In the NY Times: ‘Taron Egerton, with what can only be called flamboyant understatement — and also, I suppose, understated flamboyance — in effect plays both the Lady Gaga and the Bradley Cooper parts in a fresh iteration of “A Star Is Born.” His Elton is the hard-living road warrior and the preternaturally gifted ingénue, the sacrificial hero and the plucky survivor, the rock god and the camp icon. The actor delivers a tour de force of self-effacement, a bravura demonstration of borrowed charisma.’
The Broadway League on Tuesday released end-of-season statistics for the 2018-19 season, which started May 28, 2018, and ended May 26, 2019. For the 2018-19 season, total attendance reached a record 14,768,254 and Broadway shows earned an unprecedented $1,829,312,140 in grosses. The numbers mark the best-attended and highest-grossing season in Broadway history. Attendance was up 9.5 percent from the 2017-18 season. Remarkably,Harry Potter and the Cursed Child at the Lyric Theatre grossed a record $105,057,544 in total ticket sales for the 2018-19 Broadway season. It is the first time a Broadway play has grossed over $100 million in a year.
Alien was first released 40 years ago this month. Helen O’Hara explains how the movie’s monster became a cinema icon – and brought unexpected fame to the shy Swiss artist who created it
Movies: Your kids will love “Aladdin” but you might find it frenetic…Can’t wait to see “Booksmart,” about a couple of experienced-starved smart teen girls. TV/Streaming: Megan Hilty goes “Live from Lincoln Center” on PBS on Friday…Memorial Day is a wasteland in terms of new streaming content, so I’ll probably binge on some Inspector Morse. Music: When I see all the baby boomer pablum on the top of the Amazon charts I want to listen to gangsta rap and speed metal. Or Mado Robin hitting Bb over high C. Books: I generally devour George Packer’s new books, but I have no interest in diplomat Richard Holbrooke, the subject of Packer’s latest tome. Sports: It’s all about the Indy 500 this weekend, plus some NBA: I’m sorry about Toronto clawing back into the series because I can’t stand their biggest fan Drake patrolling the sidelines. Finally: Remember what Memorial Day is about — the brave men and women who’ve served in our forces.
The Telegraph: “It isn’t easy to be objective about Leonardo da Vinci. The moment you confront the ultimate Renaissance Man, you’re hit by five hundred years of hyperbole – from Vasari to Dan Brown – that knocks rational assessment aside. The ludicrous £460 million paid for his Salvator Mundi – the highest sum ever for a painting – confirms his status as a figure to whom the normal rules don’t apply. The one place you can get an intimate sense of Leonardo, however, is through his drawings, 200 of which are displayed in a new exhibition at the Queen’s Gallery, London, marking the 400th anniversary of his death. In terms of numbers of works, it is the biggest UK Leonardo exhibition since 1952.”
It’s extraordinary to me that in 2019 “The L Word” — now called “The L Word: Generation Q” –is returning with such a mostly white cast. It’s as if programs like “Orange Is the New Black” haven’t existed since “The L Word” went off the air in 2009.
