LOVIN’ LAS VEGAS: Don’t know why I thought that Lily Tomlin and Sin City were not a natural fit. Turns out they are. La Tomlin premiered her new

TOMLIN & WAGNER: Viva Las Vegas

one-woman show, Not Playing With A Full Deck, at the MGM Grand, and reportedly loves Las Vegas! Lily’s partner and personal muse, the unabashedly brilliant humourist Jane Wagner, is the mighty pen behind her new show as well as such previous Tomlin megahits as The Search For Signs Of Intelligent Life In The Universe and Appearing Nitely. Lily’s new show is a mix of Greatest Hits – the characters her fans still can’t get enough of, like Ernestine and Edith Ann – and new characters, and

SHORT: Damages control

new technology. Tomlin’s new show ‘try-out’ played in MGM’s Hollywood Theater, which seats about 2,000 people at each performance. And when Tomlin isn’t hanging out with her Big Business co-star and Caesars Palace headliner Bette Midler (The Showgirl Must Go On) or trying to coax Jane (“it’s come down to begging, really,”) into writing a new Broadway show for her, she’s commuting to New York to shoot her scenes in the new season of Damages with Glenn Close. In it she plays the matriarch of a powerful family determined to destroy shady legal eagle Close. Assisting Lily in this mission are Martin Short as her high-powered attorney and Campbell Scott as her son. And yes, she confesses, she and Marty did misbehave one day on the set, when

MIDLER: The show must go ... off

she read her lines as Ernestine and he did his as Ed Grimley. “But never when the cameras are rolling!”

THE SHOWGIRL MUST GO OFF: P.S. for Vegas-bound Bette Midler fans: Your heroine ends her two-year residency at The Colloseum – aka The House That Céline Built – on January 31. Says Bette: “These legs have had such a great run in the desert, it may be time to haul them to places with more humidity and fewer slot machines.”

GET OUT YOUR HANDKERCHIEFS: Yes, it’s true, the latest YouTube sensation is a recent audition for Simon Cowell’s British talent show The X Factor. The singer is a 40-year-old cabinet-maker named Daryl Markham. Markham has his own website now, and is now a household

MARKHAM: YouTube sensation

name for millions of people all over the world. But can he sing? You be the judge. To see his now-historic audition, just click here.

NO BIZ LKE SHOW BIZ: Leave it to Reg Hartt to find a copy of the sumptuous MGM musical Kiss Me Kate, with Kathryn Grayson, Howard Keel and young hoofers Bob Fosse & Tommy Rall competing for Ann Miller’s machine-gun taps., in — wait for it — 3D, its screen original format. Cineaste extraordinare Hartt unspools the classic Cole Porter musical this Sunday and next at 5 pm at his Cineforum HQ at Bathurst & College. Adds Reg: “Bring your own popcorn and we will zap it for you.”

WILLIAMS: ReelWorld decade

Hmmmm, wonder if Stratford’s Kiss Me Kate star Juan Chiorian, now on stage at the Factory Theatre in The Madonna Painter, has ever seen this version? … fan faves Colin Mochrie & Deb McGrath guest with Ron James tonight at 8 pm on CBC Television …  the Kate Rogers Band performs live tomorrow morning on CBC Radio One’s GO! Show. “Tickets are free and everyone is welcome!” sez Ms Rogers … speaking of tickets, you can still snag some for this weekend’s performances of the National Ballet’s spectacular Sleeping Beauty revival before it closes Sunday .. and can you believe that Tonya Lee Williams’ ReelWorld Film Festival, the little movie marathon that grew, celebrates its 10th anniversary next spring? Ms Williams, of course, is currently stationed in Washington, D.C. — on screen, at least — in The Border. And BTW, the ReelWorld call for submissions has already started. So if you have a feature, documentary, short, music video or animation from the Aboriginal, Asian, Black, Latino, Middle Eastern, South Asian or other multi-racial community, click here and fill out the submissions form.

Happy weekend!

-/-

http://reelworld.ca/

Glenn Close Totally Looks Like George Washington

» Think you can do better? Make your own!

Pictures by: dunno source Look-alike by: drewza89 via Totally Looks Like Builder

Lukastyle Blazer with piping

Lukastyle with Wayne Scot Lukas. Fashion, fit and comfort in smart, mix-and-match separates. Wayne is a Celebrity Stylist to the Stars and premiere co-host/stylist for the first season of TLC’s hit fashion intervention show,  “What Not to Wear.”

Bei Kabel 1 liefen, so Michael Hanfeld in der F.A.Z., “Serien zweiter Ordnung”. Schauen wir mal ins Kabel-1-Portfolio:

“24″, Kommentar überflüssig.

“Damages – Im Netz der Macht”, mit Glenn Close.

“The Shield – Gesetz der Gewalt”, mit Michael Chiklis, CCH Pounder und, in späteren, in Deutschland noch nicht gezeigten Staffeln, wiederum Glenn Close, Forest Whitaker und Franka Potente.

“Life On Mars – Gefangen in den Siebzigern”, Kommentar überflüssig.

“Eleventh Hour – Einsatz in letzter Sekunde”, mit Rufus Sewell und Marley Shelton (samstags, 21.15 Uhr).

Hanfelds Maßstab angelegt, wäre man aber sowas von froh, wenn deutsche Sender wenigstens mal Serien dritter Ordnung zustande brächten … Ach was – vierter Ordnung wäre schon ein Durchbruch.

