Miquita and Simon were presenters of Channel 4 music show Popworld from 2000 to 2006.
Simon is so cool and cute!
Tuesday 30 November 2010
Simon Amstell Interview
Miquita and Simon were presenters of Channel 4 music show Popworld from 2000 to 2006.
Simon is so cool and cute!
Saturday 27 November 2010
Emmerdale producer passed away
[source]
Gavin Blyth passes away
It is with great sadness we announce that Emmerdale's series producer Gavin Blyth has passed away after a short illness. He was aged 41.
Gavin Blyth passes away
It is with great sadness we announce that Emmerdale's series producer Gavin Blyth has passed away after a short illness. He was aged 41. An Emmerdale spokesperson says: "Our thoughts are with his family, friends and colleagues at this terrible time. He will be greatly missed by us all. Gavin leaves his wife Suzy and children Tom, 15, Anya, 11 and Carter, aged 1."
The shocking news comes at a time of prosperity and growth in Emmerdale's history, as Gavin steered the show in new and exciting directions. He has overseen hugely popular recent storylines such as Mark Wylde's murder and Aaron Livesey's struggle with his sexuality, as well as introduced new families such as the Bartons and the Sharmas.
Steve November, executive producer, says: "Gavin has made an immense contribution to Emmerdale since taking over as series producer in January 2009 and during many hugely successful years at ITV. As a friend and colleague he will be missed an incredible amount by us all."
Gavin will be sorely missed by the cast, crew and fans alike. He has become a hugely popular producer since taking over the Emmerdale helm in January 2009. But his tenure at the country soap was merely the latest in a long line of achievements working for ITV.
Previously he worked on Coronation Street as a story associate then assistant producer. But he started in the world of soap on Emmerdale - working as a senior publicist before becoming a script editor.
"It is a very sad day for everyone at Emmerdale," says Steve November. "Our thoughts are with Gavin's family and those closest to him at this difficult time."
Thursday 25 November 2010
An article from TV Guide
Exclusive: White Collar's Matt Bomer Calls for Religious Tolerance in New PSA
Nov 23, 2010 08:11 PM ET by Kate Stanhope
Matt Bomer
Nov 23, 2010 08:11 PM ET by Kate Stanhope
Matt BomerAs the slogan goes, characters are welcome at USA Network. Now, the cable outlet is taking that sentiment one step further with its "Characters Unite" series of PSAs.
In the campaign's latest video, White Collar star Matt Bomer takes a stand against religious intolerance. "While we can disagree about the past and we can argue about the future, we're all here now, together," Bomer says.
Get the rest of today's latest news
Besides the new PSAs, USA Network has launched a "Characters Unite" website to encourage others to "stand against intolerance, prejudice, discrimination and hate, and to promote greater understanding and acceptance." USA will donate $1 to nonprofit partners, including the Anti-Defamation League and the Children's Defense Fund, for every individual pledge made until Dec. 24.
Watch Bomer's full PSA:
Wednesday 24 November 2010
Tuesday 23 November 2010
Monday 22 November 2010
Friday 19 November 2010
An article from AfterElton
An article about Adam Lambert (actually it's been a while I write about Adam though)
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[source]
Sunday is full of specials including a new E! True Hollywood Story focusing on Adam Lambert. The special focuses on the success of Lambert’s post-American Idol career, despite his not winning the competition. The episode looks at Lambert’s youth, growing up as an awkward theater kid, and, of course, his sensational run on American Idol — where his amazing performances gave viewers something to talk about besides that picture of him kissing another guy — as well as the controversies we've seen with his solo career.
That isn't Sunday’s only music-focused special as ABC is airing the American Music Awards (see: Adam Lambert, controversy). The nominees this year include Lady Gaga, Vampire Weekend, Rihanna, Shakira and Enrique Iglesias. Meanwhile, the ceremony will include performances by Christina Aguilera, Enrique Iglesias, Pink, Rihanna, Gavin Rossdale as well as a team-up between The New Kids on the Block and The Backstreet Boys.
Monday 15 November 2010
Monday 8 November 2010
An article from AfterElton
A part of an article from AfterElton [source]
Ask the Flying Monkey: What's a Nice Guy Like Chad Allen Doing Playing a Serial Killer?
Posted by Brent Hartinger on November 8, 2010
Q: So Anderson Cooper is suddenly on a tear on his TV show regarding gay issues, and Zachary Quinto filmed a “It Gets Better” video and is now starring in Angels in America. On one hand, I’m thrilled – for one thing, they’re making a difference, Cooper especially, raising issues that non-celebrities can’t raise. But on the other hand, I’m torn. Isn’t Angels in America a play about the incredibly damaging power of the closet? – Brett, Los Angeles, CA
Zachary Quinto (left) and Anderson Cooper
A: I’m also torn about this whole “glass closet” business. Sure, both of them could do great things for GLBT visibility if they are actually gay and were out. But on the other hand, aren’t they already doing something – Cooper especially? And at least they’re not playing the opposite-sex-date game: they’re simply refusing to acknowledge they’re gay (although I admit the patently false “I don’t talk about my personal life” line gets old fast – they just don’t talk about that part of their personal life).
