Retro Television Review: Homicide: Life On The Street 4.12 “The Hat”


Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Sundays, I will be reviewing Homicide: Life On The Street, which aired from 1993 to 1999, on NBC!  It  can be viewed on Peacock.

This week, incompetence reigns.

Episode 4.12 “The Hat”

(Dir by Peter Medak, originally aired on January 19th, 1996)

There’s a running theme in this week’s episode and that theme is incompetence.

With Russert having been demoted all the way back to detective, there is now a captain’s vacancy.  The squad room is convinced that Giardello is going to get promoted.  For that matter, Giardello is also convinced that he’s going to be promoted.  Instead, the promotion goes to Roger Gaffney (Walt MacPherson), the racist martinet former homicide detective who nearly got into a fist fight with Pembleton during the white glove murder investigation.

(Giardello, for all of his strengths, has never played the political game as well as those around him.)

Munch thinks that a lawyer who he arrested for murder is going to be convicted.  However, it turns out that the video that Brodie shot at the crime scene shows that a key piece of evidence was mishandled.  Munch tells Brodie to erase the tape.  Brodie refuses to tamper with evidence.  (“It’s illegal,” he says.)  As a result, the murderer walks free.  And while it’s true that Brodie’s refusal to erase the tape did lead to an guilty man walking, it’s also true that it wouldn’t have been a problem if the cops on the scene hadn’t screwed up in the first place.

Finally, Lewis and Kellerman are sent to Pennsylvania to pick up Rose Halligan (Lily Tomlin), a woman suspected of murdering her husband in Baltimore.  Lewis and Kellerman are supposed to go straight to Pennsylvania and then come right back to Maryland, without making any unnecessary stops.  Instead, they screw up.  Kellerman decides to stop off at a run-down amusement park that he remembers from his childhood.  Later, Lewis and Kellerman stop off at a diner so they can get some dinner.  When Rose excuses herself to go to the restroom, they not only remove her handcuffs but they also allow her to go unaccompanied.  Needless to say, Rose escapes, makes her way back to Baltimore, and stabs her husband’s mistress to death before getting Lewis and Kellerman track her down.

Lily Tomlin was this episode’s big guest star, for better or worse.  Sometimes, when a big name appears on a television show, it becomes obvious that there wasn’t anyone around who was willing to tell them that they were overacting just a bit and that would certainly seem to be the case here.  Rose is a music teacher so this episode really tests one’s tolerance for Lily Tomlin singing opera.  That said, Tomlin was quietly effective at the end of the episode, sitting out on a porch while her former friend lay dead in the house.  Rose says she was returning her friend’s hate and, indeed, the dead woman in wearing the hat that Rose wore throughout almost the entire episode.

All said, I enjoyed this episode.  Lewis and Kellerman may be incompetent but they’re still entertaining to watch.  As for the hated Roger Gaffney getting the job that Giardello deserved …. well, isn’t that always the way?

Film Review: Short Cuts (dir by Robert Altman)


Opening with a swarm of helicopters spaying for medflies and ending with an earthquake, 1993’s Short Cuts is a film about life in Los Angeles.

An ensemble piece, it follows several different characters as they go through their own personal dramas.  Some of them are married and some of them are destined to be forever single but they’re all living in varying states of desperation.  Occasionally, the actions of one character will effect the actions of another character in a different story but, for the most part, Short Cuts is a portrait of people who are connected only by the fact that they all live in the same city.  There are 22 principal characters in Short Cuts and each one thinks that they are the star of the story.

Jerry Kaiser (Chris Penn) cleans the pools of rich people while, at home, his wife, Lois (Jennifer Jason Leigh), takes care of their baby and works as a phone sex operator.  Jerry’s best friend is a makeup artist named Bill (Robert Downey, Jr.) who enjoys making his wife, Honey (Lili Taylor), looks like a corpse so that he can take her picture.  One of her photographs is seen by a fisherman (Buck Henry) who has already discovered one actual corpse that weekend.  He and his buddies, Vern (Huey Lewis) and Stuart (Fred Ward), discovered a dead girl floating in a river and didn’t report it until after they were finished fishing.  (The sight of Vern unknowingly pissing on the dead body is one of the strongest in director Robert Altman’s filmography.)

Stuart’s wife, Claire (Anne Archer), is haunted by Stuart’s delay in reporting the dead body.  A chance meeting Dr. Ralph Wyman (Matthew Modine) and his wife, artist Marian (Julianne Moore), leads to an awkward dinner between the two couples.  Claire works as a professional clown and Ralph ends up wearing her clown makeup while his marriage falls apart.

Earlier, Claire was stopped and hit on by a smarmy policeman named Gene Shepard (Tim Robbins), who just happens to be married to Marian’s sister, Sherri (Madeleine Stowe).  Gene is already having an affair with Betty Weathers (Frances McDormand), the wife of a helicopter pilot named Stormy (Peter Gallagher).  When Stormy discovers that Betty has been cheating, he takes a creative revenge on her house.

