Archive for the 'TV' Category

Rob’s Wednesday enemies list

Published by Rob on September 26, 2007 in Bitches, Celebs, Films, Gunts and TV. 1 Comment

katewalshe_caulf_7671685_400.jpgSo it’s come to this: I’m officially just listing people and things that are pissing me off at the moment. Ready? I am. Here goes:

Gen. Peter Pace. Dude, we know that the Lord told you to hate gays. But even you acknowledge that there are “wonderful Americans who happen to be homosexual serving in the military.” So wouldn’t you think that, especially during wartime (or, as it’s apparently known from here on in, “time”), the tactful approach would be to just not mention it for awhile? Let alone in a public forum? Again?

Kate Walsh. In the grand tradition of Sarah Jessica Parker, Debra Messing and Jennifer Aniston, television network executives, the E! channel and In Style have colluded to try to convince the American public that a pleasant enough-looking actress is the epitome of glamor. But while those actresses actually had decent comic timing and the good fortune to star in shows that were at least pretty good for awhile, Walsh evinces all the charisma of that woman who ran over your foot with her jogging stroller at Starbucks yesterday morning. And Private Practice, premiering tonight, has to be DOA. Please.

First Look. This hit-starved independent distributor doesn’t have enough money to release two of its splashy Sundance premieres in theaters, so it’s shunting them off to DVD in February. In the process, it’s providing a big slap in the face to some high-level talent. Smiley Face isn’t just an Anna Faris stoner vehicle (though I admire Ah-na’s moxie in bitching to the press about this), it’s also director Gregg Araki’s follow-up to the excellent Mysterious Skin and co-stars PEN15 Club honorary husbear John Krasinski. An American Crime, meanwhile, stars the awesome Catherine Keener in the true story of a woman who coerced her own children and a neighborhood full of others into torturing an orphaned girl (Ellen Page). I want to see these movies at my local Landmark, dammit!

Thus ends the Wednesday enemies list. Thanks for sharing in the venom!

Joint Chiefs Chairman Peter Pace goes out with a bigoted bang [Towleroad]
Anna Faris isn’t smiling [MTV.com]

How to make TV gayer

Published by Rob on September 25, 2007 in TV. 0 Comments

3884.jpgYou may have heard that
a new GLAAD study shows the number of gay regular characters on network TV is declining, with just 7 spread (tee hee) across all scripted series on the five major networks. (Note that this doesn’t include cable series, reality or any recurring characters, which most TV gays are.)

This is, to say the least, disappointing, especially coming from CBS and the so-called “diverse” CW, which have no gay regulars. It’s also pretty lame that one of the seven is a hot blonde bisexual (Bonnie Somerville) on ABC’s Cashmere Mafia.

Here are our suggestions as to how some other network series can queer up:

1. George Eads and Eric Szmanda star in a limited-run summer spin-off called CSI: Rehoboth.

2 An undercover investigation into the seamy underbelly of an all-girl sex ring leads Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) to find her inner lesbian on SVU. In a very special episode that takes a rare detour into the characters’ personal lives, she gives Stabler’s car a tune-up.

3. Ian Somerhalder joins the ever-expanding cast of Heroes as a new character with an otherworldly ability to put his ankles all the way behind his head. And no gag reflex.

4. Frustrated by the difficulty of dating after 40, Old Christine decides to have a really new adventure. Jane Lynch guest stars.

5. The One Tree Hill characters tend to pair off a lot anyway (on the show and in real life), so it shouldn’t be much of a stretch to get Chad Michael Murray and James Lafferty together for at least half a season.

6. It turns out that NCIS stands for “Nine Cocks in Service.”

7. Ugly Betty discovers that many lesbians actually enjoy a little cushion for the pushin’. She leaves her job at the fashion magazine and becomes an assistant editor at Cat Fancy.


Study: Another straight year for gay characters [Hollywood Reporter]

Emmy ruminations, or “What the fuck did Sally Field say?”

Published by Rob on September 16, 2007 in Celebs and TV. 0 Comments

279ferreraamerica.jpgThe Emmys just ended seconds ago, so I’m gonna rattle off a list of observations:

1.) Did Ryan Seacrest think that pointing out who did Eva Longoria’s hair and wardrobe would make him seem less gay?

