V S1E5: Welcome to the War

"Now my eggs need nourishment."

One thought popped into our head while watching last night's return to of V and it served as a metaphor for the entire show: "Everyone's wearing more makeup." Allow us to explain. While not perfect yet, the show we saw last night was a sexed up and streamlined version of the show that went on hiatus last November. From the brand new Sawyer-esque character of Kyle Hobbes, with his biceps and his painted-on jeans, to the suddenly overtly villainous Anna, dressed in black, making dramatic pronouncements like a lizard Alexis Carrington and eating poison blowfish with the relish of a Disney witch. Then there was sweaty, stripped-down Father Jack of the Church of the Holy Nautilus Machine and Anna's hilarious stud factory, which added another brick in her foundation as a gay icon, as if the holographic dressing room wasn't enough.

So yes, stripped down and sexed up, with a soupcon of quotable badassery sprinkled throughout. "I bet that stinks like hell too." "She has my son. If I have to cross a line to blow that bitch out of the sky, I will." All of this surface style was a shot in the arm and very welcome, but the story suddenly sped up in a bunch of different directions too, providing an all-you-can-eat buffet of conflicts and character issues.

There's Erica, who's now more bad ass than ever. Her fight scene with the creepy bald V was a great way to open the show and secure her "warrior woman" status. She's stuck in the interesting position of being a resistance leader who engages in terrorist acts while at the same time an FBI agent investigating those very acts. Should be fun going forward as she tries to maintain cover.

Ryan and Val. We're glad to see this story get more interesting, because they were suffering from a collective charisma deficiency in all their previous scenes. Something is seriously up with Val as her appetite rages out of control and she even contemplates eating a dead mouse. Creepy. She's got an upcoming OB appointment and that should certainly be interesting. We find out from Ryan's new V doctor friend (hopefully a regular addition to the cast) that a hybrid baby is essentially a miracle and they'll be in deep shit if Anna ever finds out. Val openly refers to the baby as miraculous and we're wondering if that's not a little bit of messianic foreshadowing.

Chad. We considered him the least interesting of all the characters even though he was in the most interesting position out of all of them, halfway between resistance and assimilation. His little chess game with Anna was interesting to see and we're looking forward to more of that sort of thing between them. He needs to be careful, though. She respects him, but it feels like she's just toying with him. It was interesting to see Anna step out of her new all-villainous black wardrobe and back into her neutral greys (but always with killer heels) for her meeting with Chad.

Then there's poor buff Father Jack, who definitely seems stricken with something after that R6 injection. Was his dream of turning into a lizard just a dream? "Something's changing inside me." Ruh roh.

Tyler is still a clueless moron, but after sitting in the V's doohickey, which flashed scenes from Hallmark Channel promos all over, he's an even bigger clueless moron. What the hell is their plan for him, anyway? Anna told Lisa that she would be able to fulfill her "destiny" with Tyler. Well, what the hell does THAT mean? We used to think it meant breeding but apparently, Val and Ryan's little oven bun notwithstanding, V-human cross breeding is impossible. So what's the plan for Tyler? "He can only have one family. Us."

Interesting to note that the Vs are apparently not "burdened" with emotions the way humans are. That makes fighting a war against them particularly difficult, not to mention out-thinking them.

And speaking of out-thinking them, Erica's stuck in a situation where she's under surveillance in her own home and has to pretend that she doesn't know she is, while also pretending her concern for Tyler is merely a parental control issue and not because she's, oh, you know... the leader of the human resistance.

And finally there's the fabulous Anna herself, in full-on villain mode, sniffing her way through her stud factory and to the delight of the gays, revealing herself to be a big ol' size queen and picking the biggest stud in the lineup, who also happened to look like a gay porn star once she got him naked. Interesting to note their apparent revulsion at their human forms as their mating, whatever it entails, was done with their faces deliberately turned as far away from each other as possible. No wonder the gay porn star didn't look too happy that she chose him. Poor girl just doesn't know how to kick a trick out of bed with some finesse.

All in all, a ramped up and totally promising return. We're 100% on board and can't wait to see where it's going, because it FINALLY feels like it's going somewhere.

[Photo Credit: ABC TV]

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Labels: V Season 1, V Series

In or Out: Amanda Seyfried

Cuter than a kitten peeing rainbows.

Amanda Seyfried attends the gala screening of 'Dear John' in London wearing a Doo.Ri dress and Pierre hardy sandals.


