For this week's red carpet convo, Your Movie Buddy Kurt is back to chat with Nathaniel and we're joined by special guest Guy Lodge from In Contention! We're discussing a couple handfuls of usually cross-platform celebrities who hit the Tony Awards.
Kurt: i should say first that i did not watch the show
Guy: That makes two of us!
Kurt: but i did see NPH's opening number. killer.
Nathaniel: Here we go... soak it in.
TAMMY BLANCHARD, PACINO, FRANCES & WHOOPI
Guy: WOW where to even begin?
Nathaniel: Let's start at the obvious place. Make up a show in your head that allows for all of these looks to happen. A schizo show it might be...
[long pause]
Guy: I'm imagining a revisionist take on the Wizard of Oz where a washed-up tennis star, a washed-up Lilith Fair singer-songwriter and a washed-up Julianna Margulies body double all join forces to seek guidance from an all-knowing, black-clad sorceress -- except instead of lacking heart-brain-courage, they simply all lack style. And a mirror.
Kurt: way to make Whoopi the magical negro.
Nathaniel: I love you, Guy. You've even brought us full circle to TAMMY BLANCHARD's original calling card: that Judy Garland miniseries aeons ago! Tammy is in a sparkly blue number here. I don't think we can top Tom & Lorenzo's comment "serving drag queen realness." But Tammy is a biological woman.
Kurt: She's really out of place here. Has my taste level plummeted or does she look pretty ok?
[silence]
wow. ouch.
Guy: That she's also the best dressed person here doesn't bode well.
Nathaniel: Well, I've started with dessert - this is as crazy as it gets.
Kurt: fo realz. I really want to talk about Frances but we should probably move left to right.
Nathaniel: We can hop around. Something is telling me that FRANCES MCDORMAND wouldn't mind that breach of etiquette as she showed up to an awards show in a jean jacket!
Guy: On reflection, I think Whoopi's actually the best-dressed here -- because she looks more like herself than any of the others. You know she only dresses to amuse herself.
Kurt: She's amusing me, too.
Nathaniel: Is that how you explain WHOOPI GOLDBERG's Queen Elizabeth Oscar look?
Guy: Totally. And remember that purple dress with green leggings she wore to the Oscars one year? Frankly, if she pitched up dressed in a sleek Prada number, I'd be worried about her.
Kurt: very true
Nathaniel: Perhaps one can say the same for Frances, who clearly cannot be bothered to project FAMOUS MOVIE STAR and instead opts for THEATER COMPANY EARTH MOTHER
Kurt: this look is absolutely nuts.
Guy: She clearly wants to show how serious she is about her craft that she can't be bothered with all this glam-up business... but come on.
Kurt: it's a little tooo defiant.
Nathaniel: I was talking to Joe Reid earlier today and he said that he wanted to go on record. 'Make sure someone defends Frances McD' he says. I'm like "ON WHAT GROUNDS?!" and he says "That she's Frances McDormand and can do as she pleases"
Guy: Well, she's Frances McDormand and we love her, but that's as far as the defence goes. Remember the navy dress she wore when she won the Oscar? It was simple and sensible and got the same message across without being fugly.
Nathaniel: True Story: I once had a jean jacket and painted Annie Lennox on the back of it (circa SAVAGE cd) and wore it everywhere and everyday. But i don't know that I would have pulled it out for awards night.
Kurt: Should Frances turn around then?
Guy: Yes, in fairness, we can't see what's on the back of Frances's leather jacket.
Nathaniel: Ha. I think she mentioned some hippie rock band being on that stage last time she was in this very theater.. I forget who. Maybe I'm mischaracterizing.
Kurt: from the waist up, she's on her way to see a hippie rock band.
Nathaniel: also she's in Transformers: Dark of the Moon so maybe SHE HAD TO DO THIS to reestablish her Serious Thespian cred.
Guy: If it has "SUCK IT, VANESSA REDGRAVE" on the back or her jacket in iron-on letters, she's totally forgiven.
Kurt: HAHA
Nathaniel: Frances nears the triple crown -- just the Emmy remains -- but Vanessa is a triple crowner already
Guy: As she should be
Nathaniel: As is AL PACINO. Do you think anyone would notice if Whoopi and Pacino traded headgear?
Kurt: i really like guy's washed up tennis star notion; however, i can never look at Al anymore without thinking of Roy Cohn, and here, Roy just got back from a tryst and still has the dude's underwear on his head
Nathaniel: That is so wrong Kurt... so so wrong.
Guy: Whoopi's hat would help Al's look -- if only because it could fall over his face and he'd be spared the embarrassment of being recognised.
Nathaniel: Was there a hairplug incident? He had to mprovise last minute and Whoopi would just not trade!
Guy: Maybe the hair is ATTACHED to the hairband.
Nathaniel: ...serving drag queen fierceness.
Kurt: is that the evening's theme?
Nathaniel: no, sadly.
Kurt: because frances would be lip-synching for her mother effin life
Guy: Aside from the headband, though, what's up with the ill-fitting suit? He looks like a teenager wearing his older brother's tux to the prom.
Kurt: I was gonna say. Sadly, the vest is actually the outfit's worst feature. it's blinding me and it's enormous.
Nathaniel: Incidentally since you guys missed the show. Frances's acceptance speech was kinda awesome if a little braggy. She said she's played both Stella and Blanche AND ALL THREE OF CHEKHOV'S SISTERS.
Guy: Rub it in, Frances.
Kurt: That's not easy to boast while wearing that. Rock star.
Nathaniel: and then implied she thinks this role she won for in "Good People" would one day join the canon of "great parts"
Guy: Yeah, bet she said that about "Handler" in Aeon Flux.
BOBBY CANNAVALE & SON, NPH & JACKMAN: DUELING HOSTS, DAVID BURTKA
IT'S NOT OVER! keep reading for... Catherine Zeta-Jones inner fire (plus super gay firemen!), and Viola Davis as "the Voice of Reason."
Click to read more ...
Friday, July 6, 2012 at 8:00PM 
Awesome Dark Knight Rises billboard
JOHN T: A terrific actress that never gets discussed on Film Experience -- Whoopi Goldberg. What are your thoughts on her career? Do you have a fave role? And, most importantly, what would it take to get her a third nomination?
