the bottom. Jonathon (my favourite because he always bring the LOLs) imitates Heidi saying, “You ten have the lowest scores”. It’s a hard joke for them to take though as there’s more than a grain of truth in it, there are some real train wrecks in this workroom.

Mila’s model is up first on the runway and her dress looks a little bit like an uncomfortable piece of fetish wear. It’s cleverly constructed from paint trays but it looks like it is a garment purely for standing around in, you wouldn’t want to sit in it. Jesse’s dirty puffball nightmare is more like a school play costume than ever. Jonathon’s looks a bit like an art deco building Halloween costume, but a very well made one. You could shelter inside of it in the wake of a natural disaster. Emilio’s is soooooooo sleazy, his leggy blonde model could be trying out for Playboy, someone call Hugh Hefner! I was wondering what Amy was going to do with all that scratchy sandpaper but she has crafted her garment really nicely, creating fans and chevron patterns with the different grains of paper.

The stunned judges are intrigued by Emilio’s lack of a garment and an incredulous Nina asks him “What happened?” Michael says, “The simple truth is she looks really cheesy, that’s a full cheese fest”. Despite it looking like the tangled mess at the bottom of your nana’s knitting bag, they find some redemption in the fact that he took a risk and tried something different. Michael thinks Anthony’s looks like a bad prom dress and Nina thinks it’s boring. It’s so not the worst, at least it looks wearable and not like a harness! They all hate Jesse’s; Nina thinks it looks like the Tin Man fromThe Wizard of Oz while Michael says she’s dressed up in a Hershey’s Kiss costume, but it’s Heidi who gets the call of the day by describing the skirt as looking like “a dirty vacuum bag”.

Heidi announces that Jay is the winner. Hooray! I’m glad frosty Mila didn’t win again. Her ego doesn’t need any more inflating. It’s down to Jesse and Emilio in the bottom two. Heidi rips Jesse to shreds for being costumey and says that Emilio’s was “pure Vegas showgirl” but its Jesse that gets auf’d. He thinks there has been a miscarriage of justice and Tim makes an uncharacteristic declaration that although he had problems with Jesse’s work he never anticipated this outcome. Hmmm who did he think should go home? Emilio, for the plumbers slutty apprentice perhaps?

The Jersey Shore Season Two - A House Divided

2010-11-18T17:29:00.000-08:00

Illustration courtesy of Alan Gray

The girls are split down the middle over the Sammi/Ronnie debacle and the guys are just hoping the tension dies down so they can return to a stress free party environment. Angelina and Vinny can’t disguise their loathing for each other but find that love and hate walk a very, very fine line together.

You may remember last week we left JWOWW and Sammi scrapping on the kitchen floor and now we’re back to the brawl! High heels slide across tiled floors, greased with the remnants of tuna sandwiches, as hair extensions are ripped from scalps and false nails are flung like ninja stars. Sammi tries to awkwardly punch Jenni’s skull with a fistful of her hair in her hands as the boys scrabble to separate them. Ronnie suddenly turns on Vinny for instigating the fight by reporting back to Jenni about Angelina’s backstabbing. Angelina whines that she gets the blame for everything and Snooki sets her straight by telling her that it’s because she is to blame! She also points the finger at Angelina for contributing to the note, which causes Sammi to verbally launch into Snooki next. Snooki gets emotional when Sam turns on her and pleads that she was only trying to look out for Sam. Then Ronnie, obviously sensing this could turn against him, accuses Snooki of trying to break up them up due to jealousy over her break up with Emilio. Ooh Ronnie is loving this; it’s an easy out for him! Snooki is so frustrated she shoves Ronnie hard. Sam begged for the girls to tell her the truth and although the delivery may not have been ideal, they did follow through with her wishes. Either way she would have turned on them however they broke it to her, she clearly doesn’t want to believe that Ronnie is a snake. A smug Ronnie and Sammi think they have won a major battle, but against who? This whole drama was caused by them and in uniting together to fight their perceived common enemies they are just deluding themselves about their own horrible issues.

The next morning Sammi says she’s basking in “beating the crap out of Jenni”. Didn’t look like much of a beat down to me. Hair pulling does not qualify as fighting in my book of Queensberry Rules! Sammi says she feels like a huge weight has been lifted off her shoulders and that “this is the best accomplishment she’s had in a long time”. Ugh, this girl really needs help if she feels accomplished after pulling the hair of someone alerting her to her boyfriend’s deception. Ronnie and Vinny make up in a second like boys always do; why don’t they don’t suffer from the same seething resentment as girls? Jenni calls in to work and gets the day off so she can go in for some emergency nail repairs rather than spend the day working with Ron and Sam. The gruesome twosome are gloating revoltingly over what they see as their victory. After work Sammi and Ronnie go out for a romantic date and she thanks him for supporting her during the fight. Why is she forgetting he is the reason the fight happened in the first place? AAAAAAAGHHHH. I just want to shake her.

Sammi and the boys are out playing pool when Jenni and Snooki turn up but aren’t exactly welcomed. It’s unfair that the girls are being ostracized for breaking the news, albeit anonymously, to Sammi. They are exiled to another pool table and Mike is the only one paying them any attention. Sammi asks Angelina about her involvement in the note but she denies it. Sammi doesn’t entirely trust her, nor should she, but she has no other gal pals in the house so Angelina is her new BFF by default. Back at home Vinny and Angelina get into another verbal stoush over who caused the fight between Sammi and Jenni. Mike and Pauly look on shaking their heads like disapproving nanas.

Mike and Vinny joke that Ronnie should be called MacGyver as he’s gotten off scot-free. Mike says Ronnie peed on Sam and she just took it and smiled, “just like when you’re little and you want to believe Santa Claus is alive, f****** Santa Claus is dead”. Santa Claus is dead Sammi! The gang goes out clubbing and Vinny makes a catch that Angelina describes as a grenade, and she’s appalled that any girl would fall for his lines. Snooki brings a guy back home but Vinny has bagged the smoosh room so she has to take him back to her shared room. Poor Jenni has to endure the sounds of their horrendous moaning. I would just sleep on the couch!

Vinny has to work with Jenni and Sam the next day and it is tense. Sammi keeps calling Jenni a beast behind her back and making disgusted faces. Ooh there is nothing worse in the girl-verse than chicks that trash their friends over guys. Jenni says she’s going to have the last laugh when the truth comes out. Team JWOWW!

Snooki invites her new find Dennis over while the rest of the housemates go out. Jenni and Snooki decide to decontaminate the filthy ‘smoosh’ room so that Snooki and Dennis can utilize it and Jenni can get some peace. They don garbage bag containment suits, which are sorely needed to dispose of all the unsavoury items they find in there. Snooki asks Dennis to bring a friend to keep Jenni entertained; even though Jenni has a boyfriend she says she still wants to have some fun.

Dennis and his friend arrive but to the girl’s abject horror, the friend is a ‘man grenade’. Jenni beats a hasty retreat to her room and Dennis has to send his friend home with the knowledge that he doesn’t meet Guidette expectations. Meanwhile, the rest of the gang decide to head home and Pauly and Angelina form an unlikely couple in the cab. All the guys watch on as they voraciously suck face in the back of the car, with Pauly encouragingly massaging Vinny’s head. Pauly says Vinny coined the term ‘Staten Island dump’ for Angelina but now he seems to be rather enchanted by his garbage scented dumpling and she willingly leaps into his bed. Angelina’s tune has changed too, she says Vinny’s cute and she’s single so she’s “down for it”. Will their encounter lead to regret or a repeat? We’ll find out next week.

Illustration courtesy of Alan Gray

The Jersey Shore Season Two - Oh What A Tangled Web We Weave

2010-11-18T17:20:00.000-08:00

Illustration courtesy of Alan Gray

The saga of the poison pen letter continues but takes a strange yet predictable turn when the issue of who actually wrote it becomes more important than its sizzling contents. Meanwhile, “The Situation” (a future Hugh Hefner in the making, not for his entrepreneurship but his resemblance to the wrinkled prune of porn) continues with his plan to bed any and every willing resident of Miami, including one that may have a bit more to offer than your average woman.

Snooki decides to make like Goldilocks and test out each of the male roommates beds – while they are still in them. After rejecting Pauly’s and Mike’s she finds that Vinny’s bed is ‘just right’. However, her revelation to Sammi about what she finds in his underwear is just wrong. She explains that sex with Vinny was like ‘putting a watermelon inside a pinhole’, which raises concerning questions about Vinny’s sexual health. If it looks like a watermelon it’s probably time to seek medical advice.

Sammi is still confused about the ‘anonymous’ note but Mike ‘helpfully’ clarifies things by telling her that everything in the note is true and that Ronnie is making her look stupid. Oh I’m sure your motives are so pure Grandpa face, you should change your name to ‘The Situ-Ancient’. Snooki loses her nerve (or comes to her senses, whichever way you want to look at it) and decides she needs to tell Sammi that she and JWOWW wrote the note. Mike stirs the pot some more by telling Sammi “they’re talking s*** about you”. Sammi asks the housemates to confess as to who wrote the note and a monster fight between Sammi and Jenni erupts. No one confesses, although it’s fairly obvious that despite Jenni’s protestations she was responsible. Let’s put on our psychotherapy spectacles, lie back on the therapy sofa for a moment and assess the relationship between the subjects known as JWOWW and Sammi. There was already pre-existing tension from season one between these two. Jenni and Ronnie shared a room and Sammi was always suspicious of their friendship. Sammi is now directing the anger she should have towards Ronnie to Jenni. Ronnie is getting off pretty lightly because of lady paranoia! That’ll be $120 for your session thanks Sammi.

The gang is out at one of their homes away from home, the Miami nightclub scene and The Situation picks up another notch for his belt. While she patiently waits in the ‘smash room’, Mike whips himself up a snack as he says he’s "like a Ferrari and needs fuel to perform". He finally returns to the room where the bored looking girl is waiting, quickly gets the business over with and then under the guise of gentlemanliness, tells her that he has a taxi waiting for her. How considerate! I wonder if any of the girls passing through the house have deep regrets over allowing their faces and reputations to be smeared all over international TV. Or are they elated at achieving their 15 seconds of fame?

The girls are fulfilling their promise from last week to cook Sunday dinner for the boys, albeit reluctantly. Jenni and Sammi go shopping for supplies and whinge the entire time, except for when Snooki spies a jumbo jar of pickles. When they return with the goods a snotty Sammi refuses to help and Angelina is in her usual favourite position with the phone glued to her ear. JWOWW fumes as she prepares their feast, nothing that Sunday dinner was Jenni’s idea and now she wants no part of it.

While Angelina and Sammi are working at the gelato shop Angelina decides to hint at what she knows about the note to get into Sammi’s good graces. Sammi sits on the knowledge but stews as they go out clubbing. At the club The Situation acquires a new fan who pulls him in with the thought-to-be- extinct pick up line “what’s your sign?” The housemates notice something unusual about his lady friend, specifically; she might not be a lady. Pauly says “all the clues are there”, she’s wearing a choker to hide her Adams apple and black gloves to minimize her man hands. The Situation is so swept up in his new groupie that he either doesn’t see it or doesn’t mind. When it’s finally brought to Mike’s attention he says it’s the first time that’s ever happened. Or more likely the first time he’s ever been caught out.

Sammi is not the only one still churning about the note, Jenni is simmering at her behaviour and you can tell this is not going to end well. The housemates make their drunken way home and a barely conscious Pauly makes out with Angelina in the cab home. Jennie calls her boyfriend once they get home to report on the evenings antics and Angelina tries to cause trouble by saying she heard Jenni badmouthing Pauly on the phone. Vinny uncharacteristically leaps into the fray and says he heard the conversation and tells Jenni that Angelina is telling lies about her. Let the fireworks begin! Jenni comes out to confront Angelina but it soon spirals into a fight between her and Sammi, its been leading up to this all episode! Snooki, who barely comes up to their shoulders in her bare feet, tries to break the girls up but a full on catfight soon ensues and the hair extensions and fake nails start flying. We have to wait till next week to see the final result, will there be a K.O. or a decision on points? My money’s on Jenni. Sammi, you better not mess with JWOWW, her concrete mammaries will give you a concussion you’ll never forget.

Project Runway Episode Six - Maximum Fuss for Minimum Models

2010-10-20T21:17:00.000-07:00

Illustrations courtesy of Alan Gray

This week the designers must reduce their designs to teeny weenie little sizes. However, they are not allowed to use electro magnetic compression rays, shrinky dinks technology or tiny tailor elves; just their dressmaking tools and a magnifying glass to craft their micro-frocks. Who is up to the task of miniturisation?

Heidi drops the bombshell to the designers that they will have new models, tiny wee girls! The challenge is to create a fashionable kids look, this should be fun. Although Jonathon has an apparent phobia of children, saying ‘they are very small’. Who amongst the mini models will be the next future-Heidi?

The designers go on rampage at Mood, the fabrics and the fur fly. Especially the fur, did you see the ultra cute dog hanging out on the shop floor? He’s a Boston terrier and his name is Swatch and he lives at Mood! Ahhh every workplace should have a resident pet.

Mila resorts to her one true love for her design, colour blocking. Janeane is keeping it simple, perhaps to her detriment. Children like their clothing quite fancy nowadays but her top looks like a homemade drawstring bag that any child would stamp their feet and have a tantrum over if they were forced to wear (I speak from experience, I got sent to my room once for refusing to wear a knitted poncho). Seth Aaron has an 11 year old daughter so thinks he has real insight into what children want and whips up a mini Avril Lavigne creation, although some of the other designers, including Emilio prefer to keep things conservative.

Tim arrives the morning of the runway show and springs another surprise on them. They need to create a corresponding ‘adult’ version of their mini fashions. He tells them it’s a “great, great challenge” but no one seems to agree. Emilio is worried how he will reinvent his prissy pink frock for a grown up.

Last week Seth Aaron got called out by the designers as the most distracting with his constant babble and noise, this week attention is turned to Anthony and his diarrhea gob. The designers place bets to see how long he can go without talking and he can only manage a weak 14 minutes 56 seconds before breaking down.

Tim arrives to critique and he really hands it to Janeane, telling her “you are really rocking Halloween here” over her choice of colour palette. Janeane is deeply disturbed as she says she hates Halloween and would never do anything inspired by it. Tim diplomatically tells her “just be prepared for a response to that”. Amy takes a gamble and makes hundred of multi coloured petals (or are they scales?) with which to make a pair of Technicolor dreampants for her grown up look. Tim’s brow deeply furrows, risking the collapse of his forehead as he tells her “these pants will either stop the show or it’s going to be clown clothes”. Clown clothes called out two weeks in a row!

