Emmy FYC: The writing of "I May Destroy You"

by Cláudio Alves

If loving I May Destroy You was a party, I'd have arrived late, long after most people had left and only a few stragglers remained, sleepily fumbling their way through a dancefloor labyrinth of abandoned bottles and stale sweat. While most of the world was consuming Michaela Coel's staggering tour-de-force June and July last year, I focused my attention on movies and the Emmy-eligible TV for that particular season. Consequently, I only watched I May Destroy You when it came time to vote for the Independent Spirit Awards. I went into it with great expectations that I feared too massive to be met. In the end, I needn't have doubted the show's masterpiece-like quality, its searing power, or visceral confrontation. Even then, I don't think I was fully prepared for how awe-inspiring Coel's writing turned out to be…

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Emmy FYC: Marielle Heller in "The Queen's Gambit"

by Cláudio Alves

As we all found out this past October Marielle Heller is a woman of many, perchance infinite, talents. Since 2015, Heller has been dazzling cinephiles everywhere with her work as a writer/director. The Diary of a Teenage Girl was one of the best American debuts of the decade. If possible, Can You Ever Forgive Me? and A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood were even better, analyzing complicated real-life personalities with as much humanistic gentility as razor-sharp precision. All that, and we now know that Heller is also an amazing actress. Returning to her first vocation in splendorous fashion, Marielle Heller delivers the best performance in the popular Netflix awards juggernaut The Queen's Gambit…

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Emmy FYC: Hannah Waddingham in "Ted Lasso"

Our team is breaking down the top contenders and highlighting some of our favorites over the next few weeks.

By Ben Miller

There’s a reason Ted Lasso has endured through all these months.  When the world shut down and every piece of news was about the worst possible people doing the worst possible things, we needed a bit of positivity in our lives.  Enter the world’s sunniest dispositioned football/futbol coach in Jason Sudekis’ Ted Lasso.

As much as the shenanigans of Ted and his team entertain, the central conflict of the show’s freshman season is between Lasso and Richmond FC owner Rebecca Welton, played to sly, annoyed perfection by Hannah Waddingham...

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FYC: Kelly Reichardt for Best Director

by Cláudio Alves

Today marks the end of Oscar voting. After the clock strikes 5 PM PST/8 PM EST all the ballots for the 93rd Academy Award nominations will be set in stone, and nothing will change until the results are announced next Monday. As it stands, this also marks the end of these FYC write-ups by the Team Experience. To conclude things, I took for myself the honor of writing the last such piece of the season. It's about my favorite of the Oscar eligible titles, a tale of kindness in an unkind world, of ancient friendships, untraditional masculinities, unhuman economies, and unforgiving histories. First Cow's Kelly Reichardt's magnum opus and the film for which the American cineaste should be conquering her first Oscar nomination…

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FYC Emma.'s Costumes (or lack thereof)

by Elisa Giudici

The Academy Awards love period dramas and historical adaptations, at least in the Best Costume Design category. They love movies in which actors and actresses sport garments from the past so much that it's always unlikely that movies set in the present will be nominated, no matter how great the work is. Contemporary outfits? Not for us! Historically accurate costumes? Oscar worthy! Even in the realm of sci-fi they have an aversion to the contemporary (via the future), fantasy movies which are more likely to recall the past with their medieval vibes, are more likely. 

That said, sometimes period costume design can be really stunning. Such is the case with the latest movie adaptation of Jane Austen’s classic Emma might gain. The first feature from director Autumn de Wilde is working against an early release, but 2020's lack of gorgeous actors dressed in lavish costumes might help Alexandra Byrne gain her sixth nomination anyway. And she'll deserve it...

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