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Link Time - Lee Pace Lines Up a Miraculous Year

BuzzSugar — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 13:00:37 PDT

Lee Pace joins HBO's drama, Miraculous Year - Ausiello Files
Lindsay Lohan's new song, "Too Young to Die" leaks - Music Mix
Nicholas Hoult will play Beast in X-Men: First Class - Cinema Blend
Alan Ball signs up for another series for HBO - Collider
See, men do cry! Watch this great movie montage - Jezebel
A new trailer for Machete - Moviefone
Words of wisdom from Emmy-nominated TV characters - TresSugar
James Cameron makes $350 million off Avatar - Cinematical
Eclipse's Xavier Samuel is nice to look at, but this trailer for his film The Loved Ones? Better shield your eyes - Dread Central

Alexander Brings Kate Along For a True Blood Party With Anna, Stephen, and More!

PopSugar — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 07:00:00 PDT

The stars of True Blood gathered at LA's ArcLight Cinemas last night to celebrate the premiere of their third season. A Proenza Schouler-clad Anna Paquin stuck by fiancé Stephen Moyer on the red carpet, and they were joined by costars like Ryan Kwanten, who sweetly brought his mom as his date, and Sam Trammell. Alexander Skarsgard posed for photos solo, but his girlfriend, Kate Bosworth, wasn't far behind in her black cutout dress! There are plenty of reasons to tune into the new episode this Sunday, including the assortment of hot leading men. The guys were on display for a series of minisodes and steamy promos - all of which helped Stephen land two big screen movie roles.

To see more from the premiere and afterparty, just read more.

View 35 Photos ›

Images include: Deborah Ann Woll, Anna Paquin, Rutina Wesley, Sam Trammell, Alexander Skarsgard, Stephen Moyer, Nelsan Ellis, Michelle Forbes, Ryan Kwanten, Kate Bosworth, Alan Ball, Marshall Allman, Michael Lombardo, Gregg Fienberg

Alan Ball Says Season Two of True Blood Is "Sexier and Gorier"

BuzzSugar — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 07:30:41 PDT

The second season of HBO's True Blood kicks off tonight and doesn't waste any time jumping into the scary murder madness that has engulfed the citizens of Bon Temps.

According to the show's creator, Alan Ball, everything intensifies this season: vampires are more monstrous, sex scenes are even sexier, shape-shifters become more, er, shape-shiftery, and the anti-vampire movement becomes even more zealous.

Here are more highlights from the conference call Ball recently held with reporters:

Talking about the serial killer: "The first season we, the audience, did not know who the serial killer was. In this season, as the show progresses, we know there is a character who is up to no good and is dangerous long before any of the other characters on the show know it."
Describing the anti-vampire cult and whether or not it's a metaphor for our current political climate: "That whole conflict becomes deadly serious. Given the nature of the political debate in this country, I think it's very easy to look at it in a satirical light. I've been clear from the beginning: they really believe they have a mission to save the world."

To see what Ball has to say about Evan Rachel Wood's character and the real-life romance between the show's two stars, Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer,

First Look: True Blood Season Two

BuzzSugar — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 10:30:23 PDT

I was jealous of the folks at the Paley Festival in LA last week when they got to see a sneak peek of the second season of True Blood. Well, kudos to HBO for slipping this clip out to the rest of us, because it's a dark and creepy first look at season two of the vampire series.

The clip focuses on Sookie, Bill, and Bill's new little vampire girl, Jessica. They're in a car together in the woods, and Sookie storms off after an argument. Bill's sure Sookie will come back eventually, despite Jessica's disdainful comments that Sookie wants him to chase after her. But then there's this . . . thing. Lurking. With long fingernails.

Alan Ball has continued to say that the show will follow Charlaine Harris's books pretty closely, so I bet some of you reading might know what's happening here. If so, are you pleased? If not, what do you think is going on? To check out the clip, just

What to Netflix: New DVD Tuesday

BuzzSugar — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 08:15:29 PST

All of the new DVD releases hit stores (and Netflix) on Tuesdays. So each week in What to Netflix: New DVD Tuesday, I sort through the best of the batch and tell you what to add to your queue.

