I caught this 20-minute behind the scenes feature on the upcoming HBO film of Andrew Ross Sorkin's book Too Big To Fail on air and thought I'd post it for those of you getting excited about this film's debut Monday night at 9.
Some amazing people attached including William Hurt as Hank Paulson (top of post) and Ed Asner doing a quite convincing Warren Buffet (image right).
What one of my favorite TV writers, Tim Goodman from THR, said:
Credit HBO for even tackling the subject, based on the best-selling book by New York Times reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin. No film studio would want to produce a complicated and ultimately depressing story about how greed nearly took down Wall Street and the entire economic infrastructure of first-world countries. Gordon Gekko is one thing, a cadre of people — real people — far worse than he is probably not going to be a popcorn movie.
But damned if "Fail" doesn't whittle down the whole sorry story into a mostly understandable and efficient movie that everybody should watch. And in a cast full of beautifully minimalist performances from superb actors, William Hurt gets to remind viewers who might have otherwise forgot just how great he can be.
Enjoy this feature, and make sure to watch the damn movie on Monday. It's after the jump.
That's what I've been doing instead of blogging, which of course is also a somewhat pointless exercise when you consider we're 2 days from the beginning of the end.
Of course you realize that the end of the world happens in stages and I imagine even post-Rapture my readers will still be here. We're not going anywhere.
However, I don't know how much blogging any of us will get done in the days preceeding the, what is it, 100 year long war (wars?!?) that will break out over who gets ultimate control of existence. I'm trying to stockpile as much Nutella as I can, for trade.
Everybody loves Nutella. Hazelnuts, cocoa and pure unadulterated pleasure in a jar.
What I'm most disappointed about? We won't ever see the new season of True Blood on HBO as it starts on June 26. I hear great things, and the season four trailer is amazing. Just for kicks I've posted it after the jump.
It's a shame we'll never see it. If I had to be with one True Blood character at the end of the world it would be Pam. She'd be all snarky and dismissive and then she'd just off a bitch for kicks.
Oh, btw, you might wanna click over to After the Rapture Pet Care to take care of your little furry kids. Only $10 smackeroos and they take Paypal.
Such. A. Deal.
Oh, I just thought about how much I'm gonna miss Nutella, too. I hear in hell they use Nutella to lead you onto one of the Stairmasters lining the ninth circle of hell, but they never let you have any.
Never.
Continue reading "Are You Clearing Your DVR Before The End of the World?" »
Now before you get all, "Wow, they must have LOVED those ratings numbers," they weren't really all that hot. HBO is self-reporting that 4.2 million viewers watched the premiere over it's many airing on Sunday and Monday on the various HBO channels.
The thing is with these huge sets and the numerous period costumes and all the costs that come with a project this size there almost has to be a second season to offset costs in the first.
The complete text of HBO's press release is after the jump, along with a clip from this Sunday's episode (9 pm, HBO).
Continue reading "Breaking News: HBO Renews Game of Thrones for Season Two" »
Seriously, WTF? And it's not just these two, either. There's the case of these two, also. Consider this an Incest in Costume Dramas open thread. Is this the Golden Age of incest portrayed in pay cable TV dramas?
Discuss!
The update is this: I was a week early with this, it didn't air Saturday, it airs THIS Saturday. Sorry, HBO, I guess you AREN'T letting this slide right by.
Have you seen a TV ad or a promo for Cinema Verite, the HBO film about the making of the groundbreaking PBS series An American Family?
Me neither!
So what's up with that? There's certainly enough being done to promote Game of Thrones including food trucks and screenings and a half-hour behind the scenes doc and ... well, you get it.
The HBO site doesn't even have this full version of the trailer for the film. You can see it by clicking here.
The film stars Tim Robbins and Diane Lane as Pat and Bill Loud, the Santa Barbara couple who offered their family up to documentary filmmakers (one played by James Gandolfini) to make what was ostensibly the first reality television show.
Why is there no promo happening for this? Dunno, but I have one other piece of video, an on-the-set feature with lots of Diane Lane (looking fabulous) and talk with the directors Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman.
Watch that by clicking this.
The original series that is the stuff of this movie had a tremendous impact on me as a young person. I had never seen someone who identified as gay on TV until Lance Loud came out on national television. It was a huge thing in my 12-year-old life.
In this film Lance (pictured left) is played by Thomas Dekker. You might remember back during the first season of Heroes Dekker's people lobbied that his character, who was supposed to be Cheerleader Claire's gay best friend, be ... not so much gay. That led eventually to his character being written off the show.
I'm guessing that Dekker has new people now. Or possibly someone has grown up and can handle the attention of it all now? Maybe? In any event I'm looking forward to seeing what he does with what is the chew-the-scenery role in the piece.
The films airs Saturday night at 9 on HBO.
Big weekend for Game of Thrones and the show hasn't even debuted.
And I say "interested even me" because I'm really not one for this kind of show (I've never seen even one of the LOTR movies).
Above you can see what HBO brought to WonderCon in support of their new show, I also had Rainn Wilson over the weekend sitting in the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros from the con, where he was promoting his new film.
Then last night at 9, when a bunch of DVRs turned on to record the third part of Mildred Pierce they ran this 15 minutes of the upcoming series that I have posted after the jump. Killer promo idea, though I'm not sure that the Pierce audience is the same as the Games crowd.
In any event, the preview looked amazing. Man is this a good-looking show. There's a whole bunch of money being spent on it and you can see it all on screen.
Check it yourself, after the jumperoni. If you have HBO on Demand, it might be there for you to watch, too. Do that if you can, this is a show that loves a bigger screen.
Continue reading "Video -- ICYMI, HBO's Game of Thrones Preview That Interested Even Me" »
Actually, the might stop him from walking out the door with this, the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, from where it is right now at WonderCon in San Francisco.
Just tweeted from the Game of Thrones Twitter account from that very event, where Wilson is doing promotion and press for his film opening this weekend, Super, co-starring Ellen Page, Kevin Bacon and Nathan Fillion.
Video in support of both projects right here by clicking this link (Game of Thrones, a behind the scenes) or this one (Super, the theatrical trailer), because who cares? Well, besides CBS, I mean.
Me, I care. Deeply.
All the information you need, right there.
Yes, we're all very excited about the Todd Haynes adaptation of Mildred Pierce starring Kate Winslet, Evan Rachel Wood and Guy Pearce that starts tomorrow night on HBO with the first two hours.
Great confluence of talents here in front of the camera and of course Haynes, whose work I last saw in Far From Heaven (one of my favorites that year, a movie I actually stood on line and paid to see) has a style that's just perfect for the material, a story about a depression-era woman (Winslet) desperate for her daughter's love, the manipulative daughter (Wood) who knows how to exact a price from her mother and the shadowy but sexy man (Pearce) who finds himself between the two of them.
But to be honestly, my entre into this story came not from the book by James Cain or even the 1945 film starring Joan Crawford and Ann Blyth (who would later become the spokesperson for Hostess Twinkies -- and we know that many fans of Mildred Pierce are also fans of Twinkies ... oh, sorry, I meant twinks).
