Dorothy Snarker's blog

At our darkest hour. When we feared all hope was lost. As we cursed the gods of fate with our bitter, angry tears. Just at that bleakest moment comes hope for the hopeless: Bitch Slap has a release date.

That’s right, bitches, the all ass-kicking, all stuff blowing-up, all girl-on-girl kissing, all cleavage-baring extravaganza that is Bitch Slap is coming to select U.S. cities in limited release Jan. 8. To celebrate this momentous occasion, the producers have released a new glossy high-definition trailer to further whet our appetites.

Warning: Drool bibs not included. (Hi-def trailer available here; red-band trailer — complete with lesbian groping — available here.)

Have yourself a merry little Bealsmas. Make the Yuletide gay — or at the very least gayish. Jennifer Beals is getting her holiday on in a new Hallmark movie The Night Before the Night Before Christmas. Bette Porter going merry and bright for the Hallmark Movie Channel? I’m going to need a minute to readjust my understanding of the world.

Jennifer, who has a recurring role on the Fox drama Lie to Me, will appear in the holiday comedy about “a family that's too busy to get ready for the holidays until Santa Claus mistakenly leaves the North Pole a day early and crash lands on their roof, and it's suddenly up to the family to help save Christmas.” Oh, oh my. I can honestly say I have never looked at Jennifer and thought, look at Santa’s little helper — ever.

So Tina Fey and Steve Carell did a nice little romantic comedy — or so we thought. Just your average couple goes out for a night on the town then hilarity ensues story — or so we though. And in the end love wins out because that’s how these movies always end — or so we thought.

But instead, the trailer for the duo’s new movie Date Night is less When Harry Met Sally and more When Harry Met Sally and Accidentally Landed in a Jackie Chan/Chris Tucker Movie. But don’t take my word for it. Press play and tell me I’m lying.

So, yeah, there’s a lot happening there I didn’t expect. Let’s break them down one by one.

You know when you have one of those rare celestial events when two heavenly bodies align just so and we mere mortals are forced to crane our necks to witness to a once-in-a-lifetime spectacular astronomical event? Yeah, it’s like that. Beyoncé and Lady Gaga tag-team the universe in the new video for “Video Phone.”

The result is, well, come on — we’re talking Beyoncé and Lady Gaga here — it’s awesome. Duh.

Reservoir Dogs allusions! Zoro masks! Matching white bustiers! Synchronized dancing! Bettie Page wigs! Candy-colored assault rifles! So. Much. Fierce. I think I need to go lie down.

Dear Out magazine,

Hi again. Remember us? Yeah, it’s gay women. We’re back to talk about your Out 100 list. Now I know we had a bit of a spat when you kissed a girl and I didn’t like it on last year’s cover. But we’re going to ix-nay the aty-Kay erry-Pay talk for now. After all, a year has passed and I believe in second chances. So, let’s look at this year’s cover.

Well look at that, two ladies — and one is a real, live lesbian. Gosh, I feel all warm and tingly. Still this year’s cover featuring Adam Lambert, Wanda Sykes, Lt. Dan Choi, Cyndi Lauper and Rob Marshall is a much improved representation of gender, ethnicity, age and accomplishments. Also, anything that brings more Wanda into my life is a good thing (her current talk show temporarily excluded — um, work on that, girl).

Hello, Angels. Hello, Television. Yep, Charlie’s Angels might be coming back to a TV screen near you. Now, I know there was talk earlier this year about a fourth film in the franchise, but this is a full-on series reboot. Um, OK, but will you please promise to make their hair as bouncy as the originals?

According to Variety, ABC is close to ordering a pilot for an update of the popular '70s series. Helming the new Angels would be a man who already knows a thing or two about remakes: Josh Friedman. The Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles creator is set to write and executive produce the new Angels.

Now, that series was hit and miss. It featured an excellent cast (Lena Headey! Summer Glau!) and interesting storyline, but failed to attract a broad audience and was cancelled after two seasons. Also, Friedman’s background (writing The Black Dahlia, War of the Worlds and Chain Reaction) is heavy on the drama, light on the camp.

And then there were six. I’ve come to the sad realization that there are so few people I want to root for left this season that I might end up rooting for the lesser of however many evils. Speaking of evils, two of the most sinfully delicious ladies to hold a spatula are in bed. Fine, not together, but in my mind these beds are pushed together and the rest, well, this is an all-ages site.

