Forever A Fangirl

GAME OF THRONES: 'You Win or You Die' 22 Minute Preview VIDEO (HBO) #gameofthrones

Emilia Clarke as 'Daenerys Targaryen' in GAME OF THRONES Season 2 (HBO)

When Game of Thrones premiered on HBO last season I sat down in front of the teevee for exactly three reasons--and none of them had anything to do with Games of Thrones.

Since I'd seen advertisements for the show whilst watching other HBO programming, I was aware that 2 actors I like were in GoT: Sean Bean (Ned Stark) and Lena Heady (Queen Cersei Lannister).  But as much as I enjoy the two, they were not a compelling enough reason to watch the new series.

No, it was the fact that my 18-year-old son had read the entire book series up to that point and asked me if I'd planned to watch it as he was--that was the tipping point where I said, "What the heck" and cajoled his dad to join us as well. Despite this being a cable television show, I went on the assumption that the voracious reader that resides with us had never steered me wrong in his choice of book recommendations and wouldn't do so now with this book series adaption for TV (though he provided plenty of disclaimers that he had no idea if the show would be any good). Granted, I read but a fraction of what he does, but what I have read that he recommends is always well worth reading. Also, in the case of HBO's Game of Thrones--season 1, his having read the book series greatly enhanced the viewing experience for me as I could 'cheat' by asking him to clarify aspects of the show's characters, because as I stated then, I was 'never going to read the books'--I simply did not have the time.

I now know of some very specific events--as millions of "A Song of Ice and Fire" aficionados do, but I'm very short on details. Now, going forward into the fabulously successful series' season 2 I've decided to write about it and since I have a rule that if it's been written and then adapted for the screen (small or big) I have to read the source material, my copy of the first volume in the series is on it's way as I type this.

I'll be back with plenty more but for now I hope you'll have a look at the videos I've embedded wherein you'll enjoy 'a vivid and illuminating special that revisits the stunning events of Season 1, introduces the major players, and presents a tantalizing peek at Season 2.'

Also, I made almost 200 nice quality screencaps of the actors interviewed both in and out of costume. Emilia Clarke (Daenerys Targaryen) is particualarly captivating and there's plenty of eye candy as well as insights offered up via Nikolaj Coster-Waldau who plays 'Jaime Lannister' as well as the swoon-inducing Kit Harington (Jon Snow).

Enjoy!

Game of Thrones: 'You Win or You Die' VIDEO:

Enter the world of the hit HBO series 'Game of Thrones' in this vivid and illuminating special that revisits the stunning events of Season 1, introduces the major players, and presents a tantalizing peek at Season 2.

Making Of Game Of Thrones: Season 2 - Weapons:

Making Of Game Of Thrones: Season 2 - Weapons Take an inside look at the weapons created for Game of Thrones Season 2. For more on Game of Thrones, go to http://itsh.bo/gHfJPE.

From E! Online: 

'A non-spoilery sophomore-season primer from creators and executive producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss.

"This season is largely about how [Ned Stark's] death leads to a series of events that ultimately culminate in a war, pulling all the different factions in this world into open-armed conflict with each other," says Weiss. "Almost every character is directly affected by the war in some way or another. Even Jon Snow (Kit Harington) and Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke), who are on far different corners of the world, feel the effects" after some characters lose their heads. (You could say the whole kingdom goes mad!) "I think fans of the show can expect to be surprised by some of what happens," says Weiss, adding that "we're taking approaches that might surprise [fans of the books] as well. A lot of the characters that George created are so rich and so wonderful that you often find yourself wondering what would happen if this one met that one…So there will definitely be some nice surprises [and] excitement for both longtime readers and newcomers to the material." Benioff points out,

"We're not looking at our series as a book-by-book adaptation so much as an adaptation of George's entire saga. In other words, in our minds season two is not A Clash of Kings [the series' second book]."

"It is the second season of our adaptation of [the entire saga], A Song of Ice and Fire."