Doreen Pigott (Lily Tomlin) lives in a trailer park with her alcoholic husband, Earl (Tom Waits).  Driving home from her waitressing job, Doreen hits a young boy.  The boy says he’s okay but when he gets home, he passes out.  His parents, news anchorman Howard Finnegan (Bruce Davison) and his wife, Anne (Andie MacDowell), rush him to the hospital, where his doctor is Ralph Wyman.  As Howard waits for his son to wake up, he has a revealing conversation with his long-estranged father (Jack Lemmon, showing up for one scene and delivering an amazing monologue).  Meanwhile, a baker named Andy (Lyle Lovett) repeatedly calls the Finnegan household, wanting to know when they’re going to pick up their son’s birthday cake.

Based on the short stories of Raymond Carver and directed by Robert Altman, Short Cuts can sometimes feel like a spiritual descendent of Altman’s Nashville.  The difference between this film and Nashville is that Short Cuts doesn’t have the previous film’s satiric bite.  As good as Nashville is, it’s a film that can be rather snarky towards it character and the town in which it is set.  Nashville is used as a metaphor for America coming apart at the seams.  Short Cuts, on the other hand, is a far more humanistic film, featuring characters who are flawed but, with a few very notable exceptions, well-intentioned.  If Nashville seem to be a portrait of a society on the verge of collapse, Short Cuts is a film about how that society ended up surviving.

It’s not a perfect film.  There’s an entire storyline featuring Annie Ross and Lori Singer that I didn’t talk about because I just found it to be annoying to waste much time with.  (The Ross/Singer storyline was the only one not to be based on a Carver short story.)  The conclusion of Chris Penn’s storyline wasn’t quite as shocking as it was obviously meant to be.  But, flaws and all, Altman and Carver’s portrait of humanity does hold our attention and it leaves us thinking about connections made and sometimes lost.  Seen today, Short Cuts is a portrait of life before social media and iPhones and before humanity started living online.  It’s a time capsule of a world that once was.

14 Days of Paranoia #6: The Player (dir by Robert Altman)


1992’s The Player tells the story of Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins).

It’s not easy being Griffin Mill.  From the outside, of course, it looks like he has the perfect life.  He’s a studio executive with a nice house in Hollywood.  He’s young.  He’s up-and-coming.  Some people, especially Griffin, suspect that he’ll be the president of the studio some day.  By day, he sits in his office and listens to pitches from respected screenwriters like Buck Henry.  (Henry has a great idea for The Graduate II!)  During the afternoon, he might attends dailies and watch endless takes of actors like Scott Glenn and Lily Tomlin arguing with each other.  Or he might go to lunch and take a minute to say hello to Burt Reynolds.  (“Asshole,” Burt says as Griffin walks away.)  At night, he might go to a nice party in a big mansion and mingle with actors who are both young and old.  He might even run into and share some sharp words with Malcolm McDowell.

But Griffin’s life isn’t as easy as it seems.  He’s constantly worried about his position in the studio, knowing that one box office failure could end his career.  He fears that a new executive named Larry Levy (Peter Gallagher) is after his job.  Two new screenwriters (Richard E. Grant and Dean Stockwell) keep bugging him to produce their downbeat, no-stars anti-capitol punishment film.  His girlfriend (Cynthia Stevenson) wants to make good movies that mean something.  Even worse, someone is sending Griffin threatening notes.

It doesn’t take long for Griffin to decide that the notes are coming from a screenwriter named Dave Kahane (Vincent D’Onofrio).  Griffin’s attempt to arrange a meeting with Dave at a bar so that Griffin can offer him a production deal instead leads to Griffin murdering Dave in a parking lot.  While the other writers in Hollywood mourn Dave’s death, Griffin starts a relationship with Dave’s artist girlfriend (Great Scacchi) and tried to hide his guilt from two investigating detectives (Whoopi Goldberg and Lyle Lovett).  Worst of all, the notes keep coming.  The writer, whomever they may be, is now not only threatening Griffin but also seems to know what Griffin did.

After spend more than a decade in the industry wilderness, Robert Altman made a critical and commercial comeback with The Player.  It’s a satire of Hollywood but it’s also a celebration of the film industry, featuring 60 celebrities cameoing as themselves.  Everyone, it seems, wanted to appear in a movie that portrayed studio execs as being sociopathic and screenwriters as being whiny and kind of annoying.  The Player both loves and ridicules Hollywood and the often anonymous men who run the industry.  Largely motivated by greed and self-preservation, Griffin may not love movies but he certainly loves controlling what the public sees.  In the end, only one character in The Player sticks to her values and her ideals and, by the end of the movie, she’s out of a job.  At the same time, Griffin has a social life that those in the audience can’t help but envy.  He can’t step out of his office without running into someone famous.

