DRAMA
My pick of the nominees: Big Love. It’s compelling and interesting. Its exploration of family life and plural marriage is at once deeply familiar and completely foreign.Overlooked: I love Veronica Mars, but if I have to pick one, I’d say Friday Night Lights. This show appeals to a much broader demographic than VM and the fact that it’s not appointment viewing for more people is a shame. Degrassi may have bogarted the expression, but FNL really does go there.
ACTRESS (DRAMA)
My pick: Kyra Sedgwick. I love The Closer and though the rest of the cast is uniformly excellent, I can’t take my eyes off Sedgwick.Overlooked: Kristen Bell for Veronica Mars. Lead actresses on critically acclaimed teen shows have been recognized by the HFPA in the past (Keri Russell for Felicity, Amber Tamblyn for Joan of Arcadia), so why does KB keep getting snubbed? She’s the heart of one of the most compelling and entertaining shows on TV and she deserves some props.
ACTOR (DRAMA)
My pick: Bill Paxton. As a thoroughly modern polygamist patriarch, he manages to make me sympathize with someone I would normally find fairly abhorrent. Beyond the foreign concept of his life style, he is simply a father, husband and son stretched to the very limit.Overlooked: Kyle Chandler for Friday Night Lights. From the accent to the demeanor, everything about the way Chandler inhabits Coach Taylor is dead on.
MUSICAL OR COMEDY
My pick: The Office. I laugh, I squirm, I tune in week after week and am rarely disappointed.Overlooked: Old school multi-camera sitcoms aren’t dead. Seriously, just ask How I Met Your Mother. While you’re at it, ask why Desperate Housewives stole their Golden Globe nomination.
ACTRESS (COMEDY OR MUSICAL)
My pick: Mary-Louise Parker is spectacular on Weeds, but despite the show’s comedy label, she gives what I would dub a dramatic performance. That said, I would give the trophy to America Ferrera for her effervescent turn on Ugly Betty.Overlooked: Anne Heche for Men in Trees.
ACTOR (COMEDY OR MUSICAL)
My pick: Alec Baldwin is beyond brilliant on 30 Rock. His sly turn as a corporate stiff among creative bafoons makes me thank God he's not being wasted on something higher brow like Studio 60.Overlooked: John Krasinski for The Office. Steve Carell is great, but the most affecting performance has been Krasinski’s and after taking the reins for the Stamford portions of the show, he has graduated from supporting character to capable leading man.
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
My pick: Elizabeth Perkins is black comedy gold (would that make her comedy oil?) on Weeds. She’s awesome as a thorny (and horny) cancer survivor whose family and community at large kind of hate her.Overlooked: Ginnifer Goodwin, Chloe Sevigny and Jeanne Tripplehorn for Big Love. Without the perfect combination of spouses, Bill Paxton’s performance would be nothing.
SUPPORTING ACTOR
My pick: Justin Kirk for Weeds. Completely overlooked by the HFPA for his performance in Angels in America, it’s about time he get some recognition for being so dead-pan awesome.Overlooked: Neil Patrick Harris for How I Met Your Mother. He’s easily my favorite part of a damn fine show and Harris has proven that his hilarious cameo in Harold and Kumar was no fluke.
2 comments:
Now that we've commented on the who should win and who wasn't nominated catogories, let's talk about the who was nominated but shouldn't have been...
BEST DRAMA:
Who watches LOST anymore? While last year's Emmy noms were way off, they were right-on in not including Lost, whose way over convoluted plots that lead to nowhere and incessant character flashbacks that now prevent us from getting to know the plethora of other characters they keep introducing serve only to frustrate rather than to entertain. I'm all for shows that make you think and feel emotion - for that reason I watch Friday Night Lights and Battlestar Galactica, which are far more subtle without being farfetched. Also? Lost deserves to get their nomination recanted solely due to their re-introduction and now proliferaion of the second lamest technique of inducing faux emotions in lieu of actually having story and character induce real emotions (the first lame technique being the use of "Hallelujah" in any scene requiring a break-up/character dying/character-leaving-the-show-in-a-finale-only-to-return-in-the-premiere-because-they're-a-series-regular): the use of a slo-mo musical montage to end each episode. Seriously. Between the slo mo and flashbacks, I'm surprised we actually see any characters actually on an island these days.
