A Reflection on "The Tale"

By Spencer Coile 

I intended for this to be a formal review of Jennifer Fox’s autobiographical HBO film, The Tale. I was going to dive into the Sundance darling and discuss it, celebrate it, and critique it the way we do most movies. I was going to conclude with the film’s Emmy chances, where it will no doubt be a worthy contender for Best Made for TV Movie and Laura Dern in Leading Actress. And it’s no wonder – it was critically lauded as a timely reflection of the #MeToo movement.  

But a "review" would be doing Fox’s story a disservice. This is, first and foremost, a personal story about Fox's reconciliation with the past as a means of understanding her present and future. The Tale was acclaimed coming out of Sundance, and was quickly scooped up by HBO. Gone were Dern’s Oscar chances, but this decision ensured that the film would reach an audience, which according to Fox, was the point all along.

Dern plays Jennifer Fox at 48-years-old – a documentarian, a professor, engaged. On the surface, she seems to be living a completely fulfilling life. But when her mother (Ellen Burstyn) finds a story that Jennifer wrote at 13, her world begins to crumble...

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HBO Pays Up

By Spencer Coile 

In addition to its already anticipated second season, the impacts of Big Little Lies are reaching far and wide – in this case, from the pocketbooks of its network. HBO executive Casey Bloys explains that in light of the Times Up Movement, as well as insistence from series star Reese Witherspoon, the network went through a process to ensure equal pay for each of its stars… from every single series. Bloys explains:

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Podcast: Nick's Oscar Adventure!

For the season finale of the podcast Nathaniel R and Katey Rich grill Nick Davis about his FIRST TIME ATTENDING THE OSCARS!

Hear how the room responded to the Coco, Shape of Water, and Get Out wins. Name dropping galore ahead: Justin Paul, Aaron Sorkin, Sandy Martin, LaKeith Stanfield, Roger Deakins, Greta Gerwig, Jordan Peele, etc 

Index (43 minutes)
00:01 Intro: snack boxes, commercial breaks
02:30 Gags, speeches, celebrity sightings
11:00 Wins and spreading the wealth
18:00 Song performances, mistaken identity
21:00 Laura Dern and Timothée Chalamet
24:30 Time's Up and "inclusion riders"
30:00 Los Angeles and Nick's Faye photoshoot
35:30 Moving on from these movies
42:00 Byeeeee 

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

Nick at the Oscars!

Oscar Presenters Named Thus Far...

For your infotainment the Oscar presenters named thus far and our theories as to why they were invited. We don't need to mention diversity because that would probably read snarky when we don't mean it that way at all; we're thrilled Hollywood is making an effort! So we'll name the other possible reasons for the names. Presumably these choices are agonized over and debated at length behind the scenes since they're always so carefully representative of a wide range of celebrities appealing to all kinds of mainstream moviegoers from kids to grandparents to sophisticated cultural mavens to soccer moms. Etcetera.

Just about the only audience they don't cater to on the regular, probably because they'll watch anyway, are cinephiles and Old Hollywood loving film buffs. The Oscar producers often do a very crappy job of that (especially given how many elderly showbiz legends are still alive! I mean come on give us some Poitier, Lansbury, Rowlands, Connery, Redford, Belafonte, or Andrews or something). It's always a welcome shock when they actually do think about their rich industry history and throw us a Kim Novak for example.

The celebrities thus far (in alpha order)... 

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A quick look back at the Oscar Nominee Luncheon

by Nathaniel R

photo via Rebecca Keegan

The Oscar Nominee Luncheon -- which we must belatedly now obsess over -- is one of the greatest Oscar traditions, for a variety of reasons which have nothing to do with lunching. One of the secrets to its wonderfulness is possibly that it's not telecast so it still maintains some kind of insider cachet. Nevertheless the media are invited so it's not "private" per se. And even if it were, in our social media age the stars serve as their own kind of media outlet, too, with their selfie madness...

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