BuzzSugar

Link Time! Taylor Swift Wins Entertainer of the Year at the CMAs

BuzzSugar — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:30:31 -0800

Taylor Swift is the youngest person ever to take the big CMAs prize - Watching TV
Where are all the women writers in late-night? - New York Times
Get to know the new guy on 30 Rock - Marc Malkin
Dawson's Creek scribe Kevin Williamson is working on a redo of The Bedroom Window - MTV Movies Blog
Harvey Keitel joins the cast of Little Fockers - ComingSoon
Sesame Street's five biggest controversies - TV Squad
Fright Night is getting a remake and the woman from Buffy the Vampire Slayer is behind it - Cinematical
Bill Clinton shares his thoughts on the ladies of Mad Men - TresSugar
Minnie Driver to guest star on Modern Family - Ausiello Files

Motherhood: A Harried-Mom Tale That Often Feels Tired

BuzzSugar — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:30:20 -0700

When you have a parenting movie set in New York, you should know better than to expect a warm-'n'-fuzzy story about the joys of having kids. In fact, Motherhood is out to prove that mothers have it rough.

The film follows Eliza Welsh (Uma Thurman), a Manhattan writer dealing with a cramped apartment, busy husband, and side-street parking while raising her two kids. A day in her life feels like a really, really long 24 hours. Eliza runs around frantically trying to prepare for her 6-year-old's birthday while composing an essay for a parenting magazine contest and squeezing in a sample sale with her mommy friend Sheila (Minnie Driver). We know that Eliza was once a great writer, but when she had kids, she decided to give up her job to raise her family. Now, she's a shell of her former self in frumpy clothes and messy hair. Simply put, Eliza is dealing with the classic parent conundrum: how do you care for your kids and still retain something for yourself? The answer? It ain't easy.

For more about what I mean, read more.

Eliza doesn't try to feign martyrdom. In fact, she often whines about her plight in a way that screams, "I'm angry, dammit!" And at first, you're angry for her too. (No woman deserves to put up with all that she does.) But as the film goes on, Eliza's bitterness knocks you over the head, and you have to you wonder - is she like this every day? Yeesh.

Luckily we have Eliza's friend Sheila for some needed comic relief. Sheila is the cool single mom to the more neurotic Eliza - she mouths off cheeky one-liners and uses her son's motorized bath toy for her "alone time." Jodie Foster also delivers a hilarious cameo as a celebrity mom swearing at the paparazzi on the playground - aka, herself. Both women keep Eliza's "what-can-go-wrong-will-go-wrong" storyline from wearing too thin.

Mothers will probably identify with either Eliza or Sheila but what about the rest of us? While the actors perform well and the movie provides laughs for those who can relate (read: parents), most of the jokes don't feel fresh, and you've probably seen similar setups on shows like The Middle or In the Motherhood or any of the other dozens of family comedies in recent years. Props to the filmmakers for giving mothers their due, but if you're not one yourself, an hour and a half with Eliza may be enough to make you rush out of the theater and buy birth control.

2009 Sundance Spotlight: Motherhood and Grace

BuzzSugar — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 14:30:07 -0800

While I won't be heading down to the 2009 Sundance Film Festival this year, I will be sorting through the humongous pile of festival entries to share with you some of the films I think look most promising. From quirky documentaries to talented young filmmaker debuts to a potential runaway hit, Sundance is filled with entertainment possibilities.

Today's spotlight is kind of fun in that both of these selections have some provocative points of view regarding motherhood and make for a nice - if a little weird - themed post. Check them out:

Motherhood
"Mommy blogging" is a pretty popular thing to do, what with many new moms wanting to document each and every step of their parental journeys. This movie, starring Uma Thurman and Minnie Driver, looks like it takes a darkly humorous look at the life of one such mommy blogger. Motherhood follows Uma's character Eliza who "has to throw her daughter's sixth birthday party, battle for a parking space, chase her toddler son, navigate playground politics, repair a botched birthday cake, contemplate a fling with a sexy messenger half her age, juggle a career-changing opportunity, find time to have a breakdown, briefly run away from home, and realize what is truly valuable in her life - all in one day." Sounds kind of funny, actually

You can check out a clip of Motherhood in which Minnie Driver's character is pretty peeved at Uma's character for blogging about her here.