2.) Could the FOX product placement have been any more blatant? Having Kelsey “I marry a new blonde every 6 months” Grammer and Patty “Thank you Jesus and Terry Schiavo” Heaton present best comedy was a real low point. Also, the pathetically clumsy “We know about new media and user-generated content!” through-line was laughable - see the clips of best comedy nominees broadcast on iPhones.

3.) I dug the fact that the Roots tribute was notably OJ-free.

4.) James Spader took the Candice Bergen honorary citation for Most Ashamed Winner.

5.) The Ricky Gervais victory was a nice surprise, in that it prevented Tony Shalhoub from having to be as ashamed as Spader.

6.) America Ferrera’s “I’m just a girl with a dream” shtick is getting really old. She’s officially the Hilary Swank of primetime television.

7.) I realize that the networks are terrified of FCC fines, but couldn’t they have found a more elegant way to censor content than the awkward cut to the mirrorball closeup with muted sound? This happened three times: During Ray Romano’s opening bit (if you’re bleeping Ray Romano, you’ve officially reverted to Puritanism), Katherine Heigl’s “Oh shit!” and Sally Field’s bizarre, discursive anti-war (?) diatribe. (We’re assuming it was anti, as she mostly just repeated the word “war,” like, four times.)

8.) Nothing against Jaime Pressly, but Jenna Fischer’s loss is a bizarre miscarriage of justice.

9.) Jeremy Piven’s hairpiece needs to be stopped.

10.) The Jersey Boys need to be stopped.

11.) Tony Bennett needs to be stopped.

‘View’ commits harakiri

Published by Rob on July 27, 2007 in Bitches, Celebs, Star Jones Reynolds and TV. 2 Comments

070727_whoppi_vsmall.jpgSo The View has settled on two new hosts to fill the wide swath of couch vacated by Star and Rosie, and - surprise! - it’s the two most obvious suspects, Sherri Shepherd and Whoopi Goldberg.

The estrofest’s ratings have taken a predictable slide since Rosie’s, uh, unanticipated departure, and if ABC’s hope is that this slate will turn the tide, I think they’re out of luck. Goldberg has failed on television again and again, from her talk show to her sitcom, and both she and Shepherd are too benign to create the cutthroat controversy that The View needs to thrive. I can’t see either bringing anything like Rosie’s obstinate honesty or Star’s epic self-absorption to the panel.

Since the show needed at least one African-American panelist, Mo’Nique or Wanda Sykes would have been edgier, funnier choices. And I still think Kathy Griffin would ultimately have been the best option to keep the show both live-wire funny and potentially controversial.

Oh, well. I guess it’s just one less reason to stay home on weekdays.

Whoopi, Sherri Shepherd to join ‘The View’ [MSNBC]

Obligatory Emmy reaction post

Published by Rob on July 19, 2007 in Club News and TV. 2 Comments

betty.jpgI’m excited about reacting to this morning’s Emmy nominations in this post, in part because it harks back to the very first PEN15 post, which was also about the Emmys. This means that the PEN15 Club has celebrated its two-year anniversary, and I didn’t even realize it. So good for us.

Now onto the Emmys. Here are my thoughts:

1. I’m glad that no dowager character actresses are nominated three times this year (Tina Fey has three nods, but she writes as well as acts, and runs the funniest show currently on TV).

2. It was a good year for newly out-of-the-closet gays, as both T.R. Knight and Neil Patrick Harris ended up with nods.

3. The death of the television comedy series continues unabated, as the Academy appropriately showers praise on The Office and 30 Rock, but then somehow expects us to believe that they honestly think Entourage, Ugly Betty and Two and a Half Men are funny. They’re not. (It would have killed them to nominate Extras?) Thank God Curb Your Enthusiasm returns this year.

4. New voting procedures (a popularity contest decided a top 10 for each category, which was then judged by a blue-ribbon panel of people who presumably were forced to actually watch an episode of each show) favored crap like Boston Legal in the drama series category over more complex, serialized fare such as Friday Night Lights, Battlestar Galactica, The Wire and Lost.

