I don’t know about you, but I’m still recovering from all the tryptophan. But in my turkey haze, I’m certain about one thing: April 19 cannot come fast enough. Also, Alison’s hip-hop abs workout is good motivation to work off yesterday’s sweet potato pie. Watching it counts as exercise, right? Happy weekend, all.
This is the Thursday to be thankful. Really, I’m thankful for most Thursdays. Especially those that involve cute ladies in suits. But today, on the most thankful of Thursday for us folks in the U.S., the combination of the two has come together in the fabulous form of Dianna Agron in a suit for the newest The Killers video. Yes, you heard that right, The Agron is in drag. This is not a drill, people. Happy Thanksgiving, all. Gobble, gobble, indeed.
File this under: Awesome Things I Didn’t Realize Happened Until Now. Further proof that doing something that isn’t posted on the Internet is the equivalent of a tree falling alone in the forest, I totally missed this convergence of two of my past/present crushes from earlier this month. Tina Fey attended the A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Cure Parkinson’s benefit for the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research on Nov. 9. It wasn’t until this week, when video was discovered on the series of tubes, that we all realized just what a glorious convergence it was. Because not only did Tina, My Fake TV Wife, and Michael, My First Celebrity Brush, came together to help raise money for a worthy cause, Tina did it all in Marty McFly drag. I’ve confessed on numerous occasions my deep love and adolescent affection for Michael J. Fox. And only the very, very, very new here don’t know of the claim I’ve staked on Tina. (i.e. SHE’S MINE, MINE I SAY.) So seeing them together in one person. So many feelings. Enough, even, to fuel a flux capacitor.
Actresses I like in tank tops? Yep, it’s a Tuesday. I could get all verbose about the whys and hows of this winning combination. Actresses in current projects I’m enjoying made even more enjoyable, etc. etc. But we all know what it’s all about in the end. So, without ado-ing further, your tank tops await. Namaste, or whatever.
Infinite virtual ink has been spilled handwringing over Miley Cyrus. Some of it bothers me (cultural appropriation), some of it is just silly (always-out tongue) and some doesn’t bother me at all (biggest feminist in the world). But here’s what I unquestionably like. She seems to have a fucking sense of humor. Because who else would sing an epic breakup power ballad with an enormous animated kitten as background accompaniment? Just Miley. She has in essence trolled the entire Internet/world/universe by forcing us to look at her pussy (in two different ways, I might add). Bonus points for kitten tears. Yeah, I don’t know either. But it sure made me laugh. Happy Monday, kittens.
Apologies for the slow, late, paltry postings this week. It has just been one of those weeks, ya know? So the best thing we can do is just start over and laugh, a lot. Happy rest of your weekend, all.
As a general rule, I don’t use the C-word. I find it crass and, in most cases, just another cheap way to denigrate women. But, I will also concede, that the term has its uses. Conversely, I have no such similar problem deploying the D-word when the need arises. Which, I suppose in the interest of full gender equality, isn’t fair. This is a long and winded way of saying, damn, I laugh-snorted at this song. Oh, Sarah Silverman. You’re not for everyone. But, even if you don’t agree that this particular deployment of the C-word was judicious, you have to at least admit it’s damn catch. Great, now I’m going to be singing this at work today. That’ll be fun to explain to my boss.
Every time The Internet swoons over Jennifer Lawrence, I want to go all hipster and scream, “I loved her before she was cool!” Which, technically, is true. I’ve been blown away by J-Law since she was just the girl who was in that bleak film about backwoods justice, “Winter’s Bone.” At that time her only other significant screen credit was “The Bill Engvall Show.” Of course now she’s everyone’s imaginary BFF.
We all instantly connect with her inherent relatability and endearing goofiness. And she is just flat-out hilarious. But she’s also thoughtful and deliberate about the way she presents herself. OK, maybe it was not necessarily “deliberate” when she tripped up the stairs to get her Oscar. But deliberate about being a woman in command of her body image and unwilling to play the real-life Hunger Games.
p.s. Yes, I even love her quasi-Kate Gosselin pixie cut.