Seth is on the right track with his look, showing off the mini handbag he has crafted and telling Tim his daughter loves handbags and has over 200 of them. Little girls do love handbags. Imagine if your dad was a designer and could make you a handbag a week! You’d be in princess heaven. Tim says, “I am profoundly wowed. Wowed.”

The models come in for their fittings and Jonathon says “that one little child made me so nervous that I now stink” as he raises his armpit to inhale the sweat of his fearful labours. Amy is still constructing her petals closing in on midnight and she’s getting nervous about the risk she’s taking as she hasn’t had a chance to see what the finished article will look like. As the time draws near for the fashion show, Amy’s mini model doesn’t seem too confident about the acid flashback pantaloons either, asking the adult model if she’s “ready for the circus” when it comes time to fitting. Cheeky!

Fashion designer Tory Burch is this week’s guest designer, a lady who is apparently famed for making caftans and clothes for Gossip Girl. When Amy’s coral, teal and black scale pants appear on the runway they do, unfortunately, resemble clown clothes. Her child companion looks like her hobo daughter that she couldn’t afford to adequately clothe on her meager clown salary. Jesse’s grey dress looks awfully uncomfortable with its asymmetrical bodice and sloping trim, I guess it’s his attempt to make it look quirky but it just looks like it was sewn by a cross-eyed tailor suffering from tremors. Mila’s dress looks so Flintstones that I can’t believe no one is commenting on it. It’s a block of pink and green with spotted trim. It could have come straight out of Pebbles wardrobe; all she’s missing is a bone in her hair.

Amy, Janeane and Jonathon are the called out as the worst designers and Jesse, Jay and Seth Aaron are top of the class. They like Jesse’s but Heidi isn’t keen on the “skewed A-line section” of the dress. Seth’s model Sydney immediately points out her love of the purse when asked what she likes about her outfit. Michael says Seth Aaron’s adult jacket is the best-tailored item they’ve seen all season and it does look rather remarkably engineered.

The judges think that Janeane’s is too simple and Heidi says, “It looks like a cheap mall outfit”. Jonathon’s treacherous model Fabriana says the jacket is “kind of like, pushing into my skin” when Heidi asks her if it’s comfortable. Jonathon’s adult companion piece is a big puffball composed of what looks like several boxes of tissues. Michael says, “She looks like she got caught in a tornado of toilet paper”. Amy doesn’t fare much better with Michael who says Amy’s child model Caitlin “looks like the house was on fire and she grabbed every garment in the house” which makes Caitlin and adult model Alison both laugh. Michael says the pants are a train wreck and Heidi says, “It’s hideous and bizarre”. The judges agree that Seth Aaron was spot on with both of his designs and he wins the challenge, saying his daughter is going to be so happy. Weepy Janeane gets clipped for her budget mall fashions and must join her fellow evicted contestants at the fabric remnant counter in the hellish bowels of Parsons School for Design.

Project Runway Episode Five - Don't Call It A Klum-back

2010-10-17T20:59:00.000-07:00

Illustrations courtesy of Alan Gray

This week’s challenge was to make a dress for Heidi’s post baby body, which she will model on the cover of Marie Claire. However, some of the designers seem confused about which Heidi they’re designing for and there are garments more appropriate for Heidi of the Swiss Alps (I’m looking at you Janeane) or Heidi Montag (we’re well aware of her penchant for all things flesh toned, Mila). Who will get to clothe the illustrious Ms. Klum?

Mila grumps that no one congratulated her for coming second in last week’s challenge. Maybe that’s because she came swanning in squealing “top two, top two” in egotistical fashion. These people are her competition after all; they’re hardly going to be throwing rose petals at her feet and swathing her in fresh flower garlands. Stop peacocking!

Tim takes the designers to the Hearst Building and introduces them to Joanna Coles, editor of Marie Claire magazine. Tim tells them that “this challenge is one of the biggest in the history of Project Runway, and the reward for the winner of the challenge is unprecedented”. Ooh what could it be! High tea with Michael Kors? (Don’t let him eat all the clotted cream). Or a delicious and filling lunch of shredded lettuce with Nina Garcia? How about a rummage through Tim Gunn’s closet? (Although I don’t think there’s much left in there after his recent revelatory autobiography). The challenge is to design an outfit for a celebrity to wear on the cover of Marie Claire. Asthmatic gasps all round ensue and a regal queenly shriek from Anthony when it’s announced the challenge is also the reward! Seems like a bit of a let down prize but the designers are ecstatic at the prospect of peddling their wares to the nation. Joanna gives them a few tips on what’s required and announces that Heidi will be the celebrity model. More shrieks and gasps resound through the Hearst Building as the designers prepare to shuffle off to Mood for their fabrics.

Ben is worried that his magenta looks more fuchsia. A discerning eye like his knows the difference but to these layperson’s eyes, what is the difference? He has an interesting colour palette of blue and yellow, which he says is kind of like “Madame Butterfly on acid”. Anna is concerned about making her three pieces in the amount of time she has. Three dodgy pieces at that. Every designer is firing on all cylinders, as they all desperately want to win the prize. Janeane’s confidence is at an all time low with her bridal boutique nightmare. Mila says she hasn’t really “seen any competition so far”, even though her dress looks like spanx in muted nana lingerie colours. No wonder she’s so popular! Jay says Mila is fake and insincere. Emilio says “she comes off as very cocky when all she’s doing is colour blocking in every challenge”. Oooh retract those claws! No actually, leave those claws out, I don’t like her either!

Tim tells Janeane she doesn’t want her design to look like “clown clothes” after she gives him a waffly explanation of her sea inspired party gown. Maybe she’s designing for the Little Mermaid’s wedding? Add a bridal bouquet of brine shrimp and you’re set! Jay also seems to have been inspired by a wedding expo, his looks like a gypsy bridal dress in tablecloth fabric. Maya says if she’d had more time she would have “added more volume to the neckline”. She loves her reptilian neck scales! Has she done an outfit yet that doesn’t feature some kind of tiered embellishment? Is HR Giger her main source of inspiration?

Oh dear, Anna’s casual shorts, tank and vest look more like teen beach wear next to the other designers garments, a pair of jandals wouldn’t be out of place. Janeane’s has a hideous asymmetric hemline, which I think is supposed to expose the frou frou underskirt beneath. Yeah I can see Heidi wearing that, at her next Halloween party. Oh but wait, it gets better. Mila’s dress comes out and she “think it looks great” but all we can see is a flesh coloured sausage with a collection of poorly sewn arrows with horribly pulled seams pointing at her vagina. She is concerned however about the colour, which she thought was peach, “but on the runway appears to be more of a beige.” Appears to be? Your model looks like she has no torso, just a floating poor of arms and legs with directions on how to access the groin.

Emilio’s dress looks straight out of the Victoria’s Secret catalogue, very lingerie inspired. Jonathon is soooooo in lurve with his golden romper, he says “it looks like butter, you can just look at it and see the comfort of this garment”. It does look cute, but I can’t say it screams comfort. The colours of Maya’s dress look identical to Mila’s, not only do they share a hairstyle but also a fondness for a pensioner colour palette.

Mila, Emilio, Ben, Anna, Janeane and Anthony have the highest and lowest scores. Mila does a quick look at her contestants to try and figure out where she stands and a secret smirk sweeps across her face, she thinks she’s hit the top three again. Ben’s has great texture and impact; it’s quite delightful and well made. Guest judge Joanna Coles has no problem dishing it out to Anna, telling her “it’s like three ingredients in a dish that leave you feeling slightly nauseous” and Michael tells her “this is not a teen magazine”. Anthony’s looks like something Heidi would wear and the judges like it too; Michael tells him ”the costume drama is over”. Poor Anthony looks like he’s about to get a case of the vapours listening to the judges positive feedback. Janeane gives a weird explanation of how she was inspired by the sea and created seashell shaped sea lines with a “frothy little bolero”. Joanna says “I’m not getting the beach and the sea reference, unless it’s a polluted sea with plastic bottles in it”. Oh she is harsh, I would love to see her and Anna Wintour in a cagefight. The horrible pinched crotch fiasco of Mila’s is next. Michael says, “lets be honest that peach comes off like Ace bandage”. Well played Mr. Kors, you have hit the nail on the head. He then says “once you crop her she’s literally in some weird jog bra with a v-neck” which the cameraman helpfully demonstrates. Nina points out the obvious, “these arrows look like their pointing at her crotch”. They like Emilio’s but are not so fond of the childish shoulder straps and Michael encourages him to snip them off.

Heidi advises them that as the reward is so great there will be no immunity for the next challenge. Anthony is the winner and he is SO excited! Heidi will look Kluminous in his dress! All the other contestants are so happy for him because he is so sweet and humble, unlike monster Mila. It’s down to Anna and Janeane, I think Janeane’s was definitely worse than Anna’s, but Anna was pretty off key and wee Anna is sent packing to Project Runway purgatory.

New Zealand's Next Top Model - Week Ten

2010-10-17T20:53:00.000-07:00

Illustrations courtesy of Alan Gray

Last night we finally got to see the girls in Phuket and it certainly didn’t disappoint. The claws were out and we’re not talking about the wildlife.

Eliminated twin Nellie has left Elza a cute note saying, “I love you more than listening to Colin talk about himself, and that’s a huge amount.” We’re with you there Nellie; it’s our new national pastime. Danielle says the one person that she wanted gone is still here, no prizes for guessing, but do you make yourself a congratulatory cup of tea if you picked Dakota. The girls fly business class to Phuket and are staying at a swanky resort. However, as they walk in the door Sara appears on a monitor to remind them “this is not a field trip”.

Saramail

A Top Model always adapts to her surroundings. Get immersed in local culture! Love Sara.

The girls arrive at a gym to learn Muay Thai kickboxing. Lara says she would probably pick Dakota to fight because although she seems “tough and open-mouthed”, she thinks she can take her. What does ‘open-mouthed’ even mean? Is that a nice way of saying she’s got a big mouth on her? Chris is critiquing each of the girls as if this is a challenge, but then he infers that they’re trying to encourage the girls to exercise more, adding that Dakota needs to tone up because she has a bit of weight around her tummy. Covert operations to highlight muffin top!

The models then get to go sightseeing, the highlight for Danielle being a blowfish that “voms out water and it all comes out weird holes”. Meanwhile, Dakota is off on her own, she says she wants to distance herself as “the other girls are here to break down my confidence”. They end their day of touring out for dinner, and Sara suddenly appears and asks them straight off the bat who each of them thinks should go home if there was an elimination right now. Pretty much everyone names Dakota as their bottom choice. Thanks for dropping by to stir Sara! She dissolves back into the night just as the fireworks start. Dakota starts crying because she says “everybody took her down” and then turns her wrath on Lara adding “especially you, I think you are the most self centered bitch I have ever met in my life, I think you have the fattest ass out of all of us, and I seriously don’t like you.” What did Lara say to make her so mad if everyone called Dakota out? The other girls tell Dakota that was inappropriate and rude but Lara fights back with “the judges like my body, they don’t tell me to do sit-ups”.

Saramail

If you want to blend in, you need to look like a local. Keep it smooth, smooth as….? Love Sara

Elza says she was hoping for smooth snakes or smooth lizards because the message was “keep it smooth, smooth as”. That still doesn’t explain why you were hoping for reptiles Elza! They arrive at a fabric store where Colin is posing amongst the mannequins, he tells them they have five minutes to select five yards of silk and create their own Thai inspired fashions. Is this a crossover episode with Project Runway? New Zealand’s Next Top Project Model? They have thirty minutes to create their design with just a needle and thread! Yikes even a professional designer would struggle with that time frame. Colin swats the silk out of Danielle’s hand and says, “Make it work”. Oh someone please make NZ Project Runway, Colin would make a great Tim Gunn. All the garments actually look surprisingly wearable, but the challenge isn’t over yet, Colin announces they are having a fashion show, right now. Colin, Chris and Sara are sitting runway side as the girl’s parade their designs. Lara says Dakota has the weakest walk out of everyone here which is “such a shame as she has such a beautiful face”. Genius backhanded compliment there Lara. I wonder if Lara said something about Dakota’s walk and that’s what made her lash out? Sara says of Dakota’s outfit, “it’s a good effort with the layering” but Chris says “not so sure about the little tummy that it’s showing”. That’s not all that’s showing; Dakota says they were laughing at her exposed cheeks. Lara wins the challenge and gets twenty extra frames in the next photo shoot as her prize.

Saramail
Don’t fight it girls…it’s bigger than all of you!
Love Sara

Their next challenge is a swimwear shoot with Tony Drayton and they also get to pose with a little elephant, a very cute one, who looks like he has hair plugs. While Michaela takes her turn the elephant drops, well, an elephant sized turd, and a poor handler has to dispose of it, utilizing several plastic bags.  Michaela asks Danielle how she thinks Dakota is doing and she says “bad……..hopefully she can hold her gut in”.  Dakota gets all teary over her performance when she fails to take direction from Tony.  Lara seems to have a fondness for theatrical facial expressions; she would have made a great silent movie actress.  Danielle is the last of the day and she thinks the elephant was “sick of posing with girls from New Zealand” but she admits that she does try hard in her photo shoots.  It also helps that Danielle finds it “definitely more easy to pose with an elephant than Dakota.”
Judging
Dakota says if she got eliminated all of her dreams would be shattered all at once. Gees what’s on her bucket list?  Her wish list must read: be a Top Model, belittle others about their bodies because I’m insecure about my own, constantly talk about how my life is harder than everyone else’s, cry, then cry some more.  Danielle’s photo is great, not only because she looks good but so does the elephant.  Lara looks kind of dazed in the eyes and Tony tells her she needed the extra twenty frames.  Lara brings up the fact that her confidence has been knocked by Dakota saying she had a “big bum”.  Sara tells her that the only person who can affect her confidence is herself.  COLD.  ICE COLD.  SERVED ON ICE.  They love Elza’s but I think there might have been other photos that were better.  There’s strategy to all this I’m sure, I think they’ve already decided their order and pick the photos accordingly.  All the best photos have the elephant interacting with the models and Courtney’s is one of them. Sara asks Dakota if she really told Lara she had a big butt.  She shyly says “yes” with her hands demurely tucked behind her back.  Sara says “Why? What’s her butt got to do with you?” Dakota launches into a story about how “it’s the only thing I could pick on because she really hurt me” then says she’d like to apologise and turns to say sorry to Lara.  Her photo is pretty cool but the judges say her film was all over the place.  When she tries to defend herself from Chris’s criticism that she needed more variety in her posing, Sara tells her arguing is a sure fire way to get sent home.
Chris says Dakota had some shocker squat shots and Sarah finally picks up on Dakota’s Dr Jekyll/Mr. Hyde personality.  The judges think Lara really needed her extra frames to get the shot.   Danielle gets first picture and Courtney, Elza, Michaela follow in rapid succession.  It’s down to Dakota and Lara, we knew it would come to this!  Sara says Lara listens and takes direction but it’s hard to get great photos out of her.  She tells Dakota she can’t figure out who the real Dakota is, the polite one or the one who tells other girls they have flaws.  Dakota gets the photo and hugs Lara saying “I’m so sorry Lara”. Lara says later on that she didn’t really believe Dakota’s apology as it’s been a few days since the incident and she’s still been nasty to her.  She says she’s going to go home, work out but still keep her curves.   And probably breathe a sigh of relief that she no longer has to be the 'butt' of Dakota's crank comments.