5. Kathy Griffin is back in the reality show category, so her faux-diva outburst at last year’s Creative Arts Emmys obviously wasn’t held against her. If she loses to that cokehead douchebag Ty Pennington again, she should burn the place down.

6. The drama series actress categories remain the Domain of the Fallen Film Actresses: Patricia Arquette, Minnie Driver, Sally Field, Rachel Griffiths, Lorraine Bracco, Kyra Sedgwick. In the mid-’90s this could conceivably have been an Oscar lineup.

7. Despite the popularity of The Office and 30 Rock, there was no love for either John Krasinski or Jane Krakowski. I wonder if voters got them confused.

Emmy nominations list [Variety]

PEN15 Drippings: “Enough with the fucking Beckhams!” edition

Published by Rob on July 16, 2007 in Bitches, Career Suicide, Celebs, Drippings and TV. 1 Comment

peoplevictorbeck.jpgIf I hear one more thing about David and Victoria motherfucking Beckham - the U.K.’s crassest, most ferret-faced nouveau riche exports - I will hunt them down and suffocate them with one of Posh’s Joan Collins-style wide-brimmed hats. And this fashion victim twat has the nerve to call out Americans on our shitty style. She’s not wrong, but people who live in glass Juicy Couture sweats shouldn’t throw stones. Or something. [TMZ]

Revolta “addresses” those longstanding gay “rumors,” just in time for his big-screen drag debut. [NY Times]

Frathouse dudebro slash New NBC Honcho Ben Silverman announces his douchebaggery by hiring Isaiah Washington. The good news is that it’s for no less doomed a project than that Bionic Woman remake. [Variety]

I love “Big Love”

Published by Rob on July 10, 2007 in TV. 0 Comments

hbo_big_love_polygamy.jpgCouch potatoes like me are always whining about how bored they are with summer television. Not me. Right now my DVR menu is pretty full (or would be if I had DVR; I’m stone-aged, I know). Basically it consists of whatever’s on Bravo in the 10 pm slot on any given weeknight and Big Love.

I love Big Love. I can’t get enough. It was pretty good in its first season, but this year it’s blowing up, making me laugh and cry every week. Jumping off from its weird, where-are-they-going-with-this premise - is it a wholesome blended-family drama or a psychosexual Lynchian mindfuck, or both? - the show makes its LDS polygamists shockingly relatable (having the central family be the Reform version of a more dogmatic sect was a smart move), then finds endlessly creative ways for the characters to interact with each other, and bump up against the outside world.

Take last night’s episode, in which scheming daddy’s girl Nicki (Chloe Sevigny), recently disowned by her Evil Prophet father (Harry Dean Stanton), freaks out about the “indoctrination” her son is receiving in his Catholic school. Nicki’s horror at Catholic rituals (”Why don’t they just wear electric chairs around their necks?”) was hilarious, and a prime example of the way this show is able to get you to empathize with its world. And then, at the end, when Nicki re-enrolls the kid in the school because it’s the only place that Bill (Bill Paxton) can publicly acknowledge that he’s the boy’s father - I totally lost it.

Big Love is like The Brady Bunch meets The Addams Family set in Twin Peaks, and yet you totally believe every minute of it. The entire cast is terrific (what potion, exactly, does one have to take to look like Paxton at the age of 50?), and I can’t think of another show that’s used so many previously underemployed great actresses so brilliantly: Jeanne Tripplehorn never had a movie role this good; Ginnifer Goodwin is adorable; Mary Kay Place, Grace Zabriskie, Daveigh Chase and Magnolia’s amazing Melora Walters are hilarious and terrifying; and there are even great roles for two Veronica Mars alums, Tina Majorino and Amanda Seyfried. And Sevigny, for reasons outlined here, is basically giving the most fascinating performance in television right now.

Everyone seems to be worried about HBO in the wake of The Sopranos’ end. There’s no need to worry - Big Love should be its flagship drama series for another few years. Watch it if you don’t already, bitches!

The watcher [Boston Globe]

Punning soon to a theater near you

Published by Rob on July 5, 2007 in Bitches, Celebs, Films and TV. 4 Comments

sexandthecity.jpgWell this is the worst Nonoriginal Female-Focused Ensemble Comedy film development news I’ve heard since the Women remake: Apparently HBO’s long-threatened Sex and the City movie is now a go, with deals in place for the lead actresses and a fall start date.

