Gossip Central

Picture Books

In case you missed the Walter Reade Theatre tribute to photographer/filmmaker Robert Frank last week, you can catch up with his extraordinary career with new editions of his legendary “The Americans” (Steidl). First published in 1959, the photos reveal the flip side of Ozzie-and-Harriet America with an introduction by Frank's friend Jack Kerouac. These artists also collaborated on the movie “Pull My Daisy,” new in DVD, with performances by Larry Rivers, David Amram, Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, Gregory Corso, Delphine Seyrig, Alice Neel, Milo O'Shea, and Pablo Frank.
               

Photographer Mellon Tytell's My Lucky Dog (HarperCollins) is a documentary style picture book of the last days of Hunter, her beloved dog. Combining resonant photos of Vermont with text, Tytell's book is an unsentimental meditation on the subject of loss.

In tandem with a show at Staley-Wise Gallery till June 7, notorious paparazzo Ron Galella's “That's Great!” (Monacello Press) features Andy Warhol in the world of glitz and glamour he loved: alongside Lauren Hutton, Sylvia Miles, Bob Colacello, Bianca Jagger, Marisa Berenson, Baryshnikov.
Christine Ebersole may have brought the Edie Beales mother and daughter to life on Broadway last year, based on “Grey Gardens,” the non-fiction film by The Maysles Brothers, but a new scrapbook, “Memorabealeia” is Walter Newkirk's clever collage-like compilation of Little Edie's stuff: clips, letters, etc. that should bring a smile to Edie's legion of fans.
            And “Perpenilsis,” a compilation of “psychopts,” collaborative drawings and prints by Christopher Wool and rocker Richard Hell to accompany an exhibition at Glenn Horowitz Booksellers on East 64th Street till June 4. Here's the inscription: “Mountaineering entails many great penis.” Need I say more?

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

Sex and the City

One thing is certain after the extravaganza premiere of Sex & the City: The Movie: Carrie should have had her wedding to Mr. Big, now revealed as John James Prescott, at MoMA. Last night, on two floors, the museum was lit in pink with plush pillow seating and silver settees, and food themed for the fabulous four's onscreen retreat to Mexico with empanatas, ceviches and salsas washed down with fruity cosmos and champagne. True to their characters, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon, and Kim Cattrall were decked to the nines, with the crowd buzzing about accessorized for the occasion. Of course the men were there: Jason Lewis, Mario Cantone, Chris Noth, director/writer/producer Michael Patrick King. Creator Candace Bushnell told me she is working on another book and flame-haired signature S&C designer Patricia Field continues to wow the downtown crowd with '70's inspired platforms. Also on hand: Matthew Broderick, Jerry Seinfeld, Jay McInerny, Katie Couric, and Project Runway winner Christian Siriano, looking very smart, worked the room with a model wearing one of his creations.

                 Another certainty: S&C is going to be a huge hit. Having had premieres in London and Berlin, S&C's New York event brought the world of Manolos and other luxury goods back home to New York real estate, and without spoiling the movie's ending, to grounded values in love and family. That may sound cheesy, but trust me, it isn't. I laughed. I cried. Balancing the girls last night-now famous worldwide-- was another fabulous four in the room: Jason, Daniel, Travis, and Brandon, marines in uniform. In town for Fleet Week, this group was nabbed off the street by the party's security to join in the festivities. And a good time was had by all.

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

Sex and the City (trailer)

Recount

If we have to relive the 2000 election in the state of Florida, the best way is to watch the drama unfold chad by chad in the HBO movie Recount, which airs on May 25. Archival footage of the candidates, George W. Bush and Al Gore, is neatly folded into the drama about the attempt to make every vote count in that pivotal state where decisions were made by the likes of Kathryn Harris played to ditzy perfection by Laura Dern gone brunette. Kevin Spacey, Tom Wilkinson, Bob Balaban, Ed Begley, Jr., Denis Leary give excellent performances as the key players in both Democrat and Republican camps. Dern, Spacey, Leary, and Balaban attended last night's premiere, at MoMA followed by dinner at The Four Seasons. Upon entering the restaurant, diners were given ballots that duplicated the butterfly ballots that were so confusing to Florida “bubbies,” the candidates switched to Obama, Clinton, and McCain. Needless to say, in a crowd of New York sophisticates, Obama would hold sway with Clinton coming in second. The stellar crowd including Tina Brown, Sidney Lumet, Stanley Crouch, Richard Holbrooke experienced firsthand the distinctions between dimpled and dangling, and we all learned that the plural of chad is, well, chad.

