Gossip Central

Sex is Holy/And Not: Equus and Speed-the-Plow

The Broadhurst stage is at once a stable, Greek temple, church with smoky incense curling up from floor vents, auguring something primitive, carnal, and spiritual. Much has been written about this revival of Peter Shaffer's 1973 "Equus," a drama in the classic sense, about a boy played by Daniel Radcliffe, known for the Harry Potter franchise, who comes of age by doing something very creepy, criminal--to horses. His shrink--Richard Griffiths of "History Boys" in the role--envies his passion. The play is based upon the kernel of a true story, embellished psychologically, eroticized. The horses are believably portrayed by six well-hung men in horse-shaped masks and hoofs of spun silver. See it for the suspense, the masterful unravelling of a crime, but more, for emotional pitch, the pandemonium of steeds gone wild. When theater as spectacle is done this well, it is simply thrilling.

Equally thrilling is the new production of David Mamet's 1988 "Speed-the-Plow" at the Barrymore, where sex--in the four-letter word banter of "Entourage's" Jeremy Piven, "Mad Men's" Elizabeth Moss, and Raul Esparza, recently so fine in "The Homecoming"--is the opposite of holy. It is commerce as the men, Hollywood bottom feeders plan the ultimate pitch. Unlike "Equus," no one in this stark office set need remove a stitch. The foreplay of characters completing one another's sentences makes this hour and a half a speeding bullet of ego inflating patter and audience-arousing seduction.  

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

Kristen Scott Thomas in I've Loved You So Long

   

Monday night, traditional dark night for Broadway theaters, brought Kristen Scott Thomas to the SONY Screening Room for a private dinner and screening of her new movie, "I've Loved You So Long." Now garnering raves for her performance in "The Seagull," the bilingual actress could not have been more chicly attired and exquisitely made up, which made the first sight of her in the French movie, all sad eyed and plain, shocking. As Juliette, just out of prison, she reunites with her estranged sister Lea (Elsa Zylberstein) in Nancy. And just as you are taken in by her quiet ways acclimating to life outside, you learn the reason she was put away for 15 years: she's murdered her 6 year old son. Director Philippe Claudel taught in prison and had the idea for this, his first film, from his experience, and rather than write it as a novel--he's written several--he crafted this material directly for film. Claudel pointed out, although Kristen Scott Thomas is world renowned for "The English Patient" and other films, she never starred in a French film before. He discounts her fine performance in last year's hit, "Tell No One," which New Yorkers first saw in the Rendez Vous with French Cinema, as a supporting role. So this film introduced her in a leading role to French audiences. As her sister, Elsa Zylberstein gives a stunning performance. A fashion icon in France, said Claudel, she had to change her look, cut her hair. A theater crowd attended the special evening hosted by SONY's Tom Bernard: Marty Richards, Jean Doumanian, John Guare. Kathleen Turner gave Scott Thomas a big sisterly kiss.

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

Brigid Berlin's Needle Point

 Sometimes known as Brigid Polk because of her “needle” work, Warhol acolyte Brigid Berlin greeted guests at Glenn Horowitz's 64th street gallery for a show of her needlepoint. (See “Chelsea Girls” where she pierces herself and others.) Looking radiant in Sarah Palin red and black, and recently out of rehab, Berlin sat in a flower festooned chair priced at $175,000, posing for photographers as her managers and documentary filmmaker friends Vincent and Shelly Fremont led visitors around her pillows displayed in plexiglass cases. Created mainly from headlines in the New York Post: Tim Russert's death as well as William F. Buckley's, the most sordid were somehow made more outrageous fashioned into these decorative needlepoint pillows. “Read My Lips: Obama Slams Pig Swill” is in the works. Berlin traces the entire front page, pictures and all. She says that sometimes she sews round the clock and sometimes she does nothing for six months. No matter, the pillows are truly a statement of our times. Included also in the exhibition are polaroids and other documents of Berlin's life. Filmmaker and cultural bad boy icon John Waters perused the scene, kissing Bridget hello, and reading letters from her parents on the gallery's first floor. Now that he's had commercial and mainstream success-see “Cry Baby” and  “Hairspray” on Broadway--he says he has a reality television show in the works. What's it called? “Gone Bad,” his pencil thin mustache widens and arches upward into a grin.

