97th oscars

We’re a week away from Labor Day weekend and we have one movie slotted in as a best picture Oscar nominee.

That leaves nine spots and whole lot of sharp elbows as we begin the fall film festival circuit next week in Venice and Telluride.

I’m Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times and host of The Envelope newsletter. Worst freeway in Southern California? There is only one correct answer, but it’s not the one in our rankings. And that answer is just another reason why, like Sal Saperstein, we dread going anywhere near LAX.

Fall festivals preview

In case you were wondering — but I think you already know — the movie already assured a best picture nomination is Ryan Coogler’s exuberant horror hit, “Sinners,” a film as entertaining and provocative as anything I’ve seen in a theater in the last couple of years. It was my favorite summer movie, even if it did come out in April. Watching it in Imax 70mm felt like an event, the kind of blockbuster moviegoing experience I’ll remember years from now.

The Venice Film Festival starts Wednesday. On Thursday, I’ll be flying to Telluride. The 50th Toronto International Film Festival begins the following week. Dozens of movies will be premiering at these festivals. Standing ovations will be meticulously — and ridiculously — timed. And when the smoke clears, we’ll have the makings of a slate of contenders that we’ll be covering and debating for the next six months.

Here are some of the world premieres at each festival that I’ll be watching most closely, movies that could be made — or broken — by the next time you hear from me.

Venice

Haute couture. Water taxis. Endless Aperol spritzes.

“Frankenstein”: For Guillermo del Toro, Pinocchio and Frankenstein have always been two sides of the same coin, creations made by an uncaring father, released into the world without much care. Del Toro tackled Pinocchio with his last film, which won the Oscar for animated feature. And now he’s adapting the Mary Shellley classic, promising to include parts of the tragic story never before seen on screen. If anyone can make us shout “it’s alive” again, it’s Del Toro.

“A House of Dynamite”: A new political thriller from Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow is an event, particularly because it’s her first film since “Detroit” eight years ago. “Dynamite” deals with U.S. leaders scrambling for a response after a missile attack. I’m hoping to embark on a two-hour ride firmly fixed in the fetal position.

“Jay Kelly”: Famous actor (George Clooney) and his devoted manager (Adam Sandler) travel through Europe, pondering regrets (they’ve had a few) and the times they’ve loved, laughed and cried. Noah Baumbach directs from a script he co-wrote with Emily Mortimer. His last movie, 2019’s “Marriage Story,” earned six Oscar nominations, with Laura Dern winning supporting actress. Time for the Sandman to finally get an invitation to the party?

“No Other Choice”: Park Chan-wook adapts the provocative Donald Westlake thriller “The Ax,” which Costa-Gavras adapted in 2005 — but Park apparently wasn’t aware of that movie when he decided to make his own film. Park has been working on it for years, calling it his “lifetime project,” the movie he wanted to stand as his “masterpiece.” He has made some great films — “The Handmaiden” and “Decision to Leave” among them — so it’s hard not be intrigued.

“The Smashing Machine”: I have seen the trailer for this Benny Safdie drama about MMA fighter Mark Kerr so many times that I feel like I have already seen the movie. The blend of Safdie grittiness and Dwayne Johnson star power is sure to generate buzz, but there are whispers that the film simply isn’t all that good. From that trailer, I’m inclined to believe them … but hope to be proved wrong.

Telluride

High altitude, fleece pullovers, repeated discussions about hydration. Lineup not officially announced until Thursday. These are just “rumors.”

“Ballad of a Small Player”: Edward Berger premiered “Conclave” at Telluride last year and it worked out fine, going on to earn eight Oscar nominations and emerging as a viable, sillier alternative for those looking to vote for something other than “Anora.” Berger’s latest is about a high-stakes gambler (Colin Farrell) holed up in China, desperate for a way out of his debts and past sins. As awards voters loved “Conclave” and Berger’s misbegotten “All Quiet on the Western Front,” attention must be paid.

“Hamnet”: Paul Mescal is everywhere. And now he’s playing William Shakespeare in a drama about the Bard and his wife rediscovering each other after the death of their 11-year-old son, Hamnet. Why not? Especially when the film is directed by Chloé Zhao (“Nomadland”) and has the brilliant Jessie Buckley on board as Shakespeare’s better half.

“Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere”: Bruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuce! Jeremy Allen White plays Springsteen as he goes lo-fi making his acclaimed album “Nebraska.” History tells us that actors starring in music biopics are rewarded handsomely, and, given what we’ve seen of White on “The Bear,” he seems a perfect choice to play a brooding Bruce.

Toronto

Weather that veers between spring, summer and fall in the course of a week. Poutine. Splashy premieres of movies that have already played at other festivals.

“Christy”: Sydney Sweeney has been in the news lately. Maybe you’ve heard? But she’s about to make a serious awards-season play in this sports biopic about boundary-shattering boxer Christy Martin, a young gay woman fighting to establish an identity that runs counter to her conservative upbringing. Will the work be good enough to rise above the noise around the actor?

“The Lost Bus”: Paul Greengrass, like Bigelow, has been absent from the conversation for a bit. His last movie, the fine western “News of the World,” was swallowed by the pandemic. Now he’s back with a survival drama, one with California roots, as a father (Matthew McConaughey) and a teacher (America Ferrera) try to bring a bus full of school children to safety during the deadly 2018 Camp fire.

What’s the one thing from your childhood that your mom threw away that haunts you to this day?

Ben Stiller has one, a souvenir from what today would be called a riot but back in the 1970s registered as perfectly normal behavior.

I’m Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times, host of The Envelope newsletter and the guy still holding out hope that those baseball cards are going to turn up in a box someday.

In this week’s newsletter, let’s look at what our Envelope cover star Ben Stiller misses.

Cover story: Ben Stiller has no time to waste

(Shayan Asgharnia / For The Times)

For this week’s cover story, Stiller and I talked a lot about his love for the New York Knicks, a passion kindled early and one that became an “addiction” this year as the team tried to win its first NBA championship since 1973. His dad, Jerry Stiller, took him to lot of games as a kid. Two of Jerry’s friends, Stanley Asofsky and Carnegie Deli co-owner Fred Klein, had season tickets, and they knew all the players and refs and would introduce them to Ben.

