A blog about societal, cultural, and civilizational collapse, and how to stave it off or survive it. Named after the legendary character "Crazy Eddie" in Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's "The Mote in God's Eye." Expect news and views about culture, politics, economics, technology, and science fiction.
It's no secret that Elon Musk has absolutely tanked Twitter, so why haven't we all left? Despite the site becoming an apocalyptic hellscape, there's a surprising reason that we all still NEED Twitter.
Based on Jason Parham’s WIRED article “A People’s History of Black Twitter,” this three-part docuseries charts the rise, the movements, the voices and the memes that made Black Twitter an influential and dominant force in nearly every aspect of American political and cultural life.
Steam all episodes Black Twitter: A People's History on May 9, only on Hulu.
ABOUT Black Twitter: A People's History
The rise, movements, voices and memes that made Black Twitter an influential and dominant force in nearly every aspect of American political and cultural life.
Based on just this piece of corporate PR, I fully expect to see this nominated at one of the Emmy Awards, whether it's this falls Creative Arts Emmy Awards or next year's News & Documentary Emmy Awards.
Follow over the jump for a retrospective of Crazy Eddie's Motie News's most active links on Twitter between March 21, 2023 and March 20, 2024.
Outstanding Business and Economic Documentary
Eat The Rich: The GameStop Netflix Icahn: The Restless Billionaire HBO Max Independent Lens TikTok, Boom. PBS POV The Last Out PBS Victoria’s Secret: Angels and Demons Hulu
This is the only nomination for each of these documentaries, so I can't handicap their odds on that basis. Instead, I'm embedding their trailers. Maybe then I can make a guess.
This humorous documentary series follows a group of millennial misfits who banded together online to rescue their beloved GameStop from the clutches of Wall Street bigwigs, in a viral David vs. Goliath story for the 21st century.
Ah, yes, GameStop, a tale of the stock market and Retail Apocalypse. This looks like the most fun documentary of the field. It's also the one I'm most connected to, as my wife got involved with Wall Street Bets and Robin Hood. That made investing fun, even if it may not have been as profitable as she and I might have liked.
The HBO original documentary #IcahnHBO offers unprecedented access to the the provocative, straight-talking billionaire financier, Carl Icahn.
Icahn the icon — I feel like I've been hearing about him most of my adult life. While the GameStop documentary looks like fun, Icahn's story is probably more important in the grand scheme of things. That written, I've only mentioned the man once before, and that was in passing. It's about time he got more scrutiny here.
I'm mixing and matching for the next nominee. First, TIKTOK, BOOM (Trailer) from ZFF Zurich Film Festival.
What does it mean to be a digital native?
TikTok, Boom. dissects the platform along myriad cross-sections—algorithmic, socio-political, economic, and cultural—to explore the impact of the history-making app. Balancing a genuine interest in the community and its innovative mechanics with a healthy skepticism, delve into the security issues, global political challenges, and racial biases behind the platform. Featuring Gen Z influencers like Feroza Aziz, Spencer X, Deja Foxx, and Merrick Hanna.
Three Cuban baseball players leave their families and risk exile to train in Central America and chase their dreams of playing in the United States. At the shadowy nexus of the migrant trail and pro sports, The Last Out chronicles their difficult journey, from multi-step immigration obstacles and learning English to the broken promises and dubious motives of agents. Official selection, 2020 Tribeca Film Festival (premiered in 2021). A co-presentation with Latino Public Broadcasting.
The Last Out made its national broadcast and streaming debut on the PBS documentary series POV and pbs.org/pov on Monday, October 3, 2022 on PBS!
On the one hand, this is probably the most moving human story of the lot, which should work in its favor. On the other, this is, by far, the least viewed trailer of any of the nominees. I'm the 168th person to watch it. It's hard for a nominee to earn votes if no one is watching it.
The story behind the brand that dominated the malls of America. Uncover Victoria’s Secret: Angels and Demons on July 14.
As I exclaimed the one and only time I mentioned Victoria's Secret before, oh my. I had no idea Jeffrey Epstein was involved with this business, too. No wonder the trailer has so many views; it's a business story about using sex to sell its product that includes a sex scandal. Whether those trailer and presumably program views result in the producers bringing home a trophy is another matter — remember, electorates matter — but at least the voters will have watched the show. That makes this the nominee I expect to win, even though it's not my personal favorite.
I will continue my awards show coverage, but I might revisit the SAG-AFTRA strike tomorrow first. Stay tuned.
