This week:
- It’s stay-inside-watching-TV season!
- One of the best performances I’ve ever seen.
- This is a Sarah Jessica Parker fan club.
- 10 years since a cinematic masterpiece.
- The Traitors cast!
On Repeat Forever
There is a hallowed thing in every gay man’s life, something he treats with a religious level of seriousness: His late-night YouTube video playlist.
It is a collection of videos he will cue up both alone or amongst friends, carefully curated to reflect his taste, revealing what he finds entertaining and—this is an important element—what makes him immediately cry. It’s typically an assembly of awards speeches, Tony Awards performances, RuPaul’s Drag Race lipsynchs, and clips of Julie Andrews and Carol Burnett on variety shows.
A new classic has entered the canon: Audra McDonald’s performance of “Rose’s Turn” from Gypsy at this week’s Tony Awards. Watch it here.
I was lucky enough to see her masterful performance in person on Broadway, and I’m so glad there’s now a televised version of it to revisit over and over (and over and over). It’s stunning. She strips herself raw, a frayed wire of emotion fritzing and sparking across the stage. I’ve never seen a song acted so powerfully.
McDonald and Nicole Scherzinger, who won Best Actress for Sunset Blvd., gave two of the best performances I’ve seen in my lifetime, and they happened to both be in the same season. I haven’t stopped thinking about their performances since I saw them, and I certainly haven’t stopped thinking about (or watching) McDonald’s Tony performance since Sunday.
I look forward to years of 1 am YouTube rabbit holes spent with McDonald’s Rose.
Forever the Best Celebrity
It is my irrefutable opinion—I guess one could call it a “fact,” then, I guess—that Sarah Jessica Parker is the most charming celebrity that exists. Watch her in any interview. She is effortlessly endearing. Hell, only someone as irresistibly effervescent as she is could make someone as horrifically insufferable as Carrie Bradshaw not just someone to root for, but an icon.
In any case, a Hall of Fame SJP Charm Moment happened this week when she explained to Howard Stern what she used to say to avoid taking selfies with fans: “I used to say, ‘I can’t, because of the government,’ and I’d do this [pointing up to sky]. It really confused people. This was through different administrations so it wasn’t political.”
It made me want to be denied a photo with her.
Best Movie Scene of All Time
It seems like every few months, this scene from Jurassic World is posted on my timeline. I will watch it each and every time I come across it. It is quite possibly the most bats--t scene in cinematic history—which, to be clear, isn’t just an endorsement but possibly the highest of praise that I could give.
A woman is plucked from a crowd by a pterodactyl, flown through the air and dropped, after which she is grabbed by another pterodactyl. That one then also drops her, into the water below. While she’s underwater another pterodactyl grabs her and takes her back into the air, where a swimming whale-like dinosaur leaps out of the water and eats them both.
Such unnecessary torture. The scene turned 10 this week. Let’s celebrate greatness when we have the occasion.
Perfect Casting
The cast list for the new season of The Traitors was just announced, and it is so good and so random. (Travis Kelce’s mom? Stephen from Laguna Beach? Tara Lipinski?)
But there is one name that I gasped with glee over. I truly believe that Lisa Rinna as a Traitor could heal me.
What to watch this week:
Revival: There’s finally a good zombie show again. (Now on Syfy)
The Life of Chuck: Who knew a Stephen King movie could be heartwarming? (Now in theaters)
What to skip this week:
Materialists: Turns out a movie needs more than just Pedro Pascal making you swoon. (Now in theaters)
How to Train Your Dragon: The thing where this exact movie already exists, so what’s the point? (Now in theaters)