The Jersey Shore Season Two Episode Four - Notes On A Scandal

2010-10-06T22:10:00.000-07:00

Illustration courtesy of Alan Gray

This week the infamous ‘anonymous’ note (you can read it for yourself at the bottom of the page) detailing Ronnie’s indiscretions finally makes it’s eagerly awaited debut. We anticipate that a slam book and a rousing game of catch and kiss can’t be far away on the primary school playground that is The Jersey Shore.

As per usual, MVP (that’s Mike, Vinny, Pauly to the uninitiated) drag two girls back to their caveman lair after a night on the sticky, vomit coated tiles and try to devise a plan to divide the spoils. Meanwhile, Mike has forgotten that he invited another girl, who arrives with her friend in tow. Unfortunately (or fortunately for her, because it means she won’t have to risk venereal disease) the friend is immediately branded “a hippopotamus” and a new plan is formulated to keep the two groups of girls separated and isolate the fourth wheel. Shockingly, this plan works; Mike “puts the hippopotamus to bed” and takes his lady to the "smash room", while Vinny and Pauly adjourn to another room with their conquests. Ewww how can Vinny and Pauly concentrate on engaging in sexual relations when they are mere centimetres from each other?

The next day the triumphant lads head out to procure groceries, leaving Angelina behind with express instructions to clean the kitchen. Instead, she spends all day talking on the phone. Surely she can’t have that many friends? Maybe she is just cold calling from the phone book, who could resist the opportunity to have her squawk in your ear for a few hours? Mike flips out when he comes home to a filthy house; fair enough, the boys do seem to do the lion’s share of the cooking and cleaning at Chez Jersey Shore. Angelina’s volcanic temperament gets the better of her and she spews hot angry lava all over Mike. Oh Trash Bags, just fill your luggage with the contents of the kitchen sink and be done with it.

Snooki is still upset about her breakup with Emilio and Jenni does her best to comfort her by telling her he doesn’t deserve her, as “you’ve done nothing wrong down here.” Except have sex with Vinny right? Are they forgetting we know everything they’ve been up to? Hello, WE CAN SEE YOU! Emilio does seem like a front-runner for King of the douche bags but that’s no excuse for double standards. Snooki burns her duck-lipped photos of Emilio in a ritual backyard sacrifice. Sammi snuggles with Ronnie as she watches the flames of their bronzed passion burn, little does she know she might want to commit a little arson of her own soon.

Snooki and Jenni decide the time is nigh to slip Sammi the note. Jenni says they both think it’s a horrible idea (which it is!) but they feel she needs to know. Yes, but not like this! Stalkers, nut jobs and cowardly neighbours leave anonymous notes, not friends. Jenni shoves it in Sammi’s make-up drawer where they know she will find it first thing. The anticipation waiting for the note to be found would be KILLER.

Mike, Snooki and Jenni head off to work at the gelato shop and leave the note to work it’s magic. That would be even worse, being stuck at work and not knowing what was happening. Sammi finds it almost immediately and paraphrases it as “Ronnie gets with fat chicks, hooks up with girls, holds hands with girls, got a girls number”. She pulls Vinny and Pauly in one by one but they stand by their man and deny it all. Sammi however is not convinced. Snooki and Jenni are terrified to go back to the house and “the drama that we caused”. Vinny gestures to Ronnie that Sam has found an anonymous note fingering him and he hustles off to find her. I bet all the blood in his body suddenly went cold.

Sam gives Ronnie the note to read and after seeing the word ‘wisely’ he observes that Snooki “doesn’t use that kind of vocabulary”. Since when did ‘wisely’ become a highbrow word? Ronnie admits to Sam that he took a shot from a girl’s cleavage and a telephone number but says he tossed it away. Sam is devastated by the revelations and says if he’s admitted to some of it the rest of the note is probably true. Ronnie tries to apologise but Sammi doesn’t want to hear it. Ronnie says “I’m definitely not a saint, if I walked into a church right now I’d probably burst into flames”, but he thinks he can dig his way out of it and that the letter isn’t that bad. Wow he is really deluded!

Back at the gelato shop an anxious Jenni and Snooki call Angelina to find out if Sam found the letter, but unfortunately Sam is the one who answers and we all hold our breath in anticipation. Sam asks Jenni if she left her a note and Jenni puts on a convincing display of ignorance. Why are they pretending? The truth will out when the show airs after all! When they get home and read the note, Snooki and Jenni can’t stop giggling over their deceit while Mike is laughing over the text, and no doubt the fact that Ronnie has finally been busted. When Sammi asks why he’s laughing, Mike tries to cover himself by saying he’s laughing at the reference to “multiple fat women”, adding, “it’s the truth”. When Sammi asks him what happened he says, “I mean if it’s on paper it’s the truth”. That’s awesome. I’m going to write everything down in the future so I can use that excuse.

Ronnie tries to talk to Sam and she says he should never talk to her again. He asks a grieving Sam if she wants to be with him. I thought it was kind of obvious that she didn’t. Ronnie says he’s done arguing and fighting. Why is he acting like it's Sammi’s fault as if he is without blame? Perhaps a side effect of his chronic partying? Ronnie starts fossicking through his underwear drawer and finds his secret little black book (in reality a tatty notepad) and rings up his ‘hometown honey’, a girl who sounds as if she is pretty intimately acquainted with Ron Ron. He asks her when she’s coming down as he has his “GT on but now he needs “the S in”. Ewww. Sam hears their racy repartee and stomps out to confront him. Gees the corpse of their relationship hasn’t even been embalmed yet and he’s already chasing tail, although from their conversation it sounds like he had a second girlfriend at home the whole time. Samm i follows Ron to his room and tries to get a reaction out of him, but he just flips the blame back on her again and shows no remorse. He should just be single; he’s not fit to be with anyone.

And here is the note which has bestowed equal parts amusement and suffering upon it’s readers. Read at your own peril!:

SAM, THE FIRST NIGHT AT BED WHEN YOU LEFT, RON MADE OUT WITH 2 GIRLS AND PUT HIS HEAD INBETWEEN A COCKTAIL WAITRESSES BREASTS. ALSO WAS GRINDING WITH MULTIPLE FAT WOMEN.  WHEN YOU LEFT CRYING AT KLUTCH, RON WAS HOLDING HANDS AND DANCING WITH A FEMALE AND TOOK DOWN HER NUMBER.  MULTIPLE PEOPLE IN THE HOUSE KNOW. THEREFORE YOU SHOULD KNOW THE TRUTH. USE THIS INFORMATION WISELY.

New Zealand's Next Top Model - Recapping The Recap

2010-10-01T13:27:00.000-07:00

Illustrations courtesy of Alan Gray

Ripped off! It’s the evil recap show! What cruel deceit is this? Here we were thinking we would get to see the final six frolicking in Phuket but instead all we get is ancient footage with the occasional unseen tidbit thrown in. Although, I should have known this was coming, Tyra always does this at the midpoint of America’s Next Top Model. Bah!

So were there any new revelations last night? A meager fistful, there was some footage of Lara singing while simultaneously breaking out into nervous blotches, and then some more singing from contestants who didn’t make it. Was there a talent portion of the audition? Where was the baton twirling and rhythmic gymnastics?

Dakota’s teary confession about considering “adult entertainment” doesn’t seem nearly so tragic (or believable for that matter) now that we know her better. There’s a shocking confession from a contestant called Chloe that she and her sister were kidnapped from a mall. Why do they always have to quiz them about traumatic experiences? There are girls with eating issues, girls that are crazed Justin Bieber fans, girls who are twins! Elza and Nellie have a long plastic surgery wish list; Elza wants her nostrils reduced, a cap tooth put in and a matching dimples for her left cheek. Danielle reveals it was her friend from bartending school who tragically passed away that coerced her to go. Courtenay looks so different with long hair! Michaela says she wanted to cry when she had to go naked for the mud shoot as it isn’t who she is and she felt it was going against her religion. This makes the shots of her that were released even more upsetting!

But surprises were really few and far between last night, and there was no new Colin footage! So let’s hand out some awards for the best performances thus far:

Best teamwork:

Nelza working as a human stepladder to raid the cupboards for sustenance.

Best forestry town contestant:

Has to be Danielle. Thank you Sara for enlightening us as to the industry of Kawerau.

Most agile tongue utilized for nasal plundering:

Estelle, who demonstrated her fingerless nose picking skills.

Best bird handling skills:

Nellie and Elza could have a second career as bird whisperers.

Best long distance sprinter in high heels:

If this were a Commonwealth Games event, Colin would garner the gold medal.

Most horrified expression:

When Spookers employee Emily detailed her job description, Sara looked like her face would melt with fear.

Most pageant-like response to failure:

Sophie from Lower Hutt cried when she didn’t make it into the house but had a response prepared that would make Miss South Carolina seethe with jealousy : “I didn’t get through but I’m going to move on, just carry on how I was, but different, with new lessons”

Most accurate aim with a stiletto:

Danielle, who nailed Elza in the back of her head with one swift kick of her fleet feet.

Most amusing drunks:

Holly and Aafreen, under the influence of booze hag ragdoll Kate Moskett.

Most hilarious post chocolate-bobbing face:

Elza’s caked flour face was hysterical and even though she choked and gagged on the powdery paste even she admitted it was “worth it” for the joy of chocolate.

Most subdued response to a prophetic dream:

All the girls seemed surprisingly unsurprised when Danielle told them about her dream predicting the death of her friend. I think my mouth would be agape for days in shock at hearing that!

Most amusing person sober person you could easily mistake for drunk:

Dakota, obviously!

Lamest drinking game:

Holly’s ‘We Don’t Know How Lucky We Are’ sing-a-long. I just don’t get it.

Most unnecessary facial blurring

Racist man on Queen Street who abused Amelia. Show us his face so we can take to the streets with flaming torches!

Most likely to sob in the bottom two every week but still squeak through to the finals:

Dakota

Best animated GIF:

Dakota, "Gidday!"

Doesn’t it all seem like such a long time ago dear reader? I usually hate the recap show, but it was slightly interesting to see how far the girls have come. Only SLIGHTLY. Let’s not suffer through another recap again please?

What have been some of your highlights so far?

The Jersey Shore Season Two - Love Is A Battlefield

2010-09-30T13:26:00.000-07:00

Illustrations courtesy of Alan Gray

The saga of Sammi and Ronnie continues as the strain of Ronnie’s outrageous partying wears on Sammi and the annoyance of Sammi’s constant petting of her polyester hair frustrates Ronnie. Meanwhile, Snooki and Jenni implement an ingenious (or insane) plan to deal with a devious housemate.

This week’s episode of ‘Macaroni Rascals’ was frankly, a bit of a snooze. The slow creaking ascent of the Sammi/Ronnie relationship rollercoaster is taking too long to reach the tipping point. Send it over the edge already! Anyway, so what did happen this week? Well, back home after another epic night out, Snooki decides to call boyfriend Emilio, as they haven’t spoken in two whole days. However, absence clearly does not make the heart grow fonder for Emilio. He’s still out partying and doesn’t want to be distracted from leering at "half naked girls" and hangs up on Snooki. An incensed Snooki cries to JWOWW and Sammi, although why she’s acting so slighted I’m not quite sure. Didn’t she do the dirty on her boyfriend last week with Vinny? Before Snooki can even finish her tale of woe, Sammi is asking the girls their opinion of her ongoing dramas with Ronnie. She urges the girls to tell her if there’s anything she should know about her meathead with the wandering eye. Jenni and Snooki exchange fearful furtive glances but keep quiet. No one wants to be the bearer of this particular piece of bad news.

Emilio calls Snooki back at the uncivil hour of 4am to confess that he had sex with another girl. Snooki’s pouf stands on end like an enraged cat’s fur as she tells him to never call her again and slams down the phone. Her 42 coats of tear smeared mascara and teased hair make her look like Robert Smith of The Cure. The resemblance is startling; it’s as if a vengeful make up artist swapped Mr. Smith’s usual chalky foundation for a duskier base. Emilio tries calling back and playing off the incident as a joke, but Jenni serves it up cold and tells him he’s a “nasty skank” and to never darken their duck phone again.

In a rare group outing, all four girls head out the next day together to decompress from the drama filled night before. Sammi again confronts the girls and asks them to tell her if they know what Ronnie does when he’s out of her sight. Angelina doesn’t want to end up as the wounded messenger and wisely denies any knowledge. Jenni later says that Angelina had a lot of opportunities to tell Sammi the truth but instead sat there like “a scared puppy”. And what exactly is preventing Jenni from telling Sammi the truth? Perhaps the weight of her pink basketball hoop earrings are already too great a burden to bear on her shoulders.

Mike makes one of his traditional family Sunday dinners and after the plates are cleared away everyone decides to have a game of secret sexy questions. The girls decide to dress up for the occasion, wiggling into their tightest corsets and skimpiest skirts, revealing acres of Fanta-tinted flesh. Poor Angelina slinks out squished into a black compression garment and clearly thinking she’s pretty hot stuff. Vinny brings her plummeting back to earth by saying that Angelina’s butt skimming dress looks “like a garbage bag”. Pauly scores the rebound by adding, “she’s wearing her luggage from last year.” Cruel, but accurate!

