Tony Awards 2015 Live Blog

Tonight's festivities will be hosted by Tony winners Kristin Chenoweth ("You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown") and Alan Cumming ("Cabaret") and if Cheno doesn't win herself later on for "On the Twentieth Century" it's going to continue to be forever weird to refer to her as a 'Featured Actress' Tony winner from before she was even KRISTIN CHENOWETH and still not a Best Actress winner. Cheno only having one Tony? Unthinkable!

...and that's my new philosophy! ♫

Anyway... LIVE BLOG FROM THE SHOW (UPDATED WITH PHOTOS & VIDEO CLIPS) after the jump

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Melissa McCarthy Rules the Box Office Yet Again

This weekend I was too caught up in 1979 (see the Smackdown) and birthday festivities (the celebration of meeeee!) to see any new pictures -- though Spy was previously seen and Rose Byrne is magnificent! The weekend box office went pretty much as people expected, Melissa McCarthy still being a huge draw. Though it remains a mystery how there were ten million dollars worth of people who missed HBO's Entourage. Who knew?!

WIDE RELEASE
June 5th-7th Weekend
01 Spy NEW $30 
02 San Andreas $26.4 (cum. $92.1) 
03 Insidious Chapter 3 NEW $23
04 Entourage NEW $10.4 (cum. $17.8)
05 Mad Max Fury Road $7.9 (cum. $130.8) Review & Podcast
06 Pitch Perfect 2 $7.7 (cum. $160.9) Review 
07 Tomorrowland $7 (cum. $76.2) Review 
08 Age of Ultron  $6.2 (cum. $438) Review & Marathon & Podcast
09 Aloha $3.3 (cum. $16.3) Review
10 Poltergeist $2.8 (cum. $44.4)

What did you see this weekend? Or are you busy counting down the minutes until the Tony Awards to think about the movies?

Smackdown 1979: Barbara, Candice, Jane, Mariel ...and Meryl Streep!

Presenting the Supporting Actresses of '79. Three divorcées trying to find themselves or build new lives (a white hot character type / movie theme in the late 70s) battled for the statue with a simple suburban mom and a precocious student at the 52nd Annual Academy Awards.

THE NOMINEES

 

Candice Bergen and Mariel Hemingway were first-time Oscar players in 1979, but they shared the interesting distinction of being previous Globe nominees in the long since cancelled category of "Promising Newcomer/Acting Debut" in 1966 (The Sand Pebbles) and 1976 (Lipstick) respectively. Barbara Barrie , the eldest nominee, was no stranger to good reviews having previously won Cannes Best Actress (for the little seen interracial romance One Potato Two Potato in 1964) but was largely considered a TV actress. She returned to the small screen immediately after her most beloved film role  -- in a TV series based on that film no less making her the rare performer (the only one?) to have received both an Emmy nomination and Oscar nomination for the same exact role! But the Kramer vs Kramer ladies were the marquee draws in 1979 and not just because the public response to their divorce drama was so seismic: Jane Alexander and Meryl Streep had been nominated before and would be again. Especially La Streep. No one could have then predicted that she'd continually obliterate Oscar records over the next thirty plus years but everyone knew she was the Next Big Thing. 1979 was the year of her true ascendance, a third consecutive year co-starring in a Best Picture contender (Julia, The Deer Hunter, Kramer vs Kramer) and the small matter of two other much-raved about performances in the same year (Manhattan and The Seduction of Joe Tynan). 

THIS MONTH'S PANELISTS

Here to talk about these five turns are author KM Soehnlein ("The World of Normal Boys") and film bloggers Kristen Sales (Sales on Film), Bill Chambers (Film Freak Central), Brian Herrera (StinkyLulu), and your host Nathaniel R (The Film Experience). There's also a must-listen Podcast companion conversation to the Smackdown where we flesh out some of these thoughts and expound on the movies themselves.

Without further ado, the Smackdown...

1979
SUPPORTING ACTRESS SMACKDOWN 
An in-depth discussion after the jump... 

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Are you playing along at home?

Look at this cute portrait a reader made for me. You know him as "Seisgrados" in the comments!It's my birthday and I don't ask for much from y'all. Only that you obsess over actresses with us and constantly readjust your instant watch and DVD queues to play along with our many series! To maximize your enjoyment this week make sure to catch Spy (2015), "The Knick" Season 1 (2015), Oscar favorite Amadeus (1984), Agnes Varda's highly watchable masterpiece Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962), The Tony Awards, seminal miniseries "And the Band Played On" (HBO, 1993), and any film starring Cara Seymour!

Today's Reader Assignments

1. ASK NATHANIEL (right now) ~ he needs questions for this Wednesday night's Q&A column

2. COMMENT - It's like blog fuel for the writers - pick any article

3. DONATE THROUGH SUBSCRIPTION- This blog is a full time commitment (as you can imagine) and it's been going forever to try and entertain you and it's always tough financially. If you subscribe for a small monthly donation ($2.50 or, you know, a cup of coffee) it helps a lot -- if only a few hundred more of you would do so it would make an enormous difference in stability.

cup o' joe : $2.50USD - monthly popcorn : $5.00USD - monthly movie ticket : $10.00USD - monthly

I ♥ The Film Experience

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KTHNXBYE

HAPPY UNBIRTHDAY TO ALL OF YOU!
Unless you share my birthday and then happy day, Gemini Twins!

Rose Byrne in "Spy"

Let's make this happen universe.

Or we'll all be as sad as Bulgarian clowns.