Adaptierte Formate wie “Stromberg” oder “Doktor Martin” zählen natürlich nicht.

Desde que eu entrei no mundo gay e comecei a catar tudo quanto é filme lés, me deparei com tudo quanto é tipo de filme, e com isso vem os incríveis (ou muito bons) e os “no-way-eu-acabei-de-assistir-a-essa-merda”. Obviamente eu comecei indo atrás dos mais falados, daqueles com atrizes conhecidas (ou gatas, rs), ou os que tinham plots minimamente interessantes. Eu realmente não sei porque eu demorei tanto pra assistir o filme feito para televisão Servindo em Silêncio (Serving in Silence, 1995), já que tinha no elenco ninguém menos que Glenn Close… e Judy Davis. E além disso se baseia numa história real, indicação de que não seria um roteiro mirabolante pseudo-intelectual-lesbianóide desses da vida (acredite, virou moda. Ex: L Word, Mango Kiss, Go Fish, etc).

Tá, eu sei o porque eu enrolei tanto… Dá uma olhada no cartaz do filme. Me diz que não parece uma capa de fanfic tosco lés? E eu deveria saber, já que eu li centenas desses na minha época pós-Xena, quando nada mais inédito existia, e o novo vício eram os fanfics (alguns muito bons, mas outros… dignos das capas). “A sargente fulana e sua amante com cara de velha coroca se amam eternamente, depois de enfrentar suas famílias preconceituosas, seus ex-maridos bigodudos com pança de chopp, e o final seria triste até não poder mais, provavelmente com uma delas – ou as duas – numa explosão sinistra”. Quanto preconceito, não é mesmo? E quebrei a cara. O filme produzido por Barbra Streisand e Glenn Close é excelente, e merece o destaque de um post no nosso Wicked Twins de hoje.

A verdadeira Margarethe e Barbra, a Diva.

O filme conta a história da oficial Margarethe Cammermeyer (Glenn Close, minha wicked muse), que depois de 25 anos em serviço, começa um relacionamento com a artista e professora universitária Diane (Judy Davis, excelente), e ao tentar uma promoção de cargo assume ser homossexual. Obviamente isso dá start ao caos que se transforma sua vida profissional dentro do exército, já que naquela época (início da década de 90) não existia a política do “Don’t ask, don’t tell”, que já é absurda, mas pelo menos permite que gays e lésbicas continuem a prestar seus serviços no exército.

Diante da pressão do exército, Cammermeyer se manteve firme e processou o exército, por sua decisão homofóbica. E o legal é ver o apoio que ela recebe da família, em parte tardio, incluindo os quatro filhos (Ryan Reynolds de fraldas, basicamente) e o pai consevador. Sem contar que a atuação da Glenn é fantástica, suuuuuper diria que ela tem um pézinho no arco-íris, mas ai seria diminuir o trabalho da atriz, e jamais! O figurino que é uma belezura que só, mas tudo bem. Faz parte da época também, rs.

Incrível pensar que num filme tão importante e polêmico por seu tema, o que mais “abalou” (no sentido de chocar mesmo) na época, foi a única bitoca que as duas dividem no final do filme. Mas “amem for that, my friends”, porque eu tava pra matar se ficasse naquela coisa celibatária…rs. Não tenham preconceito, vale a pena!

obs spoiler: de curiosidade, Margarethe e Diane ainda estão juntas e se casaram num desses estados americanos que liberam. Bonitinho né?

One of the convenient parts about movies is that they allow stuff to happen that otherwise couldn’t be done in real life.  Very rarely do we ever get a film that feels like it’s abiding by what could or would actually occur but this is part of why certain films are fun to watch (they help you take your mind out of reality for some fun).  However, there are certain scenes that push the idea of plausibility to the point that it’s either just plain silly or simply annoying.  So I’m here to give you ten of the most implausible movie scenes that I’ve ever come across.

10. That’s One Fast Train and Signal-The Fast and the Furious

It’s not like The Fast and the Furious had realism on its side in the first place.  Just about anyone who knows cars well enough should know that an Eclipse with $10,000 worth of upgrades shouldn’t be able to clear a quarter mile in 10 seconds (even with NOS).  However, one scene that I recently noted as being particularly odd is at the end when Paul Walker and Vin Diesel are racing head-to-head in a Supra and Charger, respectively.  However, after they’ve already started racing for the finish line (aka the train tracks) we see that the signal goes down and they narrowly avoid getting crashed (well, one of them does).  But since these are supposed to be ten second cars, that means the train which they just narrowly avoided came within less than 10 seconds with no warning until after they headed off.  I don’t know about you, but I can’t recall the last time a train signal was that slow or a train came that abruptly.

9. No One Sees the Monster-Cloverfield

It’s pretty tough to find little details in Cloverfield since for just about all of the action scenes the camera is shaking around like crazy but it is possible to find little pieces.  And perhaps the most abrupt part of the film is it’s ending, which you need to look in the background to see why they picked it.  Essentially we can see what’s supposedly the monster falling from the sky and into the ocean.  Yet if the bulk of the film itself is of any indication, apparently no one saw the monster go into the ocean.  This is very unlikely since the film takes place in a present setting so there obviously must have been reports of the monster.  Additionally, I find it very unlikely that not a single person who could do or say anything didn’t see the monster crash into the water.  While it can be argued that we don’t see or hear enough in the film itself to confirm this, until we get more background with a follow-up it’s still highly improbable.

