True Blood 5.2... Or, Nahhh,... TEEN WOLF Top Ten!

previously on True Blood

After a disappointing return to Bon Temps I was all primed for something closer to satisfying from the second episode of this storied show's fifth season but instead of excitement the True Blood team offered more set-up as if this were part two of the season opener rather than a stand-alone episode or a compelling stakes-raiser. When will this season actually begin? Any movie that hadn't begun after 1 hour and 30 minutes would be universally shunned but unfortunately TV series can get away with doing nothing for hours on end, everyone assuming (generously) that "something will happen next time." 

In a complete dereliction of duty, and a complete absence of self-awareness, True Blood refuses to de-clothe Chris Meloni in "Authority Always Wins"

As far I can tell there are 5 major story threads going on...

• The Authority vs. Russell (Denis O'Hare) who they thought was dead. Starring Bill & Eric.
• Tara is now a Vampire after we thought her dead. Starring Tara, Sookie, Pam & Lafayette. 
• Werewolf PackPower Struggle once their pack leader is found dead. Starring Sam, Luna, & Alcides.
• The love between Jessica ♥ Jason has died and now everyone in Bon Temps is lovelorn and lonely... particularly the plain ol' human characters and solo girl vamps who used to always hang with their makers. Starring Jason & Jessica & Hoyt & Reverend Newlend & Sheriff Andy & Holly & Pam.
• War vet buddies are haunted by a dangerous loose cannon among them. Starring Terry & Arlene.   

Within these five general stories are (presumably) little minor stories starring only one or two of the characters bringing us to the very obvious conclusion that there are too many characters is not enough of a show-running directive / understanding that "ensemble" actually means 'a large group of characters' rather than 'abundant solo acts.' Frankly, I'm losing interest. It's like a very mild (hopefully tentative) version of that time a few months back when Glee returned from hiatus and I suddenly and violently knew I simply Could Not anymore with that show. Ugh.

the only emotionally engaging thread in "Authority Always Wins" took place a century ago!

Draining the Episode Dry
Body Count: 2 (Humans in Pam/Eric flashbacks); Sex Scenes: 0; Fresh Meat: The sickeningly sexy Chris Meloni joins the cast of the most naked show on television... completely clothed. Which tells you everything you need to know about the catastrophe that season 5 is threa... you know what? I CAN'T. I CAN'T.

Today I'd much rather talk about Teen Wolf.

Ten Best Things About Season 2 Teen Wolf (thus far)

10 Even when the relationships make you groan/giggle  -- almost always --  you can still care about them. Maybe because they're teenagers and you can forgive teenagers a lot. Maybe because it's only been 1 Season and they aren't replaying the same drama for years on end (yet). Maybe because the show doesn't take itself too seriously but genuinely seems to be fond of its characters.

09 Season 2's supposed edict "more emotions, less clothing" is so far totally true.

eight more bests after the jump

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Link Roll Call

Gold Derby has the complete list of MTV Movie Awards. As per usual it's a Harry Potter/Twilight party, crashed this time out by The Hunger Games. So YA.
Movie|Line interviews smashing Mark Ruffalo on playing The Hulk and Dance Dance Revolution with his castmates.
Hero Chan "The Birth of Venus Black Widow"
Incredible Suit massive difference between old and new Spider-Man movies demonstrated
My New Plaid Pants "do dump or marry?" The Royal Tenenbaums edition

Pajiba 10 actors who will never be nominated for Emmy no matter how much they deserve it. 
Guardian because all franchises refuse to die, they're thinking of resurrecting Dracula to star Tom Cruise as Van Helsing. Won't the vampire craze be over by the time they're finished? It has to be on its last legs now.
The Envelope Oscar is staying put in the same theater for another couple of decades. It is "Kodak" no more but now "Dolby" I believe. 
Cracked great behind the scenes photos that break the movie spell
Vulture April's best celebrity portraiture from Michelle Williams to Adepere Oduye
Awards Daily first photos of Nicole Kidman on set of Railway Man. Ugh, I hate when they make my fav goddesses frumpy for movie roles 

Finally, I heart this new poster for Snow White and the Huntsman. Oh please let the evil queen win!

Girl Gone Wild

Madonna's "Girl Gone Wild"... I can't stop watching it! 

But why do I think all male models are Colin Firth's rejected hustler from A Single Man? I swear I see him everywhere. Or is that actually Jon Katajarena? Madonna and Tom Ford do like to share collaborators.

