This week, we look at two new streaming series and their critical reactions. First up, the fantastic Betty Gilpin (Glow) stars in Damon Lindelof and Tara Hernandez’s new Peacock series Mrs. Davis. The series features Gilpin as a nun tasked by an artificial intelligence entity named Mrs. Davis to find the Holy Grail. There’s a lot going on here, so we parse through what we understand, what we’re confused about, and whether or not Mrs. Davis works beyond the power of Gilpin’s fully committed performance. Then, speaking of fully committed, we talk about Academy Award-winner Rachel Weisz in Amazon’s Dead Ringers. Weisz plays twin gynecologists looking to build their own women’s health center / top-secret research center. Weisz is, of course, outstanding in the role, but how does the remainder of the series work for the Water Cooler Gang?
But first, a brief check-in on the Emmy campaign for HBO’s Succession.
As always, we close with the Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week.
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Slightly off-topic, I’m thinking of doing a series of blog posts about the parlor game around guessing academy membership:
How exactly does it work. This is who they invited in the 2013/2014 Oscar season.
I don’t believe they nominate automatically all people who were nominated the year before for the first time because wouldn’t David Strahairn have made the cut? Why would they wait so long on Strathairn?
If I were writing the press release, I’d try to put the last film they were in like they wisely did with Paul Dano and Clark Gregg.
What do you think of this list. I’m a fan of Rob Riggle but he and Josh Hutcherson appear a bit underqualified.
Cillian Murphy should have gotten in way earlier and I think they should do it based on if you had a good year, I don’t remember him doing anything in 2010. Beth Grant, glad she made it somewhere but maybe they waited a bit long? Julia Louis-Dreyfuss represents the interesting conundrum (more prevalent before peak tv) of a TV star making a movie or two but not being as embedded in that industry.
Barkhad Abdi – “Captain Phillips”
Clancy Brown – “The Hurricane,” “The Shawshank Redeption”
Paul Dano – “12 Years a Slave,” “Prisoners”
Michael Fassbender – “12 Years a Slave,” “Shame”
Ben Foster – “Lone Survivor,” “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints”
Beth Grant – “The Artist,” “No Country for Old Men”
Clark Gregg – “Much Ado about Nothing,” “Marvel’s The Avengers”
Sally Hawkins – “Blue Jasmine,” “Happy-Go-Lucky”
Josh Hutcherson – “The Hunger Games,” “The Kids Are All Right”
Julia Louis-Dreyfus – “Enough Said,” “Planes”
Kelly Macdonald – “Brave,” “No Country for Old Men”
Mads Mikkelsen – “The Hunt,” “Casino Royale”
Joel McKinnon Miller – “Super 8,” “The Truman Show”
Cillian Murphy – “The Dark Knight Rises,” “Inception”
Lupita Nyong’o – “Non-Stop,” “12 Years a Slave”
Rob Riggle – “21 Jump Street,” “The Hangover”
Chris Rock – “Grown Ups 2,” “Madagascar”
June Squibb – “Nebraska,” “About Schmidt”
Jason Statham – “Parker,” “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels”
David Strathairn – “Lincoln,” “Good Night, and Good Luck.
https://www.oscars.org/news/academy-invites-271-membership