Emmy Category Analysis: Period Costumes

by Cláudio Alves

Where is The Gilded Age with its cornucopia of tacky bustle gowns, a good portion of which are copied from fashion plates, museum pieces, and period portraits? Where are Gentleman Jack's precise visions of Romantic dress, queer aesthetics seen through a 19th-century lens? Where are the comedic stylizations of Our Flag Means Death or Julia's purviews of a television icon of days gone by? Where's the love for Schmigadoon!'s cavalcade of hot men in tight pants or Pachinko's cultural delineations rendered in a rainbow of beautiful textiles? 

Though the period category for the 2022 Emmys is the most solid of the three costume lineups (we previously discussed contemporary and fantasy fashions), many inspired period possibilities were ignored in favor of repeat contenders and curious flops...

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Norway's Amanda Awards: "Worst Person in the World" and more...

by Nathaniel R

Trier and Vogt with their Amanda Award for "Worst Person in the World" © Grethe Nygaard˙

I once briefly lived in the breathtakingly beautiful town of Haugesund, Norway and made one of my best friends for life there (hei Thomas!). He now lives there again after many years in Los Angeles and if I had any money at all I would be there right now to attend the annual Norwegian Film Festival which takes place there each year. This year's festival runs from today, August 20th, through the 26th. One of the most interesting things about this festival is that it basically kicks off with Norway's annual Oscar-like ceremony, The Amanda Awards...

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Uruguay submits "The Employer and the Employee"

Our fifth official submission for the 95th Oscars Best International Feature Film race has been announced.

🇺🇾 THE EMPLOYER AND THE EMPLOYEE
Uruguay (nothing from 22 submissions... though they had technially had 1 nominee but it was subsequently disqualified)

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1951: Jan Sterling in "Ace in the Hole"

We're revisiting the 1951 film year in the lead up to the next Supporting Actress Smackdown. As always Nick Taylor will suggest a few alternatives to Oscar's ballot.

Surely we all remember Jan Sterling from the excellent 1954 Smackdown, whose performance as an “anxious catfishing pioneer” in The High and the Mighty gave a misogynistic role one of the only moments of real pathos in the whole film. That disaster film was enough of a critical and box office success to justify her nomination, but much like Katy Jurado in Broken Lance and even Nina Foch in Executive Suite (who I love!) from the same lineup, the energy around Sterling’s nomination reeks more than a little of belated recognition.

In Sterling’s case, that missed opportunity came in 1951. Beford the National Board of Review introduced supporting categories to their own awards they handed her Best Actress for her supporting turn as a bored, opportunistic wife of a trapped man in Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole. But the mediocre reception Ace in the Hole received for its overt cynicism towards the noble professions of journalism and public service may have nixed her chances before category confusion could come into play. That's a shame since Sterling’s performance is absolutely essential to Wilder’s mix of jaded, mundane villainy and calculated entrepreneurship...

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Happy 35th to Manny Jacinto

by Nathaniel R

Manny Jacinto shot by The Emma Experience

If you're like us here at The Film Experience, you felt ROBBED this summer when you saw Manny Jacinto walk into Top Gun Maverick and then basically vanish, used only in group shots of the top gun students... the ones that didn't get frequent close-ups and lines and thus weren't going to be selected for the difficult mission in Act 3. Of course these disappointments can happen when a film is delayed so long that someone who is barely in it becomes a bigger star in the interim...

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