First Word

A few days without a cable hook-up and I was forced to dig into my DVD collection for entertainment. I decided to go back to season 1 of True Blood and re-watch. Since I really only like the Eric Northman/Sookie Stackhouse romance, it meant having to endure the original Bill/Sookie romance. I have to say the initial heat between the couple was there, but then you know Bill turned into such a controlling ass and got all paternal and "protective" to the point where you really started to dislike his treatment of Sookie as if she were a child. It's also pretty interesting reflecting on the show through the lens of the proceeding seasons that revealed Bill's true intentions from day one, which were not so honorable in that Queen Sophie Anne sent Bill to procure her. Then you have Eric Northman's interest in her and the difference in how he treats her. He lets her speak for herself and make her own decisions. He doesn't try to control her and he respects her. For t...

Ah, HBO is whetting our appetites for more True Blood , and yesterday they released a new trailer with ... egad the actors in it ( click here ). Yes, of course, I watched it. And I've read the books, too. So I could sort of tell between the spoilers and books what might be going on this fine season. If you hate spoilers, stop here. All right so we have some digging going on! Let's bet on one of two things. Tara is getting turned OR they are burying Debbie Pelt's body OR both. Remember in the books, they bury Debbie's body on Sookie's property. I would imagine we might have a little of that going on. I do thinking turning Tara is the most obvious choice, so I'm sure the writers are more imaginative than to take the most in-your-face road with that storyline ... or I could be wrong. Sometimes the obvious choice is great when you have plenty of exciting storyline to explore from it. Watching the ultra-angry Tara act on her "nature" might be extremely int...

I figured right from the beginning of the trailers for Battleship that my favorite actor Alexander Skarsgard would not last the entire film. Now other reviewers are suggesting the same thing ( click here ). Why did I think this? Because the star of the film is consistently in the trailer and there is a scene where they supposedly blew an air cannon right at Skarsgard's face. Since we didn't get to see much of him in the rest of the clips (well, no appearances at all), I just put two and two together, which equals someone kicks off. Now I'm slightly annoyed at this prospect because I am only going to see the film to watch my famous Swede. I mean, Battleship is not really shaping up from the previews to be a film I'm eager to see. Hey, but here is my major complaint. Skarsgard appears in the enticing film Melancholia , and wham! Half the film he isn't in it. Now he's in another big film, and I suspect he isn't in most of it, too. Hey producers out there, we ...

Now before I launch into this morning's diatribe, I have to give a little preemptive strike. Facebook and Twitter are much more controlled environments, and I only find my jaw dropped onto the ground occasionally. Where I am suffering the most shock and awe is on Tumblr. Don't get me wrong, I like Tumblr and I use it for Brea's Blog . When I am on Tumblr and I do my most exploring is when I run into stuff that is mind-blowing! The difference between Tumblr and other social media like Facebook and Twitter is that it's geared toward bloggers. What you find in the blogger world are a lot of fan sites. Again, don't get me wrong, I like fans. I am trying to build a fan following for my own book California Girl Chronicles . The average run-of-the-mill fan is fabulous. We need fans to support our books at 3L Publishing . So, these comments are not aimed at pleasant "fandom" where boundaries and rationale logic apply. These comments are aimed at fans who have gone...

So, I promised I would give a review of my birthday present True Blood and Philosophy ... well, I have to tell you. If you really want a deconstructed insider "revelation" about the show, go to Love True Blood and forget the book. This book takes on a very conventional deconstruction based on historical philosophy and modern feminism. I always hope for a deeper look at a piece of work that pulls back the veil between me and the storyteller to help engender a greater understanding of the story -- whether it's on TV or a book. The website really accomplishes that goal while the book is just too, well, boring. It didn't give me a deeper meaning to the characters. I wasn't at all enlightened and frankly mostly bored by it. Now the website written by very literate fans of the show is much more intriguing and revealing. Also, there is a mention on the Love True Blood site today about how Charlaine Harris doesn't map out her books and focuses primarily on one bo...

If you are a fan of the HBO series True Blood (Season 5 is slated to begin June 24) then you should check out this site titled Love True Blood . From what I've been told by the site leaders and from what I've read, it's absolutely the best fan site written by fantastic writers who display their literary backgrounds with great ease and reveal all sorts of layers to this show one would never imagine. You think True Blood is all about "vampire porn" (as one friend called) then you are not really watching it from a storytelling point of view with all its metaphors, foreshadowing and juxtapositions. Read this fan site and you will have all the confidence that Alan Ball is NOT going to put Sookie and Bill back together. Not if you peel back the layers of the onion the way these literate fans have done. I've emphatically said that Eric and Sookie are soul lovers, and if you read this site and all the great information under the season redux you will notice how they...

I love Eric and Sookie Lovers website (big shout out to Erika, the site administrator). A new article reposted on the site basically suggests that the forthcoming Battleship is an "art house" piece ( see article ). I hate to say this, but the trailers of the movie don't resemble something "arty" for sure. In fact, every time I've seen the trailers it looks more like Transformers Lost at Sea . I used to play Battleship with my brother when I was kid. So, I guess the preview didn't exactly fit what I expected to see. Maybe a more traditional war movie perhaps between, say, battleships? Not marines vs. aliens, which is a quirky switch up from last summer's Cowboys and Aliens , which I got dragged into seeing and wasn't particularly impressed. A bunch of old cowboys fussing over the aliens and a pretty girl. Here is what I secretly hope: that Alexander Skarsgard's quote that it's an art house movie means it harkens more toward the amazing, ...

