Stage Door: Hand to God

Dancin' Dan here for one of my favorite times of the year: TONY TIME! When the Tony nominations were announced, I had my usual reactions of shock and awe (congrats to all the supporting ladies from Fun Home, but did we really have to include all of them at the expense of their counterparts from On The Town?), but what made me happiest were the multiple nominations for Hand to God, hands-down the best play I’ve seen on Broadway in ages.

When you walk into the Booth Theater (most recently the home to Bradley Cooper’s Elephant Man), you’re immediately greeted with cheery posters extolling the beauty of the world and God’s hand in creating it, along with heavily southern-fried Christian country-rock. If you’ve ever been in a church school, the set will look freakily familiar… do all of these things look alike? But then the lights go down, and we’re greeted by… a sock puppet. This sock puppet’s name is Tyrone, and despite his adorable appearance, he has some not-so-adorable thoughts on his mind.

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May the Fourth Be With You

Happy annual Star Wars day. Since Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (just 228 days away) will make this whole year a perpetual Star Wars Day elsewhere on the net, we'll keep this brief. Here are four unqualified positive feelings about the franchise.

1. Nathaniel hearts Leia, Luke and Han (in roughly that order) as much as anyone & forever.
2. Jabba the Hutt, Darth Vader, Emperor Palpatine, and even Darth Maul are superb villains. Deeply memorable villains are incredibly important to adventure genres such as space fantasy, action, sci-fi, superheroes, etcetera and it's one thing nearly every franchise could learn from this one.
3. The Empire Strikes Back is awesome.
4. Where would the world of sound design be without Ben Burtt? The world has never forgotten Darth Vader's breath, Chewie's throaty protestations, and R2-D2's beep bop boop beeping and never shall. What a great call Oscar made in 1977 to give him a special achievement Oscar. 

Classic Post Alert - Click for similar lovelies

Related:
Last Year's May the Fourth Be With You post 

Now you say four nice things about Star Wars in the comments.

Podcast (Season Debut): Furious Ultron 7

The Podcast is Back!

For this season's spoiler-heavy debut episode, Nathaniel is joined by Joe Reid and Anne Marie Kelly who share their feels about the Furious 7 and its home franchise from corny sentiment to Michelle Rodriguez's biceps. We also talk Joss Whedon, crowded and empty theaters, and the various intermittent joys of The Avengers: Age of Ultron from Elizabeth Olsen's elaborate hand gestures to Mjölnir getting around.

Running Time - 42½ minutes
00:01 Intro and "Previously On..."
02:00 Avengers moviegoing: geek behavior, costumes, crowds
09:00 Age of Ultron
33:00 Furious 7

Please to enjoy and continue the conversation in the comments. You can listen at the bottom of this post or download from iTunes.  

Furious Ultron 7

Penny Dreadful and Other (NSFW) Randomness

My mood of late has been 'fourgy with the cast of Ex Machina' That cast! Or at least a private moment with Oscar Isaac. When I'm not thinking of that movie I am thinking of The Avengers and when someone tweeted "Ava > Ultron" I immediately pictured a full two hour mash-up of those titles in which Alicia Vikander with all her little subtle whirring process noises seduces Scarlet Johansson in black leather and Mark Ruffalo in green muscles and Paul Bettany in fresh synthetic body and now I need a cold shower. My point is this: The Lusty Month of May is upon us.

In keeping with that mood, let's talk about the Penny Dreadful premiere tonight and 5 other not safe for work things after the jump...

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Avengers Assemble... Your Loot!

As expected Marvel's latest evil plot for world domination was a significant success at the box office. The US opening took in an estimated $187.6 but that's just the beginning of its gross and in addition to what it's already earned overseas ($340 million). Even though its launch wasn't as successful as its predecessor, it should still end the year comfortably with crazy big grosses. How high can it fly? Expect a big drop-off domestically next weekend since audiences and critics seem grumpier this time. I personally don't think that's so much about the movie itself as it is about the increasing ubiquity of its genre. It will be harder and harder for these films to wow people as their ranks have grown so swiftly. The special becomes the standard and so forth. 

In 'it's about time' news, Furious 7 had a big percentage drop and lost 500 theaters. In far more curious news Cinderella one of the year's leggiest hits somehow rebounded (second run houses?) to return to the top ten despite losing more theaters. 

WIDE RELEASE
01 Avengers: Age of Ultron $187.6 NEW Review & Marathon
02 Age of Adaline $6.2 (cum. $23.4)  Trailer discussion
03 Furious 7 $6.1 (cum. $330.5) Review
04 Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 $5.5 (cum. $51.1)
05 Home $3.3 (cum. $158.1) the rise and fall of Dreamworks
06 Cinderella $2.3 (cum. $193.6) Review
07 Ex-Machina $2.2 (cum. $10.8) Review
08 Unfriended $1.9 (cum. $28.5) 
09 The Longest Ride $1.7 (cum. $33.2)
10 Woman in Gold $1.6 (cum. $24.5) 

Limited releases were fairly quiet this week though Far From the Madding Crowd opened with $172,000 at 10 locations and Clouds of Sils Maria got a nice expansion and should soon cross the million dollar mark.

What did you see this weekend?