The Gotham Awards honors visionary talent in front of and behind the camera, expands the audience for groundbreaking film and television and supports the year-round work of the not-for-profit The Gotham Film & Media Institute. The winners of the 32nd Annual Gotham Awards will be unveiled at a ceremony at Cipriani Wall Street on Monday, November 28. Apple earned Gotham Award nominations for:

Causeway

In “Causeway,” the new drama directed by Lila Neugebauer, Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence plays Lynsey, a military engineer who has returned to the States from Afghanistan with a debilitating brain injury after an IED explosion. It's a painful and slow recovery as she relearns to walk and retrains her memory, but when she returns home to New Orleans she has to face memories even more aching and formative than those she had in service — a reckoning with her childhood. When Lynsey’s truck breaks down, she meets mechanic James Aucoin (Brian Tyree Henry), and slowly they start to rely on each other for company and solace. These two damaged souls' budding friendship forms the center and the heart of Neugebauer's debut feature — a quiet but devastating, and ultimately uplifting, story about coming to terms and moving forward.

Pachinko

“Pachinko” chronicles the hopes and dreams of a Korean immigrant family across four generations as they leave their homeland in an indomitable quest to survive and thrive. Starting in South Korea in the early 1900s, the story is told through the eyes of a remarkable matriarch, Sunja, who triumphs against all odds.

“Pachinko” is written and executive produced by Soo Hugh, who created the series and serves as showrunner. Kogonada and Justin Chon are executive producers and directed four episodes each. Michael Ellenberg and Lindsey Springer executive produce for Media Res, the studio behind the series; Theresa Kang-Lowe executive produces for Blue Marble Pictures; and Richard Middleton also executive produces. David Kim and Sebastian Lee co-executive produce.

Severance

In “Severance,” Mark Scout (Adam Scott) leads a team at Lumon Industries, whose employees have undergone a severance procedure, which surgically divides their memories between their work and personal lives. This daring experiment in “work-life balance” is called into question as Mark finds himself at the center of an unraveling mystery that will force him to confront the true nature of his work … and of himself.

“Severance” is written and created by Dan Erickson. Mark Friedman, Chris Black, John Cameron and Andrew Colville are executive producers alongside Erickson. Ben Stiller, Nicky Weinstock and Jackie Cohn executive produce through Red Hour Productions, and both Patricia Arquette and Adam Scott serve as producers. Endeavor Content serves as the studio.

See the full press release from 'the gotham' to review the other nominees for 2022.  

Archive: Apple TV News

Spotify misses Quarter

In other entertainment news, CNBC reports that Spotify shares fell about 7% extended trading Tuesday after reporting a third-quarter loss that was wider than analyst expectations. The company's earnings come in at a loss $0.86 per share.

Spotify reported 456 million monthly active users for the quarter, up 20% year over year, and 195 million paid subscribers, up 13% from a year ago. That's 261 million on Spotify's free service with ads that still hurts small artists.

Isn't "free" anti-competitive? One anti-competitive practice is to charge low prices that do not cover your costs so you drive out competitors. Free is as low a price as it gets, and it drives customers to Spotify instead of other services that charge a fee to cover costs. That's why Spotify doesn't make a profit, so as to keep young music lovers away from other services like Apple Music that charges a fee.

For the record, Netflix released a new series last week titled "The Playlist." The series chronologically covers the rise to fame of founder-CEO Daniel Ek who sought to destroy the music industry and rob artists of royalties. While it's an interesting series for history's sake, I still found it difficult to see Ek in a positive light. Especially if you happen to care about smaller music artist's survival.

In related news, Apple approved a version of Spotify's audiobook app that doesn't provide a button that would allow customers to order audiobook's directly from Spotify. The company was trying to find a way around the App Store's commission.

The New York Times report notes that "Mr. Zicherman, VP and Global Head of Audiobooks and Gated Content at Spotify, said that his team consulted with Spotify’s legal team before deciding to drop the email phase of the audiobook process. Instead, they urged listeners to go to Spotify’s website to buy a book."