"Nomadland" wins TIFF's People's Choice

by Nathaniel R

This year's TIFF has wrapped. Normally we cover it extensively, as you know, but they cut out a big swath of press this year including us... *cries*. Hopefully we'll return next year and if not we'll have to find a new favourite festival to obsess over. Herewith the winners and some Oscar stats, and if we've already discussed the movies, there's a link...

AUDIENCE PRIZES

People's Choice: Nomadland dir. Chloé Zhao.
(First runner up: One Night in Miami... dir. Regina King; Second runner up: Beans dir. Tracey Deer.)
People's Choice, Documentary: Inconvenient Indian dir. Michelle Latimer. 
People’s Choice, Midnight Madness: Shadow in the Cloud dir.  Roseanne Liang. 

That's right ALL of the audience prizes this year went to female filmmakers! Even the runners up were directed by women. The People's Choice Award is major bragging rights since it often signals kind Oscar fates down the road. Basically it would be a shock if Nomadland misses the Best Picture nomination at this point afterwinning TIFF and Venice though One Night in Miami has less convincing stats on its side. The stats go like so... 

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Creative Arts Emmy Winners 2020

By Abe Friedtanzer and Nathaniel R

The big PrimeTime Emmys night is, of course, tonight but last night they wrapped up their week long 'below the line' festivities known as The Creative Arts Emmys. Among the "firsts" this week: Maya Rudolph won her first Emmy (for Big Mouth) and then her second (for Saturday Night Live), beating herself, the long running History Channel series Vikings and ABC's black-ish won their first Emmys (on the 13th and 19th nomination, respectively since they've been up for at least one prize every season). Three companies also won their first Emmys: Pop TV (via Schitt's Creek and One Day at a Time), Quibi (via the program #FreeRayshawn), and Disney+ (via The Mandalorian).

Our Emmy team correctly called Best TV Movie and both of the comedy guest acting categories but missed the drama guest acting races, all three costume fields, and animated program. Oops. If these awards truly correlated to the main races for Sunday night, we might expect to hear The Mandalorian and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel called as this year's top winners, but we’ll stick with the Succession and Schitt's Creek, which both won outstanding casting honors, as our predictions for the Drama and Comedy winners tonight. Full list of Creative Arts Emmy winners follows after the jump... 

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Showbiz History: Sophia Loren, Emmy Nights, and Female-Driven Hits

13 random things that happened on this day, September 20th, in showbiz history...

1941 The Porky Pig short "Notes to You" was released. It's sometimes credited with introducing Sylvester the Cat but that's erroneous. The confusion probably stems from the fact that this short was remade as "Back Alley Uproar" seven years later with Sylvester, by then an official character who looks not unlike this cat, and Elmer Fudd in the roles. 

1975 "Fame" hits #1 in the US, the first David Bowie record to do so... 

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Links: Madonna's Biopic, "Fast Times" Read, Pattinson's Return, and "Popeye" Remaster

• CNN Madonna will direct the biopic she's been teasing about her own life. She's co-writing it with the brilliant Diablo Cody (Juno, Young Adult). It'll be interesting to see if Madonna can pull this off. She used to have such a great sense of humor about herself and that would come in handy here. No word yet about casting though the internet rumor mill has us convinced they're looking at Julia Garner (Ozark)
• Awards Daily Delroy Lindo will be submitted as a Lead to the Oscars for Da Five Bloods
• Theater Mania It took her long enough! Broadway star Laura Benanti is finally releasing her first album (next month)

Tatlany Maslany, Fast Times, Popeye and more after the jump...

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Where to watch 1965 movies before the next Smackdown

Maggie Smith's first Oscar nominationAs we keep promising you, the Smackdowns are much more fun if you play along at home. Up next is 1965 and there are only four movies to watch (all of which received multiple Oscar nominations) to prepare for the discussion on October 9th. 

SUPPORTING ACTRESS NOMINEES OF 1965

• Ruth Gordon from Inside Daisy Clover (3 Oscar noms) - Amazon
• Maggie Smith and Joyce Redman from Othello (4 Oscar noms) - YouTube
• Shelley Winters from A Patch of Blue (5 Oscar noms)- Amazon
• Peggy Wood from The Sound of Music (10 Oscar noms) - Disney+

Once you're done watching those, send in your votes (1 to 5 hearts for each lady) by October 8th. Easy! You're then part of the Smackdown!

If you REALLY wanna dive into the cinema of 1965 before the event, here are key 1965 movies that are currently streaming for free (provided you have the corresponding services, of course).

OSCAR NOMINATED 1965 TITLES CURRENTLY STREAMING...

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