Battlestar Galactica

Edward James Olmos seems to be everywhere this year, and he hit the red carpet again recently for the cocktail party celebrating the 61st Annual Director’s Guild Awards in Los Angeles. The DGA’s are part of the whirlwind of black tie events that make up the Hollywood awards season, all of which lead up to this month’s Academy Awards.

In the photo above Eddie is with actresses Amy Adams and Viola Davis. Adams has recently become a critics and awards darling, and is nominated for an Academy Award this year for Doubt. She was also a presenter at the DGA’s awards show that evening. Davis snagged one of the year’s most coveted roles when she was cast as the mother in Doubt, and is also nominated for an Academy Award for her role in the film.

Other stars attending the party included directors Ron Howard and Gus Van Sant, and actors Rachel Griffiths (Brothers and Sisters), Sean Penn, Marisa Tomei, Virginia Madsen, Josh Brolin, Lisa Edelstein (House), critic Roger Ebert, and a plethora of this year’s Academy Awards nominees such as actors Richard Jenkins and Frank Langella.

Eddie was nominated for a DGA Award in 2007, for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Movies for Television for the movie Walkout. This year also marks the twentieth anniversary of his Academy Award nomination, as he was nominated for Best Actor in 1989 for Stand and Deliver.

The whole country is talking about Barack Obama’s Presidential Inauguration this week, and actor Edward James Olmos is among the lucky few hundred thousand who get to attend the inauguration events in Washington, D.C.

On Saturday the actor attended a star-studded concert featuring Carole King & Bebe Winans, and last night he attended the 2009 Latina Inaugural Gala “Celebrando El Cambio.” Based on the photo above from last evening, he enjoyed at least one spirited conversation with Marc Antony and Jennifer Lopez.

The Latino ball was a star-studded affair designed to call attention to the increasing power of the Latino vote in presidential politics. Other celebrities in attendance included pop star Shakira, actress Rosario Dawson, comedian George Lopez, and many others.

Edward James Olmos will be back in California by Wednesday, when he is scheduled to speak at a Boys and Girls Club. The actor regularly makes appearances at youth and educational functions to promote a positive attitude amongst Latino children and educators.

When he is not playing The Chief on Battlestar Galactica, actor Aaron Douglas enjoys participating in the occasional celebrity poker tournament. Aaron’s most recent poker adventure took place in Park City, Utah, on January 16 as part of the famous Sundance Film Festival.

The Green Suite Celebrity Poker Challenge benefited Ante Up for Africa (which promotes relief and awareness efforts), Lives to Save (which focuses on relief for Hurricane Katrina victims who are still struggling to rebuild their lives), and The Vine Group (which provides educational support to African countries).

Other celebrities in attendance included actor Mekhi Phifer (ER), shown above, actor Yancy Arias (Knight Rider), actor Don Cheadle (Ocean’s 11), numerous pro poker players and other celebrity personalities.

Grace Park was in Tokyo this weekend to promote the final episodes of Battlestar Galactica. She appeared on January 19 at the shiny new Shinjuku Wald 9 theater complex for a special showing of the drama series, and spoke to the crowd about the final season of the series before the show.

Grace is known her interesting fashion choices but she looked comparatively conservative in Tokyo. Her only daring choice was in her accessories, as she paired her sleek and safe blue sheath and traditional hairstyle with a funky chunky silver-and-black necklace that rose high off her collar area.

Japanese pop musician Ken of L’Arc-en-Ciel was also on stage with Grace, and if anyone knows the connection between these two pop culture phenomenons please let me know. I can tell they are both extremely popular in Japan, but Google has yet to reveal how the two came to share the stage at a Battlestar Galactica event.

During a recent interview with a Canadian newspaper, Grace discussed the issues she was having with her multiple personalities on the BSG set when it came to remembering which Number Eight she was supposed to be playing at any given moment: “In fact, even the cameramen on ‘Battlestar’ would know if I wasn’t playing the appropriate character. And when I’d change it to the right one, they’d go, ‘Oh. There she is.’”

