Thirteen random thoughts on last night's Tony Awards.
• Glenda Jackson won the Emmy and two Oscars in the 1970s but after a three decade break from acting, she returns triumphant with a Tony win, giving her the Triple Crown!
• Remember when Melissa McCarthy surprised everybody by winning the Emmy for Mike & Molly that one year? After the shock wore off everyone collectively decided that the Television Academy gave her that prize because of Bridesmaids that same season. I kinda think this is what happened with Laurie Metcalf winning a second consecutive Tony -- this time for Three Tall Women in a category people expected to go elsewhere. Not that Three Tall Women isn't brilliantly acted, but we're guessing her miracle performance in Lady Bird helped put her over the finish line. We're choosing to interpret it as Tony voters slapping Oscar's hand. Oscar deserved a slap for that one...
Pajiba gird your loins - Dan Stevens is in everything Tracking Board Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, and Candice Bergen to co-star in a comedy about a book club reading 50 Shades of Grey? This could be awesome or terrible...or both. Whichever way it turns out, we're there! Coming Soon Focus has acquired the new Jason Reitman / Charlize Theron collaboration Tully but we'll have to remove it from the Oscar charts. It's not coming until Spring 2018 now
AV Club NBC greenlights its first two series of the new year, one of them that used to be called Drama High (and sounds like it has potential) is now called Rise. Why does Hollywood love to go from specific to generic titles? Are their studies that show that generic titles do better or is it fear of specificity? /Film the first cast photo of Marvel's The Inhumans has been released and boy is it underwhelming. I've always loved Medusa but you really shouldn't be able to tell that it's such an obvious and stiff looking wig since the character is so tied up in her hair! I mean, couldn't they have gotten RuPaul's wig designers to do it if they wanted something both outlandish and real looking?
Tony Season Theater Mania hoping to dominate the original play Tonys next year, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child has announced an opening for the tail end of eligibility in 2018 Playbill did you know that Audrey Hepburn won her Tony Award the same WEEK as her Oscar? Isn't that crazy? She won the Oscar for Roman Holiday on March 25th, 1954 and then the Tony for Ondine on March 28th! DeadlineAmélie, a New Musical, based on the Oscar nominated French classic, is the first casualty of the Tony nominations, announcing its Broadway closing date for May 21st after a short run and zero nominations. Broadway World Despite a disappointing Tony showing (2 nominations) Anastasia, based on the 90s animated movie musical,announces a world tour. It helps to have that known "brand" going in. (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which was savaged by critics and received zero Tony nominations, is still doing well and the box office and is already working on the tour) THR Tony nominee anecdotes including Laurie Metcalf on the proposed Roseanna revival and Sally Field discussing the release she felt when she found her calling as a young girl:
It isn't something that I just decided one day or backed into it one day. I found a stage when I was 12 when I was lucky enough to be in a school that still had a theater arts department. And something inside of me changed, woke up, I could hear my own voice for the first time when I was onstage, and then when I would get offstage I had to be all the things that little girls in the '50s had to be, and all of that went back in the box. But when I got onstage I could be all the things I wasn't allowed to be anywhere else, so I could hear my own self.
Love ya Sally!
Exit Video Got 18 minutes? That might seem like a lot but this video essay really is compelling. It names a sci-fi fantasy trope that I haven't personally seen named before but which is as familiar as they come. He calls it "Born Sexy Yesterday" and it's all about the way genre fiction infantilizes women so that men are their natural superior.
At the very least it will make you rethink mermaid and sexy android movies, The Fifth Element and Splash a little bit.
New Series! Three Fittings celebrates costume design in the movies. The number is necessary self-restraint for we love the art of costuming too much.
By Nathaniel R
Dear reader, I didn't think I'd ever need to see Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them (2016). I thought, solid reasoning given the golden trajectory of most franchises, that Oscar would want to move on after a year of regular craft nominations for the series. I thought, surely they'd never hand one of them an actual Oscar if they hadn't done so by now. But in the interest of completism, after Colleen Atwood's generous fourth statue for costuming this particular movie and its bluray release, I caught up.
I was both impressed and utterly perplexed by what I found.
While Atwood does unusually understated work (for her), there are far fewer costumes than you might expect (approximately one per man, two per woman). Sussing out why they voted for this confident minimalism within a fantasy over more traditional costume perfection in Jackie, the primary color bliss of then-frontrunner La La Land, the erotic glamour of Allied, and the flouncy Most-ness of Florence, proves nearly impossible.
Nevertheless, here are three key looks to discuss:
Jason from MNPP here with this week's "Beauty vs Beast" -- tomorrow marks the 25th anniversary of Disney's magnificent Beauty and the Beast, which is my favorite animated movie of theirs and I have a feeling I'm not alone in feeling that way. I mean Belle is clearly the greatest Disney Princess, Gaston is clearly the sexiest villain, and THAT LIBRARY. Yes, Yess, and YASSSSSS.
We've still got a few months before the live-action remake with Emma Watson and Dan Stevens (not to mention notedly hairless Luke Evans) hits theaters, which seems strange to me - doesn't it seem like right here and right now, at this anniversary and in time for the holidays, would've been the perfect time to drop the film? Well nobody asked me to run Disney (not yet anyway) so I suppose they will make their own decisions - if I was running Disney and someone had come to me suggesting they remake perfection I probably would've beaten them out of my office with the nearest candlestick anyway.
PREVIOUSLYFantastic Beasts won the weekend box office handily but more importantly Harry Potter kicked Voldemort's butt in last week's contest here, taking just under 80% of your votes. Said LadyEdith:
"Jason you are definitely hitting a nerve here, I've been using a lot of HP for this election. Hermione was a great stand in for A student Hillary Clinton. Considering the rise of death eaters I think more of us are choosing Harry."
Jason from MNPP here with this week's "let's retreat into fantasy for sanity's sake" edition of "Beauty vs Beast" -- you probably saw some people, maybe you were one of them, sharing a Harry Potter meme this week in the wake of the US election. It is timely, what with the next entry in the Potterverse, the first of the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them series, opening - we'd probably have had Muggles Inc. on our minds anyway.
But JK Rowling's fictional creation helped us sort through the Bush years and so it's no surprise that a horcrux joke or two would make their way into the conversation. The series was always explicitly political. And so let's turn our eyes to the endless battle between Good and Evil one more time today to seek out some small comfort among friends...
PREVIOUSLY One week ago we lived in a different place (what would you give to go back there right about now), one where I felt fine making a bold Hillary Clinton prediction (it was my arrogance that ruined everything, no doubt) while joking about Alexander Payne's Election - well the blonde political spitfire Tracy Flick at least got her landslide, with over 70% of the vote. Said Row-bin:
"This is one of two movies I actually enjoy Matthew Broderick in, but Tracy Flick is one of the best realized performances I've ever seen out of Reese Witherspoon. She's so unapologetic in knowing what she wants and is such a great example of well-roundedness in a character."
Monday, June 11, 2018 at 4:50PM 
