Gossip Central

Rob Reiner Honored with the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s 41st Chaplin Award

Needless to say, certain tropes follow actor/ director/successful-son-of-a-famous father Rob Reiner around: one is the epithet “Meathead” from his role on the great television sitcom “All in the Family,” and the other is “I’ll have what she’s having,” the signature Katz’s deli line uttered by Reiner’s mother Estelle upon seeing Meg Ryan’s character Sally fake an orgasm in the hit movie “When Harry Met Sally.” These bits were lovingly deployed last night at the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Tribute to Rob Reiner. In one of the evening’s special moments, Ryan and her “Harry,” Billy Crystal walked hand in hand across the Avery Fisher Hall’s flower festooned stage, with Crystal quipping, “We are finally under the chupah. For anyone waiting for the sequel, this is it.”

Ralph Steadman in For No Good Reason

Is there a vicar in the room, asked the British artist Ralph Steadman at the premiere of Charlie and Lucy Paul’s documentary about him, For No Good Reason. His work instantly recognizable from his collaborations with Hunter S. Thompson, most notably for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and articles for Rolling Stone Magazine, Steadman is a mix of perversion and honesty, the very qualities he admired in Thompson and another one of his literary heroes, William S. Burroughs. A vicar might have rained on all of their parades.

The Woody Persona: Bullets Over Broadway and Fading Gigolo

In the hilarious old-school tradition, Bullets Over Broadway at the St. James Theater, based on Woody Allen’s 1994 film of the same name, features a writer who makes a Faustian bargain with a mob boss, Nick Valenti (Vincent Pastore) who makes him an offer he can’t refuse. Of course, Woody wrote the book for this musical, so it may not be so surprising: That David Shayne in the person of Zach Braff, frenetic, neurotic, a shpilke-ridden nerd, evokes the Woody Allen persona we have come to know and love in his films.

The Railway Man: Colin Firth Working on the Railroad

Patti Lomax never heard of Colin Firth when he came to visit her husband Eric Lomax in Berwick Upon Tweed, their home in the northernmost part of England, just a 45-minute train ride to Edinburgh. Firth was researching his role in The Railway Man, based on Lomax’ life story. When other women were swooning over Firth’s Mr. Darby in Pride and Prejudice, she told a reporter at the film’s premiere party at Rouge Tomate this week, she was not attending movies because her husband had a neurological disorder, perhaps connected to the time he was a British prisoner of war, in forced labor in Singapore, and tortured by his Japanese tormentors. “They captured a great deal about Eric,” she noted in praise of Colin Firth’s performance, that of the actor Jeremy Irvine who plays him as a younger man, and the production under Jonathan Teplitzky’s direction.

Kevin Spacey: Museum of the Moving Image Tribute

Sprinkling his talk with the “F” word, Kevin Spacey recounted the wellworn story of how his idol Jack Lemmon encouraged him when Spacey was a 13 year old. “That was a touch of terrific,” Lemmon said to the aspiring actor, after seeing him perform at an acting seminar in Los Angeles, and 13 years later Lemmon auditioned him for the Broadway production of Long Day’s Journey into Night, to play his son. He became his mentor, friend, and father figure. Yes, as we know Spacey is a major movie star: clips from The Usual Suspects, American Beauty, Margin Call, Glengarry Glen Ross, and many other films at the Museum of the Moving Image’s annual fete this week on Park Avenue attested to that fact. But for this viewer, his Richard III at BAM was Spacey at his very most stellar, followed by a modern version of that Shakespearean malevolence on Netflix’s House of Cards. You could say, mean and vicious are his calling. However, when MMI chairman Herbert S. Schlosser fainted at cocktails, Spacey was the first by his side.

Sam Moore’s Tribute to Martin Luther King/ SeriousFun Gala Remembers Paul Newman

It might have been your typically rousing Sam Moore concert at City Winery this week, featuring the Soul Man’s classic repertoire, starting with  “Let the Good Times Roll,” “Knock on Wood,” “I Can’t Stand the Rain,” “Hold On [I’m Coming],” and with two young women he met at a concert, “Something is Wrong with My Baby.” But just as this great night was escalating in excitement, Sam wanted to remember Martin Luther King whose death day is April 4. And so he added a new song, “They Killed a King.” It may have added a sentimental touch to a performance that is smooth and soulful, but, as Moore’s wife Joyce explained, Sam knew him. He finished a generous session exclaiming, “Now, let’s get crazy,” for “I Thank You” his signature “Soul Man,” “Dance to the Music,” segueing to the music from Shaft. The octogenarian has never seemed younger.

Red Velvet at St. Ann’s Warehouse: The Moor Comes to Brooklyn

To some, red velvet refers to the latest craze in cupcakes. To others, like those who attended the New York opening of a British import at St. Ann’s Warehouse in downtown Brooklyn, Red Velvet is the play to see. 

About an American actor from a bygone era, black and brilliant, named Ira Aldridge, with outsized ego and hubris to match, Red Velvet limns familiar racial themes, and then freshens them beyond a story of victimization: a black actor in the early 1833 gets a chance against all bias to perform Othello with an all white cast at London’s Covent Garden. But, he has his own ideas about how to play the moor. Aldridge experiences a classic demise that you may argue is color blind. The actor Adrian Lester brings vitality to this role, and the play within. As a black actor dismissed for refusing to restrain his all too ferocious performance as the crazed Othello, Lester is all rage, and vulnerability.