The question bowl is filled with saucy queries that have been written anonymously. The questions are mostly ridiculous things like ‘which two housemates would you have a threesome with?’. Sammi gets the most disturbing query, ‘who would you let take a dump on your chest?’ which thankfully goes unanswered. The room goes quiet when one of the questions posed is “have you ever cheated on your girlfriend or boyfriend”. Who slipped that curly one in there? Uncomfortable silence follows and Ronnie confesses to cheating in a previous relationship but Sammi senses something afoot.

The unlikely trio of Angelina, Jenni and Snooki devise a plan to write an anonymous letter to Sammi revealing the truth. They think it’s a great idea but in reality it is of course a DISTASTROUS plan best left behind in high school. The pool of suspects for penning such a note is incredibly shallow, a mere 7 possibilities! Sammi would immediately strike the boys off the hit list, they would never rat on their co-conspirator in the I.F.F. Well, maybe Mike would. After patting themselves on the back for their ingenuity they leave to go home and Angelina lets rip a toxic fart, unfortunately, Snooki is following close behind. Wee diminutive Snooki’s mouth is practically level with Angelina’s buttocks so she bears the full brunt of the pungent expulsion and complains that it went “straight in my mouth”, but admits this puts them on a whole new level of friendship. It’s a level I hope to never achieve with my friends!

The gang get ready for yet another night out and Sammi and Ronnie get into yet another dull fight over Sammi’s insinuation that Ronnie is going hunting for 'grenades'. There’s palpable tension in the house and everyone is walking on eggshells trying not to let word slip of Ronnie’s crimes on the battlefield. At the club Ronnie tells Sammi that it’s over and they break up once more. Sammi and the girls leave and Ronnie complains that Sammi just left him behind. Traditionally, girls don’t tend to stick around after being dumped by their boyfriends. Sammi has a change of heart and decides she should check on Ronnie before leaving. As he’s getting in a cab she tries to chase him down but he orders the cab driver to keep going, while an embarrassed Sammi is left standing in the street clutching at the car door. But it’s not over for our co-dependent couple, (these two are constantly chasing each other!) Ronnie stumbles into the club where the rest of the gang are and mumbles to Sammi “I hate you so much because I love you”. Sammi puts her pursed lips away when she sees that Ronnie has lost control of his limbs and escorts the babbling mess home, putting him to bed with a puke pan.

Jenni and Snooki head to an Internet café to compose their anonymous letter. Snooki naively thinks that because they’re using words not usually in their vocabulary, such as ‘breasts’, Sammi won’t guess they are the culprits. They pen an unintentionally hilarious letter detailing Ronnie’s exploits in the world of sea travel, (motorboating) and his practise of “dancing with multiple fat women”. Will the girls follow through with their plan and deliver the letter? I smell a showdown stinkier than Angelina’s anal emissions lurking on the horizon!

Project Runway Episode Three - Gone With The Window Treatments

2010-09-27T14:15:00.000-07:00

Illustrations courtesy of Alan Gray

There’s frustration and disappointment in the Parsons workroom this week as the designers take on their first team challenge. Ping discovers that her unorthodox methods make working with another designer the biggest challenge of all and Seth Aaron and Anthony can’t decide if they’re making a dress for the plantation or the fast food nation.
The challenge this week is to design a signature look, drawing inspiration from 10 iconic pieces by famous designers such as Balenciaga and Dior. The designers get up close and personal with the hautest of couture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Tim gets all emotional at being in the presence of his only true loves.

This will be the first team challenge and they will have $500 to spend - the largest budget in the history of Project Runway, and a leisurely two days to complete. Tim randomly selects team leaders from his marble bag and the chosen few get to pick who they want to work with. Jesse is one of the last left and doesn’t want Ping to pick him. When she does he can’t hide his disdain and looks as if he’s just been told he’s going to have his testicles removed with pinking shears. Would it kill him to muster a little false enthusiasm? So much for his acting skills!

After a trip to Mood, the teams get to work on their creations, with the team leaders responsible for the overall look. Anthony quips that they are designing a gown for the vice president of McDonalds as he and Seth Aaron have a yellow, black and red colour palette. It could also pass for the flag of Belgium. Maybe they could design uniforms for Belgian McDonalds workers if their careers as designers don’t pan out.

Seth Aaron thinks he and Anthony are in pretty good shape as they have the entire second day to complete a little bit of stitch work. Amateurs. Have they never watched Project Runway before? There’s no such thing as down time and you can bet that crafty fox Mr. Gunn has something up his bespoke sleeve. Tim breaks the news that they will be creating a second outfit, a ‘look for less’ using 10% of their original budget, but their second outfit will be based on ANOTHER teams work. Ooh a fresh twist on a classic Project Runway challenge!

Jesse haaaaaates the fabric Ping has chosen for their second look, describing it as “nice hooker shiny synthetic stuff”. Maya wishes she was teamed with someone else as Jay has taken a backseat due to his immunity, and she has been left with all the donkey work. Jonathon also feels like he’s been stuck with the lions share while Mila fusses with her optical illusion coat, which looks a mobile target designed for use by a firing squad. I would also recommend avoiding shooting ranges and dartboards during wear. Tim agrees with Jesse about Ping’s choice of fabric, saying it looks like ‘cheap and cheerful wrapping paper’. Of course smug Jesse is delighted to hear that Tim also thinks the fabric looks cheap. Don’t side with that dastardly buccaneer Tim!

It’s off to the runway; Heidi is wearing a diamond patterned maternity outfit that creates the illusion of kaleidoscopic boobs. Guest judge is British designer Matthew Williamson, a friend and fave of Kate Moss.

Seth Aaron and Anthony’s yellow nightmare looks large enough to conceal a squadron of midget wrestlers beneath it. Mila is thrilled with her Logan’s Run tracksuit; those pants are awfully reminiscent of Adidas track pants from school PE. You had to have Adidas with the three stripes, any greater or fewer number of stripes and you’d be branded a fashion outcast. All of these dresses look a bit ordinary. None of them really look like they would retail for $500, but that’s just the cost of the fabric. If you wanted to buy one of these creations the price tag would be fairly exorbitant.

Ping loves her lace and drapes ensemble. Her model looks like an elegant curtain saleswoman with swathes of samples gracefully draped over her arm. A lot of the budget outfits look better than their original inspiration. Ping and Jesse’s second design is an ill-fitting top and skirt, although to be fair, the original inspiration for their design (courtesy of Emilio and Anna Marie) is pretty boring.

The teams of Maya/Jay and Mila/Jonathon are the top designers. Maya and Jay have made a sculptural dress that looks like it was inspired by Audrey, the man eating plant from Little Shop of Horrors, rather than one of the famed couturiers. Maybe Audrey was lurking next to the Balenciaga, waiting to make a meal out of Tim Gunn. Their budget look is almost a copy of Ben and Janine’s dress, but Michael likes it better than the original.

Heidi loves Mila’s circus ringmaster outfit but the judges are less impressed with their baby doll take on Seth Aaron and Anthony’s yellow confection. All she needs is a top hat and a whip. Michael says ‘this is how people dress, it’s logic’. He left out a crucial word though, “this is how CIRCUS people dress”.

Ping and Jesse’s lady liberty gown is unsurprisingly in the bottom two. The judges ask the model to peel back the drapes, only to reveal a short wrinkly ice-skating outfit. When the judges ask who did the sewing, Jesse says he did most of it, as he had to ‘teach sewing lessons while we were working’. Judging by the hideous construction of these garments I would say Jesse shouldn’t be giving lessons to anyone. Ping’s model Megan pipes up and says that Ping never fitted her in the dress. Hey quiet down Megan, have you never watched ‘America’s Next Top Model’? You’re supposed to be an opinion-less clotheshorse!

Anthony tells the judges that he and Seth Aaron were inspired by the classic Dior silhouette. Michael says it’s costumey and the model looks like she should be in’ Gone With the Wind’. Anthony and Ping should team up; she’s got some drapes that Scarlett O’Hara would love to tear down for Anthony to whip into a marshmallow gown. Nina says ‘they’re both really ugly’ of their two frocks.

Mila wins for her fanciful costume and poor Ping is consigned to the mouldy sweatshop of broken seams where all the other Project Runway reject wackos are relegated. Who will amuse us now that Ping is gone? We’re relying on you Anthony, make it work!

Jersey Shore Season Two Episode Three: Creepin'

2010-09-27T14:11:00.000-07:00

Illustrations courtesy of Alan Gray

This weeks episode was all about conflict; ongoing romantic conflict between Sammi and Ronnie, conflict between Angelina and everyone else in the house, and conflicts between the boys libidos and their brains - resulting in some unsavory bath time companions for our sexually indiscriminate guidos.

Following on from last week, Angelina continues her stage-five-clinger (in Jersey Shore parlance) behaviour and continues to harass DJ Pauly D, taking him to task for hitting on a girl who purportedly had a boyfriend. JWOWW is awoken by the commotion and is surprised to find Pauly, ‘the nicest kid in the house’, screeching at Trash Bags to leave him alone in the wake of being repeatedly slapped by her. In the very next instant she denies ever touching him and Mike and Pauly’s eyes almost explode out of their heads in shock at her denial of something they just witnessed.

The next day, Angelina is persona non grata in the house and pretends to have no memory of the night before. She needs to find a new excuse, we didn’t believe it last week from Ronnie and it’s certainly not holding any water this week. She makes a teary apology to Pauly but he tells her she can’t hang out with him anymore. She asks if she can have a ‘get out of jail free card’ for this transgression but Pauly is having none of it. I think the guys are probably glad that they have this opportunity to legitimately ditch her.

As obnoxious as Mike can be, he takes pity on Angelina and speaks to the rest of the housemates about giving her another chance. He encourages the girls to take her under their wing, but of course he has his own ulterior motives. She is a self-proclaimed penile impediment (a politer way to phrase the more common term for her kind, rhyming with ‘sock knocker’) and the guys don’t want her cramping their style at the clubs. The girls clearly hate the idea but they know it makes sense.

At the club, Snooki extends the acrylic tipped hand of friendship to Angelina, who finally gives the girls what they want and tells them that yes, she did speak ill of them. Jenni and Snooki embrace her and welcome her into their fold, but I have a feeling the truce will be short-lived and the polyester weaves will soon be flying.

Meanwhile Sammi and Ronnie are having fun together until Ronnie gets too wasted, much to Sammi’s disgust. Ronnie looks like he’s having a high old time, toothily beaming and waving his hands like one of the Village People. Could his performance be ‘enhanced’? The housemates allude to Ronnie indulging in something other than just alcohol in veiled references. Vinny says that Ronnie is “crazy lately when he gets drunk” and the Situation adds ‘I don’t know how drunk he got, or whatever it was, but Ronnie was sloppy as hell’.

There have been a ton of media reports and about one of the cast members developing a penchant for cocaine and all clues seem to point to Ronnie. His drunken behaviour this season seems altered from what we remember of Ronnie and his ‘patented moves’ from series one. A frustrated Sammi skulks off home with the girls while a defiant Ronnie stays on and turns his attentions to any girl that will have him, grinding and making out with a bevy of Miami maidens. A horrified Snooki approaches Ronnie and says she feels that she needs to tell Sammi about his behaviour. Ronnie says he “never crossed the line”, yeah, or maybe just snorted it? When he pushes Snooki aside the guys step in and cart Ronnie off home, where he crawls into Sammi’s bed for a reconciliatory ‘smoosh’.

Snooki calls her boyfriend at 6 in the morning next to a dozing Vinny. As a drunken and hiccupping Snooki attempts to have a coherent conversation (and fails) with Emilio, Vinny gets more comfortable in her presence. After she’s finished demolishing the phone table and clumsily hangs up on her boyfriend, Vinny invites her to keep him company in his room, an invitation she readily accepts. Shortly thereafter Snooki bluntly asks ‘wanna f***” and he robotically responds ‘sure. The next day Vinny is trying to distance himself from the episode and asks ‘did I do the unthinkable?’ Yes Vinny, you made oompa-loompa porn. He is trying to paint Snooki as some seductress, but the camera doesn’t lie Vinny, you instigated this one! Don’t cry for Emilio though, seems like he’s already scooped up Snooki’s rival Angelina.

The boys love their little acronyms like GTL (that’s Gym, Tan, Laundry for the uninitiated), and this season they’ve added a couple more. There’s GFF, or ‘Grenade Free Florida’ and IFF, which cryptically means ‘I’m F***** Foundation’. They have so many codes they could probably hold an entire conversation amongst themselves that would be incomprehensible to anyone listening. Mike, Vinny and Pauly have also rebranded themselves as ‘MVP’. Vinny explains that MVP are the “Most Valuable players in MIA supporting the GFF” and tonight MVP want to go creeping. Angelina tries to get an invitation out of them but the guys are not having it. The trio decide to sneak out the door when she’s not looking, escaping like naughty boys. When they arrive at the club however, Vinny says it’s filled with grenades. Mike convinces a flock of ‘zoo animals’ (their words, not mine!) back to the house and the toxic spa pool. Mike splashes his face with the polluted pool liquid and the bacterial stew seems to sober him up fast. He quickly realizes he’s in a tub full of land mines and that Pauly is “hypnotized by a hyena”. A breast-augmenting chicken fillet makes a break for escape and cosies up next to Vinny. It’s oblivious owner shrugs it off but when she realizes that the missile the boys are throwing to each other was recently nestling next to her boob she and her poor lop-sided chest make a hasty exit out of the pool. The boys rapidly disarm their remaining grenades and lob them back out into the street.

The guys want to go out partying again but Sammi and Ronnie decide to stay in. When Ronnie hears that Snooki and Jenni are going out he decides to encourage Sammi to go with them so he can party with the guys. She tells him to do what he wants and like a fool he leaves her so he can go creeping and then can’t understand why she’s mad. The Situation encourages Ronnie to join them and you can’t help but wonder if he’s trying to stir up trouble between our squabbling lovebirds.

Ronnie says he loves spending time with Sam but “he’s with his boys” in Miami and wants to hang out with them while they’re together. He thinks they shouldn’t alienate themselves from the other housemates and they should make the effort to bond with everyone. His tune has certainly changed since last season; all he wanted to do was go home with Sammi and didn’t seem overly concerned with getting to know everyone else. Oh what a difference six months and a nostrils worth of illicit substances makes.

New Zealand's Next Top Model - Week Eight

2010-09-27T14:04:00.000-07:00

Illustration courtesy of Alan Gray

Who needs to go out on a Friday night anymore? All the drama, excitement and Colin Mathura-Jeffree you could ever want awaits you on your magic picture box!

