90th Academy Award Nominations

Via Variety:

Oscar nominations for the 90th annual awards were announced on Tuesday morning from the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, Calif. 
Guillermo del Toro’s “The Shape of Water” continued its awards show streak, leading the pack with 13 nominations. Martin McDonagh’s “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” followed behind with nine nods and “Dunkirk” with eight. All three films earned best picture nominations. 
The rest of the category was rounded out by “Call Me By Your Name,” “Darkest Hour,” “Get Out,” “Phantom Thread,” “Lady Bird,” and “The Post.”
The Academy Awards will air live on ABC on March 4.
The nominations for the Best Picture 
  • “Call Me by Your Name”
  • “Darkest Hour”
  • “Dunkirk”
  • “Get Out”
  • “Lady Bird”
  • “Phantom Thread”
  • “The Post”
  • “The Shape of Water”
  • “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”
Best Actress in a Leading Role
  • Sally Hawkins, “The Shape of Water”
  • Frances McDormand, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”
  • Margot Robbie, “I, Tonya”
  • Saoirse Ronan, “Lady Bird”
  • Meryl Streep, “The Post”
Best Actor in a Leading Role
  • Timothée Chalamet, “Call Me by Your Name”
  • Daniel Day-Lewis, “Phantom Thread”
  • Daniel Kaluuya, “Get Out”
  • Gary Oldman, “Darkest Hour”
  • Denzel Washington, “Roman J. Israel, Esq.”
Best Actor in a Supporting Role
  • Willem Dafoe, “The Florida Project”
  • Woody Harrelson, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”
  • Richard Jenkins, “The Shape of Water”
  • Christopher Plummer, “All the Money in the World”
  • Sam Rockwell, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”
Best Actress in a Supporting Role
  • Mary J. Blige, “Mudbound”
  • Allison Janney, “I, Tonya”
  • Laurie Metcalf, “Lady Bird”
  • Lesley Manville, “Phantom Thread”
  • Octavia Spencer, “The Shape of Water”
Best Director
  • “Dunkirk,” Christopher Nolan
  • “Get Out,” Jordan Peele
  • “Lady Bird,” Greta Gerwig
  • “Phantom Thread,” Paul Thomas Anderson
  • “The Shape of Water,” Guillermo del Toro
Best Original Screenplay 
  • “The Big Sick,” Emily V. Gordon & Kumail Nanjiani
  • “Get Out,” Jordan Peele
  • “Lady Bird,” Greta Gerwig
  • “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” Martin McDonagh
  • “The Shape of Water,” Guillermo del Toro & Vanessa Taylor
Best Adapted Screenplay
  • “Call Me by Your Name,” James Ivory
  • “The Disaster Artist,” Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber
  • “Logan,” Scott Frank & James Mangold and Michael Green
  • “Molly’s Game,” Aaron Sorkin
  • “Mudbound,” Virgil Williams and Dee Rees
Best Animated Feature
  • “The Boss Baby”
  • “The Breadwinner”
  • “Coco”
  • “Ferdinand”
  • “Loving Vincent”
Best Original Song
  • “Mighty River” from “Mudbound”
  • “Mystery of Love” from “Call Me by Your Name”
  • “Remember Me” from “Coco”
  • “Stand Up for Something” from “Marshall”
  • “This Is Me” from “The Greatest Showman”
Best Documentary Feature
  • “Abacus: Small Enough to Jail”
  • “Faces Places”
  • “Icarus”
  • “Last Men in Aleppo”
  • “Strong Island”
Best Documentary Short Subject
  • “Edith+Eddie”
  • “Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405”
  • “Heroin(e)”
  • “Kayayo: The Living Shopping Baskets”
  • “Knife Skills” “Traffic Stop”
Best Foreign Language Film 
  • “A Fantastic Woman”
  • “The Insult”
  • “Loveless”
  • “The Wound”
Best Makeup and Hairstyling
  • “Darkest Hour”
  • “Victoria & Abdul”
  • “Wonder”
Best Film Editing
  • “Baby Driver”
  • “Dunkirk”
  • “I, Tonya”
  • “The Shape of Water”
  • “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”
Best Visual Effects
  • “Blade Runner 2049”
  • “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2”
  • “Kong: Skull Island”
  • “Star Wars: The Last Jedi”
  • “War for the Planet of the Apes”
Best Original Score
  • “Dunkirk,” Hans Zimmer
  • “Phantom Thread,” Jonny Greenwood
  • “The Shape of Water,” Alexandre Desplat
  • “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” John Williams
  • “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” Carter Burwell
Best Production Design
  • “Beauty and the Beast”
  • “Blade Runner 2049”
  • “Darkest Hour”
  • “The Shape of Water”
  • “Dunkirk”
Best Cinematography 
  • “Blade Runner 2049,” Roger Deakins
  • “Darkest Hour,” Bruno Delbonnel
  • “Dunkirk,” Hoyte van Hoytema
  • “Mudbound,” Rachel Morrison
  • “The Shape of Water,” Dan Laustsen
Best Costume Design 
  • “Beauty and the Beast”
  • “Darkest Hour”
  • “Phantom Thread”
  • “The Shape of Water”
  • “Victoria and Abdul”
Best Sound Editing
  • “Baby Driver”
  • “Blade Runner 2049”
  • “Dunkirk”
  • “The Shape of Water”
  • “Star Wars: The Last Jedi”
Best Sound Mixing 
  • “Baby Driver”
  • “Blade Runner 2049”
  • “Dunkirk”
  • “The Shape of Water”
  • “Star Wars: The Last Jedi”
Best Animated Short Film 
  • “Dear Basketball”
  • “Garden Party”
  • “Lou”
  • “Negative Space”
  • “Revolting Rhymes”
Best Live Action Short Film
  • “DeKalb Elementary”
  • “The Eleven O’Clock”
  • “My Nephew Emmett”
  • “The Silent Child”
  • “Watu Wote/All of Us”

