Emmy Noms 2015 ~ First Impressions, Comedy

While yours truly hasn't done the full statistical research to back this statement up it seems at cursory glance that the Comedy Series portion of the Emmys is ever so slightly less set in stone year to year than the Drama side. But with Orange is the New Black, last year's strongest new comedy, vacating the premises for Drama contending with Season 2 there's a bit of wiggle room here and there in addition to their usual eenie mini mo playfulness in the sixth slot in most categories. More importantly this past TV season was particularly strong when it came to new comedies. So many freshmen or revived series won strong reviews and/or much media attention (Transparent, Jane the Virgin, Black-ish, Fresh Off the Boat, The Comeback, Grace & Frankie, etcetera) that it stands to reason that the Comedy nominations will look much different than they usually do. 

But do they? Find out after the jump...

COMEDY

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Emmy Noms 2015 ~ Drama/MiniSeries, First Impressions

Emmy Awards will be held on Sept 20th this yearYou've surely already read Team Experience Dream Drama Ballots so you'll know that for many of us Emmy Nomination morning can be a Waking Nightmare. For all the talk of "The Golden Age" of television, there's precious little evidence of that in what is essentially the official industry record each year. "But these are high quality shows!" You protest. Well, yes but...

Even if you accept as the gospel truth that all of the Emmy nominees are of high quality, a true golden wouldn't support a great deal of repetition. A true golden age would suggest such a high level of quality in the competitive pool that the nomination shortlists in each category would be quite volatile from year to year with slight or major dips or rises in quality for entire shows and individual characters reflected in dozens of different names and titles in the Emmy categories causing a revolving door effect rather than a copy and paste effect with some people popping up sporadically, others once and never again, etcetera. This is rarely if ever the case with Emmy. Once you're in the list you tend to stay in, screw the merits of individual episodes, character arcs or seasons that are officially in play. Hence no Golden Age... at least not according to Emmy. Maybe they'll catch up sometime? Yet with their darling Breaking Bad off the air, last year's disruptive force True Detective ineligible (no new episodes during the eligibility period), and Orange is the New Black forced to switch from comedy to this category by the Academy itself, changes were practically forced upon the Emmy voting body.

Did it free up their thinking? Let's find out. The nominee list with first impression commentary after the jump...

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Q&A: Friday Nights, Voice Work, Underseen Gems

You asked some questions. I'm finally answering them. You know how this works. Please do chime in in the comments. The whole reason we do the column is for participatory flavor and that includes a pinch of you! Our Question of the Week which is Friday Night Lights themed is, annoyingly, from "Anonny" (how about a name?) so he/she gets to choose our next banner topic! (And how about our current "joy" banner. I put Jessica Lange in it for the first time and no one notices!?)

What is it, a crime? Is it a crime to look at Lange?

Pat Carroll recording UrsulaJAMES: Does the trend now that animated films only use "names" for voice work mean that we'll never see the likes of Pat Carroll again?

That would be among the greatest of cinematic tragedies. Unlike seemingly many TFE readers, though, I don't actually share an interest in voice actors getting Oscar nominations. But as with motion capture and the much discussed pioneering case of Andy Serkis, I do think this is where Oscar is really dropping the ball in terms of never giving out special achievement statues. I can't even remember when the last one was -- was it for Toy Story (1995) before there was the Animated Feature category? Pat Carroll's work as Ursula is the single greatest voice performance in the history of animation. (Team Experience shamefully put her in only 3rd when we took a poll)

The days of specialized voice talent getting prime opportunities like that are gone but there is hope: Pixar uses celebrities sometimes but they don't rely on them exclusively the way Dreamworks and other lesser studios do. And sometimes their "celebrities" aren't exactly household names so they aren't using them for advertising purposes, but because they genuinely love the voice. Wasn't Richard Kind a great choice for "Bing Bong" in Inside Out? 

DEBORAH: If you could choose one lesser-known movie each from the 70s, 80s, and 90s that everyone should see, what would they be (and why)?

THE ANSWER AND EIGHT MORE QUESTIONS AFTER THE JUMP...