As seems to be the trend, the episode opens with the models targeting one girl to be the object of their derision. This week it’s Lara’s voodoo doll that must feel the needles of their disdain. Danielle thinks Lara’s a self-horn honking twit and Dakota says Lara “thinks she’s got it all, but she’s got nothing”. In whose direction will the wheel of misfortune spin next week?
Saramail: Say your prayers girls, you’re about to worship at the altar of fashion! Love Sara

What? No XOXO from Sara? That’s cold. The twins LOVE trying to decipher the Saramail clues but are invariably wrong. They’re just like the Hardy Boys, only not as handsome or accurate. They set off in their stagecoach to St Matthews In The City church for their first challenge. Wouldn’t it be great if Xzibit pimped their ride? (‘Yo Dawgs, I heard you like modeling so I got you this stereo system made out of nude g-strings and Naomi Campbell’s weave’). Father Colin greets them from the pulpit and tells his congregation that today they will be modeling Lonely Hearts lingerie. Courtney is slightly horrified at the idea of stripping down to her undies “in a holy place”. Dakota says wearing lingerie in a church made her “feel a bit sacrilegious” but then she thought “nah who cares”. Simultaneously, all around the country cups of tea are involuntarily expelled through nostrils.

Dakota asks her fellow Christians Michaela and Courtney to say a prayer with her before their runway show; Courtney doubts Dakota’s devotion to her saviour as she says she “doesn’t really act religious”. Yes, we noticed that too. Lara looks like she has a bit of frontal wedgie going on and Colin says she needs to clean up her walk as she’s “hitting some unusual poses”. Colin doesn’t rate the twins on the runway either; he describes them as “very heavy and very dark”. Nellie pulls an odd ‘grieving widow’ pose and Elza bobs her head from side to side as if she’s weighted down by a beer can helmet. Dakota says she saw someone laughing at her, and seems to think they were mocking her figure. When she gets backstage she starts to cry over her ridiculer and the girls rally round her. The rudeness! What sort of easily identifiable monster in a tiny group of people would laugh at someone during a nationally televised show in a church? Hmmm, did it actually happen or did she just imagine it? Well, THC can make you paranoid. Dakota gets annoyed that Lara is the only girl who doesn’t rush to dry her tears and says she could see “Lara’s ass jiggle”. Oh the hypocrisy!

Michaela says she thought when they got to the top seven the competition would be intense and bitchy, but all the girls are really close. Dakota thinks “they’re all actually tight in the house”. Awww that’s so sweet. And obviously a set up for the fight that we KNOW Dakota and Michaela are going to have (unless you hate spoilers and have been avoiding the ads).

Illustration courtesy of Alan Gray

Saramail: It’s time to sink or swim. Don’t let performance anxiety hold you back. Love Sara

Nellie whips out her magnifying glass and uses her detective skills to solve the clue, and thinks the challenge might be selling surfboards. Guess again Nancy Drew! You’re shooting a music video for Opshop! Director Ivan Slavov and Opshop lead singer Jason Kerrison explain to the girls that they will rehearse in the studio and the three best movers will move to the aquatic centre next door to perform underwater. Nellie says contemporary dancing for her is embarrassing because she looks like a “dead octopus having a heart attack or something”. What kind of terrifying zombie cephalopod suffers heart failure after death?? The girls all throw themselves into the challenge, gyrating in the jet stream of a wind machine. Lara smugly chirrups “Ivan told me that I have the exact look he’s going for”. Hmmm, maybe her voodoo dolldoes deserve some light pinching after all. The models lounge around in their matching red robes, looking like a boarding school secret society out of a girlish novel (the kind that investigates who put the salt in the sugar shakers, not the kind that draws pentagrams under their beds).

Ivan chooses Danielle, Elza and Lara for the pool shoot but invites Nellie along too as he likes getting value for money, and why stop at one wet and bedraggled twin when you could have two! Back at the secret society treehouse, Dakota bitches about the other girls, Lara in particular whom she refers to as “fat”. Michaela gets so annoyed with Dakota’s spiteful comments that she says she wants to punch her, but Dakota just laughs and urges her to do it so she’ll get kicked off. As much as we feel your pain Michaela (oh how we feel it!) it’s really not a good idea to threaten violence, no matter how obnoxious the target.

At the pool the girls start to submerge and Ivan says Danielle was really great, telling her “it was f*****g amazing”. Elza is a water baby and doesn’t want to get out of the pool. The girls are there for hours into the night deep sea diving, then we get a sneak peek at the finished video featuring our mermodels.

Saramail: A Top Model needs plenty of drive. Let’s see who’s firing on all cylinders? Love Sara

No S.W.A.L.K? The girls head to Auckland’s old railway station for their next photo shoot and as they arrive an explosion goes off and Nellie almost soils her pants in fright. It’s the day after the video shoot so some of the girls are tired from their evening of underwater action. Sara is there for the shoot and reminds them that being tired is part of being a top model. Lara wins the ultimate prize for the Opshop video shoot, a singlet dress from Cybele. Dakota must be hacking up furballs at her rivals win. MEOW. They’re shooting today with a Ford Fiesta car and decorative explosives. Why do they always have flaming mushroom clouds in car commercials? I'd have serious concerns about buying a car that’s constantly shooting fireballs, it could be an indication of a fault in the fuel line! Although sufferers of severe road rage would probably delight in a car with flame-throwing capabilities.

Chris Sisarich is today’s photographer and he tells Michaela that “walking and working in your photograph is kind of hard”. Is he not aware that there are other professions in which walking and working go hand and hand? I present to you the computer workstation treadmill! Now you too can walk and work, just like a model. Elza suffers a severe freak out and an ambulance is summoned to check her over. She says she felt “completely numb” and “spaced out” from exhaustion. Does Elza suffer from panic attacks? This is the second time she’s had a major meltdown on a shoot, I hope she’s getting some help while she’s in the house. Danielle delivers the call of the week, saying Elza needed to “pick up her balls and get on with it”. Nellie can’t recover from the afternoon’s drama with Elza and the late night before, she says she’s emotionally and physically flat and Chris and Sara think so too. Uh-oh, I sense a twin-excision approaching. Dakota does the dorkiest run, which miraculously comes out looking really good on film. Elza surprises everyone by putting in an appearance and actually pulls off some good shots.

Illustration courtesy of Alan Gray

Judging

Sara reveals, with very little fanfare, that one girl will be eliminated and the remaining six will fly to Phuket, Thailand for their overseas fashion foray. So Los Angeles last year and Thailand this year? I suppose it is the sarong capital of the world but I wouldn’t have guessed it as their destination, that is, if the Herald hadn’t already spoiled the surprise. Excuse me while I gently needle my NZ Herald voodoo doll.

Michaela says not getting picked for the video knocked her confidence and she had a bit of a breakdown at the photo shoot, well you’re not alone there. Colin says she looks like she farted and doesn’t want anyone to know. So maybe her fireball is result of natural gas and a lighter? Steve from Lonely Hearts is this weeks guest judge and says Courtney was one of the most talked about models in the show. Sara and Colin pull Nellie up on her attitude at the photo shoot, which Sara describes as “like a big dark cloud”. Nellie starts weeping as she says she was tired and scared about Elza, which then sets Elza off crying about wrecking Nellie’s photo shoot. Colin wags his finger at Elza about her bobble headed walk, which is likened to a car rear window-nodding dog. When Sara asks Elza what happened at the shoot she says she was “fragile and tired” but gets emotional and can’t finish her sentence. Despite her difficulties, her photo still turned out great.

Panel Discussion

The judges are disappointed in Michaela’s lack of professionalism and Nellie’s negativity doesn’t win her any points either. Colin and Chris think Dakota has no idea what she’s doing and Steve points out that she was bottom of the barrel on the runway. Danielle’s photo is Colin’s favourite and Chris says he is starting to see her blossom.

Sara calls out Danielle as passenger number one on the flight to Phuket and says she is proud of her, oh aren’t we all! Courtney, Elza, Lara, Michaela will all be joining Danielle for virgin Mai Thais on the beach in Thailand. It’s down to Nellie, who looks dressed for work as an extra on 80’s soap ‘Gloss’ and Dakota. Sara tells Nellie she wouldn’t have been happy with Nellie’s attitude if she’d been paying for her services and that Dakota seems like “an accidental model” and she’s not sure if she’s learning. Dakota makes it on to the plane and Nellie takes the disappointment well, she seems prepared to go. Elza looks like she’s about to spontaneously combust in horror as she erupts into tears. Sara says it was a hard decision, but could it have been calculated to heighten the drama? Separating our co-dependent twins at this all-important juncture? Oh boo we will miss you Nellie and your weird twisdom, take care of that hermaphrodite cat for us!

Do you agree with the final six?

New Zealand's Next Top Model - Week Seven

2010-09-17T12:17:00.000-07:00

Illustrations courtesy of Alan Gray

We’re down to eight models remaining after last week’s shock elimination, and this week it’s back to school as the girls get a refresher in the basics and learn the ancient history of their rare kind.

Saramail: And then there were 8. Maybe it’s time we got back to basics? Love Sara

The girls board their glamour bus for Auckland University where Colin guides them through some runway training 101. They start off their training in flats and Danielle finally masters the art of the walk, saying the one on one time with Colin made her more comfortable. They graduate to medium height ‘training wheels’ heels which are a bit more problematic for Danielle, she flips them off mid-strut and nails poor Elza in the back of the head. Despite her assault with a deadly weapon (stiletto is Italian for dagger), Danielle is no longer the worst walker of the pack! That dubious honour belongs to Dakota who Colin says can’t turn left or right due to her “lack of body strength”. Poor Dakota, she has bigger problems than Derek Zoolander, at least his only Achilles heel was his left turn.

They move on up to skyscraper heels and I can almost feel my ankles spontaneously spraining just watching them. Holly says she found it easiest to walk in the highest heels but Colin thinks she’s a bit overly confident and prone to “Ben Stiller leg”. Nellie loses a shoe mid walk but nonchalantly carries on balancing on the tiptoes of one foot, what a trooper. Colin asks the girls if they think they can beat him in heels and initiates an impromptu game of bullrush. It’s like something out of a horror movie, he’s like a giant spider in stilettos effortlessly pursuing a swarm of concrete shod flies. FLY MY PRETTIES!

Saramail: A Top Model never stops learning. Who’s at the top of the class? Love Sara.

The girls hop aboard their luxurious transport and head to MOTAT where a very dapper Colin introduces them to Ella Drake, a New Zealander and exclusive model for Gucci. They head to the olde worlde schoolroom where Professor Colin quizzes them on top model trivia. Danielle says she felt immediately mischievous because that’s how she was at school. The presence of those inkwells is probably not helping; I bet she’s dying to dip someone’s plait in one. I know I am. Dakota likes her chances because she reads two-year-old French Vogues from the library, as “New Zealand is two years behind the fashion world”. Ooh I bet that comment made some local designers bristle. Colin says Elza is clearly more intelligent than Nellie and that he now realizes they are not telepathic. This is a real shame because they would make great creepy psychic twins. Elza wins the challenge with no help from her ESP-less sibling. Don’t you think that Colin would be the kind of teacher to whack your knuckles with a ruler if you were talking in class?

Back at home pressure is starting to show on our ladies, and Nellie is having a sulk under the duvet because she thinks Elza is doing better than her. A stressed Danielle has bandaged fingers from punching a wall, multiple times. She says she’s “going through more downs than ups and is never this emotional back home”. That’s extreme kind of behaviour, I hope these girls have access to some kind of counseling, or boxing gloves. Or a room made of gelatine.

Saramail: Hair Today Gone Tomorrow. Love Sara.

Chris is waiting for the models with the team from Herbal Essences and Russ Flatt from episode one, who has returned to shoot them for a new range of hair products. Lara is first up but Russ is not impressed, describing her expression as “constipation face”. Dakota looks great but she quickly crashes her set and breaks the prop telephone. Our beguiling brown-noser then tells Russ she likes his beard. However, her machinations are not lost on Russ who says she knows how to “suck up” but in the “big bad world of fashion that’s a really good thing.”
Nellie has a studded Zorro mask and a tiger, a rare berry-eating variety I believe, as her props. She looks pretty awesome and her tiger friend doesn’t seem averse to being hand fed fruits. Danielle looks so cute in her gingham frock, even she has to admit that she looks nice, however she’s still very reserved and Chris says it’s painful to watch at times. Holly has her mind set on being happy for her shoot and gets confused when Russ wants her to be just the opposite. She finds it hard to convey the emotion and gets weepy over her inability to deliver. Russ says she’s an ice queen and adds “to me the girl's a princess, you should just get over yourself”. OUCH. Holly gets so wound up she says she wants to punch someone. Please keep Danielle’s wall away from her, it’s been through enough already! Elza earns applause for drinking out of her shoe and tonguing a mound of honeycomb stuffed in a trophy. Chris says Elza stole the show, and she was the “highlight of the day” for Russ, he thinks all the girls could learn from her.
Judgment Day
Sara commends the girls on making it to the top eight, although it would have been the top nine if Sara didn’t get so carried away with her elimination secateurs last week and over zealously trimmed the contestants. MOTAT Schoolmarm Ella Drake is this week’s guest judge.
Elza's product is called Dangerously Straight and Colin says he feels “dangerously straight just looking” at her photo. HOWL. The panel are pleasantly stunned to see Danielle in a dress and high heels. Her photo is totally ADORBS. Lara is not happy with her shoot and her eyes almost immediately moisten. Chris likes her frustrated expression in the photo but the judges decide that any positive aspects are a result of Russ’s direction and not in any way thanks to Lara. Sara tells Dakota that her feedback from Colin’s tutorial was that she loses concentration, like a goldfish. Her photo is rather spectacular though, but did they airbrush out the birthmark on her arm? The judges love Courtney’s vibrant photo, but is her pose a little bit, well, draggy? I’m having flashbacks to the grimy dancefloor of Alfies circa 1991, except Courtney is wearing more clothing than any of the ‘ladies’ of the night ever wore there.
Panel discussion
Chris is bored, bored bored with Lara and finds her to be hard work. Ella says Holly looks a little vacant and she’s another one that Chris identified as being labour intensive. Sara compares Holly’s eyes to a Mako shark, with nothing behind them in every shot. Oooh. A thrilled Dakota is called first, Sara says she’s starting to listen. Michaela and her “consistently good photos” are called next with Courtney following swiftly behind. Holly’s shark eyes scan her rivals as they are called one by one until there is just her and Lara remaining. Sara says that Holly’s eyes remain dead and that Lara is a great little mover but “can she move her face”? There is nail-biting anticipation! Lara is in and Holly is ousted. Holly says she’s trying to be warm as her eyes start to well up, but she is very brave in defeat.