I know that you know what I'm talking about, it's The Carol Burnett Show's spoof of the film called Mildred Fierce, which you can watch after the jumperoo along with a trailer for the original film from Turner Classic Movies and a variety of clips and behind the scenes features from HBO in support of tomorrow night's premiere at 9 pm.
(The Burnett clip isn't great quality, but it's the only one on YouTube.)
One of the HBO clips is the half-hour preview of the series they've been running on the cable network, just in case you missed it. And there's a couple of different trailers included as well.
Before we go to the clips, however, let me just share with you what I posted on Twitter the other day.
It could also be a great name for a specialty drag act. I wouldn't be surprised if it was being used already by some clever drag queen who like things stuck in her.
Ooh, that didn't come out the way I intended.
Okay, go watch some clips, they're after the jump.
You know you wanna. Click this and it'll play right here. March 19, 10 pm, HBO.
Then watch this HBO behind the scenes thing in support of the special by clicking this. In it you'll see, among others, Wendy Williams and John Waters, an unlikely pair indeed, but the potential dinner conversation blows my mind!
Now go talk to YOUR chair and YOUR globe and see if they answer. They don't, huh. And that's why Pee-Wee is still relevant, because deep down we wanna giggle some and then snuggle with our Chairy.
Because I love you (yes, you, there in your underwear wiping your nose on your sleeve, I'm talkin' to you).
The episode is embedded after the jump for your viewing pleasure. Also, because I love you (deep, passionate love that includes sonnets but which also requires scented lube) I'm gonna give you a little heads-up about the upcoming Science Channel series An Idiot Abroad, starring the same three people and scheduled for a January 22 premiere.
From what I gather, Merchant and Gervais send Karl Pilkington out into the world and then they sit in a studio with the video shot of Karl and they ... well, they make fun of Karl like they do on the animated HBO show.
But, if you go to YouTube to check out clips of the upcoming Science Channel show, know that in one segment Karl ends up in a tent with someone with facial deformities so severe that I almost threw my laptop against the wall.
Seriously. I'm not kidding. Do not surf the YouTube clips of An Idiot Abroad without first bracing yourself for ... wow, just the ... I can't even describe how I felt looking at that.
Or, if that's something you're into ... click this. Please don't let this be something you're into.
Like I said, the episode of the HBO show is after the jump, enjoy.
Hat tip to Chicago Now's Show Patrol blog.
Continue reading "Watch Here Now!!! The Season Premiere of HBO's The Ricky Gervais Show" »
Apparently the American Vampire League will be taking a larger role in the goings-on in Bon Temps this season. Jessica Tuck has been promoted to series regular by HBO and series creator Alan Ball.
At Deadline.com, Ausiello (squatting at Nikki Finke's site until his web project with Matt Mitovich goes live) has casting scoops for the show that include Janina Gavankar from The Gates (hopping from one vamp show to another) and Family Guy voice actress Alexandra Breckenridge (who I watched on Courteney Cox's FX series Dirt, a guilty pleasure of mine from back then that I still miss), but I seem to care more about Tuck, who I remember from my days glued to One Life to Live.
Check this link at Soap Central to review Jessica's OLTL days and make particular note of the bottom of the webpage where her character Megan Gordon's relationships to the Llanview glitterati is detailed. That's what I used to love about the show; one minute a character was thought to be from one family and then all of a sudden that character finds out they are a Lord or a Buchanan and their entire world changes. It made for some great holiday episodes.
Since her breakthrough on that show Tuck has appeared in films and TV guest roles and some series regular appearances (Murder One, Judging Amy, the online offering from John Schneider on Hulu called Twentysixmiles) and now after a season where her True Blood character Nan Flanagan (seen top of post with Alexander Skarsgard's Eric) took a much larger role she now gets an official promotion.
Tuck was also cast in the pilot for the David Tennant/NBC project Rex is Not Your Lawyer. Would love to see that, someday, eventually.
(I keep putting that our into the universe but nothing happens. I'll keep trying.)
Some clips to entertain you? Here's Jessica on Good Morning America discussing her OLTL character (this link) and Nan confronting Eric on True Blood, which is back this June (I'm guessing, probably right) at this link.
So I'm watching this show and I'm figuring it out and all and getting to know the characters and feel out their motivations ... and then a whole bunch of people get shot or arrested and I realized I had no idea what the hell was going on.
So I typed "Boardwalk Empire recap" into Google and read the Vanity Fair recap (yes, Conde Nast is in the business of reporting on what happens on a TV show -- do you think that's maybe why magazines are dying?) and now it all makes more sense.
According to the VF recap ...
The gangsters meet. An old mafioso speaks too floridly, showing that he is a man of the past who will not last long. Another gangster has too much of the old country in him; he will be gunned down while listening to opera and his is the blood that will make a cinematic pool on the clean white tiles. We are thus informed that a man too in love with the old culture has no place in the high-speed world of crime in 1920!
Did you get that while watching it? I didn't even consider it, everyone in old-timey clothes looks old to me, even the guy who played the young Arnold Rothstein looked old. Is that because productions typically cast younger looking actors in general? Because actors are obsessed with staying young looking to improve their chances of being cast? Because of all the injectables under their facial skin? I dunno.
Also lost on me was ... (again, Vanity Fair)
... we meet Boardwalk Empire’s Disgusting Fellow No. 2, Mickey Doyle, over at the morgue, which serves as a front for a distillery. But first Scorsese gives us an overhead shot of a naked woman’s cadaver, its full bush perhaps a rejoinder to our own waxed era. The purpose of his having broken out the big cinematic guns here, with the overhead shot, we are soon given to learn, is to inform us that the fellow running the place, the aforementioned Mickey, is a pervert. It seems he sets aside the more attractive corpses for his own use. This man seemingly has no place among even the low-lifes who will be populating this crime story. And by the end of the episode, wouldn’t you know it, Hans the abusive husband is killed, and Mickey the pervert undertaker is busted by the Feds.
The only part of that I saw was the giant shrubbery. I didn't get that he was doing cadavers.
Disgusting fellow No. 1 of course was the guy beating his wife. Not that he's MORE disgusting, it's just that we encounter him first. And of course the wife's pregnant which adds bonus disgusting points.
More after the jump.
Continue reading "Video -- I Got Lost On HBO's Boardwalk ..., Did You?" »
I'd love to tell you something about HBO's new series Boardwalk Empire that you don't know, but I can't. I don't rate with the cable channel, they only send me screeners when it's a gay-themed documentary or a stand up comic that I write about with vigor.
I even reminded the HBO powers that be that I was more than likely the only TV writer working either for an established publication or independently that went to high school with the star of this series, Steve Buscemi. Didn't help.
So I don't know much more than you do, it's about the Atlantic City of the prohibition era, Buscemi and his buggy eyes and skewed smile plays Nucky Thompson who runs the joint, there's lots of period costumes and flapper music and guns and alcohol being smuggled hither and yon, and at least from the preview special that HBO's been running (on what seems like an endless loop) it seems they felt compelled to shoot the whole thing through light brown gauze.
Watch that preview in a clip after the jump, btw. Finish reading this first, of course.
