Tag: july 2018

Emmy Predictions in Movies and Miniseries: Gianni Versace, 9/11 and ‘Twin Peaks’ Strangeness

Is David Lynch just too damn weird for Emmy voters?

That’s a question that could be answered by Emmy nominations in the limited series and television movie categories, where Lynch’s return to “Twin Peaks” on Showtime is both a monumental achievement and one of the strangest things ever put on television.

Among the top contenders in the limited series category, the 18-episode “Twin Peaks” is longest piece of work by more than six hours — and it’s also so bizarre that it makes the last season of “Westworld” look like a model of concise storytelling. There’s a real question as to whether Lynch’s flights of fancy will be embraced or scorned by voters.

Among the other contenders, FX’s Ryan Murphy is always a major presence in these categories, with his big entry this year not the post-election edition of “American Horror Story” but the second installment of the true-crime dramatization series that began with his Emmy juggernaut “The People v. O.J. Simpson”: “”The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story.” It should be the most-nominated show in the field, though the limited series “The Looming Tower,” “Godless,” “Patrick Melrose,” “Genius: Picasso,” “Howards End” and “The Sinner” will all find support.

On the TV movie side, the Netflix anthology series “Black Mirror” has been able to enter individual episodes as standalone movies, and its “Star Trek” spoof “USS Callister” will be up against the likes of Laura Dern’s Sundance drama “The Tale” and HBO’s “Paterno” and “Fahrenheit 451.”

Outstanding Limited Series
“Gianni Versace” is a sure thing, while Hulu’s pre-9/11 drama “The Looming Tower” and the Western “Godless” came on strong as voting approached. With only five nominees in the category, that means the battle for the last two slots will include “Twin Peaks,” “Howards End,” “Top of the Lake: China Girl,” “American Vandal,” “Patrick Melrose,” “Alias Grace,” “Genius: Picasso,” “The Alienist,” “The Sinner” and Steven Soderbergh’s “Mosaic.”

NatGeo has been relentless in its campaign for “Genius: Picasso,” the followup to last year’s nominated “Genius: Einstein,” but the show’s heat may have faded in Season 2. That show, along with USA’s “The Sinner” and Showtime’s “Patrick Melrose,” may find its reward in the acting categories, while voters show how schizophrenic they can be by giving noms to Starz’s stately period piece “Howards End” and the wild Lynchian nightmare “Twin Peaks.”

Predicted nominees (in order of likelihood): “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story,” “The Looming Tower,” “Godless,” “Howards End,” “Twin Peaks”
Watch out for: “Genius: Picasso,” “Patrick Melrose,” “Top of the Lake: China Girl,” “The Sinner,” “The Alienist”

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie
The year’s powerhouse male performances could easily fill this category a couple of times over. After all, you can’t leave out Darren Criss as the killer in “The Assassination of Gianni Versace,” or Al Pacino as Joe Paterno, or Benedict Cumberbatch in “Patrick Melrose,” or Kyle MacLachlan as multiple versions of Agent Cooper in “Twin Peaks,” or Antonio Banderas as Picasso, or Jeff Daniels in “The Looming Tower,” or Michael B. Jordan as the tortured fireman in “Fahrenheit 451,” or Jesse Plemons as a Captain Kirk run amok in “USS Callister.”

And that doesn’t even count “Jesus Christ Superstar” lead John Legend, who stands a pretty good chance of becoming the first person to land an Emmy acting nomination for a performance in a live musical.

In fact you will have to leave out some of those guys, because there’s not room for all of them unless the category supersizes itself courtesy of a wrinkle in the Emmys rule book. And even if it goes up from six to seven nominees, voters will be hard-pressed to give a spot to deserving actors like Jared Harris (“The Terror”), Jack O’Connell (“Godless”) and Jimmy Tatro (“American Vandals”).

Criss, Cumberbatch and Pacino seem to be the locks, and we suspect that Banderas’ performance in “Genius: Picasso” will join them, as will Daniels in “The Looming Tower” and, in a close vote over Legend, MacLachlan in “Twin Peaks.”

