Emmy Awards: Part One

The Television Academy gives out so many Emmy Awards for excellence in primetime television that they have to split them into three separate nights, with 93 different categories of "creative arts" divided into two early ceremonies and the rest -- big awards like Best Actor, Director and Drama -- reserved for the fancy ceremony a week later.

All of those "creative arts" Emmys were handed out over the weekend, honoring everything from guest actors, casting directors and editors to animation programs, documentaries, variety specials and informative shows. Here are Saturday night's 28 winners (29 if you count the tie for Outstanding Choreography):

Outstanding Special Class Program
70th Annual Tony Awards

Outstanding Variety Special
Carpool Karaoke Primetime Special 2017

Outstanding Short Form Variety Series
The Daily Show – Between the Scenes

Outstanding Interactive Program
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Outstanding Documentary Filmmaking
LA 92

Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series
Planet Earth II 

Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special
13th 

Outstanding Informational Series or Special
Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath

Outstanding Animated Program
Bob’s Burgers

Outstanding Short Form Animated Program
Adventure Time

Outstanding Structured Reality Program
Shark Tank

Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program
United Shades Of America: With W. Kamau Bell

Outstanding Short Form Nonfiction or Reality Series
Viceland at the Women’s March

Outstanding Casting for a Reality Program
Born This Way

Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance
Seth MacFarlane, Family Guy

Outstanding Choreography
(tie) Mandy Moore, Dancing with the Stars, for "On Top of the World" and "Carol of the Bells," and Travis Wall, So You Think You Can Dance, for "The Mirror," "Send in the Clowns," and "She Used to Be Mine."

Outstanding Cinematography for a Nonfiction Program 
Planet Earth II: Islands

Outstanding Cinematography for a Reality Program
Born This Way

Outstanding Costumes for Variety, Nonfiction or Reality Programming
RuPaul’s Drag Race

Outstanding Directing for a Nonfiction Program 
O.J.: Made in America 

Outstanding Directing for a Variety Special
The Oscars

Outstanding Hairstyling for a Multi-Camera Series or Special 
Hairspray Live! 

Outstanding Host for a Reality/Reality-Competition Program
RuPaul Charles, RuPaul’s Drag Race

Outstanding Narrator
Meryl Streep, Five Came Back

Outstanding Makeup for a Multi-Camera Series or Special (Non-Prosthetic) 
Saturday Night Live

Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics
"Letter to the Free" by Common, Robert Glasper and Karriem Riggins for 13th

Outstanding Writing for a Nonfiction Program 
13th

Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special
Full Frontal with Samantha Bee Presents Not the White House Correspondents’ Dinner

Next up: Guest actors, cinematography, editing, stunts and lots, lots more...

LA LA LAND Leads Oscar Nominations

The 2017 Oscar nominations were announced online this morning with a global event filmed in six different cities.

Moving the Academy away from the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, seven actors of color were nominated this year, with Denzel Washington in the race for Best Actor for Fences and Loving's Ruth Negga earning a nomination as Best Actress. In supporting categories, actresses Viola Davis (Fences), Naomie Harris (Moonlight) and Octavia Spencer (Hidden Figures) were nominated along with actor Mahershala Ali (Moonlight). English-Indian actor Dev Patel is also in the Best Supporting Actor race for Lion, and Moonlight's director Barry Jenkins was nominated, only the third African-American in Oscar history in the Best Director category. Who are the others? John Singleton was nominated in 1991 for Boyz in the Hood, followed by Lee Daniels in 2009 for Precious. In 2014, England's Steve McQueen became the first black Brit to earn a Best Director Oscar nod. His film, 12 Years a Slave, won Best Picture that year, although Mexico's Alfonso Cuarón won Best Director for Gravity, making Cuarón the first Latin American man to win in that category.

La La Land and its whopping 14 nominations -- tying All About Eve and Titanic for the most ever -- shows that it doesn't hurt your Oscar chances to keep Hollywood and a reverence for old movies front and center in your film. That didn't help the Coen Brothers' Hail Caesar, however, which took only one nomination, for its production design.

