#cristin milioti i WILL get you that emmy

[rhae-ali]

GIVE HER THE EMMY IMMEDIATELY

[motherdanger]

I SUPPORT WOMEN'S RIGHTS AND WRONGS, ESPECIALLY HERS!!!

[nijigasakilove]

Man just have the Emmy sweep ready for the Penguin. Another incredible episode from start to finish. Cristin Milioti and Colin Farrell turned in another masterclass. Oz been finessing his way to the top so much, you knew he was due for an L. I’m so worried about his mom, clear death flags with her but surely Vic don’t get killed here right?? 😭 bro finally became a made man with that squid kill(totally justified) but damn.

The three scenes that really stuck with me from this week’s ep is Oz convo with his mom where she seems ready to accept her fate and refuses to be an invalid.

Then Eve and Sofia convo in the apartment. The character acting, emotion and mutual understanding that’s shown in that scene is just incredible. Sofia might have come in there with the intent to kill Eve, but after reaching a mutual understanding on Sofia’s betrayal and abuse Eve felt compelled to snitch. Honestly after what Oz has done and hiding the fact he worked for the dude that killed her girls.. yea she’s valid

Then Oz’ speech to all the rival groups. Man if I didn’t know he was full of shit he’d damn near have me fooled too 😂 incredible scene from Colin. But man that cliffhanger ending holy shit please don’t kill Vic, I know the mom prolly cooked but let my boy get out.

[insignificantly-notorious]

Made For Love is so GOOD; like I discovered and then binged and binged AGAIN and losing my mind waiting for new episodes for Season 2 and went kinda crazy about it.

With Season 1 being such a good television, Season 2 is just PEAK television and got better.

It commits to its weirdness from the get go and just went full fledged insane with its plot.

And I think it did an excellent job of following through with its storylines. It always tied in together nicely towards the end and I just in awe since each episode is roughly 25 minutes.

With its actors be ACTINGGG & the music choices are 🌟AMAZING🌟 (Mitski is everywhere thanks 🥰). Season 2 knocked it out the park, and there's still so much unresolved and new subplots that got me gagged.

With its strong structure, you would think I could predict things that will happen but I COULDN’T. It always surprises me and that got me smiling with ‘ahhh, that’s make so much sense’ and ‘whAt?!’ in a good way.

The actors. GaHHH the actors! Amazing chemistry between Cristin Milioti and Billy Magnussen as Hazel and Byron Gogol. They’re so LAYERED. Their range is kinda crazy and are PERFECTLY cast (Emmy!!!!!!!!! NOW!)

And Ray Romano as Herbert is such a delight to watch (I crieD) and Bennett and Fiffany (which is my favourite) and many more.

And the themes- love, loneliness, tech and on the moral quandaries of the authenticity of human connection in the wake of AI is so delightfully complex and compelling argument.

This is a terrific series mannn. Zany, sharp, and entertaining as ever, with weird science and even weirder characters.

And @hbomax should RENEW IT! Stop playing!!! I need 10 more seasons of this I was watching this show like a starved animal 😫😫😫😫🥺🥺🥺

[sweetsmellosuccess]

Sundance 2020: Preview

Earlier in the month, as I frantically made my selections for the limited public tickets Sundance generously makes available for the press, I was struck by just how much of a crapshoot the whole process was. That’s the thing about this particular festival, virtually no one outside of the filmmakers and Sundance programmers have seen the films yet. It’s a great unknown (and, yes, Cannes is also similar in this way, but whereas Sundance is selecting primarily indie films, the festival on the French Riviera gets to choose anything they damn well please, from big Hollywood studio fare, to auteur International work), which leads to lots of hunch choices, based on gut feeling as much as anything else.

As you might imagine, one’s hit rate on such matters is volatile. I looked back to previous years’ selections, and found, on rough average, choosing solid (or better) films at about a 45% clip. That is to say, of the films I deemed most worthy of my attention, about half of them were less  —  or even far less  —  than I hoped. To be fair, randomly watching regular studio films opening from week to week at home in Philly, I would imagine that percentage would be a good bit lower, so there’s nothing inherently wrong with Sundance’s percentages.

Still, it does speak to the embracing-of-the-unknown ethos that this festival instills in you. We pays our money, we takes our chances, etc. Having said all that  —  and perhaps having chiseled down the enormous boulder of salt with which to read this piece  —  here are our best guesses for what looks like (on paper, at least) some of the more interesting films in this year’s fest. We’ll see how it turns out.

Downhill: The U.S. remake of Ruben Östlund’s 2014 Swedish film about a family on a skiing trip in the Alps, who experience serious disruption when a controlled avalanche terrifies the father of the clan to ditch his family in order to save himself. Normally, I would steer far clear of American remakes, but this indie remains intriguing, even if it is directed by a pair of actors (Nat Faxon and Jim Rash). Casting Will Ferrell and Julia Louis Dreyfus together as the parents is also a draw. We can only hope the film retains the razor-sharp acerbity of the original.  

Falling: Viggo Mortensen, best known for all time as Aragorn from the Lord of the Rings triad, has many talents  —  he speaks French fluently, writes poetry, and paints with some apparent aplomb  —  but we’ll see how he handles writing and directing for the first time with this film, in which he plays a gay man living with his family in L.A., whose arch-conservative farmer father (Lance Hendrickson) comes to live with him. The set up sounds on the definite hokey side, but any film that casts David Cronenberg as a proctologist has got something going for it.

Horse Girl: An awkward loner of a woman (played by Allison Brie), with a predilection for crafts, crime shows, and, yes, horses, endures a series of lucid dreams that infiltrate her day-to-day existence. Sounding just so perfectly Sundanecian, Jeff Baena’s film nevertheless holds some attraction, especially because the director (whose previous film was the well-received The Little Hours) has a solid track record. He co-wrote this effort with Brie, a collaboration that might well lead to something more compelling than its initial description.

Kajillionaire: I guess you could call writer/director/actress Miranda July something of an acquired taste. Her previous films, including Me and You and Everyone We Know, and The Future are filled with a kind of creative whimsy, along with intense character insight. Her new film is about a pair of grifter parents (Debra Winger and Richard Jenkins) who throw together a big heist at the last second, convincing a newcomer (Gina Rodriguez) to join them, only for the newbie to disrupt their relationship with their daughter (Evan Rachel Wood), whom they have been training her entire life.

The Last Thing He Wanted: Working from a novel by the resplendent Joan Didion, Dee Rees follows up her 2017 Sundance rave Mudbound with another literary adaptation. Anne Hathaway plays a journalist obsessed with the Contras in Central America, whose father (Willem DaFoe) unexpectedly bestows her with proof of illegal arms deals in the region. Suddenly, a player in a much more complicated game, she connects with a U.S. official (Ben Affleck), in order to make it out alive. It’s a particularly well-heeled cast, which at Sundance doesn’t necessarily mean a good thing, but Rees has proven herself more than up to the challenge.

Lost Girls: At this point, I will literally watch Amy Ryan in anything  —  her exquisite bitchiness absolutely stole last year’s Late Night  —  so Liz Garbus’ film would have already been on my radar, but here, with Ryan playing a Long Island mother whose daughter goes missing, my interest is sorely piqued. Based on a true-crime novel by Robert Kolker, Ryan’s character discovers her daughter was part of an online sex ring, and goes through heaven and earth to draw attention to her plight, taking on the local authorities in the process.

Never Rarely Sometimes Always: Eliza Hittman has a way of adding lustre and temporal beauty to the otherwise roughneck scenes of the teens she depicts. Her latest film is about a pair of young women living in rural Pennsylvania, who find the means to escape their repressive town after one of them becomes unexpectedly pregnant, making their way to New York City. With a storyline eerily reminiscent of Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, Hittman, as is her want, has cast two relative unknowns (Talia Ryder and Sidney Flanigan) as the leads.

Palm Springs: Lightening things up a smidge, Max Barbakow’s off-beat comedy stars Cristin Milioti and Andy Samberg as reluctant wedding guests, who somehow find each other at the same time as some kind of surrealistic episode leads them to recognize that nothing really matters in the first place, allowing them to lay havoc upon the proceedings for their own amusement. Barbakow’s debut feature is stockpiled with strong castmembers, including J.K. Simmons and Peter Gallagher, and it’s always a treat to watch the continuing evolution of Samberg from mop-haired SNL performer to certified big-screen actor.  

Promising Young Woman: The #metoo movement begets this revenge thriller about a once-victimized woman (Carey Mulligan) who works by day as quiet barista, but spends her nights seducing men in order to punish the living hell out of them for trying to take advantage of her. When she runs into a seemingly sweet old classmate (Bo Burnham), it would appear as if salvation is at hand, but apparently it’s not quite that simple. Filmmaker Emerald Fennell, whose outstanding work on the series “Killing Eve,” earned her a pair of Emmy nominations, makes her feature debut with a film that sounds appropriately searing.

Shirley: There were those critics at the 2018 festival who found Josephine Decker’s Madeline’s Madeline one of the best films of the year. While I wasn’t among them, there was still much to appreciate with the writer/director’s improvisational visions. Her entry into this year’s Sundance promises to be at least somewhat more grounded, if not still effervescent. It concerns famed author Shirley Jackson (Elisabeth Moss), writer of “The Lottery,” whose literary inspiration is stirred after she and her husband (Michael Stuhlbarg) take in a young couple to liven up their household.

[jmsa1287]

Cupid's Arrow Hits & Misses Amazon's Starry Anthology Series 'Modern Love'

late to posting but here’s my take on “Modern Love.”

The romantic comedy has undergone a boom in the last few years. The genre that had a strong presence in the 90s and 00s has mostly vanished from the cineplex as of late but streaming services — namely Netflix — has filled that market, turning out a number of films ("To All the Boys I Loved Before," "Always Be My Maybe") and TV shows ("Love," "Easy," "She's Gotta Have It") that have fans excited. Amazon's new anthology series "Modern Love," based on The New York Times' popular column of the same name, aims to snuggly fit into that void but has varying results. Drawing inspiration from the anthology films "Paris, I Love You" and especially its American sequel "New York, I Love You," "Modern Love," which hits Amazon in full on Friday, consists of eight half-hour episodes that follow people through various types of love while living in the Big Apple. Of course, there's romantic love but the show also takes the time to explore bonds like friendships and familial connections. Tone, too, is different from each episode. Sometimes stories pulsate with new romance and others ache with loss. It is apt that Irish filmmaker John Carney created the series after finding success with warm musicals like "Once," "Begin Again" and most recently "Sing Street." He's the latest writer/director to head to the small screen and though he's behind most of the episodes here, he gets some help along the way, where "Catastrophe" star/creator/writer Sharon Horgan, "Shameless" star Emmy Rossum and "Bachelors Walk" writer Tom Hall fill out a few episodes.

Nevertheless, it's mostly Carney's words that dominate "Modern Love"; his penchant for romantic realism pops off here like in the first lovely episode "When the Doorman Is Your Main Man," starring "How I Met Your Mother" actress Cristin Milioti. (She also won a Grammy for starring in "Once" on Broadway.) Here she plays Maggie, a young woman living by herself in her parents' rent-controlled New York City apartment. As she says goodbye to dates in front of the building a doorman keeps watch and later disapproves of every new dude she brings by; his discerning critiques plaguing her mind. The episode could easily go sour but Carney makes the first offering of "Modern Love" surprisingly sweet without getting too saccharine, which can't be said about other episodes in the series, including the finale as well as the Dev Patel and Catherine Keener starrer "When Cupid is a Prying Journalist." Even if romantic comedies are not your thing, it is easy to dip in-and-out of "Modern Love" based on its star power. The best episode of the season — and one of the best episodes of TV this year — is "Take Me as I Am, Whoever I Am," written and directed by Carney. It stars Anne Hathaway and the episode is completely tailored to her, showcasing her strengths in a way we've never seen before. Here she plays Lexi, who is bipolar, as she navigates her complicated work and love life. (Comparisons to "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" cannot be avoided.) Her story starts when she meets a man played by Gary Carr ("The Deuce") at a supermarket. She breaks into song-and-dance a la "La La Land" as she strikes up a conversation with him. There's pitter-patter about melons, late nights and the city, which eventually gives way to a proper date. Hathaway is charming as ever, glowing and electric. But things soon take a darker turn when it is revealed the romantic moment was part of a manic episode and Lexi quickly spirals into a deep depression. It's an Emmy worthy turn that allows Hathaway to do a little bit of everything.