Predicted nominees: Darren Criss, “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story”; Benedict Cumberbatch, “Patrick Melrose”; Al Pacino, “Paterno”; Jeff Daniels, “The Looming Tower”; Antonio Banderas, “Genius: Picasso”; Kyle MacLachlan, “Twin Peaks”
Watch out for: John Legend, “Jesus Christ Superstar”; Michael B. Jordan, “Fahrenheit 451”; Jesse Plemons, “USS Callister”; Jared Harris, “The Terror”; Jack O’Connell, “Godless”

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie
There will probably be six nominees in the category, but how many shows will they represent? “The Assassination of Gianni Versace,” after all, has formidable contenders in both Edgar Ramirez and Ricky Martin, while “The Looming Tower” supplies worthy candidates in Peter Sarsgaard, Michael Stuhlbarg, Bill Camp and Tahar Rahim.

Ramirez is a lock as Versace, and we’re guessing that Sarsgaard (as a CIA chief who doesn’t want to share pre-9/11 intelligence with the FBI) and Rahim (as a Muslim-American FBI agent) will make the cut from “The Looming Tower.”

Jeff Daniels is inescapable as the villain in “Godless” — and he’s one of several bad guys in the running, also including Michael Shannon in “Fahrenheit 451,” Jason Ritter in “The Tale” and Brandon Victor Dixon as the ultimate tortured bad guy, Judas Iscariot, in “Jesus Christ Superstar.” If John Legend doesn’t become the first performer to be nominated in a live musical for that program, Dixon probably will.

Predicted nominees: Edgar Ramirez, “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story”; Jeff Daniels, “Godless”; Michael Shannon, “Fahrenheit 451”; Peter Sarsgaard, “The Looming Tower”; Brandon Victor Dixon, “Jesus Christ Superstar”; Tahar Rahim, “The Looming Tower”
Watch out for: Michael Stuhlbarg, “The Looming Tower”; Ricky Martin, “The Assassination of Gianni Versace”; Bill Camp, “The Looming Tower”; Jason Ritter, “The Tale”; Alex Rich, “Genius: Picasso”

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie
“The Assassination of Gianni Versace” should place two actresses in this category, Penélope Cruz for her role as Donatella Versace and Judith Light as the wife of another murder victim (if voters don’t think her role is too small). Merritt Wever is all but assured a nomination for “Godless,” while Nicole Kidman brings star power to “Top of the Lake: China Girl” and Jennifer Jason Leigh is in the running for “Patrick Melrose.” Laura Dern figures to be a strong contender for “Twin Peaks,” though her chances (and those of co-star Naomi Watts) could suffer if voters are baffled by the show.

Angela Lansbury is the most-nominated actress who has never won an Emmy, and voters will likely give her another chance this year with “Little Women.” Wild cards include Sharon Stone as a celebrated writer in Steven Soderbergh’s miniseries and app “Mosaic” and Billie Lourd and Alison Pill in “American Horror Story: Cult.”

Predicted nominees: Penelope Cruz, “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story”; Merritt Wever, “Godless”; Nicole Kidman, “Top of the Lake: China Girl,” Angela Lansbury, “Little Women”; Judith Light, “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story”; Jennifer Jason Leigh, “Patrick Melrose”
Watch out for: Laura Dern, “Twin Peaks”; Ellen Burstyn, “The Tale”; Sharon Stone, “Mosaic”; Anna Paquin, “Alias Grace”; Naomi Watts, “Twin Peaks”

Emmy Predictions in Movies and Miniseries: Gianni Versace, 9/11 and ‘Twin Peaks’ Strangeness

2018 Emmy Nominations: Predictions for Every Major Category

LIMITED SERIES

The Assassination of Gianni Versace
Godless
Howards End
The Looming Tower
Twin Peaks