Jerry also took his son to baseball games, both the Yankees and the Mets. The Yankees were Ben’s favorite — though his commitment to them was nowhere near his love for the Knicks — and when they won the American League championship series in 1978, Stiller ran out onto the field with his friend Jonathan Harris, as one did in New York. (Or, really, anywhere else … but especially New York.) He even scooped up a chunk of the right-field turf and took it home with him on the D train.

“I had it in my room for two years,” Stiller says.

“And then,” I guessed, “your mom threw it away.”

“My mom threw it away,” Stiller affirms. To be fair to Anne Meara, the sod was old and crumbling and probably had bugs in it. And yet …

“It was a prized possession,” Stiller says. “I had it on a piece of tinfoil on a shelf. Maybe if I had been really lucky and had picked up a base, my mom wouldn’t have made me get rid of that.”

Stiller told me he wouldn’t be directing any episodes of “Severance’s” upcoming third season to free him up to make a feature film, a World War II survival story about a downed airman in occupied France who becomes involved with the French Resistance. Stiller has spent most of this year helping prep the third season and wants to be clear that the show is “a real priority.” But after a long break, he’s ready to return to feature filmmaking.

“Severance” star Adam Scott understands, though he finds it hard to imagine the set without Stiller. Scott remembers exactly what he told Stiller when they were shooting the jaw-dropping, mood-shifting Season 2 finale.

“I was just like, ‘Dude, this is our ‘Temple of Doom,’” Scott told me, referencing the second “Indiana Jones” movie. “And I was in absolute paradise the entire time, not just because ‘Temple of Doom’ is my favorite movie, but because we were getting to do it all. There’s the marching band. There’s a fight scene. There’s the running in the hall. We had the big scene where Mark talks to Outie.”

“And when we finished it, we were all so tired,” Scott continues. “But I could see how happy Ben was. It was such a showcase for him.”

And now, he’ll be returning to making movies — the one thing as a kid he always wanted to do.

Well, that and snag third base at Yankee Stadium.

Read more coverage of ‘Severance’

Which critics group will be the first to give Amy Madigan a prize for “Weapons”?

Might she be the standout of the summer, the one most deserving an award, other than the person who updated this billboard near LAX?

I’m Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times and host of The Envelope newsletter. A forecast for a cosmic future in these parts? Hope, indeed, comes in many forms.

Madigan’s diabolical turn deserves a champion

Julia Garner and Josh Brolin in “Weapons.”

(Quantrell Colbert / Warner Bros. Pictures)

I’m going to tread lightly when it comes to spoilers for Zach Cregger’s horror movie “Weapons,” currently the No. 1 movie at the box office.

But I’m also of the mind that you should see “Weapons” knowing as little as possible about it. So anything I write could be considered a spoiler, though I should also note that I’m someone who never watches movie trailers and will go so far as to close my eyes and cover my ears in a theater to avoid them. Sometimes I think the only reason I’m still writing about movies is that the job allows me to see films in advance and not have them ruined. I love flying blind.

You probably know that “Weapons” follows what happens in an American town after 17 children disappear one night, all of them simultaneously running out the front doors of their homes, arms outstretched, at precisely 2:17 a.m. Cregger unravels the mystery from multiple, often overlapping points of view, calling to mind Paul Thomas Anderson’s audacious epic “Magnolia,” right down to the presence of a clumsy, mustachioed cop.

Well into the movie, we meet Madigan’s Aunt Gladys in a principal’s office at the school that the missing kids attended. All of the children were in the same class. Gladys says she is the aunt of the one child from the class who didn’t run off into night. There’s some understandable curiosity and concern over this boy, Alex (Cary Christopher, another standout in a very good year for child actors), and Gladys is here to reassure everyone that Alex — and his parents — are doing just fine.

Gladys is perhaps not the most reliable messenger. She is wearing a bright-red wig and multiple layers of makeup, a presentation that suggests she has spent a lifetime watching Bette Davis in “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” Something is off, and, hoo boy, are we about to find out what that something is.

Madigan is excellent, disarming and adept at concealing, to a point, the hidden core of good ol’ Aunt Gladys. Again, I’m treading lightly. If you’ve seen it, as I’m sure many of you have, you know just how delightfully insane her work in the movie is.

Critics groups love to reward the delightfully insane. They also love to champion genres, like horror, that tend to be marginalized at the Oscars.

So I’d expect some group — perhaps New York, maybe L.A. — could be eager to plant a flag for Madigan as a much-deserved, out-of-the-box supporting actress choice. She’s 74, has enjoyed a fine career on stage and screen and, along with her husband, Ed Harris, made a principled stand (or sit) at the 1999 Academy Awards, refusing to applaud when Elia Kazan took the stage to receive an honorary Oscar.

It’s easy to get swept up in the success of “Weapons” and the countless stories sifting through its ending and themes. Once the film leaves theaters and the fall festival awards contenders start dropping, Madigan will need a champion or two to put her back into the conversation.

History might be on her side, though: Davis earned a lead actress Oscar nomination for “Baby Jane.” And Ruth Gordon won the supporting actress Oscar for “Rosemary’s Baby” for the same kind of deliciously diabolical turn that Madigan gives in “Weapons.”

Plus, you know Aunt Gladys was taking notes on Gordon’s cosmetic routine in “Rosemary’s Baby.”

I’ll be back in your inbox Monday. Thanks, as always, for reading.

Read more of our summer movies coverage

Feels like a good weekend to stay in, stay cool, maybe put some peaches in a deep freeze and catch up with some favorite shows, old and new. (I’m still watching “Miami Vice,” even though my white linen suit is at the cleaners.)

I’m Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times and host of The Envelope newsletter. Got any home improvement projects on tap? Seems like a good time to tackle one while we take a look at the shows that might win Emmys next month for writing and directing.

Writing and directing power rankings

The writing and directing categories at this year’s Emmys could give us a couple of A-list acceptance speeches — Ben Stiller and Seth Rogen — as well as providing the usual hints about what shows will wind up prevailing in the series categories.

