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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Tuesday Top Ten - Motion (Picture) Sickness

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JA from MNPP here. First off, my apologies to those of you with weaker constitutions. This might not be your sort of Top Ten list today. With that out of the way, want to know why I still won't eat cherries to this very day? Since it's "The Witches of Eastwick week"I think y'all can probably put two and two together. Take a giant silver bowl of them, stir in a trio of witchy women under the influence of one Big Bad, and shake thoroughly - out spills what might be the always game Veronica Cartwright's most memorable cinematic moment. (And this is a woman who has been terrorized by Hitchock's birds and phallically attacked by HR Giger's Alien, so she knows from memorable scenes.)

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You'd be excused for expecting it to be the walls and furniture to be what tumbles out of her mouth since she spends the first half of the scene devouring the scenery in a tour de force of bravura overacting, but the devil's in the details - that red-stained torrent of cherry pits is something you just don't forget, even 25 years later. (Watch the whole scene here.)

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So in it's honor, a list!

Here are 9 more cinematic spews... from Bridesmaids through The Exorcist

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Top Ten: The Greatest People/Things Born on June 6th!

They say it's your birthday.♬ ♩♬♩♬ it's my birthday, too. 

Herewith, in semi off the cuff order, the greatest peoplethings born on this day in history. Happy June 6th!

Honorable mention...
Jason Isaacs -The impossibly hot 49 year old actor studied to be a lawyer but if he had stuck with it we would have never had his Captain Hook, or his Lucius Malfoy, or his bickering married screenwriter in Friends With Money, or even known who he is. Tragedy averted.

VC Andrews - not for writing the ridiculous "Flowers in the Attic" but for inspiring the ridiculous genius of Parker Posey's Waiting for Guffman scene in which the brilliant comic actress uses it for her small town theater audition.

"and who's on top and who's on bottom now? Huh?!"

TOP TEN JUNE 6TH BIRTHDAY PEOPLETHINGS!

10 Levi Stubbs
From the Four Topps to Audrey II.  I ♥ Little Shop of Horrors, don't you.

09 Chantal Akerman
I feel such guilt that I still haven't seen Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

08 Billie Whitelaw 
She hasn't appeared in a movie since Hot Fuzz but the BAFTA winning actress and Samuel Beckett muse has been giving it on stage and screen since the 1950s in everything from Quills, to Hitchcock's Frenzy to Charlie Bubbles and was even the voice of crazy ass eyeball dropping muppet astronomer Aughra in The Dark Crystal. 

 Fun trivia: Billie Whitelaw played the evil nanny of that little toddler Anti-Christ in The Omen, whose birthday was also June 6th. Not So Fun Triva: When I was little I snuck into the living room to watch The Omen on TV by myself. I was so scared I could barely sleep for the next two nights and since I was also a June 6th baby, I had to search my scalp for the mark of the devil afterwards! 

07 TETRIS!
The video game turns 28 years old today. Nine time out of ten its geometric puzzle descendants are the cel phone apps that I accidentally become obsessed with. I would have placed it much higher but for all the months of my life it has consumed... and for what?

I'll never have those months back! Curse you Tetris.

06 Aaron Sorkin
For A Few Good Men, The American President, Moneyball  and especially The Social Network. If he cared a little more about writing great female characters to go with his tremendously interesting male characters he'd be just about the perfect screenwriter. 

05 Aleksandr Pushkin
For being such a crucial figure in Russian and, hell, world literature. The Russian noble and poet's legacy can't be denied. He even inspired one of the great Oscar Best Picture winners Amadeus (1984) with his short work "Mozart and Salieri"

04 Harvey Feirstein
The inimitable croaksqueak voice, the great wit, the wonderful plays and movies, the multiple Tony Awards, the homo bravery. Such a trailblazer, such a great performer and man. Edna Turnblad (#2) forever! See: Torch Song Trilogy, La Cage Aux Folles, The Sissy Duckling, and more. 

03 Sandra Bernhard 
For her Oscar nomination worthy brilliance in King of Comedy (1983). For one of the best and bravest concert films of all time Without You I'm Nothing (1990). And for just being her own inimitable self. The best stars are always irreplaceably singular.   

And though the Sandra/Madonna days are long gone *sniffle* I just have to share my single favorite talk show appearance of all time... I watch it at least once every couple years. It is serving up 1988 authenticity. It is time machine realness.

02 The drive in movie theater! For reals. On June 6th, 1933 the first one opened for business. Thank you New Jersey. I have rarely been to the drive-in in my life but I love the concept and I love drive-in scenes in movies even more than the concept.

The first movie I ever saw at a drive-in was this (incidentally the only time I ever remember my mom and dad taking me to the drive in *sniffle*) and the best time I ever had at a drive-in was this (college was so fun. sigh) and the last one I ever saw was this. Point being: it's hard to forget going to the drive-in.

me, plotting eternal youthful middle age01 Me 
I'm turning 40 (ugh). Again! I'm so happy that people can legally discriminate against me in the job market now. Wheeee. If you'd like to soften the blow, take the subscription rush challenge and I'll see you again on June 30th. 

