65th Primetime Emmy Awards

Breaking Bad

COMEDY SERIES
SERIES: Modern Family
ACTOR: Jim Parsons, The Big Bang Theory
ACTRESS: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Veep
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Tony Hale, Veep
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Merritt Weaver, Nurse Jackie
DIRECTING: Modern Family- Gail Mancuso
WRITING: 30 Rock- Tina Fey & Tracey Wigfield

DRAMA SERIES
SERIES: Breaking Bad
ACTOR: Jeff Daniels, The Newsroom
ACTRESS: Claire Danes, Homeland
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Bobby Cannavale, Boardwalk Empire
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Anna Gunn, Breaking Bad
DIRECTING: House of Cards- David Fincher
WRITING: Homeland- Henry Bromwell

MOVIE OR MINI-SERIES
MOVIE: Behind the Candelabra
ACTOR: Michael Douglas, Behind the Candelabra
ACTRESS: Laura Linney, The Big C: Hereafter
SUPPORTING ACTOR: James Cromwell, American Horror Story: Asylum
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Ellen Burstyn, Political Animals
DIRECTING: Behind the Candelabra- Steven Soderbergh
WRITING: The Hour- Abi Morgan

VARIETY SERIES
SERIES: The Colbert Report
DIRECTING: Saturday Night Live- Don Roy King
WRITING: The Colbert Report

TIFF Stats

The People's Choice Award win for 12 Years a Slave for the 2013 Toronto Film Festival raises its awards profile times ten.  Past winners of the award include The King's Speech and Slumdog Millionaire.  Here's a look back at the history of the award and how it correlates with the big dog:

2013: 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen)
2012: Silver Linings Playbook (David O. Russell)- nominated for 8 Academy Awards including Picture; won Best Actress (Jennifer Lawrence)
2011: Where Do We Go Now (Nadine Labaki)
2010: The King's Speech (Tom Hooper)- won 4 Academy Awards including Picture.
2009: Precious (Lee Daniels)- nominated for 6 Academy Awards; won 2 including Best Supporting Actress (Mo'Nique)
2008: Slumdog Millionaire (Danny Boyle)- won 8 Academy Awards including Picture
2007: Eastern Promises (David Croenberg)- nominated for Best Actor (Viggo Mortensen)
2006: Bella (Alejandro Monteverde)
2005: Tsotsi (Gavin Hood)- won Best Foreign Language Film Oscar
2004: Hotel Rwanda (Terry George)- nominated for 3 Academy Awards including Best Actor (Don Cheadle)
2003: The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi (Takeshi Kitano)
2002: Whale Rider (Nikki Caro)- nominated for Best Actress (Keisha Castle-Hughes)
2001: Amélie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet)- nominated for 5 Academy Awards including Original Screenplay and Foreign-Language Film
2000: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee)- nominated for 10 Academy Awards including Best Picture; won 4 Oscars including Foreign-Language Film
1999: American Beauty (Sam Mendes)- won 5 Academy Awards including Best Picture
1998: Life is Beautiful (Roberto Benigni)- nominated for 7 Academy Awards including Picture; won 3 Oscars including Actor (Benigni) and Foreign Film.
1997: The Hanging Garden (Thom Fitzgerald)
1996: Shine (Scott Hicks)- nominated for 7 Oscars including Picture; won Best Actor (Geoffrey Rush)
1995: Antonia's Line (Marleen Gorris)- won Best Foreign Language Film
1994: Priest (Antonia Bird)
1993: The Snapper (Stephen Frears)
1992: Strictly Ballroom (Baz Luhrmann)
1991: The Fisher King (Terry Gilliam)- nominated for 5 Oscars; won Supporting Actress (Mercedes Ruehl)

1990: Cyrano de Bergerac (Jean-Paul Rappeneau)- nominated for 5 Oscars including Foreign Film and Best Actor (Gerard Depardieu); won Costume Design
1989: Roger & Me (Michael Moore)
1988: Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Pedro Almódovar)- nominated for Best Foreign Film
1987: The Princess Bride (Rob Reiner)- nominated for Best Original Song
1986: The Decline of the American Empire (Denys Arcand)- nominated for Best Foreign Film
1985: The Official Story (Luis Puenzo)- nominated for 2 Oscars including Original Screenplay; won Best Foreign Film
1984: Places in the Heart (Robert Benton)- nominated for 7 Oscars including Best Picture; won 2 including Best Actress (Sally Field-- her famous "you like me" speech)
1983: The Big Chill (Lawrence Kasden)- nominated for 3 Oscars including Picture
1982: Tempest (Paul Mazursky)
1981: Chariots of Fire (Hugh Hudson)- nominated for 7 Oscars; won 4 including Picture
1980: Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession (Nicholas Roeg)
1979: Best Boy (Ira Wohl)
1978: Girlfriends (Claudia Weill)

