giovedì 8 agosto 2013

L'EDICOLA DI LOU - Stralci, cover e commenti sui telefilm dai media italiani e stranieri

RIVISTA STUDIO
"Arrested Development", il nuovo "Fratelli Karamazov"
C’era una volta un padre snaturato, uno sgradevole tizio di mezza età completamente in balìa delle proprie pulsioni. E c’erano una volta i suoi tre figli maschi, ormai adulti: il primogenito, uno scroccone mezzo sociopatico, somiglia molto al padre, ma a differenza di lui possiede qualcosa che ricorda una coscienza; il secondo è “quello sveglio”, uno che forse avrebbe anche avuto una vita soddisfacente, se solo non gli fosse toccata la famiglia più disfunzionale della nazione; il più giovane, beh, è praticamente un santo.
Probabilmente questa storia l’avete già sentita.
Per esempio l’avete letta nei Fratelli Karamazov di Dostoevskij. O, più recentemente, l’avete guardata in Arrested Development, la surreale, e contemporaneamente iper-realalistica, sit-com diretta e narrata da Ron Howard, andata in onda sulla Fox americana tra il 2003 e il 2006, mentre da noi era stata trasmessa tra il 2004 e il 2009 dalle reti Mediaset col titolo Ti presento i miei. 
Arrested Development ha entusiasmato la critica – qualcuno l’ha definita «uno scorcio di perfezione comica sottovalutata», paragonandola a Seinfeld e Curb Your Enthusiasm – nonché un gruppo di fan ridotto nei numeri, ma affezionatissimo: cancellata dopo tre stagioni per mancanza di pubblico, negli anni successivi è stata oggetto di conversazione, alimentata da vari rumour su un prossimo ritorno in TV o di una trasposizione cinematografica. Infine, è risorta proprio quest’anno grazie a Netflix, il principale portale americano di streaming a pagamento. (nota: a proposito, stay tuned, che sul prossimo numero di Studio abbiamo una bella sorpresa)
Mette in scena le disavventure dei Bluth, decaduta dinastia di palazzinari californiani. Travolta da una serie di scandali finanziari – non ultima, l’accusa di avere costruito un palazzo di Saddam Hussain, peraltro con gli standard di una catapecchia – la famiglia allargata si ritrova a vivere nel mock-up di una villetta, parte di un loro progetto per un quartiere residenziale mai costruito. Il titolo, Arrested Development, si presta a molte interpretazioni.
I Bluth, si diceva, vivono in una casa finta in mezzo al nulla. Per muoversi utilizzano un furgoncino-con-le-scale (ma il termine tecnico, mi fanno notare, è “scala autocarrata”), che un tempo serviva per scendere dal jet privato, e che ora è soltanto un indecoroso promemoria del benessere passato. È una famiglia al collasso economico, composta da individui che erano al collasso personale già da un bel po’: un prestigiatore fallito, uno psichiatra cripto-gay, la di lui moglie, eccetera. Ah, poi c’è la mia preferita, la matriarca, una Crudelia Demon sempre inquadrata con un Martini in mano, che continua assumere farmaci per la depressione post-partum, anche se il suo ultimogenito ha 32 anni: se non avete mai visto lo show, questa serie di GIF su Lucille Bluth raccolte da BuzzFeed riassumono bene il personaggio.
Specie nelle puntate iniziali, la serie si regge sullo schema ben noto dell’unico sano di mente in una gabbia di matti: è Michael, il figlio di mezzo, cui è riferito lo slogan con cui inizia ogni puntata, «And now the story of a wealthy family who lost everything, and the one son who had no choice but to keep them all together». Eppure, secondo qualcuno, è una trasposizione contemporanea dei Fratelli Karamazov.
La tesi è stata esposta da Hellen Rittelmeyer su First Things, una testata religiosa relativamente di nicchia. Ma è finita per creare un discreto chiacchiericcio sul web, tanto che poi l’articolo è stato ripubblicato da Salon. Rittelmeyer arriva a trovare per ogni singolo personaggio di Arrested Development un corrispettivo nel capolavoro di Dostoevskij. Ne riportiamo alcuni.
