Gossip Central

Kieran Culkin in Glengarry Glen Ross: Looking for David Mamet

This year’s Best Supporting Actor Oscar winner Kieran Culkin can banter with the best of them, in this case, the real estate winners and losers of David Mamet’s now classic "Glengarry Glen Ross." A natural choice to play Richard Roma, Culkin fast talked his way through A REAL PAIN, as the titular “real pain,” and held his own among the Roy siblings in HBO’s "Succession." In the current revival at the refurbished Palace Theater, he’s up against Bob Odenkirk, Bill Burr, and Michael McKean; a hot shot salesman, he paces the poetry, Mamet’s language with his own evident neurotic verbal tics.

At the afterparty at Tao Downtown, Bob Odenkirk said this was his Broadway debut. When I asked, is Mamet here tonight? No. Did Mamet see it? He replied, Yes, he liked it a lot. Always a great vehicle for testosterone driven actors, I could imagine all who attended opening night this week wishing to have a crack at the drama: F. Murray Abraham, Anthony Edwards, David Schwimmer, among them. Bobby Cannavale played Richard Roma in a revival. Others: Linda Emond, Al Franken, Lorne Michaels, Ansel Elgort were on hand.

Adrien Brody at the Oscars: Don’t Let Hate Go Unchecked

Hollywood sent a message at this year’s Oscars. Winning Best Actor for his role in THE BRUTALIST, his second for this prize, Adrien Brody hoped for a healthier, happier, more inclusive world: “Don’t let hate go unchecked.” That’s not a small ask. From his first win for THE PIANIST in 2002, the actor whose mother, the superb Village Voice photographer Sylvia Plachy emigrated from Hungary in the mid-sixties, the actor with a war-torn look has played parts hewing close to this background. He has even said he could hear his grandfather, as he created the accent for this role, reminding everyone of America’s highest ideals even as his partner, Georgina Chapman had to remind him to thank his mother.

The Palestinian/ Israeli team that made Best Documentary winner NO OTHER LAND, showed how their collaboration as filmmakers cut through the senseless political practices in a town in the West Bank, policies that brought violence and horror to communities in Israel and Gaza. The filmmakers asserted that our government’s current response is not helping to bring peace.

Zoe Saldana was the first American-born Oscar winner whose history goes back to the Dominican Republic. Honored with many awards on her way up to the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in EMILIA PEREZ, Saldana’s win could not have been easy for her co-star Karla Sofia Gascon, shunned for hate-speech, racist comments made online. For sure, that hurt the Netflix movie’s chances for Best Picture.

Adrien Brody at the 90th New York Film Critics Circle Dinner: Sitting Shiva

The New York Film Critics Circle celebrated its 90^th year this week, at TAO Downtown. Member Rex Reed celebrated his 50^th year with the group. Many spoke of the fires in LA. Adrien Brody, reflecting on TAO’s décor with its giant statue mistaken for Buddha, pointed out, that’s Shiva the destroyer before becoming emotional, and that’s before the girls were swooning in the bathroom: Robert Pattison had shown up for Brady Corbet’s Best Picture presentation for THE BRUTALIST.

As celebrations go, this one was cerebral, not raucous which had some attendees concerned. And then there were the outliers: Claire Danes was wildly animated as she introduced Kieran Culkin for his Best Supporting Actor award, the real pain in A REAL PAIN. They had starred together in IGBY GOES DOWN as naughty teens but now, she pointed out, they each have kids. “Only you can be you,” she said gesticulating madly. To wit he got up to say, “You are so kind, I wish I had been listening.”

Jim Jarmusch presented Best Screenplay to Sean Baker for ANORA who liked the snow falling in the last scene so much he proclaimed, “Hats off to the falling snow.” But you cannot admire the deftly constructed screenplay without admiring the sex. Fawned Jarmusch, “I loved the sex in the film: transactional, silly, showing the variety of what that is. He had heard that Baker demonstrated some scenes coupling with his wife. And Sean Baker fawned back, noting that when he finished film school at NYU he only wanted to be Jim Jarmusch. “I used screen grabs from NIGHT ON EARTH. All that matters is heart, COFFEE AND CIGARETTES.”

