Parents' Group Slams TV 'Sexualisation'

The Parents Television Council has again criticised the representation of teenage sexuality on US television. The campaign group carried out a study which examined the level of "sexualisation" in the 25 most popular programmes among 12- to 17-year-olds. The report looked at sexual innuendo, "erotic kissing" and "erotic touching", "implied intercourse" and "implied nudity".

It allegedly found that underage females are shown taking part in a higher percentage of sexual activities than adults are and only 5% "communicated any form of dislike for being sexualised". The report also claimed that 93% of the sexual situations involving underage girls represented an "unhealthy" sexuality, that 98% occurred outside of a "committed relationship" and that 73% were used as a punchline or in a humorous context.

According to the Los Angeles Times, shows which stood out in the report included Glee, The Vampire Diaries, The Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men. The PTC's president Tim Winter also expressed concerns about MTV's upcoming series Skins.


The PTC has repeatedly criticised MTV's new remake, calling the show "dangerous". The organisation criticised the show's marketing for showing instances of "drug use and casual sex".

"Despite the MA-rating for Skins, MTV appears to be deliberately targeting teens with its marketing campaign," argued Winter. "Skins may well be the most dangerous show for children that we have ever seen."

He also claimed that the campaign "makes light of lying to parents" and promotes "harmful, irresponsible, illegal and adult-themed" behaviour. "The trailers we have seen thus far make sexual objects of almost every single one of its characters," he continued. The PTC has previously expressed concern about the show, accusing it of being part of a "sexualisation" of television.

Winter said: "The results from this report show Tinseltown's eagerness to not only objectify and fetishise young girls, but to sexualise them in such a way that real teens are led to believe their sole value comes from their sexuality.

"TV executives have made it their business to profit off of programmes that depict teen girls blissfully being sexualised by casual partners... Clearly there are inherent dangers in having a cultural milieu that accepts and encourages this sexual contradiction of encouraging underage girls to look sexy, yet realising they know very little about what it means to be sexual."

However, the organisation TV Watch, which is backed by a number of networks, said: "Parents understand that all programming is not for all children and, according to polling solely conducted among parents, take seriously their efforts to ensure their children view what is appropriate based on their age, taste and values. What is increasingly difficult to take seriously is a patchwork of studies characterised by vagaries and omissions, apparently intended to raise money because the group has the word 'parents' in its name."
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Spartacus: Gods of the Arena

How Spartacus gets away with the sex and violence
by Michael Giltz, New York Post

Gladiator movies used to be nicknamed "sword and sandal epics." But thanks to Spartacus -- the outrageous TV series on Starz -- they could just as easily be called "sex and violence" epics. The new season begins next month and fans won't have to wait long for beheadings, throat slashings, copious amounts of blood, full-frontal nudity and countless sex scenes between masters and slaves, men and women, and several other combinations as well.

And that's just the first episode.

"That's nothing, mate," says Lucy Lawless, the New Zealander who shot to fame as Xena and also had a major role on the acclaimed Battlestar Galactica reboot. "I'm forbidding my parents to watch."


Really?

"Well, I'd like to -- but unfortunately they're grownups, and I can't really tell them what to do," says Lawless, who plays Lucretia, the wife of the owner of the gladiator school. "But I cringe to think of them watching the prequel."

If her parents do watch, they won't be alone.

The first season of Spartacus was a phenomenon. It told the story of the origin of the gladiator who became famous in the arena and then led a slave rebellion against Rome. It debuted to more than 500,000 viewers -- and then grew. The season finale was seen by more than 1.2 million viewers. It is a rare TV series that more than doubles its debut audience the way Spartacus has.

Apparently, word got out about a TV series that combined the graphic novel coolness of the movie 300 with equally graphic adult content. With the mind-blowing content seen every week, does Starz even have a Standards & Practices department?

"Not the way a network does," laughs creator Stephen S. DeKnight, who credits Joss Whedon of Buffy The Vampire Slayer fame for giving him his big break. "We got a note on episode eight with Segovax [Mike Edward], the very well-endowed gladiator," DeKnight says. "There was a shot in the bathhouse where Spartacus is sitting down and Segovax comes up to talk to him. And the way it was framed, you saw Segovax's endowment before you saw Segovax. And they thought that was a bit much."

Lawless wasn't feeling so bold now that her daughter, Daisy Lawless, is also working on the set. "I say, 'Turn your back for the next 20 minutes, Daisy,' " Lawless says. "It must be really weird to have your mother engage in some shocking behavior." Surprisingly, that shocking behavior hasn't sparked an outcry, though Spartacus is even more violent than the other breakout show of the moment, the brutal zombie fest The Walking Dead.

"Really, I can count on one hand the number of times Starz asked us to snip something out. And usually it was a giant shot of a penis or Spartacus ripping somebody's throat out with his teeth," he laughs. "They give us incredible latitude to tell the story the way we want to. I'm hoping people realize it's not just sex and violence, and we're telling a story. I know Starz was expecting to get a bit of an outcry, but it just never happened."

TV historian Tim Brooks says being on pay cable helps tremendously. "Frontal nudity and extreme violence seem to be the last frontier of specialty channels seeking attention from the mostly upscale viewers who will pay extra for the thrill," says Brooks, the co-author of The Complete Directory to Primetime Network and Cable TV Shows. "You recall that Showtime made a mark some years ago with Queer as Folk, which was pretty racy for its time," says Brooks. "The violence and nudity is generally contained within a serious narrative about historical subjects, like The Tudors. It's hard to attack that without seeming prudish."
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Shameless US S01E01

With her first nude scene to prepare for, actress Emmy Rossum had every incentive to get in shape. The Poseidon star is set to go topless in the U.S. remake of hit British TV show Shameless, which airs in early January. But before she stripped for the cameras the 23-year-old wanted to tone up, and so she hit the gym hard in preparation. "It is my first time being naked on screen so it is definitely a little stressful but I think you just gotta rock whatever God gave you and be proud of it," she told RadarOnline. Naked in HD is even more stressful and one obstacle is Emmy's sweet tooth. "I can't cut out sweets completely, so I just try and do it once a week and hope for the best - hope for good lighting," she admits.

Rossum, who studied at Colombia University, is dating Counting Crows frontman Adam Duritz after divorcing from music executive Justin Siegel last year. In Shameless she plays the unpredictable 18-year-old daughter of William H Macy, who plays the U.S. version of alcoholic patriarch Frank Gallagher. The show was inspired by British writer Paul Abbot's childhood growing up in a working-class family with eight children. For the U.S. version it has been moved to Chicago and set during the current recession, with Emmy's character responsible for keeping her five younger siblings in check.


Television Series: Shameless US (S01E01- preview)
Release Date: January 2011
Actress: Emmy Rossum
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Misfits S02E05

I shagged a monkey...

Television Series: Misfits (S02E05)
Release Date: December 2010
Actress: Lauren Socha and Ruth Negga
Video Clip Credit: Trailblazer

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Any Human Heart S01E03

It's the middle of the night, I wasn't expecting us to meet up like this...

Lydia Wilson, the London-born 26-year-old, plays Logan's son's girlfriend, in Any Human Heart...

Tell us about Monday.

She goes out with Lionel, Logan's son when he comes to New York. She's 16 and has run away from home on the West Coast to live in Greenwich Village and jump on the beatnik bandwagon. My mum's from Greenwich Village and grew up at the same time, so it was a delicious part to research. She told me about living in this almost childlike state of bohemianism, walking around the house naked.

What was most challenging about the role?

Getting into the American way of being. We apologise and use words to mask ourselves, whereas Americans take the time to think what they think and say what they say. That was the hardest thing, making that cultural shift.

What lesson did you take from the novel?

