Looking Forward To... FALL/WINTER

While I found it a bit difficult to get amped up for what the summer had to offer, I never seem to have that problem when it comes to the fall/holiday movie season and this year isn't any different. Without further a due, here are most of the films coming out between today and the end of the year that I'm most interested in...

September is a bit lean, yet still there are many films I want to see. Today is actually the release of one of the films I've been intrigued about since I heard about it. Never Let Me Go stars Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield, and Keira Knightley and it's adapted from a book that has gotten rave reviews. Also coming out this week is The Town which is also getting rood reviews and it is starring Jon Hamm, Jeremy Renner, and Ben Affleck. Two comedies that caught my eye this month are Easy A and You Again. The latter stars Betty White, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kristin Chenoweth, and Sigourney Weaver... so clearly that's a must-see film. Easy A has been on my list since I saw the Mean Girls-Saved!-esque trailer a few weeks ago. Finally, Woody Allen offers up his latest with You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger while James Franco partners up with Aaron Tveit in Howl.

October offers a mix of potential Oscar contenders and horror films. In the Oscar contender side there's the much-buzzed about movie The Social Network aka The Facebook Movie which a lot of critics are dubbing as the quintessential film of our times. There is also the Seabiscuit-like film Secretariat starring John Malkovich and Diane Lane, Focus Features' quirky It's Kind of a Funny Story, and The Weinstein's ode to the Beatles with Nowhere Boy starring newcomer Aaron Johnson playing John Lennon. Hilary Swank and Sam Rockwell team up for the dramatic film Conviction while Clint Eastwood tries a little something different with Hereafter starring Matt Damon. Just saw a trailer of the latter and it's definitely... different. Also in the mix, though probably not for Oscars, is Tamara Drew directed by Stephen Frears starring Dominic Cooper and Red, an action comedic film starring Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, and Helen Mirren based on a graphic novel. For the horror aficionados, there's Let Me In, a remake of the wonderful 2008 film Let the Right One In, and Monsters, which to me looks a little bit like District 9 meets Cloverfield. If both films live up to those films that they remind me of, they should be worth watching.

November is when things start getting serious. Two films getting absolutely stunning reviews and warm receptions are Danny Boyle's harrowing film 127 Hours with James Franco and The King's Speech with Colin Firth, Helena Bonham Carter, and Geoffrey Rush. Both, at the moment, seem to be the two Best Picture front-runners. Then again at this time last year, that spot was held by Up in the Air. Two films which will probably have debatable Oscar traction, yet are near the top of my must-see list, are Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part I) and Love and Other Drugs starring Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal. And while I'm not the biggest Tyler Perry fan, I just saw a trailer for his most recent film For Colored Girls and the cast looks top-notch and I admit, I'm intrigued. A few of the other movies I want to see, but would probably wait until they were out on DVD include Burlesque, Made in Dagenham, Skyline, and Welcome to the Riley's.

Finally, December is do-or-die with every studio seemingly going for broke. There are lots of must-see films this month including Darren Aronofsky's much-awaited Black Swan, Sofia Coppola's recent Golden Lion winner Somewhere, Julie Taymor's The Tempest, and Mike Leigh's Another Year. There's also Miral starring Slumdog Millionaire actress Freida Pinto and my most anticipated film of the year, Blue Valentine, starring Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams. Seriously, I've been waiting for the movie to come up since I heard about the project last year. And yet there are many, many more such as The Fighter with Mark Wahlberg, The Tourist with Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp, Tron: Legacy with Jeff Bridges, Biutiful with Javier Bardem, and The Debt with Sam Worthington and Helen Mirren. I'll probably wait to see the third Chronicles of Narnia film on Netflix as well as the beleaguered and oft-delayed I Love You, Phillip Morris with Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor playing lovers.

Whew. That's... a lot. Suffice it to say, I most likely will not end up watching all of these, but I'll do my best, just because I am that insane. That's how many bold-faced movies up there? 38? Taking out my "Netflix movies" and I'm left with around 25-28. So with the average ticket price at around $12.50, if I do end up seeing the movies I truly want to see it would cost me around $312.50-$350. Thud. Well, maybe I'm not looking that much forward to the upcoming weeks after all...

Creative Arts Emmy Wnners

A couple of early Emmy trophies were handed out last night at the Creative Arts Emmys ceremony.