Nip/Tuck: Season Five
Season five finds Sean McNamara and Christian Troy making the leap from Miami to Los Angeles. While the new city provides a welcome change of scenery, the satisfaction is for the viewer only as business isn't exactly booming at the McNamara/Troy office. In fact, the two men find themselves without any clients at all and must resort to hiring a publicist to get their practice rolling. The publicist (played by Lauren Hutton) tells the duo that they must perform surgery on celebrities to create buzz. Guest actors that pop up in this DVD include Portia de Rossi and Oliver Platt.

Special features include unaired scenes and a gag reel titled "Severed Parts."

One more up next so

read more. Towelhead The title alone suggests that you're in for a provocative experience with this Alan Ball-directed adaptation of the book of the same title. Like the book, this movie is a sad and disturbing coming-of-age tale focusing on a young woman (Jasira, played by Summer Bishil) who is half-Lebanese and half-white, living in a largely white Texas community with a strict father and a leery older male neighbor (Aaron Eckhart). This movie is not for the faint of heart, but it's also a tale of truth, humor and redemption and Ball's directorial style is interesting. Special features include a featurette titled "Towelhead: Community Discussion" which is footage of two panel discussions hosted by Alan Ball about the heavy issues raised by the movie. One panel includes co-stars Summer Bishil and Peter Macdissi, and the other features the novel's author, Alicia Erian.

Towelhead: Sad, Disturbing, Just Like the Book

BuzzSugar — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 14:30:33 PDT

There's been some controversy and outrage surrounding Alan Ball's adaptation of Alicia Erian's novel Towelhead, which I might understand more if I hadn’t read the original work. People are calling the film "abhorrent," "ethically reprehensible and irresponsible," and "gratuitously offensive." And yet, this isn't really Ball’s fault. His adaptation is completely faithful to the novel - I don’t think there’s even one line of dialogue or one bit of action that isn’t in the book - so why wasn't there this reaction to the novel?

The story is shocking and disturbing. It’s a coming-of-age tale focusing on a young woman (Jasira, played poignantly by Summer Bishil in the film) who is half-Lebanese and half-white, living in a largely white Texas community with a strict father and a leery older male neighbor. Everything Jasira does (from using tampons to dating a black boy) seems to anger her father and disappoint her mother (played by Maria Bello). So, Jasira confuses the attention she gets from her leery neighbor (Aaron Eckhart) with a kind of true affection, which he easily exploits. Jasira's young sense of self and her burgeoning understanding of sexuality get all mixed up with abuse and humiliation and - occasionally - pleasure. This is just the tip-top of the iceberg, so

read more. There are things that will make a person’s stomach turn in this story, but there’s also truth, humor and redemption. The book is told from Jasira’s childlike point of view, offering readers an agonizing glimpse into her naivete as well as her innocent hopefulness. Lacking this insight (as the film version provides little, if any such glimpse into Jasira’s interior world), and perhaps because book-to-film adaptations often must include only the “big” plot points, the complexities of Jasira’s experiences are lost and all we see is a disturbing 2-dimensional story about a girl in an unfortunate situation. In some ways I can understand the reactions some people have with the movie; with no real insight into Jasira’s inner landscape, it appears to be shocking for the sake of shock. But Alan Ball has never been one to avoid the ugly, sinister aspects of the human experience. In American Beauty, which he wrote, he obviously touches on some unpleasant and taboo topics, and perhaps one of the problems with Towelhead is that he actually goes there. Frustratingly, some people are focusing on one scene in which Jasira discovers a used tampon, and holds it up for Jasira - and us - to see. Apparently this is too disgusting for some viewers to which Ball had a superb retort: "We can make movies like There's Something About Mary, using semen as hair gel, and it's a huge hit - but to show a bloody tampon is considered shocking. I think that says a lot about our culture's attitude towards women and towards female sexuality." My thoughts exactly. The horror and repulsion with which menstruation is so often treated is repulsive in itself. As Ball points out, "We all have mothers and we're all are here because of the way that female sexuality works." We just don't want to acknowledge it, apparently. Obviously, this story is provocative, but maybe we should be provoked. Having read the book, I wasn’t shocked by anything in the film because none of it was a surprise, though I definitely sat there anticipating with dread the more upsetting scenes. I appreciate what Ball (and the excellent cast) has done with the movie – it must have been a challenge, to say the least. But between the two mediums, in this case, it would probably be wiser (and more interesting) to read the book. Photos courtesy of Warner Independent Pictures