A once-moribund Emmy category, the miniseries has been renewed under its new title—and by changing appetites in television consumption. This year, FX’s thorough, devastating portrait of late fashion designer Gianni Versace and his killer is likely to get a nod for its sprawl, ambition, and dazzling ensemble of actors. Hulu’s The Looming Tower, about nothing more sacrosanct than 9/11—well, the bungled events leading up to it, anyway—will probably get on the shortlist for the same reasons. We’d like to assume that David Lynch’s lauded, befuddling return to television is a lock, but who knows how many Emmy voters will groove on Twink Peaks’ grim, erratic wavelength. People love a good Western, which is why we’ve put Netflix’s solid Godless on here. And few awards voters can resist the pull of a well-reviewed literary adaptation period piece; hence, Starz’s Howards End. Potential spoilers could be Top of the Lake: China Girl and, we hope against hope, the brilliant American Vandal.

LEAD ACTOR, LIMITED SERIES OR MOVIE

Darren Criss, The Assassination of Gianni Versace
Benedict Cumberbatch, Patrick Melrose
Jeff Daniels, The Looming Tower
Michael B. Jordan, Fahrenheit 451
Kyle MacLachlan, Twin Peaks
Al Pacino, Paterno

Darren Criss was the centerpiece of his series, as was Kyle MacLachlan, so they are likely to be recognized here. Benedict Cumberbatch is no stranger to Emmy nominations, and he’s been heaped with praise for his addled turn on Melrose—but are enough voters aware of it? Jeff Daniels and Al Pacino are big names in big projects, so we’re putting them down here, while Michael B. Jordan, riding high on Black Panther esteem, could edge his way in despite Fahrenheit’s tepid reviews. Antonio Banderas as an intense artist in Genius: Picasso could upset in that sixth slot, though.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS, LIMITED SERIES OR MOVIE

Penélope Cruz, The Assassination of Gianni Versace
Laura Dern, Twin Peaks
Judith Light, The Assassination of Gianni Versace
Sharon Stone, Mosaic
Merritt Wever, Godless

Emmy voters likely won’t forego a chance to nominate Penélope Cruz, so we’re assuming she’ll be here. And her co-star Judith Light is beloved—let’s put her in, too. We’re predicting big things for Godless overall, which means Merritt Wever will likely get recognized for her idiosyncratic work as a gay frontierswoman. Laura Dern might even have a double-nomination year if enough voters appreciated her on Twin Peaks. Though many prognosticators are putting Angela Lansbury in that last spot, for a Little Women adaptation that didn’t get much traction, we’re gonna try to put some proactive energy out into the universe and predict Sharon Stone for her terrific work in Steven Soderbergh’s criminally under-appreciated mystery series. Following your heart instead of your head is a foolish game to play during awards season, but sometimes, you just have to do it.

SUPPORTING ACTOR, LIMITED SERIES OR MOVIE

Jeff Daniels, Godless
Bill Camp, The Looming Tower
Edgar Ramírez, The Assassination of Gianni Versace
Michael Shannon, Fahrenheit 451
Michael Stuhlbarg, The Looming Tower

All of these guys, minus maybe Jeff Daniels, have other contenders closely nipping at their heels. Brandon Victor Dixon could find his way into the mix for his Judas in the live Jesus Christ Superstar, as could any of the other approx. 8 billion men in The Looming Tower. But we think the biggest surprise nomination could be Ricky Martin for The Assassination of Gianni Versace. His part was small, but c’mon: it’s Ricky Martin.

2018 Emmy Nominations: Predictions for Every Major Category

Edgar Ramirez (‘Assassination of Gianni Versace’) could cash in his Emmy IOU after his loss for ‘Carlos’

According to our racetrack odds, Edgar Ramirez is the Emmy front-runner for Best Movie/Mini Supporting Actor for playing the title character in “The Assassination of Gianni Versace.” The FX true-crime drama is the favorite to win Best Limited Series, so it stands to reason that voters would also recognize Versace himself. But there’s another reason the TV academy might want to check off his name: to make up for his loss for “Carlos” seven years ago.

