True Blood Attends PaleyFest

Carrie Preston Cute. The shoes look a little cheap, though.

Deborah Ann Woll Why on earth would a girl with this coloring wear a neutral so close to her skin color? We'll never understand it. From more than ten feet away, she must have looked shirtless. And brown tights with brown shoes...we don't know. All we can think of are furniture legs. Jim Parrack You're an asshole. Oh, god. That just slipped out. Sorry about that. We just have SUCH a negative reaction to guys who work SO hard to appear above it all. We were hasty. Let's take another look. Nope. You're still an asshole.
Joe Manganiello Perfection again. We dig the tone-on-tone qualities of the shirt and suit.
Kevin Alejandro Apparently this wasn't a formal event. Fine (but that untucked asshole is still an asshole). The problem here is not that he's casual; he actually looks pretty put together. No, the problem is he's wearing all this ... stuff, and it's all in black. If you're going all-black, then keep it simple and keep the neck rags at home. Also, the wallet chain. Just stop. No one's going to pick your pocket on the red carpet.

Kristin Bauer She's working it.
 
 Marshall Allman We don't understand what we're looking at here. Why is he wearing a tuxedo jacket with that horrid shirt? Why is he wearing a tuxedo jacket 6 sizes too large for him?
Nelsan Ellis We can handle jeans at an event like this, even when they fit as weirdly as these do. What is OUT OF THE QUESTION, however, is showing up in a collarless shirt. That's way too casual for an event where all the women are expected to show up in dresses and heels. Don't even get us started on the tassle. Rutina Wesley in Camilla and Marc The top is a little stiff and boxy, but the skirt has some interest to it. She needs to lay off the bronzer, though.

Hit it, vampire people!

The cast of "True Blood" attended the 28th Annual PaleyFest in Beverly Hills and apparently, no one told them what the dress code was.


Alexander Skarsgard

Perfection.


Anna Paquin in Stella McCartney Very cute. Love the belt, love the jacket.

V S2E8: Uneasy Lies the Head

  

This is a totally gratuitous thumbnail, but then again, so was this episode. The stench of desperation is seeping through our screen as we watch this show. It seems like every week, they pile on some new plot point or scheme without ever really resolving any of the previous ones, resulting in an enormous pile of information, very little of which makes sense to the viewer. Red rain, phosphorus, DNA, souls, something-something the Vatican, breeding schemes, Tyler is special; oh wait, no he's not, there are 29 more just like him; hold that thought, they're all spewing cherry Slurpees and dying;

 DNA bombs, Diana and her big bag of bullshit, Ryan and his big bag of bullshit, Ryan's loudmouthed baby, some earth kid with a high immune system, blue energy, Lisa and her goddamn indecisiveness, Anna's secret egg, Hobbs is working with the Vs, so is Ryan, oh, maybe not; meet Chad's co-host, who gets a big introduction and then disappears from the story; meet the leader of the 5th Column; oh, he's dead, but he names Erica his replacement, but the other leaders might not like her, but then they do. And that's just in the last 7 episodes. We'd do a little recap of the events last night here, but frankly, so little of it made sense and felt like it was coming out of nowhere that we didn't care. Especially since they'll probably ignore everything that happened here and reveal yet ANOTHER set of plans or plot point next week. They are throwing everything they have at the wall to see if it'll stick and the whiplash, lack of commitment to the storyline or characters, and general lack of respect for the audience have turned us off completely by now. Which is funny, because we honestly did think this was a decent episode with a modicum of excitement and movement. Although really, it's the same old V of people talking about stuff they're going to do and then talking about stuff they just did, with no real change to the status quo by the end. Plus, in their desperation, the writers are asking us to swallow an awful lot of bullshit. It's bad enough a spaceship has a secret cellar that no one knows about even though the entrance to it is right out in a public space. Now they're expecting us to believe that Diana somehow "hid" a shuttlecraft on the ship for the last 15 years. Anna's proving to be a ridiculously stupid leader through all these story convolutions and that's perhaps the biggest shame of all. Morena Baccarin, who gave the show its initial jolt of interest by portraying Anna as a cool but brilliant schemer, is now chewing the virtual scenery with every line. Her eyes and nostrils flare with each pronouncement and she barks orders or seethes at setbacks through gritted teeth. The only thing that separates her from Alexis Carrington is a turban, some maribou mules, and a couple of Champagne glasses. We said early in the season that the show could do with a little campy fun to give it some spark, but this isn't what we meant. Also, could someone shoot Tyler in the head? Or just have him spew the pink shit out of his mouth and call it a day with this character. And finally, that drearily shot and performed sex scene was groan-worthy because it felt like the most desperate act of all. Abs and boobs and hands down the pants; they'll do anything at this point to get a green light for next season and it shows. Brace yourselves for the season finale, when Diana reveals her own mother, Betty White, hidden in yet another secret, empty CGI room in this massively stupid space ship. [Picture credit: ABC TV]

