Dancing Mattress Productions: 4/1/11

30 April 2011

Mental Nomad Podcast 171: Elves and Kobolds and Ladies, Oh My!

Today's episode has absolutely no relation to Dungeons & Dragons, despite the episode title. It DOES, however, feature some fairly notable individuals (either as performers or producers), as detailed below.

Here's what you'll hear today (right-click to download MP3 or to stream it in a new tab or window):

Matthew Dear: "Slowdance"
Cassandra Kubinski: "Hiding Underneath"
Tracy Nelson: "Victim of the Blues"
The Perfects: "Girls Who Dance"
Club D'Elf: "Getting Squinty"
Club D'Elf: "Taint Too"
Club D'Elf: "Rope on Fire"
Club D'Elf: "Sunshine of Your Love"
Cassandra Kubinski: "Act 2"
Sheri Miller: "Winning Hand"
The Kobolds: "Buckle Up"
The Kobolds: "The Grind"
Matthew Dear: "Slowdance (How to Dress Well Séance)"
Sheri Miller: "Everybody Feels This Way Sometimes"

(Total play time: 58:20)

Matthew Dear and Tracy Nelson appear courtesy of the IODA Promonet, and their songs may be downloaded for free below as long as their promotions last; I'll also include links to buy those and all the other albums represented as available. Club D'Elf appears courtesy of Rock Paper Scissors. Sheri Miller and The Kobolds come courtesy of Ariel Publicity. The track from The Perfects was played by permission, and Cassandra Kubinski's songs come from Music Alley.

The Perfects track was produced by Nic Hard, who's also worked with The Church and The Bravery. Sheri Miller's new album is produced by Grammy winner Kevin Killen, who's worked with U2 and Peter Gabriel. And Club D'Elf -- from whom you might hear more in the May episode -- is a collective of American and African musicians, with appearances by DJ Logic, former David Bowie and Tin Machine guitarist Reeves Gabrels (heard here on "Getting Squinty") and the late Mark Sandman (of the legendary Boston modern rock group Morphine); Sandman wrote the song "Rope on Fire" and plays his signature two-string bass on "Taint Too."

Matthew Dear
"Slowdance" (mp3)
from "Slowdance EP"
(Ghostly International)

Buy at Amazon MP3

27 April 2011

Celebrity crush: Sara Ramirez (revised)

Here's a revised entry featuring a Grey's Anatomy star who also has some Monty Python cred. Amazon and iTunes links follow. Any affiliate payments earned from your purchase or rental will help pay the hosting fees for my podcasts, so please consider clicking.

Name: Sara Ramirez (images | Web site | Internet Broadway Database | Twitter)
Hometown: Sara was born in the Pacific coastal city of Mazatlán, Mexico, according to her Wikipedia profile. She has some Irish-American ancestry as well. She moved with her mother to San Diego at age 8 and graduated from an arts magnet high school there before attending the Juilliard School.
Best Known For: Sara first appeared on Grey's Anatomy in the second season, in 2006, and she became a regular in the third season. That's where Ye Olde Podcaster first encountered her work, and that's really been where she's done all the work I can find listed since she joined the cast.

As the Lady of the Lake in Spamalot.

But she's been around for a bit longer, winning the 2005 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical for her role as the Lady of the Lake in Monty Python's Spamalot, and she debuted on Broadway in 1998 in Paul Simon's musical The Capeman.
Humble Beginnings: Other pre-Grey's roles include playing a cashier in You've Got Mail, a police officer in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man, a chorus member in Chicago, and she was in the movie Washington Heights.

TV guest turns included one episode each of Spin City, Third Watch, Welcome to New York, As the World Turns and NYPD Blue. She appeared twice on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, playing different characters a couple of years apart.

She was in a couple of unsold TV pilots: Star Patrol was a Fox science fiction pitch that would have co-starred fellow celebrity crush Paget Brewster, and Baseball Wives was pitched for HBO co-starring the terrific character actress Amy Ryan.

But it was the Monty Python musical, Ramirez told Oprah during a TV special, that caught ABC's eye and led them to tell her they'd find a guest role for her on anything they produced. She was a fan of Grey's Anatomy, and the rest is McHistory.

