Meryl Streep and Renée Zellweger are up for Grammys...

We don't really cover the Grammys here at TFE as it's rather beyond our wheelhouse but to give you a general sense of that awards landscape, Taylor Swift ("Folklore"), and Dua Lipa ("Future Nostalgia") dominated and Beyoncé, too, despite the lack of a new album. Everyone's fav obsession at the moment, BTS, disappointingly scored only one nomination for Pop Duo/Group Performance for "Dynamite". Insane that that wasn't up for Record of the Year.

ALBUM OF THE YEAR

• Black Pumas -Deluxe Edition (Black Pumas)
• Chilombo (Jhené Aiko)
• Djesse Vol 3 (Jacob Collier)
• Everyday Life (Coldplay)
• Folklore (Taylor Swift)
• Future Nostalgia (Dua Lipa)
• Hollywood's Bleeding (Post Malone)
• Women in Music Pt III (Haim)

But as we do we focus on categories that fall more under our umbrella here. So after the jump the categories for visual media as well as actors and composers who work primarily in film and television who are up for Grammys this year...

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You Couldn't Get Those "Hamilton" Tickets?

by Eric Blume

Good news, as Disney is bringing a filmed version of the Broadway sensation Hamilton to movie theaters October 15, 2021, with the original cast. It will not be a fully-imagined film like this summer's other Lin-Manuel Miranda musical In the Heights.  Instead, it will be a "live capture" of the stage performance, shot in the Richard Rodgers Theater before the original cast started to disband.  

I was lucky enough to see this cast in the original incarnation at the Public Theater, and then again when it moved to Broadway with different actors.  No disrespect to the excellent work of the actors from round two, but there is truly nothing like seeing the original cast of a show...

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Interview: Double Lopez on "Into the Unknown"

by Eric Blume

I recently had the pleasure of sitting down to speak with Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, nominated for the Best Song Oscar for "Into the Unknown" for Frozen 2.  This talented duo has already won the Oscar twice in this category, for the megahit "Let It Go" from the original Frozen, and "Remember Me" from Coco.  They could not be more charming and charismatic, as witnessed here...

[This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity]

Eric: At what point in the process were you brought in on FROZEN 2?

KRISTEN: Very early on when it was like, 'I think we're going to do Frozen 2. We're thinking it's about change.' Jennifer Lee [Frozen 2's writer/director] called us, sort of tipped us off.

ROBERT: It needed to happen because, you know, the sounds in a musical are as integral as any dialogue and in fact, they have to bear a lot more weight. So we had to be there. We helped influence the story and they helped influence the songs...

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What's the Best Song in "Frozen II"?

by Cláudio Alves

Back in 2013, when the first Frozen had just opened and "Let It Go" was on everyone's ear, Disney made an astute decision when it came to its Oscar campaign. Despite the movie having around 10 original songs, only one was submitted for awards consideration. It was, of course, Elsa's world-famous anthem. The decision paid off and the songwriting couple of Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez took home their first well-deserved Academy Award.

With Elsa and Anna back in theatres for another musical adventure, Disney is trying to repeat the same scheme. The only problem is that this time around it's not clear what the best song is...

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Mindhunter (S2) Pt 1: Panic Attacks and the Son of Sam

by Nathaniel R

So, two years ago --  TWO YEARS! -- we were all in the midst of bingeing the first season of David Fincher's Mindhunter. Sadly we never finished writing about it at TFE. This was not intentional so much as that the series was happening in October when the fall film prestige season was colliding with our blogging calendar.  So much time has passed between the first and second season that the only thing we could remember about the finale was that it left Agent Holden Ford (Emmy worthy and snubbed Jonathan Groff) writhing about on a hospital floor suffering the most frighteningly believable panic attack we'd seen onscreen. We were worried about what our terrible memory might mean for the launch of season 2 but thankfully the series picks up just where it left off. We were quickly back into its gruesome groove. That's surely do its claustophrophic focus. Much of each episode is composed of just two to four characters talking in a basement and/or two to four characters in various indoor spaces like offices, prisons, kitchens, hotel rooms, restaurants, bars, and crime scenes.

When we left off, the small team of "Behaviorial Science" was under internal investigation with an uncertain future. So let's jump back in with the first two episodes...

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