I’ve figured out why this season of Project Runway is a snore.  There was not one Pisces contestant on screen this entire time.  Not one!  Wow.  The producers really should’ve thought this through at casting.  How can you have a hit show about something creative like design without casting at least one fish?  Come on!  Head to any art school or theatre department in this country in March and it’s one big birthday party.

Yes, folks, this week’s episode was all about astrology.  Yay!  Straight off, Heidi says there are some “special guests”, who turn out to be this season’s eliminated designers in their full glory.  Terri might not miss Stella but she won’t get a chance because there Stella is again, on the runway with Keith, Emily and all the rest of the contestants that have already bitten the fashion dust this season.  Each of our still-competing designers will be paired with an eliminated contestant.  Together, they will create an avant garde look inspired by the astrological sign of one member of the team.  Great challenge idea.  Would’ve have been even greater if they weren’t all Sagittarius.

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I apologize, readers, for I have done you all a grave disservice. I must have been so traumatized last week by this issue that I blocked it out of my mind. But thanks to some brave work by my therapist, I now have the courage to address not this week’s episode of America’s Next Top Model, but the commercials. Specifically, Cycle 10 winner Whitney’s My Life as a Covergirl spots. I have two words for that: GAG ME. Not that these ads have ever been successful in my opinion, serving only to showcase the increasing stupidity and inability of Tyra’s final picks to read giant words of a big white flashcard. Jaslene, anyone? But Whitney, good lord. During her season’s commercial shoot, the panel berated her repeatedly that she was just too sexed up in her reads to be taken seriously. So I guess she took the other route, going the complete opposite direction until she managed to sound like someone’s grandmother whispering them to sleep. With an oxygen mask on. If this were an audio forum, I would do my impression of her and you would all shoot milk out of your noses with mirth. At least she doesn’t talk about how plus-sized she is anymore.

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When you first hear the name Balkan Beat Box, your thoughts may stray off into the land of open mics for hip-hop artists only. However, this super-group of a band who has steadily become an international phenomenon does not only go out of the box but tears down any structures or barriers your mind may have had in regards to their name.

For those who already knew what Balkan Beat Box is about, they know it just keeps getting better with each performance. However, as I waited around at the El Rey Theatre, I was very anxious for my very first BBB show. All I knew was that they took traditional world music and spiced it up for today’s generation. I also knew it was dance music but I was very curious to see how the crowd at the theatre would respond to it.

It wasn’t a surprise but it was incredibly fulfilling as the curtains opened only to have the crowd go from a cool collected group to a crazed jumping ocean of bodies and hands in the air. BBB managed to own the theatre with the very first beat they put down. The atmosphere was immediately filled with Mediterranean dance hall rhythms, pleasing fans of hip-hop to electronica to rock to big band… It was definitely an overwhelming sensation.

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Wong Kar-Wai applies his customary elliptical, introspective style to the traditional martial arts fantasy world of the jianghu: Ashes of Time is his one stab at the popular wuxia genre of Chinese action film. Taking characters from a famous martial arts novel (The Eagle-Shooting Heroes by Louis Cha) Wong has reimagined the Lord of the East and the Lord of the West (and other characters) as younger men, less sure of themselves, far from their eventual literary destiny.

A series of vignettes each captioned by almanacal season: Ouyang Feng (Leslie Cheung - A Better Tomorrow, Farewell My Concubine, Days Of Being Wild) lives in the desert and is visited once a year by an old friend. He has a lost love, the widow of his brother, for whom she had jilted him; and the friend, Huang Yaoshi (Tony Leung Ka Fai -The Lover, Love Will Tear Us Apart, Election) has carried a torch for her himself all these years. Haughty Murong Yin commissions Ouyang to have Huang killed for jilting his sister, and his twin Murong Yang (both played by Brigitte Lin - Love Massacre, Red Dust, Chungking Express) commissions her possessive brother’s murder. Then there’s a young swordsman going blind (Tony Leung Chiu Wai - Hard Boiled, Cyclo, Lust, Caution, 2046 and most other WKW films) who just wants to see his wife again; and a slobbish swordsman whose wife refuses to stay at home. Everyone is driven to action or, in Ouyang’s case, chronic inaction, by their passions. Love is the ruling force of Wong Kar-Wai’s universe.

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So now that the giddiness of “ZOMG NEW 90210!!!” has passed, what are we left with? Frankly, not a lot.

The A plot revolves around the oh-so-overdone “How do we transplant our wholesome Midwestern family values into shallow Beverly Hills?” Namely, Aunt Becky and Harry the Dad-slash-Principal want to have “Family Night” just like back home. (And we’re supposed to believe that, in Wichita, Wholesome Annie and Black!!! Dixon happily spent their Friday nights with Mom and Dad?)

Aunt Becky surprises them on a school day morning with an Alice Wakefieldian pancake breakfast, but natch, everyone is too busy rushing off to school, which makes Aunt Becky sad. Is their family falling apart? (Yeah, because it isn’t last week’s surprise illegitimate child that’s an issue, cupcake, it’s breakkie.) So she insists that tomorrow they’re all going to go bowling! Dadcipal agrees that they’re bringin’ a Little Kansas to Beverly Hills because it’s all about family! FUN! Yes, and despite the fact that both kids’ve already made plans, to: Annie’s supposed to go out with Not-Zach-Efron-But-Close Ty and Dixon’s going to hang with Navid “Ethnic Okay (tm Mediarama)” Shirazi and Ethan “Overbite” Ward to watch a new, unreleased Bond flick in Navid’s family’s screening room (Wait, I thought Navid’s dad was a porn director?). So maybe the kids’re gonna watch “James Dong: Quantum of Penis” or something?