So, to the question in the headline ... whaddaya think? Seems to me HBO spends a lot of money (their money, their choice) on quality programming that not a whole lot of people watch.
Like Treme, which for all its pedigree didn't manage to rise to a noteworthy level in our pop culture zeitgeist, this show looks like a very well-produced hour that ... well, I don't know about you but I'm not really enthused about.
And this Boardwalk Empire? Certainly Martin Scorsese is one of the most accomplished makers of filmed entertainment we've produced in this country but is he what one would call a producer of populist entertainment?
Indiewire calculated the grosses of Scorsese's top ten films released in North America and they are:
1. The Departed (2006) $132,384,315
2. The Aviator (2004) $102,610,330
3. Cape Fear (1991) $79,091,969
4. Gangs of New York (2002) $77,812,000
5. The Color of Money (1986) $52,293,982
6. Goodfellas (1990) $46,836,394
7. Shutter Island (2010) $41,062,440
8. Casino (1995) $42,512,375
9. The Age of Innocence (1993) $32,255,440
10. Taxi Driver (1977) $28,262,574
All solid motion pictures, many Oscar given to people involved. Only two broke the $100 million mark.
The point I'm making? If HBO wants to combat the drop in subscriptions and the oncoming storm from Showtime and even Starz (go Torchwood!) they gotta go populist while they continue to work with industry elites to win Emmys and critical acclaim.
More True Blood, less John Adams. More Eastbound & Down (a series that's a bit too lowbrow for me but plays for the mainstream male demo) and less Bored to Death.
Though I'm totally in on Mildred Pierce, another period drama (5-part miniseries, image above left) for the channel scheduled for 2011. Though I will admit my primary exposure to the material was via Carol Burnett.
But Kate Winslet and Evan Rachel Wood in this story? That I'll watch.
And I'll check out Boardwalk Empire, too. I go into it, however, hesitantly.
I watched five episodes of True Blood over the last two days just so that I could watch the season finale with everyone else. It's actually a great way to consume a series but for someone who cruises the web for TV show info and pics and HATES SPOILERS* it's fraught will peril.
* Because if they people who write and produce and act on the show wanted you to know what happened ahead of time they would call you first, and they don't. Well they don't call me, anyway. They don't call you, do they?
So just a few non-spoilery (because you might be behind also) remarks from me about four of my season favorites and this spoilery preview (LINK) of the finale.
My faves, btw, do not include Bill or Sookie or Eric.
And this other clip from tomorrow's episode (LINK) where it seems Tara might be finding out about Sam's shifty ways. Okay, and this one, too (LINK) which features good ol' Hoyt.
Preview clips are spoilery by nature. Watch at your own peril.
Also, there are a couple of live chats scheduled for viewers on both coasts, and I have a clip as well as a link to explain how that will all work
And the rest is after the jump.
Oh, and there's the one image.
DAMN! I know! Hey, I see it, I bring it, you eat it up.
And this first clip (LINK), it's ... well ... oh, just watch it.
Second clip is some Sookie and Alcide (in a wifebeater, because I know you love it) ... imagine the core development a baby made by these two could have, that kid would come out the womb doing crunches (LINK).
Finally, this third clip sets the stage for a smackdown between Tommy (now calling himself Tommy Merlotte ... "this is my family's establishment") and Hoyt (LINK) over a certain red-haired babyvamp temptress who has a blog you can read at this link and a videoblog entry featuring her ladyvamp mentor Pam (love Pam, she's such a drag queen with a vagina) that you can watch right here by clicking this link.
About jewelry, per Pam, stick with gold, white gold if you miss wearing silver.
Sunday at 9 eastern on HBO. As if I had to tell you.
Check your listings, especially you people on the East Coast because the show's first run on your local station may be over by now ... you'll have to check out the BET replay later on, a check their listings for that.
And, have a taste of True Blood werewolf hottie Joe making his talk show debut (Mmmmm, very very tasty) in the clip from today's show by clicking this link.
And, finally, don't say anything about last night's episode in the comments, I haven't watched it yet.I'm kvelling. I love this man. And it's a David Milch script directed by Michael Mann. For TV. Okay, it's pay TV but it's still TV.
HBO Press Release:
HBO has picked up the new drama series LUCK, it was announced today by Michael Lombardo, president, HBO Programming. LUCK is a provocative look at horse racing – the owners, gamblers, jockeys and diverse gaming industry players. LUCK begins shooting this fall at Santa Anita Park and other Los Angeles locations.“Michael Mann delivered a pilot from David Milch’s brilliant script that took our breath away,” notes Lombardo. “We are truly excited that these two artists, and our extraordinary cast headed by Dustin Hoffman, will be bringing LUCK to life.”
The cast for the pilot stars Dustin Hoffman, Dennis Farina, John Ortiz, Kevin Dunn, Richard Kind, Jason Gedrick, Ritchie Coster, Ian Hart, Tom Payne, Kerry Condon, Gary Stevens and Nick Nolte. Jill Hennessy guest stars.
Pilot credits: executive producers, David Milch, Michael Mann and Carolyn Strauss; co-executive producer, Henry Bronchtein; producer, Dustin Hoffman; written by David Milch; directed by Michael Mann.
And, great cast, too. I think Jill Hennessey should recur, I like her being around. I just like her (so much more than other former L&O asst. DAs ... yeah, I'm talkin' about you Angie Harmon).
Richard Kind. I love Richard Kind!
Santa Anita is beautiful, but might I just mention to whoever might be listening that Del Mar (about four exits away from me on the 5 Fwy) is even more stunning a location for a show.
All that Pacific Ocean in the background? Gorgeous.
And, maybe I could get a set visit? As long as the ponies aren't running I'm allowed to visit the track.
Watch this short clip (LINK) for explanation.
Just saw Dennis Farina in That Old Feeling with Bette (don't you frickin' dare ask me which Bette) and I forgot how much he reminds me of home (meaning New York).
... you know ... big penises.
Don't shoot the messenger, I didn't take a role as a pimp to a endowed Detroit gym coach AND then visit her friend Craig (who claims to be same, in fact he's doing so in the image above!) on his talk show to talk about what sounded suspiciously like a date (right?) and then continue to talk about penises.
Still it was fun to watch. Click here for it.
First off, I love Deborah Ann Woll. Gorgeous, smart, works the laugh every time she gets the opportunity ... what's not to love?
And Jessica is a favorite of mine in a show full of amazing characters. So, when I clicked from the True Blood HBO site to this blog called Babyvamp-Jessica.com I, I ... well, I kvelled.
Firstly, I want to thank all of you who offered me your blood. Users sohn and v'''v-Michael-v'''v, THOMAS H and Mert, maybe there were others too. Y'all are just the nicest! But I think maybe, for a little while, I need to hold off on feedin' from humans.
Ha!
It's a great blog, so good I wonder who's writing it (though I also kind of don't wanna know) with text and clips of Jessica sharing her feelings about Bill being gone and how she knows nothing about being a vamp and ... well, you can see a couple of those clips by clicking this and this.
I know, it's just like lonelygirl15 only so much better and she talks about things you care about because you watch the show.