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Roger Rees (1944-2015)

He spent the last three months of his career treading the boards with Chita Rivera. There are a helluva lot worse swan songs. "The Visit" closed on Broadway in June and Tony winner Roger Rees, who was leading man to Chita River in that strange but beautiful musical, died yesterday less than a month after closing night, though he had had to leave the musical early due to illness. He is survived by his husband.

I first became aware of him when I was a kid when PBS showed The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1982) miniseries in which he played the lead role and was Emmy nominated. I didn't know at the time that it was his signature role and he'd already won the Olivier and Tony for it. 

I had the privilege of seeing him on stage twice. When I had just moved to NYC in 1999, I went to an Off Broadway play to see Uma Thurman (he was her leading man) and I caught The Visit early in previews. He was having a rough time with the score that night... and I wondered about his health. I kept shooing the thought away -- it was just the grim melodrama of the musical, I told myself, in which Chita keeps essentially presenting him with his own coffin.

Though Rees easily hopped around in all three actors mediums, and appeared in films like Star 80, Robin Hood Men in Tights, the Pfeiffer version of A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Prestige, and Frida, his most popular roles (aside from Nickleby) tended to be guest spots on television: West Wing and Cheers in particular. My favorite? My So Called Life (1994) in which he has a title role episode "The Substitute" wherein he played a rebel teacher who wakes Angela Chase up with his unorthodox instruction. 

Do you have a favorite memory of his work? 

Boo-Boo Linky

W Magazine Taraji P. Henson, always fun, talks about getting the acting bug, auditioning for Precious and falling in love with "Cookie" on Empire even though she didn't want to do TV again
AV Club Taraji also has a new leading film role as civil rights activist Ann Atwater who in 1971 had meetings with the Klu Klux Klan leader on reducing violence. 
IndieWire a fun interview with the always amusing Jennifer Coolidge, who hopes to get a wider range of roles. "maybe I should write something"
BBC RIP "Avengers" star Patrick Macnee
Variety John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig, Rabbit Hole) will be honored at OutFest this year. He needs to stop being honored and start making another movie. 
Empire Aaron Eckhart to star in new thriller shot in real time. It's called Live! Eckhart's one of those actors I root for even though he keeps making movies I don't want to see. (sigh)
Vanity Fair is always trying to make Jennifer Lawrence happen. She already happened of course ;) but they just don't quit with the love fest -- they're already pushing for Oscar #2
New Yorker for any of you rebels who haven't been feeling Inside Out here's a negative review from the always interesting Richard Brody on "the curse of the Pixar universe"
/Film a new Star Trek started filming. Rumored title is Star Trek Beyond

Emmy Voting Ends Today
I know you diehard cinephiles are probably relieved that we won't be talking about TV so much next week but we hope you cinephiles who don't differentiate between screen sizes anymore (there seem to be more and more of you) have enjoyed this experiment. We have to keep experimenting to keep the site alive you know. In case you missed any of our FYCs here's an index of the acting writeups -- we tried to cover as many different series as possible during those --  our final ballots for drama and comedy, as well as guest blogs from Cara Seymour (The Knick) and Ann Dowd (The Leftovers) which we were super proud to host. It was fascinating to hear some of what went in to creating those memorable and surprising religious figures.

Happy Pride Month
THR on today's young male movie stars courting gay audiences. They're  trying to make "Stromo!" happen. But isn't it already called "Hetemo"?
MoMA acquires the original rainbow flag which is now 37 years old. Happy birthday flag. 

Showtune to Go!
And let's combine "Pride" with "Emmy Voting" for the finale. Since neither Jonathan Groff nor Sutton Foster are likely to receive Emmy nods for their terrific work in Looking and Younger respectively, we want them to know that they are loved. And obsessed over. In many places if not on Emmy voter ballots. So here's Jonathan's tribute to Sutton Foster in Anything Goes. It has 283,000+ views on YouTube so at least 190,000 other people besides me have watched it! And yes I've probably shared it before but it bears watching again.

and again. 
and again.
and again.