I think it’s hard for most of us to imagine the level of intrusiveness that most celebrities are subjected too – and also the incredible pressure they’re under to be “bankable” lest they, and everyone around them, be out of a job. It’s easy to play the “If it were me!” game, but it’s easy because it is just a game. Quinto is on the verge of a huge career as a movie actor.
I agree that Cooper’s dance is getting particularly ridiculous, but it’s still his dance to do. In the end, if we stand for anything as a community, it’s the right to self-determination. So it seems kind of petty to me to hold it against someone when they decide that they don’t want to be extraordinary – that being above-average suits them just fine, at least for the time being.
Thursday 4 November 2010
Noel Fielding criticises Simon Amstell
[Source]
Noel Fielding says Simon Amstell 'ruined' Buzzcocks
Thursday 4th November 2010 @ 12pm
According to The Sun, Never Mind The Buzzcocks team captain Noel Fielding is claiming that ex-host Simon Amstell has "ruined the show".
The Mighty Boosh star, the musical panel show's newest team captain, thinks Amstell's "cruel jibes" have made guests reluctant to appear for fear of being ridiculed. He gave the example of ex-Spice Girl Mel B who, he says, needed a lot of persuasion to appear in the latest run. Fielding told the paper: "She was terrified, like we were going to really rib her. The problem is, I think Amstell ruined it for everyone. Everyone thinks they'll get ripped to shreds."
Amstell, who won multiple awards for hosting the show, is widely regarded as having rejuvenated the quiz when he took over in 2007. He shocked fans when he quit in 2009 to work on developing Grandma's House, his BBC2 sitcom. Fielding joined the show as a regular in the series following Amstell's departure, although he did appear on screen with the host for three episodes in 2006 when he stood in for Bill Bailey as team captain. During these episodes, some viewers noted a tension between Amstell and Fielding, as can be seen in the following exchange:
Phill Jupitus, who has been a team captain on the show since its inception in 1996, revealed in his book published this summer that he almost quit the show in 2008 due to Amstell's verbal attacks on guests. He said: "It struck me with Simon that people were being booked especially to have the piss taken out of them in a very overt fashion. Mark Lamarr didn't book people to rag on them, it was just in the flow of the show that people suddenly went a bit weird and Mark could turn on them. It became something else with Simon and started to get a bit wearing."
Amstell's most infamous moment as host is arguably when he caused Ordinary Boys singer Preston to storm off following jokes about his wife's autobiography (2 minutes into this clip):
Never Mind The Buzzcocks is now re-building a 'cosier' image using a series of guest hosts, but not everyone is a fan of the new format. Mark Ronson and Catherine Tate, the first two hosts in the latest series, have been criticised as boring and lacking the required presentation skills. One reviewer commented: "Mark Ronson has an incredibly dull voice and when doing the interlinking piece-to-camera sections he couldn't hide the fact that he was clearly reading off a screen, so the majority of jokes fell flat." Whilst the Metro said: "Catherine Tate was on typical grating, nasal form. Come back, Simon Amstell, all is forgiven."
Noel Fielding told The Sun that he thinks Terry Wogan is the best of the new guest hosts. He said: "He was professional, funny, quicker than anyone else on the show. He shook everyone's hand, he knew everyone's name. It was pretty mind-blowing actually."
However, in what is seen as a shift back to the old style, Jack Dee hosts tonight's show and - according to the previews - repeatedly jokes about guests Jedward, with barbed quips including calling the X-Factor duo "the greatest musical collaboration since Lennon met Chapman". Frankie Boyle, a comedian not known for a gentle manner, is also set to host the show later in the series.
It shocked me when I read it first. I love Simon Amstell. But also I like Noel Fielding. I found this article again and I realised that I haven't picked it up for this blog, so I put it on here. I set original date as usual.
Noel Fielding says Simon Amstell 'ruined' Buzzcocks
Thursday 4th November 2010 @ 12pm
The Mighty Boosh star, the musical panel show's newest team captain, thinks Amstell's "cruel jibes" have made guests reluctant to appear for fear of being ridiculed. He gave the example of ex-Spice Girl Mel B who, he says, needed a lot of persuasion to appear in the latest run. Fielding told the paper: "She was terrified, like we were going to really rib her. The problem is, I think Amstell ruined it for everyone. Everyone thinks they'll get ripped to shreds."