More on Woll this week in the casting news arena, Collider.com says she's being considered for a big role in the Paul Thomas Anderson movie that's ostensibly about the Church of Scientology and has no title at this time, up against Amanda Seyfried and Emma Stone. It would be her most notable project to date.
At IMDb she has two films up before that, one called Highland Park with former co-star Michelle Forbes and another film that I won't publicize because allegedly the prod company (Mind in Motion Entertainment, their website has only a splash page up at present) left Detroit, where they were shooting the thing, without paying vendors and extras. Very shitty move, especially in Detroit where unemployment is rampant.
My favorite scene from last night's episode? The scene that included this image of James Frain's vamp Franklin Mott and Jessica's kill from two weeks ago (image above left).
Things are gettin' wicked again in Bon Temps.
Fortunately.
First of all, why would Sookie wear white to a werewolf bar? Is she incapable of dressing appropriately for anything?
(BTW if you really liked her top, apparently someone at Yahoo! Answers has found something like it at Forever 21, click this link for that.)
Okay, having said that I had to laugh while watching True Blood last night while Alcide (YOWZA!) and Sook were at the Lone Wolf, because the place looks a lot like a San Diego gay bar called Wolf's (their website is currently down but here's a still of their entrance to the left here, the entrance to the Lone Wolf is pictured at the top of the post).
But even the inside of the bar is very close to how this place looks inside. And actually the clientele matches up, too. Especially on weekend nights.
All right, which set designer from the show has been coming down here on the weekends to play, huh?
I know it's someone on the show.
Anyhow, I'm still recovering from all the twisted sex from last night's episode. I'm experiencing sympathetic neck pain.
Behind every Michigan high school teacher/coach with an enormous penis trading sex for a little side money is ... well, in the image above it's a scheming raven-haired life coach ... and below left a harried flighty poet.
That's a little peek into the second season of HBO's Hung, which returns tonight after a new episode of True Blood at 10 eastern on the pay cable network.
That's just the beginning of what to expect, though. Yes, Lenore (Rebecca Creskoff) is back getting in the way of Jane Adams' Tanya as she tries to shepherd Ray (Tom Jane) through the maze of unsatisfied local matrons who are looking for something big to happen to them.
You remember Lenore from last season, she was the woman Tanya knew from her temp job that got Ray Drecker his first client while grabbing a freebie for herself and then just making Tanya's life miserable (okay, more miserable than Tanya makes her life for herself).
Tanya, however, will make a stand. She brings in a consult from a guy who seems to know his stuff in the pimp-ho relationship business. And, fortunately for you and me, it's Lennie James from CBS' Jericho and AMC's The Prisoner reboot that gets the call for this role.
Christopher Lawrence from the Las Vegas Journal-Review:
This season, with his school's budget slashed -- there's enough money to bus the kids to away games, but not enough to drive them home, which doesn't even make sense, but whatever -- Ray begins subsidizing the baseball team with his earnings in the sex trade.
But that's just one of several things in "Hung" that don't ring true, making the series both phallus-y and fallacy.
"How the hell can he do just women?" a seasoned pimp played by the sadly underused Lennie James asks Ray's poet-turned-"manager" (Jane Adams). "That is not where the money's at." And, somewhere, Nye County's former prostidude ruefully nods in acknowledgement.
Yeah, about that ... I just don't think we'll ever see Ray take on a male client ... in Detroit ... on an HBO show. Maybe Showtime or Starz, but not HBO.
Of course I do challenge the forces of power at HBO and Time Warner to prove me wrong.
Watch three clips from the HBO website including a season one recap and previews by clicking this link .
More after the jumperoo.
Continue reading "Clip Bonanza -- Still Packing, @HBO's Hung Returns Tonight at 10" »
I watched GasLand today just after watching last night's Daily Show with this interview (LINK) of director Josh Fox. Really powerful stuff. Frack, these people signing leases with these companies to let them drill for natural gas on their property are really really getting fracked. By fracking. Or rather a process called Hydraulic Fracturing, which you can learn about by clicking this link.
Watch the full trailer for the documentary by clicking this link.
More information can be found at Enviroblog.org, and a roundup of those people who are running the smear campaign against the film from the natural gas industry can be found at this Huffington Post link.
Live chat with the director and a rep from thge Environmental Working Group (EWG) at this link.
You could be watching this right now, it's on HBO on Demand, it starts at your pleasure if you have cable. It's also running on various HBO channels until the end of the month for those of you who have a dish.
You gotta see this, especially if you're someone contemplating going in with this deal.
HBO site for the doc at this link.
Two clips. One by clicking this. Another by clicking this.
Jason, once again on the loose and ready for anything, and he'd better be, that damn town where he lives holds more secrets for season three, June 13, HBO, 9 eastern.
Damn.
And as I said previously ... damn!
And, just for good measure ... damn, again.
Dear Alan Ball, thanks for the great casting.
I'm not sure why I watch this show and honestly I've fallen asleep during it twice, but I like the animation and I enjoy Karl and I attempt to continue to stay awake through each time and I sometimes fail.
Am I conditioned to watch anything Gervais does because I'm told he's a genius all the time? Maybe. I did like Ghost Town, though, and of course Extras, especially the Christmas Special.
I just can't stand The Office. What's wrong with me? I can't stand the original and the US version makes me squirm even more. I'm supposed to like the show, I realize that, but it just isn't happening.
Here's a clip from this coming Saturday's show, 9 eastern, HBO (LINK)
Thanks to MikeAlvear.com, where I stole this image above, a still from the clip.
Yes, he's licking blood off his fingers ... you know, just like KFC.
Tasty.
The clip's right here, click this link.
Previously, we wrote about Skarsgard's role in Zoolander and whether his "evil twin" would return for the sequel now being discussed. No word on that, yet. We can hope, right?
True Blood returns on June 13.
Hey, you guys do understand that about the hashtags in the headline and how Twitter uses them, right? Okay.
This, from the Guardian in the UK:
Kate Winslet and her film director husband Sam Mendes have separated after nearly seven years of marriage, their lawyer announced today.
Keith Schilling of legal firm Schillings, said: "Kate and Sam are saddened to announce that they separated earlier this year. The split is entirely amicable and is by mutual agreement. Both parties are fully committed to the future joint parenting of their children."
He added: "They ask that the media respect the privacy of the family."
Man, I wish I would have copyrighted the phrase "respect the privacy of the family," I'd be rich by now.
And to Kate, btw, a guy named Clayton commenting at Entertainment Weekly just called "dibs" on you. Yeah, Clayton, it's not like riding shotgun in your buddy's car, you don't have a chance.
They lasted seven years. Had a kid between them and Kate has another from her first marriage.
Okay, now about Mildred Pierce on HBO, I say you might as well give her the Emmy statue now. Just do it, hand it to her before she even starts shooting the miniseries and get it done with, because it will be amazing.
For those of you who have no recollection of the film or the James Cain novel, you can learn more about the story at this link or this one. But you really should know about Mildred Pierce, even if you only know of it through the great parody of the movie that the cast of The Carol Burnett Show did back in the day.
The movie was nominated for six Oscars including best picture, best actress (Joan Crawford, who won the award), Ann Blyth (the daughter) and Eve Arden got supporting actress noms.