Another "Modern Love" highlight is "Hers Was a World of One," starring Olivia Cooke ("Bates Motel"), out actor Andrew Scott ("Fleabag") and Broadway actor Brandon Kyle Goodman. Scott and Goodman are a couple looking to adopt a child and take in Cooke's character, a young homeless woman looking for the perfect loving couple to give her child to. It's a tense episode and perhaps the most nuanced and complex of the bunch, with excellent performances from the trio of actors. Horgan's episode "Rallying to Keep the Game Alive" stars Tina Fey and "Mad Men" actor John Slattery as a married couple on the rocks. They go to therapy, sometimes catch a movie afterward, hang with their kids and repeat. The couple rekindles when they start to play tennis — a metaphor for a relationship that is completely lost on the screen. It's a dull half-hour with Horgan's writing rarely shining through (Fey gets some one-liners and a built-up climax has some "Catastrophe"-like spark) but given the talent both behind and in front of the camera, it's a big letdown. What's worse is "At the Hospital, an Interlude of Clarity," starring Sofia Boutella ("Climax," "Kingsmen") and John Gallagher Jr. ("The Miseducation of Cameron Post"), who are on one of their first dates. Things go awry when they end up in the hospital, spending hours together and essentially compressing several dates into one long, arduous night. Boutella is naturally charming in the role but the tired trope of stunning women falling for normal-but-funny dudes is extremely tired and the episode greatly suffers for it. "Modern Love" is ultimately the Hallmark card version of TV. It's lovely in the moment — and may even tug at your heartstrings — but it most likely won't leave a lasting impression.

[oijio]

70th Emmy Nomination Predictions

Last year, five new dramas broke into the race, and they’re looking to be as strong as they were last year. With former champ Game of Thrones returning to the race, though, people need to make some room. Should be interesting. On the comedy side, Veep, which has won the Best Comedy three years running, is off this year, including its leading lady Julia Louis Dreyfus who has won six times in a row, opening up the Comedy race. Looking forward to seeing some new faces over on that side. Here are my predictions for the 70th Primetime Emmy Awards!

Outstanding Drama Series The Americans The Crown Game of Thrones The Handmaid’s Tale Killing Eve Stranger Things This is Us

Alternate: Westworld Spoiler: Ozark Wish (not including any above): Dark; Orphan Black

~*~*~*~*~

Outstanding Comedy Series Atlanta Barry Black-ish Curb Your Enthusiasm GLOW The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Silicon Valley

Alternate: Modern Family Spoiler: Will & Grace Wish: The Good Place; You’re the Worst; Broad City; One Day at a Time; The End of the F***ing World; Dear White People

~*~*~*~*~

Outstanding Limited Series The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story Godless Howards End The Looming Tower Twin Peaks

Alternate: Genius: Picasso Spoiler: Patrick Melrose Wish: American Vandal; Alias Grace

~*~*~*~*~

The rest after the cut!

~*~*~*~*~

Outstanding TV Movie Black Mirror: USS Callister Fahrenheit 451 Flint Paterno The Tale

Alternate: Electric Dreams Wish: Black Mirror: Black Museum

~*~*~*~*~

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series Jodie Comer, Killing Eve Claire Foy, The Crown Mandy Moore, This is Us Elisabeth Moss, The Handmaid’s Tale Sandra Oh, Killing Eve Keri Russell, The Americans

Alternate: Evan Rachel Wood, Westworld Spoiler: Emilia Clarke, Game of Thrones Wish: Tatiana Maslany, Orphan Black

~*~*~*~*~

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series Sterling K. Brown, This is Us Freddie Highmore, The Good Doctor Matthew Rhys, The Americans Liev Schreiber, Ray Donovan Milo Ventimiglia, This is Us Jeffrey Wright, Westworld

Alternate: Jason Bateman, Ozark Spoiler: Kit Harrington, Game of Thrones Wish: Matt Smith, The Crown

~*~*~*~*~

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series Alexis Bledel, The Handmaid’s Tale Millie Bobby Brown, Stranger Things Ann Dowd, The Handmaid’s Tale Lena Headey, Game of Thrones Chrissy Metz, This is Us Thandie Newton, Westworld

Alternate: Uzo Aduba, Orange is the New Black Spoiler: Yvonne Strahovski, The Handmaid’s Tale Wish: Vanessa Kirby, The Crown

~*~*~*~*~

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series Peter Dinklage, Game of Thrones Noah Emmerich, The Americans David Harbour, Stranger Things Justin Hartley, This is Us Anthony Hopkins, Westworld Mandy Patinkin, Homeland

Alternate: Joseph Fiennes, The Handmaid’s Tale Spoiler: Noah Schnapp, Stranger Things Wish: Sean Astin, Stranger Things (Note: fun tidbit, five of last year’s seven nominees are ineligible or in a different category this year - makes for a lot of space, but also there are tons of people fighting for spots here)

~*~*~*~*~

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series Pamela Adlon, Better Things Alison Brie, GLOW Rachel Brosnahan, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Allison Janney, Mom Tracee Ellis Ross, Black-ish Lily Tomlin, Grace & Frankie

Alternate: Jane Fonda, Grace & Frankie Spoiler: Debra Messing, Will and Grace Wish: Aya Cash, You’re the Worst; Rachel Bloom, Crazy Ex Girlfriend; Kristen Bell, The Good Place; Ilana Glazer & Abbi Jacobson, Broad City; Ellie Kemper, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt; Jessica Barden, The End of the F***ing World

~*~*~*~*~

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series Anthony Anderson, Black-ish Larry David, Curb Your Enthusiasm Zach Galifianakis, Baskets Donald Glover, Atlanta Bill Hader, Barry William H. Macy, Shameless

Alternate: Eric McCormack, Will and Grace Spoiler: Jim Parsons, The Big Bang Theory Wish: Ted Danson, The Good Place; Chris Geere, You’re the Worst; Alex Lawther, The End of the F***ing World

~*~*~*~*~

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series Alex Borstein, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Laurie Metcalf, Roseanne Leslie Jones, Saturday Night Live Kate McKinnon, Saturday Night Live Rita Moreno, One Day at a Time Megan Mullaly, Will and Grace

Alternate: Jessica Walter, Arrested Development Spoiler: Betty Gilpin, GLOW Wish: D’Arcy Carden, The Good Place; Kether Donohue, You’re the Worst; Jane Krakowski, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt; Andrea Martin, Great News (Four of the six nominees from last year are also ineligible this year, exciting)

~*~*~*~*~

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series Louie Anderson, Baskets Alec Baldwin, Saturday Night Live Tituss Burgess, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt Brian Tyree Henry, Atlanta Tony Shalhoub, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Henry Winkler, Barry

Alternate: Sean Hayes, Will and Grace Spoiler: Ty Burrell, Modern Family Wish: LaKeith Stanfield, Atlanta; Jaime Camil, Jane the Virgin; Manny Jacinto, The Good Place; Marc Maron, GLOW

~*~*~*~*~

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series/TV Movie Hayley Atwell, Howards End Jessica Biel, The Sinner Laura Dern, The Tale Michelle Dockery, Godless Elisabeth Moss, Top of the Lake: China Girl Sarah Paulson, American Horror Story: Cult

Alternate: Regina King, Seven Seconds Spoiler: Cristin Milioti, Black Mirror: USS Callister Wish: Letitia Wright, Black Mirror: Black Museum; Sarah Gadon, Alias Grace

~*~*~*~*~

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series/TV Movie Antonio Banderas, Genius: Picasso Darren Criss, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story Benedict Cumberbatch, Patrick Melrose Jeff Daniels, The Looming Tower Kyle MacLachlan, Twin Peaks Al Pacino, Paterno

Alternate: Michael B. Jordan, Fahrenheit 451 Spoiler: Jesse Plemons, Black Mirror: USS Callister Wish: Jimmy Tatro, American Vandal; Douglas Hodge, Black Mirror: Black Museum

~*~*~*~*~

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series/TV Movie Penelope Cruz, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story Laura Dern, Twin Peaks Nicole Kidman, Top of the Lake: China Girl Angela Lansbury, Little Women Judith Light, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story Merritt Wever, Godless

Alternate: Naomi Watts, Twin Peaks Spoiler: Elizabeth Debicki, The Tale Wish: Anna Paquin, Alias Grace

~*~*~*~*~

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series/TV Movie Bill Camp, The Looming Tower Jeff Daniels, Godless Edgar Ramirez, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story Peter Sarsgaard, The Looming Tower Michael Shannon, Fahrenheit 451 Michael Stuhlbarg, The Looming Tower

Alternate: Ricky Martin, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story Spoiler: Brandon Victor Dixon, Jesus Christ Superstar Wish: Cody Fern, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story

~*~*~*~*~

Outstanding Reality Competition Program The Amazing Race American Ninja Warrior Project Runway RuPaul’s Drag Race Top Chef The Voice

Alternate: Dancing with the Stars Spoiler: Survivor

~*~*~*~*~

Outstanding Reality Host Alec Baldwin, Match Game Gordon Ramsay, Masterchef Junior Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn, Project Runway Jane Lynch, Hollywood Game Night RuPaul, RuPaul’s Drag Race W. Kamau Bell, United Shades of America

Alternate: Queer Eye, Queer Eye Spoiler: Ellen DeGeneres, Ellen’s Game of Games

~*~*~*~*~

Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series Jodi Balfour, The Crown Pam Grier, This is Us Diana Rigg, Game of Thrones Marisa Tomei, The Handmaid’s Tale Cicely Tyson, How to Get Away with Murder Samira Wiley, The Handmaid’s Tale

Alternate: Laverne Cox, Orange is the New Black Spoiler: Kate Burton, This is Us Wish: Rinko Kikuchi, Westworld

~*~*~*~*~

Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series Alan Alda, The Good Fight Matthew Goode, The Crown Michael C. Hall, The Crown Ron Cephas Jones, This is Us Gerald McRaney, This is Us Peter Mullan, Westworld

Alternate: Jimmi Simpson, Westworld Spoiler: Sylvester Stallone, This is Us Wish: Hiroyuki Sanada, Westworld

~*~*~*~*~

Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series Blythe Danner, Will and Grace Tina Fey, Saturday Night Live Tiffany Haddish, Saturday Night Live Lisa Kudrow, Grace & Frankie Jane Lynch, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Wanda Sykes, black-ish

Alternate: Maya Rudolph, The Good Place Spoiler: Molly Shannon, Will and Grace Wish: Tessa Thompson, Dear White People

~*~*~*~*~

Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series Bryan Cranston, Curb Your Enthusiasm Donald Glover, Saturday Night Live Bill Hader, Saturday Night Live Jon Hamm, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt Leslie Jordan, Will and Grace Bob Newhart, The Big Bang Theory

Alternate: Chadwick Boseman, Saturday Night Live Spoiler: Sterling K. Brown, Brooklyn Nine Nine Wish: John Cho, Difficult People

~*~*~*~*~

Outstanding Variety Talk Series Full Frontal with Samantha Bee Jimmy Kimmel Live Last Week Tonight with John Oliver The Late Show with Stephen Colbert The Late Late Show with James Corden Real Time with Bill Maher 

Alternate: The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon

~*~*~*~*~

Outstanding Variety Sketch Series At Home with Amy Sedaris Drunk History I Love You, America Portlandia Saturday Night Live  Tracy Ullman’s Show

~*~*~*~*~

Another Emmy nomination prediction list done! Gonna be Game of Thrones vs. The Handmaid’s Tale it seems, with THT getting more nominations than it did last year. Will be interesting to see which of the five new shows that arrived last year can maintain their momentum. Hoping for some new, new faces everywhere else!

