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Monday, September 20, 2004
Emmys (This is a bit disjointed, because I've been awake since 3:30 a.m. and my brain is barely sputtering into second gear, but I'm trying my best to make sense.) First, something I thought of during the post-Emmy coverage on the Today Show this morning: Has anyone ever actually seen Steven Cojocaru in broad daylight? I started getting suspicious when Matt Lauer ended the best/worst dressed segment by telling him to get some sleep; hmmm. He does look uncommonly like some kind of nocturnal wraith, thin and pale with hair that hasn't been combed since his body died in 1666, deriving sustenance from gossip pipelines in the æther. (And I'm not just saying that because he has a Romanian name. There are plenty of vampire-looking people who aren't Romanian; Joan Rivers, Melissa Rivers, Lara Flynn Boyle, and did I mention Joan Rivers?) Biggest surprise of the evening: Sarah Jessica Parker wearing a dress that actually fit in the bodice. It's so refreshing to see a non-large-chested actress wear a non-large-chested dress (Gwyneth Paltrow, I'm looking at you). SJP's dress at last year's Emmys was not only too big on top, but was so heavily constructed it actually stood away from her chest like a bug shield on the hood of a pickup truck; my comment at the time, which I wrote down but never got around to typing, was "You could stick both hands down the front of it, but why would you want to?" (My favorite comment on this year's Emmy fashions is from J.: "If present trends continue, by the time she's 90 Sharon Stone will wear nothing but a thin coating of hot sauce." [Me: "Ewwww!"]) The competition for "best actor in a movie/miniseries" was really brutal; not that I saw any of the shows, since I don't get HBO or Showtime (do I look like a profligate millionaire?*), but the reviews I read of "Something the Lord Made" were unanimous in saying that Alan Rickman and Mos Def both turned in stellar performances, and I was hoping—fruitlessly, I knew—that one of them would win. (Or both! Joint acting award!) Tough luck for them to be nominated the same year that Al Pacino reminded everybody that he actually can act when he's got a good role to chew on, rather than the scenery. Also notable about the nominations: when was the last time the nominees in a leading-role award category included not one, but two persons of color?—three, if you count James Brolin's tan. (What's he going for, the George Hamilton Lifetime Achievement Award? Does he not wear high enough SPF to shield him from Barbra's blazing star power?) Most gratifying win: Multiple answers to this one. "Arrested Development," for getting enough recognition that it actually might stay on the air until more people start watching it; "The Sopranos," for finally beating the increasingly-annoying, irrelevant, and overrated "West Wing"; and "The Amazing Race," not only because it is the best reality show, but also because, if "The Apprentice" had won, Donald Trump would be that much more insufferable. (Not that "The Apprentice" not being the number-one show has prevented him from saying it was the number-one show; but it's harder to fudge an Emmy statue than a Nielson number.) It goes without saying that I'm totally psyched about the Daily Show winning the "Variety, Music, Comedy, or Anything Else We Can't Put In Another Category" category, and the writing award for said category, to boot. Dear Gods of Television: Please don't let Jon Stewart get scooped up by a network, put into a late-late-late-night time slot, told to stop being so politically-oriented and to get more mainstream guests, cancelled after half a season, and never seen again. *The most telling thing about the outrageousness of the price of HBO and Showtime is that the actors on "The Sopranos," "Curb Your Enthusiasm," "Six Feet Under," et al. keep saying they don't watch their own shows because the networks are too expensive—you'd think after eight gazillion Emmy and Golden Globe nominations and wins HBO would at least comp James Gandolfini and Edie Falco a month or two during the increasingly rare periods that "The Sopranos" is actually on the air. [ at 1:33 PM • by Abby • permalink • ] |
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