The HBO cast includes Guy Pearce and will have Evan Rachel Wood in the Blyth role, which should be spectacular.
Might as well give her an Emmy right now, too. It's a juicy role and she loves the juice.
Yes, I have a clip, but I have to warn you about spoilers. Still, it's an historical drama so I guess there are spoilers all over the place, maybe even in ... your own mind.
Shudder at the thought, I know. Here's the clip, AYOR.
Many of us haven't seen David in something this serious. Sure, he ran the gammut of emotions as the Doctor, but usually that gammut was run in a flash. This is serious stuff.
Few men have ever been catapulted to global superstardom with such suddenness as Albert Einstein. One moment, he was a professor in Berlin, known among his peers but pursuing ideas about the nature of gravity that were understood by only a handful; the next, he was the most famous scientist in the world, perhaps the most famous man in the world.
For this, he owed the discipleship of Arthur Eddington, the first and most loyal supporter of his General Theory of Relativity. The paradox is that before Einstein’s overnight introduction to fame in 1919, the two men had never met and were in many respects polar opposites: Einstein was a non-believer, a bohemian with an eye for the ladies; Eddington was a straitlaced Quaker who lived with his sister and constantly struggled to square science and God. One was a dreamer of genius; the other an experimentalist devoted to careful measurement and empirical truth.
The TV film was co-produced by Company Pictures and HBO Worldwide for BBC2 (transmitted in 2008). It premieres on March 23rd at 9 pm and then, as is there way, reairs throughout the end of March on HBO Signature.
From the team that brings you Entourage comes this story that's decidedly East Coast (as opposed to West) decidedly less glamorous (Vinnie and crew don't do manual labor) with decidedly better looking men.
I know I'll catch hell for that, but I just don't get the attraction to Adrian Grenier. Never have, never will. Bryan Greenberg ont he other hand ... Mmmmm.
And, you can watch it at TV.com by clicking here and being transported to their site.
I can't tell you much about it first hand, but their site at the all-new HBO.com will have as much info as they want you to have, and if you don't find something there to suit your fancy there's already an indie blog devoted just to this new show, at this link.
This Sunday at 10 eastern on HBO.
UPDATE: I was just reading this online at the Times of London from Caitlin Moran and it really sums it up for me ...
In the18 years I’ve been going to the festival I have never seen an act arrive there so magnificently or so confidently impose its own agenda — sex, neurosis, fetish, heels, clubbing, fashion — on such an ostensibly unpromising setting. Just to remind you — there is a field of cows some 800 yards to our right. The principal exports of this location are hay and cheese. And yet Gaga is making Glastonbury feel like a club in New York at 3am. You can practically hear the sirens outside and taste the amyl nitrate. I start to worry about the possibility of getting a cab back over the bridge, to Brooklyn.
Exactly!!!
True story ... I was sitting watching whatever yesterday when a promo for the Grammys came on and I thought to myself, "I wonder what Gaga has in store for us?"
(I know, I know, she says, "Don't call me Gaga," but I think that's just for the guy who ate her heart in the song Monster. After all, she let Oprah call her Gaga, she let Toure at Fuse call her Gaga, I think she'd be okay if I did.)
I have never had a thought like that about a musical performance before, not about Madonna, not about Cher, not about (fill in name of gay icon).
Gaga makes me think about what she'll do, not just what song she'll do.
But I do hope she does Monster, I love the lyrics:
We French-kissed on a subway train
He tore my clothes right off
He ate my heart and then he ate my brain
And I love the kind of disco calliope sound it has. Really chugs along, and it's not a high bpm track which makes dancing on your ass while driving easier.
No video for the song yet, I'm hoping for a somewhat literal translation of the song with a subway platform and New York City on a Summer night after the rain has cleared the streets ... that's what the song makes me think of, the Sundays evenings walking back from The Eagle or The Spike or The Ramrod after a rain to my place on 15th St.
I don't mean the Gaga Grammys in terms of number of awards won but in terms of impact. She has to be the hottest act on tour right now and the show, from what I've seen online is fantastic.
Please HBO, please shoot the last stop of the European tour for broadcast, please! Because some of us older gays don't have anyone to go to concerts with.
Grammys start at 8 eastern on Sunday on CBS.
Do you know what's running on HBO right now?
And I'm not talking about HBO2 or HBO Zone or any of the other subsequent HBO channels that populate my channel grid. I'm talking the big major HBO "no number, no nickname" channel.
They're running the 1994 Fox TV movie Madonna: Innocence Lost.
It has no Madonna songs in it. It stars an actress who also played the singer in a Dennis Rodman TV movie. She doesn't even look like Madonna, how did she get these gigs?
It's so awful it's one of those movies that some YouTube user posted on the site in 10 parts and no one has cared enough to file a copyright claim.
Watch one of those parts at this link.
On HBO right now. Which I pay for. Sad.
You see, they're un-action figures because they have no lower thighs or calves or feet. No feet? How do they walk?
They don't.
And c'mon, 70 bucks for a figure smaller than seven inches that you can do little more than sit on a shelf somewhere and admire?
Don't think so.
Plus, I think Eric's shoulders are a bit large for the rest of him. Not that I don't like big deltoids but "symmetry people, symmetry!"
You can also get a Merlotte's neon sign ... for 20 dollars more ... it's 16 inches wide.
And then there's the neon, of course.
Yeah, I'll pass. But not on the show, it comes back this Summer. Catch a little teaser from HBO's YouTube account by clicking here.
Never seen Big Love before? Maybe you just upgraded to HBO recently and haven't had the chance to check out the previous eps at HBO on Demand or just don't have the time right now to sit for three years worth of shows.
It's okay, you can get somewhat caught up in five minutes time just by watching this clip (LINK).
Don't have time for that? I didn't watch the clip before I sat down last night to check out the first two episodes of this fourth season and I could still follow what was going on (and there's a lot, A LOT, going on) so I think it would be perfectly suitable for you to wade in at this point.
There's a lot happening ... the Henricksons are opening a family-friendly (read: Mormon) casino, Nicki's daughter is hiding from her Dad (Zeljko Ivanek, who always seems to show up on interesting shows playng intense characters), the Feds are looking for Roman Grant (Harry Dean Stanton) ...
... wait a minute, Mormons opening a casino? For other Mormons? Really?
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is opposed to gambling, including lotteries sponsored by governments. Church leaders have encouraged Church members to join with others in opposing the legalization and government sponsorship of any form of gambling.
I think this storyline is supposed to demonstrate a higher force at play in directing Bill Henrickson's life than law or the scripture of the church being sculpted by outside forces like government ... maybe. I guess.
Possibly?
More after the jumperoo, including more teaser clips for tonight's premiere.
And he has a social conscience too? See above and also click to the Until There's a Cure website, if for no other reason than the hot guy above wants you to.
True Blood continues to be HBO's (and television in general's) most spankworthy show with the addition of this guy, Joe Mangianello, cast this week as Alcide the werewolf.
It's not JUST spankworthy, but it certainly is spankworthy besides being the highest rated and most engaging and compelling HBO series since The Sopranos.
