Gossip Central

Ben Walker in American Psycho: He is What He Wears

As leading man to the pounding disco drama, American Psycho at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater, Benjamin Walker is all abs and six pack. Sinfully envious, his Patrick Bateman embodies the ethos of the bygone late century: what he cannot have, he seeks to destroy. His body, and apartment’s walls are often red splattered as if this musical were a circle from Dante’s hell. Credit Es Devlin’s sets. You may question the premise of this show, a British import based upon Mary Harran’s 2000 film of the controversial 1991 book by Bret Easton Ellis, so misunderstood its original publisher cancelled: can you really make a musical about a serial killer? You might say, that misunderstanding can go for Bateman himself, as he compares business cards with friends and foes, diddles both fiancée and girl on the side, and generally acts out in axe wielding mayhem. Fortunately the projectile blood lands on a scrim; nothing living was hurt in the making. And if you can keep the numbing thump as satire, you may just find yourself having a good time.

Dev Patel, Jeremy Irons Bromance in The Man Who Knew Infinity

For some, even the talk of math inspires a mind freeze. The actor Dev Patel who plays a real life math genius from Madras claimed to be one of those last night at the premiere of his new movie, The Man Who Knew Infinity. As Srinivasa Ramanujan, his emphasis was the relationship, not the one with the lovely Devika Bhise who plays his wife Janaki, also attending the special night at Elyx House, but with G. H. Hardy, a perfect and prim Jeremy Irons in the role. Amazed by his facility with figures, Hardy invited Ramanujan to Cambridge, England where he faced racism, cold, and culture shock, and still managed to move mathematics forward much the way Sir Isaac Newton advanced the laws of physics, finding a formula for partitions that others thought was impossible. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society.

Morgan Freeman Evokes Career Envy at Film Society’s Chaplin Award Gala

The normally reticent Robert DeNiro could not repress himself at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall for the annual Chaplin Award Gala last night. Presenting clips of Morgan Freeman’s greatist hits, and there are lots of them, DeNiro groused, “Morgan gets to play Nelson Mandela and God. In the past year I played an intern, and Bernie f—ing Madoff.” That was the biggest laugh of the tribute, not counting the various attempts to brag about sex with Helen Mirren, as Morgan did in Red, a high point no doubt of any actor’s career.

Susan Sarandon is The Meddler: Listen to Your Mother

Even when you know where The Meddler is going, Susan Sarandon is so likable as Marnie, a mom from Brooklyn with a thick accent and a big heart, you root for her and yet understand why her daughter Lori wants to keep her at bay. It’s not every mother who would corner your ex, and ask him to go back with you. Rose Byrne plays Marnie’s daughter who is not always appreciative of mom’s special gifts, including her meddling, or as I’d call it, her pathological intrusiveness. She needs to get a life, and she does. From director Lorene Scafaria’s screenplay, and based on her experiences, The Meddler is funny, wise, easily the most crowd-pleasing film opening this week.

Everybody Knows . . . Elizabeth Murray Premieres at Tribeca: A Talk With Director Kristi Zea

Everybody Knows . . . Elizabeth Murray premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival’s closing weekend. Even as the artist Elizabeth Murray was making news, installing the major retrospective of her extraordinary sculptural paintings at MoMA in 2005, one of 4 women so respectfully displayed, room after room on MoMA’s 6th floor galleries, she was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. Film production designer Kristi Zea was already making a documentary about her and her prolific career. Unlike writer Nora Ephron, say, who made the decision to keep her illness under wraps, Murray was open about the disease that she would fight valiantly working at her studio. And now Zea had a theme for her documentary: “The tone of the movie changed. Suddenly we had a story we did not know we had. What I found out,” said Kristi Zea just before the film’s premiere screening at the Whitney Museum, part of the Tribeca Film Festival, “was how much people loved her. She was ambitious, didn’t take no for an answer. ‘Everybody knows’ was the name of her last painting. That has so many connotations: everybody knows that I am sick, everybody knows me but they don’t.”