Obligatory Edgy Stuff: Other than her first same-sex relationship on Grey's Anatomy being handled horribly, and I'm not sure whose fault that was except that it almost certainly wasn't hers, I got nothing. Well, she was in The Vagina Monologues. So, presumably, she's talked about the existence of sex in a public forum, the shameless hussy.
Why Ye Olde Podcaster Likes Her: Ramirez is one of the more solid actors on Grey's Anatomy, even if she has sometimes received some pretty thankless storylines. And it's so good to see an actress who's resisted the pressures to be stick-thin. Curves rock.
Voice work: Where Ocean Meets Sky (2003 documentary) (Amazon | iTunes) * PaRappa the Rapper 2 (2001 video game) (Amazon) * UmJammer Lammy (Amazon)

With her second (somewhat better-fated) Grey's
female romantic interest, Jessica Capshaw.

TV and Web series credits: Grey's Anatomy, season 7 (Amazon | iTunes) * Grey's Anatomy, season 6 (Amazon | iTunes) * Grey's Anatomy, season 5 (Amazon | iTunes) * Grey's Anatomy, season 4 (Amazon | iTunes) * Grey's Anatomy, season 3 (Amazon | iTunes) * Grey's Anatomy, season 2 (Amazon | iTunes) * NYPD Blue, season 11: "Who's Your Daddy?" (Amazon | iTunes) * Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, season 4: "Chameleon" (Amazon | iTunes) * Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, season 2: "Baby Killer" (Amazon | iTunes) * Welcome to New York: "The Crier" (Amazon | iTunes) * Third Watch, season 2: "The Tys That Bind" (Amazon | iTunes) * Spin City, season 4: "About Last Night" (Amazon | iTunes)

Musical work (listed alphabetically): Broadway Gold (2007) (Amazon | iTunes) * The Capeman (Original Broadway Cast Recording) (Amazon | iTunes) * Chicago: Music from the Miramax Motion Picture (Amazon | iTunes) * Cric? Crac! A Magical Musical Fable (Soundtrack) (Amazon | iTunes) * Great Joy: A Gospel Christmas (2003) (Amazon | iTunes) * Monty Python's Spamalot (Original Broadway Cast Recording) (Amazon | iTunes) * "Silent Night" (2009 single) (Amazon | iTunes) * The Stephen Schwartz Album (Amazon | iTunes) * This Ordinary Thursday: The Songs of Georgia Stitt (Amazon | iTunes)
Film and TV-movie credits: Naked Hotel (2003 TV-movie) (Amazon | iTunes) * Chicago (2002) (Amazon | iTunes) * Washington Heights (Amazon | iTunes) * Spider-Man (2002) (Amazon | iTunes) * You've Got Mail (Amazon | iTunes)

25 April 2011

Celebrity crush: Margo Stilley

No two ways around it, this one features the edgiest content of any celebrity profile on this blog to date. Amazon and iTunes links -- though her body of work is still fairly small -- follow. Any affiliate payments earned from your purchase or rental will help pay the hosting fees for my podcasts, so please consider clicking.

Name: Margo Stilley (images -- mildly NSFW, and that's even WITH a content filter | official site | Twitter)
Hometown: Raised in Myrtle Beach, S.C., but the 5-foot-10-inch Margo left to do modeling in Milan, Italy, as a teenager and eventually settled in London, according to her Wikipedia entry.
Obligatory Edgy Stuff: I list this category before "Best Known For" because in Margo's case, her major claim to fame -- her first screen credit -- is Michael Winterbottom's 9 Songs, probably the most sexually explicit mainstream film to date.

Not a porn movie, the film features Stilley as an American woman (Lisa) in a relationship with a British scientist (Matt, portrayed by actor Kieran O'Brien, who played Robbie Coltrane's son in the Cracker mysteries). Over the course of the film -- Matt's memories of the relationship -- they attend nine different concerts, and we see one song from each, with sex scenes in between the concert scenes that reflect the emotional state of the relationship.

The sexual scenes were explicit enough that Stilley initially asked Winterbottom to refer to her in interviews only by her character's name, saying that was to preserve the artistic integrity of the work. But she may also have wondered if she'd ever work again after the film.

