Delayed Reaction: White Sands

[Note: This is part of a project I'm calling "A Century in a Month". The idea is that I'm going to start with a movie from about 100 years ago and pick a series of connected films until I get to the present. The rules I set this time are release years, per IMDB, can't be more than 5 years apart. I can't repeat the same connection although I can reuse the same type of connection. That means if I use "movies directed by Scorsese" to connect two, I can't use Scorsese as a connection again but I can use a director as a linking element again. I'm not really sure why I'm doing this, but it seems like a fun game.]

Connection to The January Man: Both star Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio

 

Premise: A small town sheriff accidentally becomes part of an FBI investigation.

 

Complete transparency here. I was racing to finish this “Century in a Month” project in a month, and prioritized watching the movies to writing the Reactions. So, I’m writing most of these about a week or two after watching them. There are benefits to doing that sometimes. It gives my thoughts time to crystalize about a movie. I might come up with an angle that I didn’t have right after watching. The problem is that some movies just slip away in my mind. That’s White Sands. At best, this movie is OK. I might’ve had some interesting initial thoughts after watching it, but most of what’s left now are pretty broad.

 

The cast is what I found most notable about the movie. Like, Willem Dafoe. I forget about his leading man era. Sure, there are the art films like The Last Temptation of Christ, but they also tried to pitch him as a populist movie star. The kind of guy who could’ve been played by any actor and not specifically by Willem Dafoe. There’s a reason why they didn’t last. He’s a very specific actor. It’s strange to me how Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio just kind of went away. I don’t think she had big bombs attached to her. I don’t think she was black balled by anyone. After 1995, her work got very sporadic. She had a couple children at some point and started working on the stage more. I wonder if this was a natural shift for her or did she hit her mid-30s and the roles dried up? It’s a shame though. She’s generally pretty good in stuff. Mickey Rourke I just don’t like. Even in his star days he seemed off. More accurately, he seems like a prick and I’d believe he was no fun to work with. He’s not even interesting to me as a villain. It’s kind of like how I can watch Ed Norton play a neo-Nazi in American History X and appreciate the performance, but if the role was being played by an actual neo-Nazi it would be off-putting. I can’t watch Mickey Rourke be a prick in a movie because it feels too much like his natural state.

 

Anyway, White Sands is a pretty enjoyable forgettable movie. There’s a brand of crime movie from the 90s that would probably be forgettable TV series today. They are character-based and feel episodic. It’s very easy for me to imagine the 8-episode limited series of this movie that would be about 3 episodes too long. It makes me realize that when people ask where the mid-budget movie for adults went, the answer is “to streamers as series”.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don’t Recommend

Delayed Reaction: The January Man

[Note: This is part of a project I'm calling "A Century in a Month". The idea is that I'm going to start with a movie from about 100 years ago and pick a series of connected films until I get to the present. The rules I set this time are release years, per IMDB, can't be more than 5 years apart. I can't repeat the same connection although I can reuse the same type of connection. That means if I use "movies directed by Scorsese" to connect two, I can't use Scorsese as a connection again but I can use a director as a linking element again. I'm not really sure why I'm doing this, but it seems like a fun game.]

Connection to Once Upon a Time In America: Both star Danny Aiello

 

Premise: A brilliant former NYPD detective get brought back in to solve a string of murders.

 

Hold on a second. People hated this movie? It has a 24% on Rotten Tomatoes and the likes of Roger Ebert himself absolutely panned it?

 

You see, this is why I’ll admit that reviews immediately upon the release of a movie can be useless. No matter how smart or self-aware we think we are, we are prisoners of the moment. I know I’ve written dozens if not hundreds of Reactions that I’ve gone back to later and wondered why I was being such a prickly ass. I’ve talked about this before in regards to Must Love Dogs. That’s a perfectly enjoyable RomCom that was panned for being a perfectly enjoyable RomCom in an era where there was an abundance of perfectly enjoyable RomComs. However, I watch a movie like that now and wish we could get more RomComs that were that competently made. I suspect the same thing happened with The January Man. When there’s a deficit, you miss the days of surplus.

