SAG Awards - a brisk bellwether for Oscar night

by Nathaniel R

Did you watch the SAG Awards last night? Apart from one surprising win on the television side (an inebriated, honest Pedro Pascal for The Last of Us) it was a night of frontrunners, continuing to run so far front that their competitors are all well out of focus. Honestly at this point, all the suspense of Oscar season has entirely dissipated (but we'll get to that soon). Given the lack of interesting narrative curlicues and detours and the same faces delivering the same kinds of speeches, the highlight for yours truly was in the presenters.

The grandest entertainment came in the form of a fashionable reunion for the stars of The Devil Wears Prada...

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Sundance: 'Eileen' is the movie 'Carol' couldn't be

by Jason Adams

The blonde woman in expensive clothes explodes into the dowdy brunette’s life like fireworks. She just appears one day, flung out of space, and nothing will ever be the same for the Plain Jane working girl again. Everything is upended in Midcentury America, surprise feelings warming in the brunette's belly she doesn’t even have a name for, inspiring a sudden need to run. And yes you’d be forgiven if you thought I was speaking about Carol, Todd Hayne’s 2015 masterpiece about a love affair between Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, who no matter what Harge says were not ugly people. 

No I speak of a different lesbian potboiler that just popped off at Sundance this year, director William “Lady Macbeth” Oldroyd’s Eileen, based on Ottessa Moshfegh’s 2015 novel...

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Almost There: Emily Blunt in "The Devil Wears Prada"

by Cláudio Alves

After over 100 write-ups about performers that came close to Oscar glory but failed to secure a nomination, it's time to discuss Emily Blunt in the Almost There series. Perpetually snubbed, the English actress has been part of the awards conversation since the mid-00s, but the Academy refuses to pay her any attention to this day. Even when her projects are otherwise embraced, Blunt's name is never there on Oscar nomination morning. Though this is her first time in this series, it's certainly not her last. There were at least five other occasions when she was in serious contention for Hollywood's most coveted trophy– going as far as winning the SAG and nabbing nods for all the important precursors. Since there's no better place to start than the beginning, let's delve into Blunt's first brush with Oscar buzz.

Back in 2006, The Devil Wears Prada was a smash hit with audiences and critics alike. Playing a character with her first name, Emily Blunt proved herself a comedic scene-stealer. And just like that, a star was born…

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Link World Dominion

• Variety Actors on Actors with Anne Hathaway and Jeremy Strong
• Vanity Fair interviews Julie Andrews who talks Mary Poppins, The Princess Diaries and her new voice role in Aquaman 2
• Deadline Scarlett Johansson to star in Kristin Scott Thomas' directorial debut My Mother's Wedding. We haven't seen her onscreen since Black Widow last summer but she has a lot of projects lined up now.
• MNPP gifs of Trevante Rhodes as Mike Tyson in a new Hulu miniseries called Mike

more after the jump including stop motion feature Wendell & Wild, Judy Garland's centennial, Stranger Things hairdos and music revivals, and the new Jurassic World movie...

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Cannes Gowns, Round 4 (and 'Armageddon Time')

Previously: round 1, 2 and 3 

Anne Hathaway is in Cannes to attend the premiere of James Gray's memoir drama Armageddon Time. Juror Rebecca Hall and Cannes mainstay Bollywood superstar Aishwarya Rai also walked the red carpet. Sheila Atim, who you'll recall just won the Olivier Award, is having a very good year. She was this year's actress honorary at Chopard's annual Cannes ceremony which spotlights one male and one female star each year (Jack Lowden was the male winner this year). The four most recent actress winners were Anya Taylor-Joy (2017), Elizabeth Debicki (2018), Florence Pugh (2019), Jessie Buckley (2021) so that's very good company to be in. Atim is onscreens now in a small role in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and supports Viola Davis later this year in The Woman King.  

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Armageddon Time has received very warm reviews which might bode well for a James Gray movie finally being in Oscar competition (*might* because his films aren't as sentimental as this genre and Oscar voters like to embrace). The movie is based on Gray's memories of his 80s adolescence. THR says "Hathaway does her best work since Rachel Getting Married" as the mother and both Entertainment Weekly and IndieWire single out Anthony Hopkins as the grandfather mentioning his golden late career phase and that he continues "to mine raw honesty from the depths of human frailty". The Guardian though didn't much like it describing it as "slightly laborious and self-consciously acted"