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Miss Universe 2013

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Miss Universe is back! It’s time for everyone involved to pretend this is a contest about various national costumes for thirty seconds until we all just admit it’s a tacky-off and settle in for a global backscatter of spangles. After a while tracking this particular costume competition event, you start to feel the general shape of it: the undersea themers, the feather-wearers, those few brave souls who didn’t understand the memo and actually showed up in a national costume, and my secret favorites, the ones who didn’t get a memo of any kind and started their costumes the night before, and the ones who are also completely over this component and make it deliciously clear. But every year, of course, the categories are always changing, from Nonsense Capes to You Have to Be Kidding Me to some new ones emerging only this year. All of them are amazing. What, this old thing? Miss Argentina was just playing it casual this year, she didn’t even know there would be cameras, this is so embarrassing. SPECTACLE DIVISION… Read more »

The Supersizers: Elizabethan

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Oh, is it time for Sue and Giles to suit up in period garb and pretend to be married as they eat and/or get completely plastered? It is? Don’t mind if I do! Welcome back to Supersizers, a BBC show that aired in 1905ish, which I’m recapping because look at it. Today, the age of Elizabeth I: Giles is a posturing newmoney, Sue plays a damn fine lute, and they can’t wait to slap her in men’s clothes and eat chicken on the street until they almost throw up.… Read more »

Red Carpet Rundown: The MTV Movie Awards

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So, as we discuss often on this blog, there are many things at play on red carpets for grownups. Some celebrities have spokesperson relationships; some are making bids to set trends; some are quietly promoting the image of their latest work (see: Rooney Mara surrounding Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), and some are surreptitiously trying out for parts down the road (see: the half-dozen blonde actresses who walked red carpets this year dressed like Veronica Lake). And it’s important: nail or bomb the Golden Globes or the Emmys or, above all, the Oscars, and that outfit will have a long tail that you may or may not want. Occasional red carpet walkers are genuinely stylish, and you can see that, too. But then there are red carpets like the MTV Movie Awards, where attendees’ outfits are separated less by the success of the fashion than by how seriously their images need to be leveraged for a demographic whose awards categories include Best Kiss and Best Fight (or as the Oscars usually call them, Best Production… Read more »

The Supersizers: Restoration

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The Supersizers return this week with a doozy of an episode that provides some of the most off-putting food in the whole course of the series, with bonus No Water edict. It also involves dancing, snail medicine, a truly awkward date, and a wig that’s finally heavier for Giles than for Sue. Join us for the Restoration, won’t you? It’ll be great.… Read more »

The Supersizers: Wartime

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Welcome back! After the unqualified success that was pointing a camera at Giles and Sue as they ate stuff, the BBC snapped them up for twelve more episodes chronicling a spotty and hilarious history of food. This week, it’s Wartime, as Sue and Giles go back to the home front and make do and mend, do their best to entertain GIs, and only occasionally inform people nearby what’s going on. Note: The comparatively dull pilot got away with a normal amount of screencaps. That is…not the case here. VITAL STATS Era: Wartime (the 1940s) Chef Grade: Allegra McEvedy, A++ cheffing Best Guest: The American GIs who appear with their manners booklet in hand and a can of pineapple in their bag, and are amazing sports through a truly surreal teatime. Best Food Moment: Sue eating a lamb chop inside a cupboard. We’ll get there. Worst Food Moment: Sue eating unseasoned, watery nettle-and-snail stew… Equality Now!: …while Giles has a Churchill feast underground. Worst Thing Giles Says: Pretty sure everything he says in the Churchill bunker… Read more »

The Supersizers: Edwardian

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(Technically this is “Edwardian Supersize Me,” because if this show loved anything more than getting its hosts drunk it was renaming the show every two weeks, but we’re going to try and hold things together. There are enough confusing things later.) Welcome to the Supersizers rewatch! We begin at the beginning, with the pilot that brought together Giles Coren, restaurant critic and perpetually awkward man of general questionability, and Sue Perkins, commentator-at-large who is probably dressed by snarky animated bluebirds every morning. Giles is sort of in love with her, which is his most redeeming feature. (Sue is also demonstrably fond of him, which keeps it from being creeptown.) While each episode is delightful in its own way, there’s definitely a structure in place: visit a doctor for a cursory “this is what the past does to you” frame story (spoiler: the past was often unhealthy but sometimes healthy, news at 11), ‘live in’ a house typical of the era, slap on semi-functional period garb, invite people over for awkward and/or amazing times, deal with… Read more »
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