Emmy Creative Arts Winners 2019

by Nathaniel R

"We're going to the Catskills" was a popular episode of the Emmy's darling favourite The Marvelous Mrs Maisel.

The Creative Arts Emmys were held over the weekend so Game of Thrones and Marvelous Mrs Maisel are looking set to easily repeat their previous series wins on Emmy Night (Sept 22nd) since they retained a stranglehold on below the line prizes. The big news that had the internet in a huff over the two night ceremony was the fact that the popular concert special Beyonce Homecoming lost all the Emmy categories it was up for. Whether or not you love Beyoncé (I remain indifferent) that seems justifiably insane in some of those categories.

It's really time for Emmys to bring back blue ribbon panels because this "everyone can vote" thing just means that whatever is the most watched or most obsessed over show just wins everything regardless of the category. If voters aren't watching their submission tapes they're also often voting on shows they loved the year before or love right now (but a different season is the thing they're voting on. Etcetera). Why have 100s of categories if you're just going to bury three or four shows in the same dozens of awards and leave hundreds of just-as-fine programs Emmyless? If the Emmys were truly a reflection of the art of television there would be more of a variety of winners from year to year. The list of winners and a few notes after the jump...

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Tweet of the Week: Charlize Crushes

I feel like I have to be honest.
I’m in a new relationship.
With both these ladies.
For real. pic.twitter.com/V2GxFW8PTi

— Charlize Theron (@CharlizeAfrica) September 15, 2019

If Bombshell is great it might become the tweet of the year!

TIFF: A Good Time with "Bad Education"

by Chris Feil

Long Island public school administration corruption comes to light in Cory Finley’s Bad Education, a sharp examination of early 2000s secrets hidden in plain sight. A young school paper reporter Rachel (Blockers’ Geraldine Viswanathan) first goes looking for a quote on her high school’s flashy new building project. What she ultimately stumbles upon are records that reveal an embezzlement scheme funneling millions of taxpayer dollars into the interests of those at the top, including Hugh Jackman’s chief administrator Frank Tessone.

Based on an actual case of massive fraud, Bad Education is less salacious than you might expect and much more humanely interested. Mike Makowsky’s script starts with the big picture and focuses towards the personal, detailing not only the slippery slope of petty to major financial theft, but also the landmine of Tessone’s closeted sexuality in a culture that forces him into interiority. The film has a strong, smoothly told grasp on the finer points of the story, such as economic inequity, gender imbalance, and personal relationships allowing people to look the other way.

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"Hustlers" Collects the Cash

We're baa-aaack. We haven't done a box office post in two weeks due to our TIFF jaunt so we're dying to know what you've been watching while we were cramming fall and winter movies in. Next weekend things get VERY competitive with the Brad Pitt led sci-fi drama Ad Astra, the leap to the big screen for Downton Abbey, and yet another Sylvester Stallone milking-his-franchises sequel Rambo: Last Blood all arriving to compete with Pennywise and JLo for the box office crown.

The weekend estimates for all 14 pictures in wide release and the corresponding top platform titles are after the jump along with a few notes...

Weekend Box Office Sept 13th-15th (Estimates) 🔺 = new or expanding / ★ = recommended
WIDE RELEASE (800+ screens)	PLATFORM TITLES
1 IT CHAPTER TWO $40.7 (cum. $153.8)	1 🔺 BRITTANY RUNS A MARATHON  $1.5 on 757 screens (cum. $3.8) REVIEW ★

2 🔺  HUSTLERS $33.2 *new* REVIEW ★	2 🔺 LINDA RONSTADT: SOUND... [DOC] $734k (cum. $889k) on 220 screens

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Silly irreverent "JoJo Rabbit" wins TIFF's People's Choice Award. Is Oscar next?

by Nathaniel R

The Grolsch People's Choice Awards at TIFF has always been a strong omen for good Oscar fortunes.  Last year Green Book was a surprise winner (it wasn't even on most Best Picture prediction charts before the screenings started, it's sudden popularity in the Oscar race came via festival debut with little pre-release buzz). This year's winner is less of a shock to the Oscar system (TFE has at least been predicting it in multiple categories since the April Foolish predictions). The winner for 2019 is Taiki Waititi's "anti-hate satire" JoJo Rabbit about a young boy and his imaginary friend "Adolf Hitler".  Noah Baumbach's moving and surprisingly funny Marriage Story and Bong Joon-Ho's brilliant Parasite, which both played to packed satisfied houses, were the runners-up. Both of those pictures are also gunning for Best Picture citations come Oscar time, though obviously Parasite has a steeper hill to climb to get there given its subtitles as Oscar's hesitancy in embracing Asian cinema. Most of the people I spoke with in Canada were actually predicting that Parasite would take the win as TIFF had to keep adding screenings. But JoJo Rabbit it is...

Though the folks at Fox Searchlight are surely celebrating JoJo Rabbit's win the road to Oscar will be much more difficult...

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