73rd Tony Awards: "Hadestown" and "The Ferryman" lead the nominations

by Nathaniel R

Tony nominee Brandon Victor Dixon and Tony winner Bebe Neuwirth announced the nominations this morning for Broadway's top honor. "Hadestown" led the nominations for musicals with 14 (wow) while "The Ferryman" and Aaron Sorkin's adaptation of "To Kill a Mockingbird" led the plays with 9 nominations each. In a surprise twist though, "To Kill a Mockingbird" was NOT nominated for Best Play despite such a wealth of nominations across the board; it's even nominated for Original Score (a category usually reserved for musicals only).

 A full list of nominations with trivia and commentary is after the jump though you should refresh your screens on ocassion as we're still adding photos and commentary...

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Outer Critics & Drama Desk Nominations

by Nathaniel R

Eva Noblezada and Reeve Carney star in the wildly acclaimed "Hadestown"

Two big theater awards to cover at the moment, the Outer Critics Circle and the Drama Desk Nominations. Like the Drama League, previously covered, they're Tony precursors of a sort, the difference being that the Tony Awards only cover Broadway and all of the theater precursors also cover Off-Broadway. Among the musicals Hadestown led the Outer Critics nominations with 12 while at the Drama Desk Oklahoma! led the pack with 12 nominations. The stage adaptation of Tootsie did very well with both groups in runner-up position in terms of most nominations.

Complete honors for each awards group are listed after the jump...

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Honorary Oscars: Owen Roizman and "Tootsie"

We're revisiting work from this year's Honorary Oscar winners. Here's Eric Blume on cinematography Owen Roizman

Sydney Pollack’s 1982 movie Tootsie is one of my all-time favorite films. It's a perfect treat to revisit when you need to feel like there’s hope in the world.  Despite many viewings, I’ve never truly contemplated the cinematography by one of this year’s Honorary Oscar recipients, Owen Roizman.

Tootsie marked Roizman’s fourth of five Academy Award nomination (the others are The French Connection, The Exorcist, Wyatt Earp and Network).  It’s not the kind of work that typically generates an Oscar nomination. Indeed, the competition that year (Gandhi, Das Boot, E.T., and Sophie’s Choice) were the more magical, lyrical, expansive sort of films that are usually recognized in that category.

But Roizman’s contribution to Tootsie is gigantic, key to the film’s tone and success. It's also an excellent example of how many careful, intelligent decisions go into a more typical, mainstream film and the difference they can make...

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The Top 100 Comedies: Screwball Dames and Male Auteurs

by Seán McGovern

The limit of list culture is the absolute bias of the person compiling it (except of course the Dewey Decimal System which is without imperfection). To compile theirs, the BBC polled 253 film critics - 118 women and 135 men -  from 52 countries to determine what exactly are the "100 Greatest Comedies".

It's good to look at these lists to remind ourselves that since the majority of films are made by men, so too is the work that's considered both the funniest and the best. Right-on caveat aside, some great, female-centred comedies make the list: 2016's Toni Erdmann at 59; Mean Girls, which we can now call a modern classic, at 57; and Clueless (iconic) at a very healthy 34...

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Actors Love "Tootsie". And Other Discoveries

By now you've surely seen Time Out's "100 Best Movies" list. The hook and unusual angle is that the list is comprised solely from ballots of actors. Actors are famously impressionable of course so you get embarrassing things like the barely-out-of-the-oven Whiplash (2014) as one of the 100 best movies of all time but it's still an interesting list. #1 is not your usual Citizen Kane/Vertigo type deal (only one of those two makes the list) but is awarded to the classic comedy Tootsie (1982).

(And, no, we had no intention of posting two Tootsie related articles within the same 24 hours -- don't miss this piece on The Americans since we wanna know what you think of this new series idea -- but blogging can surprise you.)

The complete Time Out 100 list and 10 discoveries after the jump...

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