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Welcome to Tony Talk, a column in which Gold Derby contributors Sam Eckmann and David Buchanan offer Tony Awards analysis. The 2025-26 Broadway season is now officially in swing, so we reconvene to discuss its first production.

Sam Eckmann: Jean Smart is dominating Emmy conversations once again thanks to her dynamic role in Hacks, but theater fans are currently enjoying her grand return to the stage. The veteran actress kicked off the 2025-26 Broadway season with the one-woman play Call Me Izzy, from playwright Jamie Wax. Smart portrays the titular character, a would-be poet living in a trailer park and trapped in an abusive marriage. Each night, Izzy sneaks away to her trailer's cramped bathroom to write lines of verse on toilet paper so that her violent husband won't discover her true passions. This role marks Smart's first Broadway show in 25 years, having last been seen on the rialto in...

Spoiler Alert: The story includes details about May 8 episode of ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy “Love You Like a Love Song”

ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy served its signature mix of happiness and heartache in the penultimate Season 21 episode.

Miraculously, Jo (Camilla Luddington) and Link’s (Chris Carmack) wedding went off without a hitch after only four days of preparation. The largest obstacles were Jo finding a way to turn down her future mother- in-law’s questionable makeup artist talent and veil offering and Link struggling with his vows.

Jo’s Bff Levi (former cast member Jake Borelli), flying in from Texas to officiate the wedding, helped her understand where Link’s mom is coming from, while Bailey (Chandra Wilson) assisted Link in the vow-writing process with an unexpected result — Link surprised everyone by singing his vows while strumming a guitar to the delight of fans of Cormack’s Will Lexington from Nashville.

Note: This story contains spoilers from “Grey’s Anatomy” Season 21, Episode 17.

“Grey’s Anatomy” hosted another iconic wedding, with Jo and Link tying the knot in a beautiful shotgun wedding that delivered on the big feelings — despite missing one key guest.

Episode 17, titled “Love You Like a Love Song,” followed as Jo (Camilla Luddington) and Link (Chris Carmack) prepared for their big day after only four days of planning. The bride and groom were busy ahead of the ceremony, with Jo juggling getting ready with bonding with her future mother-in-law, and Link struggling to write his vows. His struggles paid off though as he surprised his bride with a swoonworthy vow song chronicling their long love story, and promising complete devotion for their growing family.

“We’ve always wanted Chris to sing on the show, but we never wanted to do it gratuitously. We always wanted it to feel special and momentous,...

Cecile Richards, the organizer and activist who transformed Planned Parenthood into a political powerhouse, died on Monday at age 67. A year ago, Richards announced that she had been diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive and incurable form of brain cancer.

Richards “passed away at home, surrounded by her family and her ever-loyal dog, Ollie,” her husband Kirk, daughters Lily and Hannah, and son Daniel, said in a joint statement. “If you’d like to celebrate Cecile today, we invite you to put on some New Orleans jazz, gather with friends and family over a good meal,...

The Democratic National Convention continued on Tuesday with another slate of speakers advocating for Vice President Kamala Harris. They weren’t all Democrats. The DNC’s second day also featured the delegation roll call, in which delegates representing American states and territories announced their selection for president. It was way more exciting than it had any right to be.

As DNC Secretary Jason Rae called on each delegation from the stage, DJ Cassidy cued up a song for each state — except in the case of Georgia, when Atlanta native Lil Jon...

Holland Taylor and Ana Villafañe will star in the Off Broadway world premiere of Mario Correa’s new play N/A this summer, playing congresswomen of different generations in a production directed by Tony winner Diane Paulus.

Taylor will play “N,” the first woman Speaker of the House, and Villafañe will portray “A,” the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. The play is described as being inspired by real people and events, and although producers did not name names the descriptions more-than-strongly suggest Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

N/A will begin previews on Tuesday, June 11, at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center, with opening night on Sunday, June 23.

The official synopsis reads, “N/A is a whip smart battle of wills – and wits – between N, the first woman Speaker of the House, and A, the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. Inspired by real people and events,...

“The Circus: Inside the Greatest Political Show on Earth” will conclude with its eighth season, Showtime announced on Tuesday. The series finale episode is scheduled to arrive on Nov. 12 at 7 p.m. Et/Pt.

