Andy Explained It All

Recently Andy Rooney, the curmudgeonly commentator who appeared for many years at the end of the CBS news magazine program 60 Minutes, had announced that he was planning to retire.  Perhaps it was time for that; after all, he was 92.
And then today came the news that, due to complications after minor surgery, Mr. Rooney has died.
Maybe he knew the Reaper was knocking.  That could be why he quit.  Or maybe he, at the age of 92, did not know outright that his number was nearly up, and he merely decided, out of a sense of prudence, or perhaps out of weariness, to lay down his work burdens and spend his remaining time with his family.  I don't know.  If the family keeps things private, none of us will ever know.

Everything Old is New Again! The Dark Shadows Film is Locked, Loaded, and Looking Good!

Some of you may know that I'm a fan of the classic Gothic soap opera Dark Shadows.  I loved the original show, the films that spawned, the 1991 reboot, the books, the comics...if it's Dark Shadows, I've enjoyed it at some point.
There'd been talk of a new feature film reboot for years, but the project was stuck in turnaround for so long that I kind of brushed it off.  But then, late last year, there was new buzz.  And as 2011 came in and picked up steam, there was more buzz, and then outright news.  Johnny Depp, a life-long DS fan, was attached to play his dream role of Barnabas Collins!  Tim Burton, another fan of the show, to direct from a script by that most ghoulish of the hot young novelists, Seth Grahame-Smith!  And then came a flood of casting news that was, by turns, thrilling and worrying, strange and perfect.

Drama Days

Like a lot of people around the world, I grew up with some knowledge of the existence of the entertainment genre known as the soap opera.  As a small child, I watched daily soaps with my mother.  Later, when I was in school, there were only sick days and summers to see them, but I kept up somewhat.

Mum and I mostly watched the CBS soaps (The Young & The Restless, The Bold & The Beautiful, As The World Turns, and Guiding Light) but I knew about the soaps on other networks.  I think most everyone in the U.S. has at least heard some reference to Luke and Laura from "General Hospital" or Erica Kane from "All My Children" and a host of other famed characters.

Misty Water-Color MADNESS!

Okay, folks, I've got a little recommendation for you.  There's a fairly new blog, Retro-Recaps, and it would behoove all of you to give it a look see.  The premise of looking back at long-gone but still loved television shows has been done, but this blog delivers it with a sharper sort of snark, wit, and criticism wrapped up in an endearingly meandering package.
The creator, Annie, obviously loves the shows she's recapping (as of this writing, she's almost through with season one of "Xena: Warrior Princess") but she also holds nothing sacred.  Every character and convention comes up for a good ribbing.  For those who don't hold with the "subtext" aspects of "X:WP," a word of caution: Annie is heavily on the "They are!" side of "Are they or aren't they?" when it comes to Xena and Gabrielle.  Of course, I myself find that side of the argument endlessly enticing, and her humor in that direction is silly and fun enough for anyone.

Retro-Recaps promises to be a fun time for all.  Go, read, laugh.

Xena wants you to.

I'm REALLY Back Now...

All of my blogs are about to be back and better than ever...I'm gonna put in so many pictures and junk that any regular readers (all two of you) may just vomit.  Or be really happy.  Or nothing might happen at all.

Okay, to start off...A few years ago, I worked at a large discount/retail/Idon'tknowwhatthatcorporatehellholeisanymore chain store...let's call it Mal-Wart.  Anyhow, I worked the overnight shift, stocking shelves and doing a little floor cleaning at one point.  As anyone who has worked overnight/3rd shift can tell you, it throws off the typical time schedule an average body is used to.  I'd get home in the mornings and maybe have time to eat and catch a smattering of news on TV before passing out in bed.

Self-Indulgence: 30 Day Music Meme: Day 13: A Song You Sing in the Shower

We'll just pretend that this applies to me; as if I would sing in the shower.

Day 13: A Song You Sing in the Shower

 A while back, The Simpsons did yet another episode about Marge and Homer's dating days.  This one was bumped up from the 70s/80s to the early 90s, of course, since the show itself has since progressed (with no aging of characters, this being a cartoon).  The Homer of this ep became a Grunge singer and, with his band Sadgasm performed a little song called Margerine.

