Veep vamps, Broadway legends & Hollywood headliners

If you’d rather laugh than watch people in robes get beheaded, you’ve probably been missing Selina Meyer, the deliciously venal anti-heroine of Veep, played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

By HANNAH BROWN
Veep (photo credit: Courtesy)
Veep
(photo credit: Courtesy)
T.S. Eliot called April the cruelest month, and that was long before it was announced that the final season of Game of Thrones was coming up on April 15.
But if you’d rather laugh than watch people in robes get beheaded, you’ve probably been missing Selina Meyer, the deliciously venal anti-heroine of Veep, played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus. So you’ll be happy to hear that the new (and final) season of the series is coming up on Wednesdays at 10 p.m. on HOT HBO, starting April 3; Tuesdays on YES Edge at 11:15 p.m. starting April 9; and on HOT VOD, NEXT TV, YES VOD and STING TV starting April 1.
Louis-Dreyfus has said that portraying Selina is “kind of like playing a toddler in a tight dress and heels,” and it’s rare that any actor, even a comedian, has made such an incredibly selfish character so compelling and even appealing. As much as Selina offends us, we root for her, somehow, and likely will continue to do so in this final season, which opens in Iowa, as she plans her latest presidential run. That’s why she has won six Emmys for this role and may well win another.
Another final season is coming our way in April, the fifth season of Jane the Virgin, which will begin broadcasting on Wednesdays at 9:15 p.m. on YES Drama starting April 10, and on YES VOD and STING TV. This consistently fun, often silly show ended its fourth season with a shocker that is perfectly in keeping with the telenovela genre it lampoons and imitates so affectionately.
If you haven’t kept up with the show, it doesn’t really matter. Every show begins with a clever recap by the narrator (Anthony Mendez), the witty character who gets all the best lines. The producers have promised we’ll find out who he is and have said that his identity has been hinted at all along, so you may be able figure it out. It isn’t Rogelio De La Vega (Jaime Camil), Jane’s endearingly vain telenovela-star father, but you can read the entertaining Twitter feed by this popular character, which is basically the only reason to bother with Twitter these days.
Legendary choreographer/director Bob Fosse mined his own life – marked by heavy drinking and drug-taking, womanizing and brilliant Broadway successes – for the 1979 film All That Jazz. Now, he and his wife, Gwen Verdon, one of the most amazing Broadway dancers of all time, are the subjects of a series, Fosse/Verdon, which starts running on Sundays at 10:50 p.m. on YES Edge on April 21. Among the series’ executive producers are his daughter, Nicole Fosse, as well as Hamilton creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda. It stars Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri) and Michelle Williams (Manchester by the Sea, All the Money in the World). Among the real-life figures who will be portrayed in the series are Liza Minnelli, Paddy Chayefsky, Neil Simon and Hal Prince. Fans of musicals will definitely want to check this out.
YES Docu is featuring several movies about Hollywood and the entertainment industry in April, some of which have been shown before, others which are new. Two of those that have been shown previously but are definitely worth checking out if you’ve never seen them – or even if you have – are Susan Lacy’s Spielberg and Jacob Bernstein’s Everything is Copy, a look at the life of Nora Ephron.
Spielberg looks back at the life of Steven Spielberg, the influential director who seems like a perennial kid, but who is actually 72 now. It will be shown on April 2 at 11:40 p.m.
Everything is Copy, by Ephron’s son, is an intimate and riveting look at Nora Ephron, one of the best essayists of all time, who moved into writing and directing for Hollywood. It will be shown on April 5 at 11:35 p.m.
These documentaries will also be available on YES VOD and STING TV.


Related Tags
musical
Steven Spielberg
Broadway