[linestv]

Mattys - 2020

I try to do my own version of the Emmys every year, and these are the results for 2020. The eligibility requirement for shows is, as always, having to finish half of a season before May 31st. Winners are bolded.

Outstanding Drama Series

David Makes Man

For All Mankind

The Good Fight

The Morning Show

Pose

Queen Sugar

Succession

Wentworth

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series

Brian Cox, “Succession”

Ben Kingsley, “Perpetual Grace, LTD”

Akili McDowell, “David Makes Man”

Cilian Murphy, “Peaky Blinders”

Bob Odenkirk, “Better Call Saul”

Billy Porter, “Pose”

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series

Jennifer Aniston, “The Morning Show”

Alana Arenas, “David Makes Man”

Jodie Comer, “Killing Eve”

Dawn-Lyen Gardner, “Queen Sugar”

Nicole Kidman, “Big Little Lies’”

Elisabeth Moss, “The Handmaid’s Tale”

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series

Chris Cooper, “Homecoming”

Billy Crudup, “The Morning Show”

Kieran Culkin, “Succession”

Michael Emerson, “Evil”

Michael Dorman, “For All Mankind”

Terry O’Quinn, “Perpetual Grace, LTD”

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series

Helena Bonham Carter, “The Crown”

Laura Dern, “Big Little Lies”

Paloma Faith, “Pennyworth”

Dominique Jackson, “Pose”

Rhea Seehorn, “Better Call Saul”

Tessa Thompson, “Westworld”

Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series

John Billingsley, “Homecoming”

Colm Feore, “For All Mankind”

Tom Hardy, “Peaky Blinders”

Jason Mantzoukas, “Legion”

Josh O’Connor, “The Crown”

Andrew Scott, “Black Mirror”

Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series

Annaleigh Ashford, “Evil”

Alexis Bledel, “The Handmaid’s Tale”

Joan Cusack, “Homecoming”

Cherry Jones, “Succession”

Jane Lapotaire, “The Crown”

Jennifer Morrison, “This Is Us”

Outstanding Writing For A Drama Series

The Crown, S03E03 - "Aberfan"

David Makes Man, S01E04 - "Gloria"

For All Mankind, S01E03 - "Nixon's Women"

The Morning Show, S01E10 - “The Interview”

Pose, S02E04 - "Never Knew Love Like This Before"

Succession, S02E03 - "Hunting"

Outstanding Directing For A Drama Series

Euphoria, S01E04 - "Shook One: Pt II"

The Handmaid's Tale, S03E06 - "Household"

Legion, S03E01 - "Chapter 20"

Perpetual Grace, LTD, S01E04 - "Felipe G. Usted. Almost First Mexican on the Moon. Part 2"

Undone, S01E02 - "The Hospital"

Westworld, S03E02 - "The Winter Line"

Outstanding Comedy Series

Brockmire

The Great

Harley Quinn

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

One Day at a Time

What We Do in the Shadows

Why Women Kill

Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series

Will Arnett, “BoJack Horseman”

Hank Azaria, “Brockmire”

Matt Berry, “What We Do in the Shadows”

Ted Danson, “The Good Place”

Kayvan Novak, “What We Do in the Shadows”

Chris O'Dowd, “Get Shorty”

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series

Christina Applegate, “Dead to Me”

Rachel Brosnahan, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”

Natasia Demetriou, “What We Do in the Shadows”

Elle Fanning, “The Great”

Lucy Liu, “Why Women Kill”

Merritt Wever, “Run”

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series

Douglas Hodge, “The Great”

Nicholas Hoult, “The Great”

James Marsden, “Dead to Me”

Maaka Pohatu, “Wellington Paranormal”

Mark Proksch, “What We Do in the Shadows”

Tony Shalhoub, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series

Alex Borstein, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”

Betty Gilpin, “G.L.O.W.”

Jessica Lange, “The Politician”

Rita Moreno, “One Day at a Time”

Amanda Peet, “Brockmire”

Sophie Thompson, “Feel Good”

Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series

Freddie Fox, “The Great”

Paul Giamatti, “Lodge 49”

Mark Hamill, “What We Do in the Shadows”

Jake Johnson, “Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet”

Scoot McNairy, “Love Life”

Michael Shannon, “At Home with Amy Sedaris”

Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series

Elizabeth Bowen, “Upload”

Ann Dowd, “At Home with Amy Sedaris”

Lisa Kudrow, “The Good Place”

Caitlin McGee, “Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet”

Bette Midler, “The Politician”

Cristin Milioti, “Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet”

Outstanding Writing For A Comedy Series

BoJack Horseman, S06E15 - "The View From Halfway Down"

Dead to Me, S02E09 - "It's Not You, It's Me"

The Great, S01E09 - "Love Hurts"

Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet, S01E10 - “Quarantine”

What We Do in the Shadows, S02E04 - "The Curse"

Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist, S01E08 - "Zoey's Extraordinary Glitch"

Outstanding Directing For A Comedy Series

G.L.O.W., S03E05 - "Freaky Tuesday"

The Great, S01E10 - "The Beaver’s Nose"

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, S03E01 - "Strike Up the Band"

What We Do in the Shadows, S02E02 - "Ghosts"

Why Women Kill, S01E10 - "Kill Me as If It Were the Last Time"

Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist, S01E08 - "Zoey's Extraordinary Glitch"

Outstanding Limited Series

Castle Rock

Dispatches from Elsewhere

Hollywood

Mrs. America

Unbelievable

Watchmen

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie

Cate Blanchett, “Mrs. America”

Lizzy Caplan, “Castle Rock”

Shira Haas, “Unorthodox”

Regina King, “Watchmen”

Judith Light, “Transparent: Musicale Finale”

Merritt Wever, “Unbelievable”

Reese Witherspoon, “Little Fires Everywhere”

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie

Cameron Britton, “Manhunt: Deadly Games”

Russell Crowe, “The Loudest Voice”

Jeremy Irons, “Watchmen”

Matthew Macfadyen, “Quiz”

Paul Mescal, “Normal People”

Nick Offerman, “Devs”

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie

Toni Collette, “Unbelievable”

Sally Field, “Dispatches from Elsewhere”

Patti LuPone, “Hollywood”

Margo Martindale, “Blow the Man Down”

Sarah Paulson, “Mrs. America”

Jean Smart, “Watchmen”

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie

Jay R. Ferguson, “Briarpatch”

Louis Gossett Jr., “Watchmen”

Richard E. Grant, “Dispatches from Elsewhere”

Joe Mantello, “Hollywood”

Tim Robbins, “Castle Rock”

John Slattery, “Mrs. America”

Outstanding Writing For A Limited Series or Movie

Castle Rock, S02E05 - "The Laughing Place"

Dispatches From Elsewhere, S01E03 - "Janice"

Mrs. America, S01E08 - "Houston"

Unbelievable, S01E01 - "Episode 1"

Watchmen, S01E03 - "She Was Killed by Space Junk"

Watchmen, S01E08 - "A God Walks Into Abar"

Outstanding Directing For A Limited Series or Movie

Briarpatch, S01E01 - "First Time in Saint Disgrace"

Devs, S01E07 - "Episode 7"

Transparent: Musicale Finale

Normal People, S01E08 - "Episode 8"

Mrs. America, S01E08 - “Houston”

Watchmen, S01E06 - "This Extraordinary Being"

The shows with the most nominations in drama, comedy and limited are pictured throughout the list.

[njawaidofficial]

'Black Mirror' Bosses, Cast Unveil Season 4 Episode “USS Callister”

http://styleveryday.com/2017/10/07/black-mirror-bosses-cast-unveil-season-4-episode-uss-callister/

'Black Mirror' Bosses, Cast Unveil Season 4 Episode “USS Callister”

For the upcoming season of Black Mirror, Charlie Brooker decided to beam himself up to space.

“The episode came about when we were on set the previous season,” the creator and executive producer tells The Hollywood Reporter. “The idea came up in conversation and it struck us. We hadn’t done a space epic before and we thought, how would that work in the Black Mirror universe? What sort of tone would it have? We ended up in this strange place.”

The result is a 74-minute long cinematic journey with “USS Callister.” The episode, one of six in the upcoming fourth season of the Netflix techno-paranoia anthology, was screened for a small audience at The Paley Center for Media’s annual PaleyFest New York on Friday night. The cast joined Brooker and executive producer Annabel Jones for a spoiler-filled chat after the screening, but since going into the episode knowing nothing is all of the fun, THR won’t be spoiling anything here. 

Brooker is known for crafting his episodes with shock-twists, including last season’s Emmy-winning “San Junipero” episode, which had the series’ first happy ending. “USS Callister” stars Jesse Plemons, Cristin Milioti, Jimmi Simpson and Michaela Coel, and is directed by Toby Haynes. Ahead of the screening, the season four episode titles, main cast and director names were all that had been officially released by the tight-lipped creator.

#BlackMirror #PaleyFest NY panel– lots of spoilers lots of fun pic.twitter.com/ziFVh9bJ1T

— Paley Center (@paleycenter) October 7, 2017

Similar to “San Junipero,” Jones says “USS Callister” is also a departure from past Black Mirror episodes because it’s cinematic. “This one is a big feat, visually,” she tells THR of shooting in both the U.K. and Spain’s Canary Islands. “It’s still a very personal story about Jesse’s character, but to do it properly, you have to have this big epic. So that’s a bit of a shift. I don’t think we’ve done anything like it.”

When speaking to THR this summer, the pair said their biggest goal with the upcoming season was to not repeat themselves and maintain the show’s unpredictability factor. Now that they’ve finished, Brooker says they achieved their goal. “I’m pleased that we have episodes that are unlike any ones we’ve done before,” he says of the season, which includes a Jodie Foster-directed episode that Jones has likened to being an indie film. “There’s ones that people will love, ones that people will hate. No two people will agree and in that respect, it’s traditional Black Mirror.“

When Netflix released a video teaser of the new episodes (the season is set to release later this year, but doesn’t yet have a date), fans were quick to point out the Star Trek feel of the spaceship and fleet uniforms in “USS Callister.” Of paying homage to the TV classic, Brooker says, “I used to be terrified in Star Trek, of the face of Balok, the scary alien face that used to show up in the end credits. It used to chill me to the core as a child.” 

Without giving away any plot details, Jones describes the episode as being about “tyranny and abuse of power.” Brooker clarified, however, that even though he wrote the episode right around Trump’s election as president, the story isn’t “explicitly about anything politically in the real world.” Still, he says, “all of that real world stuff tends to seep in.”

Brooker, who brought his anthology to Netflix from the BBC, has a history of telling prescient stories. Many of his ideas — from apps to VR to personal tracking technologies — have seemed far-fetched when he wrote them, but have ended up making headlines for being in development. Most recently, Apple’s new iPhone X even conjured up the series’ infamous season two episode “The Waldo Moment,” which also foreshadowed the rise of Trump. “I’m in the wrong game,” says Brooker of Apple’s similar Face ID feature. “I should be on that stage having bank notes fired at me.” His one wish? That people who created technology “would worry more.”