With psychopathic kings, black magic, dragons and direwolves afoot, it's no wonder that Princess Arya learns much too young the meaning of the Valyrian phrase Valar morghulis: All men must die.

SOURCE: E! Online

Tina Fey - SNL Weekend Update (4.10.10): 'Women’s News' - 'Slutty Golf Reporter'

Fey in re: 'Bombshell' Michelle McGee. "I know we shouldn't judge people by their appearance but when your body looks like a dirtbag's binder from 7th grade metal shop..."

I watched three of the sketches and the Palin one is actually the weakest. Watch 'Weekend Update' and The 'Masters' sketch in which she is 'Ashlyn St. Cloud,' 'Tiger Expert' commentator.

Comedienne and actress Tina Fey reprised her role as Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live last night. Last night was a homecoming for Fey, a former SNL cast member and writer. Fey now stars in and runs the half-hour NBC comedy 30 Rock, and is appearing opposite Steve Carrell in the new movie Date Night. She hasn’t been a total stranger to sketch comedy, though; during the 2008 Presidential election, she garnered praise and massive viral video views for her portrayal of then-Governor Sarah Palin in SNL’s political sketches. She reprised that role in one of last night’s sketches. via: Mashable

Fey is very funny here--I love how she takes the knife of truth and twists just a bit more in Tiger's um, never mind.

HBO Season 2 Blu-Ray Character Perspectives: Pam - Steve Newlin - Hoyt - Karl

Reverend Steve Newlin complains that he must remind his wife, Sarah of her place "and, of her gender."
HBO — Apr 06, 2010 — Season 3 Ep. 0 — Steve Newlin talks about his wife and her role. True Blood season 2 releases on DVD and Blu-ray May 25 and Don't forget season 3 premieres June 13 only on HBO.

HBO — Apr 06, 2010 — Season 3 Ep. 0 — Pam dishes on Nan Flannigan.

HBO — Apr 06, 2010 — Season 3 Ep. 0 — Karl talks about Maryann's fondness for shape shifters.

Karl got more lines in this promo than he did in the entire season 2! LOL. He's got a great voice. Seriously. Maryann didn't let say very much, keeping him on a tight leash.

HBO — Apr 06, 2010 — Season 3 Ep. 0 — Hoyt chats about trading in his Mama.

Poor Hoyt. His "mama' has made him a mama's boy, afraid to stand up for himself simply because he believes he can't. Hoyt needs a girlfriend. Badly.

LOST - 6x06 "Sundown" - End Scene - 'Catch a Falling Star' HD / No More Hating Kate (Screen Caps)/ A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall

LOST - Season 4 finale -  Kate & the little 'turniphead' at their faked rescue

latestlost 

As LOST's last season continues barreling to its May 23 conclusion, the LOST writers have given us some scenes that are sure to be referenced as "the best." I nominate this one, LOST - 6x06 "Sundown" - End Scene - ('Catch a Falling Star') HD in it's entirety but specifically Kate's (Evangeline Lilly) part in it.

'Kate' has MANY detractors, in fact she's probably more reviled in the fan community than Ben (Michael Emerson) ever was--and his is a 'good' kind of bad. But Kate is NOT bad. She just been written that way.

Think about what they gave this character to work with. Not a lot.

For every time Kate has been "bad" and here's the rub--she gotten pilloried more for her sexuality (Jack & Kate & Sawyer)--for every time she's been a bad girl, she's been badass twice as often.

This scene of unspeakable devastation & carnage shows Kate, though completely aghast at what she's experiencing still having the presence of mind take up a dead man's rifle & arm herself. It reminded me of the scene in Season 1 in both its similarities & contrast.