Let’s sketch out how the races are shaping up with our official set of power rankings, ordered from worst to first for drama, comedy and limited series. Try to see if you can read it all in a single take in honor of all the “oners” nominated.

Drama series directing

Adam Scott and Britt Lower in “Severance.”

(Apple TV+)

7. “The White Lotus.” “Amor Fati,” Mike White
Season 3 aftertaste remains as bitter as one of Timothy’s poison piña coladas.

6. “Slow Horses.” “Hello Goodbye,” Adam Randall
Another exemplary season. There’s a reason Randall recently became the first director to be hired for another go-round.

5. “Andor.” “Who Are You?,” Janus Metz
Should be required viewing for American citizens right now.

4. “The Pitt.” “7 a.m.,” John Wells
How it all began …

3. “The Pitt.” “6 p.m.,” Amanda Marsalis
And how it ended.

2. “Severance.” “Chikhai Bardo,” Jessica Lee Gagné
We finally got our Gemma episode and it was breathtaking in the ways it used visual language to convey the most heartbreaking love story this side of “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.”

1. “Severance.” “Cold Harbor,” Ben Stiller
Innie Mark vs. Outie Mark. Frantic chases down the hallways. An impossible choice. And a marching band.

Comedy series directing

Sarah Polley, left, Catherine O’Hara and Seth Rogen in “The Studio.”

(Apple TV+)

5. “Mid-Century Modern.” “Here’s to You, Mrs. Schneiderman,” James Burrows
For those keeping score, that’s Emmy nomination No. 28 as a director for Burrows. (He has won five times.)

4. “The Bear.” “Napkins,” Ayo Edebiri
Tina’s origin story, and the episode that probably won Liza Colón-Zayas her Emmy last year. Also likely to be remembered for being Edebiri’s directorial debut and, taken with her co-writing this season’s standout “Worms,” an auspicious sign of good things to come.

3. “The Rehearsal.” “Pilot’s Code,” Nathan Fielder
In which Fielder lives the life of Sully Sullenberger, from baby to adult, complete with a puppet mom and an unforgettable lactation scene.

2. “Hacks.” “A Slippery Slope,” Lucia Aniello
Blueprint for Colbert’s last episode?

1. “The Studio.” “The Oner,” Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg
Not my favorite “Studio” episode (that would be “The Pediatric Oncologist”) but an obvious choice to take this category.

Limited / TV movie directing

Owen Cooper, left, and Stephen Graham in “Adolescence.”

(Netflix )

6. “Sirens.” “Exile,” Nicole Kassell
It was not a good year for limited series.

5. “Zero Day,” Lesli Linka Glatter
Seriously.

4. “Dying for Sex.” “It’s Not That Serious,” Shannon Murphy
La petite mort onward to the last roundup. Que Dieu te garde, Molly.

3. “The Penguin.” “A Great or Little Thing,” Jennifer Getzinger
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any darker, the show’s finale went there.

2. “The Penguin,” “Cent’Anni,” Helen Shaver
The series’ best episode and why Cristin Milioti will probably win the Emmy.

1. “Adolescence,” Philip Barantini
Every episode was a oner.

Drama series writing

Tramell Tillman in “Severance.”

(Apple TV+)

6. “Slow Horses.” “Hello Goodbye,” Will Smith
To my great and everlasting surprise, “Slow Horses” won this Emmy last year, meaning that however long it lasts — and there will be at least two more seasons — it will have triumphed at least once.

5. “The White Lotus.” “Full–Moon Party,” Mike White
I’m a little like Saxon after his hookup with his brother in this episode, wanting to pretend it — and the whole season — never happened.

4. “The Pitt.” “7 a.m.,” R. Scott Gemmill
This is such a wonderfully written episode, introducing us to a couple of dozen characters, establishing them and the setting and doing so in a tight 53 minutes.

3. “Andor.” “Welcome to the Rebellion,” Dan Gilroy
There’s so much respect for what the Gilroy brothers did with “Andor” that you could see voters having a strong impulse to reward it.

2. “The Pitt.” “2 p.m.,” Joe Sachs
You remember how this episode ends? The honor walk for Nick? I am getting tears in my eyes typing this sentence. And that was just one element in an episode that left me so gutted that I had to sequester myself after it ended before I could even choke out a word or two with my wife.

1. “Severance.” “Cold Harbor,” Dan Erickson
Trippy, emotionally fraught season finale that’ll probably win since loyalists of “The Pitt” have two choices in this category.

Comedy series writing

Jean Smart in “Hacks.”

(Jake Giles Netter / HBO Max)

6. “What We Do in the Shadows.” “The Finale,” Sam Johnson, Sarah Naftalis and Paul Simms
They shut the casket one final time, satisfying nearly everyone who loved the show for six seasons.

5. “Somebody Somewhere.” “AGG,” Hannah Bos, Paul Thureen and Bridget Everett
Another series finale, a near-perfect summation of the show’s lovely blend of joy and melancholy.

4. “Abbott Elementary.” “Back to School,” Quinta Brunson
Solid season opener of a series that has crossed over into “taken-for-granted” status.

3. “The Rehearsal.” “Pilot’s Code,” Nathan Fielder, Carrie Kemper, Adam Locke-Norton and Eric Notarnicola
“It was difficult at first to inhabit the mind of a baby. I know so much more than babies do, and it can be hard to forget all that stuff. So I tried not to think about the fact that I was a 41-year-old man and just did my best to be present in the moment.”

2. “The Studio.” “The Promotion,” Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Peter Huyck, Alex Gregory and Frida Perez
The episode that started it all and made me more interested to see a “Kool-Aid” movie than practically anything that an actual studio released this summer.

1. “Hacks.” “A Slippery Slope,” Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs and Jen Statsky
“Hacks” has won this Emmy twice in its first three seasons, and the dramatic episode — Deborah loves Ava more than her dream job! — seems a spot to prevent a “Studio” sweep.

Limited / TV movie writing

Christine Tremarco and Stephen Graham in “Adolescence.”

