Small Screen: Prime and Suspect Pilots

I promised a bit more TV talk this year and though I haven't seen any show that would inspire me to cover it weekly (Mad Men and True Blood are rare beasts, as interesting to write about as they are to watch) here's a quick overview of first impressions of new series. 

PRIME SUSPECT
A bit strange to watch this one in the receding shadow of last weekend's Emmy Awards. The whole time I kept thinking "Oh... here's one to shake up the Best Drama Series field next year if it can be shook. And Best Actress, too!"

But then, immediately after it ended, I felt ashamed of this inner golden-winged monologue. Great acting is no promise of statues after all. I must must must remember my own mantra -- difficult as it is to remember whilst enthusiastically prepping for Oscar season -- Great Work Is Its Own Reward. And Maria Bello is her own reward (and so rewarding, too).  Which is as it has to be given the cold shoulder from Oscar in the past (The Cooler, A History of Violence).

Prime Suspect, her new show (adapted from the now 20 year old Helen Mirren series) details the murder investigations of the smart abrasive Jane Timoney, the only woman in her homicide department. The first hour had a few script and performance beats with the zing of those 'Clarice Starling surrounded by tall men' visuals in The Silence of the Lambs but Bello just refuses to shrink. Though procedurals never really capture my imagination, character studies do and Bello demands that I keep watching. Her detective is funny without feeling scripted-quippy and unusually capable without seeming infallible (such a danger for protagonist roles in TV and film). Best of all she shades all of Timoney's more typically admirable qualities like confidence, cleverness, intelligence, and femaleness in such a way that they throw shade; her confidence curdles into arrogance, her cleverness veers towards the reckless, her intelligence has zero warmth and her vagina is both interference and scapegoat. Yes, her department is sexist but isn't her cold arrogance and lack of sympathy for co-workers (who have justifiably open wounds in this episode)  more than half of the problem in being welcomed into their club?

Click for more on Prime Suspect plus Revenge, Charlie's Angels and two more newbies.

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Interview Extra: Dagmara on a Hot Tin Roof

When you're writing up pieces for publication from interviews, whether for magazines or blog posts or whatnot you can rarely use everything. So why not treat them like DVD extras and toss them out a little later on? With Patrick Wilson's new TV series A Gifted Man premiering tonight, I thought what better time to revisit The Film Experience interview with his wife Dagmara Dominczyk . She was a warm and funny presence on the Higher Ground promotional trail just as she is in the movie in a key supporting role.  Hopefully more of you have had the chance to see Vera Farmiga's directorial debut since that piece went up.

I told Dagmara that I had seen her in Broadway's shortlived The Violet Hour several years ago and the conversation turned to her stage work which seguewayed to a fun Patrick moment. 

Nathaniel: Dagmara, I know you were the original understudy in Broadway's Closer in the role of "Alice". I don't know if you ever went on...

Dagmara: [Emphatically] 13 times I went on and I know every single time!

Her name is "Alice"Nathaniel: So did you see the movie later and think I could do that.

Dagmara: YEAH [Vera Farmiga laughs suddenly. Dagmara is deliciously open with her answers.]

But I didn't think "damnit why didn't I?" You know what I mean? There's a difference. Patrick and I... our dream that we talk about as a side fantasy is to do a revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. 

Vera: That would be awesome.

Nathaniel: [Momentarily stunned] God, you'd be great for those parts. That's so weird. I instantly pictured it.

Dagmara: Right?!? Hello! So he's got a few more years left to make that happen.

MORE DAGMARA FUN AFTER THE JUMP...

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Never Compromise, The Iron Linky

Feast your eyes on the first poster for The Iron Lady... [via]

I admire the concept of this poster but I think more of her face should have been showing for aesthetic reasons before it began to bled into the Parliament.  As it is it's weirdly torn up.  But perhaps you'll feel differently. You'll tell me, won't you?

Links
Antagony & Ecstasy Nick started a real trend with those 'year so far' awards
My New Plaid Pants "Thursdays Ways Not To Die" takes on Disney's Finding Nemo and you can't argue with that pie chart.
Mr Hipp Strikes! Remember when I said that Drive is one of those movies that will eventually inspire cult devotion. It's already obviously begun.
GQ Natasha VC (whose tumblr i just lurve) on Terminator 2: Judgment Day (one of my favs). Though... apparently she's pissing off some cinephiles with this.

TV Break
Gold Derby Remember how weird it was when Mad Men lost everything but Best Drama at the Emmys on Sunday. Turns out it's not so weird. 
The Critical Condition loves the new drama Revenge which features the return of the wonderful Madeleine Stowe. So do I and I only watched it to see Stowe again. Interesting that he brings up Ringer in his review because the whole time I was thinking: how come Sarah Michelle Gellar couldn't get a decent expensive show like this to headline? Ringer is just a mess and she's a much bigger star than Emily VanCamp. 