TV Preview: True Blood

BuzzSugar — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 12:42:31 PDT

I don't think it will be a revolutionary statement that how one feels about Alan Ball's new HBO series, True Blood, will have a lot to do with how one generally feels about vampires. Me, they've never really been my thing; they're OK and all, but the mere mention of fangs wouldn't necessarily get me to tune in. This review, then, is for (and by) the vampire-agnostic.

So here's the takeaway: I don't doubt at all that True Blood could develop into a deeply fascinating series for people at all points on the vampire-fan spectrum. But in the two episodes HBO sent me, the vampire parts were something I just needed to get through so I could get back to Alan Ball's witty writing in the more human realm. The second episode is stronger than the first; I've heard from some critics who got a full batch of five episodes that each one gets better. But the fate of many a TV series has been determined in episode one, and in True Blood's case, that's cause for some concern.

True Blood's protagonist is Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), a Louisiana waitress with an unfortunate "gift" for reading people's minds that makes her daily life a struggle to tune out the thoughts of those around her. It's somewhat of a relief, then, when a pale stranger named Bill (Stephen Moyer) settles himself into her bar one night and asks for a drink of Tru Blood, the synthetic blood substitute that has made it possible for vampires to live among humans. Sookie can't read his mind but still quickly figures out that Bill's a vampire; "Am I that obvious?" he drawls in return. Why yes; you just asked for fake blood at a bar at night. It's not hard to guess. For more on the highs and lows of True Blood, just

read more. What Ball has done best - in American Beauty, and then in Six Feet Under - is give a voice to people's unspoken fears: that intimacy is scary, that suburbia is soul-sucking, that death is really the end, or not the end. I'm not convinced that talent translates to the unspoken fears of the immortal. Bill's lines are the clunkiest, his characterization spotty. The second episode fixes that somewhat, giving Bill a set of chivalrous, 1800s manners, but in the first episode, I had a hard time understanding why Sookie was so attracted to this bloodsucker. Part of that might be because of Sookie, who also could use a little more character development. Sometimes she's a Southern tart; sometimes she's a complete innocent. The second episode hints more at her family backstory, which was a relief; every little bit I learned about her helped. But in the first episode, I had such a hard time justifying her actions that finally I gave up trying to make rational sense of it. The Sookie/Bill story gets some support from wild cast of supporting characters, some successful and some less so. To date, my favorites are Sookie's "My stars!"-saying grandmother and her sassy best friend, Tara, who can't stop running her mouth. Sookie's brother, the lady-crazed Jason, is introduced in a fairly odd way, but there's enough hinting at a dark past that I'm curious about him. There's been a lot made of True Blood's sex and violence (or, maybe more accurately, violent sex), and it's true - there's a lot of it. There's definitely a spirit of abandon about the whole thing, which is something Ball's other shows have definitely lacked. It's more melodrama than drama, despite the occasional heavy reminders about how vampires are an oppressed class just trying to find their way in a world set on denying them their rights, and at times it's very, very enjoyable. But is it enough to - sorry, sorry - sink your teeth into? Well . . . that might well just depend on how you feel about vampires. Source

Book Review: Towelhead

BuzzSugar — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 10:30:50 PDT

I first heard of Towelhead when I caught a trailer for the Alan Ball-directed film adaptation of Alicia Erian’s novel. The trailer looked like a sweet (perhaps a little bittersweet) coming-of-age story with moments of dark humor. The book is all of these things, but I was not at all prepared for exactly how disturbing it would be, or how utterly sad.

