Gossip Central

Apropos of Nothing: Woody Allen’s View from the Top

Back in the day, I knew a journalist who had a crush on Woody Allen, and joined a club with others similarly besotted. Witty and smart, this bespectacled nerd made them laugh, and that was sexy. Cut to Woody Allen today, a man in his ‘80’s trying to clear his name. His new book, Apropos of Nothing, is already a scandal because one publishing house coup caused a cancellation, to another’s gain. Hachette employees walked out in protest, leaving the publication to Arcade/ Skyhorse. Chalk it up to a knee jerk conclusion of guilt in the #metoo moment: a relapse of Woody Allen’s continued battle in courts of public opinion on the case of his having abused his daughter Dylan. You know the story. It’s complicated. A family rift. A woman’s revenge. In Apropos of Nothing, he tells his side: logical, clear, bewildered that his reputation remains besmirched after much investigation, his work boycotted in the America that gave it birth. If that were all, you might not want to read Apropos of Nothing. On the other hand, one of our most unique filmmakers also tells tales of his life, loves, craft and Manhattan real estate, offering a laugh-out-loud penthouse perspective: Brooklyn boy rises to the top.

A Quiet Place II: Shhhhhhh!

Introducing the next chapter to the hit horror movie, A Quiet Place, writer/director John Krasinski said he never wanted to make a sequel, and now he prefers the new one: “That’s for you to decide,” he said to the rapt audience at the Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Hall premiere. Expect: the most successful franchise ever.

If you liked the first one, you will like A Quiet Place II. The crowd cheered wildly as the family, baby in arms, makes their way through a landscape emptied of people, besieged by grotesque creatures averse to sound. Because the filmmaking is superb, from story to direction, special effects to editing, the movie, as in the first, is riveting, reinventing the genre. You cannot look away from beginning to end at those faces: Emily Blunt as the every-mom turned action hero has her match in Millicent Simmonds, as the fiercely smart daughter who strategizes a route to survival. Simmonds who we first met on the set of Todd Haynes’ Wonderstruck, has grown up. Now 17, Simmonds is luminous, in the manner of silent movie stars of yore, and Krasinski takes full advantage. For this episode, Cillian Murphy joins in on the journey, meeting up with good guy Djimon Hounsou. Without revealing too much, there are boats involved.

The Plot Against America on HBO: Democracy at Risk

Showrunner David Simon took the stage at the 92^nd Street Y carrying a giant-sized bottle of Purell following a preview screening of the HBO miniseries, The Plot Against America, to air on March 16. Certainly, Coronavirus was on his mind, a point of concern, even paranoia, while he was promoting his program, famously a Philip Roth novel fearful about the future of democracy. Simon shared the stage with his actors Winona Ryder, Morgan Spector, and John Turturro. Why adapt this Roth novel now?

Salman Rushdie Commands The Rainbow Room at the Guild Hall Academy of the Arts Awards

Even against a gloomy sky, The Rainbow Room with its magnificent city views defied yesterday’s weather, an impending pandemic, democrats duking it out. At Guild Hall’s most festive winter celebration, honoring achievement in the arts and philanthropy, serenity reigned, although most honorees greeted guests and neighbors with fist bumps and elbows over the usual bear hugs and double cheek air kisses. Among those cheering on Dorothea Rockburne in the Visual Arts, Barry Sonnenfeld for Performing Arts, Ted Hartley for Philanthropy and “a life well lived,” and Salman Rushdie for the Literary Arts, were Philippe Petit, Ralph  Gibson and Mary Jane Marcasiano, Tovah Feldshuh, Blythe Danner, Jordan Roth, Toni Ross, Patti Kenner, and many more representing the vibrant community, many attendees former awardees. April Gornik promised that the long-awaited Sag Harbor Arts complex will open this spring. And Eric Fishl raised a glass to the memory of Michael Lynne.

Remembering Rip Torn: R. I. P. Rip

At the Greenwich House Theater for a memorial for Rip Torn, awesome clips revealed the evolution of this legendary actor’s astonishing film career from Baby Doll (1956) to Bible epics through roles as a good guy and then menacing bad ass, onto his Emmy winning television work on “The Larry Shandling Show” and “30 Rock” with a hilarious scene with Alec Baldwin. A bit from his 1969 The Bearding of the President showed him with his “Nixon” nose, his own invention, and at least one friend opined that he would have been an even bigger presence in film and stage but for his politics.