Creative Arts Emmy Award Winners

ACTING
GUEST ACTOR (DRAMA): Dan Bucatinsky, Scandal
GUEST ACTRESS (DRAMA): Connie Preston, The Good Wife
GUEST ACTOR (COMEDY): Bob Newhart, The Big Bang Theory
GUEST ACTRESS (COMEDY): Melissa Leo, Louie
VOICE PERFORMANCE: Lily Tomlin, An Apology to Elephants

ANIMATED PROGRAM: South Park
VARIETY SPECIAL: Kennedy Center Honors
REALITY PROGRAM: Undercover Boss
SPECIAL CLASS PROGRAMMING: The Tony Awards

ART DIRECTION
SINGLE CAMERA SERIES: Boardwalk Empire
MINI-SERIES/MOVIE: Behind the Candelabra

CASTING
DRAMA SERIES: House of Cards
COMEDY SERIES: 30 Rock
MINI-SERIES/MOVIE: Behind the Candelabra

CINEMATOGRAPHY
MULTIPLE CAMERA SERIES: How I Met Your Mother
SINGLE CAMERA SERIES: House of Cards
MINI-SERIES OR MOVIE: Top of the Lake

COSTUME DESIGN
SERIES: The Borgias
MINI-SERIES OR MOVIE: Behind the Candelabra

EDITING
SINGLE CAMERA PICTURE EDITING (DRAMA): Breaking Bad
SINGLE CAMERA PICTURE EDITING (COMEDY): The Office
MULTIPLE CAMERA PICTURE EDITING (COMEDY): How I Met Your Mother
SINGLE CAMERA PICTURE EDITING (MOVIE): Behind the Candelabra
PICTURE EDITING FOR NONFICTION PROGRAMMING: Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God

HAIRSTYLING
MULTI-CAMERA SERIES OF SPECIAL: Saturday Night Live

SINGLE CAMERA SERIES: Boardwalk Empire
MINI-SERIES OR MOVIE: Behind the Candelabra

MAKE-UP
MULTIPLE CAMERA SERIES OR SPECIAL: Saturday Night Live
SINGLE CAMERA SERIES: Game of Thrones
MINI-SERIES OR MOVIE: Behind the Candelabra

SOUND EDITING
SERIES: Boardwalk Empire
MINI-SERIES OR MOVIE: American Horror Story: Asylum

Full list here.

Toronto Film Festival Winners

PEOPLE'S CHOICE AWARD
12 Years a Slave (US)- directed by Steve McQueen

runners-up:
Philomena (UK)- directed by Stephen Frears
Prisoners (US)- directed by Denis Villeneuve

PEOPLE'S CHOICE DOCUMENTARY AWARD
The Square (Egypt/US)- directed by Jehane Noujaim

runners-up:
Hi-Ho Mistahey! (Canada)- directed by Alanis Obomsawin
Between the Edge (Canada)- directed by Leanne Pooley

PEOPLE'S CHOICE MIDNIGHT MADNESS AWARD
Why Don't You Play in Hell? (Japan)- directed by Shion Sono

runners-up:
Oculus (US)- directed by Mike Flanagan
Witching & Bitching (Spain/France)- directd by Álex de la Iglesia

PRIZE OF THE INTERNATIONAL CRITICS
Ida (Poland)- directed by Pawel Pawlikowski

Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave, perhaps the only undisputed champion of the fall festivals on terms of salivating reviews, joins the ranks of previous Best Picture winners Chariots of Fire, American Beauty, Slumdog Millionaire and The King's Speech by winning the coveted People's Choice Award.  Other recent winners have included Precious and Silver Linings Playlist.

Wadjda

The significance of Wadjda was fully cemented long before it appeared in movie theaters.  The first movie to be filmed in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a nation where movie houses themselves are banned and the cinematic art form itself is considered corrupt, the achievement of Haifaa Al-Mansour's warm and gentle debut film would be considered a triumph even if the end result wasn't nearly half as strong as it is.  To boot, Al-Monsour is a woman, and Wadjda is a film about women set in a culture that vehemently suppresses the feminine experience .  The searing behind-the-scenes machinations are enough reasoning to rejoice-- not dissimilar to that of Jafar Panahi's vibrant Iranian protest documentary This Is Not a Film released stateside last year-- in short, that Wadjda exists at all is worthy of global celebration, and a firm embrace of the power, the magnitude and scope of the medium itself.  Wadjda is even the first movie in history that Saudi Arabia has entered into submission for the foreign language Academy Award, signaling the hopeful chorus of a nation, one without a single commercial theater of its own, hoping to open up and tell its enriching stories.