It's great when stars can play on past triumphs without exactly repeating them. This song/video has flashes of previous Madonna classics like "Bad Girl" (the smoking, the hair) and "Express Yourself" (Madonna in silhouette and chains) a verbal reference to "Like a Prayer", but it also recalls the Sex book / "Justify My Love" era as well which I was not at all expecting given the complicated fall out from that particular Madonna era.  

Best of all is the confident but not lazy sparseness that suggests "Human Nature" and yet it's all still very "Girl Gone Wild". Wouldn't it be crazy if movies were as sexual as music videos? The MPAA would die.  A-

Howling at MTV's "Teen Wolf"

Tyler Posey as "Eddie Munster"... I MEAN, "TEEN WOLF"! Have any of you been watching MTV's new series Teen Wolf? I thought I might give it a go as it premiered right after the MTV Movie Awards which we wrote up here (live blog) and here (fashion). I think with Mad Men missing from my summer schedule, I'm searching for a TV show worth writing about - not that an MTV high school show based on a cheesy 80s movie is equivocal but I was curious. I mean how long can the current vampire/werewolf craze last? Zombies reigned for nearly an entire decade of pop culture so perhaps this trend has got a few more years in it.

As with Game of Thrones I decided three episodes was enough before sounding off...

episode 1 (pilot) "Wolf Moon"
It begins, as many monster movies, do with an investigation: cops, flashlights, woods, dead body ...or half of one at least (ewww). We are then introduced to the lead character Scott McCall (Tyler Posey), who is shown shirtless fixing his LaCrosse gear. So he's already coded as "hot jock". His best friend Stiles (Dylan O'Brien), a cop's son, calls to urge him to sneak out and see what all this dead body business is about. Weirdly, Stiles has Scott who is a severe asthmatic, hold the flashlight while they run up and down forest hills in the pitch black. Pant pant. Cough cough. BITE BITE. wolf attack! Well, you saw that coming. The next morning at school there is this amusing but entirely implausible* conversation, as Stiles berates Scott for being such a nerd.

the writers of that 80s Michael J Fox movie, get a shout out but this is closer to borrowing a "title" than adaptation.

"Dragging me down to your nerd depths. I'm a nerd by association. I've been Scarlet Nerded by you."

The creator of the show cited Buffy the Vampire Slayer as an influence in a recent interview -- another reason I tuned in -- and in dialogue exchanges like this you can feel it reaching for the smart geeky pop culture fun of that classic.

But in no way shape or universe is a guy on a high school's #1 sports team who looks like this a nerd.

No that is not a key party invitation from a cougar. That is a sex talk with his mom! (Cuz, you know, people generally have those talks with their mom while dripping wet and wearing only a towel.) Of course the mom uses this opportunity to make an MTV in joke -synergy!

I'm not going to end up on some reality show with a pregnant 16 year old."

ANYWAY... I was talking to Joe after the show about all this sexiness and I said 'Remember in 80s and 90s movies how the people playing nerds were sometimes not regulation hotties who have personal trainers on speed dial.' And he says...

Oh, you mean the bad old days?"

So... uh, well, Joe won that argument.

Trust: I'm not complaining about looking at Tyler Posey. But when your casting director fills an entire high school with beauties, it's hard not to giggle at the conversations about who's hot and who's not.  There is one moment in particular in episode one that had me totally LOL'ing where I was supposed to be sympathizing: A super hot black girl (unnamed... this school is lily-white but for her) stares at the new girl chatting up the most popular couple in school. She asks Scott and Stiles why the new girl gets to hang with them on her first day and they tell her 'Duh, she's hot!' So basically three hot 20somethings pretending to be highschoolers are staring at three other hot 20somethings pretending to be highschoolers, whilst bemoaning their fate as the Unhot?

The things you're hearing are hilariously irreconciliable with what you're seeing. Hey, maybe the show is a sly satire on body dysmorphia?

But if there's one thing this show is not, that's subtle. [Lots more after the jump, including more Buffy comparisons.]

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Red Carpet: MTV Girls, Super Empathy, and Lively Nudity

Previously on red carpet lineup Nathaniel and Jose discussed Cannes gowns and Kurt and Nathaniel chatted about the annual Met Gala. In today's episode, Nathaniel and Jose discuss the MTV Movie Awards fashion.

