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John Cameron Mitchell’s latest “Anthem”


By Romeo San Vicente

Here comes your next favorite podcast. Topic Studios, the people who produced Missing Richard Simmons, recently announced that they’re partnering with Hedwig and the Angry Inch creator John Cameron Mitchell for a new musical anthology podcast called Anthem. The premise for the series will be neglected American stories, told by songwriters and storytellers working collaboratively, and that list of collaborators is impressive: Patti LuPone, Glenn Close, South African singer/songwriter Nakhane, Denis O’Hare, Laurie Anderson, Broadway star Simone (yes, the daughter of Nina Simone), Ben Foster, Justin Vivien Bond, Bridget Everett and Bryan Weller, who is currently working with Cameron Mitchell on the upcoming film How to Talk to Girls at Parties. The first season, Anthem: Homunculus, will tell a single story in ten 30-minute podcasts, perfect for bingeing or that tedious commute home from work. The series is currently in production and will drop sometime later this year. Clear space on your playlist.

RuPaul to star alongside adorable orphan

On RuPaul’s Drag Race, the expression “She done already done had herses†might be something of a colloquialism-meets-a-non sequitur, but it has more or less come to mean that Ru’s already done whatever you thought about doing and made money from it. And if you were thinking of starring in your own Netflix series about a drag queen who travels the country with a tough-talking orphan, then you can think twice about that one, too. RuPaul Charles will star in a new one-hour comedy series called AJ and The Queen, co-produced by Ru and Michael Patrick King (Sex and the City). The Supermodel of The World will play against type as a down-on-her-luck queen traveling in a wheezing old RV with an unlikely child stowaway, performing in drag clubs all across this great drag-loving land, and teaching lessons about love along the way. She’s going to sing in every episode, too, just like a one-drag-queen Partridge Family. Listen, we can’t believe it’s real either, but we’re sure as hell going to watch. And that fascination factor is exactly how Miss Charles keeps getting hers(es).

Ezra Miller says hello to Dali

Ezra Miller, star of Justice League, isn’t sitting around waiting for the DC Cinematic Universe to keep his career afloat. He’s no stranger to the arthouse world in films like We Need to Talk About Kevin, and now he’s signed on to the latest from director Mary Harron (American Psycho), the biopic Dali Land. Miller will star in flashback sequences as the young Salvador Dali (Ben Kingsley will play the legendary artist as an older man) for a story set in New York and Spain in the early 1970s, and told from the perspective of a gallery assistant played by Frank Dillane (Fear The Walking Dead). Phantom Thread breakout star Lesley Manville will play Dali’s formidable wife and Tim Roth the artist’s best friend. Expect this one to kickoff big festivals when it’s finished. In the meantime you can impress your friends by doing your surrealism homework, and then you can annoy them all by pedantically explaining what is and is not surreal in everyday life.

You’ll probably want to live in the House of Cardin

Directors P. David Ebersole and Todd Hughes of The Ebersole Hughes Company recently presented a work-in-progress trailer at Cannes for their authorized biographical documentary, House of Cardin, and the worldwide rights were snapped up by France’s Doc & Film. For fashion fans and, really for anyone who cares about how merchandising and status shifted gears after World War II, this is very good news. And if you’re quite young and the question on your mind is “What is a Cardin?†then you’re in for a dizzying education. Pierre Cardin, 95, French/Italian, gay, and still at work, is one of the 20th century’s most influential designers. The man made clothes for everyone including astronauts; he put his stamp on perfume bottles and jets; he designed cars and cigarettes; he slapped his logo on his work before anyone else thought to do that, and he made so much money doing it that now he lives in a house that’s shaped like bubbles (not making that up). You think your personal brand is something special? This guy invented the idea, so when the film is finally finished and streaming on a smartphone near you, pay your respects and let a queer legend take you to school.

Romeo San Vicente is still obsessed with the shape of that Cardin cologne bottle.

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