Next weeks preview looks so insanely good, lingerie in a church, (blasphemy!), underwater videography and a showdown between sweet-natured Michaela and bratty Dakota. TV3 is going to make us wait a whole week AND they want us to waste 50 cents texting them who we think will win! Well, I’m going to tell you right now who wins. SPOILER ALERT. Colin is going to snatch the Cleo magazine editorial, the Covergirl contract, the Ford Fiesta, the flight to L.A. AND all the glory from the outstretched hands of the final model, and he’ll do it while running in high heels and cackling all the way to the bank! Sigh, well a girl can dream.

Who do you want to win New Zealand's Next Top Model?

Project Runway - The Runway Gets Cheeky

2010-09-16T22:35:00.000-07:00

Illustrations courtesy of Alan Gray

Last night’s Project Runway was all about butts and burlap. Bulging bottoms were squeezed into coarse cladding, fleshy cheeks peeked beneath hairy hessian, and a disproportionate derriere rocked the runway. BUTT WAIT, THERE’S MORE…..

First of all, why did TV3 have to inflict the predominantly unfunny Aotearoahaha on us, pushing our beloved Runway back by 25 cruel minutes? TV3, I’ve got a fist to shake at you. Now on to the runway!

The challenge this week is to prove the old adage that ‘a beautiful woman could look good in anything, even a potato sack’, by creating a “party worthy look” out of a burlap sack (that scratchy sacking fabric we know more commonly as hessian). The designers descend upon a field where their models are already decked out in their sacks, the square edges of which resemble Dynasty style shoulder pads. Alexis and Krystal would have had a fine old time mud wrestling in that swampy paddock.

This week, the models will serve as the clients and get to choose which designer they want to work with. Part time Wiccan and full time crazy eyed person Alexis rejects her original designer Mila in favour of Anthony, which fills Mila with the kind of haughty rage only a severely bobbed woman can muster. Ooh you better watch out Alexis, all the amulets in the netherworlds can’t save you from Mila’s razor sharp fringe. She will slice you in twain! Although poor Anthony is none too thrilled with Alexis picking him, her unnerving intensity and her apparent inability to blink is rather unsettling, for him and us.

Pamela is confident that her experience with ombre dying will hold her in good stead and says that the challenge “fits me perfectly”, but will her burlap sack fit her model perfectly? Mila is still smarting over Alexis picking Anthony over her and gets a little aggressive in the workroom, declaring “whatever, it’s her loss”, then realizing how insulting that sounds tries to hastily backpedal by adding “not about you, not about you” to Anthony. Anthony privately says that ‘Mila can kiss me and my entire families asses’. Ooh handbags at dawn!

Whimsical Ping is yet again creating something off the wall with a wide hipped butt skimming skirt that my colleague likened to a BBQ apron. It even has side vents for the tongs! Tim warns her that the elevated runway could reveal more of her model’s assets than she intended but oblivious Ping ignores his wise advice. Amy very cleverly grabbed a few potatoes from the farm and is printing her fabric with that enduring primary school favourite, the potato stamp. A tip of the hat for innovation, however it looks like she has smeared faeces on her dress. It’s still early on in the game so let’s see if she can make gold out of those crusty brown nuggets. Jesus has opted to conceal his sack with ugly bits of ribbon and Tim punnily opines that he has “skirted the challenge” by covering the burlap but this zooms way over Jesus’ head and he carries on tacking tacky trim on his sack.

Jonathon is worried about Ping as her “garment is not functional, it doesn’t cover her ass”, but then he sees Ping smiling and ponders if maybe she has created a deliberate “ass flap”. God help us all if that becomes a new trend. Like the old saying about purple and green never being seen, please add ass flaps to that list. Pamela has created what appears to be homage to hooker fashion, a faded denim sausage casing with a leather-laced corset. Anthony thinks her models butt looks “huge in her garment” and the outfit really could have come straight from the closet of that other Pamela, Ms Anderson. Why it would make any trailer park bride gnash her remaining four teeth with delight!

This week’s guest judge is model and actress Lauren Hutton, who has a reputation for eccentricity and doesn’t disappoint. She’s far more entertaining than any of the other staid celebs they’ve had. The models start the show and it’s immediately apparent that it’s really quite amazing what you can do with burlap. These dresses are fancy! Although this is nothing new, my mum wore fierce hessian fashions to school (or so she claims).

Poor Ping realizes the error of her ways when she sees her sack, hers is truly, truly hideous and even she can’t make excuses for it. Ping has made her sack look worse than in it’s original state. At least it provided some modestly in its pre-Ping form. She glumly notes that her models ‘buttocks are revealed’ and that the skirt ‘really looks like potato sacks’. Other than that, all the dresses are pretty fab and there are only three that are real fizzers. Amy, Jay and Mila are the top three and unsurprisingly Ping, Jesus and Pamela are at the bottom of the compost heap.

The judges interrogate the final contestants and Ping complains that she thought her models skin tone would contrast better with the fabric, but her shade is too close to the colour of burlap. Ahh, how complimentary, just what every woman wants to hear, “your skin has the hue of a dusty old potato sack”. Her very pleasant model backs her up by blatantly lying and claims to like Ping’s shock frock. Ping takes over from Janeane as the weeper of the week as she sobs about misinterpreting the instructions, believing it to be a ‘county fair potato party’ the models were attending. Lauren tells Jesus that “dresses should be like paintings” and his design is “a very confused assault on the eye painting”. BURN. Nina says she’d like to see something a little younger and cooler from Jesus. She’s right; he’s stuck in some kind of garish fabric time warp. Michael complains that the patch of trim on one side of Jesus’ horror sack makes his models “ass look asymmetrical, she had one big cheek and one small cheek”. No one wants a lopsided abundance of ass!

Heidi and Michael think Ping has a problem understanding the challenges but the nutty Ms Hutton has a soft spot for Ping, perhaps sensing a kindred unhinged spirit, and says she’s sure she could have made something interesting if she could have properly lined her sack-like sack. There is mild pixilation required for Mila’s gaping but very stylish dress, and Amy’s is quite spectacular, but it’s Jay’s feathery burlap creation that takes the challenge.

To our surprise (and secret delight) Ping is safe and it’s Jesus and Pamela competing for the final spot. I’m sure Pamela is shocked Ping got called before her. Pamela’s dress was trashy and unflattering but at least it (mostly) covered all the sensitive areas. Jesus is in and it’s Pamela’s and her big butt dress that are auf’d. After last weeks vinyl lizard sheath, the second coming of Jesus was a surprise. Maybe next week will be his turn to pack up his kitbag of chintzy trims and matronly patterns and shuffle off to fulfill his true destiny, designing fashions for elderly transvestites.

Who’s your favourite in the competition so far?

New Zealand's Next Top Model - Tune In This Week.....

2010-09-15T21:55:00.001-07:00

Illustration courtesy of Alan Gray

New Zealand's Next Top Models Up In Smoke

2010-09-11T16:14:00.000-07:00

Illustration courtesy of Alan Gray

Another day, another Top Model scandal, although this one is so mild it could hardly be considered a scandal, but where there’s smoke there’s always fire.

The Herald on Sunday reports this morning that Holly Potton and Danielle Hayes, contestants on “New Zealand’s Next Top Model” were spied smoking at an Auckland bar the night after the ‘Not Our Future’ anti-smoking campaign challenge. The task involved the girls posing for anti-smoking campaign posters and contributing their own comments on the negative effects of smoking.

When we consider that 26% of the population aged between 15 and 24 are smokers, it’s hardly surprising that we would have a few nicotine heads in the household. Watching the show on Friday night we wondered perhaps if Holly and Danielle were smokers as they’re often shown sitting outside with their morning coffee, perhaps having a sneaky puff? Enjoying the winter sunshine? Or just trying to avoid their castmates? Although “New Zealand’s Next Top Model” network executive, Andrew Szusterman, said: "We're disappointed. However, these girls are adults, who choose what they do in their own time."

Women have used tobacco as an appetite suppressant since time immemorial and the unpleasant practise of smoking has always been prevalent amongst young image conscious women. Ultimately the negative effects of smoking will outweigh any miniscule effect it has on controlling your weight. Most smokers are of course aware of this but once nicotine has a hold it can be hard to break free.

Health Sponsorship Council Smokefree NZ manager Susie Robertson acknowledged that some of the celebrities featured in the high profile campaign are in fact smokers. The testimony of smokers has the potential to be more powerful than that of non-smokers as it highlights the struggle that smokers go through, reconciling the damage they are doing to their own bodies and their inability to give up a dangerous habit. Hopefully, their experiences can perhaps deter young people from ever picking up a ‘death stick’.

When we expect perfection from our public figures you can ensure that disappointment will soon follow. Let’s accept that the girls are human and fallible, and that their behaviour doesn’t necessarily have to stop them from being “New Zealand’s Next Top Role Models”.

So is it all a big stink over nothing? Pretty much.

New Zealand's Next Top Model Week Six

2010-09-10T14:01:00.000-07:00

Illustrations courtesy of Alan Gray

Is it really week six of New Zealand’s Next Top Model? Why, it seems just like yesterday, or 42 days ago, that we were introduced to our cycle two contestants and now we face another elimination. The glittering promo this week said this would be the most shocking elimination yet, but could this be the one time they’re actually telling the truth and it really is a shock to our delicate systems?

As each week passes, the placement of Saramail seems to get more and more sadistic. This time it’s floating on a pillow in their watery moat and Elza leaps in to it’s rescue. It reads, “A top model needs to shape up or ship out.” This can only mean one of two things, and since we’ve already had makeovers it must be time for workovers. The girls are eating Tim Tam straws (the delectable treat where you bite off both ends up and suck up your hot beverage of choice, although beef tea is not recommended) when Sara arrives with a young man that all the girls, but particularly Dakota, admire intently. Sara says she’s there to talk to them about body image and introduces them to her personal trainer, Brad Werner who will assess them and help them devise a fitness and nutrition plan for their individual needs. Dakota describes Brad as “the hottest muffin out of the oven”. Bleeurgh, she must have been a mustachioed grease ball with a gold medallion nestling in her chest hair in a past life. Dakota is enjoying her assessment with Brad a little too much (except for the dreaded fat pinch test), even asking if his girlfriend knows he’s hanging out with all these models. He deadpans that she doesn’t care, because she’s a model herself. Shot down Dakota! She tells him he’s quite attractive and he should consider modeling. Eww, someone alert sexual harassment panda please.

A new Saramail arrives with the message “A piece of advice for my remaining top models, never take anything at face value”. The girls meet with Colin and Cherie from Covergirl who tells them they have five minutes to make over a fellow competitor and whoever does the best wins a years worth of Covergirl cosmetics. Danielle looks totally unimpressed with the prize but perks up when one of the twins screams with glee in her ear. Colin says “I would skin the winner for that prize and kill the rest of you just for the fun of it” to try and instill a bit of enthusiasm in our more morose models. Just as he’s about to start the clock on their five minute time frame, Colin tells Dakota to take off her hat, but when she reveals her “bad hair day’ lurking underneath he tells her she better keep it on, but that she should "be prepared for such a thing". Just like a boy scout!

Once their allotted time is up Colin tells them to “step away from your monstrosities”. Lara’s is patchy thanks to Danielle, and Colin asks Lara, “Why does she hate you so much?” When he encounters Eva’s heavy-handed job on Elza he tells her it looks good "from this side" as he faces the wall. Shriek! Dakota is fondly inspecting her work on Lauren with pride shimmering wetly in her eyes but it’s Holly who wins for the second time in a row.

Back at Model Towers the girls have a cupcake competition but old age pensioner Holly says she’s not participating because she’s not 12, and hasn’t been in a cupcake competition since she was in primary school, you know, 82 years ago. Her minion Danielle silently sits by her side smiling in agreement. Yeah, cakes ARE stupid! However, when Holly sees their delicious efforts she suddenly becomes interested and wants to join in. Her competitive nature just can’t resist! She adopts the role of Sara in a mock NZNTM photo ceremony and announces Nellie and Elza as the winners of the cupcake challenge who accept the coveted title with characteristic good grace and humor.

Their next Saramail reads “Sometimes a top model needs to share the limelight. It’ll be twice the work for twice the results”. They head to an abandoned building where Chris is waiting with photographer Tony Drayton and Shelley Ferguson from Cleo magazine. Tony tells them he will shoot two at a time and the girls are initially worried about who they’ll be paired with. Ultimately everyone seems happy with their second halves; perhaps with the exception of Danielle who says Dakota is in her own world, like “Dora the Explorer”. Tony thinks Courtney was great but Lauren held her back. It probably didn’t help Lauren that Courtney looked amazing, like a Flamenco dancer in a German cabaret. Holly and Lara bitch about Dakota and her behaviour towards Bret and how her attitude changes in front of the panel. Holly describes her as being like ‘Miss Little Kicked Puppy” at judging. Nellie and Elza get into a funny little fight as to who is cooler. I love that they never seem to fight, but when they do it’s about who is better. Are they for real? They are too delightful.

Back at the house Holly is all over the cleaning roster she created and enforces. She swears at Dakota to do the dishes and stomps out while Danielle scampers after her. Michaela says a lot of the girls think Holly should go as she’s just been scraping through each week, and no doubt they’re sick of her cracking the whip. Holly says Dakota should go as she’s causing a lot of tension in the house so it would be very convenient if she left. You can almost see her fingers steepling in imitation of Mr. Burns, with an incipient ‘excellllllent’ upon her lips.

It’s time for judging and the guest judge tonight is Shelley from Cleo magazine. Colin says Dakota arrived at the Covergirl challenge looking like she’d been living in the garden but despite her love of hobo chic she has produced a great photo this week. Sara says Tony felt Eva was a ‘little bit of a walking disaster’, oh no, don’t send little Eva home! Chris tells Nellie that Elza was the better poser and that she was "a bit more dynamic" than her twin. Lara, who was totally channeling Kirsten Dunst in her shoot, dominates her photo with Holly, who is merely there to provide a pillow for Lara’s head. Chris says Lara had the most dynamic pose but Holly’s moves were on the hoochie side. Sara tells a crestfallen Holly that Tony said there was only one single good frame of hers. WOW. It's amazing how many times Chris can say 'dynamic' in a single episode. Someone get that man a thesaurus!

