Sunday, September 18, 2016

2016 PRIMETIME EMMY AWARDS ANALYSIS! "GAME OF THRONES", O.J. SIMPSON, KATE MCKINNON GET "SNL" AN ACTING WIN! BEN MENDELSOHN UPSET, AND THROWING MARK BURNETT OFF THE ISLAND!



I'm David Baruffi, this is David Baruffi's Entertainment Views and Reviews annual Post-Emmys analysis blog, and what-the H-hell just happened!

My god, the Emmys will pull my hair out one day, I swear. Ugh. As far as predictions go.... LOLOLOLOLOL,Lololo, oh boy. As I've done this for a few years now, on this blog and many, many, many years before that, I've come to conclusion or two about the Award shows. The Oscars, even in the most uncertain years, you pretty much know what's going to happen. There's never a freaky or unexplain-able upset, and for the most, you can pretty much know the feel of how things will or could go. The Emmys are partially that and the other side is, an absolutely wild roller coaster ride where we know absolutely nothing and we're not sure what's gonna happen. Anybody who we think are out of it, could easily win and, we're just... speechless. We watch the episode submissions, we scout and poll the Academy, hell, if we know a voter, we ask a voter or two how they voted, we try to understand patterns and how they might be thinking or have thought in the pass and then. (Fart noise).

We'll go through which awards were as is and which weren't but let's take a look at the show. Um, first off Jimmy Kimmel, eh, I think he was... okay. He wasn't awful, per se, he had funny moments, but...- you know, I gotta be honest I've always been baffled by the popularity of Jimmy Kimmel, and it's not that I don't think he's funny, I actually think in the right spots and moments he can be absolutely hilarious but over a whole show, I tend to find him, just swarmy. I know people compare him to Letterman a lot, but Letterman was always sorta, apoplectic about what they're doing. I mean, the stuff at the beginning, really funny, really witty, really vicious at times. But, he let's off the vicious gear. It feels like it's supposed to be a loving jab, but it always feels like he's roasting whoever he's talking about and I get tired of it after awhile. Here, I appreciate it at that moment, but then he kept on with it at times, and he doesn't really know how to pivot away from that after awhile. Still though, I did like his job hosting, and I thought the show overall was pretty entertaining. He puts on a better show than I think he does, work as a host, that's kinda where I'm at with him. I like him in certain spots more than others. 

Okay, he was good, funny at times thoughout, great opening, I liked how he brought into the joke, other people. Matt Damon coming in, that was good. I liked the Amy Schumer joke that was good. And I'm definitely glad he got the joke in there about Mark Burnett being responsible for Donald Trump, that was genius. I just think it got old as it went on. But, we had more than enough awards craziness to make up for it. 

In Comedy, Louie Anderson pulled off the upset winning Supporting Actor for "Baskets" where he plays Zach Galifinakis's mom. I love that he thanked the FX publicity department, especially since they really earned that. "Baskets" got nothing else and it was just word of mouth + campaigning to get him to earn that win. Kudos for bringing that up.

"Master of None" pulled off another upset as the split vote between "Silicon Valley" and "Veep" and it's a bit annoying to me that now, all the "Parks and Recreation" people are winning, instead of back when the show was on. 

Then, the first shock, Kate McKinnon, not only upsetting Allison Janney, Okay, Janney losing, that's big, but McKinnon's win, is really unprecedented. That's the first time since they've been allowed to submit that a sketch comedy performer has won in a major acting category. (They had won for Guest Performances several times) So, that breaks a major Emmy prognostication rule, and it seemed everything else was just gonna go crazy. 

Well, it didn't. Jeffrey Tambor and Julia Louis-Dreyfus repeated for their lead roles in "Transparent" and "Veep" respectively and Jill Soloway won again for directing "Transparent", and eventually, "Veep" as expected won the Series prize for the second straight year. 

Also repeating, "The Voice" winning Reality series in back-to-back years, first show to ever do that not named, "The Amazing Race" which still amazes me. I wanted that to win in it's first or second seasons, but now that it's unwatchable? (Well, not unwatchable, but just "American Idol Reduxed"?)

Onto the, Let's revisit 1994, for some goddamn reason set of categories they call "Limited Series", the big upset was "The Night Manager" winning Directing as Susanne Bier, probably benefitted from the three nominated "The People v. O.J. Simpson..." directors. Does that mean she has an Oscar and an Emmy now? I guess technically her Foreign Language Oscar for "In a Better World" goes to the country of Denmark and not to her, but that's always been stupid and wrong to me.

The only other non-O.J. winner was Regina King, winning for "American Crime" for the second consecutive year for Supporting Actress. I'm not exactly crazy about that but I guess they'll never give Sarah Paulson that award for "American Horror Story". But, she finally, ended that drought when she won for playing Marcia Clark, and she brought her along for the show, she looked good. So did Paulson, who seems to be doing a Miley Cyrus in J.Lo's dress thing.

(Oh, and yeah, Claire Danes, too much spray tan. Just, sorry. You know I love you.) 

Sterling G. Brown and Courtney B. Vance also won for O.J. and the show won Limited Series. "Fargo" got shut out strangely.

Variety had a few surprising, most touching was Patton Oswalt winning the Variety-Writing Special award for his stand-up special. You can tell he was shocked and it seems like he's still dealing with the grief of his wife's passing and it's nice to see him after years of great work on television and movies finally get rewards. 

"Last Week Tonight with Jon Oliver" took over the Variety-Talk Series throne from "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report", as expected. Only four shows have won that award in the last 20 years and they're the fourth and it doesn't look like they'll give that up anytime soon.

"Grease Live" won the Directing-Variety Special, to no one's surprise there, beating Chris Rock, who's mock-angry reaction was great,  for directing the Amy Schumer stand-up special and-eh Beyonce's "Lemonade" thing, but live theater on television; yeah it was winning. "Key & Peele" in their last season, got the surprise "goodbye hug" as Gold Derby's Tom O'Neil calls it, as they won Sketch Comedy Series in their final season, and that's the first Emmy the show ever won, so it's nice to see that. I've never been their biggest fan, but they've definitely made me laugh a lot for the last few years. Hell, they were funny as hell in the first season of "Fargo". I just watched that, and boy that was weird suddenly seeing them in that! Like-eh, I guess when Cheech and Chong suddenly show up in Scorsese's "After Hours" weird. Weird, but awesome.

"Game of Thrones" as expected rule the Drama categories, winning Series and Writing and Directing, both for the "Battle of the Bastards" episode. The actors however, split the vote in both their categories. Maggie Smith, got the goodbye hug for "Downton Abbey" winning Supporting Actress, leaving that series it's final Emmy and the most shocking upset of the night, Ben Mendelsohn, a ghost, now on "Bloodline" winning for Supporting Actor for "Bloodline", that got me to just tweet his name and a hundred or so exclamation points after that shock. But the upsets in acting weren't over. Rami Malek became one of the youngest actors ever to win Lead Actor in a Drama Series with his upset win for "Mr. Robot", and then Tatiana Maslany, pulling off the really shocking upset for "Orphan Black", where she plays about 90 or 100 clones. Good performance, definitely, just tough show to get into, at least for me. "Mr. Robot", eh I'm worried about the second season, but Malek does give a great performance. This left "House of Cards" shutout, despite eight acting nominations across the six categories and it didn't win anything else either, particularly shocking considering that was a favorite to many.

But "Game of Thrones" ruled the night. 3 more awards tonight, and a total of, "Game of Thrones" has no surpassed "Frasier" and has won more Emmy awards that any other Drama or Comedy series. Amazingly only two of those are for acting, both for Peter Dinklage, but technical achievements and the last two Series wins, put it over the top. The only show left in it's way, is "Saturday Night Live", good luck with that "Game of Thrones", but I think it'll take more than dragons to take them down.

So, busy Emmy season, great Emmy show, lots of surprises, intrigue, and there's plenty of room to think about next year. Some promising new shows, although I'm not doing another Premiere Week blog but, most of them start debuting this week, so it's time to catch on next year\s Emmys now. Hell, maybe it's already started with "The Night Of" and "Stranger Things". "Game of Thrones" isn't eligible next year, and "Downton Abbey" has ended, so there will be some new winners and new nominees, and lots of potential shows on the air now and those debuting soon that could take their place. Who knows.

But, awards-wise, it's time to start preparting for Oscar season. Me-wise, I got movie to reviews, and scripts to write, lots of other busywork, but the Emmys as always a great reminder of why we love television and are fascinated by this world of film and entertainment and a great break to honor those we most adore! Or at least ones we respect the hell out of even if we don't particularly like. (Shrugs) Eh, some years that would annoy me, but this year, eh, good enough for me, I hope it is for you guys too.

Oh, and Samantha Bee was still robbed! Nominated her next year Variety Series people!

Oh, eh my results, eh, I would talk about them, but my ballot's in a 100 little pieces somewhere off the side of my balcony, so, sorry. (Shrugs) I presume I got them all right, but who knows. 

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