Michael Bluth è Ivan Fëdorovic. E questo nonostante, come accennato prima, sia il protagonista della serie (il suo ruolo è decisamente dominante nella prima stagione e resta tale, nonostante lo show col tempo assuma un tono sempre più corale). È il secondogenito, è “quello sveglio” e probabilmente anche quello più dotato di buon senso. Ma, soprattutto, è scisso tra il suo cinismo raziocinante (in parte giustificato dall’essere circondato da sociopatici) e il desiderio d’amore — Ivan aspira a quello di Dio, Michael insegue invano l’affetto dei suoi familiari. Del resto, sostiene Rittelmeyer, se i Fratelli Karamazov fossero stati scritti in questo secolo, è assai probabile che il protagonista (“il nostro eroe”) sarebbe Ivan, e non Aleksej.
Buster Bluth è Aleksej Fëdorovic, sostiene Rittelmeyer. E qui il paragone a prima vista è più ostico. Perché, beh, il più giovane dei fratelli Bluth è un idiota. O, meglio, uno sfigato piagnone, attaccato alle gonnelle di mammà (peraltro, una madre che non lo ama, ma che con lui intrattiene una relazione possessivo-edipica alquanto raccapricciante) ben oltre i 30 anni. Un uomo che riesce a “tradire” la genitrice/dominatrix soltanto con una donna di 40 anni più anziana, e per giunta ominima, “l’altra Lucille” (interpretata da una strepitosa Lisa Minelli).
Eppure, fa notare Rittelmeyer, il terzogenito dei Bluth e il terzogenito dei Karamazov hanno in comune un tratto non indifferente, e assai funzionale
Gob Bluth è Dimitrij Fëdorovic. È egoista, impulsivo, a tratti vile, maramaldo, e volitivo. Come il primogenito dei Karamazov, anche il più anziano dei Fratelli Bluth è tra tutti quello che più somiglia al padre. E, incidentalmente, anche quello che col padre ha un rapporto più conflittuale. In più è un fallito – un prestigiatore mancato, nel caso di Gob – sempre al verde. “You’re hopelessly hopless” è la frase che meglio descrive il personaggio, faceva notare il New Yorker. Ma, proprio come Dimitrij, Gob aspira ad essere qualcuno di migliore, ed è persino capace di piccoli gesti di nobiltà. Più di un approfittatore, Gob è un wannabe. E in questo suo desiderio costante di essere qualcuno di diverso da ciò che è (essere un mago, e non un prestigiatore fallito; essere un lestofante vero, come lo è il padre e come non riesce ad esserlo lui; oppure essere un individuo rispettabile) c’è qualcosa che lo rende incredibilmente simpatico.
George Senior Bluth è Fëdor Pavlovic. «Era un sentimentale. Era cattivo e sentimentale»
Il suo fratello gemello, Oscar Bluth è Padre Zosima. Una figura paterna alternativa, e per lo più positiva, specie per Buster/Alekseij.
Kitty, la segretaria della Bluth Company, è Katerina Ivanovna. Questo, sostiene Rittelmeyer, in quanto figura femminile incline alla scenata che dimostra un interesse romantico in due membri della famiglia Bluth/Karamazov (per la stassa ragione, però, trovo più azzeccato il paragone con Grušenka).
Annyong è Smerdjakov. Annyong è un ragazzino coreano adottato per sfizio da Lucille Bluth, e poi abbandonato a se stesso, con uno status all’interno della famiglia che oscilla tra quello di un giocattolino esotico, quello di un servo e quello di un soprammobile. Dal momento che non parla inglese al punto di non potere rispondere alla domanda “come ti chiami?”, e che nessuno ha voglia di prendersi il disturbo di leggere i suoi documenti, viene soprannominato “Annyong”, che vuol dire “ciao” in Coreano. Annyong è un fratello Bluth e contemporaneamente non lo è. Annyong non ha un nome, ma soltanto un nomignolo carico di disprezzo.
«Una volta che hai capito che Annyong è Smerdjakov», conclude Rittelmeyer, «ogni cosa diventa chiara». (Anna Momigliano)

