The Weinstein Effect — Page 4

"I haven't liked Harvey for years, I think he's a bully and doesn't actually care about his projects beyond how much they can make him, but honestly, I think Weinstein hate is being used as a scape goat, instead of admitting, hey, maybe this show wasn't nomination worthy in a season with so many other stand out productions. It's easy to say that the nominators were being petty and that's the only reason they weren't nominated, that way the people who did enjoy the show and the ones who were a part of it, including Harvey himself, don't have to admit to the flaws in it."

I'll see Fun Home in a week, so I can't speak personally about it, but I'm sure that or An American in Paris are more deserving. However, I feel like the ZERO nominations for FN speaks more to Weinstein than anything else. I also think Matt Morrison deserved a nomination spot (Watanabe? Seriously?)

Anyway, what's done is done.

I don't believe Morrison deserved a nomination. Jeremy Jordan and Diane Paulus did all the heavy lifting with that role in terms of crafting something that would work in a fully staged production outside of workshops. Morrison just picked up where Jordan left off. All the hard stuff had already been worked out for him. Had he been nominated it would have likely just been for the role and not really his performance.

I can't even read that cake. Is that the point of it?

Wait, Harvey sent that cake? It looks like something rushed out of the grocery store bakery. And it's tiny.

Man, he really must be losing money on this.

"Wait, Harvey sent that cake? It looks like something rushed out of the grocery store bakery. And it's tiny.
Man, he really must be losing money on this."

Seriously. If he paid for that cake he should get his money back. It's horrible looking.

Interesting take. I feel the same way about certain actors in Hollywood when I see them in films.

The first who comes to mind is Meryl Streep. She has become such an iconic actress that when I see her in a movie, all I see is Meryl Streep pretending to be this character or that. I can't see beyond her fame, and I can't suspend that disbelief with her anymore.

I know that professionally Morrison isn't in the same place that Streep is, but do you think his connection to a popular character on TV has something to do with the inability to see him as convincing in FN?

Personally I've never seen Glee….so I wasn't making that connection throughout the show at all. It was easier for me to just enjoy his character, I guess.

Updated On: 5/2/15 at 08:22 PM

Sorry Jeff.

As Marie Antoinette said "Let them eat cake!"

Jeff, your vlog is sweet! Don't agree with everything but it sure is fun and packed with hotties.

Just think of how much money the show is saving by not having to provide free tickets to all those Tony voters.

Enough to buy a bigger cake, a tub of ice cream, and kleenex.

Well Harvey has been a silent or minor partner/producer of other shows on BW, it's just that FN was stamped as his "baby" from the getgo.

It seemed there was just so many PR snafus from the start, including the way they got a production number on air in the last TONY Awards and the dick way Jeremy Jordan was shown the exit.

While the NY Post or NY Times can give their opinion why FN was shut out and point to Harvey, I just find that it's awkward for Harvey himself to publicly state that as the reason for zero Tony nods.

^ In your opinion.

The nominators don't confer with each other. Ergo, there is no conspiracy.

It is clear that most of the nominators, as well as the critics, think it is a piece of junk.

Like this one from the Washington Post, which is especially damning:

Still, I’d gladly sit again through “It Shoulda Been You” or “Something Rotten!” if it meant never having to hear another word about “Finding Neverland,” the spectacularly noisy and awkward misfire at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. Based on a Miramax movie that starred Johnny Depp as J.M. Barrie, playwright of “Peter Pan, or the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up,” the charmless musical posits “Glee’s” Matthew Morrison as the tortured Barrie, who rediscovers his talent through his association with a family of fatherless boys.

Any of the lump-in-your-throat potential of “Finding Neverland” is squandered by director Diane Paulus in the show’s miscalculated fireworks. (Among the casualties: Kelsey Grammer, in a doubling as Barrie’s producer and more bizarrely, as an inspirational version of Captain Hook, who stirs Barrie’s imagination.) The score by Gary Barlow and Eliot Kennedy, meanwhile, is a nest of thin tunes and near-rhymes — “truth” and “use,” “earth” and “hurt” — that grows ever more grating as the evening wears on.

It's hard to determine just how much personalities and preconceptions affect the nominating process, but even those who liked this show (and I was one of them) would have a difficult time defending a choice of Finding Neverland in most categories this season. So, I don't think "The Weinstein Effect" was as significant as many might think. There is no category for best ensemble, and I thought the ensemble was the heart and soul of the show when I saw it in Cambridge. They don't break out a category for staging a single number either, so a couple of breathtaking moments have to be considered along with the pluses and minuses of the overall direction. Was the direction top five worthy this year? The choreography? Score? Book? The list goes on, and the answers are usually the same: there were too many other shows that were simply better in those categories. Neither the book nor the score gave any actor playing the Barrie character much opportunity to set himself apart from other potential nominees. That was true for Morrison, and it would have been true for Jordan. Only one featured role was significant enough to be considered for a nomination, and Grammer simply didn't make the cut. Finding Neverland's best shot at a nomination may have been for Best Musical, because it is a show that, despite what the critics say, has found an audience that appreciates it. It could have been determined that it is greater than the sum of its parts. But that didn't happen either. Perhaps if Weinstein had not taken the "bull in a china shop" approach to producing, the show might have managed to eke out two or three nominations, but when you look at it objectively, nominations for this show in most categories this season were not in the cards, even under the best of circumstances.