In assembling “Smash,” NBC’s ”‘Glee’ for grown-ups” Broadway musical meta-drama (premieres February 6; download premiere episode for free now at iTunes), the network has taken no chances, peopling its “Marilyn: The Musical” making-of tale with Oscar darlings (Anjelica Huston), beloved Emmy winners (Debra Messing) and genuine movie stars (Uma Thurman comes aboard later this season). Add in executive producer Steven Effing Speilberg, and the pedigree alone should make this a slam dunk. But as the fictitious musical’s director (Jack Davenport, who will inspire hate-sex fantasies for weeks) astutely points out, “Without a Marilyn, you’ve got nothing.” Luckily, “Smash” has two: Ivy (mega-talented Broadway vet Megan Hilty), a long-suffering chorus girl on the verge of a breakthrough; and Karen (Katharine McPhee), a stunning nobody with a gorgeous voice. McPhee’s audition scenes – a formal song at a callback and an informal one at the director’s apartment – are worth the price of admission on their own, providing “star-is-born” moments for the character and the actress, who shakes off a six-year “American Idol” hangover and shames everyone (you know who you are) who ever voted for Taylor Hicks.
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TV
“Smash” Hit
Fall 2011 TV Sneak Peek
As usual for this time of year, there’s a boatload of new TV shows coming in the weeks after Labor Day. We’ve waded through the onslaught of screeners (with disasters like “Whitney,” this wasn’t as fun as it might sound) and picked out a few that, based on their pilots, we think are worth checking out when they premiere.
“RINGER“ (CW/September 13) – Sarah Michelle Gellar (pictured above) pulls double duty as a fugitive junkie and her equally messed up (if infinitely better dressed) twin sister in the most twisted take on The Parent Trap since Lindsay Lohan was talking to herself in different accents. (This may still be happening.)
“THE PLAYBOY CLUB“ (NBC/September 19)- Front-loaded with T&A, but with an out lead actress (Amber Heard) and a prominent attention given to the pre-Stonewall gay rights movement, this Club is more progressive than you might think — and, thanks to Tony winner Laura Benanti‘s pipes, a lot more fun, too.
“2 BROKE GIRLS” (CBS/September 19) - Michael Patrick King mines more sex and the city, this time with feisty pauper Kat Dennings and Ponzi scheme refugee Beth Behrs in a Brooklyn diner (and heinous uniforms) Carrie Bradshaw wouldn’t be caught dead in. Sharp and caustic, we’re definitely making reservations for this one — as long as King doesn’t drag these New Yorkers to Abu Dhabi for bad karaoke.
“NEW GIRL“ (FOX/September 20) – Straight bff’s are the new Will Truman! Indie-alt pixie goddess Zooey Deschanel enlists three bro’s to help her rise from the ashes of a failed relationship after bingeing on Dirty Dancing doesn’t work. (We’ve been there.)
“REVENGE“ (ABC/September 21) – “Brothers & Sisters’” sometime-pseudo-incestual sibling Emily VanCamp sets her sights on ruining an entirely new family in this Count of Monte Cristo update set in the far more vicious backdrop of the Hamptons that provides 2011′s best shot at a “Dynasty”-style ball gown brawl in a fountain. Cross your fingers.
Trailers after jump. [Read more...]
Becoming A Man
When Chastity Bono made the decision to transition to Chaz, he knew there was no way for that to happen away from the spotlight. So in addition to writing a memoir about the experience (his third book), he also hooked up with documentarians Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato (The Eyes of Tammy Faye, Party Monster) to tell the story of his process on film. What’s fascinating about the Sundance hit Becoming Chaz (airing May 7 on OWN) goes beyond surgery and psychology, from the issues Chaz’s girlfriend had with the transition to the problems Chaz’s mom (you may have heard of her) had dealing with her daughter becoming her son. Becoming Chaz is intimate, entertaining, and an invaluable addition to the public dialogue about transgender issues. [Read more...]
TV and "TV"
Shaken and Stirred
Carrie Fisher has been to the edge and back (thanks for the postcards!), but she lets her braids down even further with Wishful Drinking (premieres Sunday). If you missed the writer-actress’ introspective one-woman show on Broadway, don’t worry: It’s now ready to be imbibed by the masses.
Culled from her 2008 autobiography of the same title, the TV version brings Fisher’s sordid stories full circle, from page to stage to screen, complete with unabashed tales of her Hollywood-royalty family (mom: Debbie Reynolds, dad: the late Eddie Fisher) and her trip to the bottom of bottles (both alcohol and prescription). Some flat jokes and cheap graphics mar an otherwise brazen and droll trip through serious topics, like her rocky relationship with Paul Simon, her battle with bipolar disorder and such less serious fare as Star Wars sex dolls. All in all, an easy pill to swallow.
