Archive: August 2009 (21-30 of 47)

Aug 20 2009 09:33 PM ET

'Big Brother 11' live show: Come back, Chima, all is (mostly) forgiven

Categories: Reality TV, Television

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“Kevin wouldn’t lie, would he?” “No!”

“We’re trying to heal the wound that Jessie created.”

“Operation Bosley and the Two Angels.”

Who said these things on Big Brother 11 tonight, and who got evicted?

Here’s your warning: DON’T READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED ON THE LIVE EDITION OF BIG BROTHER 11 TONIGHT!

I’ll limit myself to two topics and leave the definitive treatment of BB to the wise Josh Wolk and his TV Watch.

1. Could you believe how quickly Natalie and Lydia did a 180 on their beloved Jessie, simply by finally getting around to comparing notes on the muscle-man’s behavior with each of them? How quickly adoration turned to hatred?

2. Could you believe that Jeff, Jordan, and Lydia all think Kevin is a game-player who would not tell a lie? The guy is now the only player who’s actually strategizing ruthlessly and with self-interest. In other words, playing the game the way you have to play it. His plan with Lydia and Natalie — the above-mentioned “Operation Bosley and the Two Angels” — seemed to work like a charm.

The result, after the eviction of Lydia, was one of Julie Chen’s best exit interviews. The host could barely contain her surprised glee that Lydia was jabbering to the live audience about now hating Jessie.

Did you watch? Don’t you think they should have voted out the far more devious and game-smart Natalie?

And now that she’s gone, and she’s made her apology, don’t you kinda miss the fireworks Chima provided?

Oh, and be sure to check out this video of the apparent Jedi-master of BB, Jessie. He fooled two gals just long enough to make his exit:

Aug 19 2009 10:53 PM ET

Octomom Nadya Suleman slams Kate Gosselin

Categories: Reality TV, Television

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During Octomom: The Incredible Unseen Footage, Nadya Suleman took a gratuitous verbal slap at the Jon & Kate Plus Eight mom, putting down Kate Gosselin for getting a tummy-tuck after the birth of her sextuplets.

“It’s so staged,” said Suleman, looking at tabloid pictures of Gosselin in a bikini on the beach. “She’s doing it to get people to take pictures of her… I feel like it’s cheating [to get a tummy-tuck]. It’s her choice. If she has enough money to fix herself, let her.

“I have a better shape, though. I’m sorry, no offense to her.”

“I’m not as attention-seeking [as Kate],” Suleman concluded. octomom_l

Yeah, right.

Aug 19 2009 10:32 PM ET

'Octomom: The Incredible Unseen Footage': Nadya Suleman seems incredibly irresponsible

Categories: Reality TV, Television

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You knew we were headed into Creepy Crazyville when, in the opening moments of Octomom, Nadya Suleman was bringing home the first two of her octuplets and she’s told paparazzi are closing in on her car. What does she do after covering the babies with a blanket? She puts on make-up for the photographers she’s “avoiding.”

Brrrr. Octomom: The Incredible Unseen Footage was a repulsively grim two hours. I hope for your sake you were watching Top Chef instead. If it wasn’t my job, I wouldn’t have lasted into the second Octomom hour, when Suleman tells the camera crew that seems to be living with her that she believes her house is “haunted” and that she has to get a “Bible for every room in the house.”

No, that makes her sound more sane than she came off here. This Fox special played the audio of a 911 call she makes in hysterics, claiming one of her children is missing. She’s screeching, “This isn’t happening!” (a favorite Nadya refrain — we heard it over and over, as though she was admitting she lives in a fantasy-world) and “Oh, God, please help me!” An onscreen caption reveals that the “missing” child had gone for a brief walk with one of Nadya’s nannies.

We saw Nadya fighting with her mother, who by comparison is a pillar of common sense and generosity, who cared for Suleman’s original six kids while Nadya had her octuplets. But what does Nadya say about her mother? “She never showed me love.” Observes Mom: “A lot of these issues are in her mind.” (It’s never explained how Nadya got the money for the house she moves into after leaving her mother’s house. Or how she pays for the nannies that are present, Nadya says, “twenty-four/seven.”)

For two hours, we watched one miserable child after another crying, moaning, screeching, and (of the ones old enough to do so) throwing temper tantrums. Octomom (a word trademarked by Nadya, we were informed) was edited to make Suleman’s life look like a ceaseless hell of chaos. The special culminated in footage in the octo-delivery-room, mostly just film of the backs of doctors and nurses, the occasional glimpse of a newborn baby being handed off, and audio of various hospital personnel trying to get the woman operating the camera to move the hell out of the way.

