Scrambling for Halloween goods? Have no fear! Visit the HBO Shop to complete your Sookie costume with authentic HBO gear, get last-minute glassware for your party, and stock the fridge with bottles of Tru Blood. Place an order today to make sure it arrives in time for Halloween!
Suffering from True Blood withdrawal? Re-visit HBO.com to relive your favorite Season 2 moments, find any of the hidden clues you might have missed, grab commemorative downloads, and find links to all the songs you loved so much.
Alan Ball was known for his masterful use of music in Six Feet Under. He's lost none of his touch when it comes to his current HBO series, True Blood - which happens to be set in the Louisiana swamps, not terribly far from Houston. With Season 2 just completed, Rocks Off is now working our way backwards through the episodes we missed as HBO begins reruns.
Episode 1.3, "Mine"
Let's talk gay pimps and drug addiction, shall we?
Just behind Sister Gertrude Morgan in terms of sheer oddity that we've covered in this column comes a man called McGovern, Jonny. Reviled but inspired by rap music and Eminem's notorious ***-bashing interviews, McGovern set out to use rap and hip-hop to strike back in the name of LGBTs everywhere. Thus was born his show The Wrong *** to F**k With: The Gay Pimp vs. Eminem.
In it, The Gay Pimp was a pop superhero that battled Eminem to the buttsex at the MTV Movie Awards, leaving Marshall Mathers humiliated. We haven't had this much fun at Eminem's expense since ICP released "Eminem Ain't Nothing But a Bitch."
After the songs from the show started getting regular play in New York nightclubs, McGovern recorded a video for the song "Soccer Practice," which also went into heavy rotation in dance clubs and the internet. Since then, he's quietly built up a reputation as a gay icon and music mogul, working as a writer, performer, and producer for various groups. Among the most fascinating is La'Mady, a transsexual rap supergroup. McGovern also has one of the highest-rated gay comedy podcast in the world, Gay Pimpin' with Jonny McGovern, hosted by himself and Linda James.
Apparently McGovern's work is a favorite of Bon Temp's most fabulous resident, Lafayette, who utilizes McGovern's music for immoral purposes. See, Lafayette is a cook and bartender in Merlotte's, where our heroine Sookie Stackhouse waits tables, but he runs three lucrative side businesses. The first is his work as a prostitute, particularly for local politicians. The second is as a drug dealer.
Now, the Sookie Stackhouse universe has all the regular drugs that we indulge on this side of the TV screen, but it also has V. In a just world, this drug would turn you into a lizard-man, but in reality is does a lot of more pleasant but less cool things. V is the blood of vampires, with Anne Rice rules regarding age being equal to potency. Ingesting V can heal pretty significant wounds.
It also increase your strength, sense, and best of all your libido. V sells for between $200 to $400 a vial depending on the vampire it came from, and the selling of V is looked way down upon by both human cops and vampires. The cops usually arrest you, and the vamps usually play with your vitals. Still, it's popular enough that people will do anything for it, including Sookie's brother Jason. Having gotten hooked on V, he agrees to participate in Lafayette's third extracurricular activity; cam whoring. Set to Jonny McGovern's "Soccer Practice," we present the most awkward sexy dance in history.
Starting Friday, October 23, the 2009 Vampire Film Festival is expected to draw occult film fans and followers to the historical city of New Orleans. Who needs Hollywood to create a dark and scary atmosphere when you've got the real deal Halloween atmosphere thing?
Long before Brad Pitt (leading vamp in Anne Rice's "Interview with a Vampire") and blood thirsty Angelina Jolie made a trip to visit or to buy a place in the spooky city creepy cool, Halloween travelers already knew the legendary place famous for bawdy nightclubs and dark city streets is the place to be if you are in search of something to do that is dark and edgey.
The city known for being perpetually on the edge of the wonderful and weird has inspired countless stories to be crafted by bards and authors. The Associated Press writes,
For decades, New Orleans was home to author Anne Rice, whose novels are credited with reviving interest in vampires.
"The genre [of writing Vampire stories for ghost tales, books, and movies] has been around forever," said Ahmed, "but Anne Rice made vampires beautiful and alluring and New Orleans was a big part of her inspiration." Visitors to the modern city are happy to be scared and spooked year around.
Buggy drivers captivate French Quarter tourists with tales of haunted Creole houses, and 19th-century voodoo priestess Marie Laveau lives on in pop culture.
Rice and Laveau are hardly the city's only links to the occult.
The city's spectral cemeteries have provided movie backgrounds for decades, and stories abound of haunted plantations. The Eddie Murphy film "The Haunted Mansion" was set locally.
Ahmed has told media outlets that New Orleans was natural fit for the Vampire Film Festival.
The event was last held in Los Angeles in 2004, drawing attendance of about 500, then went on hiatus.
"We're hoping in New Orleans it will be a lot bigger," said Ahmed, though he did not have attendance projections.
Mary Beth Romig, spokeswoman for the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau, said she hoped the festival would make New Orleans its permanent home.
Even spots teams from New Orleans are more than happy to use regional scare tactics to keep tourist teams visiting while remaining in a fearful way. Even the NFL's New Orleans Saints have been touched by the supernatural, some say.
In 2000, the team faced the St. Louis Rams in a playoff. The Saints had never won a playoff game, so voodoo priestess Ava Kay Jones was hired to "remove" the curse on the Superdome. She showed up, complete with a massive snake.
Late in the game as the Rams were threatening to take the lead, New Orleans was forced to punt. Just before the play, the stadium screens flashed with a shot of Jones kissing the snake. Incredibly, a Rams player fumbled, the Saints recovered and they went on to win the game.
Those "some" are certainly good at keeping the chatting about the city legends going each and every day.
So, when it came time to chose the location for the 2009 Vampire Film Festival, New Orleans came to mind for event planners as just the place for a festival of the weird right away.
More than 50 international films from directors in Japan, Spain, France, Australia, Canada and the United States will be screened, but not all are about vampires. They'll also cover werewolves and other bump-in-the-night things.
Seattle-based filmmaker Jeff Ferrell's short "Morella" - based on the Edgar Allan Poe story - is to be shown Sunday.
"New Orleans is so different from L.A.," he said. "I'd much rather go to New Orleans, where the vibe and energy of the city will fit the genre of the festival."
A ballet, Lisa Starry's "A Vampire Tale," will broaden the festival's scope beyond film. Ahmed calls it "the Nutcracker of Halloween."
The literary series includes best-selling writer Erin McCarthy - whose Vegas Vampires books include "High Stakes," and "Bit the Jackpot." Also participating will be graphic novelist Van Jensen, whose novel "Pinocchio: Vampire Slayer" will be released at the end of October.
