Next Two "Best Shot" Episodes: Zootopia + Cinematography of '77

Watch the movies. Pick a shot. join us! You can see all the past episodes here.

Tuesday Evening, July 19th
ZOOTOPIA (2016, Howard, Moore, Bush. 108 minutes)
It's the second biggest global hit of the year and now that it's available for home viewing let's have a second look at this delightful animated comedy about a utopia threatened when predators go wild again. 

BEST SHOT SPECIAL: Mon Jul 24- Fri Jul 29th
Oscar Battles: Best Cinematography 1977

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS Vilmos Zsigmond
ISLANDS IN THE STREAM Fred J Koenekamp
JULIA Douglas Slocombe 
LOOKING FOR MR GOODBAR William A Fraker
TURNING POINT Robert Surtees 

Choose one or more of Oscar's 1977 Cinematography nominees for your "Best Shot" pleasure. We'll reajudicate the cinematography Oscar battle of 1977 over the final week of July. If this sounds crazy, please note that 1977 happens to be our "Year of the Month" and four of those five titles were also nominated for Best Supporting Actress so we'll be watching them anyway for the Smackdown so this is time management...albeit of an ambitious kind. That week at the blog we'll post our favorite image from each of those movies one a day along with links to whichever you've discussed at your blog, tumblr, twitter, or facebook. 

Difficult People Is Back!

There may be plenty of gripes about snubs from this year's Emmy nominations, but one of the bigger letdowns in my estimation is Hulu's Difficult People. Emmy is rarely kind to cult shows and the comedy's caustic humor is admittedly not everyone's cup of tea. However with its enviable explosion of big names guest stars, you would imagine that the voters could have recognized it with a nomination in the guest acting categories.

And with the start of the second season, they are only upping the ante for their day planners. By now I'm sure you have been teased on upcoming stints from the likes Lin-Manuel Miranda and Julianne Moore after the premiere episodes already gave us Tina Fey and Nathan Lane. In fact, as it returned this week all of the discussion around the show seemed targeted on who would be popping up rather than what hilarity we could expect from the season itself. When the fun of the show is its rat-a-tat, layered punchlines and the bad behavior of its two leads, that tactic seems in disservice to a show that's only getting better and funnier.

So here are five reasons we should be excited about the return of Difficult People that have nothing to do with its celebrity guests...

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I'm With Tweet

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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