8. Burt Is Alive!-Tremors 3: Back to Perfection

Tremors are definitely one of the series of films that you take your mind out of and can easily enjoy.  While the films are genuinely fun and great watches (the first two anyways), there is a scene in the third installment that’s just, well, ridiculous.  Fans of the series can instantly identify the one constant character: Burt Gummer.  There’s one scene in the film where the most infamous creature of the series (graboid) gets and eats him…only somehow he’s still alive inside the monster and is able to clearly communicate to someone simultaneously.  While we have heard a character or two in previous installments scream while being dragged into the ground, Burt, on the other hand, is inside the graboid and comes out without seeming all that affected.  Similar could also be said about how Tommy Lee Jones from Men in Black is able to survive as long as he does inside an alien but since Burt manages to multitask while inside and manage to break clearly, this gets the edge.

7. The Bus Jump-Speed

This scene is what actually gave me the inspiration to do a list of implausible movie scenes.  And of course the one scene that I can never be convinced of is the fifty foot jump across an unfinished bridge.  While Keanu Reeves says there might be an incline and we do see one for the shot the bus apparently lifts, we clearly see in other shots that there’s no such incline on either side of the bridge.  There’s also the bus landing which is less convincing if anything.  For the shot we see of the bus landing on the other side it looks like it’s coming down smoothly from a high area.  And of course they manage to keep it going over 50 MPH even with the landing the bus likely hitting no higher than 80 MPH when hitting the jump.  The film is a fun watch, but some of the scenes take me out too much.  This is the big one.

6. The Sharp Landing Turn-Air Force One

Here’s another film that tests its realism in a number of scenes but for the most part these aren’t to the point that Speed hits.  Yet one scene that I always say “they’d be so dead right there” is after the plane lands during the Russian takeover scene.  There’s a part where we see the plane take a rather abrupt and sharp turn that causes the left side to come very close to the ground.  This is where my belief ran out the window.  A plane such as Air Force One has to weigh several tons and making a turn as nasty as that would definitely make the left wing/engines scrap the ground from the weight transfer and cause a nasty incident (to say the least).  Wolfgang Peterson’s a great director and I love him for bringing us Das Boot, but that scene can never convince me.

*Skip to about 5:50*

Damages cast featuring Rose Bryne, Ted Danson, Timothy Olyphant, William Hurt, Glenn Close and Marcia Gay Harden

I love legal dramas. I love them even more if they use their thriller potential to the maximum. Up to now, I have been a big fan of The Practice ( starring Dylan McDermott) and Shark (starring the amazing James Woods), along with the absurdly humorous Boston Legal (with James Spader) – where the judges and the juries have to be won with wit,brains and some drilling cross-examinations of the witnesses. So my friend recommended Damages. It turned out to have the most impressive cast of actors I have ever seen on television:

GLENN CLOSE

Glenn Close as Patty Hewes in Damages

I like Glenn Close as an actress. She may not be your typical screen beauty but she has an exceptional cool screen presence and she will make you buy whatever character and have you rooting for her, even though the character might be a villain,like the seductress she plays in Dangerous Liaisons. And she is no stranger to playing a lawyer. She has co-starred with Jeff Bridges in Jagged Edge. However this role is quite different. She is a smart, no-bullshit type who never fully trusts a person. She is also not the most honest and ethical person she is going to meet. She rarely loses a case. What sets this show aside though, it doesn’t concentrate what goes on in the courtroom but rather what happens at the law firm her character Patty Hewes runs and owns. Behind the scenes involve enough action and deceit to keep you glued to your seat.

So knowing Close can very well make a great show on her own, I started watching. But when I saw the cast, I was more than pleasantly surprised.

WILLIAM HURT

Glenn Close as Patty Hewes in Damages

I’ve been a fan of William Hurt since I have seen Eyewitness, a really good thriller from 1981. I can’t wait to get my hands on its DVD and watch it again. My second favorite movie with Hurt is Dark City, by the director Alex Proyas- who got himself a much-deserved cult status with The Crow in 1994. Hurt’s acting is mostly subtle and he delivers perfect performances all over. So when I saw Damages and realized he had one of the most vital co-starring roles, I got even more addicted to Damages. He plays Daniel Purcell, a scientist who is an old acquaintance of Patty Hewes (Glenn Close) and asks for her help when he suspects the firm he works for is altering some crucial information to manipulate the energy industry. To make matters worse, his wife is killed. Now, you can never be exactly sure if his character is an imperfect but generally nice man or a sociopath who is just a really good actor or just someone in the grey area, neither entirely evil nor good. Hurt is perfect for this role that keeps you guessing and plays with your perception of him.

TIMOTHY OLYPHANT

Timothy Olyphant as Wes Krulik in Damages

I find him to be one of the most talented actors of his generation ( born in 1968, he is about the same age as Gerard Butler, Hugh Jackman, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and such). He really can get into character- and he can get into it so well that the next time you see him in a movie, you might think it is the first time you have seen him. Yeah, he can be that diverse. I am not going to get much into his career, I’ll be writing a post on him soon. But let’s say that one of his recent appearances has been in the 4th part of the Die Hard quadrilogy Live Free or Die Hard, where he plays Bruce Willis’s and actually the country’s worst enemy. He does well as smart and cool criminal. He can also just go and shave his heat and bring a video game character to life as he did in Hitman. Some of his other roles include a bisexual falling in love with his boyfriend’s best gal pal (Advice from a Caterpillar), the “manager” of a porn star (The Girl Next Door) and the misunderstood bestfriend of a girl’s recently deceased fiancé (Catch and Release). The role of Wes Krulik in Damages is not his first TV role, however. He made quite an impression in the western thriller Deadwood with his leading role.