V S2E7: Birth Pangs

Suddenly, everyone in the 5th Column is sporting a showy pair of shades and we can't groan hard enough because that's what passes for character-building and subtlety on this show. Badass=sunglasses. Don't get us wrong, we're enjoying the somewhat heightened pace of things, but just as we predicted last week, the more frantic feel of the proceedings still isn't amounting to much actually happening. It's still a show where characters stand around and talk about what happened, what's happening, what's going to happen. If you look at the two potentially most exciting narrative developments - Erica becoming Queen of the 5th Column and Lisa allying with her grandmother Diana - in practical results, it only means that there are now new people or new combinations of people standing around talking. Openly talking about their secret plans; in hallways, in restaurants, on cell phones in public. It doesn't exactly foster a sense of urgency if the characters never really seem to be in any danger or under any surveillance. Yeah, things happened; we're not denying that. A lady V jumped out a window, Lisa slapped her mother, Diana got hold of a communications device, Ryan's baby got older, Anna has a secret egg, yadda, yadda, yadda. There are some interesting things going on, certainly, but that's a lot of plot with very little payoff, wouldn't you say? Anna or Erica always have some new plan they're unveiling but nothing ever seems to happen; we only get the illusion of things happening. Very frustrating as a viewer. We'd probably be cheering an episode like this if it was the first or second in the season, but we've got only a handful of episodes left and the show squandered pretty much every chance it had to build something. We're still there every Tuesday night and we still kind of enjoy it, but there's an overwhelming sense of too little, too late. The likelihood of a third season seems remote, but if they can do some paying off in these next couple episodes and somehow manage to get renewed, we'd be very interested to see if they can finally make something of the show by next fall.

Glee S2E14 Blame it on the Alcohol

In our ongoing quest to constantly have something to complain about, we think we settled on something with Glee. See, with this season, we've largely accepted the show's sometimes astonishing lack of consistency because a)It's been that way from Day One b)We've come around to the idea that with a cast this large and a show that straddles this many genres, there's no way it can be pulled off consistently in the manner of a more conventional TV comedy/drama

Cute. We won't even get into the likelihood of 16-year-olds in 2011 knowing all the words to a Human League song, but it's a great rendition. We can't help thinking it's wasted on these two. They're the two best performers on the show. We hope they get a chance to really tear up a classic Broadway number or even a modern pop song more suited to their vocal styles. We loved the party scene in Rachel's fathers' Oscar party basement because it goes back to our new criticism of the show. Having mostly let go of the "inconsistent" complaint (although we reserve the right to raise it again at some point in the future), we've settled on what we really think is troubling the show and it's one of the oldest and most common of mistakes with hit TV shows: it's gotten just a little too slick. Love the number. But - and we're not suggesting that the show remain static in style - cast your mind back to the first time New Directions nailed a performance: when the much smaller group sang "Don't Stop Believin'." Remember how scrappy they were in their jeans and red shirts that didn't even match? Remember the thrilling juxtaposition of nerdy outcasts putting their voices together and becoming so much more than the sum of their parts? Remember how the performance was so affecting because it was trying so hard to be sincere in a show otherwise characterized by cynicism? It's a little hard to maintain a theme of underdogs coming together to grab some glory if they can routinely knock out these rather expertly staged and choreographed numbers and do them drunk. HOWEVER, we feel like the show is making an attempt to get back to a slightly more cynical, darker feel, especially with this episode. Rachel is back to being funny again, because she's where she belongs from a storytelling point of view: cast out and desperate. We've said it before but she's so much funnier and more entertaining when she's not dating the quarterback and constantly acknowledged as a world-class talent. The weirdness of her idea of a party was perfect for the character and we thought that was one of the better representations of what it's like to be 16 and drunk in someone's basement. As for the Blaine subplot, it felt kind of rushed and unfinished, although it accomplished its main goal, which is to hammer home the point that of the two of them, Kurt is the one who has his head on (you'll pardon the term) straight. Although not to the extent that he's perfect, because while he had a point to make with his father, we thought he was awfully snotty about it and tried to turn a normal parental reaction into something like homophobia, which really isn't fair to Burt. See, this is a welcome return to old themes, as far as we're concerned. Instead of "just" being sleazy and immature, the original Will was charming and a little sad because he felt like a loser. That's a bit more of the Will we're seeing here. Of course, he had to go and fuck it up by drunk dialing Emma, but even that felt pathetic in a funny kind of way rather than straight up sleazy. And Matthew Morrison doesn't get enough credit: he's always had amazing chemistry with Jane Lynch, but the way he and Dot Jones play off each other is really a delight to see. Coach Bieste is just plain fucking awesome. That's how you do a "Don't drink, kids" Special Episode, Glee-style. We thought it was hilarious. Heather Morris is so much fun when she's given a number all her own. Quote compiling is hard, you guys. Besides, you all do it so much better than we do, because we're always getting them wrong or pissing someone off because we didn't include their favorite. What were the funniest quotes of the episode? "Ke, dollar sign, ha," had us sliding off the couch in laughter. [Video Credit: hulu.com]

