Checking In Please. The Premiere of American Horror Story: Hotel

Reservation is under the name 'Gaga'

I fucked up. I decided to go to the gym rather than watch the premiere of American Horror Story: Hotel. What the hell was I thinking? Well partially I didn't want everyone on facebook giving away spoilers (i'm looking at you, new yorkers) I live on the Pacific timezone ergo I'm the last to get anything on TV...except for Hawaii. Anyway! American Horror Story is more than my favorite show, it's an unhealthy obsession. And once something becomes an unhealthy obsession in my life, there's no going back. The show can be problematic and in desperation for ratings go from the imaginative to the laughably insane, as seen in last season's Freakshow, but I'm so happy they found their footing again. 

Lady Gaga in a promo still from Entertainment Weekly as The Countess. The owner of the Hotel Cortez.

If you live in a cave you don't know that the series switches times and settings every season, but keeps the principal cast. It's a very cool concept. The last season was set in the 50's in a place called Jupiter Florida, but now we're back to Los Angeles in modern times, where the series initially began with Murder House. Two boho sluts from Sweden check in to a mysterious hotel all excited about seeing the most annoying places in LA like Universal Studios. Also, I'm not saying that Swedes are sluts, just these two girls happen to be. They immediately take a disliking to the retro and dank feel of the Hotel Cortez. It's not hip enough for them. It's not the Standard on Sunset Blvd. which is probably where they should have gone considering they would have seen a lot of weirder shit there. Kathy Bates appears and is immediately crass and dismissive to them, and I'm thinking, well yeah fuck these bitches. As you can tell, I'm typing this while I watch it. Thank god for DVR. Now that's about as much of the plot as I'm going to give you, because unlike Facebook and twitter trolls I actually care about spoilers. For the most part.

Spoiler alert! Sex and murder are mutually exclusive.

The only person from all previous seasons that does not appear in Hotel is Jessica Lange, and a role probably originally written for her was given as we well know to Lady Gaga. She's the mistress of the Hotel Cortez, and seriously if we ever needed proof that she could act, we got it last night. I miss Jessica, but Gaga was born for this role. Ryan Murphy probably had the biggest creative hard on watching her deliver lines. Lest we forget, the show also has the holy trifecta of the hottest men in Hollywood ever. Wes Bentley, Matt Bomer, and Cheyenne Jackson round out the principal cast as newcomers to people we have grown to associate with the show like Sarah Paulson, Kathy Bates, Evan Peters, Chloe Sevigny etc. 

Now, let's talk about the Hotel. you could see that Falchuk and Murphy were getting really strapped for a horror setting that can keep going for 14 episodes. They got creative with it. The first was very predictable. A family moves into a haunted house. Whoopdy do. Crazy shit is going to happen. After which, they had to get more outlandish and ask themselves where can we put a bunch of random and endless but somehow connected horror stories...in an asylum, a coven, and a freakshow apparently. But there's something about Hotel that tells me it's going to be the best season yet. 

Huge girl crush on Sarah Paulson. The meaner she gets on AHS, the more I love her. 

Think about how creepy a hotel is, especially an antiquated one in LA. I know that you guys think The Roosevelt is so awesome and hip. But I used to live literally down the street and always got a creeped out feeling while buying my 15$ martini. Perhaps it was because it was the epicenter for sugar daddies on the hunt, but back to the damn show! What is the quintessential horror film. If you say anything other than The Shining, then I feel so bad for you. Where does it take place? Do you see where I'm going with this? How many times have you checked into a hotel and wondered what goes on behind all of those doors with basically a house full of strangers and paper thin walls? I'm not talking about the Marriott or anything, but those really old LA hotels with that pre-war architecture, decaying carpet, and a wealth of stories scary or not. They even ripped off the shag carpeting (metaphorically) from The Shining, seriously that was a nice homage. And I know a lot of NY snobs will think well if it's about a mysterious hotel why in LA and not in NY home of the Chelsea. In my opinion, LA horror stories especially those akin to buildings, and they are never ending are much more interesting. LA is a city full of secrets, broken dreams, despair, murder, and a lot of things that can translate themselves into romantic but gory horror stories and tall tales. It's about time Murphy and Falchuk capitalized on it. The premiere was right on. Excellent. Can't wait for the second episode, still upset that I can't marathon it. If any one wants to do an AHS night every week hit me up. I'll be dressed like Sarah Paulson. 

