The biggest question marks before the Emmy nominations

By Abe Fried-Tanzer

We’re less than two weeks from the Emmy nominations announcement, and voting has officially closed. We have plenty of information now, including who’s on the ballot and how many nominees there will be in each category. Before we unveil our final predictions next week, let’s address some of the major unknowns and how they could play out across the board.

Just how well will frontrunners Succession and Schitt’s Creek do? Most prognosticators expect that these two shows could win the top prizes, with nominations at least  are guaranteed. But, looking to last year, neither actually performed all that well in other categories...

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The many screen faces of Catherine the Great

by Cláudio Alves

Hulu's The Great is just the latest in a long string of portrayals of Catherine II of Russia, most commonly known as Catherine the Great. Since the time of the silents she's been a recurring topic for filmmakers, whether they're portraying her as the sex-crazed tyrant some propaganda painted her as, or trying to celebrate the legend and legacy of her time as empress. The Great makes her the spunky heroine of a black comedy, but she's also been a romantic lead and a romance's foil, an innocent pawn, and a Machiavellian master.

Looking back at the documentation we have about the real Catherine, one thing's for certain – she was incommensurably more interesting than any single movie character can ever hope to be. That's not going to stop us from exploring her various screen portrayals…

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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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The Linkhouse

• Film Doctor ten notes on the beginning of Psycho (1960)
• The Guardian we love hero Abigail Disney who continues to fight the good fight against the company that makes her one of the 1% - she's now criticizing Disney for laying off workers while protecting executive bonuses of more than 1 billion dollars:

That’d pay for three months’ salary to frontline workers,. And it’s going to people who have already been collecting egregious bonuses for years. Dividends aren’t all bad, given the number of fixed-income folks who rely on them. But still 80% of shares are owned by the wealthiest 10%. Pay the people who make the magic happen with respect and dignity they have more than earned from you. This company must do better.”

"Curated" tv binges, Ghibli backgrounds for your zoom sessions, a sad cut from The Lighthouse, and a new ageist threat for film and tv production after the jump...

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