It'sThat Time of Year Again

It's time again to vote for the AfterElton Hot 100! I can't believe a whole year has gone by already. I submitted my choices the other day, and this year some very hot celebrities (including more than one of my own nominees!) are sharing their picks with us.

Nicholas Rodriguez, the openly gay cutie who played Kyle's pre-Fish boyfriend Nick Chavez on One Life to Live last year and starred in the Washington D.C. production of Light in the Piazza last month, weighed in with his choices. Nicholas has pretty good taste in guys, I have to say, with the likes of Cheyenne Jackson, Hugh Dancy, and Jake Gyllenhaal on his list. I still don't get the Taylor Lautner thing, though! Even with an incredible body he doesn't do anything for me.

Today, Scott Evans (a.k.a. number one on my own Hot 100 list) shared his picks and as if it wasn't already enough that he's the hottest guy around, he won me over even further by leading off with the incredibly sexy Zachary Quinto. Just the thought of Scott and Zachary in the same room together is enough to make my pulse race!

Among others, such as out Olympic cutie Matthew Mitcham, Scott also chose Lee Pace and noted that he still can't believe Pushing Daises is gone! Wow, so Scott is beautiful, he has great taste in men, and now in TV shows! Where do I find a guy like that for myself?

Speaking of Lee Pace (whom I'd love to see on my TV screen again!), he made hottie Cheyenne Jackson's list as well. Cheyenne wrote that he'd met Lee at Promises, Promises, the new Broadway show that Lee's former Pushing Daisies co-star, Kristin Chenoweth is doing.

I love that Lee went to see Kristin in the show! Hey, is it too soon to start begging for a Pushing Daisies reunion movie?

John Amaechi, the out former NBA player, shared his top guys as well, and I really liked most of his choices. He, too, picked Zachary Quinto, and he threw in Neil Patrick Harris, John Barrowman, and two guys I wish I'd thought of when I was doing my own list: the smoldering Gael Garcia Bernal and Russell Tovey, the adorably sexy (and out!) British actor.

The list I found to have the most in common with mine, though, was that of Brad 'Cheeks' Bell. Cheeks is an Internet celeb who is also Adam Lambert's ex, and he chose Scott Evans, Brett Claywell, Michael Urie, Jamie Bamber, and Matthew Mitcham, among others. He also put Chris Colfer on his list, which I think is awesome! Chris isn't really my type, and yet I think when I'm watching him as Kurt I am sort of half in love with how funny and talented he is.

For the second year in a row, they're also taking nominations for the Hottest Out Gay/Bi Men poll, the Hottest Men of Color poll, and the Hottest Men over 50.

I can't wait to see the full lists! Go vote today (if you're a gay or bisexual man) and in the meantime, you can check out the first three years of the Hot 100 while you wait.

Thoughts on the Primetime Emmy Awards

The 61st annual Primetime Emmy Awards were on tonight and since I love awards shows, I thought I'd share my thought about the proceedings with you. If it turns into a love letter to Neil Patrick Harris in blog form... well, can you really blame me?

I liked his opening number, although it wasn't nearly as good as his closing number from this year's Tony Awards. Still, he looked fantastic and sounded great. He's pretty much the perfect award show host, and probably the world's most perfect gay man. He should be cloned so that in the future, we can all have our own NPH.

The way they divided up the awards by genre this year was an interesting touch. I thought that worked out pretty well, especially since it allowed me to just skip right past all the reality show awards in just a few seconds.

The very first award was for Supporting Actress in a comedy and I really, really wanted Kristin Chenoweth to win, not only because I completely adore her and thought she was amazing as Olive Snook, but because Pushing Daisies was such a fantastic show and it really deserved at least one major award.

When they called her name as the winner, I'm sure my neighbors must have thought I was either losing my mind or having really great sex. I mean, why else would I be shouting "Yes! Yes! Yes!" so loudly?

