Saturday, December 13, 2008

Music from True Blood Episode 5 -Episode 5: "Sparks Fly Out"

True Blood S01E05 - Sparks Fly Out
Song: Kargyurra
Artist: Huun-Huur-Tu
Album: More Live
Scene: Opening Scene, Bill dropping Sookie off at home

Song: It’s Alright
Artist: Phil Phillips
Album: The Best Of Swamp Pop Classics
Scene: Sam asks Sookie out on a date

Song: It’s All Over But The Shouting
Artist: Southern Culture On The Skids
Album: Mojo Box
Scene: Randi Sue celebrates her divorce

Song: Feel Alright
Artist: Steve Earle
Album: I Feel Alright
Scene: At Merlotte’s; Hoyt talks about Tru Blood, Jason notices Tara

Song: Sparks Fly Out
Artist: Paul Burch
Album: Fool For Love
Scene: Jason talks to Tara at the bar

Song: I Play Chicken With The Train
Artist: Cowboy Troy featuring Big & Rich
Album: Loco Motive
Scene: Who ordered the hamburger with AIDS?

Song:Wiggle Stick
Artist: The Reverend Horton Heat
Album: The Full-Custom Gospel Sounds of the Reverend Horton Heat
Scene: Jason and Randi Sue are going at it as Tara takes out the trash

Generation Kill on DVD - Pre Order today!


Generation Kill DVD Item no: 3190034

HBO Store :Our Price: $59.99

Based on the national best-selling book by Evan Wright, Generation Kill is an authentic and vividly detailed 7-part HBO® mini-series event that presents a uniquely epic and intimate portrait of the first 40 days of the Iraq war from the perspective of the Marines of the First Recon Battalion - a new breed of American soldiers. Release date: 12/16/08

Features

By HBO® and Warner Home Video
The mini-series tells the story of these young Marines' physical and emotional journey into the heart of Baghdad in those initial weeks, and how the war reveals to be much more complicated, problematic, and tragic than anyone had contemplated. Many of the complications and problems that arise are due to the unwieldy military bureaucracy which the Marines confront in the midst of the war, the challenges of over-zealous and incompetent commanding officers, ever-changing rules of engagement, a non-existent strategy, severe deficiencies in necessary armor and supplies, and an enemy they don't understand. Generation Kill is a humorous and frightening first-hand account of these remarkable men, of the personal toll of victory, and of the brutality, camaraderie and bureaucracy of a new American war. It is a profoundly insightful and realistic look at the risk, costs, and ultimately, the failures of the war
Written and produced by Emmy®-award winner David Simon (The Wire) and also produced by the award-winning George Faber (Elizabeth I)
Exclusive insert included with military glossary, a chain of command chart, and a mission map
MPAA: NR
Format: DVD
Number of discs: 3
Run time: 362 minutes
Soundtrack language: English
Aspect ratio: Standard [4:3 Transfer]
Bonus Features


Generation Kill: A Conversation with the 1st Recon Marines
Making Generation Kill
Eric Ladin's video diaries
Deleted dialogues
Audio commentaries

True Blood Music Video of the Day



Cure My Tragedy (a Letter To God) by Cold

With Obama election comes the return of the vampire

By Peter Rowe STAFF WRITER
November 8, 2008

( I'm going to post a few older articles in case anyone missed them and so that we have them in our archives )