Hosted by John Heilemann, Mark McKinnon, and Jennifer Palmieri, the four-time Emmy nominated political docuseries offered viewers a deeper look at the nation’s biggest political stories inside the beltway from Donald Trump’s unexpected presidential victory and his contentious time in office, to the polarizing politics of the pandemic, the 2020 election and ensuing insurrection on Capitol Hill, as well as Biden’s presidency at a time of international turmoil.

“When we started ‘The Circus’ in 2016, we thought it would be a one-and-done deal. Eight seasons and 130 episodes later, we’re still agog that Showtime gave us the trust and support that kept us cranking on this long, strange trip — and let us prove that our idea of doing a weekly,...

Ahead of Holland Taylor’s first episode on “Billions,” which is set to premiere Friday, TheWrap has your first look at the Emmy-winning actor’s turn on the Showtime juggernaut.

Taylor will star as Dr. Eleanor Mayer, a highly acclaimed psychiatrist known for her modern-Freudian approach, in a recurring role. In this clip, she confronts Maggie Siff’s own highly motivated psychiatrist/performance coach character, Wendy.

“It is no secret that you are extraordinary, Wendy. But I think you can be even better,” Dr. Mayer says in the clip. “I would like to help you with that.”

“Thank you, but I’m not in the market for a performance coach,” Wendy fires back.

“I was suggesting therapy. Isn’t that why you’re here?” Dr. Mayer asks.

Check out the full clip above ahead of “Winston Dick Energy’s” streaming premiere on Paramount+ Friday. The episode will then premiere linearly...

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Red, White & Royal Blue shares very little with first-time director Matthew López’s Tony-winning play The Inheritance. Both works address the social mores of young gay men from disparate backgrounds in the wake of a crisis, but where the characters in López’s career-defining play are processing the traumas of AIDS, the biggest hiccup in the lives of the film’s characters turns out to be a destroyed wedding cake.

No shade. Not every piece of art about gay desire needs to be rooted in trauma and internalized shame, and López’s film boasts a handful of sex scenes—between Alex Claremont-Diaz (Taylor Zakhar Perez), the son of the American president, and England’s Prince Henry (Nicholas Galitzine)—that will surely satisfy anyone who’s horny for representation. But everything around those scenes—the histrionic scenarios, the Sorkin-esque political idealism, the Gen Z-pandering internet humor—is too limp...

According to our current combined predictions, Jodie Comer (“Prima Facie”) is the frontrunner to win Best Actress in a Play at this year’s Tony Awards with 12/5 odds. She already won an Olivier a couple of months ago for her work in the West End production. She would be the fifth Tony winner in this category for a one-woman performance.

In Suzie Miller‘s one-woman show, Comer plays Tessa, a barrister from working-class origins who must deal with an unexpected event that forces her to confront the patriarchal power and morality of the law.

When it comes to solo performances at the Tonys, four have prevailed in this category before. In 1977 Julie Harris won her fifth and final competitive accolade for her portrayal of Emily Dickinson in William Luce‘s “The Belle of Amherst.” In 1986 Lily Tomlin won for playing multiple characters in Jane Wagner‘s “The Search for Signs...

Showtime’s News and Documentary Emmy-nominated series “The Circus: Inside the Greatest Political Show on Earth” will return for Season 8 on Feb. 26 at 8 p.m. Et/Pt, TheWrap can exclusively announce. The docuseries will be back with six more episodes featuring hosts John Heilemann, Mark McKinnon and Jennifer Palmieri as they pull back the curtain on this extraordinarily fractured and volatile moment for American democracy.

Season 8 will hit the ground running in 2023 to examine a new era of divided government as President Joe Biden braces for withering GOP-led House investigations, per the network’s logline. Meanwhile bitter divisions among Republicans signal a tumultuous year ahead for the party and the nation. And while Biden mulls a bid for reelection amid questions about his mishandling of classified documents, former President Donald Trump is facing multiple investigations of his own, as well as staring down a list of

potential Republican challengers, in...

