Fergie and Carmen are ageless

44 year old Carmen Electra was at the premiere for Alice through the looking glass the other day looking like she could put girls literally half her age to shame:

Props to her for not only looking amazing, but also having the decency not to go commando at a children's movie while wearing an outfit that many stars would not have shown the same restraint with.

41 year old Stacy "Fergie" Ferguson appeared at Rock in Rio over the weekend:

I've made the joke probably too many times about her having been up in the gym workin' on her fitness, but like Carmen in the pics above, Fergie's looks pretty amazing too:

Both of these gals have been in the business since their teens. Fergie had the added baggage of a crystal meth addiction to overcome and both women live in the public eye having some high stress events in their lives besides whatever their career has demanded of them.

Besides the obvious boob jobs, there's been plenty of talk about both women concerning other cosmetic surgeries to keep them as youthful looking as they appear. I don't doubt that. Along with some good genes these two have made the right choices when it's come to what to have done and what not to have done. And who to do the work. There's a number of other women in Hollywood and the music industry that might want to reach out to these two for advice on what docs to consider if/when they decide to go under the knife/needle.

Last Sunday's episode of Penny Dreadful

My goodness . . . how about that Eva Green? She was basically that whole episode. I've said before that she has an amazing ability to play the tortured soul better than most actors today and she showed it last night. Incredible.

We learned last week that there was much more intertwining of the character's lives than we had imagined as Dr. Seward is in fact related to the witch that mentored Ms. Ives in her early years. We also find out that John Clare, Dr. Frankenstein's original monster, was also the orderly who watched over Ms. Ives when she was in the mental hospital following the loss of her childhood friend Mina to the vampires.

Last night's episode centered totally on her stay in her padded cell in the asylum. She revisits this time via hypnosis by Dr. Seward but gets trapped in the reverie and must run it to its conclusion to escape. We see the torment she undergoes as she struggles to blame herself for the evil that touched her earlier in her life and Clare's tender compassion for the fragile beauty trapped in the living hell.

In my comments on last year's episodes, I remarked that the monster had some of the most moving soliloquies in any television series. I don't know if this series earns any end-of-year awards, but this episode should get something. As should Rory Kinnear who plays the monster. I'm not overly familiar with his work, but his work on this show and all the writing and performances are positively Shakespearean in their sublime pathos. Perhaps instead of awarding dreck like Girls or Veep, these award guilds might want to recognize some truly amazing writing and performances in a pretty daring show.

In last week's episode, we learn not only that Dracula is one of two angels defeated in the war in heaven and cast to earth, but that he visited Ms. Ives while she was in the "white room." Kinnear as Clare plays both Satan and Dracula (and the orderly) and in an interesting twist, we see Satan cowering before Dracula who supposedly is more powerful because he rules/inhabits the physical as opposed to the spiritual world. I'm sure we'll get protests from the Satanists over this portrayal. Lolz.

Vanessa refuses to pretend to be normal despite the dire warnings from Clare as he breaks asylum protocols by warning her of the horrors of the upcoming and then eventual "cure" for her condition.

Vanessa triumphs on at least one point as she is able to drive away both Satan and Dracula by evoking that hellspeak or whatever it was she used last season to drive away the vampires that attacked her. Though in the end of her reverie we see her, head shaven, waiting for the final "treatment" which has been described to her by Clare as primitive brain surgery that will leave her a vegetable.

Are we to believe she's had this surgery? Hard to imagine. Clare states he is leaving the asylum, unable to see what becomes of Vanessa after the surgery. Does he spirit her away somehow? I'm curious to see how this plays out.

Also this relationship with Dr. Seward. Surely after all she's seen, she must believe Vanessa's tale. I'm hoping this won't turn into a Scully-like situation where despite overwhelming evidence to prove what Ives says, the doctor simply thinks this is some imaginary fantasy of Vanessa's.

We got a bit more in last week's episode with Ethan and Hecate (Evelyn Poole's eldest daughter from season 2). On the surface it appears Hecate simply wants to join with Ethan, the Wolf of God, and use both of their powers to rule or do terrible things or simply just be dominant beings on the planet. I'm wondering if she's in league with Dracula or even still serving Satan in some way. Hoping to bring Ethan back to one or the other to earn a place at their side.

