Miz Shoes Reviews: ANTM

This is an experiment, sort of, although it didn’t start out that way. See, the RLA, the PDBs* and I all went out for dinner tonight to a sorta kinda sports bar. Except it really isn’t a sports bar. It’s more of a diner, only in a strip mall. And with a lot of rock and roll memorabilia on the walls and a great juke box, kind of like the Hard Rock, if the Hard Rock were owned by a couple of folks who used to own the best used CD store in town, and not by some conglomerate mega-corp, and if the Hard Rock wasn’t just another theme park with food. So, maybe it isn’t like the Hard Rock at all. But I digress. We all went out to dinner at the Rock Fish Grill, and I told the owner we were on a timer, because I had to be home by 8 to watch the hamsters.

Well, not only were we not home by eight, but our food had barely arrived, so I commandeered one of the tvs, and watched ANTM. MOS.

MOS stands for “Mit Out Sound”, and is a hold over (or so my old film teacher told us) from the Very Early Days of Hollywood, when most of the film makers came from Germany, and if you were shooting without a sound track, you were shooting Mit Out Sound, and that became MOS on film clappers to this day.

I watched ANTM MOS, and let me tell you, real-time captioning for the deaf is not real time. And who ever is typing it? Either can’t hear, can’t type or can’t spell. And if it’s computer generated? They need better computers.

So. Here is what happened on ANTM tonight, as best as I can patch it together. First the girls all discuss how much they do or do not miss Sara, and Whitney wahwahwahs some more about being a plus sized model, and how she has to step up her game and whawhawhateverrrrrs.

The hair dresser comes to the house and cuts the rat weave out of Brit’s head (there’s even a sign over her bed, and other hints that those stupid made up “supermodel” names are going to be sticking around till the end of the season. More’s the pity. And there she is, left with the hair she came in with, except a better color.

There may or may not have been some recapping of Renee’s sob session. There was definitely a recapping of Fifty Cent shoving Jael in the pool. Last week RJ and I disagreed about the timing of Jael’s saying to Fitty that she was “half black and half Jewish, so that makes [her] Blewish, and you can’t hang wit dat” and him pushing her into the pool. RJ said Jael was wet when she said it, therefore it happened after. And I said it was one of, if not the last thing she said before she got wet. In the event, according to POTES, I was right.

And then, not a couple of days after the episode aired there was this brouhahah about Fifty calling Jews thugs, and other racist crap. I leave you to connect the dots. I would threaten to boycott Mr. Cent, but since he’s never gotten a dime from me yet, that would be a tad hollow. Sort of like Mr. Cent’s head.

Anyway, back to this week. This week they get their acting lessons from someone or other who “stars” on a show I’ve never seen, and then get further lessons from someone who was in a movie I’ve never seen, but I understand was a hit with some demographic or another: Napoleon Dynamite. But not the star of Napoleon Dynamite, because even I know who he is, and he’s currently tearing up the big screen as the feather-haired sidekick to Will Feral** in Blades of Glory.

With the sound off, and the closed captioning on, it’s hard to tell how bad the girls are, and I can only take the captioning’s word for it when Dionne claims to be speaking in a Jamaican accent. For that matter, I can only take the captioning’s word for it that Renee was totally committed to the role (whatever the role was, because I don’t have a fucking clue what they were supposed to be acting) and deserved to win the prize.

I expect to hear crickets when asked to name a friend to share her prize, since we all know that everyone hates her and she ain’t so keen about anyone. But she pulls a name out of her ass, and nice Dionne gets to share the prize, which seems to be some lame t-shirt that referrences Napoleon Dynomite, which, since I haven’t seen, I also have to take on faith.

Back at the house, there is the usual whining about who won and how they didn’t deserve it, and the usual snickering about how lame the prize was that they won, and probably some trash talking about how nice it was for Dionne to get to be Renee’s friend and take one for the team, ‘cause nobody ELSE was gonna pretend to be. I might be making that up.