Locked and loaded winners Betty White and John Lithgow won Best Guest Actress in a Comedy and Guest Actor in a Drama respectively even with the latter achieving it through some blatant category fraud (he was in every single episode of Dexter this past season). Guest Actor in a Comedy went to Neil Patrick Harris who ended up getting his first and second Emmy awards last night, also winning for his hosting job at last year's Tony Awards. A few think he robbed fellow Glee guest star Mike O'Malley, but not me. I never did like mostly dramatic performances edging out funnier performances in a COMEDY category. Ann-Margret won Guest Actress in a Drama besting out my personal winner Elizabeth Mitchell from Lost.

Best Casting awards went to Mad Men, Modern Family, and The Pacific which may or may not bode well for their chances to grab top awards next weekend. The Pacific certainly will look to dominate the movie/mini-series categories picking up a total of five Emmy awards last night.

Anne Hathaway can cross out the Emmys from her EGOT checklist as she won for her voice performance for The Simpsons. While Seth Green lost in that category, he won his first Emmys when Robot Chicken won Best Short Form Animated Program of which he is the executive producer. Jeff Probst picked up his third straight Emmys for Best Reality Host (Phil Keoghan was robbed!) while Mia Michaels got her second Emmy win for Best Choreography.

Other noteworthy wins include "The Man Your Man Could Smell Lie" commercial for Old Spice Body Wash winning Best Commercial, The Colbert Report getting Best Variety Writing, and Lost getting Best Picture Editing. Modern Family and Temple Grandin also received Editing wins.

Some confusing/infuriating results include the much-maligned FlashForward receiving an Emmy for Best Stunt Coordination, CSI beating out four sci-fi/fantasy entries for Best Visual Effects and Sean P. Callery winning Best Score for his work on 24 over Michael Giacchino and his tear-jerking music in the Lost finale episode.

Click here to see the complete list of winners from last night.

Emmy Nominations: The Good, The Bad, & The Whatever

THE GOOD

- LOST nabs 12 nominations for its final season including nominations for series, directing, writing, and four of its actors (Matthew Fox, Terry O'Quinn, Michael Emerson, and Elizabeth Mitchell). Most happy for Fox and Mitchell getting their first (and well-deserved) Emmy nominations.

- Breakout comedy hits Glee and Modern Family score lots of love including much deserved acting nominations for Lea Michele, Chris Colfer, Jane Lynch, Sofia Vergara, Ty Burrell, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Eric Stonestreet, and Julie Bowen.

- The Good Wife gets 9 nominations including nominations for Julianna Margulies, Christine Baranski, and Archie Panjabi. I'm most happy for the latter's surprise first Emmy nomination!

- These fantastic actors getting double nominated: Jane Lynch, Neil Patrick Harris, Christine Baranski, Jon Hamm, and Tina Fey.

- Emmy voters going mad over the ladies of Mad Men as January Jones, Elisabeth Moss, and Christina Hendricks all get nominations. YoSaffBridge is an Emmy nominee, y'all!

- Even though I don't watch the show, special shout out to Connie Britton and Kyle Chandler for getting the first acting nominations of their infamously-ignored show, Friday Night Lights.

- Betty White is nominated for Guest Actress in a Comedy Series along side funny women Tina Fey, Jane Lynch, Christine Baranski, Elaine Stritch, and Kathryn Joosten. What an awesome category.

- Film regulars Jeff Bridges, Anne Hathaway, Alan Cumming, Dennis Quaid, Michael Sheen, and David Strathairn get their first Emmy nominations!

- Conan O'Brien and his team on The Tonight Show got some love. Suck on that Leno!

- The creators of How I Met Your Mother were nominated for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics for the musical episode. Hee!

- Last year 30 Rock and Mad Men got 8 out of 10 writing nominations, which I dubbed as absolutely ridiculous. Thankfully, things are a bit more spread out this year. They both only got two nominations each.

THE BAD

- Some of my favorite shows that got inexplicably shut out of ANY nominations: Community, Dollhouse, Party Down, and Ugly Betty. While Gary Unmarried gets one.

- Some of my favorite shows that managed to get only 1-2 nominations: Chuck, Fringe, Caprica, and V.

