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about: Regina Weinreich

  • A Quiet Place II: Shhhhhhh!

    A quiet place 2
    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.

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  • The Plot Against America on HBO: Democracy at Risk

    The Plot Against America
    Showrunner David Simon took the stage at the 92nd 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?

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  • Girl From the North Country at the Belasco Theater: Dark Drama With Dylan’s Music

    The Girl
    The musical, Girl From the North Country, newly landed on Broadway at the Belasco Theater after sellout runs in London and at the Public Theater, imagines what you can do if you match up a brilliant storyteller, Conor McPherson, with a brilliant songwriter, Bob Dylan. And that’s without either one of them having met, spoken, emailed, or tweeted with the other! How exactly does that collaboration create such exciting theater?

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  • All the Natalie Portmans at the MCC Theater

    ALL the PORTMANS
    A white girl in a black tutu pirouettes onstage in a dour apartment, a fantasy vision of Natalie Portman in Black Swan. Reminiscent of other works with movie stars in the name (Being John Malkovitch/ Searthing for Debra Winger), All the Natalie Portmans, an off- Broadway debut by C. A. Johnson at the MCC Theater, the conceit gets a smug laugh. For Keyonna, a queer charter school student who fixates on white actresses—see her vision board where Winona Ryder also has pride of place—the apparition is life-saving, as is the pop-up presence of all the Natalie Portmans, from Queen Amidala to her youthful breakout role in The Professional. Beset by complications resulting from her father’s sudden death, Keyonna copes alongside a beleaguered brother, a family friend girl crush, and a booze-binging mom. The family gets by one way or another, until it doesn’t.

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

    Guild Hall Awards 2020
    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.

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  • Dana H at the Vineyard Theater: Being There

    Diana H
    I usually take notes when I review plays, but I could not risk taking my eyes off Deirdre O’Connell in Lucas Hnath’s play, Dana H. Because the actress’ mouth is moving to the sound of Dana Higginbotham in an edited interview with writer/artist Steve Cosson from 2015, speaking about events of 1998, lip-syncing, her face is doing all in the narration of a harrowing story, and, you simply cannot avert your attention. She tells you it’s the first time she’s ever recounted the story of her abduction by Jim, a member of the Aryan brotherhood, a five-month ordeal from motel to motel, and you believe her because the emotion is so strong, who could speak of it? And you believe her because it is true. And you believe her because she is the playwright’s mother. Finally, you are there with her, in one such motel, and you simply cannot believe she, her son, and you are alive to experience this story.

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  • Remembering Rip Torn: R. I. P. Rip

    Rip TornAt 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.”

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  • Oscars 2020: Parasite Upset

    Oscars2020
    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.

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

    Bill cunnungham
    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 59th 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.

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  • Incitement: New York Jewish Film Festival on a Roll

    Jewish Film Festavil
    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.

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  • Martin Scorsese’s Rat Pack

    ScorceseRatPack2
    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.

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

    NY Film Critics Award
    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.”

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  • Cinema Eye Honors Docs: The Great Hack, American Factory, and More

    Cinima Eye
    Is Cinema Eye Honors a prelude to The Academy Award category for Best Documentary? The fifteen features shortlisted for an Oscar affirm the artistry of the nonfiction film. A champion of the art of doc, Netflix has distributed several of this year’s best, including The Great Hack and American Factory. The films have been available to stream for a while, but I saw them on the big screen this weekend, at The Roxy Hotel and at the Crosby Street Hotel, with filmmakers on hand to discuss their art.

    Steve Bognar talked about the complexities of American Factory, how our perspective on the global economy shifts as foreign countries come to us for cheap labor and opportunities. Focusing on a Chinese owned factory in Dayton, Ohio, the film, co-directed by Julia Reichart who could not attend, shows what happened when General Motors left the city, and their factory, eliminating jobs. One woman said she earned $29/hour working for the car industry, but now when the Chinese-owned Fuyao glass factory offered her a much-needed job, she had to accept $12/hour. We also see a shift in culture and labor ethics, the urgency of union affiliation, and resistance to it. With no easy answer, the film tells a compelling and resonant story. This award-winning film has won numerous awards, most recently Cinema Eye’s Honors for Outstanding Nonfiction Feature and Outstanding Direction.

