Blueprints: "The Crown"

Jorge continues to look into the pilot episodes of the Best Series contenders before the Emmys on Sept 17th

When we discuss pilot episodes, we often talk about the importance of introducing the world and the characters for the first time to an audience: the opening shot of an episode, their first line of dialogue, or how the characters are described when they appear on screen. First impressions are crucial.

However, the final image of a pilot is arguably just as important as the first one. It is the thing that will grasp the audience’s attention for the last time and make them want to tune in to the next episode (or not).  It is also often the moment that sets up the story arc for the rest of the series and offers a glimpse of where the main storyline will lead...

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Blueprints: Emmy Nominees for Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series

Full swing into Emmy season! Jorge looks at drama series first...

ICYMI: the nominations for the 70th Primetime Emmy Awards. 

Let’s take a look at the six shows that made the cut for Writing in a Drama Series. As in the Directing categories, writing categories highlight individual episodes rather than overall series, which makes it not uncommon for one show to have multiple nominations. However once "Breaking Bad" and "Mad Men" were off the air, this category has not had any doubling up! This year every slot once again went to a different show, from newcomers, to established favorites, to people in their last round of eligibility.

Let's see the elevator pitches and the stats (we love a good round of statistics) after the jump... 

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Emmy Review: Outstanding Period/Fantasy Costumes

by Nathaniel R

The television Academy split up the costume categories at the Emmys just a few years ago. Given that all awards bodies default to period work over contemporary work if they have a choice between the two (sigh) it's good that they did this. Now contemporary costumes will be able to actually win prizes! This period category, then, feels more like a continuation of the original Emmy category "Outstanding Costumes for a Series"

The nominees are...

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Emmy Review: Main Title Design

Emmy voters will be deciding the wins in each category from August 14th-28th. We'll be reviewing a few of our favorite categories.

by Nathaniel R

The Academy of Television Arts first gave out the Main Title Design Emmy in the 1976. The New Original Wonder Woman was actually nominated (how fun!) but the prize went to something called Addie and the King of Hearts. The award has had a spotty history since, going in and out of fashion, changing rules, sometimes having no winner selected, and the category's numbers have fluctuated in silly fashion anywhere from two to six nominees in a given year with no rhyme or reason. The award seems to have stabilized itself around 2003 after which there have always been either five or six nominees each time. We treasure this category because it's one of the few in which the Emmy voters are forced to have a whole new slate of nominees each year. Some of the category's most memorable winners include Game of Thrones, Six Feet Under, United States of Tara, and Mad Men. Last year The Man in the High Castle took the honor. 

Who do you think will win this year? Let's watch the sequences nominated for 2017 after the jump... 

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Miscellania: Tarantino's Quotes, Horror's ROI, and Crown's Actors

Dan Callahan interviews Ingrid Bergman's daughters for her centennial
Vulture Quentin Tarantino interviewed. He likes the films of the Duplass Brothers, loves The Newsroom (um, okay?) and disses on Cate Blanchett and Oscar Bait. 
Salon is Daniel (Ralph Macchio) the real bully in The Karate Kid? A contrarian reading
Planet Money Horror films continue to be the best return on investments for producers 
AV Club rumor has it that George Miller is being courted for Man of Steel 2. Danger! There's no way Warner Bros would let him go as expectation averse wild with that franchise as he allowed himself to go with his own franchise for Fury Road 
Grantland rising screenwriter Max Landis (yes, son of John) talks American Ultra, studio franchises versus original material and admits he "despised" Jurassic World

Salon talks to Gaby Hoffman (Transparent, Girls) about her unique roles of late
Mashable now superheroes are even entering the beauty industry with face mask treatments
Variety names ten actors to watch but some of them have been with us a long time like mumbling Emory Cohen (he's got a huge role in Brooklyn later this year, and thankfully he's dumped the mumbling and excessive tics for that one) or are couple of years into it like Short Term 12's Keith Stanfield. Glad to see Tessa Thompson (Dear White People) and Bel Powley (Diary of a Teenage Girl) on the list
Empire the great Alfre Woodard joins the cast of Luke Cage for Netflix in a very big role 
Film School Rejects on the best shows of the summer coming from the most unlikely places (like USA's Mr Robot or Lifetime's UnReal). But maybe they kill their own argument with MTV's "Scream" which I keep hearing is truly terrible. 

About Male Privilege and Hollywood's Resistance to Female Directors
/Film good essay with very solid points on the lack of female directors being offered big studio jobs and Colin Trevorrow's recent responses about the problem. He clearly means well but his response is naive - suggested that women have too much integrity is a bit too flatteringly sexist -- like a 'but women are sugar and spice and too noble to lower themselves thusly!'

Off Cinema
The Hugo Awards this year's sci-fi literary awards had all sorts of drama with shady ballot stuffing and conscientious objecting to said ballot stuffing and so on so they've elected "no awards" in several categories. But big winners were Marvel's "Ms. Marvel" for graphic story "Guardians of the Galaxy" & "Orphan Black" for the drama prizes. The top prize for Best Novel went to "The Three Body Problem".
Boy Culture "Beat it, I'm Madonna" a great video mashup of Michael Jackson & Madonna
Vimeo Penis painting the Queen and Princess Diana. No really. And obviously NSFW 

Actors in The Regular News
Variety turns out one of the all time best French actors was on that Amsterdam to Paris train that was attacked. He sounded the alarm. Well done, Jean-Hugues Anglade.
The Wrap sad about this - Rosie O'Donnell's 17 year old mixed up with drugs, a 25 year old alleged heroin dealer arrested for endangerment of minor. And Rosie just played a sad mom with a troubled teen daughter onThe Fosters.

Finally
Netflix is making a series The Crown about the early reign of Queen Elizabeth. Helen Mirren had to step down from her signature role this time since the series takes place when she was but 21 years of age and inherited the thrown. Claire Foy, who played Anne Boleyn in Wolf Hall, plays the royal. People magazine has photos but they don't share this one so I thank Kevin Daly for providing. It's John Lithgow as Winston Churchill and the wondrous screen bitch Harriet Walter as someone... not sure who.

Love her. And she doesn't get enough credit. She's so terrifically callous in Sense & Sensibility (1995) and we've seen her several times in other costume dramas: Young Victoria, Downton Abbey, Cheri, A Royal Affair.