In LOST S1, the plane had crashed, bodies littered everywhere. Kate needed to be able to help pull the group together and at Jack's suggestion she needed to find some sensible shoes in which to do so. The only shoes that looked about right for her were on a corpse. She made her way to the corpse, fighting fear all the way and gingerly removed it's shoes and put them on. Contrast that scene with this. She's in a similar devastated situation--seemingly in shock but this time without anyone to prompt her into action. No need as her survival instincts are on full alert. She glances at a fresh corpse, see what looks like a working rifle and plucks it away from the body to take as her own--all the while taking in the insane scene of a reanimated John Locke with a ragtag clutch of Others and Claire--and Sayid!--all now followers of UnLocke. So much was telegraphed without words--only eye contact between UnLocke and Kate. No more hatin' on Kate. Kate is great.

Lost 6x06 Sundown ending - Catch a Falling Star

TheConst4nt

Bob Dylan - A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall Found at abmp3 search engine

Miley in Vanity Fair

Sometimes, I get dismayed at how female sexuality scares people, especially when it's reflected like today's celeb story on Hanna Montana's Miley Cyrus.

She's 15. She's a young woman.

Vanity Fair Magazine?! asked her to pose for Annie Lebovitz??

Vanity Fair, not Teen Vogue or the equivalent?

I call inappropriate. And if you read Jamie Lee's Curtis's full HuffPost blog post you'll see that Miley is not at all topless--she's backless. Lots of blame go around here with overreactions and twisting of truths all wrapped up in Victorian-mindedness and as Curtis says, "Business," "SHOW Business" or, as she likes to call it, "Show Off Business".

And yeah, Miley's too young if she wants to keep working for Disney to do these kind of shoots (cover after the jump) and if as she states, it embarrasses her, lesson learned, no more "back shots" until she's out from under her Disney obligations to be "perfect." Judging however from recent photos, Miley's going through a phase where she's really chomping at the bit, pushing boundaries, but she'd best not yank Disney's chain unless she wants to be a former employee. We'll see how it goes.

I think she needs handlers that don't include her father at something like this photo shoot 'cos obviously, he let it happen. Is there a Miley's mom or is she a step, or what? Who is calling the shots? Miley herself?

Not cool. She's perfect for a teen's/tweens magazine. But a sexy shoot with Annie Lebovitz for Vanity Fair at age 15 as a Disney employee?  No way, José.

The New York Times

Miley Cyrus is embarrassed, and apologizing to fans over a topless* picture of the 15-year-old Disney star, covered only by a sheet, that was published in Vanity Fair magazine. The photo was taken by Annie Liebovitz for the magazine, and Miley's parents were on hand for the shoot, but now Miley is trying to do "damage control" (or drum up extra publicity), claiming the pictures did not turn out as expected. *(That's factually incorrect. Semi-topless is what the photo is; backless, to be precise.)

In the Vanity Fair article, written by Bruce Handy, Miley is quoted saying this about the topless photo:

Annie took, like, a beautiful shot, and I thought it was really cool. That’s what she wanted me to do, and you can’t say no to Annie. I think it’s really artsy. It wasn’t in a skanky way.

However, in her statement about the published photo is Miley had this to say about the Vanity Fair shoot:

I took part in a photo shoot that was supposed to be "artistic" and now, seeing the photographs and reading the story, I feel so embarrassed. I never intended for any of this to happen and I apologize to my fans who I care so deeply about.

Vanity Fair spokeswoman Beth Kseniak, had this to response:

Miley's parents and/or minders were on the set all day. Since the photo was taken digitally, they saw it on the shoot and everyone thought it was a beautiful and natural portrait of Miley.

That's is nutz and exploitive.

I agree with Jamie Lee Curtis:

Jamie Lee Curtis wrote in The Huffington Post , "I know how Miley feels. I too was a little embarrassed by my recent topless "scandal" and the subsequent parodies, but I am an adult woman. I protected myself during the shoot and I can take the heat. I only wish that her guardians had protected her."

