* God, please grant me the strength to last through the year and into 2013 so I can savor the breath-taking nudity from Maggie Grace and Dominik García-Lorido.
_____________________________________________
'Boss' chief Farhad Safinia revels in the challenges
He says expect Season 2 to be different and finds that being a TV show runner is the most demanding job in Hollywood.
Freida Pinto cool about hot scenes?
Published: Sunday, Aug 12, 2012 by Sneha Mahadevan
Actor Freida Pinto has been in the news of late for her bold photo shoots and steamy scenes. The actor, who had already made it clear that she doesn’t have inhibitions of showing skin on screen, was yet again in the news about her trying to pull strings to ensure that only the toned down version of her next release, Trishna is released in India. The film, apparently, has some explicit love-making sequences which the producers are having second thoughts about, considering the stringent censor board rules out here.
When contacted, her official spokesperson denies the entire episode. “Frieda is very happy with the way the film has turned out. She was always aware of what she was doing and her role, so the question of deleting scenes and toning it down doesn’t come at all. Besides, she isn’t the one to interfere on what goes on at the editing table. This is absolutely ridiculous,” she said.
A source close to the actor also adds, “This is not the first time, Freida is doing a bold sequence. She had done a scene earlier in Immortals. She knows that these things get blown out of proportion, so she hasn’t really spoken about it. Besides, she always knew what she was getting into and is very comfortable with her body. She would never urge the producers to delete any scene.”
Freida is currently shooting for the Knight of Cups with Batman actor, Christian Bale. If sources from the sets are to be believed, the duo has hit it off very well. “Freida has been spotted teaching and practicing yoga with Christian, who’s quite fitness conscious. He is apparently very taken up by her. They both have been having a great time shooting for the film.”While there was news about Freida coming to India to promote her film, looks like her fans back home will have to wait a little longer to catch a glimpse of her. The release of Trishna has been pushed further, throwing all her plans off gear.
_____________________________________________
When contacted, her official spokesperson denies the entire episode. “Frieda is very happy with the way the film has turned out. She was always aware of what she was doing and her role, so the question of deleting scenes and toning it down doesn’t come at all. Besides, she isn’t the one to interfere on what goes on at the editing table. This is absolutely ridiculous,” she said.
A source close to the actor also adds, “This is not the first time, Freida is doing a bold sequence. She had done a scene earlier in Immortals. She knows that these things get blown out of proportion, so she hasn’t really spoken about it. Besides, she always knew what she was getting into and is very comfortable with her body. She would never urge the producers to delete any scene.”
Freida is currently shooting for the Knight of Cups with Batman actor, Christian Bale. If sources from the sets are to be believed, the duo has hit it off very well. “Freida has been spotted teaching and practicing yoga with Christian, who’s quite fitness conscious. He is apparently very taken up by her. They both have been having a great time shooting for the film.”While there was news about Freida coming to India to promote her film, looks like her fans back home will have to wait a little longer to catch a glimpse of her. The release of Trishna has been pushed further, throwing all her plans off gear.
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
* We all know how sparse nudity is in Dexter so keeping fingers crossed Katia topless scene will be downplayed editing-wise so Yvonne Strahovski can have the naked spotlight on her.
_____________________________________________
Katia Winter As Nadia in Dexter
Swedish actress Katia Winter will play Nadia, a Russian stripper who works in a Miami club. According to IMDB, Katia will appear in 5 episodes of Dexter season 7: “The Shadow Knows”, “Buck The System”, “Run”, “Swim Deep” and “Do The Wrong Thing”.
Episode 01 Are You…?-30 September 2012: After witnessing her brother kill Travis Marshall, Debra attempts to reconcile with Dexter while struggling to cover up their involvement with the murder. Meanwhile, Detective Mike Anderson has an unfortunate run-in, Quinn and Batista begin to make amends, and LaGuerta finds evidence that causes her to re-think the closed Bay Harbor Butcher case.
Episode 02 The Shadow Knows -7 October 2012
Episode 03 Buck The System -14 October 2012
Episode 04 Run -21 October 2012
Episode 05 Swim Deep -28 October 2012
Episode 06 Do The Wrong Thing -4 November 2012
Episode 07 Chemistry -11 November 2012
Episode 08 Argentina -18 November 2012
Episode 09-25 November 2012
Episode 10-2 December 2012
Episode 11-9 December 2012
Episode 12 Lethal Injection -16 December 2012
_____________________________________________
'Boss' lady
Sanaa Lathan grapples with Kelsey Grammer in the new season
by ROBERT ABELE
Actress Sanaa Lathan may not be a conjurer, but she could be forgiven for believing in the power to make things happen from the comfort of her couch.“I’ve been finding that over the last couple years I’ve wanted to stay home and watch cable television more than go to the movies,” says Lathan a tad sheepishly while sitting in a booth at Circa 55, a restaurant at the Beverly Hilton hotel. “So I told my agents, ‘I want to do a really good cable show.’ And wouldn’t you know, it was one of those weird synchronicity things that a couple months later, this opportunity came up.”