 

There was a mini wave of crime comedies in the late 80s and early 90s. It started with the buddy cop movies like 48 Hours and later Lethal Weapon. Over time, it evolved into movies that tried to have the best of both worlds like A Fish Called Wanda, Dead Again, and The January Man, trying to be funny, exciting, and romantic. Or more generally, this was an era of an abundance of mid-budget, non-franchise movies targeted at adults. It could be hard to stick out, and if a film felt too much like another film, even if both were well-made, they could be panned by critics and audiences alike. Because, let me be clear. It wasn’t just critics who rejected The January Man. It was audiences too. The film only made $4.6 million at the box office.

I only watched it because it fit my “Century in a Month” timeline and the cast was great. This movie has Kevin Kline, Susan Sarandon, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Harvey Keitel, Danny Aiello, and Alan Rickman. That’s very strong; especially for 1989.

 

Is The January Man thin? Yes. It feels like an extended pilot for a new cop series in a lot of ways. Does The January Man try to do too much? Absolutely. It can shift wildly from slapstick comedy to romance to crime and violence in ways that don’t always fit neatly together. Did I enjoy the heck out of the movie? Very much. In an age of gritty crime dramas where each movie is trying to be darker than the last, it’s nice to watch something that’s willing to play around.

 

The key, I discovered later, is the screenwriter of the movie: John Patrick Shanley. A year after this, he went onto write and direct Joe Vs. the Volcano which is a magical movie that mixes RomCom trappings with bizarre magical realism. In 2020 he wrote and directed the absolutely unhinged Wild Mountain Thyme that I’m ashamed to say I kind of loved. He wrote Moonstruck too, which is a beloved movie that I really need to rewatch. He mostly works in the theater and the rest of his movie output is mixed. I do think what I love so much about him is his sense of play. He takes a tame idea and wonders what it would look like if he threw something crazy in for no reason. It probably should bother me. It does when a lot of other writers/directors do it, but I like how he does it for some reason.

 

It’s a shame that true channel surfing doesn’t exist anymore, because The January Man is a quintessential channel surf movie. If I talk anyone into watching this, it will probably underwhelm. It’s an unassuming movie. The best way to watch this is as a surprise. You see Kevin Kline is in this movie. You like Kevin Kline. You don’t have anything else to do for the next 90 minutes. Might as well watch this for a bit to see what it’s about. Despite that, for my surprise factor alone, I’m calling this a rave.

 

Verdict: Strongly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Persuasion

Premise: A heartbroken 19^th century woman with herself to blame finds herself around the man she loved and spurned years before.

There are times when it’s better to just not read books. I don’t think this movie ever stood a chance, because those Jane Austen fans can really mobilize when they aren’t pleased. Apparently, the novel has a lot more romantic tension. The protagonist is more wound up. Beyond the basics of the story, this film adaptation doesn’t seem to have much at all in common with the book.

 

I thought this movie was fine though. It’s thoroughly average. Dakota Johnson is odd casting. She wouldn’t fit in a normal costume drama. She reads as too modern, but in a take like this one, where it’s Jane Austen by way of Fleabag, she works well. The best word to describe the movie overall is ‘jaunty’. There’s a little drama with Johnson and the love she left behind who has returned. You could throw it in the middle of a Bridgerton season and it wouldn’t feel out of place.

 

So, from what I’ve gathered, if you’ve read the book, avoid this movie. The changes will piss you off. If you haven’t read the book, watch this if you like Dakota Johnson. It’s perfectly watchable.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don’t Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Once Upon a Time in America

[Note: This is part of a project I'm calling "A Century in a Month". The idea is that I'm going to start with a movie from about 100 years ago and pick a series of connected films until I get to the present. The rules I set this time are release years, per IMDB, can't be more than 5 years apart. I can't repeat the same connection although I can reuse the same type of connection. That means if I use "movies directed by Scorsese" to connect two, I can't use Scorsese as a connection again but I can use a director as a linking element again. I'm not really sure why I'm doing this, but it seems like a fun game.]

Connection to Hair: Both star Treat Williams

 

Premise: A group of Jewish gangsters thrive then fall apart with the passing then repeal of prohibition.

 

There’s a special section of my movie list for movies I’m sure I’d like, but who has the time? It’s full of movies like Heaven’s Gate, the original Solaris, and Shoah that I’m certain I’ll like or at least appreciate but it’s so hard to convince myself to spend 3+ hours on one movie. Thankfully, this “Century in a Month” project backed me into a corner when I could either watch Once Upon a Time in America or 2 other movies to get to the same place in the timeline.

