Coming Out, Closing Back In - Cold Case and Heroes

While I'm talking about Gay TV and all, did anyone see last week's Cold Case? I know I usually don't watch it but I saw this clip of Forever Blue:



and was intrigued last week, tried to find it, then realised I accidentally recorded it. I accidentally forgot to reprogram things but since Desperate Housewives wasn't on, I recorded Cold Case instead! Yey Laziness! (CTV in Canada carries both shows, usually Cold Case is at 7pm on Sundays).

Cold Case is one of those Jerry Bruckheimer procedural shows that are well made and usually decent TV to watch but I won't go out of my way to watch it. Now I haven't watched in a while but this was actually a really great episode called Forever Blue and kudos to Shane Johnson for making his character "Coop" the strong moral centre of the story about cops in love in 1968 Baltimore (or as many have dubbed the episode, Brokeback Precinct).

The story was done with respect and the main cast in the present day questions how far we have really come in 40 years. I know I've seen Shane Johnson before as well, and noted him as a strong actor, but I can't remember where (even after seeing his credits) but this may be his calling card now.

Meanwhile over at Heroes, apparently they are de-gaying Zack. Although he ambiguously came out in Homecoming, and the marketing teams at NBC even printed it on the websites and myspace page, creator Tim Kring has officially said that Zack is not gay now. Hmm... conspiracy? I'll let it play out and give them the benefit of the doubt that it fits into the storyline somehow but they are on warning, since Zack and Claire's storyline are one of the two best and most interesting plots they have (the other being Hiro and Ando (and Charlie)) and part of that was the whole friends relationship they shared, with no sexual potential predicted.

Here's the ending to the episode to Forever Blue:

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Wedding Wars - When McSteamy Met McStamos

So last night, I watched A&E's Wedding Wars, which has ER/Full House (I'll never let him live Uncle Jesse down) star John Stamos as Shel, who is hired to plan his brothers wedding to the daughter of a campaigning senator. When the Senator publicly announces his opposition to gay marriage, a speech written directly by Shel's straight brother Ben (played by Grey's Anatomy's McSteamy. er... Eric Dane), Shel decides to go on strike, supported by Ben's fiance (Bonnie Sommerville of Kitchen Confidential, Grosse Pointe and Friends) but not by his boyfriend (Sean Maher of Firefly). Soon, his lone campaign escalates and more gays join in the strike in support of gay marriage.

The movie panders perfectly to liberal minded people (like me), with all the perfect clichés of liberal activism. It's a romcom within the political spewing, which works perfectly fine for me. It was nice to see a male on male kiss between Stamos and Maher with no big brouhaha and Stamos does and excellent and likeable job as Shel. I mean, the whole thing was cornball to the country fair yet I laughed a lot more than I thought I would for a TV movie on A&E.

It's hard to know if it'll make a difference changing people's minds, because it's doubtful the movie will attract viewers not already okay with the idea, or in love with Eric Dane or Stamos. Still, baby steps and one has to give credit for the makers to make this piece of political fluff somewhat realistic (no big changes are made in the end still but at least the debate continues) and incredibly fun to watch (the fight between McStamos and McSteamy is worth it alone!). Add Bonnie Sommerville as the understading bride-to-be, who, as is from Grosse Pointe, I will always follow, and Sean Maher as Shel's not as understanding boyfriend, and it rounds out a really likeable cast. Even Mr. Barbra Streisand (James Brolin) as the Senator made for a nice nemesis who was still not completely unlikable or cartoonish.

Wedding Wars repeats again several more times (it IS A&E you know) at:

Friday, December 15 8:00am EST
Friday, December 15 2:00pm EST
Saturday, December 16 10:00pm EST
Sunday, December 17 12:00pm EST
Sunday, December 17 2:00am EST

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Notch Another One for United 93

New York Film Critics Circle announced United 93 as the Best Picture of the year yesterday, adding another point to what I think is the best movie of the year (that I've seen so far). This bodes well for a movie that didn't do to well at the box office and was probably going to disappear from the Oscar sights even though it totally deserves to (not that THAT really matters to the Academy... see Crash. Yes, I don't let up do I?). No other huge surprises. Another one for JHud. Another one for Mirren and Whitaker. More mention of Half Nelson which is great news. What a comeback story for Jackie Earle Haley!