Whaddaya gonna do now, Taylor Lautner? Huh? You're just a punk kid next to this guy. Dude is hot, and he shaves.
Damn, damn, damn ... Alan Ball and his casting execs have great taste.
TV.com's Richard Lawson gets all snarky about it at this link, including, "That name sort of sounds like a cleaning product, doesn't it? "When you can't get the smell of werewolf pee out of your carpet: Alcide."
Yeah, yeah, whatever. Richard, did you see this pic on the right here from the 'net?
Damn!
I can't be said enough.
He's from the Pittsburgh area, he's currently 32 (December 28th birthday) and you've seen him in everything from the Spiderman movies to ER to How I Met Your Mother as Marshall's old law school buddy to One Tree Hill.
He's straight (but who cares, we're just gonna look at him, at my age he could do better, much better, if he were gay), attended Carnegie-Mellon as a drama major ...
(That photo ... DAMN!)
Oh, and you can read more about him in the interview he did with the site Hunk Du Jour, at this link.
More, including some spoilers (beware) and a mini-photo gallery, after the jump.
Oh, and here's his demo reel from ReelAccess.com.
The first time I saw Wanda Sykes was in a VH1 Stand Up Spotlight episode in the late 80s, long before VH1 found the winning formula for the skankiest dating shows the world would ever see. Then, the next time I saw her, it was a standup special on Comedy Central was in 1998 when she was Wanda Sykes Hall, because she was married at the time to David Hall.
The marriage was over for her the same year. No more "Hall," just Wanda Sykes.
Now, Wanda Sykes is more herself than ever in her new HBO special I'ma Be Me. She's remarried to a woman (they are two of the fortunate Californians who jumped at the offer early as most of the rest of us didn't think there was a sunset date on full civil rights for all Americans), they have twins and Wanda talks about it all tonight at 10 eastern.
The special was recorded at the Warner Theatre in DC. The last time Wanda was in DC with a big gig was the White House Correspondents Dinner this past year which she'll talk about a bit tonight. Karl Rove called her performance there nasty, vicious, mean and ugly.
I think he was just looking in a mirror myself, but then I agree with her. Rush Limbaugh should get kidney failure and die. I would dance on his grave, in fact.
Funny thing is I wouldn't be alone, I can name 50 people from my personal life in about two minutes who would carry me, a sizeable man, on their backs to do that dance from anywhere in the country. In fact, it's the only time I am permitted by California law to dance.
That's how not pretty it is.
(Just 'cause he has a radio show and friends who can get on Fox News to spout off about his enemies doesn't mean he shouldn't die of kidney failure ... though I imagine it would be easier to protest if he weren't a fat fuck with a radio show who took so much OxyContin that he endangered those kidneys and rendered himself deaf.)
So if the reviews are such from Karl Rove, don't you think you should see her? Watch two clips after the jump (including some interview footage), watch the show tonight at 10 eastern, watch it again on HBO on Demand starting tomorrow and then buy the DVD when it comes out.
Because doing so just might prevent another fat fuck who lies on the radio for a living from destroying his body and ruining his hearing.
It's up to you, America. You never know when Mark Levin might discover pudding and hillbilly heroin.
The third clip is from the White House Correspondents Dinner. Eat it up, gang.
Ironically, Wanda's next project is a late night show, at Fox (not the news channel but their more creative, free thinking brother in the entertainment division that's unencumbered by ideology).
The weekly talk show will start Saturday, November 7 at 11 eastern. More on that at this Fox.com link.
Continue reading "Clip Bonanza -- Tonight on HBO, Wanda Sykes is More "Wanda Sykes" Than Ever" »
He was on his way to the Zurich Film Festival where he was to receive an award and a tribute to his career was to take place.
The festival directors have received this news with great consternation and shock. They have decided that the "A Tribute to ... Roman Polanski" night will take place as planned.
It was 31 years ago when Polanski was convicted in abstentia of luring a 13-year-old girl back to the home of Jack Nicholson and engaging in sexual acts with her.
The events surrounding the arrest and trial of Polanski on these charges were detailed in the HBO documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired. It one two primetime Emmys this month, for writing and direction.
Trailer and interview with director Marina Zenovich after the jump.
I was not one of those disaffected, alienated teenage boys who found solace in Depeche Mode when I was younger.
Not that I claim to have superior taste in music. I'm quite sure my taste is shit, or at least what a majority of my contemporaries would say borders on elevator music. In the 90s I was big into movie soundtracks from Dave Grusin and James Newton Howard and ... I remember buying the Marky Mark album at some point and I was big into C & C Music Factory.
Sad, huh?
Then again, in prep for Saturday nights out on the prowl at local bars I would listen to the Long Beach metal station KNAC while looking for parking near the Silver Lake leather/levi bars.
I couldn't hum a Depeche Mode song for you if you offered up Alex Skarsgard as a reward. Still, watch the video after the jump and it may quench some of that "thirst" you have before Sunday's finale.
It's after the jump.
Continue reading "Depeche Mode/True Blood Music Video -- Season Finale Sunday at 9" »
So, what are you doing? Still laughing at Marc Malkin's blog post at E! asking where he dares to write the names Ryan Kwanten and Jon Gosselin in the same sentence?
(Marc, it's like comparing bread dough to sculpture, off-label to top
shelf, Yugo to Maserati. Kwanten: UPGRADE! And of course Ryan, left, deserves
an underwear modeling campaign, or he and I could work something out privately without you and the rest of the world that just involves bedding and maybe those restraints.)
Are you watching the Lady Gaga video featuring Alexander Skarsgard (above) again?
Checking out the NY Times article on the upcoming series Durham County on ION that features Michelle Forbes starting episode seven as a whacked out forensic psychologist with murder on her mind?
The only thing I can tell you for sure is that if you click this link you'll find out more about Eggs' (Mehcad Brooks, right) destiny than you might want to, damned if I didn't just ruin another plot point writing this damn blog.
Recap and preview clips from HBO after the jump. The second season ends next Sunday at 9.
All the abs in this post? Well, it's almost Labor Day and all those crunches must be laborious.
I know, the video for Paparazzi is almost three months old, but I'm not part of the pop music zeitgeist, I'm a True Blood fan.
MTV:
The 1940s romantic-epic-style video, directed by controversial video auteur Jonas Äkerlund (Madonna, Prodigy), proves once and for all that Gaga is a true original with a unique vision. It opens with the camera focusing on what appears to be an elegant seaside estate surrounded by roses and Greek statues. Seagulls cry in the background amid tinkling piano notes.
And then things get really weird.
Really weird indeed. Skarsgard plays a lothario who seems intent on getting ingenue Gaga on the balcony and in front of the prying mechanical eyes of the paps, someone goes over the rail and then there's a lot of dancing around an ambulance, dancing on crutches, writhing around on lovely antique settees while singing ... and then?
Muhr-dehr!
After the jumperoo, watch the clip and tonight's True Blood preview.
In that clip, Tara starts making plans to retrieve her man Eggs from the clutches of Maryann, but I would bet you any amount of money that's not gonna go well.
