WEDNESDAY, 28th

PLAIN JANE: What do you mean Tyra Banks didn’t create this show?! Color me shocked! (9pm/The CW)

THURSDAY, 29th

PROJECT RUNWAY: 90 minute episodes means more Tim Gunn. HOORAY! (9pm/Lifetime)

FRIDAY, 30th

SAY YES TO THE DRESS: ATLANTA: City spin-offs like the Bravo network? Is the world running out of ideas? (9:30pm/TLC)

SATURDAY, 31st

BEING HUMAN: Could this show possibly fill the void Doctor Who has now left me with? (9pm/BBC America)

Project Runway Summer Giveaway

Project Runway returns to Lifetime with Season 8 on Thursday, July 29 at a new time, 9 pm et/pt, supersized as 90-minute episodes. Hosted by supermodel and fashion maven Heidi Klum, the hit series provides 17 talented designers – the most in series history – with an opportunity to launch their careers in fashion, under the watchful eye of mentor and Liz Claiborne Chief Creative Officer Tim Gunn. Judges Michael Kors and Nina Garcia weigh in on the best and worst of the runway.

Now courtesy of Lifetime and Poptimal.com, you can sport your best fashion on the beach this summer with a Project Runway Season 8 prizepack!

ONE lucky winner will receive the following:

• Beach Tote
• Beach Towel
• Keychain w/Project Runway themed charms
• Water Bottle – 32 ounce, Project Runway theme
• Sunscreen
• Mister

Here’s How To Win (No Purchase Necessary)
1. Post your comments about at least one (1) of our front page articles (You will get 1 entry for every comment)

2. Email your name, email address and name of the post you commented on to contests@poptimal.com. Put “Project Runway” in the subject line.

It’s that simple! Now make it work!

Guidelines
-Open to U.S. Residents only
-Entrants must be at least 18 yrs of age
-This prize pack is valued at $60 and is provided by Lifetime
-Contest ends on July 30, 2010

Comic-Con 2010: The Expendables Panel

The Sylvester Stallone directed, written, starring film The Expendables looks to be delicious. And I don’t say this just because in the panel for the film at San Diego’s Comic-Con, actor Terry Crews stripped his shirt off and jumped on the table. No, that has nothing to do with this. Neither that nor his so, very chiseled abs will persuade me one way or another. What calls me to believe that The Expendables might be just what every action lover could ever dream of is the movie itself.

The Expendables stars a greatest hits compilation of action stars from the past two decades. First there’s the monster Sylvester Stallone, whose roles over the span of his career serve as introduction enough. There’s Steve Austin, a “Stone Cold” tough guy who will tell you the bottom line. Dolph Lundgren, legendary Rocky nemesis and hard-bodied superstar. And there’s the aforementioned Terry Crews and martial artist/boxer Randy Couture.

Oh and just in case you think the gun show stops right there, no. This movie also features Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jason Statham, Jet Li, and Mickey Rourke. Wow, from sheer firepower alone, you know this movie’s either going to be a blast or a massive bust.

From the looks of things, it seems like this movie is going to rock so hard it will put all other action movies TO SHAME!!! In an extended clip, Stallone and the gang show that there’s nothing like tough guys fighting hard because that’s what they do. Oh the power, the magnetism. These clips blew my mind away and made me realize that maybe I haven’t seen a real MAN in the movies lately. In a world of angst-ridden swains and sly chaps with a perfect grin, this brawny team takes dynamite to… everything that action movies have become: sly, smooth, and soft.

Crews calls this movie “a love letter to action movie fans” and from what I can see this film has every potential to be just that. A love letter to action fans, to girls who love manly men and those who didn’t know guys like this could even exist. Sigh. Forgive me.

This panel was really fun. There was an easy camaraderie between the actors and I cracked up laughing more than I imagined I would. All of these guys were really funny and ribbed each other good-naturedly. Sylvester Stallone kept picking on Steve Austin because during the making of this film, Austin accidentally broke Stallone’s neck. There seems to be a little bitterness about this but it was cute to see them pick at each other, especially since before this Stallone almost blew Austin up using explosives.

Did you know that Sylvester Stallone used to wear a Superman costume under his clothes as a child? I didn’t know that either but according to Stallone it’s true. I don’t care, I just love it. When one fan asked them if, with so many strong men on cast, they were tempted to arm wrestle, the answer was no. That makes me sad. I would pay to see Steve and Stallone settle their differences (who broke whose neck, who tried to blow up whom) with a good old-fashioned 1-2-3 arm wrestle. But that isn’t happening yet. Until then you can tide yourself over seeing this team beat the crap out of people.