Here's the full list:
Best Picture
United 93

Best Actor
Forest Whitaker
The Last King of Scotland

Best Actress
Helen Mirren
The Queen

Best Director
Martin Scorsese
The Departed

Best Foreign Film
Army of Shadows

Best Screenplay
Peter Morgan
The Queen

Best Supporting Actor
Jackie Earle Haley
Little Children

Best Supporting Actress
Jennifer Hudson
Dreamgirls

Best Cinematographer
Guillermo Navarro
Pan's Labyrinth

Best Non-Fiction Film
Deliver Us From Evil

Best First Film
Ryan Fleck
Half Nelson

Best Animated Film
Happy Feet

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How I Met Your Mother - Not Grinch

How Lily Stole Christmas

That was a pretty funny device of using the word "Grinch" to replace another word that probably get through the censors.

Lily hears an old phone message recording of Ted appeasing a distraught and dumped Marshall from the summer. Ted uses the big b word in describing Lily, and Lily gets pissed. Lily gets even more pissed when Ted refuses to apologize for the incident so Lily takes all the Christmas decorations back to her tiny apartment.

Meanwhile, Barney is sick but refuses to believe so, until Robin is stuck mothering him to health.

Not as funny as Slap Bet or Single Stamina but another nice new episode from our new friends.

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Heroes - Catch Up

Chapter 11 Fallout
Chapter 10 Six Months Ago
Chapter 9 Homecoming
Chapter 8 Seven Minutes to Midnight
Chapter 7 Nothing to Hide
Chapter 6 Better Halves

Okay, so I finally had time to catch up with Heroes this past weekend (and I fell behind all because of a damn charity function way back when. Damn poor people. Don't you know what I'm missing for you?).

Fantastic! Okay, lines are still a little clunky and sometimes the exposition is a bit too much but loving the storylines and of course our new favorites including Hiro, The Cheerleader, hell, even Milo's Peter Petrelli isn't as annoying. All of the characters are finally slowly being rounded out (including Isaac and Niki/Jessica) so I feel like I can finally ease into the show without being distracted by flat acting.

I hope that wasn't the last of Claire's new friend Zach (Thomas Dekker) or of Charlie (Jayma Mays). Who would have thought Tori Spelling's gay best friend in So Notorious would make for such a great evil character in Sylar (Zachary Quinto)? Also love that they can use Clea Duvall so wonderfully against Greg Grunberg's Matt Parkman, and that Ando (Jason Kyson Lee) is still by Hiro's side.

Homecoming and Fallout were the best episodes still so hopefully they can keep up this new standard they've set themselves. I'm also glad they sort of toned down the goriness a bit, with even Tim Kring admitting that they need to do that a bit more.

But man, this show is so much fun that I'm really going to have a hard time putting together my best TV of the year list (again, I like to delude myself to think that people actually care. Go with me on this).

So if you need to catch up with Heroes, NBC is running a marathon on January 1st New Years Day 2007 with the next new episode on January 22nd.

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My Version of Celebrity Gossip - Brit Edition

I don't really do celebrity gossip as you may have noticed (partially because it's kinda low (ahem, perez) and partially cause some other sites already do it so much better (ha)) but I found this interesting since it concerns less famous actors that can actually act and aren't just famous for being famous.

I didn't even know Lucy Davis and Owain Yeoman were together. They got married on Saturday at St. Pauls Cathedral in London. Lucy Davis of course was Dawn in the original British version of The Office (the template for US The Office Pam if you didn't know by now). She's now appearing as one of the three writers that wasn't fired, in the show within the show on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (and also showed up as a gossip journalist on Ugly Betty).

Owain Yeoman was on last season's critically acclaimed and quickly cancelled Kitchen Confidential. This year he was on the critically acclaimed and quickly dismissed The Nine. Let's hope he has better luck in the future.

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The Amazing Race All Stars Edition - Spoilers Ahead

UPDATE: Here's a newer spoiler that is even more precise.