BEST ACTOR:
McDreamy? Really? I like the guy and all but let's face it- this show's powerhouses are it's women. And maybe McChokey and McGay. But McDreamy's greatest daily acting challenge is how to not let his hair upstage him.
BEST ACTRESS:
I've never seen Medium so I suppose I can't rail against Patricia Arquette, so I'll have to take out my frustration on Evangeline Lilly then. The girl comes from the Tim Riggins school of acting - the less she says, the better an actor she is. Although, actually, she could probably take a few rebel-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-tracks brooding lessons from Tim Riggins himself.
BEST COMEDY:
While Laurie Metcalf's turn in Desperate Housewives was kind of awesome and Dana Whitaker can do no wrong by me, a stand out comedy it is not. Nor, as much as I love Scrubs, do I think that should have taken it's place. Rather, the LEGENDARY show How I Met Your Mother has slowly and quietly been chugging along with the AWESOME, and as the Patron Saint so eloquently put it, HIMYM makes a compelling argument for laugh tracks and multi-camera format. If this show were on NBC's Thursday night line-up with it's stellar comedies as opposed to CBS's Monday night line-up with it's geriatric jokes (although truth be told The New Adventures of Old Christine is not half bad), it'd be getting so much more press.
BEST ACTOR:
Zach Braff is a little overrated these days, but what can you do. We really should have nominated Zach Braff's 2007 indie counterpart (since he's in a new movie AND directing a feature, a David Foster Wallace adaptation, no less! How much more indie can he get? All he needs is a Shins or Death Cab song on the soundtrack!), Mr. John Krasinski. After all, the HFPA is all about voting in new blood, and Jim Halpert is the new J.D. Dorian.
BEST ACTRESS:
I guess I'm ok with these guys too, although much as I love Dr. Kimberly Shaw and Dana Whitaker, let's just put this old show out to the pasture already and make room for some fresh, FUNNY blood. After all, pedophilia
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:
I think I really have no complaint over this category at all, except that I wish supporting was also broken down into both comedy and drama categories, as well as miniseries, since there's so much good shit on TV these days that this is hardest category to get into, I feel. See notes below.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:
I'm all for supporting my people (and when I say people I don't mean the whities - seriously, where's Sandra Oh or Chandra Wilson and people of some ethnic origin?) but all in all, the Supporting Actress Category is pretty solid. Except for Sarah Paulson. I should support Sarah Paulson, and I do - hell, I like the actress's work, funny speech patterns and all, and watched her in Down With Love, Deadwood, AND that awful Friends/Sex and the City wannabe Leap of Faith (Yes. I watch a lot of TV.), but, to say I should applaud Paulson's work in Studio 60 (a show which I do like and watch) is like saying I should applaud the L Word simply just for existing. Here's a little note about forward momentum - existing doesn't cut it if you're doing work that's cringe-worthy. In fact, I'd argue that the awful factor far outweights the exposure factor, since you're now associating your exposure with awful work and now it leads us to the problem of, not only are the gays ruining marriage in American, we're also ruining TV with our sub-par quality of work. So, Sarah Paulson or Aaron Sorkin, find the funny to make her worthy of this nomination. After all, she is a good actress (anyone who can play both a duplicitous, double crossing, back stabbing, cocks***ing (RIP Al Swearengen) faux nanny on Deadwood and a believable screwball comic romantic foil for David Hyde Pierce in Down with Love earns acting kudos in my book).
SIDE NOTE:
Biggest snub of all besides Friday Night Lights? Everyone from frakkin' Battlestar Galactica. So say we all on this matter.
Q
Anonymous said...
Now that we've commented on the who should win and who wasn't nominated catogories, let's talk about the who was nominated but shouldn't have been...
BEST DRAMA:
Who watches LOST anymore? While last year's Emmy noms were way off, they were right-on in not including Lost, whose way over convoluted plots that lead to nowhere and incessant character flashbacks that now prevent us from getting to know the plethora of other characters they keep introducing serve only to frustrate rather than to entertain. I'm all for shows that make you think, feel emotion, and have overarching labyrinthine plots - for that reason I watch Friday Night Lights, Battlestar Galactica, and Veronica Mars, which are far more subtle without being farfetched. Also? Lost deserves to get their nomination recanted solely due to their re-introduction and now proliferaion of the second lamest technique of inducing faux emotions in lieu of actually having story and character induce real emotions (the first lame technique being the use of "Hallelujah" in any scene requiring a break-up/character dying/character-leaving-the-show-in-a-finale-only-to-return-in-the-premiere-because-they're-a-series-regular): the use of a slo-mo musical montage to end each episode. Seriously. Between the slo mo and flashbacks, I'm surprised we actually see any characters actually on the island these days.
