Gossip Central

Dianne Reeves at Lincoln Center on Oscar Weekend

A sublime vocalist, Dianne Reeves took the stage at the Rose Theater of Jazz at Lincoln Center, glamorous in blue and aware that this was Oscar weekend.  Having performed her era evoking music for George Clooney’s 2005 Good Night, and Good Luck, his film about Edward R. Murrow, the only other black and white film to be nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award before The Artist, she has seen the handsome Clooney up close; she offered “and he’s real nice.” Wishing she could be there in L.A. to support him now, she went on to perform a repertoire of standards that included “One for my Baby (and One for the Road),” “Stormy Weather,” “Our Love is Here to Stay,” “Twelfth of Never,” and backed up by a superb ensemble featuring Peter Martin on piano, Reginald Veal on bass, Terreon Gully on drums, and the guitars of Romero Lubambo and Peter Sprague, she scatted a tune inspired by a jet lagged night in Barcelona watching CNN on television. She heard a singer and “this is how she sounded to me,” recounted Reeves as she launched into her tune imitating Spanish.

Looking for Cindy Sherman: A Retrospective at MoMA

On the 6^th floor of the Museum of Modern Art, Cindy Sherman is just where you want her, everywhere. In a retrospective of her work opening Sunday, in every portrait, her image --made up, masked, reconfigured --shocks, satirizes, surprises with its smart take on contemporary looks, fashion, and ideas of what it means to be visible: portraits from every period in her career, from black and white film stills evoking no particular picture specifically, to the clown series, to the more recent grand portraits of be-pearled and head-banded Park Avenue matrons with enigmatic and sad Mona Lisa smiles or smirks suggesting dubious delight, dismay and possible disgust. Ladies locked in luxury.

Oscar Buzz at Grand Central

Vanderbilt Hall, a cavernous space at the entrance of historic Grand Central Station, was fitted with Oscar statuettes, for an exhibition to bring the yearly awards events to everyone, commuters and those, like me, who love to pass through this cherished landmark, en route to Broadway, Barney’s and Bergdorf’s. Just before ribbon cutting, I had a chance to chat with Melissa Leo. The Academy Award winner for Supporting Actress in last year’s The Fighter made this stop en route to L.A. to present the Best Supporting Actor award on Sunday night. “I wouldn’t mind sharing a stage with any one of those guys,” she ventured gamely about Jonah Hill, Kenneth Branagh, Nick Nolte, Max von Sydow, and front-runner Christopher Plummer.

Other Desert Cities’ Other Secret

Getting to her parents’ house, a posh Palm Springs place in sand tones of bland and blander, Brooke Wyeth has to navigate past a sign that directs to “other desert cities,” but I don’t think the cities out west are the ones to keep an eye on in Jon Robin Baitz’s outstanding play, Other Desert Cities, now moved to Broadway’s Booth Theater. Retaining Stockard Channing and Stacy Keach in the parental roles of Polly and Lyman Wyeth from the Lincoln Center production, the play now features Justin Kirk as their son Trip, Judith Light as Polly’s sister and one-time writing partner Silda, and Rachel Griffiths as Brooke who has come from Sag Harbor for the holidays armed with her new, soon-to-be-published memoir. To borrow an idea from a known adage, if you see a lethal manuscript, the pages are going to fly.

Woody Harrelson Unplugged: Rampart’s Feminist Agenda

On the morning the Golden Globe nominations were announced, Woody Harrelson broke decorum, plugging his new film Rampart in which he plays an out of control cop. Not nominated, his testosterone-fueled performance nevertheless illustrates this Maui-based actor’s ferocity, playing a character very little like his green (he grows his own produce), peace loving, pot-smoking self. Just before opening, I caught up with Oren Moverman at the Gramercy Park Hotel restaurant where the Israeli born Rampart writer/director filled in Woody’s missing link.

The Loving Story on HBO for Valentine’s Day

They are not called Loving for nothing. Loving is simply their name. You could not find a true tale more tailor-made for Valentine’s Day than the story that ended laws against interracial marriage in America in the mid-‘60’s. A documentary featuring archival footage and period photography, The Loving Story airs on HBO on February 14. The line you will remember is, “Tell the judge, I love my wife and I will not leave her.”

If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Your Mother: At the Athena Awards

In this its second year featuring a lively weekend of films focused on women and leadership, the Athena Awards, founded by Kathryn Kolbert and Melissa Silverstein and held at Barnard College, honored The Tempest director Julie Taymor, Moneyball’s producer Rachael Horovitz, Pariah’s director Dee Rees and producer Nekisa Cooper, and the Fempire: Young Adult writer Diablo Cody, , Liz Meriwether, and Lorene Scafaria. A Laura Ziskind Lifetime Achievement Award was inaugurated in memory of this noted film producer and activist in cancer research. Recipients are asked to adhere to only one caveat: they must speak about a woman who has influenced or inspired them, not their mother. An act of rebellion, this rule was immediately violated.

Agnieszka Holland Revisits The Holocaust: In Darkness

“It’s harsh,” said Polish director Agnieszka Holland introducing her new movie, In Darkness at a special screening at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens last month. Literally dark, In Darkness, to open this week in New York, takes place under ground in the sewers of Lvov, Poland in Holocaust era Europe. Based on Robert Marshall’s book, In the Sewers of Lvov, about the story of Jews hiding in the wet, stinky sludge and the Polish thief and sewer worker, Leopold Socha (Robert Wieckiewicz), who helps them survive, at times, the rats—seen and unseen, the soundtrack of their scurrying and little squeals is terrifically powerful--seem more menacing than the Nazis hunting for Jews above ground.

Lilyhammer: A Gangster's Rap

On a balmy New York evening with snow a distant memory, the corners of the Crosby Hotel were fitted with white stuff, the waiters sported big ski lodge sweaters and snow boots, and the décor, usually warm, was even cozier. The occasion was a screening of an episode of Lilyhammer, the first of five original series planned for Netflix. Harvey Weinstein and Netflix's chief content officer Ted Sarandos hosted the evening, with help from uber party planner Peggy Siegal. Starring E Street Band guitarist and The Sopranos veteran Steven Van Zandt, Lillyhammer begs the question, where can mob fugitives go to hide? Even ex-Sopranos? Well, how about Lillehammer, the remote town in Norway that famously hosted the Olympics in 1984? It looked pristine, beautiful, Frankie ("The Fixer") Tagliano explains even as he brings his ways of getting things done (i.e. bribes, blackmail) to cut through the country’s bureaucracy. Talk about a clash of cultures! 

Why Quibble? The Gershwin’s Porgy & Bess Revived on Broadway

A controversy over whether or not the original 1935 opera Porgy & Bess can work, pared down, cut in music and story, clouds over what should be a celebration. Filled with perhaps the most well known lyrics in the American songbook, Porgy & Bess in any variation is welcome.

The current version at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, with book redone by Suzan-Lori Parks and Diedre L. Murray, and directed by Diane Paulus is a crowd pleasing musical. Having seen much of what Paulus has done in recent years, with her interest in bringing high brow art to a place in popular culture: Shakespeare’ Midsummer Night’s Dream as The Donkey Show, Turandot as a wrestling competition, and Hair both in Central Park and on Broadway with audience participation, the variations in this Porgy & Bess seem tame by comparison.