Gossip Central

Oscar Night: Off Site Views

Awards fatigue was almost forgotten at the splendid Oscar festivities at Gilt at the Palace Hotel on Madison Avenue. Members of the American Academy of Motion Pictures who were not walking the red carpet at the Kodak Theater partied perfectly at home in New York, begowned and bejeweled, and if not surprised by the unfolding of honors for colleagues, sipped fine champagne and dined in celebration of the accolades their votes produced.

Movie legends Celeste Holm, Arlene Dahl, Shirley Knight, and Sylvia Miles escorted by painter Hunt Slonem, posed for photos and other film world notables: Mitchell Lichtenstein, Celia Weston, Courtney Hunt enjoyed specially created canapes: Mississippi style corn fritters a la The Blind Side, citrus-marinated yellowtail and blood orange ceviche for Inglourius Basterds-“served cold like revenge,” and matzo balls with chicken consommé for A Serious Man.

While the long telecast was a ceremonious end to the especially protracted award season, the results were remarkably predictable with wins for The Hurt Locker, Sandra Bullock, and so on. Actors Mo'Nique, Jeff Bridges, and Christoph Waltz won just about every important honor leading up to Oscars.  So, no surprise there.

The sheer poetry of Barbra Streisand's presenting to Kathryn Bigelow cannot be overlooked. Streisand's direction for Yentl (1963) and perhaps Prince of Tides (1991) should certainly have earned her Oscar distinction.

As to the one true surprise of the evening: Best Foreign Language Film was thought to be a battle between the Austrian The White Ribbon and French The Prophet. The Argentinian The Secret in their Eyes took home the statue. My spies, travelers in Argentina, emailed me that they were watching the ceremony at a modest Buenos Aires hotel, and there the locals partied proud.

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

 

Miscast at the MCC Gala

The Golden Globe winning actress for her role in the CBS series The Good Wife, Julianna Marguiles, was honored at the MCC gala on Monday night. M.C. Mo Rocca quipped, she was playing Silda Spitzer, Elizabeth Edwards, and other political wives scandalized by their husband's bad behavior. By the time I got to the Hammerstein Ballroom, her tv husband in question, Chris Noth, was getting a drink at the bar while a crowd pondered the silent action. 

Dinner may have been great, but the best was yet to come, an annual revue featuring Broadway stars performing roles they would never ever get to play. So, Sutton Foster (Thoroughly Modern Millie, Drowsy Chaperone, and Shrek) sang “Maria” from West Side Story, Marin Mazzie belted “Where is the Life That Late I Led,” and opera singer Dennis Miller vamped  “Memories” as Cats' Grizabella. You get the picture. 

But here was one act calculated to be hard to fathom: Montego Glover who is currently starring as a Memphis soul singer in the hit show Memphis put on a tallis (she says she got it at Barney's) and diddle-diddle-dummed as Tevya in Fiddler: “If I Were a Rich Man.” Zero Mostel may have been dancing on that roof. This powerhouse performance went through it. 

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

Oscar Watch: Documentaries

Non-fiction features, however entertaining, are traditionally not high on viewers’ radar, certainly not the most controversially debated at Oscar time as say “Avatar” vs. “The Hurt Locker,” even though what makes them strong may be controversial. This year “Food, Inc.” and “The Cove,” both Academy Award nominated, drove a heated debate on the ethics of what we eat. As one observer put it, sex used to fuel that kind of moral fervor. Today it is food But are we still talking about movies? Or good movie-making? So often documentaries are considered for the issues they raise, even by Oscar committees, rather than their art.

 

This year for non-fiction film honors, these fine works are joined by “Which Way Home,” a heart-wrenching view of Latin American boys hopping freight trains through Mexico to make it to the United States, “The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers,” on a politically volatile piece of US history, and “Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country,” a Danish film by Anders Ostergaard about the 2007 uprising in Myanmar.

