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Things The Emmys Taught Us

Andrew Belonsky — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 00:34:49 EDT

The world's absolutely abuzz over news about the Emmy Awards, which are kind of like television's Oscars and very important. In case you missed them, here are some things you should know about the winners, the losers and the critics.

Everyone loves Neil Patrick Harris. And how could they not? He came out singing cabaret and danced away with our undying love. Not that he didn't have it before. After this evening's turn as the show's host, we're pretty sure Harris should master the ceremonies of every Hollywood event ever. (By the way, Mediaite has the lyrics from the introductory number. Learn them. Live them. Love them.)
Kristin Chenoweth will soon be the hardest working woman in Hollywood. The adorable actress — once known mostly to the Broadway crowd — stole the nation's heart by crying after winning best supporting actress for Pushing Daisies. The show's been canceled and Chenoweth, bless her, reminded the world that she needs a job: "I'm unemployed now, so I'd like to be on Mad Men. I also like The Office and 24."
Tina Fey fans are upset that Toni Collette won the "best comedy actress" award for United States of Tara, which we actually enjoy. Well, Jeff Jarvis is upset, at least: the journalist and internet aficionado twittered, "best comedy actress was a crime." But, whatever, because Fey won for her SNL Sarah Palin impersonation.
In other-SNL news, Justin Timberlake took home a trophy for his "Dick in a Box" routine. But that was announced last week, so hopefully you knew that.
Sure, Fey didn't win, but that doesn't mean the Academy doesn't still love 30 Rock: the incredibly popular show won "best comedy series" and Alec Baldwin walked away with a "best actor" statuette. That's his second, for the record.
Speaking of seconds: Mad Men again won "best drama series" and best writing for a drama series. Does this mean the show will continue to be a popular culture darling? Not if you ask Matthew Greenberg from True Slant — he thinks the consecutive win will alienate those who don't already watch it, because they'll think it's elitist.
If Greenberg's right, there could also be a backlash against Glenn Close: the Damages star once again won for "best actress" in a drama series.
Comedy Central's no doubt pleased with Jon Stewart and the Daily Show crew: they won "best writing" for a comedy, variety, etc series. And, yes, Stewart commended Neil's hosting abilities. He also made a joke about going backstage to watch football, which was competing on another network and became the butt of many tiresome jokes.
LA Times writer Tom O'Neil has crowned Bill Maher the biggest Emmy loser in history because Maher, whose show was nominated in the aforementioned variety category, has lost 22 times over the course of his career.
Remember how we said Harris should host everything? He may have some competition from Hugh Jackman, who won for original music for his Oscar dance routine.
Hey, did you know Sarah McLachlan's still around? And she's still singing "I Will Remember You." While, yes, we should take a moment to recognize the departed — Bea Arthur! — certainly there's a less maudlin, predictable soundtrack.
And on that note, here's a list of the winners.

Newest Walk Of Fame Enshrinee Glenn Close Makes Out With Her Star

STV — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 13:20:53 EST

How excited was Glenn Close yesterday to earn immortality on the Walk of Fame? Excited enough to carnally plunge onto Hollywood Blvd., which we take to mean "pretty excited." Get a room, you two.

And those skeevy onlookers — Michael Chiklis! Jeff Goldblum! Who knew Jobeth Williams had a voyeuristic streak? Close's star, meanwhile, had no comment after the ceremony, except to ask for a cigarette. We know the feeling, buddy.

[Photo Credit: AP and Getty Images/ hattip to LAist]

Defamer Predicts the 2008 Emmys: The Dramas

Kyle Buchanan — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 14:50:00 EDT

We've already run through our predictions for Emmy's comedy categories, but now it's time to sit down for forty-four minutes (excepting commercials) and soberly judge this year's crop of dramas. Again, we'll be blogging the Emmys live from the East Coast starting at 7pm EDT/4pm PDT, so if Mariska Hargitay lets loose with an expletive-laden diatribe or Jeremy Piven has a nip slip on the red carpet, you can be sure we've got it covered. Now, onto the predictions:

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series
Boston Legal - James Spader
Breaking Bad - Bryan Cranston
Dexter - Michael C. Hall
House - Hugh Laurie
In Treatment - Gabriel Byrne
Mad Men - Jon Hamm

Don't even bother, House fans. Though Hugh Laurie turned in the compelling, two-hour season finale as his submission, Emmy voters love three-time winner James Spader, and his submission (which finds him passionately arguing a case before the Supreme Court) provides Spader with his biggest tour-de-force yet. If he's ever to lose, it won't be this year.