 

This movie is an infamous bomb. It was released in 1984 with a massively shortened cut. I won’t say that all 3 hours and 49 minutes of the re-release cut were essential, but the breadth of the story couldn’t handle the 90 minutes of cuts made to it. I hope I never have to see that version.

The full version of the film is familiar but good. Yes, it does feel like people keep making the same movie about New York City just in different decades (The Godfather, Gangs of New York, Goodfellas). You either like that kind of movie or you don’t. I do enjoy it.

 

This cast is crazy. Until the very end, new faces keep popping up. Even one of the kid roles went to a future Oscar winner (Jennifer Connelly). I’m so used to Grudge Match-era Robert De Niro, that I can forget how much of a god damn movie star he was back in the day. It’s almost frustrating how good James Woods was in the 80s, because he’s such a public prick now.

There are definitely worse ways to kill 4 hours.

 

Verdict: Strongly Recommend

Emmy Picks: Series

It's time for another edition of my Emmy predictions. This is a tradition of mine built on two pillars:

1) Using far more detail than anyone needs.

2) Ending up with predictions that are only moderately above average in accuracy.

 

It's this mix of content without quality that I really think sets me apart. My goal in this and most activities on this blog is to defend my reasoning more than getting everything right. I'd much rather hear "I get why he was thinking that" than "he's always right". Wait, scratch that. That's a lie. I'm content with the former and striving for the latter. Regardless, let's see how it goes.

 

Note: In all categories I list the nominees from most to least likely to win in bold in the paragraph.

 

* Indicates a show that I haven't watched this season.

# Indicates a show I've seen before, not this season.

 

Outstanding Comedy Series

*Ted Lasso (Apple TV+)

*Abbott Elementary (ABC)

I’m combining the blurb for these two, because it’s down to only them for the win.

A few days from now, when I’ve lost my Emmy pool yet again, I’ll look to my stubborn support of Ted Lasso as the reason. Abbott Elementary is the show I keep hearing people bring up. It’s awful reminiscent to 2019, when I dismissed all the chatter about Fleabag as being part of my twitter bubble only. Abbott Elementary has the buzz. It’s got all the major nominations it needs to be considered a threat. It won the Casting award at the Creative Arts Emmys. Since they changed from a weighted ballot to a plurality ballot in 2015, the Comedy Series winner has also won the Casting award every time. And let’s not forget ABC’s Modern Family’s historic reign over the category.

 

I’m sticking with Ted Lasso though. I’m not worried about how long ago the season aired. That hasn’t mattered with many shows in recent years. I don’t want to overreact to Abbott winning for Casting. That award often goes to a new series or a newly discovered series. Since 2015, the show I figured would’ve won each year did win. Maybe I’d argue that Transparent S1 in 2015 or Atlanta S1 in 2017 had a good argument to beat Veep. Even that’s a stretch though. This is the year that will either prove or disprove that Casting award correlation for me. Let’s also not overlook that for as popular as Abbott was, Ted Lasso still trounced it in nominations, including a nomination for writing, which Abbott failed to get. To counter that counter, Abbott is likely to be a Modern Family in that if it wins, it will do it on the power of the directing, so no writing nom may not matter. I guess my final point is that Ted Lasso is still beloved. There isn’t massive fatigue out there that I can detect. When Fleabag beat Veep in 2019, it was because there was noticeable Veep fatigue in its final season. Veep beat Modern Family in 2015 several years after the consensus turned away from Modern Family.

 

The final argument I can think of for Abbott is that it’s a network show that’s popular. That would carry a lot more weight if the first season of megahit This Is Us hadn’t lost to the theoretically smaller The Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu. Emmy voters aren’t thirsty to return to the days of network dominance.

 

*Only Murders In The Building (Hulu)

I suppose there’s a chance the mix of old (Steven Martin, Martin Short) and young (Selena Gomez) appeal mobilizes two large parts of the Emmy voter base and sneaks a win for Only Murders. I don’t see it, but it’s the closest thing to a third reasonable option.