Logan sees a lot of women and breaks hearts, and before doing this I wrote that off as a massive sin. Recently I heard someone say, "If you live long enough, you play all the parts." And that's what this book seems like to me. Logan plays a villain, a hero, a dad, a lover. Seeing it in context, I guess I'll be a bit more generous towards the lotharios I meet in the future… maybe.

What do you do when you're not working?

I play in a few bands. I sing and play the oboe. My initiation was a punk-rock band and I played in an African funk band. I prefer music to acting; it's less embarrassing and you can be yourself.

What's next?

I can see myself doing a synthesis of art and music and acting – it might be performance art.


Television Series: Any Human Heart (S01E03)
Release Date: December 2010
Actress: Lydia Wilson
Video Clip Credit: DeepAtSea
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Misfits S02E04

If you're done being all superhumany, you should come back to bed...

Television Series: Misfits (S02E04)
Release Date: December 2010
Actress: Antonia Thomas
Video Clip Credit: DeepAtSea
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Any Human Heart S01E02

Do you think we've got time for a five minute quickie?

There are plenty of female fans who dreamily think of Matthew Macfadyen when he was in Spooks and still fantasize about rumpling his duvet, but the reality may be more prosaic. At least with his on-screen erotic encounters, according to actress Hayley Atwell, who is seen tossing and turning with Macfadyen in episode two of the TV adaptation of William Boyd’s moving novel Any Human Heart.

She chirrups: "We had to strip but for our love scenes Matthew wore a sort of skin-coloured cloth to protect his modesty and I wore nipple pads which I painted smiley faces on."


Television Series: Any Human Heart (S01E02)
Release Date: November 2010
Actress: Hayley Atwell
Video Clips Credit: Trailblazer












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Misfits S02E03

The big question after the latest episode of Misfits is does Antonia Thomas prefer Alisha with Simon or Curtis? In an interview on the Be Brilliant blog, she pauses for a moment, considering her answer then says: “That’s quite an interesting question.”, stalling for time before continuing, “I prefer Alisha with Simon because, the thing about Curtis is that he is a really nice guy but she can’t be her full self. As she quite grimly puts it: ‘What is this all I get? Wanking myself off in the storeroom?’” She shakes her head at that. “Cringe line.”


Television Series: Misfits (S02E03)
Release Date: November 2010
Actress: Antonia Thomas
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Any Human Heart S01E01

I like to fuck, and then I like to drink gin... and then I feel like fucking again...

Television Series: Any Human Heart (S01E01)
Release Date: November 2010
Actress: Holliday Grainger
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How To Shoot A Sex Scene

The director of 'Love and Other Drugs' tells Newsweek everything you need to know about shooting a sex scene...

Anne Hathaway is generating Oscar buzz for her risky turn in Love and Other Drugs. She plays Maggie, a 20-something with Parkinson's disease. But that's not what makes the role so flashy. It's the flashing. Hathaway goes to a place that few actresses dare to visit anymore: the bedroom.

Whoever said that sex sells must not watch movies. Once upon a time, back in the '70s, we had Last Tango in Paris and Shampoo. This year, Rachel McAdams is fully covered during Morning Glory, as was the entire cast of Valentine's Day. Even the Sex and the City sequel felt chaste, with its setting in Abu Dhabi. By the way, that series originated on TV, where characters are having the best sex ever: True Blood, Boardwalk Empire, Hung, Californication, Cougartown. On Weeds, the actor known as Zack Morris recently got frisky in a bar.


Why are the movies so prudish in comparison? "It's because of the writing," says Edward Zwick, the director of Love and Other Drugs, who also created TV's Thirtysomething and My So-Called Life. "Studio movies are now designed to offend the least number of people possible, to open on 3,000 screens. Blockbusters, superhero movies, graphic novels, those are not about real situations. Sexuality is only interesting when it's real." The sex in Love and Other Drugs actually does feel real: it elevates the film from a standard romantic comedy to a movie for adults. Hathaway falls in love with a pharmaceutical rep played by Jake Gyllenhaal, and their pillow talk is part of their relationship. Newsweek asked Zwick to talk about sex, and how to shoot a sex scene.

If you were teaching a class to film students on how to direct a sex scene, what would you tell them?

I would say the first thing to understand is what not to do. There's a kind of sex scene that's in the spy movie, where the spy meets the hot girl and one thing leads to another and they find themselves in an elegant hotel room. The movie stops. The camera travels lovingly over her body, and you know she's going to get killed in the next reel. There is no reason to show that sexuality, because it has no bearing on the plot.

How do you think of sex onscreen?

Sex is a way of communicating in life. Sex is expression. It should be understood in the context of a story, to be part of the narrative.

How do you direct that?

You understand that the scene has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It has a purpose. In this movie, sex plays an important role in the narrative arc of the characters— they fall into bed long before they fall into love. That was our guide.

Do you and the actors sit down and talk about sex?

We talk about what turns us on and what turns us off. We watch some movies together. On one end of the spectrum is Rock Hudson and Doris Day in Pillow Talk, the other end is Michael Winterbottom's 9 Songs. I think we would look at something by Audiard, The Beat That Skipped My Heart, Last Tango in Paris, Sex and Lucia, some Almodóvar. The Europeans have traditionally been much more casual about sex than we are. How funny that we wouldn't consider sex part of a love story. In my experience, it's a rather central part of anybody's love.

Do the actors improvise?

Sure, we do try to improvise some things.

With their clothes off?

On. But you know, there is always so much you can do in a room, because when you get out to a sound stage and a set, everything is always different. It's colder. There are hundreds of people around you. There is the camera. The challenge is to have the power of concentration to shut that out. Unless you are the most lurid exhibitionist, I don't think having sex in front of other people is much of a turn-on.

What about the legal aspects?

There are conversations early on about what are you going to show in this scene, with lawyers and agents. They want that to be legislated. They prepare documents— pages and pages— but at a certain point it is about trust. I pledge there will be nothing in the film they aren't comfortable with.

Are the actors completely naked?

It depends. There is something called a merkin.

A merkin— what's that?

A merkin is a phrase that I believe comes from 19th-century England. Because of the possibility of lice and crabs, prostitutes would shave their public hair, but then wear something to make it look as if they had pubic hair. That is a merkin.

Is it like a pouch?

It's a patch. Or a pouch. It depends on which gender you're describing.

Where do you buy it?

I don't know. I suppose you go to the merkin store. They're very scanty and flesh-colored. After a certain point, they may have become more trouble than they are worth.

Why?

Sometimes there's a string, or else you get rid of the string and it has to be applied with tape.

Isn't that painful?

Yes. I think it very well is. One might choose not to have the merkin to not have the tape experience!
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Lip Service S01E01

Great LezBritain: Interview with Ruta Gedmintas from Lip Service

When we first went onto the Lip Service set, we cannot tell a lie, it was Ruta Gedmintas that first caught our eye. We can thank series creator, Harriet Braun for suggesting the frankly delicious haircut, but we must give her parents and genetics a massive high five for the rest.

Our interview with Ruta took place during filming back in December last year. In person, she was intense, thoughtful and extremely articulate. She talked passionately about the show and had obviously spent a lot of time studying and coming to grips with the role of Frankie.

Since the first episode aired, two things have been made clear to us; Frankie is undoubtedly the most divisive character on the show and many of you would like to have your wicked way with her. We talked to Ruta about how she got the role, the Shane comparisons, and whom in the cast she admitted to having a crush on.


AfterEllen.com: From what we have seen, Frankie is a character that will be a bit of a love/hate figure — isn't that a great character to play?
Ruta Gedmintas: Yes, definitely and I was given a bit of a licence to develop the character. Harriet (Braun) gave me the general archetype of who Frankie is and [said] I could go off and play with it, but the scripts have been great, so I have moulded to them, and they have to me.

She is someone who is very strong minded, independent and loyal to her friends but she takes a lot of risks and is a bit messed up – which, all in all, makes her a fun character to play.