Sara calls Courtney up first, telling her it’s the best photo in the competition so far. I hate to agree with Holly, but what she said about third placer Dakota is true, she does put on a demure little lady act in fact of the panel. Michaela. Elza, Nellie and Danielle, who manages a smile, are called up and then, even to her own surprise, Holly is called!! NO!!!!! LLauren and Eva are the bottom two!?!?! NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The ad was right; this really is the most shocking elimination ever. Sara says she is terrified that Eva’s confidence is going and even though she is inspired by Lauren’s look, she thinks she might be “before her time.” Then, she drops a fleabomb on us and says they’re both going home! WHAAAAT? They both say they felt it coming, but I certainly didn’t. Somebody call the cops, there’s been a robbery!

Who did you think was going home this episode?

Let’s Make It Work People!

2010-09-08T16:38:00.000-07:00

Illustration courtesy of Alan Gray

A perennial favourite, Project Runway reappears tonight at 9.30Pm on TV3 for it’s seventh season. Patron saint of the pocket square Tim Gunn returns to mentor 16 designers competing for a cash prize of $100,000 to start his or her own line. Heidi Klum is back as host and fashion pixie Nicole Richie will guest judge on tonight’s episode.

Tim has been in the news lately for his new book "Gunn's Golden Rules: Life's Little Lessons for Making It Work” in which he reveals some exciting tidbits about fashion insiders. He recently discussed some of his anecdotes on The Daily Show and recounted seeing infamous Vogue editrix Anna Wintour being carried downstairs by her coterie of bodyguards because she couldn’t walk in her mammoth Mahnolo Blahnik stilettos unassisted. When the PR team for ‘Nuclear Wintour’ (as she is famously referred to) asked Tim to apologise for his observations, Tim fired back the witty riposte that he’d only apologise for implying that maybe Ms Wintour ‘doesn’t know how to work a Mahnolo’. Tim also talks about his own personal experiences in his new tome, and about growing up as a gay man with a homophobic father.

Tim’s a true gentleman of the fashion biz and rejects the sense of entitlement that seems to pervade his chosen field, saying ‘The industry has an overabundance of bad behavior’. We can’t wait to see Tim’s perspective on this seasons designers and to hear his trademark catchphrase, ‘Make It Work!’

And in Project Runway alumni news, Christian Siriano says that he often gets catcalls from guys mistaking him for an Asian lesbian! At his most recent runway show he denied Hailey Duff a front row seat as he considers her ‘trashy’. As his only other celebrity seat request was ‘old’ Brooke Shields we think he may want to reassess his scale of celeb importance.

The Jersey Shore Season Two Premiere Episode

2010-09-07T19:09:00.000-07:00

Illustration courtesy of Alan Gray

Is everyone seated? Do we all have our wrist support bandages on for fist pumping action? Are your grimy orange tans carefully streaked? Because it’s time to get crazy, get wild with the filthy creepers of the Jersey Shore. Our East Coast snowbirds have relocated to Miami for another summer of the show we all love to mock. Whatever will they get up to this season?

Last time we saw the Jersey Shore cast, Ronnie and Sammi were deep in lurve but they barely made it to their rhinestone anniversary (three months) when the bottom dropped out of their romance. Now they’re going to be reunited on the shores of Miami. Awkward! Snooki is done ‘snookin for love’ and has found an ‘amazing gorilla juicehead’ (feel free to consult your J-Shore glossary right about now) in Emilio. She says she really doesn’t want to cheat on him while she’s away but it’s said in the tone of someone who knows they really shouldn’t have that last drink, but is going to do it anyway. Emilio doubles as Snooki’s beautician, helping her apply her tan by spraying her with what looks like a pot of percolated coffee. Snooki explains she has had to resort to home tanning as President Barack Obama has imposed a tax on her beloved sun bed, and she’s convinced he did it because of the Jersey Shore crew. It’s only a 10% hike, I’m sure she has the dough to cover it nowadays! She reveals her political affiliations by saying that John McCain would never put a tax on tanning as he’s pale and would probably want to be tan (doesn’t seem to be the case, has she seen his wife? She’s almost transparent!) and that Obama ‘doesn’t have that problem, obviously’. Oh so the President taxed tanning out of spite? Of course, that makes perfect sense Snooki! McCain backed up her hair-brained comments by tweeting that he would never tan taxing. Guess he’s got the Guido vote sewn up then.

The housemates’ get on the road to reach their new home in Miami. DJ Pauly D stops off to pick up The Situation so they can go road tripping together and Snooki collects J-WOWW and her rucksack full of bronzer. Snooki and JWOWW and Pauly and Mike are vying for first place in the house so they can get dibs on bedrooms. Pauly and Mike speculate whether Angelina aka ‘Jolie’ will turn up and Pauly confesses that he and Angelina had a recent rendezvous. Angelina is en route solo; she’s excited about returning to the house and having a second chance at her fifteen minutes of fame. She says the girls in the house were all jealous of her, but she doesn’t elaborate on the root of their jealousy. Her illustrious bartending career perhaps?

Snooki has a life-changing experience on the drive down when she and JWOWW discover the delights of deep fried pickles and southern hospitality in Savannah, Georgia. Although they are not particularly enamoured of the local boys, one of whom gifts them with shots and tries to demonstrate his fist pumping technique, for which he is mercilessly mocked.

Mike and Pauly beat the girls to the house and claim their bedroom. Angelina appears and surprise, she has traded in her trash bags for actual luggage (much to Pauly’s amusement)! The boys give her tentative hug and Mike makes the mistake of telling Angelina she should hurry up and choose a room because she doesn’t want to get stuck with someone she doesn’t like (translation: any of the other girls). This prompts her to ask if she can stay in their room, to which they reluctantly agree. Pauly isn’t overjoyed with their sleeping arrangements but looks for the silver lining by saying it might be useful having her there ‘on a slow night’, and Angelina reminds them she’s already ‘made out with both of youse’.

The Miami house looks like a slight improvement on the Jersey Shore shack, but it’s no fancy Real World house, and more importantly, where is the duck phone? There is a helpful sign on the wall reminding everyone that ‘In Miami nobody’s ugly after 2AM’. Angelina hugs a surprised Sammi hello and asks if they’re cool but Sammi says she doesn’t know as she’s heard a lot of shit talking coming from Jolie’s direction. Sammi is nervous about seeing Ronnie and says she’s still hurt over what happened. What did happen exactly? Last we saw, Ronnie was upset with Sammi being less than truthful on the reunion show but what actually occurred after that is a bit of a mystery. Vinny arrives and isn’t hopping on the Angelina welcome wagon, just yet, although from the looks of the promo that won’t last long; Vinny may have a rendezvous of his own with Angelina. Ronnie says he plans to outdo The Situation when it comes to hook ups now that he’s single and breaks the tension with Sammi by giving her a hug; the two continue to flirt while they unpack and it’s clear they still have goo goo eyes for each other.

JWOWW and Snooki arrive last in the dark of night, so much for their plans to be first! They can’t believe their eyes when they see Angelina and choose to ignore her. Mike encourages Angelina to go talk to them and says ‘you need to handle that, girl’. He’s not as dumb as he looks, he knows that if she doesn’t make up with the girls he and the boys will be stuck with her, and we all remember what an impediment she was to their attempts at ‘creeping’ last time. Snooki says Angelina needs to apologise for talking crap about her, as all the girls have heard rumours about Angelina’s trash talking. However, Angelina doesn’t think she has done anything wrong and doesn’t see why she should ‘reach out her hand’ to the girls. She is clinging desperately to Mike as he is the only one who will talk to her but his body language says he doesn’t want her near him.

The crew pile into cabs to hit the Miami clubs on their first night out together. The girls all share one cab with an exiled Angelina in the back seat alone. When the conversation turns to Sammi’s relationship with Ronnie, Angelina interrupts to berate them over what she considers to be their poor treatment of her last season for leaving the house to be with her boyfriend. Angelina is under the deluded impression that the girls are pissed off with her because she left. JWOWW almost climbs in the back seat in her haste to take the trash out but they manage to make it to the club in one piece. Once they arrive Mike says the tension at the club was incredible and you could probably slice it in half. All the girls are pissed off; looks like you got the drama you wanted MTV! Angelina thinks the girls are backstabbers and says she’s way too classy for them. Ronnie soon busts out his patented moves but he and Sammi quickly get into a confrontation. Ronnie says he still has some anger towards her over their breakup.

On the cab ride home an obliterated (or obliviated in Vinny speak) Ronnie continues to fight with Sammi, resulting in Ronnie getting out and heading back to the club with Vinny and Pauly. Pauly says Ronnie is releasing all his pent up demons on his night out and that he loves single Ronnie. The Situation spies a grenade (a tubby, unappealing lady) and a land mine (a slender unappealing lady) latching on to Ronnie; they engage in a foul and sloppy three-way make out session which even Ronnie seems rather appalled by. Back at the house Sammi is devastated about Ronnie and says she still loves him. JWOWW speculates to Sammi that Ronnie is probably getting it in right now and she’s not far from wrong. We leave Ronnie in the club in a drunken daze groping an upside down pole dancer. It’s just another day in the turbulent life of our star-crossed lovers. When will they realize they’re meant to be together? Who else could put up with them?

Back for More 'Jersey Shore'

2010-09-06T21:09:00.000-07:00

Illustration courtesy of Alan Gray

Jersey Shore returns for it’s second season to MTV tonight at 9.30 for a special hour long premiere. Oh how we’ve missed the gang and their hilarious antics. Remember when J-WOWW said she loved ham AND water? Or when The Situation tried to seduce every vaguely woman-shaped person that crossed his path? If that spa pool could talk…(shudder)……it would probably have a promising career writing letters to Penthouse.

The whole J-Shore house, consisting of DJ Pauly D (and presumably his stock pile of hair gel), snooze-fest Vinnie, greasy egotist The Situation, loveable pickle-licker Snooki, co-dependent couple Ronnie and Sammi (who are entering the house single, let’s see how long that lasts), concrete mammaried J-WOWW and the grotesque Angelina flee the harsh winter of the East Coast for the warmer climes of Miami. Angelina, who goes by the self-ascribed nickname ‘Jolie’ (titter) has been brought back to wreak havoc on the friends. You might remember she only lasted three episodes in the first season before storming off. She didn’t want to work in the t-shirt store with the rest of the cast as she was a bartender, and bartenders do ‘great things’. She is really overstating the importance of popping the top off a Corona.

The Jersey Shore reunion will air at 8.30PM prior to the season two premiere so you can reacquaint yourself with the tears, tantrums and tan lines of the housemates. We will be watching with lashings of Ron Ron Juice at the ready. Will you?

The Jersey Shore Reunion

MTV 8.30PM 7th September

Jersey Shore Season 2

MTV 9.30PM 7th September

MasterChef USA Episode Two

2010-09-06T17:39:00.000-07:00

This week, auditions continue to find the final contestants for the first ever season of MasterChef USA. Is a new meanie emerging on the judge’s panel, one that can perhaps even eclipse Gordon Ramsay’s famed foul-mouthed attitude? The cruel bird-like eyes of chilly gastronome Joe Bastianich may prove more fearsome for our home cooks than any of Gordon’s shouty rants.

It’s the second part of the audition process to find the final 30 contestants who will compete for the title of the first MasterChef USA. Gordon says that the winner will receive $250,000.00 and will ‘sear their name in culinary history’. The first part of that statement is true, but the second part is deeply questionable.

A number of the contestants, like Jamaican born Tamar, make the mistake of trying to present their dish ‘restaurant style’, when all the judges are interested in is their raw cooking talent. Gordon tells Tamar her dish looks better in the pot than her attempt at haute cuisine style presentation. Despite his criticisms he says yes to Tamar’s curry and is surprised when his co-judges, chef Graham Elliot and restauranteur Joe Bastianich disagree with his assessment and deprive Tamar of a MasterChef apron. Gordon gently bullies Graham into reconsidering his decision and when Graham relents, Gordon tells him ‘if you’ve got any balls you’ll go give her an apron’. A sheepish Graham heads out to the waiting area and gifts a sobbing Tamar with her apron and gets a hug from Gordon for having the chutzpah to admit his mistake. Although, I think Gordon’s championing of Tamar has more to do with his wounded pride that the panel didn’t agree with him than his true belief in her cooking abilities.

Graham immediately takes a liking to construction worker Jake, mostly because he is rotund and tattooed like himself. Gordon and Joe aren’t impressed with Jake’s dish, which he says is inspired by his Italian heritage. Graham desperately wants to keep Jake and pleads with the other two like a child begging for a pet. Joe takes his voice box out of the freezer and coldly tells Jake say that it’s frankly insulting for him to call his dishes by Italian names without the proper technique. Ramsay backs up Bastianich by saying Jake has set himself up for a big fall by preparing Italian food for an Italian. Oh phooey! Who died and made Bastianich the Julius Caesar of Italian cuisine? Shouldn’t cooking be an ever-evolving process? Just because Bastianich likes his grub on the traditional side doesn’t mean everyone has to prepare it that way. Graham coerces Joe into saying yes to Jake, against his better judgment. The competition seems more about the egos of the three jostling judges and Bastianich and Ramsay vying for control.

Joe makes mortgage broker Tom nervous straight away by telling him that his dish, the unfortunately named pasta fagioli, is a classic, the essence of Italy and it has to ‘deliver that message and passion’. A quivering Tom starts explaining his process and the judges are SHOCKED to learn he has used canned beans in his dish. Oh the horror! In one instant the judges are telling the contestants to cook to their strengths and stay true to their style, but in the next moment they are criticizing them for not using correct technique. Some pretty mixed messages for our amateur cooks. Having said that, his dish does look frankly unappealing, and perhaps to distract them from his bowls of sludge, Tom gifts each of the judges a terrifying, shriveled carved apple head of themselves, embedded with googly eyes. The googly eyes of Gordon’s apple head are extremely deep set and he is not particularly grateful for his unflattering fruity likeness. It’s not looking good for Tom as the judges wince at the taste of his meal and Gordon says his shrunken apple head tastes better than his plate of pasta fagioli.

