Annara Snow

Nothing for Beef?! Interesting that they nominated 4 out of 5 directors/directing duos from the final season of Succession, and left out Lorene Scafaria, while the Emmys nominated 3 out of possible 5, and one of them was Lorene Scafaria (for 4x06, Living+)

The SAG nominations this year are absolutely bizarre. So many crazy snubs and weird choices. But nothing is as bizarre as nominating Brian Cox, who was on screen for maybe 15 minutes in the final season of Succession, and snubbing Jeremy Strong, the actual lead actor who gave incredible performances in every season, including this final ome. Just his scenes in the series finale are enough for an award, let alone a nomination. And SAGs can't even use the "he's won before" excuse (which many were using for why Kieran Culkin should now win all the awards this season - which is OK, Kieran was also amazing and also one of the leads - but the "he's won before" card was overplayed) - because he never won the SAG for individual performance, only for ensemble! This is one of the most bizarre award nomination choices I've ever seen. At this point I'm really starting to think this is spite and/or some kind of weird BTS campaig.

I like most of and agree with the majority of their picks. The ceremony itself however, was a very mixed bag. but that's generally my feeling about award shows.

I don't what you don't understand there. I wouldn't mind Lily winning, but If I was to vote, I'd vote for Emma because her performance is great. - and she carries the movie. The only thing that goes "against" her is that she's won before. I haven't seen Anatomy of the Fall or Maestro, so I can't compare them to Sandra Huller or Carey Mulligan.

Basically, they want to give an award to a blockbuster movie that is good, but not as good to win Best Picture.

Poor Things also won its Best Picture category. Although it did not win direction or screenplay or score, so Oppenheimer was clearly favored there. I really liked Lily Gladstone's performance, but I don't think there's a strong argument to be made that Gladstone should win because her performance is more impressive than Stone's.

They got bored by watching Succession because its score has a leitmotif?

Creative Arts Emmys Awards: https://www.indiewire.com/awards/results/2023-creative-arts-emmy-award-winners-full-list-1234939915/ (One of the dumbest expressions BTW. I've been wondering for years why they call it like that. Are writing, directing and acting in regular roles not creative arts?!_ Not that The Last of Us doesn't deserve to win the technical categories,and Nick Offerman certainly deserves the Emmy (once Andy Serkis was snubbed) and Storm Reid was also good although I'd prefer Harriet Walter... but the fact TLOU swept its categories while Succession somehow lost best score to The White Lotus (which is mind-boggling), makes me concerned that the main categories may not go as predicted. Anyway, to paraphrase that Twititer meme, Nicholas Britell's score for the final season of Succession vs the score for The White Lotus season 2? Really 'hydrogen bomb vs coughing baby' but the coughing baby won because Emmys can often be like that.

You mean the last actress to win for a film not in English language, not the last foreign actress.

How is The Zone of Interest a runner-up in the foreign language category and also a runner-up in the Best Picture category - to a different film?! That makes no sense. If Fallen Leaves is better than The Zone of Interest according to them, then why is Fallen Leaves not the runner-up in the Best Picture category over The Zone of Interest and the Anatomy of a Fall?

There's lots of anger on Twitter over BAFTAs snubbing Charles Melton.

It was a plural "you".

I wouldn't describe The Americans as "horrible people being horrible to each other". In fact, one of the show's main strengths is that almost every character is presented as complex and sympathetic and you can see where they're coming from. Even though they're doing so many terrible things, they think they are doing it for the right reasons, because it's their duty for their country/better world etc. and not just for the lols because they're evil. Which is at the core of the whole, being a part of the espionage/counter-espionage world. And you see characters struggle with their conscience and question how far they can go and if it's all worth it. Except for the guy in the pilot, I'm not sure I can think of any straight up evil characters -although there's a character in season 2 who seems to come closest to being a classic villain, but even that turns out to be more complicated. One of the showrunners used to be in CIA until he got disillusioned and left, so I'm sure he was inspired by his experiences of being recruited in a spy organisation and how that can take a toll on your life, your relationships and your conscience.

