Beauty Break: He is Risen

Did you love Jesus Christ Superstar Live!? John Legend was in spectacular voice as Jesus and kudos also to Tony nominee (and one of my favorite Broadway stars) Norm Lewis as Caiaphas. But the scene stealer of the night was Tony nominee Brandon Victor Dixon who stole the show as Judas Iscariot. He was a glittering reminder, particularly in disco chainmail in the closing fantasy sequence (since Judas had already committed suicide), that live performing is a unique skill set. Imagine your average movie star trying to keep up that much physical and emotional energy for two plus hours while leaping around a stage and singing at the top of their lungs. If anything Dixon's energy only grew as the night wore on. Just stunning. (I'm not talking about his body, but that too.)  

Though Jesus Christ Superstar! was in some ways an odd dated musical choice for a mainstream family event (it's not remotely 'funny' for one)  it was the best produced "Live" musical since that became an annual thing. The set design and direction were amazing, culminating in a major wow of a finale. Still don't love the Andrew Lloyd Webber score and can't fathom why people doing the orchestrations for Lloyd Webber revivals never think to subvert the oh-so-70s electric guitar sound (also a weird issue with the 1996 Evita movie) but you can't have everything.

Since this particular production had all kinds of gorgeous men in fine voice and equally fine body, let's end this Easter weekend sharing photos of the hottest men to have ever played Jesus in the movies or on television before John Legend's go at it. The gallery is after the jump...

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Happy Easter!

I know we're supposed to be thinking about Jesus today but to be honest, I keep thinking about Annelle. And not just because she was the star of our first newsletter last week. Who or what are you thinking about on this Easter Sunday?

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Brief Takes: Unsane and Pacific Rim Uprising

by Nathaniel R

Unsane (Steven Soderbergh)
Synopsis: A disturbed young woman, who is institutionalized against her will, is convinced that a former stalker is one of her nurses.

Capsule: The queer community got there first. Although to be fair when isn't that the case? Soderbergh's iPhone shot movie is no aesthetic relevation like the trans iPhone classic Tangerine. Still, more filmmakers ought to try to make something as fast and cheap and spirited as this thriller inbetween pricier or weightier projects...

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Pfandom: Scarface

P F A N D O M  
Michelle Pfeiffer Retrospective. Episode 9
by Nathaniel R 

Michelle Pfeiffer was not an overnight success, nor was Elvira Hancock in Scarface (1983), a true star-making role. That's hard to fathom now that the movie is so embedded in pop culture but the early fame attached to the movie was Pacino Ham and de Palma Excess specific. Pfeiffer's Movie Star Ascendance was four or five years away but with Scarface, The Actress inside her arrived...

So the natural place to focus is Elvira Hancock's own entrance. We first spot that gangster's moll when Tony (Al Pacino) does, turned away from us in a backless gown in the home of local crime boss Frank (Robert Loggia). She descends into the scene by elevator, like a trophy encased in glass. Her body language is all impatience though not in the practical sense or she might have glided down the stairs with more speed. The sleek teal gown is cut down to there in front, saving all its fabric for Pfeiffer's lower half.  It flows with her every shift in movement, dancing around her legs as if it's already at the club Elvira's so eager to get to...

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Drag Race: PharmaRusical

Nathaniel R

A quicker look at the second episode, which featured the girls divvied up into two teams selling Ruco Labs pharmaceuticals... a chance to make lots of crude and intermittently funny jokes about gag reflexes, drag mouth (cliche utterances -- a very real problem!), and tucking. The episode was front loaded since the mini-challenge (a silly country dancing hoedown) was the peak. All in all a decent hour but relatively free of future classic moments so we'll have to call it a filler episode... 

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