A Woman In The White House

It appears as if one of my blogging buddies has up and quit. She deleted her blog completely--just poof--overnight. I hope she is okay--as well as her son and her 2 four-legged friends. It's very strange when someone disappears online but I guess not so different than when someone gets out of someone else's life completely offline. It's just a weird process. In the case of the now-missing blogger, we'd exchanged private, more-personal-than-on-the-blog messages--so I thought I was a bit closer but...I guess I'll see. I haven't had this situation in a while where a one-time blogging friend just...goes.

Gunderson Bee!  Where are you?!

Here's what my Vox blog  looks like as of today (posterity). Changing backgrounds changes everything. :)

I love the blue skulls-- and that there are lots of colours and other designs! Now Vox, share with TypePad like a good sibling!

EDIT/ TypePad closed down Vox.

 

(Below) As an aging feminist, I can relate. We'd really like to see a woman in the White House in. our. lifetimes.

                     

Demonizing Fat in the War on Weight

I admit that what caught my eye about this article was the references to scholar Paul Campos, whom I've respected as a historian and dogged voice in the wilderness in re: fat for many years. Ten years ago, I was a fat activist in the active sense. I was quite large and healthy, other than being "obese." As my readers know, I developed a non-fat-related heart condition due to a virus five years ago and have since had to modify my food intake and exercise regimen in an effort to extend my life. At the time of my foray into the world of heart disease, I had given up dieting and bingeing and was maintaining a steady weight--unlike the previous decades of "yo-yo" dieting behaviour--which study after study reports is more damaging than just remaining at one weight. My psyche was less bruised too, when I normalized being fat. I had felt much shame and endured a lifetime of taunts and disparaging looks from strangers and "concern" from the medical community and friends. When one takes into account the "dangers" of being fat, one must look at the situation in a much more comprehensive way than the numbers on a scale or an index of fat chart. We are much more than that as individuals. Boiling it down to over simplicity does no one any good in the goal that should unite all factions on fat--optimizing one's health. ----------------------------------------------

LINK  By DINITIA SMITH Published: May 1, 2004

Almost every day, it seems, there is another alarming study about the dangers of being fat or a new theory about its causes and cures. Just this week, VH1 announced a new reality show called "Flab to Fab," in which overweight women get a personal staff to whip them into shape. But a growing group of historians and cultural critics who study fat say this obsession is based less on science than on morality. Insidious attitudes about politics, sex, race or class are at the heart of the frenzy over obesity, these scholars say, a frenzy they see as comparable to the Salem witch trials, McCarthyism and even the eugenics movement. "We are in a moral panic about obesity," said Sander L. Gilman, distinguished professor of liberal arts, sciences and medicine at the University of Illinois in Chicago and the author of "Fat Boys: A Slim Book," published last month by the University of Nebraska Press. "People are saying, `Fat is the doom of Western civilization.' " Now, says Peter Stearns, a leading historian in the field, the rising concern with obesity "is triggering a new burst of scholarship." These researchers don't condone morbid obesity, but they do focus on the ways the definition of obesity and its meaning have shifted, often arbitrarily, throughout history. Mr. Stearns, provost and professor of history at George Mason University, has written that plumpness was once associated with "good health in a time when many of the most troubling diseases were wasting diseases like tuberculosis." He traces the equation of obesity and moral deficiency to the late-19th and early-20th centuries. In 1914, an article in the magazine Living Age, for example, stated, "Fat is now regarded as an indiscretion and almost a crime." Mr. Stearns cites it in an essay he wrote for the aptly named "Cultures of the Abdomen," a collection to be published by Palgrave Macmillan next November, edited by Christopher E. Forth, a senior lecturer at Australian National University, and Ana Carden-Coyne, a lecturer at the University of Manchester, in England. During World War I, Mr. Stearns writes, some popular magazines actually said that eating too much and gaining weight were unpatriotic, presumably because of concerns about food shortages. In "Fat Boys," Mr. Gilman describes how plumpness used to be associated with affluence and the aristocracy, while today it is associated with the poor and their supposedly bad eating habits. Louis XIV padded his body to look more imposing. During the French Revolution, obesity inspired a rallying cry, "The People Against the Fat," he says. And whereas once the fat man was generally seen as hypersexual, like Falstaff, now he is seen as asexual, like Santa Claus...