Previous posts about the 2023 News & Documentary Emmy Awards
I'm returning to the Primetime and CreativeArtsEmmyAwards to examine the last categories with nominated wildlife documentaries for World Conservation Day as I suggested yesterday. Here are the nominees competing against "Secrets of the Elephants" for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series.
Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series (Area) Dear Mama (FX) 100 Foot Wave (HBO) Secrets of the Elephants (Nat Geo) The 1619 Project (Hulu) The U.S. and the Holocaust (PBS)
100 Foot Wave has the most nominations with six, followed by The U.S. and the Holocaust with three at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards and one at the News & Documentary Emmy Awards for a total of four, The 1619 Project with three, and Dear Mama and Secrets of the Elephants with two each. Before I handicap the nominees with the help of the experts at Gold Derby, I'm sharing their trailers from the most nominated to the least, beginning with 100 Foot Wave Season 2 | Official Trailer | HBO.
Legend Garrett McNamara, his world-class surfing peers, and some surprising newcomers continue to push the boundaries of their sport and the limits of their minds and bodies. The one constant for these extreme athletes is contending with the highs and lows of their perilous and unpredictable lifestyle in which every big wave has the potential to write a dramatic new chapter in their personal stories. With a mix of intimate interviews, verité scenes and personal archive, as well as stunning aerial, water-based and underwater footage from the Emmy®-winning cinematography team, the series captures a world unlike any other.
The U.S. and the Holocaust, a new documentary by Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein, examines the rise of Hitler and Nazism in Germany in the context of global antisemitism and racism, immigration and eugenics in the United States, and race laws in the American south. Premieres September 18.
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More about the production:
THE U.S. AND THE HOLOCAUST is a three-part, six hour series directed by Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein, that examines America’s response to one of the greatest humanitarian crises of the twentieth century. Americans consider themselves a “nation of immigrants,” but as the catastrophe of the Holocaust unfolded in Europe, the United States proved unwilling to open its doors to more than a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of desperate people seeking refuge. Through riveting firsthand testimony of witnesses and survivors who as children endured persecution, violence and flight as their families tried to escape Hitler, this series delves deeply into the tragic human consequences of public indifference, bureaucratic red tape and restrictive quota laws in America. Did the nation fail to live up to its ideals? This is a history to be reckoned with.
The series is narrated by Peter Coyote; Voice Actors Include Liam Neeson, Matthew Rhys, Paul Giamatti, Meryl Streep, Werner Herzog, Joe Morton, Hope Davis, Bradley Whitford and Helena Zengel.
The subject of this series hits me personally. I grew up in a Reform Jewish neighborhood and the mother of my high school crush was a concentration camp survivor, so I know people who have experienced this story. Watching the trailer while thinking about the resurrection of Fascism made me wonder what are we doing now and if we would avoid repeating the mistakes of 80 years ago.
From Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones comes the greatest story never told. The 1619 Project premieres January 26th only on Hulu. #1619hulu
The 1619 Project is a Lionsgate Production in association with One Story Up Productions, Harpo Films and The New York Times. It was executive produced by Nikole Hannah-Jones; Academy Award®-winning director Roger Ross Williams; Caitlin Roper, an editor of “The 1619 Project” and The New York Times’ executive producer for film and television; Kathleen Lingo, The New York Times’ editorial director for film and television; and Oprah Winfrey. Peabody Award-winning executive producer Shoshana Guy served as the showrunner. Watch The 1619 Project on Hulu!
ABOUT THE 1619 PROJECT
Hulu’s six-part 1619 Docuseries is an expansion of “The 1619 Project” created by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones and the New York Times Magazine. The series seeks to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.
This is probably the most controversial nominee. For starters, I follow Nikole Hannah-Jones on Twitter and have read lots of negative replies to her tweets about the New York Times series. Even John Michael Greer has made several snideasidesaboutit. Greer famously does not watch television, so he hasn't commented on the TV series, but I'm sure he'd be just as dismissive of the series if he did.
Check out the new Dear Mama Documentary Series Trailer!
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Synopsis: Afeni had a revolutionary story, Tupac helped her tell it to the world.
From award-winning director Allen Hughes (The Defiant Ones) comes FX’s Dear Mama, a deeply personal five-part series that defies the conventions of traditional documentary storytelling to share an illuminating saga of mother and son, Afeni and Tupac Shakur. Their story chronicles the possibilities and contradictions of the U.S. from a time of revolutionary fervor to Hip Hop culture’s most ostentatious decade.
Finding out that Tupac was connected to the Black Panthers made me take him and his music more seriously.