(Netflix )

5. “Say Nothing.” “The People in the Dirt,” Joshua Zetumer
Car bombs, hunger strikes, political assassinations.

4. “Black Mirror.” “Common People,” Charlie Brooker and Bisha K. Ali
Technology really is going to destroy us, isn’t it?

3. “Dying for Sex.” “Good Value Diet Soda,” Kim Rosenstock and Elizabeth Meriwether
Of course, we’re all gonna die anyway. Might as well indulge.

2. “The Penguin.” “A Great or Little Thing,” Lauren LeFranc
After all, evil and depravity win out in the end.

1. “Adolescence,” Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham
So hug your children tonight.

Emmy nominations voting ends tonight at 10 p.m. PT. Still need help with your ballot?

I’m Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times and host of The Envelope newsletter. Still time to bite into a “Jaws” doughnut and peruse my picks for this year’s Emmy races. (An ordinary bagel will do.)

My personal picks in 15 Emmy categories

There are more than 100 Emmy categories, and if you scrolled through each and every one of them on the Television Academy’s website, you are probably one of those people who read the terms and conditions on a document before signing your name.

For me, simply filling out the following 15 categories — five each for comedy, drama and limited series — left me exhausted and in need of a sweet treat. And I already finished my “Jaws” doughnut. Maybe this cherries jubilee? Paul Giamatti would approve.

Without further ado, here are my picks and a brief line of reasoning for each. And if it’s predictions you’re after, you can find our full BuzzMeter panel’s choices here.

Bridget Everett in “Somebody Somewhere.”

(Sandy Morris / HBO)

COMEDY SERIES
“Abbott Elementary”
“The Bear”
“Hacks”
“A Man on the Inside”
“Only Murders in the Building”
“The Rehearsal”
“Somebody Somewhere”
“The Studio”

Yes, “The Rehearsal” is a comedy.

COMEDY ACTRESS
Quinta Brunson, “Abbott Elementary”
Ayo Edebiri, “The Bear”
Bridget Everett, “Somebody Somewhere”
Natasha Lyonne, “Poker Face”
Jean Smart, “Hacks”

Last call on nominating Everett (and her magical series), which has won a Peabody.

COMEDY ACTOR
Ted Danson, “A Man on the Inside”
Steve Martin, “Only Murders in the Building”
Seth Rogen, “The Studio”
Martin Short, “Only Murders in the Building”
Jeremy Allen White, “The Bear”

Best Netflix comedy: “A Man on the Inside,” anchored by Danson, still a master of light laughs.

COMEDY SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Liza Colón-Zayas, “The Bear”
Hannah Einbinder, “Hacks”
Kathryn Hahn, “The Studio”
Linda Lavin, “Mid-Century Modern”
Jane Lynch, “Only Murders in the Building”
Catherine O’Hara, “The Studio”
Sheryl Lee Ralph, “Abbott Elementary”

Colón-Zayas won last year, probably for the episode that she submitted this year. It’s weird when shows drop their new seasons in June.

COMEDY SUPPORTING ACTOR
Ike Barinholtz, “The Studio”
Colman Domingo, “The Four Seasons”
Paul Downs, “Hacks”
Harrison Ford, “Shrinking”
Ebon Moss-Bachrach, “The Bear”
Tyler James Williams, “Abbott Elementary”
Bowen Yang, “Saturday Night Live”

Thank you, Sal Saperstein!

Tramell Tillman in “Severance.”

(Apple TV+)

DRAMA SERIES
“Andor”
“The Last of Us”
“Paradise”
“The Pitt”
“Severance”
“Slow Horses”
“The White Lotus”
“Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light”

Voting for “Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light” checks a couple of boxes.

DRAMA ACTRESS
Kathy Bates, “Matlock”
Britt Lower, “Severance”
Elisabeth Moss, “The Handmaid’s Tale”
Kaitlin Olson, “High Potential”
Bella Ramsey, “The Last of Us”

Moss won this Emmy eight years ago. With the show ending, she has earned a parting gift.

DRAMA ACTOR
Sterling K. Brown, “Paradise”
Gary Oldman, “Slow Horses”
Pedro Pascal, “The Last of Us”
Adam Scott, “Severance”
Noah Wyle, “The Pitt”

“Why don’t you say whatever speech you’ve got rehearsed and get this over with.” Godspeed, old friend. Also: Joel’s parting words should flash onscreen any time an Emmy winner goes long at the podium.

DRAMA SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Carrie Coon, “The White Lotus”
Taylor Dearden, “The Pitt”
Fiona Dourif, “The Pitt”
Tracy Ifeachor, “The Pitt”
Katherine LaNasa, “The Pitt”
Julianne Nicholson, “Paradise”
Parker Posey, “The White Lotus”

Women of “The Pitt” > Women of “The White Lotus”

DRAMA SUPPORTING ACTOR
Patrick Ball, “The Pitt”
Gerran Howell, “The Pitt”
Jason Isaacs, “The White Lotus”
Damian Lewis, “Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light”
Jack Lowden, “Slow Horses”
Tramell Tillman, “Severance”
John Turturro, “Severance”

I don’t know. Tillman might deserve the Emmy for this alone.

Christine Tremarco and Stephen Graham in “Adolescence.”

(Netflix )

LIMITED SERIES
“Adolescence”
“Dope Thief”
“Dying for Sex”
“The Penguin”
“Say Nothing”

“Adolescence” should win everything.

LIMITED SERIES/MOVIE ACTRESS
Kaitlyn Dever, “Apple Cider Vinegar”
Cristin Milioti, “The Penguin”
Lola Petticrew, “Say Nothing”
Michelle Williams, “Dying for Sex”
Renée Zellweger, “Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy”

OK, maybe not everything, as “Adolescence” doesn’t have a submission here. Zellweger probably won’t win because comic acting rarely does, even though it most definitely should.

