Clearly the Hollywood contingent of the television industry has no respect for the non-formulaic, innovative and just absolutely-superior-to-their-crap-in-every-single-way cutting edge production that was taking place in Baltimore for the past five years. The Emmy Award nominations were announced this morning and once again, The Wire, the best show on television, got shut out.
The final list of nominees was determined with the help of some sort of bullshit blue-ribbon panels that screened submitted episodes for the top vote-getters.
Nominees in the top categories were announced at the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences by Kristin Chenoweth, Neil Patrick Harris and TV academy chairman John Shaffner.
The Emmy ceremony will be held Sept. 21 and broadcast on ABC. Other Emmy honors, including those for technical achievement and guest actors and actresses in series, will be given at the creative arts ceremony on Sept. 13.
The same old list of tired, boring network shows I’ve never had any interest in watching list of nominees follows:
Outstanding Drama Series
Boston Legal
Damages
Dexter
House
Lost
Mad Men
Outstanding Comedy Series
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Entourage
The Office
30 Rock
Two and a Half Men
Outstanding Miniseries
The Andromeda Strain — A&E
Cranford (Masterpiece Theatre) — PBS
John Adams — HBO
Tin Man — Sci Fi Channel
Outstanding Made for Television Movie
Bernard and Doris — HBO
Extras: The Extra Special Series Finale — HBO
The Memory Keeper’s Daughter — Lifetime
A Raisin in the Sun — ABC
Recount — HBO
Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series
The Colbert Report — Comedy Central
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart — Comedy Central
Late Show With David Letterman — CBS
Real Time With Bill Maher — HBO
Saturday Night Live — NBC
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series
Tony Shalhoub, Monk
Steve Carell, The Office
Lee Pace, Pushing Daisies
Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock
Charlie Sheen, Two and a Half Men
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series
James Spader, Boston Legal
Bryan Cranston, Breaking Bad
Michael C. Hall, Dexter
Hugh Laurie, House
Gabriel Byrne, In Treatment
Jon Hamm, Mad Men
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie
Ralph Fiennes, Bernard and Doris
Ricky Gervais, Extras: The Extra Special Series Finale
Paul Giamatti, John Adams
Kevin Spacey, Recount
Tom Wilkinson, Recount
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, The New Adventures of Old Christine
Christina Applegate, Samantha Who?
Tina Fey, 30 Rock
America Ferrera, Ugly Betty
Mary-Louise Parker, Weeds
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series
Sally Field, Brothers & Sisters
Kyra Sedgwick, The Closer
Glenn Close, Damages
Mariska Hargitay, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Holly Hunter, Saving Grace
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie
Catherine Keener, An American Crime
Susan Sarandon, Bernard and Doris
Dame Judi Dench, Cranford
Laura Linney, John Adams
Phylicia Rashad, A Raisin in the Sun
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series
Jeremy Piven, Entourage
Kevin Dillon, Entourage
Neil Patrick Harris, How I Met Your Mother
Rainn Wilson, The Office
Jon Cryer, Two and a Half Men
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series
William Shatner, Boston Legal
Ted Danson, Damages
Zeljko Ivanek, Damages
Michael Emerson, Lost
John Slattery, Mad Men
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie
David Morse, John Adams
Stephen Dillane, John Adams
Tom Wilkinson, John Adams
Denis Leary, Recount
Bob Balaban, Recount
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series
Kristin Chenoweth, Pushing Daisies
Jean Smart, Samantha Who?
Amy Poehler, Saturday Night Live
Holland Taylor, Two and a Half Men
Vanessa Williams, Ugly Betty
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie
Eileen Atkins, Cranford
Ashley Jensen, Extras: The Extra Special Series Finale
Alfre Woodard, Pictures of Hollis Woods
Audra McDonald, A Raisin in the Sun
Laura Dern, Recount
Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series
Shelley Berman, Curb Your Enthusiasm
Rip Torn, 30 Rock
Will Arnett, 30 Rock
Steve Buscemi, 30 Rock
Tim Conway, 30 Rock
Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series
Stanley Tucci, ER
Glynn Turman, In Treatment
Robin Williams, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Robert Morse, Mad Men
Oliver Platt, Nip/Tuck
Charles Durning, Rescue Me
Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series
Polly Bergen, Desperate Housewives
Kathryn Joosten, Desperate Housewives
Sarah Silverman, Monk
Carrie Fisher, 30 Rock
Edie Falco, 30 Rock
Elaine Stritch, 30 Rock
Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series
Ellen Burstyn, Big Love
Diahann Carroll, Grey’s Anatomy
Cynthia Nixon, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Anjelica Huston, Medium
Sharon Gless, Nip/Tuck
Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program
Jon Stewart, 80th Annual Academy Awards
Stephen Colbert, The Colbert Report
David Letterman, Late Show With David Letterman
Don Rickles, Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project
Tina Fey, Saturday Night Live
Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program
Ryan Seacrest, American Idol
Tom Bergeron, Dancing With The Stars
Howie Mandel, Deal or No Deal
Heidi Klum, Project Runway
Jeff Probst, Survivor
The blogosphere and mainstream media were all abuzz today over the controversial cover on the latest issue of The New Yorker. Illustrator Barry Blitt has done a number of provocative covers for the magazine, but his latest shows Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama in the Oval Office, adorned in Muslim attire, a photo of Ossama Bin Laden on the wall and a burning American flag in the fire place, giving a “terrorist fist bump” to wife Michelle, herself decked out like a ’60s-era Black militant.