 

*Barry (HBO/HBO Max)

It continues to be a critical hit, but it has lost twice before. Its momentum isn’t upward.

 

*Hacks (HBO/HBO Max)

It’s “The Jean Smart Show”. That it did so well last year was more a testament to a thin field. Good show, but not a realistic series contender.

 

*The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Prime Video)

It has won before, which is more than the next two can say.

 

*What We Do In The Shadows (FX)

Look. It keeps showing up here. The fact it never gets any acting nominations hurts a lot though.

 

#Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO/HBO Max)

Eleven seasons. Eleven nominations. Eleven losses. This is only nominated because the Emmy voters aren’t cool enough to nominate The Great.

 

Outstanding Drama Series

*Succession (HBO/HBO Max)

This feels pretty easy. It won in dominating fashion for season 2. It has the might of HBO backing. It got virtually every speaking role an Emmy nomination. We can be cute about possible disrupters, but this is Succession’s to lose.

 

*Squid Game (Netflix)

Succession is one of the locks of the night for me. The biggest wildcard though is Squid Game. It was a global phenomenon, and thanks to Netflix’s murky viewership reports, we truly have no idea the reach or popularity of the show. However, the same has been said about Stranger Things, and Orange is the New Black, House of Cards, and many others. Sure, The Crown did win last year but that was by playing the Emmys’ game. Squid Game was an out of nowhere hit. I have little evidence that Netflix can turn a word of mouth hit into a big Emmy winner. Even The Queen’s Gambit last year nearly lost its healthy head start to Mare of Eastown. Squid Game is in the opposite situation. It has to overtake Succession, and even at its peak, it hadn’t done that.

 

*Severance (Apple TV+)

It showed up late in the season. Apple has proven it can run a winning campaign for both Emmys (Ted Lasso) and Oscars (CODA). I personally think Severance was more surprising than beloved, but maybe I’m wrong.

 

*Yellowjackets (Showtime)

Showtime has never won Drama, Comedy, or Limited Series. Not even in the years when Dexter and Weeds were regulars in the nominations. As exciting as Yellowjackets was as a story, there’s just not enough proven love to believe it can actually win.

 

*Better Call Saul (AMC)

Late in Breaking Bad’s run, it went from a show critics said you should watch to a genuine mainstream hit. Better Call Saul has enjoyed a lot of glowing reviews and favorable headlines, but it has never captured the attention like Breaking Bad did.

 

*Euphoria (HBO/HBO Max)

Even people who like Euphoria don’t like Euphoria. It definitely hit a new level or popularity this year but as many people who watched it as a sort of anthropological study as those who watched for enjoyment. Let’s also remember how stuffy Emmy voters are in general.

 

*Stranger Things (Netflix)

I don’t care how big the ratings get. Stranger Things is modern TV equivalent to a Marvel movie. It’s highly enjoyed but not looked at as the best show.

 

*Ozark (Netflix)

I’ve run out of ways to say the Ozark ended quietly.

 

Outstanding Limited Or Anthology Series

*The White Lotus (HBO/HBO Max)

Perhaps I think Emmy voters are cooler than they actually are. The White Lotus was a buzzy hit with a stacked cast. It weirdly felt bot frivolous and substantial; like a beach read that you later found out won the Pulitzer. It’s a show that people seemed to genuinely like.

 

*Dopesick (Hulu)

For as powerful as Dopesick could be at times, it does feel like the show your “supposed to like”. It’s based on actual events and is designed to trigger our injustice response. Those shows just don’t win unless they’re sensationally entertaining. Look at 2019. Chernobyl (based on true events but really designed as riveting TV) beat When They See Us (a story of injustice designed to make us mad at the injustice).

 

*The Dropout (Hulu)

This show is Amanda Seyfried as Elizabeth Holmes. Shows with such a singular focus and strength don’t do well in the series award.

 

*Pam & Tommy (Hulu)

While this overachieved in nominations and is effective at shifting sympathies over the course of the series, it still feels like a vote for Pam & Tommy is just a vote for 90s nostalgia.

 

*Inventing Anna (Netflix)

See what I said about The Dropout. Change names where necessary.