Since the show is an anthology with a rotating cast, all of the stars are new to the series except for one. Coel played a small but intricate part in Bryce Dallas Howard’s episode “Nosedive” last season and is one of only a few stars who has appeared in more than one episode. Thanks to Brooker opening them up to his world, they all said they walked away from set with newfound technology fears.

“I don’t have Facebook or any social media, so I’ve always been somewhat wary and then this show just preys on those concerns,” Plemons tells THR. The Friday Night Lights and Fargo star says he grew up watching Westerns, not Star Trek, and wasn’t entirely sure what he was getting into when he first got the script. “The first scene really confused me. It just seemed like a weird, knock-off Star Trek. I put it down and then watched the entire first season in a couple of days and when I picked the script back up and got to the second scene, I immediately got it and was completely in after that.”

Though Brooker wrote the episode before the election, they began filming in January, marking the return to work for many of the cast after the election. “The episode made me think about Trump, in a ‘we rise’ kind of way,” Milioti tells THR of the darkly comedic story. “It’s similar to ‘Nosedive’ in having that horrible anxious feeling. I remember having those feelings while reading and filming it.”

Simpson echoes that the episode is “about control, power, what you do when you have it and how wanting that so badly often turns things around.” Comparing it to the Twilight Zone episode “Time Enough At Last,” the Westworld star explains to THR, “It was about a man who wants everyone to go away so he can read, and finds out a bomb happened while he’s underground reading. He comes out and everyone’s gone, and he gets to read. But it’s like, is this what you really wanted? Then multiply that by seven, so it’s Brooker-worthy.”

During the panel, Brooker did confirm one burning question when talking about “San Junipero.” He has said that he and Jones are open to revisiting aspects of the episode in the future, though he’d like to leave the main characters Yorkie (Mackenzie Davis) and Kelly (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) in tact. “I think we almost might do it in a completely different form if we were doing a sequel,” he previously told THR.

That story, however, won’t be arriving this season. “We are not doing a San Junipero sequel because we want to keep Kelly and Yorkie there,” he said on the panel of the six new episodes. Then adding to a big audience laugh: “And fuck anyone who says it’s not a happy ending!”

The episode proved to be divisive among the Black Mirror audience, who were skeptical that the joyous ending could be true until Brooker himself confirmed it. Recalling another hard-to-believe moment from the first season — when a prime minister is tasked with having sex with a pig on live television in “National Anthem” — Brooker threw out a fun fact to the crowd about the moment that has come to be known as pig-gate among those clued into the Black Mirror universe.

When pitching the show, Brooker was asked by executives if the animal had to be a pig. “I suggested a frozen supermarket chicken, but it wasn’t the same,” he said. 

The fourth season of Black Mirror releases late 2017 on Netflix.

Black Mirror

#4 #Black #Bosses #Callister #Cast #Episode #Mirror #Season #Unveil #USS

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior’s Best Picture, Director and Screenplay Predictions

Yeah, I’m definitely running a little late on these predictions – what else is new? -- but duty calls over at Below the Line, and it’s been particularly busy covering all the below-the-line stuff for awards season. Let me say that there’s a lot of amazing technical and artisan contributions to last year’s best movies, and it took me getting a job writing about them to fully appreciate the work.

Before we get to my Best Picture predictions, mainly as far as the nominations, we have to talk about three other related categories i.e. the screenplay and director nominations. Of course, having good acting performances in a movie never hurts – the acting branch is the largest in the Academy, after all -- but plenty of movies over the years have gotten a Best Picture nomination without the SAG Ensemble precursor. But all those precursors exist for a reason.

Key: CC = Critics Choice Association, GG = GGs, WGA = Writers Guild, SAG = Screen Actors Guild

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

A few of the precursors for this category include all the various critics groups and the Critics Choice Association, as well as the Golden Globes (who combine the screenplay categories), the Writers Guild of America (with one caveat, which we’ll get to), BAFTA and very importantly, the USC Libraries Scripter Award. BAFTA has not announced its nominations yet – that’s March 8 or 9 – but they have released a number of longlists, which may or may not matter much, since this category will eventually come down to five Oscar nominations.

WGA is a little weird because a number of the screenplays both in this and the original category were not deemed eligible since they weren’t written under WGA guidelines.  The Scripter also nominated the HBO movie Bad Education, although it wasn’t eligible for the Oscars, having already won Emmys. A couple movies that one might expect to see in the adapted category, Emma and The Personal History of David Copperfield, were deemed eligible for the WGA though they’re still eligible for Oscars. More surprisingly is that Nomadland, one of the year’s favorites for Best Picture, wasn’t eligible for the WGA.

It’s still too early to determine if this is the easier or harder of the categories.

Borat Subsequent Films (WGA)

The screenplay for the first Borat movie received an Oscar nomination as well as a WGA nomination in the adapted categories and having already gotten a WGA nomination in a category where other stronger screenplays weren’t deemed eligible, this could follow suit. I’m not sure that this sequel seems as groundbreaking, and it might have a tougher climb when it comes to Oscars.

The Father (GG)

Florian Zeller adapted his own play into his directorial debut feature, which has received great notices so far, mostly from critics and the Hollywood Foreign Press, as well as SAG, all of whom have lauded performances by Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman. Unfortunately, Zeller’s screenplay wasn’t eligible for WGA, but being based on a play makes it seem like it would appeal to writers in the Academy.

First Cow (Scripter, CC)

Kelly Reichardt’s latest period film, co-written by Jonathan Raymond, has been receiving raves and nominations from critics all of last year, although it missed out on a WGA nomination despite being eligible. The movie definitely has its fans, and its Scripter nomination is a nice feather in its cap, although it has much stiffer competition for an Oscar nomination.

Hillbilly Elegy

Ron Howard’s movie based on J.D. Vance’s novel is likely to get at least one acting nomination and maybe another for its makeup, but with such awful critical reviews and no early love from any notable group, the screenplay written by Vance and Vanessa Taylor is likely to get lost in the shuffle.

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (WGA, Scripter, CC)

August Wilson is a playwright greatly respected by writers, and there’s a good reason why it’s been nominated by the two key groups for this category, the WGA and the Script. Having almost guaranteed nominations for two of the actor bringing the script, written by Ruben Santiago-Hudson, to life won’t hurt either, so I feel this is a guaranteed Oscar nominee.

News of the World (WGA, CC)

I’m a pretty big fan of Paul Greengrass’ first Western, co-written with previous Oscar nominee, Luke Davies (Lion), as their adaptation of Paulette Jiles’ novel is quite stirring. The Writers Guild felt the same way, although USC did not, and its CC nomination is surprising since critics didn’t really rally around the movie. This is one that might be able to sneak in if the Academy as a whole gets behind the movie.

Nomadland (Scripter, GG, CC)

Chloé Zhao’s film based loosely on Jessica Bruder’s book has become one of the most lauded and acclaimed movies of last year, and other than being ineligible for a WGA nomination, it’s lined-up so many screenplay nominations from various groups that this is a gimme for an Oscar nomination in this category.

One Night in Miami (Scripter, WGA, CC)

Kemp Powers’ adaptation of his own little known (?) play is quite a powerhouse from the way it was delivered by its four stars and put together by first-time narrative feature director Regina King. There’s little question that this movie wouldn’t have worked even slightly without Powers’ writing as a basis, warranting its three nominations.

The United States vs. Billie Holiday

Some might feel that this Lee Daniels film isn’t up to snuff with some of the other movies up for this category, although it’s a fairly decent translation of the historic material being presented. Still, this is also fairly late in the game which might make it tougher.

The White Tiger (WGA)

A bit of a late-breaker finding fans in the industry -- mostly from directors on Twitter -- is Rahmin Bahrani’s adaptation of Aravind Adiga’s novel, which premiered on Netflix in January and found enough fans to garner a WGA nomination. 

Predicted Nominations: The Father, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, News of the World, Nomadland, One Night in Miami (Possible spoilers: First Cow or The White Tiger)

In my opinion, this is Nomadland’s category to lose, and the only other screenplay that seems like it could pull off an upset win would be Kemp Powers’ brilliant screenplay for One Night in Miami.

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Another always-interesting category, especially because we have a couple truly original screenplays and a couple based on historic events, some fictionalized, and trying to figure out which ones will connect with the writing branch of the Academy. The number of screenplays deemed ineligible by the WGA meant that a few strong screenplays didn’t get that important precursor.

Ammonite

While Francis Lee’s movie got some early critical attention when it premiered during the early September festivals, that love for the movie has fallen by the wayside and with no nominations for either of its leads actors – Kate Winslet or Saoirse Ronan  -- the screenplay (ineligible for WGA) probably won’t get attention either.

Da 5 Bloods

One would think that the follow-up to the movie that won Spike Lee his first Oscar in the Adapted Screenplay category would be in the conversation for Original Screenplay but oddly, it’s not, despite lots of critical love since this hit Netflix last July.

Judas and the Black Messiah (WGA)

Somewhat of a late-comer to the awards season is Shaka King’s movie about the murder of Chicago Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, as played by Daniel Kaluuya. While Kaluuya is getting raves for his performance and the WGA included its screenplay by Will Berson and Shaka King in its five nominees, it just hasn’t really delivered the buzz and hype to get it through to Academy voters. Maybe that will change with it playing on HBO Max for a month.

Malcolm and Marie

Sam Levinson’s semi-controversial two-handed drama came into the game a little late, although it reads as much like a play as some of the adapted screenplays above, notably The Father and One Night in Miami. Its stars John David Washington and Zendaya have yet to get much in terms of advance nominations, so this might be a movie that just hasn’t connected.

Mank (GG, CC)

This passion project from David Fincher is a screenplay written by his late father, Jack Fincher, that the Oscar-nominated had been wanting to make for decades. It finally happened thanks to Netflix, and the movie’s leading performace by Gary Oldman as Herman Mankiewicz and Amanda Seyfried’s portrayal of Marion Davies are getting enough attention that the elder Fincher’s screenplay could be nominated despite not being eligible for WGA.

Minari (CC)

The Academy loves a good narrative in this category, and you can’t get much better than Lee Isaac Chung telling this semi-autobiographical story about his own childhood as a young boy with Korean immigrant parents trying to make it as American farmers. People love this movie, and it seems like Chung’s screenplay is likely to get attention even if the love the cast has gotten from critics and SAG doesn’t translate to acting nominations at the Oscars.

Never Rarely Sometimes Always (CC)

This amazing indie film by Eliza Hittman was released the weekend when the pandemic hit the country, but it was seen by enough critics at Sundance and beforehand to have a lot of critical support. In fact, some (like me) might presume film critics completely tuned out once movie theaters closed since this received a lot of critical notices at the end of the year. It’s a powerful film with a great screenplay, although that doesn’t mean that the writers branch will feel the same as film critics.

Palm Springs (WGA)

Another movie from Sundance that found fans among critics, as well as a WGA nomination for the screenplay by Andy Siara, is this comedic sci-fi premise that took a Primer-level premise and combined it with a romantic comedy, starring Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti. It has a lot of fans but enough to get the attention of the Academy’s writers branch?

Pieces of a Woman

This heavy drama from Hungarian filmmaker Kornél Mundruczó and his longtime collaborator, writer Kata Wéber, seems to have dwindled in terms of buzz, partially and possibly because one of the stars, Shia LaBeouf, has been accused of abuse and essentially cancelled. It’s a shame because it’s a fantastic script that really allows the two leads and Ellen Burstyn to shine as actors.