John McTiernan's flashy remake of "The Thomas Crown Affair" had a lot going against it when it first hit theaters in 1999. The original film featured two acting icons in Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway who completely embodied the roles of a billionaire playboy and a sexy art insurance agent in Norman Jewison's instant classic. The high fashion bar set in the first film would also be hard to top, thanks to costume designer Theadora Van Runkle's impeccable taste and McQueen's incredible transformation from bad boy to style icon. McQueen represented the pinnacle of Old Hollywood glamour bringing an American attitude and swagger to the character of Thomas Crown that rivaled the British self-assurance of James Bond. Really, it was the potential to update the style and fashion of the original that made remaking "The Thomas Crown Affair" actually make sense.

Looking back, it was the perfect choice...

As the former president of Planned Parenthood, Cecile Richards helped transform the federation of women’s healthcare clinics into a political juggernaut, all while deflecting both Republican efforts to strip the organization of federal funding and vicious attacks on her character by religious fanatics. When Richards left the organization after 12 years in 2018, Planned Parenthood had more than quadrupled its ranks of volunteers and supporters. She presiding over some of the movement’s biggest victories and its most devastating losses — including the passage, at the state level, of hundreds of anti-abortion laws,...

Cecile Richards, a longtime activist for women’s rights and a former president of Planned Parenthood, has a message for shellshocked women of privilege in Hollywood: Speak out.

As the harsh reality of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade sinks in, Richards is calling on entertainment industry leaders to share deeply personal stories of how family planning efforts have effected their lives. Richards, who led Planned Parenthood for a dozen years starting in 2006, asserted that industry insiders have an obligation to use their megaphones to draw attention to the urgency of the situation.

“This is a national health crisis,” Richards told Variety. “Like you see people come together for tsunami relief, people need to come together and say ‘This is a crisis and we’re going to fight it.'”

There are other urgent needs in what will be a long battle to restore a woman’s right to chose,...

“Top Chef: Houston” contestant Ashleigh Shanti was like a boomerang: eliminated last week in “Don’t Mess with BBQ,” fighting for redemption on “Last Chance Kitchen,” and immediately earning a spot back in the competition for episode six, “Trailblaze-hers,” where she re-joined the other nine chefs: Damarr Brown, Jo Chan, Monique Feybesse, Evelyn Garcia, Jae Jung, Jackson Kalb, Luke Kolpin, Buddha Lo, and Nick Wallace. Did she fare better this week when the contestants paid tribute to legendary women?

Before that main challenge, though, the 10 chefs once again had to rely on teamwork.

See‘Top Chef’ spoilers: Who had to pack their knives and go during Houston season? Quickfire Challenge

Host Padma Lakshmi, joined by guest judges and “Top Chef” All-stars Nini Nguyen and Kelsey Barnard Clark, reintroduced Ashleigh to her teammates and then directed them all towards a collection of ingredients. Five chefs would choose a sweet ingredient, and...

Holland Taylor thought it was only natural that she be cast as the Great Leader, the most powerful person in the universe, in “Bill & Ted Face the Music.” After all, Taylor has made a career out of playing imperious figures who bend the world to their wills in everything from “Two and a Half Men” to “Legally Blonde.”

As the film got ready to hit theaters and on-demand platforms on Aug. 28, Taylor spoke with Variety about her love of the Bill & Ted films, the trick to comedy, and a possible second season of “Hollywood,” the Ryan Murphy series in which she co-starred as studio executive Ellen Kincaid.

Were you a fan of the “Bill & Ted” franchise?

I loved the first one. The second one, I hadn’t seen. But even 30 years later I remember it as a goofy fable that really worked. I liked that it was ludicrous, but the actors played it real,...

We live in very divisive times following the 2016 presidential election. In a historic upset, Donald Trump won office by winning the electoral college and losing the popular vote. His victory came despite hundreds of polls showing Hillary Clinton would become the nation’s first female president, and things haven’t quite been the same since that fateful day. Love him or hate him, Trump is a force unlike anything the United States has ever dealt with, and he’s changed the political landscape entirely during his first term.

Now, the biggest question remains whether he’ll manage to defeat Democratic nominee Joe Biden in this year’s election. Biden currently leads in the polls by an even wider margin than Clinton did in 2016, and he’s got considerably more support in many states that Trump won. So, things are looking good for Biden as Trump continues to lose support among...