- Courtney Cox, already the ONLY Friends cast member to not get nominated for an Emmy, comes up empty once again.

- Too many nominations for Glee! I think I would've been fine with it all if they just didn't give a default nomination to Matthew Morrison. Seriously? Speaking of, all that Glee love and they didn't nominate Joss Whedon for directing? DIAF.

- Married with Children co-stars Ed O'Neill and Katey Segal unable to get their FIRST Emmy nominations for Modern Family and Sons of Anarchy respectively.

- Default nominations for Tony Shaloub, Larry David, Jon Cryer, and Mariska Hargitay. How BORING and PREDICTABLE!

- I know I already mentioned it, but I'm SO disappointed/angry that Community got ZERO nominations, especially with a relatively weak season of The Office getting some love.

- Yay for Neil Patrick Harris and Jim Parson for their nominations, but man I do wish that How I Met Your Mother and Big Bang Theory would get more Emmy love. Alyson Hannigan? Kaley Cuoco? Wake up Emmy!

- John Noble (Fringe), Keir Gilchrist (United States of Tara), Nathan Fillion (Castle), and Enver Gjokaj (Dollhouse) were all criminally overlooked.

- I know Torchwood: Children of Earth wasn't submitted, but the lack of miniseries nominated is making me sad thinking about how this could've garnered a good chunk of nominations.

- Cat Deeley still not getting any love for Outstanding Host. BOO!

THE WHATEVER

- Past Emmy favorites Heroes, Desperate Housewives, and Grey's Anatomy IN TOTAL got only four nominations. FOUR. That must hurt.

- Speaking of, I'm not a big fan of Grey's Anatomy, but I'm shocked that its harrowing season finale didn't garner more nominations for the show and the cast.

- Shocked that True Blood got nominated for Best Drama Series. Nothing else to say... just... shocked. Plus none for its cast? Weird.

- Other than LOST, shows ending didn't get much love including a shut out for Ugly Betty and Law & Order and a measly 5 nominations (not including Best Actor or Best Series) to 24. Feeling a bit sad for previous winners America Ferrera and Kiefer Sutherland here.

- The CW got a total of ZERO nominations.

- Family Guy (nominated last year for Best Comedy Series) and other Seth McFarlane productions were largely ignored.

- So You Think You Can Dance only managed to get two Outstanding Choreography nominations, but two of the other three nominations went to a former contestant (Chelsie Hightower) and a current judge (Adam Shankman) of the show.

- The sucktastic season of Project Runway got nominated over an apparently thrilling season of Survivor.

CLICK HERE FOR THE COMPLETE LIST OF EMMY NOMINATIONS

Weekend Update

- Eighty-eight year old Betty White hosted Saturday Night Live accompanied by some of SNL's more recent female alums: Ana Gesteyer, Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, Rachel Dratch, Maya Rudoplh, and Molly Shannon. Most of the jokes were of the "granny says dirty jokes" variety, but it mostly worked in no small part due to White's still pitch perfect comedic timing. Jay-Z was the musical guest and it was touching he dedicated his performance of "Forever Young" to Betty White.

- Another clay court tournament, another uncharacteristic loss from French Open champion Roger Federer as he crashed out of the Estorial semifinals to eventual champion Albert Montanes. Maria Jose Martinez grabbed the Rome title from Jelena Jankovic who managed to defeat both Williams sisters en route to the final. Sam Querrey and John Isner contested the first all-American final in a European clay court tournament in nearly two decades with Querrey taking the title in Serbia. Defending champion Novak Djokovic retired with breathing problems.

Outlook: Give Rafael Nadal his fifth French Open win because none of the other contenders have done anything worthwhile this clay season. Hell if I know who to predict on the woman's side.

- A pair of brothers won The Amazing Race, but it wasn't the one a lot of people wanted to win. Fan favorite cowboy brothers Jet/Cord came in second place to twin brothers Dan/Jordan who ran a strategic and confident final leg. Helped by being upgraded to first class in their international flight, they stayed in front the whole time navigating the streets of San Francisco and finally to Candlestick Park where Phil declared them winners. I'd be lying to say I wasn't disappointed that Jet/Cord didn't win, but I was also very pleased to see Brent/Caite check in a distant third. Here's to hoping for an All-Stars season starring those gentle cowboys.