True Blood News at The Nest

A Taste of True Blood: A Fangbangers Guide, edited by Leah Wilson and published by SmartPop Books, will be available at bookstores and online on June 29th. I was fortunate enough to get an early copy to peruse and review for you lovely fan(g)s.

This collection of essays, like all collections, contains some offerings that are better than others, some topics were more interesting to me, and the organizational system left something to be desired (the order felt random).

That aside, the book was a lot of fun. It’s aptly titled for fangbangers, as it’s not pretending to be intellectual or academic. Rather, the essays tend to feel more like thoughtful (albeit long) posts, or a discussion that would occur between friends over vampire-kiss martinis during a True Blood marathon. I appreciate that honesty in the book’s definition and intended audience, and I think it makes for a better read.

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Salon.com has a wonderful take on “Beautifully Broken”‘s theme of what happens when “parents” abandon their “children”:

“The children grow up bitter and vulnerable, never having learned how to change quickly from a dog into an owl should they find themselves about to be hit by a Mack truck (Sam). Or they walk away from true love (Jessica) and when they have to dismember the trucker they accidentally killed and hid in the basement, they have no idea how expensive chainsaws are! Or they end up suicidally depressed, grieving the accidental death of their zombie serial killer boyfriend (Tara)… “Life is suffering,” Lafayette reminds Tara, on the way to visit the nasty, cold, grinch-hearted woman in the hospital who is apparently his mother. True. But it’s nice to know you can still rent chainsaws.”

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Personally, I enjoyed last night’s episode, “Beautifully Broken.” There were some things that I would’ve preferred to be different, but the ‘net abounds with some rather harsh criticism. If you’re interested in reading what non-fan(g)s are saying, here’s a well-written, well-reasoned example that rates Skin vs. Scare.

“Skin overshadowed scares last week, but Episode 2, titled “Beautifully Broken,” made up for it by pandering to the horror crowd with a chainsaw (wielded by the wonderfully immature young vampire Jessica, who will hopefully take on a larger role), a completely unnecessary reference to Stephen King’s Christine, and a flashback involving werewolf Nazis. This really was the Tarantino episode.”

“The show began and ended with a burst of excitement, but in between, it fizzled, burdened by a strained plot and too many long close-ups of very serious faces. Thus far, the major battle of the third season of True Blood is not between light and dark so much as between light and heavy. Heavy dominated this time.

Tara and Sookie were both in tears over lost loves. To which I say: Get over it, ladies. That was an entire episode ago, a lifetime in soap-opera years. Lafayette hardly brightened the mood with this groaner: “The Buddhists weren’t lying when they said life is suffering.” Did “the Buddhists” write this episode? And look, one plotline about reuniting with lost parents can slow a pulp soap opera down, but two? That’s dramatic quicksand. Moreover, when Sam sat down with his parents (Lafayette also visited his mother), his moody new brother stormed out of the room because … why exactly?

You know the writers are getting lazy transitioning from one heated moment to the next when they rely too much on the stomping-out-of-the-room gambit. When Sookie ran into the bathroom after Bill proposed marriage, you almost wanted him to take back his offer—that is, if you didn’t know enough about the conventions of the show to realize that storming out of a room is just True Blood code for Something Big Is About To Happen.”

Ouch. I have to say, he does make some valid points. There’s much more to this review – Eric’s tender side and some of the many new additions to the cast. Click on the link above for the entire article.

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Entertainment Weekly reviewer Ken Tucker gave True Blood Season 3 a B+.

“How difficult it is to be sleek, sexy, and swift — all qualities True Blood displayed so effectively last season — when you’re straining to introduce new friends and enemies to your audience. That’s the challenge of True Blood‘s third season. There’s so much going on with the characters to whom we’re committed (Anna Paquin’s Sookie, Stephen Moyer’s Bill, Alexander Skarsgård’s Eric, Rutina Wesley’s Tara, and Sam Trammell’s Sam Merlotte, to skim the surface) that the first few episodes of the new season are crammed to bursting with plotlines — and faces — old and new.

The big addition this season is the introduction of werewolves to the true bloodiness of the show. Remorseless shifters with superstrength who get hopped up on vampire blood as though it were some combination of Ecstasy and crack, the werewolves arrive with a World War II backstory complete with flashbacks of Eric and Godric (Allan Hyde) posing in Nazi uniforms. In a show this stuffed with goodness, may I offer a small suggestion? Flashback scenes just take up valuable time we could be spending in the present.”

