A review of...The 2008 Emmys

The Emmys are back! With the red carpet hotter than ever before! The award show began in spectacular fashion as always by the red carpet event. Stars from all across the States and Britain were interviewed by E!News presenter Giuliana Rancic and Ryan Seacrest. What you wear on the red carpet is almost more than important than the award ceremony itself! E! Daily Ten presenter Catt Sadler said ‘Showing up on a best or worst dress list in this town somehow manages to have a more lasting impact than a statue!’
Styles that were particularly prominent these years were metallics, and bright bold colours were very popular as seen on Brooke Shields in her fuchsia Badgley Mischka dress, and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit’s Mariska Hargitay. Black was surprisingly popular this year with Kate Walsh, America Ferrera, and Debra Messing all arriving in black dresses. The Emmys are the first award show of the season so there is even more importance within the fashion stakes as anything celebrities wear can be remembered and talked about for a long time. First presenters were Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, fresh from there work on the SNL spoof of Sarah Palin & Hilary Clinton, the pair looked glamorous as they presented the first award for ‘Outstanding supporting actor in a comedy series’.

It was all a far cry from the first show back in 1949, where the first award was given to Shirley Dinsdale for the Most Outstanding Television Personality.
1950 was the first national Emmy award show. Originally there was only one award show per year, this changed with the arrival of the Daytime Emmy, and the first daytime Emmy was given to The Doctors Best Show Daytime Emmy in 1972. Now that’s enough on the history! On to the red carpet – everyone’s’
favourite part!


The rest of last years award winners were:

Outstanding Drama Series –
Mad Men

Outstanding Comedy Series
30 Rock – Winner

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series –
Bryan Cranston – Breaking Bad

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series –
Glenn Close, Damages- Winner

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series –
Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock - Winner


Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series –
Tina Fey – 30 Rock

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie –
Paul Giamatti-John Adams


Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series - Zeljko Ivanek, Damages

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series –
Dianne west – In Treatment

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series –
Jeremy Piven – Entourage

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series – Jean Smart – Samantha Who?

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie –
Tom Wilkinson – John Adams


Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series –
Glynn Turman – In Treatment


Outstanding guest actress in a drama series –
Cynthia Nixon – Law and order : special victims unit

Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program –
Don Rickles, performer; Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project


Outstanding Reality-Competition Program –
The Amazing Race

Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program –
Jeff Probst – Survivor

Outstanding Miniseries
John Adams

Outstanding Made for Television Movie – Recount


Outstanding director for a variety, music, or comedy program
Louis.J.Horvitz


Outstanding writing for for a comedy variety or music show
Colbert Report

Oustanding directing for a miniseries movie or dramatic special
Jay Rooch – Recount

Outstanding writing for a miniseries , movie, or dramatic special
Kirk Ellis – John Adams

Outstanding writing for a drama series
Matthew Weiner – Mad Men – Smoke gets in your eyes


Surprisingly enough both Chandra Wilson and Sandra Oh missed out on ANOTHER Outstanding supporting actress in a drama series award for the third and fourth year running respectively. 30 Rock’s Tina Fey won three awards for Outstanding comedy series, Outstanding lead actress in a Comedy Series, and Outstanding writing for a Comedy Series. On top of her three wins, Fey also lost her purse! In a purple dress Fey accepted her awards, minus those famous glasses. This was rumoured to be because she wanted to distance herself from Sarah Palin for at least one night. The Hills start Lauren Conrad also made an appearance as a host, amid some criticism that she shouldn’t be giving out awards due to the fact she is not a ‘proper actress’
One of the highlights of the show was Veteran actor Don Rickles making an appearance with Kathy Griffin star of ‘My Life On The D-List’. Apparently Griffin was told not to go off script as she usually can be quite controversial, that was basically wasted as Rickles went off script for her. When Kathy Griffin asked people to stand up in honour of the legendary, Rickles then asked if it was a Jewish holiday. With the red carpet being so amazing, the overall show left a lot to be desired, as this was the 60th you would think that the organisers would have pulled out all the stops? But they didn’t hopefully next years will be more impressive!
E!’s presenter Catt Sadler commented ‘Overall, this year's 60th Anniversary of the Emmys lacked fire. It was rather boring. The ratings reflect that. TV shows in general suffered this past year because of the writer's strike and what have you... So the nominations and categories seemed somewhat lacklustre. Much respect to all of the nominees of course, but for the global viewing audience... I think it was a rather dull ceremony.’

