Odd movies and TV shows

I'm just now getting around to writing about this, but just as the semester began my friends got me hooked on True Blood. For those of you not in the know True Blood is the fantastically gory show about vampires in Louisiana based on The Southern Vampire Mysteries. It's a completely ridiculous but very addictive show that has some elements of Southern Gothic and Vampire lore amalgamated with the usual HBO softcore porn. The protagonists are a young woman named Sookie (who in their right mind name's a girl Sookie! That's a cow's name for cryin' out loud!) and her vampire boyfriend Bill. The actor who plays Bill actually does a pretty good job of imitating a traditional hoity toity Upper Crust Southern Accent, much like my great-grandmother's... Anyway, the first weekend we were all back we started watching the first season, well, that was burned through in about 8 days. THEN the second season was done through a series of marathon late Friday and Saturday nights. Now, I'm not quite sure what we're going to do about Season Three, because it's still "in production," and none of us has HBO here. We have all the movies channels except HBO -- how lame is that...Anywho, the ladies swoon over Eric, the stereotypical Swedish vampire. It's kinda funny, I went to school with a lot of Swedes and most of them did not have blond hair and blue eyes. They did however, have a masterful grasp on the English language...

I also found myself with a strange urge to watch (and finish) Sunset Boulevard. I certainly can't speak for everybody but Norma Desmond is one of the creepiest characters in film. I would put her right up there with that Buffalo Bill/Jame Gum psychocreep from Silence of the Lambs. She is a pitiful, disturbing (funny how those two qualities are often found together) woman who has slowly driven herself out of her mind with the help of her enabling manservant Max.  Max, incidentally, I swear was the inspiration for the gargantuan character of the same name in Cats Don't Dance, a real travesty of a movie, lol. She has convinced herself that she is still the greatest star and that her comeback--or "return as she likes to put it--is a mere formality and inevitable.Also, the cliche "I'm ready for my close-up Mr. DeMill" is actually a bastardization of the line "now Mr. DeMill, I'm ready for my closeup" at the end of the movie, and the scene where the creepy picture to the right was taken. 

On top of that let me just say that looking up these pictures brought up A LOT of creepy pictures of drag queens...and this particular gem of I think Cher, or a drag queen doing a really good impersonation of Cher...you be the judge... Don't ask me why I know this, because I don't even know, but I think that picture was taken on that whirlwind tour of Cher's where she trotted the globe for like three years depleting the world of it's supply of sequins, thereby putting us the Global Financial Crisis as we scurried to find more sequins for her and her troupe of sequin-clad dancers and front-row bitches. And then, as if that wasn't enough, we have to send Cher (Cher!) To Vegas, where they encourage OTT costumes and frivolity. Ok, why did I get off on that tangent...somebody do please figure me out and let me know so I can genug with all this nonsense!
Anyway, back on topic here, Sunset Boulevard is one of those few movies that has absolutely no good ending at all. There isn't one shred of happy/awwww/phew/I-knew-it-would-work-out moments AT ALL, and I think that's what makes it a good movie and at the same time one of the most unique movies. It's a tragedy through and through. You, as the viewer, want it to be a little satirical and "gotcha bitch" like All About Eve but no. There's nothing heartwarming about it. Yet I love it! It does, however, provide the launch pad for William Holden's career and that priceless moment at the Brown Derby where Lucy Ricardo creams him with a pie, then lights her fake nose on fire. Wow, are we on 50's wayback or what???