15th Hamptons International Film Festival

With key personnel Denise Kasell and Rajaendra Roy moving on to other enterprises, some were wondering whether or not the Hamptons International Film Festival would meet the fine quality of the past: great films, parties, people. And in fact it has. Located in East Hampton, Montauk, Southampton and Sag Harbor, this festival remains the place to be in mid-October. If one may quibble, the only problem is seeing all the films you want to see. The offerings are that good. My favorites: Julian Schnabel's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly which was chosen for the festival's Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Prize in Science and Technology and Sidney Lumet's Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, both featured in The New York Film Festival which closed the week before. Despite this honor, Schnabel was a no-show, but last Friday Sidney Lumet, the 83 year old director of such classics as Dog Day Afternoon and Network, conversed at the sold-out Bay Street Theater with writer Adam Green, about his award-filled career and fondness for melodrama.
            Talk about melodrama, Lumet would love Paul Schrader's morality thriller, The Walker, another festival film I sampled, to open in December. At a reception for director Robert Altman at Elaine's following his memorial service in February, the actresses Lily Tomlin and Lauren Bacall had a tete-a-tete about a new film they had just made. Now I know what they were chatting about. These actors join Kristin Scott Thomas as Washington, D.C. socialites often escorted about by their “gay best friend,” Woody Harrelson in a nuanced performance as a bon-vivante suddenly implicated in a murder.
            The quirky Kabluey stars Lisa Kudrow in a distinctly non-Phoebe role as a mother at loose ends awaiting the return of her husband from service in Iraq. Her big-hearted but ne'er-do-well brother-in-law shows up to help. Played by Scott Prendergast (who also directs) in an oversized, warm and fuzzy blue costume, he is hilarious and pathetic on an American highway.
            At a party at Nick & Toni's marking the 40th anniversary of New Line Cinema Kudrow mugged for photos with Amanda Peet, the star of Martian Child, opening this week and also starring John Cusack who was on hand along with painter Eric Fischl, director/actor Bob Balaban, and Raj Roy, now at MOMA, among the New Line well-wishers. Kudrow told me that for independent films, she chooses roles that are far from her Friends persona. While she is excellent in Kabluey opening in 2008, her character is a bit dour and sad. This comic actor laughs in only one scene, clad in bra and undies, when she's having an affair.
                                                  Regina Weinreich