lunedì 5 agosto 2013

L'EDICOLA DI LOU - Stralci, cover e commenti sui telefilm dai media italiani e stranieri

COMPLEX
Tutto su Naya Rivera, l'attrice che quando bacia una ragazza il set è sold out (e che vorrebbe che Santana avesse una ragazza come Lena Dunham...)
Naya Rivera sits at a table at the outdoor patio of Coast, an oceanfront restaurant within the sunny Santa Monica hotel Shutters on the Beach. She’s waiting for her French 77, a cocktail made with champagne, a lemon twist, and St. Germain Elderflower liqueur.
She’s clad in a long black cotton dress and oversize sunglasses, with her hair in a bun, held in place by a black headband. Wearing just a touch of foundation and mascara, Naya doesn’t mean to intimidate, although it’s hard not to be taken aback by her beauty. She’s got the presence you’d expect of a celebrity: Her face is expressionless as she scans the emails on her phone one last time before burying it in her black Prada bag. Sitting tall with her legs crossed, she is quiet, collected, and perfectly postured. But the poised moment doesn’t last.
The waiter returns with bad news: “I’m so sorry, we don’t have any Elderflower on hand for your 77.”
“Oh no? It’s OK. I’ll just take house champagne then,” she replies graciously. Spotting a glass cylinder of plastic-wrapped sticks in the middle of the table, Naya asks, “Do you guys have sushi, too? Is that why there are chopsticks here?”
“Those are breadsticks,” the waiter says.
“Oh, breadsticks. Right,” Naya replies in a cartoonish voice, laughing with embarrassment as she sinks into her chair, hand held to her forehead.
“Trust me, honey, if we had sushi I’d be 10 pounds heavier,” the waiter says, trying to ease the tension. No need though; she’s already over it.
 
On Friday nights, me and my friend Madison would stand outside the liquor store and bribe older people walking by to buy us wine coolers to drink while we watched The Notebook.
 
The waiter treats her like he knows she’s a big deal, and he’s right—Naya Rivera’s got all the makings of a soon-to-be household name: She’s the biggest star on the Emmy-winning TV powerhouse Glee, amassing a cult-like fan base for her portrayal of feisty lesbian cheerleader Santana Lopez. She just finished filming her first movie, the horror flick Home, and she’s getting ready to drop her as-yet-untitled debut album. With her career on the verge of a major tipping point, you’d expect Naya to come equipped with some serious diva-type tendencies. So why the hell is she so cool? Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that she was working full-time as a babysitter when she got cast for Glee five years ago. “I was still a nanny up until the third episode of season one,” she recalls. “I didn’t work that much and I didn’t know if I would still be around.” She only quit her babysitting gig after show creator Ryan Murphy convinced the network to make her a series regular.
With such a rapid rise, Naya is still feeling her way around celebrity. “If I wasn’t famous, I’d be on OkCupid,” she says. “All my friends are.” But Naya is famous, and she’s doing pretty well for herself in the relationship department—as her Instagram feed and numerous red carpet photos of her and her boyfriend Big Sean can attest. But today she has a different lunch companion.
“I feel like we’re on a date,” she jokes, mockingly sitting up straight in her chair. “Dates are nerve-racking. They’re weird. They’re like interviewing someone. They’re torture.”
Although the 26-year-old’s daily existence keeps her deep in the heart of La-La land, Naya is determined to keep it real. “Is it weird that I just want hummus and pita?” she continues, ditching her sushi plans. “Which I don’t see here—what was I saying?” As she chats away about family, friends, and music (faves include Big Sean, of course, Future, Robin Thicke, Lil Wayne, and Major Lazer), it becomes clear that she’s the rarest of Hollywood types: a young starlet who’s genuinely down-to-earth. Just don’t mistake her kindness for weakness.
"Naya isn’t afraid to go for and speak to what she wants,” says her Glee co-star Dianna Agron, who plays head cheerleader Quinn Fabray on the show. “Maybe there was a time in her life when this wasn’t the case, but all I have ever seen is a fearlessness to entertain and to be who she wants to be.”
Naya Marie Rivera grew up in Valencia, Calif., a cookie-cutter Los Angeles suburb, with her mother, father, and two younger siblings, Nickayla, now an 18-year-old fashion model, and Mychal, a 22-year-old tight end for the Oakland Raiders. Her mother, Yolanda Rivera, a former model, got her firstborn daughter an agent “straight out of the womb.” Naya’s first gig was a KMart commercial where she crawled across the screen in a diaper. She followed that with a starring role on the quickly canceled sitcom The Royal Family, and guest spots on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Family Matters.
Despite being on TV as a kid, Naya confesses that she didn’t have classmates lining up to be her friend—much less asking for her autograph. “I wish I had more fun in high school,” she says. “I wasn’t allowed to hang out with the black kids because they thought I wasn’t black enough, which was a problem.” Naya’s dad, George, is Puerto Rican and her half-German, half-African-American mother was strict, religious, and didn’t let her go out much. “On Friday nights, me and my friend Madison would stand outside the liquor store and bribe older people walking by to buy us wine coolers to drink while we watched The Notebook,” says Naya. She’s still a homebody who prefers to throw pool parties at her Los Feliz home rather than hit the clubs.
“I don’t understand how someone can be that funny, talented, and hot,” says her friend and Glee co-star Kevin McHale. It’s hard to believe Naya wasn’t a hit with the boys in high school, but she has her own horror story to prove it.
Naya’s prom date was a guy on the football team. “He started talking about how skinny I was,” she recalls. “All of his friends were like, ‘You need a thick girl.’ He was grinding on every other girl at the dance while I sat alone at the table, looking like a señorita.” She whips her head back and cups her hand to the side of her head, suggesting the ginormous flower she wore in her hair that night, à la Anita in West Side Story. “I didn’t even dance,” she says. “It was horrible.”
“Then he said, ‘So are you coming to the hotel?’ And I was like, ‘No, my dad is picking me up. On top of that, you’re trying to have sex with me? How rude are you?’” she says. The only time she speaks with her hands is when something pisses her off. Whoever that guy was, he must be kicking himself right now. But Naya insists she’s not bitter. “Best believe I’ll be at that reunion though.”
After lunch, which ends up being a plate of chips and guacamole, Naya heads to her weekly pedicure. Instead of her usual spot, she’s getting her toes done at ONE, a luxury spa in the Shutters hotel. The aroma of acetone and lavender permeates the private wood-paneled room, which is marked by two small porcelain tubs for soaking your feet. It doesn’t look like she needs the treatment. Her naturally bronze skin is so spotless you’d swear it was expertly Photoshopped. But she undoes the straps on her black Prada sandals anyway.
 