V S2E9: Devil in a Blue Dress

 

Watching V gets a little more depressing each week. Not because the show is declining, but because it gets slightly (and we mean ever-so) better with each episode but the overwhelming truth of the matter is, it's too little too late. What a shame that the writers inexplicably figured slowing the plot developments down to a snail's pace was good for the show, up until about 2 episodes ago. Why didn't they come roaring out of the gate like this at the beginning of the season? Not that the show has suddenly conquered every one of its issues. The entire premise is still faulty and we got reminders of that this episode. We're supposed to believe that in less than a year's time, an alien life form made contact, was allowed to park 29 massive ships semi-permanently over the major cities of the world, started treating humans' medical problems, gave humanity a new energy source of which virtually no knowledge was shared, and are being given space to build 538 sites all over the globe the purposes of which have been vague. And humanity just wholeheartedly accepted this. In an age where people of different races or religions still find it hard to coexist on the same land mass. In the real world, the 5th Column wouldn't be a shadowy organization of apparently dozens of people; it would be hundreds of thousands of people rioting in the streets all over the world, flush with fear and righteous anger. Since so much of this was established so early in the series, it's practically impossible to fix now. In order to continue watching the show, you have to buy a humanity that doesn't act like any humans you know. Further, you have to buy the protagonists acting like no humans you know. In light of the fact that they know where and how Anna's invasion will take place (and they are the only ones who figured it out because apparently, there are no engineers or military experts left on earth or they're all just really stupid), and they know there are over 500 ships in orbit, ethical questions of just how far they want to go to secure their freedom and the whole issue of becoming a monster to fight monsters seems awfully self-indulgent. We're not talking about rescuing a kidnapped child here. We're talking about the fate of humanity with mere minutes on the clock. In other words, sack up, Erica and shut up, Jack. To be fair, Erica seems to have realized this, even if it did come awfully late. The thing is, we feel like the writers are still dropping the ball here. Erica made it clear how high the stakes are, but there should have been more of a question around whether or not it made good tactical sense to risk the lives of a hundred thousand people in order to prevent the genocide of all of humanity. That's the issue here. It's a fight like none ever fought on earth before. Why isn't the show really hammering this point? Why have so few humans figured this out? Why is Erica STILL arguing about this with her cohorts, especially the supposedly cold-blooded mercenary? So frustrating. We suppose we should take it as a small measure of the show doing something right that we're still somewhat emotionally invested in it like this. What helped the proceedings was that Erica seems to be feeling true loss of hope underneath all her bravado. Elizabeth Mitchell did her best work last night since Lost, imbuing Erica - finally! - with some complexity and some idea of the mountains she has to climb. The rest of the 5th Column remain largely useless to us. Honestly, not one of those characters would be missed if they were killed, nor would their absence have any sort of harmful effect on the show (providing they don't replace them with worse characters). No, the center of this story is and always has been the women: Erica, Anna, Diana, and Lisa. It's kind of a shame they screwed this show up so bad, because a female-centric action show with an underlying theme of mothers protecting their young is a fantastic idea on paper. Still, we're not loving the utter loss of ambiguity with Anna. Not that she was ever anything but a villain, and clearly so from the beginning, but you could see how people could fall under the sway of such a charismatic, beautiful woman. Now with her tearing up the scenery and literally crying tears of blood, we feel like something's been lost. So Diana has FINALLY made contact with someone other than her daughter and granddaughter which means maybe the entire POINT of the character can be realized.
We were excited the first time we set eyes on those pumps, but had we known then that she'd spend the entire season in the mothership's wine cellar, we might not have been so enthusiastic. At any rate, things are appropriately ramped up going into next week's "season" finale, including the return of original V freedom fighter Marc Singer, a man almost singlehandedly responsible for getting an entire generation of gay boys through high school in the early '80s (trust on this; it was all him and Jon Erik Hexum in those days). We wonder if he can still pack a pair of jeans like he did back in the day. At any rate, we'd like to say we're excited for the finale - because it actually does look pretty good - but since there's a good chance we're not ever going to get resolutions to these storylines, it's going to taste awfully ashy. [Picture credit: ABC TV]

