Random TV Love

There are many things I love about Turner Classic Movies, but this year I've come to appreciate their "TCM Remembers" in memoriam montage for 2011. The run up to the Oscars has begun in earnest, and I suspect that none of the comparable segments I will see in any of the myriad awards ceremonies of the coming months will approach the project with as much class or consideration for granting equitable representation to as many members of their community as possible. (I also liked this Atlanta Magazine online piece about the montage.)

Hmmm...

I suspect that the person who designed this shirt doesn't actually know where this quote comes from. Like, what does this even mean outside of context?

Trailer Thoughts

You know how sometimes you watch a trailer, and your primary reaction is something like, "Oh, dear."?

Oh, dear.


Some other thoughts, in no particular order:


- That reaction is not to say that I'm assuming that this is bad, necessarily. Adam Shankman is a good choreographer and a solid director, and Hairspray ended up being a lot more charming than I thought it would be. 


- There's an interesting task at hand here, and part of me is sort of curious to see how it plays out: unlike, say, Mamma Mia, this is a jukebox musical pulling its songs predominantly (if not exclusively) from the music video's heyday. How do you stage numbers that already have established visuals attached to them? I can't say I'm not intrigued.


- That being said, I'm skeptical about the use of "Sister Christian," if only because the song's already attached to an amazing film scene. 


- I'm not sure the filmgoing world can handle the excess of terrible wigs entailed in both this movie and the second part of Breaking Dawn coming out in the same year.

A Bit of (Out of Context) Levity

Insane Dialogue + Hilarious Line Reading SMACKDOWN! (Fall 2011 New TV Edition)

Baking: Celebration/Consolation Cake

On Friday, the combination of the end of classes for this semester and watching Bridesmaids lead me to want to bake a cake for myself. (That whole "baking a single cupcake for myself as a perfect representation of my deep loneliness and mixed feelings about my baking career" deal from the movie just seems a little too savant-esque for me. How on earth do you figure out the proportions of ingredients for one cupcake?) I've spent the semester baking treats for my students - now I wanted to make something just for me.

Devil's Food Cake with Milk Chocolate Frosting from Martha Stewart (a recipe that's becoming one of my favorites, though I also chose it because I have sour cream on hand, but no whole milk). I halved the recipe because there's only so much personal gluttony I'm willing to rationalize.

I'm dually naming the cake for my mixed feelings about the conclusion of my first teaching experience. I'm happy to not have to get up for class three days a week, because I'm still not a morning person in any way, shape or form. But I'm also bummed that I won't see my students every week. Sixteen kids with a decent percentage of thoughtful contributors to discussions and no jerks? I'm just hoping I wasn't spoiled for future classes.

Mood Music LXV

Apparently I'm feeling totally cheesy about the onset of the holiday season.

Random TV Love

I'm slightly obsessed with this clip. Somebody needs to give that lady an Emmy. And get me my own Ben Wyatt analogue.

Mood Music LXIV

Random Movie Love

I love this overstuffed title sequence. I can't even pick a favorite part. The Growing Pains-style baby photo montage of Astaire and Kelly? The scroll of names getting lit on fire? The falling dominoes spelling out "LASSIE"? (What ever happened to that effect? I feel like I used to see dominoes all the time and never do anymore.) The giant gong? Part I may have awesome stuff like the decrepit MGM lot and glorious co-hosts implying that life under contract at MGM in "the good old days" was a personal hell, the specifics of which they can't quite articulate, but Part II definitely wins in the opening credits department.

Mood Music LXIII

The lyric "I am the eggman" coming on while I was actually physically separating eggs made me giggle. Some days you have to take your levity wherever you find it.

Movie Stuff Release Valve

I feel like I need a repository for the things that I find that are tangentially related to the class for which I'm currently a TA (tangentially mainly because the class ends in 1960, so similar topics but 2011 examples) because it seems like a decent percentage of the job of leading a discussion section is trying to actively resist the group's impulse to wander off on marginally relevant tangents.

Last week we learned about the introduction of Technicolor and the different processes and changes in filmmaking involved in its inception, an evolution that starts to feel sort of cyclical when you watch the discussions here of what goes into a full-scale implementation of 3-D:

An interesting HitFix piece from Drew McWeeny about the MPAA's ratings system and his opinion of its general uselessness.

And, because the class discussion of the Production Code and its tenets reminded me of it: Freakazoid's take on the ratings system.

Guest Starring Role Realness

Between this and Terriers last season, I'm trying to decide what the third show is that Shangela needs to appear on to complete a Cult Television Trifecta.

Week in TV: October 30-November 5

Boardwalk Empire, 2.6: "The Age of Reason"

- There have been a lot of quiet scenes of serious, bone-deep loneliness this season - Richard's scrapbook, the stilted conversations of the Van Aldens - but nothing compares to the heartbreaking sequence of Lucy realizing what was happening and then gathering herself together to give birth alone. It seemed like the show relied a lot on Paz de la Huerta's established persona to build Lucy's character in the first season, but I think she's really done a great job with the more subdued material of this storyline.

- It's a small role, but I really like the performance Anatol Yusef is giving as Meyer Lansky. To the extent that BE ever functions as a sort of a biopic, it's what I think of as the ideal biopic performance - aware of the mythos without being overly reliant on it. There are just brief flashes here and there where you can say, "Oh, yeah, I can totally see this guy being a major player in revolutionizing American organized crime," but I never feel beaten over the head with it.

Sons of Anarchy, 4.9: "Kiss"

I know it's not really a flashback kind of a show, but I'd really love to see SOA take a look back at the early years of the Gemma-Unser relationship. (I'm sort of envisioning a West Wing "Two Cathedrals"-style setup.) What kinds of interactions did the cop and the wild daughter of Charming have back in the day that earned her such enduring devotion from him?

Revenge, 1.7: "Charade"

- I don't envy the people working on the upcoming Dallas reboot for TNT - Revenge has been bringing the primetime soap back with a vengeance (heh, no wordplay intended) and even if New Dallas is amazing, it seems likely that Revenge will totally steal their thunder. The introduction of Stripper Emily and the Nolan-Tyler blackmail hookup collectively showed that the show has transcended the pseudo-procedural revenge-of-the-week setup in only a few episodes.

- I know it's still a bit of a ways off, but what happens when the summer is over? The Graysons aren't year-round Hamptons residents, right? I'd like to think that the show will just continue on to other locales where the wealthy vacation - a season in Aspen or Palm Springs or wherever - but who knows?

