Awards Season Catchup: ‘Where the Crawdads Sing’

By Abe Friedtanzer

Being an Oscar completist means tracking down every title that may or may not get nominated, including the contenders for Best Original Song. In addition to nominations from the Critics Choice Association and the Golden Globes, Taylor Swift’s “Carolina” is officially on the Oscar shortlist. It’s the end credits song in Where the Crawdads Sing, based on the 2018 novel by Della Owens, a period trial drama with plenty of flashbacks and North Carolina drawls…

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Review: Sebastian Stan devours horror-romance 'Fresh'

by Matt St Clair

The new horror/romance hybrid Fresh chiefly functions as a viable kidnapping thriller that still  gets one thing right about our modern dating scene. It can be a literal terror show. It’s especially horrifying in our era of dating apps. The constant hoping for a companion as you keep sending messages saying “Hello” that get no response can make you wonder if people read the actual profile. It’s easy to judge a book by its cover and message someone based on how they look in their photo. But do people bother to read our bios for a better idea on what we might be like? 

As Noa (Daisy Edgar-Jones) finds out the hard way, meeting people in real life can be just as rough...

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Are you there Link? It's me, Nathaniel

• US Dish is hosting a viewing party contest for romcom lovers. You can enter until the 26th and the winner has to be wiling to host an online viewing party with their friends and vlog about it afterwards. The prize is $2000
• MCN Gurus of Gold weigh in on the Best Picture and Best Director races
• Guardian excellent and rare interview with Sacha Baron Cohen as himself rather than in character about Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, Trial of the Chicago 7, and his activism
• Slate really interesting piece about the way Hallmark has tried to avoid politics and their babysteps towards the modern world via their very popular Christmas movies

More after the jump including Michelle Pfeiffer, Chloe Zhao, Sound of Metal, new biopics, and new adaptations of old best-sellers...

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Curio: "Unorthodox" and "Normal People"

by Nathaniel R

"Normal People" animation by Nadia Hazzahrah

Though I thought about sharing my personal Emmy ballot I realized I would have to abstain since I haven't seen some of the key series that many feel are deserving. This is not true of the limited series category where I have seen enough to have passionate favourites and others I do not care for (sorry Little Fires Everywhere and Hollywood). My ballot would read like so:

• Mrs America
• Normal People 
• Unbelievable
• Unorthodox ★
• Watchmen

So for this week's Curio let's look at fan art for the two shows from that ballot that we're most worried about Emmy voters skipping...

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Review: "Normal People" on Hulu

By Spencer Coile 

To adapt a work of fiction is to play with fire. I can only imagine that nimbly capturing the spirit of the original text while imbuing it with new levels of creativity is no easy feat. Discourse surrounding literary adaptations usually focuses on how the movie or series fails the original text - either it doesn’t cover everything sufficiently (like The Time Traveler’s Wife, a personal tragedy), it overstays its welcome (The Handmaid’s Tale), or an abundance of creative liberties are taken (recently Little Fires Everywhere). Comparisons are easy to make, and book lovers are quick to critique. 

On its surface, Normal People, now streaming on Hulu, masquerades as a straightforward adaptation. Born from Sally Rooney’s novel of the same name, it follows Connell (Paul Mescal) and Marianne (Daisy Edgar-Jones), two Irish secondary students who forge a connection despite their uneven social standings. The novel,  and now the BBC/Hulu limited series, chronicles their years-long relationship in all its complexities...

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