AE: What was the casting process like and how did you find out you had the role?
RG: I was in Bulgaria shooting a horror movie when I was sent the script, so I was reading it in between takes of screaming while covered in blood.

It's not often — especially with the current lack of funding going into the arts — that you read a new script that catches your interest, but as soon as I read Lip Service, I thought it was really good. And when I read the breakdown for Frankie, I was like, "I can do that."

I think I went straight to the plane to the auditions, blood encrusted, and I was feeling really ill. I went to the audition and really loved everyone in the room. I had a four-hour recall where I read for lots of other people. I think, in the end, I found out about getting the part through a friend of mine texting me to say, "Well done," and I was so happy because it's such an amazing part.

AE: Did you have any qualms about Frankie being a bisexual character?
RG: No, it would be the same way I would tackle any other script. Her being bisexual is just another trait of Frankie, I didn't think, "Oh, I'm doing a lesbian show." It was about playing the part of Frankie.

AE: I have seen the pictures of you before Lip Service and the way you look now is pretty different. Tell me a bit about the makeover.
RG: [laughs] Well, I had really long blond hair before and then they cut it off short.

AE: Do you like it?
RG: I do. I really like it. I see pictures of my long hair before and I think, "What was I doing?" I kind of think it didn't really suit me and when Harriet saw me in the auditions, she told me that she was relishing the fact that my hair was going to go. [both laugh] It was quite nice having an excuse to do it because as an actress, you always want to be quite malleable and for people to see you in a variety of ways, and if you have long hair, they can do a lot with that. That's why actresses tend to have long hair. But I love it and I don't really want to go back now.

AE: The whole styling of Frankie is really spot-on and you must realise that she has the potential to become a massive lesbian favourite — do you feel prepared for that?
RG: I don't know. Harriet has said that to me before, but we will see. The styling has been fun and Leslie the costume designer is great. We have shared a lot of similar ideas on how Frankie should look and just added a few quirks here and there. Leslie is great because she is willing to work with the story as well. Frankie's storyline gets a lot darker towards the end of the series, so we've taken that through into the colours I wear as well.

AE: Frankie is already being compared to the character of Shane in The L Word. Do you see the similarities and what would you say are the biggest differences are between the characters?
RG: There is an archetypal similarity between [Frankie and Shane] in that androgynous, boyish, cool kind of thing, so we are obviously going to have comparisons drawn between us. Frankie uses sex as escapism and as a means of control, which I guess Shane used as well. And there is the short haircut but I think that is as far as the similarity goes. Frankie is a lot darker than Shane is. And Shane is seen by her friends as very trendy and doesn't really put a foot wrong with them, whereas Frankie kind of tests boundaries a lot more than Shane did.

I think the big difference between The L Word and Lip Service is that The L Word kind of tackles major lesbian issues, whereas this show is about three lesbians living in Glasgow and just their general lives. And obviously, it's not quite as glitzy as LA – they don't have the money.

AE: Is there anything you had to do to get yourself in the mindset of playing Frankie?
RG: At our first costume fitting, the director gave us a guide to lesbian sex, and told us all to read the book cover-to-cover. I started reading it on the plane on the way back from Glasgow and I didn't realise there were pictures the whole way through it. I was flying with a granny on one side of me and a little kid on the other, and just flicking through it. I opened it at a page with a massive picture of a woman with nipple clamps on and saying, "Oh sorry. This is for work."

In terms of getting into Frankie's character, I approached it the same way I do with every character. I look at images and play music and I read stuff about the kinds of things they have gone through and are going through. I have a Frankie mood board that has everything that is inspirational to me, and I have a Frankie playlist on my iPod that I listened to everyday during filming.

AE: What's on that playlist?
RG: There is one track that is the "Frankie track" but I want to keep that just for me. But if I have to be really loud and a bit lairy, then I'll listen to The Black Eyed Peas. If I have to be sexy, I listen to something like Peaches, and if I have to be really emotional, then there's a lot of Damien Rice and stuff like that. It's just using stuff that I think will help me relate to where Frankie is.

AE: You have a lot of sex scenes. Were you nervous about doing these?
RG: There is always a bit of nerves when doing it. It is such a cliché thing to say but they are the unsexiest of things when you are filming them. The sex scenes were probably the biggest challenge for me because Frankie is quite a predator and so she has to be extremely confident, which is difficult when you are naked in a room full of people.

AE: How was filming those sex scenes in the Glasgow weather?
RG: The flat we have been filming in for the past three weeks has been freezing — an absolute freezer. So that has been interesting trying to pretend that you are really warm and sensual but you're actually in an icebox.

AE: How are all the cast getting on?
RG: We have been really lucky with the cast. I kind of went onto set thinking, "Oh God, a bunch of females. There could be bitching," but actually, it has been lovely. Everyone is so nice and you can actually see why everyone has been cast in their parts.

AE: Have you been out and about much together?
RG: I think I have been out, at the most, three times in three months, just because my schedule has been really crazy. I have been working everyday and if I ever get a day off, I think "Brilliant, a day off. I can learn lines."

We did have the wrap party a few days ago and you could tell that none of us had been out much as we were all, "Yeah, sambuca!" but that has been pretty much it.

AE: What do you hope happens from Lip Service?
RG: I haven't really thought about it, but I just hope people think it's a good show. I don't like watching myself but I will because I think it is the only way to learn. But I won't watch it with other people. I'll be in a darkened room watching from between my fingers and I will probably hate everything I do. But I do want to see it. I would like to see everyone else's performances as well.

We saw a cut together at the wrap party and just seeing Fiona Button do her scenes, I felt like a proud mum — she is so good.

AE: Apart from Lip Service, have you got anything else in production?
RG: I have the horror movie I mentioned, Prowl, that comes out in April. I did another indie film in New York at the beginning of the year called Zero Sun but I am not sure when that is out. Other than that, I am off to LA for a few meetings and a bit of a holiday. I go every year and always stay in Venice. I think it is kind of like Camden in LA.

AE: Lastly, have you ever had a girl crush?
RG: I have always had a crush on Angelina Jolie. I think she's beautiful, plus I've developed a bit of a crush on Heather [Peace.] I think she's so cool and beautiful.

Television Series: Lip Service (S01E01- In Cold Blood)
Release Date: October 2010
Actress: Ruta Gedmintas & India Wadsworth
Video Clip Credit: In The Raw










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New BBC3 Drama Does More Than Pay Lip Service

More This Life than Queer As Folk, and with less baggage than The L Word, BBC3's Lip Service follows five lesbian friends in Glasgo, writes Rebecca Nicholson...

Lip Service isn't the world's first drama about lesbians – that accolade belongs to The L Word, which finished after six series in 2009 – but it is the first that Britain can claim as its own. The show's grey and drizzly Glasgow setting differentiates it from The L Word's sunny Californian sheen as does its sense of humour. And unlike its Los Angeles cousin, it's not driven by issues: there's no co-parenting, no gender transitioning, no horrific tales of coming out gone sour, and no killer cancers to educate the viewers with. It operates on the basis that gay women being gay isn't really a story at all, but that love and heartbreak, friendship and betrayal, crap jobs and worse bosses happen to everyone, even though the sex bits might not always be the same. There's a mystery to unravel, lots of lounging around in bars and warehouse flats, and enough full-on sex to get it a 10.30pm timeslot; all of which makes it more of a This Life-style late-twentysomething angstathon about the ups and downs of the everyday, with added bra hooks, candles and feelings.


Writer Harriet Braun, who cut her teeth on dotcom drama Attachments and later Mistresses, had the idea for the show three years ago. "I'd seen a film called Go Fish, and Queer As Folk years ago," she says, "and been really inspired and excited by them. I thought I'd love to do something like that."