“This” is the Starz drama “Boss,” a brooding, smart, political saga starring Kelsey Grammer as Thomas Kane, a powerful, corrupt Chicago mayor dealing secretly with a degenerative illness. Lathan joins the show in its second season as Mona Fredricks, an idealistic chief of staff to the chairman of the city council’s black caucus, Alderman Ross (James Vincent Meredith). Mona is introduced as a fierce opponent to Kane’s plan to redevelop a neglected public housing project and displace a community she came from. But she’s not above making a bold move to effect change from inside Kane’s center of power.
“Mona is kind of the moral center,” says Lathan, who spent four months in Chicago earlier this year filming “Boss” in locations as varied as City Hall and the famously crime- and poverty-stricken Cabrini-Green housing project that inspired the season’s storyline. “She cares so much about her community she’s willing to work with this man who she actually does not trust. She’s very politically savvy, she’s a family woman, happily married, and I think he’s taken by her idealism and her passion.”
This being “Boss” though, expect challenges to Mona’s integrity. Adds Lathan, “I can’t give anything away, but yeah … dark things will be happening to her.”
Today, Lathan, dressed in a V-necked, moss-green Halston Heritage dress and bright red lipstick, looks more the siren than the political operator. But the 40-year-old New York native is used to switching things up, having played roles as wide-ranging as a glam-averse athlete in the beloved indie romance “Love and Basketball,” opinionated Beneatha in the 2004 Broadway production of “A Raisin in the Sun” with Sean Combs and Audra McDonald, and an adulterous love interest for Julian McMahon on FX’s “Nip/Tuck.” A thirst for diverse roles across the spectrum of media is what motivates her, which is why she doesn’t mind guesting on a show rather than originating one.
“I don’t like the idea of being committed to playing one character for seven years,” says Lathan, who enjoys a manageable recurring gig like voicing capable wife-and-mother Donna Tubbs on Fox’s animated “The Cleveland Show.” “It’s the most fun job in the world. You go in for 45 minutes a week and laugh. You know what I mean?”
Lathan’s been around show business her whole life, starting with a television director/producer for a father, and a dancer/actress mom who once shared a Broadway dressing room with Eartha Kitt.
“I would just look at her in awe,” Lathan remembers of Kitt, whose growl she would imitate to her mother’s constant amusement. Then there was what Lathan’s childhood self took away from her dad’s friendship with silky leading man Billy Dee Williams. “He had a fur steering wheel, and I was like, ‘I want that!’” says Lathan. “It’s funny, the little things kids pick up.”
After a brief flirtation studying law in college, however, Lathan couldn’t ignore that acting was her passion. Getting into Yale School of Drama helped assuage her dad’s worries about her chosen profession: “He knew firsthand how hard it is no matter how talented you are, but something about getting into Yale soothed him a bit,” she says. “Even though that doesn’t mean anything in this business. But I got a great training there.”
And though her film career has seen her in everything from science fiction (“Alien vs. Predator”) to slick romance (“Brown Sugar”), Lathan, who is single, continues to return to the theater, recently earning a Drama Desk nomination playing an aspiring black actress in old Hollywood in Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage’s “By the Way, Meet Vera Stark,” which she’ll soon perform for Los Angeles audiences. Says Lathan, “The role is phenomenal. In the first act she’s in her 20s in the 1930s, and in the second act she’s a drunk diva in the 1970s. I mean, you don’t get to do that on film.”
She loves theater audiences, too, citing a particularly vivid memory from her time on “Raisin in the Sun” at the Royale, when the seasons had just changed from winter to spring.
“I’m doing something in the mirror [onstage], and I see behind me that the whole audience goes up in a wave, like in a football stadium,” recalls Lathan. “I’m like, ‘What the ...?’ Well, I found out, it was rats! I guess, now that the theater was warm, they were coming out. But the people were so beautiful. They just did this.”
Lathan mimes calmly standing up, then sitting right back down, her features perfectly composed. Then, a smile breaks across her heart-shaped face. “I will never forget that. They didn’t leave!”
“Mona is kind of the moral center,” says Lathan, who spent four months in Chicago earlier this year filming “Boss” in locations as varied as City Hall and the famously crime- and poverty-stricken Cabrini-Green housing project that inspired the season’s storyline. “She cares so much about her community she’s willing to work with this man who she actually does not trust. She’s very politically savvy, she’s a family woman, happily married, and I think he’s taken by her idealism and her passion.”