We also got another hint that Kaetenay may not be what he seems as it appeared he deliberately deceived Sir Malcolm about the deaths of two settlers that Ethan and Hecate took horses from. Hecate brutally killed both, but Kaetenay implied that it was Ethan, though Sir Malcolm doubted it, saying it was an indication that Ethan was losing control. Given the twists and turns of this show, I'm interested to see where this goes.

A word about the writing and themes here. When writers create stories about times in the past, it is sometimes difficult to keep what are considered our more evolved current morals out of a less evolved time period. Two instances --

On the train riding to the west, a couple of gruff cowboy types take exception to indian Kaetenay riding in the white folks car on the train. This despite the fact he's obviously with Sir Malcolm. While there was plenty of racial hatred between Indians and Whites back then, it was also not totally uncommon for whites, whether military or men of means, to have indian manservants. It fits the current social mores to have these guys act as ugly racists and have Sir Malcolm, a Brit, stand up and defend Kaetenay by humiliating the cowboys with a threat of a brutal beating. We often forget that England and most of Europe at that time were perfectly happy to employ indentured servitude (aka slavery) to staff their wealthy citizens homes. The world was an unpleasant place back then. No one was above reproach in the totality of their human rights record.

The other thing involves the tedious Inspector Rusk. A Scotland Yard inspector, Rusk was taking Ethan back to stand trial when his father engineered Ethan's escape. Rusk blows into some dusty town, starts browbeating a federal marshal and basically throwing his weigh around invoking the Crown and all that. Yeah. This is the 1890's folks. A letter mailed from California would probably take 6 months to get to England. You get some mouthy Brit, who remember we fought for our independence just 100 years prior, popping off to a marshal in the old west. That marshal would ride out of town with that guy, blow him our of his saddle, and leave his body to feed the coyotes. It would be a year before anyone arrived looking for this Inspector and by then . . . what? Who's going to remember what happened? this isn't CSI here, you could get away with murder pretty easily in those days. Point is, we view the past through our current thoughts on police inter-agency cooperation and the notion of our small world connectivity, and forget it simply wasn't the same back then.

I'm not complaining about the show mind you, just pointing out something that tends to bug me in general about telling stories about the past. It's tempting to put our current morality over top of those events, but it really isn't honest of fair to the era in question.

Oh yeah, almost forgot . . . I was totally wrong about Brona/Lily and Dorien's plans for their little revolt. They are planning to create an army of former prostitutes and unfortunates to wreak havoc on society. Got that one completely wrong. And that was some squirm worthy sequence with the little girl they rescued cutting the throat of the man who abused her and then she, Dorien and Lily bathing in his blood and having a three-some.

They dialed the lurid up to eleven in that sequence to be sure. It makes you squirm from time to time, but all in all a pretty amazing show. I still recommend it highly.

Paris Hilton still working it

After showing up in a see through dress earlier this month, Paris Hilton was pap'd again going out for dinner in the above pictured pretty sexy little number. The heiress is a pretty easy target for snark as she seems amazingly shallow about life, perhaps as a consequence of growing up unimaginably wealthy, but I've always found her to be attractive. And have posted frequently about her tall slender physique and how it's perfect for outfits like that above and those little string bikinis she often wears. Though not often enough for my taste.

There's no denying that she likes the attention. Once she saw she had an audience of photographers, it was game on and she can style it with the best of them:

As I mentioned previously, there was a time when you couldn't turn on your computer or visit a celeb blog without seeing pics of Paris falling out of her clothes. She may be past that ambivalence at this point in her life, but the internet remembers everything. And something tells me she really doesn't mind that people keep searching for images of her. She was one of my top ten posts last year and will probably make some other blogger's top traffic posts this year as well.

Hailee Steinfeld may be a little proud of that booty

You ever notice how, when these female celebs are out on the red carpet or at some event, they do that little move to show off their outfits from the rear? They turn sideways or completely around then look back over their shoulder at the camera? It's quite possible that this is simply an innocent occurrence here, but when Hailee Steinfeld was recently pap'd at the beach, they got an inordinate amount of images of her like the one above.

