Tony Awards 2018 in Review

Thirteen random thoughts on last night's Tony Awards.

• Glenda Jackson won the Emmy and two Oscars in the 1970s but after a three decade break from acting, she returns triumphant with a Tony win, giving her the Triple Crown!

• Remember when Melissa McCarthy surprised everybody by winning the Emmy for Mike & Molly that one year? After the shock wore off everyone collectively decided that the Television Academy gave her that prize because of Bridesmaids that same season. I kinda think this is what happened with Laurie Metcalf winning a second consecutive Tony -- this time for Three Tall Women in a category people expected to go elsewhere. Not that Three Tall Women isn't brilliantly acted, but we're guessing her miracle performance in Lady Bird helped put her over the finish line. We're choosing to interpret it as Tony voters slapping Oscar's hand. Oscar deserved a slap for that one...

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Yes No Maybe So: A Star is Born

by Nathaniel R

When the trailer for the fourth version of A Star is Born hit yesterday everyone was all surprised like "omg this looks... good. Could it be good?" Dear reader, we been saying that via the Oscar charts! It certainly helps that Bradley Cooper enlisted DP Matthew Libatique (Black Swan, Requiem for a Dream, Tigerland, Iron Man) to shoot it and from early images it looks like Libatique knew what an attention grabber this could be and is really going for broke. So much color and beauty. Yes! Let's do a quick Yes No Maybe So™ on this (and a few more trailers) after the jump...

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Stage Door: Best Musical Nominees at the Tony Awards

by Nathaniel R

Though I have not seen as much Broadway theater as I'd hoped to this year, I have finally managed to see all of the nominees in the big kahuna Tony category: Best Musical. This is the marquee category each year in that it's the one that matters financially and for bragging rights the way "Best Picture," "Drama Series," and "Album of the Year" are saved for last at the Oscars, Emmys, and Grammys respectively... even if you might personally think other prizes more significant or telling. Let's rank the nominees after the jump, shall we?

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Soundtracking: "Hedwig and the Angry Inch"

by Chris Feil

Perhaps you missed that John Cameron Mitchell finally returned to the punk rock scene this past weekend with How to Talk to Girls at Parties, and honestly - what gives? Regardless of this Neil Gaiman adaptation’s quality, has everyone faded from the afterglow of Hedwig and the Angry Inch so quickly? (Mitchell's promise that the film is joining The Criterion Collection later this year should fix that.)

Mitchell has given us one of the most unique musicals of the past quarter century, so any return to musical adjacency (National Anthem or otherwise) deserves our attention. Or maybe the distinctive qualities of Hedwig make comparisons - its weathered reductive comparisons to every recent rock musical you can think of - a losing battle...

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Soundtracking: "Burlesque"

by Chris Feil

Much as we love it, isn’t Burlesque one of our least distinct recent original musicals? The genre is no stranger to borrowing tropes that have worked in the past and Burlesque is no exception - dreams of stardom, vague romance, putting on a show to save the barn. The real culprit here the film’s mishmash assemblage of tunes, populated with high peaks and easily ignored plains.

But I should shut up because really: who cares? It’s Cher, bitch!

And oft repeated quotables aside, the presence of a singing and dancing Cher on screen is a now rare delight that shouldn’t be taken for granted (soak up those Mamma Mia! 2 rays of sunshine this July, kids). Some are quick to forget that Cher is always in on the joke, or that her lack of pretension makes opulence where more self-serious performers would be trapped in chintziness...

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