Wishful Drinking premieres Sunday at 9 PM on HBO.
District of Despair
“If a man is going to black your eye, you’re not going to insist he wear a condom,” explains J’Mia, a 28-year old HIV-positive mother of three, in the unexpectedly enlightening documentary The Other City (premieres Wednesday). This is the reality of HIV/AIDS in America today, where an out-of-control epidemic is waging a cold war in the shadow of our government’s opulent monuments. It stunned critics on the festival circuit earlier this year, and on the occasion of World AIDS Day, Showtime is giving The Other City a chance to stun a wider audience.
The film — which follows four very different Washingtonians living with HIV/AIDS in a city encumbered by a shocking 3% infection rate (higher than that of Port Au Prince and Dakar, Senegal) — injects humanity into statistics we now disregard post-ART (antiretroviral therapy). Some scenes are difficult to watch, but because the filmmakers refuse to hold back in their storytelling, audiences walk away reenergized. While the doc’s subjects find themselves on a harrowing journey, they consistently convey hope — hope that things will one day be better, if not for them then for D.C., America and the world. If that’s not what World AIDS Day is about, then what is it?
The Other City premieres Wednesday at 7:30 PM ET/PT on Showtime.
Fransexual
“I’m the outstanding waster of time of my generation,” says the notoriously sardonic and legendarily lazy (she’s been writing her last book for decades) author Fran Lebowitz in Public Speaking (premiering November 22), a documentary on her life and career directed by Martin Scorsese. A Warhol-era New York legend, known for her bitingly funny observations about urban life, the sexually ambiguous Lebowitz begins the film by recounting the tragic story of a blind art collector who accidentally ruins his $20 million Picasso when he runs into it. “If you were going to write a history of our time, you should call it ‘The Blind Art Collector & Other Stories.’” What ensues is 84 minutes of intellectual masturbation so gratifying even the shiftiest chain smoking caffeine junkie will stay on the couch.
Filmed mostly at “her table” in the West Village restaurant the Waverly Inn, the film incorporates footage of Lebowitz in interviews and lectures from the ’70s through today. Setting the scene for what might be called “Lebowitz’s New York,” Scorsese adds riveting (and nearly violent at times) footage of heated debates between other members of yesteryear’s chattering classes, like James Baldwin, Gore Vidal and William Buckley, Jr. Expect to laugh, think and admire.
Public Speaking premieres November 22 on HBO.
We’ve long feared that reality TV will outwit/outplay/ outlast the rest of humanity, emitting a dramatic pulse long after the Doomsday the whole genre probably instigated. Thanks to IFC’s five-part series Dead Set (premiering tonight), it seems we’re not the only ones. Cultural critic Charlie Brooker breathes the caustic fire he normally reserves for his zeitgeist-assassinating Guardian columns into this black comedy-horror-satire that unleashes a ravenous mob of zombies on the Big Brother UK house — seemingly the only stronghold left in the country, and possibly the world — on an eviction night that goes horribly and hilariously wrong.
Shot at the real BBUK house with cameos by actual BBUK houseguests (and England’s own Chen-bot, Davina McCall), Brooker imposes actual life-and-death on the show’s “stars,” for once warranting all the hyperbolic talk of eliminations, chopping blocks and backstabbing. The contestants get their share of skewering (“Does this mean we’re not on telly anymore?” asks tanorexic tramp Veronica as she surveys the post-apocalyptic landscape), but he saves his sharpest sword for the show’s disgusting producer, a loud, arrogant slob who locks himself in the green room and gets trashed as the world ends. And yet even in the midst of Doomsday, reality TV dutifully and tragically marches on: the broadcast continues, the contestants strategize who lives and dies, and an insatiable, bloodthirsty mob pounds on the door for more flesh.
Dead Set airs tonight through Friday at midnight on IFC; a marathon of all the episodes will air Sunday starting at 7:30 PM.
Outsourced
As the major networks line up their new comedies for the inevitable death march to cancellation, we’re saving our DVR space for IFC’s foul-mouthed new series The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret (premiering Oct 1). David Cross plays Todd, a clueless, spineless office temp who sleepwalks into a high-stakes sales job in the UK — and then repeatedly and hilariously faceplants at every possible (mis)step. Todd is in way over his head trying to sell Thunder Muscle, a heinous North Korean energy drink that’s "Like Drinking Ten Lightnings!" And rather than tell his hooker-hungry boss (played by Cross’ Arrested Development pal Will Arnett, who also stars in Fox’s less-funny Running Wilde), he dives, headfirst and eyes closed, into inflicting a potentially lethal beverage on the British populace and wooing a woefully uninterested molecular gastronomist (Sharon Horgan) who’s too polite to tell Todd to bugger off.