 

What makes this last unusual in a field that can be a frontier for innovation is that it is shot through the cameras of the independent journalist group, Democratic Voice of Burma. In fact, the very act of documenting the oppression of citizens and Buddhist monks protesting the country’s oppressive regime that had held them hostage for 40 years, suppressing foreign news crews and even the internet, was a subversive act. The act of smuggling the devastating footage of 30 anonymous and underground video journalists risked torture and life imprisonment. The art of putting all this material together involved not only assembling the footage, but showing how the footage was acquired.

 

An audience including documentarians Albert Maysles and Robert Richter, and Julie Taymor, Jane Alexander, and Gay Talese joined director Anders Ostergaard for a special screening hosted by HBO Documentary Films and Oscilloscope at MoMA recently. At dinner at Osteria del Circo, many marveled at the ingenuity of the filmmaking. When asked whether he thought he would win the Oscar, Anders Ostergaard smiled and said, “Dead monks vs. dead dolphins,” referring to the subject of The Cove. “No, I don’t think so.”

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura 

The Real Estate of Happiness

That sexy gap-toothed self-help guru of the Middle Ages, Chaucer's Wife of Bath, in her own quest discovered that what women want most is self-rule. Now in the Age of Autonomy for women, a new book The Nine Rooms of Happiness suggests desire has shifted. 

As written by Self Magazine editor-in-chief Lucy Danziger informed by the clinical expertise of Dr. Catherine Birndorf, what women want most is more than the slimmest waistline, the hunkiest lover, the highest paycheck and other perks of a fabulous career! More than the big picture, it's the little things that count.

Using the conceit of a house, the authors move from room to room, from the basement clutter to attic heirlooms suggesting that cleaning up the mess is really inner housekeeping. And, anyway, the journey is a matter of recognition: you are probably happier than you think.

Perched on the stairs overlooking the dining area of the Monkey Bar, Danziger proclaimed, if she were ever bat mitzvahed, this was it. Celebrants including Charlie Rose, Dylan Lauren, Hoda Kotb, and Evelyn Lauder sipped sparkling wine and munched on shrimp and sliders and red velvet cupcakes looking happy indeed. 

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

The Art of the Steal

You will scream, “Highway robbery!” as it hits you that the villains in the provocative documentary, The Art of the Steal, to open this week--about the untoward fate of a very special painting and sculpture collection--are some of the most respected arts institutions in America. 

Albert C. Barnes' rise from the poorest slums of Philadelphia to developing an antiseptic drug and buying up with his fortune what is considered the best collection of post-impressionist-early modernist art is on the one hand the American Dream enacted, and on the other, in terms of how his will has been thwarted, a cynical view of how a man's legacy can be manipulated by the greedy and powerful. 

The film ably limns this history, most interestingly as it shows how Barnes' collection grew, defining what was “Barnes worthy”-any old Van Gogh would not do. This man had an extraordinary eye, amassing what is now deemed the work of great masters; moreover, in 1922, he displayed the collection in unusual arrangements in the rooms of a house in suburban Merion, Pa, not far enough away from Philadelphia arts society. Matisse is said to have thought the Barnes Foundation the best place to see art.  

Barnes was as deliberate about his wishes for the collection after his death and planned his estate stipulating that the foundation remain open for educational purposes only, that the collection not tour, and most important, remain intact as is.

Trouble arises soon after Barnes died in a car accident; various factions vie for control of the prestigious and rich collection. The film thrillingly shows how key personnel disregard Barnes' intentions. Through a court system as addled as Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce, Barnes' advocates attempt to keep the collection where it is, as institutions like the Pew Charitable Trust seek to administer this art cache now worth an estimated $25 billion. 

You wish to hear how respected museums justify their appropriation, but few agreed to be interviewed.  You wish for justice, that somehow this documentary might have the Errol Morris effect, changing its future: that somehow the dismantling and moving of this valuable collection will not occur, even as construction of a new building on Philadelphia's Benjamin Franklin Parkway is now underway.