The Player is one Altman’s most entertaining films, with the camera continually tracking from one location to another and giving as a vision of Hollywood that feels very much alive.  Tim Robbins gives one of his best performances as Griffin Mill and Altman surrounds him with a great supporting cast.  I especially liked Fred Ward as the studio’s head of security.  With The Player, Altman mixes melodrama with a sharp and sometimes bizarre comedy, with dialogue so snappy that the film is as much a joy to listen to as to watch.  That said, the real attraction of the film is spotting all of the celebrity cameos.  (That and cheering when Bruce Willis saves Julia Roberts from certain death.)  Altman was a director who often used his films to explore eccentric communities.  With The Player, he opened up his own home.

Previous entries in 2025’s 14 Days Of Paranoia:

  1. The Fourth Wall (1969)
  2. Extreme Justice (1993)
  3. The Lincoln Conspiracy (1977)
  4. Conspiracy (2007)
  5. Bloodknot (1995)

Film Review: And The Band Played On (dir by Roger Spottiswoode)


I live in a very cynical time.

That was one of my main thoughts as I watched 1993’s And The Band Played On.

Directed by Roger Spottiswoode and featuring an all-star cast, And The Band Played On deals with the early days of the AIDS epidemic.  It’s a film that features many different characters and storylines but holding it all together is the character of Dr. Don Francis (Matthew Modine), an epidemiologist who is haunted by what he witnessed during the Ebola epidemic in Africa and who fears that the same thing is going to happen in America unless the government gets serious about the mysterious ailment that is initially called “gay cancer” before then being known as “GRID” before finally being named AIDS.  Dr. Francis is outspoken and passionate about fighting disease.  He’s the type who has no fear of yelling if he feels that people aren’t taking his words seriously enough.  In his office, he keeps a track of the number of HIV infections on a whiteboard.  “Butchers’ Bill” is written across the top of the board.

Throughout the film, quite a few people are dismissive of Dr. Francis and his warnings.  But we, the audience, know that he’s right.  We know this because we know about AIDS and but the film also expects us to trust Dr. Francis because it’s specifically stated that he worked for the World Health Organization before joining the Center For Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia.  As far as the film is concerned, that’s enough to establish his credentials.  Of course, today, after living through the excesses of the COVID pandemic and the attempts to censor anyone who suggested that it may have begun due to a lab leak as opposed to some random guy eating a bat, many people tend to view both the WHO and the CDC with a lot more distrust than they did when this film was made.  As I said, we live in a cynical time and people are now a lot less inclined to “trust” the experts.  To a large extent, the experts have only themselves to blame for that.  I consider myself to be a fairly pragmatic person but even I now find myself rolling my eyes whenever a new health advisory is issued.

This new sense of automatic distrust is, in many ways, unfortunate.  Because, as And The Band Played On demonstrates, the experts occasionally know what they’re talking about.  Throughout the film, people refuse to listen to the warnings coming from the experts and, as a result, many lives are lost.  The government refuses to take action while the search for a possible cure is hindered by a rivalry between international researchers.  Alan Alda gives one of the best performances in the film, playing a biomedical researcher who throws a fit when he discovers that Dr. Francis has been sharing information with French scientists.

It’s a big, sprawling film.  While Dr. Francis and his fellow researchers (played by Saul Rubinek, Glenne Headly, Richard Masur, Charles Martin Smith, Lily Tomlin, and Christian Clemenson) try to determine how exactly the disease is spread, gay activists like Bobbi Campbell (Donal Logue) and Bill Kraus (Ian McKellen) struggle to get the government and the media to take AIDS seriously.  Famous faces pop up in small rolls, occasionally to the film’s detriment.  Richard Gere, Steve Martin, Anjelica Huston, and even Phil Collins all give good performances but their fame also distracts the viewer from the film’s story.  There’s a sense of noblesse oblige to the celebrity cameos that detracts from their effectiveness.  All of them are out-acted by actor Lawrence Monoson, who may not have been a huge star (his two best-known films are The Last American Virgin and Friday the 13 — The Final Chapter) but who is still heart-breakingly effective as a young man who is dying of AIDS.

Based on a 600-page, non-fiction book by Randy Shilts, And The Band Played On is a flawed film but still undeniably effective and a valuable piece of history.  Director Roger Spottiswoode does a good job of bringing and holding the many different elements of the narrative together and Carter Burwell’s haunting score is appropriately mournful.  The film ends on a somber but touching note.  At its best, it’s a moving portrait of the end of one era and the beginning of another.

The Michigan Movie Critics Guild Honors Barbie!


In their inaugural awards, the Michigan Movie Critics Guild have announced their picks for the best of 2023 and they really liked Barbie!

The winners are listed in bold.