“Secrets of the Elephants" Executive produced by James Cameron and narrated by Natalie Portman, the four-part series premieres Friday, April 21 on National Geographic.
This trailer wasted no time in pointing out it was a sequel of sorts to Secrets of the Whales, which won this award two years ago. It also touted that it was produced by James Cameron and narrated by Natalie Portman, two Oscar winners, although it neglected to mention Portman's Oscar. That's a missed opportunity in self-promotion. On the other hand, this series is the reason I'm examining this category today, as it fits the theme of World Conservation Day. It's also one I have recommended to my students. Welcome to blogging as professional development.
Based on the total number of nominations as well as being a previous Emmy winner for its cinematography, I'd rank 100 Foot Wave as a favorite. Based on Secrets of the Elephants being a sequel to previous winner Secrets of the Whales, I would consider Secrets of the Elephants to be a favorite, too. The experts at Gold Derby disagree, thinking these two have the weakest chances. Instead, they are split between The U.S. and the Holocaust and The 1619 Project, at three experts each. The odds currently favor The U.S. and the Holocaust, but The 1619 Project had the better chance through yesterday. I wonder if the News & Documentary Emmy nomination for The U.S. and the Holocaust tipped the odds toward it or the controversy around The 1619 Project finally caught up to it. Either way, this will be an interesting category to watch.
Follow over the jump for the rest of the nominations for these nominees.
Top Ten Movies of 2022 today! Beyond The Trailer's best movies from Hollywood! How do full movies rank like Top Gun Maverick, Avatar 2?
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Top Ten Best Movies of 2022 today! Beyond The Trailer host Grace Randolph gives a review of her Top Ten Movies of 2022 including a breakdown as to why each one made the cut! Find out where The Woman King, Puss in Boots 2 The Last Wish, Glass Onion A Knives Out Mystery, Nope, She Said, Black Panther Wakanda Forever, Top Gun Maverick, The Batman, The Black Phone and Avatar 2 The Way of Water land on this list!
Not a bad top ten. Now, how many of them are on WatchMojo's Top 10 Best Movies of 2022 and which movies make its list that didn't make Grace's?
2022 was an incredible year for film! For this list, we’ll be looking at feature films that captured the zeitgeist in 2022, standing out as the year’s best examples of pure cinema. Our countdown includes “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”, “Avatar: The Way of Water”, “Top Gun: Maverick”, and more!
I'm not surprised that "Banshees of Inisherin" "The Fablemans," "Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio," "RRR," and "Everything EverywhereAllatOnce" beat out "She Said," "Puss in Boots 2: The Last Wish," "The Black Phone," "Nope," and "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery." WatchMojo gave "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery" an honorable mention, while Grace justified her decision in a pinned comment to the video: "While I certainly respect Everything Everywhere All At Once, I didn't love it myself. So while I voted for it for Best Picture for Critics Choice, it's not on my list here." Fair enough.
Follow over the jump for Grace's and WatchMojo's picks for the year's top TV shows.
Bill gives two thumbs down to the trend of virtue-signaling Oscar films.
Bill has a point about the movies the Hollywood creatives in the Motion Picture Academy nominate for awards. They are serious "coffee table" cinema that the entertainment industry wants to show off as serious art. I grew up around these people and they've always been like this, so that's not new. It's just that two trends have made it more apparent this year.
“The Oscars aren’t just about the most popular movie,” said Jonathan Kuntz, film historian and lecturer at the U.C.L.A. School of Theater, Film and Television. Instead of mass appeal, the best picture award recognizes intangible qualities such as originality, technical innovation, cultural significance and artistic value.
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“The Academy Award has always been, since the early days, Hollywood’s way of helping itself in promoting films,” said Mr. Kuntz, explaining why lower-grossing art house films are often favored. “The value of an Oscar to a medium or small film can be great, whereas to a large film, it can be insignificant.”
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“They want to reward new people and new ideas,” said Mr. Kuntz, which is why best picture rarely goes to reboots or sequels. The first “Star Wars” movie, “A New Hope” (1977), was nominated for best picture, but did not win. The “Star Wars” franchise has enjoyed enormous commercial success since then, but Mr. Kuntz doubted that academy voters would pick a “Star Wars” film for best picture.
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“The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” (2003) is one of the few fantasy movies, and one of few sequels, to win best picture. “In 2001, when the first movie was nominated,” Mr. Kuntz said, “it was considered a major achievement.” He suspects that the reason it took three films for the academy to recognize the trilogy was because of its genre.
So there is a method to Hollywood's madness. I just hope it doesn't backfire.
