The Winner of RuPaul's Drag Race Season 9 Is...

Chris here. The ninth season of RuPaul's Drag Race came to a close last night with the series's most dramatic conclusion ever. At last week's reunion, Mama Ru teased that a sudden death lipsync battle would crown America's Next Drag Superstar from our beloved top four. This curveball was another shakeup from the show's formula, and feels like how the winner should have been chosen all along. While past seasons' crownings have been dull slogs to awarding an obvious winner, this kept the competition alive until the very second - and gave us two all-time great lipsync performances from the ultimate champion.

Trinity Taylor was the randomly selected first queen and chose Peppermint as her opponent, pitting a potential frontrunner against underdog lipsync assassin. But that meant leaving besties Sasha Velour and Shea Couleé to duke it out...

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RuPaul's Drag Race - Season 9 Reunion

Chris here, with a quick RuPaul's Drag Race check-in! By now I'm sure you've seen our Mama Ru is on the cover of Entertainment Weekly! If you wanted some bonafide proof that the cult show is now firmly in the mainstream, look no further. And don't forget that this season was actually still produced by Logo before the move to VH1 - expect season ten and the inevitable All Stars 3 to be huge.

This was was the reunion before next week's finale crowning, and each of the queens were in peak gorgeousness. But honey did this rehash make up for every single complaint that contestants about a lack of shade over the entire season. While most Drag Race reunions have been forgettable in later seasons (remember the unfiltered days of Tammie Brown daring to shade Ru herself?), this one ended with a bang.

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So Link We All

EW reunites the cast of Battlestar Galactica for a panel
Variety Ava DuVernay to deliver the UCLA Commencement address
Awards Daily Jazz interviews RuPaul about the phenomenon of Drag Race 
Towleroad Colton Haynes dishes about his management team in Hollywood who tried to keep him in the closet 

Film School Rejects this needed to be written -- an article on the terrible but now familiar and horrifically disingenuous Hollywood excuse "we didn't make it for the critics but the fans!"
Criterion Closet Barry Levinson (Wizards of Lies, Rain Man) picks some classics from those famous shelves including Jules et Jim and Spartacus and also fantasizes about Orson Welles
MNPP sound advice for Tom Hardy on that Jafar in Aladdin rumor - DON'T DO IT. 
i09 the costumes for Black Panther could be a godsend for the black cosplay community
Variety releases a list of 10 comics to watch including John Early (yay), Bollywood star Vir Das, and The Daily Show's Hasan Minhaj 
Coming Soon Michelle Monaghan reprising her character for the sixth installment of Mission: Impossible 

Finally...
TFE remember when we shared our "best 25 list" because of that random NYT best of new century list. Everyone is doing it including...
The New Yorker with Richard Brody's list. I like Brody so much and the list is quite eclectic but I will never ever understand the mass fascination with Scorsese's Wolf of Wall Street. It's such an obnoxious self indulgent movie. Scorsese has made much better films... even within this new century! 

RuPaul's Drag Race S9E12 - Final Fourgy Four

by Chris Feil

We're almost to the finish line! This week, RuPaul's Drag Race brought the feels for an emotional runway but also at the thought of eliminating one of these queens. I don't know about you, dear readers, but I feel more affection to each of these four than any final four (maybe) ever. Everybody say "LOVE"!

Taking a clear lead from All Stars popular final rap single challenge, the queens all have to write their own verse to a remix of RuPaul's "Category Is". Between rehearsal, the girls each guested on Ru and Michelle's podcast "What's the T?" and all its ad-friendly earnestness - all that Squatty Potty and Ru didn't take a minute to talk about Squarespace? Quelle surprise!

But the real story to this final competitive episode was to spend some real quality time with each of the queens before the crowning finale - it was really about giving each queen the chance to sell themself. The runway found each queen in peak form and pulled on our heartstrings as they spoke to their child-selves about their own journey. Once again, the show proved its worth in showing all different kinds of stories within the LGBT community, the competition itself at its most and least significant with all these queens have faced. How in the hell can one of these queens be sent home?

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Back to 'Broad City'

Let’s take a short break from film news and reviews and check in with TV. After a long wait the funniest show on TV is coming back. Which one is that you might ask? Why Broad City of course. Ilana (Ilana Glazer) and Abbi (Abbi Jacobson) are back after being away for than a year. And how our world have changed since they’ve been gone. However they seem to have remained as funny as ever. This time they will find themselves entangled with RuPaul, Jane Curtain, Steve Buscemi and Wanda Sykes. They will leave their beloved New York to gun-loving Florida. And Abbi’s nemesis Bevers is somewhat unrecognizable! We are beyond delighted at the prospect of a few hours on our couch with these hilarious women. You will be too after checking the trailer.

Broad City returns on August 23rd. In the meantime tell us what is your favorite moment from the previous three seasons.