Best Picture
American Fiction
Anatomy of a Fall
Barbie
The Holdovers
Past Lives
Poor Things

Best Director
Greta Gerwig – Barbie
Cord Jefferson – American Fiction
Yorgos Lanthimos – Poor Things
Christopher Nolan – Oppenheimer
Martin Scorsese – Killers of the Flower Moon

Best Actress
Lily Gladstone – Killers of the Flower Moon
Sandra Hüller – Anatomy of a Fall
Greta Lee – Past Lives
Carey Mulligan – Maestro
Emma Stone – Poor Things

Best Actor
Bradley Cooper – Maestro
Zac Efron – The Iron Claw
Paul Giamatti – The Holdovers
Cillian Murphy – Oppenheimer
Jeffrey Wright – American Fiction

Best Supporting Actress
America Ferrera – Barbie
Da’Vine Joy Randolph – The Holdovers
Rachel McAdams – Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
Julianne Moore – May December
Rosamund Pike – Saltburn

Best Supporting Actor
Sterling K. Brown – American Fiction
Robert De Niro – Killers of the Flower Moon
Robert Downey Jr. – Oppenheimer
Ryan Gosling – Barbie
Mark Ruffalo – Poor Things

Best Animated Film
The Boy and The Heron
Nimona
Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

Best Documentary
Beyond Utopia
Sly
Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie

Best Ensemble
Air
Barbie
The Holdovers
Killers of the Flower Moon
Oppenheimer

Best Screenplay (Adapted or Original)
American Fiction
Anatomy of a Fall
Barbie
The Holdovers
Past Lives

Breakthrough Award
Sandra Hüller – Actress, Anatomy of a Fall
Cord Jefferson – Director, American Fiction
Greta Lee – Actress, Past Lives
Dominic Sessa – Actor, The Holdovers
Celine Song – Director/Writer Past Lives

Stunts
John Wick: Chapter 4
The Killer
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
Polite Society
Silent Night

The MMCG Award for Film Excellence (presented to a filmmaker, writer, actor, crew member etc. who has Michigan ties or to a film made or set in Michigan)
Keegan-Michael Key – Actor Wonka/The Super Mario Bros. Movie/Migration
Ashley Park – Actress, Joy Ride
Paul Schrader – Director, Master Gardener
Lily Tomlin – Actress, 80 For Brady
J.K. Simmons – Actor, Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse
Bruce Campbell – Producer, Evil Dead Rise

Here Are The 2023 Nominations of the Michigan Movie Critics Guild!


Tis the season when I struggle to keep up with all of the groups of regional film critics!  Today, a new group — Michigan Movie Critics Guild — announced their nominees for the best of 2023!  The winners will be announced on December 4th!

Interestingly enough, neither Killers of the Flower Moon nor Oppenheimer, the two acknowledged front runners, received Best Picture nominations from the MMCG.  (The two films did, however, pick up nominations in other categories.)  It appears that this is going to be a bit of a quirky group, which is fine by me.  We need more quirky film critics!

Also, they nominated Bruce Campbell for an award!  I’m going to like this group!

Best Picture
American Fiction
Anatomy of a Fall
Barbie
The Holdovers
Past Lives
Poor Things

Best Director
Greta Gerwig – Barbie
Cord Jefferson – American Fiction
Yorgos Lanthimos – Poor Things
Christopher Nolan – Oppenheimer
Martin Scorsese – Killers of the Flower Moon

Best Actress
Lily Gladstone – Killers of the Flower Moon
Sandra Hüller – Anatomy of a Fall
Greta Lee – Past Lives
Carey Mulligan – Maestro
Emma Stone – Poor Things

Best Actor
Bradley Cooper – Maestro
Zac Efron – The Iron Claw
Paul Giamatti – The Holdovers
Cillian Murphy – Oppenheimer
Jeffrey Wright – American Fiction

Best Supporting Actress
America Ferrera – Barbie
Da’Vine Joy Randolph – The Holdovers
Rachel McAdams – Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
Julianne Moore – May December
Rosamund Pike – Saltburn

Best Supporting Actor
Sterling K. Brown – American Fiction
Robert De Niro – Killers of the Flower Moon
Robert Downey Jr. – Oppenheimer
Ryan Gosling – Barbie
Mark Ruffalo – Poor Things

Best Animated Film
The Boy and The Heron
Nimona
Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

Best Documentary
Beyond Utopia
Sly
Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie

Best Ensemble
Air
Barbie
The Holdovers
Killers of the Flower Moon
Oppenheimer

Best Screenplay (Adapted or Original)
American Fiction
Anatomy of a Fall
Barbie
The Holdovers
Past Lives

Breakthrough Award
Sandra Hüller – Actress, Anatomy of a Fall
Cord Jefferson – Director, American Fiction
Greta Lee – Actress, Past Lives
Dominic Sessa – Actor, The Holdovers
Celine Song – Director/Writer Past Lives

Stunts
John Wick: Chapter 4
The Killer
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
Polite Society
Silent Night

The MMCG Award for Film Excellence (presented to a filmmaker, writer, actor, crew member etc. who has Michigan ties or to a film made or set in Michigan)
Keegan-Michael Key – Actor Wonka/The Super Mario Bros. Movie/Migration
Ashley Park – Actress, Joy Ride
Paul Schrader – Director, Master Gardener
Lily Tomlin – Actress, 80 For Brady
J.K. Simmons – Actor, Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse
Bruce Campbell – Producer, Evil Dead Rise

Here’s What Won At The Emmys Last Night!