Todd’s staggering ineptitude lands him, eventually (as we learn in the first scene of the pilot), on trial before a violently angry British court on charges of, among other things, possession of biological weapons, treason and conspiracy to fund a terrorist organization. Let us be the first to throw ourselves on the mercy of the court and beg for Todd Margaret to live: With such a dearth of new comedies — some of which, by their own admission, are pure "$#*!" — we’re going to need multiple seasons of this inspired, Brit-style lunacy.
The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret premieres October 1 at 10PM on IFC.
Proposition Nate
When interior designer Nate Berkus and his partner Fernando Bengoechea were vacationing in Sri Lanka in 2004, the now-infamous tsunami hit and Bengoechea died in the ensuing flood. Already a regular on Oprah, Berkus got personal for the first time on the show. He opened up about his relationship, about his loss, and he raised millions of dollars to help rebuild the area where they’d been tourists. It was compelling TV, and it was a beautiful way for Oprah’s vast female viewership to learn about a gay man’s love.
The Nate Berkus Show premieres Monday. Check this guide for local airtimes and channels.
No Vacancy
The sobering sight of Rubbermaid dressers and hotel bathtubs full of laundry is nothing compared to Pelosi’s heartbreaking conversations with the young kids playing in Motel 6 dumpsters and dodging cop cars in the parking lots. Though most have already learned to fend off pity with optimistic poses, some don’t hide their despair, like nine-year-old Dylan whose one wish for the year is “to re-do my life,” or 11-year-old Zach, whose anger-prompted property damage forces his family to pack up and find another motel that will take them. Some sense of normalcy (and a few meals a day) can be found at Project Hope, a school that caters to students who are always on the move, but Pelosi’s doc makes you hope to high hell none of these kids ever truly comes to consider these conditions “normal.”
Homeless: the Motel Kids of Orange County premieres Monday at 9PM on HBO.
Life Goes On
Heading to a family gathering this summer? So are lots of folks in Lily Dale — the only difference is the people heading there are seeking a reunion of a different kind. The documentary No One Dies in Lily Dale (July 5 on HBO) explores this quaint upstate New York community that boasts the world’s largest concentration of mediums, as well as those who flock there to commune with spirits of loved ones who have passed.
The birch tree-filled enclave has been a haven for spiritualism since the 1800s, and skeptics, including Harry Houdini and devout Christians, have sought to debunk the practice of mystical mediumship ever since. Still, over 25,000 people make the trek every year to meet with the likes of Greta Lesock, a spiritualist who asks her dog to wiggle his nose if a spirit is present, or Sherry Lee Calkins, who claims that spirits inhabit her body (like Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost). Whether or not you believe, you’ll get chills from the readings that heal the Chicago police officer whose teenage son died tragically in a shooting, and the young woman from the Midwest who lost her fiancé in a mysterious accident. If the grieving find some peace and resolution there, who are we to judge?
No One Dies in Lily Dale airs July 5 at 9PM EST on HBO.
Lez Get Physical
And while she might have a one-track mind (or two, if you count the “big tits, small tits, anywhere they fall tits” she’s obsessed with), she’s hardly selfish, waxing poetic about how love is for everyone — “gay, lesbian, straight, queer, bisexual, pansexual, asexual…have I missed anybody?” — and, in the process, truly embodying the phrase “gay pride.” She’ll be here all month! Tip your waitress!
Lizzy the Lezzy is on Sundance Channel, Sundance Channel VOD and sundancechannel.com this month, as well as at lizzythelezzy.com.
Little Victories
Two fascinating new documentaries put a human face on the fight for gay civil rights battles.
In CNN’s moving special Gary & Tony Have a Baby (airing Thursday), Soledad O’Brian leads us through the process by which two upscale Manhattanites get the baby they’ve long dreamed of (and without trotting out any bigoted, spittle-flecked zealots for “balance”). From the harvesting of the eggs to hiring of the surrogate to the various legal hurdles placed in their way, Gary Spino and Tony Brown come off as two nice, committed guys who just want their shot at building a family.
After riling up the locals in his hometown of Oil City, PA, by running his same-sex marriage announcement in the paper, Joe Wilson returns home to help CJ Springer, a gay teen who dropped out after school authorities ignored the constant bullying and harassment he faced from his peers. Without pandering, Wilson’s brutally honest and inspirational documentary Out in the Silence (showing at the Human Rights Watch Festival in NYC, Outfest in L.A. and on PBS) gets in there as he and Springer fight to make schools a safe place.
Gary and Tony Have a Baby airs Thursday at 8PM EST on CNN. Out in the Silence shows tonight and June 22 and 23 at the Human Rights Watch International Festival in NYC, July 11 at Outfest in L.A. and on various PBS stations throughout the country this month.