The picture has drawn stiff criticism from the Obama camp and even condemnation from Republican presidential hopeful John McCain, but the magazine is defending its decision, saying it is just another example of the type of satire Blitt is famous for.
The picture is satire, designed to draw attention to many of the ridiculous rumors that have swirled around Obama since he announced his candidacy. No one with any intelligence would take it seriously. But America is full of people lacking in basic intelligence or the ability to discern the truth from concocted lies and deliberate distortions. Many are just gullible enough to believe every single one of these and other rumors. And they vote.
The New Yorker article does go into great detail about the calculated rise of Barack Obama.
While that controversy brews, another flew in under the radar. This past weekend, syndicated television commentator John McLaughlin of The McLaughlin Group, asserted that Obama “fits the stereotype blacks once labeled as an Oreo — a black on the outside, a white on the inside.”
The watchdog group, Media Matters, wants McLaughlin to publicly apologize and has created a campaign to raise public awareness.
Finally, David Simon, executive producer of the critically acclaimed television series The Wire may be off on his next great adventure. Simon, who already produces the HBO miniseries Generation Kill, set during the Iraq War, has just gotten the greenlight from that network to produce a pilot about life in post-Katrina New Orleans. “Treme,” named after the New Orleans neighborhood where many musicians live, will film its first episode sometime later this year. The show promises to take a critical look at life in the city itself and if it gets picked up, production could start in 2009. Former “Wire” star and New Orleans native Wendell Pierce is one of the first names attached to the project.
Anyone who has had a blog for any length of time will identify with Emily Gould’s essay Exposed, in this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine. Gould is a blogger, former Gawker.com staffer and writer, who shares some of the pitfalls of a life lived publicly on the internet. While it is her story, it is far from unique.
We live in really interesting times. The internet has shortened the time it takes for news and information to circulate. I typically learn about things first via email or someone’s blog and sometimes hours later via mainstream media. We’ve got at our disposal email, listservs, websites, blogs, social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, viewer produced content sites like YouTube and even XTube, to communicate with others, form networks of friends and associates or create our online persona.
The downside, as Gould’s story illustrates, is that many of us put too much personal information online and everything we put online is permanent. People you don’t even know are now privy to your innermost thoughts or your home movies. Almost all of us can be Googled. A year ago, when I was actively job hunting, I checked my blog stat tracker and noticed a visitor from one of the places where I had applied. We just never know who’s out there reading
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My favorite television series, The Wire, may have concluded its five season run here in the U.S., but season five hasn’t aired yet across the pond in the U.K. (British visitors to this site are advised not to read my old posts on the subject or you’ll find out how it ends.)
English fans of the series are just now getting introduced to some of the actors. The Guardian newspaper has a print and audio interview with actors Felicia “Snoop” Pearson and Jamie Hector, the characters “Snoop Pearson” and “Marlo Stanfield.” It must be strange to still do interviews about characters they stopped playing months ago but also disheartening to know they may never see roles that juicey again.
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Last Wednesday I attended a staged reading for a new play still in development, by an exciting young playwright I first told you about months ago. Katori Hall, who wrote Hoodoo Love, is working on a project now titled, The Mountaintop. The story is set on April 3, 1968 at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee and involves a conversation between Dr. Martin Luther King and a motel housekeeper with special insight into the future.
Hall has an excellent gift for the English language and an engaging and insightful way with her storytelling. This particular story is unusually daring, for her use of real people in fictionalized events and her connection of King’s dream to present-day reality. The staged reading was done through the Lark Theatre Playwright’s Workshop. No word on when or if a full production will be staged.