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  • Why The Song of Names Matters

    Song Of2

    On the eve of the Golden Globes, consider The Song of Names, a film of merit in a tough, competitive film season. An epic post-Holocaust drama of two men who grow up as brothers, one a Jewish child prodigy, the other a Christian, the son of a classical music producer, The Song of Names focuses on its title song. Coming at a pivotal point in the film, “Song of Names,” composed by Oscar-winner Howard Shore, defies clichés about the Jewish dead, in simply naming names—in this case, the murdered at Treblinka; miraculously, the Canadian filmmakers, producer Robert Lantos (Sunshine, Barney’s Version) and director Francois Girard (The Red Violin, Thirty-two Short Films about Glenn Gould) were permitted to film there, a memorial site with an unforgettable field of boulders, each representing a town evacuated to this death camp. Based on the novel by Norman Lebrecht, he movie was a standout at the recent Hamptons International Film Festival, where I sat down with the filmmakers to talk about music, the Holocaust, and the stars Clive Owen and Tim Roth.

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  • Celebrating Sondheim with the New York Philharmonic: Joy on New Year’s Eve

    Philharmonic
    Photo: Regina Weinreich

    Introducing this evening, Bernadette Peters cautioned the audience at Lincoln Center’s Geffen Hall, "Sweeney Todd"'s Mrs. Lovett will not be singing about baking shepherd pies with real shepherds a featured ingredient. Not that it mattered. This would be Stephen Sondheim composer, and except for two numbers from Follies with the outstanding Katrina Lenk singing the words to “Losing My Mind” and “Could I Leave You,” Peters kept her promise. Lenk will star in a revival of Sondheim’s “Company,” coming to Broadway.

    Without his brilliant lyrics, the Sondheim feste did not disappoint. Beginning with the “Overture to A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” and “Suite from Into the Woods,” the orchestra, led by Alexander Gemignani, and directed by Lonny Price, sampled Sondheim’s ample oeuvre. You could see musicians pucker, whistling as birds in the woods. The performance, an hour and half of joy, included “Suite from Assassins” and ended with “Suite from Sunday in the Park with George.” Peters and Lenk returned, champagne flutes in hand, for “Auld Lang Syne.” If you are in New York City for the holidays, the Philharmonic is the place to be on New Year’s Eve.

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  • Sandra Bernhard Celebrates Ten Years of Mayhem & Madness at Joe’s Pub

     

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    “Welcome to the Kremlin West!”

    Aglitter in a sequined sheath, Sandra Bernhard took the Joe’s Pub stage like a bat outta hell, that is a rock goddess, belting Bobby Womack’s “Across 110 Street,” backed by her first-rate Sandy Squad Band. On this, her tenth anniversary celebration doing New Year’s at this venerable Village venue, she does not disappoint, featuring fresh snark and keeping it true. Taking a break from filming “Pose,” (–oops, “did I drop Pose. That’s so unlike me.” Bat bat bat.), she tips her hat to the queens Olivia Coleman, Nancy Pelosi, and Nicole Wallace. Mashing up the Zeitgeist, she reveals our inner angst over the ecology, the president, Walmart, Blue Apron. The passing of Barney’s had her rushing back to Mount Sinai for further tests! Oh, she’s well connected and drops names like gumdrops: Barbara Streisand, Chrissie Hynde, Carole King, Emma Stone, Debbie Harry, Julianne Moore—as if we too know these people, and would be there if they were having a holiday party—just saying. That should be our biggest worry!

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  • Is This a Room at the Vineyard Theater: Arresting Reality

    Reality
    No wonder the whistleblower won’t reveal him/herself. You know, the one who called out the infamous quid pro quo presidential phone call with Ukraine. See Is This a Room at the Vineyard Theater, a transcript made into a riveting drama, to see how those who cross the current American regime are treated. Perhaps you already know the name Reality Winner, know that this Air Force vet is incarcerated without actually having been accused of leaking sensitive material to the media regarding the Russian interference in the 2016 election. She, in her mid-20’s, an animal lover who learned Farsi so she could help women in Afghanistan, is only thought to have done so. The play, conceived and directed by Tina Satter, takes place on Winner’s doorstep in Augusta, Georgia as she is confronted by FBI agents, and is a literal transcript, redaction included, of what happened including the removal of her dog and cat, and the placement of recently bought groceries into her fridge. Talk about chill. All the more because it is true.

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  • Cats: The World Premiere: T. S. Eliot, Can You Hear Jennifer Hudson?

    Cats
    The latest entry into the Oscar race is Cats, a feature adaptation of the now iconic Andrew Lloyd Weber musical based on T. S. Eliot. I must mention “The Wasteland” poet because at no time during the state of the art premiere this week at Alice Tully Hall did anyone acknowledge this bona fide cred. Well, the musical is what its audience calls for: spectacularly beautiful to look at, with exceptional voices rendering the musical’s songs –or song. As one wag put it, I have never seen a whole feature devoted to one tune. That song, “Memories,” sticks in the craw, grating in its familiarity and cliché, but Jennifer Hudson as the ousted Grizabella, manages to give it new oomph. It soars.