Hollywood, is gearing up for the June 19 PBS debut of her one-woman show Ann, about legendary Texas Governor Ann Richards as part of the network’s Great Performances series.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Taylor says the whole journey of the stage show, which landed her a Tony nomination, has been “the experience of my life and certainly will be the achievement in my life.” The full narrative play, which she researched for three years before mounting, arrived in her life as ...

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As attendees of SXSW, Tiff, and other major festivals know, they are as local as they are international, often featuring audience members representing a politically diverse spectrum. The Pushback, produced by Richard Linklater and directed by Kevin Ford, offers a look at those looking to push Texas blue–or at least purple. Opening with a Ted Cruz campaign speech in liberal-leaning El Paso (the home turf of Beto O’Rourke), the film looks specifically at both political figures and everyday people engaged in inherently political acts, especially those along the southern border.

The Pushback presents a vivid mosaic of activism that feels at certain points a bit disjointed as it jumps around a state so large its often considered as diverse as any country. Perhaps a feature documentary is the wrong form for this work as it feels more or less like digital episodes encouraging voters to go out and make...

Every summer, more than 1,000 teens swarm the Texas State Capitol to attend Boys State, the annual American Legion-sponsored leadership conference where these incipient politicians divide into rival parties, the Nationalists and the Federalists, and attempt to build a mock government from the ground up. In 2017, the program attracted attention for all the wrong reasons (the attendees voted for Texas to secede from the United States), which gave filmmakers Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss an idea: What would it take to orchestrate a deep dive into the subsequent next session? Is there a right way to cover the testosterone- and Ritalin-fueled event?

One of the biggest sales of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival — for a documentary, no less — “Boys State” represents a revolution in vérité filmmaking, as McBaine and Moss (who collaborated on “The Overnighters”) . Like “Spellbound” and “Science Fair,” the film is essentially the feature-length equivalent of an elimination-style reality TV show,...

When PBS executive Perry Simon took the stage at the PBS Television Critics Association press tour to talk about the new quarterly initiatives, it became clear that women are at the forefront of a sizeable chunk of PBS’s 2020 programming. That’s as part of PBS’s “Trailblazers” initiative centered around the celebration of women’s right to vote.

Simon, the chief programming executive and general manager, general audience programming, teased the upcoming programming, which includes, “suffragettes, the feminist movement, and modern changemakers.” Among the programming highlighted: “Pov: And She Could Be Next,” about candidates of color transforming politics from the ground up; Margaret Hoover, who will profile conservative women changing the face of the Republican party; and “Unladylike 2020,” which will feature notable American heroines, such as Mae West and Toni Morrison.

In June, “Great Performances” will feature plays about two strong female activists. Christine Lahti stars as Gloria Steinem in “Gloria: A Life,...

Well, this is troubling: An emotional Dean Winchester declares, “We lost,” in an intense new trailer for Supernatural‘s final episodes — while another character announces someone’s death.

The above video, from the show’s post-production team, also teases the return of several fan faves and offers up a few humorous sights ([Spoiler] sporting a half-pony hairstyle!). And if the voice behind the trailer’s song, “Drowning,” sounds familiar, that’s because it’s star Jensen Ackles’ musical venture Radio Company.

More from TVLineThe TVLine-Up: What's Returning, New and Leaving the Week of Jan. 12What We Do in the Shadows, Fargo,...

For its 50th anniversary, PBS is painting a portrait of America through diverse stories and several features on inspirational women.

PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger discussed the network’s upcoming year during Friday morning’s executive session at the Television Critics Association 2020 Winter Press tour in Pasadena. Chief among PBS projects is “PBS American Portrait,” which will gather first-person narratives from Americans throughout the country. Kerger said that PBS would leverage the broadcaster’s numerous local stations to connect with everyday Americans and share their stories.

“American Portrait is a digital-first national storytelling project that invites people to participate in a conversation about what it really means to be an American today,” Kerger said during her executive session. “PBS will gather the stories through photo, video, and written submissions. We will then share and amplify those stories through digital platforms, events, and educational resources for classrooms, as well as...