If there were any surprises on the list, it was probably that the Hollywood Powers That Be have apparently forgiven Mel Gibson for his many public transgressions, nominating him for Best Director for Hacksaw Ridge, while overlooking Amy Adams, considered a likely prospect for a Best Actress nod, Finding Dory, not one of the choices for Best Animated Feature, and Martin Scorsese and his film Silence, greeted with a whole lot of silence instead of nominations. Silence did earn a cinematography nod for Rodrigo Prieto.

At the moment, given all its nominations and the buzz going in, La La Land is certainly the front-runner for Best Picture. But it has engendered some controversy for its lily-white take on jazz as an art form as well as some unapologetic mansplaining, so the stunner that is Moonlight might just sneak in there by the time the Oscar ceremony rolls around on February 26th. I hope so. Moonlight deserves it.

Here's a list of nominees in major categories:

BEST PICTURE
Arrival
Fences
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
Hidden Figures
La La Land
Lion
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight

BEST ACTOR
Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea
Andrew Garfield, Hacksaw Ridge
Ryan Gosling, La La Land
Viggo Mortensen, Captain Fantastic
Denzel Washington, Fences

BEST ACTRESS
Isabelle Huppert, Elle
Ruth Negga, Loving
Emma Stone, La La Land
Natalie Portman, Jackie
Meryl Streep, Florence Foster Jenkins

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Mahershala Ali, Moonlight
Jeff Bridges, Hell or High Water
Lucas Hedges, Manchester by the Sea
Dev Patel, Lion
Michael Shannon, Nocturnal Animals

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Viola Davis, Fences
Naomie Harris, Moonlight
Nicole Kidman, Lion
Octavia Spencer, Hidden Figures
Michelle Williams, Manchester by the Sea

BEST DIRECTOR
Damien Chazelle, La La Land
Mel Gibson, Hacksaw Ridge
Barry Jenkins, Moonlight
Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea
Denis Villeneuve, Arrival

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Luke Davies, Lion
Eric Heisserer, Arrival
Barry Jenkins, Story by Tarell Alvin McCraney, Moonlight
Allison Schroeder and Theodore Melfi, Hidden Figures
August Wilson, Fences

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Damien Chazelle, La La Land
Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthimis Filippou, The Lobster
Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea
Mike Mills, 20th Century Women
Taylor Sheridan, Hell or High Water 

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Greig Fraser, Lion
James Laxton, Moonlight
Rodrigo Prieto, Silence
Linus Sandgren, La La Land
Bradford Young, Arrival 

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Land of Mine (Denmark)
A Man Called Ove (Sweden)
The Salesman (Iran)
Tanna (Australia)
Toni Erdmann (Germany)

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Kubo and the Two Strings
Moana
My Life as a Zucchini
The Red Turtle
Zootopia

For the complete list of nominations and more information about the February 26 Oscar ceremony, click here for the Academy Awards official site.

Screen Actors Guild: Film Nominations

If the Screen Actors Guild Awards for movies have an advantage over the splashier Golden Globes it's probably because they are a better Oscar prognosticating tool, at least as far as the acting categories go. That's because the voters -- members of the Screen Actors Guild -- are a much better match for voters in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences than the elite little (emphasis on little) group known as the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

SAG gives far fewer awards, they are a much more serious affair, and they don't actually honor anything as a "best" or "outstanding" film, just the one whose cast they liked best. This year, Oscar frontrunner La La Land isn't nominated in that "Outstanding Cast" category. Instead, a little something called Captain Fantastic (about a father in the wilderness trying to raise six kids by himself) has taken its place. That may be because La La Land is more dependent on its two leads and its ensemble just didn't seem like something SAG voters wanted to single out. Or it may signify that La La Land isn't a frontrunner for the Best Picture Oscar after all.