"Our goal is to create a complete arts event," Ahmed said.
The spooky aura of New Orleans offers a fitting atmosphere for Friday's opening of the occult-themed Vampire Film Festival. "There's no better city on earth for this festival," said Asif Ahmed, Los Angeles-based independent filmmaker and director of the four-day event just ahead of Halloween, showcasing international films, a vampire-themed ballet and discussions of vampire literature.
Twilight New Moon and True Blood fans are expected to be out in wolf packs. Halloween costumes are expected to trend from Gothic to historic vampire. City officials are also expecting hoards of Zombies.
Garlic, crosses, daylight and a good decapitation are supposed to be weaknesses for a vampire, but in today's pop culture, the modern bloodsuckers seem unstoppable.
It has been 112 years since Irish novelist Bram Stoker's classic, "Dracula," first swooped into European bookshops, a literary amalgam of the history of Vlad III Dracula, Prince of Wallachia (aka Vlad the Impaler), with a dash of Romanian folklore. That iconic character has given rise to many interpretations, from Bela Lugosi's and Christopher Lee's cinematic takes on "Dracula," to the vamps on the TV cult hits "Dark Shadows" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," and even the Count on "Sesame Street" and Count Chocula of breakfast cereal fame.
These days, though, vampires are swarming like bats out of you-know-where, especially the mega-popular book-to-screen vamps of "Twilight," "True Blood" and "The Vampire Diaries." With more than 70 million books sold, Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" series is a full-fledged phenomenon, particularly among teens. The first "Twilight" movie adaptation grossed nearly $200 million in theaters last fall, which bodes well for next month's sequel, "New Moon." "True Blood," based on Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse novels, completed its second season in September and is HBO's second-most-watched series ever, behind The Sopranos. And more people watched the debut episode of CW's "The Vampire Diaries" than any premiere in the network's history.
Here's the thing about today's vampires: Instead of coming out of the grave with hunks of flesh hanging off them, now they're just hunks. The stage and screen triggered these changes, according to Dacre Stoker, great-grandnephew of Bram Stoker and author of the "Dracula" sequel, "Dracula: The Un-Dead," with vampire expert Ian Holt. "The original Dracula character was not your flashy, debonair, Eastern European guy with the sexy accent and the hair pulled back," he says. "He was kind of an ugly old man with hair on the back of his hands. But once it needed to have more sex appeal, that's when [Hollywood] started creating these dashing guys who could wink at the ladies and have some magnetism."
One reason for the intense teenage interest in newer stories, especially Anne Rice's "The Vampire Chronicles," "Twilight" and "The Vampire Diaries," is the sense that the vampires are outsiders among us. In "True Blood," they're simply trying to fit into society. Often, they're also seen as more vulnerable and less predatory, says Karen Sternheimer, a sociologist at the University of Southern California. "Vampires look like us, but they're different, and those areexperiences that a lot of young people can relate to," she says, "especially dealing with not just the physical aspects of relationships when you're young but also the emotional aspects, the danger vs. the draw of that so-called 'forbidden love' that really resonates with a lot ofyoung women."
But it's the vampire's eternal life -- barring an unforeseen stake to the heart, of course -- that older generations of fans notice. "Vampires never have to go on Social Security, they never have to have a hip replacement, they're never going to need bifocals," says author Harris, who has 10 million Sookie Stackhouse novels in print and recently released the short-story compilation "A Touch of Dead." "They just won't have the problems of aging that humans face, and that's very appealing, especially perhaps to Americans."
When we first met Tara Thornton, she’s reading “The Shock Doctrine” by Naomi Klein while working at the Super-Sav-A-Bunch. The book describes the parallels between the birth of a manipulated free market created via violent destruction and shock therapy. It’s the theory that this free market can be created after a disaster simply because the citizens are too busy with recovery to notice. What we did not know when we met her, was that Tara Thornton was about to experience her own sort of shock doctrine, for while she was busy trying to figure out what special demon inhabited her soul, something more sinister was about to take control of her entire being. Charlaine Harris may have created the character of Tara, but Alan Ball molded her into an entirely different creature. She’s strong, smart and witty, but also highly strung and opinionated. Rutina Wesley has brought this character to life on True Blood with vigor and multifaceted grace. We had a chance to ask Rutina a few questions about herself, her views on Tara and her career.
TB-N: Growing up in Las Vegas with a professional tap dancing father (Ivery Wheeler), and a showgirl mother (Cassandra Wesley), did you always know that you were destined for a career in showbiz?
Rutina in "How She Move"
RW: I came out of the womb dancing. My parents said I’ve always had stars in my eyes. I was in a local production of “Finian’s Rainbow” at 7 years old and being on stage just felt right. I knew that’s where I wanted to be.
TB-N: Your experience has already included stage (“The Vertical Hour,” “In Darfur”), screen (“How She Move”) & television (“True Blood”); what changes did you make (if any) in your acting style to mold your character for each genre?
RW: I basically think film and TV are similar as far as acting goes…you act “less” because the camera is right there you don’t have to reach the person in the last row of the balcony. On camera, you do the scene as if the audience is sitting right next to you. Also, on stage, it’s live, so if you make a mistake you have to figure out how to fix it right there. Whereas on camera you get more chances to fix something. There’s good and bad things about that. Being on stage keeps you on your toes.
Rutina Wesley as Tara Thornton
TB-N: The role of Tara was cast using the scene where Tara loses her job at the Super Sav-A-Bunch. Alan Ball mentioned that you got the role of Tara because you were the only actress who auditioned that revealed a vulnerable side. Can you tell us how you prepared for the test?
RW: When I first got the sides for the role I immediately saw through to her heart. I saw this person who was like a little girl or a wounded animal. There’s something beautiful about that vulnerability that we show when we’re wounded. You can see it in someone’s eyes. Every human being is complex and has layers and when I was preparing for this role, I wanted to show as many layers as possible and make sure that the audience saw the little girl inside – scared, insecure, and needing love.
These days, it seems, everyone wants to bed a vampire. Forget Bram Stoker's Count Dracula, a hideous foreigner intent on taking the life and the virtue of nineteenth-century English ladies. Today's vampires, like True Blood's Bill Compton and Twilight's Edward Cullen, are portrayed as crush-worthy hunks. Their combination of unearthly beauty, perfect chivalry and dangerous nature make them irresistible to women. Bill, Edward and co. are the stuff of fiction, but there is, in fact, a community of people who identify as vampires and existed long before the current pop culture craze. So what's it like to date a real-life vampire? To talk about that, first you have to know a little about vampires.