Though she admits that The L Word "paved the way", she thinks a Lip Service-style show wasn't possible until now because there wasn't anyone around with the knowhow. "There has to be the writer with the desire to do it," she says, "and a knowledge of that culture." There were several things Braun wanted to avoid in Lip Service, such as the characters being too "glossy", feeling the need to represent everyone, and showing characters struggling with coming out. She reels off a checklist of her ambitions for Lip Service: "Lesbians are under-represented on TV. I thought it was high time we had some on our screens. I wanted to show characters who happen to be gay, but their sexuality is completely part of their lives. I also wanted it to feel very real. And funny; some of our most painful moments tend to be the most absurd, and retrospectively, very funny."

The Lip Service gang gets its fair share of laughs, particularly Tess, played goofily by Fiona Button, who disastrously gets off with a Christine Bleakley-style TV presenter (Roxanne McKee, previously known as wobbly drunk/murderess Louise from Hollyoaks). But the heart of the show is the swaggering Frankie, who kicks off the series by returning from her hipster photographer life in New York to deal with a family death, encountering still-bruised ex Cat (Laura Fraser), sleazy best mate Jay (Emun Elliott) and many conquests along the way. The first episode does little more than set her up as the Moody One, though the subsequent story takes the show in a more mysterious and thoughtful direction. Braun says she had assumed casting Frankie would be difficult. "We needed to find an actress who could carry off androgyny, cockiness and confidence," she says. "I was thinking, 'Where are we going to find this person?' Then Ruta Gedmintas walked in the room."

A few days later, we meet Gedmintas in a posh central London hotel and recount Braun's tale. "When I read the breakdown for Frankie, I thought, 'This is brilliant, I'm never going to get it,'" she says, surprised. Her biggest role up until that point had been Elizabeth Blount in The Tudors (she's currently on a break from filming in Budapest, where she's squeezing into another corset for Showtime's series The Borgias). Ruta thought it might be a stretch, then, to imagine her as a scruffy lady lothario. "Frankie's really edgy and dark, and that wasn't really what I'd been cast as before. Plus, at the time, I had this big, long, glamorous blonde hair. I went into the audition straight off a plane, tired from a horror film I'd been making, like, 'OK, whatever, I'll just do it.'" And is that what made it work? "It was obviously Frankie to them."

The Lip Service shoot took place over "three or four months" in Glasgow last winter, and for Gedmintas it was an intense experience. "After a while I became a bit insane," she admits, saying she stayed in character for almost the whole duration, which didn't help much. "It was … dark. I had to call up my mum and say, 'Can you talk to me like a human being?'" Then there's the fact that the glamorous-looking loft spaces the characters inhabit were actually old post offices and warehouses. In Glasgow. In winter. "There are quite a few scenes where you can see the mist," she smiles. "When we had any sex scenes, it was warm coats until the last second, then pretending you're in this intimate moment."

She must have risked hypothermia, because there's a lot of sex in the show, and lucky Frankie gets most of it. "I'm actually really strict on when I do nudity," Gedmintas protests. "There have been jobs before where I've thought, 'I don't think there's really a need for that scene, so I won't do it.' For this, there was no question. You needed all those scenes. That's who Frankie is."

Writer Braun is similarly happy with the frequent and frank sex scenes. "It didn't seem like the kind of show where we'd go for a cutaway," she says. "It would be a bit naff. Also, let's face it, the internet is saturated with images of lesbians having sex but they're not very realistic. We wanted to get it right: a realistic representation of two women enjoying being with each other."

It's perhaps for this reason that Lip Service is being called groundbreaking, particularly by the gay press. Not that Gedmintas agrees. "Queer As Folk had a groundbreaking status because there hadn't been a show like that before. But we're not trying to do anything that hasn't been done before. We're just making a relationship drama." She's got a point: it's not groundbreaking, and that's no bad thing. Skins had first love; Tipping The Velvet had social history; even Corrie's got teens coming out. Lip Service is just about the ordinary, day-to-day business of lust and being in love. With added lady parts.
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Hollywood's Most Private Accessory

Sunday night’s premiere episode of Boardwalk Empire, Martin Scorsese’s new HBO series, featured two scenes that included female frontal nudity, in which the women— one a cadaver, the other Steve Buscemi’s lover— displayed fully forested pudenda. The look was in keeping with the show’s Prohibition-era aesthetics; the ladies of 1920s Atlantic City would not have been bare courtesy of a Brazilian, writes Claire Howorth. But actresses living in today’s world of landing strips and the J-Sisters (the infamous aestheticians who render total baldness) can’t be expected to get all that hair down there naturally. Instead, they can use one of Hollywood’s oft-employed but little-celebrated wardrobe items: the merkin, or pubic wig.

Nicki Ledermann, Boardwalk Empire’s makeup director, confirms that a merkin was used on the dead body in the mortuary, though the living lover’s hair was apparently real. “The first thing I thought when I read the script and saw ‘naked cadaver’ was, merkin! Merkin!” said Ledermann, who has worked on other inguina, including Gretchen Mol’s in The Notorious Bettie Page (in which no merkin was used).


After discussions with Scorsese, Ledermann decided that most of Boardwalk Empire’s frontal-nudity scenes would need to involve merkins “to keep it real,” since “nobody really has hair anymore.” Actresses frequently have contracts that stipulate raises if they must wear prosthetic vulva fur, but “they’re usually amused by it,” said Ledermann.

Boardwalk Empire’s cast members are hardly the pioneers of nether-wigs. Jake Gyllenhaal recently told Jimmy Kimmel that his sex scenes with Anne Hathaway in Love and Other Drugs were bare-bodied, save a couple of merkins; Kate Winslet told Allure she wore one for her Oscar-winning role in The Reader, unable to fully grow out her own hair; and Gawker had a field day with Sienna Miller’s au naturel appearance in the yet-to-be-released Hippie Hippie Shake.

“There are different qualities of merkins,” said Rhonda Thaut, vice president of sales and marketing for World of Wigs, a Los Angeles-based wig supplier whose vast inventory of hair products includes ready-to-wear and custom merkins. “However, most merkins are made from various forms of lace, ranging from low-end mesh to high-end French silk lace. Most clients prefer it to be made with human hair [from the head]. The hair is treated to give it a kinky (no pun intended) texture, so it resembles pubic hair. Each hair is hand-tied to the lace.”

To fit and attach a “postiche”— as merkins are sometimes called, though the word is a catch-all term for any hairpiece— the area must be completely shaved. Then, the merkin is applied with an adhesive; Ledermann uses a matte substance by Telesis. Other people use spirit gum, an old-fashioned concoction of alcohol (the spirit) and resin (the gum), but Thaut stressed caution: “Do not cheap out on the specially designed adhesive for merkins!” She then related an anecdote involving industrial glue and pelvic burns.

Thaut, whose company is under contract not to name the films or costume designers it supplies, explained that there are even reverse-merkins: polyurethane made to look like skin and cover up existing pubic hair. World of Wigs sells ready-made merkins for $36 but can custom-create pieces that cost hundreds of dollars, depending on the materials. Ledermann has merkins for her projects custom-made; her good friend Amanda Miller, a New York City-based wig-maker, designed the Boardwalk Empire merkin, which actually had to be trimmed prior to filming.

Those readers who already knew what a merkin is probably find it hard to imagine that anyone can not know about it; the truth, according to an admittedly unscientific poll, is that most people do not know what a merkin is, despite its 400-plus-year existence. The intimate toupée’s original purpose was to disguise the symptoms of genital-disfiguring diseases of the Middle Ages, like syphilis.

Perhaps merkin awareness is growing as more actors are mentioning their unmentionables. Heidi Klum has gone on the record about her merkin in the 2001 film Blow Dry; Jane Krakowski claims she will donate her hair to “Merkins for Hope” on an episode of 30 Rock. The writer Daphne Merkin, who has covered ribald territory herself, proved just how game she is when contacted for this article. “One thing I’ve noticed is the widening scope of those who know what the word means,” said Merkin. “When I was in my twenties, the only people who understood the word’s sexual/erotic implications were a boy from my high-school class and my Shakespeare teacher at Columbia.”

