Friday Night Lights is making me heterosexual

OK, not really. Let me be clear here: I am what we lesbians call a gold star. But I swear to god, I have two man crushes on Friday Night Lights characters (I won't say actors, necessarily, because I do think the crush is tied up in the character to a great extent). Number one: Tim Riggins (actor Taylor Kitsch, at right). Put simply, Riggins rocks my world. He wanders around fictional Dillon, Texas, brooding and looking hot and being charming and generally awesome. No one can resist his half-smile and puppy-dog eyes. No one! Number two: Dillon Panthers Head Coach Eric Taylor (Kyle Chandler, the dude from Early Edition -- remember?). He's a good man who does right by the people he loves. He's also adorable. Sometimes you get to see these little-boy glimpses in him, and it's so great. In last week's episode he and Riggins played ping-pong in their boxer shorts at 5 a.m. (that is not a euphimism, I swear), and it was ridiculous cute.

But just when I fear that these guys are rewiring my lesbo circuits, I remember that all the women on the show are even sexier. I've already gone on and on about Connie Britton, so suffice it to say my love for her has not waned. But I did not mention Adrianne Palicki, who plays the troubled Tyra Collette. I knew a few girls in my Texas high school like Tyra -- self-assured, too grown-up for their age, sharp mind, sharper tongue, questionable home life -- and while they scared the hell out of me, I secretly wished we were friends. Because that girl? She will have your back. But that girl also doesn't have a lot of female friends. Or if she does, she doesn't let them in. Tyra has a lot of walls up, and you can't really blame her. Her life is rough. No dad, depressed mom who goes through all kinds of wrong men, stripper sister, bad boyfriends, sexual assault ... it's not pretty. But it makes for great TV. (Well, mostly. One of her storylines this season was so over-the-top, I'm pretending it didn't happen.) Adrianne Palicki is really something in this role. And oh my god, is she a stone cold fox. See for yourself:

Wanted: Ingenue. Must not sleep with gross older dudes

It snowed here yesterday, so today I commenced my first driveway-shoveling of the season. That activity pretty much wiped me out (well, earlier I went to the gym and then went bowling, so that may have had an effect). At any rate, I'm all cozy on my couch, drinking some eggnog and ready to wax dorky on cute girls.


I'm pretty fired up to see Juno, starring Ellen Page, an attractive young actress who intrigues me greatly. Don't you just love her voice? I haven't seen her in very many movies, but she was so excellent in Hard Candy, you couldn't watch it without thinking the entire time, "Man, this kid is the real deal." I figure since she was in every scene of that film, that's plenty of evidence to prove she's got chops. And if she's as good in Juno as I'm hearing, then she just might step up and fill the My Favorite Young Actress void. I had to let Evan Rachel Wood go, so the position has been empty for a while. Wood was my favorite for quite some time, and I still think she's immensely talented and will have an incredible career. But dating Marilyn Manson? Seriously? No. Just ... no. I mean, I think he's basically harmless (and not nearly as interesting or subversive as he thinks he is), but he is way too old for her. And not attractive enough. That's right, I'm exactly that shallow. I am firm in my belief that a girl as lovely as Wood should not be sleeping with Marilyn Manson. Gross. I know it's absurd, but I suppose part of me will always see Evan Rachel Wood as Jessie Sammler, kissing Katie Singer in the attic (you know what I'm talking about, Once and Again fans). Thinking about her with a creepy older dude just sets my teeth on edge.

But I digress. Ahem. I have no such unreasonable iconic-teenage-lesbian hangups with Ellen Page. Only hope for a bright future. Oh, and a couple of other non-Page reasons to be excited about Juno -- it also stars Arrested Development alums Jason Bateman and Michael Cera (yay!), plus the one and only Allison Janney. We all know how I feel about that. Whee!

In closing, a moment from happier, more innocent times:

I'll take a double shot of Starbuck, please

Yes, I am aware that's probably the most overused wordplay possible when talking about Battlestar Galactica's Lt. Kara Thrace, a.k.a. Starbuck. If one of my editors had sent me that headline I would reject it for being too easy. But this is a blog, not my damn job, so deal with it. Trite headlines for all!