American Horror Story, 1.5: "Halloween, Part 2"

- Finally, finally, a ghost tells one of the Harmons directly that they need to do some research. (In this case, one of Tate's apparent victims incredulous at Violet's ignorance of the situation.) The most frustrating thing about this show to me so far has been the Harmons' bizarre lack of curiosity regarding the house and its sordid history. If I was considering moving into a house and the realtor told me the previous tenants had died in a murder-suicide, I would Google That Business. Immediately. The further incidents of a) a stranger claiming to have burned his family to death in said house, b) a home invasion based around recreating events of a famous dual murder in said house and c) the Murder Tour of Los Angeles bus pointedly making a stop IN FRONT OF SAID HOUSE would prompt me to, again, Google That Business. Maybe take a trip to the library and spend some quality time with the Los Angeles Times on microfiche. It's difficult to feel bad about any of the terrible things happening to the protagonists when they seem so determined to face it all with as little helpful information as possible.

- Okay, so it's a major part of the story that the family doesn't have enough money to move, right? Then how do they have enough to afford that tricked-out security system with the prompt, personalized service?

- Interesting to see that Tim Minear wrote this episode - something about the tone reminded me a bit of his Angel episode "Are You Now or Have You Ever Been." Indeed, he wrote some of the most interesting flashback-based episodes under the Mutant Enemy banner - "Darla" for Angel, "Out of Gas" for Firefly and "Omega" for Dollhouse - which suggest that he's got a skill set well-suited to this show's particular universe and mode of storytelling. It wasn't the most suspenseful of the episodes that have aired thus far, but it was the first that made me curious to learn more about any of the characters (as opposed to previous episodes, which made me curious to see what sort of random insanity would get thrown up on screen the following week).

Miscellaneous Links:

- Shout-out to this week's A.V. Club Inventory on unexpectedly scary episodes of generally non-scary shows for including the episode that most readily came to mind for me: the Scream-based episode of Boy Meets World. (#10 on the list) "And Then There Was Shawn" is one of my all-time most memorable television-watching experiences, because it scared the ever-loving crap out of me. I was over at a friend's house when I saw it, and it marks the only time I can remember having to call home to be brought back from a sleepover during the night. I was wracked with paranoia for months afterward - I constantly checked behind doors to make sure no slashers were lurking and every time I got left alone at home I would just sit tensely in my room, jumping at every little creak, convinced that I was mere moments away from being murdered. Honestly, even though I've gotten older (and at this point, actually watched the real Scream without incident) and accumulated more experience with genre fiction, I'm still wigging a little bit just thinking about it.

Week(s) in TV: Miscellaneous Links

- Not really about TV, per se, but I liked the excerpt the New Yorker posted from Mindy Kaling's upcoming book.

- Called it!

- Normally, I try not to get too worked up about announcements of development deals for pilots - so many pilots get made that never make it onto the official TV schedule. But I couldn't help but let out a squeal at the news of Lee Daniels working on a series based on Valley of the Dolls. a) Valley of the Dolls is pure campy awesomeness, and while I haven't seen any of the adaptations besides the 1960s film version with Patty Duke and Sharon Tate, that movie doesn't touch on half of what's in the book; b) the book could easily serve as the basis for a television series - it spans a decade or so and actually paints an interesting portrait of postwar New York and the entertainment world, touching on theater, movies and television; if shows like Playboy Club and Pan Am are any indication, a central character like Anne is exactly what the networks are looking for; c) Daniels, at least in his first film Shadowboxer, has shown a distinct flair for bringing balls-out craziness to the screen, which I think is really key to adapting VotD faithfully.

- Another interesting announcement came in the buzz around producers working on pulling together a black-cast Steel Magnolias for Lifetime. It was clear fairly shortly into The Help's run in the theaters that it would be the kind of project studios would try to imitate or replicate for their own profit, and at least on its face, this seems like an inspired tack to take. If they can get the kind of cast they want for the project, it will get awards attention and could be a game-changer for Lifetime's image.

Week in TV: October 23-29

Boardwalk Empire, 2.5: "Gimcrack and Bunkum"

- In a media landscape that's often lacking in diversity, I feel like BE deserves props for making the cabal of Atlantic City elders backing the Commodore feel like the oldest, whitest group of old white men anywhere on television. Truly an accomplishment among stiff competition.

- Great interview with Jack Huston from The Daily Beast; the work he's been doing this season is mesmerizing, and really showcases BE at its best.

Revenge, 1.6: "Intrigue"

There are many things to enjoy about this show, but I'm currently really digging Ashton Holmes, Tyler's weird creepiness, and the fact that they've kept his motives fairly oblique; does he want to bang Daniel, replace him in the Grayson family, or murder him and wear his skin? (Maybe all three, not necessarily in that order?) Love it. I was kind of convinced that the shooting that opened the pilot is actually connected to the mentioned-infrequently-but-just-frequently-enough-to-clearly-be-relevant waitress relationship gone bad rather than Emily's revenge plot, but I'm willing to give a percentage of that theorizing over to "Tyler finally snaps." Good stuff.

American Horror Story, 1.4: "Halloween, Part 1"

I think this week really highlighted a central flaw in the show, particularly if the plot heads where it appears to be heading: the most interesting people in any given episode tend to be the former residents/current ghosts. If the seemingly inevitable horrific murder (murder-suicide?) of the Harmons comes to pass, they aren't currently compelling enough for their potential future haunting to seem like an interesting prospect. At the end of the episode, I wasn't concerned about the ostensible protagonists. I was thinking, "Damn, I hope we get some sort of cross-era ghost interaction so there are at least a few scenes of Zachary Quinto and Lily Rabe going crazy on each other, over-the-top Tennessee Williams-style."

Once Upon a Time, "Pilot"

Grimm, "Pilot"

Two takes on fairy tales, neither of which grabbed me right out of the gate. I preferred Grimm's darker take on the material, just because it seemed to owe more to the gorier original stories as opposed to the more clearly Disney-influenced versions in Once Upon a Time (and, honestly, when you're introducing a show like this in 2011, I think you need at least a dash of that kind of self-awareness and to contend with your source material in as nuanced a manner as possible), but I don't think I'm up for what looks to be a more procedural structure in the less whimsical show. I'm more curious to see where Once Upon a Time goes for a while, particularly whether the flashback structure holds up, and whether a long-term strategy for sustaining compelling storytelling emerges. The stated goal of Emma ultimately defeating the Queen and breaking the curse seems like a decent endpoint, but only if there's as little wheel-spinning as possible in the journey to get there.

Random TV Love

How did I not realize sooner that Skins was on Hulu (now through the fourth series), and therefore available for me to excerpt and embed scenes like the following selection from the second episode that essentially marks the exact point where I became totally obsessed with the show?:

Look out, world. There's totally a "My 10 15 20 Favorite Things from Skins" post coming at you.