This being “Boss” though, expect challenges to Mona’s integrity. Adds Lathan, “I can’t give anything away, but yeah … dark things will be happening to her.”
Today, Lathan, dressed in a V-necked, moss-green Halston Heritage dress and bright red lipstick, looks more the siren than the political operator. But the 40-year-old New York native is used to switching things up, having played roles as wide-ranging as a glam-averse athlete in the beloved indie romance “Love and Basketball,” opinionated Beneatha in the 2004 Broadway production of “A Raisin in the Sun” with Sean Combs and Audra McDonald, and an adulterous love interest for Julian McMahon on FX’s “Nip/Tuck.” A thirst for diverse roles across the spectrum of media is what motivates her, which is why she doesn’t mind guesting on a show rather than originating one.
“I don’t like the idea of being committed to playing one character for seven years,” says Lathan, who enjoys a manageable recurring gig like voicing capable wife-and-mother Donna Tubbs on Fox’s animated “The Cleveland Show.” “It’s the most fun job in the world. You go in for 45 minutes a week and laugh. You know what I mean?”
Lathan’s been around show business her whole life, starting with a television director/producer for a father, and a dancer/actress mom who once shared a Broadway dressing room with Eartha Kitt.
“I would just look at her in awe,” Lathan remembers of Kitt, whose growl she would imitate to her mother’s constant amusement. Then there was what Lathan’s childhood self took away from her dad’s friendship with silky leading man Billy Dee Williams. “He had a fur steering wheel, and I was like, ‘I want that!’” says Lathan. “It’s funny, the little things kids pick up.”
After a brief flirtation studying law in college, however, Lathan couldn’t ignore that acting was her passion. Getting into Yale School of Drama helped assuage her dad’s worries about her chosen profession: “He knew firsthand how hard it is no matter how talented you are, but something about getting into Yale soothed him a bit,” she says. “Even though that doesn’t mean anything in this business. But I got a great training there.”
And though her film career has seen her in everything from science fiction (“Alien vs. Predator”) to slick romance (“Brown Sugar”), Lathan, who is single, continues to return to the theater, recently earning a Drama Desk nomination playing an aspiring black actress in old Hollywood in Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage’s “By the Way, Meet Vera Stark,” which she’ll soon perform for Los Angeles audiences. Says Lathan, “The role is phenomenal. In the first act she’s in her 20s in the 1930s, and in the second act she’s a drunk diva in the 1970s. I mean, you don’t get to do that on film.”
She loves theater audiences, too, citing a particularly vivid memory from her time on “Raisin in the Sun” at the Royale, when the seasons had just changed from winter to spring.
“I’m doing something in the mirror [onstage], and I see behind me that the whole audience goes up in a wave, like in a football stadium,” recalls Lathan. “I’m like, ‘What the ...?’ Well, I found out, it was rats! I guess, now that the theater was warm, they were coming out. But the people were so beautiful. They just did this.”
Lathan mimes calmly standing up, then sitting right back down, her features perfectly composed. Then, a smile breaks across her heart-shaped face. “I will never forget that. They didn’t leave!”
_____________________________________________
Dawn Marie Takes Her Top Off - WWE Smackdown! (10/30/2003)
Ah, remember those days when WWE was not for the kids? Those were the good times. This just shows one example how WWE was awesome in its TV-14 era...
_____________________________________________
Scared of the skin you’re in
 |
| Kimberley Craigie, the new face of British Naturism. Picture: Gareth Easton |
By EMMA COWING
Published on Sunday 12 August 2012 05:34
ANDREW Welch is doing the ironing. Also, he’s naked. “I didn’t suddenly decide ‘how marvellous, I must take my clothes off’,” he explains matter-of-factly down the phone. “It’s just warm here today.”
Welch is a naturist, and the commercial manager of British Naturism, an organisation that has been much in the news in the past week thanks to Kimberley Craigie, their newly appointed 18-year-old rep for Scotland and Northern England. Craigie, who herself has been an enthusiastic naturist since the age of 13, wants more people to get naked, and isn’t afraid to appear in the buff to get her message across. Her comments have caused something of a stushie, with tabloid newspapers queueing up to feature her pictures, and publications as far away as Holland chasing her for an interview.
“It’s been a bit overwhelming, but it’s been good,” Glaswegian Craigie says at the end of an exhausting week of attempting to recruit wannabe young naturists to the cause.
“I’m just trying to get people to realise it’s not a bad thing to want to wander around naked. My theory is that if you look at somebody fully dressed you’re thinking about what’s underneath, but if you look at somebody and they’re naked, you’re not wondering what’s underneath, you’re looking at their personality.”
