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Everything comes back to the movies, even shopping and the Presidential Election...

Pretty sure this is a better deal than what Meryl Streep was offered. pic.twitter.com/JqXcpXYAKA

— Aisling Bea (@WeeMissBea) July 16, 2016

"when the time is right, he'll pay me back" - Chris Christie pic.twitter.com/OYD4EiMxom

— Lauren Larson (@lrnlrsn) July 15, 2016

There's more tweeting fun after the jump including Interview with the Vampire vocabulary lessons, Emmy nomination gratitude, Lady Ghostbusters, thriller rewatches, Movie Poster Typeface blunders, and more...

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"Main Titles" - An Emmy Curiousity

American Horror Story is one of the only series eligible every year in this category. It was nominated for Murder House, Asylum, and Freakshow onlyA good title sequence is a godsend to any series. The best of them convey the tone and spirit of the show but in a creative rewatchable way (my favorite of the past few years: Marvel's Daredevil). Series are only eligible for this Emmy award in their first year on television. The exception is of course anthology series which tend to change their opening credits each year. For example American Horror Story has had three nominations in this category for Murder House, Asylum, and Freakshow but was passed over for Coven and Hotel. On the odd occasion that a non-anthology totally changes their main titles they can submit again. This limitation makes the category, by default, my pet favorite. After all it's the only one that voters are forced to rethink anew each year. They can still be lazy with their votes, of course, but they can't be lazy in the exact same way that they were the year before. Progress!

Do the nominees this year make you want to watch the show? Do you think these were worthy choices or did you have subsitutes in mind? All the nominees are after the jump...

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Tracee Ellis Ross' Quiet Rise to Comedic Fame

Kieran, here. The annual roster of Emmy nominees (or any awards show celebrating acting, for that matter) is always a mixed bag. There are the familiar names who always seem to be there, as if immovably embedded in the consciousness of Emmy voters regardless of quality or staleness of the vehicle. Then there are the fresher, worthier names indicative of a certain segment of the Television Academy who are really paying attention—a segment that shouldn't feel novel, but unfortunately often does. Among these breath-of-fresh-air citations this year was Tracee Ellis Ross' Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series nomination for “Black-ish”. Despite a career that spans two decades, this is the first nomination for Ross, for the series' sophomore season (“Black-ish” did quite well overall landing a coveted Outstanding Comedy Series nomination). It's quite satisfying to watch a performer who has put in years of great work that, for this reason or that, has gone largely ignored, be honored. 

A former supermodel and the daughter of Diana Ross, it may seem from the outset that Ross' path to fame had certain advantages. However, the actress, primarily working in comedy has definitely paid her dues. A little over a decade ago, yesterday's Emmy nomination seemed quite improbable...

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Beauty Break: Vintage 1977 - Magazine Covers

Liz, and Liza and Halston, Oh my!

Reminder. At the end of the month the Smackdown returns with a look at the Supporting Actress Race of 1977 (The Turning Point, Julia, Close Encounters, The Goodbye Girl, and Looking for Mr Goodbar so get to watching so you can vote!).

To get you in the mid to late 1970s mood, if you lived through them, or just to engage your curiousity if you didn't, a collection of magazine covers from the year in question. Naturally we'll start with two Best Actress winners and then hit the general collections of showbiz covers...

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"Jane Neighbor"

This Week's Must Read
"Behold Your Newest Silver-Screen Sex Goddess, Jane Neighbor"
Absolutely genius send-up of that controversial Vanity Fair profile of Margot Robbie we discussed. Or as the author herself described it on twitter, 'I wrote this profile of a female celebrity who is definitely real & not a projection of desires.' The Male Gaze just got punched in the eyeballs. 

Neighbor is twenty-eight and twenty-two, at once. She is a kind of gorgeous that can only be found in or very near rivers. She is blonde but also blond, depending on the spelling. She is tall when she is on a ladder, and medium-­tall when she is halfway up the ladder. Her eyelashes spell “glory.” Her naked hands can open wet jars, with just the strength of her slender fingers. She can be sexy and pointy and things that aren’t even adjectives, like glossary, or aren’t even words, like hilabrion. Her voice sounds like a truck full of rain.

This is probably my favorite parody since Nora Ephron skewered the writing in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.