Below, intro and trailer 

My Anaconda Don't Want None Unless it's Nicki Minaj

Like any of us could pull off that outfit at the gym.

A new video gem by Miss Weird USA, Nicki Minaj went viral the other day breaking the earlier Vevo record held by Miley Cyrus's Wrecking Ball, getting 19.6 million viewers within the first 24 hours of being posted. And when I mean viral, this might be the first video to actually give you a virus.
It samples that classic anthem of the early 90's that was everyone's guiltiest pleasure; Baby Got Back by the best-named rapper in the biznax; Sir Mix-a-Lot. Now, knowing the musical stylings of Nicki Minaj, hearing this song, I knew it wasn't just going to be a lame remix of the undertrack. She does take it to a whole other level, and when the video 'popped' up on the youtubes, every man in America had to hall ass to the Apple Store for new keyboards.
Not only the song, but the video harkens back to the good ol' days of bizarre novelty rap and over the top nail-on-the-head videos that came with it; as in Sir-Mix-Alot bustin' rhymes on a giant ass and bananas colliding with peaches. Oh how subtle, Sir knight.
All of that stuff is still there, but ever the envelope pusher, Nicki stepped it up a notch and a half. Unlike her pudgy somewhat repulsive predecessor, Nicki has a body that was built by 13 year old boys in a laboratory. You see her in any outfit you're like daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn.

Boy toy named Troy, used to live in Detroit...

So why not sample a song about big butts when you've got the most curvaceous one in fem-town? All the double entendres are there, but you mix in Nicki in a jungle theme like she just walked out of Britney Spears' VMA I'm a Slave for You performance, sweaty and lucious, you've got yourself a winner. Oh and btdubs. THAT'S WHAT I CALL TWERKING.
Oh and who makes a cameo in the whole thing? Labelmate Drake who's job it is to sit in a chair while Nicki dances all up on him like no-one's business and not get an erection. I'm not sure that mission accomplished.

And she cooks! (or performs colonoscopies) 

It's hard for me to believe that people like Nicki exist sometimes. Not only is she extremely talented and creative, but my gawd. That body is so fierce I feel like I have to watch her videos through a hole in a plate. You go girl, I am on board with all of your future endeavors. Thanks for saving us from the plight of boring music and overly emotional music videos (talking to you, Miley) and reminding us what fun feels like.

And now, for your viewing pleasure...

Who’s The Biggest Pervert on Arrested Development?

(Warning: Contains endless Arrested Development quotes) Let’s see, what do I do with my time? Like what do I watch how do I keep current? Well since I have a job (It’s something you apply for, and they pay you…) I only have about a couple hours a day. One in the morning when I wake up and get ready, and one in the evening when I get home. After I work out, and before I shower and eventually crash. So I leave those time slots open for my current sick obsession with everything Benedict Cumberbatch, so I’m watching Sherlock (2010 - Present), which I’ve already blogged about, so douche chill…

The only other show I watch is of course The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (2009 - Present) because it makes me feel better about myself, though I have to watch it through a hole I cut in a paper plate because of all the HD shiny. As you know, I blog a shit ton about that show as well. So basically outside my office, I have those two things to tell me about the world around me. Skinny blonde bitches in Loubitins and ridiculously complicated and convoluted crimes in England that I’m too stupid to almost follow. But instead of silently saying a prayer that they combine the two shows and have one of the housewives found in a pool of her own blood  (I can’t say which one because ‘that’s a lawsuit’ but we all know who I mean) with Benedict standing above her saying something smug and demeaning, I’ll get back and go full circle (ugh, mixing metaphors) to the show I’ve loved the absolute most since it entered my muddy world and made it beautiful back in 2003; Arrested Development, which Netflix had the wherewithall to renew for a season showing exclusively on their website (Them?)