Last night, Lisa Marie did not watch the Emmys because she says that, “I’m just not feeling TV this year.”  If Twin Peaks had been eligible to be nominated, I bet it would have been a different story!

Instead, she asked me to watch the ceremony and let everyone know what I thought.  It needed less politics and more cats.

Here’s the list of winners:

COMEDY

BEST COMEDY SERIES
“Atlanta”
“Black-ish”
“Masters of None”
“Modern Family”
“Silicon Valley”
“Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”
X — “Veep”

BEST COMEDY ACTRESS
Pamela Adlon, “Better Things”
Jane Fonda, “Grace and Frankie”
Allison Janney, “Mom”
Ellie Kemper, “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”
X — Julia Louis-Dreyfus, “Veep”
Tracee Ellis Ross, “Black-ish”
Lily Tomlin, “Grace and Frankie”

BEST COMEDY ACTOR
Anthony Anderson, “Black-ish”
Aziz Ansari, “Master of None”
Zach Galifianaks, “Baskets”
X — Donald Glover, “Atlanta”
William H. Macy, “Shameless”
Jeffrey Tambor, “Transparent”

BEST COMEDY SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Vanessa Bayer, “Saturday Night Live”
Anna Chlumsky, “Veep”
Kathryn Hahn, “Transparent”
Leslie Jones, “Saturday Night Live”
Judith Light, “Transparent”
X — Kate McKinnon, “Saturday Night Live”

BEST COMEDY SUPPORTING ACTOR
Louie Anderson, “Baskets”
X — Alec Baldwin, “Saturday Night Live”
Tituss Burgess, “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”
Ty Burrell, “Modern Family”
Tony Hale, “Veep”
Matt Walsh, “Veep”

BEST COMEDY DIRECTING
X — “Atlanta” (“B.A.N.”)
“Silicon Valley” (“Intellectual Property”)
“Silicon Valley” (“Server Error”)
“Veep” (“Justice”)
“Veep” (“Blurb”)
“Veep” (“Groundbreaking”)

BEST COMEDY WRITING
“Atlanta” (“B.A.N.”)
“Atlanta” (“Streets on Lock”)
X — “Master of None” (“Thanksgiving”)
“Silicon Valley” (“Success Failure”)
“Veep” (“Groundbreaking”)
“Veep” (“Georgia”)

DRAMA

BEST DRAMA SERIES
“Better Call Saul”
“The Crown”
X — “The Handmaid’s Tale”
“House of Cards”
“Stranger Things”
“This is Us”
“Westworld”

BEST DRAMA ACTRESS
Viola Davis, “How to Get Away with Murder”
Claire Foy, “The Crown”
X — Elisabeth Moss, “The Handmaid’s Tale”
Keri Russell, “The Americans”
Evan Rachel Wood, “Westworld”
Robin Wright, “House of Cards”

BEST DRAMA ACTOR
X — Sterling K. Brown, “This is Us”
Anthony Hopkins, “Westworld”
Bob Odenkirk, “Better Call Saul”
Matthew Rhys, “The Americans”
Liev Schreiber, “Ray Donovan”
Kevin Spacey, “House of Cards”
Milo Ventimiglia, “This is Us”

BEST DRAMA SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Uzo Aduba, “Orange is the New Black”
Millie Bobby Brown, “Stranger Things”
X — Ann Dowd, “The Handmaid’s Tale”
Chrissy Metz, “This is Us”
Thandie Newton, “Westworld”
Samira Wiley, “The Handmaid’s Tale”

BEST DRAMA SUPPORTING ACTOR
Jonathan Banks, “Better Call Saul”
David Harbour, “Stranger Things”
Ron Cephas Jones, “This is Us”
Michael Kelly, “House of Cards”
X — John Lithgow, “The Crown”
Mandy Patinkin, “Homeland”
Jeffrey Wright, “Westworld”

BEST DRAMA DIRECTING
“Better Call Saul” (“Witness”)
“The Crown” (“Hyde Park Corner”)
“The Handmaid’s Tale” (“The Bridge”)
X — “The Handmaid’s Tale” (“Offred”)
“Homeland” (“America First”)
“Stranger Things” (“Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers”)
“Westworld” (“The Bicameral Mind”)

BEST DRAMA WRITING
“The Americans” (“The Soviet Division”)
“Better Call Saul” (“Chicanery”)
“The Crown” (“Assassins”)
X — “The Handmaid’s Tale” (“Offred”)
“Stranger Things” (“Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers”)
“Westworld” (“The Bicameral Mind”)

MOVIE/LIMITED SERIES

BEST LIMITED SERIES
X — “Big Little Lies”
“Fargo”
“Feud: Bette and Joan”
“Genius”
“The Night Of”

BEST TV MOVIE
X — “Black Mirror: San Junipero”
“Christmas of Many Colors”
“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”
“Sherlock: The Lying Detective”
“The Wizard of Lies”

