Oh, Mary! (Broadway) (2025)

Oh, Mary! is the most raucous time on Broadway since Book of Mormon. It's perhaps even more unhinged thanks to the twisted mind of Cole Escola. It combines lots of physical comedy and revisionist history and uncensored gags. It answers the question: how soon is too soon? I, for one, can't wait for the day that we can satirize the assassination of a certain president (who might be gay and whose first lady is a drunk who just wants to sing at the cabaret). It's hard to talk about the wildest jokes without mentioning spoilers. But the whole theater was laughing out loud. So 160 years is definitely long enough. I did not see the ending coming. It's frankly a perfect ending. And then there's one final hilarious scene to put the cherry on top.

Phillip James Brannon plays President Lincoln. Honestly, in a post-Hamilton world, it's not even notable that the white president is played by a black actor. And if given the opportunity, I would go back to see Titus Burgess play Mary for a very limited 3-week run. Betty Gilpin was so good at the physical comedy and the high-octane yelling (and the cockney scene) but Titus is going to blow the roof off that cabaret.

97th Academy Awards (2025)

This Oscars season has been a wild ride. It was only in the last few weeks that a real front-runner emerged. There were probably up to six nominees that had the lead at some point this month. Notably, the most nominated movie (an inexplicable 13!) Emilia Perez no longer stands a chance thanks to the stunningly vitriolic comments from its star Karla Sofia Gascon. I'm not hosting an Oscars watch party this year because my friend Chelsey beat me to the punch, and she has rented out a bar so it's getting serious. I will be attempting to bring the least transportable thing possible: ice cubes, molded in the shape of the Oscars statue. I've spent the last several days making ice. Hopefully they don't all melt by the time I get there.

My Top Movies

1. Dune: Part Two
2. Challengers
3. Sing Sing
4. Problemista
5. Hit Man
6. Anora
7. A Real Pain
8. Nickel Boys
9. Exhibiting Forgiveness
10. The Brutalist
11. Robot Dreams
12. La Chimera
13. Between the Temples
14. Close Your Eyes

Best Picture

1. Anora
2. The Brutalist
3. Conclave
4. A Complete Unknown
5. Wicked
6. Dune: Part Two
7. Nickel Boys
8. Emilia Perez
9. The Substance
10. I'm Still Here

Best Director
Will Win: Sean Baker, Anora
Honorable Mention: Brady Corbet, The Brutalist

Best Actress
Will Win: Demi Moore, The Substance
Should Win: Mikey Madison, Anora

Best Actor
Will Win: Timothee Chalamet, A Complete Unknown
Should Win: Colman Domingo, Sing Sing

Best Supporting Actress
Will Win/Should Win: Zoe Saldana, Emilia Perez

Best Supporting Actor
Will Win/Should Win: Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain

Best Adapted Screenplay
Will Win: Conclave
Should Win: Sing Sing

Best Original Screenplay
Will Win/Should Win: Anora
Honorable Mention: A Real Pain

Best Cinematography
Will Win/Should Win: The Brutalist

Best Costume Design
Will Win/Should Win: Wicked

Best Film Editing
Will Win: Conclave
Should Win: Anora

Best Makeup and Hairstyling
Will Win: The Substance
Should Win: A Different Man
Probably the tightest Makeup and Hairstyling category there's ever been, with all 5 nominees featuring especially distinctive makeup.

Best Production Design
Will Win: Wicked
Should Win: Dune: Part Two

Best Score
Will Win/Should Win: The Brutalist

Best Song
Will Win: The Journey, The Six Triple Eight
What better time to finally honor Diane Warren than right now to deny the win to Emilia Perez, a musical without any good songs or really any melody to speak of.

Best Sound
Will Win: Wicked

Best Visual Effects
Will Win/Should Win: Dune: Part Two

Best Animated Feature
Will Win/Should Win: The Wild Robot

Best Documentary Feature
Will Win: No Other Land

Best International Film
Will Win: I'm Still Here
I haven't gotten a chance to see The Seed of the Sacred Fig, which I suspect would've been my pick if for no other reason the enormous sacrifice that Mohammad Rasoulof made for his important art.

Best Animated Short
Will Win: Magic Candies

Best Documentary Short
Will Win: The Only Girl in the Orchestra
Should Win: Incident

Best Live Action Short
Will Win/Should Win: A Lien

Results: 15/23 was good enough for third place at Chelsey's wonderful Oscars party at Halyards. Loved being able to celebrate the Oscars with a few dozen other movie lovers who hooted and hollered throughout the ceremony. Lots of people happy with the Anora sweep, and pleasantly surprised by Mikey Madison. Conan O'Brien killed it as expected--give that man a show! The opening Oz medley was brilliant. And lots of moments to bring tears to your eyes: LA montage, No Other Land, Zoe Saldana, Paul Tazewell, etc. Most of the speeches were great, shoutout to Kieran Culkin. Adrien Brody droned on too long and there was some weird mansplaining in the Animated Short category. Weird that they chose to sing 3 Bond songs but couldn't find time for the actual Best Song nominees. And who would've guessed we'd get two songs from the Wiz?! And Queen Latifah, who doesn't really sing much anymore.