Zombies are red, vampires are blue.
Whatever its challenges, the Bush White House has presided over a period of robust health for a genre that – if history is any guide – will soon fade: the zombie movie.
Tuesday's election of a Democratic president, meanwhile, comes at the start of a new cycle of vampire films (“Twilight,” “Let the Right One In”) and TV shows (HBO's “True Blood.”) Coincidence? Or something spookier?
“I think there's something to this,” said Peter Dendle, a Pennsylvania State University professor of English and author of “Zombie Movie Encyclopedia.”
“The question is, why?” asked Annalee Newitz, editor of io9.com, a pop culture Web site.
One answer: These gore-flecked flicks are really competing parables about class warfare.
“Democrats, who want to redistribute wealth to 'Main Street,' fear the Wall Street vampires who bleed the nation dry,” Newitz argued, noting that Dracula and his ilk arose from the aristocracy. “Republicans fear a revolt of the poor and disenfranchised, dressed in rags and coming to the White House to eat their brains.”
Or perhaps the bloodsuckers' latest incarnation, as less-threatening undead citizens, reflects a more inclusive politics. “Suddenly,” said Robert Thompson, professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University, “the vampires have become people just like us.”
“After the upsurge of zombie films that symptomized the Bush era, the latest re-investment in vampirism signals hopefulness,” said Larry Rickels, a UC Santa Barbara professor of German and comparative literature.
Whatever the reason, when forecasting White House victories, monsters have been nearly as accurate as pollsters. By Newitz's tally, Bush's election in 2000 came at the start of a massive upsurge in zombie flicks: 183 in seven years, for an average of 26 a year.
This year, though, only nine zombie films shambled into theaters, while a rising tide of vampire flicks – 18 in '08, with more on the way – indicated that the blood-red tide had turned.
Penn State's Dendle noted that the political-horror nexus has been strong since 1968. “Night of the Living Dead” opened a month before Republican Richard Nixon's election, inspiring a zombie film boomlet that persisted until the mid-1970s.
Zombies fell out of fashion when Democrat Jimmy Carter took the White House; his presidency coincided with Werner Herzog's “Nosferatu,” the Frank Langella “Dracula” and “Love at First Bite.”
“The 1980s, the Reagan era, is the most prolific era for zombie movies,” Dendle said. “They drop off the face of the Earth in 1990, in terms of high-budget studio films.”
Vampires – and Democrats – swooped back to prominence. Ten days after Bill Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush, “Bram Stoker's Dracula” hit theaters. The Clinton years were also haunted by “Interview with the Vampire,” “Dracula: Dead and Loving It” and “Blade.”
Zombies returned with a brain-eating vengeance during George W. Bush's tenure: “28 Days Later,” “28 Weeks Later,” “Dawn of the Dead,” “Day of the Dead,” “Diary of the Dead.”
Bush-era zombies, noted Chera Kee, a University of Southern California doctoral candidate studying these cultural icons, also wandered into video games and comic books.
Recently, though, there were signs that the zombie's heyday – and the GOP's hold on the White House – was ending. Between 2008 and 2010, at least 39 vampire films have been green-lighted for production.
Whether the current passion for vampires endures or quickly fades, horror genres resemble political parties in another eerie way: The base isn't going anywhere.
“You can never get away from the undead,” Kee said.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20081108/news_1n8vampire.html

Vampire novels adapted for HBO's 'True Blood'

By Kinney Littlefield, For The Associated Press ( an older article from September 2008)

CALABASAS, Calif. — As fictional lovers go, bubbly blond Sookie Stackhouse and tall, pale Bill Compton are as massively mismatched as they come. After all, Sookie (Anna Paquin) is exuberantly human and Bill (Stephen Moyer) is, well, totally undead in HBO's flamboyant new vampire saga, "True Blood."

"Bill is really genteel but that doesn't stop him from being blood-hungry," Moyer says of his menacing 173-year-old character in "True Blood," adapted for television by Alan Ball ("Six Feet Under") from the popular series of Southern vampire novels by Charlaine Harris.

"The tension between Bill and Sookie is quite palpable," Moyer says in between scenes in which the courtly vampire, who fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War, escorts his lady friend Sookie, a telepathic roadhouse waitress, home on a dark and eerie night.

That sexually suggestive tension is key to "True Blood," premiering 9 p.m. EDT Sunday. Set in a small Louisiana town (actually the Santa Monica Mountains northwest of Los Angeles), the edgy series chronicles a time when synthetic blood supplies enable Bill and other vampires to live openly among humans, without necessarily feeding on them.

Like Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid) in the classic vampire soap opera "Dark Shadows" (1966-1971), Bill has returned to his ancestral home, where he woos Sookie and tries to fit into human society. Like Frid's Barnabas, Moyer's Bill is an unresolved paradox -- part seductive protagonist, part menacing monster.

"He's not typically vampiric," says Moyer, who played a vampire in the Brit miniseries "Ultraviolet." No long black cape and ghoulish grin for Bill, who dresses yuppie-casual. "But we do get to see him sort of sex-starved at one point," Moyer says. "And there are moments when he is quite confrontational with other vampires, when other people are predatory with Sookie."

"True Blood" also pushes the content boundaries of premium cable, with plenty of extravagantly gushing arteries and over-the-top bedroom antics to rival Showtime's "Californication" -- all mixed with a good dose of Southern gothic goofiness.

Ball was looking to produce "lighter" fare after the life-and-death introspection of critically acclaimed "Six Feet Under."

"Charlaine has just created this amazing world that's funny and vibrant and scary and also a sort of social treatise, you know what I mean?" Ball says.

