recent posts

about: Regina Weinreich

  • Julianne Moore: Jesse Eisenberg’s Muse in The Debut

    A highlight at the New York Film Festival, Jesse Eisenberg’s latest film, THE DEBUT, pays homage to community theater as the nurturing home of many a Broadway musical. THE DEBUT stars one bona fide Broadway legend—that is, Bernadette Peters—who plays a “legend” who “does not age” named Serena Cherry. She would be the “super,” Miss Danielle, in the fictive musical “Nosy Neighbors” about an average, everyday apartment building. When Serena quits because the role is too small, the part falls to Mona Friedman, a mousy, homemaker with little going on in her suburban life. A mother to entitled teens, a wife to a man who ignores her, she is not heard. Until now.

    Hard to think of Julianne Moore as fading into the woodwork, but here, in her sweater sets and blown out coif, she’s no match for the colorful drama queens already cast by director Jerry, the formidable Paul Giamatti.

    Eisenberg wrote “Mona” for Julienne Moore who insisted: she had to sing, she would not play a “mother,” (at least not a typical one), she would be silly. At the New York Film Festival Q&A, Moore called herself Jesse’s avatar. And as a person who is looking for her next moment, Mona goes from novice to good enough, not the mega talent of Bernadette Peters, or Halle Bailey who stars in the “Nosy Neighbors” meta-musical, but just enough to keep her dreams real. Veering off-script, Miss Danielle steals the show within the show.

    As Paul Giamatti plays an Oz-like figure, the director of the musical at the smalltown Brooks theater, he lends the movie gravitas, a wistful desire to be center stage, a wisdom to guide his cast to opening night. Eisenberg soft shoes his acting chops as a tenant with a stopped toilet, and ceased personal plumbing—wink, wink. The credits roll as Sondheim’s “Broadway Baby” is heard. Otherwise, songs are credited to Eisenberg. He nails it in this, his third feature.

    Why did everyone want to be in this movie? The script. The writing is so good, even Lin Manuel Miranda is paying attention, inviting Eisenberg to his home in Washington Heights. What might they be cooking up? He would not say at the premiere pre-party at Brasserie Boulud. You may see THE DEBUT as an homage to Woody Allen–cue BROADWAY DANNY ROSE—well, Jesse Eisenberg’s hush about that too.

  • Scarlett Johansson in Paper Tiger: New York Film Festival Opening Night/ Mile Leigh’s Tender Loving Care

    Alice Tully Hall abuzz. Thousands attend the opening night film in several Lincoln Center venues. The film PAPER TIGER is James Gray’s take on the story of two brothers from Queens in the ‘80’s who get involved with the Russian mob. Of course, that story can’t end well. But the film does. As does the night with an impending Nor’easter threatening the city and the partying mood at Tavern on the Green. 

    In a Q&A with Dennis Lim, James Gray talked about elements taken from childhood in the boroughs. That ethos permeates: the cars, the kitchen décor, the Queens house, a single-family house with bedrooms upstairs. The Pearl brothers, Gary (Adam Driver) and Irwin (Miles Teller) sport the slick or hairy male hairdos of the times, and Hester’s (Scarlett Johansson), blond curls must be set at night. When asked how she prepared for the role of Hester, she replied, “I was thinking about that generation of women, how they were taught to be second to their husbands.” Hester has a distinct story line of her own, one that is open at the end. Gray said he likes to think the movie keeps evolving.

    The guys skipped the after party, but everyone else crowded into Tavern on the Green for a seafood extravaganza. Piles of lobster, crab salad, oysters. The biggest night for film on the East Coast was less about the glamor and more about movie talk.

    By the time Mike Leigh’s movie premiered several days later, the Nor’easter had devolved into a pissing rain. TENDER LOVING CARE is about aging, but not in a conventional way. It’s more about how people care for one another, in families, and professionally; Amy (Kate O’Flynn) and Rosie (Alice Bailey Johnson) work in this thankless job even when we know how essential this work is for society. We glimpse them as they are essentially told to fuck off by the curmudgeonly folk who could use the care most. We glimpse them as they endure life’s challenges, guzzling wine as their romantic lives fizzle. 

    The cast and crew who accompanied Leigh laughed to say they never know the film’s title. Leigh seemed to have settled on this one, and indicated this might be his last. By the time we got to Brasserie Boulud for a swank after party, Leigh was deep in talk with Wallace Shawn. Marion Bailey, who has been in eight of Mike Leigh’s films summed up the importance of being in this festival in New York in this moment. “I suddenly had a sense of awe as I realized that Alice Tully Hall would be the largest screen with the biggest audience where I would ever see our little film.”

  • KNIFE: THE ATTEMPTED MURDER OF SALMAN RUSHDIE PREMIERES

    Salman Rushdie DAVE BENETT/GETTY IMAGES

    Before Larry David made the fatwa against Salman Rushdie a joke, it was no joke. Going back to the 1980’s, the author had published a novel, The Satanic Verses, that famously became the cause for a call to Rushdie’s death. For the world, the fatwa was an irrational response by the supreme leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a misreading of Rushdie’s imagining the prophet Mohammed as a secular man. Even without reading the book, all of Islam was bid to carry out a punishment by death of the author. 

    To survive, Rushdie was moved from safe house to house for years. Public appearances were risky, but he took them in an attempt to maintain a fear-defying life. Publishers, translators, bookstore proprietors were threatened, some killed. Then, the fatwa was lifted, and still, in 2022, a young brainwashed zealot from New Jersey arrived at a reading at Chautauqua, storming the stage with a knife, stabbing multiple times, taking out one of Rushdie’s eyes. 

    At that, he was lucky to be alive and tell the tale which he did in a book called Knife. His wife, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, the author’s fifth, had filmed his medical ordeal and interviewed filmmakers to put a proper narrative documentary together. After a screening this week, at an afterparty at Barbuto, she said, after meeting the Academy Award winning documentarian Alex Gibney, they wanted him to do the job.

    Laced with Salman Rushdie’s reading from Knife, and Griffiths’ footage, KNIFE: THE ATTEMPTED MURDER OF SALMAN RUSHDIE, does not shy away from the grim bloody mess of Salman’s eye. While they do not forgive the deed, the young man, Hadi Matar, is viewed as a victim of blind indoctrination, now incarcerated for life.

    As to Gibney, a master filmmaker, this was all in a day’s work. Next up, his long awaited, 4 hour  film on Elon Musk.

  • Celebrating Allen Ginsberg, Rock Star

    “Allen always wanted to be a rock star,” said Peter Hale at Little Island where the poet’s centennial year was feted in rock style, his words transformed into music just as he would have wanted. I thought back to a time when at St. Mark’s Church Allen sang his work accompanied by his harmonium while Lou Reed read poems. Now Lou’s widow, the formidable Laurie Anderson accompanying herself on a violin, read. 

