Gossip Central

Making Whoopie at the 20th Annual Jazz Loft Party

What were Laurel & Hardy doing at the annual jazz loft party? One of many great pleasures of this night of superb sound to benefit the Jazz Foundation of America's efforts to help musicians in need was Steven Bernstein's Millennial Territory Orchestra performing some wildly original accompaniment to the comic duo's silent movies, “Double Whoopie” and “Wrong Again.” But that's the kind of night it was on Saturday: while the northeast was challenged with a pre-Halloween ice storm, jazz devotees showed up and made their way around Chelsea's Hudson Studios drink in hand following their ears to hear a who's who of jazz royalty.

Abigail Breslin Growing Up: Janie Jones

At 15, Abigail Breslin wears makeup. Clad in day-glo chartreuse for the premiere of her new movie, Janie Jones, she's now a young starlet. Based on director David M. Rosenthal's real-life discovery of his preteen daughter who he never knew existed, this evocative father-daughter indie film also stars Alessandro Nivola as an infantile alcoholic rocker on tour. Saddled with Janie when her drug addict mom (Elisabeth Shue) drops her off and splits, Nivola's character Ethan Brand does some growing up himself taking on the role of dad.

Hunter S. Thompson, Johnny Depp, and Me: A Healthy Dose of Disrespect

The fans outlying MoMA for the New York premiere of The Rum Diary were quadruple deep, awaiting the arrival of the star, Johnny Depp. Too bad the Titus I screening room was three quarters filled. Apparently the star did not want a full house. Why? Let's call it the vagaries of stardom. I had met Depp before, before his turn as Jack Sparrow turned him quirky. At the premiere of an earlier film we talked about his double roles in Julian Schnabel's Before Night Falls (brilliant), and his passion for beat literature. With Hunter S. Thompson, it's guilt by association.

Dee Dee Ricks Bares Breast on HBO

Dee Dee Ricks is shameless in a very good way. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007, this single mother, a success on Wall Street with lots of money to burn, as she puts it, realized that her boys, then 5 and 3, would not remember her if the disease progressed to a worst case scenario. And so she filmed every moment of her cancer battle: doctor visits, chemo, double mastectomy, hair loss, wig creation, reconstructive surgery and without a blink, her breasts before and after. Her film, The Education of Dee Dee Ricks, directed by Perri Peltz, will air on October 27 on HBO. Throughout, she appears remarkably up beat and fearless even while expressing her darkest moments.

All Things Being Relative: Relatively Speaking

With the writing talents of Ethan Coen, Elaine May, and Woody Allen, featuring performances by an ensemble that includes Marlo Thomas, Steve Guttenberg, and Julie Kavner, under the direction of John Turturro, the 3 one-acters that comprise Relatively Speaking at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre are exactly as you would expect, very funny. On Wednesday, my husband and I, fans of all three writers, enjoyed a fine night of theater, as good as can be. A delicious debate ensued. Which was best?

Oranges and Sunshine at the Hamptons International Film Festival

British children may have been promised oranges and sunshine as they were deported to Australia in the '60's and '70's in a scandalous child trafficking operation affecting some 130,000 kids, but that is hardly what they found there. The children, aged 3 to 13, often left in child care by unwed mothers, were lied to, told their families were dead. In Australia, most were enlisted in a labor pool, forced into hard construction and menial jobs, beaten into servility, and many raped. This piece of twentieth century horror might have been swept aside but a social worker in Nottingham, Margaret Humphreys, dedicated herself to helping the children, now grown, find their families. She is also asking for accountability from agencies in both governments. Her story is told in the film, Oranges and Sunshine, directed by Jim Loach and starring Emily Watson, featured in this year's Hamptons International Film Festival. While it is not a documentary, Oranges and Sunshine faithfully portrays the shocking truth.

The French Take Hollywood, and the Hamptons: The Artist

Jean Dujardin, star of the much acclaimed movie, The Artist, conceived and directed by Michel Hazanavicius, is dubbed the French George Clooney. Silent, and black & white, The Artist is the perfect foreign film, playfully incarnating the era of Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks, a Gallic homage with no accents. Shot in Hollywood with a supporting cast of American actors, Penelope Ann Miller, John Goodman, James Cromwell and Beth Grant, among them, the film limns the career of a fictional actor, George Valentin, who after a near tragic prideful “fall” makes the transition from silent films to talkies, with the love of a young actress played with eye fluttering excellence by the director's wife Berenice Bejo and accompanied by Ludovic Bource's evocative original music. Helping Peppy Miller become a star, George shows her how to pencil in a beauty mark. Their tap duet is surely the most joyful finale in recent movies. A classic love story, The Artist is an exhilarating nod to old Hollywood as only the French could make.

Tell it from The Mountaintop

In Katori Hall's play The Mountaintop, taking place on the fateful night that Martin Luther King was assassinated, a maid named Camae, delivering room service says, “Let me take you to the mountaintop.” And every way you can imagine to take that statement, a play off the speech the iconic Dr. King gave that afternoon, works.

Following Monroe: My Week With Marilyn

Marilyn Monroe may have been the original superstar, from the era when such mega stardom was invented. Her public and private persona remains infinitely fascinating, even when she is portrayed, pouting, petulant, and persuasive by the actress Michelle Williams. On Sunday, the movie, My Week With Marilyn, directed by Simon Curtis premiered at the New York Film Festival, its centerpiece, and it is a gem.

Happy Endings at HBO: Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory

For documentary filmmakers, it doesn't get better than this: having your work bring about change.

In 1993, a newspaper item about the murder of three 8-year olds in West Memphis and the three teenaged boys arrested for the crime piqued the interest of HBO's Sheila Nevins. She called the filmmaking team of Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, sending them south to document the case. The filmmakers thought they were going to tell a tale about guilty teens and Satanic rituals in the heartland. Finding the evidence overwhelming that the men were innocent, instead they made a movie that pointed toward a miscarriage of justice. Two earlier versions of the documentary, shown at the Film Society of Lincoln Center's New Directions/ New Films festival and HBO galvanized support for the convicted young men. After 18 years in prison, the men were released this past August.