The Interested Bystander’s Broadway Fall 2024 Preview

Romeo and Juliet (c) Emilio Madrid

The 2024 Broadway fall season has some promising shows lined up with a starry roster of actors (Robert Downey Jr., Audra McDonald, Jim Parsons, Mia Farrow, Nicole Scherzinger) and intriguing new plays, musicals and revivals by The Avett Brothers, David Henry Hwang, Elton John and Jake Shears, Leslye Headland, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Thornton Wilder and yes, William Shakespeare. Get your credit cards ready.

 Go. 

The Interested Bystander’s Oscar Reminders: August 2024

Dune: Part 2 (c) Warner Bros Pictures

The fall film season is revving to go with the start of the four major film festivals (Toronto, Venice, Telluride and New York) in quick succession. Many films will be touted for Oscars with maybe half falling by the wayside after they are finally screened and deemed just ok. Some have already opened at Sundance and Cannes and have great buzz for the fall but haven’t yet opened widely, like Sean Baker’s call-girl-turned-wife film Anora, Francis Ford Coppola’s personal pet project Megalopolis, Kieran Culkin’s award-touted performance in Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain and Jacques Audiard’s musical drama Emilia Perez starring Zoe Saldaña and Selena Gomez. The fall festivals have films by big names, too, like Pedro Almódvar, Paul Schrader, Mike Leigh and a second film by Luca Guadagnino. Portentously, there are not many films directed by women or people of color in the conversation right now.

But before the onslaught of these new films, let’s give a shout out to the ones that came out in the first eight months of 2024. Odds are against them to get the same attention for award consideration but usually one of two from that part of the calendar make it through (remember: Everything Everywhere All at Once opened in March the year it dominated the Oscars). Let’s take a look at who I think should still be in the conversation come December. 

Enjoy. 

The GALECA Critics Bestow Their Dorian TV Awards to "Hacks, "Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire," "Fellow Travelers" and "Chucky"(!)

Fellow Travelers (c) Showtime

Los Angeles / New York – Monday, August 12, 2024 -- GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics announced today the winners for the 2024 Dorian TV Awards, honoring the best in television and streaming networks. In the 16th go-around of GALECA’s TV honors, Max’s Hacks leads with four wins including Best TV Comedy, Best Written TV Show; AMC’s Anne Rice’s Interview With A Vampire with three wins including Best TV Drama, Best LGBTQ TV Show and Best Genre TV Show, and Showtime/Paramount+’s Fellow Travelers earns two acting wins: “Best TV Performance – Drama” for Matt Bomer and Best Supporting TV Performance – Drama, Jonathan Bailey. 

Film Review: Three Lost Souls Find Empathy in These Enjoyable Summer Indies: “Didi,” “Crossing” and “Sebastian”

Dìdi (c) Focus Features

Film: Dìdi (弟弟) 
In Cinemas 

Director Sean Wang had quite a week in January when he was nominated for an Oscar for his documentary short, Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó, about how his two grandmothers now live together for emotional and practical support, while his first feature film, Dìdi, a fictional version of Wang’s preteen years, won the U.S. Drama Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival. And while Wang’s first full-length film contains many Sundance, indie coming-of-age tropes, Dìdi still feels fresh, especially when he applies his guerrilla style of filmmaking. Sean Wang’s stand-in (played winningly and with the most expressive face by Izaac Wang) goes by many names, including his legal American name Chris, his nickname Wang Wang which his friends call him and, most rarely, Dìdi, which is the Chinese term of endearment his mother Chungsing (Joan Chen) uses. It is the summer of 2008, the period between elementary and high school for Chris, and he seems lost. Although he hangs out in Fremont, California, with a small group of friends (mostly other immigrant kids) and makes the occasional YouTube video, he also attempts to find new friends, which starts off exciting, but always ends with frustration, stemming from (in his mind) his sheltered Taiwanese upbringing. This includes a lot of cringy interactions on MySpace, like flirting with his crush Madi (Mahaela Park), attempts to hang out with some older, cooler kids to film their skateboarding, his growing anger with his family’s otherness by constantly fighting with his college-bound sister Vivian (Shirley Chen) and his cruel, self-centered interaction with his mother, a former painter trying her best to raise her kids alone as their father works in Taiwan. Sean Wang doesn’t shy away from making Chris selfish and immature (he is 13), but somehow the audience is always on Chris’s side, as we’ve all been there (13), done that. But it is the honest and painful portrayal of Chris’s mother, in the capable hands of veteran actress Joan Chen, that gives the film its heart. Mostly speaking in Mandarin with just enough English to get by, Chen is able to convey the mixed emotions of the immigrant family experience with just the slow turn of her head. Dìdi is the perfect summer movie that captures both the feeling of endless days and of time quickly running out. 

Broadway Review: Cole Escola’s Irreverent and Hilarious “Oh, Mary” Reimagines Mary Todd Lincoln as a Frustrated and Petulant First Lady Longing to Be Back on Stage

"Oh, Mary!" (c) Emilio Madrid 

Theater: “Oh, Mary!” 
On Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre

Premise: Actor and comedian Cole Escola has created some truly memorable characters on TV and YouTube (including Jesus’ sister Jessica Christ, Bernadette Peters doing her taxes and the spoiled Chassie from At Home with Any Sedaris), and now they have turned their attention to the legitimate stage with “Oh, Mary!” The sold-out hit off-Broadway, directed by Sam Pinkleton, has moved to Broadway, with Escola doing memorable national TV appearances with Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon, sometimes even in character to promote it. And that character is Mary Todd Lincoln. It is the waning days of the Civil War, and President Abraham Lincoln (Conrad Ricamora) is feeling the pressure to find a resolution, so he can’t possibly also deal with his bored and drunk wife, Mary (Escola), who yearns to return to the cabaret stage. As a compromise, Abe agrees to let her be in a play if she takes lessons from a handsome, acting teacher (played charmingly by James Scully, reuniting with Ricamora, his Fire Island film co-star), whom Mary takes a liking to, so she agrees. Also in the play are Bianca Leigh as Mary’s much-maligned companion and Tony Macht as a soldier who is Lincoln’s closest (wink, wink) confidant. It’s an understatement to say "Oh, Mary!” is not historically accurate, but it is hysterically inaccurate.