Promising Young Woman (WGA, GG, CC)

Yet another movie that grabbed attention at Sundance is this debut by Emerald Fennell, which may be one of the strongest revenge thrillers in terms of script in quite a few decades. It’ sa true original which gives it a distinct advantage in what is otherwise a fairly tough category. Having a WGA and a Golden Globe nomination for its screenplay also won’t hurt.

Soul

Disney-Pixar’s latest, co-written and co-directed by two-time Oscar winner Pete Docter and One Night in Miami’s Kemp Powers, is on the fast-track for a possible Oscar win for Animated Feature. Although the WGA doesn’t allow animated films in this category, the Academy does, and in fact, Docter’s screenplay for Inside Out was also nominated. It feels like every time there’s a well-loved Pixar movie, people expect an Oscar nomination for the screenplay, but that’s because Pixar screenplays have been nominated six times over the past 20 years, always in the original category (vs. sequels, which would be adapted.)

Sound of Metal (WGA, CC)

There’s no question that much of what makes Darius Marder’s film work comes down to the performance by Riz Ahmed and the efforts by the technical team. Still, it’s a great script written by Marder and his brother Abraham (based on a story by Derek Cianfrance). One of Ahmed’s previous films, Nightcrawler, received an Oscar nomination for filmmaker Dan Gilroy, showing that the Academy writers branch do appreciate originality in this category. That’s why it’s called “Original Screenplay,” I guess.

Trial of the Chicago 7 (WGA, GG)

Aaron Sorkin is a previous Oscar winner with two other nominations, all in the Adapted Screenplay category. For whatever reason, and despite the amount of time this movie takes place in the courtroom depicting a well-documented trial, this is being considered an original screenplay. Due to Sorkin’s reputation and status as a screenwriter, this is almost guaranteed an Oscar nomination, and while most oddsmakers would put it fairly high to wind, look for some of the young upstarts like Promising Young Woman or Sond of Metal to not go down without a fight.

Predicted Nominations: Mank, Minari, Promising Young Woman, Sound of Metal, Trial of the Chicago 7

This is a HUGELY competitive category, almost insanely so, and while a wise person might give Sorkin’s Trial of the Chicago 7 script the best odds at winning just due to the nature of its screenplay, there could be a surprise in this category come Oscar night if it’s not deemed as “original” as the work by newer filmmakers.

BEST DIRECTOR

If there’s any one category that helps define the Best Picture race more than any other, it’s this one. If there’s any precursor that’s more important than any other one, than it’s the Directors Guild (DGA) who haven’t announced their nominations as of yet – that’s also on March 9. There have only been a few examples of a Best Picture winner that didn’t at least have a nomination for Best Director. It’s now happened twice in the last ten years with Argo, for which director Ben Affleck wasn’t nominated, and Green Book, for which Peter Farrelly wasn’t nominated by the directors’ branch. (Incidentally, Affleck was nominated and won the DGA award, while Farrelly was nominated for DGA but lost to Alfonso Cuaron, who also ended up winning his second Oscar for Roma.)

Either way, this is going to be an interesting category, because it’s the first year where there not only may be TWO women directors but possibly even TWO women of color. The times are definitely changing for the better for everyone who complained about Greta Gerwig not being nominated last year for Little Women… or was that two years ago? Man, time is just flying right by.

Lee Isaac Chung – Minari (CC)

One of the two most popular movies that came out of this year’s Sundance is this family drama from a director who based his movie on his own personal experiences as a child, similar to previous winner Alfonso Cuaron when he made Roma. The question is whether the DGA and directors chapter of the Academy feel that it’s a directing achievement and not just a great script and group of actors.

Emerald Fennell – Promising Young Woman (GG, CC)

Similarly, this amazing thriller by a first-time director has been wowing critics and audiences alike since its debut at Sundance, and it’s been finding even more fans over the past few months with awards voters watching closer to filling out ballots. In some ways, this movie is very much this year’s Black Swan, a movie everyone talks about and that should translate well into industry awards for Fennell. Of the “dark horses,” Fennell seems like one of the better bets.

David Fincher – Mank (GG, CC)

One director who is no stranger to awards season is also considered by many to be one of the America’s greatest filmmakers, and yet, he still hasn’t won an Oscar for his directing despite being nominated for two consecutive films, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and The Social Network. Mank hasn’t gotten nearly as much advance buzz as the latter but still has strong support from the Golden Globes and Critics Choice, so it’s up to the DGA now to see if they’ll include Fincher in their Top 5 nominations. It feels that if any director might get bumped by a dark horse, it’ll be Fincher.

Paul Greengrass – News of the World

Personally, I think this Western is one of Greengrass’ greater achievements as a filmmaker but other critics don’t feel the same, and I’m not sure that not having that advance buzz and hype is gonna help get Oscar voters to watch this compared to some of the others, and that’s really what Oscar season is all about. Who watches your movie. Although it’s been a while since the last awards-worthy Western, some Oscar voters might feel this is just too much like Old School Oscars. Of course, the older voters in the directing branch might be very happy about that.

Regina King - A Night in Miami (GG, CC)

Another movie that has been helped greatly by premiering during the early September festival and continuing to win over fans in the months since then. It certainly won’t hurt that the movie’s easily watchable on Amazon Prime Video and heavily promoted on Fire TVs, Fire Sticks, etc. Remember that it’s often as much about voters having access to a good movie like this than just the movie being good. I can’t imagine the directors in the Academy chapter not being impressed by King’s work as a first-time narrative filmmaker, although there may be some trepidation due to her primary career as an actor ala Ben Affleck for Argo a few years back.

Spike Lee – Da 5 Bloods (CC)

Spike Lee is easily one of the most respected African-American filmmakers, and yet, it took him 30 years after Do the Right Thing to even get a directing Oscar nomination for 2019’s BlackKklansman. Many feel that Lee is achieving another high point in this career (i.e. most critics) although I disagree and think this is only a better Lee movie compared to the 6 or 7 awful movies he made before BlackKklansmn. (Anyone remember She Hate Me or Red Hook Summer or that terrible Oldboy remake? I rest my case.) Personally, I don’t think Lee will get nominated (nor will the screenplay) and that will give Da 5 Bloods less of a chance at a Best Picture nomination.

Aaron Sorkin - Trial of the Chicago 7 (GG, CC)

Although Sorkin is one of the most celebrated screenwriters and playwrights from the last two or three decades, he’s yet to be celebrated as a director, and that’s only because Trial is only his second feature as a director. It’s quite an impressive venture compared to his first movie, Molly’s Game, due to everything from the staging of the actual trial to all the footage from the protests and the performances he got out of a fairly large cast.

George C. Wolfe - Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

I’m a little surprised Wolfe, a renowned stage director who has won Emmys and Tonys, isn’t getting more credit for directing the Oscar-caliber performances from the entire cast, particularly Viola Davis and the late Chadwick Boseman, but apparently, critics think that this movie directed itself. I feel that the movie has enough fans to get a Best Picture nomination, but sadly, Wolfe won’t get any of the credit for making it so great. Remember that this category gets its nominees from members of the director’s branch and despite Wolfe’s many achievements, he might just be too Broadway to get credit for this film.

Chloé Zhao - Nomadland – (GG, CC, plus winner of NY, LA, Boston and many other film critics groups)

The director who has won more critics’ awards than any other director and is likely to be a favorite to win the Oscar is the filmmaker who wowed so many with her second movie, The Rider, and has only gotten better by working with name actors like Frances McDormand and David Strathairn on her new one. Nomadland is an amazing film that’s universally loved, and Zhao is aiming to be the very first woman of color to win Best Director if there’s anything right with the world.

There are only five directors who have received both Golden Globe and Critics Choice nominations, and it seems very likely that this group of five will also be picked by the DGA, barring any surprises.

Predicted Nominations: Fennell, Fincher, (Regina) King, Sorkin, Zhao (Possible spoiler: Chung)

Like with Adapted Screenplay, this should be Chloé Zhao’s to lose. Anyone else wins and it will a pretty major Oscar night shocker.

BEST PICTURE

As usual, there’s more than ten movies in some form of conversation as a possible Oscar Best Picture nominee but that’s because there are a lot of good movies but only a few truly great movies that every single person agrees with. This year’s nominations might very well come down to the three or four movies that end up as people’s 1st place choices in the preferential nomination ballot.

There are a few precursors to keep an eye on, most notably the GGs and Screen Actors Guild Ensemble, but there have been plenty of Best Picture nominees and maybe even a few winners that have skirted those precursors to still get a nomination.  Heck, we’ve had a few recent Best Picture winners that weren’t even nominate for SAG Ensemble like Green Book and The Shape of Water.

Da 5 Bloods (CC, SAG Ensemble)

Spike Lee has gotten a lot of love from the critics for his first Netflix movie, a Vietnam War heist drama about a group of soldiers who return to Vietnam to retrieve a cache of gold they’ve buried. Da 5 Bloods won a number of critics awards and has generally gotten some overall love, but not from the Golden Globes and neither Delroy Lindo nor the late Chadwick Boseman have been in the conversation other than from critics and a couple SAG nominations. Because of this, this seems like one of the weaker offerings and a possible omission for Best Picture.

Judas and the Black Messiah

As mentioned above, Shaka King’s historical drama arrived fairly late in the game but maybe that will benefit it since it will be seen most recently (and on HBO Max, most likely) and therefore remembered when filling out the ballots. Frankly, I feel this has a better chance at getting a nomination than Lee’s movie just because it feels like a stronger overall film, plus it feels a lot more relevant and timely.

*Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (CC, SAG Ensemble)

The second film based on an August Wilson play after Denzel Washington’s Fences is likely to find just as many fans in key branches, particularly acting and some of the technical branches, and though I’m not sure how many might pick them as their #1 movie of the year, it stands a good chance at getting enough #2 or #3 votes to get into the nominations even without director George C. Wolfe being nominated, which is a shame. To me, this feels like a mid-

*Mank (CC, GG)

Fincher’s period drama is going to be a huge player in the below-the-line i.e. technical categories, so it shouldn’t be a surprise if a movie that celebrates old Hollywood finds its fans in the Academy whose members just love to celebrate…well… themselves. Maybe not a frontrunner to win but definite nominee.

*Minari (CC, SAG Ensemble)

Lee Isaac Chung’s movie has found a lot of fans, and it ticks a lot of boxes that could help get it into the Best Picture nominations, being many people’s favorite movie of the year and that could be the case within various branches of the Academy as well. I’m not sure this will receive that many individual Oscars but should all be collected into a pretty good placement. (The only reason it isn’t the Golden Globe Drama nominations is because it was deemed a foreign language film and therefore, it’s likely to win in that category.)

News of the World (CC)

When I first saw Peter Greengrass’ Western, I was so blown away that I was sure that it was destined to be an Oscar frontrunner but with little critical support (other than Critics Choice) and only support from WGA and SAG (but only for newcomer Helena Zengel), this is gonna have a tough time getting into a Best Picture race if it ends up only being 7 or 8 nominees. The movie’s best bet is is if it gets below-the-line support for some of its crafts, which seems very likely.

*Nomadland (CC, GG)

By all accounts, Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland has become the bonafide frontrunner with numerous accolades from critics groups, but as we’ve seen way too many times with movies like The Social Network and Roma, the Academy sometimes agrees with the critics but sometimes rebels. While Nomadland may not seem like a typical Best Picture from the Academy, neither was Moonlight and a few others, and few will be surprised if the Academy goes with this over others. It’ll be interesting to see how the movie fares with Golden Globes and Critics Choice, but it also probably won’t matter since it will need support from ALL chapters of the Academy.

