More Thoughts on "The White Lotus: Sicily"

SPOILER ALERT:  DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU HAVE VIEWED ALL SEVEN EPISODES.

by Eric Blume 

One of the things that separates The White Lotus from many other TV programs, which are usually divided amongst several writers and directors, is that the show has a very, very specific point-of-view.  Even though other great television series (Succession, Severance, etc.) have a unified tone and the individual episodes are kept in harmony by the showrunner, it’s a different thing to have the same person actually writing and directing every episode.  Mike White views the universe and views characters comically.  He sees the world as an outsider does, with an arched eye towards human behavior, and he sees people as funny and full of contradictions.  He also lends to White Lotus a truly gay sensibility, in terms of the way he frames his actors, the way he films male and female bodies, and the way his empathy shifts between characters in a roundelay of surprising reveals, each character granted grace notes, psychology, and humanity... 

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2022 Emmy Category Analysis: Limited Series, Directing/Writing

by Nathaniel R

the riveting intriguing 1st episode of Station Eleven, "Wheel of Fire"

It's difficult to talk stats and predictions with the Limited Series categories since they've gone through so many identity shifts and upheavals in the past dozen years or so. For example, TV Movies are still eligible to compete for writing and directing prizes right here BUT they almost never do while TV Movies have always had their own top category BUT they used to be able to compete directly with limited series instead IF they were movie-length episodes of an Anthology Series. Confusing!  Let it suffice to say that there is only a little data that applies when predicting given frequent rule changes and the more Oscar-like shifts in eligibility since you can't usually honor the same things year after year. So we (mostly) have to go on pure feeling. And that's more fun anyway, so it's all good.

Let's discuss/predict...

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One For Them, One For Me: Mike White (x 2) in 2017

A new series by Christopher James

Mike White (left) makes himself one of the images of excess and wealth in "Brad's Status," one of four movies he wrote in 2017 (and the only one he also directed).

Do one for them; do one for you. If you can still do projects for yourself, you can keep your soul.
— Martin Scorsese: A Journey

Why not make a lot of movies and make a lot of money?

Mike White’s 2017 was full of many ups and downs. Few people would be able to make four movies in a year and have them all be good. Mike White decided to split the difference, making two personal projects alongside two painfully obvious cash grabs.  White is among the credited writers on The Emoji Movie and Pitch Perfect 3. But that wasn't all. He also wrote and directed the comedy Brad’s Status, a passion project. Finally, he wrote the screenplay for Beatriz at Dinner, directed by Miguel Artera, which serves as a great precursor to his HBO smash hit The White Lotus. Let's look for any common themes or threads for these four scripts that all came out in the same year...

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Some Thoughts on "The White Lotus"

by Eric Blume

With the Emmy Awards ahead of us this coming weekend, it seems like a good time to start discussing a show that will likely make a killing at next year's Emmys, Mike White's HBO show The White Lotus.  It's been the talk of the industry this summer, and rightfully so, as there's nothing quite like it.  This intense ensemble comedy-drama-satire-tragedy is incredibly dense, so to start off the discussion, I thought I'd offer just a few of the very difficult things that writer-director Mike White accomplished with such intelligent success...

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Gay Best Friend: Buck (Mike White) in "Chuck & Buck" (2000)

A series by Christopher James looking at the 'Gay Best Friend' trope

Before his successful career took off, Mike White wrote and starred in the indie comic-thriller "Chuck & Buck."Mike White is an incredible talent. Currently on HBO, his miniseries The White Lotus has become a must-see weekly event. Between Enlightened, School of Rock, Beatriz at Dinner and impressive seasons on Survivor and The Amazing Race, White has been a great fixture of film and TV over the past couple decades. In honor of The White Lotus success, we thought we would travel back in time to one of his earliest performances and screenplays - Chuck and Buck.

The early digital film feels like a relic of another time, especially compared to White’s more polished HBO work as of late. The advent of digital allowed more filmmakers a chance to tell their stories as they were able to do it on the cheap. Much of Chuck and Buck looks like a painfully awkward home movie. Yet, that only heightens the discomfort one feels while watching this odd, comic thriller.

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