Stars Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone were both nominated, however, so it's not like La La Land is being overlooked. Whether or not they win -- which isn't at all a sure thing given that Casey Affleck in Manchester by the Sea and Denzel Washington in Fences are expected to be the contenders for Best Actor, while Natalie Portman's Jackie is right in there with Stone at the head of the Best Actress pack -- La La Land will be celebrated plenty this awards season.

Aside from Captain Fantastic and Viggo Mortenssn in it, the biggest surprise to me is that Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant are nominated for Florence Foster Jenkins, which wasn't greeted all that enthusiastically by critics when it arrived. The power of La Streep?

Whichever direction the awards go when they are handed out January 29, the nominees are:

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A CAST IN A MOTION PICTURE
Captain Fantastic
Fences
Hidden Figures
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A FEMALE ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
Amy Adams, Arrival
Emily Blunt, The Girl on the Train
Natalie Portman, Jackie
Emma Stone, La La Land
Meryl Streep, Florence Foster Jenkins

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A MALE ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea
Andrew Garfield, Hacksaw Ridge
Ryan Gosling, La La Land
Viggo Mortensen, Captain Fantastic
Denzel Washington, Fences

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A FEMALE ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Viola Davis, Fences
Naomie Harris, Moonlight
Nicole Kidman, Lion
Octavia Spencer, Hidden Figures
Michelle Williams, Manchester by the Sea

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A MALE ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Mahershala Ali, Moonlight
Jeff Bridges, Hell or High Water
Hugh Grant, Florence Foster Jenkins
Lucas Hedges, Manchester by the Sea
Dev Patel, Lion

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A STUNT ENSEMBLE

Captain America: Civil War
Doctor Strange
Hacksaw Ridge
Jason Bourne
Nocturnal Animals

Look for the Screen Actors Guild Awards on TBS and TNT on Sunday, January 29.

Best Movie Moms for Mother's Day

I have a habit of bringing this one back for Mother's Day. And I haven't changed my mind since the last time, either!

Lists of movie moms inevitably include Stella Dallas, Mildred Pierce and Psycho's mom. Maybe even the over-the-top stage mother in Gypsy. Yeah, I'm not going for any of them. Instead, my idea of a movie mom is more like, well, the list below.

Best Movie Mom, Classic Category

Jane Darwell as Ma Joad

My favorite mom in the classic period of Hollywood movies is Jane Darwell in The Grapes of Wrath. She's not the lead, but she is everything that represents home, love and stability as her family must take to the road in the wake of foreclosure, hunger, death and separation. Born Patti Woodward to a wealthy Missouri family (her dad was the president of a railroad), Darwell was not the kind of poor Okie she played in The Grapes of Wrath, but she definitely made an impact. The scene where her son, Tom Joad, played by Henry Fonda, tells her that he will be there, the everyman who stands in "Wherever you can look, wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there," is probably the most famous bit of Grapes of Wrath and Darwell is certainly the anchor in that scene. But I defy anyone not to get a little teary when Ma Joad packs up the remnants of her household, holding up a pair of earrings and looking at her reflection in the side of a metal coffee pot. As she remembers who she used to be and all that she's leaving behind, accompanied by the melancholy sound of the song "Red River Valley," Darwell looks at us, straight ahead, with a subtle yet devastating expression on her soft, worn face, and you see the whole plot, the whole punch of the movie right there. Jane Darwell won an Oscar in the Best Supporting Actress category for her performance, and she certainly deserved it.

Best Movie Mom, Funny Category
North by Northwest isn't exactly your standard comedy, but Jessie Royce Landis, who wasn't nearly old enough* to play the mother of her on-screen son, Cary Grant, is so fresh and funny playing a sardonic society mother who totally and completely has her playboy son's number, that you'll forget the Hitchcockian suspense and just smile every time she's on screen. Landis had an extensive Broadway career before and after her screen debut in At Your Service in 1930. On Broadway, she played Jo in Little Women and Hermione in The Winter's Tale, and on film, she was Grace Kelly's wise and witty mother in To Catch a Thief a few years before she played Cary's mum in North by Northwest. Clearly, she'd have been a better match for Mr. Grant than a mother, but it's all good. Jessie Royce Landis did the knowing eye-roll better than just about anybody.