Here he plays the confidant to Ellen Parsons (Rose Bryne). A guy she knows from the grief counseling group she goes to, trying to deal with her fiancé’s death. Wes appears to be dealing with the death of his girlfriend and becomes one of the few people Ellen trusts. But then again, this is tv show that we can be sure of the intentions of one character only, and that is Ellen. Wes does seem too good to be true, in deed.

ROSE BRYNE

Glenn Close as Patty Hewes in Damages

It is fun to see a familiar face on a show. Rose Bryne previously played Archilles’ love interest in Troy. Ellen is probably the only really good character in the show. She is by no means perfect but it is so easy to empathize with her and understand what she is doing and why.

TED DANSON

Ted Danson in Damages

Ted Danson is fun. He makes really enjoyable movies and he can be funny and charming at the same time, which is essential for comedic performances. Of course he has been on TV a lot: Cheers was really popular, and as was Becker. I especially loved him in Becker, where he plays a doctor whose bedside manners are not that different from Gregory House ’s (from the medical drama House). I had seen him as clumsy,charming, grumpy, witty and /or clueless but I hadn’t quite seen him as a bad guy. Here he plays a billionaire (Arthur Furbisher) not so concerned with other people until something drastic happens to him. But it doesn’t seem like he can get away with it, since Ellen is onto him.

BRETT CULLEN AND MARCIA GAY HARDEN

Bret Cullen

Marcia Gay Harden

It can be hard to catch these two in leading roles but no matter how big or small their parts are, their perfomances are solid. Brett Cullen plays an executive with good ties and you wouldn’t want to mess with him. He is Daniel Purcell’s (William Hurt) boss. Harden plays Claire Maddox, legal consultant to one of the biggest firms in the energy sector. However you can’t exactly tell where her loyalty lies. Since everyone is in a complicated relationship with each other and true loyalty is very scarce.

The show is good. There’s enough suspense and drama to catch you on the edge. So I did cheat a little and started with season 2. But it is good and until season 3 premieres, I have a whole season to catch up with the characters’ pasts. Looking forward to it.

Glenn Close has won an Emmy, a Golden Globe, a Tony, and has been nominated for an Oscar, but she still can’t seem to get a simple PSA right. She and her sister Jessie, who has bi-polar disorder, have recently launched a new campaign to reduce the stigma associated with mental illness- but are they doing more harm than good?

The main PSA for “Bring Change 2 Mind,” does anything but. It shows a crowded train station with hundreds of people milling through, with a few in white t-shirts. These t-shirts have titles and labels on them – such as from sister, better half, to schizophrenia to bi-polar. The purpose, I’m assuming, is to put a face to the diagnosis…

But, I have a real problem with this set up. You have PEOPLE wearing labels – isn’t that what disability rights activists have been fighting for years to overcome? When these individuals walk through the train station, we don’t see them as people, we see them as diagnoses. I don’t know Glenn Close’s sister’s name, but I know what her mental illness is…

When did we stop trying to put the person first???

And what about the people who are walking with the diagnosed? Their shirts have roles written on them- sister, battle buddy, better half. But the schizophrenics, depressed, and bi-polar  are sisters, brothers, better halves, battle buddies…..are they not?

How does this video show us that people with mental illness are real people too?

It’s doesn’t.

We are not learning anything about them as people, about their lives, their daily struggles… just their diagnosis. And in my opinion, that’s damaging.

Contrast that with a stigma reduction campaign I reviewed just a few days ago from Scotland, whose tagline is “See Me” (as in, not my diagnosis). In this campaign, the PSAs share the commonality of the experiences of the people with mental illness, AND show how the people who care for them helped them out:

At no point is anyone labeled. Instead, their situation is described, concrete things to do are suggested, and in the end mental illness doesn’t seem like something we need to freak out about! It doesn’t need to show famous people donning “I’m With Stupid” t-shirts.

The only redeeming factor of the “Bring Change 2 Mind” video is that at the end of the piece, the t-shirts fade to colors, and they meld into the crowd. This is a nice touch, but only goes to undo the damage that has already been done. We haven’t gained any ground.

The more I think about it, the more I hate this campaign. The tag  line is “Change a mind about mental illness, and you can change a life.”

But how, Glenn? How do we change a mind? By wearing diagnosis t-shirts?

This campaign gives us nothing but a famous person, revealing the “skeletons in her closet,” set to a John Mayer soundtrack.

(The press that the campaign is getting is equally sickening…..but I’ll save that for part deux, tomorrow)

Hot casting news from contributor, and fellow TV fanatic, Jackie Boy: Critic and awards-darling Damages is about to get a dose of comedy, kinda. Coming into its third season, the FX drama will welcome veteran comic actors Martin Short and Lily Tomlin as series regular and guest star, respectively. The plot will pit Emmy-winner Glenn Close’s Patty Hewes against a family led by Tomlin, her son (played by Campbell Scott) and their high-powered attorney (Short).

Short seems a left-field choice to join the tense legal thriller, but the show has previously used another actor known mostly for comedy, Ted Danson, to embody one of the best TV villains of recent years.

Production of the show’s 13-episode season three is set to begin tomorrow in New York City for a January premiere on FX.

