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Top Chef’s exciting new location

Posted by Vogt
at July 5, 2008

Top C logoBravo’s top-rated and highly acclaimed reality food show, Top Chef, has big plans for the fifth season. Like real estate, it’s all about location, location, location and Top Chef has chosen a most unique place, somewhere you might not guess in a game of 20 questions. I’m not going to reveal the place until after the jump, because there may be some of you out there that want to be surprised.

Just to recap, Top Chef has already spent seasons in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami and Chicago. They’ve also had special episodes and finales in Napa Valley, Las Vegas, Hawaii and Aspen and San Juan, Puerto Rico. Traveling to interesting and even exotic locales is part of the fun, giving the contestants a chance to incorporate the regional foods and the style of that part of the world.

Okay, if the suspense is getting to you — I know it is — go to the jump and see where season five of Top Chef is going to be…

BROOKLYN! No, I’m not kidding. The new season of Top Chef will reportedly be set in Williamsburg, Brooklyn — hometown of Barbra Streisand. (She grew up at the corner of Newkirk and Nostrand Avenue, if you want to be precise.) Also Barbara Stanwyck, Mae West and the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Seriously, this isn’t as bizarre as you might think. Brooklyn is New York. It’s one of the five boroughs and it’s quite trendy and gentrified, as they say in NYC. There are great studios out there — I remember going to Brooklyn when Another World filmed there, in the same studios that now house As the World Turns.

Also, some of the most amazing restaurants and chefs are in the metropolitan area, including season one winner Harold Dieterle. Peter Luger’s, the number one steakhouse in the world for 24 years and running, is in Brooklyn. There’ll be no shortage of guest judges or restaurants. It’s actually an excellent choice.

Top Chef contestants probably will be bunking in a Brooklyn townhouse or loft, and they’re putting together a new kitchen and studio set as speak. TC isn’t the only reality show that’ll be shooting in Brooklyn; MTV’s The Real World is also going to be filming there in the upcoming season.

Celebrity TV
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Madonna Biography

Posted by Vogt
at May 9, 2008

Madonna Biography.jpg

A pop diva of the 1980s, Madonna created a raunchy blonde bombshell persona that propelled such music-video hits as “Like a Virgin” (1984), “Material Girl” (1985), “Like a Prayer” (1989), “Vogue” (1990) and “Justify My Love” (1991). A high-energy performer of aggressively sexual and irreverent material who has been called “the queen of bimbo rock” and a “punk Mae West”, Madonna has outraged many with her messages of assertiveness and kinky sexuality as well as her outrageously suggestive costuming. Her champions, however, have praised her catchy, danceable music (most of which she co-writes and produces), her iconoclastic humor, her bravado in expressing female desire, her provocative assaults on such sacred cows as interracial relationships, homophobia and ignorance about birth control, her shrewd business sense and her post-modern performance style, ideally suited to the end of the 20th century.

The working-class Midwesterner moved to New York in 1978 to become a dancer, but after several false starts as a model and actress (in an underground soft-core feature, “A Certain Sacrifice”, 1979), she hit the clubs and made her name as a high-energy singer. Vibrantly ambitious, Madonna propelled herself to pop stardom, becoming the first queen of the MTV era by the mid-80s. After a cameo appearance in the film “Vision Quest” (1985), she had her first starring role as the rule-breaking, free-living, punk title character in Susan Seidelman’s “Desperately Seeking Susan” (1985). It won her acclaim as a unique new screen presence and showed her talent at wisecracking farce, not unlike tough 30s comics Patsy Kelly and Thelma Todd.

Madonna’s subsequent film performances, however, have proven less than sensational and it has been said that she is an actress “desperately seeking a role.” While never abandoning her music, she has tried to refashion herself into a modern-day Marilyn Monroe or Marlene Dietrich. In 1986, she co-starred with then-husband Sean Penn in the flop comedy “Shanghai Surprise”. Despite her charmingly kooky performance, her next film, the screwball “Who’s That Girl?” (1987) also bombed. She got an “A” for effort for her Broadway debut in the underwritten female role in David Mamet’s “Speed-the-Plow” (1988). Madonna went on to appear in a small role in the episodic period film “Bloodhounds of Broadway” (1989), then turned on the high-voltage glamour to good effect as Breathless Mahoney in the big-budgeted Warren Beatty showcase “Dick Tracy” (1990).

