Friday, May 1, 2015 at 7:08PM 
(that's the cast of Signature's CABARET playing in DC later this month
including ever crushworthy Wesley Taylor from Smash)
On a scale of 1 to 10 how happy are you that May has arrived? I think I'm at a 15. Feeling very optimistic. You?
Wednesday, December 24, 2014 at 12:23PM 
Jude Law drinking coffee back in the dayWhoa! Off to such a late start today.
HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVE
Here are a few links for you to enjoy while I drink my lunch (aka coffee) and prepare a few posts... posting continues through the holidays so if you're having a Blue Christmas, please know that we're here for you in the comments section / posting form with reviews coming up for Selma & Into the Woods. If you'll be offline for most of the holiday week, collect your belated gifts when you return. The Oscar stuff, year in review collections, chatty interviews and podcast, and silly polls will all still be here when you return. (Just click on that "pages" thing once you run out of the freshly baked articles at the bottom and you'll get to the day old stuff and so on. Only a few of the articles have expiration dates, you know.
Mic I somehow missed all the hubbub about Shiloh "John" Jolie-Pitt but agree that the Spawn of Our Most Beloved Celebrity-Celebrity Couple On the Planet looks spiffy in a suit.
Vanity Fair David Fincher wants to make a movie about music videos? YES PLEASE. The man for the job obviously.
In Contention Katherine Waterston (Inherent Vice) is joining the Jobs biopic... you'd think this movie would scare people away after all those Sony emails
Pajiba chooses the most exhiliarating TV characters of 2014
The Daily Beast Idris Elba wanted for next James Bond maybe.
Mediate I love how upset this is making idiots like Rush Limbaugh. Hee.
Film Stage What would you add to their list of Cinematography bests this year?
Cut Print Film asked you to reconsider Shia Labeouf. I have been!
Vox 30 best tv shows of year
Ah, and thanks to Arjan Writes for pointing out Jennifer Hudson doing a playful impromptu take on Beyoncé's "Listen" when she visited a radio station just the other day if you need a dash of Christmas 2006 in your Christmas 2014... and who doesn't?
(Critics List Navel Gazing / Blog Tracking Decisions after Jennifer sings!)
Sunday, December 21, 2014 at 8:59PM 
Jose here. Last week as I sat in the audience for Side Show on Broadway, I was suddenly struck by the fact that beyond the show’s obvious brilliance and many charms, I was also witnessing the apotheosis of Bill Condon as a true auteur of screen and stage. Now bear with me as I make my points...
Condon is perhaps best known for his work as a screenwriter, his adaptation of Chicago having earned him an Academy Award nomination, and his meticulous work in Gods and Monsters having won him an Oscar for the Best Adapted Screenplay of 1998. Some of his other notable projects have included writing and directing Kinsey, Dreamgirls and also the last two installments of The Twilight Saga. If you take all of his important works and analyze them, it’s clear that in bringing Side Show back to Broadway, he has finally found the one project where he finds all of his obsessions unified.
Saturday, January 26, 2013 at 11:00AM Have you heard that The Academy is going to honor the renaissance of the movie musical with tributes to Chicago, Dreamgirls and Les Miz during the ceremony on February 24th? I'm never been that big on amorphous "tributes" which usually come in the form of sloppy montages at the expense of time celebrating either specific grand careers (lifetime achievements) or actual nominees. And I can't quite see what the through line is between those three pictures (as opposed to any other modern musicals). But you know I love musicals. Still... this makes precious little sense to me, not when you have a decent current lineup of Original Song nominees you could focus on for once. And not when you're only focusing on three films, two of which had little to do with the musical genres resuscitation.
It's a Musical Diva Throwdown
Everyone knows (or should come to understand) that it was the one-two-three-four punch of Disney's resurrection (The Little Mermaid + Beauty & The Beast) + Dancer in the Dark + Moulin Rouge! + Hedwig and the Angry Inch from 1989-2001 that reopened the musical floodgates artistically and reminded everyone "ohmygod... look what this versatile genre can do!!!". Chicago (2002) then was the behemoth that came charging down that road that had been pre-paved for it by stronger films, despite how grandly entertaining it was, to claim the trophy for the whole genre.
At any rate the strangest exclusion from their planned tribute is surely Moulin Rouge! which had, if you'll recall, just as many nominations as both Les Miz and Dreamgirls (I guess 8 is the magic number for non-BP winning popular musicals), starred people who are still very much in the cultural conversation, and is already widely regarded as part of the new canon. That's something that none of the three films Oscar is planning to rehonor on the ceremony can quite claim... no, not even Chicago.
Monday, August 20, 2012 at 9:01AM This review was originally published in my column at Towleroad.
Leaving for the theater to see Sparkle, the boyfriend wrinkled up his nose. "Is that that Dreamgirls remake?" he asked rhetorically. He doesn't care about movies (...I know!) so I just said "yes" rather than getting into it. Sparkle, like Dreamgirls before it, does pair an "American Idol" alum in her big screen debut (Jordin Sparks / Jennifer Hudson) with a genuine legend (Whitney / Beyoncé) to tell the story of a troubled female pop trio in 1960s Detroit attempting to make it big as Motown explodes. But the similarities are cosmetic. (Which is not, unfortunately, to Sparkle's benefit. If you're going to load up your screenplay with familiar clichés, rob from superior work!)
The immediate jarring difference between the two films is first noticeable in the Jennifer/Jordin continuum. In both films the biggest talent of the trio has to play second fiddle to "the hot one" but only in the earlier property does the Major Talent bristle mesmerizingly against her runner-up status; Jordin's "Sparkle" is a willing wallflower, happy to let her sister (the crazy gorgeous Carmen Ejogo) sing all of her songs whilst shimmering in the warmth of the spotlight. Sparkle's sister's name is "Sister" and their group is called "Sister and Her Sisters" and the men competing dramatically for their hands (that's a euphemism for vaginas) are named "Stix" (Derek Luke) and "Satin" (Mike Epps). So any moviegoer with a sybilant "S" should avoid all discussions of the movie.