Her tearful and hilarious acceptance speech just summed up why I love her so much. Someone give the woman a lead part in her own show, please!

The next award was Best Supporting actor in a comedy and of course I wanted Neil Patrick Harris to win for his great work on How I Met Your Mother. Plus, he and his partner, David, looked so great together sitting in the audience and I really wanted to see a kiss between them when Neil's name was called.

Alas, it was not to be. It especially sucks that he lost to someone from Two and a Half Men. Ugh! At least it lead to some good comedic moments from NPH about being a sore loser.

I am glad that the Award for Best Actress in a Comedy went to Toni Collette (whose Australian accent always surprises me) for United States of Tara. I loved her performance and am still counting down the days until the show comes back for a second season. Like I said when the nominations were first announced, though, as comedic as the show is at times I'm still on the fence as to it being a comedy and not a drama.

After that award, there wasn't much I cared about in particular until Neil Patrick and Nathan Fillion's cameos as Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, which was great. I loved the bit they did for the show tonight and the original source material.

I really like Jessica Lange, who won Best Actress in a Movie or Mini-Series. I think she's one of the most talented actresses in the business. That said, I wanted Sigourney Weaver to win for her fantastic work in Prayers For Bobby. Still, if someone else had to win, I'm glad it was Lange.

I like the recent trend of doing a live performance during the In Memoriam segments, and they got it right this time by not trying to show the singer and the clips of those who'd passed away all at the same time, which in past attempts meant not being able to see all the people they were honoring.

Honestly, most of the rest of the awards weren't really ones that I had any favorites for, so I don't have all that much to say about any of them.

It was disappointing to see 30 Rock win yet again for Best Comedy, though, especially against How I Met Your Mother in its first nomination. I like 30 Rock a lot, but the Emmys always seem to get in these ruts where they just honor one show over and over for several years and it just isn't fair. I also didn't think 30 Rock was quite as good this year, since they've started relying so heavily on guest stars.

Well, that's about it. I'm so thrilled for Kirstin Chenoweth! That was the best part of the night, other than NPH just being generally awesome. I hope he hosts the 62nd annual Emmy Awards and that Glee dominates the night next year!

Emmy Nominations

The nominations for the 61st Annual Emmy Awards were announced today and though a lot of the nominees seem to be the same old shows and people (Charlie Sheen again, really?), I was very happy with a few of the nominations.

At the top of that list is Kristin Chenoweth, nominated for the second year in a row as Oustanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy for the role of Olive Snook on the late, great show Pushing Daisies. You probably know by now that I completely adore Kristin and I'd love to see her win an Emmy, not only for herself but for the show, which won a couple of technical Emmys and an Emmy for directing last year but really deserved more.

Kristin's competition: SNL's Amy Poehler and Ugly Betty's Vanessa Williams, who were both nominated against her last year as well, SNL's Kristin Wiig, 30 Rock's Jane Krakowski, and Weed's Elizabeth Perkins. I think Chenoweth has a real shot at winning this year.

Another nomination that made me really happy was How I Met Your Mother, which finally, after four seasons, is nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series! I've always been a huge fan of this show and have said before that I think it's the best ensemble comedy on TV right now. (Every time I say that, someone brings up The Office, which I must confess I've never really watched, or 30 Rock, which I like a lot, but I still think How I Met Your Mother is better)

Neil Patrick Harris, meanwhile, got his third consecutive nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy for playing Barney Stinson and I really hope that he wins this year. He more than deserves it.

The show itself really deserved the nomination and I hope it takes home the Emmy. Like I said, I'm a 30 Rock fan as well but they've already won enough.

For Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy, I'm pulling for Toni Collette, who was incredible in The United States of Tara, though honestly I would have thought it more of a drama than a comedy, as funny as it can be at times. Still, it can be hard to draw that line between the two these days.

The other nominees I was glad to see were the Lifetime movie Prayers For Bobby and its star, Sigourney Weaver. The movie had a real impact on me and I thought Weaver was really incredible in it.