Kissing a girl was a little awkward just because we had a million grips, and all the guys wanted to visit the set that day. Heather and I just laughed it off.
 
“I love that they’re playing Billie Holiday,” she says, leafing through a copy of L.A. Confidential.
What begins as small talk between Naya and Traci, the older, aproned, African-American pedicurist, escalates into a history lesson about civil rights in L.A. “It’s like that with gay marriage now,” Naya remarks, sending Traci on a riff about Sir Lady Java, a 1960s transgender woman famous for her performances at the Redd Foxx Club. It’s not exactly a Zen topic, but Rivera doesn’t mind. She knows a thing or two about being a gay icon.
Ever since Glee’s 2009 pilot, Naya Rivera has played Santana Lopez, one of the most irresistible characters on television. She’s the show’s resident badass, capable of eviscerating anyone with her wit just as easily as she hypnotizes them with her palpable sexuality, which is as thick as the smog over Los Angeles. She’s also a lesbian—and it’s not just a phase. Her coming-out scene in season two became one of the hallmarks of the entire series. Santana’s relationship with her best friend, Brittany (played by actress Heather Morris), has been dubbed “Brittana” and it’s a frequent trending topic on Twitter. The pair are so beloved that their break-up last season sent many younger viewers into hysteria, some of whom sent death threats to Ryan Murphy.
“Having gay characters makes a difference, especially when you are a teenager and you need people to look up to,” Naya says as Traci nods in agreement. “Your world feels so small. The tiniest thing can make you think, ‘I’m gonna die!’ I’m glad Glee is around for people dealing with something that big in such a small world. It’s important.”
Despite Naya’s devout Christian upbringing, the announcement of Santana’s sexuality didn’t prompt her family to ship her off to Jesus Camp. “My mother believes in God but she’s the most nonjudgmental, cool person I know,” she says. “There was absolutely no problem.”
Nor did Naya have any apprehension about kissing her female co-star on camera. “Kissing a girl was a little awkward just because we had a million grips, and all the guys wanted to visit the set that day,” she jokes. “Heather and I just laughed it off.”
Santana seems to get hotter and hotter with each passing year. By the end of season four, she was doing her best Jennifer-Beals-in-Flashdance-meets-Piper-Perabo-in-Coyote-Ugly impression. That is to say, she dropped out of college to bartend and cage dance just to get by in New York, putting her hopes of becoming a professional dancer on hold. Oh, and she’s also girlfriend-less, which has left some former Brittana loyalists blogging about their ideal pick for Santana’s next lady love. Naya’s got her own ideas.
It would be funny if she had a girlfriend who had Lena Dunham’s personality,” she says. “She’s been crying for two seasons now. I’d like her to just have fun.”
Naya’s content to leave her character to the Glee showrunners as she begins her transition to the big screen. This year she wrapped her first feature film, the Nicholas McCarthy–directed thriller Home. “It was crazy,” Rivera says, laughing. “There were stunts and prosthetics involved, but there wasn’t much screaming. It’s not a jumpy film.” Instead, Home deals with demons and devilish behavior. “It’s more like, ‘That’s messed up.’”
Before she gets back in front of the camera—Glee starts filming season five in August—Naya’s busy recording her debut album, which she’s co-writing with Jaden Michaels, who’s worked with Carly Rae Jepsen and Cody Simpson.
As anyone who’s seen Naya perform Amy Winehouse’s “Valerie” on Glee will agree, the girl is no gimmick behind the mic. She credits her dad, a former Universal Music Publishing employee who’d sneak her into the studio to lay down demos when she was a teenager.
Naya describes her album as “feel-good music for hanging out,” comparing it to early Destiny’s Child. “If you were having a summer barbecue, this would be the perfect album to play.”
After the soaking and scrubbing and foot-filing, Traci asks what color Naya would like for her toes. She requests Big Apple Red, but then decides on Vodka Caviar instead. She needs something hot to fit tomorrow’s strip-poker themed shoot.
“I want to be like Betty White—90 years old and still killing it,” Naya says. “What keeps people like that alive?”
“She can’t retire,” Traci says. “She retires, she’ll die.”
Naya’s eyes light up at the thought. “Did we just predict my fate?”The next morning, Naya arrives in her white Range Rover at the West Hollywood photo studio, right on time for her cover shoot. After a couple of hours in hair and makeup, she tiptoes out of her dressing room looking like she hopped out of a 1960s Lucky Strike ad. Sipping on a glass of rosé through a pink straw, she waits for her cue. Her legs are thin and toned, like a Rodeo Drive mannequin. Her abs look like they’re straight out of a Pilates video. The crew around her whispers in awe.
 
