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Eva Green in Penny Dreadful
June 4, 2014
FILM & TELEVISION, KILLOUGH CHRONICLES

Why ‘Penny Dreadful’ Gallops to the Top of the Class

There are at least fifteen TV shows I follow now. That’s up from one, Six Feet Under, ten years ago. To make room and not spend all of my downtime watching filmed content — I do heave features to track as well — I’ve been ditching some quality shows, namely Girls and Looking; the former is too repetitive and whiny, the latter too cliché for this gay man living in a gay ghetto as it is — I have no interest in walking back from the gym to engage in a conversation with my monitor that I just overheard.

While I admire all of the shows, none of them — not Mad Men, which is about the world I was born into, nor True Detective, which up until now was the most intellectually satisfying — can I say I wish I’d written and created.

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By James Killough
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Diane Kruger
July 15, 2013
CONTENT CREATION, FILM & TELEVISION, KILLOUGH CHRONICLES

Content Creation: Too Cool to Connect?

As horrible as it feels for a perfectionist to make mistakes, I have to agree with the cliché that I learn far more from them than I do from my successes. I learn almost as much from other people’s mistakes, and I say ‘almost’ because it’s harder to assimilate an indirect experience — still, you are experiencing the mistake when you are watching or reading it,

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By James Killough
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Hunter Parrish
September 4, 2012
FILM & TELEVISION, KILLOUGH CHRONICLES

‘Weeds’ Grows Stronger and Dies

Super-talented movie actresses tend fall somewhere along a sliding Kinsey-type scale of personality, with the humble, hard-working, charming type like Meryl Streep as a 1, and the volcanic, impossible dragon lady like Faye Dunaway as a 6.  Tilda Swinton would be a 1.5, Cate Blanchett a 2.5, Jodie Foster a 4.5, and Mary-Louise Parker a solid 6.  From my brief personal experience of her, and the experiences of friends and colleagues, Parker is as rabid a meshugana bitch as they come.  But she also races roadrunner circles around most other performers in terms of raw skill; the difficult personality probably has a lot to do with the fact she’s also ferociously intelligent.  Still, it’s no excuse; so are Streep and Swinton.

Parker set the tone for Weeds eight seasons ago by creating a memorable strong female lead that nobody had ever seen before, and for the first three it was some of the best programming on premium cable.  Then Parker’s character Nancy Botwin burned down her house in the SoCal suburban community of Agrestic, and the show floated off into a caricature of itself.  Most of the believability was lost, although it enjoyed a brief return to balance when Alanis Morissette joined the cast as an obstetrician engaged to Justin Kirk’s often-irritating, sometimes-engaging character Andy, Nancy’s brother-in-law.

Mary-Louise Parker Weeds

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By James Killough
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Claire Danes Homeland
August 10, 2012
FILM & TELEVISION, KILLOUGH CHRONICLES

REPOST: ‘Homeland’: The Co‑Best Show on TV?

UPDATE:  I wasn’t surprised by last night’s upset at the Emmys.  Well, okay, I was—as I mention in the repost of an article below, it’s the first Emmys I’ve ever paid attention to.  I was on the money about Claire Danes, but my hesitation about Damian Lewis cost me a firm call in the Best Actor category.  Had I done my homework and seen that Bryan Cranston from Breaking Bad had already won three times, I would have definitely called it for Lewis.

In the end, I guess I’ve been told which show to like better.  Although, to be honest, this season of Breaking Bad is killing it, more so than ever, but it wasn’t eligible for this round of awards.  So, compared to last season, Homeland was the better show.  Or was it?

Here’s the original post:

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By James Killough
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April 12, 2011
KILLOUGH CHRONICLES

The Not‑So‑Perfect Pitch

In a mild twist of fate, I auditioned for a role on an HBO series yesterday.  This is no early Meryl Streep character that is going to require me hours of dialogue training to nail an East Prussian accent.  I doubt I’ll have to insist that all crew members call me by my character’s name so that my precarious Method balance is maintained.  If I get the role, and it is a real long shot that I will, I would basically be playing me.

James Killough’s new headshot, which will launch a sneak attack on HBO. Photo: Sebastian Artz.

I’m sure there are hundreds of actors out there who can play a middle-aged Ghey from the West Village, which is what this is.  And I’m sure we all sound alike in the end; these are lines I would actually say.  I really felt this dialogue was written with me in mind, which is why I keep my hopes up, even though as someone who habitually sits on the deciding side of the casting couch I know better.

What concerns me is the script describes my character as wearing a kimono.  Maybe the writer is savvy enough to know that I would indeed wear a man’s antique shibori resist-dyed kimono in a heartbeat, but I think she might have something more flamboyant in mind.  And therein lies the challenge.

I mentioned to my associate Tyler that I was concerned they probably wanted an old-school extravaganza Ghey, the kind who, as I’ve mentioned in a previous post, is coming back in vogue thanks to that little Nellie in Glee. Tyler encouragingly replied, “Nah, you’ll be like the transvestite Liev Schreiber played in Taking Woodstock.  He looked totally out of place in a dress, but it was really funny.”  I twisted my ankle the other day stepping out of Tyler’s Ford Explorer, so the thought of slipping into a dress and heels isn’t very appealing right now.  But trying to convince the costume department to outfit me in an antique men’s shibori resist-dyed kimono rather than Haute Golden Girls Nightwear is an exciting challenge.

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By James Killough
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