    The 5-day program, curated by Thomas Bartlett, included Rufus Wainwright, Gina Gershon, Anne Waldman, and Jennifer Charles for girl power, Taylor Mac and many others. Allen’s loving spirit was conjured in this beautiful setting. Little Annie recited his “Father Death,” while novelist Michael Cunningham read a version of “Wichita Vortex Sutra.” Allen was remembered through his poetry with a nod to his politics as Waldman recalled going to jail with him for protesting at a nuclear facility. Gina Gershon rocked out accompanying herself, twanging on mouth harp.

    Allen was everywhere, including in a Netflix celebration of Bob Dylan in little known performance footage at the Paris Theater. He’s hanging out in a Paris alley behind Dylan, in D. A. Pennebaker’s Don’t Look Back. Dylan’s greatest hits—the list is long but Isis was particularly great. Guitarist Bill Frisell spoke about Dylan’s influence, and performed. He told me he was brought together with Allen by Hal Willner. 

    Elvis Costello was in the room.

  • Marisa Tomei and Matthew Broderick at Guild Hall: The Plight of an Upper West Side Arts Space Gives A-List Actors The Big Chill

    What I remember most about the 1982 landmark film THE BIG CHILL is Glenn Close and Kevin Kline hip bumping in the kitchen to a Motown track. Now this post-hippie Baby Boomer movie is coming to East Hampton’s Guild Hall for a staged reading on August 31; the pricy ticket is set to benefit the West Park Presbyterian Church on 86th Street and Broadway, a community arts space now emptied awaiting its fate. 

    Featuring an all-star cast, Marisa Tomei, Matthew Broderick, Ayo Edebiri, Amy Brenneman, Spencer Garrett, Brian d’Arcy James, Ilana Levine, J. Cameron Smith, Josh Hamilton, and NYC Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams, under David Saint’s direction, the performance follows a series of such events including last year’s staged reading of ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN, and like that spectacular night that also included journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein for a heady discussion of media as an endangered species, THE BIG CHILL’s themes resonate for this current moment. 

    Only JoBeth Williams, from the original movie, will attend.

    Debby Hirshman, Executive Director of the Center at West Park, explained why actors such as Amy Brenneman would travel from Martha’s Vineyard to take part for no pay—emphasizing, many more wanted to come. They all remember when they were young actors, looking to nurture their talents, looking for affordable places to work, to be seen and encouraged. 

    Director David Saint recalls studying with Uta Hagen alongside Matthew Broderick, learning craft, starting out. THE BIG CHILL will be for audiences a proverbial trip down memory lane. Nostalgia for the ideals of youth forms a potent backstory. Lawrence Kashdan’s script brings together for a weekend a group of successful people, former classmates at an affluent college to mourn their friend who had died by suicide. Now having “made it,” a question arises: did they compromise the ideals of their youth? Active in the ‘70’s, to what extent had they squelched early fires as they succeeded in their various careers, relationships, and lives? “How do we accept success without changing our ideals,” asks David Saint, looking at the parallels, noting 15 years ago we were in the Obama era: “History repeats itself.” 

    CNN’s Dana Bash will moderate the post-screening Q&A.

    The historic church was where Joe Papp incubated his ideas about the Public Theater, where today community can come together to inspire young artists, playwrights, dancers, and actors like those who will grace the Guild Hall stage. Landmarked, the brick church with its stained glass, and period detail, should of course be protected from the developers who want to strip the space from its history to some commercial city tower. All of these protections are threatened, Mark Ruffalo who along with playwright Kenneth Lonergan originated the special benefit series, had said last year in an impassioned speech about why they have gathered an army of celebrities to fight against the crass cruelty of our current political moment.

  • Raul Esparza and Lily Rabe in The Winter’s Tale: Wet in Central Park

    Raúl Esparza, left, as Leontes and Lily Rabe as Hermione in “The Winter’s Tale” at the Delacorte Theater in Manhattan. Credit: Sara Krulwich / The New York Times Alexis Soloski

    Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, one of the bard’s problem plays with its themes of wrong-headed leadership and outright cruelty, may not seem a likely crowd pleaser. The nod to our current political drama may inflame some. In the play, King Leontes’ (Raul Esparza) jealous rage leads to the deaths of his young son, his wife Hermoine (Lily Rabe), and her newborn baby. Here is a king who ignores good counsel and his fate as foretold by Apollo’s oracle. By the end of the first act: he deserves to suffer.

    The night I saw it, the audience suffered too. This being Shakespeare in the Park, a literal gift to audiences who can see state-of-the-art bard for free, the elements may be at issue for players and viewers alike. If the evening starts with a drizzle, the play must go on. Umbrellas down, unless you are covered in plastic, you may be drenched, wondering, is the pure joy of seeing extraordinary actors shine speaking Shakespeare’s words worth it?

    The Public theater personnel extended the intermission in order to sponge the stage. Was it a sign? More drama: would the play go on? Everyone cheered that it would even though at this point the evening would extend past midnight.

    The Winter’s Tale is yin and yang; extreme darkness before the break contrasts with a beautiful, joyous pastoral for the second act, and the crashing together of the two worlds. This play offers extreme comedy, tragedy and romance all in one work–conveying a transcendent—and supernatural– plot. Under Daniel Sullivan’s excellent direction, the ensemble shines even under clouds. In the end and without spoilers, the play exemplifies compassion, redemption, and humanity for which the bard is celebrated. Live Shakespeare is a rich experience. The weather is less forgiving.

  • Authors Night in East Hampton: If it’s Not One Thing It’s Your Mother 

    From heady intellectual tomes to celebrity memoirs to tarot cards, Authors Night, a yearly event to benefit the East Hampton Library,  features books of all forms and depths. Regulars to the tables with books sky high include Robert Caro, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Beth Stern, Don Lemon, Jay McInerny. The fun is seeing the piles dwindle down. 

    This week, Norah Lawlor’s Mom’s Book of Wisdom was a hot ticket. A compendium of quotations, “timeless advice from my mother to yours,” sold out in the hundreds with buyers asking for advice on troubles with wayward teens and toddlers alike. Lawlor, a PR expert, may have to rebrand as a self-help guru.

    A history of tarot linking the art to movements going back to ancient times now at the Morgan Library raises the profile of a form that can seem woowoo to some. Monty Farber and Amy Zerner reissued their best-seller, The Enchanted Tarot, a gorgeous box featuring the wisdom of the stars and a tarot deck—now in its 35th Anniversary issue. Amy’s art for each card creates a magical kingdom of color and design. Monty’s words often smack with wisdom.

