Feeling the "Effects" (One Mississippi, Episode 2)

by Stephen Fenton

When a loved one dies, there’s a flurry of activity; all manner of tasks to be done and arrangements to be made. It’s those first few days after the funeral that are the hardest, when reality starts to kick in, and you realize you to make sense of this new normal. And that’s where we find Tig and family in the second episode of One Mississippi.  

“How was your stay at the hospital? Were you satisfied? Or did things not go so well?...Because you died.”

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Transparent Season 3. Part One

TV’s best comedy/drama/tragedy, Transparent, is back for Season 3 in all of its sexual/pansexual/transsexual glory as creator Jill Soloway brings us back into the tumultuous lives of the fallible Pfefferman family.  Here’s a look at Episodes 1-3…

Episode One:  Elizah
It’s a bummer that the first show out of the gate is probably the weakest episode of Transparent we’ve seen.  While the show starts promisingly with Rabbi Raquel (the magical Kathryn Hahn, promoted to full-time cast member this season) jogging through misty woods to a soundtrack of Jacques Brel’s “Ne Me Quitte Pas”…this episode is devoted almost entirely to one storyline.  While Maura (Jeffrey Tambor) works one of her first shifts at the LGBT community center hotline, she receives a call from a confused young trans girl named Elizah.  When Elizah hangs up on her, Maura is so moved and involved that she spends the day tracking her down...  

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Tig Rising in "One Mississippi" (Episode 1)

by Steven Fenton

If you’re a comedy fan, or if you’ve listened to any NPR show in the last four years, you know Tig Notaro. For the uninitiated, the comedian rocketed to fame when she turned her lowest point in life into comedy gold. In 2012, Tig Notaro had a pretty shitty year. Her mother passed away, she ended a relationship, and she was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer. Mere days after her diagnosis, Tig delivered an instantly iconic comedy routine where she mined her personal miserie; spoke frankly about the unbelievable circumstances she’d found herself in; and somehow transformed all that profound pain into poignant hilarity.

Notaro’s brilliance and signature laidback charm have launched her into stardom with albums, HBO specials, cameos on Inside Amy Schumer and Transparent, the Netflix documentary Tig, and now her very own Amazon show. In One Mississippi, Notaro channels her dark, deeply felt humor into a beautifully made, sensitive, and rollicking portrait of a grieving family with a talent roster full of Film Experience favorites...

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Best Actress - Who will dance with Oscar?

While Best Actress remains the most impressively competitive category, the buzz has been so deafening on Natalie Portman and Emma Stone's work in Jackie and La La Land respectively, that we have our first acting nomination "locks" of the year. Yes, I hate to use the word so early -- i generally prefer not to use it until after a film has opened -- but in this case it applies.

Short of either of these well loved actresses murdering someone casually or becoming a spokesperson for Trump on his campaign trail their traction for Best Actress is a done deal. Having now seen both pictures it's tough to imagine either of them missing; their movies are probable Best Picture Contenders which hang on their every flickering bit of feeling. And they've both got multiple "clips" galore for award show reels, clips that will look like "of course she won the Oscar!" in retrospect should either of them manage the win.

So spots three through five is where the true competition is. Most people feel that Ruth Negga is a given for Loving -- though how a movie fares in release is often a factor and it's not out yet. One worrying factor is that she's significantly less famous than most of her competition. Everyone is banking on Viola Davis being spectacular in Fences but we must remind everyone (and also ourselves despite our raggedy "Team Viola" t-shirts!) that nobody has seen the picture; history has many examples of stage-to-screen transfers that underwhelmed. Beyond those two we have Oscar regulars like Meryl Streep (always a threat even if she doesn't campaign), Amy Adams (always a threat and always campaigns hard), and Annette Bening (unless the movie is waiting too long to make its move). And then there's "critical darling" possiblities like Isabelle Huppert. I've been harping on this for some time, I know, but I remain convinced that she could happen as a nominee. Natalie & Emma being so far out front actually makes passion votes more important because with both of them sucking up so many votes, other women will need to stick out in the hearts of voters to fight their way in. 

It's also fair to wonder what Globe Comedy/Musical nominations could do to boost profiles of particular actresses. Hmmmm...

GLOBE COMEDY / MUSICAL ACTRESS
the possibilities

Lock-ish
Stone - La La Land
Streep - Florence Foster Jenkins
It's easy to imagine them as nominees...
Field -  Hello My Name is Doris
Beckinsale - Love & Friendship
Winslet - the Dressmaker
But the Globes can surprise. What about...
Huppert -Elle
Sarandon - The Meddler
Zellweger - Bridget Jones's Baby 
anyone else? 

New Best Actress Oscar Prediction Chart. What'cha think?

The Furniture: Comedy by Design in Come Blow Your Horn

1963 is our "Year of the Month" for September. So we'll be celebrating its films randomly throughout the month. Here's Daniel Walber...

Once upon a time, there were two production design categories at the Oscars. From 1945 through 1956, and again from 1959 through 1966, color films and black and white films competed separately. The Academy nominated ten films every year after 1950, creating a whole lot more room for variety.

This especially benefited comedy, a genre that has since fallen out of favor with Oscar. And while Come Blow Your Horn might not be the funniest of the 1960s, it is certainly one of the most deserving nominees of the era. Adapted by Norman Lear from a Neil Simon play, this Frank Sinatra vehicle stages most of its antics in one of cinema’s most luxurious apartments, the work of art directors Roland Anderson (Breakfast at Tiffany’s) and Hal Pereira (Vertigo) and set decorators Sam Comer (Rear Window) and James W. Payne (The Sting).

Sinatra plays Alan Baker, a salesman for his family’s plastic fruit business. His boss and father, Harry (Lee J. Cobb), is perpetually enraged by his son’s libertine Manhattan lifestyle. Harry and his wife Sophie, played by Yiddish theater legend Molly Picon, live a quiet life in Yonkers with their much younger son, Buddy (Tony Bill). But when Buddy runs away from home to live large with Alan, all hell breaks loose.

Alan's apartment in question is a spotless and opulent apotheosis of mid-century design. The open living room makes the place seem enormous...

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