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

Alec Baldwin at the Hamptons International Film Festival

 The magic of television: when was Saturday Night Live taped? Because on Saturday afternoon, Alec Baldwin who chatted with Sarah Palin on that night's show-- the conceit being that he thought she was Tina Fey when he referred to her as Caribou Barbie--was chatting in front of the East Hampton cinemas site of many of the Hamptons International Film Festival screenings. He had, a day before, interviewed Jacqueline Bisset at Bay Street. The legendary, gorgeous actress is surgery free, in case you were wondering. So his movements seem quite mysterious. The now burly Hamptons resident and HIFF board member in a navy cashmere coat said, he would extend the event to a week. Committed to the festival's success as a premiere venue, he'd wanted W. to open here, but director Oliver Stone said no. Meantime there's no question that the festival enhances the long weekend with exceptional international fare: I loved, for example, Christophe van Rompaey's “Moscow,Belgium,” a first feature filmed in his hometown area of Ghent. Describing the low budget compromises, lead actress Barbara Sarafian said they had to eat blood sausage all day, and make it look enticing, fresh and warm. Documentaries were also strongly represented: Arne Glimscher introduced his “Picasso and Braque Go to the Movies”, about the influence of action pictures on painting based on an exhibition the previous year at PaceWildenstein Gallery on 57th Street; “Four Season Lodge” is a rare glimpse at Holocaust survivors at a bungalow colony in the Catskills; a medley of Bruce Weber's films, “The Artist's Eye” revealed early footage of Robert Mitchum and Elizabeth Taylor as well as his obsession with young, well hung men. A biopic about 82 year old Dominick Dunne is especially frank about some tragic moments in this great writer on the trials of the rich and famous's life. I asked if this fine documentary had a distributor yet. You'll have to ask the filmmakers, he said raising his arm in a grand gesture, “I'm just a star.” And of course, fall weekends in the Hamptons have their own kind of magic.

Regina Weinreich 

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

The Passion of Mickey Rourke

Brooklyn is well represented tonight, said director  Darren Aronofsky  introducing the closing night film of the New York Film Festival. was speaking of his own hometown borough and that of the women co-starring in"The Wrestler" Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Wood  saving his intro of the star (not from Brooklyn), Mickey Rourke for last. You may have forgotten Rourke who has been on leave from acting, wrestling for some years. In his return to acting he is simply unforgettable as The Ram, a pro wrestler in his prime, now aging, vulnerable. Wrestling, as in Luche Libre, is theater, spectacle. From gig to gig, the Ram's bloodletting is worthy of Jacobean drama. I sat with my hands covering my eyes, even though Aronofsky, working with a fine script gives us quite a bit of the behind-the-action. But it all looks so real. The Ram with his six pack abs and blond mane is less Jake LaMotta and more Willy Loman on the waterfront, he's that much of a classic American anti-hero. Rourke should get an Academy Award for this role. Marissa Tomei plays a stripper/lap dancer with a proverbial heart of gold. I'm a mom, she tells Ram, even though we see her in her fishnet gloves, g-string uniform pole dancing, gyrating in crotch-revealing dips and plies. Reminiscent of her generous performance in last year's festival's excellent Sidney Lumet's "Before the Devil Know You're Dead," Tomei should earn a second Oscar. The stars joined Rachel Weisz,  Aronofsky's wife, and  Naomi Watts and  Liev Schreiber and many others for the after party at Josefina. Up close, you can still see the poet in Rourke's face. His performance as Bukowsky in "Barfly" was so long ago, he seems surprised when I tell him that; after all,  he's had  some reconstruction on his face. Itell him his performance was so powerful I was in there with him, especially in the film's final moment standing atop the ring's ropes. Laughing he said, I wish that was you. Ah, I say, but I know my limits.

       "The Wrestler" will be screened at the Hamptons International Film Festival this weekend

 

Regina Weinreich 

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

Catherine Deneuve Gets Political

Breaking news: Catherine Deneuve is now a brunette. But not too long ago when she was filming a movie now premiering at the New York Film Festival, "A Christmas Tale" she was still the blond we know andhave loved through decades of great movies: "Repulsion," "Belle de Jour," "The Last Metro," to name a few. Maybe those who saw the movie icon at the Metropolitan Pavilion on Friday afternoon at a vintage clothing sale quelled their suspicions, or did not recognize her atall because of the new do, but at a post screening dinner at the Osteria del Circo hosted by Blockbuster, she was seated at the end of a banquette with director Arnaud Desplechin, as beautiful as ever with brown hair. In Desplechin's richly drawn family story, she plays the matriarch Junon now needing a bone marrow transplant, to be donated by her least favorite son Henri (Mathieu Amalric, star of last year's festival hit, Julian Scnabel's Diving Bell and the Butterfly). The ensemble cast is excellent, especially Deneuve's real life daughter Chiara Mastroianni who plays Sylvia, married to one of Junon's sons, ex-girlfriend of another. This being a Christmas story after all, giving, donating are important themes and viewers will be moved by the immense caring conveyed in this 2 ½ hour epic. At the New York premiere on Friday night, many were speculating, is it a poster film for stem cell research, or, with its images of blood and body fluids under a microscope, a take on Schnabel's superb work. Feminist writer  Susan Brownmiller came by to say hello to Deneuve and gave her an Obama button. How did you know, said the suave Deneuve, not missing a beat.