The Expendables is released on August 13th.

Images courtesy of IMDb Pro.

For more Comic-Con coverage, click here.

Comic-Con 2010: Being Human Panel

You may or may not have heard of this little show called Being Human. No, I’m serious, because up until a few weeks ago I had no idea what it was. Now I’ll pause here so fans of the show can pick up the computers they pushed away in disgust, (really, that wasn’t wise) and now that they’re back I’ll continue and say: now that I do know what Being Human is all about, I’m jumping aboard that train. In preparation for its US debut, the popular BBC show arrives at Comic-Con to give you a taste of what it’s all about.

First of all, the creator Toby Whithouse seemed more than a little peeved at the idea that the audience has been watching pirated versions of the show. Some fan made a remark about the ridiculousness of having to wait 7 months to see the show after it airs. To this the audience burst in applause while the panel remained quiet. I think we all know that pirating is punishable by law, but I don’t need some lady moderator telling me “piracy hurts us all.” Am I supposed to say boo-hoo because you don’t get to put another .83 cents in your pocket? And this is not a pro-pirating speech. I just think that it’s fascinating to censure the audience of an action that works on your behalf and could benefit you. Yes, he may be losing money from that deal, but what’s great is that you have an entire room of people who are heavily inclined in your favor. SELL THEM SOMETHING!!! You want to make your fans pay for pirating: put your name on the cover of a book of ships, call it the Being Human Ultimate Experience, slap $24.99 on the cover and recoup your losses.

Anyway, Being Human is the story of three roommates who each have a supernatural secret. George is a werewolf, Annie is a ghost, and Mitch is a vampire. When asked about the origin of the show, Toby Whithouse shares that the early version of the show was quite dull. The original pitch, set around the three main characters, was designed to show the stresses and strains of…being human. It was meant to show the trials of daily life. It was very difficult to try to figure out this show, so in a last ditch effort Whithouse suggested turning one of the characters into a werewolf, “at least we’ll have something for the first episode.” This idea blossomed into what it is today.

The panelists present included Whithouse, Russel Tovey (George), Lenora Crichlow (Annie), Aidan Turner (Mitch) and Sinead Keenan (Nina, George’s girlfriend.)

SPOILER ALERT!!! Since this show isn’t technically released in the US, I’m going to go ahead and use that warning.

The panelists describe this season as darker than the previous one. Last season, George, who has been suppressing his wolf, used his inner wolf to kill someone else. Add onto that the fact that he scratches the love of his life, thereby turning her into a werewolf. Dude’s got issues. Mitch finds himself straining away this season, and distancing himself from everyone. While this is happening, Annie finds herself battling with loneliness. She is finally hit with the reality that she is not moving on. She’s stuck. This is a dismal thought, and if that wasn’t enough Death comes calling for Annie again.

P.S. During the panel Russel Tovey initiated a wave. I think it was just to see if he could do it. He could, I did, IT ROCKED!!!

Being Human season 2 premieres on July 24, 2010 on BBC America at 10 p.m. EST.

For more Comic-Con coverage, click here.

Image courtesy of BBC America and IMDb Pro.

Comic-Con 2010 Caprica Panel: Doomed, Bloody, and Foreshadowing

Caprica’s show creators Ron Moore and David Eick, actors Alessandra Torresani (Zoe Graystone), Sasha Roiz (Sam Adama), James Marsters (Barnabus Greeley), and Magda Apanowicz (Lacy Rand) appeared at San Diego Comic-Con promoting the second half of the Syfy channel prequel series to Battlestar Galatica (BSG).

The event was held inside the San Diego Convention Center’s Ballroom 20 to a packed room full of eager fans, fanatics and members of the press.

At the beginning of the event, Eick walks to the stage with a small bottle of tequila where Moore and him pour themselves shots and chug it down. You don’t see that in every panel!

Audiences were treated to a trailer of the upcoming season 1.5 and it looks like an action-packed second half with the characters going through intense new situations.

Highlights of the panel included Moore talking about Caprica being in the works five years ago, when BSG was still on the air. It was interesting to learn that Moore and the other writers made certain to give themselves a wide space for flexibility. They wanted the two shows to be connected, but to still be independent of each other as much as possible. The writers then made certain to not reference things in BSG that would be too critical in the prequel.

Moore also vehemently said that they will be coming back for a new season and that they were in the final stretch of talks with the executives at the Syfy channel.