To see another one of my Sundance finds that has to do with a very, very different kind of motherhood, just read more.

Grace
Um. So. This movie looks really disturbing and that's a huge understatement. I'm not totally sure I'll ever be able to see this myself, but I feel compelled to share with you my awe that this is out there in the world. Grace is about a pregnant woman who is "determined to carry the stillborn baby to term, where she miraculously wills the delivered corpse into life. But it is not too long before the increasingly isolated mother realizes that something is not right with baby Grace, and she must make horrible sacrifices to keep her living." One reviewer who watched this at Sundance describes it in this way: "If you are the sort of person who might enjoy an effed-up gore fest about a woman who delivers an undead baby, you can rest assured that Grace lives up to its potential." It sounds nuts!

Here's the teaser trailer. Nothing insane happens per se, but there is a baby with blood on it and other stuff that makes for a generally disturbing video-watching experience. Proceed with caution.

Photos courtesy of Sundance

Interview: Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver on The Riches

BuzzSugar — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:30:27 -0700

The Riches, FX's series about a family trying to steal and swindle their way to the American dream, begins its second season tonight. The show was able to complete just seven episodes before the writers' strike shut down production, but as star Eddie Izzard said in a recent chat with reporters, that just meant this season will have a tighter, quicker pace. He and co-star Minnie Driver had quite a lot to say about the series; here are highlights from the conversation:

On having just seven episodes this season because of the strike:
Izzard: "The writers were obviously aware of this beforehand, and so we built a sort of cliffhanger halfway through the season. So it really didn’t hurt us in any way. . . . The first season, if you watched it all the way through, the tone does move around somewhat. The second season, we just sort of knew where we were going, we locked down, we got on the railway lines, and we just went full steam ahead. So I think it makes it like a tighter punch."
On whether a viewer could start with season two having not seen season one:
Minnie Driver: "I honestly think that condensed trailer that you get at the beginning of any new season is enough to fill you in on where you’re at. And really, if you just read a blurb that says, “A couple of con artists and their kids trying to steal the American dream, move into a rich neighborhood in Louisiana,” you’re kind of good to go. I mean, I think that’s what’s wonderful about our show is that you can explain it really quickly, it’s high concept, and the characters are very immediate. And certainly, we pick up literally 15 seconds after where we left off at the end of season one, so you’re coming straight in, in a really dramatic place."

For more, and to watch a clip from tonight's episode, just read more.

On what's driving Dahlia this season:
Minnie Driver: "From my point of view with Dahlia, yes, she’s led by the truth, or her version of the truth, in this season and wanting to kind of cleanse herself of all of the deceit. She wants to be this new person, but I don’t think she has any idea of who the old person is. So wanting to be somebody new presents a huge challenge, and it’s very interesting and very kind of psychologically challenging to follow her down this rabbit hole."
On Dahlia and Wayne's tough relationship:
Eddie Izzard: "Well, at the moment it’s heading towards a sort of train wreck, and we won’t wreck the train. I’ve always thought that their ambition is similar, because they’re quite different people, but they’ve got this ambition thing. They kind of want it all and in different ways. And I think that’s going to keep them together, and there’s a love that’s underneath it."
On whether people actually could believe in and live a life like the Malloys/Riches:
Minnie Driver: "America likes to look at itself as this kind of straightforward picket fence ideal, when the reality of what’s going on is much rarer than that, and it’s much stranger. And I think we are fictionalizing an element of kind of Americana that people don’t want to think about, which is that I think a ton of people are coloring outside of the lines, they just maybe don’t want to admit it. And here we are kind of admitting it and going, you know what, this is literally what we do for a living and we’ve got a taste for it."

Photo and video courtesy of FX

First Look: The Riches, Season 2

BuzzSugar — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 14:32:47 -0700

The Riches, FX's drama about a family of Irish travelers trying to swindle their way to the American Dream, returns a week from tonight for its second season - and things aren't looking so good for the ~~Riches~~ Malloys. The first season was spent building their lies and getting their ritzy new community to believe them; now, it appears that their precarious dream life is about to collapse.