The final bit of great news is that Neil Patrick Harris will be hosting! After watching him host the Tonys last month, I think he should just host every awards show from now on. Hopefully he'll sing again, since I thought his closing number at the Tonys was one of the highlights of the night.

TV & Film Talk

I'm not going to blog about The Mayor of Castro Street tonight. I was supposed to have the day off today, but things didn't quite work out that way. Hopefully I'll have time at some point over the next few days to write about it.

Just a few quick things tonight. First, fans of Pushing Daisies have started a campaign to save the show by getting it moved to another network. These fan campaigns are not always successful, of course, but sometimes they do work.

Take, for instance, the Kiss Campaign and accompanying media blitz enacted by Nuke fans that lead to the end of the months long dry spell between kisses for Luke & Noah on As the World Turns.

Shows moving between networks isn't unheard of, either. It has happened in both daytime and primetime, most memorably in recent times when Buffy The Vampire Slayer jumped from The WB after five seasons to run for two more years on UPN. For the most current example, there is the sitcom Scrubs which will be moving to ABC this January after seven seasons on NBC.

Moves like this are the exception, of course, not the rule. Still, we can always hope some other network will take a risk on the show and fans showing their support certainly helps.

Of course, Bryan Fuller has already returned to Heroes, starting with this season's 19th episode, so saving Daisies might not even be an option, at least not with him involved, unless he could do double duty on both shows.

I do have to say that I'm looking forward to his return on Heroes, especially after I checked out his exclusive interview with Entertainment Weekly. I think he's just what the show needs.

Second, I wanted to confess that I watched a really cheesy movie last night about an artist that I don't even like. Why did I sit through an hour and forty five minutes of saccharine Hallmark Channel-esque nonsense? Two words: Jared. Padalecki.

I'm talking, of course, about Christmas Cottage, the film 'inspired by' the life of artist Thomas Kinkade. As an artist, Kinkade reminds me of our Christian Fiction section at work. The same ladies I see browsing there for books that present a safe, idealized version of the world (usually without any troublesome minorities of any kind, let alone of the LGBT sort, around to muddy the waters) probably love his paintings.

Okay, to be fair, my own Grandmother, who is an open minded, intelligent woman, names him as her favorite artist. So, I know I really shouldn't make sweeping generalizations about fans of his work. It's just not my cup of tea.

At any rate, if you'd told me a couple of years ago that I'd see a movie about Kinkade, that in fact I'd move it to the top of Netflix queue and wait impatiently for its arrival, I would have had one response: which hottie is starring in it?

Jared Padalecki has to be one of the hottest guys alive. My God that man is beautiful! Plus, he looked really adorable in his little scarf and hat combo:


I already knew, from Supernatural, that he knocks any emotional scene out of the park, but this mediocre movie definitely gave him a chance to shine in that regard. There are a couple of scenes where Jared gets a chance either to cry or to be on the verge of tears, and he totally blew me away. I just wanted to grab him and hug him.

Jared really rose above a script that should have been filmed for a cable channel at best (as it was, it was released directly to DVD). Peter O'Toole hammed it up in his part as a dying artist trying to paint one last picture, while Marcia Gay Harden had one decent scene opposite her character's ex husband (Desperate Housewives' Richard Burgi) but was otherwise bland as Kinkade's mother. Aaron Ashmore was cute as the younger brother, but had absolutely nothing to do, and the cast was otherwise filled out by familiar faces from old TV shows. So, if you're anxious to see Bull from Night Court, Mrs. Garrett from The Facts of Life and Lou Grant from The Mary Tyler Moore Show get a chance to do their thing, it may be worth checking out.

As for me, Jared made it worthwhile, but I really do hope he can pick a better film next time. I mean, after the remake of Friday the 13th, which he's also the lead in. Yet another movie I'll have to see that I otherwise wouldn't have! Thanks a lot, Padalecki! Maybe you'll at least show some skin in that one?