I’m still blown away by the Public Service Announcement about mental illness, http://www.bringchange2mind.org, but I’ve been thinking more extensively about why is now the right time to bring this message to consciousness?  The truth is that we’ve been pushing mental illness to the background because it’s misunderstood.  Even in this day and age people don’t know what bipolar disorder is until you say it’s what used to be called manic-depression.  The common belief about schizophrenia is that it’s multiple personality disorder, not sure how that happened.  Is this the right time for that public service announcement because we’ve made advances in treatment or public opinion?

Look at physical illnesses like Parkinson’s Disease, until Michael J. Fox announced his diagnosis people didn’t talk about the disease.  Organizations that emerged to support Parkinson’s patients gained increased credibility when the Michael J. Fox foundation put money into research, advocacy, and support.  Was it Michael J. Fox’s job to bring the disease to the general population’s consciousness?  It certainly brought people out of hiding because they now had a visible community for support. 

I’ve noticed that in the past two years, during the warm weather, there has been a dramatic increase in Walk-A-Thons for various illnesses.  In most cases, it brings out those impacted by the disease both directly and indirectly.  Organizations create public relations campaigns to educate the public in hopes of receiving donations.  These walk-a-thons are very public announcements about illness.  Those who walk self-identify to the world their personal health challenge.  As I look back at the notifications I get, I don’t recall ever seeing one for a mental illness organization; they’ve all be physical illness organizations.  This get’s back to the question, “When is the time right?” 

Are we becoming a more tolerant or accepting people?  Are we at the point where most of us have come in contact with someone who is facing a physical illness or mental illness?  Does that personal experience make us more compassionate?  Are we willing to create conversations about the challenges we or our loved ones are facing?  If you have any thoughts on this please share them so we can expand the conversations!

“The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that by the year 2020 mental illness will be the second leading cause of death and disability. Every society will have to confront the issue. The question is, will we face it with open honesty or silence?”

Above is a quote from Glenn Close’s column in the Huffington Post: Mental Illness: The Stigma of Silence.

Glenn Close is one of the founding members of BringChange2Mind.org, a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to: provide people with misconceptions about mental illness quick and easy access to information that combats stigma, and provide people with mental illness, and those who know them, quick and easy access to information and support. Co-creators include, the Child and Adolescent Bipolar Foundation (CABF), Fountain House, and Garen and Shari Staglin of IMHRO (International Mental Health Research Organization). The campaign has the support of major mental health organizations, including Active Minds, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP), International Mental Health Research Organization (IMHRO), the Jed Foundation, Mental Health America (MHA), National Alliance on Mental Health (NAMI), NARSAD, National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

Their web site, bringchange2mind.org, isn’t just a web page with random facts about mental illness; there are video clips where people share their stories about their lives. You can also share your story by uploading your own video. The one neat aspect of the website is that they tell the reader how to get involved. Some suggest writing to an organization, but it’s as simple as watching our language.

Flicking through the channels on Austar (not my subscription nor my tv, as I am sadly too poor for such luxuries) I noticed an advert on the W channel for season 2 of Damages. I never really followed the careers of Glenn Close or Ted Danson with any interest, but them tearing up the screen in season 1 made the show one of the most fun legal crime thrillers I have seen in an age.

Better yet, it featured a glimpse of the enticing Timothy Olyphant engaged in some kind of vaguely devious behaviour towards (my compatriot) Rose Byrne. Not only did I have no clue that season 2 was finally on, but Timothy Olyphant was again gracing the small screen in these post-Seth Bullock times! How much I have to catch up on.

Browsing HuffPo, I came across this recently written article by Glenn Close entitled Mental Illness: The Stigma of Silence. She writes about aspects of some of her most notorious characters with great clarity and knowledge. Better yet, she recommends the work of Kay Redfield Jamison, whose memoir An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness is up there with William Styron’s Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness and Andrew Solomon’s longer The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression (whose shorter piece in The New Yorker prior to the publication of was read by Naomi Watts when preparing for her devastating performance in David Lynch’s masterpiece, Mulholland Drive).

Welcome to Caregiver Friday!!

If you haven’t been following the blog this week then you’ve missed out on learning about the new public service announcement (PSA) about mental illness.  You can view the video at http://www.bringchange2mind.org and see not only the artistry in the piece, but the power of the message.  So why am I writing about the PSA once again?  Up till now I’ve been focusing on the message, the importance of bringing mental illness to our consciousness, and the courage of those who participated in the PSA.  Now I want to turn my attention to one of the parents who accompanies her son in the PSA. 

The woman is the mother of an adult son who is schizophrenic.  When they interview the pair she tells about how they found out about their son’s disability.  They had gone on vacation when they received an emergency call that their son was in a psychiatric hospital.  They immediately rushed home, went to the hospital and proceeded to check him out not believing he was ill.  Over the next few days the son’s symptoms surfaced in a way that the parents couldn’t deny the problem and he was re-admitted to the hospital.  Why do want to live in the land of disbelief?  How does it serve our world view?  What happens when our assumptions about health are shattered?

This mother was well-meaning, loving, concerned and a host of other admirable characteristics, but like all of us, her blind spot got exposed.  We all have it, that place just outside our consciousness that nags at us and gives us clues but we choose to ignore.  When this happens, whether it’s a mental health or physical health challenge, the clues land at our feet and for some it takes a crisis to get everyone on the same page and to acknowledge the problem.  I’m wondering if our blind spots get revealed on the health issue, do they become exposed in other areas of our lives? 