In addition to playing Number 8 on BSG, Grace also plays Special Agent Liz Carver on The Boarder, a Canadian television series about the Canadian Immigration and Customs Security Squad. In the States she can be found playing Akani Cuesta on The Cleaner, a drama series about the extreme measures an undercover team uses to help addicts beat their addictions.

The serious actor behind Felix Gaeta, Allesandro Juliani, recently spoke with the Los Angeles Times about the final season of Battlestar Galactica. In the interview Juliani cites the Season Four episode “The Stump Serenade” as one of the defining moments for his character, and also states that Gaeta will have another huge and pivotal moment in the final episodes that have yet to air (he says it will be “obvious” to fans when it happens).

Most of the interview centered around questions from Los Angeles Times readers, who asked the actor about Battlestar Galactica’s impact on the world (he said he hoped it inspired discussion) and what he did when he found out the show was ending (he said he called his accountant).

The best quote of the interview came out of the question about who Gaeta’s ideal mate would be, which inspired this response: “I believe the recent webisodes speak for themselves. Felix is and has always been a sexual omnivore who will stop at nothing to satisfy his every libidinous whim.” Either Juliani is confusing his character with Baltar, or he is using his voice in deadpan with hysterical results.

At one point Gaeta was a popular choice among the fans for being the First and Final Cylon. As most everyone knows by now, the final season of Battlestar Galactica will premiere on the SciFi Channel on Friday night. After four years of teasing, and particularly the painful teasing of last season, hopefully the next few weeks will bring answers and finally “all will be revealed.”

Each year the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Los Angles (BAFTA LA) hosts an elegant tea party in honor of the American film awards season. It is usually a swanky A-List event crawling with potential Academy Award nominees, and usually a few Battlestar Galactica cast members. This year Tricia Helfer represented the Vancouver-based show, while last year’s event featured Jamie Bamber.

Other celebrities at the event included Clint Eastwood (Grand Tarino), Ron Howard (Frost/Nixon), Freida Pinto (Slumdog Millionaire), Leonardo Di Caprio (Revolutionary Road), Kate Flannery (The Office), Tom Wilkinson (Michael Clayton), David Fincher (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Josh Brolin (Milk), previous Academy Award winning actresses Kristen Scott Thomas and Marisa Tomei, Alicia Witt (Law & Order: Criminal Intent), Lucy Davis (Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip), Saffron Burrows (Boston Legal), Viola Davis (Doubt), and many others.

To see images of the event and the stars who attended, check out the official BAFTA photo gallery.

Entertainment Weekly is doing a “SciFi Showdown” this week, pitting iconic science fiction moments against each other in a multiple part poll.

Tricia Helfer’s Number Six appears in the “Pleasure Bot” category, pitted against Jude Law’s pretty performance in AI: Artificial Intelligence. It should be no surprise that Number Six is spanking Jude’s cyborg, she is getting 89 percent of the votes at this point. Go Tricia!

The poll also pits Admiral Adama’s battered Battlestar Galactica against Captain Jean Luc Picard’s Starship Enterprise NCC 1701-D from Star Trek: The Next Generation. As of this post, the Enterprise was winning the “Warship” category 61 percent to 39 percent. BSG is also struggling in the “Snub Fighter” category, which asks voters to choose between the Galactica’s vipers and Star War’s X-Wings. So far Star Wars has almost eighty percent of the votes.

Other questions in the poll ask whether K.I.T.T. is cooler than the modern Batmobile, and whether Excalibur is a cooler sword than the Thundercats‘ Sword of the Omens.

Probably the toughest question of the bunch is the puzzler of which ship makes the better smuggling vessel: the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars or the Serenity of Firefly? While the Falcon had Han and Chewy, some serious box office mojo and long merchandising life have dimmed its reputation as an outsider choice. Serenity’s cult following and early cancellation, on the other hand, have helped it retain that criminal cache that every smuggling vessel needs to gain underworld credibility. It’s a tough call, but generations of lunch boxes should be reward enough for the Falcon … my vote goes to Serenity.