After filming its first two seasons in Hollywood, the hit ABC television comedy Ugly Betty is picking up stakes and heading east to where its fictional story is set, New York City. LA’s loss is the Big Apple’s gain but it took some savvy legislation in Albany to make it all happen.
Ugly Betty stars Emmy and Golden Globe Award winner America Ferrera as Betty Suarez, the intelligent, hardworking, yet decidedly unglamorous publishing assistant at the cute-throat fashion industry bible, Mode magazine. She and her family reside in Queens while each day she navigates the corporate jungle in Manhattan. Except in reality, it was all done on the sound stage and backlot of a studio in Hollywood.
Series creator Silvio Horta and Ferrera secretly longed to have the show shot in New York and now, thanks to film and television production tax credits recently signed into law by New York Governor David A. Paterson, they’ll get their wish. The NYS Governor’s Office for Motion Picture and Television Development now offers credits covering up to 30% of the cost of production and an additional 5% is also available from the New York City Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre & Broadcasting.
That’s the kind of incentive designed to give a shot in the arm to the local film industry and keep producers from traveling to places like Toronto, Canada to try to inexpensively recreate New York locations. As everyone knows, you can’t really fake New York even if you can make the movie more cheaply.
Regular viewers of shows like Sex and the City and the Law & Order franchise, know how this city is as much a character in those series as the actors themselves. Shooting Ugly Betty here will enable them to take advantage of real fashion industry locations unavailable anywhere else, upping the glamour quotient considerably. The show will reportedly use either Silvercup Studios in Long Island City (in the real borough of Queens) or Steiner Studios in Brooklyn, as its home base starting June 30.
Update: There are two sides to every story. My cousin who works in television production in Hollywood, sent me the text of an ad appearing in the trades, from the west coast-based crew of Ugly Betty who will be losing their jobs as a result of the move.
To Whom it Should Concern
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Members of the State Senate and State Assembly, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the Los Angeles City Council, and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors:
We are writing to you because we just lost our jobs. We are the 300 plus members of the crew of the television show Ugly Betty. We were informed this Tuesday that the production of our show is moving to New York primarily because of the 35% tax incentives being offered by the state of New York. Instead of making good wages and paying our fair share of California state income tax, we will all be collecting Unemployment Benefits. In addition, we will certainly be cutting our spending back to the bone, which will not only cut back our sales tax contributions substantially, but it could end up costing the jobs of the people who provide services and products to us. Not only are these crew positions being lost; all of our local vendors are losing our business.
Our production buys: lumber, paint, wallpaper, cabinets, other building materials, office products, fabric, art supplies, computer equipment, food, beverages, flowers, film, makeup & hair products, wigs, insurance, jewelry, clothing, etc.
Our production rents: lighting equipment, sound equipment, video playback equipment, heavy machinery, office equipment, backdrops, costumes, furniture, scenery, props, soundstages, offices, parking facilities, cars, trucks, storage facilities, computers, camera equipment, grip equipment, editing equipment, drafting equipment, cell phones, computers, toilets, dumpsters, live plants, production trailers, tools, hardware, artwork, walkie talkies, etc.
Our production also uses the services of: dry cleaners, printers, location companies, Special Effects companies, utilities, caterers, payroll services, restaurants, security, Post Production Services, Clearance Houses, etc.
When we shoot on locations around Los Angeles we pay for permits; we pay homeowners & businesses for the use of their property, we hire police and fire department personnel, we pay for facility engineers, etc.
So, while the loss of our individual positions may be insignificant, the loss of this production is staggering. Now multiply this by all the other productions going to New York, New Mexico, Illinois, Louisiana, North Carolina and other states with incentives, not to mention Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Eastern Europe, etc. and the cost to the California state economy is monumental. We implore you to do everything in your power to level the playing field and bring our jobs back to California by enacting meaningful incentives to keep film and television production in our state.
Actor Tristan Wilds, who captivated television audiences as street tough yet compassionate Michael Lee on seasons four and five of the hit HBO series, The Wire, has landed the male lead in the CW’s “Beverly Hills, 90210″ spinoff.
The show centers on the Mills, a three-generation Beverly Hills family whose teen kids, daughter Annie (Shenae Grimes) and adopted son Dixon (Wilds) attend West Beverly Hills High.
Also joining the cast is Michael Steger (The Winner), who will play Navid, producer of the school’s closed-circuit newscast and a consummate student politician.
Since wrapping production on The Wire early this year, Wilds, a 19-year-old Staten Island, New York native, has appeared in two films yet to be released, Indelible and The Secret Life of Bees.
