Selena Gomez Gets Her Due, Netflix and FX Top HBO and 2 Queen Elizabeths Get Nominated for Emmys

 This image released by Hulu shows, from left, Selena Gomez, Martin Short and Steve Martin in a scene from "Only Murders in the Building." (Patrick Harbron/Hulu via AP)
This image released by Hulu shows, from left, Selena Gomez, Martin Short and Steve Martin in a scene from "Only Murders in the Building." (Patrick Harbron/Hulu via AP)
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Selena Gomez Gets Her Due, Netflix and FX Top HBO and 2 Queen Elizabeths Get Nominated for Emmys

 This image released by Hulu shows, from left, Selena Gomez, Martin Short and Steve Martin in a scene from "Only Murders in the Building." (Patrick Harbron/Hulu via AP)
This image released by Hulu shows, from left, Selena Gomez, Martin Short and Steve Martin in a scene from "Only Murders in the Building." (Patrick Harbron/Hulu via AP)

With less overall entries due to the shortened TV season, this year's Emmy nominations probably won't spark any protest campaigns. The folks at FX should be popping bottles though for a stand-out year, with 93 nominations — including 25 nods for "Shogun" and 23 for "The Bear."

The nominations bring overdue acknowledgement for critical favorites like FX's "Reservation Dogs" and "What We Do in the Shadows" and fresh competition, including "Shogun" actors Anna Sawai and Hiroyuki Sanada.

Lily Gladstone and Kali Reis became the first female Indigenous actors to be nominated for Emmys — Gladstone for "Under the Bridge" and Reis for "True Detective: Night Country." "Reservation Dogs" was nominated in the best comedy series category, for what is its final season. D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai of "Reservation Dogs," will compete for lead actor in a comedy.

The Emmy Awards show will be held Sept. 15 at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles and air on ABC.

Here are other talking points, "snubs" and surprises from the Emmy nominations:

Competition for HBO

This year, HBO didn't have "Succession" or "The White Lotus" to bolster its Emmy nominations count, giving Netflix and FX an edge. Netflix leads with 107 nominations for programs including "Baby Reindeer" and "Ripley." FX comes in second, thanks in part to the continued roar of "The Bear" and newcomer "Shogun." HBO has 91 nominations. Even without "Ted Lasso," Apple TV+ also did well with 70 nods including for "The Morning Show" and "Slow Horses."

Justice for Selena

Hulu's "Only Murders in the Building" is a three-hander comedic mystery starring Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez. Until now, Emmy voters have acknowledged only Martin and Short in the best actor category. That changed Wednesday morning, with Gomez receiving a best actress nomination. She will compete against Quinta Brunson, Ayo Edebiri, Maya Rudolph, Jean Smart and Kristin Wiig.

"The Morning Show" wakes up

Emmy voters "The Morning Show" on Apple TV+ has always included current events in storylines, but the series about behind-the-scenes drama at a TV network took it up a notch with its third season, earning it its first Emmy nomination for outstanding drama.

The show's 10 episodes tackled topics including the hacking of a corporation, a media merger and fallout from the Jan. 6 insurrection in Washington.

Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon are both up for lead actress. Jon Hamm joins 2020 winner Billy Crudup and previous nominee Mark Duplass in the supporting actor category. "The Morning Show" also dominates the supporting actress field with nominations for Nicole Beharie, Greta Lee, Karen Pittman and Holland Taylor.

Emmy nods and a snub for Oscar winners

Emma Stone, the best actress winner at this year's Oscars for "Poor Things," did not get nominated for Showtime's "The Curse." Stone was mentioned in a number of predictions as a possible lead actress contender. The show itself was also overlooked in the drama series category.

Her fellow 2024 Oscar winners had better luck.

Robert Downey, Jr., who won the supporting actor Oscar for "Oppenheimer," is nominated in the supporting actor category for HBO’s "The Sympathizer." He plays four characters in the spy drama.

Da'Vine Joy Randolph, who took home the best supporting actress Oscar for "The Holdovers," is also now an Emmy nominee. Randolph is nominated in the guest actress category for an appearance on "Only Murders in the Building."

2 out of 3 Queen Elizabeths get a nomination

Claire Foy, whose portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in "The Crown" earned her a lead actress Emmy Award in 2018 and a guest actress Emmy in 2021, is now nominated again for a guest spot. Foy appeared in the final episode of the series as Imelda Staunton's Queen Elizabeth II pondered abdicating the throne.

Olivia Colman, who portrayed the queen in the third and fourth seasons, also made an appearance in the same episode but was not nominated. This isn't due to a snub, however, but a technicality where Colman didn't meet the nomination qualifications. She wasn't on camera long enough. Staunton, by the way, is nominated for best actress.