Mr. Grant and Ms. Landis in North by Northwest

Best Movie Mom, Most Like a Real Mom Category

ET with Dee Wallace

I remember a friend opining that Steven Spielberg creates good movie moms. I think that's true, with none more real and warm and just all-around mom-a-riffic than Dee Wallace in E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. Wallace's Mary doesn't do anything special or spectacular; she just goes about her business as a caring, loving single mother to her children, Elliott (Henry Thomas) and Gertie (Drew Barrymore), even when an alien starts living in her son's closet. If I were under ten again, I'd pick this modern, lovely, regular-old mom for my family. Dee Wallace has been in a ton of horror movies, giving them the same grounded, real presence she provides in E.T. And she showed up a few years ago on The Office, once again playing a mother. (This time she was Andy Bernard's mom.)

Best Movie Mom,Cartoon Category

Elastigirl and Her Voice, Holly Hunter

Holly Hunter has done at least two memorable film moms, with her barren-but-yearning, babynapping Ed in Raising Arizona making an impact, along with her sweetly fierce Helen (AKA Elastigirl) in The Incredibles. Moms with superpowers probably deserve a category of their own, but what makes Helen stand out is how normal she is, even in her spandex suit, and how well she looks out for her kids and her husband, even in the face of assaults from supervillains. Hunter also deserves mention for making Helen feel real and sympathetic simply through the use of her voice.

Best Movie Mom, Musical Category

Meryl Streep in "Mamma Mia"

Meryl Streep has played a lot of moms in her career, and if we'd seen more than just a flashback where she saves her kids and the family cat in Defending Your Life, I might be inclined to pick that luminous and lovely performance. But, alas, she's more "romantic heroine" and less "mom" in that one. I'm sure she's picked for Sophie's Choice a lot, too, but that is such a difficult and terrible movie for any mother that I'm not going there, either. So I'm going with Mamma Mia, where she plays against type as a goofy, hippyish mother who isn't sure which of her three boyfriends from the past is the father of her daughter. Mamma Mia is certainly not the best musical around, but Streep is delightful, dancing around in her overalls, nothing like the Grande Dame of the American Screen, making herself absolutely convincing in an otherwise not-believable-in-the-least movie. I don't know. Maybe I should remove Meryl after her scenery-chewing turn as a Mom from Hell in August: Osage County. But I still like her in Mamma Mia.

*The oft-repeated story is that Landis was almost a year younger than Grant, which the Internet Broadway Database thinks is the correct information. The Internet Movie Database, however, has Landis born in 1896, making her 7-and-a-bit years older than Grant. Certainly not old enough to be his mother, but at least not younger. Who's right? My husband, who likes genealogical research, has located Jessie Medbury (her birth name) on the 1900 Chicago census as a three-year-old, and then again on the 1910 and 1920 censuses when she was 13 and 23, respectively. So my household is going with 1896 as Jessie Royce Landis's year of birth.

First Peak at Meryl, Julia, Ewan, Etc. in AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY (the Movie)

Tracy Letts' angsty family drama August: Osage County was a barnburner as a play, winning the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama as well as six Joseph Jefferson Awards for the original Chicago production at Steppenwolf and five Tony Awards and a host of other prizes for the subsequent Broadway version. After all the acclaim, it was only a matter of time before Hollywood got ahold of the play and, well, Hollywoodized it.

With director John Wells (The Company Men) at the helm, August: Osage The Movie is gearing up, with a cast that includes Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Ewan McGregor, Chris Cooper, the man with the best name in entertainment history -- Benedict Cumberbatch -- and Mr. American Icon himself, Sam Shepard.

The movie isn't slated to be released till November, which is primo Oscar turf, but a trailer is already circulating on the internet. And creating speculation as to how exactly this star-studded movie version will resemble the play everybody loved so much. For one difference in tone, you can compare the movie poster above to the Broadway lobby card at right.

Doug George at the Chicago Tribune is worried that the trailer looks way too sweet and heartwarming to be the caustic August: Osage County that made such a splash, while Deadline calls it "cheery" and Margaret Lyons at Vulture thinks it has a "knowing quirk-factor" that doesn't really fit the play. You can judge for yourself by watching the trailer at any of those links.

If you'd like to keep track of who's been changed to whom from Broadway to Hollywood, here's a handy chart of the roles and who's playing what:

                                                        Broadway                      Movie
VIOLET WESTON              Deanna Dunagan           Meryl Streep
BEVERLY WESTON              Dennis Letts              Sam Shepard
BARBARA FORDHAM         Amy Morton               Julia Roberts
BILL FORDHAM                     Jeff Perry                Ewan McGregor
JEAN FORDHAM               Madeleine Martin         Abigail Breslin
KAREN WESTON              Mariann Mayberry         Juliette Lewis    
IVY WESTON                        Sally Murphy          Julianne Nicholson
STEVE HEIDEBRECHT     Brian Kerwin           Dermot Mulroney
CHARLES AIKEN               Frances Guinan             Chris Cooper
LITTLE CHARLES               Ian Barford           Benedict Cumberbatch
MATTIE FAE AIKEN           Rondi Reed              Margo Martindale
JOHNNA                             Kimberly Guerrero         Misty Upham

Feel free to read the play, create your own fantasy cast, and be all primed to compare/contrast by November.

Happy Mother's Day!

Bringing this one back for Mother's Day!

Lists of movie moms inevitably include Stella Dallas, Mildred Pierce and Psycho's mom. Yeah, I'm not going for any of them. Instead, my idea of a movie mom is more like, well, the list below.

Best Movie Mom, Classic Category

Jane Darwell as Ma Joad

My favorite mom in the classic period of Hollywood movies is Jane Darwell in "The Grapes of Wrath." She's not the lead, but she is everything that represents home, love and stability as her family must take to the road in the wake of foreclosure, hunger, death and separation. Born Patti Woodward to a wealthy Missouri family (her dad was the president of a railroad), Darwell was not the kind of poor Okie she played in "The Grapes of Wrath," but she definitely made an impact. The scene where her son, Tom Joad, played by Henry Fonda, tells her that he will be there, the everyman who stands in "Wherever you can look, wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there," is probably the most famous bit of "Grapes of Wrath," and Darwell is certainly the anchor in that scene. But I defy anyone not to get a little teary when Ma Joad packs up the remnants of her household, holding up a pair of earrings and looking at her reflection in the side of a metal coffee pot. As she remembers who she used to be and all that she's leaving behind, accompanied by the melancholy sound of the song "Red River Valley," Darwell looks at us, straight ahead, with a subtle yet devastating expression on her soft, worn face, and you see the whole plot, the whole punch of the movie right there. Jane Darwell won an Oscar in the Best Supporting Actress category for her performance, and she certainly deserved it.

Best Movie Mom, Funny Category
"North by Northwest" isn't exactly your standard comedy, but Jessie Royce Landis, who wasn't nearly old enough* to play the mother of her on-screen son, Cary Grant, is so fresh and funny playing a sardonic society mother who totally and completely has her playboy son's number, that you'll forget the Hitchcockian suspense and just smile every time she's on screen. Landis had an extensive Broadway career before and after her screen debut in "At Your Service" in 1930. On Broadway, she played Jo in "Little Women" and Hermione in "The Winter's Tale," and on film, she was Grace Kelly's wise and witty mother in "To Catch a Thief" a few years before she played Cary's mum in "North by Northwest." Clearly, she'd have been a better match for Mr. Grant than a mother, but it's all good. Jessie Royce Landis did the knowing eye-roll better than just about anybody.