In 1991, Madonna returned to the character she plays best–herself–in Alek Keshishian’s behind-the-scenes documentary of her Blonde Ambition tour, “Truth or Dare”. A riveting, self-important and fascinating look at superstardom, it is overshadowed only by comedienne Julie Brown’s dead-on parody, “Medusa: Dare to be Truthful”. Madonna engaged in unintentional self-parody with “Sex” (1992), an X-rated photo book of herself and “friends” disporting themselves. She earned her best notices since “Susan” for another tough-gal comic role, in Penny Marshall’s ensemble film “A League of Their Own” (1992). As WWII baseball player Mae Mordabito, Madonna expertly played off co-stars Geena Davis and Rosie O’Donnell and once again proved what a smart, funny performer she could be.

But Madonna’s hoped-for dramatic breakthrough continued to elude her: the over-wrought melodramas “Body of Evidence” and “Dangerous Game” (both 1993) quickly disappeared. She made cameo appearances as a hooker in Woody Allen’s “Shadows and Fog” (1991), as a singing telegram girl in Wayne Wang’s “Blue in the Face” (1995), portrayed a witch in Allison Anders’ segment of the critically lambasted “Four Rooms” (1995) and briefly appears as a phone sex veteran in and Spike Lee’s “Girl 6″ (1996). Madonna was cast in what many feel was a role she was born to play, the Argentine First Lady Eva Peron in Alan Parker’s film musical “Evita” (1996).

The Material Girl’s seemingly inexhaustible energy continued to propel her through a number of projects, despite her new role as a mother. While continuing to actively develop projects at her Maverick company, she released the electectronica influenced album album “Ray of Light” to rave reviews in 1998. Sporting an unbelivably fit post-birth body in the trendy dance floor video which accompanied the video for the “Ray of Light” single, Madonna proved once again how adept she is at morphing into just the right thing at just the right time. She also proved still influential in pushing trends and ideas forward: her commitment to the religion Kaballah, which influenced the album, helped popularlize its practice outside of its core followers and a small cadre of the Hollywood elite. She followed up the success of this album with the smash hit from the “Austin Powers” soundtrack in 1999, the infectious tune “Beautiful Stranger.” In 2000, Maddonna starred in the film “The Next Best Thing” opposite Rupert Everett but she found that she still could not find the success in acting that has come so easily to her in her pop career. The movie was not a hit but, not surprisingly, her “Drowned World Tour” of 2001 was a phenomenal success.

Now a mother of two and wife to acclaimed director Guy Ritchie, Madonna showed no signs of slowing her takeover of the world. In 2002, she made her stage debut in London, to mixed but not horribly scathing reviews and also began working on her husband’s next film “Swept Away,” playing the role of a rich and spoiled, arrogant wife who finally meets her match in a brash fisherman who despises her all-consuming self obsession. That same year, Madonna also made the switch from “Material Girl” to Bond Girl, writing and performing the title song to the 20th 007 outing “Die Another Day” and appearing in a cameo role in the action film. She proved to still be able to capture headlines when she appeared on stage with the of-the-moment superstars Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera at the 2003 MTV Music Video Awards and shared a steamy lip-lock with Spears (the two later collaborated on Spears’ single “Me Against the Music”). In 2005 she released her latest album “Confeessions on a Dance Floor,” which completely set aside any ballads in favor of a full slate of dance tunes.

In additon to her musical and acting efforts, Madonna also had a successful side career as a bestselling children’s book author, penning 2003’s The English Roses and Mr. Peabody’s Apples 2004’s Yakov and the Seven Thieves and The Adventures of Abdi and 2005’s Losta de Casha

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Janet Jackson Biography

Posted by Vogt
at May 9, 2008

Janet Jackson.jpg

This black pop diva of the 1980s and 90s is the youngest of the nine members of the Jackson musical dynasty. Janet Jackson enjoyed her first multi-million seller with “Control” in 1986, an album which produced hard-driving, danceable hits including “Nasty” and “What Have You Done for Me Lately?”. She followed up with the even more successful “Rhythm Nation 1814″ in 1989, which produced seven Top Five singles (including “Miss You Much” and “Escapade”), four of which made it to Number 1.