It would make sense that Merkin’s Shakespeare professor knew the word, given that it has been in use since that era. Wikipedia’s completely unsourced and error-riddled entry says, incorrectly, that William Shakespeare used the word in The Winter’s Tale. Georgianna Ziegler, head of reference at the Folger Shakespeare Library, located only the root word, “malkin,” and not in The Winter’s Tale, but in Coriolanus (circa 1605-1608) and Pericles, Prince of Tyre (circa 1607). “Malkin,” Ziegler clarified, “was a low Scots reference to the female pudend from about 1540. This is from Partridge’s Dictionary of Slang. ‘Malkin trash’ was ‘a person dismally dressed,’ from about the late 1600s to the early 1800s.” Commentator Michelle Malkin did not respond to request for comment.
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Helfen sie Mir

Street parties and firework displays greeted Lena Meyer-Landrut's Eurovision triumph, her country's first since 1982. Germany was said to be in frenzied "Lenamania" yesterday as the nation celebrated its first Eurovision Song Contest win in almost 30 years with the song "Satellite" – a hit sung in rather mangled English by the sweet and self-effacing 19-year-old. The school student was unknown a year ago and completed the German equivalent of A-levels while rehearsing for the contest.

"Lovely Lena", as she is now almost universally nicknamed, was discovered on a television casting show late last year. Millions of television viewers followed her progress in Oslo together with tens of thousands of Germans who watched the contest broadcast on video screens in town squares and at other outdoor venues. The Bild am Sonntag newspaper caught the prevailing mood with a front-page headline which seemed to allude to the Euro crisis. "Europe likes us after all!" the paper proclaimed after Lena won by dint of 76 points supplied by viewers in European countries outside Germany.

Her win is the first Eurovision victory for Germany in 28 years. Back in 1982, the contest was won by the pious-looking "Nicole" with her song "Ein bisschen Frieden" ("A Little Peace"), which came out at the height of the then-West German peace movement's protests against the deployment of US cruise missiles in Germany. In a statement, Chancellor Angela Merkel congratulated Germany's latest pop heroine on her "super success" in Oslo. "With her naturalness and warmth, she is a wonderful example of young Germany," Ms Merkel added.

Yet it had been a different story back in May when Meyer-Landrut came under fire for what some in the media called "nude pictures" of her. In fact, the singer, who says she always wanted to be an actress, appeared in a docu-drama sitting in a pool with a young man and viewers get a glimpse of her chest. Interviewed about it, Meyer-Landrut simply told German reporters that it was just a role she played. "I was acting and that means it was not my privacy. Give me one reason why I should be upset about this. In our family we have always said: today's newspaper is used to wrap the fish in tomorrow."

The footage has been repeatedly shown on German TV by RTL, and her 19 year old co-star Nicolas remembers filming the scene that wowed his jealous classmates: “Lena came to me with open arms and said, ‘come on, we’ll just simply do it!’” And then the pair jumped naked into the pool for the programme ‘Helfen sie mir’, sharing a passionate kiss. “Lena has very soft lips and was really working flat out," smiles Nicholas. "We tried to be as professional as possible.” For half a night, between midnight and 6am, the young actor kissed the hot star. “We shot the kissing scene three times, during which we were completely naked,” Nicolas said. “We did not know each other before the shoot, but we got along well. Lena and I were both single, as far as I know. We wanted to exchange numbers at the airport, but it didn’t work out.”

What little the Germans knew about Meyer-Landrut until recently can be summed up in a few sentences. Her grandfather was the head of the Office of the Federal President under Richard von Weizsäcker, who was the president of Germany between 1984 to 1994, as well as the German ambassador to Moscow. Little is known about her parents: She mentions her mother often but never her father. She is an only child and she is far-sighted. She doesn't play any musical instruments and she cannot read music. The subjects in which she will sit exams are biology, history and sports. She has a tattoo on her left, inner arm, and she is smaller in real life than she appears on television. She's an average German girl, apparently. And when reporters ask her friends about her, the answer is often: "She's a bit of a nutter."

There are another couple of suppositions one could add. One might imagine that the mother of a teenage girl who was about to graduate from high school would not be completely overjoyed when her only child came to her, out of the blue, and told her, shortly before final school leaving exams, that she was going to be a contestant on a major international television show. "And I really want to do it." The fact that Meyer-Landrut didn't even tell her friends that she had entered the contest is also interesting. She says it is because she wanted to avoid silly comments. But it also indicates that she is someone who was self-aware enough to make a decision like this without consulting anyone else.

A not inconsiderable part of Meyer-Landrut's charm also comes from the fact that she prefers not to answer questions about her private life. "It's about the music," she replies in these instances. "I am sitting here because I won the show, 'Our Star For Oslo.' And members of my family have nothing to do with that. Anyway, my life is totally boring."

Meyer-Landrut is a funny sort of a star. She took ballet lessons as a child but when she dances on stage she looks more like rock musician Joe Cocker than a ballerina. Her voice makes an impression but it seems uncontrolled. One of the many "Lena moments" during the program in which she competed to go to Oslo came when the host asked her about her breathing technique while singing. Her succinct answer: "I don't have one."

"You can't make a star like Lena, you have to find them," says Frank Briegmann, the head of Universal Music in Germany, one of the most powerful executives in the country's music industry. "You can outline specifications, in that you can say, we want artists who are authentic, who have their own ideas, who don't fit into a (tight) corset. So you communicate that and you hope that these kinds of artists turn up. And after that you take care of them."

And along came Meyer-Landrut -- with her homemade English accent (she has never been to England), her turns of phrase, now known among fans as Lena-isms, with the enthusiasm with which she sang and with all these funny little quirks that saw her chattering her way into her audience's heart. "This definitely was not to be expected," she declared after winning the contest. "I am just shattered. I just can't believe it," she added. "Do I really have to sing it again?" she asked as the German flag was thrust into her hand on stage in Oslo as her victory was announced.


Television Series: Helfen sie Mir
Actress: Lena Meyer-Landrut
Video Clip Credit: Red-Devil



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Starz greenlights Spartacus prequel

Don't put away the swords just yet. As suggested last month, Starz has ordered a six-part prequel to its original series Spartacus: Blood and Sand, the network announced Tuesday. Andy Whitfield, who starred as the title character in the original series, will resume his role briefly in the prequel; the actor has been battling non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. But this time around, social climbers Lucretia (Lucy Lawless) and Batiatus (John Hannah) get the Roman treatment in the story about the rise of the House of Batiatus and its gladiators before the arrival of Spartacus as a slave.

"The prequel story maintains the excitement and entertainment value of the first season of ‘Spartacus,’ giving audiences the engaging experience they’ve come to expect," said Starz President and Chief Executive Chris Albrecht in a statement. "Fortunately, Andy is responding to his treatments, and will be able to be part of this prequel in a limited capacity. As soon as he’s able, we look forward to continuing the Spartacus story."

Other returning actors include Peter Mensah (Doctore), Manu Bennett (Crixus), Antonio Te Maioho (Barca), Nick E. Tarabay (Ashur), Lesley-Ann Brandt (Naevia), among others. New characters join the mix, including the gladiator who preceded Spartacus and Crixus at the House of Batiatus.

Production for the untitled prequel will begin this summer in New Zealand and is scheduled to air in January. A second season of Spartacus: Blood and Sand, which was on hold due to Whitfield's illness, is expected to continue where it left off after the airing of the prequel.

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Soft-core porn still hot stuff on cable TV

Late-night programming on HBO, Showtime and Cinemax has flourished by featuring cheap-to-produce nude romps, and now cable's mainstream shows are stepping up the sex...
By Jon Weinbach, Los Angeles Times

There's one sector of the entertainment industry that has not been roiled by the Internet, the economy or ever-changing consumer tastes. Say hello to Hollywood's most stable business: Soft-core pornography.