She may have an uphill battle. In Scotland, perhaps more than anywhere else in Europe, nudity is still viewed as one of the last taboos. Last month Stephen Gough, aka the Naked Rambler, was arrested in Fife just days after being released from prison. He has spent more than six years in jail for refusing to wear clothes in public. The Scottish Outdoor Club, a group who hold regular naturist events on an island in Loch Lomond, reported in July that its membership had halved in recent years. And Edinburgh Airport certified its prudish credentials last week by covering up a poster featuring a Picasso nude that advertised an exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.
John Leighton, director-general of the National Galleries of Scotland, was flabbergasted. “It is obviously bizarre that all kinds of images of women in various states of dress and undress can be used in contemporary advertising without comment, but somehow a painted nude by one of the world’s most famous artists is found to be disturbing and has to be removed,” he remarked.
The airport eventually relented, and apologised for what it inexpertly described as “the confusion”. But the question remains: why do we still get hung up on letting it all hang out?
“It’s seen as risqué and titillating to see a bit of skin you’re not meant to see,” says chartered psychologist Dr Andrina McCormack. “Rightly or wrongly, we connect nudity with sex. Comedians like Frankie Howerd made a whole career out of it, while people like Peter Stringfellow have made a fortune out of nudity as entertainment. It’s that whole idea of naughtiness and going against convention and taking a risk. The Victorian ideal of being covered up has stuck, as has the church’s negative attitudes towards nudity, which stem right back to Adam and Eve.”
Welch says the Picasso poster fiasco perfectly demonstrates the British difficulty with nakedness. “It’s something that has nudity in it, so the perception is that it must be wrong. But if you were to challenge people who say it’s wrong, they probably couldn’t tell you why. It’s just based on prejudice and discrimination.”
But McCormack says our concerns with nudity go further. “Nudity, more than anything else, makes us feel vulnerable,” she says. “If you think about prisons, or concentration camps, people were stripped to disempower them and to make them vulnerable. If you’re stripped, you also lose your dignity, and that is crucially important to your self-esteem. Clothes and covering the body tells people who we are, from uniforms to suits to formal dress. If we lose them we become just one of many.”
Certainly the younger generation – constantly served up images of perfect semi-naked bodies in magazines and music videos – seems to have a muddled image of body perfection that has many of them unwilling to drop the towel in anything other than the most private of environments.
Yet conversely, Craigie says that her naturism has helped boost her body confidence.
“It really has helped me emotionally with my confidence,” she says. “I’ve learned to love my own body because I realised there was nobody there to have a go at me.”
At school, she says she suffered because of her interest. “I found it quite difficult,” she says. “I had a few friends who weren’t supportive but I stuck with them because I didn’t want to lose their friendship. Then I finally became mature and I thought, ‘I don’t need friends like that, so I got rid of them. The friends I do have are very supportive of me. They make jokes, but not hurtful ones.”
Craigie says she’s been unable to persuade any of them to join her though. “They’re all too self-conscious about their own bodies.”
McCormack says: “The positive side of nudity is that it’s a great leveller. It’s logical that as a consequence of being naked, if you get over the titillation side, you see that everybody is just a person and if people could only see men and women as people first, it would make life an awful lot easier.”
So why then are Scotland’s hills and glens not filled with happy naturists, gamboling in the gloaming? Welch says it has a lot to do with the weather. And, one suspects, the midges.
“I would say 95 per cent of all naturists in Scotland probably do most of their naturism on holiday,” he admits. “That’s the case for the whole country. We did a survey with Ipsos Mori recently that showed that almost four million people in the UK called themselves naturists. So where are they all? Sunning their backsides on beaches in Greece, probably.”
British Naturism is attempting to change that. They run an annual camp called Nudefest in England, where activities include volleyball, board games, an improbable sounding archery tournament, and bingo (eyes, presumably, down).
“Everyone has a blast – they’re nice to each other and there’s no bullying,” says Craigie. “Everyone is very relaxed and that makes me feel really relaxed as well.”
In Scotland, we might not quite be ready for that. A BBC documentary on nudism in Scotland, Wearing The One-Buttoned Suit, showed a group of naturists dancing together who were so paranoid about being revealed in public as nudists, they wore masks.
“They insisted on wearing the masks,” the documentary maker Carolyn Mills said at the time. “Some of their workmates don’t know what they do at the weekends. Scotland is still so prudish.”
For Welch however, naturism is simple. “We’re just normal people who take their clothes off.”
Even, it seems, while doing the ironing.
_____________________________________________
CONAN.XXX Presents: Will Ferrell In "Big Dick, Little Chicks"
_____________________________________________
.jpg)