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series
Brothers & Sisters - Sally Field
The Closer - Kyra Sedgwick
Damages - Glenn Close
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit - Mariska Hargitay
Saving Grace - Holly Hunter

A toss-up! In a category filled with film refugees deigning to do TV (which Emmy loves), Sally Field won last year and notoriously gave a bleeped speech that will only solidify her as the incumbent in voters' memories. Her biggest threat is the cool, nefarious Close, but we'll side with inertia and predict Field as the winner once more.

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series
Boston Legal - William Shatner
Damages - Ted Danson
Damages - Zeljko Ivanek
Lost - Michael Emerson
Mad Men - John Slattery

All but two of the nominees are newcomers to this category, and last year's winner Terry O'Quinn is nowhere to be found. We think voters will reward his co-star, Lost MVP Michael Emerson, whose blockbuster episode submission included horse-riding, piano playing, action scenes, foreign languages, and a juicy scene grieving the death of his daughter. Plus, Emerson is no Emmy novice: he won the award in 2001 for guest-starring on The Practice.

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series
Boston Legal - Candice Bergen
Brothers & Sisters - Rachel Griffiths
Grey's Anatomy - Sandra Oh
Grey's Anatomy - Chandra Wilson
In Treatment - Dianne Wiest

If the category seems oddly mild this year, it's because of 2007 winner Katherine Heigl's infamous decision to pull her name out of consideration. As a reward to the co-stars who bit their lips and suffered in silence, we expect either Oh or Wilson to pull through as the winner, with a slight edge to Oh (after all, she once had to deal with Isaiah Washington, too).

Outstanding Drama Series
Boston Legal
Damages
Dexter
House
Lost
Mad Men

For party crashers Damages and Dexter, it's an honor just to be nominated. Like them, Mad Men is little-seen, but the difference is that it's watched by all the right people (and heavily appeals to older Emmy voters), so we expect a first-season surge to victory. What Would Don Draper Do if he had to go home empty-handed?

The Trick To World Peace? Give A Star A T-Shirt And A Pen

Sadie — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 13:30:00 EDT

Mother Theresa could have saved herself so much time if she'd just learned that the trick to saving the world is just to sign up a few celebrities, get them to doodle on an American Apparel tee, and sell the result for charity! Lately, this rather labor unintensive mode of giving back has been running rampant, with celebrities lined up to draw stick figures like five-year-olds at a birthday party waiting to decorate their own cupcakes. Of course, within this spectrum is a wide range of commitment (and skill) levels, ranging from the truly half-assed to the off-puttingly earnest. Which is all very laudable. And then, apparently, people buy them: Bono and, most recently, Elettra Weidemann, have enlisted loads of celebs for their respective tee initiatives and when the one-offs go up for auction, they always bring in the big bucks. After all, who wouldn't want a Billy Baldwin original? Hundreds of seconds of compassion and effort — with accompanying captions, naturally — after the jump.

(Click on any image to begin gallery)

Emmy Nomination Hell! 10 Plots and Subplots to Watch After Today's Big Announcements

STV — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:10:00 EDT

The world awoke this morning to the chirping of little birds resembling Kristin Chenoweth and Neil Patrick Harris, perched at a podium in the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, announcing nominations for the 60th Emmy Awards. While most rolled over and tried to get back to sleep, we sat bolt upright as usual and sprinted to the window, our furious note-taking chronicling a few snubs, surprises and plenty of the conventional wisdom we've come to expect from the annual ritual.

The Academy has the full, looong slate of nominees, naturally, but we've narrowed our interests down to 10 easy storylines for our own Emmy dramedy — conveniently outlined after the jump!

1. Mad Men joined Damages as the first basic-cable programs to earn a nomination for best dramatic series. Its 15 other nods led the pack among all nominated dramas, while 30 Rock led all shows with 17 noms.