The backstory provides enough drama, so Wadjda employs a relatively simple narrative in setting to provide a small, but immersive experience set in Riyadh, the capital and largest city within Saudi Arabia's borders.  Wadjda (charmingly played by twelve-year-old Waad Mohammed in her film debut) is a precocious, slightly rebellious ten-year girl-- she wears inappropriate tennis shoes and likes Western-ized pop music and regularly faces discipline at school for not hiding her face.  She wants for nothing more than a bicycle of her own, a vehicle for a smidgen of independence in her isolated community, but more to pal around with the local boy she's taken with.  Unfortunately, bikes are play toys that are not afforded to young girls.  Al-Mansour tracks the cinematic trope of children and their bikes on similar roads well-traveled before by De Sica's The Bicycle Thief to the Dardenne Brothers' The Kid With the Bike.  Wadjda may be a slight and modestly scaled variant but holds a charm and deliberate pace all its own.  Wadjda's master scheme is to enlist in a Koran recitation competition that offers a cash prize.

European Film Awards Finalists

The 2013 European Film Awards have announced the 46 titles that are in contention for this years ceremony.   Announced by the European Film Academy, this list is a result of a national committee selection.  The European Film Academy is comprised of 2,900 voting members who will determine the nominations; of which will be announced on November 9th.  Recent winners include Amour, Melancholia and The Ghost Writer.  Here are the 2013 finalists:

Anna Karenina (UK)- directed by Joe Wright- Winner of the Costume Design Oscar (Jacqueline Durran)
Araf/Somewhere in Between (Turkey/France/Germany)- directed by Yesim Ustaoglu- Winner of Best Actress at the 2012 Tokyo Film Festival (Neslihan Atagul)
The Best Offer (Italy)- directed by Giuseppe Tornatore- Winner of Best Film at the 2013 Donatello Awards (Italian Oscars)
Betrayal (Russia)
Blancanieves (Spain)- directed by Pablo Berger- Winner of Best Film at the 2013 Goya Awards (Spanish Oscars)
Block 12 (Cypress/Greece)

Borgman (The Netherlands/Belgium/Denmark)- directed by Alex van Warmerdam
Boy Eating the Bird's Food (Greece)- directed by Ektoras Lygizos
The Broken Circle Breakdown (Belgium)- directed by Felix Van Groeningen
Burning Bush (Czech Republic)
Child's Pose (Romania)- directed by Calin Peter Netzer- Winner of FIPRESCI Prize at the 2013 Berlin Film Festival; Romania's submission for the 2014 Oscars
Circles (Serbia)- directed by Srdan Golubovic- Winner of a Special Jury Prize at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival
The Color of the Chameleon (Bulgaria)- directed by Emil Hristow

The Congress (Israel/Germany/Poland/Luxembourg/France/Belgium)- directed by Ari Folman
Crossing Boundaries (Austria)- directed by Florian Flicker
The Deep (Iceland/Norway)- directed by Baltasar Kormákur
Eat Sleep Die (Sweden)- directed by Gabriela Pichler- Winner of the Audience Award of Critic's Week at the 2012 Venice Film Festival
8-Ball (Finland)- directed by Aku Louhimies
An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker (Bosnia and Herzegovina/France/Slovenia)- directed by Danis Tanovic- Winner of the Jury Prize at the 2013 Berlin Film Festival
The Eternal Return of Antonis Paraskevas (Greece)
Fill the Void (Israel)- directed by Rama Burshtein- Winner of the Best Actress (Hadas Yaron) at the 2012 Venice Film Festival; Israel's Oscar submission for the 2013 Academy Awards
The Great Beauty (Italy)- directed by Paolo Sorrentino
Hannah Arendt (Germany/Luxembourg/France/Israel)- directed by Margarethe von Trotta
A Highjacking (Denmark)- directed by Tobias Lindholm
I Belong (Norway)- directed by Dag Johan Haugerud
Imagine (Poland/France/Portugal)- directed by Andrzej Jakimowski
The Impossible (Spain)- directed by J.A. Bayona- Naomi Watts received a Best Actress Oscar nomination