Mother of two Jennifer prepares healthy meals for her special needs children and presents a vibrant chicken salad for the judges, which apparently tastes good but looks rather revolting. Gordon likens it to a tadpole but it looks more like her red cabbage has a bad case of trailing diarrhea. Adeliz gets pulled up for ‘pretentious presentation’ and is sent home to start all over again. She has two hours to get home and back to the studio to cook something authentically Mexican. She whips up a batch of deep fried Mexican chile relleno, which go down a treat. Adeliz is grateful for the second chance and says it helped her to understand what the judges were looking for.

Darryl has three fingers on each hand and two toes on each foot but doesn’t let it hold him back from following his passion for cooking. Unfortunately, he makes the mistake of trying to prepare ribs in just an hour, a feat that is not entirely successful. However the judges appreciate his passion and dedication and he gets to make his grandmother proud by donning the MasterChef apron.

The thirty contestants have been chosen and the challenges start next week. It looks pretty intense with cooks sent home left and right in the first few minutes. The troupe will be trimmed down to fourteen in the very next episode and the race towards crowning America’s first MasterChef will begin!

New Zealand's Next Top Model Week Five

2010-09-03T15:26:00.000-07:00

Illustration courtesy of Alan Gray

This week the girls mourn the surprise loss of Aafreen (we were surprised too!), enjoy ogling Dan Carter and are forced to walk the streets offering free styling tips and squirts of hair product. Dakota is not amused, but we certainly are!

Holly is stunned that she dodged a bullet last week and had a reprieve from the chopping block, as is most of the country (and Lara, who thought Holly was destined for the boot too). Is she still here just so she can turn the blood in our veins to ice with her permafrost glare? Holly is inflicting her OCD tendencies on the rest of the house and she and Danielle have made a cleaning roster where one of the tasks is ‘vacuming’ and there are punishments assigned for failing to comply. Courtenay thinks the roster is stupid and resents having to listen to orders from a fellow contestant.

The girls are still in shock at Aafreen leaving but soon bounce back when Sara arrives with All Black and Jockey pin up Dan Carter. The girls sit down for a question and answer session with Dan about being in the media spotlight and the modelling world. Nellie or (Elza?) confesses she is star struck and seems to be temporarily rendered speechless. Lara tells the girls that there is Jockey poster of him in their sick room at school, which scores her a high five from Elza (or Nellie? Why didn’t they give one of them a Mohawk so we can tell them apart?). Afterwards, Sara consults with Dan as to which girl made the best impression on him, using Polaroids she sneakily took beforehand as means of identification. Dan says he found Lara too reserved and Amelia too distant; she failed to speak once. Dan spies Eva on the end of the sofa and is 'impressed with the way she looked’. Dan tells the girls that Eva was the winner of the challenge and will be the first new face on the Water For Everyone brand. If you’ve seen the Water For Everyone brand you’ll know that the label is not exactly flash, which I’m sure is part of their ethos of keeping costs down and making bottled water affordable. However, it doesn’t exactly translate well into a good photo for a model’s portfolio. Eva’s blobby blue silhouette on her bottle looks like it could be anybody.

Saramail arrives for the girls and says ‘a top model needs to appeal to the masses, time to get amongst the people’. The girls meet with Colin and Herbal Essences marketing manager to discuss their next challenge, involving the pun-tastic new product ‘None of Your Frizzness’. It sounds quite intriguing (product placement works!) even though I am outside the very limited target market of 14-29 years. Do they think once people turn 30 they enjoy looking like a Pomeranian has made its head their home? I wish one of them had approached me and my messy nest of hair in the street. Except I wouldn’t want to encounter Dakota who calls everyone ‘sweetie, darling or babe’, which Colin says is offensive and ‘wrong on so many levels’. And just grossly overly familiar. She describes one woman’s hair as looking like a cats arse, which brings to mind Colin’s comparison last week of Eva’s hair to a raccoon’s arse. It’s obviously the new trend in hair for 2010; what animal’s rectum does your hair look like? There’s a horrible moment when a crazy old man hurls a racial epithet at Amelia then cowardly hurries off. Colin says Elza was amazing, ‘she had the heels on, she’s such a giant’. Holly has a pocket mirror to show off the new styles to her clients, and Colin ponders ‘where did she pull it out from?’ Michaela just makes it up as she goes along, telling two women that ‘it makes your hair grow and things’. I’d like to hear more about what those ‘things’ are. Holly wins the challenge and her prize is an Herbal Essences photo shoot for Cleo. For once she doesn’t have to moan about how it should have been her that won.

A cryptic Saramail arrives bearing the message ‘model, model, model, model, model, model, model, model, model, model, role model’. Danielle has a spooky dream that a friend died in a car accident and there are inward gasps all round when she later discovers that her friend has tragically died as a result of a car crash. The girls arrive at their photo shoot and meet Dave from Elemeno P who is there to interview them on behalf of the anti-smoking campaign ‘Not Our Future’. A quote will be pulled from each girls interview and will be used as the tagline on ‘Smoking Not our Future’ posters. Holly pulls some unusual moves in her shoot, causing the creative director Neil Pardington to tell her to refrain from doing ‘the teapot’. Danielle is distracted by her friend’s sudden passing and goofs off for the camera to the consternation of Chris and Neil. Michaela and Elza effortlessly pose for their posters but a lot of the girls struggle to convey emotion, not just through their expression but also their bodies. Eva finds the challenge very personal as her father is a smoker and she has tried to get him to stop in the past. Dakota tries to be a smart arse in her interview saying ‘if they’re going to make tobacco illegal can they at least give us THC’. I get the feeling she’s just doing this to make her friends laugh but she’s totally sabotaging herself in the process. Dave diplomatically tells her that that’s probably not the angle they want to work.

Back at the house Holly storms off after Dakota says something ‘insanely stupid’ to her. We don’t get to hear what it was, only that Holly told Dakota to ‘read her tone’ which might just be the bitchiest thing I’ve ever heard. It’s certainly up there on the bitchiness scale with ‘I’m not getting at you, but……….’ Ooh former friends face off!

It’s judging time and as usual, they throw in a quick shot of Auckland Museum, as if to imply this is where the elimination ceremony takes place. In their spooky, spooky sacrificial temple. Maybe once the models are eliminated they are fed to the mummy? Could this be the secret to the panel’s youthful beauty? I think we could be on to something here……

At judging, Sara introduces fashion designer Kate Sylvester as this week’s guest judge. Kate says that Holly looks like a 35-year-old woman in her photo and tells her to project her youth. Holly smiles and thanks the judges for their advice but inside she must be seething! Amelia recounts her horror episode with the racist crazy and Sara tells Amelia she needs to decide ‘whose comments are going to upset you and whose comments you don’t care about’. Easier said than done I think. They think Courtney’s photo is so-so but what I really wanted to know was what her quote meant. ‘Smokers are blenders like sheep’. Am I missing something? Sara pulls Dakota up over her inappropriate behaviour and she starts to weep saying ‘I try to portray confidence at all times’. It just doesn’t seem to register with her no matter how many times they warn her about her antics. Kate Sylvester says that Michaela looks more beautiful in person than in her photo, but the girls were told this shoot was more about personality than beauty. Mixed messages! The judges seem to be hating on Eva’s photo but I really don’t think it’s that bad, is it? Sara says she was disappointed with Amelia’s attitude during the Dan Carter challenge.

Michaela gets photo of the week, ooh those sneaky editors trying to pull the wool over our eyes and trick us into thinking the panel didn’t like it! When Eva gets called up she gives such a sweet little speech about how she doesn’t want people to think he dad isn’t a role model because he’s a smoker as he’s a great father. Sara gives her a hug and says her dad was a heavy smoker too but an amazing dad. It’s one of the truly warm and genuine moments and it’s nice to see Sara’s softer side. Holly is in? I so thought she was going home tonight! Dakota is in? Shouldn’t she be in the bottom two? Nellie and Amelia are the last two facing the cut. Nellie is all flushed with nerves, but makes it in, much to Elza’s relief. Poor Amelia, she gets her boobs flashed all over the nation, has racial slurs hurled at her and is told to harden up and now they kick her out. She is very philosophical about it though and says photo shoots are much harder than she expected. But when is Dakota going to get her own show so we can groan at her for an hour?

The verdict: Not enough Colin.

Appointment Viewing for Aspiring Singers and Sous Chefs

2010-09-01T17:56:00.000-07:00

Illustration courtesy of Alan Gray

Top Chef

Top Chef returns this Saturday following a month’s absence for ‘poor viewership’, according to TV3. When the seventh season of Top Chef, set in Washington DC, first started airing here in July we were just four weeks behind American audiences, but now we’re really bringing up the rear with only three more episodes set to screen in the U.S. before the winner is revealed. TV3 will continue the season starting with episode 4. TV3 originally said they would bring Top Chef back later in the year, was it always their intention to bring it back now or did the legion of angry Top Chef fans on their message boards hasten it’s reappearance?

Top Chef has traditionally been Thursday night fare so it will be interesting to see how it does in the new Saturday timeslot. Will you still be watching now that it’s moved to the weekend? Either way, we’re just happy to see the return of one of our favourite cooking shows, an Emmy-winning one at that!

Top Chef

TV3

Saturday September 4^th 7.30PM

The X Factor

The third season of the X Factor Australia, a spin off from the Pop Idol franchise (which WE invented by the way!) debuts tonight on TV3. The show hadn’t even started when it ran into trouble when host Matthew Newton left the production following rumours of his ongoing drug dependency problems and allegations of domestic abuse. Kyle Sandilands of Australia Idol fame returns to play the role of the requisite ‘mean’ judge. He has a prestigious panel of co-judges in former Idol winner Guy Sebastian, actress and singer (and former Mrs Daniel Johns) Natalie Imbruglia, and that loveable Irish rogue who makes all the nanas quiver, Ronan Keating.

The second episode of The X Factor will screen on Friday night after New Zealand’s Next Top Model. Take the phone off the hook people! Friday night looks worth staying in for.

The X Factor

TV3

Thursday September 2nd 7.30PM and Friday September 3^rd 8.30PM

Masterchef USA Premiere Episode

2010-08-30T19:13:00.000-07:00

Masterchef USA

Prime TV

Mondays 8.30PM

Ramsay-philes, take your seats! Gordon is back (minus the swearing and tantrums) in the first ever season of Masterchef USA, the internationally popular series that transforms amateur cooks who are passionate about food into master chefs.

Just last week, we bid farewell to that most hardest of task masters, Gordon Ramsay, in the finale of ‘Hell’s Kitchen’. Our tear stained hankies barely had a chance to dry before he returned to our screens in Masterchef USA. Gordon explains that Masterchef has been a big hit in Australia, the UK and Hungary, of all places (how could he leave out New Zealand?), but this is the first time American home cooks will get to compete. Gordon gives us a glimpse of challenges to come, including catering a wedding and feeding a military unit. The competitors are vying for the title of the first ever American Masterchef, but there’s also the lure of a whopping $250,000.00 prize and the opportunity for the winner to produce their own cookbook.

There are three judges who will be guiding and deriding our Masterchef apprentices this season. Graham Elliot, who at 27 became America’s youngest four star chef. Snooty restauranter Joe Bastianich, owner of 20 of America’s best restaurants (so he claims!), and of course, the belligerent Brit himself, Gordon Ramsay.

Only 30 people will receive the coveted Masterchef apron from the auditions today and Gordon is determined that they should all be top notch. The contestants are given one hour to cook the dish ‘of a lifetime’. Gordon tells them to imagine the best dish they’ve ever tasted, then tells them that he guarantees he’s eaten better. Not exactly words that inspire confidence in our cooks.

Masterchef is supposed to show us the warmer, cuddlier side of Gordon, although that’s not immediately evident in the auditions. Chris from Texas is the first nervous competitior to encounter Ramsay and co. He has prepared a frankly delicious sounding delight called beer and cheese soup. My two favourite foods! What could go wrong! Graham, a man after my own heart, likes it but Joe and Gordon turn their noses up at it, with Gordon going so far as to say it’s the most disgusting soup he’s ever had in his life. To add insult to injury they make him leave his beer behind! None of the following contestants fare much better with their lacklustre menus and Gordon stomps out into the waiting area to do what he does best, put the fear of god into his quaking neophytes.

Mike finally redeems the contestants by winning the first apron with his expertly prepared dish of Korean style pan seared duck breast, which all three judges enthisiatically praise. I must admit, there was a tear in my eye when Mike returned triumphant to the waiting room with Gordon, to be rapturously greeted by his very proud brothers. Mike gets everyone off on a roll and the Masterchef aprons start flying out of the judging room. We meet Tracey, a doctor who was inspired to take up the whisk and ladle by her late mother, whose family cookbook she brings with her as her good luck charm. There’s more eye moistening moments when her father proudly embraces her upon receiving her apron. This is what Masterchef excels at, the feel good factor of ordinary people pursuing their dreams.

David, is a cocky, over-confident type from Boston, Massachussets. A state so famed for producing obnoxious males (think Ben Affleck)that they even have a name for it, the ‘Masshole’. David comes over as supremely confident but Gordon soon has him in tears when he pierces his bravado façade, and ultimately rejects him for his attitude. Graham and Joe decide to give weepy, defiant David a go and he walks away with apron in hand. Thankfully, the experience seems to have humbled him somewhat.

Randy, a famer sporting a pair of dungarees, breaks the winning streak with his his dish of ‘funeral potatoes’. A mushy slop of potatoes, mayonnaise and cheese that his family traditionally cooks for neighbourhood wakes, but also looks like it could bring you closer to your own demise if you consume it. I thought the cardinal rule of cooking was never to heat mayonnaise? As much as I love those three ingredients, it does look truly vile and Gordon describes it as ‘caveman food’.

Faruq takes the caveman food theme a step further by preparing a ‘chic mac and cheese’. It looks pretty good, but as Gordon notes, this is Masterchef and if you’re cooking something so simple and ubiquitous it needs to be the best. Unfortunately for Faruq, it’s far from the best as he has forgotten to season his dish. Any devotee of cooking shows knows that forgetting the seasoning is right up there with heating mayonnaise when it comes to kitchen no-nos. Ramsay prolongs Faruq’s agony by calling his wife and uber-cute son to quiz her about Faruq’s dedication to the competition. But there’s more heart-warming moments when Gordon hands over the chef’s apron to Faruq’s young son.

Next week, auditions continue to find the final Masterchefs who will compete under the tutelage of the new family friendly Gordon Ramsay, who really does seem like a bit of a closet softie. Awwwww.