Maybe that's not giving enough credit to Doug Rich/Wayne Malloy (Eddie Izzard), the first-class con man who's always been able to get his family out of any jam up till now. But this time around, the rest of the Malloys - especially Wayne's wife, Dahlia (Minnie Driver) - don't seem to be as on board with his scams. It looks like an interesting new dynamic for a family that's gotten where they are by working as a unit, them against the world.

The Riches will only have seven episodes this season as a result of the writers' strike, so I'd expect things to move pretty quickly from the start of the March 18 premiere. To check out a couple of clips with scenes from the season and interviews with the stars, just read more.

Photos and video courtesy of FX

Learn to Scam with The Riches Webisodes

BuzzSugar — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 11:30:09 -0800

Ever wanted to be a professional con artist? Let Doug Rich teach you how. On the first-season DVD for FX's The Riches, which comes out on Tuesday, several of the bonus features show Doug (Eddie Izzard) teaching his kids how to con.

Best Buy has a few of the clips online now - including two that are exclusive to the Web site and won't be included on the DVD. It's so great to see this dysfunctional family in action again. Season two is slated for this spring, but FX hasn't announced a premiere date yet; I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime, you can check out several of the Webisodes, plus a recap of season one, on the Best Buy site. Or, to watch my favorite video, in which a jaded Cael and Delilah brush off their dad's lessons on how to turn nothing into something, just read more.

Photo courtesy of FX

TV Tonight: "The Riches"

BuzzSugar — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 05:30:23 -0700

Often, a TV show will have parts I absolutely love but won't quite hold up as a whole. "The Riches," though, is the rare show that's the opposite: It's lacking in the details, but over its first four episodes, I've found it well worth watching.

When I'm in the mood to nitpick, I can harp on a number of things about the show: Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver sound so fake as Southerners; the part of the story about the travelers' camp where they used to live, which I thought would be fascinating, has become the most boring piece of the show; and I simply cannot believe that the original Doug and Cherien Rich have not been found dead yet by curious relatives or friends.

And yet, the show has a certain overall effect that makes me stick with it. Wayne/Doug (Izzard), especially, is compelling as a con man piling lie on top of lie to keep his new life afloat. Dahlia/Cherien (Driver) - though still a caricature with her myriad addictions - is becoming more tolerable. There was a scene in last week's episode where Wayne (pretending to be someone else, of course) placed a phone call to Dahlia during a scam and turned it into an apology for the mess their lives had become, and it was absolutely heartbreaking, horrid accents aside. And while two of the three kids' stories aren't quite clicking for me yet, middle child Di Di is fun to watch as the member of the family who seems to be adjusting to "normal" life the fastest. For more on tonight's episode and to watch a video, read more

Tonight's episode sounds especially intriguing: Dahlia takes a job as a dental hygienist, presumably to have access to troves of her favorite drugs, and Wayne faces a tough situation at work that could expose him as a total fraud. I couldn't find a video preview, so check out this clip about the life of Doug Rich instead:

Photo courtesy of FX

TV Tonight: "The Riches"

BuzzSugar — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 05:08:55 -0700

Ask me to name you a comedy genius, and one of the first names I'd offer is Eddie Izzard. I've been laughing at his standup specials for years, and I'm eager to see him try some darker material in his new FX show, "The Riches," which premieres tonight at 10 p.m.

Here's the story, in brief: Wayne Malloy (Izzard) and his wife Dahlia (Minnie Driver) lead a family of con artists who travel the country on the margins of society, proud not to have a permanent home. But then a fluke car accident kills Doug and Cherien Rich and leaves the Malloys with the keys to their new house, giving the Malloys a shot at the mansion, the good schools, the pricey televisions, and all the other markers of the American Dream. It's an interesting premise, but I'm nervous about a few things, so to hear more - and to see a preview with interviews with Izzard and Driver - read more

Despite the cool story, I have a few reservations: In the clips I've seen, Minnie Driver's attempt at a Southern accent makes me cringe. And I hate that the family's last name is Rich; when writers do that kind of obvious wordplay (see also: "The Wedding Bells") I just want to grab them by the shoulders and say, "We get it."

The reviews from critics who have seen the premiere episode are clearly divided into love it or hate it. Still, I'll be setting my TiVo for tonight and giving the show a chance. Check out the preview and let me know what you think.

Photo courtesy of FX