What, on earth, is left to say about these characters? Remember how shrill and one-note they had grown by the (completely idiotic) series finale? Remember how much you wanted to ring Carrie by the cameltoe and send her flying off that building after Kristen Johnston?

Sex and the City did a lot of damage to the straight-woman generation that came of age in the late nineties and early oughts. It’s the adult equivalent of Disney Princess birthday parties for seven-year-olds. Often playing as a propaganda tool for the Guilianification of New York, its reign of terror could be tied to the rise of the muffin top, celebutantes, faghaggery-as-status-symbol, the designer cupcake craze and various other crimes against humanity.

So unless Carrie’s brain rots from syphilis, Samantha struggles with bone loss, and Charlotte and Miranda start screwing each other (maybe the film’s release could be serendipitously tied in with Kristin Davis’ coming out of the closet), I’ll be seeing this movie sometime after I catch License to Wed 2.

Sex and the City heads to theaters [Variety]

Hype, Paula

Published by Jordan on June 23, 2007 in Bitches, Career Suicide, Celebs and TV. 3 Comments

PaulaI just discovered that my television had channels other than Bravo the other day. And I didn’t care. Do you remember how shitty Bravo was just five years ago? Using the word “comeback” would only be more appropriate describing a morning-after with Lance Bass.

And now there’s Hey Paula, what will perhaps be the newest hit for the little network that could. My TiVo is more set than Kelly Clarkson’s In-and-Out schedule.

What I think is great about Hey Paula is that you can totally tell from the promos that Ms. Abdul actually believes this show will prove she’s not crazy. They keep dropping in soundbites that are like, “Open your mind and judge for yourself,” as if the entire fucking world is going to call friends over, order pizza and sit around thinking, “Oh! How silly of me to think that she was fucked out of her mind. I didn’t see her take a single Closopine the entire 23 minute episode! She’s actually quite motivated.”

Meanwhile, the producers are making sure they don’t leave out the part where she, say, takes a piss in the salad bar at Whole Foods (because “what’s more organic than that?”) assuring that millions of gays will shake their heads, click their tongues, and think, “girl gonna make Anna Nicole blush. Pour me another sangria.”

Speaking of Anna Nicole, perhaps Bravo is already getting cold feet at the thought of documenting the unraveling of another female celebrity, because the show has yet to appear on Bravo’s website. However, a lovely YouTuber has collected all the promos.

I thought it would take a lot to feel the gaping void left in me when John Krasinski pulled out [of Thursday night television until next season] on me, but it seems like a little Abdul might do the trick.

Hey, Paula [Variety]

“DH” Recap: Susan and Gaby tie the knot…and so does Edie!

Published by Rob on May 21, 2007 in Bitches and TV. 4 Comments

1113housewives.jpgJust when I thought last night’s Desperate Housewives season finale was going to end on a snoozy note - 1) Lynette has “good Hodgkins,” check; 2) Susan and Mike finally marry, check; 3) Gaby’s marriage is a bad idea, check; 4) Bree is passing off Danielle’s pregnancy as her own, check - they shock us by having poor, slutty Edie (Nicollette Sheridan) hang herself! Over CARLOS, of all people!

People give Housewives a hard time, but I much prefer its cheerful self-parody to the unintentional silliness of other ABC soaps like Grey’s Anatomy and Brothers & Sisters. I am, however, struggling with conflicting opinions over the Edie suicide: Is it a cleverly bitter curveball or an unearned attempt at sour shock value borne of lazy writing? As usual for this show, I think the answer lies somewhere in between. And is it really suggesting, in this day and age, that this is what happens to single women over 40?

Also, what on earth will Nicollette do next? Housewives was a one-in-a-million career third-act for the washed-up Knot’s Landing star. She brought an intriguing neediness to the now-familiar “aging slut with an unexpectedly gooey center” archetype, and when Marcia Cross’ maternity leave freed up some screen time, she really came into her own.

I’m glad that somebody bothered to give us a good, old-fashioned season finale shocker. But Edie/Nicollette, we hardly knew ye…