In Mr. Stearns's view, 19th-century changes in attitudes toward obesity were a guilty reaction to the new abundance of food, the rise of the consumer culture and the growth of sedentary work habits. "I don't think we were comfortable with it because of religious legacies and hesitations," he said in an interview. "Having a target for self-control, like dieting, helped express but also reconcile moral concerns about consumer affluence," Mr. Stearns writes; the dieting fad become a new kind of Puritanism...

Other contemporary scholars see a more dangerous underside to the current campaign against fat. Paul Campos, a professor of law at the University of Colorado, argues that obesity is used as a tool of discrimination, citing disturbing similarities to the eugenics movement, with its emphasis on "improving" the species. Obesity in America is "primarily a cultural and political issue," Mr. Campos writes in his new book, "The Obesity Myth" (Gotham), due out this month.

"The war on fat," he argues, "is unique in American history in that it represents the first concerted attempt to transform the vast majority of the nation's citizens into social pariahs, to be pitied and scorned."...

In what may turn out to be his most controversial claim, Mr. Campos writes: "

Contrary to almost everything you have heard, weight is not a good predictor of health. In fact a moderately active larger person is likely to be far healthier than someone who is svelte but sedentary.

" To bolster his argument, he cites several studies, including one published by the Cooper Institute, a private research institution in Dallas. Most medical experts warn of the dangers of fat, but Mr. Campos disagrees. "There is no good evidence," he writes, "that significant long-term weight loss is beneficial to health, and a great deal of evidence that short-term weight loss followed by weight regain (the pattern followed by almost all dieters) is medically harmful." He said in a recent interview: "The current hysteria about body mass and supposedly devastating health effects is creating a stratification in the society of power and privilege based on a scientifically fallacious concept of health. What we are seeing with this moral panic over fat in many ways is comparable to what we saw with the eugenics movement in the 20's." Kathleen LeBesco, associate professor of communication arts at Marymount Manhattan College, also asserts that at the root of the current slimness craze is an effort to stigmatize certain groups. Mr. Stearns has charted the way women in general gradually became the targets of obesity campaigns. The 19th-century feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton was praised for her "mature figure," he says. "Feminist leaders who were more slender were reproved," Mr. Stearns writes, perhaps because of "the traditional linkage between thinness and discontent."

Then, around the 1890's, suddenly, women were being urged to diet. "Fat began to be obsessively discussed," Mr. Stearns writes. The Gibson girl was rendered as slender, and the weight of Miss America in relation to her height decreased from the 1920's on.

The emphasis on slenderness in women was no accident, Mr. Stearns says. At the same time women were being urged to lose weight, the ideal of motherhood was declining and women were able for the first time to express an appetite for sex. "Dieting was a way, again, to express virtue and self-control even in a changing sexual climate," he writes. And while there are many causes for obesity — cheaper food, more aggressive marketing, bigger portions in restaurants and, of course, increasingly sedentary habits — Mr. Stearns says that gaining weight is still seen as a moral issue, "a sign you were lazy, lacked self-control." He notes that the French have been more successful at weight loss than Americans, partly, he says, because weight loss in France is based on aesthetics, not morality.

Mr. Stearns insists he is not promoting obesity but rather arguing that making people feel guilty for being fat is a useless form of weight control.

In describing the contemporary ethos, he said: "If you fail to lose weight you are demonstrating you're a bad person. It's a big burden. Faced with this additional pressure you are even more likely to end up by saying: `The hell with it! I'm going to get ice cream. I am such a bad person I need to solace myself.' "

Fat Ladies Need Not Apply

Fat Ladies Need Not Apply
New York Times Op/Ed Online
Published: March 10, 2004

Great opera singers who are larger than life — literally so — are part of opera tradition. Long before the supersized voice and heft of Luciano Pavarotti — outstanding even in a field of weighty talent — there was Luisa Tetrazzini, an early 20th-century diva who famously filled open space with a huge, electronically unassisted voice from a zaftig body. Her appetite for rich food was such that a pasta, chicken and cream dish was named for her.