 

Outstanding Variety Talk Series

*Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (HBO/HBO Max)

Last Week Tonight has the last 6 wins. The only reason The Daily Show’s streak before that got interrupted is because it birthed The Colbert Report as a worthy adversary. Nothing new has stepped up yet to unseat Last Week Tonight. In fact, it’s outliving its worthiest competitors.

 

The Daily Show With Trevor Noah (Comedy Central)

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert (CBS)

Jimmy Kimmel Live! (ABC)

Late Night With Seth Meyers (NBC)

Trevor Noah’s Daily Show still feels like the best competitor for Last Week Tonight and it is still a long way off.

 

Outstanding Variety Sketch Series

*Saturday Night Live (NBC)

After 5 years winning and a thinning field, until something beats SNL, I’m picking SNL.

 

A Black Lady Sketch Show (HBO/HBO Max)

I still don’t think it’s ready to beat SNL, but the Directing for a Variety Series win was an encouraging sign.

 

Outstanding Competition Program

RuPaul's Drag Race (VH1)

6 nominations. 4 wins in the last 4 years. This is a sleepy category and there’s no reason to expect Drag Race to lose yet.

 

The Voice (NBC)

11 consecutive nominations. 4 wins as recently as 2017. This category has been known to return to an old winner for a year without warning.

 

The Amazing Race (CBS)

10 wins. Nominated every year since they created the award (19 times). We’re never that far away from another Amazing Race win.

 

Top Chef (Bravo)

16 nominations and the lone 2010 win. If it has won before, it can win again.

 

Nailed It! (Netflix)

It’s on its 4^th consecutive nomination. It took Top Chef until its 4^th nomination to finally win, and that’s the longest it took a show to finally win after its first nomination. I guess that puts the pressure on Nailed It!

 

Lizzo's Watch Out For The Big Grrrls (Prime Video)

Every couple years, a new challenger enters the race and either disappears quickly or becomes entrenched in the category. I don’t know which this is yet, but here’s a stat for you: the first season of a show has never won this award.

 

Emmy Picks: Lead Actor & Actress

It's time for another edition of my Emmy predictions. This is a tradition of mine built on two pillars:

1) Using far more detail than anyone needs.

2) Ending up with predictions that are only moderately above average in accuracy.

 

It's this mix of content without quality that I really think sets me apart. My goal in this and most activities on this blog is to defend my reasoning more than getting everything right. I'd much rather hear "I get why he was thinking that" than "he's always right". Wait, scratch that. That's a lie. I'm content with the former and striving for the latter. Regardless, let's see how it goes.

 

Note: In all categories I list the nominees from most to least likely to win in bold in the paragraph.

 

In most acting categories, the nominees choose a submission episode. Emmy voters are instructed to base their picks only on the submission episodes rather than for the entire season. In the pre-streaming days, the submission episode was a significant indicator of who would win. In recent years, it has been rendered insignificant. No one wins anymore for having a great submission episode. I will not base my predictions on the submission episode either, since it tends to point me the wrong way.

 

 

* Indicates a show that I haven't watched this season.

# Indicates a show I've seen before, not this season.

 

Outstanding Lead Actor In A Comedy Series

*Jason Sudeikis (Ted Lasso) (Apple TV+)

It has been so long since this field was strong that I don’t even know how to pick it. 2011 is the last time I looked at the whole field and didn’t have a strong complaint about anyone. For the purpose of the winner though, it is a two-man race. Bill Hader won in 2018 and 2019 and hasn’t had a season since. Jason Sudeikis won last year. Since 2015, the first year of the plurality vote for the Emmys*, the winner of this award has been on the serious side. Only Eugene Levy and Jason Sudeikis have had purely comedic performances win. That would lean Hader for Barry, but Sudeikis got to mix in more darkness this season. Ted Lasso is a series front runner. Sudeikis is just as liked in the business as Hader. I’m going with an “all eggs in one basket” approach to my picks this year.

 

*Since 2015, everyone votes for a single nominee and the one with the most votes, not necessarily a majority, wins. Before that, I believe it was a ranked choice ballot, which favors general support over smaller diehard support.

