"Accused"

This anthology series is taken from a British show ... which might have been a reboot of an old American show???  In any case, the changing cast of really big names from week to week is a draw, as is the format, which can be intriguing.  Each show opens with the attention on the accused but we know nothing of their guilt or innocence, or even what crime they are accused of, until the whole episode unspools.  It's kind of a brilliant concept.  Unfortunately, in the first three episodes there has been a darkness I don't care for.  Two of the three episodes have seemed more like horror films than crime procedurals.  Not to say there is gore.  There isn't.  Bad events are referred to but rarely shown.  No, it's rather a matter of the topics they are covering.  Yes, there are evil people in the world who do inexplicable things, but the choice to feature true evil, rather than troubled people falling on hard times, is one I don't care for.  It's as if the show is produced not for the thought-provoking Hobson's choices these characters face, but for the voyeuristic need of the audience to explore something extreme.  I like a show which challenges me intellectually.  I don't care for watching things about the inherent depravity of man.  So I'm on the fence with this one.  I'll watch a few more episodes to see where it is going.  Given that it is on FOX, which delights in glorifying depravity, I don't have high hopes.  But we'll see.

And the Award Goes to ...

Every year there seems to be a theme in the award nominations.  I’m not sure if it is part of the national zeitgeist but it never fails that there are threads running through these projects, connecting them, weaving them into a tapestry of … well … us.  Last year was of note, as the impact of Covid created stories of isolation, even by characters surrounded by people.  Which leaves me struggling with the crop of projects this year.  Serial killers and cannibalism, sometimes both at the same time, dominate.  Death is omnipresent and pervasive in these tales, even in the comedies.  (Frankly, I haven’t enjoyed most of the nominated comedies these past few years.)  It was a parade of unending horror.  If these films reflect the national mood, what does that say?  There are exceptions, of course.  Escapism – “Avatar”, “Everything Everywhere All At Once.”  But overall, there is a darkness to this year’s works I never thought possible. 

Another item of note this year were stories which could be told in movies being stretched into mini-series.  Not a fan.  It was a year when I felt the actors were being nominated more for their body of work than for the quality of the production.  It is also notable that there were some rave reviews for Will Smith’s “Emancipation,” but it was utterly ignored by every award body.  What can I say?  Karma’s a bitch, and sometimes she’s manmade.  Awards are as much about politics and the power of industry movers and shakers as they are about quality work.  As to the other “big conversation”, I do think we should get rid of the gendered award categories. 

All that being said, I watched it all – sometimes through closed eyes (sorry, “Dahmer”) and these are my picks.  And no, my picks don’t always win.  In fact, they rarely do.  But that doesn’t matter.  There’s a lot of good out there, so I like to think of this as sharing the wealth. 

Favorite films were:  #1  “Women Talking”, #2 “The Whale”, #3 “The Woman King”, #4 “Everything, Everywhere, All At Once”, #5 “Black Panther:  Wakanda Forever” and #6 “Elvis”.  Shout-outs to “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande”, which should have been nominated for something, and for Guillermo del Toro’s brilliant “Pinocchio”, which doesn’t fall under SAG nominations.

Film

·       Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role – Colin Farrell was very un-Colin Farrell in “The Banshees of Inisherin” proving that he isn’t just an action hero, he’s an actor.  Young Austin Butler was great as Elvis.  That being said, Brendan Frasier, in “The Whale”, was incredible.  He has my vote.

·       Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role – It is hard not to vote for Michelle Yeoh, from “Everything Everywhere All At Once”.  She’s been here forever, done terrific work, and has never won any big awards.  And I love her in every project she’s ever done.  Ms. Yeoh will likely win this one, and possibly, the Oscar.  And she deserves it.  But I’m voting for Viola Davis, who has a shelf full of statues.  “The Woman King” took my breath away and her transformation into a 19^th century warrior was layered and powerful.  You can’t take your eyes off of her.

·       Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role – Ke Huy Quan in “Everything Everywhere All At Once.”  He’s just great and it wasn’t a competitive category, IMHO.

·       Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role – Truly the hardest category for me.  One of those times I wish I could just give an award to everyone who was nominated.  Rating these performances against one another is impossible.  Kerry Condon was quietly brilliant in “The Banshees of Inisherin”.  Stephanie Hsu and Jamie Lee Curtis were both amazing in “Everything Everywhere All At Once” – in incredibly different ways.  Angela Bassett will win, and she deserves to.  Her work in “Black Panther:  Wakanda Forever” was far more than a supporting role.  She also has that body-of-work thing.  She is a woman in her 60s, working like crazy, morphing from role to role and producing shows like 9-1-1.  The woman totally rocks.  That being said, my vote is for Hong Chau in “The Whale”.  If the definition of a good supporting actor is that you can’t see anyone else playing the role and that the role is integral to the production as a whole, then she is the one.  That being said, she won’t win.  In this pool, being outstanding isn’t enough.

·       Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture – “Women Talking”.  Talk about an ensemble.  Jesus!  And yes, I mean that with true praise.  “Everything Everywhere All At Once” will win this award, along with many others.  But “Women Talking” deserves to be seen … and talked about.

·       Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture – “The Woman King".  “The Batman” sucked, I don’t do “Top Gun” and everything in “Avatar” and "Wakanda Forever" is digitized.  

Television

·       Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Limited Series – Steve Carell in “The Patient”.  He won’t win but it is past time for his dramatic work to be acknowledged.  It’s brilliant.

·       Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Limited Series – Niecy Nash-Betts in “Dahmer”.  Again, she isn’t seen for the totality of her talent.  Often portraying loud, funny women (“The Rookie:  Feds”), she was unrecognizable here, and had creepy layers appropriate to the production.  Isabel May, from “1883” should have been nominated.  She wasn’t.  Had she been, it would have been a run-off, in my humble opinion.

·       Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series – Jeff Bridges in “The Old Man”.  Adam Scott is the only real competition here, IMHO, and Mr. Bridges just deserves it.  He’s been to hell and back in the past year and then he returns with this … a wicked challenging role.  Bravo.  (PS Amy Brenneman should have been nominated, too).

·       Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series – I could barely get through one episode of “Euphoria” but Zendaya deserves this award for her body of work.  Which is saying something for a 27 year-old.  Here’s hoping this talented, driven woman can keep herself together in the swamp of Hollywood.

·       Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series – Bill Hader, “Barry”.  Honestly, I haven’t kept up with most of these series, but he is the only one playing a character different from himself (I hope).  He plays a hired killer with layers.  Make of that what you will.

·       Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series – Me love Rachel Brosnahan in “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”.  Jenna Ortega is supercool as Wednesday Addams.  Jean Smart is fab in everything she touches and would have been a serious consideration had she been nominated for “Babylon”, but she wasn’t.  This one, however, has to go to Quinta Brunson, who doesn’t just play an adorable, thoughtful character in “Abbott Elementary,” she created the fricking show … the first in a long time to portray education realistically.  Warts and all.  Brava.

·       Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series – “The Crown”.  Truthfully, this is the only one of the nominated series I actually like.  It probably won’t win. 

·       Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series – “Abbott Elementary”.  This series is pure joy.  The other nominated “comedy” series have real darkness in them.

·       Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Television Series – “Andor” didn’t have a lot of action.  “The Boys” is vicious but, like “The Rings of Power” and “House of the Dragon” much is digitized.  The same is true of “Stranger Things” but the cast of “Stranger Things” is notably young, making physical stunts more thoughtful.  I’m going with “Stranger Things”.  (It won’t win.)

"The Dropout"

I didn't care for "Inventing Anna" and I put this series in the same category without viewing it.  But I watched it for the SAG Awards and found it better than expected.  It puts quirky, weird, irritating Elizabeth Holmes in a slightly different light.  There is background, structure, a sense of who she is and why she makes certain decisions.  That being said, she is a brilliant mind which is a bit "off".  So don't expect to fully understand her after it is all said and done.  No, she didn't start out to scam everyone or even to get fabulously rich.  She had a true belief that she could help people and the insistence of youth that she must be right about everything because "the old people who run everything are just blind and rigid".  There are legitimate issues here about the ridiculousness of how medical research gets funded, and how dismissive and predatory the men with the money are to women trying to get ahead.  Does it excuse her nasty behavior towards her staff?  No.  But the whole thing puts in her in context.  She isn't a bad person per se.  She's just someone who doesn't see others, or reality, very well.

"Avatar: The Way of Water"

SPOILERS AHEAD.  Swiss Family Robinson meets Poseidon Adventure meets a documentary about the ocean meets, strangely, Avatar 1.  In this THREE HOUR AND TWELVE MINUTE film, we kind of get it all.  A massive story with a bunch of plotlines, the film ironically covers little new territory.  Tell me if any of this rings a bell:  Evil American military comes to a peaceful planet of nature-loving blue folks.  Some of the soldiers turn themselves into blue folks and battles ensue.  There is exploration of a new culture (this time we have water people instead of forest people) and a tragic loss.  The "new thing" (other than the water scenes) is the focus on a bunch of teenagers.  Okay.  But that still didn't draw me in emotionally.  I didn't feel a thing when there is a significant death.  The closest emotional reaction I had was when a beloved whale-like creature was hunted down.  To say the movie is bloated is an understatement.  I get it.  You put your actors through hell, you have hundreds of digital artists working for months and months to create a single scene, you don't want to cut a thing (film took three years to make, and yes, they shot in the water and taught the actors to increase their lung capacity).  But 20+ minutes on a whale hunt?  A "final battle" which lasts more than 45 minutes?  And here's the thing -- nothing is resolved.  Not really.  Himself, James Cameron, has two more sequels in the mix, so we can't wrap any of it up.  The bad guy, the sky people, it is just a continuous, ongoing slaughter.  Which won't end for at least three or four more years.  Enough.  I got it.  Environment good, humans bad, big bloody digitalized fights, yadda yadda yadda.  I very much want to go snorkeling right now, but that's all I got out of it.  PS -- Ironic that both "Avatar 2" and "Wakanda Forever" went for water civilizations.  "Wakanda Forever" did it SO MUCH BETTER.

"The Old Man"

Part of my initial problem with this series was that I didn't know what it was supposed to be.  It opens with the issues old people face -- isolation, loss of a loved one, peeing a lot in the middle of the night.  Then it turns into a physical, and very bloody, spy adventure.  Fight scenes are prolonged, with the grunting and the dying drawn out.  Then it turns into a kind of "guy on the run" thing, with the main character befriending strangers on the way.  And it keeps making turns.  The acting is good, of course.  Jeff Bridges and a large supporting cast are great.  I kind of love John Lithgow and it is delightful to see Joel Grey again, however briefly.  I liked Amy Brenneman in this production more than anything else I've seen her in.  She does a terrific job of straddling impossible realities.  Alia Shawkat is delightful and the actors playing the young Jeff Bridges and John Lithgow nail the likenesses.  Every single character is given dimension and depth, even the assassins.  There are ruminations -- are terrorists born or made?  What is a terrorist?  The language is chosen, specific.  It's almost Shakespearean, with subtle nods to "Hamlet" and "Richard III".  I didn't care for the fisticuffs, which were more brutal than necessary, IMHO, but I watched the entire thing because once I started, I kind of had to keep going.  Thought it was a limited series.  It's not.  Be prepared for a cliff-hangar ending.  I wasn't.

"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever"

This is, from beginning to end, a memorial of sorts.  But it is also really good.  Just as good as the first film if not better.  There is action, of course.  Enough to satisfy the action-hero fans, hopefully.  The bulk of the film, however, is about a kind of quiet seeking.  Seeking meaning, purpose, how to move on after unimaginable loss.  Angela Bassett has been getting the bulk of the attention here but Letitia Write, as the angry, troubled, and unwilling presumptive heir, has the heavy lifting.  It is on her to navigate her emotions, the politics of the world, and the anger of another put-upon civilization.  She does it all beautifully, and with grace.  She ain't bad in the fight scenes, either.  You will start the film with a sad breath or two and possibly end with a tear or two.  In between, this movie will make you both feel and think.  It's a carefully crafted, gently woven story which shows what Marvel can be when they are their best (and yes, director Ryan Coogler gets credit too ... he is navigating this challenging path).  Make sure to stay for the credits.  As usual, Marvel drops a little somethin' somethin'.  Brava to the ladies.  Wakanda Forever.

"Wednesday"

I ignored this popular series when it first came out.  Not a fan of "The Addams Family" (I was more of a "Munsters" girl). I ended up watching this because the lead, Jenna Ortega, was nominated for a SAG Award.  It drew me in.  Funny and macabre, it walks just the right path across a knife's edge.  The answer is, of course, Tim Burton.  I pretty much love everything he makes.  And so here it is ... Harry Potter meets Gotham meets Harriet the Spy meets ... seriously weird.  Burton's gift is that he can celebrate the strange but somehow make it relatable.  He also fashions good story, weaving disparate elements into narratives with layers and surprises.  "Wednesday" is worthy, and another great addition to the Burton canon.

"Severance"

This might be the weirdest series I've ever watched.  Points to Apple+, which always looks for the strange and off-beat.  It's fresh, unpredictable and quite creepy.  Adam Scott and a talented cast do a great job of making the subtle shift from real world to work world.  But do I like it?  I'm not sure ...