Mood Music LXII

Trailer Thoughts

I was excited about this movie anyway, but this trailer just kicked that excitement up tenfold. A significant part of that initial excitement came from my own pre-existing affection for Juno, but I like that the trailer doesn't oversell any commonalities this might have with any of Reitman or Cody's prior work. The use of "Queen Bitch" is just perfection. And there's something I absolutely love about that Diet Coke she's holding in the scene in the Macy's - like, that's the little touch that really says "full-tilt public breakdown."

Mood Music LXI

Week in TV: September 18-24

Good lord, TV. I am only one person!

How I Met Your Mother, 7.1: "The Best Man" and 7.2: "The Naked Truth"

My patience for this show's mythology shenanigans has grown so thin, but something in me just can't give up on it. The plan going in was to mostly let episodes just sort of accumulate on the DVR and watch them in blocks, and nothing I saw in this hour really dissuaded me from that position. (I'm going to be time-shifting like a fiend this year. Lots of moves to Friday and Saturday afternoon and evening.)

Sons of Anarchy, 4.3: "Dorylus"

I'm so curious to see where they go with the plot point of Juice's secret background. SOA does Imitation of Life!?! (It's brief, but Sutter wrote an interesting blog post about the upcoming storyline.)

Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, 13.1: "Scorched Earth"

It's interesting - they seem to have done so much to try to shore up the show to compensate for Christopher Meloni leaving that this episode felt much more focused than others I've seen from the past few years. Ultimately, I wonder if the show didn't wait too long to start introducing new detectives into the mix (as opposed to when Criminal Intent started rotating D'Onofrio with Noth), but Kelli Giddish fit in well in this episode. And while it feels a bit manipulative, I was a big fan of the last detective/ADA quartet of OG Law and Order, so I'm glad to see Linus Roache back as Michael Cutter. As premieres go, they put together a fairly solid argument for Meloni's departure not being the incentive to abandon viewership that it originally seemed.

The Playboy Club, "Pilot"

- This show was both not as bad as I thought it would be and not as good as it could be. And while the potential for a better show lies somewhere among its multiple storylines, I fear its association with a still-existing corporate entity means that there won't be an incentive to find and cultivate that better show. It could find depth in deconstructing the tightly corseted facade of the Bunny. Instead it persists in glorifying an imprecisely-defined concept of empowerment, introduced not by one of said empowered women, but in the voice of "Hef" as a shadowy Big Brother figure. It's like someone read Enlightened Sexism and took it as an instruction manual instead of a criticism.

- Reviewers keep bringing up Mad Men in comparison with this show, and certainly that show's current place in the zeitgeist undoubtedly had an impact on getting this show greenlit. But the show that came more immediately to mind watching this was American Dreams - not only because of the performance from "Ike and Tina Turner" (another missed opportunity in contrasting image and experience?) but also due to the similarities between Hefner and Dick Clark, their presence as shadowy background figures on the show and their presumed behind-the-scenes ability to influence how they're depicted. I only hope Playboy Club grows to encompass the kind of scope that American Dreams did.

- Fall TV Footnote! Gloria Steinem's website put up a PDF of her famous undercover piece about working at New York's Playboy Club. (The points made in the show's voiceover sound suspiciously similar to the P.R. she cites and ultimately rejects as presenting a false picture of how Bunny life really is.)

Unforgettable, "Pilot"; Person of Interest, "Pilot"; Prime Suspect, "Pilot"; A Gifted Man, "Pilot"

Ah, network dramas. None of these was bad or offensive, and each one has at least one actor who I like, but life's too short to accumulate crime procedurals. I'll definitely give Prime Suspect another episode or two, and I'm so wiped out on Friday nights this semester that I may keep up with A Gifted Man (or, as I started calling it in my head midway through the pilot, Dude Providence) at least until Chuck starts.

Charlie's Angels, "Pilot"

I think a go-for-broke, full-tilt camp remake of Charlie's Angels could be sort of fun, but, unfortunately, this is not that show. The tone was way too serious for the core premise, and it made the whole show feel like it was aiming for a portentousness that was never quite there. And as much as I love Victor Garber, I think he was missing a bit of the warmth that John Forsythe had in his voice work as Charlie.

2 Broke Girls, "Pilot"; Whitney, "Pilot"

Watched them, can't even really think of anything germane to say about them, not getting added to the schedule.

Miscellaneous Links

- Interesting piece from Wired on Dan Harmon - I feel like every interview I read with him makes me worry about his health.

- The A.V. Club has really been stepping it up a notch with their series of showrunner interviews. This week's set with Louis C.K. really showcased how much he thinks about every aspect of Louie from script to screen, and how much cachet he's built up among comedians and other artists.

Week in TV: September 11-17

True Blood, 4.12: "And When I Die"

Maybe I'll come back to this one? Like much of the season, this episode was mostly kind of dull. And what was exciting about it (in the last ten minutes) seemed to pretty blatantly be setting up plot points for Season Five. Which is all well and good, but that's nine months from now. Mostly, what I'm left with is: OMG REVEREND STEVE!!!!!

Sons of Anarchy, 4.2: "Booster"

- I really dig the mutual disdain Potter and Roosevelt have for Jacob Hale. Just another quality that adds to the general vibe of "The time of nutbag ATF agents is over".

- I love Rockmond Dunbar anyway, but that Do The Right Thing reference put it over the top for me. (If I let my TV geekery wander a bit, it's an interesting line to borrow - originally spoken by Giancarlo Esposito who, of course, is now appearing on Breaking Bad as Gus. Who, like SAMCRO, is having his own issues with a Mexican cartel (not that the SOA writers would've known that when they put this together)).

Ringer, "Pilot"

- I wanted to like this episode much more than I did. They loaded both characters with a host of problems, which are not the same thing as personalities, and declined to capitalize on Sarah Michelle Gellar's best trait as an actress in keeping the dialogue so low-energy. It could be a good guilty-pleasure show if they double down (no pun intended) on the campy possibilities of the story. Something about it makes me hope for that trajectory, even if it seems against the odds.

- The one aspect of this episode that I found really interesting was the subplot of Bridget attempting to maintain her sobriety while masquerading as her sister.

- So what's the over-under on how long it'll take for them to bring in someone else from Buffy? I'm thinking November sweeps, by which time it will likely be clear whether the show will make it past the original thirteen-episode order. I vote for Emma Caulfield - I think she could make a quality snooty rich lady.

Up All Night, "Pilot" and Free Agents, "Pilot"

A pair of shows that need time for their ensembles to gel. Up All Night has a great central cast, and I think the pilot showed that there's a clear sense of what the show is and what differentiates it from shows like Modern Family and Raising Hope. Free Agents wasn't terrible, but there was a definite air of humor lost in translation - watching it, I kept thinking, "Oh yeah, I can see how this probably worked better in Britain." I'm interested to see where the former show goes, but the latter never grabbed my attention the way I wanted it to.