Chita Rivera’s Vamp at Café Carlyle

Nobody moves like Chita Rivera. With all due respect to Catherine Zeta-Jones who earned an Oscar for her film role as Velma in Chicago, with one quick pelvic thrust in director Rob Marshall’s direction for Rivera’s opening night at the Carlyle, Chita Rivera blows away all competition. Of course she originated the role of Velma in 1975, only one of her iconic Broadway performances in a career that includes Bye Bye Birdie, The Rink, Kiss of the Spider Woman, and West Side Story. Her set at the Carlyle, “An Evening of My Favorite Songs,” features ample samples from her shows accompanied by an expert band, with music director Michael Croiter on guitar, Michael Patrick Walker, associate music director on piano, Jim Donica’s bass and Dan Willis reeds. And, there are stories galore from this Broadway legend, who starts her set with “I Won’t Dance,” and says, “I have trouble standing still.” From her, that’s a promise.

Leaving Dublin: Sing Street Premieres

The essential ingredients in John Carney’s films: music and heart—see Once (2007) and Begin Again (2013)— bubble up in ample supply in his new one, Sing Street. The movie had its premiere Tuesday night at Metrograph, a new old space on Ludlow and Canal, just around the corner from necktie designer Alexander Olch’s chic boutique on Orchard. Metrograph is Olch’s place too: he’s combining his love of movies with his awesome garment-making skills. There, Courtney Love, Rudy Guiliani, Terry George, Paul Haggis, and many others picked up their popcorn and pop and planted themselves in the plush chairs for the screening. The seating seems kind of free form, yet perfect for viewing Sing Street, a coming of age tale sure to be a hit, with the most appealing and talented characters this side of Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some!!

Katherine Jenkins at the Café Carlyle

At Café Carlyle this week, Katherine Jenkins’ magnificent voice fills the intimate room with Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” even before she gets to the stage, a wonder in a strapless magnetic blue ball gown. Billed as a Welsh superstar, a title you would never dispute, she sings opera, folk songs, and show tunes, and tells tales of the Carlyle’s special resonance for her, having lunch with the Queen, touring with Andrea Bocelli, and being summoned by Andrew Lloyd Webber, to sample some “Phantom of the Opera” compositions. At times, you think the glasses on your table will shatter, but Katherine Jenkins is in total control for her set, “Viva la Diva.”

Saoirse Ronan Triumphs as a Girl Scorned in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible

Arthur Miller was well served on Broadway this season with revivals of A View from the Bridge and The Crucible, both brilliantly directed by Ivo van Hove. At the Walter Kerr Theater, the spirits in The Crucible come alive, and for a moment the girls possessed by demons and led by Saoirse Ronan’s Abigail look like they escaped from Mathilda, wreaking noisy havoc in unison, their inner demons like locusts in formation, moving to Philip Glass’ original and eerily percussive music. As Act II opens, this choreographed chaos is a thrilling sight, and terrifying too. Coming at a time in life when sexuality awakens, these girls in knee socks and short skirts express no less than the confusing physicality of early womanhood. Abigail especially has transgressed with John Proctor in the person of Ben Whishaw who was in fact the spirit Ariel in Julie Taymor’s The Tempest, and the creepy serial killer protagonist of Perfume. As Proctor, Whishaw wishes he’s had nothing to do with the nanny, Abigail, but now risen up in fury, she’s bent on revenge.

Of course, written in 1953, the irrational, manipulative, political Salem tribunal led by Ciaran Hinds, possessed by a chilling perverse logic, reflects upon the McCarthy era and its “witch hunt” that ruined many a life particularly in the arts community. But the play would not have its allusive force if not for its very grounding in human frailty. If you see it in this framework, and with the superb performances of Sophie Okonedo as the good wife Elizabeth, and a fine supporting cast including Tina Benko, Tavi Gevinson, and Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut, as in A View from the Bridge, forbidden sex has reared its ugly head.

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

 

Jerry Lewis Takes MoMA as Max Rose, First Movie in Two Decades

Off the charts irrepressible, Jerry Lewis, a few days after his 90th birthday, took charge at his own Q&A at MoMA after a screening of his first movie in 18 years, Max Rose. From a script written by first time director Daniel Noah, who persisted through many rejections from those who think you cannot make money on a movie about old people, Max Rose finally got to Lewis who accepted the offer to star. And from the looks of their relationship onstage at MoMA, it was made in heaven. Not so for the moderator, critic David Kehr, who became the target of many Lewis jabs: “Are you going to hang around long?” Fortunately, Kehr had a sense of humor and a thick skin sitting through as Lewis interviewed himself.