But of course, Nadya had given this camera-person permission to film. Everything.

I admit I came to this show thinking Suleman was probably just overly maternal and eccentric. Silly me, I know. Even if you think the production company misled Suleman and cobbled together the worst moments to make her look like a dreadfully selfish, misguided person, the two hours had enough unforgivable moments of unhappy-looking children to make you lose any sympathy for Octomom.

Those poor 14 kids. Did you watch? What did you think?

Aug 18 2009 09:59 PM ET

'Big Brother 11': 'Chima is a diva,' so Chima is kicked out of the house for good

Categories: Reality TV, Television

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“Chima is a diva,” said Jordan. (Frankly, I’m surprised Jordan knows the meaning of “diva,” but that’s for another post… ) The Tuesday edition of Big Brother 11 finally showed us some of what led, as EW reported this weekend, to Chima Simone being “expelled” from the Big Brother house. (Don’t read further if you don’t want the details of this episode.)

After saying, “I’m not giving them the satisfaction of voting me out,” Chima started refusing to wear the microphone all contestants must use 24/7 while in the house. She cursed repeatedly, and threatened the producers that she would “have the FCC on your ass real quick.” When she threw her microphone into a pool of water, ruining the equipment, BB executive producer Allison Grodner got on the house intercom.

Grodner informed the household that Chima was “expelled” for “willfully destroying her microphone… a big violation… and multiple rule violations.”

Gotta say, Michele was a lot more gracious than I would have been when BB sprang its next announcement: she was relieved of her “duties as Head of Household” and wasn’t allowed to compete in a new, golfing competition. Doesn’t seem fair to underdog Michele, but, hey, I don’t want Allison Grodner coming to my house and expelling me…

Anyway, post-Hurricane Chima, the house remained stirred up. Lydia started non-stop yelling, calling Jordan “a ho puppet” and alternately raging and crying. My favorite moment occurred when Lydia railed against Jeff and what she called his “coup de crap power that America handed you!” Awww, that’s no way to win over the TV audience, Lydia.

As for Natalie, she just started making up words: “I want vindiction [sic]!” she bellowed.

So: What do you think? Did Chima deserve to be expelled? Jordan made the night’s best comment: “Is this all happening because Jessie got evicted? Because this is ridiculous!”

And speaking of Jessie: Be sure to check out the already-legendary interview EW’s Supreme Brother Lover, Lynette Rice, conducted with Jessie “I’m A Superstar” Godderz, below:

Aug 18 2009 10:01 AM ET

'Nurse Jackie': It just gets better, doesn't it?

Categories: TV Last Night

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How sorry I will be when Nurse Jackie wraps up its season on Showtime next week. Last night’s episode continued the upward trajectory of an already-excellent new series. Edie Falco’s Jackie is one of the most vivid characters on television, and already I feel nostalgic for various moments: Jackie’s anger at the school meeting she’s forced to attend about daughter Grace’s anxiety; the filling-in of a bit Coop’s character when we learned his parents are two women (brava, Swoosie Kurtz and Blythe Danner) and that he’s a sensitive heel with women he comes on to; the ache in Eddie’s face when he first spies Jackie’s family; and the constant delight of rookie nurse Zoey.

Last night, Victor Garber’s movie-critic patient was crisply crusty. Overall, Edie Falco is giving a magnificently self-effacing performance, tough yet controlled. She’s an all-knowing, all-wise nurse, but at a time when every cable-TV hero must have those pesky “flaws,” Nurse Jackie never makes moral judgments about the way Jackie oversees her private or her professional life — the show credits us with enough interest in ambiguity to draw our own conclusions.

Next week’s finale will leave me wanting a second season of Nurse Jackie as soon as possible.

How about you?

Aug 17 2009 09:54 PM ET

New 'Jon and Kate Plus 8': Has it all become too unreal?

Categories: Reality TV, Television

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It’s gotten so weird: magazines and newspapers are full of tales of Kate Gosselin in tears and enraged at her wayward husband; Jon is seen out clubbing and hugging girls a decade younger than he is. And then you turn on Jon & Kate Plus 8 only to see, this week, Kate having mommy-time with three of her boys on a North Carolina battleship, while Jon stuck close to Pennsylvania home, taking the two eldest, twins Mady and Cara, to an arcade to climb ropes and ride go-karts.