"The books are violent and that's part of the appeal," he says. "It's visceral and predatory and unapologetically sexual. And it's unapologetically romantic in the sense of an old-fashioned romance novel."

The centuries-old vampire metaphor is "also about the terrors of intimacy, and about any kind of misunderstood, hated, feared minority -- homosexuals, other cultures," Ball says. "When I first pitched 'True Blood' to HBO, I called it 'popcorn TV for smart people.' "

Still, vampire series are not always surefire. Last season, CBS spiked "Moonlight," despite its loyal following for undead hero Mick St. John (Alex O'Loughlin).

Like "Moonlight," "True Blood" plays on the thrill of a vampire-human hookup. But the mechanics of Bill and Sookie's romance proved tricky for Moyer and Paquin during filming.

"You do get fangs caught in places," Paquin says, remembering her first lip lock with Bill's lethal teeth, which pop down when he's lost in bloodlust. "Perhaps it's like people with braces trying to make it work. Puncture wounds aside, one gets used to it," she teases.

Although Ball says his series "is true to the spirit of the novels," there are differences. "True Blood" takes the powerful and ruthless nature of vampire clans a little further than the novels do, he says. Sookie narrates the Harris books but not "True Blood." Instead, Ball has given Sookie a female best friend and confidante named Tara (Rutina Wesley).

The events in the 12 episodes play out over a fast and furious two-week period, like they do in Harris' first vampire novel, "Dead Until Dark." As in the novels, Sookie's mysterious boss Sam Merlotte (Sam Trammell) is very much in evidence, keeping close to Sookie.

But Ball has greatly expanded the characters of the roadhouse's gay short-order cook, Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis), and Sookie's bumbling and sexually indefatigable brother Jason (Ryan Kwanten).

"They've given me some really outrageous story lines," Kwanten says. "Jason just jumps into things before he thinks about them. He thinks he's Louisiana's answer to Casanova. Any reservations or inhibitions I had before starting the show have well and truly gone now in a good way," he says of his sex scenes. Then he laughs. "One of the grips jokes that he sees me naked more than he does his girlfriend."

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/2008-09-02-78205954_x.htm

True Blood Fan Art

Thanks vixenpup

Shopping for the True Blood/ Sookie fan in your life..


Oh, face it-- we know you are buying this for yourself !

There are some cool TB related items also to be found on eBay.
I've put a little eBay widget box on the blog (see below). I thought it would be fun, I will probably take it off next week but it searches TB related items and you will find it below and on the right.

Here is some stuff that I found last time I was poking around.

Friday perfect for dancing in the moonlight ( or for shifting)

It won't be your imagination if the moon looks bigger and brighter Friday night, like "a cosmic flood lamp."

NASA says the moon will appear up to 14 percent larger and 30 percent brighter.

Every few years, a full moon coincides with the point in the satellite's elliptical orbit that brings it closest to the center of the Earth. Friday night, the moon will be fully illuminated just four hours after reaching that point, according to a feature story on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Web site.

The moon will appear up to 14 percent larger and 30 percent brighter than "lesser full moons we've seen earlier in 2008," NASA says -- provided it is being viewed in a clear sky.

At the moon's closest approach -- the orbital perigee -- it is about 30,000 miles (48,000 kilometers) closer to Earth than at the other extreme -- the apogee -- the space agency says.

The full moon, as always, will seem largest when it is near the horizon, as it rises and sets, "but it's really just an optical illusion," said NASA spokesman J.D. Harrington.

When the moon shines directly overhead, he said, it's hard to tell the difference in size.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/space/12/12/full.moon/index.html


2008 Golden Globe Odds Revealed

Yesterday the Golden Globe nominations were announced, and already online gambling sites are taking bets on the winners. BetOnline already has odds up on every major category. Here are some of the highlights:

  • Heath Ledger is a heavy favorite to win Best Supporting Actor with 5/4 odds.
  • The Curious Case of Benjamin Button has a 66% chance of winning Best Drama.
  • Sean Penn is the odds on favorite to win Best Dramatic Actor for Milk with 4/5 odds.

Not such good odds for TB but here they are :

Best TV Drama:

Mad Men 3/2
House 2/1
In Treatment 5/1
Dexter 6/1
True Blood 6/1

Best TV Actress Drama:
Sally Field 10/11
Mariska Hargitay 3/1
January Jones 5/1
Kyra Sedgwick 5/1
Anna Paquin 10/1

read others here : http://www.slashfilm.com/2008/12/12/2008-golden-globe-odds-revealed/