Amstell, who won multiple awards for hosting the show, is widely regarded as having rejuvenated the quiz when he took over in 2007. He shocked fans when he quit in 2009 to work on developing Grandma's House, his BBC2 sitcom. Fielding joined the show as a regular in the series following Amstell's departure, although he did appear on screen with the host for three episodes in 2006 when he stood in for Bill Bailey as team captain. During these episodes, some viewers noted a tension between Amstell and Fielding, as can be seen in the following exchange:
Phill Jupitus, who has been a team captain on the show since its inception in 1996, revealed in his book published this summer that he almost quit the show in 2008 due to Amstell's verbal attacks on guests. He said: "It struck me with Simon that people were being booked especially to have the piss taken out of them in a very overt fashion. Mark Lamarr didn't book people to rag on them, it was just in the flow of the show that people suddenly went a bit weird and Mark could turn on them. It became something else with Simon and started to get a bit wearing."
Amstell's most infamous moment as host is arguably when he caused Ordinary Boys singer Preston to storm off following jokes about his wife's autobiography (2 minutes into this clip):
Never Mind The Buzzcocks is now re-building a 'cosier' image using a series of guest hosts, but not everyone is a fan of the new format. Mark Ronson and Catherine Tate, the first two hosts in the latest series, have been criticised as boring and lacking the required presentation skills. One reviewer commented: "Mark Ronson has an incredibly dull voice and when doing the interlinking piece-to-camera sections he couldn't hide the fact that he was clearly reading off a screen, so the majority of jokes fell flat." Whilst the Metro said: "Catherine Tate was on typical grating, nasal form. Come back, Simon Amstell, all is forgiven."
Noel Fielding told The Sun that he thinks Terry Wogan is the best of the new guest hosts. He said: "He was professional, funny, quicker than anyone else on the show. He shook everyone's hand, he knew everyone's name. It was pretty mind-blowing actually."
It shocked me when I read it first. I love Simon Amstell. But also I like Noel Fielding. I found this article again and I realised that I haven't picked it up for this blog, so I put it on here. I set original date as usual.
Wednesday 3 November 2010
Monday 1 November 2010
An article from AfterElton
Why Scotty's Affair on "Brothers & Sisters" is Something to Cheer About
Posted by Aymar Jean Christian on November 1, 2010
Scotty's a Cheater? Thanks, ABC! No, Seriously!
Posted by Aymar Jean Christian on November 1, 2010
Scotty's a Cheater? Thanks, ABC! No, Seriously!
Gay fans of Brothers & Sisters are probably breathing a sigh of relief after the last two episodes of the ABC drama. Why? It’s not necessarily because beloved characters Kevin Walker (Matthew Rhys)and Scotty Wandell (Luke Macfarlane) are probably going to avoid an adultery-spurred break-up.
It’s because the rift has finally giving Scotty something to do, and thereby made the characters much more complex and interesting. (Actually, the same could be said of their relationship.)
As Scotty said in last night’s episode, “I’m just as lost and damaged and screwed up as the rest of you. I’m not perfect Kevin, I’m not perfect!”
There have been enough gay characters on television now for there to be a serious competition over which ones are more nuanced and interesting than others. But while dozens of gay characters have flooded television since the 1990s, gay couples are rarer, gay married couples are rarer still, and gay married couples with serious problems, a weekly staple for straights that keep fans watching to see what happens next, are almost nonexistent.
Given this week's events on B&S, it should seem obvious to anyone who has followed the progression of gays on television that Kevin and Scotty are poised to become the most interesting gay couple on our screens.
Network TV and the Will & Grace Problem
Why has it taken so long to get a gay “married” couple (or at least partnered, since same-sex marriage hasn’t been legal that long and is still allowed in only a handful of states) on network television who are dealing with a serious problem in their marriage?
Network television really only started using gay characters on television in the 1990s, mostly as a ploy to get the upscale, urban gay audiences that were increasingly turn to cable. Those cable channels, such as HBO and Showtime, had started to create original programming that rivaled the broadcast networks, forcing the Big Four to add greater diversity to their schedules while also still trying to please the rest of America.
For a long time, this meant there were more gay characters on broadcast, but none that stayed around for very long. Most merely popped in from time to time (Frasier, Northern Exposure) or were tangential to the main characters and storylines, like the lesbians on Friends or Jack on Dawson’s Creek. And even when a character was part of the main cast — Matt on Melrose Place — their gayness was so controversial, it basically had to be ignored. (Cue the gay kiss cutaway.)
Gil Chesterson from Frasier, Matt Fielding from Melrose Place, Ellen DeGeneres 
Of course Ellen had entire season as an out lesbian, but we all know how that worked out. (In case you don't, the show was canceled at the end of the season.)
Then Will & Grace changed the equation, giving us a gay character every episode, and America came along for the ride!