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

Midtown Movie/ A Diamond is Forever/ Narnia

One never knows the title of the movie he's working on, but Woody Allen stood in the doorway of “the bulldog” carriage house on East 38th Street chatting with Larry David on the set of an up coming film.  Ed Begley Jr. grazed at the sidewalk food tables, and ogling pedestrians stepped over wires. No sign of Evan Rachel Woods, who also stars. After the last few films set in Britain-Match Point, Scoop, Cassandra's Dream--Woody's back to making movies in New York. Also in the neighbs on Tuesday, a luncheon hosted by De Beers “Diamonds are Forever,” on the balcony overlooking Grand Central Terminal in Grand Central Station with great views of the zodiac ceiling and an enormous display of roses to show how diamonds, unlike fragile flowers, endure. Attending in honor of Antony Todd were Helena Christiensen, Diane Kruger (in Balenciaga), Elizabeth Hasselbeck, Lakeand Robin Bell, Tory Burch, and Marghuerita Missoni. Model Maggie Rizer said, “It was a simple, elegant lunch with great people that said, 'Diamonds are for everyone.'” She loves diamonds because each one has its own story: “One was given to my grandmother by my grandfather from his mother, one is so small I can barely see it but my dad gave it to my mom when he couldn't afford to; one I bought on a trip to India, and so on . . . .” Natasha Richardson joined the fashion crowd for that pre-Mother's Day event and then was on hand the next night for the premiere for the new “Chronicles of Narnia” at another neighborhood gem, The New York Public Library on 42nd Street. Her husband Liam Neeson is the voice of Aslan, so the library with its signature stone lions looked Narnia-ready and so are the movie's legions of fans, many of whom watched the jugglers, threaded beads and supped on forest fare in one of the city's most spectacular landmarks.

Regina Weinreich 

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired

The invitation to the special screening of a new documentary about Roman Polanski had the imprimatur of 20 directors in solidarity with the exiled Oscar winning director, and then a disclaimer, that the filmmakers, on location, would not be on hand at the Paris Theater. Nevertheless, I spotted Sidney Lumet, Julian Schnabel, Alex Gibney, Taylor Hackford, Barry Levinson, Bennett Miller, Bob Balaban, Lasse Hallstrom, and a slew of actors: Dustin Hoffman, Alec Baldwin, Emmy Rossum, Leelee Sobieski, Gretchen Mol, Julianna Margulies, Lena Olin, for the screening, some staying on for the buffet supper at the newly refurbished Plaza Hotel. It was like the old days, when the Plaza was a haven for fictitious little girls like Eloise, and for movie premieres of the most lavish sort: beef, bass, grilled chicken and veggies fit for kings. Carlos, my waiter, who had worked there for 25 years seemed pleased with lobby level luxury shops, saying that during the renovation, new rooms had been created, pockets of space no one had thought about now gave way to conference rooms on the 4th floor. But I digress.
     Marina Zenovich's  riveting “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired" will air on HBO on June 9, and will be shown in theaters thereafter distributed by Mark Urman's ThinkFilm. Reading the papers, Zenovich came upon a story about Polanski's trial for raping a 13 year old in 1977, and thereafter fleeing the country. What is wrong with this picture, she thought and set about finding out. The resulting film uses provocative archival footage and interviews to trace Polanski's life in Hollywood, his unabashed obsession with young girls, the tragic circumstances of his pregnant wife Sharon Tate's murder by the Manson clan, the eerie echoes in his films, his Holocaust back story-mostly investigating the legal matters surrounding the trial, marked by a tricky judge who was out to get the infamous director. The result fascinates, not only in illuminating Polanski as a brilliant and charismatic character but as a revelation of our justice system. Polanski remains wanted in America, and desired in Pariswhere he resides with Emmanuelle Seigner, his wife for 18 years, and two children. Seigner starred most recently in Schnabel's “Diving Bell and the Butterfly” and in “Lou Reed's Berlin,” a hit at the recent Tribeca Film Festival. Though some of the hosting directors were not feasting at the Plaza, the girl in question was, her mother and husband in tow. Now Samantha Geimer (45) lives happily in Hawaii, having settled with Polanski out of court. Her mother Susan, conspicuously not in the film, was the proverbial elephant in the room dwarfing even the grandeur of the Plaza; you wanted to shake her while she glowingly invited everyone to visit in Kuaui.  How she could leave a 13 year old child alone with Polanski remains a mystery, leaving all the celebrity and media moms at the premiere asking, what is wrong with this picture?

