Emmy Awards 2021 The Emmys Category Grab Bag Once upon a time, the ‘limited series’ category at the Emmys was known as “TV Movies and Miniseries” and it was code for ‘get a snack’, because almost nobody got the channels where said miniseries were, nobody saw them, and they were generally stultifying. Now ‘limited series’ create some of By Duana • Sep 20, 2021 09:01 am
Met Gala 2021 Keke Palmer Hosts the BEST Met Gala Carpet I want to know who it was. Who, at Vogue, had the foresight to know that Keke Palmer would absolutely transform the Met Gala carpet, which is crazy-loud in person but eerily quiet on live feeds… until now? Because I want that person to be my best friend, because they By Duana • Sep 14, 2021 12:25 pm
Baby and Bump Obsession Scarlett Johansson and Colin Jost Named A Baby Man, things have changed. It’s not just because of the pandemic, but how much more chill is this kind of birth announcement, via Colin Jost’s Instagram, than the publicist-released announcements we used to get hours after birth? (For added hilarity, if you still f-ck with Michael Che – and By Duana • Aug 19, 2021 01:15 pm
TV Updates Emmy Nominations 2021 are Closer Than Ever (Blanket statement before any analysis or commentary: eligibility for this year’s Emmys is from June 2020 to May 31, 2021 – loosely speaking, as long as *something* has aired during that period, the series can be nominated, but given that we were all locked inside before and after those dates, By Duana • Jul 13, 2021 02:35 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews Tick, Tick… Boom! There’s timing, and then there’s timing. There’s striking while the iron is hot, and there’s throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. Opportunity vs. cashing in (creatively), and where tick, tick… Boom! is concerned, I’m not sure which is which. At least not By Duana • Jun 11, 2021 02:08 pm
Baby and Bump Obsession On ‘Lilibet Diana’ When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle named their son Archie Harrison – no ‘Archibald’, no long strings of historical names nodding to ancestors (or grandparents) – I crowed that they had chosen a name that was overtly about giving Archie his own life, his own path, unencumbered by the albatross of royal By Duana • Jun 07, 2021 10:30 am
Maple Leaf My Unwilling Mar-A-Lago Connection I am often the one crowing that ‘specificity is universal!’ – stories with small and personal details can and will spark something in a larger audience, even if the specifics of their situations are different. I’m really hoping that’s true here. One of the best decisions of my life By Duana • May 04, 2021 01:25 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews West Side Story Trailer VS. In The Heights Trailer I went to the kind of high school where the annual musical was a huge deal involving literally hundreds of students and staff, and where all seven performances filled the 1,200 seat auditorium. Which, aside from being a humbleflex, makes sense – musicals are crowd-pleasers, and people who never attend By Duana • Apr 27, 2021 02:21 pm
Oscars 2021 LaKeith Stanfield: Oscar Best Dressed (Duana) There was no contest. From the moment I saw those shots, there was absolutely no contest. Did you see Lakeith Stanfield last night?! Look, while we’ve all been pointing out that women on the red carpet should be #AskedMore than just what they’re wearing first and only, we By Duana • Apr 26, 2021 01:22 pm
Oscars 2021 Oscar Overall Best – Daniel Kaluuya Well, it’s been a few hours and no sleep – time for me to contradict myself. Remember when I said I wish there were more people who were just entertaining presences, whether they were Oscar contenders or not? Maybe even people who were overtly *not* nominees, just as promises for By Duana • Apr 26, 2021 12:58 pm
Oscars 2021 Glenn Close’s Butt: An Oscar Okay, look. Let’s all say what we already knew – the ‘musical trivia’ sequence in the show was odd, in that they should have been doing crowd-work earlier or more often; 15 minutes before the end of the show seemed like a really strange time to just start making jokes? By Duana • Apr 26, 2021 11:24 am
Oscars 2021 H.E.R. Oscar Triumph & Leslie Odom Jr’s Contender Okay, let’s have it. How did we feel about the musical performances being in the pre-show? Pros & Cons? Cons – it’s still kind of a weird enterprise, isn’t it? The live performance that isn’t a competition – that is, the songs are in competition, but the performances By Duana • Apr 26, 2021 10:37 am
Oscars 2021 Amanda Seyfried Comes To Play This woman is underappreciated. Full stop. I don’t mean as an actress, although possibly that too. But consider this – when you google Mank (after you say “MANK!” to yourself, as is obligatory) do you know what’s listed first under ‘People Also Ask’? “Is Mank Boring?” Imagine that’s By Duana • Apr 26, 2021 09:16 am
Oscars 2021 Carey Mulligan’s Oscar Playbook I have no idea what Carey Mulligan’s feelings are about her awards show season back in 2010 when she was nominated for An Education. She was 100% the new kid, and I don’t know if she was happy to be along for the ride, or thought it was By Duana • Apr 26, 2021 08:27 am
Oscars 2021 Andra Day’s Initial Oscar Outing I think it’s probably for the best that this year went the weird, semi-corporate way that it did. If it had been one of the ‘regular’ Oscar seasons, one of the narratives that would have been pushed loud and long (even more than it was) would have been the By Duana • Apr 26, 2021 07:06 am
Show Your Work Podcast Show Your Work: Amanda Gorman & The Pressures of Perfection The Amanda Gorman spread in the May issue of Vogue, complete with two different covers, is, of course, stunning – not surprising, maybe, based on Gorman’s style (and the fact that she signed with IMG not long after her performance at the Presidential Inauguration launched her into the celebrity stratosphere) By Duana • Apr 15, 2021 02:24 pm