I'm just gonna leave this right here. Head on over to AfterEllen Wednesday morning for your full Lost Girl recap. Or, as I call it, When Lesbian Fandoms Collide.
p.s. Apologies for the paltry post and late posting, I've been a bit under the weather.
Maleficent has always been my favorite Disney villain. There is something so magnificently malevolent about her. She’s regal and terrifying. Plus, there are the horns. And, you know, her dragon. As an adult, it’s a little hard to admit that Sleeping Beauty was one of your favorite Disney princess film. From a feminist perspective it’s possibly the worst on the strong independent heroine scale. I mean, the girl sleeps through basically the whole story. It’s in the damn title. But I attribute my lingering affection to the story all to Maleficent. And now that Angelina Jolie will play her in alive-action retelling of Sleeping Beauty well. It’s OK to cheer for the bag guy sometimes, right? Heck, who needs magical powers to impress when you have cheekbones you can slice deli meat on.
p.s. I know I’m probably getting my hopes up. I was pretty unimpressed with “Snow White,” even though I loved Charlize Theron’s Evil Queen. But, dammit, if I don’t want to believe.
I generally take a Garfieldsian view of Mondays. What with the hating them and all. But this fall they’ve been a little bit easier thanks to Nicole Beharie and her new show “Sleepy Hollow.” It has been the most pleasant surprise of the season by far. It really shouldn’t work at all. A time-travelling Ichabod Crane who teams with a modern-day police lieutenant in Sleepy Hollow to fight the forces of that seek to bring about the apocalypse? Yeah, OK, whatever you say, crazy person.
But not only does it work, it’s awesome. It’s fun and creepy and exciting, all at the same time in equal parts. And, in large part, it works so brilliantly because of the crackling chemistry between Nicole, who plays Lt. Abbie Mills, and Tom Mison, who plays Ichabod. Formal, out-of-time Ichabod and cool, collected Abbie just work so well together. It’s a little like Mulder and Scully, but with a lot more Revolutionary War references. Nicole, whose resume include “Shame” and “42” is a standout. She’s smart and sarcastic, just how I like my ladies. And, I’ve said it before and will happily say it again, it’s beyond welcome to have another woman of color headlining a primetime show. Yeah, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but hurry up, Monday. Happy weekend, all.
So, now that we’ve had a semi-intellectual discussion about “Blue Is the Warmest Color,” let’s talk about what we really want to talk about. The sex. Yes, it was long. Yes, it had unexpected ass play. Yes, it featured unrealistic reverse cowgirl scissoring. But you don’t have to trust me on this. Trust a bunch of other lesbians instead.
My favorite comment: “She also just ate all that spaghetti.” Yep, about right. About right.
A movie about love is always, in the end, about nothing and everything all at the same time. That apex emotion is as intangible as it is desired. You know it when you see it. Yet whether it lasts five minutes or forever, it leaves its indelible stain on your body.
So much has been written and said about “Blue Is the Warmest Color.”
Extraordinary. Exploitive. Passionate. Pretentious.
And much like the multi-faceted love, the movie is a bit of all these things. To break it down to its most base parts, this is a three-hour French film shot without a soundtrack or score that traces 10 years in the relationship between Adèle and Emma.
If that sounds like a journey you’re willing to commit to then come a little closer and let me pour you a cup of strong black coffee. If not, well, no harm no foul and please give a warm smile to the hostess as you leave.
The first thing you’ll need to know is this movie is French, so French. Nothing much happens in the framework of the narrative. No car crashes, no big explosions, no ninja attacks, no meet cutes, no unexpected twists, no artificial obstacles, no tidy endings. Nothing, that is, except for love. (Also lust, but we’ll get to that.)
The second thing you’ll need to know is regardless of the ongoing and equal parts troubling and tiresome “feud” between the actresses and the director and the graphic novel’s author, the movie ultimately lives or dies by its own merits. And in this case it lives – and breathes and cries and eats and fucks and smokes. A lot of all of those things, a lot.
The question of whether or not this is a good movie isn’t really the right question. That one is pretty easy – yes, this is a good movie. The question is whether you’ll enjoy this movie is much harder to answer.