My court of last resort when nothing is on TV is to now play around on You Tube. Last night I found some spoilers and information on True Blood's upcoming Season Five. This so-called trailer cracked me up. "Why do we all talk like this?" "It's the fangs you stupid idiot!" I've heard numerous times, the actors in the commentaries say it takes practice to talk with those fangs in their mouths. Thus, this trailer had particular relevance. So click here and laugh. It's Friday! I have to make you laugh.

Fan sites absolutely and without a doubt just give me nothing but utter smiles. Now we have a poll , yes another infamous poll, asking whether Jensen Ackles from Supernatural could beat Alexander Skarsgard from True Blood in a fight. Jensen is winning our vampire Viking by a serious margin. I have to tell you, I only find these little gems that make me laugh every time, because of my Google Alerts. I don't go out surfing to find them. I'm not amazed that someone made this up on a fan site. You see all sorts of different things on fan sites. Don't get me started on what people do on fan sites that would astound and boggle your mind. It's the rabid outcry and response in the comments by the other fans. Wow! And double wow! People take their characters soooooo seriously. Oh, the furious scorn and outrage if you even remotely say one, little unpopular comment. It's utterly crazy to me fans get this, well, "into" it. I even sat down the other day, and a girl...

In my insomniac hours, I like to surf around and use my Apple TV to find random and fun things to watch. I have discovered numerous fan videos of my two favorite characters Eric Northman and Sookie Stackhouse from True Blood . Here are those two video links. Out of literally dozens, there are just fun and sexy. Eric and Sookie -- Let's Go Straight to No. #1 We all like no. #1 ;). Eric and Sookie -- Devotion Well, this one is romantic and very hot and sexy. I have to be honest, I really like the song! Of course, I like the scenes, too. I (squee) like the romance, too. What can I say. I am a romantic at heart.

You have to love Cheryl Mullick and Tre Bella Spa! Check them brows! If I had a picture of the original state of the brows, you would really catch my thrill over what she does with "the frame to your face." It's Friday! And like Sunday, I don't feel like posting a serious blog. Besides, have you ever gotten so behind on your projects that you just have to shrug? What are you going to do? There are only so many hours in day, right? So today rather than rant and rave and go off on some tangent, I thought I would focus on nothing important at all. Like I said, it's Friday. Soon, I will also galavant off to Tre Bella Spa owned and operated by my dear friend Cheryl Mullick, who gave me the infamous "dirty girl" quote on the cover of California Girl Chronicles , enjoy Rain Drop therapy and get some eyebrow landscaping done. And you know what else, just because I love Cheryl's ability to take what originally looks like a caterpillar and turn it into a...

I noticed on Skarsgardnews that my resident favorite vampire Eric Northman on True Blood got voted in the top 10 favorite vampires. As I have more than amply said, the Viking is my favorite character from 2011 and possibly one of my favorite all-time characters. I also smiled over the reference that he is the best vampire in a track suite, too. I guess unlike Dracula, his tastes in men's fashions don't involve a cape. Well, I do think I should point out that he likes to spend a lot of time in racer-back T-shirts and tanks too. If we're going to critic the wardrobe, my favorite outfits appeared in Season 3 when he dons various Talbot-influenced garbs including the oh-so-popular blue-green sweater and the famous brown-stripped shirt he ultimately disrobes from to reveal, a-hem, his very nice body when he seduces and kills Talbot. Hey, do you suppose Talbot's choices in designer clothes has anything to do with his name and the famous women's clothing store? Hmm ... I...

I was watching that little promo clip you see On-Demand for other channels and programs. Writer and director Ed Burns was on promoting his new independent film Newlyweds . The host asked him if his hero was based on himself. He said (and I'm paraphrasing), he rarely writes about himself through his characters. He typically bases his characters on his friends or people he knows. Since I have been asked if I'm Brea, I thought this would make a good blog topic. What Burns said is most commonly the case. Good character development can and should be based on people you know or watch enough to know their gestures and habits. A model to base a character on helps define the character in the writer's mind. It also informs the character's behaviors and actions. I regularly base my characters on people I've met over the years or favorite actors or actresses (particularly if it's a screenplay) to use as a model to help me figure out how they would say something or how the...

Happy New Year's everyone! HBO has been running a Season 4 True Blood marathon. Since I am a homebody, I re-watched several of my favorite episodes from the season. I also re-watched the season finale. Much has been said about the fan upset over Season 4. I personally thought Season 4 was on a roll until about the last couple of episodes. When I re-watched the last two episodes, I could almost pinpoint where I thought the show started to "clunk". The problem is with the writing not the acting. The acting has stayed consistent. The writing, though, had the actors saying a few lines that upon reflection didn't work. I would suggest my feelings about this are being reflected by the contingent of viewers who have vocally stated their upset up and down the fan sites. So, I'll point to a few situations where I think the writers took the characters off track. Season 4, Episode 11 -- This episode (the next to the last) had several points that didn't feel authenti...

All right since you all voted with your page views about the blue sweater picture, which was just a picture I posted to make a point, I am going to vote on one of my favorite pictures. I love this one. It's very dark and sinister, and it reminds me of True Blood . I don't think it really even looks like him in his "unvarnished" state, but it's my favorite shot regardless. I love the blue tint to it among many other things. So, there you go -- my personal favorite. P.S. I know many of you are going to throw tomatoes and other assorted vegetables at me for saying this: but I noticed on Tumblr, fans are clamoring for more current shots of Skarsgard out in public. Again, I can already feel the tomatoes pelting my head, but I am not encouraging more of his private moment shots be taken. The paparazzi are awful! Have you seen them dog celebrities? I personally think it's fantastic when a celebrity consciously sits down for a photo session to get new pictures taken...