BEST ACTOR:
McDreamy? Really? I like the guy and all but let's face it- this show's powerhouses are its women. And maybe McChokey and McGay. But McDreamy's greatest daily acting challenge is how to not let his hair upstage him.
BEST ACTRESS:
I've never seen Medium so I suppose I can't rail against Patricia Arquette, so I'll have to take out my frustration on Evangeline Lilly then. The girl comes from the Tim Riggins school of acting - the less she says, the better an actor she is. Although, actually, she could probably take a few rebel-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-tracks brooding lessons from Tim Riggins himself.
BEST COMEDY:
While Laurie Metcalf's turn in Desperate Housewives was kind of awesome and Dana Whitaker can do no wrong by me, a stand out comedy it is not. Nor, as much as I love Scrubs, do I think that should have taken it's place. Rather, the LEGENDARY show How I Met Your Mother has slowly and quietly been chugging along with the AWESOME, and as the Patron Saint so eloquently put it, HIMYM makes a compelling argument for laugh tracks and multi-camera format. If this show were on NBC's Thursday night line-up with it's stellar comedies as opposed to CBS's Monday night line-up with it's geriatric jokes (although truth be told The New Adventures of Old Christine is not half bad), it'd be getting so much more press.
BEST ACTOR:
Zach Braff is a little overrated these days, and the best part of Scrubs was always Brown Bear and Dr. Cox, but what can you do. We really should have nominated Zach Braff's 2007 indie counterpart (since he's in a new movie AND directing a feature, a David Foster Wallace adaptation, no less! How much more indie can he get? All he needs is a Shins or Death Cab song on the soundtrack!), Mr. John Krasinski. After all, the HFPA is all about voting in new blood, and Jim Halpert is the new J.D. Dorian.
BEST ACTRESS:
I guess I'm ok with these guys too, although much as I love Dr. Kimberly Shaw and Dana Whitaker, let's just put this old show out to the pasture already and make room for some fresh, FUNNY blood.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:
I think I really have no complaint over this category at all, except that I wish supporting was also broken down into both comedy and drama categories, as well as miniseries, since there's so much good shit on TV these days that this is hardest category to get into, I feel. If anything, the proliferation of talent in the television medium (case in point - Helen Mirren getting nominated TWICE for TV alone and Emily Blunt getting nominated, as well as Toni Collette, Thomas Haden Church, Jeremy Irons, etc). makes a strong argument for someething I've long been a vocal supporter of - that TV is no longer the bastard stepchild of features and is in fact an equal if not sometimes better medium for storytelling purposes, since you're allowing your characters to grow and gain depth over time as opposed to just 2 hours.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:
I'm all for supporting my people (and when I say people I don't mean the whities - seriously, where's Sandra Oh or Chandra Wilson and people of some ethnic origin?) but all in all, the Supporting Actress Category is pretty solid. Except for Sarah Paulson. I should support Sarah Paulson, and I do - hell, I like the actress's work, funny speech patterns and all, and watched her in Down With Love, Deadwood, AND that awful Friends/Sex and the City wannabe Leap of Faith (Yes. I watch a lot of TV.), but, to say I should applaud Paulson's work in Studio 60 (a show which I do like and watch) is like saying I should applaud the L Word simply just for existing. Here's a little note about forward momentum - existing doesn't cut it if you're doing work that's cringe-worthy. In fact, I'd argue that the awful factor far outweights the exposure factor, since you're now associating your exposure with awful work and now it leads us to the problem of, not only are the gays ruining marriage in American, we're also ruining TV with our sub-par quality of work. So, Sarah Paulson or Aaron Sorkin, find the funny to make her worthy of this nomination. After all, she is a good actress (anyone who can play both a duplicitous, double crossing, back stabbing, cocks***ing (RIP Al Swearengen) faux nanny on Deadwood and a believable screwball comic romantic foil for David Hyde Pierce in Down with Love earns acting kudos in my book.) - let's just give the girl something to actually make this nomination seem like she actually deserved it.
SIDE NOTE:
Biggest snub of all besides Friday Night Lights? Everyone from frakkin' Battlestar Galactica. So say we all on this matter.
Q
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