Emmy Category Analysis: Supporting Actor in a Limited Series

By Nathaniel R

While Abe and Chris have done a fine job staying objective in their analysis, I must confess upfront that this particular category has me too emotionally invested. In doing so, it's causing anxiety! The future winner, very deserving, feels clear. And yet, is this wishful thinking? There's no precursors to look to assuage the fears that we're making up the "frontrunner" business in our heads. Unlike the Oscars which are preceded by countless precursors aimed (unfortunately) at predicting or influencing the outcome) the Emmys come to us mostly fresh each year... apart from repeating themselves (though that is rarely a problem in the limited series category. Before we get to the punditry and the reason for the anxiety let's recap the nominees... 

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Review: Shirley

by Chris Feil

Josephine Decker’s Shirley opens with the false optimism of young love with a couple in the mold of American idealism. Over the film’s volleying and spry 107 minutes, Decker curdles it with subversion by focusing on their dismantler: the genius writer Shirley Jackson, played by Elisabeth Moss.

The couple at the center, Rose (Odessa Young) and Fred (Logan Lerman), arrive in a college town already imbalanced, favoring the advancement of his studies over her own. Fred is under the leadership of writer and professor Stanley Hyman (Michael Stuhlbarg), the husband of Jackson, with Rose and Fred taking up residence in their booze-drenched home. The young couple disrupts their existence with tranquility and squareness, but Rose’s curiosity and oppression halts a patch of writer’s block for Shirley. The film crescendos with the status quo of the campus upper crust, Rose’s intoxication with Shirley, and the wringing of Shirley’s next masterpiece.

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Ten Years of "A Serious Man"

by new contributor Michael Frank

The Coen brothers have always been masters of crafting a world the audience vaguely understands, but has never experienced. They create characters that are utterly ridiculous, acutely specific, yet still relatable to the common audience member. After 10 years, their dark comedy A Serious Man holds up better than even they could have imagined. It’s a twisted laughfest that agonizes and tickles for a wildly enjoyable 100 minutes. 

A Serious Man isn’t a movie that I’ve rewatched time and time again. It’s one I’ve jumped in and out of over the last 10 years, seeing a snippet here, a snippet there. If you jump into any part of the film, the atmosphere is always the same. You’re quick to realize the plight of Larry Gopnik, and the rapid shrinking of his happiness...

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Team Experience Grieving the Oscar Shut-Outs

Nathaniel R

We're not supposed to use the word "snub" anymore (stop trying to make "snubbed" rehappen). It's true that it's become overused to the point of insanity. The word implies a purposeful disdain, a rebuff, when Oscar voters surely aren't saying "ugh, that Franco!" when they vote (errr, bad example perhaps they were). The point is they're merely voting on the ones they keep hearing about their favorites. Some films and performances and achievements just don't quite make the cut. And who knows? Someone or something you love might have been one vote shy of a nomination so it wasn't "snubbed" at all, just unlucky! This is what I'm choosing to believe about Jake Gyllenhaal's raw, rangey, vulnerable, and altogether stunning turn in Stronger. He's one of his generations very best actors and keeps proving it in film after film and they just keep ignoring him year after year. It's driving me mad. So...

Which omission pissed you off the most? That's the question that I ask you in the comments and that I already asked the (usually) Oscar loving Team Experience. Their angry-fun answers are after the jump...

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What a Cast of Character (Actors)

by Deborah Lipp

Has anyone else noticed the enormous overlap of faces in Oscar buzzing movies this season? It’s like they ran out of character actors in Hollywood. For the record, I love everyone listed here, but surely there are other talented thespians who need work! Here are the actors I spotted in multiple awards movies, in alphabetical order. If I left any off the list, jump in to add them (for the sake of having a touchpoint, I was including any movie that appears anywhere on Nathaniel’s Prediction Index):

Alison Brie: The Disaster Artist and The Post

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