Still formulating my opinion...

... but in general, I found Jai, Hal and Alfonse the best of the group. All three guys have the energy on stage that just reaches out and grabs you.

Tonight is the night...

... that Lucy will stretch her vocalcords with two singing legends. Who that will be, remains to be seen at this time.

"Celebrity Duets" is on at 8pm in the Eastern and (7pm)Central Timezone on the FOX network.

Alexander the Great episode....

On the commentary for the fifth season opener, "Fallen Angel", RJ Stewart and Eric Gruendeman joked about an episode that took $5 million to film and featured a naked Amarice.

It was a joke.

Check out what is all on the fifth season DVD set.

"Duets" promotion....

Looking over all the news sources and it looks like the conpsiracy theory is pretty much a dead duck.

Lucy's name is the first one out of the mouths of journalists everywhere. I'm getting four to five alerts a day about the upcoming Fox show.

I am from Planet Xena, I come in peace

Who else wants to claim they're from planet Xena?

2005 Burbank Convention Photos

When I redid the photo gallery late last year, I never put back online my photos from the 2005 convention. When I redid the gallery again this year, I didn't do it again.

Finally, they're back up and online. All 590 photos I took.

I do want to apologize in advance. There was a this lady who was about three times the size of me and about a foot taller with big hair that sat in front of me which pretty much screwed up my photos. Instead of being able to take a straight on shot, I had to hold the camera up in the air, look at the LCD screen and pray to god it worked.

And the lighting in the room was just awful. Nice to know Creation hasn't improved on that.

I might have some more photos lurking around on my backup, probably from the Burbank area. I'll have to look and see. If I do, they'll go up on my personal gallery hosted elsewhere. It's mostly the mountains, my room, a Southwest jet taking off from Burbank and of general Convention stuff.

2005 Burbank Convention Photos

"Duets" Promos

Be watching as Lucy will be doing promotional spots for "Duets."

From Sharon over at the Official Lucy Lawless Fan Club

ET The Insider Access Hollywood Extra Inside Edition KTTV Fox News Edge TV Guide Channel Show Reality Remix -- Fox Reality Channel FOX.com US Weekly (magazine) People Magazine FOX All Access Radio

Lucy's getting short changed, this is blasphemy

Okay, hold it. Stop the presses. I don't get fans at times. I really, really don't. I mean, yeah, she's Lucy Lawless, but besides being known the Xena fandom and Battlestar Galactica fandom, Lucy is pretty much another TV actor who is multi-talented. She doesn't have name recognition.

Yeah, okay. Neither does the guy from Fresh Prince, but that's not the point. The point is that unlike the guy from Fresh Prince and unlike Leah Thomspon Back to the Future and Caroline in the City, Lucy is one of those people who've only vaguely heard about.

Her fault? I've said before, I'm not the person to be judge of that. Do I think she could do better? Sure, there are things I wish she wouldn't have done (Eurotrip), but in the end, Lucy said herself this was too good to pass up. It's a chance to sing with some of the greats of the music business. And it's an opportunity for Lucy to cash in the ever growing popularity of reality TV. And for that, I applaud Lucy go jumping into reality TV, even if she did blast it in 2005.

Anyways, back to the issue. I've been reading a various message boards and mailing lists, that people are absolutely SHOCKED that Lucy isn't getting more coverage in the promotional advertisements on TV. Some have even gone so far to as to put some conpsiracies into the mix --- oh, it's because she supports gay rights --- grasp for straws much, people?

The fact is, Lucy is just a portion of the entire lineup to be featured. I mean, Cheech Marin isn't mentioned, neither is Hal Sparks and a handful of others who are also going to be showing off their singing talent. They aren't mentioned in the advertisements on TV and you don't see people getting all bent out of shape out over it.

Only in the Xenaverse can people be so ... I don't know .... LOONEY TOONS!

Oh, btw, when I said I won't vote for Lucy if she's not the best. I meant it. But I also won't vote anyone who's better.

But then, you know... it is Lucy... I might just vote for the heck of it! :D

Whining is for two year olds

I certainly hope no one is a two-year-old in the disguise someone who is old enough to drive.

