DearEvette

Aw... Where's Jenny's?

I am curious about why so many people are seeing Glee in this? I've also seen a couple of professional reviews make the comparison. But I am not flashing on Glee when I watched it. Other than the bright color palette and the teenagers, what about it is triggering Glee comparisons? I watched the first season of Glee and enjoyed it because it was quirky and a little bent (reminded me of Murphy's other teenaged show, Popular). I bailed second season. But yeah, not really getting that quirky vibe here. RBS feels more earnest, like it is taking itself more seriously than Glee ever did (that first season anyway). it feels like it has more in common with those shows that feature world-weary-i-know-more-than-you-do teen shows.

Extended synopsis of S02.E3. Apparently Henry is Irving's lawyer. How ...diabolical! http://www.spoilertv.com/2014/09/sleepy-hollow-episode-203-root-of-all.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=b3rt4

I agree with Elena from Vampire Diaries. She is a shitty friend and suffers from Speshul Snowflake syndrome. Sookie from True Blood is also a member of the Speshul Snowflake/Shitty friend club. I have to say I do hate Megan from Mad Men like crazy and I lay it completely at Matt Weiner's feet. He took a perfectly fine character who started out great and root-worthy and made her unbearable. He pushed her so hard as the anti-Betty that it made me like Betty more than I ever had out of sheer self-preservation and contrariness. Oh, look she comes up with the best copy evah! She's a natural Ad Man! Oh look, she's fab with the kids, Betty is a terrible mother. Oh look, she's so hot and sexy singing in a kittenish little dress making every man want her. Oh look, she and Don fuck like animals on the floor of their penthouse! Betty would never do that. Oh look, she doesn't take Don's shit, she fights back fiercely. Betty just gave bitch-face. Oh look Megan is skinny and sexy, while Betty is fat and unahppy. Didn't Don do sooo much better? Ugh!

Oh man, I hope Empire doesn't suck. Pleasepleasepleaseplease be good. I am loving Taraji P. Henson's instagram stills of her character Cookie.

Ha! That explains it then. Becuase I thought the exact same thing, that he was getting some maturity. It is the last movie of his I ever saw. It is too bad that he is such a control freak that doesn't just hire people. He's in a position where he could pay it forward a bit and give opportunities to talented black screenwriters who actually could turn his vision into something stronger. i agree. I understand the need to cater to the audience when he first started out because 1) it was all he knew and 2) those were his fans. Makes sense. But as time goes on he has to correlate his shrinking box office with the fact that 1) that original audience isn't growing 2) if wants to continue to get the distribution to open wide in theaters, he needs to not just account for the audience he has, he needs to appeal a bit wider so his audience can grow. It is all well and good to be proud about your vision and the fact that you don't need Hollywood money to finance your projects, but they still do control distriubtuion. And they will not be wanting to reserve precious space in multi-plexes for a movie that isn't going to put asses in the seats. I think one of the reasons he's still able to get even the audiences he does is because black folks are so thirsty for representation. But even so, after awhile that water starts to taste bitter. Even moreso for black women. I am sorry but we have enough issues with other people writing problematic narratives of our identites and politicizing everything about us (our hair, our bodies, our skin tone, our sexuality) without having those same problematic narratives constantly reinforced and granted some small legitimacy by a prolific black filmmaker.

I think we are kind of on the same page, but I think I give him a tiny bit more credit, LOL. I do think, other than his ham-handed writing, that his biggest issues is with morality. He does have a problem with women & sexuality. Or with women in general, actually. I think he is ok with what he perceives as 'maternal' women because they are perceived as 'good'. Hence, that is why I think his writing for Bates & Woodard was heads & shoulders above his writing for anyone else ever. But with every other woman his writing is really quite problematic. All the rest of the women in his movies suffer. The 'Good' ones suffer nobly. They are given tribulations they must overcome and they do triumph in the end. This is the 'Strong Black Woman' trope burdened with a Madonna complex. She is pure and good, but she has to overcome. She will be rewarded (usually with the love of a good man). The 'Bad' ones, though, they just plain old suffer. And not just in the plotting but in the characterization. They are loud, ratchet, buffoonish & slut-shamed. They are an object lesson: Black women this is what you must not be or you'll end up alone and broken and shunned. Admittedly this is a large part of the themes in his films as this is revisted over and over again in various iterations, but if you remove the judgemental piece of it, again, I think he has some interesting ideas. And he is insanely fortunate in the casts he gets because they do elevate his material. Of course, this is mostly because there are so many talented black actors who aren't getting enough work elsewhere. If anything, it is even more a testament to how good some of them are because they make Tyler Perry's work look not terrible.

