Complete Emmy Nominations

by Nathaniel R and Christopher James

JB Smoove and Melissa Fumero (who will soon be costarring in a Netflix show called Blockbuster) announced the Emmy nominations this morning. They started with a brief "bit" where they held JB's Emmy like it was a crying fragile infant before getting down to swift business with the headline categories (they did not announce supporting categories live just leads and series. True to the Television Academy's form, it was mostly a case of their old favourites landing in big categories even if the season or show in question wasn't as heralded as usual (hi Killing Eve in the acting categories or Sarah Paulson breaking through the super-stacked Best Actress Limited Series category for a performance nobody had talked about for months).

One of the most interesting things about the nominations was that recency bias paid off in the series categories but did NOT pay off in Limited Series where almost all of the nominees came from the fall/winter... as if the voters just couldn't sift through the spring/summer glut of programming. We'll review several categories at length over the next two months (the Emmys are on September 12th) but after the jump the  nomination list with a few comments and how well we did on our predictions...

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What did you see this weekend?

by Nathaniel R

Continuing the trend for Marvel, Thor Love and Thunder had the best opening weekend for a Thor film ever. Not that that meant that people were enjoying it. Eventually the sloppier ever-increasing franchises from Marvel will catch up to them but for now, people are still showing up like each one is a must-see event, regardless of word of mouth.  

Weekend Box Office July 8th-10th 🔺 = new or expanding /  ★ = Recommended links if we've written about it
WIDE (OVER 800 SCREENS)	PLATFORM RELEASES
THOR LOVE AND THUNDER	MARCEL THE SHELL...

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Stage Door: The restless moving "Chains"

'Stage Door' is our new theater column. We'll review plays and musicals but, because this is a film site, we'll end each column with related movie suggestions. - Editor 

Mr & Mrs Charlie Wilson, the suddenly precarious couple at the heart of "Chains"

The work of British playwright Elizabeth Baker (1876-1962) has never been adapted to the cinema but not for lack of worthiness. Her most famous play, "Chains", is currently enjoying a revival Off Broadway. On the night we attended we learned, via the introduction, that the Mint's artistic director worried during its pandemic-forced delay that "Chains" might not resonate to modern audiences. The Mint forged ahead anyway only to realize that the fears were unfounded; class struggle and existential dilemmas are timeless topics...

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How many of the spring/summer hits will Oscar recognize?

by Nathaniel R

How many of the year's critically embraced / audience approved movies from the first half of the year will Oscar recognize? Savvy awards fans know that if you open very late you dont necessarily need audiences (or even the critics to a lesser extent) because the voters haven't had time to process the various responses. The only "influence" then becomes the publicity and the awards campaigns themselves, which is what the distributors prefer. That way they control the messaging.

If you open earlier than the second half of December, it's a completely different story. Critical and audience response completely matter as your film takes on various consensus markers like  "surprise hit" or "flop" or "respected but didn't connect". All sorts of things happen that unconsciously or consciously affect voting. In short, both critical and audience approval have to be there in order to generate enthusiasm that will justify a campaign later in the year. In that sense we have only four movies that have opened at this writing in 2022 that we must take seriously for prizes at year's end. They are...

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YNMS x 4: Amsterdam, The Woman King, The Last Movie Stars, and Luck

A lot of this actually happened.

Let's talk trailers. Here are the five latest we've seen (though we skipped a few "final trailers" because we don't need to see that much of new movies before we actually see them!) Talking to you, Nope! We've seen more then enough and we WANT to be surprised, that's especially helpful with jump genres like thriller or horror where surprises are a huge part of the pleasure.) After the jump we'll break down five new trailers into quick Yes No Maybe So responses as is our habit. Provide your own in the comments... 

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