Gossip Central

Gotham Awards: Showing Up is its Own Reward

Traditionally, the IFP Gotham Awards kicks off the film season’s tributes. As celebrations go, this decidedly downtown dinner brings together New York’s movie making elite while honoring films in Oscar-like categories. A balcony at Cipriani Wall Street becomes a giant schmooze fest, a meet and greet for many before the big events in Los Angeles, before the night’s filet mignon is served, and while the nominees for Best Actor, Feature, etc. continue to be hopeful. There, Ethan Hawke pontificated about Claire Denis and how she should receive a Gotham. We could not praise him enough for his movie Blaze, one that he directed about a music legend. That was before he took home a Best Actor statue for his performance in Paul Schrader’s First Reformed, and Schrader received his for Best Screenplay. But the night was young.

Elaine May in The Waverly Gallery: Aging With Dignity and Laughs

There’s a sweet hotel on Waverly, on the north side of Washington Square Park that could be the prototype of Kenneth Lonergan’s play The Waverly Gallery at the Golden Theater. Even if that’s not the spot where Gladys, a remarkable Elaine May, runs an art gallery that does not seem to make much for the owner or the artists, it could be. This funny, real as the table you can touch drama, trades on the familiarity of places and people: Ellen, Gladys’ beleaguered daughter (an excellent Joan Allen), her husband (a fine David Cromer); and two young actors, bookends of each other: Don, an artist (Michael Cera) and Gladys’ grandson Daniel (Lucas Hedges in his Broadway debut), the IT boy in such films as last year’s Lady Bird, and this year’s Mid-90’s and Boy Erased, taking over from Cera, a prior IT boy.

A Chorus Line: A Singular Sensation at New York City Center

New York City Center celebrated its 75^th year with a performance of the iconic A Chorus Line followed by dinner at the Plaza Hotel. Back in 1975 when it first hit the stage at the Public Theater, A Chorus Line was a game changer of a musical. Scripted from taped interviews with theatrical types: singers and dancers, the book, written by Michael Bennett, collaborating with lyricist Ed Kleban, with music by Marvin Hamlisch—well, this was the winning dream team that made A Chorus Line the Hamilton-scale hit of its day. Re-visioned now 43 years later for this one-week engagement, the musical feels fresh, and simply fabulous.

Variety and The History Channel Host the Second Annual Salute to Service: Honoring Those Who Stand Up

“Thank you for your service is not enough,” said Montel Williams, a US Navy veteran, who also said, “I promised not to cry” as he accepted his award at the 2^nd annual Salute to Service luncheon hosted by Variety and The History Channel at Cipriani 25 Broadway. Ken Fisher, a friend who had accompanied Williams to Dover to meet with Gold Star families, introduced him as a “veteran’s veteran.” Having recently suffered a massive stroke, Williams showed up anyway, for veterans, and was teary-eyed reminding everyone to do more. They may be home, he said, but “their service is not over.”

Alfonso Cuaron Goes Local: Roma at the Whitby Hotel

No Oscar list this season will fail to have Alfonso Cuaron’s latest masterpiece Roma at the top. On critics’ minds: will the award be for Best Foreign Language Film or a straight Best Picture? But that’s not what’s on this director’s mind. Already an Oscar winner for Gravity, he turned his talents to a black & white, acutely detailed, Spanish and indigenous language realization of a key figure in his childhood, a maid he renamed Cleo who came to live with his family in the Roma neighborhood of Mexico City. A mother figure to him, from a disadvantaged class, he asks himself, what does she represent in the world of now?

John Pizzarelli & Jessica Molaskey Tell “American Stories” at the Café Carlyle

John Pizzarelli and Jessica Molaskey hit the Café Carlyle stage singing-- that is Jessica sang Paul Simon’s “American Tune” accompanied by John on the guitar. At this point, as regulars at the Café Carlyle and so familiar on NPR with their highly entertaining Radio Delux, first names are in order for this couple, married in life and music. There is simply nothing like settling into their sublime show, especially after the tensions of Election Day in the rain. With a superb Konrad Paszkudzki on piano and an excellent Mike Karn on bass, there was no talk of religion or politics.

Mercedes Ruehl in Torch Song: If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Your Mother

Family values loom large in the revival of Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Song Trilogy on Broadway. The hyper loneliness of Arnold, a gay man who performs in drag is what the actor Michael Urie kvetches about in his pursuit of love. Dressing as the play opens under its neon Torch Song lights, Arnold could be anyone longing for a lover, with spider lashes and red lips, equal only to the spectacular Andrew Garfield’s Prior Walter in the recent revival of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America. While that great show explores an AIDS ravaged America, this setting inhabits more intimate space: a ‘70’s gay bar’s backroom, a bed, and a kitchen. That’s where Arnold’s mom comes to visit, and she is every bit as large and terrifying as any woman painted by de Kooning, or penned by Philip Roth. As performed by Mercedes Ruehl, she’s a nightmare in pastel, but she’s Arnold’s, and in due course, even as they spar for supremacy in suffering, they belong to each other.

Margarethe von Trotta’s Anxiety of Influence: Searching for Ingmar Bergman

Actress, director Margarethe von Trotta was not thinking of making a documentary film, but when offered the opportunity to honor Swedish director Ingmar Bergman who would be 100 this year with a film about him, she could not say no. Von Trotta is best known for her feature films, Rosa Luxemburg, Rosenstrasse, The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (co-written and co-directed with her ex-husband Volker Schlondorff), among them, now screening at Quad Cinema for a retrospective of her work. And with Criterion putting together a boxed DVD set of Bergman’s films, she accepted the challenge of making the documentary, wondering, she told me this week on the phone from Munich, “how can I make a film about such a genius?” Told, do it in a personal way, she made Searching for Ingmar Bergman a most insightful, entertaining tribute from one filmmaker to another.