Anyway, in anticipation of an extended writers strike (which I support wholeheartedly -- fair is fair, corporate assholes), I have begun to supplement my regular TV viewing with DVDs of series I never managed to catch up with before. I started with Battlestar Galactica for a couple of reasons. First, I have been hearing forever from friends and colleagues (nerds!) that it's really good. And second, because Katee Sackhoff is wicked hot, and has been absent from The Bionic Woman for many, many weeks. Bionic was borderline lousy to begin with, but without the Sarah Corvus character it is pretty much the definition of suck. I stopped watching Bionic, but wasn't willing to give up a regular dose of Sackhoff, so BSG, here I be. I thought a Bionic Katee Sackhoff was something to behold, but as the the talented, tomboyish space pilot Starbuck, in flight suits and tank tops? Yowza. Thank you, God. Also, the show is really good so far, so cheers all around.

Q: Who rocks harder than Allison Janney? A: No one.

Hairspray comes out on DVD in a couple of days, which makes now a perfect time to celebrate Allison Janney, who stole every goshdarn scene she was in as the aptly named Prudy Pingleton. Now that I think of it, she might be one of the great scene-stealers ever -- both in movies and on The West Wing, which is where I (and countless others, I'm sure) first began to truly understand the glory of La Janney. She was pitch-perfect as CJ Cregg, who will forever be one of my favorite TV characters. I could go on for days and days listing all the reasons CJ Cregg is the pinnacle of awesome, but suffice it to say that she and Janney share a lot of qualities: intelligent, funny, accomplished, compassionate, passionate, beautiful. And let us not forget that Janney is crazy tall, which I find so hot. You do too; admit it. The woman is a knockout:

But it's not just that she's beautiful and smart and funny and redwood-tall, or that she kissed Meryl Streep in The Hours. She's also super gay friendly, and completely OK with the fact that a lot of ladies want her. A lot. And she's a great sport. She's easily my favorite guest on Ellen, engaging in a long-running, heated rivalry against Ellen in everything from ping-pong to American Gladiotors-style jousting. They're all hilarious, but I'm going with this one because it involves sumo wrestling. Plus, she looks way sexy in jeans and a baseball shirt.

Another girl's self-esteem in the toilet thanks to Tyra Banks

America's Next Top Model is my secret TV shame. I started watching it because I got hooked on the show recaps written by Potes of Television Without Pity (who I have a total word crush on, because she is hilarious beyond belief). The recaps by themselves are a panic, but I decided that they would probably be even funnier if I actually saw the show, and I was right. So now I come home from work on Wednesday nights, twitching in anticipation of the latest bouts of bitchery from the model wannabes. They rarely disappoint.

I hadn't picked a favorite yet this season, but I was sort of pulling for Sarah, who is witty and pretty, and also the token "plus-size" girl of the group. But Sarah got the boot tonight, going the way of every other plus-size girl in the history of the show. Just about every season, they make it seem like this is finally the time the plus-size girl will give those skinny skanks a run for their money. These poor, unsuspecting girls start the show brimming with confidence, ready to be an example for non-stick-figured women everywhere. But after weeks of struggling as a size-8 float in a the size-0 parade, their self-image erodes, and inevitably they break down. This week, Sarah broke. Her biggest issue: She was losing weight, and thus Tyra and her merry band of judges were climbing all over her case for being too skinny to be a plus-size model, and too hefty to be a regular model. In other words, she'd probably dropped to a size 6, a size that I and most of my friends would seriously consider lopping off a limb to be again.

I want to make it clear that I'm not exactly outraged over this outcome, because for one thing, I think the show is bullshit and I don't like to get too worked up about it. I also concede that Sarah was taking only so-so photos, and her heart probably wasn't in the whole thing anyway. But I just had to remark upon the absurdity of Tyra harshing on someone for being too fat and too skinny, then criticizing her for having some visible issues with that. Tyra, who fancies herself as some sort of champion for women's self-esteem issues. (Potes calls her Typrah Winbanks, which is so right on.) But Sarah seems to have her head screwed on straight, so I'm confident she can overcome the Top Model mindfuck that has taken down many an aspiring Cover Girl shill. Good luck, Sarah. I still think you're purty.