Michael Moore: Pennebaker Career Achievement Award at Hamptons DocFest: Unleashed and Undeterred

Even Covid could not keep Michael Moore back. Of course, everyone at Hamptons DocFest was disappointed the irascible filmmaker could not make the scene for his Pennebaker Career Achievement Award—named for D. A. Pennebaker and presented by Chris Hegedus--, but show up he did, larger than life on Zoom. “Now everyone can see I really have hair,” he said, with a head shake. Usually tamed under a baseball cap, his ample head of hair was making a rare, tousled appearance. Hamptons DocFest would be screening his now classic ROGER & ME, his 1989 confrontational view of GM outsourcing their production from his hometown Flint, Michigan. All a young Moore wanted was to take CEO Roger Smith on a roadtrip around Flint to show him the impact of his business decision. His thwarted attempts are satiric, a sad laugh at his America—and ours-- on the decline. How timely!

The festival, well underway in Sag Harbor, had screened UNION the day before, a look at Amazon and the ongoing protests of workers, underpaid and overworked. Fulfillment indeed! Now on the Oscar docs shortlist for Best Documentary, the film makes you want to say, I thought slavery was ended in America. Think again. Think of the history of unions in America, democracy writ large. Where are you, Jeff Bezos? Attention must be paid!

Between DOCNYC and Hamptons Doc Fest with the inevitable overlap of non-fiction films, truly stellar work emerged: BLUE ROAD: The Edna O’Brien Story opened DOCNYC. Sinead O’Shea’s doc illuminates the transgressive sexual boldness of the Irish writer. Jill Campbell’s BEYOND THE GAZE: Jule Campbell’s Swimsuit Issue, an inside glimpse into the woman who made the Sports Illustrated’s most financially successful and most anticipated magazine of the year.

RaMell Ross’ The Nickel Boys: Re-Viewing Racial Injustice

Harrowing tales of black boys and men during the Jim Crow era are the meat and potatoes of Pulitzer Prize winning author Colson Whitehead’s fiction. When filmmaker RaMell Ross, who made the acclaimed 2018 documentary “Hale County, This Morning, This Evening,” was given an advanced reading copy of Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys, he was working on an exhibition in New Orleans on the history of the American South and its imprint on the Black soul. His installation and the novel, about two boys in a barbaric reform school serving time for arbitrary crimes—essentially because they were Black and vulnerable-- seemed to put the filmmaker on a thematic path toward his exploration of Black identity.

The result is an edgy film, arty in the best sense. Innovative, the movie takes a novelistic approach to visual storytelling. About a real-life reform school, the fictive Nickel Academy, is grim --and even grimmer for its Black population. Punishment, perhaps a turn on a torture device meted out by Spencer (Hamish Linklater) may also extend to murder and burial in an unmarked grave. Given the disquieting details, as viewer, you may find yourself looking up at a face, the sky, the branches of an orange tree, the interior of a dorm or cafeteria from an unexpected angle, and wonder, how did they get that shot?

At the premiere screening, on the New York Film Festival’s opening night, Ross spoke about not wanting to overburden the actors with concepts but to have them experience each other. He fitted the actors with camera rigs literally strapped on. In more traditional filming, you always assume the camera is there. With the rig on, actors have always to be more aware. Daveed Diggs spoke about wearing the heavy rig all day for fear of losing perspective. Fred Hechinger observed that actors and cameramen seemed to exchange roles in the filmmaking. The result is as close as I’ve ever seen to a novel-to-film adaptation that translates technique as well as story. Already nominated for top awards, RaMell Ross and “The Nickel Boys” are high on the lists predicting Best Director/ Best Film Oscar nods.

Sebastian Stan, Timothee Chalamet, Adrien Brody: Among Leading Men at the Gotham Awards 2024

Old Hollywood likes their leading men handsome and debonair—think Cary Grant, Rock Hudson—but with this year’s Gotham selection of A DIFFERENT MAN for the top prize, Best Feature, a new look grabs at your attention. You have to love an awards season that starts with a celebration of –well, difference. A hit at the New Director/ New Films series, the film stars a unique protagonist, a man not without his charms, but no traditional heart throb; with a face a Cubist portraitist would love, he becomes all the rage. The film choice is a reminder that no matter how smart, suave, and elegant this start to the awards season, the Gothams still keep a discerning eye on indies.

That said, the biggest stars were in the room, eh, the cavernous Cipriani Wall Street, mainly as presenters, a great show of support; the stars know this is the night for great food and fun. A-listers: Jake Gyllenhaal, Rachel Brosnahan, Aubrey Plaza, Jessica Chastain, and Oscar Isaac were among the presenters, some nominated for their performances: Nicole Kidman, Demi Moore, Saoirse Ronan, among them, but these did not take home the prize. Gender mixed, the Gothams gave Coleman Domingo Outstanding Lead Performance and Clarence Maclin Outstanding Supporting Performance for their respective roles in SING SING.

Highlights for me included James Mangold and Timothee Chalamet accepting the Visionary Award for A COMPLETE UNKNOWN, the new Bob Dylan movie. Chalamet does not imitate Dylan so much as make the songs his own. Elle Fanning cheered her director and co-star on. She made her Broadway debut this year in Appropriate and said she enjoyed the challenges of theater, especially working with Sarah Paulson. We first met “Timmy” at the Hamptons International Film Festival. He was in a group of “Rising Stars.” I think his star has risen.

Hollywood Film Mavens Robert Zemeckis, Tom Hanks, and Doug Liman Praise Gaucho Gaucho: Reinventing Documentary

Documentary filmmakers Gregory Kershaw and Michael Dweck had a shoutout of praise for their 2022 film, THE TRUFFLE HUNTERS --from Robert Zemeckis and Tom Hanks. These veteran filmmakers, the FORREST GUMP team, are not the only fans. For their latest doc, GAUCHO GAUCHO, about Argentinian cowboys, making the rounds of film festivals to great acclaim, director/ producer Doug Liman, another fan known for popular films such as EDGE OF TOMORROW, starring Tom Cruise, hosted a private screening of excerpts in his downtown Manhattan apartment, followed by a Q&A with Michael Dweck. On the face of it, the filmmakers could not be more different. The evening became a master class in film art.

Shot in black & white, GAUCHO GAUCHO, takes place in a hilly landscape, featuring a community close to nature, far from our tech world. In one clip, a still mound moves. A horse rises from rest, a man on top of it—all in one long take. The filmmakers knew this “horse whisperer” often slept on his animal, and simply filmed it—like a Warholian meditation. The Hollywood filmmakers appreciate how challenging such a one-shot scene can be. No tricks, cut-aways, or B-roll--just the camera recording what takes place, taking its time. The audience at Liman’s comprised of documentary filmmakers all know that even non-fiction filmmaking relies on crafting. Without the customary “script,” Kershaw and Dweck get as close to the real moment as one can get with thrilling results.

Prior to their recent screening at DOCNYC, I had a chance to speak to them on Zoom. Onto the next project, they were filming in Burgundy, in France’s wine country, yet another off the grid community—their specialty. While the doc team were honored to be lauded by Zemeckis and Hanks, and to meet Liman and be friends, as they said, they work on a smaller canvas. “We have the luxury of time to create the film we want to make,” said Dweck.

Remembering Paul Morrissey

From the edgy look of his movies—FLESH, TRASH, HEAT, to name a few--you would never think of Paul Morrissey as deeply religious. With his friend and partner Andy Warhol, a fellow Catholic, he made art, collaborating on many cinema-verite films and other ventures including the purchase of cliff-high acreage in Montauk overlooking the Atlantic.

The legendary Eothen had on it a number of cottages—more like rustic Catskill bungalows—where visitors could reside. Realtor Linda Stein who had brokered the deal stayed for a summer with Morrissey insisting that she shut lights when rooms were not in use. Not quite a conservationist, he was old school frugal and utilities out east are not cheap. Notables passed through: dutchesses, Kennedy’s and Radziwill’s, artists, musicians such as Lou Reed, the Rolling Stones. Curmudgeonly and loving, Paul Morrissey was the consummate host.