2. For the last time (literally), the Academy has snubbed The Wire for a dramatic series nomination. Critics at the TCA press tour will be symbolically immolating themselves by lunchtime.

3. In other snubs, FX is wondering this morning who it has to blow to get Denis Leary, Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver back on the list after nominations in 2007. Hint: It might be a bribe-friendly exec at AMC, which scored a kind-of-stunning two dramatic actor nods this year.

4. Silverman, Emmy Darling (Part 1): "I'm Fucking Matt Damon" was nominated for Outstanding Original Music And Lyrics. Silverman's competition is Flight of the Conchords and MADtv. As such, it bears saying aloud: " 'I'm Fucking Matt Damon' is going to win an Emmy."

5. Sarah Silverman, Emmy Darling (Part 2): Denied an actress nod for her own show, she earned a guest actress nomination for her turn as Marci Maven on Monk.

6. Amy Poehler's supporting-actress nod for Saturday Night Live is the first for an SNL actress since Gilda Radner and Jane Curtin were each nominated in 1978. Radner won.

7. There's apparently a formula for earning a few dozen Emmy noms: Just make a loooong historical epic like HBO's John Adams, which pulled in 23 mentions including outstanding miniseries — as Variety notes, the third consecutive year a period miniseries has drawn the year's biggest haul. Awards-bait film stars like Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney — both nominated as well — can't hurt either.

8. Come to think of it, film actresses on cable dominated dramatic categories in general, with four Oscar winners (including Susan Sarandon and Holly Hunter) and three Oscar nominees (Linney, Catherine Keener and Glenn Close) among the ten performers recognized. We presume Sally Field got Katherine Heigl's spot.

9. Speaking of whom, we're guessing ABC had higher hopes for Grey's Anatomy than two supporting-actress nominations and "Outstanding Prosthetic Makeup For A Series, Miniseries, Movie Or A Special."

10. If we must split up the reality and reality-competition categories, surely the Academy can find a way to further separate things like A&E's grueling Intervention from trifles like Extreme Makeover Home Edition and Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List. Really.

The 60th Annual Emmy Award Nominations [Academy of TV Arts & Sciences]

Things Are Looking Up For The Women In Hollywood

Jessica — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 12:30:00 EDT

Ever since Sex and the City turned out to be a money making juggernaut, Warner Brothers has decided to aggressively market The Women. "This is an about-face from the studio's earlier decision to leave plans intact for about-to-shutter Picturehouse to debut the chick flick in limited release and with a small P&A," says Nikki Finke, who has been following the fate of the Meg Ryan-helmed film for some time now (also starring: Annette Bening, Bette Midler, Jada Pinkett Smith). If you'll recall, last year Warner Brothers' Jeff Robinov famously declared, "We are no longer doing movies with women in the lead." Well apparently he's doing at least one movie with a woman in the lead, and while that's heartening, movies still have a long way to go. Looking at the just-released shortlist for Emmy nominations, however, shows that there are myriad plum roles for leading ladies on the small screen. Which leads me to wonder: why is there such an enormous disconnect between females on TV and the ones on the silver screen?

Tina Fey (30 Rock), Glenn Close (Damages), America Ferrera (Ugly Betty), Julia Louis-Dreyfus (The New Adventures of Old Christine), Felicity Huffman (Desperate Housewives), Mariska Hargitay (Law and Order: SVU), Kyra Sedgewick (The Closer), Minnie Driver (The Riches), Elisabeth Moss (Mad Men) and Jeanne Tripplehorn (Big Love): these were the women who were nominated for Emmys, by-in-large playing strong, capable, well-written roles. And what's more, most of these women are, gasp, over 35.

Are there so many more available roles for women of a certain age on TV because producing a television show is that much cheaper? Are aging bodies less obvious on the small screen, and so they're more acceptable? Are Hollywood honchos just stuck believing that women don't see movies, or that men don't want to see movies with anything but eye candy? It's probably a combination of all of the above, and even though those televised, meaty roles are something to be proud of, there is not a single black actress on the short list for Best Actress Emmy (there are two Latinas: Ferrera and Eva Longoria-Parker).

I know I've said this so many times before, but there is something concrete we can do to help: go see movies made by women, or made with women in respectable roles. I'd tell you to go see something specific this weekend, but the only recent release with a plucky female protagonist is Kit Kittredge, and if you're not a Jezemom, I'm guessing that holds limited interest for you. Sigh. We clearly have a long way to go.