Best Known For: Subsequent works have been more tame. She's appeared in the film How to Lose Friends and Alienate People and Steve Coogan's TV series The Trip (working again with Winterbottom). She's also appeared in the soccer film Goal! III and a Marple TV mystery, among other projects.
Humble Beginnings: This category's pretty much not applicable in this one specific case.
Why Ye Olde Podcaster Likes Her: Anyone could have been physically naked as she was in 9 Songs -- adult film actresses do it every day and don't make this list. No, she earns her way here through the emotionally naked performance she gave in that movie, plus the bit parts I've seen here and there.

TV and Web series credits: The Trip, series 1 (Amazon | iTunes) * Marple: Murder Is Easy (Amazon | iTunes) * The Gil Mayo Mysteries: "Pilot" (Amazon | iTunes) * Nathan Barley: "Pilot" (Amazon | iTunes)
Film and TV-movie credits: The Trip (edited from the TV series) (Amazon | iTunes) * Hippie Hippie Shake (Amazon | iTunes) * 14 Days With Victor (Amazon | iTunes) * Goal! III (Amazon | iTunes) * My Horizon (Amazon | iTunes) * How to Lose Friends and Alienate People (Amazon | iTunes) * Reverb (Amazon | iTunes) * 9 Songs (Amazon | iTunes)

22 April 2011

Celebrity crush: Cassidy Freeman

As with fellow celebrity crush Allison Mack, the subject of today's profile plays a Smallville character without an analogue in the DC Comics pages (though Mack's Chloe Sullivan has finally, in the last year or so, entered the comics proper). Amazon and iTunes links follow. Any affiliate payments earned from your purchase or rental will help pay the hosting fees for my podcasts, so please consider clicking.

Name: Cassidy Freeman (images | Web site | Twitter)
Hometown: Chicago, according to her Wikipedia profile.
Best Known For: Cassidy's primary screen credit has been Tess Mercer on Smallville, introduced in the eighth season as CEO of LexCorp after the disappearance of Lex Luthor (and the departure of Michael Rosenbaum from the series). This role has led to more than a few tense scenes up against fellow crushes Allison Mack and Erica Durance (the latter playing Lois Lane), which has been fun to watch.

Other credits include an episode each of CSI and Cold Case, plus numerous short films listed below.

The most valuable player in the season 10 Smallville
episode "Kent" was Cassidy's purple dress of
va-va-voom (trademark pending).

With Smallville wrapping up its run in the next few weeks, Cassidy has a part in the A&E pilot Longmire alongside Battlestar Galactica veteran and fellow celebrity crush Katee Sackhoff.
Humble Beginnings: Cassidy and her brothers -- one a voice actor whose credits include the Young Justice cartoon (also DC Comics-related), the other a musician -- were raised by rancher parents. She attended The Latin School of Chicago for high school and graduated magna cum laude from Middlebury College, Wikipedia notes.


From left: Cassidy, Allison Mack, and Erica Durance. Smallville is Kansas' sexiest city.

Other than a handful of shorts and made-for-TV movies and the guest turns mentioned above, Smallville's Tess Mercer was her breakout role.
Why Ye Olde Podcaster Likes Her: And she's really made that role shine. Tess Mercer -- the name a wink and nod to Lex Luthor's moll Eve Teschmacher in Superman: The Movie -- started out as an ill-conceived half-idea of a character throughout season 8 but really started to take on a life of her own in season 9 and has proven to be an indispensable player in the final season. Allison Mack's departure for most of season 10 demanded it, but she has more than risen to the occasion and offered a solid character of her own, not just playing stand-in.

I'll avoid spoilers about the character's back story for those who haven't watched the series. Suffice it to say that in addition to seeing her occasionally getting violent with some of her female co-stars, Tess Mercer's story arc has required Cassidy to cram as almost as much character growth and range into three seasons as Allison Mack did in nine full seasons and a lesser role in the final year: From seductress to warrior, a survivor straddling a line between family of blood and family of choice, between the angel on one shoulder and the demon on the other.