The oft-mocked genre, which has given the world such memorable fare as "Witches of Breastwick" and "Tarzeena: Jiggle in the Jungle," is more visible — and valuable — than ever, even at a time when hard-core adult entertainment is easily accessible on every media device. Premium-cable TV networks such as HBO, Showtime and Cinemax — the channel nicknamed "Skin-emax" for its preponderance of sexy programming — continue to fill their late-night schedules with low-budget, nudity-filled films, and the adoption of video-on-demand and pay-per-view services has given soft-core content wider play. Several of the premium channels offer prominently displayed inventories of erotic entertainment via VOD, where there's no shortage of choices in the "After Hours" or "Midnight Movies" sections.

Soft-core porn "just keeps going, like a cockroach — you can't kill it," says Marc Greenberg, the 63-year-old founder of MRG Entertainment, the Santa Monica company that's one of the top producers of so-called "soft erotics," the industry term for toned-down pornography. MRG supplies between seven and 15 films a year to Showtime and a handful of movies to Cinemax, for whom it also produces "Co-Ed Confidential," a 13-episode, college-themed sex series that's now in its fourth season. "You're more likely to get your wife to watch my show — it's not so in-your-face," says Greenberg.

At the same time, premium channels have been upping the skin factor on their higher-profile, higher-brow series. Shows such as HBO's True Blood, which debuts its third season next month, and Showtime's The Tudors and Diary of a Call Girl all showcase fairly graphic sex scenes that are often as explicit as what you would see in an R-rated movie in theaters. In one memorable scene from the first season of Showtime's Emmy-nominated Californication, which stars David Duchovny as a lothario novelist living in Venice, his character engages in a ménage à trois with his agent, played by Evan Handler, and a beautiful 20-something woman. The romp climaxes just as their ex-wives walk in the door.


It's no secret, of course, that sex sells, and cheesy erotic content has been a constant on cable TV since its early days, long before premium networks expanded into multichannel behemoths. Showtime, for example, now offers eight channels on its "multiplex" package, including Showtime Women, a female-targeted channel that does not show soft porn.

All of the premium channels will air films that are rated X by the Motion Picture Assn. of America, but they also adhere to certain self-imposed guidelines when it comes to sexy material. In general, cable channels won't show full male frontal nudity or extended close-up shots of female private parts. "Our producers know where the lines are," says Susan Ennis, executive vice-president of program planning for HBO Networks, which owns Cinemax.

Erotic entertainment "is a staple of [Cinemax's] brand, it's in our DNA, we're not running away from it," Ennis says..

Cinemax's volume of soft porn has been steady for the last five years, and it continues to roll out one new sex-themed series per quarter, with the most recent being the second season of "Zane's Sex Chronicles," based on a bestselling series of erotic short stories written by Zane, the pen name of a female African American author from the Washington, D.C., area.

Across all platforms, the series, which follows the romantic adventures of a group of professional women, attracts about 1.4 million viewers per episode, according to the network, which has nearly 12 million subscribers. "I don't think that sexuality should be separated from the rest of life — it can be fun, it can be painful, it can be kinky and it can be entertaining in a tasteful way," says the 43-year-old author known as Zane, who writes all the scripts for the series and is its executive producer. Adds Ennis: "We know our viewers embrace this kind of content."

That content is particularly conspicuous now on VOD, which has unshackled soft-core from the boundaries of late-night. On Cinemax, erotic films and shows — what it calls "After Dark" content — make up just 8% of the channel's over-the-air schedule. But when it comes to VOD, nearly 20% of Cinemax's inventory is devoted to erotic entertainment, and 15% of the channel's overall on-demand orders are for "After Dark" programs.

Ironically, the proliferation of hard-core porn in recent years seems to have made the softer stuff more appealing — or at least more palatable — to a wider audience, particularly among women, according to industry observers. While women who are now in their 20s and 30s have grown up in an era when adult entertainment has become increasingly mainstream and sex tapes helped launch the careers of celebrities such as Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton, many of them are still uncomfortable watching all-out porn, even if it's in the company of a partner.

In contrast to hard-core pornography, which depicts full male nudity and actual sex, soft-core sex is more simulated than real, and the films usually attempt to have coherent storylines and dialogue. Many of the soft-core TV series also center around a female character, such as the madam in "Beverly Hills Bordello," a longtime cable-TV staple, or the pair of sisters — one a recent college graduate, the other an erotic model — who are the leads in "Life on Top," a Cinemax series that debuted last year. But while soft-core content may be less graphic than a Jenna Jameson film, it does not aspire to high art.

"There's nothing creative about this — you're going to see sex in the first minute and you're going to see sex every seven or eight minutes after that," says Greenberg.
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The Tudors S04E05

The life is very beautiful...

Lord Hertford’s investigation into allegations of the Queen’s infidelities moves with speed. Deeply upset by revelations of his beloved young wife’s sexual past, Henry weeps. But once adultery is uncovered, his response is swift and decisive... and Tamzin Merchant's skintastic shift on Tudors draws to a probable close. Next up... Joely Richardson as Catherine Parr.


Television Series: Tudors (S04E05)
Release Date: May 2010
Actress: Tamzin Merchant
Video Clip Credit: DeepAtSea
Video Clip Info: [DIVX at 3068kbps; 1280x720; 17mb for 45s]



http://rapidshare.com/files/385548841/Tamzin_Merchant_-_TT0405720p_by_DeepAtSea.zip
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MTV skins up

Deadline are reporting that MTV has picked up Skins to series. The cable network has ordered 10 episodes for a U.S. version of the raunchy U.K. teen series, which has been a passion project of MTV’s senior vp series development Liz Gateley. The series is being eyed for a January launch. MTV ordered a pilot for Skins in August after Gateley pursued the rights to the British format for almost two years. Bryan Elsley, co-creator of the original series, wrote the pilot. He is executive producing the project with Charlie Pattinson and George Faber. E1 is producing the series with Company Pictures and Stormdog, the companies behind the original series.

In much the same fashion to the successful UK series, the remake will feature previously unknown teenagers as the main cast and use young writers to pen the scripts. The series will be set in Baltimore and several name changes will take place for the characters with Cassie changing to Cadie, Jal to Cho, Side to Stanley, Abigail to Tabitha, Anwar switching to Abbud and Maxxie changing to a Hispanic character named Teo.

Gateley is ecstatic to have finally secured a US version. “Skins is one of those rare shows that cuts through to its core audience with unusually authentic stories due to the unique writing and casting process that Bryan pioneered. Having personally pursued the U.K. project for almost two years, I am beyond thrilled to bring it to MTV in the U.S. We intend to preserve the authenticity of the British version and are excited to collaborate with the original team to develop stories that will speak to American youth.”

Skins is one of two high-profile scripted pilots MTV ordered, along with Teen Wolf. A series pickup for Teen Wolf is still pending, contingent on closing the deal with rights holder MGM.

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Doctor Who S05E06

Blimey, fish from space have never been so buxom...

Television Series: Doctor (S05E06- Vampires of Venice)
Release Date: May 2010
Actress: Karen Gillan
Video Clip Credit: ddandd



http://www.multiupload.com/Q2TMRE5NID
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Party Down S02E03

I'm just another grain of sand on that endless fucking beach...

Orgies rarely work out the way we intend them to. Especially catered orgies. That’s the takeaway from this week’s delightfully silly, profoundly dirty episode of Party Down. There were topless servers forced to carry trays of condoms and lube, a very complicated lesson on how to successfully deliver a body shot (as well as detailed demonstration of how not to do it), talk of a goldfish that sounds like a sheep, and more of Rebecca Marshall's bare boobs than anyone outside of Mr. Marshall could ever dream of.