Since Wisconsin's citizenry tried to ruin my birthday last night I'm turning to actresses for solace, as I am wont to do: An Evening with Jane Fonda tonight and Jane Krakowksi live this weekend. Yes.

recent top 10s
tennis @ the movies, who for avengers 2?, best of 2011

Tues Top Ten: Tennis in the Movies

The world's number one ranked male tennis player turns a quarter century today so in honor of Novak Djokovic why not celebrate with a list of best tennis moments in the movies?

Because... uh...

Are there any? When I first thought of doing this list I was like YES -- little known fact: I played tennis daily one summer in high school and still love the game  -- only to hit a brick wall rather than a low net. You may have heard this complaint before from tennis fans but given the abundance of sports movies of every other stripe it's almost like Hollywood hates the game. Those private tennis courts on celebrity acreage are all going to waste.

I've come up with ten things anyway.

BEST TENNIS SOMETHING OR OTHER IN THE MOVIES

You should know upfront that I've never seen the Chad Lowe boy-in-drag masterpiece Nobody's Perfect (1989) -- no decade ever loved cross-dressing comedies like the 80s -- so I shan't include it. 

10 Wimbledon (2004)
Nobody likes this movie but given the abrupt sharp decline in romantic comedy quality over the past ten years, I bet it'd look pretty good if it came out now. At the very least both Paul Bettany and Kirsten Dunst looked fresh and healthy and sun-kissed as the professional athletes in love.

09 The Witches of Eastwick (1987)
We'll be sure to celebrate this movie's 25th anniversary next month but for now, remember that tennis match? Temperatures are flaring as the three best friends Jane (Susan Sarandon) Sukie (Michelle Pfeiffer) and Alex (Cher) all compete for Devil Jack Nicholson's attention. In a game of doubles things get vindicative and then supernatural.

 

Funny girls and dangerous men after the jump...

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Tues Top Ten: Who for Avengers 2 ?

Every once in awhile people will ask me if I really like superheroes or if I just post about them on occassion because it's good for traffic. The answers are a bold yes and an er, probably not (The Film Experience isn't so much on the fanboy traffic radar for numerous reasons including undoubtedly because actresses on the verge of onscreen nervous breakdowns are a way more thrilling visual effect than superhero powers). But in truth I've always loved superheroes and only wish that superhero movies had more variety and imagination and a fan culture that was less slobbering and homogenous. See, I grew up completely obsessed with X-Men. Just as with movies where strong casts are consistently more likely to thrill me than movies built on one performance, I generally appreciated team comics the most, so I also read (in ascending order of favoritism): The Legion of Superheroes, Fantastic Four, Alpha Flight, The Avengers and The Teen Titans. I liked the Avengers best when certain characters were present.  For those of you who didn't read comics, The Avengers operated on an internal narrative wherein the roster of heroes changed fairly regularly, sometimes only one or two slots but never exactly the same roll call. 

So with last week's no shit announcement that box office titan The Avengers would be getting a sequel, I thought I'd list the ten characters I'd most like Joss Whedon to consider for it. He's already on record saying he'd like another female though the pickings are somewhat slim. The unstated problem is that the best female superheroes are part of the X-Men team, characters 20th Century Fox is in control of... a thorough breakdown of who owns which characters can be found at Screen Rant. This is all assuming that Marvel Studios doesn't want Whedon to just make the first movie again with a new villain. Which, I'll quickly note, is a ridiculous assumption. The guiding rule of expensive studio sequels is "make it the same only bigger" 

Top Ten Heroes To Consider for Avengers 2

With apologies to Quake who was in the original post and was accidentally deleted until it was all written.

10 Doctor Strange
The Marvel Universe's premiere sorcerer has yet to make a dent outside of comic books. Name recognition wouldn't be high for mainstream audiences but that's what people worried about with Iron Man and look how that turned out? Strange got a TV movie in 1978 but subsequent planned film versions have been cursed, the spell forever uncast.

The rights have changed hands many times but last we heard, Marvel Studios had control of the mystic doctor again and had hired screenwriters. Adrien Brody was rumored for the role a couple of years ago and then Patrick Dempsey was lobbying hard in 2011. I'm not crazy about the Dempsey idea since his charisma is scaled so well for the small screen -- really it's just the hair that make people think he's right for it because as an actor he definitely lacks mystery -- but the Doctor could be an intriguing character in the right hands.

#8 through #1 after the jump

09 Ms Marvel / Binary / War Bird
I've never met a soul who has any deep feelings or fandom for Ms. Marvel, which probably dooms her big screen chances altogether but hear me out. Her backstory is so fucked up, her name has changed multiple times, that nothing is canon. A writer like Joss Whedon could do virtually whatever he pleased with her without upsetting decades of story. But it's also worth noting that Ms. Marvel's most intriguing story connects to the X-Men mythology. Rogue (played by Anna Paquin in the movies) once absorbed just too much of her and gained all her memories and identity giving both women major psychiatric issues thereafter. 

If handled brilliantly and with a team of great lawyers couldn't she straddle both superhero franchises as a supporting player, essentially tying them into the same universe without disrupting either studio's plans too much?

#8 through #1 after the jump

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