Mr. Grant and Ms. Landis in "North by Northwest"

Best Movie Mom, Most Like a Real Mom Category

ET with Dee Wallace

I remember a friend opining that Steven Spielberg creates good movie moms. I think that's true, with none more real and warm and just all-around mom-a-riffic than Dee Wallace in "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial." Wallace's Mary doesn't do anything special or spectacular; she just goes about her business as a caring, loving single mother to her children, Elliott (Henry Thomas) and Gertie (Drew Barrymore), even when an alien starts living in her son's closet. If I were under ten again, I'd pick this modern, lovely, regular-old mom for my family. Dee Wallace has been in a ton of horror movies, giving them the same grounded, real presence she provides in "E.T." And she showed up last season on "The Office," once again playing a mother. (This time she was Andy Bernard's mom.)

Best Movie Mom,Cartoon Category

Elastigirl and Her Voice, Holly Hunter

Holly Hunter has done at least two memorable film moms, with her barren-but-yearning, babynapping "Ed" in "Raising Arizona" making an impact, along with her sweetly fierce Helen (AKA Elastigirl) in "The Incredibles." Moms with superpowers probably deserve a category of their own, but what makes Helen stand out is how normal she is, even in her spandex suit, and how well she looks out for her kids and her husband, even in the face of assaults from supervillains. Hunter also deserves mention for making Helen feel real and sympathetic simply through the use of her voice.

Best Movie Mom, Musical Category

Meryl Streep in "Mamma Mia"

Meryl Streep has played a lot of moms in her career, and if we'd seen more than just a flashback where she saves her kids and the family cat in "Defending Your Life," I might be inclined to pick that luminous and lovely performance. But, alas, she's more "romantic heroine" and less "mom" in that one. I'm sure she's picked for "Sophie's Choice" a lot, too, but that is such a difficult and terrible movie for any mother that I'm not going there, either. So I'm going with "Mamma Mia," where she plays against type as a goofy, hippyish mother who isn't sure which of her three boyfriends from the past is the father of her daughter. "Mamma Mia" is certainly not the best musical around, but Streep is delightful, dancing around in her overalls, nothing like the Grande Dame of the American Screen, making herself absolutely convincing in an otherwise not-believable-in-the-least movie.


*The oft-repeated story is that Landis was almost a year younger than Grant, which the Internet Broadway Database thinks is the correct information. The Internet Movie Database, however, has Landis born in 1896, making her 7-and-a-bit years older than Grant. Certainly not old enough to be his mother, but at least not younger. Who's right? My husband, who likes genealogical research, has located Jessie Medbury (her birth name) on the 1900 Chicago census as a three-year-old, and then again on the 1910 and 1920 censuses when she was 13 and 23, respectively. So my household is going with 1896 as Jessie Royce Landis's year of birth.

My Favorite Movie Moms for Mother's Day

Lists of movie moms inevitably include Stella Dallas, Mildred Pierce and Psycho's mom. Yeah, I'm not going for any of them. Instead, my idea of a movie mom is more like, well, the list below.

Best Movie Mom, Classic Category

Jane Darwell as Ma Joad

My favorite mom in the classic period of Hollywood movies is Jane Darwell in "The Grapes of Wrath." She's not the lead, but she is everything that represents home, love and stability as her family must take to the road in the wake of foreclosure, hunger, death and separation. Born Patti Woodward to a wealthy Missouri family (her dad was the president of a railroad), Darwell was not the kind of poor Okie she played in "The Grapes of Wrath," but she definitely made an impact. The scene where her son, Tom Joad, played by Henry Fonda, tells her that he will be there, the everyman who stands in "Wherever you can look, wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there," is probably the most famous bit of "Grapes of Wrath," and Darwell is certainly the anchor in that scene. But I defy anyone not to get a little teary when Ma Joad packs up the remnants of her household, holding up a pair of earrings and looking at her reflection in the side of a metal coffee pot. As she remembers who she used to be and all that she's leaving behind, accompanied by the melancholy sound of the song "Red River Valley," Darwell looks at us, straight ahead, with a subtle yet devastating expression on her soft, worn face, and you see the whole plot, the whole punch of the movie right there. Jane Darwell won an Oscar in the Best Supporting Actress category for her performance, and she certainly deserved it.