ABC Sucks!

I'm in mourning today. ABC has just cancelled one of my very favorite shows, Pushing Daisies. Well, the network isn't officially using the word cancelled, but their failure to pick up any additional episodes beyond the 13 already produced for this season amounts to the same thing.

The show did pretty well in its first season last year, but then thanks to the Writer's Strike it disappeared from television for nearly ten months. By the time it came back, the ratings were down and this is the end result. It's especially sad because the show has been even better in its second season.

I almost didn't tune in at all last year when it started. I read a description of the show's concept and it sounded sort of silly: a man can bring the dead back to life for one minute by touching them and helps solve murders by asking the victims who killed them. It didn't sound like something I'd really want to watch.

But then I heard that Kristin Chenoweth would be one of the stars and I saw a preview that included the show's adorably sexy lead, Lee Pace, and I thought I'd give it a chance.

I was so glad I did. Pushing Daisies was like nothing else I'd ever seen on TV, with its fairy tale style narration and vibrantly stylized look and its sweet nature colored by a strong dose of life's darkest aspect, death.

The lead characters, Ned & Chuck (the latter being a female, played by Anna Friel), loved each other but could literally never touch since Ned had brought Chuck back to life and another touch would mean she was dead for good. Imagine a show that sets it up from the first episode that its love interests can never be together, at least not in a way that most of us would consider 'together'.

The love between Ned & Chuck would almost have been too sweet to take if it wasn't for the character of Emerson Cod, the sarcastic Private Detective whom Ned solves murders with (perfectly played by Chi McBride). Emerson was always snarking on them from the sidelines, rolling his eyes at them the way most regular people would if they had to be around them all the time. Somehow, this just balanced things out perfectly.

If the show had tried to sell its concept with a more realistic setting and tone, it never would have worked. Such a premise calls for an over the top presentation, and most would have gone for the dark, edgy sort (which is how I originally pictured it when I thought I'd pass on watching), but Pushing Daisies went for exactly the opposite, making it a modern day fairy tale, and it really worked.

Take all of that and throw in Kristin Chenoweth as Olive Snook, a waitress at Ned's restaurant, the Pie Hole, always pining over Ned and just generally being awesome and watchable in a way that only Kristin Chenoweth can be, and you had real magic on the screen.

I've spent the last month loaning out my nine episode first season DVD box set of the show to friends and co-workers, hoping to win over new viewers, and now ABC goes and pulls the rug out from under it all.

My only consolation is that there are still seven episodes which have already been shot to look forward to before its all over.

Bryan Fuller, the openly gay creator of the show, had similar luck with two earlier shows he created, which were both pretty incredible in their own right, and which were cancelled far too soon. Dead Like Me aired for two seasons on Showtime, and Wonderfalls (which had Lee Pace in a supporting role) only aired four episodes before Fox cancelled it, although thirteen episodes were shot and are available on DVD.

Fuller seems destined to be the creator of wonderful shows that gain cult status after being yanked off the air far too soon. More and more people will probably discover Pushing Daisies on DVD after it's too late, which is what happened with his other two shows, Wonderfalls in particular.

It's probably worth noting that Bryan Fuller was also a producer and writer on Heroes during its first season, back when most people were actually enjoying the show. There's been some speculation that he may return to try and revive that show now.

Whatever happens, I know I'll follow Lee, Kristin, and Bryan on to whatever roles and shows they create next, but I'll never quite get over what could have been with Pushing Daisies.

I should also add that ABC cancelled Dirty Sexy Money as well, a show which featured a transgendered character played by real life trans actress Candis Cayne and was created by the openly gay Greg Berlanti of Brothers & Sisters. I watched the first season of Dirty Sexy Money last year and enjoyed it, but like Pushing Daisies it disappeared from the screen for many months after the writer's strike and I never ended up tuning in for the second season.

Berlanti was dealt a double whammy by ABC, since they also cancelled another show he produced and wrote for, Eli Stone.