Emmy FYC: Best Actress in a Drama Series

Team Experience is sharing FYCs as the Television Academy votes on Emmy nominations (voting closes on June 24th). Here's J.B...

Last year's winner Claire Foy can't repeat (as Emmy likes to do) because she didn't have a TV show this year.I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with the Emmy category of Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series.  As someone who worships at the altar of dramatic actresses, it’s my favorite category, and therefore necessarily the one that causes me the greatest anguish. Sometimes, this category shocks and delights (as it did in 2014, when Lizzy Caplan was nominated for her wonderful work on Masters of Sex, or 2016, when Tatianna Maslany took home the trophy for her dynamic performance in Orphan Black). But more often, as of late, anyway, I’ve been left wounded by egregious snubs and unwelcome surprises on nomination morning and Emmy night.

For example, I like Claire Danes, but did she really need a SECOND Emmy for her performance on Homeland, at the expense of Elisabeth Moss, who somehow never won for her iconic role on Mad Men? If Moss had won for Mad Men perhaps voters could have skipped her in turn for Claire Foy in The Crown, thus clearing the way for Keri Russell in 2018, whose turn as Elizabeth Jennings in The Americans is maybe the greatest dramatic performance of the decade. Keri’s loss, in particular, I still haven’t fully recovered from.

So, to any Emmy voters out there who have realized the error of their ways and are looking to make amend: You CAN’T! You’ve made bad choices, the consequences of which we all will have to live with! Know that. BUT, if you are looking to get on the right side of history this year, start by considering the following four names on your ballot for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series...

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"Get Into It...Queen"

This week we had the good fortune to be a Club Cumming (Alan Cumming's bar here in Manhattan) when Miss Natalie (formerly of Broadway's Kinky Boots) performed. She's an incredibly dynamic live performer, with a huge voice and screen-ready comic timing. I expect big things. After an amazing 80s medley, she performed this hilarious original which might well be our choice for 'Song of the Summer' or, at the very very very least, an essential song for everyone's Pride playlists. 

Get into it, queens!

[YouTube | Spotify | Apple Music]

Pride Month Doc Corner: 'Trixie Mattel: Moving Parts'

By Glenn Dunks

The Film Experience and Doc Corner are celebrating Pride Month with a focus on documentaries that tackle LGBTIQ themes. We had planned to cover the new HBO doc Wig about the return of Wigstock, but HBO wouldn't allow it so now Trixie Mattel is here being reviewed all by herself.

Brian Firkus aka Trixie Mattel needs no introduction to fans of RuPaul’s Drag Race, but a new documentary made by director Nicholas Zeig-Owens and the World of Wonder production house that produces the series seeks to do just that. Treading fairly similar ground to Drag Becomes Him about season five winner Jinkx Monsoon (fellow Drag Race contestants BenDeLaCreme appears in both being sage and wise), Trixie Mattel: Moving Parts follows a year in the life of the folk-singing drag queen with the face of a Dollywood beauty pageant.

Knowing precisely what fans will be watching a movie like Moving Parts for, Zeig-Owens begins with the mental breakdown of her UNHhhh and The Trixie and Katya Show co-star, Brian Joseph Cook aka Katya Zamolodchikova...

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"The House That Will Not Stand" to become a film

by Nathaniel R

Lynda Gravatt as the widowed matriarch of "The House That Will Not Stand" and her rival played by Marie Thomas

Wanted to make sure you've all heard this very good news. Shadow & Act reports that last year's Off Broadway play The House That Will Not Stand is getting the film treatment. Yours truly was on the Drama League nominating committee last season (the show earned three nominations) and I had the privilege of attending that show early in its run. It was a fascinating play from a time period in history we'd previously heard nothing about...

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Soundtracking: Toy Story 2

by Chris Feil

No one uses music to trigger instant tears with such sudden velocity as Pixar does. The “Married Life” sequence from Up, Coco’s “Remember Me” gaining depth through repetition, the reverence for youth that defined the entire Toy Story series with “You’ve Got a Friend in Me”.

But the first time Pixar went for the emotional jugular in a way that felt like a definitive part of their musical brand was to come in Toy Story 2. The sequel introduces us to Jessie, a cowgirl compatriot to Woody, filling space as a collector’s item instead of being cared for by an adoring child. But the film offers a standalone musical montage of Jessie’s former life as the prized possession of a girl named Emily, one who slowly and painfully outgrows her to the sound of Sarah MacLachlan and “When She Loved Me”.

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