A review of......M.I.A.

I know where the root of musical genius comes from. It's not there from birth and you can't teach it, no it comes from brightly coloured leggings. Every artist I have passionately loved over the last few years has proudly sported a pair. Santogold, Love fox from CSS and everybody in the 80's (you can't beat a good bit of 80's fun), hell I bet tights/leggings were everywhere in Mozart's day. Maybe Thom York and Morrisey like to ware them as thermals when the weather get chilly...who knows! It's a good theory and I am sticking by it and the person who best proves it at the moment is the shiny legged M.I.A.
You know how good music must be when one of the first things people are discussing when cumming out of a movie is the soundtrack, especially when that sound track is largely by one artist and extra especially when that movie is multi Oscar/BAFTA award winning in it's own right. There is a lot that is good about Slumdog Millionaire but M.I.A's soundtrack makes those moments great. Her laid back rhythmic beats compliment the movies montage moments perfectly and turns what could have been down beat earnest moments of the film into colourful spirited memories, which is what they were- Slumdog was never supposed to be a feature length Comic Relief video, it is a life story and the sound track adds that life and colour. Imagine the train scene without paper planes- it's a completely different scene.

At the same time it isn't an over the top fun track, it never lightens the mood of the kid's situation to much but you could just as much imagine stoner Americans chilling out to it as friends having fun on a train in India.This is the very reason Pineapple Express also benefited from the brilliance of paper planes, Pineapple Express's trailer was about five times better than the actual movie just because the cool atmosphere magicked up that one track.

Hollywood only just seams to have discovered M.I.A. and she seems to be everywhere at the moment-well good I say! She seems to be concentrating on fashion lines at the moment but I hope Hollywood never gets tired of her music, I know I haven't. Maybe one of the best things to love about MIA is how easily her songs can be mashed with other tracks. I know it's sacrilege- but it's funny sacrilege. If you check out the link to Life the Universe and Anything's youtube account you will find many of them there. My absolute favourite has to be the sublime but ridiculous Jimmymore. You MUST listen now!

A review of ...Clementines

Cool name. Crap fruit.
Ahhhgggghh, just, agggghh, they make me angry. Fruit really shouldn't make you angry. The problem with Clementines is not that they are a particularly bad tasting fruit (they could be Lychies nothing that is used to make potpourri can ever taste good), but it's just that they are basically just a worse version of the glorious Satsuma!
Satsumas are sooo good. they are the bast thing for giving up Chocolate, they have just the right amount of sweetness to make a sweet toots of ten happy and they are just as convenient as snack food. Clementines though, pips everywhere hard to peel and the sweetness is taken over by enough citric acid to corrode Titanium. They even make body butter out of Satsumas- clearly they are the most wholesome fruit.

All this may be bearable had it not been for the fact that during the good satsuma months preceding the dark days of Clementine season you had gotten completely addicted to Satsumas, having bags a day, Jamie Oliver would be proud, and then post Christmas, when you need to loose a bit weight and keep out the winter colds- suddenly all the Satsumas are cruelly stolen away and the inferior excuses for citrus fruits take their place! Well I won't stand for it any more! It is a matter a great importance to national health that a nice convenient fruit stays on the shelves all year around? Allthees scientists working on giant pink carrots and not one can make all year round Satsumas? And what kind of place is that grows one kind of fruit and then changes to a slightly different kind of that fruit- surly they grow in the exact same climates? Who is it that suddenly decides to switch fruit? And most of all considering their bad quality why is it that people are named after Clementines but there are very few Satsumas christened? I demand answers!!