Let me explain:

Some fans have taken it upon themselves to consistenly whine (5 years, get over it) about the ending of the series.

I get it, you didn't like it.

But in all honesty, you can't change it. You might as well as suck it up and accept it as the ending. Not saying you have to like it. But that you should just stop acting like a two-year-old who just lost his or her favorite toy.

To quote Lucy: Cut the cord.

Hold on to your hats...

So Lucy Lawless is doing this reality TV series called Duets. It basically pairs a singing legend (Smokey Robinson, Dionne Warwick, Michael Bolton, Chaka Khan, etc) with other singing celebrities (those who can sing).

I for one, will vote for the best person, regardless of who it is. No. Seriously. I won't vote for Lucy Lawless just because she is Lucy Lawless. And if she's not the best, I won't vote for her.

You may fling tomatoes at me if you wish. Call me all sorts of names. But in all honesty, it's not a popularity contest, people. You're supposed to vote for the best singer, not the prettiest, not sexiest, not because of the person's name. The. Best. Singer.

If you've been upset with the past American Idol winners: Take note. It's because people don't vote for the best.

Why is there no Xena movie?

Next to the "I can I have your autograph" and the "I love you Lucy" emails I get, one of the most frequent inquiries I get is: How come there hasn't been a Xena feature film?

To be honest, I'm not for a movie. I could really care less if there is a movie. At one time, I was warming up to it, but the more I thought about it and the more I talked to people, I just don't see who they could logically do a movie that would (1) not alienate their fanbase and (2) not alienate people who have no idea as to who Xena is or what Xena is all about.

There are several issues at hand and have influence there not being a movie. None of which deal with the supposed "sexual" relationship between the title characters. You can sit there and harp on what Lucy Lawless (Xena, for those who may not know) has said in the last couple of years if it is a "geared interview" toward a specific group of people.

The fact is, Lucy Lawless will say anything to anyone depending on who she is talking to. If TV Guide were to interview Lucy, she'd say they played with it. Whereas if say "The Advocate" were to interview her, she say they're married. Lucy is like a certain politician, she votes for something before she votes against it. Doesn't make her a bad person, it just makes her an incredibly unreliable source of information. I take what she says with a grain of salt. But I do like it when she switches sides, because it proves my point.

Then you have the comments of "I was told that they were a couple" the fact is, and Steven Sears has said that at no time while he was associated with the series did they tell any writer that was the "relationship" of the characters was sexual.

Furthermore, R.J. Stewart has related to the fans on more than one instance that the studio had constantly requested and insisted on the toning down of the subtext. This is also confirmed by none other than Renee O'Connor who stated that both she and Lucy toned down the "subtext" in favor of nuturing the friendship.

So again, if you think the lesbian subtext is a reason why the movie hasn't been made, go bark up another tree. The studio knows where the "money" is, and if they have a say on which way the relationship goes, it'll be with the ambigious side.

With the subtext complaint nixed, let's tackle the genre and female action hero issues. Universal, like any other business, will inspect the profibility of a product and then decide what amount to spend on the development and eventual release of said product. Universal realized a couple of key things:

The first being that recent "sword and sandle" and "genre epics" have failed at the box office. Most recently Alexander, which did poorly in the US Domestic sales. So much so, that Oliver Stone had to go back recut the film to remove some of the homosexual content and add in more action scenes. With the grand failures of Kingdom of Heaven and King Arthur, it does stand to reason why Universal dragged their feet.

The second is the female action hero. Catwoman and Electra had their issues in terms of casting and storywise, however, with two top stars (Halle Berry and Jennifer Garner, respectively) the movies failed to capture an audience. Even the Kill Bills find themselves a quick return to the video release schedules. Unless the movie is about vampires, you can pretty much count on the movie failing. Everyone likes a good vampire movie. (Something about blood that excites us Amercians... must be our blood and guts culture we have.)

And lastly, we have a name recognition factor. If you go into a crowded theater of 300 people and you shout out "who hear as heard of Lucy Lawless", you're going to get blank stares and a "who's that?" from people. Yeah sure, you'll find people who've heard the name, but unlikely to capture a solid response. If Catwoman and Electra couldn't capture an audience with their star power, do you think the Xena movie would do any better? Never mind the fact that no actress has successfully opened a feature film. Ever.