Me, I choose to stay away from a lot of the tabloid stuff and watch what I always enjoy: the kids and their enjoyment. Fortunately for Aaden, Collin, and Joel, they’re still young enough to ignore what Kate referred to as “our little disruptive paparazzi friends,” who started snapping pix of the kids scampering up and down the USS North Carolina. The boys concentrated their five year-old muscles on climbing iron stairways while wearing sailor hats that made them look like mini-Popeyes. It all looked like fun.

Meanwhile, Jon’s brief, drab sequences were like those depressing weekends-with-divorced-dad from which novelists like John Updike and Richard Ford have made art. Jon & Kate, however, could only present dreary banality. We know from years of watching that Mady has always been a little grump (her bad mood didn’t start with the dissolution of her parents’ marriage), but her whiny, mopey, “I don’t even know what I wanna do” refrain has rendered her, I am afraid, the series’ perpetual downer. Tattoos and goth make-up are in her near-future.

Cara, by contrast, is a plucky, cheerful kid, eager to try anything, smiling hopefully at her dad. Which is depressing now in its own way, given the fact that she has a dad who says to the camera, “I hadn’t seen [the girls] in a really long time.” Whose fault is that, Jon?

Even Kate’s happy scenes were tinged with melancholy irony. When one child said, in his little-boy way, “When I grow up I’m gonna be a bad guy!” Kate responded, “No bad guys in my world.”

Well, she can dream, can’t she?

Did you watch Jon & Kate this week? What did you think?

Aug 17 2009 02:13 AM ET

'Mad Men' and sex: Done right, or an easy way out?

Categories: Television

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As I write in this week’s issue of EW, Mad Men has come back with a third-season premiere chock-full of fresh details and revelations about familiar characters. My colleague, the canny Karen Valby, has a full TV Watch recap of the premiere episode, but I want to write here about the one scene I couldn’t discuss in any detail in the print mag without revealing a SPOILER that I can, with this warning, get into now.

I’ll wait a few minutes for you to leave now, if you don’t want to know the details of the subplot I’m going to discuss here. Suitably decided? Okay.

I’m referring to the sex scene between Sal Romano (the superb Bryan Batt) and the bellhop. I’m not saying this was the most important subplot in the premiere – certainly seeing Don Draper in his bare feet in this night’s opening shot, a symbol of the naked soul within, was the hour’s crucial hint of what’s to come in season three.

But for Sal’s repressed sexuality, something we’ve known about since the first Mad Men season, to be brought to the fore on premiere night suggests how important this element is to series creator Matthew Weiner. On one level, leaving Sal in the closet for so long (and he remains so even after last night, to everyone except Don) was merely a necessary period detail for Mad Men. Given the era, there was probably no way an out gay man could have risen to the position Sal has within the ad agency. And marrying him off to a woman who doesn’t demand much beyond his smile, his kindness, and his paycheck is also in keeping with the times.

Choosing to have Sal cruised by a horny bellhop, and to have Sal enjoy his romp while on a business trip, is one of those neat (sometimes too-neat) symmetries that Weiner regularly employs. In this case, it made dramatic sense for Sal to engage in illicit sex as much as it did (and has) for Don Draper to do so on previous business jaunts. These away-from-the-office excursions are Mad Men excuses for men to behave madly – more freely and more true to themselves than they are at work or at home. And certainly the scene was staged beautifully: We could share the anguished joy and release Sal felt. By the time this episode occurred in 1963, Allen Ginsberg may have “Howl”’ed and Frank O’Hara (the poet whose work Don read last season) had enjoyed trysts and steady relationships with a variety of male companions, but these were bohemian artists, not the buttoned-up businessmen of Mad Men.

Weiner wrote this episode, and I treasured his usual small-but-significent period details. In these scenes I’m talking about, for instance, it was great to be reminded that, once upon a time, a fire escape was actually something people used to escape from a possible fire, as we saw here. (Does anyone in a big city hotel ever think about using these rickety, rusty things in case of an emergency anymore?)

But I do think Weiner took one easy way out: In the scene near the end, on the plane ride home, Don made it clear by implication that Sal’s secret is safe with him, and that he’s not upset with Sal. I would hazard, however, that a guy like Don, all steely self-discipline, furtive secrets himself, and raging straight hormones, would have been (in the realism of this series) more hypocritical, and thus repelled by what he glimpsed in Sal’s room. It would have freaked out Don’s very (straight) soul. He may read poetry out of curiosity and despair, but Don is ultimately a social and artistic conservative: He wants Betty home waiting for him with a home-cooked meal, and remember, he dismissed the famous DDB Volkswagen “Lemon” ad campaign by saying, “I don’t know what I hate about it the most.”