And, though she's in the "next week on" trailer that ran last week after the episode, I betcha we see just enough of Queen Sophie-Ann (left, see the fangs?) to get us excited, but not much more.
Still, the way I see it, the residents of Bon Temps might just be exchanging the devil they know for the devil they don't.
I mean, Maryann has skills, but this one's a Queen. Queen beats Maenad, right? Anyone? Card Players? Bueller?
Only two episodes left, and no episode next week for the Labor Day holiday. Which means you have time to watch tonight's ep twice and prepare for the quiz tomorrow.
Tonight at 9, just before a new episode of Hung. HBO.
And there's so much more in this post, including this image above from the Fangtasia 2009 calendar that I know you're just drooling over.
Speaking of Eric, Mandi Bierly wrote her love/lurve/lust letter to the owner of Fangtasia and all around hottie Eric at Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch blog Monday at this link.
Wipe up your computer keyboard before it craps out on you. We're still in a recession, take care of your stuff.
This image comes to my via the wonderful Liz in Albuquerque, who seems to love everything I love. Like Eric Northam. She got it from the True Blood wiki, and you can find more than the January page at this link.
The Alan Ball fan questions clip is at TV.com, at this link. Some nice insight by the creator of the series and no spoilers.
Next, I have a photo feature with interview with Ryan Kwanten, everyone's favorite Bon Temps boytoy Jason Stackhouse, at this link. It includes:
About those ratings ... when you read where last week's episode garnered an audience of 4.5 million viewers remember that HBO has only 30 million subscribers nationwide, so it starts behind the broadcast networks. Even at that it's a huge success for the pay cable channel, the biggest show they've had since The Sopranos went off the air.
And those numbers are climbing every week (LINK). Not only that but the season one DVD sets in standard and Blu-Ray continue to outperform all expectations.
Speaking of which ...
Click over the jump for the recap of Sunday's episode, a preview from this Sunday, and more of me kvelling over how much I love this show.
Continue reading "TV.com Readers Have Their Way With True Blood Creator Alan Ball" »
Sookie who?
Seriously, all of a sudden True Blood is all about Maryann, Jessica and Godric. Especially Maryann, and for me that's all Michelle Forbes.
More on her later, but first Godric. Relax, I'll get to Jessica in a bit, I love her too. And I put Maryann at the end on purpose. Because no one can follow Maryann.
There are more clips attached to this post than any post I've written in the three years I've been blogging. They're all great clips, all after the jump and have at it, gang.
GODRIC
Allan Hyde is all of 20 years old yet he brings a lot of gravitas to his portrayal of Eric's "maker." He's a Danish actor, this being his first gig in the US, and maybe it's a certain detachment that feeds the resignation he brings to the character.
(And maybe that has something to do with this being his first English-language role as well.)
The discussion with Eric about human-vampire relations said a lot about how the older vampire looks at the world after all these immortal years. There was a great sadness about him. And out of a 20-year-old? Remarkable.
And, this is certainly a much more adult role than he got in the Danish remake of Camp Rock. Yes, there's a Danish version of Camp Rock. Sad but true.
More about Hyde from TrueBlood-Online.com at this link. I don't know how much more we'll get of him on the show, what with Luke from the Fellowship about to set off his suicide vest inside "the nest," but I would hope we'll see him more. If not in this in other projects.
Now click over the jump for not only a bunch of clips, but more on the new women of Bon Temps.
So, what's up with this Jemma woman? Because she scares me a little. This could go very well or horribly wrong, horribly "I have a can of lighter fluid and a match" wrong.
Difference between your usual "John" and this woman? This woman wants it to be "real." No, I'm not even sure what "real" (in quotes) means.
When Jemma made that call to Tanya on the beach and then Tanya had to call Ray (just before the image above) I immediately thought to myself, "This is going to take a sour turn, a very sour turn." I'm not sure when it will happen, but I'm pretty sure it will and it's keeping me engaged.
(The other big event on the horizon I think will be Ray's son Damon revealing his secret. I think. I'm ... not sure. But, I do know that overweight high school gays are close with their sisters and have issues with their sisters' ex-boyfriends for all kinds of reasons, but sometime for one specific reason I won't reveal. Yet. How do I know? Stop prying.)
Of course, as usual, we can all stipulate that Natalie Zea as Jemma is fabulous and we would watch her read the phone book? Jemma's a hot hot mess with cash to spare and I hope some time as well, she'll be interesting to watch.
After the jump, another chapter in Tanya's video diary. As you'll remember Tanya's not thrilled that her role as procurer isn't being taken seriously at the end of the episode. Of course, I'm not sure that anyone could figure out what their role was at the end: Ray's at Jemma's home, Jemma just wants to hear someone say he loves her (even if she has to pay for it) and Tanya's rocked by Floyd's defensiveness after a perceived slight from her.
And that's why I think she breaks out the Emily Dickinson.
Should be interesting to see what measures Tanya's willing to take to regain control of the situation. Find out Sunday at 10 on HBO.
Continue reading "HBO Hung Video -- About Ray's Damsel in Distress" »
Tonight at midnight (earlier for you on the west coast who enjoy the benefits of the HBO east coast feed) there's a very sobering documentary about the life, bipolar illness and eventual death by suicide of a young New Yorker named Evan Perry.
(The film premieres tonight but you can catch airings of it throughout the month at HBO, schedule link here, and I imagine HBO on Demand as well, after tonight's first run.)
Certainly there are young people in cities and towns all over the country and world who suffer from bipolar illness. The difference in telling Evan's story tonight in the Sundance Festival documenatary Boy Interrupted is that his parents, Hart & Dana Perry, are documentary filmmakers who turned their cameras toward themselves in what turns out to be a very compelling and painfully personal film that talks to the issues of identifying the illness, getting treatment, family dynamics, genetic predisposition to the disease and most notably a mother's painful recognition that her ability to protect her child sometimes just isn't enough.
There's a lot of the latter. I'm not gonna try to fool you into thinking this is an easy film to watch, but I believe that for a lot of people it has much to say and share not just about depression but about a parent's hopes for their child and facing the realization that you have just so much control over some very important parts of the process of raising them.
One of the issues that gnawed at me while watching was that the majority of parents in this country to come close to having the resources financial, educational and otherwise that the Perrys have and how difficult it must be for other parents. Evan goes from public school to a private residential treatment center that does accept some insurance reimbursement, but for a lot of families that totally out of the question, especially in those homes that have no health insurance at all.
It reminds us once again that we need to stipulate that every single person's physical and mental well being is a matter of interest to all of us and we need to treat it as a priority. To not do so makes us weaker as a society.
It's tonight at midnight eastern on HBO. I'm not particularly adept writing about such a serious topic and my not being a parent doesn't serve me well in this case but I'm glad that I watched this film and I think whether or not you're a parent or someone who has a family member with bipolar disease you should see this.
Watch two clips after the jump, including first the trailer from HBO and then an interview that the Wall Street Journal online did with Dana Perry before the Sundance Festival this past January.
Continue reading "2 Clips -- HBO Premiere: Sundance Documentary Boy Interrupted Tonight" »
If you're a fan of Hung, you should check out the Tanya's Diary segments at HBO.com or at YouTube (but watch 'em at the HBO site and then check out their collection of Hung products, which is not much more right now than t-shirts, mugs and computer mousepads, but ...