Helloooo, Doctor

Since about midway through last season, I've been on the verge of breaking up with Grey's Anatomy. I guess it was around the time I found out they were spinning off Kate Walsh's character. I mean, it's great for her that she has her own show, but Private Practice just hasn't captured my fancy. And Grey's without Dr. Addison Montgomery is a much less interesting Grey's. Then, George and Izzie supposedly fell in love (oh please), and they turned smart, capabale and hotter-than-blazes Callie Torres (O'Malley) into someone powerless and pitiful. Unacceptable. But the show has redeemed itself with the full-time addition of Brooke Smith as Dr. Hahn, replacing that douchebag Isaiah Washington. Thank Jeebus. When she showed up last week and immediately started kicking ass, I actually clapped my hands in sheer glee. I had the same reaction a few weeks ago when she turned up on Weeds as Original Mrs. Scottson, the object of the bizarre and hilarious platonic affections of Nancy (Mrs. Scottson 2.0). She is just fantastic -- her awesome voice and facial expressions are perfectly suited to the sharp-tongued characters she's playing on both shows. She's also got a nice lesbian-ish vibe going with the Dr. Hahn character.

The moral of the story: the more Brooke Smith on my TV, the better. Most people probably recognize her as Catherine, Buffalo Bill's captive in Silence of the Lambs. (You know: "Preeeeecious .... Preeeeeecious ... c'mere, ya little shit.") She was awesome then, and she's every bit as aweseome now. Welcome to Seattle Grace, Dr. Hahn.

Bye-bye, free time

When I was a kid, I was so into playing Atari that I used to regularly break joysticks in bouts of extreme frustration. (My parents really loved that.) Since then, though, I've never really been much of a gamer. I've had occasional flirtations with specific games -- my addiction to Tetris and Dr. Mario was a real problem, and I played a lot of Super Mario -- but that was years ago. Until I bought a PlayStation 2 in January, I hadn't owned a game system in about a decade. I bought the PlayStation specifically for Guitar Hero, which looked like a fun little lark, and probably a good party game. I had no idea that I would be spending much of 2007 hunched over a plastic guitar, fingers cramping like crazy.

But here I am. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock came out Sunday, and it is so cool. I haven't had a chance to really get into it, but the track listing is a dream for a gal of the '90s such as myself. My music of choice tends to be chicks with acoustic guitars, but I love a lot of '90s rock and '70s rock. Some of the tracks I'm super-excited about: Weezer, "My Name is Jonas"; Pearl Jam, "Evenflow"; Smashing Pumpkins, "Cherub Rock"; Beastie Boys, "Sabotage" (I know!!!!); Heart, "Barracuda"; Rage Against the Machine, "Bulls on Parade"; Rolling Stones, "Paint It, Black"; and so help me God, Metallica, "One."

Pound for pound, the best around

When Veronica Mars was canceled last year, I was pretty upset. Not so much because it was an great show -- which it was, although it had slipped from its first-season excellence -- but because it meant Kristen Bell wouldn't be on my TV anymore. In falling head over heels for the show, I also fell for Bell's acting. She packs a shitload of talent into her tiny, tiny frame. (Seriously, even for Hollywood, she is so wee.) Bell was asked to do a lot with the Veronica character, and she never failed to hit a home run -- even when Veronica was someone you didn't particularly like at the moment. Veronica had a lot of sadness and anger in her, and thus was too quick to think the worst of people, even those who loved her. She could also be arrogant and dismissive. But Bell was always able to pull off the high-wire act of letting the viewer see all of Veronica's flaws and baggage and anger without tipping too far one way and making her a character you didn't like or couldn't relate to, or tipping the other way and getting all Lifetime movie "mommy left me and I have trust issues" with it. Of course, strong writing helped a lot. But make no mistake: Kristen Bell absolutely has the goods. So I was quite thrilled to learn she has joined the cast of Heroes, a show my little geek heart just loves to pieces. (Actually, nerdy though I am, I've never been a comic book fan at all, and was a little surprised that I liked Heroes so much, given its premise. But I digress.)

