Q&A: The Force is With Reader Questions

by Nathaniel R

I got a little verbosely carried away whilst answering reader questions so you get two Q & A columns from your last batch of questions. Thanks for playing. This week I asked for a few Star Wars Questions but that's just three of the six questions answered here. Ready, let's go! 

TROY: Within the past year Cynthia Erivo has won a Tony, Grammy, and Daytime Emmy for her work in the recent Broadway revival of The Color Purple, making her only one step away from completing the EGOT. Which type of project do you think would giver her her best chance at winning an Oscar?

NATHANIEL: I hate to get nitpicky but technically should Daytime Emmys even count with the EGOT? If you count any old Emmy as towards the EGOT than about 100,000 people you've never heard of who have local Emmies (seriously they give those statues out like candy) are 1/4th of the way to that showbiz goal. It's only Whoopi Goldberg, Robert Lopez, and their fans that would argue that Daytime Emmys count. No shade!

Anyway my dream for Erivo is that they give her either the film version of The Color Purple musical, though I fear they'd just hand it to a bigger less worthy star (like, oh, Jennifer Hudson, who she and Danielle Brooks, the other Tony nominee from that show, both ran circles around onstage) or a film version of Caroline or Change (if they won't rehire the incredible Tonya Pinkins) as those two roles are powerhouse vehicles for a black woman with giant pipes. But any musical role would be dreamy. That voice!

 PEDRO: What is your favorite Star Wars character? And your favorite Star Wars actor?

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Happy Links Are Here Again

For today's link roundup ONLY articles that made me smile over these past few holiday-smeared days even if a few of them have that melancholy undertow.

Jezebel Rooney Mara refuses Taylor Swift's pleas to hang out
Decider Joe Reid's top 16 of everything 2016
Idolator Deee-Lite's classic "World Clique" LP getting a deluxe reissue. I really cannot express how much I love that record

Adequate Man things that got stuck in people's orifices this year, via emergency room databases. LOL
New York Times fascinating article about Judy Garland and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" from Meet Me In St Louis which is incidentally one of my favorite movies of all time. Like ALL time. 
The Establishment "General Leia Organa is the Hero We Need Right Now" 
Playbill Adorable. Gifted Broadway darling Laura Benanti will be doing a cabaret show with her mother Linda "The Story Goes On" this summer. Want tickets. Now! 
Interview talks to Lucas Jade Zumann about his 20th Century Women breakthrough and auditions as a teenage actor. Ah the endearing often beautiful precociousness of goodhearted showbiz kids. Consider...

It's not that I don't plan on pursuing acting forever, it's just that my ultimate goal is to be a meditation guide and spiritual healer, along with studying plant medicine and stuff like that. I want to be able to do that without profit. I want to be able to provide medicine for people without them having to pay for it, since I think that's something that reduces the value of the medicine. I think that having an acting career and a different source of income would allow me to help people without having to charge them.

Beauty vs Beast: Happy Gotham Holidays

Hey everybody, Jason from MNPP here with our final edition of "Beauty vs Beast" for 2016 -- we will be back after the holidays... as long as the world still exists. (Lately I wonder.) Until then let's think happy thoughts (or die trying) and consider one of my favorite holiday movies, Tim Burton's Batman Returns. I was just reading a piece on the film this morning, placing its bleak worldview of politics against our own (I did say these were happy thoughts right?) so the movie's feeling fresh as a bowl of milk. And there's always room beside my Xmas tree for these two great villains - as The Penguin at one point says to Miss Kitty...

"You're Beauty and the Beast in one luscious Christmas gift pack."

PREVIOUSLY Since Star Wars is in the air last week we forced you all to take sides between the greatest bickering space pair since Dave disconnected HAL - beating Han Solo himself is no small feat (he shoots first, remember) so give it up to Princess Leia, who hair-rolled away with just under 60% of your vote. Said tom:

"She has one of the most famous wardrobes in movie history, an entire fleet at her disposal, and her sidekick is gold. His best friend is a walking carpet - her words. I think she wins."

Beauty vs Beast: Meet The Solos

Jason from MNPP here, telling you something you maybe weren't sure of: did you know there's a new Star Wars movie out this weekend? You heard it here first! It's called Rogue One and it's probably going to make several dollars. At least. We've used the Star Wars universe for our "Beauty vs Beast" series before (see right here) but there are so many characters to choose from (and duos at that) I could probably do a new one once every month and never run dry. But for now I feel like celebrating the greatest galactic love story of our time (not to mention of a time long ago)... and I do mean "celebrating" as "forcefully shoving them apart and making you people choose sides" of course...

PREVIOUSLY We were feeling Jackie Fever last week and so we took on Oliver Stone's JFK -- unlike the Oscars though we ended up favoring Kevin Costner's terrifically righteous star turn as the conspiracy-mad prosecutor Jim Garrison with 63% of our vote - said Edward L:

"I had to vote Jim Garrison too. It was close...but the "just can't find it" line swayed me in his direction (and made me laugh)! ... I don't think the Academy had had their fill of Costner, I think it was simply more the case that Best Actor that year was very competitive and there was simply no room ultimately for Kevin."

14 Days Until That Galaxy Far Far Away

I have successfully avoided much information about (Episode VII) Star Wars: The Force Awakens in an effort to preserve a pre-internet style excitement for the new film. No, scratch that. I've done so in an effort to generate excitement since I felt none. Unlike the rest of the internet I remember all too painfully how godawful the last three movies were. *shudder* As for the new film, I've only seen the first trailer and only know character names because no matter how hard you try to say "pure" and go in cold, information will be absorbed from the 24 hour news cycle.

But truth: the nostalgia is finally getting to me and I'm officially excited. It must be all the appearances of Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford in my news feeds even if the articles go unclicked to stay pure.

That caption to the left "The 'Star Wars' Kids" -LOL!

If you've been reading The Film Experience for a long time you'll know that The Empire Strikes Back (1980) was a formative experience as a kid. By the time Return of the Jedi (1983) came out, half of my bedroom was covered with magazine collages of ewoks, Jabba the Hut, Yoda, Darth, Luke and Han. Princess Leia in her gold bikini dominated, duh! The actressexuality came fast and early before I even knew what it was. 

On a scale of 1-100 how excited are you to have the Force awakened?