Still it took a long time for Will to kiss another man and even longer for him to have a steady boyfriend. NBC was scared of losing the mainstream audience, and only in Season Six did Will finally get Vince.
Sure, Will and Vince probably don’t get enough credit for having a fairly complicated relationship. Their break-up was sudden but interesting: Vince needed to find out who he is and Will didn’t respect his career – or something like that.
But Will and Vince were pretty bland compared to what was happening on much more daring pay-cable channels, on shows like Six Feet Under where David and Keith dealt with infidelity, sexuality dissatisfaction and the fact both men had serious issues ranging from wild insecurity to anger control problems.
Meanwhile, Queer as Folk, a show almost exclusively about gay and bisexual men, was able to explore relationships in even greater detail, delving into all the drugs, sex, infidelity, and HIV issues all gays have to deal with.
But most of America, not used to gay couples, needed a near-perfect one, NBC seemed to suggest.
After Will & Grace had been on a few years, viewers met more gay couples, but most still got little screentime and also lacked much in the way of complexity. Shows like Ugly Betty and The Class gave viewers some positive storylines but no real serious treatment of gay men as couples.
Today we have Modern Family, with an interesting and believable, if not always serious, partnership between Mitchell and Cameron; Bob and Lee occasionally on Desperate Housewives, who, we’re told, were in marriage counseling before their sudden break-up (though we never saw that); and lesbian couples like Callie and Arizona on Grey’s Anatomy. Congrats, ABC!
What we still haven’t had on network TV until now is a gay male couple with real issues to sort through, a complicated history and a conflict that takes more than one episode to resolve.
What Makes Kevin and Scotty Special
So what makes Kevin and Scotty so special? What Brothers & Sisters has done, perhaps a little bit late in the series run, is given us the first real representation of a married gay couple who are very much in love, but whose relationship is both not perfect and is even in doubt.
Most other gay long-term relationships on network television have suffered from a desire to prove to America that gays are people who are not the least bit threatening, deserve equality and are just like our straight counterparts: we buy houses, have kids and love each other. Yes we do!
David and Keith from Six Feet Under, Cameron and Mitchell from Modern Family 
But we also fight and hurt each other as well. And few of these relationships have been “marriages,” especially the legal kind.
Cam and Mitchell are great, but, like the other two couples on Modern Family, their relationship is solid. Bob and Lee broke up in a heartbeat and haven’t been heard from since. It even happens on cable where Caprica’s couple had issues – you know, like how one husband massacred a rival gang with a robot – but their relationship too was mostly beyond reproach.
Brothers & Sisters fell into this trap – at first. Yes, Scotty started out pretty messed up: he needed a career and he lacked a home. Kevin was unsure if he wanted a real relationship, instead fooling around with the hot guy from Sex and the City.
But once they got married, Kevin and Scotty settled into what appeared to be marital bliss. So eager were the writers to show that gay marriage can be great they forgot to put it in any real life issues.
Sure, their problems conceiving a child tested the relationship. They fought, they pulled away from each other, etc. But once again, they were mostly the picture of an exemplary couple: good people put under stress. Meanwhile, every other character on the show had gone through some kind of earth-shattering affair, break-up or divorce. This not only made them more interesting, but meant they were given more screentime to sort out their issues
But this week’s episode used last season’s car crash to open up old wounds for Kevin and Scotty: Kevin downplaying Scotty’s career and pulling away emotionally; Scotty feeling immature and devalued; and Kevin’s old demons – selfishness, short-sightedness – coming out.
It’s always been to the writer’s credit that they’ve been able to make Kevin occasionally unlikable. Scotty, meanwhile, has almost always been virtuous. “You were supposed to be better than this,” Kevin tells Scotty at the end of the episode.
So the writers really took a risk by making it Scotty who had the affair. It meant they had to psychologically explain how it happened: a bright young thing walks in, feeding Scotty’s weak self-esteem with cheap flattery (“With that face you should clearly have your own reality show.” Hilarious. The A-List: New York, next season?)
Meanwhile Kevin is a bad boy too, missing Scotty’s opening night by going to a bar to sulk instead because nothing is going right for him. (After all, sulking is an integral part of Kevin’s character.)
It seems likely Kevin and Scotty’s marriage will be saved, if only because too many other (straight) marriages on the show have failed. Scotty’s still a good person, after all, having cheated only once and then confessed it, and offering statements of concern about Kevin (“Be discreet I don’t want Kevin hurt any more than he already is”).
But hopefully it will take a few episodes for Kevin to trust Scotty, and vice versa, because that’s what a marriage really is — even for gay people. You hurt each other and you have to regain trust, but that takes time. It’s always complicated and imperfect, and maybe soon enough network TV will show that gay marriages really are mostly like straight marriages — warts and all.
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