Speaking of which, Kyle recognizes the above-mentioned shirtless condom-distributing girl even underneath her bird mask (he thinks maybe it’s an "ibis") and makes the colossally clueless decision to both hit on her and brag about his recently released on DVD (only in Asia) movie Jumping Boys. Her withering put-downs and observations about their current station in life actually manage to pierce Kyle’s well-coiffed skull — they are both working at an orgy, for god’s sake! and not a particularly good one! — leading him into dangerous Ron territory, downing shots and questioning the meaning of it all.


Television Series: Party Down (S02E03)
Release Date: May 2010
Actress: Rebecca Marshall
Video Clip Credit: DeepAtSea
Video Clip Info: [DIVX at 2400kbps; 1280x720; 25mb for 1mn22s]



http://rapidshare.com/files/384878165/Rebecca_Marshall-_PD0203720p.deepatseacelebrities.blogspot.com.zip
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Entourage gets the Sasha Grey experience

Adrian Grenier will have his hands full on Entourage with porn star Sasha Grey. The X-rated actress, playing herself, meets Grenier's Vince Chase in a bar in the fifth episode and sticks around for the rest of next season and possibly longer. Grey is going to play the role of Vince's new long-term girlfriend, meaning her character is major to the show. "I think they're going to have a very interesting relationship," show creator Doug Ellin quipped.

The plot was inspired by Charlie Sheen's affair with Ginger Lynn in the late '90s. "You can't believe she's a porn star when you meet her," Grenier told TV Guide. Grey already went mainstream when she starred in Steven Soderbergh's The Girlfriend Experience last year. "I think Sasha’s going to have a very successful transition," says Ellin. Further, he explained, "Sasha’s the biggest porn star in the world right now, and when Soderbergh casts her as the lead of his movie, I take notice. I wouldn’t have done this storyline if Sasha passed. Luckily she was okay with doing it."

While the male cast members reportedly agreed unanimously with the casting decision, Grey was the only adult movie star ever considered for it. What's more, she does have some television experience... sort of. The seductress anchored several X-rated DVD spoofs of hit shows, such as Seinfeld: A XXX Parody, Not Bewitched and Sasha Grey’s Anatomy. Grey is one of several celebrity guest stars to feature in the new season. Others include Eminem and New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees. The seventh season of Entourage premieres June 27 on HBO.

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The Tudors S04E04

Whitehall Palace, London 1540. Thirty years into the reign of King Henry VIII and it’s been a long, hot, summer: London is experiencing intense heat and there has been no rain for two months. But while his subjects wilt, the King’s vigor remains undiminished. The Reformation goes on and Henry has married the beautiful Katherine Howard, who is a mere seventeen years old. Katherine is different from earlier wives in more ways than age: far from being nobility she was ‘discovered’ by some of the King’s friends in a boarding house for wayward young ladies. Joan Bulmer, the new Queen’s best friend from her youth, is hired as a lady in waiting; aside from her friendship she knows too much scandalous detail about Katherine’s sexual past to be outside the court.

In this episode British newcomer Tamzin Merchant continues to heat things up as Henry's doomed fifth wife. The Queen’s ‘low’ background combined with her youth and beauty, arouses a lusty familiarity in certain members of Henry’s court. Most notably the King’s handsome and ambitious new groom Thomas Culpepper, who makes no secret of his desire for the new Queen during an extended hunting trip visit by the royal entourage. Before heading over the jump to view Ms Merchant's latest bout of clothes shedding, did you know she is also a published poet? Yeah, neither did we until spotting this poem the actress wrote for Platforms Magazine, entitled "Ode To A Toilet." The multi-talented actress is also an accomplished pianist, former model and now currently studying at Cambridge University, after deferring university twice due to her other commitments.

Ode To A Toilet

I’ve never failed to notice how
Loos are generally excluded
From literature and suchlike,
And so I have concluded:

In general, as a Nation, we
Refrain from using ‘poo’ or ‘pee’
As a legitimate and pressing plight
For characters to exit downstage right

For when did Superman ever say
“Just a sec, love, don’t go away,
Hang on that ledge another mo
Coz when you gotta go, you gotta go!”

Likewise, Shakespeare never proclaim’d
“The human psyche is thus maim’d,
When one hath many things to do,
One always just pops to the loo.”

Caesar never said during orations
“Hang on there, plebs, hold your stations
Your imperial highness will be back in a bit
But just right now, I’m off to the Pit.”

Harry Potter and Friends don’t have time to poo,
Cos they’re always fighting You-Know-Who
They’re far too busy with that three-headed dog
To have time to pay a visit to the Bog.

And Frankenstein’s creature (so people thought)
Was never (lucky sod) caught short.
And so yours truly writes in conclusion:
There is a good deal of toilet confusion

Don’t be deceived by the characters you see
(From the Frodos to the Captain Cooks)
And here’s some advice to you from me:
Don’t believe everything you read in books.

Television Series: Tudors (S04E04)
Release Date: May 2010
Actress: Tamzin Merchant
Video Clip Credit: DeepAtSea
Video Clip Info: [DIVX at 3100kbps; 1280x720; 24mb for 1mn01s]



http://rapidshare.com/files/382988212/Tamzin_Merchant_-_TT0404720p.deepatseacelebrities.blogspot.com.zip
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The Pacific S01E08

You didn’t do anything a million other guys haven’t done. You just did it in a nicer room...

Television Series: The Pacific (S01E08- Iwo Jima)
Release Date: May 2010
Actress: Annie Parisse
Video Clip Credit: DeepAtSea
Video Clip Info: [DivX5 at 1500 Kbps; 1280 x 720; 11mb for 55 secs]



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Doctor Who S05E05

I don't know why, I have no idea, but quite possibly the single most important thing in the history of the universe is that I get you sorted out right now...

The BBC has received a number of complaints about the latest episode of Doctor Who. According to the Daily Mail, 43 people contacted the organisation complaining about an "overtly sexy scene" in the last show. While Amy Pond’s revealing outfits have left fans in no doubt that she is the sexiest Doctor Who companion in the history of the drama, writes the Telegraph's Roya Nikkhah, on Saturday night she appeared in a risqué scene, apparently forcing herself on the Time Lord. Played by the actress Karen Gillan, Amy is seen kissing the doctor, played by Matt Smith, as he is backed up against the side of his Tardis in her bedroom. She even tells him that she doesn’t mind if it is a just a one-night-stand, despite the fact he has already spurned her advances on a bed.

Wearing the trademark mini skirt, Amy attempts to undress the Doctor, who briefly responds when she kisses him before pushing her away. Amy also jokes about how long it is since the 907-year-old Time Lord last had sex, making suggestive innuendoes and provocatively lying down on the bed in front of him. The heated moment occurs when the red-head takes the Doctor back home with her when the Tardis touches down once again on the night before her wedding. Amy then produces the wedding ring that she planned to wear before she fled with the Time Lord.

Soon it becomes clear that Amy, who had been working as a kissogram, wants to do more than just talk as she begins flirting with him. Amy declares that fighting off the evil Weeping Angels, which feature in the episode, has made her think about her life. She says: "About what I want. About who I want. You know what I mean." When Dr Who does not respond, she says: "Doctor in a word. In one very simple word even you can understand...," before jumping on top of him on the bed.

Pushing her away, the Doctor says: "You’re getting married in the morning." But Amy replies: "Well, the morning is a long time away. What are you going to do about that?" The stunned Doctor makes his escape to the other side of the room where the Tardis is parked, telling his companion: "Amy listen to me I am 907 years old do you understand what that means?" She responds: "It’s been a while." When he tells her that the relationship could never work, she replies: "You are sweet doctor, but I really wasn’t suggesting anything quite so long term." She then kisses him passionately.