They’ve basically told everyone else to fuck off, even if it means them taking a chubby, they will suck it up. Now, let’s get out of our excited-as-fuck skirt and put on our thought-process Barbara Streisand in the Prince of Tides ass-masking pants suit.

I mean this is huge. The show was cancelled almost 7 years ago and we STILL talk about it. It’s probably the biggest hit cult series there is, and FOX execs are pieces of shit. I’m sorry, but you are. But let’s not dwell on our anger. I want to go through that beautiful magic of the first three seasons and decide finally who is the biggest perv of the series. And I’ll tell you one thing, it’s probably not who you’re thinking. 

You’re thinking GOB because he dates whores, underage girls, and throws freezing cold water over the shirts of his entirely female baseball team and almost always makes an impromptu sexual innuendo when speaking, but it’s not. That’s just part of his adorably ridiculous character, that even I’ve grown to love. 

Tobias' acting resume headshots

Next, you’re probably thinking it’s Tobias, because literally everything that comes out of his mouth is a sexual reference of some sort, usually attributed to the ‘is Tobias gay question’ that always lingers in the background. But hey, you didn’t get any body chocolate, and actually that’s not even his major arc so no dice on that one.

Then we have the idiot somewhat savant-ish brother Buster, who is one hell of a freak. He comes home sometimes at 7, 8 at night, peanut brittle on his breath, and builds pillow forts with Liza Minelli. I mean he’s a fraaaak. But he’s completely clueless. Remember when he was dating Michael’s rabid assistant and terrified when she wanted to take things to the next level? Mother complex or not, he’s an innocent. 

'my own brother...Michael'

Then of course we have Michael. The hopeless romantic who’s ‘sensitive like a woman’, and just can’t help himself when it comes to a gal with a giggly smile and a pair of soft blue eyes, the lack of sex with which would make anyone crave a 15$ thing of candy beans. But it is his romanticism that crosses him off the perv ladder, because all he’ll ever do to you in bed is hold you close and whisper shit in your ear and you’d get bored if not for the wondrous adorable-ness of him.

If you were thinking Lucille all along, then ding ding ding. You’ve won the grand prize, which is respect from me. Think of it, she’s the classic pervert, more so than any of the men in her life put together. She seduced not only George Sr. but his brother Oscar, and can basically make them do anything she wants (More touching!). She likes to go ‘downtown’ and being ‘lied on’ rather than ‘lied to’.  And that wink of hers could be the most perverted thing I’ve ever seen, but at least we don’t have to ‘say goodbye to these because it’s the last time!!!’ because I have no doubt we’ll be seeing them on Netflix soon enough. Now get me a Vodka rocks. But it’s breakfast? And a piece of toast. 

Her?

Honorable mention goes to: Kitty, George’s fiercely loyal assistant, Maeby for her obsession with idiot Steve Holt and unabashed attraction to her own cousin, Marla Michael’s assistant who was bitten by a rabid dog and has a cryptic attachment to Quincy Jones, and of course, Lucille II…because it’s Liza and that’s all I need. I leave you with the best of...

 

Some of my biggest Filth Influences

Gore Vidal. Playwright, social commentator, and general threat to polite society extraordinaire.

Elinor Glyn. One of the first female scenarists who never held back, and paved the way for the next two waves of feminists.

Adrian. One of the film industry's most prolific and daring costume designers.

Barbara Stanwyck. Always told it like it was, before it was even legal.

Alexander McQueen. His designs and contribution the the fashion world elevated sex into an art form.

David Bowie. Nuff said.

Sam Fuller. The man who said 'fuck you' to the Hollywood censors and got away with it.

Quentin Crisp. The Naked Civil Servant.

Otto Dix. Perhaps the most explicitly controversial painter of the 20th century.