The Venezuelan actor made appearances in “The Bourne Ultimatum” (2007) and “Che” (2008) before his international breakthrough role as the title character in “Carlos,” a real-life political terrorist in the 1970s who was finally arrested in 1994 and is currently serving a life sentence in prison. Directed by French auteur Olivier Assayas, the series received widespread acclaim, including kudos from the film world. Ramirez won the Cesar Award for Best Actor and was a finalist at the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and National Society of Film Critics Awards.

“Carlos” won the Golden Globe for Best Movie/Miniseries in 2011, but when the Emmy nominations came around a few months later it was snubbed from that top category. The only nominations it received were for Ramirez’s lead performance and for Assayas’s direction.

Despite that shortfall Ramirez was considered a strong contender for Best Movie/Mini Actor, but that race took almost everyone by surprise when Barry Pepper came out of nowhere to win for playing Robert F. Kennedy in “The Kennedys.” He even beat his co-star Greg Kinnear, who had the more iconic role as John F. Kennedy.

Now Ramirez could cash in his Emmy IOU for playing another title character. “Assassination” tells the story of Andrew Cunanan (played by Movie/Mini Actor front-runner Darren Criss), who ended his cross-country killing spree by murdering famous fashion designer Versace in Miami in 1997. Based on the combined predictions of thousands of Gold Derby users Ramirez is out front with 10/3 odds.

But it’s a much closer race when you ask our Experts. We’ve polled 18 Expert journalists from top media outlets for their picks, and only seven of them are predicting Ramirez will win: Debbie Day (Rotten Tomatoes), Pete Hammond(Deadline Hollywood), Chris Harnick (E!), Matthew Jacobs (Huffington Post), Tom O’Neil (Gold Derby), Lynette Rice (Entertainment Weekly) and Robert Rorke (New York Post).

Compare that to Jeff Daniels, who is backed by eight Experts for his villainous role in the Netflix western “Godless“: Eric Deggans (NPR), Lynn Elber(Associated Press), Joyce Eng (Gold Derby), Matt Roush (TV Guide Magazine), Anne Thompson (IndieWire), Ben Travers (IndieWire), Peter Travers (Rolling Stone) and Ken Tucker (Yahoo).

That would be ironic. In 2011 Ramirez played a killer and lost to a man who played the victim of an assassination. This time around he plays the victim, and he could lose to a killer. Do you think Ramirez will pull it out, or will he have to wait to cash in his Emmy IOU another day?

Edgar Ramirez (‘Assassination of Gianni Versace’) could cash in his Emmy IOU after his loss for ‘Carlos’

What’s an “Anthology” to Emmy Voters?

The 2018 Primetime Emmy Award nominations will be announced Thursday, and it would be a pretty shocking twist if The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story didn’t receive recognition in the Outstanding Limited Series categories.

This is partially due to the FX drama’s particular political resonance. It covers issues like homophobia and the Clinton-era “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” military policy while members of today’s LGBTQ community feel increasingly threatened by the mood of the country. As a result, Versace has spawned countless essays, including one from Paste, at the beginning of the season’s run and another at the end. And, of course, Versace’s likely Emmy nominations haul should also be credited to uber-producer Ryan Murphy, who co-created the American Crime Story concept—which nabbed nine Emmys wins for its equally timely first season, The People v. O.J. Simpson—as well as Feud: Bette and Joan (two wins; 16 nominations) and the pioneering American Horror Story (16 wins; 78 nominations since its 2011 premiere).

Murphy, who once recounted to Vulture his own childhood memories of creating viewing parties dedicated to the ABC miniseries Roots and The Winds of War, is the face of the new anthology series format. He and his collaborators have an established company of players who happily reincarnate themselves year after year as he places them into one or another of his franchises. And though no one will argue with the effectiveness of Murphy and his collaborators’ visions, or their importance in this moment of pop culture history, many will nitpick over whether his masterworks are, in fact, “limited series.”

Today, however, I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

Are these season-long stories actually anthologies? Or is an anthology something simpler? Is a better definition of “anthology” something like Netflix’s Black Mirror? Creator Charlie Brooker’s limited series breaks things down even further than American Crime Story: Each episode tells a self-contained story, each beholden to the series’ central theme (in this case, that we all should be cautious of the wonders of technology).

