Showtime Green Lights Real-Life L Word
September 1, 2009
Recently, in the GLAAD Network Responsibility Index, we noted that Showtime would have a significant void to fill in their programming following the cancellation of The L Word. This morning, Variety reported that Showtime will be filling the L Word gap with…a reality twist on The L Word.
Ilene Chaiken, creator of "The L Word" and "The Real L Word: Los Angeles"
Related Posts:Showtime is reviving “The L Word” — but this time as a reality series.
Pay cabler has greenlit nine episodes of “The Real L Word: Los Angeles,” from “L Word” creator Ilene Chaiken and reality producers Magical Elves (“Top Chef”).
Show will follow six lesbians in Los Angeles as they go about their lives — a lesbian answer to Bravo’s “Real Housewives” franchise. Project is dependent on casting, the net said; if all goes as planned, “The Real L Word” would debut sometime next year.
“The L Word,” which ran for six seasons on Showtime, wrapped up earlier this year. Series, which starred Jennifer Beals, Mia Kirshner and Laurel Holloman, among others, centered on a fictional group of women, both gay and straight, in Los Angeles.
“Even though we concluded our sixth season of ‘The L Word’ on Showtime this past March, I believe we are not nearly finished telling our ‘L Word’ stories,” Chaiken said. “Showtime has yet again come forward to continue with us this mission to entertain and enlighten and bring more ‘L’ to the world.”
Chaiken, who exec produced “L Word,” will also EP “The Real L Word,” along with Magical Elves’ Dan Cutforth and Jane Lipsitz.
“We love to tell authentic stories about complex characters and feel like this is an area that has yet to be explored in reality television,” Lipsitz said.
“Real L Word” is the latest in a string of series orders for Showtime, which last week greenlit the Laura Linney starrer “The C Word.” Cabler also has “Oliver Stone’s Secret History of America” on tap.
“The Real L Word” is the second spinoff for Chaiken. The exec producer was behind the scripted spinoff “The Farm,” which starred “The L Word’s” Leisha Hailey. That project wasn’t picked up to series, however.
Added Cutforth: “We’re ready to take on the challenge of living up to the groundbreaking drama of the original ‘L-Word’.”
Outfest Begins Tonight
July 9, 2009
Outfest, the 27th Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, begins tonight and features 182 films from 25 countries over the span of 11 days.The Opening Night Gala is tonight at the Orpheum Theatre in downtown Los Angeles and features La Mission, a powerful film from writer/director Peter Bratt. The film stars Peter’s brother, Benjamin Bratt, as Che, a former inmate and recovering alcoholic who reacts violently when he discovers his beloved son Jesse is gay.
The film premiered earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival and the cast participated in a Q&A at the Queer Lounge, a program of GLAAD:
In related news, Variety printed an excellent article about the prominence of lesbian films at this year’s Outfest:
Chasity Kershal Hammitte in Mississippi Damned
“We have two centerpieces geared toward women, Tina Mabry’s ‘Mississippi Dammed’ and Lucia Puenzo’s ‘El Nino Pas,’” says Outfest exec director Kirsten Schaffer. “And the Legacy Project gala is ‘Choosing Children’ (1984), which is more oriented toward lesbians. We also have Nancy Kissam’s ‘Drool,’ which was a huge success at Slamdance this year. And there’s ‘Ghosted’ from Monika Treut, who has a huge lesbian following.”
Diversity is key at Outfest, yet it’s an uphill battle for women, if only because there are always so many gay-male pics to contend with. “Any year we have the opportunity to highlight films by female directors we do,” says Schaffer. Last year, “there were definitely films that were lesbian, but they tended to be international and smaller films.”
Tickets are still available for numerous screenings and may be purchased at the Outfest website.
Related Posts:Natalie Portman Lauds Sean Penn
December 1, 2008
Variety recently featured a series of short articles about outstanding acting performances in current films, each piece written by a well-known star. Natalie Portman contributed praise of Sean Penn’s performance in Milk.
“They only need to know one of us,” Harvey Milk explains to his campaign team in the film “Milk.” Sean Penn’s performance as Harvey does exactly that: You learn one man’s story, and his pains and triumphs become your own. It showed me how a great performance can also be a humanitarian act. When we know one character, one story, we recognize him as being of our own flesh and blood. When we understand his feelings, we put ourselves in his position. Not only is Sean’s performance honestly and lovingly humane, but it is also virtuosic — every note is so subtly tuned that the work behind it is never visible. He infuses Harvey’s courage with cowardice and his sexual prowess with hesitation. Sean’s Harvey is a cocky and charismatic orator, but always weighted by the foreboding dread of knowing his own tragedy. When the antigay Prop. 6 is unexpectedly voted down, surprise, elation and horror at the very existence of the referendum all rage in the blood beneath his skin. Sean Penn so inhabits Harvey Milk that I left the theater feeling the need to march against our frighteningly similar Prop. 8 to honor this man I now know.
James Franco, who co-starred with Penn in Milk, also wrote a piece for Variety on Heath Ledger’s performance in The Dark Knight. To read it, and to see the other actor-authored articles, click here.