*One Night in Miami (CC, SAG Ensemble)

Regina King’s movie based on Kemp Powers’ stageplay has found a good deal of support because it shows a piece of history while also being timely with what’s going on in the world today. With great writing and acting, that’s two chapters that should support the movie, as should the directors and other Academy chapters, and that should guarantee a nomination, although it might end up splitting votes with movies like Judas and the Black Messiah and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (presuming that both get nominated).

*Promising Young Woman (CC, GG)

Emerald Fennell’s thriller starring Carey Mulligan has been finding its fans among critics and the industry alike, and it’s the type of unforgettable movie that’s likely to make it into many Top 5 lists for the years. Heck, it was (and is) my #1 for 2020, so I can imagine it should get into the Best Picture category even if it has a tougher climb to winning.

*Trial of the Chicago 7 (CC, SAG Ensemble, GG)

Sorkin’s latest movie as a director is a retelling of an infamous trial in the late ‘60s of a number of protesters of the Vietnam War (finishing that circle) and Sorkin put together such an amazing cast to tell this story that it’s no surprise it’s been getting acclaim from critics and likely from Sorkin’s pals in the industry.

The movies with an asterisk (*) above I feel are sure things to get nominated for Best Picture, and that adds up to 7. There’s a chance that one or two of the other three movies can get in, but there’s no guarantee there will be ten Best Picture nominees this year.

Most Likely to Sneak In:

The Father (GG) Sound of Metal (CC) Soul First Cow

It’s Dead, Jim:

Pieces of a Woman The Prom (GG) Hillbilly Elegy The Midnight Sky Malcolm and Marie

The thing is that we won’t get any real answers for Best Picture until the DGA and PGA announces their nominations since these are two industry guilds in line with SAG that helps to show in which way the Academy voters might sway. I’m not sure that whatever wins the Golden Globes in the drama category (the only real race that matters) on Sunday or the Best Picture winner at Critics Choice (probably Nomadland or Promising Young Woman in a shocker) will make much of a difference since the Academy will still have nearly two months to watch. On March 15, the Oscar nominations will be announced and barring any surprises, we’re gonna have 7 to 10 Best Picture nominations but still only 5 that might win the Oscar… and we might not even know what those movies are after Green Book and Argo wins without a Best Director nomination! Crazy year, huh?

That’s it for my Oscar predictions, although I’ll probably post something updated as we get closer to April, and my Golden Globe predictions will be on Twitter.

[helloworlddemo1122-yahoopar-blog]

Emmys 2018: Audra McDonald Wants to Do a Musical Episode of ‘The Good Fight’ (Exclusive)

Audra McDonald delivered one of ET's Standout Performances of the 2017-18 season.  

A six-time Tony Award winner (including a win in every applicable acting category), Audra McDonald is an unstoppable force on Broadway. But the actress and singer is no stranger to TV, with four seasons on Private Practice and Emmy-nominated roles in adaptations of A Raisin in the Sun and Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill under her belt. Now, she’s back onscreen with her first series regular role -- Liz Reddick on The Good Fight -- in seven years since playing Dr. Naomi Bennett on Shonda Rhimes’ medical drama.

The commitment was an easy sell to the New York-based actress and mother of two, because Robert and Michelle King’s Good Wife spinoff tapes in Brooklyn. “I get to sleep in my own bed,” McDonald quips, revealing that traveling to and from Los Angeles during her time on Private Practice became taxing. But she also points to what many of the actors and recurring players often cite when asked about appearing on this show: “I think the Kings are incredible writers. [With] the caliber of work they do, it just seemed like a no-brainer.”

Reprising a guest-starring role she played on a 2013 episode of The Good Wife, McDonald was brought on board for season two of the CBS All Access series. “It was like, omigosh!” McDonald recalls of reading the script that years later finally revealed her character’s backstory and swiftly folded her into the drama at the Chicago-based law firm Reddick, Boseman & Lockhart, where Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski) and Liz’s ex-husband, Adrian Boseman (Delroy Lindo), both work. “I was fascinated by how she would do in those circumstances and where her new life takes her.”

No sooner than she’s brought in, Liz is navigating both interoffice politics -- finding herself at odds with Diane -- and finding her footing in the legal world, going from being a U.S. Attorney to a defense lawyer. “Liz is a very powerful woman and Diane Lockhart is very powerful, so to put those two women in a small space with each other and see how they navigate and negotiate each other is fascinating,” McDonald says of the two women’s dynamic. But Liz, like everyone on the show, lives in the gray. “It’s not black or white. It’s not good or evil. They’re messy people. I very much enjoy that Liz has got a lot of fight to her. It makes her more fun to play.”

This season, meanwhile, centers on the alarming murder rate of Chicago lawyers who are targeted by disgruntled clients. Each episode also has a political theme tied to the national news cycle, from golden showers to fake news. “It’s like [Robert and Michelle King] have a crystal ball or something -- they are just on top of it,” McDonald says, amazed by their ability to match the show with current events. “This is the world these characters are living in, so you can’t ignore what’s going on. The Kings understand that. Instead of avoiding it and making some alternate universe that doesn’t exist, they’ve headlonged into it -- which makes it all the more exciting and realistic, because people who are watching can identify.”

For McDonald, the episode surrounding a hypothetical presidential impeachment was, in a way, cleansing. The Democratic National Committee asks each of the partners at Reddick, Boseman & Lockhart to come up with a pitch on how to remove President Donald Trump from office. “I felt the episode was very cathartic to have those moments saying why Liz would go for it,” the actress says.

Delroy Lindo, Audra McDonald and Christine Baranski in a scene from 'The Good Fight.'

CBS All Access

In a standout scene, each lawyer shares their pitch, with Liz staying silent at first, until she shares her stance with a powerful, jaw-dropping pronouncement about how she would bring him down with accusations of rape and a threesome with adult film stars:

“It’s not about choosing one charge or another for impeachment -- it’s about everything,” Liz firmly states to the room. “It’s about who he is. It’s about what the presidency is. Charging him with obstruction; that’s going by the old rules. This isn’t about truth anymore and it’s not about lying. It’s about who’s backtracking and who is attacking.”

“I liked how they were showing it’s a messy idea and doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the right idea or the right way to do it,” McDonald says of how the plot played out, adding that the Kings do have a contingency plan in case a major political shakeup becomes reality.

As for what’s to come, McDonald is keeping tight-lipped about season three, outside of teasing that the relationship between Diane and Liz will be central to the story. “We’ll continue to see how they negotiate having to live in the same space together, and I think that’s an interesting journey,” she says.

But when asked what kind of story McDonald would like to see The Good Fight explore, it’s decidedly much different than what audiences have seen the show do so far. A musical episode, she jokes, since many of the show’s stars (Baranski, Sarah Steele, Justin Bartha) and recurring guest stars (Andrea Martin, Bernadette Peters, Carrie Preston) have theater backgrounds. “[The Kings] pull a lot of guest actors from the theater world, and I feel like every week, when we walk into a new episode, there is a whole pack of actors I’ve worked with before. It feels like a big repertory company.”

It’s also not uncommon to hear co-stars practicing in their dressing rooms. “When Christine was getting ready to go off and do Mamma Mia [2] for the summer, she was rehearsing her music for that. Sarah Steele recently did a musical workshop on something so you could hear her practicing in her dressing room. You hear the music in there all the time,” McDonald says. She and Baranski sometimes even break out into songs from Stephen Sondheim here and there. “You just have to. You can’t help it.”

 MORE STANDOUT PERFORMANCES OF THE SEASON:

Emmys 2018: How Cristin Milioti’s Leap of Faith With ‘Black Mirror’ Paid Off (Exclusive)

Emmys 2018: Freddie Highmore Leaves His Indelible Mark on ‘The Good Doctor’ (Exclusive)

Emmys 2018: Holland Taylor Looks Forward to Sharing an Emmys Moment With Sarah Paulson (Exclusive)

[nijigasakilove]

Wow holy shit what an episode. Some monsters aren’t made, they’re just born. Completely lost all sympathy for Oz in this one and idk how to feel about that. On one hand it’s cool that we have a villain who’s pure irredeemably evil, on the other, I did like having a character who was a victim of circumstance and forced into this life. But in reality, that’s more Sofia’s situation than Oz.

Oz taking out his brothers for no other reason other than wanting to be closer to his mom is crazy. I mean imagine the horror they had to feel in their final moments and all for what? It kinda makes seeing him bullshit his way out of scenes annoying because he needs to get his comeuppance.

I LOVE the scene with Francis and Sofia talking. Francis looks death in the eye literally in the form of sofia and doesn’t blink, the fake dementia outburst and slap was incredible.

Also a big fan of Gia and Sofia’s scene. We kinda got used to seeing Sofia’s tough exterior that she projects to the world so you can forget that she’s a broken little girl on the inside too just like Gia and I think Cristin Milioti really sold that scene so well. Again, if she don’t win an Emmy for this idk what an Emmy performance is.

RIP Sal, him having a heart attack mid fight and penguin taking credit for it is a bit funny.

But the biggest elephant in the room is wtf is Batman doing? I know Matt reeves don’t want to overshadow Oz by having him show up, but at this point it’s getting ridiculous. You can’t have an entire city block blow up, a full blown gang war and all the crazy shit that’s going on in this show happen without having Batman show up. It just makes zero sense. At the very LEAST Gordon needs to show up next week in the finale.

[njawaidofficial]

‘Black Mirror’ Season 4 Episodes: Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones Interview [Spoilers]

http://styleveryday.com/2017/09/03/black-mirror-season-4-episodes-charlie-brooker-and-annabel-jones-interview-spoilers/

‘Black Mirror’ Season 4 Episodes: Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones Interview [Spoilers]

Black Mirror viewers were thrown for a loop when the third season of the horror anthology series delivered a happy ending.

The season three episode, “San Junipero,” became an instant cultural phenomenon and nabbed creator Charlie Brooker two Emmy nominations for standing out among an otherwise tantalizingly bleak universe of techno-paranoia. The 1987 California-set episode — with its neon palette, nostalgic soundtrack and oceanside optimism — came at the perfect time and in the wake of both the U.S. presidential election and Brexit. Brooker, who along with executive producer Annabel Jones, brought his BBC dystopian series to Netflix with the six-episode third season in late October 2016.

“It was the first episode I wrote for season three and it was a conscious effort to blow up what I thought a Black Mirror episode was,” Brooker told The Hollywood Reporter during a recent sit-down with Jones. The pair stressed that if nothing else, their intent is always to deliver the unpredictable.

Throughout its three-season run, Black Mirror has delivered twist after shock ending, with much to say about society layered between. The series launched with a commentary on social media that saw a U.K prime minister having sex with a pig on live television. The episode, “The National Anthem,” is now fondly known as #piggate among the Black Mirror audience. Brooker writes every script and among the 13 episodes, many of his seemingly far-fetched ideas — from apps to VR to personal tracking technologies — have later made headlines for being in development. Most notably, however, he foreshadowed the rise of President Trump with 2013’s “The Waldo Moment,” which saw an outsider who voices a cartoon bear winning an election by utilizing anti-establishment rhetoric. 

The highly anticipated fourth season, which doesn’t yet have a premiere date but is set to launch on Netflix later this year, recently released its cryptic episode titles, cast and directors. Among the group, Jodie Foster will direct an episode starring Rosemarie Dewitt and Fargo stars Jesse Plemons and Cristin Milioti, along with Westworld‘s Jimmi Simpson, join the roster. Past cycles have starred Jon Hamm, Bryce Dallas Howard, Michael Kelly, Wyatt Russell, Kelly Macdonald, Domhnall Gleeson, Daniel Kaluuya, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Mackenzie Davis, to name a few.