Last week I extolled the pleasures of a new documentary feature focused on a very talented singer, Ms. Linda Ronstadt. And this weekend sees the release of another “entertainment personality” doc. Now, it’s not another singer or musician this time. No, it’s not an actress or actor. And it’s not a painter or a comedian (even her detractors would have to admit that she was very witty). As you’ve no doubt concluded, this film is all about a writer, not of plays or books, rather she toiled away in the “fourth estate”, newspapers. Yes twenty-somethings, just decade or two ago, folks got their news on folded paper, not this monitor screen or on an app. Some of the writers of columns (usually in the editorial section) became stars, with papers fighting over their services (this happened with comic strip creators in their heyday) and promoting them...

Molly Ivins, the consistently acerbic and witty liberal journalist whose writings and interviews have continued to influence myriad journalists and political pundits has been given the documentary treatment with Raise Hell: The Life and Times of Molly Ivins. An official selection of Sundance, the film traces her early roots writing for the Texas Observer to writing for The New York Times and The Washington Post while staying true to her southern heritage, all while keeping her liberal convictions intact regardless of criticism or attacks on her person.

Ahead of a release starting in NYC on September 6, the film will have a special one-night screening at the Alamo Drafthouse in South Lamar, Austin TX on August 28, to be followed by a panel discussion with the director Janice Engel, Richard Linklater, Jim Hightower, and Emily Ramshaw. The panel will be livestreamed to Drafthouse locations across Texas that same night and full runs...

On a recent Wednesday, Utah and Arkansas were both sending legislation to their (male) governors that would restrict abortion at 18 weeks, and I was waiting in the hallway of a Manhattan office building, woozy from lack of sleep, and trying not to feel like a liability to the feminist cause. It wasn’t the future of reproductive rights in America that was keeping me up this time; it was my 16-month-old, her emerging molar and her plaintive, little cries throughout the night, much of which I’d spent rocking her...

Often hilarious and always a delight, Raise Hell: The Life & Times of Molly Ivins is the conversational, down-home story of the Smith College-educated Texan who found herself bouncing around the country to find her voice. When she landed at the New York Times in the late 70s after a stint at the Texas Observer her colorful language became too much for the conservative editors of The Gray Lady. She found herself running the paper’s one-woman Rocky Mountain bureau, concluding that best job at the Times is one away from New York City.

A Texan at heart, she found herself in Dallas where she was given a broad mandate at the Dallas Times Herald, penning several books and later becoming an unintentional expert of the Bush family dynasty. Standing over six-feet tall with a wide frame, Ivins proclaims herself, despite her left-leaning politics, as a proud gun-loving, beer-drinking Texan...

(See previous post: Fourth of July Movies: Escapism During a Weird Year.) On the evening of the Fourth of July, besides fireworks, fire hazards, and Yankee Doodle Dandy, if you're watching TCM in the U.S. and Canada, there's the following: Peter H. Hunt's 1776 (1972), a largely forgotten film musical based on the Broadway hit with music by Sherman Edwards. William Daniels, who was recently on TCM talking about 1776 and a couple of other movies (A Thousand Clowns, Dodsworth), has one of the key roles as John Adams. Howard Da Silva, blacklisted for over a decade after being named a communist during the House Un-American Committee hearings of the early 1950s (Robert Taylor was one who mentioned him in his testimony), plays Benjamin Franklin. Ken Howard is Thomas Jefferson, a role he would reprise in John Huston's 1976 short Independence. (In the short, Pat Hingle was cast as John Adams; Eli Wallach was Benjamin Franklin.) Warner...

Teresa Wright in 'Shadow of a Doubt': Alfred Hitchcock heroine (image: Joseph Cotten about to strangle Teresa Wright in 'Shadow of a Doubt') (See preceding article: "Teresa Wright Movies: Actress Made Oscar History.") After scoring with The Little Foxes, Mrs. Miniver, and The Pride of the Yankees, Teresa Wright was loaned to Universal – once initial choices Joan Fontaine and Olivia de Havilland became unavailable – to play the small-town heroine in Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt. (Check out video below: Teresa Wright reminiscing about the making of Shadow of a Doubt.) Co-written by Thornton Wilder, whose Our Town had provided Wright with her first chance on Broadway and who had suggested her to Hitchcock; Meet Me in St. Louis and Junior Miss author Sally Benson; and Hitchcock's wife, Alma Reville, Shadow of a Doubt was based on "Uncle Charlie," a story outline by Gordon McDonell – itself based on actual events.