Kit Williamson On The Casual Homophobia Of Trump’s America

Kit Williamson has penned a personal essay for The Advocate chronicling the adventures of shooting season three of his series, EastSiders, while encountering homophobia in the heartland.

Here’s an excerpt:

Idaho’s also an overwhelmingly red state: 59 percent of the population voted for Trump and less than 28 percent voted for Clinton.

Most of the people we encountered in Boise were friendly, but we suspect we lost a couple of locations because the show is about a gay couple. Everything was set to move forward at two of the private campgrounds we had scouted … until we disclosed the name of the project. Then communication suddenly ceased with one and the other wrote back that it was no longer allowing filming.

It’s hard to believe these kinds of things still happen today, but they do. My home state of Mississippi still has a disgusting “religious freedom” law, House Bill 1523, that effectively allows for anti-LGBT discrimination.

We made a decision to start referring to the project by an alternate title, Go West, and when asked about the plot we would say it was about “two friends” on a road trip across the country. We felt a little gross about it, but we were on a tight schedule and couldn’t afford to have any other locations fall through.

New Music: Mary Chapin Carpenter “Sometimes Just The Sky”

In celebration of her 30-year recording career, Mary Chapin Carpenter (easily one of my favorite singer/songwriters in the history of time) will release Sometimes Just The Sky on March 30.

The landmark record features new versions of twelve of Carpenter’s most beloved songs – one from each of her 12 studio albums – as well as one newly penned title track.

All Pre-Orders come with an Instant Download of “Heroes and Heroines.” If you order the Vinyl product from the official store, you’ll receive a digital download card of the full album, available at midnight on March 30, 2018.

TRACKLIST:

1. Heroes and Heroines
2. What Does It Mean To Travel
3. I Have A Need For Solitude
4. One Small Heart
5. The Moon and St. Christopher
6. Superman
7. Naked To The Eye
8. Rhythm of the Blues
9. This is Love
10. Jericho
11. The Calling
12. This Shirt
13. Sometimes Just The Sky

Pre-Orders are now available in the Official Mary Chapin Carpenter Online Store & at major retail outlets here.

You can preview “Heroes and Heroines” exclusively at Billboard.

Trump Exposé “Fire And Fury” Sells Over 1.7 Million Copies

This is sure to drive Donald Trump out of his “very stable genius” mind.

Nonfiction books rarely hit the ‘million units sold’ mark very quickly, Michael Wolff’s Donald Trump exposé, Fire and Fury: Inside The Trump White House, has surpassed that benchmark by a long shot in less than three weeks.

Via ABC News:

“Fire and Fury” has sold more than 1.7 million copies in the combined formats of hardcover, e-books and audio, publisher Henry Holt & Co. told The Associated Press on Wednesday. Published less than three weeks ago, Wolff’s tell-all about the Trump administration remains No. 1 on Amazon.com and other lists.

NPD BookScan, which tracks around 85 percent of sales for physical books, told the AP on Wednesday that its numbers for “Fire and Fury” rose for the third straight week. “Fire and Fury” sold more than 300,000 copies last week, according to BookScan, and more than 500,000 copies overall as retailers are finally catching up with demand. NPD BookScan does not register a sale until the book has actually been sent to the customer.

John Sargent, CEO of Holt’s parent company MacMillan, has said that e-books sales for “Fire and Fury” exceed 250,000 copies and more than 100,000 have been sold in audio.

(h/t JoeMyGod)

Christian Hypocrisy: Trump Gets A “Mulligan” For Personal Failings

In an interview with Politico’s “Off Message” podcast, anti-LGBT right-winger Tony Perkins said that conservative Evangelicals have basically given Donald Trump a “mulligan” for his personal failings regarding alleged affairs and the infamous “grab’em by the pussy” comment on video.

Perkins made it clear that as long as Trump’s policies stay in line with far-right conservatives, they’re willing to turn a blind eye to his personal issues and racist comments.

Similarly, in a recent CNN interview, evangelical leader Franklin Graham also swept Trump’s personal shortcomings aside saying, “These alleged affairs, they’re alleged with Trump, didn’t happen while he was in office.”

“This happened 11, 12, 13, 14 years ago,” he said. “And so, I think there is a big difference and not that we give anybody a pass, but we have to look at the timeline and that was before he was in office.”

