Gossip Girl News (Page 26)

Looks like the New York Magazine article that chronicles just how closely each Gossip Girl episode reflects life in The Big Apple will be a weekly feature.

Awesome.

So here's a look at how some real New Yorkers feel about how the show depicts life on the Upper East Side...

Okay, We'll Buy It
• According to lady narrator, on the Upper East Side, "Breakfast is brunch, and it comes with Champagne, a dress code, and a hundred of our closest friends." For New Yorkers we know, brunch comes with a hangover, your outfit from last night, and the runs. But we'd like to have it their way!

• Serena is staying at the Palace. Brunch is at the Palace. Chuck and Nate (Chace Crawford) wake up in the Palace. Chuck owns the Palace. If everything on this show is about the Upper East Side, why are they all hanging out at a hotel in midtown?

• The Humphreys are hip and artsy, you know? So they live in Williamsburg. But do real adults with kids live there? We're not so sure. Transition shots before scenes at their loft show the Manhattan Bridge and the Brooklyn Bridge, which we believe a bit more. Living in Dumbo but saying you live in Williamsburg makes much more sense

• Rihanna is constantly playing, in every situation.

That's a Bit Rich
• During the recap of what happened last week, we have a delayed reaction to something. Apparently we're to believe that after her indiscretion with Nate, Serena (Blake Lively) went straight off to Connecticut and enrolled herself in boarding school. Is that even possible? Doubtful. Even Hotchkiss is not that accommodating to the rich.

• Blair descends her staircase in full Mae West garb. She's wearing a translucent dressing gown with bell sleeves and mules and what appears to be one of Alexis Carrington's old teddies. Again with Blair (Leighton Meester) and the lingerie! Maybe the show's stylists think they are really getting at the motivation of the character — fancy undies are yet another way Blair is trying to hold the interest of Nate! Interesting.

But back to reality: New York teenagers may buy their undies at Agent Provocateur, but do they wear them when lying around the house alone?

• Serena's mother visits Papa Humphrey in Williamsburg for we're not sure why. We're also not sure why there are trees in this Williamsburg. The real Williamsburg has very few trees. Life simply does not thrive there. Neither do adolescents, see above.

Don't just watch Gossip Girl.

Live it. Sort of.

That's the message being sent by The CW, as the network is allowing fans to create their own Gossip Girl avatars, upload photos and basically live within the online world of the Upper East Side. Check it out:

Here's a look at various quotes from the cast of Gossip Girl, courtesy of an article by Media Blvd:

What's the coolest thing about the show?
Blake Lively: New York is an amazing factor. Getting to work with Josh and Stephanie, and having them be so passionate. The clothes are amazing. It's just a really fun show. The cast is so great. We get along so well. It's a really great vibe, all around.

Is it exciting for you to make the transition onto a show with older kids?
Taylor Momsen: It's totally a blast. I'm having so much fun. Everyone is so great. I am younger, obviously, and it's a reality check. They treat me like such an individual, which I totally appreciate and love. But then, they'll go out, and I have to go home and do homework.

When will you consider yourself a celebrity?
Leighton Meester: I don't know. It's so hard to say. I don't really know if that's necessarily what I want or what I'm seeking. I just want to make the show. On a more serious note, I think that there's good and bad things to be said about never being able to go anywhere on your own. I'm so used to being able to do that, so I hope it doesn't get to that point. But, if that's what it means for the show to do well, then that's okay.

How did you come to this project?
Chace Crawford: I had a meeting back in January with my television agent and she said, "There this big script that Josh Schwartz has adapted." I read it and thought, "It's typical teen stuff, but it's Josh Schwartz, so it's probably going to be a good project." The casting process was pretty rigorous. I went back six or seven times. I knew that I was probably in the mix after the first audition, but winning over Les Moonves was another story. I ended up reading with Leighton, who had just gotten cast.

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Gossip Girl debuted to decent ratings on Tuesday night.

The show was watched by 3.65 million people, losing a great chunk of its America's Top Model lead-in audience (5.15 million). However, this rating is on a par with what One Tree Hill used to average in the same time slot.

And that show has been a success for years. It's even in syndication now.

Still, many expected more from Leighton Meester and company - but we have faith. Just give them a few episodes.

It was hard to miss the sex scene between Serena (Blake Lively) and Nate (Chace Crawford) in the pilot episode of Gossip Girl.

At least go in the coat room or something, guys.

Anyway, here are a couple of tidbits/inside jokes from the show many viewers may not have been aware of:

• The Constance Billard School for Girls is based on The Nightingale-Bamford School on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Cecily von Ziegesar, the author of the Gossip Girl books, in which the series is based on, attended this private school.

• As Dan rushes to catch his ride to school, we see the side of the bus; it has an advertisement with a logo that reads Smallville. This, of course, is another show on The CW.