Doo.Ri Fall 2010 Collection
Model: Yulia Kharlaponova

We just love this girl. She gets it right so much more often than wrong. This is clearly a "right," which means it's an IN. Love the dress, love the shoes. Where's the bag? Love the hair, not loving the lip. This is one of those silly fashion things that would embarrass us if we said it out loud, but lips go in and out of fashion every single decade and it looks like we're swinging back to bright reds. Can't say we think it's the best choice for her. We're not saying it looks bad on her so much, just that we're not loving it. Still, everything else is so cute and put together that it doesn't matter. She looks adorable and she looks like a movie star.

[Photo credit: wireimage.com/style.com]


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Labels: Amanda Seyfried, In or Out, Red Carpet

Lost S6E10: The Package

"That's one stubborn tomato."

Okay seriously, Lost people. We've been cheerleading all season, constantly saying "We KNOW they have a plan" and "It'll ALL pay off in the end" but come ON. As this episode wound down last night and there were only a few minutes left, we sat there stewing in our blogger juices and pretty righteously pissed off that we STILL weren't going to get some sort of resolution on the Sun and Jin separation even though the entire episode was based on Sun and Jin and even though we have been patiently waiting for a season and a half. And let's face it, when they were separated by thousands of miles and 30 years, the separation was poignant, but now that they're both on the island and in the same time period - and have been FOR TEN EPISODES NOW - the whole thing seems played out. Get it over with, for God's sake. And we say that knowing that, with this show, there's a distinct possibility that the resolution of this storyline will be tragic.

In fact, we think we may have reached our own personal saturation point for this season. When we finally got the Widmore and Smokey face-off, what was it? A lot of chest-puffing and "I know you are, but what am I?" verbal bitchslapping. Then they just...walked away from each other. Obviously, their confrontation is just beginning, but it was another of those "moving the pieces around the chessboard" episodes and we've about had our fill for the season. If there's a war coming, can you wussies please start shooting at each other or something? You're starting to get on our nerves with all the rapidly shifting alliances and ominous declarations of what's to come.

Enh. We sound crankier than we mean to. We didn't hate this episode but we can't say we loved it either. Commence verbal spew as we attempt to work our way through it.

Let's start with the B-timeline: As a lot of people suspected, Jin and Sun aren't married in this timeline. We were mildly surprised to find that they are still a couple, although this time, it's all in secret for fear of Sun's father. This was a pretty good alternate timeline aspect to explore, because, like Jack's newly discovered teenage son, it managed to play with all the things we know about the characters from the previous 5 seasons, while putting an interesting and revealing spin on it. B-Sun still wants to run away, but this time with Jin instead of from him. Sun unbuttons her top for Jin, an overt callback to our introduction to these characters all the way back in the pilot episode when Jin harshly ordered Sun to keep her top button done. An iconic scene is turned on its head and what originally looked like an indication of a terrible marriage is turned into a sexy and cute striptease.

So in B-ville, Sun's father is an even bigger dick than he is in A-town because he pretty much ordered the assassination of Jin and apparently, didn't care if Sun got in the way. So things aren't looking too good for B-Sun, as she bleeds out from a stomach wound. You don't suppose she might need the services of a good spinal surgeon in the near future, do you? Then again, she's pregnant. She might just need the services of a world-class obstetrician to save her baby. Any names come to mind who might be an expert on saving the lives of endangered pregnant women and their babies? Hmmm.

Meanwhile, back on A island, A-Sun has HAD IT, to which we can only add "FUCKING FINALLY!" She's been wandering around that island for an entire season, doing nothing and knowing nothing and her passive responses have been getting on our last nerve. This is the woman who defied her dangerous and overbearing father and took control of his company. This is the woman who sought to leave her unhappy marriage by constructing a fake life for herself and an elaborate plan to run away from it all. This is the woman who stared down Charles fucking Widmore and got the man's respect in the process. This is not a woman who waits around to see what's going to happen. The whole point to Sun's character is that she's got all the trappings of the stereotypical submissive Asian woman and yet she's the complete opposite of that. It just feels better to see Sun acting instead of walking around wondering what's going on all the time. She got two tantrums this episode but the more entertaining one by far was the one spit out at Richard in Korean.

