Links: Irish cacophonies, crowded rooms, and guild prizes
Monday, April 12, 2021 at 3:30PM • IndieWire did you see SNL's sketch lampooning Ammonite and Portrait of a Lady on Fire as "Lesbian Period Drama"
• Towleroad Tom Holland to play Billy Milligan the first person to successfully use Dissassociative Identity Disorder as a criminal defense in the series The Crowded Room
• The Guardian asks a very real and interesting question: which films have missed their moment given the pandemic. Lots of films benefit from feeling 'of the moment' and not all of the films coming out in 2021 and 2022 will.
More after the jump including trouble for film production in Georgia, Bowen Yang's Titanic hilarity, and the Art Directors Guild Awards...
• Deadline another guild has announced. They have four budget-related Best Music Supervision categories and the winners were: Soul (over 25 million), Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (under 25 million), Promising Young Woman (under 10 million), and The Cuban (under 5 million)
• Variety The Art Directors Guild awards were held this weekend with Mank (Period), Tenet (fantasy), Da 5 Bloods (contemporary) and Soul (animated) emerging as the winners. I never quite understand Production Design awards for mostly outdoors films like Da 5 Bloods. There's a lot of walking around on hills and in forests. Promising Young Woman was RIGHT there.
• IndieWire Will Smith's pricey slavery drama Emancipation is the first big production to leave the state of Georgia after their heinous voting restrictions law designed to disenfranchise voters of color.
• The Guardian Andra Day is enjoying dressing up for the virtual awards ceremonies
• Deadline For the final stretch of Oscar campaigning, drive-ins are being booked to remind people of the communal moviegoing experience
• AV Club Justin Timberlake is going to play Chuck Barris for Apple TV. You might remember this story from the George Clooney Sam Rockwell collaboration Confessions of a Dangerous Minds in the Aughts
• Coming Soon DC's Black Adam starring Dwayne Johnson has begun filming
Exit Videos
You surely caught this bit from Saturday Night Live but we're compelled to share just in case. Just stupid hilarious. We've watched it five times already (no joke). Give it 11 Emmys to match Titanic's 11 Oscars. Bowen Yang is a national treasure.
And just for some musical pleasure today, here's Tony winner Ali Stroker (Oklahoma) performing "Be a Lion" for "The Seth Concert Series". She's been such a history-making stage and TV performer, hopefully paving the way for other disabled performers to be recognized for their gifts. Hers are considerable -- that voice! Hopefullly some film director gives her a shot, too.
P.S. On a less happy note, Bill Maher is being dumb about the Oscars again. To claim that Hollywood doesn't make escapist movies is like claiming that this blog hates actresses. Hollywood practically only makes escapist movies. Though yes the Oscars do tend to stick with the tiny serious slice of Hollywood's big pie.
I don't have to leave the theater whistling, but would it kill Hollywood to once in a while make a movie that doesn't make me want to take a bath with the toaster? We all had a rough year, a little escapism would have been appreciated. #Oscars21 #OscarNoms pic.twitter.com/UkA3zCOkbl
— Bill Maher (@billmaher) April 10, 2021
Ali Stroker, Ammonite, Bowen Yang, Emancipation, SNL, The Crowded Room, Titanic, Tom Holland
Reader Comments (23)
I could care less about what Bill Maher had to say. I'll just stick to John Oliver, Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, and Seth Meyers as they at least have something to say without acting like a fucking asshole.
I imagine Da Five Bloods got in because of the way the film used different locations, even in small moments like the flashbacks and forwards, to really establish character and politics. They also spend the first third of the film in the city - a lot of locations. I also think the big fight set is pretty amazing looking, and the art directors likely did work to find the right parts of the forest to set the scene.
I don't understand why Bill Maher is still a thing.
I think "Palm Springs" would have been a big fat hit if pandemic wouldn't happened.
You and me both on the Bowen Yang iceberg sketch, Nathaniel - I think I'm in love with it. Every beat landed, not only because the writing was funny (and surprisingly clever) but because his delivery and turns of expression were absolute perfection.
Anyone who hasn't watched it already, DO SO STAT. For those who have...
The windup was low-key great, with awesome side-eye from Yang/iceberg:
"This is always a really weird time of year for me."
"Thank you for that...question."
"Ok, no...no...These are not the questions we discussed."
"It's a hyper-pop EDM new disco fantasia...It's called MUSIC."
Where he really starts to crank it to the next level:
"You wanna do this? Let's do this. First of all, YOU came to where I live and YOU hit ME!!!"
and pretty much every line from that point on is a gut-buster, but just cause I can't help myself:
"HALF my ASS is GONE."
"...40 or 50 people or whatever."
"It was 1500 people."
"WHY ARE YOU ATTACKING ME???! You said you would be my Oprah, Coliiin."
"I never said that." (Jost was a pretty good straight man, but you could tell he was barely keeping it together...in fairness, not sure anyone would have been able to do better.)
"Someone did!"
