Who will win the Emmy for Supporting Actress in a Drama?

By Spencer Coile 

Like in year’s past, Game of Thrones came back into the Emmy conversation by steamrolling the competition with an historic nomination count of 32. Amidst a plethora of technical categories and despite its middling reception for its eighth and final season, the HBO juggernaut still managed to score a whopping four nominations in the Supporting Actress in a Drama Series race. With The Handmaid’s Tale largely ineligible this Emmy cycle, it felt inevitable that another show would swoop in and dominate this category, a trend that's been growing given the new nomination procedures.

Still, this does not guarantee that the Iron Throne secures an easy victory. With two first-time Emmy nominees outside of Game of Thrones (can you believe Fiona Shaw has never been nominated?!) in scene stealing roles, might this race be more unpredictable than we once thought? 

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Review: Dark and Tired Phoenix

This review was previously published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad...

Don't they have any healing and creative rejuvenation among the super-powered mutations at Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Children? If so they needed them to lay their hands on this franchise for a few years before making another bungled attempt at the beloved Dark Phoenix storyline (from the 1980 comic books) within this movie franchise's 19 movie years. But that's a rhetorical question. If Dark Phoenix (2019) is indication, mutations cannot save this franchise.

When we return to our characters, much has changed since our last visit. Which is fine since who wants to be reminded of X-Men Apocalypse? The X-Men are now no longer shunned by society but held up as heroes. Professor Xavier (James McAvoy, phoning this one in... but then who isn't?) has a direct phone to the White House, like a Batman / Commissioner Gordon sitch on steroids. Their first mission, which serves as kind of a second prologue to the over and underwritten film, is making Raven (Jessica Lawrence) nervous for some underwritten/performed reason...

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Would you rather?

It's time to play our favourite time wasting Instagram game (an elaborate excuse to share 10-12 fav celebrity social media posts of the week). So, WOULD YOU RATHER...

• do the can-can in Paris with Jessica Chastain and Sophie Turner?
• do research on Elvis with Baz Luhrmann?
• take a hot ride with Zoe Saldana?
• test perfume mixes with Michelle Pfeiffer? (It's called "layering")
• sip on Shah Rukh Khan in Dubai?
• kiss a llama with Daryl Hannah?
• go plant shopping with Jake Choi?
• have lunch with Marvel's superwomen? 
• count it down with Madonna & Meluma? 
• get beautiful with Judy Greer? 
• eat skittles with Carrie Preston? 
• shower with Channing Tatum? 

Pictures are after the jump to help you decide.

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Game of Thrones "Winterfell" (S08E01)

Eric & Ben will be covering the television event of the summer for us, the finale of Game of Thrones - Editor

BEN: Alright Eric, first thing's first: who do you watch with? I'm watching with my two brothers. One understands everything, but doesn't watch it religiously, while the other has never seen a minute. I'll also say that we watched while slightly impaired.  

ERIC: I'll watch the whole season with my husband, who is a complete sci-fi/fantasy nerd (he even liked Krull)...and quite frankly, without him, I don't know what I'd do.  I'm always saying "who's that again?" when one of the minor characters comes on.  The premiere seems like it's just an establishing episode?  Not tons of actual drama, but they have a lot of stories to unify, and I think they met that very challenging task smartly, did you...?

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The Linking Point

Write Out of LA on underappreciated directors of 2014's awards season
Playbill Into the Woods cast members sang to Rob Marshall at the Artios Awards
xkcd The Star Wars tipping point
Script Notes talks about the "default male" problem in screenwriting
Empire Warner Bros still wants to make a feature adaptation of The Jetsons
Jason Robert Brown, the great composer of The Last Five Years shares a new live concert online with Tony winner and movie Dreamgirl Anika Noni Rose. It's $5

Vulture cable programmings explosion over the past 15 years. This is why no one can keep up. 
Awards Daily the Oscar bump is helping the indies. Even the long since faded Whiplash was up 114% this past weekend 
Dissolve Martin Scorsese finally approaching production of the long-gestatingSilence about Jesuit missionaries in 17th-century Japan

Comics Alliance casting young versions of the X-Men for X-Men: Apocalypse. Tye Sheridan is a fine young actor so no qualms there but I didn't enjoy Sophie Turner's work on Game of Thrones (I only watched the first season - did she improve?) so I worry about her Jean Grey 
Carpetbagger The Witch still hasn't technically premiered at Sundance (just press screenings) but reviews are so good it's not helping the attempt at a mysterious low profile