Warner Brothers Decides To Embrace The Women [Deadline Hollywood Daily]
Why Won't Warner Embrace The Women? [Deadline Hollywood Daily]
Warner's Robinov Bitchslaps Film Women [Deadline Hollywood Daily]
Sarah Silverman Lands In The Top 10 List Of Emmy semifinalists For Best Comedy Actress! [Gold Derby LAT]
Looks like Mary McDonnell Of 'Battlestar Galactica' And Elisabeth Moss Of 'Mad Men' Are On The Emmy Top 10 List [Gold Derby LAT]

Earlier: Ultimate Chick Flick The Women Is Finally About To See The Silver Screen

Glenn Close: Buried Alive!

Seth — Tue, 06 May 2008 21:18:52 EDT

· You just never know what you're going to get on The Martha Stewart Show. Today: We make our own herb garden kits. And later, Glenn Close recalls the time she was buried alive with her husband! Wait—what? [Martha]
· Good news, everyone! Star Jones is dating again. (Or has a snappy-dressing driver/assistant/bodyguard.) And! Is looking sassy. [Bossip]
· Tina Fey is the most adorable anti-film-piracy figurehead since Lucky and Flo. (And we're not comparing her to a labrador retriever. We just think she's cute.) [ONTD]
· Talk Sex with Sue Johanson is ending its six-year run on Oxygen? But where else are we going to get straight-up advice from someone who resembles our sixth-grade English teacher on the proper use of a double-headed dildo? [AP]
· Photobombing is our new favorite pranktivity. And of all the photobombs collected here, this one of a guy shoving a fat finger up his nose while Wilmer Valderrama tries to look like the man with three hot chicks on his arm is our very favorite. [listoftheday]

Robbed Of Their Moment, This Year's Golden Globe Victors Agree That It's An Honor Just To Win

Seth — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 16:20:53 EST

After a disorienting Golden Access Globes Press Hollywood Conference Awards that left nominees and audiences alike utterly befuddled (we understand Sally Field was fished out of The Grove's dancing waters fountain at 3 a.m. delivering an impassioned speech about bringing the troops home to two security guards on a golf cart), our traditional Globes parties post-mortem promised to be a similar mess. Still, if there were awards, and there were winners, by God there's going to be a reactions round-up, even if it comes off sounding a lot like the ones you read after the nominations are announced:
· The Atonement crew toasted their win at a bungalow at the Chateau Marmont, where the ghost of O.D.'d John Belushi smiled over their WWII romance's win. [Variety]
· Marion Cotillard enjoyed her win for La Vie en Rose from the Four Seasons. "I'm enjoying so much what's going on here, I can't be disappointed in any way," she said, convincingly masking her extreme disappointment. [Variety]

· Julian Schnabel learned of his Best Director win at New York City airport baggage carousel, upon turning his cellphone on: "It was very glamorous. It was one of those existential moments. I was extremely happy." [USA Today]
· Like Ernest Borgnine's bash, Sweeney Todd producer Richard Zanuck made it a family affair, taking in the press conference from his son's home in Beverly Hills—which is nice, but not, like, seated next to Johnny Depp with lots of water glasses and fancy silverware nice: "I must say, it's a wonderful thing to be seated at a table and all the suspense of that. All that was nonexistent (tonight), but it doesn't take away from the honor." [Variety]
· "Glenn Close, best TV actress/drama for FX's Damages, was in a bar in New York's meatpacking district with the show's cast and crew. 'It's a wonderful way to watch — we were rooting for our team.'" She then mounted the counter at the Brass Monkey for a celebratory striptease patrons won't soon forget. [ABC News]
· Best Actor in TV Series, Musical or Comedy winner David Duchovny went to see a movie while the winners were announced: "I kinda didn't want to watch, it would just make me tense or nervous, so I went out to see a movie at four (o'clock) and I knew I wouldn't be home until it was announced. I knew if my phone was ringing when I walked into my hotel room that I would have won. And it was. Nobody calls a loser." And with that, this year's ceremony wiped the snot from its nose as it checked its phone in vain for any congratulatory messages. [AP]