Maybe she was just always talking over her shoulder to someone laying or sitting next to her, but it struck me as funny. And perhaps a bit charming too. A bit of youthful insouciance on her part.

The paps camped out long enough to catch Hailee after a wardrobe change, getting a lot of pictures of her chatting over the phone on a balcony. Again, either youthful innocence about being followed everywhere or some impressive manipulation of the media. I'm reminded of a time when Paris Hilton was being pap'd on a yacht and she made a deliberate show of turning her backs to the paparazzi and readjusting her bikini bottoms aggressively for several minutes.

Kate Beckinsale was at the Billboard Music Awards

World's hottest mom™ Kate Beckinsale was at the 2016 Billboard Music Awards for some reason. Perhaps just to add some of her effortless glamour and hotness to the event. If so, mission accomplished:

Britney Spears won an award for something. Best lip-synching career perhaps? I don't know. She did appear in a couple of see through outfits and eschewed the current trend of wear granny panties underneath. Points for that. She still smiles like a pyscho for the paps though. Don't understand that:

Ciara was there too. Does she have new music out this year? I think sometimes they just invite her for the outfits she tends to wear. Like this little metallic number that is one awkward step away from a major wardrobe malfunction:

Lindsey Vonn put in appearance as well, looking solid and pretty. Is she still competing? If not, she looks study enough for a stint in the WWE:

Blow is the perfect name for this fool

I would have called him a no-talent ass clown in the title but I'm not sure I can do that. But here's who I'm talking about:

Classy, right?

Forgiato Blow, real name Kurt Janz, is some pathetic white boy wanna be rapper who no one's heard of and is trying to make a name for himself. He's decided to host a series of "float parties" at various beaches in Florida. His last outing in Miami caused so much destruction that the city rushed through a new set of ordinances to prevent anything like that happening again.

Well now this bozo is bringing his self-aggrandizing public property destruction tour to my local beach -- St. Pete Beach. Hoping to get tons of video and still images in front of the historic Don Cesar Hotel, he's going to anchor off the beach and is expecting 100 - 150,000 partiers to show up today and celebrate . . . him, of course.

Little rich boy Blow, he's the grandson of the guy who started the Auto Trader, went to a private boys academy, etc., freely admits this party thing is simply to "build his brand" with the public. I'm assuming that brand is the ignorant no-talent white boy pretending to be all hood brand so coveted by the I'm ashamed of my white privilege generation now moping around the country.

Blow has refused to get a permit, showcasing his stunning lack of intelligence on one hand by claiming it (St. Pete Beach) is a public beach so he can do what he wants, while in fact, large portions of the beach -- in front of condos and time shares, are not public and are in fact privately controlled beachfronts. And on the other hand displaying the false insouciance of youth by saying he's only "inviting" 80-100 people so he doesn't need to apply for a permit. Despite knowing and bragging online about 100,000+ turning up for his demolition party.

The city is going to spend tens of thousands of dollars in extra police, portable bathrooms, post party clean-up, protection for nesting sea turtles and other beachfront wildlife that they take pretty seriously out here. This sh*tbag hasn't offered one dime in reparations or assistance to the beach city he claims as his home. I work out here. If he's living on St. Pete Beach, I've never heard of him and I've delivered mail to every residence on the beach.

Every Saturday and holiday weekend, St. Pete Beach is inundated with visitors who have no where to park. It's one of my biggest complaints with the city. They want the weekend traffic to spend money at the stores and restaurants but there's no place for anyone to park. They've fought hard over the years to stop places like the Don Cesar from building a parking garage, claiming it would ruin the esthetic of the area. There's a huge vacant area between the 38th and 41st blocks of Gulf Blvd. that had been used as an emergency pay-to-park area that the city decided they didn't like and shut that down. So a great deal of the parking dilemma is of their own making.

But this fool's intrusion isn't. Like all self-important assholes, Forgiato Blow (seriously?! How can you take anyone serious with a name like that?) won't care about the destruction he causes, invoking the old axiom that any publicity is good publicity. Well, if the city and the mayor are smart, they ought to give this idiot some publicity -- a massive lawsuit to cover the costs of his stupid little look at me party.