    Bobbi Brown, rebranded as Jones Road, added a touch of the department store beauty counter complete with color application. Lip glosses and shadows in muted tones were sampled by book buyers as Brown herself looked on. As the heat in the tent threatened everyone’s look, this display offered a good way to freshen up. 

    Journalist David Margolick’s newest book When Caesar was King, illuminates Sid Caesar’s redefinition of American comedy. Gayle Feldman’s excellent biography of television personality and Random House publisher Bennett Cerf, Nothing Random, hearkens back to the days when writers were kings. His authors, from Gertrude Stein to Ayn Rand were well known in their time under his savvy guidance. Every writer, every publication had a story. The industry has changed dramatically from that heady era. Yet, at least under this Authors Night tent, a great showcase for the written word, the books remain.

  • Documentaries: Jocelyn Wildenstein The Lion Queen/ Tovah: How Jewish is It? 

    Many people have “work done.” But if you remember the tabloids, Jocelyn Wildenstein was a cut above–all puns intended. Besotted by the idea of beautifying herself in the manner of her favorite African wild cats—think puma, she “did” herself to the point where many considered her a freak. Yes, we all know the faces that cannot move, the sausage lips, the cheeks burnished as a baby’s tush, but

    Wildenstein had a specific feline aesthetic that screamed surreal. Seeing photos in the papers, many felt sorry for her mistake, knives out gone wrong. What we learn from the documentary, a soon-to-air Netflix film, THE LION QUEEN, she liked it that way, and there is so much more to her story: Jewish Nazi enablers. Philandering husbands. Unimaginable wealth. The international artmarket. Scandal upon scandal. If you see a gun . . .

    A Summerdoc selection, THE LION QUEEN preview screening at Guild Hall, HamptonFilm Chief Creative Officer David Nugent and HamptonsFilm Co-Chair Alec Baldwin led a Q&A with the filmmakers. The audience included artist Almond Zigmund who did the poster for the coming Hamptons International Film Festival. 

    LION QUEEN director Alden Nusser, as a video store clerk became obsessed and asked to deliver Jocelyn Wildenstein’s VHSs to her townhouse. This charming up-close-and-personal origin story inspires empathy. In the film, downtown types like Michael Musto weigh in, “She’s just like us.” Without a sense of irony, Alec Baldwin reminded everyone that back in Jocelyn Wildenstein’s day, gossip columnists were deemed the lowest form of journalist.

    By contrast, the documentary TOVAH celebrating the legendary Broadway, film, and television star Tovah Feldshuh illuminates a five-decade career in show business. Says Tovah, “The reason I get work is because I can still move my face.” Indeed, she can, and does—playing the Ruths, Dr. and Bader Ginsburg, Golda Meir, among many other historic figures. Often cast as a Jewish mother, even Oscar Isaac, speaking about working together in “Portrait of a Marriage,” called her “Eema,” the Hebrew word for mother, while Julie Benko in the role of Fannie Brice in “Funny Girl” speaks about her nurturing presence, playing her mother. Having seen several performances of the recent revival, I can attest: Tovah, taught excellence by her parents as she describes her upbringing in the memoir, Lilyville, she’s the quintessential Jewish mother; nobody does it better. 

    Meantime, director David Serero, introducing the documentary TOVAH at Guild Hall this week, was a Borscht Belt comic with a Parisian accent pacing the stage, poking fun at the East Hampton audience in Yiddish. With impeccable comic timing, Tovah put him in his place, reminding him, “This is WASP country.” In a good way.

  • Hamptons Journal: John Waters at Guild Hall: “Gay is not Enough” / “Cagney” at Bay Street/ “Signs” at the Bridgehampton Museum Tractor Barn

    Image by: instagram.com/jachristian/ – Jessica Christian

    Self-dubbed “The Pope of Trash,” John Waters, off-color, rude, hilarious, and gay, wants you to know he’s providing a religious experience. At East Hampton’s Guild Hall, where you might think this subversive humor would not fly, Waters was greeted with loud guffaws and questions that let on, this was a room full of fans.

    When asked by Andrea Grover, Executive Director, how with such “depraved” films as PINK FLAMINGOS and its sequel, DESPERATE LIVING, his brand featuring trans icons such as Divine eating her dog’s shit—we are going back to the ‘60’s, –Waters responded, “I’m not mean.” That’s a sermon in itself. When asked how he directed Divine just prior to this unforgettable, squirm-worthy scene, he replied, “I called Action.”

    Of course, with HAIRSPRAY, the man who put Baltimore on the map, crossed over to mainstream, the hit film inspiring a hit Broadway musical. In a bit of genius programming, a few weeks earlier in the summer, Guild Hall had composer Marc Shaiman signing his new memoir, shared the Waters’ hits’ backstory. Performers wowed the crowd on, “You Can’t Stop the Beat.” 

    Gay takes on old-school meaning—as in gaeiety– with Cagney, a musical revived at Bay Street Theater. The actor James Cagney, star of many a classic noir, gangster flick really wanted to hoof it. The play hearkens back to the age when Hollywood studios determined creative paths. Pegged to play brooding roles, Cagney wanted to dance. Featuring a superb ensemble, including Melissa Manchester as Cagney’s doting mom, the musical climaxes with “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” as you would expect, with great tap work throughout.

    The Accabonac Theater Project production of Jonathan Shoemaker’s Signs, set in Springs, speaks to the assumptions we all make across class and political lines. A young couple (Tracey Toomey McQuade and Nick Gregory) have a beef with the red signs displayed on the lawn next door. By the time the proud Bonacker (Loudon Wainwright III) steps on stage, you may be convinced he’s following a dumb party path. He invites his new neighbors to dinner and from the Barolo he serves to his knowledge of art—this is, after all, Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner country—he is not what you think, nor is the high-minded couple. In the end, Signs is a reminder of nuance, which requires neighborly collaboration and thoughtful compassion. 

  • Brandi Carlile Giving Her Fans What They Want at the Montauk Lighthouse

    No opening act, just Brandi Carlile and co. at the Montauk Lighthouse this week, after a brief, unnecessary biographical intro by Katie Couric. A fan fest for Carlile, this event to benefit the landmark East End structure was attended by Carlile enthusiasts and aficionados. Some have already scheduled for the singer’s tour, for Florida, for Colorado, wherever she takes them. This was the crowd at the Montauk Lighthouse under stars and accompanied by the sound of the sea.

    From her new album, Returning to Myself, she sang the title song with its refrain, “It’s the only thing to do,” channeling Joni Mitchell with whom she collaborated. As one fan told me on the port-o-potty line, “That’s just her thing. She honors the women vocalists and song writers before her, Tanya Tucker, Bonnie Raitt. But in the end, she makes it her own.” She sang, “I Can’t Make You Love Me.”

