lifestyle SUNDAY, JANUARY 12, 2014

‘’s’ Gunn defends show’s record

roject Runway” mentor had to school an their resources and ambitions allow them to.” When pressed Runway.” “Great designers doing what they do and my role audience of journalists about what it meant to be further about whether creative people tend to be horrible mentoring,” the former Parsons fashion professor said. It’s real- “Psuccessful in fashion. At Thursday’s Television Critics business people, the mentor agreed. “I always suggest that ly an extension of who I am. I was in a classroom for 20-some Association press tour, Gunn sat on a panel to discuss his new designers have a business partner,” he suggested. When years.” The series pairs “Runway” alums , Anya fashion design show, “.” But one journalist was pressed further on the show’s record, Gunn answered, “We’re Ayoung-Chee and with their own designers to more interested in asking him about whether the show has inclined to look at Michael Kors and define that as success. But, mentor with Gunn guiding them along the way. — Reuters learned any lessons when it comes to picking winners who a designer may not want to be a global brand. has don’t become successful due to lack of business acumen. done fantastically with stores in Texas and appearing on QVC Gunn pointed out that it’s always a toss-up when the show to help fund her business.” chooses a winner. “You just don’t know,” Gunn said. “I always On “Under the Gunn” (which premieres on Jan 16), Gunn

Tim Gunn Tim say that the ‘Project Runway’ winners can only achieve what said he gets to do more of what he loves from “Project