The delicious Padma Lakshmi and the delightful Nigella Lawson are in their robes and ordering room service from our intrepid cheftestants at the Venetian Hotel. The Quickfire Challenge is to make Padma and her “dear friend” Nigella breakfast in bed. That’s not a challenge, that’s a fantasy sequence. Padma rings them up to let them know they have 30 minutes to whip up something delectable and serve it, room service style, to the ladies in waiting.

Up first is Robin, who makes blintzes. She wheels them up to Padma and Nigella (I will never get tired of typing those names together, ever). Nigella takes a signature enormous bite. Have I mentioned that I love her?

If you lived through the late '80s, it’s hard not to have a soft spot for Winona Ryder. Little Noni with her pixie haircut and her big eyes, her pale skin and her goth before goth was even a thing sensibilities. Ten years have passed since her last big splash in the movies with Girl, Interrupted. Since then she has still worked steadily, though often in smaller roles and less high-profile pieces. And she has kept largely to herself and often shunned the spotlight.

So it was great to read her take on her own life now in the new BlackBook interview to promote her upcoming film The Private Lives of Pippa Lee. For a person who doesn’t give interviews all that often, she sure gives great copy.

On why her career has slowed:

Whatever you do, don’t call Kate Winslet a liar. Yesterday the Oscar winner won a lawsuit in British courts against the Daily Mail, which claimed she had lied about her workout regime, or lack thereof.

The lawsuit came after the Daily Mail published an article earlier this year titled “Should Kate Winslet win an Oscar for the World’s most irritating actress?” The story featured shots of her naked in films to dispute an earlier statement she has made about going easy on herself and not working out during award season.

In a statement about the lawsuit Kate said: “I strongly believe that women should be encouraged to accept themselves as they are, so to suggest that I was lying was an unacceptable accusation of hypocrisy.”

Hey, do you like aliens? What if the aliens are really hot? And what if the really hot aliens are being investigated by the really hot Elizabeth Mitchell? Ah-ha, now I have your full attention.

The new alien-invasion series V premieres at 8 p.m. tonight on ABC, bringing with it critical acclaim and the return of Elizabeth’s arched eyebrows. Consider me sold. Also selling me? The first nine minutes which were released as a preview by ABC.

Talk about your shift change. Law & Order: Criminal Intent is getting an overhaul and then some as its adds bisexual actress Saffron Burrows and Oscar-nominated actress Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio to its upcoming ninth season.

The new cast members come in the wake of the departure of four series regulars: original stars Vincent D’Onofrio and Kathryn Erbe along with Eric Bogosian and Julianne Nicholson. Jeff Goldblum will be the only remaining principal cast member.

Nicholson’s Det. Megan Wheeler is being replaced by Burrows, who will be Goldblum’s new partner. Mastrantonio, meanwhile, will become the first female captain for the Major Case Squad, taking over for Bogosian.

Christmas is coming early for Bones fans — both literally and figuratively. The rumored Deschanel sister pairing is actually happening, in fact it has already been filmed for the show’s Christmas episode to air Dec. 10. This will mark the first time Emily and Zooey Deschanel will appear on screen together.

Zooey will appear as Margaret Whitesell, a distant relative to big sister Emily’s Dr. Temperance Brennan. According to Zap2It, Brennan’s father (Ryan O'Neal) invited Margaret to spend Christmas with him and Brennan in an episode titled “The Goop on the Girl.” In the episode, Booth and Brennan investigate the explosive death of a man in a Santa suit during a bank robbery. I hope for Zooey’s sake she isn’t the girl with said goop, because — you know — ewww.

Last week, series creator Hart Hanson tweeted about Zooey’s appearance saying: “The Deschanel sisters working it together! We may have hit our quotient for fun and amusing. They obviously adore each other.”

Please be forewarned, this recap will include in no specific order: Padma Lakshmi, Natalie Portman and an inordinate amount of dick jokes. So, now that that’s out of the way, who wants to meet a movie star?

The chefs are at the house sharpening their knives — quite literally in Mike V’s case. Jen is beating herself up and Robin is just lucky to still be there. So off to the Top Chef kitchen they go to find Padma with guest judge Paul Bartolotta, an award-winning Italian chef. Padma is wearing yet another jumpsuit. Is she trying to single-handedly bring them back? Let me be the first to say, honey, no.

