Sylph

Faye Resnick? Yawn.

Thanks to Sister Act, I grew up thinking that song was really a gospel hymn. I had no idea that it was originally just an early 60s pop song

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Does anybody know the time-span of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills? When did they start shooting and when did they end it?

Plus, she bought a new mansion. And it's hideous.

I thought it was bad. Very Oops!... I Did It Again-like. At times, she looked like a fat drunk. Except in that brief "black & white" segment.

How did the song do in the charts?

The Flying Nun?!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1357962/Lady-Gaga-emulates-Flying-Nun-appears-morning-TV-big-pink-plastic-cornette.html

Thank you, Carl.

Now I envy you, Amello, it seems it was removed from YouTube. Too bad I can't rewatch some scenes. Oh, well. If it pops up somewhere, let me know.

No. You know that they call the soap The Street too? I think it's Corrie Rob is talking about. But yes, McGovern's The Street was excellent.

I think he's talking about The Street. I didn't get the line or two.

Before Rob says Well, I've heard..., what does the reporter say? And then for departing the ________?

I don't know... I'm still mixed. I felt ever since it first aired that what Alvin said is true, but I also kind of liked it. I guess I liked it because no matter how syrupy it was – it was melodic. Very unlike her AutoTune crap that just gets in your head, but you hate it. This is hummable.

Wow. 15.8 million views. Not bad.

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<span style="font-size:10.5pt;">Well, I sure had one big marathon. Faster than expected.

WHAT SUCKED

The accent. It was "not too progressive RP". Some words were pronounced a bit too correctly, others weren't pronounced right. The dowager countess and Isobel Crawley were perhaps the closest to the older model of speech. On the other side, the servants were too RP. I wonder why they didn't hire a dialogue coach, especially since money isn't a problem, it seems. And obviously RADA, Guildhall, Central... are doing something wrong.

A big fat truckload of cliches: "stalwart, anvil-faced mass of crinoline underskirts, default mode 'livid'", "prissy socialite needing to make a good marriage", "moneyed American who no one ever wholly accepts as posh", and of course "sexually repressed/terminally sad house staff", "poor souls who've eschewed a lifetime of fun in favour of laying out cufflinks and steam-ironing gussets". Every single storyline and plot point was so cliched, every single one, including the soap slip and the war announcement, the horse incident, I am utterly amazed at the sheer magnitude of it.

Pilfering. From Mrs Miniver and Little Women. The flower show and the salt incident, respectively.

"Semaphored plotting".

"Clunky dialogue" (at times).

What Carl calls a "evil gay cliche". Not because of it being a cliche, there was something else about Rob James-Collier that was wrong. How trivial it felt. I can't put my finger on it. Still, in its best moment it was delicious "evil pantomime".

Double yellow lines, aerials, an "anachronistic conservatory". Other inaccuracies (if you paid this much, you might as well gotten it right; furthermore, Julian Fellowes, known as a notorious snob, should have known better; obviously, no one cares – it made money, full stop).

Cora. I liked her in brief moments, then I didn't. It's a mixed bag.

Moments of unneeded sentimentality, done badly.

Amateurishly written politics issues.

The earl being Downton Abbey's Stephanie Forrester. Just like her, he just kept going around the place fixing problems. I just didn't get to know the person, his story. He was used as a tool, not written as an integral character.

Lady Edith Crawley.

John Bates. Lord Grantham's valet. I hate soppy, mawkish stories. Though, this one did have its moments.

WHAT WAS GOOD

Everything. It was just delicious and I can't wait for it to come back.

It being a "soap opera in starched collars".

The photography. All those violets, lush spring greens, the yellows, the grey colour of stones. It wasn't soaked in hideous darkness they way these things usually do get done. Set design. Costume design.

Maggie Smith. Maggie Smith/Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham's lines. "What is a week-end?", "I must have said it wrong", "We can't have the ambassador assassinated... I suppose...", "So put that in your pipe and smoke it"...

Dowager Countess' fox fur pelts.

O'Brien's lines. The octopus one. Several others.

O'Brien. Until she moved the soap bar. Her cliched scheming with a gay fellow. All the while while smoking a cigarette (the villains always do — a cliche, again).

Lady Rosamond Painswick.

Michelle Dockery. Hugh Bonneville.

Jessica Brown-Findley. Phyllis Logan. Jim Carter (the phone!). Joanne Froggatt. Simply – the "upmarket acting talent". And their characters.

All in all, superrrb. It didn't, however, felt unbelievably gripping, engrossing, enthralling, something was lacking, or the amount of cliches killed that. It wasn't this amazing new thing, so new yet so familiar. But it was splendid. Mixed bag? Not really, although everything I just wrote says precisely that. More, please!</span>

<span style="font-size:13pt;">Lady Gaga Spent 72 Hours Inside Grammy Egg; 'It Was a Creative Experience'</span>

<span style="font-size:10.5pt;">She explains the meaning behind her infamous awards show entrance.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/lady-gaga-spent-72-hours-99781</span>

Does Andy Cohen have strabismus?

He apologized for that "tasteless" tweet:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/andy-cohen-apologizes-tasteless-heidi-99541

I am rewatching. This show is magnificence. Julian Fellowes knows how to write this sort of stuff.

Where do I begin? I'd love it if someone rewatched it too. It's a pity we haven't commented on a per episode basis.

Michelle Dockery is fabulous. A real revelation, indeed.

He would know a thing or two about "sharing melodies." LOL. Beyonce/Kelly Clarkson anyone?

For someone so original, she sure entered the dangerous waters of pilfering and plagiarism all too quickly.

I didn't see this one:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/lady-gagas-born-way-is-99037

And everyone is tweeting about it! Yaaay!

Lady Gaga arrives to the Grammys in a turd:

http://www.hollywood...at-grammy-99089

Right...

That is precisely why, bellcurve, I don't think such a thing as a new Madonna is possible nowadays. Everything changed. There is too much promotion, it hogs the "airwaves". Songs, artists, actors, films – you get pretty sick of it pretty quickly. Tonight you're hot, tomorrow you're a flop. And no one gives a damn. They just move onto another one, the next in line. People are also too cynical and perverted, nothing is really genuine anymore.

Nonsense. Sylph loves Hidden Palms.

Among other things. Don't make me list all of them. Nobody wants to know. Those who've looked attentively know that I sometimes love utter trash and am unapologetic about it.

Utterly irrelevant, no one wants to know. Back to Lady Gaga. But before – I have to add the two other ones I forgot: the hipster troll one and doesn't watch soaps. Amusing.

Lady Gaga time.