Understanding Vampires Most real vampires believe they were born with a "vampiric nature," meaning they have to feed in order to maintain their physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. There are two main types of vampires: sanguinarians, who feed on actual blood, and psychic vampires, who feed on energy.
Sanguinarians consume the blood of other vampires, the blood of regular people (called "mundanes" in the vampire community) and sometimes animal blood (usually cow blood). Sanguinarian vampires distinguish themselves from "blood fetishists"—those who are aroused simply by seeing, touching, and smelling blood. Vampires define their feeding as a health requirement, distinct from sexual pleasure. (On the other hand, blood fetishists occasionally make good donors!)
Psychic vampires feed on the vital energy of others, either through physical contact or by soaking it up like a sponge. Ordinary people will do, but some seek out "spiritual types," artists, or other vampires. Psychic vampires describe feeding on each other as a "cycle" that refines and purifies their personal energy. Spiritual Sex: 10 Erotic Commandments
Anshar, a 29-year-old psychic vampire from Truckee, California says, "If I don't feed I get terrible migraines, dizziness and nausea. With the migraines comes terrible photosensitivity and irritability." These symptoms completely disappear after feeding, either from a donor or his partner Shade (also a vampire). "I feel warm, content," explains Anshar, "At times I break out into laughter depending on the amount of energy I've taken."
The vampire community emphasizes ethical feeding. Sanguinarians, as well as many psychic vampires, only feed on consenting donors. In fact, the community has created a donor's bill of rights along with other ethical guidelines.
The second season of HBO's hit drama series True Blood is over, and it was another bloody, brilliant mess. Vampers, humans and shape shifters wreaked even more havoc this year, especially with the addition of crazed, mythical Maryann (Michelle Forbes), who turned the small, fictional Louisiana town of Bon Temps into Sodom and Gomorrah. But after having been impaled by a unicorn -- a good way to deter crime -- peace has been restored. Or -- dah dah dah -- has it? Oscar-winning creator Alan Ball gathers his team of writers, including Raelle Tucker, Alexander Woo, Nancy Oliver, Brian Buckner, Kate Barnow and Elisabeth Finch, to answer your questions. And there are plenty. Will the show's central heroin Sookie (Anna Paquin) and Vampire Bill (hunky Stephen Moyer) ever get married and have bihuman/vampiracial children? Will half-dog, half-bar owner Sam (Sam Trammell) ever reconcile with his past? And will Vampire Eric (even hunkier Alexander Skarsgard, Sweden's greatest export since Ikea's meatballs) ever quit lusting after the gap-toothed Paquin and realize that he is mine? Forget the garlic and crucifixes, but wear plenty of silver.
Sean Horlor / Vancouver / Thursday, October 22, 2009
As far as I understand, the dilemmas of a gay vampire are many. What shade of black should I wear? Do bloodsucking orgies with multiple partners make me a slut? Should I prey on twinks or muscle studs… or both? Should I suck dicks or necks… or (gasp) both?
With all these questions and more to mull over night after night, it’s hard to believe that your average undead GQ model with a six-pack to die for has enough time to hunt humans let alone battle less reputable bloodsuckers who are out to ruin the good name of honest, hardworking vampires across the globe.
Still, gay vampires share some frighteningly similar characteristics to mere gay mortals such as you and me. Most days, sunlight is unbearable. Capes, sadly enough, are now only fashion appropriate for gay vampire drag queens.
And as you would expect, straight males with latent homosexual desires find these night creatures captivatingly irresistible and are willing to bend their sexuality for a small bite of the forbidden.
It should come as no surprise that erotica writers are cashing in on the latest vampire craze. If you think this is the return of the wink-wink-nudge-nudge stylings of Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire series, think again.
THREE local schools will get to see Brentwood Theatre’s Christmas show – thanks to an American vampire and his fans.
US fans of Stephen Moyer – the actor patron of Brentwood Theatre and star of the international TV hit series, True Blood – have donated £1,500 to the theatre to mark his 40th birthday.
The gift will pay for coaches to bring pupils from cash-strapped schools to see The Twits, in December.
Stephen, who was born in the borough, was in the UK promoting the American series over his birthday weekend. The show has just launched on Channel 4.
US fans liaised with Brentwood Theatre administrator Mark Reed to e-mail greetings and cash pledges to the actor, to mark the event.
Mark said: “The idea was to do something to celebrate Stephen’s birthday and I spent all day Saturday on the computer, collating messages and cash gifts.”
This is not the first time Stephen’s fan club has raised money for a Brentwood Theatre project – it also chipped in to support the appeal to build new dressing rooms.
Stephen plays vampire hero Bill Compton in the TV series, which is set in a small town in Louisiana, populated by humans and vampires, who live on synthetic blood.
The show is about to start filming a third series, and has been a winner with its American audience.
Last year, True Blood won an Emmy – the TV equivalent of an Oscar.
As a patriotic tube-lover, I find few things more galling than fellow viewers who boast they “only watch US imports” because American televison is streets ahead of our home-grown output. While this is patently absurd (at its best, British TV is superb and is sold around the world), you can sometimes see what they mean. Just now, for example, the BBC is pumping out safe and pointless costume revival Emma, while Channel 4has imported two new hard-edged drama series from that hit factory in the United States, HBO.
The more serious of these, Generation Kill, is a bleak vision of the army which invaded Iraq, filtered through the memoirs of Rolling Stone journalist Evan Wright and the scriptwriters of cult cop show The Wire. (Im)pure entertainment is the mission of True Blood, part of the current revival of interest in all things vampiric and designed for laughs as much as titillation. Both dramas share the maxed-out cynicism, amoral humour and explicit sex and violence currently in vogue – especially among the under-30s. Both have the benefit of scripts which clearly matter to those who created them – in the case of True Blood, the writers of rich and strange past drama Six Feet Under.
It pains me to say it, but too often British TV scripts give the impression that their writers are coasting (same old sitcoms), slumming it (would rather be writing a novel or filmscript) or – thanks to nervous and blinkered TV executives – running scared of causing offence to anyone or anything. That’s not to say that most US scriptwriters are literary geniuses. We only see the cream of the crop, after all.
Among British TV scriptwriters just now,some, such as Peter Bowker (Occupation and Desperate Romantics) and Toby Whithouse (Being Human), do seem to be tuning in to a new and edgy zeitgeist. Cutting their teeth on obscure digital channels seems to encourage the creativity of US scriptwriters. Let’s hope it is having the same effect over here.