The film's premiere last week, appropriately at MoMA and with an afterparty at the midtown Haunch of Venison gallery, with its views overlooking Manhattan was attended by arts and film mavens: Lola Schnabel, Stella Schnabel, Michael Stuhlbarg , Barbara Kopple, Albert Maysles and John McEnroe. Some frustration set in as the filmmakers, director Don Argott, producer Sheena Joyce, and executive producer Lenny Feinberg fielded criticism for not having interviewed the right people. 

Arts journalist David D'Arcy who appears in the film predicts the worst is yet to come for the Barnes collection: some paintings will have to be sold, enacting Albert C. Barnes' worst nightmare.

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

Love, Loss, for the next generation

When I was a little girl, my mother used to make my clothes; all I wanted was store-bought dresses. Today, I am convinced I can do anything, as long as I am wearing the right outfit. When my daughter was a little girl, I shopped for her at Bendel's. Today, no matter what occasion, she wears Casual Friday. This welter of memories came up at the Westside Theatre, after seeing a production of “Love, Loss, and What I Wore” last month, and so I wanted to see it again, this time with my daughter. 

As the five actresses of “Love Loss and What I Wore” meticulously lay out every meaningful bit of wardrobe-the Brownie uniform, the prom frock, the two dresses daddy bought before he left for good, the push up bra, the purse, the bathrobe-the words exert the power of Proust's madeleine for me. My daughter thinks, fascinating, but that's so yesterday, but then as this play sneakily offers a trip down memory lane for all, some lines resonate: “No I can't return it because I bought it on sale.” She wonders, are the younger actors as obsessed with clothes as her mom's generation?

And so as the play's new cast, formidable and funny, comprised of Carol Kane, Janeane Garofalo, Joanna Gleason, Caroline Rhea, and June Diane Raphael, a requisite mix of young and old and different body types, took off their black and joined the celebration at Marseilles, she could see that Janeane Girafola had removed her sequins in favor of a dark cotton tee shirt and jeans, and still looked somewhat subversive.

For me Caroline Rhea is a hilarious stand up comic on Comedy Central; my daughter knows her as one of the aunts from Sabrina, The Teen Aged Witch, and could pick out the television show's star Melissa Joan Hart at the party, a reassuring piece of her childhood. 

“Love, Loss”'s Gingy is based upon the true-life character created by Ilene Beckerman who, in a style I'll call gypsy chic-bandanna, long skirt-- told me she has seen the play with its rotating cast fifteen times. Loving the way each actress brings something new to her role, she pointed out, “This is not real life. Real life is home in New Jersey, with the house, the problems, the grandkids.”

Delia Ephron, who co wrote the clever script with her sister Nora Ephron, has recently completed a book, titled "The Girl with the Mermaid Hair," about daughters dealing with their mother's plastic surgery. They are struggling with self-image in a way that “Love, Loss, and What I Wore” only begins to define. This Pandora's box may require more than “Love, Loss”'s cathartic laughs.

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s Genes

Opening his 1955 novel Lolita, Nabokov's narrator Humbert Humbert describes himself as “a salad of racial genes.” In hindsight, and based upon Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s new PBS series, Faces in America--to air on Wednesdays, February 10 through March 3--perhaps the novelist was being less metaphoric and more real than he imagined. 

At Jazz at Lincoln Center's Rose Room, with city views stretching east along Central Park South, one episode of the four-part series called “Know Thyself” was screened on Monday for a crowd that included Brian Williams, Lynn Nesbit, S. Epatha Merkerson, David Remnick, McGee Hickey, and Henry Louis Gates, Sr.

Harry Evans asked before Tina Brown could stop him, had I spit into a cup? Was my DNA tested? The night proceeded like something of a parlor trick with Gates a charming host. Guess who is related to whom. 

