Gossip Central

Mr. Gaga: Going Gaga Over Ohad Naharin

Israeli filmmaker Tomer Heymann gesticulates wildly talking about Ohad Naharin, a much-awarded choreographer, the artistic director of the Tel Aviv based Batsheva Dance Company. In town in early January with his exceptional, evocative documentary, Mr. Gaga: A True Story of Love and Dance, a highlight of this year’s Jewish Film Festival, Heymann exudes, “Ohad is an amazing character, perfect for a movie. I met him 25 years ago when I was a waiter; here was a sexy man with a beautiful Japanese woman, his wife, dancer Mari Kajiwara, a very unusual couple. They gave me a big tip.”

“I knew a “hora;” said the filmmaker who made Mr. Gaga with his producer and brother, Barak, “that’s what I knew of dance. When I was offered a free ticket to “Kyr,” a Batsheva Dance Company performance, it changed my life forever.” Eight years in the making, Mr. Gaga will premiere this week at Film Forum and the Elinor Bunin Monroe Film Center at the Film Society of Lincoln Center in tandem with Ohad Naharin’s Batsheva Dance Company’s premiere of “Last Work” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Just prior to these openings, I had a chance to speak to Ohad Naharin, indeed handsome, with a quick and ironic wit, about the film, the birth of Gaga, Natalie Portman, and the vagaries of politics and art.

Discovering John Cohen--Again

At a wall-to-wall packed opening at the Grey Art Gallery, photographer/ filmmaker / musician John Cohen held court in front of a video installation of some vintage photographs he took at the heyday of artist owned galleries on 10^th Street. Talk about a fascinating pocket of art history! “Inventing Downtown: Artist-Run Galleries in New York City 1952-1965” features paintings by Alex Katz, Jim Dine, Jane Wilson and other noted artists of the midcentury, Dan Flavin, George Segal, exhibited in the context of the galleries: Tanager, Hansa, Brata, Delancey Street Museum, to name a few. A John Cohen photograph graces the handsome exhibition catalogue’s cover: Red Grooms crossing Third Avenue, transporting artwork in what looks like a baby buggy to the Reuben Gallery in 1960.

August Wilson’s Jitney in its Broadway Debut: A Review

Now, a dozen years after his death, August Wilson is on a roll. Maybe the wide release of the movie of his stage play Fences will bring him a posthumous Oscar for Best Screenplay, but more, because Denzel Washington has vowed he would see all 10 plays of this bard of Pittsburgh’s Hill District produced. A new Manhattan Theater Club production of Jitney, a 1982 drama at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater, a Broadway debut for this early play, is a must-see.

Becoming Warren Buffett on HBO: Portrait of a Good Man

On inauguration eve, a different man of wealth was feted at MoMA, at a special screening of Becoming Warren Buffett. HBO’s Richard Pepler described the film’s subject as a man of decency, integrity, and character. Directed by Peter Kundhardt, this riveting film illuminates the life and work of Buffett, born in the depression in Omaha, to become one of the richest men in the world. And yet, he seems the opposite of many men of means: humble, self-effacing, humanitarian, without any posturing or affect of wealth. In an initial sequence, we see him driving himself to work, stopping at McDonald’s, weighing in on his breakfast choices. Many viewers of this essential documentary will look for his wisdom on how to amass wealth and make profitable investments. While few have his genius, his tips are of value. But even more vital is the realization that the ability to live as he does is within everyone’s reach, rich or poor.

Jill Kargman Climbs a “Stairway to Cabaret” at the Café Carlyle

Not sure whether or not Jill Kargman would riff on the Led Zepplin classic “Stairway to Heaven,” I had to admit, the comedienne, creator of Bravo’s Odd Mom Out, and author of Sprinkle Glitter on my Grave brought something different to the Café Carlyle. The set list, for example, featured only eight songs. Kargman is gifted at stand up, weaving songs and stories together into a funny, entertaining evening, spoken from the perspective of an East Side mom at odds with the prevailing ethos. Tales of a Southern nanny named Sue, a Bulgarian make up artist, and a trip to Disneyworld gave new meaning to Jon Bon Jovi/ Richie Sambora’s “Wanted Dead or Alive,” the Alice Cooper, Desmond Child, John McCurry hit “Poison,” and Nikki Sixx, Mick Mars, Tommy Lee’s “Girls, Girls, Girls.”

Daniel Craig and David Oyelowo in Othello: The Moor Goes Down

At the much celebrated New York Theatre Workshop production of Othello, Andrew Lieberman’s austere set looks like the inside of a packing crate as the audience files in, taking seats on three sides; mattresses are strewn about the floor, as if we are inside a military barrack. Under the imaginative direction of Sam Gold, the play starts in the dark. This is Shakespeare’s play, after all, and the black fixes you immediately on the bard’s poetry. By the time lights go on, you are prepared to witness Iago’s (superb Daniel Craig) cunning, brutal betrayal of the naïve, besotted Othello (David Oyelowo, equally Craig’s match in excellence). Jane Cox’s lighting creates the intimacy of a bedroom for vigorous lovemaking, and an arena for fierce man-to-man combat.  You are not likely to find theater this engaging, this terrific, this season.

Cinema Eye Honors Non-Fiction Films

At the Cinema Eye Honors luncheon celebrating documentary films and the filmmakers who make them, Otto Bell exulted: his The Eagle Huntress had just received a BAFTA nod, and one from the Directors’ Guild of America, but more exciting to him was a tea last week at the Plaza Athenee where Robert Kennedy Jr. had a conversation with him about falconry, and brought his own eagle. Successful with this first-time feature, Bell makes commercials for CNN. Blown away, he asked,  “Can you believe it: “Robert Kennedy, Jr.!”

Meryl Streep Cautions at the Golden Globes: Disrespect Incites Disrespect

This is a sign of things to come in the next four years: Meryl Streep outspoken about the performance of the year, the one that stunned her, and it wasn’t even in a fiction film. It was a real life public figure—unnamed—who mocked a disabled reporter. “Disrespect incites disrespect.” We need the press to hold power to account and out every outrage. I am paraphrasing from Streep’s powerful message from the podium of the Golden Globes, as she received the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement . Streep singled out only one outrage among so many she could have chosen from this public figure, the one who will now become the leader of the free world. Feel The Big Chill.

Nicole Kidman, Dev Patel and Sunny Pawar: Celebrating Lion at The Monkey Bar

Sunny Pawar, in case you have not yet seen this movie, is “Lion”’s secret weapon. Pint-sized and precocious, Pawar, now eight, was six when he inhabited the role of Saroo as a young boy separated from his mother in a remote area of India. When he began his acting career starring in this movie, he did not know English, but this week at a special screening of the film and dinner at The Monkey Bar, he was happy to talk about “Lion,” how director Garth Davis cast him, selecting from 2000 boys, and his next movie, “Love, Sonia” co-starring Demi Moore. In short, and no pun intended, he’s a natural with a big career ahead of him. I can still hear his whiskey voice.

New York Film Critics Circle Spreads the Love

Why is this night different from all other [awards] nights? New York Magazine film critic and emcee for this annual awards fete David Edelstein had some answers about honoring the storytelling but Mark Ruffalo, on hand to present the Best Screenplay award to Kenneth Lonergan for “Manchester By the Sea,” put it succinctly: the speeches are fresh. This being the beginning of the long slog to Oscars, everyone can let loose. And “Manchester”’s lead, Casey Affleck did, reading one-liners from negative reviews, especially from the night’s emcee. Edelstein, for his part, was ruffled and began to praise Affleck for just about everything, until that wore thin. But it was all in good fun. Had the awards been televised as the Globes and Oscars are, this would have been a different night indeed.