RuPaul's All Stars Enter the Workroom!

Chris here, champing at the bit to just get RuPaul's Drag Race All Star-ted, already! We are only a week away from a new season of mega-wattage lipsyncs and high stakes before another queen joins previous All Stars winners Alaska Thunderfuck and Chad Michaels in the Drag Race Hall of Fame. We still have no sign of the mystery tenth queen, so we can expect the show to save her for a big reveal as it did last season with the return of Cucu. However, we can expect a slew of guest stars including Titus Burgess, Vanessa Williams, Kristen Chenoweth, and, catch this, Nancy Pelosi!

And to aid our speculation on the eventual winner before the premiere, we've gotten a glimpse at the first looks as the queens enter the workroom. Since we're Drag Race obsessed, let's rundown the best first impressions and rank the looks:

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Soundtracking: The Best Musical Moments of 2017

Chris here. This past summer I started a series here at The Film Experience called Soundtracking that takes a deeper look at music in the movies. I hope you've loved reading (and listening) along!

2017 proved an appropriate year to start this musical exploration as brilliantly used tracks kept showing up in movies and television shows. Even some things that I didn't care for (Baby Driver, sorry) or missed entirely (Twin Peaks, sorry) proved that music is another storytelling tool that can define a narrative in interesting ways. Even films like The Florida Project and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 gave us memorable needle drops! Before Soundtracking brings a close to its first film year with full pieces on I, Tonya and Call Me By Your Name in the next two weeks, let's take a look at the best musical moments of TV and Film of the past year...

Top 5 TV Musical Moments...

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RuPaul's Next Batch of All Stars!

Chris here. Last night the lineup was revealed for the third season of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars in a big casting extravaganza like Drag Race used to do in the old days. These casting specials really should be required for each season because we get to spend solo time with each queen that the workroom can't afford. And for an All Stars season it allows the newer viewers an opportunity to get to know queens from early seasons. But onto the queens - this year's lineup is also stocked full of "eliminated too soon" queens to go with the fan favorites:

• Aja (Season 9)
• BenDeLaDreme (Season 6)
• Chi Chi Devayne (Season 8)
• Kennedy Davenport (Season 7)
• Milk (Season 6)
• Morgan McMichaels (Season 2)
• Shangela (Season 2 and 3)
• Thorgy Thor (Season 8)
• Trixie Mattel (Season 7)

But wait, there's more! In typical teasing Ru fashion, one queen has yet to be revealed. Whether she will be announced later or saved for the show itself remains to be seen. However with such a build up, its safe to say it's a major competitor. Could it be a shocking game changer like Willam or a cult favorite like Stacy Layne Matthews?

We'll have to wait and see when the new season arrives sometime this winter. This set of queens is on the scrappier side, so we can expect a fight to the top. I'm not ready to name a personal favorite until we see what happens, but current top 3 would be Kennedy, DeLa, and Trixie. I'm already seeing lots of passion for Chi Chi on Twitter, but tell us in the comments: who are you rooting for? (And for the love of RuPaul: let's keep the spoilers out of the comments this go around, readers!)

Emmy Reactions: Our Favorite Nominations!

Since the Emmy nominations announced today, some celebration is in order! We polled our lively Team Experience for their thoughts on today's results, starting with their favorite nominees across any of Emmy's umpteen categories. Before we bemoan what got left out, let's pop a cork and spend some time on the many exciting nominees that made the cut:

What nomination made you the happiest?

JASON - LAURA DERN, OBVIOUSLY. I mean what am I, an animal?

LYNN - B.D. Wong as Guest Actor in a Drama Series (Mr. Robot). While Emmy voters cooled on Mr. Robot this year - a shame, since I maintain the second season was actually stronger than the first - I'm happy to see they did recognize one of its standout turns: B.D. Wong as the enigmatic White Rose.  Whether appearing as the female leader of the Dark Army or the male Chinese Minister of State Security, he was always absolutely mesmerizing to watch, offering glimmers of insight but never full access to the character's agenda and putting a slyly subversive spin on the old trope of the "inscrutable Oriental."

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The Emmy Nominations!!

The 69th Emmy nominations have been announced! HBO need not worry that Game of Thrones wasn't eligible this year, as they landed the most nominated drama anyway with Westworld. The early-in-the-season genre hit tied Saturday Night Live for 22 nominations each, followed by Stranger Things and Feud tying for second place at 18 each.

Most of the nominations follow Emmy's expected players despite the openings left by departed perennials like Thrones, though this year isn't without surprises or fresh faces. The major breakthroughs this year were Hulu (finally in the major races thanks to the success of The Handmaid's Tale) and our beloved RuPaul's Drag Race (scoring 7 nominations, plus one for Untucked).

The team will be sharing their favorite nominations and frustrations on what missed the cut later today, but our dream ballot should give you a hint of our thoughts. Here are the nominees in the top categories:

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