Gus Van Sant. A master of sensuality and subtext.

Joan Crawford. Fucked everyone in her path to get to the top and never apologized. Why would she?

Marilyn Monroe. If she hasn't taught you a thing or two you're doing it all wrong.

The Marquis de Sade. Banned, condemned, imprisoned, institutionalized. His writing was that saucy.

Paul Verhoeven. Extremist is his middle name.

Vladimir Nabokov. His greatest novel 'Lolita', which was banned in most countries upon release, influenced my writing the most.

Edie Sedgwick. Warhol's most beautiful of superstars.

John Waters. The filthiest filmmaker of all time.

Anaïs Nin. Made biographical writing all about sex.

Tennessee Williams. The most controversial and brilliant scenarist of ours or any time.

Andy Warhol. The great voyeur.

And of course, Oscar Wilde. Who spent ten years in prison for his work, his beliefs, his loves, and his brilliance.

Based on the Half Hour of Liz and Dick That I Watched Here Are My Thoughts

I think from the side, Lilo's lips look even more hideous.

Oh where to start where to start, I imagine dear reader that you believe someone like myself reviewing something as gloriously cheeseball as Liz and Dick (2012) is like a kid on a field day after smoking the best crack he's ever had and drinking 13 red bulls. Alas, it's all rather depressing. There are so many points I want to make, yet all of them seem redundant. I mean let's talk about the veritable truths that bind together all of mankind. Lindsay Lohan is an awful train-wreck, made-for-tv biopics are the kiss of death, no one compares to Elizabeth Taylor nor should ever try to play her period, and gaudy costumes and breathless delivery do not make a movie. How many times do I have to say this before people actually listen is the real question. Unfortunately the answer is forever...or I develop rheumatoid arthritis in both hands. 

Cut, print, shit.

So why did I turn on the TV? Well I had just completely an arduous 7 hour drive back from the Bay Area to Los Angeles, unpacked and turned on Lifetime enough to catch LiLo as Lizzy getting Richard Burton (Grant Bowler) drunk in her dressing room because he was way too hungover to perform ANYTHING on one particular day in the Roman heat dressed to the nines as Mark Antony, and her rather dowdy and frumpy, and so not nearly as fabulous as Elizabeth Taylor was back then, extra weight and everything. She calls him the 'Welsh Don Juan' and expresses her fears of being 'just another notch on his belt' like that phrase hasn't been done to death, thank you writers. 

Eventually they fuck and all is well in spouse-cheating land. That is until this new phenom enters the picture, these mosquito-like buzzing photographers that squat in bushes and jump out in front of cars. They mention how Fellini coined the term for the little fuckers called 'paparazzi', thanks for that impromptu film studies lesson idiots. Fellini is crying in heaven that you dare mention his name. Moving on.

Aside from everything else wrong with this picture, did anyone else notice how 'glazed over' LiLo seemed to be the whole time? I mean, I've heard of method acting, but I don't think that's what this is.

 There's a montage of fucking, which is highly gross considering even made up as Liz Taylor LiLo is beyond undesirable. She's definitely an 'if-i-had-to' kinda girl, but even then I could almost see the Hep-C being transmitted as Grant kissed her with the most faux passion he could muster without gagging. 

Oh and beyond that, they have to dumb it down by having the two leads sit in directors chairs and talk about each other in the third person basically explaining what just happened in the previous scene to us like we're all completely retarded. The only piece of method acting that LiLo is able to apply to this travesty is how well she smokes her cigarettes. For some reason I hate it when you get a non-smoking actor to play a chainsmoking character. They always go at the cig like they're performing fellatio on it...so I guess good job there, LiLo. 

Right as the Ambien was taking effect and I was about to rid myself of this shitshow, a drunken Burton makes the startling announcement that would destroy dear Liz's 4th marraige to Eddie Fisher in front of Eddie Fisher; they are in love, and fucking like a lot, so uh if he wouldn't mind getting the hell out of the way everyone would really appreciate it. 

