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.

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.”

Robert DeNiro Praises Jane Rosenthal at the Muse Awards: New York Women in Film and Television Celebrate Game Changers

When a performer as dynamic as Gloria Estefan claims to be shy, as she told the packed ballroom at the midtown Hilton for New York Women in Film and Television’s Muse Awards this week, you wonder what life experiences had an impact. Her grandmother, an entrepreneur when she came to America from Cuba at the age of 57, had to push her toward her stellar career in music, she told the room of documentarians, actors, and film world visionaries. Her mother had to hold the fort when her father was imprisoned. These revelations are de rigeuer for Muse awardees: from Harriet director Kasi Lemmons to Caroline’s Comedy Club’s Caroline Hirsch who said, “From my childhood in Brooklyn, I was groomed for a career in retail, working at Gimbel’s for a while.” She never would have imagined the comedy empire she created, from discovering an unknown Jay Leno to her great event, “Stand Up for Heroes,” with comedy’s biggest talents performing for wounded veterans. Year to year, even comedy wannabe Bruce Springsteen gets into the act, telling a joke or two before retreating to his reliable “Born in the U.S.A.” Hirsch gets the “Made in New York” prize.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Goes on Tour: Move Over Bob Hope

In its third season, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is as charming as ever, in her stride, performing stand up for the troops. In the episode shown at the premiere this week at MoMA, Mrs. Maisel greets a sea of men commenting on never having seen this much khaki before. In the military of course, clothes do not make the man, but for Midge, clad in a cocktail frock with just enough flesh tones visible, camouflage, and other earth tones become the butt of humor as she turns her back to show a bright red bow. A funny bit yes! The four hundred extras laugh uproariously.

The show continues with a Shirelles-type girl group, and a Johnny Mathis-style front man in a shark skin, skin-tight suit. The sound is familiar if you remember 1960, and Nat King Cole and the period hits. As we moved to the after party at the Plaza Hotel, we met composer Curtis Moore and his writing partner Thomas Mizer who crafted this sound for the show. Detail perfection, which we’ve come to expect from this hit, extends to its every aspect! When Amy Sherman-Palladino introduced, calling their work genius, she laughed at her hyperbole—but, we are now witnessing the smooth operations of a well-oiled machine.

The New York Public Library’s Literary Lions Gala by the Book

A bookish night at the New York Public Library, the Literary Lions gala celebrates writers. Charlie Rose attended, and was ensconced in conversation as pigs in blankets were passed. Jean Doumanian confessed to hating long cocktail hours, but the gabfest went on for a while. Writers do have stories. Julie Taymor is finishing her film on Gloria Steinem, and Gay Talese, ever the dapper gadabout, said he went out to screenings and book events galore, even stepping out to a pub to watch television, if nothing else was on his social calendar.

Me Too, Megyn Kelly, and Bombshell

The women in the Roger Ailes story are fierce, ambitious blonds, at least those in the forefront of the movie Bombshell, a truthful account of the demise of the Fox News CEO: Truthful, because, at a recent screening of Bombshell, many close to the story of how Gretchen Carlson refused to compromise in her lawsuit against Ailes cheered at the recognition of the scandal depicted just the way they remembered it.

The Cave: What Will Happen to Syria?

The stakes could not be higher in Feras Fayyad’s relentless documentary The Cave. Set in an underground hospital on the outskirts of Damascus, the sounds of classical music juxtaposed with the thunder of bombs give you the yin and yang of experience in Syria under siege, the forces of life competing with those of death. With Dr. Amani Ballour in charge, a young woman with nerves of steel who must face evil as well as the distrust of men in a culture where a mother who cannot feed her children fears the societal norms that prevent her from taking a job more than imminent death, “the cave” becomes a last refuge of humanity. Speaking about his focus on women in this culture, the director becomes tearful thinking about his mother. This week at the movie’s premiere at the Walter Reade theater, he sat between his producers, Sigrid Dyekjaer and Kirstine Barfod from a Copenhagen based production company, and spoke about the horrors faced in his country, worsened in the last week with the American pull out of troops: he admitted for the first time that his mother was a Kurd.

Downton Abbey: The Movie Gets a Royal Premiere

Just as Lord and Lady Grantham are thinking of downsizing,
the King and Queen decide to visit, setting off the lavish fairy tale
that is Downton Abbey: The Movie. The smartly dressed crowd at Alice
Tully Hall cheered as John Lunn’s symphonic music swelled, a rich
reminder of what was left behind when the last PBS season ended in
Julian Fellowes’ extravagant entertainment, and what now, in the form
of a feature-length film, ushers in two hours of sheer pleasure.