Drag Race RuCap: "Reunited"

CLÁUDIO ALVES: RuPaul’s Drag Race season 15 is almost over, with the finale airing next Friday. This week, however, was time to honor the traditional reunion in the form of an extra-large 80-minute episode. If you’ve been following the queens on social media, you know these bitches have plenty to say, from tales of thievery to bullying accusations and everything in between. Not that this was an especially inflammatory reunion - too many dolls are level-headed individuals for that to happen. Sanity prevailed, drama abated, and it was still an entertaining chapter. If nothing else, it gives us an excellent opportunity to reminisce about the season and our coverage. What say you, dear Nick? 

NICK TAYLOR: It was a good time! The reunion had a fun balance of pure shenanigans, rehashing tensions from the show, and even some serious political ruminations on what it means to be a drag queen in the wake of so many drag bans across the United States…

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Over & Overs: To Wong Foo

In Over & Overs we ask Team Experience to share movies that they've seen countless times and tell us why. Here's Chris Feil...

The 90s were an interesting time to be an odd kid strangely compelled to the sight of men in dresses. Drag comedies had a kind of resurgence into the mainstream, particularly with Robin Williams headlining both Mrs. Doubtfire and The Birdcage to huge popularity. But the one that struck my imagination and sparked an undefined sense of self-identification was Beeban Kidron’s oddly named To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar.

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Take me to the link

• NYT Which Cannes films and performances will factor into the Oscar race. Kyle Buchanan thinks Parasite and Pain & Glory are the biggest foreign threats but Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is the big one.
• Hugh Jackman singing Happy Birthday to Sir Ian McKellen with a whole staidum backing him. Awesome
• Variety Owen Gleiberman surveys his Cannes experience and how well the movies filled the big screen
• Variety Chris Hemsworth is the coverboy at the moment so here's the big profile
• The Sheila Variations on Joseph Cotten's active listening in Gaslight (1944) 

• Variety so far Netflix is the only studio to speak out on Georgia's attack on abortion rights which could threaten the massive amount of filmmaking that goes on in that state.
• Out for a blu-ray release of To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar, John Leguizamo is talking about his character Chi Chi Rodriguez
• Town & Country we missed this news during Cannes but congrats to Jennifer Lawrence who is now engaged
• IndieWire surveys critics on the best movies that played at Cannes. Parasite comes out on top just as it did with the jury, but Portrait of a Lady on Fire (which only took Screenplay at Cannes) was the runner up.
• Variety more Cannes prizes. FIPRESCI chooses The Lighthouse (from the director of The VVitch)
• /Film a piece on Quentin Tarantino's female characters  in light of a tense moment at Cannes when he was asked about Margot Robbie's lack of dialogue in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Tony Season
• NYT fun piece on "mysteries" of this Broadway season including how tall is the tall man in Hadestown, how does Santino Fontana sing like a woman in Tootsie, and how does one do partner dances while in a wheelchair? As for that 'tall man' in Hadestown. We first noticed him in Frozen and we ran into him on the subway over the weekend and he was as sweet and gorgeous as can be while towering over us.
• ... Timothy Hughes is his name and you can follow him on Instagram 
• Stagecraft Rosemary Harris will get a lifetime achievement at this year's Tony Awards. But her previous Tony has a typo on it!
• Playbill Wesley Taylor (Smash) who recently won the Chita Rivera Award for Outstanding Male Dancer is engaged to marry Isaac Powell (last seen in Spongebob Squarepants) 
• Playbill Fresh out of high school, Renée Rapp, who won this year's Jimmy Award (that's the highest honor for High School students in musical theater) is stepping into the role of Regina George in Mean Girls for her Broadway debut this summer.