... at this link you can send them your suggestions for products for the show. And if you do, I would certainly hope that you share your ideas here, in the comment section, after the jump where the clips will be.
Be creative. Be extra creative.
So, last I checked in with Powell Weaver, our on-set insider, currently serving as producer Collete Burson and Dmitry Lipkin's assistant, I asked him if they interviewed women who had hired male prostitutes during the research phase.
"We tried so hard to find women to interview, but as you can imagine they're not everywhere," he said, "or if they are, they don't talk about it. The writers pretty much wrote the most interesting characters and scenarios possible, aiming to keep things grounded in reality given the outrageous premise."
So, I'm offering right now to be the conduit between the producers and any women who would like to talk to the show through my blog about their experiences in the, ahem, acquisition of happiness by means of, well, getting off.
It's another great reason to use the comments section.
I know there's someone out there that maybe called someone on a dare -- you can tell Uncle Joe and a bunch of people who watch TV your story, it'll stay just between us. And everyone else with an assumed name attached.
Last week Ray had his first actual paying client, Molly (pictured left), a perfectly nice woman who needed some happiness and had the money. Ray just figured out that being a happiness consultant isn't about HIS happiness. Thus, the venting from Tanya in the clip after the jump.
And tonight, Tanya has another evening with Floyd her seminar instructor (Steve Hytner) and color her surprised when ...
... well, I can't give it all away. I have a preview clip, it's the second after the jump.
Finally, don't forget to check in at HappinessConsultants.com.
Or just call 1-888-588-HUNG.
Oh, one more thing ... I totally forgot that that fabulous Natalie Zea from Dirty Sexy Money shows up on tonight's episode. Love her.
Yes, I'm still getting over that campfire scene from the end of last week's show.
There's something about Maryann. She's a maenad, you know.
From the blog Loving True Blood in Dallas:
Seems to me that the Maryann character works as an analogue for crystal methamphetamine abuse in the gay community ... rendering it's users with that blank stare and ravenous sexual desire (minus the erection problems of course).
Maryann is an even better form of Tina, hence the name in the headline.
(Or a deadly combination, like meth and an erectile dysfunction drug. That can kill ya, you know. Add some poppers and you're really setting yourself up for trouble, check this link for more on that.)
What really worked in that campfire scene at the end to really disturb me was seeing that Tara and Eggs had fallen under Maryann's spell so quickly and that we see them head on having sex doggie style by the fire, eyes all blacked out, Tara's breasts swinging as she gets entered (pounded, really) from behind ... yes I was very disturbed.
Because it was so emotionless, cold, robotic.
I couldn't even enjoy seeing Mehcad Brooks naked. Oh, btw, there's more of that (you know, him being naked by a fire, mmmmm) in tonight's episode, but there's big trouble for Sam Merlotte after he's been tricked by waitress doe-eyed Daphne the part time pig and gets served up to Maryann, who as we know (because we did our homework) needs an offering.
Sam's that offering.
Meanwhile there's a whole lot going on in Dallas at the vampire hotel, too. Jessica has company from Bon Temps, Sookie's in danger from a lot of different angles and Bill Compton's ex has shown up at Eric's request to see what kind of mess she can make of things.
Watch the scene from season one when Lorena turns Bill, it's the first clip after the jump. The second clip is the trailer for this week's episode. And finally, straight from the HBO account at YouTube is the midseason trailer they made for Comic-Con. Spoilers abound in that clip, so be warned.
Go, watch, it's all after the jump.
Interesting piece this AM from The Wrap, which, if you don't know, is the place that Joe Adalian is supposed to land at after his departure from the now web-only TV Week.
(No, no sign of him yet, but I keep checking for a new link for the blogroll. I'm on it, not to worry.)
Anyhow, in their First Take newsletter they have a link to their analysis of HBO and Showtime's success in a bad economy:
“It’s just a very good time for us,” said Matt Blank, chairman and CEO of Showtime. “Regardless of the cost of subscription cable, consumers see staying home and watching premium channels as a cost-efficient use of their dollars.”
“People are starting to spend their money more wisely, and premium cable is a very good value for the cost,” added Dave Baldwin, executive VP of program planning for HBO. “For the price of taking the family to one movie, you can afford all of HBO.”
According to Daniel Frankel's piece Showtime has added almost 700K subscribers, and segment leader HBO has had a huge success selling True Blood season one on DVD and adding an additional 35K users, not much until you consider they are already the star of the category.
Starz even added almost 400K.
Starz? I know! And no, I don't think it's because of their series version of Crash. Better chance that they found 300,000 fans of Party Down than Crash, which is just so all over the place that you don't know what to make of it.
(And you, Dennis Hopper, exactly what ARE you doing on that show?)
Sure, some of the gains have to do with people looking for more affordable ways to pass the time, and I notice that DVD sales as a whole being down is a boon to pay cable and companies like Netflix. But you can't rule out that people are tiring of the formulaic, and pay cable and to a slightly lesser extent their advertising-supported friends on the dial are the innovators in the marketplace.
And, the relaxed content standards just might be more in tune with the viewing public (if not the general public) than the network fare.
Certainly any HBO series is more compelling than listening to the comedy stylings of a 59-year-old comic in prime time. It would be great to see even the pay cable channels program aggresively against Leno weeknights at 10, it's a timeslot that in my opinion is ripe for the taking, despite all the analysis and trend research NBC has paid for and is throwing at you and me.
Though, as one who reads everything and anything about the show, I have to add a quick, "D'uh." Of course it was, did you see the DVD sales on the season one set?
From their coverage of the True Blood panel at the Con:
Indeed, the "fangbangers" who filled the ballroom were a mix. Women swooned at Alexander Skarsgard, Sam Trammel, and Stephen Moyer, and men cat-called at Anna Paquin, Rutina Wesley, and Deborah Ann Woll. This wrangling of both genders is why True Blood pulls in roughly six million viewers per episode -- gaudy stats for a cable program.
Because of those numbers, it's no surprise that True Blood will be back for season three, as Ball announced at the panel. An official announcement will come soon, but Ball teases a few characters from the books he's excited to tackle in the next season: Russell Edgington and Debbie Pelt, because "she's kind of awesome." There will however be no Bubba, the Elvis vampire, because Ball doesn't think he can recreate a real Elvis feel. He says in the books it's easy to imagine the real Elvis, but on the show he'd have to use an Elvis impersonator... and that's cheap.
(Note to Tim Surette at TV.com, I am quite sure that there were plenty of men at the Con who no doubt did some of their own swooning over Skarsgard, Moyer and Trammel. And women over Paquin, Wesley and Woll. Especially Wesley, I hear.)
Click there for much more, which includes spoilers for next week, which you'll never see here and I can link to only because I don't read the stuff myself.
I actually haven't watched last night's episode yet. Too much time spent watching Comic-Con clips on YouTube, like this clip from the website AlexSkarsgard.net (also Alexander-Skarsgard.com) that I've very conveniently placed after the jump for you.
Men not swooning? Really? Harrumph.
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