LIMITED SERIES/MOVIE ACTOR
Colin Farrell, “The Penguin”
Stephen Graham, “Adolescence”
Brian Tyree Henry, “Dope Thief”
Kevin Kline, “Disclaimer”
Cooper Koch, “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story”

Farrell has already won so many awards for “The Penguin,” it feels like either A) he must have won the Emmy too or B) he hasn’t, and good God, let somebody else have a prize. (Like Graham.)

LIMITED SERIES/MOVIE SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Erin Doherty, “Adolescence”
Ruth Negga, “Presumed Innocent”
Deirde O’Connell, “The Penguin”
Imogen Faith Reid, “Good American Family”
Jenny Slate, “Dying for Sex”
Christine Tremarco, “Adolescence”

Doherty will likely win for the series’ third episode, the taut two-hander with Owen Cooper. But the fourth episode is just as good — maybe even better — featuring a heart-rending turn from Tremarco as the mom trying to hold it together.

LIMITED SERIES/MOVIE SUPPORTING ACTOR
Javier Bardem, “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story”
Owen Cooper, “Adolescence”
Rob Delaney, “Dying for Sex”
Rhenzy Feliz, “The Penguin”
Hugh Grant, “Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy”
Ashley Walters, “Adolescence”

Cooper will soon become the fifth teen actor to win a Primetime Emmy.

Yes, Tom Cruise will soon own an Oscar. But has he ever flown a Boeing 737 with 150 passengers on board?

I’m Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times and host of The Envelope newsletter, here to explain why Nathan Fielder should be the Top Gun of this Emmy season.

A show too singular to ignore

The second season of Nathan Fielder’s brilliantly bonkers “The Rehearsal” opens inside a commercial jet cockpit where the plane’s captain and first officer are having a tense exchange as they prepare to land at a fogged-in runway. The first officer suggests they’re off course. The captain disagrees but is soon proved wrong as the plane crashes. We see the pilots slumped in the cockpit, dead. Then the camera pans to Fielder, surveying the fiery aftermath, a disaster he just re-created in a simulator on a soundstage.

With that prelude, it may seem strange to tell you that I laughed out loud as many times watching “The Rehearsal” as I did any other TV series this season. Not during the simulated disasters, of course, which Fielder used to illustrate what he believes to be biggest issue in airline travel today — pilots failing to communicate during a crisis.

So, yes, “The Rehearsal” is about airline safety. Mostly. But Fielder is a master of misdirection. There is no way you can predict where he’ll direct his premise, and I found myself delighting in utter surprise at the tangents he took in “The Rehearsal” this season.

An alternate biopic of pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, with Fielder playing Sully from diapered baby to the Evanescence-loving hero landing in the Hudson River? Yes! Re-creating the German subsidiary of Paramount+ as a Nazi headquarters? OK! Vacuuming up air from San Jose to help train a cloned dog in Los Angeles while he attempts to understand how the nature-vs.-nurture dynamic might play out in human behavior? Ummmmm … sure. We’ll go with it!

Nathan Fielder takes the controls in “The Rehearsal.”

(John P. Johnson / HBO)

With Fielder’s incisive mind, the detours are everything. Even the destination this season came as a jolt. Yes, it involves that Boeing 737 I mentioned in the intro, and, no, I’m not going to elaborate because I still feel like not enough people have watched “The Rehearsal.” The series’ first two seasons are available on HBO, as are all four seasons of Fielder’s Comedy Central docuseries “Nathan for You,” which had Fielder “helping” small-business owners improve their sales. (Example: Pitching a Santa Clarita liquor store owner that he should sell booze to minors but just not let them take it home until they turned 21.)

The humor in “The Rehearsal” can be just as outrageous as “Nathan for You,” but the overall tone is more thoughtful, as it also explores loneliness and the masks we all wear at times to hide our alienation.

For the Emmys, HBO has submitted “The Rehearsal” in the comedy categories. Where else would they put it? But the show is so singular that I wonder if even its fans in the Television Academy will remember to vote for it. They should. It’s funny, insightful, occasionally terrifying, utterly unforgettable. And I hope Isabella Henao, the winner of the series’ reality show competition, goes places. She sure can sing!

Tom Cruise, Dolly Parton will have their Oscar moments

Meanwhile, that other pilot, Tom Cruise, will finally receive an Oscar, an honorary one, in November at the Governors Awards, alongside production designer Wynn Thomas and choreographer and actor Debbie Allen.

Dolly Parton, singer, actor and beloved icon, will be given the annual Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for her charitable work.

Cruise has been nominated for three acting Oscars over the years — for playing Marine Corps Sgt. Ron Kovic in Oliver Stone’s 1989 antiwar movie “Born on the Fourth of July,” the sports agent who had Renée Zellweger at hello in Cameron Crowe’s 1996 classic “Jerry Maguire” and the chauvinistic motivational speaker in Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1999 opus “Magnolia.” Cruise was also nominated as a producer for 2022’s dad cinema favorite “Top Gun: Maverick.”

Tom Cruise, left, and Paul Newman in “The Color of Money.”

(Fox Broadcasting Company)

Cruise should have won the supporting actor Oscar for “Magnolia,” a ferocious turn in which he harnessed his strutting brashness to play an odious character hiding a deep well of pain. It came the same year as his star turn opposite then-wife Nicole Kidman in “Eyes Wide Shut.” Not a bad double feature! Instead, Michael Caine won for “Cider House Rules” during an Oscar era in which there was seemingly no prize Harvey Weinstein couldn’t land. It wasn’t even Caine’s first Oscar; he had already won for “Hannah and Her Sisters.”

Cruise has devoted himself to commercial action movies, mostly of the “Mission: Impossible” variety, for the past two decades. He did recently complete filming a comedy with director Alejandro González Iñárritu, scheduled for release next year.

It’d be funny if Cruise wins a competitive Oscar after picking up an honorary one. It happened with Paul Newman, Cruise’s co-star in “The Color of Money.”

Read more of our Emmy coverage

“Hacks” won the comedy series Emmy last year on the strength of a campaign that proclaimed: Vote for us! We’re actually a comedy (unlike, you know, “The Bear”).

So what happens this year when the show stopped being funny?

I’m Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times and host of The Envelope newsletter. There’s not much to laugh about these days, so let’s pick our spots and consider the TV series vying for television’s top award.