In the meantime, there’s a blast of raw testosterone coming our way from Generation Kill, where the grunts spout the most offensive dialogue imaginable, at the expense of peace-loving faggots, tree-hugging transsexuals, inferior races (that would be all of them) and even the all-American school kids who write them letters of encouragement, only to become the butt of paedophile innuendo. “Hey, buddy – it’s 10 in the morning, you should change out of your pyjamas”, calls one soldier to an Iraqi civilian as his Humvee sweeps past. “Marines don’t need a PX”, opines another, “we’re about to loot and pillage a country.” Officers are uniformly complacent and negligent or obsessively deranged, Catch-22-style, worrying more about their men’s personal grooming habits than the lack of armoured cars and other vital equipment.
It may have a sharpbite, but how accurate is all this? You do find yourself wondering: were the Marines playing up to the presence of an embedded journalist? If not, it certainly explains a lot.
True Blood is light relief after all that. A feast of smart and superior trash TV,it is pitched somewhere between Twin Peaks and Torchwood. In the near future, the invention of synthetic blood has enabled the world’s vampires to come out of the closet/coffin, demanding their civil rights along with other oppressed minorities.
In a hick town in the American Deep South, the redneck inhabitants are far from convinced. When vampires move into town they are targeted first by “fang-bangers” (ladies and gents who fancy a nibble) and then by violent thugs hoping to sell real vampire blood (eh?) as an aphrodisiac.
Psychic waitress Sookie (Anna Paquin, the moppet from The Piano) falls for sexy vampire Bill (Brit actor Stephen Moyer), which causes no end of strife. Everyone – straight, gay, black, white, vampire, human – seems to have the hots for everyone else. There are lashings of sex and nudity, along with an air of dreamy, creepy, sleazy unreality. Now then – don’t all rush for that TV remote at once.
LONDON:Richard Roxburgh,Frances O'Connor,Stephen Moyer and Sam Neill are among the cast of Power's new disaster epic Ice, based on the book by James Follett and directed by Nick Copus.
The cast lineup announced today includes Richard Roxburgh (Stealth, Van Helsing, The League Of Extraordinary Gentleman, Moulin Rouge), Frances O'Connor (Cashmere Mafia, Three Dollars, Artificial Intelligence: AI), Claire Forlani (The Rock, Meet Joe Black, The Diplomat), Ben Cross (Hannibal, Star Trek), Simon Callow (The Phantom Of The Opera, Rome, Doctor Who), Patrick Bergin (Patriot Games, Smallville), Stephen Moyer (True Blood, Quills) andSam Neill(Jurassic Park, Crusoe).
Justin Bodle, the CEO and chairman of Power, commented: "This is one of the best ensemble casts we’ve ever had on one of our shows—huge names for a huge production. This is a real endorsement of the quality of the film and the commitment to Power."
True Blood guest star (and soon-to-be-regular?) Evan Rachel Wood has a new role in The Conspirator an upcoming historical drama about the only female accused in President Lincoln’s assassination. Here’s the write up, thanks to IMDB.com.
In the wake of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, seven men and one woman are arrested and charged with conspiring to kill the President, Vice-President, and Secretary of State. The lone woman charged, Mary Surratt, 42, owns a boarding house where John Wilkes Booth and others met and planned the simultaneous attacks. Against the ominous back-drop of post-Civil War Washington, newly-minted lawyer, Frederick Aiken, a 28-year-old Union war-hero, reluctantly agrees to defend Surratt before a military tribunal. Aiken realizes his client may be innocent and that she is being used as bait and hostage in order to capture the only conspirator to have escaped a massive manhunt: her own son.
Wood won’t be playing the role of Mary Surratt. (I don’t care how good of an actress you think she is, she can’t pull off 42.) Instead, she’ll portray Anna Surratt, Mary’s daughter. I’m intrigued to see how they’ll tease out her story, cuz frankly, it’s pretty darn good, too.
I may not be a huge ERW fan, but I love the idea of a good flick with lots of complex characters for actresses. (Confession: Hollywood’s sexism and lack of female roles POs me, which is part of the reason I like the very egalitarian True Blood as much as I do.) So yeah, I’ll be checking this one out.
Fang-ful to see each other ... Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer
FANS of racy new drama True Blood can get their own re-vamp - and see themselves fanged up.
The Channel 4 show, which is set in the America deep south, has been causing pulses to race with its steamy scenes of X Men babe Anna Paquin.
And now viewers are able to upload pictures of themselves onto a special website and see themselves transformed into a vampire.
The show follows waitress Sookie Stackhouse who falls for the charms of sexy vamp Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer).
Raunchy scenes already shown in America show Anna - who won an Oscar for her part in The Piano - stripping down with mysterious 173-year-old Bill.
Brit Stephen hails from Essex and is engaged to his on-screen flame Anna in real life.
The action is set in the weird American backwater town of Bon Temps where vampires, telepaths, shapeshifters and other assorted freaks attempt to live normal lives. Fans can upload their pictures onto www.get-vamped.com Boadicea | 10/22/2009 | Post Comment
True Blood's Season 3 won't return until next summer, but we can still bring you the scoop on what's happening when the HBO series returns. "It's a crazy season," executive producer Alan Ball tells TVGuide.com. "It picks up right where we left off and things get weird really fast." Text is hidden - highlight to reveal text >>> As Ball already spilled, someone is going to die and we'll be pretty happy about it. Find out what else he teases, including the juicy relationship between Eric (Alexander Skarsgård) and Sookie (Anna Paquin), and the addition of some new characters. Also, get a few extra tidbits from your favorite shaggy dog, star Sam Trammell.
Theme of Season 3: "It seems to be that it's about really embracing one's identity," Ball tells us. "Season 2 was more about how religions can make people do things that maybe they wouldn't do otherwise; it gives them the freedom to do things. This season is a lot about what it means to be who you are, or what you are."
Sookie's background: "Sookie still doesn't know exactly what she is. She will get closer to figuring out why she has these random powers that show up when they do," says Ball. (Spoiler alert: In the books, Sookie discovers she has fairy blood running in her.) "She is definitely part of a different race," adds Ball. "In terms of fairies, like perky fairies with wings, like Tinkerbell, no, they're not like that. If it is fairies, they're fierce. They're not pretty, soft, glamorous, gossamery things. They're really, really, really powerful and primal creatures."
Sookie and Eric: Sookie's been seeing visions of her and Eric getting — ahem — friendly. Will their romance actually progress, not just in her head? "I can definitely tell you [we'll see that] in the show. I don't know if it will necessarily be in Season 3. Of course they're going to come together, it's fated. It's not something that's going to happen right off the bat."
Sam's real family: "There's some new shape-shifters who may be Sam's biological family," teases Ball. Adds Trammell, "As I understand it, I'm going to be trying to find my biological family, who put me up for adoption or abandoned me. I have a feeling they're going to be very creepy, sketchy, weird, shape-shiftery weirdos. They're going to be bad news."
