For the third straight year, FX reigned as the top winner at the Television Critics Association (TCA) Awards. This time around the network received four awards, three for its hit undercover Cold War thriller The Americans which earned Program Of The Year distinction, as well as Outstanding Achievement in Drama, and Individual Achievement in Drama for star Keri Russell. Additionally, FX scored Outstanding Achievement In Movies And Miniseries honors for the critically acclaimed true crime event The Assassination Of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, a stunning exploration of the iconic fashion designer’s murder.
The 34th annual TCA Awards ceremony was held this past weekend (8/4) at the Beverly Hilton hotel and was emceed by writer, producer, and TV personality Robin Thede, host of the recent BET series The Rundown with Robin Thede.
Votes were cast by the TCA’s membership of more than 200 professional TV critics and journalists from the United States and Canada, putting the spotlight on a diverse roster of series and performers. The 34th annual TCA Awards also featured the addition of the Outstanding Achievement In Sketch/Variety Shows category. Topping that new category was HBO’s Last Week Tonight With John Oliver.
Other notable winners included the BBC’s first-year assassin drama Killing Eve, as the year’s Outstanding New Program; Rachel Brosnahan, who overtook last year’s winner, Donald Glover, to claim the Individual Achievement In Comedy title for her role in Amazon’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown was posthumously honored for Outstanding Achievement In News And Information.
The TCA also bestowed a Heritage Award upon the beloved long-running NBC/Warner Bros. Television’ comedy Friends, which remains one of television’s most popular shows even since it went off the air 14 years ago. The TCA also presented Rita Moreno—entertainment icon, Presidential Medal Of Freedom recipient, and member of a rare club of performers to win both an Emmy®, GRAMMY®, Oscar®, and Tony®–with the Career Achievement Award, honoring her unparalleled legacy which includes acclaimed roles in legendary television series including Oz, One Day At A Time, The Rockford Files and The Muppet Show.
“This year’s TCA Awards offered the welcome opportunity to say goodbye to one of the era’s most critically acclaimed shows in The Americans, a drama that combined espionage thrills, high emotional stakes and international intrigue that couldn’t have been more current,” said Daniel Fienberg, TCA president and The Hollywood Reporter TV critic. “Our other winners included new shows like Killing Eve and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, rebooted shows like Queer Eye, the anthological darkness of another American Crime Story chapter and the hopefully timeless and unending wonder of Sesame Street.”
2018 TCA Award recipients are as follows:
Individual Achievement in Drama: Keri Russell (THE AMERICANS, FX)
Individual Achievement in Comedy: Rachel Brosnahan (THE MARVELOUS MRS. MAISEL, Amazon)
Outstanding Achievement in News and Information: ANTHONY BOURDAIN: PARTS UNKNOWN (CNN)
Outstanding Achievement in Reality Programming: QUEER EYE (Netflix)
Outstanding Achievement in Youth Programming: SESAME STREET (HBO)
Outstanding Achievement in Sketch/Variety Shows: LAST WEEK TONIGHT WITH JOHN OLIVER (HBO)
Outstanding New Program: KILLING EVE (BBC America)
Outstanding Achievement in Movies And Miniseries: THE ASSASSINATION OF GIANNI VERSACE: AMERICAN CRIME STORY (FX)
Outstanding Achievement in Drama: THE AMERICANS (FX)
Outstanding Achievement in Comedy: THE GOOD PLACE (NBC)
Program of the Year: THE AMERICANS (FX)
Lifetime Achievement Honoree: Rita Moreno
Heritage Award: FRIENDS (NBC)
Review: Writer-Director Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance”
In its first two hours, "The Substance" is a well-made, entertaining movie. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat treats audiences to a heavy dose of biting social commentary on ageism and sexism in Hollywood, with a spoonful of sugar- and sparkle-doused body horror.
But the film's deliciously unhinged, blood-soaked and inevitably polarizing third act is what makes it unforgettable.
What begins as a dread-inducing but still relatively palatable sci-fi flick spirals deeper into absurdism and violence, eventually erupting — quite literally — into a full-blown monster movie. Let the viewer decide who the monster is.
Fargeat — who won best screenplay at this year's Cannes Film Festival — has been vocal about her reverence for "The Fly" director David Cronenberg, and fans of the godfather of body horror will see his unmistakable influence. But "The Substance" is also wholly unique and benefits from Fargeat's perspective, which, according to the French filmmaker, has involved extensive grappling with her own relationship to her body and society's scrutiny.
"The Substance" tells the story of Elisabeth Sparkle, a famed aerobics instructor with a televised show, played by a powerfully vulnerable Demi Moore. Sparkle is fired on her 50th birthday by a ruthless executive — a perfectly cast Dennis Quaid, who nails sleazy and gross.
Feeling rejected by a town that once loved her and despairing over her bygone star power, Sparkle learns from a handsome young nurse about a black-market drug that promises to create a "younger, more beautiful, more perfect" version of its user. Though she initially tosses the phone number in the trash, she soon fishes it out in a desperate panic and places an order.
The one rule to follow is that... Read More