Visual Index: Working Girl's Best Shot(s)

Hit Me With Your Best Shot
Working Girl (1988)
Director: Mike Nichols
Cinematography: Michael Ballhaus

I wasn't fair to Working Girl in 1988. When it won the reader poll easily for coverage here on Best Shot, the old grudge flared up again. 'Why do people love this movie so much?' I thought. You see the Oscar race is often distorting. In 1988 Working Girl was a last minute disrupter with its Christmas bow, and I never forgave it for costing Bull Durham, Running on Empty, or Who Framed Roger Rabbit major nominations and prizes. There's no proof of course that it did -- but I believed it wholeheartedly.

But watching the film again, away from that distorting horse race, I could enjoy it fully without name-checking those films I held more dear. There's so much to enjoy all told. "It plays," as they say. It plays beautifully. Now don't get me wrong. I still wouldn't have nominated it for six Oscars. Six! But let's not return to the grudge and let's enjoy this mainstream bullseye and the cinematography by Michael Ballhaus, one of the cinema's greatest DPs. He's 80 now and still doesn't have an Oscar. He should be near the very top of Oscar's list for an Honorary.

See Nathaniel's 3 favorite shots and other Best Shot choices 'round the web after the jump...

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Emmy Ballots Due: Which old fav would you sacrifice for a newbie?

Emmy nomination balloting ends today for the 68th annual Emmy Awards. Cross your fingers that we actually get a few shakeups this year. Yes, cross your fingers even if you love all 10 of the shows that are normally swimming in nominations. Why? Well, the Emmys really should reflect how competitive television is and not suggest that there have only been 10ish good shows on the air for the past half decade plus.

Comment Party! On that note please do tell us in the comments which 3 of your old favorites that you still love you'd be willing to sacrifice for 3 who have not been recognized. Make your Sophie's Choice in the comments and let us all pray that Emmy voters do the same. Nobody deserves 5+ nominations for the same thing when that means someone else can't even get ONE for something arguably just as good! The catch is that you can't ditch someone you don't love or think is unworthy who is always nominated. I'll go first as truly painful as this is:

I'd be willing to trade Michelle Dockery on Downton Abbey (who I totally think is the MVP of that entire series (if you blend all seasons together - otherwise there are different MVPs each year as there are for most quality shows) for Shiri Appleby's deep-digging as ambitious self-destructive Rachel on UnReal; Hell, I'd even be willing to trade Taraji P Henson (my preferred winner last year for Empire) if it meant I could have Eva Green's genre genius in Penny Dreadful in the mix (my winner this year). I'd even be willing to trade my beloved Titus Burggess on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (who I thought should have easily stormed to the win last year) if we could give a chance to another delusional show-stealer like Jamie Cavill in Jane the Virgin (who should have been Titus' main competition last year) or another outspoken gay like Noah Galvin from The Real O'Neals both because he's brilliant on his show and to stick it to ABC for even threatening to cancel that gem. (Yes, I know they think Noah is entitled and 'difficult' and yadda yadda yadda but they would never think of threatening and publicly humiliating a straight actor who was the MVP of a similarly acclaimed show.)

I expect zero nominations for THE REAL O'NEALS but I legit think it deserves multiple nods

The point is that many previously nominated shows and people are still deserving but it makes so much more sense to spread the wealth each year. If you don't spread the wealth it sends two messages ... 1) That you're not paying attention to what's eligible or even what happened on your favorite show that year and merely voting based on loyalty to your "favorites" and...  2) That TV's 'golden age' is really just a clever PR campaign for 10 shows and history won't mark it as anything particularly special. 

ICYMI Our Emmy Balloting Pieces
SHOWS: Emmy Drama Ballots |  Emmy Comedy Ballots | Girls | The People vs OJ Simpson; PERFORMANCES: Amy Landecker in "Transparent" | Donna Lynn Champlin "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" | Eva Green & Helen McRory in "Penny Dreadful" |  Constance Zimmer "UnREAL" | Boyd Holbrook "Narcos" | Noah Galvin "The Real O'Neals" | Gillian Jacobs "Love" | Riley Keough "The Girlfriend Experience" | Jeremy Allen White "Shameless" ; MISCELLANIA: "Mr Robot" leads TCA Nominations | Ten Nominees? | More TV MVPs (earlier in the season)

Emmy FYC: Amy Landecker in "Transparent"

Eric here, with a plea for Emmy consideration for a dark horse candidate for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy:  Amy Landecker for Amazon’s Transparent.