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Keaton Simons new album asks “Can you hear me?”  The answer is a resounding yes, and we want to hear more!  From the moment I popped this album into my CD player, I was amazed by the talent Simons displays.  I wondered where on earth he could have been hiding, but I suppose that an unimportant question now that I’ve been graced by his musical magic. Woo!

En route towards a Paolo Nutini/Gavin Degraw-esque sound, Simons differs in ways that prove to be extremely successful for this album.  Think a dash of pizzazz, a sprinkle of edge, and a pinch of fresh that make his sound something worth hearing.  He succeeds in coercing you to want to listen to what he’s saying; mainly because unlike some artists, he sounds like he has lived.  Through his music you, in turn, are experiencing his experiences, and isn’t that what music is all about?

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When the first track of Verona Grove’s, “The Story Thought Over” blasted out of my car speakers, I was quickly reminded of another review I recently wrote.  Quickly, however, I realized that while the vocals were very Starting-Line, Homegrown, etc. etc. there was something far more interesting going on.  The music was good, really good.

As the CD continued I realized just how off base my initial reaction was, “The Story Thought Over” is what a power pop album should be: at times loud, at times melodramatically slow and at all times insanely enjoyable.

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Why is popular culture so inundated with crazed housewives? Whether it be the ludicrous shenanigans of the fictional Wisteria lane women, the over the top blondes of Orange County, the blaze society climbers of New York or the soon to be outlandishly outrageous multicultural Atlanta group, American Society seems to be obsessed with upper class women and the men who love them, from a distance (i.e. off camera,) except of course for Simon…oh Simon.

With the phenomena of suburban domesticity reaching a definite peak, Kelly Ann Ford answers, through a satire on the popular fictional and twisted-reality housewife satires (making it a meta-satire?), with the world debut of “It’s the Housewives!:” a rock-n-roll musical staring, Terri Homberg-Olsen (Jerry’s Girls), Jamey Hood (The Shagg’s) Corrine Dekker (The Posession of Mrs. Jones) and Jayme Lake (Hillary Agonistes) as Aged Becca, Becca, Lynn and Lexie, respectively.

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“Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a f***ing big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suite on hire purchase in a range of f***ing fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the f**k you are on Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing f***ing junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, f***ed up brats you spawned to replace yourselves. Choose your future. Choose life… But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin’ else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you’ve got heroin?”

With a quote from a leading man like that, need I say more?

Well, just in case you’re not as easily impressed as my pretentious ass assumes, here are a few more reasons to check out Danny Boyle’s gritty cult-classic Trainspotting:

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This fall, the always on-point geniuses at Christian Dior give the fashion world a fresh, flirty surprise with their ready-to-wear designs.

This dress, for example, takes traditional fall hues (like deep red and burnt orange) and dares to make them pop out of the monotonous crowd. The contrast of a fun geometric whirlwind against the radiant white is striking and playful while maintaining the unique Christian Dior sophistication that people just can’t take their eyes off of. In addition to manipulating a perfect color combination to absolute impeccability, this piece takes a familiar shape and brings it to another level by allowing for large ruffles in a bubble skirt that culminate to form a young perfection that captures the evolution of Christian Dior’s lasting vision.

*Photo via: Style

The span of David Bowie’s career is absolutely amazing, spectacular even. Over the course of five decades, David Bowie has accumulated over 20 studio albums varying in genres as out of this world as the man himself. From psychedelic folk to glam rock to electronic to synth pop/punk, David Bowie has spanned the world of music and stood the test of time. With a list of songs familiar to so many generations of music lovers over a hundred strong, David Bowie’s music is, without a doubt, classic.

Not only has David Bowies music touched the lives and imagination of millions, his over the top personalities have also had a huge impact on popular culture. From his beautiful androgyny to his outrageous costumes to the creation of his out of the closet persona Ziggy Stardust: David Bowie changed the world of rock in a way that is still quite apparent in some of the coolest bands on the scene today (Dresden Dolls, Any Day In June, The Cure). Without his influence, who knows if the more glamorous side of rock-n-roll would have ever become quite so, glittery.

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“We’re Not in Kansas Anymore”: Premiere Episode of 90210 (AKA Degrossip Girl Junior High School Musical).

So, yeah. It’s been over eight years since they left us. They’ve grown up and changed in the interim. So have we. So has Beverly Hills. So has America, television, fashion, the media, the genres of YA entertainment and youth culture, the very notions of “teen” and “family.” It’s been a long time since Kelly was a Spring Princess and Brenda didn’t give a damn, since Dylan took Brandon to the Green Room, since Donna and her first mother Nancy modeled at the mother-daughter fashion show.

We can tell lot has changed, because really, there’s no way we woulda gotten a blowjob scene within the show’s first five minutes from the OLD gang.

But the more things change in our favorite zip code, the more they stay the same, because, lucky for you, am I back to Rant about it! (However, now, I actually have a word limit.) But we can’t skimp on the beginning, can we?!

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