The Secret Circle, "Pilot"

I don't know whether I'll ultimately stick with this show - CW programs always end up creating DVR issues for me - but not because this episode didn't pique my interest. They established a decent number of characters in the hour, and hinted at the potential for deep mythology and background, so I'm not averse to watching further weeks. At the very least, light shows (especially teen soaps) are a good accompaniment for morning coffee.

Miscellaneous Links

- Besides the football thing, this is pretty much how I feel this time of year. (from Hanna)

- I didn't watch H8R (even I have limits), but the reviews by Dan Fienberg and Todd VanDerWerff were a couple of the best things I read this week. Good TV-critic rants are truly priceless.

Week in TV: September 4-10

Sons of Anarchy, 4.1: "Out"

- The few reviews I've read of this premiere emphasize this season returning the focus to the club as it functions in Charming as opposed to the more wide-ranging search for Abel last year. While I'm looking forward to the return to that scope of storytelling, in this episode I was most excited to see the show introduce new antagonists (and, at least based on their first appearances here, specifically non-crazy antagonists) for SAMCRO. By the end of last season, Stahl became too manic and desperate, to the point that, while it didn't rob the triple-cross in "NS" of its dramatic weight, it felt inevitable that her all-consuming desire to entrap the club would come back to bite her in the ass. And Hale's death left the show with a void regarding a practical, reasoned perspective on the club and their role in Charming. I also come in already liking Rockmond Dunbar and Ray McKinnon, so I'm really looking forward to seeing how the show uses them across the season's arc.

- Not only was Ryan Hurst great in infusing the wedding scene with just a hint of sadness, but the show demonstrated a lot of respect for the audience's ability to retain information in letting that subtle undercurrent of grief be the episode's most direct reference to Donna. Semi-Related: I also love Lyla's tacky wedding platforms.

- They're awfully fond of musical montages on this show, with this episode bookended by them, so this EW gallery with Kurt Sutter and Paris Barclay breaking down the one that closed out "Out" was an interesting glimpse into that particular creative process.

The Hour, "Episode Four"

- I've enjoyed this show from the beginning, but I think this was the episode where the tone really clicked and the disparate storylines felt like they were all of a piece, joining comments on suppression and repression to construct a portrait of people striving together to challenge a status quo that leaves too many things unquestioned and unsaid.

- How great is Jessica Hynes? Her terse, matter-of-fact tone in her scene at the beginning of the episode beautifully established the tension that drove the remainder of the hour. In recent weeks, I've also seen her appear as an oversharing hippie on Skins and as an Edwardian-era boys' school matron on Doctor Who, so I'm sort of in awe of her range. (I also watched Paul over the weekend, and it's really interesting to see the more drama-focused track she seems to have taken post-Spaced as opposed to the genre work for which Simon Pegg and Nick Frost have gained international attention.)

- I've gone down a slight rabbit hole of British television recently, and it's really highlighted why comparisons between this show and Mad Men are simplistic and unfair. It's not just that the only thing they really have in common is the era, and even then not really. There's the difference in years, but more importantly, there's the different trajectories in global identity that the United Kingdom and the United States take during those years, which necessarily and dramatically inform the goings-on on both shows. But the striking thing you notice after watching more than a few British productions? Quite simply, they've been owning us at period pieces for decades, and have a deep pool of acting talent to back up that continuing engagement with the past.

- Just because it's not really like Mad Men in any way doesn't mean I can't still obsess over the fashion. I love everything about Bel's wardrobe, especially the scarves-as-headbands. And this show really makes me want to try to work some red lipstick into my repertoire.

Doctor Who, 6.10: "The Girl Who Waited"

- A great episode, with one of Karen Gillan's best performances in the series - I was particularly, and somewhat unexpectedly, pleased to see the return of Amy's bitterness towards the Doctor, which has largely dissipated in the episodes since "The Eleventh Hour."

- I again felt like I was waiting for a direct reference to what happened with Melody - you'd think that that's a thought that would come up in thirty-six years of stewing. In interviews I've read with Steven Moffat, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill, it seems like they've got a handle on what keeps Amy and Rory traveling with the Doctor after that kind of traumatic experience, but I'm not sure that that's coming through on screen. There's an argument to be made that it would make sense for them to decide that being on the TARDIS is better than staying in Leadworth alone with their thoughts, but I think they need to specifically say so out loud, instead of leaving it to conjecture. I'm not sure how long the issue can go under-addressed without the arc (or lack thereof) starts undermining the quality of individual episodes.

Revenge, "Pilot"

I was really intrigued by the specific promotion offered for an early viewing of this pilot - ABC offered the pilot script as a free Kindle download on Amazon, which concluded with a link to watch the episode online. The changes from the script to the screen made for an unexpectedly interesting glimpse into the creative process of setting up a show's world to start off a drama series, particularly one like this where a good chunk of the story is dependent on past events. I love a good primetime soap, so I hope this one sticks around long enough to dig into its central mysteries. The pilot shows a lot of potential without seeming too high-concept to be sustainable past thirteen episodes.

The New Girl, "Pilot"

- Took advantage of this one showing up free on iTunes. I liked it, though I felt like I'd already seen about 90% of the pilot in the ads that have been running all summer for the show. I also feel like this pilot is difficult to use as an indicator of how the show will be going forward, since they had to replace Damon Wayans, Jr. and the pilot is so focused on the four roommates. Still, I like Zooey Deschanel (and Max Greenfield - Deputy Leo!), and as a nerdy, crafty twenty-something, I'm excited to see how they develop her character in further episodes.

- I found this profile of Zooey Deschanel from New York Magazine really interesting, especially in its take on both positive and negative reception of her star persona.

Miscellaneous Links:

- I love a good Mad Men dissection, so this Daily Beast post with Matthew Weiner and Jon Hamm breaking down "The Suitcase" was right up my alley.

- An interesting AOLTV piece (shared by Katie) by Mo Ryan about declining numbers of women writers on television staffs.

- More Downton Abbey! (The pieces coming out about the show right now must drive PBS's marketing people crazy.) This time, a New York Times article profiling Julian Fellowes. I love that he defends Thomas to the interviewer.

And Yet More on The Help

Watch the full episode. See more American Experience.

Discussing The Help in my August movies post, one of the things I said is that I felt like I wanted more historical specificity in the framing of the story. Which is all well and good, but even better if you've got an example on hand to compare it to. So here's one that kept coming to mind - Freedom Riders, a documentary which aired earlier this year as part of PBS's American Experience series, and was recognized yesterday at the Creative Arts Emmys for "Exceptional Merit in Nonfiction Filmmaking." One of the things I really like about this documentary is how well it uses its scope - it zeroes in on the Freedom Rides in a way that feels more incisive than, say, something like Eyes on the Prize, and gives a real sense of the range of people involved. I also appreciate the complexity of its depiction of the Kennedy administration and the way they balanced their interactions with the activists involved in the Rides with their desire to keep their Southern base with the Democratic party. More of the directed, purposeful actions of the era deserve this kind of rescue from the over-broad umbrella of "the Civil Rights movement."