    And it’s not only women. She loves Elton John. She shouted out to Chad Smith who worked on the album she made with the Rocket Man, and sang, “Who believes in angels anyway?”

    Wearing a shirt especially purchased for this gig, with a lighthouse on its back before she called out for a jacket as the night air cooled—well, you all know there’s a lighthouse on my back, she sang about her British partner, who could be condescending, she quipped: “Sometimes you meet a woman overseas and sometimes a woman oversees.” She sang about being a mother to Evangeline and Elijah, dressed up in blue, who were enjoying the music and the slopy venue outside the historic lighthouse monument. It was the perfect night down to her twin sidemen Tim and Phil Hanseroth doing “Sounds of Silence” with Brandi Carlile swooning behind them as they serenaded her and us. 

    She had us in the proverbial palm of her hands. She knows her people. And for a good part of this generous performance asked for requests that came like clockwork: such as “Dyin’ Day.” I especially loved her take on motherhood, cherishing the moments of separation that lead to their ultimate growing up and away: “You Without Me,” “Welcome to the End of Me/ I Am the Mother of Evangeline.” Brandi Carlile may be as much beloved for the wisdom she brings: “Time makes every one of us an absolute cliché.”

    She said the thing she wanted to see most in New York was a cockroach, and she did, suggesting the fleabag hotel of her first arrival. LOL. Time may have passed since then but nothing about her feels tired. 

  • Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey: When Is a Horse Not an Animal?

    Tom Holland, Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Zendaya. ‘The Odyssey.’ Melinda Sue Gordon/UNIVERSAL

    Why adapt Homer’s Odyssey in this time? One of the most well-known epics still taught in grade school, The Odyssey yields the two most significant motifs in all story-telling: the journey—even the journey home (cue: Dorothy, ET) and the more complicated, the relationship of fathers and sons (even in Kerouac’s words, “the father we never found”). Gods, are you listening?

    Through Christopher Nolan’s lens—in the very first film shot in IMAX—signaling bigness on a vast canvas, Nolan’s THE ODYSSEY stays true to the classic vision while embodying cinematic epic dimension. 

    Christopher Nolan relies on the classic, alive for thousands of years, for the most inventive, vivid characters, in action, and in narrative structure. Homer’s epic starts “In medias res,” in the middle of things. Taking that story-telling strategy, Nolan begins with that Horse’s presence—and what a HORSE!—with Odysseus and his men packed inside, a weighty gift from the gods—but no, the subterfuge used to win the Trojan War, a war launched by Agamemnon—a war waged for vanity, to retrieve Helen—“the face that launched a thousand ships”—in Yeats’ words, by a leader to whom Odysseus, our loyal hero, cannot say no.

    In Homer, Odysseus—Matt Damon plays the movie hero, a smart, fallible, and great Everyman–is swept into the chaos of the sea by its God Poseidon, made to wander through adventures galore, while still yearning for home in Ithaca, and Penelope (a stunning performance by Anne Hathaway), the image of the faithful wife. Along the way he encounters characters, standout roles for Zendaya, Samantha Morton, Charlize Theron and Bill Irwin. John Leguizamo deserves mention as the loyal servant, Eumaeus.

    By contrast, Agamemnon (Benny Safdie) returns home to his Clytemnestra (Lupita Nyong’o), now with another man, plotting his murder. Yes, in this tale of love and marriage, we see Odysseus and Penelope in bed in a flashback and see fully how much of a couple they are. When speaking through a screen upon his return, she and her husband now disguised as a beggar enjoy no less than a thoroughly satisfying intimacy.

    Nolan weaves the narratives differently, but takes Homer’s cues to full effect, using the images of the horse that contained enemy warriors for continuity and to remind the viewer that bad leadership leads to bad consequences. As to succession, that cannot be left in unworthy hands—as in the free-loading, ne’er-do-well suitors led by Antinous (Robert Pattinson, deliciously evil). In his quest to find his father, Telemachus (a fine, fresh-faced Tom Holland) must achieve the manhood that is his legacy. 

    The Trojan Horse remains a symbol of betrayal and a foolish call to war. I’ve heard that a horse was parked in front of a Manhattan theater for the premiere, and that Nolan actually filmed the interior with his actors crammed shoulder to shoulder. I saw the film at the newly redone Southampton Playhouse, fitted with a state-of-the-art IMAX screen, clutching a bucket of buttered popcorn, feeling the exteriors of the sea and the interiors of Ithaca. In this superior movie house, I was home.

  • Julian Schnabel on In the Hand of Dante: “I Work Without a Net” 

    Based on the book by Nick Tosches, IN THE HAND OF DANTE, Julian Schnabel’s latest movie is part attempt to tell Dante Alighieri’s medieval origin story, part mafia tale of the contemporary writer rescuing the text. After witnessing the auction of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road scroll at Christie’s this past March,–the manuscript sold for $12 million– I can attest to the commercial bonanza of owning such a literary property. Re-imagining Tosche’s book allows Schnabel the artist the chutzpah to explore what humans will go through to acquire and merchandize art at this level. 

    At the 2026 Tribeca Film Festival premiere, Julian Schnabel and cast members including his star Oscar Isaac conversed with Paul Dano. Dano is not in the film which is a who’s who of New York actor/creatives including Al Pacino, Martin Scorsese, Gerard Butler, and a cameo for the late Dennis Hopper’s daughter, Galen Hopper.

    Schnabel spoke about his directing technique at the post-screening Q&A: “I don’t block scenes, and we don’t rehearse.” 

    “Yes, we don’t,” affirmed Oscar Isaac, with a bit of an eye roll. “Everyone is prepared. It’s a quest to find the unexpected.”

    Schnabel used the same technique for AT ETERNITY’S GATE. With a nod to casting, Julian says, “I’m blessed with the ability to see genius.”

    The Italian actress Sabrina Impacciatore, known in the US for her remarkable performance as the hotel manager in The White Lotus, season 2, in Sicily, was effusive in her stage presence for this premiere. Before allowing Schnabel to sit she rushed the stage to plant a kiss kiss. She had just arrived. She says gesticulating madly, “I think I am a bit crazy,” and it is not clear whether she is talking about herself or her character who thinks she is Dante’s love, Beatrice.

    She tells a story about Julian wanting her character to have blue eyes. Wanting to please him, she went all over to great effort to find blue contact lenses, only to arrive on set for a black & white shoot. Now Julian rolled his eyes. “I knew it was black & white all along.”

    A masterpiece, IN THE HAND OF DANTE is streaming on Netflix.

  • Hamptons Journal: Norm Lewis Opens Hamptons Summer Songbook by the Sea

    Norm Lewis (Photo Credit: Lisa Tamburini)

    Was Norm Lewis robbed of a TONY Award for his role as Porgy in the Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess? Maybe. His velvety distinctive baritone and stage presence certainly earned him the distinction. Of course, he had been nominated alongside his co-star Audra McDonald who won for her role as Bess. Said Lewis, “She owes me half,” before wowing everyone singing “I Got Plenty of Nothing.” 