Best Movie Mom, Funny Category
"North by Northwest" isn't exactly your standard comedy, but Jessie Royce Landis, who wasn't nearly old enough* to play the mother of her on-screen son, Cary Grant, is so fresh and funny playing a sardonic society mother who totally and completely has her playboy son's number, that you'll forget the Hitchcockian suspense and just smile every time she's on screen. Landis had an extensive Broadway career before and after her screen debut in "At Your Service" in 1930. On Broadway, she played Jo in "Little Women" and Hermione in "The Winter's Tale," and on film, she was Grace Kelly's wise and witty mother in "To Catch a Thief" a few years before she played Cary's mum in "North by Northwest." Clearly, she'd have been a better match for Mr. Grant than a mother, but it's all good. Jessie Royce Landis did the knowing eye-roll better than just about anybody.

Mr. Grant and Ms. Landis in "North by Northwest"

Best Movie Mom, Most Like a Real Mom Category

ET with Dee Wallace

I remember a friend opining that Steven Spielberg creates good movie moms. I think that's true, with none more real and warm and just all-around mom-a-riffic than Dee Wallace in "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial." Wallace's Mary doesn't do anything special or spectacular; she just goes about her business as a caring, loving single mother to her children, Elliott (Henry Thomas) and Gertie (Drew Barrymore), even when an alien starts living in her son's closet. If I were under ten again, I'd pick this modern, lovely, regular-old mom for my family. Dee Wallace has been in a ton of horror movies, giving them the same grounded, real presence she provides in "E.T." And she showed up last season on "The Office," once again playing a mother. (This time she was Andy Bernard's mom.)

Best Movie Mom,Cartoon Category

Elastigirl and Her Voice, Holly Hunter

Holly Hunter has done at least two memorable film moms, with her barren-but-yearning, babynapping "Ed" in "Raising Arizona" making an impact, along with her sweetly fierce Helen (AKA Elastigirl) in "The Incredibles." Moms with superpowers probably deserve a category of their own, but what makes Helen stand out is how normal she is, even in her spandex suit, and how well she looks out for her kids and her husband, even in the face of assaults from supervillains. Hunter also deserves mention for making Helen feel real and sympathetic simply through the use of her voice.

Best Movie Mom, Musical Category

Meryl Streep in "Mamma Mia"

Meryl Streep has played a lot of moms in her career, and if we'd seen more than just a flashback where she saves her kids and the family cat in "Defending Your Life," I might be inclined to pick that luminous and lovely performance. But, alas, she's more "romantic heroine" and less "mom" in that one. I'm sure she's picked for "Sophie's Choice" a lot, too, but that is such a difficult and terrible movie for any mother that I'm not going there, either. So I'm going with "Mamma Mia," where she plays against type as a goofy, hippyish mother who isn't sure which of her three boyfriends from the past is the father of her daughter. "Mamma Mia" is certainly not the best musical around, but Streep is delightful, dancing around in her overalls, nothing like the Grande Dame of the American Screen, making herself absolutely convincing in an otherwise not-believable-in-the-least movie.


*The oft-repeated story is that Landis was almost a year younger than Grant, which the Internet Broadway Database thinks is the correct information. The Internet Movie Database, however, has Landis born in 1896, making her 7-and-a-bit years older than Grant. Certainly not old enough to be his mother, but at least not younger. Who's right? My husband, who likes genealogical research, has located Jessie Medbury (her birth name) on the 1900 Chicago census as a three-year-old, and then again on the 1910 and 1920 censuses when she was 13 and 23, respectively. So my household is going with 1896 as Jessie Royce Landis's year of birth.