Responding to those comments on MSNBC’s “Hardball,” former RNC chairman Michael Steele was not having any of that:

“I have very simple admonition: just shut the hell up and don’t preach to me about anything ever again. I don’t want to hear it, because after telling me who to love, what to believe, what to do and what not to do and now you sit back and the prostitutes don’t matter, the grabbing the you-know-what doesn’t matter, the outright behavior and lies don’t matter, just shut up! They have no voice of authority anymore for me.”

Watch Steel’s comments below

Michael Flynn Was Interviewed By FBI Without Trump’s Knowledge

NBC News reports that then-national security adviser Michael Flynn was interviewed by FBI investigators regarding possible Russian interference with the 2016 election a year ago without Donald Trump’s knowledge and without a lawyer.

Via NBC News:

Flynn’s FBI interview on Jan. 24, 2017, set in motion an extraordinary sequence of events unparalleled for the first year of a U.S. presidency. A national security adviser was fired after 24 days on the job, an acting attorney general was fired ten days after the president took office, an FBI director was allegedly pressured by the president to let go an investigation into the ousted national security adviser, and then eventually fired.

NBC News also has learned that former acting attorney general Sally Yates, who informed the White House about Flynn’s interview two days after it took place, has cooperated with the special counsel. CIA Director Mike Pompeo, who was allegedly asked by Trump to lean on Comey to drop his investigation, has also been interviewed, according to people familiar with the inquiry.

Song Of The Day: Cub Sport “Good Guys Go”

Cub Sport leader singer Tim Nelson

“Good Guys Go,” the latest single and music video from Australian band Cub Sport, is a moody, melancholy, chill synth track born from the loneliness of unhealthy relationships.

“‘Good Guys Go’ is about an imbalanced relationship where one person is doing everything they can to keep the other up but it isn’t being reciprocated,” said lead singer Tim Nelson in an interview with OUT. “It’s more-or-less about carrying the burden of emotional labour for yourself and your partner.”

In the video, saturated color, light, and sensual shadows are utilized as musical metaphors for the rigors of imperfect relationships.

Check out the new video below:

First Look At Upcoming Broadway Revival Of “The Boys In The Band”

From The Hollywood Reporter:

Ryan Murphy will team with Wicked producer David Stone to bring a 50th-anniversary revival of The Boys in the Band to Broadway, assembling a deluxe cast that significantly includes some of the most prominent out-and-proud gay actors in Hollywood.

Jim Parsons, Zachary Quinto, Matt Bomer, Charlie Carver and Andrew Rannells will head the ensemble in a production directed by two-time Tony Award winner Joe Mantello.

First produced in 1968, Crowley’s biting comedy drama is a groundbreaking work among pre-Stonewall depictions of LGBTQ characters, chronicling the fun and frictions that emerge when a group of gay male friends gather for a boozy birthday party in New York City. The play is loved and loathed to an equal extent, with some calling it a perpetuation of negative bitchy stereotypes and others hailing it as a breakthrough in its intimate exploration of the attitudes and behavior of gay men at a time when cultural representation was minimal.

“The significance of The Boys in the Band cannot be underestimated,” Murphy said Wednesday in a statement. “Mart Crowley made history by giving voice to gay men onstage, in this uncompromising, blisteringly honest, and wickedly funny play. While some attitudes have thankfully shifted, it’s important to be reminded of what we have overcome and how much further we still have to go.”

Added Stone: “Everything has changed. And nothing has changed.”

Also featured in the cast will be Robin de Jesus, Brian Hutchison, Michael Benjamin Washington and Tuc Watkins. The role of “Cowboy,” a hunky hustler presented by one of the guests as a gift to birthday boy Harold (played by Quinto), remains to be cast.

The comic drama debuted off-Broadway in 1968 hoping to run for five performances. The production became an instant sell-out and ran for over 1,000 performances.

While being touted as a “revival,” this will actually be the first appearance of the play on the Great White Way.

The Boys in the Band will begin a limited 15-week run at the Booth Theater on Broadway April 30, 2017.

Video “first-look” of the cast here.

AG Jeff Sessions Questioned Regarding Russian Investigation

Attorney General Jeff Sessions

Last week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions became the first cabinet member of Donald Trump’s administration to be questioned by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team looking into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Additionally, former FBI director, James Comey, has been interviewed by the special counsel’s team.

From The New York Times:

The interview with Mr. Comey focused on a series of memos he wrote about his interactions with Mr. Trump that unnerved Mr. Comey. In one memo, Mr. Comey said that Mr. Trump had asked him to end the F.B.I.’s investigation into the former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn.

After the president’s request was disclosed, the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, appointed Mr. Mueller as the special counsel to lead the Russia investigation and examine whether the president obstructed justice.

The attorney general announced in March that he had recused himself from all matters related to the 2016 election, including the Russia inquiry. The disclosure came after it was revealed that Mr. Sessions had not told Congress that he met twice with the Russian ambassador to the United States at the time, Sergey I. Kislyak, during the campaign.