In the conversational chat below, Brooker and Jones take THR through the method of their madness when it came to plotting the new season (which finished shooting its six episodes ahead of summer), weigh in on the call for a “San Junipero” sequel and whether or not it inspired them to infuse more optimism in season four, and reveal if all those Black Mirror Easter eggs hold any weight. The duo also calls the upcoming season their most ambitious yet, tackling new worlds, tones, themes and episode lengths to create “timeless” stories — whether they end up predicting the end of days or not.

“San Junipero” ranks as both a critical and fan hit. I spoke with the episode’s director, Owen Harris, and we mused about ways San Junipero could be revisited in the future. Have you thought about a sequel or any crossovers?

Charlie Brooker: We’ve thought about it. There were aspects of the story that I took out. For instance, I’d originally written a scene where Gugu’s character, Kelly, is in a kindergarten and there are children there and when you realize what’s going on, it’s that these are deceased children. It was too sad and too poignant of a note to hit in that story, but I kept thinking about how that felt like a whole world in and of itself. I think we almost might do it in a completely different form if we were doing a straight sequel, if that makes sense. Maybe not even as a normal episode.

Like a standalone episode?

Brooker: Like a thing. An experience.

Annabel Jones: Like, for real.

Brooker: That’s exactly what I was going to say. We should do it for real. (Laughs.) We do like to drop Easter eggs every so often in other episodes, so we may be referring to San Junipero again. It’s difficult because I don’t think we’d revisit those characters. That felt like such a story and we wouldn’t want to open it up again.

The episode had a surprisingly happy ending, the first ever for a Black Mirror episode. Why?

Jones: There were a few bumps along the way, and a few question marks and sacrifices. [Kelly] is not whole-heartedly saying, “This is everything I want for the future.”

Brooker: It’s not Rainbow Island. It’s not perfect. It’s been very gratifying how people have taken that episode to heart, though.

The season and that episode came out shortly after the U.S. election and not long after Brexit. Do you think the optimism of the story contrasting with reality is what made it such a fast favorite? There were T-shirts and San Junipero Easter eggs in other TV shows.

Brooker: We saw a reference in The CW’s Riverdale, where a character gets on a bus to go to San Junipero. And there was a reference in a Saturday Night Live sketch. That sort of thing is quite daunting and quite eerie.

Jones: One of the things about being a Netflix show is that you’re not quite sure of the cultural impact of things, or when it will pick up momentum.

Brooker: We had started seeing fan art, all things that we love. And there was a guy who was doing comic book covers who we actually roped into do some stuff on the next season. It’s been interesting. When writing that episode, I was quite nervous because it had a different tone. Because I saw people moaning that the show was going to Netflix and was going to get all Americanized, I said, “Okay. Set it in California.” We also set ourselves the challenge of doing a period episode and I was nervous because it was ultimately a love story between two women — and I’m sitting there in London, a 40-something guy thinking, “Can I pull this off? I don’t know!” So I was relieved to have gotten away with it and then gratified that people took it to heart and that it resonated.

Jones: It was also an opportunity to show that we, and the show, are not anti-technology. Sometimes people think that the show is completely waving its fist at it. Actually, we all love technology and that’s why we’re making a show about it. We’re just sort of exploring some exaggerated stories .

Brooker: I do think it’s interesting that when someone does a show about the supernatural, no one is asking, “Why do you hate the dead so much? What have you got against ghosts?”

Did the reception of the happy ending influence you when it came to plotting the next season?

Brooker: Yes and no. Certainly, I would say that because it was a departure in tone — the fact that it had an upbeat ending was a way of me resetting what I thought the scripts were — and the fact that that worked definitely had some bearing on where my head is at, script-wise. Looking at the world, it’s hard to know quite how to react because the situation keeps changing every 15 minutes and you don’t know what mindset people are going to be in come when we release the season. So it’s had some bearing. We decide the order of episodes after we finish shooting. When something like that lands really well — and people love or hate all the episodes — but since that one resonated so much, you don’t want to hit the same bell again, even though it’s tempting. We have to be unpredictable with the show. We’re kind of back to doing more different things, again.

Jones: The more episodes that we do, the more we challenge our perception of the show as well and what we’re likely to do. I think that was an, as you say, experiment in whether we can keep that sensibility and have an upbeat ending, so it sort of increases the scope.

Brooker: That was the thing. It’s making sure that every story is idiosyncratic and has its own flavor, but that it still feels like it’s got some Black Mirror DNA, somewhere. That is quite a challenge sometimes and can make it a bit tricky. But that’s part of the fun of the show, is that we blow up the world, basically, at the end of each one. 

You have spoken about predicting the rise of Trump but when you wrote this season, Trump had risen. Did that making writing this season different going back to it?

Brooker: That’s a good question. In the U.K. I host a comedy show, Wipe, and I do an annual one where I sum up the year. Because 2016 was so horrible, at one point I rang Annabel up and said, “I’m not going to do it.” For my own mental well-being. Then she reminded me that contractually, I had to.

Jones: Yes, I was a very sympathetic shoulder to cry on: You have to do it, so there!

Brooker: After doing it, the immediate after of having to immerse myself and think about it, I was genuinely depressed for a while. Then I thought, “Oh no, that was character building and I think it was useful.” If it made one more person feel a little sane, then that was worthwhile. It’s slightly different with fiction. When returning to writing, I didn’t know if I wanted to completely immerse myself in nihilistic sequels at the moment when I can get that on the news! So there’s a degree of defiance that creeps in.

Jones: That’s reflective of the human spirit as a whole. People are slightly more politicized at the moment and it’s bringing people more into the political fold more than ever before, so there are always positive stirrings.

Brooker: There’s a determination that is empowering. Things that speak to the precise moment? It’s tricky to know what those are until the dust has settled a little. What we don’t tend to do when coming up with the stories is look at the news or the tech pages. We don’t do that and ask, “What’s our take on this?” That’s all stuff that’s percolating around our heads anyway and I guess it comes out in the scripts. There are probably a few explicit references to a few things, but it’s always going to be oblique.

Jones: Most of the stories are small, personal stories and they’re not overtly political. Or they’re not overtly commenting on corporations or government. It tends to be more about the individual so in that sense, there’s a timeless quality to them.

Brooker: Hopefully.

Many of your episodes have made headlines after the fact. “Hated in the Nation” centered around bee terrorism and there were stories about how that could become a reality shortly after you released the season.

Brooker: After San Junipero, there was a story about a hospice in the U.K. that’s using VR nostalgia therapy for their patients.

Does that challenge you even more when thinking up the next season? Or is the fun of it seeing how close this fantasy world merges with reality?

Brooker: We probably push it even further. I remember when we started doing season three, which was the first Netflix season, I said to myself that people always think we’re predicting the future and that we weren’t this time around. I felt that it was so far-fetched. But then, like you say, robot bees become a thing. So I keep thinking that this next season is pushed even further and there’s no way. But you can bet within five minutes Elon Musk is going to pop up with something. We should basically be in product or app design and should be patenting these things.

Jones: We should have a Black Mirror department that we can head up.

Brooker: Where we just 3D print these things so they pop up and land in your lap at the end of each story. (Laughs.)

There is an avid Reddit subculture that exists around finding and deciphering your Easter eggs.

Brooker: Oh, they’ll love the next season then!

Are you increasing the Easter eggs moving forward?

Brooker: I think it’s fair to say that there is one episode where we’ve just opened up an Easter egg hose and fired away. 

Is that just a fun nod to the fans, or are you really connecting all these episodes into one Black Mirror universe? And if so, is there an end game to that?

Brooker: My answer to that has changed, actually. It always used to be that it’s just a bit of fun. But then sometimes we’ve done some things where we did explicitly refer to other episodes. I think the rule is that when a character says something that explicitly refers to something else, it’s canonical. Also, they follow the same dream universe. That’s the other thing that I tend to say. There’s a line in “Hated in the Nation” where someone refers to a crime that happened in “White Bear.”

The Twitter feed in “Hated in the Nation” also referred to the prime minister who had sex with a pig in the series premiere.

Brooker: We love doing that. I love all the product design and UI side of it. We’ll sit there and dissect type face. It’s always about stripping it down. But we write Easter eggs to put in there specifically and sometimes there’s gags for people who press pause.

What about your social media strategy? On the day of the U.S. election, your account was trending for tweeting: No, this isn’t a Black Mirror episode. Are you involved in that strategy and linking it with the personality of the show?

Jones: Netflix handles that and we trust their judgment. It does fit with our show. We were sort of conscious on what that day meant to America and we wouldn’t want to think that Black Mirror was promoting itself off the back of it. They were sensitive and responding to other tweets, so they put something out. I think it’s important to be responsive rather than being opportunistic.

Brooker: They were probably typing it with shaking hands, like everyone was while sort of feeling a bit dizzy and unreal. I think they do a really good job with the social feed, as well as the video that mashed up Orange Is the New Black with the “San Junipero” episode. They came to us and we shipped the neon sign over. We should do more mashups with other shows, that would send the Easter egg people into overdrive.

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt did a crossover with Orange Is the New Black in their last season. Is crossing over within the Netflix universe something that interests you?

Brooker: Well, we’ve had [Kimmy Schmidt star] Jon Hamm!

Jones: I don’t know. I think it’s fun to do in the guise of a trail or a one-off.

Brooker: An interesting mental challenge would be to think about how to work that into a Black Mirror story where it’d be a way of breaking the fourth wall. We’d probably do it where someone finds themselves trapped in House of Cards or something, where they know it’s a fictional show they are trapped in. That’s probably the way we would do it. Talk about having difficulty about stripping reality.

The last season of House of Cards spurred similar questions to your last season, about how the shows predicted reality. Getting you two sets of showrunners together would make for an interesting dinner conversation…

Jones: It would be the bleakest evening ever.

With season four, how did you go about picking your directors and actors and are you getting pitched at this point, have you had to turn people down?

Jones: Oh, we wouldn’t turn anyone down.

Brooker: Well, we would turn down random strangers.

Jones: With the directors, it’s quite different to plan with an anthology show. Charlie is writing all of the scripts and comes up with all of the ideas, so when we start the season, we don’t have our six scripts on the table. We’re often a little last minute, shall we say? So he brings the scripts and tells bits and pieces and then we figure out the director. We respond to the script and find the best director for that episode who responds to the material. There’s lots of ways of interpreting the worlds, so you just want to make sure someone is feeding off the same things that inspired you in that script. Then actors will work with our wonderful casting director in the U.K., Jina Jay.

Brooker: When we did “San Junipero,” Owen Harris had directed a previous episode for us, “Be Right Back,” the other tender episode of the series. So that’s why we thought he’d be a good fit. And he loves ‘80s movies and music. The musical debates we would have on that show. The only song we couldn’t clear on that playlist was a Prince track. You have to clear the songs for 15 years or so because of Netflix and I remember at some point “Girlfriend in a Coma” by The Smiths plays as a little joke for about five seconds before she switches it off and it was an outrageous amount of money! It was like shoveling bank notes into a fire.

Jones: It was indulgent but at the same time, it was so important that we set up that era so it felt different. We felt like we had to do this properly.

Brooker: That was one of the things that was a happy accident. I picked 1987 fairly arbitrarily. In the original draft of the script when Yorkie [Davis] was walking in, there were very specific movie posters that she would see that I specified in the script and I was obsessed with the fact that it would be specific weeks of 1987 on the news. So I was looking at the charts and while I was doing that I made a Spotify 1987 playlist and that Belinda Carlisle track, “Heaven Is a Place on Earth” came up while I was running. I thought, “This is the perfect song to the whole thing!” Then I got panicky in case we couldn’t clear it. I didn’t know what I would have done. 