Death Becomes Her (Broadway) (2025)

Death Becomes Her is camp dialed up to 11. The jokes come a mile a minute. The leads (Megan Hilty and Jessica Simard) are fabulous at belting out their numbers, though the music is kind of forgettable. Rather refreshing is that the book scenes are actually really good. They're funny and they're uncensored.  There is one scene in particular with some unbelievable slow-motion acrobatics that puts the magic of the theater on full display. I also like the tromp l'oeil depth of perspective in the set. The costumes and production design are lots of fun. 

And what a year for older stars in showbiz clinging to their youth. The plot heavily mirrors The Substance. And it's not exactly without body horror, as much as you can disfigure someone on stage. But what lengths will people go to for a chance to reclaim their glory days. The Last Showgirl, Sunset Boulevard, etc. None of those are comedies though, and that it takes this theme more lightly is all the better. Even tragedy doesn't have to end so tragically.

Urinetown (Encores!) (2025)

Urinetown is quite the strange musical, but in its own way it's very funny and incisive. The show opens and closes with a narrator breaking the fourth wall, joking about musical tropes and hitting us over the head with the moral of the story in case you missed it. It is kind of a downer and so they use that sarcastic humor to lighten things up a bit. The show is perhaps even more relevant now than it was when it premiered a quarter century ago. It decries corporate greed and the degradation of our planet. The plot doesn't really make a whole lot of sense--the narrator addresses that too--but if you don't think about it too hard and just focus on the immediate concerns at hand, it does tidily deliver the metaphor. The music isn't especially memorable. Jordan Fisher is alright. He has a cool gospel number that he knocks out of the park. Tiffany Mann is an understudy for some reason, but she filled in for the role of Miss Pennywise and killed it. Rainn Wilson from The Office sings, who knew, and he plays a diabolical villain.

My Brilliant Friend (2018-24)

My Brilliant Friend has consistently been one of the best shows on TV. But it hasn't gotten so much attention stateside being in Italian. I think Americans are getting more accustomed to watching subtitled content. But I think that's kind of the Netflix effect pushing the content via algorithm. Outside of Netflix, if you have to look for the content yourself, people are not seeking it out. And it's a shame because there's a uniquely Italian story here that's quite beautiful. It's shamelessly melodramatic in a way that I think is more acceptable abroad. You might call it soapy in America, but we're getting more of that in our prestige content too. It's deeply felt, passionate, aided by Max Richter's extraordinary score and the striking cinematography. 

It's a story of epic proportions, spanning decades in the lives of two friends. It's about their lifelong friendship, with all the complications that come with two competitive women. And at its heart there is a story about the power of education in a poor and dangerous community.  The intellectual circle and the mafia circle often intersect. We watch the whole community grow old. As kids they may have been enemies, and as adults they may still hate each other but their lives are so intertwined nonetheless. Beautiful show.

Loki (2021-3)

The Marvel universe has gotten unwieldy.  In the early years, they used to be pretty good at making standalone movies. But now they've started making TV shows too, it's all so interconnected. Season 1 was actually pretty decent. But I did not follow a single plot point in Season 2. Single season contained shows is the sweet spot for Marvel. There's too much happening in between seasons. 

The Time Variance Authority is not named accidentally. The acronym TVA recalls the New Deal Tennessee Valley Authority program. The design of the TVA evokes the FDR era. The production design is the best part of the show. That and Owen Wilson playing his usual self. Ke Huy Quan is fun too. I don't know if I completely buy into the message of the show either. We're made to believe that the sacred timeline is the inherently correct one. But the fact that there are branches suggests that to be untrue. And I think I had other problems with it back at season one but I don't really remember now.

The Roommate (2024) (Broadway)

I thoroughly enjoyed The Roommate, starring Mia Farrow and Patti Lupone as two semi-estranged mothers who move-in together in Iowa. It's a two-hander featuring two big older women stars that do their thing. Mia Farrow plays a delightfully naive country bumpkin. Patti Lupone moves in from The Bronx and introduces her new roommate to veganism...and drugs. Patti basically plays her curmudgeonly self (sadly she doesn't sing). Her lines aren't exactly comedic out of context but she delivers them so matter-of-fact they elicit laughs. The two of them are actually friends in real life, and they look like they're having fun up there. Notably mom audibly laughed multiple times so you know it's genuinely funny. 

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the spat Patti Lupone had with Hell's Kitchen at the theater next door. She said it was too loud. It might actually have been a racialized comment. And the music might actually be too loud. And Patti Lupone is kind of known for being a diva that is also right for saying out loud what other people are thinking. Good fences make good neighbors and all that. For the record, we did not hear any Hell's Kitchen from out seats in the Booth Theater. But if a quiet little play without mics needs to compete with Empire State of Mind mic-ed up, I could see how that might be distracting.