    The occasion was opening night of Hamptons Summer Songbook by the Sea, a hugely entertaining cabaret series held at LTV Studios produced by Donna Rubin and the wonderful impresario Josh Gladstone.

    What’s great about cabaret is how well you get to know the performers; it’s not just the musical numbers, the great American songbook, or show tunes you love, it is how the artist puts the material together. Norm Lewis must be used to singing for all white audiences. Introducing “The Music of the Night,” he explained how he came to be the first African American to ever play the Phantom of the Opera on Broadway.

    His was the voice of King Triton in The Little Mermaid, a character who does not sing much. Norm Lewis preferred to vocalize Ursula, the Sea Witch, actually the villain of the piece and sang “Poor Unfortunate Souls.” Other numbers included “Misty,” channeling Johnny Mathis, “Wouldn’t it be Lovely?” from My Fair Lady and Whitney Houston’s “The Greatest Love of All.” He imagined the audience response to this night would be Norm Lewis had me on the edge of my seat and took my breath away. He got his wish.

    Joy Behar of “The View” was right up front cheering Norm on leading a packed house that included Donna Rubin, Jean Shafiroff, Alex Donner, Eleanor and Howard Morgan.

    Jean Shafiroff was presented with the 2026 Frances Ann Dougherty Award for Broadcast Philanthropy. The award honors leadership, generosity and a lasting commitment to strengthening the community through the power of media. Named for Frances Ann Dougherty, wife of LTV founder Frazer Dougherty. Shafiroff, a philanthropist, author and television host, was recognized for her years-long support of LTV and the continued success of her program, “Successful Philanthropy,” which highlights charitable leadership and civic engagement.

    Next up is Ann Hampton Callaway, followed by Klea Blackhurst & Billy Stritch, and many more concluding with Donna McKechnie.

  • 60 Minute Correspondent Lesley Stahl Hosts the Literacy Partners Gala Dinner: Remembering Liz Smith

    Lesley Stahl The Literacy Partners’ 40th Annual Evening of Readings & Gala Dinner. Image: Madeleine Thomas via BFA

    Despite controversy around changes at the venerable 60 Minutes news show, longtime correspondent Lesley Stahl, divine in shimmering red sequins, hosting the Literacy Partners dinner early this month, stayed on message: fewer Americans than you think can read. Yes, viewers of the iconic 60 Minutes program were mainly senior citizens, and yes, the controversy over firings vs. freedom of speech has driven up interest, but overall, the name Scott Pelley did not come up, nor did the name Bari Weiss. So much for truth to power.

    As for politics, another message: readers tend to vote. So maybe that’s a sly nod to Stahl’s needing to address this issue in front of a crowd that included Sheila Nevins, Joni Evans, and some reporters from the NYTimes. The main name dropped was the one that mattered most, Literacy Partners founder Liz Smith—who did not suffer fools gladly, who did not take shit. 

    Beloved, the “natural blond” was evoked by every featured speaker, among them best-selling author Patricia Cornwell, awarded for Lifetime Achievement, Sherrie Westin, noted as “Champion of Literacy” for her work as President of Sesame Workshop, Sabastian Niles, awarded for Leadership in Literacy and Barbara Tober, a famed “publishing maven,” and editor-in-chief of BRIDES Magazine, honored recipient of the “Lizzie Award,” named for our dear Liz Smith. Presenters included Daphne Merkin, Perri Peltz, Lesley Stahl, and Mike Steib.

    Several young people helped by this organization made impassioned speeches about how being able to read changed their lives, as diners supped on filet of beef. But if you think the biggest controversy is the co-opting of news media as in 60 Minutes, maybe the more startling news is how threatening literacy must be in places where power wants complete control. What was Big Bird doing in Afghanistan? Asked Perri Peltz introducing Sherrie Westin. How do you know that a reading citizenry is a big threat: See Operation Big Bird, when the Taliban went after Sesame Street.

  • Emily Blunt in Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day: The Weather Girl’s Wind

    Emily Blunt in ‘Disclosure Day’.Credit:  Niko Tavernise/Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment

    Who decides the news and who gets to tell it? 

    You will hear more about aliens and other classic Spielberg themes as the excitement for his latest feature, DISCLOSURE DAY, heats up. Yes, if you think of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, AI, ET, and other filmic explorations of Spielberg’s obsession with life outside our planet—or alien visitations to earth, –you will be in his familiar ball park with DISCLOSURE DAY. But Emily Blunt’s character, Margaret Fairchild is by profession a weather girl. As Bob Dylan so eloquently put it, “You don’t need a weather man to know which way the wind blows.”

    In our time, the truth is an endangered species, with news organizations tasked with reporting it shut down, or like “60 Minutes” –disabled. The theme hidden within other larger, more scientific themes in DISCLOSURE DAY is the weight of telling the truth. Not ignoring it. Not redirecting it. Not gaslighting. Speaking truth to power.  As Fairchild and Josh O’Connor’s character, Daniel Kellner, face extreme danger in order to “disclose,” we have a need to know.

    These characters have experienced something that challenged their innocence, another Spielberg theme. Youth is often at jeopardy. Their connection propels the action—scene to scene riveting in David Koepp’s action-packed script. Joined by Coleman Domingo and Colin Firth—the grownups in the room at opposite levels of morality– Blunt and O’Connor are the questing figures—seeking the truth, finding it, and burdened with the task of revealing it. Even when Emily Blunt babbles on in foreign languages, pay close attention to the weather girl.

  • Pink: The Color of the TONY Awards

    DIMITRIOS KAMBOURIS//GETTY IMAGES

    Hosting one of the best TONY awards nights ever, Pink established herself as a Broadway star. A pop music icon, she seemed an unlikely candidate for the job but from the moment she lowered herself mid-stage, a hanging vision of Mary Martin as Peter Pan at Radio City Music Hall, she was in turns hilarious, poised, sensational, segueing into a moment from Wicked. That was an opening for the ages—and she just got started! 

    Maybe her best was “Lady Marmalade” or the skit from Chicago. When Lesley Manville got her TONY for her performance as Oedipus’ wife—er, mother, in a grand gesture to bring in the women she beat—Rose Byrne, Carrie Coon, Susannah Flood, Kelli O’Hara–, she asked for a playwright to create a vehicle for five female characters. For a musical, make that six to include Pink.