A Review Of.....Aspirational T.V. Teens

If you have ever seen Charlie Brooker's amazing rant on aspirational TV you may have an idea of where I'm going with this. Having grown up watching various different long running American T.V. shows, one major difference between my life and theirs began to occur to me. Not the fact that generally they are all loaded (The O.C, 91210, Gossip Girl- it just makes easier for writers/producers as they are not limited by pesky reality), it's the fact that their central characters all seem to have one God given talent or dream that they can follow their heart to achieve.

In The O.C. Ryan was a gifted architect and Seth a born graphic artist who had a comic published and had met George Lucas by the second series (although to be fair Marisa did help to balance things a bit). Today's version, Gossip Girl is no better, Dan has always wanted to be a writer, although his stuff sounds mind numbing. His sister, Jenny/irritatingly angelic goodie godie/ irritatingly whinging teen/ irritatingly two faced bitch girl, is focused on fashion, and luckily for her she is already more talented than an Blair's Mum, an established designer. Really? Chloe On Smallville has always been after a Journalism career, likewise Rory on Gilmore Girls. Dawson from the Creek was making films before he could breath for God's sake!...I could go on. In fact the only T.V. American teens that don't have a dream either have some kind of supernatural calling or are 'IT' girls with issues.

By far the worst offender of this trend though has to be One Tree Hill. Lucas again wants to be a writer (an excuse for pretentious voice overs with all manner of intellectual quoting going on, just to prove that he maybe pretty, but he's still smart, honest). Brooke is again a talented fashion designer. Peyton makes up for the struggle she must have had in life from having such a ridiculous name by having two amazing talents, she rocks the decks and is an artistic prodigy. Haley is the worst of all with a singing career that rockets with ease.

Now I know that a lot of people who are talented find those talents early and know what they want as soon as they can crawl, but seriously, those must account of at most 20% of people. The rest of us are left to muddle through life feeling horrifyingly inadequate that we haven't had our life goal in place since nursery and are left to wonder when our special talent will emerge and if one never does does that make us useless?

What exactly are writers trying to achieve with this? They may be able to claim that it encourages goals and striving for your dreams. However dreams are a whole lot harder to achieve when you can't write in convenient plot twists that boost you to stardom. No doubt having a dream is a good thing, but for a lot of people they are stumbled on at different times of life- not handily pre-ordained, and I fail to see how pushing that idea is healthy.

UK T.V. teen shows are generally a lot better where this is concerned, proving that it is not a necessary plot device. 'As If' was full of confused complicated characters, in 'Hollyoaks' kids are mostly dealing with normal , if exaggerated, teen things, Grange Hill, Bicker Grove (What? I'm a child of the Nighties- P.j. & Duncan NOT Ant &Dec) even Neighbours from the ozzy end of things present real-ish young people that you can identify with not feel inferior to.

Not entirely free of the whole aspiration business and maybe in a worse way though is Skins (pictured above- just look at the pictures next to each other and ask which show looks more 'real' to you. I rest my case). Amazing show though it is and as much as it American rivals dead in the water quality and reality wise, it does have it's own aspirational quality. If I watch one episode I am left thinking "Damn, I never had that much Sex, Drugs and Rock and Role going on in my life- clearly I went wrong somewhere".

Well to everyone who, like me wonders why they are not as confident, focused or talented as the shiny people on T.V. The real people who have a million things they love to do, or are good at diverse things from maths to drama, people who have talents but have to keep them as hobbies and make their money elsewhere. Well if you are one of these people and are wondering if they are wrong in some way, well I find listening to sunscreen usually helps. Baz Lerman produced it, God bless him. I really hope the song is right. I think the woman who wrote it is an Angel.

A Review Of....The Universe...