I'm So Excited (Spain)- directed by Pedro Almodóvar
In Bloom (Georgia/Germany/France)- directed by Nana Ekvtimishvili & Simon GroB
In the House (France)- directed by Francois Ozon
In the Name Of... (Poland)
Kon-Tiki (Norway)- directed by Joachim Ronning & Espen Sandberg- Nominated for Best Foreign Film at the 2013 Oscars
The Last Sentence (Sweden)- directed by Jan Troell
A Long & Happy Life (Russia)- directed by Boris Khlebnikov
My Dog Killer (Slovaka/Czech Republic)- directed by Mira Fornay
Oh Boy! (Germany)- directed by Jan Ole Gerster
Only God Forgives (Denmark/France)- directed by Nicolas Winding Refn

Paradise: Faith (Austria/Germany/France)- directed by Ulrich Seidl
The Patience Stone (France/Germany/Afghanistan)- directed by Atiq Rahimi
The Priest's Children (Croatia/Serbia)- directed by Vinko Bresan
Rosie (Switzerland)
The Selfish Giant (UK)- directed by Clio Bernard
A Strange Course of Events (Israel/France)- directed by Raphael Nadjari
Stranger by the Lake (France)- directed by Alain Guiraudie- Winner of the Queer Palm at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival
What Richard Did (Ireland)- directed by Lenny Abrahamson

Auspiciously absent from the list is the controversial Palme D'Or winner Blue is the Warmest Color.

Venice Film Festival Winners

GOLDEN LION 
Sacro Gra (Italy)- directed by Gianfranco Rosi

GRAND JURY PRIZE 
Stray Dogs (Taiwan)- directed by Ming-Liang Tsai

SILVER LION FOR DIRECTOR
Alexandros Avranas, Miss Violence (Greece)

BEST ACTOR
Themis Panou, Miss Violence (Greece)

BEST ACTRESS
Elena Cotta, Via Castellana Bandiera (Italy)

BEST SCREENPLAY
Philomena (UK)- Steve Coogan & Jeff Pope

MARCELO MASTROIANNI AWARD FOR BEST YOUNG ACTOR/ACTRESS
Tye Sherdian, Joe (US)

SPECIAL JURY PRIZE
The Police Officer's Wife (Italy)- directed by Philip Groning 

Things I Learned On My Summer Vacation

The summer movie season came and assaulted the senses and poof, it's gone.  The Labor Day weekend signals the end of that special parcel of time when Hollywood throws all its bombast in our faces, but the sign posts have been there for a few weeks now, evident by the dominance of Lee Daniels' The Butler solid box office play and three week straight strangle hold as the number one film of the nation.  It's not so much that the Forest Whitaker-Oprah Winfrey Civil Rights drama has posted the most significant numbers in the stratosphere (they certainly are impressive, especially given the subject matter) but more so because the dog days of August are when Hollywood typically gives up and regroups for fall.  It may be too early to tell how the cinematic offerings of the past few months will hold up and where there legacy lies, but first impressions are typically all that matters (especially in today's climate where a film lives or dies based on opening night grosses), but there's always takeaways, residual damages and lessons to be learned.  Here's Musings and Stuff's rundown of the good, bad and ugly of the 2013 Summer Movie Season.

First off, seventeen of Hollywood's offerings raked in over $100 million at the box office, which is a healthy sign that the theater-going habit isn't quite dead yet.  The top of the charts, unsurprisingly is Iron Man 3, which joined the worldwide billion dollar club and started summer 2013 with a bang, thanks to The Avengers afterglow.  The Marvel machine is healthy enough it hardly matters the film, strangely critically accepted, wasn't all that.  The real test, however, should be found in the grosses and the critical impact made by lesser Marvel standalone vehicles Thor and Captain America as each will have individual offerings in the next 365 days.  The remaining sixteen films tell a startlingly different story.

BFI London Film Festival Announces Slate

The London Film Festival is celebrating its 57th Anniversary this year.  The slate has been announced.