    This great night belonged to the Best Revivals, Ragtime and Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. Even though John Lithgow as Raoul Dahl in Giant was always the front runner for Best Actor, everyone wished the award would go to Nathan Lane as Willy Loman. He put his heart, soul and abundant talent into the heartbreaking role. Christopher Abbott who plays Biff said he had never seen this classic play—hoping he would one day be in it. Laurie Metcalf reinvented the characterization of doting wife.

    With the flamboyance of Rocky Horror Picture Show and Cats: The Jellicle Ball, a family drama seems antique. Then again, the Broadway stage remains an endless affirmation of identity and self-invention through fantasy and art—and as every winner put it, the very best place to be.

  • Questlove’s Homage to Earth, Wind, and Fire Opens the Tribeca Film Festival

    Creator: Jamie McCarthy | Credit: Getty Images for Tribeca Festival Copyright: 2026 Getty Images

    Twenty-five years in, the Tribeca Film Festival thrives. Opening at the Beacon Theater this week, the festival began as a way to heal downtown after 9/11, co-founder Jane Rosenthal reminded everyone, marveling at her creation’s historic legs. Beside her, co-founder Robert DeNiro welcomed everyone, taking a usual jab at the current political regime, emphasizing why we need healing now more than ever. This was the perfect set-up for Questlove to take the stage to introduce his doc, Earth, Wind, and Fire (To be Celestial vs. That’s the Weight of the World). 

    Following the up-from-dire-roots journey of Maurice White to stardom, the film not only tells the story of the man and music but of the huge cultural relevance to Americans such as Barak Obama and Michelle Obama. Their humor and earnest accolades provide a scaffolding; the joyful sound of this music and lyrics inspired them growing up to become –well, who they are. For the black community, the music and spectacle were much more than R&B Bar Mitzvah and disco classics. We all danced to “September.” Seeing the former first couple in a new phase of their lives, the audience was reminded of the decency we all crave right now. How much we miss them!

    Stevie Wonder admits how much he took from “Shining Star” for his song “I Wish.” Yes, it a funny moment, the “steal” being the ultimate homage. Lionel Ritchie speaks well of Maurice White’s genius.

    In true Tribeca tradition, the screening was followed by a live concert, with Questlove on drums, and the remaining band members—Philip Bailey, Verdine White, and Ralph Johnson—performing against glorious lighting. Who could not resist dancing to their greatest hits? And the follow up at Tavern on the Green where Questlove’s DJ skills made the packed room move. 

  • Carl Bernstein at the Rainbow Room/ George Clooney at Alice Tully Hall: Speaking Truth to Power 

    In a volatile news week, with a gunman interrupting the venerated White House Correspondents’ dinner, Carl Bernstein was honored at Guild Hall’s Academy of the Arts dinner at the Rainbow Room. Introduced by Jann Wenner with an amusing tale about how the two met as Bernstein applied for a rock reporter job at Rolling Stone that dragged on in process, Wenner left out the punch line. Carl Bernstein, one of the famed duo of Woodward and Bernstein, synonymous with the historic episode that brought down the administration of President Richard Nixon, added the essential detail of what happened in between his application and actual journalistic legacy: Watergate.

    Bernstein’s acceptance speech emphasized an important aspect of reporting on the news, in pursuit of the best obtainable version of the truth. He said: “We decide what is news. We decided that Watergate was news. We have a duty to find out what is on the table.” And we missed it. He went on: “The Supreme Court needed to follow through on January 6. But most significant is the failure to tell the basic story: what is the fitness of the president? How can we miss such a story?” At the joy filled dinner, which honored Katie Couric and Leila Straus and inducted actor Victor Garber, artist Sarah Sze, and novelist Colson Whitehead to the Academy of the Arts, the most immediate news of the gunman in Washington was not on the table, or in the clouds above Rockefeller Center, simply an unspoken presence.

    A few blocks up at Lincoln Center, George Clooney accepted the Chaplin Award. The son of a journalist, Clooney denounced violence at the weekend’s dinner in Washington and the murder of protesters in Minnesota: “I cannot ignore what is going on in the world.” He and his partner Grant Heslov wrote a play, “Good Night and Good Luck,” about Edward R. Murrow taking on McCarthy, quoting, “We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.”  Forget the fun of seeing Clooney on “E.R.” or as Danny Ocean. This was a night for speaking truth to power.

  • Adrien Brody and Tessa Thompson Debut on Broadway in The Fear of Thirteen

    A funny moment in Lindsey Ferrentino’s play, The Fear of Thirteen, occurs when Adrien Brody as Nick Yarris, a man wrongly convicted of rape and murder, says to a lying cop: that performance deserves an Academy Award. Of course, the actor has two, so the line got a big chuckle from the knowing crowd on opening night last week. 

    Landing in a drama, inspired by the true-life story of a man who served time in prison for twenty-three years waiting for DNA tests to exonerate him– among many other frustrations, the line signals so much of what is wrong with the American system of justice, affecting many on death row. Based on a documentary under the same title, the show foregrounds a love story. A young student, Jacki Miles (Tessa Thompson), making notes for a project, visits prison, and falls for Nick as they bond over Catcher in the Rye.

    The real Nick Yarris, comfortably seated in a box overhanging the stage, took in the superb performances. Both Adrien Brody and Tessa Thompson tossed their bouquets of roses to him. Now out of prison for six years, his drama does not end. Homeless, he said, he’s living out of a car. Despite the documentary and this show, he wants justice for the victim. Surprisingly he’s donated his time and all remuneration toward the pursuit of truth for the woman who was raped and murdered. Incarcerating him, he said, the courts did not pursue the true criminal. Justice, as they say, was not served.

    At a swank party at the Pool Room at the former Four Seasons, Adrien Brody sat with his partner Georgina Chapman, and his parents Sylvia Plachy and Elliot Brody. Mamie Gummer, F. Murray Abraham and many others gathered around to celebrate justice the way theater can serve it—awarding excellence as TONY season heats up.

  • Lorne Premieres at Lincoln Center: Glimpsing Lorne Michaels Backstage at Saturday Night Live

    (Photo: TheoWargo/Getty Images)

    Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels is not a shy man as much as a man averse to interviews. Documentary filmmaker Morgan Neville who has made non-fiction portraits about backup singers (Twenty Feet from Stardom), Mister Rogers (Won’t You Be My Neighbor?) and Paul McCartney (Man on the Run) found Lorne Michaels was a hard man to pin down. 

    The most humorous moments in Neville’s latest, Lorne, which premiered this week at Alice Tully Hall, are the subject giving Neville’s lens the fish eye, or pacing elusively, or walking out of the room. And yet, this contrarian interaction makes for a highly entertaining documentary, telling as much as Lorne Michaels would reveal, while illuminating the successful strategies and accidents that have made SNL such a powerful cultural touchstone.