If the name of the American soprano Deborah Voigt is attached to any one thing, it is the title character of Richard Strauss's "Ariadne auf Naxos." It is her signature role, the one that shot her to fame when she first performed it 13 years ago in Boston. Her Ariadne at the Metropolitan Opera last year prompted Anthony Tommasini, a critic for The Times, to praise her "arching lyrical beauty" and to add, "She was at once truly grand and amusingly self-deprecating, striking deadpan poses that any Broadway actor would envy."

Little of that seems to have mattered to the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden in London, which is producing the Strauss opera in June. It replaced Ms. Voigt — a large woman even when her weight fluctuates downward — with a slimmer and lesser-known soprano who not only fit the casting director's vision of Ariadne, but also fit into the little black cocktail dress chosen for the character.

Opera fans are used to extending their senses beyond seeing a body on the stage, which is but one piece in a pageant. It's the musicality that matters.

But as audiences are graying, opera houses are looking for ways to pack in a younger crowd. Casting directors trying to make opera hip may be turned off by "big hips," like those Ms. Voigt admits to owning. In this case, the decision will deny British audiences an opportunity to hear and see a performer who may be at the peak of her powers. Her voice may be perfect, but at least for Covent Garden, she's too big a star.

"Mommy" Rant

Here's what those in the profession would call an "issue," one that I probably shouldn't be ruminating on in my blog. I love being a mom, but I hate to be solely defined as one. I won't even click on blogs with "mommy" or some other derivation in their title. I just think it's the most unsexy, boring-sounding moniker for ones blog--plus it implies a kind of cliquishness. If you are a mommy, come join. Meh! I'm a mommy, right, but f*ck, I'm a woman, a trained clinical counselor, a Canadian, a wife, sister, daughter, an amateur photographer, a blog junkie, a reader, a writer, a swimmer, a practitioner of yoga... But the "mommy" blogs--just their titles make me want to 'url. Sure your kiddies are important to you--as they should be--but to define yourself by the fact that you can reproduce? All my mommy issues come bubbling up and the feminist in me cringes. EDIT: As usual, my timing is impeccable (insert heavy sarcasm). I read one of the best blog entries ever today, and it's by a new mom.

Get It Right. She Wore A Pasty!

Justin: "Going to have you naked (rips off little piece of costume covering Janet's breast) by the end of this song."

Download file

"The tearing of Janet Jackson's costume was unrehearsed, unplanned, completely unintentional and was inconsistent with assurances we had about the content of the performance," MTV said in a statement.

"Mwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahha!!!!," most everyone else said.

"I'm sorry if anyone was offended by the wardrobe malfunction during the halftime performance of the Super Bowl," Timberlake said. "It was not intentional and is regrettable."

(Everyone but Timberlake rolls on floor laughing uncontrollably. He'll do that off-camera.)

I have a strong dislike for Viacom's stance in this. They chose MTV (the owner of both MTV and CBS) to put together the Super Bowl half-time show and then feigned shock and surprise when the "performers" got raunchy.

Worse than Viacom et al, are media/others that fob all the responsibility on and call into question the morality of Ms. Jackson. Fine, call her a ****, but if you do so you'd best include Viacom and Timberlake. She didn't pull this stunt off on her own.

And please. Get it right. Her breast was not "nude." She wore a pastie.

Main Entry: past·ies
Pronunciation: 'pAs-tEz
Function: noun plural
Etymology: 2paste
: small round coverings for a woman's nipples worn especially by a stripteaser

Edit: According to anil's daily links and others, Janet is not wearing a traditional pastie. It is rather, a Sunburst Nipple Shield.
Hope we all can now breathe more easily.