The crowded set has been mentioned by many reviewers and critics, although I have to respectfully disagree with Ken Tucker – in the previous season, the flashbacks have been parts of the show I’ve most enjoyed. With so many wonderful characters who’ve lived such long (albeit dead) lives, not tapping into their back-stories would be tragic. (Maybe Alan Ball and Co. can consider doing Biography-style hour-long specials?)

In conclusion, Ken Tucker wrote, “What show creator Alan Ball has brought to True Blood‘s pulp-horror trappings is a unifying theme of power versus helplessness: an insistence that victims are capable of toughening, of overcoming their powerlessness to become smarter and stronger. It’s a positive message that Ball and his writers and directors smuggle into a show that only seems to revel in decadence, gore, and duplicity. True Blood‘s dirtiest little secret is that it may be among the most ethical, even righteous, shows on television.”

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Matt Fowler at IGN TV explains in hilarious detail the differences between the two series and why True Blood wins more ass-kicking points than Twilight: “It’s true. True Blood wins. Easily. On almost every single conceivable level. It’s hardly even a fair fight. It’s like watching a bed-ridden asthmatic try to knock down a sequoia. By huffing and puffing. True Blood is a salaciously sinister and fiendishly fun series featuring insane characters filled with life and color. Twilight is a sniffly-nosed, dew-covered mope-fest filled with silence and shame.”

Comparing Bill and Eric to Edward and Jacob is “… kind of like comparing an ice sculpture of a malnourished swan and a broken piece of treated back porch flooring to ferocious hell-demons with flaming d***s.”

And do not miss the letter to a magazine by a disgruntled Twilight fan who thought the movie “Werewolf” had stolen it’s entire plot from “Twilight: New Moon.” Make sure you pee first.

Source

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True Blood and Philosophy: We Wanna Think Bad Things with You, the latest in the Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series, wants you to lick their minds. This compilation of academic-style essays, edited by George A. Dunn and Rebecca Housel, digs deeply into the metaphysical and philosophical questions raised by True Blood and Southern Vampire Mysteries. Not for the faint of heart, this collection asks The Big Questions: Under what conditions is it moral to create another vampire, why is it essential for vampires to “dress up and play human,” are vampires capable of being good citizens, why have philosophers always considered humans “more” than other species, are vampires in fact superior to humans, the hypocrisy of the Fellowship of the Sun, is Sam still Sam when he shifts, what are the connections between coming out of the coffin and coming out of a closet, are vampires inherently evil, is Sookie a feminist? These issues and more are viewed through the filter of some of (human) history’s finest minds like Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, John Locke, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, and John Rawls.

I openly admit to being a nerd, and I’ve happily spent hours discussing these very questions on the old HBO Boards, and now at Bill’s Wiki’d Women. A huge part of the appeal of True Blood, at least for me, is that while it’s a fun on the surface, there’s plenty going on underneath to sink my teeth into. This book identifies many issues and provides historical context for the discussion, but it ultimately asks more questions than gives answers, leaving the reader to come to his or her own conclusions. Not intended for a quick read-through, this collection is meant to be savored, read slowly and pondered and, ideally, discussed with fellow fan(g)s.

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Entertainment Weekly, in their Special Characters Double Issue (available now), not only included a special three-page spread of the Season Three cast photo, they also called the Season Three Premiere the “Must Watch of the Week” and gave the episode an A-.

Ken Tucker wrote: “Picking up right where last season left off, Alan Ball’s wild ride puts the pedal to the metal: Bill (Stephen Moyer) is kidnapped, Eric (Alexander Skarsgard) making his entrance naked (I know – you’re not gonna bother reading the rest of this), Tara (Rutina Wesley) in dangerous grief over the death of Eggs, Jason (Ryan Kwanten) bedding two girls while secretly trying to become a “better man,” teen vamp Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll) trying and failing to control her adolescent hormones, and dear, sweet Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis) recommending “tequila and Klonopin” as a surefire way of getting through hard times. Plus, the return of Evan Rachel Wood’s Queen and an increased role for Eric’s curvy underling Pam (Kristin Bauer). True Blood is, if anything, faster, sleeker, more vicious, more fun than it already was. Yum-yum.”

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The wonderfully talented Melissa has reviewed NY-LON for all you Stephen Moyer addicts out there. We can’t give enough praise to all our creative Nesters who contribute to this site. Without you all we’d be nothing. I want to also thank photographer Thomas Butler for the superb photo he took of Stephen on set. Enjoy!

Here I am, again, in a desperate attempt to ease my ache from “True Blood” withdrawal and since paparazzi videos are disgusting (and there are not enough of them) I’ve been watching every movie and TV show where our beloved Stephen Moyer stars. Some of those experiences have been delightful, some of them have not. Today, my friends I bring you one of the good ones; today I’m going to tell you about NY-LON.