We don’t like to think about mental illness because for many it conjures up images of Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest.  Fortunately, our understanding of mental illness has progressed over the past thirty years.  Treatments are more effective and less toxic, although side effects still remain a huge hindrance in maintaining the treatment protocol.  We’re afraid, disgraced, and confused when a loved one is in a psychiatric hospital, but seem to be okay if the problem is physically based…why is that?  How much of our own prejudices create the veil of disbelief?  I want to be very clear, this is not about blame, but of consciousness.  As Oprah say, “When we know better we do better”; just look at the loved ones in the PSA, you’ll see the transformation from disbelief to consciousness and acceptance!

“…attending to…deliberately selected targets, or even making a conscious decision to “veg out” for a spell, you would have had a far better experience than many of us have much of the time, captured by whatever flotsam and jetsam happens to wash up on our mental shores.  In short, to enjoy the kind of experience you want rather than enduring the kind that you feel stuck with, you have to take charge of your attention.”  Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life,” by Winifred Gallagher.

Is everyone bipolar?

Glenn Close PSA

I used to think I was unique.  Yes, a mental disorder is not something to be proud of, and I would give it away with no questions asked if I could, but it was one of those things that made me the individual that I am.  Now it feels like I’m just one more voice getting lost in the crowd of commercials and PSAs that make mental illness seem like the chic new accessory this year.

I’m all for removing any stigma attached to it, but quite frankly, I don’t feel stigmatized.  Maybe that’s because I’ve been in therapy for thirty years.  Maybe that’s because I’ve tried every drug (unsuccessfully) as soon as it hit the market.

Maybe it’s because I’ve always been more concerned with “getting better” than I have been about what other people might think.

Or perhaps I just live in a bubble of educated, liberal people out here on the west coast where I feel comfortable discussing my illness, writing about my disorder and sharing my challenges in conversations, without feeling the need to withhold my condition.  Without feeling the need to pretend to be “normal.”  In some ways it’s good to be “out of the closet” about your condition.

I’m also torn between the idea of talking about the disorder and trying not to think about it at all.  There’s a saying: What you think about persists.  The more I think about my disorder the more I’m aware of it.  And the more inclined I am to use it as an excuse for not accomplishing what I want to in my life.  It becomes a crutch.

Like the quote above from “Rapt” implies, your life is about the things you focus on.  Does focusing on being bipolar help me discover ways of dealing with it, or does it keep me mired in it?

The more I talk and write about mental illness, the more aware I am of it.  The more of a focus it has in my life.  I don’t want my life to be ABOUT being bipolar.

Do these conversations do more harm than good?  Perhaps not if you’re someone like Glenn Close’s sister who doesn’t have a diagnosis yet for what you’ve been suffering with.  In that case, disseminating the information is a good thing.

That being said, I do think it’s important to have the dialogue with our loved ones. They need to understand what’s happening with us as much as we do.  I’ve discovered that it’s a dance.  A dance very few people are capable of engaging in.But families need to not only understand, but accommodate our disorder, and that can be very difficult for many reasons.

So for now, I’m happy to be part of the conversation as long as it’s helpful.  But as usual, I don’t have any answers, just more questions.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the post from yesterday because it impacted me greatly.  The idea that 1 in 6 Americans will be diagnosed with a mental illness is astounding, and I’m a mental health professional.  The biggest problem and I’ve seen in it my own family, we don’t talk about problems like depression and bipolar disorder so they stay closeted, but the signs are there and medication is prescribed and still the whispers.  This doesn’t even take into account the genetic factor involved with any diagnosis.

The public service announcements outing mental health diagnoses is truly a piece of art.  The fact that they didn’t use actors but real people with a diagnosis and their family/friends/support persons shows there is support when we take the illnesses seriously and get the right treatment.  It always helps when you have star power behind the message and having Glenn and Jessie Close spearhead this campaign is amazing.  I encourage you to go to the website http://www.bringchange2mind.org and not only watch the public service announcement but the side interviews with Ron Howard the director and the “real” people in the public service announcement.

The bigger question and this applies to both physical illness and mental illness is how do we begin the conversations.  What if everyone in the world wore a t-shirt with the word(s) that signifies their own personal struggle.  There has to be some way to begin leveling the playing field so that conversations can begin and we don’t create a caste system based on how serious one’s diagnosis is, within the grand scheme of things.  We’re all “real” people and we have “real” problems.  Facing any health challenge whether it be physical or mental health related is serious.  We have to improve our filters when it comes to those who whisper behind our backs.  Unfortunately, I believe it’s on those of us with a challenge that have to initiate the conversations and that’s never easy.

Start small, you don’t have to do a public service announcements.  My personal example begins when I go out to dinner with friends/family.  We all sit down and people offer me wine or other alcohol and I refuse.  Their next question is often, “Are you in recovery?”  That’s my opening,  I explain that I have an auto-immune disease and the medication I take metabolizes in my liver and kidney and since I don’t want to add fuel to the fire I take my doctor’s recommendation and I don’t drink.  It’s been 17 years…if nothing else all my friends know they always have a designated driver. 

How will you start your conversation?  I think this public service announcement is the beginning of something beautiful!

Actress\Activist Glenn Close & her sister Jessie have been featured in a new television public service announcement about mental illness created by BringChange2Mind (http://www.bringchange2mind.org/), a non-profit organization co-founded by Glenn Close herself, whose sister has suffered with misdiagnosed bipolar disorder for over twenty years.
The point of this organization is to increase awareness & also decrease stigma.