Jackson began performing with her family at age seven (doing a Mae West imitation as part of a Las Vegas stage act), and acted during the 1970s and 80s in recurring or supporting roles on the TV series “Good Times”, “Diff’rent Strokes” and “Fame”. She made her feature acting debut as the sensitive poet Justice in the John Singleton misfire, “Poetic Justice” (1993). Her hit single “Again” (which was also featured on her wildly successful album “janet.”) was prominently featured in the film and earned Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for Best Original Song. She returned to the big-screen in the summer of 2000 as the scientist fiancee of Eddie Murphy’s Professor Klump in the comedy “Nutty Professor II: The Klumps”. Once again, a Janet Jackson song (”Doesn’t Really Matter,) was included on the film’s soundtrack album.

Although an effective supporting player and pleasant minor comedienne, Jackson displayed her real passions and talents through her music and dancing. Virgin Records acknowledged this in 1996 when it offered her an $80 million deal that made her the music industry’s highest paid performer. She justified Virgin’s faith by releasing “The Velvet Rope” (1997), a collection of highly personal, very emotional songs that went triple-platinum within a year of its release. The album addressed Jackson’s battle with depression, her own self-image problems, family woes and how she escaped an abusive relationship. The recording also set the rumor mill a-spin when two of her songs hinted at a romantic interest in women. Whether drawn to the album’s honesty or controversy really didn’t matter, Jackson’s fans turned out for her “Velvet Rope” world tour en masse. In addition to her usual energetic singing and tireless dancing, Jackson treated audiences to a show she “created and directed” and which looked more like a splashy Broadway musical than a rock concert with its eight back-up dancers and enormous video screens.

Unlike her siblings Michael and LaToya, Janet Jackson had largely avoided courting controversy throughout her career (minus a long-secret nine-year marriage to Rene Elizondo Jr.), until February 1, 2004. While Jackson was performing a duet with pop star Justin Timberlake during the halftime show for Super Bowl XXXVIII, Timberlake reached over at the climax of the segment–on the lyric “Gonna have you naked by the end of this song”) and pulled off a breakaway black leather bustier cup on Jackson’s bustier, exposing her right breast (and sunburst-shaped nipple clamp) on live global television. The incident incited a massive media frenzy and much public uproar: broadcaster CBS announced its outrage and disavowed advance knowledge of the stunt, blaming its corporate sibling and halftime producer MTV, which had promised a “shocking” show; Timberlake issued a public apology and called the incident a “wardrobe malfunction,” explaining that a red brassiere cup under the black bustier intended to cover her breast had inadvertantly been torn away as well; and the NFL and FCC launched investigations into the incident. A day after the furor erupted Jackson announced that she had privately concocted the stunt on her own and issued her own public regrets in a videotaped apology.

In the wake of “Boobgate”–which to some seemed suspiciously timed as Jackson had a new album pending after several years of professional inactivity–Jackson was asked to withdraw from an appearance on the Grammys to deliver an award to Luther Vandross, although Timberlake was allowed to perform on the show. It was later revealed that CBS would have allowed her to appear if she issued another apology from the Grammy stage, as Timberlake did. The various broadcast tlelevision networks also had knee-jerk reactions to the stunt, with NBC and ABC adding stricter censoring of partial nudity on series such as “ER” and “NYPD Blue,” and ABC issuing the first-ever five-second broadcast delay on the Academy Awards ceremony.

In 2005 Jackson was at the center of two new scandals which broke within days of one another: first, reports claimed that at age 18 the singer was the mother of a secret daughter born during her brief 1984 marriage to James Debarge and allegedly raised by her sister Rebbie, which Jackson vehemently denied, and a paparazzi video clip showing Jackson sunbathing nude made the rounds of the Internet before the popster’s attorney had it removed, threatening legal action to anyone showing it.

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