But even for a daring drama like Mad Men, accommodations must be made: Don must remain our sympathetic hero, and a homophobe — the “-phobe” here meaning someone frightened, not hating — cannot be a hero.

What do you think about this subplot? Enjoying Mad Men in general? I sure am.

Aug 17 2009 01:10 AM ET

New 'True Blood': Sookie bites Eric, and 'I'm full of joy, I want to burn!'

Categories: Television, Vampires

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Beginning with a bang and ending in a whimper, this week’s True Blood turned out to be one of the more delicate, nuanced episodes of the season, and if that’s not your official SPOILER ALERT, I don’t know what is.

Taking up where we left off last week, a be-bombed Luke blew up himself and the vampire’s lair. There were a number of deaths, both human and vampire, and as Nan Flanagan, the TV talking-head for the American Vampire League said privately to her vampires, this public explosion is “a P.R. mess.”

But this “mess” was not without its deep Blood pleasures. Eric shielded Sookie from flying debris, probably saving her life. In return, he lay wounded, and Sookie felt obliged to help him in his request for her to remove shards of silver shrapnel stuck in his body. “It’s too gross; it’s too… you!” protested Sookie, disgusted. But she did it anyway, chomping and sucking until Bill came upon them and told Sookie she’d been suckered by Eric, that the silver bullets would have pushed themselves out, and that “this means you’re connected; he’ll be able to sense your emotions.”

For his part, Eric just lay back and smiled, saying, “She was superb.” The metaphor for receiving a sexual favor from Sookie was all too clear. “You big, lying a-hole!” squawked Sookie. It was funny, but also ominous. “Don’t be surprised if you feel some attraction to him,” said Bill, adding, “sexual.” As if we didn’t know that. (Sometimes Bill is so inactive and so stating-the-obvious, he becomes less appealing as the series’ key vampire. But this also requires a more subtle range of acting, and adds to the complexity of vampire-human relations.)

There were, of course, other subplots. The Jessica-Hoyt affair continues to be comic relief, complete with an awkward dinner between the couple and Hoyt’s hoity-toity mother.

But the bigger subplot was Maryann’s increasing power over Tara and Eggs, her striding into the jail and demanding to see Sam, and setting free the rest of the pleasure-addled citizen-prisoners. Sam escaped – he was a fly on the wall (er, table) when Maryann went to Tara’s house. Maryann has pretty much given up trying to hide her pleasure-principle powers, her let’s-party mood replaced by impatience and cruelty, as when she tried to lure Tara’s sober mom to relapse with a nice, chilled bottle of vodka.

Ultimately, the episode moved True Blood’s narrative ahead most forcefully in revealing to us just how much hitherto unknown influence Nan Flanagan holds in the vampire world. She was able to relieve no less than Godric of his status and power within these ranks. In the midst of this dead-serious stuff, Blood still had time for an excellent joke. Eric tells Nan, “You don’t have that kind of power.” Sneers Nan, “Hey, I’m on TV – try me.”

Yes, TV exerts a great and terrible power, doesn’t it, making us helplessly in thrall to True Blood. There was a beautiful moment when Eric cries as Godric explains he must die to atone for his sins. The love between the two men was palpable: “There are centuries of faith and love between us,” said Godric, trying to comfort an agonized Eric.

In the closing moments, a now-chastened, eager-to-atone Godric went up on a roof to see the killing sunrise. Sookie, ever the forgiving Christian, tried to comfort him, but Godric’s different faith surpassed even hers in welcoming either final death or a soul brought to ultimate justice: “I’m full of joy… I want to burn!” Godric cried in final ecstasy.

The mixture of Christian and pagan faith; same-sex and hetero-sex love; and Sookie in a red gingham dress looking like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz… it was another genre-bending, mind-expanding edition of True Blood.

Am I right? Wrong?

Aug 16 2009 09:49 PM ET

'Big Brother 11': Some final moments with Chima

Categories: Reality TV, Television

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As has been reported by Lynette Rice, Chima Simone is gone from the Big Brother 11 house, although the reasons for this exit remain unclear even after tonight’s episode. (Spoiler Alert!)

Chima was certainly front and center tonight, taking a prominent role in what was called a “pity party” for the evicted Jesse. As Chima, Lydia, and Natalie cried and said things like, “[Jesse] would pray for all of us all the time,” their ostensible ally Kevin had enough perspective to say to the camera about Jesse, “This is ridonkulous! The guy was an idiot!”