Everyone knows the yellow wristband from Lance Armstrong's cancer crusade. But his foundation's colossal win for cancer research should have greater impact, starting this year.

In December 2006, Cathy Bonner, a former Texas secretary of commerce, took Doug Ulman, Lance Armstrong's right-hand man at Livestrong, out to breakfast at Magnolia Café in Austin. "I've had it with cancer," she told him. Her father had died of cancer, and both she and her mother had survived the disease. More recently, Bonner's friend and mentor, former Texas governor Ann Richards, had died of cancer.

Bonner, one of the original board members of Livestrong, told Ulman they could dramatically accelerate cancer research by following California’s stem-cell strategy. In 2004, California had passed $3 billion in public bonds to fund scientists for the next ten years. Texas, she said, should do the same with cancer.

"For this to be successful," Bonner told Ulman, "we...

On May 15, Emmy Award–winning actor Holland Taylor ("Two and a Half Men") stepped onto the stage of the Galveston Opera House in what may turn out to be a career-defining role. With "Money, Marbles and Chalk," Taylor presented a workshop of a one-woman play about one of the most charismatic figures in American political history: former governor of Texas Ann Richards. Richards was launched to political stardom at the 1988 Democratic Convention when she delivered the keynote address in which she famously skewered then President George H.W. Bush: "Poor George, he can't help himself. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth." Taylor is not only the star of the show; she is also the creative force behind it. It started when she was driving home one evening. She recalls, "I literally pulled off the road. I was on a service road, my eyes frozen on the...

Good morning! Get your coffee, here's the latest Austin film news:

If you haven't bought a film pass yet for Austin Film Festival 2010, this is certainly the month to do it. Aff is running a promotion called Film Pass Frenzy through August 2. Anyone who purchases two Aff film passes is entered into a daily drawing for prize packs. The prizes are awfully nice and include Aff Lone Star Badges, a $150 gift certificate to Uchiko, Fun Fun Fun Fest tickets and a Soul Train CD boxed set. You can always check the Aff Twitter feed before buying your passes to see what the daily prize is. Passes are $42 each right now and for eight nights of movies, that's an unbeatable deal.IndieWire caught Austin filmmaker Kyle Henry's latest short film, Fourplay: San Francisco at Outfest in Los Angeles last week -- their article also includes a nice photo of all the filmmakers involved.

Sandra Bullock is one of the world's most popular, most recognizable and longest-lasting movie stars. She arrived on July 26, 1964, as Sandra Annette Bullock, the daughter of opera singer Helga Meyer and voice coach and Pentagon contractor John Bullock. Though she was born in Arlington, Virginia, Bullock actually grew up in Nuremberg, Germany, where she first dipped her toes in the entertainment waters by studying vocal arts and ballet dancing, and appearing (briefly) in some of her mother's shows. She returned to the States in the mid-70's, attending high school and then going to college at East Carolina University in North Carolina, but she exited before graduation in order to chase her acting dream. It wasn't long before Bullock -- initially based in New York City -- started to find work. She landed a role in the back-door pilot Bionic Showdown: The Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman...

One of the best people to ever hail from Texas was Molly Ivins.

If the name doesn’t ring a bell, here’s all you really need to know: she came up with the most apropos nickname George W. Bush ever had: “Shrub.”

Ivins is something of a legend around here because she had a way of bringing highfalutin politicians down a notch or two with a well-placed barb that caused even her targets to crack a smile. She had that in common with one of her best friends, Ann Richards. And like her friend Ann, she left us far too soon.

Now the Philadelphia Theater Company is bringing Ivins’ word to life via a new one-woman play, Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins, with Kathleen Turner as the witty wordsmith.

Here’s how the theater describes the play: "In Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins,...

In Texas, feeling proud of politicians is a rarity. I mean, just as Dubya slinks out of office (to a neighborhood far too close to me), our seemingly eternal governor starts talking secession. At such times, I only know to do one thing, put on an Ann Richards T-shirt and try to remember that once upon a time, Texas got it right.