Ok, so for my next review I'm scaling things down a bit, so...THE UNIVERSE.
Actually, there are many similarities with life. Nothing but vacuum-y darkness, rocks with nothing on them and big balls of gas, and then BANG!... lobsters, Cherry aid, Turtles, Topiary, potpurri.... ok not getting into that again. Plus, this way we get to look at the rest of the Universe form the comfort of our little earth, and the rest of the Universe is quite pretty. It has all those colourful clouds of stars and swirly galaxies and shiny stars (BTW for all those of you who live in LA or any major city in China- stars are those twinkly things you hear about in poems, songs and nursery rhymes etc.).
If you are lucky enough to live in the country, like what I do, then you can see the whole Milky Way on a clear night. While seeing it you may have had the terrifying realisation that you are looking at an entire arm of the Galaxy and that you are stuck onto the edge of a rock hurtling through it, by something invisible and not that strong (a fridge magnet is stronger than gravity- it can pick up a paper clip, thus countering gravity- think about that next time you go star gazing!).
Whilst It would be excellent to have a good explore of space there are a few problems. First, if we did go and we find, say, a planet made of chocolate with beer instead of water (for the girls and the boys - Space is very gender stereotypical) only a few people would ever be able to get there, it would take decades and cost enough to end poverty on the earth we actually inhabit. Even if it didn't and Ryan Air chartered shuttles there (God help us), it would just be another place you may get around to visiting one day, but probably never will. The world is already too depressingly big to explore every where you want to- if you can't get round to going to Maliga, Betelgeuse seems unlikely. Of cause the benefit to perfecting space travel is that in the event of us destroying the world in some way, which seems to be that way it's going, we could always fly far, far away (or maybe I've just watched too much Firefly).

The Second problem, well an avert on at the moment says it well. "would you rather know that we are all alone in the Universe, or discover that we are not?" - Scary

Thirdly. Everything goes well. Humanity survives Billions of years. We colonise the Universe and discover all it's beauties and wonders. Life is good...only for one thing...the Universe is Imploding!...ah bugger.

Ali xo

A review of....Life....

Ok so here is the first review to christen my new style blog! And I'm going to start out small, so first up- a simple review of life.
Well...er.....ummm.... I guess the first thing to say is that there is and was quite a lot of it that in no way involves Humanity, although I doubt any of it will feature heavily in this blog, unless anyone is particularly keen on a review of vegetation of the Cretaceous era, and if you are then a) you are a very strange person(and God love you for it) and b) Wikipedia was invented for you my friend!
They say that if the scale of life on Earth was a year then we would only have come into existence a few minutes before the ball drops for the New Year. But then that would have been one hell of a New Years party! A whole year of survival of the fittest, giant scary looking things, tiny microscopic things and harsh weather conditions that would have really put the terrifying winter of '09 into perspective. Then in a new year party so wild it would make Hollywood cower in shame... BANG!: Marmite, America's Next Top Model, Wake Boarding, Pancakes, the smell of petrol, Duran Duran, Guitar hero,Brad Pit's face, Wayne Rooney's face (the Lord giveeth..), The Eiffel tower, Elton John's wigs, Harry potter and most importantly ...Youtube!

Yes if you really want to see a full cross section of life that is defiantly the place to go- It's probably how it sucks you in and will defiantly feature heavily in this blog! We live at a really odd time in that respect. Not only can you find out about any way of life from around the globe (you don't have to tell a blogger that!), but more often than not they will find you first! If you payed even a little attention to all the adverts, invites and information you get over the Internet or TV or in magazines, then you'll find that you are unintentionally finding out things about peoples lives all over the place that just 50 years ago would be unthinkable. If you want to know the specifics of someones life and their exact mood (or even if you really don't) Facebook will tell you.
So life for humans at our New Year party may suck at times, it may be full of Catch 22s you just don't see coming, kicks to the guts and, well, lets face it I think we all know that aging would work much better in reverse, no matter what Benjamin Button tries to tell us. Howeaver, basically there is a lot of it out there to explore and enjoy, or if not then to review, analyse and pick apart...and God bless our life and times that you can start your own blog to do just that!

Ali xo