TV and Web series credits: Longmire, season 1 (hopefully) (Amazon | iTunes) * Smallville, season 10 (Amazon | iTunes) * Smallville, season 9 (Amazon | iTunes) * CSI, season 10: "Coup de Grace" (Amazon | iTunes) * Smallville, season 8 (Amazon | iTunes) * Cold Case, season 6: "True Calling" (Amazon | iTunes)
Film and TV-movie credits: YellowBrickRoad (2010) (Amazon | iTunes) * Shades of Gray (2009 short) (Amazon | iTunes) * You've Reached Richarde & Gribbeen (2009 short) (Amazon | iTunes) * Starlet (2008 short) (Amazon | iTunes) * An Accidental Christmas (2007 TV-movie) (Amazon | iTunes) * Finishing the Game: The Search for a New Bruce Lee (2007) (Amazon | iTunes) * Clock (2006 short) (Amazon | iTunes) * Razor Sharp (2006 short) (Amazon | iTunes)

20 April 2011

Celebrity crush: Peyton List

Here's another actress who was previously featured in a multi-celebrity post. Amazon and iTunes links follow. Any affiliate payments earned from your purchase or rental will help pay the hosting fees for my podcasts, so please consider clicking.

Name: Peyton List (images | Web site | Twitter)
Hometown: Baltimore, Md., according to her Wikipedia entry.
Best Known For: A former child actress and model, List co-starred on the short-lived ABC science fiction drama FlashForward and has shown up twice on Smallville as Lois Lane's troublesome younger sister, Lucy. (Lois, of course, is played by fellow crush Erica Durance.)

With slightly more gravitas, she's recurred on AMC's 1960s drama Mad Men as a secretary-turned-trophy wife of an ad executive played by the mighty John Slattery.

She's not, it should be noted, the actress seen in 27 Dresses or Cashmere Mafia.

Humble Beginnings: Teenage work included As the World Turns and a couple of episodes of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit all before she turned 18. I usually just list credits done in adulthood (with an exception for voice work), so those aren't below.

Other credits include the short-lived Big Shots, Windfall, Moonlight, and Day Break, plus the film The Greatest Game Ever Played and single appearances on Monk, Ghost Whisperer and each of the three CSI series (including a crossover between the New York and Miami branches that featured fellow celebrity crush Kat Dennings as her sister). She's also appeared this season in the Hawaii Five-O reboot.

Why Ye Olde Podcaster Likes Her: Have you SEEN this woman? OK, she's a little thin for my tastes, but as eye candy ... I think that FlashForward would have done much better in the ratings if they'd found a way to keep her half-dressed as she was in the pilot. Sexist but true.

With Michael Ironside on Smallville. Of COURSE
a girl that hot would have a terrifying dad.

That said, I've enjoyed watching her characters take on a little more depth on both that series -- which really deserved more than one season -- and Mad Men, and it was good to see her reappear as Lucy Lane while Smallville winds down.
Film and TV-movie credits: Deep Winter (Amazon | iTunes) * Shuttle (Amazon | iTunes) * The Greatest Game Ever Played (Amazon | iTunes)

Goddamn.

TV and Web series credits: Hawaii Five-O (2010), season 1: "Palekaiko" (Amazon | iTunes) * Smallville, season 10: "Ambush" (Amazon | iTunes) * Mad Men, season 4 (Amazon | iTunes) * FlashForward (Amazon | iTunes) * Mad Men, season 3 (Amazon | iTunes) * Monk, season 7: "Mr. Monk and the Magician" (Amazon | iTunes) * CSI, season 9: "Leave Out All the Rest" (Amazon | iTunes) * Ghost Whisperer, season 4: "Save Our Souls" (Amazon | iTunes) * Mad Men, season 2 (Amazon | iTunes) * Moonlight: "Click" (Amazon | iTunes) * Big Shots (Amazon | iTunes) * Day Break (Amazon | iTunes) * Windfall (Amazon | iTunes) * One Tree Hill, season 3: "All Tomorrow's Parties" (Amazon | iTunes) * CSI: New York, season 2: "Manhattan Manhunt" (part two of crossover with CSI: Miami) (Amazon | iTunes) * CSI: Miami, season 4: "Felony Flight" (part one of crossover with CSI: New York) (Amazon | iTunes) * Without a Trace, season 4: "From the Ashes" (Amazon | iTunes) * Just Legal: "Pilot" (Amazon | iTunes) * Smallville, season 4: "Lucy" (Amazon | iTunes)

18 April 2011

Celebrity crush: Christine Woods

Today's entry features an actress who did drama quite well on FlashForward and more recently co-starred alongside fellow celebrity crush Olivia Munn on the sitcom Perfect Couples. Amazon and iTunes links follow. Any affiliate payments earned from your purchase or rental will help pay the hosting fees for my podcasts, so please consider clicking.

