Who ordered all the shirts?

Insane True Blood finale truths: Sookie & Bill need to break apart, fairies arelame & Denis O'Hare rules

True Blood left plenty of cliffhangers at the close of season 3.
No matter how good their chemistry may be in real life, Anna Paquin and StephenMoyer are boring together in True Blood.
Denis O'Hare was the breakout star of True Blood season 3.

Season 3 of HBO’s Southern Gothic vampire show, True Blood, ended Sunday night and, in an absolutely shocking first for the show, the entire cast kept their shirts on for the whole hour. What the episode lacked in shirtlessness it overcompensated for with cliffhangers, enough to leave the audience impatient to return to Bon Temps, Louisiana for summer 2011.

Still, life is about the journey and for season 3 that journey was like being kidnapped and thrown into the back of a car by a gang of vampire blood-addicted werewolves, who eventually lose control of the car during their V euphoria and crash into a ditch. This is not to say that the season was bad, just insane.

The cast of characters seemed to double and along with them the types of supernatural creatures. Yet, underneath the supernatural, soap opera plot-lines the show continues to be biting (pun intended) political and social satire.

So after three months and 12 episodes, what has season 3 taught us?

1. No matter what a beautiful couple newlyweds Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer are, their on screen chemistry as Sookie Stackhouse and Vampire Bill Compton should be pressed into pill form and bottled as the ultimate sleep aid. Kept apart from each other, their characters are dangerous and fascinating, but brought together: Zzzzzzzz.

2. Denis O’Hare, who plays 3000 year old vampire Russell Edgington, must be adhering to Alexander Skarsgard’s,vampire Eric workout regime. The Tony award-winning O'Hare can devour as much scenery as he wants and he never gains a pound. He also deserves an Emmy nomination next year. His portrayal of Edgington’s descent from powerful vampire king to grief-stricken mad-vamp, out to crush the world, was mesmerizing.

3. We would think that dumb, but pretty, Jason Stackhouse plus werepanthers — they’re like werewolves but they turn into panthers — would equal riveting, campy television, and we would be absolutely wrong.

Even the most ardent cat lover would probably agree: the early episodes’ Mississippi nazi werewolf subplot? Fun. The later season’s Louisiana inbred werepanther colony subplot? Just boring.

4. Only in the True Blood world would the relationship between Lafayette (LaLa) Reynolds — the vampire-blood drug dealer/fry cook who recently discovered he has shamanistic powers — and his boyfriend Jesus Velasquez, —mental hospital nurse/witch — be the healthiest, most supportive one on the screen. Their story also allows the audience to play along at home and come up with their own sacrilegious puns on Jesus’ name.

5. Sookie knows, fairies are lame.

True Blood is over and the summer is winding down, but in Houston the heat index is still in the 100s, so how are we to fill our Sunday nights without leaving our air conditioners? Well, HBO is delivering Boardwalk Empire next week, a series set in Atlantic City during Prohibition. The previews look gorgeous. It stars Steve Buscemi, and Martin Scorsese is one of the executive producers and the director for the first episode, so it will likely be aesthetically good for us, like a plate of gourmet spinach.

The question is, at any point in the series will Buscemi rip out the spine of a news anchorman on live television, rant about humanity’s treatment of the planet, promise to eat the audience’s children and then throw to the next segment with “Now time for the weather, Tiffany”? No, he undoubtedly will not, and this makes us sad.

Same time next year, True Blood.

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Movie Review

Daniel Craig shines in Queer, an unapologetic tale of love and loss

Photo courtesy of A24

Drew Starkey and Daniel Craig in Queer.

As recently as the late 2010s, if a movie was made about an LGBTQ+ character, it was more than likely about their coming out experience. Romance, if it existed, was typically chaste, and actual sex was almost completely out of the question. Things have changed dramatically in the 2020s, to the point that a major movie star has no issue starring in a film called Queer.

Based on the 1985 novella by William S. Burroughs, the film features William Lee (Daniel Craig), whom everyone calls just Lee, a writer living in 1950s-era Mexico City who spends most of his time haunting local bars with friends like fellow writer Joe Guidry (Jason Schwartzman) and hitting on younger men. His early interactions in the film seem to indicate that Lee has a bad reputation within the local gay community, as multiple people avoid him or give him odd looks.

Lee senses an opportunity when he encounters a newcomer, Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey). Despite some awkward interactions, the two of them start spending time together, although Lee has much more invested in the relationship than Eugene does. Their hit-and-miss bond continues until Lee, who’s starting to get into drugs in addition to the booze, convinces Eugene to accompany him on a trip to South America.

Directed by Luca Guadagnino and written by Justin Kuritzkes (making their second straight film together after Challengers), early on the film seems to be mostly about the divide between an older person who’s grown comfortable in his ways and a younger person who’s living a relatively carefree life. The introduction of drugs into the plot changes things, though, with Lee searching out more ways to open his eyes to what the world has to offer.

Guadagnino and his team use some interesting visual storytelling techniques to introduce ideas that may not be present in the actual script. The most successful, demonstrated in multiple scenes, is the superimposition of movements by Lee over what’s actually taking place in the scene. The subtle overlay gives the audience insight into Lee’s true feelings, showing what he can’t or won’t say out loud.

Music also plays a big part in how the plot is perceived, with the use of anachronistic songs from Nirvana and Prince serving to heighten certain moments. The score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is not as in-your-face as the one they did for Challengers, but it complements the film well, especially when the plot starts to get trippy in its final half hour.

Craig, who appears sweaty and disheveled for much of the film, is about as far from the suaveness of James Bond as you can get in this role. He takes multiple risks with his performance and almost all of them pay off. Starkey’s character is subdued by comparison, but still comes off well. Schwartzman and Lesley Manville are given showy roles, with both using altered appearances that make them nearly unrecognizable to deliver memorable performances.

Queer is not as accessible as Challengers was storytelling-wise, but the fact that it tells a story about gay men living their lives as they see fit with no interference or questions shows how far the film world has come in a short period of time. It also continues Guadagnino’s streak of making audacious films in a way that few other filmmakers are willing or able to approach.

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Queer is now playing in theaters.

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