Review: "The Great" on Hulu

by Cláudio Alves

Most dramatizations of history have a difficult, often unbalanced, relationship with facts. Reality is notoriously devoid of narrative structure, which makes taking departures and creative license into an essential crime. The troubles arise when the parameters of adaptation aren't clear, when fiction dresses itself as truth, and confusion blooms from pretension. Hulu's biographical series about the early years of Catherine the Great in Russia is unencumbered by such issues, sidestepping them with irreverence. At the start of each episode, a title card points out that this miniseries is only occasionally based on things that really happened.

The rest of it is hilarious fantasy, a play on history that turns the rise of Russia's empress and reformer into the stuff of romantic comedy. It's a black-hearted farce that's unafraid and unashamed of being silly…

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Emmy Watch: Lead Actress in a TV Movie or Miniseries

by Abe Fried-Tanzer

Will "Unbelievable" score big with nominations... or will its early release in the eligibility period be a problem?

This year’s Best Actress lineup for limited series and TV movies is populated with a LOT of deserving contenders. This category is no stranger to double nominees from the same project, with four instances occurring in just the past four years. In 2017, there were two sets of nominated actresses from the same shows, and it’s pretty likely that’s going to happen again this time…

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Night of the Living Link

• Theater Mania the Tony Awards to be replaced by... a Grease sing-a-long? Broadway fans are not happy about it. There are so many ways CBS could have filled the air time that were still about current or classic theater
• The Guardian In career trajectories we totally dont understand Luca Guadagnino who started off so masterfully with fresh filmmaking in I Am Love and Call Me By Your Name is signed on for his THIRD remake, this time its Scarface (1983) which was itself a remake of course
• New York Times a must-read oral history of the making of Mad Max: Fury Road

What We Do in the Shadows, new Criterion BluRays, a remake of "10", a new project for Michael B Jordan, more celebrity deaths (sniffle) and other topics after the jump...

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Emmy Watch: "Made-for-Television Movie"

by Abe Fried-Tanzer

El Camino

The Emmy race for made-for-television movie hasn’t exactly been the most interesting category in recent years. This category was merged with Best Miniseries in 2011 for three years, during which only six of the nominees were TV movies, and then it was unmerged. Actors in made-for-TV movies still compete with actors in mini-series though in shared categories. Last year marked the first time that not a single acting nominee came from a TV movie. That will definitely not happen this year given the quality of the contenders...

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Emmy Watch: Contenders for "Limited Series"

by Abe Fried-Tanzer

We’re turning today to a new category of Emmy races: limited series and TV movies. Limited series is an entirely different ballgame, though changing rules and eligibility make this category just as fascinating as any. For instance, Big Little Lies, which won this prize three years ago, is now a potential contender for Best Drama Series. A number of shows featuring different storylines and characters each season, including American Crime Story, Fargo, and Genius, continue to be nominated, though all three of their latest iterations won’t premiere until after this season ends as a result of delays in filming and postproduction. American Horror Story earned four bids here before its eighth season got reclassified as a regular series with overarching threads. With no high-profile returning shows eligible this year, we have a whole slew of new contenders… 

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