Towelhead is written in the frank and simplistic words of 13-year-old Jasira, the daughter of a white mother and a Lebanese father. In the summer of 1991, Jasira moves from her mother’s house in Syracuse, NY, to Houston, TX, to live with her strict father, Rifat. In a largely white community, Jasira becomes increasingly aware of the fact that she’s different and that different is bad. But when she starts to date a fellow student who is black, Rifat angrily forbids her from seeing him, reacting out of deep-seated prejudices he insists he doesn't possess. For more about Towelhead,

read more. Turns out, most things anger Jasira’s father, and when he's angry, he hits Jasira and berates her. Meanwhile, Jasira's next-door neighbor, Mr. Vuoso, offers her the attention and what she perceives to be positive affection that she so desperately craves. Unfortunately, Mr. Vuoso wants to be way more than just a friendly neighbor and at the root of his interest in Jasira there’s a sinister, ugly desire. Jasira’s one ray of hope comes from another neighbor, a young pregnant woman named Melina who wants to help and protect Jasira. At times it’s a frustrating read because Jasira has very few people she can trust not to hurt her and this grows wearying. Even her mother has jealousy issues and blames Jasira for any number of things she couldn't possibly have done. Jasira’s father constantly finds fault with her, mostly having to do with her developing body. The worst parts involve Mr. Vuoso, whose depraved exploitation of Jasira’s naivete and her burgeoning curiosity about sex is absolutely heartbreaking and difficult to read. Thus, she receives mixed messages about her body and her sexuality: shame and disgust from her father, leering objectification from the adult man next door, and a slightly more innocent desire for exploration from a boy her age. In truth, there are parts of this book that made me feel like vomiting, and I had to put it down at times. And yet somehow, Erian's writing made me obsessed with Jasira’s story and I had to keep reading. As bleak and horrible as it can get, Jasira's narration is so simplistic and childlike, I kept reading just so I could see if she would ever find some kind of relief, love, or peace. There are also points of great humor as Jasira tries to navigate this new, very adult world all by herself. It’s a gripping tale, and I really like Erian’s no-nonsense writing style, though it’s also emotionally trying. Source

Alan Ball on Immortality and Why Vampires Are Sexy

BuzzSugar — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 05:30:15 PDT

This weekend, writer/director Alan Ball of Six Feet Under fame returns to HBO with True Blood. The vampire saga, based on the novels of Charlaine Harris, follows Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), a waitress who can read minds - except for the one of Bill, a vampire who's new to town.

I've checked out the first two episodes of the show and will give you my reaction before Sunday's premiere. But first, why not hear about the show from Ball himself? I recently had a chance to join a group of reporters for a chat with Ball about True Blood's themes and goals. Here are highlights:

On the essential element of a vampire story: "Certainly, the one thing I feel like you have to have is you have to have a character. You have to have a specific person that you're invested in. You have to feel for them. If it's just a story device with fangs, then I'm just not that interested. I'm not that interested in special effects. We're really trying to really focus on who Bill is, what's his history, what is the curse of being immortal, how is that a bad thing, what's it like to be immortal and still yearn to be human, to have lost everything that meant something to you? To meet somebody and feel like you have a second beginning?"
On doing a more outrageous show: "It was just really fun to do something that was less subdued because Six Feet Under had been all about subduing one's emotions and being afraid of the primal feelings that we all have that are the byproduct of being creatures with souls and having to deal with the fact that we all know we're going to die. It felt sort of liberating just to get a little crazy and the books had that energy and I just really responded to it."

To hear why Ball thinks vampires are sexy, just

TV Preview: Alan Ball's Next HBO Show, True Blood

BuzzSugar — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 11:30:03 PDT

At Comic-Con, I was lucky enough to catch some footage of True Blood, Alan Ball's (Six Feet Under, American Beauty) HBO adaptation of the book series by Charlaine Harris, and I was hooked. Now there's a trailer for the series, which premieres on HBO Sept. 7, so we can all discuss the show: whether or not it looks to be of the same caliber as Six Feet Under, how distracting the Southern accent attempts may be, how smitten we are or are not by Anna Paquin in this role, etc.

In the series, Paquin plays a telepathic waitress in a Louisiana town who meets a vampire when he walks into her bar and she discovers she can't read his mind.

Have you read these books? Does the show look like it will do the book series justice? To watch the preview for True Blood,