There’s been a lot of buzz around the Safdie brothers’ latest film, Uncut Gems. Most of it surrounds the star, Adam Sandler, and rightfully so — the actor best known for playing lazy, schlubby manchildren excels in his dramatic role as Howard Ratner, a sleazy, gambling-addicted Jewish diamond district […]
“Uncut Gems” doesn’t just offer up the anomaly of Adam Sandler, an actor best known for broad comedies, venturing into dramatic territory. Even more unusual, it’s the rare modern movie to include a Passover seder. Directed by brothers Josh and Benny Safdie, “Uncut Gems” follows Howard Ratner (Sandler), […]
“It’s still a revolutionary thing, to this day, to say, ‘That perfect girl is gone.’” Billboard is celebrating the 2010s with essays on the 100 songs that we feel most define the decade that was — the songs that both shaped and reflected the music and culture of the period — with […]
LOS ANGELES, Calif. – Idina Menzel let them in, let them see the insecure girl she can sometimes be. The actress/singer who will perform “Into the Unknown” from “Frozen II” at Sunday’s Academy Awards, co-hosted the annual Women in Film female Oscar nominees party Friday evening at Sunset Room Hollywood. […]
The wait is over: six years after Disney Animation Studios’ Frozen took the world by (ice) storm in a way that no one, not even the studio, saw coming, the adventures of royal sisters Elsa and Anna continue in Frozen II. Loosely inspired by a story from fairy […]
The Showstoppers The Frozen Soundtrack 13 Weeks on Billboard 200 In a particularly cold climate? for music sales, Frozen broke virtually every Hollywood rule — no “prince charming” narrative or genre trends — to become the year’s biggest phenomenon. The soundtrack moved more than 3 million copies, making […]
When Stephen Schwartz’s iconic Broadway musical Wicked first found it’s home at the Gershwin Theatre in 2003, success was not guaranteed. The musical had a particularly large budget for a new Broadway show ($14 million), and initially received mixed reviews from critics, most notably from The New York […]
NBC is celebrating one of Broadway’s longest running shows this month with A Very Wicked Halloween: Celebrating 15 Years on Broadway. Wicked‘s original stars, Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth, are set to reunite once more to honor the occasion with a concert event. Additionally, the concert event will see […]
Fifteen years ago, one of the top films in the land was “Finding Nemo” and Shania Twain played the Super Bowl halftime show. 50 Cent’s “Get Rich or Die Tryin’” was a hit album and a couple of witches-to-be took over Broadway. The musical “Wicked” shook off some […]
Idina Menzel turned Wednesday night’s Kennedy Center Gala, a classic Washington society event, into basically the coolest karaoke session ever. The Broadway star sparked a giant singalong when she solicited help from the audience to accompany her in the “Rent” duet, “Take Me or Leave Me.” First to […]
The most memorable performances in any medium are being given by a remarkable group of industry veterans — Judith Light, Allison Janney and Audra McDonald, among them. For a long time, you could open a movie with a close-up on a woman’s face, as long as she presented […]
It can be hard to believe that it has been more than two decades since a then 24-year-old Long Island native named Idina Menzel shot to superstardom as the feisty bisexual Maureen in Jonathan Larson’s groundbreaking musical Rent. And what may be equally hard to believe is that, […]
For Gay Pride Month, Billboard asked numerous pop culture luminaries to write ‘love letters’ to the LGBTQ community. Below, singer and actress Idina Menzel — who originated the Broadway roles of Maureen in Rent and Elphaba in Wicked — shares hers. Happy Pride Month! To my LGBTQ friends […]
”IT’S good to see me, isn’t it?” Thus does Glinda the Good Witch introduce herself, suspended in midair and floating down into Munchkinland at the start of ”Wicked,” the new $14 million Broadway musical that takes place in the fictionally familiar land of Oz and opens at the […]
Everything was Rent 20 years ago, when the show opened at Broadway’s Nederlander Theatre April 29, 1996. The cast takes us back to what life was like then. After Rent made its debut at Off-Broadway’s New York Theatre Workshop in January 1996, the musical quickly took off—garnering national […]