I haven't watched Monday's episode yet, so I don't know what her special Hero purpose is. I kind of hope she's evil, because she played evil so well in a short arc on Deadwood, as the world's tiniest homicidal maniac/lesbian temptress/whore. (No, I am not making that up.) Whatever her super ability is, I have no doubt she's going to be kick-ass awesome. The photos from Dorothy Snarker's blog are highly, highly tantalizing, from a potential-lesbian-goodness standpoint. Which, let's face it, is why I get up in the morning: potential lesbian goodness, real or imagined.

This is my favorite Veronica, circa the first season. The Veronica that was on the fringe of high school society, fell asleep in class and took shit from no one.

UPDATE: I finally got around to watching it, and Bell was just as kickass as I had hoped. It appears that she's probably evil (yes!), and she can totally shoot electricity out of her fingers. I love TV.

Locomotives? What?

So I'm watching the CSI: Miami rerun that I recorded earlier (yes, because I totally have crush on Emily Procter; I'll get into that whole thing another day, I swear), and I just saw what must be the strangest, most ill-conceived commerical ever. It's blue-collar worker types singing "Take My Breath Away" while building or cleaning or doing something worker-like with giant locomotive engines built by GE. It's a commercial for TRAINS. Is A&E's demographic really people whose jobs involve buying goddamn locomotive engines? I don't understand why this commercial exists. I mean, what the fuck french, toast?

Which brings me to my favorite commercial in recent memory -- the Orbitz dirty mouth commercial. Everyone in it is funny. Doesn't "lint licker" sound wonderfully profane? Enjoy it with me, so I can forget the weird thing with the trains.

Becki Newton is bringing the funny

She's fabulous, she's hilarious, she's bitchy, and when under duress, she has a weakness for candy and carbs. She's Ugly Betty's Amanda Tanen, played brilliantly by the beautiful and talented Becki Newton. On a lesser show, Amanda would be all mean girl and no heart. But on Ugly Betty, she's ... well, mostly mean girl. But we also get to see a lot of the vulnerable Amanda, and Newton is just as good at that stuff as she is at the comedy. Her facial expressions slay me every week. Favorite quotes: "Have you been smoking one of your ponchos?" and (when Betty's dad offers Amanda a delicious flan) "Ohhh, BRING IT!" Favorite moment: I just can't pick one. But I do love this clip I found on YouTube, because when this episode originally aired, I was at least halfway into it before I figured out that Becki Newton was playing the nerdy Bizarro Amanda (aka Ruthie). So funny.

Friday night's all right

The long wait is over. The series I'm absolutely not at all ashamed to say I'm madly in love with -- Friday Night Lights -- returns tonight, and I could not be happier. Go Panthers! State champs, wooo! Ahem. When I first heard about this show, I assumed it wouldn't be very good, if the natural order of things held true. That is to say, when you take a wonderful book (by Buzz Bissinger) and turn it into a movie, the movie is often a letdown. Which it was. And when you then take that blah movie and turn it into a TV show, well ... you get what I'm saying. But while the Friday Night Lights movie was nothing to write home about, the show is incredible. It can break your heart at one turn and make you feel full of youth and hope at the next. The characters and relationships are so damn real. These are people who are trying to figure out how to love each other, how to find happiness and meaning in their small, football-psycho town. Really, it's a joy to watch. I know I watch a lot of TV shows, and I can freely admit that some of them are not so great. But trust me when I say that this is one of the the best shows that's been beamed into our homes in the last several years, and it kills me that no one's watching. I'm so paranoid that it's going to get canceled.

And that would be a crying shame, because then the world would be denied the glory of Connie Britton, who is acting her white-hot ass off in FNL. If you can watch even one episode and not fall in love with her character (and with her), then you are made of stone. Every time I watch the show, I can't decide whether I wish she were my wife, my mother, my sister, or my friend. (Usually wife wins out, like that's a surprise.) You can catch up with last season's episodes for free at NBC.com. What are you waiting for?

Yay!

I learned yesterday that my imaginary girlfriend of the summer, Top Chef's Lia Bardeen, is bisexual. I don't need to tell you that this revelation fills me with great joy. The news comes via a kind anonymous poster at Dorothy Surrenders, and our dear Dorothy has posted the video in which it came to light. Really, I have nothing to add to what's already on Dorothy's blog, but I just wanted an excuse to post a picture of Lia's cute "Yay!" face after she won an elimination challenge.

