In a full house at the 1,025-seat Toni Rembe Theater, there was an eruption of gasps and shrieks. The grown man to my right reflexively gripped the arm of my seat, sheepishly muttering an apology. In a distant aisle, I spotted one person get up and run out of the theater, their friend trailing closely behind.
Third-place opening weekends are not usually the stuff of box-office headlines, but on Saturday, you couldn't pick up your phone without reading that Melania, Brett Ratner's gauzy, glad-handing portrait of the first lady, was doing much better than expected. Deadline called its opening the strongest for a documentary in a decade, and the New York Times wrote that its $8 million opening was 60 percent above industry predictions. By Sunday, however, the latter number had been revised drastically downward, from $8 million to barely over $7 million.
So she breathed a sigh of relief on Friday as she watched Melania Trump's documentary and saw that after a day that included three balls and returning to the White House at 2 a.m. the first lady kicked off her heels. It's a gauntlet, she said. You really appreciate what they have to go through in order to get through an event like that, and what their day must really be like.
Perhaps, after the startling boos and jeers of Tuesday night's game against Rob Cross, after his salty comments about the barrackers paying his prize money, a certain caution might have been expected. But despite receiving a mixed reception as he entered the stage, Littler quickly won them over in a brutal, nonchalant, princely 33-minute exhibition. The Alexandra Palace multitudes drank a cup of kindness, and by the end all seemed to have been forgiven.
Fans are flocking to Wicked: For Good, but more than a few of them are a bit confused by one particular phrase repeated throughout the film: "In a clock tick." The first part of Jon M Chu's movie adaption of the hit Broadway stage musical opened this time last year to rave reviews before smashing box office records. The sequel, which focuses on the musical's darker second act, was released on Friday (21 November) and grossed $226 million (£173 million) worldwide during its opening weekend.
'Faithless' (Virgin Media One) 4/5 In the end, it's not really the hope that kills you, it's the hype. That squeaking sound heard all over Ireland last week was the air escaping from the hype balloon after episode one of The Walsh Sisters aired on RTÉ One.
The network late-night shows have returned from summer hiatus - something that The Late Show reminded us is actually a new season of late night. You never think about late-night TV having seasons. It's constant and cyclic and intermittently makes you cry, like menstruation. But the cable shows - your WWHLs and HIGNFYs, are still on a break. Still, it was good to get the boys back in town to cover Trump not dying.
How to describe what I heard from the orchestra? It happened one night at the Booth Theater during a preview performance of John Proctor Is the Villain. Raelynn Nix (Amalia Yoo), the preacher's daughter, was delivering the final part of her monologue: "One day, maybe, the new world we were promised will actually be new. One day, maybe, the men in charge won'tbe in charge anymore." The scene is wrenching; the audience held its breath.