Catholic League Vs. Macy's

The Catholic League is pissed at Macy's for the above display window promoting Showtime's upcoming series, The Borgias, which was "written by an atheist who hates the Catholic Church." Bill Donohue: "Why Macy's would want to pick a fight with Catholics during the Lenten season is not known, but that it has is certain." Wikipedia's entry on the Borgia family, one of whom became Pope, notes: "They have been accused of many different crimes, including adultery, simony, theft, rape, bribery, incest, and murder." Which is the real reason Donohue hates seeing the series promoted.

Harvey Fierstein On Nurse Jackie

Harvey Fierstein guest starred on last night's episode of Nurse Jackie, playing the husband of a man being kept alive by a machine. Click over to this excellent commentary by Fierstein about the state of patient rights for LGBT people in New York.

Daily Ungrumble

Seriously, how fantastic is Nurse Jackie? I'm loving Edie Falco's pill-popping, adulterous title character, the ice princess English doctor, the Tourette's guy with lesbian moms, and especially the hot hot gay male nurse Mo-Mo played by Haaz Sleiman. The camp factor is through the roof.

Real nurses aren't too crazy about the way Jackie is portrayed, what with her stealing from the pharmacy and committing a little bit of euthanasia here and there, and the New York State Nurses Association wants the show to put in a disclaimer that Jackie's character is "an aberration." But such a complicated character is what makes the show so riveting and damn funny. I just wish it wasn't only a half-hour long.

Belle De Jour Goes Hollywood

Speaking of things hooker-ish, four years ago this here website thingy got a huge kick in the readership when out of nowhere JMG was added to the blogroll of Belle De Jour, the secret-identity blog of an English call girl which was the fascination of the UK public. Belle landed a book deal, the book was a smash and has now been turned into a Showtime miniseries, Secret Diary Of A Call Girl.

Taken from best-selling, real-life diaries, SECRET DIARY OF A CALL GIRL is an eye-opening look into the world of a high-end call girl leading a double life. To her friends and family she is Hannah, a legal secretary clocking in regular hours and enjoying a "normal" life. To her clients, she is Belle, the answer to every man's fantasies. Her challenge is to keep her two lives separate. Inevitably they begin to blur. Each half-hour episode is an illuminating glimpse behind the scenes of the high-class sex trade. The heroine struggles with personal and moral issues — with some rather naughty adventures along the way.

I have no idea how Belle found JMG way back when, but since JMG and Diablo Cody remain on her short blogroll, I should reach out to them for a JMG miniseries. We can cast Lynette, Freddy, and Crixi. Who wants to play a Freeper troll?

Swag Tuesday

Courtesy of Showtime, this week's Swag Tuesday giveaway is a special advance DVD box set of the full first season of their hit series, The Tudors, starring Jonathan Rhys-Meyers as Henry VIII. In March, I attended a screening of the first two episodes of The Tudors and I was immediately reeled in by the lush photography and uber-hot cast. Steve Waddington? Hello, Steve. I'm Joe.

The release date for The Tudors box set has not yet been set, but Showtime would like you to also check out Meadowlands, their new 8-episode thriller series. Described by critics as a creepy mix of The Waltons and Twin Peaks, Meadowlands debuted on Sunday.

The series picks up as Danny (David Morrissey) and Evelyn Brogan (Lucy Cohu) along with their two kids, Zoe (Felicity Jones) and Mark (Harry Treadaway), enter a witness protection program and are moved to a bucolic neighborhood called Meadowlands to begin a new life. Picturesque and crime-free, Meadowlands appears to be a suburban paradise but the Rogan family quickly realizes that it's not so easy to escape the past and their safe haven becomes a world of paranoia and intrigue with surprises around every corner.

You can view the first episode of Meadowlands online now. The series continues on Showtime on Sundays at 10pm, nicely scheduled to pick up the audience for that other weird family, The Sopranos. To enter to win the advance box set of The Tudors, you need only comment on this post. Only your first comment counts and please remember to leave your email address. Publicists: if you'd like to take part in Swag Tuesday on JMG, please email me.

The Tudors

On Tuesday, Little David accompanied me to a screening of Showtime's upcoming series, The Tudors, where we saw the first two of ten episodes. Starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Henry VIII, Sam Neill as Cardinal Wolsey, and a very attractive cast, The Tudors takes a liberty here and there with the historical record, for example depicting Wolsey as a scheming behind-the-scenes manipulator plotting to be named Pope, something which I think has never been proven. (Readers?) I was also fascinated with the circuit-boyish clippered haircuts sported by most of the male cast.

But David and I both thoroughly enjoyed the non-stop alliances, betrayals, infidelities and the lots and lots of fucking. Steven Waddington as the Lord Of Buckingham will definitely please the redhead aficionados out there. I'm quite anxious to see the rest of the series, which debuts on April 1. Highly recommended.
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