The stigma of mental illness is astonishing, much like the stigma about breast cancer was in the past because it involved breasts.
When most people think of mental illness, they most likely think of the “the nut house,” people hearing voices & seeing things, violent madmen waiting to get them as they come out of 7 Eleven late at night.
But the truth is, is that those kind of mental health related phenomena get more press & therefore more stigma.
When we hear insanity, we hear not guilty by reason of insanity your honor, 
but when you do simple math, the vast majority of people will mental illnesses are not violent criminals.

A disease of the brain is just as much a disease as is one of the liver, or lungs.
And much more research is done on lung cancer & liver disease, so much that a misdiagnosis is relatively uncommon.
Contrarily, misdiagnosis in the mental health field is horribly common, and to me it seems like the patient is more aware of this than the doctor.
After all, any doctor will assure you that they know much more about you than you do, despite the fact that you have spent your whole life with yourself & most psych doctors spend an hour with you.
 
But where does over & misdiagnosis fall into the stigma?
Why are people without mental illness frequently diagnosed & given medication? It doesn’t seem to quite fit, it’d make more sense if we were under-diagnosing people in an effort to sweep mental disorders under the rug. We might as well be being told to “take you meds & shut up about it!”
We whisper to our friends (close friends that is), “I’ve been on…. Prozac I have a uh…. mental ill….. depression.” 

We have to remember that psychiatry is still in its infancy, it was only last century that mentally ill people were treated with electro-shock therapy.
And now the over & mis-diagnosis accounts for much of the over-medication, as if we just create enough drugs & give as much of them out as possible then we can then the problem will go away so we don’t have to talk about it.
Not to mention the hand the all-mighty dollar plays in this, but that is a discussion for another time.
Our minds, oh our heads, we’ve all got one, we all have thoughts, some of us with them have much more disruptive thoughts than others.
But where breast cancer was decades ago is now where mental illness is, and optimistically the health of our minds won’t be a feared topic.
Because we all know that anyone could get or have cancer, but it’s an enemy that we can see, we can look down on it. It’s on our stomachs, it’s treatable, sometimes is kills you, but it can be explained. But mental illness is so much more mysterious, we never know what our (shhhh!) schizophrenic co-worker will do (is he hearing voices right now?). And notice how we never call someone with cancer cancerous? What an insult to imply that someone’s whole identity is cancerous, that cancer is who they are, not a just part of their lives, their battle.

I am not depression, your co-worker is not schizophrenic & you are not cancerous. We have these illnesses, but why should they utterly define who we are?

I was watching Good Morning America and they had a segment on mental illness.  The guests were Glenn Close and her sister Jessie Close.  They wanted to bring attention to the fact that 1 in 6 Americans have a mental illness.  They created a public service announcement to bring this issue to the consciousness of everyone who sees the commercial. 

The commercial takes place in Grand Central Station in New York City.  We see the hustle and bustle and then two or three people walking together wearing t-shirts.  The person with the mental illness is wearing a t-shirt with their diagnosis, and the family member/loved one wears on with their relation to the person with the mental illness.  It’s a brave move, and one that takes a personal resolution to take on the illness and become your own advocate in the mental health system.  The public service announcement also shed light on the fact that we often don’t know about someone’s mental illness, we attribute their behavior to stories we make up about them.  It’s a courageous and necessary consciousness raising commercial.  If you don’t see it on television, go to http://www.bringchange2mind.org.

As you know I focus on physical health challenges at http://www.survivingstrong.com.  I have a question for you, “Would you be willing to wear a t-shirt out in public ( a very public venue) for all the world to see?”  There are some illnesses where just leaving your house outs you and your diagnosis, but what about the more invisible illnesses?  What about for those of you whose symptoms are very mild or only visible to those who know your diagnosis, would you be willing to wear a billboard on your t-shirt announcing to the world your own challenge? 

This is how we bring about change, by creating consciousness raising programs like the one headed by Glenn and Jessie Close.  They were willing to face the stigma associated with mental illness to get people talking.  It got me immediately motivated to post this entry to begin the dialogue.  It’s through connection and communication that we can build understanding and compassion for all who are facing a physical or mental health challenge.  Go see the public service announcement and let me know how it impacted you.  Will you do anything different after seeing the public service announcement?

Okay, antes de mais nada eu quero admitir que nós do Wicked Twins também erramos. Pouco, mas erramos, rs. E eu queria relembrar um Top 5 “Dá logo o oscar pra eles”, em que cometi um grave erro: esquecer que das 5 indicações ao Oscar que a Glenn Close teve, ela saiu de todas de mãos vazias. ABSURDO! E como foi que eu relembrei isso? Na maratona Damages que fiz no final de semana junto da outra psycho fan (aka, minha mãe).

Glenn Close lidera a série no papel da advogada Patricia Hewes, uma espécie de cruzamento Miranda Priestly (Diabo veste prada) com uma outra personagem da Glenn, Cruella de Vil. Você passa a primeira temporada inteira se perguntando “Boa ou má?”, onde se encaixa Patty Hewes? No final da temporada acredito que conseguimos uma resposa, mas como nada em Damages é preto e branco, não sei mesmo o que ela ainda pode revelar numa segunda temporada. Até porque nos EUA os americanos estão no aguardo da terceira temporada, e em breve, eu também estarei.