"Everyone's talking about me, no one's talking about THE WA-TER!"
And: "They drowned, bitch. That's the WA-TER. ... Nobody's cancelling the ocean."
"Hey, White Star Line, ya built a bad boat. It didn't work out. That's on you, honey."
And then the perfect capper with "Loverboy."
But really, writing all that out simply doesn't do Yang's performance justice. It was pure diva-licious genius, because it was at once tongue-in-cheek and 100% committed.
"The Guardian asks a very real and interesting question: which films have missed their moment given the pandemic. Lots of films benefit from feeling 'of the moment' and not all of the films coming out in 2021 and 2022 will."
I wonder which, if any, delayed films will benefit from *not* being of the moment. Jessica Lange won a Best Actress Oscar in 1995 for a film that completed filming in mid-1990. A film that eccentric and marginal could not have won such an accolade in any other year of the '90s.
Bill Maher spoiled every best picture nominee in his latest New Rules! Do NOT watch without this in mind
Lynn Lee -- yes on all points thoroughly. the committed is like Bakalova in Borat level ;) and if you're going to risk looking that foolish (think how bad this bit would have been in the hands of a less gifted writers/performer) commitmen is the only way to transcend.
if he's not Emmy nominated this year (given how often SNL performers are.... i'm going to be pissed.
Mike M -- great point. I guess we'll find out!
I don't know or care who Bill Maher is, but if he's using his position of power to make people less interested in movies tackling social issues, then he's as dumb and ignorant and anyone who would listen to him.
Bowen Yang isn't even a full cast member of SNL. He's still just a featured player. Crazy.
Bowen Yang is terrible. He's just not funny.
Really weird for Maher to rant about "depressing" movies and "virtue signaling" and then show off THE GRAPES OF WRATH, GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER, APOCALYPSE NOW, REDS, DO THE RIGHT THING, SCHINDLER'S LIST, ERIN BROCKOVICH, MILK, and 12 YEARS A SLAVE as examples of the good ol days when all of those movies have "depressing" elements or could have been bemoaned as "virtue signaling" by the Mahers of their day or both... it's not like he gave us a montage of Best Picture nominees like STAR WARS or ET or FIELD OF DREAMS.
I love Maher and laughed at this and also love many of these movies! We can do both. It’s not that serious.
Bowen Yang just earned his Emmy nomination on Saturday night.
Bowen is so funny. I watched that sketch like 8 times.
There is a phrase from Rick and Morty- Your boos mean nothing, I've seen what you applaud- that is what I think about Maher. He seems very smug and thinks he is so smart but watch the clip of him and Christopher Hitchens and Maher falls apart while Hitchens trolls both him and the live audience.
I liked Ammonite so the sketch's jokes were hit or miss for me. But the McKinnon bit about painting was pretty great.
The Maher bit was pretty funny and also no, it's not fair to the Hollywood or the Oscars.
Comedy also doesn't have a reponsibility to be "fair" to its subjects. The movies are sad! Most people will never see them and don't take the Oscars seriously. It's not that deep.
Bowen was great as the iceberg and typically really funny when he shows up on weekend update.
However, I've been nervous that he won't even get another season. He seems so underused, especially when compared to Chloe Fineman and Andrew Dismukes (the other featured players) who get to be in endless sketches.
I tried watching the iceberg clip because of the raves in the comments, but uh... I see how bad the Stockholm Syndrome has gotten if you've continued watching SNL. 😅
To be fair, it's been yearsss since I've watched, and probably also years since I've laughed when watching even a clip. So. Maybe that's on me.
I normally really like Bill Maher, but this is an idiotic monologue. Many of the nominated films he chides as depressing are ultimately very uplifting--NOMADLAND, MINARI, CHICAGO 7. Many of the ones he then has flash past on the screen behind him as "the good films Hollywood used to nominate" are every bit as dark as this year's nominees--APOCALYPSE NOW, SCHINDLER'S LIST, TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE. Talk about having a shaky thesis and trying to ram it home anyway. Someone on his staff just doesn't like low budget films and seems to have no idea that MISSISSIPPI BURNING, CRIES AND WHISPERS, MIDNIGHT COWBOY, FIVE EASY PIECES and other dark, dark films have always been big Oscar players. And couldn't someone have pointed out that WEST SIDE STORY, IN THE HEIGHTS, and DUNE were pushed back? What did he want, WONDER WOMAN 1984 and THE PROM to get nominated? Really?
Bowen Yang's job security is just fine. They would never fire the show's only Asian cast member in this political climate. The iceberg sketch was pure insanity! He'll be promoted to series regular once his contract as being a featured player runs out. He's the new breakout star of the new group, give or take Chloe Finemen, or my personal favorite, Heidi Gardner. She commits to every character she plays and never breaks. She's the real deal and one of the few from the new class that I see having a prolific post-SNL career.
Now if only we can get Matt Rogers to join Bowen on SNL... make it happen, Lorne!