Emmy Nominations Are Here!

By Abe Friedtanzer

Nominations for the 73rd Emmys have been announced, and while it was nice to see short clips of each of the program nominees, the gimmick of having father and daughter, Ron Cephas Jones and Jasmine Cephas Jones, announce together would have worked considerably better if they had been in the same place and not experiencing a delayed reaction to their joke setups. But let’s move on to the nominees, which are mostly good but sure to reveal painful snubs as we break it down by category. It shouldn’t be much of a surprise that The Crown is the nominations leader with 24 bids, but it did tie with The Mandalorian, which added to its technical total with a few acting, directing, and writing bids.

It took me until I got into the details of the limited series/anthology categories to realize that Small Axe was almost entirely shut out, earning only a cinematography mention. I think that has more to do with its questionable TV format, though that didn’t stop Hamilton from gobbling up a horrifying seven acting slots. Another underperformer was Girls5eva, which managed exactly one nomination, for writing. It was also a sad day for Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, which didn’t score any of the major bids I and others thought it might. That presumed domination by a few series in the supporting categories absolutely happened, though there were a few positive and unexpected inclusions thrown in. Let’s take a closer look at the categories our Emmy team predicted (plus the guest races) and go from there...

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Cannes Diary #06: Or, I Took the Night Off

by Elisa Guidici

Cannes partygoers watching the game on a phone -- photo vis Scott Feinberg's Twitter

Yes, I took last night off. I'm not exactly a socialite during festivals: I spend the majority of my time in screenings and what's left desperately trying to write as much as possible about the movies I saw. I really envy colleagues who are able to balance work and social life at a festival as it's a skill I completely lack.

Having said so, come on, European football championship finals with Italy against England: every other Italian journalist was planning to see the match. Poor Nanni Moretti, had to present his latest movie just one hour before the match. I spent the night at a local pub with a group of Italian colleagues, watching the match and having my first dinner actually seated at a table and not hiding somewhere near the press room eating a baguette-with-something since the very first day. And Italy won, so it was a beautiful night. And now my voice is almost gone.

And the movies, Elisa, the movies? Well, I saw only two movies, but one is the longest in competition, so...

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Cannes at Home: Day 7

by Cláudio Alves

Last year, while the Cannes Film Festival did not occur, the organizers revealed a list of titles selected. Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch was among them, and, unlike many other films slotted for the 2020 Croisette, it rescheduled all release plans so it could still premiere at the festival. After a one-year delay, it's finally upon us, and the reviews skew positive. Let's hope it's worth the wait. Another main competition title to take its bow today was Kirill Serebrennikov's Petrov's Flu. It's the Russian director's second film to compete for the Palme d'Or and his first release since a controversial conviction for embezzlement. Still banned from leaving Russia, he attended the festival by FaceTime. More on that later. For now, let's look back at these directors' previous successes – a bittersweet comedy on dysfunctional families and a galvanizing political allegory about modern Russia…

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Cannes Diary #5: Road trips through cinema

Do you know "Raul"? I don't and I never cease to be fascinated by this bizzarre Cannes Festival tradition. Sometimes, just before a press screening, someone screams "Raouuul!". No one seems to know why or when this phenomenon started, but the most seasoned journalists I know told me that the Raoul tradition started many, many years ago. Maybe I can just google it and find an answer but every person I ask about it has a different theory, so I'm enjoying the mystery. Anyway, on to today's three films...

Mariner of the Mountains  (Karim Aïnouz)
SPECIAL SCREENINGS

I took the ticket for the latest by the Brazilian director on a whim, because I woke up early that day and I really liked his previous feature, Invisible Life. I had read nothing about this one since sometimes I like to go in blindfolded. At first I was so confused by the form, a kind of infinite collage of short videos recorded with a smartphone and photos taken by Aïnouz himself during his first journey to Algeria...

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Links: Korean Actors, Fun Director Interviews, etc...

• Observer a strong piece on the pros and con for both movie theaters and streaming at this juncture
• Variety has a piece up asking if the $60 million Black Widow made on premiere streaming (at $30 a pop) is good or not. And why is Disney being "transparent" about something so vague and impossible to confirm? 
• The Actor is Present The Korean Film Council has a huge guide to current Korean actors (200 of them!) so I'd check it out if you're into Korean cinema or television

More after the jump including Zola, Catherine Zeta Jones...

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