Top Chef: Episode 3 Revenge of the (pre-cooked) Shrimp

It's Week 3 and Top Chef may have found its first villain of this young season.  But more on that later . . .  The first Quickfire started us off with the contestants having to make a dish using rattlesnake in one hour.  Most of the chefs admitted to never having cooked with snake before …

Week 10 Football Picks – Put Vegas on Alert

Usually, I would tell you that whatever football picks I make should be fully ignored, and you might even want to bet the other way, because, while I may think I know what I'm talking about, my picks have been awful this season.  So, consider yourself forewarned . . . . New Orleans Saints (-0.50) …

Top Chef: Texas, Episode 2 “Attack of the Risotto”

Week 2 gets under way with the last group of 10 chefs competing for a place on the show.  I have to say I am really digging the format changes for this new season.  These first two episodes have been a flurry of polenta, scallops and seared lamb, and I ain't complainin'. The first challenge …

Film Review: “Martha Marcy May Marlene” A Cult of Personalities

There have been plenty of examples of cults in the news over the past few decades.  Charismatic, religious zealots who often prey on the loyalties of society's disaffected loners are not new to the modern day lexicon.  I remember when I was 16 years old watching the raid on the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas …

A Film Review of “The Skin I Live In” Almodóvar Turns Up the Weird

The Skin I Live In (La piel que habito) fits snuggling into the oeuvre of Pedro Almodóvar, one of Spain's most successful filmmakers of all time.  And while it feels so familiar when stacked next to his impressive list of movies, it also stands alone as the director's first real foray into the genre of psychological …