Sam's love life: "Can he ever trust a woman again? I don't know if he can, so he may have to just turn into an animal, stay an animal and seek love that way," jokes Trammell. "I hope he does, in all seriousness, but it could take a season or two for him to build up that confidence again."
Who's coming back? "The Queen is coming back," Ball reveals. "Godric is coming back for an appearance, a flashback. There's some new vampires in town, there are some werewolves. We do have a lot of werewolves coming in, male and female, but we haven't started casting for the show yet."
Costume contact lenses may be the perfect touch to your Halloween costume but the California Optometric Association (COA) warns that by using them without first visiting an optometrist, you are risking permanent eye damage. Federal law requires the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to regulate cosmetic lenses as medical devices, similar to corrective lenses. However, these lenses continue to be illegally marketed and distributed directly to consumers.
COA spokesman Dr. Jonathan Gording has fitted costume contacts for numerous Hollywood productions including True Blood (54 actors), The Closer, The Mentalist, House, Interview with a Vampire, Buffy, Angel and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. He cautions that using costume contact lenses incorrectly can cause eye infections that, without treatment, can lead to permanent scarring of the eye and vision loss. Other risks associated with the improper use of decorative contact lenses include conjunctivitis, swelling, allergic reaction and corneal abrasion due to poor lens fit. "When I work with a producer, I have to remind them that costume contacts are medical devices," explains Dr. Gording. "Not only do they need to be fitted by an optometrist, the contacts have to be inspected for nicks, edge defects or other issues that can damage the eye or cause infection."
Because of the health risk involved with costume contact lenses, it is unlawful to distribute plano (non-corrective) lenses in California without an eye examination and prescription. However costume contact lenses can still be found at various retail outlets and over the internet where there is no advice or warning about proper lens hygiene. COA encourages parents to be mindful of these dangers and wants trick-or-treaters of all ages to understand the risks involved.
To find an optometrist in your area, log onto www.eyehelp.org and click on the Find an Eye Doc link.
Whether through troubled teen heartthrobs or sexy Southerners, the vampire is overflowing onto pages of books, television screens, and blockbuster films.
Far from the dangerous, beast-like reputation they once held, the modern day bloodsucker coexists with humans, drinks synthetic blood or even refrains from digesting it at all. And forget dusty, old-fashioned capes and wrinkly skin, the new breed of vampires sport blazers and skinny jeans and is decades younger and better looking.
The recent obsession in all things fang-related has sparked a course on the subject. Hilary Davis, who teaches Vampirology: Literature With Bite at the University of Toronto, says vampires have held popularity throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, and Anne Rice's novels such as 1976's Interview With A Vampire jump-started a renewed interest that continues today. But with a new audience now being targeted comes a new set of values.
"Vampires have always signified sexuality, but in the Twilight series, it's all about restraint and abstinence," says Davis. Indeed, vampire Edward Cullen refrains from his urges with girlfriend Bella Swan in Stephanie Meyer's bestselling romance novels.
HBO's True Blood presents a less-PG-13 relationship between Sookie Stackhouse and vampire Bill Compton, but it is yet another example of the consensual relationships between vampires and humans.
"You might say these vampires represent a romantic ideal for heterosexual women," says Davis. The tamed-down vampires make girls hearts beat fast, but out of lust rather than fear. "They are domesticated bad boys - their dangerous edge muted by their unconditional love for their human love interest."
The adaptability of vampires could also be a factor in their popularity surge, says Dave Alexander, managing editor of Toronto-based Rue Morgue magazine.
"It seems there's a vamp for everyone now, from the ferocious bloodsuckers of 30 Days of Night to the fangless wimps of Twilight, the art house vampires of Let the Right One In and the dangerous, yet sexy un-dead of True Blood."
Vallejo is a rock and roll band of the highest caliber from just a few miles away in El Campo. The band started as a trio of three brothers who moved to Austin in order to pursue their dream of being the next Santana.
Once in the "live music capital of the world," they added a rhythm guitarist and a conga player to further explore their saucy Latin side, and settled down quietly to become one of the foremost acts in the city. Vallejo has since toured with the likes of Stone Temple Pilots, Fuel, 3 Doors Down, Juanes, Molotov, Black Crowes, Foo Fighters, Matchbox 20, Shinedown and Los Lobos. They even had an official "Vallejo Day" named for them in Austin.
One of their most notable tracks - and the end-credit song from Saturday's re-run of True Blood Episode 2, "The First Taste" - is "Snake in the Grass," from Vallejo's 1998 album Beautiful Life. A true down-and-dirty ditty, it benefits from a tremendous lead guitar line and A.J.'s Placebo-like vocals. It's almost impossible not to dance to, with just enough menace to make love to.
More than that, it's just undeniably Southern. It feels like drinking Jim Beam straight from the bottle with a gun on your lap, which makes it the perfect sum-up to the deepening mystery of True Blood's first season.
Revisiting the series as it re-runs on HBO, it's wonderful to remember a time when you had to meet these slightly and not-so-slightly sinister characters. True to the episode's title, Sookie gets her first taste of being bitten by Vampire Bill in an effort to heal her from the truly horrifying beating she receives from a pair of pissed of Vamp-blood dealers who she rescued Bill from earlier.
Though Sookie is initially thankful for all the not-dying, she's much disturbed when Bill later kills her attackers in a manner that is so brutal that local law mistakes it for a freak tornado. Though she's drawn to the quiet stranger whose thoughts she can't hear (as opposed to the cacophony of psychic images that normally fill her head), she's leery of getting involved with someone who obviously has few qualms about inhuming people who annoy him.
Most snakes are perfectly harmless to humans. But then again, it pays to heed Vallejo's words and watch out. You never know what's going to bite you when you lie down with it.
So you've resigned yourself to that old vampire costume again this year because it's cheaper than buying a new Halloween ensemble. If this sounds familiar, you should pat yourself on the back. The money you save on a one-night getup can be put towards some hot Fall makeup.
This year, your Halloween makeup can double up for some sultry evening looks after the holiday is over. As many Canadians are anticipating Christmas parties and small get-togethers, it's a good idea to plan your look ahead.
While it may seem strange, black makeup is in this year, the Toronto Star reports. Lines such as NARS have released dark, sparkly eyeshadow to really make eyes look dramatic.
The news provider claims that the rise in black makeup can be attributed to the popularity of films such as "Twilight" and television series' like "True Blood." The vampire obsession seems to have made its way into makeup bags too.