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

    Muse Awards
    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.

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  • The Illusionists: Magic of the Holidays at the Neil Simon Theater: If You Can Believe

    The Illusionist 2
     “Do you believe in real magic?” Many must, as the line to enter the Neil Simon theater wrapped around the block—whole families– for a recent performance of The Illusionists. This yearly holiday themed event features a rotating troupe of internationally acclaimed magicians, a crowd pleaser as it cajoles the audience with comedy and Vegas styled pageantry.

    Provocatively dubbed “The Trickster,” British Paul Dabek leads off, carrying enormous ribboned boxes down the aisle, challenging a father and daughter plucked from their seats to compete. Winning, the girl gets to wave a wand triggering a gauzy opening number, the magicians parading and introduced, until the Taiwanese “Manipulator,” Eric Chien makes cards and coins appear and disappear.

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

    Marvolous2
    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.

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  • Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig Mix It Up at the Gotham Awards

    Gothem Awards2019

     Traditionally, the IFP Gotham Awards kicks off the film awards season. As celebrations go, this decidedly downtown dinner, sponsored by Robert Hall Winery, brings together New York’s movie making elite while honoring lower budget fare in Oscar-like categories. This year, I wanted to coin a category of my own, Best Speech, to be given to Olivia Wilde for her encomium to her "Richard Jewell" co-star Sam Rockwell, awarded one of Gotham’s four Lifetime Tributes. Wilde referred to the Academy Award winner for last year’s “Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri” as “Sammy.” Yes, he’s definitely a Sammy she said later, lifting the train of her flowing white gown to prevent tripping as guests exited Cipriani Wall Street for the night.

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  • David Amram: Celebrating Greenwich Village at the Museum of the City of New York

    RanRanPhoto: Regina Weinreich

    At 89, David Amram is not slowing down. Celebrating his birthday at the Museum of the City of New York, and an exhibition of Fred McDarragh’s iconic photos from Greenwich Village back in the day, Amram, as times nicknamed “jamram,” led a jazz quintet: a brilliant Vic Juris on guitar, Rene Hart on bass, Kevin Twigg on drums and glockenspiel, Elliot Peper on bongos, and his son Adam Amram on congas. Plus guests: Paquito D’Rivera, Lea DeLaria, Martha Redbone, and Tom Chapin. Yes, the evening evoked the village’s storied past with songs from Pete Seeger and others. Looking out to the packed audience, Amram welcomed younger folk, and to those older than he, he quipped, “You shouldn’t be out so late.”

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  • The Edge of Democracy: Contenders at MoMA/ DOCNYC

    Edge Of Democracy 2
    Amidst the shit storm of impeachment inquiry of the president Spike Lee calls “Agent Orange,” noting heavy toxins, the documentary The Edge of Democracy tells a political history set in Brazil, juxtaposed with the personal story of the director Petra Costa’s family. This relentless political drama can be seen as a cautionary tale, or just a grim look at what our world endures today as lies gain stature, dignity falls away, and everywhere, the people lose. At a special screening at MoMA, part of the current Contenders series auguring awards ahead, Lee introduced the film to a packed crowd. Most chilling in Brazil’s case, deposed officials refused to step down claiming corruption, the equivalent of “fake news.”

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  • Dark Waters: Todd Haynes’ Drama of Dirty Industry

    Dark Waters
    Out of the blue comes Dark Waters, Todd Haynes’ new film based on his star, Mark Ruffalo’s environmental passions. Fear of the water depicted in this legal procedural is not because of sharks, but because of industry, specifically the story of Dupont’s deliberate poisoning of landfill resulting in the death of animals and cancer in humans. The film did not take the conventional festival circuit, and, unlike the saturated colors of  movies Carol or Mildred Pierce, takes director Haynes into a dark mood and commercial genre; he handles it well crafting drama from a ripped from-the-headlines scandal, focusing on the tireless efforts of a corporate lawyer, Rob Bilott, whose firm sides with industry.

    Meeting up with Bilett at the Lincoln Restaurant this week, at the movie’s premiere, we learned how the story is not yet over, with lawsuits accruing beyond the film’s final frame. But, as the film suggests, is it too late? The lethal chemical was also an ingredient of Teflon, a household brand, and everyone alive has ingested some amount.

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