Oh, about that. What are we to make of Sun's new found inability to communicate? A strange little development, wouldn't you say? Is it merely a callback to Season 1, when she could communicate but pretended not to? Or is it some sort of overlap with the B-timeline, in which Sun can only speak Korean? See, just before Juliet died, she appeared to get some sort of glimpse of the B-timeline. Sun gets knocked unconscious and wakes up ... how to put this? She wakes up a closer version to her B-timeline self. Does that make sense? B-Sun can't speak English. A-Sun gets knocked unconscious and then SHE can't speak English. Is there some sort of crossover of timelines when a person loses consciousness, either temporarily or in the process of dying? And what about all these goddamn mirrors everyone in the B-timeline keeps peering into?

And while we're at it, here's your OTHER alternate timeline theory to ponder for the week. Widmore tells Jin that if Smokey gets off the island, "Everyone we know and love would simply cease to be." Not "die," but "cease to be." So, is the B-timeline what happens when Smokey gets off the island? After all, the A-versions of the characters simply don't exist in the B-timeline, as if they have "ceased to be." If that's the case, then it becomes more clear what the characters are fighting for. Some will fight to preserve the A-timeline and some will fight to preserve the B-timeline. After all, Jack has a son in the B-timeline and Jin and Sun have a daughter in the A-timeline. That would seem to pretty firmly put them on opposite sides if they have to choose whether or not to let Smokey leave the island. Of course, Jack doesn't know he has an alternate timeline son ... yet.

Begin Verbal Spew 2.0, in which traditional paragraph and essay rules are completely tossed out the window in favor of bullet points:

* With his heartfelt plea to Sun on the beach at night, we see the long-promised and long overdue return of Jack The Hero, Jack The Good Guy, Jack of the "live together, die alone" speech. He was charming and empathetic and sincere when he promised to help Sun find Jin. "Do you trust me?" Considering she trusted Kate to get her husband on the helicopter, we suspect she doesn't trust Jack as much as she says. When the time comes, Sun is going to do what's right for Sun. And hasn't that always been the case with her? She said it herself: she's not here to "save the damn world."

* Jack talks of the lighthouse and of their "purpose" like a man converted. "There's a reason," he says to Sun and he sounds exactly like Locke used to.

* Smokey himself is not sure if Jin or Sun is the candidate. Interesting. Also interesting to note that he told Claire that Kate wasn't a candidate. There seems to be some dispute about that and we wonder if Smokey is just lying. Pretty chilling that he basically told Claire she can do whatever she wants to Kate once he's done with her.

* Also interesting to note that Smokey says he needs all the candidates on the plane in order to be able to leave, which makes us think of Eloise Hawkings' directive that they needed all of the Oceanic 6 on the Ajira flight in order to make it back to the island. Considering Sun is the only one of them who didn't wind up in the '70s out of that group, wouldn't that be an indication that Jin is the candidate and not her?

*The DANGER NERDS!!! We hate that Zoe chick but we love Charles Widmore's band of nerdcenaries. Apparently he figured it wasn't worth it to hire real mercenaries after everyone from the freighter wound up dead. We think the DANGER NERDS need to get their own show. Scientists with rifles! It's a ratings gold mine, we're telling you. Only, it should be a cool acronym, like D.A.N.G.E.R. N.E.R.D.S. Comments section fun: come up with the actual acronym. We're too lazy to do so.

*Interesting that the DANGER NERDS kidnapped Jin specifically because he mapped the island back in the '70s and knew where the electromagnetic energies were. But wasn't Widmore on the island for at least 30 years himself? How is it he doesn't have that knowledge already? And what's he planning to do, anyway? Are the electromagnetic pockets the way to keep Smokey "corked" on the island?

*The bit with Sun's camera was sweet and poignant, but also firmly cemented Jin on Widmore's side of the war.

* We love when the writers play around not only with the mythology they've created, but with the setting. It made for nice callbacks to previous seasons to see Sun's garden and Room 23 again. It gives the whole story more depth when they move around like this. It feels grounded in a cohesive reality.

* "Unless Alpert's covered in bacon grease, I'm not sure Hurley can track anything."
"Hey, don't talk about bacon."
God bless Lapidus and Miles. They make the perfect background characters.

* "Can't you just turn into smoke and fly your ass over the water?"

* DESMOND ON THE SUB, Y'ALL. Who didn't see that coming? Oh, please don't kill Desmond off, Lost people! Why did Widmore call him "the package?"

