True Blood 4.8 "Spellbound"

Possessing Ghosts. Confused Mediums. Witchy Necromancers. Restless Werewolves. Angry Humans. Ambivalent Vampires. Horny Shifters. Horny Sookie. True Blood is hugely crowded this year. And busy. There's as many plot elements as characters.

You dropped something.

True Blood Season 4 has thrown a lot of balls in the air but remarkably the only one it seems to have dropped is the one it needed to (were-panthers). All hell broke loose on Sunday night's episode so now the show is not only juggling but juggling while running at vamp speed. 

"Spellbound"
"Did I do that?" Jessica asked over the bloody body of Bill's guard Bucky after Jason saves her from self-immolation (see last week). Yup. Another thing for her to cry those bloody tears about. In many ways, Jessica is the most human of all the characters this season, continually plagued by self-doubt, regret and romantic confusion. She thinks about her actions and their affect on people. Like Hoyt.

Poor little-boy Hoyt... 

Please love me!

Or is it... Cruel big-man Hoyt?

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Julianne is Dope. Also: Links

The Far From Heaven team cleaning up at the Indie Spirits in 2003IndieWire so it looks like it's really happening *sniffle* Julianne Moore is moving to television. After that Sarah Palin telefilm turn she's doing a pilot for an HBO series called Dope.

But it's not all bad news: Todd Haynes and Christine Vachon are involved so it's essentially the great Far From Heaven team. Cross your fingers that it's worthy of their collective gifts! It'll have to be really really special to be that. 

The series would be set in the 1950s and is based on this novel. Publishers Weekly describes Moore's character like so.

Josephine "Joe" Flannigan, is a former heroin addict and hooker who has recast herself as a petty thief and con. Working her home turf, New York City's Hell's Kitchen, she is taken up by a mysterious well-to-do couple to find their addict daughter, expelled from Barnard and lost to the streets. 

So there's room for great acting. We shall see.

The Linkies
The Wrap Patti Smith is working on a biopic of sorts -- it's based on her memoirs of her early years with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in the late 60s/early 70s -- with screenwriter John Logan. Who on earth could play Patti Smith? She's kinda strange looking and Hollywood only hires beauties. Here's what they looked like when the movie would take place.

ArtsBeat David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method will get a gala screening at the NYFF.
Latina Antonio Banderas on his long artistic separation from Pedro Almodóvar 'tween Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! and The Skin I Live In (coming soon... and also getting a gala NYFF screening).

And speaking of Almodóvar, how amazing is this Rossy de Palma wall art by Adrian Valencia? I went to his site via a series of Lady Gaga drawings that are just stellar. 

© Adrian Valencia, 2011

 The Funnies
Ultra Culture "Cowboys and Aliens Fact Sheet"
My New Plaid Pants Quote of the Day from Jean Claude Van Damme [nsfw] 
The Hairpin an amusing review of Rise of the Planet of the Apes with drawings 
I09 "ten vestigial traits you didn't know you had". Robert Gonzalez, who wrote this, is funny. 
Bachmanneyezed a new tumblr  

This & That: Pop Songs, Oscar Campaigns, Carnage Poster

Bill Pullman's new roleAV Club is success spoiling AMC? More rumors and commentary on the increasingly troubled network of Mad Men and Breaking Bad.
Macleans also reacts to this 'blame Mad Men' meme going around
i09 expresses shock that Bill Pullman is so amazing as a creepy motivational speaker/murderer on Torchwood: Miracle Day. I haven't seen it yet because we don't get Starz but Bill Pullman can do anything. Why are people surprised? Oh, right. Nobody goes to the theater. Pullman's performance on Broadway in The Goat: Or, Who Is Sylvia? is one of the greatest performances I've ever seen, I kid you not. (pun!) The movie roles obviously didn't challenge him enough.

The Hairpin has an interview with Kate Beaton who writes what may be my favorite webcomic "Hark, A Vagrant!"
Cinema Blend I was just talking about Patrick Wilson to a friend last night and bingo: today there's news that he's joined the cast of Ridley Scott's Prometheus. I should talk about actors who don't get enough good parts every night before I sleep so they'll be cast the next morning.
Inside Movies A story that the web will undoubtedly love: Andrew Garfield on the size of Spider-Man's package.

Oooh, lookie. It's the first poster for Roman Polanski's Carnage.

That's a weird loud poster but at least it's interesting. The moody faces are kind of an interesting way to get at the play's rollercoaster tonal shifts and convey that it's an actor's piece.