Friends and family celebrated him at his funeral this week hosted by his adoring nieces. Gerard Malanga, who had introduced Morrissey to Warhol in 1965, sent a poem. With speakers: the casting director Leonard Finger and music manager Danny Fields, much was made of Morrissey’s contradictions to a knowing crowd including Geraldine Smith and Susan Blond. A promoter of The Velvet Underground, Morrissey nevertheless cautioned against drug use. Compelled to sell the property long after Warhol died in 1987, he bought three units in the newly desirable trailer park nearby, just before the market surged for these waterfront residences now beached on cement foundations in rows. One for himself, the others for visiting family.

Luca Guadagnino's Queer at the New York Film Festival: Daniel Craig Looking for Love

The novels of William S. Burroughs may be difficult to adapt—just ask David Cronenberg—but in the able imagination of Luca Guadagnino, the transformation of Queer to film is a triumph. The packed audience at the recent Alice Tully Hall premiere, a high point at this year's New York Film Festival, went wild as the creative team took the stage for the post-screening Q&A. And it is not only because the movie stars Daniel Craig. Guadagnino explained how as a boy in Palermo, he picked up the Burroughs work and always wanted to make this film. While working on Challengers from screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes’ script, he gifted him the book one day and said “Read this tonight.”

The text of Queer, unlike say, Burroughs’ most famous Naked Lunch, has a linear thread so a narrative could be made of the love story between William Lee and a younger Eugene Allerton (a formidable Drew Starkey). Yes, there’s plenty of man-on-man sex—minus the testosterone. How else can you explain the tenderness? Prowling Mexico City looking for a connection, Lee has a tryst or two, essential to the vision of what homosexuality meant in the midcentury—achy, twitchy, awkward, and alone, Craig plays Lee’s vulnerability.

Of course, there are drugs involved. Costume designer J. W. Anderson spoke of dressing Lee in cool whites when the substance of choice was cocaine to the colors for heroin use. A funny moment comes when a doctor asks the sick Lee, are you addicted to opiates? Cut into chapters, Queer proceeds to South America as Lee looks to explore “telepathy;” Lee invites Allerton to travel with him in search of yage. The jungle scenes feature an unrecognizable Lesley Manville as shaman—the one significant woman in this movie, a transformation from the male Dr. Cotter of the book.

Another significant change: insisting that Queer did not have an ending, Guadagnino and Kuritzkes supply one, bringing closure to their plot. As Guadagnino put it, the novel opens a door and then closes it. Guadagnino proposed, “What if we went through that door?”

Barbie at the Peninsula: A Doll Rules

In the doll metaverse, Barbie is queen. A party at the posh Peninsula Hotel brought together her movie creators with members of the Academy to anoint her with awards. The movie about her has had world domination in sales. Even in Morocco, where I saw it when it was released in July along with Oppenheimer—famously creating the “Barbenheimer” unit—it was a hit, I was happy to report to Margot Robbie, who spear-headed the collaboration with Mattel and starred, and Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig, scriptwriters with Gerwig directing. The phenomenon spoke of girl power, and what men have to do to measure up. So where was the movie’s primary Ken, Ryan Gosling?

Ryan Gosling made the movie a musical, his song and dance numbers major entertainment a la La La Land. Mark Ronson filled me in on creating the movie’s sound: he just followed Greta’s script. There wasn’t even supposed to be music, but fortunately she, a major music maven, and fan, was keen on creating a sound. Eschewing the pink cocktail of the evening—a prosecco with cotton candy, Ronson said he was overstuffed from Thanksgiving with family, and following a routine, waking at 7 to write. How do you follow up on Barbie? Ronson is writing a book on DJing in the ‘90’s.

“What would I do without acting!?,” exclaimed F. Murray Abraham at the party, agreeing, his White Lotus character should be continued into the next season. “Didn’t you love the writing,” he asked. “I would follow Mike White’s writing anywhere,” he said, so happy to be working. Next up: he’s the husband in the Broadway production of The Queen of Versailles, based on Lauren Greenfield’s 2012 excellent riches-to-rags documentary, with Kristin Chenowith as his wife.