Katee Sackhoff chose a somber get glamorous black ballgown for Sunday evening’s Emmy red carpet, one that simultaneously showed off her toned curves and sported an elegant train. Katee’s look was backless to emphasize her muscled physique but avoided harshness due to her dangling earrings and messy bun hairstyle. Her impish grin made the look complete … and also reminds this fan of the scene in season one where we see Starbuck, prideful and teasing, in a ballgown for the first time.

Katee had a lot to grin about, as news recently broke that she will play the lead in a new NBC show entitled Lost and Found. She will play an unruly cop who refuses to play by the rules, and the show is executive produced by Law & Order creator Dick Wolf. Katee has been taking several steps to insure she has a bustling post-BSG career, so hopefully this is not the only casting news in her future.

Tricia Helfer looked regal on the red carpet at Sunday’s 60th Annual Emmy Awards ceremony, wearing a sweeping red gown designed to show off her long legs and killer curves. Tricia was listed among the best dressed by the Boston Globe at the Pittsburgh Gazette among other media outlets. The New York Post praised her for taking the risk of wearing red on the red carpet and pulling it off thanks to the interesting cut of her gown.

Tricia was there representing both BSG and Burn Notice. She apparently had an equally busy weekend, spilling to E! Entertainment that Battlestar Galactica does not keep fans in suspense about the final Cylon until the final episode. E! rewarded Tricia by highlighting her on the red carpet during the network’s red carpet show, which assured even more eyes were on Tricia.

Grace Park hit the red carpet last Sunday for the 2008 Emmy Awards, wearing a daring skin-tight pants ensemble that went against the ballgown trends of the evening. Grace was representing both Battlestar Galactica and her new show The Cleaner, and wore her hair in a messy curl updo that worked with her daring outfit.

The fashion press reaction to Grace’s picks were mixed, with her appearing on some folks worst dressed list and others cute lists, but anytime we get to see Grace out and about is fine with me. She reportedly slipped to the press that she and most of the other BSG cast members were staying at the home of Jaime Bamber (Lee “Apollo” Adama) for the weekend, while Jaime and his family were back in the U.K. Sounds like the best after-party in Los Angeles was at the Bamber residence, even if Jaime was not around to make an appearance with his famous towel.

Check out this charming video from inde darlings and Battlestar Galactica fans the Old 97’s, which features Number Six Tricia Helfer as the unattainable object of geek desire.

“Dance With Me” is a geek fantasy, with the guild-obsessed main character kicking booty throughout a curiously empty yet overstaffed nightclub looking for the real-life version of his favorite cylon.  All while wearing a “Frack Me” tee, of course.  Oh, and the guy has an inhaler.

The best line is at the beginning:  “Dude, I’m telling you, I am the only level 30 alchemist in the entire guild.”  Anybody know what game he is talking about, by the way? 

The song has been described as a “spontaneous tango spread across the floor of a dusty Texas bar” and it is crazy catchy.  Tricia looks amazing, of course, in a yellow chiffon mini dress which swings with her movements.  If you are a Tricia fan, or even if you are not, the clip is worth a gander. 

According to Tricia’s official site, she is friends with the bands lead singer Rhett Miller which is how the combination came about.  And Rhett apparently likes to return the favor and promote BSG as well, even when he isn’t asked about Tricia.  But relax, shippers:  they are both happily married to other people. 

The professional joining has paid off, however, as the video has gotten positive attention and is apparently now in the rotation on VH1.  It was also fairly popular on YouTube for a while, and will hopefully gain more momentum over the summer.

Memorial Day Weekend is the official start of summer, and for the second year in a row we are celebrating with the Battlestar Galactica Swimsuit Edition of WatchingBSG.  Last year’s edition was one of my first posts after I took over this blog, and given the amount of traffic I still get from that picture of Jamie Bamber in the towel it is only appropriate that we do it again in Summer 2008.

There were plenty of images to choose from this year, because scifi stars and skin magazines have enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship for decades.  Long before Jane Fonda put on her famous bikini for Barbarella, the women of pop culture’s more geeky fascinations have been willing to bring in new fans by plying old poses.  And by old, I mean the “oldest profession” … but that does not mean we don’t like to look anyway.