    Fueled by copious amounts of popcorn, celebrity hosts and cast members sit on couches in Michael’s office putting together the weekly show, ready each Wednesday, putting artistic crews to work. The deadline is 11:30 PM Saturday night. It seems a surprise to everyone that the show comes together as it does. Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Kristen Wiig, Michael Che, Colin Jost, James Austin Johnson, Kate McKinnon, Conan O’Brien are some current cast and alum who weigh in on screen. Paul Simon, his erstwhile neighbor, speaks about his friendship with Lorne. Most intimate is the footage of Lorne in Maine, in nature surrounded by his animals. Yes, he has a goat. Later that night, Neville told me one person he missed interviewing was Dan Ackroyd.

    P!nk, just named to host the TONY awards attended the screening—ironic as she was missing the opening night of “Death of a Salesman” down the street on Broadway. She could not make it to the afterparty. David Letterman in long beard and cap added to the A-listers on hand.

    At dinner at Lincoln, Steve Buscemi, Oren Moverman, Natasha Lyonne, Seth Myers munched on Bolognese, pea risotto, chicken cutlets, and cannolis while Beachboy Al Jardine worked the room speaking about new musical projects, touring with his band Pet Sounds. Lorne Michaels hid seated in a back banquette. This was the first time he had seen the film, and Morgan Neville recounted his response: “Good,” he said.

  • Alden Ehrenreich and Patrick Ball: The Men in Becky Shaw on Broadway

    RICHARD KNAPP; GETTY IMAGES

    Excuse a bit of fangirl glee at seeing Alden Ehrenreich and Patrick Ball in “Becky Shaw,” each debuting on Broadway at the Helen Hayes Theater. Handsome guys, yes, they each play a form of misguided masculinity in this Gina Gionfriddo comedy. 

    The Becky Shaw script is a tour de force of bad behavior, enriched by stunning performances. Under Trip Cullman’s deft direction, the timing is brilliant for a perhaps familiar family scenario of mismanaged money after the death of a patriarch. As Ehrenreich’s Max, a kind of adopted son—it’s complicated—attempts to salvage the financial situation, he sleeps with the woman he grew up with Suzanna (Lauren Patten) in kind of an “ew” moment. Fast forwarding, she marries Ball’s Andrew, a dim but sweet writer she’s met on a ski vacation. Eh, she does not ski. Working at a job he does not like, Andrew wants to fix up an office temp, the titular Becky Shaw (Madeline Brewer) with Max. Needless to say, this is a bad idea.

    Bookending the mismatches and icky male behavior all around is Linda Emond as Susan, the widow and uber-Mom here—who needs to downsize. That’s more than a real estate strategy. 

    With all the hilarious apparatus at play, including slamming doors as in a Feydeau farce, why is the play called Becky Shaw? The playwright said she was exploring the kinds of ideals we bring to relationships. 

    Dimple chinned Patrick Ball pops on screen in HBO’s “The Pit.” In this play he’s got a dumb rescue-the-damsel-in-distress code of chivalry—that makes him perfect for marrying Suzanna, an insecure psychology PHD. He commits to tending to Becky after a calamitous first date with Max. Tenacious, she keeps on going after him—even when, cad that he is, he ghosts her. She does not let go. If we met this woman in life, we’d be scared. Very scared. “You should be,” said Brewer at the afterparty. 

    A great night for theater, we were delighted to see many familiar faces: Cherry Jones, Mare Winningham, Anthony Edwards, and a handful from “The Pitt.” Tony Kushner gave notes to Emond. We ran into Joe Mantello, directing the upcoming “Death of a Salesman” revival starring Nathan Lane. Lane of course can do anything but it is still a stretch to imagine him as Willy Loman. “Just wait,” said Mantello. “He will surprise you.”

  • Audra McDonald and “Original Nepo Baby” Gwyneth Paltrow: Honorees at the NYWFT Muse Awards 23 March 2026

    With a nod to her mother Blythe Danner and evoking the spirit of her late father Bruce Paltrow, Gwytheth Paltrow graced the stage at Cipriani 42nd street for this year’s New York Women in Film and Television Muse Awards. Being the “original Nepo baby”—in her words– may have given her the platform to dive from, but taking her privilege to the next step was all Gwyneth. Yes, she epitomizes this year’s Muse theme of “Regeneration,” being a bona fide Oscar-winning movie star, and also a major business mogul with her company, GOOP. Resilient too, she’s revived her movie actress chops most recently in MARTY SUPREME.

    It’s not that it wasn’t easy. But more, she reminded the audience of 700 rapt attendees chomping down Cipriani’s signature filet mignon and apple pie a la mode, as a young woman, her moves were under the radar, and frankly, that was liberating. Really? Friends, agents, family poo-pooed when she wanted to start her high-end beauty product line. Yes, really!

    She never mentioned the quips about her owning Miramax when she won Best Actress for SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE. No talk of her critique of Harvey Weinstein’s behavior, her coining of the phrase “creative uncoupling” after her very public uncoupling with Coldplay’s Chris Martin –hey, her son Moses was in the room, as was her now husband, Brad Falchuk. Shout outs abound. 

    But if you really wanted to get into star power, another Muse stole the show. That would be the multi-TONY awarded Audra McDonald. Not only a mega-talent in theater—most recently as Mama Rose in “Gypsy,” she’s stunning in television—in HBO’s series, “The Gilded Age.” McDonald reminded everyone of the definition of “muse” to inspire and finished with mention of her nine-year old daughter –with Will Swenson who was present—delaying bedtime while singing a girl-power hit from TikTok.

    The Muse lineup featured actress Jamie Brewer, director Patricia Cardosa, producer Jane Raab –shout out to “Sex and the City” showrunner Darren Star who was in the room. A new Muse award was inaugurated with a statue for WNBA athlete Izzy Harrison for Achievement in Sports and Media. Joy Reid, honored with the Enid Roth Award for Excellence in Journalism ended her speech with “We represent the power to be loud.” 

  • Zach Bryan Buys the On the Road Scroll/ Happy Birthday, Jack Kerouac!

    Country music star Zach Bryan never made it to Christie’s auction house, but nevertheless made a killing.

    For Jack Kerouac’s On the Road scroll purchase, the night could not have been more dramatic. Here’s how it went:

    Deadheads filled Christie’s auction house on Thursday March 12, eager to bid on “Tiger,” Jerry Garcia’s guitar. That went for $9.5 million, not even the highest priced instrument from Jim Irsay’s expansive collection of rock guitars. The most dramatic went to David Gilmour’s “Strat,” ($12.1 million) after a brisk bidding war between an in-house buyer and someone shopping by phone. The purchase garnered enthusiastic applause, and on my part, a wistful recognition that some people had money to burn. For me, the most exalted item, even beyond a crimson cape worn by James Brown, or a white robe from Mohammed Ali, was the 120-foot scroll text of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. 