BEST MOVIE/MINI ACTRESS
Carrie Coon, “Fargo”
Felicity Huffman, “American Crime”
X — Nicole Kidman, “Big Little Lies”
Jessica Lange, “Feud: Bette and Joan”
Susan Sarandon, “Feud: Bette and Joan”
Reese Witherspoon, “Big Little Lies”

BEST MOVIE/MINI ACTOR
X — Riz Ahmed, “The Night Of”
Benedict Cumberbatch, “Sherlock: The Lying Detective”
Robert De Niro, “The Wizard of Lies”
Ewan McGregor, “Fargo”
Geoffrey Rush, “Genius”
John Turturro, “The Night Of”

BEST MOVIE/MINI SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Judy Davis, “Feud: Bette and Joan”
X — Laura Dern, “Big Little Lies”
Jackie Hoffman, “Feud: Bette and Joan”
Regina King, “American Crime”
Michelle Pfeiffer, “The Wizard of Lies”
Shailene Woodley, “Big Little Lies”

BEST MOVIE/MINI SUPPORTING ACTOR
Bill Camp, “The Night Of”
Alfred Molina, “Feud: Bette and Joan”
X — Alexander Skarsgard, “Big Little Lies”
David Thewlis, “Fargo”
Stanley Tucci, “Feud: Bette and Joan”
Michael Kenneth Williams, “The Night Of”

BEST MOVIE/MINI DIRECTING
X — “Big Little Lies”
“Fargo” (“The Law of Vacant Places”)
“Feud: Bette and Joan” (“And the Winner Is”)
“Genius” (“Einstein: Chapter One”)
“The Night Of” (“The Art of War”)
“The Night Of” (“The Beach”)

BEST MOVIE/MINI WRITING
“Big Little Lies”
X — “Black Mirror: San Junipero”
“Fargo” (“The Law of Vacant Places”)
“Feud: Bette and Joan” (“And the Winner Is”)
“Feud: Bette and Joan” (“Pilot”)
“The Night Of” (“Call of the Wild”)

VARIETY/REALITY

BEST REALITY COMPETITION PROGRAM
“The Amazing Race”
“Amercan Ninja Warrior”
“Project Runway”
“RuPaul’s Drag Race”
“Top Chef”
X — “The Voice”

BEST VARIETY TALK SERIES
“Full Frontal with Samantha Bee”
“Jimmy Kimmel Live”
X — “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver”
“Late Late Show with James Corden”
“Late Show with Stephen Colbert”
“Real Time with Bill Maher”

BEST VARIETY SKETCH SERIES
“Billy on the Street”
“Documentary Now”
“Drunk History”
“Portlandia”
X — “Saturday Night Live”
“Tracey Ullman’s Show”

BEST VARIETY SERIES DIRECTING
“Drunk History”
“Jimmy Kimmel Live”
“Last Week Tonight with John Oliver”
“Late Show with Stephen Colbert”
X — “Saturday Night Live”

BEST VARIETY SERIES WRITING
“Full Frontal with Samantha Bee”
X — “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver”
“Late Night with Seth Meyers”
“Late Show with Stephen Colbert

The SAG Nominations are here and … Hello there, Captain Fantastic!


captain-fantasticEarlier the year, I choose not to see Captain Fantastic.  Every bit of advertising that I saw for it led me to believe that Captain Fantastic was basically just Wes Anderson-lite and, as we all know, only Wes Anderson can successfully duplicate Wes Anderson.

Well, I think I may have made a mistake because Viggo Mortensen is definitely in the hunt for best actor.  Though most of the precursor awards (so far) have gone to Casey Affleck for Manchester By The Sea, Mortensen still seems like a likely nominee.

Just consider this: he got a SAG nomination!  And so did Captain Fantastic, itself!  It was nominated for best ensemble, which is the SAG equivalent of best picture…

Actually, maybe you shouldn’t spend too much time fixating on that.  People like me always talk about how the SAG awards are an obvious precursor for the Oscars.  Our logic is that the Actor’s Branch is the largest voting bloc in the Academy and the members of the Actor’s Branch are among those who also vote for the SAG awards.

Of course, we always forget that the majority of SAG members are themselves not a part of the Academy.  So, while enough members of SAG may have liked Captain Fantastic for it to get an unexpected ensemble nomination, that doesn’t necessarily mean that those voters are also members of the Academy.

I mean, let’s consider what happened last year.  Beasts of No Nation picked up an ensemble nomination.   So did Straight Outta Compton.  So did Trumbo.  None of those films proved to be an Oscar powerhouse.  In fact, Beasts of No Nation received a grand total of zero Oscar nominations.

So, let’s put it like this — it’s a good sign for a film or a performer to get a SAG nomination.  But there’s still no guarantee that it will translate into Oscar recognition. Captain Fantastic may have been nominated and La La Land was snubbed (for ensemble).  But I imagine that the reverse will happen when the Oscar noms are announced in January.

With all that in mind, here are the SAG nominations!