As with last year’s swimsuit editions, volume one and volume two, not all of these outfits are technically swimwear … but given the skin and the sex appeal involved I am pretty sure you won’t mind too terribly much.  If you are offended, or if you love it, please do not hesitate to post below.

This year’s edition features Battlestar Galactica Cylons Grace Park, Lucy Lawless, Michael Trucco, and Tricia Helfer … and fleet pilots/Cylon speculation favorites Katee Sackhoff, Jamie Bamber, and Tahmoh Penikett.  We also have Gaius Baltar follower and religious cult member Keegan Connor Tracy, in all of her bikini glory.

This weekend Canada celebrates the Leo Awards, the event that celebrates outstanding work in British Columbia film and television.  While Battlestar Galactica is not nominated (anybody know why?  I assume it does not qualify for some reason), two of its stars are up for two awards in the acting categories.

Callum Keith Rennie (Leoban) is nominated for his performance in Normal and Tricia Helfer (Number Six) is nominated for her dominatrix role in Walk All Over Me.  Both films received several nominations, and are supposed to be worth checking out.

Callum and Tricia’s acting categories will be presented tomorrow night at the Westin Bayshore in Vancouver, British Columbia.  Keep your fingers crossed they win - or at least show up for the party!   Hopefully both stars will attend, in which case I will post pictures as soon as possible.

Edit: Tricia and Kandyse McClure (Dee) will be presenting, so come back here in a few days for an update.

There is so much news going on right now, I don’t know where to start!

First of all, there will (probably) be two more Battlestar Galactica telemovies, but very few details are available yet.  They will be about events that have happened in the past, like Razor, but what events and who they will focus on is largely still a mystery.  I will definitely have more details in the weeks and months to come, but for now let’s just enjoy the news that more BSG is on the horizon.

Next, Ron Moore has a new interview with Wired magazine that contains this disturbing quote:

Wired: Since then, have you written yourselves into any corners?

Moore: Some of that is happening right now as we wrap up the show. It’s like, OK, what did that mean, exactly? How do we get out of this?

Battlestar Galactica composer Bear McCreary has a long post about “Gaeta’s Lament,” the song that is very important to Friday’s episode.  He also confirms that this song, and many of the other ideas that have worked their way into this season, were ideas that were formed during after hours of drinking.

Katee Sackhoff has been cast as a doctor on a four-episode story arc of the bawdy plastic surgery drama Nip/Tuck.  If you have seen that show, you know that Katee’s extensive experience doing sex scenes on Battlestar may come in handy.  Unless, of course, sister guest star Morgan Fairchild beats her to it.

The first United States promo for Life on Mars is out, and you can see a brief glimpse of Stephanie Chaves-Jacobsen at the 2:06 minute mark.

Michelle Forbes brought her sexy self to the season finale of Lost, playing a pivotal role in the Oceanic Six story line.

Be sure to look for Callum Keith Rennie (Leoban) in the recently released trailer for X-Files 2: I Want to Believe.

There’s a lot more to cover, but we have time to catch our breaths as there are two weeks before the next episode.  If you are looking for something to help you pass the time, check out this “Faith” recap quiz over at GeekSugar.

Not a Cylon-style dream vision, but a new role that involves viewing things from behind the camera … instead of in front of it, where the two actors usually find themselves when it comes to Battlestar Galactica.

In the next year there will also be ten new BSG mini-webisodes, and they will be directed by Jamie Bamber (Lee “Apollo” Adama) and James Callis (Gaius Baltar).  Each actor will direct five episodes each, and it is not yet clear if they will share the same plot line of if the webisodes will be dealing with separate times and characters.

Jamie talked about the project a wee bit when he was a guest on the ShaunOMac show Friday night, but for the most part details on this are TBD. 

By the way, I was a guest on Shaun’s show last night and we had some interesting discussions with callers about the way the season is developing … and that infamous Last Supper photo.  You can listen to recordings of both shows on BlogTalkRadio.com.