‘True Detective’- scary monster, scarier men

ou may already be revved up for the dence to let him do what he does. Like a premiere of “True Detective” because of rangy, idiosyncratic novel, the story takes Yit’s A-list cast or strong reviews. But do strange, slow turns, and we don’t realize how yourself a favor and temper your expecta- they pay off unless we’re really engaged. tions, because HBO’s crime anthology wants Though the show was initially set in the to earn your respect. The presence of Ozarks, Pizzolatto agreed to move it to Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harrelson Louisiana, his home state, in part because of and Michelle Monaghan - all excellent, by the the state’s generous tax benefits. It’s hard to way - may make you expect an explosive imagine it anywhere else. No other state has show right from the start. But Nic Pizzolatto’s the same mix of eerie mix of religion, vio- Mark Wahlberg lence, easy sexuality, and mystical menace. It’s a seductive and frightening place, packed with more life and almost anywhere else, and “True Detective” seems to this outsider to get ‘Lone Survivor’ it right. There aren’t any alligators or Mardi commands Gras beads or any of the usual clichÈs - when the detectives stop for lunch, they eat Vietnamese. solid $1.5 m at Box Office McConaughey and Harrelson play detec- tives in 1995, when they’re solving a horrific one Survivor” scored a solid $1.5 million in late night Yet, last year’s “Zero Dark Thirty,” which documented the murder, and in 2012, when they’re being showings yesterday, according to studio estimates. mission to kill Osama Bin Laden, managed $132.8 million questioned about a crime that seems similar. The war drama stars Mark Wahlberg and Emile globally, so its possible that as these recent conflicts wind Both have transformed completely over the “L Hirsch and is riding to its first weekend of wide-release on a down, audiences will have more of an appetite for battle. years, seemingly fulfilling the most disap- wave of strong critical notices for its searing and violent look Universal, which is distributing “Lone Survivor,” pointed out pointing versions of the men they were in at a true story of military heroism. The film screened in 1,811 that the film’s late night haul was more than double that of their younger years. Both were full of secrets theaters in North America on Thursday, and will expand this “Zero Dark Thirty”s’ debut. “Lone Survivor” was adapted and then, and those secrets have spilled out now. weekend to roughly 2,650 US theaters. directed by Peter Berg and is based on the book of the McConaughey’s character has given up on It is expected to be the top grossing film, with as much as same name by Marcus Luttrell and Patrick Robinson. It will trying to impress people, but Harrelson’s, $20 million. Technically, “Lone Survivor” has been in theaters face off against “The Legend of Hercules,” starring Kellan pathetically, has not. Something has hap- Matthew McConaughey since the holidays, but the story of a Navy SEAL mission gone Lutz, and the wide release of Spike Jonze’s telephonic script and Cary Fukunaga’s direction slowly, pened to bust up their fragile partnership. awry in Afghanistan only premiered in a handful of theaters in romance, “Her.”— Reuters methodically earn every big moment. And Maybe it’s Harrelson’s wife, played by New York and Los Angeles in order to qualify for Oscars. It has when those moments arrive in the third Monaghan. She’s the show’s secret weapon, earned an impressive $43,000 per-screen average, but now it episode, they’re legitimately terrifying. So the person who pierces McConaughey’s brit- faces its biggest test. As flops such as “Rendition” and “Stop- slow down to the speed of McConaughey’s tle shell and tries to crack her husband’s. I Loss” demonstrate, Americans have exhibited little interest in drawl. Take out a thick notebook like the one hope she doesn’t die. But I feel like “True seeing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan dramatized on screen. he carries through the show. Pay close atten- Detective” won’t do anything viewers see Even “The Hurt Locker,” which scored an Academy Award for tion, and remember everyone’s name. It will coming, even with the benefit of 17 years’ Best Picture, earned a mediocre $49.2 million. pay off. perspective. We’ve started calling every film This is a very, very unusual show, and with a serial killer a psychological drama, but would be even if it didn’t have three movie “True Detective” really is one. It’s about stars turning to TV while their film careers are whether our lives really matter at all. That’s running hot. Pizzolatto is a novelist who scarier than the scariest monster. But then the served briefly as a staff writer on AMC’s “The show gives us a glimpse at the monster. And ‘Girls’ go wayward in HBO’s Killing.” HBO has given him remarkably free things get scarier still. “True Detective” pre- rein to write every episode of this anthology, mieres at 9/8c Sunday on HBO. — Reuters which will have a new story, cast and setting tale of gender, generation each season. Is Pizzolatto insanely lucky? Does his dad run the network? No - he’s just a he four female 20-somethings from Brooklyn in the executive producer Judd Apatow said, “I don’t think there is very different kind of writer, and HBO HBO series “Girls” are in such a funk in the show’s any reason that any show should feel an obligation to do deserves a lot of credit for having the confi- Tthird season that the weirdly whimsical Adam, of all that.” people, comes across as a pillar of stability and good sense. Dunham was more conciliatory, acknowledging that When the season kicks off today, Hannah, played by “Girls” although the negative attention was uncomfortable, it is creator Lena Dunham, has her OCD under control and a “such an important conversation,” adding that “we are final- semblance of domestic bliss with Adam (Adam Driver), but ly finding room to expand the world” in season three. her self-absorbed ways are maddening. When someone Apatow, the producer and director behind raunchy male- dies suddenly, all her thoughts are about her unfinished e- centric comedies like “The 40-Year-old Virgin” and “Knocked book. Up,” did hint that the lack of diversity may soon be a moot Her three pals are in worse shape. Divorced Jessa point. “You haven’t seen the new season, so we can have (Jemima Kirke) is in rehab and refuses to quit the bad this discussion next year,” he told the critics. — Reuters behavior. Glamorous Marnie (Allison Williams) is obsessing over her ex-boyfriend Charlie and is back living with her mom in New Jersey. Naive Shoshanna (Zosia Mamet) bounces between her studies and sexual freedom after breaking up with Ray, a slacker who is now thriving profes- sionally. If this show is about a generation of young women searching for love and purpose, they look to be failing on almost all fronts, with maybe an exception on the friend- ship front. It’s enough for one critic to ask Dunham as she presented season three to the Television Critics Association this week: “Do you like these characters?” “I love them,” responded Dunham. “I think they accurately reflect people I know, people we have all been. I feel sad that they strug- gle and happy when they triumph.” And the nudity, oh the nudity, continues to rankle some even though Dunham has shown her audience just about every unclothed angle of herself since the first episode. When one critic told Dunham he “didn’t get the purpose of all the nudity on the show, by you particularly,” she shot back that being naked “is a realistic expression of what it is like to be alive.” Dunham, 27, is making no apologies for “Girls” and says she relishes the freedom her women have to act in ugly ways much like men have done for years in Animal Planet wrangles film and television. “I feel so lucky that we are not called to any standard of sort of sweet female decency,” Dunham said. “We get to depict these girls in all their kind of flawed its own ‘Duck Dynasty’ glory.” THE DIVERSITY CHALLENGE nimal Planet teased the premiere of “Alaska Bush After Brown lost his family at the age of 16, he hit the “Girls” does not command the kind of audiences that Family” at the Television Critics Association winter press road, met Ami, and they traveled the country together. But medieval “Game of Thrones” scores at Time Warner Inc’s Atour on Thursday morning, and it looks an awful lot like the two were never satisfied with the cities and towns in the premium cable outlet, but HBO announced on Thursday it A&E’s “Duck Dynasty” - absurdly long beards and all. “Our fami- lower 48. “When Alaska opened up to us it was like a ready- had renewed the series for a fourth season to air in 2015. ly is doing what is natural for human beings to do,” family made home to us,” Brown said. As part of homeschooling the On Sunday, it is looking to pick up its second straight patriarch Billy Brown says in the sizzle reel. “It’s the life we children, Brown told the audience he would write stories and Golden Globe award for best comedy series. And while the were meant to live.” The show focuses on the Brown family, put together kids’ books. One of the sons eventually put the girls’ oblivion to the wider world, the nudity and the often comprised of Billy, wife Ami, and nine children as they hunt, books online, where producers discovered the isolated fami- whiny dialogue may not be to everyone’s liking, the critics fish, and work together to survive in the frigid Alaskan bush. ly and offered to tell their story. “We spent 30 years of our life seem to be mostly on the show’s side. The quintessentially rough-around-the-edges father told trying to stay as far away as we could from this stuff and New York Times critic Alessandra Stanley wrote on the TCA audience that the premise behind the six-episode people,” Brown said. “We think it’s cool to show people how Friday, “These four women are amusing, at times poignant, series, premiering this spring, is to shed light on the family’s we live.”— Reuters but not easily likeable. The show is caustic and hard to isolated existence, so that America can see that it’s still possi- watch, but harder to turn off.” There is the nagging ques- ble to live an independent life but as a family unit. “God and tion of diversity, or rather lack thereof. The show has come family values,” Brown said in response to a question about under fire for its all-white cast in seasons one and two, a what the most important takeaway is from the show. “Not put- monochrome that some critics say does not fit with the ting anybody down, I think it’s something we’re losing today,” racial kaleidoscope that is New York City. When asked why he added. the show has not introduced a main black character, co-