At it's basics, his stories are good domestic drama. There are universal themes of love, betrayal, ambition and family. And the plots can be interesting. Sure they trend toward the soapy, but a lot of good stuff is. I saw August Osage County and frankly I felt it was a Tyler Perry movie but better written and with white people. Also some of the individual characters and the plot dilemmas he places them in are intiruging. I thought the Sanaa Lathan character & her plot in The Family That Preys could have been wonderful if she hadn't been written with such broad strokes. The whole subplot with Kathy Bates and Alfre Woodard going on a road-trip felt fun. And there was this really great quiet scene with Kathy Bates and Alfre Woodard in a hotel that really showcased how two really good actresses can lift a scene. It was one stand-out scene in the whole movie and it hinted at some depths in the writing that the rest of the movie frittered away. The Jill Scott character and plot in Why Did I Get Married also was a potentially good. If he had used some restraint in telling it, it could have been great. The reason it was even as good as it was was all because of Jill Scott herslf. But again, he had to hit us with anvils all over the place. I really think he is an ideas man when it comes to character and plotting and the ideas are very good and they strike a chord. He just can't execute them well. So I am left thinking what could have been. Admittedly, I have not seen a TP movie since The Family That Preys. I read the synopsis of the movie with Jurnee Smollett and stayed far, far away. I love her and would happily watch her in almost anything. But not even for her could I watch that.

The thing about Tyler Perry is that he his movies have the bones of really good, interesting storytelling. But when he gets to the meat of it, it gets overseasoned and overcooked. He goes overboard with caricatures and stereotypes. If he dialed it back and got some nuance, his stuff could be really interesting. For instance, The Family That Preys had some real potential to be interesting. Also it had Kathy Bates and Alfre Woodard! Come on, how can you waste those two? They completly rose above the material. If he had only managed to edit himself, the movie could have been great. But in the end the story felt simple and mired in amateurish plotting and overwrought characters. And Eeeevil, bad womens! Maybe it is because he got his start in the new-wave chitlin circuit with religious themed stage plays that he can't get away from those broad themed morality underpinnings that can only showcase black/white (Madonna/Whore) dichotomies. Edit: And I am NOT talking about the Madea movies. That shit is just foul.

They were apparently not paying attention to the PEW research organization because according to a recent survey on the reading habits of Americans: love that This article points out that the fashion "expert" did not know what peplum was. This is a fail on every level. It is a horrible trifeca of the Strong Black Woman/Mammy/Sassy black girfriend stereotypes and in the process manages to dehumanize black women and also insult white women as well. Meanwhile, I will sit over here and read that Brandon Sanderson book I have been enjoying this week.

I hated Skylar in the first season. Hated her. I don't care what anyone says, she was a terrible person in season one. She should NOT have been liked. But as the show went on I became more and more sympathetic to her. Her life became a nightmare and I thought her reactions were how a person really should be reacting in her place. Ditto Hank. Hated him at first and then slowly began to love him. Never liked Marie, though. Ever. My UO is that I don't really mind the Kardashians. They are just narcissitic people who in the grand scheme of things don't really matter that much. Frankly they don't even crack my personal list of the top 100 awful people who need die painfully.

Thank you. I wrote this very thing on another board somewheres. It is disingenuous to sit there in interview after interview and say "Nope. No chemistry here. Nothing to see here, move along." And then write in a scene where a bystander presumes a romantic relationship. I get that a romance is not the story the producers are wanting to tell. That is fine, I actually agree that a romance would be a distraction at this point. I also get that what they put on the page back in the very beginning also probably was not about romance. But once Tom and Nicole brought the characters to life, what was on the page ceased to exist in that iteration. They did not count on what T&N brought to the pair. But not counting on it does not mean it doesn't exist. There is no reason they can't simply acknowledge that Ich & Ab may have some latent attraction. They are both pretty people thrown together into a highly emotional, quickly personal situation. It is natural for people to connect in any manner of ways. You can be attracted to someone without acting upon it or even necessarily even being conscious of it. It would make for a much smarter and much more nuanced type of discussion if they answered with some level of acknoweldgement in the interviews instead of denying it vociferously all the while putting little winks and nudges to it into the schow.