Playing dress up is always fun, so is recreating iconic photos, but this is people's lives here, not Halloween k folks?

Then LiLo runs her pretty head off outside in tears; 'oy the mess i've gotten myself into again' certainly permeating through her head. And then there's another fuck montage. As I have actually read bios on Elizabeth Taylor and just finished 'Furious Love' (2011); the definitive account of Burton-Taylor crazyballs shenanigans, I knew what was going to come next and I was not in the mood. Fucking and fighting seem to go hand in hand in the story of Liz and Dick, but in this film, each is equally as displeasurable as the other. Also, just like Meg Ryan, Lilo's lips had become a fixture. I was tired of looking at them. They seemed to overwhelm the screen and there was little else I could pay attention to. So I drifted off into a dreamless sleep, and woke up the next morning with a bitter taste in my mouth. It was not the bitterness of disappointment I assure you, as I had prepared myself for this for months. It's hard to be disappointed at something you knew was going to be stanky garbage to begin with, but I felt it unfair that people had to be subjected to it, though I knew no one would ever take this seriously. It happened, and now we can all move on.

Trailer below. 'Are you convinced?' ....never was.

Ode to a Super Man

Let's face it, the Brits are totally kicking our ass in the hottness Olympics. In terms of cuisine, insidious imperialism, and relevant music, we've still got it going on, but lately, it's just no contest. You put our hottest export (mmmmmmmMatt Damon?) and put him against their hottest export (probably Henry Cavill) it's no contest. And I'm speaking strictly in the respect that makes women lost their minds rather than anything that actually matters, like acting chops, and philanthropy and other such nonsense.

Now American women already lose their effing minds every time a British man opens his mouth and speaks because it sounds like a million times more sophisticated than anything American men say to us, even if the content of what he's saying is 'I'm going to cut off your mother's head and mount it on my wall'.

Now they've planted Henry firmly into the Hollywood idiom, having him play probably the greatest American Icon of the 20th century, and yes I am all for that shit. Two please, and popcorn. 

Cavill on the set of Man of Steel (2013)

Let me just explain this phenom to you. It's Henry Cavill, who is literally the most beautiful perfect man on celluloid, maybe of all time, I'm not sure. I mean when Leonardo DaVinci was drawing the perfectly symmetrical male, he didn't know it, but he was prophesying that one day, one such messiah would appear in the universe, and you put him in RUBBER, I mean that's a recipe for the end of the world via a billion orgasms occurring at once. I watched The Immortals (2011) this morning in my underpants, eating lasagna in bed, because that's how I like to absorb information, and my Jewish god, it's almost unfathomable. 

ok, awwwwwww.

What first turned me on to Cavill was when I was watching The Tudors (2007 - 2010) almost religiously (don't give me shit, it's a good show people!) where he plays Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk, and the king's right hand man and an alpha male in his own right. The entire main plot of the show went right out the window for me, you know all of the wife murdering, and sex, sex, sex, and more wife murdering. I started to watch that show just to see Cavill strut his stuff in Elizabethan collars.

And now the time has come. Lady porn has reached its pinnacle and soon we will all be treated to him as the buff, skin-tight suit wearing, sensitive yet dorky, perky-nippled Superman, and hopefully the world will still be around as the film comes out in 2013. I mean, that's why I continue living. 

Trailer below. It's pretty ambiguous. 

'Boxing Helena': Fetishism Goes to New Lows...Or Highs?

The other day I watched 'Boxing Helena'. I thought it would be the perfect film to keep on in the background as I was cooking dinner, but that night I ended up eating honey wheat pretzels and chocolate ice cream, as I had to cancel dinner after not too long. This film was David Lynch's daughter's (Jennifer Lynch) directorial debut. First thing that probably comes to mind is what it was like growing up with David Lynch as pops. Surprisingly, her childhood and upbringing was pretty much normal, not too different from the Kyle Maclachlan's world in 'Blue Velvet', but his influence on her cinema is pretty prevalent, and get ready for this, she is actually more perverted than her old man.