Nathaniel: ‬ ‪This time we're starting a bit "off cinema" -- although calling the MTV Movie Awards cinema related is a stretch -- for a brief look at the CDFA Awards held this week in New York City.‬

Lady Gaga, Lady Watts, Lady Sevigny, Housewife Marcia

Jose: ‬ ‪Wait, is that the thing where Gaga is? I assumed this lineup was the MTV awards too. Ha. I obviously missed both ceremonies

Nathaniel:‬ ‪Yep. The Council of Fashion Designers honored the industry's biggest designers as is their habit. But they also gave an award to Lady Gaga. Isn't giving Gaga a fashion award kind of like giving Angelina Jolie a Fame Award. Like...

"Congratulations: You are You!!!"

Jose: ‬ ‬ ‪She should receive fashion awards at the Cattle Salesman Council, not the fashion council.‬
She's always so coy about it, like "oh, you think I'm special?", I hate that. ‪Despite my love of McQueen I personally think that you should be able to "wear" fashion and these awards should go to people who encourage that‬

Nathaniel:‬ I hesitated to include Gaga in the Lineup o Actresses because lord knows the woman CANNOT act (see: music videos and SNL). I wish so bad that she'd make a movie because people would finally stop kicking Madonna for her shaky thespian tendencies. But I have a larger point to make.‬

Which is that if you're attending such a thing, shouldn't you do what Chloe Sevigny and Marcia Cross are doing and NOT what Naomi Watts is doing? Something eyepopping or you might as well be wallpaper.

Jose: To be honest, I'd rather have my Naomi fix in this wallflower-ish type, cause she's made some hideous choices in the past‬. Remember that dress she wore to the Oscars that made her look like King Kong had recently attacked her? This is careless copying, though. This is essentially what Gwynnie wore to the Oscars this year, but short and shapeless.

Nathaniel:‬ And bland. Here's the thing with blond actresses that are not particularly unusually eye-popping in some way. They're like grains of sand on the beach. There are millions of others with whom you are indistinguishable unless you're giving it a little something extra.‬ Naomi overcompensates onscreen sometimes by ACTING but undercompensates on the red carpet.

Jose: I say let's pull a Freaky Friday on Gaga and Naomi.

Nathaniel: !!! Wonderful idea.

Jose: Gaga looking human would be more surprising than anything else.

Nathaniel: Totes. I keep waiting for her to have her own "Live to Tell" moment where suddenly she's just in a simple flowery dress with pretty hair. That was SO shocking at the time for Madonna.‬ That's got to happen eventually.

Jose: ‬ ‬ ‪I'd love to see what she wore when she was just plain old "Gaga from the block", even Madge is down to earth now (in Louis Vuitton of course)‬

Nathaniel: I like that Chloe's top feels rubbery and sentient and winged... I suddenly picture her as Professor X's love Empress Lilandra of the Shi'Ar but I have mutants on the brain.

Jose: That makes total sense. She wouldn't even need CGI to display weird powers.‬

Lilandra and Dazzler of late 70s/early 80s X-Men fame

Nathaniel:‬ ‪Heh. I know I've said this very recently in another red carpet post but everyone is conspiring to make me think of 70s DAZZLER from the X-Men lately.

Jose: ‬ ‪Marcia looks stunning. I'm pretty sure she's looked the same since the 70's, maybe she's a mutant herself‬.

Nathaniel: These sparkly disco jumpsuits! There needs to be an X-Men Origins: Dazzler movie to fully bring back the 1970s. Fashion is trying to take us there anyway.‬

Jose: And I'd love to see Cross in a catfight with Jennifer Lawrence. ‪I say, let's put 'em all in rollerskates and have ourselves a Xanadu-Men: First Class!‬

Nathaniel: Damnit. Now I have to go masturbate.

Jose: LOL. It's too early for that here.

Nathaniel: Self-love knows no time zones!‬ Speaking of masturbatory.... let's move on to the MTV Twilight Awards.‬

Jose: ‬ ‬ ‪Ew, fine.

Nathaniel:‬ ‪This first lineup of lovely ladies demonstrates to us that it's A) summer at last B) short skirts are in.‬

Emma Watson, Mini-Dakota, Emma Stone, KStew, Queen Reese

Jose:  ‬ ‪I remember the time when the fine people of the planet voted for movies like Scream and Lord of the Rings in those awards, heck they even gave Nicole Kidman a trophy for Moulin Rouge! when Oscar ignored her‬

Nathaniel:‬ ‪I was just talking about this to a friend yesterday at lunch. You sound like an old curmudgeon when you say: back in my day they used to vote for good movies! but in this case it's not nostalgia, it's plain-ass facts.

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