But among the ample work that was not screened, was a bit of voice over in the Oscar winning documentary Harlan County USA. Filmmaker Barbara Kopple needed someone to say, “We’ve got our guns now,” and asked him to say the line so it could be heard. “I’ve never told anyone, but now I am telling you,” Kopple confessed to a crowd of New York friends and family, among them David Amram who led the speakers off and concluded with a special song for Rip, and accompanied Rip’s twin sons with Geraldine Page, Jon and Tony Torn, in a reading of Whitman’s “Song of Myself.”

Oscars 2020: Parasite Upset

Okay, we did see it coming. Parasite certainly made a big impression. A stylish hoot, the feature was the edgiest, artiest of the lot. Director Bong Joon Ho needed a drink after his writing win; maybe he thought his run would end after that, but the academy shed its love for him over top honors. Much like our current political scene, where the line-up of democrats does not seem to yield any one clear candidate, the Oscars, with 1917 looking like a Best Picture winner, had stellar contenders. The mood had shifted over the course of the award season. I, for one, wished more love could have been shared with The Irishman, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, or Little Women, that Parasite would beat Pain and Glory for Best International Film, and that would be that. Still, in the end, the Oscars 2020 show proved to be more entertaining than expected. As the dear departed two-time nominee Sylvia Miles used to say every year, the voting algorithm for Academy Awards is reliably unpredictable. Expect an upset.

The Times of Bill Cunningham: “We all get dressed for Bill”

Mark Bozek’s documentary, The Times of Bill Cunningham, features a fresh look at his subject from a 1994 taped interview: Hard working and uniquely talented, Bill Cunningham eschewed the limelight yet pursued and promoted style, at celebrity functions and on the street, often perched on his bike on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 59^th Street where Bergdorf Goodman sits majestically. Ah, the department store. It’s a dying breed, just like the self-effacing Cunningham himself. Anna Wintour famously quipped, “We all get dressed for Bill,” extolling the special fame of fashion and street photographer Bill Cunningham. When he died in 2016, Wintour wondered if there’d ever be another like him.

Incitement: New York Jewish Film Festival on a Roll

Where is Quentin Tarantino when we need him? As we know, his Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, now nominated for a Best Picture Oscar among many other awards, turns on the conceit of what if, the fantasy that the Manson murders on August 9, 1969 had a different outcome. Yaron Zilberman’s Incitement, a powerful recreation of the events leading to November 4, 1995, climaxes in the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in Tel Aviv following his triumph with the Oslo Accords. The fiction film opens in New York this month, after screening in the current New York Jewish Film Festive, and at East Hampton’s Guild Hall this weekend, presented by HamptonsFilm. You watch, knowing the end, wishing history could be averted, hoping somehow that the murder of peace-loving Prime Minister Rabin would have stalled, and peace would prevail. Alas, instead Zilberman leads us through the “incitement” to the cataclysmic moment, exploring the mindset of Yigal Amir, an aspiring law student and orthodox Jew of Yemeni descent, whose violent act has led us to Bibi Netanyahu’s election, to a regime that remains strongly right wing, taking the region closer to chaos and war, and keeping peace an illusion.

Martin Scorsese’s Rat Pack

Whatever else happens, no matter what other Oscar nominations The Irishman garners, Best Picture is guaranteed. The New York Film Critics Circle and National Board of Review, to name two groups, have already augured its success. But of course, winning is anyone’s guess. After decades of movies, Martin Scorsese seems to take the award season in stride, flanked by his posse including Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci, as he was this week at Tao for the NYFCC. Picking up an award at Tao this week, jet lagged following the Golden Globes on the other coast, he spoke about another of his pack, Harvey Keitel, wanting to jump ship at that event. “We were sinking,” he confessed defeat. Harvey switched tables for Tarantino’s.

But there Marty was front and center at Tao, with everyone paying homage to the master as they took the stage.

Quentin Tarantino’s “Iambic Quintameter” and other Rhythms at the 85th Annual New York Film Critics Circle Awards Dinner

Back in 2012, when Brad Pitt received a Best Supporting Actor Award from the NYFCC, he proclaimed that he loved this award evening best of all because these awards will not be televised. Does that explain why this awards night breathes relaxation, friends awarding friends despite a gripe (from Adam Sandler) about mean reviewers? Not to mention Quentin Tarantino’s whine about critics, ones he loved and ones he hated, even though Pitt was presenting him with a Best Screenplay honor at this year’s NYFCC ceremony at Tao Downtown. Cued in to critics as scribes, Pitt emphasized Tarantino’s process: “Quentin writes his scripts by hand; he writes novelistic chapters of backstory for his characters, he loves them so much. I call his rhythms iambic quintameter.”