Gossip Central

An Enigma Wrapped in Inhumanity: The Imitation Games’ Algebra of Need

The story of a brilliant man, Alan Turing, brought to suicide after being disgraced for being gay, the movie The Imitation Game reflects the sexual politics of a bygone era. In the midcentury, homosexuality was a disease that could be cured, and surprisingly in the US Bible belt, some believe that canard today. In this riveting if conventional movie, directed by Morten Tyldum from Graham Moore’s screenplay, Benedict Cumberbatch plays Turing’s stunning mental power, bungling social grace, and naievete so compellingly, his demise at age 41 supplies an added irony to the history of his work in cracking the Nazi enigma code, using a machine that would be a forebear to the modern computer. But with all of his mind-bending intelligence, he lacked the resources to survive society’s ignorance.

Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar: Here to Go

Last year we had Gravity, a chamber music concert compared to this year’s grand oratorio, Interstellar. As we all know, our planet is going to seed, or in this case, dust, and something must be done to save mankind, worthy or not. Epic, each in its way, Gravity’s outer space was intimate, a place for Sandra Bullock to heal with the help of George Clooney, while Interstellar’s is vast and unmanageable: Matthew McConaughey’s Coop is sent out there to fix that, to find a place for human migration. He leaves behind a family, most notably his devoted daughter Murph. Needless to say Interstellar is most successful as a movie when it is grounded in family, maybe because the acting is so good, Murph, young, older and old (Mackenzie Foy, Jessica Chastain, Ellen Burstyn) and the fathers (McConaughey, and Michael Caine to Anne Hathaway’s Amelia Brand). Interstellar is messier in space, maybe because the science is so garbled. Regardless, this movie must be seen as an essential part of this season’s conversation about the trendy subject of our planet’s demise, as well as its layered filmmaking.

Lasagna at Bruce Springsteen’s: Stand Up for Heroes/ Women in Comedy at Caroline’s

You have to love this night for both maximum heart and entertainment: Stand Up for Heroes, Wednesday night. Sponsored by The Bob Woodruff Foundation and Caroline’s Comedy Club, and kicking off the Comedy Festival, Jon Stewart, Jim Gaffigan, Louis C. K., John Oliver, headlined, and Brian Williams introduced the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin E. Dempsey, who channeled Frank Sinatra on a rousing “New York New York.” After Bruce Springsteen sang (“Dancin’ in the Dark,” and more), and told some groan-worthy jokes, he did his thing, auctioning off his guitar. To sweeten the pot, he threw in a spin around the block in his motorcycle sidecar, guitar lesson, a lasagna dinner at his place, and the blue shirt off his back, his contribution raising $600,000. Fashion may soon help raise money too:

Thanks For the Memories: An Interview with Richard Zoglin on Bob Hope

In his long dynamic career, Bob Hope’s story resonates as a cultural history of the last decade: a rags-to-riches immigrant, he was a pioneer in vaudeville, inventing stand up as we know it: he worked in movies and on television, and entertained the troops abroad. Not only was his profile, a ski slope nose, a world famous trademark, but so too were his walk and turns of phrase: “I wanna tell ya,” he would say. In a new biography, Hope, Time Magazine’s theater critic Richard Zoglin provides an engrossing read on Bob Hope’s life and times. I caught up with Richard Zoglin recently to find out why Hope mattered so much, the artist Jeff Koons would sculpt him in silver, and why Dick Cavett would walk his walk.

Sarah Ruhl’s The Oldest Boy: Letting Go

Sarah Ruhl’s beautiful new play The Oldest Boy at Lincoln Center is informed by a quiet release into Destiny. A mother faces an unthinkable choice: a Midwesterner, she is married to a Tibetan restaurateur. Now when a lama and monk (James Saito and Jon Norman Schneider) come to her apartment to claim her son is a reincarnated beloved teacher, she is asked to give him up for the higher purpose, to be enthroned and educated at a monastery, far away from parental care. If Ruhl were working on a larger canvas, she might be making the kinds of spectacles for which Julie Taymor is best known.