Also, an interesting Entertainment Weekly piece from Mark Harris regarding The Help, and specifically Viola Davis' performance, which touches on a question I've been thinking about for a while - that of evaluating an individual actor's ability to transcend or bring depth to a stereotypical role.

Screened: August 2011

August 6: The Deer Hunter

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

A long-standing entry on the "Movies I Feel Obligated to See" list, crossed off!

August 9: Captain America: The First Avenger

Screened: In the theater

Probably the best I've seen of the leading-up-to-The Avengers movies. Captain America embraced its period setting with vigor, and established its cast of characters so well that the movie's flash-forward ending felt like a bit of a tragedy. It's not only a good movie on its own, it established its ties to the broader Avengers narrative in a much less clunky fashion than the Iron Man movies. By the end, I actually felt like I was really looking forward to next summer.

August 17: Jumping the Broom

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

A nice little wedding melodrama ideal for an afternoon viewing chilling on the sofa. It feels a little facile to compare any black-cast drama with those of Tyler Perry's oeuvre, but to that end I appreciated that this movie had plot-driving conflict without outlandishly demonizing any of its characters. Also, I love the opening credits.

August 19: The Help

Screened: In the theater

I've been thinking a lot about this movie, and trying to capture my thoughts about it without my commentary becoming a treatise. It's not a bad movie - in the most basic sense, it is a very good, faithful adaptation of its source material - but it is a deeply flawed movie. Ultimately, what I come down to is that what bothers me about The Help is similar to what bothered me about X-Men: First Class (and how interesting that they take place within a year of each other) - the movie claims a specific point in history in its setting, but presents an overall picture that is troublingly ahistorical. Outside of the scene of Skeeter perusing issues of Life following the murder of Medgar Evers, there is little, if any, sense of the broader civil rights movement. No mention of the fact that the action of the story takes place nearly a decade after Brown v. Board of Education. No indicator of how Skeeter, recent graduate of Ole Miss, reacted to James Meredith's integration. And no sense, upon the story's completion, that in the next year activists will focus their attentions specifically on Mississippi and push for the state's black residents to receive the rights due to them as American citizens. The movie doesn't argue that Skeeter isn't naive. But it's unwilling to ask whether she has been willfully ignorant in the years leading up to the opening moments of the story, or what kinds of prejudices she may have left to challenge even as she disagrees with the actions of her former friends.

There's also a distinct, irksome lack of historical specificity. The churchgoing scenes were well-anchored by David Oleyowo (and I do hope that Lee Daniels' Selma can find financing before it fades into the ether, because - among other reasons - this movie made me really curious to see how Oyelowo's take on Martin Luther King would play out), but reinforced the ongoing issue in depictions of the civil rights movement of the lack of recognition for the increasing radicalization (and distance from church-based groups like the SCLC) of younger activists by this time. Besides Nelsan Ellis' quiet soda jerk, there really aren't any younger black characters around to even begin to offer different points of view of the way the world should be. There's also the fact that while Evers' murder serves as a narrative turning point, he is never specifically identified as working for the NAACP and his death plays as more random than targeted. I was also surprised that even with the film's focus on 1963, they declined to mention the Birmingham church bombing. There is merit in Kathryn Stockett's decision to focus on the domestic sphere and the interplay between intimacy and distance enacted there by black and white women. But the story is then done a disservice by allowing the world outside these individual homes to fade into a hazy background where nothing much important is going on.

I imagine over the coming months and years this movie will keep popping up, especially as I continue refining my academic interests in race and representation in popular culture. It's been invigorating to see those issues discussed in national, mainstream publications as The Help gained popularity. I just hope the discussion continues once the movie leaves theaters, and that filmmakers see its legacy as a challenge and call to offer more complex takes on a rich, complicated time in U.S. history.

Trailer Thoughts Shrieks of Dismay Regarding Delayed Transatlantic Transmission

WHY DO WE HAVE TO WAIT FOUR MORE MONTHS FOR THIS OMG?!?

Ahem.

As I mentioned in my big books post, one of my summer reads was Adam Hochschild's To End All Wars, which focused on Britain's involvement in World War I - and, indeed, a major factor in my wanting to read it was prompted by the announcement of the declaration of war at the end of Downton Abbey's first series. I read and liked Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost back during my brief high school obsession with the history of the Congo (you know, like all kids have), and after I read a complimentary review of To End All Wars, I couldn't quite keep my curiosity under wraps. I've never been particularly engaged by military histories, but Hochschild managed his scope well and utilized a variety of perspectives that made it more interesting than a strict accounting of battles, especially in his focus on radical politics, labor unrest and Britain's conscientious objectors. Looks like the show is going to dive in to a good deal of that history, and I obviously can't wait to see it. Normally I don't have any problems finding enough patience to resist the urge to hunt down "alternative" means of watching shows that take a while to make the trip over here, but right now I feel like I'm going to have to sit on my hands once September 18 rolls around.

Books Read: August 2011

August 3: A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin

Somewhere in the middle of this book, I began to feel like I needed to start back at the beginning of A Game of Thrones and make myself a comprehensive flow chart of characters, locations and situations as I read. While I understand the complaints of the fans who waited for years for this book to come out, I have to say that starting the series just this year means that I haven't had the time to re-read and obsess, making the ever-expanding cast of characters much harder to grasp in anything even approaching a comprehensive fashion. There ends up being a lot of "Oh, this is like that guy with the thing..." For most of the points of view, this doesn't make too terribly much of a difference in appreciating Martin's depiction of a world being subsumed by darkness (and wondering how on earth they'll translate some of the stories to the screen if Game of Thrones gets this far). It's certainly a lot of information to process, though. A few years until The Winds of Winter doesn't sound bad at all to me.

August 28: A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle

I ended up re-watching Sherlock as I moved things around my apartment in preparation for the hurricane, then decided to download this on to my Kindle for some weekend reading. Which then came in handy after my power went out. I don't really think I understood how much of the adaptation for the show is really about capturing an ethos rather than telling the exact same story until I read A Study in Scarlet. It's sort of intangible and difficult to describe, but there's just something tonal that the writers behind the show seem to get about Holmes, Watson and the structures of the mysteries that were missing in the recent Guy Ritchie film. Not gravity, necessarily...I'm not sure exactly what word I'm looking for.