- I am trying to be cautiously optimistic about where they are going with Sophia. The Baby storyline did not develop in any way I expected. Even til the moment they said she 'lost the baby' I was sure Lena and baby would be fine. And the Brandon/Dani reveal was also handled superbly. The two stories were allowed to play out and I am satisfied with what the writers did/are doing. So I am hoping that they aren't pulling something obvious and clumsy with Sophia. - I am not (and have never been) a fan of Callie and Brandon. My personal opinion is that the two actors don't emit that type o chemistry for me. But also give all the angst they've had both Callie and Brandon wade through, a forbidden romance just seems too much. And well, it squicks me out. I want Callie to be adopted by Stef and Lena officially. - Kudos to the adult actors for the Brandon reveal scene. I agree with everyone else, it played out great and each person acted the way I think they would have acted. They were all in perfect character. I don't have quite the bad opinion of the Brandon actors' schmoop face, so I thought he was pretty good too. He certainly looks haggard enough. - I do think there was an undertone of racial implication in Marianna's conversation with Tia. The 'natural talent' thing is ambiguous enough that it should only have raised Tia's eyebrows a bit and she could take it as her being a bit hypersensistive. But then Marianna had to also throw in hip-hop. So, yeah, a little less ambiguous. Last week & this week have been two pretty strong episodes in a row. I am really digging this show.

The second season of Orange is the New Black is basically a showcase for Lorraine Toussaint's acting brillance. Her character Vee was a heartwarming, maternal, evil sociopath. If she doesn't get an emmy nom next year for it, I will be shocked.

I've always liked The A Different World opening credits. Not only does it show each character in their personal venue: Dwayne Wayne studying math, Whitely primping in the mirror etc. it tells the whole story of college from studying, romance, sports, greek life, graduation etc. all in just the course of the credit sequence. Also the saturated colors and the faux single-take tracking camera as it goes from vignette to vignette is nice. And Aretha Franklin singing the song is also pretty cool.

So happy so many already mentioned Homefront. I always think I am the only one who remembers that show! One I haven't seen mentioned yet, that I lament is Wonderfalls. Quirky and funny with a great cast. And I always loved Tracie Thoms' character name on that show: Mahandra. So pretty.

Nigel does that shit all the time. A couple of years ago he made a statement about a female dancer "looking ugly" when she talked about quitting. But the way he said it, given his cumulative comments about the dancer up to that point, made it seem like a reference to her phsyical attractiveness. It is bad enough she was cast as obvious cannon fodder but to give a back slap about her looks was just foul. Making matters worse, she was an AA female dancer who, let's face it, don't get a ton of exposure on SYTYCD.

I want S3 to fall somewhere between S1 and S2. I like the use of a the single story arc of S2 that seemed to work as an umbrella for season. Not one single inmate was unaffected by Vee, but there were still a lot of interesting side stories going on too. I like that structure and would like to see something like it again in S3. But I also liked the lighter tone and the humor of S1 and the exploration of the more constructive relationships, not the destructive ones from S2. - Less Daya and Bennet. Or really how about NO Daya & Bennett. I can't express how awful their storyline is to me. - Lose Larry. Really what is his point now? - Pepper in a few more scenes showing inmates who may not normally interact. I loved the revealing little convos b/t Suzanne/Morello and Nicky/Poussey and Big Boo/Pennsatucky. - Honestly did not miss Alex. I don't mind her return, but please don't let her swallow the season. Somehow I don't think Prepon could carry it like Toussaint did. - I liked the level of insight we got into the individual guards. I hope they continue it. Not too much, but just enough to get to know them a little more. - I would love a competent Assistant Warden to come in and really shake the place up. It was necessary to have the neglect of Fig and the turmoil of Caputo make them so incompetent so that Vee & Red's smuggling ops could thrive. But it would be ineresting to see what happens when someone good actually runs the place. - The slow leeching of Soso's idealism. - More interesting revelations re: favorites and more surprises re: minor/tangential characters. The scenes of family visits is always an interesting way to set up intriguing little bits about the characters.