Boooooo

The U.S. women played terribly and lost 4-0 to Brazil. In my mind, Abby Wambach and Hope Solo spent many hours comforting each other. Yes, I am a perv. I know.

I'm upset about it in the sense that the U.S. team was poorly coached and did not play up to its potential in the entire tournament, and today's game was the nadir. On the other hand, I'm all for the women's game growing globally. Particularly in Brazil, where the national squad gets no support despite the fact that it is one of the top teams in the world. Here in the U.S., soccer is still a neglected stepchild, certainly. But coverage of today's game was all over ESPN (even the talking-head shows) and will be in every major newspaper tomorrow. Our national team gets paid to train year-round. Brazil's national team was basically disbanded in 2004 and only started playing together a few weeks before the World Cup. So, yeah, even though I've spent most of the day in a low-boil rage over the way today's match went down, I can't get too uptight about this loss. I hope the Samba Queens win it all.

A Wonderful World

If you haven't been watching the Women's World Cup for the past several weeks, you have missed out on a boatload of women playing some excellent soccer and looking hot doing it. It was my original hope to pick a Soccer Girlfriend of the Day for every day games were played, but it was too difficult to choose. My affinity for sporty blondes knows no bounds, thus the fact that there were three Nordic teams in the competition early on (Norway, Sweden, Denmark) left me in complete sensory overload. Now that we're down to the semifinals, I am doing much better.

The first semifinal on Wednesday is Norway-Germany, which should be a humdinger. Germany's defense has been insane and Birgit Prinz is a goal-scoring machine, so the Norwegians have their work cut out for them. On paper, Germany should win. But I'm picking Norway in an upset because I can't bet against those cute Scandinavians, like Marie Knutsen. (Germany is not lacking in the cuteness department, though -- I think this photo of Renate Lingor is adorable.)

As for the U.S. women, they will have their hands full with the creative and fast Brazilian team, starring the astonishingly talented Marta. But I'm cautiously optimistic for the U.S. As Julie Foudy has pointed out, when Brazil is backed into a corner, it often loses composure. So if the U.S. scores early, I like its chances. Back in the day, I had a lot of crushes on U.S. soccer players -- Shannon MacMillan, Mia Hamm, Foudy, Brandi Chastain, you name it. These days, I will admit to being a bit out of touch with the team. But Abby Wambach (the top photo, in case you don't know) is infinitely crush-worthy because, in addition to being attractive, she is so very badass. In keeping with my love of the blonde pixies, I am also fond of Lindsay Tarpley, who hasn't gotten much playing time in the World Cup (booo). Heather O'Reilly is cute too. Ultimately, as committed as I am to praising the hotness of women worldwide, how they look really doesn't matter. It's all about how you play the game.

Credit for the top photo goes to Eugene Hoshiko of The Associated Press

She's cute even when she shills

Stuck at home with a serious case of hay fever this week, I've been watching a lot of tennis. A lot. And I was getting really tired of the John McEnroe American Express commercial ("Klaus Umlaut? '85 US Open?") But yesterday, a new commercial joined the rotation -- Tina Fey plugging American Express. Like Tina herself, the ad is funny, cute and smart. As soon as I can find a video (update: here), I'll link to it, but the gist is that Tina has to do everything herself and is constantly solving problems ("I will suck the venom out, but this is the last time!"). Except when she has a credit card issue -- why, American Express will take care of that for you, goshdarn it!

I have had a crush on Tina Fey for a long time. I used to think I was alone in that, but in recent years I've discovered that she seems to be universally loved by the lesbians. It's not just because she's sexy and witty and liberal and wears those awesome glasses; I think it's also because we look at her and think, "Ah, that one shoulda been a lesbian." But she's not, and we're OK with that. And she seems to be OK with being the object of our affections. In one of the funniest 30 Rock episodes of the first season, she gets set up on a date with a woman because her boss (Alec Baldwin) assumed she was a lesbian (based on her choice of footwear). Anyway, everyone should watch 30 Rock, because it's hilarious. It has filled the void left in my life after Arrested Development went off the air. The season two premiere is Oct. 4. So far away! In the meantime, here is a funny clip from the show.