Season 2, but they make it look at first like he may be a jerk you shouldn't trust.... so you kinda spoiled it in a way

Question for all - how long should we keep this thread open? I think we should keep it open for maybe about a week, so we can post updated lists with 2023 shows we only finished a few days after the New Year. That's how we did the previous years, though sometimes we went too far and kept posting for over a month. The new thread for 2024 is kinda pointless till a month in anyway since barely anyone manages to see anything from 2024. What do you think? Anyway, I was binging some shows these last few days but didn't manage to finish them (From and Somebody Somewhere), but I'll update the list to add them anyway, though the final ranking might change. I also pushed The Last of Us one place higher - although I didn't enjoy most of the present day stuff in the show (which may be because it reminds me too much of TWD), the two flashback episodes and single flashback scenes in other episodes were some of the best TV episodes/moments of the year, which I can't say for The Fall of House Usher. great: Succession season 4 Beef Barry season 4 Silo season 1 From - seasons 1-2 (the best horror mystery I've seen in a long time. Reminds me of Lost in good ways. I binged both seasons the last few days and while I have 2 episodes left, I think this probably won't change the placement much. A lot however depends on how the mystery is resolved in the subseqauent seasons) The Bear seasons 1-2 good: What We Do in the Shadows season 4-5 In Limbo season 1 Yellowjackets season 2 Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2 - halfway through so I may push it higher or lower, but season 2 seems at least as good as season 1 so fa Somebody Somewhere - seasons 1-2 (binged both seasons this week, halfway through season 2. Really enjoyable warm comedy-drama with unusual lead character and unusual LGBT representation - read: lots of average looking people including a plus sized 40-something female lead. You don't see that often on US TV) Schmigadoon season 2 decent/mixed bag: The Last of Us season 1 The Fall of the House of Usher Ted Lasso season 3

I don't get the "I need someone to root for in the war/conflict" argumemt. Why is that necessary to enjoy shows which are fundamentally about how these conflicts are bad and pointless and are really focsed on something else (The Americans - marriage and family)? This insistence on fiding good guys and bad guys to toot for /against is why there were so many bad Succession takes by people who thought it was all about 'who wins' and what's ruining the House of the Dragon discourse, with people determined to make one side heroic and worthy,

These are decent results out of these nominations, i.e. once you snub Poor Things, which they did.

Although it's not like movies released on streaming srevices were not shown in our cinemas (even The Sopranos movie)... though I'm not sure about festivals.

I can't say anything about Maestro because I haven't seen it. Same with Saltburn, The Holdovers, May December... I'm guessing they will all be at FEST 2024.

WTF is up with them ignoring Poor Things in every non-acting category? Nominating Barbie over Poor Things is really unserious.

Eh... a very mixed bag. If you can get past the fact the show has adult actors engagining in adult behavior and pretending to be teens and that the whole show would make much more sense if it was about college rather than high school, Season 1 is pretty good. The two specials that aired between the seasons are the best thing the show has ever done (one is focused on Rue and it's just Zendaya and Colman Domingo, the other is fully focused on Hunter Schaeffer's Jules, was co-written by her and is even better). Season 2 has some moments, but overall it's a mess. Interesting storylines dropped and the best characters sidelined because the actors didn't get along with the showrunner. Instead we get some terrible storylines. There's only one really good episode and it's the one focused fully on Zendaya's character.

I haven't seen it but it's on my watchlist.

Beef reminded of these 1990s songs I used to love that haven't heard in decades:

Finished Beef, and it's definitely one of my favorite shows of the year, right up there with the final seasons of (fellow dark tragicomedy-dramas) Succession and Barry. The story didn't go quite as I first expected it, in the best way. The soundtrack was perfect - you can see it was chosen by people who really used to listen to the 1990s alt rock, because it's not just the most obvious or famous songs or artists. I was reminded of some of the songs I used to love I hadn't heard in many years. That made the show very relatable... that, and the Sacramento Kings references Steven Yeun's character kept making (being a Kings fan, now that's early 2000s pain ). Gotta hand it to Steven Yeun, the three roles I've seen him in have all been completely different and he was great in all of them: good guy zombie killer in TWD, slick psycho rich guy in Burning, messy loser who can't do his construction work right in Beef.

One addition - and since it's almost New Year, I'm now only putting shows that came out in 2023. great: Succession season 4 Beef - another brilliant dark (tragi)comedy-drama about messy people ruining their own lives and those of others. (All three of my top shows this year are) This story didn't go how I thought and kept surprising me, and got more emotional as it went on. Great acting and a perfect soundtrack consisting of 1990s alt rock songs that matched each situation. Barry season 4 Silo season 1 The Bear seasons 1-2 good: What We Do in the Shadows season 4-5 In Limbo season 1 Yellowjackets season 2 Schmigadoon season 2 decent/mixed bag: The Fall of the House of Usher The Last of Us season 1 Ted Lasso season 3