Believing that the triumph of American democracy is its melting pot, its immigrants, diversity, and genetic ancestry, Gates has been busy tracing the genes of some prominent Americans, among them Mario Batali, Eva Longoria and Yo-Yo Ma.

Here is what we found out both onscreen and off: Poet Elizabeth Alexander is descended from Charlemagne. With his Russian Jewish ancestry film director Mike Nichols is related to the heart surgeon/ tv host, Dr. Mehmet Oz, a Muslim Turk. 

Upon discovering that he and Gates had genetic material in common, Regis Philbin said gamely, “I am honored. There is no one in my family who even went to Harvard.” And, how in the world do I explain this to Kelly Ripa? Lots of luck, Reeg. 

Despite scientific experts participating in this captivating study, the significance of this material will bemuse skeptics. Meryl Streep illustrated her diabolical sense of irony when asked how the discovery of her ancestors going back several centuries made her feel: more important than I already am, she quipped rolling her eyes. 

Gates pointed out that the results prove no matter what was going on throughout human history as regards race, class, ethnicity, once the lights were down, everyone was sleeping with everyone else. That said, here is no surprise: Hollywood Reporter's celebrity columnist Roger Friedman is genetically joined, an “autosomal” cousin, to gossip doyenne Cindy Adams.

It's a small world after all.

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

Claire Danes as Temple Grandin: Anticipating Awards

You may have seen the billboards over the Long Island Expressway: Claire Danes as you've never seen her, in a juvenile retro curls with eyes staring out as wide as saucers. In the role of the autistic, gruff voiced writer, educator, scientist, inventor, and consultant to the livestock industry on animal behavior Temple Grandin, she is as unglamorous as a glamorous movie star can be. 

At the premiere of this HBO movie this week, to air on February 6, her tresses sleeked and wearing a satin trench, Danes took praise for her outstanding performance in stride, chatting with Jessica Lange, Marlo Thomas, Debby Harry, Narcisco Rodrigez, Cynthia Nixon, the Culkin brothers, Kieran and Macauley. Her husband Hugh Dancy was just a few blocks away, rehearsing his new play, the MCC production of “The Pride.” Also present for the screening and fine Italian dinner at A Voce: cast members Catherine O'Hara and David Strathairn, as well as Temple Grandin and her mother Eustacia Cutler. 

Subtitled “Thinking in Pictures,” the film shines a light on autism in its successful efforts to put you inside Temple Grandin's head, to see her thinking process, so that you actually understand where her seemingly erratic behavior comes from. Think of Dustin Hoffman's star turn in Rain Man. Only here, several damaging myths about autism are dispelled in the depiction of the remarkable relationship of Grandin with her mother, a woman so strong she refused to institutionalize Temple, who was still not speaking at 4.

The movie is a nine-year in the making passion project for producer Emily Gerson Saines, who has an autistic son.

Just before the fine Italian dinner at A Voce, in the Ladies Room, Eustacia was having a tete a tete with Julia Ormond, who portrays her so well in the movie, about the liberties taken with the mother-daughter story for the sake of the drama. “You have to make a story, otherwise you don't tell anything,” Cutler said wisely.

Because Temple Grandin is now famous for her work in the humane handling of cattle slaughter, many anti-meat advocates will find this film controversial.

Temple Grandin, wearing a snazzy cowboy shirt, has her own look. She had given Danes some tapes to help her prepare for this role; the two had spent a day together. She beamed pleasure at the actress's incarnation of herself. “Everyone else was just acting,” she told me, “but Danes was me. And yes, I eat meat.”

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

Golden Globes for Beginners

Woody Harrelson was right. Christoph Waltz did in fact win the Best Supporting Actor Globe, and sat exultant at the Weinstein Company's afterparty at the Beverly Hilton Hotel's Bar 210 and Blush Ultra Lounge (formerly Trader Vic's) with his wife Judith and friends. Close by Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban occupied a banquette. 