Viewers learned that Blade Runner and Black Hawk Down were big influences for the show and explored the question of what it means to be human. This is an inquiry that they first brought up in BSG and continue in Caprica.

Torresani commented on how filming in Vancouver, Canada has allowed the cast and crew to bond together into a family. “ We eat, breathe, sleep Caprica and hope it shows for you guys,” she said to which fans applauded with appreciation.

One interesting comment was on the show’s strong female characters. Torresani tells audiences that by the end of the season both their characters become incredibly strong and kick-ass.

“It’s funny though that the writers are so in-tune with fifteen-year-old girls,” she said.

Moore goes on to explain that he had always been interested in strong female characters and talks about the creation of Starbuck (played by Katee Sackhoff in BSG) becoming female instead of male and what would that be like and what would that mean for their society.

“The joke around Galactica was that the women did all the saving and the men watched them…but it became a joy to do

something different in science fiction where I sort of had this prejudice where sci-fi/fantasy got to this place where if you put a female character in the movie you basically had to put them in leather with stilettos….and it didn’t make sense so it just became one of our hallmarks to write female characters and make them three dimensional,” said Moore.

Caprica gets its inspiration as well from the present compared to BSG being the world post-9/11. The creators attempt

to deal with politics, society, and industry, and they make an attempt to give audiences as many touchstones as possible to remind them that this could be their world.

“Yet it’s like we’re doing a show a couple of years leading up to the World Trade Center, so there’s always this

foreshadowing, the society is doomed, its all gonna come to a bloody end and none of them are aware of it,” said Moore.

Cap rica will return to the SyFy channel to complete its first season in January 2011.

For more Comic-Con coverage, click here.

Images courtesy of SyFy, IMDb Pro and Nicole Cukingnan. Copyright Poptimal.com

Comic-Con 2010: A Superhero For The Disillusioned

While superhero movies have saturated theaters with film adaptations of the many angst-ridden quandaries and vengeful battles waged by household-name caped crusaders and more obscure, underground vigilantes in the last few years, the genre has more recently begun shifting its focus from traditional comic-book crusaders to more relatable Everymen who are derived from an original concept. One upcoming film to mark this transition is Super, James Gunn’s (Slither, Dawn of the Dead) newest movie starring Rainn Wilson (The Office) as a frustrated, slightly awkward schlub named Frank whose wife (Liv Tyler) has chosen drugs and a sleazy new man (Kevin Bacon) over him. To curb his broken heart and overall disenchantment with life, Frank reinvents himself as Crimson Bolt, a civilian avenger with a homemade costume and complete lack of emotional control.

At the Super discussion panel on Friday at San Diego’s Comic-Con, stars Wilson, Tyler, Ellen Page, Nathan Fillion and Michael Rooker, along with producers Miranda Bailey and Ted Hope, all expressed enthusiasm for Gunn’s eccentric take on the societal pressures contemporary, “normal” men like Wilson’s character experience on a daily basis. What makes Crimson Bolt’s case unique are the shocking and hilarious methods he uses to deal with his continuous strife. Based on the preview shown at Friday’s panel, Super looks to be a sublimely silly, tongue-in-cheek slapstick blend of the imperfect, civilian makeshift superhero element from Kick-Ass and the everyday consumers’ maddening aggravation with society a la Falling Down. Or, as Hope succinctly put it, “An f’ed up, low-rent Watchmen.”

Gunn described how his vision of Super took a long time to find fruition. After working on the script for years, he struggled with the dilemma of finding the right leading man for his complicated anti-hero. “There was really no one who could do the part service in my mind,” said Gunn. “It was a very difficult role to fill. It had to be a guy who had the comedic chops, but it also had to be a guy who had the dramatic chops, because there’s a lot of drama in the movie, and it also had to be somebody who you could believe could be picked on by everybody … and yet be powerful enough to take down a bunch of people with a wrench and a shotgun.”

After Wilson’s co-star on The Office, Jenna Fischer, introduced them, Gunn realized he had finally found the actor who could believably exhibit all the required characteristics to play Crimson Bolt.

Despite his misanthropic disposition and tendency to blow things out of proportion to a violent degree, Crimson Bolt does manage to make a few friends along his journey towards reinvention. Page turns up as Libby, an equally dissatisfied drifter brimming with naiveté who becomes Boltie, the obligatory sidekick, as a result of her self-propelled dogged campaigning. Page described Boltie as well intentioned, but “definitely a sociopath inching on psychopath.”