    I had been here before, in this room, in 2001 to see Jim Irsay, the owner of the Indianapolis Colts, swoop in accompanied by Doug Brinkley, at the time writing a biography of the so-called “King of the Beats.” Irsay paid a clean $2.47 million, and that’s without the right to quote a single phrase from Kerouac’s poetic epic. That was the highest price ever paid for a literary manuscript, even more than James Joyce’s Ulysses. John Sampas, at the time the head of Kerouac’s estate, was pleased. He took me and Joyce Johnson out for celebratory drinks at a nearby Rockefeller Center bar, Joyce being Kerouac’s girlfriend at the time On the Road was published in 1957 and the author of Minor Characters and The Voice is All, perhaps the best of the dozens of biographies written to date. I am the author of several books on Kerouac including Spontaneous Poetics. At the time, I was commissioned by the estate to assemble and introduce Kerouac’s Book of Haikus.

    Now so many years later, the scroll was again up for grabs, and after a pissing war between a mild-mannered man in house and someone on the phone, the man took it for a clean $10 million plus trading fees. I was with Kerouac’s latest biographer Holly George Warren and Jim Canary, the man Irsay hired to take care of the scroll text as it traveled like a rock star making appearances in exhibitions all across America and abroad. We rushed over to the buyer to find out who he was and what was he going to do with it? I don’t know. I did not get it for me, he said. So now we are left to find out, who bought Kerouac’s masterpiece? Immediately calling Joyce to let her know, I heard her say she was astonished at what was paid for the artifact, and then she reminded me, Jack was the poorest person I ever met. 

    Eventually, it was revealed that Zach Bryan was the buyer. Bryan, a country superstar who writes evocative lyrics, has long been known as a Kerouac aficionado. Last year, he bought the Saint Jean Baptiste Church in Kerouac’s hometown of Lowell, Mass. which he plans to turn into a museum dedicated to the famed writer.

    Kerouac died at age 47, and a lot of people made a lot of money off his work. Still, I’d like to think he has the last laugh knowing as a writer he was the real deal. Nearby, at the Grolier Club, an exhibition attests to Kerouac’s writing chops, as if anyone now wants to diminish that legacy. Happy Birthday, Jack!

  • William S. Burroughs/ Nova ’78 at MoMA/ Remembering James Grauerholz

    The prestigious MoMA Fortnight documentary series opened with Nova ’78, a performance film from Howard Brookner’s footage of the Nova Convention, a three-day arts celebration at the Intermedia Theater on Second Avenue, the downtown event of the year 1978. At center was William S. Burroughs.

    The Nova evening at MoMA was for many of us a nostalgic romp through a vital time in yesteryear: The brainchild of Sylvere Lottringer, founder of Semiotexte, and James Grauerholz, Burroughs’ homme d’affaires after he relocated from London to New York, The Nova Convention celebrated art. Burroughs had just published a book, The Third Mind, a collaboration with artist, writer, restaurateur, raconteur, Brion Gysin, with whom Burroughs had a longtime friendship. The book, a cause celebre in France was an instruction manual for creating cut-ups and fold-ins, a useful collage method for literary arts –and, in the hands of David Bowie and others, rock lyrics. Gysin discovered the technique when he and Burroughs lived in Paris’ “Beat Hotel” in the ‘60’s. 

    A who’s who of downtown artists, The Nova Convention featured poets Anne Waldman and John Giorno, Patti Smith performing, and Frank Zappa doing his utmost on the “Talking Asshole” section of William S. Burroughs’ classic Naked Lunch. Zappa was a stand-in for Keith Richards—not too shabby.

    Howard Brookner’s documentation remained lost for decades until his nephew Aaron Brookner found this footage. Becoming a filmmaker in his own right, he restored his uncle’s brilliant Burroughs biopic, and shaped these performances into the doc. Before Aaron’s excellent work, who even knew this existed?

    Just a few weeks before, the Burroughs fellowship gathered at the Bunker on the Bowery, a windowless loft in a former YMCA where Burroughs lived when he returned to the States in the mid-‘70’s; everyone met James in the Bunker, so it was a fitting site for a memorial remembering James Grauerholz who had died on New Year’s Day. Patti Smith wore a plaid shirt in his honor and sang. Speakers included John Waters, Anne Waldman, Stu Meyers and Ira Silverberg. A Buddhist ceremony sent Grauerholz to the Bardo. And others, Steve Buscemi, Oren Moverman, Victor Bockris, Lee Ann Brown stayed on to remember their time in heady Bunker glory days.

  • Jacob Elordi in Wuthering Heights: Monster Mash

    Is Jacob Elordi now type cast as a sexy beast? The new Wuthering Heights, as reinvented by Emerald Fennell, finds fatal attraction in its leading man Heathcliff played by Jacob Elordi who seduced us as Frankenstein this season. While Guillermo del Toro found the sweet soul, the innocent child of the monster in the actor, Fennell, putting her perverse stamp on the character, plays his monstrous passion. Those eyes, smoldering yes, a veil of lashes, lush for outsized emotion. A swoon in every close-up. 

    In Emily Bronte’s creation, the character of Heathcliff is dark and brooding, called a monster, and brought into light by Catherine Earnshaw. Blond and blue eyed, Fennell’s child Cathy (look out for Charlotte Mellington) is simply naughty, the adult the humanized Barbie in the form of Margot Robbie bedecked in gaudy gems as opulent as her room as she begins to live a false life in marriage to Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif), the rich man next door. 

    With Heathcliff, she’s wild and open, the sex tender—even if played against the ocean, in nature, and in the rain. Being drenched is a thing. But everyone has to come in out of the elements.

    Emerald Fennell is a master at exposing the claustrophobia of massive houses, and the boredom of those who live in them. See Saltburn, for example. Wuthering Heights was a no-brainer for her talents at teasing out the untoward behavior nurtured in these vast estates. Wanting to hurt Cathy for marrying Edgar Linton, Heathcliff marries Isabelle, Edgar’s ward. Barely a woman, she takes to Heathcliff’s brute abuse willingly, a substitute for her room full of ribbons. Mr. Earnshaw, once a man of wealth and social standing, drinks and gambles away his riches. Oh and, be wary of servants. Nelly (Hong Chau) wields her own hand at fate before Heathcliff, a dirty underling, desperate for love, turns the tables.

    At its heart, Wuthering Heights is a sublime Valentine’s Day gift: Maddening love consummated. In this sick heat, someone has to die. But as we know from Elordi’s Frankenstein, death is not the worst of it. Just ask Lady Gaga’s minions. Being alone, without the other is far, far more tragic—and dark. If Bronte’s novel was influenced by the Gothic genre in her time, Fennell has defined a Gothic for ours.