I enjoyed this movie, but was not blown away by it in the rapturous terms that many mainstream critics have been. Perhaps the reason I don’t feel the “Oooh la la, isn’t this exceptional”-way that many (presumably straight) reviewers have is because it felt so much like real life. I don’t need to sit through a three-hour film about two women falling in love and experiencing heartbreak to tell me that a story about two women falling in love and experiencing heartbreak can be universal. Been there, you know.
There are exceptional qualities to this film including but not limited to the fact that these are 180-minutes exclusively about the emotional lives of two young women. Even more exceptional still are the performances by lead actresses Adèle Exarchopoulous (oft open-mouthed Adèle) and Léa Seydoux (initially blue-haired Emma) who are so natural and so vulnerable you lose all sense that a camera is following them. You’re just there, with them. Watching it all happen.
And when I say watching it all happen, I mean watching it ALL happen. The turn the camera on and see what happens cinéma vérité of it is inescapable. We get scene after scene of characters sitting down unremarkably for plate after plate of pasta, just as we get scenes of fully lit, uninhibited sex – the longest of which last about 6 minutes (just under 7 if you count the naked intertwined post-coital cool down). I counted for science – I am a professional, I’ll have you know.
Yes, all the eating (of food, mostly) is a metaphor for Adèle’s hunger. It’s her big brown eyes we watch most of this film through. As she goes from teenager to young woman, we see her search, find and lose that thing that finally satiates her appetite.
And speaking of appetite, how about those sex scenes? The initial one, the one getting the most press, is as far away from the standard American sex scene as you can get. This is no chaste clinch which fades to black only to reveal crumpled morning sheets, nor is it softcore sensationalism resembling horizontal calisthenics set to smooth jazz music.
I wasn’t bothered by the explicit sex, though some of it wasn’t necessarily typical of what I do in the bedroom area. (Seriously, what is everyone except actual lesbians’ obsession with scissoring?) And, yes, after a while I did think that perhaps we were watching the director’s sexual obsession instead of Adèle and Emma’s. Make no mistake, he’s a butt man.
Aside from the sex, another way this is atypical of your average movie was its presentation of the passage of time. This movie does not hold our hands when it comes to space and time. The central relationship runs from when Adele is in high school to her early 20s, but I only really know that because of the press notes and their slightly changing hairstyles. Like, at first Emma looks like a blue-haired punk and then later she looks like young Jon Bon Jovi.
In the end, I think “Blue Is the Warmest Color” is really about the mundanity of both love and heartbreak. Nothing happens, everything happens. We live and we breathe and we fuck and we eat spaghetti. C’est la vie, you know?
Happy “Lost Girl” recaps are back day! Well, happy hopefully for you. Sleep deprived for me. But in a good way, a very good way. So what better way to celebrate than with tank tops! So many tank tops. “Lost Girl” is back. The ladies of “Lost Girl” are back! The Boobs O’Clock of the ladies of “Lost Girl” are back! Life doesn’t succubus suck.
A lady and her dog. As much as I love Billie Holiday’s music, I never realized how much of a dog lover she was. That is until I stumbled upon a photo of her with her beloved boxer mix, Mister. And that led me to search for more photos and that led me to stories about the bond between Lady Day and her Mister. One of them is that when Bilie got out of federal prison in 1949 for narcotics possession, it was Mister who was waiting for her and greeted her so vigorously the press showed up to see what the commotion was. Heck, there's even a children’s book written about them.
So, as someone who has been worrying over a injured pup all weekend (and struggling mightily with how to get him to take his medication – “STOP RESISTING, IT’S GOOD FOR YOU!”) I can most certainly relate. Who is a good boy, who is, who is?
p.s. His medications are in liquid and I've tried putting it on wet food, dry food, bread with peanut butter, everything. But as soon as he smells it he won't touch the food. And he jerks too much to shoot it straight into his mouth (which is precisely what he shouldn't do because it is a spin injury). OMG, dog, I am trying to help you!