Who says these Gossip Girl girls don't get along?

Celebrating the debut of their new show, (from left) Nicole Fiscella, Jessica Szohr, Blake Lively and Nan Zhang put aside any cattiness for a group snapshot at the Gossip Girl premiere party at New York City club Tenjune on Tuesday.

While Josh Schwartz and the Gossip Girl cast want everyone to love their new show, they probably hope native New Yorkers feel especially close ties to it.

After all, like Sex and the City, Gossip Girl uses the Big Apple like a character unto itself.

With that in mind, a writer for New York Magazine watched last night's season premiere. He took note of which aspects of the show depicted his city realistically, and which were a bit far-fetched. As the article states:

Below is our list of things we found gloriously implausible - and uncomfortably plausible - in last night's pilot episode, rated on our completely subjective point system:

That's a Bit Rich
• Blake Lively as a high-school senior. Seriously, chick has got to be at least 30. What is this? A new season of Strangers With Candy?

• Formal invitations - on paper - are issued for the "Kissing on the Lips Party." Real kids use Evite.

• Nate: "Do you ever feel like our lives are planned out for us?" 17-year-olds are about as self-reflective as Saran Wrap.

• Blair" "Waldorf" and "Serena Van der Woodsen"? Who has names like that? Oh, yeah. Lead actress Blake Lively and Gossip Girl creator–apocalyptical horsewoman Cecily von Ziegesar

• Scene: Blair and Serena meet at the Palace Hotel, drink martinis up with olives. ("Nooo, we don't have a lot of private-school kids at our bar," says Melissa Blair, the hostess at Gilt, the Palace's bar. [Gilt! Which is a false cognate of the emotion Serena feels about sleeping with Nate! Symbolism!] They have been filming at the Palace though, Blair said. In fact, she saw them filming a scene yesterday. End of parenthetical.)

• Blair, wearing a corset and waiting in a candlelit room for a rendezvous with Nate. Teenage sex is awkward, no matter how much money you wrap it in.

• The kids take over a huge club (that at times looks like the meatpacking district's Level V and at other times like the sound studio that it is) for a party where prodigious amounts of alcohol is served. Club owners and parents are in the know. There are still LAWS in this city, people.

• Serena and Nate have sex on the bar of the empty Campbell Apartment. Dude, that place is always filled with bankers.

Okay, We'll Buy It
• Nate and Valmont smoking a joint in Central Park. Who hasn't?

• Chuck joking semi-seriously about borrowing his dad's Viagra. Do real teenagers do that? Probably, but ew.

• Attempted date rape. See above re: teenage sex.

• "Dancing on tables at Bungalow." After its steady decline in recent years, the high-school crowd is right about where that place is at these days.

Gossip Girl premieres on The CW tonight.

But the cast celebrated the series opening at a party last night. Here are a couple pictures from it:

Gossip Girl Boys: Ed Westwick, Chace Crawford and Penn Badgley.

Gossip Girl Parents: Kelly Rutherford and Matthew Settle.

Ken Tucker is a respected television critic for Entertainment Weekly.

Here's how he reviewed Gossip Girl:

Gossip Girl is The O.C. with ADD, The Hills as an asphalt jungle. In adapting the best-selling book series, the O.C. brain trust - producers Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage - has given Gossip speediness and grit. The books worm inside the social circles of a Manhattan private school, giving off a dank musk, but the TV version is bright and energetically jittery.

The show is structured around the ''Gossip Girl'' blog, whose author is a voice-over (Kristen Bell, crossing her Veronica Mars character with Sarah Jessica Parker in Sex and the City — she's breezy and WASPish).

The initial hookups and breakups mostly involve Blake Lively's Serena van der Woodsen, who in the premiere is returning to the catfight fray after a boarding-school stay. Among the many eruptions of jealousy and status-seeking, Serena and Blair (Leighton Meester) both covet Nate (Chace Crawford).

I'll play geezer worrywart and wonder whether young viewers really need a show in which teens swill martinis, talk breezily of recreational Viagra, and use ''tap that ass'' as a term of fond feeling. And Schwartz and Savage might have fared better had they just built their own show from the ground up:

The Gossip books have been around since 2002 — a generation in the young-adult publishing trade. The GG brand may have peaked. Whatever. The cast is as good as the pilot script, and I may not be its target demo, but I admire its fleet pace and sly craft.

The cast of Gossip Girl came out in full force a couple weeks ago for the CW Upfront Party. Here are some pretty pictures from the event:

 Leighton Meester, Blake Lively, Nicole Fiscella and Taylor Momsen pose for the camera.

 
More of the Gossip Girl cast: Mattew Settle, Momsen, Chace Crawford and Ed Westwick.

The lovely Taylor Momsen.