Are we really getting TEN movie musicals in 2021?

by Nathaniel R

In the Heights

In the recent Yes No Maybe So post I mentioned that we were getting three musicals in the space of seven months. But that was a gross understatement as I hadn't yet finished my Oscar chart research for 2021. There are actually TEN musicals... no make that eleven (!) that are supposed to arrive before Christmas. Release dates are subject to change, of course. The current schedule represents Hollywood doubling-down, no quintupling down, on audiences salivating en masse for musicals in the way they currently only do for animated fare and superhero films. (That'd be a wonderful world of course, if audiences were so inclined.)

Lin-Manuel Miranda, of Hamilton fame, is spectacularly talented but looking at this schedule we're a little worried for him. We don't want Miranda to become the next Ryan Murphy -- i.e. stretched thin, predictable, veering into being a Brand first and artist second, and offering diminishing returns. Given that Miranda is involved in more than a third of these musicals, that's a major oversaturation risk. Tell us which of these ten you're most excited about in the comments...

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And the Best Presenter Oscar goes to... Rita Moreno (with a peak at West Side Story)

Nathaniel R

In the matter of one of the "smaller awards" (haha) like Best Picture, the Oscars chose to go very big and noteworthy indeed. Screen star and EGOT legend Rita Moreno (whose classics include The King and I, Singin' in the Rain, West Side Story, and Carnal Knowledge... though Hollywood obviously never did right by her denying her the lead roles she clearly would have aced) did the honors. She was a perfect choice both for her all-generations appeal, and her estimable comic gift. In introducing the Best Picture category she memorably joked that the most important award was "Best Supporting Actress" and her winning role came in a movie that won some other 'smaller awards,' too. She remains a reliable energetic funny delight at 89. Sadly, this great great moment didn't come at the end of the broadcast (argh!) but a couple of prizes too early. To understand how big a deal it is that Rita Moreno presented you have to also understand the history a bit...  

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The day moviegoing died?

by Nathaniel R

What is that old line. 'Some say the world will end in fire. Some say in ice?' Who would've expected that our particular world (i.e. moviegoing) would end due to an exceptionally incompetent cruel government's mishandling of a worldwide pandemic? There's no poetic ring to that!

Movie theaters have been closed here in NYC since late March. Moviegoing as we knew it might have died months ago while we were busy stupidly thinking of it as an induced coma that we would all purposefully awake from once treatment options improved. We were not expecting the movie studios themselves be the ones urging us to pull the plug and plan a funeral. As you probably heard today, Warner Bros, one of the last standing behemoth movie studios, has announced that they'll be premiering the entirety of their 2021 slate day and date on HBOMax and in movie theaters...

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You Couldn't Get Those "Hamilton" Tickets?

by Eric Blume

Good news, as Disney is bringing a filmed version of the Broadway sensation Hamilton to movie theaters October 15, 2021, with the original cast. It will not be a fully-imagined film like this summer's other Lin-Manuel Miranda musical In the Heights.  Instead, it will be a "live capture" of the stage performance, shot in the Richard Rodgers Theater before the original cast started to disband.  

I was lucky enough to see this cast in the original incarnation at the Public Theater, and then again when it moved to Broadway with different actors.  No disrespect to the excellent work of the actors from round two, but there is truly nothing like seeing the original cast of a show...

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Showbiz History: Chéri, Elvis, and Top Gun: Maverick?

7+ random things that happened on this day (June 26th) in history...

1925 Charlie Chaplin's classic The Gold Rush premieres at the Egyptian theatre in Hollywood. Tickets were $5.50 (which would be around $70 today)

1971 The 21st annual Berlinale begins (it used to be held in the summer rather than February). The winner will be Vittoria de Sica's Italian classic The Garden of the Finzi Continis which will win the Oscar the following April for Best Foreign Language Film...

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