The TV Guide Quickfire Challenge (look, people, these products won’t place themselves) is for the chefs to each create a TV dinner inspired by a classic show. They draw knives to find out what must-see-TV they’re cooking about. They pull: Kevin, The Sopranos; Eli, Gilligan’s Island; Jen, The Flintstones; Robin, Sesame Street; Mike V, Cheers; Bryan, MASH and Mike I, Seinfeld.

Well, ladies, it’s our fearless leader Sarah Warn's last official day at the helm of AfterEllen.com, the big, boisterous boat she built to shepherd lesbian and bisexual women through the often murky media waters. (Don’t fret too much though, she’ll still be hanging around writing her column and dropping by to say hi.) For seven and a half years Sarah has guided the coverage of every lesbian kiss sweeps stunt, every pregnant lesbian plot point and sundry other stories that mattered to queer women.

The community she helped to create is rich, diverse and — for many of us — an essential part of our everyday routine. So to help send her on her way, and possibly serenade her to some much-needed sleep, how about we share some of our favorite fond farewell scenes and songs.

I’ll start us off. Today, I’m climbing on my virtual desk to doff my cap to the lady who hired me two and a half years ago. Thanks, Sarah.

Listen up ladies — Lilith is back. The popular all-female music festival of the 90s is coming back in 2010. Thirteen years after Sarah McLachlan and her singing sisters first showed the world that women could roar and fill arenas, her Lilith Faith returns to remind us all over again.

The announcement was launched along with the festival’s new website, www.lilithfair.com. So far no artists have been confirmed, but the site includes links to Sarah’s Twitter feed and a free download to one of her songs, so we can only assume she’ll be part of the show.

The page does reveal the first set of cities (though no exact dates) that the festival will hit. They are: Atlanta, Boston, Calgary, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Montreal, New York, Philadelphia, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Toronto, Vancouver, Washington, D.C. and for you European ladies London.

If you’ve been waiting anxiously to catch your first glimpse of repression, lust and Eva Green in an all-girls boarding school drama Cracks, wait no more. The first poster and trailer for the new film were released this week. While it looks gorgeous, the tagline certainly raises an eyebrow: “Innocence isn’t lost. It’s taken.” Uh-oh.

Eva stars as the popular, enigmatic Miss G, a teacher and diving coach at an elite English boarding school during the summer of 1934 who is adored by her students. Previous reports about the film has raised hopes a lesbian relationship, but the trailer suggests something more sinister.

We all already know that Keira Knightley is a fair lady, but now she is the Fair Lady. The 24-year-old English actress has landed the role of Eliza Doolittle in the new remake of the Academy Award-winning 1964 musical, My Fair Lady.

The original film, based on the Broadways smash, starred Audrey Hepburn as Cockney flower girl Eliza and Rex Harrison as the prickly, precise professor Henry Higgins. Keira reportedly beat out Scarlett Johansson for the iconic role. Other than Natalie Portman, it’s hard to think of another young actress who could possibly attempt to take Audrey’s place.

And this news just keeps getting better. The script is being written by — get this — Oscar-winner Emma Thompson. Yes, that Emma Thompson. Directing will be Joe Wright, who grew accustomed to Keira’s face when he directed her in 2005 adaptation of Pride & Prejudice. And James Bond himself, Daniel Craig, is being considered for the role of Professor Higgins. Wow, that’s some lineup.

Out handball champions Gro Hammerseng is appearing in new ads for Inex watches. The Norwegian Olympic champion, and partner to teammate Katja Nyberg, models the timepieces in a series of ads for the watch company. (Hat tip, Astrid!)

The pairing makes sense, since handball is all about timing, precision and accuracy. Also, who wouldn’t want to buy a watch from this lady?

It also got me thinking about other out women who use their star power to sell stuff. Ellen DeGeneres is easy, breezy for Cover Girl. Martina Navratilova famously drives a Lesbaru Subaru. And we all know how much Leisha Hailey loves yogurt.

In case you haven’t noticed, the world has come down with a severe case of Glee. They’re on the cover of Entertainment Weekly. They’ve snagged Joss Whedon to direct an episode. Sue Sylvester even picked a Twitter fight with Chuck Norris. (She kicked his bearded butt, naturally.)

