You can tell it was a good year at the movies when so many nomination-worthy pictures and performers got snubbed by the Academy. Alejandro Iñárritu’s The Revenant walked off with the most nominations (12), followed by Mad Max: Fury Road, the type of major studio commercial hit that the expansion of the Best Picture category aimed at including. It pulled in 10 nominations, but … [Read more...]
Tony nominations show it’s been a good season for Broadway
Want to know how you can tell it was a good season on Broadway? In most years, the nominators have to struggle to find shows, performers and designers to fill all the categories. This season, there was enough quantity — and even quality — to afford a surfeit of snubs. Significantly absent from the nominations list announced this morning were Finding Neverland, the … [Read more...]
Oscar nominations have more than fair share of snubs
What do Jake Gyllenhall, David Oyelowo, Amy Adams and Jennifer Aniston have in common? They all turned in first-rate performances last year -- in Nightcrawler, Selma, Big Eyes and Cake, respectively -- but failed to earn Oscar nominations for their efforts when the career-boosting list of potential Academy Award winners was released this morning. 2014 saw a crowded field of … [Read more...]
Hersch’s ‘My Coma Dreams’ vividly explores world between jazz life and death
An old, valid cliché says that art imitates life, but New York City-based jazz pianist Fred Hersch’s new DVD My Coma Dreams (Palmetto) artistically goes more than one step beyond that. The 90-minute video, filmed at the Miller Theatre at Columbia University in New York City, includes a conductor leading an 11-piece musical ensemble with Hersch, an actor playing dual roles of … [Read more...]
‘Mormon’ leads Tony nominations with 14 nods
Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s irreverent, yet surprisingly traditional musical comedy, The Book of Mormon, went into this morning’s announcement of Tony Award nominations as the prohibitive favorite to win the all-important Best Musical award. It emerged with 14 nominations, making it even more of a lock to clean up at the Tonys ceremony on Sunday, June 12, and -- at least … [Read more...]