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• NYT Which Cannes films and performances will factor into the Oscar race. Kyle Buchanan thinks Parasite and Pain & Glory are the biggest foreign threats but Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is the big one.
• Hugh Jackman singing Happy Birthday to Sir Ian McKellen with a whole staidum backing him. Awesome
• Variety Owen Gleiberman surveys his Cannes experience and how well the movies filled the big screen
• Variety Chris Hemsworth is the coverboy at the moment so here's the big profile
• The Sheila Variations on Joseph Cotten's active listening in Gaslight (1944) 

• Variety so far Netflix is the only studio to speak out on Georgia's attack on abortion rights which could threaten the massive amount of filmmaking that goes on in that state.
• Out for a blu-ray release of To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar, John Leguizamo is talking about his character Chi Chi Rodriguez
• Town & Country we missed this news during Cannes but congrats to Jennifer Lawrence who is now engaged
• IndieWire surveys critics on the best movies that played at Cannes. Parasite comes out on top just as it did with the jury, but Portrait of a Lady on Fire (which only took Screenplay at Cannes) was the runner up.
• Variety more Cannes prizes. FIPRESCI chooses The Lighthouse (from the director of The VVitch)
• /Film a piece on Quentin Tarantino's female characters  in light of a tense moment at Cannes when he was asked about Margot Robbie's lack of dialogue in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Tony Season
• NYT fun piece on "mysteries" of this Broadway season including how tall is the tall man in Hadestown, how does Santino Fontana sing like a woman in Tootsie, and how does one do partner dances while in a wheelchair? As for that 'tall man' in Hadestown. We first noticed him in Frozen and we ran into him on the subway over the weekend and he was as sweet and gorgeous as can be while towering over us.
• ... Timothy Hughes is his name and you can follow him on Instagram 
• Stagecraft Rosemary Harris will get a lifetime achievement at this year's Tony Awards. But her previous Tony has a typo on it!
• Playbill Wesley Taylor (Smash) who recently won the Chita Rivera Award for Outstanding Male Dancer is engaged to marry Isaac Powell (last seen in Spongebob Squarepants) 
• Playbill Fresh out of high school, Renée Rapp, who won this year's Jimmy Award (that's the highest honor for High School students in musical theater) is stepping into the role of Regina George in Mean Girls for her Broadway debut this summer.

And look here's a video about Dianne Wiest's latest play Off Broadway. It's a monologue play from Samuel Beckett

Smackdown '44: Agnes, Aline, Angela, Ethel, and Jennifer Jones

Presenting the Supporting Actresses of '44. A low class maid, a French baroness, a patriotic nurse, a weary shop-owner and a "Chinese" village woman battled it out for Oscar gold. We're here to re-judge that contest. 

THE NOMINEES 

from left to right: Barrymore, Jones, Lansbury, MacMahon, Moorehead

Oscar was still besotted with recent nominees Jennifer Jones & Agnes Moorehead (both on their quick second nominations) but joining the party were two veterans who'd never been honored (Ethel Barrymore & Aline MacMahon) and one very fresh face who would go on to an enviably long cross-platform showbiz career, now in its 73rd year (!) -- Angela Lansbury in her film debut! 

Notable supporting roles for women that the Academy passed over in 1944 were Mary Astor (Meet Me in St Louis), Shirley Temple (Since You Went Away), Dame May Whitty (Gaslight), and Joseph Hull & Jean Adair (Arsenic & Old Lace). Can you think of any others?

THIS MONTH'S PANELISTS 

Here to talk about these five nominated turns, are: critic and writer Mark Harris (Five Came Back), journalist Loren King (The Boston Globe), critic and novelist Farran Smith Nehme (Self Styled Siren), cabarettist and actress Molly Pope, blogger and novelist Matthew Rettenmund (Boy Culture), and your host Nathaniel R (The Film Experience). And now it's time for the main event... 

1944
SUPPORTING ACTRESS SMACKDOWN  

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The Furniture: The Gas Lighting of Gaslighting in Gaslight

"The Furniture," by Daniel Walber, is our weekly series on Production Design. You can click on the images to see them in magnified detail.

This week I’d like to talk about gas lighting. That’s in addition to gaslighting, which is obviously related. Basically, I’d like to talk about the way that Gaslight (1944) uses gas lighting to distill the concept of gaslighting. It was so effective that “gaslighting” stuck, and has remained a popularly understood concept nearly 75 years after the film debuted.

Of course, these days the term has been almost completely divorced from memory of the original play or its various adaptations. The 1944 version is mostly remembered for winning Ingrid Bergman her first Oscar, and deservedly so. Her performance is astonishing, newly powerful with each successive viewing.

However, the film did win a second Oscar. Not for director George Cukor, who wasn’t even nominated. Nor for cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg, who lost to Joseph LaShelle’s work on Laura...

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Today's Four: Send Keira your ♥︎...

Each day The Film Experience offers up a few mood-boosting at-home assignments for you. Try these at home and report back. 

Four Showbiz Anniversaries to Inspire You Today (May 4th)

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