Fillion, to the audience’s delight, revealed the name of his character — another rudimentary, do-it-yourself superhero — as The Holy Avenger. According to Fillion, this self-proclaimed pillar of  virtue possesses “that ‘I really want him’ power, but kind of mixed in with the church,” he joked.

While Super certainly has its fair share of comedic essence, the audience’s laughter doesn’t necessarily come from a place of happiness for the characters’ state of being. The humor in the movie results in the kind of uncomfortable, shocked laughter one expresses when they can’t believe what they’re seeing. “I read the script and I thought, ‘This is fantastic, it’s dark, it’s funny, it’s got the grotesque angle you’ve come to expect from James Gunn,” said Fillion, regarding some of the movie’s shockingly blatant violence in the midst of a normally comical situation.

Super certainly exhibits black comedy as a primary tone, but the film as a whole possesses character development and emotional evocation most viewers may not anticipate. “I had no idea how intensely sad and dramatic it was going to be,” added Fillion, saying his initial read of the script caused him to go home “tight in the chest.”

Bailey said she was intrigued because Super “kind of mixes the genres,” adding, “it was the kind of thing you couldn’t resist. It wasn’t a question of how we were going to make this movie,” because it simply had to get made. Wilson himself echoed this sentiment, describing how he got “about 27 pages” into the script before he called Gunn and declared that he “had to play this role.”

Tyler expressed her initial difficulty with the frantic pace of shooting the movie on a tight schedule and nearly nonexistent finances, calling the experience “pretty intense, guerilla-style filmmaking.” Gunn agreed, saying the grueling process of making Super so quickly for so little money wasn’t exactly something he’d call “fun,” it was actually “a pretty terrifying experience all the way through.” In fact, he added, “I wasn’t sure it was going to work until people started seeing it a couple of weeks ago,” when positive word of mouth began flooding the blogosphere, resulting in an eager crowd at Comic-Con.

After its wildly successful promotion at the convention on Friday, Gunn’s statement that the harried process of making Super on a shoestring budget at a dizzying speed is what “became the spine of the film,” he may come to realize the hard work could pay off more than he ever imagined.

Super is currently in post-production pending a release date. Follow updates for the film at www.thecrimsonbolt.com

For more Comic-Con coverage, click here.

Photographs courtesy of Bilal Mian and Poptimal.com.

Comic-Con 2010 White Collar Press Room: Stealing the Con

After a lively White Collar panel featuring a video with a Team Edward t-shirt-wearing Willie Garson leading the entire cast in a plan to steal the trailer of Tron: Legacy at Comic-Con, a profane version of the Folger’s Coffee theme song, and numerous Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonations, the cast and producers of the show met with reporters backstage to unwind.  They have filmed the first half of the season and provided tantalizing hints about what is in store for viewers.  Keep reading to learn what they think about the current season, their wardrobes and characters, and New York City.

Sharif Atkins (FBI Agent Clinton Jones)

• Atkins (ER) teases that Agent Jones will get out of the surveillance van and participate in some of Neal’s capers this season.
• He says that being on the show has been all fun and there isn’t anything really difficult about being on it.
• They have a director who helps them with background acting and appearing busy while at the FBI office.
• Atkins believes that Agent Jones is “out of the loop” as far as the mysterious music box is concerned, but that he himself has touched it.  He likes the fact that “some elements of the FBI are up to no good,” as it makes things interesting and keeps viewers on their toes.

Marsha Thomason (Agent Diana Barrigan)

• Thomason (Lost) is consistently surprised and flattered by White Collar fans and how they have connected with the show.
• While Thomason may be attracted to Neal Caffrey, she loves playing a character who isn’t charmed by his debonair style and tends to roll her eyes at his antics while other ladies “swoon over him left and right.”  Since it is not something he is familiar with, it frustrates him and she loves playing Diana that way even when it is not called for in the script.
• She was reluctant to share details about future plotlines, fearing for her job security, but did say that her character shoots someone else this season…she thinks.  She was not entirely sure since all the episodes get jumbled up in her mind.
• She is not interested in becoming a director at the moment, but has been producing some film projects, none of which have gotten off the ground yet.
• She spends a lot of her downtime watching television.  Some of her favorites include Glee (which she would love to be on), True Blood, Mad Men, Modern Family, and The United States of Tara.
• Despite being an Englishwoman, she feels comfortable using an American accent on the show and tries hard to get it right.  She does, however, occasionally feel judged because she is pretending to be an American while surrounded by Americans, even if she does feel like this country is her home now.