‘Hacks’ Season 4 leaves room for a new winner

Let me just say at the outset that I enjoy “Hacks.” And like everyone else on the planet, I adore Jean Smart and appreciate that Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs and Jen Statsky created a role worthy of her talents. Comparing notes with Smart on the best sad sing-along songs is a memory I’ll always treasure, and even inspired me for a time to dip back into listening to “love songs on the Coast.”

At its essence, “Hacks” is a love story between Smart’s stand-up legend Deborah Vance and Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder), the young writer who helped Deborah reinvent her career. They come from different generations and possess distinct comic sensibilities. They fight, hurt each other, separate and ultimately reunite after realizing that they’re better together. They get each other. Or at least, Ava gets Deborah. And that’s enough because Deborah is the star and she doesn’t really need to bother understanding Ava’s Gen Z peculiarities. She can just roll her eyes.

Their mutual dependence is believable enough. They both live for work. So much so that at the end of “Hacks’” third season, Ava has blackmailed Deborah, an act that lands her the head writer job that Deborah had promised to give her on her late-night talk show. Ava was but the learner, now she’s the master. Well played, Dark Lady of the Sith.

It was, as our old friend Jeff Probst would say, an epic blindside, and you can understand why this current season would begin with bitter acrimony between the two women, a situation so toxic that the network brought in a human resources rep to keep them from harming each other.

The animosity wasn’t fun to watch. The tone was shrill and off-putting. Was there a joke that landed in the season’s first half? I don’t remember one, but maybe that’s because I was curled up in a fetal position watching the plot unfold.

At least amid the drama of “The Bear,” I could get some some inspiration for a good set of kitchen knives.

Julianne Nicholson’s “Dance Mom” was a bright spot of “Hacks” Season 4.

(Max)

Of course, Deborah and Ava got back together, which was a relief because that HR lady was annoying. The season’s penultimate episode was ridiculous, but in all the best ways, surprising and emotionally satisfying. Helen Hunt finally scored a big moment. And Julianne Nicholson showed some moves as Dance Mom that I never imagined her possessing. Get that character to rehab and into Season 5.

Yes, “Hacks” can still entertain. Even the anticlimactic final episode gave Smart the opportunity to play boozy and bored, showcasing her depth as a dramatic actor. One would think that after what transpired, Deborah would have more opportunities, even with a noncompete clause, to parlay her ethical stance into something more meaningful than a sad casino gig in Singapore. But the finale set up one final comeback — final because “Hacks” was pitched with a five-season arc. And we’re on the doorstep.

At least they won’t have to contrive to separate Ava and Deborah again.

So, by all means, nominate “Hacks” for comedy series again. I’d rather rewatch it than nod off during the tepid “Four Seasons.” And maybe since the show’s creators have known (since 2015) what the final scene will be, we’ll have a persuasive fifth season possessing the energy of a great Deborah Vance comeback.

In the meantime, keep last year’s mandate going and give the Emmy to a show that was consistently funny.

Give the Emmy to “The Studio.”

Read more coverage of the Emmy comedy race

If a movie inspires you to get up in the middle of a Koreatown steakhouse and do the robot with your waiter, isn’t that worthy of some kind of award, even if it’s not an Oscar?

I’m Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times and host of The Envelope newsletter. Let’s talk about “The Life of Chuck,” the latest Stephen King adaptation, a film possessing the pedigree of an Oscar best picture contender.

Can ‘Chuck’ extend Toronto’s Oscar streak?

The last 12 movies to win the Toronto International Film Festival’s People’s Choice Award have gone on to earn an Oscar nomination for best picture. It’s a list that includes eventual Oscar winners like “12 Years a Slave,” “Green Book” and “Nomadland.” Two years ago, Cord Jefferson’s “American Fiction” premiered at Toronto and parlayed the momentum from its People’s Choice prize into an adapted screenplay victory for Jefferson.

Suffice it to say, it’s a prime precursor.

Which makes the arrival of “The Life of Chuck,” last year’s People’s Choice winner, all the more of a curiosity. Neon, the indie studio behind best picture winners “Anora” and “Parasite,” bought the film out of Toronto after it won the award, voted on by festivalgoers. With not enough time to craft a marketing or awards season campaign, the studio slotted the movie for the summer of 2025. It opens in limited release today — you can find it in five theaters in the Los Angeles area — and will expand nationwide next week.

“The Life of Chuck,” adapted from a 50-page Stephen King story published in 2020, is feel-good tale about the end of the world. It is indeed about the life of Chuck, a prototypical King everyman, an ordinary accountant we don’t meet until the the second part of the movie’s backward-moving triptych. But we know about him because in the film’s opening section, the one with the world ending and California tumbling into the sea (Steely Dan was right!), Earth’s inhabitants are inundated with baffling billboards and ads featuring a picture of Chuck, thanking him for 39 great years.

Tom Hiddleston, star of “The Life of Chuck,” at the 2024 Toronto Film Festival.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

We eventually learn that Chuck, played as an adult by Tom Hiddleston, is a remarkable dancer and has lived a life filled with loss. In between the tragedies, there were moments of pure, unadulterated joy. The movie, faithfully adapted and competently directed by Mike Flanagan (the man behind Netflix’s “The Haunting of Hill House” and other horror tales), wants to leave you with the message that such moments are enough. And also to remind you that when these occasions come, we should recognize them and store them away as found gold.

It’s an original story arriving in a summer movie landscape dominated by sequels and retreads. Call it counterprogramming. Critics have been split, which isn’t surprising. You either suspend disbelief and settle into this movie’s vibe or you find yourself unmoved and checking the time, thinking that, in the momentary pleasure department, a root beer float would go down easier. I liked it well enough, but given the choice, I’d probably opt for the ice cream.

For “The Life of Chuck” to be an awards season play, moviegoers will need to fall for it as hard as audiences did at Toronto. That feels like a long shot, though maybe the film’s sweetness and optimism will resonate in the current moment. Times film critic Amy Nicholson was mixed on the movie and yet, as I mentioned at the outset, it did make her “make magic out of the mundane” and boogie with a waiter. She sent me the video. Don’t let her tell you otherwise … she’s a dancing machine.

