Winnipeg Free Press - April 2/09
Anthony Bourdain’s Guide to Food Television
WRITER/TV host/former chef Anthony Bourdain has never been afraid to speak his mind and tell it like it is. Bourdain gained notoriety with his tell-all book Kitchen Confidential, which exposed the inner workings of the restaurant industry and catapulted the outspoken chef into the limelight.
While he now collects a cheque touring the world with his show No Reservations for the Travel Channel, writing various food-related articles and books, and appearing as a guest judge on shows like Top Chef, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have an opinion on the industry that helps pay his bills. Sitting down with MSN TV, the candid New Yorker gives his culinary picks and pans on shows like Iron Chef America, Ace of Cakes, The Chopping Block (which was recently cancelled after just three episodes) along with Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares and Hell’s Kitchen.
“Gordon doesn’t get much love and respect in the States from his peers. No one really gives a damn about his restaurants here,” says Bourdain. “This show (Hell’s Kitchen) is a freak show. It’s a circus of cruelty, like shooting fish in a barrel with a cut-down 12-gauge shotgun. There’s no cooking. It’s just a bunch of dimwits — the lame, the halt and the delusional — and him pretending to be angry. There’s no suspense.
“None of these idiots would be qualified to work a Fryolator at a Chuck E. Cheese much less ever work in any Gordon Ramsay restaurant. The whole concept of the show is ridiculous. He would never hire these guys. Executive chef at one of his restaurants? I mean, please.”
WHILE Spike Jonze’s adaptation of the classic children’s story Where the Wild Things Are doesn’t hit the theatres until Oct. 16, the first trailer from the film quickly spread across the blogosphere when it was released last week. Wild Things will be Jonze’s first time back in the director’s chair since his 2002 film, Adaptation. For the past few years, the multi-talented Jonze has been busy directing music videos and commercials, producing TV shows/movies like Jackass and helping launch online projects like Vice magazine’s VBS.tv.
Fans of Montreal’s Arcade Fire will recognize the song Wake Up, which appears in the initial trailer for the Academy Award-nominated director’s adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s fable about a boy named Max who is sent to his room without supper and creates an imaginary world filled with monsters where he learns the meaning of love.
OTHER than showing up for all the wrong reason in the tabloids, on TheSmokinggun.com and on gossip shows like TMZ, actor/comedian Andy Dick has been mostly off the radar for the past few years. Recently, Dick joined the cast of VH1/MuchMoreMusic’s Celebrity Rehab spinoff Sober House. Along with former Guns N’ Roses’ drummer Steven Adler, porn star Mary Carey, Crazy Town singer Seth (Shifty) Binzer, American Idol’s Nikki McKibbin, model Amber Smith and Rodney King, Dick allowed cameras to document his struggles with addiction and his road back to recovery with Dr. Drew Pinsky.
Following the conclusion of the second season of Sober House, the standup comedian set up his own online talk show, House Arrest With Andy Dick, hoping to help relaunch his career after his court-ordered confinement for recent drug charges is up. Guests in the initial webisodes have included actress Jennifer Coolidge, comedian Mo Collins, Heroes’ Greg Grunberg and celebrity psychiatrist Pinsky.
site seeing runs weekly in The Tab.