* Why can't Smokey take the sub off the island instead of the plane? After all, that plane's not in such great shape.

[Photo credit: abc.go.com/shows/lost]

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Labels: Lost, Lost Season 6

PR: Jay

The Little Forgotten Designer.

The somewhat increasingly obvious editing made it clear Jay wasn't a contender this week simply because he was practically nonexistent as far as camera time went.

We did NOT have high hopes for this print. Hate that green.

Model: Brittany Oldehoff

Thankfully, it looked a lot different in use. We adored this look. In fact, it may be our favorite Jay look so far.

He used the print well, as a trim, as a lining, and to add some embellishment. Which was smart, because this is clearly not the kind of print you should, say, make an entire gown out of it. Could you imagine the epileptic seizures that would cause? Especially if she had to do red carpet with all those flashes going off? On second thought, that might be a brilliant marketing scheme for Jay. It's the fabric that causes paparazzi to fall to the floor twitching!

But we digress.

Okay, so looking closer, we can see that those shorts ain't fitted so hot, so there's that. But we still love this look. Look at the sleeves! How cool are they? And the cool collar!


And look at how well-fitted it is! And look how he piled on the design elements without looking like he overwhelmed the design (which may be his greatest strength in this competition).

In fact, this entire outfit was so well-designed that we suspect the only reason he didn't make it into the top three was the poor print design. Let that be a lesson to you Jay: stick with fashion design; skip textile design.


Tim Gunn's Workroom:



[Photo/Video Credit: myLifetime.com - Screencaps: projectrungay.blogspot.com]


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Labels: Brittany Oldehoff, Jay Nicolas Sario, Project Runway, Project Runway Season 7, Project Runway Season 7 Episode 10

RPDR S2E8: Our Grief is Mountainous

How COULD you, Ru?! HOW COULD YOU?!?

SOPHIE'S FUCKING CHOICE, BITCHES. How can we pick one of our beautiful drag daughters to be sent to the firing squad? We are positively TEAR-STAINED today. And speaking with FLAWLESS Polish accents, we might add.

Let's all work our way through this trying emotional experience together. Let's all get a cup of tea and sit down to talk it out.

We'll never forget how beautiful the sunrise was that day as we watched our 5 remaining dolls line up for instructions. If only we knew of the horror to come.

Who are we kidding? We knew. We hoped against hope that Pandora would at least make it to the finals, if not win it, but we knew the chances were slim. Look, we love this show but its greatest strength is also its greatest weakness: the entire competition is based around the career of RuPaul. Sure, that makes a certain amount of sense, given that Ru is probably the most successful and famous drag queen of all time, but it doesn't take into account the range of drag types out there. It's why Pork Chop was let go immediately and it's why Pandora was cast as the girl who can't get a break. The first season's winner was a tall, stunningly beautiful black drag queen. There is a very good chance that this season's winner will be a tall, stunningly beautiful black drag queen. Even if Tyra doesn't win it, the four remaining are the 4 prettiest of the entire group and honeys, that's no accident. When you base a competition around RuPaul's career, you are inevitably going to weed out the girls who have something besides poise and beauty to offer. Drag has a long history of comedians, singers, jugglers, dancers, musicians and anything else you could find on The Gong Show. Drag isn't just about being pretty. Sometimes it's about being funny, or fuck-you fierce, or talented as a performer (and we don't mean lip-synching). The funny thing is, Ru DOES have a career that comprises that sort of stuff. Certainly this show alone proves that she's a natural comedian because she delivers at least a couple laugh-out-loud lines every single episode. Plus there's the singing career. We don't get it.


Moving on...
There was a cute, but kinda forgettable mini-challenge but it only served to point out to us how quickly we TOTALLY forget most contestants of reality shows the minute they leave the show. They can be parading past us in the credits week after week, long after they've been cut or auf'd or told to pack their knives and we never even notice them. Isn't that weird?

So Tati wins it and can we just say? Tati, seriously. Read a book. We don't even care about the Oscar Wilde thing, not really. But the more you speak, the more it comes across that you have basically NO references to draw on. We realize you're young and all, but come on. You don't actually have to BECOME Britney Spears, y'know.