Holy lesbians wish fulfillment, Batman. Just when you think you’ve seen everything, lesbian universes collide in the best way possible and you thank the stars for these new and untold wonders. What the hell am I talking about? I’m talking about the epic meeting of Zoie Palmer and Lena Headey. Yes, lesbians – LUCE MET LAUREN. I’ve officially dubbed their character ship name Imagine Me & Hotpants. Though, if you want to ship Zoie and Lena themselves, might I suggest Zena? Yeah, I totally went there.
This, of course, only makes me more excited for the pending start of the new season of “Lost Girl” this Sunday. Now, if only we could get Lena to guest star. Make it happen, universe. Happy weekend, all.
p.s. Apologies for not having My Weekend Crush up earlier. I had a small animal emergency.
p.p.s. Yes, I’ll have hot, fresh new “Lost Girl” recaps of Season 4 starting on Tuesday over at AfterEllen.
Joss Whedon likes us, he really likes us. If there was any doubt that Joss is The Man, here’s your answer. A lesbian character is coming to “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” That character is out Agent Victoria Hand played by out actress Saffron Burrows. Those familiar with the S.H.I.E.L.D./Avengers comics universe will recognize Hand as she’s apparently heavily involved in H.A.M.M.E.R., the agency that takes over S.H.I.E.L.D., and a nemesis of sorts for Nick Fury. (I don’t really know, I just trust my comic guru Heather on this one.)
Who I’m more familiar with is Saffron because a) Those Cheekbones and b) The Gay. The cheekbones need no further explanation other than silent admiration and adulation. The Gay part involves her being openly bisexual and having a longterm relationship in the past with fellow actress Fiona Shaw (that’s Aunt Petunia Dursley to you, probably).
If you’re still not familiar with Saffron she was in “Deep Blue Sea” and “Troy” and “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” for that one season Jeff Goldblum was on the show.
Now, I have no idea how many episodes Saffron and her Victoria Hand will appear in. And I have no idea if her character will even mention The Gay. But I’m always happy when a canon LGBT character is introduced to primetime television. So while I’m still not in love with S.H.I.E.L.D. (I’m just not in love with any of the characters – except for Melinda May), I’ll happily tune in next week to see Agent Victoria Hand do her thing. And that she looks like Saffron Burrows, well that doesn’t hurt one bit either. In Whedon we trust.
Aw, kids. I don’t want any. But sometimes when I hear them speak I feel a little less worried about our future. Sometimes not. But today, yes. Also, my favorite comment was, “Isn’t it dangerous to stand on a bus?”
p.s. This was posted less than a week ago and there’s already a small correction. Now there are 15 states (well, as soon as the Illinois governor signs the bill, which he will) with full marriage equality.
So you’ve probably already seen this video. But if you haven’t, or you just like to rewatch ladies share loving kisses after winning gold medals, please enjoy. Or if you still have lingering warm fuzzy feelings about “The Cutting Edge,” but wish D.B. Sweeney stood for Danielle Bernard instead, this is the video for you. I’m still torn about what to do when the Sochi Olympics roll around. But I am not torn about how terrible the anti-LGBT laws in Russia are.
In a week when we had a victory in the Senate (vote coming on ENDA, though the House continues to be The Worst) and in Illinois (about to become No. 15 for marriage equality), we must not forget that the fight continues on all fronts and across all borders.
I don’t know about you, but I could use an extra day of rest. I’m recovering from a celebratory weekend. It was filled with great friends and much merriment. So today how about we all just lounge in the sun like Carrie Fisher and her stuntdouble on the set of “Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.” Sure, we all make fun of the gold bikini. But, damn, if it didn’t greatly improve the view.
So today is my birthday (yes, yes, I know, thank you). So I’m going to take the release of the new “Lost Girl” Season 4 promo as special present just for me. Granted, I’m not above sharing. So, please, come in and enjoy. Just please don’t drip ice cream all over my floor.
You’re gonna want a closer look at that. [Click to enlarge, for science.]
p.s. The best thing, besides the copious Boobs O’Clock, is the unadulterated lust on Lauren’s face.
p.p.s. The second best thing is how Lauren is all, “No, wolf boy, don’t ruin this for us.”
Right, so that pretty much assures a happy weekend, all.