Regina Weinreich 

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

Return of the War Room

 Bill Clinton's dalliance with Gennifer Flowers seems like ancient history, and guess what, it didn't stop his winning the 1992 presidential election. Last night at the Paley  Center, the Sundance Channel co-hosted a screening of "Return of the War Room" D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus's look back at their 1992 Academy Award nominated insider view of Clinton's presidential campaign, clips of Clinton and Flowers included. The not-to-be missed documentary, especially at this election time, will air on Sundance Channel on October 13 and will be featured at the Hamptons International Film Festival later in the week. Strategists James Carville and George Stepanopolous were the focus of the original, along with Dee Dee Myers, and in "Return of" they reflect upon those heady times. At the post-screening panel, New York Magazine film critic/moderator David Edelstein asked the panelists, Pennebaker, Hegedus, Myers, Carville, and Newsweek writer Mark Miller-- to comment upon the importance of the original War Room documentary. Carville said that the film peeled back the curtain and showed that campaigns are seat of pants efforts, run by human beings. Exuding pride at what he accomplished, Carville is grateful to have a film he will be able to show his grandchildren. As charismatic as Carville is, the surprise star of "Return of the War Room" is his wife Mary Matalin, who, many may recall was strategist for the opposition, "Pappy" Bush, at the same time the two were courting. Ah the days of integrity, when no one gave a thought that one would unwittingly leak information—you know, pillow talk—days of innocence, when Matalin dispatched journalists to find out if Carville was seeing someone else. Or how she took to losing—as Carville's mother came to visit, says Matalin, "Mother induced civility kept me from being mad forever." After the panel, Carville dashed off the the Plaza Athenee where a dinner was underway, joining Steven Soderbergh and Benicio del Toro for a celebration of the epic "Che," featured at the current New York Film Festival. It's a fictional account of a very different political hero.

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

Bill Maher Sees God

Erev Rosh Hashanah. Bill Maher greeted the luncheon crowd at the Brasserie Ruhlman: “We're all going to Hell.” Tell that to Debra Winger and Dr. Annette Insdorf, deep in discussion about synagogues. The Jewish holidays are about, among other things, casting off sins. The occasion was the opening of Maher's new movie, “Religulous,” an equal opportunity offender--that is, an often hilarious attempt to see the ironies, incongruities, and downright unbelievable stuff in a lot of religious dogma. Director Larry Charles of “Borat” fame said he wanted to make a Saturday night date movie, and “Religulous” is both entertaining and provocative, just like Maher, the Neal Cassady to his Kerouac on this road movie that travels to some key places: the Vatican, a Holy Land theme park in Florida where the stations of the cross are enacted several times a day by actors, the Dome of the Rock near the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, and Megiddo, the site of Armageddon. Born of a Jewish mother, Maher was brought up Catholic and so one point that seemed particularly difficult for him is the idea of the Virgin birth. Fortunately a very pregnant Caroline Rhea-she's due this month--brought her partner Costaki Economopoulos who was thrilled about becoming a father. Rhea began kibitzing with “The View”'s Joy Behar, and realizing that she may have gone too far, proclaimed, “It's the pregnancy. It's like truth serum.” Tell that to Sarah Palin's pregnant daughter. In fact, one of the points stressed in “Religulous” is how leaders use religion as a weapon for selfish agendas. Given the pre-election mood, Maher, on his television show, “Real Time with Bill Maher,” is particularly vocal proclaiming that Levi, the young man about to marry Palin's daughter is an endangered political prisoner. Hoping that he would be giving away some “Free Levi” tee shirts at the luncheon, I chatted with Maher, riffing on some of his outrageous bits, “Aren't you the guy at McCain Motors who is trying to sell me a lemon?” And given that the room was filled with comedians and humor writers, Steve Guttenberg, Bob Balaban, Gary Fisketjon, Oscar Hijuelos, Tama Janowitz, Nora Ephron, Janeane Garofalo, Tatum O'Neal, to name a mere few, the lunchKathleen Turner,eon was a lively event even as the markets plummeted.Debra Winger brought her stepson Sam who just completed a documentary with his brother Noah about drilling in N. Dakota-talk about timely topics. Let's hope that excellent in “Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” will be available for Edward Albee's new play this spring. Upon leaving, I had a revelation: uber party doyenne Peggy Siegal resembles Nora Ephron, if the hilarious author of “I Feel Bad About My Neck” were meticulously made up and coiffed.

Regina Weinreich 

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

Religulous (trailer)