Second, the pandemic has completely messed up Hollywood's box office and release schedule, so it's almost impossible to really gauge the popularity of movies and a lot of movies that would have been released in theaters ended up delayed, on streaming services, or both, like "Wonder Woman 1984." The following graph from Calculated Risk using Box Office Mojo data shows how the pandemic has caused the domestic box office to crater.
By the way, the uptick at the end of the 2021 series is from "Godzilla vs. Kong," which became the top grossing film so far this year after one week, even though it's also available for subscribers of HBO Max to stream.
On the other hand, the kind of films that the Motion Picture Academy likes to nominate got released anyway. That made Hollywood's taste for socially conscious Oscar nominees even more prominent this year than in previous years, when there were more popular movies to see in theaters. Just the same, even some of the Oscar nominees have found audiences on streaming, as the following graphic from Cord Cutter News shows.
Yes, "Nomadland," which Bill Maher dumped on, broke into the top ten streaming movies as measured by Nielsen. That's why I think it has a very good shot at winning Best Picture, whether Bill likes it or not. At least we know people, including the Motion Picture Academy members, are watching it.
Finally, Bill mocked the documentaries as the category for serious examination of issues to make people feel bad. As I pointed out in Politics, government, and injustice among the 2021 feature documentary Oscar nominees, while I found little uplifting about "Collective," I thought "Time," "Crip Camp," and "My Octopus Teacher" featured positive stories and "The Mole Agent" to be surprisingly fun. Maybe Bill should watch those for a better movie experience.
That's it for today's entertainment feature. I'll be back tomorrow for Yuri'sNight. Stay tuned.
Winner of the 5th Annual Critics Choice Documentary Award for Best Narration: DAVID ATTENBOROUGH: A LIFE ON OUR PLANET.
It's too bad Sir David couldn't accept the award himself, but it sets him up well for next year's Emmy Awards, where "A Life on our Planet" should be eligible. If he wins, he can add that Emmy to the ones for "Blue Planet II," "Our Planet," and "Seven Worlds, One Planet." I also think the documentary itself will be a strong contender at next year's Environmental Media Association Awards for documentary film.
Join us as we discuss the new Netflix Documentary, David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet.
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Sir David Attenborough is a broadcast legend. And probably no individual has seen more of the Earth's wilderness in his illustrious nearly 70-year career. That makes him the perfect witness to the devastating changes afflicting our planet.
In David Attenborough: A Life On Our Planet (2020), which premiered on Netflix, co-director Keith Scholey of Silverback Films and producer Colin Butfield of the World Wildlife Fund bring us Sir David's witness statement. In the process, they also provide us with simple solutions to saving our planet before it is too late.
"The things that are happening to this world are unnecessary. Not getting out of the problem is unnecessary. So make sure that your voice is heard, so that we solve it." - Keith Scholey
Follow over the jump to read about "I Am Greta" and "Jane Goodall: The Hope." The subject of the first was named Most Compelling Living Subject of a Documentary and the second was nominated for Best First Documentary.
While "The Shape of Water" was the most nominated film with seven nominations, it won only two awards, Best Director and Best Original Score, falling behind "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri," which earned four statuettes and tying "Lady Bird." That written, it was the most recognized speculative fiction film as well as a victory for diversity. Watch Guillermo del Toro Wins Best Director at the 2018 Golden Globes.
Guillermo del Toro accepts the award for Best Director at the 75th Annual Golden Globe Awards.
I called Del Toro one of the big name directors along with Christopher Nolan and Steven Spielberg. I also wrote "'I'm rooting for Nolan,' but I'm not optimistic." I was right to not be optimistic. I should also root for Del Toro.
As for the next category, I wrote "I still think Zimmer will pull this one off for 'Dunkirk,' but I'm beginning to worry about Alexandre Desplat and especially John Williams winning instead." Again, I was right to worry. Watch The Shape of Water Wins Best Original Score at the 2018 Golden Globes.
Composer Alexandre Desplat accepts the award for Best Original Score at the 75th Annual Golden Globe Awards.
Now I'm going to have to listen to the soundtrack.
Writer and director Lee Unkrich accepts the award for Best Motion Picture - Animated at the 75th Annual Golden Globe Awards.
I've written about my visit to Oaxaca and its observation of the Day of the Dead, so I would enjoy this movie. I would also enjoy its songs, including the one I expect to be nominated for an Oscar, "Remember Me." I'll be listening to them right after I finish the soundtrack to "The Shape of Water."
Follow over the jump for other winners for diversity and speculative fiction at the Golden Globes.