Rumors say that she wrote the script for 'Boxing Helena' when she was 19. That's a pretty early start, and for all the shit that this movie gets, I believe critics are missing the point. It was pretty much universally panned when it was first released in 1993, with everyone calling it everything from immature to tawdry, using the term 'amputee fetish' a little too liberally. The point being missed here is of course the allegory.

The film involves an unrequited love story between surgeon Nick Cavanaugh (Julian Sands) and Helena (Sherylin Fenn) probably one of the most gorgeous women ever on film. She rejects him because he's neurotic, nerdy, and bad in bed, but tables turn when Helena is the victim of a brutal hit-and-run accident that breaks both of her legs. Rather than seeing that she get proper treatment, Nick kidnaps her and amputates both of her limbs in his house. It then becomes somewhat of a 'Misery' scenario, where the captive is without the use of their legs, literally unable to run away. She keeps trying to assure him that this will never make her need or want him, but he persists, eventually amputating both of her healthy arms, making just a torso with a head. He continues to dress her up and builds her a shrine, which is more like a box of containment. Now, completely helpless, it appears she has no choice but to allow for herself to open up to him.

The allegory is of course very obvious and not something that is particularly sexual. It would appear that it is every man's fantasy to trap a woman into a state in which she will need him, therefore making him feel more of a man, and that his love for her will be equalized by her need for him. Nick takes this dynamic to a much more literal interpretation, past the whole 'if i can't have her, no one else will', as killing her would destroy everything that he had been working on in order to acquire her.

So therefore, all men want to be needed. They want to not be at the service of someone, but they do want to be useful. Cavanaugh symbolizes not so much an amputee perversion, but of a perversion of obsession. He needs Helena to be helpless, that is when he finds her at her utmost beautiful.

This film is a cross between cheesy romance novels (soft focus, candlelight, and fake breezes and everything) and the absolutely surreal. There is no attention given to the medical procedure of amputation, nor how it would be living as a quadriplegic, it is throughout its entirety and absurdity, a love story through and through. In the end, both Helena and Nick proclaim love towards each other, and then there is the classic 'it was all a dream' twist ending, because it's hard for us to accept that this beautiful woman has to live as a helpless rectangle for the rest of her life, and this douche Cavanaugh gets away with it.

Jennifer Lynch's influences from her father are pretty noticeable. I was totally into it. It did run the gambit between the absurd and the romantic. It's all very surreal. On the one hand it seems absolutely ridiculous, but I completely bought it. There is a sense of heart and sincerity amongst all of the sexual depravity that makes it a tender love story set against surrealist circumstance. I'd definitely watch it again, if for no other reason than seeing Bill Paxton in leather pants and a mesh sleeveless shirt with a mullet (i'm not kidding)...other than that I think critics really need to consider films like 'Boxing Helena' within the context in which it was created. Of course it's depraved, disgusting, and on many levels sick...that's what we love about it. Fetishization has always been a taboo topic, and no one has really addressed it as head on (no pun intended) before. It's very literal, and yet very allegorical. It is literal in exploring the apex of sexual perversion, but allegorical in how it uses this exploration to comment on the needs of a man that turn out to be more perverse than its actual depiction. It is not really sick to consider Cavanaugh being so aroused by Helena in her boxed state, but it is sick to think that Cavanaugh needed to do this to her, in order to feel himself as more of a man.

The entire time watching it, I was wondering how would Jenni's dear father have made this film? But I got the feeling that he was definitely sitting next to her director's chair whispering tips into her ear, as it is very reminiscent of deviance that he himself has explored, in his trademark dreamlike atmospheres of 'Blue Velvet' and others. Just because it considers itself with the most depraved of sexual obsessions, doesn't mean one shouldn't consider the metaphors involved. It's a must see in my book, but if you know my tastes, you might want to second guess it for your own good. I'd love to hear feedback if anyone decides to watch it.