The XFactor in Operation Triumph

I have to confess that when it comes to Operacion Triunfo (literally, “Operation Triumph”, the Spanish version of Star Academy), my musical taste goes gaga. So, please, tell me, isn’t she AWESOME?! Isn’t her performance (not only her voice) AWESOME?

One is left wondering her age, and lets face it, she can be anything from 20 – 45…but she is SIXTEEN! Yet she seems to have more balls in her voice than Bono, and more purr in her performance than Patti Smith! She was 7th among the finalists…poor girl, yet she is a winner in our books. As for the videos – straight to the Dept. of Awesome, right?!



The final curtain (singing her swan song after having been nominated to leave the academy)



Nav (to a lesser to extent) & Laiona (Nav is embarrassed)

Total Eclipse of the Heart: the flowchart

I can't add much to the sheer awesomeness of this flowchart. Behold:Now it is stuck in your head. And you fucking love it, because the song is that awesome. (Via Yglesias)

It is actually one of my favorite songs ever...

Best Potter Movie Yet?

Yup, I am a dorky-ass Harry Potter Fanatic. Last night we went to see the Half Blood Prince and we arrived a half hour early thinking it was pretty early. Not so much. The line to get into the theater was out the door and beginning to round the block when we arrived. By the time we got in the best seats we could find were in the fourth row. But we did not care (hell it was like a bootleg IMAX). The whole audience was ravenous for some Potter!!!

The movie, in my opinion, is the best Potter movie yet. Adaptation-wise, there were definite ommisions (some good, some bad) and additions (most of which were good), but for three distinct reasons the movie worked:

CAST/ACTING: The three leads (Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson) have all grown leaps and bounds as actors. They are so much more natural and you can see their natural comraderie that only comes from working with one another for years. The supporting cast is amazing as always. The new addition of Jim Broadbent as Horace Slughorn was perfection.

HUMOR: This is by far the funniest of the Potter flicks. If I am not mistaken, some of the cheeky lines that got the biggest laughs were not even from the books. The screenwriters should be commended. Slughorn and Luna have some of the juciest comic bits, but teenagers in love/lust are funny enough on their own.

MATERIAL: After rereading the last couple books, although I have strong feelings for Goblet of Fire, Half Blood Prince is the best of the series. It strikes a wonderful balance of mystery, humor, dread, hormones and sadness.

If you aren't a dorky-ass Potter fan I really think you will still enjoy this movie. I think I will be giving it a repeat viewing in the theater myself. If anything, this movie has gotten me out of my Twilight stupor. Go Potter!!

The best show in TV: Battlestar Galactica

Battlestar Galactica is the best show in TV right now. Period.

Wait a second. Sit down. It is not my geek side taking over the good taste and snobbery circuits of my brain, clouding my good judgment at the sight of awesome spaceships and Tricia Helfer. When I say that a show is really that good I mean it; spaceships and murderous sexy robots that like to have hot robot sex with humans aside, Galactica (2K version) it is a fantastic show.

The show shares basically two things with its 1970s predecessor: the premise (last vestiges of the human race on the run after almost completely annihilated by Cylons) and some of the character names. Besides that, it is a completely different show; dark, brooding, gritty, intense and just plain awesome.

It is one of those rare cases that you see a show begin with a good idea and push it way beyond you could ever imagine; Galactica has seen episodes dealing with patriotism, balancing freedom and security, faith, torture, treason, politics, duty, trade unions, trust, friendship, love and pretty much anything you can imagine. The characters in Galactica are not "good" or "bad" they are real, frail, weak human beings / awesomely hot robots trying to cope with unthinkable horrors and very hard choices, and trying to do their best when dealing with them. Treason, failure, fear, heroism, fanaticism, anger, faith is not just a matter of doing the right thing or failing; what is a right and what is wrong is sometimes very hard to say.

I don't want to spoil any plotlines (see bellow), but when a trial against a major character had me seriously having doubts and making me reconsider what treason is and what it means you know a show is into something.

It is actually pretty unbelievable that a show this good has been so ignored come award season. As usual, pointy headed critics are too serious and deep to even come to consider a SciFi / genre show for anything besides visual effects (see also: The Dark Knight Returns, Buffy the Vampire Slayer), something that seriously drives me nuts.

Believe me, I know a good show when I see it. I workship all the right altars. I am one of the cool kids. And Galactica is up there with the Sopranos, the Wire, Mad Men, the West Wing and whatever high brown show of your choice in terms of sheer awesome.

Stop ruining my shows!

Very small, yet very heartfelt, rant against the Bible (Entertainment Weekly): stop ruining my shows.

Sometimes, we love waiting for the DVD box set when watching some shows. Sometimes we just discover an awesome show a bit late, and we are furiously Netflixing (yup, it is a verb now) past seasons to catch up. Sometimes we DVR the show with our genuinely awesome franken-DVR that I put together with my very own hands. Sometimes we are just not watching a show just yet, and we will get to watch it some day in a not too distant future. We usually unwrap the box set in less than two years after we got it -hello, Friday Night Lights- but we will get down to it.

Dear prophets in EW: stop fucking spoiling shows in your magazine and website over and over again. We are trying to get to watch the simply legendary, absolutely awesome, insanely cool Battlestar Galactica on DVD, and it has basically been impossible to get the last episodes in true unspoiled, virginal form. Right now those fuckers have a big ass spoiler in the front page of their website, top right, boxed; it is the first place your eyes land on. They have spoiled massively important plot points in photograph captions in the magazine, season previews, season reviews and even on DVD box set reviews.

It is an awesome show, and believe me, we will still watch our last season 4.0 DVD before catching up with the episodes on DVR and watch the finale at the same time as everyone else. But still, dude. Seriously, you had to spoil all those Cylons in a fucking caption? Seriously?

I blame Phil Collins.

A romance for all seasons

Flipping through channels this evening I just realized that I am a total sucker for TV shows with unfulfilled relationships. It is a whole sub-genre of TV cheese: many seasons, two characters, and enough obviously missed opportunities for mad monkey sex that you want to jump into the screen and slap those idiots silly.

Case in point these days: Bones. Bones and Booth are dying to jump into each other, do some pretty crazy things that would require a long, long commercial break to avoid the FCC going bonkers, and basically let some good sense into the plot for once. These guys really need some relief, and seriously, someone should rent a room for them.

I don't just want to put an end to their suffering, though; it is their work mates I worry about. Can you seriously imagine working with two first class morons like that for that many years? And boy, she is you boss. Mentioning that stuff to her will get you some crazy looks, and definetely nothing like a solid, stress free working enviroment.

It is a cheap plot point, but I can't help but fall for it. I kept watching X-Files long past its due date just because of their obnoxious non-romance (and my favorite episode, "Triangle", basically spends most of its time teasing about this), Battlestar Galactica has decided to torture me with a presidential unfulfiled relationship, and at the current rate 30 Rock is going to add a Jack / Liz subplot by the end of the season, binding me to the altar of the almighty Tina Fey forever.

So note to writers: any show that has this silly plot device, I will fall for it. Hard. Add one sucker to your ratings.