This morning’s Tony Award nominations favored the familiar, with Mean Girls and SpongeBob SquarePants leading the field with 12 nods apiece. The American debut of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child paced new plays with 10 nominations, and the revival of Angels in America had a strong showing with 11 nominations, most in Tony history for a play. (See the full list below.) Other shows posting impressive tallies included The Band’s Visit , with 11 nominations going to the original musical based on a 2007 Israeli film. An acclaimed revival of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Carousel also scored 11 nominations, including one for Renée Fleming, who is better known for her career as one of the opera world’s most venerable stars. Lincoln Center’s posh reboot of My Fair Lady garnered 10 nominations, and the Denzel Washington-starring revival of Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh received eight. Frozen , the latest Disney adaptation to head to Broadway , joining The … [Read more...] about Tony Award Nominations: ‘Mean Girls,’ ‘SpongeBob’ And ‘Harry Potter’ Lead New Crop; ‘Angels,’ ‘Carousel’ Top Revivals
End of watch by stephen king
Destry Allyn Spielberg’s Directing Debut Will Be ‘Please Don’t Feed The Children’; ‘Downton Abbey’s Michelle Dockery Starring
EXCLUSIVE : Michelle Dockery is set to star in Destry Allyn Spielberg ’s directorial debut, Please Don’t Feed the Children. The elevated genre feature film will begin production late April in New Mexico. Scripted by Paul Bertino, the psychological thriller is produced by Jason Dubin and his Perry Street Films, Josh Kesselman and Michael Hagerty. In Please Don’t Feed the Children, after a viral outbreak ravaged the country’s adult population, a group of orphans heads south in search of a new life, only to find themselves at the mercy of a deranged woman harboring a dangerous secret. Spielberg, daughter of The Fabelmans helmer, will do this film before the one on which she originally expected to make her feature debut, Four Assassins (and a Funeral) . The latter, a Kingsman- meets- Knives Out meets- Succession -style script by Ryan Hooper that made the 2021 Black List , will percolate a bit longer but is still in the works from Basil Iwanyk & Erica … [Read more...] about Destry Allyn Spielberg’s Directing Debut Will Be ‘Please Don’t Feed The Children’; ‘Downton Abbey’s Michelle Dockery Starring
‘A Good Person’ Review: Florence Pugh In Zach Braff’s Blunt And Honest Drama
A wily old pro teams up with one of the most exciting young actresses of the day in the emotionally loaded drama A Good Person . Zach Braff ’s third feature excels at taking the measure of how people cope with personal tragedy and does so in a vital and engaging way that’s far more invigorating than depressing. Braff essentially makes one feature film every 10 years ( Garden State and Wish I Was Here came before), and while he otherwise busies himself with music, television and other pursuits, his talent is such that you’d like to see him wade more frequently and deeper into film work than he so far has. This may be melodrama, but it’s melodrama of a pretty high order, one that benefits from a first-rate cast led by Florence Pugh and Morgan Freeman , and shifts tones and moods that startle with their bluntness and honesty; that raucous laughs emerge from such an upsetting story is a testament to the filmmaker’s daring and dexterity. The film wrestles bravely … [Read more...] about ‘A Good Person’ Review: Florence Pugh In Zach Braff’s Blunt And Honest Drama
Mahershala Ali To Narrate Wildlife Series ‘Chimp Empire’ For Netflix
EXCLUSIVE : Oscar winner Mahershala Ali is to narrate a natural history series about chimpanzees for Netflix . Ali, who won two Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor for Moonlight and Green Book , is narrating Chimp Empire , a four-part series for the streamer. The series comes from director James Reed, who won an Oscar for co-directing Netflix’s My Octopus Teacher . It is his latest chimp doc, having been responsible for Rise of the Warrior Apes for Discovery. Chimp Empire explores the world of the largest chimpanzee society ever discovered. Set under the lush canopies of Uganda’s Ngogo Forest, scientists and field trackers have lived alongside this tribe for the last 25 years, watching as they built a sophisticated political and familial structure: forming alliances, building trust, caring for one another, and often going head to head in a never ending fight for power. Reed and his team embedded a camera crew to capture an intimate look at the … [Read more...] about Mahershala Ali To Narrate Wildlife Series ‘Chimp Empire’ For Netflix
‘Mean Girls’ Review: Tina Fey Musical Makes Broadway Honor Roll
At least one of the characters in Broadway ’s Mean Girls would describe this musical adaptation of Tina Fey ’s 2004 not-for-teens-only film comedy as absolutely fetch. And fetch it is, whether that word ever happens or not. Vibrant, beautifully sung and visually splendid, this funny charmer – book by Fey, music by Jeff Richmond and lyrics by Nell Benjamin – broadens the original Paramount movie – a bar-raiser for teen flicks – to full musical comedy scale without sacrificing any of the mordancy and compassion that made a superstar of Lindsay Lohan and a generational descriptor of the title. Directed and choreographed by The Book of Mormon ‘s Casey Nicholaw (and produced by, among others, Lorne Michaels , who surveyed this preview performance with the same inscrutable, puckered expression caught occasionally by the cameras of Saturday Night Live ) Mean Girls , at the August Wilson Theatre, stays true to the plot (and well-remembered jokes and catchphrases) … [Read more...] about ‘Mean Girls’ Review: Tina Fey Musical Makes Broadway Honor Roll