CD Giveaway - Sam Shrieve, "Bittersweet Lullabies"
Ends Nov 29, 2009
The current student at Berklee College of Music has a rock 'n' roll pedigree, but delivers a pleasing and diverse collection of soft pop on his debut record. Enter our contest for your chance to win!
The Twilight Saga: New Moon Prize Pack
Ends Nov 29, 2009
The second installment of the Twilight saga is hitting theaters, and we've got the stylish goodies you'll howl over!
Rating: Country: USA Release Date: December 26, 2006 Distributor: 20th Century Fox Cast: · Paris Hilton · Nicole Richie Related Sites: ·IMDb: The Simple Life
Grade: C+
When Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie paired up for the first season of The Simple Life, the concept was a novel one: take two celebutantes, accustomed to their only responsibility being which party to attend that night, and put them into a blue collar working situation for a few weeks. The results were enough of a ratings grabber that the girls had to go for a second shot with The Simple Life 2: Road Trip; only this time they skipped the fundamental grounding piece of the first season -- an anchored location for the duration of the event. By the time The Simple Life 3: Interns came about, one would have thought the world would have been tired of hearing "That's hot," and seeing the girls almost go out of their way to lazily screw things up.
Alas, it wasn't to be, because here we are now with The Simple Life 4: 'Til Death Do Us Part. The concept this time riffs on Wife Swap and Trading Spouses as the girls visit various families and take over the duties of the wife. Okay, seriously, ladies. Have any of you watched this show before? And you'd still leave your husbands -- let alone your children -- alone with Paris and Nicole?
This season of hijinks had to undergo a necessary deviation from the format of what had gone before. Sometime between the third and fourth season, BFFs Paris and Nicole had a nasty and much-publicized spat, and quit talking to each other. So each of the families had to be punished twice over, with Nicole and Paris taking turns at them. This made things difficult to follow at times, since the production flickers back and forth between their various stints; better than watching one through to completion before starting another, I suppose, but it still put a speedbump in the flow of continuity.
So what were the high points of this season? Well, I have to admit, that animated opening segment is a hoot. I'd probably set aside a half-hour a week to watch The Animated Misadventures of Paris & Nicole if someone did it. (And you could still keep the girls separated that way, since they could come in and dub their lines at separate times.)
The season opens with the girls taking over the responsibilities for a pregant mother when they take turns visiting the Nolan family. They have to do the cooking and the cleaning and the care for the little Nolan Girl... all while wearing the fake pregnancy tummy. Paris at least wears hers, but she takes the weighted padding out of it.
Later, they pay alternate visits to the Weekes family, as they strive to learn how to keep the spark alive in a relationship. Paris's mom Kathy makes a cameo as she passes on her motherly advice, but none of that's going to apply with Mr. Weekes, who likes a few belts of tequila in the morning. He plays the whole "9 1/2 Weeks" blindfolded feeding game with Nicole -- who ends up feeding him a dog biscuit -- and lets Paris destroy a perfectly good golf course.
From Paris to Paris: Nicole recognizes the Paris
impersonator, but the real Paris comes charging
in before Nicole can create too much mischief.
(L-R: Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie, Natalie Reid)
If you are somehow completely new to the girls' schtick, by now you've got it figured out. It's nothing substantially different from what has gone before, with only a few mild variations. When they visit the Bowden family, for instance, it's difficult to replace the wife since it's a lesbian couple raising two teenaged daughters, so both Paris and Nicole arrange for a gay marriage ceremony, each with their own personal touches (by God, Nicole's become ordained!) And at the Murrie household, there's just something very frighteningly wrong about seeing the girls wearing nursing bras loaded with milk to care for infants.
Things do build to an interesting head, however, by the final episode. Paris, exhausted from a night of being Paris, decides to hire a Paris Hilton impersonator to visit the Siegel family in her stead. But she's made a mistake -- it's not her day to visit, it's Nicole's! Nicole recognizes the impersonator right away, and threatens to blow the lid off the caper unless Natalie (the lookalike) does Nicole's every bidding -- including holding a press conference with TV Week Australia to announce that she's pregnant! The real Paris finds out and rushes in to save the day, resulting in a face-to-face confrontation with Nicole that...
...is continued next season. Yes, there apparently will be a Simple Life 5 (although we can neither confirm nor deny that the subheading will be Bringing Up Britney).
This 20th Century Fox release is packaged on a single, two-sided disc with five episodes per side. There are no special features and no previews. Audio is in English 2.0 Surround only, with optional subtitles in English and Spanish.
The Simple Life 4 'Til Death Do Us Part
Side A
Side B
01. The Nolan Family
02. The Ghauri Family
03. The Weekes Family
04. The Padilla Family
05. The Bowden Family
06. The Murrie Family
07. The Contreras Family
08. The Beggs Family
09. The Burton Family
10. The Siegel Family