OPENING NIGHT GALA
Captain Phillips (US)- directed by Paul Greengrass

OFFICIAL SELECTION
Abuse of Weakness (France)- directed by Catherine Breillat
The Double (UK)- directed by Richard Ayoade
Ida (Poland)- directed by Pawel Pawlikowski
Like Father, Like Son (Japan)- directed by Hirokazu Koreeda
The Lunchbox (India)- directed by Ritesh Batra
Of Good Report (South Africa)- directed by Jahmil X.T. Qubeka
Parkland (US)- directed by Peter Landesman
Rags & Tatters (Canada)- directed by Ahmad Abdalla
The Selfish Giant (UK)- directed by Clio Barnard
Starred Up (UK)- directed by David Mackenzie
Tom at the Farm (Canada)- directed by Xavier Dolan
Tracks (UK)- directed by John Curran
Under the Skin (UK/USA)- directed by Jonathon Glazer

FIRST FEATURE COMPETITION (Contending for the Sutherland Award)
B for Boy (Nigeria)- directed by Chika Anadu
Hide Your Smiling Faces (US)- directed by Daniel Patrick Carbone
Ilo Ilo (Singapore)- directed by Anthony Chen
Kill Your Darlings (US)- directed by John Krokidas
The Long Way Home (Turkey)- directed by Alphan Eseli
Luton (Greece)- directed by Michalie Konstantatos
Salvo (Italy)- directed by Fabio Grassadonia & Antonio Piazza
Sarah Prefers to Run (Canada)- directed by Chloé Robihaud
Sixteen (UK)- directed by Rob Brown
Trap Street (Italy)- directed by Vivian Qu
Wounded- directed by Fernando Franco
Youth (Israel)- directed by Tom Shoval

The Lifeguard

"I'm not 30...I'm 29," Leigh (Kristen Bell) defensively chimes more than once in the listless and all-together dull quarter-life-crisis drama The Lifeguard.  As if a desperate cling to a youth-- one that's well beyond her-- acts for some kind of excuse for the selfish and overly entitled, bratty behavior she exhibits throughout writer/director Liz W. Garcia's wan,  irritating and smugly self-conscious debut film.   That may read as harsh, but this drippy, overly fussed and under-nourished melodrama feels akin to mediocre soap opera, a melodramatic hotbed that infuses nearly every cliché in the independent film rule book but has neither the wit nor invention to overcome its overly simplistic and familiar narrative.  The Lifeguard is a jarringly self-pitying film, one labeled as a comedy-drama, but lacking in humor or lightness of any sort and devoid of striking or original characters to maneuver through it's increasingly labored and dark twists and turns.  The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this past January.

Burned from her seemingly cushy Manhattan lifestyle, anguished by that strange and enigmatic only-in-the-cinema ennui that seems only to afflict pretty people in Sundance-approved movies (see also Garden State.)  The opening, obliquely scattered shots that tentatively present a fragmented young woman imply that Leigh is a lost child.  She works as a reporter for the Associated Press and clings to a man whom she will never actually have.  Her woes are externalized from the start as she relates to a story she's writing about a captive tiger chained against its will in an apartment who died from malnutrition and dehydration.  She's trapped you see, just like that tiger.

Who's On First?

The summer movie season is officially over and cinematic mindset quickly shifts over to a different kind of bloodbath.  The superheroes and their ilk will return next year, as they always do, and game turns, not so much to quality as we might be persuaded into thinking, but into eventual awards possibilities.  It's September, so really, nobody knows anything quite yet, but the fall festival season in full gear and the yesterday's concluding of the Telluride Film Festival raises hopes, piques interest and cements points to bludgeon our senses for the next few months.  Forget about the revolution being televised, it's being tweeted, as critics, journalists and bloggers headed to Colorado-- others are in Venice, which is ongoing and Toronto, which starts shortly.  All in hopes of being the first the tout this years "one." The king of the castle and the bragging rights that those entail.  Oy the hyperbole.

It's not for nothing-- Telluride, with its idyllic mountain-side surroundings, has played a hand in playing host to a plethora of recent Best Picture winners-- including, but not limited to last years king Argo.  But let's not forget that the narrative from Telluride to box office hit to Oscar winner was an especially bumpy one for Ben Affleck's baby last year, and not without its own bloodshed. 

This year, a bunch of titles appear to very much be in play, but Musings and Stuff is always leery when it comes to festival reviews.  Here are some of notables to be screened so far:

12 Year a Slave- The hyperbole went into hyper drive after a special Telluride sneak preview of Steve McQueen's latest-- the tale of Solomon Northup, a free black man whose sold into slavery in the height of the Civil War-- and the the buzz was deafening.  Scary so, for fans of McQueen's past work (Hunger, Shame) as the level of expectation morphed into overdrive for those unlucky to be glimpsing the film for the first time-- it even trended on Twitter, a crazy accomplishment for a violent art film about slavery.  Chiwetel Ejiofor, a radiant talent who needs better roles, was instantly signaled as an Oscar frontrunner.  Variety said, "This epic account of an unbreakable soul makes even Scarlett O'Hara's struggles seem petty by comparison." The film will next try to replicate it's wow factor in Toronto before heading to theaters this October.