But then, OH. MY. GOD. A SURPRISE, surprise, surprise!!!! You’ll never guess! Oh. You guessed. Yeah, this is the week that the winner gets a visit from their family. Dionne’s momma, sister and baby come. Dionne’s momma is in a wheelchair and has a Marilyn piercing in her upper lip. Dionne’s momma is in a wheelchair because some junkie that she was tryin’ to help get straight got all jealous and shit when she was gonna git married, so he shot her and now she’s all paraplegic. See? And you thought there weren’t going to be sob stories this year. Her baby is cute enough, I guess.

The powers that be managed to find Renee’s husband out on the beach where he’s been living and pluck the baby (who looks a little floppy to me, or maybe fetal alchohol syndrome, or just a little, uh, wall eyed?) from the arms of his grandmother (and why won’t she let her son stay with them? Or why won’t he stay with his own mother?)and send them to visit, too. We see the baby crawling down the runway, and I read someone saying to the baby that Miss Jay would just snatch you baldheaded if he saw you crawl down the runway like that. Pretty funny, actually, though I have no idea who said it.

We see Jael being nice and taking pictures, and then poor Natasha just loses it cause she wants to see HER baby and why can’t she? And she talks on the phone to her husband and cries and cries and cries and we see a picture of her baby, and she is really cute. With big eyes.

Oh, well. Party’s over, y’all come back now, hear? And the family members go home and the girls go to their photoshoot and poor Natasha is all red-eyed and weepy and miserable and Renee is all smiling and obnoxious and gloating about having seen her little floppy baby. And yeah, there was some serious face sucking with the husband. Eww. And she still isn’t taking off the Darth Jader head rag.

The shoot? Well, the concept is to re-enact “famous” ANTM moments from the past. They are “The Girl Who Wouldn’t Do Nude” from season one. “The Great Granola Bar Kerfuffle”, “The Siamese Twins”, “The Girl Who Passed Out Cold at Judging”, “Joanie (now Joni) In The Dentist Chair for 12 Hours”, “I Am Bi-Curious Sarah and Kim in the Limo” and “Michelle’s Impetigo”. This is as big a snooze as it sounds, even if they do bring the original girls back to co-star in their own re-enactments.

Among the highlights is Dionne, who is totally freaked having to be in a limo with a lesbian, much less having to pretend to kiss her, discovers that Kim is hot, and that she, Dionne, is liking this. Natasha is great with big old scabs on her face. Brit totally rocks out as one of the twins, now triplets. Renee can’t compete with Joni (ha!) and Whitney totally does not rock it as the girl who won’t do nude. Whitney in a white beach towel is not pretty.

I need to interject here, that the female half of the PDBs is a former art director for SELF, back in New York City. She pegged CariDee as the winner last year, just after looking at the portfolios on-line, three quarters of the way through the season. Tonight she looked at everyone and said Brit, Natasha and Renee are the three finalists, and that it’ll go to Renee. Jael, she said, was too aware of herself and her own look to be the sort of malleable putty a model needs to be. She also said that Jael is a man. I kept telling her that that distinction belongs to Jaslene, but Jaslene wasn’t even on the PDB’s radar.

So. Judging. “Hey, look! The man’s wearing a dress.” That’s Jael, and she’s not a man, dammit. The judges seem to call Jaslene a drag queen, and not in a good way. The judges, well, Nigel, gets all creamy talking about Brit and the twins. They allow as how they didn’t even notice Renee and her ugly face were in the same frame as Joni. Jael, meh. Whitney in a beach towel? Icky. Dionne gets the love from all. They love Natasha and her fierce scabs. The photographer and Jay both say how she came to the shoot all sad and teary and then WORKED IT on the set. So who goes home? Jael and Whitney are the last two called, and Tyra finally has to say goodbye to her pet plus sized girl.

But child? Please don’t show us those thighs/knees of yours again. Christ, if I wanted to see dimples like that I could look in the mirror. Well, after the scabs and bruises heal.

Next week, Jael has to take the marbles out of her mouth and learn to speak before she gets sent home.

*PDB: Persons Dressed in Black


** Yeah, I know, Ferrel. I just don’t find him funny, OK? So feral it is.