Gossip Central

Oscars So Real in 2022: No Offense Intended

Despite a contretemps at the Oscars—a slap seen round the world—the ceremony and awards proceeded as expected, apace, with favorites winning all around. When Will Smith accepted his Best Actor award, he tearfully mentioned defending family, as his character Richard Williams did coaching his daughters Venus and Serena to top tennis honors. Of course, Smith had just hit Chris Rock for a dumb, inconsiderate joke about his wife Jada Pinkett Smith, mumbled while Smith’s expletives were bleeped out. The morning after, many are thinking his tearful Oscar acceptance speech is not sufficient to brush aside his behavior. 

Last year’s Best Actor, Anthony Hopkins, present this year after missing the 2021 Academy Awards; so sure he would not win, he stayed home in Wales. Smith was the favorite for his prize as were the best supporting actors, Ariana DeBose and Troy Kotsur. Jessica Chastain, awarded for Best Actress for her role as televangelist Tammy Faye spoke about being seen. The Oscars –spreading the love-- made sure many were both seen and heard. CODA –the smaller film that could—about a young hearing woman coming into her own in a deaf family--took top honors.

MJ: The Musical: The Art of Michael Jackson

If you love Michael Jackson, you will love MJ—it’s that simple. The musical limns the controversial performer’s rise to “King of Pop,” avoiding the more difficult challenges of his personality in favor of music and dance—it’s that simple. Not that the star’s dependence on pain killers is not a significant plot issue—it’s that plot is not really significant. You do hear the word accusers—once—but that particular untoward issue is not a part of Lynn Nottage’s book either. If you are of the mind that he should be cancelled, shove it. MJ is not about that, but about his art. 

Taking place in a rehearsal studio in 1992 Los Angeles, --along with an ensemble of talented singers and dancers—Michael Jackson is rehearsing for his “Dangerous” tour. A film crew follows him around, hoping to get more of his personal side in an interview. Everyone’s concern for his demons is out front, getting at his opioid consumption and how that’s wrecking the schedule, not to mention the budget—but wisely, the music and dance, everything you know and love, shapes the origin myth, with first-rate staging, and Christopher Wheeldon’s brilliant choreography and direction.

Lady Gaga’s Passion at the New York Film Critics Circle Dinner at Tao

Brought to tears in telling the tale of her immigrant ancestry, Lady Gaga thanked the New York Film Critics Circle for recognizing her for Best Actress for her performance in House of Gucci. Big on heart, she was grateful to everyone from director Ridley Scott to her hairdresser and makeup artist, but mainly, she cited her matrilineage of strong Italian women who taught her to be bold and fearless, in a family that featured lots of shouting. Sorry, mom, she shouted out to her platinum haired mother seated at her table at Tao, the meatpacking Asian-themed restaurant and longtime venue for this annual—except for the Covid years--event. 

She was not the only awardee crying with emotion. Jane Campion, the NYFCC’s pick for Best Director, her citation given by Martin Scorsese, spoke of an early turn around in her career when the movie Sweetie, which many critics did not like, got a second wind after the New York Times critic Vincent Canby wrote favorably about it and changed the “trajectory of my career.” Back in the day, Susan Sontag took her to tea. Nothing if not edgy, Campion’s Power of the Dog is frontrunner for the Best Picture Oscar, but Drive My Car, from Japan, got that honor with the New York critics.

Celebrating Guild Hall at Cipriani 42 Street

Many revelers at this week’s Guild Hall winter gala remembered that before Covid locked everyone down, they were celebrating the premiere East Hampton cultural institution at its 2020 annual gala. And while much has changed in these two years—the venue was now the cavernous Cipriani 42^nd Street—and, the 2022 honorees were Board Chair Marty Cohen and Michele Cohen without the customary Academy of the Arts recipients—the mood was exuberant, as this huge, yet intimate event of East End neighbors chatting, catching up has not lost any of its warmth. Academy president Eric Fishl recalled that in that pre-pandemic limbo, no one knew whether to fist or elbow bump but preferred to kick one another in the ankles. All these dressed up people kicking the s__t out of each other, he laughed.

Renee Zellweger in The Thing About Pam at the Whitby Hotel

Her spindly legs over sky high heels, Renee Zellweger, both star and a producer on NBC’s series The Thing About Pam, commanded the stage at the Whitby Hotel this week after a screening of the first two episodes of the 6-part series. Based on a true-life crime podcast, already well known, about a 2011 murder in small-town Troy, Missouri, The Thing About Pam is so tongue-in-cheek, you have to laugh at the shenanigans of bungling law enforcement and grieving citizens, as a beloved wife and mom—and daughter—is found dead of multiple knife wounds in her living room. The two-time Academy Award winning actress plays Pam, hardly recognizable with her pudgy face and physique, her legs like elephant trunks, who slurps endlessly on a giant sugary beverage further sweetened with cherry syrup. The camera can’t get enough of her fat face and squinty eyes as she figures out her next shady moves.