Don't bother, they're here
Best Picture
Da 5 Bloods
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Mank
Minari
News of the World
Nomadland
One Night in Miami
Promising Young Woman
Sound of Metal
The Trial of the Chicago 7
Best Director
Lee Isaac Chung – Minari
Emerald Fennell – Promising Young Woman
David Fincher – Mank
Regina King – One Night in Miami
Spike Lee – Da 5 Bloods
Aaron Sorkin – The Trial of the Chicago 7
Chloé Zhao – Nomadland Continue reading “26th Critics’ Choice Awards nominees”
Film
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
Riz Ahmed – Sound of Metal as Ruben Stone
Chadwick Boseman – Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom as Levee Green (posthumous nomination)
Anthony Hopkins – The Father as Anthony
Gary Oldman – Mank as Herman J. Mankiewicz
Steven Yeun – Minari as Jacob Yi
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
Amy Adams – Hillbilly Elegy as Beverly “Bev” Vance
Viola Davis – Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom as Ma Rainey
Vanessa Kirby – Pieces of a Woman as Martha Weiss
Frances McDormand – Nomadland as Fern
Carey Mulligan – Promising Young Woman as Cassandra “Cassie” Thomas Continue reading “27th Screen Actors Guild Awards nominees”
“We need evidence, no conspiracy theories”
Just a quickie for this as the truncated fourth season of The Good Fight meant that it had a rather abrupt finish that cheated the creators out of the fullness of the stories they wanted to tell. What we did get was the customary tackling of huge up-to-the-minute issues – racism in the workplace, political parties trying to reach marginalised communities and in the daring final episode, Jeffrey Epstein.
Baranski’s Diane Lockhart remains one of the great TV characters but I’m not sure anyone was particularly well served by the larger themes of the show. The ramifications of the buyout were tiresome, Memo 618 didn’t get the resolution it needed and Lucca’s plot strand smacked of them not knowing what to do with the character, given how little she ended up interacting with the rest of the main cast. Continue reading “TV Review: The Good Fight Series 4”
“Who else was masturbating into plants?!”
I’m of course far too young to remember the original Van Der Valk – had I seen it before though, I might well have saved myself this couple of hours. Importing a British cast to play Dutch detectives in a crime serial set in Amsterdam seems like such a retrograde move, I still can’t get my head around it, especially in this day and age when so much quality foreign-language drama is readily available. Written by Chris Murray, this revival sees Marc Warren head up the cast as a maverick detective with a team who aid and abet his behaviour – there’s not a smack of originality about it, nor any real interest sadly…great locations though. Am already dreaming of my return to the city, but not sure I’ll be revisiting this show. Continue reading “New TV shows to get stuck into”
Best Series
Best Comedy Series
Barry (HBO)
Fleabag (Amazon)
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Amazon)
Mom (CBS)
One Day at a Time (Netflix)
PEN15 (Hulu)
Schitt’s Creek (Pop)
Best Drama Series
The Crown (Netflix)
David Makes Man (OWN)
Game of Thrones (HBO)
The Good Fight (CBS All Access)
Pose (FX)
Succession (HBO)
This Is Us (NBC)
Watchmen (HBO) Continue reading “10th Critics’ Choice Television Awards nominees”
“Don’t get in the way of someone kicking ass”
For a season that contains the wonder that is Christine Baranski and Audra McDonald casually duetting on ‘Raspberry Beret’, Series 3 of The Good Fight ends up being something of a challenge. The presence of Michael Sheen’s Mephistophelian Roland Blum was clearly meant to shake things up but that chaotic energy ends up being destabilising.
Which is a shame, as so much of what makes The Good Fight click so well is present here. Topics ripped from up-to-the-minute headlines, including voter suppression, racial profiling, Karens calling the polices, troll farms, historic sexual harassment cases, Kim and Kanye… And they’re all treated sensitively but still daringly in some bold storytelling. Continue reading “TV Review: The Good Fight Series 3”
“Kill all the lawyers”
If I’m completely honest, Abi Morgan’s The Split did leave me a tad disappointed as it veered away from its legal beginnings to something considerably more soapy over its six episodes. The personal lives of the Defoe clan well and truly took over at the expense of any of the cases they were looking after and even if that family includes Nicola Walker, Annabel Scholey and Deborah Findlay, it’s still a bit of a shame that it ended up so schlocky. Continue reading “TV Review: The Split Series 1 / The Good Fight Series 2”
Best Series
Best Comedy Series
The Big Bang Theory (CBS)
Black-ish (ABC)
GLOW (Netflix)
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Amazon)
Modern Family (ABC)
Patriot (Amazon)
Best Drama Series
American Gods (Starz)
The Crown (Netflix)
Game of Thrones (HBO)
The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu)
Stranger Things (Netflix)
This Is Us (NBC) Continue reading “8th Critics’ Choice Television Awards nominees”
“In my experience, whenever somebody says ‘the truth is’ that usually means it’s not”
Lots to love in The Good Fight, not least its very existence as a female-led, POC-heavy US drama, unafraid to tackle the most modern of issues, as its parent show The Good Wife did in its prime. And over the 10 episodes of its first season, it has proved an engaging and entertaining watch in the midst of finding its feet about the kind of show it actually wants to be. (You can read my thoughts about Episodes 1 and 2 here).
The Good Fight tried to achieve a lot – establishing a large new ensemble, delivering enough storyline for three lead characters, paying adequate but not overbearing fan service to Good Wife devotees, and coming up with up-to-the-minute cases-of-the week. And I think we can say it did most this fairly successfully. Christine Baranski’s Diane Lockhart and her statement necklaces remaining a shining beacon of light in our cold, dark world. Continue reading “TV Review: The Good Fight Series 1”
“Diane, when did you get so cynical?”
I hadn’t intended to write about this spin-off from The Good Wife but its opening two episodes were just too full of insane goodness impossible to ignore – I mean just look at that poster art for one. The earlier seasons of The Good Wife were fantastic, US network television close to its best, but the show definitely lost some of its sparkle as its core ensemble collapsed and none of the replacement cast members were able to deal with the unchecked gravitational vortex of its key star Julianna Margulies as Saint Alicia Florrick.
Two victims of this were Christine Baranski’s Diane Lockhart, in there from the beginning and much abused by the end, and Cush Jumbo’s Lucca Quinn whose arrival in the seventh and final season promised much but ultimately suffered from writing that would not, could not, allow her independence from Florrick. So it is tempting to see The Good Fight as an apologia from series creators Robert King and Michelle King as, along with Rose Leslie’s newcomer Maia Rindell, they form the three leads of a brand new ensemble show that is serving up life! Continue reading “TV Review: The Good Fight Episodes 1 + 2”