BlackBook

“They drink, they fight, they fornicate,” we are told about 15 seconds into the trailer for Liz & Dick, Lifetime’s much-hyped glittering mess of an Elizabeth Taylor biopic. And we will probably be headed towards a national conversation about how Lindsay Lohan's portrayal of Elizabeth Taylor mirrors her personal life and struggles and that thing where she called out Amanda Bynes and then hit someone with her car, and parts of it will probably be problematic and send various factions of the Internet into Parent Trap and/or Mean Girls nostalgia k-holes. But we'll get to that later—for now, this movie is a thing and it is almost here and if nothing else it will make for an entertaining evening. 

Recovering high school theatre geeks are aflutter once again with the release this week of a Regal Cinemas interview featuring more footage from Tom Hooper's upcoming adaptation of Les Misérables. Hooper and the cast seem particularly excited about the fact that they're doin' it live—unlike traditional movie musicals, which rely on a prerecorded soundtrack and lip-synching, the actors sing with a piano piped into an earpiece, allowing for them to dictate the pace and delivery along with their acting and character development and what-have-you. Basically, it'll be like a stage musical except with more familiar names and you have to sit through half an hour of advertisements before. 

A flurry of fuzzy guitars, catchy choruses and luminous, high-ceiling vocals made Dum Dum Girls’ Only In Dreams one of the most irresistible albums of 2011, and now, they’ve followed it up with some new stuff for you on a similarly dreamy EP. End of Daze features five songs, including a lovely new-ish single, “Lord Knows" and closer "Season In Hell," which feels a bit #RememberThe80s but in the best way possible. (Speaking of #RememberThe80s, the EP also features a cover of Scottish new wave group Strawberry Switchblade's 1983 single, "Trees and Flowers.") 

As if this election hadn’t already reached critical mass of ridiculousness, it’s about to get 100% shoutier. In a last-ditch attempt for anything remotely resembling elevated or even bearable political discourse before the 2012 election, longtime punditry peers and “frenemies” Bill O’Reilly and Jon Stewart will spar on the issues affecting the country during election-time. Under the tagline “It’s Why Al Gore Invented the Internet,” the Daily Show satirist-turned-voice-of-frustration and Fox News’ resident rage-face will do it live for IRL and web audiences, and if the respected pundit faces of blue and red states respectively can get together and shout over each other, so can the rest of us, right? 

Generally, the rule of thumb with your really great idea for a mashup is “just because you can doesn’t mean you should.” This is especially true with source material choices that were clearly made just to see if it would work (e.g. Ke$ha with The Beatles)—it usually doesn’t (although that Ke$ha/Beatles mashup is actually sort of okay).

H&M's new spot combines two figures that have been all over the Internet for the past couple of weeks — Lana Del Rey, who was named British GQ's Woman of the Year (and posed nude on the cover, sparking some rather heated reactions about objectification, the double standard of how male and female entertainers are presented and other things that it's pretty unbelievable that we still have to talk about them in 2012), and filmmaker David Lynch, who appeared on Louie as a talk show host and made film and television nerds everywhere explode with joy in 140-character spurts.

Everyone’s favorite erotic Tumblr slash-fic inspiration—er, show about show choir—returns to FOX tonight. After a season full of after-school-special moments about the dangers of texting while driving; a weird, offensive episode about the importance of not being racist; a character’s suicide attempt being reduced to a subplot and a pair of sweet, redemptive moments in the form of an Adele mash-up and an actually nuanced and well-done and maybe sort of realistic? episode about losing your virginity and West Side Story, Season Four will begin with a lot of unanswered questions and two different timelines, one in Ohio and one in New York.

You may still be devising ways to corrupt Tim Tebow in his inaugural season with the Jets, people of New York, and FX’s semi-improvised bro-tacular comedy The League and its cast of funny people (Mark Duplass! Katie Aselton! Nick Kroll!) is coming back to give you some ideas. The first teasers for the show’s fourth season, following a rather dramatic ending last year involving Ruxin (Kroll) escaping the hospital post-stroke and Taco (Jon Lajoie) trying to hold a Viking funeral for the league, dropped this week. Terrell Suggs of the Baltimore Ravens guest stars in the promo spots, which all spoof Brett Favre’s Wrangler “Comfortable” ads. 

Are you as tired of hackneyed, stereotype-laden portrayals of gay people on television and in movies as we are? Of course you are, dear reader, because you are an informed consumer who deserves better and knows we all deserve better. Thankfully, the Queer Lisboa Film Festival, now in its sixteenth year, not only thinks and knows we deserve better, but also showcases the films and filmmakers that are doing better and pokes fun at the most tired and ridiculous tropes in this year’s awesome promo video.

Season Three of Downton Abbey (now with 100% more Shirley MacLaine!) won’t hit American shores until January of 2013, which is a very long time to wait. But for the fans who need to start planning their premiere night dinner parties immediately and want to channel their inner Mrs. Patmore in time, there’s the Unofficial Downton Abbey Cookbook.