Game of Thrones season six -- Book of the Stranger

Well, let's tackle the 800lb elephant in the room at the outset --

Nope. That was not Emilia Clarke naked.

A season or two ago, the actress, whom no one could pick out of a line-up prior to being cast in the role of Daenerys Targaryan in this series, decided she wasn't going to appear in the altogether anymore. Now if you've stumbled across any of my posts in the past about this little pet peeve of mine, you may know that I don't care if actresses don't want to do nude scenes or roles that require nudity, that's their choice and I respect that decision. What rankles me is when an actress pursues and wins a role that demands some nudity and then refuses to do any and expects writers and directors to rewrite and set up scenes to accommodate their modesty.

Anyway, after this proclamation from Clarke, I was curious what was going to happen when she emerged from the burning building. Body doubles? Lots of crazy camera angles and obstructions? Nope. They did the same thing that was done last year with Cersei's walk of atonement as she leaves the Great Sept in Kings Landing -- CGI.

The church that doubles as the Great Sept of Baelor (I think it's in Romania or some such) wouldn't allow a naked woman inside. Nor would the city that serves as the streets for Kings Landing. So they CGI'd a naked body onto Lena Headey for the walk. It was pretty well done too. When I created the montage below, I added a bit of contrast to the images to overcome the washout from the yellow flames. I also added a bit of sharpening to clean up the image. The result:

It's pretty obvious when you see these images -- the stark contrast between the definition on her facial features and the blur of her body, that there's some computer magic going on here. I can see a future in the movies for this tech -- actresses who eschew nudity suddenly appearing with a cgi rockin' naked body when the need arises. I'm looking right at you Jennifer Aniston.

But as to the show -- the situation that got Daenerys into the fire was well handled as she had to meet with the Khals of the Dothraki to learn her fate -- lifetime with the Dosh Kaleen as an advisor or sex slave to the animalistic Khals. I was expecting the dragon to come down and save her, but her decision to burn the building down around her should have been obvious. She'd been through that before when they had tried to burn her with Drogo. That's what kickstarted her legend in the first place. So, well done by the writers there. The question now is whether the Dothraki will accept a female leader and if so, do they follow her to Meereen to solidify her reign?

In Meereen, still the weakest link in the storytelling so far, Tyrion works out a truce with the leaders of the other cities of Slavers Bay to stop funding the Sons of the Harpies and end the insurrection with the understanding that Daenerys will help them transition away from slavery within 7 years. Grey Worm and Missandei aren't too keen on the 7 year bit and again, showing the weakness of the writing, Tyrion doesn't do much to explain his reasoning to them.

Cersei works out a deal with Lady Olenna Tyrell (the unrecognizable Diana Rigg) to spare Margaery from the same walk of atonement Cersei endured months earlier. Interesting question here is whether this is a trap for the Tyrells whom Cersei hates. They come in and kill the High Sparrow and the Lanister army wipes out the Tyrells in the name of The Seven, Margaery dies in the fray allowing Cersei to select Tommen's wife, etc. Seems probable to me. We'll see.

Sansa arrived at Castle Black and reunited with Jon Snow. That was pretty well done. The two have changed a lot since their early lives. Sansa is harder now and determined to fight and regain their home -- Winterfell. Snow has lost any desire to stand for anything anymore. As he says repeatedly -- he did what he thought was right and was murdered for it. He feels as if he's failed at everything and has basically lost his faith in himself. A letter from Ramsey Bolton helps force his hand as Ramsey admits he has Rickon, their younger brother, and dares Snow to come get him. Snow doesn't have the army to take what he believes are 5000 Bolton soldiers at Winterfell.

Help may come in the form of Petyr Baelish who rules House Arryan and the Eyrie by proxy as he easily manipulates the simple-minded boy-child Robert who is the true successor to the throne. Baelish decides to send the army of the Eyrie to Castle Black to help Sansa who he knows is there. It's possible this may work as supposedly the warriors of the Eyrie are the best in the seven kindoms. Of course, they say that about every fighting force in the novels, so the praise is sort of hollow. You know?

