A rollicking good Tony Awards this year with "Hadestown" dominating

by Nathaniel R

The Tony Awards are -- very generally speaking -- the best produced awards show of the majors. Though their Emmy category keeps changing consider this: In the past 12 years of the Emmys, the Tony Awards have won their category 8 times from 11 nominations, missing a nomination only once. The Oscars and the Globes and the Grammys could never; Their combined total of wins and nominations in that same 12 year time frame is 0 out of 20. Last night at the 73rd annual Tony Awards, the American Theatre Wing demonstrating again why they're always a threat as "Best" with a remarkably sincere but funny and entertaining show with a plethora of fantastic acceptance speeches and exciting musical performances. The musical Hadestown and the epic play The Ferryman were the big winners with 8 and 4 wins respectively.

After the jump some of our own 'Best' proclamations of the night, the full winners list, and awards trivia...

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Weak Sequels & Promising Platform Titles

Weekend Box Office Estimates June 7th-9th (ESTIMATES) 🔺 = New or Expanding / ★ = Recommended
W I D E	PLATFORM / SPECIALTY TITLES
Secret Life of Pets 2	Last Black Man in San Francisco
1 🔺 Secret Life of Pets 2  $47.1 on 4561 screens *NEW*  REVIEW	1🔺 Biggest Little Farm $347k on 285 screens (cum. $2.4)
2 🔺 Dark Phoenix $33 on 3721 screens *NEW*  REVIEW	2 🔺 Late Night $249k on 4 screens *NEW* REVIEW ★
3  Aladdin  $24.5 on 3805 screens (cum. $232.3) 1992 RETROSPECTIVE	3 🔺  All is True $237k on 328 screens (cum. $752k) POSTERIZED: DAME JUDI
4 Godzilla: King of Monsters  $15.5 on 4108  screens (cum. $78.5) POSTERIZED	4 🔺  Last Black Man in...  $230k on 7 screens *NEW*  REVIEW ★
5 Rocketman $14 on 3610 screens (cum. $50.4) REVIEW ★	5 🔺 Echo in Canyon $205k on 43 screens (cum. $501k)
6 Ma $7.8 on 2816 screens (cum. $32.7) REVIEW	6 🔺 The Souvenir $169k on 145 screens (cum. $696k) REVIEW ★

What did you see this week? 

• Secret Life of Pets 2 and Dark Phoenix both had dismal openings when compared to their predecessors. Dark Phoenix is likely to become the first X-film not to gross $100 million domestically. But that's okay, since Disney acquired Fox and this franchise can now go dormant until the MCU has their way with it. (We don't really understand why Disney is still going to dump money into The New Mutants reshoot. Just release it on Disney+ and be done with the bad Fox X-Men titles!) 

• Late Night had the weekend's best per screen average with $62k per theater and will go nationwide next weekend. The Last Black Man in San Francisco, also had a solid opening and the film will hopefully be able to capitalize on its strong reviews as it expands during the summer as counterprogramming for adult audiences. Late Night is hoping for a bigger box office splash than Booksmart and we assume they'll get it with more recognizable stars headlining. 

• Other limited openings this week lower on the charts were the music doc Pavarotti (with $142k), stripper doc This One's for the Ladies ($16k), and the Matt Bomer starring Papi Chulo with $7k from 2 theaters. 

• Rocketman crossed $50 million dollar in its 2nd weekend, holding the best of last week's wide releases down only 45% from its opening weekend (by contrast Ma was down 56% and Godzilla a steep drop of 67%) 

ENJOY THE TONY AWARDS AND BIG LITTLE LIES TONIGHT. WE'LL HAVE COVERAGE OF BOTH ON MONDAY AND TUESDAY.

Review: Dark and Tired Phoenix

This review was previously published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad...

Don't they have any healing and creative rejuvenation among the super-powered mutations at Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Children? If so they needed them to lay their hands on this franchise for a few years before making another bungled attempt at the beloved Dark Phoenix storyline (from the 1980 comic books) within this movie franchise's 19 movie years. But that's a rhetorical question. If Dark Phoenix (2019) is indication, mutations cannot save this franchise.

When we return to our characters, much has changed since our last visit. Which is fine since who wants to be reminded of X-Men Apocalypse? The X-Men are now no longer shunned by society but held up as heroes. Professor Xavier (James McAvoy, phoning this one in... but then who isn't?) has a direct phone to the White House, like a Batman / Commissioner Gordon sitch on steroids. Their first mission, which serves as kind of a second prologue to the over and underwritten film, is making Raven (Jessica Lawrence) nervous for some underwritten/performed reason...

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Sunday Shorts: Seven Must-See Gay Films

by Nathaniel R

The Armoire (2009)

We thought it time to indulge in one of our least documented movie interests: short films. This new series might become anything or nothing but we love alliteration so Sundays it is. To kick things off let's discuss queer shorts for Pride Month. Short films don't tend to last the way features can, given that it's hard to be reminded of them, culturally, and they aren't "for sale" or advertised on streaming often in the way TV shows or movies are. Short films are no longer the primary calling cards they once were for up-and-coming directors given the prevalence of TV work and DIY webseries. Now, though, shorts are often direct sales pitches for features. Consider a recent popular movie like  Brazil's The Way He Looks (2014) which was first a short film named I Don't Want To Go Back Alone (2010). The American comedy Gayby (2012) and drama Pariah (2011) also started their lives as celebrated queer films of 12 and 20 minutes respectively before their feature expansions.

But the current in-flux state of the form aside, it's worth finding cinematic gems in whatever size or form they come in. See these famous and/or underseen gems, please. And we'd LOVE to hear recommendations of other short LGBT films that caught your eye in the comments.

7 GAY SHORTS WE'VE LOVED BEFORE
(in chronological order)

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