The Various VMA Flaps

Pictured: TEH HORRA!

So if you didn't watch the MTV Video Music Awards last night, everyone is OMG SO OFFENDED/SHOCKED because Lady Gaga wore a dress made from meat.  She had previously done so on a magazine cover and caused a rather minor stir.  Now, though, she had the effrontery to wear such a thing IN PUBLIC!
C'mon, people.  Get past it.  The woman is out to be provocative and controversial.  She's modeling herself on every controversial pop star of the past 30 or 40 years.

New Zealand Week: Day 7: Star Profiles: Danielle Cormack

Danielle Cormack

Danielle Cormack got her start in theater in her native New Zealand and first came to real prominence as a teenager with a role in the soap opera Gloss.  She's compiled quite the list of credits since then, with her abundant talents for both comedy and drama making her a natural choice for a rich variety of roles in television, film, and theater.

New Zealand Week: Day 7: Star Profiles: Karl Urban

Karl Urban

Karl Urban is one of New Zealand's stars who has managed to start getting some real footing in the entertainment industry outside of his homeland as well.  Though he is primarily a star of action-type films where Americans are concerned, a review of his career shows an actor also adept at comedic roles, and at deep drama.

New Zealand Week: Day 6: Star Profiles: Rena Owen

Rena Owen

As one of New Zealand's top female stars, Rena Owen has taken on many roles through the years.  From her beginnings in theater to breakthrough roles in film and television, she has shown herself to be among the top acting talents around.  She's also overcome personal problems and addiction, never letting life beat her down.

New Zealand Week: Day 5: Star Profiles: Temuera Morrison

Temuera Morrison

Temuera Morrison is one of New Zealand's biggest stars, known at home and abroad as an amazing actor capable of handling everything from comedy to intense drama to action with ease.  In a career that has thus far spanned over 20 years, he has proven himself a powerful performer who can enfuse almost any role with true feeling and heart.

New Zealand Week: Day 1: Star Profiles: Lucy Lawless

Lucy Lawless

I've already kicked off New Zealand Week over on my horror blog, and now we're gonna start things off here with a profile of a star who'll be recognizable to a lot of people outside of  New Zealand. (I'm easing you into things, see?  Aren't I nice blogger?  Say it.  Say that Lela's a nice blogger!  Very good.  Here.  Have an apple.)

Just a note for my U.S. readers (pretty sure that's all three of you), I'll be using international dating conventions in these profiles; for example, rather than writing, say, January 1, 1954, it would be 1 January, 1954.

Lucy Lawless is best known for her roles as Xena on the series Xena: Warrior Princess and D'anna Biers on the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica.  She's also had roles on everything from The X-Files to Veronica Mars and made a small cameos in the first Sam Raimi directed Spider-Man film and Boogeyman.  To the average person (read: not an obsessed fan), it might seem that Lucy's fame just happened overnight.  But it's not as if Lucy just appeared one day, rising from the dust of Aotearoa and taking a small part on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and then bursting into stardom.  No, she's a bit more complicated than that.

I'm Magic! or, How I Really Decided to do This Blog's First Theme Week

Earlier today I was kicking back, working on some possible blog posts.  I noticed that I was doing reviews of a lot of films from New Zealand.  The entire culture and entertainment industry of that place has interested me for a long time, and then I started to think that it might be fun to do a weeks worth of overviews and guides to films, music, and television from New Zealand.

A few hours later I learned that, while I was dreaming up Kiwi Theme Week, there was a magnitude 7.0 earthquake near Christchurch, New Zealand.   The international dateline means it happened on Saturday morning for them, but still!

My thought must've caused it.  That or it's the earth warning us, what with the earlier quake up near the Aleutian Islands off the coast of Alaska.

But I'll stick with the "Lela has a magic brain" theory.

I'm monitoring Radio New Zealand, national stream, to keep up.

Next week is New Zealand week on EPP.

So...yeah.