So thanks to Glowy Box for the tip, here's what I could muster from the message boards about The Amazing Race All Stars edition. Now remember, I'm not sure if any of these people are actually correct but this is what I could get so far:

The list of "confirmed" people so far seems to be:

TAR1 - Guidos, Frats
TAR2 - Chas
TAR3 - JVJ, Teri/Ian
TAR4 - Tian/Jaree
TAR5 - Charla/Mirna
TAR7 - Romber, Uchenna/Joyce
TAR9 - Danielle/Eric (made up of two former teams)
TAR 10 - BQ's, David/Mary

Kris and Jon are rumoured to be on.

I have to say, I would have liked Blake and Paige (confirmed to be NOT on the race) or Emily and Nancy on the race but I'm very happy the Cha Cha Cha's (Oswald and Danny), JVJ (John Vito and Jill), Charla and Mirna and Frat Boys Kevin and Drew are all in. Beauty Queen Barbies seem to be getting a second chance, and of coures, our most beloved Bumpkins David and Mary! Plus some nice evilness in the Guidos Joe and Bill and Romber.

If you want further spoilers, (Highlight after this and down below for confirmation of names to the photos) Sorry, I would put it after the jump but I still haven't figured out how to do it.


Here are "apparently" 4 of the final 5 teams racing. (Even though the date stamp wouldn't make sense on one of them).


Danny and Oswald
Beauty Queen Barbies
Danielle and Eric


Charla and Mirna

Woo. 2 out of the final 5 then are all female teams! None of the Romber! (Well, let's hope the 5th team isn't but rumour is that it is Uchenna and Joyce)

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Volver - Movie Review

This is going to be short for now ( I may extend this at a later time). Pedro Almodovar movies. Next to Ang Lee, Pedro has had the most movies at the top of my movies list. Though while Volver is not his best work, it is still something to be seen.

It's a luscious tribute to working women, following Raimunda (Penelope Cruz in an Oscar worthy performance) and her family in Madrid after her husband is killed by her daughter, and her sister sees the ghost of her mother. To explain more would be to ruin it. Or confuse you.

The combined female cast won Best Actress at Cannes this year and as normal, Almodovar's movies are vibrant in colour and soap opera antics. As with his recent films, Volver has a maturity that help make a more realistic emotional connection to the stories.


While Volver (meaning "to return") finally doesn't quite build enough steam before it's conclusion is quickly spilled out (which I had kind of guessed early on anyways), there's a joy in watching Penelope Cruz ACT again as the camera essentially makes love to her.

8.5/10 or B+

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Brothers and Sisters - Home for the Holidays

Light the Lights

Paige doesn't get her prayers answered (to cure her diabetes) so goes all Jewish since Nora is technically Jewish. Nora who went secular long time ago embraces Hanukkah to teach grandchild Paige but scares her off with her newly found fervent behaviour.

Kevin helps fight Justin's case in court against the Military and loses the case but still manages to gain 6 more months before Justin must show up for duty.

Kitty is offered her own show after bribing the senator, then confessing about it on television.

Sarah, Saul and Tommy find out that Holly owns 1/3rd the share of that land they discovered on the last episode, the one that conveniently would be worth 30 million dollars if sold to the military. Sarah tries to lie to Holly about it's worth which of course backfires, finally settling on giving her shares of Ojai and half the land's worth so that Ojai doesn't go bankrupt.

Okay. Love Patricia Wettig but I'm still not sure I like this Holly character or how she plays it. Something irks me about it though maybe she's supposed to? At least now she has a legitimate reason to stay within the storylines (and with hopefully the appearance of Rebecca soon (with hopefully Everwood alum Emily VanCamp in the role)). Oh yeah, and Sarah's husband (played by John Pyper-Ferguson) Joe Whedon actually gets a whole bunch of speaking lines this week! Plus still totally blown away by Dave Annable's acting as he keeps up with his esteemed peers!

Love how they somehow stuck in celebrating both Hanukkah and Christmas in the same episode without being Chrismukkah. Way to cover the demographics.

So everything continues to conveniently fall into place after much drama but man, still loving this show and what a perfect show to end off the weekend on Sunday nights!

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Please Awaken the Box Office at Spring Awakening

The reviews are out and I knew they would love it. People, go get tickets NOW. (Cause sadly I think it needs all the help it can get right now, but if there's any justice, you will all be clamouring for tickets very soon enough).

Here was my review (uh. I LOVED it), and here's a clip of one of the songs.

NOTE: Here are some additional reviews that have come out today.

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