RPDR S3E7: Funny Girls

Ironically, this is the softest her face has ever looked on the show. Even her Tyra was harder looking than this. Even knowing beforehand she was doing a Carrie look, we still gasped when she walked out. As a performer, she was engaging. Except for the Dad line, she wasn't exactly knee-slappingly funny, but she connected with the audience and they seemed to enjoy the performance. This is why she's a contender. She's a seasoned performer and a natural in front of a crowd. It was interesting to see the almost orgasmic rush she got afterwards. That's someone who lives to perform. Some viewers seem to think she's mean-spirited, but we don't find her any more so than a great many of the other queens and besides, we'll say it again and again: throwing shade and reading for filth are long-standing drag queen traditions. For a lot of these gals, this is just another form of performance. And that goes for Shangela too. In fact, there's a distinct possibility, given their pre-RPDR history, that this whole rivalry between these two is nothing more than a long-term performance that they're both in on. We wouldn't be a bit surprised. We honestly thought the judges graded on a pretty steep curve here. Carmen kept the audience's attention but we tend to think that had more to do with the very pretty face, the what-the-hell-is-she-wearing tension with the giant fur, and the where-the-hell-is-this-going tension with the kind of odd "I want to be a big, fat bitch" setup. They laughed, sure, but no one was rolling in the aisles. The judges fell all over her because they had such low expectations going in. It's the Stacy Layne Syndrome and to be fair, Carmen did better than we would have thought. She got an A for energy and she set up her jokes pretty well ("...and I didn't come here to clean toilets, honey!") but like Carmen's bit, we thought the use of body props to get a laugh weakened the routine overall. Still, they laughed and she didn't falter. It's a 3-way tie between Raja, Shangela, and Manila if we're grading on looks alone. They each brought fully realized and instantly grasped looks to their routines. Unfortunately, it was Manila who gave the worst performance of the three and the second-worst of the night. We know she had to lip synch to secure her place (and she did one hell of a job), but we think she had a slight advantage because Delta's dark pity party of a routine was worse than Manila's bumbling attempt. She's a naturally funny queen in a bantering kind of way (like a lot of drag queens), but the pressure of writing a structured routine really fucked with her head. And while the getup screamed for Sesame Street humor, the whole "gay PBS" thing was dead on arrival. Can we be honest here? We laughed, but we laughed more in a "What the FUCK?" kind of way than in a "What a good joke!" kind of way. If we were being even more honest, except for something about shitting and big dicks, we don't really know what the hell she was talking about. But if you're looking at it from, say, a comedic performance art point of view, then it kind of works. The look was pretty amazing and we found ourselves staring at her face while she was talking. Bottom line: we'd never seen anything like it and like we said, we laughed. Mission accomplished, even if it left us scratching our heads. [Screencaps: tomandlorenzo.com]

RPDR S3 E8: Queens of America

Now is the time for all good queens to come to the party.