I also read "A Scandal in Bohemia" - it seemed like an appropriate companion piece to the weekend to read the story of perhaps literature's most well-known Irene - and I'm really curious to see how it translates in the show's second series. The basic setup of the story - a prominent man tries to retrieve a potentially reputation-damaging photograph - seems very well-suited to Sherlock's style of updating. And after seeing the way he's framed characters like River Song and Madame de Pompadour in "The Girl in the Fireplace" in Doctor Who, I'm really intrigued to see how Steven Moffat writes a 21st-century Irene Adler as a foil for Holmes.

Screened: Catching Up

Same disclaimers as the books piece, but with what little commentary I already wrote staying put. (Not included: a second trip to the theater for Bridesmaids and a failed attempt to watch Biutiful, which proved that there are indeed limits to my desire for Oscar-field completism.)

May 1: Rabbit Hole

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

May 3: Dick

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

May 4: Requiem for a Dream

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

May 14: No Strings Attached

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

May 20: Blue Valentine

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

May 25: Bridesmaids

Screened: In the theater

June 23: X-Men: First Class, Jane Eyre, Fish Tank

Screened: In the theater, In the theater, Netflix Instant Watch

Yeah, so the day may have been "Michael Fassbender's Out-of-Control Hotness"-themed. (I started to watch Inglourious Basterds, too, but I fell asleep in the middle.) What of it?

I guess I liked X-Men, but with serious reservations. The lack of historical specificity in this movie is irking me. It seems like the creative personnel behind the movie had an idea of wanting to set it in "The Sixties," but were then unprepared to tie it to a specific date with the way the story ultimately uses the Cuban Missile Crisis. The few period songs seem oddly placed - my mind is still trying to wrap itself around the use of "Palisades Park." It's very stylish, but in a way that struck my eye as very post-British Invasion. (The most striking example of this weirdness is alleged-CIA agent Moira McTaggert in her miniskirt-suit, which no professional woman by any means would've worn to the office. In my imagination, January Jones' first costume fitting for Mad Men Season Five involved Janie Bryant asking some form of, "What on earth was going on with that movie?")

Ultimately, I'd love to have another two hours of James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender smoldering at each other, but I'm not particularly attached to X-Men as the context in which that needs to happen.

Jane Eyre was a gorgeous film, and did a solid job of condensing the book's material. There were a few odds and ends I'd have liked to see make it in - the story with Mr. Rochester and Adele's mother, the girl St. John has a crush on and the contrast between her and Jane in perceived suitability to missionary life and of course, the classic Brontë weirdness of the whole "Rochester poses as a old fortune-telling gypsy woman" thing, which never seems to make it into the adaptations. (Hey, after watching all these movies in fairly short succession, I believe Michael Fassbender can do anything.) The casting worked really well, too - Jamie Bell has a sort of quiet intensity that made him well-suited to playing St. John. And while Fassbender has a sort of magnetic screen presence, this adaptation really allowed Mia Wasikowska to shine as Jane and show why she's our heroine.

June 28: Super 8

Screened: In the theater

July 2: Inception, The Social Network, Black Swan

Screened: At home, DVR from HBO; personal collection

July 9: Peyton Place

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

July 17: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2

Screened: In the theater

Someday, when I have the time, I'm totally going to write a series of posts devoted to nitpicking the entire series of Harry Potter movies - for some reason, this series provokes that impulse within me in a way that no other adaptations do. I felt like this was a solid conclusion to the group of films, but also found that it really showed how many emotional beats and story threads from the books were sacrificed in favor of plot efficacy over time.

July 21: Red Riding Hood

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

Books Read: Catching Up

These monthly posts totally got out of hand for me. I'd keep thinking that I wanted to write something more concrete about this book or that one, but never actually following through on doing so, until the backlog just became untenable. The Song of Ice and Fire books will probably come up again in future discussions of Game of Thrones, and I'd like to revisit A Discovery of Witches, Sisterhood Everlasting and The Night of the Gun when I have the time and focus to do so. Until then, I suppose this will have to suffice.

April 3: Sweet Valley Confidential by Francine Pascal

April 8: Bossypants by Tina Fey

April 9: A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin

April 10: A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

BTW, I'm totally adopting Deborah Harkness as a new role model. I mean, academic historian/fiction writer/wine blogger? Sounds pretty awesome to me.

May 1: Bumped by Megan McCafferty

May 21: Kissing Between the Lines by Diane Farr

May 31: Cinderella Ate My Daughter by Peggy Orenstein

June 1: A Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man by Bill Clegg; Spoiled by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan

June 14: A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin

June 20: Sisterhood Everlasting by Ann Brashares

June 27: To End All Wars by Adam Hochschild

July 4: The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich

July 6: Abandon by Meg Cabot

July 25: The Night of the Gun by David Carr

Weeks in TV: August 21-September 3

True Blood, 4.9: "Let's Get Out of Here" and 4.10: "Burning Down the House"

- It's made for kind of a whackadoo mix of storylines, but I love how the various spiritual possessions, skinwalking ventures and V-induced dreams have broadened the range of material that TB's ensemble has to play with.

- I'm sort of of two minds about this season. On the one hand, I think this season has done the best job of any so far of drawing upon the books; the books take place from Sookie's point of view, so she sort of darts in and out of the situations concerning different characters, and the show has established a broad enough cast of regulars that each of those stories has someone we know in it, which I think makes the audience more invested in everything that's going on than we've been in past seasons. On the other hand - like I said above, the mix has tended to be more crazy than cohesive.

Pretty Little Liars, 2.11: "I Must Confess"

- Oh, Dr. Sullivan. As soon as she told Emily that she knew, I was all, "Tell her over the phone, you're obviously going to get murdered!" Between the therapist's disappearance and Emily's Tragic Massage of Epic Creepiness, A's really starting to transgress some serious boundaries.

- Speaking of A, I loved the little "Update on Major Suspects" sweep through the audience for the doctor's hilariously unsubtle speech on text bullying, especially since Noel, Lucas and Mona had no lines or other scenes in the episode. I love when a show grinds the gears into place for a finale.

- Mr. Hastings, making a late-in-the-game play for Creepiest Weirdo in Rosewood! (Amid stiff competition!)

Pretty Little Liars, 2.12: "Over My Dead Body"

- PLL is approaching Lost-esque levels of obliqueness with their persistent refusal to offer concrete answers to their ongoing mysteries (I believe Garrett and Jenna were behind most, if not all, of the machinations of this episode, but enough of the notes related to that business were unsigned that I don't think they're necessarily A), but they do totally out-there creepiness better than just about any other show on television. Those dolls were truly something else.

- The idea of doing a one-off flashback Halloween episode is genius. More cable shows should have holiday episodes independent of their seasonal arcs. A Sons of Anarchy Christmas! Valentine's Day at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce!

