Emmy FYC: Best Actress, Comedy - Gillian Jacobs in "Love"

We're sharing Emmy FYCs as nomination balloting continues. Here's guest contributor Sean Donovan...

When Gillian Jacobs angrily shouts “Surprise! I’m not the cool girl!” to her semi-boyfriend Gus (Paul Rust) on Netflix’s comedy series Love, she is speaking as an actress in Hollywood just as much as she is in character as Mickey. Jacobs was introduced to most viewers as “the cool girl,” Britta in the cult hit Community, initially serving the role of a fantasy love interest: a gorgeous twenty-something with just enough problems to appear “complicated,” but not in any especially strenuous or taxing capacity for male viewers. The cool girl who’s fun at parties, has great taste in everything, and is just chill. She’s not like those other girls!

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"Wicked" is Finally Officially For Real Coming Soon

Musical lovers have finally gotten the long rumored news they've impatiently waited for: Wicked is officially a go! The film will be directed by Stephen Daldry and open on December 20, 2019 - a likely guaranteed holiday hit like Into the Woods and Les Miserables.

While that is still awhile to wait for the big screen adaptation, this announcement comes after more than a decade of crumbs and non-starting rumors for the fanbase. The hope for original stars Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth has long gone out the window, so casting is the next phase to obsess over. While Universal likes to keep their musicals star loaded (think Les Mis and Mamma Mia), my suspicion is that some expected names won't be in the running... sorry, Lea Michele.

Which is all the better for the green leading lady. Daldry has a gift for finding new talent, so why not give us a new talent to make Elphaba's sense of discovery all the more meaningful. Maybe if it's not a completely fresh face this could be where a Broadway star shows up. Also how many times can we hear "Defying Gravity" before those notes aren't as emotionally transporting? Give us someone who can take us to unexpected emotional and musical heights! Recent Tony winner Cynthia Erivo, for example - her Tony's solo should be all the proof you need (starts at 2:48).

For Glinda, I have a bolder recommendation...

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Best Shot: "One From the Heart"

This week's Hit Me With Your Best Shot was derailed by a very tough communal week and also a busy one for entirely different reasons for yours truly. But a few of our regular participants soldiered on. Please read their lovely pieces on this underappreciated Francis Ford Copoola curiousity from the early 80s. I think you can see a bit of it in the DNA of Moulin Rouge! if you need extra incentive to watch it on Amazon Prime.

Antagony & Ecstasy chose...

The film that was meant to be a quick cheapie designed to provide a financial shot in the arm to the fledgling American Zoetrope, but instead almost destroyed the company that Coppola had dreamed up as a sort of director-driven filmmaker's commune. It's one of the most idiosyncratic films of its era, overwhelmingly pleasurable despite being entirely unlikable and toxic in every possible way. I have no idea if it's a great film or a terrible one that could only have been made by a great talent. Frankly, I don't know that I care one way or the other: when all is said and done, we have the film itself, and I adore it even as it maddens me.

Sorta That Guy chose...

Apparently Coppola insisted that the whole thing be shot on a sound stage to make it feel more artificial, which he might have seen as a good thing, but... 

Dancin' Dan on Film chose...

To call Francis Ford Coppola's One From the Heart "stylized" would be an understatement. To call it "artificial" would be even more of an understatement. It is, by a pretty good margin, the strangest American film I've ever seen, and were it not for Nobuhiko Obayashi's completely batshit insane House, it would be the absolute weirdest fucking film I've ever seen, period.

Next Tuesday June 21st
I promise we will get back on track with RAINER WERNER FASSBINDER'S THE BITTER TEARS OF PETRA VON KANT. Please watch it on any of these services and join us. It's shot by one of my all time favorite cinematographers, Michael Ballhaus. [Hulu | Amazon | Netflix | iTunes] 

Great Moment in Gay - Pariah

In Great Moments in Gay, Team TFE looks at our favorite queer scenes in the movies for Pride Month. Here's Kieran Scarlett on Pariah (2011)

Writing this piece this week, in the wake of tragedy is especially difficult. Thinking about all of the incredible, vital voices that make up Team Experience, as well as the readers who this blog touches on a daily basis, it's impossible not to think that a great number of us could have been (and have been) in places just like that Orlando night club. Safe spaces for marginalized people—queer people in this instance—are sacred, rare and often self-forged. This is especially true of safe spaces for queer people of color, who face an even greater burden of those added identity politics. Now more than ever, it is important to recognize that being queer and open remains a revolutionary act. It's a sad truth to intuit—something so innate and unchanging being a cause for notice and affirmation in the face of a world that is still struggling to understand. It's also beautiful to observe the strength of the queer community, who continue to push forward, forging those safe spaces, making room in spaces that are not yet totally safe, prospering, thriving and living.