 

*Bill Hader (Barry) (HBO/HBO Max)

Hader has consecutive wins. Time and time again, Emmy voters have proven that they treat this award as “Best acting of any kind that is in a Comedy Series” not “Best Comedic acting in a series”. Even by that definition, I’d give Sudeikis the edge due to the range of the performance, but the intensity of Hader’s work sets it apart. From a strategic perspective, his is the most unique performance in the list. I could see Short and Martin stealing way more votes from Sudeikis than Glover from Hader. I’m just leaning on the belief that Barry is generally falling out of favor. It’s not reflected in the nominations, exactly, but I think it will show in the wins.

 

*Steve Martin (Only Murders In The Building) (Hulu)

Steve Martin hasn’t won an Emmy since the one he shared for writing on the Smothers Brothers in 1969. Under the right circumstances, I could see a wave vote coming to award him the way it happened for Henry Winkler in 2018. The big difference is that he technically does have a win already, and despite how legendary Steve Martin is, you can’t say anything about his Emmy history as indignant as “He never won an Emmy for playing the Fonz?!” If someone from Only Murders wins, it’s him, but it just doesn’t seem like the support is there.

 

*Martin Short (Only Murders In The Building) (Hulu)

Vote split and Martin Short is a little less of a legend than Steve Martin.

 

*Donald Glover (Atlanta) (FX)

Bill Hader already beat him in 2019, and while I think support for Barry has lessened, I know it’s cratered for Atlanta.

 

*Nicholas Hoult (The Great) (Hulu)

God I love this nomination. I just don’t see a path for it to happen. Not after he failed to get nominated for Season 1 and the series didn’t rise significantly in awareness in Season 2.

 

Outstanding Lead Actor In A Drama Series

*Lee Jung-jae (Squid Game) (Netflix)

I’m going back on what I said about not believing in Squid Game. With a Succession vote split impacting things, here’s a place that Squid Game can sneak a win. This is a tight race though. Either Succession actor alone would win.

 

*Brian Cox (Succession) (HBO/HBO Max)

I’m still rather surprised that Strong beat him two years ago. If I had any courage, I’d go ahead and pick Cox to win despite the vote split potential.

 

*Jeremy Strong (Succession) (HBO/HBO Max)

That New Yorker profile really did a number on Strong’s reputation. I think that was enough to mess with the power balance between him and Cox with Emmy voters. Still, he did win for season 2, so I can’t put him too far down the list.

 

*Bob Odenkirk (Better Call Saul) (AMC)

Emmy voters just aren’t sentimental and this isn’t BCS’s final season anyway. Odenkirk absolutely deserves to win, but I remain unconvinced that things have changed enough for him to go from snubbed to winning.

 

*Adam Scott (Severance) (Apple TV+)

For as loved as Severance was, it’s remarkable how little of the conversation centered on Adam Scott. He’s a decade away from people realizing he doesn’t have an Emmy yet.

 

*Jason Bateman (Ozark) (Netflix)

Bateman has lost to a variety of actors and in weaker fields. Ozark ended pretty quietly. He should just keep shining that Directing Emmy he won a few years ago.

 

Outstanding Lead Actor In A Limited Or Anthology Series Or Movie

*Michael Keaton (Dopesick) (Hulu)

This is one of the easy ones. Keaton has been collecting hardware for this for nearly a year now. People love him. He’s never won an Oscar or an Emmy somehow. In addition to Dopesick being a juggernaut this year, there aren’t any White Lotus nominees here to spoil things.

 

*Colin Firth (The Staircase) (HBO/HBO Max)

Perhaps some true crime fandom bleeds into the votes?

 

*Sebastian Stan (Pam & Tommy) (Hulu)

Unlike a lot of these other nominees, Stan’s show actually got a Limited Series nomination. That must count for something.

 

*Andrew Garfield (Under The Banner Of Heaven) (FX)

He’s fresh off an Oscar nomination. That must count for something.

 

*Oscar Isaac (Scenes From A Marriage) (HBO/HBO Max)

Dude, I’m still trying to figure out how he wasn’t nominated for Show Me A Hero in 2015. Emmy voters are slow on Oscar Isaac.

 

*Himesh Patel (Station Eleven) (HBO/HBO Max)

Station Eleven was just too ignored. It also has the Moonlight problem where the star is actually multiple people playing the same person. The star is the combo ticket of Mackenzie Davis and Matilda Lawler. Himesh Patel almost feels supporting, even though he is rightfully a lead. He’d also get my vote.