Doctor Who, 6.8: "Let's Kill Hitler" and 6.9: "Night Terrors"

- I've tended to like the episodes focused on the quartet of the Doctor, Amy, Rory and River, but more and more it seems like the actors are landing the big emotional moments while having to spackle over some increasingly gaping plot holes. Like, as an immediate reaction, I would say that I liked this episode a lot, but if I think about it for more than about five minutes, my head swarms with unanswered questions and a creeping desire to try to pick apart the timeline. (see also: Point #5 in the io9 article linked below) Still, a delightfully energetic performance from Alex Kingston and great banter from Steven Moffat. Obviously, I'm torn. Strike this one down to revisit when the arc picks up again.

- "Night Terrors" is a solid episode, with a legitimately scary conceit in the dollhouse of horrors, done a serious disservice by airing out of production order. Declining to tie the episode's themes of the importance of family love and embracing an unconventional child to the broader arc of the story of the Williams-Ponds makes the characters seem flaky at best (and callous at worst: Rory's joke about letting the monsters get the boy feels...inappropriate given that, you know, his baby got kidnapped by nefarious aliens) and makes the writers seem like they're not paying attention to what's going on. If they absolutely had to move things around, it might've been better to switch this one with, say, "Curse of the Black Spot."

- This post is about to get totally linktastic. First! An interesting piece from io9 about things Doctor Who could do differently.

- AND: Steven Moffat is seemingly everywhere giving interviews about the second half of this series

- Daily Beast Interview

- Alan Sepinwall at HitFix Interview

- Mo Ryan at AOLTV Interview

Miscellaneous Other Links:

- Not terribly detailed, but with awesome, military-uniform-including cast photo: On the second series of Downton Abbey (Aside: Dear PBS, If the BBC can work it out so Brits and Americans can all watch the same new episode of Doctor Who on the same calendar date, can we please work on the timing of the Masterpiece selections' trip across the pond? I feel antsy just thinking about having to wait extra months for DA and Sherlock. Affectionately, Liz)

- Between Comic-Con, the TCA and the upcoming Emmys and start to the fall season, there's a veritable smorgasbord of showrunner interviews popping up all over the place online. The Daily Beast interview with David Benioff and D.B. Weiss is kind of delightful; they're clearly really jazzed to have the opportunity to dive further into George R.R. Martin's sprawling cast of characters.

- A.V. Club interviews with two of my very favorite TV people: Victor Garber and Martin Starr

- I'm fascinated by the ongoing discussions around AMC, their evolving brand identity, and what seems to be a growing suspicion among commentators that within the next few years their whole original programming enterprise could collapse like a house of cards. I started in on a post a few weeks ago, following the whole rigamarole around Kurt Sutter leaving Twitter - various outlets tried to frame it as some sort of showrunner smacktalk showdown, but I think that at the heart of what Sutter was saying about AMC, Mad Men and The Walking Dead was a criticism of the network for not managing its properties in a balanced way - but it sort of got lost in the shuffle (as too many posts do.)

Anyway: a fairly comprehensive timeline of this year's developments for the network from the New York Times and an excellent Vulture piece from this week. Potentially more thoughts on this in the future, maybe with the end of this season of Breaking Bad (a show I like, and certainly I can recognize why people love it, but I've had a few Sundays this summer where I've missed watching programs that night, and Breaking Bad is never the show I'm really burning to catch up on, you know?), especially if there are any more announcements that give off that "throwing things at the wall to see what sticks" vibe.

Shades

The whole recently-posted-to-YouTube collection of Roddy McDowall's old home movies is inspiring such crazed retro sunglasses lust within me.

I'll take the pair Ms. Bacall is rocking here, please.

Random TV Love

I kept thinking about this scene again and again after I watched this episode. I don't really have a big spiel to go with this, I just wanted to post it because I love it - the writing, the acting, the piano music, everything.

Mood Music LX: Chilling in the Dark Edition

All in all, my Irene experience wasn't too bad; my power went out on Saturday night and came back on Monday morning. After I cursed the heavens for bringing me so tantalizingly close to the new episode of Doctor Who then yanking it away and stranding me in darkness on Saturday, I weighed my options and decided that a few hours of iPod battery charge was worth trading to combat the soul-rattling creepiness of sitting alone in the dark as wind and rain battered my building. The night's chosen theme: excellent soundtracks from movies set in the seventies.

Velvet Goldmine

The Virgin Suicides

Boogie Nights

Almost Famous

Moffat Influences My Life, Part Two

Part of me wants to add something crazy and/or different to my wardrobe for the fall, just so I can find an opportunity to introduce the "It's a [ ]. I wear a [ ] now. [ ]s are cool." construct in a real-life conversation.

Non-Random Links

For someone interested in black actors and the performance of race, the critical commentary around The Help is like a delicious smorgasbord of mind food. Whether the movie is any good or not (haven't seen it yet, but if my dissertation interests end up going where I think they're going, I'll probably end up seeing it about fifty times whether I want to or not), it's refreshing to see issues of race and representation being hashed out in national publications when they're so often overlooked or swept aside. Some samples:

"The Truth about the Civil Rights Era" by Martha Southgate, from Entertainment Weekly

"Black-and-White Struggle with a Rosy Glow" by Nelson George, from The New York Times (Plus: the trailer for the crazy-awesome-looking The Black Power Mixtape, 1967-1975)

A statement from the Association of Black Women Historians, with a great list of sources (some of which I've read) that interrogate the historical questions around race and class that they think The Help avoids

Further Thoughts on Television

I moved to a new apartment a few months ago, and had to put my couch in storage, which left me with a few errant pillows with no real place to put them. As I drifted aimlessly around my apartment, looking for a place for my pointless pillow, I suddenly thought, "Steven Moffat was right."

While I clearly like to think and talk a lot about television, that kind of specific writer-associated thought is not something that happens to me a lot. That the same person wrote this and "Blink" seems like as good an argument as any that he should be better known over here. (In all fairness to the academy, I should have noted in my previous post that unlike his terribly deserving actors, Moffat did get an Emmy nomination for writing the first Sherlock episode. Maybe the breakthrough is imminent. Maybe the second series will be so impossible-to-ignore awesome and/or The Hobbit will raise the actors' profiles enough that the show will be showered with laurels next year. We'll see.)

Emmys 2011: Nomination Thoughts

A casualty of three weeks of schlepping up and down the East Coast on planes, trains and automobiles: timely reaction to the Emmy nominations, which were announced mere hours before I boarded one of said trains, sans laptop.

