Gossip Central

“Fly Into the Sun:” Cocktails at the Watermill Center

The grounds at Watermill Center, Robert Wilson’s art retreat on the east end are always difficult to navigate, what with slippery grasses and rock paths. It would have been good to follow Daedalus’ flight, as the evening’s theme suggested, flying high—but not too high-- into the sun. Alas in myth, the sun’s heat melts his wings and he perishes. That’s what happens when you soar too high. Evoking this myth as well as Lou Reed’s lyric, this year’s pre-gala cocktails had hubris galore on the paths through the woods. And there, in the large courtyard, a wall boasts, “SHE OUTWITS HIM/ SHE OUTLIVES HIM.” On its other side, artists, formal in black suits, one from Lithuania, graffiti with spray paint, the art called “Too M@ch Talk.” These days, walls say much.

Kathryn Bigelow Revisits the 1967 Riots in Detroit

Director Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal collaborated to give us a vision of “enhanced interrogation” in "Zero Dark Thirty," and now they’ve reached back to the 1960’s to explore that subject again—in the form of police brutality-- in "Detroit." 

Based on a true incident from the hot summer of 1967, Detroit begins with an animated overview of slavery, complete with evocative Jacob Lawrence paintings, a pan of an urban ghetto ablaze during the riots there, before it lands its lens on a particular incident for one of the most gripping movies I have ever seen.

Cai Guo-Qaing’s Big Bang Thwarted at LongHouse Reserve

By 7:05 PM, just when a “Fountain of Color” explosion event was planned to surprise guests at the cocktail hour and art viewing at LongHouse Reserve’s gala on Saturday, organizers had to announce instead that because of extremely dry weather conditions, Cai Guo-Qaing’s artistic contribution would not occur. Of course the irony was not missed: by dinner time it had begun to rain—lightly—and umbrellas were distributed as Cai, game and animated, displayed his designs for the explosion.

Hamptons Journal: Cynthia Erivo at Russell Simmons Rush Benefit/ Audrey Flack Speaks on Abstract Expressionism/ Dinner at Sotto Sopra

Russell Simmons’ Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation Art for Life Benefit is always a great night, but this year’s benefit, “Midnight at the Oasis,” at Fairview Farms in Bridgehampton, was special thanks to a performance by Cynthia Erivo. Much beloved for her Tony awarded turn as Celie in last year’s revival of The Color Purple, Erivo channeled Whitney Houston for “I Want to Dance with Somebody,” and begged indulgence for an under rehearsed cover of the Beatles’ “Let It Be.” Trust me, no apology was necessary. Meantime, Simmons who is vegan, is finding more and more inventive ways to serve pasta “Bolognese” and “chicken” over waffles to the large crowd supporting this charity every year.

Intimate Apparel at Bay Street Theater

Bring back the bustier! Fine lingerie takes center stage at Bay Street Theater where women (and a man) strip down to skivvies for the fine production of Lynn Nottage’s Intimate Apparel. Kelly McCreary, from Season 10 of television’s “Grey’s Anatomy” stars as Esther Mills, and she is lovely, durable, and stoic, her character evoking a bit of Cynthia Erivo’s Celie—(although Intimate Apparel is not a musical)-- from last year’s production of The Color Purple on Broadway. She simply doesn’t know how beautiful she is.

Hulk Hogan, Gawker, Privacy, and Alec Baldwin’s Puckered Trump Lips at Summerdocs Kickoff

Director Brian Knappenberger brought his documentary, Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press to the Hamptons International Film Festival’s Summerdocs series this weekend at Guild Hall. A provocative look at the First Amendment and what its protections may or may not have wrought, the provocative movie in three acts, now on Netflix, opens with Hulk Hogan and his take down of Gawker for posting a video of his having sex with his best friend’s wife (oy!), segueing to Sheldon Adelson’s purchase of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, ending with a meditation on fake news in the Trump era. Big questions bubbled up regarding the Silicon Valley venture capitalist Peter Thiel who paid for Hulk Hogan’s trial. Gawker was forced into bankruptcy.

The B-Side: A Conversation with Elsa Dorfman and Errol Morris

Errol Morris’ new film, The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman’s Portrait Photography, is his most intimate yet. Usually working with out-sized personalities, McNamara to Rumsfeld, the murderous gasman of Zyklon B, to point at a few of his subjects, documentarian Errol Morris has the further distinction with his 1985 The Thin Blue Line, of having changed the course of one man’s destiny with his investigative work, unearthing evidence that showed he was innocent of murder.

Elsa Dorfman, a longtime friend seems a smaller portrait indeed by comparison, but the filmmaker caught up with this mild-mannered photographer just as the Gentle Giant movers were removing some large scale Polaroids for storage, so the resulting movie surprises as it covers the technical aspect of Polaroid photography, and perhaps, the end of an era. In conversation, Errol and Elsa complete one another’s sentences.