Gossip Central

The Times of Bill Cunningham Premieres at the New York Film Festival

When New York Times photographer Bill Cunningham would train his camera on you—whether at a posh opening or on the street—it made your day. Anna Wintour --Cunningham photographed the Vogue editor since she was a teen—famously used to say, “One dresses for Bill.” His discerning eye assessed celebrities and civilians alike, snapping those with elan, style, joie de vivre. His attention would say, You had “IT.” This beloved New York icon, who died in 2016 at age 88, is revived in a new documentary, The Times of Bill Cunningham, Mark Bozek’s loving tribute. Featuring an interview with Cunningham at its center, this entertaining documentary premiered at Alice Tully Hall this week, one of several stellar non-fiction selections at this year’s New York Film Festival.

Free Solo: High at Lincoln Center

If any one can make the perilous professional sport of rock climbing sexy and glamorous, Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi can. In Free Solo, their latest documentary (the couple made the extraordinary Meru), they turn their lens on renowned climber Alex Honnold, as he fulfills a dream, to climb El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. Of course he had done this before, utilizing all the tools of his trade including ropes, but now he wants to go it without. Needless to say, many have died attempting to climb without this support. To add to the drama, Alex is also in a relationship with Sanni. The charm of Free Solo is that the film goes into Alex’s personal, eccentricities, living in a van, eating with a spatula as his utensil of choice. He’s quite the barbarian, softened by a lovely blond who teaches him to say, I love you.

Jane Fonda in Five Acts: Hair Epiphanies and Other Revelations

Despite a long and distinguished career making film portraits as creator of PBS’ American Masters series, Susan Lacy will not just do anyone. She proclaimed at a Q&A with Alec Baldwin at a Hamptons International Film Festival pre-screening of her HBO documentary, Jane Fonda in Five Acts, she would not make a film about someone she does not like, “like someone who I want to get out of the White House.” “I really understand,” replied Baldwin, scrunching up into his best Trump face. “I really, really do.”

Reflecting on her PBS time, recounting the genesis of American Masters, Lacy spoke about her certainty that stories on culture-shifting figures such as James Baldwin, Joni Mitchell, Judy Garland, and her favorite, Leonard Bernstein, were inherently dramatic, often geniuses fighting against cultural mores, or their own demons. That was a difficult sell, but she prevailed. Now making films for HBO, like last year’s superb Spielberg, she does not have to raise the money. HBO just asks, what’s your budget?

The Oslo Diaries on HBO

Peace in the Middle East feels like a mirage, a glimmering haze on a distant desert horizon. But in 1992, key figures from Israel and the PLO came together in a neutral place in Norway armed only with hope to frame a peace agreement on the fragile and beleaguered strip of land that is called Israel. Last year a hit play at Lincoln Center dramatized their dialogue of peace. And now, timed with the September 13 anniversary of the Oslo Accords, and the Jewish New Year, a new documentary, The Oslo Diaries, airs on HBO. For filmmakers Mor Loushy and Daniel Sivan, residents of Tel Aviv, in historic Rabin Square, with their two children, the story of the Oslo Accords is personal. They add to the existing record with diaries and fresh interviews with the men from Israel, Jewish and Palestinian leaders, who met for 1,000 days, recognizing one another’s right to exist, forging strong bonds, waging the terms of peace, and watching them turn to dust. Last week I had the opportunity to speak to the filmmakers: is the hope of peace kaput forever?

Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 11/9: How Did We Get Here? What Do We Do Now?

Now in our second year of a presidency that continues to depress the spirits of most Americans, Michael Moore returns to the scene with Fahrenheit 11/9, which had a stellar New York premiere this week at Alice Tully Hall. A human barometer of what’s going on in the heartland, Moore continues his filmic outrage at our government, entwining narratives of racism, Russians, guns, greed, and craven leadership in his coverage of the lead-infused water in Flint, Michigan, with the passion of Parkland students, going places obscured in the average daily news cycle. Often operatic, Moore’s tragicomedy intensifies as Pagliacci overtakes the soundtrack. An equal opportunity blamer, he is tough on Trump and does not spare Democrats who did not do enough, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, in his outcry: Take Action!

Jane Lynch and Kate Flannery: Two Lost Souls at the Café Carlyle

Photo: David Andrako

Warming up with “When You’re Smiling,” the charismatic, jazzy backup band for Jane Lynch and Kate Flannery cued the Café Carlyle audience: we were set for a night of music and laughs. The “Two Lost Souls” came onstage, like a pair of Chaplinesque hobos, foils of one another, and funny. Reaching up, Jane Lynch, the more “Sapphic” of the duo could hit the ceiling. And crouching down, Kate Flannery, “by way of Jameson,” had a low center of gravity. Between the two, such songs as “One Note Samba,” “Bei Mir Bist Du Shon,” and “Good King Wenceslas,” rose to lively, harmonious levels. Kate’s “Shy,” belted out, was hilariously unconvincing. And Jane did a great “Mambo Italiano.” And on they went till the near finale, Jule Styne’s “The Party’s Over,” followed by Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus.”

Ethan Hawke’s Blaze of Glory

As a filmmaker, Ethan Hawke is something of a wildchild, fresh, irreverent, unexpected and totally loveable. His new movie, Blaze, about a little known country western singer/guitarist Blaze Foley is a marvel to watch, because everyone involved seems to be having so much fun immortalizing a man, a wildchild, who lived life in a no holds barred way, following his passions and foibles without restraint. Looking and acting the quintessential flower child, Blaze Foley could take no sound advice about his abundant talent as a musician and songwriter, nor about his life, blessed with true love, hokey as that sounds. Sybil Rosen, a Jewish girl with kinky hair joined him for a romp for a time, until the real world made their Edenic world unlivable. Blaze died tragically in 1989 at age 39, trying to help a friend, and Sybil wrote a book about him, Living in the Woods in a Tree: Remembering Blaze Foley, the backbone of this thrilling movie.

The Summit at Guild Hall: New Voices on a Traditional Stage

 “I am suffering!” That’s not a whine you hear often in East Hampton, but at Guild Hall, the plaint is cause for a visit to an emotional calibration center.

When Guild Hall decided to commission new theatrical work from young artists, the move seemed radical. Over the summer season, the state of the art East Hampton arts institution had staged readings of traditional work by Eugene Pack and Harold Pinter utilizing the talents of seasoned and local performers such as John Magaro, Tim Ransom, Harris Yulin and Mercedes Ruehl, with Matthew Broderick to join in for a Q&A. But this week, The Summit, a collaborative multi-media work from directors Christian Scheider, Tucker Marder, and a master puppeteer, Isla Hansen, transformed the jewel box of a theater into a laboratory, for a tragicomedy, and for experimental theater.

Chef Flynn: “Don’t Hold the Salt:” The Hamptons International Film Festival Celebrates Summerdocs in its Tenth Year

Under a makeshift tent, a staging spot for plating his culinary creations at the Brock residence in East Hampton, Flynn McGarry, a phenomenon as a young chef with his own Lower East Side restaurant, Gem, and a new documentary about him, Chef Flynn, shook hands, his fingers coated in egg yolk. “That’s how you want your chef,” smiled Flynn, at the party celebrating him, the movie about him, and the Hamptons International Film Festival’s Summerdocs 10th Anniversary: “Enjoy my food, and my life,” he told the crowd. He is 19. His Beef Tartare on a grilled lettuce cup, beautifully situated on trays, was a delight to look at, fleurettes with a sprinkle of sesame seed, and even better to eat.

Patricia Clarkson’s Grand Hauteur in The Bookshop

Patricia Clarkson is getting used to playing villains. If you’ve been watching Sharp Objects, the HBO thriller in 8-parts that will have its final episode this coming Sunday, you’ve seen this actress from New Orleans at her sinister best, a matriarch called Adora who is anything but adorable; her name alone exudes irony. Clarkson wears her bad side with high hauteur, an elegance and beauty that goes icy as human emotions draw near: it is impossible to turn away from her. In a new movie, The Bookshop, a lovely take by Isabel Coixet on Penelope Fitzgerald’s novel, starring Emily Mortimer, Clarkson continues in craven glamor. Bill Nighy’s character calls her behavior regarding the takeover of a bookstore repulsive. Clarkson says her acting strategy for playing hideous is to channel Glinda, the Good Witch.