Question: Well, it's that time again — time to rejoice and weep about the Emmy nominations. I was actually pleasantly surprised this year. After last year's debacle (it can't be called anything else), I wasn't expecting much. But this year, probably 75 to 80 percent of my wish list was granted, which, when it comes to Emmy nominations, is pretty good. Nothing's perfect, of course: In particular, I was disappointed that Lost wasn't nominated for best drama (but Boston Legal was? What?) and that Matthew Fox and Elizabeth Mitchell weren't recognized for their riveting performances. As a new convert to Friday Night Lights, I was also disappointed (but hardly surprised) to see that the show received no nominations at all. But there was good news to balance things out: I was particularly thrilled to see nominations for Ugly Betty, and for America Ferrera and Vanessa L. Williams. I also think they got it right in nominating Sally Field, Michael Emerson and Terry O'Quinn for their great weekly ...
read more
Remember how Charlie Brown used to end up on his back every time he went to kick the football after Lucy pulled it away? Well, that was me, in the pre-dawn of Thursday morning at the TV Academy building in North Hollywood, as the first Emmy category (for best drama series) was read aloud. Amid a gaggle of impatient media crews and anxious publicists, I once again felt sucker-punched by the cluelessly inexplicable whims of the Emmy nomination process. (Go here for a list of nominees.)The football analogy applies because, once again, the Emmy system dropped the ball, failing to acknowledge NBC’s critically worshiped freshman underdog Friday Night Lights, instead finding room for ABC’s cartoonishly lurid freak show Boston Legal (on the basis, so I hear, of a rare detour into quality with a post-Katrina episode). A chagrined Academy source tells me that Friday Night Lights came close, but speculated that it may have flown too far under the radar in a way overcrowded field. Hea...
read more
It's the film Quentin Tarantino wishes he had directed. Stylish, flamboyant and groundbreaking, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) is what '60s cinema was all about. This week, the cult flick rides in with a new DVD — including a fistful of extras that'd make the Man with No Name crack a smile. Actor Eli Wallach, who co-starred as the comically cruel Tuco in the film, reminisces with TV Guide Online about star Clint Eastwood, director Sergio Leone and the hazards of uncooked potatoes.
TV Guide Online: What did you think the first time you heard about The Good, the Bad and the Ugly?Eli Wallach: When my agent told me that they wanted me to do a spaghetti Western, it sounded crazy, like a Hawaiian pizza. It makes no sense! [Laughs] Clint Eastwood had done two of them already, but I'd never seen Clint in a movie. I met with Sergio Leone; he said he wanted me to see the credits of one of his movies, and then I would
read more