Now, even Madonna is a Gleek.

The Material Girl has granted the freshman phenomena the rights to her entire musical catalogue. An all-Madonna musical episode is in the works for early next year. As if the show could get any gayer.

Yes, this season has been somewhat lackluster. Yes, the cheftestants’ personalities range from bland to that’ll do, pig. Yes, all of Team Rainbow has already been summarily dismissed. But Jennifer just walked by in a bikini so for the time being all is forgiven.

Also, it’s Restaurant Wars week, bitches! But first, we have to make it through the Quickfire Challenge. Sustainable foods specialist Rick Moonen is the guest judge and for a change the producers’ cockamamie challenge ideas actually works.

Padma explains that the chefs will split into teams of four to tag team cook a meal in 40 minutes. The catch? Each chef will cook a 10-minute segment of the meal. The even bigger catch? They can’t talk to each other and the waiting chefs will be blindfolded until it is their turn. Kevin call it “the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard of, ever.” I agree. And then as I watch it unfold I change my assessment to “ridiculously genius.”

Well, crap. After reassuring fans that it would air all 13 second season episodes, Fox has decided to bench Dollhouse for all of November during the all-important sweeps month. The Eliza Dushku/Joss Whedon collaboration will then return with back-to-back episodes Fridays in December.

That’s quite a body blow to the series. Baring a ratings miracle, this means for all intents and purposes that the series will end for good after that 13th episode. Pulling the show for sweeps is a big deal and shows a total lack of confidence in its ability to bring in viewers. It will replace the show with reruns of House and Bones.

The thing that makes this news especially bittersweet is that the series was just getting good — really, really good. Last week’s episode, “Belle Chose,” was the best of the second season. And judging by early reviews, this Friday’s installment “Belonging” is even better.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then how much is a picture by Jennifer Beals worth? Is it worth a thousand words plus a sippy cup? The actress released a preview of her new photography book as one of the extras in The L Word Season 6 DVD set.

The final season set came out yesterday and with it came a behind-the-scenes look at the series through Jennifer’s lens. She calls the images a “photographic journal” taken to help her preserve and remember the time she spend on the show, from rehearsals to dinners and photoshoots. She also saved her scripts, call sheets and other moments, some which will also make their way into the book.

Jennifer wrote in a prologue to the preview, “Mostly, I wanted to remember the joy, because no matter where the storylines went, we always managed to have fun.”

Sometimes worlds collide in a bad way. Like when you accidentally send your grandma a particularly naughty text meant for the girl you’ve been flirting with at work. Not that that’s happened to me — nope, not ever. But sometimes worlds collide in a fantastic way, like the news that Dollhouse mastermind Joss Whedon will direct an episode of Glee.

First, let’s get the squealing out of the way. Let it all out. Jump up and down. Break into spontaneous song and choreographed dance moves. You know, whatever your preferred way of celebrating great news.

Now that you’ve stopped hyperventilating, here is the skinny: Joss will “direct one of the back nine episodes that Fox just ordered” when they picked up the freshman series for a full season. This will probably happen sometime after Dollhouse finishes shooting its initial 13-episode order, so it doesn’t mean fans of that show should necessarily freak out.

Just when you thought the fashion industry could not get more out of touch with real human beings comes news that the model Ralph Lauren Photoshopped into a stick figure was fired for being too big. You know, because having a waist larger than your head is just too damn porky to sell overpriced clothes. Here is the fatty McFatterson model Filippa Hamilton herself, less than a year ago.

And here is how Ralph Lauren Photoshopped her into oblivion recently, a move they then apologized for publicly.

But, turns out the 23-year-old model, who has worked for the company since she was 15, was fired in April and her agent told that she “could not fit in the clothes anymore.” At 5’8, 120 pounds I would say most women would have problems fitting into Filippa’s clothes, but because they are too tiny not because she is too huge.

When Oprah tells us to read a book, we run to bookstore. So now when Oprah tells us to watch a movie, will we all now run to the multiplex? The media mogul appears in a new trailer for the film Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire.

The movie, based on the novel Push by bisexual writer Sapphire, has racked up awards and critical acclaim already. But with a newcomer as its star and a its big-name cast in somewhat unglamourous roles, Oprah and fellow executive producer Tyler Perry are putting their considerable muscle behind the marketing push.