 

Outstanding Lead Actress In A Comedy Series

*Jean Smart (Hacks) (HBO/HBO Max)

This is a Julia Louise-Dreyfus in Veep situation. We’re a couple seasons away from even thinking about someone else winning this. They love Jean Smart too much.

 

*Quinta Brunson (Abbott Elementary) (ABC)

I don’t think Jean Smart is untouchable. The Abbott Elementary love is rumbling loudly. I’m starting to question my Ted Lasso lean overall. And there’s a chance that Abbott thumps the field, and Quinta Brunso could record a Phoebe Waller-Bridge-sized haul.

 

*Kaley Cuoco (The Flight Attendant) (HBO/HBO Max)

It’s down to Smart and Brunson. Cuoco already lost to Smart once. While she’s still good in The Flight Attendant, it was less of a sensation in season 2.

 

*Rachel Brosnahan (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) (Prime Video)

Former winner but otherwise Maisel is running on fumes with the Emmys.

 

Issa Rae (Insecure) (HBO/HBO Max)

It was the final season and she has been nominated before.

 

*Elle Fanning (The Great) (Hulu)

I’m just thrilled that she’s nominated. The Great is just too offbeat and underwatched to believe she could win.

 

Outstanding Lead Actress In A Drama Series

*Zendaya (Euphoria) (HBO/HBO Max)

Zendaya won for the first season when that was the only major nomination for Euphoria that year. This year, Euphoria took the leap from “show to write think pieces about” to “genuine hit”. Zendaya’s star has only risen as well. I just can’t imagine how the vote could break where anyone other than her wins.

 

*Melanie Lynskey (Yellowjackets) (Showtime)

The only real competition Zendaya has is Melanie Lynskey, and sadly, I think the two shows in this list with the most fan overlap is Euphoria and Yellowjackets. I’d be thrilled to see Lynskey win. She’s generally beloved and plays the social media game exquisitely. It’s possible she could win, but it feels like steep odds.

 

*Laura Linney (Ozark) (Netflix)

It is a little odd that Ozark love in other years never led to a Laura Linney win. Emmy voters love Laura Linney. She has 4 wins from being on 4 different series. She hasn’t won for Ozark yet. Do they decide to complete her set this year? Given how quietly Ozark ended, I doubt it.

 

*Reese Witherspoon (The Morning Show) (Apple TV+)

At the end of the day, she’s still Reese Witherspoon. I remain flabbergasted by her season 1 snub, even though I wouldn’t’ve picked her. The Morning Show has already faded and this nomination reflects an adherently shallow field more than anything.

 

*Jodie Comer (Killing Eve) (BBC America)

*Sandra Oh (Killing Eve) (BBC America)

Killing Eve ended this year. This is proof that people remembered liking the show and little else.

 

Outstanding Lead Actress In A Limited Or Anthology Series Or Movie

*Amanda Seyfried (The Dropout) (Hulu)

Seyfried is winning this. There’s not much else to say. She’s the absolute lead of her show. She got to play a range of emotions. She got to master a weird Elizabeth Holmes voice. The show was widely supported by Emmy voters. I can’t point to anything to detract from her odds.

 

*Julia Garner (Inventing Anna) (Netflix)

If Seyfried loses, it’s because Emmy voter just want to see the world burn. If that’s the case, Julia Garner’s Inventing Anna performance is the most “water cooler” performance in the category. Let’s just ignore that it’s actually a supporting performance.

 

*Margaret Qualley (MAID) (Netflix)

Qualley dominated her show more than anyone else in this field. If Seyfried isn’t the lock I think she is, maybe voters will go by screentime.

 

*Lily James (Pam & Tommy) (Hulu)

I love Lily James. I think she does great work. Much like how people could never get past Pamela Anderson’s boobs in the 90s, I think voters won’t get past the physical transformation when it comes time to vote. The thing they’ll award is the makeup.

 

*Toni Collette (The Staircase) (HBO/HBO Max)

Who would really be against Collette getting another Emmy? She should’ve been supporting though.

 

*Sarah Paulson (Impeachment: American Crime Story) (FX)

Impeachment landed with a thud. This is a compulsory vote. Voters see the name Sarah Paulson and have to select it.