The writing and situations in this episode were clearly the best of the season save the continuing disappointment of Meereen. Next week (this Sunday since I'm so late with this) promises an angry meeting between Snow and Baelish and some problem with Bran and his reverie that may include the White Walkers.

All in all, a good episode. I'm happy.

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Here's a few images of Emilia Clarke from her pre-ain't gonna do it time on the show:

My thoughts on the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. finale

And season three in general.

The two hour finale that aired this week was a pretty fitting end to another season of this show. AoS has gotten better each season in all areas -- writing, performances and production. They've done a good job interlacing storylines and dialog to fit into the MARVEL movie universe and help advance some memes along the way.

The season finale finds the team trying to stop Hive/Ward and his plans to detonate a warhead loaded with a pathogen that should turn a substantial portion of humanity into primitive Inhumans. Daisy/Skye (Chloe Bennett) has been rescued from Hive's sway by the Inhuman Lash (formerly Dr. Garner, now permanently an Inhuman). One of the clever themes since their introduction is the belief that Inhumans aren't just mutations via a Cree gene, but rather that each serves a specific purpose in the universe and exists to be at the right place and the right time. We find that Lash's purpose seems to be to save Daisy as he alone can destroy the nano-particulates that make up Hive and is also able to inoculate Daisy from further infection and sway from Hive.

This latter bit leads to a climactic confrontation between Hive and Daisy as we see Daisy escape, ostensibly to help stop Hive but in reality, she goes to him begging to be returned to his influence, desperate to have the connection she has sought her entire life. In earlier episodes Fitz and Simmons discovered that Hive's nano-particulates infect an Inhuman's brain, focusing on the area that releases pleasure endorphins so that those under his sway have a sense of well-being and satisfaction that makes them want to be under his control. It's clever and powerful way for the writers to approach his control of others. I liked that.

In a rage at not being able to return to Hive's sway, Daisy attacks Hive and we see more of her burgeoning powers. At one point she simply crushes all the bones in his body, which of course does no good, but it's an escalation of what she's capable of. Earlier, Daisy was able to conceal a gun in Fitz's hand by surrounding it with force waves. The Daisy Quake character is a powerful entity in the comics and the show has been slow in developing her abilities. With the Inhuman's movie delayed for a few years, we may see them escalate her growth over the next season or two.

One of the sub-plots leading into the finale was the impending death of one of the main characters. An Inhuman with the ability to transmit the image of someone's death when physically touched gives Daisy a vision of the future -- someone from S.H.I.E.L.D. in space, a floating crucifix and the knowledge that this person will die. That leads to a lot of misdirection in the episode as the crucifix in question keeps changing hands throughout the two hours. I had to laugh, in a good way, at the constant shell game going on. In the end, it is Lincoln who dies. Knowing that Daisy believes it is her death she saw, he sacrifices himself to take the warhead into outer space, along with Hive to save Daisy and the Earth. Keeping with the destiny theme of being Inhuman, Lincoln believes that he was meant for this as only he, via his electrical discharge abilities could permanently disable the controls on the Zephyr to keep Hive from regaining control and returning to the atmosphere.

Hive/Ward and Lincoln actually share a quiet moment of introspection prior to their deaths that I'm not sure worked for me. While I understood Lincoln's sacrifice to save the woman he loved, Hive's quiet acceptance -- saying he could now experience something that had eluded him throughout his existence -- death, seemed wrong to me. They've hinted that the Hive/Ward character may be able to return at some point and the only way I can think of that happening is that surviving Inhuman's that have been under Hive's sway have his nano-particulates in their bodies. Can they reproduce? That might be a way for this to work.

The teaser for next season shows that Daisy has gone rogue. Lots of headlines in papers talking about "Quake" or quakes damaging buildings. And we see Daisy, now rocking long black hair and heavy eye make-up (I like) giving money to Charles Hinton's widow and daughter. Hinton being the Inhuman who had died earlier in the season after showing the future to Daisy and Malick and others. We also see that Coulson is no longer head of S.H.I.E.L.D. and he and Mack seem to be simply field agents conducting a lo-tech tracking/capture (without success) of Daisy. How many more times can they destroy S.H.I.E.L.D. and/or remove Coulson from the director's position? This seems like an every season thing. The agency has been reconstituted what . . . three times now? Come on guys, find a new horse to flog here.