I knew songs like ‘Ass’ because it was huge, but I never knew what [Big Sean] looked like. If I ran into him, I wouldn’t have known who he was.
 
Midway through the shoot, Big Sean shows up, dressed in an oversize camo jacket, dark jeans, and black adidas sneakers. As soon as the photographer calls for a break, Naya saunters over and engulfs him in a lingering hug. They don’t care who’s watching.
Naya first became aware of Sean through his music. “I knew songs like ‘Ass’ because it was huge, but I never knew what he looked like. If I ran into him, I wouldn’t have known who he was,” she says. “I was with my brother at his senior game in Tennessee and we were in his car going to get dinner. He played ‘Mula’ from Sean’s mixtape and I was like, ‘What is this song? Who is this?’ And he was like, ‘This is Big Sean.’ I said, ‘This is awesome, where do I get this?’” Before long she was hitting up Dat Piff for the first time. “It took me forever to get the music from my computer to my phone,” she recalls. She plays coy about how they actually hooked up though. “I ended up randomly meeting him. I told him that story the other day and we were still cracking up.”
Asked if Sean’s still as sensitive as the man who broke down in tears during his first major show in Detroit, Naya says: “He’s a sweetheart, but he’s not a little bitch.” She admits, though, that he “cried super hard” while watching Santana’s coming-out episode of Glee.
The pair has been together for a few months now. They make ample time for each other despite their hectic schedules. “With anything that you want, you’.
It'll work at it and make the time for it,” she says. Together, they can be spotted everywhere from the Hollywood red carpet to the Hawaiian coast.

“She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” Sean says in almost a whisper, as she steps back in front of the camera. “She’s one of those people that you can connect to, and I think she’s going to be a superstar.”
He may be onto something. Whoever comes across Naya in person or on screen either wants to be her or be with her. She’s the kind of person you want to know more about, and she’ll gladly tell you. “I feel like I’m a pretty open person and I’m never purposely not going to share things because I don’t have anything to hide,” she says. “If I feel like shouting from the rooftops, then I’ll do it.” Here’s hoping she never loses her balance. (Agosto 2013)

"Il trivial game + divertente dell'anno" (Lucca Comics)

"Il trivial game + divertente dell'anno" (Lucca Comics)
Il GIOCO DEI TELEFILM di Leopoldo Damerini e Fabrizio Margaria, nei migliori negozi di giocattoli: un viaggio lungo 750 domande divise per epoche e difficoltà. Sfida i tuoi amici/parenti/partner/amanti e diventa Telefilm Master. Disegni originali by Silver. Regolamento di Luca Borsa. E' un gioco Ghenos Games. http://www.facebook.com/GiocoDeiTelefilm. https://twitter.com/GiocoTelefilm

Lick it or Leave it!

Lick it or Leave it!