Finding the funding for the movie has proved very difficult for Rob Tapert. And the reason being, all things stated above. Lack of star talent, female action hero, and the genre. It's awfully hard to find someone willing to fork over tens of millions of dollars to you on a simple story pitch. Rob can't guarantee the success of the movie. He knows that it's a crap shoot. He also knows he can't make it for the fans, he has to make it make money and in order to do that, he's going to have sacrifice a lot of things.

But, Rob is also busy getting several movies into production and post-production. The XWP movie is more like a hobby to him right now. If it happens, it happens. If not, oh well. I do think he's pretty much resigned to the fact that it's not going to happen.

Then we have the issue of the "baggage" a movie has to the potential to bring. All indications point to a post finale movie. That means, a small portion of the film will be spent catching the ol' say 99% of the audience who don't have a clue as to what happened (that's assuming, it's a sell out) in the finale. Can we say: boring?? You'll have to explain who Xena is, why she died and why is this blonde friend so despondant (which would be very out of character) over this person's death.



Brokeback Mountain and beyond. Okay. Time to take the gloves off. Brokeback Mountain was an incredibly boring movie. I sat through it going: it's gotta get better. It's just gotta get better. It never did. And the success of Brokeback has no affect (none, nadda, zip, zilch) on whether or not there'll be a movie. Whoever thought of that idea should be tarred and feathered for ever mentioning the notion that it could help the XWP movie. Two completely different animals, not to mention movies, genre, story, actors, setting, and so on and so forth.

The fact of the matter is, Universal kicked the movie to Focus who in turn kicked to Rogue who was remotely interested and told Rob, "show us the money and we'll talk." No money, no movie. Plain and simple.

If I had about $25 million to splurge, I would give it to Rob, but I'd want to be involved with the story process from top to bottom, start to finish. Which would basically mean a total overhaul of the movie Kicking out any reference to post-FIN and drop the story at the beginning or drop it somewhere in the middle of the series. Dropping any "sexual inneundo" and focus more on the story and on the relationship, which in the end could be read a million different ways. In the end, all would be happy.


In closing, the main reason why there hasn't been a movie, is because there simply isn't a willing financial partner who is willing to foot the most of the budget for something that is only projected to earn no more than $25 million domestically. It is the sad reality of the film business.

Perhaps, you should do your parts and go and see the genre epics and female action driven films. You might encourage the studio to think about making a film of that nature.

*FIN*

Difference of the hardcore fans and fans

I used to have two version of the hardcore fan. The first, being the person who knows everything about the series and gets angry over a slight faux paux (which was wildly reported) in a comic book. The second was the person who knows everything about the series, but the person takes continuity faux pauxs with a grain of salt.

Now? The hardcore fans are blithering idiots, who complain about everything from being totally razzed off by the fact it didn't start from the end of the series, to the writing and finally on to the artwork.

The fans, on the other hand, are greatful for a comic book. They may take some slight issue with the continuity issues, but overlook it because it's Xena and it is a... well... it's XENA!

Which am I'm? I'm the fan. I'm not going to seriuosly upset over John Layman's technique with the story in Dynamite's Xena comics. Why? It's a frakkin' comic book and two, it was widly reported that it wasn't going to start off where the series ended. So you shouldn't be blown away by it nor should you have been upset by the clearly obvious.

Secondly, the artwork. I have *every* single comic book ever released for Xena. From the Topps issues to the Dark House to the current Dynamite release. And let me tell ya, I'm not an artist, but the artwork in the newest comic is great.

It was stated that the characters would have similar likeness to their "human actor counterparts" but that the artists would take a different approach (albeit ever so slightly) to drawing of the characters.

Personally, I like it. I can see see Kevin Smith in Ares. I can see Paris Jefferson as Athena. I can see Bruce Campbell as Autolycus and so on and so forth. I'm not looking for an exact carbon copy here, nor are most other people.


ABOVE ALL, as with any movie that may come about, the comics are greared toward people who never heard of Xena or only have a passing memory of the character and TV show. They aren't made for us fans.

Have fun and enjoy the comics!!