FILM

Best Film Ensemble
“Captain Fantastic”
“Fences”
“Hidden Figures”
“Manchester by the Sea”
“Moonlight”

Best Actor
Casey Affleck, “Manchester by the Sea”
Andrew Garfield, “Hacksaw Ridge”
Ryan Gosling, “La La Land”
Viggo Mortensen, “Captain Fantastic”
Denzel Washington, “Fences”

Best Actress
Amy Adams, “Arrival”
Emily Blunt, “The Girl on the Train”
Natalie Portman, “Jackie”
Emma Stone, “La La Land”
Meryl Streep, “Florence Foster Jenkins”

Best Supporting Actor
Mahershala Ali, “Moonlight”
Jeff Bridges, “Hell or High Water”
Hugh Grant, “Florence Foster Jenkins”
Lucas Hedges, “Manchester by the Sea”
Dev Patel, “Lion”

Best Supporting Actress
Viola Davis, “Fences”
Naomie Harris, “Moonlight”
Nicole Kidman, “Lion”
Octavia Spencer, “Hidden Figures
Michelle Williams, “Manchester by the Sea”

Best Stunt Ensemble
“Captain America: Civil War”
“Doctor Strange”
“Hacksaw Ridge”
“Jason Bourne”
“Nocturnal Animals”

TV

Best Comedy Ensemble
“The Big Bang Theory”
“Black-ish”
“Modern Family”
“Orange is the New Black”
“Veep”

Best Comedy Actor
Anthony Anderson, “Black-ish”
Titus Burgess, “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”
Ty Burrell, “Modern Family”
William H. Macy, “Shameless”
Jeffrey Tambor, “Transparent”

Best Comedy Actress
Uzo Aduba, “Orange is the New Black”
Jane Fonda, “Grace & Frankie”
Ellie Kemper, “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, “Veep”
Lily Tomlin, “Grace & Frankie”

Best Drama Ensemble
“The Crown”
“Downton Abbey”
“Game of Thrones”
“Stranger Things”
“Westworld”

Best Drama Actor
Sterling K. Brown, “This Is Us”
Peter Dinklage, “Game of Thrones”
John Lithgow, “The Crown”
Rami Malek, “Mr. Robot”
Kevin Spacey, “House of Cards”

Best Drama Actress
Millie Bobby Brown, “Stranger Things”
Claire Foy, “The Crown”
Thandie Newton, “Westworld”
Winona Ryder, “Stranger Things”
Robin Wright, “House of Cards”

Best Movie/Miniseries Actor
Riz Ahmed, “The Night Of”
Sterling K. Brown, “The People v. O.J. Simpson”
Bryan Cranston, “All The Way”
John Turturro, “The Night Of”
Courtney B Vance, “The People v. O.J. Simpson”

Best Movie/Miniseries Actress
Bryce Dallas Howard, “Black Mirror”
Felicity Huffman, “American Crime”
Audra McDonald, “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill”
Sarah Paulson, “The People v. O.J. Simpson”
Kerry Washington, “Confirmation”

Best Stunt Ensemble
“Game of Thrones”
“Daredevil”
“Luke Cage”
“The Walking Dead”
“Westworld”

Remember Suffragette? The Women’s Film Critics Circle Certainly Does!


The Women’s Film Critics Circle have announced their picks for the best of 2015.  After starting out as one of those films that everyone expected to be a major contender, Suffragette has faded somewhat as an awards contender.  However, regardless of what the Academy may or may not do, Suffragette has been embraced by the Women’s Film Critics Circle.

Check out the winners below.  Also, check out all the categories!  Why can’t the Oscars be this much fun?

Best Actor
Eddie Redmayne (The Danish Girl)

Best Actress
Carey Mulligan (Suffragette)

Best Movie about Women
Suffragette

Best Movie by a Woman
Suffragette

Best Young Actress
Brie Larson (Room)

Best Comedic Actress
Amy Schumer (Trainwreck)

Best Woman Storyteller (Screenwriting Award)
Phyllis Nagy (Carol)

Women’s Work / Best Ensemble
Suffragette

Best Foreign Film by or about Women
The Second Mother

Best Theatrically Unreleased Movie by or about Women
Bessie

Best Female Images in a Movie
Suffragette

Best Male Images in a Movie
Bridge of Spies

Worst Female Images in a Movie
Jurassic World

Worst Male Images in a Movie
Steve Jobs

Best Family Film
Inside Out

Best Documentary by or about Women
Amy

Best Female Action Hero
Charlize Theron (Mad Max: Fury Road)

Best Animated Female
Amy Poehler (Inside Out)

Best Screen Couple
Tom Courtenay and Charlotte Rampling (45 Years)
Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay (Room)

Best Equality of the Sexes
Mad Max: Fury Road

Courage in Filmmaking
Sarah Gavron (Suffragette)

Courage in Acting (taking on unconventional roles that radically redefine the images of women on screen)
Brie Larson (Room)

Acting and Activism Award
Olivia Wilde

The Invisible Woman Award (performance by a woman whose exceptional impact on the film dramatically, socially or historically, has been ignored)
Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl)

Adrienne Shelly Award (for a film that most passionately opposes violence against women)
He Named Me Malala

Josephine Baker Award (for best expressing the woman of colour experience in America)
What Happened, Miss Simone?