The Campaigning Begins
Gold Derby is already claiming the Best Actor Oscar for Leonardo DiCaprio in J Edgar. We'll see. Believe it or not he's still kind of young to win an Oscar. They make the men wait, you know. Different rules for men. Although I suppose it helps that he didn't turn out as elfin gorgeous as he looked like he might back in the days of his youth. Oscar likes his women drop dead gorgeous but doesn't like his men too purty. Just ask Paul Newman how long he had to wait. Or Brad Pitt who still hasn't won.
IndieWire Glenn Close to receive the lifetime achievement award at the San Sebastian Film Festival. Festival honors of the career variety are a standard stop on the way to would be Oscar glory. 
Just Jared just posted this promotional pic of Michelle Williams for My Week With Marilyn but labelled it a "still". If it's really a still in the proper sense than the movie is taking some adventurous chances with its look. 

For Laughs... Movie|Line is listing four reimaginings of princess movies that it never wants to see.

And in other news... True Blood has been renewed for a fifth season. Yay! Get caught up on The Film Experience commentary. 

Best Song of the 1980s?

Music makes the people come together.... yeah  ♪
Critical Condition's Ultimate Pop Song Tournament has come down to the final four: Madonna's "Like a Prayer" (89), Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time" (84), Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" (82) and Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" (81) This has been such fun for the past few weeks and it also just goes to show you how classic the 1980s are in the cultural canon since songs from other decades were eligible. You already know who I voted for, duh. Go and vote yourselves. May your favorite win... unless it's different than mine.
Boy Culture conjecture about Madonna's upcoming schedule
Examiner DC This is a good piece on the music industry's ability to keep the public interested in the classics, and the film industry's inability to do the same. A provocative mystery, that, right?

True Blood 4.7 "Cold Grey Light of Dawn"

She hurts him to save him. Unless they're silvered all the vampires will walk into the sun.With Sunday night's episode, fang-bangers are now past the hump. This season's witchy storyline is now on its way to resolving itself. The halfway mark also suggests that from here on out we might have droppings that set things up for Season Five. 

Cold Grey Light of Dawn
We begin where we left off with Marnie (Fiona Shaw) wreaking havoc. Controlling vamps, as it turns out, seems to be getting easier and easier for her. With a whisper of "Resurrection" her former rapist Luis (Peter Macdissi) stakes himself with Bill's silver weapon after a scuffle. One vampire down, all the rest of them to go. Marnie wants them all to meet the true death. After the burst of action that opens the show (Tara also narrowly avoids death at Pam's rotting hands), things slow down considerably. We stop in on unhappy couples (Alcides and Debbie) still shaky couples (Sam &) and new ones (Sookie & Eric). Meanwhile, Tara dumps her lover and signs up with Marnie's vampire slaughter plans, Jason tries to avoid Hoyt "I'd rather be cooking then talking anyhow" and realizes (again) that he's hot for Jessica. Most oddly, Bill tells Jessica the Antonia story which seems like a really strange storytelling move. We've heard and seen this storyline via Marnie and Luis so many times now it felt like a "previously on..." in the middle of the show.

But any scene with Deborah Ann Woll's Jessica gives us great visuals. Such a screen face [spoiler image after the jump]

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True Blood: "Me and the Devil" & "I Wish I Was the Moon"

So get this. I offered up True Blood reviewing duties to the entire Team TFE last week when I was out of town and noone bit. What's up with that? No fangbangers in this house? Which means we've got two episodes to chat up today. Ratings for True Blood are strong this season and deservedly so. We're only halfway in but -- at this point -- it's much stronger than Season 3. It also isn't as repetitive as Season 2. We definitely approve thus far.

"Drink now."

4.5 "Me and the Devil"
Here we have a perfectly titled episode as everyone is battling their personal demons (Tara and Eric specifically) or actual demons as the case might be (Arlene & Terry who hold an exorcism of sorts in their house, still worrying about their spooky baby).

This is also another terrific rangey episode, with fast pacing, surprises and character bits. It kicks off with a violent family squabble (Tommy vs. his parents), moves expertly through tense comedy including the aforementioned exorcism, Bill glamouring his latest fling to "scream" and run whenever she sees him, and Lafayette's post Pam-cursing reaction to Marnie's 'who? me?' act.

That's some catchy shit for your headstone!"

Despite the abundance of actual plot there's graceful tightening of story threads as Sookie's finally braids to Marnie's when the women meet under the false pretenses of a reading. It doesn't turn out how Sookie or Marnie OR the audience expect.

Best Sookie Moment

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