Emmy FYC: Christina Hendricks in "The Romanoffs"

Team Experience is sharing FYCs as the Television Academy votes on Emmy nominations over the next two weeks. Here's Mark Brinkerhoff.

The general consensus, if we even can have one in these divisive times, seems to be that Matthew Weiner’s The Romanoffs is an ignoble failure. As his immediate follow-up to Mad Men, the seminal, peak-TV series that gave him pretty much carte blanche to do whatever he wanted to creatively, The Romanoffs arrived last fall on a wave of buzz and eager anticipation. With a star-studded, international cast and intriguing, globe-trotting storyline (made possible by Amazon’s $70 million investment), what would Weiner & Co. ultimately deliver? The answer: Zzzs. (I sort of checked out mid-way through the second to last episode, as a matter of fact.) 

Nevertheless, within this eight-part limited series (which surely was meant to continue?) are elements that succeed better than they ought to quite frankly. Indeed, the parts are greater than their sum, and one in particular stood out to me immediately/in retrospect: Christina Hendricks... 

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The Romanoffs 1.1 "The Violet Hour"

By Spencer Coile 

I vividly remember watching Mad Men for the first time during my junior year of college, struck by the way Matthew Weiner crafted a series that was cinematic and rich in detail, dialogue, and characters. Since its finale in 2015, I’ve been searching for a series that struck the same chord with me. Enter: The Romanoffs, the new Amazon Prime series from Matthew Weiner. Its premiere was a long time coming, with news, expansive cast announcements, and speculation circulating for years. Would Weiner capture lightning in a bottle again?

As it turns out, The Romanoffs is an anthology series, where each episode presents a new story about people who believe themselves to be descendants of the slaughtered Romanov family. Based off the first two episodes, it’ll be a globe-trotting series, bouncing across countries, and continents...

In its pilot episode, “The Violet Hour,” we are introduced to Greg (Aaron Eckhart), an American living in Paris who also takes care of his snobby elderly aunt, Anushka (Marthe Keller). Anushka takes great pride in her lineage, announcing herself to be a direct heir to the Romanovs. Her lavish Parisian apartment reflects her wealth and status, to the chagrin of Greg’s girlfriend Sophie, (Louise Bourgoin), who is waiting for the fateful day that Greg will inherit it...

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Be More Link

Lots of stories to catch up on...

Screen
• Boy Culture on Faye Dunaway's Gucci ad
• The Guardian -Margot Robbie has joined Fox News sexual abuse scandal movie which already features Nicole Kidman as Gretchen Carlson and Charlize Theron as Megyn Kelly. Talk about star power in one film
• /Film -The more Tom Cruise runs in his movies, the better they perform at the box office. No, really
• THR -Mary Carlisle, who had been the oldest living screen star, has died at age 104.

More after the jump including Fan Bingbing rumors, Greta Garbo, Linda Hamilton's return, and Julia Roberts as an audience member...

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Link Therapy

• Criterion Close Isabelle Huppert makes her picks! 
• i09 Netflix odd email phishing scam promotion of The Punisher (I received this too and was like hmmmm... clever but gross and no thank you)
• Gr8ter Days Ann Wedgeworth, a favorite of the National Society of Film Critics prizes in the late 70s and early 80s (Handle with Care, Sweet Dreams) and a Tony winner for a Chapter Two (which later became a film albeit without Wedgeworth) and a TV regular has died
• Boy Culture It only took 50+ years but the Star Trek franchise just got its first gay kiss via Star Trek: Discovery thanks and out actors Anthony Rapp and Wilson Cruz
• Playbill Broadway hit Come From Away, which is about passengers stranded in a small Newfoundland town during 9/11, is going to get a film version with the Broadway director and writers transferring over
• Tracking Board Mahershala Ali and Carmen Ejogo (YAS! She's so undervalued) will headline the third season of True Detective for HBO

Our Ongoing Collective Trauma
• HuffPost a fine piece by Matt Jacobs on loving Hollywood and the pop-culture machine but realizing how rotten its been since its inception when it comes to abuses of power and the treatment of women
• Deadline Marti Nixon on the recent allegations against Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner 
• Variety Matthew Weiner denies the allegations but admits to being angry on set a lot of the time and wishes he had behaved differently
• AV Club Lena Dunham defends a Girls writer accused of assault
• Nylon a personal essay from Evan Rachel Wood about what the psychotic hurricane of these past two years and what she's learned about herself and others during this awful decline in time. 
• Film School Rejects on the way film sites have been reacting (or not) to the growing list of accusations

Two Videos
On Hela's hello cool antler headpiece in Thor Ragnarok and the short teaser for Incredibles 2 (basically Jack Jack giggling and causing havoc with his laser beam eyes) 

Off Screen for Fun
• New Yorker Disney princes reimagined as allies

Prince Eric is extremely committed to female equality in his kingdom. He has so much to tell Ariel about the plight and oppression of women that he fails to notice that she doesn’t have a voice.

Joan Harris Appreciation

By Spencer Coile 

Whether she is slinging a cigarette around the office or barking orders at her fellow secretaries, Mad Men's Joan Holloway (later to become Joan Harris) is a character unlike any other portrayed on television in the 21st century. Caught up in issues of gender inequality in the workplace, a dead-end marriage, and an affair with her boss, Christina Hendricks managed to infuse this tough-as-nails supporting character on one of AMC's finest with enough nuance and grit to make her as memorable as its leading players, Jon Hamm and Elisabeth Moss.

And while each deserves celebration and posts of their very own, there is something so magical, so intriguing about Joan, that further attention must be paid...

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