There we go, darlings. Now your computer is awash in gayness. In fact, you may have to clean your cache after this (and it's up to you if that's euphemism for something less savory than computer maintenance). If there is any disappointment with this season (aside from the big girls all turning out to be kind of sour and personality-free), it's the poor usage of the Pit Crew this year. Come on now, Ru. We know you don't want anything outshining your girls, but throw a gay a bone here. Literally. Why is Ru dressed like a cowboy here? We thought a bra challenge was cute, but we were disappointed that the only tools offered were some jars of glitter. Not that we have anything against glitter, especially as it pertains to drag, but the results were a bit limited and a bit like something you'd make at drag summer camp. This was so bad and her Ru ass-kissing was so off the charts that we would have sent her home for this one. Seriously, girl. That's supposed to be Ru? Were you trying to insult her? Raja Compared to the others, this is practically tasteful, which means it kind of fails, since "tasteful" shouldn't be the first word that comes to mind when discussing a drag queen in a glittered bra. She seemed nice enough, but we were on Michelle's side (which, can we say? Is not something that happens often) when she took her to task for claiming to be offended. It's drag, honey. Leave your high-mindedness at the door. So congrats to Alexis! We're not sure we agree with the win, but we can't honestly say anyone else did it better. Besides, bringing her heart into it (whether it was sincere or merely playing for the cameras) was a wise move and a big factor in her win. We can't really say we love this look. Taking an actual dress uniform and adding sequins and a huge, unflattering skirt to it may be a nice way to remember your boyfriend, but it doesn't make a very flattering drag look. We were with Manila on this one. It just looked big and mannish. Why not take that jacket and pair it with a sassy sequined mini-skirt? Her PSA was good; not great, but good. Like we said, it helped tremendously that she brought a personal story to it. It also helped that her energy was high, unlike a lot of these sad queens, who inexplicably shut down when faced with a camera and the need to fill air time. We get why the judges awarded it to her, we're really not arguing against that, but neither her runway look nor her PSA were anything to get all that excited about. We couldn't roll our eyes hard enough when Michelle claimed they were "rolling on the floor" laughing at it. The lip synch came down to Yara Sofia and Carmen Carrera and frankly, we were ready for the latter to go, even though we saw where the judges were coming from with their critique of the former. We get it. Really, we do. It's just that now wasn't the time to wave your Puerto Rican Pride flag, even if you can rightly say that it makes you as much an American as a cowboy holding a hot dog in one hand and an apple pie in the other. It was pretty obvious what the judges were looking for here - campy, old school style, "You're a Grand Old Flag" patriotism in the drag tradition. We totally support the multicultural thinking here; we just don't think it was the right time for it. And yeah, her tendency to turn the dials up to eleven with every single performance, to the point that it's almost impossible to understand what she's saying, gets a little less impressive each week. A drag superstar should demonstrate a little bit of nuance now and then. We're not talking Dame Judi Dench here or anything; just a demonstration that you can do more than shriek and run around with your hands in the air. Ugh. We just can't with this one. Completely devoid of any personality and utterly lacking in any performing skills whatsoever, she's this year's Tyra: a very pretty girl with a very blank face. Except even Tyra knew when to pull out the stops to impress the judges. This sourface just stands there and expects to be worshipped while Yara's PSA was too over the top, we'll take a drag queen with too much personality than one that has none at all. And the fact that she's so snotty about it really grates. She's definitely a very pretty queen, but someone told her she was the prettiest girl in the world, and Carmen? Someone lied. You ain't ALL that. So Auntie Ru listened to her heart and didn't send anyone home. We think a non-elimination outcome was more than likely already built into the schedule and it was up to Ru to decide when she was going to deploy it. Think about shooting schedules and episode numbers. You can't just decide right in the middle of shooting to fool around with that. Even low budget cable shows have every minute of the schedule accounted for. There's either a double elimination planned for a future episode and this was decided upon ahead of time in order to ramp up the drama or they're planning on having more than the usual number of queens in the finale. Not that we're complaining, really. We wanted to see Carmen go home, but she actually did a semi-decent job on the lip synch. We definitely didn't want to see Yara go home yet. Carmen's never going to change the way she does things, but Yara will probably take their critiques to heart. We're curious to see if either of them will take this opportunity and run with it. [Photo Credit: logotv.com - Screencaps: tomandlorenzo.com]