Interestingly, one of NARS new eyeshadow is called NightBreed, invoking a wondrous, creepy mood that is intended to dramatize any night out.
Employees at the Wizard's Chest store in Cherry Creek wear the popular vampire costumes on Thursday October 8, 2009. (Cyrus McCrimmon, The Denver Post)
Forget those vicious vampires made famous by scary guys like Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee. Today's vampires are downright sweet: lovesick teenagers, studly heartthrobs, folks just like you and me — except for that taste for human blood.
And right now, the mythical creatures are sinking their fangs into every aspect of pop culture. Books, movies, television series, video games, even the cover of this month's Playboy magazine, have put vamps front and center.
This Halloween, vampire costumes are in particularly high demand. Fancy $25 fangs are among the most popular things on the shelves, said Errin Johnston at Halloween USA, a seasonal costume store in Boulder.
"I've had young girls come in, and they wanted the teeth and the outfits to go along with 'Twilight.' They think vampires are cool."
The popular "Twilight" book and movie franchises aren't the only things turning vampires from dark to desirable — a new generation's James Dean. The smash TV show "True Blood" and scores of adolescent novels present vampires as the coolest, and cutest, guys in school — attracting enamored teens and, undoubtedly, causing consternation for their parents, raised on the double- crossing vampires of Anne Rice novels and shows like "Dark Shadows."
"For women, whatever age you are, it's a fantasy world," said Jennifer Brown, 27, who will make a vampire costume part of her holiday ritual this year. "Who wouldn't want that, someone who smells sweet and draws you in with everything he is?" Added Mindy Jones, 30, another vampire fan: "Before, they were scary and creepy. But with the 'Twilight' series, they are romantic and seductive. Everyone is like, 'Oooh, he's so cute and dreamy!'
Softer, gentler monsters This, more than anything else, explains vampires' persistent stake in popular culture. They aren't just Halloween "monsters" like mummies and werewolves. Zombies say "grrrr" and kill things and that's about it. But vampires quote poetry.
"We have a relationship with these monsters," said Lynne Edwards, a professor at Ursinus College in Collegeville, Pa. "Think of about every 98-pound weakling, every goofy girl. If you are the victim of a vampire and you are sired (turned into a vampire), then you get this ready-made family where you are wanted. They offer an escape from whatever miserable current life we are leading. It's a great revenge fantasy."
It's also a way of exploring sexuality without explicitly dealing with the subject, Edwards said. "They aren't pouncing on you in an alleyway," she said. "They want you to invite them in, they want you to be complicit in your seduction. There is something sexual about that. And if you are a teenager, there is something romantic about that.
"None of them are ugly and brooding. They are gorgeous and brooding."
In other words, they are both sexy and complicated. In "Twilight," the sex hinges on its absence — the lead vampire desires the blood of a fellow high schooler but refuses to despoil her (even though his love-object wants him to turn her into a vampire). The whole thing revolves around this dance: love, but not consummation.
Employees at the Wizard's Chest store in Cherry Creek wear the popular vampire costumes on Thursday October 8, 2009. (Cyrus McCrimmon, The Denver Post)
Targeting an older set is HBO's "True Blood" — which signed on for a third season — where sex is everywhere: vampires doing it with each other, non-vampires seeking out the undead for sex, gay vampires, and so on. Still, the series
pivots on the relationship between a vampire and his non-vampire girlfriend and, like the romance in "Twilight," rests on frustrations that arise between them.
For those beguiled by sexy literature, they can turn to a subgenre of romance novels fixed on vampires. And there's plenty of product for vampire fans eager to dispense with pretense and story.
It's called vampire porn, and there's lots of it.
Blood-soaked history Vampires didn't become our best friends overnight, though their redemption does seem somewhat abrupt. Blood-sucking fiends have been around since ancient times in folklore. They began appearing in literature in the 1720s. The German poem "The Vampire" was among the first, published in 1748 by Heinrich August Ossenfelder.
"The Vampyre," written by John William Polidori in 1819, was a short story in New Monthly Magazine, and it was the first to take the folk-tale vampire and make him a suave operator who preyed on aristocrats.
Emily Brontë's "Wuthering Heights," from 1847, had a reference. A housekeeper in the novel suspected Heathcliff of being a vampire. A century-plus of exploiting their neck-biting habits followed.
But Hollywood started hyping a new, sexier angle in the 1980s. The film "The Lost Boys," with its slogan "Sleep all day. Party all night," helped turn vampires into guys you'd want to hang out with.
This approach, with a twist, really took off with "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," a television series that ran from 1997 to 2003, featuring a California town crawling with vampires. Buffy, an attractive high-school student, spends her nights staking vampires but also falls in love with a few studs among them.
Buffy hatched a busy underworld of scholarship and even an academic journal, called Slayage. Buffy scholars explore femininity, sexuality, myth and gender equality, all through the template of a contemporary American town full of vampires and monsters. Staking pop culture claims Those neo-undead opened the door for the deeper sort of vampire that feeds on pop culture today. These vamps are out for more than having a gas. Their soap opera is the same as ours — thwarted desires, sordid entanglements — but for the fangs. Young boys identify with the leading-man vampires who are hormonally frustrated with their romantic pursuits. And they love the hot vampire girls. Twenty-something college students swoon over the sweet, stoic vampire dudes.
Vampires come in all shades of sexy — from Bela Lugosi to Brad Pitt (or Johnny Depp, who just signed on for an upcoming big-screen remake of "Dark Shadows") — but sex has always dwelled at the center of vampire stories, said Annalisa Castaldo, a professor at Widener University in Chester, Pa.
"It's an incredibly flexible and powerful metaphor (for sex) that fits an era," she said. "It always works. That's why I think it won't go away. There is very little that is sexy about ghosts."
HBO, in collaboration with Udi Behr, Chief Designer for Love Peace and Hope, has created a new line of jewelry around the network’s hit series "True Blood". Inspired by the dark and sexy nature of the vampires in the television series, the collection includes bracelets, leather cuffs, necklaces, rings, and earrings in a edgy fusion of sterling silver, polished steel, and crimson rubies – many of which feature a patented fang-like clasp.
"Working on the True Blood jewelry has been a great opportunity as the show has all the ingredients to create a luxurious, high-end jewelry collection with ‘bite’," said Behr.
"We’re very pleased to be working with Udi Behr", said James Costos, Vice President, Licensing and Retail at HBO. "His designs are unique in the marketplace, and this jewelry collection really captures the essence of the series."
Two of the items are shown below; click either of them to visit the HBO Store, where, for a limited time, you can get 10% off with this code (for Truebies only!): TBJEWELRY.
