Podcast

Barry Jenkins’s The Underground Railroad stormed onto the Emmy front this weekend. The Amazon Prime limited series boasts some of the best reviews of the year. Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Colson Whitehead, the series features dreamlike visuals, stellar performances, and some of the most harrowing scenes you’ll see this year. A massive Emmy haul seems assurred, but will that translate into actual wins? Megan, Joey, and Clarence are joined by Awards Daily TV’s Shadan Larki to dive into The Underground Railroad and orient it within the Emmy landscape.

We close our podcast, as always, with the Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week.

Thanks for listening and thank you, in advance, for subscribing and rating us on Apple Podcasts!

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Music from https://filmmusic.io

“Cheery Monday” by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)

License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

We are joined by Jordan Walker – better known as TV Talk with JWalk – to discuss the recent news about the 2022 Golden Globes. We also dive into three new comedy series: Rutherford Falls and Girls5eva on Peacock and Chad on TBS.

Also, apologies for the audio issues encountered during this podcast!

We close our podcast, as always, with the Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week.

Thanks for listening and thank you, in advance, for subscribing and rating us on Apple Podcasts!

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Music from https://filmmusic.io

“Cheery Monday” by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)

License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

The Water Cooler Gang updates the Awards Daily TV Emmy Tracker now that Oscar season is behind and we’re looking toward the future at the 2021 Emmys.

We close our podcast, as always, with the Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week.

Thanks for listening and thank you, in advance, for subscribing and rating us on Apple Podcasts!

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Music from https://filmmusic.io

“Cheery Monday” by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)

License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

The Water Cooler Gang reviews the 93rd Annual Academy Awards ceremony and looks at the outcome of the ceremony.

We close our podcast, as always, with the Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week.

Thanks for listening and thank you, in advance, for subscribing and rating us on Apple Podcasts!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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Music from https://filmmusic.io

“Cheery Monday” by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)

License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

The Water Cooler Gang reviews HBO’s latest limited series Mare of Easttown, starring Kate Winslet as a police detective trying to hold her life together.

What do we think about when Spring comes around? At the Water Cooler, we’re always looking out for another prestige limited series from HBO. This year, Mare of Easttown proves an incredibly accessible series, thanks to a stellar lead performance from Oscar and Emmy-winner Kate Winslet. Winslet stars as police detective Mare Sheehan. She finds herself personally and professionally on the ropes while investigating the murder of a young mother. Winslet leads a fantastic cast in a limited series that cares deeply about its characters and their environment. We talk through the series and spitball its 2021 Emmy chances. Does Mare have the chops to beat The Queen’s Gambit?

But first, next Sunday brings the 2021 Academy Awards (finally). You’ll see our predictions on Awards Daily later this week. Today, we give a preview of some of the scenarios we are thinking about before finalizing our predictions.

We close our podcast, as always, with the Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week.

Thanks for listening and thank you, in advance, for subscribing and rating us on Apple Podcasts!

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Music from https://filmmusic.io

“Cheery Monday” by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)

License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Director Craig Zobel loves thrillers, detective stories, and murder mysteries. By the end of episode five, you’ll encounter a scene so eerily reminiscent of the great 1991 Oscar-winner The Silence of the Lambs that you know you’re in great hands. Mare of Easttown emerges as that perfect marriage of director to material.

Starring Kate Winslet and written by Brad Ingelsby, Mare of Easttown also boasts Zobel’s skills at blending an intimate character study with the aspects of a compelling whodunnit. Winslet’s Mare investigates the mysterious murder of a young mother while navigating the minefield of small town relationships. She’s also fighting to keep her life from falling completely apart. Zobel, himself, considers Mare unlike any other character we’ve seen on television. I completely agree.

But Mare Sheehan isn’t just a detective investigating a murder. She’s a mother and a grandmother dealing with loss and trauma. It’s the human drama at the center of the story that engages Zobel as much as the thriller aspects of the series.

“I feel that what’s special about Mare of Easttown is that it’s also a drama. You can see it as a family drama,” Zobel explained, “and to see it as a more nuanced character study than you would normally have or wouldn’t always see in those sorts of stories.”

Here, Zobel talks to Awards Daily about finding those characters and ensuring they lived in an accurately represented Pennsylvania small town. He also talks about working with the great Kate Winslet, and what she brought to the project. And he reveals Mare of Easttown‘s visual connection to The Silence of the Lambs and what that adds to the thriller.

So, sit back, relax, and enjoy my conversation with Craig Zobel, the director of HBO’s Mare of Easttown which premieres Sunday night, April 18, on HBO.

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Creator/writer Brad Ingelsby talks with Awards Daily about drawing on personal experiences for HBO’s newest limited series Mare of Easttown.

Brad Ingelsby grew up in a small Pennsylvania town. In some ways, that sense of a small town atmosphere never really left him. It peppers the atmosphere of his most famous screenplays Out of the Furnace and The Way Back. This connection to small town Pennsylvania imbues HBO’s newest limited series Mare of Easttown, premiering Sunday night on HBO, with its thrilling sense of realness and conviction.