NY-LON is the flight connection between New York and London and this 7 episode series is a story about a Bohemian record store employee and night school teacher Edie Miller (played by the lovely Rashida Jones) from New York and the very driven stockbroker, overachiever and financial genius Michael Antonioni (played by our divine Stephen Moyer) from London.

Michael is a successful London banker that works in this crazy office with much too many people and even more work stations per square feet/square meters, whose boss has the most thoughtless ways of firing people; he is refined, handsome, afraid of commitment, in control and he has the longest sideburns after Bill Compton.  He takes care of his family and his friends but apparently is a dirty bastard when it comes to the ladies, because obviously nothing is perfect.  Edie works at a record store (which I found kind of funny being that Rashida Jones is the daughter of Quincy Jones) and teaches at a night school for disadvantaged people… in New York. She is ridiculously loyal to the people she loves, and is recovering from a really bad breakup from the biggest douche bag since Jeff Spicolli; she also has the most annoying and needy friends ever! They meet in an awkward situation in a bar in London, after her bag is stolen and he lends her some money after selling her one cigarette. (?)

They end up having this amazing night of endless talking, heavy smoking and easy drinking and next thing we know she’s late for her morning flight back to New York. They are so different we almost don’t understand why they even like each other. She works in an old record store and he doesn’t even own a cd player – and that’s a mortal sin everywhere but especially for Edie who’s last boyfriend is a musician.

He works in a bank selling stocks to make rich people richer, which she hates since she’s a bit of an anarchist/socialist/communist, take your pick; he’s a Catholic who believes in the sanctity/insanity of marriage and she’s an agnostic that doesn’t trust any kind of institution (even though sometimes she needs to be institutionalized herself). His life revolves around his family and his work and the only family she believes in are her friends. He’s a pragmatic and she’s an idealist. But one way or another they like each other and somehow he ends up flying to New York to deliver an earring she left in his apartment and he does it in such a romantic way he makes us hate the idiot we have in our bed.

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The fine ass women who bring you this website are a multinational bunch, being a Canuck, a Kiwi, a Spanish señorita and two American gals, so we were happy to add another exotic contributor to our ranks to review another of Stephen’s better films- Uprising. Melissa Bellais from Venezuela wrote us this snappy review of a bloody great film, and we have included some sexy screencaps (with bonus bad ass uniform action, y’all) to go with it.

Mucho thanks to Melissa for being such a sweetie and damn good with words. Enjoy everyone!

I have this condition, it’s not exactly a disease, it’s more of a syndrome, I call it Moyeuristic Disorder and it started in October when I discovered True Blood.  It’s not such a bad thing, by far it is the most harmless of personality disorders and the main symptom that you develop is this urgent need to watch every little thing, every little movie, every little show, interview or video that has Stephen Moyer in it for even one fraction of a second.

So in order to ease the symptoms of my illness I’ve been forced to succumb to this need and in the process I’ve found that sometimes you lose two hours of your life watching a very, very young Stephen Moyer hidden under  armor, making speeches so dull and corny that it makes your ears bleed, but sometimes you come across a precious gem like “Uprising”.

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Our lovely, super talented friend latbfan went a bit mad on Amazon this Xmas and bought herself a few DVDs starring a certain moody vampire when he was playing characters that weren’t dead and fangy. Which means she was able to pick one of Stephen Moyer’s earlier adventures in television and review it for us in her usual classy style. Lilies was a British TV show from 2007 and it turns out, it’s really rather splendidly gritty. We have included a bunch of screencaps together with the review because they’re so very hot, I think I might fetch the swoon brandy and have a lie down. Enjoy ladies and random male visitors!

At risk of over-using adjectives, “Lilies” is an incredible, witty, heart-breaking, and grisly eight-part series set in post-WWI Liverpool. I bought “Lilies” (along with every other available title that Mr. Moyer is in) on a post-Christmas, late-night, wine-induced Stephen Moyer binge at Amazon.com, my account flush with other people’s money. To say that it was not what I was expecting is a vast understatement. This is not a film for the faint of heart (at times, the various accents/dialects are difficult to understand, and there are several graphically disturbing scenes), nor is it merely a sexiful romp with Stephen Moyer, who spends the film dashingly clad in period-clothes and drives a car that just screams for back-seat action (although how anyone managed to get laid wearing 50 pounds of underwear is beyond comprehension). “Lilies” is addictive and compelling, even though watching the series was an on-going train wreck of disaster and despair. There are moments of laugh-out-loud hilarity, and there is exquisite tenderness and devotion, but the realities of this world are often ironically cruel and, at times, nauseatingly gruesome.

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