Which brings us to Dee Rees' 2011 debut feature film Pariah. This coming-of-age tale charts a young, black lesbian Alike (a magnetic Adepero Oduye) as she struggles to find herself. in the face of a home and school life that are not entirely welcoming to her identity...

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Hamilton Mania, Pixar Short, Gay Rage, New Musical

• Variety Zac Efron possibly joining headliner Hugh Jackman in the new PT Barnum movie musical The Greatest Showman on Earth
• Universal Studios Wicked, the movie has a release date. More on this tomorrow
• Playbill Tony Kushner writing an adaptation of West Side Story for a remake by Steven Spielberg! Since that's my favorite movie of all time I feel very weird about this. Strangely the article stays that Kushner is "currently adapting the screenplay of August Wilson's Pulitzer-winning drama Fences" which would be really bad news for the movie since it's already done filming ;) 
• My New Plaid Pants ...reacts to the news with a shout out to PT Barnum look-alike Jim Broadbent

• THR The British Independent Film Awards, which helped Ex Machina along last awards season, and are adding award categories this year will try a new system to coincide with what voters have seen and where there are conflicts of interest. Interesting.
• EW Tyler Hoechlin will play Superman for the CW
• The Stake Batman v Superman gets a new trailer for its expanded DVD edition. It's LONGER now?!? Jesus Christ. 
• THR That Noah Galvin interview we discussed is still prompting news stories. Apparently ABC is coming down hard on him. Guess they're sensitive about Modern Family!  
• NYT She Loves Me will be the first Broadway show streamed live. One night only June 30th. It will cost you $10 instead of the normal $100+
• Vanity Fair on the making of the new Pixar short "Piper". The buzz is true. The short is super adorable / impressive after a patchy run for the most recent Pixar shorts
• Awards Daily Oscar nomination frontrunners thus far?
• Facebook if you missed Jeffery Self's live feed "It's Awesome to be Gay" with lots of LGBT actors and performers all five parts are available to watch! I haven't finished watching it but there's much talking, funniness, and even some musical numbers. Loved Jordan Firstman singing "Smile," Brian Jordan Alvarez's story about Kevin Spacey, and Drew Droege and Sam Pancake talking about playing gay characters on TV, Darryl Stephens unconventional queer awakening via Prince's Under the Cherry Moon and more... 

Hamilton Mania
I was finally able to see the insanely popular  Hamilton on Broadway last night. For this I must thank the very talented Rory O'Malley (who broke through with Book of Mormon five years back) that's us on stage after the show to your left) who plays King George III. We met because of Into the Woods and this blog and long story.

King George III is such a fun role with perfect little comic interludes to comment on all the chaos in America. (That's the role Jonathan Groff originated but he had to leave the show early due to Looking and other commitments). Otherwise the original cast is still with the show -- for another couple of weeks at least. Good news: they'll be filming it soon for posterity! There will also be a Hamilton mixtape of cut songs and covers and a documentary later this year since people are insatiable.

We had excellent seats -- I nearly smacked the actor Josh Charles in the face (who happened to be sitting next to us) before the show while trying to send a selfie with too little wi-fi. The show lived up to the hype. Great energy, fun, and memorable music and an incredibly finessed marriage of content, form, and theme. 

Politics
Tis the season. With the recent tragedy in Orlando it's hard to not focus on politics, and how broken the GOP is, basically serving only as meat puppets for the NRA who are holding us all hostage (and executing thousands of people each year) via lax gun laws. So here are a few political pieces worth reading/watching:

• BET an amazing open letter to straight people from Dominick Pupa which was banned from Facebook -- I guess because it upset sensitive straight people who don't like being reminded of the existence of gays? Not sure how Facebook can justify removing it
•  The Daily Beast "Admit it..." a thought provoking piece on religion and mass killings and theocratic community's culpability 
• Gawker the essential Rich Juzwiack on Anti-Gay hatred and gay resistance