Emmy FYC: Eliza Scanlen in "Sharp Objects"

Team Experience is sharing Emmy FYCs as the television Academy finishes their voting in the next few days. Here's Ginny O'Keefe

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!

“Don’t tell Mama.” Three words that left me gasping and slack-jawed all through the credits of the final episode of the hauntingly beautiful and addictive HBO miniseries “Sharp Objects”. Now I, along with everyone else who watched this Jean-Marc Vallée gem, ranted and raved about Amy Adam’s broken and scarred performance as Camille Preaker (I think its her best performance to date). And of course, shook my head in incredulity and awe at Patricia Clarkson’s callous and melodramatic Adora Crellin. But one performer who perfectly balanced being the star of the show and not drawing too much attention to herself was the crafty newbie Eliza Scanlen. Her performance as the psycho-in-plain-sight, Amma Crellin, was one of the breakouts of 2018, and just like the show it cut deep. Unlike Emmy sure things Adams and Clarkson, she lacks star power to stir talk of a nomination, but it's an honor she needs and deserves. It all comes down to her twisted performance, which doesn’t lack for power. 

Every time Scanlen came on screen I would get severe anxiety (I hadn't read the book that the show is based on)...

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Sharp Objects: Episode 8 - Finale "Milk"

by Chris Feil

Sharp Objects has come to its conclusion, bringing with it some scratched heads and hesitant praise wondering when we would be served some real clues on the identity of its killer. Meanwhile it built it’s own slow burn reveals from the inside of Amy Adams’ Camille, leading to a firestorm of consequence and context in its final few episodes that had nothing and everything to do with who killed those girls.

For those of us who had already read Gillian Flynn’s source novel, we also watched the unfamiliar audience as we waited for the rug to pulled out from under them. We knew this was never to be a show built on closing cliffhangers to maximize bingeability and serve standard genre water cooler moments. But its bombshell final moment did just that and cruelly so, giving a conditioned audience the moment it craves the very second it completes; there is nothing more to come, we just have to reconcile its cruel dispatch. In some ways, Sharp Objects has challenged the serialized medium, or at least how we consume and engage with it.

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Beauty vs Beast: No Doubt

Jason from MNPP here ready to label this place "The Amy Adams Experience" for the day, because not only are we discussing the latest episodes of Sharp Objects but we're wishing her a happy 44th birthday while we're at it with this week's edition of "Beauty vs Beast." Specifically we're looking back at her Oscar-nominated role as the watchful Sister James opposite her Oscar-nominated co-star some-Meryl-lady in John Patrick Shanley's 2008 film Doubt. Can you believe this movie's turning 10 in December? It doesn't seem that long ago, does it? Does the movie hold up, you think? (I mean besides Viola Davis, obviously.) But even besides that I need you to, heaven forbid, brush away your doubts long enough to come down with a vote on...

online polls

PREVIOUSLY My favorite Fassbinder was the subject of last week's poll and my favorite Fassbinder performance therein won - Margit Carstensen's TITULAR ROLE in The Bitter Tears of Perta von Kant sashayed off with about 3/4s of the vote over Hanna Schygulla's user-loser Karin. Said Jordan:

"Just caught this film for the first time recently thanks to a mention about it on this site and had one of those WHERE HAS THIS MOVIE BEEN ALL MY LIFE??!! moments. Stunning across the board. What Fassbinder, Ballhaus, and these women accomplished in a single room is really movie magic."

Sharp Objects: Episode 7 "Falling"

previous recaps
1 "Vanish" Spencer
2 "Dirt" Nathaniel
3 "Fix" Ilich
4 "Ripe" Murtada
5 "Closer" Chris
6 "Cherry" Nathaniel 

Major series SPOILERS after the jump (and throughout Episode 7) so get caught up before reading more... 

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Sharp Objects: Episode 6 "Cherry"

by Nathaniel R

As you may have noticed we've been passing Sharp Objects around baton style amongst the team. I'm offended, offended I say, that Chris didn't spend 1000 words and nearly as many screen caps or gifs on that filthy filthy sex scene between Amy Adams and Chris Messina in the previous episode "Closer". In truth I nearly abandoned the series after my second episode duties were done but then I began to feel guilty that I was abandoning my teammates without commenting on their pieces so I binged the past four episodes back-to-back and finally perked up once, ahem, Messina did...

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