Starring Kate Winslet and directed by Craig Zobel, Mare of Easttown is both an intimate character study and a compelling whodunnit. Winslet’s Mare investigates the mysterious murder of a young mother while navigating the minefield of small town relationships. She’s also fighting to keep her life from falling completely apart. It’s another masterful HBO limited series, one that puts characters and emotion front and center.

And that’s exactly what Ingelsby intended.

“You spend time with a character in your head, and then you start to just experience them and live with them and they tell you things,” Ingelsby explained. “How do I tell a story that has her at the center? What can I conjure around her because I like this character so much? That’s really where it started — just a love of this character.”

Here, in his interview with Awards Daily, Ingelsby talks more about creating the world of Mare by starting with its characters. He talks about the themes he wanted to explore. He discusses giving rural characters a moment in the spotlight without focusing on their political beliefs. Additionally, he talks about working with Winslet to flesh out the character of Mare Sheehan. Finally, he shares his experience creating a screenplay whose very structure mirrors Mare’s unraveling world.

So, sit back, relax, and enjoy Awards Daily’s conversation with Brad Ingelsby, the creator and writer of HBO’s Mare of Easttown which premieres Sunday night, April 18, on HBO.

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Music from https://filmmusic.io

“Cheery Monday” by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)

License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

We look at Amazon’s Them, a new horror anthology series that examines the horror stemming from 1950s racism. But when does horror go too far?

This week, we’re back at the Water Cooler with a spoiler-filled look at Amazon’s Them: Covenant on the docket. Created by Little Marvin and executive produced by Lena Waithe, Them‘s first season of a planned anthology series stars Deborah Ayorinde and Ashley Thomas as a Black couple who move their family from rural North Carolina to an all-white neighborhood. It’s the 1950s. It’s an all-white Compton. Also, it’s deeply, deeply, deeply disturbing and very scary. But does this series go too far with its depiction of ultra racism and graphic horror? And by graphic horror, how many viewers make it beyond episode five? We cover a lot of ground with this one, so kick back and join in the conversation on the post. Oh, and spoilers abound!

We close our podcast, as always, with the Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week.

Thanks for listening and thank you, in advance, for subscribing and rating us on Apple Podcasts!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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Music from https://filmmusic.io

“Cheery Monday” by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)

License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Awards Daily’s Mark Johnson sits down with Oscar-nominated director Pippa Ehrlich from My Octopus Teacher.

It is hard to imagine accomplishing more with a feature film debut than Pippa Ehrlich did this year. Her exceptional natural history documentary, My Octopus Teacher, is one of the most widely loved films of the year, hailed by both critics and casual moviegoers alike. The movie, which Ehrlich co-directs with James Reed, is nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the Academy Awards.

The film has received citations from BAFTA, American Cinema Editors (ACE), Cinema Audio Society (CAS), Motion Picture Sound Editors (MPSE), Directors Guild of America (DGA), and the Critics’ Choice Awards (CCA). It was the winner of this year’s Producers Guild of America (PGA) prize for Best Documentary and received the top honor from the International Documentary Association (IDA).

Pippa’s talents extend beyond the skills she has behind the camera. Along with co-directing the film, the talented South African filmmaker also co-wrote, co-edited, and was part of the camera and electrical department team for My Octopus Teacher. To say the film was a labor of love is to state the obvious, and her passion and work as a conservationist in the field of marine biology is admirable. For as much as she cares about oceanic life and preservation, it no surprise that Craig Foster sought her out to make this charming story about our curiosity and friendship with the natural world.

You can read Sasha’s thoughts on the film here. My Octopus Teacher is streaming now on Netflix.

Thanks for listening and be sure to subscribe to and rate us on Apple Podcasts!

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Music from https://filmmusic.io

“Cheery Monday” by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)

License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

This week, we’re plugging into HBO Max’s newest dark comedy Made for Love, starring Cristin Milioti and Billy Magnussen. Plus, we discuss SAG winners!

Do you ever want to know what your partner is thinking? What about if they love you? Or if they even like you? Then take a look at HBO Max’s Made for Love. Starring Cristin Milioti and Billy Magnussen, Made for Love follows Magnussen as the head of a Google-like company. He creates and secretly implants a chip in his wife (Milioti) that allows him to read her emotions down to the orgasmic level. So, is this high-concept dark comedy worth the time? Or is it too problematic for pure entertainment value? Joey, Megan, and Clarence’s opinions run the gamut, so tune in for our conversation!

Plus, we quickly weigh in on this weekend’s SAG award winners!

We close our podcast, as always, with the Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week.

Thanks for listening and thank you, in advance, for subscribing and rating us on Apple Podcasts!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Music from https://filmmusic.io

“Cheery Monday” by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)

License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)