"Babylon"

Once again we have a film full of sound and fury signifying very little.  Every few years Hollywood needs to make a masturbatory film about itself.  A few years ago, it was an overly long film with Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie called "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood."  Brad Pitt starred as a fading lead actor in the Golden Age of Hollywood, circa 1969.   In a deja vu moment, this overly long film has Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie starring as silent screen actors whose careers go crashing down as the talkies come in.  If you feel like all of this is just a tad familiar, go watch "Singin' in the Rain."  Yeah.  There is absolutely nothing original here but it takes more than three hours because, despite the frenetic pace, it's about excess.  Gratuitous, over-the-top and bloated in every way, the opening scene, at a raucous party, lasts more than half an hour and shows more women's body parts than most gyno doctors see in a month.  It has a few saving graces.  The jazz score is terrific.  Jovan Adepo gets a lovely moment when he is asked to darken his black complexion to match the dark skin of his bandmates.  Jean Smart pretty much makes the film with a monologue which embraces both permanence and the absence of longevity.  But that's about it.  Didn't have to watch much of it closely because absolutely every moment was expected a mile out.  That being said, the denouement went beyond to the extreme.  There is a five minute montage.  That's long.  Really long.  It goes places, then it goes places, then it goes more places, and all you can think is, "Where the hell is this going?"  Much like the film.  Watch at your own risk.

"The Good Nurse"

This being my fourth serial killer project I'm reviewing for the SAG Awards, getting a tad "over it".  That being said, it's a "perfectly fine" film.  SPOILERS AHEAD.  The only surprise is that in this case, unlike the other three stories, the killer isn't a creepy weirdo who makes you think, "gee, he's a serial killer".  Everything else is very pro forma.  There is a hard-working hospital staff, people who die, and a mystery which detectives can't solve without the cooperation of the hospital administration.  The hospital administration, of course, blocks the police at every turn because it's run by a big evil corporation which puts profits over people.  Short answer -- this guy killed with impunity for over a decade and wouldn't have gotten away with murdering hundreds (?) of people if just one of the nine hospitals he worked at had stepped up and worked with the authorities.  There is an over use of blue filters, which makes the whole thing look dark and depressing, and a few too many close-ups on Jessica Chastain, playing nurse Amy Loughren, as she struggles with a heart condition.  She and Eddie Redmayne are good, of course.  They are always good in whatever they do, but the film didn't really hold my attention.  Think I have OD'd on too many crime procedurals (pun not intended).  Anyway, if this is your thing, enjoy.

"George and Tammy"

It's not bad.  But it's not good.  Admittedly, I'm not a fan of country music but that being said, I loved "Walk the Line" about Johnny Cash, so it's not just the subject matter.  The issues, in my opinion, are many.  First, there isn't a lot or original here.  You could call this "George and Tammy" but you could also call it "A Star is Born".  All the elements are the same.  And Ms. Wynette's actual story is flattened a good deal, the timelines and details changed to fit a certain kind of narrative.  Another example of people wanting to tell a specific story which might not line up with the reality.  In the series, Tammy is a reserved person who is in control.  She is strong in a quiet way, a steady person who gets the eye of George Jones.  He pursues her.  The story focuses on their time together, painting it as a kind of fatalistic love story, like Romeo and Juliet.  Ms. Chastain's performance is incredibly muted compared to her award-winning work as Tammy Faye last year.  The problem with the portrayal is that Tammy Wynette was known to be a lady who liked the gentlemen, and George was the third of four marriages.  She was also someone who was seriously medicated for nearly a decade before she and George ever crossed paths.  Bottom line?  Tammy Wynette had a layered life and deserves a real biopic -- one which shows the totality of who she was and what she lived through.  This feels like the version you tell the tourists.

"Living"

Taken from a Japanese film, this is a story of a man who is told he does not have long to live.  It impacts the choices he makes.  The premise is intriguing.  The production is ... very very British.  The bulk of the film is quiet conversations in muted bars and office spaces.  Much like "Tar" viewers are removed from the action.  Events are re-capped but not shown.  If they are shown, such as when Mr. Williams spends two days carousing in a small beach town, it is from a distance and with a fuzzy lens.  Some of the supporting actors make an impact.  The unnamed man in a tavern at the beach, a young woman who worked briefly in Williams' office ... the young worker impacted by his final few months.  But overall it wasn't a film which moved or touched me in any particular way.  In fact, I found myself struggling to stay awake.  It is notable that we never learn Mr. Williams' first name.  After a very long hour and forty-five minutes, that's the least they could have done for us, the viewers.  Why should we care about a man we hardly know?

"Black Bird"

Okay, serial killer #3.  It's very good.  Good enough to get me to watch the entire mini-series, even though I'm over the whole serial killer thing.  Paul Walter Hauser does a terrific job being both innocent and creepy as hell.  Taron Egerton absolutely slays (not literally) by transforming himself again.  No, there is not a drop of his award-winning "Elton" performance here.  The violence of the attacks is not overt, although the scenes of a fictional prison riot are.  Tension is maintained throughout the six episodes and the only frustration is that of the ending which actually happened IRL.  Oh, and it's Ray Liotta's final performance.  So, yes, if you can stomach another one of these things (pun not intended), feel free to indulge.