Karen Morley Award (for best exemplifying a woman’s place in history or society, and a courageous search for identity)
Suffragette

Lifetime Achievement Award
Lily Tomlin

Mommie Dearest Worst Screen Mom of the Year Award
Cate Blanchett (Cinderella)

The Las Vegas Film Critics Announces A Huge Amount of Nominations!


Creed

Here are the nominations for the Las Vegas Film Critics!  They loved Creed but, for some reason, not Saoirse Ronan!

Best Picture
1. Spotlight
2. Creed
3. Ex Machina
4. Straight Outta Compton
5. Beasts of No Nation

Best Director
1. George Miller (Mad Max: Fury Road)
2. Ridley Scott (The Martian)
3. Tom McCarthy (Spotlight)
4. Cary Fukunaga (Beasts of No Nation)
5. Ryan Coogler (Creed)

Best Actor
1. Leonardo DiCaprio (The Revenant)
2. Bryan Cranston (Trumbo)
3. Michael Fassbender (Steve Jobs)
4. Matt Damon (The Martian)
5. Michael B. Jordan (Creed)

Best Actress
1. Emily Blunt (Sicario)
2. Cate Blanchett (Carol)
3. Brie Larson (Room)
4. Lily Tomlin (Grandma)
5. Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl)

Best Supporting Actor
1. Sylvester Stallone (Creed)
2. Mark Ruffalo (Spotlight)
3. Tom Hardy (The Revenant)
4. Michael Shannon (99 Homes)
5. Idris Elba (Beasts of No Nation)

Best Supporting Actress
1. Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina)
2. Kate Winslet (Steve Jobs)
3. Rachel McAdams (Spotlight)
4. Elizabeth Banks (Love & Mercy)
5. Jennifer Jason Leigh (The Hateful Eight)

Best Screenplay (Original)
1. Ex Machina
2. Inside Out
3. Spotlight
4. Trainwreck
5. The Hateful Eight

Best Screenplay (Adapted)

1. Steve Jobs
2. The Martian

3. Room
4. Brooklyn
5. The Big Short

Best Cinematography
1. Roger Deakins (Sicario)
2. Emmanuel Lubezki (The Revenant)
3. John Seale (Mad Max: Fury Road)
4. Cary Fukunaga (Beasts of No Nation)
5. Robert Richardson (The Hateful Eight)

Best Film Editing
1. Mad Max: Fury Road
2. The Martian
3. Spotlight
4. Steve Jobs
5. The Revenant

Best Art Direction
1. The Hateful Eight
2. Brooklyn
3. The Danish Girl
4. Mad Max: Fury Road
5. The Martian


Best Costume Design

1. The Hateful Eight
2. Mad Max: Fury Road
3. The Danish Girl
4. Carol
5. Cinderella

Best Visual Effects
1. Mad Max: Fury Road
2. Ex Machina
3. The Martian
4. The Walk
5. In the Heart of the Sea

Best Score
1. The Danish Girl
2. The Revenant
3. Spotlight
4. Sicario
5. The Hateful Eight

Best Song
1. ‘See You Again’ (Furious 7)
2. ‘One Kind of Love’ (Love & Mercy)
3. ‘It’s My Turn Now’ (Dope)
4. ‘Simple Song #3’ (Youth)
5. ‘Writing’s on the Wall’ (Spectre)

Best Ensemble
1. The Big Short
2. The Hateful Eight
3. Straight Outta Compton
4. Trumbo
5. Spotlight

Best Animated Film
1. Anomalisa
2. Inside Out
3. The Good Dinosaur
4. Shaun the Sheep Movie
5. The Peanuts Movie

Best Documentary
1. Meru
2. Amy
3. Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief
4. Cartel Land
5. Best of Enemies

Best Foreign Film
1. Goodnight Mommy
2. Mustang
3. Phoenix
4. Respire
5. Tu Dors Nicole

Best Action Film
1. Mad Max: Fury Road
2. Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation
3. Kingsman: The Secret Service
4. Avengers: Age of Ultron
5. Ant-Man

Best Comedy Film
1. Trainwreck
2. The Big Short
3. Dope
4. Sisters
5. Spy

Best Family Film
1. Goosebumps
2. Cinderella
3. Pan
4. Ant-Man
5. Tomorrowland

Best Horror / Sci-Fi Film
1. Ex Machina
2. The Martian
3. Jurassic World
4. It Follows
5. Krampus

Best Breakout Filmmaker
1. Rick Famuyiwa (Dope)
2. Alex Garland (Ex Machina)
3. David Robert Mitchell (It Follows)
4. Marielle Heller (The Diary of a Teenage Girl)

Youth in Film Award

1. Abraham Attah (Beasts of No Nation)
2. Jacob Tremblay (Room)
3. Milo Parker (Mr. Holmes)
4. Shameik Moore (Dope)
5. Imogene Wolodarsky (Infinitely Polar Bear)