What can you tease about the genres and stories of season four?

Booker: Well we can’t say anything.

Jones: Yes, we can’t. But I would say it’s some of our most ambitious films in the next season. Very exciting. We do take on new genres and some new tones.

Brooker: We’re trying not to repeat ourselves, basically. So it’s different in that we’re tackling worlds, tones, themes and looks we haven’t done before. Durations we haven’t done before. Jodie Foster’s episode has the feeling of an indie movie, I can say that without saying literally anything else.

If you got another season, is the six episode model something you plan to stick to?

Brooker: It’s a good number.

Jones: It puts us just on the cusp of a nervous breakdown, so it’s working! I think even a number seven would just do us in.

Brooker: There’s always a point in the middle of the production where we’ll have four or five of them live at any given point and I’ll be writing a script for the next one while doing rewrites on the previous one. There’s a point in which you go, “I can’t keep all these six stories in my head.”

Jones: But we do.

Brooker: But if it was seven, would our brains pop?

So if Netflix came to you and said they want a 12-episode season, it would be a hard no?

Brooker: I think because I tend to be so obsessive about the script and what can work and not, and that’s one of the things that keeps the tone of the show, even though the variety is quite marked, it probably makes it feel all like one piece. Most of it has come out of here.

You also had a mini-movie with “Hated in the Nation.” Will you continue to push the lengths in season four?

Brooker: It was 75 minutes. We may beat that this season. And we also may massively undercut that. We could keep one on an infinite loop! You could do that on Netflix — make one a Groundhog Day that literally never stops. And disable the “back” button for viewers. That’s something to think about. We did talk to some of the tech people about things we could do. When we were doing “Playtest,” the video game episode, I wanted to do it in nightmare mode where after you watched it once, if you watched it again it was different.

Black Mirror

#4 #Annabel #Black #Brooker #Charlie #Episodes #Interview #Jones #Mirror #Season #Spoilers

[helloworlddemo1122-yahoopar-blog]

Emmys 2018: The Quiet Brilliance of Sonequa Martin-Green on ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ (Exclusive)

Sonequa Martin-Green delivered one of ET's Standout Performances of the 2017-18 season.  

Sonequa Martin-Green made history when she became the first woman of color to ever lead a Star Trek franchise, landing the coveted role of Specialist Michael Burnham on CBS All Access’ Star Trek: Discovery. Because of her history-making place in Trek lore, the past year and a half -- to put it simply -- has been both exhilarating and overwhelming for the sci-fi actress.

“It’s kind of inexplicable,” Martin-Green, 33, marvels during a phone interview with ET in May, as she reflects on the audience’s immediate embrace of the streaming series. “It’s hard to put into words just how much it moved me and it touched my heart to see the response. It’s something that you can’t quite wrap your words around. Sometimes, you can’t even wrap your brain around it. That was a big desire of ours: to pay homage to what had come before and establish ourselves as something different as well. The fact that people took to that is astounding.”

One major reason for Discovery’s acclaim is Martin-Green’s superbly understated performance. As Michael, the actress -- previously known for playing the dearly departed Sasha Williams on The Walking Dead-- embodies the quiet confidence and nuanced vulnerability necessary to bring the Vulcan-raised USS Discovery science expert to life. Part of the draw for Martin-Green was the unique task at hand: getting to peel back the layers of an imperfect, morally centered woman usually relegated to the sidelines on any other television drama, and gradually adding depth to her core in measured doses.

“You get to witness her evolution. You meet this person who is still evolving and changing and falling and growing and stretching and straining,” she thoughtfully explains. “The evolution continues in season two, of course, and it was such a road to redemption [for Michael] in season one. It was about fighting for absolution from those deep moral mistakes that have been made, and finding it in small and major ways. You’re going to see the next step in that path of redemption. Self-forgiveness is a big one. You’re going to see Michael grapple and contend with that.”

With one season under her belt, Martin-Green’s comfort level with her character has increased tenfold. So much so that when she speaks about the senior Discovery officer, it’s easy to tell how deeply she admires her. “I really appreciate how principled Michael Burnham is, just having that standard to live by that is greater than you. That is something that really, really speaks to me,” Martin-Green reveals, adding that Michael’s perseverance “against all odds” also stands out.

“I certainly would hope that I’m persevering and principled in my own life, but it definitely makes me want to reach even farther and reach even higher,” she muses, turning a mirror onto her personal life for a brief moment. “As Michael Burnham, I stand by a very strict moral code and I’m certainly making my mistakes, but I appreciate the writers for allowing me to do that -- to fall and keep getting back up in the pursuit of who I really am as Michael Burnham.”

As the first black woman to take the helm of a Star Trek property, Martin-Green understands that she’s become a de facto spokesperson for diversity in storytelling -- and she’s more than willing to take up the mantle. “I certainly appreciate and am humbled by being able to be a part of the conversation, being able to be in these enlightening conversations that we’re having right now as the tide is turning,” she acknowledges. Though she was a crucial part of The Walking Dead for five seasons, it’s this role that has been life-changing and career-affirming. “I have been ignited in a brand-new way. I’m no stranger to the sci-fi genre, but being able to be a part of the conversation now and being able to be a part of the solution while you’re surrounded by the problem, it’s a dream come true and I take it as a responsibility,” she adds, emphasizing the importance of the show’s success during current cultural and political shifts. “What I hope, and what I’m striving for now and willcontinue to strive for, is that these things are reflected in my own life.”

Star Trek: Discovery continues the legacy of the Trek franchise, examining provocative, timely issues such as universality, equality, indivisibility, evolution and the acceptance of others. But as Martin-Green notes, Discovery alsorewrites the narrative in which women are portrayed, leaning into “what women are capable of, especially in positions of leadership, power and authority,” she observes -- as well as championing diversity. “Because we celebrate each other’s differences, we’re able to expand as a whole.”

It’ll be at least a few more months before the new installment launches, but Martin-Green “can hardly wait to share” what she and her co-stars, whom she lovingly refers to as her “company” (a la a theater troupe), have been working on since filming for season two kicked back up in April. “We are all just like, ‘Ahhh!’” she says with a laugh.

But Martin-Green, who’s become adept at offering just enough of a tease to keep viewers guessing, is well aware of the speculation floating around about what lies ahead following the key addition of Anson Mount as the USS Enterprise’s Captain Christopher Pike. “There are a lot out there,” she coyly says of fan theories. While she may not keep up with all of them, don’t stop on her account: “We love the theories. We love them.”

With season one now behind them, a calm has taken over her and the Discovery team. “We’re just as excited [as we were for season one], but there is a blanket of peace in this sense of preparedness because we’re familiar with it and because we have our experiential knowledge from last year,” Martin-Green says. “Now, we have a little bit more hold on what it is that we’re doing, the universe we’re in, the story that we’re telling, the roles that each of us have within the story. We’re hopefully very boldly, if I may say, going higher and deeper.”

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Emmys 2018: Noah Schnapp Is Ready to Have Fun on ‘Stranger Things’ Season 3 (Exclusive)

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Emmys 2018: Noah Schnapp Is Ready to Have Fun on ‘Stranger Things’ Season 3 (Exclusive)

Noah Schnapp delivered one of ET's Standout Performances of the 2017-18 season.  

Perhaps no one is harder to pin down for an interview than any of the young actors on Stranger Things, including Noah Schnapp, who is one of the ensemble’s breakout stars for his performance as the possessed Will Byers. The main cast -- which also includes Finn Wolfhard, Millie Bobby Brown, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin and Sadie Sink -- have become Hollywood’s it stars since the show premiered in the summer of 2016 and returned with a highly anticipated second season last Halloween.

In between seasons, Brown booked the Godzilla sequel as well as Calvin Klein’s latest fashion campaign; Wolfhard played Richie in the hugely successful It remake; Matarazzo became the face of Verizon Fios; and Schnapp recently completed filming on the WWII movie Waiting for Anya, opposite veteran actors Anjelica Huston and Jean Reno. Now the cast and crew, including creators the Duffer brothers and executive producer Shawn Levy, are back in Atlanta, where filming on season three of Stranger Things started in late April.

Speaking with ET by phone during a break in production, Schnapp can say very little about the new episodes, which are shrouded in secrecy. “I’m really excited,” he says, adding: “I’m looking forward to working with my cast and crew again.”

There are a few things that audiences now know about the next eight episodes: the show will take place in the summer of 1985; there are some new characters in the mix -- most notably played by Maya Hawke, Cary Elwes and Jake Busey; and Will is going to get a much-deserved break from the “hell” he’s been put through in the first two seasons.

“I’m just really excited that I'm going to have a lot of fun this year,” Schnapp says, speaking to the fact that Will was put through the ringer,spending season two largely possessed by something from the Upside Down after having been rescued from the alternate universe in season one.

But it’s all that torment he’s suffered onscreen that has earned the actor his first-ever MTV Movie and TV Award nomination -- two, in fact, for Most Frightened Performance and Best On-Screen Team -- as well as considerable Emmy buzz for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. If nominated, the 13-year-old would tie with Johnny Crawford (The Rifleman) as the youngest male performer for a drama series ever nominated.

“It’s very cool to be talked about like that,” Schnapp says of the crazy ride he’s been on following the success of the second season, which really pushed the actor to new creative heights. “I remember reading the scripts and just thinking, Oh, yes, I can’t wait to get to do all of this, because in season two, I got to do so many different things.”

Possessed by a being from the Upside Down, Will was slowly tormented by something that the rest of his friends and mother Joyce (Winona Ryder) couldn’t see or comprehend, leading to unexplained seizures, invasive medical examinations and growing isolation.

Noah Schnapp in a scene from 'Stranger Things 2.'

Netflix

Ready for a challenge, the actor dove head-first into research, watching videos of people experiencing seizures and reading up on the physiological science behind them. To learn how to play possessed, he turned to none other than The Exorcist. And when it came to some of his emotional scenes, he relied on his experienced scene partner, Ryder, for advice and direction.

“She talked me through that,” he says, referring to the scene from episode four when Joyce pushes Will to open up to her about what’s happened to him. Growing tearful and visibly upset, Will attempts to explain: “It came for me and I tried to make it go away. But it got me, mom. I felt it everywhere -- everywhere. I still feel it. I just want this to be over.” It’s one of those moments that sends chills up a viewer’s spine -- it did for this writer. “I was really happy how that turned out,” Schnapp says. “What's best about acting is when you get to act off a really good actor.”

That's not always the case for his character, like when he’s in the field alone and supposed to taken over by a creature that’s added in post-production. “I have nothing to act off of. I just have to stare at the sky and yell at it,” he says, adding that a stretch of imagination and trust in the directors is required to pull it off. “It's just nice to see something from paper come to life on the screen.”

Growing up onscreen has also been a strange phenomenon for Schnapp, who was 11 when the show premiered and will be 14 by the time the series returns to Netflix. He likes the idea of having his youth preserved on film, even if it means noticing things that embarrass him as an actor. “I have trouble watching myself sometimes because I nitpick the littlest things,” he admits, while finding it fun to appreciate how much his voice has changed from season one until now.

Ultimately, though, age is just a number on the Stranger Things set, where the biggest stars are the youngest ones. They’re also part of a new generation of actors -- from Young Sheldon’s Iain Armitage to Grown-ish’s Yara Shahidi -- that have recently proven themselves as formidable talents and are earning respect within the industry. Everyone from Ryder to the Duffers and Levy treat each of them like adults, from offering advice to bouncing ideas off of. “They work with us and we have input, too,” Schnapp acknowledges. “It’s nice to be treated like that. That’s definitely the one thing I’m really happy about.”

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