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Since I’m being a little wistful here, let me call your attention to a recent column I wrote about the late, great Linda Lavin, a singular talent who never won an Emmy.

That may surprise you, particularly if you were around when Lavin headlined the long-running CBS sitcom “Alice,” in which she played a widowed mom working as a waitress while pursuing her dream of singing. The series ran from 1976 to 1985, piling up more than 200 episodes, a spinoff for Polly Holliday (Flo, the “kiss my grits” sass-flinger) and a lasting reputation for presenting an early, understated feminist role model. Alice wasn’t nearly as brash as Bea Arthur’s Maude or quite as lovable as Jean Stapleton’s Edith Bunker, but like her contemporary Mary Tyler Moore, she could turn the world on with her smile.

Lavin, who died in December at 87, did earn two Golden Globes for the role and, after “Alice” ended, she won a Tony Award in 1987 for lead actress in a play for her turn as a Jewish mother navigating a changing world in Neil Simon’s “Broadway Bound.”

“It was one of the greatest stage performances I have ever seen, and I told her that the first day I met her,” says Nathan Lane, who had the opportunity to share his enthusiasm with Lavin when they worked together on the Hulu sitcom “Mid-Century Modern.” Lane recalls watching the play and choking up when Lavin absent-mindedly wiped off a phone receiver — her character was always cleaning — right after a wrenching phone call.

“She could do anything and make it look effortless,” Lane says. “Working with her was the happiest experience I’ve ever had in television.”

(Photo illustration by Susana Sanchez / Los Angeles Times; Getty Images / CBS Photo Archive)

In Emmy history, 33 actors — 22 men and 11 women — have been posthumously nominated. Most recently, Treat Williams earned a nod last year for his supporting turn in the FX limited series “Feud: Capote vs. the Swans.” Ray Liotta was nominated in 2023 in the same category for “Black Bird.” And in 1978, Will Geer received three posthumous nominations, including his last season on “The Waltons.” (He lost all three.)

Lavin has a legitimate case. She elevates “Mid-Century Modern” every time she’s onscreen with her vitality and comic timing. In April, she picked up a comedy supporting actress nod from the Gotham Television Awards.

You can read the entire column, which includes some terrific stories from “Mid-Century Modern” showrunners Max Mutchnick and David Kohan, here.

Have a great weekend. Hope you find a moment to dance.

Read more of Glenn’s Emmys coverage

“Mountainhead,” a satirical skewering of tech oligarchs from “Succession” showrunner Jesse Armstrong, arrived this weekend, dropping on the final day of this year’s Emmy eligibility window.

I’m Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times and host of The Envelope newsletter. While we’re pondering the timeline to upload a human consciousness, let’s consider “Mountainhead” and its Emmy chances.

Another year, another late-breaking HBO movie

Early on in “Mountainhead,” tech bro and Elon Musk stand-in Venis Parish (Cory Michael Smith) uses film history to put the glitches of his company’s latest AI rollout into perspective.

“The first time people saw a movie, everybody ran screaming because they thought they were gonna get hit by a train,” Venis relates, shouting out the Lumiere brothers’ 1895 film, “Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station.” “The answer to that was not stop the movies. The answer was: Show more movies. We’re gonna show users as much s— as possible, until everyone realizes nothing’s that f— serious. Nothing means anything, and everything’s funny and cool.”

In the meantime, though, Venis’ social media platform has given users the tools to create deepfakes so realistic they can’t be identified as bogus. Immediately, people all over the world are uploading videos of their enemies committing atrocities, inflaming centuries-old animosities. Reality has collapsed and, with it, global stability.

But for “Mountainhead’s” quartet of tech magnates, played by Smith, Steve Carell, Ramy Youssef and Jason Schwartzman, everything is just fine. As venture capitalist Randall Garrett (Carell) notes, “We have plenty of calories stockpiled. Western countries have strategic commodity reserves, canola oil, lard, frozen orange juice.”

Later, Randall asks: “Are we the Bolsheviks of a new techno world order that starts tonight?”

“Mountainhead” is in many ways scarier than the zombie apocalypse of “The Last of Us” because it feels like its premise is lurking right around the corner. Armstrong came up with the idea for the two-hour movie in November, after immersing himself in podcasts and books about Silicon Valley. He shot it in March, edited it in April and delivered it in May. It captures the DOGE era, specifically in the casual cruelty expressed by its entitled characters.

“Do you believe in other people?” Venis asks Randall. “Eight billion people as real as us?”

Randall’s reply: “Well, obviously not.”

Cory Michael Smith, left, and Steve Carell in “Mountainhead.”

(Macall Polay / HBO)

“Mountainhead” aspires more directly to comedy, but because we don’t have a history with these four deplorable men, it’s often difficult to find the humor. “Like ‘Fountainhead’ Mountainhead?” Youssef jokes to Schwartzman about the estate’s title. “Was your interior decorator Ayn Bland?” There’s a procession of put-downs like that. When they’re not roasting each other, they’re trying to boost their own agendas — in the case of the cancer-stricken Randall, it’s the quest to live forever as a disembodied consciousness.

For all its Shakespearean drama, “Succession” was wildly entertaining, more of a comedy than, yes, “The Bear.” Kendall Roy performing the rap “L to the OG” at a party honoring his father’s half-century running Waystar Royco will be the funniest two minutes of television probably forever. But half the fun came from the characters’ reactions to this transcendent moment of cringe. We were deeply invested in this world.

For all their money and power, the “Mountainhead” moguls are, like the Roy children in “Succession,” not serious people. But beyond that, “Mountainhead” doesn’t have much of anything novel to say about its subjects. As good as Smith is at channeling Musk’s alien, empathy-deficient otherness, you can come away with the same level of insight — and entertainment — by spending a few minutes watching Mike Myers on “Saturday Night Live.” I don’t need to watch a movie to know that a guy sitting on a gold toilet isn’t prioritizing anyone’s interests but his own.

“Mountainhead,” as mentioned, arrives on the last day of 2024-25 Emmy eligibility, less by design than from necessity. The paint’s still wet on this film. But this does mark the third straight season that HBO has dropped a TV movie right before the deadline. Last year, it was “The Great Lillian Hall,” starring Jessica Lange as fading Broadway legend. Two years ago, it was the excellent whistleblower thriller “Reality,” featuring a star turn from Sydney Sweeney. Both movies were blanked at the Emmys, though Kathy Bates did manage a Screen Actors Guild Awards nod for “Lillian Hall.”

Did the movies land too late for enough people see them? Perhaps. The late arrival time should mean they’d be fresh in voters’ minds when they fill out their ballots. But you have to be aware of them for that to happen.

Awareness shouldn’t be an issue with “Mountainhead.” Enough people will want to watch the new offering from the creator of “Succession,” and there’s not much else on television vying for attention right now. “Mountainhead” should score a nomination for television movie, even with the category being stronger than usual this year with audience favorites “Rebel Ridge,” the latest “Bridget Jones” movie and Scott Derrickson’s enjoyable, genre-bending “The Gorge” competing.

But actors in these TV movies are at competitive disadvantage as the Emmys lump them together with their counterparts in limited series, performers who are onscreen for a much longer time. This decade, only two TV movie actors have been nominated — Hugh Jackman (“Bad Education”) and Daniel Radcliffe (“Weird: The Al Yankovic Story”). The lead actress category, meanwhile, has been completely dominated by limited series.

Not that there are any women starring in “Mountainhead” because … tech bros. As for the men, Carell, Schwartzman, Smith and Youssef are very good at conveying delusional arrogance. I despised each and every one of their characters. If hate-voting were a thing, they’d all be nominated.

After reading about these California beaches, can you blame me for thinking about the south of France right about now? And, you know, the movies at Cannes this year were pretty good too. In fact, we might have another best picture Oscar winner from the festival.

I’m Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times and host of The Envelope newsletter, which is back in your inbox after a springtime sabbatical. Today, I’m looking at the news out of the Cannes Film Festival, wondering if Neon’s publicity team will be getting any rest this coming awards season.

The Cannes-to-Oscars pipeline is flowing

Last year’s Cannes Film Festival gave us a Demi Moore comeback (“The Substance”), an overstuffed, ambitious movie musical that everyone loved until they didn’t (“Emilia Pérez”) and a freewheeling Cinderella story that became the actual Cinderella story of the 2024-25 awards season (“Anora”).

Sean Baker’s “Anora” became just the fourth film to take the festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or, and then go on to win the Oscar for best picture. But it had been only five years since Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite” pulled off that feat, so this would seem to be the direction that the academy is going. As the major Hollywood studios have doubled down on IP, indies like A24 and Neon have stepped up, delivering original, daring films that win the hearts of critics, awards voters and, sometimes, moviegoers.

Neon brought “Anora” to Cannes last year, confident that it would make an ideal launching pad. This year, the studio bought films at the festival — among them the taut, tart revenge thriller “It Was Just an Accident,” from dissident Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, and the anarchic political thriller “The Secret Agent” from Brazil’s Kleber Mendonça Filho.

Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi holds the Palme d’Or after winning the Cannes Film Festival’s top prize for “It Was Just an Accident.”

(Sameer Al-Doumy / AFP/Getty Images)

“It Was Just an Accident” won the Palme, making it the sixth consecutive time Neon has won the award. Despite being one of the world’s most celebrated and influential filmmakers for movies like “No Bears” and “The White Balloon,” Panahi has never received any recognition at the Oscars. That will change this coming year.

Another movie that might deliver the goods is a title Neon announced at Cannes last year, “Sentimental Value,” an intense family drama that earned a 15-minute standing ovation.

Or was it 17? Or 19? The audience at the Grand Théâtre Lumière might still be standing and applauding; who knows with these Cannes festivalgoers. I’d be long gone, heading to the nearest wine bar. The point is: People love this movie. It won the Grand Prix, Cannes’ second-highest honor.

“Sentimental Value” is a dysfunctional family dramedy focusing on the relationship between a flawed father (the great Stellan Skarsgård) and his actor daughter (Renate Reinsve, extraordinary), two people who are better at their jobs than they are at grappling with their emotions. They’re both sad and lonely, and the film circles a reconciliation, one that’s only possible through their artistic endeavors.

Norwegian director Joachim Trier directed and co-wrote “Sentimental Value,” and it’s his third collaboration with Reinsve, following her debut in the 2011 historical drama “Oslo, August 31st” and the brilliant “The Worst Person in the World,” for which she won Cannes’ best actress prize in 2021. Reinsve somehow failed to make the cut at the Oscars that year, an oversight that will likely be corrected several months from now.

Jennifer Lawrence in Lynne Ramsay’s “Die, My Love.”

(Festival de Cannes)

But it’s not just about the prix

Reinsve could well be joined in the category by a past Oscar winner, Jennifer Lawrence, who elicited rave reviews for her turn as a new mother coping with a raft of feelings after giving birth in Lynne Ramsay’s Cannes competition title “Die, My Love.” Critics have mostly been kind to the film, which Mubi bought at the festival for $24 million.

Just don’t label it a postpartum-depression drama, for which Ramsay pointedly chastised reviewers.

“This whole postpartum thing is just bull—,” she told film critic Elvis Mitchell. “It’s not about that. It’s about a relationship breaking down, it’s about love breaking down, and sex breaking down after having a baby. And it’s also about a creative block.”

However you want to read it, “Die, My Love” looks like a comeback for Lawrence, last seen onscreen two years ago, showing her comic chops in the sweetly raunchy “No Hard Feelings.” Lawrence won the lead actress Oscar for the 2012 film “Silver Linings Playbook” and has been nominated three other times — for “Winter’s Bone,” “American Hustle” and “Joy.”

With Ramsay’s movie, which co-stars Robert Pattinson as her husband, Lawrence may well have printed her return ticket to the ceremony, which would be welcome. The Oscars are always more fun when she’s in the room.

More coverage from the festival