Name: Christine Woods (images | Facebook page | Twitter)
Hometown: The Orange County community of Lake Forest, Calif., according to her Wikipedia profile. She studied musical theatre at the University of Arizona.
Best Known For: FlashForward and Perfect Couples are her longest-term roles to date. In the former, she played a lesbian FBI agent who had foreseen herself being pregnant on a date in the not-too-distant future; as the show went along, we also learned she was a double agent.

Locking lips with fellow celebrity crush
Navi Rawat on FlashForward. Ain't nuthin' wrong with that.

Her role on Perfect Couples saw her has half of the show's most well-adjusted couple; the show didn't do well in the ratings and went off with at least one, maybe two episodes unaired, though its replacement The Paul Reiser Show sounds as if it was dead on arrival, so who knows, the remaining episodes may eventually be aired. (Co-star Munn has described her character, in contrast, as part of a couple who "represent everything that's wrong in America," complete with self-help books and affirmations.)

Looking a little like fellow crush
Sabrina Lloyd with the short 'do.

Humble Beginnings: Other roles include a small handful of film and TV-movie roles, a couple of appearances on the sitcom The Game, playing a waitress in an episode of How I Met Your Mother that guest-starred fellow celebrity crush Danica McKellar, and guest spots on the dramas House, CSI: Miami, NCIS, Cold Case, In Plain Sight, and Burn Notice.
All Not-Blonde FBI Agents Apparently Look Alike Dept.: Christine's IMDB site contains -- at this writing -- an apparent error, listing among her credits an appearance on the No Ordinary Family episode "No Ordinary Friends," playing the wife of Ricky Schroder's character. Thing is, that part was played by fellow celebrity crush Annie Wersching -- who played an FBI agent on 24 in its final two seasons, including season 7, when Schroder was in the cast.

I say "an apparent error" because, I suppose, there's some chance that Woods was a stunt double for Wersching or something -- I know that Wersching had a baby fairly recently, so who knows. But it's not credited as such; the episode's IMDB entry just lists both actresses as playing the same part. Oops.
Why Ye Olde Podcaster Likes Her: It may be a tad premature to list an actress here based on solely one role, but I was willing to take that gamble when I pre-wrote this. Her work as Janis Hawk on FlashForward was a case study in how a seemingly minor, background, character can slowly rise to the top of a storyline and how an unknown actress can end up shining as brightly as the big previously-known-quantity stars in the cast. She kept me guessing on her loyalties and captured a mix of fear, determination, and maternal dedication in her time there, and I look forward to seeing what she does next.

From left, Perfect Couples ladies
Mary Elizabeth Ellis, Olivia
Munn, and Christine Woods.

Actually, now that I look at her credits, I remember her being very good in her In Plain Sight guest appearance, as well. And Perfect Couples was far from perfect, but she and Munn both did their best with the material they were given.
Film and TV-movie credits: Sveener and the Shmiel (Amazon | iTunes) * Mike Birbiglia: What I Should Have Said Was Nothing - Tales from My Secret Public Journal (Amazon | iTunes) * The Madness of Jane (Amazon | iTunes) * The Haunting of Marsten Manor (Amazon | iTunes)
TV and Web series credits: Perfect Couples, season 1 (Amazon | iTunes) * FlashForward (Amazon | iTunes) * In Plain Sight, season 2: "One Night Stan" (Amazon | iTunes) * NCIS, season 6: "Love and War" (Amazon | iTunes) * Cold Case, season 6: "Street Money" (Amazon | iTunes) * House, season 5: "Dying Changes Everything" (Amazon | iTunes) * Welcome to the Captain (Amazon | iTunes) * How I Met Your Mother, season 3: "Third Wheel" (Amazon | iTunes) * The Game, season 1 (Amazon | iTunes) * CSI: Miami, season 4: "Prey" (Amazon | iTunes)

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