Self-Indulgence: Christina Hendricks

It occurs to me that my recent post about how the entertainment industry is destroying all the beautiful, healthy, natural looking women was a little bitter and cynical.  After all, there's one gal out there with a real figure just made of curves and she's making a name for herself.  (The only fake thing about her is her hair color.  She's a natural blonde, but she's gone red for years.  Even better!)
Christina Hendricks is currently best known for her role as Joan on AMC's Mad Men, but she's appeared in plenty of other programs, and she's sure to go far (I hope!)
So here then, a few images of one gal who's keeping it real in the entertainment industry.

Hungry Like the Wahrwilf Wuhrwulf Werewolf

(A companion piece to my earlier article about vampires...)

It is no surprise that, when humanity began to romanticize the vampire, the werewolf would also be enthusiastically reimagined and reinvented.
Where once the two sorts of creature were on something of an equal footing, being night-walking terrors that one wouldn't want to tangle with, they are now rather like opposite sides of the same coin flipped in the dark of a moonlit night.  The vampire is now most often seen as the slick, sophisticated monster, a gentleman (or woman) out for blood, seducing their victims along the way.  The werewolf, on the other hand, is ever the animal, a person transformed, whether through chance, fate, or will, into a ravening beast.

Self-Indulgence: Ladies I Adore...

This is one of those droolerific posts where I admit to being incredibly homosexual in the way that some women are.
Over the course of my pop culture obsession, I've found myself drawn to certain actresses for any number of reasons.  So, after the jump, here are just a few of the lovely ladies who are tops in my book.

Why Vampires are OHMIGOD SOOO Romantic.

(This post started life as a set of comments on the blog of a friend who just doesn't understand why people so romanticize a bunch of walking corpses.  It was really an attempt to explain why they are romanticized when, face it...they're just dead people who drink blood.)

Vampires have long been romanticized.  However, if one reads up on some of the more ancient, classic vampire legends, particularly those from Eastern Europe, it quickly becomes clear that a vampire isn't a beautiful, romantic creature; it's a freaking WALKING CORPSE!  As one scholar put it, originally, being bitten by a vampire was about as romantic as being bitten by your dead Uncle Boris.

The concept of the vampire as more than just a walking corpse came about because, as well as being immortal, they were well-nigh invulnerable (fire was bad...and decapitation...but most other stuff was just a scratch. Oh, and staking wasn't originally to kill them...it was to pin them down so you COULD kill them...so you had to drive the stake ALL THE WAY THROUGH.) Invulnerability=you don't rot=you are eternally young/the way you were, which is a very attractive prospect to some.

Upstairs and Downstairs and Back Again

I remember clearly the very first time I ever saw an episode of the classic British television drama Upstairs Downstairs.  I was a small child, no more than 3 or 4 years old, and the show was being re-run on our local public television station.  The very first scene I remember seeing, one scene that stuck with me for years when I couldn't readily see the show, was the very first scene of the first episode: a young woman, Sarah (Pauline Collins), goes to the front door of 165 Eaton Place to apply for the position of a house-parlourmaid.  This being London in the year 1903 when people below a certain social status did not dare try to enter a posh house via the front door, Sarah was quickly directed down to the area door by the butler, Hudson (Gordon Jackson).

I've always loved shows set in various historical time periods, and in my own opinion, Upstairs Downstairs was one of the best of those ever made.  The first item I ever purchased with money from my first ever income tax return was the complete series on DVD, accompanied by the single-season spin-off Thomas and Sarah.

After moving from the house where I spent the first 21 years of my life, my mother and I had no regular television service for a time.  For filmed entertainment, we relied on my somewhat-extensive DVD collection, and Upstairs Downstairs was one of our regular go-to shows when we wanted to really watch something we knew we'd love.

I haven't watched Upstairs Downstairs since before Mum passed away in February, but I still have my DVDs and I may pull them out soon and give them a watch.  You see, I'd been hearing rumors that there were plans to sort of continue the show, reincorporating the beloved character of head house-parlourmaid Rose (Jean Marsh) into a new household at Eaton Place 6 years after the end of the original show.  Now normally, I'm not one for reboots, remakes, and sequels, but when this one comes along, I'll watch.

And I know my Mum would have too.