Gossip Central

Summerdoc Finale and Others: The Overnighters, Pump, Levitated Mass

The Overnighters, Jesse Moss’ much lauded film at Sundance, screened last night at Guild Hall, a finale for the Hamptons International Film Festival Summerdocs series. Thinking he was following the story of the many men who descended on North Dakota looking for work in the fracking boom there, Jesse Moss found a compelling central character, Pastor Jay Reinke, who took many of these migrants into his Lutheran church, much to the horror of the community. With a surprising reveal, the documentary demonstrates the power of non-fiction filmmaking to touch un-scriptable hidden truths. With the industry’s large machinery cutting into the once spectacular landscape as backdrop, the film could have focused on the all too tragic toll of our country’s dependence on oil, but instead it homes in on grim lives that are far removed from the riches of East Hampton, where a lavish pre-screening party at Mary Jane and Charles Brock’s residence featured the magician Mark Mitton who made Hilaria Baldwin’s mega carat diamond ring morph into one larger.

Hamptons Journal: Last Days in Vietnam Screens at Guild Hall

The war in Vietnam still conjures volatile emotions for those who lived during that heady time in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s. That’s why Alec Baldwin insisted that the audience at Guild Hall Saturday night ask only questions related to the documentary, Last Days in Vietnam; host of the Hamptons International Film Festival’s Summerdocs series, he anticipated that the politics surrounding America’s intervention might cloud the story Rory Kennedy’s new film had to tell: about the evacuation of Saigon in 1975, as the city fell to North Vietnam troops. Americans like Stuart Herrington, an intelligence officer stationed there after the Paris Accords cease fire, promised not to leave behind the hundreds of South Vietnamese who would surely be executed or sent to re-education camps. That was a promise that he and others would not be able to keep.

Hamptons Journal: Anthony Bourdain and Masters of Sex on Authors’ Night

At Guild Hall, when Florence Fabricant asked CNN’s Anthony Bourdain at a recent Q&A, which country was most surprising, he quickly answered Iran. Most Americans have not been there, and I seized a moment of opportunity. Now, he said ruefully, would not be the time. This celebrity food maven sniffs out countries of smelly dysfunction over orderly functionality. And Iran surprised him with a people that had the attitude, Are you American? We don’t care what the government is doing; welcome, we want to know you. In a Teheran restaurant where they put flags on diners’ tables, they apologized, Sorry, all our American flags were burnt. Congo, he said was perhaps the most dangerous, run amok with warlords and militias. You don’t want to mess around. One minute you are fine, and the next everyone is glaring at you for being CIA. Known for his culinary adventures to these exotic locales, when he’s back in the states, Bourdain says he loves best a bite at the deli; the flipping of burgers in his Hamptons backyard fills him with bliss.

Going Green at Guild Hall’s Garden as Art Tour

Your first perception as you drive up to Fred Stelle’s serene North Haven waterfront acreage is Wow, fruit trees. Pears aplenty not yet ripe. Abundant apples showing a blush, anticipating autumn. And beyond, a vintage house, a former actors’ colony during the Depression, getting a bit of this architect’s signature touch with a bit of construction. All he ever wanted, Stelle said addressing a group of journalists on a pre-tour visit, was to plant fruit trees. Exemplifying the challenge of this year’s garden as art tour, how to accomplish gardening without the use of chemicals, he explained how he was able to live his dream against popular wisdom. Everyone told him, you cannot have fruit trees without spraying toxins. And he has spent seven years figuring out how to defy that advice. Yes, this year’s tour comes with a message: as many consumers are concerned with conserving our planet, and keeping our children healthy, it starts with the soil. Of the gardens open to visitors this year, an annual benefit to Guild Hall, all are the result of chemical free planting. It was a relief to see that in the three cases visited last week, values of beauty and utility were not compromised.

Remembering Robert Altman in a Documentary on EPIX

When critics talk about the heyday of American filmmaking in the 1970’s, director Robert Altman was not only a part of that flourishing, he was at the forefront. With movies like McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), Nashville (1975), and Three Women (1977), my personal favorites—his films did not seem to operate by any predictable formula. A new documentary, Altman, will air on EPIX, directed by Ron Mann, featuring interviews with Kathryn Altman, Lily Tomlin, Robin Williams, Julianne Moore, Sally Kellerman, Keith Carradine, Lyle Lovett, James Caan, and many other stars who worked in his films. 

One of the interviewees, Elliott Gould starred in The Long Goodbye (1973), as Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler’s famed fictional detective. In a recent phone conversation about this legendary director, Gould explained what made working with Altman so special.

Kevin Costner in Mike Binder’s Black and White

When we first see Kevin Costner in the indie movie Black and White, he’s got his head in his hands. His neck is large and wrinkled, befitting an older man in distress. His wife has died in an accident, causing a new stage in his already beleaguered life as it unfolds in Mike Binder’s latest film. The well-to-do couple was raising their granddaughter Eloise after their daughter died in childbirth. Her black crack-head father is MIA. Now Costner’s Elliot is on his own, and the father’s mother—an entrepreneur with attitude galore played by Octavia Spencer takes him to court. At a sneak preview in East Hampton this weekend, prior to a featured upcoming screening at this fall's Toronto International Film Festival, Binder introduced the movie and its star to the all-white audience, explaining that the story of raising a biracial child whose custory was challenged by a black paternal grandmother, was based on his own experience. 

Lasse Hallstrom’s Fusion Fare: The Hundred Foot Journey

A Mumbai family leaves political duress in the homeland, migrates in a van to rural France, and mingles ethnic spices with haute cuisine across an embattled country road. This could be the recipe for a hokey immigration fable, but in director Lasse Hallstrom’s able hands, and with a cast led by the formidable Helen Mirren and Om Puri, The Hundred Foot Journey is the summer’s tastiest movie.