Every single Ryan Murphy show belongs in this thread. They start off so brilliant : Popular, Nip/Tuck, Glee and theny they completly implode into a messy, self indulgent pile of poo. Usually you get at least a great season or two before the mess happens, but The New Normal didn't even make it past four episodes before it began to sink under it's own idiocy. I never started watching American Horror Story because that sort of macabre story telling isn't to my taste, but I thought maybe it would escape the Murphy Curse because he was essentially rebooting every season. But I understand that the last season of it began to show signs of the same over indulgence and loss of control over the story narrative that marks the rest of his shows.

@Willowy I think it is more a function of how exasperated I became with all things Kurt on the show. The writing for him and Rachel basically ruined the show for me.

Favorites romantic couples: Brad & Jane (Damon Wayans Jr. and Eliza Coupe) from Happy Endings Dwayne & Whitley (Kadeem Hardison & Jasmine Guy) from A Different World Riker and Troi (Marina Sirtis and Jonathan Frakes) from Star Trek:TNG Peter and Olivia (Johnathan Jackson and Anna Torv) from Fringe Alisha and Simon (Antonia Frasier and Iwan Rheon) from Misfits Allison and Carter (Sally Richardson Whifield and Colin Ferguson) from Eureka Stef and Lena (Teri Polo and Sherri Saum) from The Fosters Favorite Platonic couples: Penny and Max (Casey wilson and Adam Palley) from Happy Endings Abbie and Crane (Nicole Beharie and Tom Mison) from Sleepy Hollow Zoe and Mal (Gina Torres and Nathan Fillion) Pembleton and Bayliss (Andre Braugher and Kyle Secor) from Homicide:LOTS Marc and Amanda (Michael Urie and Beckie Newton) from Ugly Betty Least Favorite couples: Carrie and Big from Sex and the City Kurt and Blaine from Glee Sookie and everybody from True Blood Elena and Damon from Vampire Diaries Daya and Bennet from Orange is the New Black Andrea and The Governor from The Walking Dead

Really good season. Upon reflection it felt darker and meatier than the first. Interesting how we got deeper looks and more character development for some last season favorites (Piper, Taystee, Poussey, Morello, Suzanne and Gloria) while getting bigger glimpses of earlier peripheral characters that went a long way to explaining them (Fig, Black Cindy, Caputo, Sister Ingalls) , while still giving other characters meaty plot arcs to work through (Healy, Pennsatucky, Larry, Alex, Red, Daya/Bennett), while still managing to give key screen space to other characters (Boo, Nicky, Sofia, Watson, Miss Rosa) all the while introducing a couple of brand new characters that stamped their personailty indelibly on the season (Vee, Soso). Plus they fleshed out the guards more so that they weren't these faceless day players. If you think about it, it was a master class in how to keep a lot of character & plot balls in the air without letting them drop. Regards Suzanne -- my overwhelming feeling is one of immense sadness for her and anger on her behalf. If nothing else, the fact that those two inspectors who clearly saw that she was not mentally of sound mind, were willing for her to take the rap just so they could go home, goes to illustrate how profoundly she is being underserved by a system that either is not equipped to or is unwilling to deal with criminals with mental issues. Suzanne was nothing more to Vee than that mop Vee broke to threaten Cindy with. She was nothing but a weapon for Vee who used her till Suzanne was broken and then she threw her away. And If schemers like Red and Gloria can be easily taken in by Vee, someone like Suzanne had no chance. The only dud the whole season for me, was the Daya/Bennett story. To me those two have no chemistry whatsoever and every thing that came out of both their mouths just annoyed the heck out of me. Last observation: They did a fantastic job of casting all the younger aged actresses in the flashbacks. Not only did they look like the other actresses, a lot of them captured the mannerisms of the older ones really well. I was especially struck by the resemblance between young Rosa and older Rosa. Final bit of trivia: I was tickled to learn that Miss Rosa was protrayed by Barbara Rosenblat who is one of my very favorite audiobook narrators. She is a fantastic voice performer.

I agree Vee's seeming warmth is part of her socipathic nature. And I love that Toussaint is playing it with just the right amount of nuance and restraint so that it doesn't come off as over the top. Vee is a villain. Her actions portray her as such. Toussaint isn't twirling her mustache or chewing scenery to get the point across. Instead, she's portraying Vee very warm and maternal yet allows her ruthlessness and coldness to undercut it. As much as I despise the Vee character, I am loving watching Toussaint portray her because it is a joy to watch an actor play a charismatic villain without making it too broad.