Is True Blood bad-boy vampire Alexander Skarsgard really sinking his teeth into Kate Bosworth?
Judging by the photos of the two making eyes at each other and then hopping into a car at Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood on Saturday night, it's obvious Skarsgard, 33, finds Bosworth, 26, delicious. The two are slated to star together in the remake of Sam Peckinpah's classic thriller Straw Dogs.
Sure, maybe it was just because she'd presented him with the best villain award at Spike TV's Scream Awards earlier in the night, but reports say the two were holding hands and flirting heavily after the presentation. Still, until we see bite marks on someone's neck, this potential coupling will have to remain bloodless and in the "unconfirmed" column. Which naturally sucks.
TRUE BLOOD star STEPHEN MOYER is walking with a cane after suffering a painful knee injury.
The star tore a tissue in his leg earlier this month (Oct09) while playing with his two children, Billy and Lilac.
Moyer had to walk with the stick while picking up his Spike Scream Award for Best Horror Actor on Saturday (17Oct09) - but he admits he doesn't mind using it.
He says, "I'd like to say it was some kind of thrusting, sexy injury. But it really isn't."
And although the actor is "feeling great", he says, "(My doctors) told me I wasn't allowed to not use the cane. So I thought if I'm going to have it I may as well use it at the Spike Awards. I might just keep it forever."
What do sex-crazed vampires and bored US marines have in common? They're both the subject of shows on Channel 4 which star Alexander Skarsgard. The Swedish actor, son of Mamma Mia! star Stellan, is set to become as big as his father, thanks to his roles in HBO series Generation Kill and True Blood, which are currently shown on Wednesday nights.
Alexander, who plays True Blood's Eric Northman and Sgt Brad 'Iceman' Colbert in Generation Kill, may be a rising star now, but the truth is he's already had one successful acting career. He retired back in 1989 when he hit the ripe old age of 13.
"I did my first movie when I was seven, and then I worked for about six years, doing movies and television in Sweden," he begins. "Then I quit." "Back then, I did a movie for television, and it had a huge impact. Suddenly people recognised me wherever I went, and it made me uncomfortable. "I didn't know how to handle it, and I was very self-conscious and stressed out about the whole situation. So I quit."
celebrity His father, Stellan Skarsgard, has starred in films such as Ronin, Exorcist: The Beginning, Good Will Hunting and Angels And Demons, so you might think Alexander would have been able to get some tips from his old man, but his celebrity preceded his dad's, who, back in the late 80s, was a jobbing actor in Stockholm theatres.
"He wasn't that big a star when I grew up. The thing that took him to Hollywood was Breaking The Waves, the Lars von Trier movie, in 1996. I was already 20 years old by that point," says Alexander. "Growing up, he was mostly a stage actor, and although he did movies as well, they were small Swedish ones.
"I've got younger siblings, and it was different for them; they did more of the travelling around the world, being on sets and all of that exotic stuff. For me, it was running around backstage at the theatre."
If you haven't already seen either True Blood or Generation Kill, they're well worth the time.
The HBO stable can generally be considered a mark of quality. The US broadcaster, owned by Time Warner, is responsible for some of the very best TV of the last 20 years. The Sopranos, Deadwood, Sex And The City, Six Feet Under, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Entourage and The Wire. They're now some of the biggest-selling DVD box sets available, with millions of fans around the world.
Continuing the connection with The Wire, Generation Kill was also penned by David Simon and Ed Burns, creators of the aforementioned Baltimore-based series. They adapted the seven-part series from Evan Wright's 2004 memoir, written about his time with an elite Marine unit, the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
deployed The 1st Recon often spearheaded military operations, and despite not being deployed in the way they had been trained -- as a reconnaissance team -- they were extremely effective in breaking down Iraqi defences, making way for fellow soldiers on their way to Baghdad.
"Everything on the show happened in real life," says Alexander. "One of the actors [Rudy Reyes] is a real Marine, and plays himself on the show. We had two other guys from 1st Recon with us for the duration of the shoot, which was seven months in South Africa.
"They were behind the camera for every single take every single day, making sure that everything was legit and was real. It was very important to us to show exactly what happened, and not make it into a Hollywood movie where everything is dramatised, and things are added or removed." Generation Kill and True Blood are currently on Channel 4 on Wednesday evenings
Stan Lee on a flying balloon barge, Morgan Freeman upstaged by William Shatner, Megan Fox swearing her undying allegiance to the "Transformers" franchise, and Keith Richards at an award show devoted to horror movies -- yeah, it's Spike TV's Scream Awards.
The 2009 edition, which went down in typically reserved fashion at the Greek Theatre on Oct. 17, featured all of the above-mentioned hoopla, as well as an impressive roster of stars to hand out and receive the lethal-looking trophies for the best in horror, science fiction and fantasy media. The juggernaut that is "Twilight" was among the big winners of the night, with HBO's "True Blood" and the J.J. Abrams revamp of "Star Trek" not far behind.
"Twilight" took home four awards, including Best Fantasy Movie, and leads Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart earning Best Actor and Best Actress in a Fantasy Movie or Television Series. Neither was present at the event, but co-star Taylor Lautner claimed his award for Breakout Performance (Male) and later presented exclusive footage from the upcoming sequel, "New Moon," to the attending throng.
However, "True Blood" co-stars and real-life couple Stephen Moyer and Anna Paquin were in attendance to pick up their awards for Best Horror Actor and Actress, as well as for the coveted Best TV Show. Alexander Skarsgård was also on hand to net "Blood's" fourth award of the night for Best Villain.
"Trek" pulled up third with three awards, including Best Science Fiction Movie, Best Director for J.J. Abrams, and the Ultimate Scream, which featured a typically self-lampooning guest appearance by William Shatner, who emerged from the crowd to accept the award from presenter Morgan Freeman and chide Abrams for not including him in the film. The surprise appearance was one of the highlights of the show, matched only by Johnny Depp's presentation of the Rock Immortal Award to a visibly amused Keith Richards. One may question the presence of Richards at an award show devoted to horror movies (and save those snarky comments about his resemblance to a certain animatronic TV horror anthology host), but his appearance certainly gave the event a quantum boost in cool points.
Other notable guests included Stan (The Man) Lee's arrival via balloon to accept the Comic-Con Icon Lifetime Achievement Award from "Spider-Man" star Tobey Maguire, a surprisingly heartfelt reunion of the "Battlestar Galactica" cast (Ronald Moore version), and Quentin Tarantino's enthusiastic (to put it mildly) tribute to director George A. Romero ("Night of the Living Dead" and the upcoming "Survival of the Dead") who quite rightly received the Scream Mastermind Lifetime Achievement Award. But the show's most gossip-spasm-inducing moment of the night came when Megan Fox acknowledged the "false reports" regarding her recent, let us say, untoward comments about the "Transformers" franchise and director Michael Bay while picking up her award for Best Sci-Fi Actress. "I've always felt that I am a very ordinary part of an extraordinary film," she said. "These movies took me out of obscurity and they gave me a career and I am completely grateful to everyone involved with this franchise." That, I believe, is called saving face.