Transparent is generous to all of its actors because it gives them dramatically complicated landscapes to play in with dialogue that doesn't always fill in those gaps for emotional transitions and arcs. It's the kind of hard work actors love to do.  This is, of course, how we all make realizations in “real life” so the actors in Transparent are key to the delicate naturalism of the show, and the creative team behind them have the grace and intelligence to capture the work without exploiting their vulnerability.

Amy Landecker, who plays the eldest sibling Sarah, does wonders with an extraordinarily difficult character.  In season one, Sarah leaves her husband Len for another woman (Tammy) in a sex-obsessed haze and a rebellion against her controlled, “perfect” existence.  But in the first episode of season two, under Emmy consideration this year, Sarah realizes that not only can she not go through with the wedding to Tammy, not only does she not love Tammy, in fact she HATES Tammy, and that all of her decisions have been wrong.  

The idea of realizing on your wedding day that you’ve made the wrong decision is a decades-old entertainment cliché, usually reserved for romantic comedies.  But Landecker has to carry the naturalistic weight of what that epiphany REALLY means.  This sense of loss, and of being lost, is her arc throughout season two, and the actress finds layers of anger, humor, and fear that are quite astonishing. Sarah may be a control freak, but she is constantly on the verge of falling apart.  After spending her lifetime building the ideal family, season two finds her completely alone.  Landecker’s natural appeal clues you into the fact that Sarah has always been popular and successful, and for the first time in her life she has driven full-force into a wall. She has no resources for being lonely.  Landecker calibrates Sarah’s unraveling in the way we see it in people we know:  bursts of anger, momentarily losses of control, casual cruelties to others she sees as weaker and less witty than herself.  

It’s also unerring to see such a sexually frank portrayal of a middle-aged mother in any medium.  Sarah not only talks about sex, she makes life decisions based on sex (as, of course, most people do).  She’s extra proud of her boobs (the character is costumed with subtle attention to them) and leads with sexual confidence.  Landecker is also smart enough to show us Sarah's spoiled streak - she comes from a family with money, and she’s accustomed to attention and accommodation, and she’s lost without those things,  too.  This is a fully fleshed-out character, etched by an actress in masterful control.  She makes many actresses getting nominated for sitcom work seem juvenile in comparison. 

Previous Emmy Pieces
Emmy Drama Ballots |  Emmy Comedy Ballots | Donna Lynn Champlin "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" | Girls |  The People vs OJ Simpson | Gillian Jacobs "Love" | Riley Keough "The Girlfriend Experience" | Jeremy Allen White "Shameless" | Constance Zimmer "UnREAL" | Noah Galvin "The Real O'Neals" | "Mr Robot" leads TCA Nominations | Ten Nominees? 

Review: Finding Dory

This review was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad

One of the best things about breakout supporting characters is that the fandom surrounding them comes honestly. Scene-stealers aren't handed their movies, but earn them. So it went with Dory, Ellen DeGeneres's forgetful blue tang who swam circles around every other character in Finding Nemo (2003), figuratively speaking, though she did sometimes swim in actual circles since she couldn't remember where she was going.

Thirteen years later, though Finding Dory takes place just after Finding Nemo ends, we're swimming in circles again with Dory, via a suspiciously similar movie. Let us count the ways...

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Emmy FYC: Best Actress, Comedy - Gillian Jacobs in "Love"

We're sharing Emmy FYCs as nomination balloting continues. Here's guest contributor Sean Donovan...

When Gillian Jacobs angrily shouts “Surprise! I’m not the cool girl!” to her semi-boyfriend Gus (Paul Rust) on Netflix’s comedy series Love, she is speaking as an actress in Hollywood just as much as she is in character as Mickey. Jacobs was introduced to most viewers as “the cool girl,” Britta in the cult hit Community, initially serving the role of a fantasy love interest: a gorgeous twenty-something with just enough problems to appear “complicated,” but not in any especially strenuous or taxing capacity for male viewers. The cool girl who’s fun at parties, has great taste in everything, and is just chill. She’s not like those other girls!

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