Greg Garcia would argue for the latter definition, though he’s fully aware of his own interest in this fight. The creator of dark comedies like NBC’s My Name is Earl and Fox’s Raising Hope, Garcia debuted his TBS comedy, The Guest Book, last year. Although it does have recurring characters (Garret Dillahunt plays a divorcing doctor, Eddie Steeples a delivery guy), the series is really a bunch of stand-alone half-hour vignettes about folks who end up staying at a small-town guest lodge. They have, well, interesting interactions with the locals and choose to document them in the titular journal. It’s a great way to celebrate the comic stylings of actors like Danny Pudi and Lauren Lapkus without tying them up for a season-plus commitment. It also allows Garcia himself to create stories that don’t have to be serialized.

“That’s just a limited-run series,” Garcia says of TV shows like American Horror Story and FX’s other popular miniseries, creator Noah Hawley’s Fargo. He says programs like Jay and Mark Duplass’ Room 104 (HBO) or Black Mirror “are, in my book, anthologies,” because they’re comprised of self-contained stories within each episode.

“The others are just short seasons,” Garcia says.

Ever the comedy writer, he adds that by the other definition, “I’ve done a lot of anthology shows that got cancelled after the first season.” (RIP Built to Last, an example of what happens when your show’s name taunts fate.)

And he’s right, historically speaking. Walter Podrazik, television curator at Chicago’s Museum of Broadcast Communications and the co-author of Watching TV: Eight Decades of American Television, says that TV drama anthologies started in the 1940s and 1950s as way of “testing the waters” of the medium’s capabilities. This progressed to shows with famous names attached to them, like Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents, which featured “unrelated stories” each night “that either thematically or attitudinally would have something in common.”

“You’d probably be surprised to see a sweetness and light story on Alfred Hitchcock that had no twist at the end,” Podrazik adds.

Eventually, though, he says that definition broadened.

“Let’s use Star Trek as an example,” Podrazik says. “What you’re coming for is Kirk and Spock, but it’s sort of an anthology in a disguise… Each week, you’ll see characters that you’re probably never going to see again except maybe once more. In that sense, it reflected what [creator] Gene Roddenberry said about it [being] a Western in space, because Westerns, especially those that involved traveling and wagon trains, were basically also anthologies in disguise but with regular characters.”

In that vein, Podrazik says, series like Fox’s The X-Files or those in Dick Wolf’s procedural crime universes for NBC also fit this hybrid description of “anthology” series.

“You have these reassuringly familiar tropes and you have these [recurring] characters who are delivering their roles, but the story really is about … characters who come in [this episode],” Podrazik argues of the latter. “That’s why there’s such a satisfaction about seeing an episode of Law & Order is that it’s done.”

Murphy himself seems to also recognize this. He told The New Yorker earlier this year that he’d like to do another anthology series. This one would be an empowering, #MeToo-themed series called Consent, and it would feature the social commentary for which he’s become known — and would have one key format change:

“It would follow a Black Mirror model: every episode would explore a different story, starting with an insidery account of the Weinstein Company,” New Yorker TV critic Emily Nussbaum writes of Murphy’s proposal. “There would be an episode about Kevin Spacey, one about an ambiguous he-said-she-said encounter. Each episode could have a different creator.”

So while we wait to hear if this new idea moves forward—and how the Emmy nominations will shake out for The Assassination of Gianni Versace, there’s one thing that everyone covering limited series and anthologies could benefit from: a thesaurus.

What’s an “Anthology” to Emmy Voters?

All The Book-To-TV Adaptations We Can’t Wait To See In 2018

The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story
Available on BBC iPlayer.

Based On: Vulgar Favors by Maureen Orth
What It’s About: The second instalment of American Crime Story looks at the assassination of fashion designer Gianni Versace at the hands of 27-year-old serial killer Andrew Cunanan. The show then travels back in time to look at the forces that shaped both of these men.
Starring: Darren Criss, Penelope Cruz, Edgar Ramirez, Ricky Martin

All The Book-To-TV Adaptations We Can’t Wait To See In 2018