Chima expressed a lot of hostility toward Jeff throughout tonight’s hour for using the “coup d’etat” to replace her eviction nominations last Thursday. The most fascinating part of tonight’s edition was the rarely-broadcast footage of the conversation that occurs just after the eviction nominations. “I am livid… You’re disloyal,” said Chima to Jeff. Russell got a curt, “Kiss my a–.”

I have to say, Chima’s anger wasn’t nearly as vehement as some of Russell’s rants in the past. I know a lot of viewers turned on Chima when, previously, she referred to Russell as a “terrorist.” That is a very loaded word. But in the sense that the muscled mixed-martial-artist has hounded and berated many contestants in an intimidating manner, Chima’s accusation isn’t out of bounds for a reality show that encourages overstatement.

CBS was clearly padding the hour to extend Chima’s exit until Tuesday. There were moments that were both cute (Jeff and Jordan’s playful “engagement”) and tedious (Lydia’s insufferable cooing over her stuffed unicorn). It was weird watching, knowing that Chima is gone in real-time, while we watch these banalities in BB house-time.

Chima said at the end of this episode, as she was put up for eviction, “I don’t care.” As EW has reported, the producers say Chima is out because she broke the rules of the game, and Chima counter-claims that she quit. It sounds as though she may have given up largely because of Jesse’s eviction. If so, as my colleague “Jesuitical” Josh Wolk has written, “Really, Chima? You’re going to go on a game and then get mad at people for playing the game?” HOH Michele did give Chima credit for being “the smartest in the house.”

In any case, a voiceover at the end of tonight’s hour intoned, “Tune in Tuesday night as one house-guest self-destructs and is removed from the game!” I wonder how much of the truth we’ll be seeing. I want Chima to have her day in court — er, in Big Brother confession-room-testimony — not 45 minutes of stuffed unicorns and a few moments of Chima made to “disappear” like a political prisoner.

What do you think? Will you be watching on  Tuesday?

For more: ‘Big Brother’ contestant Chima Simone kicked off the show

Aug 10 2009 10:53 PM ET

New 'Jon & Kate Plus 8': Kate says 'I'm trying not to feel sorry for us and myself' and Jon calls Kate 'annoying'

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Well, it was quite a Gosselin day on TV today, wasn’t it, what with Kate sobbing on The Today Show this morning.

But on the original franchise – this week’s new Jon & Kate Plus 8 episode — Jon protested to the cameras, “It’s not a mid-life crisis!” He was referring specifically to his new earrings. He said he’d had his ears pierced years ago, but only now was wearing studly studs, because, hey, “it’s who I am.”

Well, okay, Jon, but who you are is still going to be edited unflatteringly compared to Kate, who was seen on TLC doing the parenting during a North Carolina vacation trip with all eight children. “I’m trying not to feel sorry for us and myself,” said Kate.

As long-time viewers know, Kate hates messiness and nature in general, but here she was shown gamely holding a snake on a visit to a “serpentarium” (“I have to shriek,” she admitted). Even more shocking, she allowed the kids to body-paint themselves with pudding as a fun activity, a messy lark that the “old” Kate would have had a breakdown over. (In fact, the show did this activity about a year ago, and as I recall, Kate did come close to melting down faster than the pudding.)

But Kate said this night, “Me and my new attitude… my mess-o-phobia is going down every year.” I don’t know whether to feel good for her (and the kids, who are subjected to her fussiness) or badly for us as viewers, since Kate’s control-freakiness has always been central to the show’s drama.

Jon certainly remembers that. Back home in Pennsylvania, still “supervising” the remodeling of the kitchen (a role consisting of him coming in once in a while and looking over the workmen’s shoulders, blank-faced), Jon addressed the camera directly:

“It’s good they were all away, especially Kate, yelling that there’s a mess and cleaning up constantly; that would be annoying.”

Jon may not be building sympathy for himself, both on and outside the confines of the show, but he sure is more blunt these days.

But the kids, the kids: they are still great. Romping on the beach, or being stunned by the rare pleasure of having bacon for breakfast, they’re happy little campers, for the part that we see. The cameras are careful to show scenes of affection between both parents and the children, as well as one quick moment when one of the tykes says to another, “I miss Daddy more!”

And the two oldest Mady and Cara are, no surprise here, growing into what Kate called “performance mode”: part of their fantasy lives now consists of them making up TV shows and acting them out in front of TV cameras for a real TV show. How meta. This week, they called their “show” Invent, Invent, Invent! and announced, “Our first segment is going to be arts and crafts with recycling!”

That’s a perfect summation of what Jon & Kate Plus 8 is all about these days.

Did you watch? What do you think? Liking Jon’s earrings?

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