Finally...
You can head on over to Towleroad to read my interview with writer/director Andrew Haigh. His debut (scripted) feature Weekend, is a real wow, beautifully observed, well acted, consistently engaging and expressively shot... all the things that no-budget gay cinema usually lacks. There's more to this interview since our conversation spilled over past our alloted time so I might share a few more nuggets later on if I see cause. I'm hoping the film does well on the coasts and prompts further expansion. It's very good.  

Emmy Live Blog 2011

Arrivals and the Show, All Live-Blogged. Excuse Typos. Things Happen Fast

06:05 This does not bode well, the first arriving guest is a Nina Somebody from The Vampire Diaries who is quite possibly the most boring celebrity I have ever seen interviewed on the red carpet. She had so much airtime to say interesting or funny or quippy or diva things -- trust that you can spin those inane "who are you wearing? can you believe you're here at the emmys?""your career is hothothot" right now volleys whichever way you want. And it was all blah-blah-blah-blah-blah as if pre-recorded and lazily lip-synched to on the red carpet. And when Blake Lively is your aspirational figure that you'll have to work very very hard to deserve a like career. Wow. Let's move on. Please we must. But commercials.

Last year my Oscar dress was amazing. But tonight I wanted to be comfy."

06:15 Celebrities with personalities! Kat Deeley (sp) Lea Michele Taraji P. Henson. Sarah Hyland. Much better. Here's Lea braggin but her Oscar dress while wearing something she claims is comfy but in which she is clearly corseted like Scarlett O'Hara grabbing a bedpost. COMFY!

06:20 Sarah Hyland just had her I'M REALLY A NICE PERSON I SWEAR moment while explaining that she meant no harm when she did an impression of Lea Michele on an episode of Fashion Police. I've heard about this non-scandal but the real scandal is that E! is trying to pretend that that most famous of editorial poses -- elbow jutted out exagerrate contrapposto -- is LEA MICHELE's. I love my Rachel Berry but she wasn't even conceived yet when super-models started doing that. 

6:28 I really am not a Rainn Wilson fan but his carpet banter was funny. His TV crushes?

"The entire cast of Mad Men and the naked Dothraki girl who eats the stallion heart."

Hee.

6:30 Less funny was Paula Abdul's typical spaciness. She said "blueberries" when she meant "blue balls". Even if she'd gotten the word right, is that what you want to talk about on the red carpet?

6:38 Darren Criss's nose should be growing like Pinnochios. He hasn't really even thought about whether or not the Glee cast is graduating this year. Uh, yeah.

6:40 I just caught sight of what looks like a VERY unusual dress on Julianne Marguiles which will undoubtedly get her tons of attention. Will snap a photo as soon as I can. A giant white cylindrical cheese grater? 

6:49 DAMNIT. I was wrong. It is not thick plastic with circular cut-outs but regular old white fabric with big circular looking jewels. Less insane than expected and therefore much uglier. Christina Hendricks on the other hand is bang on beautiful. YUM YUM YUM. 

6:54 Charlize Theron's new "Dior Commercial" is crazy glam explosion and she is ridonculously hot. Like molten hot. If she had been around in Golden Age Hollywood she would have been an enormous star. But Hollywood doesn't understand In Movie Glamour anymore. Only red carpet glamour. Charlize should be looking that good IN a movie.

6:58 This happened awhile ago but I am still haunted...

I bet that's how Ryan kisses all the girls.

MUCH MUCH MORE AFTER THE JUMP

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True Blood Finale (Plus: Season 4 Awards!)

The final episode of True Blood's witchy season four had a cleft heart, one half beating only for past glories (i.e. Season 4 ... or even earlier seasons if their name is "Bill") and the other half beating for an imagined future (Season 5 if you'd like to get cynical about it). You could just about divide the sprawling cast down the center as to which half they belonged to, some characters hanging on to the past either tearfully, fearfully or violently (Marnie, Eric, Bill, Debbie, Hoyt, Arlene, Pam), others ready to forge ahead and move on with varying degrees of optimism, fear, and willpower (Sookie, Jessica, Jason, Tara, Sam, Holly & Andy). It's the very drama that infuses the episode's opening conversation with Jesus & Lafayette. Isn't that always the drama of the heart? 

Jesus and Lafayette (who is actually Marnie!) over breakfast eggs.

4.12 "And When I Die"
Not that True Blood thrives on "the universal". Most of us don't have to worry about malevolent spirits possessing our lovers, stabbing our hands over breakfast, duct-taping us to our chairs, and stealing our demon-headed magic while thrusting a butcher knife into our heart. But maybe Jesus, familiar with both violence-prone spirits and demon-headed Crazy, should've worried himself towards protection spells or some such! Goodbye Jesus (2010-2011) we hardly knew you. Goodbye Kevin Alejandro, go-to guy for "regular cast" killings (see also: Southland).

True Blood's season finale had a cleft heart but its body was divvied up into smaller pieces, drawn and quartered one might say.

If that sounds torturous, it definitely was... at least for the characters. And maybe some audiences members who wanted a more cohesive finale. More after the jump, plus best & worst of the season.

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