And look here's a video about Dianne Wiest's latest play Off Broadway. It's a monologue play from Samuel Beckett

Gimme Gimme... That Thing Called Link

Screen
• Forbes a theory as to how network TV could survive the exodus of both Shonda Rhimes and Ryan Murphy
• Film Ink Lady Bird was forced to make cuts and dub dialogue to get an M rating in Australia (essentially our PG13). That Playgirl magazine scene really upset the board that much? Ugh. I guess puritanism isn't only for Americans.
• /Film The Duplass Brothers have signed a four film deal with Netflix. This makes so much innate sense to me because their work always felt very televisual.
•/Film Bond 25 is taking an awfully long time to come together. Danny Boyle and the screenplay still aren't even done deals
• Pajiba Disney's upcoming streaming service and the possibility of more Muppets
• Decider Joe Reid reveals his obsession with To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything Julie Newmar

Black Panther Mania
• The Atlantic "The Tragedy of Erik Killmonger"
• Shadow and Act Ryan Coogler and Michael B Jordan's next project together, their fourth, is Wrong Answer a true story about an education system scandal.
• MCN David Poland persuasively argues which ways Black Panther will change things in Hollywood and which ways it won't
• Coming Soon Lupita Nyong'o will costar in Born a Crime, based on the memoir about the childhood of The Daily Show's Trevor Noah. She'll play his mother

Off Cinema
• Playbill watch highlights from a reunion concert of Thoroughly Modern Millie starring Sutton Foster and Gavin Creel -when is someone going to give Sutton a movie musical. She's great on camera (see Bunheads and Younger) and a bonafide Broadway star.
• The New Yorker a thought-provoking piece on the official Obama portraits in case you missed it
• W Mag Greta Gerwig directs Florence Welsh in a photoshoot 
• W Mag Jordan Peele directs Janelle Monae in a Hitchcock inspired photoshoot
• W Mag Luca Guadagnino directs two models in a desert photoshoot
• Playbill Santino Fontana (Crazy Ex Girlfriend!) taking over for Gavin Creel in Hello, Dolly! on Broadway. Apparently Gavin Creel is having back surgery? Ouch.

Exit Video
Keala Settle and Pasek & Paul are all still out there campaigning for The Greatest Showman's Original Song. Pasek & Paul were just interviewed by Variety and Settle just performed "This Is Me" this time on Ellen. I love this song even though you hate it. Sorry not sorry.

That said, I still haven't decided if it's going to win Pasek & Paul a consecutive Oscar (they won last year for "City of Stars") or if Oscar voters will be more partial to honoring Mary J Blige (given the Mudbound fanbase and her double nomination) or if Coco will mean more to voters than just the mandatory check mark for Best Animated Feature.

Thoughts? Sing your Original Song prediction in the comments.

Happy 50th to the Inimitable John Leguizamo

Happy 50th to the enduring character actor and one man show trouper John Leguizamo. He has his first (film) hit in years this summer as part of the ensemble of Chef and he's arguably even its secret weapon; his cheerful sideline energy helps cut the sometimes sour taste of the movie's vaguely offputting self pitying / self aggrandizing central character business featuring Jon Favreau.

But Leguizamo has been doing that for years, significantly boosting or even altering the energy of pictures he was fourth or fifth or, you know, twelfth billed in. It's true that his brand of sideline showmanship often teeters towards hardly altruistic hamminess; he's an unrepetant scene stealer. But it was a treat to see him again, I raedily admit, and so shortly after I happened to watch his most recent one man show "Ghetto Klown" on cable or streaming or something (I forget) wherein he talks about this impending 50th birthday, the disintegration of his film career and trying to get things back on track. 

That story has a happy ending given that it's hard to miss his earnest but unforced exuberance in Chef and wish him well on future gigs. Especially if you have any fond recollection of past gems like...

From top left: Summer of Sam, the most all-around underappreciated of Spike Lee's quality joints, gave him a rare leading role as Vinny the hairdresser; he was wonderfully too much and Golden Globe nominated as Chi-Chi in To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything! Julie Newmar like an excited drag puppy that couldn't stop peeing; and of course there's his unrequited romantic highly-fictionized version of Toulouse Lautrec in the classic Moulin Rouge!. These are his greatest film roles and it's just perfect that two of them have exclamation points in the title since he's that kind of actor. 

I only speak the truth ♫ I only speak the truth "

What's your fondest memory of Leguizamo's career?