Tony Nominations 2025: "Death Become Her" and more...

by Nathaniel R

Movie to musical adaptations "Death Becomes Her" and "Buena Vista Social Club" dominated the Tony nominations with 10 each. But they weren't alone. The critically acclaimed original musical about two robots in love "Maybe Happy Ending" tied them -- that's a lot of productions in the double digits this year despite robust competition in terms of eligibility (41 or 42 ? were eligible, split roughly in half between musicals and plays).

The 78th Annual Tony Awards will be held June 8th in New York City, and broadcast on CBS Paramount+. This year's festivities will be hosted by Tony and Grammy winner and three-time (already!) Oscar nominee Cynthia Erivo. The nominations and a few comments are after the jump... 

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Chita Rivera Awards: 2025 Nominations for Film and Broadway

by Nathaniel R

We've mentioned the low-profile Chita Rivera Awards a few times here at The Film Experience. The awards, named after the legendary Broadway performer of West Side Story, The Rink, Chicago, and Sweet Charity fame are a fun idea, honoring dance in both feature films and on Broadway (the more common place for dance to be honored). Since we love all three art forms and the namesake we are all for this! The 2025 honors will be their 7th installment.

This year's ceremony will be held in NYC on May 19 with the amazing Tony & Emmy winner Bebe Neuwirth (Chicago, Cheers) as host. The most famous nominee this year is surely Jonathan Groff. While we've had an enormous crush on him for years, we swear that it's his abundant talent and not his beauty that have kept the fires burning. Plus mad respect for the surely difficult but highly welcome balancing act he's been doing mixing feature films, tv shows, and Broadway shows fairly consistently for years. Groff is involved in both the stage and film categories this year. Read on for the nominations and a few comments...

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The Surprise MVP of Matrix Resurrections

by Tony Ruggio

Response to The Matrix Resurrections over the past few weeks has not been unlike response to The Last Jedi. A legion of fans loathe it for reasons of defied expectations. That's a typical response when fandom has a set idea of how a long-running tale should continue to unfold, often years later. Others love it, though, enraptured by its discursive saga and meta commentary. I fall somewhere in between, just as I did on The Last Jedi, admired and tickled by Lana Wachowski’s daring narrative excursions. She attempts to unravel and re-frame the myths and myriad cliches, but she could and should have gone even further.

The Last Jedi, for all of the belly-aching by fans, was still very much a Star Wars film beholden to black-and-white notions of good and evil, wherein the Jedi are heroes and the Sith are villains. Rian Johnson had an opportunity to dispense with such binaries and have Rey join forces with Ren to defeat both sides of the aisle. The picture waxes frequently about leaving old habits in the past, and then proceeds to follow old habits to the very end. To her credit, Lana at least one-ups that polarizing sequel by dispensing with one of the binaries central to her creation...

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The shortest review you will read of "The Matrix Resurrections"

by Nathaniel R

Cons: I didnt understand a lick of The Matrix Resurrection (did you have to memorized the first three?), especially the last act "rescue" involving brain switching which played like a techno-babble illogic exposition in order to give us a botched Sense8 body-switching visual. On the other hand, writer/director Lana Wachowski claiming such ownership from behind the camera felt satisfying despite playing at times like meta snark. Definitely did not enjoy the suggestion that therapists are evil even though the cat with the bell was damn cute. 

Pros: Absolutely loved Jonathan Groff as the new "Mr Smith". Witnessing Keanu & Carrie-Anne fall back in love was a good time; they've always looked sensational together and age-appropriate, too, so that was a rare doublesexy 50something thrill. This has been my review. 

Yours?

Emmy Category Analysis: Will "Hamilton" Win With Three Nominees?

Team Experience is looking at episode submissions for all the major Emmy categories...

Three "Hamilton" men are nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie - Anthony Ramos, Daveed Diggs and Jonathan Groff.

By Christopher James

Can Daveed Diggs come one step closer to an EGOT? The actor already has a Tony and Grammy for his work and he could very well add an Emmy to that haul… all for the same performance in Hamilton. He’s not the only Hamilton star vying for the Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor In A Limited Or Anthology Series Or Movie. Even in such a long and lofty category title, considering the filmed performance of Hamilton in this category feels like a bit of a stretch. While this could ding the Emmy chances for Hamilton, voters didn't seem to be bothered by it, as the Limited Series acting categories all suggest.

Diggs’ Emmy is far from assured though. Three of the buzziest miniseries each have a young, breakout actor nominated here. I May Destroy You, The Queen’s Gambit and Mare of Easttown are all huge Emmy players this season, showing up in multiple categories. Coattails for any of these shows could help one of these men beat the trio of Hamilton nominees. Let’s take a look at the nominees for Outstanding Supporting Actor In A Limited Or Anthology Series Or Movie (*NOTE SPOILERS AHEAD):

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