We're not gonna lie. We watched the first couple minutes of this segment through our splayed fingers. If you think gay men are invisible on most TV, OLDER gay men are non-existent. We feared that these guys were going to be cast for freakishness. When such a rare demographic or minority representation appears in the mass media, it unfortunately bears the weight of representing what everyone in the demographic or minority is supposed to be like. In other words, we feared that these 5 old gay men were going to be forced to represent ALL old gay men and let's face it: people who agree to appear on reality TV shows are not representational of ANYTHING except that growing minority known as "People Who Agree to Appear on Reality Shows." We're pretty sure they have their own box on the census form now.

Still, our fears were for naught. The old gals were game and fun. Okay, maybe the bikini was weird. And the janitor's key ring hanging from the one guy's nipple. That was a little...something.

EIGHTY-THREE FUCKING YEARS OLD, PEOPLE. That is AMAZING. Sure, there's likely a lot of tape and spackle involved, but still. Plus, she's as sharp as a tack. LUV HUH.

LUV HUH 2. Also looks AMAZING (but Cloris has a better wig. Get the name, Debbie.). Do you know that we are so gay we actually got a little tingle up our spines when she complimented Tyra and her drag mama's dancing? Seriously, who can say THAT about themselves; that a legendary Hollywood hoofer was genuinely impressed with their dancing?

All Joans and Christinas to the catwalk, please!




Credit where it's due, they were genuinely sweet together and Raven managed a pretty amazing transformation. Golda seemed a little frail for this competition and that made us a little uncomfortable, but she rallied, and the pairing allowed us to see a softer side of Raven. Without sounding accusatory, there was a part of us that wondered if Raven's overtures weren't at least a little calculated, but we'll let that pass. Bottom line is: she won it for being the kindest and showing the most rapport with her Mama. A sentimental win.

DO NOT FUCKING GET IT.

Explain to us how these two were in the bottom AT ALL? They were hilarious on the catwalk - every judge said so.

And since Ru brings "realness" up a lot, we think Litter Boxx had the most of it out of all of them. She REALLY looked like Pandora's mother.

LOOK AT THAT OHMIGOD SHUT THE FUCK UP HOW DID THEY NOT WIN SERIOUSLY I CANT EVEN

The more we write about this the more pissed we are about it. Look at that sentence! Punctuation is a luxury you just can't afford when you're throwing a tantrum, darlings. Like vases.

They look adorable and they were hilarious. End of story.




We'll give Annalisha credit, because she pulled it together for the performance and really added to it. We thought the dress was pretty bad, though. And the makeup was unintentionally hilarious because Tati essentially gave her her face. Except it doesn't look very good on someone 40 years older.

Come on now. Tyra may be a big ol' sourpuss but she brings it to the catwalk. We gay-gasped when they came out.

And literally started clapping when they broke out into some pretty awesome choreography. In fact, as soon as the dancing started, we both said, "That's it. Game over. She won this week."

Granted, her transformational skills weren't very good and we thought it was telling that she admitted she has no makeup skills. Tyra, free advice: You are gorgeous and while it's true you are lucky enough to be able to achieve that without world-class makeup skills, you could seriously be a star if you polished your look off.

Anyway, they looked adorable too and we were absolutely convinced she should have won it on the dancing alone. Plus, that line about wanting to learn the dance so he'd have a little bit of his mama in him was thirty different kinds of sweet.

How no one mentioned the overwhelmingly obvious resemblance to Phyllis Diller is beyond us.


Not a chance in hell they spelled "Contessa's" name right.

LOVED Jujubee's look.

HATED Contessa's. Ladies of a certain size in the readership? Show of hands: Would ANY of you EVER even try that thing on?

And what is going on with that wig of hers? It looks like she styled it with Elmer's glue.

Believe us, we would have been equally as devastated to see Jujubee go, but she really would have been our choice over Pandora, no matter how good her lip synch was. This entry had way too many obvious problems with it, problems that the judges pointed out.

But, it was crack-smoking week on the show and since we weren't availing ourselves (it's Lent), the decisions made no sense to us at all.

Raven wins it and sure, it had its good points, but like we said, it was a sentimental vote and we can't really begrudge Ru that.

We're glad Pandy went out with a "fuck 'em" attitude because we really do think she's a freaking riot and has a ton of potential. Now that we have the world's first drag reality show safely esconced on the schedule, isn't it about time we got the first drag sitcom? LOGO, what do you say? The Pandora Boxx Show has a certain ring to it, yes?

[Screencaps: projectrungay.blogspot.com]


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Labels: RuPaul's Drag Race, RuPaul's Drag Race Season 2