We see yet another ability of Daisy in the final sequence as she's able to use her force waves to launch herself several stories into the air and escape capture by landing on a rooftop out of view of Coulson and Mack. I cannot imagine we'll see this series continue without the Daisy character. And when they finally return her to whatever the writers are doing with S.H.I.E.L.D. she's going to be a formidable force. At least she would be if I was writing for the show. Lolz

Also we're teased with the image of geneticist Holden Radcliffe in a high-tech office talking with his own version of Jarvis about launching a Life Model Decoy that looked to have a very feminine profile. Where is that coming from? Holden, when introduced in episode 18, was working out of a dingy grungy backroom area of some bar somewhere. Now he's rocking the tech life like Tony Stark. That's going to be interesting to see where that goes.

I've got to say that this season has kept me guessing all along. I never expected them to dump characters like Bobby Morse and Hunter -- they were captured trying to save the Russian premiere from Hive and Malick (Powers Boothe). They also killed off Malick which surprised me somewhat though I think maybe Boothe didn't want to get tied up long term in a television show. But they used that moment to further the MARVEL universe mythology by having information given to Coulson by Malick used to destroy the last remnants of Hydra.

In keeping with the cinematic universe MARVEL has created, there was talk of the Sokovia Accord from the current Captain America movie. An argument between Coulson and General Talbot, who now runs the ATCU but is subordinate to Coulson, about registering all Inhumans, including the ones working for S.H.I.E.L.D. That goes nowhere but again leads to some nice synchronicity as the Inhumans recruited by Daisy and Coulson -- Elena (Yo-Yo) and Joey who both speak Spanish and are too well acquainted with government registrations want no part of that and are able to converse freely about their doubts since no one else at S.H.I.E.L.D. speaks Spanish.

And they reference the death of Agent Carter, last seen in a hospital in Captain America #2 and in a younger version in Ant Man.

Fitz and Simmons are finally consummating their long schoolchild love for one another. Mack has an awkward burgeoning affection for Elena, Yo-Yo, so nicknamed because she can move faster than the eye can see but only for the length of time for one heartbeat before she returns to ther original position. In the comics, her character is called Slingshot. You get the idea. Mack also refers to Daisy as Tremors where in the comics she's known as Quake. Not sure why they're doing this since they don't hesitate to use other character's names directly.

This is a pretty light recap of the season which had 22 episodes. I regret not getting on board sooner. Best laid plans and all that. Wait 'til next year. heh

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Anyway, here's a couple of pics of Chloe Bennett and Ming Na Wen looking pretty:

Jaimie Alexander has unfortunate ink

Jaimie Alexander who plays Jane Doe on the television series Blindspot and also appears as Lady Sif in the Thor movies was spotted in Mexico recently rocking the bikini and showing that not all the ink from her television show is put on in the make-up trailer:

Not getting the bug tattoo at all. The quote beside it is from Carl Jung:

I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become

I get the whole "empowerment" thing in the message. But the accompanying graphic confuses me. I suppose she's been asked about this before by some interviewer. I'm not wasting any time digging that up.

I just wonder sometimes how much thought these young folks put into the process when they decide to permanently adorn themselves thusly.

And this just in -- Emma Stone got back

Emma Stone has nerd girl cred from movies like Spiderman and Birdman and that Aloha movie where she played a half-Hawaiian gal that enraged the SJW crowd because she doesn't look ethnic enough even though apparently (and I haven't read the book) she looks exactly like the character as described in the novel.

She eschews the obvious sexy magazine layouts and characters in her role choices seemingly preferring to hold on to that "Hey buddy, your sister's kinda hot. You know?" image. So we don't really pay attention to her figure as we do other actresses. But she got pap'd the other day and what do you know . . . Emma's got a little junk in that trunk. Who knew?

It's always the quiet ones . . .

Maitland Ward is trying to get my attention

My favorite redhead has noticed that I haven't written about her in a month, so she's relentlessly Instagramming herself to get my attention. Either that or she's just doing it because . . . that's what she does. *shrug* Either way, I've got no problems with pics of her redheaded goodness popping up online every day.