Para dar equilíbrio a essa hisória temos a personagem da belíssima Rose Byrne (Adam, 2009 – filme fofíssimo que assisti no Festival do Rio): Ellen Parsons. Ela começa a história uma jovem recém-formada advogada, que a princípio é muito “boazinha” e ambiciosa. Ela consegue começar a trabalhar na firma de Patty Hewes e é ai que se envolve numa trama que vai te deixar colado no sofá até chegar ao final da temporada.

A série é excelente! Começa com um episódio piloto memorável e termina redondinha, mas já deixando margem pra uma nova viagem alucinante que promete ser a segunda temporada. O mais legal é que não só os personagens são manipulados o tempo todo uns pelos outros, mas também os espectadores. Você nunca tem certeza de nada, e não pode confiar naquilo que os roteiristas escolheram te mostrar. Realmente muito bom.

Outro ponto positivo é o elenco coadjuvante, que nessa temporada conta com dois atores que roubam parte da cena: primeiro, Ted Danson, que eu demorei pra lembrar que era o carinha de Cheers, e que está hilário e sombrio como o “violão”, e acusado, Arthur Furbisher. E o outro é o mais desconhecido Zeljko Ivanek, que fez participações em Arquivo X, 24, True Blood, entre outras, e que em Damages faz o advogado de defesa. Excelente! E além deles temos o pai da Marisa de O. C., Tate Donovan, e o Peter Facinelle (Nurse Jackie).

Pra quem nunca viu, fica a dica! Porque realmente vale a pena. Uma das melhores séries dramáticas da atualidade, e mais uma vez vem da Tv paga americana. Impressionante como séries como Damages, Dexter, Weeds, Mad Men, e as já encerradas Sex and The City, The Sopranos, etc são muito superiores a maioria das séries de canais abertos. Não sei se é a liberdade pra criar, as temporadas menores, menos censura em conteúdos familiares… realmente não sei. Mas funciona, e muito.

E fica aqui meu pedido de desculpa a Glenn Close por não ter lhe dado a merecida medalha de ouro no Top 5 “Dá logo o Oscar pra eles”, afinal, ela tem uma indicação a mais que a Julianne Moore, e agora que entrou na vida das tvs pagas, parece que não vai encabeçar as top 5 oscarizadas tão cedo… Enquanto isso ela humilha nos prêmios para Tv e levando tudo quanto é Emmy, Globo de Ouro, etc pra casa.

Directed By: Arie Posin
Written By: Arie Posin (Story); Zac Stanford (Screenplay)
Cinematography By: Lawrence Shor
Editor: William S. Schraf & Arthur Schmidt 

CAST: Jamie Bell, Camilla Belle, Alison Janney, Glenn Close, William Fichtner, Lou Taylor Pucci, Justin Chatwin,  Jason Issacs, Rita Wilson, John Heard, Carrie-Anne Moss, Ralph Fiennes, Rory Culkin, Lauren Holly, Caroline Goodall

Well apart from not the best title in the world.

Despite having a All-Star cast the material never rises above it’s quirky to be quirky premise.

The film seeks to be a Deep, Dark Comedy that comes off as Idiosyncratic comedy that deep down wants to be a satire of the suburbs and teenage alienation.

The story involves a teenagers suicide and the ramifications that it has through the small community. The teenager was selling drugs to his peers and without a constant supply they try to get his best friend to get them drugs when he refuses they kidnap his brother and hold him ransom the only thing is they kidnap the wrong kid. That is just one of the story threads in this of the characters are messed up in there own way. The title comes from a video game the kids all play that seems to mirror there lives.

The film seems to be what a Hollywood studio thinks a indie movie is supposed to be. The elements are there the All-Star cast that seems to be partially slumming because the material is so rich only here it is not. It has satire and social commentary with a handful of dramatic moments. A good looking young cast.

The only real dramatic moments or scenes that felt real come at the beginning and ending of the film.

Certain characters are memorable and hold there own in there scenes to ground the movie a little like Glenn close in the film.

The direction is stylish, I only wish the he had the material to match it.

Wait For Cable.

GRADE: C-

El pasado miércoles el canal autonómico ETB-2 estrenó la primera temporada de la serie “Daños y Perjuicios” (Damages) protagonizada por Glenn Close, Ted Danson y ese gran secundario llamado Zeljko Ivanek.

Cuando Telecinco estrenó en enero la serie “Acusados”, la productora de “Daños y Perjuicios” acusó a la de “Acusados” de plagio porque decían que el primer capítulo de la serie protagonizada por Blanca Portillo era un calco del piloto de la producción estadounidense. Vistos ambos primeros capítulos, me quedo con “Acusados” porque la trama se desarrolla más lenta, aunque daré una oportunidad a “Daños y Perjuicios”, cuyo segundo capítulo tengo pendiente por ver.

La trama me resultó interesante aunque no es de los mejores primeros capítulos de una serie que he visto, que son la presentación de las producciones y los que te hacen seguirlas o no. Glenn Close es buena actriz, ¿soy a la única a la que le dan miedo algunas de sus caras? (debe ser que me marcó “Atracción Fatal”), Ted Danson es un actor sólido y el esloveno Zeljko Ivanek, lo he dicho, es un gran secundario salga donde salga, lo recuerdo especialmente en “24″ donde su personaje, Andre Drazen, se las hizo pasar canutas a Jack Bauer.

Lo dicho, le daré una oportunidad.

Om Glenn Close gifter sig med Glenn Hysén, kommer båda heta Glenn Hysén…

Hilsen. Linus.