As if he has come to some revelation, the Doctor says: "I don’t know why, I have no idea, but quite possibly the single most important thing in the history of the universe is that I get you sorted out right now?" In what will be seen as a clear innuendo, Amy replies: "That’s what I have been trying to tell you." It is unclear if during the scene, she is acting out of character as part of a wider plot. When Rose Tyler, played by Billie Piper, attempted to seduce the Doctor and kissed him in 2006 it was revealed that her body had been taken over by the villain Cassandra.


Television Series: Doctor (S05E05- Flesh and Stone)
Release Date: May 2010
Actress: Karen Gillan
Video Clip Credit: ddandd



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Hung S02

Alias alumna Merrin Dungey has landed a major recurring role on HBO comedy series Hung's upcoming second season. She will play Liz, a potential new love interest for Ray Drecker (Thomas Jane), the struggling suburban Detroit high-school basketball coach moonlighting as a male prostitute. Liz is one of his clients, a super successful corporate woman. Dungey also co-starred on CBS’ King of Queens and recently recurred on ABC's Better Off Ted.


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Zoe Kravitz goes her own way

Ready to feel old? Zoe Kravitz, aka the daughter of rocker Lenny and onetime Cosby kid Lisa Bonet, is now old enough to be guest-starring on a show as racy as Showtime’s Californication! The up-and-coming young starlet will appear in six episodes as a wild child named (what a coincidence!) Zoe, who recruits Becca (Madeleine Martin) for her all-girl band. What Becca’s dad (David Duchovny) will recruit her for, I shudder to think.

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Shameless S07E13

Observe the lines of the body, see how they flow into each other to form relationships and pay particular attention to the places where the lines form a space...

Television Series: Shameless (S07E13)
Release Date: March 2010
Actress: Joanna Higson & Rebecca Atkinson
Video Clip Credit: DeepAtSea
Video Details: [DivX5 at 3200Kbps; 1280 x 720; 16mb for 42s (x3 videos)]



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The Tudors S04E03

British actress Tamzin Merchant received quite the education playing the fifth wife of King Henry VIII on The Tudors. "It was like going to school, but to be a naughty child," the Cambridge University student told the Herald during a recent interview. "One of my lecturers did come up to me in the quad after the show aired in England and told me I was very wanton," said Merchant, 22. "I don’t usually get feedback like that from my teachers."

Merchant joined the cast last season as Katherine Howard, the wayward teenager chosen by Henry’s council to, um, occupy the aging king following the annulment of his marriage to fourth wife Anne of Cleves (Joss Stone). "I think one of the most striking things about Katherine Howard is that she really is so young. Playing the fifth wife is sort of like playing a young girl in a toy shop. Here’s this very young girl who has no idea what it means to be queen, the responsibilities to be queen, the danger, in fact. I think she doesn’t have a grasp on the reality of the situation because she is caught up in the fairy tale," she said. "With Katherine, I saw it as a breath of fresh air in the Tudor court. I wanted Katherine Howard to be a little unusual and unversed in how she was expected to behave. I flounce around quite a bit in a teenage way. In England, there will be lots of disapprovement with my slightly unperiod take on it."

The bawdy role is a departure from Merchant’s earlier film work, which included playing Mr. Darcy’s virtuous sister Georgiana in 2005’s Pride & Prejudice. "If (Darcy) saw the things I was getting up to in The Tudors, he would be pretty horrified," Merchant said, then laughed. Katherine could have used someone like the upright Mr. Darcy. Henry had her beheaded when she was 19 years old. "I think she was very much a pawn in people’s games. In the version we are doing, she was left alone without a moral upbringing. The other queens had this network of comrades, and Katherine Howard was ultimately left out in the cold even though she had a powerful family," Merchant said. "I think a lot of people think she shouldn’t be a wife. I agree she wasn’t a queen, but she was my favorite wife. I feel very close to her," she said.


Television Series: Tudors (S04E03)
Release Date: April 2010
Actress: Joanne King & Tamzin Merchant
Video Clip Credit: DeepAtSea
Video Clip Info: [DIVX at 4000kbps; 1280x720; 55mb for 1mn51s (x3 videos)]



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Hung and Entourage returning soon

HBO's Hung and Entourage will return on June 27, following True Blood. The comedies are taking the time slot from Treme, which will have finished its first season. HBO had previously announced that True Blood will be back June 13. The station has already renewed rookie comedy series How To Make It In America, ordering a further eight episodes to debut in summer of 2011. The news comes the day after the network also renewed Curb Your Enthusiasm for an eighth round, with 10 episodes to air next year.

"After much soul searching – and by the way, it was nowhere to be found – I have decided to do another season of 'Curb,'" creator David said. "I look forward to the end of shooting, when I can once again resume the hunt for my elusive soul. I know it’s here somewhere or perhaps in the rugged mountainous regions of Pakistan." Adds HBO programming president Michael Lombardo: "Larry always loves to paint himself into a corner, and after the incredibly wonderful seventh season of 'Curb,' you have to ask, ‘How does he ever top this?’ But he always finds a way. We can’t wait to see what he does in season eight." With 70 episodes to date, "Curb" has become HBO's longest-running scripted series.

As far as Entourage is concerned, it could be two more seasons of and then a movie according to the show's executive producer Mark Wahlberg. Asked about the future of the comedy series, which recently was picked up for a sixth cycle coming off one of its strongest seasons, Wahlberg indicated that he believes there are two more seasons left in the show. "We'll see; there could be more," he said at the premiere of his latest film, The Lovely Bones. "But then, a movie." HBO seems on board with the idea. "It is not out of the realm of possibility," an HBO spokeswoman admitted. "Although, right now, the creators are concentrating on the new season." In following a successful series run with a movie, the Doug Ellin-created Entourage would mirror another long-running HBO comedy, Sex and the City.


Elsewhere, criminally under-watched Starz comedy Party Down already lost Jane Lynch last season to Fox's Glee, now three more key cast members have commitments to other TV projects. So can the show realistically continue? At the Party Down event at the Paley Center last night, Philiana Ng reports that co-creators and executive producers Rob Thomas (Veronica Mars), John Enbom and Dan Etheridge were adamant that the show can continue.

Leading man Adam Scott (Henry) recently signed on for NBC's Parks & Recreation as an unwelcomed state arbiter, causing many to believe that the upcoming sophomore season may be Party Down's last. Also, Ryan Hansen (Kyle) was cast in a NBC comedy pilot Friends With Benefits and Lizzy Caplan (Casey) is committed to CBS' True Love project. That's three to four main characters potentially leaving by season's end. "It's catering. People come and people go," Enbom said. "We never had the money to go, 'You're in a 10-year deal!'"

"We love our cast, but I think it's a show that can survive," Thomas added. "I think in the real world catering is not a career choice for most people so it would make sense that new people would come into the show." I'm not so sure. While people leaving a catering company might make sense from a logic standpoint, that has little to do with keeping viewers. Casting is catching lightning in a bottle. Not only does each character need to pop, they need to click with each of the other characters. Viewers get emotionally invested in a character's story and once they're gone, often, so is the audience.

Since it started launching scripted programming, Starz hasn't had much luck with actors. Dennis Hopper, star of the network's first drama, Crash, is battling cancer. Andy Whitfield, star of the network's second drama, Spartacus, is also battling cancer. Now the cast of Party Down, a show that really needs to grow in the ratings, has one foot out the door.

Finally, the wife of Michael C. Hall says the Dexter star is "fully recovered" from cancer and has returned to work. Jennifer Carpenter said Friday that Hall was "incredibly brave" when he announced in January that he was undergoing treatment for Hodgkin's lymphoma, a cancer that attacks the lymph nodes. The 38-year-old Hall went into remission and continued treatment at a health facility near Los Angeles.

Hall won a Screen Actors Guild Award and a Golden Globe Award earlier this year for his portrayal of Dexter, a serial killer who targets other murderers. Carpenter stars on the bloody Showtime hit series as Dexter's seemingly unknowing sister.
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