Regina Weinreich            

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

Roman Polanski:Wanted and Desired (promo)

John Waters' Cry Baby/ Tribeca Film Festival

Don't cry for me, John Waters! Your over-the-top tour de gross-out has hit mainstream, proving what your pal William Burroughs used to say about acceptance, if you stick around long enough . . . Commercial success may of course come at the price of losing edge, but in your case, edge may be overrated. On Broadway Hairspray and now Cry Baby are huge hits, showing how edgy meets marketplace: with exuberant choreography, the crinkle of crinolines, slick pompadours, padded rumps. When New York Magazine features you as a subversive gone MOR, your pencil thin mustache loses its twitch. Divine's shit eating ending in “Pink Flamingos,” the stray dog eating a lesbian's discarded “bone” from a botched sex change in “Desperate Living”! Ah, those were moments of high satire. In “Cry Baby,” set in Waters' beloved Baltimore, the outcast, misunderstood teens sing of kissing with tongues, going down in the marshes. Anyone who has seen “Grease” is familiar with this territory of preppies vs. hipsters, with “Cry Baby” adding a bit of social consciousness: not only do the lovers (James Snyder and Elizabeth Stanley) meet at the anti-polio picnic, but the rebel-with-cause cried himself out when his parents were wrongly executed as arsonists. Wow! Talk about the '50's!
               When you become an authority-that's the ultimate acceptance. Where was John Waters the night I saw his play? He was partying at the Tribeca Film Festival premiere of “Squeezebox!” with directors Steve Saporito and Zach Shaffer, the likes of Debbie Harry,  Lady Bunny, Misstress Formika, Michael Musto, John Cameron Mitchell, and the Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black. The doc about Don Hill's legendary boite turned trans-sex disco for a night/week is actually quite moving, with lots of heart as the real-life characters finally finding a place to fit in. Waters is also called upon to expound on the art scene in another festival favorite, “Guest of Cindy Sherman” directed by Sherman's ex, Paul H-O. So please, give John Waters an honorary doctorate!

Regina Weinreich            

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

PEN World Voices

The French Consulate was chockablock with A-list writers as France conferred upon American author Edmund White the insignia of Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters on Tuesday evening. Salman Rushdie joked it was the true kickoff to the six-day PEN World Voices festival even though many of the world renowned authors celebrating in the Fifth Avenue townhouse--among them Ian McEwan, Peter Cary, Michael Ondaatje, Francine du Plessix Gray, Francine Prose, and rocker/poet Patti Smith--attended the gala benefit the night before at the Museum of Natural History, presiding over tables of donors where over a million dollars was raised. The gala is a different matter, said Rushdie, describing how fitting it was to dine under the museum's great whale, where writers could unleash their inner Captain Ahab. Meanwhile, panels, readings, films, performances in venues all over the city and beyond mark the World Voices annual celebration of the written word. The French philosopher Bernard Henri-Levy arrived, his wife, a chanteuse in a black cinched leather corset, in tow. But soon we were off to the Alliance Francaise for a session devoted to Darfur. BHL, as he is known, had been traveling to this besieged region of the Sudan, as has the actress Mia Farrow and both presented words and pictures enlightening the packed house on their personal experiences interviewing victims of the genocide. The stories are more heart-wrenching than ones you've heard. The focus of many aid efforts is on China PEN delivered a petition to the Chinese Consulate in New York-100 days before the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremonies-requesting the release of 38 jailed journalists and writers and seeking an end to restrictions on freedom of expression in China. In addition, we are all urged to take action against the selling of arms by China to the jingaweed, the murderers in Darfur. Go to www.darfurmetro.org and the NYC Coalition for Darfur: [email protected]

Regina Weinreich            

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura