The 31st USC Scripter Awards nominees were announced by the USC Libraries this morning and they made the race for Oscar’s Adapted Screenplay even more intriguing than previously thought.

READ MORE: Debra Granik on finding that right ending for “Leave No Trace” [Podcast]

The USC Scripter Award is given to both the original author and the screenwriter of the adapted work. This year’s film nominees include “Black Panther,” “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” “The Death of Stalin,” “If Beale Street Could Talk” and “Leave No Trace.” That differentiates from the WGA Awards who honored “BlacKkKlansman” and “A Star is Born” over “Leave No Trace” and “Death of Stalin.” The BAFTA Awards nominations lined up with the WGA except that instead of nominating “Black Panther” the Brits recognized “First Man.” So, with the USC honors announced there are still eight films in the mix for five Oscar slots.

Continue reading ‘Leave No Trace,’ ‘Black Panther,’ ‘Sharp Objects’ Earn 2019 USC Scripter Nods at The Playlist.

To think we questioned in our Emmys nominations predictions piece whether there would be any real surprises this year.  Not only did the Television Academy provide a ton of them, but a significant number of eyebrow raising snubs as well.  Of course, “Game of Thrones,” “Atlanta,” “The Handmaid’s Tale,” “Westworld,” “Saturday Night Live,” “The Assassination of Gianni Versace,” “The Voice” and “RuPaul’s Drag Race” dominated the nominations as expected, but consider these snubs and surprises.

Continue reading Emmys 2018 Snubs And Surprises: ‘Barry,’ Sandra Oh, ‘Twin Peaks’ at The Playlist.

Peter Sarsgaard is one of those actors who is so accomplished that it’s a genuine surprise when you realize they haven’t earned an Oscar, Emmy or, in this case, a Tony Award nomination yet.  That may change with his performance in Hulu’s critically acclaimed limited series (currently), “The Looming Tower.”

READ MORE: 2018 Outstanding Mini-Series Contenders

Based on Lawrence Wright’s non-fiction novel, the 10-part program chronicled the events leading up to Sept.

Continue reading Peter Sarsgaard On The Possibilities Of ‘The Looming Tower’ Season Two at The Playlist.

It’s hard to believe but the 2018 Emmy Award season is already here.  Networks and streaming services are deep into their publicity and media plans while the industry as a whole nervously wonders whether a #MeToo campaign that flipped Hollywood upside down will continue to send shock waves.  Change has been a theme at the Globes and the Oscars, how will it affect TV’s biggest night?  Let’s hope that’s one reason we still don’t know who is hosting NBC’s annual rotation of the telecast this September.

Continue reading ‘Game of Thrones,’ ‘Mrs. Maisel’ and 9 Other Things We’ve Already Learned About The 2018 Emmy Season at The Playlist.

Ah February – the month known for marking the halfway point of winter, and romance. The deluge of new television premieres and debuts will certainly make it easier to use the tried and true “Netflix and chill” excuse to get the person of your affections to stay over. Below are thirteen of February’s top picks to snuggle up and watch with your beau:

“Altered Carbon”
Synopsis: In a future where humans can survive physical death by having their memories and consciousness “re-sleeved” into new bodies, the lone surviving soldier from a movement opposing resleevement is downloaded into a new body by an aristocrat, who was recently killed, and tasks him with finding who had him murdered.

Continue reading 13 TV Shows To Watch In February at The Playlist.

Film festivals are never just about films anymore. Almost every movie event now keeps some space available for television, with the medium more cinematic than ever, an increasingly drawing auteur talent. So it goes for the Berlin International Film Festival.

Some high profile binge-watching is coming to Berlin next month, including the Australian limited series take on “Picnic At Hanging Rock,” which is of course based on the book, but is probably most famously known among cinephiles from Peter Weir‘s 1975 film.

Continue reading Berlin 2018 TV Lineup Adds ‘Picnic At Hanging Rock,’ ‘The Looming Tower,’ ‘The Terror’ & More at The Playlist.

Now it’s time for TV. Back at the start of December, we ran down the 100 films that we’re most looking forward to across 2018, and we picked out some festival favorites that we’ve already seen and know are worth checking out too. But even with 250 hours worth or so of promising art and entertainment, that barely scratches the surface of what people will be talking about in terms of moving images, because, well, we don’t know if you heard, but TV’s gotten really good.

Continue reading The Most Anticipated TV Shows Of 2018 at The Playlist.

Two reasons to get excited for Hulu‘s upcoming new series “The Looming Tower:” a grey-haired Michael Stuhlbarg and a bearded Peter Sarsgaard. On a less important note, the series seems to be a sort of 9/11 prequel, “an investigative thriller” detailing “the rising threat of Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda in the late 1990s.” It is executive produced by documentarian Alex Gibney and “Capote” screenwriter Dan Futterman.

Continue reading ‘The Looming Tower’ Trailer: Hulu Takes On 9/11 With Jeff Daniels & Alec Baldwin at The Playlist.