Reviving Hollywood Glamor of Silent Movie Era, Experts Piece Together Century-old Pipe Organ

A crate containing some of the hundreds of pipes that are part of the Barton Opus 234 theater organ that is undergoing restoration are shown at Carlton Smith Pipe Organ Restorations in Indianapolis, Tuesday, July 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
A crate containing some of the hundreds of pipes that are part of the Barton Opus 234 theater organ that is undergoing restoration are shown at Carlton Smith Pipe Organ Restorations in Indianapolis, Tuesday, July 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
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Reviving Hollywood Glamor of Silent Movie Era, Experts Piece Together Century-old Pipe Organ

A crate containing some of the hundreds of pipes that are part of the Barton Opus 234 theater organ that is undergoing restoration are shown at Carlton Smith Pipe Organ Restorations in Indianapolis, Tuesday, July 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
A crate containing some of the hundreds of pipes that are part of the Barton Opus 234 theater organ that is undergoing restoration are shown at Carlton Smith Pipe Organ Restorations in Indianapolis, Tuesday, July 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

A massive pipe organ that underscored the drama and comedy of silent movies with live music in Detroit's ornate Hollywood Theatre nearly a century ago was dismantled into thousands of pieces and stashed away.
The Barton Opus, built in 1927, spent four decades stored in a garage, attic and basement in suburban Detroit. But the towering musical curiosity is being lovingly restored in Indianapolis and eventually will be trucked, piece by piece, to the Rochester Institute of Technology in western New York, to be reassembled and rehoused in a theater specifically designed to accommodate it.
In its heyday, the Barton Opus was able to recreate the sounds of many instruments, including strings, flutes and tubas, says Carlton Smith, who has been restoring the organ since 2020. It also contained real percussion instruments such as a piano, xylophone, glockenspiel, cymbals and drums and could produce sound effects including steamboat and bird whistles, Smith says.
For many moviegoers, the organs — and the organists — were the stars, The Associated Press reported.
“One guy could do it all,” Smith says. “In the big cities, they were literally filling the theaters’ thousands of seats multiple times during the day. They were showing live shows along with the films. It was a big production.”
The Barton Opus enjoyed good acoustics at the Hollywood Theatre, according to the Detroit Theatre Organ Society. The theaters in Detroit at that time, the golden age of the city's auto industry, were as glamorous as any in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco, according to John Lauter, an organist and organ technician.
“We were such a rich market for moviegoers that the theater owners built these palatial places,” Lauter says. “There were no plain Jane movie houses back then.”
Lauter, who also is the director of the Detroit Theatre Organ Society and president of the Motor City Theatre Organ Society, says the Hollywood Theatre organ was one of the largest made by the Bartola Musical Instrument Co. of Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Only three were sold, while the other two were installed in the Highland Theatre in Chicago and the Rialto Square Theatre in Joliet, Illinois.
Of the three, this is “the last one left that hasn’t been altered," Smith says.
In the decades that followed, televisions began to appear in living rooms across the nation and silent movie houses fell out of favor. The Hollywood Theatre closed in the 1950s, its fixtures were sold and its famed Barton Opus was on the verge of being lost to history.
But in the early 1960s, Lauter’s friend, Henry Przybylski, bought it at auction for about $3,500. Przybylski scrambled to remove the massive instrument, parts of which stood two stories tall, before the theater was demolished.
“He pulled together all of his friends in the winter of 1963,” Lauter says. “The building had no electricity and no heat. They came in with Coleman lanterns and block and tackle.”
They took the organ apart and Przybylski — an engineer and organ buff — transported the thousands of pieces back to his Dearborn Heights home where it would remain, unassembled, for about 40 years.
“He never heard or played that instrument ever,” Lauter says. “He lived a majority of his life owning that thing. He’d roll up the garage door and there would be that console in there. He made it known it was the very best there was.”
Przybylski died in 2000, but that did not spell the end of the Barton Opus' odyssey.
Steven Ball, a professional organist who taught at the University of Michigan's Organ Department, asked Przbylski's widow in 2003 if the pipe organ was for sale.
“I came up with every last bit of cash I could,” Ball says.
But he also put the pipe organ straight into storage.
“This whole project was to see this organ through to safety, until I could find an institution to restore it to what it was," Ball says, adding that he had always hoped the Barton Opus would end up in a theater mirroring its original home.
In 2019, Rochester Institute of Technology President David C. Munson reached out to Ball, whom he had known since Munson served as the dean of engineering at the University of Michigan years earlier.
“I contacted Steven and asked where we could acquire the best theater organ,” Munson says. "Steven said, ‘Well that would be mine.’”
Ball will donate his Barton Opus to the school, where it will be the centerpiece of the new performing arts center. The theater that will house the organ is expected to open by January 2026. Restoration work on the organ is a little over two-thirds complete, according to Smith.
“The theater is designed to accommodate exactly this organ,” Munson says, adding that the architect, Michael Maltzan, "designed the pipe chambers to have the same dimension as in the Hollywood Theatre. We have all the original plans for that organ and how the pipes were laid out.”
The exact cost of the work hasn’t yet been determined, Munson says, adding, “It’s an investment we’re making, but I think the results are going to be remarkable.”