Tom Colicchio discusses Top Chef season four
Top Chef’s season finale is this Wednesday, with Richard, Stephanie, and Lisa competing for the title. Head judge Tom Colicchio recently sat down with Salon to talk about season four of Top Chef, the judging process, and other celebrity chefs. Here’s a rundown of some of the chef’s remarks:
- Colicchio doesn’t feel pressured to give a woman the title of Top Chef. Plenty of female contestants have been in the finale or come close to winning.
- He called season four’s contestants the “strongest group as a whole.”
- If you meet one of the Top Chef judges, resist the urge to second-guess their decisions. Colicchio likes to “lecture” people who criticize him. He explained that the judges’ deliberations last up to two hours, and viewers only see a few minutes of that discussion. The judges also make their choice to eliminate a contestant based on that week’s performances alone.
- Fans were shocked when Dale, a favorite to win, was sent home. Tom Colicchio wasn’t judging that week, and confessed that the elimination surprised him as well. However, he was told that Dale’s dish was clearly the worst dish of the week.
- He disagreed with a contestant’s claim that the key to winning Top Chef is “getting your point of view across.” Cooking good food is the way to win.
- When asked if he would hire any past Top Chef contestants, Colicchio singled out Tiffany and Harold from the first season, Sam (season two), and Hung (season three).
[via PopCandy]
Britney Spears’ Main Men Are Feuding
Britney Spears’ Main Men Are Feuding
It’s almost like a scene out of a lame high school memory. Reportedly Britney Spears’ manager/pal Sam Lutfi and her boyfriend Adnan Ghalib both have it out for each other.
According to a source, Sam is trying to “protect” Britney from the paparazzo’s negative influence. He allegedly text messaged Adnan, “You’re a manic trigger. If you continue to have any contact, you’ll kill her. It’s your decision.”
Lutfi also went behind the “Gimme More” singer’s back and talked to world-famous television journalist Barbara Walters about the whole ordeal.
On her show yesterday, Barbara said, “Britney, I assume, is starting some kind of treatment. Sam got in touch with us. I can’t vouch for this. He said that Britney is suffering from what he described as mental issues which are treatable.”
After that, Brit and Sam had a massive altercation, as reported by the in a story earlier today.
From Adnan’s point of view, Lutfi is verbally abusing and trying to take control of the troubled singer. He told press, “Sam continued to verbally abuse Britney as she sat barefoot on the curb at her Summit home crying holding her dog London.”
Ghalib’s photo agency commented, “When Adnan then tried to call Britney it seems that Sam had turned all of her cell phones off.”
To watch video footage of Adnan getting denied entrance into Britney’s place last night - !
24 Tattler: A Talk with Producer Jon Cassar
We spoke with 24 executive producer and director Jon Cassar recently to find out what's in store for Jack Bauer and friends in season seven. Read on to find out where they're going, who might be coming back and what they're planning for lady president Cherry Jones.
Apparently, Africa is hard to mimic in L.A. Have you talked about where you might place the action for the next season?
Well, we are still talking about placing it out of L.A., so that's a good sign.
Out of the United States, too?
No, just outside of Los Angeles, but again, it's not only up to us. I mean that is going to be up to the studio, up to the network, because we have a budget [that] expands every year. If you look at the case of Law & Order where there show isn't physically that big, but they've been on for so long that everything gets expanded. We're using the same people; we don't wanna lose our crew, so we pay them a little more. Same with the writers and the directors, so your budget is always going up.
From the studio/network point of view, they're not crazy about that. So, when somebody says we're going to need another $4 million to go to Africa, it's a tough thing for them to swallow. That is part of the reason behind whether we will go or not.
So, it's still going to happen?
Right now Africa is out, but somewhere in the United States is in, but we are right in the middle of writing, so this is the worst timing in the world. From Friday to today, it's changed 100 percent. We're very proud of the show, we've always been proud of the show; the audience loves the show. You guys have been clamoring for questions that we can't answer from the very beginning. And we were crucified at the very beginning. After the first year there wasn't a single press person who said, "I can't wait for the second year; it's going to be great." Everyone took the bandwagon of "They did it one year…its impossible they will ever do it again." "Never" is what they said, and we did it a third year, a fourth year, a fifth…
[Executive producer] Howard Gordon says you guys are going to try and shake things up a bit because he was like, "we don't want it to be just Jack capturing terrorists and torturing them for the answer for a while…" Have you talked about what that might look like?
Well, we've talked about it, but there's nothing for certain.
Can you tell us about Chloe's character and where she will be in the next season?
Um, no because again it changed from Friday to today. It changed so drastically. I was ready to give you guys the goods…
Do we know how far ahead we're jumping?
We're definitely jumping ahead, but probably not too far. Again, the president's [story] is probably going to depend on how far we jump and what her entrance into the story is.
When you chose the woman president, did you think at all how in the real world people would react to that politically, that you were going to be hinting towards pro or con Hillary Clinton?
We've heard that. The interesting part for me about the show is that our writers are split right down the middle. So, we've had one side of politics saying, "hey, look they represent us" and we've had the other side saying, "no, they represent us," and we've had presidents that represented one side, and we've had presidents that represented the other side. That will continue on the show. Only because the writers are so split…I mean our lunchtimes are awesome. We should tape those, and those should be a show.
On my end, as a filmmaker, especially as a director on the show, I personally don't care. I have no political agenda. I'm Canadian, so I really have no political agenda, but basically my whole thing is [making] a good story. I need the president to have a good compelling story. Whatever side of the fence you think that person sits on is…that's going to be up to you. And you should also know we are writing the story as we go, so it's not like there is a great plan of what we want this woman president to do. We know the first situation, and we know how she is going to react. We have an idea what her family is going to do, roughly.
Have you cast the first husband?
No, Ms. Cherry Jones is the only one who is cast yet. Although when people come in to play the first husband, they get very excited over the fact that Cherry Jones is the president.
She's amazing!
Yeah, people are very excited about that, and again, it's also the cachet of our show. We had no trouble in getting Cherry Jones. She's very excited about the show; she loves the show. It's very exciting for us to be at that point now where the show attracts that kind of talent.
Will we see any returning characters besides Chloe? Will we see Kim Raver? I know she has another show…
Possibly…
People also want Tony back from the dead. We get that a lot.
People don't believe he's dead…
How about Curtis?
You want Curtis back, too? Maybe we'll bring back everyone we've killed, and then we will see what you guys say about us next year.
Fez caught playing with Dolls
MTV is hooking up with That ’70s Show’s Fez (Wilmer Valderrama) to develop a scripted comedy that takes a look at celebrity worship. The series, titled Baby Dolls, which will be filmed in documentary style, is told from the point of view of “a naive and jaded personal assistant to a young actress.” Naive and jaded? So this person has a lack of experience, judgment or knowledge about the world but is hardworking and completely worn out by all the energy he or she puts into the job? Sounds like a job for Kenneth the Page from 30 Rock!
Or I guess Valderrama could play the role himself. He certainly played the role of “naive” to a T in That ’70s Show and hasn’t been doing much TV work outside of getting Punk’d by fellow ’70s co-star Ashton Kutcher from time to time. Doesn’t he know that there’s a legion of Fez-natics out here just waiting for him to grace our screens again. Hell, keep it the same character … Fez twenty years later working as a personal assistanta. “Would you like me to powder your breasts with my nose?”