When we left Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) at the end of Season Three, the telepathic roadhouse waitress turned vampire paramour of Bon Temps, Louisiana, had been transported to Faerieland, which turns out to be a lot less like a Disney movie than a horror movie. Only a few hours pass for her, but when she returns to Earth in True Blood: The Complete Fourth Season (HBO) it’s a year later. Her vampire lover Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) is now the king of Mississippi, her sweetly stupid brother Jason is a police deputy (and the hope of new blood for the werepanther community), and a new coven has taken up residence in town with a an unhappy medium (Fiona Shaw) channeling a very powerful spirit pushing them to war with the vampires.

In other words, another lively season in the bayou with the hapless humans and the supernatural creatures who love them / hate them / feed off them. Alcide is in a new pack, Eric (now serving under Bill) is transformed from icy schemer to lovesick teddy bear, and vampire Jessica having a hard time adjusting to domestic life, while other stories include a shapeshifter family conflict, a V-addicted sheriff (when the most responsible member of your police force is Jason Stackhouse, you are in serious trouble), and a very odd baby scaring the bejesus out of Arlene and Terry. As usual, it’s all visualized with a wild mix of weird imagery, nocturnal spookiness, witty characters, and flamboyant splatter humor.

The mix of gothic pulp, supernatural soap opera, overheated melodrama, and steamy R-rated sex and skin is hopelessly addictive, never as smart as its HBO cousins but far more shameless fun. Alan Ball has taken this southern gothic melodrama of vampires in the bayou far from the source material (the novels of Charlaine Harris) and fans have loved his juicy take on the supernatural soap opera so much they have made this show HBO’s top original series and bestselling TV on Disc title.

Continue reading at Videodrone

True Blood: The Complete Season Three (HBO)

The werewolf nation joins the supernatural ecosystem in the third season of Alan Ball’s sexy southern gothic melodrama of vampires in the bayou, adapted (and expanded) from the novels of Charlaine Harris. But that, of course, is just one of the complications in the rocky love affair between telepathic roadhouse waitress Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) and soulful vampire Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) and the small town travails of love and family and lots and lots of buried secrets in Bon Temps churned up in the supernatural conspiracies around them.

The vampire kings and queens are going to war (and their subjects are forced to choose sides), the werewolves (think feral motorcycle gang bruisers next to the aristocratic arrogance of the vampire kingdom) are getting more daring and Sookie’s true heritage (and why the vamps are so interested in her) is starting to get revealed. Meanwhile, the easy-going Sam Merlot, local tavernkeeper and orphan shapeshifter, finds his kin and isn’t too impressed with them.

The mix of gothic pulp, supernatural soap opera, overheated melodrama and steamy R-rated sex and skin is hopelessly addictive, never as smart as its HBO cousins but far more shameless fun.

Continue reading  at MSN Videodrone

Been a busy week since I got back from Toronto – conducting phone interviews, transcribing Toronto interviews… and, oh yeah, movies.

Movies come later. Here’s a list of recently published interviews.

I interviewed Alan Ball, director of Towelhead and creator of Six Feet Under and the new True Blood, a few months ago when he was at SIFF. A brief version of the interview is in the Seattle P-I, the complete piece is on Parallax View.

Alan Ball

This is your feature directorial debut. You directed a number of episodes of Six Feet Under.

I directed six episodes of Six Feet Under.

Is that where you learned how to direct?

Yes. Six Feet Under for me was kind of like film school. Prior to moving to Los Angeles I worked only in the theater. I directed in theater but I had never done anything for the camera and my first four years working in L.A. was working on sitcoms, which is basically theater with video cameras. And then when American Beauty was made, I was on the set every day, just observing, just watching. And then Six Feet Under was basically film school.

I see Six Feet Under as not just TV but long-form drama.

I’ve always said, without claiming sole authorship – because I certainly didn’t write everything myself, I worked with a really talented group of writers – it’s the closest I will ever come to writing a novel. There is certainly something I love about TV and this ongoing series, the scope that it has, it’s a different environment than a movie, which is two hours and you have to accomplish everything in those two hours. And I love that.

I find with really great TV on an ongoing drama like Six Feet Under, you have to bring a certain amount of closure in an episode but it is in no way definitive, the story continues until you reach the end of the run.

And you can also have your characters evolve and change over years in a way that is really not possible in movies. And nobody would ever let me make a movie about dealing with the existential presence of death in life if you’re in this business. That’s not a movie. You can have philosophical conversations on a TV show that you could never have in a movie. You know what I mean? In a lot of ways, TV is a… I don’t want to say TV is a better medium for a writer than movies are, because I mistrust any of those blanket statements, but I do think we are in a golden age of television right now, which is really exciting.

Read the complete interview here.

I interviewed Ricky Gervais at Toronto, where he was promoting his new film Ghost Town, for the P-I:

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