Also present: Carey Mulligan and her look-alike mom seemed unfazed by the rain that threatened to leave teardrop markings on silk chiffon, and happy that Sandra Bullock took home the statue for Best Actress/drama. Gracious and aware that she will have her time, Carey was genuine in her appreciation.

With televised replay of the ceremony, the party which also celebrated Belstaff, the Italian men's fashion line that designed looks for Nine and Inglorious Basterds, featured an Asian style menu, Martini &Rossi cocktails, and almond studded Haagen Daz ice cream pops. No one should go hungry, especially after all those speeches.

By the time we got to the tented outdoor patio, we could see Tom Ford and Julianne Moore ducking out through an emergency exit under a much-needed accessory: an umbrella. That may have been a theme for celebrities: red carpet, ceremony, party, and escape.

Said to be the best for parties of all the awards, for Golden Globe novices, the Beverly Hilton is divided up into party areas, with Globes winners getting extra carpet time at individual studio affairs: HBO, In Style. The Cartier sponsored NBC-Universal affair was a rooftop extravaganza. While not encouraged, party hopping keeps everyone on the move, and hotel corridors provide their own amusements.

Outside the ballroom, a parade: Sophia Loren, Mo'Nique, Toni Collette, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Bacon. An aide assisted Kyra Sedgwick with a wayward sash. Sandra Bullock swished by splendid in her purple Bottega Veneta. Quentin Tarantino who speaks in only one mode, passionate, gesticulated wildly button holing a rapt Peter Sarsgaard and Maggie Gyllenhaal, about his favorite moment in Lone Scherfig's An Education, a personal favorite that will sure be listed among the Oscar's Nominated 10. 

Uber-stylist Rachel Zoe in a black and silver scallop motif tiered number posed for photos. She had expertly put together Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Garner, and Kate Hudson for the evening, each one weatherproof, durable and gorgeous.

TV/ Actor/ Drama winner for Showtime's Dexter, Michael C. Hall let me hold his Golden Globe, and it was heavy.

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

Anticipating the Golden Globes

By the time Woody Harrelson arrived at the Chateau Marmont penthouse, the party hosted by The New York Times Style Magazine-with editors Gerald Marzorati and Stefano Tonchi, writer Lynn Hirschberg, hotelier Anton Balazs--was well underway. A Peggy Siegal event in the tradition of her most astounding soirees, this one featured a famed terrace chockablock with legends: Joan Collins Jane Fonda, a nd Shirley MacLaine. Jane Seymour joined them for a photo. Dom Perignon champagne, vintage 2000, flowed. Did Woody, a star of the movie The Messenger, think he would win a best actor award? No, without hesitation he said, “That prize belongs to only one man: Christoph Waltz, and he's brilliant.” Across the room, a Hollywood Who's Who, the Austrian actor seemed poised for his close up.

The stars arrived in enclaves: A Single Man's Tom Ford with Julianne Moore clad in red. Claire Danes with pal Mamie Gummer, A Serious Man's Michael Stuhlbarg stood near Amy Landecker, Marisa Tomei, Bob Balaban, Carla Guigino, Chloe Sevigny, Dana Delaney, Jena Malone, Elizabeth Banks, Lindsay Lohan, Quentin Tarantino with Waltz, more directors Oren Moverman, Sofia Coppola, Oliver Stone who recently finished directing Carey Mulligan in Wall Street II. Nailing a coquettish Audrey Hepburn persona perfectly in An Education, the young star had her mother in tow. Tom Cruise held court inside near the bar. Katie Holmes really is taller, and while I wanted to know whether she truly embraced Scientology, this was not the place.

But back to Woody who was wearing a hat, to paraphrase a Kerouac haiku, that wasn't on his head. His Messenger co-star Ben Foster kept grabbing it claiming the pork pie shaped topper was his, and explained their comic symbiosis. They were doing a Laurel and Hardy routine in the crowded space as if no one else was there.

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura