Gossip Central

The Orphanage

Guillermo del Toro, the Mexican director of last year’s “Pan’s Labyrinth,” schmoozed with well wishers  at last week’s Orphanage premiere at the National Arts Club while the star Belen Rueda mugged for photographers in an exquisite beaded Carolina Herrera cocktail dress. A producer and “presenter” of “The Orphanage,” Guillermo is “god” to a new generation of Spanish filmmakers, director Juan Antonio Bayona in his debut feature and screenwriter Sergio G. Sanchez with his debut feature length screenplay. “The Orphanage” was selected for the 2007 New York Film Festival in September and is now screening theatrically here but already in Guillermo del ToroSpain, it is the highest grossing film since it opened there on October 11. This is one scary movie: a haunted house, masked children, homemade dolls, a medium (played by Geraldine Chaplin), and one hysterical mother (Rueda). The themes tend toward the psychological: survivor’s guilt, loss, or as Guillermo sees it “Peter Pan” meets “The Turn of the Screw.” The Peter Pan idea seemed most provocative to the young filmmakers, obsessed with a “Wendy” character and her inability to accept the true responsibilities of motherhood. To our American sensibilities, “The Orphanage” belongs to the genre of a well-made horror flick, akin to “The Others;” for these post-Spanish Civil War filmmakers, literally busting into an international filmmaking arena, this movie is an impressive debut indeed.

Regina Weinreich                            Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

The Orhpanage (trailer)

Baby Jane Dexter at the Metropolitan Room

What’s the opposite of diva? That’s Baby Jane Dexter. At last weekend’s set at The Metropolitan Room, her robust performance, her ease with her audience and fans, and her material including ‘60’s and early ‘70’s rock made this a most friendly cabaret evening. The room was packed for her celebration of a new CD “You’re Following Me” recorded here in April. From “Zing Went the Strings (of my Heart)” to “Love Potion Number 9,” you could feel the empathy in the room. Interviewed on NPR recently, she spoke about the relationship of her singing and healing. Baby Jane is soulful without necessarily singing soul. She’s warm and funny, especially when describing a particular weakness for the frozen hot chocolate at Serendipity. I can soooo relate. You are in luck. You can catch her act at the Metropolitan Room on December 29. Prepare for emotional rescue.

Regina Weinreich                            Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

The Great Debaters for Christmas

Forest Whitaker stood at the top of the stairs at “The Great Debaters” premiere at the Ziegfeld last week, fielding compliments on his new look. In a pin striped suit accentuating his new slimness, the Academy Award winning actor, for his role as last year’s screen monster, Idi Amin, could not have been sweeter, praising his co-star for “Last King of Scotland,” James McAvoy, for his performance in “Atonement.” With the award season approaching rapidly, the talk was less about who would get them, and more about which shows would air. As the crowd awaited director/star Denzel Washington, Fox 411's Roger Friedman offered to give the Oscar statues out on a Hollywood street corner. While we are dispensing kudos, prizes for best new comers should go to the young actors, the debaters of the film on hand:  Denzel Whitaker, Jermaine Williams, Jurnee Smollett, and Nate Parker. As good as these actors are at debating, they are great to look at. A fantasy sequence in which young Whitaker as James Farmer Jr. dances with Jurnee Smollett as Samantha Booke shows them breaking out of academic propriety, sort of Leo taking Kate below deck on the Titanic for some real moves. The debating theme allows for a lot of attention-worthy highbrow quotations:  “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” (Martin Luther King Jr.). “An unjust law is no law at all” (St. Augustine). Forest Whitaker in tweeds and spectacles as James Farmer Sr., the first African-American to receive a doctorate in Texas, deserves high praise as a model of good parenting. This is the best family movie of the season.

Regina Weinreich                            Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

The Great Debaters (trailer)

Blogging at the Metropolitan Museum

When the Metropolitan Museum's Costume Institute announced their new show, “blog.mode: addressing fashion,” my thoughts went to Cher Horowitz in the movie “Clueless,” taking Poloroids of herself in every outfit, to see how she looked. In a ploy that beats asking one's husband, a second opinion from the blogosphere makes sense. On the day the press was invited to view the exhibition, no one could quite explain how all the computers set up for commentary actually worked, but it didn't seem to matter. The fashions, recent acquisitions of haute couture, spoke for themselves. Many genres, eras were represented: Paul Poiret's 1913 “Theatre des Champs-Elysees” time to undergarments of the 19th century to 2002 go go style polka dot boots, a collaboration from the minds of Manolo Blahnik and Damien Hirst. My personal faves came all in one gallery (1921-99): Coco Chanel's embroidered ensemble illustrated an early shift from hand-done needlework to machine work, detected (with, I could only imagine an imperious sniff) by Karl Lagerfeld when he first lifted the garment's hem. A 1947 dress made of a fabric printed in a Dali motif, light blue rayon crepe with pink, black, and gray references Elsa Schiaparelli's collaborations with the famed Surrealist, but Gilbert Adrian gave it a signature twist, inserting an inverse dark profile at the gown's left shoulder. Schiaparelli's multi-colored felted wool coat from her spring 1939 collection, titled “A Modern Comedy” after the 18th century commedia dell'arte, was a gift from the actress Ruth Ford, the sister of poet, painter, “the first American Surrealist,” Charles Henri Ford. Having had a long career in theater and film, originating the role of Estelle in “No Exit,” for example, she still resides at the Dakota. And me, what could I wear? Paul Poiret's 1913 “Theatre des Champs-Elysees” gown with its ivory silk damask, ivory silk tulle, ivory China silk with double bands of lead-crystal rhinestones at the waist and asymmetrical hem. If possible, I'd like to wear it to a ball on the Champs Elysees.

Regina Weinreich                            Graphic Design: SalpeterVentura

Black Nativity/Yellow Face

The rousing musical “Black Nativity” cannot be beat for sheer exuberance. Taking off from Langston Hughes's gospel song play and performed at the Duke Theater on 42nd Street, this Classical Theatre of Harlem production is set in 1973 Times Square when the populace in the neighborhood, dubbed The Deuce or The Devil's Playground with its pimps, prostitutes, and pickpockets, evokes the mood of the 1997 Cy Coleman musical, “The Life,” more than present-day Disney “Mary Poppins” just down the block. The unstoppable Andre De Shields heads the superb cast of dancers, singers in the traditions of Motown and Stax, joined by the Shangilia Youth Choir of Nairobi, Kenya. The mix of these musical genres creates a sensational entertainment; in retelling the story of Jesus's birth, the show reminds us that the Christian themes of salvation, redemption, and universal good will do not stop with holidays. With a nod to today's Africa and the travails of the Sudanese among others beset by unspeakable violence, the company asks: would Jesus be crucified today?
        Downtown, at the Public Theater, the world premiere of David Henry Hwang's “Yellow Face” is a more cerebral entertainment, addressing the vexing problem of racism in the casting of “Miss Saigon:” should the actor Jonathan Pryce, after all a white Brit, have originated the lead role meant for an Asian? Dramatizing his own protest of that event, Hwang creates a polemical theater melding fact and fiction, drawing from the news and people of the time on a bare stage. Clever and surprising, this work is a reminder of the formidable role that race and ethnicity play in our culture. The fine actors replicate the gender/race blind ideal: with Noah Bean as author surrogate, Francis Jue in multiple roles, and Anthony Torn wittily playing “The Announcer” and “[Name withheld on advice of counsel].” After the show, when asked to what extent this work is autobiographical, the playwright said, “Issues of race are egg-shelly. I am a writer and in the end, it's all about me.” His wife, Kathryn A. Layng, also performs multiple roles, sometimes a man and most notably her mother-in-law. So what does she think of herself so portrayed? “She says I've improved,” reported Layng.

Regina Weinreich                            Graphic Design: SalpeterVentura

Lars and the Real Girl

Ryan Gosling plays a most eligible bachelor in “Lars and the Real Girl,” my pick for this year's movie-with-the-most-heart. The girl who wins his heart, however plastic, was not on hand for yesterday's celebratory luncheon at the Four Seasons. Emily Mortimer apologized for her missing co-star, quite frankly relieved that the curvaceous, meticulously groomed Bianca who gave such a subtle, understated performance would not be upstaging her. She need not worry. Mortimer as Lars' concerned, pregnant sister-in-law is family anyone would want around. And Patricia Clarkson, so kind and non-judgmental as Lars' shrink, had the tony lunch crowd begging for appointments. While Gosling's edgy role in “Half Nelson” earned him a 2006 Academy Award nomination, as Lars he returns to the kind of head-over-heels lead he played in “The Notebook” (2004)--he and his co-star Rachel McAdams won the MTV award for Best Kiss.

In the movies, t'is the season for bloodlust: “There Will Be Blood,” “Sweeney Todd,” “No Country for Old Men,” “Before the Devil Knows You're Dead” lead the pack of absolutely must-see films that along with state-of-the-art cinematography and stars also feature as much violence as anyone can bear. So it comes as no surprise as I read in this morning's New York Times about Sidney Kimmel, the shmatte mogul and philanthropist who created a company, Kimmel Entertainment, that specializes in small, smart and daring movies such as the long-awaited “The Kite Runner” and “Lars and the Real Girl:” so far, Lars' infatuation with, l won't be coy, a blow-up doll is “deflating” box-office news. Surely, along with a steady flow of blood, you must want to know where the real love is. See this film!

Update: To see a video of luncheon at the Four Seasons, watch David Carr's Carpetbagger coverage. 

Regina Weinreich                                             Graphic Design: SalpeterVentura

Lars and the Real Girl (trailer)

Youth Without Youth/Sweeney Todd: Hold the Meat Pies

At a press conference for his new film “Youth Without Youth,” Francis Ford Coppola, the famed “Godfather” director told a story about the 1993 film “Little Buddha,” starring Keanu Reeves. The filmmakers wanted Johnny Depp for the lead. The studio wanted a better-known actor. That was once upon a time in Hollywood, a laughable irony at Monday night's premiere of Tim Burton's “Sweeney Todd” at the Zeigfeld. In the title role, bedecked in Burtonesque raccoon-eyed Goth, Johnny Depp does his gruesome barber-y on a dozen men, before they are baked in pies. Deserving a best actor Oscar for this role, Depp can do anything. And can he sing! As snake oil salesman and blackmailer Sacha Baron Cohen is especially slimy sporting a tight racing blue jumpsuit! “Sweeney Todd” is the spectacular of the season with delicious villainy by Alan Rickman, as evil Judge Turpin, and Timothy Spall, his beadle. Helena Bonham Carter, Burton's wife, is Mrs. Lovett, Todd's accomplice in revenge. Fleet Street's rats and roaches cavort to Stephen Sondheim's classic score. Let the squeamish be ware. At the premiere, the audience: a previous Todd, Michael Cerveris, the cast of “Spring Awakening,” “Cymbeline”'s Martha Plimpton, presidential historian Douglas Brinkley, among the artsy crowd, whooped with glee as each closely shaved body thudded down a shaft. “Sweeney Todd” is a tragic tale about characters whose lives and dreams have been taken away, and “Youth Without Youth” is the inverse: a parable of an old man, played superbly by Tim Roth, given back his life and dreams. Oh, to be in love one last time!

Regina Weinreich                     Site design Salpeter Ventura. LLC              

Sweeney Todd (trailer)

Youth Without Youth (trailer)