Ann’s influence reached far beyond Texas, however, and I know many of us harbored the dream that she would be the one to break through the glass ceiling with that immovable hair of hers to become the nation’s first female president.

When Richards died in 2006, friends and admirers needed three funerals to say goodbye. But one of her friends, Holland Taylor is doing her best to make sure we remember what Ann was all about.

For more than a year, Taylor (a.k.a. Peggy Peabody...

I apologize for not having a box office report up at my usual Sunday afternoon time. For the record and for those who care, Race to Witch Mountain finished first and Watchmen fell quite a bit from last weekend. Hopefully I’ll get around to it and any other news when I can find a spare hour or two.

I’m already a bit exhausted, so this morning I missed the advance ticket line to get early seats for Observe and Report. Cross your fingers for me so I can somehow slip in, check it out, and get a review to you guys later this week.

Though I did wander around the convention center this afternoon and literally bumped into none other than Catherine Hardwicke, director of Twilight. I was standing around and she wasn’t watching where she was going, so she bumped right into me. We both apologized,...

Its Sunday and weve got a lovely bunch of Twilight Odds and Ends for you today Kristen Stewart responds to the Madonna in New Moon rumors the New Moon cast gets a bonding session at dinner new interviews with Kristen Stewart Robert Pattinson drops by the WalMart Home Office for an appearance and morenbspKristen Stewart is enhh on Madonna in New MoonKristen Stewart doesnt have a problem with 80s music icon Madonna landing a bloodsuckingtemptress role in New Moon or Eclipse as has been rumored on the Web. I want everyone to love our movie Stewart said today at the Four Seasons junket for her new comedy Adventureland. I havent heard that one. That would be great if shes into it. Sure. Read more here.Date Tonight Who do you choose Edward Cullen or All Time Low?The popular band All Time Low has just created a new poll asking...

Austin was celebrating film this week before the SXSW crowds even arrived. On Thursday night, Austin Film Society held its ninth annual Texas Film Hall of Fame awards gala at Austin Studios, honoring Texans and "honorary Texans" in the film industry. It's a fundraising event for filmmaker grants and educational programs, and attire ranges from the glitziest cocktail dresses to blue jeans and cowboy boots. Thomas Haden Church emceed the ceremony, revealing surprising depths of bizarre-yet-enjoyable humor. Really, I think someone should consider him to host the Oscars next year, although I don't know what his singing and dancing talents might be.

Thirteen and Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke, shown above, received the Ann Richards award for someone in film who "who breaks barriers and forges new creative paths." Her award was presented by Brendan Fraser. The Star of Texas award for an exceptional film made in Texas went to Rushmore,...

Last week I finally had a chance to have a conversation with W. screenwriter Stanley Weiser. We had actually planned on having the interview just prior to the release of the film, but as it turned out schedules don't always work in your favor. Nevertheless, that doesn't make what was said any less interesting. Weiser is the man behind Wall Street and W. He aided Oliver Stone on Nixon and wrote a treatment for Wall Street 2 before Stone and the film's producer decided to part ways. This interview will be of interest to anyone that finds any of those films intriguing. Anyone interested in politics and in learning what part in W. Stone himself was going to play before being talked out of it. The interview was a long, exclusive 51-minute conversation examining the movie, it's motivations and its expectations. We also touch upon our current state of affairs. While...

'Well, you can put lipstick on a hog and call it Monique, but it's still a pig."

Are you getting tired of this one? I just want to remind you that this is the exact quote made back in 1994 by the governor of Texas, Ann Richards. (Ann was talking about how hard it was to elect women on the basis of "heart, ability and intellect," and she added that those things don't count without money to get women elected.)

Since Ann made this joke 14 years ago, there are many more recent video recorded instances of Senator John Edwards,...

As much as the Bush family is going to hate "W.," Oliver Stone's biopic - which depicts the young Dubya boozing, brawling and getting locked up before he makes it to the White House - the Kennedy clan won't like it, either.

The first teaser for the flick - being rushed into theaters 18 days before the presidential election - begins with George Thorogood's "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer."

Josh Brolin, as the future commander in chief, is seen doing the bump with...