The night was rounded out by the world premiere of clips from a number of upcoming genre pics, including Martin Scorsese's "Shutter Island" and Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" (itself a winner of the night as Most Anticipated Fantasy Film), as well as a preview of ABC's revamp of "V."
The 2009 Scream Award will air for your edification and enjoyment on Oct. 27 on Spike TV, but should you have plans for the evening, here's a full list of the winners and equally stellar presenters. After the break, mais oui.
Most Anticipated Fantasy Film: "Alice in Wonderland" — Presenter: Jessica Alba. Accepting: Johnny Depp
Best Sci-Fi Actress: Megan Fox — "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" — Presenter: Justin Long. Accepting: Megan Fox
Break-out Performance Female: Isabelle Lucas — "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" — Presenter: John C. Reilly. Accepting: Isabelle Lucas.
Best Villain: Alexander Skarsgård — “True Blood” — Presenter: Kate Bosworth. Accepting: Alexander Skarsgård.
Break-out Performance Male: Taylor Lautner — "Twilight" — Presenter: Christina Ricci. Accepting: Taylor Lautner.
Best Comic Book Writer: Jeff Jones — Presenters: Eliza Dushku and Dave Navarro. Accepting: Jeff Jones.
Best Comic Book Movie: "Watchmen" — Presenters: Eliza Dushku and Dave Navarro. Accepting: Jackie Earle Haley.
Rock Immortal Award: Keith Richards — Presenter: Johnny Depp. Accepting: Keith Richards.
Best Horror Movie: "Drag Me to Hell" — Presenter: Jennifer Carpenter. Accepting: Sam Raimi and principal cast minus Allison Lohman.
Best Horror Actor Male: Stephen Moyer — “True Blood” — Presenter: Liv Tyler. Accepting: Stephen Moyer.
Best Horror Actor Female: Anna Paquin — “True Blood” — Presenter: Jackie Earle Haley. Accepting: Anna Paquin
Scream Mastermind Lifetime Achievement Award: George A. Romero — Presenter: Quentin Tarantino. Accepting: George A. Romero
Best Director: J.J. Abrams — "Star Trek" — Presenter: Harrison Ford. Accepting: J.J. Abrams
Best TV Show: “True Blood” — Presenter: Cast of “Vampire Diaries.”
Best Fantasy Actor, Male: Robert Pattinson - Twilight
Best Fantasy Actor, Female: Kristen Stewart - Twilight
Best Fantasy Movie: "Twilight" — Presenter: Elijah Wood. Accepting: Taylor Lautner
Comic-Con Icon Lifetime Achievement Award: Stan Lee — Presenter: Tobey Maguire. Accepting: Stan Lee
Ultimate Scream: Star Trek — Presenter: Morgan Freeman. Accepting: William Shatner -- Paul Gaita
While "True Blood" is still taking a seasonal break, Rutina Wesley is crossing the bridge to provide a voice for FOX's "The Cleveland Show". The depicter of Tara Thornton in the vampire series will take a new approach by voicing a girl with "big" qualities.
"I'm playing Cleveland's wife's best friend," Rutina told TV Guide magazine. "They've known each other since they were kids. She has a big butt, big earrings and a real big voice. I love her." Her character is named Yvette and she will appear in the November 15 episode titled "Ladies Night". According to the synopsis, Cleveland is upset when he finds out that Donna is still attending a single mothers' support group.
A spin-off to "Family Guy", "Cleveland Show" has been renewed for a second season last week. With the back nine episodes order, it will return with 13 episodes in Fall 2010 and stay on screen at least until mid 2011.
Meanwhile, "True Blood" will be back on HBO summer 2010 with the third season. Tara has just lost the love of her life, Eggs, who got mistakenly killed by Jason.
“True Blood” star Ryan Kwanten will star in a “fresh, highly-original romantic comedy” titled “Griff the Invisible”.
Now filming in Sydney, it’s the debut feature film writer / director Leon Ford.
“It is a super hero movie and it is a comedy, but at its core it’s a simple love story about two very unique individuals finding each other and giving the other the strength to be what they want to be,” said director Leon Ford from set.
Kwanten, who plays Jason Stackhouse on the hit cable series, plays the lead character of Griff, while Maeve Dermody (“Beautiful Kate”), Patrick Brammall and Toby Schmitz co-star.
The film is produced by Nicole O’Donohue and executive producers are Jan Chapman (‘’The Piano’’) and Scott Meek (“Velvet Goldmine”).
Transmission Films (“Balibo”, “Charlie & Boots”, “Prime Mover”) will distribute.
Speaking about his character, Ryan Kwanten said, “By day, Griff works in an office. By night, he is a superhero - or is he? It was this question that attracted me to the role. Griff is such an original and boundless character to play.
“Every boy dreams of being a superhero and I’ve accepted my mission to bring this one to life.” The pic is expected to release nationally in late 2010.
"Everyday is the same thang, I creep in/ It's like 'True Blood,' I sink my teeth in/ I gotta have it." Vampire Bill, look out — fellow bloodsucker Eric Northman may not be the only fanged man in Bon Temps, Louisiana, that has his eyes on your beloved Sookie Stackhouse. Snoop Dogg says he wants to swoop into town and cause some havoc.
"You know I'm down with it," Snoop said of name-checking the popular HBO series on his new single, "Gangsta Luv." "I love that show. I wish I could be on it. I'd be a hell of a vampire, don't you think? So what's happenin'? 'True Blood,' get at me — Snoop Dogg wants to be a vampire."
We can see it now: The Dogg facing off in a fight to the death with Lafayette in a season finale.
I'm happy for Alex. He really and truly does deserve some happiness in his life. Kate is a lovely lady and they look great together. He's such a classy man and besides I love to see him smile. I say, if she makes him smile ...well Alex you do you baby and keep smiling :OD. On another note (just thinking out loud people, my opinion), Snoop Dogg as Victor Madden. Just a thought ;o/
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Rutina Wesley at Paley, this year
's Bill Compton and Twilight
Anshar, a 29-year-old psychic vampire from Truckee, California says, "If I don't feed I get terrible migraines, dizziness and nausea. With the migraines comes terrible photosensitivity and irritability." 