- My Record: Admittedly, I cast a pretty wide net with the "Wouldn't Be Surprised to See" category, but nevertheless, I'm pretty proud of myself. Out of 94 acting nominations, I only missed four: Barry Pepper in The Kennedys (that miniseries did much better, nomination-wise, that I thought it would), Taraji P. Henson in Taken From Me: The Tiffany Rubin Story (love her, haven't seen the movie, didn't think she was "big" enough to capture the attention of the voters, who, in the past at least, seemed to disproportionately go for big names and hype independent of actual performance), Idris Elba in The Big C (thought Laura Linney would get that show's only recognition, Elba makes for a low-key odd man out in the category, and part of me thought Darren Criss was kind of a lock), and Kristin Chenoweth in Glee (I'm really disappointed in myself for missing this one - while I think "Rumours" was one of this season's strongest episodes, I think that the dialed-down nature of the writing for April compared to last year made me think that Chenoweth wouldn't get recognized, but that's no reason not to include her in the field. I'm not really sure where my brain was on this one, frankly.)

- My Best Categories: Supporting Actress in a Drama and Supporting Actress in a Miniseries/Movie, where all the actual nominees were either on my ballot or in the honorable mention category; My Worst Categories: Supporting Actor in a Comedy, where zero actual nominees were on my ballot, and Lead Actor in a Comedy, Lead Actor in a Miniseries/Movie and Supporting Actress in a Comedy, where only two actual nominees appeared on my ballot or in honorable mention

- Pleasant Surprises: I was kind of shocked by the number of nominations Justified garnered - obviously, I put a fair number of those actors on my dream ballots, but I never in a million years thought Walton Goggins and Jeremy Davies would actually for real get nominated. Also awesome: Cat Deeley finally receiving the nomination she's deserved since the category's 2008 inception for Outstanding Host of a Reality Program.

- Things That Make Me Go, "Hmmm...": I felt pretty sure it was going to happen (when I saw it on nomination morning, I may have gasped and said, "I KNEW IT!" aloud like a total psycho), and I certainly don't begrudge her the attention or, in principle, have anything against basic-cable procedurals, but I'm kind of bummed that Mary McDonnell got a nomination for her soon-to-be-spunoff role on The Closer and never got one for playing Laura Roslin.

- Unpleasant Surprises: Everyone has shows they love that get totally shafted - this year I'm mourning a bit for United States of Tara - final season, and transcended the trappings of its concept, which too few Showtime shows seem to do - and Community, which had great character work framed by inventive work across all the genres it showcased. But one batch of snubs in particular really get to me.

A few days before the nominations were announced, it suddenly came to me, floating up out of the recesses of my mind. "I bet Benedict Cumberbatch isn't going to get nominated," I thought. My increasingly Anglophilic, television-loving soul rebelled against the very thought. He's so good! I might have scoffed aloud at the theatrical trailer for the Downey/Law sequel because they are so clearly owned by Cumberbatch/Freeman! I might have moaned aloud as if in actual physical pain when I read that PBS's TCA presentation indicated that the new batch of Sherlock episodes won't air in the US until next May! However, my rational, knowledgeable-of-Emmy-history head couldn't forget the dominating performances the academy's voters have overlooked in favor of the comfort of familiar names in the past. And my head, tragically, was right. (Aside: Increasingly Anglophilic also, in part, means "increasingly appreciative of Steven Moffat's talent for genre-hopping." I'm not sure why he isn't more well-known in the US, outside of Doctor Who fans, that is - maybe if the Coupling remake hadn't flamed out the way it did?)

- This Gold Derby post of the episodes submitted for consideration by the nominated actors is very interesting. As much as I love this little exercise, I don't know that I could be an Emmy voter. Jon Hamm and Elisabeth Moss in "The Suitcase" versus Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton in "Always"? A choice I'm glad I don't have to make.

- I ran out of the necessary energy required to complete the ballot posts on the overall drama/comedy series and miniseries/movie categories before (or even shortly after) the nominations were announced, but will pull together some concluding thoughts on the shows covered by this eligibility period. To be continued...

Idle Thoughts

If Harry's mental connection to Voldemort is a byproduct of his being an inadvertently-created Horcrux, with all the soul-fracturing-and-storing that implies, then were Snape's Occlumency lessons ever really going to work?

This Must Be...Pop

I always think I should post more links to things I read on other sites. (See also: previous post) Such as: the ongoing Ultimate Pop Song Tournament at The Critical Condition. It's fun to read and vote, to see how others comment, to ponder the selection and seeding of songs; for example, while I think "Since U Been Gone" is a perfectly fine song, its high seeding and presence in the total absence of Britney Spears is baffling to me.

You can see to some extent how the age of the bracket-makers leaves some gaps in the field. The overall field of sixty-four skews about 2:1 in favor of songs released between 1980 and 1995, as opposed to 1996 through 2011, which is interesting in that it's prompted me to think about what songs have been formative to my taste in music and what I see as quintessentially "pop." I'm twenty-five now, so I was ideally positioned for pop music's resurrection in the late nineties with the attendant rise of TRL and the introduction of the Now That's What I Call Music series to the US, and thus probably place more importance on the status of the Spice Girls, Hanson and their immediate successors than someone whose formative years were in the eighties would.

Anyway, it makes a pretty solid playlist, suitable for scoring, say, a three-hour drive down the highway with stretches spent sitting in traffic. (She notes, from recent experience.) I love that it's reminded me how much I liked "Not Ready to Make Nice," and prompted me to finally hunt down songs I've waffled over adding to my collection for years, like "What's Love Got to Do With It" and "Edge of Seventeen." It's a compelling project; given the set of parameters - 1980-2011, top 40 charters, one song per artist - how would you select a top 64 (50? 100?) that represented what you understand to be the ultimate in pop music?

Random Links

Been percolating for a few weeks due to intermittent travel.

The excellent interviews conducted by Todd VanDerWerff for The AV Club with Michael Schur concerning each episode of the third season of Parks and Recreation.

A Vulture piece on rumors and discussions around movie follow-ups to TV shows: I think it's all neatly summed up in this quote - "these movies aren't just financially unlikely, they're creatively perplexing."

Mark Harris for Grantland on the MPAA, specifically the ratings associated with swearing

Dan Fienberg for HitFix on showrunners and actors versus the press

A Gold Derby piece, from before the nominations were announced, about series eligibility for the Emmys in different genres, specifically those British shows like Luther and Downton Abbey, which were submitted in Miniseries/Movie but have been renewed for a second series.

Garance Doré with photos from the Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I was so fortunate to get to see the exhibit when I was in New York last month, even with an hour-and-a-half wait in line to get in! It's unbelievable seeing that kind of artistry and craftsmanship up close; I kept having to firmly shove my hands into my pockets to resist the urge to reach out and touch everything. Doré didn't include any photos from my favorite collection - the gorgeous, meticulously-tailored wool tartan pieces from "The Widows of Culloden" - but her selections offer a glimpse of what made the experience so transporting.