Tim DeKay (FBI Agent Peter Burke)

• Playing Agent Burke on White Collar has been quite different from Tim DeKay’s (Carnivàle) usual roles.  He has found being a leading character challenging because Peter “carries much of the story.”  He provides a lot of exposition, including “who the bad guys are, what the situation is, what kind of information is on file.”
• Peter envies Neal to a degree and the ease with which he carries himself, but says that Neal’s world is just not his world.
• He loves sharing scenes with Tiffani Thiessen, his on-screen wife.  The handsome actor is used to playing the strong, good-looking guy, but on White Collar, he is the regular guy with the hot wife.  It’s like Beauty and the Beast, he jokes.
• To him, “Peter’s a rock and others buzz around him, but no matter what, Peter’s there to make the world right in the White Collar world.”  He adds, “What’s fun about it is that he’s also funny.  It’s funny when he gets tripped up.”

Jeff King (Co-Executive Producer)

• Showrunner King (The Black Donnellys) is thrilled to be working on White Collar.  He has not done a second season of a show in a long time and says that the episodes they have filmed lately are his favorites.
• They have just finished shooting the ninth episode, which is the mid-season finale.
• He credits Jeff Eastin with coming up with the details in every scene and says that Eastin is widely read.  Their challenge is to translate his ideas onto the screen in a fun and interesting way.
• It is the second series of his to shoot in New York and he loves filming there.  He cannot imagine doing the show in any other city, as even just being on the streets and on location add so much to the show.
• King believes that every good story is very simple, from Gilligan’s Island to Stargate.  Journeys begin in one place and move towards a different place.  Their goal is to “establish a world and to honor that world.”

Matt Bomer (Neal Caffrey)

• Mastering all of Neal’s skills has been somewhat of a challenge for Bomer (Chuck).  Eastin gives him a heads up when a skill Neal possesses is “outside [Bomer’s] wheelhouse,” but will sometimes throw him for a loop, like when he sent an email asking Bomer if he could ride a horse.  Additionally, Bomer spends his downtime “going to galleries and familiarizing [himself] with that world.”
• While Bomer maintains that he’s a t-shirt and jeans kind of guy, he says that Neal’s classic wardrobe is essential to the character and helps him get into the proper frame of mind.  Dressing a certain way gets Neal access to where he wants to go and helps him “maneuver in the upper echelons of society.”  People even treat Bomer differently in real life when he runs into restaurants while on breaks from filming.
• When comparing Bryce (Chuck) and Neal, Bomer says that they are “completely different.  Bryce was a rogue CIA operative who was really cut and dry.  He did not ever let anybody know anything about him.  He did not expose any vulnerability.  He was very efficient.  He knew he loved Sarah Walker, but even that was a workbased thing.  The CIA are all encouraged to be incestuous as it is.  Neal’s suave and hyper-intelligent, but he’s very roundabout in getting what he wants.  Whereas Bryce had a tendency to go directly at a problem, Neal is a little bit more serpentine in getting what he wants.  He also has a real Achilles heel, a sloppy romantic life that’s a real flaw that sort of rounds him out a bit more in a way that we never got to see of Bryce.”
• It has been said many times on this site alone, but is still worth repeating — Bomer really is that good looking in real life, even (especially?) when slightly scruffy.

Willie Garson (Mozzie)

• Garson (Sex and the City) bases Mozzie on the scam artist chess players in Central Park.
• They have a professional criminal consultant who made him realize that criminals like Mozzie and Neal like doing what they do and getting away with it, “like moguls.”  It’s not about the money.
• This season we will be seeing how Neal and Mozzie developed their close bond via flashback.  Garson hopes it will involve an amazing Jewfro hair piece.  Viewers will also get a peek at where Mozzie lives and meet his love interest.
• Garson has been in the industry for a long time and says he has deliberately chosen a career path that will provide longevity and likes to be on projects that target different audiences.  He loves that television is fast-paced, but is concerned about being very famous for just one show.
• He loves to guess where people know him from.  Sex and the City is the most frequent answer, although he sometimes gets shows like Stargate SG-1, The X-Files, and Taken.
• Garson has found himself taking care of both Neal and Bomer in and out of character and says that Bomer would do the same for him.  There is a “complete bond of trust” between their characters and “Mozzie will always take care of Neal.”

Video: White Collar‘s Matt Bomer talks about becoming Neal Caffrey, wardrobe choices, and Bryce Larkin from Chuck.

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White Collar airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on USA.

For more on White Collar, click here.

For more Comic-Con coverage, click here.

Photographs and video courtesy of Ayang and Poptimal.com.

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